Spiders and Magic: The Kesshōkage of The Crystal Empire

Chapter Nine

New Morning, New Surprises

[Friendship Express]

[Morning]

“How long is this train ride going to take?” asked Rainbow Dash, tapping her hoof in annoyance. “Didn’t Celestia say that we would be there in about a few hours or something?”

“She said we’ll be there in about a day or two,” Applejack answered. “RD, you’re just as impatient as a little filly on a sugar rush.”

“Well, she did say this was important, right? Those ponies have been locked away for about one thousand years with that mad pony as their ruler. You can’t expect me not to be impatient about something like this? Who knows what King Sombra is doing to them now.”

“We understand that Rainbow Dash, but you can’t just fly off alone. Remember, we’re a team. And there’s no I in the word team.” Peter added as he dawned on his hero costume. “Plus, this does allow us to come up with a plan of action before we get to our destination.”

“For once I agree with that,” Sunset said, casually looking through a book. “From what Princess Celestia told us and the book she gave us, King Sombra was, or in this case, is a powerful unicorn that even she and Luna couldn’t beat.”

“Yeah, but we got the Elements of Harmony, Princess Cadance, Spider Knight, and the captain of the royal guards. There’s no way we can lose to this joker.” Rainbow Dash said as Shining Armor spoke up after her.

“While I am flattered that you think highly of us, that’s still no excuse to lower your guard.” He said while adjusting himself in his seat. “If we have to fight Sombra’s soldiers, then Spider Knight and I can create an opening for you all to get inside. Once inside, and if the layout of the empire is still the same as it was all those years ago, then it should be a straight shot to where the Crystal Heart is.”

“And then afterward, we can throw them a party! I mean think about it. Being locked away for so long with King Sombra must be awful. I doubt they even celebrated anything party-related.” said Pinkie Pie as she reached into her mane to pull out a thick blue binder with pieces of paper scattered around her. “Now to think of a title for the banner…how about “Welcome from being locked away for one thousand years.” sounds?”

“Pinkie darling, I don’t think now is the time to plan for a party.” Rarity added. “Though I am a bit worried about what to expect of the ponies in the empire.”

“We’ll find out once we get there,” Cadence said while looking off in the distance from the window. “Until then, we should prepare ourselves for what is to come when we get there.”

“Attention passengers, we’ll be arriving at the Crystal Empire in twelve hours. I repeat, we’ll be arriving at the Crystal Empire in twelve hours.” said The Announcer pony as Rainbow Dash let out a loud groan of annoyance.

“For hoof sake! If I can fly there, it wouldn’t take this long!” The mare said as she slid out of her seat dramatically.

“Well, you can’t, so get used to it,” Applejack said before looking over at Fluttershy. “You okay sugarcube?”

“O-Oh, I’m fine…a bit scared about what Princess Celestia said,” Fluttershy answered.

“You mean how there might be somepony other than Sombra we’ll have to worry about?” Rainbow Dash asked as the pegasus nodded. “Relax Fluttershy, there’s nothing to be scared of. As long as we stick together, nopony will beat us!”

(Crystal Empire)

(Crystal Castle)

As Nanako and Umbra were making their way towards Northstar’s office, the celestial being stopped for a moment, and looked outside the window next to her. A slight chill ran down her spine as if something was about to happen, but was brought back from her train of thought due to the earth pony clearing her throat to get Nanako’s attention.

“Is there something wrong?” Umbra asked as Nanak turned her attention to her.

“...Don’t know why, but something tells me that we might be getting a visitor soon.”

“You mean just like that unicorn prisoner you apprehended last night?” She asked as Nanako shrugged.

“Maybe…Have the guards keep an eye out for anything suspicious or someone trying to break into the empire once we’re done interrogating the prisoner.”

“Alright. If you don’t mind me asking, what are you planning on doing with her?”

“Depending on the answers I might get, I’m gonna try and persuade her into joining the empire. Talent such as hers would be wasted on revenge.”

