It was a small chamber, highly reminiscent of Vis and its technology, that we found laying in the middle of nowhere in the future. It was one of the few places that had still been intact, so it drew our attention. Laying there, near the northern tundra, almost exactly where Vis had once hovered. It was beautiful, in a way.
Still, we were here for a reason. I parked the machine nearby, and the seven of us disembarked and entered the ancient chamber. It didn't take long before we found the foe that protected the Sunstone Hora told us lay here. The spherical foe hovered before us and summoned flames around itself, which swirled and danced in the air.
Before I could say anything, Sombra had already unleashed a spell of cold at the creature...which didn't seem to effect it at all. All he had done was incur a counterattack as the creature spat fire at him, causing him to cry out in pain and fall back.
"That won't work," I mused. "Justice, Gregory, get ready to heal us all. Copper, switch to plasma mode on your turret. If we can't attack him directly, there's only five other targets. The flames themselves. I'm not certain if he's vulnerable like that, but I'm willing to try."
With that, I pointed my hand at one of the flames and summoned a bolt of lightning to jump between us. The creature recoiled as if struck, and I grinned. "Okay, so he's weak when we strike this one. Let's keep it up."
Copper nodded and fired a bolt of plasma at the same flame, while Zehan attempted to freeze it solid. Gregory soothed Sombra's wounds, and Justice opened fire again. However, after he did that, the flames swirled and changed position so quickly I couldn't keep track of them all. And now we would have to experiment to find the right one again...
Or so I thought, before Scorpan punched one, and the creature recoiled again. "I have good eyes," he rumbled. "I will keep track of the flame that he would rather us not hit for you all."
Every now and then, we did get set on fire by the creature as it attempted to fend us off, but soon enough, thanks to Scorpan's eyes, he was retreating deeper into the building. I pointed my sword down the road he'd run and intoned dramatically. "After him!" I said.
It was a short chase to a raised platform, where the creature now lay. With one final gasp, it expired and changed. From the roundish orange blob it had been, to a smooth, dark stone that held only a glint of power within it.
"Is this the SunStone?" Copper asked.
"Aye," Sombra replied. "It used to be. That creature used up most of its power, though. T'would take an age to recharge it, and it would need a place with plenty of sun."
"I have an idea," I said, holding up the Gate Key.
"See," I said as we appeared back in the Era of Vis near where Canterlot would one day be founded. "If we place it atop the mountain, then it will surely get all the sun it needs. And it's such a big landmark as well, we'll be able to find it again in the future."
"I will admit, it sounds workable," Zehan said. "What about other ponies coming to take it, though?"
"Thought of that," I said before looking at Justice. "Would you care to write a message in the stone? Do not touch, or something like that?"
The robot nodded and fired up his lasers, before inscribing just such a message in the very rock itself. Once he was done and the stone had cooled, I placed the drained SunStone atop the writing and smiled.
"And now, we go back to the future and receive our prize."
Of course, one jump later, we found that the SunStone wasn't there. Of course not.
"I will resist the urge to say it," the zebra in our party said.
"The sentiment is received nonetheless," I sighed. "Okay, let's head through time itself. Good thing it's night, we'll be able to get away with this. Let's figure out when the SunStone was removed."
A quick check during the Era of Discord showed that the stone was still there. As it was during 600 AD. It was only when we arrived at the present day that we found that the stone was missing. "So," I said, looking around. "It was removed either in this era, or sometime shortly before it." A thought occurred to me as to who would take such a stone, and I looked down at the city below.
Sure enough, in one tower of the castle, there was a brief sparkle of light as bright as the sun itself from one of the windows. And while I doubted that Celestia or Luna would have taken it...
There was a spoiled noble in their house that would have, if he'd heard about it. We would have to do something about that...
Back in 600 AD, I walked around the city of Canterlot for a short while, before I found a mare that bore a striking resemblance to Blueblood himself. Though, she seemed to be having a bad day...or life, if the tattered rags she was wearing were any indication. I wordlessly motioned for Copper to hand me our Bits, and she passed them over without a word of complaint. I bent down in front of the mare and smiled, before offering her our money.
"Here," I told her. "We don't need it."
She blinked a few times before opening the bag and gasping. "There...there is far too much, sir. You can't possibly give this much to me."
"I can," I told her. "And I am. So long as you keep one of the tenets of friendship in your heart always."
"Anything for you, sir!" she promised me.
"Never forget Generosity," I told her. "Never be greedy with what you have now, because there are those that need help, which you should give if you can."
"Of course!" she said with a firm nod of her head. "All my children will learn of generosity! It will be our family watch-word!"
I smiled at her again before standing up and walking off with Copper, back to the city limits. I kept the machine low until we'd left Canterlot, then fired up the time-travel option and took us back to the present day.
Once again, I took us up to the mountain, and found a certain Prince atop it, placing the SunStone back in its place. "Oh, hello," he greeted us. "Are you...lost?"
"In a manner of speaking," I told him. "What's that you've got there?"
"Oh this?" he said, before putting the Stone where it was supposed to be and stepping back. "A passing traveler gave me this Stone from atop the mountain. Even I could sense the magic in it, and I have no need of it. Plus, he told me of the text that was up here, so I decided to return it from whence it came."
"Good stallion," I said. "And thank you."
"Welcome," he said with a nod of his head. "Is it yours?"
"Perhaps, but we'll be by later to pick it up," I told him. "We won't have need of it for some time, and it needs sunlight to get more powerful."
"I see," he mused. "Well, I'll leave you to it then." And with that, Prince Blueblood turned and walked away, though not without passing another comment. "An excellent flying machine, by the way. You should see the one I'm having designed for Equestria's non-pegasi some day."
I smiled, happy with how he'd now turned out, before turning the machine back towards the future.
As I thought, the stone remained there, now glowing a bright white, almost brimming with power. Copper hefted it and stared for a moment, before she smiled. "I have an idea," she said. "Let's head back to that city we cleared out, there's labs there I can use."
It only took an hour for Copper to walk back out with her new battle harness. She pointed the turret at an inactive robot and gently squeezed the trigger.
Instantly, a beam of power as hot as the sun erupted from the turret on her back and started to melt the chassis of the inactive 'bot. She quickly turned it off and smiled, before handing the SunStone back to me. "I used the machinery to make a cartridge, and hooked that up to my battle harness," she said. "It contains a bit of the power of the SunStone in it, and I can use it for a pretty long time before I might have to make another one."
"In the meantime," I said, before pocketing the orb. "We'll hold onto this. Don't want it falling into the wrong hands now, do we?"
"Affirmative," Justice nodded. "Especially not after everything we had to do to get it."
One quest remained. And I was sure...it was going to be a long one. Some sort of rainbow shell lay within the Badlands...
We would probably have to cut through more than a few changelings on our way to get it...