Chapter 2
“Whoa, the guys at lunch definitely weren’t exaggerating.” A boy declared as he stood on the sidewalk and surveyed the sprawling but neglected property before him.
In front of the boy stood the vine-strewn, wrought iron front gate to an unlit and equally unruly three story Victorian mansion of sturdy brick construction. Though largely intact with still elegant turrets and sweeping, elaborately fashioned gables and trellises, the massive house’s darkened windows, loose shutters, and creeping overgrowth clearly shouted, “I’m haunted.” Although, to a more intrepid mind, the house would seem as if to say, “Renovate me.”
However, for Declan Shay, the only thing the house seemed to say to him in any discernible detail was, “Unlock my secrets, if you dare.”
“Challenge accepted. Well, here goes…” Declan announced with a mixture of both nervousness and excitement as he shouldered his bag, adjusted his glasses then approached and tested the gate with a firm push in the middle of it, where a solid sheet of iron depicted the long, emblazoned face of a horse above an address that weathering had since worn away the lettering of. With a groan of grumpy old metal, the heavy gate swung open to Declan’s force, greeting him with a glimpse of the front yard.
Even in the light of the partially overcast afternoon, Declan could easily tell that the place had seen better days. A once manicured front lawn was now replaced by weeds and wild-looking topiary that likely hadn't seen grooming in at least a decade or more.
Declan walked slowly across the cracked and mossy path leading up to the front porch, taking in everything with a curious gaze. Besides the topiary, a handful of statues of mares and stallions either cantering and rearing up lurked amongst the knee-high grass. Another equine face like the one at the gate stared Declan down as he reached the front door.
“Boy… somebody must have really loved horses.” he thought aloud, sounding intrigued. He could have almost sworn he’d even seen a couple statues of Pegasus up on the roof where gargoyles would have ordinarily held court on other mansions from the time period. Declan rapped on the door, despite knowing there would almost definitely be no response.
To the boy’s surprise, the door creaked open in response to his fist. “H-Hello?” Declan called out, he listened for a response before rolling his eyes. “Oh c’mon, Declan. Get real. Ghosts don’t answer doors and nobody’s lived in this dump for years.”
The word ghost immediately crossed the boy’s mind, as the house was well known around the area as being a hotspot for hauntings and supernatural activity. As a result, vandals and the homeless kept their distance, but others, such as local paranormal investigators and groups of kids on a dare still ventured in from time to time, emerging with either boredom, or the usual tales of disembodied voices and malfunctioning electrical gadgets.
Declan stepped into the foyer, disturbing dust bunnies and other small debris underfoot. He produced a flashlight and began scanning the room like he had the outside. He whistled. “Wow! It’s even bigger on the inside!”
As he stepped further into the grand foyer, the Emperor’s Gem around his neck began to glow with a faint intensity like it had earlier.
With the darkness in the room, Declan was finally able to notice it for the first time. “Whoa, that’s new! It’s glowing!” His face lit up in wonder as examined the glowing white gem around his neck. It’s glow increased in brightness the further into the foyer he ventured. “Grandpa wasn’t joking, this thing really must be special, somehow.”
“Huh?” When Declan reached the stairs, he stared up from the gem momentarily to reassess his surroundings. The gem could’ve very easily had caused him to absentmindedly walk into a wall whilst admiring it, such was its beauty.
Declan brought his flashlight back up and inspected the large staircase. Testing the wood of the first couple of steps and finding it sturdy enough to his liking, Declan slowly made his way up, his necklace glowing all the while and bathing the area around him in lustrous white light. If anyone in the surrounding area outside had seen the light shining through the windows of the manor, they’d almost surely mistake it for a specter.
When he reached the central landing, Declan was stopped when something caught his eye. Directly in front of him was the towering painting of a stately-dressed woman, holding a sword facing downward with a violet six-pointed star pommel. Declan recognized her fashion style a bit from history class; the woman’s red polonaise dress was likely from some point after the American Revolution, at least. The middle part of the dress itself was decorated with the motif of a winged unicorn, flailing its forelegs in the air.
A plaque stood at the foot of the painting, but a quick glance by Declan revealed it to be oddly illegible. The woman’s fair-skinned face bore a haughty expression, and her eyes and hair were both a fierce crimson, much to Declan’s surprise. “Huh. Who would paint somebody with red eyes?” he wondered, his face scrunched with puzzlement. With the way the white light from his amulet shined on the painting, the woman’s eyes seemed to glow like fire, studying him just as he was studying the painting.
Declan looked closer at the woman’s dress, preferring not to stare into the depths of her unnerving gaze. “Horses, horses, mythological horses, and more horses. Starting to see a pattern here…”
Before he could finish that thought or turn to continue his exploration, Declan’s necklace took on an all-new level of brightness, it even began to float a bit. “What the…oh boy.” Declan was starting to get a sense that the ground was giving way beneath him, but the light from the Emperor’s Gem had now all but blinded his view of the room.
Declan cried out in alarm as he felt his world literally spin out of control, before he could no longer even see his hands, only the blinding magical light.
The gem glowed then even brighter and in a flash of light Declan vanished, leaving only his hat.
