//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6: A Third Party 
// Story: Friendship Day 
// by Crescent Pulsar 
//------------------------------//

"So-oooo," Rainbow Dash eventually spoke up, who was hoping to make their flight more stimulating while they avoided the interesting forest below them, "we're looking for artifacts?"

"That's right," Twilight Sparkle replied, her gaze on the forest and looking out for anything noteworthy. "There's six of them, and they're called the 'Elements of Harmony.'"

Sounding unimpressed, Rainbow Dash said, "Elements of Harmony? How lame."

"The important thing is that they can stop Nightmare Moon," Twilight Sparkle absently replied, most of her attention still on the forest.

"They better look cool, at least," Rainbow Dash muttered.

About a minute later she had to fly higher to crest a tall, forested hill, and that's when she caught sight of ruins that looked like they could be their destination. Excited that such a thing actually existed, she exclaimed, "Hey, look! That's got to be the place, right?"

Twilight Sparkle looked ahead, to see what was being referred to, and couldn't help feeling excited herself. "Unless there's more than one castle in this forest, then it's got to be!"

There was a large clearing in front of what appeared to be the entrance of the castle, and a chasm before that. Having noticed the pair of stone posts on each side of the chasm, Twilight Sparkle turned about to see if anything remained of the bridge after they made their landing. Surprisingly, not only did a bridge remain, but it didn't look to be in as much disrepair as she would have expected it to be, despite it only being attached to the stone posts on the far side of the chasm.

"I thought we were interested in the castle?" Rainbow Dash questioned, who had been ready and raring to go into said castle.

Eyes narrowing with suspicion, Twilight Sparkle began to walk toward the chasm before replying, "We are, but I think something strange is going on."

"Strange?" Rainbow Dash responded, who followed her out of curiosity. "What do you mean?"

Before answering, Twilight Sparkle used her magic to pull up the side of the bridge that hung into the chasm, until it was close enough to inspect with greater scrutiny. "Take a look at this. Does it look so old that it's unusable, or more like it's new?"

Rainbow Dash leaned in with squinted eyes, looking first at the rope and then at the boards, then frowned and said, "They look pretty new to me." She turned her gaze to Twilight Sparkle. "Has something like this happened before?"

While Twilight Sparkle tied the bridge to the stone posts on their side of the chasm, she chose her words carefully after she nodded her head in affirmation. "I think there's more to this than meets the eye." Once the bridge was secure, she met Rainbow Dash's gaze. "We should keep a look out for anything else that looks out of place."

With a mixture of seriousness and curbed eagerness, Rainbow Dash saluted and said, "You can count on me."

They began to approach the castle, with Rainbow Dash being the only one who had a spring in their step, happy over the prospect of being involved with an awesome adventure. However, that advance came to an end at the base of the steps, where they got a good enough view of the door to be certain that both it and its hinges didn't match the rest of what they could see of the castle, which had clearly been neglected for hundreds of years, if not a thousand.

Both shared a look, and it was Rainbow Dash who voiced the question that they both had. "Do you think somepony's been coming here?"

"Only one way to find out," came Twilight Sparkle's decisive reply.

They proceeded to climb the stairs and entered through the door that had neither been neglected or exposed to the elements for as long as the rest of the castle, let alone a fraction of that time, and entered the vestibule. As could be seen from the outside, the roof was completely gone, all of the windows were shattered, and some parts of the wall had crumbled. Not that anyone could tell by looking at the floor alone, which was clear of even the smallest shard of glass from the windows and stone from the ceiling. Even the vines that had crawled in from the outside had been cleared from the floor, yet left on the walls, pillars and — especially — the structure that dominated the center of the room.

Said structure was a very large stone statue, reminiscent of a chess' pawn in overall shape, which was covered in vines and moss. Unlike a pawn, it had five arms branching out from its center, with every arm ending in a platform that bore a stone ball. Each stone ball had a single, identical, gem-shaped image carved into them.

"Somepony's definitely been here," Twilight Sparkle concluded, noting that even the fallen pillars were missing, despite the wall behind the remains of one being intact, leaving it no place to fall but on the floor inside.

