The Maretime Bay Equusological Museum was closed on Sundays.
That, combined with how early in the morning it was, made for the perfect time for a rag-tag group of historians and volunteers who were interested in history to discuss plans for a historical expedition. Well, there were only two volunteers, and a single historian to guide them.
The group of three would be more than enough, though, considering the volunteers were Sunny Starscout, the Earth-Pony-turned-alicorn that had brought back magic to the world, and Princess Zipp Storm, an albeit amateur detective with a discerning taste for adventure. The expedition was being led by Dusty Inkstain, a scholar who specialized in ancient Equestrian history and had worked with Sunny’s father Argyle to collect the exhibits in the Museum.
The trio, all clad in winter gear in preparation for the trip, gathered in Dusty’s office, supplies all mostly packed into Dusty’s large hiking backpack, aside for a few things kept in pockets and the like.
“Alright,” Dusty started, unfurling a map onto his desk, “just to go over all the important details one more time, our modern understanding of the group commonly referred to as ‘The Mane 6’ and the creatures close to them has been limited by many old texts being lost or damaged beyond repair. However,” Dusty continued with a flourish of his hoof and an almost giddy grin, “this does not apply to the Crystal Empire, which has simply not existed for many hundreds of years.” He accentuated his point by dramatically pointing to the Crystal Empire on his map.
“Just like in ancient times, after King Sombra attacked the Empire,” Zipp said, hovering in the air and crossing her arms, her eyes narrowed skeptically. “Are you sure that this expedition won’t be dangerous?”
Dusty cleared his throat. “We can’t be entirely certain that there won’t be any danger, but I assure you, King Sombra was defeated by Twilight Sparkle and her friends. You have nothing to be afraid of.” He offered a warm smile.
“Afraid? Please.” Zipp threw a dismissive hoof at Dusty. “I was hoping there’d be some danger. What’s an adventure without danger?”
Sunny lightheartedly rolled her eyes and flicked an ethereal wing at her friend. “Don’t worry Zipp, I’m sure there will be much peril; you never know what’s gonna fall apart in a place as old as the Crystal Empire.”
Dusty cleared his throat a little louder. “Yes, the Crystal Empire, an ancient civilization even compared to the days of the Mane 6, has returned very recently, as proven by the surge of magic Sunny experienced the other day.” He gestured to her; she bowed. “We’ll be getting there by way of a teleportation spell courtesy of Sunny, if she still thinks the magic surge would let her do so?”
He looked at Sunny hopefully; she threw a thumbs-up with both wings. “Right, in that case…” Dusty slung his backpack over his back, Sunny tucking his map into it with her magic, and stepped towards the alicorn. He leaned in and whispered to her: “This spell is asking a lot, Sunny, even from you. I promise you, I won’t blame you if you decide to back out right now. I mean, with that magic surge causing your wings and horn to stay active for a whole week now…”
Sunny cut him off. “No way, Dusty, this is the opportunity of a lifetime!” She put a hoof on Dusty’s shoulder. “I can do this. I promise.”
Dusty nodded. He gestured to Zipp, who landed next to him and Sunny, an excited smile uncontained on her face, which proved contagious to Sunny and Dusty.
Sunny widened her stance and closed her eyes in concentration, a brilliant orange glow slowly forming a circle around the three and swirling up around Sunny’s horn. The swirl rose up and up from the initial circle until it formed a dome of light over the trio, then in a flash, they were gone.
The clear sheet of white that surrounded the perimeter of the Crystal Empire was disrupted by a flash of orange which pushed aside the snow, followed by three ponies who immediately started shivering as they landed.
“Mother of Luna!” Zipp swore, ”I thought you said the Crystal Heart nullified the cold!”
“That’s only in the Empire, but it's okay, Zipp!” Sunny shouted over the wind as she pointed ahead, “the entrance isn’t far from here!”
Barely visible through the snow-laden winds was a grand spire reaching towards the heavens, still sparkling despite it all. It seemed to cut a hole in the clouds above it, the very weather itself bending to its will and swirling around it.
Sunny looked at it in awe until she realized she had been left behind by Zipp and Dusty, who were high-tailing it to the entrance as fast as they could. She laughed and took flight to catch up.
