Chapter XVII- Family

The iron door burst open with a bang against the stone wall as Wally jumped through it, just narrowly avoiding the roaring blast of fire that erupted from behind him. He quickly slammed the door shut and leaned against it as he panted to catch his breath. The trip into the vault had definitely not been kind to the stallion and the deeper he went, the worse it got. After passing the riddles three he had literally stumbled into a room seemingly made of flames that attacked him with such ferocity it was as if they were alive, actively seeking him out to destroy him. He had only managed to escape by the skin of his teeth, ducking into a great black iron door that he wasn’t sure had been there before, but in the chaos of the room of infinite inferno it was hard to tell either way. Wally had no time to think, only react. He didn’t want to be burnt to a crisp so going through the mysterious door seemed to be his only option. He sighed in relief and slumped down to a seated position. The poor stallion’s green fur was stained in soot and his rockin’ pink mane was a singed, smoldering mess.

“Who… makes a room… out of FIRE?!” He exclaimed. “How do you even MAKE a room out of fire?! All this trouble for a comic book? …Naw, I totally get it.”

He shakily rose to all fours and took in a deep lungful of air that wasn’t superheated to Tartarus temperatures. Though relieved to no longer be in what one would consider immediate danger, the cool air didn’t do much to calm his nerves. The room he had just escaped was almost unbearably bright, as if he was trapped inside the sun itself. Wherever it was he found himself now however was quite the opposite. He felt his usual optimism and can-do attitude flickering slightly like a single candle in infinite darkness as he gazed around his surroundings as best he could in the nonexistent light. Wally was now standing in a pitch black… Room? There was no way to be sure. To say that it was dark would be a massive understatement. Down here, wherever down here was, it was as if the concept of light simply did not exist. Darker even than the staircase he took to enter the vault at the beginning of his journey. He briefly considered opening the door to the flaming room of fire for light but thought better of it when he heard another explosion from behind the door.

“Don’t got a flashlight or anything like that.” He muttered to himself. “Wow, I did NOT pack well for this dungeon. Or at all really… I didn’t even bring any money to the comic shop. Aw pony feathers, I really stepped in it this time.”

He shook his head violently and made a weird warbling sound.

“NO!” He yelled, his echo bouncing off of the walls of the presumably large chamber in which he found himself. “No way I’m giving up now! I got this! I promised I’d reclaim the lost treasure of nerdiness! I found a whole bunch a’ aliens and fought a giant scorpion thingy! How many ponies can say they’ve done stuff like that?! Two or three? Maybe? Four tops? Come on Wally! Maximum effort! Let’s go!”

He took a shaky breath to steady himself and placed one cautious hoof in front of the other. Then another. And another. Ten timid steps later there was a sudden flash of light that caused Wally to let out a yelp of surprise that echoed throughout the cavern. Ahead of him was a floating ball of fire about the size of baseball that illuminated the area around him in a bright ghostly blue light. Before him was a very long, very narrow stone bridge that definitely wasn’t of natural formation that stretched who knows how far ahead. The light from the magical flame only provided him with enough light to see a few yards ahead of him. Beneath the bridge was nothing more than a dark abyss that made Wally nervous just looking at it. It was safe to assume that if he fell it would be the end of him and nopony would ever hear his screams as he plummeted into the darkness below.

With a nervous gulp Wally took a cautious step forward and onto the bridge. As he did so the light behind him began to slowly fade.

“Crap!” he gasped.

Wally Melon was afraid of a lot of things, namely the dark among them. It was one thing to be safe at home in familiar surroundings. That never bothered him. Unless of course he managed to get his hooves on a copy of Horrifying Tales of the Macabre. Those nightmare fuel filled comics were more than enough to have him jumping all night at every little noise his family’s house made but even then Wally could still find comfort in the knowledge he was safe in his own bed in his own room.

Usually.

But this cavern was not a familiar place and there was nothing about it that felt right. The darkness was… thicker here, if that made sense. It felt as if it was more than just a dark cave. It was as if this cave was the place that the dark went when you turned on a light or lit a candle. That this was where the shadows of the world went when Celestia rose the sun every morning, waiting for Luna to usher in another night before fleeing the cave and taking to the skies like a swarm of angry bats.

