The Curse of the Statuettes

by Dusk Melody

Chapter 7 - Moonbeam and Harmony

“Professor!” Sparkler called out excitedly as she, Stonecutter and Cloudburst re-entered the cave in the side of the cliff that was Dustmane Ridge, “Professor Trotter! We’ve got it! We’ve got the last gemstone!”

“Professor?” asked Stonecutter when no answer came to them from the campsite that was further into the cave, the three mares advanced cautiously. The flickering light of the campfire illuminated the rocky walls of the cavern the deeper they got into the cave, emboldening them. When they rounded the corner and entered the camp proper, they saw Gully Trotter sat facing them on the other side of the fire. “Professor Trotter,” the hairs on the back of the earth pony’s neck raised, “Is everything alright?”

The olive drab pegasus looked up at them, slowly turning his gaze from the dancing flames of the fire towards the three young mares. His face looked drawn, gaunt, almost haunted; his usually alert eyes hollow. “I’m sorry…”

“Sorry,” Sparkler and Cloudburst, who had been flanking Stonecutter, asked at exactly the same time, “What do you…h-heeeey!”

At that moment, a couple of things happened simultaneously. From the concealing shadows of the cavern, two very large, very muscular earth pony stallions stepped forwards behind Sparkler and Cloudburst and in very quick, practised movements, immobilised the pair of them. One stallion seized Sparkler’s horn in his left hand, gripping it tightly while at the same time he wrenched her arms behind her back. To the right, the second stallion wrapped his muscular arm that appeared to be made of nothing but sinew around the pegasus’s neck and his other arm held her arms behind her back, trapping her wings against the slab of muscle that was his body.

Before Stonecutter, who was at that moment unhanded, could react, none other than Doctor Caballeron stepped out of the shadows behind Gully Trotter, a wide greasy smile playing all over his muzzle when his third henchpony stepped out behind Stonecutter to block the exit from the cave. “Thank you so much for doing all the hard work for me, my friends…”

“Wh-What the hay!” Cloudburst struggled uselessly in the huge earth pony’s vice like grip, “Let me g-go-goouuUUUUURK!” the earth pony holding her viciously tightened his grip on her arms and her neck, squeezing out the remaining air in her lungs.

“Please, young mare, do not struggle,” Caballeron’s smile never faltered for a second, “My colleague, Rogue, can get very ‘enthusiastic’ when he restrains somepony.” He then looked over at Sparkler, his eyes narrowing dangerously, “And the same goes for you. Withers likes to yank the horns of non-compliant unicorns. I’m told it is quite…” he paused for effect while Withers tightened his grip on Sparkler’s horn, “Painful.”

“Alright,” Stonecutter’s hands turned into fists, her knuckles cracking loudly in the cave. She was prepared to fight, and to go down swinging if the need be, to make sure her marefriend and best friend at least got out so they could go and get help, she knew Site B wasn’t that far away. If they could get word to Sunny Saddle… “What do you want?” she asked through gritted teeth, lowering herself ready to charge the doctor.

“Now, now,” Caballeron smiled oily as he stepped out from around the burning campfire, revealing that he had the ancient stone tablet in his hands. Placed upon it, glowing like magical mini suns, were the white and blue gemstones that Sparkler, Stonecutter and Cloudburst had retrieved from the Earth Guardian and the Wind Guardian, respectively. “There is no need for further violence. You are a smart pony and this can be resolved without anypony getting hurt.” He pointed to the last space on the tablet. “The last gemstone, if you please.”

“We don’t…aaAAAAAAH!” Sparkler started to speak, then she screamed in utter agony as Rogue savagely twisted his hand around the unicorn’s horn. Searing pain lanced straight into her head to her brain, making her legs to weak.

“Do not insult my intelligence,” Caballeron said, an extremely nasty tone in his voice as he set the stone tablet with the gemstones down at his hooves. He shot an equally nasty look to both Sparkler and to Cloudburst. “Broken wings take a long time to heal. Broken horns never heal.”

Realising she couldn’t punch her way out of this situation, at least not yet, Stonecutter’s shoulders sagged and her hands relaxed. “Alright, you win, just please, don’t hurt them!”

“That depends on you,” Caballeron replied, “And how smart you are.” He then pointed to the tablet on the floor of the cave. “The last gemstone, if you please.” When Stonecutter reached into her large pack, the doctor addressed the last of his henchponies behind her. “Biff, if she pulls anything other than the gemstone from her bag, make sure she won’t ever walk again.”

As Stonecutter lowered her pack to the floor, she heard the ominous sounds of Biff behind her, as well as the choking gasps of Cloudburst struggling to breathe and the pained sobs of Sparkler. She dearly hoped to never hear that sound ever again. Slowly, with no sudden movements, she withdrew the dazzling orange gemstone from her bag. She then carried it towards the nefarious doctor.

