Mega Mare
Chapter 4 – Power Gem
"So, she's down there, right?" Twilight squinted into the passage before her.
"Yeah. It can get pretty confusing down there, but I've got a map," Spike replied, a holographic map appearing from Twilight's horn as proof.
Before the two, a long, narrow tunnel into the mountainside loomed ahead, tapering off into darkness. A small steel-blue tube with white plating ran along the ground and down into the darkness, the gravitational anchor for hovercarts to carry supplies along the tunnel at accelerated speeds. Now it was long forgotten and deactivated, and parts of it had started to rust. Twilight's data feeds were scrolling up far more data about the mountain and the mines within them than she would have cared to know, including tectonic activity, terrain densities, and height features. She filtered the data down to the basics, ignoring Spike's mental complaining about his work for her not being appreciated.
They were standing in front of the Appaloosan Mountain Range, which stretched from Ponyville to Appleloosa. The mines had once been considered for a hypertrain tunnel between the two cities, but the digging company abandoned that plan when valuable magic-attuned gemstone deposits were found. They converted the train tunnels to a series of mine shafts and mined the mountain for decades. Eventually though the deposits dried up, leaving nothing but run-of-the-mill normal gem. By that point ponies considered hypertrains obsolete in favor of teleportation systems. Now the tunnels lay abandoned and empty, the citizens of Equestria having no use for them. Twilight wasn't sure why one of Celestia's aides would be here, but presuming she was suffering from the same corruption as the other two aides so far, she probably wasn't here willingly.
"Alright, let's get moving." Twilight started forward into the tunnel, walking beside the rail running down the center. The light of the sun quickly faded, and she activated two lights on her saddle, blaring a circle of white light around her to light up the pitch darkness, her moving hooves and shifting mane casting shadows along the wall as she moved. The tunnel walls were mostly natural dirt, but every few hooves or so a pillar of steel-blue construction tubing ran up the wall on both sides and connected to a support girder in the ceiling. Fortunately, contrary to the rail beneath her hooves, the supports of the tunnels were fully intact and safe.
Twilight looked behind her, watching the small orb of light behind her where the tunnel began. She could see enough to sidestep pieces of broken rail and rocks in her path, but she didn't like the idea of trying to fight in these quarters. If something attacked she'd have nowhere to avoid the foe and her light would give her away instantly.
"Sensing anything down here Spike?" The tunnel carried the echo forward, not doing much to soothe her concerns about discovery.
"There's something a ways up ahead, not sure what. It's not a pony though, the signature is unfamiliar," Spike replied. Twilight didn't like the sound of that. This mine didn't seem like the sort of place for Silver Wolves to lurk, so if it wasn't a pony, what could it be? As she continued on, Twilight saw light ahead, and as she approached she saw where it was coming. A single, crude iron chain hung from the ceiling attacked to an iron bar twisted into a circular shape. The bar held the light source in its grip.
"A gemstone?" Twilight poked the iron construct with a hoof and watched it swing slightly. The iron was holding a gleaming white gemstone which was projecting light all around them, the tunnel walls lit up grey and brown. The gem was alive with magical energy, and was crystal clear and finely cut.
"It's a luminance gem," Spike suggested. "The miners would hang them from the ceilings and imbue them with light-producing magics to light up the tunnels while they worked. Depending on the power of the spell they could run for days or even weeks before going dark."
"I thought you said there hasn't been mining here for years. Shouldn't they have run out of energy by now?" Twilight asked.
"Yeah. But, one of the Princess's aides is down here. Maybe she turned it back on." Spike's hologram shrugged.
"Well if she did, it's fortunate for us." Twilight turned off her saddle's lights. Looking further down the tunnel, more luminance gems hung from the cavern ceiling to light the way. Not all of them were diamonds, but there were also emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and more. Each produced different colors of light, and they colors swirled together on the walls and floor where the cones of light they created overlapped, the light distorted by the iron wrapped around each gem. Twilight stepped up to the next one and poked it. The blue light it produced wavered along the walls, mixing with the white light behind her and the red light ahead, creating brilliant tones of violet and blue.
"Sorry to interrupt the sight-seeing, but that lone life form I saw earlier is getting closer," Spike said in Twilight's head. She turned her attention from admiring the beauty of the gems around her and looked forward. Her horn let up with a violet aura, ready to fire. At least now with the tunnels fully lit, anything that came at her, she would see. She called up her map and watched. Sure enough, a blinking red dot was slowly moving towards her. Twilight braced herself and waited.
