Rainbow Dash had just heard from the librarian, Amethyst Maresbury, that King Sombra had hidden the Crystal Heart away, never to be found again. She dashed into the air and took the flag that Rarity had made from its pole. She flew under the castle and covered Twilight's carving of the Crystal Heart with it.
"I think we may have a problem," Rainbow Dash remarked.
"What do you mean, Rainbow Dash?
"The librarian said that the whole purpose of the Crystal Faire is to lift the spirits of the Crystal Ponies, so the light within them can power the Crystal Heart," she quoted. "That's how the Empire is protected."
"The Crystal Heart is an actual relic?" Twilight frantically searched the book for the answer.
"There's no time! We gotta tell Cadance and Shining Armor right now!" Twilight nodded and ran up the stairs to where her brother and his wife were. Rainbow Dash flew up the castle to let them know Twilight was coming. They all met on the upper balcony.
Twilight continued flipping through pages of the history book. "I didn't know it was an actual relic! The book didn't mention anything about the Crystal Ponies powering the Heart!" She reached the back cover and her eyes opened wide. "There was a page missing....How did I not notice?!"
Cadance swayed as she tried to comfort the purple unicorn. "It's all right, Twilight." Shining Armor caught her in his front legs as she fainted. Her magic flickered for the last time, and the shield spell dissipated. All around, the storm raged on, and King Sombra emerged. "The Empire is under attack," Shining Armor declared. He went over to his wife and helped her up. Cadance, with a few moments of rest, could project her shield spell again.
As the shield went back up, King Sombra noticed he might miss this opportunity. His shadowy form charged the Crystal Empire, but he was too slow. The shield grew directly in front of him, cutting off the tip of his crimson horn. Sombra screamed out in pain, and the tip of his horn fell to the other side of the shield.
Cadance had now erected the shield to full strength, but the tip of Sombra's horn sank into the ground, surrounded in black sparks and purple smoke.
Shining Armor supported his weary wife. "I have to find the Crystal Heart," he said with determination.
"No," said Twilight. "You stay here with Cadance. She needs you, Shining Armor." She turned from them. "I'll retrieve the Crystal Heart," she said with the same determination as her brother.
"Let's do this!" Rainbow Dash said as she flew after Twilight.
"I've been trying to figure out how I'm meant to pass Celestia's test," Twilight announced as they entered a large room. "Retrieving the Crystal Heart must be it. But there is something else you can do," she continued as they descended the stairs that led to the Faire.
Rainbow Dash smiled. "Name it."
"You and the rest of our friends have to keep the Faire going."
"What? With that thing moving into the Empire?"
"The whole purpose of the Crystal Faire is to lift the spirits of the Crystal Ponies, so they can activate the Crystal Heart," Twilight explained. "If the Crystal Ponies find out that King Sombra is trying to take over the Empire again, their spirits are gonna be anything but lifted."
"It won't matter if I find the Crystal Heart," the purple unicorn continued as they reached the bottom of the stairs. "They won't be able to make it work. You have to keep them happy here at the Faire."
The cyan pegasus saluted. "Keep the Faire going and the crystal ponies' spirits high. Done and done!" She went off to let Rarity, the others, and Applejack know. Rarity whispered the news to Spike, and he ran to join Twilight, and Rainbow Dash joined Applejack, who was already guarding the fake Heart. They were doing a decent job trying to make it look natural, but the pegasus kept being brash to the crystal ponies who got too close.
"Maybe you should let me keep the Crystal Ponies away from the fake Heart, while you show off your joustin' skills," Applejack suggested, pushing Rainbow Dash away from the fake Heart.
Rainbow Dash thought for a moment. "Seeing my awesomeness does have a way of putting ponies into a pretty good mood." She flew off with a faint rainbow trail behind her as she went to go find Fluttershy.
Meanwhile, Spike caught up to Twilight as soon as she realized where Sombra would have hidden the Crystal Heart. "Twilight, wait! I'm coming with you," he pleaded.
Twilight shook her head. "You can't. I have to retrieve the Crystal Heart by myself."
Spike frowned. "I know. I promise I won't lift a claw to help you." He stuffed his claws under his arms and Twilight picked him up with her magic and set him on her back.
"Not a claw, Spike," she repeated to him and galloped toward the center of the city.
"Where are we going, exactly?"
"I think I might know where King Sombra hid the Crystal Heart."
Spike looked up to see where she was headed. "The castle?"
"The king would've been counting on the fact that nopony would dare come looking for it here," she speculated. "They'd have been too afraid to even try."
