Pinkie Pie looked at me with terror, knowing now the pony she was talking to. She slowly started to scooch away from me, not breaking her line of sight away from me.

"Y-you kill our Princess?...H-how? When we still got new rules and orders sent from the princess herself?" Pinkie questioned while pointing her hoove at me. I placed my left hoove on my head and shook my head.

"You thought the princess was the one REALLY making these new rules and regulations that place us under a state of fear and oppression? Well I got news for you Pinkie: The princess has been dead for a good ten years and I can tell you who really run Equestria." I reached into my saddlebag and retrieved a small gold pendant. I gazed at the engraved figure of a alicorn rising infront of a bright sun, noticing the stain marks and scratches around the edges and along the rightside of the sun. I tossed the pendant at Pinkie, who caught it in her hooves. She looked the piece of gold, examining the details and writing on the pendant.

"What is this?" Pinkie questioned as she looked back at me. I closed my saddlebag before answering her.

"That's a medal given to the most loyal of Equestrian guards ponies. It's only been given out twice during the entire life of Princess Celestia. One belonged to Straight Edge, A pony that lived during the fall of the Crystal Empire. He alone stood against the power of King Sombra and lived to return to Canterlot. Even though his mission was a failure, the Princess felt it necessary to award his valor and bravery. That was when the princess wasn't lossing her sanity and Equestria was rising in power. The next one was to the current captain of the royal guard, Shining Armor. He also help the Crystal Empire when Sombra awoken from his sllumber, he and his wife nearly died during the mission but survived and returned hero's..."

"I was there when that happened..." Pinkie said as she looked down at the medal in sadness. I nodded my head in agreement.

"I know, I was a fresh recruit when Shining was awarded the medal. I believe I saw you in the crowd, but I quess after all these years I forgot that the Elements of Harmony were present. Anyway, the years past and the harmony of Equestria continued until three years ago. I'm sure you know the reason for that..." Pinkie nodded in understanding.

"The year that Harmony shards were discovered...but I don't understand where and how they were found..." I cleared my throat causing Pinkie to look at me.

"I can explain that easily..."

The Discovery

There was a blast of cold wind that ripped through the mine, starting from the entrence of the mine to the furthest depths. The group ,consisting of 2 unicorn ponies and 2 griffins, shivered as the wind shoot through their fur and chilled them to the very bone. The pony wearing a blue mask, his name is Hard Pick, let out a shout.

"Alright!...We need to finish this section of the shaft, then we can head back to the barracks and rest!" Hard Pick said as shifted in his grey jump suit and started walking into the darkness. The unicorn wearing a red mask turned to the griffin with a white mask and poked her with his elbow.

"Hey Gilda...think well find jewels this time? I'm tired of finding rocks." She looked at the pony and shruged.

"I really don't know Stone, this is the third shaft this month that held shit." Stone nodded and started walking with the rest of the group. They traveled ten feet before stoping to turn on their head lamps, Hard Pick used his magic instead since it was brighter then the headlamps. The lights illuminated the grey rocks, showing signs of unnatural tunneling slowly descending down into the rocky earth. The group reached a point where the tunnel split in two directions: one heading further down and one heading in an upward climb. Hard Pick used his magic to take out a map from his saddlebag. He levitated it infront of him and examined the drawings of the many tunnels and markings that meant different things. Hard Pick looked at the fork that they were at and looked on the map.

"We need to head down...lets go everypony!" He stated as he placed the map back into his saddlebag and descended down the right tunnel, the group followed suit and continued their journey

The tunnel continued to descend, going deeper and deeper into the earth. Stone looked at the rock that was carved out, Hard Pick remained focused making sure not to misstep and trip, and the rest stayed silent as they followed behind. Before long, Hard Pick could see that slowly began to widen every 20 feet. After traveling for what seemed like hours, the group found themselves in a rather large cavern. Their lights illuminated a few feet in either direction, but could not reach the walls of the cavern they seemed to be in. Hard Pick brought the map back out, trying to figure out what went wrong. He unfolded the map and was shocked at what he saw. The map was blank, not a single marking could be seen not evern the coffee stain from the morning before could be found. Hard Pick started to sweat, his mind racing as the reality of being fucked was dawning on him.

"Hard Pick...where are we?" One of the ponies asked as the group gathered around Hard Pick. He shook his head, using his hoove to wipe the sweat from his brow.

"This is bad guy...we seem to have taken the wrong tunnel... and the map is now a piece of paper." He said as he showed the map to the group. All of them gasped, seeing that Hard Pick was being truthfull.

"Oh sweet Celestia...what do we do?!" Stone said as he started to panic, pacing as his fear increased. Gilda grabed his shoulders and shook him.

"Keep calm you idiot! We need to stay calm."

