Grabbing the crystal core from the Everfree castle took me all of two minutes. Rushing back to the library took a little longer due to the way the core kept trying to absorb my magic. I was able to keep it from taking anything, but it was a distraction that I did not care for. If I had known then how to shut it off, I probably would have. Unfortunately I hadn't gotten too far with my own examination of it, having been too focused on the other areas I had to look after every day.
I had, at the very least, worked out a bit more of its structure and purpose. Like I had supposed, it had been created to intentionally manifest a sky-kraken which would then lay waste to anything and everything in its reach, targeting living beings specifically. This particular chunk of crystal could only hold enough energy to maintain such a form for about half an hour before it would be exhausted. Not that it couldn't completely destroy a place the size of Ponyville in that time.
One of the most interesting properties it had was the capability to network with other crystals of the same kind. That is, if a pony was sadistic enough they could seed a cloud with dozens of these cores to create a vaporous juggernaut that would take a legion of pegasi to fight. It was a weapon of war. Or, more precisely, a prototype. I could see where the design had serious flaws that could be corrected, where the energy discharges could be streamlined, where it could be retooled into something smaller, more efficient, harder to detect and defeat.
The only major downside to this kind of magic is that it took an enormous amount of power to create. A hundred unicorns working for over a week. Or a couple days if I was doing it myself. I've seen Luna manifest similar magic spur-of-the-moment, but, well, Alicorns to oranges, you know? Regardless, the very effort of putting something like this together would leave traces. I had Octavia and Vinyl looking for those traces, but they hadn't come up with anything at this point.
I beat Shining Armor and Cadance to the library by a comfortable margin, clearing a space out and setting up the core in a low-magic field where it couldn't start absorbing energy on its own. I had the vague idea of setting up a chalkboard or something and writing down some significant calculations that I had already done, but I didn't know if I had enough time, and I decided that a simple deception was better than a complex one in this case.
I heard them coming before the door opened, Shining and Spike talking loudly about something that I can't remember. Sports or something. Really, it didn't have anything to do with me, so I wasn't paying attention. I was more interested in making sure I could keep it together as my exposure to Shining and Cadance continued.
I stood by the core and practiced controlled breathing as they made their way into the library. The guards set themselves up at the exits and an old crystal pony followed his rulers in, his face scrunching up in a sour frown as he laid eyes on the crystal core. I paid special attention to him, he was clearly the expert they had been talking about.
"Is this it?" he asked, walking up to the core without even glancing at me.
I didn't particularly like being ignored. "I pulled it out of a cloud that was trying to kill me," I said. I saw Shining Armor and Cadance react to this statement, but I was more focused on the old pony whose eyes slowly tracked away from the core to me. "I've done a complete analysis of the spellwork on it, if you'd like to see."
"No," he said. His voice sounded like dust, dry and thin. "I can feel it from here. I don't need any more." He shuddered as he turned to Cadance. "Your highness, it is as I feared. This device bears the dark power of Sombra within it."
There were gasps in the room. I could see panic rising in the eyes of some of the crystal pony guards, and Spike wasn't taking the news too well either. "Sombra!? But he got blown up, didn't he?" Spike fretted, turning to me.
"He was destroyed," I said, working hard to keep the dark amusement from my voice. "We were all there."
"As if he hasn't survived certain doom before," the old pony wheezed. "Mark me well, this is the work of Sombra, and no doubt."
"And you know this, how?" I asked him.
"Twilight, this is Sage Advice," Cadance said. "He's the best expert on crystal magic that the Empire has. He studied the corrupted crystals that Sombra used a thousand years ago, before the Empire was banished in time."
"Yes, and I would not mistake that foul shadow for anything else," Sage Advice snorted. "I would ask who you are to question my words."
"Twilight Sparkle," I replied, though not without a touch of irony. "Most powerful unicorn in the world, and probably also the most magically knowledgeable pony alive, barring Alicorns. That's who."
"Twilight!" Cadance said, wide-eyed with shock at my rudeness.
I reined myself in with some effort. I was already slipping in my act. "Sorry."
"Well," Sage Advice huffed. "As knowledgeable as you may be about the magic in this time, I know the dark power in that crystal. Truly, how could I forget? His evil magic enslaved me as it did all the crystal ponies. I hear his voice whispering in my nightmares still."
"Do you?" I mused. That was an interesting way to put it. "I'm sorry, Mr Advice, I don't mean to be rude, I just find it difficult to believe that Sombra could have survived. The magic of the Crystal Heart is very powerful."
"Sombra was more than mortal," Sage Advice insisted. "Even before he became a living shadow, his body had been transformed by the dark power, making him like the crystals he so coveted."
And where had I seen something like that before? "And that could have saved him?"
