The red moon's gaze ardently fixated on Twilight Sparkle's path while she trotted with much haste. She hadn't a second to lose if she was to properly secure a route for Gregory. After having been walking in the back-woods of Equestria she finally entered into a cobblestone street leading into another decimated city. From the looks of it, you could extract a sort of industrialized 1850s-esque town like aura. Upon further scanning, she could see factories with stacks that towered high above her. Oddly enough, those same chimney stacks had smoke billowing from them, which explained the thick layer of gases that enveloped the immediate area. Her hooves clopped on the cobblestone, and made soft trotting sounds, though with her magic this was all concealed as not to give away her location.

"I hope its still here.... if not... then the world might be done for..." She said in a soft-spoken and panicking voice.

Glancing from side to side as she walked around, she took careful note of the shape of the buildings. Most of them were small shops that had been either looted or just caught in all the chaos. As was becoming reoccurring in all the towns of the universe, more bodies were scattered about, flailed and consumed partially. This wasn't a distraction to Twilight at this point though, not to say that she wasn't upset by it, but that she had seen enough to become accustomed to seeing it. Focusing on her mission, she finally was able to pick out something very important. It was when she had arrived at a three way intersection. Upon her immediate right was that of a staircase that descended, and around this staircase, level with the street was a fence. Comparatively, it was an equestrian subway station that this set of stairs led to.

After making sure that it was all clear, she trotted on down the steps. When she made it all the way down, even the plethora of grizzly scenes was not enough to prepare her for this scene. Her eyes widened in shock instantly, that slender maw of hers a-gape at the sight. Littered practically everywhere, were the bodies of ponies. As if to just add to it, blood covered twice as much area that the bodies did. Once Twilight's senses had snapped her back to, enough so that she could analyze the situation, she deduced that this must have been where the citizen's of the town tried to escape. Seconds after she quickly made that assumption, something hit her like a solid brick wall. The stench, putrid and rotting corpses lay all around her, freshly rotting barely having had a few days to undergo the process of decomposing. She scrunched up her snout, trying to reject all access for the repugnant odor, even going as far as covering her nose up with her hoof.

"My word... who knew that so many dead ponies.... could produce such a repulsive scent...." She melancholically said.

Carefully, she trotted around and over the many dead ponies. Though she tried to avoid stepping in any blood or guts, the mess was so much so that it was impossible. One hoof landed in a mushy pile of guts and blood, and instantly she gagged a bit. Once she had reached the other side of the room, she stood in front of a specific section of the wall. She raised one of her hooves and then pressed it into a little protruding notch. Once she did this the wall started to pull back a bit, and then shift to the right. The grinding of stone slowly produced it's sound and eventually a clicking noise indicated that it had finished.

An opening large enough just for a single pony to step in was revealed. Twilight entered into it, and then trotted a bit towards the back of this area. Using her horn to light up the area, she then searched for another object. Once again she pushed a little notch, causing the nook in the wall to close up and then descend. The tension right now was high right now, and she couldn't help but let out a sigh.

"Why did this have to happen?... What caused your insanity Pinkie?" Twilight asked to herself while she waited for the elevator to reach the bottom.

When the elevator came to a halt, another opening was made. Scanning her surroundings she saw a large storage area. From back to front there were shelves with boxes on them, and the infrastructure of the room consisted of large metal beams even spread out in the room. These beams connected to grid like structure of more beams that supported up the ceiling. On some of the beams there were lit candles fixed on to them. They provided for decent lighting. Her ears perked up, just waiting for any kind of sound. After a good couple of seconds she set out from the elevator. Cautiously she trotted, and when she did her steps echoed softly throughout the room. Nothing was there, it was expected that nothing would be there too.

