Fighting Freedom

"And he's back! Baaaaaaaack, baaaaaack, well he's back in black!"

I heard the song in the darkness, and I picked myself. I opened my eyes to see nothingness again. A look down told me I once again had my body back. I couldn't feel it, but it was reassuring to see it. I looked behind myself to see a strange sight.

There was a man holding an ancient looking guitar, or banjo, and he was smiling at me. He had white hair tied in a pony tail that went down to his feet. A remarkable 4 and a half feet to be more exact. His face was rather small, and whiskers actually protruded from the center of it. He waved at me, and I could see his hands were rather small as well. He wore a white shirt that's sleeves hung down past his hands normally. He also wore white pants that were bunched up at his feet. A red sash went around his waist to keep the loose clothing still.

I scratched my head in confusion and stared at him.

"Uh... you are?"

The weird man laughed at me and said,

"You like names do you? Well have fun making one for me."

"Right, so what are you doing here mouse man?"

"I said have fun making one, not make fun."

All this time his eyes had been closed, but his eyebrows moved as he spoke. They had originally been up, but now they were angled down at me.

"Regardless of name calling, I won the bet!"

"Bet…?"

"Yes, I bet that you would succumb to the body disease, but not engage in any copulation even though there were multiple chances."

"You were betting… on my life?"

"It's what I do for fun, and I'm quite good at it. Take a peek anywhere, and make a bet."

"Tell me you at least won something good."

"Any type of pizza from Kamari that I want! The odds were against me."

"You bet against me for a pizza?"

"Not just any pizza, a Kamari pizza. Notorious for the hard to come by ingredients. In fact, Kamari has demanded that the customer start bringing the ingredients themselves. Says he is getting to old for such things."

"Because wheat is hard to come by?"

"Kamari only uses the best of the best. For the dough, he must get wheat that only grows in underground volcanoes on certain worlds."

"Right… well you have fun with your crazy pizza. I'm going to go back in there."

"Now just hold on a minute. You should wait for a bit."

The mouse man sat down on the nothing ground with his legs crossed.

"Why?"

"Because, everyone on that world thinks you are gone yes? Well soon they shall hold a funeral for you, and the castle will be empty. Meaning you have a chance to go in unhindered straight to the core."

"Oh… I guess that makes sense. Why are you helping me exactly?"

"Because the betting isn't over yet. I still bet that you would succeed in getting the core. Morkar thinks he's so clever hiding behind his magic. He didn't account for my luck though."

By this time, if I had been questioning anything this guy had been saying, I wasn't anymore. He just kept spewing out stuff that I didn't understand, and wasn't ever likely to.

"In that case, aren't you cheating?"

"I also won the ability to give you advice from my previous bet. Like I said, the odds were against me."

"Glad to know everyone thought I was going to go at it with the local flair."

"Well it is the nature of such creatures."

"I take offense to that I think. So why are you betting here instead of somewhere else?"

"It is the nature of the wandering lucky sages to do this. We randomly picked a world to look in on, and check it out."

Wandering lucky sages huh? I feel like people who gamble shouldn't be sages.

"So how long do I have to wait for?"

"Long enough for everyone to leave the castle."

"Can't I like choose what time I jump in at?"

"Ah ha hark what the monkey says. You certainly can't, besides I have more advice for you. I would suggest grabbing the female you were working with earlier. Good company is hard to come by. Even better if they offer physical bonuses eh?"

This guy, a sage? I didn't think so.

"Well I already have a plan so don't worry about that."

"Does that include the location of the core?"

"Well… I assume I would find it."

"Sit with me a little longer, and you'll have everything in no time."

I sat down with him, but I hardly paid any attention to him. Would it be right to just take all the answers from him? I thought that would be cheating for sure. In any case, I really don't like have any plans. Just dive in head on and all that. After he finished talking he laid back.

"So you ready to head back?"

"Uhh is it time now?"

"I can send you whenever you need to go."

