The icy cold winds bristled their fur as they trudged along the frozen wasteland. They shuddered with every breath they took. Shivering with every step made. The sun slowly rose on the horizon, making the snow at their hooves glisten in the light. Their saddle bags were bursting with contents that were required for this trip.
"A-re yo-you eve-en sure i-its he-ere?" Asked a pegasus stallion, shivering between breaths. His red fur was practically frozen with the cold.
"I'm perf-fectly s-sure, S-sweeper." Replied a unicorn, she projected her voice a little has to stop her voice quavering. "The stories from the crystal ponies pin-point to this exact location!" She proclaimed, shifting her glasses back into place on her muzzle.
"Aye. They better be, Focus." Gruffed a hulking earth pony. "And if it's not..." He trailed on dangerously, emphazing his point. His thick highland accent making it sound even more deadly. His olive green fur failed to hide the muscles rippling underneath.
"Well, we w-wouldn't want you-u going into one of tho-ose rage intox-xicated fits a-gain now wou-uld we, Po-ounder?" Questioned a tubby looking unicorn, pointing at a long scar next to his cutie mark.
Pounder looked at him apologetically. "I am still very sorry about that, Coriolis."
"D-don't be." Coriolis waved a hoof of dismiss. "Tha-at was two-o years a-ago, and besides, ho-ow was I-I sup-posed to kno-ow you'd get-t that angry."
Pounder smiled at him appreciatively, before averting his attention back to Focused Gaze. "Back to the matter at hoof. If we find-"
"When." Focus corrected.
Pounder rolled his eyes. "When, we find this statue, what will we do with it?" He questioned. "If the rumors are true, no one will be able to lift that thing over to the Canterlot museum. And I doubt the minotaurs would want to help us with the matter, our relationships with them is basically hanging by a thread."
Focus looked down at snow covered ground, putting a hoof up to her chin. "I act-tually don-n't kn-ow..." She looked perplexed. "I-I didn't think tha-at far a-ahea-d." She looked back up with a burning determination in her diamond blue eyes. "We'll uncover it though!" Focus took out her map. "The crystal ponies said that it was between this mountain-." She pointed. "- and this frozen lake. Underneath a lone hill inbetween." She pointed at a slope inbetween both landmarks. "And we are currently on top of it."
"No-ot to bu-urst your bubble o-or anythi-ing." Sweeper spoke. "But un-nless we want to fre-e-eze to de-ath, I sugge-est we get a fi-ire goin-g."
"I'll cast a light shield to keep the wind off of us." Coriolis stated, his horn shimmered a bright green, before a lime green sheild was warped around the group of archeologists. "That should hold for a few hours at most."
Dust Sweeper breathed out a sigh of content. "Finally!" He set down his bag on the snow. "Now we just need a fire." He stroked his chin in thought. "Do you two know any fire spells?" He asked, Focus and Coriolos shook their heads in unison. "Darn." He looked down at his bag. "Might as well do it the non-magical way."
"Okay." Focus spoke. "We might as well get the site going."
"Only if we asked the princesses help fund this trip." Pounder mumbled.
"I told you already. Other groups of archaeologists have asked already. The princesses denied every request." She took a few wooden stakes out of her saddle bag, laying them out on the ground. "Coriolos, do you some rope with you? I forgot mine." Focus said sheepishly.
"Mhmm." Coriolis took a length of rope out of his saddle bag. "Catch!" He threw it to her. The length of rope was enveloped in a wavering blue glow as Focus caught it with her magic.
"Thanks." Coriolis grunted in response, rummaging through his saddle bag for tools.
Focus picked up a wooden stake, wiping away a good amount of snow before she could see solid ground. She tapped the ground with her hoof. Only to realize, it wasn't frozen mud or stone.
"Is this ice?" She thought aloud, she could barely see her reflection looking back at her. Focus' face slowly spread into confusion 'How could ice be up here? From what I know, it never rains here.'.She turned around to see Pounder zoning out of reality, Sweeper rubbing two sticks together in an attempt to make a fire and Coriolis throwing required tools out of his saddlebag. No one seemed to notice her predicament.
"Hey, Sweeper?" She called out.
