Dawn of Crystal Empire

by TopWanted

Part 2 - Introductions

“Stop it,” Shining Armor exclaimed unbelievably. “You do not know Calico Lionheart!?”

“It’s true,” Quill replied. “Wit fenced with the guy back in Canterlot Academy.”

Shining Armor turned in his seat to face the younger brother across from him. The train continued to rattle on with the three blissfully unaware. Somewhere along the way, Shining had taken a, well, “shining” to the two brothers. Wit especially. “Seriously? Calico was a grade above me at the academy. He was seriously the biggest jerk I’d ever met. Always tried to pick on me to get a rise.”

“Try being three grades below,” Wit replied with a sigh and roll of the eyes.

“That muscle head actually tried to pick on a pony your size? I know he got left back, but that’s just downright mean.”

Shining noticed the flow of the conversation had come to a screeching halt. Quill gave his younger brother a quick look and pursed his lips, returning his attention to the passing scenery outside.

“Would you like to try that again?” Wit huffed, crooking his eyebrow in a menacing manner.

Shining had struck a nerve. “Well, I mean, it’s just… Your stature for a pony your age is kind of…” He trailed off.

Wit raised to all fours and crossed the aisle, getting right in the taller unicorn’s face. “You got something to say about my height?”

Shining gulped. He really didn’t want a confrontation to erupt. Especially with a pony he’d just started liking. He glanced at Quill hoping the older brother could defuse the situation. Quill simply stared out the window nonchalantly, even adding a little whistle to complete his ambiance. Shining pouted and returned his attention to Wit.

“Look, sorry if I struck a nerve,” he apologized with a sincere lowering of the head. “I really didn’t mean to offend.”

Wit gave one last crook of the eyebrow before returning to his seat satisfied. He turned back to Shining Armor. “It’s not your fault. Truth is I am a little bit sensitive about my height.”

“A little,” Quill chuckled as he returned his attention to the conversation. “You nearly bit off Professor Lilyhooves ear when she called you a squirt.”

“Who’s Professor Lilyhooves?” Shining asked, not recalling that name in the staff of Canterlot Academy.

“Our kindergarten teacher,” Wit replied dryly. “I… wasn’t the most agreeable of fillies.”

“That’s why he went to the academy after graduating Celestia’s School with me,” Quill added with a wave of his hoof. “Felt there was something more he could accomplish.”

Shining’s expression brightened and turned to Wit. “So you’re a soldier as well as a historian?”

The brothers paused and glanced at each other worriedly to decide on an appropriate response.

“No,” Wit admitted with a crestfallen expression. “I had to drop out about two years in.”

Shining turned to notice Quill had returned to watching the window. His bored expression now replaced with a furrowed brow. Shining decided that this was an avenue best left untraveled for now.

“So why don’t you tell me more about this duel with Calico?” he asked earnestly.

Wit’s expression brightened. “It was nothing really. Just a regular fencing match. I hit him a few times, he went down a few times.”

“Yeah, ‘went down,’” Quill chuckled as he lifted two hooves in the air to form quotation marks. “The fight was over the moment Calico called him a ‘silly little fiddle filly.’”

Wit shot his obtuse brother an angry glare and a gnash of teeth. Shining let out a small snort of laughter, unwillingly. He tried to cover it up with his hoof to his mouth but the damage was done. Wit shot his glare at the prince.

“You want some of this!?” the smaller stallion demanded as he jumped to his feet.

Shining shook his head vehemently, “No!” Though the image of Wit in a duelist’s suit now came to mind and drew even more unwanted laughter.

“That’s it! Right here! Right now!” Wit yelled motioning to the open aisle between them.

Shining’s laughter subsided and he shot the short stallion an indignant look. “Hey, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Quill said nonchalantly, tracing his hoof across the window. “You won’t.” He turned to face Shining Armor. “You’re about to see how he beat Calico first hand.”

Shining paid the warning no mind. He stood up to face Wit and projected a magical barrier bubble around himself. “See, no fight if you can’t touch me. Now let’s just calm down and-“

---

“Ow…” Shining rubbed his swollen eye as he struggled to walk through the open gate of the train. Quill and Wit followed through with Wit carrying the bulk of the brothers’ bags yet again. Wit paused at the gate.

