The darkness pressed in, trying to crush the life out of me. If it weren’t for the stream I was running through, I would have had no direction at all. The water splashing on my legs and belly was ice-cold, but the blood flowing from my face and chest was unpleasantly warm.

I could hear skittering behind me; the monsters still hot on my hooves. I was leaving them a trail of blood to follow, and I knew they were seconds away from catching me.

My shoulder clipped what had to be a low hanging pipe, and I bounced into the wall. Smacking my head into something hard, I landed face first in the flow.

I was going to die.

Scrambling to my hooves, I looked around frantically. Further down the tunnel, I could see a dim light. Lights meant I could get out of the dark, and that would help, even if just by the smallest amount. Dying alone and in the pitch black was the worst thing I could think of.

As I started running again, I heard a hissing sound roll through the tunnel. It was close. Too close.

“AAAaaaaah!” I screamed as razor-sharp claws tore into my flank, cutting deep. I stumbled, trying desperately to get away. The talons ripped out of me, and the creature slammed its bulk into me hard enough to pick me off my hooves. I hit the wall, feeling ribs crack and blood spray.

Laying there, helpless, hurt and dazed, I could only stare up at the darkness. I couldn’t see the stinking monster sniffing at my throat. I could only feel its teeth as it bit into me.

“Echo! Wake up. Ow! You’re kicking me.” A hoof pushed into my chest, shaking me awake. My ribs weren’t broken, my flesh wasn’t shredded, and my neck was lacking any ripping teeth. I coughed, and groaned as I pushed the zony away from me.

The nightmares had been getting worse, all leading up to this day. I assumed that’s why my cousin had pulled me out of the hell I’d been in. It was the day. The big day.

My first time in the tunnels.

Ziel had been getting me up earlier and earlier every day that week, just so I would be bright and chipper for my big day. That’s how she put it at least. I think she was delighting in waking me up and seeing my mane all messy and my eyes blurry. The smile on her face, even around the nearly healed black eye she’d received the first morning she’d woken my by screaming in my face, told me that she was still having a great time.

“Time to get up, sleepy head.” She yanked the tattered, threadbare sheet off of my body, and I shriveled up for warmth. It was always chilly in the mornings, even when it wasn’t pouring rain outside. A quick glance through the protective shield I was forming with my front legs confirmed that yes, it was yet another rainy and miserable morning. I should have known. It always rained in Hornsmith.

“I don’t have to be there for a few hours... let me sleep.” I reached with one hoof, trying to find the edge of the blanket. I felt her bite onto my leg, and found myself dragged off of my mattress. It was old and stained, but it was much more comfortable than the cold, hard floor that I landed on.

“No can do. Fluster wants to see you off, and then you gotta see Uncle Ash.” I groaned up at her as she spoke triumphantly. She knew I couldn’t say no to that. If Fluster wanted to see me, I was going to see Fluster.

“Fine.” I pushed myself up, the zony giving me a small bit of space.

Looking into the dirty mirror I had propped in a corner, I sighed at my mane. It was sticking in every direction, and I looked like I’d been dragged through the street for a good hour. I was not a morning pony.

“Give me a minute...” I started straightening my mane. I knew it didn’t really matter, but I always felt better if I didn’t look like a raider.

“Then you should say hi to your mom.” I stopped with a hoof tangled in my hair and shot a glare at my cousin. She waved off the glare, and left me alone in my room. I grumbled to myself as I finished, my mane less messy but not great.

I found her next to the front door, staring out into the rain. Now that I saw how hard it was raining, I realized my mane didn’t matter. It’d get all wet and messy anyways.

The zony, with a flick of her head, shrugged the hood of her white jacket up over her ears. I grumbled at her and her fancy jacket as I pulled a ratty cloak off of a hook on the wall. I noticed that Shade’s cloak was gone as I did so.

Good.

As I followed her out into the street, I was immediately soaked through . The cloak did nothing against the pouring rain. The street was a river, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like underground. If it was bad enough, maybe I didn’t have to go. Maybe.

Probably not.

Life in the wasteland wasn’t in the habit of giving rainchecks.

Fluster was exactly where I knew she would be. Her house was on the edge of town, nearest to the mountain. Her favorite place was on the roof, under an awning someone had built for her to keep her out of the rain.

Fern knew I was there before Fluster. His ears perked up as I came onto the roof, and he turned his head towards me. His eyes were narrowed until he saw it was me, then his face lightened and he started wagging his leafy tail. He was big, even for a timber wolf, and his pale woody form towered over the dark pegasus next to him.

Fluster was covered with old scars, criss-crossing her body and wings. They made the pegasus look tough, if you didn’t know how kind she was. I’d asked her about the scars once when I was a filly, and Ash had chewed me out for it. If she wanted to tell me, she would.

“Fluster, how’s the view this morning?”

She sighed, staring at the mountain for a short while, before looking at me. A kind smile replaced the sad look, and the rain lessened just a little for me. Even with the eyepatch, she was amazingly expressive with her one eye. Those looks always cheered me up, no matter how bad a day it was.

“Good morning, Echo.” She sighed, the smile dropping slightly. “Today’s the day, isn’t it?”

“It is. Ziel said you wanted to see me?”

“I just wanted to wish you luck.” Using a wing, she pulled me in next to her. Resting her head on top of mine, she hummed a little tune. She used to rock us to sleep doing that.

She held me like that for a few minutes, and I felt a happiness that overrode the rain, warming my whole body.

“You be careful down there.” Her voice made me jump when she finally broke the silence. “I’ve lost too many ponies I care about to this city... just make it back safe.”

I laughed a little. “I will, don’t worry. I’ll have Ziel there for me, and the rest of the scav team. We’re not going near Maremack or the Ruins, we’ll be fine.”

“Even so. Be careful. I spent years in those tunnels... and just be careful. Keep your guard up, don’t be hasty, and never be alone.” She locked eyes with me, and I could tell she was deadly serious. She was always so shy around most ponies, but not with Ziel and I. We saw her hard side on occasion. We knew not to mess around when she let us see it.

“I’ll do my best.” I gave her my best smile. She drew back from me, a look I couldn’t quite place on her face. A tear slipped from her eye, and I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

She wiped the tear away with her free wing. “Oh... nothing. You just reminded me of someone.”