"Why didn't you say that in the first place!?"

"Because then you would've demanded to be sent back immediately, and I can't stop you without breaking the deal."

"Well then let's go!"

"How do you want your entrance?"

"Umm… what?"

"Well for us that have been doing this for awhile, we can control how we enter a world. You want to drop from the atmosphere, come down with a heavenly light, or even burst from your grave?"

"I feel like there is so much potential for manipulation to happen with this."

"Oh there is, and it happens all the time."

"Never happened on my world."

"Well there is a small amount of manipulators compared to an infinite amount of worlds. What are the chances that you are going to be visited? Not even I would bet on that."

"Well then, just put me there normally."

"Well aren't you fun?"

"I am supposed to be sneaking around aren't I?"

"Hmm, good point. Well then, goodbye!"

The mouse man suddenly put his hands together, and a hole opened up behind me. He nodded at me, and I walked through the hole. Once again things went dark, and I kept my eyes closed. For a moment there was nothing. Then I felt cold wood against my feet. I was standing up, and I could once again feel my body. I looked around, but I could barely see in the darkness. I was able to tell from the night chill that I was once again naked. The only thing I was wearing was my wooden bracelet.

"I really need to figure that out."

I was feeling around myself when a voice screamed out.

"Ahh! Who's there?"

A small blueish light lit up the room. I looked at the source of the light and was relieved to see Rarity's face. Her coat and mane were back to their original colors. She looked at me in surprise and ran at me. She crushed me in an awkward hug, and I nearly fell down.

"Silver!"

At this point she realized my state of dress and jumped off of me blushing. She looked up at the ceiling and said,

"It's good to see you again. I was so worried that you weren't coming back. After all, I wasn't sure what had happened. Everyone had been saying you were dead, and I was clueless. Speaking of which, you need to explain yourself."

"Well apparently I have trouble keeping clothes when I travel."

"Do you usually show up in front of women with no clothes on?"

"Well it's not like there is a little shop for me to stop by before I come back. Besides you're naked too, not that you should get any ideas."

"You're different dear. You… uh… hang out so to speak."

I looked at the bracelet which had been relatively quiet for a while and said,

"Want to do the loincloth thing again?"

It glowed and heated up. The piece of wood slithered down my body and changed into the wooden clothing. It was uncomfortable, but it would have to do.

Rarity said,

"So why did you vanish at the castle?"

"Ah that. Well I was kind of dying, and then dead."

"WHAT?"

"Well you see my body was kind of attacking itself. It was supposed to take awhile, but I guess magic was speeding it up."

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS?"

"It didn't really seem important at the time."

"NOT IMPORTANT!"

Rarity made an assortment of sounds before finally just giving out a long huff.

"I can't believe you."

"Neither can I sometimes. Anyway moving on. So where am I? And how long has it been?"

"Well at the moment you are at one of the inns in Canterlot. It's been exactly one week since you disappeared at the castle. Celestia declared you dead after a few hours of searching. She said you hadn't left any magical trace behind, so it couldn't be a teleport. I can't even recall the last funeral held anywhere, but yours is tomorrow. Of course it's all the way back in Ponyville."

"Wait… So everyone thinks I'm dead?"

"Well… yes."

"Brilliant. That'll make for some awkward conversations later, for now that works to our advantage. I assume the two princesses have headed down there?"

"Not yet, they'll leave by carriage in the morning."

"Then I guess we have to wait. And I definitely can't go out and about. By the way, we're breaking into the castle tomorrow. There's something we need from there, or rather near there that we need."

"What is it?"

"For now let's just say it's something that could benefit us all. I'll explain more when we are at a more opportune moment."

"After seeing Celestia like that… I think you're up to something. I don't know whose side to be on right now."

"You can trust me right?"

Rarity looked at the ground and said,

"Well I'm in this far, so I guess I really have no choice now do I?"

