Last time on “Driving Around, Do Nothing” Quest:
>Fell down a hole.
>Landed in the complete darkness in deep water.
>Swam around until found a light.
>Turns out to be some kind of off road buggy's head lights, on dry ground.
>Tried to flip it, too weak, so it took many attempts.
>A little screen on the dash board showed some kind of radar. Followed the blip on the screen.
>Oh no a giant worm!
>Raced away into a dead ended cave.
>Found Rarity!
>Found another giant monster!
>Somehow got the two monsters to fight each other.
>Raced out he cave between their fighting, but got side swiped.
>Sent spinning. Grinded to a halt a while away.
You are Rusty Shackleford, a human who has found himself lost in Equestria with no memory.
Currently, you are somewhere underground with Rarity. A few dozen meters up the slope of the tunnel are a pair of giant subterranean beasts fighting each other noisily. You and the white unicorn are standing next to the remains of the vehicle you found. Rarity is hold hind her head, someone hurt from the crash.
"Oww, ow," she whines some, touching her horn. The tip of it has been ground down to a blunt end. "Ow. Is it OK? How does it look?"
"It's a little... ground down," You say, gritting your teeth. "But I'm sure it'll grow ba-"
"Celestia no!" Rarity interrupts you, collapsing ot the ground, dramatically putting the back of her hoof to her forehead. "My beautifully styled mane, my perfectly manicured hooves and now my horn! Why must these terrible things keep happening to me? What ever did I do?!"
Rarity seems rather upset about the news.
You are quite aways from the cavern you found Rarity in, where the two monsters are still fighting. You can hear the commotion echoing down the cavern.
The buggy you found and rode, however, doesnt seem like it has survived. The front section has been crumpled inwards and is leaking some kind of green fluid that is dripping to the stone floor with a hiss. The lights are flickering.
You reach back under the buggy and force the little screen. It's made of some kind of heavy duty plastic, but you're able to pop it off from its base. There don't seem to be any wires, but as soon as you detach it from dash it shuts off. You hold onto it anyway and go back to Rarity, still wallowing on the ground.
"Come on, Rarity," You say, trying to bring the little pony back to her senses. "We shouldn't stay here. I'm sure your horn will grow back, right? There's some more tunnels to check out. Let's see if we can find your friends."
"Oh what's the point," Rarity says melodramatically, still laying on the ground and touching her head. "Why go on? Everything is simply awful. Why. Why. Wh-h-h-hy."
"Rarity, if we don't get out of there, we'll probably die," You put it bluntly to the white unicorn. "I don't know how long you've been down here, or how you got here. You can tell me in good time. What I do know is that our five friends have gone missing in a massive flood. They could be hurt somewhere, or even worse. We are definitely okay, despite your horn, and we've found each other. We've got to get out of here and find them, Rarity. They need our help. I need your help."
As it to accentuate your point, there's a wild screech down the tunnel from the cavern you had just escaped from, followed by the tunnel shaking a little. In the failing light of the mysterious vehicle you found, Rarity looks up at you with huge glistening eyes. She holds up a hoof for you.
"Carry me."
You pick up Rarity and carry her down the tunnel. You're not particularly thrilled with having to shoulder another pony around, but she's not too heavy. As the two of you leave the buggy behind, the light finally die, leaving the two of you in darkness, with the sounds of battle slowing dying behind you. Rarity lights the areas with her horn, little blue white sparks flicking out from the blunted tip.
"Thanks." You say, thankful for the light. "What happened to you Rarity? We've all been worried about you."
"It was simply awful, Rusty!" She whines, leaning back in your arms. "We were lost in these tunnels for hours. I swear stallions can not find there way anywhere! They would not listen to anything I said! and then that horrible creature got a hold of me! It's been keeping me like some...some pet for weeks!"
"It's only been a few days."
"And it was dreadful!"
Eventually, the two of you make it back to the intersection of tunnels. To your left is the way you originally came. To the right, the tunnel you drove like hell out of from the tunneling monster. Directly a head you have never been down.
The rest seems to have been lost. Rarity has nothing on her.
You go down the middle tunnel, as yet unexplored.
"Do you have any idea what's down here? You ask Rarity.
"No. I haven't seen anything outside of that disgusting hole! Just look what that...that thing has done to my mane! All these split ends!"
"Uh huh. We'll, thing's haven't been going so great up top either...." You gently try to steer the conversation to what's happened to you and the others lately. Escaping to Canterlot, your encounter with princess Luna, the information about your people, helping Fluttershy, losing Dash, the flood.