The type of room that this was for was to store many secret devices. Only a select few even knew of it's existence. The more she investigated the more area of the room she covered. Eventually she found what she was looking for, a room. At that very moment she heard a noise. Shuffling of feet. Panicking a bit, she entered the room swiftly. Once she closed the door, she locked it behind her. Outside of the room, something was nearby. From the very sound of it's hungering growls, Twilight could guess that it was a shukakusha. How it got down here? She will never know, but for now, she kept as silent as possible. Even though the shukakusha were getting smarter, they just couldn't open doors conventionally and the very door that she just opened was made of a thick metal material. Obviously the shukakusha has produced the ability to reason, instead of just making rational decisions.

When it had gone to another part of the room, Twilight let out a sigh of relief.

"That was too close for comfort... but it's still out there, so we're not out of the woods yet Twilight." softly she spoke to herself to calm down a bit.

She examined the new room she was in, providing herself with lighting as necessary. It was an odd room, in the center of it was a drawing of a circle. On the walls were shelves of ancient text, and to Twilights left was a box of many strange tools and objects. The other side of the room, was another door. She didn't know where it would lead to, but this could prove to be a possible alternate route. The fact that there was a circle in the room proved without a doubt that this was the very room she was looking for.

"Thank Celestia that I found it." she said while shuffling through the box of objects.

Pulling out a talisman of some sort, she set it in the middle of the circle and then she attempted to contact Gregory. Holding the orb used to communicate with him, she began to activate it. A few staticy minutes later, she was patched in through to Gregory.

"Gregory? Are you there?" She called out.

"Yes, this is Gregory, I am here." he responded.

"Good, do you have the gold that I requested?" She inquired, thankful that she was still able to contact him.

"Of course, I was able to get just as much as you needed, but how am I gonna get this to you?" he asked.

"Well, I can bring you to my world, that's the only place we can perform the ritual in." Twilight stated.

"How on earth are you gonna do that?" he asked a bit perplexed by her idea.

"I'm prepping that method right now." She replied.

"What do I need to do then?" Gregory wondered.

"Nothing, just hold for a moment while I finish this up." She told him while fiddling with some other objects and placin them around the circle.

Once she had finished setting up the circle, she began to chant some old equestrian text she procured from one of the books on the nearby shelves. Gregory was inside the bank leaning against a wall, when this started. About a few minutes afterwards, he started to feel light. Looking down at his own hands and his body, he could see that he was starting to fade. The process of transporting him to Equestria scared him, as it kinda made him think that he was disappearing from the world
completely. Slowly his senses were ripped from earth, and soon he began to get a hazy feel for the room that Twilight in.

Within several minutes, he was getting vision and the rest of his 5 senses back. Upon looking back down, his body was materializing again, becoming more solid by the second. Twilight finished up her chanting and the summoning spell was complete. Because she used such a high level spell, she looked exhausted. Lining the top of her brow, was several trails of little beads of sweat. If the world he was in wasn't as confusing enough, Gregory still had to cope with the fact that he was
actually standing in front of a pony that could talk. She didn't look like the ones back on Earth, which made him even more confused.

"I... How..." Gregory stumbled over his own words, not knowing what exactly to say.

"I know this is all a bit much for you right now, but for the time being, just take a deep breath and relax, also, keep your voice down, I'm not alone down here per-say...." Twilight said softly in a whisper.

Gregory acknowledged her with a shake of his head, and then he sat down against one of the book shelves. The two of them spent some time catching each other up on how they had been fairing against these shukakusha, and as they talked, Gregory couldn't help but find himself staring intently at Twilight. His brain was confused, seeing a pony actually talking was so new and different for him. Their topic of discussion shifted when he asked a question.

"How are we going to get out of here if there is one of those things running around out there?" he inquired a bit worried that she even brought him to a dangerous location.

"See that door over to your right?" Twilight said. "We will be using that door, I haven't looked inside of it, but it's our only option unless we really want to fight the monster outside."

Gregory didn't like the prospect of fighting another shukakusha, I mean sure he was able to kill one, but he didn't feel lady luck would grace him with another shot like before. Contemplating this, he gave Twilight an answer to her second suggestion with a grimacing shake of his head. With that, it had been decided the two would take the alternate route. The pony got up on all four hooves and began to shake off any dirt that she had accumulated on her body. Once that was complete he got up too, and then they both started heading towards the door.