As she held me even closer, I had to wonder who.

As I left Fluster’s house, I noticed that the rain had lessened substantially. It was still puddled in the street, but most of it had run off into the underground. With a light drizzle all I had to contend with, I didn’t even bother with the hood on my cloak. My mane was already plastered to my head anyways.

“Hey kid.” I jumped at the voice right next to me.

“Ash! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” I yelled at the griffin for surprising me. He loved doing that, and it always got me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just leaning here, and you came along.” He grinned, his black feathers and fur matted down from the rain. There was a white scarf wrapped around his neck, something that I knew he wore begrudgingly. On one of his wrists, rather like an oversized bracelet, was a bulky machine he’d told me was a PipBuck.

Those two items were representative of the power he held. He’d told me once, when I was younger, that he wasn’t really a Whitecoat. He was just hanging around to watch me and Shade. The position he held in the guardians of our little slice of the world was one of convenience.

He’d added that the coat made him look stupid and didn’t work with his wings.

“Anyways, Ziel said you’d be here. I wanted to catch you before you went down. Big day and all, what sort of uncle would I be if I didn’t see you off?” He pulled away from the wall, towering over me on his hind legs. He was the weirdest creature I’d ever met, walking around like that, but then he was the only non-pony or zebra I’d ever met. Maybe all griffins walked like that. It looked weird to me.

“Then come down here and see me off.” I smirked up at him, and with a huff he dropped down to all fours.

He was still bigger than me, but at least now I didn’t have to crane my neck back to see him. He reached one claw up and ruffled my mane affectionately. “Look at my girl, all big and off on her first scav trip.”

“Ash, why do you really want to see me off?” I knew him. He wasn’t just here to tell me how proud he was of me.

“Fine... you got me, kid.” He slicked the feathers on his head back with one hand. I started walking, and he kept pace.

“Did you talk to your mom?”

I let out a huff. Of course.

“Why is everyone so interested in me talking to Shade?” I was starting to get mad.

“You know she loves you, right? She’s just not great at showing it.” Ash’s voice was low, like he was afraid someone might overhear. “She’s just had a real rough time since... well, since your dad died.”

“I know. I figured that out. Every time she looks at me, she cries. I’d rather not have that today,” I growled at him. I wanted everyone to lay off about Shade. “She didn’t raise me. You and Fluster did. All she ever does is work. I can go weeks without seeing her! Fluster was more of a mother to me than SHE ever was!” I didn’t realize until then that I was yelling at the griffin in the middle of the street.

“I’m sorry...” I backed up, bowing my head. I didn’t mean to yell at Ash. He was holding up a claw, asking me to tone it down a bit.

“It’s okay, kid... I know that’s a touchy subject... all I’m saying is to think on it. She loves you, she just doesn’t know how to show it.” He lifted my chin, making me look into those golden eyes of his. “Trust me.”

“.....I’ll think about it.”

“That’s my girl.” I winced as he patted me on the head a little harder than he meant to. He checked the loose hanging PipBuck on his arm, and smiled. “Anyways, it's about time you get to the armory. Stay safe, and bring me back something good.”

“I will.” As an apology for yelling at him, I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” He stepped away from me and unfurled his wings. With a powerful flap, he lifted off, and disappeared over a nearby building, leaving me alone in the middle of the street. I looked around briefly, to figure out where I was, and then turned towards the quickest route to the send off point for scavengers.

More ponies were out in the streets by now, going about whatever business they had to do. Whitecoats patrolled, a few colts and fillies splashed about in puddles, and residents going about their daily lives. On one street corner, a raggedy old crone nopony ever paid much attention to was shouting praise of the Light Bringer.

The Followers of the Apocalypse had tried to get a foothold in Hoof years before, and still occasionally sent an Alicorn to try and impress us, but Ash and the leaders of Hoof always sent them packing. Instead, we got this old pony who rambled on about how great the Light Bringer was.

As a Whitecoat came by and started his daily ritual of throwing her out of town, I wondered why she even bothered. LittlePip, the Light Bringer, had used the SPP towers to help the wasteland. Ours was unfinished, sitting at the edge of town like a giant chopped down tree. The clouds were still everywhere, and it was always raining.

Our local issues had been handled by local ponies. By Ripple and his friends. Not some pony that had never even been to Hornsmith.

I wasn’t very fond of the old preacher mare. I never even bothered learning her name.

Once, the entrance to Underhoof must have been very bland. It could still be made out inside the building that had been built around it. The facade looked like it had been patched together from at least six different structures. The old entrance had been torn out, revealing a gaping hole that led underground, lit by strings of lights bolted into the walls. Somepony, probably Shade, had built a system of pulleys to get heavy items up the stairs to get wherever they were going. Scrap and salvage was the lifeblood of Hoof, our fair town.

Hoof was named after Underhoof, when the Whitecoats and survivors of an old town called Blank set up above the existing ghoul town. That was where I grew up, and I always knew that one day I’d go down into Underhoof to be a scavenger. I was no fighter, and my skills didn’t allow me to help the town in other ways.

“Hey, odd eyes, you gonna come in or just sit there with a stupid look on your face?” A harsh voice pulled me back to the present. The main entryway to Underhoof had two side rooms, and one of them had a rather cross looking unicorn glaring at me standing in the door.

“Get in here. We’ve been waiting.”

I hurried, ducking my head so that he wouldn’t mock my eyes anymore. Green and violet were uncommon, and I was insecure about them. I blame Ash, for calling me goofy when I was a filly.

The armory, as it was better known, was really just a few shelves with assorted weapons and armor scattered around. These were separate from where the town and the Whitecoats kept their supplies, specifically set aside for trips into the underground.

I smiled when I saw that Ziel was already there, putting her coat on over some armored barding.

“Hey Echo, I was wondering when you’d show up.” The zebra smiled at me as she stood on her rear hooves to get at a higher shelf. She was already armored up, the edges of her barding visible under her long white coat.

“Hey Ziel. Find anything good?” She looked back at me with a spare clip clenched in her teeth, and she nodded happily. I shook my head sighing... that zony loved her guns.

