"Here we are girls." A tattered lavender mare whispered, gulping.
"Uh, Twi? Ah think ah'm speakin' for everypony when ah say, ya'll sure we can'urn back now?!?" An orange work mare stated more than asked.
The six frazzled mares looked around the dark, damp, senary they were now in. T'was the crystal filled cavern that was, the Canterlot Caves. The only visible shreds of light in the mirror palace, were that of the horns aglow atop of Twilight and Rarity's heads.
"No," Twilight finally stated, looking towards Apple Jack,"We've come to far to have any reason to turn back now. And I believe," Sparkle paused, her aura rapping around a tattered scroll sitting just outside of her saddle bags," That we are almost there."
"Oooh, but Twilight!" A marshmellow outstreched the name, stopping in her tracks,"I'm sooo tired, and I think I.ve ruined my hooficure." The pony stomped for good measure.
"Fine Rarity. We'll stop and rest here for a while, and regain our bearings." The mare put up a hoof and yawned. "I'm pretty tired myself. Rainbow?" She asked, looking up at the cyan mare. A rainbow mare swooped down.
"Yeah Twilight?" A raspy voice replyed.
"Will you set up camp?"
"Can do!" Rainbow Dash soluted, stretching her wings out. Everypony put their things in a pile, as the Rainbow donned a pair of flight goggles."You guys may wanna stand back! It's about to get windy." Rainbow said doing a last minuet stretch of her wings. Nopony disagreed. They all clumped behind a huge crystal cluster, while watching the cyan pegasus begin to gain speed, spinning round and round their belongings. At her top speed, she smiled as the velocity of her rainbow vortex became powerful enough to lift a few of the groups tents, but there still wasn't enough power.
"Fluttershy!" The rainbow mained pony called out of the rainbowtex. A small voice behind the crystal cluster came about, saying,"I'm coming..." The butterball mare soon flung herself into the vortex, allowing it to suck her in. Soon, she began to help Rainbow gain enough speed to have everything pop into place.
Perfect! Rainbow thought as she shooed her friend away, she then began to fly in the opposite direction, ensuing the safe destruction of the rainbow vortex. "Welp," she started, her hooves beneath her head,"There you go everypony."
"Ooh, thank you Rainbow Dash!" The refined voice of Rarity called. She started to trot towards her mansion-like tent. "Come on everypony, there's plenty of room in my tent. We should have a meeting right quick to figure out what we shall do." The white unicorn nodded at her 'tent'.
"Thank you Rarity, and Rainbow." Twilight said, trotting into the marshmallow's tent, being sure to take note of how neat and tidy the campsite was. She turned to see Rainbow looking into her grateful face. "Just doin' my duty." The cyan mare said to the purple unicorn.
Everypony got comfortable in Rarity's 'tent'. Twilight appeared to take note of how much bigger it was on the inside, than it had looked on the out side. She then payed attention to the task at hoof. Looking around the circle of ponies, Twilight began to speak.
"Alright," The purple unicorn began, her purple aura rummaging around in her saddle bags to find an old map of the caves. She felt guilty for using it, for it was torn out of a book. Even worse, she was the one to tear it out of a book. One of her favorites, she might add. None the less, she rolled it into the middle of the ponies. They equally craned their necks to see it clearly. Before Twilight could continue, a pink party pony piped up.
"Hey look everypony!" She said grabbing the circles attention as she seemingly dissolved into the ground, to appear next to Twilight. "I found a cupcake on here! How silly is that?" She said giggling and pointing at the old map. There was indeed a small spot on the map that resembled a dark, crystally, cupcake.
"Pinkie," Twilight started to respond,"While that may look like a cupcake, that's actually a dragon's den. A dangerous dragon's den. So we need to steer clear of that at all costs." She nodded.
"Dragons? You know how afraid I am of dragons." A butterball mare piped up.
"Even though you defeated one yourself? Your still scared?" Rainbow asked in a pressuring manner.
"Yes... I... I just don't like big... Scary... Dragons..." Fluttershy responded shying away.
"Don't worry Fluttershy, we'll help you be brave. There's no need to worry." Twilight said, shooting an 'just let it go' glance. The pegasus nodded.
