NanoCrystal

by Battlecrank

Chapter 2: Rediscovery

The town of Ponyville! Currently undergoing its famous Sisterhooves Social Event, the entire town failed to notice the arrival of the Doctor. This can, of course, be blamed on the general lack of guards stationed in the city, allowing him the opportunity to arrive unnoticed.

With its practically trademarked running noise, the Tardis materialized near the clock tower in Ponyville. Moments after its arrival, the door opened and Pinkie came flying out. She skidded to a halt on her flank a few feet away, before turning around and looking back at the Tardis.

The Doctor poked his head out soon after, pointing a hoof at her with an irate expression upon his face. After holding the pose for a few moments, he slowly went back inside the Tardis, closing the door behind him. Shortly after, even the Tardis was gone, having faded away as though it hadn’t existed in the first place.

Pinkie sat there for a minute, contemplating if things had gotten too far out of hoof, before she once again heard the Tardis materialize in front of her. Knowing what was coming next, Pinkie put on one of her best smiles as the Tardis finished its ‘landing’. When the doors opened, Pinkie made sure she was easily visible, so the Doctor didn’t have any chance to miss seeing her.

The Doctor, for his part, was quite surprised when he saw Pinkie when he opened the doors. His expression, however, quickly straightened when he looked at the Pinkie he had recently retrieved from the Pre-Classical Era who was still in the Tardis. He felt his eye twitch as he rapidly looked between the two Pinkies, which had now noticed each other.

“Hi!” Said the Pinkie outside the Tardis. “Pinkie, we need to switch places. The Doctor needs to complete the loop by taking me to 24.8-50.8/12-04-18.”

The Pinkie inside the Tardis smiled even more brightly than normal as they quickly switched places. The Doctor, for his part, continued to glance between the two as they performed their maneuver. Once the maneuver was complete, they both stared at the Doctor expectant smiles.

“I think you broke him,” Said the now outside Pinkie after a moment had passed, her smile faltering.

“Wait for it…” Said the inside one, the smile on her face increasing in size.

The inside Pinkie’s smile was quickly matched by the outside one.

“PINKIE!” Suddenly shouted the Doctor.

“Yes?” Replied both Pinkies in stereo.

-(◊)-

Some months later…

Near the village of Ponyville, there is the Everfree forest. Deep inside the Everfree forest, there is the old dilapidated ruin of the royal sisters’ ancient castle. The castle’s record of lying undisturbed by ponydom had been ruined a mere two years before by a group of six adventuresome mares, two alicorns, and one dragon.

This… is not where the story begins. No, our story begins a short distance away. It begins in the airship of the infamous grave robber and master of Equinology, Daring Do!

Daring had just finished her raid on the supposed ‘undisturbed’ castle of the royal sisters. Not only was she insulted by the lack of traps and competition (which had, unbeknownst to her, arrived and left two years prior), she had only found one thing of note in the entire castle. Granted, it was a small note, but a note, none the less.

Daring was currently flying back to the airship with said object of note, an old iron cauldron. A lesser mare might call it a pot, but it was obviously a cauldron. Just look at it! It had the lid and everything!

As she set the cauldron down on the deck of the airship, she took a moment to catch her breath and reflected on why she had decided to grab it in the first place. When she had found it in the ceiling after destroying a good portion of the dungeons underneath the castle in her lack-of-traps induced trap paranoia, she had heard something shifting around in there. Besides, it had wanted her to take it, if the way it landed on her was any indication (not justifying her trap paranoia at all, by the way).

The lid on the cauldron, however, was what her current ire was directed at. She had tried to open it back in the ruin, only to find it sealed shut. This could mean that it was magically sealed, and that there was indeed something of value inside (increasing its value exponentially, in her opinion). Although, it more likely it was simply rusted on and the cauldron had an old ladle inside, meaning she had another useless piece of junk to give to the Manehattan Museum.

And to think she had been told to explore this ruin in particular by them! Not that she didn’t like her very limited and rare free time being commandeered to explore trap-less ruins to collect random near-worthless trinkets for the museum. They paid decently enough for what she brought back. Usually.

Daring snapped out of her reverie and went to where she kept her tool chest. She figured a generous amount of oil would be sufficient to provide lubrication to the lid of the cauldron, allowing her access to its possibly invaluable contents. If that failed, Mr. Crowbar and Mrs. Hammer would be more than happy to make the acquaintance of the offending lid. The cauldron itself was made of iron strong enough to take the beating, and the lid would probably be destroyed by some hapless intern later on anyway.

Picking up the oil canister with both her front hooves, she carefully poured some of the slippery substance out onto the cauldron’s lid. Once she had decided that enough had been deposited, she attempted to remove the lid from the cauldron. When the lid didn’t comply with her simple demand, she attempted to get a better position to leverage it off the cauldron.

In her attempt to find said ‘better position’, she eventually found herself standing atop the cauldron and attempting to pull up on the lid. After one rather vigorous pull, however, she lost her grip and flew off the cauldron, knocking over the oil canister in the process. Her attempt to stand afterwards yielded few results on the now oil coated floor.

