//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 (Friendship is Magic Part 2) // Story: My Little Pony: Friendships are Magic // by professor space n time //------------------------------// The three of them rushed into the library and Twilight slammed the door behind her, then turned to see Amara who was brushing the dust off her hooves. "WHAT IN CELESTIA’S NAME IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" "I just defended myself! Didn't you hear what she said? She wanted to break my neck!" Amara responded quickly. "You don't even have bones!" Twilight reproached her. "There are more ways to break a neck you know? Besides, if she didn't break my neck, she would behead me" "We wouldn't be in this situation if you had kept your mouth shut!" "Oh please! She would have found out that I exist anyway" Amara replied as she cleared a table full of garbage from the party. "You knew then." Twilight told her. "Uh? What are you talking about?." asked Amara. "You knew I was right, you knew that Nightmare Moon was real, why didn't you tell me?! I could have helped you create a plan!" Twilight reproached. "Twilight, my dear, if I told you half the secrets that I know, I would have to kill you, then your whole family, then I would have to erase them from the historical records and finally I would have to erase the memory of all the living ponies that know anything about you, even if it is only your name, as a princess there are things that I cannot speak about, even if I want to” Amara answered in a calm tone, trying to make herself understood. "I understand that" Twilight answered in a sympathetic tone "But why not tell me today? Or half an hour ago? Why didn't you tell me this would happen?" "Because I didn't know this would happen!" Amara yelled at her "The only thing I knew was that she would come back, that mom would take care of her and that if something went wrong we would go to plan B and that's why I told you to calm down, because plan B is the two of us. Now please calm down and help me." Twilight took a deep breath and calmed down a bit. “Okay, I'm sorry I acted like that. We have to look for the Elements of Harmony" "Yes, for that I need your help, I know what they are, mom told me about them, but she never told me what they do, she was supposed to go looking for them, since she did not beat Nightmare Moon that means that she will go for them, and if she corrupts them with her magic we're doomed" "And what do I do?" Spike asked before yawning loudly. "Go to sleep Spike" Twilight said "You are a baby dragon, you have been up all night, you need to rest, let the grown-ups take care of this" Twilight raised Spike with her magic, took him to their room, put him on gently on the basket he slept in and tucked him, Spike immediately fell asleep. When she returned they began to search through the books "Elements, elements, elements... Ugh! How can we stop Nightmare Moon without the Elements of Harmony?" "We can't-" Amara was saying before a flash of rainbow color appeared and stoped in front of Twilight. "And just what are the Elements of Harmony?" She asked to Twilight "And how did you know about Nightmare Moon, huh?" She said to Amara "Are you spies?" Immediately Amara threw ray at her with her green magic and Rainbow Dash was thrown against the wall and then tied to it by magic ropes "Whoa!" "How did you get in here?!" Amara asked, lighting her horn again to attack her. "Rainbow Dash!" Rarity yelled "What in your right mind do you think you are doing?! She is not a spy! She is the daughter of Princess Celestia!" "Is she?" "Of course she is! And you just accused her of having conspired with that monster, the same monster that foalnapped her mother, do you have any idea what could happen to you? They will throw you into a dungeon!" Amara immediately tied her too and put her in the wall "Ok, How did you get in here?!" "Simmer down, Sally." Said Applejack "You left a window open. I know you are not spies. Surely you know what is happening. Don't you?" Amara released Both of them “Princess Celestia, my mother, told me about Nightmare Moon, told me her story and how dangerous she is, formed a plan to defeat her and different backup plans, Twilight did her own research. There are some mysterious artifacts called the Elements of Harmony, they are the only thing that can stop her, I know what they are and where they are, but I don't know what they do” Amara turned her back on them and looked in the bookshelves "I have a book about them, but it won't help us if I can't find what I'm looking for. "E", "E", "E". . . Aha!, The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide." She then gave the book to Twilight. "Thanks. There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery, . . ." Twilight readed. "Only five are known?! Impossible! Illogical! Nonsense! Complete nonsense!" Amara yelled, scandalized, walking in circles immersed in her own thoughts. "What happen?" Twilight asked her. "It doesn't make sense. How come only five elements are known? My mother used all six, multiple times, she told me, if only five are known, how is it possible that they have used them before?, it's not possible that the information was lost" Amara ran quickly through her luggage and came back bringing several books, she took one that looked like the one Twilight had read that day in Canterlot "Look, in this illustration are all six" "It could be a mistake, maybe the illustrator just drew six, even if only five were known, to make the illustration more faithful" Twilight replied. "Maybe you're right, my mother told me that the sixth element would only appear if the bearers found "The Spark". . . But wait if that is true then, how did they know that they there were six? My mother was the first to use them, and even so, she already knew there were six, the legends said they were six, How could she know if they had never been used and ergo no one had ever found the spark?" "That doesn't matter" Twilight replied "We're wasting our time, we have to find the-" "Wait a second!" Said Amara, she immediately ran to her luggage and took out an old book full of dirt, it was very badly treated, Amara put it on the table and