Quest For Harmony

by destinedjagold

Chapter 99 - Through Messages

“—and everything is still impossible to see what is going on down there...” spoke a female reporter's voice, as her cameraman focused the lenses down on the dark island as their helicopter hovered far above the place. “Even with thermal-detecting lenses, our cameras are still unable to detect any sources of heat in any parts of the island. This is Cheryl, reporting to you live in the skies. Back to you, James.”

“Thank you Cheryl,” the image on the television screen was now switched back to the studio, where a formally-suited man is adjusting his papers on his table. “In a related news, a soldier swam out from the island.” The scene was then changed to a more amateur-ish video capture of a uniformed soldier being lifted to a coastal boat. “He said that he and his fellow soldiers were chased by the mists when he decided to go to the water.” The scene was then changed, where the scene was now showing the main island was slowly becoming closer, and a male reporter stood in front of the lenses, standing on the boat, where behind him was the soldier, seated on a chair and a thick blanket was wrapped around his shivering form. “We will now bring you to Lester for more of this news. Lester?”

The news reported then held his microphone close to his mouth before he spoke. “Yes, thank you James.” He then spun and approached the soldier, and the camera did so as well. He leaned forward towards the soldier, who in turn stared back at the reporter. “Before anything else, sir. What is your name?”

A tiny set of fingers suddenly levitated above a set of buttons on a held remote control. Pressing the next button, the television changed channel, now showing a cartoon commercial about a purple-haired girl with a star-like tattoo on her cheek, and her pet purple dog. The two were walking on an earthy path.

“Rose dear,” said a man who sat on a sofa a few meters in front of the television. “I was watching that.” He turned his head to face a young female girl who was seated in the middle of the sofa, who stubbornly held the remote close to her as she shook her head.

“Nuh-uh!” she playfully glared back at the man. “News is boring! And the pony re-run is about to start in a few minutes!” She smiled brightly at him before turning her head to the other side, smiling even wider as her eyes reflected the cyan-coated pegasus mare with rainbow-colored mane and tail. “I thought that maybe if Rainbow Dash and I will watch it, she'll return to her normal self!” She spun back to her confused father. Opening her mouth to add more to what she was going to say, but her words died in her throat as her ears was graced by the melodic song of the opening theme of her favorite pony cartoon. She immediately turned her head back at the television, eyes sparkling and mouth smiling wide. “Oh! It's starting!” She then hugged the cyan pegasus without removing her eyes on the television. “You're going to love this, Rainbow Dash! I'm sure of it!”

Her father sighed yet smiled as he playfully and gently rubbed his hand on his daughter's little head. “I better leave you two alone.”

“You're not going back to work, right?” Rose asked as her father stood up.

“Sorry Rose,” he flashed her an apologetic smile. “But I'll try and make it quick so I could join you two here.”

“Well,” she thought for a short while before she smiled. “The re-run's going to last for two hours, I think.” She nodded, and then frowned. “You're not going outside for another field-work, right?”

He smiled at her as he patted her head. “I'll be just down the basement, honey. I promise.”

Her daughter smiled back at him. “Tee-hee! That's great!”

---

“Status report...” Rose' father spoke as soon as he closed the door behind him, now facing the many busy scientists.

A female scientist walked towards him, and bowed. She then opened a folder she carried and began to read the contents of her report. “Sir, there seems to be a portal that was forcefully opened. We've located that the opened portal was the one located on top of Mount Comet.” She flipped a page before she continued. “We have also discovered that it was one of our computers that opened the portal.”

“I told you to close all portals while you work for a way to return those monsters,” the man said, while holding his growing anger.

The female scientist nodded. “Indeed, we have been working for a way as we speak sir. Anyway,” she flipped another page. “It would seem that one of our computers got hijacked.”

“Hijacked?” the man exclaimed in disbelief. “Hacked? H-how?”

“We've assigned a group to block and locate the intruder, or hacker. As of this moment, we are currently tracing his whereabouts. We have, however, managed to close the portal and removed the hacker's ability to open any other portals.”

---

“How is it?” Claire asked as she pulled a chair and sat beside Kronz, who was furiously gritting his teeth and his fingers almost a blur as he typed great loads of code with his laptop. She has given up her attempts of calling Jay's phone an hour ago.

“They kicked me out,” although having a hard time, he managed to smirk, “but they weren't able to track me. As far as I could tell, at least.” He eyed the Shining Armor-themed shield icon on the right side of his taskbar for a moment and smiled before returning his eyes on the codes he's typing. “Anyway, when we were still in Mount Comet, I found out that my bro's phone was able to open one of the portals just to send and receive messages from the, uh, pony world. So...” he smiled and nodded, “I'm trying to divert my brother's phone's incoming messages to be forwarded to me. And, I'm working on connecting my email to his phone, so if I send a message, his phone will send it instead.”

“Wow,” Claire said in awe, “how do you do that?”

Kronz smiled devilishly. “Hacking his phone's service provider, of course.”

“WHAT!?”

---

“Um...sir?” one of the scientists who was working on the computer stood and pointed a finger at his screen, catching the attention of Rose' father. He approached the scientist and eyed the screen. “You might need to see this.”