"What!?" He yelled. Focus could see frustration plastered on his face.
"Can you come over here for a second?" Sweeper grunted in irritation, before trotting over to her.
"What do you need?" His expression was stoic, but his eyes held annoyance.
"Look." Focus pointed a hoof at the area she cleared of snow.
"Yeah. It's the ground, So what?"
Focus sighed in frustration. "No! Look closely!" Sweeper looked closer into the ice, he squinted his eyes.
"That's ice..." He trailed on. He cleared a bit of the area around him, looking closely into frozen ground. "It's all ice!"
Pounder walked over, Coriolis in tow. "What's going on here?" He asked.
"Ice." Sweeper answered. "The ground we are standing on is ice. Look closely and you'll see." Pounder concentrated his eyes on the ice.
"Tis... But it could be just a few streaks and puddle." He dismissed, waving a hoof.
"I assure you, Pounder." Focus said. "They are not puddles or streaks as you called them."
"Trying to prove me wrong, lass?" Pounder challenged, narrowing his eyes at her.
"No I-"
Pounder cut her off. "I'll show you who's wrong." He reached his foreleg back, he gathered a bit of his strength, and crashed his hoof into the ice with the force of a sledgehammer. A little indentation was left.
"See? Told ye' twas just a puddle." Pounder turned to walk off and back into his thinking zone...
He would have if it wasn't for the ice cracking further along the clearing of snow and under the fluffy substance. Coriolis looked at Pounder... and sighed a deep, unrelenting sigh. Only one word escaped Coriolis' mouth.
"Idiot."
The ice shattered. They screamed, with the exception of Pounder, who was roaring. They fell and fell a...
Good ten meters. They groaned in pain, twisting and turning along the ice. Focus blotted out all pain, because she was angry. Very. Angry.
She got back up onto her hooves, limping over to Pounder, who was clutching his foreleg in pain. She moved right up to his ear.
Pounder's ears started to ring. "What in the world made you think like tha-!?" She ended her screaming rant as something ahead of her caught her attention. "Oh my Celestia..." She put a hoof up to her mouth in awe at she was seeing.
A behemoth of a statue encased in an icy tomb. From what she saw, its foreleg was out, it's hand reaching for something that was not there. Icey stalactites hung from it's arms and any other part sticking out of it. She slowly limped over to it, her eyes widening in ever growing awe.
The boys got their bearings together and limped up to Focus' side.
"What is it?" Coriolis asked with unsurpressed wonderment.
"I have no idea..." Focus said slowly. A smile tugged at her lips.
The statue was a lavender color from what they were seeing. A, what looked like a darkened red lens was the only thing noticable about it's head. The statue was very peculier in design, patterns that would seem impossible to do with anything jutted out of it like armor.
Focus scooched a bit closer to the leg... and touched it.
A glare of a white line spread all around it immediately after doing so, weird, alien symbols following up after it. The red lens on its head slowly flickered to life. The ponies backed off quickly . The faintest sounds of ice cracking graced their eardrums, the right arm began to move. The ice crumbled off of it. The ponies backed off faster as the arm began to move and stretch out in a dangerous manner. The arm scraped off the ice from the rest of its body, leaving a shining metal shell. The lens on it's head glowed an ominous red light. It turned its head downward, looking at the equines.
The ponies were terrified, even Pounder, who was basically wetting himself in fear. The creature forced the ice of it's leg by kcking it from the inside. The same with the other. Debris was scattered all over the cave.
The beast stomped over to them. It's steps were heavy enough to make the ground shake and loud enough to make the the icey walls vibrate until they cracked.
The ponies eyes turned to pinpricks as the metal behemoth was towering directly above them. They shook with fear.
The creature did the unimaginable...
...
...
It nodded, before climbing through the hole to the over world. They could still feel it's steps vibrating through the ground.
--{SHOCKWAVE}--
"I need to get back my Driller." Shockwave whispered, looking around. His enviroment hadn't changed much.
He looked at the mountain to the south, envisioning the forest where they were hold up in. "Princesses... disrupting a mission for a great cause doesn't go unpunished."
He walked ominously toward the green landscape ahead of him.
"Especially if you disrupte two thousand years of my time."
