Part 3
It was well after the moon and stars came out that two black shapes could barely be seen near the south gate of the construction site. A few work ponies were walking around the site, not working but looking like they were on guard. One work pony looked out the south gate for a minute and then moved away to another part of the site. The two black shapes came out from behind some bushes and moved quietly to the gate. A brief purple glow appeared in the dark and the gate silently unlocked and opened. The two shapes slipped in and closed the gate behind them with another purple glow of magic.
"Ok Pinkie, now we're going to go around that pile of crates then cut across to the tower. Ready?"
"Oh yeah. Pinkie Ninja was born ready."
"I wish Applejack could have come too, but I guess it's just as well I couldn't find her. Too many of us and it would be easier to catch us."
"I couldn't find Rainbow Dash either. I guess she's not around here because she wouldn't tolerate these clouds." A large cloud moved slowly across the full moon and covered it, casting the construction site in darkness.
"Oh, here's our chance. Let's sneak over to the tower in this dark."
The pair moved quietly toward the monument, avoiding the one guard pony they saw. Nopony was around the south entrance of the monument and they made it there safely. Twilight turned to the door. Another purple glow of magic and the door opened without a sound. They both slipped inside, closing the door behind them.
Inside, the monument had some construction lights on, which let the two see. The spiral staircase was there, but so were many iron beams; some pointing up like slanted columns, others like cross diagonal beams between the larger ones. Twilight could make out the metalwork trim on the beams of copper, gold, and silver.
"This must have cost a fortune," she said quietly.
"I thought there was going to be more room for something like a museum down here," replied Pinkie. “But all these beams make it hard to move around. And it's a terrible place to hold a party."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "I guess you would know, Pinkie. But this is a very strange design." Twilight looked around. "Well, there's no one here. Let's check out the observation area at the top."
The two ponies walked quietly up the stairs. Twilight noticed the beams pointed up to the top of the tower, like they were focusing on it.
Twilight was just thinking that they had done well to not get caught when she tripped on the next to last stair. Her front knees banged on the stairs and she gave a little grunt. Suddenly, she felt herself being teleported against her will. She was so surprised she didn't have time to put up a magical defense until her trip was over. She found herself in a pony-size cage near one of the hexagonal corners of the observation deck. She looked out and saw Pinkie Pie coming up the stairs.
"Twilight, where'd you go? Huh?"
Pinkie had just noticed a pony standing near the top of the stairs. There was a flash of magic and Pinkie Pie had disappeared only to reappear inside a cage at the corner to the right of Twilight. Pinkie Pie looked dazed.
"What just happened?" she said to no one in particular.
Twilight looked around and saw there were six cages, one in each of the hexagonal corners of the room, and each had one of her friends. The others appeared to be asleep.
"Pinkie Pie, are you ok?"
"Yes, I think so. I guess this is where our friends were. What happened?"
"I did."
The seventh pony in the room turned to face Twilight and Pinkie Pie. "Thank you both for coming, it saved me the trouble of going to catch you like the others." Ami looked at them with a harsh smile.
"What have you done with our friends!" shouted Pinkie Pie.
"They're fine - they're under a fairly gentle sleeping spell."
Twilight looked around the room, then shouted, "show yourself, unicorn!"
"Very well," replied Ami. With one hoof, she pushed back her large blue poofy mane to reveal a small stump of a horn that started to glow.
Pinkie Pie let out a huge, full body gasp. "You're a...unicorn?!?!" Twilight felt all the pieces of the mystery suddenly fit together.
"Yes. When I was born with only a stump of a horn, my earth pony parents thought I was...too different. The doctors said my horn was too small to have much power. So, they raised me sheltered...confined," Ami growled. "They really wanted to protect their reputation, and a 'defective' filly didn't fit with their lives. I was raised as an earth pony with a big mane and taught only to repress my magic. I went to school but wasn't allowed to have friends for fear someone would discover I was different." Ami sighed. "But I had one friend, Cid. He was a unicorn and accidentally found out I was too."
