Chapters "Hey guys, can somepony swap me places of flying? My wings are aching," Spirals said, obviously pained.
" Yeah, give me a second to stretch my wings," Josie replied, unfolding her wings. Spirals landed in the basket of the balloon, slowly folding her wings. "Does that hurt, after flying so long?"
"A bit, like taking out a tight ponytail and finally moving your mane." Spirals said. "You may not need to feel it though. We'll be coming along the Crystal Empire soon."
"Really?" I asked. "We haven't been in the air too long. Is the trip seriously not that long?"
Spirals was still folding her wings. "Yeah, it's not too far, we've also been entertaining ourselves throughout the trip. Like, I don't know , talking and such."
Flitter Note was quite most of the trip, until now. "Sorry I haven't been saying to much. It's been a little traumatizing to see my entire family and my cat missing after seeing them the night before." I was a little surprised she hadn't said anything because of that. We had all been talking about what we had done the night before. I had been having a family game night, my idea, playing Sorry. My mom had won, but it had still been very fun.
"Y'know, all of us were doing something with our families last night. I was playing a board game, Spirals was roller skating, Josie was practicing barrels with Starred Hearts, Pom was playing with her baby sister, and Aqua was playing catch with her brothers. What were you doing Flitter?"
"I was helping my family clean so we could go out for dinner tomorrow, er, today. After helping clean Spotlight's room, which was the last room we needed clean, we all went to bed, and that was it. That was the last I saw of my family," Flitter said. I was surprised, since we were all doing family-related activities the night before. How would this be connected, and why to Ponyville? I could now see the peak of the castle in the Crystal Empire.
"Hey," Josie asked, "Isn't today, like, the third birthday party of Princess Skyla? Shouldn't there be streamers and balloons everywhere?"
Flitter and Spirals flew out of the basket to see. "She's right! There's nothing there, not even a single decoration!" Spirals called out.
"I don't understand," Aqua inquired. "All of this must be connected in some way. We had fun with our families the night before they disappeared. Then we realize the Crystal Empire is under-decorated for the party of one of the biggest celebrations of the Crystal Empire! The ponies there must be missing too!" She pulled the chain on the burner to make the balloon rise higher, and suddenly the balloon lurched forwards. Pink-violet magic aura formed around the front of the basket and pulled us to the ground. Quickly but safely, we landed in the lush grasses and jumped out of the basket. "That must have been Shining Armor! He's the only other pony in the empire that's a unicorn."
We raced to the gateway of the empire, and we were met with Shining Armor, looking worried and frantic. "Thank goodness there are more ponies at least in Equestria! I've sent letters to Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Twilight, and haven't gotten anything back from any of them!"
"Slow down! What do you mean?" I asked Shining Armor.
"I mean, EVERYPONY is missing! The citizens of the Crystal Empire, the workers for Celestia and Luna, my sister, Cadance, and Skyla! Have you seen anypony recently?"
Josie replied, "Other than you and our selves, no. We went looking for our parents and siblings before we came here."
"Oooh, what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do, what are we gonna DO?!" Shining Armor paced franticly, obviously worried by the disappearance of his wife and only daughter.
"Get a hold of yourself! We haven't been anywhere but here yet! Are you going to come with us to the Library of the Two Sisters in the Everfree or not?" Asked Spirals, who seemed to be trying very hard to keep her cool herself.
Shining replied shakily, "Y-yes, but mainly because I need to calm down and keep in mind that if Cadance and Skyla are gone, they must be together."
Once we all got to the once-broken-castle-turned-library, Shining Armor had calmed down quite a lot. His breathing had slowed to a normal rate and such. I was still way worried for him, but I knew he was better. He began asking about us.
"So you're an artist? How does that work for you?" Shining asked me.
"It's like how any other earth pony uses a writing utensil. But I use it to draw," I replied.
"I should have known, but I wasn't thinking, and... yeah. And finally, the only mare I have-" Shining stopped mid-sentence, staring at Spirals. "Eh-I... I-I don't... I don't u-understand... D-Don't you live in Canterlot, with the Princesses? W-With you're mom, Celestia?" I was terrified; Spirals' mom wasn't Celestia...
Spirals looked mortified, and whispered, "How... did you know that... Celestia...?" Her sentence died off, already quite. She sighed, and said, "I guess I can't hide this any longer. Yes, my... REAL... mother, is Princess Celestia. I am a pure-blood alicorn."