After flailing around for a short while, she regained her stance and carefully made her way back to the tool chest to find her hammer and crowbar. Due to her poor organization of the chest, it took her some time before she found the items she desired. However, on her way back she had forgotten that the floor was coated in oil and comically slipped, suddenly finding herself sliding across the deck of her airship…

…Straight into the cauldron.

Thankful for the ever-present plinth helmet she wore that had saved her from a concussion on impact with the cauldron, Daring grumbled at her forgetfulness before attempting to stand up again. She made and failed three further attempts at standing before she remembered she had wings. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as the case may be), she remembered quite well what a facehoof was as she performed the maneuver upon remembering her winged nature.

“I’ve really got to quit hanging out with Bulwark,” she mumbled to herself.

Taking flight, Daring looked around for the tools she had dropped when she initially slipped. She quickly located them, and returned to the cauldron for her second attempt at opening it. Taking a dramatic stance, Daring placed the crowbar against the lid of the cauldron, and hit it with the hammer.

Or, rather, tried to hit it with the hammer. The tools themselves were slick from their adventure on the deck of the airship. So slick, in fact, that she lost the hammer before she was able to bring it down on the crowbar. She stared, dumbfounded, at her empty hoof a few moments before the wayward hammer had returned itself to her via impact to the head.

Daring fell back to the deck of the airship out of shock from the harmless impact, where she quickly lost her balance once again on the slick deck, landing on her stomach. Oddly, the crowbar she had been holding when she fell had slipped out of her grasp, and remained it its position wedged between the lid and the cauldron. At least, it did until she hit the deck, at which point it shook loose from its position, and came down on her head as well.

Daring remained where she was for a few moments, staring blankly at the cauldron. Soon, though, a smile spread across her face. Maybe she was wrong about the ruins not having any traps. Maybe the trap was, in fact, a cursed cauldron! Of course, if it was cursed, that could only mean one thing…

It had treasure in it.

Hoping that her hunch was correct, she quickly took flight and recollected her lost tools once again. With the tools in hoof, she returned to her previous position. She then checked to make sure she had a good grip upon the tools before she once again brought the hammer down onto the crowbar.

Tink!

Daring smiled at the successful hit, but her expression quickly turned to one of disappointment. While she had made the connection this time, she had not succeeded in opening the cauldron. She frowned before trying again.

Clank!

Daring once again smiled for a brief moment, before her smile once again disappeared. This time, however, her expression ended with a blank face as she stared at the cauldron. Maybe one more time would do it…

Cla-Gong!

Daring’s expression this time, instead of a smile, was one of panic. She had hit the crowbar with such force that the cauldron had started to slide on the slick deck of the airship. She quickly scrambled to stop it, but wasn’t able to get a grip on it due to her recently oil coated hooves. She was forced to watch as it slid off the side of the side, and began to plummet to the ground below.

The cauldron smashed through the branches that made up the upper layer of the Everfree Forest. Shortly after, Daring heard it impact the ground with a loud thud. This was followed a moment later by the sound of something similar to crystal glassware breaking.

Daring was quick to follow it down, but paused when she saw where it had landed. Or, more specifically, what it had landed on. Specifically, it had landed on a Timberwolf, or what had once been one a short while before.

On the other hoof, the cauldron looked like it had cracked open when it had impacted the ground. The contents, however, were far more mundane then she had hoped.

“Gem powder? That’s it?” Daring asked as she felt her eye twitch. “Why would anypony put gem powder in a cursed cauldron in the celling where anypony could come along and destroy the dungeon it’s in while looking for traps, causing it to fall on their head?!”

Daring stared at the cauldron for a moment, as the Everfree’s magic started its work on the Timberwolf. With a flare of magic, the Timberwolf began to reform from sticks lying around in the forest. Once complete, it let out a howl in challenge at daring, and two more of its kind to show up moments later.

Upon seeing this new development, daring sighed.

“… At least it’s not cats,” Daring commented.

As if on cue, a Manticore came out of the underbrush. The Manticore and the Timberwolves looked at each other for a moment, before focusing their attentions on Daring.

“Well that’s just great,” Daring said with a sigh. “Well, at least things can’t get any w- GAH! Didn’t finish it! It doesn’t count!”

Despite her desperate attempted correction, things indeed got worse (for her, at least).

A wind started to blow through the trees. Daring quickly looked up to check and make sure her airship wasn’t drifting away in the breeze. It was.

“Oh come on!”

Daring chased after her airship, quickly losing sight of the cauldron’s ‘landing’ zone, never to return.

-(◊)-

“Hay gals,” said Scootaloo, trying to get the attention of the other Cutie Mark Crusaders.

Sweetie Bell looked at her. “Ya?”

Scootaloo looked at the gathered crusaders. They had decided to take a break in their clubhouse after their last attempt at getting cutie marks, and subsequent baths to get rid of the tree sap.

“Do you gals ever get the feeling that we should be responsible for the release of a magical abomination, but aren’t?”

The other two crusaders looked at each other with quizzical expressions for a moment, before Apple Bloom looked back at Scootaloo to respond.

“No...”

“Huh,” said Scootaloo. “Weird.”

Author's Note:

Not as funny as the last chapter, but I needed to move the plot along.
Also, expect a lot of side plots/jokes in the future. I keep finding more to make.
Criticism still welcome.