"Oh... Okay. What else?" The shy pony asked as Pinkie moved back into her spot in one bound, putting the sunshine pony in a warm embrace.
"Besides that, we're here." Twilight pointed at a circle shaped warp in the map,"And, from my studies of it, the Ciceron orb should be there." The unicorn circled a large area not to far away from the dragons den.
"Twi, how long'll it take take us to get from here to there?" The apple farmer asked.
"Well, according to my calculations from here to there should be about..." The pony tapped her head for a few seconds before quickly responding,"Five miles. And that sh-"
"Fiiive miiillles?" A white unicorn cut Twi off, outstretching the words as if in pain.
"Sugar cube, we like it as much as you do." Applejack received a wave of nods from behind her.
"Fine. And I guess it does give me a chance to wear my crystal boots. Apparently somepony augmented it to make the wearer able to walk miles without their hooves ever getting tired." The white unicorn rummaged through her bags,"Now where did I put those-?" She asked no pony in particular. Applejack rolled her eyes.
"You were sayin'?"
"Oh, right." Twilight gathered her thoughts back up. "It should take us, around a day to get there." She finally said, trying to stifle a yawn. "So we should probably get some rest." Twilight rolled the map back up, and shoved it in her saddle bags.
"Goodnight everypony." Rarity trotted upstairs to her main room, climbing into her bed.
"Goodnight girls." Twilight said, trotting out the 'tent' and toward her own beige canopy.
"Aw... But I'm not even tired yet!" Said a pink mare, walking slowly, and glumly, into her party tent. Within two minuets she was out cold. This made Rainbow snicker as she made her way over to her sleeping bag. She was way to good for a tent.
Applejack was the last pony, along with Fluttershy, to get into their respective tents.
Everypony called goodnight one last time, except for Pinkie, who was instead snoring loudly, and were soon in their dreamlands. All except for a purple unicorn.
"Dear Princess Celestia... We are currently on an expedition to find the Ciceron gem. This is the reason you haven't heard from me in a while, and for that I'm sorry. I'd been so busy trying to scout the whereabouts and learn more about this mysterious gem, in fact I looked in every book in my library, but to no avail. I pin pointed it's location and, the expedition is going great! The one question I have is, what does it do?" Twilight tried to stifle a yawn as sleep began to take over her. "Signed your student, Twilight Sparkle." She finished. Shoving her quill back into her saddle bags, Twilight decided to rest her head.
I'll rest my eyes for a second and send this to the princess. She'll know what it-, her thought was never finished as the lavender wizard drifted into a deep sleep.
"Woooh!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, popping her back, and stretching her wings,"I slept like a little filly."
"I can hear ya!" Said a messy mained Applejack as she too did some stretching of her own. "I'm gonna go get Twilight up. She'd wanna know we're ready to move." Rainbow nodded at this comment. She knew the high maintenance Twilight would agree too.
Applejack began to trot over to the purple unicorn's tent. She peered in, catching sight of the sleeping wizard. She finally came out with a,"Twi?", trying to wake the unicorn up.
"Huh-hu? Wh-what? Who's there?" Twilight sat strait up in bed looking around both alert, and groggy. She relaxed when she saw it was just the orange work mare. She got anxious again when she realized that she'd forgotten to send her letter. Forget it, she thought, we should just get moving.
"Um, it's me sugar cube. The girls and ah, we're all waitin' on you. Everythin's packed and ready to get movin', all cept' your stuff."
"Oh. Okay, I'll be out in a minuet." The lavender unicorn wrapped her note to the princess up, shoving it too into her saddlebags. She then trotted outside, shrinking her tent down, and also shoving it into her saddle bags.
After a good stretch, the gang was ready to go. The technicolor ponies excitingly started they're long trek, through the treacherous tattered Canterlot Caves, eager, to find that gem.
"Come, on, Fluttershy!" Rainbow yelled through the pink tail in her mouth,"Don't force me to drag you the whole way."
"Twilight...sa...said we wou...wouldn't go...go near th...the dragon!"
"Twilight said we'd try not to, but it's the only path to the mines! Anyway, the dragon is fast asleep. You'd have to make alot of noise to wake that thing up."