“And if she doesn’t?” asked Umbra with a raised eyebrow.

“I’ll let her go do her own thing, so long as she doesn’t plan on attacking the empire later on in the future. But I still want to have someone like her as an ally if possible.”

“Suppose that makes sense. But I’m kind of against something like this seeing how she attacked you.”

“Now, now, my adorable suicidal friend. An enemy one day could turn into a friend the next. Just have a little bit of faith in what I’m doing, okay?” Nanako asked as they would be in front of Northstar’s office before entering. Upon entering, they would notice maids currently cleaning up the place while throwing away stuff related to King Sombra.

“Huh, didn’t expect her to have the maids clean this place up anytime soon,” Umbra said before hearing Northstar enter the room from a secret passageway off to the right of the room.

“You can blame King Sombra for not letting me clean up the place with his random inspections. So I had to make the place look like a horror theme book.” Northstar said as she made her way over to Nanako and Umbra. “Now that he’s dead, I can finally get this place clean and looking like an actual office place. So, is there a reason why you three are here? Not that I’m complaining or anything.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a spare room available, would you? Caught someone trying to make me into their tool for revenge, and I want to question them before making my decision on whether to let them go, have them join us, or kill them so they won’t be a threat.”

“Oh~? You found an outsider in the forest last night~?” Northstar asked as a grin appeared on her face. “Want me to probe her for answers~?”

“God no…at least not yet. I just want to ask her some questions. No need for torture or anything like that.” Nanako said as the unicorn pouted in annoyance.

“Yeah, I have a spare room for you to use. But I am going to do my routine medical evaluation to make sure she’s okay on a physical level of being okay.”

“I figured as much,” She said before seeing Northstar motioning for the group to follow her. Once inside, they were both surprised by how clean and sterile the room was as Northstar made her way over to a bed right next to a window.

“Place the patient on the bed so I can examine her closely,” Northstar said as the celestial being made her way over to the bed. Once there, she brought up two fingers as a dark circle appeared next to her. In a matter of seconds, a demonic-looking head appeared out of it, taking Northstar and Umbra by surprise.

“What in the name of Tartarus is that thing!?” Umbra yelled as she noticed the demonic head slowly opening its mouth.

“I’ll explain once this is over, right now let’s focus on our-” Before Nanako could finish her sentence, she noticed something off upon summoning the king of hell. A purple light escaped from its mouth before making slight coughing noises. Within a minute, it soon coughed out a girl with brown skin, dark indigo hair, and a tail with streaks of purple & pink, and purple tattoos on her body. The moment the girl was placed on the ground, the demonic head quickly vanished and everyone was flabbergasted by what they saw. “...Huh…I was not expecting that to happen when I killed her.”

“...I’m sorry, what did you say?” Umbra asked as the celestial being gave her a sheepish smile.

“Well, she had this weird amulet around her neck that wouldn’t come off. Something called the Alicorn Amulet. So trying to get her to take it off on her own at the time wouldn’t work, so why not just cut her head off and take the amulet off that way.”

“...Already a day into your ruling and you already made a pony’s head roll off…literally,” Umbra said in a joking manner before looking over Twilight’s body. “I can only assume that the thing you summon with your magic allows you to bring the dead back to life?”

“It’s not magic, it’s ninjutsu. Well, that and having the Rinnegan helps as well.”

“Rinnegan?” Northstar asked as Nanako pointed to her own eyes.

“The Rinnegan is considered the most powerful visual prowess of the three main eye techniques which are the Sharingan and Byakugan. From what I’ve read in one of the books from the family library, it’s said that in times of chaos, the Rinnegan’s wielder is sent down from the heavens to become a God of Creation or a God of Destruction.”

“Does all your kind have that Rinnegan thing?” Umbra asked as Nanako shook her head.

