The Mare in the Light

Kite Shield. Son of Shining Armor and Princess Cadence. Known rebellious son to his mother and father.

And as his name depicts his cutie mark, tis a kite shield. Blue metal with a gold trim, no coat of arms.

And the place he is now? A dig site where an ancient Equestrian artifact has been found, dating back almost half a million years.

there were many guards already on sight, and any that saw him, knew who he was. Upsetting him could get you kicked out of the guard. Plus, he doesn't abuse his privileges to walk where his father does. Never. Until now that is.

He was told to leave, yet he had that damned puzzle almost done! Just one piece! One piece!

Kite entered the main site buildign dug from it's tomb, and the guards even saluted him as he made his way in. They either did not get Shining Armor's message, or they're too scared to interfere with what Kite was doing.

He looked upon the great puzzle with shock.

"They ruined it!", he called out, rushing to the end of the room.

A simple room, built as a square housing for a puzzle to be placed. why a puzzle? because it's supposed to be solved only by those who know of it...Or that people once loved puzzles.

Kite looked at the three walls in which the lights poured from, each being at a 135 degree angle to the other. A small intersection, actually. Each puzzle block had been turned to wrong points, and placed in wrogn slots. Luckily, Kite's abilities have made him remember the pattern exactly as he had it.

"Red...Blue...Red...Left, right, left, right, bottom key place...."

He was already halfway done when the ligths began pouring through the crystals again. They actually shined on him, as where he stood blocked the center of the intersection. three left to replace. He turned one on the right wall, and the light flowed through it, puttign another dot on his grey coat. Once the last of the many crystals was in, he held the last in hsihooves, and backwinged out of the way so that the lights coudl meet, making that sphere of light illuminated the room again.

It was warm, and it felt good, but he was on a mission. No other key slot for the crystals would turn the crystal into another reflector. So...where does the final crystal go?

He began experimenting, passign the light of each beam through the crystal he had, but all it did was momentarily turn the ball of light into a flickering light show.

"hmm...It has to have somethign to do with the core light.", he said, tapping the crystal on his chin. holding the crystal in said ball of light, it hit something solid. He felt where the crystal had been stopped, and there was nothing.

Only the crystal can touch it.

He gently poked at the unseen device until finally...

*click*

The crystal was pulled into a slot where the light was, and it evaporated, along with the other crystals.

The door slammed shut, provign that the scientists who had observed it, and proclaimed it as 'broken', were wrong.

Kite turned to the now blockaded entrance, and ran to it, tryign to open it again.

"Help! I can't open it! guards! Get this door open!"

He heard hooves beating on the other side of the door, but it only made dust fall off of the door's frame, causing Kite to cough. After a few more tries, even ramming the door himself, Kite backed away from the momentarily invincible door, and turned to the still shining ball of light. The crystals are gone, meanign that the light has nothing fuelign it. None of the beams are even passing down from the ceilign gems anymore. Kite approached it, and looked at it, observing it.

"Coem on! LEt me out of here! What do I ahve to do to turn you off?"

Kite tried to touch the ligth, and upon makign contact with it, the light disappeared, along with all the ligth in the room.

He froze. Not a single twitch, not a single breath. No sound either. He was alone, can't see, and locked in a room that he can't get out alone.

A mintue passed, still frozen.

He slowly took in a breath and let out a small noise. That was his mistake. A green ligth flashed into existence alogn the walls, barely illuminating the statues that had surrounded him. Eight of them, and all of them starign at each other, above his head as he cowered.

Kite looked at one of them, then another, and notice one's arms had changed. They were held out. With every singel time he changed where he looked, something moved outside of his sight until finally, their eye's became aglow, a same, eerie green that shined horridly.

Kite clenched his eyes shut, but it didn't help. One statue grabbed his hind legs, halling him up upside down. Another grabbed his right foreleg, and another, his left. The held him upright, facign the remaining five statues which had gathered, putting one in the center of the four.

"W-what are you doing? What did I do wrong? what's happening?", Kite asked the voiceless abominations. The center statue cracked along it's side, spewing green light that leaked from it's body liek blood. Thick strands dropped from the crack until another crack surfaced, spewing more of the thick green substance. the cracks begna crawlign over the statue until the entire body was cracked. Then it stopped. Silence again. No movement, save for Kite's constant struggling, seing this as a possible opportunity to try and get free.

The cracked statue shattered, throwing splinters of stone everywhere, leaving behind a mess of green goo. As the green slime began to drain into the floor, a figure of white fur and the body of a mare was released from it's hold, but as if dead. No movement whatsoever. Not a breath.

The statues encirclign her lifted her up, albeit more gently than they did Kite, and with a lot more...caress. they held her as if trying to make a throne for her.

