//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: Skyfall: The Crusaders // by sister_mike //------------------------------// Chapter 10 Sweetie Belle The next morning, Sweetie Belle lay in bed for a long time. She hadn't been able to sleep very well the night previous. She had tossed and turned, and woke up countless of times. Now, she lay in the soft, giant guest bed in the palace and stared up at the ceiling. Spike was alive. He'd been here the whole time. Sweetie Belle began to wonder how many other survivors there were in Earthica, wandering about, that Sweetie Belle and her friends didn't know about. Were they going to be surprised when they found out about Spike! Eventually, Sweetie Belle slowly sat up and got out of bed. She walked over to the window and threw open the curtains. The sun poured in, greeting her with another beautiful day. Sometimes, she wished the sun wouldn't ever shine again. She didn't think it was fitting that she and the CMC have such beautiful weather, while this terrible curse was going on. In Sweetie Belle's mind, it should rain every day, to fit the atmosphere of the curse. As she got dressed, she stared at herself in the mirror. Ever since Spike had mistaken her for Rarity yesterday, she couldn't help but point out all of the similarities between her and her sister. They could have been twins, especially now that Sweetie Belle was the same age as her. If Sweetie Belle dyed her hair a darker shade of purple and put in blue colored contacts, she could pass off as Rarity no problem. She pulled her pink and purple hair into a ponytail and stretched. She gathered her things and packed them into her bag, and left the room. Sweetie Belle followed the smell of breakfast down throughout the palace and into the great dining hall. Spike sat at one end of the long table, a small feast in front of him. "Oh hey! You're awake," Spike said, greeting her with a smile. His smile faltered for a second. "Do you know how much you look like Rarity?" Sweetie Belle blushed slightly and fidgeted with the end of her ponytail. She clumsily dropped her bag to the floor and sat down at the table. "We are sisters you know," she said finally, "So, naturally, we're going to have a lot of similar traits. Same genes and what not." "Genes? Now you're sounding like Twilight," Spike said. "I've been doing a lot of research. I want to find a way to break the curse and wake up everyone," Sweetie Belle said, as she reached for a piece of toast. "Where did you get all of this food?" "Palace cellar. They have a special reserve that's under a protection spell, so it never ages and goes bad, just in case of weird and dire situations—like this one," Spike said. "What have you been living off of in Peoplesville?" "Mostly fruits and vegetables. Apple Bloom's been keeping a small garden on her farm, and there are some other herbs and weird foods we eat from the Everfree Forest. One of Zecora's hobbies is actually making bread... but as for meat, well... All of the animals seem to have disappeared," Sweetie Belle said. "Yeah, tell me about it. That's something I totally noticed too," Spike said, "and as a Drache, it's not good to miss out on too much meat in your diet." "But you were raised by Twilight, who's a vegetarian," Sweetie Belle said. She took a bite into her toast. "I know, I'm a vegetarian too. I'm just sayin', if there were any other Draches out there, they might be hungry enough to eat a person," Spike said. As he said that, Sweetie Belle couldn't help but look at his slightly edgier and sharper teeth. "Well, let's hope you were right in thinking there are not other Draches but you in the land," Sweetie Belle said, suddenly not so hungry any more. "Hey, what's with the bag?" Spike asked, as he noticed her backpack on the floor, "Are you leaving? I thought we were going to look through the libraries again." "I know, and we will. But you said you've searched through them pretty thoroughly, right?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Yeah... a habit that I guess I picked up from Twilight," Spike said. He snorted, "Who knew?" "Well, I trust your search, and if you came up with nothing, then there's no point in doing it all over again and wasting more time," Sweetie Belle said. "I thought you wanted to search the palace upside down, 100%?" Spike asked. "True, that's what I said, but Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and I already did that once. But there was one place we never searched, and that's where I want to go," Sweetie Belle said. "Spike... have you ever searched the labyrinth?" "The labyrinth? No, I haven't. I doubt there's going to be any books in there that might have some answers," Spike said, laughing. "Don't be ridiculous, of course there aren't any books in the labyrinth. But I'm thinking, the labyrinth sort of has different magical properties, like the Everfree Forest does. It might have some clues or answers. It's the one place we never looked when we first came to Central City, so it has to be where the answers are," Sweetie Belle said, "Plus, it'd be a great place to hide." "Who'd be hiding in the labyrinth?" Spike asked. "Whatever creature put the curse on Earthica," Sweetie Belle answered. She stood up and walked over to the window and looked down on the labyrinth. "We have to check it out." "Whoa, whoa, whoa; you want to go up against whatever put the curse on Earthica? Are you crazy? The Elements of Harmony couldn't even defeat that thing," Spike said. "But if we find out what it is, we can potentially figure out how to wake up everybody else," Sweetie Belle said, "Come on Spike, don't you want to talk to Twilight again? My sister?" "No, I do, of course I do; but what if whatever it is, freezes us too?" Spike asked. "Apple Bloom and Scootaloo would come looking for me, if I didn't come home," Sweetie Belle said, "And I'm sure they'd figure out to look for me in the labyrinth. Besides, you probably wouldn't be frozen, because it didn't work on you the first time, and all you've done is grown up. The hypothesis behind everyone else being frozen, is having their Creative-Marks, which I have mine now." "Hypothesis? Definitely sounding too much like Twilight," Spike said. "Listen Spike," Sweetie Belle said, as she turned her gaze away from the window, "You know I'm going in there with or without you. If you come and I get frozen, the least you can do is go back to Peoplesville and let the others know what happened." Spike sighed. He stood from the table. "I never said I wasn't going with you—I just said you were crazy, is all," Spike said. He walked over and stood beside her. They looked out the window. "How far do you want to go in?" "We're going to the centre," Sweetie Belle said. Just as she spoke her words, the clouds shifted and the sun disappeared. The labyrinth's centre was plunged into dark shadows, and it suddenly began to rain.