"You're a WHAT?! That-Th-that can't be... Y-you're magic isn't as strong..." I stammered profusely, still in complete confusion. I didn't know how this could have happened. I'd known Spirals all my life, except... "Kindergarten..." I whispered. That was the only time I hadn't known Spirals.
"Yeah, kindergarten. That was when mother decided it would be a good idea for me to grow up under different parents, in a different town, at a different school, even with a different name!" Spirals was just pouring out information like a bucket that was finally overturned after huge rains. "I haven't remembered my old name in years, so don't ask. I lost my memory once, when I was little. I tried to fly, but couldn't and ended up landing on my head. I got amnesia, but the only thing I forgot was my name." I still couldn't believe what I was hearing. even after that whole explanation, it was hard to understand.
"So, you've been an entirely different pony than the one we know now?" Josie asked, looking far-fetched.
"Yeah," Spirals replied, "pretty much. After this whole ordeal, and once we find everypony, I'll go to Celestia and see if she still remembers me. If she does, she should still know my name."
Shining looked pretty confused though. "But, even if your pure-blooded alicorn, why did you age like a normal pony?"
"Did Cadance never tell you?" Spirals asked, "Even pure-blood alicorns, like me or my mom, still age at a normal rate. We... we just live a lot longer than normal ponies. And that means..." Spirals began to sob, "...that means I'll outli-*hic* outlive my frie-friends..."
"Come on, don't feel that way," I said, trying to cheer her up. "You may live longer than us, but that doesn't mean you can't still be our friend! You'll become best friends with the next generation of elements, you'll see our foals grow, and you'll raise a beautiful family of your own as well! Spirals, you are always gonna be our friend, so don't ever doubt that." Spirals had stopped sobbing, but still had streams of tears running down her face.
"Thanks Peni. But I will be so devastated when I outlive you guys, and then outlive your foals." She still seemed sad, but wiped the tears away, and put on a confident smile. "But you're right. And right now, we need to find information on strange disappearances of the entire Equestrian population!"
We walked into the library, having previously been sitting outside through the whole 'pure-blood alicorn' ordeal. Spirals had way calmed down since, but that was only seconds ago. I was looking around, not paying attention to what was in front of me, and bumped into Josie. "Oof! Jos-" I stopped mid-sentence, noticing why everyone had stopped. The five stones sitting in the middle of the room. Each one had a different symbol. A lightning bolt. A diamond. A butterfly. An apple. A balloon. I didn't recognize the symbols at first. My mind just blanked. Then, suddenly, it popped. "The elements of harmony!" I exclaimed, in total surprise.
"H-How did they get HERE?!" Josie shouted, suddenly flying up to examine them. "I thought Princess Twilight had been keeping them safe in her castle..." Flitter Note flew up and touched the element that had a balloon. Nothing happened. Aqua Marina decided to examine the one with the butterfly. Picking it up with her magic did nothing, but when she dropped it into her hooves, the butterfly symbol began to glow.
"Ah! W-What's going on?!" Aqua suddenly said before she dropped the stone. Even after dropping it, the butterfly still glowed, actually, more vigorously after Aqua dropped it. It spun, and then, just stopped. Peni almost knew what was happening.
"Aqua, you must have an element! Butterfly, though..." I speculated. "Butter... Bu... Flu... Flu, Flutter-Fluttershy! She was the element of kindness! The balloon... must have been laughter, Pinkie Pie! The lightning bolt, Rainbow Dash, with loyalty, the diamond, generosity, Rarity. And the apple, Apple Jack, which was honesty."
Spirals spoke up, "But... there are only five. Didn't Princess Twilight have an element?"
Josie also spoke up after a long while of silence and awe. "Well, don't you remember the stories? Twilight had to find the spark that activated the elements. That was friendship, and that brought out the element of magic! We have friendship, and it seems we have elements! Hand me one of them, any one of the elements." Aqua handed her the element of generosity. "Well, that proves I'm not completely generous..." She chuckled to herself.
"Hand me the one with the balloon," Pom had said. I jumped, since I had almost completely forgot Pom Clarity had been there, since she never said a word. The element stayed completely stone gray. Pom didn't react.
Flitter wasn't watching where she was flying, and bumped into the generosity stone. It glowed ferociously, and the kindness stone glowed brighter than before. "Whoa! I must be Generosity then." Pom Clarity handed me the laughter stone, and the balloon symbol glowed icy blue, along side a pink butterfly and a sapphire blue diamond shape.
I giggled and said, "And I'm laughter!"
"That makes sense," Josie pointed out, "since you're always causing us to laugh!" It started with just a chuckle from Josie, then laughter erupted from the entire room, and Josie asked, "Spirals, pass me the loyalty stone like a stormball!"