For me, though, I didn’t plan on getting into an extended gunfight in a tunnel. I plopped my bag down on the table, and went to a shelf. As my cousin kept loading up on ammunition, I settled for some light barding and a long knife. I’d grown up around guns. Ash’s huge rifle, Fluster’s minigun, and the shiny shotgun that Shade kept in her room, but I’d never been a good shot. I’d take a knife anytime. Less of a chance of shooting myself.

“That’s it?” I looked up at the pony questioning me, and realized I hadn’t even noticed her in the room. A ghoul in a cloak and hood, sitting in the corner, was eyeing me through thick goggles that barely dulled the yellow glow from within. I only knew a few ghouls by name, since most of them stayed underground and weren’t terribly receptive of fillies bouncing around them.

“You’re not gonna take a gun? Plenty of things down there in the deep dark that wanna take a bite outta a plump little filly like you.” She grinned, a wicked look that unnerved me. I still took offense.

“I’m not plump.” With a glare, I sucked in my gut just a bit. I really wasn’t, but I couldn’t help the reaction.

“Easel, take it down a notch. We’re not going anywhere near those areas.” The pony that had made fun of my eyes, a gruff looking unicorn stallion with a deep burn marring his jaw and neck, I knew by the name of Nail. I didn’t even have to identify him from the long white coat he wore to know what role he was playing in this. “Despite that, she is right. You need more than a knife. Take a pistol, or we’ll shove one into your bag anyways.”

I sighed, eyeing the pistol that Easel pushed across the roughly hewn table in the middle of the room. A glance at Ziel, who shrugged, convinced me to take the weapon in my mouth. It tasted of gun, bitter oil and acrid smoke. I gagged, and shoved it into my bag as quickly as I could.

Running my tongue against my teeth to get the taste off, I went back to putting the armor on. It was light, and it protected in the right places, but it itched. Next I pulled on my saddlebag, and dug a holster out of a pile. If I had to carry the pistol, once I thought about it, I didn’t want it smelling up my things.

With my mouth refilled with gun taste, and the weapon nestled in its holster, I passed the silent judgment that was being thrown at me. With a smirk and a nod, Nail opened the door and walked out. Easel followed behind him, leaving just Ziel and myself in the room.

“They’re nice, really. They’re just being tough cause it's our first time down. Besides, Nail isn’t going to let his boss’ two favorite girls come to any harm.” She nudged me with her shoulder, laughing a little bit. “Don’t worry your pretty little head. I got your back.”

I shoved her playfully, feeling better. “Psh, you know I’m the real brains here. Little Miss Every-Gun-In-Equestria.”

“You coming, or are we just going down without you?!” Nail’s voice sounded through the door, and the two of us hurried after the pair of veterans.

I don’t know what Underhoof looked like before Hoof was settled above, but I doubt it had changed much in the years. Most of the residents certainly hadn’t. Ghouls don't age like everypony else. Aunt Xiera had told me and Ziel that when we’d first met Viola.

I spotted Viola up ahead, talking to the local doctor, a non-ghouled unicorn. I waved to the ghoul in the gasmask, whose eyes shone at me through the faded glass. I smiled wide at her, and indicated where I was heading. Towards the Gate. She nodded knowingly, her eyes creasing with a smile, and she turned her attention back to the red unicorn.

The Gate was a big metal door set into the wall in a side room. The room was filled with lights, and a crudely installed machine gun with a bored looking ghoul manning it. I’d never seen it before, but I’d heard that Ripple had first entered Underhoof through it years before.

It didn’t look any different from any other door down there. I was a little let down.

Nail approached the door and used a hoof to work the locking bolts. With a loud crunch, and the squeal of hastily oiled rust, the Gate swung open. Nail and Easel clicked on their flashlights as one. Ziel followed suit, and I was last as I managed to get the light on my chest to finally turn on.

Stepping into the tunnel was like stepping into a different world. Back in Underhoof everything was dry and at least partially lit. Even when it was soaked in rain and freezing cold it felt warm and homey. The tunnel was dark, damp, and dismal.

“This way.” Easel took off to the left, her light cutting through the oppressive darkness. I jumped as Nail slammed the door shut behind us and sealed it, protecting Underhoof from any dangers.

It was fine. It was just a walk down some tunnels, grabbing some scrap, and heading back. Short walk. Ponies did this all the time and didn’t die.

Some never came back though.

No, I’d come back. I had Ziel with me. I was invulnerable.

“I can do it.” I muttered under my breath, which was much louder in the darkness than I had planned.

“I know you can, Echo.” Ziel was next to me, walking close for my comfort. She knew how terrified I was. How excited I was.

Today I would stop being “just” Ripple’s daughter.

We walked in the dark for longer than I had thought we would. The tunnel went on for a long while, with doors on either side at seemingly random intervals. Most were too rusted to move, or had their handles missing. A few were open, deep dark holes that anything could be hiding in. I gave those a wide berth. I started noticing that each door had a mark next to it. Paint, chalk, scratched, it was the same mark. A slash.

I remembered what I’d heard from Fluster a few weeks before. They marked all the doors. Slash meant that the room was clear. There were other marks, but I couldn’t remember what they said.

I stumbled when my hoof caught on the metal lip of a doorframe, and managed to regain my balance before I fell. Pulled out of my spacey thought process, I gasped as I saw where I was.

The chamber I stood in was massive. I could barely make out the other side from the occasional light set into it, but I couldn’t see the top or bottom. Water fell from a dozen pipes in waterfalls from the rain, cascading into the depths.

I tripped on something, and I saw what it was just before it went over the edge. A pony skull, half of it broken away. It was gone, but the rest of the pony lay there. There were several bodies, all rotted away to skeletons. “What?”

“Gnashers. Long dead. We keep them here to remind rookies like you that death lurks down here.” Easel grinned, her warped face giving me the chills. Gnashers were just the next step for ghouls like her. A shudder ran down my spine.

“That’s why we made you take the gun. Now let’s keep moving, Easel, I have a cider with my name on it back topside.” Nail had levitated his shotgun, keeping it ready to use. He started trotting towards the edge of the platform, and I was just about to tell him he was going to fall when I spotted the stairs. They ran along the wall, and in the darkness I hadn’t even noticed them.