looked at it quickly, then she smiled and looked Twilight in the eyes "There are seven elements" "What?!" The girls responded in shock. "It's the only logical explanation, read this Twilight" Amara said showing the book to her. "The best elements within us can spread light and virtue, and I know ponies who represent them all – strength, bravery, healing, beauty, hope, and sorcery. Myself and these Pillars of Equestria were gathered together by another to maintain and share the light of these powerful ideals. But we soon came to believe the pony who brought us together only wanted that power for himself. Cast out and alone, this power-mad pony turned to darkness to satisfy his thirst. Transformed into a Pony of Shadows, he returned for revenge – to extinguish the Pillars' light and rob the world of hope. To stop him, the Pillars and I must make a grave sacrifice. But we shall leave behind a seed in hopes that one day it will grow into a force to stand against the darkness for all time. We must now face the fiend with the only plan we have, I only hope it will be enough. What am I reading?" Twilight asked "Star Swirl's journal" Amara replied calmly as she flipped through the pages looking for something. "What?! His journal?! How did you get it?! Why didn't you tell me you had it?!" she said hysterically. "Because I knew you would get like this, you are such a fan of him that if I had given you the book when I found it you would spend the next thirty years of your life locked in a tower studying it trying to find in it questions and answers that do not exist, the half of what is written here is rubbish, besides, do you remember that discussion we had about why I don't like Star Swirl?" Twilight nodded "This book and the research I did on it proves what I say, if I let you read my research the ideals of your whole life could fall apart, I don't want to break your brain or give you depression" "Ok, I'll steal it from you later and read it, how did you get it? And why the heck do you say there are seven elements?!" “Well mom always wanted to know what was from Star Swirl, so for her birthday four years ago I decided that I would give her the answer to that question, you know I've always liked archeology, so I did some research and organized an expedition along to some friends and teachers, and we went to the last place where he was seen alive, after a few weeks camping there we found a trunk with a magic lock, it took us a while to decipher it, but when we did we found a telescope, lots of ink and empty scrolls, alchemy sets, some dry and dead plants and of course the journal, I gave it to mom and a few days later she gave it back to me and told me to do what seemed right to me with it, I was going to donate it to a museum but I wanted to examine it first, it took me years to decipher what he had written, Star Swirl had very bad hornwriting from what I have seen, there are parts of this book that took months to decipher, when I finished, I had learned about the elements and what Star Swirl was really like, so I decided not to reveal what I learned to anypony, perhaps I despise the guy, but I am not the one to judge him or to destroy the image that his exploits gave him" She said in an understanding tone. "Ok, I can understand that, there are things that are better not to know." Twilight said, she knew Amara well, she knew that she was a very understanding pony who always put others wellbeing before her, so she could understand the reason for her decision to hide the journal, since keeping its existence a secret was a grater good "What about the seven elements?" "Oh sure!" Amara opened the journal in its last entry "Look at this illustration, it was made by Star Swirl, now, do you see how many branches the drawing in the center has?" "Yes, there are six" Twilight replied to her. “Exactly! But do you see this crystal in the center at the bottom? The magenta crystal, that is also an element, Star Swirl would never leave a vague drawing, all the drawings in the journal are exact and leave nothing behind to interpretation, so why would he leave such an insignificant artistic detail like this here if the only thing it would do is cause confusion? Because he didn't, he portrays the existence of seven elements, and that's not all, the entrance that you readed tells the story of their last battle, it tells us how that young unicorn that brought them together became the Pony of Shadows." "The Pony of Shadows?!" the girls yelled in unison. "He's real too?! Oh great, now we have to deal with him too!" Rainbow Dash said. "What are you talking about? The Pony of Shadows and Nightmare Moon have no relationship whatsoever" Amara replied to her. "They don't?" Rainbow Dash asked confused. "Of course they don't, when the Pony of Shadows appeared my mother was too young to even fight, much less Nightmare Moon existed, what happens is that you ponies mixed the stories." Amara said "According to my investigation what happened was the following, the pillars devised a plan to stop the Pony of Shadows, the plan consisted of using their artifacts and the network of abundant magic around Ponhenge to imprison the Pony of Shadows in an empty space between dimensions, “The Limbo”, now, for the spell to work, the pillars would also have to be imprisoned together with the Pony of Shadows, for that reason they decided to create a magic seed that when germinating would give way to the Tree of the Harmony from which my mother extracted the elements, knowing that they were not coming back, they decided to leave an artifact that would channel the essence of harmony and defend Equestria from the forces of evil. Now, here comes the interesting thing, when they discovered Ponhenge they did not find the artifacts of the pillars, in fact, I went to the place and excavated the area, I did not find anything, do you know what that means?" "That were they destroyed?" Twilight answered trying to understand what she was saying. Amara laughed “Of course not! They were not destroyed, the journal is one of the artifacts and yet here it is, the strange thing is that I found the journal in the ruins of a town, not in Ponhenge and even more strange, Mistmane's