> Disharmonious Synchronization
>  by Dilos1
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> Prologue
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	The massive halls of the Crystal Castle seemed to extend on forever to Twilight Sparkle as she galloped by, her hooves creating lasting echoes in the corridors. Occasionally she would glance down a intersection, then continue on after finding nothing interesting down it. She knew what she was looking for, the question was where to find it in this virtual labrynth of a castle.

Come on, where is it? the unicorn thought frantically as she turned a corner, glancing in every open door and empty hallway in search, but was disappointed to find nothing even closely resembling the Crystal Heart of legend. After uncounted minutes of directionless running Twilight finally stopped to catch her breath and try to evaluate the current situation.

It had barely been more than a day since she and her friends had first arrived in the Crystal Empire, which had mysteriously reappeared after over a thousand years of absence. To tell the truth Twilight had until recently known next to nothing about the Crystal Empire until her mentor and friend, Princess Celestia, had informed her of its return. The Princess had tasked her and her friends with helping the Empire in any way they could. Twilight's brother and sister-in-law, Shining Armor and Princess Cadance, were already there to receive them.

Upon arrival however, she had soon learned that the Empire was not the only thing that had returned after its thousand year absence. And that was the reason why Twilight was so desperate to find the Crystal Heart, the only thing capable of protecting them from the dark force assaulting the faltering shield. It was only a matter of time until it fell, and then there would be nothing stopping the ancient king from descending upon them like a predator in the night.

As Twilight regained her breath, she became aware of of little clawed feet padding against the hard floor and feathery wings flapping through the air. Soon enough a familiar cyan pegasus mare with a polychromatic mane and a little purple and green dragon came up beside her. Rainbow Dash didn't seem to be out of breath in the slightest while Spike was bent over with his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath.

"Can you. . . slow down. . . a little? . . That would be great," he said between breaths.

Twilight's ears drooped slightly as she said, "I'm sorry Spike, but there's just so little time left that we can't afford to slow down. We have to find the Crystal Heart as soon as possible if we want to keep Sombra away." Just saying the dreaded unicorn kings name sent an involuntary shiver down the lavender mares spine. Ever since she was a filly she had heard stories of a ruthless king that had made thousands of ponies his slaves, only recently learning that those stories were true. "And if we don't find it before Cadance's shield spell wears out, then it's over for all of us," she added, to which Rainbow Dash responded by crossing her forelimbs and fixing Twilight with an expression that, while full of bravado, belied the worry growing inside of her.

"Well what do you want us to then Twi?" she asked in a slightly scratchy and tomcoltish voice. "We can't just run around and hope we'll stumble on it. That would take way too long. And it's not like this guy would have even made it that easy to find anyway."

"I know Rainbow," Twilight responded, growing more frustrated with how hopeless the situation seemed. "But we don't enough time to thoroughly investigate the castle either. You saw how Cadance looked. She was about ready to collapse when I left her."

Rainbow heard the urgency in her friends voice, and her expression morphed into a look of concern as she regarded Twilight. She heaved a sigh and said, "Yeah, I get ya. But what you suggest we do then Twilight? It's like you said, any minute the shield's gonna go down, and then we're pretty much rutted."

Twilight ignored Rainbow's bad language, in front of Spike no less, in favor of pondering what to do. She glanced out the window at the crystalline buildings and at the pale dome surrounding the city. It stayed strong for the most part, but every once in a while Twilight would catch sight of it flickering like a light bulb, allowing brief but unsettling glimpses into the frozen land beyond and the monstrous cloud of shadowy smoke surround the shield like an ominous ring.

Finally, Twilight came to decision, and she turned to address the pegasus.

"Rainbow," she said, "I need you to find the others. Check up on the progress of the fair, make sure everything is okay. Our only hope right now is to keep the crystal ponies happy while I look for the Heart."

"Seriously?" Rainbow scowled. "Your sticking me with the job of manager? I don't think so Twi, you need my help."

"Rainbow," Twilight began to explain, "the only way the Crystal Heart will ever work is if the crystal ponies are happy, and right now the only thing keeping them that way is the fair. If they learn just how close they are to being enslaved again, it won't matter if we find the Heart or not. It won't work if it's not being fueled by them."

Rainbow's stern expression fell at her friends words, replaced by one of worry and concern. Eventually she drifted down to the floor as she said, "Alright, fine. I'll go and do that." She then thrust a hoof at Twilight and added, "But if you get into any trouble I'm comin' back for you, Sombra or not."

Twilight nodded at Rainbow's statement, admiring her devotion. She honestly would have been surprised if her friend had not said that.

With that, Rainbow took to the air again, gave Twilight a salute, and flew out of a nearby window at high speed, leaving a multicolored streak in her wake.

"What about me Twilight?" Spike asked her, pulling her attention back to him. "Do you want me to leave too?"

Twilight thought about his question for a brief moment before she replied, "I think it might be for the best Spike. If we run into any trouble I don't want to see you get hurt. You should be safe with the others. . . . And besides, this is something I have to do alone."

For a moment Spike looked like he was at war with himself. It was obvious that he wanted nothing more than to help her in any way he could. But deep down he knew Twilight was right. Sombra could have placed all sorts of traps and such to deal with any intruders looking for the Crystal Heart. If it really came down to it, Twilight would be the only one capable of overcoming whatever challenges she was presented with. He also knew what Twilight meant when she said it was something she had to do it on her own. Celestia herself had made it clear that she alone must be the one to safeguard the Empire. Whether or not it was part of some sort of test, neither of them really knew. But what Spike did know was that whenever Twilight received specific instructions from the Princess, then the unicorn would do everything to follow those instructions to the letter.

Sighing in defeat, Spike nodded his head. He then rushed at Twilight and gripped her neck in a hug. Twilight responded in kind, and wrapped a foreleg around him as she pulled him close. For a moment the two stayed like that, nether one willing to break the contact. Eventually Spike loosened his grip, and Twilight released him from her hold. Spike regarded her with glistening eyes as he said, "You stay safe okay Twilight?"

Twilight nodded, feeling her own emotions about to burst like dam. She then thought of something that she hoped would make him feel better.

Following the motions of the ever sacred Pinkie Promise, Twilight said, "Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my-"

Unfortunately Twilight had forgotten to close her left eye as he went through the motions, and ended up accidentally jabbing herself in the cornea with a hoof. "Agh!" she said.

Despite the mishap, Spike found himself grinning as Twilight completed the promise. "There," she said. "I Pinkie Promised. And everypony knows that you have to keep a Pinkie Promise, or you lose your friends trust."

Just then both pony and dragon heard a distance high pitched voice yell from somewhere down below amid the festivities, "Forever!"

Twilight and Spike chuckled slightly when they heard their friends outburst. Their laughter eventually fell away as they realized that now was there they would have to part ways. They lingered, both of them not wanting to be the first one to leave. Finally it was Spike who broke the silence.

"Well, I guess I should be going now," he said quietly. He then turned around and began to make his way down a flight of stairs, casting one last worried glance at her before he disappeared from sight. When he left Twilight felt as though her heart had suddenly turned into lead as she fought back a wave of tears. Steeling herself, Twilight turned away and resumed her search for the Crystal Heart.





"Finally", Peridot muttered as she fitted the last piece  of the warp pad into place. "Now I can get off this cruddy rock."

It had many weeks of labor and hard work for her to complete her project, and the Galaxy Warp had taken no small amount of retrofitting and cross wiring to get it in a state that at least resembled something that was fully functioning, not to mention how much she had to scavenge from other unusable warp pads that had long since fallen into a state of ruin and disrepair. The fact that the Home World gem had even considered falling back to such methods was a testament to how desperate she was to leave.

And her efforts were certainly not aided by those Crystal Gems, whom Peridot had oh so affectionately dubbed as the Crystal Clods. Why they simply could not understand that all she wanted was to leave the planet before the deadline was up, she did not know, but as long as she was away from them she did not care. Better to leave them to their eventual fate and let them figure just how screwed they were when the cluster emerged. Peridot figured they had at best a few short months before then, which was why she was so dead set on getting back to Home-World. She knew that if she stuck around too long. . . well it was not something she particularly wanted to think about.

Thankfully she didn't have to think about it, because finally after so much time and effort spent trying to repair the Galaxy Warp, it was ready for use. Or at least she hoped it was.

Raising her arm, Peridot's artificial fingers floated independently of her limb as four of them formed into a view screen while the fifth acted as a stylus. For what felt like the hundredth time since she began her project the technician went over her notes and video logs, double checking and triple checking everything to make sure that nothing would go wrong when she tried to activate the Galaxy Warp.

Her conclusion upon finishing her review. . . most likely the Galaxy Warp would do absolutely nothing in spite of all her hard work, maybe even explode violently from all of the excess tampering she had performed just to get it working, resulting in her being launched halfway to the next landmass. Her task would have been so much less difficult if she still had any flask robonoids left, but of course those had all been destroyed by the Crystal Gems.

"Crystal Clods", Peridot corrected herself as her fingers returned to their original position. Whether or not the Galaxy Warp worked, at least she wouldn't have to put up with them and their self righteous antics anymore. If the Galaxy Warp did explode, the inverted triangular gem on her forehead would most likely be shattered. Either way, she was leaving, and Peridot felt it was worth the risk of being shattered, and given what was going to become of the planet, it was only a matter of time until that happened anyway.

It was shame though. Some parts of the planet were actually not so much an eyesore as others, as Peridot had discovered. She found the sights created when another planetary cycle was completed to be especially pleasing to the eye. So many hues and colors reaching across the sky like great strokes of paint. Cavernous underground networks with hundreds of tons of nonliving gems that would light up in greenish hues when she cast a search beam on them. It really was a shame to know that it was all going to waste because of the cluster experiment.

Oh well, she thought. I'm not the one in charge.

Readjusting her visor, Peridot began the process of activating the Galaxy Warp. Her boots clanking on the Galaxy Warps surface as she walked, the technician went over to the pad in the middle of the the structure, with smaller pads ringed it in a circular pattern. Linking the smaller warp pads to the one in the center, many pieces of old gem technology had been fitted together almost haphazardly, most of which had not been used for over a millennia. Peridot would have liked to go with something more reliable, but time and resources were severely limited.

Stooping down next to the main pad Peridot removed a hidden panel on its base. With her artificial digits working at speeds stationary fingers could never match, Peridot was soon rewarded with a slight hum coming from the pad. She felt her mood lighten at the prospect that finally, after weeks of being stranded, she was going back Home-World.

"Come on. . . come on," She said in a slightly nasally voice as she waited in anticipation.

And then something happened. And to her confusion it was not the Galaxy Warp either activating or exploding. It was the sound of a localized warp pad flaring to life as a beam of light shot straight into the air. Peridot whirled around, dreading what was coming next. Within seconds, they had appeared.

The Crystal Clods.

"There she is!" yelled the shortest one, the amethyst, as a gem studded whip materialized in her hands. Behind her the pearl and the perma-fusion known as Garnet summoned their own weapons, a spear and a pair of formidable gauntlets. They were a sight that Peridot found to be somehow both tacky and intimidating in appearance. At least they had not brought the steven with them, but still she wondered how they found her in the first place.

That would have wait until later though, as Peridot had more pressing concerns than figuring out how they managed to track her down.

"Yah!" she yelped as she turned to run. The amethyst gave chase while the pearl threw her spear at the fleeing gem. Peridot just barely managed to avoid being skewered by the projectile by diving to the side, but the action unfortunately allowed the amethyst to cover the rest of the distance between them. Almost desperate, Peridot's fingers formed into a small cannon which she pointed at the approaching adversary.

"Get away from me you clod!" she shouted as a ball of erratic green energy formed in front of her before rocketing towards the amethyst. In her haste Peridot did not prepare herself for the recoil and was sent sprawling backwards while the amethyst expertly dodged the projectile. The gem swung her whip in a wide arc, and it wrapped around Peridot like a vice.

"Gotcha!" she exclaimed with no small amount of snark. Peridot groaned at how many times this had already happened before one of her digits touched the whip and a current of electricity was sent coursing through the weapon. The amethyst was unable to let go of it time before she felt hundreds of volts running through her physical form. Her mane of white hair stood on end, and she fell to the ground with a pained groan, and the whip vanished.

"Amethyst!" the perma-fusion shouted before charging at Peridot with her armored fists raised. Peridot yelped in fright, knowing that there was no way she could take on the perma-fusion by any stretch of the imagination. She hated the fact that she had to do so, but Peridot had no choice but to flee. Running away from the fusion as fast as her limb enhancers could carry her, Peridot made a dash for one of the warp pads ringing the edge of the structure. Before she got there however the pearl interposed herself between her and her escape. Peridot skidded to a halt and promptly changed direction, only to find that the amethyst had recovered and was now charging at her. And behind her the fusion was rapidly approaching.

Peridot was cornered, and there was now only one way for her get away. Raising her right arm into the air Peridot's finger began to whirl around at high speed, and in moments she began to ascend vertically. The clods rushed into action as the pearl threw another spear, the amethyst swung her whip, and the fusion even jumped to try and grab her by the legs. And somehow, by sheer dumb luck or something else, Peridot somehow was able to avoid all three of them as she rose ever higher into the sky.

"Nyah hah hah hah!" she laughed in triumph. "Sorry to spoil your fun you clods! But I'm afraid that I'm just too much for you to handle, and your attempts to capture me are just plain pathetic to watch!"

"Get back here you twerp!" the pearl shouted after her, to which Peridot responded with a rude hand gesture, eliciting a groan of annoyance from the gem. Peridot just laughed as she flew off until she was far enough away that the Galaxy Warp was little more than a dot on the horizon, feeling satisfied that she had gotten away from them yet again. It of course meant that she had to temporarily abandon the Galaxy Warp until later, but it would still be there when she came back, provided that those Crystal Clods didn't-

Peridot's smug pride was immediately cut short when she realized a very small oversight on her part.

She had left the repaired Galaxy Warp still active! The clods would find out what she was up to! They were going to destroy weeks worth of work, and then Peridot would be stranded for good, doomed to live out the rest of her days until the cluster emerged, and then. . .

Peridot could not allow it. She would not allow it.

Redirecting her course, Peridot began to fly back to the Galaxy Warp, mind set on getting off this planet no matter what. Hopefully if she was able to get there before they destroyed it there would be no further complications.
> Discussions
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	Twilight was almost out of breath as she galloped along, looking down every vacant hallway and corridor she found, sparing them only fleeting glances in her search for the Crystal Heart. She looked at everything that seemed suspicious to her. Vacant rooms, bookcases, underneath rugs, but for all of her searching she had yet to find anything even resembling the Crystal Heart, and she began to panic as the pressure set in, which had been steadily building up in her mind for hours ever since she learned the importance of the Heart, and it began to show in her appearance.

Her mane and tail had more than a few loose ends sticking out, and she had developed a nervous, almost crazed expression. Twilight began to feel that the situation was rapidly becoming hopeless as the seconds went by, and her search had still yielded no results. She glanced out of a tall arching window. Cadance's shield spell was deteriorating at an alarming rate, and Twilight's worry increased when she saw how just how close it was to failing. The snowy land outside the barrier was becoming became visible more frequently, as was the dark presence haunting its perimeter.

Twilight figured they had only a few short hours until the shield failed completely. When that happened, Sombra would be able to just move in, and the crystal ponies would be all but powerless to stop him.

As Twilight considered the situation, she found herself regretting not bringing the Elements of Harmony along to aid them. She was not sure how effective they would have been against the dark king though. The Elements were a force for healing, not destruction, so the effect they would have on Sombra, a pony whose heart was supposedly always as black as pitch, was a slim hope at best since there was nothing in him to heal. But still, they might have done something.

But Twilight could not dwell on it for any longer. She had to hurry and find the Crystal Heart as soon as possible.

She only hoped her friends were having a less difficult time in keeping the crystal ponies occupied.





"What do you mean you're out of fluglehorns?! How can you be out fluglehorns?!" Pinkie Pie demanded as she leaned over the counter, an enraged expression fixed upon Rainbow Dash..

"I mean we don't have any more fluglehorns Pinkie," Rainbow answered, having already grown impatient with the pink mare and her antics. Rainbow liked Pinkie, but there were times when the pegasus felt that she could dial it back a little on her hyperactive ways. Right now it seemed that Pinkie had channeled a good portion of that into getting her hooves on a fluglehorn, no matter what stood in her way. For what purpose Rainbow did not know, although she was fairly certain it involved the massive amounts of music equipment sitting on the earth pony mare's back.

It seemed to Rainbow that Pinkie must have robbed a marching band at some point while they were in the Empire, as it looked like she had everything from drums to cymbals to flutes to guitars to every other musical instrument Rainbow could think of. Everything but a fluglehorn apparently, as Pinkie continued in her request.

"Oh come on! Can't you check under the counter?" she asked, her big blue eyes becoming hopeful. Rainbow did not allow herself to be taken by the depths of her pleading gaze. 

"Sorry Pinkie. Like I said, we're out," Rainbow stated.

"Aw phooie," Pinkie groaned as her head drooped. Rainbow was about to try and comfort her until Pinkie's head shot up again and she exclaimed, "Oh well. I guess I'll just have to look somewhere else then. And if can't find one I can just use a tuba!" With that, Pinkie bounced away, leaving Rainbow wondering how she was able to keep the musical equipment from falling off of her back. She decided not to ponder it, knowing that Pinkie was prone to the unexpected. After all, this was actually rather tame when compared to other things she had done.

Just then Rainbow caught sight of Rarity briskly trotting towards her with a worried expression on her face. Behind the unicorn mare a small group of crystal ponies followed, each one with a content smile on their muzzles as they approached, and Rainbow began to wonder what was going on that they were smiling but Rarity was not. Soon enough the fashionista and her entourage reached her, and Rainbow felt the need to ask a question.

"Hey Rarity, what are you-" 

Rainbow did not get to finish her question when Rarity turned to address the ponies behind her, and their sparkling eyes darted between the white unicorn and the polychromatic pegasus with an anticipation that Rainbow was not sure she liked. 

"And here we are dears," said Rarity in her usual slightly posh accent, though Rainbow detected an undercurrent of concern in her tone as she spoke. "As promised, I have brought you to the one and only Photo Finish!" she proclaimed with a flourish as she indicated Rainbow Dash with a sweeping gesture.

"Huh?" was all that Rainbow could say as her mind struggled to process the information it was just presented with, and she fixed Rarity with a confused and incredulous expression. She noticed that all of the ponies that had followed Rarity were looking at her with a certain amount of wonder and adoration, witch would have been just fine with Rainbow, but for completely different reasons. "Uh, Rarity? What are you doing?" Rainbow began to question. "What's going on here? Because the last time I checked I'm not-"

But Rainbow was cut off yet again when Rarity thrust a hoof in her mouth and quickly said, "Not giving out any autographs! Yes, that is what you were going to say was it not, Photo Finish?" Rainbow was not sure why, but the way Rarity directed the question at her made her feel if she did not answer correctly then an ancient evil returning to put them in chains would be the least of her worries. Unsure what was going on, Rainbow nodded hesitantly with the unicorns hoof still in her mouth. Smiling widely, Rarity removed the hoof and said to the gathered ponies, "Of course if you are lucky we might be able to arrange for a signing later on in the day." 

The crystal ponies all beamed happily when they heard that, and their coats seemed to take on a more impressive sheen than before as they trotted away. After they had gone Rainbow fixed Rarity with annoyed expression. "What was that all about? Why were you saying that I was Photo Finish?"

Rarity responded with an apologetic look as she said, "Terribly sorry Rainbow darling. I am afraid that as I was keeping the crystal ponies occupied by making decorative hats, I found myself regaling them with more than a few tales of how Equestria at large is in the modern day. And somehow as I told them about my exploits with Photo Finish they got the impression that you were in fact the real deal."

Rainbow was not sure what to think about that. She had heard that Photo Finish was some kind of super star or something like that, so she probably should have felt flattered by the mix up. But at the same time, Rainbow was not sure how to feel about being associated with anything in the fashion industry. It was generally known that Rainbow was a daredevil at heart, so she was confused as to how she of all ponies could be mistaken as somepony like Photo Finish.