An oval-shaped pattern with distorted colors was displayed on his screen, and on the upper-most part of the oval, the distorted colors suddenly became black, and a few warning messages appeared.

“What is this?” asked the man as the scientist sat back down and began typing.

“The portal on Mount Comet seemed to have opened...” the two then noticed the oval was completely covered by distorted colors again. “...and somehow it closed yet again.”

---

Spike stopped as he and the crusaders were about to take a step on the crystal stairs that would lead them to the gigantic double doors of the majestic crystal castle. The crusaders took a few steps on the stairs before realizing that their dragon companion wasn't joining them. Spinning around, they saw the dragon's bright smile before breathing out green fumes of flames in the air, and it then materialized into a scroll.

“It's from Jay!” Spike exclaimed as he caught the scroll and immediately unrolled it.

Sweetie Belle, excited, quickly walked down the stairs and stood beside the dragon, leaving Apple Bloom and Scootaloo staring at each other and shrugged.

Spike's smile vanished quickly while Sweetie Belle was reading the contents out loud.

“Spike, this is Kronz. I'm Jay's brother. Anyway, I found a way to access my brother's phone so I could send you messages, and for you to reply back. To test this though, I need you to reply to me A.S.A.P. Where are you at the moment?”

Spike frowned. Nevertheless, he flipped the scroll and charred a claw to write his reply. While he was writing, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were leaning, eagerly eyeing Spike's writing, while Apple Bloom decided to look around, studying their surroundings.

“Huh,” the earth pony crusader said as her eyes fell on three crystal pony statues standing a few meters behind her friends. She took notice that those statues were standing in the middle of the pathway that they just walked on a little while ago.

---

“It's...” the scientist began, but his words died as he and Rose's father eyed the oval image, where a small patch of black appeared once again on the top-part of the image. As quick as it appeared, it then disappeared, summoning new readings from the scientist's computer. “S-something came out from that portal.”

“Obviously,” the man gritted his teeth. “Find out what it was, and report to me your findings immediately.”

“Ye-yes sir!”

---

“A new email!” Claire exclaimed as Kronz opened the newly-arrived email.

“That was quick...” he whispered as he opened the email.

“Yeah uh, hi. This is Spike. We've just arrived in the Crystal Kingdom. Hey uh, if you don't mind, could you tell us what happened to Gold? I mean, Jay?”

“We?” Kronz blinked.

“Gold?” Claire asked.

“My brother's name is Jagold. ‘Jay’ is just his nickname.” Kronz replied as he began writing an email.

“Oh, well, we got used to call him as Jay at work though.”

Kronz shrugged. “Yeah well, even during high school and college, he never liked other people calling him by his full name. No idea why though. I didn't bother asking.”

“I should try and remember that.” Claire said as she was about to read Kronz's reply to Spike's mail.

“‘We’? I assume that you have company. Anyway, from what I know, go inside the Crystal Castle and work your way to the throne room. There should be a secret switch there if I remember correctly. Reply to me when you find it.”

“You sound so formal in that email,” Claire whispered.

“Heheh...” Kronz chuckled lightly as he clicked the send button and then turned his head to face Claire properly. “Tell me something.”

“Hm?” she blinked as she faced him.

“Are you...and Jay...y'know...”

“Uh...” she blushed, and looked away with a shy smile. “W-well, no. Not really. I mean... We're not...officially...” she trailed off.

Kronz shrugged. It was a good answer, he thought. “Just so you know though... He never had a girlfriend before.”

Claire blinked, twice. ‘Jay...never had a girlfriend before...?’

Kronz smiled as he busied himself with his laptop, researching more about the Crystal Empire. “You're probably his first, if you two will go official.”

---

Apple Bloom stood near her friends, still eyeing the three crystal statues in the middle of the road, as Spike breathed out another green fumes of fire, materializing into another scroll.

“Hey um, guys?” Apple Bloom spoke, catching the attention of the two other crusaders as Spike busied himself by reading the scroll. The earth pony then pointed a hoof at the three crystal ponies.

Curious, Scootaloo turned and followed her hoof while Sweetie Belle arched an eyebrow, eyeing two crystal pony statues a few feet behind Apple Bloom.

“Were those statues there when we walked on that path a little while ago?” Apple Bloom asked to no one in particular.

“Yeah, about that...” Sweetie Belle chuckled awkwardly. “I'm not sure if those statues were there before...” she pointed with a hoof, catching Spike's attention and following her hoof.

---

“Nightmare Moon scares me...” Rose embraced herself, leaning her head on Rainbow Dash's shoulder.

The cyan-coated pegasus however, stared blankly at the television screen, where a purple cartoon unicorn pony just revealed to the others that it was Nightmare Moon who now stood on the spot where Celestia should have been.

The scene changed, briefly showed three shivering young fillies of different pony races. That brief moment however, lasted like an eternity for the cyan-coated pony. Her dark and lifeless eyes somehow sparkled a faint light as she managed to let out a barely audible breath. “S-S-Scoo—taloo...”

Comments

[Shadow tail]

First! And great story so far!