He took the first steps, and Easel followed close behind. Ziel pushed me ahead of her, wanting to keep an eye on me, but I had to pause before I stepped out. The stairs were more rust than metal, and didn’t look safe in any way. Several of them were missing entirely, and mouldering planks of wood had been haphazardly lashed down with thick rope.

Ziel pushed me a bit, and my heart rate jumped. My hoof impacted with the step, and I gave a little shout as I expected to plow through it and fall to my watery death.

It held fast though, and I turned my head to snarl a little at my cousin, who was grinning widely at me. I took the next step, which was a plank, and then another. Before I knew it, I was down and finished with that staircase.

Nail was already starting down another set of stairs, and I had no choice but to follow. They’d probably get mad if I started asking questions, especially if it was “Are we there yet?”

It was five more staircases we had to go down, each one as rickety and hazardous looking as the last. I kept going forward, staring intently at the back of Easel’s hooded head. I didn’t look down, into what I was sure must have been a giant whirlpool. The sound was deafening, but I could still feel the vibrations of Ziel’s hoofsteps right behind me. That calmed me enough to keep me going.

Finally.

The bottom level wasn’t metal and rust, like the ones above it, but solid concrete. For once since I’d stepped out of that tunnel, I didn’t feel like I was going to fall.

“This is it.” Easel was directing Nail to open a door, standing back and shining her light. “We’ve never opened this one, so there should be a decent haul down here.”

“Never?” Nail paused, then looked at us. Looked at me, to be more specific. “Girls. Guns out.”

I glanced at Ziel, who was gleefully working the sling on her rifle for easy access. Her dad had shown her how to use a zebra rifle, and she’d spent years practicing it. It always looked weird to me, standing on hind legs, but she had practiced and practiced and now could even walk and maintain her balance.

I sighed at seeing her not having to put anything in her mouth, and reached down to bite onto the pistol that had been tugging every time I took a step. Blech, I hate that taste.

The door swung open, and four beams of light punched into the darkness. It was just another tunnel, with doors at random intervals, and no horrible monsters in sight.

“Okay. We choose the nearest door.” Easel wasn’t holding a weapon, but floated a small tube next to her. “If it’s clear, I mark it as such. If it's got gnashers, it gets a different mark. So on. This level hasn’t had visitors in 200 years, so stay on your hooves.”

Nail took the first step, and we followed. I was just glad to be away from the swirling vortex of doom.

The tunnel was surprisingly dry. No free flowing water or drips from the ceiling. I’d been soaked since I’d left Underhoof. Now there was just darkness and the promise of salvage.

“Echo, you’re with me. Easel, don’t take Ziel too far out. We’ll meet back here in thirty minutes.” Nail was shining his light further down the tunnel, while Easel was opening a door on the side. The ghoul gave a grunt, which I took to mean “yes,” because Nail nodded and started walking away from me. I shot a glance at Ziel, who was already following the ghoul out of the tunnel. She gave me a quick smile, and then disappeared from sight.

“Come on, let’s look around.” Nail’s voice carried well through the tunnel, and I turned to catch up to him. Being left behind was not on my list of things to do that day. Especially not after that dream.

Nail was shining his light on each door that we passed. It was almost like he was looking for something. His shotgun was still at the ready, and he was starting to put me off with how tense he carried himself. I had to break the silence.

“So… are we gonna open any of these?” I tapped a door with a hoof as I passed it, to put emphasis on the subject. The gun was muffling my voice a bit, but I did my best to not think about the taste.

“Look at the doors. Notice anything different?” He held the light on the door I had just tapped.

I stared at the door briefly, but it was just any old door to me. It had an old faded picture on it, but I’d seen the same thing on scrap and old billboards up above. Not as frequent as the butterflies, but the apple was still a fairly common sight around Hornsmith.

“Ministry of Wartime Technology. Makers of the finest killing tools known to ponykind. Before everything burned, at least.” Nail turned his light from the door. “Changes what we’re looking for.”

“Huh?” I’d just thought I’d be looking for scrap or medicine. “So… we’re looking for guns?”

“We are now. Looking for the biggest, shiniest door. I think we’re in a maintenance level right now…” He trailed off as he spoke, shining his light around as he kept walking. I was intrigued now. Old technology was exactly the sort of thing that could make a difference. Scrap and medicine was pulled out of the ground all the time, but technology was different. Ponies got remembered for that.

It might just be my lucky day.

My fears of being eaten in the dark suddenly gone, I perked up and started actively helping him look for any door that looked different. It only took a minute to find one, a set of double doors chained shut from our side. A little odd, but I didn’t give it a second thought as Nail pulled at the chains.

The lock was sturdy, and he took a step back, lowering his shotgun.

“Wait!” I saw my chance to show I wasn’t useless. “Wait, I can get this.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. I holstered my pistol, then I craned my neck to dig through my pack. In no time, I found what I was looking for. An old screwdriver and a little bit of metal. Working them into the lock, I felt around for the sweet spot. Fluster had taught me how to do this, and it thrilled me to no end that I could show off a skill.

After a few seconds, I heard Nail let out a little sigh. “Any time.”

He would have kept at it, but the lock snapped open as soon as he’d finished talking. I withdrew, putting my tools back in my bag, triumphant. Without so much as a “Well done,” he moved past me and yanked on the chains with his magic. They slid free with a loud and long clatter, echoing down the hall. I briefly wondered if Ziel had heard it, but Nail opening the door drew my attention.

It was clean. Much cleaner than the hall we were in. A funny smell drifted through the door, but it was just another weird smell in the mixed aromas of the sewer. The light within was dazzling compared to the dull glow of our flashlights, which meant that the rooms beyond either ran on a separate power grid, or they had a talisman of their own. I hoped for the latter.

“Jackpot. Nopony’s been here in a long, long time.” Nail stepped through the open door, and started walking up the stairs that lay just beyond. I followed close behind.

The facility hadn’t seen another pony in a long time, that much was true. I didn’t know what had happened in the last days before it had been abandoned and chained off, but I was seeing a few things that had me on edge. Blood. Ancient and long dried, but still the brown swathes tained the otherwise clean walls and floor of that place.