"How did. . . "she began to ask, only to falter as the though of such a thing even happening rendered her next to speechless. "Just. . . how? And why didn't you, I don't know, tell them the truth?"

"I am not quite sure how or why it happened darling. I would have gladly corrected their error, but they just seemed so happy at the prospect of meeting a celebrity that I just could not bear to tell them their hopes were false. So for the time being you are just going to have to pretend that you are indeed Photo Finish."

"I don't believe this!" Rainbow exclaimed, throwing her hooves up in the air. "You're telling me that I have to go around acting like some sort of fashion star or whatever that lady is?! No! I'm not gonna do it!" Rainbow crossed her forelimbs in a display of being resolute in her decision. She was not going to take this.

"It will only be for a little while darling, at least until Twilight has found the actual Crystal Heart."

Rainbow said nothing but continued to pout behind the counter. Rarity raised an eyebrow at her friends behavior and said, "You know, if the crystal ponies found out that Photo Finish was not here as they had hoped, they would be sorely disappointed. And we can't have that now, can we?"

Rarity let the question linger for a moment, then felt a sense of satisfaction when the stubborn mare's shoulders drooped in defeat as she groaned in a tone that suggested she was none too pleased with the situation, "Fine. But only until after we kick this Sombra guys plot. After that, I'm letting them know."

"Of course darling," Rarity said with a nod. "Speaking of, you wouldn't happen to know the current situation with Twilight would you?"

"Nope. I haven't seen her since she sent me out here," Rainbow answered, losing her glum countenance. Rarity sighed when she heard that there was still no news of whether or not Twilight had found the Crystal Heart. 

"Oh well, there is still time," the unicorn said. "Well, I am afraid that I must be going now. Those hats won't make themselves."

With that, Rarity left, and Rainbow herself let out a sigh of relief that she was alone now. Her relief did not last long when she spotted a familiar group of crystal ponies looking at her with star struck eyes while they whispered to each other. And it looked like a few more ponies had joined their little fan group. Soon, more ponies came, and Rainbow began to feel like she was being crowded when they started to approach her.

"Uh, heh heh," Rainbow chuckled nervously. "Anypony want a fluglehorn?"





The Crystal gems were still at the Galaxy Warp, discussing what they would now that Peridot had gotten away from them. To be accurate, Pearl and Garnet were discussing what they would do while Amethyst lounged about with her head draping over the side of an inactive warp pad a short distance away. The taller gems paid her no mind, as Amethyst was known for contributing only when they were on a mission. Those happened often enough that it kept her from becoming a complete sloth, much to Pearl's joy.

Still, other than offering the occasional quip, Amethyst did little else other than lie down while Garnet and Pearl deliberated.

"This is starting to get on my nerves," Pearl admitted as she put a hand to her forehead, pinching the gem that was her namesake between her thumb and index finger. "Every time we even get close to catching her it's like Peridot always manages to stay one step ahead of us."

Garnet had adopted a contemplative expression as she thought, though Pearl was unable to glean what the taller gem was thing about behind her visor. "Hmmm. . ." was all Garnet said for the moment. She put a hand to her chin, showing a reddish jewel on her palm that sparkled a little whenever she moved. A similar jewel adorned her other hand, and for a brief moment Pearl felt a slight pang of jealousy for what Garnet had. The feeling soon passed however, and Pearl listened up when Garnet finally spoke.

"I wouldn't worry too much about it right now. We have a way to track her now whenever she uses a warp pad. It's only a matter of time until we catch up to her."

"Maybe," Pearl admitted, though she still sounded unsure as she began to pace around. "But it still bothers me that even after all this time she's managed to get away every time. Granted she is a Home-World gem, so she's bound to be a little unpredictable, but I get the feeling that we're missing something here. I don't know why, but somethings telling me that Peridot knows something that we don't."

"You mean your gut?" Amethyst offered, which only served to confuse Pearl.

"I'm sorry?" she said, looking at Amethyst like she had grown a second head, which actually would not have been the strangest thing she had done. Pearl should know. She shuddered every time she thought about the time Amethyst had cracked her gem.

"You know, a gut feeling," Amethyst began to explain, pointing at her stomach. "That's what Steven calls 'em anyway."

Pearl could do little more than raise an eyebrow as she regarded Amethyst, feeling like maybe she and Steven might be spending too much time together. She put it out of her mind to be addressed at a later date and turned back to Garnet.

"Anyway, as I was saying, I'm just getting the uh, gut feeling, that there is more to Peridot that we don't know about yet, and I want to find out what that is, but we still can't catch her! She just flies away every time!" At this point Pearl was beginning to shout from her building frustration, and her face turned sour as she resumed pacing.

"Pearl," Garnet said pulling Pearl out of her thoughts and making her come to stop. Garnet stepped over to Pearl and put a hand on her friends' shoulder. "It will be alright."

Pearl wanted to argue otherwise, to tell Garnet that everything would not be alright, but something in the taller gems voice made her calm down enough that she was able to take a breath to calm her nerves.

"You're right," she finally admitted after a brief moment of silence. She then added, "We should probably get going. Steven is going to be wondering where we are after a while."

"I'm still kinda bummed that the little guy couldn't come with us this time," Amethyst grumbled as she stood and brushed herself off. "I just don't get how someone could get so sick like that just from food. It's never done anything to me."

"That's what you keep saying, but I have yet to see any evidence supporting that claim," Garnet said as the trio walked to the warp pad they used to get here. "But the evidence suggesting that you can get sick was all over the place at point if I remember correctly."

Amethyst laughed nervously as she scratched the back of her head  in embarrassment. Pearl just groaned as memories of that dark day resurfaced, and she began to feel nauseous herself just thinking about it. She was about to suggest that they change the topic of their lovely conversation when she realized that Garnet had suddenly stopped. She noticed only after they had walked ahead of her a few paces, and she felt a slight amount of concern well up inside her.

"Garnet?" she questioned. "Is something-"

"Shhh!" Garnet shushed her, putting a finger to her lips. Pearl immediately fell silent as she watched Garnet stroll back over the main warp pad in the center of the structure. Garnet squatted down to inspect something at the base of the pad. Then suddenly and without warning she ripped off a hidden panel, and the area was filled with a low hum that Pearl only just now realized had been present the entire time they had been here.

"What is that?" Amethyst questioned as they walked over to Garnet. They looked over her shoulders to see that the main warp pad had undergone a serious amount of tampering. 

"Peridot's been busy," Garnet stated as she looked at the haphazardly repaired warp pad. "She's been trying to repair the Galaxy Warp."

"But that shouldn't be possible," said Pearl. "We destroyed all of her robonoids, she should not be able to fix the Galaxy Warp. It's been down for centuries. How could she have done it?"

Garnet did not answer immediately as she stood. She then faced them and said, "She's obviously much more resourceful than we initially thought."

"So what do you suggest we do then?" Amethyst asked as she looked around at the mess Peridot had made of the Galaxy Warp. "It's gonna take forever to take it all apart. And then what's stopping the nerd from just coming back and fixing it again, huh?"

For a moment Garnet remained silent while she considered what to do. She glanced around at the structure around them and at the mishmash of old gem technology that had been more or less just thrown together by the Home-World gem. Amethyst was right, it would take far too long for them to disassemble the repaired Galaxy-Warp. And whatever they took apart Peridot could just put back together again once they left. They needed a way to make sure that it stayed broken, so that Peridot would never consider as a viable option in the future.

Luckily Garnet knew of one way they could make that happen.

Turning to Amethyst Garnet fixed her with an expression that was completely blank except for a very slight grin that found its way to her lips. Amethyst noticed the look she was receiving, and reciprocated with one of confusion.

"Uh, why are you lookin' at me like that?" she asked. "Do I got something in my teeth?"

Pearl however immediately caught on to what Garnet was thinking about, and she suddenly became nervous at what the taller gem had all but said outright. She looked at Garnet with an apprehensive expression.

"Garnet, are you sure about that? You do know what happened the last time you two fused into Sugilite, right?"

The second Amethyst heard Pearl mention Sugilite she was practically jumping up and down with excitement. "Sugilite? Aw yeah! I'm down for that! I love bein' a big wrecking ball!"

"And do you love it when you lose control of Sugilite when she's been out for too long?" Pearl scolded. "You both know how aggressive she can be at times. You were lucky that I was able to get you two to separate the last time."

"Eh, we were fine. Just a little sore in the head for a while, nothing we couldn't handle. Right Garnet?"

Garnet simply nodded in agreement. She then turned to Pearl and said, "It will be alright. We'll be sure to keep her on a short leash."

Pearl looked like she was about to argue, like she wanted nothing more than to say no to Garnet's proposal. She wouldn't be so opposed to the idea if the fusion was not so. . . Pearl could not even find the right word to describe Sugilite. She supposed the closest comparison she could come up with was pigheaded. Egotistical also seemed to fit rather well, and Pearl found both of those qualities to be highly distasteful. Not to mention the last time they fused into Sugilite, the giant fusion had fallen out of control. Given all of this, it was understandable that Pearl would be against the idea of having Sugilite destroy the Galaxy-Warp, as the thrill of destruction tended to bring out the worst in the fusion. But still, Garnet was right in that it was perhaps their only sure fire way of being absolute certain that Peridot could never use the Galaxy Warp again. And she did already promise to be more careful this time. . . 

Sighing heavily, Pearl's shoulders fell in defeat.

"Alright, fine," she said. "But I'm not going to stay to watch."

Garnet nodded, understanding completely why Pearl would not want to be present where Sugilite was concerned. She watched as her friend turned around and stepped onto one of the localized warp pads, before she disappeared in a flash of white as she was transported back home.

"Alright!" Amethyst exclaimed, pulling Garnet out of her thoughts. "Let's do this Big G!"

Garnet smirked. At least Amethyst was excited about it, which was more than what Garnet could say for herself
> The Titan And The Twerp And Twilight Too
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Come on, where is it?!" Twilight exclaimed loudly, almost shouting as she finished going through yet another room in the Crystal Castle. It just seemed that no matter where she looked or where she thought the dark king might hide the Crystal Heart, she still could not find the artifact. Every where she searched turned up empty, and Twilight found herself double checking ares she had already looked through. This of course turned no more results than all of the previous times she had searched, which had only succeeded in making her more nervous. 

She did not dare looking out the window to see how much time she had left, knowing that doing so would only put her more on edge and make her sink deeper into the sense of hopelessness that continued to grow inside of her mind. She found herself wishing that she had Rainbow Dash and Spike to stay with her, if only to be there to snap her out of what was quickly starting to become a panic attack. 

Twilight however was well aware of Celestia's instructions on the matter of protecting the Crystal Empire, and knew that acquiring help would result in failing whatever test that that the Princess had planned for her, which was something that Twilight dreaded almost as much as Sombra's return. 

Still, her friends presence would have at least helped to ease her mind. But they were not here right now, per her request, so Twilight would just have to think of something else on her own. Forcing herself to calm down, Twilight went through the motions of the calming breathing exercise that Cadance had taught her. She inhaled deeply, taking in the latent calm that pervaded the whole of Equestria, and breathed out, letting her exhalation take away some of the stress and worry in her. It did not calm her completely, but it allowed Twilight to think a bit more clearly on what she should do now.

"Okay Twilight," she said quietly to herself. "You can do this. You just need to to focus. Now, where have you not looked yet?" She asked, not even bothering to question why she was talking to herself as she started walking with a hoof to her to her chin. "Let's see. I looked in the library. . . I checked the treasury. . . I already went through the royal bedchamber. . . I made a mental note to forget what I found in the royal bedchamber. . . . Where haven't I looked yet?"

Twilight continued to ponder the question, when suddenly the answer hit her like she had walked into a door. This turned out to be exactly what had happened, and Twilight was sent stumbling backwards onto her haunches. "Ow," she grumbled as she rubbed her sore muzzle with a hoof. She looked up, and saw that she had walked right into the tall doors leading to the throne room, and suddenly Twilight's mind clicked in realization.

"Of course!" she exclaimed as she stood up, mentally kicking herself for not thinking of the throne room earlier. Her spiral horn lit up in a light magenta aura as she grasped the handles in her magic. With a rumbling sound the doors swung inward, and Twilight quickly trotted inside as she looked around. The massive room was at least a hundred feet long, with tall arching windows on both sides that allowed shafts of light to come in and cast the smooth floor and faceted decorations in a display of brilliance that rivaled the aesthetics of Canterlot.

Twilight would unfortunately have to make time to appreciate it at a later date, as she was currently occupied with the task of saving an entire empire from an eldritch horror. Funny how life seemed to work for her like that. Once this was over, Twilight vowed to get at least some rest and relaxation. All this saving the world business on a biannual basis was really taking a toll on her nerves.

Searching along the walls first, Twilight looked high and low for anything that would indicate where Sombra would have hidden the Crystal Heart. But she found nothing hidden among the crystalline walls, not even a hidden passageway.

What kind of evil king doesn't have a hidden passageway in their castle? she wondered as she expanded her search to include the area around the tall crystal throne. She searched around its base to see if it was sitting on top of some sort of hidden cellar. She even tried to lift it with her magic, which proved to be a bust as it would not budge in the slightest since it was anchored to the floor. Twilight was about ready to give up on the throne room entirely until her gaze wandered to the gem situated on the top of the throne that Twilight began to feel something tickle her memory.

She peered at the oblong gem suspiciously, until she realized that she had seen one just like it before. It was when Princess Celestia was telling her about the Crystal Empire that Twilight had seen it. She had of course wondered how the Solar Princess had something like that in her possession, but decided not to ask. Celestia was bound to have more than a few relics of the ancient past in her treasury, so Twilight had put it out of her mind. What was important was what the Princess had shown her what could be done with the gem.

Standing in front of the empty throne, Twilight concentrated her magic on the task she had in mind. She focused her fear and anxiety to become factors in the spell, and Twilight didn't have to look to see that it was altering the aura of her horn, turning it from a gentle magenta to a deep and unnerving gray. Stray wisps of magic sprouted from the spell, a bright acidic green in color, and Twilight began to feel like she was about to faint from her exertions. 

The entire process was extremely unpleasant for Twilight, and all she wanted to do was stop and collapse onto the floor. It was almost like the magic itself was actively fighting her, trying to wrest itself free from her control. In addition, it seemed to be poisoning her thoughts during the process, turning them from fear of what would happen should Sombra be allowed to return to hate and anger at the dark king for putting them all in danger.

Twilight wanted to cease, to put an end to the spell and try something else, but something kept her from it. She could not explain why, but the discomfort she was feeling was gradually fading away to something more resembling righteous fury and rage. Her eyes began to narrow viciously and a groan that morphed into a deep growl escaped her lips, and her thoughts became darker and darker as the seconds passed.

Sombra, you foul thing, she fumed silently. If you dare to show your muzzle here, we won't need the Crystal Heart when I've-

Twilight immediately cut that thought off before it finished, recognizing the direction her mind was going in. She fought harder than ever to free herself from the influence of the dark magics' taint. She clutched her head between her hooves as she slumped to the ground. Screaming loudly, she forced herself to expel the presence, and a stream of ominous black magic shot out of her horn. The shot went wild however, and impacted on the wall behind the throne rather than the gemstone.

Twilight fell to the floor, panting heavily as she tried to regain her breath. After a few minutes she stood back up on unsteady hooves, still shaking from what she had just experienced. Her eyes were wide with fear and terror at the thoughts that were in her mind. It was not that she feared them for being hateful and angry at the king. She feared because they were not her own. Whatever was going on with her head was not natural in any way shape or form, and Twilight knew that she never wanted anything else to do with it.

When she was able to think clearly, Twilight took a few deep breaths using the technique Cadance taught her. She decided to turn around and move on to other areas of the castle. Just as she was trotting away however, Twilight's ears twitched in response to a dull thudding noise behind her, startling her a little and making her jump. She whirled around with her horn lit in preparation to deal with whatever threat was coming her way, believing she had unintentionally set off one Sombra's traps.

But instead of a trap Twilight was perplexed to see that the wall behind the throne had lit up in a bright reddish glow. Twilight had to shield her eyes with a hoof to keep from being blinded. When the light faded Twilight looked, and was astonished to see that the crystalline wall had vanished, leaving in its place a long and dark recess that seemed to stretch on for an hundreds of feet until there was nothing but an empty void. Walking around the throne, Twilight squinted to try and glean anything from the shadows, but found that could not see anything other than darkness.

"Hah!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I knew you had a secret passageway somewhere! Take that Sombra!" 

But as she looked into the gloomy corridor, Twilight felt her smile fade as she considered what to do now. She could go back and get her friends for assistance, but they were busy with the fair, and there was no telling if the corridor would still be open when she got back, and Twilight did not want to have to repeat the process of opening it either. Not to mention there were Celestia's instructions to take into account. But as Twilight thought about it, she wondered if the Princess really did know best in this situation. Twilight may have absolute faith and trust in Celestia, but even she knew that the alicorn could not be right all of the time.

"What to do. . . ?" Twilight mused as her brow furrowed in thought. 

Finally, she made a decision, and Twilight began a swift trot into the dark corridor in search of the Crystal Heart.





"So," Amethyst said as she looked expectantly at Garnet. The smaller gem was currently sitting in a relaxed position on one of the inactive warp pads. "How do you wanna do this? Just fuse and start smashing? Cause I'm down for that."

Garnet however shook her head in response. "Not yet," she stated. "We need to come up with some sort of plan first. We don't want to risk losing control of Sugilite like before."

Amethyst waved her arm at Garnet's words of caution. "Eh, what's the big deal anyway? Did Pearl make you scared or something, cause we got this. It's not like we haven't let the big girl have a little fun before, so what's the problem?" 

"The problem," Garnet began to say in a warning tone not typically heard from her, "is that the last time we let Sugilite "have fun", she had injured Pearl and almost injured Steven and his friends. If we are going to rely on Sugilite for this, then we need to be cautious about, and make sure that she does not stray too far from our control."

Amethyst seemed to deflate slightly as her earlier bravado and care free attitude from before was replaced with a sullen expression. She remembered just as well as Garnet what Sugilite had almost done the last time they fused. What they had almost let her do. Sugilite always was a bit of a wildcard, and her loyalties tended to stray somewhere between that of her fellow gems and her own agenda of destroying everything in sight, and would often view those around her as being weak and unequal to her. It was a problem with the fusion that both Garnet and Amethyst were aware of, which was the main reason why they seldom fused at all except in situations where it was necessary.

While they could have put the Galaxy Warp out of commission without Sugilite, it would have taken far too much time, time that they needed to look for Peridot. And of course there would be nothing to stop the Home World gem from just putting it all back together as long as it was all still salvageable. If they were going to go through with this, then they needed to remain in control.

"Alright, fine. Whatever you say G," Amethyst relented, hopping off the warp pad. Garnet nodded, and positioned herself to stand a short distance away from Amethyst. For a brief moment, neither gem moved or performed any sort of action. Then they started dancing to a beat that only they could hear.

What started off as slow and measured movements became more in sync with each other, and their gems began to glow softly in response to the stimulation. The gem on Amethyst's chest gave off a faint lavender glow while Garnet's gems emitted a rusty red light. As they danced and moved around each other their bodies also began to glow softly while they moved closer and closer to their partner. When the song in their heads reached its climax both gems were already in close proximity to each other, and when they touched their forms became shapeless as they merged into one whole. In less than a few seconds the mass of white light grew and grew until it towered above everything around it, and when the fusion process was complete, only one being stood in the Galaxy Warp.

"Aw yeah!" Sugilite boomed, her voice echoing across the landscape like thunder. "Finally! It's good to be back!"

Sugilite laughed as she placed a shaded visor similar to Garnet's over her lower eyes, leaving the fifth eye on her forehead uncovered. She then flexed her four muscular arms as she tilted her head, eliciting a loud crack from her joints. 

