The Locating and Capturing of Your Final Boss
The Canterlot Catacombs are an enticing local for any aspiring explorer. Miles and miles of tunnels that are sitting right beneath the very heart of Equestria, yet still largely unmapped and unexplored despite thousands of years of habitation. For the more exploratively inclined it’s like an ancient heap of treasure sitting in somepony's yard that they keep saying they’ll get around to sorting out one day but never do, frustrating and enticing in equal measure. How could any adventure seeking creature deny themselves such an incredible and easily accessible journey?
The answer lies in a very simple fact: the Canterlot Catacombs have been left unexplored for so long because doing so would be a wide awake night terror. Miles and miles of overlapping tunnels are difficult enough to map, but the Catacombs in particular are filled to the brim with thaumically charged crystals whose interference which make any magical mapping extremely difficult.
But the caverns most vexing trait is that said crystals change shape and even location in response to powerful magical surges. As the Catacombs are located directly beneath Canterlot, seat of Equestrian royalty who manage the changing of night and day, surges happen on an extremely regular basis, currently once every twenty four hours in fact. While surges only happen half as often now as every twelve hour surges of the reign of Celestia and Luna, the natural catacombs tendency to completely rearrange all landmarks and accessible tunnels makes mapping or exploring them both extremely difficult and largely pointless.
And so it was that despite the allure and glory that these caves offered, they had long been abandoned by even the most determined of explorers. One would have to be either incredibly overconfident or simply foolish to attempt to conquer such a cavern.
Flurry Heart was having the time of her life down in the catacombs. figuring out how to sneak down here while her mom and dad met with Auntie Twily’s council of friendship was definitely one of the best decisions of her life! And so long as she made it back before the meeting was over the guards that her daddy posted would almost never admit how they had lost track of her again so she would never get in trouble! She was so proud of herself for arranging such a perfect set up, the guards got time off and Flurry got to explore these cool caves!
Flurry giggled as she made faces into the naturally mirror bright crystals which lined the catacombs as she zipped through the narrow passages. She loved the catacombs, since unlike the rest of canterlot they were full of bright and shiny crystals just like back home! She let out a soft snort at the thought of the white castle above. Sure it was nice looking, but it didn’t really compare to the Empire’s crystal spires and domes. Honestly she couldn’t understand why ponies insisted on building their homes out of such drab materials when it was so easy to make beautiful crystals!
Of course the catacombs were, in some small ways, even better than Flurry’s home because they were always different for her when she came! Always full of new pretty crystals, new exciting paths, and new little crevices that only a filly like her could fit through to let her get away from daddy’s guard detail whenever she wanted. It was almost like they had been made as a perfect little playground for foals like her! She giggled again as a warped piece of crystal, probably as sharp as one of her daddy’s guard’s spears, distorted her image to give her a pinhead. Such a silly funny place the catacombs.
“Growthf!”
Flurry started at the noise and stalled in the air, flapping reducing her glide to a hover. Had she just heard... No it couldn’t have been. There weren’t any living things down in the catacombs. But she couldn’t help but shake that whatever that sound had been had really sounded like something growling. Ever the curious filly, Flurry lowered herself down to the ground and stat down with eyes closed, swiveling her ears about to try and pick up-
“Grrrrrrowth!”
There! Flurry beamed as she turned towards the sound, which she was delighted to find was yet another tiny filly sized hole. The sound had definitely come from down that little hole! Flurry was giddy with excitement at her discovery. Clearly some little critter had managed to get lost down in the catacombs, and needed Flurry to save them. Without a moment's hesitation she dove down the hole to rescue the poor little creature.
This was of course an action that was largely shaped by two things. Firstly, Flurry had lived her entire life surrounded by ponies that everycreature called heroes. From her Mother and Father to her Aunt Twilight Sparkle and Uncle Spike and even their friends the Elements of Harmony, most of her role models were defined by daring and virtuous deeds. Growing up in such an environment meant that Flurry Heart attempted to perform her own heroic deeds of her own whenever possible, largely resulting in chaos but occasionally earning her the praise of said role models.
Secondly, Flurry Heart had been born and Alicorn and so had severely underdeveloped survival instincts. Any other pony would naturally have considered their location, a deep dark hole almost a mile underground, and asked themselves what kind of creature would have been able to make it down to this section of the catacombs let alone survive and turned tail and ran. Having never faced a single creature outside of her friends and family who could even come close to overpowering her, and perhaps also by spending a bit to much time with her Aunt Fluttershy and Uncle Discord, Flurry Heart had developed an understanding of wild creatures that put grizzly bears on the same tier of danger as puppies and squirrels.
And so it was that Flurry Heart descended deeper and deeper into the depths of the catacombs following the occasional growls of a creature that in her mind was going to be fluffy and lovely and huggable and so happy to see that a princess had come to it’s rescue. She was so set on her goal that she completely failed to notice the shiny green shell that she stomped on as she dashed down the tunnel, or the claw and fang marks which now covered almost every crystal she passed.
