"Are you sure this is safe?" Rainbow Dash, a cyan blue pegasus mare with a prismatic mane asked her friend, Twilight Sparkle, a purple unicorn mare with a violet mane containing a stripe of magenta.
They stood inside of a library, one made completely of wood that was also the inside of a tree. You could see the individual layers on the walls and flooring. And in the middle of the living room they stood, overlooking what seemed to be a suspicious box with a maze drawn on top. It was made of stone, covered in moss, and was quite fragile.
Twilight had just acquired it from the old Castle of the Two Sisters, a ruin of a once great castle that is now left to rot in the Everfree forest. It had taken a lot of work to find and to acquire, and now the two were examining the artifact, seemingly unsure of what to do.
"Yes, I'm sure we won't get hurt... I think," Twilight reassured the pegasus, muttering the last part to herself quietly, to whom the pegasus didn't hear.
"Alright," Rainbow Dash said, skeptical. "I trust you."
"I know you do. Thanks again for helping me, Dash," Twilight spoke, before continuing onwards with an explanation. "Well, we both need to put our hooves on the box. According to the inscribing, it needs two ponies to operate." She pointed at two engravings of hoofprints on the box. "Just put your hoof there and I'll put mine here."
"Easy!" Rainbow held her hoof on the box. "Uh... now what? Nothings happening."
"Now you watch as I work my magic!" Twilight smiled in excitement as her horn lit and the box began to glow, hovering off the table slightly before it began to shake and fell back down, devoid of magic. "Wha- huh?" Twilight furrowed her eyebrows. "That's not what I thought would happen-"
A giant shockwave shot out from the box and enveloped the entire room, knocking them backwards onto their butts. Before they got an opportunity to get up, their bodies began to glow and they started floating mid-air.
"Uh, Twilight? What's happening?!" Rainbow shouted. The box began to hover with them as it spun in circles with increasing speed.
"I don't know!" She tried to use her magic on the box. "M-my magic! It isn't working!" She panicked and tried over and over until strands of energy coming from both of their bodies connected with the box and pulled them towards the center.
And eventually, the box, along with the two ponies, vanished without a trace.
Author's Note
And the stage is set...
Deep underground, where no creature was seen for miles in every direction, was a room. The room itself was large, its walls covered in marble. Pillars stuck slightly out of the walls, lined with gold plating and a single bright light shun from the tall ceiling. And in the middle of it all, a cyan pegasus mare laid on the cold, hard floor.
The pony in question began to stir. And as they began to come back to consciousness, they quickly blocked their eyes with a hoof. The light blinded them, and the reflections off of the gold plating was not helping in the slightest. Eventually, the pegasus flipped themself over and got onto their hooves, slowly opening their eyes as they viewed the floor.
The pegasus yelped slightly upon seeing their hooves and backed away into a wall, falling onto the floor once more. As they sat, they stared at their forelegs like a hawk, eyeing them carefully before examining the rest of their body. After some careful overlooking, she figured out that she was a female.
She stood up once more and looked around. The room was mostly empty, except for an open doorway that led into a large hallway with a style similar to the room she was currently in. As she stepped outside, she saw windows lining the walls, looking out to absolutely nothing with a torch mounted atop each one.
With a slight shakiness to her step, she walked down the hall until she reached a door. It was made of dark oak and had a gold handle. As she opened the door and stepped inside, she saw that the walls to her left and right were made completely of mirror material, showing the reflection of the wide room. And at the end of the room was another door, though this one was a larger double door that seemed to be steel-plated and had a dull red glass bulb on top.
Confused, the pegasus walked further into the room until she spotted her own reflection in the mirrors. Surprised, she cowered backwards tried to back out of the room, only to quickly realize that the door had shut behind her automatically.
Whimpering, she turned back around to face the dangers ahead, furrowing her brows as she tried to figure out what to do. Quickly, she spotted a large red pressure plate near the right corner of the room. With nothing much left to do, she cautiously approached the red plate and stepped on it. On touch, it was cold plated metal and sunk into the floor, causing her to yelp slightly as she sunk a few inches. Closing her eyes, she prepared her body for the worst.
A few moments later, nothing had happened. Slowly easing her eyes open, she tapped the floor beneath her again, though nothing happened. However, a small lining within the marble flooring had revealed itself by lighting up red and trailing over to the double doors from before and into the frame, lighting up the red light bulb from before.
And as a result, the doors slid open, slightly revealing the next room. Smiling, she got off of the pressure plate and headed over. Creaking, the plate pushed itself back up to how it was before and unlit the red lining along with the red bulb, causing the door to immediately slam shut.
