Twilight and Applejack paused and turned to watch Brimstoke put his hoof up to his ear to communicate with his other team members. Glitterball and Neon Streak both held their hooves up as well to presumably listen in on whatever conversation was going on. Despite the white unicorn’s best explanation as to the details of the spell, Twilight was still confused as to how they could speak over long distances.

Brimstoke nodded a few times as he listened to the pony on the other end speak. Finally he set his hoof back down and walked up to the two with a smile that told them he had something important to tell them.

“That was our other member Sunspot. She said that she found your friends safe and sound. She is heading down to the lobby to get them out of the building now.” The stallion explained cheerfully to the pair.

Twilight shared a gleeful smile with her orange companion as they heard that their friends were unharmed. For the first time since they became trapped in the hospital, the two mares actually felt happy and hopeful about their situation.

“That’s great!” Twilight stated with an excited tone of voice. She was beginning to wonder if she would ever see her friends again, so to hear that they were safely waiting for her upstairs was an amazing turn of events.

“You know… since your friends are safe, you could head back upstairs if you want.” Neon Streak spoke up from beside Twilight. The purple unicorn took an apprehensive look into a passing doorway as she thought of leaving this creepy hospital forever.

“I would rather stay and help.” Twilight said optimistically while trying to hide the nervous inflexion in her voice. The lime green mare smiled at the bravery of the lavender pony. She knew that it must have been hard for the unicorn to stay in such a terrifying environment by choice.

“I figured you would… the princess said you were pretty determined to put a stop to all of this.” Neon Streak smirked while nodding in satisfaction. Twilight was flattered to hear that Luna thought so highly of her. Neon suddenly turned to look at Applejack, who was also eyeing the dark passageways around her nervously.

“How about you? You said you wouldn’t leave until we found your sister. I can escort you back if you want.” Neon Streak offered the orange mare with a friendly smile. Applejack thought about it for a minute before shaking her head.

“Ah ain’t leaving you guys down here all by yourselves. Ah think Ah’ll stay until we find whatever is causing this mess and we stop it.” Applejack looked to her unicorn friend with false confidence as she tried to look as determined as possible.

Before the green mare could reply to the farm pony, a sudden noise from a doorway to their side made everyone whip their heads around to look.

“Heads up!” Glitterball yelled to alert everyone to the danger ahead. One of the creatures leapt out of the doorway and made a beeline for the hapless purple unicorn and her friend. Twilight cried out in surprise and shielded her face with her arms as the pale monster lunged at her with its elongated nails.

The unicorn was surprised to hear a loud hum followed by what sounded like magic being discharged. The creature cried out in pain and Twilight heard it thud against the ground a short ways to the side. She uncovered her face to see Neon Streak holding a vial in front of her that had a hint of smoke coming from the tip. The creature was a short distance away, writhing on the ground as it disappeared into black smoke as the darklings had.

“Thanks… you’re pretty quick on the draw with that… umm…” The purple pony paused as she tried to think of a good word to describe the odd object.

“It’s a magic charm… We take some ingredients and put them in these vials to contain them depending on their effects. We call these ones strobes… they fire a pulse of condensed energy that’s magically charged.” Neon explained while holding the vial filled with blue liquid for the two ponies to see. Twilight and Applejack marveled at the strange object. It seemed way too small to be able to cause that much damage to anything.

“Wow…” The unicorn exclaimed in wonder. Neon Streak grinned proudly as she re-clipped the vial back on her vest.

“Yep… works on most evil creatures we have come across.” Neon stated nonchalantly. Applejack thought about the green mare’s statement for a moment before speaking up to satisfy her curiosity.

“What if you come across something that it doesn’t work on?” The farm pony asked quizzically. Before Neon Streak could answer, Brimstoke stepped forward and interjected into the conversation.

“We carry equipment to deal with more standard threats as well.” The stallion said while pointing to various items clipped to his vest. The two could see what looked like a collapsible baton, a small taser, and a pair of hoof cuffs that had small inscriptions set into the sides of them.

“How do you guys know so much about this stuff? I just recently learned that supernatural things like those creatures even exist.” Twilight asked with clear curiosity as she observed the team of ponies. The white stallion was caught off guard by the sudden question.