"I hope you're right," the baby dragon said as they reached the big doors of the castle.
Twilight looked back at her loyal assistant. "You and me both."
As Twilight searched the castle and Spike followed behind her, she was getting exasperated as she kept finding nothing. They entered a room next to the throne room with a large table in the middle of it. The table sat atop a red rug. Spike noticed that there was a wrinkle in the corner nearest him. He picked it up and scratched his chin. Twilight turned around, putting the books she had looked at back on the shelf. "Not a claw, Spike," she reminded him. He laughed nervously and put his claws back under his arms. "Celestia's orders."
They crossed the hall, passing in front of the throne room. The purple unicorn backtracked to take another look at the crystal on the throne. It looked just like the crystal Celestia had used in her demonstration! If the Empire is filled with hope and love, those things are reflected across all off Equestria. If hatred and fear take hold... Celestia's words echoed in her mind.
"Of course!" she shouted, which brought Spike running to her.
"What, did you find it?
"No, because this isn't King Sombra's castle!" she explained as the two of them approached the throne.
"Well, isn't this where he lived when he was in power?"
Twilight stopped. "It is, but it didn't look like this," she said, indicating the perfectly-shaped crystal on top of the throne. She strained her magic, picturing something much fearful and hateful than she'd ever faced. Her magical aura turned black, and black sparks began to shoot from her horn. Then, purple smoke emitted from her horn and eyes, and she shot a beam of it at the throne itself.
The shadow enveloped the throne and extended onto the floor. It rested not far from the throne, and revealed a hidden staircase. Spike stood in awe, and Twilight clapped her hooves in excitement. The baby dragon joined her at the top of the stairs. "When did you learn to do that?" he asked her.
"That was a little trick Celestia taught me." She lit her horn so she could see her way down. Spike cautiously took a step toward the stairs, but Twilight returned and said, "You stay here."
"If you insist," he replied, grateful that he wouldn't have to descend them. As she descended the staircase, he called to her. "Can you see what's down there yet?"
"Not yet. I can't even tell how far down it goes." She broke a crystal off the wall and dropped it. Eight seconds later, she heard the clunk as the crystal hit the ground. "Spike?" she called out.
"Yeah?"
"Can you see outside?"
Spike ran to the window. Sombra's dark clouds were attacking the shield again, and the tip of his horn, which had buried itself between the gates, started transforming them from their current state into dark ones. "It's not good!" he replied. "Cadance's magic must be fading faster than before!"
Twilight rushed down the steps, hurrying to find the Heart. One of the steps crumbled as her hoof landed on its edge, causing her to stumble all the way down. She caught herself with her magic before she hit the very bottom. Spike called to see if she was okay, and she assured him that she was.
She turned and saw a door. Not a large door, not a fancy door, but a plain-looking wooden door. She tried to open it with her magic, but the door ran away from it. She saw it to her right, and she tried again. Again, the door fled from her magic. This time, she jumped at the door, but the door did as well, making Twilight slam into the wall.
"Stop...moving!" This time, as she powered up her magic, black sparks and purple smoke came from it, and it shot a beam at the jagged crystal on the top of the door. The door opened, and...
Spike sat at the top of the stairs for a few minutes, waiting for Twilight to say something, anything. It had been too long since she'd disappeared into the dark. Finally he got fed up and followed her down, shouting her name the whole way.
Hearing Spike call her name brought Twilight out of her trance. She shook her head and was now staring at a blank wall behind the door.
"I know you told me to stay up there, but you were down here for such a long time and you weren't answering, and I got worried, so I came down here, and you were just staring at that wall. I was calling your name, but I couldn't seem to get your attention and..." Spike scratched his head. "What were you looking at?" He approached the door. "I mean, it's just a wall."
Twilight stood behind the door and reactivated the door's spell. Instantly, the baby dragon's eyes turned green as he was sucked into the illusion that he was back in Ponyville, and Twilight was sending him away. She slammed the door, and his trance was broken as instantly as it had begun.
"King Sombra's dark magic," she explained. "A doorway that leads to your worst fear." After consoling her favorite assistant, Twilight shot a beam of light at the door's crystal, just as Princess Celestia had done. The door opened and revealed...more stairs.
At the top of the stairs, thanks to an anti-gravity spell, Twilight found the Crystal Heart! They stood at the very top of the central spire of the castle. At this height, the wind was almost as fierce as the storm outside. The Heart sat in the center of the room, hovering above the floor. Twilight approached it, but as soon as her hoof touched the emblem beneath it, Sombra's magic activated a spell that captured her in a cage of black crystals. Twilight jumped for the Heart, and knocked it out of the circle before it could be caught as well.
