Chapter 5

9-14-13, 11:32 P.M.

//{Black Mesa OST – Surface Tension 2}

In Jeremy’s opinion, the war was now going pretty well, though he was still constantly getting that feeling of "precisely how the fuck am I alive right now?". They slowly fought their way through the streets of Canterlot, and each time a changeling dropped Jeremy stole the gun and gave it to one of the soldiers. They learned how to use the new weapons fairly quickly, and after a bit of practice were more or less hitting what they aimed at – although no one would give them awards for marksmanship just yet. Jeremy’s only complaint was that the streets of Canterlot were tiny for him – he was barely keeping march with the rest of the entourage, and often found himself shunted to the front or back. They did seem to enjoy the music, though. Changelings came around a corner, guns drawn and voices hissing. To Jeremy’s satisfaction, they were taken out by the guards, who were actually fairly accurate now that they knew how to use the oddly tiny machine guns the changeling forces carried.

They came upon a particularly devastated street, that had a single path through – single-file for the ponies, impossible for Jeremy. He might have been thin enough to make it through sideways, but the helmet certainly wasn't - and he wasn't about to take it off. “This is our only way through, and we don’t have time to look for another one. I’m sorry, stranger, but you’re going to have to find your own way through – we need to see if the royalty has been compromised as soon as possible,” Shining informed Jeremy. Jeremy nodded. Shining put a hoof on his chest, to make sure Jeremy’s attention was fixed on him – a meaningless gesture to Jeremy, as he was already listening. “One last thing – if you see my wife, do what you can to protect her. She’s pink, with the mark of a crystal heart, and has purple and yellow hair.  Last I saw of her, changelings were carrying her off to the caves underneath Canterlot. Got it?” Jeremy nodded once more. With that, Shining’s group sped off, presumably straight to the castle, while Jeremy scouted an alternate route for himself.

//{end}

He found one in the form of a lone, intact building. The building was fairly low, perhaps 20 feet high. What’s more, it had plenty of available handholds and footholds in the form of steel decorations. Jeremy was unsure what kind of building this used to be, but at the moment didn’t really care. He climbed on top of it without too much difficulty, and looked at the next street over, which was significantly more open – and devoid of anything living. Did he hear something? Jeremy was almost sure something just grunted in the distance. It’d have to be pretty far off to make such a noise without him seeing it. Besides, he had guns. He’d be fine.

9-15-13, 12:07 A.M.

//{Black Mesa OST – Surface Tension 3}

Jeremy carefully climbed down the building, noting the music playing from his speakers. Wasn’t this one of the calmer, wandering tracks? It wasn’t like he selected the music – it just seemed to know when to start, stop and loop. He was almost to the ground when he felt a sudden, small shake, as though a minor earthquake had just occurred. Concerned, he looked around, and nervously returned to climbing down. He was quickly interrupted by a second vibration, and then more. As he dropped to the ground, he heard a massive, earthshaking roar, and fearfully looked up. A single changeling, easily the size of the building he’d just climbed down, had spotted him and was now running at him. After being paralyzed in terror for a full second, Jeremy’s survival instincts kicked in and he started doing just about the only thing he could – run like hell.

As he ran, Jeremy was being extremely distracted. He was hungry. Tired. Yes, scared. Terrified, even, which was an emotion he’d had experience with before but not on this level. The only thing running through his mind at the moment was OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK HOW DO I STOP THIS THING, and his heartbeat was going so much faster than normal he could've mistaken it for a low-power engine. He ducked through alleyways, small streets, through shops – anything he could find to slow the monster that was after him. However, it was much faster than he was, and crashed through the streets with a callous disregard for the obstacles he attempted to put in its way, as well as anything in its way in general. Finding an open space, he quickly turned around, pulled out his rocket launcher, and fired at the thing. To his relief, it was a direct hit – but the thing shook it off and then continued running after him, seemingly only barely hurt. What the hell?! Jeremy thought. What kind of organism shrugs off a rocket-propelled grenade?

Jeremy had been sprinting for quite some time now, and was approaching the edge of Canterlot once again - he had been going in the opposite direction of the castle, just to have more room to run. The music was not at all a song for wandering – it had quickly shifted over after the first minute to a very actiony-sounding beat, full of heavy drums and bass. It certainly helped with his adrenaline levels, at any rate. As he ran, not stopping despite the pounding in his chest and the fatigue in his sides, he considered if it was even possible to kill this thing. Certainly it didn’t seem to do much, aside from roar and attempt to crush him with a massive hoof every time it got close. He came to the outskirts of the city – he was running out of room to run, and while the giant changeling didn’t have wings, it could probably improvise. And suddenly, the answer came to him. Strangely enough, it came in the form of a Disney movie – an impossible adversary, and only one viable weapon. Mulan, the time she faced an army of Mongolians, and defeated them all by causing an avalanche. Jeremy looked around. Well, he was on a mountain…

