Lost Advocates of the Elements

The warm sun looms high in the sky over the castle of the Crystal Empire. The castle, carved from a giant crystal, causes the sun’s rays to refract and send prismatic rays to form on the ground below. Crystal ponies move around freely as they work around the castle. At the main entrance, six ponies of different colors enter the castle. Five wearing golden necklaces with different gem symbols fastened to the front and the sixth wearing a matching golden crown on her head with a fuchsia six pointed star on the top.

The six make it to the throne room, where a pink pastel alicorn awaits their arrival. Standing beside her is a white unicorn stallion with a blue mane. When she looks up at the six ponies that enter, she smiles and says, “There’s my girls!” She leaps to land in front of a smiling lavender alicorn.

They begin their game of patty-cake every time they ever meet since they were little fillies, “Sunshine, sunshine,” they both bow and cover their eyes, “ladybugs awake, clap your hooves,” then they hop up and face away from each other to shake their hindquarters “and do a little shake!” They end the playful nursery rhyme and giggle with each other.

“I’ll never get tired of that Twilight!” then she looks in the direction of the five ponies behind her, “and thank you for coming to visit girls!”

“No problem, Princess Cadence,” Twilight Sparkle says, “Although I’m not sure way you also requested we bring our Elements of Harmony along with us. Your letter sounded urgent, but everything outside looks completely normal.”

“Well first, I contacted Princess Celestia and she stated that the Elements of Harmony was the right fix for the problem.”

“Forgive me for interrupting,” a white unicorn with a purple mane steps forward, “But what is the problem in the first place?”

“Rarity’s right” a cyan pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail hovers, “If there is a problem we need to know what it is in order to fix it.”

A pink earth pony jumps forward with a poufy mane, “Is there a welcome party for us and you forgot the cake!? That WOULD be a problem! Too bad I forgot my party canon at home!”

“Everythin’ doesn’t have to be about parties Pinkie Pie,” an orange earth pony with a blonde mane and country accent says rolling her eyes at the hyper pony.

“Watch it, Apple Jack,” the cyan Pegasus nudges the orange pony’s Stetson hat, “Don’t tempt her.”

“I hope…whatever the problem is,” a butter colored Pegasus with a light pink mane speaks up, “that it isn’t scary.”

“Don’t worry Fluttershy! If its scary then we can power up the Elements and send that problem packing,” the cyan mare puffs out her chest making herself look courageous.

“Whoa your horses Rainbow Dash,” Apple Jack interjects, “We don’t even know what it IS yet, let the princess finish.”

“Thank you for your determination and enthusiasm girls, but I’ll have Shining Armor explain. He was the one that found it,” Cadence motions her hoof to her husband as he steps forward.

“Ever since you discovered the Crystal Heart months ago,” Shining began, “As a prince and royal guard, I became very determined with what secrets may be located beneath my hooves. First, there was a hidden labyrinth underneath the Canterlot Castle during the wedding and lastly was underneath this very throne room was the passageway to where the Crystal Heart was hidden. All located under our very hooves.”

After the six friends look down at the floor inquisitively, Shining looks at his wife lovingly and continues as he puts his fore leg around her shoulders, “I want our new little family member to grow up in a safe place, after all.”

“I completely understand,” Twilight agrees only to gasp in shock at the news, “WAIT A MINUTE…new little family member…Cadence… is PREGNANT!?” The rest of her friends squeal and grow smiles from ear to ear. “That’s great news!”

“How’s that for surprising my little sister and Future Auntie Twily?”

Twilight Sparkle tackles Shining and Cadence in a loving hug, “I’m so excited for you two, congratulations!”

Pinkie Pie hops up and down in excitement, “I can sense a super-duper Foal Shower Party in the near future!”

Twilight looks back at her brother, “This all sounds like good news, but what’s the problem?”

Shining continues, “Not long ago, I assigned some of my best magically talented unicorn guards to investigate the castle further and was surprised at what they found. Stand back.” He closes his eyes and begins the spell that his sister taught him months ago. His horn starts to glow only to turn a darker color and purple smoke starts to seep out his eyes as he continues the spell. The dark magic transfers to the large column crystal behind the throne and a shadow casts along the floor to reveal an opening to a dark downward spiraling staircase. After the spell was cast, Shining shakes his head to rid his mind of the dark magic only to leave him panting in exhaustion.

Twilight trots over to stand by her brother, he looks at her his a few beads of sweat on his forehead. “Follow me,” he orders as they begin walk down the spiral staircase. At first the girls are hesitant, but with a deep breath they follow. Not long after they start their descent, Shining turns to his sister walking beside him, “Did you get my letter before Cadence’s?”

“Yes, but I can’t believe your bringing it up as small talk,” she rolls her eyes in annoyance.

“Well, you can’t stop your older brother from being a little protective, especially since his sister just became a princess.”

"I don't need protection," she states flat out.

“But, think about all the trouble you and the other Elements of Harmony go through. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Cadence have castle guards. Since you’re a princess you should have protection.”

“My whole time in Ponyville has been just fine with just the girls and me. Why do I need protection?”

“Because you’re a princess.”

“Any other reasons?” she starts putting attitude in her tone.

“As Captain of the Royal Guard, that’s all the reason I need.”

“But we are just fine by ourselves.”

“Umm…excuse me...” Fluttershy tries to get their attention.

“That’s just it, you’re by yourselves!” he continues not hearing her.