Deep down the long tunnel that now suddenly had a princess descending, It gnawed on a rock that was being annoyingly stubborn about giving up it’s tasty contents. It didn’t have anything else to do but gnaw on the rock, but It still prefered that the process go faster, especially because lately it seemed like the rocks had less tasty stuff in them. That was frustrating for It, since it meant more time wandering to find more tasty rocks and less time sleeping. It Liked sleeping. It was It’s second favourite thing to do after eating tasty rocks.
Suddenly It heard something, which startled It to no end. A new thing? It had never encountered a new thing in It’s Entire life, though that was admittedly only a few months at most. It didn’t know how it knew that, or what a month was. it just knew through the Knowing that told it there was tasty stuff in the rocks that it was a few months old.
It briefly wondered what “old” was.
It shook itself out of it’s sudden existential ponderings and turned It’s Attention back to the new thing. The new thing was probably dangerous, new things usually were. It had never met a new thing before but the Knowing assured It that most new things were dangerous. And dangerous was a bad thing, which was even more bad because the new thing was definitely coming closer.
“Hold tight little guy, the Brave and Beautiful and Humble Princess Flurry Heart is on her way to save you!”
That made It perk up. Those sounds were word sounds, the knowing knew about words, and some of the words were very interesting. The Knowing Knew the word Princess, and what the Knowing told It that Princesses were tasty, even tastier than the tastiest of the tasty rocks.
That thought made It happy, but it was still worried because even if the new thing was a tasty Princess it was still a new thing, and the Knowing knew that new was known to be dangerous. It carefully weighed its options, weighing if getting to feed on a tasty Princess was worth meeting a dangerous new thing.
It didn’t get to consider for long, as in the middle of the deepest thoughts that It had had in it’s young life something new and bright and PINK burst into the cave. It froze immediately, suspended in a mix of fear and... Fascination.
As she burst into the room Flurry Heart found herself face to face with something exceedingly rare for her: something new! As a princess she had often been dragged along on diplomatic missions by her parents, aunts, and even on one occasion her Crystaler Sunburst. She had seen almost every creature from Buffalo to Kirin in her short life, and every animal from squirrels to Tatzlwurms as well. For her to encounter something new...
Well excited was an understatement. Flurry didn’t even have the words to express what she was feeling now, and she suspected that only her aunt Pinkie and maybe Auntie Twily’s favorite thesaurus did. And the way this new creature looked!
It’s head was a shiny almost black turquoise and made of a hard shell, yet emereging from that hard shell was a dull greenish greyish teal mane. it’s teeth were the same black shell substance as it’s head and visible as if it’s head were just a skill. Set deep into the skull like sockets of it’s head shell were a set of glowing turquoise eyes. It’s body was covered in mossy looking fur a slightly lighter colour than it’s mane, broken up by more segments of shell like armour that reminded Flurry of the model skeleton that sat in the corner of her science class. It had a long tail and arms, all covered with sell segments that reminded her of a snake skeleton and ending in clawed hands. A droplet of drool fell from it’s mouth to the ground, creating a his as it started eating through the stone.
It was...
It stared at the new thing with amazement. Not only was the new thing a vibrant, brilliant pink in the vision that It usually used, which the Knowing now informed it was called thaumic vision, but coming from the horn in the center of the new things head was a light that was allowing It to use what the Knowing called normal vision for the first time in it’s lift to see how very pink the creature's physical form.
It was a quarter of the new thing, the Princesses It decided, size which was worrying. The Princess also had wings, though they seemed very large and were completely unprotected by a hard shell like It’s own. Actually it seemed like the whole body of the princess seemed bizarrely unprotected to It. She was missing any kind of shell, leaving her whole body a vulnerable fuzzy pink mass. Even her head, adorned with that light making horn and a blue and somehow even more pink mane, was completely shell less. This confused It. It wondered if the reason that a Princess was Tastier than Tasty rocks was that it was easier to eat than the tasty rocks? That made sense to It.
Suddenly to It’s great alarm, the Princess spoke.
“Oh my goodness you are the cutest thing in the entire world!” The princess said in word sounds louder than anything It had even heard before.
Cute? What was cute It wondered, and It quickly checked to see if the Knowing knew what Cute was. The Knowing did in fact known what cute was, and informed It that it was a good thing. This did not calm It down in the slightest. The only good thing that another thing could be called it had known about before today was Tasty! If Cute was a good thing then it was the same kind of thing as tasty! The tasty Princess was going to eat It before It even got a chance to taste any tasty Princess!
As the Princess reared up on its hind legs It knew what it had to do.
“GRAOWARARAWAAR!” It roared, louder than any sound it had ever made or even heard before, and lunged at the Princess, readying itself for a battle to the death.
“Thank you so much for having us at your meeting again girls,” Cadence said happily as she levitated the papers she had brought back into their case. “I know how much these monthly gatherings meant to you girls, and it means the world to me and Shiny that you would let us intrude on your special time together.”
