//------------------------------// // The Missing // Story: Legends Never Die // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// Iron Bill led them outside and began pushing his way through the dense trees, Sprout, Sunny, Hitch, Izzy, Zipp, Pipp, and Midge following, as well as Stephen Magnet, somewhat reluctantly. He kept watching Sprout with a strange look on his face, like he expected the red earth pony to suddenly burst into song about his evil intentions (not that he would ever do that). Hitch caught up to Sprout. “Hey. Um. Why do we care about these… mystery ponies so much?” Sprout was silent for a few paces before speaking. “Around the time my mom found that video of magic doing… that, three foals went missing from Maretime Bay. They were friends, and they were from all the different pony tribes. The pegasus’ parents said that they were planning to move back to Zephyr Heights to be closer to family when their foal disappeared… We’ve been looking for them, but we haven’t found them yet.” The others overheard the conversation. “Where do you think he’s taking us?” Pipp asked Zipp in a low voice, her hoof securely wrapped around her phone, holding it close to her chest. “I don’t know,” Zipp whispered back. “But I think we’re about to find out.” The trees were getting thinner, and there was a bit more light leaking between them. Iron Bill gave the shrubbery one last shove before stumbling out into open space. The six ponies followed, blinking in the sudden bright light. “Hey, we’re back where we started,” Izzy commented, looking confused. “See, look, there’s the tree that hides the secret tunnel to Zephyr Heights.” Midge looked surprised. “You know about that?” Pipp nodded. “When I was really young, I… had a lot of spare time. So I went exploring, and I found that tunnel. I went just far enough to know that it went out of the city before turning back. Why? Did… Is that how you got in and out of the city so fast?” Midge nodded. “Did you see anything else interesting about the tree?” Iron Bill questioned sharply, folding his huge arms and glowering at the pink pegasus. “Anything… magical?” “Besides the fact that it has pink leaves? No,” Pipp said nervously, taking a step back. She knew that Bill wouldn’t intentionally hurt them, but he still scared her a bit. But not as much as Stephen Magnet, who kept studying them like he was looking for exactly how to “get rid” of them. “Um… why?” Iron Bill gave Pipp a strange look. “Just… follow me,” he said at last. He marched up the hill at a startling speed. Stephen Magnet took one look at the six ponies, sniffed in disgust, and pressed a button on his motorized water bowl, making it zoom after Iron Bill. “...Race you to the top,” Zipp said after a while, spreading her wings and running up the hill. She would occasionally execute a flawless backflip or summersault, aided, of course, by her wings. “Oh, it is on,” Sprout said, taking off after her at top speed, Hitch a breath behind him. Sunny and Izzy laughed and chased after them, leaving Pipp to gallop behind them with Midge, who could have already reached the top before any of them, but felt kind of bad for the smaller pony, after so many years of guarding her. Iron Bill and Stephen Magnet were waiting when they all eventually arrived together, having tackled each other more than once on the way up the hill. Iron Bill’s expression looked softer, but Stephen Magnet was just as snarky as ever. He took in the panting ponies with their goofy grins plastered all over their squishy faces and snorted. These were supposedly who the Elements of Harmony had chosen to be their next bearers? Doubtful. “So, what’s so special about this tree?” Sunny asked between gasps. “You’ll see,” Iron Bill said. “It’s kind of hard to explain without visuals,” Midge supplied. Bill slipped into the tunnel underneath the tree, and everypony followed him. But instead of continuing up the tunnel to Zephyr Heights, Bill stopped right inside the entrance. He brushed aside some tangled roots and dirt, revealing a hidden door in the wall of the tunnel. But this door was made of crystal… pale sky blue and flashes of pink and unnatural colors that should not belong to any plant. It reminded Sunny of the castle in Ponyville… “No way,” she whispered, putting two and two together in her head. Midge smiled. “You haven’t even seen the best part.” The changeling pushed open the door, which led to a crystal staircase that wound up into the heart of the tree. The walls were crystal as well. Midge excitedly led them up the stairs, with Bill and Stephen bringing up the rear, Stephen convincing Bill to drag his fish bowl up the stairs. Bill was now looking very sorry that he did not skip this trip. “Oh my stars,” Sunny gasped when they entered the room on the ground floor. She was the only one who could find her voice. The walls were crystals, the furniture was crystal, the everything was crystal. Different shades of blue and purple and pink were scattered throughout the room. Pipp did the natural thing and pulled out her cell phone to start taking photos and recording footage. Zipp was too distracted to care much about her sister’s technology addiction. She and everypony else were standing stock still and staring at the structure in front of them. “Is this like the castle?” Izzy asked when she found her voice. “Is that why it’s all crystal-y inside?” “This is the Tree of Harmony,” Stephen sniffed, staring down his long nose at the purple unicorn in disgust. “Or what’s left of it, anyway.” “What do you mean, what’s left of it?” Sunny asked, staring at the sea dragon, perplexed. “There seems to be a lot here,” Hitch agreed. Midge shook his head sadly. “Not as much as there used to be,” he mourned. He walked over to a picture hanging on the wall. It was of a crystal tree with five dominant branches. At the end of each branch was a single gemstone, of different colors: red, pink, purple, orange, and blue. In the center of the tree was a gemstone shaped like a six pointed star, a bright magenta pink. Sunny stared at it. It looked like… “The Tree of Harmony was planted by six powerful ponies who were forced to leave the realm to protect it,” Midge