Brushing away a little bit of her wild black hair out of her face, Sugilite surveyed her surroundings with an expression of contempt. "Alright, so you guys want this place beat to a pulp, huh?" she asked no one in particular. Bringing her upper pair of arms in front of her with her palms facing upward, and the gems on Sugilites hands flashed briefly before two massive gauntlets shot up before their fingers clasped together in midair. Before the fell to the ground Sugilite pulled out a long gem studded whip that she swung up towards the conjoined gauntlets, wrapping its end around a silvery ring reminiscent of a star. Holding onto the handle, Sugilite allowed the weapon to fall to the ground with a crash, shattering one of the warp pads on impact.

"Well then you got it!" she exclaimed as she swung the flail over her head before bringing it down on another pad, causing it to break into a hundred pieces. 

"Ahhh!" she breathed out, relishing in the the destruction she was causing. But as she continued to make an absolute mess of the Galaxy Warp Sugilite was aware that she was being carefully monitored by the gems that facilitated her existence. She could care less what they thought of her though, as long as she got to wreck something with extreme prejudice. 

Just then, Sugilite became aware of something else, and she paused in her wrecking to listen to the sound the reached her ears. It was a buzzing noise similar to a that of a fly, and the massive fusion found herself thinking that she had heard it somewhere before. Wondering if she was just hearing things, Sugilite rubbed her ear with a pinkie finger, but the buzzing continued. In fact it seemed to be getting louder, and the gem started to become rather upset that it persisted. 

"Alright!" she shouted, her already intimidating visage morphing into one of anger as she scowled. "Who's makin' that noise?! When I find out I'm gonna pound you into paste!" She slammed her free fists together to show that she meant business, and she looked all around to find the source of the noise. Just then, she caught sight of something in the distance heading towards them. It started off as just a dot on the horizon, and Sugilite squinted in an effort to determine its identity. And when she what it her mouth curled into a sly grin, exposing the pointed fangs in her mouth.

"Awww, isn't that just cute?" she said with a sneer. "The little clod's comin' back to party."

Gripping the flails length in her large hands, Sugilite's sneer faded into an ugly, snarling expression.

"Well then, I hope the little twerp is ready to dance."





"Ugh! Can't these things go any faster?! I should have been there by now!" Muttered Peridot while the landscape whizzed by underneath her as she flew back to the Galaxy Warp. Her artificial fingers were already spinning rapidly above her head, yet it seemed that no matter how much power she put into it she never moved any quicker. "Stupid Crystal Clods," she grumbled sourly, "Always destroying my things, making me run all over this mud ball."

She had been doing this for the last few minutes or so, a scowl on her face as she thought of all of the horrible things those clods could be doing to her work at this very moment. She had spent days retrofitting the Galaxy Warp, after the weeks spent warping all over the globe just looking for parts to put it back together. The thought of all of that hard work going to waste created a feeling in the technician that was most unpleasant. 

Peridot continued to grumble an mutter curses under her breath as she flew, her artificial fingers making a buzzing sound the whole while that only seemed to add to the almost constant migraine that had shown up ever since she had first set foot on this mud heap. The migraine had only continued to build upon the discovery of the Crystal Gems and the steven. And then of course there was their "informant", the lapis lazuli, who was virtually no help at all, which was actually more than what could be said about Jasper. In all of her years serving as a kinder-gardener of facet five Peridot had never before in her entire existence encountered a gem as abrasive and rude as Jasper.

When Peridot told the clods that she was coming back with reinforcements, she had meant an entire fleet of Emerald Hands with a veritable army of soldiers. But when she petitioned for the appropriate amount of reinforcements, what she got instead was one ship, an old veteran that should have been shattered on the battlefield eons ago, and an outdated lapis lazuli whose only claim to being useful was her knowledge of earth and her control over the planets supply of liquid hydrogen.

Now, granted even they were perhaps overkill in dealing with the clods, but Peridot even now was still fuming that Jasper had been so. . . so. . . Peridot could not even find the words to describe just how pigheaded the gem had been She truthfully did not understand what could have been so important about the steven that it warranted putting her mission on hold. But due to the ever annoying social ladder that was gem culture, Peridot had to cave in to Jasper's orders and do what she was told.

In all honesty the technician was glad that the old gem had gone down with the ship, if only so she would not have to listen to her constant ordering around. But still she wondered what had become of her escort, but she put it out of her mind for the time being. What mattered now was getting to the Galaxy Warp, see if the clods had left yet, check for damage, and be on her way.

Her less than jovial mood lightened only slightly as the structure finally came into view, starting off as a strangely symmetric plateau on the horizon. And as far as she could tell from this distance everything seemed to still be in place. When she got a little closer however she could see that at least two of the warp pads had been demolished. She did not care in what condition they were in, as she'd had enough forethought to put certain fail safes in place to keep the whole thing from erupting should any of the outer warp pads malfunction. She was reasonably confident that the Galaxy Warp would still work as long as the main pad in the center remained intact.

What concerned Peridot was the mystery of why only those two had been destroyed, but not the others. If the crystal clods really wanted to damage her project, then they would have done more than break two warp pads that were already inoperable. Peridot considered the possibility that the clods had deemed destroying those two was enough to put the whole structure out of commission and left. She chuckled at the thought of them being stupid enough to think that she would be so easily thwarted.

"Heh, dumb clods," she laughed. Her moment of mirth was quickly cut short when Peridot saw something that threw her for a bit of a loop. A very big something. A very big something that had just thrown another very big something. Straight at her.

"Yah!" Peridot screamed as she tried desperately to evade the object as it hurdled towards her. She angled to the left and was just barely able to avoid the object, which she noticed looked rather like two giant purple gauntlets clasped together. Unfortunately even though she had been lucky enough to avoid being hit, the rush of air as it passed by wreaked havoc on her flight pattern, and Peridot was careening out of control, screaming the whole time as her she was unable to correct herself in time before she performed a face plant on the sandy ground.

Peridot groaned and muttered an obscene amount of profanities as she propped herself up onto her knees. She quickly checked to make sure that the gem that was her namesake was undamaged, and breathed a sigh of relief to find that it had not cracked. Her relief was effectively smothered when something impacted on the ground behind her, making the earth tremble. Peridot watched with wide eyes as a massive shadow was cast on the ground all around her. 

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" a loud and arrogant sounding voice said as it echoed across the landscape. "Look who decided to come back and join the party." 

Peridot was now shaking in absolute terror as whatever it was behind her chuckled, although there was hardly any mirth to be heard in the laughter. It was more like the kind of laughter one would hear from someone who believed they were superior to everything else, which Peridot could actually relate to. Slowly and hesitantly she turned her head to see the laughter's owner, and let out a small "Eep!" when saw who, or rather what it was.

Peridot had never seen a gem this big before. It towered above her like a purple monument as it stared down at her. She could not see its lower eyes behind the pair of pointed shades, but the extra eye on its forehead let Peridot know that its attention was focused solely on her. She found its steady and unwavering gaze rather unnerving. It had four massive arms that split at the shoulders, two of which were crossed in front of its chest while the other two rested on its wide hips.

"Aww, I'm sorry. Did I scare you?" the strange gem said with mock concern in her voice as she leaned over Peridot, and the technician could only stutter in reply, such was the intimidation she felt as the strange gem loomed over her. "I'm sorry. I guess that makes us even seein' as how you were gonna wreck the earth, scarin' little Steven. You should know I don't like it when little twerps like you start makin' messes. That's my job around here, and I ain't about to let you move in like you own the joint."

Peridot quirked an eyebrow behind her visor at the gems words. "Wait a minute. You're with those traitors? You're with those lumpy clods?"

Smirking, the unknown gem straightened her posture. "You got it." She flashed a malevolent grin at Peridot, allowing her to see the curved fangs in her mouth. For a moment all the Home-World gem could think about was how utterly screwed she was. There was absolutely no possible way even in her own imagination that she could win against this thing, and they both knew it. Peridot was now shaking and shivering more than ever. Just then she spotted the Galaxy Warp, just a few hundred feet away behind the gem, and hope rekindled inside her. If she could figure out a way to stall this brute, then she could still get out of this without being shattered. 

She hoped so anyway.

Frantically she thought of a topic to keep herself alive for at least a few more seconds.

"B-but we only detected a limited number of un-corrupted gems on this planet. The p-pearl, the amethyst. There was that garnet, but that was a fusion. W-where did you come from?"

The large gem sneered before she swept back a bit of purplish black hair out of her face. "Oh I don't know. Why don't you tell me?" she asked while making an obvious show of displaying the violet gem on her palm. Peridot could not help but also notice another gem on her chest. 

"You're a fusion?" she said with confusion. There was also a hint of revulsion in her voice, which she tried to keep from showing. It would not do to aggravate the fusion any more than she already was.

"Mmh, maybe so," the titan said as she put a thick finger to her chin. "But I'm my own gem, and I'm gonna keep it that way for as long as I can." Peridot watched in despair as the brute summoned her weapon, namely a massive flail that looked like it would make short work of Peridot. "And right now, poundin' you into dust is gonna go a long way towards makin' that happen." The gem hoisted the weapon, letting it dangle just above the ground. "So, any last words outta you?"

Peridot did not answer immediately, but when she did it was accompanied by a smirk of her own. "Yeah," she said. "Eat this you mega clod!" She suddenly yelled as she pointed her right arm at the giant, her fingers having formed into her cannon. For the entire time Peridot was stalling she had been allowing the power of her weapon slowly build up to far greater levels than what she would have able to muster in less time. And she was now pointing all of that stored energy right at the eye on the fusions forehead, using it as a target. 

Peridot opened fire, and the orb of erratic green light shot at high speed towards the gems head. While the projectile did not hit the eye as she wanted, Peridot still felt an immense amount of satisfaction when it struck the gem on the right side of her polarized visor. The fusion had no time to react, and clutched the area where she had been hit her two right hands, dropping the flail to the ground with a crash. 

Peridot wasted no time as she bolted past the monstrosity, the detached fingers of her left arm literally flying into action as they carried her away from the fusion as the brute howled in pain. She felt absolutely pleased with herself, but she did not allow it to cloud her judgment. The fusion would soon recover, and she only had a limited amount of time to get to the Galaxy Warp and fire it up. Angling herself so that she got more speed, Peridot zoomed towards her destination.  

Within seconds Peridot was at the Galaxy Warp, where she dropped to the ground with a grunt. She then immediately rushed over to the main warp pad and came skidding to a stop by its base. The panel was already taken out, most likely by the crystal clods she guessed. Despite their meddling, this allowed her to quickly access the controls located inside, and before long the low hum it was already emitting grew slightly louder as the finishing touches were added.

"Come on come on come on come on come on," she said rapidly, willing the structure to obey her demands. Her frantic pleading was interrupted by a the dull thud of large heavy feet impacting on the ground, accompanied with a deafening shout of, "I'm gonna squash you like a bug!" 

Peridot risked a quick glance, and shrieked in fright when she saw just how enraged the fusion was as she barreled towards the Galaxy Warp. The shades were missing, allowing Peridot to see all five of her eyes, each one filled to the brim with fury. A more frightening sight she had rarely seen, and Peridot could do little more than hope the Galaxy Warp started working before the titanic gem reached her, which was looking very much like a false hope. In light of this, Peridot saw fit to give to foundation of the warp pad a swift kick with her boot.

"Today please! You worthless piece of outdated machinery!" she shouted, growing increasingly irritated with how slowly it seemed to be charging up. This resulted in little more than chipping the base of the pad and sending a shock wave through her boots and into her leg, effectively numbing her limb. 

Peridot clutched her leg in discomfort as she tried to get some feeling back into her appendage. She then noticed out of the corner of her visor how close the fusion was getting to the Galaxy Warp. She yelped in fright and formed her personal cannon again and fired off multiple shots at the rapidly approaching gem. To her dismay the brute swatted away the projectiles like they were insects before she jumped, a feat that Peridot would not have thought possible, and came crashing onto the Galaxy Warp. The ground shook under Peridot's feet, and she was only just able to keep her balance.

"I'm tired of this!" she bellowed as she summoned her weapon again, swinging it over her head to bring it crashing down on Peridot. The technician leaped to the side, and the massive head of the flail missed her by mere inches. 

"Hold still so I can squash you!"

Peridot was more than happy to not oblige as she ran as quickly as she could away from the fusion while screaming her head off. She was halted when the flail landed directly in front of her. Peridot skidded to a halt, knowing that she was cornered. She turned around just in time to see her adversary raise both of her right fists in preparation of smashing her into the ground. just before she was hit Peridot dove between the fusions legs, rolling with the impact before rushing for the main pad. The buildup of power was very near to completion as evidenced by the faint glow it was giving off. All Peridot had to do was stay alive for just a few more seconds, and this whole mess would be put behind her.

I was not to be however as she witnessed the flail come crashing down onto the structure just as Peridot was aout to reach it, shattering it into hundreds of tiny shards. "I don't think so!" she heard the fusion shout.

At that moment, all Peridot could do was watch in horror as all of her work, all of her efforts which had been put into going back to Home-World, be literally shattered right before her eyes. Her mouth hung open, and her left eye began to twitch violently. Her trance was only broken by thudding of the fusion's feet behind her. She whirled around to find her standing over her with narrowed eyes. she slammed her left fists into her right hands while she tilted her head, causing a loud crackle to echo in Peridots ears.

"You ain't gettin' away that easy," she said in a mocking tone. The fusion proceeded to snap her fingers, and another pair of shades flashed into existence which she placed over her eyes. "Now, where were we?"

Peridot could do little more than stutter as she stared up at her doom. It was all hopeless now. She had failed, there was no chance of escape, and she was going to be shattered. 

As Peridot was blubbering like a first year cadet who had just seen her first harvesting, she became aware that even after the warp pad was smashing beyond all recognition, the humming sound never stopped. In fact, it seemed to be growing louder by the second. Confused by this, Peridot turned her head, and was perplexed to see that the ruins of the warp pad were glowing brightly as. . . something happened. Peridot honestly did not know what was going on. Not that she was complaining, but by all rights the Galaxy Warp should not even be working right now after being demolished. 

"What's going on?! What did you do to it?!" Peridot demanded as the glow became increasingly brighter, enough to the point that both gems had to cover their eyes. Neither one of them had an answer as the hum grew louder and the light grew brighter. Peridot not even hear herself think anymore with all of the noise. She only barely registered the fusion shouting at her to turn it off. Strangely, Peridot actually agreed with the clod, but she could not fix it when she did not even know what it was doing.

Eventually the glow became so bright that all Peridot could see was a white haze, before the feeling of being picked up by an unseen force flooded her senses, which was then followed by the sensation of moving at incredibly high speeds to some unknown destination.

After a little while the light produced by the Galaxy Warp faded into nothingness, and the structure was left silent once more, and neither Peridot nor the fusion were anywhere in sight.





"How much longer does this thing keep going?" Twilight questioned, her voice sounding very small in the secret hallway. She trotting through for what she guessed was a good thirty minutes or so, and the unicorn mare had yet to even see the opposite opening.It was almost like no matter how long she trotted forward there was no end to it. A few times Twilight had glanced back to make sure that there was nothing coming up behind her while she was not looking. She did not particulary beelive in things like the boogymare, but the fact remained that this was something created by Sombra. There was no telling what kind of wards he could have put in place to keep ponies from finding the Crystal Heart.

Events had proceeded like this for quite some time now, with only her horn to light her way. The magenta glow of her magic allowed to her to see about ten feet or so in front her, the sights of which mostly contained more hallway for what seemed like eternity.

And Twilight was just about sick of it. 

Groaning in frustration, Twilight abandoned trotting and broke out into a swift gallop. Her hooves clicked on the floor beneath her, causing a headache inducing echo to assault her eardrums as she ran. Twilight ignored it however in favor of focusing on her objective. If she did not find the Crystal Heart in time, then all would be lost. 

So Twilight continued to run, pushing herself farther and farther, knowing that eventually she would find the end to this accursed hall.

Eventually did not come around until another thirty minutes later, and when Twilight finally emerged from the hall and out into large round room, she collapsed onto the floor as she desperately tried to catch her breath, and a small puddle of sweat accumulated underneath her prone form. 

"Note. . . to self," she wheezed between gasps of air, "read more books. . . on proper. . . exercise."

When she had regained enough energy to stand again Twilight Sparkle took to observing the room around with curiosity, wondering what purpose it served. As far as she could tell by the relatively meager light of her horn the room was empty. Why would the dark king have a room like this, only to have nothing insi-

What's that? Twilight though as her eyes, already adjusted to the shadows from countless minutes spent in the hall, spotted something on the floor. At first she had not noticed it, which was actually somewhat ironic since it was so large that she thought it was a part of the floor, but now that she was looking at it Twilight was left slightly confused. It was a large round dais a hundred across that looked to be made out of some sort of crystalline material. It was different than the kind of crystal the buildings of the Crystal Empire was made out of. 

"What is this thing?" Twilight questioned out loud as she stepped onto it. When her hoof met the surface it produced a noticeably different sound than in the hall, almost like the quiet chime of a bell. Storing that bit of information aside for later, Twilight walked on the dais. It was not long before she came across other dais's, though these were much smaller in structure. There appeared to about several of them placed along the outer edge, and all were very similar in appearance with each other. She also that there was another slightly larger dais in the center. Twilight brought her head down to inspect it further, but she could still not glean the purpose, not by just looking.

Was this were Sombra had hidden the Heart? Twilight did not think so, though she could not help but shake the feeling that there was some importance to this structure. 

Despite the feeling Twilight felt that this was not the location of the Crystal Heart, and that she was just wasting her time. She was just about to to turn around and reenter the hall when she noticed rather peculiar. In the very center of the dais, a very faint blue spot of light shone began to glow faintly, appearing as little more than a pinprick of white light. It was plain luck that she had noticed it all in the gloom, considering how dim it was. Curious, Twilight slowly approached, stepping up onto the structure. She peered down suspiciously at the spot of light, wondering if this was Sombra's doing. She did not think so, but the possibility made her cautious nonetheless.

It almost seemed to be waiting for something to happen, like it expected her to perform some sort of action. 

Twilight was hesitant to do anything, but eventually decided that if she wanted to get anywhere in locating the Crystal Heart, then she would just have to play along for the moment. Shrugging, Twilight focused a bit more on her horn, and a stem of magenta magic was sent into the dot of light. It was a strange feeling; whatever the light was, it seemed to take in every drop of magic that she fed it like a drain,  and the glow became progressively brighter each second. 

Finally, after almost a full minute, the feeling ebbed away, and Twilight cut off the stream. She then backed up slightly as she waited for something to happen. A few moments passed with nothing of note occurring, and Twilight started to think that perhaps it was nothing at all. No a second after she thought this than did the entire structure seemed to light up. and Twilight had squint to avoid being blinded. The was then accompanied a faint rumbling sound that alarmed Twilight greatly. She glanced off to the side at the walls, which appeared to be sliding downwards beyond her view. 

That was when Twilight realized that the entire structure she was standing on was going up at a vertical angle towards the distant ceiling.

"What the hay is going on here?!" she screamed as the dais, along with its unwilling passenger, continued to rise upward to an unknown destination.
> The Arrival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Everypony please calm down! I am quite sure that the Crystal Heart will be delivered as soon as it is, uh. . ." Rarity faltered, unsure how to placate the crystal ponies any longer than they already had as the crowd continued to grow around her and the rest of her friends, minus Twilight. She was becoming extremely nervous as small beads of sweat accumulated on her brow before sliding down her pristine white coat. At any other point in time Rarity would have been aghast to have anything mar her beautiful visage, and would have immediately sought out the nearest salon or spa. Given the current situation however, such an action would have been in extremely poor taste, and she would have never heard the end of it from Applejack either. 

Besides, she and her friends had other arguably more important things to worry about. Such as the fact that the crystal ponies unfortunately realized just how close they were to becoming slaves again. It certainly did not help that Cadance's shield spell had finally decided to "kick the bucket" as Pinkie Pie so eloquently put it. Rarity sincerely hoped that the poor dear was alright, as Cadance had already been awake for days on end just keeping the spell going. The fashionista knew that alicorns were made of sterner stuff than the average pony, but it was still practically a miracle that she had been standing at all when they had initially arrived. And Shining Armor had already done as much as he could to keep Sombra at bay, but as he had already said his own magic was ineffective against the dreaded king. The only pony who seemed to have anything that was able to prevent Sombra from just entering the Empire at his leisure was Cadance.

