Chapters "Hello, Twilight Sparkle. You must be wondering why I summoned you here at such an early hour," said Princess Celestia during a private meeting between her and Twilight Sparkle.
"Um, yeah. I am," replied Twilight with half an eye open.
"Well, the raids used to be minor, but now they a-"
"Wait, what do you mean 'raids'?" exclaimed Twilight who now had both eyes wide open.
"You are unaware of the raiders from the east who've attacked several cities?" questioned the princess.
"Sorry Princess! I had no idea there were raiders attacking Equestria! I must have been glued to my books," Twilight was in shock.
"I understand, Twilight. You are forgiven. Anyways, the reason I brought you here is because I want to strengthen everypony and prepare them for the raids. I will start by giving you this gem. Examine it. Use a microscope if you have to. It is believed that there is some magical power trapped within the gem," Princess Celestia handed over a shiny, green gem, about the size of an apple.
"Thanks, princess! I'll do whatever I have to do to get whatever power is inside of this gem. Goodbye!" Twilight rushed home, eager to examine the gem.
When Twilight entered her home, Spike's mouth started to flood as he stared as the beautiful gem. "Hey, Twilight! Can I eat that gem?" Spike asked.
"Sorry, Spike, but I need to examine this for Princess Celestia. Oh yeah, about that. Please don't interrupt me while I'm looking at the gem. I don't want anything bad to happen," Twilight replied, then dashed into the basement.
Twilight tried looking at the gem for a while with nothing but a naked eye, but after finding nothing, she decided that she probably just needed more sleep. She ran up the stairs, leaped into her bed, and fell asleep. That's when she woke up to a scream.
Twilight gazed out her window to investigate the noise, finding that the answer was obvious. It was raiders. There were about 100 raiders, all carrying spears, swords, bows, and all kinds of weapons! There was blood all over the ground, and dead ponies everywhere! Then she saw her friends. All of them dead. She decided this was too terrible to be true, and then discovered that she was correct when she woke up, for real this time, realizing it was all a dream.
"Oh, the nightmares I'm gonna have," she thought out loud. "I guess it's time to examine that gem," she ran back down into the basement, and tried to look at the gem with a naked eye again. She still didn't find anything, so she decided that a microscope would do the trick.
Twilight started examining the gem with her microscope, and after a while, found some sort of dim light glowing within the gem, and pulled out a knife. She started stabbing the gem with her knife, breaking several pieces off. Once she got to the dim light, she was able to see it without a microscope because of how brightly it shined without being encased in gem. "I've found it!" Twilight exclaimed with a wide grin, but then the grin suddenly changed into a frown as she couldn't figure out how to use the power. She tried touching it, pulling it out, and even licking it, but nothing happened. After plenty of failure, she decided it was time to refer to her books, so she ran up to her library.
"Well this is going to take a while. Hey, Spike, could you help me find a book that is about getting secret spells?" Twilight had never heard of secret spells, so she figured it would take too long to find the book without any help.
"Sure thing, Twilight!" Spike replied.
"Hmm, 'Your Guide to Potions', 'The Secret In the Stars', 'Speed Swimming', ugh, where could it be?" Twilight quietly said to herself.
"Hey, Twilight, I found something! It's called 'The Guide to Secret Spells'!" Spike exclaimed.
"Thanks Spike! You can go do, um, whatever you usually do. I need to read this book," Twilight opened the book and started reading.
"To take advantage of a secret spell, you have to be a unicorn. Assuming you are, you need to mix up water, crushed fillyflower, and rainbow. Once you've mixed these up, you need to rub the liquid on the physical spell gem, and concentrate. You need to think of happy things. If you do all of this correctly, you should be able to use the spell whenever you want," Twilight read to herself. "Okay, water I have, I can ask Rainbow Dash for the rainbow, but what is fillyflower? I think I'm going to need Zecora for this," Twilight left her home, and went into the Everfree Forest.
When Twilight reached Zecora's house, she was surprised to see Zecora in front of her house, watering some plants. "Oh, hi Zecora. I was just wondering if you knew where to find 'fillyflower'," said Twilight.
"To find fillyflower, you must be very brave. Brave enough to journey into Killer Bat Cave. After the mission, believe me you will tire. But your reward is fillyflower, your heart's current desire," Zecora replied.
"Oh, thanks Zecora! I've read about Killer Bat Cave in my books, and I'm ready!" Twilight ran in the direction that lead to Killer Bat Cave, unaware of the danger she was going to face.
As Twilight got closer to Killer Bat Cave, the forest started to get quieter, the plants around her started to get uglier, and Twilight started lose confidence. That's when she realized she couldn't do this alone. She needed her friends, so she went back.
The first pony Twilight asked was Applejack. Unfortunately, she had some personal stuff to straighten out so she couldn't. Next was Rainbow Dash. She was an obvious yes. After Rainbow Dash, Twilight asked Pinkie Pie, but she had to bake some cupcakes at Sugarcube Corner. After that, Twilight asked Rarity. Obviously, she said no. Finally, Twilight asked Fluttershy. Almost anyone would expect a no from Fluttershy with this question, but for some reason, she said yes. Fluttershy told Twilight Sparkle that she wanted to try and not be so shy anymore, so she wanted to come along.
After Twilight got Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, the three dashed for the cave. As they got closer to the cave, they started to see bats in the trees, staring at them. They ignored them and continued onward. After a while, they reached the cave.
"It looks, um, 'spookier' than the pictures I saw in my books," Twilight said.
