Fluttershy threw the rock down the hall yet again and watched as the ethereal blue flame dashed toward it and began to swirl around the stationary stone, not actually physically able to pick it up. They had been playing fetch for over an hour now and while Capper couldn’t actually, literally, fetch, Fluttershy still found a way to play. Just following the rock herself and picking it up to throw it farther. She didn’t mind, Capper seemed happy.
They had made it all the way back to the hallway where their rooms were when Fluttershy heard a frustrated sigh coming from Rainbow Dash’s room. Being the element of kindness and Rainbow Dash being one of her oldest and closest friends, Fluttershy poked her head in to see what the matter was.
“What’s wrong, Rainbow?” she asked the blue Pegasus.
Rainbow was wrapped tightly in the blankets of her bed, her back turned toward the door. She sighed again, “It’s nothing, Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy tentatively stepped into the room, Capper following her. “It doesn’t sound like nothing,” she sat on the edge of the bed and placed a reassuring hoof on her friend’s blanket covered shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”
Rainbow turned to face her, a look of frustration in her eyes. “I just,” she slumped in bed and let the blankets fall around her. “I just feel so useless! I mean, we were all in that cave together and what do I do? I try to fly off like an idiot and bust my wing running into the wall.” She pointed to the wing on her left which had been bandaged up. Rainbow let out another long sigh.
“Well, it isn’t like you could have done anything anyway,” Fluttershy assured her.
Rainbow gave her friend a half lidded expression. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Shy.”
“Um, I mean,” the yellow Pegasus stuttered. “Princess Luna had the situation under control. Plus from what Twilight said, you were probably safer down there than we were up here. I mean, the library was a total mess, and Rarity’s new friend was really hurt.”
Rainbow seemed to consider this and sat up in bed. “I guess. Thanks for the support, Fluttershy. I just get so mad when I can’t do anything to protect my friends! I can’t help but feel useless.”
Fluttershy gave her a warm smile and Capper mewed happily as he hopped onto the bed. “Trust me, Rainbow. Nopony thinks you’re useless. I’m sure something scary will happen soon,” her voice dropped its happy tone, “and there will be something else like a monster or another earthquake,” her face became pale and her voice a bit higher in pitch, “then you can protect us from the big bad scary things.”
Rainbow smiled, oblivious of her friend’s unease. “You’re right, Shy! Something else’ll happen soon. And when it does, I’ve got to be healed and ready to be there to protect my friends.” The blue Pegasus jumped from the bed and trotted to the door, she turned back to see Fluttershy still sitting on the bed. “You coming?”
“Huh,” Fluttershy broke out of her fugue of worry and turned toward the door. “Oh, right.”
The two walked out into the hall with Capper in tow. Rainbow took the stone Fluttershy had been using and gave it a good toss, it flew through the air and went over the railing of the atrium below. They could hear it clearly collide with something soft and then a loud “OW!”
Fluttershy and Rainbow ran to the bannister railing and leaned over to look at what they’d hit. A crystal pony in servant’s dress and some loose bandages rubbed his head as he rolled on the floor in pain.
“Sorry about that!” Rainbow winced. Capper flew down from the bannister and circled around the rock mere inches away from the pony in pain. When he caught sight of Capper, the pony let out a scream of panic and jumped up, backing into a suit of armor on display. The suit crashed on top of him, soliciting another wince, this time from both mares. When the dust settled, he was left with a helmet on his head covering his face. The pony tried to remove it with little success. He let out a small sigh.
Fluttershy and Rainbow ran down the stairs. Fluttershy attending to Capper, warning him that it was not right to spook ponies. Rainbow attempted to remove the helmet from him. After two or three huge tugs, the helm came loose and the pony tumbled head over hoof yet again, this time into the wall where a portrait hung. The force of his hit against the wall seemed to make the portrait tilt and wobble, Rainbow and Fluttershy looking on with gasps and bated breath. It soon stopped shaking however and the pony stood, the two mares letting out a sigh of relief.
The pony in the staff outfit brushed any dirt off his bandages and held a hoof to his head to regain his balance. He centered his attention on the two, “Princess Sparkle requests you’re presence,” he uttered.
“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Rainbow jumped up in the air and floated. “Come on Fluttershy. I bet it’s some big problem only we can deal with!”