And now their only measure of protection had just fallen, and Rarity could imagine that she heard something else howling in the distance other than the frigid wind. 

Again, Rarity attempted to calm the crystal ponies, now numbering in the dozens. Many were already on the verge of panic as it was as they continued to gather around the wide area underneath the towering palace, and the rest of the group was doing their best to placate them like Rarity was. Their efforts were not helped when a frigid blast of cold wind had reached them from beyond the border of the kingdom.

"Not to worry everypony!" Rarity said in a rather unconvincing tone as she backed up to a large object covered with a blue tarp a short distance away, sitting directly in the middle of the four massive support columns holding up the tower above their heads. "We will unveil the Crystal Heart soon enough. We just need a bit more time for, uh-"

"Fer Cadance!" Applejack said abruptly, noticing her friends floundering. "That's right. We all just need Cadance ta be here and, uh, preside over the ceremony. We can't finish up the fair without the Princess now, can we?"

Despite being interrupted, Rarity was grateful to Applejack for coming up with something to keep the crystal ponies satisfied. But in spite of the farm pony's insistence, none of the crystal ponies seemed willing to wait any longer. They were growing more nervous by the second as they suspected Sombra's return.

"But we need the Crystal Heart now!" said a stallion with a jade green coat. "Without the Heart, we can't protect ourselves."

"Maybe you guys should invest in a better security system then," Pinkie Pie suggested as bounced by with a plate of cookies balancing on her poofy mane. She promptly began dividing them out equally among the crystal ponies. Rarity doubted that confectionery treats would keep them satisfied for long, but she could not begrudge the pink mare for sticking to what she knew. The bigger issue was where she had even obtained the cookies in the first place, and of course how they were going to keep the crystal ponies from figuring out the Crystal Heart in their possession was actually a fake that Twilight had made. At the time none of them knew there was an actual Crystal Heart, but now the stand-in served to give the crystal ponies the hope that they were safe.

It may have been a false hope, at least until Twilight returned with the real Crystal Heart, but it was hope nonetheless, and it was one that Rarity and her friends would keep going as long as-

A deep guttural howl tore across the frigid air of the Crystal Empire, causing everypony to freeze in sheer terror. Rarity herself found that she could no longer move as a deep feeling of absolute dread filled her heart with terror. She felt it was honestly a wonder that the organ itself had not stopped beating. Beside her, each of her friends, even Rainbow Dash, huddled close to each other with wide eyes as they attempted to locate the source of the howl. Fluttershy was in the middle, the only part that could be seen of the butter yellow pegasus being the very top of her pink mane as she tried to conceal herself behind the other ponies. Even Pinkie seemed to deflate a little as she looked all around with wide eyes, softly singing to herself. 

"Crack up at the creepy, guffaw at the ghastly. . ." she sang, and although there was the familiar presence of her normal jovial and care free attitude in it, Rarity detected hints of stuttering fear in her voice as well. There was something about that that made everypony else feel even more nervous. After all, if the most joyful among them was this put off by these events, then there was something truly bad about to happen.

"Uh, what was that?" Rainbow Dash questioned, being the first pony to break the silence. She was no longer in the air anymore, something that Rarity had never seen come from her before in dangerous situations. It was almost like something in the air had reached in to their very hearts and squeezed it dry of anything resembling bravery in everypony.

"Ah think Ah know, but Ah'm nervous Ah'm gonna jinx it," Applejack replied. 

Before anypony could say anything else another howl rang out, chilling their bones to the core with its wailing.

"He's back!" one of the crystal ponies yelled in a frightened tone. "He's come back!"

"We need the Crystal Heart!" another pony exclaimed. Panic had overridden their minds as they heard the voice of the dark king echo through the frigid air, and as one the they started to rush towards the mares in a frenzied attempt to get to what they thought would be their salvation. Rarity knew that there was no way they could hold them back, not without causing even more panic. She quickly darted off to the side to avoid being trampled, and the others did the same. Rainbow Dash found her wings again and took to the air, practically dragging Fluttershy with her.

"Oh! Excuse me! Coming through! Watch the mane! Ugh, has nopony here ever heard of proper decorum?" Rarity exclaimed as ponies ran past her, bumping into her as they went. Before long however they all heard the heard the sound of a pony gasping, and Rarity felt her heart rate increase at the implications of it. 

Her fears were confirmed when the voice of a mare shouted in despairing tone, "This isn't the Crystal Heart!" 

Rarity could only watch while feeling no small amount of awkwardness as she saw the ponies grind to a halt with astonished expressions on their faces. 

"What?!" they all seemed to exclaim at once as they watched the same mare that had alerted them to the deception raise the fake Crystal Heart above her head for all to see, and Rarity felt a grimace cross her muzzle as she looked to see the fruits of their action. The pony, a mare with a lavender coat not unlike Twilight's with a braided mane and tail, held the phony heart above her head for a moment longer before she she threw to the ground, where she stomped on it with a forehoof, breaking into a dozen shards of crystal. With an angry scowl on her muzzle she sighted Rainbow Dash hovering above and began to shout at her.

"You! What have you done with the Crystal Heart?!" she demanded. 

"Us? What did we do?" Rainbow shot back. "We've been trying to keep you guys happy until-"

Rainbow was cut off when the mare shouted, "You said you had the Crystal Heart! You told us you had found it, but it's not here! Where is it?!"

At this, Rainbow Dash chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. "Uh yeah, we can explain," she said. 

"No need!" the mare said suddenly. "I know exactly what you lot are up to. I know who you are! You're spies for Sombra!"

Everypony that heard the accusation gasped in shock, and Rarity noticed that she suddenly had a bit more personal space as everypony within ten feet hurried away from her, not once taking their eyes off of her. Under normal circumstances Rarity would not have minded being the center of attention, but in this instance it was undesired. 

"Now hold on just a minute!" Applejack exclaimed as she trotted into view to confront the mare. "I get that yer all upset, and we're mighty sorry for trickin' ya, but yer all bein' unreasonable and-"

"Unreasonable?!" shouted the mare again, getting right up in Applejack's orange muzzle. "Unreasonable?! You six come here and start asking around for information on how to protect the Empire, one of you goes missing, the shield that your precious princess puts up suddenly fails, and now we're all about to be enslaved again after you promised us salvation, and you think we're being unreasonable?!"

Before anypony could say anything else, yet another howl rang out, echoing through the crystalline buildings and filling their ears with a terrible roar that made some of the ponies fall to the ground as they clutched their heads between their hooves in pain. Just then a pony pointed at something overhead.

"Look!" he shouted fearfully, and everypony did what he said as they all turned to see an ominous black cloud of darkness appear over the roofs of the buildings, rapidly growing larger and larger until it seemed that it had consumed the sky itself. And in their murky depths they saw two piercing orbs of green with bloody red dots in the middle. Rarity began to feel herself tremble in fright as she looked at them, knowing that she had seen them before when they first arrived at the Crystal Empire. She knew that she was looking at the eyes of the dark king himself.

She was looking at the eyes of king Sombra.





"How big is this castle!" Spike shouted as he jogged as quickly as he could through the halls of the Crystal Palace, wishing that he had a map or a brochure or something that could help him find his way out. He had seen the predicament his pony friends were in when he glanced out of a window a little while earlier about half an hour after he had been sent to find Twilight, and he would be lying if he said he was not more than a little nervous. That was a little while ago, when the crystal ponies were still somewhat content and happy. Looking outside now, Spike found that he was on the verge of panic at the terrible sight outside.

Even from up here he could plainly see the crystal ponies as they suddenly turned on his friends. He could not hear everything that was said, but he caught the gist of what they were saying. 

And then, things took a turn for the worse when he spotted a huge black shadow looming in the distance, and Spike instantly knew what was going to happen if they did Twilight did not come back with the Crystal Heart right now.

"Twilight!" Spike yelled as he ran past doorways and corridors, looking for any sign of the lavender unicorn. But it seemed that no matter where he looked or how loudly he yelled, he could not find Twilight anywhere. He looked everywhere that he could remember; the royal archives, the royal library, the private library, but came up empty. He even checked the throne room, but nothing there looked out of place. It was as though Twilight Sparkle had simply vanished, and Spike was beginning to fear the worst.

He wondered if maybe she had somehow gotten stuck in Sombra's traps, or if the dark king had seen fit to deal with her himself.

Spike shuddered at the thought, and desperately hoped his closest friend was alright.

"Twilight, where are you?! We need you out there! Twilight!" he called repeatedly, but still the young drake got no response. He was about to call out again when suddenly a deep rumble interrupted him. It was not the kind that meant an earthquake was approaching, or one that meant the tower was coming down. Spike honestly did not know what it was.

It was like a slow steady vibration was spreading throughout the palace, and Spike felt his feet becoming numb from it. Even stranger, it seemed to be growing in intensity as well, like the whole tower was starting to shake. And an odd hum accompanied it as well, and Spike was reminded of all of the times he had witnessed Twilight perform an experiment in magic.

Something was happening, or was about to happen, and Spike knew that he had to find Twilight as soon as possible. With renewed purpose, Spike took off as quickly as his short legs could carry him, calling Twilight's name as he went.





Everypony was galloping as quickly as they could away from the pitch black cloud that was king Sombra in all of his terrifying glory. Whenever a pony glanced at him they would feel as though their very hearts were being clutched by a vice. His ominous appearance filled them such utter terror and despair from the enchantment as his foul presence continued to seep into the Empire like an eldritch fog.

The five mares could do little more than watch the king approach, as jagged black crystals sprang up from the ground in front of him, tearing apart homes destroying everything they encountered. And amid all the chaos, they could hear the ancient king speaking in a foul language none of them understood. 

The king laughed in a deep voice, the echo making it sound as though he were in a tunnel. The way he spoke made everypony that heard him sink deeper and deeper in despair. It was as though there was sort of foul enchantment in his voice hat caused everypony's heart to skip a beat in fear of him.

"Shut up you big jerk!" Rainbow shouted at the king at the top of her lungs, being one of the rare few examples that did not seem to be as affected by the dark language. Sharing in this apparent immunity to the curse were the rest of the Mane Six as they huddled close together. It seemed that role as the bearers of the Elements of Harmony meant they were unaffected by the enchantment. But that did not stop them from shaking in fear as the king continued to draw closer, and despite the bravado in her voice Rainbow was just as afraid as anypony else as Sombra spoke. 

"What are we going to do girls?!" Rarity exclaimed, hoping that one of them had an answer to the quandary they found themselves in. For a moment none of them spoke as they frantically thought of what to do, until Applejack's ears suddenly perked up as she looked at the rest of the mares. 

"Here's what we're gonna do," she stated, and everypony present turned to listen intently. "Rarity, Ah need ya ta go 'round and gather every one of the crystal ponies, and get 'em inside ta safety."Rarity hesitated, but only for the briefest of moments as she quickly nodded her head and took off at a swift gallop. Applejack then turned to Fluttershy. The timid pegasus was cowering in fear behind Rainbow as Applejack addressed her. "Fluttershy, go inside and find Spike. Once ya find him, help him look fer Twilight, then get to Cadance and Shining Armor. "Fluttershy nodded meekly before quickly hurrying away to find an entrance to the Crystal Palace. That left Applejack, Rainbow and Pinkie by themselves. "Now," Applejack said with a sense of finality in her voice. "That just leaves us."

"Uh, I'm almost afraid to ask," Rainbow piped up, "but what are we to do? I can't imagine we would be much help in this situation other than doing what Rarity and Fluttershy are already doing." 

Applejack fixed Rarity with a mischievous grin that Rainbow was not quite sure that she liked coming from the farm pony. Pinkie Pie was another matter entirely, as she grinned right along with Applejack, like she already knew what was going on underneath the farm pony's stetson hat. Rainbow chose to ignore it however in favor of trying to figure out what Applejack was planning.

"Applejack? Why are you smiling like that? You're kinda giving me the creeps," Rainbow said with a forced smile. Applejack's own smile however only seemed to grow more mischievous, and she began to chuckle lightly. 

"Ah can't believe that Ah'm about ta say this," she said, "but Ah'm not sure what Ah'm plannin' really. All Ah know is that it's plum crazy and liable ta get us killed."

Rainbow was certain she did not like the sound of that. Pinkie's smile never faded, though there was a look in her eyes that said she was suddenly beginning to second guess going along with it. Rainbow was starting to become impatient with the way Applejack was speaking, and wanted to know just what the farm pony had was thinking of. 

"Well, do mind filling us in? Come on, don't leave us in the dark," she demanded. Applejack's chuckling died down to where she was speaking normally again, or about as normal as a pony like her could speak.

"Ah mean ta distract that big ruttin' son of a gun, and give everypony else time ta hide and escape before he can get to 'em."

Rainbow could not have been more flabbergasted if Applejack had told her she had suddenly decided to start wearing makeup on a regular basis. She simply could not believe what she had just heard. Was Applejack really suggesting that they put their very lives at risk in trying to distract such a fearsome entity, all only to buy everypony else a few extra seconds of freedom before Sombra reached them? It was a crazy and stupid idea that was liable to get them all killed. . . and Rainbow, daredevil that she was, liked it.

Sure it was insane, but Rainbow liked insane. And besides, if it meant buying extra time, even if it did turn out to be only a few minutes, Rainbow felt it would be worth it if it meant her friends potential survival.

Fixing Applejack with a determined expression, Rainbow simply nodded and replied, "Alright AJ. You got me. I'm with you all the way." Turning to the only pony among who had yet to say anything, strange as that was, Rainbow asked Pinkie Pie, "What about you Pinkie? Are you with us?" 

The pink mare put a hoof to her chin in thought. "Hmmm, I don't know," she said. "I mean the Cakes are probably gonna miss me at Sugar Cube Corner, and I'm pretty sure I left the water running at home." Pinkie considered the question for another moment, until she then said with much more enthusiasm than the situation probably called for, "Okay! Lets do it! So what's the plan AJ?"

Smirking again, Applejack simply said, "Annoy the crud outta that overgrown smokestack."

"Ooh, I can definitely do that!" Pinkie exclaimed excitedly. Despite the peril they were about to face, both Rainbow and Applejack could not help but give a light chuckle at the friends antics. Before anymore could be said, they were interrupted by the sound of a crystalline housing being torn to bits as Sombra's own dark gems took hold. 

"Alright then," said Applejack, losing the confident grin and replacing it with a stern scowl directed at the king. "Lets get this over with." With that she began to trot directly towards Sombra, a determined expression on her face as she broke into a full gallop. There was no more fear in her heart of the dark king, only the determination to see her friends live another day. On either side of her Rainbow and Pinkie were keeping pace with similar looks on their muzzles, although Pinkie's was something of a mix between an angry growl and joyful grin. In any other situation, Applejack and Rainbow would have found it unnerving, but in this case it seemed to fit.

But just as they were about to go over a plan of attack a deep rumbling sound made them come to a stop. It was like the whole ground was shaking for no apparent reason. Even Sombra seemed caught off guard by the disturbance, as he peered suspiciously at his surroundings in an attempt to locate the source of it.

"What the hay?! What's going on?!" Rainbow shouted as the rumbling continued to increase, and they noticed it was accompanied by a low hum that built in intensity until it seemed like whole world had suddenly gone fuzzy.

"I-I-I do-o-o-on't kno-o-o-w bu-u-u-t i-i-i-t's fu-u-u-n!" Pinkie said with glee, her high pitched voice distorted by the vibrations.

Before anypony could offer any theories on what was causing the disturbance, a loud cracking sound drew their attention to large round plaza a short distance away, before the whole thing suddenly sank down. Then, to their confusion, it lit up in an almost blinding flash of light, causing everypony to cover their eyes until it faded. When they felt it was safe to look again without risking their sight, all three ponies were surprised to see that the entire plaza had just disappeared, leaving in its place deep cavernous pit. 

They then saw something coming upwards out of the depths. Thinking it was one of Sombra's foul devices they stooped down into a combat stance as they prepared themselves to fight whatever the dark king had planned for them. But instead of a weapon or monster or some other foul instrument of their destruction, what they saw instead was a massive round platform that took up almost the entire perimeter of where the plaza had once been. It was crystalline in appearance, with at least several smaller round platforms placed around its perimeter. There was also a very familiar lavender pony standing on it as well.

"Twilight!" Pinkie shouted with barely constrained exuberance as she practically leaped the distance to meet their until now missing friend. Twilight Sparkle had absolutely no time to prepare herself for the impact, as she was still recovering from whatever ordeal she had just been through, and could nothing to stop the pink mare from plowing into her and giving her a neck crushing hug.

"Ack! Pinkie! Can't. . . breathe!" Twilight wheezed through the embrace. Despite this Pinkie continued to hug her until Rainbow and Applejack approached them. When she was free Twilight sucked in great breaths to make up for the lack of oxygen. 

"There ya are Twi! Where have ya been? We've been worried sick about ya!" Applejack said while Rainbow nodded in agreement. Twilight took an extra moment to catch her breath before sh addressed them.

"Sorry girls," she apologized. "But I've been having a little trouble. I haven't found the Crystal Heart yet though. I just hope that nothing bad has happened while I. . . was. . ." Twilight faltered when she saw the huge smoky form of Sombra looming overhead like a storm front. He growled and snarled in an otherworldly voice that filled her every thought with visions of dread and terror. 

"Yeah, you missed a bunch. Want me to fill you in?" Rainbow said.

Twilight shook her head and replied, "No, I think I can guess pretty accurately what happened here."

Looking down at the large platform they were standing on, Pinkie asked, "What did you find Twilight? Some sort of flat disco ball? Cause that's what it looks like to me anyway."

Twilight was snapped out of her wide eyed trance as she turned to address the pink mare, who was currently inspecting the surface of the large dais. Even though it appeared to have been polished to a perfectly smooth sheen, it had a faceted design not unlike a gem. "I don't know," she admitted. "I just found this thing while I was looking for the Crystal Heart. All I did was feed it a little bit of magic, it started shaking, and the next thing I know I'm getting strangled." 

Twilight put a hoof to her chin, contemplating theories on what the structure might be for, when her thoughts were interrupted by Sombra's howls of rage and vengeance as he tore apart the Crystal Empire. Crystal ponies fled before him, and Twilight thought she could hear Rarity's voice as she directed them to safety.

"Can we talk about this later? 'Cause right now we gotta stall this guy for everypony to get somewhere safe." Rainbow Dash suggested. 

"But where can they go?" Twilight asked. "There's nowhere in the Empire that they can stay away from him for long. And it's too risky to make a run for the train."

"Well What do ya suggest we do then Twi?!" Applejack demanded, growing uncharacteristically aggressive towards the the unicorn. "'Cause right now that's all we got until we think of somethin' else! If you have any better ideas, Ah would love ta hear 'em." 

Applejack waited for a moment for Twilight to come up with an answer, but the unicorn could not come up with anything. Without the Crystal Heart, they were virtually defenseless against Sombra, and without the crystal ponies to power it, it was useless to them anyway even if they had it. Twilight realized, right then and there, that there was no more hope left for them. There was no way they could succeed now. 

Twilight stuttered, unable to give any sort of rebuttal to Applejack, and she sat on her haunches as her gaze drifted off into the distance.

"I. . . I don't. . ." she said, before she clenched her eyes shut and let her head sag to the surface of the dais. Pinkie was about to offer a consoling hug to the unicorn, when Twilight's head suddenly shot up. She opened her eyes, and all three ponies were taken by surprise when they saw that had shifted from their normal violet coloration to that of a familiar acidic green.

"No," Twilight said as she narrowed her eyes and bared her teeth. Her friends, unsure what was going on, instinctively backed away from her.

"Uh, Twi? Are you alright?" Rainbow asked in a concerned voice. "'Cause you don't look alright to me."

