It's amazing how the tiniest of details can make a great day turn sour.
Take Berryshine, for example. A Ponyville mare of some repute, she was one of the few Earth ponies who could compete with unicorns in that most select and noble of aristocratic unicorn pastimes: wine tasting. She was also one of only three Earth ponies who could keep up with pegasi in the most ancient of frequent flyer frivolities: the ceremonial emptying of the beer keg.
Truly, among her own kind, Berryshine was known for three things: her fine brewing skills, her uncanny down-to-Earth insights into pony society, and her liver, which scholars debated was either sick to its core and about to fail, or indestructible and healthier than even Celestia's.
Not that her drinking habits showed, of course. The young mare had a well-groomed plum coat, an immaculate raspberry pink mane and tail done up in the usual country pony comb style, fandango eyes that never showed signs of bleariness, and a cutie mark of a bunch of grapes and a strawberry, rather than a wineglass, which was what most ponies associated her with. Truth be told, Berryshine was good at drinking. Being good at drinking, in her case, also meant she had enough common sense to not do it too frequently, or publicly, for that matter. After all, she also served exotic juice mixes for children. It wouldn't do to be known as a drunk in that market.
But try telling that to a town full of gossips and drama queens. It didn't help that she was known as a bit of a grump. Indeed, Berry had the patience of an angel. The only point of contention was whether said angel came from the heavens or Tartarus. Brewing for a living did that to her sometimes: having to wait for the spirits to ripen properly, having to contend with proud farmers on one hoof and even more proud snobs on the other, it took its toll on her normally saintly patience. Still, ponies were a forgiving lot, and Ponyville ponies doubly so. They just ended up wearing each other down in the process.
Today was a welcome reprieve for the mare: the first full day of Spring, sampling day. Get up at six, pack up drinks, take the train to Canterlot, get there by seven thirty, talk to the teachers at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, and take their orders for juice and hard liquor. She'd expanded her catalogue since last semester: she now not only carried drinks labelled 'No Heavy Machinery" and ones labelled 'No Pregnancies', but her latest creations came with the warning 'No Impregnating Heavy Machinery'.
She didn't question the fact that a bunch of ponies teaching young unicorns needed a stiff drink at the end of the day, she just took their business and their orders.
Berryshine sighed in relief once she was out. She had the orders, she could get to work soon enough.
But first, a break.
She trotted along Marble Lane towards Canterlot North, hoping to catch the next train to... well, anywhere would do. It was always something in Ponyville, really: disasters and drama and vigilantes and, as much as Berry hated to contemplate it, good ponies who got silly ideas into their heads and made life difficult for the rest of them. Berryshine had snapped a few times herself, to her shame. She just needed to go somewhere that wasn't Ponyville, just for a few days, clear her head before getting back to work. The teachers had enough alcohol to help them survive another week or two, after all.
Berry stopped in the middle of the train station and stared at the screens showing the train arrivals and departures. A holiday would do her a world of good. She had enough money with her to pay for the trip and it's not like she needed to bring anything, aside from maybe a toothbrush, and even that she could just buy when she got to her destination. The only question now was: where to go? Baltimare? The food was okay, but the ponies all talked funny. Las Pegasus? She'd been there twice already: once she'd ended up married to her mailmare, the other time she'd ended up ordained as a priest and married said mailmare to some silly pony dressed as Daring Do.
So Las Pegasus was out, as was Baltimare. Manehattan, then? Definitely not; too crowded, and this soon after Winter Wrap-Up she really didn't want to go anywhere near any place that featured musical numbers. There really wasn't any place in Equestria she wanted to visit on a whim, no place to relax. There would always be ponies there, familiar faces, and the drama that would follow them.
But then one final option presented itself: Santa Fell.
Santa Fell, she'd heard about that place before. Great mountain resort location, way up North, and with it being a reindeer city there wouldn't be that much singing. Low chance of ponies, low chance of drama. The more she thought about it, the more she wanted it. Spring was starting, and a casual glance towards track number 5 told her that most ponies would be coming back from a skiing trip now, not going on one. It was perfect. A couple of days just when the off season was starting, when prices would be down a bit but all the services would be available for at least two more weeks, just the ticket. She could check into one of the famous reindeer rejuvenation spas for a day or two, go to a sauna.
She could get a massage from one of those handsome bucks with gigantic antlers and shaggy chest fur and... split hooves. Berry had never had a massage from anything with split hooves before. It sounded very practical for the purpose. A trip up North was just what she needed.
