"We're almost there," Sombra growled at Trixie, who sat beside him on the front of the wagon as they came to a stop by the sea. Trixie stopped the wagon and yelled down that it was alright to come out, smiling as Starshine came barreling out of the wagon and leapt into the ocean. Armora was helped out by Bark, who used his nose to navigate her to the water.
"So, where is the entrance?" Trixie asked Sombra as he hopped off the wagon and walked over to a palm tree on the beach, resting underneath of it as he turned away from Trixie. "I should have figured as much." Trixie wanted to have a talk with him, but at that moment Starshine came running out of the ocean and up to Sombra, shaking his mane out.
"What'cha doing over here?" Starshine asked him, getting a growl in response. Starshine moved over to Sombra's other side, making the dark pony roll over. "Why are you avoiding me?" Sombra said nothing but growled again when Starshine moved back over to face him.
"What do you want?!" Sombra eventually snarled at him, causing Starshine to back away with tears in his eyes.
"I was just wondering if you'd teach me more of that magic," he said in a hurt voice as he looked down, making Sombra sigh in frustration as he tried to avoid the 'puppy dog' eyes. He eventually gave in with a growl and stood up, motioning for Starshine to follow him.
"Alright kid, but this is going to be my final lesson as your teacher," Sombra said in a tone that he hoped got his point across.
"This is only my third lesson," Starshine said with a huff.
"Never said I was a good teacher," Sombra said with a smirk that turned to a snarl when he saw Trixie approaching them. "And just what do you want? Come to force me to do something else that I despise?"
"No, I just came to sit in on a lesson to see just how you teach," Trixie said, and she sat down a bit away from the other two. Sombra rolled his eyes but decided not to argue the point.
"Alright kid, you know only 'fire' and 'repulse' right now, and you can only do one of those, right?" Sombra asked and Starshine nodded, remembering all the times he had accidentally set something on fire, even rocks. "Now this next one I'm going to teach you is a last resort of sorts. This will drain you and it will hurt, but not to the point where you would die."
"And you're going to teach it to me?" Starshine asked with a look. "Are you certain that I won't just set myself on fire?"
"Well, whether or not you can use it properly is up to you, but I would feel a bit...never mind, let's just get on with it," he said after a quick glance in Trixie's direction. "The spell is a hard one to pronounce, but when done right it is destructive. Blit O Rate Er."
"Okay, so it's called..." Starshine began, but Sombra put a hoof over his mouth to stop him.
"That is not a spell you want to say unless you want to destroy everything in a thirty foot radius," Sombra warned as he looked over at Trixie, noticing that she was muttering the word as well. "Don't bother Trixie, you aren't...right to use the spell."
"And just what do you mean by that?" Trixie asked with some heat.
"I mean that someponies have what it takes to use spoken magic and some don't," Sombra said as he pulled Starshine into a side hug. "This kid here has it, and he might be better than me with a lot of practice. You don't though, and I'm certain because you would have gotten at least something if you muttered the word, but you didn't. Now let me train the kid before I go." Trixie lowered her head a bit at his words, but she figured that Sombra knew what he was talking about. So she left the two to train, feeling just a little bit sad. But she shook her head and moved over to Armora and Bark, who was sniffing around for any sign.
"Anything yet?" she asked Bark, who shook his head with a sigh.
"No, I cannot smell any clues as to where the sea ponies are," he said with a growl. "I suppose it makes sense though; this area has been exposed to the elements for years, not like the scent in the temple." Trixie sighed in frustration, but figured that there was no helping it. She would ask Sombra once he was done teaching, so she sat down and stared at the water. As much as she tried to forget about it, it was weird for her to think that Sombra was leaving.
'It's not like he and I were the best of friends, but in the short time he's been here he's almost become...family,' Trixie thought to herself as she looked to where Sombra and Starshine were training, one's mane on fire and the other laughing. Starshine had almost become like a foal or brother to her, and Sombra had become...tolerable. Then she looked over to Armora and Bark, the former being helped around by the latter and she thought of them. 'And what will I do once this quest is over?' she thought to herself as she looked over at them again. 'They've all become like part of this crazy family as well. Will I simply go back to the way I was before this happened?' She shook her head and looked up at the sky, trying to think of what she would do next.
