"Here we are girls." A tattered lavender mare whispered, gulping.
"Uh, Twi? Ah think ah'm speakin' for everypony when ah say, ya'll sure we can'urn back now?!?" An orange work mare stated more than asked.
The six frazzled mares looked around the dark, damp, senary they were now in. T'was the crystal filled cavern that was, the Canterlot Caves. The only visible shreds of light in the mirror palace, were that of the horns aglow atop of Twilight and Rarity's heads.
"No," Twilight finally stated, looking towards Apple Jack,"We've come to far to have any reason to turn back now. And I believe," Sparkle paused, her aura rapping around a tattered scroll sitting just outside of her saddle bags," That we are almost there."
"Oooh, but Twilight!" A marshmellow outstreched the name, stopping in her tracks,"I'm sooo tired, and I think I.ve ruined my hooficure." The pony stomped for good measure.
"Fine Rarity. We'll stop and rest here for a while, and regain our bearings." The mare put up a hoof and yawned. "I'm pretty tired myself. Rainbow?" She asked, looking up at the cyan mare. A rainbow mare swooped down.
"Yeah Twilight?" A raspy voice replyed.
"Will you set up camp?"
"Can do!" Rainbow Dash soluted, stretching her wings out. Everypony put their things in a pile, as the Rainbow donned a pair of flight goggles."You guys may wanna stand back! It's about to get windy." Rainbow said doing a last minuet stretch of her wings. Nopony disagreed. They all clumped behind a huge crystal cluster, while watching the cyan pegasus begin to gain speed, spinning round and round their belongings. At her top speed, she smiled as the velocity of her rainbow vortex became powerful enough to lift a few of the groups tents, but there still wasn't enough power.
"Fluttershy!" The rainbow mained pony called out of the rainbowtex. A small voice behind the crystal cluster came about, saying,"I'm coming..." The butterball mare soon flung herself into the vortex, allowing it to suck her in. Soon, she began to help Rainbow gain enough speed to have everything pop into place.
Perfect! Rainbow thought as she shooed her friend away, she then began to fly in the opposite direction, ensuing the safe destruction of the rainbow vortex. "Welp," she started, her hooves beneath her head,"There you go everypony."
"Ooh, thank you Rainbow Dash!" The refined voice of Rarity called. She started to trot towards her mansion-like tent. "Come on everypony, there's plenty of room in my tent. We should have a meeting right quick to figure out what we shall do." The white unicorn nodded at her 'tent'.
"Thank you Rarity, and Rainbow." Twilight said, trotting into the marshmallow's tent, being sure to take note of how neat and tidy the campsite was. She turned to see Rainbow looking into her grateful face. "Just doin' my duty." The cyan mare said to the purple unicorn.
Everypony got comfortable in Rarity's 'tent'. Twilight appeared to take note of how much bigger it was on the inside, than it had looked on the out side. She then payed attention to the task at hoof. Looking around the circle of ponies, Twilight began to speak.
"Alright," The purple unicorn began, her purple aura rummaging around in her saddle bags to find an old map of the caves. She felt guilty for using it, for it was torn out of a book. Even worse, she was the one to tear it out of a book. One of her favorites, she might add. None the less, she rolled it into the middle of the ponies. They equally craned their necks to see it clearly. Before Twilight could continue, a pink party pony piped up.
"Hey look everypony!" She said grabbing the circles attention as she seemingly dissolved into the ground, to appear next to Twilight. "I found a cupcake on here! How silly is that?" She said giggling and pointing at the old map. There was indeed a small spot on the map that resembled a dark, crystally, cupcake.
"Pinkie," Twilight started to respond,"While that may look like a cupcake, that's actually a dragon's den. A dangerous dragon's den. So we need to steer clear of that at all costs." She nodded.
"Dragons? You know how afraid I am of dragons." A butterball mare piped up.
"Even though you defeated one yourself? Your still scared?" Rainbow asked in a pressuring manner.
"Yes... I... I just don't like big... Scary... Dragons..." Fluttershy responded shying away.
"Don't worry Fluttershy, we'll help you be brave. There's no need to worry." Twilight said, shooting an 'just let it go' glance. The pegasus nodded.
"Oh... Okay. What else?" The shy pony asked as Pinkie moved back into her spot in one bound, putting the sunshine pony in a warm embrace.
"Besides that, we're here." Twilight pointed at a circle shaped warp in the map,"And, from my studies of it, the Ciceron orb should be there." The unicorn circled a large area not to far away from the dragons den.
"Twi, how long'll it take take us to get from here to there?" The apple farmer asked.
"Well, according to my calculations from here to there should be about..." The pony tapped her head for a few seconds before quickly responding,"Five miles. And that sh-"
"Fiiive miiillles?" A white unicorn cut Twi off, outstretching the words as if in pain.
"Sugar cube, we like it as much as you do." Applejack received a wave of nods from behind her.
"Fine. And I guess it does give me a chance to wear my crystal boots. Apparently somepony augmented it to make the wearer able to walk miles without their hooves ever getting tired." The white unicorn rummaged through her bags,"Now where did I put those-?" She asked no pony in particular. Applejack rolled her eyes.
"You were sayin'?"
"Oh, right." Twilight gathered her thoughts back up. "It should take us, around a day to get there." She finally said, trying to stifle a yawn. "So we should probably get some rest." Twilight rolled the map back up, and shoved it in her saddle bags.
