//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: The Crystalling // Story: The Wild Crystalling // by Pinkie Pie Sweets //------------------------------// Knowing the truth about Sunburst not being a wizard is kind of a shock, but they don't have much time for this. Tiger Lily explains to Starlight that ow will be a good time to restart their conversation with each other. Starlight, Spike, and Tiger Lily goes into the back room to see Sunburst feeling bad, and mostly because of the fact that he is unable to do magic. "Sunburst, are you okay?" Starlight asks with concern. Sunburst sighs sadly and says, "I know it's hard for you to understand, but not all of us end up achieving greatness." "What? Why wouldn't I understand that?" Starlight asks with a shock. She then sits on the chair with Sunburst. Tiger Lily and Spike comes over to them to help out. "Really? You're the protégé of the Princess of Friendship! I don't think she picks just anypony for that!" "Technically, she's more of a student than a protégé," Spike remarks. "And I'm Twilight's student too," Tiger Lily adds. "Whatever. I'm sorry I'm not the big important wizard you were expecting," Sunburst says sounding upset. Then Tiger Lily says, "Sunburst, Starlight doesn't care of your a powerful wizard or not. From what she told me you seem to be very knowledgeable with reading spells and other magic." "She's right, but you didn't made it easy by lying me," Starlight adds with a worried look. "I know what I did was wrong, but I was unable to do the spell themselves! Reading about magic is one thing, but you don't know what it was like at magic school! To know so much and not be able to do any of it!" Sunburst explains, sounding very upset. This makes Starlight upset that she outburst explains about her troublesome past, "Well, you don't know what it was like to be left behind, and then getting so bitter that you steal the cutie marks from an entire village and then get defeated by Twilight and her friends, so you travel through time to get back at them, but got you to realizes that your selfish desire for revenge almost cost you a pony who really wanted to be my friend, and then they ended up teach you about it, but you're so terrified ponies will find out what you did that you can't make any friends!" Explaining to Sunburst about everything that has happened in her past upset her enough to shed a fee tears from her eyes. She then whips them off. Sunburst is completely shocked to hear what has happened to Starlight after leaving for school. Sunburst adjust his glasses and asks still a bit shocked, "Did you really travel through time?" Starlight starts to feel a bit embarrassed of what she says to Sunburst. "See? I told you he'd be impressed," Spike says with a smirk on his face. Then Tiger Lily says, "And she did, and the only why she did that was because you lost touch with her. It really hurt Starlight's feelings." Starlight sighs and explains, "It's true, it really did hurt me, and while I was thinking of a way to get back at Twilight and her friends, I met her and she really wanted to be my friend, but I was too caught us with revenge that… I almost lost her in the process." With that, both get off of their seats so they both can talk to each other. Sunburst says, "I'm sorry we lost touch, maybe if I had reached out, you could have helped me at magic school, and I could have helped you to…" "Not become totally evil?" Starlight adds in remarks. Sunburst laughs a bit in the remarks. Starlight laughs a bit as well. "Let's just say, I know what it's like to have something you're not exactly proud of," Starlight says feeling skeptical about it. "When you showed up thinking I was some big wizard…" Sunburst says, but a bit unsure what else to say. "You were so embarrassed to tell her the truth that you decided to let her think that," Tiger Lily adds. "Yeah, I'm sorry. I should have told you the truth," Sunburst apologizes. "It's fine. At least we worked it all out. I think Twilight would be proud of us," Starlight says with a smile. "And you two were able to be fully honest with each other. I guess trying to tell each other about your situations in the past is what holding you two back," Tiger Lily adds with glee. "Right," Starlight replies, wink her eye at her. The four are glad that everything has worked out for them. In fact, Tiger Lily and Spike are glad that Starlight and Sunburst are glad to be friends again. Sunburst then says while looking at Tiger Lily, "By the way, I don't think we were properly introduced and I've noticed you are an alicorn too." Tiger Lily and Starlight blush and shyly says, "Right." "Sunburst, this is my friend, or should I say, my cousin Tiger Lily. Tiger Lily, this is my old friend Sunburst," Starlight introduces the two to each other. "It's nice to meet you, and… sorry for you know, yelling at you earlier, " Tiger Lily says, and apologizes. "It's nice to meet you… too, and… that's okay," Sunburst asks looking a vit surprised to hear who Tiger Lily is. Then Sunburst says with amazement, "Wow, your cousin is an alicorn!" "Yeah, I was very surprised when I first found out. What's more, she's born as an alicorn just like the baby is," Starlight replies. "Amazing," Sunburst says