Chapter 11
(Now edited by Neko Majn C)
Alone in the chapel stood Silver Shroud, slightly older. He had grown a considerable amount since his years as a colt. He could almost lock eyes with the average pony. His mane and coat had grown darker in color, his mane now a jet black and his coat only a few shades away from matching it.
The young prince silently read the inscription before him, “In loving memory of King Amber Shroud, and Princess Ruby Heart, taken in the efforts to make peace. Their memories shall live on forever.”
Since the news reached the Empire, to the funeral itself, Silver had not shed a single tear, swallowing hard every now and again in order to keep back the pain from the public’s prying eyes.
Having had his fill of the monument for the time being, he gave a long sigh and was about to leave the place of great sorrow when he felt a hoof on his shoulder.
“They were truly two of a kind, weren’t they?” the feminine voice said. “Never have I seen so many ponies weep at one time in one place.”
Silver, being a little irritated that his privacy had been invaded, brushed the hoof off his shoulder and turned his head, scowling at the intruder. To his dismay, the intruder was none other than Princess Celestia. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped for a moment or two before he quickly regained his composure. “Princess Celestia, what are you doing here?”
She smiled at the prince, “I could ask you the same thing. Everypony in the Crystal Empire is searching for their new king, yet here you are, all alone.”
“I just need some time to think is all.”
“Understandable,” she said taking a few steps toward the colt. “Everypony else must deal with the pains of losing their leaders, but you, you have to deal with the loss of your parents. And even then, they come to you for guidance, for direction, for hope.”
Silver lowered his head as he grinded his teeth. “Is there something you needed your Majesty or—”
“As a matter a fact, there was something I wanted to know.” Silver’s eyes widened as Celestia lowered her neck, bringing herself snout to snout with the colt. “On this day, everypony in the Kingdom spared not a single tear for the loss of their beloved leaders. The streets were stained with the sorrow of every citizen except for two ponies, you and your elderly companion. The two of you stared on as your parents were taken away, and even now your eyes show no sign of sadness. I would like to know what kept the two of you so strong?”
“Well,” Silver started, taking a few steps back from the Princess. “Diamond says that we need to stay strong for everypony. The responsibility has fallen to me to guide the ponies of this kingdom, so I need to let everypony else cry for me.”
Celestia smiled. “I see, that’s very noble of you, Silver.”
“Well that and—” Silver stopped mid-sentence. Biting his tongue, his eyes widened and his head turned, averting his gaze from the Princess.
Celestia raised a brow as her smile faded. “‘And’ what?” She said stepping closer to the prince once more.
“P…perhaps one day, death won’t have to be the end.”
Celestia shook her head, as a frown crawled across her face. “I’m afraid that dream of yours may be a little farther out of your grasp than you think, your Majesty.” She paused as she turned toward the memorial. “Perhaps one day, ponykind will be able to prolong life to a very, very long time, but in the end I’m afraid we all must face it.” The Princess stopped, and in a low hushed breath she said through closed teeth. “Including me.”
Silver looked on in a moment of stunned silence. “Princess, what if there was a way to keep going after your body has expired?”
“Prince Silver!”
The two of them looked to the entryway to find a white maned and slightly wrinkled crystal pony, making his way to Silver with a rather sour look.
“Diamond, I—”
“Please excuse us, Princess,” Diamond said, wrapping a leg around Silver. “His majesty’s presence is required by the royal council.”
Celestia nodded. “I understand.” She bowed her head to the two of them. “It was a pleasure talking with you, your Majesty; I do hope we can do it again sometime.”
As the two made their way down the aisle, Celestia watched with narrowed eyes. When she was sure the two were out of earshot. She walked to a nearby wall and cast a ball of aura onto it. A moment later an image of a guard pony appeared.
“How might I serve you, your Majesty?” the guard asked.
“I’d like a tightened watch on the activates going on within the Crystal Empire, primarily anything surrounding his Majesty and his assistant.”
“Yes, Princess, will that be all?”
“Indeed, now make it so,” she said, closing the portal between the two of them. As she did, she took one last look at the monument, and with a bright flash of aura, was gone.
Unbeknownst to her, pressed against the wall just behind the door, were Diamond and Silver.
“Do you realize what you’ve done!?” Diamond said slamming the door behind him.
“I’m sorry!” Silver said, his eyes winced and his posture leaned back. “I just thought that maybe she might be able to help us.”
“Help us?! That’s exactly what we needed, Silver, more guards breathing down our necks and an even closer eye kept on us by the Princess herself!”
“I’m sorry…I’m sorry.”
“Is that all you can—” Diamond paused; his anger sank as tears began to fall from the sunken head of the young colt. He gave a heavy sigh and walked over to Silver, wrapping his foreleg around his back and bringing him close. “There, there, Silver, it will be alright. I know you didn’t mean to cause any harm. But you need to realize that our work is to be kept a secret from all of Equestria for the time being. If the wrong pony were to find out about our work, about the crown, all of our work would be for nothing.” Diamond placed his hoof under Silver’s chin and gently raised it upward, lightly patting away the tears that slid down the colt’s face. “Do I make myself clear, your majesty?”
Silver nodded.
“Good, now I do believe we’ve kept the council waiting long enough. Shall we be off then?”
As Twilight walked through the forest, a soft sniff came from her nose as her head hung low, her eyes red with tears. “You did what you needed to, Twilight,” she said to herself. “Dipper could have been killed back there and then what would you do? Besides, you never should’ve got him involved with all this in the first place. All this could have been avoided if it wasn’t for—” She stopped in her trek and looked up from the ground with a scowl on her face. “Discord. This is all his fault!” Twilight said, stomping her hoof. “If it wasn’t for his stupid game of hide and go seek, I would have never picked Dipper up by mistake, he would never have gotten hurt, and I would have never had to leave him!”
