Crystal Ballerina

by BlueSkyHeadLeft010

The Crystal Empire: Part 6

"Crystal?"
"Crystal?"
"Crystal!"
"CRYSTAL!!! Twilight voice rang in my ears as I snapped awake.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" I screamed for half a moment before I realized what had happened.
Right, I hit the edge of the wall barrier right before it closed and blacked out. I sighed.
Then I realized Twilight had me in her hooves, which embarrassed, we immediately scooted away from each other and coughed awkwardly.

"Um right, so..."
"-Er yeah..." Twilight finished as we each shivered for half a moment.
I focused my sight elsewhere. Mainly on the walls we were trapped in. "Wait. Where's the heart?!" I panicked as I started searching around for it.
"Spike's got it." Twilight calmly answered. "I couldn't teleport us out so I told Spike to grab the heart and run." She said as she sighed and hung her head.

"Oh right, the test..." I remembered.
"We've failed." Twilight said as she stared up at the ceiling sadly.
My heart ached for the mare, one simple task and we blew it. But-
But- I realized something.

"The test doesn't matter." I said.
"What?! You're kidding, right?" Twilight said panicked.
I shook my head, "No, the test doesn't matter right now because you chose to do the honorable thing." I hugged her as Twilight looked at me confused.
"Yea, but the test-"
"Shhh! Nope! Nope! Twilight..." I looked at her serious. "Battles in the end sometimes aren't glorious. A good leader know when to fight, when to retreat, and most importantly, when to sacrifice." I smiled. "In the end you knew that protecting the crystal ponies by getting Spike to deliver the crystal was more important than you trying to figure out how to escape and waste time. You picked a very honorable choice."
Twilight smiled at me and hugged back. "Thank you, Crystal..."

Just then, a bright blue explosion rocked the place as it expanded and shattered the crystal prison around us.
Confused, I opened my mouth to speak a question once the blue light had faded, but then came another bigger wave of light from-
O my goat it's right underneath us isn't it?! I thought, before another brighter blue explosion impacted the two of us and I screamed in pain as another wave of raw magic passed right through me...

...
It didn't last long though. What seemed like forever faded into color once more as I felt something sticking out from behind me.
No matter, I had more pressing matters... Like, WHY WAS TWILIGHT SUDDENLY SO SPARKLY?!
"Um, Crystal?" Twilight beat me to my own question as she examined herself.

Oh gees, please tell me i'm not sparkly too! I looked down at myself before I realized I just had on different clothing and sighed in relief.
Wait, WHEN DID I CHANGE?!
Panicking, I patted down myself before finding everything in tact. "Ok, since we're free and all, let's go see what happened to everyone else." I said, not to mention Wade. I hope the poor bloke is doing ok since I left him!

Walking down from the balcony, not using that platform teleporter ever again. Nope! I don't trust it. I saw a bunch of sparkly ponies cheering excitedly as I realized we had somehow won.
Darn! I missed it!
I sighed, before I followed Twilight down as she hugged Spike. "You did it Spike! You saved the empire!" Twilight cheered happily.

Spike chuckled embarrassed as my eyes floated over to a distressed looking Rarity.
Huh, that's out of character.. I thought as I made my way towards the fretting unicorn.
"Um, you doing alright there Rarity?" I asked concerned.
Rarity jumped, obviously not prepared to see me, before she just sorta looked at me and groaned.

"What? You get a new outfit, and all I get is girlified? Seriously though," She thrust a hoof out in front of myself to inspect it better, "If my Rarity morph is forever tainted by sparklies, I'm gonna be majorly dissapointed." She frowned as she scuffed at the fur on her left leg, trying to rub the sparkles off.
Oh, so this was Wade's Rarity morph. I felt kinda silly that I hadn't noticed it wasn't Rarity sooner, but it wore off the moment his snarkiness started up again.
"What the heck happened to Sombrerro? He was heading this way, going after the pink pegacorn." He asked confused.

I shrugged, "Dunno. I was kinda busy when all this happened." I said, "Hey, at least he's gone. Thanks again for helping out." I smiled, stifling a laugh at Wade who was still trying to rub the sparkles off himself.
He looked at me quizzically, "Helping out? All I did was get pounded by Rainbow Dash...well I guess I provided some sort of entertainment." He mused, "Do you know what's with the sparklies? Why don't they come off? Screw it, I'm just going to morph back. Get rid of the sparklies once and for all." He straightened his back, slowly rising up on two legs. His spine rearranged itself with audible creaking and crackling, as Rarity's hair retreated and shrunk back into the scalp and turned a brown shade.
Hands broke out of Rarity's hooves, splitting into five fingers as the arms stretched and lengthened. Looking at him I saw Wade the human again. Though I wish I hadn't had to see him morph like that. *Shivers*

"Nyeagh, why am I STILL sparkly?" He whined as I realized the glittery substance still hadn't faded from him.
I couldn't stop myself...
I busted into a laughing fit at Wade's reaction. "Dude it's magic. Be thankful that you didn't end up like Sombra or something.." I smirked, still holding back stray giggles, "Anyways... Whether you think it or not, you did actually help out." I admitted, "You kept the crystal ponies distracted while we found the Crystal heart." I pointed to his chest, "You sacrificed your time (and maybe a bit of pride) and kept panicking to a low. That's true humility amigo. Stop being so modest and just take the compliment." I chuckled lightheartedly as I noticed some rubble lying about. Thinking back to my fight earlier, I summoned my spear and began to slice through sections of rubble left behind in Sombra's quake...

"Where the heck did you pull that from?" Wade asked, pointing at my spear amazed, it was like he'd never seem another weapon before... "Hey, think I might be able to copy your form too? It could come in handy if I get in a real fight." He said with stars in his eyes.
"Copy my form?" I asked confused. Why would he need too? Then again, maybe he saw my form as interesting.

I hummed in thought, "Yes, I suppose that's ok... Just don't go messing up my reputation." I frowned serious, "I'll hunt you down." I said in warning, before turning cheery once more. "As for the whole summoning my weapon thing, I don't really understand it either..." I shrugged as I spun the spear in my hands like a baton and then made it disappear.

"It's sorta like condensed magic according to Twilight... Same as my form." I explained, "I don't really know, I just think about summoning my form and weapon and it just happens." I shrugged, "Anyways, getting back to your request; yes you may use my form. Just one thing; should I be aware of anything when you try to acquire me? I'm kinda sensitive to direct magical input, so I tend to avoid anything magical that comes into contact with my gem." I asked unsure. I did not want a repeat of the changeling scanning spell. *Shudder*

Wade seemed to take in my words as he nodded and clapped his hands. "Coolio. Heres the rundown. My power should work off of nothing but technology. But it seems to feed off of magic for some reason," He said, showing his watch to me.
"This tells me how much magic I have left, and as I demonstrated earlier, I can somehow leach off a little bit of energy when gaining a morph. But to answer your concerns, all it should do is put you in a trance while I acquire your D.N.A, but for most of the people I've been coming across it hasn't even done that. They've just stood and stared at me while they waited for something to happen." He reached out a hand, and gave a big smile. "Half a minute, and it'll be done, no worries!"

I hesitated for a moment, pondering if this was a good idea or not before I nodded and shook his hand. "Ok, go ahead." I said as I felt tingly and a shudder ran down my spine... The world spun rapidly around me before everything went dark and I felt someone there...