Jeremy pulled out his rocket launcher. Would one rocket even do it? He didn’t know anything about the weak points of a mountain, or how to go about specifically causing avalanches. His deal was chemistry, video games, and guns. Not… this. As he ran up and down the winding cliffsides of the back of Canterlot Mountain, stumbling slightly at a rock nopony had bothered to clear off the path, he looked around. Nothing to either side of him that could help - an overhanging, loosely attached ledge would've been helpful, or maybe one of those Acme boulders. The changeling was right behind him now, and probably about to corner him, but was having some trouble on the narrow path - it compromised by slowly inching its way along the mountain, blocking off his only exit. Jeremy certainly couldn’t use any part of the mountain below where he was, he knew that much. The giant slowed its pace, presumably closing in for the kill. Jeremy did the only thing he could, and looked up. Initially finding nothing, he desperately scoured the mountaintop with his eyes for something, anything that could help him. To his amazement, there was actually something there. An overhang of rock, almost directly above them and what looked to be sixty feet up. Some yellow caution tape, old and fading, was fluttering in a mild breeze. Jeremy took aim with the launcher and fired. The changeling, thinking Jeremy was attempting to hit him, sprang backward, and out of the way, nearly falling off the cliff on its own - but it got up a moment later, presumably angrier than ever. The rocket hit exactly where he had intended, the yellow caution tape incinerated in the resulting explosion, but nothing happened - the mountain shook a bit, but that was all. Hissing, the giant changeling turned its gaze back to him and closed in. Jeremy closed his eyes – he didn’t want to watch himself die. But then, he heard an enormous, rumbling crack – and the overhang dropped, breaking into pieces as it fell.  Jeremy spotted one headed right for where he was standing, and nimbly dove out of the way, almost launching himself off the cliff with his own momentum. He desperately scrambled for a hold on the ledge he had just been standing on, finally succeeding and poking his head over the top. The giant changeling looked up, almost stupidly fascinated by the tons of rock bearing down on it, and was promptly smacked in the face by a decently sized chunk. Dazed, it stumbled backwards.

Right off the cliff.

//{end}

Jeremy climbed back up and looked over the edge of the precipice, hardly believing his luck. The changeling was down there, alright – buried under a few tons of freshly broken mountain. It didn’t look like it was getting up soon, possibly ever. Jeremy swallowed, and sat down, taking a few deep breaths as he tried to comprehend what he had just done. He'd just defeated something that was nearly four times his height, with barely a scratch on his body to show for it - sure, he was exhausted again, but he was still alive! Jeremy actually laughed out loud at his luck - this was Superman levels of ridiculous success. He checked over his suit, noticing that the chopper fight from earlier had managed to punch a few holes in the outer layer. This took the edge off his almost maniacal glee at surviving - if a changeling managed to shoot him in any of those places, he'd have an actual bullet wound to deal with. Jeremy stiffened as he remembered he'd forgotten his backpack full of morphine - if he got shot any time soon, he'd be feeling all the worst of it.

He was interrupted after a minute more of ruminating by another huge boulder crashing down next to him, reminding him that this area was no longer safe. He looked up to see if there were any more coming – and then promptly looked left, puzzled. The boulder that had just landed right next to him had gone straight through the ground, and evidently opened an entrance to some cave or something. He was about to leave, and simply note the interesting occurrence, when a familiar hiss came echoing out of the cave mouth. Jeremy looked back at the city, then back into the cave. He took out his rifle, biting his lip and trying to decide. Well, he did make a promise… Reluctantly, he started climbing down into the cave opening.

9-15-13, 12:56 A.M.

//{Black Mesa OST – Surface Tension 4}

As Jeremy climbed down, his eyes slowly adjusted, and he became aware of a vast expanse of crystal. In fact, the entire cave itself seemed to be a never-ending network of semi-reflective, translucent facets. The music from his speakers filled the cave, echoing curiously – and to Jeremy, unwantedly. Surprise attacks didn’t work when you can be located by the music you’re listening to. Thankfully, the echoes were so omnipresent they nearly obscured the original source – although he couldn’t count on that. There were a few changelings around the next corner – easily taken care of. Thankfully, the cave didn’t branch off in all directions – in fact, it was fairly linear, as though some unseen force had taken great care to carve out a perfectly faceted crystal path, just for him. Odd.