Several seconds passed with nothing occurring, and Twilight turned her focus from the tunnel ahead back to the map. The red dot was close enough that the cause should have been in view, but instead she saw nothing. Her eyes widened slightly as the dot came so close it was almost on top of her, and she panicked and dashed down the tunnel a few feet to get in front of it.
The sound of something breaking through the tunnel walls came behind her, and the pony stopped and turned. In the light of the luminance gems, a creature was poking its head up from the floor between the rails running along the tunnel. It had dark brown skin and a steel helmet covered its head except for the nose and mouth, the helmet dented and dirty. The creature had a short, squat nose with hairs emerging from its nostrils. As Twilight watched the creature turned its head around, sniffing loudly.
"It's a Diamond Dog," Spike said. "They live underground hoarding gems, and moved into the tunnels once the miners abandoned the site."
"Why didn't you tell me about them earlier?" Twilight asked mentally.
"I did. It was in that data feed I streamed for you," Spike said dryly. Twilight rolled her eyes. Her display flashed to life and a 3D image of the creature before her appeared with other zoological data. She read it carefully this time.
"Possess strong tunneling skills, use a pack hierarchy, physically strong, not very intelligent. Have devolved to the point they're almost entirely blind, but have strong senses of smell and hearing. So it could hear or smell me?" The dog lingered its nose in her direction for a moment as it turned its head to scope out the tunnel, and Twilight tensed.
"Hard to say. Back away, slowly."
Twilight began to do as her assistant ordered, slowly inching away from the Diamond Dog. The dog slightly perked up and turned his head back her way, and she stopped. Poor chance it turned as she moved, or was it able to hear her hooves? She didn't care to find out by testing it. There was only one option to get away, then.
"If I have to fight, will my magic hurt them too much?"
"I don't think so, he looks pretty well armored anyway," Spike said. Twilight lowered her head, aiming carefully in the dim light for the armored portions of the creature's head. The multi-hued lighting filling the tunnel added violet to the mix as three energy bolts shot out and struck the Diamond Dog. It let out a howl out pain and dropped out of sight, leaving only the hole its head had emerged from. Twilight trotted up to the hole and looked down. The dog had dug a tunnel through the earth and now lay at the bottom of it, groaning.
"Scanning vitals… he's stunned, but he'll be fine," Spike said. Twilight nodded and looked back down the tunnel. She called up her map to confirm the way was clear, and continued on. A few more steps down, in a revealing cone of amber light provided by an orange gemstone, the passage forked. One leveled out, the other turned deeper down before a cave-in blocked the way.
"According to my scans, we need to take the lower route," Spike replied. Twilight turned to the collapsed path and examined the cave-in. It looked like the top of the tunnel had fallen in when something - a Diamond Dog, judging from what she had seen - had tried to dig through into the main tunnel and brought the ceiling down with them. The blockage was mostly made of stone and dirt, though in some areas Twilight could see small glimmers of color from buried gemstones. Against one wall, half-buried by rubble, an old rectangular hovercart lay on the ground, the steel-blue plating discolored from years of neglect.
Twilight lowered her horn and focused. One of the rocks glowed violet and slowly levitated up, moving behind Twilight with a thud. She groaned and seized a second rock in her telekinetic grip. "This is gonna take a while."
"There's gotta be a faster way," Spike said. Twilight floated the second rock behind her. It rolled down the slightly inclined ground and banged against her steel hoof. Looking down, the mare thought, and smiled. Once again Spike read her thought patterns and realized what was coming. "Oh boy." Twilight send the mental command, and her hoof shifted form, metal plates clicking together and sliding apart. The Pinkie Cannon finishing forming with a hum of energy, and Twilight stepped back from the debris.
"Spike, will this be strong enough to bring the caves down around us?" she asked. Spike looked over his data feeds.
"No, but it'll be pretty loud, the walls will amplify the pressure wave this closed-in." At the news, Twilight took a few more steps back to the center of the fork, and powered up the weapon. The end of the barrel lit up with pink light. Twilight turned her head away, closed her eyes, and aimed. The air flashed pink as the Pinkie Cannon shot out a glowing pink energy orb. The rock blockade exploded in a powerful shockwave, Twilight stumbling back a step from the force. A cloud of dust enveloped her and a few smaller rocks fell down around her. The rumbling of the explosion was fading away, and Twilight slowly opened her eyes, waving her hoof around to get rid of the dust.