rather impressed by it. "Well, if you ever want to tell more about your lives, we should probably leave now!" Spike says looking at the window to see the storm is getting worse. Starlight and Tiger Lily realizes that Spike is right. "I forgot to tell you! They're evacuating the city!" Starlight says with a panic. Starlight then starts to push Sunburst with Tiger Lily and Spike dragging him as she says, "You need to get to the train station, unless you've got a spell here that will drive back the Frozen North and fix the Crystal Heart so the baby can have her Crystalling?" Just then an idea hits Sunburst, "Crystalling...!" "Of course!" Sunburst exclaims as he runs to the bookshelves. Sunburst then uses his magic to find some books and see different spells. Starlight, Spike, and Tiger Lily look to see what Sunburst is doing. Tiger Lily turns to the others and says, "I think Sunburst has an idea." "I do, but I need your help gathering the spells we need," Sunburst answers with a smile. "Right," The three agree. With that, The three help Sunburst looks through books to see which spell can help with the Crystal Heart. Luckily Sunburst knows every spell in the book. Outside of the empire, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are trying to their best to keep the clouds away, but it's taking a lot of their strength. "Push them back, my sister!" Celestia exclaims while struggling with the storm. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are trying their best to stop the clouds as long as they could. However, the storm is too strong, and the two princesses are being covered in the dark clouds. As the two princesses do their best to distract the storm, Shining Armor and the five friends are evacuating the citizens to the train station. With the snow and ice coming over, it's making a bit of a struggle to get through. "This way!" Shining Armor informs. The girls along with shining Armor try their best to keep the storm away and help the ponies get through. Rainbow is able to bust some of the clouds, but the snow and ice freeze her wings, so she lands so she can run with the others. "Just a little bit further, y'all! The station's just ahead!" Applejack informs. The ponies look ahead to see the train station, but they can see somepony heading towards them. As the two groups get closer, Shining Armor and the others can see Tiger Lily, Starlight, Spike, and Sunburst heading towards them. Tiger Lily shouts, "Everypony stop!" And that's what everypony does a the first call. "We have to go back!" Starlight exclaims. "I know how to stop this! Sunburst adds loudly through the storm. "But we need to head back to base where the Crystal Heart was, and fast!" Tiger Lily adds. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna fly towards the others to see the four friends. Celestia smiles to see that her old student is also hear, and knows how to fix it. With further instruction, everypony including the princess head back to the palace to save the empire from the cold. Back at the palace, Twilight is still trying to finish the spell while Princess Cadence wait patiently for it. After a bit more Twilight stop writing and think she has everything. The baby is still sleeping in her carrier. "Uh, I think that's everything?" Twilight says, sounding unsure. Princess Cadance looks ove rhte spell, and says, "It looks right to me, but... there's only one way to find out!" With that, the two are getting ready to perform the spell. Twilight uses her magic to levitates all the pieces of the heart to the bias. Once the pieces are together, Princess Cadance uses her magic to help complete the pieces. The heart doesn make a glow and it's put back together, but it's short lasted because the heart falls into pieces again soon after. The two princesses are shocked and disappointed to see the spell failed. "The spell failed, I don't know what else to do," Twilight says, feeling bad and doesn't know what to do. "An old student of mine believes he does," Princess Celestia informs. The two princesses turn to see that the other two, along with their friends, are back here, along with Sunburst. Sunburst looks to see the damage that has been done. He is indeed shocked to see that the heart is shattered like a broken vase. "The baby did this?!" Sunburst asks with a shocked. "I'm afraid so," Twilight answers. She thes present the spell as she explains, "I tried putting it back together with…" "The spell of Relic Reconstitution. No, that won't do it," Sunburst interrupts, and uses his magic to crumble the paper. Sunburst brings out one of his books as he explains to the group, "The Crystal Heart's been around for millennia. Restoring a relic like this is way beyond one spell. You need to combine it with something else. Something unique to the relic itself. Something that strengthens it and provides it with power...?" Twilight gasps realizing this, and happily exclaims, "The Crystalling!" "Right, if the Crystalling makes the crystal strong over the years, maybe it can help put the heart together. At least that's what Sunburst told us," Starlight explains. Then Sunburst explains, "That, and combining that spell with the light and love of everypony gathered for the ceremony, together with…" "Somnambula's