“Not everyone, only a select few. There are some requirements to obtain them. One would be to obtain chakra from both Indra and Asura Otsutsuki, or someone with the Rinnegan embedding theirs into someone else. For me, I obtained mine when I was born…though I can only assume that I got them through the chakra fruits that my mom ate while she was pregnant with me at the time.” She answered before noticing their confused expression. “What? You can’t expect me to know everything there is about my family. Even they don’t disclose information to those of the lower ranking members.”

“Noted, but can you explain how a pony was turned into a…what do we even call her?”

“Human, and sadly I have no idea how this happened. I can only assume that due to me killing her and bringing her back to life with my powers, she became what you see now.”

“Oh, this is most exciting~!” Northstar said as she started poking and moving certain parts of Twilight’s body. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Being able to turn ponies into humans like this before. Oh, I want to examine her very thoroughly and see how it works~!”

“Hey, this is a living person, not one of your test subjects. Don’t even think about opening her up and taking out all her organs.” Umbra said as Northstar rolled her eyes.

“The thought never crossed my mind until now. Also, keep in mind that she is a criminal seeing how she did attack Nanako, so what’s a few missing organs going to hurt~”

“Please hold off on doing anything like that. We still need to question the poor girl, remember?” Nanako said, causing Northstar to snort in annoyance.

“Fine, killjoys. I never get to have fun with you all around.” She said before using her magic to levitate Twilight onto the bed. “Suppose taking blood and hair samples will do for the time being. First thing first, I need to clean her up before anything else is done. Don’t want to accidentally give her an infection or something while I take her blood and examine her.”

“You also might want to give her something to wear, humans have no fur on their body with the exception of their head,” Nanako added as Northstar walked off to gather what she needed.

“Is she going to wake up anytime soon?” Umbra asked as Nanako shrugged.

“Hard to say. She might wake up within a day or so…but keep an eye on Northstar…I don’t mean to sound rude, but I don’t trust her alone with the girl…at least not yet.”

“I’ll have Mayfield keep an eye on her. She’s more…normal when they’re together.” She said before noticing Northstar teleporting a large bathtub into the room they were in. “While she’s busy with the outsider, would you like to hear a report on the status of the generals and their progress with the renovations of the kingdom?”

“I take it they’re having problems with the stuff I asked them to implement?” Nanako asked as the unicorn shook her head.

“Surprisingly, no. If anything with my father being dead, they've been able to make a lot of head weight within the past five hours while you were asleep. If you want, you can look over the results of their progress before they’re finished?”

“I could…or better yet, I can join them,” Nanako said as she noticed a confused expression on Umbra’s face. A smirk appeared on Nanako’s face as she brought her hand up, and created shadow clones of herself. From what they could tell, it was roughly up to five thousand copies of the celestial being. “I’m not a huge fan of sitting by and letting other people, or in this case, ponies, do all the work, so why not have some clones assist them?”

“Huh…didn’t know you can make clones of that quantity…this might be more beneficial than I can imagine,” Umbra said before examining the clones closely. “How many can you create?”

“Shadow clones, fifty-thousand seeing how I’m not using nature elements this time.”

“Why didn’t you use them during your fight with my father?”

“Shadow clones are good for support, but depending on what they’re made out of, they’re not that durable. A simple hard punch to their face or body, and they’ll disappear into smoke. Plus having to use one to fight someone as weak as Sombra would be a waste of time and energy in my case.” She answered before looking over at the clones. “Think you guys can help out with the construction of this kingdom?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, but we do get breaks, right?” A clone asked as Nanako nodded. “Alright, then we’ll be off!” she said as the group teleported to different parts of the Empire.

“...Has anyone told you that you’re a jack-of-all-trades?” Umbra said as Nanako let out a small chuckle.

“I get that a lot. Now, let’s see if we can get rid of the stuff related to Sombra in the throne room. I prefer not to have ponies coming here and thinking of unpleasant memories when having a meeting with me.” She said before motioning for Umbra to follow her.

“Aren’t you worried that someone from the outside might come to this place and get lost in the forest?”

“Don’t worry, I left a safe trail and signs for anyone to follow away from the dangerous bugs and unstable environment.”