As soon as the trio had crossed the border into the Empire, Sunny let go of a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and the winter coats she had conjured for everyone dissipated. Her knees buckled, but she didn’t fall.
“Hey, Sunny, you okay?” Zipp called back to her.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said as she stood back up, “just needed a moment.”
Zipp and Dusty hesitated for a moment and shared a look, then shrugged. “As long as you’re okay, then we keep goin’!” Zipp marched forward excitedly, Sunny following suit.
Dusty followed behind soon after, a concerned look on his face.
The air was stale with rotting paper and deteriorating crystal particles, and the foreboding silence was cut through only by the intermittent whistle of the breeze rattling rusty chains holding up worn signs.
As they walked through town, Sunny and Dusty tried to distract themselves from the ominous atmosphere by noting architectural tidbits and musing amongst themselves about how life might’ve been for the crystal ponies. Zipp casually listened to their conversation as she hovered overhead, content with the danger as she was.
Over the next few hours, the trio poked through collapsed buildings, sifting through stone and crystal for any little document they could find, with no luck. Despite the lack of success, Zipp and Dusty’s morale stayed high, the two of them passing jabs back and forth.
Sunny, on the other hoof, held a wing to her lips and tried not to chew on it. She shuddered, a thought tugging at the back of her mind with a cold grip. She approached Dusty during a reprieve in his and Zipp’s jabs. “Hey Dusty,” she said as she rubbed one foreleg with the other and fidgeted a wing, “is there anything going on between you and—”
Just then, Zipp cut Sunny off, having spotted something in the corner of her eye as she hovered. “Hey, both of you! Come check this out!” She gestured for the two to follow, then zipped off towards what she saw, Sunny and Dusty following, the former trying her best to decide that her question didn’t need asking.
Zipp landed in front of a sign that had fallen to the ground with a picture of a book on it. The chain that held it up in the past had rusted over time and eventually broken, leaving its other half attached to the building the sign likely belonged to.
“Oh no…” Sunny said, her and Dusty holding a hoof each to their own mouths as they beheld the sight in front of them: the remains of a library, now reduced to nothing more than chunks of rock around its perimeter, the former interior now nothing more than a foul-smelling mass of what looked like tar.
Dusty dropped down to the ground. “What on Equus happened here?!”
“Something dangerous, no doubt.” Zipp tensed and started toward Dusty. “I thought you said you were certain that King Sombra wouldn’t be here!”
Dusty put his hooves up defensively. “I am! It’s very well-documented and supported with evidence from several primary sources—”
“Then explain the shadowy crater that used to be a library!” Zipp was in his face now.
“Oh please, Zipp,” Dusty started shouting back, “you’re the one who wanted there to be some danger!”
Sunny cut in between them and pushed them away from each other with her wings. “Both of you, please!” She turned to Zipp. “Zipp, Dusty might’ve just made some kind of mistake, and it might not even be King Sombra! And even if it was, that doesn’t necessarily mean he would still be here! That’s no reason to snap at him!
“And Dusty,” Sunny continued as she turned to him, “Zipp wasn’t serious about wanting something as dangerous as King Sombra here! Now, since we’re all decent ponies, I want you both to apologize to each other.”
Zipp and Dusty were silent for a second, still letting themselves cool off, then quickly apologized to each other.
“Alright, good.” Sunny huffed. “Now, if whatever did this to the library is still here, then we should just check out the castle instead of wasting time outside it. Our best bet for information was the library, anyway, but the castle is our second-best bet.”
“Yes, we check the castle, and if we don’t find something worth the possible danger in an hour or so, then we leave.” Dusty started to try to get up by himself until Zipp helped him up the rest of the way.
“And we should stay together,” Zipp added, “so if something does go wrong, Sunny can teleport us back home as quickly as possible.” Zipp turned to Sunny, her eyes widening when she saw that her friend’s eyes had bags under them. “Woah, Sunny, you don’t look so good. Are you gonna be okay to keep going..?”
Sunny stamped her hoof into the ground to wake herself up, accidentally leaving a crack in the crystal. She groaned a little before speaking: “Yeah, I’ll manage. Besides, we came all this way, I’m not giving up just because I’m a little tired!” Sunny flashed a confident smile and turned toward the castle.
Zipp smiled and followed. “Yeah, Sunny! That’s my girl!”
