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I Met a Pony In Hell (And We Kicked Ass Together)

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Chapter 1: Chapter One: The One Where I Exposition the Hell Out of This Story

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If there’s one thing I hate about troll blood, it's that there’s never enough of it, not enough to wash the mind of all its clutter, or the heart of all its bullshit, or the whole body of all its cluttershit. You would think evolution would know better than to make us creatures of carnal violence when carnal violence itself does little to make us better people, better citizens, better football coaches, or what-have-you. I think that, all my life, I wanted for something like this to happen. I wanted to tear loose on an underworld sea of meat and emerge on the other side all bloodied, enlightened, and Charlie Sheened like there was no tomorrow. The only problem was, there was always a tomorrow, at least until Sisyphus dragged my lazy ass down to the depths of Walt Douchebag World.

I’m starting to lose myself here. Where was I? Oh, right, troll blood. Anyways, the world around us stank with the smell of those ugly fuckers' insides. I closed my eyes as the heat of the moment took me someplace far away, someplace a little less hellish, a place where I could be sitting with a cold beer and an entire evening to piss away my troubles.

But, once again, I heard Lyra's voice shouting through the mayhem. “Shawn! Help me!”

My eyes flew open. Three trolls were charging at me across a metal platform, their drooling mouths wide open in a violent war cry. Time resumed its nightmarish spin, and I was already swinging my sword at the suicidal trio.

A head came loose. Another punk's throat split down the middle. Finally, the third attacker fell onto the length of my blade, twitching and spasming as my sword dug its way through his chest, impaling him.

“There're too many of them!” Lyra squeaked. The tiny unicorn was panicking. I could hear the silver plates of armor rattling around her body as she launched green bolt after green bolt at the advancing wave of attackers. “Shawn, what'll we do?!”

I grunted to myself. Damn horse. With a rear end that big in proportion to her head, you’d think she’d have the ability to hold in her piss. To answer my partner, I ripped the blade out of the dying troll, dashed towards Lyra's side, and attacked the assailants approaching her flank. My sword deflected their rusted blades, lopped a few decrepit limbs off, and reduced their desperate offense to a pile of blood and guts.

“The hell's taking them so long?!” I shouted, my voice echoing across the far walls of the chamber. I felt the metal collar around my neck tightening with each heavy pulse of my arteries. Lyra and I stood side by side at the top of a steep flight of stairs, fighting off a frenzied wave of monstrous freaks. We had spent the better part of six hours trekking through the damn labyrinth just to get there. Right behind us was the door to the next chamber, our ticket to safety—for the next few hours, at least. “Did they take a wrong turn?!” I grunted as I parried a growling orc's axe strikes and stabbed him in the eye. “Goddamn idiots should have stayed within sight!”

“I think the second wave is holding them back!” Lyra exclaimed, firing green bolts at the line of attackers at the base of the stairs. “I really wish they'd hurry!”

I yanked my blade out from the orc's skull. As his body fell like a wet sack of meat, I breathlessly gawked at a line of archers positioning themselves two dozen feet away. “Lyra—!”

“I see them!” She squatted as her face tensed. “Get behind me!”

Not one to argue with a magical equine’s assertiveness, I knelt next to Lyra’s tail.

Her horn gave off a bright emerald glow. The air around us crackled with invisible popcorn as a she erected a green shield in front of us. The troll and orc archers launched a volley, only for their many projectiles to shatter and bounce off her telekinetic barrier. I took advantage of the moment by standing up, gripping my sword like a spear, and chucking it over the top of Lyra's shield.

My blade flew through the air like a missile and embedded clean through the chest of a shrieking troll. The poor sap fell to the ground as his four friends nocked a new pair of arrows.

“I got 'em!” I was already unholstering the two automatic crossbows at my sides. I vaulted over Lyra's shield and aimed both weapons in mid-sprint, firing a sea of iron bolts. The archers shrieked and gargled their own blood as my projectiles flew into their necks and throats. One orc survived; he leered back and fired an arrow at my charging body. I ducked his projectile, slid on my knees, ripped my sword out of his dead companion, and stood up with a violent upswing. His torso split deliciously in two, and he fell in a puddle of his own blood and piss.

