“Apple Bloom”
“The Crystal Heart is a magical artifact that the crystal ponies used to revitalize themselves by sharing their light. The Crystal Heart will then use that light, magically converting it into positive energy, and shares it with the crystal ponies within an undetermined diameter.
Queen Cadence, the alicorn of love, has been using the heart to help the crystal ponies while under the rule of King Sombra, who ruled over the Crystal Empire. His greed for power has caused many kingdoms to fall. In his years of rule, he grew more and more curious of the true power of the Crystal Heart, however, Queen Cadence wouldn't allow him.
One day however, when Cadence wasn't strong enough to power the heart, Sombra tried to gain the power of the heart. Cadence tried to stop him, but she was turned into crystal by Sombra's magic, and was hidden below the castle. Just before Cadence's form was turned to crystal however, she manages to cast a spell that trapped Sombra, making him unable to obtain the Crystal Heart that was located at the very top of the castle.
Sombra however, like Cadence, managed to cast a spell just before the queen's spell was complete. It was rumored that he did not want anyone else to get their hooves on the artifact, so his spell cursed all crystal ponies in the empire.”
That was Twilight just now. Earlier, she asked us a few questions of what we knew and what happened back there in the Crystal Empire. And after that, she read a few books about the matter. Spike and Shining Armor were the ones looking for the books that she needed. Thankfully though, the duo only got three books, including the one that Armor took earlier upon hearing Sombra's name the first time we have gathered in this here library.
“But why did Sombra went to Jay's world if he's originally going after the artifact?”
Twilight was writing down all of these summaries and lists and whatever, and she kept on muttering to herself. So, we left her alone for a while. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle sat near the earth pony statue. Armor stood beside his sister. And Spike an' Ah are just staring at this weird portal-thing. Ah guess Ah'm starting to believe that our time here is faster than what's on the other side of this here portal, since that lightning just now flashed really really slow. It was mah first time to have ever seen how a lightning would look like: forming a white an' bright crack on that black wall of clouds.
Spike suddenly touched the portal. Ah was about to try and yank him back, but his claw...for what it seemed like he just touched a solid wall. Ah was expecting that it'd — I dunno — go through or somethin'? Ah mean, despite me and the gals were all runnin' 'round and fightin' 'n stuff, Ah still had some time readin' some old books back in the old castle inside the Everfree Forest.
Spike pulled his arm back and turned to me. “I wonder why this thing feels like a solid wall...”
I shrugged. “Do Ah look like a pony who knows all of these weird stuff?”
Spike cracked a smile and chuckled as he scratched his head. “G-good point, Apple Bloom.”
Ah smiled back. “Ya know ya could just call me ‘Bloom’, right?”
He shrugged. “I'll try and get used to it.” He smiled before facing the portal once more.
Heh, he's actually quite nice. Sad he ain't a pony though. If he was, maybe Ah'll ask him out. Ah'm not really into an inter-specie relationship, or whatever it's called. Well, Sweetie has mah approval for this dragon. Uh...yeah, speakin' o' which...
“Hey Spike,” Ah caught his attention. “Ah was wonderin'... Since you're a dragon 'n all, you would, uh, one day grow up to be a giant dragon?”
He arched an eyebrow, then he smiled bitterly. “I wish I would, but I did some research, and I'm a different specie of dragons.” Ah was about to ask, but he spoke too soon. “Oh, I know. Let me show you girls!” He then turned to the bookshelves behind us. “Now where was that book again...”
While he was searching for the book, Ah was wondering if I should tell him that ‘let me show you girls’ somehow sounded dirty. Heheh. That, or mah mind is no longer as innocent as Spike's. Ah well... It's kinda fun to have such a mind, anyway.
“Found it!” Spike cheered as he pulled a blue book.
Well, that was quick. I motioned to the girls to gather as Spike sat in front of me and opened the book. He was flipping through pages by the time Scoots and Sweets sat beside me.