“Sorry about that,” he insisted holding out a hoof in front of his face in an apologetic gesture. “I can get really really mad sometimes.”

The two walked away as Shining began to follow limply. He still wasn’t sure how the younger brother had been able to beat him so thoroughly. The two were stopped just outside the station waiting for Shining to catch up. He groaned as he trudged up to the curb, surveying the scene around him.

“So,” Quill asked with a half-lidded expression. “Is there supposed to be a carriage or…”

Shining shook his head back and forth surveying the street once more. “This isn’t right. It’s too quiet.”

The three ponies stopped their movement to listen and look. Sure enough there was no movement in the streets. Wit gulped. Quill hummed ponderously.

“Cadence should have been here as well,” Shining continued. “I told her I would be on this train.”

“Perhaps something happened to your wife?” Quill asked.

“If that’s the truth then we need to hurry,” he gazed at the crystal spired castle in the distance. “And it’s a long walk.”

The three began to walk briskly down the street, often checking the windows around them for signs of life. Every now and then a crystal pony would come to the window and immediately pull down a shade or close a shutter as they passed.

“Just what do you suppose happened here?” Wit asked worriedly.

“I have no idea but we’re coming up on the castle now. We can talk to Cadence about-“

Shining cut himself off as he sprinted forward to the courtyard beneath the castle. He skidded to a halt before a long thin crack in the earth that seemed to split the castle’s base down the middle. The blood rushed from his body as he noticed the centerpiece of the courtyard missing. The crystal heart was gone.

“No, no, no, no, no, no!” Shining shouted. “Where is it? Where is it?”

Quill and Wit caught up to the frantic stallion and began to look around.

“First impressions are important,” Quill said plainly. “And judging from my first impression, I’d say this place got hit by a tornado. Just what is going on?”

Shining Armor spun on Quill, finally losing his cool with the rude unicorn. “This is why I didn’t want you to come! The Empire is in danger! Whatever’s happening out here it has to do with the Crystal Heart, which as you can clearly not see, is missing!” His last words reverberated through the courtyard and echoed into the misty empty streets beyond.

Quill did not change his half-lidded expression of disinterest. He sighed, “Well, I guess first thing we’ll have to do is find this wife of yours and anyone else who might know what happened. Panicking and screaming isn’t going to do you any good.” Shining Armor pulled back in surprise at the writer’s wise words.

“Shiny?” a voice called out from the mist and then a purple alicorn trotted into the courtyard, followed by a bright pink mare and an orange mare with a stetson hat.

“Twily!” Shining shouted happily as he bound toward his sister. The two embraced.

“Or maybe your screaming will attract exactly those were looking for,” Quill said dryly and clapped his hooves together. “Great job everyone.”

Twilight pulled away from her brother and gave the snide pony a look of confusion. “Shiny, who are these guys?”

“Later,” Shining retorted. “What happened to the Crystal Heart?”

“Oh,” Twilight turned back to her friends with a nervous expression who gave her an equally nervous one. “You’re not going to like this.”

---

Rarity sat by the infirmary bed with her head slumped in her hooves. Flash lay still, breathing regularly, as he slept mere inches away. His chest and back were covered in crudely prepared bandages, some blood peeking out.

When the earthquake struck, Rarity attempted to find the doctor in the infirmary. However, the doctor had simply disappeared. It took her close to twenty minutes to round up some castle staff to help her and by then Flash had lost consciousness.

Rarity looked up and at Flash’s sleeping face. His eyes were closed but she could still see the fatigue plaguing him. At moments he would spasm sharply in pain. Rarity had been by his side for all of it. She turned to the bed next to him. Spike slept soundly curled into a ball, the baby dragon didn’t seem to even notice the strange earthquake that had struck. She smiled and ran a hoof through Spike’s scales. They had grown large now and the dragon now seemed like the reptile equivalent of a hairy colt.

Rarity returned her attention to Flash. “I hope you two wake up soon.”

A loud muffled cry came from the bed across. Rarity rolled her eyes. The injured stallion across the room had been crying about something for a good day now. Ever since she and the castle staff brought Flash in in a stretcher, the stallion had been crying. A castle staff tried to help but the stallion could only let out muffled words underneath his cast and gauze. In the end the staff decided not to remove any of the casts until they could find the doctor. The stallion was particularly mouthy about this decision. In the end they ended up giving him a sedative and he had been sleeping since. Now he was up again.