She grabbed the yellow mare’s hoof and pulled her along out of sight, Fluttershy murmuring fearfully all the way. Capper soon followed after leaving the pony alone. He let out a breath of relief and turned around, forgetting that his back was to the wall. He slammed face first into the crystal wall and the portrait above rocked once more before falling on his head. The pony struggled to his feet and tried to reach for his throbbing head but found his hooves were blocked by the large sturdy golden frame surrounding his neck. He tried to pull himself free to no avail. The pony let out a small sigh and slumped back onto the ground.
----------
Twilight rubbed her eyes exasperatedly as she lay on the infirmary bed faced toward the ceiling. “This is bad,” she uttered. “This is really bad.” Her eyes shot open and a manic grin spread across her face. “Not that it wasn’t already bad, no. This is just much much more bad. Like unbelievably bad! Stupendously bad! Brobdingnagianly bad!!” She jumped from the bed and shot glances at all the ponies in the room. “And why did it have to be rocks!? I’ve never even touched a petrification spell, have you Princess Luna?”
Luna stepped back at the sight of the now manic alicorn. She shrugged, “The closest I’ve ever come to one was with Discord. But that was the will of the elements of harmony, not me.”
“The elements!” Applejack interjected. “Maybe we could use our new powers the Tree of Harmony gave us?”
Twilight sighed, slightly returning to her normal self. “I already thought of that. Bringing in the Rainbow ability is like using a blunt instrument in a surgery here. We need to be more delicate. Plus, who knows how the eldritch magic at work here would react to something like that.”
Applejack kicked at the floor and frowned.
“Hey, what’s up, everypony!” The crowd turned to the door as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy entered. Luna and Shining Armor attempting to squeeze close to the wall while Rarity was forced to sit on Flash’s bedside.
“It seems to be getting a little full in here,” Fluttershy stated. There were now eleven ponies, not counting the ones in beds, standing around and one of them was stone so it was a little tough to move.
Wit was forced to squeeze next to Applejack, his luggage still on his back and his eyes only reaching to the mare’s chin. Rainbow and Fluttershy were sandwiched between the two larger ponies, Luna and Shining Armor. Twilight and Quill stood at the back near the window, trying to examine the petrified doctor. Pinkie Pie seemed to have been lost in the sea of ponies.
“It seems to me that since all magical avenues have failed, you might want to focus a little less on the magical side of things here,” Everypony in the room turned to Quill, “and more on the scientific.”
Twilight’s manic expression seemed to fade into a contemplative frown. “Just what are you proposing?”
Quill grinned at her, showing off two rows of pearly white teeth, “Simply a few samples would suffice. You seem to have enough to work with in that makeshift lab of yours. We can-“
“We are not cutting into another pony!” Wit and Applejack interrupted simultaneously. They shared a glance as Applejack coughed at the awkwardness of the moment.
Quill didn’t seem taken aback by this retort but Twilight did find herself a little shocked that she even considered going along with it.
“Anyway,” she said. “It’s not a bad idea.”
“Twi!” Applejack shouted. “You’re not seriously suggesting we go through with his plan?”
“Of course not!” Twilight replied. “But it wouldn’t hurt to start looking at this a little more scientifically.” She turned toward the statue, away from her friends. “Maybe we just need an expert.”
A pink tail darted above the crowded room of ponies like a shark fin.
“Somepony that specializes in geology maybe?”
The pink resurfaced again, this time a poofy mane. Applejack looked above and noticed. “Uh, Twi?”
“Do we know any geologists?”
Twilight turned back to her friends and was immediately tackled by a blur of pink. Pinkie Pie shoved her face into the purple alicorn’s, a wide smile spread across her face. “I know a pony!”
“Oh, no,” Twilight muttered exasperatedly.
----------
Cadence was alone. The world around her was dark and thick like fog. She tried to move but everywhere felt the same. No landmarks. No hills. No anything.
“Hello!” she cried out. “Is anypony out there?”
She could hear a cry in the distance. It was a young voice and she could feel the fear and loneliness in it.
“Please,” she pleaded to the air. “Let me help you. Tell me where you are.”
The crying stopped. Cadence tried to strain her ears, maybe the voice had just grown quieter. Suddenly a wall of sound crashed into her. It was loud like a boom, the sound of an explosion or hard collision. She screwed her eyes shut in pain. The sound continued. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Then more sounds joined the fracas. The sound of screaming and shouts. Anger was growing in the air. She could feel it all around her. The hate was enormous, so large it threatened to consume her.