All of the rooms we encountered were offices or document storage, scattered with mouldering paper and office supplies.

List after list of names of long dead ponies filled one room. Where they lived, which ministry they worked for, who their family was... all of it may have been useful to somepony a long time before, but for the two of us it was a pointless skeleton of the past.

Once we got out of the personnel records, we found more important information. What we could read was numbers about shipments of supplies in and out of the region. Most of it went to the old MoWT Orchard, the facility outside of town. Going there was out of the question.

Much of the good stuff; weapons, ammo, food; had been shipped out before the bombs fell and everything burned. From what I could tell there were two things still here. Project Ordered Chaos and Project Lerna. The first didn’t sound promising, and I had no idea what the second could even be. There were no details, just shipment papers and supply manifests.

One paper caught my eye, and I slid it free from a stack of rotten fiber. It was still in decent shape. Decent enough that as far as I could see, there was a supply of weapons or something sitting a few floors above us. I was in room b4-12, and the supplies were in b1-1. It didn’t say what was in the boxes, just “Lerna Containment Munitions” and then a long list of serial numbers.

“Nail!” I yelled out. In seconds, he came running into the room, shotgun leveled. His eyes swept the room, but all he found was me standing next to a desk with my hoof on a piece of paper. “I found something good.”

He let out a sigh of relief. “Celestia… you should do that with less urgency unless you’re being attacked.”

“Sorry. But hey, I found something. Come see.” I tapped at the paper, and the Whitecoat crossed the room warily.

“What could possibly be worthwhile on a piece…” His eyes scanned the old and faded words, and a grin crossed his face. “Oh. That is good.”

“Should we go find Ziel and Easel?” I was thinking about how much there could be. The two of us wouldn’t be able to carry it all.

“Not yet. We need to confirm before we bring them in…” He was walking towards the door, the piece of paper floating magically next to him. I heard him mutter as he left the room, “Easel’d never let me live it down if we had nothing…”

“Coming?” I hurried after him as Nail's voice drifted from the hall.

“Yeah… just checking for any extra details.” I wasn’t really. I was making him think that I wasn’t just always going to lag behind. One of these times he’d follow me through a door.

“So this is a good find, right?” As I caught up to him, I thought I’d break the silence. We had a few floors to cover, and uncomfortable silence wouldn’t be any fun.

“It promises to be.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, a look I’d grown up getting. “You’re really looking forward to making a name for yourself down here, aren’t you?” He said it with a chuckle. I blushed, wondering if I was really being that transparent.

I only nodded.

“I was on the wall, you know. At Blank. I know you know about that.” I did. My eyes went to the scars covering sections of his neck and face. There was probably more under his long white coat.

“A lot of ponies blame your father for that. All the deaths, the destruction of Blank, the crippling of the Whitecoats.” We’d reached a set of doors with some buttons next to it. Nail pressed one of them, and the doors hummed a little. I didn’t know what was happening, but he’d stopped moving so I just stood there next to him. I’d heard dozens of stories about that day, either portraying Ripple as a hero or a monster.

“Seems like they blame me for that half the time.” My voice was soft. It wasn’t really for him. I’d always felt that resentment growing up.

“No point in blaming a filly that wasn’t even born yet. They just need an outlet. Nopony’s gonna blame Ashred. They all feel sorry for Fluster. Your mom helps the town more than anyone.” He turned to me, and it almost looked like he felt sorry for me, rather than hating me like so many. “That leaves you.”

“I know…” I really wanted the doors to finish whatever it was they were doing. I didn’t like ponies talking about my family.

The doors dinged, and opened to an empty room. Nail stepped inside, that conversation now over as far as I was concerned. He turned, and looked at me expectantly. I looked oddly at the room, and stepped inside cautiously. I felt it bounce a little as I took a few more steps.

“What is this?”

He laughed a little. “It’s an elevator. What, you’ve never heard of an elevator?”

“Oh… I have, but I’ve never seen one.”

“Well hold on.” His horn glowed briefly, and a button in the wall was pushed in. The doors closed, and I knew that next we would go up to another floor.

I wasn’t expecting the sudden, sickening lurch as the whole room was yanked upwards. I let out a little shriek, and backed myself into the corner. It felt like the whole room could drop at any second; lurching and pulling upwards; relying on machines hundreds of years old. A single fault in the cable; rust in the wrong place, and we’d die in a horrible metal crush.

Then, all of my newfound fears coalesced as the box came to a jerking halt, and dropped just enough to slam the both of us into the floor. The lights, dim after all those years, flickered and died.

“Ow…” I groaned out loud as Nail’s light flicked on.

“You okay?” His light illuminated the whole elevator. I couldn’t feel anything other than bruises, and a quick visual check confirmed that I was fine.

“Yeah…” I was trapped in an elevator. I could definitely have been better.

“Glad I brought this.” Holstering the shotgun on his back, he reached into one of his saddlebags and floated out a crowbar. Jamming it into the crack between the doors, he really put his shoulder into it.

With muscle assisting magic, the door creaked and groaned. Nothing else happened, aside from the whole rooming rocking slightly with each push.

He glanced back at me, pushing myself as far into the corner as I could go, and sighed. “This’d go faster if you helped me.”

“Oh… uh, sure.” Prying myself from my warm, safe corner, I went to assist in throwing my weight behind the metal bar.

Between the two of us, the doors began inching open. Once they had started, the going was relatively easy. The two of us forced the doors apart wide enough for either of us to get out. The issue facing us now was that the doors to what I hoped was the right floor were above either of our heads.

“Well fuck.” Nail let slip with an uncharacteristic swear, and let out a deep sigh. “Can’t get your help on this one…”

I stared as he pushed out against the wall, dangling over the small gap that led down into certain death. Carefully, he worked the crowbar into the the lower part of the doors. It was much slower going with just him, stretched out like that, working in a place that he couldn’t put any muscle behind it.

I pushed myself back into the corner as the room swayed lightly, noise echoing through the elevator shaft as Nail worked. If we died here, no one would ever find us. Ziel would search until all hope was lost. Ash would drag an army down here looking for me. Fluster would be devastated. Everyone I knew and loved would just be without me.