The castle loomed overhead of the trio like a mountain as they made their way across the plaza underneath it. Sunny and Dusty’s eyes were locked upward the whole walk, admiring the carving of the crystal. Finally, they came unto the door, which stood imposingly in the way, protecting the castle like Cerberus protected Tartarus.
Sunny took the first steps forward and yanked on the door with her magic. It slowly creaked open, the sound reverberating off the ceiling like the churning stomach of a great beast. She turned back to her now-hesitant companions. “No time like the present, guys.”
The stairs into the main area of the palace were dark, and they made a distinctively crystally click noise with every step, the sound enjoying getting to know every crevice of the palace’s architecture as it echoed. The trio stepped tentatively yet eagerly over the last step, and were met with a hallway with many doors on each side.
Sunny clapped her hooves excitedly and hopped in place, then turned to her companions. “Alright, let’s split up. Not entirely, mind you,” she said as she raised a hoof to cut off Dusty’s objection, “we’ll go into different rooms, but only rooms that are next to each other. We shouldn’t let fear of some possible danger make us less efficient in searching the castle.”
Reluctantly, Dusty put his hoof down and nodded. “I’ll take the right, then, and you two take those rooms on the left. Don’t be in there for too long; we’re just looking for documents, pictures, anything that could be immediately useful.”
Zipp and Sunny nodded, the former snapping a playful salute before zipping off into her assigned room.
Dusty chuckled and headed into his self-assigned room, beginning a methodical sweep for any pieces of paper he could find. He checked in the room’s armoire, in the vanity’s drawers, and in a chest next to the bed, but found nothing; even the bookshelf was entirely barren.
Frustrated, he dropped to the floor with a huff, as he was kneeling to look into the chest. His eyes caught an entire book under the bed, though, and he lit up. He crawled underneath to retrieve it, which took him a while due to his age, but he did get to it.
Suddenly, a wave of… something, hit the room. Immediately, Dusty felt a pressure around him, but it didn’t press on his body, it felt more like it pressed on his very essence. Surprisingly, he didn’t freeze, but instead slowly stuck his head out from under the bed to see what was happening.
‘Majesty’ was the first word that came to Dusty’s mind as his widened eyes beheld the tall figure in front of him. An alicorn. Not just any alicorn, either; Dusty’s research on Twilight Sparkle’s brother’s family had been sparse, but the stained glass window in Canterlot castle portraying this mare was still intact, so he was certain that this alicorn is— or perhaps only used to be —Princess Flurry Heart.
He barely stifled an audible gasp with a hoof. The alicorn— no, she wasn’t an alicorn anymore —the beast in front of him suddenly seemed alert, walking around the room as if looking for him. Each of her hoofsteps left a small, ephemeral black flame that melted a little bit of the crystal floor before it withered away. The smell was atrocious, exactly like the black mass that used to be the library.
He only barely managed to silence his wildly thumping heart over the next few seconds, although they felt like years. Eventually, the creature let out a snarl, and a swirl of hideous black flame enveloped it, and it was gone.
Dusty shook as he opened the door back into the hall, where he let out a deep breath. “Zipp, Sunny, get out here!” He shout-whispered, his teeth clenched. He put a hoof on each of their shoulders when they came out, looking confused. “We need to leave, now. I saw Princess Flurry Heart—”
“Princess Flurry Heart?!” Sunny exclaimed. “Oh, wow! I can’t believe she’s still around! I mean, I know she’s an alicorn, so she’s immortal, but still!” She squeed. “Oh! This is so exciting! I can’t believe we get to meet the Princess Flurry Heart!”
Dusty’s folded ears and apologetic expression said all they needed to. “Every step she took left behind black fire…” He hesitantly looked at Zipp, who was rolling her eyes. “It melted the crystal floor into what looked like tar.
“So it was King Sombra, great,” Zipp shot. The trio sat in awkward silence for a moment. “We should go, then, like now. Information isn’t worth it if we’re in this much danger.”
Dusty nodded. “I got this book, anyway, so at least we won’t be leaving empty-hooved. Sunny, are you ready to—” He stopped as he turned to face her. “Sunny?”