Rainbow Dash looked over at Twilight Sparkle and asked, "How many ponies know about this place?"

"I don't know," Twilight Sparkle replied. "I assume I'm one of the few, because I've pretty much read all of the books about the time period, when this castle was likely inhabited, and I'd never heard of it until the other day."

With a cocked brow and critical look, Rainbow Dash queried, "Are you a historian or something?"

Caught flatfooted by the pointed question, Twilight Sparkle became a bit defensive on reflex. "Well, not officially, if that matters. Why do you ask?"

Rainbow Dash went into a hover so she could cross her forelegs behind her head and casually remark, "With how cool you were about going into the Everfree, exploring an old castle, and maybe fighting a myth, I had no clue that you were an egghead."

"What's wrong with knowing history?" Came Twilight Sparkle's mildly sharp reply, who was as offended as she was confused.

"There's nothing wrong with it," Rainbow Dash answered with a slight grin, "if you're an egghead."

Annoyed that she would tease her in such a childish manner, Twilight Sparkle frowned while she thought of a retort. However, it wasn't long before she was smirking instead, after considering what little she knew about the pegasus and finding some ammunition to use against her. Even as Rainbow Dash's grin vanished in the face of her expression, she began to walk away confidently, toward the statue, while tossing over her shoulder, "I guess it's too bad that you're not an egghead, then, because you need to know a lot about the Wonderbolts' history to join the team."

"Psh!" Came Rainbow Dash's dismissive response, feeling unconcerned. "If it's a test about the Wonderbolts, I'll ace it — no problem."

Twilight Sparkle stopped and looked over her shoulder. "Oh? Then who was the pony that gave the Wonderbolts their name?"

With forelegs akimbo, Rainbow Dash confidently replied, "Flying Inferno!"

"It was Firefly," Twilight Sparkle corrected.

"Big deal," Rainbow Dash said, with a wave of her hoof. "I'm not going to fail a test for getting one answer wrong."

Twilight Sparkle turned around to face her and patiently countered, "Rainbow Dash, not only was that one of the most important things a pony should know about the Wonderbolts, if they were hoping to become a member of the team one day, but it's among the easiest."

Rainbow Dash dropped from the air, her confidence having faltered.

Wanting to drive the point home, because she still looked ready to argue, Twilight Sparkle continued. "They're going to ask you what the event was when Firefly gave them their name, what part of the military they were from, who established their choreography, how their uniform evolved over time, when was Colonel Purple Dart the leader of the Wonderbolts, why—"

"Okay, okay!" Rainbow Dash interjected. "I get it. I don't know why it's important to know all that stuff, but I get it."

"It's important because..." Twilight Sparkle paused, searching for a way to frame her answer so someone like Rainbow Dash would understand. "Even if you're not concerned about how others will respond to your lack of knowledge, should you be a Wonderbolt at the time you display it, it's not all about you. It's going to reflect badly on the team, and how that affects the other Wonderbolts could affect morale — and possibly how long you're a Wonderbolt."

Rainbow Dash remained silent, grudgingly accepting that she had a point, but also because she didn't want to admit that she would care if ponies made fun of her. She could already imagine ponies calling her "Rainbow Dumb" in that scenario.

"Anyway," Twilight Sparkle said, who returned her attention back to the statue, "I was thinking that this statue might be a representation of the Elements of Harmony. The book said that five would be at this castle, and there are five symbols being displayed here. Which makes sense, since the book also said that the sixth element would only be revealed by a spark, if the five are gathered together."

Stepping up beside her, Rainbow Dash asked, "So the real ones might be here?"

"I hope so," Twilight Sparkle replied. "Defeating Nightmare Moon hinges on finding them, after all."

With that said, they walked around the statue and continued until they entered a great hall. There were six doorways there, three on each side, that had stairs leading to other parts of the castle, and a larger staircase at the far end that split left and right, granting access to the mezzanine. Between the wide path that stretched across the great hall from beginning to end, and the smaller paths that led to the doorways, the ground was covered by grass. Above, hanging near the mezzanine, were a pair of banners: one blue, which had a night theme, the other yellow, which had a day theme, and both depicting an alicorn. Beyond that, there was a large hole in the ceiling, which allowed sunlight to illuminate the room.