"Well, that worked well enough." The blast , and blew away the top of the shaft to reveal the Diamond Dog tunnel that the cave-in had originated from. The old hovercart lay upside down further down the tunnel, half of one side torn away by the blast.
"Good work. Now we need to keep following this path. There's a Diamond Dog up ahead, though considering last time he might be above you," Spike said. "Or… below, I guess. The sides? Keep an eye out, if I get a more accurate reading I'll warn you."
"Right." Twilight stayed on edge and kept her map up as she went deeper into the caverns; the light of the luminance gems wouldn't do much to help see an opponent coming through the walls. As she went farther two more forks barred her path, both times obstructed by rocks, but the Pinkie Cannon made short work of them. The first time the force of the explosion had blown Twilight backwards, and a few rocks in the ceiling had come loose and fallen down, but she had emerged unscathed. At the second blockade she had to wait as two Diamond Dogs came close on her map, but fortunately she avoided any more encounters and these two went past her, lost somewhere in the mountain beyond the walls.
Twilight was coming up on the end of her current tunnel after that. It opened up on a smaller cavern, lit by a trio of larger luminance gems set on the ceiling itself, all three blue and casting a rainbow of shades over the walls. Three other tunnels branched off from it, two had hovercart rails running down them, the third was empty.
"Hang on!" Spike shouted mentally. Twilight froze. "I misread, there's three Diamond Dogs. Hold still, maybe they'll pass us by." Twilight looked up and shot a bolt of dispelling magic at the luminance gem overheard, its green light fading and casting her into darkness. Ahead in the open cavern, three Diamond Dogs emerged from a side tunnel. One was dark grey and wearing a red vest with a collar set with glowing silver gems. The other two consisted of a larger dog with a grey vest and a smaller brown with a darker grey vest, both wearing the same types of collars as the first. As they walked, the one in the red vest stopped and looked between the passages, apparently trying to remember the way.
"Has Mistress Pony said what to do with the other ponies yet?" the smaller brown one asked. The larger grey one snorted.
"She says Master wants us to keep them down here."
"Yeah, says they need the no-metal ponies later." The dog in the red vest apparently remembered where they were going and nodded at another past. To Twilight's relief, she wouldn't be encountering them. That concern laid to rest, the unicorn turned her thoughts to what they were saying.
"No-metal ponies? What does that mean?"
"Beats me," Spike thought back.
The smaller brown dog snarled. "Mistress Pony is stupid and whiny! Why we take orders from her?" In response, the larger grey dog thumped him on the head, earning him a yip and a glare.
"Mistress Pony says Master needs caves to keep no-metal ponies."
"Remembers? Master says she give us Ponyville when she's done." The one in the red vest rubbed its paws together. "Can make ponies dig gems for us."
"Okay, gems good." The smaller dog rubbed his head, still sore.
"Come on, we get rest of no-metal ponies and take them to lair, Mistress Pony says they last ones to go." The red-vested dog pointed down the passage he had chosen, the third path with no rail, and the other two followed him down it. Twilight called up her map and watched the three dots move away.
"Spike, which way?" Twilight waited until the voices of the dogs faded into distant echoes and walked into the cavern to inspect the branching paths.
"The way they came from, according to this map," Spike said. Twilight looked down the path the Diamond Dogs had come from, then glanced at the path they had vanished down. "What's up?"
"They said the 'no-metal ponies' are needed for whatever the Master is planning," Twilight replied, thinking. With a glance back at the path Spike had pointed out to her, Twilight headed down the path after the trio of canines. She heard the echoes of their voices from up ahead, she couldn't make out what they were saying but preferred it that way, it meant she wasn't too close to risk being discovered. The tunnel they were heading down curved to the left, and Twilight cautiously peeked around the corner.
The tunnel emptied out into another, larger cavern, lit by three red luminance gems in different settings. Steel bars were into the walls, a desk at the front of the room with an old computer on it. The areas behind the bars had steel plating on the walls with tools and other equipment pieces hanging from them, most rusted to the point they were unrecognizable. To Twilight's horror, in lieu of mining gear, the bars held back various types of ponies, almost two dozen in all. Some of them were glaring at the Diamond Dogs and a couple were trying to buck them through the cage. It looked like the unicorns were trying to activate their magic, judging from the glow over their horns, but the dogs were poking them with crude iron and rock spears through the bars and breaking their concentration.
"Spike, scan them, find out what's up." Twilight slowly crept closer, trying to remain silent and hidden. Fortunately the Diamond Dogs were paying more attention to their captives than the tunnels and didn't see or hear her coming.