Declan screamed as he flew, tumbled, twisted and flipped through the air while he traveled down a long, glittery rainbow colored vortex straight toward a completely new world. As he flew further and further down the tunnel, screaming his head off. Ouch! Declan thought as his body contorted and stretched. He couldn’t see much. Just flashes of light, colors and the glowing gem around his neck.
The tunnel ended when he disappeared into a circle of white light.
Meanwhile, back in Equestria…
In the throne room of Ponyville’s crystal castle, Princess Twilight was seated at the central table with Spike.
The young alicorn was diligently studying the pages of Legends of Equestria, hoping to learn more about the mysterious gem she had seen within. So far, the weighty tome’s pages had yet to divulge their ancient secrets to her, much to Twilight’s frustration.
“Ugh! I still can’t find anything!” she said, stressed.
“Calm down, Twilight.” Spike urged her, putting a claw on her shoulder.
“I’m trying… but I need to know more about this gem… I think it…” she began.
Before she could finish, another tremor rocked the castle, causing a cup of tea Spike had placed on the table to rock slightly. He bit his lip as he looked about the room nervously. “There it is again, that shaking!”
Twilight looked up from her reading. “At least it seems to be weakening in intensity, a bit.”
“But what is it? I don’t remember Ponyville being on a fault line…”
“Good question, one I aim to find an answer to, and soon.”
Spike scratched his head as he started sipping some tea. “Hopefully.”
“Something’s telling me that this random bout of quakes might not be so random as they initially seem, and that this gem might be involved.” Twilight stabbed her hoof at the open Legends of Equestria.
“What makes you think that?” Spike said, hopping out of his seat.
“A little bit of an alicorn’s intuition, perhaps.” Twilight replied.
“But… what about all the other crazy stuff that’s been going on outside, I can hear everypony screaming from here.” Spike pointed out.
“There probably also connected to the gem, I can feel it!” Twilight stated. “We just need…”
The duo’s attention was then immediately drawn to the center of the table, wide-eyed, as a field of magical energy coalesced there with a loud chiming noise, and something thin, scrawny, bipedal and currently in a crouching position, took shape in the swirling motes of gold, magenta, and emerald green light and appeared above them before quickly dropping and hitting the floor.
“Uhh…Twilight?” Spike took a few nervous steps back. “I think we might have a visitor…”
“That we do, Spike.” Twilight replied, watching the newcomer with a mixture of awe, wariness, and curiosity. The bipedal creature arose from his crouching position with heavy disorientation to his full height, which was just a few inches taller than a pony, but not by much. His facial features were concealed by a pair of limbs that that were flat and had five sticks extending out of each of them. He wiggled them and they seemed to work to a great degree. As the magical light and energy dissipated, the biped’s body could be seen in greater detail.
“Is that… a minotaur?” Spike questioned, raising a brow. “If so, he’s wearing the weirdest outfit I have ever seen. But it doesn’t look like he has any horns…”
“Hmm, are those… ‘hands’? I’ve read about them somewhere before.” Twilight looked from the mysterious new stranger, then to the gem in the book, and did a double take. “Wait, Spike, the gem! Around his neck! That’s the gem from the book!”
Spike’s green eyes followed her pointing hoof to a necklace fastened around the stranger’s neck. Sure enough, the strange creature’s gem was an exact match. Spike’s eyes narrowed. “Ok, this can’t possibly be a coincidence… Twilight? What are you doing?” Twilight was slowly approaching the newcomer with a friendly smile.
“Greeting him, of course,” she replied.
“But what if he’s dangerous?” Spike pointed out.
“If he was dangerous he would have already done something, now hush! We don’t want to spoke him.” The alicorn said in a quiet tone. Spike put a claw to his mouth and shushed, understandingly.
The hornless minotaur, or whatever else it may be, had finally got his bearings, and was taking stock of his new surroundings. If one were to look up bewilderment in the dictionary, a picture of the stranger’s expression would undoubtedly be there. He saw that the surfaces of all the walls were shiny and almost crystal like, he could even see his reflection in them.
As he gazed around and grew more and more confused, Twilight also noticed that his muzzle was really small, it just a tiny nose, high up on his face. Very particular.
Twilight cleared her throat lightly, which caught the biped’s attention and made him jump back in surprise. She smiled warmly. “Hello? Erm…can you… understand me?”
His green eyes focused on her horn, and one of them twitched almost comically with disbelief as he registered Spike’s presence as well. “Oh boy, a talking horse, and a little dragon. Wow, okay, it finally happened… I lost my mind,” he declared before putting a hand on his forehead, looking exhausted. Whoa, easy Declan, it looks like the necklace’s light must have caused you to fall down those steps and hit your head on something…”
He spoke Equestrian! Twilight contained her mounting excitement by making way for confusion and concern of her own. “You fell down some stairs? Where? Do you need medical attention, or something?”
Declan Shay peered into the unicorn’s dinner plate-like magenta eyes with absolute bafflement. “Uh, what?”
“I said can we help you?” Twilight inquired.
This then became too much for Declan to handle before he suddenly keeled over and hit the ground once again, unconscious. Twilight looked a bit stunned by this herself while Spike quickly rushed over and looked over him.
“Whoa! What did you do?” he asked.
“I didn’t do anything! Honest!” Twilight protested. She gazed up at the lights that were just above them moments ago and then at the strange creature with the gem around his neck. “Where did it come from?”