“Ah, ah,” Caballeron stopped the stocky earth pony when she was two feet away from him. “That is close enough.” He pointed to the floor, “Leave it on the floor and back away. Nice and slow.” He smiled a toothy predatory smile when he watched her obediently set the gemstone down and back off, until she walked into Biff, who was stood behind her blocking the cavern entrance. “You are a good pony. I like it when good ponies do as they are told. It makes my job that much easier.”

Ignoring the extremely sour look that he got from Stonecutter, Caballeron stooped forwards and he picked up the glowing orange gemstone. A moment later, and he had placed it on the stone tablet in a triangle with the other two stones. As soon as the third gemstone was in place, there came a bright burst of sparkling magic shot out in all directions, momentarily blinding everypony in the cavern.

After a second though, the light was gone.

Beside the campfire, the stone tablet glowed bright white for a whole minute, then, from the surface of the tablet, a large beautiful golden staff was formed. It rose up into the air as if pulled from the very ground itself, rising up on an invisible magical string. When it was fully formed at six feet in length, it hovered a foot above the tablet, the three Guardian’s gemstones imbedded in the head of the staff.

Underneath the staff, the writing on the tablet magically changed. This time though, it was not in Old Ponish. Somehow, the new writing was in modern Equestrian, as if the stone tablet knew what millennium it was currently in.

“The staff of Umberfoal is presented to you who have faced the Trials of the Badlands,” Caballeron read aloud, before snickering meanly, “My, you have been busy ponies, haven’t you?” Cloudburst opened her mouth, no doubt loaded with a witty retort. Unfortunately they’d never know, because Withers gripped her neck so hard her pale blue face began turning blue. Caballeron returned to the tablet, “It will guide you, if you allow it, to the great stone door of Umberfoal itself. The door is a magical seal, keeping the enchantment from spreading. The staff will act as a key, but only through the power of true harmony can the door be opened and the enchantment be lifted.”

Caballeron’s greedy eyes lit up with the possibilities. He had pursued the idiot Gully Trotter for whatever it was he had taken with him when he had fled Site B, but this…this was more than he had ever dared dream! Not only was Umberfoal real, but he was within touching distance of plundering the ancient subterranean city and all the treasures it possessed! He was going to be rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice, and he had some pretty wild dreams.

It was as Caballeron reached for the magical golden staff that all Tartarus broke loose in the cavern.

Before the earth pony stallion could get his dirty grubby hands on the staff, there was another flash of blinding magical light. Unlike the first one though, this did not come from the staff or the stone tablet. The electric blue light whooshed throughout the large cavern as several spells were fired off in quick succession from the charcoal grey unicorn that had burst among them.

Moonbeam was back, and she had abandoned her torn tattered brown cloak when her acutely innate powerful magic had sensed the immense power of the newly created golden staff and the three Guardian gemstones. She had cast her spell and teleported from where she had been laid up in her hidden lair, homing in on the source of the new magic. Bursting into the cavern, she had seen the three mares that had foiled her at the abandoned campsite, as well as five other stallions whom she didn’t know.

Without wasting a second, she fired off several spells rapid fire one after the other. She had eight potential new friends right there! She just couldn’t let them get away, not when she could play with them in her lair. When the bright electric blue light of her magic died out, the three mares and one of the stallions remained untransformed! ‘Damn it…’ she thought as she burst into the cavern in the confusion and she grabbed the statuettes that were Caballeron’s henchponies and Gully Trotter in her telekinetic field and, before any of the others could react, she teleported away in a flash of blue light and a crack of ozone that hung in the air.

Silence.

Awkward, heavy, pointed silence hung in the air.

Caballeron looked around him and he realised he no longer held the advantage of numbers or muscle.

Stonecutter, Sparkler and Cloudburst looked from each other to the lone stallion and at the same time, they came to the same realisation.

Letting lose a string of choice expletives, Caballeron ran, galloping past the three mares before they could properly corner him. Thankfully, for him at least, two of the three ponies were still recovering from their treatment at the hands of Withers and Rogue, so he was able to charge past the pegasus with ease as she was rubbing her throat and flexing her wings. He was out of the cavern before they could blink, not even stopping to consider his three associates.

“Wh-What the hay…” Cloudburst had dropped to her knees as she checked herself over. Her tee shirt was ripped and torn, as where her denim shorts, but upon flexing and fluttering her wings, she judged nothing was broken, beyond a few feathers having been pulled out of place by whatever-his-name-was who had held her. She rubbed her throat, coaxing air into her body.

“Buck…” Sparkler was similarly on her knees, one strap of her sundress dangerously close to snapping.

At once, Stonecutter was by her marefriend’s side, slowly and carefully helping her up to her hooves. “Are you okay, baby?” she asked tenderly, supporting the unicorn in her strong arms.

“Y-Yes,” Sparkler shook her head in a vain attempt to clear the utter bitch of a headache that now plagued her thanks to Rogue’s well-placed but not-so-delicate hands. She wasn’t so much bothered about the bruises that formed on her upper arms and shoulders, more her horn ached and throbbed like she had the worst toothache ever. Still, she was in one piece, and a testing flash of light told her that the inside of her horn was undamaged. “Go help Cloudy.”