It’s said the oldest and strongest emotion of pony-kind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. If Wally had been one for profound thought he may have come to the conclusion that it wasn’t the dark itself that frightened him, rather it was what could be lurking within it. For all Wally knew the pit below could actually be the mouth of an ancient horrific being that had never felt the warm caress of Celestia’s sun on its face, nor the cool embrace of Luna’s moon, instead only knowing a ravenous hunger that the little pony’s flesh wouldn’t even make a dent in; a cave that exists solely to devour any unfortunate victim that happened to wander into it. Wally was many things but a deep thinker simply was not among them. He chose to rely more on his natural instincts. In times of duress he always counted on the wise words of Grand Master Shen.

“If pain of the flesh is weakness leaving the body, then conquering your fears is weakness leaving the spirit.”

It had been years since his lessons under the wizened old master had ended but to this very day Wally lived his life under his master’s teachings and code, to never stop trying to better himself and to overcome any challenge that presented itself to him. Wally forced himself to put one hoof in front of the other and continued to march on into the darkness. Just as the light behind him extinguished for good, another light flared up next to him causing him to stumble in surprise. There was a metallic shriek as a series of long sharp black spikes the size of spears shot out from the path before him. Wally balked at the spikes in horror as they stood there for a few seconds before retracting back into the ground.

“Holy crap.” He whispered nervously. “Gotta time this just right or else…”

He gulped nervously and jumped back as the spears once again shot out of the ground. He waited for them to retract again before he quickly galloped across the bridge. Another set of spikes abruptly shot out of the ground ahead of him and he nearly tripped over his hooves trying to stop himself from falling onto them. A bead of sweat ran down his brow and dropped onto one of the rusty spikes that sat mere inches from his face. The spikes slowly slid back into the ground, almost as if in disappointment and Wally let out a weak choking sound that might have been a relieved sigh. Again he waited for the spikes to complete another cycle before he quickly ran across. He looked down waiting to see a spot of ground free from holes but saw none. He picked up the pace knowing that at any second the spikes would shoot out from the ground and impale him. In the dimming light he saw a clear patch of ground just ahead of him. He threw himself forward and slid along the bridge as spikes erupted from the ground like the claws of a great beast. He quickly scrambled to his hooves and turned around just in time to see the spikes vanish into the ground.

“Gonna- Gonna take more than that to stop me…” He chuckled nervously.

He started to turn when he felt a sudden flare of pain in his legs and his chest. He looked down and saw that the underside of his barrel and legs had been badly scraped from sliding along the rough ground and now that his adrenaline was slowly beginning to fade, the pain was all too noticeable. Before the stallion could so much as curse, the light blinked out and left him in darkness. He stood there nervously for several long seconds, unsure what to do before another light came on. Starting to get the hang of things, he ignored his injuries and kept moving, a bit faster this time but making sure to watch the ground for any more traps. Just as before, the light faded, at a noticeably faster pace this time, and eventually left him alone in the dark. A few cautious steps later another light flared to life but this time Wally saw that ahead of him the bridge’s course altered a bit. In about thirty feet the path veered abruptly to the left.

“No problem, I got this.” He thought nervously.

A gust of wind blew as if to respond to his self-encouragement. It was not strong enough to knock him down or off of the bridge but it did make him uneasy and cause him to slow his pace. Wally’s legs shook in fear as the beast below stirred, reminding him of its existence. He made it to the point where the path turned and the light faded. In the light of a new flame, he saw that the path before him contained very tall stairs that would prove awkward to climb and the light provided this time was fading faster than ever. Wally galloped to the steps and hurriedly began his ascent. The stone stairs were smooth and slick and maneuvering up them was slow and awkward.

One… two… three…four…five…

The light winked out.

Six…Seven…Eight…Nine…Ten…

No way the stairs were that tall. He could have sworn he could see the top before the light went out so why was he still climbing? All Wally could hear was his own labored breathing and the pounding of his own heart. He finally reached the top of the staircase and sighed in relief when another light came to life and illuminated his path. Before him he saw a series of heavy metal guillotine-like blades suspended about ten feet in the air. They dropped suddenly with a loud clang that echoed throughout the cavern and caused the stone path to tremble under his hooves before slowly rising back into the air.

The light began to fade.