“A few months ago, some books on occult rituals and other supernatural knowledge were brought to Princess Luna’s attention. She decided to put together a team to deal with paranormal threats to Equestria should any of the things she read about turn out to be real.” Brimstoke finally managed to get out his explanation after thinking about it for a while.

“We have been studying all the occult knowledge available to us and researching for ways to combat a lot of it for the past few months.” Glitterball spoke up to add to the conversation. “Me and Neon Streak were in charge of putting together a lot of the toys we have with us now. We almost didn’t get enough time to test any of it out before we came here.” She said with a matter of fact tone in her voice.

“Wait… before you came here? You mean you didn’t know if your equipment would work?” Twilight questioned with a raised eyebrow as she clarified what she had just heard.

“Technically speaking, this is our first mission in the field.” Neon chuckled awkwardly as she realized how ridiculous it sounded out loud. Twilight and Applejack were shocked to hear that the seemingly professional group of paranormal exterminators were in fact rookies themselves.

“Well… you guys must be doing something right Ah guess.” Applejack spoke up to break the uncomfortable silence that suddenly fell over the group.

Twilight was still dumbfounded as to how spectacularly unprepared Equestria was to deal with this new threat, but she couldn’t very well blame Brimstoke and the others. They were, after all, just using what knowledge they had to deal with an issue that couldn’t exactly wait.

“Yeah… nobody could have known that you would need to put your skills to the test so early.” Twilight said reassuringly to the group. Glitterball in particular seemed very disappointed that they weren’t as impressive as they once thought. She sighed before returning her casual expression to her face.

“Enough regretting how much prep we had… we’re here now, and we need to put a stop to this before anyone else gets hurt.” Brimstoke spoke up before walking forward and pausing for the others to follow him.

He seemed very determined to get the job done, almost to the point of being a little gruff. Glitter and Neon sighed before motioning for the two civilians to follow them. The group pressed forward through the winding hallways of the basement in search of the source of the problem.

After a few minutes of searching, Twilight and Applejack were starting to get frustrated from the lack of progress. It was already stressful to be down in this dark basement with monsters everywhere, but not finding anything was actually more stressful than finding something.

“Ughh… this basement must be bigger than the building! It’ll take years to search through every single room if we don’t find what we’re looking for in the main hallway.” The purple unicorn huffed in nervous annoyance while taking note of the numerous rooms they glanced inside and the numerous other hallways they passed.

Brimstoke looked to the frustrated unicorn. He then looked to Glitterball and nodded with a knowing smirk. Glitterball nodded before pulling out a vial that was attached to a pull cord alongside another vial. She twisted the cap on the vial, causing the blue liquid inside to light up dimly. The unicorn pointed the vial in a circle around her. As she pointed it in front of her, the liquid started glowing brighter toward the cap.

“Looks like we got something this way…” Glitter stated happily while walking forward with the vial still outstretched before her. Twilight and Applejack seemed even more confused by the sudden confidence in the white unicorn. Neon Streak looked to them with an understanding smile.

“That’s a locator, it lets us pin point supernatural energy signatures… handy for telling us if an evil creature is in the area, or for finding a highly energized paranormal object… say, a pictogram for example.” Neon smirked to the two as they caught on to what they were doing. It never occurred to Twilight that the group had known where they were going the whole time.

“So… it works kind of like Tom’s senses?” Applejack asked curiously. The green mare nodded, she couldn’t deny the similarities between the two.

“Well… from what the princess told us, your friend’s senses are a lot more attuned for this kind of stuff. These vials pretty much just tell us what direction something is in, and how relatively strong it is.” Glitterball explained with a slight shrug of disappointment.

“Well Tom isn’t here right now, so I’m glad we have something to tell us where to go.” Twilight added with a relieved smile. The others nodded before shifting their eyes forward to follow Glitterball and her locator.

Eventually the group found themselves entering into a rather large room. There were numerous pipes littering the ceiling, and several machines of unknown purposes to the sides. The machines opened up a short ways into the room, leaving another large space in its place. In the middle of the room, a large symbol was drawn on the floor in chalk similar to the one Twilight and the others saw at the school.

“This must be it then... looks like these are the backup generators to the hospital.” Brimstoke noted while examining the small machines on the wall near the symbol.