Twilight seemed to ignore them however as she slowly stood up again, with all of her attention focused solely on Sombra.

"No," she said again, and this time there was a hint of a deep throaty growl in the word. "I cannot allow it. I will not allow it," Twilight whispered as her horn lit up, though it was not the comforting magenta that her friends were familiar with. Instead, it was a dark gray, almost black as sparks of bright green flared around it. She then began to stalk towards the dark king with her shoulders hunched in an almost predatory stance. Despite their concern, everypony felt the need to move out of her path as she walked past them.

"This is not how it is supposed to be," Twilight hissed through clenched teeth. "We were not supposed to fail. I was not supposed to fail!" 

Twilight was shouting now, and her friends concern for her finally outgrew their intimidation as they began to rush towards her, intending to hold her down long enough for her to snap out of whatever trance she was in. The moment they lunged toward her however they were surprised to find that they were being repelled by some sort of shield she had conjured up around herself. 

"What the hay?! Twilight what are doing?!" Rainbow demanded as she rubbed her now sore nose with a wing. Aplejack was similarly affected while Pinkie remained plastered against the surface of the shield like a sticker. Twilight continued to ignore their shouts however as she continued to stalk towards the king, a venomous scowl on her face and murder in her eyes. It was something that none of her friends had seen before, and it was making them afraid.

Then abruptly, Twilight came to a stop, and her friends though they had finally gotten through to her. That hope was immediately dashed when she reared up onto her back legs before bringing her front hooves down to the ground, cracking the pavement.

"SOMBRA!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, her voice laced with unmistakable rage. 

The shout carried out across the Empire, causing everypony to stop what they were doing and look to see what was going on. Even the subject of her wrath had paused in his destruction before his shadowy form turned to see who would be so impudent as to speak to him this way. When his smoldering eyes spotted the source of the shout, he narrowed them at the little purple unicorn. 

Twilight returned the glare with one of her own, not once wavering under Sombra's gaze. 

Her friends could only look on with a mixture of surprise and terror at what was happening to their friend, and what was probably going to happen if they did not snap her out of whatever was going on with her. Before they could say anything, Pinkie Pie's entire body suddenly began to shiver erratically, as though she and suddenly been hit with a severe case of the shivers. 

Applejack and Rainbow noticed the action, and they glanced at each other with worried understanding.

"Whoa! Okay, that was something!" Pinkie exclaimed as she checked herself over. 

"Uh, Pinkie? was that your. . . you know, your Pinkie Sense acting up just now?" Rainbow questioned, hoping sincerely she was wrong.

Before Pinkie could do so much as raise a hoof to reply, she was cut off when another deep rumble shook the earth beneath their hooves. Then all at once the every one of the platforms on the dais suddenly lit up in a blinding white light. The flash they emitted reached up towards the heavens above before stopping at a single point a hundred feet in the air. There the light seemed to gather and collect until, just as quickly as it had started, it stopped.

Rainbow opened her mouth to speak. "Uh, Wha-"

But that was as far she got before a deafening explosion ripped through the sky.
> A New Locale
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Peridot had absolutely no idea what was going on as the sensation of her falling continued to pervade every single one of her senses. What made it even stranger was that it did not necessarily feel like she were falling in any particular direction. Whether she was falling down, up, sideways, or even inward was completely up for debate. This was most definitely not how the Galaxy Warp was supposed to work at all, and for what was likely not going to be the last time Peridot cursed the name of that grotesque fusion, whatever that happened to be. She could not do it for long however, which was a shame as she had just thought of a few more names to call it other than clod, as another wave of distorted feelings flooded through her body. 

Now, Peridot knew that her body was no more and no less than a projection from the triangular gem on her forehead, a hard-light body necessary for completing tasks. In fact, as long as her gemstone was safe it would not matter in the slightest what happened to her physical form. Unfortunately that did not mean it was not an uncomfortable journey, and as such she had been reduced to screaming her head off as she continued to hurdle through the no doubt unstable warp stream towards some unknown destination. To be completely honest the chances that the semi-repaired Galaxy Warp would get her off of the planet were dubious at best. The fact that the mega clod had interfered in the process likely did absolutely nothing to improve those chances. As such, she would be stupidly, insanely lucky if she somehow did not disintegrate in the middle of her trip to wherever she was going. 

Thankfully it seemed that she would not have to endure the trip for much longer, for just then suddenly everything seemed to abruptly slow down and stabilize enough for Peridot to tell that she was not being thrown in an unidentifiable direction anymore, but rather in a fixed one now. 

The fact that this new direction just so happened to feel like down was not lost on her. The change in trajectory was also accompanied by an extremely loud booming sound, much like those instances when Peridot had to take cover under the branches of those overgrown weeds when dihydrogen monoxide began to plummet from the sky. That time proved to a mistake on her part when a current of electricity nearly fried her gem, but that was besides the point. Right now Peridot was more focused on other more urgent things, such as screaming for all she was worth as she suddenly gained speed again as gravity retook its greedy hold on her. 

The blinding whites and blues of the warp stream gradually faded, letting Peridot see that she was no more than a few hundred above the ground of wherever she had been dumped at. She initially noticed that there was also a lot of blue here as well, with the occasional splotch of red, both of which were tinted green by her visor. She did not know what either one of those were just yet, but that would have to be addressed later.

"Yaaaaaaaaaagh!" Peridot screamed, flailing her limbs before she quickly remembered she had something to prevent her untimely demise. After all, she had just survived a trip through an unstable warp stream. It would not do to be done in by a simple face-plant on the ground. 

Acting quickly, Peridot frantically brought her free floating fingers of her right arm above her head as they whirred into action. She tucked in her legs and clenched her eyes just in case this did not turn out to be enough. Her fall was slowing considerably, but it was still unknown if her landing would be any harder than was preferable. 

For a few long moments Peridot kept her eyes closed and her arm around her legs, until she felt it was safe enough to open one eye. Glancing downward, she found that she had stopped just in time, her rear just inches above the flat surface of the pristine looking ground. Peridot glanced around before letting a nervous chuckle escape her lips, glad that there were no other gems present to see her strained laughter. Still chuckling, Peridot let the bottoms of her boots touch the the surface, thankful to be on steady ground once more.
And not only that, but that abomination of a fusion was also nowhere in sight, at least for the moment, and Peridot breathed a great sigh of relief. She was finally away from that monster, with nothing to. . . to. . . 

"Oh my Diamond," Peridot breathed as she looked around at her surroundings. She was standing on some sort of structure very similar in appearance to the Galaxy Warp, the differences being that it was in much better condition. In addition there were no spires ringing the edges. But as impressive as this apparent Galaxy Warp was, what really took Peridot's breath was the collection of structures around it. Initially she thought that the warp had somehow worked and that she had succeeded in returning to Home World, but that notion was discarded as she looked at them. Many of the buildings, while possessing a faceted appearance typical of most gem made structures, were hardly uniform like the ones back on Home World. 

But the real eye catcher was the massive, shining, crystalline tower of the absolute purest white she had ever seen standing some distance away, reaching up toward the heavens. The way it shone and reflected the light of the planets sun made it an awe inspiring sight to behold for any that happened to be looking at it, and for a moment Peridot forgot herself as she stood there, taking in the view.

"Where am I?" she wondered aloud, genuinely curious about this place. Had she somehow been transported to some sort of gem settlement? It was the only explanation that she could think of, as nowhere else in the entire known galaxy had she seen or heard of anything like this that was not gem made. Maybe she-

A deep growl interrupted her thoughts, causing Peridot's eyes to widen in fright as she slowly turned around, expecting the fusion to be standing right behind her. What she found instead was almost as frightening for the technician. 

Off in the distance, a huge shadowy being of darkness loomed over crystalline buildings, with acidic green and red eyes leaking what appeared to be purple smoke. She did not fail to notice the wickedly sharp crimson colored horn located above the eyes either. Peridot was shaking with fright at the mere sight of it, and she knew she needed to get away from the thing as quickly as possible. It did not appear to have noticed her, as its attention seemed to be focused somewhere else at the moment, but she did not want to stick around long enough for it to-

"Hi!" a high pitched voice said, breaking her train of thought.

Peridot yelped in fright and whirled around, attempting to identify the source of the voice. She formed her cannon with the fingers of her right arm, ready to blast whatever had snuck up behind her into dust. But when she turned around, all she found was a small pink. . . thing, a little above waste height, just staring at her with disproportionately large blue eyes a few feet away from her. And it seemed to be smiling at her for some odd reason that the technician could not guess. Peridot had absolutely no idea what the pink thing was, as she had never bothered to educate herself on the indigenous wildlife of any planet she had been on. The closest comparison she could make were those equine creatures back on earth, but as far as she knew none of them came in such a blindingly bright shade of pink.

Whatever the pink creature was, Peridot highly doubted that it was what spoke to her. She noticed that on both of the creatures flanks was a strange brand consisting of three rounded objects that were blue and yellow in coloration. The brand told her that it was probably domesticated, which meant that an owner was likely not far away. But presently Peridot could see nothing else except for the creature, so where was-

"Are you gonna say 'hi' back?" the pink creature questioned, eliciting another surprised yelp from the gem as she once brought her cannon to bear on it.

"Oh! Is that how you say 'hi'? That's a weird way to do it," it said, not once losing the overly wide grin plastered on its pink muzzle. It then shrugged and added, "But hey, I'm not one to judge anypony's method of greeting', so 'Yaaagh!' to you too!" The pink creature, apparently female judging by the tone and pitch of its voice, then proceeded to walk a few steps toward Peridot, making her back away a little bit, before she came to a stop. Not once did Peridot take her eyes off of her or lower her weapon. "So what's your name?" she asked. Peridot did not respond, still keeping her weapon trained on the creature, although she was slowly starting to get the feeling that this pink thing did not intend to attack her. At least not yet. 

Noticing her silence, it. . . she, then said slowly as though she were speaking to a newly emerged gem, with much enunciating and gesturing with her forelegs, "Me Pinkie Pie. Me pony. You?"

Slowly, the gem lowered her weapon, although an incredulous expression remained on her face at the "pony's" antics as she answered back, "Uh, Peridot."

Thrusting her hoof forward, the pinkie pie said with a little too much enthusiasm given what was happening in the distance, "Nice to meet you Peridot! Welcome to the Equestria! Or more specifically, the Crystal Empire! Normally I would break out my party wagon to give you a proper welcome, but unfortunately I left it back in Ponyville. Also, don't mind the eldritch demon unicorn king trying take over too much, this place is actually pretty sweet when you've had a look around."

". . . What?"

Before another word could be said from either party, Peridot heard another voice, this one with an odd accent not unlike some humans on earth, call out in alarm, "Pinkie! What in tarnation are ya doin'?! You don't know what that is!" Peridot looked to see another creature, similar in body shape to the pinkie pie but orange in coloration and sporting some sort of head gear, galloping towards them. Alongside this was yet another creature, except it was a shade of blue with a polychromatic mane and tail. What Peridot found even stranger was the pair of disproportionate wings keeping it in the air.

"Sure I know who it is!" the pinkie pie answered as the other two came to a stop beside her. "This is Peridot. Say 'hi' Peridot"

Peridot, unsure what else to do other than do as she was told, hesitantly heeded the pinkie pies request and said, "Eh, hello there. . . you."

For a few long moments nothing else was said as both party stared awkwardly at each other. Peridot fidgeted nervously under the gazes of the orange and blue creatures, but for some reason she found the almost manic grin of the pinkie pie to be the most disconcerting of the three. Likewise the creatures, minus the pinkie pie, seemed to be somewhat flummoxed with her, as though they had no idea what she even was. It was like they had never even seen a peridot before. Then hesitantly the orange said, "What are ya? Ah ain't never seen anythin' like ya before."

Peridot raised one free floating finger to answer, but was cut off when the multicolored one, apparently having grown tired with the lull in activity, suddenly threw its forelimbs in the air and exclaimed, "Ugh! We don't time for this! Twilight's teleported somewhere, and we need to go find her and make sure she doesn't get herself killed! We can deal with Perry-What's-Her-Face later." After saying this the blue creature flew off faster than Peridot would have thought anything with a wingspan like that could go, leaving a multicolored streak in its wake.

"Rainbow! Get back here!" the orange creature called after. But it seemed that her plea fell on deaf ears as the rainbow did nothing of the sort, instead flying straight towards the giant shadow monster. Peridot noticed that there seemed to be beams of violet light shooting up at it. Sighing heavily, the orange one turned back towards Peridot and said, " listen Perry, Ah don' know who ya are or why yer here, but right now Ah got bigger problems ta deal with, so if ya could kindly wait here Ah would appreciate it very much."

Peridot opened her mouth to speak, wanting to make it very clear that she had no intention of following the orders of any organic life form, but was cut off when it added towards the pinkie pie, "Stay with her Pinkie. Make sure she don't go nowhere." With that, she galloped off, presumably to get her polychromatic companion back, leaving the gem in a stunned silence as the pinkie sidled up beside her.

"So," she said perkily. "Want to play tick-tack-toe? I promise to go easy on you."

Peridot merely glared at the pinkie pie out of the corner of her visor, wondering if would even be worth the effort to explain exactly why she had no interest in being anywhere near her, before she brought up her arm over her head. Her artificial fingers began to spin rapidly until she achieved liftoff, aiming for the tower in the distance and leaving the pinkie pie alone on the ground.



 

"Hey! Where are you going?! I'm supposed to keep an eye on you!" Pinkie exclaimed as she watched the weird person fly away and out of sight, receiving no answer to her question as she tried to keep up with the green person. "Awww," she moaned sadly as she realized it was a pointless effort and sat down on her haunches at the edge of the large dais. "And I had so many questions for her too. Like what she was, where she came from, what those weird floaty thingies were, and what her favorite color was. And who's going to play tick-tack-toe with me now?" Letting her head droop a little, Pinkie sighed heavily at the fact that not only had Twilight ran off on her own to fight Sombra, but now a potential new friend had also gone away. No matter which way she spun it, this day was turning out to be a real bummer.

Pinkie's sadness was interrupted when suddenly her whole body shuddered mightily. 

"Whoa!" she said, surprised. "Looks like another doozy is coming." Pinkie's prediction proved to be correct as the structure she was sitting on suddenly began to light up again just like before the green person showed up, and Pinkie promptly backed away a few steps so as to avoid having something land on her. 

"I wonder what's going to come this time," she wondered, putting a hoof to her chin in thought. "Maybe another green person like Peridot? I hope so, 'cause Peridot doesn't seem like she wants to hang out. Maybe this one will be more friendly!"

No a moment after Pinkie finished her sentence than did another loud boom similar to that of thunder ring out across the city, although truthfully it was hardly discernible from the destruction Sombra, and possibly Twilight, were causing in the distance. A flash of blinding white light followed, and Pinkie shielded her eyes. When the light and noise eventually faded Pinkie looked up to see what was going to fall this time. 

The first thing that she noticed was that this object seemed to be bigger than Peridot. Much bigger in fact. But at the moment that was all Pinkie could make out, as the newest arrival was doing an awful lot of thrashing around and yelling before it eventually impacted on the hard surface, throwing up a cloud of shattered debris. Pinkie coughed and waved a hoof in front of her face to dispel of the dust. Afterward she squinted at the new arrival, still unable to see who or whatever it was through the dust, although she took note of the groan of pain emanating from the newly made crater.

"Hey, you!" she called. "Are you alright?" 

She was answered by the sound of a million tiny bits of crystal material cracking and shattering as whatever it was began to move. Not long after a series of extremely heavy sounding footsteps echoed in Pinkie's ears, and each step seemed to shake the earth beneath her hooves, causing her to become slightly airborne with each impact.

Soon, the owner of the footsteps emerged from the cloud, and Pinkie found herself looking up and up and up at an utterly massive four armed purple titan with a huge mane of black hair and a rather stylish pair of shades that Pinkie knew a certain DJ friend of hers would likely be envious of. The titan glanced around before its sight eventually settled on the pink pony standing in front of it, barely coming up to its thick ankles, allowing her to see the single eye on its forehead. Whether or not more were hidden behind the shades, Pinkie presently could not tell.

Completely unfazed by the creatures intimidating presence, Pinkie Pie simply smiled, waved, and shouted upwards, "Hi! Oh, wait, I mean Yaaagh! What's your name?"
> Poisoned Thoughts And Peridots
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	All that Twilight Sparkle knew at that moment was rage, a deep seated hatred directed at the dark king and everything that he stood for, all that he had done and all that he would do if he was victorious. Never before had she felt such loathing towards anything in her life, and at any other point in time that might have frightened her. Right now however, the only thing Twilight cared about was destroying Sombra and all that he had created with extreme prejudice. 

Simply doing away with him alone was not enough. Once he was gone Twilight knew she would have to scour the entirety of the Crystal Empire to purge it of every last shred of his influence, no matter what, or who, it happened to be. It was the only way to be certain, she was sure of that fact. It was simply too great of a risk to hope that the crystal ponies had not fallen under his dark spell. 

That bridge would have to be crossed at a later date however, as Twilight was simply far too busy with a more pressing concern, that being the destruction of Sombra himself. Unfortunately, it seemed that most of her attacks, be they magic blasts capable of demolishing a brick wall or hurling huge clumps crystalline debris at the king, were highly ineffective against him. The solid projectiles simply phased through his incorporeal body, but Twilight had noticed even through her anger clouded mind that he seemed to make a point to dodge the attack spells, prompting her to rely on those more. If only she could get a hit off on him.

"Hold still!" Twilight shouted as she loosed another beam of magic upwards at cloud of shadows, aiming for the pair of eyes peering at her through the darkness. Sombra simply avoided the attack as though it were no more troublesome than pieces of straw being thrown at him, angering Twilight even further. Though she could not see, the streams of purple smoke coming from her eyes had become more intense in accordance with her anger, and her once gentle violet eyes were now little more than furious orbs of red and green. Her mind was also becoming more clouded by the fury she felt towards the king, but she did care. All she wanted more than anything was to make him suffer for his crimes. She would not be held responsible if he was victorious.

She would not fail.

Just then she noticed that Sombra's blood red horn started to glow, and soon after great shards of blackened crystal began to erupt from the ground before her, most likely in an effort to impale her. She would not allow that happen. Yelling at the top of her lungs, Twilight's horn glowed a sickening green with black sparks as a small circle of cracks appeared on the crystal pavement around her. Grunting from the effort, Twilight lifted the slab into the air with her standing on it, avoiding the crystals just as they turned the area she was standing in into a thicket of razor sharp edges. Thankfully she able to keep her balance on the jagged platform with some effort as it rose higher into the air until it was level with the head of her enemy. The kings horn glowed again, and long spears shot out of the ground, seeking after her. Maneuvering the platform , Twilight was able to narrowly avoid each one as she began to circle around the huge shadowy form of Sombra. Acting quickly she let loose a few shots of magic from her horn at him, but to her continued frustration he was still able to avoid them.

Twilight snarled, having just about had enough of playing around. She was letting her anger cloud her thoughts, but still she did not take heed of it, so focused was she on her hatred of Sombra. 

Just then she had an idea. Straining from the effort, Twilight focused her enraged mind as she lifted a pair of blocks left over from a destroyed housing. Twilight's horn felt like it was burning with how much she was multitasking. She knew that she had only been fighting Sombra for a few minutes, yet each minute felt like a small eternity, and the effects had begun to show. Her limbs were trembling, and her breathing was labored from her exertions, yet still she continued, driven onward by her anger and unwillingness to fail Celestia's test.

With her horn glowing, Twilight panted for breath as she infused the blocks with a considerable amount of energy, before she flung them at Sombra with all her might, shrieking as she did. And just as she predicted the king did nothing to avoid the projectiles, knowing that solid objects posed him no threat at all. In fact Twilight was getting the impression that he was grinning at her by the way his eyes were narrowed. The supposed smirk quickly vanished when the projectiles made contact, violently erupting against the wall of black smoke. 