Rarity's light was the only thing keeping my visuals up, and it was getting faint. I could tell she was tired, by the bags under her eyes. However, she seemed to be genuinely relieved to see me again. I guess she really did think I had been gone for good.

"So you really were…"

She didn't have to say the omitted word. Death has a different feeling after you do it twice. Not that I wanted to start doing stupid things. I could still feel pain after all. However, at the moment I did feel a tad invincible. Of course I supposed that someone could just lock me up and keep me alive.

"Yea… At least that seems the most probable answer."

"Most probable…?"

"Well you can never be 100% sure of anything. I mean this could all be some crazy coma dream, or some really high form of magic stuff."

"Right…"

"Well in any case, I'm here now. So no need to worry anymore right?"

"Just don't go scaring me like that again okay?"

"I make no promises."

She just huffed at me and sat down on the ground next to me. Her light went out and I started to pet her head. It wasn't as awkward as it had been the first time, but I still hesitated a bit. I was running my hands through her mane without really paying attention to what I was doing. When I felt her breath regulate, I assumed she was asleep. I picked up her body and placed it on the small bed.

There wasn't room for two, and even if there was I wouldn't take it. I didn't want to encourage anything of that sort for sure. I couldn't just go around sleeping with other ponies when I told Rose I wasn't comfortable. Besides, I doubted Rarity was my type. Sure she was fun now, but what about when she went all high maintenance? That would be my cue to run and hide at a bar.

No, Rarity was just a good travel friend, even if her methods were rather… unorthodox. As long as she was away from it all, I could enjoy her company. However, as she ran her own business, she couldn't afford to be like that all the time. I usually make good friends with people who don't let the world drag them down.

I laid against the frame of the bed until my eyes closed of their own accord. I wasn't really tired, but it couldn't be helped. Waiting can get ever so boring.

______________

The morning sun wasn't very bright on this day. I woke up of my own accord (which is the healthiest way. Alarm clocks can mess up the sleep schedule >.<) and looked out the window. Clouds seem to cover the entire sky, and were threatening to rain all over. Rarity wasn't in her bed, and I had no choice but to wait for her.

After only a few minutes, Rarity came through the door with several bags floating behind her. One was full of fruit, my breakfast, and the other had a large black sheet in it. I began eating the food while Rarity unfolded the black sheet. Some very minor alterations later, and it was a very simple cloak.

"Well it's not my color, but I guess it'll do."

Rarity huffed and then said,

"You're welcome."

"I was just teasing. I appreciate it, anything is better than this thing."

I threw the cloak on, and my wooden bracelet returned. It had taken a liking to that form it seemed, and I couldn't really disagree.

"Now Silver, while the princesses are away, the city is still quite full. However, for the most part, the castle should be empty. I've been with you this far, so I expect some sort of explanation to what is going on."

"I'll give it to you once we are inside the castle. No time to chat now."

Rarity nodded reluctantly, and opened the door. I had finished the last of the fruit, and I followed her out. It was still relatively early, so few ponies were outside. We moved quickly through the streets, and towards the bridge.

"Rarity, how do you plan to get past the gate."

"Oh don't worry about that dear. I've got this handled. Just stay behind me would you?"

I just shrugged from behind her, and let her go first. We reached the gate and Rarity's horn glowed. I stood directly behind her. Light flowed over the both of us and hovered there for a second. Rarity once again took on the appearance of a fiery pony, and the light soon faded. Rarity called out to noone in particular,

"Excuse me. I seem to have forgotten my supplies in the castle. If you could be a dear and let me fetch them real quick, I would be ever so grateful."

The gate opened almost immediately, and a young guard jumped out.

"Uh… Hello miss. My name is Fledge, I… can uh… accompany you to get your supplies."

Rarity swooned at him and said,

"Oh that's ever so thoughtful."

I mimed a gag, but Rarity paid me no heed. It seemed that the guard couldn't even see me. His name sounded familiar to me though, and I had a hard time remembering why. He walked side by side with Rarity, and she kept a conversation going with him. I followed at a distance, making sure not to step out from behind Rarity. We entered into the main hall of the castle, which was back to its normal state.