It was much too dark for Wally to see if the blades were in fact floating or merely suspended by cleverly hidden chains. He didn’t care. He couldn’t take the time to contemplate much more than sharp chopping things that would cleave him in half with little effort if he didn’t move fast enough and he was quickly running out of light. As soon as the first blade had rose enough for him to dive through he hurled himself forward and passed underneath it and the second one just as they dropped back down with a loud clang that echoed painfully in his ears and caused the ground to tremble from the impact. His wounds had now gone from scratches to actual cuts but he ignored the pain in his legs and chest and the growing knot of anxiety in his stomach. He scrambled to his hooves and rolled underneath the next blade.

This was insane. The booby traps were one thing, he could even get the Sphinx to a certain degree but who in the whole wide world would build this? Who would possibly in their right mind construct such an elaborate defense for the sake of a comic book? This didn’t make any sense, no sir, none at all. Wally shouldn’t be here. He should never have left his friends. He should never have left Ponyville, for Celestia’s sake he never should have left the farm. What was he even doing here? He wasn’t a hero! He wasn’t an adventurer! He was a country bumpkin of a stallion that had gotten in WAY over his head. He was going to die down here and it was all over a stupid comic book that some dead stallion was WAY too proud of. If Wally had been able to focus on the thought long enough he may have been able to reach the conclusion that he had stumbled into something else entirely. That perhaps maybe running to the mysterious black door in the chamber of fire might not have been the best choice to make on his part and he had happened upon something far more malevolent than any nerd’s insane security measures but the pony had only a single thought running through his head at that time.

Survive.

The light winked out. Wally took a leap of faith and dived forward. He felt his body hit the hard ground, knocking the wind from his lungs. He heard the blade cut through the air above him. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the end, knowing that once it went black, he’d never come back. The echo of the impact rang throughout the cavern, lasting for several seconds before fading away and leaving Wally alone in the dark and silence. With shaking hooves Wally rose to his feet but it took every ounce of remaining strength to do so. There was a heavy weight growing in him that seemed to start in his heart and spread throughout his entire body. He gritted his teeth and took a staggering step forward. Another light came on, this one a little dimmer than the others. Wally took another step, and another and another.

The bridge seemed to twist into impossible loops. Wally looked up and saw the hungry mouth of the beast below looking down on him. He thought he was hallucinating. His first instinct was to run but something stopped him. Something told him that if he did he would fall. Fall up into the waiting mouth of the beast that was counting on him to fail, waiting patiently, ever so patiently for his heart to falter. He could feel a sinister presence down here, as if something was watching him, something ancient. He kept his steady pace until the bridge leveled out again into a more natural angle.

No more light.

He kept going. He had to. He closed his eyes and began to go over the last issue of Knight Stallion he had read, anything to distract him from the steadily growing sense of doom that surrounded him, like he was a small insignificant critter and a large predator was slowly moving in for the kill. He recalled the panel that showed Knight Stallion fighting his foe, his golden full plate armor shining bright like a star, a beacon of hope in a world shrouded in darkness.

“You’ll never escape!” Knight Stallion declared valiantly.

How proud and noble that mysterious hero looked. Knight Stallion was famous for never being unmasked. Other heroes had personal lives and secret identities but not Knight Stallion. He was always a hero. The stallion (or mare if some theorists are to be believed) was a champion of truth and a paragon of all that is good. He was Wally’s personal hero and stood for everything that Wally wanted to emulate. The image did bring him some comfort in the cold dark of the underground but then something happened that Wally hadn’t imagined. The mental image he held in his mind’s eye shifted. Knight Stallion turned his head and faced him.

“You’ll never escape Wally.”

He could see the words so perfectly in his head, the black ink in the white speech bubble clearly forming the words. The ink on the page of the mental image began to run. The full plate helm that obstructed the knight’s face since his first publication melted away, revealing a rotting, grinning skull underneath with two bloodshot eyes that stared into his own. The ink ran freely from the pages like dripping blood until the comic was completely blank. New pictures began to form, as if being crudely sketched by an invisible artist. He saw a little green colt standing all alone in a field watching a bunch of other ponies play. The little colt wanted to join them so badly it made his heart ache with longing. In the next panel the colt’s head turned back towards a modest farm house. Head hung low in disappointment he began to trudge back home. He came to the porch and saw a little filly looking up at him. She gave him a big smile, a smile so bright and pure in its innocence it rivaled the sun and the colt simply could not help but return it.