“That might explain why the power was cut so suddenly.” Twilight said curiously while inspecting the symbol. “The same thing happened at the school… the power went out, and then all the strange changes to the building happened.” She explained her experience to the group.

“A lot of summoning spells will change the environment to better suit the creature being summoned if they can’t support themselves… if I remember correctly.” Glitterball explained while taking a mental note to study more about the pertinent information before they went on a mission in the future.

While the others studied the symbol on the floor, Twilight decided to explore the rest of the room. Lighting up her horn to illuminate the way, she walked past the odd symbol on the ground and studied the area ahead of it. It appeared as though whoever summoned the creatures also left behind numerous items after they left.

Various scraps of paper with things ranging from illegible scribbles to odd symbols and glyphs littering them were strewn around the floor and a few shelves, spent candles lay haphazardly placed along the floor in places, and a few books were placed in a small stack on one of the shelves.

The purple unicorn picked one of the books up with her magic and scanned through it curiously. She could see that some of it was written in those strange symbols she had seen earlier, but a good portion of it was written in English. Skimming through the legible sections, Twilight determined that this was some sort of instruction booklet on how to perform various magical spells and rites.

“Here we go…” Twilight whispered to herself with an eager smile on her face. She was very excited to finally discover something of worth to the investigation.

Just as Twilight was turning around to announce her findings to the group, a soft noise made her pause briefly. It sounded like something shuffling its feet around to walk. The only reason the unicorn picked up on the quiet sound was due to how often the creatures had made it. She turned around and shifted her head around to discover the source of the noise, only to discover the same shelves and dark, open doorway she had seen previously while searching the edge of the room.

“You alright over there Twilight?” The voice of Neon Streak broke the unicorn’s train of thought. She turned around to see the green mare standing on the edge of the symbol and looking her way while the rest of the group examined the pictogram.

“Yeah, I’m fine… just thought I heard a noise.” Twilight replied while eyeing the open doorway in front of her nervously. She grabbed the other two books and stacked them to carry them away from the edge of the room.

“Well, just be careful and don’t wander off ok?” Neon added while observing the unicorn cautiously. Seeing the unicorn so far away from the group made the earth pony concerned for her safety. Twilight nodded while walking back over to join the group with her findings in tow.

“So how are things going with the symbol?” The purple pony asked with a hint of giddy excitement in her voice as she tried to shift the subject over to her discovery. Glitterball looked up and walked over to the unicorn to dispense her knowledge.

“Looks like a standard summoning pictogram, but there’s something off about it that I can’t quite figure out… Hey wait a minute, what are those?” Glitter asked curiously while observing the smirking pony placing the books she had down on the floor for everyone to see.

“I found some books on magic over there on a shelf… I think whoever caused this must have left them behind.” Twilight explained while taking a cursory glance behind her off towards the other side of the room.

Hearing about their friend’s discovery, Brimstoke and Applejack walked over from the far edge of the symbol to find out what was going on. Seeing the three books on the ground made Brimstoke nod his head in satisfaction.

“Good work Twilight. These should help us find out more about this pictogram after we destroy it.” The stallion commended the purple mare for her findings before looking to Glitterball and Neon Streak with a serious expression. “How about it girls, can we break the spell?” He asked while looking between the two to see who would speak up.

“It’s hard to say what most of the symbols inside this outer circle mean, but we should be able to destroy the pictogram just fine.” Neon Streak explained while glancing to the ring of smaller symbols along the outer edge of the pictogram. She hoped that those books might give them an insight about the strange nature of these symbols.

“Alright good, how long do you think it will take Glitterball?” Brimstoke asked while glancing over to the white mare. Glitterball lit up her horn and read over the symbol a few times to estimate an answer.

“Looks like it might take me around six minutes to do by myself…” Glitter stated with a satisfactory nod while dimming her horn. Brimstoke smirked and nodded in satisfaction as well.

“Take your time… we have all the time in the world right n-” The stallion paused suddenly as he was interrupted by a loud noise erupting from outside the room. Everyone spun around to see numerous dark shapes moving into the room from the doorway they came through. The shapes flooded into the room and blended into the pitch black shadows that were just outside the unicorn’s source of light.

Although they couldn’t see the creatures, the ponies could hear them as they growled and snarled at their prey with deep, almost demonic sounding voices. The sound of the creatures’ roars and growls made the ponies’ spines tingle as it almost overwhelmed their ears.