Blinking, the mare furrowed her brows slightly before walking back over to the plate and sinking it back into the floor with a single hoof. She carefully watched the door as it lit up once more and opened. She then took her hoof off and watched as the door unlit and closed. She repeated this a few times before she sat on her haunches and put a hoof to her chin.
Almost as if on cue, a low rumbling sound came from the ceiling and a part of it opened up like a trap door before dropping a large metal cube into the middle of the room, causing a slight indent to be made.
Walking up to it, it was really shiny. And also quite heavy. Her eyes lit up as an idea came to mind. Gradually, she slowly pushed it over to the pressure plate and slid it on, causing it to light up and for the door to open.
A giddy smile broke onto the accomplished mare's face as she trotted over to the open doorway and stepped into the next room.
As soon as she set hoof in the room, the door closed behind her and the room lit up. The light revealed a double sliding door with a weird light bulb thingy on top. It lit up occasionally and showed random lines sliding from the right to the left.
W... A... I... T... I... N... G... Whatever the heck that was. And it kept repeating itself.
Stumped, the pegasus sat down on the floor and sighed, trying to think of what to do next. And after much prodding and exploring around the quite small room, she found absolutely nothing to help her.
She laid down on the floor, staring at the chandelier that hung above her as she waited for nothing. That was until something happened, startling her and causing her to jump up in confusion.
The sliding doors slowly opened itself with a hiss of air to reveal a brighter room. And upon entering, it was quite large. It spanned way farther than the hallway she had seen earlier and dipped down into what seemed to be an endless abyss after a few meters.
It looked like there were three paths, one to the left, on to the right, and one dead-center. Each of them were separated with glass walls. And all of them led upwards to the same point. A door that looked to be about a floor above her. Looking at the different paths, the one on the left had a few floating platforms that led up to a pressure plate, but not to the door. And so did the right. The middle, however, was just completely empty, save for two of those same red lightbulbs that she saw earlier. A red unlit line also ran from each pressure plate to the light bulbs.
Suddenly, to her left, a soft hiss of air was heard. It was quickly revealed that a second set of sliding doors was there, as it slowly opened, spiking her curiosity to see what was going on. As she walked over and peered into the room, she saw a set of purple eyes staring back at her.
Shouting in fear, she stumbled backwards and cowered behind her wings, peeking through a small hole in between them as she watched the creature. Slowly, it stepped into the light, revealing to have four legs and a horn along with purple fur and a violet mane with a magenta stripe.
The creature eyed her with fear and slowly approached, trembling slightly as it walked.
The pegasus's eyes widened as she moved the wings out of her face and examined the thing. It... looked like her? But with a horn and was purple instead of blue... Maybe she was friendly?
The unicorn reached out a hoof towards the pegasus, though not touching her, and respectfully keeping her distance. Hesitantly, she opened her mouth and spoke out a small tone, gesturing the pegasus with her hoof.
The cyan mare eyed the hoof carefully before also speaking out a similar tone. Both of their eyes widened. Slowly, she reached her hoof forwards and came into contact with the others. Their eyes lit up and they both smiled before they started giggling.
The unicorn came up to her and started speaking out random tones of excitement and blabbers to which the pegasus simply giggled and responded similarly. It quickly came to a halt, though, as they realized that they had no idea what they were saying and could not understand the other.
The unicorn furrowed her brows and muttered out a, "Hmmm..." before muttering a tone of astonishment as she saw the room. Her newfound friend followed her.
Quickly, she stopped the pegasus as she gestured towards the gaping hole in the middle of the room that sat between them and the door. She expressed a tone of worry before pacing around and thinking to herself, humming a random tone as she walked in a circle.
The rainbow mare rolled her eyes as she called out to the unicorn, disrupting her thinking. She shouted back with a tilt to her head as the mare pointed towards one of the pressure plates.
A smile came across the unicorn's face and she hopped up and down slightly. She then looked down at the pegasus and furrowed her brows before walking over to her and poking at her wings, speaking out in a tone that rised slightly over time.
The prismatic mare blinked before looking down at her wings and opening them. She looked over at her friend, who pointed at her and then at the pressure plate and made a flapping motion with one of her forelegs.
Raising an eyebrow, she tried to flap her wings, but nothing happened. She didn't even get any lift, just pushed some air down and accidentally blew some into her friends face, causing her to blink rapidly and shake her head. She then spoke a similar tone that her friend had spoken earlier and poked at her friends horn.