"They're pure biological, I can't detect any cybernetic implants. These are normal ponies,"Spike replied. Her eyes lit up.
"So that's what they meant. Whatever's driving ponies crazy, it must only affect the ones with cybernetic implants. The Master can't control them if they're purely organic, so they're keeping those ponies prisoner!" Twilight looked between the cages, a familiar sense of responsibility welling up in her.
A servo on her saddle whirred lowly as Spike thought. "They said the Master still needs them for something. Wonder what."
"I'm not sure. But we can't leave them here, we have to get them out."
"I'm open to ideas," Spike replied, "preferably ones where you don't have to fight them all at once."
Twilight looked down at her hoof to make sure the Pinkie Cannon was still active, then came even closer to the exit. The tunnel and the cavern beyond with the cells were still lit by luminance gems. The three Diamond Dogs had their backs to her now, two of them taunting them with their spears while the third, the dog in the red vest was watching and laughing. Twilight took careful aim with her horn and fired a spell at the closest luminance gem. It went dark as the dispelling magic struck it. If the Diamond Dogs heard anything, they didn't show it. Twilight shot off three more blasts, the other three luminance gems between her and the prison going out, casting the tunnel into darkness. Safe in the dark, she came so close that the light of the prison chamber was almost reaching her hooves on the ground.
"Mistress Pony say her Master need you, so you come with us, and don't get hurt." The dog in the red vest took a spear from one of his friends and thrust it at one of the ponies too near the bars. Twilight shook her head. He was too close to the cells, if he got hit it could hurt the prisoners. She turned to look at the other two. The smaller brown one was making faces at another cell of ponies and waving his spear at them, the larger grey one that had passed off his spear was reaching for a ring of keys on the desk at the front of the chamber.
"Spike, will the ponies be hurt at this range?"
"No, they'll have a bit of a ringing in their ears but they won't harmed seriously." The program's response confirmed to Twilight that she could do this, and she raised her hoof. The Pinkie Cannon began to hum and glow.
The Diamond Dog reaching for the keys was suddenly slammed forward into the stone wall as the Pinkie Cannon exploded against his back. He let out a howl and fell onto his back, unconscious from the impact. The two dogs left turned to him and looked back at the tunnel, Twilight hidden in the shadows.
"What happened?" The one in the red vest looked at the tunnel in confusion as the other checked on their fallen ally. Twilight fired again, a ring of pink light flying down the tunnel around the projectile. The dog in the vest yelled as the second dog was hit and flew into the wall behind him, falling over to the ground limply. Charging at the tunnel with a loud snarl, the third Diamond Dog dodged as Twilight fired a third shot, the pink orb exploding against the rear wall of the equipment chamber and denting the metal plating covering it.
Twilight rolled aside as the dog dove at her and ran into the chamber. Ignoring the cheers of the other ponies, she looked back at the cave and fired two shots, one further in than the other. The Diamond Dog's cry came over the burst of noisemakers, and Twilight waited. The dust cleared to reveal parts of the ceiling fallen down, and the Diamond Dog laying on his back.
"He's out," Spike reported. Twilight shot magic bolts up at the deactivated luminance gems. Colored light again flooded the tunnel, and she looked around at the ponies in the cages around her. Here she was able to see for herself what Spike had said, none of them had implants, and judging from the hopeful looks on their faces, weren't controlled by this mysterious 'Master' either.
"Don't worry, I'll get you out of here." She aimed her horn at the locks and fired a low-charged blast. The lock exploded inward with a blast of violet energy, and the ponies pushed past her to get out. Twilight repeated the task with the second and third cell. "Go down this tunnel and take the first path on the left, then follow that to the surface, ignore the fork on the left."
"Thank you!" One of the ponies called out to her as they ran out, others expressing similar sentiments.
"Hey, hang on." Twilight held out a hoof as the last pony began to come out, an older earth pony stallion with a light brown coat and deep brown mane. "What happened at Ponyville?" she asked. The sta
"A visitor came into the town. I've never seen them around before, but they walked through town spouting off nonsense about some 'Master' calling us to serve," the stallion replied. "The next thing anypony knew, anyone with cybernetics had their eyes glowing red. The visitor grab two of our citizens and the three of them ordered around the others to capture anypony with no cybernetics. They marched some of us off to the Everfree Forest and brought the rest of us here. There were more of us once, I saw them split us up when they brought us in. The dogs told us though that they've already been taken out, so it was just us now."