Cloudburst tried her best to wave off her best friend as she hefted her easily up to her hooves. Besides a wicked bruise on her neck and an aching arm, she was alright. That didn’t stop Stonecutter fussing over her. “Stone, please, don’t mother hen me, huh? It’s so not cool.” In spite of that though, she allowed herself to be led over to one of the larger rocks by the campfire. “So…what do we do now?”

“I have an idea,” Sparkler walked up to the hovering golden staff and reached out her hand.

Before she could touch it though, Stonecutter said, “Sparks…Mistress, a-are you sure about this?”

“No,” Sparkler admitted with a reluctant sigh, “But it’s the best guess I’ve got.”

“Sparks says its her best guess, I say go for it.”

Stonecutter rolled her eyes at Cloudburst who was quickly performing an emergency preening so that her wings wouldn’t hurt her when she tried to fly. “Really, CB? ‘Go for it?’ That’s your input?”

“Hey,” Cloudburst thrust an index finger at Sparkler, who was hesitating by the golden staff, “I trust her guesses more than most pony’s facts, alright? So yeah, that’s my ‘input’, take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it.” Sparkler turned a grateful smile to the pale blue pegasus. To have her back her so forthrightly, so loyally, it made her heart soar. There was just Stonecutter left. “Stone? You know the rules. We all agree, or we don’t go.”

“If you want my honest opinion,” Stonecutter started as she sat heavily on a rock by the fire, “We should get back to Site B, get some back up. Hay, we should fire off letters to Counsellor Glimmer or even the palace in Canterlot, get some real back up.” She glanced around the cavern at her best friend and her marefriend. “But I know what you two are thinking, because I’m thinking it too. That’ll take too long, and every moment we don’t go after that unicorn, is another moment she can transform more ponies. So yeah, I saw we go for it.”

Sparkler nodded her head solemnly. Just like she could trust Cloudburst to be loyal, she could trust Stonecutter to be honest. “Then, we go.” With that, she gripped the golden staff in her hand. As soon as her palm closed around the shaft of the staff, Sparkler felt magic vibrate through its whole length until a bright glowing light shone out of one of the gemstones, pointing out of the cave like a lighthouse beacon, pointing the way. “We go that way.”

~ ~ ~

“Well, here we are.” Sparkler stood at the base of Dustmane Ridge with Stonecutter on her left and Cloudburst on her right. Without the grappling harnesses, the climb down had been difficult, but manageable, since they didn’t have to contend with the dangerous winds they had encountered on the way up. That alone made the descent considerably easier and less life threatening. Now, they stood at the entrance of a hidden cave system. “This is where the staff wants us to go.”

Cloudburst looked at the large, dark cave entrance. Unlike the tunnel that had led them to Caldera’s chamber, this was not a small claustrophobic space. This was a huge gigantic tear in the rock face as wide and as high as a buckball pitch. “Alright, let’s get this thing done!” as one, the three mares stepped inside the vast tunnel and Sparkler lit her horn to give them light. Added to the glowing light from the staff that guided them, visibility was over fifty feet.

They soon realised that the cave system was expansive, and after a hundred feet, it split into two paths, left and right. After that, it split again, this time into three different paths. Each looked identical to each other and to the one they had walked down. Sparkler was so glad that they had the staff to guide them and show them the way. Without it, she had no difficulty imagining they’d be lost down here for the rest of their lives.

Even with the light from Sparkler’s horn, they still walked into no less than seven great big spider webs, and they stumbled over more than one mound of loose rubble and debris that littered the maze like passageways. "You won't take my friends from me!” Moonbeam hollered as they wiped the latest spider web from their clothes, her voice magically amplified and designed to reach them no matter where they were. It sounded like it came from the walls themselves rather than a specific direction.

“I wish she'd shut the hay up so I can put her down,” Cloudburst snarled angrily, having just stubbed her left hoof on yet another pile of rocks strewn on the floor, “I got a lightning bolt I need to shove up her ass!” so busy was she with grumbling and planning her revenge, she didn’t notice the extremely sour look on Stonecutter’s face as her best friend pushed past her and walked a few feet ahead of her and Sparkler.

After a couple more twists and turns in the maze like tunnels, that the staff unerringly guided them along, Moonbeam’s voice again sounded magically from all sides of the rocky walls, echoing off each other, "Why won’t you leave me and my friends alone! You don't understand being alone! You’ll never understand! Nopony understands me!"

As soon as the unicorn had stopped shouting, and her desperate cries had stopped echoing off the rocky tunnel walls, Sparkler slammed the base of the staff into the floor with a low angry growl. “I'll shut her yap,” she snarled, and even her muzzle pulled back in a snarl that bared her teeth as images of what she would do to the strange mare when she got hold of her flashed across her eyes, “I’ve got a telekinetic blast with her name on it to take her out!”