“Ah, here it is!” Spike turned the book for us to read the texts. There were also images of dragons that somehow resembled him quite a bit. Of course, the dragons on the images looked much older than he is. “You know how I am able to send letters, right? That's because my specie of dragons can learn magic. Well, some kinds of magic, at least. We can't use teleport or levitate, but you get the idea...”
“Says here that an average adult dragon's height is almost as twice as big as an adult earth pony,” Sweetie said, sounding a bit happy.
“If I stand on my two legs, like I'm used to do, yeah, but if I stand like you ponies, maybe I'm just about the same height.” Spike smiled. He sure is proud of sharing his specie with us.
“Booooring...” Scootaloo teased as she pushed the book towards Spike, receiving a glare from him. “You should have been those dragons that can be big and strong an—”
“And gets weird smoke-like diseases that could darken the sky of an entire world?” Spike interrupted with a deadpan.
“Um...” Scootaloo gulped a lump and laughed nervously. “W-well, when you put it that way...”
“I like Spike the way he is.” Sweetie Belle nodded with a big smile, and then she gasped and covered her mouth with both her hooves.
Scoots and I shared mischievous grins while we looked at our unicorn friend. Spike seemed oblivious though. Sheesh, that kid...
“No no! I mean, uh, what I was trying to say was...uh...”
“Busted,” Scootaloo snickered.
Sweets was about to argue, but Spike suddenly caught our attention by burping those green fires again, and turning into a scroll in mid-air.
“Sorry,” he chuckled nervously as he caught the falling scroll. “I couldn't hold it. It felt urgent, so yeah...”
“Spike?” We heard Twilight's voice as Spike unrolled the scroll. “Who's it from?”
“It's from Kronz,” he replied, sounding worried. The girls and Ah walked beside him to read what was written on the scroll. “He said that Jay, Xilfer and Rainbow Dash went to—”
“Rainbow Dash!?” Scootaloo exclaimed, snatching the scroll to herself, almost ripping it in the process, and read the entire scroll to herself. “R-R-Rainbow is...alive? She's alive?” she repeated the question over and over, sounding more and more hopeful as she repeated her own question.
Spike snatched the scroll back with a grump. “That wasn't very nice, you know...”
“Sorry sorry,” Scoots' ears flattened, but it stood back up quicker than a blink of an eye. “But Rainbow's really okay, right? Right?”
“Scootaloo...”
“Right, right, sorry Twilight...” she flashed Twilight an apologetic grin, but she dropped it and turned into a frown. “But you were the cause of...never mind...”
Thankfully, she said it with a low voice that Twilight wasn't able to pick up. Sweets, Spike and I heard it, but the three of us didn't say anything. It might cause a huge argument, so we kept it to ourselves. Besides, didn't Gold already told us that it was Discord who did it while inside Twilight's body?
“Anyway,” Spike coughed to clear his throat. “Kronz said that Jay, Xilfer, and—” he faced Scootaloo, “—yes Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash as well,” he then went back to the scroll, “decided to head back to the island. Jay mentioned that, if possible, we should send the heart through the portal that's located on Mount Comet on their world. He suggested that maybe you—Twilight—could trace where his—Kronz's—messages are coming from.”
We turned to Twilight, and saw her shaking her head. “I don't think that would be easy...”
“Well,” Spike said as he suddenly began opening my saddlebag. Oh, right. Ah'm the one keeping the scrolls. “I could trace it, if you'd help me.”
Twilight rubbed her chin with a hoof as she thought about it. “Well, we haven't been able to do some magic together for the longest time,” she looked at us, or specifically, she looked at Spike, and smiled. “I guess that could work. With my magic and your mail delivery service,” she chuckled while Spike rolled his eyes, “we could trace it.”
With a nod, Spike trotted towards the two unicorns, and the girls and I followed behind.
“I wonder why I never thought of looking at where it's exact location was while I was inside Discord's pony-formed body...” Twilight asked herself, staring at the pony statue.