"What'd they want with you?"
"I don't know, and if you don't mind I'd prefer not to. I just know they were holding us here until they needed us for... whatever is going on."
"Alright. Thank you, go." The stallion took off down the tunnel, his coat flashing in the lighting of the different gems. Twilight took a deep breath before following at a more leisurely pace. "Spike, tell me they're safe." Her map blinked to life, showing the soft blue dots of biological ponies forming a line out of the cave, and none of the red dots of Diamond Dog were reacting to them. She let out a relived sigh and headed back to the fork.
"Now we need to find this 'Mistress Pony' the Diamond Dogs mentioned," Spike said. "She sounded like she was the one giving orders." Twilight nodded confidently as she re-emerged into the forked path and headed down the path Spike had noted before.
"Yup. And I'm betting I know who that is." Twilight's exploration of the next tunnel was eventually impeded by one more Diamond Dog that she didn't notice on her map. He literally got the drop on her, digging down through the ceiling and lunging at her a moment later. Twilight was able to stun him easily enough, not risking using something as powerful as the Pinkie Cannon on it in this enclosed space. After a short time they came to another fork, and Spike pointed her down the left path. Twilight headed down, the tunnel ahead widening into another cavern. She reached the end and stopped, staring up in awe.
This must have been the central lair of the cave, it reached high over her head and was vastly wide, almost big enough to rival the Grand Hall back in Canterlot's palace. A chandelier visibly cobbled together from other luminance gem holders hung from the ceiling. Even more luminance gems decorated the walls. The room was full of piles and piles of gems, some as large as a pony, others small enough to stud a unicorn's horn with. The colors of the luminance gems blurred and blended together and reflected off the normal gems, creating a rainbow of colors over the walls and floor that shifted and danced as the chandelier slowly turned on its chain.
As Twilight slowly came further into the room, gingerly stepping around a few smaller gemstones laying in her path, she saw a unicorn on the opposite side of the room, reclining on a large pile of gemstones. She had a coiffed purple mane and a gleaming white coat, and wore a shining silver saddle studded with white gemstones and engraved with painted purple swirl designs. A long white horn on top of her head had a band of steel winding around it and vanishing into her scalp. She didn't notice Twilight's approach; a large white diamond was hovering in the air in front of her held in an aura of blue magic, and she was admiring her reflection in it.
"That's… her… "
Twilight made a face at Spike's tone and gently tapped the side of her saddle. "Spike, you okay?"
"Um, uh… that's Rarity." Spike's hologram flickered. "I had the data files on her, but I didn't think the real thing was so..."
"Um, sure." Twilight brushed off the program's behavior and called out louder. "Miss Rarity?" The unicorn perked up and turned towards Twilight, the large diamond she was looking at lowering to the floor as the aura around it vanished.
"Hm? Have we met?" She climbed to her feet atop the gem pile, a few dislodging from the pile with her movement. Twilight thought. In the past, mentioning her name or Celestia's made otherwise normal ponies go nuts. And Rarity was almost certainly under the same influence as Applejack and Pinkie Pie. Best to play it safe.
"No. I'm here to speak to you. On behalf of a friend." At Twilight's words, Rarity made a show of huffing and slowly stepped to the cave floor, tossing her mane. Gemstones fell to the floor in her wake, jingling against the stone.
"Well, it's about time! I don't appreciate being kept in this cave, it's dingy, it's smelly, and after I've done as ordered perfectly." She sniffed indignantly and stopped before Twilight. "The dogs kept the normal ponies caged as needed, and so far nopony has come snooping around. I sent the leaders out to bring the second group back to the base as ordered."
Twilight simply nodded and continued the charade. "Good, that's good. And the status on the gemstones?" Twilight gestured her hoof at the pile of jewels around them. Rarity smiled and leaned her head over to bat her eyes at a large ruby.
"Oh, that was just for me. Those dogs have quite a collection, I just couldn't help myself. Do you think they'd buy it if we told them we need the gems, too? They're foalish enough to think we're giving them control of Ponyville, they might just go for it."
"Maybe." Twilight thought for a minute. She had to find out as much as she could here, then try to get out without arousing suspicion and relay the information to Celestia. "The Master, um, wants to make sure your orders are up to date. What exactly were you holding the normal ponies here for?"
