Return of The Crystal Empire.

Chapter Four.
The Grand Imperial Library.

The group ran up to the door, despite the fact that Pinkie was able to open the doors with no effort, the others found the doors to be stiff. Cadence and AJ forced the doors open. Dust felled the air as the doors swung open, Cadence and Rainbow landed on the floor in a heap, the alicorn and pegasus chuckled as they stood back up. They quickly stopped and gasped at the sight before them.
"What happened?" Twilight gasped, she looked at the sight before, she had expected it to be a clean and tidy place but she was prepared for this.
"I believe this is Sombra's doing." Rarity said, she was also shocked.

The once grand library of an even grander empire was now decaying, dust and cobwebs filled the shelves. Twilight stepped forward, broken glass cracked under the unicorn's hooves. Fallen statue rested at against the floor, the ends that had hit the floor were crushed and shattered. A crystal chandelier had broken free from the ceiling and had crashed to the floor, crushing a table under its weight, the chain that held it to the ceiling was resting on the floor a few meters away, the link was clearly snapped. The candles once on the chandelier had broken free and rested around it, some were clustered together, others were alone. Twilight was left speechless.
"Come on everyone, let's find something to help the Empire." AJ said, breaking the silence. The group went around the library looking for anything that survived Sombra's purge.

Rainbow flew to one of the highest shelves and swept through the remaining books on the shelf, she picked up a book and looked at the title.
"Well, 'Crystals 101'. Nope." She threw the book away, "How about this? 'How to polish crystals'. Nope." She threw that book away as well, "How to improve your writing skills." She looked left and right and quickly put the book into her saddlebag before going back to looking for a book about the Empire and its history, she was unable to find one.
"This is hopeless." She groaned, hitting her head on the shelf, making it collapse, she quickly backed away.

AJ lifted up one of the shelves and pushed it to one side, she knelt down and looked at the few books on the floor.
"Let's see, 'How to carve from a crystal block'. No." AJ, moved the book to the side, " We have 'How crystals are formed'. Nope. " AJ added, "Oh horse apples, this isn't going at all well. I just hope to Celestia that everypony else are having better luck than me." She said, sighing deeply, she looked down, "I don't think we can do this. I don't think i can do this." She thought.

Pinkie hopped from shelve to shelve, bouncing on her tall to get to the higher shelves, seemingly defying the laws of gravity, she looked at a book and read its title.
"Bird calls. Nope." She giggled, throwing to away from her, "Stained glass repairs. Nope again." She giggled again, the booking dropped to the book and bounced to the next set of shelves, "I hope we get to throw a huge, mega, super party in this empire once we're doing saving it!" The bubbly mare said to herself as she continued looking through the books.

Fluttershy slowly made her way through the piles of rubble on the floor, finding a book while being scared of flying was hard to the butter yellow mare.
"Oh dear, there doesn't seem to be any books..." She said before seeing to books amongst the rubble, she trotted over to the books and pulled them free, the rubble fell, covering Fluttershy in dust, she coughed heavily. She looked at the books and read the titles.
"How farm in the Empire and Crystal berry picking." She sighed as she looked at the wrong books, "This isn't going as nearly well as i thought it would." She sighed again.

Rarity trotted through one of the wings of the building, she looked at the shelves along her right side, most of the books had lost the covers and were covered in dust.
"Ooh! Fashion books!" She screamed in delight, picking up one in her magical grasp, "Oh! Another one!" She added, picking that one up too, she then saw another one, and then another and another. Soon she had and large pile of fashion books behind her.
"Welp. No history books but i'm taking all these books home with me." She said, looking at the pile.

Cadence walked through the library, she was looking for not only a history book, but a book about Empress Amore, if there was any that survived the purge. She continued the search, she came across a boarded up doorway, her horn lit up as she pulled the boards off the door. Cadence looked at the door and approached it, twisting the door handle, causing the door to creak open. Air rushed in through the door as it slowly opened, the rush of air caused a chill to run into Cadence's core as if she had been out in a blizzard. She slowly walked through the open door and down some steps. The door slowly closed behind her without a sound.

Twilight and Spike slowly walked through the crumbling library, a buckled shelf rested on the floor, broken down the middle, the lower half was on the floor, the upper half was at an angle and resting against the wall, Twilight climbed up onto the overturned shelf, pulling Spike up, the lavender unicorn sighed.
"Twilight, what's wrong?" The young drake asked with concern filling his voice, he looked straight at her.
"It's nothing Spike, just tired." She said, smiling, Spike rolls his eyes, "Let's find a history book." She said, the dragon shrugged and went to look through the remaining books.

Twilight dug through the books, most of them were biology books or fairy tales.
"This is hopeless!" She said, throwing the books to the dusty floor, she coughed as the dust flew everywhere.
"Twilight! I found a history book!" Spike shouted, Twilight ran over as he pulled it off the shelf, she looked at the worn out title

'History of The Crystal Empire.'

End of Chapter Four.

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay, i had writers block with this