Weather Abjuration to clear away the snow…" Sunburst says presenting the spell to Tiger Lily and Starlight. The two start to read the spell right away. "And a little Fledgling's Forbearance for the parents... Heh," Sunburst adds presenting a scroll with the spell to Shining Armor and Cadence. He then snuggles the baby with his hoof and the baby like it. Then Sunburst says, "That should curb the little one's power fluctuations." The baby happily makes baby noise, as she grabs hold of Sunburst's muzzle. Tiger Lily turns to Starlight and whispers, "If my parents knew about that spell, they would have used it on my a long time ago." Starlight snickers trying her best not to laugh. Princess Cadence smiles and says, "You must be Sunburst. Starlight said you were a powerful wizard." "Oh, I'm no wizard," Sunburst admits. Everypony become shocked to hear that Sunburst is not a wizard like what Starlight thinks he is. Starlight panicky says, "But he studied magic his whole life! You should see his house! And since nopony has any better ideas, what do we have to lose?!" "She's right, I saw Sunburst while we were back at the house, and he seems to know what to do, so I believe in him about the spells will work, so you all should too," Tiger Lily agrees. "Thank," Sunburst says feeling rather embarrassed. The princesses, and everypony else agree to at least give it a try. Cadence levitates the baby to Shining Armor and he pass the spell to Cadence. Shining Armor turns to Sunburst, and says, "I had planned on asking Twilight to be our crystaller, but since it seems like she'll be busy…" Shining Armor then levitates the baby to Sunburst. Sunburst is kind of surprised that he is going to be the baby's crystaller for the ceremony. The baby like being around Sunburst, almost as much as she like being with Tiger Lily. Sunburst happily says, "I'd be honored!" The baby then play with Sunburst's muzzle and her glasses. Now that everything is ready, they have to do this quickly. "Well, what are we waiting for?!" Twilight exclaims with excitement. With that, Sunburst leads Shining Armor, Princess Cadence, and the five friends with the baby in her hooves to the stage of the ceremony where the citizens will be at. Ready to fix the heart Twilight blast her magic at the shattered pieces of the heart and levitating tem to the middle of the base. After all of the pieces of the heart is together, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna use their magic to help keep the heart together. When the finish reading the spell, Starlight and Tiger Lily use their magic to help out as well. The five ponies are doing their best to hold the heart until the crystalling is finished. In front of the empire, all of the crystal ponies are in front of the crystalling stage for the main event. Sunburst who is holding the baby, Shining Armor, Princess Cadence, the five friends, and the little dragon enter the stage to begin the ceremony. Shining Armor and Princess Cadence give their baby girl a kiss, then use their magic to perform the spell that cause the baby to be lifted up in the air. Rarity then open the box with the purity crystal so it will be picked. Sunburst hold the crystal and announces to the citizens, "Citizens! May I present the newest member of the Crystal Empire!" Everypony look up to see the baby princesses as she spread her wings, and unleashes a bright yellow glow. Everypony in the empire cheer to welcome their new citizen or in this case their new princess of the empire. "She's beautiful!" The of the stallion complements. "Oh! It's just so moving!" The other stallion adds feeling like he's going to cry. With that, everypony of the crystal empire nel down and all the love and light within them fill the streets of the whole empire. Seeing the love and light surrounding the empire, Sunburst puts the purity crystal on the street and it's absorb the love and light into it. Sunburst then hurries and jumps to the put the crystal into the heart. When the purity crystal is in the Crystal Heart, the heart starts to make a bright glow, and start to spin around. The Crystal Heart is fixed up and then spread its magic all over the empire. The friends turned into their pony forms, even Sunburst, Starlight, Tiger Lily, even the baby. The power of the Crystal Heart cause the snow and ice to disappear and the clouds to vanish. The baby levitates down to her parents, and the couple are happy to have their baby. One of the mares happily say, "Best Crystalling ever!" Back at where the heart is everypony come to see the little baby alicorn. Starlight, Sunburst,and Tiger Lily look to see them glad that the Crystalling turn out to be a success now. "For a pony who isn't great at magic, you did pretty well," Starlight compliments. Sunburst blushes a bit. "Indeed. I'm glad to see you've found a way to share your unique gift, Sunburst. You may be more of a wizard than you think, Princess Celestia replies. "I agree," Tiger Lily agrees to the statement. Starlight, Sunburst, and Tiger Lily smile happily. What makes this more happy is that Tiger Lily ends up with not one but two, the little baby alicorn, and Sunburst. The Crystalling has turned into a bit success and the empire is saved once again from hard.