Without wasting time, the statues neared her to Kite, and as they stopped, holding her clsoely to him, a spark of light arced between the two. Nothing much at first, but then another took place, brighter. Bigger. The third connected them like a tesla coil reaching out to an uncharged object.

Pain coursed through his mind, body, and even something else. Somethign new to him. A new pain, a new fealign altogether. As if that stream of energy had a grip on something inside of him.

His sights turned white, and teh pain quickly ebbed to nothing. In the end, everything shut down into the black abyss known as unconsciousness.

In the moonlight, shining armor beat at the stone wall with his hooves, magic, and even threw impact explosives at it. It was invincible. Nothing coudl break it.

Luna, as requested byt he nigth guard, landed nearby, two nigth ponies accompanying her.

"Princess Luna!", Shining Armor turned from the well-beaten door.

"I got your message of worry, Guard Captain Shining Armor. If anypony can do anything, I can. I can read ancient Equestrian, as well as deal with it's godly powerful magics."

Luna brushed past Shining and approached the door casually, looking it over. She cast one spell over it, covering the door in her magic glow. The markings slowly recomposed themselves, dwindlign until only acute etches in the stone remained, displaying a whole wall of hieroglyphs.

"Here we are...the door's locking mechanism was activated from the inside.", Luna announced.

"I told Kite not to come anywhere near here! After that first scientist was disintegrated..."

"Shining, I don't think it's time to relax at all. I can read anceitn Equestrian but htis...All I can read is parts of it. It has something else mixed in...I can make out a few things though...Locked from the inside...Light's passage...And...the Uprising?"

"Uprising? W-what doe sthat mean?", Shining stammered.

"It soudns as dire as you think, Captain. I've onyl seen the hieroglyph for uprising, as two different depictions. A symbol that represents praising...and one of a phoenix. this one has a phoenix, and that exact hieroglyph has been connected to three dangerous dig sites like this one. I would say abandon this now, immediately but..."

"My son is in there!"

"I'm afraid that may also mean that he is dead, or being transformed into a horrible weapon that may spread a disease to anypony he contaminates, turnign them into...eh...something like his new form."

"Are you referencing-"

"Groudn zero? where that necrosis epidemic started? I am glad to say that I wiped out that epidemic in one night, but...several thousand ponies perished..."

"Can you open the door? Please???", Shining begged.

Luna faced the door and flared her wings, "I call upon the power of the nigth! full moon embrace me! Empower me!"

Her chant was successful, shedding a bright ray of moonlight on herself. She channeled the moonlight through her horn and fired a powerful blast of energy at the door, causing the wall of stone to erupt in blinding light.

But...to no avail did Luna even scratch it.

"I...I have failed? Nothing could withstand my ultimate moonbeam! Not even a slab of star metal!"

"P-Princess?", Shining stammered.

"I...I don't know what to do..."

Luna got closer to the stone wall, and touched it, receiving a small shock from the contact.

"Its...Cahrged. That means that somethign is defintiely using alot of magic and energy inside."

"What's going on then?!", Shining demanded.

"I don't know, Shining, but...if your message were to sound more dire then I coudl have gotten here quicker, and blown it open."

"Are you saying that this is my fault?!?!", Shining bellowed.

"Captain, if I recall, you said your son was in trouble, and that my help was not needed. You didn't say that he was trapped in temple ruins."

Shining gritted his teeth as Luna turned back to teh slab of stone.

"It...says that we only have to wait for it to finish it's process..."

"what process?"

"I don't know. It's got a time, though. Looks as fi this may have actually been an ancient technology research site, now that I think about it. See the pillars surrounding this building? Or at least whats left of them?"

"Yes. Four. I was told so when one of them turned a scientist into a piece of charcoal..."

"They are, what we would call, a tesla coil."

"ok, how are they importatn?"

"It means that this place was charged with enough energy to run Manehatten for a century. Which also means that Celestia and I both could sit here and unleash godly attacks on this entire building, and not do anything but blow off the dust. But seeing as your son has activated it, it's only a matter of time until this place is drained dry."

"Then how long?", Shining asked immediately.

Luna took a few steps back from the building, and looked it over, from the left to the right, quickly scanning it's walls with the same restoring spell used on the door.

"Hours. It may open at sunrise. Of whcih then, you may have to call my sister to blow the door open. These ancient buildings are not known to have flawless doors."

Luna turned to the two Night ponies, and held her hoof out to one. The night pony took somethign from her hoof, and she took off.

"Captain.", the nigth pony called, "I have been entrusted with the pricness's moonstone whistle. If there is need of immediate assistance, I will recall her here within seconds."

Shining armor stared at the stallion, then looked away, at the locked building.