"One ticket to Santa Fell, please," she asked the pony at the register.
"A little late for a skiing holiday, aren'tcha?" The pony quirked an eyebrow.
"I won't be skiing. One, please."
"Suit yourself."
And suit her, it would. Once the train arriving from the North had emptied of ski tourists, Berry strode confidently into the train wagon, plopped her rump down on a seat, and curled up to take a nap. If she'd read the timetables right, the train would leave in ten minutes and arrive in reindeer lands in two and a half hours. Berryshine patted the saddlebag with her drinks in it. Maybe she could offer some samples at a spa, too, make some new connections while she relaxed. She just needed to unwind in a new place, that's all, expand her horizons. She could almost feel the heat of the sauna, and the gentle prodding of a buff reindeer masseur...
The train came to a screeching halt. Berryshine gave herself a few seconds to come to, stretched out, then trotted outside into the snowy plains of Santa Fell. The snowy, empty plains of Santa Fell. Visibility was limited, sure, but she'd expected to be able to see a minimum of civilisation, at least. Reindeer customs aside, the train station should be bigger than just the one shack she was faced with. She walked around the place to see if maybe she'd gotten off on the wrong side of the station, but it didn't look like it. Santa Fell was a desolate place, not at all the bustling reindeer town she'd hoped for.
"Huh, that's weird. Isn't there supposed to be a town here?"
Even at the short distance she'd gone from the station, the train was barely visible. She heard it leaving, though. In front of her, further along a non-existent path in the snow, she saw two figures moving.
"Excuse me!" she called out.
The figures stopped.
"Hi there, sorry to disturb you, but where are all the reindeer? This is Santa Fell, right?"
As she got closer, she realised her mistake. She hadn't counted on meeting two royal ponies out here.
"Princess Cadance, Prince Shining Armour." Berryshine bowed before the two once she was in range. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was you."
Shining armour raised what looked like a wooden mask from his face. "That's okay, there's no need for that kind of thing out here. What are you doing here? You're Berry... Punch, right? One of Twily's friends from Ponyville?"
"Err, I wouldn't say we're friends, exactly. She does come by the shop, sometimes." Berry felt it prudent at this point to neglect to enlighten Prince Shining Armour in the drinking habits of his precious little sister. After all, Twilight Sparkle was a Canterlot pony, living in Ponyville, with a dragon, who was also a baby dragon to boot. If none of the above was enough reason to need some alcohol every now and then, nothing was.
"Well, Miss Punch, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but no, you're not in Santa Fell. Princess Celestia sent me and my husband on an urgent mission. The train took a detour, you're in the High North of Equestria. Aren't you cold?" Cadence asked.
Berry took out a tiny gourd of liquor from her saddlebag and took a good swig of it. "I have ways to keep warm, thank you. And it's Berryshine, actually, 'Punch' is more of a... well, you know how ponies are with names.
Cadence chuckled. "Oh, I do. I keep seeing my name spelled with two 'a's myself. Maybe it's because I look Belgian."
"Listen, Berry, I hate to be rude, but you're not supposed to be here. We're on a mission from Princess Celestia," Shining interrupted.
Berry chuckled nervously. "Oh, of course, my mistake. When's the next train to Santa Fell?"
"There isn't one," Shining said. "Out here, there's just the one that goes to and from Canterlot, and stops along a military base a few miles west of here. Other than that, it's pretty desolate. We had to request a detour, we didn't think anyone was heading for Santa Fell this time of year."
"Oh, that's fine. When's the next train to Canterlot, then?"
"Err, umm..." Shining muttered something under his breath.
"Excuse me?"
"There's only one train looping back to Canterlot today, it won't arrive until nightfall," Cadence said. "And we're not letting you try to walk to the military base on your own, either. I won't allow it, it's too dangerous."
"Really? Then what am I supposed to do?"
Shining Armour looked to his wife, then sighed. "I guess you're going to have to tag along with us, Berry. Just stay close and stay behind me until we get to civilisation."
"I thought you said this place was desolate?"
Shining Armour led the way over the frozen plains. He cast a glance to Cadence, who took the hint.
"Well, it is, mostly. That is, it used to be completely desolate. We were sent here because something has appeared."
Berry gulped. Usually, if someone in Ponyville referred to a 'something,' they were really referring to a 'something big,' a 'something dangerous,' or a 'something to run away from, fast.' Or, as had happened more frequently since the new librarian had moved in, a mix of the three. "And when you say 'something', you mean..."