"All right! Down, set. HIKE!" Spirals threw the stone like a stormball, and when Josie caught it, a deep magenta glow emanated from it. "Look at that! J's loyalty. And all that's left, Pom, is honesty, and then, possibly for me, magic!" She handed the stone to Pom in an aura of magic. Once it hit her hooves and left the magic, it spun towards a rising stone in the middle of the room. The stone had a very distinct shape.
A six point star.
The stone in the center of the room, the six pointed star, began to glow intensly. Suddenly, it opened up, and a final element began to rise up, forming all of the necklaces and the tiara of the Elements of Harmony. Just then Shining Armor began to stutter. "Wh-What?! How i-is this possible? T-T-Twilight had the elements just yesterday! A-and h... I... I just don't under... understand." I had jumped when Shining first spoke. At that point he had been so stunned and silent I forgot he was there!
Spirals stared in a completely dumbstruck stare. Josie just sat there, unmoving. Flitter sat staring at Spirals' new crown. Pom looked woosie, along with Aqua Marina. And me? I couldn't describe my confusion and astonishment. ".........This can't be..." I finally whispered out.
"Oh... My... Celestia!" Flitter said quickly, then continued, "How is... This is just completely impossible!"
"No, it's not..." Spirals muttered, "My mother told me once that at the point when the elements are broken, and the foals of the original cannot use the magic of friendship, then the next suitors of the elements may take them once they are found. It appears we are the next suitors of the elements of harmony..."
Suddenly, there was an enormous explosion from outside, and flames began to lick at the doorway of the library. Luckily, none of the books were kept in that vicinity and were all gathered in the middle of the remade castle. An blinding beam of light shot through the roof of the building, nearly hitting Flitter and Josie. "AAH!" they both screamed in unison. "What was that?!" Josie screeched once the beam had faded.
"Don't ask me, I don't have any clue," Spirals said, obviously terrified.
I followed the path the beam took, seeing it lead up to a strange figure silhouetted by the sun, a coursing mane blocking most of it. "It must have come from the pegasus in front of the sun, but that's an enormous pegasus..." I said, pausing in mid-sentence, noticing as the mane flowed that a horn make into view. "That's an-
"Alicorn!" Shining Armor shouted as another beam formed at the tip of the alicorns horn. Everyone scattered, not knowing what to do. I sat, mortified at the beam suddenly shooting towards me in slow motion. It must have been the fear, but everything seemed to move incredibly slowly. Without my knowing, the gem in my necklace began to glow ferociously, and just a few inches from my face, a force field formed, glowing a gentle blue that was lighter than my coat but darker than the blue on Josie's.
"PENI!" Aqua Marina shouted, then nearly fainted as she noticed the force field protecting me. The beam suddenly changed direction, heading for Aqua. Terrified, though suddenly immovable, a horrid thought came to mind; Aqua can't use a protection shield yet! But also, hidden in the back of my mind, I realized that if my element had protected me, then hers should to. And, to everyponies but my own amazement, a soft pink aura formed around Aqua Marina.
The ray of what appeared to be sunlight kept changing direction, and with everypony it passed over, they had someway of protecting themselves. Even Shining Armor could protect himself with his own protection spell. Once Spirals was the only pony not protected from the force field, the alicorn, obviously incredibly mad, flew down from her location in front of the sun. I finally saw the deep colors in her mane, and the cutie mark she held once she landed. "That can't be..." Josie whispered once she noticed as well.
"No... NOO!" Spirals screamed once she realized who the mare was. "MO-O-OM!!"
"P-Princess... Cel-Celestia?!" Shining Armor looked just at mortified as the rest of the group. Princess Celestia, or what ever she went with at the moment, was wearing deep red armor covering almost her entire body and had a mane of two fading colors - deep magenta to incredibly dark navy blue. Her own coat, gone was it's near-white pink and in it's place was a near black violet. Her eyes were a sharp teal and her pupils were in slits.
"Princess Celestia is long gone, along with the rest of the ponies in Equestria. I am Solar Flare, and you have utterly ticked me off!" Shouted the nightmare-ish Princess Celestia. "Somehow you of all ponies managed to stay in your homes and stay safe, and somehow, even though only one of you is actually using magic right now, you are all protected by strange force fields! How I tell that the white colt is not making all of them is that they are all different colors, as his is pink and this fillies-" Solar Flare gestured to me, "is blue."
