The Cutie Mark Crusaders In: The Quest for the Cutie Crystal

by SunshineSprite

Part 6

Celestia was roaming around the estranged town that used to be known as the ever so thriving Ponyville. Dear Equestria! What happened here!? Celestia just stared in horror and thought sadly about how much trouble Twilight and her friends might be in. And what about Cadence, or even Luna? Have they been caught too? Celestia paced around the town many times as she wondered what became of her loved ones. Shining Armor came running up, saying that he didn’t find any sign of his little sister or even her friends, not even his fiancé. “Don’t worry,” she said, “we’ll find them.” She tried to sound reassuring, but knew that she was lying to him, and she knew that he knew it too. She also knew another thing: she was lying to herself. What if they didn’t find them? She turned away from him, for she didn’t want him to see her, Princess Celestia, the ruler of all of Equestria, cry. “Princess? Are you alright?” Shining Armor had put a comforting hoof on her shoulder. She jumped and shrieked, startled from the gesture. He immediately pulled away, for fear that he had done something wrong. “It’s-I’m okay,” she whispered. All of a sudden, a shadowy figure dropped on the both of them, the two shrieking at the same time. “It most certainly isn’t alright, my dear Princess Celestia,” Discord said evilly as he shrouded both Unicorn and Unisus in darkness and captured them both. Feeling helpless, all they could do now was huddle next to each other…

Cadence heard the familiar sounds of two voices that she thought she would never hear again. Her door opened suddenly. Then two figures were thrown in and slammed down on each side of her. She looked and saw… Shining Armor! And by dear Equestria, Princess Celestia! Or well, Aunt Celestia, as she called her. “Darling! Aunt Celestia!” She leaned over each of them to see if they were okay. Celestia managed to stand up. Shining didn’t move. All he did was gasp for air desperately.

“Cadence, my sweet,” he managed to say in a rasped whisper.

“Shhhh, hush my dear hero. I’m here,” she said in a comforting whisper.

“Cadence, have you seen Twilight? Or anypony else besides Aria or Discord or their minions?” Celestia asked quickly. Cadence shook her head, explaining that she had been here for what felt like a day. “I never thought that I was going to see you again.” She started to cry when Shining sat up and put his arm around her, comforting her. Celestia then remembered something: the Cutie Mark Crusaders! Oh, I hope that they’re doing alright. They’re our only hope now, she thought worriedly. She quickly explained everything that transpired around her to Cadence. Hearing about the Crusaders made Cadence worry, then relieved because at least they could get away. They also might have a chance. She knew what they were capable of. She knew of their abilities. All they could do now was hope…

Twilight and Applejack had woken up after what felt like days when it was only hours. Everyone else was asleep.

“Applejack?”

“Yeah, Twilight?”

“Do you hear those voices? On the other side?”

“The other side of what, sugar cube?”

“The right wall.”

“Who do you thank that ye hear?”

And then she said just barely loud enough: “Princess Celestia, Shining Armor, and Princess Cadence.”

Applejack just stared at Twilight. Then she heard them too. It really was the Princesses and Twilight’s big brother. Applejack felt relieved, and so did Twilight. Unfortunately, their voices were very hard of hearing, so trying to call them wasn’t really going to work. But at least they’re safe, Twilight thought to herself. Then their door opened. Aria stepped in. The voices on the other side had stopped. Two minions came in and undid the Mane Six. Twilight tried to run, but was snatched up by Aria. She started screaming and kicking. “TWILIGHT!!!!!!” Applejack cried. Twilight turned and screamed out loud. “APPLEJACK!!!!!!!” Just as she was being dragged, she caught sight of somepony in the small window of the door of the cell to the right of the Mane Six’s cell. It was Shining Armor, with tears in his eyes, and Twilight’s in hers. She cried and cried as Aria dragged her away, Applejack still yelling out her name as well as the rest freaking out because they didn’t know what was going on…

The Crusaders looked down at the map. As far as they could see, they had passed through two landmarks on the map. There were a total of six. They crossed off the Heart of the Falls landmark picture and the Castle of the Unisus landmark picture.

“Okay y’all, where to next?” Apple Bloom asked.

“I think it’s this.” Sweetie Belle pointed to the third landmark. It had a picture of a pond with a rainbow over it. “It says here that the next place is called Rainbow Lake.”

“Rainbow Lake? What the buck does that mean? It shows a rainbow and a puddle. Not such a cool name like the others.”

“I really don’t thank that it matters, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom said annoyingly.

