Raze's Journey Chapter 17
Luna sat outside the hospital room containing Rainbow Dash and Applejack. They had just been stabilized and we're now undergoing treatments to fix several injuries that happened in the battle against Applejack.
Luna sighed, 'If We had been keeping the training area safe, then this wouldn't have happened...'
Luna messed with her pet moon rock she had found on the moon, “Dearest Skippy, what would thou do in this situation?”
Skippy seemed to smile and say, 'Your Mom and Dad are dead!'
Luna looked at the rock and then put it down, 'We feel so alone...'
Luna noticed the sound of hooves on the stone floors of the castle and saw Celestia making her way inside. Celestia smiled when she saw Luna and decided to sit next to her.
“Rough day, Lulu?” Celestia asked her little Sister.
“Yes, We have seen Lady Applejack's powers and felt the destructive capability of it. We are unsure if we can handle another ascension alone. Could we ask for thy help the next time?” Luna asked her big sister.
“Of course, Lulu.” Celestia said as Luna leaned into her.
Celestia was surprised at this, but then smiled and held her close, 'You must be so tired, sleep well, Lulu.'
Celestia looked toward a clock on the opposite wall, 'Twilight hasn't been back since she left yesterday, I wonder if the agents I've sent out have found her yet...'
Just as Celestia had finished her thought she saw Octavia galloping towards Celestia, “An agent has found Twilight and sent us a report stating that she's training her powers in a secluded area, should we move in if anything goes wrong?”
Celestia shook her head, “I believe that she knows what she is doing, but I do want you to watch over her and report to me if she has any breakthroughs.”
“Yes, Princess!” Octavia left in a hurry as Celestia looked down at her sister that snored softly while leaning on her still.
~The Mountain Temple~
Shining and his group trudged onward through the temple with their horns lighting up the area. They were passing through a corridor filled with ancient runes and the walls seemed to be spreading out as they made their way further inside.
Mace looked around with fascination, “This is quite amazing! I've never seen a temple like this be so untouched by modern hooves. We must be the first to set foot here in over three hundred years or so.”
Shining looked over at Mace, “That doesn't seem like such a long time.”
“Maybe not to you, Shining. For me on the other hoof, it's incredible!” Mace finished while continuing to look at all the runes they passed by.
Greato smirked, “You don't need to share your nerdy fantasies with us, I'm sure your capable of keeping them to yourself.”
Mace shook his head, “You need to learn to appreciate things like this, you're seeing stuff that other ponies would kill to be able to look at such things like this.”
Greato chuckled, “Sure. Just keep the amazing sights to yourself and leave the real exciting parts to me.”
Shining looked at them both, “The corridor stopped, I think we're in the first room of the temple.”
Mace immediately left his conversation with Greato to stare in awe as Shining lit of up torches with magical fire to brighten up the place.
Mace was at a loss for words, “...”
Greato was taking in the sights, but not nearly as invested in them, “Well, this is boring...”
Shining was looking around and saw a large spiral staircase leading upward. He then looked around and found that the runes on the walls were beginning to change colors. They had been a deep golden at first, but were changing into a vibrant sky blue.
The process of the change seemed to be slow, 'That's strange.' Shining thought to himself as he stepped toward the staircase.
Shining stepped onto the first stair and then went up the next one, he found nothing wrong and decided to go up faster. Then the stairs folded downward and flew down the stairs and hit the floor with a loud crash.
“I should have seen this coming!” Shining said as he picked himself up.
Mace looked over at the booby trapped stairs, “I'm pretty sure that Daring Do has done the staircase trap at least 3 times in the series so far.”
Greato nodded, “Actually, it was four times.”
Mace's irises shrank a little, “You... read?”
Shining got up on that one too, “Seriously? You do?”
Greato shook his head quickly, “NO! I mean, that stuff is for Brainy AKA No Fight over here!” He finished while pointing his left hoof at Mace.
Mace and Shining began to laugh at Greato's expense all while ignoring the lights coming from the hieroglyphs as they neared the center of the room at the other side.
“Stop laughing!” Greato said while stomping his front hoofs.
Mace and Shining agreed silently to quit at Greato's expense. They both wiped a tear from their eye.