"Gilda's right..." Hard Pick stated. "...we can't be losing our minds. Right now, we need to head back the way we came. Now lets go." With that, the group turned and started back the way they came. The group followed Hard Pick throught the darkness, making sure they were heading back the exact way they came. As they made their way, one of the ponies noticed something faintly glowing on the wall. The pony was interested in the object, he turned his head to the group. He noticed that they were a few feet ahead of him, he figured he could quickly check it out and catch up to them. He quickly trotted closer to the object, as he got closer he began to see it in closer detail. The object was pitch black and the glowing he saw was actualy the edges of the object glowing a faint whit light. As he reached the object, he noticed that the object itself was about the size of a small ball. He reached his hoove out and picked up the small black object. It sat in his hoove, levitating a few centimeters above his hoove. He felt a soothing warmth coming of the object and he felt a desire to keep it. But before he could begin to place it in his bag, the object exploded in a cloud of black smoke. He recoiled in surprise as the smoke rushed into his mask, entering his body through his nose, eyes and mouth. As the last of the smoke entered him, he began to react violently to the substance coursing through his body. He felt like his whole being was on fire, he screamed in pain and collapsed onto the ground.

The group heard the scream and turned around to see the light from the ponies headlamp fall to the ground. They rushed over to the light to assist the fallen pony. As they reached the pony, they saw that he was collapsed on the hard rocky floor. His headlamp came off and his brown messy mane could be seen except the patches that were covered by his mask's straps. Hard Pick place his hoove against his throat and felt for a pulse.

"He's alive, but out cold...Gilda, Stone help him and lets get out of here." Hard Pick stated as Stone helped Gilda get the pony onto both there backs and started towards the exit of the cavern.

Back in the barracks Hard Pick, Gilda, Stone and the rest of the workers in the mine were all silent as a medic looked over the pony that laid appon the hard bed. After a few minutes of examining the pony, the medic turned to the workers.

"Well...he seems stable, but its hard to tell if there is any brain damage without going to the hospital. My best advise to give you is keep him in bed and if he wakes up, keep an eye on him until you can get him proper treatment." The medic said as he placed his saddlebag back onto his backside. Hard Pick and the rest of the group nodded as they watched the medic leave the barracks. After a moment of silence Hard Pick turned to the workers.

"Ok...now that we have him back and looked at, we have an idea on what to do. Now Me, Gilda and Stone will look after him, the rest of you can resume the expansion of the tunnels." The workers let out a collective moan at the request.

"HEY, one of us might be out of commision, but that don't mean we can stop working. There are bits to be made and tunnels to dig, so get going!" The workers started filling out of the barracks, leaving Hard Pick, Gilda and Stone alone in the barracks. Stone turned to Hard Pick and Gilda.

"Well...what do we do know? Just watch a unconcious pony till he wakes up?" Stone questioned. Gilda looked at Stone with a harsh look.

"You idiot, we need to find out what happened. What if he was attacked down there? We need to investigate, right Pick?" Gilda said to Hard Pick, who seemed to be thinking hard about the situation. But before he could speak, the pony on the bed shot straight up with a loud scream. All three nearly had heartattacks at the sudden noise and watched the pony stop screaming and look around confused. The three of them slowly walked over to the pony, making sure to not scare him.

"H-hey...you ok?" Stone asked as they reached the bed, the pony turned to them and smiled.

"Yeah, I feel great! I feel like aI have this energy racing through me!" He explained as the three watched him with confusion. Hard Pick was the first to speak as the pony got out of bed.

"What happened to you anyway? You just collapsed in the cavern." The ponies ears shot up and he turned to them with a huge smile.

"I found something in that cavern man...Something that can change everything...I don't know what it was, but It makes me feel...whole inside...Like it filled a hole in my soul..." The pony sat down on the ground and then explained his find to the three. Where it was, what it looked like and what it did.

"I believe you know the rest of the story..." I said as she handed me my medal. She nodded before speaking.

"Yeah...they started selling the shards of black rock as 'Harmony'. claiming that it brought balance to ones life. With seemed to work...for a while." Pinkie said as she placed her head on the side of the cart. I nodded in agreement.

"Thats correct Pinkie...the 'Harmony' works but as it makes you feel good, you start losing more of your sanity...until you'r nothing but a broken husk, wishing for death," I said as I placed my medal back into my saddlebag. Pinkie looked at me for a moment before speaking.

"So...since you killed the princess...tell me...how'd you do it?...I though the princesses were immortal." I looked at her for a second then looked away.

"That's not true...they can be killed like you or me...but I'll hold of on telling you that..." I stated. Pinkie seemed to surprised and scooted closer.

"Come on...why not?" I turned to face her.

"I'm tired...and besides...We have all the time to talk when we get where we are going..." I said as I turned my head away from her and closed my eyes to sleep.

Author's Note

The next part!!! some things might not be up to my hopes but hey i just started back and wanted to get this out. so if something seems iffy, tell me and I'll try and fix it.