I stood, panting, staring down the steps as several more orcs and trolls ran to take up the bloody slack. Beyond them, I saw the great yawning expanse of the granite-and-metal chamber. The unnatural cavern echoed with war cries and the tortured screams of our dying foes. I tried to see where our two allies had disappeared to, when I felt a shock to my system.

“Augh!” I winced and clutched the metal collar around my neck. Sneering, I turned around. “Lyra?! What the hell?!”

“I'm sorry, Shawn!” She said, wincing as the collar around her own neck just finished giving her a similar shock. She trotted over until she was once again within ass-kickable distance from me. “But you know I can hardly keep up when you run off like that—”

“Never mind,” I grunted. “Just get the door open.”

“But...” Her eyes stretched wide under her silver headpiece. “But what about Blake and Thunderlane—?!”

“What about Kevin Costner’s tanking career?!” I spat. “We can't wait forever! Sisyphus has sent his entire fucking army!” I pointed at the reinforcements charging up the steps. “We're dead meat if we stay here! Now open the goddam door!”

“Okay!” she said, her body shivering. I swore to God that I was going to rip her horn off if she fainted right then. Thankfully, the little pony settled her nerves. She galloped up to the door and used her magic to fiddle with the stone barrier's complex locking mechanisms. As I heard the metallic tumblers clicking through the wall, I spun to look down the stairs, and immediately wished I hadn't.

An orc was charging me with his axe. I deflected his blow, only to see a troll coming up to my right and stabbing low with his dagger. I kicked him in the shoulder so that his blade stuck the steps below my feet. As he recoiled, I pivoted my sword and sliced into the ribs of the orc to my left. My other hand grabbed his axe and slammed it down into the troll's skull. As the monster rolled down the steps, I spun with my blade and cleaved the orc's head off.

Covered in blood and sweat, I teetered on the top of the stairs and grunted, “Lyra! The door!”

“I'm working on it!” she shrieked. A pair of arrows embedded into the doorframe behind her. “Eeep!”

I spun to see where the projectiles had come from. I saw two bastards perched high on a metal platform fifteen feet away. Before they could reload their arrows, I tossed the axe so that it lodged itself in one archer's throat. He fell down as his partner growled and aimed at me, only to receive a metal bolt to the eye. I lowered the crossbow in my grip and holstered it, watching as the second archer fell to the gaping abyss between the stairs and the far walls of the large chamber.

I swear: it felt sometimes like I wasn't ever really fighting in that place. Instead, it was like I was watching a movie of a crazed gladiator in first-person. The art of killing just came to me, like it also came to Lyra—as much as the little mint-colored horsie refused to admit it. Ever since we had both been dropped into that labyrinth like the world's unluckiest turds, our lives had become a psychotic bloodbath played in fast forward. All that mattered was that we got to the next part of the hellish maze so we'd have a few hours to catch our breaths and try not to fucking throw up.

“Any sign of them yet, Shawn?”

“Lyra, you just keep making love to the door, and I'll worry about—” My voice stopped as I spotted a pair of armored shapes slicing their way through a thick army of trolls several hundred feet below on one of the many rusted platforms. “Son of a bitch.”

She briefly looked back from her magical unlocking. “You see them?”

“Yeah, and they're totally screwed.”

“What?!” She gasped.

“The door!” I pointed at the barrier behind us, though my eyes were just as helplessly glued to the scene far below.

I’ve always had good vision, to a fault. From my vantage point, I could see that Blake wasn't in the best condition. His upper body's armor was soaked with blood—red like a human's, not a troll's black juices—and he shuffled across the frenzied battle with a heavy limp. It suddenly made sense why our buddies were taking so damn long; Blake had been hurt. Undoubtedly the moron took a stupid risk and had paid for it. He always was a worthless idiot. Even back in college—back in our normal lives—he was making all the wrong choices. Funny how there, in that deathly labyrinth of all places, he finally got bitten in the ass for his thick-headedness.

“I'm almost through!” Lyra shouted. “Are they getting closer?”

I didn't answer. Telling Lyra the truth would only have distracted her. Blake was collapsing over and over again, wincing in pain from the gash in his leg. I almost felt bad for the winged pony—“Thunderlane,” was it?—cuz he was constantly flying down to lift his moronic partner up. Blake would regain his strength just long enough to parry the attacks of a few orcs, and then in less than ten seconds he'd be falling to his knees, forcing the pegasus to come to the rescue again. It would have been a laughable situation if—well—they weren't being surrounded by bloodthirsty fuckjobs.

