A smoky gray smoke cloud filled the room as well as outside where the bomb had exploded.
We were all covered in soot and all the glass from the clock window was blown off and scattered all over the hideout’s red carpet.

“Is everypony alright?” Applejack said non-visibly from the smoke covered room.

“*COUGH* I CAN’T SEE I CAN’T SEE!” Fluttershy started to panic.

“EVERYPONY! GET DOWN BELOW THE SMOKE!” I shouted throughout the room as I laid on my stomach so I was below the smoke cloud.

After a few seconds I saw everyone else crouched to the ground with their stomachs to the ground.

“AAH! I CAN’T SEE!” shouted Spike who was still head-up in smoke.

I grabbed his leg and pulled him down towards the ground.

“To the door, NOW!”

We crouched our way towards the door leading to the rest of the clock tower. As soon as we made it to the bottom of the smoke-free area we all gave a sigh of relief.

“Whew… am I glad to be out of that,” Applejack sighed with relief.

“It wouldn’t have happened if Applejack kept her hoof on the bomb!” Rainbow angrily said.

“ME!? You flew in too fast! Anyways Twilight, Rarity where were you!?”

“US!? You think this to be our fault? I can assure you I’m not to blame….. it was Twilight’s fault,” Rarity said with her nose up.

“WHAT!? HOW IS IT MY FAULT!? PINKIE THREW THE BOMB TO BEGIN WITH!”

“No it’s your fault!” Pinkie shouted back at Twilight, which then made the group burst out into fits of arguing and confusion.

What’s with these ponies!? Where’s the teamwork in all of this!? Unacceptable!

I clenched my hoof and said through gritted teeth, “ENOUGH! IT WAS ALL OUR FAULTS!”

Everyone shut up and then began to ponder my outburst.

“Teamwork is essential for the Assassin Brotherhood, and what I see here is a clear example on how NOT a team works!” I said angrily.

“Shadow take it easy,” Rainbow tried to calm me down but failed.

“TEAMWORK is what makes us strong without it we’d all be dead right now! When you were initiated as Assassins by taking the Leap you’ve shown me that I can trust you and that you can trust us. And what I see here is a bunch of Disorganized, Arguing, Sloppy fillies that nearly got everypony killed!”

Everyone was saddened by my painful realisation.

“Without trust is…. is without hope,” I sadly said as I leaned my head down remembering Sniper-Shot’s betrayal.

“Shadow… I… we’re,” Applejack began to say but I hushed her.

“Guess I’m going to have to give you part two of Shadow’s No Nonsense Training,” I said with a small smile.

They may have been disorganized right now, but I won’t lose hope on them.
Never.

“Alright then! We need to go after Dave before he does one of these things again, and I’m sure that if I didn’t take all you along it would be suicide,” I joked.

They saluted me and I turned around to the clock-tower’s main door and opened it wide.

The hell is this?

-------------------------------------------------------

“WHY WAS THERE AN EXPLOSION!?”

“ARE YOU TESTING MILITARY GRADE WEAPONS HERE IN PONYVILLE?”

“IS IT A CONSPIRACY!? BECAUSE I KNOW ALL ABOUT IT!”

“THERE’S GLASS IN MY EYE! ARRRRRRGGGG!”

Practically all the citizens of Ponyville were outside our doorstep shouting out about the recent explosion. All the ponies went quiet when a sandy mare with a grey coloured mane who looked rather important stepped up towards us.

“I am the Mayor of Ponyville and I demand to know who you are and why there was an explosion just now!” she said with her mayoral voice.

Oh crap what do I do? I can’t say it was Dave or it would blow our whole cover plus Ponyville did protect me all this time, I might as well be honest for once.

I stepped forward to here from my group and said with my Ponitalian charm, “Oh where are my manners? I am Shadow-Mark, if this pleases your first question Madame Mayor.”

She merely looked disgusted by my charm while the other rioting ponies grew intrigued with my class, “Shadow-Mark, I’ll be sure to keep a record on that name…. Now why was there an explosion at the clock-tower? Also why are you here? This tower is strictly off-limits for foreigners without permits--.”

“WAIT!” Twilight shouted from behind me.

“Ms. Mayor we already talked about the arrangements for us to use the tower and Shadow here is a member of our team, as for the explosion…,” she trotted over to the mayor.

“I DID IT! I MADE THE EXPLOSION!” Pinkie shouted at the top of her lungs to the group of rioters.

“What!?”

“Oh come on! I went all this way for nothing!?”

“Pinkie… I knew it was Pinkie….”