Several steps later though, after Stonecutter had heard Cloudburst yet again pound her fist into her open palm and agree with Sparkler about what she was going to do to the unicorn, the slate grey earth pony decided she had heard enough. It was when she heard the two of them planning a double team move to use that she spun around to face them and, placing her hands on their shoulders, stopped them dead in their tracks. Although, the look off utter outrage on her face would have stopped them just as effectively. “That's it. I've heard enough!”

“Stone!” Cloudburst exclaimed, because she had been so consumed with plotting with Sparkler that she hadn’t noticed her best friend spin around and holding them in place with one had as easily as if they had been rooted to the floor. “What the hay are you doing?”

“What the hay am I doing?” Stonecutter repeated, a snarl of her own spreading over her muzzle, “What. The. Hay. Am. I. Doing? What the hay are you two doing? Can you two even hear yourselves right now? Put her down, take her out...really?”

Hearing their own words thrown back at them though did not seem to deter Sparkler, who tried to walk around her marefriend only to be stubbornly held in place by her strong hand. “Stone, come on, you know what she's capable of...”

“I know that she sounds lonely and alone!” Stonecutter interrupted her marefriend and Mistress before the unicorn could finish whatever it was she was going to say. The panicked, scared and desperate tone in the other unicorn’s voice had shaken her to her very core. It shocked her deeply to see how her companions had reacted in such a polar opposite manner. “I know she sounds like she needs a friend!”

“So what,” Cloudburst stood up straight, thrust out her hip and crossed her arms defiantly, a pose she regularly used on her teachers after she had been caught ‘teaching’ one of the bullies a lesson, no longer needing her friend’s hand to hold her in place. “You want us to go and hold hands, sing merry songs, get our kumbayas out?”

“What I'm saying, featherbrain,” Stonecutter replied tersely through gritted teeth, the earth pony barely able to keep her temper in check. Even her long fuse had its limit, and the pegasus was pushing her to it, “That we all know what it's like to be alone, don’t we?” she looked pointedly from the stunned unicorn to the baffled pegasus, “So we can have some empathy with her!”

“R-Really,” Sparkler stammered, somewhat thrown of her revenge quest by the sudden, quiet fury in her marefriend’s voice, “I don't see what this has to do...”

Again, Stonecutter cut across her before she could finish, “Oh no? You don’t, huh? Remember the sleepovers you told me about when you were a filly? The ones where you never had any real guests to invite because you never had any friends, so you arranged your books and pretended? Was it fun when Mr. Arcane Magic played spin the bottle with you, or when you pretended Mrs. Old Ponish threw a pillow at you?”

“Really!” Sparkler stamped her hoof on the floor of the stone tunnel and her face was almost glowing she was blushing so hard, “That was private! I told you that in confidence!” Cloudburst’s instant laughter didn’t do her blush any good, and memories of sharing toasted marshmallows with Miss History of Equestria only made her face a brighter red.

Unfortunately, Stonecutter was not finished. She quickly turned on Cloudburst. “And what are you laughing at, Miss ‘my-parents-are-never-there-so-I-get-in-all-the-trouble-at-all-my-schools’ in the hope that the student counsellor writes them so they'll finally talk to me in the same room!" She could tell by the outraged look on the pegasus’s face that she had crossed a line. A line she swore never to cross. She had no regrets though, she just wished that Wave Chill and Misty Fly could have been better parents.

“Stone,” Cloudburst stepped forwards and she roughly jabbed an index finger into her best friend’s chest – it was only the fact that she was her best friend that she hadn’t punched her in the face for what she had just said – though of course Stonecutter remained unmoved, “That's really, really bucking low, okay?” her wings bristled angrily, her feathers flaring.

“No,” Stonecutter shook her head and barked out a laugh, a laugh that held no mirth or humour whatsoever, “No, no what's low is being so friendless, so alone and so bullied, and hating yourself and your body and your existence so much that when Miss Cheerilee took us on a field trip to Cloudsdale when I was eight, I threw myself off the edge!” the wide-eyed look of shock on Sparkler’s face revealed that she hadn’t been told that nugget until then, “CB is the only reason I'm still here. She caught me and became my best…only…friend.”

As soon as she had heard that admission come out of Stonecutter’s mouth, all the ire and her stupid ideas of revenge drained out of her body like her magic if somepony had rammed an inhibitor ring around her horn. The sun yellow unicorn dropped to her knees, deflating like a balloon with the air let out of it. “I-I had no idea…” she tentatively reached out her hand to her marefriend who had slumped on her ass beside her, “That you had it so badly.”

“Yeah, well…” Stonecutter didn’t pull away, not from the delicate yellow hand squeezing her callused slate grey ones or from the pale blue hand that suddenly was at her side drying tears that she didn’t even know she was crying with a handkerchief, “I did, and now you know. CB never told anypony else, not another soul. I was amazed how loyal she was, and is. She was my only friend, until you.”

“I’m sorry,” Cloudburst dropped to her knees on Stonecutter’s right and hugged her tightly. The pegasus realised, suddenly, that she sounded more like herself than she had before, and she hated herself for it. This place, the Badlands, the curse, Caballeron, I…I guess…it all just got to me, y’know?” she hated how lame her excuse sounded, even to herself.

