//------------------------------// // 6 // Story: Rift in Ponyville // by xnaturalblue //------------------------------// For the next few hours, they slept in the castle in shifts of Sapphire and Bolt monitoring every entry point as well as doing some exploring in between. The murmurs of the risen ponies eventually became an almost peaceful drone for them to sleep through, though it was the guilt tugging inside of each of them that woke them before they could rest too peacefully. Each of them silently wondered if the risen Crystal Ponies were in pain; if they were suffering with each click of the hooves that roamed the outside of the castle.  After what Fire Bolt estimated to be a total of six hours, all three had seemed awake enough to start formulating an action plan. The first course of action was un-doing whatever they had done when they had fused the Heart – yes, finding the final piece was important for other reasons, but the priority was ensuring everypony’s safety to the best of their ability as well as not making things worse than they already were. Nopony truly knew what shattered the Heart. Whether it was the angst and terror amongst the Crystal Ponies that made it combustible or if the Princess had shattered it herself to seal the town into an otherworldly state, Sonar Moonshadow had heard all kinds of theories in his search for common intellect over the past three years. That created the question of whether or not breaking it would even return these undead ponies to their mysterious graves, or if the broken Heart even had anything to do with this bizarre phenomenon.  “I think we at least have to try it,” Sapphire piped up as Sonar and Bolt deliberated this struggle. “I don’t know what further damage we could do. It’s the only logical first step here.” “Well, let’s not underestimate ourselves,” Sonar replied, now further considering rebreaking the Heart as opposed to his previous stance of just pushing forward to the Frozen North. “We can always make things worse. But I certainly think we have to do something soon.” Fire Bolt and Sapphire Swirl each nodded once in unison, turning from their resting places on the tattered carpet of the Crystal Palace’s hallway toward the painted doors that held the resurrected Crystal Heart. Sonar Moonshadow followed, and without any consideration for the danger and death that came after the last Heart explosion, he made a quick decision by using his magic to re-shatter the heart into the same fragments they were in before.  A beam of light blinded the three of them as Sonar’s magic skillfully worked against the fiery reaction that came from the shards separating into their previous state, containing the angry explosion that pushed to escape its enclosure. After a few moments of high temperatures in the room, the flames fizzled out into ash and dust, and the two siblings in the room let out a synchronous sigh. It was only after a few moments of heavy breathing and almost silence in the room that Sapphire’s ears picked up the sound of hooves beating against the stones that made up the hallway behind them, and by the time they had all turned to the source of the sound, the doors were slammed open by heavy hooves. “Don’t touch that! Don’t touch any of it!” A female unicorn stood in a low stance, lips curled back as if a snarl wanted to rip from her throat. Her green mane wasn’t like anything that Fire Bolt had seen before, and as she looked at it, she noticed that the unicorn’s horn was as long as a princess's. A chunk of her ear was missing and a long scar tore across her back, but most concerningly was that as Bolt observed her, she realized that she did not have a cutie mark. “You have no idea what you’ve done. Step away.” The three of them did without question, marveling at the pony in silence. “You’re insanely lucky you’re still alive.” The unicorn squinted at Sonar Moonshadow angrily, scrutinizing his discolored eyes. The look on her face started to agitate Fire Bolt, who finally seemed snapped out of her trance at the sound of her sibling’s voice. “Who the hay are you?” Sapphire barked out, holding their ground unlike Bolt and Moonshadow, who had backed up a few steps. “Just- listen to me!” She stomped her hooves down, and Fire Bolt concluded that she seemed unstable. “The Crystal Heart should not be reassembled. Well, reassembled with those pieces. Clearly, you found out the worst part of all of this. The part nopony wants to tell you about.” She seemed to settle down a bit, the electricity radiating off of her slowly calming down to a faint buzz. “Just… stay away from this place. Go home. An adventure is not worth the lives of more ponies. And it’s certainly not worth disturbing the… the kind of magic that lies here.” “We’re not adventuring,” Fire Bolt spoke up. “We’re trying to fix this.” “Well stop trying.” The unicorn snapped back. “You can’t fix anything.” She turned and started to walk away. Sapphire jumped into action, flying ahead and landing in front of the door. “You need to hear this. We have a magic that’s guiding us to Celestia’s killer, so if you want to wait around and be miserable, that’s fine. But we’re going to need all the help we can get. Are you going to join us, or are you going to go back home? Because we’re not going anywhere.” At the mention of Sonar’s magic, Fire Bolt could see the unicorn tense, even from behind. All of them stood in silence for a few long moments, and both Bolt and Moonshadow were entirely taken aback by the prospect of working with this pony. “It’ll never work. You’re on a suicide mission.” She said, and her voice was more even than it had been throughout this entire ordeal.  “We might be,” Sonar Moonshadow piped up. “But if we discover something, we might be able to put the sun back into the sky.” The thought of sunshine seemed to enchant the four of them into silence, with Sapphire and this blue-coated unicorn locked into a stare. The moment broke, however, when she shoved past Sapphire to crack the doors open. As quickly as she ran in, she was gone.  The shadows seemed to leak into the dark castle, like an inky liquid that threatened to drown the three ponies. Just when it felt like Fire Bolt was going to suffocate, she burst. “What in the hay was that?” She snapped at Sapphire. “I could ask you the same thing. You two looked like you were going to turn to dust! We need anypony’s help right now!” Sapphire turned to face her, stepping back down the hall. “We don’t even know that mare’s name! She was hostile!” Bolt and Sapphire were almost snout-to-snout at this point. “She clearly knew something! It’s not like she’s the one who killed Celestia!” Sapphire barked back, and Sonar Moonshadow finally decided to use his magic to pull them apart by their tails.  “Guys. Please. This is not important right now. She’s gone now, and we need to keep moving,” Sonar released the two of them, squinting into nothingness as if he sensed that they were grimacing at each other. With a huff of a sigh, Fire Bolt shuffled back down the hallway to gather her saddlebags back up from before her slumber. She had tried to use them both stacked together as a makeshift pillow, but ended up migrating to sprawling across Sonar Moonshadow and accidentally kicking Sapphire at some point in her sleep. She fastened the straps around her midsection and under her wings, making sure to tighten the belt buckle that desperately needed replacing as much as she could before flapping her wings experimentally to ensure that the placement wouldn’t irritate her.  The strap on her right side had trapped a feathered bit of her wing, and she sighed as she went to unfasten the unreliable belt buckle. As she battled with the fabric, Sonar’s magic silently adjusted her bag into place and clasped the buckle shut, and she offered a hoof to his shoulder as a thank-you. Once the three of them were entirely ready to leave, likely to never return, they turned and started towards the door leading back into the darkness.  As Fire Bolt and Sonar Moonshadow exited and breathed in the cool nighttime air, Sapphire felt a… tug. A compulsion to look back behind them before leaving. When they did, an impossibly dark feeling radiated from the pony painted on the door. The feeling brought a sickness to their stomach, powerful enough to draw a small retch from their throat. With one final look, Sapphire tore their eyes from the mural and ran outside with a shiver, slamming the doors back shut. As the three of them silently trotted through the bones of the Crystal Empire, Fire Bolt sighed dramatically. “Sap, I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier. I’m just… It’s just scary.” Sapphire faced her with a smile. “I know you are Bolt, me too. I’m sorry too, I don’t like to bicker with you.” “Yes, you do!” Fire Bolt grinned. “That’s why your tail never grew in!” She teased, flicking Sapphire’s goat-like tail with her own.  “Hey! You’re the one who’s had emo-mane for almost ten years now!” Sapphire shot back, and Fire Bolt burst into laughter.  “You two drive me crazy,” Sonar shook his head with a sheepish smile on his face. “Yes, but you loooove us!” Bolt wrapped a wing around Sonar’s shoulders dramatically. “But especially me!” Sonar smiled briefly before his face dropped again. “There’s somepony nearby-” Before he finished, the mysterious blue unicorn ran into sight, now sporting a cloth covering her back accompanied by a small pair of saddle bags. “Wait! Please wait!” She ran to catch up with them. The three of them stopped in their tracks, watching the strange pony approach. “Can I…” She gritted her teeth and sighed, huffing in the air after her jog. “Um, can you take me with you? I can’t get out of here alone.” Fire Bolt and Sapphire Swirl smiled at each other. “Come on, we walk shoulder-to-shoulder. If you walk next to me, just keep a watch out for anything moving on your side,” Fire Bolt nodded her head, gesturing to her left, and the pony fell into step with them with a thankful smile.  They walked wordlessly for a few minutes, a bit of an awkward aura settling over the four of them until the unicorn spoke up. “Jelly Splash is my name. I just panicked earlier, I haven’t introduced myself in… I don’t know, five years? Six?” Fire Bolt’s eyes widened. “The Nightfall started only three years ago. We’ve been tracking in Ponyville,” She explained, realizing halfway through that ponies outside of Ponyville may not even refer to this phenomenon as the ‘Nightfall.’ “...Oh. Okay, then. Well, it’s been, um, three years.” Jelly Splash fell back into a comfortable silence with the rest of them, and the four ponies pushed forward.