//------------------------------//
// Act 2 chapter 1 
// Story: Diamonds are a girl's worst enemy 
// by Rarity Belle 
//------------------------------//

	With a forceful motion were the eyes of Rarity opened. And almost immediately was her horn charged and primed. It took her less than a second to call upon an emerald made claw. One that served as a sharp extension of her hoof. She sat panting in the chair, streams of sweat traveled down her forehead. The mare could swear that somepony had been watching her, right in front of her.

        With her horn still charged and her mane waving within the powers it created, the eyes would have looked for anything that could been a possible burglars, or other figures that were unwelcome in her home. Though the only thing that she found was an empty home. Which was something that was both a major relief as well as a curse at the same time for the unicorn.

        A deep exhale was released through her mouth before she made herself a bit more comfortable in the chair. All of her muscles slowly lost their tension. The magical aura almost disappeared from her horn. The emerald claw –which were in fact just three sharp talons– retracted itself before it began to stroke her chin in a calm manner.

        The eyes of Rarity turned from hunted to confused. The thing she had dreamed about the previous night had to be the blame for the facts. Horrible nightmares that caused her to act in the real world. “Nightmares,” she whispered to herself. Then the emerald claw was taken away from the chin and just held before her eyes. The attention that was given to the object was more than enough to make her lose track of the world around her once more.

        “Been a long time since I ever had those, has Luna forsaken me? Or didn't she happen to have the time to calm my racing thoughts? So many possibilities, or perhaps a warning hidden within them? Who can tell and who shall ever know,” spoke Rarity to herself i doubt. The horn completely discharged itself then. What followed was that the emerald claw disappeared as well. It didn't melt nor did it retract right into her flesh. Instead it became power that traveled with the wind.


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The crystalline arts of magic was a branch of magic only very few could actually preform. Rarity was one of the few ponies that lived in the land that day. One of those able to do it. Not even her mother had access to such a powerful branch of the arcane. Perhaps it was a sick act of fate? That therefore she also became a gem-huntress in the first place? One could only guess.

        Even though the crystalline arts are something wonderful as it allows one to summon gems and morph them into any shape, it is also something dangerous. As it can morph the gems into any shape.

        Special teachings had to be given to the ivory mare in order to make certain that everything would be ending well for her. For there isn't any more danger to be found then by pony who carries such powers yet doesn't know how to properly use them.

        Eventually had Rarity managed to hoist herself out of the chair. The mare would have made some breakfast for herself. Only to return into the living room of the building and dropped herself on the sofa. With the adventure behind her and the nightmares still fresh in her mind, there wasn't much else she even wanted to be doing. A day off wasn't too much asked in the moment for certain.

        Yet somewhere in her mind she was reminded to the book that was still lingering around her place. A book of which she got the sudden desires to read through even though it perhaps wasn't allowed. Curiosity was the thing that managed to capture the unicorn as her horn gained the aura once more.

        That same light blue aura appeared around the book itself and before she knew it, could it be found right in her face. A deep exhale was being released by the mare after she had leaned back into the cushions of the sofa itself. Her eyes gently looked over the cover for a couple seconds. “What can you possibly be?” she whispered to herself, “what secrets do you house within yourself?” Although the answer itself was something that she knew as one of the best.

        For the only way to gain any form of answers upon her question, was to delve straight into the madness that the book could be containing. Whether it would have been something worth like a diary from one of the smiths who made the gem, or just some piece lost by a captured pony, she would be in for quite the something interesting.

         And so was the first page opened. All of the sudden did Rarity knew exactly just what the book happened to be. “A spell book,” she whispered to herself. It was dead on the bits. Upon the first page alone could the arcane symbols be clearly seen. To any other pony they seemed just to be scribbled signs of doom. Though to a unicorn, they revealed themselves.

        They wanted to be learned by a unicorn of any kind, as if they had their own life. And therefore they began to hum softly and rotate upon their place on the paper. It was just absurd in and of itself that magic had to be taught that way to begin with. Weren't it for the little fact that next to the swirling arcane symbols a small explanation could be discovered about what it did.

        The humming tunes of the spells didn't do the mare all too much as she did quite enjoy yet never hummed along. If hummed along, the spell could nestle itself right inside of the mind of a unicorn and thus be ready for usage.

        Yet out of the entire book there seemed to have been one little spell that caused the mare to be looking up even stranger than usual. One spell whose very ability was not readable anymore. The words had faded with the progression of time yet showed an image of a pony in a wonderful crystalline dress.

        Everything seemed to have been more than perfect in the moment, weren't it for the fact that Rarity could differentiate what was white magic and what was black. The tunes that entered her ears were diffidently black. “Even though it might boom my business, what’s the price I have to be paying in order to do so, hm? Sacrifice my soul or something?”

        The thought was ludicrous to say the least but not entirely uncommon in the world of magic. Magic was and always would be a powerful force that only a very select few could fully understand and perhaps even master. “Twilight,” was then whispered over the lips of the mare. Then her ears began to listen deeper to the humming tomes.

        The deeper she listened to it, the more she made the realization that it was actually the same, or almost the same, as a song she heard often in her foalhood. One that happened to be one of her favorites. That alone was more than enough to scare the unicorn almost right to death. If a spell of the black magical arts laid that close to a song she loved, chances would be there and perhaps even imminent, that she would be humming it.

        There was perhaps only one thing that she could be doing in order to sort everything out before it comes to a mess. There was only one pony in the whole of Ponyville who would be able to even consider to help her with the problem she had. “Sparkle.”