“Everyone turn on your lights!” Brimstoke instructed to his team while reaching down to his vest and turning on his flashlight. Neon Streak and Glitterball did the same to increase the amount of light in the room.

“Wait a minute! I don’t think these things are affected by normal light anymore!” Twilight stated nervously as she recalled her previous experience.

“What do you mean Twilight?” Applejack asked curiously.

“When Nurse Redheart and I were coming upstairs, one of those things attacked us. I tried using my light on it, but it didn’t seem to even notice it.” Twilight explained in a troubled tone.

“What?! But we’ve been walking around this hospital for around an hour with only flashlights to protect us!” Applejack replied with a shocked expression. She couldn’t believe that at any time they could have just been carried off by these monsters when they thought they were safe.

“Your friend Tom informed our friend Sunspot about that already. Apparently these things were just toying with you to make you more afraid. They would have eventually just ignored your flashlights entirely and fed off of your fear as they attacked.” Brimstoke explained with a serious expression. This only made the two even more frightened.

“I can’t believe these things have just been toying with us!” Twilight exclaimed in frustration. Two ponies died because of the creatures, and they were just playing with them the whole time.

“But why have we been using normal light to see down here if you knew?” Applejack asked nervously, she wondered why their only source of light had been the light from Glitterball and Twilight’s horns.

“They aren’t hurt by normal light, but they can’t teleport inside normal light either. If we saw one, we would have taken care of it with the strobes, like the one that jumped you.” Neon Streak explained in a softer voice to prevent Brimstoke from adding anything else in his seemingly careless tone.

“We have nothing to worry about now, let’s just hurry up and destroy this pictogram so we can get out of…” Brimstoke was suddenly interrupted by a loud shriek from behind him. He turned around just in time to see one of the creatures leaping at him, only to be gunned down in a blaze of light and black smoke by Neon Streak and her strobe.

“Damn it!” Brimstoke exclaimed while steadying himself and pointing his light forward. Neon Streak and Glitterball pointed their lights around the group to form a protective circle. Twilight and Glitterball’s horns would provide enough light to protect the area around the symbol, but everywhere else was fair game for the creatures without the assistance of the flashlights.

“We need to keep our lights between us and them so they don’t teleport behind us. Glitter, do you think you can handle destroying the pictogram while facing that way?” Neon asked the white unicorn beside her with slight panic in her voice. Glitterball nodded frantically while struggling to remain calm herself.

“I can, but it will take six minutes by myself!” Glitter exclaimed nervously while lighting up her horn to begin disrupting the symbol’s magic. Between her nerves, and the fact that she also had to keep projecting her light, the amount of time it would take the white mare to break the spell on the symbol was steadily increasing.

“Get Twilight to help you… in the mean time we’ll keep them from charging the front.” Brimstoke stated while pulling out his strobe and holding it steady in front of him. Neon Streak followed his example and held her strobe in front of her anxiously.

Suddenly, one of the creatures rushed forward towards the group. Brimstoke immediately shot it down with two bursts of light from his strobe. Two more creatures rushed in behind the first one, causing the two ponies to open fire as they contended with the increasing number of monsters.

Twilight looked around fearfully as she listened to the steady sound of the two magical charms firing off mixed in with the beasts’ cries. She could see Applejack was sitting close by, observing the two ponies in front nervously. She could also see Glitterball looking down at the symbol trying to speed up the process every chance she got.

“How can I help?” The purple unicorn asked with a squeaky voice as she calmed herself down enough to help the situation. Glitterball looked up suddenly and tripped over her words as she tried to express coherent thought.

“Oh! Uh... you destroyed a pictogram like this at the school right?” The white mare asked nervously while glancing at the battle taking place off to the side. Twilight nodded while thinking back to how she went about destroying the symbol at the school.

“This one is probably more complex than that one, but it’s the same principle. Just interrupt the flow of energy in as many places as you can until the spell breaks apart.” Glitterball instructed before looking back down to get back to work. Twilight nodded before lighting up her horn to join the white mare in her efforts.