"Until we could take them to the forest, darling. Everfree," Rarity replied. Twilight gasped slightly and her eyes widened, but fortunately Rarity didn't notice. "I say it would have been much easier to keep them in Ponyville, but apparently the Master wants to avoid drawing attention until she's ready to finish her plan, and I suppose public shows of hostage-taking aren't the way to go when one desires stealth. But we're done now though, so hopefully we can finally move out. I'm looking forward to a good bath once I'm out of here."
"Uh-huh. And what are we doing with them in the Everfree Forest?" Twilight asked. Rarity began to answer, then stopped and glared at her reflection in the ruby. Slowly, she turned her head until the two unicorns were facing each other, and raised an eyebrow.
"Why don't you tell me, what we're doing with them," Rarity replied, stepping closer to Twilight.
"She's on to us!" Spike shouted in Twilight's head.
"I'm afraid that's, uh, classified." Twilight took a step back as Rarity advanced. The other mare kept coming, her eyes narrow.
"Is it? Because the Master told us quite clearly that there's only three ponies we need to answer to other than her. I got a good look at their unicorn, and you are most definitely not her." Rarity stopped and scowled. "I do believe you weren't sent here by the Master at all, were you?"
"No no, I was!" Twilight shook her head. Rarity's eyes lit up red, and her horn glowed pale blue aura.
"Lies!"
Her fears confirmed, Twilight didn't wait to let Rarity make the first move, and lowered her head and fired three quick blasts from her horn. Rarity leapt out of the way, her saddle glowing in a magic aura. Four large gemstones detached themselves from her saddle and encircled her in a telekinetic grip. Twilight turned to her and fired, three violet blasts racing forward. Rarity held still and smiled as the jewels encircling her moved to intercept the violet energy blasts, the gems lighting up momentarily as the blast hit them in small fizzling sparks of magic.
Twilight stopped and blinked, surprised by what she had just seen. "Those gems blocked my attacks?"
"Yes, aren't they marvelous?" Rarity looked between them as they orbited her. "Modified luminance gems. The originals were quite good at absorbing magical energy already, I just gave them a little tweak. Absorbing magic is just phase one." The gemstones encircling her stopped, violet light glaring along their edges to gather at the tips. "Here's phase two!" Twilight watched in horror as orbs of magic formed at the tips of the gem, and energy bolts exactly like her own fired at her. She ran to the side to avoid them and ducked behind a pile of gems, the blasts hitting another pile and sending gemstones scattering through the air. Rarity emerged from the other side of the pile and Twilight took a few more shots, trying to aim between the gems. Again the gems blocked her, moving out of formation to intercept the attacks, and Twilight ran to the side as the three shots fired back at her and toppled the gemstone mountain to the floor.
"She can't reflect your attacks if you don't fuel them!" Spike said. Twilight stopped and looked back at the enemy unicorn.
"That only works once, though. Now I know better, and you can't harm me if I don't give you something to reflect!"
"Pardon me?" Rarity said. A fifth gem levitated into the air beside her head. "I'm a unicorn too, if you'll recall." The gem turned its pointed edge at Twilight and shot at her. She winced and rolled away as it hit the floor behind her and bounced again, Rarity already lifting another gem to attack with.
"Well that was a good plan to stall her for ten seconds." Twilight dashed behind a pile of gems to avoid Rarity's attack.
"It was worth a shot," Spike grumbled.
"Yeah. Now let's try breaking that barrier." She sent a mental command to her hoof as a sapphire shot past her flank. Metal plates shifted form, three rings of metal with a four-pronged claw emerging on Twilight's hoof. Emerging from cover, she fired, the Apple Whip's chain whistling through the air. The claw shot at Rarity, hitting one of the gems circling her and pinging off it to hit the ground. The gem didn't even wobble slightly.
"They're moving too fast to get a grip on," Spike said. Twilight retracted the whip and avoided another gem fired at her, then sent the mental command. With only one option left, the Apple Whip reconfigured itself, the metal rings widening and shortening to form the Pinkie Cannon. Twilight swung her hoof up at Rarity and fired.
The glowing pink energy orb hit at Rarity's feet and exploded, nearby gemstones flying through the air in the blast. Twilight turned away, one stone pinging off her saddle. She looked back at the explosion cleared. Rarity was coughing, weakly stumbling from side to the side in a small pit in the floor left from the cannon blast. Her reflective gems had scattered around her, the telekinetic aura gone. Taking the chance, Twilight lowered her horn and fired. Rarity looked up and cried out as the energy bolts rushed into her saddle, recoiling slightly and turning away. Her horn glowed and the scattered gems floated up around her again, two stray shots being absorbed and shot back as Twilight dodged.
