//------------------------------// // Chapter 19: Neighsay's Shocking Secret // Story: My Zodiac // by xd77 //------------------------------// Nathan and his friends were in the throne room seeing if they could try and use the map to locate the EEA headquarters, they had searched all over the map from Mt. Aris all the way to the Dragon Lands, but no matter which section of the map they looked at, there was no sign of it anywhere. Nathan on the other hand, was just about ready to call it off and just find a way to help save Zodiac from the pits of Tartarus when all of a sudden, his hands started glowing and without warning, body parts of the young six began glowing as well, from Smolder's scales to Gallus's front claws. "Whoa, what in tarnation?!" Nathan asked surprised. "What is this!?" exclaimed Smolder. "Yak find this weird." said Yona. "Guys look at this!" Silverstream said pointing to the map, it had an emblem of all their body parts floating around what appeared to be Canterlot, and then the map zoomed in to the location of where the EEA headquarters was. Nathan knew this map would only be used to summon ponies to friendship problems across Equestria, but it never helped them lead a mission before. "This is peculiar." said Nathan. "What's so peculiar?" asked Smolder. "Well ah've already known that the map would call out somepony to solve a friendship problem somewhere in Equestria, but it seems like the map is directing us to where the EEA is!" Gallus was surprised, the professors had taught them about the map and how it called the ponies to help with a friendship problem before they built the school, but it had never navigated for them nor called creatures like them to help. "Hey, it looks like the map is showing us where the EEA headquarters is." said Ocellus. "And from the look of it, it appears to be right on the edge of Canterlot, not far from Celestia's School for gifted Unicorns." added Nathan. "Well there is just one problem, how will we get in?" asked Silverstream causing everyone to ponder because she did have a point. "You just leave that up to me." said Nathan, "Ah've got a plan, now listen carefully....." Later that evening in Canterlot..... "Okay so you want me and Smolder to distract the leaders and trick them into leaving, by having us dump rodents and bugs on them and saying the whole building is infested?" asked Silverstream. "Yes and while y'all have 'em distracted, Gallus and ah' will sneak into Neighsay's quarters and inspect, Yona, Ocellus, and Sandbar will keep watch, while Gallus and ah' are inspecting, are we clear." "Just one question," interrupted Smolder as she got in Nathan's face, "what if this ends up being nothing more than a wild goose chase, find nothing, and end up locked up for breaking and entering?" "Then, we'll just have to suffer through it." answered Nathan, "Now let's get to our stations; Smolder, Silverstream, get to the main entrance, the rest of y'all on me, we're locatin' Neighsay's quarters." "Gotcha!" said both Silverstream and Smolder and they flew off into an open window as the rest stayed outside and hid beside the entrance. "Wait for the signal." whispered Nathan. "Wait for it." he said again, and right on cue, they heard smashing, rattling, and banging coming from inside. Nathan turned his head to see thousands of EEA employees running out the door and into the night with the last two being Silverstream and Smolder. "AND STAY OUT UNTIL WE TAKE CARE OF THE RODENTS!!!!!!!!" screamed Silverstream as she and Smolder turned to the others. "Did they fall for it?" asked Sandbar. "Sandbar, I'm pretty sure what we saw would answer that." replied Ocellus. "Now, let's get in." said Gallus, but once they were inside, it was huge. "Holy crud, this place is bigger than the Galleria!" said Nathan, with his voice echoing through the corridors. "How are we going to find Neighsay's quarters in a place like this?!" screamed Ocellus. "We're gonna have to split up." Said Nathan, "Yona, Ocellus, Silverstream, and Sandbar will take the upper level while me Gallus, and Smolder take the lower section. Now let's get to the bottom of this." As Silverstream, Yona, Sandbar, and Ocellus headed to the second floor of the building, Gallus, Smolder, and Nathan took the bottom. Upstairs..... "Look at all these doors, it would be much more simple if these doors had names on them." griped Ocellus. "Yak think this is stupid." grumbled Yona. "Maybe Smolder was right, maybe this whole thing is just a wild goose chase." said Sandbar. Meanwhile in Celestia's chambers..... "Look Merlin, I couldn't understand how you could even find out about pony magic being that absorbing enough to send to another world, a spell like that hasn't happened in forever." replied Princess Luna. "Look, somepony developed a storm at the weather factory and managed to teleport it to Nathan's world, I found it in this book I recovered from Neighsay's quarters." answered Merlin as he pulled a spell book out from a bag he had been carrying around his waist and flipped to the page that showed the teleportation spells, then showed it to the others. When Thorax saw the spell, he was shocked, "How could Neighsay manage to do this?!" "Yak hate pony that send storm to human world!!!!!!" growled Prince Rutherford. "What a complete disgrace!" said General Seaspray. "When I find Neighsay, I will burn him to dust for doing this to that child!" screamed Ember. "He's going to be hearing from every griffon!" yelled Grandpa Gruff. "This is rather uncanny," said Celestia as she flipped through page after page of this magic book that Merlin found, "Because from the look of it, I'd say he has found a way to rewrite every single one of these spells and make them what they are not supposed to do." Every creature gasped in horror. "What about Zodi, what will become of him?!" screamed Pinkie Pie. "Don't you worry, I've got a plan that just might work." answered