A picture solidified before her. The Crystal Palace, standing tall until bit by bit it begins to collapse. Chunks of hard crystal once thought unbreakable begin to crumble away like dust. The ground below seems to throb with every second, like a monstrous heartbeat. She can see nopony but the screams and shouts still echo through the air. The voices seem to quicken the pace of the heartbeats.
“No!” she shouted. “No! Stop! Please just-
-Stop!!” Cadence shot up in bed, head butting a familiar white and blue stallion that had been standing over her. He crumpled to the floor and clutched his nose in pain.
“Shining!” Cadence said happily before realizing what she had done. “Oh, no! Are you okay?”
Shining stumbled to his feet still clutching his nose, his left eye was red and swollen.
“Sweet Celestia,” she winced. “Did I do that to you?”
Shining moved his hoof to his eye and shook his head with pained smile. “Nah, don’t worry yourself about that. I got this… somewhere else.”
“Okay,” Cadence frowned in worry and tried to get out of bed to attend to her husband. Shining held a hoof to her chest and lowered her back onto the pillows.
“Please, don’t get up,” he pleaded. “From what Twily told me, you’ve had it pretty rough.”
Cadence sighed and closed her eyes in agreement, fatigue overcoming her again. She looked out the window at the setting sun. “Just how long have I been out?”
Shining walked over to close the curtains. “From what I understand, about a whole day.” He returned to his wife’s side and sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you remember anything?”
Cadence rubbed her face with her hooves in an effort to recall the events that knocked her out. “We were in the secret room below the library. Suddenly there was this… Snap. I can’t describe it. It felt like something just blinked off and then…” Cadence rubbed her head as the memories of the screams filled her head. She began to tremble. Shining Armor took his wife in his hooves and held her close. The trembling didn’t stop though. “I… I don’t know. I woke up here, I guess.” She took the moment to survey the room. It was still their royal suite, same crystal ceiling and floor. Obviously things hadn’t eroded or collapsed while she was out. “So what exactly happened after… you know?”
Shining pushed back to hold his wife by the shoulders at eye level. “I’ve got some bad news, some really bad news, and some sort of good news.”
Cadence facehoofed and groaned. “Bad news, really bad news, then sort of good news, please.”
“Bad news: the Crystal Heart has been completely turned to stone.”
Cadence’s eyes shot open and her mouth fell agape. “How is that not the really bad news!?”
Shining waved a hoof defensively. “All that resulted from that was the earthquake. At least until…”
“Until…”
“Until we discovered the castle doctor turned to stone.”
Cadence mouth fell agape again. “Is she okay?”
“We honestly don’t know. Twilight and Luna say that the stone is the same as the Crystal Heart but they just don’t have the specific knowledge to understand it. We’ve got a specialist coming in a few days.”
“A few days! Who’s to say we have a few days! The castle could come collapsing around us tomorrow!”
“Hey, how did you know the castle had collapsed?”
Cadence froze, the memories of her dream clearing. The horrible quakes and the hateful screams. She sat up and drew her legs to her body underneath the covers. Her gaze was far away.
“There’s something coming,” she said simply. “There’s something coming and whatever it is, it’s big. I can’t… I can’t describe it any other way.”
Shining frowned but nodded in agreement. He wrapped his hooves around his wife once more, cradling her close. After a quiet moment between the two Cadence broke the silence. “So what’s the sort of good news?”
Shining Armor tried to look elsewhere as he rubbed the back of his head. “Well…”
Outside, a crystal pony with a frame stuck around his neck sadly trudged past the Royal Suite. A loud “What!?” suddenly shot out from the room, scaring the poor pony. He jumped in the air and came back down, crashing and dislodging the frame. He rubbed his head, looked shocked as he was finally able to do so and jumped to his feet in delight. He sprinted down the corridor to a stair case, eager to get back to his room before something else happened. He took his first step on the long winding stair case and felt the crystal beneath him crumble away. He overextended his hoofstep and fell forward onto the stairs. He bounced down nearly three flights, the force of his impacts creating small cracks in the durable crystal. He finally reached the bottom step and began to roll into an opposing wall. His crash there sent a spider web of cracks through it, ending in a half circular shape. The large piece of wall dislodged and began to tilt inward. The pony was still struggling to get his bearings back, rubbing his head and not noticing the falling wall behind him. The masonry fell with a loud thunk on top of him and shattered in to many more pieces. A small piece of wall sat on his head as a large bump formed. Stars began to play before his eyes and then pony let out a happy sigh before passing out in the rubble.