"A place," Cadence answered. "A city state that hasn't been seen for a thousand years."
Berry breathed a private sigh of relief. A city state was a big something, sure, but it sounded neither dangerous nor worth running away from, fast.
"It's called the Crystal Empire," Shining Armour said. "There are crystals there that hold a magic charge and spread it all over the world, that's why it's just the two of us Celestia sent. We don't know if the crystals are stable or not. If the Empire is filled with love and harmony, that's reflected all over Equestria. If darkness or fear take hold, well... you get the idea. If we send too many soldiers before stabilising the place, we might set off a chain reaction that can blow up a chunk of the world."
Berryshine didn't like the sound of that one bit. She rather liked the world as it was, and she certainly didn't want any poor buff, split-hooved reindeer to be blown up before she got that massage she wanted. "Okay. So it's just a recon mission, then. Go into the Empire, see if some little crystals are charged, go back and get a bigger army?"
"No," Cadence replied. "It's not just some small crystals, it's what the whole place is made of. Me and Shining have to secure the entire Empire. The inhabitants of the realm, they... they used to have a magic that's close to mine, that's why Celestia sent me. You were there when those changelings attacked, right?"
"Yup. Scary stuff."
"Well, the sort of magic we used there, we have to use again. Just, you know, bigger." Cadence kept up her friendly smile.
"Huh. Wow, so this place has been gone for a thousand years? And the inhabitants..."
"Crystal ponies," Shining Armour said. "They're like us, but their magic runs deeper, so they react the same way crystals do. If their land isn't charged with, well, love, then the ponies themselves suffer. And we're pretty sure they all disappeared and reappeared with the Empire, too."
Berry felt a knot form in her stomach. "Gosh. Ponies have been gone for a thousand years? And now they're back, just like that?"
"Just like that."
Berry was running out of words to express her surprise and found herself resorting to some Canterlot terms instead. "Goodness. Do you know why?"
Shining grumbled.
"We think it might have a little something to do with the wave of love magic at our wedding. It did reach pretty far," Cadence noted.
"No, I mean, why did the Crystal Empire disappear in the first place?"
As if on cue, the ice began to rumble. The three stopped.
"Shining?" Cadence asked.
"I hear it. I don't suppose Celestia told you how to fight this thing?"
"No!"
"Me neither." Shining groaned.
Cracks appeared beneath the snow and ice. The rumbling became a violent quake that nearly knocked the threesome off their hooves.
Then, as abruptly as it has started, it stopped. Whatever pressure had built up underground was released.
And it came in the form of a tar-like shadow, erupting from the ice like a dark geyser.
"Cryssss...tals..." The dark shadow roared. The wind kicked up as the dark matter bubbled and churned and formed tendrils that lashed out at the ponies. The shadow wasn't titanic in size, by any means, but a dark and roaring shadow only twice as high as a pony was still something to be scared of.
"Cut it!" Cadence shot out a pink ray from her horn that exploded harmlessly against the blackness. Shining fired off a shot of his own, but the blue bolt didn't cause any more damage than his wife's had.
The shadow let off an angry hiss and lunged, shooting out those dark tendrils.
"Shield!" Shining was the first to block the blow, but he couldn't drive them back.
"Vaporise it!" Cadence growled and let off another blast, this one pink with sparkles trailing from it.
And apparently, while their enemy had no problem with pink blasts, it didn't like any sparkling added to the blasts, because it made a point of dodging this attack, all three of the shots.
"I can't get a shot," Cadence said. "This thing's quick."
Shining backed away as more of the blackness seeped out of the crack in the ground. "It's getting bigger, too. We're going to get surrounded at this rate."
"Freeze ray?"
"Freeze ray."
"Freeze ray!" Both of them reared up and let loose a blizzard from their horns, that pushed and shoved against the blackness but still did nothing to shrink it.
"Okay, that slowed it down. Now we just-"
"Grenade!"
The two royal ponies looked at each other quizzically. "Grenade?"
Shining Armour had learned a long time ago that cool ponies do not look at explosions.
Unfortunately, he had never quite managed being a cool pony, and frequently ended up looking into flashes of light and explosions. This one was about a seven on the Shining Armour Scale of Retinal Damage: higher than the time Twily had found out Shining had put Smarty Pants out in the open to get her to go out and socialise, but lower than the time he'd told her not to worry about her exam, because it was 'just a test.'