Fledge led Rarity through a side door, and I managed to slip through behind her. After only 3 corridors we arrived in a large kitchen. Fledge turned around to face Rarity and said,

"Well here we are."

Rarity looked around the kitchen and then back at Fledge,

"If you would excuse me. A cook must never reveal her secrets right?"

Rarity gave him a wink and a nudge with her head. It was almost sad to see this poor young stallion be wooed by her. He nodded and managed to stumble out of the room. Rarity changed back to her normal color, and spoke softly to me.

"I can buy us a little time with an illusion, how much will you need."

"Probably not that much. A little friend of mine gave me some hints."

Rarity raised an eyebrow, but said nothing more. A light shone from her horn and a duplicate of her showed up in the room. She was seemingly grabbing stuff from the countertops and cupboards. She kicked a pan onto the ground, and the guard came running in. The duplicate Rarity laughed and excused herself. The real Rarity motioned for me to leave, and we left through the open door.

After a series of twists and turns that I had managed to memorize somehow, we were at what had been my room. Luckily it seemed no one had been in it, my bag of stuff was still in the corner of the room where I had left it. I dug through it and pulled out a set of nice fitting robes. I threw them on and felt around the folds. It seemed I still had my book, and the diamond thing from the wizard. I threw everything else back into the bag and slung it over my shoulder.

I led the way back to the main hall, and towards the royal throne. What seemed like only yesterday, this throne had been nearly mine. I doubted I would make a good prince though. However it had been a whole week ago, which I hoped would give me the upper hand. The upper hand in what I wasn't sure, but I was sure something would pop up.

I walked past the throne, and through the small wooden door behind it. After a few more corridors, we stopped at a spiraling staircase. It seemed to go up for awhile, but it didn't go down at all. I was faced with a wall made of the same bricks as the rest of this castle. I placed the bag on the ground and started to count the bricks on the wall. Rarity watched me in earnest as I just stared at the wall.

Then without warning, I made several jabs at the bricks. I hit a certain pattern that was much like a "T". The stairwell began to shake, and I picked up my bag. Rarity gasped as the stairs that went up seemed to slide down. They fell past us until the top of the stairs were even with us. I motioned for Rarity to go down and I said,

"Shall we?"

Rarity just nodded, mouth agape, and walked forward. She descended the stairs and I followed close behind.

"Better not close this. No way to open it from this side."

I heard Rarity swallow, but regardless she walked even faster. She had her saddlebags on, and they obscured her face. When we had been descending for about a minute she said,

"Where does this thing go?"

"To the ancient city below. Something about an earthquake or something blocking it up. I wasn't really paying attention to that part. I just know how to get in, after that I'm clueless."

"That's reassuring."

"It wouldn't be any fun if I knew what lay ahead."

"I didn't think we were supposed to be having fun."

"Of course we are! Why would we be doing this anyways?"

"Oh I don't know. Maybe because you mysteriously died, and the princess has gone crazy."

"Valid points. I suppose I should explain all that to you."

"I hope you really do have a good explanation."

We continued to walk down, and even I was getting sick of the stairs. I was disappointed there was no rail to slide down on. We continued our descent, which went into the mountain, and eventually below the lake. When we finally reached the bottom, we were faced again with a large wooden door. I put down my bag, and shoved against it. It was shut tight, but eventually I was able to bust it open.

Rarity gasped when it was out of the way, and despite knowing ahead of time, I did too. We were at the top of a hill that over looked a large sloping plateau. We came out of a small rock formation that was close to the cavern ceiling. From that point on, the plateau just sloped downwards for some time. There was an eerie light just all around, with no visible source.

Large, ancient looking, buildings sprouted up from the ground everywhere. Most of them had pieces of wall missing, or even half of the building missing. There were a few that had crumbled entirely. All the buildings were made with what looked like limestone, but I couldn't be sure. The maze they created was even worse than the city above, as most of the streets had become useless.