"And then I drove down the tunnel and here we are."
"Awful, simply awful!" Rarity says when you finish. "That outfit was one of my best work! And it's ruined!"
"Shh," You gently shush Rarity. There's some commotion up a head, around the bend in the tunnel. Sounds like voices. You can also see a light and shadows dancing against the wall.
Quietly, you set Rarity down by the wall and slide over to edge of the wall. The acoustics of the cavern are weird; echos on echos and making it hard to hear. You hold a finger to your lips at Rarity, showing her to keep silent and go to quickly sneak a peak around the corner.
Your foot slips on a loose stone and you fall forward around the corner. There's a scream and something hits you in the side of the head, making your vision spiral.
"Rusty?!" Twilight cries in surprise.
Coming to, you see you are on top of a very scared Fluttershy and surrounded by the other missing ponies. Behind them, you can see a little campfire spitting sparks. Applejack, who is on the side where your head got hit, is holding her hoof to her mouth.
"Oh shoot Rusty! I didn't know it was you!" She please apologetically. "I thought you were some kind of... is that Rarity?"
"Girls!" Rarity calls out form behind you. You are quickly abandoned as all of the ponies rush over. Except for the one your are on top of
You roll off of Fluttershy, who gets to her hooves with a little meep.
"Sorry for falling on you," You say.
"It's ok." Fluttershy says, plodding the ground.
"And for accidentally drowning you."
"That's ok too."
The two of you go over to the others, who are in the midst of a group hug with crying Rarity in the middle. You join in, as does Fluttershy.
"It's so good to know you're ok!" Twilight says.
"You too, Rusty!" Pinkie adds. "That flood was crazy!"
"I honestly thought I was going to be trapped down here!" Rarity cries, but smiling wide. "Do any of you have something to eat? I'm famished!"
Breaking up the group hug, Applejack rummages around her saddle bag and gives some apples to Rarity, who tears into them in a very unladylike like manner.
"What happened to everyone?" You ask.
"Twilight was able to get me and here protected in some kinda magic bubble," Applejack explains. "We floated along and got sucked down the drain. We were then able to find Pinkie and Fluttershy when they got flushed."
"We weren't sure what else to do, so we came down here," Twilight adds, and walking over to the fire. "And we found this thing."
In the light of the fire, against the far wall of the tunnel, you see shining grey metal reflecting in the dark. It's vaguely humanoid shaped, though much much larger, and lying on its side.
You may not even know your own name, but you are sure that this is some kind of robot. Examining it closely, you can see that its about twice your size. Mostly blank, beveled grey metal all over, giving it a distinct lack of features. The hands are simple but large pincers. It also seems damaged; there's scorched in places and has a sizable dent in the side of it's head.
"Not sure, but I'm guessing it's some kind of robot." Twilight states the obvious. "We also found some weird vehicle a ways back where we came in."
"Yeah, I saw that." You say, looking at the discovery closely. Like usual, no particular memories are coming up. "I...kinda crashed it when I found Rarity."
"Really?" Twilight says, looking at you doubtfully. "We poked around with that thing and couldn't get it to work at all.
"You had to push the green button," You explain, looking at the robot even closer. "I was also able to flip it over."
"Give me some credit, Rusty," Twilight says, watching you examine the machine. "We pressed all the buttons."
"I know I did!" Pinkie says.
"Nothing worked. We just assumed it was broken and left it."
"Huh," You look at the robot closer. You see there's a little hinged door on the top of the robot's head, a little bent from impact. "What could have could have caused damage like this?"
"A bunch of things," Twilight says. "There's quite a few things that breath fire down here."
"Like... a dragon?" Fluttershy cried timidly, looking around.
"Maybe. But I've never known a dragon to live this deep underground."
"What other sorta of things could we run into down here?" You ask.
"All sorts of things. I don't know where to begin," Twilight says, standing next to you. "I've heard that some kinds of basilisks can breath fire."
Fluttershy makes a little cry out loud.
"And there's those ghost stories of ponies lost underground," Applejack adds. Fluttershy cries again.
"Oh oh! Maybe there was some big explosion!" Pinkie shouts, her voice echoing around the tunnel. Fluttershy burries her head under her hooves.
"Like a natural gas explosion?" Twlight asks. "That doens't seem likely. But it could have been a-"
"Please stop." Fluttershy whimpers on the flood.
"Sorry." Twilight says, but her attention is drawn back to you again. "What are you doing?"