"How?" asked Pinkie, now sitting and interested in the story.
"We bonked heads in gym class and he noticed the magic spark when our horns touched," Ami said with a softer smile on her face. "He taught me the basics and several spells. But then..." Ami had a much harsher look on her face, "Cid joined the Guard and was stationed near the Griffon kingdom. A few weeks later my parents died in an accident."
"I'm so sorry," said Twilight.
"Hmfp," replied Ami. "I suddenly had their company and wealth, but no friends. I kept hiding my horn and magic out of habit. Money is nice but I missed having a friend, any friend! Then, I learned about the six of you when you saved Princess Luna." She waved her hoof at all six cages. "You brought back these powerful Elements but even more, you had the power of Friendship with you. That kind of friendship is something I want to have again."
Ami turned and walked around the room. "So, I studied, researched, sought out everything I could about this magic of friendship, about all of you and the elements of harmony. Being in construction, I also had some knowledge of buildings and materials. I put this all together and designed this building myself!" Ami waved a hoof, indicating the monument.
"You've made...a tower that magnifies magic!" Twilight said with wide eyes.
"You're good, as I expected," replied Ami. "More like focus and refine it. The combination of the overall structure balances the six of you. The internal beams work to focus the magic at work. Gold and Silver relate to the sun and moon. The building had all day to charge in the sun and now the effects of the full moon should also be at work in the silver. The iron is for strength, giving more power to the spell. And copper, finally, is for enhancing relationships. In this case, friendship."
Twilight's eyes grew even wider. "You're going to...focus our magic of friendship with this building?"
"Oooooh, what will happen? Will we turn in to a Friendship Cannon?" asked Pinkie, bouncing in her cage.
Ami smiled and rubbed her chin with her hoof. "Hmmm, that's not too far off. Actually, it should send a blast of the friendship you six share throughout all Equestria. As the one controlling, focusing, and directing the spell, I..."
Twilight interrupted again, "you'll be the focus of the friendship..."
"And they will all, ALL become my friends! I'll have friends everywhere I go! I will never again be without friends!"
Outside, Square Beam was walking by the construction site when he saw a flash of light from the observation tower in the monument. "That's funny, we're supposed to be done," he thought to himself. "Sigh. I'd better take a look. I hope those three fillies aren't running around in there." He unlocked the gate and walked in, closing and locking it back behind him. A guard pony spotted him and trotted over.
"You can't come in here!"
"Who said I can't come in here?" Square Beam bellowed.
"Oh, uh, Mr. Square Beam, I, uh..."
"Well?"
"Uh, Ami told us to keep everypony out," said the guard pony, who was definitely smaller than the large forepony.
"Well, I'm not everypony. I'm the forepony, and I saw lights in the monument. What's going on?"
"I, uh, don't know sir."
"Well, let's go find out, because somepony is in there."
"Um, ok"
The two ponies trotted to the tower and entered at the base.
"Ami, this is a bad idea," said Twilight.
"Oh really? Well, we'll see in a few minutes," said Ami, moving to the center of the room.
Twilight frowned. She tried to light her own magic and found it blocked. She looked around for another means of escape. Seeing nothing, she looked at Pinkie Pie who merely shrugged.
"Ah, it’s midnight and the moon is full. Here we go," Ami said. She stood in the very center of the room and her horn started to flare. Her magic increased so that her mane glowed like a fireball. Twilight saw the iron beams and metal traces in the building start to glow also, radiating along the floor toward the six cages then through the lattice of beams to the roof. When the glow touched her cage, Twilight felt a small shock and a tingling sensation all over her body.
"Aaaahh, whut was that?" said Applejack, waking up. The others woke suddenly as well.
"What's happening?" said Fluttershy. The others also looked confused for a moment, but then they all started to feel more tingling as Ami's power output increased. Suddenly, the glow became brighter and the eyes of all seven ponies started to glow.
"Yeeeaaahhh...I think this is bad!" shouted Rainbow Dash.