“I think it’s gotten to all of us,” Sparkler smiled softly as she kissed away her marefriend’s tears, hating that she had been the one to cause them, even if Cloudburst had helped. They stayed like that, kneeling and sitting, holding and hugging, nuzzling and kissing, for what felt like an eternity. Nopony said anything, nopony needed to say anything. It wasn’t necessary to say anything. Their renewed love and friendship said everything that had to be said. “Come on,” Sparkler said eventually, breaking the silence, “Let’s go get this over with.”

“Promise me…”

Now it was Cloudburst’s turn to interrupt. “Stone, we’ll try to talk to her, alright? I promise, we’ll try. You’re right. We all know what being lonely feels like. So yeah, we’ll try. If she throws the first punch, then…I dunno, but we’ll work it out, okay?” As Sparkler extended a hand to her marefriend and used her telekinesis to lift the earth pony up to her hooves, the pegasus was struck with a thought. “Hey, if we do the whole magic of friendship thing, do you think we’ll pull off the whole magic rainbow laser beams like Headmare Twilight and the Professors?”

Sparkler couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the pale blue mare. “Well, I was born under the Sign of Magic, Stone was under the Sign of Honesty, I’m guessing you are…”

“Loyalty,” responded Cloudburst proudly, “and Laughter, I was born between the two, so either, I guess.”

“So it’s entirely possible that we could do,” Sparkler smiled, “As Cloudy so eloquently suggests, the whole ‘magic rainbow laser beams’.”

“Come on then,” Stonecutter laughed softly as she wiped away the remainder of her tears. “Let’s get this thing done. Friendship and harmony aren’t going to do it themselves, are they?” With that, and a renewed determination, the three mares strode on down the wide twisting tunnels towards their destination. As they descended, they began to see more and stranger items, artifacts and trinkets lying around on the floor. Many of the items they found had writings and markings on them in the same Old Ponish as the ancient tablet, the bangle and the staff.

That, along with the staff itself, told them they were on the right track. The things they found were obviously from Umberfoal.

At last, after almost an hour of solid walking, the tunnel began to widen out into a very wide, very tall chamber that was easily three times the size of the Ponyville town hall building. They cautiously entered the chamber, all their senses on full alert, but the mysterious unicorn was nowhere to be seen, despite it having no obvious natural exits.

At once, they saw the main feature of the chamber, namely, an immense twenty foot high, ten foot wide, stone door. Around the edge of the door were carved hundreds of arcane runes that glowed a bright electric blue through to white and back to blue again, cycling every few seconds like a pulse. Even across the other side of the vast chamber, the three mares could feel the air humming with low vibrations that came from the door. As they stepped into the chamber, they saw that it sloped gradually downwards to a series of wide carved stone steps that led up to the huge stone door. In the centre of the door was a circular slot surrounded by glowing magical runes.

Walking further into the chamber, Cloudburst was the first to notice that on either side of the stone door stood large statues of ponies. These ponies, earth by tribe, were roughly one and a half times the size of a real pony, which made them think of Princess Luna. They were carved wearing some form of ancient armour and holding wicked looking maces.

The closer they got to the door, they saw the wide steps were beautifully decorated with carvings and patterns, no doubt left behind by the ponies of Umberfoal. “Hey, look at these…” Cloudburst pointed to a collection of things that looked out of place off to the left of the door, in a wide deep alcove. When they walked over to investigate, they found old dolls, with crudely designed hand made clothes that had replaced the ones they had come with, as well as a small stack of yellowing photographs of the unicorn, but as a filly, holding the dolls.

“Oh my goodness…” Stonecutter looked at the photos, scribbled on the white border on the top of them in a foal’s hand was the titles; “Friends”, “Best Friends”, “Fifth Birthday”, “Sixth Birthday”. The stocky earth pony didn’t look at the rest of the pictures. She set them down reverently next to the dolls and stepped away sadly.

“I found her diary!” Cloudburst called out but, before she could open it, Stonecutter placed her hand on it and laid it back on the floor.

“That’s private, CB.”

“You guys…over here,” Sparkler’s soft, awe-filled voice was enough to draw them over, further into the alcove, where she showed them a large makeshift playset. It was an exact replica of Ponyville, down to the last detail. It had houses in the right place, the crystal castle, the market place and even the schools. As they inspected the large reconstruction, they saw, amid the houses and on the streets and at the market, were neatly arranged statuettes. All the ponies that had gone missing were there; Tracker and Pathfinder, the wagon ponies, Gully Trotter, Caballeron’s thugs, and particularly Headmare Twilight and their Professors! “This must be what she meant by making them her friends, and not taking her friends away…” Sparkler felt her heart breaking for this lonely mare.

“Damn…” unusually, even Cloudburst’s voice was solemn, “I feel so sorry for her. We…we gotta help her, guys.”