explained. “They infused a seed with their magic, hoping that whatever grew from it would protect the realm in their absence. From the Tree grew six magical gems called the Elements of Harmony, some of the most powerful magical relics this world has ever known. “The first rulers of this world, sisters Celestia and Luna, used the Elements of Harmony to defeat a creature of chaos named Discord who had turned Equestria into his playground. They turned him to stone and built their castle above the cave where the Tree of Harmony was… on this very hillside. They kept the Elements in the castle instead of returning them to the Tree, but the Tree still had enough magic to keep the Everfree Forest from invading Ponyville, and inevitably all of Equestria. “Over time, Luna grew resentful of her older sister, feeling that nopony noticed or cared about her. She became a mare of darkness, Nightmare Moon, seeking to punish her sister and claim the throne. Celestia was forced to use the Elements to banish her to the moon for a thousand years. But one day, she would return. Midge was an animated storyteller, and he quickly had everypony spellbound and hanging on to his every word. “The Elements… stopped working after that. They lay in the castle, forgotten, as the castle crumbled from the fight that had ensued between the sisters. Celestia had moved to Canterlot, and she ruled the realm in peace. But, a thousand years later, Nightmare Moon returned, bringing with her eternal night. “Six brave ponies, knowing about the legend of the Elements of Harmony and the Mare in the Moon, journeyed to the Castle of the Two Sisters, where the Elements were located, in the middle of the Everfree Forest. Nightmare Moon threw challenge after challenge their way to keep them from finding the Elements, but each of the friends’ unique abilities helped them overcome these challenges.” “My ancestor,” Stephen Magnet interrupted, “was part of one such challenge. Like me, he was dashingly handsome, but that cursed nightmare pony ruined his beautiful mustache. If not for the generosity of one in the party, a kind young miss named Rarity, he would never have had the strength to reface the world.” “They eventually made it to the Castle of the Two Sisters, where the leader of the group, Twilight Sparkle, attempted to create the spark among the five Elements that would cause the sixth Element to appear, but before she could succeed, Nightmare Moon took the Elements and destroyed them. But Twilight Sparkle then realized that the spirits of the Elements of Harmony could be found in her five friends, causing the Elements to be repaired. They stripped Nightmare Moon of her darkness, turning her back into Princess Luna, and she was then reunited with her older sister. “Time went on, and the Elements of Harmony were used numerous times, but the Tree of Harmony grew weaker every day without them, until magical vines that Discord had planted over a thousand years ago, kept dormant by the Tree’s magic, sprang loose, capturing Celestia and Luna and threatening to cover all of Equestria. Twilight Sparkle and her friends found the Tree of Harmony in disarray, but by returning the Elements to it, they saved it, freeing the princesses and keeping the Everfree Forest contained once more. Midge moved to the next picture on the wall, which was exactly the same as the first, only the five outside gems were different shapes. “The Tree grew a magic chest, which had six locks for six keys. As time went on, each of Twilight’s friends found their key in an object given to them by a pony whose life they helped change. But before Twilight could find her key, an evil creature known as Tirek returned, stealing all of Equestria’s magic. After giving up her magic in exchange for her friends, Twilight Sparkle found her key, and when the chest was unlocked, it gave the six ponies the power they needed to defeat Tirek, and then the chest grew a magic castle in Ponyville.” “So that’s why this place looks like the castle!” Izzy exclaimed, figuring it out. “The castle produced a map of Equestria that would send Twilight and her friends on quests across the land to solve friendship problems, but other than that, the Tree was mostly forgotten. It was used once Twilight accidentally released a centuries old evil from his prison, but stayed mostly dormant. “Then the Tree developed a sort of consciousness. It created a magical chamber underneath the school that Twilight and her friends built to teach friendship to all sorts of creatures, and it worked its magic through six different creatures when a pegasus filly named Cozy Glow attempted to transport all the magic to a different dimension. But then… it was destroyed.” Midge looked sad, like this part of the story was always his least favorite. “King Sombra, a pony of shadows and darkness, had returned and decided to cut off Twilight Sparkle and her friends’ powers at the source, and he shattered the Tree and the Elements. “Don’t worry, they managed to defeat him anyway. They realized that the power of their friendship was more than enough. But that was it… the Tree was gone. Until the six creatures whom the Tree had developed a connection with realized that the Tree was not gone.” Midge moved to the last picture on the wall. It was of a beautiful building, made entirely of crystal, with branches like those on a tree with pink crystal leaves bunched together on the ends. “They built a small clubhouse out of the remains, but it magically grew into what you see today.” Sunny’s mind was reeling. She had read about some of what Midge was talking about in the journal that Twilight and her friends had left, but to hear another creature tell them like he believed it with his whole heart… it just made the whole thing seem more real. There was a sound from upstairs, and all nine creatures turned towards the noise. Three foals came trotting down the stairs, one a green unicorn with a purple mane, another a golden pegasus with a tangerine mane, and a third an earth pony with a pink coat and a lighter purple mane than the unicorn. They were laughing together, but fell silent as they saw the six other ponies in the room. “Oh,” was all the unicorn foal said.