“There are six of us! I’m not alone!”

“Twilight?” Rarity tries this time.

“Not all the time! They don’t live with you at the library!” he continues the argument unphased.

“Who needs to guard a library? From book thieves?” she mockingly gasps, “the scoundrels!”

“Twilight?” Even Cadence tries, but to no avail.

“Not to protect the books in the library, but the princess in the library.”

“And I still say NO.”

“TWILIGHT!!!” the girls yell together. The group stops as the walls in the staircase echo her name.

When her name stops bouncing off the walls she looks back at her friends, “What is it?”

“Are we there yet?” Rarity complains.

“Does it look like we are there yet? These stairs go on for a much longer time,” then she glares at her brother, “Unless some over-protective brother wants to arrive there in pain, because he’s being a pain.”

Shining Armor looks at his surroundings and says with a grin, “Actually, we are here.”

“What? But we aren’t at the bottom yet,” ponders Twilight.

He motions his hoof to some random chalk marks on the wall, “These are the marks that my guards left when we found this room.” He looks back at the girls on the staircase with apathetic looks on their faces.

“Umm, Shining Armor, hate to break it to you but, that’s just a wall,” Twilight said as she raises an eyebrow at him.

“That’s what I thought too, but my guard’s investigated this area and their acoustic location spells found a disturbance behind this wall. After further investigation, they found that there is, in fact, an empty space that is as big as an average living room. The reason way we called all of you here is because of the magical energy that they could feel coming from it. Now, every pony back up and give me some space.” He then braced himself, took in a deep breath, and his horn glowed. The wall he was facing started to form a glowing arch entryway and the stone was slowly evaporating away.

“Wow!” Rainbow Dash was impressed, “That is the kind of thing you only read in Daring Do novels: Hidden Passageways!”

They observe the entrance before going inside to make sure it was safe to enter. They were surprised to find that a luminescent blue light was coming out of it. Shining Armor takes a cautious step inside the cavern. He motions to the rest that it is safe. When they all get in they look up because they were curious about what was causing the light.

“Oh! What marvelous crystals are these? They are almost as beautiful as diamonds,” Rarity gasps.

“Aetherium,” Twilight answers in a matter-of-factly tone, “it’s a rare crystal that glows a bright blue hue when it senses any magical aura.”

Suddenly they hear a gasp come out of Fluttershy and they see that she is staring at the other end of the cavern. They see what she is looking at and hold their breaths at what they see. Six pony-shaped stone sculptures, the anxious to terrified looks on the figures faces was enough to make their hair stand on end.

“Why does King Sombra want to hide six statues?” Twilight inquired.

“Maybe he didn’t know where else to put them,” Rarity casually states as they all look at her dumbfounded, “What? Try to imagine something as odd and ghastly as that sitting on either side of the fireplace.”

As they walk closer, with Fluttershy staying in the back of the pack, they notice more features. Five of them were clumped behind the sixth that was standing out front. The one in the front was a Pegasus an Alicorn that it’s horn was broken so only a fourth of the jagged stump was left. They notice that he also had a metal color around its neck and a chain that was bolted to the cavern wall, the chain was stretched tight as far as it could go.  Behind him, were five other ponies: two earth ponies, two pegasi, and a unicorn.

“Something happened here,” Twilight faces her brother, “Why would anyone chain a stone sculpture? Just think about how Discord was turned to stone, I bet these ponies were cursed this way.”

Her friends look at the scene in horror as they also reach the same conclusion. Twilight continues, “If they cooperate when we change them back to normal, we can question them and get the full story.”

“Are you sure about that Twily?” her brother asks with a concerned look on his face.

“I’m positive,” she answers, “Okay girls, we are going to try the releasing spell that we used with Discord, hopefully this works.”

The six stand around Twilight in attention, and then she lights up her horn to activate her magic element. They all close their eyes to concentrate as their own element’s magical powers come to life. The magic aura lifts them off the ground as their elements start shooting a neon lights. A rainbow ribbon begins to form connecting the bearers together and then spiraling around Twilight until it finally connects with the element on her crown. Then a prismatic light shines from her crown and engulfs the stone ponies. The stone bodies begin to crack with beams of bright light breaking through.

The stone flies off their bodies like scales and their true colors come out of suspended animation with them taking in deep breaths, filling their lungs with air. The five in the back fall to the floor in pile rubbing their heads and blinking their eyes. The sixth, however, when his stone cast exploded, it demolished the metal collar around his neck. His broken horn was spitting sparks and his eyes were glowing white. When he snaps out of suspended animation he blindly lunges forward, tackling Twilight to the ground yelling, “Noooooooooo! Leave my friends ALONE!”

The entire magical anomaly in the cavern abruptly disappears leaving Twilight to open her eyes to the enraged, snarling alicorn stallion looking down on her, pinning her to the floor. Her friends open their eyes as well and gasp in shock as Twilight lies there helpless. His glowing eyes dim, revealing forest green orbs.

Realization hits him as he stares into Twilight’s voilet eyes as his ears drop to the sides of his face and quickly back-pedals with a massive blush on his face. He also notices the group of ponies standing around her with shocked faces. He looks at his friends behind him, lying on the floor and rubbing their eyes as if waking up from a long nap.

He begins with a stammer and points his hoof at the ground below Twilight, “Wh-what h-h-happened t-to us? King Sombra was standing right there!”