"The only way we can do this is for the reason that you have overlooked!" Spirals shouted, tears spilling down her face. "Since you got rid of my mother, we can show you what we can now do!" Lightning sparked between the elements, where each of us was picked up and placed in a circle around Solar Flare. Multicolored rays of light streaked between the elements once everyone was in place.
"What is happening?!"
"We are returning you to where you belong, because we have the power to now. We are the NEW ELEMENTS OF HARMONY!" Spirals shouted. The beams met with the gem in Spirals crown, and a rainbow shot out, transforming into a tornado as Solar Flare beat the air with her front hooves. As Spirals opened her eyes, a brilliant white light filled the room, and once it faded hundreds or thousands of ponies began to appear. A figure with a green, pink, violet, and blue mane cowered in the center of the library and the circle of mares. Shining Armor went around checking all of the six teenage mares, and once he was sure they were okay, he checked the mare in the center of the circle.
"Princess Celestia?" He said quietly, and she began to stir. "Princess Celestia, are you alright?"
A light violet alicorn raced up to Shining Armor, saying, "Oh THANK YOU B.B.B.F.F.!"
"Twilie! You're okay! Have you seen Cadence, Hopeful Shield, or Skyla? I hope they're okay..." Shining said to Twilight Sparkle, her permanently flowing mane surprisingly hanging limp and slightly gray. "Are you okay yourself, Twilight? Your mane isn't flowing anymore."
"Don't worry, I'm okay, just a bit weak. Solar Flare drained much of my power when she was still around. Who are these mares? Is that... Aqua Marina?! Aqua! Are you alright?" Twilight raced to Aqua Marina, who had recently become Twilights protege. Aqua was sitting up, holding her head and moaning slightly.
"Y...Yeah, I'm okay, just a bit woozy is all." Aqua replied to the frantic princess. "Is everyone else okay?"
All of the other five mares replied in a similar way, saying either "Yeah," "I'm alright," or "Kind of." I said to nopony in general, "What exactly just happened?"
Twilight replied, staring at my necklace, "You six just used the elements of harmony! And you saved everypony!" Princess Luna began to approach Celestia's gently moving form.
"I will take my sister home once I'm sure everyone is safe. Shining Armor, Cadence and your two foals are over in the children's section of the library." As Luna said that, Cadence came running over with Hopeful Shield by her side and Skyla on her back.
"Shining Armor!" She cried as Hope yelled happily, "Daddy!"
Shining said, obviously relieved once he embraced his family, "Oh, I'm so glad all of you are alright!"
Spirals said to me and the rest of the new elements, "Well guys, let's hope we can do something this sweet and loving again soon, but not to... let's say, dramatic."
I woke to silence. The only sounds were the birds chirping and the last cricks of crickets.
"Mom? Dad? Anyone home?" I called out, hoping for an answer. Nothing.
I walked to my friend, Aqua Marina's, house. She answered the door, and said, "Hey. What's up? Just wondering, did you manage to notice there was no one in your house?"
"Yeah, I did. How did you guess?"
"My parents and brothers were missing. And so was Rusty!"
" My parents and Controller were missing too! Same with Harley. Let's go get Spirals and see what's going on."
" I've seen nopony in town yet. They wouldn't just get up and leave several young fillies alone at home." Spirals inquired.
"That's what seems to have happened. I just don't understand - we all saw our parents yesterday, and I saw Princess Twilight too! This is not going to make sense until we find somepony who knows what's going on," Aqua Marina said.
"We haven't been to the Crystal Empire yet, so let's see if anypony is still there. You never know, Princess Cadence and Princess Skyla might know what's happened." Spirals suggested, positive at least somepony was there.
We arrived to the train station. All that was there was a hot air balloon with a note: 'Anyone wanting to leave Ponyville must use the hot air balloons - the trains are under maintenance after an engine blew up.'
" Whoa, it BLEW UP?!" I yelled, worried.
"Apparently, but we can't worry about that now - we need to get to the Crystal Empire! Hop in, I'll fly beside it until my wings get tired," Spirals said.
"Wait up guys!" A voice called out. It was Metal Muffin, Pom Clarity, and Flitter Note. "We're coming too! Did you just plan on leaving us behind?"
"Hey guys! I didn't think about it, I was just really worried about all the ponies that went missing overnight."
" And that's why we're coming; our families are gone too!" Metal replied to me, and in her eyes I could see worry - not only for her family, but for all the friends that went missing as well. This could be extremely dangerous, and I didn't know what we would find at the empire. But I was positive, there had to be at least one pony at the Crystal Empire, and we had to find them fast!