"I think I can maybe... ah!" You are able to pry the little door panel open on the robot's head. Inside are a bunch of colred wires wrapped in some complicated manner next to various doo das and gizmos that mean nothing to you. The wires seem to be in every color and aren't coonected to anything. I the middle of it all is something that looks like a gyroscope.
"What do you make of this, Twilight?"
"Let me see," Twilight nudges you aside and takes a very close look inside. "Wow....I've never even read anything like this. I'm no electrician, but none of this looks like it would work. I'm not even sure what this thing even is."
"Think you could fix it?" Applejack asks, curiously looking over her shoulder.
"I'm... not sure. Look here," Twilight gestures to a bunch of loose wires, in every color of hte rainbow. "These are all disconnected. I wouldn't even begin to know what to attach them to. What about you, Rusty?"
You take another close look. The colored wires are a clearly supposed to be attached to some ports on one side, but there's so many. It seems like it would be blind guess work to know what goes where.
"I think we should just leave it." You say, being cautious. "I don't know what I'm doing. We'd probably just get electrocuted or something."
"I guess that's a good idea," Applajack agrees with you. "Come on, lets move camp and see what's down the tunnel."
The fire is put out, what's left of the supplies are packed and the bunch of you hoof it down the tunnel, leaving the silent robot where it lays. Everyone seems ok for the most part; Rarity is the most worse off but even she is walking fine on her own. You all walk in silence for a while and find nothing but more tunnel.
"Rusty...," Twilight says slowly, breaking the silence.
"Yeah?"
"Don't take this the wrong way or anything but... is there something you're not telling us?"
"No. Why?"
"It's just... a lot of this just doesn't make any sense." Twilight talks slowly, choosing her worlds carefully. "Like, for example, that robot just now. I don't know how it got there, but from what I know about electronics, it's insides don't make any sense. It simply shouldn't be able to work."
"I don't know anything about that, Twilight."
"And that car thing. That wouldn't work for us even though we did what you did."
"Yeah, but I do-"
"And Luna says your people had a war with Equestria long ago? But there's no written history of any war like that. None of this makes any sense!"
"What are you getting at, Twilight?" Applejack asks, looking back at the two of you. "That we can't trust Rusty? He's always done right by us... well, mostly."
"No no, nothing like that. It's just a lot of this simply doesn’t add up."
"Do you think that it's some sort of conspiracy made up by Luna? That seems a little farfetched."
"I know, I know," Twilight says quickly. "I don't think you or the princess are lying. But there's just so much that doenst make sense."
"I don't know what to say."
"I know. I"m sorry I brought it up."
The group walks in uncomfortable silence, broken only by the gentle clopping of the pony hooves and the light buzz of magic lighting your path. Eventually, you reach yet another fork in the road.
"Oh you have to be kidding me." Rarity whines.
"Twilight, do you have a spell that can look down tunnels? I don't want us to have another unwanted monster encounter."
"No, but I think I could do something almost as good...."
Twilight goes over to the left tunnel. Horn glowing with power, bright magic explodes out in an arc down the tunnel. It hugs the walls and illuminates the tunnel as it goes. The spells shines down the tunnel and eventually dispersers far down. This way seems to be a whole lot more of nothing. Twilight repeats the spell down the other tunnel.Same as before.
Except this one you definitely saw a pony far down, near where the spell ended.
"What was that?"
"Modified light spell," Twilight explains. "Sends out a light source on its own, so we can see further then I can cast light from here. Too bad it didn't really help us here."
"Didn't... didn't you see the pony?"
"What pony?"
"I definitely saw a pony down that tunnel. A... unicorn."
"You mean... are you sure, Rusty?"
You nod. "Do the spell again please."
Twilight nods to you gravely and repeats the spell down the tunnel, the magic lighting up the darkness as it goes. It disperses around the same area it did last time, only to show nothing this time.
"Are you sure you saw it? It could have just been a rocks shadow or something." Twilight says gently.
"No no, I definitely say a pony down there." You turn to the others. "Didn't anyone see it?"
Everyone shakes their head.
The blue unicorn is standing behind them, smiling manically.
"She's behind us!" You shout, pointing.
Everyone turns around in a jump just as the crazy blue pony lets lost a surge of magic from her horn at the cavern ceiling. There's a detonation that makes your ears pop, followed by a cave in. Boulders bigger then the buggy you wreck come crashing down. The other ponies scream and try to run, but are buried under the torrent of stone. You and Twilight are cut off.
"NO!" Twilight cries and starts to desperately try to push the rocks aside with magical force, even as more stone continues to come down.
"Twilight!"
"We can't leave them!"
