Chương 154: Scourge of The Crystal Empite.
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Yeah sorry bout the long wait, I had been constantly stressed with all the exams at the university and still am, and it's really hard to get into the mood to write anything when all I'm thinking about is whether I shouldn't do something or another three other things for the next week until it's too late.
But we'll whatever. I'll try to be better in the future guys. Hope you like it and like always EEEENJOY!!!
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Shining Armour held Cadence with a pained expression. He should have been more careful. But he couldn't let Sombra get to the girls. He knew that when it came to magic, Twilight was way better as a filly than he could ever be as the Captain of the Royal Guards, yet he still felt anguish at the sight of his wife suffering from so much exhaustion.
He couldn't help her maintain the barrier anymore. Not with those accursed black crystals covering his horn, after Sombra's spell surpassed his own and blasted him away. But what else could he have done? It was that, or letting that monster catch up to them all.
He could feel Cadence tremble in pain as the dark shadow in the distance once again attacked the Barier, making it flicker and revealing the ominous eyes that never once took their attention away from the Crystal Empire.
His gaze swept over the City. He could see that it was working. Whatever the girls found in that book really seemed to make a difference when the Crystal Ponies one after another regained their vigor and...uhh... "crystalishness"? Well, whatever it was called, they were becoming more "Crystal" and less gloomy, and in his opinion that was a good thing.
But in all this, he couldn't find himself in the mood for the celebration. Twilight was off to who knows where, looking for the Crystal Heart with Spike and Phoebe, and He knew that without the Heart, all this positivity was going to be wasted. Twilight said as much before leaving.
It was yet another thing that irked him. The fact that Starfall was not here to support her...It was clear she was going through a lot right now. The weight of responsibility on her shoulders was clearly visible, and it would have crashed a lesser pony a long time ago.
He knew Twilight and Starfall their whole life, and there was one thing he could say with certainty...
Those two were capable of anything when working together!
So seeing her struggling so much without his help really pained his heart...And yet...She was clearly doing well, and he couldn't help but feel proud of his little sister.
He didn't like this. Not one bit mind you. But he understood why Celestia send her alone. Twilight needed to overcome this challenge, not just for the good of Equestria, but for herself. She needed to realize her own worth, and understand that she wasn't just your run of the mill mare. At least he thinks that's what Celestia meant... He was not nearly intelligent nor old enough to understand what goes through the mind of the thousand plus year old Alicorn...Not that she's old of course! Let's hope no one heard that...He wasn't speaking out loud right? She wouldn't send him to the moon right?
Shining armour shook his head with a bit of exasperation. That was one weird train of thoughts right there... *Ugh* right...the headache...
Armour held his head feeling the phantom pain of the black crystals on his horn affecting him and stopping his magic from manifesting.
The gentle touch of Cadence calmed him though, and he couldn't help but fall head over hoof for the mare once again realising that despite her pain she still tried to ease his own with the little bit of strength she could spare while keeping the barrier active.
Twilight please hurry...
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"Oh come on Fluttershy! You can do it! We need to keep the Crystal Ponies in the state of Excitement so that they could power the Crystal Heart... whenever Twilight finds it that is..." Rainbow Dash urged Fluttershy while wearing a medieval armour.
"B-but it's...I..."Fluttershy tried to say something, but suddenly a wild Little Strongheart appeared wearing a golden armour and a lance strapped to her side with a smirk.
"Ye of weak heart! Tremble, as it is I! The Golden Knight! Here to challenge you foul bandit! Cease yer bullying of this fair maiden and prepare for ya beating on the arena!" Exclaimed the petite buffalo, with no shame whatsoever trying to imitate a knightly speech and ending up with a farmer accent to a mock indignation of a nearby Applejack.
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy both tried to hold in their laughter while Strongheart gave them a sheepish grin. It also seemed like the Crystal Ponies appreciated the entertainment judging by their magic slowly returning alongside their increasingly positive mood and excited chatter.
"Well? What shall it be?" She asked and Rainbow quickly picked up her own lance, her grin ever present.
"Hear ye! Hear ye! A jousting match is here! Golden Knight or what ye say, I shall beat up yer ass today!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed in a broken rhyme, joining Little Strongheart in the fun while Fluttershy couldn't contain it anymore and started to uncontrollably giggle on the side while Applejack exclaimed "hey!" from between the crowd despite also sprouting an amused smile.
Guess there was no problem with the entertainment in this part of the fair...
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"Gather round everypony!"Meena jumped onto the stage wearing a jester's costume.
"Young and Small Big, old or grumpy!" Added Pinkie while joining her sister in a similar outfit but with reversed colours.
"We will turn those frowns upside down!"
"Maybe play a flugglehorn too!"
"No Flooglehorn for you Pinkie! Doctor's order!"
"What! But whyyy!" Pinkie whined and Meena smirked.
"Because I'm going to play it myself!" She exclaimed taking the crystal instrument out of a box at her side with a sparkle of mischievousness that instantly made Pinkie Pie grin.