Sombra howled angrily, a horrific sound that chilled the blood in Twilight's bones, and the lavender unicorn began to feel as though she had made a mistake. Her hateful expression faltered slightly as the dark king recovered and fixed his smoldering gaze upon her. And from those piercing green and red orbs Twilight could practically feel the hatred he possessed for her coming off in waves. And then, a loud roar tore through the frigid air as the shadows advanced on her, reaching up towards her like claws intent on skewering her. Twilight shook off the feeling in her mind and maneuvered her improvised transport away from them, scowling as she did. 

Unfortunately it seemed that Sombra had grown tired of their melee as more and more tendrils of darkness shot towards her, and it was all Twilight could do to keep out of their reach as she kept her gaze fixed on them.

Unfortunately she failed to notice the pillar of dark crystal begin to sprout up directly in her path, and too late did she she attempt to swerve to the side to avoid it. The most she could do was angle the platform of crystal she standing on so that it took the brunt of the impact instead of her. 

With a resounding crash, the platform impacted on the pillar, and Twilight was sent tumbling downward. She tried to focus and orient herself to perform a teleportation spell, but she was already so exhausted that it seemed as though her magic might fail at any given moment. Still she fought through her discomfort and her horn began to glow, sputtering a little from overuse. But just as she was about to perform the spell and warp herself to stable ground, Twilight felt something close in around her. It was almost like a blanket, but there was nothing comforting about it in the slightest. In fact, it seemed to be smothering her, forcing her to gasp for each breath as a feeling similar to that of a vice closed in around her heart and mind, and she realized that she had been ensnared in Sombra's clutches. 

Twilight attempted to charge her horn to blast her way out, but every time it was snuffed out. Since that was not an option she tried flailing and thrashing around for all she was worth, but that appeared to be even less effective. It was almost like she were caught in a void of nothingness that she could not escape from. But even then Twilight's rage drove her on and she continued to fight against the darkness.

That is until a dark voice, echoing through both her ears and her mind, brought her actions to a halt with one word.

"Cease."

Almost immediately, Twilight felt her thrashing come to a stop, and a fresh wave of panic and anger overtook her as her traitorous limbs stilled. She struggled with all of her might against whatever bonds were holding her in place, but it proved to be a fruitless endeavor. The voice came again, deep and foreboding with a slight but noticeable hiss in her ears as it seemed to reverberate all around her, occupying her full attention as it spoke.

"There now. That's better is it not? After all, how else can two creatures of great power speak to one another if one of them cannot sit still for but a few moments?"

Twilight knew exactly who that voice belonged to, and that only made redouble her efforts to escape, but still her strength, what little there was left, continued to elude her. 

"Kindly calm down if you would," the voice chastised. "This sort of behavior is hardly becoming of a mare of your standing, especially in the presence of your king."

For a moment Twilight stopped, begrudgingly heeding the words. After all, simply struggling was getting her nowhere fast, and she had enough presence of mind left not to anger her captor anymore than he probably already was. But even then Twilight's own anger had not abated to the point where she was not going to be vocal about it.

"You are no king, Sombra! Now Let me go! Show yourself!" she shouted. However this did little more than to elicit a strange hollow laughter from wherever the dark king was hiding. The laughter came to an end as a pair of menacing red eyes with slitted black pupils appeared out of the shadows, and Twilight could almost see the amusement in them as they moved closer.

"As you wish," Sombra replied as the shadows began to twist around the eyes before revealing the form of a large unicorn stallion with a curved red horn dressed in royal red robes and dark grey armor. His jet black mane rippled and flowed like fire, and Twilight could not help but compare it to the ethereal manes of Celestia and Luna. She wondered if maybe that had been intentionally done by the Sombra as a way to claim that he was the equal of the Princesses. She could not dwell on the matter for long as Sombra's deep voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

"I normally require that ponies bow before me whenever I grace them with my presence, but for you milady I believe that I can be willing to make an exception." At this Sombra's crimson eyes narrowed dangerously. "Despite your persisting impudence."

Twilight scowled at Sombra, creases forming on the top of her muzzle as she glared at him. "What do you want Sombra?" she demanded. "I doubt that you brought me here for small talk."

"No, I did not," Sombra answered with a grin, exposing his pointed fangs. He then leaned in closer until his muzzle was mere inches from her. If he were any closer Twilight would have been tempted to bite him. As it was she only continued to glare at him as he looked at her, appearing to size her up. 

"Well now this is a surprise," Sombra said as he circled around her, passing out of her view. Reappearing on the other side he continued. "I did not think that anypony, much less a student of Celestia herself, would take to my craft so easily as you did." Twilight's eyes widened in surprise, wondering how he was able to guess that Celestia was her teacher. She was about to demand how he knew that until he cut her off with, "Oh don't look so surprised. I can practically see her stench wafting off of you, and nopony else aside from her and her sister possesses the taint of the Elements around them as you do." Sombra paused briefly, surveying Twilight with an expression that she could not quite place. "Still," he said suddenly, "despite those. . . handicaps, you still have a fair amount of potential, although your mastery of dark magic leaves much to be desired."

"What are you talking about?" Twilight questioned, suddenly feeling less angry and more worried. In response the dark king suddenly got right up into her face, startling her.

"Right there!" he said, almost shouting. "Just now you allowed yourself to lose your hold on your anger. You allowed your anger, your hatred of me, to falter and fade, and that is simply something that I will not tolerate in a pony with so much promise." At that Twilight could not think of a good response, so she resorted to simply snapping at Sombra's muzzle with her teeth. To her annoyance he easily avoided it by pulling his head back slightly. "Better," he said with a small grin, which soon fell as he added, "Although you still lack the necessary discipline."

"Get to the point Sombra," Twilight said through clenched teeth. "Why am here?"

Sombra did not answer immediately, although the grin on his muzzle returned as he leaned in just out of reach. And then he spoke in a low tone that Twilight could only compare to that of a serpent whispering into her ear.

"I would have thought it obvious," he said quietly. "But seeing as how you are still no more than a newborn foal compared to one such as I, I suppose it is a little understandable that you would be rather slow on the uptake. Allow me to elaborate." Rising to his full height before she could offer any sort of retort, Sombra addressed her in a way that she could not help but listen, whether it be by an arcane spell or some other method. Whatever it was, Twilight was helpless to anything but listen.

"You will not win, young Twilight. On this day, you and your allies will fall beneath me, and the Crystal Empire will be mine once again. Even if you do by some miracle of fate manage to hold me back, the simple fact of the matter is that you have lost from the moment you stepped hoof into my domain. Everything in and around the Empire is mine. It belongs to me, and me alone." Once again circling around her, Twilight strained her neck trying to keep him in her sight. "But of course, once I have reestablished my reign over the Crystal Empire, I will not remain idle. It is guaranteed that the Princesses will do everything in their power to usurp me as they did all those centuries ago. It is always in their nature to meddle. And of course, in the conflict that will undoubtedly arise, there are going to be, shall I say, casualties. Deaths that could have easily been prevented if I were simply allowed to do what is best for Equestria as a whole."

"'What is best'?" Twilight echoed, an incredulous look on her face. "If we let you have your way all of Equestria would be suffocated from your evil!"

"And tell me, dear Twilight," Sombra replied as he stepped into view again, "exactly how has either of your beloved Princesses actually helped your nation? Have there been changes in the society that I do not as of yet know about? Are all ponies truly equal as I know you believe them to be? Or are they just hiding their cowering gazes under the threat of divine punishment from a ruler with power comparable to that of a god? Are they so afraid of your Princesses control over the heavens that they can no longer see that they are being used for their own twisted definition of harmony?"

Twilight glared at Sombra, wanting to smack him upside the head for speaking of Celestia and Luna that way, or at the very least sling as many profanities as she knew at him. But something held her back, kept her from lashing out at the king. 

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

Sombra sighed, and Twilight was tempted to believe that there was sympathy in his red eyes. "I have seen it before. In ages long past. Your beloved Princesses had trapped and ensnared countless ponies in their idea of peace and harmony, and soon after had set their sights on my kingdom. You already know that I was deposed, banished to the frigid wastes for the crime of opposing their ideology."

Sombra turned away from Twilight looking off at some point in the distance. "What I am trying to say, young Twilight, is that when I reinstate my rule over the Crystal Empire, war with Equestria will be unavoidable. And in that war, thousands on both sides will perish." Turning back to her he said in a tone that almost sounded pleading in her ears, "The only way to stay as much bloodshed as possible is to end the conflict as swiftly as possible. And despite my power, I cannot do that on my own. I need allies. Informants for the coming battles. That is why I have brought you here."

Twilight's eyes widened, already suspecting what Sombra was going to say next. And despite the fact that she did not like it one bit, she could not for some reason say anything back, or offer any sort of retort as Sombra continued to speak.

"Surely you must see that this is the logical course of action? What I am offering you now has only been given under the rarest of circumstances. You would the first among my new servants, the greatest of them all. And with you by my side, telling me where Equestria is weakest, the Princesses would be unwilling to fight, and without their ever present gaze, all ponies will finally know true peace and stability."

Sombra paused, allowing Twilight to take in his words. Her eyes were downcast as she went over them in her head, muddied as it was with anger. She wanted so desperately to denounce the king, to tell him that he was wrong, that neither one of the Princesses would be like that to their ponies. But no matter how much she wanted to do so, she could not find it within herself to say it. What he was saying did have some truth to it, even if she did not like it. The Crystal Empire was all but his at this point, and without her or the rest of the elements, there would be virtually nothing to stop him from waging war against Equestria. The thought of Ponyville being reduced to rubble was enough to bring tears to her eyes. 

And her friends. . . what would become of them?

"I. . . I don't know," she whispered, her head hanging low. She was truthfully at a loss as to what to do. She still considered the king to be evil, but a small seed of doubt had begun to manifest within her. Doubt for herself, for the Princesses, and in their ability to stop Sombra. She truly did not know.

No answer came from the king, and she looked to to find him with his head turned away from her, as though something in the distance had caught his attention. Before she say anything about it Sombra's eyes widened ever so slightly, and a curious expression crossed his face that Twilight could not was say was either anger or admiration.

"Gems," he said unexpectedly, dragging out the word.

"What?" Twilight asked. Sombra did not answer her right away as looked back to her, scrutinizing her for a moment. 

Finally he spoke. "I apologize, but a matter of great importance has just made itself known to me, and I must be going now. But not to worry, you still have some time to consider my offer. And consequently, I would suggest that you keep this conversation between us confidential. Celestia has spies everywhere, and she will do absolutely anything to snuff out every last bit of influence I have." Sombra leaned in and said in a warning tone, "No matter what, or who, it happens to be."

Twilight felt a small spike of fear pierce her heart at what Sombra was implying. She did not want to believe it, but the doubt in her mind still remained, stubbornly remaining a fixture in her thoughts. 

"Until then, I look forward to our next meeting, Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight had almost no time to register what he had said before she suddenly felt the grip keeping in her place begin to loosen. Soon after the feeling of gravity retaking its hold on her body made itself as she suddenly found herself plummeting back to the earth. Realizing what was going on, Twilight tried to charge her horn for a teleportation spell, but the appendage on her forehead did little more than splutter pitifully as she fell. Twilight screamed as she came closer and closer to meeting the ground in a painful, and possibly fatal, impact. She closed her eyes so would not have to see it.

Just then something impacted into her side, accompanied by a grunt Twilight was all too familiar with, as she had heard it countless times when a certain pegasus mare would ignore the front door of her library in favor of a closed window.

"Rainbow dash?!" Twilight exclaimed as she opened her eyes, seeing her friend clutching her around her barrel with her front hooves."

"Who did you think I was? Pinkie Pie?" 

Twilight wanted to laugh at Rainbow's quip, but found that she did not have the strength for it as her friend flew down to the ground, setting her down gently on the pavement before looking her over. "Are you alright?" she asked, concern evident in her voice.

Twilight laid down on her stomach and allowed herself to catch a few breaths before replying. "I will be. I'm just a little tired right now."

"Oh, that's good," Rainbow replied, nodding her head. "Well if that's the case then, oh how do I say this? Oh I know. How about 'WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!' YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED YOU IDIOT!" 

Twilight recoiled from Rainbow's unexpected outburst, and her ears laid flat against her when she saw the raw emotion in her friends eyes, and she did not have to think very hard about what had made her upset. "I'm sorry Rainbow," she answered. "I don't know what came over me."

Rainbow opened and closed her mouth multiple times, clearly at a loss for words. She put a hoof to her forehead and took a few deep breaths through her nostrils before she looked at Twilight, and the unicorn was under the impression that Rainbow was not sure whether to hug her or strangle her. Her face was one of anger, but her magenta eyes were glistening as though she were about to start crying, and the weight of Twilight's actions finally made itself known. Fighting against her aching muscles, Twilight stood up on her hooves before slowly trotting over to face Rainbow.

Unable to meet her friends gaze, Twilight looked down at the ground beneath her hooves and whispered, "I'm sorry."

For what seemed like a small eternity Twilight heard no response from Rainbow, until she heard a frustrated sigh. Looking up she found Rainbow gazing at her with a somewhat softer expression, though there were still traces of emotion in her features. Finally Rainbow answered, but it was not with words as Twilight was expecting. Instead she pulled Twilight in with her left hoof into a bone crushing hug. Twilight was surprised to say the least, as she could not recall an instance where Rainbow would do something like this so openly. Unsure what else to do Twilight simply returned the hug, wrapping her leg around Rainbow's withers, which she just noticed were shaking.

Eventually Rainbow broke the embrace, and she scrutinized Twilight with a much softer expression before saying in a slightly hitched tone, "Don't ever do that again. Alright?"

Words failing her, Twilight merely nodded. Appearing satisfied, at least for the moment, Rainbow turned and began trotting away. "Come on," she said. "We need to get back to Applejack and Pinkie, then we can head to the tower. Hopefully Perry was smart enough to stay in one place."

Twilight paused briefly before she hurried to catch up with Rainbow, ignoring the pain in her joints as she trotted. 

"Who's Perry?" she asked.





"Hello?" Peridot called for what must have been the thousandth time into the as of yet empty halls of the tower. "Are there any gems at all in here?" The only answer Peridot received was her own echo ringing throughout the shimmering corridors, and she grumbled in frustration. "Where's a howlite when you need one?" she muttered as she tromped further into the towers interior, the sound of her boots the only other noise aside from her complaints. Initially Peridot's only concern when she landed on a balcony at the tower was to locate the gem in charge, most likely an agate or a jade, request permission to contact Home World, alert them to the infestation of "ponies" currently running about the place, and be on her way. It was all so simple in context. But then, so had her inspection of the earth, and she remembered all too well how that had worked out for her. It was a series of memories that Peridot would all to willing to delete from her log dates as soon as she was debriefed on Home World.

But now it was over half an hour since Peridot arrived here, and she had yet to see so much as a pearl, or even a quartz soldier wandering the halls. As far as she could tell, there was absolutely nobody here. This confused Peridot, as everything about this place practically screamed gem architecture, even if it was a little gaudy in places. By all rights there should be at least a hundred gems of as many different types and social classes milling about and maintaining the place, but so far there was nothing. 

Another thing that struck her as strange, although not quite as obvious as the lack of gems, was the apparent absence of any sort of sort of technology. She must have gone through at least a dozen different rooms already, and so far she had yet to see so much as a terminal or access hatch. Unless those had been extremely well hidden, then as far as she knew the entire place was just one giant hunk of crystal. If this was the case then it was all useless to her, no matter how aesthetically pleasing it was. 

Still, there was one thing she had not tried yet that might yield some results. She was not too sure the information would be that beneficial to her, but at this point Peridot was willing to try anything to get back to Home World. 

Peridot brought up her screen, using the stylus to enter in a series of commands. Just as she was about to finish the last bits of calibrations, the technician became aware of a series of voices coming from around one of the corners. Thinking that she had finally found gems in this place, Peridot put her screen back into its original position and began to hurry to where she though the voices were coming from. She could hear exactly what was being said, but that did not matter to her. All she cared about was finally getting some information and tolerable company, the latter of which she had found herself severely lacking as of late.

As she came closer she was able to hear the voices more clearly, though they did nothing but confuse her.

"I'm telling you guys, I've already looked all over this place. No matter what I do I can't find Twilight," a young sounding voice stated, reminding her somewhat of the steven. Not really a good start to helping her forget her ordeal. And there was that name again, "Twilight". She had heard that blue pony mention that same name before flying off. It would seem that these individuals were looking for the same thing. Before she could dwell on It another voice, this one sounding rather timid and small, replied. "Oh, are you sure Spike? I mean, are you sure that you've looked everywhere? After all, she might have just gotten lost in here. Or maybe she found a way to get to the Crystal Heart."

The way the conversation was going confused Peridot slightly, as she was not aware of any gem known as a spike, or whatever this "Crystal Heart" was. Questions about them would have to asked later though, she decided as she prepared to address the gems. When she rounded the corner however, she found herself confronted not by gems but by two more of those pony things, along with some sort of small purple and green bipedal reptile that came up to her knees. The ponies were of two different types, one being a small yellow one with a long pink mane and a pair of wings like the rainbow dash from earlier. The other was one she had not seen before, being significantly larger than its companions. It possessed a white coat and a single spiral horn on the top of its head, the base of which was partially hidden by a short blue mane.  

The moment the trio saw her they froze in mid step, gazing at her with wide eyes. For a brief moment the two sides simply stared at each other, until Peridot brought an artificial hand to her face and grumbled without even bothering to hide the disappointment in her voice, "Great. There's more of you."

All three of the creatures tilted their heads in confusion at her words. "'More of us'?" the white one questioned, its voice noticeably deeper than the others. 

Peridot merely shook her head. "Ugh, it doesn't matter," she muttered. "I'll just be on my way." With Peridot turned away from the, once again bring up her screen, annoyed by the fact that she had to restart the calibrations she was performing all over again. Unfortunately it seemed that her luck was somehow stuck in some sort of horrible loop as the white pony suddenly ran past her before blocking her path.

"Hold on a second!" it demanded, and Peridot paused to take notice that its horn had started to glow in a faint magenta aura. Rollibg her eyes, Peridot's finger formed into her cannon, which she pointed at the pony. 

"Move aside," she ordered. "The only reason I haven't blasted you yet is I don't want to waste the energy." 

"You're not going anywhere until you tell us who you are, and why you're here," the pony bit back. "Starting with who you are. Did Sombra send you? Are you one of his spies or assassins?" 

"I don't care who or what you think I am," Peridot growled as a ball of erratic green energy formed in front of the cannons barrel. "All I care about is getting out of this crazy place as soon as possible, and getting on with my job. Now get out of my way!"

"That's not going to happen until you answer."

Peridot narrowed her eyes at the pony. "Fine," she said just as she finished charging up her weapon. But as she was about to release it, a loud shout interrupted her.

"WAIT!" 

The shout was so unexpected and startled Peridot so much that her shot went completely wild. The white pony was similarly affected, as a short beam of magenta light erupted from its horn. Both shots ricocheted wildly around the apparently highly reflective walls of the hallway, prompting everyone to seek cover behind whatever they could find. The yellow pony and purple reptile ducked underneath a a little stand with a decorative vase while the white pony somehow conjured a spherical shield around itself. Peridot herself was just barely able to duck out of the way her own errant blast, although the top of her tetrahedron shaped hair was slightly singed in the process. Eventually the energy from both wayward beams dissipated, and everyone present cautiously peeked out, as if they were unsure if it was really safe or not to come out. 

Dropping its shield, the white pony began to address the yellow one, although honestly Peridot was of the opinion that a harsher punishment would have been in order as it said, "Fluttershy, what are you doing?! Somepony could have been hurt!"

Despite the fact that Peridot got the impression that the white pony was limiting the harshness of his tone, the yellow pony still cowered under its gaze. "Oh. Um, I-I'm sorry Shining but, well it's just that you two might have also hurt each other, and I don't think anypony would really want that to happen. I mean, what if miss. . . um. . ." At this the yellow pony turned its attention to Peridot and asked quietly, "What's your name, miss?"

Peridot simply glared at the lot of them as she got up and brushed herself off. "I really don't have time for this," she muttered. "But if it will get you to leave me alone, it's Peridot." 