The rioters grumpily dispersed and all that was left was the Mayor.

“Well… Pinkie don’t let the happen again,” the Mayor said with a stern tone, and Pinkie saluted her.

“As for YOU!” she turned her head to me. “I’m keeping an eye on you… Shadow-Mark…”

The Mayor left us and began to trot back to town. I let out a sigh and pulled out the map Dave gave us.

Ok, if we’re here… then that must be….
A lake?

Then it hit me.

Oh… THAT lake…

I folded the map away and turned to the girls, “Alright everypony we ran into a riot, but unfortunately now we need to head to the lake near Fluttershy’s house. Hopefully we’ll be able to find out where Dave is from there.”

------------------------------------------------------

As soon as we all left Spike came to the soot covered remains of our Hideout, with all the smoke clear he began to clean a table from the black dust.
About five minutes in Spike had a rather bad stomach ache and burped green fire revealing a scroll covered in the word “URGENT”.

“Urgent huh? Let’s see what’s so urgent from the Princess…” Spike opened the letter and he began to read out loud.

“Shadow-Mark whatever you do don’t engage Dave. I repeat, DO NOT ENGAGE DAVE! He has as much power as Discord and he can alter reality…”

“WHAT!?” Spike dropped the letter. “DISCORD!? I better tell Shadow before he gets to the lake!” Spike said out loud and ran for the stairs with Ace flying casually behind him.

He tripped on a loose screw and began to fall down the stairs, “OH NO!”

*OUCH*

Ace fell to the floor squawking with laughter.

---------------------------------------

After walking for some time with the map held in my hoofs we arrived at the lake.

Ok… so if the lake is here then where would Dave be? I can't see him at all.

I was confused as only a large body of water was the only thing I could see, Dave wasn’t there at all and I couldn’t think of anything except the water.

“Here Rainbow, since you’re so good with maps why don’t you figure out where we’re supposed to go from this point,” I hoofed the map to her.

“On it Shadow!” Rainbow began to look at the map extensively.

While Rainbow was reading the map with some help from the rest of the assassins I approached the lake shore and peered my head over to the light blue water.

Maybe….

Taking a breath I swan-dived into the lake and very carefully opened my eyes so I could see the environment around me. Behind me was the wall where the lake met the ground but everywhere else was shrouded in the light blue water. My eyes looked down and met with nothing but a vast void of empty water. I tried to focus my sight closer to the bottom and for a brief second everything flashed darker. I closed my eyes to stop the stinging sensation I felt. I reopened my eyes a second later and everything was fine.

Arg, my eyes must’ve screwed up for a second.
Wow, this lake is deep… I wonder what’s at the bottom.

Suddenly a dark long figure swam a few metres below me. I panicked slightly but it was enough for me to gasp for air. Forgetting I’m still underwater my lungs desperately started to choke on the water and I desperately swam back towards the glowing surface of the lake.

*GASP*

I coughed the water out from my lungs and weakly stood up at the lake bank with my clothes drenched.

“Shadow! Are you ok?” Fluttershy came to my side and supported me as I coughed the rest of the lake water out. “Rainbow Dash said she found a tunnel somewhere in the lake.”

“A tunnel? *cough* Really?”

The rest of the mares joined up with me and Twilight spoke to me, “Yes, while you were ‘swimming’ I came up with a spell that can make us breath underwater and keep us nice and dry.”

She noticed my wet clothes and said with a smirk, “At least most of us.”

“Alright then Twilight, though I think there was something swimming in that deep water.”

Fluttershy had a panicked look on her face, “Something…. Something swimming?”

“Duh Fluttershy there are fish in the lake,” Rainbow told her before bringing me over to her map. “So Shadow, there’s this tunnel right here see?”

“Got it, but judging by the placement of the tunnel it seems likely it’s at the bottom of the lake near the bottom.” I said pointing to the mark on the map.

“Ok now that ya’ll done drowning yourself and scaring each other with fish stories, why don’t you let Twilight do her unicorn magic,” Applejack said a little impatiently.

We all formed a circle around Twilight and her horn glowed a bright purple colour and moments later we were all covered in some weird transparent bubble suits.

“Even though I feel a bit bulky at least my gorgeous mane won’t get wet,” Rarity said with a smile.

“Twilight? If these are bubble suits than anything sharp would burst them?” I asked her.

“Correct, these suits can store plenty of oxygen, combat water pressure, and help us swim more easily underwater. But if anything sharp connects with it the suit will pop and bad things will happen,” Twilight shuddered not wanting to think about a suit being popped 50 feet below the surface.