"Well, then it's only alright if I join you, am I right or am I right!" She said not really asking as a bunch of other instruments suddenly appeared being pulled from behind the scene by a huffing and wheezing Philip.
The young Phoenix looked at the two girls slightly annoyed and send a puff of green fire towards Pinkie Pie before leaving making Meena chuckle.
"I told you he wouldn't like it." She said smugly as Pinkie rolled her eyes not loosing her ever present grin.
"He's just doesn't appreciate art!" She remarked picking up all the things and getting ready to play.
It was clear for everypony that the entertainment was only just starting...
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Twilight run down the long, long, abandoned stairway, hidden under the throne room...It was a stroke of luck that she found it honestly...Had she not noticed the magical fluctuations around the crystal adorning the throne, she might have not figure it out at all. She was glad that she spend so much time studying Starfall's Mage Sight, even if she still couldn't use it herself, as it gave her a lot of insight into other ways of sensing, identifying and quantifying magic.
Although she was starting to have suspicions that something wasn't right with this place. She was almost certain that the stairway was actually using some kind of illusion or space distortion to make it appear much longer than it is, as she very much doubted that somepony would actually build a spiral staircase that went hundreds of meters underground.
"Are we there yet?*Wheeze*" Asked Spike while breathing heavily from running down the stairs for the last few minutes.
'Its just a few more turns brother! Don't worry!' Phoebe called out through telepathy, and even Twilight sighed in relief.
Before long The trio stood on the hard floor at the bottom of the seemingly endless well, and only a single door were what awaited them.
Of course that was not the end of their troubles, as the moment they tried to approach the entrance, the ominous doors actually decided to go on a walk and moved over to the opposite side of the wall with a loud rumble...
Twilight looked at the doors with an annoyed expression. This day was only getting better...
They didn't try catching the doors for any extended amount of time as Twilight quickly noticed the spells woven into the doorframe, after using her own bootleg version of magical perception formed into a spell.
She wasn't very knowledgeable about the dark magic of King Sombra, but she could tell that many of the spells on the doorways were based on already existing unicorn magic, and while she couldn't say for certain what each part of the enchantments did, she could recognise a few of the similarities.
There were actually three definite ways of stopping the doors from running that didn't require brute force.
She could use Sombra's dark magic on the crystal and open the doors, but as far as she could tell there was some kind of trap woven into this method.
Alternatively, she could open them using a positively aligned magic which should overpower the enchantments blocking them from entering. It wasn't considered brute forcing their way, because apparently it was how the spells were designed to work. Apparently Sombra didn't expect anypony to think he'd hide the Heart behind a lock that didn't require his dark magic, and actually hoped they would try just to end up attacked by the previously mentioned trap.
And lastly there was a special lock that did require Sombra's dark magic, but the spell itself seemed to be a much older and woven into a different lock formation which seemed to connect the doors to a completely different chamber with some interesting usage of spatial manipulation.
She didn't actually know which of the two configurations, that actually led somewhere, was the place she was meant to go to find the Crystal Heart, but she had the hunch that the one needing a positive magic was going to be their destination, because the other one didn't seem to have been used for longer that the first one...Huh...Wait... how can she tell?...it's been a thousand years. The only way she thought made sense would be if the Crystal Empire had actually experienced a time displacement!...Did Starfall knew about it? And didn't tell her...
...Somehow she was almost certain he did...Oh She was going to show him her displeasure when she gets home....
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Starfall felt a sudden shudder go down his spine, as he walked closer towards the Barrier, although he somewhat knew that it wasn't because of his current situation.
After all Sombra himself didn't even realize yet that the Unicorn was literally standing a hundred meters behind him...
'That should be the last one...' Starfall thought as he stuck a weird looking crystal device into the thick snow, in a circular pattern around a larger magical device in the form of a pedestal with a large spherical crystal atop of it.
He then proceeded to pour his magic into the pedestal, causing a small tremor of magic to pass through the device as the inner magical generator started to work, causing both the middle pedestal, as well as the dozen or so spike like devices surrounding it to light up with a brilliant golden hue.
The spikes then started to tremble before suddenly lifting themselves up from the snow and suddenly shooting into the sky in all directions, leaving behind them a trail of golden sparkles.
That was also when the snowstorm of darkness finally noticed that something wasn't right, and a pair of large menacing eye, almost reeking with dark magic, finally turned in his direction, although Starfall could see the silhouette of a unicorn hiden in the shadows thanks to his oh so overpowered magical vision.
Starfall grinned sheepishly realising that King Sombra was now focused solely on him, clearly not having any positive intentions towards his person...
"I don't presume you'd be interested in talking this one out, would you?" He called out not really expecting any response, and he wasn't disappointed as the massive wall of darkness descended towards him with a terrifying roar.
"Guessed not..." Starfall mused, dodging to the side as a pilar of shadows impacted when he had been just standing a moment ago.
"So...You wouldn't be a fan of overwatch either?" He asked in amusement as his heart started to beat faster in excitement. He was starting to understand why Spider Man acted like this while fighting villains...This was fun!
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