Wally saw light. His eyes fluttered open and he saw a ball of fire glowing a few yards away. The other lights had all been blue and ghostly but this one was pink and warm. Wally looked down and saw that he had almost stepped off the bridge, his right hoof still hovering in the air over empty space. He staggered back and veered off to the right towards the source of light. It was brighter than the past few lights had been but it was dimming quickly.

He focused on his sister. He loved her and he would never ever let her live a life wondering what happened to her big brother. Though not exactly in the traditional sense of the word with a suit of fancy armor or a gleaming sword, Wally Melon was a hero, he could see it now. Even though he got on Candy’s nerves constantly his baby sister still looked up to him. Why else would she leave her few friends and family behind and come with him to Ponyville? Mom and Pop didn’t exactly twist her arm to go but she jumped at the chance without a second thought. A dark voice spoke quietly in his head. It wasn’t one of the many characters he’d made up and occasionally speak with out of boredom. This voice was unlike anything Wally’s admittedly overactive imagination could come up with.

It was terrible and flat, lacking any semblance of equinity or emotion at all. It hissed quietly in his ear like a serpent and Wally finally realized that he was not alone in the darkness after all. He cowered, like a small child cornered by an abusive parent, ready to receive whatever cruel punishment awaited him.

“The farm was boring. She just needed an excuse to leave if only for the summer. The fact she was leaving with you was incidental.”

Wally gritted his teeth. Candy. He thought. Focus on Candy. You pulled her body from the water. You’d never let anything bad ever happen to her, ever!

“She’d have been better off. If left in your hooves she’ll be dead in a week.”

Wally was giving her ponyback rides through the fields, reading stories to her, even having little tea parties with her and her stuffed animals. He let out a tearful chortle of amusement as he remembered the fancy top hat she insisted he wore.

“You were just a toy to her, something to entertain her and occupy her time. A distraction from her pointless life on the farm. Now you are nothing but a burden. She is your keeper.”

He remembered the day when his love for his baby sister, his first friend, transcended the years he spent being a socially awkward pile of green weirdness and he stood up for her in the schoolyard when a group of her classmates made fun of her just because she hadn’t gotten her cutie mark yet. He would always be there to protect her from threats both big and small. Doctor Ponifarious may occasionally get the best of Knight Stallion but there wasn’t a force in the entire universe that would keep Wally from protecting his baby sister.

The light burned bright above him. It banished the cruel chill of the cave and filled Wally with a comforting warmth. As he gazed up at the glowing ball of pink fire above he smiled. He felt safe in its light. He didn’t know how he knew, but he could tell that everything was going to be alright. It flashed brilliantly before unleashing a powerful pulsing ring of energy that illuminated the entire cavern. The cave trembled as an unearthly sound like the roar of a giant beast called out in anger and defeat. Wally could see the darkness around him slinking away, retracting back into the wretched abyss from where it came, black and viscous like the remains of the primordial ooze, as if after all that was good had been poured into life; Kindness, Laughter, Honesty, Loyalty, Generosity, and the magical spark that bound them all together, this wretched darkness was made of whatever was left and had taken to the dark corners of the earth unable to face or even comprehend the light of love. And Wally had defeated it.

Wally stood alone on the stone bridge. There were no loops or curves or turns or blades or steps or spikes. There was simply a bridge leading across a chasm from one end to the other. The heavy feeling in his chest was gone but the pony was left physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained. Wally looked up at the ball of pink fire and smiled wearily at it. He took a teetering step forward and made his way across the bridge having passed a test he had not even known he was taking.

Author's Notes:

Alright, I know I am really bad about updating but in trying to research the elder scrolls lore, I have come to appreciate just how convoluted everything can be so I've basically just decided to stop worrying about it. I'm going to take as many liberties as I feel I need to while trying to stay as true as I can to the lore. Also, my computer finally gave up on me. I hope to update again soon. I also hope that you enjoyed Wally's segue in the dark underbelly of Equestria and his realization that not everything is sunshine and rainbows. I hope that those who celebrate it have a happy Thanksgiving and everyone else has a nice day.
-D