“Alright, we'll quit with the laughing.” Shining said as Mace nodded.
“Yeah, now we need to figure out whats going on with all the blue light.” Mace said as the light encompassed the entire room.
The light from the middle of the room beamed upward onto a gem that started to glow. The gem seemed to be gathering energy until it shot a beam at a mirror like surface on the left side of the large room.
The light traveled downward from the mirror and made several lines in a row of hieroglyphs. The light grew brighter, a loud latch was heard as it moved and released the doors.
The place began to rumble as larger doors began to open to their left. The doors made loud scraping noises as they were seemingly pushed open from the other side. As it opened the creature behind the door revealed itself.
A rock golem made up of smaller rocks stomped it's way out of the other room and seemed to stare at the three ponies.
“What is that thing?!” Mace asked as Greato charged at it.
“Greato! Stop! We don't know what this thing can do!” Shining yelled as he was pointedly ignored.
“Whatever it is, it's done!” Greato yelled as he took out his battle axe.
It floated beside him as he got closer to the rocky beast. He activated frost magic and covered the axe in ice as he prepared to slash the creature in question.
The golem responded quicker than he had expected by pounding the ground with it's left foot and making rocks come out of the ground to surround Greato.
Greato was stopped in his tracks from the sudden rocks and then the golem raised both of it's arms and a small ball of electricity seemed to be charging inside the outstretched arms.
Shining saw the ball and decided to charge forward despite not knowing what could happen. He made his magical blade and charged the golem himself.
Mace had decided to go for his own side as he drew his weapon and began to swing it around in his magic. He charged it up with ice magic and started into an immediate gallop at the golem.
The golem had changed targets and was now aiming for Shining. The golem fired the fully charged ball of pure lightning as Shining threw up a shield around himself. The energy ball clashed with the shield and began to struggle against Shining's magical strength.
Mace smashed the side of the golem with his ice magic powered mace and it spread onto the rocks of the golem's side. Greato broke out of his prison with a small magical burst and then galloped at the golem with his axe aglow with fire.
Shining felt his shield beginning to crack under the pressure of the attack. He started to sweat as exhaustion set in. His strong body shook as he tried to well up a much greater amount of determination from his body.
Shining's thoughts were racing as he came up with multiple ways of getting out of his situation. Shining's decision was made from that he already knew of magical or other energy attacks.
'Just gotta be fast!' Shining began to put all his strength into the magic coming from his horn.
The shield seemed to nearly rupture, but instead changed to seem like it was catching the energy, 'Give it a little bump!'
Shining made the shield pop upwards and sent the energy spiraling toward the ceiling where it seemed to be absorbed back into the blue light. Shining let down his shield while panting in exhaustion.
Shining slumped down a bit as he tried to gather more magic back into his horn. He heard several small explosions as Mace started to fire off magical blasts from his horn. He also noticed the explosions were being absorbed by the ground around them and transferred to the gem.
The golem managed to break free of the ice and began to defend himself from Greato, but found that it was a bit slower than him.
Greato had made multiple slices at the Golem with his burning axe, but he finally made a strong dent in the creature's defense by melting off its right arm.
It fell to the ground and sunk into it. Greato went back in for another swing and fell to the ground when he felt something grab his back left leg. He looked back and saw the arm sticking out of the floor.
He changed his attack to hit the arm only for to feel his axe being grabbed from the other side by the golem itself. The golem threw the axe away and made the ground melt around the leg currently being held. It then solidified around the same leg and the golem's arm returned to it's body.
Greato tried to move, but found himself stuck, “How do you kill this thing?!” He shouted as Mace galloped toward it with his Mace glowing with icy magic once more.
“I'll try to finish it!” Mace yelled to Greato.
The golem felt the icy power as it smashed into it's back. The ice spread over and around the mid-section of the body while also covering the head.
Shining saw several flashing dots going off from the front of the golem and picked himself up from the ground. Shining summoned his sword of arcane magic and swung it around through the air.
He galloped at the golem with a little difficulty as it began to charge up energy of it's own. The electric ball began to form as Shining picked up the pace a bit with the extra momentum keeping him from collapsing.