The shadow still managed to dodge the brunt of the impact, but it didn't dodge the infernal blaze that followed, turning it into an impressive bonfire that could be seen for miles. With a screeching bellow, the thing seeped back into the snow, retreating to heal, no doubt.
"Huh?" Shining Armour quirked an eyebrow at the thing as it beat a hasty retreat. He stealthily cast a healing spell on his eyes, as had become a routine since childhood. "Why did you just yell 'grenade'?"
Berry smiled sheepishly. "I thought we were calling out attacks?"
"Me and Cadence were, sure, but that's just for coordinating. You're not supposed to yell out what you're doing before you do it for no reason, it's kind of silly."
"I think what my husband is trying to say is: thank you for your assistance. But if you don't mind my asking, was that a real grenade you just threw?" Cadence asked.
"Err, it was a flask of grenadine," Berry replied. "Does that count?"
"That must be some grenadine," Shining Armour said, inspecting the hole the thing had escaped into. It was still smouldering and everything.
"My great-aunt Molly's special zap apple recipe. She was in the Royal Guard, too, actually."
"Oh. Right, of course, you're related to General Tov, now I remember." Shining slapped himself for forgetting.
"Yup, that's me." Berry chuckled nervously. "Hope I wasn't out of line there."
"No, no, it's fine, thank you, Berry. The grenade helped," Cadence said.
"Right, um, we should probably keep going. There's no telling when that thing decides to get back up," Shining went off again, using his horn to light the way.
Berry trotted behind the pair, still trying to see through the snow. "That's it? No need to find out what that was?"
"That was probably the thing that made the Crystal Empire disappear a thousand years ago," Cadence said. "Its name is Sombra, and it used to be a unicorn king. He killed the royal family of the Empire, and made slaves out of the Crystal ponies."
"Really? It didn't even have a face. It didn't even have eyes. You're seriously saying that thing was a unicorn?"
"Used to be," Cadence replied. "He put a lot of his power into corrupting the crystals of the Empire. He was supposed to be banished into shadow by Princess Celestia and Luna. That's what they told us. Even used the Elements of Harmony to do it."
Berry's Common Sense was tingling at that. "Wouldn't turning an evil magical dictator into a shadow end up making him harder to hit, and, you know, stronger?"
"It's magic terminology, you'd have to be a unicorn to understand. No offense," Shining said.
"None taken. So this Somber guy..."
"Sombra."
"Sombra, okay. So this Sombra guy... 'corrupted' the Empire? What's that supposed to mean?"
Woosh.
The shift in the air was so drastic they could taste it. From one step to another, they were out of the snow and in a city, or at least crystals that used to be a city. The crystal stuff was everywhere, but all of it tainted. The streets were a muddy brown, the houses reduced to monoliths with tiny windows carved out, and all of it in the same dark, drab colours and with the same dull waxy shine, instead of the vibrant glass shine that was obviously supposed to be there. Even the way the things were set up was all wrong. All over, jagged black crystals rose up from the ground like weeds. Upon closer inspection, the weed-like crystals were the only things that had any real shine to them, as if to rub in the danger of cutting a hoof on them. And every block, there was a watchtower: crude metal shacks on wooden scaffolding, each adorned with crystal horns to look even more menacing. Up above, the sky looked calm, but the same sickly brown tinge hung over it. Black clouds hung over the Empire, circling around a central tower like vultures spotting their next meal.
Berryshine risked taking a breath and found the air not only dry, but warm, a lot warmer than it had any right to be in the Arctic. They'd passed some sort of barrier protecting the Empire from the elements outside, she realised, it kept the snow out along with the cold and noise. The silence was maddening after the blizzard they'd walked through.
Shining gulped. No one said it, but they all thought it. They hadn't entered a city, but a slave camp. The only things missing were the chains and the slaves.
"Umm... I guess it means this," Shining said.
"Sorry I asked."
"It's okay, really," Cadence replied. "There's a reason we usually keep this sort of thing away from civilians."
"So we didn't take a wrong turn anywhere? This is really..." Berry asked.
"The corrupted Crystal Empire, yes," Shining replied. "And that thing back there was the one who corrupted it, probably trying to pull himself back together, too."
"He can do that?"
"The way I understand it, Sombra was experimenting with making himself immortal. He ended up as something that wasn't quite solid, but wasn't a full ghost, either. Celestia and Luna managed to defeat his physical form, but the ghostly form obviously survived." Cadence sniffed the air and coughed. "It's dusty here."