"What is this place?"

Rarity had yet to move, so I gave her a little push.

"I guess you could say it used to be Canterlot. Well the old Canterlot anyways."

"How did you know this was here?"

"Well some mouse man told me all about it."

"Mouse man…?"

"I suppose now is as good as anytime to explain it to you."

As we descended into the crumbling city, which was at least three times bigger than the city above, I began to explain everything to her. For the most part she listened attentively, and didn't interrupt. I covered everything from Earth to now that she didn't know about. Well anything important for the most part. When I had finished telling her about Scales and Frank the tree she said,

"Why didn't you tell us this before?"

"I really don't know. I just got a feeling that I shouldn't. Nothing too important in my opinion."

The next time she interrupted wasn't until I mentioned Morkar for the first time.

"There is another human living here without us knowing? And he's been here for 1000 years?"

"I don't really think he's human, but essentially that's the idea."

"But that's ridiculous. He would've died from old age by now."

"Like I said, I don't know much about him. Besides you've been alive for the past 1000 years too."

"Well now I know you're lying."

"No seriously, the entire planet is at a standstill. Time passes, but it also doesn't. The days past, but noone gets any older. Something about a time lock, which brings me to the most important part."

"There's more?"

"There is always more. Anyway at the center of this planet there is this thing called a peace core, not that I really know what that means. From what I've been told, it keeps that time lock in position. It's pretty much what makes this planet so happy and peaceful. Only problem is that it’s slowly breaking, so it needs to be fixed."

"What happens if it breaks?"

"Well if it slowly breaks, everything will disintegrate because the core will tear the world apart trying to suck up energy. It usually produces its own energy, but the more it breaks, the less it can produce, which means the more it has to draw from the planet. However, if it were to be destroyed quickly, the time lock would cease, and time would once again pass. The world would become much like my planet, and become much less peaceful."

"How much time until it’s completely gone?"

"I was told that I have plenty of time, but how much plenty is I'm not sure."

"So this core controls the planet?"

"Pretty much, I think it can also control the people born here. Well the things born here. Which would explain why Celestia went bonkers."

"I see."

I continued to explain about why I had suddenly vanished, and the decaying body. I also told her about what had happened after I died with the mouse man.

When I was finished with my explanation, we reached the wall that separated us from the city. The gate was still firmly shut, and there seemed to be no way past it. However, I counted some more bricks, and stopped at a place not too far from the gate. Once again, a rapid tapping in the shape of an "H" and a small section of the wall moved out of the way.

We moved into the city, and I couldn't help but look around. I entered one of the houses that was missing its top half, and Rarity called out to me,

"What are you doing? That could collapse any second!"

"It hasn't collapsed yet. Besides I am exploring, danger is a part of that."

I went inside the building, and spotted some stairs that had crumbled when the top half had slid off. There wasn't a lot that I could see, as most of it was indeed rubble.

"Should we be wasting time here?"

"We have plenty of time. We're in no hurry."

"What if you get sick again?"

"Then I'll come back again. Stop worrying and come explore with me."

"I think not. I may have gone traveling with you on a road, and I may have even helped break into the castle. However, all of those things were safe to a degree. That crumbled building looks like it will give any moment. I'm not a reckless mare you know."

I came out of the building empty handed and said,

"Could've fooled me."

Rarity stomped her hoof and said,

"What is that supposed to mean?"

I shrugged and kept walking. After another 4 houses, I still had nothing to show for my efforts. I was starting to think the place had already been cleaned out. I had no idea though who could get down here. I had to be given specific directions to come down. All of the buildings seemed the same to me in the first district. All of them were two stories, or at least used to be. The one road that I could use was the same color stone as the rest of the place. A lot of the buildings would be hard to get to from where I was because of all the rubble that had fallen down.