Rarity lifted herself from her seat and trotted over to the injured pony. “Look, I’m sorry but I just don’t know what you need.” She gave the pony her sincerest eyes to let him know she was telling the truth.

This made the pony stop his muffled cries. He focused his attention on Rarity and lifted his eyes twice in succession. His head bobbing a little against the neck brace. Rarity’s expression changed to a frown.

Is he trying to get me to come closer?

Rarity stepped forward until she was a mere hoof away from the pony. He closed his eyes tightly and Rarity thought she could make out a smile underneath the gauze. “Okay, now what?”

The pony’s eyes darted open again began to move rapidly back and forth to his left. Rarity turned in the direction. A window with grotesque yellow curtains flapped inward letting in a misty breeze.

“You want the window shut?” Rarity asked quizzically.

The pony shut his eyes tight again and tried to make a muffled cry.

“Fine, I’ll shut the window,” she stated with a turn. “No need to go to such lengths if you’re just a little cold.” The stallion let out a long drawn out sigh.

Rarity proceeded to the window and shut it, the wind blowing the curtain immediately stopping. As the curtain fell, Rarity was just about to turn back when something caught her eye. A statue in the corner of the room which had been obscured by the curtain. It was of some pony in a doctor’s uniform, a panicked expression on her face.

“A little bit tacky for an infirmary, wouldn’t you say?” she asked the only other conscious occupant of the room.

The injured stallion began to make muffled cries again and tried to move from his bed but his cast held him in place. Rarity frowned at his actions and looked back at the statue. The face. Something about the face.

“Oh no.”

---

Shining entered what had once been his dining room and now had turned into some kind of laboratory. Bottles and beakers were everywhere with machines that made readouts and produced electricity. It seemed like something he’d see in his sister’s basement. Luna stood at the table projecting a beam of light onto the now completely petrified Crystal Heart.

“This is what we’ve been dealing with,” Twilight coughed hesitantly.

Shining surveyed the scene. “Where’s Cadence?”

“She’s in her room, sleeping,” Luna responded cutting off her magic. The blue alicorn turned to Twilight. “No luck again. It seems that it is just a hunk of stone now.”

“You really can’t sense any magic in it?” Twilight asked as she walked over to the heart.

“It seems that any magic or power the heart possessed before has been taken or displaced somewhere else.” Luna furrowed here brow in concern.

“Fascinating,” Quill had appeared between the two alicorns and began to pick up and prod at the heart curiously. “Such an important piece of ancient Equestrian history reduced to such a state.”

Twilight shrieked and grabbed it from him with her magic. “What are you doing?!”

Quill merely straightened his glasses. “Well, all investigations must start somewhere.”

Twilight shot her brother a look. “Shiny, are you going to tell me who these ponies are?”

Luna crooked her eyebrow at the bespectacled gray unicorn. “I would like to know as well.”

Shining sighed and motioned to the brother behind him carrying the luggage on his back. “They’re the two romance writers you wanted me to talk to.”

“Romance writers?” Luna asked, raising her eyebrow in Twilight’s direction.

“What’s this all about, Twilight?” Applejack asked.

Twilight grinned nervously and began to blush, rushing over to her brother to speak to him privately. “Can we talk about this later? Maybe somewhere away from the very serious Princess of the Night.”

“You must be Princess Luna.” Twilight turned back sharply to see Quill picking up Luna’s hoof and planting a respectful kiss on it. “I am Quill, and my brother is Wit. I must say I’ve seen you around Canterlot before but never in person. You truly do live up to your name, as your beauty shines like the full moon.” He flashed her a devilish grin.

“Well,” Luna blushed for a moment then went serious. “I accept your compliment, Sir Quill. However I do wish to know just what it is you are doing here.”

“Quite simple really.” Quill walked over to Shining Armor and placed a hoof over his shoulder. “Our good friend and fan, Shining, here-“

“Not a fan.” Shining mumbled quietly with a small blush.

“Brought us here in hopes we might aid in your investigation.”

Twilight gave her brother a half-lidded expression. “Is that true?”

Shining leaned over to whisper to her. “No, but they wouldn’t give me anything unless we were on the train heading here.”

“And what may I ask can you contribute to this investigation?” Luna asked as she began to circle the brothers suspiciously.