"There's not as much debris from the ceiling as I would have expected," Twilight Sparkle observed. "Otherwise, I can't see anything unusual."

After looking at what choices they had for their next destination, Rainbow Dash asked, "So, uh... Where do we go?"

"The throne room," Twilight Sparkle readily answered, before pointing straight ahead. "Which is probably that way. There's a chance that the owner of this castle wanted something as important as the Elements of Harmony to be close at hoof."

Rainbow Dash had no objection to that, so they moved forward, with her flying to the mezzanine while Twilight Sparkle used the stairs. From there they continued onward to the throne room, where they immediately noticed that the large, red and gold-bordered carpet was pristine despite most of the ceiling being gone and exposing it to the elements. Aside from a very noticeable discrepancy in the amount of debris there was on the floor, relative to how much of the ceiling was missing, nothing else looked out of place. Even the double doors to the room had fallen off of their hinges and rotted.

"Why would somepony go through the trouble of changing the carpet?" Twilight Sparkle wondered aloud, before adding, "They even went through the trouble of putting some of the pieces from the ceiling on it."

Rainbow Dash replied with the only answer she could conceive of beyond the normal reasons, since those didn't make much sense for this situation, and the tone of her voice made it known that it was a shot in the dark. "Maybe they wanted to cover something up?"

Twilight Sparkle thought about it for a moment before deciding, "Let's see if there's anything underneath it, just in case."

They proceeded to clear the debris from the carpet, with the heavier pieces reserved for Twilight Sparkle's magic. Once the carpet was no longer obstructed, they went to the end by the doorway and began to roll it toward the thrones by hoof. Because they were looking down while doing so, to catch the first sign that there was something odd, they saw it as soon as they reached it: a part of the floor, unlike the vast majority of it, was the same color as the carpet instead of grey. They shared a look before rolling the carpet farther, until it completely revealed that a large, square-shaped section of the floor was a different color.

"What the hay?" Rainbow Dash remarked.

After scrutinizing the different-colored floor for a bit, Twilight Sparkle said, "Let me check something..."

She tried to encase that section of the floor with her magic, and her eyes widened when it worked. Then her brow furrowed and jaw tensed as she tried to move the heavy slabs of stone that she had discovered, which took some effort before they budged, the sudden, loud sound of their scraping making Rainbow Dash jump back. Once she got them moving, though, she was slowly able to move them aside, parting them to reveal a deep pit.

Breathing hard from her exertion, she joined Rainbow Dash at the edge of the pit, who said, "Man, this pit is huge."

Twilight Sparkle simply hummed her agreement as she caught her breath.

"I bet you could fit that statue in there," Rainbow Dash absently added, before realizing what she said and looking over at Twilight Sparkle, who had mirrored her action. "Wait, you don't think...?"

"That somepony took the statue from here, moved it to the entrance of the castle, where it would be quicker and easier to find, as if they expected somepony to eventually come here to look for it, then covered this up so nopony would know that it was originally hidden here?" Twilight Sparkle theorized, her mind racing for answers. "But if that's the case, where does the new door fit in? And the new bridge, which was left to hang? Not to mention how much of the rubble was cleared away, and where..."

Rainbow Dash shrugged and simply suggested, "Maybe they thought nopony would notice?"

Twilight Sparkle opened her mouth to shoot that idea down, but paused when she remembered having a similar thought not that long ago... about the book that had informed her of the castle's existence. Would she have noticed, or cared, about the bridge and door if she were in a hurry to find the Elements of Harmony? And if that statue truly held the Elements of Harmony, would she have assumed that was what they were on first sight if the circumstances were different, more... dire?

She took a calming breath before replying, though she spoke as much to herself as she did Rainbow Dash. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. First, we should try to confirm if the Elements of Harmony are on that statue or not."

Rainbow Dash nodded her head in agreement, who was clearly excited about the possibility of uncovering a conspiracy.