More complex than the one at the school was putting it nicely. This spell seemed to be in a league of its own compared to the one at the school. It had numerous safety measures put in place to protect the flow of energy to different parts of the symbol, like a system of redundant failsafe’s. Not to mention most of the symbol couldn’t even be read by the two mares. It was like they were trying to disarm a bomb, and they had no idea how explosives even worked.

Despite their confusion as to the purpose of the symbol, Twilight and Glitterball frantically interrupted the inner workings of the pictogram to break the spell. While the two unicorns were rushing to put a stop to the monsters, the monsters were rushing to put a grisly end to the group of ponies.

The pale creatures were charging fiercely at the two armed ponies in order to get their weapons away from them. Their mouths were wide open, revealing sharp and jagged teeth jutting out from their black gums. The top portions of their faces were still concealed by their hoods, but the ponies could feel them staring daggers into them as they leapt forward into the light for a shot at ripping into them with their claw like nails.

Brimstoke and Neon Streak were struggling to keep up with the increasing number of attacking creatures. Even with the knowledge that none of them could pop up behind them due to the light illuminating the darkness to their rear, the two ponies had sweat dripping off of their faces as they whipped around to shoot the incoming beasts.

“Agh!” Neon Streak yelped in pain as one of the beasts managed to cut into her outstretched arm before she blasted it. The wound dripped blood freely onto the floor as the green mare ignored the pain in order to continue firing.

“We can’t hold them back much longer! How long do you have left?!” Brimstoke asked while glancing behind him to look at the two frantic unicorns.

“We still have around three minutes left!” Glitterball announced while still burying her head into her work.

“We don’t have three minutes at this rate!” The green earth pony replied through clenched teeth as she looked at the sizable gash on her arm. She felt a little weak due to blood loss, but toughed through the pain in order to protect herself and her friends.

Glitterball looked up and glanced over to the struggling ponies to the side. She then looked over at Applejack, who was still watching the action unfold with dread in her face as she hoped against all odds that the two ponies could hold out.

“Applejack!” The white unicorn yelled to get the orange mare’s attention over the bursts of light and the roaring of the creatures. Applejack looked over to her and walked forward to see what she needed.

“What is it?” Applejack asked while trying not to sound as afraid as she felt. Glitterball reached to her side and pulled off her strobe from its clip. She then handed the vial over to the confused farm pony.

“I need you to go help them while me and Twilight break this thing. Just hold it out, point it at what you want to shoot, and press that button on the top there.” Glitterball explained while pointing to the indentation on the top of the vial. Applejack took the vial and looked at it for a moment before looking over to the battle beside her and gulping nervously.

Neon Streak looked beside her to see Applejack trotting up to join her. She started shooting at the numerous creatures charging them with varied accuracy. After a few moments of panic induced learning, the orange mare’s aim improved vastly.

“Ah should have taken you up on that offer when I had the chance, Neon.” Applejack stated jokingly while flinching her eyes shut to shoot at each of the terrifying looking creatures.

“Don’t worry about that right now… just keep shooting and we’ll make it out of here just fine.” Neon chuckled nervously while trying to appear as confident as possible to ease the orange mare’s fears. Applejack nodded before returning her attention in front of her.

Suddenly, one of the creatures leapt out from the side, catching Applejack off guard. The midnight man swiped the vial from the orange mare’s hooves, causing a painful cut in the process. The farm pony yelped from the pain as the beast prepared to take another swipe at her.

“Applejack!” Neon cried out as she got in front of the farmer to protect her. The creature paid no heed as to which one of the ponies it struck as it whipped its clawed fingers back across. The creature hit Neon Streak across her chest, causing another painful gash in the already injured pony. The force of the strike sent Neon hurdling backwards, taking Applejack with her as their bodies impacted.

“Girls!” Brimstoke was helpless as he watched the events transpire behind him. He was forced to continue firing at the beasts trying to get at him as two of the creatures rushed towards the two on the ground.

Twilight looked up from her work to see her two friends lying on the ground just ahead. One of the creatures was preparing to deal the killing blow to the helpless pair on the floor. The purple unicorn took no time to let her fear dictate her actions and leapt forward while charging up her horn to attack the creatures.

As she stood in front of her two injured friends, Twilight quickly realized that even if she did manage to complete the spell to shoot a blast at one of the creatures in time, there was another monster winding up for an attack at the same time.