There was one building that had fallen onto the one next to it, and gave a great view over the district. After climbing to the roof of the first building, I managed to get on the slant of the second one. I ran up the rest of the distance, and was disappointed to see that I could only see the rest of the district. There was another wall around the next district with another gate. I climbed back down to where Rarity was waiting for me.

"Looks like we have a bit more to go. Why don't we stop here for a little bit?"

Rarity nodded, and magicked off her saddlebags. She pulled out some bread, and split it with me. I wasn't particularly hungry, but I ate anyways. I looked up at the cavern ceiling in slight concern. I hated having the rocky roof above me. It could've come down at any moment and trapped us in. Suddenly, a drip of water hit my face. I shook my head in surprise and then looked back up at the ceiling.

"What is it dear?"

"Hmm, I think we're under the lake right now."

"Oh."

"I wonder how long the ceiling will last until it collapses."

"Hopefully a bit more time."

"Oh I doubt it will be anytime soon, but still, that would be kinda cool to see."

"I suppose."

We finished the rest of the food in silence, and then picked up our stuff again. We continued walking at a leisurely pace, not too worried about hurrying. When we reached the next wall, I found a section and tapped an "E" pattern. The wall opened up to allow us passage and we went onto the next district. It was my guess that this was more of a market district, and the last one had been residential.

The buildings here were in much worse condition, and looked to be at the center of whatever had happened. None of the roads were usable, and it took a lot of detouring to get through. The buildings were probably only one story high, which was probably a good thing. If they had the towering buildings like they did in the city above, it would cause much more damage when it fell. There was obviously nothing left in this district as most of it was just piles of bricks. Only the occasional small building stood up. The streets were much wider, and I assumed market stalls used to line them. It took almost the same time to cross this district as the last one, even though it was half the size.

Without incident we reached wall to the next district. Once again I found a section of the wall and tapped a pattern in. This time it was in the shape of another "E". We walked into the third district, and I was surprised at what I saw. Almost all the buildings were still in perfect shape. They had cracks and little pieces missing, but they were all still standing.

Looking around at all the buildings, they were much more impressive than the earlier ones. Some stood taller than 5 stories, and expanded quite the distance. Rarity was looking around the same as I was and said,

"I think this is the upper district."

"Actually, I think we're lower than the other two."

Rarity just made a small huff and continued.

"I mean this is where all the "important" buildings are. The bank, post office, government buildings, and political figures' houses. Maybe a few schools and stuff like that."

"Strange that this place is lower, yet somehow avoided the destruction that ravaged the other two districts."

"These buildings might have had better structural support."

"I suppose, but not even one building has fallen. Even if whatever caused this didn't destroy them, time should have."

"Maybe buildings are affected like we are by the time lock."

"That is a possibility. I think we should explore just a little bit."

"Well it does seem relatively safe."

"To be fair, there is a potential cave in to happen any moment. This couldn't be considered safe at all."

"I would prefer if you didn't mention that."

We walked to the first building, which had three large rooms in front. The two on the side were only one story, and the center part had a domed roof above it. We went in and took a quick look around. My guess was that it used to be a bank of some sort. I deduced that from the giant vault door behind a counter with bars over it. I tried the door to get behind the counter, and to my surprise it swung open.

"Bank robbery anyone?"

Rarity came up behind me and said,

"Is it robbery if the person who owns it hasn't seen it for 1000 years?"

I shrugged, and tried to pull open the vault door. It was stuck, which meant that the security mechanisms were still working. Rarity pushed me aside and said,

"You have to be delicate with things like this."

She put her ear up to the door and tapped it. Some magic leapt from her horn and through the tiny cracks between the vault door and the wall. After she tapped it a few more times, the vault door suddenly hissed. The wheel in front spun violently and the door swung open. We both looked in with excitement, which dropped quickly. The vault was completely empty.

"So much for secret agent Rarity."

"Well a lady has her ways."

"Well if this is related to your relationship skills, I can see how you have failed to find a date."