"B b but... I don't wanna!" Fluttershy stomped her hooves to the ground silently, trying to go the other way.
"Look, we're across." Rainbow said sarcastically, as she spit Flutters tail out. "Sorry for being a jerk. But I know you can be brave Fluttershy."
"I told you you could pass the sleepy meany dragon!" Pinkie quietly yelled, bounding around the room.
"Now that everypony is here, let's start moving again." Twilight said, impatiently.
"Ooh, I wonder if it sparkles." Rarity said, admiring herself in a nearby cluster, imagining a dress with the gem as a center piece.
"Rarity," Twilight said, snapping her out of admiration. "When we find this gem, you won't be able to use it in your fashions."
"Why ever not?" The marshmallow looked at the purple unicorn in disgust.
"Because this is a rare gem. In fact, the first of it's kind. And most likely the last. The first teal gem, Rarity. If anything, none of us should even touch it. It has magical capabilities of which nopony knows. So we don't know if the thing is even dangerous or not, there was hardly anything about it in the books I'd read. If anything, we'll hoof it over to the princesses A.S.A.P."
"Well, I guess that makes sence." Rarity responded, hiding her disappointment, this was going to be super exciting for her. Hmm, mabey she could mine some gems of her own down here. As if on cue of that statement, the white mare's horn began to glow an intense purple light, before sparking and dragging Rarity around.
"Um, Rarity? What are you doing?" Rainbow asked curiously.
"I'm not doing it, my horn is. It can sense where big jewels are remember?"
"Everypony! Follow that mare!" An excited Fluttershy amazingly yelled before adding on,"You know... If you want to."
After perhaps an hour or so of wooshing about the caves, Rarity began to slow, untill finally, she just stopped. Her horn shown purple, before unveiling a ball of teal under the crystal floor.
"How are we going to get it out of the floor?" Rarity asked.
"Everypony stand back, I got this." Rainbow replied. She then began to fly up and delve into the ground. It became a system, she'd fly up, fly down, and cracks would appear in the surface. After two minuets of nonstop bashing, the surface began to chip. "I... Think.... I... Almost, have... It!" She yelled between bashes.
Rainbow looked in shock as she saw the ground break beneath her. She was going to fast to stop from crashing into the orb. The last bit of crystal crumbled as the pegasus came face to face with the orb.
There was a flash. No noise. Complete silence. Six ponies lied unconscious, and unaware of what had happened. And there, on a cyan mares stomach lay the orb. A cyan unicorns stomach.
Author's Note
This story was started in the time of Sleepless in Ponyville, and will not be referencing anything but the episodes before it, and the episode after it. Also I apologize that the thoughts are not in a different font. I'll fix that as soon as I can. Thank you for reading Chapter one, of The Teal Orb. Please, I take criticism.
It had been an hour already. Everypony was still out cold, lying as if dead. Most ponies would believe they were dead, but no, they were very much alive. And they were in for a rude awakening.
"Urgh...my head." A lavender mare said, stretching and rubbing her head. She drowsily stood, walking around her friends to arouse them. "Girls wake up." She said in a groggy tone. She needed somepony to get up to tell her what happened.
"H-h-huh? Ah'm up ah'm up!" Apple Jack shouted, trying to shake her drowsiness off. "Shoot! My heads throbbin' like somepony's bangin' on it!" AJ rubbed her head. As she did so, she reached for her hat. She looked down behind her. To her surprise, not only was her hat there, two orange wings sprouted out of her back. She had to be seeing things, no way on Equestria did she have wings. To AJ's horror though, somepony behind her started screaming.
"AAAAAAAAHAHHHHAHHAHAH! MY HORN! WHERES MY HORN?!?" Twilight Sparkle asked, now fully awake from the shock. "A-A-A-AND H-HOW DID THESE WINGS GET HERE?!?" The now purple pegasus looked towards the orange farmer. She held out a shaky hoof. "A-A-Apple J-Jack? YOU HAVE WINGS!!!!"
"How in Celestia's name did this happen?" A pink pony asked to nopony in particular. She was rubbing her hoof on her new pink horn.
"REMAIN CALM! EVERYPONY JUST REMAIN CALM!" Twilight shouted.