She screamed as she used her magic to uplift a tree from its roots and fling it into an adjacent tree, knocking the other tree over as the sounds of fleeing woodland creatures echoed throughout the forest.
Twilight stood there, taking in deep heavy breaths as the forest slowly calmed itself. “Why… why did it have to be like this?”
Her train of thought was suddenly derailed by a loud explosion echoing from whence she came.
Twilight whipped her head up in a sudden fright. “That explosion came from the shack. That could only mean…oh my gosh—Dipper!” Twilight quickly took flight in the opposite direction, disregarding everything else as one thought zoomed through her mind.
“Please let him be okay.”
“NOW!” Discord shouted.
In a scream of elderly fury, wielding a golden upside-down oil lamp above his head, Stan descended upon the bewildered trickster. Bill turned around just as the lamp made contact with him. As Stan fell, the oil lamp seemed to consume Bill in a heavenly light, sucking up his entire figure until there was nothing left by the time Stan hit the ground. In one swift motion, Stan quickly pulled out the lid to the lamp and sealed the opening.
Stan and Discord opened their eyes with a jolt as the world around them regained their colors and the world resumed its natural flow.
“Wow,” Stan said, remaining in his crouched position. “I can’t believe that actually worked!”
“And what exactly is that suppose to mean?” Discord said as he crossed his forearms. “Of course it worked, with my astute mind and acting abilities, there wasn’t a reason why this plan wouldn’t have worked.”
“Really?” Stan said raising a brow. “Because it looked to me like he was about ten seconds away from rearranging your parts more than they are now, and you were five seconds from falling to pieces yourself.”
“Nonsense.” Discord waved a dismissive paw, shifting into a Shakespearean ensemble with a flick of his finger, turning to a volleyball with a smiling hand print as he spoke. “I was merely displaying my well-honed skills in the theatrical arts for this grand occasion.”
“Oh yeah? Then how come your knees are still shaking?”
Discord looked down to see his knees rattling out of control. Throwing the volleyball behind him, he looked back up to Stan with a glare. “What, like you’ve never had stage fright before?” He said in an annoyed tone. “Enough chit-chat, let’s give our guest a warm welcome into this plane of reality.”
“I don’t know.” Stan said, holding close to the lamp. “Maybe we should give him just a little more time to cool down?”
Discord slid the lamp out from Stan’s grasp. “Trust me, he’s had two thousand years to calm down and you’re looking at the result. So it’s best we just get this over with.”
Holding the lamp by the handle, Discord hesitantly rubbed the lamp on its side. As he did, a small stream of smoke emitted from the lamp. At the end of the cloud, stood Bill with his arms at his side and his eye turned to a solid glare.
“Alright,” Bill said. “You have my attention.”
“Dipper, what are we going to do?!” Mabel screamed as she frantically shook her brother.
“I don’t know, just give me a minute to think!” Dipper shouted back as he rubbed his temples.
Mabel made her way over to a corner of the shack. She lowered her gaze to the remains of a small cardboard box with the name “Waddles” scribbled on it. A tear dripped down her face as she bent down and placed one of the pieces in her hand. Clutching it tightly, she rose to her feet with a look of pure determination on her face. She turned around, wiped her nose, and began to storm out of the Shack.
“Mabel?” Dipper quickly noticed this and began walking alongside her. “Mabel, hey where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to get our friends back,” She said, her face holding a twinge of rage.
“But you don’t even know where you’re going. You don’t have a plan, you’re not prepared, and you don’t even know what you’re up against!”
“Don’t care.”
“Mabel, just wait a second.”
“NO! I’m not waiting, Dipper! Gideon’s gone too far this time and now he’s gonna pay.”
Dipper froze for a moment. For all the years he had been with his sister, this was new. No longer was there the girly-goofball Mabel that he was use too. What stood before him was a Mabel in pain, a sister that felt she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. A Mabel that he had to stop.
Dipper hesitantly put his hands on Mabel’s shoulders. “Mabel, listen to me. If you do this right now, you’re only going to get yourself either captured or worse.”
“So what? It’s better than just sitting around thinking.”
“Mabel, you’re not listening!” Dipper shouted, lightly shaking his sister. “If something happened to you, where do you think I would be, huh?! I need you right now more than ever, and you getting captured right now would only make things worse.”
Mabel’s eyes softened as Dipper’s words slowly began to sink in through the rage.
“Look, I know you’re mad, but we will get everyone back I promise. But we need to work together, okay?”
Mabel slowly nodded.
“Good.” Dipper said as he let go of Mabel. “Now, first thing’s first, we need to find Twilight.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“For the last time, she’s not my—”
“Dipper!”
Dipper turned around just in time to see the purple Alicorn swoop down and scoop him up in her forelegs.
“Oh thank Celestia you’re alright, I was so worried.”
Dipper’s face had turned a bright red as it was pressed into Twilight’s neck.
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “Can you please put me down now?”
Twilight’s eyes shot open as she began turning a bright shade of red.
“Yes, of course. Sorry about that.” With a few flaps of her wings the two of them were safely on the ground.
“Dipper, what happened?! It looks like an Ursa Minor threw a temper tantrum in here.”
“Well, you’re not far off, it was Gideon and the timberwolf. They came in and kidnapped everyone.”
“Do you know what they wanted?”
“Yeah they—”
The two of them stopped in mid speech. Standing there, her mouth wide open and her eyes filled with stars, Mabel stood speechless as she stared at Twilight.
“Oh no,” the duo said.