"Here goes nothing..." She said pulling it open and then stepping inside.

It was dark and damp, and the ground beneath Twilight's hooves felt like soil. Upon her lighting up the area with her horn, she was greeted by a sign that said under construction. This perplexed her as no signs of any visible attempts to construct anything were present. She trotted forwards anyways. Gregory was right behind her. The tunnel didn't wind or anything but it sure was cramped, for him at the very least. She had no problems traversing this cavernous path.

"How far does this tunnel go? It seems like we have been walking forever." Gregory said after a grueling ten minutes of walking.

"I'm not certain, but I see something in the distance." she responded.

There was a small flickering light up ahead, but Twilight suddenly came to an abrupt halt. She was peering over a cliff. Both of them had exited the tunnel into a ravine. Across from the ravine was another tunnel, but the real problem was that there was no bridge to it. Twilight was not sure what to do, and was looking around deep in thought. Along side the ravine walls were light fixtures. There was enough so that she didn't even need her horn lit for this area. After looking around she spotted a bridge to their right, but it was a distance away. They would be able to walk against the side of the wall to get over there as well. Gregory looked concerned about the width of the path, though it was decent for both of them to walk upon. Without a single word, Twilight began to move once again.

He was hesitant about walking, but did it anyways. His first step was a b

it shaky, but once he found his bearing he started to traverse with ease. Upon making it to the little area that the bridge connected to, she had stopped to examine the condition of the bridge. From back at the other side the bridge seemed pretty safe, but after getting closer to it, Twilight could deduce that the bridge was actually pretty dangerous to cross. Many of the boards used to walk upon were in horrid need of repair, and some were missing completely. At the very least the rope would be able to hold the bridge. She moved towards the bridge, and took a step on to it, after concluding that it would be safe, she moved across it. Taking special care to avoid any of the broken planks she successfully made it across. Gregory was next, and he took his time crossing.

"Hey, hurry up, times not something we have a lot of right now!" Twilight complained a bit.

Before he could respond though, a wail came from above. Twilight looked up and saw a shukakusha descending rapidly towards the bridge that Gregory was on. When it was close enough, it swung it's scythe like claws at him. He quickly moved out of the way, but the blades cut into the rope on one side of the bridge. Unfortunately for the shukakusha, it had missed it's landing on the bridge a bit and continued to fall into the ravine. Shaking a bit, the stability of the bridge started to swing out of control. Fear started to move his feet quickly. When he got close to the other side, the rope on the other side of the bridge snapped, and suddenly Gregory found himself clinging to the rope as the bridge fell towards the ravine wall. Twilight's eyes lit up in horror watching as this happened. With a soft thud sound, he slammed into the wall, and slid down a bit on the rope. Once the bridge had stopped moving about, he gripped one of the wood boards and attempted to climb up.

Just when he thought he would make it up there without any problems, one of the boards fell off when he gripped it. For a few seconds he was hanging on by one arm. Twilight gasped, calling out to him. He had to struggle intensely to lift his arm back up to grip another board. Afterwards, he climbed up most of the way before being helped up by Twilight. After a minute of resting, he looked up at Twilight. Her face had a look of concern on it.

"You alright Gregory?..." Twilight asked. "I nearly had a heart attack back there..."

"Yeah... I'm fine... thanks for helping me up." He responded.

"If only I hadn't depleted my magic all the way before coming here... stuff like that wouldn't have been a problem..." Twilight stated as her ears drooped a bit.

"It's alright, I made it through in one piece." he replied.

"I guess... hopefully my magic recovers in time for any other problems that might arise." she stated a bit upset at herself for not having her magic.

"It's gonna be fine Twilight, let's keep going." Gregory told her before he started heading down the tunnel. Twilight followed him shortly, and eventually had taken the lead, as they began to continue on down the dark tunnel.