"Nopony's panicking but you Twi." Apple Jack said calmly. "We'd better find the others."
"Hey!" A scratchy voice sounded,"Could you keep it down? Some ponies are actually trying to sleep!"
"Huuuuuuh!" Twilight gaped at the cyan pegasus. Rainbow immediately went into serious mode, becoming aware of their surroundings.
"What?" She asked curiously, standing up. "Is there something on my face?"
"Dashie you might want to sit down for this."
"Huh? Why Pinki---AH! YOUR A UNICORN!" Dash looked around franticly. "Apple Jack, Twilight, your both--" Raibow couldn't muster her words.
"Pegasi. Yes."
"My head hurts." The cyan mare got into a huddling position, hooves over her head. Thats when she felt it, a horn. There was a horn on her head. She gaped, unable to make any noises. She looked to her backside. Her wings! They were gone!
"Yeah, Dashie. You're a unicorn." Pinkie Pie stated, as if she was reading Dash's mind. In truth, her face told the whole story.
"What happened to the others? Where are th-" Rainbow Dash tried to ask.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH! MY HORN! MY BEAUTIFUL HORN! I-I-IT'S GO-HO-HONE! OF ALL THE WORST POSSIBLE THINGS! THIS IS THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. TH-HI-HING! WH-H-Y?"
"Well, ah guess we know where Rarity is. Hopefully Flutters is with 'er." Apple Jack responded to the shrill cry.
"Well," A purple pegasus started,"The sooner were together, the sooner we'll figure out what's going on. Let's go!"
The ponies began to move towards the screams of agony, but not before Dash shoved the orb in her saddle packs.
"O-oh my. Rarity. Please calm down. Rarity. Please. Everything will be okay." Said a yellow earth pony, she took losing her wings fairly well, and was now trying her hardest to calm down her marshmellow friend.
"Okay?!? OKAY?!? EVERYTHING IS NOT OKAY FLUTTERSHY AND I can't...calm...down..." Rarity calmed down as Fluttershy sang her lullaby. "Thank you Fluttershy."
The yellow pony cringed and blushed a little. "Oh it was nothing Rarity." Fluttershy heard a sound in the distance. Rarity acted as if she didn't hear anything. Probably because she couldn't, Fluttershy had to have super good hearing to find lost baby animals from time to time. "Rarity, I think the rest of the girls are coming this way."
"Fluttershy, Rarity?" Twilight called,"Fluttershy! Rarity!"
"Girls? Girls!" Fluttershy beckoned Rarity to follow her, and started from a trot to a gallop, towards the group.
"Wheew! Hey....Girls...." Twilight panted, getting used to the weight of her new wings.
"Hello, Twilight. Oh, looks like we all have the same problem." Fluttershy responded.
"If ya mean swip-swaped races, then yeah." Dash replied.
"Well, first thing we need to do is get out of these caves. I'll come up with an idea on the way." Twilight said, flapping her wings. The rest of the five ponies nodded, and trotted to pick up their stuff, following the route the came through.
"So, I was thinking we go to Princess Celestia, to see what she can do." Twilight said.
"That's your answer to everything, Twilight." Rainbow Dash replied rolling her eyes.
"Yeah, well this time we kinda have to go, because of the orb. We need to hand it over to the Princesses ASAP."
"Well, what're we waitin' for?" Apple Jack butted in, her wings showed her 'wanting to get moving' expression, almost as good as her face.
"It's just around the corner. We'll be there in no time. We can follow the path me and Cadence did."
"Oooooh an adventure!" Pinkie bounded.
Everypony rolled their eyes. Then, they quickly made their way through the caves to the main par of the Canterlot Gardens.
"Princess Celestia?" A buff pegasus guard pulled off his helm and bowed before his ruler.
"Yes Silver Shine?" The Princess of the sun replied.
"The Element are here to speak with you." The guard said back. He didn't say or seem surprised that the six ponies switched races, Silver had seen alot in his day of being a guard.
Princess Celestia's face grew serious. "Bring them in." She simply said. Beckoning the guard to hurry.
"Yes my lady." Silver said putting his helm back on before trotting toward the double doors of the main chamber. He nodded to his partner to open the doors. When they were open, six ponies came in.