Having investigated the alcove, Sparkler made sure she left everything exactly as they had found it and she wandered curiously over to the great stone door. Straightaway, she noted that there was something off about it. She saw the large rents and fractures in the stone that ran across the surface that were pulsing with the same magical light as the runes around the edge. It looked like a glass window that was about to shatter. Slowly, the unicorn pieced everything together. “This door is the seal the tablet spoke of. Behind it is the enchantment that turns ponies to statuettes, that was cast by the ponies of Umberfoal to escape the reign of Discord.” Sparkler placed her hand upon the door. “The seal has been tampered with, the magic has been tapped into. That’s why the enchantment has been spreading! Guys…it’s not a curse, it was a choice! A protective spell that was never meant to be set loose!”

“So, if that door is the seal, maybe that round hole is the keyhole?” Stonecutter offered as she stood beside her marefriend at the door, “Maybe the staff is the key?” Sharing a look between the three of them, Sparkler slid the base of the staff into the hole. It carried on going in until just the end with the three gems was suspended outside like a handle. Try as they might though, they could not turn it, despite the runes glowing twice as brightly. “Only through the power of true harmony can the door be opened and the enchantment be lifted,” Stonecutter recited.

“So, magic rainbow laser beams?” asked Cloudburst, earning herself a good natured roll of the eyes from Sparkler and Stonecutter.

Suddenly though, before either of them could respond, there came a bright electric blue flash of magic and a loud cracking noise, accompanied by a smell of ozone in the air. “Not another step!” Moonbeam stated as the charcoal grey unicorn’s horn glowed with barely controlled power, “You three ponies have been meddling with me since you arrived in the Badlands. Well,” her chest rose and fell, her eyes dilated madly, “You won’t take my friends from me!”

The three mares shared a look of understanding between them. You didn’t have to be Starswirl the Bearded to see that the unicorn was visibly shaken. Even Stonecutter could tell that the magic spilling forth from the cracked door was having an effect on her. The unicorn was glowing from her horn to her hooves, and her blue eyes were shining with the same power.

“Wh-Whoa…what was that?” Sparkler gasped as the vast chamber began to shake from the intense magical forces being unleashed, the ground quaked and the ceiling shook, rocks started to fall, shattering on impact with the floor.

Moonbeam though seemed unperturbed by the rocks and boulders falling from the high ceiling. The manic look was etched on her face and her eyes shone bright white. “How about you three join in too?” she asked, her voice high and unhinged, her long robes whipping up in a magical wind as she lit her horn and she sent two beams of power straight to the two pony statues either side of the door. “Here are some toys for you to play with!” no sooner had she finished her sentence than the two statues moved, slowly at first then faster, swinging the maces with menacing intent.

“Oh buck!” Cloudburst dodged a vicious swing from the statue on the right and she took to the air to avoid a second swing of its mace. “How in the hay are we supposed to deal with her now?” she hollered.

“We deal with these first!” Sparkler yelled back, running down the carved steps while at the same time dodging a stun ray sent her way from the deep alcove where Moonbeam had retreated to protect her friends.

“Are they alive?” Stonecutter asked as she clumsily dodged a vicious swipe from the statue on the left that, had it connected, would surely have cleaved her in two, “Like the statuettes?” As it was, the mace embedded itself in the floor of the cavern, momentarily immobilising its owner.

“No!” Sparkler cried, very narrowly moving out of the way of a falling rock. She lit her horn and cast her telekinetic blast from both of her outstretched hands, sending two falling rocks aimed for Cloudburst and Stonecutter harmlessly into the walls, “They’re golems, animated statues!”

That was all Stonecutter needed to hear. Summoning her earth pony magic and channelling it into her mighty hands, they glowed with power like two magical boxing gloves as she sidestepped around the stuck golem and punched at it’s midsection. Unlike the tatzlwurm, this construct did not scream in pain. As the earth pony unleashed a flurry of blows upon it, sending shards of stone falling to the ground, it swung its hand in a back handed swing that Stonecutter just dodged.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t fast enough to also dodge the stun beam from the unicorn that hit her squarely in her broad back. Stunned for a split second, it allowed the golem to swing its mace, the shaft of which caught Stonecutter in the chest, sending her falling backwards ten feet to her knees. It was only thanks to her naturally thick hide that she wasn’t knocked out. “Stone!” Cloudburst screamed from above, easily jinking left and right to avoid the golem that seemed fixated on her. She clapped her hands and sent a lightning bolt straight to the damaged part of the golem that had struck her friend, which did little but bounce off the stone skin.

“Cloudy!” Sparkler yelled, “They’re made of earth! Non-conductive! Lightning won’t work!” the yellow unicorn, left mostly alone by the golems, spied her chance and sent a strong telekinetic blast straight to the charcoal grey pony, which just bounced uselessly off her shimmering magical shield.

“Got it!” Cloudburst knew what to do. If the golems were non-conductive, she knew a way to make them conductive. The pale blue pegasus flew up to the roof of the cavern out of the statue’s reach and she began flying in circles, harnessing her pegasi magic through her arms and her wings. Ever so slowly, she found the water particles in the air and drew them together.

“What the hay is she doing?” Stonecutter asked as she got up to her hooves and shook her head to clear it.