Applejack and Neon Streak watched helplessly as their unicorn savior closed her eyes in preparation for the doubtlessly mind numbing pain she would experience from the two creatures mauling her. Just before the closest creature made contact with the flinching unicorn however, it paused suddenly.

Twilight heard the scraping sound of something piercing through flesh and muscle. She wondered if the creatures had already struck her, and the pain had just failed to reach her yet. She slowly fluttered her eyes open to see what had happened.

The unicorn looked ahead to see one of the creatures had a familiar blue tinted sword sticking through its mid-section. The creature’s wound began emitting black smoke before the blade was forced upwards through its entire body, splitting it in twain from the waist up. As the creature collapsed into smoke, Twilight saw Tom standing behind it, holding his sword in place triumphantly.

“Tom!” The purple pony exclaimed happily as she grinned at the human. As she looked over to the other creature, Twilight suddenly saw bright bolts of blue light striking the monster down from the side, followed by an orange pegasus in a suit trotting up to the group with her flashlight on.

“You guys need a hand?” Tom asked with a smirk on his face as he put an arm out to pick up Applejack. After the farm pony was on her feet, she quickly helped Neon Streak scoot backwards and out of harm’s way.

“Sunspot… I thought you were upstairs with the civvies?” Brimstoke asked curiously as he watched the two line up beside him.

“I figured you guys could use some help, so I dropped the pegasus and the kids off with Glimmer and Pepper outside and came down here to rescue your sorry butts.” Sunspot boasted with a smirk on her face while holding up her two locaters for emphasis. Tom chuckled while looking over to the cocky pegasus with a smirk of his own.

“Actually, I sensed a lot of those creatures moving towards a single area, so I decided to head down to investigate. She wanted to come with me, so we dropped the others off outside.” The human stated with a smile as he watched Sunspot’s ego deflate.

“I… was getting to that.” The orange pegasus mumbled begrudgingly while shooting at the creatures around them. Brimstoke smiled as he watched the two interact. He could tell that they would get along just fine.

“Well whoever it was that had the idea, I’m glad you came to bail us out.” The stallion said with a grateful smile before returning his attention to the creatures around them. Sunspot stayed in line with Brimstoke in order to keep a sturdy line of protection, while Tom threw caution to the wind and charged ahead to combat the creatures on the edge of the flashlight’s reach.

The slayer spun around and decapitated one of the creatures as he swung his sword back around. He then impaled a creature and ripped the katana sideways to strike another creature beside it. Satisfied at his progress in cutting down the charging beast’s he chuckled in enjoyment as he smiled excitedly.

“Not so tough when you can’t sneak up on me are you?” Tom yelled with a little more enthusiasm than necessary as he continued fighting the creatures. With the decrease in numbers of creatures due to the slayer’s rampage; Brimstoke and Sunspot were free to watch the boy dispatch scores of the creatures with relative ease as they charged him from all sides.

“Wow… look at him go.” Brimstoke stated with amazement as he watched the slayer pummel the incoming creatures with a mixture of his sword, fists, and feet.

“I guess the princess wasn’t kidding when she told us about how he saved the elements of harmony out in the Everfree.” Sunspot spoke while picking off the few stragglers that managed to come in from the sides.

“Well, I suppose you don’t get to be slayer unless you can… slay things.” The stallion added while watching the spectacle in front of him like it was a sport.

While the three; or rather, mostly one, dealt with the creatures, the two unicorns were racing to dismantle the spell and stop the beasts from appearing at all. Twilight and Glitterball had sweat rolling down their faces as they strained their magic to destroy the protective barriers of the spell.

“Aha! I got it!” Glitterball exclaimed suddenly while focusing on a particular part of the symbol. Suddenly the entire symbol lit up and started emitting a loud hum. The glyphs on the symbol pulsed with red light as they blinked in succession.

A bright flash of light filled the room as the symbol self-destructed. When the light faded, the pitch blackness of the room was replaced with the average shadows of normal darkness. A loud whirring sound filled the air as the generators kicked back on to restore power to the hospital. The lights flickered on, and the only sign left of the creatures was a few patches of disappearing black smoke on the floor.

Tom turned around and twirled his sword in the air for show. He then stuck it back into its holster and looked to the group with fake disappointment in his face.

“Awww… I was just getting warmed up.” The human smirked impishly.