Pinkie held herself in her usual way, bounding around with a huge smile on her face, Apple Jack also held herself in her usual way, no feeling a real difference with her newfound wings, Twilight came in, flying very wobbly towards the princess when she shouted "Princess Celestia!". Rainbow looked down to the floor in a longing way, while Fluttershy was perfectly fine, and Rarity was walking with less vigor in her trot.
The Princess was speechless. All she could muster was a dumbfounded look on her face. It was very silent in the room. One could probably hear somepony drop a feather.
"It's a long story, Celestia." Twilight said, wobbly lighting down, to focused on what she was doing to be proper. "Say," Twilight finally continued, once safely on the ground,"Have you heard of the Ciceron gem?" She asked, as if she didn't know the answer. The six ponies were now in a half circle in front of Celestia's throne, as a look of recognization worked it's way on her face.
"Yes. You may want to sit for this, my little ponies." The princess finally said, looking at each of their faces with concern. "First may I have the orb? I need to be sure nopony else can get hurt with it." Twilight nodded and looked towards Dash.
"Here." Dash said as she levitated the orb out of her bags. She about dropped it in shock of how easy it was. It was a good thing the yellow aura of her princess saved it before it hit the floor. "That was to easy for comfort." Dash said still shocked at being able to do that.
"Hm. Gather around." Celestia said, sending the orb off somewhere out of view. She walked to and empty white wall, the ponies followed. Her horn began to glow as a projection began.
"Long ago, when my sister and I were just little fillies, me and Luna had an older sister that only the oldest of alicorns know of today. She always had the brightest purples and blues in her hair, her skin a light blue. She was to be in charge of all eclipses, therefor our parents named her Ecli.
"Now, since we knew what we were to grow into, between royal classes, and royal playtime, and tending to the royal pets, mine of course is Philamena, we were aloud to have hobbies. Luna liked to dabble in singing and drawing. Shame she stopped, she was very good at them. I took to gardening and tending to the woodland creatures. Now, Ecli, she, unlike me and Luna, never grew into what she was supposed to.
"Her hobby was rock and other mining things, for collecting. She loved doing that so much, that to Mother and Father's discomfort, she began to show up less and less around the castle, searching for rocks and gems a plenty. She started missing royal classes, playtime, and she stopped taking care of her pet bat.
"She went insane, saying she'd found a new type of rock. A ball of teal, she'd call it. We had no idea what she was talking about. She drew us a picture, explaining where she found it and such. She'd go on and on about it, but we kept doubting her which made her even more crazy.
"It was terrible. At one point, me and Luna never forgot this day, she gained her cutiemark a pile of rocks and gems, and she said she was going away with Cicero to where nopony could ever put her down ever again. And then, poof. She was gone, never to return. Our parents would say she was just on vacation until we were old enough to understand what really happened.
"What you've heard now is all I know. You six may stay in Twilight's old room to rest, if you'd like. I'm sorry I could not be of more help."
All the ponies contemplated what their princess had said. Twilight couldn't help it, she needed to know more. "Princess Celestia, are you for sure certain that there isn't anything that can help us find out more?" She asked.
"I promise you I'll keep an eye out." The princess said. "Silver?"
"Yes, my princess?"
"Please tend to the Elements for me."
"Yes, my princess."
Silver took the six to the spa chamber where they were treated like royalty. They were cleaned, pampered, and relaxed, but Twilight still had to think. What would happen if Celestia didn't find anything else? Would they stay switched races forever? At one point Rarity saw the stress on Twilight's face and told her to relax, and that they'd find something out in due time.
A few hours after being tended to, everypony went to the garden to relax. Everypony, but, Twilight. She made her way through the castle to find Celestia on a small balcony. Twilight used all her might to fly as even and smooth as she could to the princess. "Did you find anything yet?" Twilight asked finally reaching the balcony with a *thud*.
"Not yet my star pupil. But don't worry, we won't stop looking." Princess Celestia smiled down gently at Twilight when a *woosh* surprised her. Twilight's wings shot strait out from her back, and try as she might, she could not put them down. A concerned look spread on Twilight's face, and she shuffled off the balcony, to embarrassed to say anything else. She decided to catch up with the girls.