The electric ball reached it's maximum power and was fired at Shining directly. The ball neared him fast as Shining place his arcane sword at the front of himself.
Mace galloped from the side and used his magic to enhance the mace he brandished. He smashed into the ball with all his strength which knocked the energy into the wall opposite of Shining and Mace.
Shining finally reached the golem and stabbed straight through the middle of the flashing lights. The excess magic ripped through it's back and Shining collapsed as the energy burnt out.
The ground began to shake as the golem started to back up from Shining. Mace saw it start to chip up and finally, cracks began to form.
Then all of it's body parts broke into pieces and burst apart themselves. Mace rushed over to Shining.
“Shining? You still here?” Mace asked his Captain as he got a small nod in confirmation.
“Check on, Greato before me.” Shining said to him as Mace nodded.
Mace made his way over to Greato and saw the hoof stuck in the ground, “I'll just get that undone real quick.” His horn activated and the ground seemed to melt again as the hoof was pulled out.
The ground went back to normal after the spell was done.
Greato breathed a sigh of relief, “Thanks, Mace.”
“No problem.” Mace turned to Shining's direction and saw that he was standing up.
Mace shook his head, “You should lay down for a moment, you've definitely earned that!”
Shining looked at Mace with defiance, “I have to keep going for all of us, besides, we're close to what we came here for!”
Mace noticed the blue light was fading from the walls and turned his head to follow the direction it was flowing towards. He noticed the blue gem from earlier as it began to extract itself from the wall. The gem was completely out and began to levitate towards the three ponies before dropping at their hooves unceremoniously.
Shining activated his horn and picked up the gem. He could feel the magic coursing through it, 'It feels like all of our magic is combined with something else... So strange...'
Suddenly, Shining felt his shoulder being tapped. He turned to Greato, “What?”
“Are we going to continue now? I really want to see what this gems about.” Greato said as Shining nodded.
“Yeah, you're right. Let's go.” Shining said to Greato and Mace.
They all got up and began making their way up the stairs. Shining carried the gem in his magic the whole way up while Mace and Greato walked behind him.
The second room opened up before them and seemed to be just a stairway. Shining looked around expecting to see arrow heads sticking out the walls, or some other kind of crazy trap, but he found nothing suspicious. He continued onward with a shrug.
Greato and Mace had waited to receive the command to gallop, but heard nothing from their fearless leader. So they just went along with it.
Before long they would stand before a large stone door.
Shining turned to the rest of his group, “Well, this has to be it.”
Mace nodded, “Yes, I'd say that the key hole is right in the middle of the door. It also seems to be where the Dragon Ball is, but I'm not sure how the Gryphons would get back there. They would have had to be stronger than the golem back there. Something seems a bit suspicious.”
Greato pulled out his axe, “I'm ready to fight whatever happens to be on the other side.”
Shining turned and looked up at the door, “Well, here goes.”
He floated the gem to the middle of the door and pushed it into the slot in the stone. Immediately a loud rumbling began to shake the entire temple as magical energy began to pour into the door. Several mechanisms in the walls seemed to start clicking as and then loudly smash on the insides of the lock mechanisms.
The door began shine blue as it started to open. The door rose into the air as light pervaded the area around the group. They put their hooves up to their eyes to avoid the blinding themselves as the door reached the top and finally stopped after being locked back in place.
The shining light began to die down until it shown in only the middle portion of the room and Shining was the first to look inside that third room.
The light itself seemed to be forming into a body. Shining watched as it formed before himself. It started from the bottom and then began rising up as light particles began to make an alien form that nopony had ever seen before except in books.
“Is that a monkey?” Greato asked the others.
Mace shook his head, “I don't think it's exactly like a monkey... It Seems too advanced.”
Shining looked at the being as other features like his face began to form and clothes formed around his body. He seemed to be wearing armor and long sword upon his back. His hair was golden and covered by a helmet as the orb below it broke to pieces.
The shattered glass dissolved into nothing as the form gained substance. It was now physical and a grand sight to behold as golden light shimmered outward around the bipedal creature.
It opened it's eyes and looked upon the group before itself, “Hello.”
~The Abrupt End~