"You ruffian, what kind of animal attacks a lady with a cannon?" Rarity glared and charged. Two gems lifted from a pile as she passed by and they flung themselves through the air towards Twilight. She ran out of the way of one, skidding to avoid the other as it flew past her face, and turned back to see Rarity almost upon her, her four main gems floating up beside her into formation again. Rarity flung two of her gems at Twilight and she jumped over them, pointing her hoof down to fire, but Rarity had turned to sprint behind a pile of gems. Twilight landed, dove to the side to avoid a gem shooting past her head, and pointed her hoof up as Rarity came around the other side of the pile. The Pinkie Cannon fired, gemstones whizzing past her head as the energy orb detonated at Rarity's feet. Twilight fired a trio of energy blasts into the smoke, and she heard Rarity's cries of pain.
Rarity charged out of the smoke, glaring angrily as four more gems floated to her side. Twilight got to her feet and stumbled back as Rarity telekinetically lashed out the gems, swirling them around her in larger circles to attempt to strike the mare. Twilight jumped one gem aimed for her hoof and leapt forward to avoid another. The four gems swung and knocked down gem piles and scratched gouges in the cave floor as Rarity advanced. Twilight jumped over one gem and fired the Pinkie Cannon downwards. The explosive shockwave flung Rarity through the air, her gems scattering around the room. She landed on her feet and turned to a gem pile. Rubies, emeralds and diamonds of all sizes rose in a light blue aura of magic and flung themselves at Twilight. She ran to avoid them, the gem piles she used for cover bursting from the impacts of Rarity's projectiles and collapsing. The cave floor was rapidly turning into a sea of gemstones as the gem piles brown down.
Twilight turned her head to try to fire as she ran between piles, but Rarity had summoned her four main gems back to her side, and they absorbed Twilight's shots and fired back at her. Stopping behind a pile, Twilight shoved her hoof into it and fired. The pink light of the Pinkie Cannon's energy blast lit up the cavern, the gems reflecting the light and spraying it into the air as they were flung away from the explosion. Twilight fell back from the proximity and got to her feet. Rarity had her main four gems and several others suspended over her head to protect her from the rain of gemstones and gemstone pieces. Twilight dashed out from the collapsed pile, galloping towards her. Rarity looked forward as Twilight came towards her and tried to strike her with the gems, but Twilight ducked between them and leapt in front of Rarity, pressing the Pinkie Cannon into her chest. Rarity's gems stopped in the air, hovering around them. Twilight narrowed her eyes, glancing aside to see the four gems slowly turning to face their edges towards her, aiming to strike her if the chance came. Hopefully the steel pressing into Rarity's coat was dissuading her from trying.
"You wouldn't dare fire that!" Rarity spat, glaring. "At this range the blast could destroy both of us!"
"Yes, it probably would," Twilight agreed. "But you're still just half-right." She smirked, hoping to throw Rarity off from her true intent and delay her counter-attack. Rarity gasped in horror, the gems circling them drooping. Good enough. Twilight quickly swung her hoof an inch and fired over Rarity's shoulder. The Pinkie Cannon blast exploded behind them, catapulting the two unicorns away, the four gems converging where Twilight would have been if not for the pressure wave knocking her back. Still, one sliced across her head, making the unicorn cry out as the gem came away with its edge bright red. Twilight landed on her back, ignored the stinging over her left eye, and aimed up as Rarity flew over her and fired as many energy blasts as she could into her saddle, violet energy lighting up the cavern. Rarity hit behind her, rolled, and lay still with a long, low groan. Around Twilight, the glowing blue aura around the four gems faded, and they fell to the ground.
"Another one down," Spike said. "But you didn't have to go so rough on her."
"Trust me Spike, if these ponies weren't attacking me, I wouldn't be fighting back." Twilight approached Rarity. Once again, unconscious, but alive. She didn't need to ask Spike to confirm if she had the same system corruption as Applejack and Pinkie Pie, that was self-evident. However, Rarity wasn't having the same amnesia problems as they were. She said she had acted under orders. This confirmed Twilight's fears; this 'Master' the ponies had spoken of had some sort of agenda in controlling them. What, she couldn't begin to guess.
Looking over at the four discarded gems, Twilight floated them over to her and inspected them, reaching her magic out to feel the spell on the gems. As Rarity had said, it was the same as the basic luminance gem spell, but modified to project the absorbed magic as an energy blast rather than light.