“Come on...” I murmured in the hot air of the place, my fingers tightening around the hilt of my blade. “Keep it together. Stop freaking out and you can make it...”

“Shawn?”

“Shhh!” I watched, squinting.

Blake fought off two orcs, stabbed a troll, and stumbled back from a kick to the chest. Thunderlane dove low, bucking his hooves across the surrounding foes. His serrated horseshoes bathed the air with blood and brain matter. He barreled through several orcs, knocked even more off the edge of the platform, and lifted up into the air again.

It was around that time that Blake took a little too long to get up, and poor bastard suffered for it. A troll came up from behind and stabbed him low in the back. Blake's shriek echoed across the chamber. Thunderlane spun, gasping, and dove down to rescue his injured partner. But it was too late; the damage had been done. Thunderlane stood above Blake's twitching body, fiercely bucking the thickening crowd of monsters pooling around them. No matter how bravely he kicked and thrashed at the creatures, they only doubled and tripled in number.

At that moment, a loud whirring noise sounded off in my ears. I was graced with a gust of cool air as Lyra finally opened the door to the next chamber.

“I did it!” she exclaimed, standing in the sudden exit. “But it's gonna close in less than a minute, just like all the ones before! Shawn, we gotta hurry—” She saw me staring down at the mayhem, and her expression paled. “Shawn?”

“Good job, Lyra,” I said in a low voice and began marching her way. “Now let's get the fuck out of Dodge.”

“But what about—?” She trotted briskly towards the edge of the stairs and looked down. “Thunderlane?”

“Lyra—”

“Thunderlane!” She shouted. Her hooves took off the edge of the platform, but I grabbed her before she could gallop down the flight of stairs. “Shawn! We gotta save them—!”

“There're way too many monsters now!” I said, pointing at the literal hundreds that were gathering below us like a sea of rancid meat. “If we want out of this chamber, it's now or never!”

Lyra hyperventilated in my grasp. She looked at the slowly closing door behind us, then back down at the hopeless situation. “Thunderlane! Thunderlane, grab Blake and get up here! Hurry!”

Thunderlane was obviously trying. He bucked the monsters back just for the breathing room to tug and yank at Blake's bloody body. Blake never exercised much. His fat ass, combined with the layers of armor, made it impossible for a buff human to lift him up, much less a winged pony. We could see Thunderlane's panicked expression from afar. He grimaced and began flapping his wings.

Oh for the love of macaroni, tell me he's not—

“No!” I shouted down. “Don't try it! You'll only—”

There was no point in even trying to warn him. He flew high above the sea of bloodthirsty gladiators. He soared towards us. No less than five seconds into the effort, he flew beyond range of Blake's body, and the inevitable happened. The metal collar around Thunderlane's neck flickered a bright blue, and he convulsed in mid-air. His mane literally began to smoke, and soon the unlucky guy was falling into the arms and battle-axes of the rat bastards below. It wouldn't be the first time I'd seen the insides of a pony being pulled apart. As for Lyra—

“Thunderlane!” She shrieked, flailing in my grasp. “No! Please, Celestia, no!”

“Dammit!” I grunted and all but wrestled her to the platform floor. “We gotta move!” I dragged her with me towards the door, which barely had three feet of clearance at that point. Huffing and puffing, I dove the two of us through the thinning frame. The air whistled with axes and arrows being flung murderously at our rear. A barb knicked off my armor and a dagger sliced off some of Lyra's tail hairs. With a crazy-ass slide, we managed to squeeze beneath the door just as it closed with a clap of stone thunder behind us.

Everything was hauntingly silent. We were safe, which wasn't saying much. Before us, a new and ominously large chamber stretched, permeated by winding metal platforms and rusted steps leading to fuck-knows-where. As always, a red crystal hovered magically above a black obelisk, bathing us in a crimson glow.

I stood up, catching my breath, shaking the blood off my sword before sliding it into the sheathe behind me. I heard a tiny, whimpering noise. I groaned, rolled my eyes, and marched over to where Lyra sat in a slump. “Look, we're safe. Let's be glad for that, okay?”

She sniffled. She removed her helmet and wiped a hoof across her tear-stained face as the sobs poured from her lungs. “Th-They were so close. They were so close, and we didn't d-do a thing to help them.”