/T\
"Alright, the two of us have finished up and he's made...progress," Sombra said with a shake of his head as he looked down at Starshine, who was smoldering a bit. "But after I show you the last place I saw Atlantis, I'm gone. I don't want to be anywhere near here if the sea ponies are going to be involved."
"Do you have to?" Starshine asked with a hint of sadness in his voice. "I know that you're afraid, but you won't be down there alone. You could--"
"I'm. Not. Going," Sombra said in his most serious of voices, making Starshine back down. Armora scoffed at him, but Trixie gave her a look to stop before walking forward.
"Alright then, can you show us the last place where Atlantis was?" she asked.
"Sure. Over there," Sombra said with a smile as pointed to a random spot in the ocean. When he got a number of looks from the group, he shrugged. "That's where it was when I attacked it all those years ago. So it's probably around the bottom of the ocean."
"And that is not a place that we can get to easily," Trixie said with a growl. "But maybe I can work up a spell that will allow us to breathe under water."
"And the pressure will flatten you," he said with a growl of his own before putting a hoof to his head. "Look, back when Atlantis still stood, the way I got in was a hidden teleportation platform that the Atlantians had to reach the surface world if needed. If I remember correctly, it was in a small forest that looks like a small palace." He pointed to a grove of trees in the distance before he turned in the opposite direction to leave. "Sayonara. But I don't think that too many of you will miss me."
"Wait," Trixie said as she wrapped a hoof around his arm. "Even if we never got along, I want to thank you for all you've done to help us...Solving the words, fighting alongside us...saving us on multiple occasions. Here," she said as she levitated over a saddle bag to him.
"What's this?" he asked as he grabbed the bag.
"There's enough food and supplies in there to get you to the next town," Trixie said. "There's also a good number of bits in there that you can spend as you will. I also put all of those crystals you guarded so closely in here also. And finally...goodbye." She held out her hoof as she said this, looking Sombra dead in the eyes as she did so. He looked down at the hoof for a moment before he gingerly grabbed and shook it, before turning and walking off into the distance. The group watched him go for a moment before Trixie turned and headed for the forest.
"Come on, let's go," Trixie said with no emotion as she walked off towards it, everypony following her except for Starshine, who looked back and watched as Sombra walked off farther and farther into the distance. "Come on Starshine." Trixie and the others walked into the forest, looking around at the tropical forest with interest as they walked towards where Sombra had pointed. It didn't take long for them to find the small structure that he had mentioned and upon further inspection, they found that most of the rooms in the small palace were already destroyed and all the remained was the central room, which had a weird magnifying glass in the center of it with multiple circles around it.
"So, this is the puzzle that we need to figure out to progress," Trixie said as she walked around it, trying to make sure that she saw everything it hid. "I am amazed that it is still standing. Armora, Starshine; do either of you see something that may be a clue?"
"I don't see anything!" Starshine called out, while Armora hissed with a shake of her head. Trixie frowned and looked up at the magnifying glass to the circles on the floor, knowing that there was some connection between the two.
'Maybe if I try moving it,' she thought as she used her magic to tilt the glass so that the overhead sun was shining directly on the glass, causing a beam of sunlight to shoot from the glass into one of the circles. Trixie smiled as the light hit the circle and lit up itself, but after a few moments of waiting she frowned as nothing else happened. 'Maybe if I try moving it again,' she thought as she moved the glass off of that circle to another one, lighting up the circle the light touched while dimming the one that the light previously touched.
"Maybe you need to move the light onto all of them," Starshine suggested. Trixie tried what he suggested but to no avail. She tried moving the light to certain circles or reflecting the light to multiple ones, but nothing seemed to work.
"I actually wish Sombra were here," Trixie growled after something else she tried failed. "He might know something that we are missing. Everypony, look around for any sign of scribbling or symbols around here." The group nodded and spread out to search the place, with Bark coming with Trixie as they searched the lower floors.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked her once they were alone. Trixie stopped looking under a pile of bricks to look at him in confusion.
"Of course I am, this is the whole reason I started this quest," she said as she went back to looking, but she stopped once she heard Bark chuckle.