Square Beam and the guard pony reached the top of the stairs and poked their heads high enough to see into the room. The guard pony just yelped and ran back down the stairs. Square Beam stayed, unsure of what to do.
A humming noise then began, centered on Ami and silver light began pulsing from her through the metal beams, out to the six friends, then up to the roof of the monument. After a few seconds, the humming noise took on a deeper, grinding tone. The tingling sensation on the six friends became stronger and painful.
"You can't hold it!" shouted Twilight over the noise. "Listen to the spell harmonics - something is going wrong!"
The silvery light pulsing from Ami slowly turned to a bright red.
"You've got to power down!" shouted Twilight. Her friends were grimacing with the strange sensation."
"I can hold it!" shouted back Ami. "I have to! I can’t be without friends any longer!"
The light became a darker red and the room started to get warm. The beams started to shake and straining noises came from the beams.
"I can hold it, I can hold it...I...I can't! I can't do it!" Ami started to panic. She seemed to struggle but found herself locked in place. "It's reached criticality and I can't stop!"
Square Beam shouted out, "Please stop Ami!"
She looked to him, and slightly shook her head. Massive amounts of magical power were flowing throughout the building now.
Twilight thought quickly and yelled at Square Beam, "You have to break the lattice of metal! It's the only way to stop the magical feed!"
"What will happen?" yelled back Square Beam.
"I don't know, but it’s probably better than tearing Ponyville apart!" Twilight yelled.
Square Beam looked quickly at the room, thinking back to the blueprints. He galloped up the rest of the stairs to one side of the room. He unscrewed three bolts on one beam with his teeth and hooves, then ran to another and unscrewed those. Finally, he galloped to yet another beam, set his footing, and started bucking it. The noise had grown so loud they could barely hear his bucks, but Square Beam was a large, powerful earth pony. The fifth buck finally made it buckle and bend. There was a two second pause, but then the beams groaned and crashed down. The magic aura that had infused them went from dark red back to a soft silver glow and then dark. However, the humming noise didn't stop.
Twilight shouted, "the iron! The magic aura is infused! We need to get out of here!”
Square Beam ran to buck open cages, then picked up Ami on his back. All eight ponies ran down the stairs as the humming noise increased in pitch. They had just made it outside when there was a flash from the top of the monument and the six sides glowed from top to bottom, then the magic seemed to drain down into the ground. The noise stopped.
"Whew, that was a closeun'," said Applejack.
"Are we safe?" asked Fluttershy.
"Yes, I think we are," said Twilight. "The magical feed actually used the design of the building and drained through the remaining beams into the ground. That would have dispersed it so..."
"Blah, blah, egghead stuff, blah, we're safe," interrupted Rainbow Dash.
"How is she?" Rarity asked, pointing a hoof at Ami who was still on Square Beam's back.
"She's breathing, but she's exhausted," said Fluttershy after checking Ami briefly.
"We should take her to the hospital, and it wouldn't hurt for us all to go and get checked out," said Twilight.
Pinkie Pie turned to Square Beam. "Hey, thank you for saving us! That was some amazing work you did to bring all those beams down!"
"Thank you. I was never a fan of those beams. They weren't load bearing so it wasn't hard to get them to come down."
"Well, you certainly saved our tushies!"
They all turned to walk toward the hospital, thankful that this latest craziness in Ponyville was over.
Twilight Sparkle approached the hospital room with a little anxiety. Unicorn guards stood on either side of the door and saw her approach. She knew she wasn’t invited but wanted to enter anyway.
One guard spoke as she approached the door. “Miss Sparkle, we’ll have to temporarily block your magic. Regulations.”
“Of course.” Twilight submitted to the spell, and the unicorn then allowed her to enter. She knocked and someone weakly said “enter.” Twilight pushed the door open and walked in the room.
Ami Cleave was in the single hospital bed. Her mane was still slightly singed around her stump of a horn, but otherwise she looked well. When she saw Twilight come in, she had a sad, guilty look and turned toward the window.
“What do you want,” she asked flatly.