Rarity huffed and walked out of the bank. I took one last look around the empty vault, and then followed her out. We looked through a few more buildings, and even a mansion, but all of them were empty of anything not set in stone.

"Well at least we know everyone evacuated."

"How do we know that?"

"I'm pretty sure that if the disaster happened without previous knowledge of it, there would be stuff laying around everywhere."

"What if others found this place and scavenged everything."

"It would take a bunch of scavengers and a bunch of trips to clean this place out. Besides, they would have left all the useless stuff behind. Everything, and I mean everything that was movable is gone. I assume there was plenty of time to get out, and everyone packed all their stuff up and left."

"That's feasible."

"A shame though. I really wanted to find some treasure or something."

After we looked around a bit more, we gave up on looking through the buildings. They were impressive to look at on the outside, but the inside was all the same. The last wall was now between us, and a very large building. I could just see the top of it, a glass dome. Which was very strange to see in perfect shape.

It took me longer to find the correct section of wall this time, but eventually I reached it. After an "N" pattern of taps, the wall moved aside. We entered the last district, which was up against the cavern wall. There was only one building in here, but it was a very large building. It covered more ground then even the palace above did.

Rarity looked up at it in awe and said,

"This must be the old palace."

I looked up at it and said,

"Looks like it."

We approached the front doors, which weren't very impressive, and swung them open. We looked inside, and saw large shelves everywhere. They expanded throughout the main room, far beyond where I could see. The only thing that wasn't a shelf was a stone counter to the right of the doors. There was nothing behind the counter, so I ignored it for the time being. Looking forwards, I walked into the maze of stone shelves.

Rarity who was following close behind me said,

"This is no palace."

I pulled something off the shelf, and brushed it off to reveal a large tome.

"No, it's a library."

I looked up from my book, and down the aisle I was in. I could even see then end of the shelves from my position.

"A very large library."

I took a closer look at the book I was reading, and opened it up. I blew more dust off of it, and revealed blue ink. The writing was English, or at least looked like it. I was horrible with fancy cursive type writing. I would always have to ask my teachers what they had wrote. I handed the book to Rarity, and pulled down another tome.

"The Accumulative Collection of Animals"

She magicked the book back into its place and said,

"Well we found your treasure Silver. The treasure of knowledge."

"Bull. If it doesn't shine, then it's not treasure. Although, I wonder why they would leave such a vast amount of knowledge down here."

"Maybe they couldn't be bothered to move it. There is an unfathomable amount of books here."

"I think we need to be careful not to get split up now."

"Why's that?"

"This place is massive. I think it would be easy to get lost for days down here. I don't see any obvious ways of organization, or a map of any kind. So just make sure to keep me in sight at all times."

We moved through the maze of shelves, hopefully heading in the right direction. Every once in awhile I would pull out a tome, but wouldn't be able to read the writing. I would hand it to Rarity who would look at it, and then put it back in place.

"We need to bring Twilight down here at some point."

"Are you sure dear? She may never show up again."

"Or I could tease her about it, but not let her in."

"Then you may never show up again."

"I think I could handle Twilight."

"I don't."

"Well thanks for the vote of confidence there."

"I'm just telling the truth."

After what felt like forever, we made it to the other side of the building. There were staircases going up every once in a while on this end, but that wasn't where I was heading. Rarity looked at them and said,

"There's a second floor?!"

"I think there are 3, not including the ones that go down."

"This library really is massive."

I found a door that had a stair well going down, and it didn't seem to be in bad condition. We both descended the stairs, and went into another room full of shelves. I started walking towards the other end of the room again, and pulled out books along the way. One of the ones I pulled out caught my eye though. It was rather plain looking, but had a torn up cover. I opened it up and was glad to see I could read it.

"Swirlz magic journal."

I started flipping through the pages, and eventually laid against the shelf behind me so I could read it. The handwriting was pretty shoddy, but it was more legible than the fancy cursive. I went back to the first page and began to read it out loud.