"Careful." Shining Armour cast a bubble around the three. "You don't know what might be lingering in the air around here."
Berry felt the hairs on her neck stand on end just from the sight of the place. "So, umm, I take it you two just... walk up somewhere and purify the place?"
"That's the plan," Cadence replied. "If I had to guess, we'll need to get to the centre of the snowflake."
"What snowflake?" Shining Armour furrowed his brow.
"Didn't Aunt Celestia show you the map? This city is built on a snowflake pattern. All the roads, all the power nodes lead to that tower over there." Cadence pointed to the central structure in the distance, the one the clouds were circling around. It was a sharp needle jabbing straight into the sky, with several more pointy things poking from it. And like most of the decorations around, it had 'dark and evil' written all over it.
"I take it you mean that Gigantic Dark Tower of Doom in the middle, there?" Berry asked.
"I've seen worse," Cadence said.
"Really?"
"Griphon post-modernist architecture." Shining gagged. "Don't ask."
"Come on." Cadence took a confident step forward, and Shining followed with his barrier still in place, leaving Berry to tag along. "We'd better hurry."
Their march to the tower was uneventful, mostly. Cadence and Shining Armour were unperturbed by the trip, just putting one hoof after the other on the crystal streets of the former Empire. Berryshine, however, was finding her normally legendary constitution tested. Every step they took echoed endlessly over crystals streets and crystal walls, an every so often she'd catch a motion in the corner of her eye. The whole thing made her stomach turn, a feat not many things in Equestria could perform.
"Gah!" The convoy stopped with Cadence's squeal.
"We submit."
Berry barely had time to register what was going on. Three ponies had appeared out of nowhere and were now bowing before them.
Cadence nodded to her husband, who made the barrier big enough to encompass the three Crystal ponies, as well. Berry could see why they were called Crystal ponies now: their coats looked like they weren't so much made of fur, but like the hairs had grown together to form one big, glossy skin around them. Their manes and tails, likewise, were definitely more solid than composed of different strands, more of a singular entity than any normal pony's was.
The scary part was their colours, though. They looked like clothes that had been washed too often, like the very life had been drowned out by some sinister influence. The mare on the left was a vague yellow with a orange-ish grey mane and tail, the stallion in the center was blue, presumably a dark blue before whatever had happened to him, and he had a white mane and tail. The mare on the right was, Berry hoped, a natural grey, and while her mane was almost white it had the tiniest hint of blonde.
Golden Harvest, Pokey Pierce, Derpy Hooves. The faces were eerily similar, the colour schemes matched, but the styles didn't, not really. Their manes and tails were deflated, almost, or limp, if that was even possible for hair. But they looked like her neighbours from Ponyville, aside from that and the obvious difference in body parts. Berry wondered if Crystal ponies were all just a variety of Earth ponies, or if there was such a thing as a Crystal pegasus.
"Hi there. I'm Princess Cadence, this is my husband, Shining Armour, and our companion, Berryshine."
Berry waved meekly. "Hi."
"Do you know where you are? Can you tell me what happened here?" Cadence asked.
"We submit."
Shining put a hoof under the blue one's chin so he could look it in the eyes. He shook his head. "I don't think they can hear you. They're in some sort of trance."
"Can you help them?" Berry asked.
Cadence sighed. "It's this place. Sombra must have put parts of his soul into the land, so they're still being bombarded with enslaving magic. This whole city breathes oppression. If we try to break the spell on them like this, they'll snap back in seconds. Besides, I don't know what might happen if I tried my magic directly on a Crystal pony. For all I know, that might kill them. They're linked to the land, that's where they get their power from. The ground is what needs to cleansed, we know that's safe. We need to purify the city, put up a barrier."
"We submit..." The Crystal ponies held their heads low.
Berry rummaged through her pack. "Well, what can I do to help? Is it okay to feed them?"
Cadence and Shining stared at her for a moment.
"What?"
Shining shook his head, then shrugged. "If you think you should, I'm sure they'll appreciate it once they wake up. But right now we should get going. We can help them better when we get to the tower."
Berry sighed. "Okay, if you say so, Your Highness."
So there she was, not in reindeer lands but in the ancient Crystal Empire, tagging along with Prince Shining Armour and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, or Cadance with two 'a's and one 'e', or one 'a' and two 'e's, whichever it was. And instead of getting caught up in pony town drama, she was now caught up in a royal mission with two royals she hardly knew anything about.
This is going to be a long day...