flower is in a sanctuary garden owned by a family for generations and Flash Magnus's shield is in the Dragonlands as far as I know, I have heard rumors of the location of the other three artifacts but have not been able to confirm them, the point is that they are scattered around the world, do you know what that means?" Twilight shook her head in denial. "Think about it, the pillars disappear immediately after casting the spell and somehow their artifacts end up scattered around the world, the diary ends up in a chest with a lock and still the legend of the Tree of Harmony spreads, how is that possible if the pillars secretly planted the seed, in a secret location just before disappearing? Who told the story? Who recovered the artifacts and distributed them around the world? And who made sure the seed was germinated?, according to what Star Swirl wrote he was not sure that the seed would ever germinate, he said: To stop him, the Pillars and I must make a grave sacrifice. But we shall leave behind a seed in hopes that one day it will grow into a force to stand against the darkness for all time. We must now face the fiend with the only plan we have, I only hope it will be enough." Twilight's face was filled with astonishment the moment the gears in her head understood everything "Ok, I understand where you are leading this" “So what if somepony did all of that? Somepony told the story, Somepony recovered the artifacts and distributed them, Somepony made sure that the seed germinated, but it was not just anypony because the seed was a secret and the spell to the Limbo was also a secret, it had to be somepony who was close to the pillars, or at least close to Star Swirl, somepony to whom they would entrust their plans and the location of the tree, a friend, but who?. . ." "Wait a sec sugarcube" said Applejack "So all those legendary figures are not only real, but they also created the Elements of Harmony and there is also a seventh element that no one has ever heard of?" "Yes, more or less that is what I say, it is good to see that they are paying attention, this can be useful to us" Amara said immersed in her thoughts and looking at the journal looking for the answer to her question "Who?. . . Who?. . . AHA!" Amara began to turn the pages looking for a drawing "Scorpan!" She said triumphantly showing a drawing that portrayed the gargoyle and Star Swirl. "Who?" the girls asked. "Scorpan was Lord Tirek's brother, he became great friends with Star Swirl the Bearded when he learned about pony customs" said Twilight "Do you think he was the one?" she asked Amara. "It could be, or if not someone else who was close to them, let's assume that it was him, then Star Swirl went to him and told him about the plan to defeat the Pony of Shadows, about the seed and about the limbo, Star Swirl asked him to hide the artifacts and maybe help with the seed or maybe Scorpan was the one who insisted, the point is that he gave his part for the seed, after the pillars disappeared Scorpan collected the artifacts, distributed them all over the world and made sure that the seed did germinate in Tree of Harmony, he was the one who told the story, that's where the legends originated, he is the seventh element" "But that does not explain why only six are known to exist or why they only painted six" Twilight refuted “Maybe it does” Amara replied “Yes there were seven elements, but the sixth only appears when you discover the spark, so whoever saw the tree and was not a carrier would only see six elements physically, and since the pillars were not there Scorpan could only see six elements because no one had discovered the unknown element, Star Swirl was not sure that the seed would grow, so Scorpan was not surprised to see that only six elements seemed to have grown, so the legends only spoke of 6 elements, that is why the paintings and drawings only portray six elements, it refers to the six physical elements, not the one that is achieved with the spark. So when mom found the tree she assumed there were only six elements due to the legends, the strange thing is that she only found five physical elements in the tree" "And what does that mean?" Twilight asked. "It means that the sixth physical element is not in the branches of the tree, it could not be stolen, mom told me that if someone tried to take them without being carriers the pony would be destroyed, unless their magic could rival the elements, the sixth physical had to be out of sight, perhaps at the roots, or somewhere else near the tree, but my mother did not see it, she found the spark and assumed that the element that appeared when she found it was the sixth element, and so history continued believing they were six, that explains how from before it was known about the existence of six elements when no one had found the spark" "That makes a lot of sense!" Twilight said slapping her forehead, she was surprised by how simple it seemed in hindsight. "That's very smart Princess" Rarity said to her as a compliment. “Oh please, call me Amara” She said taking the reference guidebook of the elements “what I don't understand is how it was possible to use the elements in the past if one was missing, mom told me that they didn't work separately, and the guidebook here says the same, so how did they use them before?" "Is that important?" asked Rainbow Dash bored and tired "We have to save the princess!" "Patience Dash, the princess, I meant Amara's trying to think" Rarity said scolding her. "Unfortunately I think Rainbow Dash is right, I have no idea how to solve this problem of internal logic about the functioning of the elements, and I don't think it is worth spending more time, maybe I don't understand how it is possible to use them being incomplete but the elements work and that is the important thing, we better go" "Okay, but where are the Elements?" Fluttershy said. “Mom told me they were in the old castle, the castle is in. . . in. . ." Amara started hitting her head with her right hoof while the girls took the reference guidebook of the elements and began to look at it “come on! This is not the time to forget things!, it's in. . ." "The Everfree Forest!" the girls yelled in unison.