She stumbled back upon contact, but then looked up at her forehead, unsure of what to do. She frowned and poked at it a few times before sighing and shaking her head.
"Hmm..." The pegasus muttered some random tones to herself. Then, her eyes lit up and she called to her friend while pointing at the set of floating platforms.
Her friend looked uneasy about it, but shrugged and walked over. Arriving at the foot of the first platform, she uneasily looked down into the black void and backed away, cowering slightly. She then looked over to her friend, who didn't seem to pay attention as she quickly ran and jumped over the gap.
Her eyes widened as the prismatic mare jumped through the air before landing safely on top of the platform. She shouted at the pegasus with anger as she just laughed and gestured for her to come up, too.
"Wa-nhhmf..." she spoke nervously as she backed away. Her rainbow maned friend spoke louder this time, also patting the floor next to her in the process.
Gulping, she swallowed down her fears and ran towards the platform, jumping in the air and landing besides her friend. The mare spoke in a happy tone before being silenced by the unicorn forcefully giving her a hug.
The pegasus rolled her eyes and spoke out calmly before gesturing to the next set of platforms they had to jump to. Seeing her friend start to sweat and her eyes widen, she patted her back before giving a soft hug and running off to the next platform.
Hesitantly, she followed closely behind.
Eventually they made it to the top, where there was a simple red pressure plate that had § engraved on it. The rainbow pegasus had no trouble immediately stepping on the plate without a second thought. Right after, the red lining lit up and illuminated one of the red bulbs that also had the symbol § engraved underneath it.
Her smile quickly dropped, though, as nothing happened. However, there were two red bulbs this time. Her mind quickly remembered the other pressure plate. She turned to the unicorn, who looked just as confused before she called her name, getting her attention. She grunted as she pointed at her friend, then at the pressure plate. Then she paused before pointing at herself and towards the other pressure plate.
It took the unicorn a second, but she got the message and stood on the pressure plate while the pegasus hopped down each platform and made her way to the other path. It was just as easy as the other one, and she quickly made her way to the top before stepping on the second pressure plate labeled Ž. It lit up its red lining and illuminated the second bulb also labeled Ž.
She frowned as nothing happened for a few seconds. That was until the entire room started to shake slightly as a floor started to slide out from the walls to cover up the gaping hole and a staircase began to form in the middle passageway, leading up to the door.
Smiling, she shouted to her friend as she scaled down, whom was also quickly descending the platforms. They met at the middle of the room, hugged, and went up the stairs towards the double doors. These ones were wood and were not locked, being easily pushed open.
As they stepped inside, torches among the walls burst to life and the doors behind them closed.
This room was different from the others. Its flooring was instead made of sandstone and was more rough to the touch. And to the left of them were two monuments, each with some sort of symbol on them. The first one had a six-pointed star with five other stars surrounding it, and the other had a cloud with a lightning bolt striking out with three layers. They seemed awfully familiar...
And below each one of them, a few engravings which they didn't what they were.
Confused, the rainbow mare looked over to her friend, who was also thinking things over. She looked quite annoyed, pacing back and forth a few times before eventually sitting down on her- wait. Her eyes darted between her friend and the left monument. Then again. Then she shouted at her friend and pointed at her flank before pointing at the monument.
"Wabuh!" she spoke out in accomplishment, throwing her hoof in the air.
Her friend was equally as excited, astonished as to why her butt's weird picture thing was on a random stone. She approached the monument and reached out to touch it in curiosity. Upon her touch, the engravings lit up and a few pieces of lit up light, seemingly pure energy made up of the same shape as the engravings, made its way from the stone and into the unicorn, who gasped and blinked a few times, before quickly turning to the pegasus and gesturing her to do the same.
With an eyebrow raised, she obliged and a similar effect happened. As the energy particles hit her, her brain began to pulse, almost like a headache, but without the ache, and some part of her head seemed to connect another piece of a puzzle into her brain. After shaking her head, she looked down at the monument engravings and saw it. However, this time, it wasn't just random scribbles. She was able to read it. They were words!
Rainbow Dash it read. Her friend's read Twilight Sparkle.
"Pwatah!" she shouted in excitement. She ran over to her friend, who was also beeming with energy, and pointed at her. "Twi...light..." she spoke slowly, the words feeling foreign to her tongue.
Her friend pointed at her and spoke, "Rain...bow..." They both smiled.
"Twilight!"
"Rainbow!"
They laughed as they finally had something they could call each other.
Author's Note
Wrote this quickly, may come back and edit a couple of things.
Feedback is always welcome!