Even Shade would miss me.

Tears sprang to my eyes as that final thought occured. I hadn’t said goodbye to her before I’d gone down. She must have known I was doing this. I couldn’t imagine that Ash, with all of his meddling, hadn’t told her where I was going. Was she worried?

With a crunch, something in the doors broke. They slid easily, and Nail backed into the elevator. He turned his side to me, crouching a little. “Well, ladies first.”

I realized that he wanted me to climb up him to get through the opening. That would get me out of the elevator, and he let out a grunt as my hoof planted itself in the middle of his back, just a little harder than I had planned as I scrambled towards freedom.

The hall past the doors was pitch black as I pulled myself up, but filled with a smell that made me gag. The beam of my light was only lighting up the wall directly across from me, and little else. I’d look around more when I got through. As I pulled myself off of his back, I scrabbled my back hooves against the wall for purchase. I felt a hoof on my rump, and I would have yelled at him if he’d done anything more than push me up and into the hall.

I only had a few seconds to look around before a grunt and flash of light told me that Nail was making his attempt to follow me. It was a lot more awkward from this end, but eventually we just hooked hooves and I slowly hauled him up. He was a lot heavier than he looked.

Once he had joined me up in the dark hallways, we took our time to look around. I immediately regretted it, and thought that the elevator wasn’t really that bad after all. The walls were covered with filth. Black and oozing, it was reflected the light back at us like thick dirty oil.

“Ugh, gross.” I tapped into the vast depths of my descriptive prowess to sum our surroundings up.

“I agree. Whatever they kept up here, it went bad long ago.” Then, thinking about what he’d just said, he frowned. “Let’s hope the supplies are… yeah, let’s go check.”

The ooze was everywhere. It made looking for B1-1 harder than it should have been, mainly because we had to start wiping the walls to read the numbers. It stank, and it didn’t come off. My legs were soaked black within minutes of searching, and it eventually got to where I was smearing more gunk onto any spot I tried wiping clean.

Nail was doing just as poorly, and his coat had long since ceased being white. He was hovering the shotgun over his head, keeping it in the center of the hall at all times. The black slime was probably not very good for anything with moving parts.

Luckily, we had found the stairs and checked to see if they were blocked. Clear and mostly ooze free. We had our way back, at least.

For lack of anything else other than walking and wiping trying to get clean, I did what I did best. I listened. The pair of stylized ears on my flank weren’t aimless decoration. Hearing is what I did. Right then, I could only hear our hoofsteps, our breathing, the rubbing of cloth against hair, the drip of slime, and some noises I couldn’t quite make out. It was probably just an echo. An Echo surrounded by echoes. I chuckled a little inwardly.

I knew B1-1 without having to wipe any goo away. We came to a halt before a huge door that reached all the way up to the ceiling. It was a segmented door that ran on tracks, but it had jumped them and was awkwardly half-open, a huge dent in the center of it. Something had been pretty rough in opening it, and I hoped I wouldn’t run into whatever it was.

I could already tell that the ever present goo was inside B1-1, and that there were no lights in there. The halls before had occasionally been lit, but most of the lights were burnt out, broken, or too caked with slime to shine. B1-1 was darker than I thought possible.

For once, I took the first steps through. I wasn’t counting being pushed out of the elevator. Leading the way in, I shone my flashlight around the room. It was hard to tell how big it was, the black ooze had a habit of absorbing any light. It was the biggest room I’d seen in the facility.

“We find what we’re looking for, then we head back. Our time’s nearly up… Easel’s gonna be looking for us.” Nail followed me in, shining his own light around to as much effect as my own.

I could make out old consoles and scientific equipment scattered about the room, but what caught my attention was the shattered window set into the far wall. It spanned the entire wall, and I only noticed it because the glass was catching my light. I couldn’t see anything past it other than blackness.

“...And there’s the prize.” His light rested on three large crates in one corner. They were smeared with the black mess, but the high quality metal of their construction was too slick for the filth to have much purpose. They were the only thing that wasn’t installed into the floor of the room, and the only crates in the room. They had to be our target.

Slogging our ways through the muck, we reached the boxes at the same time. Nail, floating out his trusty crowbar, immediately set about prying open one of the crates. It popped open with a hiss, and a light flicked on inside.

“Ooh. Shiny.” I couldn’t help admiring the weapons inside. They were bulky, made for easy pony use, and looked capable of taking on a rampaging Ursa Major. I grinned widely, and turned to Nail.

My grin dropped as I saw his face. He was looking past the box, up towards the corner above us. His eyes were wide, and his teeth were bared. My eyes followed his gaze, and it took me a few seconds to make out what I was looking at.

It was black and oily, like the layer covering the walls and floor. A pair of cold eyes were staring down at us from above three rows of wicked teeth glinting in its open maw. It had hooves; six of them, but the limbs holding it to the wall weren’t in that number.

It was like a nightmare had come to life. Like my nightmare had come to life.

With a hiss, it threw itself at us. A boom and flash of light threw it out of the air, slamming it back into the camouflaging slime on the wall. Blood splashed on my face, and immediately started stinging. The pain pulled me out of the shock of seeing the creature, and I let out a scream of shock.

“Echo. Stay next to me. We’re getting to the stairs, and going back down. Right now.” His gun was firmly trained on the thing, which had landed partially draped over one of the crates. The shot had torn its face in half, and the long clawed limbs it had held to the wall with were twitching spastically. Two more shots to its center of mass from Nail’s shotgun and it stopped moving.

“What is that?” I was asking as we moved, our eyes darting to every corner. We’d gotten close enough to the thing without seeing it that we could have easily passed others without noticing.

“Something that shouldn’t be this near Underhoof. Dweller.”

The word made my blood run cold. I’d heard stories about dwellers. Monsters that shouldn’t be, brought into being using wartime secrets. There were three things I always heard when it came to them: Run, stay in the light, and don’t ever get caught if you’re a mare.

I never got a straight answer when I asked why the third one. I couldn’t imagine any pony being caught by something like… that. I drew the pistol, ignoring the mixed tastes of metal, oil

We covered the space quickly, black filth flying with each hoofstep.

