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// Something Strange Beneath the Palace 
// Story: Rebirth of Magic: Izzytastic! 
// by JimmyHook19 
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It was a nice afternoon before the Royal Celebration, all things considered. We were gathered in one of the lower sitting rooms (they have loads of them for some reason!), chatting casually about things. Zipp had ordered in McWings, which was apparently a very popular fast food chain here, and I have to say the fries were delicious! I don't know how they get them tasting so good! I sat there, processing the flavors in my mind and wondering how it was pulled off.

The chicken was nice too. Turns out G5 Ponies are omnivores, although the meal course at the banquet suggested as much. Zipp had turned on the radio, and some different tunes were playing. Presumably the equivalent of Top 40, as there was a reasonable variety. A lot of it was pop, though.

"What do you think, huh?" Zipp said, cutting through the thoughts I was having.

"The music or the food?" I asked.

"Both," she replied. "You should check the charts. Pipp's broken a record by having five singles in the Top 10 at once. Helps she has an enormous fanbase. I sometimes can't help but feel being royalty gives us an unfair advantage sometimes." She sighed, and then tweaked the volume.

"Oh!" I said. "I like both. You guys do fries really nicely."

"Corporate secret, apparently," Zipp noted, before relaxing in her chair. "This is a great place to unwind." She looked again. "The chicken?"

"Really good," I replied. "You know, how do pegasi grow food without plant magic? I thought the whole thing was that only Earth Ponies can grow food."

Zipp shrugged. "We grow it in massive greenhouses. An entire empire's worth of food grown in several cylindrical buildings the height of a skyscraper. Saves space too. Not only that, rural communities grow their own using the same techniques." She glanced over. "Hey, Sunny. What's up? You haven't said anything the entire time."

Sunny glanced up and sighed. "Truth be told, Zipp, I didn't sleep hugely well last night."

"Nightmare?" Zipp asked.

"Yeah," Sunny replied. "It was really strange, but also quite graphic at the same time. I know normally most dreams don't stick in your mind, but this one did." She glanced down at the floor. "Perhaps I should stop watching scary movies late at night."

Zipp scoffed. "Come on! Invasion of the Tripods isn't that scary!"

I looked at her. "Just because something isn't scary to you doesn't mean somepony else wouldn't find it scary." I glanced back. "But as I said last night dreams can't hurt you, as they're just your brain trying to process your day. We can safely move on from them."

Sunny nodded, and took a bite out of a fry. "Hmm! Nice!"

Zipp glanced up, as she had finished. "When you two are finished, I'll take you two down to see something pretty remarkable. But only when you two are ready, of course."

Sunny nodded. "Sounds good," she said, bits of fry flying out of her mouth as she spoke. She clearly wasn't used to eating with that mouth.

Misty then suddenly popped in through the door. "Can I come too?"





Later on, we rode Zipp's gondola down into the workshop she spent a lot of time in. The place was pretty big, but also very dusty. A blackboard sat over to one side, and had numbers all over it. Desks and mechanical equipment were sitting around, with various unfinished experiments on them. But dominating the entire scene was a massive stained glass window with the central panel missing. Just like in the movie.

"This place is pretty incredible to see in real life," Sunny breathed.

"Tell me about it! You can certainly say that!" I replied.

Sunny glanced over. "I just did."

"Figure of speech!"

Zipp was walking backwards as she showed us around. "Pretty impressive, huh? Seems the previous Zipp found the place and turned it into her personal workshop. It was probably some sort of cable station from the days when we were all united and still travelled about. But seeing you guys have seen the film you probably already know that." She flipped the board over. "Which is why I want to speak to you two. I've got a plan so crazy it might just work."

"And what's that?" I asked. "I love it when a good plan comes together!"

Zipp nodded. "I've got a plan to reunite the crystals early and skip a considerable chunk of the story. You guys already know where the Pegasus Crystal is, so we just need the Earth Pony and Unicorn ones."

Sunny spoke up. "Funny you should mention those, as I just happen to have the Earth Pony crystal on me." She fished it out of her bag.

"When did you get that?" I asked.

"Removed it from the bottom of my lantern before I left for CanterLogic," she replied.

"Perfect!" Zipp said. "Izzy, do you have the Unicorn Crystal?"

My face fell. "No. But I do have a tin of baked beans!"

Zipp sighed. "It's OK. I doubt Alphabittle would let anypony wander off with it anyway. OK, so that speeds things up a little. This just means we need to get the Pegasus Crystal and we'll be good to go."

"Will that be as hard as in the movie or harder?" I asked.

"Harder," Zipp said. "The crystal, as you know, is part of mom's crown, and there's no guarantee she's one of us, if you know what I mean. We had a break in a little while back, courtesy of- wait a second, where did Misty go?"

"Hey! Misty! Over here!" Sunny called.

The unicorn quickly cantered her way back over. "Sorry guys! I got distracted! I have a very short atten- ooh! Shiny!"

Zipp shook her head. "Anyway, we had a break the day you two arrived, and this meant that security has been beefed up dramatically. Not just in more guards, but the crown? She-"

"Never takes it off," the four of us said in unison.

"So, we need a diversion," Zipp continued. "Izzy, I need you to create a replica crown that at a glance can pass for the real thing. I can get you the supplies you need if you tell me what they are."

I nodded. "I'll need a box of macaroni, a tube of glue, fourteen gooey bunnies, and three jelly beans. And glitter. Lots of glitter."

"I'll secure you those then get them to you. You make the crown, then we head for the palace. I'll distract the reporters and guards so you two can access a side tunnel on the palace, usually only used for moving food supplies. That'll get you two backstage so you can swap the crowns. We'll rendezvous outside the palace and then head for Bridlewood. Any questions?"

"What can I do?" Misty asked.

"You can keep guard," Zipp said. "Now let's get to work."





Night fell, and I had made the crown. Replicating the original as closely as I could took a LOT of work, but it was certainly worth it. And a good deal of fun as well, to boot. I was working on it pretty closely for an about an hour whilst the others kept lookout for me.

I hid it in my transport supplies and prepared for access. In order to pull the heist off, we'd need to get behind the thrones, to an area we weren't allowed to go. Whilst Zipp soaked up the attention of the reporters and the guards, we snuck between some bushes and trees. Misty had gone on ahead of us to check everything was ready. After all, nopony could know we were here. We were operating on the very limits of our stealth capabilities. Only being medium sneaky was proving to be a bit of a problem here.

I stopped when a spotlight was flying over. It was attached to a helicopter that was on patrol. I didn't fancy getting caught up in any of that, so when the light cleared we dashed across and into the access tunnel. We squeezed up it, and this brought us out into an underground storage area.

Sunny pulled on some night vision goggles. "Elevator at the other end of the room," she said. "Let's go."

I followed her to the other end, and once we were on the elevator we were behind the thrones. Ponies were already beginning to throng the area in anticipation of the show. We hid behind the thrones.

"I've got the crown ready to go," I said, handing it to Sunny. "You'll need to stand on top of me to drop it into position, but be quick. I don't know how long I'll be able to stay in place before I start sliding about."

Sunny nodded. "Fine by me," she said. "Well, looks like there's no going back. I can only hope this plan works."

"If it does, the results will be so worth it," I said. "Magic being back early!"

We looked over as the lights began to drop. Showtime.