Jeremy reflected on how common all the gems and gold were here. So far, the quality of the gemstone lining the walls seemed good, and he was tempted to take some of the smaller pieces that had chipped or broken off over the centuries. However, utility won out over fascination, and he decided to leave them be. Perhaps he’d come back for them later. Then again, maybe not – he’d probably forget. His train of thought was interrupted when a changeling shot him in the back of the head, the bullet getting stuck in one of the many air holes drilled out the backside of the quartz dome. Startled, Jeremy returned fire, and the changeling went down quickly. He then turned around to where he had been facing, and kept walking.

This continued for a short while – changelings would attempt to ‘surprise’ him, only to find that ambushes didn’t work very well when one had a bulletproof suit. One even tried to bite him – after it latched on, Jeremy hurriedly shook it off, a panicked expression on his normally still face. The suit was resistant to biting due to the anti-tear fabric, but what else were you supposed to do when something that big tries to take a chunk out of you? He examined the suit for puncture marks. Finding none, he winced at the twin quarter-inch bruises he’d be adding to his collection and moved on. Just as the music was finishing up, Jeremy heard a voice monologuing to itself. Due to the echoes, he couldn’t quite place who it was. He walked towards the area of the cave where it was coming from, seemingly no different than the rest of the place.

//end

“Hello? Is someone there?” The voice asked falteringly. It sounded though she had been crying for hours. In response, Jeremy knocked on the cave wall three times, partly to give her a signal and partly to check if it was fake or some other such trick. To his dismay, it was solid stone. “Are you a friend?” Cadance asked – he could tell who it was now that he was this close, and was relieved to have actually found her. One more promise to mark off the list.

Should he talk? Sure, why not – it’d sound weird considering the sound could only vibrate out the back end of his helmet, but she would probably hear him – plus, there was no one around. “Hi.” Jeremy answered, voice hoarse - he realized he'd only had the one drink of water, and had been exercising all day. “Yes, I’m a friend. Can you hear me?” he asked in return.

“Yes, of course – the stone between us is porous. Can you please get me out of here?” Cadance pleaded. Jeremy considered. He took out his metal pipe, which had been unused in quite a while and was now covered in dry, flaking changeling blood, and whacked the stone wall as hard as he could. Unsurprisingly, the crystalline wall was unaffected. He puzzled over how to get her free for a short while. “Are you still there?” Cadance questioned.

“Yes, just… figuring this out. Is there a space for you to get out of the way of this stone wall? Like, off to the side or something?” He listened as Cadance sounded as if she was shuffling around her confinement.

“Yes, there’s a small niche that I can crawl into. Are you going to break the door down?” she asked.

“Not quite,” Jeremy answered, taking out his rocket launcher and backing away for room.

He fired, and Cadance briefly screamed in terror as the odd crystal wall was blown to pieces, right into her room. Finding herself unhurt, she walked out and bowed to him. “Thank you, kind… stranger?” She had evidently noticed his alien appearance, from his bubble-head and burlap-like suit to his human characteristics.

Jeremy sighed, noticing her discomfort. “Can we just move past the fact that I’m an alien?” he irritatedly asked. After a moment, Cadance regained her composure.

“Of course. Lead on, then.” Jeremy laughed and continued down the direction he had been taking.

“I have no idea where I’m headed, just so you know,” he commented. Cadance smirked, and motioned towards a different cave, somewhat smaller.

"This will take us back to the surface, if I remember right - this isn't my first time down here," she remarked. Jeremy smiled, remembering her initial incarceration back at her wedding - had Chrysalis really used the exact same location to store her in?

A few moments later, they came to an impassable drop. “I can fly across this. What about you, do you have wings?” Cadance thought aloud. Jeremy shook his head, looking around for some kind of solution.

“I’m definitely too heavy for you to carry,” he muttered. “And I don’t have anything to cross with… wait! I might have an idea,” he exclaimed while looking up at the roof of the cave. Stalactites littered the ceiling, huge and dripping occasionally. Taking out his rocket launcher again, he attempted to hit one right above them. It fell down, and the tip snapped off when it hit their ledge. Jeremy hurriedly went over to it, and pushed with all his might – after a split second’s hesitation, Cadance helped. Together, they had just enough strength to push it towards the pit – only to find that it was just barely too short. It toppled down the hole, and Jeremy glared down. “Damn,” he swore. “Thought that would work.”

Cadance searched the ceiling. “Try that one,” she said, pointing it out – it was the biggest one on the ceiling.

“You sure? We could barely manage the last one,” Jeremy noted. Cadance frowned, considering this. While she thought, Jeremy went over to the nearest wall and slid down it. All this lack of eating and ridiculously strenuous exercise was starting to catch up to him… he felt a bit lightheaded again.

Next Chapter: Chapter 6 Estimated time remaining: 12 Hours, 15 Minutes