We were at a run as we went back into the hall, and my hooves failed me going underneath the door. All four flew out from underneath me as I hit a patch of unusually slick goo, and I slid bodily into the wall. Any part of me that wasn’t stained black was now soaked with the foul liquid.

I fought my way back up, gaining purchase after I’d scraped and scrambled at the slick ground. Nail had seen me fall, and was checking the walls for any sign of more creatures while waiting for me. I could see flashes of white as his wide eyes caught what little illumination we had.

I wanted to ask him a question, but I couldn’t find words for it. Instead, I stacked up behind him and followed as he continued leading back to the stairs.

The trip back through the hallways was completely different than before. Where before my major concern had been not being coated in stinking goo, now every shadow was a fanged monster, ever echoing drop of filth some nameless monster sneaking through the dark. My teeth started hurting, and I realized how hard I was biting down on the pistol. Still, I barely eased up after that, trying to see or hear anything before it got the drop on us.

“Echo.” His voice was hushed, but the urgency in it was like a gunshot. “If anything happens to me, you run. Don’t stop, don’t come back for me, you get away from here.”

In a whisper under his breath, not meant for me, he added one extra detail. I knew he didn’t want me to hear it, but I couldn’t help it with my adrenaline pumping and every sense on high alert.

“They’ll only kill me.”

“I keep hearing about that… what do they do to mares?” He flinched as I spoke, and his eyes shot back to me in surprise.

“I’ll tell you when we get back to Hoof.” His muttering was low, and wary. He set off again, having stopped just long enough to look back at me.

Neither of us saw the thing that took the swipe at him. A long, scythe-like limb flashed out at him from a doorway. It went through his coat and armor like butter, cutting into his back and down his side. The bright red spray glistened as it caught in my flashlight, the vivid liquid a stark difference from the black covering everything.

He roared in anger and pain, gripping the long limb with his magic. He hauled the creature through the doorway, its head catching on the edge with a sickening crack. He slammed it into the wall as hard as his magic let him, and rammed the barrel of his shotgun into its tooth-filled mouth as it screeched hungrily at us.

Its body jerked violently as he blasted the back of its skull into the wall, and I flinched as one of its limbs shot towards me. I bit harder than I thought, and the pistol in my mouth fired. The bullet tore through the limb, sending it spiralling away into the pooled filth. I fired twice more into its body, on purpose that time.

“Fucker…” Nail collapsed to his front knees as blood pumped from the wound on his back. I went to his aid immediately, trying to pull the jacket off to get to the wound. It needed to be cleaned. I could already see the blackness mixing into his blood.

He pushed me away with the side of his shotgun. “No… just gotta get me to my hooves… we make it to the stairs, and we’re in the clear.”

“Are you sure? You’re… you’re bleeding.” I had to be honest with myself then. I knew that the world was not a nice place. Ponies died all the time. I’d never been that close to a mortal injury before, but I knew that that’s what it was. I could see severed muscle and the blood was gushing in spurts. I could see vertebrae in one spot. He wouldn’t survive long at all, and it would take the best efforts of my aunt Xiera to fix him. She was at least an hour away. With all that running through my head, the obvious was all I could state.

“No kidding.” His voice was low, and wavered a bit, but I could tell he was doing his best to not let me see his weakness. “On my hooves, now.”

He was struggling to get upright, and I did all that I could to help. He was bigger than me by a good bit, but we managed to get setup that worked. He was partially draped over my back, one of his front legs across my withers. He could walk with his back legs, but I was supporting a good amount of his weight. I holstered my pistol, just so I wouldn’t fire it accidentally while supporting him.

“You comfortable?” I asked him, wondering why I said it as I did.

“Could be worse. Now walk. I’ll keep us covered.” The shotgun floated next to my head, and I saw several shells float into it from his bag. If it fired, I’d probably go deaf, but that beat dying.

The going was so much slower like that. I’d never had to support that much weight for long before, and my legs started burning and protesting almost immediately. I willed them to shut up, and pushed forward. Once I got to the stairs, we could bandage him up and make a plan.

Luckily, we weren’t far from the stairs at that point. It was just around the corner, past several closed doors. As I slogged through the muck, I eyed each door carefully. The attack had come from a partially open door, but I didn’t know how well those things could work a door. Ambush seemed to mean intelligence, and I didn’t want to die because I’d underestimated a nightmare.

“Oh come on!” Nail yelled out in anger, and for a split second I thought he was yelling at me. The hissing and clicking sounds echoing through the tunnel drew my attention though. We’d just rounded the corner, and my heart sank at the sight.

There were at least four of the beasts between us and the staircase. Between us and freedom. Their hateful, dead eyes glinted at us in the beams of our lights, drool dripping from their hungering maws. Each one was more warped and twisted than the last.

“Echo. Put me down. Run.” His shotgun was flicking nervously from one target to the next, but they were slowly creeping cautiously towards us. We both knew that as soon as he fired, they’d be all over us. We’d die, torn apart and eaten. Lost forever.

“What?” My voice squeaked out, afraid that any loud noise would set them off.

“Run. Hide. Find a way out. Do not get caught.” His breath was labored and I could see blood dripping from his mouth. “I’ll hold them.”

The things got tired of waiting, and made their move. As one, they broke into a mad dash to be the first to rip us apart.

“RUN!” The exclamation to his command was a shotgun blast.

I listened, turning on a hoof and running as hard as I could. I didn’t know where to go, but I had to make sure that he hadn’t just done what he’d in vain.

As I ran through the halls, I heard two more blasts and then nothing. There had been four… and that meant Nail was dead. I didn’t see it, I didn’t hear it, but I’d seen how easily one of them had cleaved through the armor that was supposed to protect him. Armor thicker than what I was wearing.

I ran harder. A scream bubbled up from inside me and I bit down on it. I couldn’t afford the breath. Needed it for running.

Doors flashed by. I passed the corpse of the dweller, still laying crumpled where Nail had put it down. My mind was racing, looking and thinking for any way out.

Air ducts? No, they were all too high up.. and open and dark. I didn’t want to run into one of them up there.