"Peridot?" the little reptile spoke up. "As in the jewel?" 

"Yes," Peridot replied, feeling her already severely depleted levels of patience fading fast. "Or was the gem on my forehead not obvious enough for you unevolved organics?" she said while jerking a free floating thumb at the object in question. When she did this she found the reptile eyeing her gem with a look that was making her extremely uncomfortable. She was not aware of what it meant when an organic adopted a hazy look in their eyes and started leaking fluid from their mouths, but whatever it was she wanted no part of it. "Now that that's out of the way, are there any other questions you would like answered so I can be on my way?" she demanded while tapping her boot on the floor impatiently.

"Just one, for the moment anyway," the white pony said, which Peridot was relieved to hear that. "Why are you here?"

"If you must know," Peridot replied as she reformed her screen and, for the third time in a row, began her calibrations, "I am here because the Galaxy Warp malfunctioned and dumped me here on this backwater planet."

"'Galaxy Warp'?" the yellow pony asked, which Peridot happily ignored. 

"Right now I am trying to find some way to contact Home World so they can either send me their coordinates or send a ship to pick me up, and then I'm out of here." Turning her attention to her screen, Peridot added, "I just need to find this place's power supply so I can-"

A small series of rapid beeping interrupted Peridot as a diagram of the tower appeared on her screen. She immediately forgot about the ponies as she scrutinized it. With few strokes of her stylus, a point of origin was located, and Peridot very nearly jumped for joy when she found that a blip representing a power source located at the top of the tower appeared. 

"Yes! Found it!" she exclaimed. In the corner of her vision she noticed the yellow pony lean towards the white and whisper, "Do you think she means the Crystal Heart?" Peridot chose to ignore whatever it was they were talking and refocused her attention on finding the nearest set of stairs leading upward. None were present at the moment, so she opted to simply fly out of a window and take the easy route. Walking to the nearest one she prepared to make her exit when the shouts of the ponies reached her, causing her to look back at in annoyance. 

"Where do you think you're going?" the white pony demanded, looking at Peridot like she had spontaneously grown a second gemstone.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Peridot bit back. "I'm getting out of this place, and nothing you say or do can stop me."

It was then that Peridot heard another shout, although this one was significantly louder, and unfortunately all too familiar in Peridot's auditory sensors. Shouting in a voice that Peridot felt that she could have heard all the way from Home World, the giant purple fusion said, "WHERE'S THAT LITTLE GREEN TWERP?!" 

"On second thought," Peridot said as she rushed back inside to what she hoped was safety, "maybe it would be better if I took the stairs." With that statement, Peridot darted off as quickly as her limb enhancers would carry her. 

"Hey! Wait up!" the white pony called as it and its companions gave chase.
> A Pink Pony's Predicament
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sugilite considered herself to be many things. And while she may be willing to concede the point that her undeniably great traits were the result of the combining of three other gems, two of which constituted a fusion like herself even though significantly smaller, she would be more than happy to argue, preferably with her fists, that there were very few things even more awesome than her. Especially when it came to demolishing things, unlike those runts, Sardonyx and Opal. In Sugilite's mind, she was everything they were not. She was strong, fearless, and above all, huge. Given these traits, it was hard for anyone not see why she was the greatest.

But the one thing that Sugilite knew that she was not was patient. She could handle being shot in the face. She could handle having to chase an annoying Home World gem around. But what she could not handle was being caught in a malfunctioning Galaxy Warps' transportation beam and being whisked away to some alien world. Not even one with talking pink ponies.

Said pink pony was currently being held in one of her massive hands, just a gentle squeeze away from becoming colorful paste in her palm. Despite this, the pink pony was either too dense to realize the situation she was in, or knew something that Sugilite did not, as she gave the fusion a reproachful glare and said while pointing a hoof, "Now hold on there missy! I can see you're in a hurry, but there's no need for you to be a big grump about it."

Sugilite narrowed her eyes behind her visor, uttering a deep growl right in the pony's muzzle, who's expression had not changed. This only served to anger Sugilite further, and she felt the temptation to give the pony a little squeeze to show that meant business. She chose not to just yet however, deciding to hold off on that option. For the moment anyway.

"Now listen here you little. . . whatever you are," Sugilite growled, her voice becoming  deadly whisper, although to the pony it must have sounded more like someone shouting. "I've just had a very rough trip through the Galaxy Warp, and I don't have time to play around. Not as long as that little green dirt bomb is runnin' around makin' things harder for me. So if you would be so kind as to tell me where she went, I'll be on my way and no one gets squashed. Got it?"

What Sugilite had hoped would happen was for the pony to become intimidated and tell her everything she needed to know so she could go find Peridot. But to her surprise and aggravation she simply narrowed her large blue eyes at the fusion, adopting a look that seemed uncharacteristic of her otherwise overly cheerful appearance. 

"Why do you wanna know?" she asked while arching an eyebrow. It sudenly became clear to Sugilite then that no amount of intimidation would work on this. . . thing. Truly, it was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to be able to not give in to her demands. Sugilite would have been happy to just drop the pony on her head right then and there, but as far she knew, this pony was her only means to finding Peridot as soon as possible, not to mention the gems that brought her into being were keeping a very close eye on her, metaphorically speaking. They were just as confused and aggravated by the situation as she was, but they still would not allow her to cause unnecessary harm. This unfortunately required her to rely on a more delicate tactic that she seldom put any stock in whatsoever, being more inclined to use her fists as opposed to her diplomacy in situations such as these. 

"I'm glad you asked," Sugilite said while flashing a grin at the pony. Adopting a feigned expression of worry and concern, she began to explain herself. "You see, that little clo- . . . gem, is a friend of mine. A good friend. We were just hangin' out together, doin' absolutely nothin' at all, when all of sudden the Galaxy Warp," Sugilite motioned with her head to the structure she was standing on, or at least what was left of it after her fall, "got turned on somehow, and now here I am, lost and alone without my little buddy." Sugilite put one of her hands to her head in a display of despair, hoping she would not have to do this for much longer. She absolutely hated demeaning herself like this, especially when it was in front of puny little things like this pony. Still she kept up the act, struggling to ignore her growing frustration as she wailed in a despairing tone, "Oh woe is me. Will I ever see my little friend again?"

The sound of sniffling drew Sugilite's attention to the pony in her hand. Her bottom lip protruded outward, and her large blue eyes appeared to be glistening with fresh tears.

"Oh my gosh," she whimpered pitifully, wiping her muzzle with a hoof. "That is the saddest thing I have ever heard."

Despite the method she had used to get the pony to finally comply, Sugilite nonetheless felt satisfied with herself. That is until she heard what the pony immediately said afterward, her expression suddenly changing from one of sadness to a deadpan stare.

"If it weren't the biggest load of manure I've ever heard."

"WHAT?!" Sugilite bellowed right in the pony's face, going from satisfied to furious in the blink of an eye upon the pony's statement. The sheer force of her outburst was enough to cause the pony's mane to be blown backwards. Curiously, it somehow remained straight behind her head, but that was the furthest thing from her mind at the moment. 

"Well yeah," the pony began as her pink mane suddenly poofed back into its original position. "I may be Equestria's premier part pony, but I'm not dumb. Anypony with half a brain could see that you're fibbing about Peridot being your friend. Seriously, even Applejack could tell a better lie than that."

A brief and very tense silence settled between the two, during which Sugilite's face morphed into a truly terrifying expression of hatred. She was visibly shaking as she stared at the pony in her hand, seconds away from just crushing her or throwing her all the way to the next continent. Somehow though she was able to keep herself from doing anything too drastic as she removed her visor and brought the pony uncomfortably close to her face. All five of her eyes were focused on the pony in an enraged glare that would have made any lesser creature run for the nearest hole in the ground and hide for the rest of their short lives. The pony however seemed to be more confused by the sight. "Whoa," she said. "You should really see a doctor about that." 

Sugilite chose to ignore that comment and put it of her mind for the moment as she addressed the pony.

"Alright then, let's try this a different way," she said in a dangerously low tone. "How about if you tell me where that nerdy excuse for a gem is at, then I won't feel inclined to start breaking stuff around here. I'll just grab what I came for, and be on my merry way. Capisce?"

The pink pony continued to infuriate her however as she crossed her forelimbs and said, "Sorry, but no. As a party pony I cannot in good conscience allow party poopers of any kind to. . ." The pony faltered as she suddenly seemed to realize something, and she began glancing around in search of something. "Huh. That's weird ."

"What?" Sugilite demanded, losing her patience at an alarming rate.

The pony proceeded to rub her head with a hoof and asked aloud, "Where did he go? He was just right here."

Sugilite followed the pony's gaze to see what she was looking for, but there was nothing. Just those odd crystalline buildings. Granted some of them looked like they had seen better days, as a number of them appeared to have been completely demolished, but other than than that, there was nothing to see. Just weird houses and blue skies. 

"That's it! I've had enough of this!" Sugilite growled as she raised her arm, preparing to fling the pony as far as possible. 

"Whaaaah!" she shrieked from the sudden movement. But just as Sugilite was about to throw her, her arm froze in place. It was as though all of a sudden she had lost all control of her limb, and was unable to do anything more than growl and mutter in frustration, knowing perfectly well who was keeping her from following through with the act. That only served to make her even angrier, and the fact that she presently could not do anything about it was all the more infuriating. 

Visibly shaking from the rage she felt but was unable to act on, Sugilite lowered her arm and glared at the pony.

"Now listen here cotton ball," she said while jabbing a finger at her. But before she could say another word a shout of "Hey you!" cut her off, accompanied by the feeling of something small and insignificant hitting her. Looking down she saw another pony, a blue one with wings and a mane consisting of all the colors of the rainbow, repeatedly ramming into the joint where her two arms were conjoined. 

"Let. . . her. . . go!" she said between impacts. Sugilite also noticed that behind it stood yet another pony, although she was purple and had a blunt looking horn sprouting from her forehead, which the fusion noticed was giving off a magenta aura. Curiously the pink pony was also encased in a similar aura, and her palm tingled from the sensation. 

"Hi Rainbow! Hi Twilight!" the pink pony shouted with far too much cheery enthusiasm than the situation she was in probably called for. "Say Twilight, where did you go earlier? Did you stick it to Sombra? Is that why he's gone? Gosh, I wish I could've been there to see that."

"Not now Pinkie!" the pony that Sugilite assumed was Twilight shouted back. "Can't you see we're trying to save you?!" she said, punctuating her question with a a grunt. 

"Hey!" the rainbow pony shouted at Sugilite. "Didn't you hear me?! I said let her go!"

Sugilite simply glared at the pony with narrowed eyes, deciding that she'd had enough of whatever nonsense these ponies were probably going to drag her into. Turning to face the pony identified as Rainbow, Sugilite sucked in a great breath of air before roaring right in her face. The force of the bellow was like a sudden hurricane that sent the pony tumbling backward until she eventually collided with Twilight before settling in a tangled heap.

"I'm outta here," Sugilite muttered as she lowered her arm to about ten feet above the ground before loosening her grip. Pinkie landed squarely on her hooves, a little shaken up but appearing no worse for wear. 

Hoping that they were at least smart to not follow her, Sugilite stomped off, every footstep creating a small tremor in her wake. Hopefully Peridot had not ran too far off or flew away somewhere. Sugilite's patience was already stretched to its limits. She did not need to test those limits even further with a game of hide and seek. Behind her, she heard the pink pony say, "Well that was rude. And I didn't even get her name either."





Peridot walked briskly along through the halls of the crystalline palace, her eyes darting between the map on her screen directing her to the shortest route to the power source that did not involve going outside and the path in front of her. She was seconds away from outright panicking as she hurried along, trying to stay away from any open windows if she could help it so that she would not be spotted. She just had to keep her head down long enough for her to find the power source, use it to give a boost to the communication device built into her limb enhancers, and contact Home World to send a ship her way. As to how long it would be until they could come get her, Peridot could not even say. If she knew which world she was on she would be able to make an educated guess, but as it was she was left with just hoping that they would come quickly.

And of course there was the small matter of what she was going to do about these ponies in the meantime. 

"Um, excuse me, miss Peridot," said the yellow pony from behind the gem, her tone so quiet that Peridot barely heard her at all.

"What?" Peridot snapped, not even bothering to spare a glance away from her screen at the three creatures that walked behind her, the clicking of their hooves and claws on the hard floor having long since given her an excruciating headache in addition to her nervousness.  It honestly felt like her gem was about to crack from the sheer annoyance of their presence, and it was difficult to concentrate on her holographic map. Why they chose to follow her was beyond her reasoning, although it was clear that they expected her to lead them to something called the Crystal Heart. Such a term was unfamiliar to her, but she did consider the possibility that it and the power source she detected during scan were the same thing. In all likelihood the dumb organic quadrupeds probably considered what was most likely a piece of gem technology to be some kind of a deity. She had heard of other such occurrences on worlds like this one from reports regarding scouting missions determining a planets viability for gem-forming. 

Peridot had decided a little while ago that this was most likely the case here, using the conundrum as a way to distract herself from the looming threat of death by shattering looking for her outside, and decided to put up with the organics for the moment, if only to not waste unnecessary energy on getting rid of them and draw attention to herself.

"Well, um, I was just wondering a few things. That is, if you don't mind me asking."

"I do mind," Peridot answered without taking her eyes off of her screen. "But I get the feeling that you were going to ask anyway, so go ahead."

"Gee, someone sure is a grouch," muttered the reptile from his place on the larger pony's back, earning him a glare from Peridot and and a reprimanding look from the yellow pony identified as the fluttershy. 

"Now Spike," the yellow pony said, her voice only slightly sterner than before. "That's no way to talk around somepony you just met."

"Are you sure Fluttershy," the pony known as the shining armor began, speaking up for the first time in a long while. "I mean, she did try to kill us earlier." 

Since their first encounter Peridot noticed he had been keeping a very close eye on her, not once letting her out of his suspicious gaze. It was plainly obvious that he did not trust her one bit, and that he was only following her to see if she would lead them to this Crystal Heart. Peridot honestly could not have cared less what the ponies thought of her, as she did not believe it to be an issue she needed to address unless it started to become a roadblock in her objective. When that happened, she would happily blast them all with her cannon, but until then she would tolerate their presence.

"Well, yes," the fluttershy replied. "But we did just meet so she might have just been a little scared of us. So I don't think a misunderstanding is something to judge her off of right. After all, I don't believe she really meant to hurt us, she might have just been scared or frightened."

Peridot had to suppress a chuckle at the fluttershy's statement. She could hardly believe that anything could be as trusting as her. She honestly had no idea who Peridot was and what she would do to complete her mission. Despite the claim being false, she did not necessarily feel the need to correct it. That would just make them more likely to get in her way, but in any case she was getting tired of listening to the two discuss whether or not she was friendly. 

"Didn't you have a question?" Peridot asked impatiently as she followed her map around a corner, coming into a large hallway with a tall arching ceiling and large doors at the end. 

"Oh!" the fluttershy exclaimed quietly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep you waiting."

"Oh come on Fluttershy, you don't need to apologize to her. Just get on with it," the reptile said.

As Peridot tromped down the hall, she heard the fluttershy take breath before speaking. "Well, Peridot, I was just wondering, if you don't mind me asking that is, if you could tell us what you are? I mean, I don't think any of us have ever seen anything like you before. You're certainly not like any critter I've seen before."

"That's because I'm not a critter, I'm a gem," Peridot answered simply. A brief pause followed, and Peridot guessed that they were probably expecting her to elaborate a little further. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed this, as they appeared to be somewhat confused by her short reply. letting out a tired sigh Peridot added, "I am a member of a space faring race of polymorphic sentient lifeforms."

Before she could explain any further she was interrupted by the purple reptile. "Whoa whoa whoa!" the reptile exclaimed suddenly. "Wait a minute. 'Space faring'? As in from outer space? As in you're  a space alien?" The others seemed to be equally surprised as he was, their eyes widening in surprise and wonder.

"If the term 'space alien' is what you would use to describe a being that is not native to your planet, then yes, I am a 'space alien'."

"Oh my gosh!" the fluttershy said excitedly, apparently losing all of her timidity as she flew up beside Peridot. Despite the proximity, the gem actually preferred the gentle flapping of her avian like wings to the sound of her hooves. She had a large smile plastered on her face as she continued to gush, and was actually making Peridot somewhat uncomfortable "This is so exciting! I mean, I knew you were strange, no offense, but never in my life did I think you were so special. I never thought that I would meet somepony, or someone in this case, from outer space. The closest that I've ever gotten was those novels Twilight lent me, so until now it's always been thought of as a fantasy that life would exist out there." The fluttershy then looked away from Peridot, who noticed the dreamy look in her large eyes. "Oh, how my imagination would just wander, thinking about what kind of cute critters might exist beyond the stars." Looking at Peridot again she stated, "Oh you just have to tell me what kind of creatures there are where you're from. Do you keep them in zoos? Do you have any as pets?"

Momentarily caught off guard by the yellows pony's sudden enthusiasm, Peridot cleared her throat and replied, "Well, actually there's no native animal species of any kind on Home World, but my race has encountered lifeforms on other planets."

"Can you tell me of any?"

Deciding to just humor the pony for the moment, Peridot began, "Well there is this one variety that is actually a little interesting. As polymorphic lifeforms, we do not need to worry about them too much, but they do pose a significant threat to anything organic. From what I understand, they gestate inside a host body for some time before they eventually burst out in-" A quiet beep cut her off mid-explanation, and Peridot looked to find that they had reached the doors at the end of the hall. "Hold that thought," she said as she made to push it open. She noticed that there was some kind of clamor going coming from the other side of it, making her hesitate. Peridot was not sure if she should go in, but her map had led her here, so she had no choice but to continue. 

Peridot grasped at the handles, and began to pull them open. Only they did not. Instead of opening the doors stubbornly remained shut despite her efforts. "Come on!" Peridot shouted, kicking the door in anger. The sound of a throat clearing caught her attention, and she looked back to see the shining armor seeming to make a pushing motion with his front legs. Glaring at him, Peridot humphed and once more grabbed the handles, and pushed inward. They were rather heavy, making her grunt from the effort, but eventually she was able to force them open. What she found on the other side made her groan in annoyance.

"Oh my," the fluttershy whispered from behind her.

More ponies, numbering somewhere in the upper dozens, milled about in what appeared to be rather spacious throne room. But unlike the ones she had seen so far these ones seemed to have some sort of dull sheen to their coats reminiscent of low quality gemstones. She also noticed that a great majority of them did not appear to be very happy for some reason. Standing in front of the throne and apparently trying their best to direct them to different places of the chamber was two other ponies, these ones looking more like the ones she had already seen. The first had a pristine white coat and a purple mane styled into large curls. The second was pink, and seemed to be a variety that she had not seen yet, possessing both wings and a horn. She was also noticeably larger than the majority of every other pony in the room. And Peridot was not sure, as she was no expert on organics like those crummy clods back on the earth, but this one looked like she had seen better days, as she swayed from side to side as though she were about to fall over at any moment.

The white pony's voice rang, "Please do not panic everypony. Rest assured that we are doing everything possible to see to it that you are all safe." Despite her insistence, it appeared that it was having little to no effect on the gathering, as their coats curiously seemed to become even duller than before. Before she could say anything else, a loud shout from behind Peridot cut her off.

"Cadence!" the shining armor exclaimed as he rushed inside past the gem, pushing past whatever happened to be in his way. The shout drew the sullen gazes of many ponies, but they did not stay on him for very long. In just a few moments Peridot found herself the center of attention in a room of at least a hundred or more ponies, each one looking at her with renewed expressions of curiosity and wonder.

Peridot's eyes darted back and forth between them, and she felt herself begin to sweat a little underneath the sight. Unsure what else to do, she slowly raised one arm and gave a little wave with it. 

"Uh. . . hi?"