"That is not what I meant. I meant, do you really want Sombra to go?" Trixie froze up a bit, but shook it off as she stood up with a sigh.
"He was a helpful team member, but I cannot force him to join us if he does not choose to do so," Trixie said as she walked past Bark. "This was bound to happen eventually, and I'm glad it happened after he helped to save our lives. But Sombra is a pony who refuses the help of others and wants to be alone. Why should I deny his wish?" Bark moved his head to follow her, a thin smile on his face.
"Maybe because the two of you are similar." Trixie stopped in her tracks and turned to face Bark slowly.
"How so?"
"Both of you had dreamed to take over the world, and along the way you alienated all those around you who wanted to help," he began as he walked by her. "And after you failed or realized the error of your ways, you both made yourselves outcasts, both to protect the world and at the same time protect yourselves from the world."
"I am different from him," Trixie said with a growl. "He did acts of unspeakable crimes towards his own subjects. He is...was evil. He cannot change."
"Maybe that's because nopony gave him the chance," Bark said as he wiped some grime off the wall. "After all, Starshine told me that you began to change after you met him, sompony who accepted you for who you are, not what others thought about you. maybe nopony gave Sombra that chance." Trixie shook her head, trying to ignore Bark's words as she walked up beside him to see that he had found a number of strange carvings on the wall.
"This is ancient pony," she muttered as she began to translate it. "To activate the teleporter, one must place the sun under the ocean." Trixie knew what it meant and she knew how to make the glass work, but she was still stuck on what Bark had said. "I still don't get what more you're asking of me. I helped Sombra and in return he helped me. There is nothing more to be said."
"Then maybe you should begin to think about what wasn't said, instead of what was," Bark said with wisdom as he walked by her to the exit. "And maybe you should think of the ways you helped each other that weren't in the saving of lives in battle." Trixie shook her head in confusion as she followed after him, collecting the others as they gathered around the magnifying glass again. This time Trixie used her magic to levitate some saltwater out of the sea and placed it between the sun and the glass as she moved it back to its original position. And just as she predicted, another circle appeared where the light touched. the moment the light touched the circle, the ground shook tremendously and a massive circle of light surrounded the four of them.
"What's going on?!" Starshine yelled as they began to vanish.
"We're being teleported!" Trixie yelled back. "We're heading to Atlantis!" The whole group vanished as she said this, none of them ever noticing the pair of green eyes that watched them from the shadows, a pair of eyes that held both sorrow and regret in them. A pair of eyes that knew they weren't coming back.
/T\
Trixie groaned as she opened her eyes, feeling the wet water clinging to her coat as she picked herself out of the water. She rubbed her head and looked around, finding to her amazement that she and the others were in a room that was filed with blue lanterns, each of which cast a calming light over the room. Her eyes then darted to the walls and she saw carvings of ancient looking sea ponies that looked larger than life, carvings that looked to be of heroes and stories of the past.
"I can't believe it! Sculptures of moments in Atlantian history! Memories of past actions!" she said with a smile as she looked around.
"Where are we?" Starshine asked as he got up, looking around the room with as much awe as Trixie.
"This has to be the gateway to Atlantis!" Trixie said with a squeak of joy as she ran to the end of the room, seeing a hallway filled with carvings that were also the same as the ones in the room, leading down to a giant golden door at the end of the hallway. "This has to be the way! Imagine all of the secrets that are hidden behind those doors, all the knowledge!" She squealed again as she said this, before her face turned red as she realized that she had done that out loud. "Um, sorry. I can get kinda crazy about knowledge."
"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Starshine asked as he ran up to her. "Let's go meet the sea ponies!" Armora followed the two of them as they walked down to the door, but Bark waited a moment as he sniffed the statues, not liking the smell of them. From Trixie's descriptions, he would have thought that the sea ponies would have taken better care of their statues. The ones in here smelled of must and mold, like they hadn't been looked after in centuries. He shook his head and ran off to the others, not sure if he had also smelled blood on them or not.
"Alright everypony, check your nerves and fears at the door," Trixie said as she lifted a hoof to knock. "We're going to meet a long lost nation." And then she knocked three times, and with a creaking of doors that hadn't been opened in a long time, the golden doors opened for them.