Well there goes my hidden blades and pretty much everything else.
Though I wonder why Dave would be at the bottom of a lake.

There must be more to this.

“Alright then everyone… Move out!” I said as I jumped into the lukewarm waters. Everypony else followed me in.

With the bubble suit on my clothes I couldn’t feel the water, at least on the outside of my suit.
We all descended downwards getting deeper and deeper towards the bottom of the lake.

“Hey look over there!” Pinkie pointed towards a semi-large hole in the ground.

“That must be the tunnel then, the question is, is Dave on the other side?” I said as we went over to the mouth of the tunnel.

“Only one way to find out!” Rainbow said bolting towards the hole with us following behind her.

----------------------------------------------

“How much further is it? I hope we have enough oxygen,” Twilight said as we swam through the underwater tunnel.

“It’s been some time Twi I’d say we got about 15 minutes left,” Applejack reassured her.

“Hopefully this tunnel isn’t too long, I can’t wait to find Dave and teach him a lesson for nearly blowing up Ponyville,” Rainbow said looking back at Pinkie.

“Ya that mean pony didn’t follow the guideline when making bombs. I ALWAYS follow the guidelines, going outside them would be crazy!” Pinkie replied.

“Pinkie… Nevermind,” Twilight facehoofed.

I do know that Dave is powerful and I know that he’ll do anything to bring his perfect balance to Equestria, but why does he want to meet us under a lake!? More importantly why does he have a Seal?

Maybe I get more answers when I…

We reached the end of the tunnel and came to a vast column of a cave; we were at its ceiling.
I looked down and saw nothing but dark water; I couldn’t even see the bottom as there was almost no sun going through the cave.

Dear Celestia.....

“Wow… this place is so huge!” Pinkie said with a giggle.

“It’s so… deep,” Fluttershy said with a bit of fear.

“Ok Rainbow where does the map say to go now?” I asked her.

She pulled the map from behind her mane in the bubble suit and looked at it carefully, she gasped.

“Hey sugarcube what is it?” Applejack asked her with a puzzling look.

“The map…. it… it.”

“Rainbow what’s the problem?” I swam over to her and looked at the map.

How…. what!?

The map had changed its design from Ponyville and the lake to a large circle with various fish and objects on it, the most distinct was a big bold arrow pointing downwards in the centre of the circle.

“I guess we’re going down then,” I chuckled slightly holding back my fear.

“You mean down there? Where it’s all… dark?” Fluttershy cowered while pointing directly below us.

I looked directly down and I saw something enormous and long moving through the black water and my fear of depth rose up to my chest making myself feel nauseous.

Come on I can do this! I won’t let my fear keep me from doing my mission.

“OK everypony this isn’t going to be easy, though we lost most of our oxygen and I have no idea how far down this cave goes and we won’t be able to see which way is up when we’re down there, plus there might be some creatures down here we don’t want to meet, and…..”

“WE GET IT!” the six shouted at me.

I cleared my throat, “We’ll use the wall to get our way to the bottom with Twilight and Rarity using their magic to make light. But that might be bad considering we’ll be attracting a lot fish towards us…. or something much worse.”

We swam our way to the nearby wall of the cave and sinking our fears we descended downward towards the abyss.
The lighting around us started to get weaker and weaker until it was so dark that I couldn’t see my hoof in front of my face.

“Everyone,” I whispered not wanting to alert any hearing-sensitive fish. “Put your hoof on the wall and use that as a guide, follow my voice I think we're about halfway down.”

“EEEEEEEEEEK!” Fluttershy screamed. “Something swam by my leg!”

We all screamed too when something slippery slid past our bodies.

“Twilight! Light!” I shouted behind to the darkness.

Instantly our area grew to a bright purple and before us was a simple fish.

Flutteshy still screamed.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

“GLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

The fish screamed and puffed up into a spiky ball as it swam away, we all laughed including Fluttershy.

Suddenly my eyes began to sting again and the area in front of me flashed, I saw an enormous serpent-like body swimming a few feet away outlined in red. My eyes readjusted and I looked in front of me and saw only blackness.

The hell was that? It looked like the snake that threw me that one time when I was giving assassin training to the mares… But why was it red? Was it my eyes?

Am I having….. vision problems?

No way am I eating another one of Mareio’s body correction shrooms, speaking of which I wonder how he’s doing…

--------At the Assassin Hideout------------

Mareio whistled a merry familiar tune as he entered the clock tower on the ground floor. He didn’t notice Spike who was still lying on the floor with a broken arm and tripped over him landing on his face.