There's another explosion and the wall of fallen stone blasts apart in front of Twilight, sending her flying back into you. You take the full force of the impact and fly back yourself, hitting a wall with Twilight. When you look up, the blue unicorn is standing over you.
"Dead end."
Defiantly, you quickly pick yourself up part way and punch the pony right in the throat as hard as you can. It's like hitting solid rock. the pony doenst even react. You feel overwhelming pain from your knuckles shattering.
"It's a dead end."
The pony light up her magi again and your hand is pulled forward slowly. You try to fight it, but you have no leverage. It's simply too strong. You're dragged over to Twilight, who is still on the ground, hurt. The purple pony weakly tries to get up, but the blue unicorn forces her back down again.
"What are you doing?"
You're pulled over until you are right over Twilight. There's a flash of magic from the blue unicorn and your fist drive forward in a punch, hitting Twilight in the face while she's on the ground. Twilight cries from the hard impact. And the second. And the third. One after the other, the blue unicorn makes you punch Twilight over and over again.
"Stop! Stop it!" You yell, pleading. The pain in your already broken fist is over whelming, but this sick scenario is too much You're being forced to beat your friend! "What do you want?! Stop!"
"Rusty..."
You look down at Twilight. You don't know how many times you hit her. Her face looks like it was torn apart. Her horn is broken. Everything looks broken. You keep hitting her.
"Are you OK?"
You try to push yourself away with your legs, but your fist is stuck in space. You can't reach the blue unicorn. She keeps smiling. That terrible, silent smile. Teeth the size of tombstones.
"Rusty!"
"MAKE IT STOP!"
Something suddenly turns you around.
It's Twilight. She's ok, standing in front of you. You're standing. You're ok too. The others are standing a ways off, all looking at you concerned, but seem apprehensive to approach you. The blue unicorn is gone.
"Rusty...." Twilight says quietly, taking a small step away from you. "Please, just calm down. It's a dead end."
Looking around, you see you're in the same tunnel, but you've reached an end of solid rock. It's all one piece, no cave in.
You're shaking.
"Twilight, something is affecting me." You say very quietly, holding your still shaking hand to your head. "I saw that blue unicorn. She was....doing things to me. It felt so real."
"We just got to the wall and you started freaking out." Twilight says softly, taking a tentative step towards you. "We tried talking to you but you were acting....strange."
"I think we should leave." You say.
"I agree," Rarity chimes in, she and the others gaining courage enough to come near you again. "Rusty clearly isn't himself. We should all leave for Canterlot this instant."
"Just leave?" Applejack questions. "We already went through a lot to get this far."
"We came here to find Rarity and/or the humans we suspect are here. We found on of the two, but seeing what just... happened, and almost all of supplies are gone, I think going back to Cantorlot is the best course to take. At least then we can use the Elements on Celestia."
"What about Dashie?" Pinkie says. "We still don't know where she is!"
"She could be anywhere..." Fluttershy says, defeated.
"Exactly!" Rarity says, nodding. "She could even be back in Canterlot right now."
"What, I just thought of something," You say, the wheels in your head turning. "Twilight, could you....probe the wall with magic? See if there's something strange?"
"You....sure that's a good idea?" Twilight says, looking at you concerned.
"If I start acting weird again, just drag me away from it."
"...OK. Here goes..."
Twilight touches her horn to the bare rock wall, her horn glowing with a little pulse. She seems to be concentrating really hard. All the other ponies look between her and you with concern. After about a minute of this, she stops.
"There's... something," She says cryptically. "It's really far away though, behind a lot more rock and metal. I can barely even feel it."
"What is it?"
"I don't know. I've never felt magic like that before. It's...weird."
"Human magic?"
Twilight gives you a mixed look of amusement and know-it-all-ness.
"I can't say for certain, having never encountered human magic," Twilight explains. "But, Rusty, you're....how do I put this......if you are anything to go by, humans are as magical as potatoes. No offense."
"Ok. Can you show me it?" You ask, trying to to feel insulted by being compared to a tuber.
"Sorta..." Twilight does some more magic, shining a big wave of purple light against the stop. Finished, she points her hoof off to the side. "There! You see that really little green dot?"
"No."
"It's over there. Look close, its really small."
You and the others gather over the where Twilight indicates. Bearly even viable, there's a tiny pin prick sized green dot in the wall.
"It's REALLY small." Pinkie comments.
"I know," Twilight says. "Like I said, it's really far away. Over a mile through all this rock."
"So we're looking through the rock right now?"
"No no. It's just a visual marker to give you an idea. That's why its so small. It's far away and it's not very strong."