And that was when the screaming started.
> Odd Gem Out
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Within moments Peridot found herself swarmed on all sides by ponies, and screamed and shouted at the top of her voice as she flailed her arms and legs in an effort to free herself from the clutches of the dozens of pairs of hooves holding her up, her voice almost drowned out by the uproar of the crowd. Off to the side Shining Armor, Fluttershy and Spike were unable to do more than watch in confusion, each one of the baring expressions of surprise and confusion. At first they thought that the gem was about to be lynched or something like that, but the joyous expressions and shouts of praise coming from the crystal ponies told them otherwise.

"Um, Shining Armor sir?" Fluttershy said meekly as she sidled up to the stallion in question. "Is it just me, or do they seem happy to see Peridot?"

Shining Armor shook his, knowing full well what he was seeing but not quite believing it. The crystal ponies did indeed seem to be overjoyed to see Peridot, to the point where their crystalline coats had adopted a sheen that sparkled in the sunlight streaming through the windows of the throne room. While that was not in any way a bad thing, it gave them pause to know that it was due to their odd visitor that they were so happy. "No, it's not just you Fluttershy, I'm seeing it too." Deciding to try and find out what was going on, he trotted up to one of the crystal ponies and tapped him a few times on the shoulder. "Excuse me," he said, getting the pony's attention, "but can you please tell me what in Celestia's name is going on here?"

In response the pony, a light blue stallion with a mark of stalk of wheat grass, turned around and answered with a large smile, "Is it not obvious? We are saved!"

Shining, Fluttershy and Spike all glanced at each other in confusion upon hearing that. "Uh, what do you mean by that? Did somepony find the Crystal Heart?" Spike asked.

As soon as Spike asked that question the stallion gave all three of a look of disbelief as he said, "You mean you don't know?" They all shook their heads in unison, confirming that they had no idea what he was talking about. "How is that possible?"

Before anything else could be said, another chorus of cheers erupted from the crystal ponies. "Priase be to the Old Ones!" a mare called. "At last, a star has returned to liberate us!" another said.

While Shining Armor and everypony else could only wonder what they meant by that, Peridot's only response to all of it was, "Put me down right now you savages!" When it was obvious that the ponies would no such thing anytime soon, Peridot resorted to taking to the air, her fingers spinning rapidly, allowing her to finally escape their clutches as she ascended up to the ceiling, much to the disappointment as well as admiration of the crystal ponies below. 

Deciding that the matter with their odd visitor could wait, Shining Armor focused his attention on instead finding his wife. The moment he saw her standing by the throne, Shining Armor surged forward towards her, pushing past a number of the crystal ponies in his path to get to her. Spike had his arms wrapped around his neck to keep himself from falling off. When he finally reached her, Shining found that Cadance looking at him as though she were half asleep and ready to fall to the floor at a moments notice. Her eyelids drooped heavily, and she had the haggard appearance of a pony who had not slept in quite a long time. Shining could hardly blame her. Days without any adequate rest coupled with sustaining her shield over the Crystal Empire had taken its toll on her severely.

"Shining," she said, her voice laced heavily with obvious weariness. The pink alicorn tried to take step towards him, but stumbled a little as her hooves skidded on the hard floor. Shining quickly darted forward and caught his wife before she even came close to hitting the ground. He helped her up, making sure she was able to stand on her own properly before he reluctantly released her. He remained at the ready however just in case she needed him.

"Take it easy," he said to Cadance softly. "You've been through a lot already."

Cadance smiled warmly at him. "We all have," she replied. She looked around before adding, "Did you find Twilight yet? I would feel better if I knew she was safe."

Spike answered from his place on Shining's back, "No, not yet. Me and Fluttershy have been through the palace a couple times now, but we still haven't found any sign of her. It's like she's just suddenly disappeared for no reason."

Cadance's eyes widened slightly and she adopted a concerned expression when she heard this. "Oh dear," she said in a grave tone, "I just hope that she's safe."

Shining chose that moment to rest a forehoof on his wife's shoulders to comfort her. "I'm sure she's alright," he said in an attempt to comfort her, although truthfully he was a great amount of difficulty believing his own words. He knew that is probably pointless to worry about her, as she had been through other situations that were just as grave. It seemed that nothing, from Nightmare Moon to Discord could stop her and her friends from pulling through. But even then, Shining Armor still felt the need to look out for his little Twily. How could he not, especially with the knowledge that his little sister might possibly be in some sort of danger.

Cadance took notice of the worried expression that had found its way to Shining's face. And despite his insistence otherwise she could tell that he was having as much a difficult time dealing with the situation as she was. Putting a forehoof onto  his shoulder, Cadance said softly, "Don't worry. This is Twilight we're talking about here. If anypony can pull through, it's her."

Shining regarded his wife for a moment, before his concerned look lifted slightly and he gave her a gentle smile. 

The moment the two were having was subsequently ruined when Spike made a gagging sound and said, "Look, I like dramatic moments as much as the next dragon, but don't we have other issues to worry about? Like our guest?"

"Guest?" Cadance asked as she craned her head to look behind the pony and dragon. "Oh my," she said, her eyebrows raised as she looked. "Um, honey?" she said with obvious concern in her voice. "Who is that behind you?"

Shining Armor could not help but let out a heavy sigh as he turned around, following his wife's gaze to the strange sight before them, where they found Fluttershy gently coaxing Peridot to return to the ground. A few moments passed in this fashion until she finally relented, and slowly lowered herself down to the floor, eyeing the crystal ponies warily as she nervously glanced around with wide eyes at the crowd gathered around her, obviously feeling very uncomfortable with all of the attention she was receiving. Fluttershy settled down beside the bipedal being, and appeared to ask her a question that Shining could not quite hear from this distance.

"That would be Peridot," Shining answered. "At least that's what she says her name is." Leaning in to whisper in Cadance's ear he added in a low tone, "If I'm being completely honest here, I don't really trust her."

"Why? Did she do something?"

"She tried to blast me with some sort of combat spell from those things on her arms earlier. Now, I don't know about you, but to me Sombra's return and her just suddenly showing up out of nowhere just seems to be too unlikely a coincidence."

Cadance once again regarded Peridot with a more critical gaze, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "So you think she might be affiliated with Sombra in some way." It was not a question, but Shining nodded anyway. "Did she say anything about where she came from?" she asked while keeping her sight locked on the gem. "Or perhaps why she's here?"

Spike answered the question for her, adopting a similarly hushed tone. "She said she's from outer space," he said, and Cadance could detect a hint of giddiness in his voice at the prospect. He then glanced around, searching for something. "Hey, where did Rarity go? She was just here wasn't she?" he asked. Cadance motioned with her head to show that the mare in question had stepped away to assist a young colt with what one could assume was his grandmother. Unlike everypony else, she seemed to be the only pony who had not taken notice of Peridot. Quickly thanking her, Spike jumped down off of Shining's back to go see if she needed any help leaving the two ponies to discuss amongst themselves. Cadance herself was just as surprised by the claim Spike just made, and she looked to Shining Armor for confirmation. He did so with a nod of his head as he once again turned his gaze to look at the gem, who was now taking cautious steps into the throne room with her strange green screen formed from her appendages hovering in front of her. As she walked she kept glancing nervously at the crystal ponies, who continued to study her. Cadance was not sure, but there was something strange about the way they looked at Peridot, like they were not truly afraid of her. Rather, they seemed be studying her with equal amounts of wonder and awe.

"She also said she was looking for some sort of power source in the palace." Shining added. "We don't know exactly what she means by that." 

"If she is working for Sombra, then that is a strange cover story to have," Cadance observed as she watched Peridot weave her way through the crowd, making a conscious effort to avoid touching the ponies. However this did not keep a few of the ponies from reaching to brush their hooves on her boots as he walked past. Peridot visibly shivered from the contact, but was apparently doing her best to ignore it as she kept her focus on her screen. "Is there anything else that she told you?"

Shining nodded. "Not much much really, aside from from what I just said looking for a power source. Now, we don't know what she means by that, but I think it would be safe to assume that she's talking about the Crystal Heart. And so far, it seems like she has a better idea about where it is than us at the moment."

"Then what do suggest we do?" Cadance asked. "We can't just condemn her because of a suspicion."

Shining shook his head in response. "I know, but I don't want to just let her have free reign of the place either. I just don't want to have her find it for us, only to turn around give it to Sombra."

Cadance began to mull over the information she had just been given, attempting to decide on the best course to take. If it was true that this Peridot was indeed affiliated with the dark king as Shining suspected, then her very presence was a threat to their safety. In such a scenario, they would be obliged to do everything they could to keep her from finding the Crystal Heart. But on the other hoof, Peridot herself did not seem like the type to be associated with him. And never before had Cadance ever heard of Sombra having sercants quite like her, even in legend. And there was still the matter that they themselves had no clue where the Crystal Heart was, and ever since Twilight disappeared on them they were out of leads. But if this Peridot could somehow lead them to it, then it might best to just follow her and hope for the best. Her mind made up, Cadance relayed her thoughts to her husband.

Shining seemed to be against the idea, but kept his opinion to himself as he asked, "Are you sure that we can trust her?"

"No," Cadance replied as she began to walk towards Peridot. "But given the circumstances, do we really have much of a choice?"





Peridot was having an extremely difficult time ignoring her nervousness as she attempted to weave her way past the gathering quadripeds, doing her best to not get too close while also keeping an eye on her scanner, which continued to lead her forward. Despite her efforts the strange ponies still had the gall to violate her personal space every once in a while and touch her with their hooves. Peridot tried to shoo them away, but that only seemed to encourage them for some reason. If this did not stop soon Peridot knew she was going to have a panic attack and just shooting everything, regardless of what was currently outside looking for her.

"Don't touch," she hissed to a reddish pony as it reached out to touch her screen. It drew its hoof back thankfully, but the weird look it was giving her never once wavered. Once again, Peridot's lack of expertise on organics and their ways, these ones in particular, prevented her from determining what exactly their facial expressions meant. She was never exactly a face reader to begin with, even around other gems. The fact that these creatures had muzzles instead of regular faces only made reading them more difficult. 

But then, Peridot could have cared less what they were thinking anyway. All that mattered at the moment was completing her objective and getting out of this weird place and away from these creatures. She just hoped to the Diamonds that they would at least have the decency to stay out of her way until then, which at the moment did not seem like a very likely prospect.

And just when she thought her situation could not become any more irritating, Peridot now noticed that the shining armor was returning with the weird pony with the horn and wings in tow. The gem had to stifle a groan as they approached, not wanting to have to deal with them at the moment, or at any time for that matter. Maybe if she just pretended to not notice them they would leave her alone. Turning her gaze away from them Peridot began to fiddle with her screen, hoping they would see that she was too busy with randomly tapping her stylus on it to be bothered with them. She glanced out of the corner of her visor, and to her irritation they were still approaching. Peridot grimaced, and began to mutter the same phrase over and over again under her breath.

"Go away, go away, go away, go away, go away," she whispered repeatedly, wondering if she said it enough times her wish would come true.

This proved to be a futile hope, as the the two ponies, minus the reptile which was now absent, reached her position, after which the pink one cleared its throat and said, "Excuse me, uh, ma'am?"

Peridot grimaced, realizing then and there that she was forever doomed to an existence of annoyances and distractions that would never leave her alone. Such was her lot in life it seemed, and she let out a heavy sigh and resigned herself to her fate as she turned to address the pony.

"Yes?" Peridot replied, not even bothering to hide the aggravation in her voice as she gave the pink pony a glare. The pony raised an eyebrow at this, but apparently chose not to comment on it when it cleared its throat a second time and began to speak in a practiced manner suggesting that this was not the first time she had gone through a situation like this. 

"My name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, a representative on the behalf of Princess Celestia of Equestria. And I welcome you, Peridot, to the Crystal Empire."

"Charmed," Peridot replied in a not at all friendly tone before returning her attention to her screen, hoping that these ponies would eventually get the message that she did not want to have anything to do with them and leave her alone. To her continued annoyance however, the pink pony merely seemed to shrug off the reply and continued to speak, making Peridot wonder if the thing even knew it had been given the cold shoulder, or if its brain was so primitive it even knew what that was. 

"Anyway, Shining Armor here has told me a little bit about you, even some of the more. . . unsavory bits."

It did not take much guesswork on Peridot's part to piece together what the pony was implying. "It got in my way, and refused to get out of it. I responded accordingly," she huffed as she began to walk away from the pony, following the direction her scans were giving her. She heard the cadenza, or whatever the heck it was called, stutter a little bit, as though it were at a loss for words. Peridot hoped it would stay that way for the next few minutes as she recalculated her scans to do a more in depth survey of the area. It seemed that this room in particular was giving off some sort of energy signature that apparently had something to do with getting to the top floor. She could not quite identify what it was with the instruments she had on hand. She would have liked to have done some tests to figure out exactly what they were, but she was already pressed for time as it was, and could not afford to let herself become distracted. The cadenza was already handling that job very well as it seemed to have gotten through stuttering and began to speak to Peridot in a somewhat less mild tone.

"Excuse me," it said," but did you just call Shining Armor 'it'?" 

"Yeah," Peridot replied without even bothering to spare a glance behind her. "So?"

"So?" the cadenza replied in a way that Peridot knew meant it had for some reason taken offense at her explanation, as all measures of whatever passed for decorum on this backwater world left its manner of speech, replaced by clear anger, which caught Peridot's attention. She looked to see that both the cadenza and the shining armor were glaring at her fiercely, the former of which had its wings splayed out slightly in what the gem assumed was an organic reaction to frustration. How primitive were these things that they could not even control their own bodies? 

"Let me explain something to you, Peridot," the pink pony started to say, but Peridot had already begun to tune its ramblings out in favor of following her scanner, which seemed to be leading her to somewhere near the center of the room in front of the large crystalline throne.

"Excuse me!" the shining armor exclaimed from behind her. "Are you listening at all?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Peridot replied with a dismissive wave of her artificial hand as she came to a stop. Apparently she was standing exactly where the strange energy signature seemed to be emanating from. But that could not have been right. Peridot glanced around, but all that she see was a smooth floor with nothing to indicate an entrance or some other sort of clue to aid her. She checked her instruments a second time, but found that they were functioning at optimum performance. Peridot tilted her head in confusion, knowing that something was not quite right here.

A gentle tapping made itself known to her, distracting Peridot from her thoughts as she glanced to see that one of the ponies, a rather small green colored pony standing about as tall as her knee, was gently tapping on her boot and looking up at her with large sapphire blue eyes. Peridot quirked an eyebrow at what she guessed was a younger member of the species. Even though it was much smaller than her by quite a bit, the little pony curiously did not seem all that intimidated by her.

"What do you want?" Peridot questioned, wondering if it was even capable of speaking due to how young it appeared to be. For a few moments the little pony did not answer. All it did was silently gaze upward at her. And then it did something that Peridot did not expect in the slightest. Lunging forward, the little pony wrapped its forelimbs around Peridot's boot, and began to make strange hiccuping sounds that Peridot could not identify. Needless to say the gem was taken aback by what she assumed was an act of aggression. "H-hey! What are you doing?! Stop that!" Peridot exclaimed, trying to shake to pony off. She looked to the cadenza and the shining armor for assistance, but for some reason they seemed to be as surprised as she was. None of the other ponies around them seemed intent on helping her either, as they looked on with strange expressions.

Then the little pony said something that Peridot could not quite hear, as the things muzzle was pressed up against her leg.

"What was that?" she asked as she looked down at the pony. She was surprised to find that it now two streams of liquid running down from its clenched eyes, and Peridot realized that the little pony was not attacking her at all. It was crying, but for what reason Peridot could not even begin to guess, but it did help her to know that she was not in any immediate danger from it.

Finally letting go of her leg, the little pony wiped away a few stray tears with its forelimb before looking up at her with wide glistening eyes. 

And in that moment, Peridot felt something strange. Something she could not quite describe even if she tried. The closest thing she could hope to compare the feeling to was pity, but even that did not seem to do it any justice. What she was currently feeling was different, something she had never experienced before, like just looking at this pony and the state it was in made Peridot want to at least determine what was causing it to behave like this. 

Squatting down so that the pony would not have to strain itself by looking up at her, Peridot asked in a softer yet still impatient tone, "Hey, whats the matter with you?" She was not expecting the answer that she got.

"I'm sorry you're lost miss," the little pony said in a small voice, the sadness plainly evident in its tone. Peridot was of course caught off guard by this statement. This little pony was sorry for her? Because she had supposedly lost her way, when she clearly knew where her objective was at? This made absolutely no sense to Peridot as she gave the pony a confused expression, before looking to the cadenza and the shining armor in question. However they still seemed to be at as much a loss as her at the moment. Catching Peridot off guard once more, the pony came up to her again and wrapped its little forelegs around her torso, burying the side of its face into her chest. 

Peridot was unsure what to do. She of course wanted to get this organic creature off of her and locate the nearest source of disinfectant as possible. She wanted to tell it to back off and let her continue her work. But at the same time she could not. For some unfathomable reason that was currently beyond Peridot, she was hesitant to tell the pony off. She just did not have it in her to do so, which was immensely confusing for her. With the larger ponies, it was easier for her to see them as obstacles in her path, but not so with this thing. It just looked so tiny and fragile as it continued to hug Peridot for some inexplicable reason, and the gem simply could not help but feel a strange sense of disgust at the mere thought of being hostile towards it. So for the moment, Peridot remained where she was, unable to move.

Still nervous of the crowd of ponies around them, which continued to give Peridot strange looks that she could not recognize due to their species, Peridot gently patted the little pony on the back. This continued for a few moments until Peridot finally decided that this had gone for long enough, and she signaled this by clearing her throat and giving the pony a gentle nudge. Giving her one more squeeze, the pony removed itself from Peridot and regarded her for second before dashing back into the crowd, disappearing from sight in a veritable forest of legs. Still not quite sure what had just happened, Peridot stood up with a confused expression written on her face. 

"What was that all about?" a voice beside her said. Slightly startled, Peridot turned her head to see that the cadenza had sidled up beside her, looking at where the little pony had disappeared to. Judging from the way its head was tilted to the side, it was just as confused as she was by the unexpected turn of events. 

Shaking her head, Peridot merely simply said, "I have no idea. You organics are always a mystery to me." This statement earned Peridot a look which she guessed was some sort of glare. The look was ignored however as Peridot brought her screen up again and resumed her search for a route to the top of the palace, putting the odd event out of her mind for the moment. "Anyway, I've lost enough time already just dealing with you all as it is. Just leave me alone for a little bit and maybe I can get on with my business. Assuming of course nothing else comes along to distract me."

No sooner had Peridot said that however than did the sound of the doors to the throne room sliding open with a groan make itself known to all inside, and a shrill high pitched voice that the gem was all but too familiar with rang out, echoing through the throne room and making Peridot cringe. 

"There you are Peridot!" the pinkie pie exclaimed in an overly cheerful tone that instantly made Peridot cringe. "I was wondering where you went after you flew away! Come here, I want you to meet the rest of my friends!"

"Oh no. . ." Peridot groaned.





Sombra was starting to become disappointed at the lack of progress that had taken place lately. There seemed to be an unwanted lull that was dragging on for much longer than he had anticipated, preventing his plan from moving forward to completion, much to his displeasure. In any other situation, he would have already had the whole Empire in his hooves already. But as long as those Gems were present and running around, there was simply too much of a risk to do so. 

But Sombra was patient if nothing else, and knew the necessity of biding his time until the perfect moment to proceed with his conquest. One did not achieve victory by blindly rushing ahead after all. He would wait as long as he needed to if it meant total assurance of victory. And as long as the pawns kept going where they were supposed to, it would not matter how long it took.

So for the time being, Sombra simply waited and watched from his incredibly convenient vantage point, finding that he was immensely enjoying the fact that every single one of those fools had yet to realize his presence. It would prove to be an amusing pastime until they eventually stumbled across the Crystal Heart. And when he did finally reveal himself, he would take great pleasure in witnessing the faces of the group of mares when they what he had done to their precious Twilight.

After all, mind altering spells were difficult to perform, and even harder to maintain, but to Sombra there was little doubt that in the end they were an incredibly satisfying way of accomplishing his goals.