Thorax. Meanwhile, back at the EEA headquarters, the young seven were almost having no luck finding Neighsay's quarters. "Aww come on, we've searched every door and hallway in this building!" grunted Smolder. "Come on Nathan, can we just call this whole thing off and focus on rescuing Zodi?" asked Gallus, only to accidentally bump into Nathan who was staring at something in complete surprise. "Nathan, what...." said Gallus, he walked up to Nathan's face and saw his wide-eyed surprised look. "Guys, we finally found it." he said, right in front of them stood two massive doors that had a sign on each that read. Office of Chancellor Neighsay, Associate Head of EEA. "YES!!!!!" cheered Smolder, "You guys find a way to get in, I'll go get the others." she said flying into the corridors. "Well Gallus, it looks like it's just us now." said Nathan as he put his hand on the door knob, much to his surprise though, it opened easily without any lock problems or even typing in a code to unlock it. "That's weird." said Gallus, "what kind of pony or creature would leave his own quarters unlocked like this?" "Beats me, on mah' world no one leaves a door unlocked when they're not around." Nathan said, but they opened the doors all the way, turned on the lights, and were shocked by what they saw; books and tons of them. "Well what are we waiting for, let's get down to work." Gallus said as he and Nathan flew up to the books, Gallus opened one that was written by an old wizard similar to Starswirl the Bearded but his magic was just as powerful as Starswirl's was. "Who's Ice Breaker the Great?" he asked, Nathan suddenly came to thought of the name because the story went that Starswirl and Ice Breaker were rivals in magic competitions when they were in magic school, they never got along and always fought up until one day right after Starswirl befriended Scorpan, the brother of Lord Tirek, a creature known as the leviathan had managed to escape the Celestial Sea and the power of his magic was totally inoperable against a giant of the seas, as for Ice Breaker the Great, he too had to fight the Leviathan. At first, he and Starswirl never wanted to fight together because of their rivalry and complete hatred towards each other. But due to the fact that neither one could defeat the monster alone, they both blasted their magic and defeat the leviathan into the ancient abyss of the ocean. "Wow, a leviathan defeated by two of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria and went from enemies to friends." said Gallus. "Ah' know, but what's Neighsay doing with all these books?" asked Nathan reading through one of them. "Hey guys what did you find?" asked Smolder who had entered with the others. "What's with all these books?" asked Sandbar. "Oh my gosh." exclaimed Ocellus. "Yak find things strange." replied Yona. "Found anything Nathan?" asked Gallus. "HOLY CRUD!!!!!!!!" screamed Nathan as he was in the air reading another book and flipping through the books, from what he could tell....... "Ah' think ah' did find somethin', this is one of Starswirl's curing spell books, but the real spells that he wrote have been scraped off and replaced, the same thing is in this book too." said Nathan as he flew down and landed in front of his friends. "But how?!" exclaimed Sandbar. "Guys, ah' think he's deliberately rewriting all the spells in these books in order to defame Starswirl so that the EEA gets full control of all the magic lessons which means he gets to control what spells should be taught in each school." "Isn't that against Equestrian law?" asked Sandbar. "Yes!" shouted Nathan. "Well I must say I am very pleased to see you pathetic creatures discovering my true plans for the Equestrian Education." said an all too familiar voice, the young seven turned around to see Chancellor Neighsay with an evil smile on his face and they stared at him with angered expressions. "I feel it is best for me to make Starswirl's magic look less important that way my version of his spells will work better for the sake of future magic and the power I seek to build in the EEA's positions." "Oh you can have all the power ya' want Neighsay, within the law, and in Equestria there is a law against defaming magic!" said Nathan showing him one book that he read a minute ago. "And your not going to be writing anything when I burn you to a crisp!" growled Smolder while breathing fire from her nostrils. "Yak smash unicorn!!!!!" screamed Yona. Suddenly, Neighsay blasted up his horn and wrapped a rope around all seven of them, they were now tied up and thrown into a corner. "Your gonna lose everything when Princess Celestia sees this!" yelled Nathan, Neighsay laughed. "She will never know because she'll have no proof, now if you don't mind, I've still got a bone to pick with her for taking my funds!" "You won't get away with this!" said Silverstream. "I already have, so get comfortable and accept your detention for breaking into my quarters." said Neighsay and he closed the door behind him, now every kid was captured by Neighsay. "What do we do now?" asked Ocellus. "Just hope for the best." answered Nathan with tears in his eyes. Meanwhile back in Tartarus, Zodiac was on the floor of his caged prison with his hooves covering his face and crying because he was afraid of what would be coming to him since he was all alone in here. "Where are you mommy, Thorax, Princess Ember, anypony any creature?!" "Face it kid, no one is coming to save you!" exclaimed a voice behind him, Zodiac turned to see Lord Tirek in his weak form but staring evilly at him, he had gotten word somehow that this pegasus was Celestia's son and wanted revenge as well on the ponies for banishing him back into this dump prison. "Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life!" he said while laughing evilly as his shadow lured over poor Zodiac's body. "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!" screamed Zodiac.