Sunny held a hoof to her chin, eyes steeled and staring at the space in front of her. “Sombra’s greatest weakness was the Crystal Heart. It was what was stopping him from conquering the Empire, after all.”
“Sunny, what are you saying?” Zipp put a gentle yet firm wing on Sunny’s side.
“And the magic boost I’ve been experiencing since the other day came from the Crystal Empire’s return.” She made eye contact with Dusty. “There’s nothing else other than the Crystal Heart with enough magical potency to cause that. If Princess Flurry Heart is possessed or corrupted or whatever by King Sombra, then right now, my magic is the best shot we might ever have at saving her.”
Zipp and Dusty just stared at her; Zipp nodded, but Dusty fervently shook his head.
“Sorry, Dusty, but you’re outvoted.” She spread her wings and lit her horn. “Just stay behind me and you’ll be fine—”
She was cut off by a flood of cold, dark fire filling the hall and rushing toward her and the others; she was only barely able to put up a shield in time. Before she was even able to collect herself and look forward, she was knocked off her balance again by a booming voice:
“I will not tolerate you disgusting intruders in my castle!”
The trio let out a scream of terror, but Sunny collected herself rather quickly and gathered the magic from her shield into her horn, letting it all out as a beam aimed directly at Flurry Heart, alongside a guttural war cry of a scream.
Sunny’s brilliantly sun-colored blast of magic kept the dark fire at bay from the force and magical aura alone, but even with all that force and magical might, whatever held Flurry Heart’s body and mind captive would not budge.
With an increase to the volume of her shout, Sunny poured more of herself into her beam, causing a few of her ethereal feathers to fall out of her wings. With this extra push, however, Sunny noticed some of the dark energy inside Flurry’s body starting to slip away. She laughed, and continued to fire her beam.
“Sunny!” Zipp shouted. “Sunny, please stop!”
“Don’t worry, Zipp!” Sunny shouted back, “I can do this!”
Zipp, while holding onto Dusty to keep him from being blown away, struggled against the aura of force Sunny was exuding to put her arm around her. “Sunny! Your wings! They’re starting to fall apart!”
Sunny glanced to her own back, not moving her head away from her target. She clenched her teeth as she beheld her wings starting to fall apart feather by feather, then turned back toward the princess.
Zipp’s jaw dropped. “Sunny! We have to leave, right now! You can’t keep this up!”
A tear from Sunny fell off her cheek and flew backwards from the force of her magic. “But this might be our only shot ever to save Princess Flurry Heart! I can’t give that up!”
Dusty found a little purchase on the floor and yelled to Sunny: “Sunny, this won’t be our only chance to save the princess! We can come back with more Unicorns, and more knowledge on what’s happened to her!”
Sunny let out a yell of pain as a larger section of her wing fizzled away. “You don’t know that!”
“Even if I don’t, it’s not worth trading yourself for her when we have other options!” There was no response from Sunny. “...Sunny, we have the book I found! We won’t be going back empty-hooved!”
“That’s not gonna get through to her, Dusty! She’s dead-set on saving the princess!” Zipp turned back toward her friend. “Sunny, I know this is important to you, and I know you think this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, but that chance isn’t worth your life!”
Sunny’s left wing had now completely dissipated, and a small chunk of her horn had as well. Her eyes widened, and she laboriously started to pull Dusty and Zipp towards herself with her remaining wing. Her concentration split, the beam coming from her horn stopped flowing, and the dark energy around Flurry Heart swirled around her and re-established itself in her body.
As the pony that was once Flurry Heart started to sprint toward the trio in a giant black fireball, Sunny yelled out one last time in a collection of magical effort, gathering her orange light around the three of them as quickly as she could. Just as the fireball was about to consume them, an orange flash of light blasted away the flames, and the three explorers were gone.
With a flash, the trio crashed into the floor of the Crystal Brighthouse. Zipp got up quickly and helped Dusty up, but Sunny, now devoid of her previously ever-present wings and horn, lay still on the floor. The two others gasped and rushed to her side.
“Sunny! Are you okay?!” Zipp and Dusty yelled in unison.
Although it strained her, Sunny opened her eyes and smiled at her friends, who let out a sigh of relief. Sunny thought about her decision as Zipp moved her to the couch, but as unconsciousness claimed her, she felt her own chest fur with a hoof and smiled.
