Remnants of Glory

by TheMajorTechie


Return to the Crystal Empire

The bright image of the Princess only stayed on for about a second, before in the background, the strange looking fog overtook the image. I blinked, still trying to make myself believe what I was seeing. The Princess was being attacked in front of my very eyes.

Suddenly, an earsplitting 'crackle' noise of sorts broke the silence in the room. Immediately, the image on the wall faded into static. I turned to Dr. Glider, my eyes pleading for an answer to what just happened.

The Doctor simply shrugged. "I really don't know." he said calmly, "All I know about what just happened there is that the Princess was apparently attacked by Sombra as she was answering our call. And not only that--" -I waited in anticipation as he took a deep breath, and continued. "--but it seems as if the communications module got busted right after."

I facehoofed, and shouted, "DON'T YOU REMEMBER THAT I HAVE THE SPARE?!"

Dr. Glider flinched back from my sudden outburst. "Yes, yes, I know that," he stammered, "but this time, it's not the card, it's the entire system. And as for the system itself, we don't have any spares, we only have the basic schematics for the individual parts, and we don't have the necessary resources to build them."

Jewel stamped her hoof. "Well if you don't have the resources," she began fiercely, "then why don't you get some resources?!"

I could tell that Jewel was visibly irritated by the lack of communication that occurred immediately after we witnessed an attack on the Sun Princess. Even with her already calming down, her glare would easily burn a hole in the Doctor if she had the ability to.

The Doctor squeaked at the sight of Jewel's immense anger, and fled the room. Up until now, I had absolutely no idea that he could be so timid.

Jewel stood in front of the console, her sides still heaving from her outburst. Within a few minutes, she was back to normal. Though she was no longer as irritated as before, she was still visibly trembling from what she had seen earlier.

I slowly crept up to her, and threw both my forehooves around around her in a tight embrace. Immediately, she melted in my embrace, her muscles finally loosening up. It's been a long day, and for the both of us, the embrace was the first hint of relaxtation that we've had all day.

Finally, we parted, and began heading back towards the main camp outside. That's when I suddenly remembered.

"Jewel," I began, "How long have we been here again?"

Jewel shrugged. "Counting yesterday, we've been here for nearly two whole days."

I quickly began to panic. "Two days?!" I yelled, "TWO, BUCKIN' DAYS?!"

Jewel shrunk back. "Yes?" she replied, "Give or take a few hours..."

Well then. I originally took us here to scout out a possible new camp, but instead, we find a sprawling community of rocket scientists who personally know Princess Celestia. Talk about a change in expectations.

We quickly trotted through the camp in attempt to find Dr. Glider. Soon enough, we found him sulking near a small building that appeared to be a testing facility.

I walked up to him. "What's up?" I asked.

He simply turned his face towards the wall, still whimpering from the earlier outburst.

"Uh... ok... see you around... heh..." I stammered, quietly taking Jewel to the camp's exit.

Once we were truly outside, I quickly turned to Jewel. "You know," I began, "originally, when we came to this place, or at least when we got onto the train, I was planning on trying to find a better settlement area, or at least some resources." I waved a hoof over at the camp that we just left. "And instead, we found this. But still, we need to find some resources, or else it'd be pretty hard to rebuild Equestria."

Jewel nodded. "Yeah," she replied enthusiastically, "so let's go then!"

We broke into a dash as we raced each other back to the train station. Ponyville obviously didn't have anything to salvage, because everything was already salvaged by the camp in the Everfree. Instead, I decided that we'd head back to the Crystal Empire. Besides, there's still more groups there, and I could easily take them over to Canterlot when we come back.

A short trot later, we arrived at the station. The two of us quickly boarded the train, and I fired up the boiler. Then, I remembered just how slow it often takes for the thing to actually heat up so I quickly cast a small heat spell to quicken the process. Soon enough, we were off and going, heading past the towering derelict buildings of Canterlot, and into the frigid landscape of the Crystal Empire. Though along the way, as I was melting some snow for water to boil, I did find some shards of some sort of apparent statue. Honestly, until I get into someplace warm, I really won't be able to take a closer look at it.