“Lyra, if we tried, we'd be deader than country music. They'd have done the same in our position.”

“Thunderlane wouldn't,” she stammered. “He's so brave, so selfless. He did nothing but help Blake the entire time they were together. I know that he would have tried to save us. He wants the same, after all. He wants to get back home and... and...” Her eyes clenched shut as she heaved and whimpered, “Now he's gone. Celestia, he's gone.”

“Lyra,” I sighed. “Calm down...”

“Just like Carrot Top and Cloudkicker. This horrible, horrible place took them and I just can't—”

I shouted, “Will you fucking' keep it together?!” She flinched from me, silencing herself with a timid gulp. I frowned and said, “Yes, they're gone! Yes, it sucks! But if we dwell on it too much, we're only gonna end up ripped apart ourselves! I wanna get out of this hell-hole just as much as you do, but I can't do it on my own! So I need you to not lose your cool! Let's deal with these stupid rooms here and now, Lyra. We can sob and blow our noses over the dead later! You got it?”

She shivered, she trembled, and yet she very bravely nodded. “Y-yes, Shawn. I-I got it. Keeping my cool.” She sniffled and dried her tears as she put the helmet back on her head. A red glow poured over her figure. She looked past me.

I turned around just in time to see the red crystal shimmering brightly. The gnarled face of a demonic figure appeared before us like some cheap parlor trick. What wasn't so cheap was the booming voice that echoed throughout the chamber as his fanged mouth opened.

“Congratulations, mortals. You've passed yet another trial. Maybe the bliss of freedom will be yours yet. Maybe...”

“Sisyphus,” Lyra murmured.

I sighed and leaned against a rusted wall with my arms crossed. “I really, really hate this douchebag.”

“He can't hear us, Shawn.”

“Like I give a shit,” I grunted.

The magical broadcast continued. “This proves nothing, save that the denizens of the mortal realm possess the tenacity to withstand a mere fraction of the horrors of Tartarus.” The translucent eyes of Sisyphus narrowed as his face took up the entirety of the crystal's glow. “Because of your participation in this exercise, we will have crafted a finer army for the enemies of our Dark Lord. In another thousand years, when we repeat this experiment, there will be no chance of the outlying dimensions escaping his wrath. Enjoy your victories as much as you wish, for in the end they are only Tartarus' victories.”

“Hey handsome!” I barked at the crystal. “You're breaking up!” I presented both middle fingers. “Want I should adjust my antennae?”

The demon's face grinned wickedly. I wondered briefly for a second if he actually saw and heard us. “The reckoning of the multiverse is coming. Pray for the souls of your two worldsdescendants: that they may suffer less in the inferno to come.”

In a spark of red energy, Sisyphus' face dissolved. Lyra and I were once again alone with our sweat and trembles.

“I've a good mind for him to show up in person so I can shove my sword up his dickhole,” I grunted, marching towards the next line of platforms. “Well, no point in wasting time. One of these chambers has gotta lead to a portal out of this place. You saw what happened with Michelle and Rainbow Dash four rooms ago; they were teleported home as soon as they walked through that one glowing door. The same's gotta happen to us sooner than later, so let's move it.” I suddenly felt a jolt of electricity through my body. “Nnngh!” I stumbled backwards, gripping the metal collar around my neck. I turned around with a heavy sneer. “Lyra...”

She sat in a slump, her eyes clenched shut. If she felt the same shock, the pain must not have mattered to her anymore. “I just don't know what I'm going to tell Rumble.” She sniffled as her eyes began tearing up again. “He's so young. It's going to be awful growing up without an older brother...”

I sighed. “Don't you—like—have a family of your own to get back to? A pony father, pony mother, and a pony dog for all I care?”

“Well, of course, but—”

“But nothing. Let's get a move-on. We can't let Sisyphus have his way, right? You want me to carry you?”

“No, Shawn. It's just that...”

“What?”

She sighed. She put on a brave smile, though her eyes were still moist. “Nothing. You're right. I... I j-just have to be strong.” Gulping, she got up and trotted past me. “I have to be like you...”

I gazed at her as she walked by. I blinked. “Whatever,” I said with a shrug. Together, the two of us marched across the line of platforms and made straight-way for the far end of the ever-expansive labyrinth.

Next Chapter: Chapter Two: The One Where a Sexy Siren Shows Up... Also Apples Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 28 Minutes
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