“I want to see how you are. That was a lot of magic to try to control. I just wanted to see if you were going to be ok.”
“Well, I completely drained my magic. The doctors think I’ll be back to normal in about two weeks. Of course, I’m used to living like an earth pony so I don’t miss it much.”
Ami paused and then continued. “I don’t know what went wrong. My calculations were exact. The magical feed should have flowed back out through me then up through the top of the tower.”
“Ami,” Twilight said gently, “you may know a lot about magic in general and you have some incredible insights on magic-focusing construction…” Ami turned back to look at Twilight at this. “…but you don’t understand friendship. You can’t force someone to be your friend. Both ponies have to be willing to be a part of the friendship. That’s why the magic worked between the six of us, but wouldn’t feed back to you. It was…stuck and could only infuse the beams. We’re not friends with you, so that part was blocked. Even if that part had worked, I’m not sure it could have worked on ponies across Equestria who were not already your friend.”
Ami looked downcast and thought for a while. “Hmmm. I think you’re right.” Twilight noticed a tear in Ami’s eye. “I just…I just wanted to have friends, more than anything.”
There was another knock on the door and Square Beam entered. Ami quickly wiped the tear away. “Yes?” she asked him.
“I just wanted to check on you Ami. I hoped you were ok.”
“Really? After what I put you through?”
“Well, yes. You’re a good boss Ami and…” the big earth pony paused, “I guess I thought we were kinda like friends.”
Ami looked a bit shocked, then the tears flowed.
“Oh Square Beam, I’m so sorry I’ve had such a temper with you. You have been a friend to me and I hardly noticed. And you Twilight, thank you for checking on me. I wanted to force you to be my friend, but I guess I just don’t know how friendship works,” Ami sniffled.
Twilight moved to the side of her bed and put a hoof on her shoulder. “You know, you’re in the right place to learn about friendship. If you don’t mind, maybe my friends and I can visit you some for the next two weeks. At least, we can talk and keep you company.”
Square Beam added, “And though I’m working on cleaning up the construction site, I’ll come by too.”
“I’d like that,” replied Ami.
“Very well,” said Twilight Sparkle, suddenly sounding very official. She turned to the door and invited one of the unicorn guards in. “I believe I can read this now. Guard, you will serve as witness.” Twilight unrolled the scroll and read.
“To all present in this reading, I, Princess Celestia, have authorized Twilight Sparkle to act as adjudicator in the case of Ami Cleave.” Twilight rolled the scroll back up.
The guard pony asked, officially, “Are you now rendering verdict?”
“Yes I am,” she replied. Twilight paused, then looked at Ami. “Ami Cleave, I judge that you intended what you should not have – forcing other ponies to think and feel against their will.” Ami looked downcast at this. “However,” Twilight continued, “no harm came except to yourself. My judgment is…that you should study the true magic of friendship with the six elements of harmony for the next two weeks as you recover. Others can assist as they wish,” she looked at Square Beam, who smiled. “Further, you are required to complete community service, in the form of documenting your knowledge of the interaction of materials, buildings, and magic. And…maybe I could help with that.” Twilight gave a very large grin at Ami.
Ami finally smiled. “I accept, and thank you.”
The guard then spoke officially. “So be it, judgment has been rendered. Shall I return to my post?”
“Yes,” said Twilight. Thank you.”
It wasn’t long before Ponyville was back to normal. Most of the beams Ami had added to the monument were removed and the Friendship Tower opened in a very nice ceremony. Pinkie Pie took care of the after-opening-of-a-new-monument party, which was excellent as always. Ami’s time with the six friends helped her learn a great deal about friendship. She and Square Beam found they already had a start on a friendship, though she found it odd that Twilight referred to Square Beam as “homework.” Twilight also helped Ami start an outline of a book on magic buildings.
Another surprise awaited Ami. Cid (or Corporal Placid Lake as he was officially now) was able to take some time off from the guard to come see her. Twilight was happy to see their reunion and was sure Ami Cleave was on a much better path now.
The End.