"So, are we gonna go in?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Yeah, let's enter," replied Twilight. The three entered the cave, not realizing that they just walked into one of the most dangerous places in Equestria.
The two continued to walk when they were led into a large, open room. The first thing they noticed was Rainbow Dash on the right side of the room, pinned to the wall in spiderweb, struggling to escape. Then they saw a hairy, poisonous, giant spider slowly descending from the ceiling on a web. The spider leaped into the air, hoping to land on the ponies, but they quickly ran from the spot that could easily become their grave.
"Hey Rainbow Dash! You need help getting outta' there?" said Twilight.
"Um, yeah!" replied Rainbow Dash. Twilight freed Rainbow Dash from the web by using her magic, and then was forced to leap out of the way as the spider tried to do what it had attempted to do previously. "Okay guys!" shouted Rainbow Dash as he gave the spider a deadly punch to one of the spider's eyes, destroying it. "Let's defeat this thing!"
The reunited group began to work together to defeat the spider. The spider tried to stomp on the ponies for a third time, so everypony tried to jump out of the way again. Fluttershy was a little too late and had her leg stomped on which broke it. After this event, Fluttershy let out a painful scream, and couldn't walk. Seeing this, Rainbow Dash picked up Fluttershy and put her in the entrance from which she and Twilight came, where the spider couldn't fit. Twilight got mad at the spider for doing this, and used her magic to pick up a huge rock at the side of the room and drop it on the spider. The spider shrieked and had a painful death.
"Good job girls!" said Twilight. "Yeah, we sure did destroy that spider," replied Rainbow Dash. "Well, it might have had a chance if it was cooler, like, about 20% cooler, but good thing it wasn't!"
"Okay, let's move on. Wait a minute, Fluttershy probably won't be able to walk," said Twilight.
"I guess I'll carry her," said Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash picked up Fluttershy and they continued through the cave. After walking through the cave for about a minute, they finally found the Fillyflower.
"Yes! We found it!" Twilight said, who then grabbed a whole bunch of it. "Now that I have this I'll be able to make that, um, 'liquid', so let's get out of here," The ponies traveled back through the long path they came from, and got out of the cave.
"Oh! Rainbow Dash! I still need some rainbow for the liquid I'm mixing up. Could you get me some?" Twilight said.
"Oh, sure Twilight, after I bring Fluttershy to Nurse Redheart,"
"Okay then, I'll be at my house!" Twilight ran back to her house and waited for Rainbow Dash to do what he was going to do.
After about an hour, Twilight heard a knock on the door. When she opened it, it was Rainbow Dash with a bucket of rainbow. "Thanks, Rainbow Dash!" said Twilight.
"Nah, don't mention it," replied Rainbow Dash. Twilight took the bucket and ran to her basement where she was going to mix the ingredients together to make the liquid.
"Okay, water, check. Rainbow, check. Fillyflower, oh yeah I need to crush it," Twilight crushed the FIllyflower and continued talking to herself. "Okay, so I have all of the ingredients, now I need to mix them together," Twilight put all of the ingredients into a bowl and mixed them together.
When she finished mixing, the liquid was purple and very gooey. "Okay, now to put the liquid onto the shiny thing in the gem," Twilight put the liquid onto the glowing bit of gem, but nothing happened. "I don't understand! Why isn't anything happening?" Twilight was very frustrated. "Could this just not be a secret spell? Oh no, I need to contact Princess Celestia," Twilight ran to Princess Celestia's castle.
When she got there, the guards simply nodded and let her in. Twilight walked up to Princess Celestia's throne, and the princess said, "Oh, hello Twilight. Is there anything you need?"
"Yeah, um, about the gem you gave me," Twilight replied. "I don't think it has any spells in it. Are you sure you gave me the right gem?"
"Actually, Twilight. The gem I gave you wasn't the correct one," Princess Celestia appeared to be holding something. "This one is," the princess revealed what she was holding, an orange, perfect sphere gem, about the size of a baseball. "I am certain, Twilight, that this gem has a power within it. Go home, study this, and find it. I believe in you."
"Yes princess!" Twilight rushed out of the castle and sprinted home.
As the group traveled into the cave, it started to get too dark to see. Due to this, Twilight used her horn to light up the area. Occasionally they would see bats on the ceiling, and the bats would only hiss at them. After about 15 minutes, the cave led the three to a large room with several crystals hanging from the ceiling.
"Isn't it just beautiful?" Fluttershy said, awed by the beauty.
"Yeah, it is," said Twilight, who then said "What about you, Rainbow Dash, don't you think this looks 'awesome'. Rainbow Dash? Hello? Wait, Rainbow Dash isn't here!" Rainbow Dash was nowhere in sight.
"Maybe she, well, rushed ahead?" said Fluttershy.
"Yeah probably. Let's keep going," replied Twilight. Even though the two ponies had an idea of where Rainbow Dash went, they weren't entirely sure, but they knew that there was only one way to find out, so they went onward.
The farther the "group" traveled into the cave, the more bats there were, and the creepier it became. Just when Twilight and Fluttershy decided that the bats were completely harmless, they turned the corner, and there were bats all over the ceiling. They turned around with glowing red eyes, and dove for the group. Twilight saw Fluttershy run into a crack in the wall, so she followed her. When they saw that there were cracks in the ground that they could easily fall into, they turned back, but had to run back when they discovered that the bats have followed them in.
Fortunately, the group made it past the all the cracks, and somehow, the bats lost them, so they continued. "Is there spiderweb on the wall?" said Fluttershy.
"Whoa, I think it is. I hope we don't run into any poisonous spiders or anything," replied Twilight. That's when they did.