*SQUACK CAW CAW!* Ace laughed who didn’t bother to help Spike as the other assassins were away.

“MAMMA MIA! Spike what are’a you doing on the ground?” Mareio helped Spike up to his feet but Spike immediately fell down after and clutched his arm in pain.

“AH! THE PAIN! I think it’s broken, but Mareio you gotta listen to me! You need to warn--,” Spike started to say but Dr. Mareio shoved a yellow mushroom into Spike’s mouth.

Spike swallowed it and said with disgust, “Eueh that’s nasty but… hey I can stand again and my arm's all better!"

He got up to his feet and shouted with might, "I HAVE THE POWER!”

Dr. Mareio had a smile that looked almost sinister, “Wait for it….”

Spike's arms sagged to his sides he desperately tried to move his arms up but they only swung around like a spaghetti string.

“AAH! I can’t move my arms!? What is this…. Wait…… you didn’t give me THAT shroom did you? Please tell me you didn’t!” Spike pleaded to Mareio who merely laughed.

“PAINFUL URINATION!” Mareio shouted with happiness.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!”

-------------------------------------------------------------

We descended down even further until we actually reached the bottom of the cave.

“Ok girls, I think there should be another tunnel nearby. Twilight and Rarity can you both focus your magic to illuminate the floor as much as you can?” I asked them.

Almost immediately the entire floor of the cave lit up and I saw a hole a few metres away from where we were. The problem was it was surrounded by sharks and a slightly pissed of sea serpent that hates me, a lot.

“Everypony swim! SWIM AS FAST AS YOU CAN!” I shouted as the creatures swam towards their prey, us.

We rushed towards the hole narrowly getting eaten by a passing great-white, I hoofed a shark in the nose and it swam away in pain but the other sharks started to circle around me.

“SHADOW HURRY!” everyone said from the safety of the hole.

I was about to swim their direction but a 50 foot snake headed straight towards me with its mouth wide open and it’s glistening teeth shining through the fading light of Twilight’s spell.

"WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH!?" I shouted at the snake as it engulfed me with it's open mouth.

It closed its jaws together with a snap.

“SHADOW!” everypony shouted in shock.

The serpent licked it's lips and did a smile of satisfaction.

"No it can't be... it just can't be!" Applejack started to cry.

"Oh Shadow..." Rarity said with sadness. "He had so much good planned for this world."

Without giving the ponies a chance to mourn the serpent swam towards them looking for more prey to eat.

Suddenly it's eyes went wide the serpent’s mouth opened with Shadow holding the serpent’s teeth open to prevent it from closing with his hooves, two on the top two on the bottom his bubble suit was broken.

“SINCE WHEN DO SNAKES HAVE TEETH!?” I joked at the ponies as the snake plunged its head into the hole with me along with it.

I released my hold on the snake and swam outward into the tunnel with the rest of my friends just as it’s jaws clamped shut. It started to wiggle and drive it's head back into the hole, it snapped it's white sharp teeth at us which was merely a few inches from my muzzle.

“It’s too big! It can’t get in!” Rarity noted.

The serpent gave on last final push and thrust his head towards us making a current in the water.

“AAAAHH!” we all shouted as the current pushed us further down the tunnel and my suit popped from the pressure.

---------------------------------------------

I opened my eyes and found that I was still breathing even though my bubble suit was destroyed and that the other’s suits were also destroyed and they were all safe too, more importantly we were on solid ground with no water.

"SHADOW!" Applejack hugged me hard and I fell to the ground.

I gave her a reassuring smile and she blushed slightly hugging me tighter, it followed by with hugs from the other ponies who dog-piled ontop of me.

"Too...much...hugs..." I said weakly with 6 poines all ontop of me crushing my lungs.

“Where in tarnation are we?” Applejack got up to her hooves followed by everyone else after the confirmation that I wasn't eatten.

I looked around us and saw that we were in a brightly lit cave; the walls were covered in torches and behind us stood a tunnel with water floating behind a weird magical wall.

“Glad you all made it out ok, did you have a nice trip?” said a voice behind us.

I quickly turned back in front of me and saw Dave typing on a laptop while sitting on a flat stone the Seal was by his side. He readjusted his bold glasses and he gave a sinister smile.

“I was wondering when you’d show up.... Assassins.”

Author's note: I apologize for how long I took for this chapter, playing Mass Effect 3 had it's costs but I did finish it in 4 days so my writing schedule will hopefully improve back to normal as I have a lot of ideas I want to get out, plus a fight scene I want to try. Again any feedback is accepted as it'll make this story better in the long run. And my plan so far says it is long.