Before I knew it, I was back at B1-1. Maybe I could clear out one of those weapons crates, hide in there. I heard a noise in the hall behind me, and I rapidly shuffled my hooves as I looked for an out. I didn’t have time for the crates. I didn’t have time for anything but running, but I was out of places to go.

Ducking under the hanging door, I gave the room a closer look. In the corner were the boxes and the dweller corpse, and then there were the various slime covered… whatever machines. I stepped through the shattered window, the glass hidden by slime cracking and shattering under my hooves. I froze at the noise, listening for the dwellers I knew were after me.

It was strangely quiet… which did nothing at all to slow the frantic pounding of my heart. That meant they were nearby.

I like to think I’d managed to keep my cool up until that point, considering all that had happened, but I really started to sweat. I was about to die. I was really going to die.

My eye caught something I hadn’t noticed before, and I carefully approached the side wall. It was coated in slime, so it blended in, but the wall looked different somehow. I wiped away some of the mess.

The wall had a hole in it.

A manic smile broke across my face as I started frantically wiping away at the covering slime, trying to find out how much of a hole there was. There was just enough cleared for me to find what was different. There was a grate set into the wall, the rim crumbled and eaten away at by time and the goo.

I wrapped my hooves into it and pulled. It twisted, but stayed stubbornly set into the wall. Behind me, I heard a loud hiss. It wasn’t in B1-1, but it was definitely in the hall. I yanked again, straining what little strength I had against it.

I braced my rear hooves digging into the wall around it, my front legs straining as I was bent nearly in half yanking on it. “Come on! COME ON!” I screamed at the wall, not caring about noise. They were behind me. I knew if I turned around, I’d see at least two of them creeping up behind me.

The grate popped out of the wall, sending me flying into the slime. The grate bounced off of my midsection, then landed with a splash to disappear in the inky blackness. Pain shot through my chest as the wind was knocked out of me, but I couldn’t stop for that. I forced myself to my hooves and all but dove for the hole in the wall.

It was a tight fit, but even with my armor and bag I managed to squeeze my way into it. If I could fit, those things could definitely fit. With that thought in mind, I scrambled as quickly as I could through the pipe.

It was an old air vent, choked with centuries of cobwebs and dust. It kicked up in a thick cloud as I pushed my way through, blinding me and getting in my mouth. I coughed, spitting thick gobs of dust and black ooze out, but still I pushed on. I didn’t want to feel a tentacle or claw or whatever non-pony thing those monsters had grab me and yank me backwards.

My flashlight was either coated in ooze from the fall or broken, but it wasn’t giving me any light.

That made the next part more surprising than it should have been.

I propelled myself into a vertical shaft, probably one that ran all the way to the surface judging from the rain trickling its way down. I dropped like a slime covered rock.

I bounced and banged as I dropped, catching on other air ducts, and slamming into every turn and angle. I tasted blood over the dust and filth, and felt every impact. Every crushing blow.

My flashlight suddenly surged to life after a particularly jarring hit, but all it showed me was that I was about to hit the bottom. A flash of a metal grate, with a long rusted fan beyond. Beyond that, nothing. I hit it hard, smashing through in an explosion of rust and shower of grit and dust. I smacked my head again, and everything went silent.

“Uhhh….” I slowly came to.

“Oww….” My body was wracked with pain. It felt like I’d just fallen down a… oh, right. I had.

I tried pulling myself to my hooves, but failed. I found that they were dangling beneath me.

Something had snagged my armor, and I was suspended in the air. I couldn’t tell how high I was, because there were no lights. There were all sorts of sounds though.

Dripping. Running water. The scurrying of rats.

I was back in the sewers. The smell confirmed it.

Where exactly I was, I had no idea. How long I’d been out, I didn’t know that either. All I knew was that I had to get down somehow.

My holster was empty when I tried reaching for the pistol I’d stashed. My flashlight was still strapped to me, but it did nothing when I tried clicking it off and on. I still had my bag though, so I pulled it forward with my legs.

Digging through, I found what I needed. I gripped the knife in my teeth and dropped the bag. It splashed down a second later, telling me that I wasn’t too high up. I could probably fall and not hurt myself too much.

The straps holding my armor to my body were too tight from my weight for me loosen them, so I did the next best thing. Straining my neck, I reached down and slipped the blade between my body and armor, very carefully.

I didn’t want to gut myself.

The strap cut easily. As the knife sliced through, I realized my great mistake. There were two straps, and one was back near my rear legs.

I let out a little shriek as I dropped, before the armor caught my weight again. I swung hard enough that I smacked into a wall before going back to dangling. I tried in vain to reach the knife to the back straps, but the angle I was at was all wrong.

The only option left was to wriggle. I sucked in my gut, trying to free up any room I could, and started trying to slip out of the constraining armor. If it hadn’t been for the coating of slick black goo, I think I would have died there, hanging like a helpless effigy.

It was slow going, but with the help of the stinking filth covering every hair, I managed to work the strap further down my body. It was hard getting it up onto my legs, but once I got that far my efforts paid off.

I dropped from the ceiling, limbs flailing in an attempt to right myself before I hit. The knife flew from my mouth as I hit something in midair. I felt something crack inside of me, and I screamed in pain. Then I hit the water, plunging deep.

The current was swift, and I was dragged along. It felt like I was getting kicked by a dozen ponies as the water dragged me through hundreds of years of debris. Something punched a hole in my leg, but that pain was almost immediately eclipsed by my head smacking into a wall. My vision flashed white briefly before giving back in to darkness.

Then, horribly, I was airborne. I still couldn’t see anything as I sailed through the air, and all I could hope for was to land in more water. I’d hit enough metal and stone already.

I tumbled farther into the deep underbelly of Hornsmith, unsure of if I’d ever see sunlight again.

Fluster went through my mind right before I hit something hard and my world turned off.

Author's Notes:

Ah, good to be back. Had this story running around in my head since I was still writing Ripple and friends,

Thanks to Kkat for writing the fantastic Fallout Equestria that inspired so many.

Thanks also to Wirepony, for sticking with me after being Guise's chief editor for so long. Thanks also to Nyerguds for prereading this.

Make sure to rate and leave comments if you'd be so kind.