“Whatever.” Scootaloo trotted on ahead. The Crusaders headed on without a word for what seemed like hours. “Too bad we don’t have a watch,” Apple Bloom said sadly. The other two nodded and dropped their heads. They continued on, hoping to meet their next destination. As they walked, all of a sudden there was a loud boom, and some strange looking minions appeared. They wore dark blue jester outfits, the hats with bells, yet no jingles to them. They bore masks on their faces, kind of like theatre masks. There were a total of three of them. The one in front wore a happy theatre mask, the one to the left of it a sad theatre mask, and the one to the right a mad theatre mask. They wore shoes that were like elf shoes, with the curved tips. They also had bells, yet didn’t jingle. The bells were so old and rusted, and a very disgusting brown. Their hands were a depressing grey, very wrinkly and had deeply yellowed nails that were about two and a half inches long. “Eew!” the girls squealed. They got on their back legs and started running backwards. Sweetie Belle tripped on a rock and went down on top of Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. “Ow! Ouch! Hey! Yikes!” was all that the girls said as they went down. They landed in a huddle with a painful thud. “Ehehehehehe,” the leader giggled. The other two started giggling strangely as well. The Crusaders were very confused. The three weirdos started bouncing up and down and ran circles around the Crusaders. Sweetie whispered to Scoot, “I think these guys have totally lost their marbles. They’re completely bonkers.” Scoot turned to Sweetie and nodded. “Yeah, I know.” Then the minions started to sing way off key, saying weird things like “Oonga” and “yile a mod” and “dsjfjdsifjiejrfioefewfdjf!” Suddenly, a whiff of dark purple dust appeared. And then, a dark shadow. It was Aria! “Thank you, my oh so wonderful loyal subjects. You can go now.” She shooed them away, and they disappeared into the dust. “Now then,” she scowled, turning to the Crusaders. “What to do with you little brats…” She tapped her chin with her hoof and started pacing slow circles around the Crusaders. Sweetie Belle tried to hide her face in her mane, ears way down as low as they would allow. Aria smiled viciously and grabbed Sweetie Belle by the mane. She squealed uncontrollably. “Leave her alone!” Scootaloo jumped at Aria and bit her right on the butt. Aria shouted out in pain. She dropped Sweetie, who landed on her bottom, and Aria went jumping and dancing from the pain. Apple Bloom fell over laughing and Scoot grabbed Sweetie and pulled her ahead. “Quick Crusaders! Let’s make a run for it!” Scoot shouted. Apple Bloom stopped laughing and started ahead of Sweetie and Scoot. “I’ll get you crazy kids!” Aria shouted out loud.

“I wonder how many times that I’ve heard that before,” Scootaloo joked. They ran off, creating as much distance from Aria as possible. They gasped and panicked as they barely escaped. They saw a forest up ahead.

“Oh great, another forest ta git trapped in,” Apple Bloom complained.

“Hey, would you rather be with that crazy witch or in a forest where she can’t find us?” Sweetie Belle pointed out. Apple Bloom rolled her eyes. They raced off into the forest. As soon as they felt that it was safe, it skidded to a rocky stop, and started to catch their breaths. They were gasping for air and nodded their heads up and down from the force of gasping. Scootaloo looked around their surroundings. “Uh girls, I don’t think that this is Rainbow Lake.” Apple Bloom looked at the map. “Hey hold on, girls. It says here that there is a forest on here. It says below the picture, ‘JUST A SMALL FOREST. DON’T WORRY.’ Humph, guess that means that the forest isn’t dangerous.” And Apple Bloom was right. The forest was only five minutes long. After getting through, the Crusaders were looking upon Rainbow Lake. “Wow, look at the way that the Lake is sparkling,” Sweetie Belle pointed out. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo nodded. They walked over to the Lake. Scootaloo looked down at the water, watching her reflection waver. Apple Bloom looked up at the sky. “Hey, where’s the Rainbow?” She had no idea what had become of it. “I don’t know,” Sweetie said. “It says here that there is indeed a rainbow.” Scoot then got an idea. “What if the Rainbow disappeared? Maybe Aria was being called by her minions from this spot. She could have been standing here. She can use magic, and she can fly, for she is a dark Unisus.” The other fillies agreed. Then Sweetie caught sight of a sparkle in the grass. “Hey, look!” She ran over to the spot. It looked like a piece of rainbow. It was like broken glass. Sweetie gently picked it up. “I think that she broke it.” Scootaloo called over from afar. She had wandered off and found another piece of the Rainbow. Apple Bloom found several. Sweetie then said, “Why don’t we put all of the pieces that we find in a pile.” The other girls agreed to the idea and started working to build the pile. Pretty soon, they thought that they had found all of the pieces. In total, there was around forty-five pieces. “Okay, y’all. Let’s git started on this thang.” They went to put the pieces together, but they weren’t sure how. Then Sweetie put two pieces side by side, and they magically formed together. The three gasped and figured it out. One by one, each piece started to fit together, finally finishing within possibly thirty minutes. Once it was all together, they had to figure out what to do next. “Hang on, Crusaders. Cutie Mark Crusader Sweetie Belle to the rescue!” Sweetie used all of her strength to move the Rainbow back up into the sky. She jerked and gasped, clenching her teeth as the green light from her horn lifted the multi-colored curved plate into the sky. She finally was able to rest as the Rainbow began to glow, once again lighting up the sky. She collapsed, gasping for air as her friends came to her side. Just then, the Lake glowed bright white, and a large spark of light shot out from the Lake. A small shard appeared in mid air, then it turned into a bubble, and then into a large staff. It slowly landed in front of the Crusaders, mainly in front of Scootaloo. “I wonder what this staff is supposed to be used for,” Scoot asked. Apple Bloom got an idea. “Why Scootaloo, I thank that it’s for ye ta use.” Scootaloo turned to Apple Bloom. “Huh?” Sweetie Belle finally spoke up. “Heh, try it.” So she did. And it glowed in her hoof. She realized something then.

“Girls?”

“Yeah, Scoot?” Sweetie and Apple Bloom asked.

“Did you ever notice something? Apple Bloom, you got an amulet. Sweetie Belle, you got a tablet with a song on it. And me, I got a staff. Don’t you get what it means? We each have a special item to help us get the Cutie Crystal to save Equestria.”

“Oh,” the other two said.

“So, by golly we’ll do it! Am I right Crusaders?”
“Yeah!” Sweetie and Apple Bloom cheered together. They each high hoofed each other. Then they set out to find the next location: The Hills of the Lost. They crossed off Rainbow Lake on the map, and then took off to find the Hills…