"It's a fairly simple change to the spell, but impressively effective."
"Let me scan them," Spike said. Twilight felt more magical knowledge than her brief glance could discover enter her mind as Spike carried out the task. As he worked, she took a healing slave from her pack and slathered the blue gel over the wound on her head. A soothing warmth joined the humming of her interior cybernetics as the wound healed. By the time the warmth faded, Spike's scan had finished. "The luminance spell is pretty easy to figure out. With a sample of the gem to serve as a basis, we could probably extend the enchantment over other objects. Shouldn't even take much energy to support, as long as we don't try anything too big. Your Multitool reconfigures itself easily enough, we could use bits from it."
Twilight set one of the gems down and focused her magic on it. It cracked apart into smaller shards, and she lifted four of them in her telekinetic grip and floated them to her steel hoof. She stepped on them and felt them slide up into the metalwork, the hoof reworking itself to the new configuration. The main body slimmed down while a thicker band appeared around it in the middle, the four gem shards embedded on the outside of the thicker strip. Twilight raised her hoof and sent the command. The four gems listed off from her hoof with fragments of the thicker strip of metal, and began to float around. The metal attached to the gems shifted and crumbled, and reformed into small four silver gem facsimiles, orbiting her in an aura of unicorn magic. Twilight fired an energy bolt at one, and as expected, it held the charge. The fake gems disassembled and floated back to Twilight's hoof, and she shifted it back to its default form, the natural gem shards vanishing beneath metal plates.
"As usual, I'm going to guess that the interference has cleared up enough to call the Princess?" she asked.
"Yup, I'll get her," Spike replied. Twilight waited, and after a few seconds Celestia's visage projected from her horn.
"Good news again, I hope."
"To an extent. Rarity was keeping some of the Ponyville ponies imprisoned in the Appleloosan gem mines with help from the local Diamond Dog population. We set them free though, and we've got her here, ready for retrieval."
"We'll take care of her immediately, thank you Twilight." Rarity lit up in blue light and vanished as Celestia continued. "On your first point, did you say imprisoned? So not all the ponies from the town are hostile?"
Twilight shook her head. "It seems that this mysterious 'Master' the crazed ponies serve can only exert her influence over ponies with cybernetic enhancements. The pure biological ponies are beyond her control. But Rarity and the Diamond Dogs said the Master wanted the biological ponies for something anyway, and were taking them to some sort of base in the Everfree Forest." As Twilight spoke, Celestia's eyes widened.
"The Everfree Forest… " she whispered. Twilight blinked, surprised. She wasn't used to seeing her mentor react like this. She had a haunted look in her eyes.
"Is something wrong?" she asked. "Should I head there next instead?" Celestia blinked and shook her head, resuming the same calm composure Twilight knew best.
"No, that's quite alright, I'll see to it here. I'm just surprised that anypony would based themselves out of that place. You've heard the tales I'm sure," she said. Twilight nodded. The Everfree Forest was literally the stuff of nightmares, creatures beyond imagination lurked beyond that first row of trees. Nopony went into the woods unless they had to.
"So, I guess with Rarity safe, it's on to the next one. Spike, got a fix?"
"Yup. Further up the mountain, near the summit. We can reach her by getting out of here and following the cliffs," Spike said. Twilight made a slight face. She had expected that, too. She kept her suspicions to herself though. Celestia was obviously worried about her out here, and it would do little good to discuss what she was thinking anyway.
"You're doing wonderfully, my faithful student. Keep it up," Celestia said. She smiled and the hologram vanished. Twilight stood up and called up her map to follow the path Spike had charted to the cliffs going up the mountainside.
"Two more to go... "
Celestia closed the channel to Spike and Twilight and sighed, closing her eyes.
"The Everfree Forest… then it is as I feared." A single tear slid down Celestia's cheek. "She's back..." Opening her eyes and using a glowing yellow band of magic to wipe her face, she pushed another button. "Guardpost, this is Celestia," she said into the receiver in front of her.
"Captain Gilded Stalwart reporting. What is amiss, Your Grace?" the guard answered.
"Captain Stalwart, gather a scouting party of your fastest pegasi, I need them to launch a high-priority investigation immediately at the Everfree Forest."
"Of course, Your Grace. What are they to look for?" Gilded Stalwart asked. Celestia forced her fears down her throat and held on to the dying hope that her suspicions were incorrect.
"A castle. A very old one."
LEVEL COMPLETE
WEAPON ACQUIRED – RARE SHIELD