"Spell number 1: heat incurrence, useful for heating up water, or anything else. To perform this spell one must…"

After the description it gave details on how much concentration one should use, and other details on how to cast the spells. It gave some units that I didn't even remotely understand, and I realized that unicorn magic was very, very complicated. I would have to learn all about it, instead of just making it up as I went along. At first the spells were very basic, mostly to do with household things.

"Is this really the time to be reading?"

"We are in a library aren't we? Besides once we grab the core, we'll have to high tail it back to Ponyville. Where they are currently hosting my funeral. Which reminds me that I have no idea what time it is. Just pick out an interesting book and read for awhile."

Rarity complied and looked through a few books before pulling one down with magic. She laid down next to me, and began flipping the pages. I went back to reading my new magic book, and after flipping forward a bit, I found some very interesting spells.

There were some to make flowers appear, grow, or even sing. There was one to make moss grow, and another to summon a small cloud of rain. There were hundreds of spells in this one little book. Then I got to a very interesting part of the book. There was a spell listed that would let one see through walls, and it was located next to a spell that would make the user seem to be invisible. Both of these were conveniently located next to a spell about finding the nearest bathroom. I got a suspicion that this Swirlz guy wasn't the most modest of unicorns.

After reading for awhile, I exclaimed,

"I just found the best spell ever! Look here."

Rarity leaned over my shoulder and read out,

"Spell 235, the possum spell. Puts the caster in a deep sleep. Care to explain how that is the best spell?"

"Instant sleep anytime I want? I can think of so many occasions that would be useful. I'll have to get Twilight to show me how to do this."

"Ahem. I am also a unicorn capable of magic you know."

"I suppose you are, but you wouldn't teach me this anyway."

"And Twilight will?"

"It would be easier to convince her then you."

Rarity didn't say anything else, but folded up her book, and put it back.

"I think you've had enough reading time. Shall we continue?"

"Alright, let's go."

I bookmarked my page, and flipped the book closed. I put it into the folds of my robes along with the other book. I led the way to the end of the room, and looked both right and left. I spotted what I was looking for to the right. It was a small statue of a pony in guard armor. I went next to it, and counted the bricks again. When I reached the spot, I tapped a "D" into the ricks. The wall folded out, and revealed a staircase that led down.

We descended, and I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach. Not anything painful, but the feeling that something bad was about. I reached a small door, and I opened it to reveal a large hall. It was about the same size of the main hall of the castle, and had columns that went in two rows towards the other end of the room. The room was almost like a half dome in shape, and the columns varied in size depending on their location. At the end of the room was a large pedestal, that had spall spokes sticking up from it.

These spokes were lifting up a bright diamond the size of my fist with a gold ring around it. After seeing this, I pointed at it and said,

"There it is!"

Before I could move at all, there was a large crash. The very middle of the ceiling broke, and stone rained down. When the dust settled, and I was able to see again, I saw Celestia standing in the middle of the room. She was looking directly at me, and her eyes worried me. Almost the entire pupil was an image of that diamond. I took it to mean she was completely out of control.

"Yes you have finally reached it."

"So you knew about the core then?"

"Not the core."

"Then what?"

Celestia lowered her horn at me and said,

"You spelled it yourself."

It took me a moment to understand what she meant, and I heard Rarity whisper,

"The end."

______________________________________

AN: Just wanted to shout out Quilltastic who has taken up the task of pre-reading the entire thing to fix any errors. Of course, he'll Britishfy everything so I might have to go through everything after him. Also, I'll be posting interesting updates about the story on a tumblr (along with other crap). Link will be on FiM account page.

Quill here. I just have to point out that it was incredibly painful to leave the word, if it can be called such a thing, Britishfy in there. (Britishify would have been more credible. Come on) Also have alittle faith why don’t you silver?! *Huffs*

See that "alittle" right there? That's why there is little faith =P