“Aw tweren’t nothin princess,” Applejack responded, “Yall have the right to contribute to how we help run Equestria anyway. Not to mention that you two are our friends too!” She stretched as she stood up from the table, as dis all of the others who lacked alicorn resilience. “and of course,we really needed to get this sorted sooner than later,” she added.
“And I’m sure the reason you’re in such a good mood has nothing to do with how profitable this is going to be to your family AJ?” Shiny said jokingly.
“Ah am a steadfast member of the Equestrian governemnt now Shin’in,” Applejack said with mock offense before breaking into a contented grin, “But ah must admit knowing that mah family won’t ta worry as much about makin ends meet does put a smile on my face.”
It had been an extra long meeting, owing to a slight market crisis. Evidently the crystal which Crystal Ponies built their homes out and paved their streets with was not in fact enchanted Ice as had long been assumed, but resonance crystal, a substance that formed the foundation for all magitechnology in equestria.
It was a pleasant surprise that the reason for the sudden economic crisis was not overzealous lobbyist wanting to keep the price of the crystals high or crystal ponies not wanting to sell, it was a much stranger reason. The crystal empire had abolished the concept of currency within its borders around one thousand five hundred years ago as a symbol of the magical unity the Crystal Heart granted. The Geodic Council who advised Cadence was not pleased at the idea of bringing it back just for a trade deal, and so asked Cadence to negotiate a different way for them to profit from their newfound resource.
They had managed to reach an agreement that pleased both the Equestrians and Crystal Imperials; the magitech producers would buy food and then trade that for the crystals they wanted. It stimulated equestrias economy, and provided much needed food to the recently reactivated satellite cities that the Empire had been trying to repopulate whose ersatz Crystal Hearts hadn’t drawn enough power to allow for farmland yet.
“Well I for one and delighted at the price drop this is going mean for automatic sewing machines, “Rarity added as she delicately put away her decorated Council of Friendship binder, as well readjusting both Rainbow Dash and Applejacks messily stowed documents. “I’ve never been able to justify buying one for my shops, but now I will finally be able to see what all the fuss is about!”
“You know what makes me happy?” Pinkie asked in a slightly more excited tone than usual, “how much better this is gonna make so many of my party setups! Cheese is gonna flip when I tell him that that super pricey sound system he’s been eyeing is about to be twenty apples!”
“Equestria isn’t switching to a barter system Pinkie,” Twilight corrected as she absentmindedly organized her own stack of papers, “we’re just accommodating the Crystal Empires unique approach to harmony.”She turned to Shining and Cadence and smiled warmly, “And you know that I’m always happy to have you vist. I miss my BBBFF and my favorite Foalsitter slash government Mentor. And my favorite niece of course.”
“Oh, speaking of Flurry, where is the little dear?” Fluttershy asked as she glanced towards the door. Shinings smile faltered and he let out an exaspherated sigh. Fluttershy winced. “Oh dear, did she get into the catacombs again?”
“Last my guards saw her, she had slipped into one ofthe lower entrances,” he said as he massaged his temples with his hooves, “Which was too small for any of them to follow her. She thinks my guards just don’t report when they lose her out of shame or something,” He explained. the last part came out as a grumble more than a sentance.
“We’re following our new family counsellors advice,” Cadence said, with a tone that sounded more like she was reminding herself than explaining, “and Happy Hearth says that Flurry needs to explore and find her own boundaries so understand why they are there. Too many boundaries and expectations is why Shiny and Twilight both have such bad anxiety. We need to “let her fail on her own terms”.” The certainty of Cadneces wording did not at all carry into her clearly worried tone.
“Aw you’re worrying too much Cadence!” Rainbow dash said, flying around the pink princess and patting her on the shoulder. “It’s just the catacombs, we’ve dealt with them before and Flurry has a tracker spell on her. So the absolute worst that can happen is that she gets lost, we find her, and she learns a valuable lesson about trusting and respecting her parents.”
“I supposed your right”, Cadence signed. She briefly lit her horn and smiled. “Oh good, she’s already out of the Catacombs and coming to see us! You were right Rainbow Dash I was overreac-”
At that exact moment a bright blue magical field slammed the doors open to reveal a hovering flurry heart with a creature that looked like it had spawned in the deepest pits of tartarus in her forlegs, gnawing on her right hoof.
“MOMMY DADDY LOOK AT THIS KITTY I FOUND! CAN I KEEP HIM! HE’S SO CUTE!” Flurry Heart screamed at the top of her Royal Canterlot Voice enhanced lungs.
The creature ceased it’s gnawing, looked around the room, growled at everycreature present and went back to chewing. In return, the Elements of Harmony and Sovereign rulers of the Crystal Empire stared back at the excited child and her hellspawn with gaping mouths.
“So is that a yes?” Flurry asked with a gleefuly.
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what did she find?
10659651
The final boss.
10659756
I assume it's Bowser.
Did ominous music play before she found it? Does The Theme of The Fate of The World play any time her new pet Final Boss is on screen?
Why is the water chanting Latin?
A good read though the grammar mistakes made it a bit tough. Regardless, I'm interested to see how all this turns out.