“Well, we are documented historians,” Wit replied with a smile. “Both very well accomplished in our fields.”

Quill nodded in agreement and Luna leaned in closer to the taller stallion, eyeing him curiously.

“You’re members of the Historical Academy?” she asked.

Quill ran a hoof through his mane, trying to keep his cool composure. “Technically, no. But we have been called on time to time for our expertise.”

Luna searched his face for dishonest but found none. Still she frowned in concentration. “I frequent the academy quite often. You do look familiar. Perhaps we have met before?”

“I highly doubt it,” Wit replied before his brother could, trying to change the subject. “We’ve tried to focus mostly on our writing recently.”

Luna decided that this was enough information and shrugged returning to the dining room table. “I suppose any kind of help is good.” She ushered the rest of them to come to the table. Beside the Crystal Heart lay a scattering of shattered pieces of an urn. “This is something I think we should talk about.”

“Amazing!” Wit shouted as he dropped his luggage and ran to examine the pieces. “This is a crystal urn! Probably a thousand, maybe fifteen hundred years old.”

“Well, it is pre-empire,” Twilight bragged. “Or was. But the age isn’t the point.” She turned to Shining. “This urn had the ashes of Bedim Haze. After the earthquake, when we returned, they were gone and this was on the floor.”

“Which stinks because it took us an entire day to collect!” Pinkie added.

Shining examined the shattered urn. “Do you think someone took them?”

“They wouldn’t have time.” Twilight replied. “Plus, there’s literally nothing left. Princess Luna and I did a spectrographic spell on the whole room and there wasn’t a single trace of it.”

“So,” Quill spoke up from the center of the room and everyone turned to face him. “If I have this right judging from what Shining has told us and what we’ve seen here. Miss Sparkle found a book in a secret passage which led to an incident involving Princess Cadence, thus beginning a petrification of the Crystal Heart. You investigate further, find these ashes, then less than a few hours later the heart finishes its transformation and an earthquake strikes. The urn falls from the table with no one in the room and when everypony returns the contents are gone.”

A short silence followed Quill’s summary. “Well, we can probably rule out the idea of it just walking away.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” The voice came from the doorway and everyone turned to face Rarity, her face deathly pale. “Twilight, you’re going to want to see this.”

----------

“Watch it!” A pony pushed by Bedim as he passed.

“Out of the way!” Another pushed.

“One side!” Another.

“It’s a one way street!” Bedim shouted at the large crowd of ponies in road.

There was a brief moment of silence as everypony stared at Bedim. Crisp lowered his head trying to blend in and not look like he was with the crazy pony. Finally the moment ended and the chaos of jaywalkers continued. Bedim groaned in frustration.

“You don’t get along well with anypony do you?” Crisp asked as they continued through the street.

“I just don’t get why we have rules if no one is going to follow them!” Bedim replied exasperatedly.

“Well, I guess I feel for you there,” Crisp glared at the crowd surrounding the market in front of them. “This mob is going to make us late to our first day.”

Crystal Falls was a big city. Several neighborhoods and slums ringed the outside of the center, Crystal Square. This was the hub of the city and its vibrant lifeblood. What had once been mere stalls were big one and two story shops. The market had been replaced with several groceries. Up north of the chaotic square sat the financial district with town hall and the bank, even a hospital. To the south was the industrial district with the blacksmiths, carpenters, and forges. This was where the two friends said their goodbyes for the day.

“Good luck with Steel Girder,” Bedim said. “I here he’s pretty strict on newcomers.”

“I’ll be fine,” Crisp assured his friend with a smirk and a wave of his hoof. “Heck, when they see my blueprints for a more efficient water pump system, they’ll probably make me Master Forger.”

“Yeah, just keep telling yourself that,” Bedim chuckled. He returned his attention to the bank before him and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. Crisp placed a reassuring hoof on his shoulder.

“You’re going to do fine. They’ll probably just have you making change or even just cleaning.”

“Right, right.” Bedim took a glance at Crisp’s flank. The colt had earned his cutie mark nearly six years ago. A picture of a hammer and screwdriver in a cross adorned his backside. Crisp noticed and shook his head with a smile.

“Who knows, maybe this will be what gets you yours?”

The two gave each other a quick hoof bump and walked away. Crisp going south and Bedim north. Bedim entered the double doors of the bank and took another deep breath.