"Goodnight everypony." Rarity trotted upstairs to her main room, climbing into her bed.
"Goodnight girls." Twilight said, trotting out the 'tent' and toward her own beige canopy.
"Aw... But I'm not even tired yet!" Said a pink mare, walking slowly, and glumly, into her party tent. Within two minuets she was out cold. This made Rainbow snicker as she made her way over to her sleeping bag. She was way to good for a tent.
Applejack was the last pony, along with Fluttershy, to get into their respective tents.
Everypony called goodnight one last time, except for Pinkie, who was instead snoring loudly, and were soon in their dreamlands. All except for a purple unicorn.
"Dear Princess Celestia... We are currently on an expedition to find the Ciceron gem. This is the reason you haven't heard from me in a while, and for that I'm sorry. I'd been so busy trying to scout the whereabouts and learn more about this mysterious gem, in fact I looked in every book in my library, but to no avail. I pin pointed it's location and, the expedition is going great! The one question I have is, what does it do?" Twilight tried to stifle a yawn as sleep began to take over her. "Signed your student, Twilight Sparkle." She finished. Shoving her quill back into her saddle bags, Twilight decided to rest her head.
I'll rest my eyes for a second and send this to the princess. She'll know what it-, her thought was never finished as the lavender wizard drifted into a deep sleep.
"Woooh!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, popping her back, and stretching her wings,"I slept like a little filly."
"I can hear ya!" Said a messy mained Applejack as she too did some stretching of her own. "I'm gonna go get Twilight up. She'd wanna know we're ready to move." Rainbow nodded at this comment. She knew the high maintenance Twilight would agree too.
Applejack began to trot over to the purple unicorn's tent. She peered in, catching sight of the sleeping wizard. She finally came out with a,"Twi?", trying to wake the unicorn up.
"Huh-hu? Wh-what? Who's there?" Twilight sat strait up in bed looking around both alert, and groggy. She relaxed when she saw it was just the orange work mare. She got anxious again when she realized that she'd forgotten to send her letter. Forget it, she thought, we should just get moving.
"Um, it's me sugar cube. The girls and ah, we're all waitin' on you. Everythin's packed and ready to get movin', all cept' your stuff."
"Oh. Okay, I'll be out in a minuet." The lavender unicorn wrapped her note to the princess up, shoving it too into her saddlebags. She then trotted outside, shrinking her tent down, and also shoving it into her saddle bags.
After a good stretch, the gang was ready to go. The technicolor ponies excitingly started they're long trek, through the treacherous tattered Canterlot Caves, eager, to find that gem.
"Come, on, Fluttershy!" Rainbow yelled through the pink tail in her mouth,"Don't force me to drag you the whole way."
"Twilight...sa...said we wou...wouldn't go...go near th...the dragon!"
"Twilight said we'd try not to, but it's the only path to the mines! Anyway, the dragon is fast asleep. You'd have to make alot of noise to wake that thing up."
"B b but... I don't wanna!" Fluttershy stomped her hooves to the ground silently, trying to go the other way.
"Look, we're across." Rainbow said sarcastically, as she spit Flutters tail out. "Sorry for being a jerk. But I know you can be brave Fluttershy."
"I told you you could pass the sleepy meany dragon!" Pinkie quietly yelled, bounding around the room.
"Now that everypony is here, let's start moving again." Twilight said, impatiently.
"Ooh, I wonder if it sparkles." Rarity said, admiring herself in a nearby cluster, imagining a dress with the gem as a center piece.
"Rarity," Twilight said, snapping her out of admiration. "When we find this gem, you won't be able to use it in your fashions."
"Why ever not?" The marshmallow looked at the purple unicorn in disgust.
"Because this is a rare gem. In fact, the first of it's kind. And most likely the last. The first teal gem, Rarity. If anything, none of us should even touch it. It has magical capabilities of which nopony knows. So we don't know if the thing is even dangerous or not, there was hardly anything about it in the books I'd read. If anything, we'll hoof it over to the princesses A.S.A.P."
"Well, I guess that makes sence." Rarity responded, hiding her disappointment, this was going to be super exciting for her. Hmm, mabey she could mine some gems of her own down here. As if on cue of that statement, the white mare's horn began to glow an intense purple light, before sparking and dragging Rarity around.
"Um, Rarity? What are you doing?" Rainbow asked curiously.
"I'm not doing it, my horn is. It can sense where big jewels are remember?"
"Everypony! Follow that mare!" An excited Fluttershy amazingly yelled before adding on,"You know... If you want to."
After perhaps an hour or so of wooshing about the caves, Rarity began to slow, untill finally, she just stopped. Her horn shown purple, before unveiling a ball of teal under the crystal floor.
"How are we going to get it out of the floor?" Rarity asked.
"Everypony stand back, I got this." Rainbow replied. She then began to fly up and delve into the ground. It became a system, she'd fly up, fly down, and cracks would appear in the surface. After two minuets of nonstop bashing, the surface began to chip. "I... Think.... I... Almost, have... It!" She yelled between bashes.
Rainbow looked in shock as she saw the ground break beneath her. She was going to fast to stop from crashing into the orb. The last bit of crystal crumbled as the pegasus came face to face with the orb.
There was a flash. No noise. Complete silence. Six ponies lied unconscious, and unaware of what had happened. And there, on a cyan mares stomach lay the orb. A cyan unicorns stomach.