When Spike revealed the Crystal Heart was on the floor beside him, Twilight attempted to teleport out of the cage, but the magic teleported her back inside. She tried pushing against the crystals, but they were firmly in the ground. "How could I have been so foolish? I was just so eager to get it! Then when I saw what was going on outside, I..."
Spike tried to encourage her. "You have to get out of there, Twilight! You have to be the one who brings the Heart to Princess Cadance!"
Celestia's words once again echoed through her mind: It must be you, and you alone who ultimately assists Princess Cadance and Shining Armor in doing what needs to be done to protect the Empire. "It has to be me," Twilight insisted, and she kept trying to get out of the cage.
<>--<>--<>--<>--<>
There was nothing to change the luck of Twilight and her friends that fateful day. Crystals grew around the spire, trapping Spike and Twilight for good. Rarity and Applejack couldn't keep the crystal ponies at bay anymore, since the fake Heart had been discovered. Princess Cadance's magic sputtered a final time, and now, there was no shield blocking Sombra from entering the Crystal Empire, reversing every attempt the ponies had made to bring back their crystalline coats.
Rainbow Dash had beaten Fluttershy in another round of jousting when King Sombra entered the Empire. Fluttershy took off her armor and joined the others on the balcony as Rainbow Dash put away equipment and dodged crystals that had started to pop up from the earth. She flew to the castle where her friends were waiting.
Shining Armor said the words that nopony wanted to say, and nopony wanted to hear: "It's gone. The Crystal Empire is lost again." Then he turned to the others and ordered, "Bring as many crystal ponies as you can to the train station. We need to save what we can from the Empire."
Crystal ponies cowered in fear of King Sombra. It wasn't going to be an easy task to evacuate the Empire. As hard as it was to try and get them to the safety of the blizzard, there were also crystals to avoid. Rainbow Dash got frustrated yelling at ponies who were too scared to move. She even tried coaxing them in her own way. "Come on, crystal ponies. I've faced tons of things as bad as this. I'm scared too, but you gotta MOVE YOUR TAILS!" When nopony moved, she groaned and looked up.
Sombra himself was riding shadowed crystals toward the top of the tower. "Uh oh," she said, and she dashed toward the jousting stage. She passed Rarity and Applejack along the way.
"What are you doing?" they asked her.
Rainbow Dash pointed her hoof at Sombra, who was getting ever closer to the tower. "Twilight's up there, I'm sure of it. She's doomed if Sombra gets to her."
"Rainbow Dash, you could die if ya go get her," Applejack protested.
"I'm not leaving her behind!" She shouted and shot away toward the stage.
Crystals now completely covered the ground, and Rainbow Dash couldn't find where she'd put the armor. It didn't take very long, however, and soon, she was back in the armor. She fumbled with the helmet and threw it to the side. "I don't need that part anyway." And off she went, zooming toward King Sombra. Rarity and Applejack saw that she was airborne, and told the others what she was doing as they continued to evacuate.
It was hard for Rainbow Dash to keep up with Sombra. Not that he was traveling fast, she could handle fast; she was faster. It was more due to the fact that the crystal the Sombra was using were large and jagged, and pieces of them pointed in all sorts of directions. She flew a little farther away from them, and flapped her wings hard, gaining speed.
King Sombra rode his giant crystals toward the tower, where he had hidden the Crystal Heart. As he got closer to it, the shadowy part of his body got swept away, and his physical form had completely returned to him, including the tip of his horn. The Crystal Heart is mine! he yelled. The closer he got, the stronger he felt.
Rainbow Dash turned toward him, and flew as fast as she could. The air compressed in front of her as she got close to him, and Sombra didn't even acknowledge her presence until she slammed her shoulder into his chin, knocking him off balance, and off the crystal. Sombra grew up another crystal to catch his fall, and he had just been able to right himself by the time the cyan pegasus had turned around and attacked again.
This time, Sombra ducked out of her path. He shot blasts from his horn, but she dodged every one of them. She flew around, giving Sombra a hard time to aim for her.
On the ground, Pinkie Pie started shaking and bouncing rapidly and violently. "Wo-oa-oa-oah!" The other ponies noticed. The crystal ponies had no idea what was going on, but Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy knew that a doozy was about to happen.