You can do this. First day jitters. That’s all it is.

For the past couple weeks he had been feeling this strange tingling, almost burning sensation in the back of his head. Whenever he got close to the place where he would start his apprenticeship, the feeling would return. He held a hoof to his head to steady his thoughts and walked in. The inside was spacious and the ceiling intricate with lattices of criss-crossing beams that made a wooden pattern as well as supporting the roof. Bedim took a moment to appreciate them. Crisp’s mother really did great work.

Around the four walls sat podiums and chairs for Ponies to write and sit respectively. In the center of the room guarded by a large wooden box sat a teller, her face obscured by wooden bars. Bedim approached her.

“Uh, hello,” he said hesitantly.

“Deposit?” the bank teller asked, her voice monotone.

“What? Oh, no. I’m here for the apprenticeship.”

The bank teller leaned closer to look at him. “Sorry. With that dark gray coat I guess I assumed you were a miner.”

“Nope, never actually been to the mines.”

The bank teller smiled and chuckled. “Yeah, you do look pretty young.” She pointed to the door on the wall behind her. “The offices are over there. Knock twice and they should open it for you.”

“Thanks,” Bedim said. He trotted to the door and knocked twice. A teal pony in a cap and glasses opened it slightly and peered at him.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m here about the apprenticeship.”

“Oh! Perfect!” The pony closed the door and Bedim heard a mechanism unlock, then she opened the door again. “Hi, I’m the bank manager, Bean Counter. But I’d really prefer it if you call me Beanie. Please, come in.”

Bedim hesitantly entered the room and stood agape. The offices were lined with rows of tables filled with ponies. Each one seemed to be working on assorting various pieces of gold or precious metals out of certain piles. Crystals and other jewels could also be seen in the piles.

“This is primarily what you’re going to be doing,” Beanie said as she walked up next to him. “It take a lot of mare power to sort out the stuff those miners bring down from the mountains. With a strong stallion like you I’m sure we’ll get it done faster.” She gave Bedim a friendly nudge in the ribs.

Bedim could feel that burning sensation in the back of his head again. He twitched and rubbed his forehead with a hoof.

“You okay?” Beanie asked with a concerned look.

“Fine!” Bedim replied. “I’m fine. Just a little migraine.”

Beanie smiled and led him to a chair next to several others. “This is your station,” she motioned to the enormous pile of rubies and sapphires before the seat. A small lens left before the pile. “You’ll use this to inspect every piece from the pile. Duds go in the bin,” she indicated the trash bin beside his seat. “Real ones go in a new pile. When your finished bring them to me and I’ll fill out the paperwork.”

“Where do all these things go?” Bedim asked.

“Most of them go to Canterlot for processing,” she replied. “When that’s done, Canterlot sends a stipend that we use to pay the miners wages.”

Bedim furrowed his brow at the sheer amount of rare and precious minerals before him. “There’s really this much crystals and junk in the mountains?”

“I know right,” Beanie smirked. “The whole mountain range is lousy with them. But Canterlot has a high demand for the stuff, as the ‘shining city,’ so it’s a living. I’ll be around if you have any questions.”

She returned to her desk and Bedim took his seat. The feeling hadn’t gone away, he could still feel that burning sensation every time he opened his eyes. He grit his teeth and reached out for a gem. The moment he touched it his mind exploded. The burning now taking form as words.

MINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINE

Bedim clutched his head in pain and groaned, soliciting the attention of everypony around him. When he opened his eyes again he noticed that he had pulled as much of the gems in the pile close to him as he could. He could feel his hooves burning at the touch of the precious stones.

“’A’ for enthusiasm,” Beanie called from her desk. “But maybe just start with one at a time.”

Bedim gulped and blushed with embarrassment, the ponies around him still fixing him with confused stares. “Right, sorry.” Just what was happening to him?

After a minute or two, the mood returned to normal. Bedim took a deep breath and tried to clear his head. He ran his hoof through his long black mane and screwed his eyes shut in concentration. He opened them again, focusing on one gem before him. He picked it up and felt the burning return. This time, however, he merely winced as he proceeded to check the condition of it. Real.

Bedim put it to the side and felt a wave of relief as the gem left his contact. He let out a long sigh. This was going to be a long day.