"If even a piece of that tyrant had survived it could feed on dark magics, growing and spreading until Sombra himself was reborn."
Spike swallowed noisily. Cadance and Shining Armor shared a worried look. I tried to maintain a sober look myself, but I could barely keep the smile from curling my lips. I knew that Sombra wasn't back, it didn't make sense with what I was seeing in Canterlot, and the spell-work on the core was all modern, nothing like Sombra would have used. But the idea that something of his crystal magic had survived? That was much more likely, and would explain some of the symptoms I was seeing. Sage Advice might have been blinded by his fear of Sombra returning, but he had provided me with more information. Information I could use to track down the source of the black crystal.
"Could Sombra be responsible for what's going on in Canterlot?" Shining Armor asked
"I cannot say, your highness," Sage Advice said. "I can only tell you what I know of this crystal abomination."
"Thank you, Sage Advice," Cadance said after another shared look with her husband. "Please wait outside." The old pony bowed low and made his slow way out the door. The moment that door was shut she turned to me. "You don't believe him?"
"I believe he meant every word he said," I replied. "I just don't think he's right."
"It's not that farfetched an idea," Shining pointed out.
"No," I said. "But it doesn't fit with what I've been reading in the papers and what I saw when I was in Canterlot."
"What did you see?"
I hesitated for a moment before deciding to tell them a bit more than I would have otherwise. "There's this street drug called black crystal," I said. "It floods the body with dark magic. Very addictive. I saw a few ponies on this drug, and the magic they were emanating is the same kind that was in this core. Also, if this really was Sombra, he wouldn't be sharing out his power like that, he'd be trying to enslave others again, hoard all the power for himself."
"Could that be part of his plan? To addict ponies and enslave them that way?"
I shrugged. "I don't think this is like him. Not from everything I've researched about him since we freed the Crystal Empire."
"Twilight, why didn't you tell Princess Celestia about this?" Cadance asked.
"I thought she knew," I said. "She asked me not to get involved, and I wasn't really in a good place to argue."
"We know about black crystal," Shining said. "And what it does to the ponies who use it. What we didn't know is that this device had the same magic they were using. If they're creating things like this and sending them after small towns like Ponyville, it could mean that the gang war is bigger than we thought."
The dark look on his face did him credit. He wasn't a stupid pony, he was seeing the same connections I had weeks ago. He might even arrive at the same conclusions I did, though he would never follow my methods. "I want to help," I said.
"You are helping, Twilight," Cadance said. I resisted the natural response of rolling my eyes to an answer so clearly designed to mollify and sideline me. "I would love to have you come to Canterlot and help Shining and I, but if Ponyville is getting attacked like this... then I think Princes Celestia might be right. You need to stay here and protect your friends."
Well, at least she had some justification for the sidelining. "I agree," Shining Armor said. Of course he would, it was what he wanted to do from the beginning. Save me from overprotective big brothers.
Well, with all of that it wasn't like I could argue too vehemently, not without raising suspicions. So I nodded my head sadly and shuffled my hooves and said I'd be a good girl and look after my friends and blah, blah, blah.
Spike knew I was lying. I could see it in the way he watched me, in his silence. I still don't know how much he had figured out at this point. More than he ever let on, I'm sure. He never outed me, never asked about it, not until... well, that's for later. The important thing is that whatever he knew, he never judged me for it.
"It'll be fine," Shining said. "You'll see. I'll have this mess in Canterlot cleaned up in a week!"
"And if it is Sombra back again, he's going to have to deal with all of us," Cadance promised.
"It's not Sombra," I said. "But thanks." Shining motioned for his soldiers to take the core, but I teleported in front of them. "Actually, um, could you let me hold on to this?"
"We need to study it," Shining said.
"Well, I've already started that," I replied. "And I still want to help more than just being in Ponyville. I'll study it here. It'll be perfectly safe. Please?"
Shining hesitated as he thought about it. I wasn't too worried if he said no, I'd just steal it back from him once they got it to Canterlot. I just wanted an excuse to do my research openly. "Okay," he said finally, calling off his guards. "But if there's still dark energy in this thing you should be careful with it."
"I will, I promise," I said.
They made their goodbyes quickly, very apologetic that they couldn't stay longer. I told them that I understood, and I did. They really were needed in Canterlot as soon as possible. Spending the afternoon loafing about a country town was not good use of their time. They told me to give their regards to my friends, I mumbled something about how I would, there were hugs and smiles and then they were gone.
Once the library was quiet again Spike came up to me. "You're sure it's not Sombra?" he asked.
I nodded. "It's not."
"So why does it use his magic?"
I looked at the core It sat in quiet malevolence, still guarding its most valuable secrets. "That," I said, allowing an excited smile curve my lips. "Is a very good question."
Damn, someone's close. I have to go.