Sparkler was about to ask the same thing, until she saw the white wisps of cloud start to form in the middle of the pegasus’s apparently erratic laps around the cavern. It hit her what she was trying to do. “She’s going to make it rain!”

Sadly, Moonbeam heard that as well. “Oh no you don’t!” surrounded by her glowing shield that easily deflected Sparkler’s attacks, the charcoal grey unicorn turned her attention to Cloudburst, who had succeeded in forming a small dark cloud, and it was growing bigger by the second, “You won’t take them from me! This magic is mine to command!” She fired a powerful stun beam straight at the flying mare.

Cloudburst, who had, split seconds before, rolled to the left to avoid a falling boulder, had nowhere to go. She was hit squarely in the chest by the beam of magical energy. “GAaaaAAAAAAH!” stunned, she suddenly found that her wings wouldn’t work. That meant she was only going one way. Down. As she started to fall, the unicorn hit her again with a stun blast that hit her wing, sending her backwards into another falling boulder, the impact to the back of her head knocking her out cold.

“CB!” screamed Stonecutter in panicked alarm.

“I’ve got her!” Sparkler cast her telekinesis to shatter the rock the pegasus had hit, and then she surrounded the falling mare in her glowing magical field, bringing her safely to the ground. “Deal with that!” as she checked Cloudburst’s pulse at her neck, thankfully, mercifully, she was still alive in spite of her injuries, Stonecutter let out a feral scream and she literally launched herself at the left golem she had damaged before. With her hands glowing with magic, she rained deadly hammer blows and haymakers upon the construct until it shattered into pieces.

While Stonecutter had been distracted, the second golem was lumbering up behind her, mace raised. Sparkler, who had, up until that point been holding back, crouched defensively by her unconscious friend and summoned all the magical might she possessed. Casting her telekinesis once more, her eyes glowed bright white like they had on the speeding wagon. Unlike then, she didn’t lose control. She sent the second construct flying backwards into the far wall of the cavern, where she pinned it to the wall and buried it under several tonnes of falling rocks and boulders, crushing it utterly.

“You will not take my friends AWAY FROM ME!” Moonbeam screamed out the last three words as she held Stonecutter in her magical grip and sent the earth pony back towards the other two. “THEY ARE MINE!” she advanced upon the three ponies, her eyes glowing dangerously and her horn charged.

Sparkler was desperate. She knew she’d never beat this mare in a straight duel, she was way too powerful. Reaching back, her fingers found Cloudburst’s neck and she felt her pulse was getting weaker. ‘No!’ she screamed silently, all manner of plans and scenarios running through her head all at once, each one as dark and bleak as the next. She was out of options. All bar one. “Wait! Wait please!” she held up her hand placatingly, “Please…stop, our friend, my friend…she…she’s pregnant!”

“WHAT!?” both Stonecutter and Moonbeam asked almost at the exact same time, the charcoal grey unicorn stopped in her tracks and the earth pony staring at Sparkler with her mouth hanging open, both shocked to the point of immobility.

Blushing furiously, her face a crimson mask, Sparkler mouthed a ‘not now’ to her marefriend before turning to the other mare, who was quickly recovering. “It’s true, I swear, she’s pregnant!”

“You’re bluffing!” Moonbeam spat, taking a step forward. “You just want my friends!”

“I’m not!” Sparkler squeaked, “I’m really not! I know…I know, look at her, really look, with your mage-sight. See for yourself.”

“If you’re lying…” Moonbeam’s voice trailed off though as she lit her horn and channelled her extra sight on the unconscious pegasus. She saw past the layers of clothing, of fur, skin and muscle. The powerful unicorn cast her sight deep into the younger mare’s body, at her womb. There, she saw it. The egg, so recently fertilised, adhered to the mare’s womb, growing, developing. She saw the unmistakeable signs of life. “Dear Celestia…” Moonbeam’s vision returned to her and, in an instant, she sagged to her knees, her eyes losing their enchanted glow, “What have I done?”

“She’s pregnant?” Stonecutter asked softly, ever so gently laying her hand on her best friend’s belly while Sparkler nodded and stroked Cloudburst’s mane.

“I-I’m…I’m so sorry…” Moonbeam sniffed, tears brimming in her electric blue eyes, “I just…I just wanted to keep my friends, I never meant to hurt anypony.”

“They aren’t…” Stonecutter stopped herself and she took a deep breath. In spite of everything, she forced her temper down deep inside her and she portioned off Cloudburst’s pregnancy and the fact that Sparkler knew about it away into a filing cabinet in her brain to be spoken about later. Yelling at this mare would not work. She was scared, and desperate. And scared, desperate ponies did stupid things, like jumping from Cloudsdale. “What’s your name?”

“M-Mo-Moonbeam,” she sniffed, unable to stop the tears in her eyes from falling down her cheeks, then, suddenly, she looked up and her eyes flashed, “Don’t trick me! You’re going to take them!”