One last time, Rainbow Dash charged at King Sombra. You foolish mare. You have so few tricks, he taunted as he turned to face her. She was aiming for his head with her left shoulder. He moved back slightly, too soon for her to react. He grabbed her wing with his teeth as it brushed against his muzzle. He wrenches her wing up and toward her tail, stopping her mid-flight. Then, he pulled it down as hard as he could. The sheer power and force behind his counterattack, combined with the rigid hole around her wing, broke her bones, ruptured nerves, and instantly caused bleeding from the open fracture and the bite. She screamed in pain, loud enough that the ponies on the ground could hear it.
She blacked out as she fell.
Pinkie Pie abruptly stopped shaking and the little curl in her mane stuck straight out, pointing directly at Rainbow Dash. She gasped. "Rainbow Dash can't fly! I'm comin' Rainbow Dash!" The pink pony ran and jumped on top of one of the tents. The tent slung her upward, and she caught the pegasus in her front legs. "Rarity, catch me!"
The white unicorn grabbed the roof of a tent, and caught the two of them in it. Rainbow Dash moaned as she landed on her left side. Everypony fled the Crystal Empire, along with two dozen crystal ponies. They took one last look at their old home as they boarded the train. "Everypony out of the way, please," Rarity said. "My friend is badly injured. Are any of you a doctor?"
A yellow crystal unicorn with a lavender mane stepped forward. Her cutie mark was a glowing laurel wrapped around a staff. "I'm a doctor. My name is Aura Borealis." Aura, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie quickly moved to the last train car. The first thing they needed to do was remove the armor. Aura checked for sensitivity in the wing, but there was none. The only feeling Rainbow Dash had left in her wing was around the fracture. The pegasus slipped in and out of consciousness.
"Rarity, hold her wing in place as I pull off the armor." The two unicorns applied there magic, and freed the pegasus from the armor. Rainbow Dash cried out as her destroyed wing got pulled through the armor's wing hole. The unicorns worked their magic the entire trip back south to Canterlot.
<>--<>--<>--<>--<>
Rainbow Dash sat in a Canterlot hospital bed. Very slowly, she opened her eyes. The sudden flash of light made her cringe. She rubbed her eyes to help them adjust to her new surroundings. Her vision was still blurred as she scanned the room for anything familiar. The crystal unicorn doctor noticed that the pegasus was finally awake.
Aura Borealis pulled another pony aside and told her, "Go tell Pinkie Pie she's awake." The pony galloped off to find her, and the doctor approached Rainbow Dash. "How are you feeling, Miss Dash?" she asked.
"Everything hurts," she replied bluntly.
"What was the last thing you remember?"
"I was fighting Sombra, and then there was just pain." She looked up at the crustal unicorn. "I remember seeing bits and pieces of things after that, but nothing clear."
"You've been unconscious for four days, Miss Dash," she informed her.
"Four days?!" She winced as pain coursed through her. "Who are you?"
"My name is Aura Borealis. Your unicorn friend and I helped you after we fled the Crystal Empire."
Suddenly Rainbow Dash remembered why she fought Sombra in the first place. "Twilight? Where's Twilight?"
"I'm sorry, I don't know who that is," she said, stepping back a bit. "Is she your friend?"
Rainbow Dash nodded. The faint sound of a high-pitched shout echoed through the halls. The pony could barely keep up with Pinkie Pie's speed. "RAINBOW DASH!" she yelled as she got closer.
"Pinkie Pie?"
The pink pony ran to her friend, and Aura had to keep her back with her magic to avoid any more injury to the pegasus. "Be careful, Miss Pie. She is still in a lot of pain."
Pinkie Pie nodded and the unicorn released her. She walked up and put her foreleg around her friend, being wary not to accidentally hit the cast that held her broken wing. "I saw you falling, and I caught you, and Rarity caught me, and you were hurt real bad, and we came back, and I've barely left your side. My hair finally poofed up again just now."
"Pinkie Pie, where's Twilight?"
The pink pony let go of her friend and backed away. "Nopony knows. We left before anypony could find out."
Rainbow Dash turned toward Aura, rubbing her left wing shoulder. She couldn't feel any of it. She looked at the doctor with her most worried look. "Why can't I feel my wing?!"
"I'm sorry," the doctor answered. "We tried healing it all the way to Canterlot, and even the last four days, but we weren't able to fix it all the way. You may never be able to fly again."
Rainbow Dash's eyes grew wide and sad. Pinkie Pie's hair fell and the pink pony lost her saturation. "What about Celestia and Luna?"
"The princesses have been too busy with the war to come and help."
"What war?"
The crystal unicorn stared at the floor, sorrow flooding the room. She looked up with a grim face and said, "With your friend captured, the princesses retaliated against King Sombra, thus beginning the Crystal War."