“I’m not, and I won’t, I promise,” Stonecutter inched closer to the distraught unicorn, holding out her hand. “Moonbeam, that’s a very nice name,” when the older mare – now she was close to her, Stonecutter judged her to be in her mid to late twenties, not too dissimilar from her Professors – snorted, she kicked herself for sounding so lame. “Moonbeam, we’ve all been where you are now, we understand you…”

“You can’t understand!” Moonbeam threw back, snatching her hand away just before their fingers touched, almost like she was afraid the earth pony would burn her, “Nopony understands! Nopony wants to understand! They just laugh at me and ignore me!”

“Moonbeam,” Stonecutter reached forward and took the unicorn’s hand in hers, just holding it lightly, “My name’s Stonecutter, this is Sparkler and the featherbrain taking a nap is Cloudburst.” She took a deep, calming, centering breath, “Sparks knows what it’s like to be gifted and talented, and to be scorned for her gifts. I know what it’s like to be different from everypony else, to be alone and to be bullied. CB, she knows what it’s like to be abandoned by those who are supposed to love her.”

The charcoal grey unicorn searched Stonecutter’s eyes as she spoke and her extra sight saw no lie, no angle or subterfuge in those honest eyes. “You…St-Stonecutter…I believe you. I just…” she broke down into floods of hot, wet, salty tears that ran down her face and dripped onto the cavern floor, “I just wanted friends to come to my birthday parties!” As she cried, Stonecutter moved forwards and pulled her without resistance into a tight hug, “Nopony would ever come, so I made my own…”

Stonecutter’s heart broke for the older pony. “Shh, I know, I know,” she held onto her as she vented the pain that was in her soul, cried out all the loneliness and despair that had taken up residence over the years, “It’s okay, shh, you have real friends now.”

“F-Friends?” Moonbeam’s voice was haggard and broken, mirroring how she felt inside, “Af-After e-everything I’ve done,” she spoke through her tears into Stonecutter’s shoulder, “You want to be friends?” She didn’t dare to believe it. Ponies had tricked her before, when she had been young and gullible.

“We do,” Sparkler, who was knelt by Cloudburst’s side, had been applying generous amounts of Pony Balm to the back of the pegasus’s head and to her chest and wing. “She’s not seriously hurt, Stone. She’ll be fine. They’ll both be fine.”

“But…but I don’t know…” Moonbeam gestured to her dolls, still held in the hug that Stonecutter refused to give up, “They’re all I have, they’re all I’ve ever had, I um…I don’t know, about friendship…I don’t know another way…”

At last, Stonecutter released the hug, but she held both the unicorn’s hands in hers, crying herself now, “If you trust us, if you take a chance, we can show you a better way, Moonbeam. Let us help you, like they helped me and I helped them, like we helped each other, to see you aren’t alone, that you’ll never be alone again.”

“Y-Yo-You’ll really be my friends?”

“We will,” her administrations completed, Sparkler came over and joined the two mares in a big, tight hug, “Moony,” she smiled warmly as she gently nuzzled the older mare’s wet cheek, smearing her tears over her own yellow fur.

“Moony…” Moonbeam’s face lit up with a wide genuine smile. Somehow the nickname made her cry all the more, though now they were tears of happiness and joy rather than anguish and despair. She had a nickname! Nopony had ever given her a nickname before! An unfamiliar heat radiated from her core, a light that shone from within her that joined with the other three mares. When the light connected together, it became a rainbow coloured glow that surrounded them all.

All of a sudden, the rainbow glow shot out in all directions, covering the entire cavern in its multi-coloured light. As soon as the magic hit the captured statuettes, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie all rose up a foot into the air, vibrating with magical energy as they were restored to their normal forms in a flash of bright light. Now restored, the magic held within the Elements of Harmony empowered the rainbow light generated by Stonecutter, Sparkler and Moonbeam, and all the other statuettes were restored as well.

As the pure friendship magic began to die away and the intense white light began to fade, and twenty very surprised ponies looked around, stunned to find they were in a cavern and not where they remembered being before they transformed, the glowing magical runes that surrounded the stone door faded to dark. Just like the tablet had promised, the show of true harmony had repaired the great seal and dispelled the enchantment.

“Uuuh…Twilight?” Rainbow Dash found her voice and, looking around the cavern, she rubbed the back of her head, “Where the hay are we?

“Darlings…” Rarity blinked and rubbed her eyes, “Whatever happened to our campsite?”

Just then, Cloudburst started to come around. After a low groan, she saw Stonecutter and Sparkler still hugging the charcoal grey unicorn. “H-Hey…did we win?” then, she saw all the other ponies stood around the cavern looking as confused as she felt, specifically, her groggy eyes took in their Professors, “Am I late for class?”

Before anypony could answer her though, there came a loud rumbling sound of stone moving across stone. It came from the large door, where the assembled throng of ponies saw the head of the staff turn in the ‘keyhole’ it had been inserted into. Then, after a complete revolution, the door split down the middle and, with a grating sound, it swung inwards.

The curse of the statuettes had been lifted.

Harmony had been restored.

The path to Umberfoal lay open.