Chapter Six: Aztec Zone.
The elevator came to a stop, the group crawled out of another tunnel, until they approached a slide.
O'Brien went down the slide first, followed by Sunset, then Twilight, and Applejack, and Derpy, and Rainbow Dash, and Rarity, and Fluttershy, and finally Pinkie Pie.
Looking around, the group find themselves inside an Aztec village, standing between two Aztec temples.
" Welcome to the Aztec zone, the sixth and final zone of the maze", said O'Brien.
" I'm getting serious Daring Do vibes here", said Rainbow Dash.
" Life in North America, the village here, was known to make amazing thing, corn that tasted better than any other, they grew their own cocoa bean tree which grew the best cocoa beans, which would've made the best chocolate in the world, but then the Spanish conquest came", said O'Brien.
" Wait a minute, this is a reused set from one of Daring Do's older films, 'Tomb of Doom'", said Twilight.
" Yeah, you're right, I knew it looked familiar", said Rainbow Dash.
" Okay recap: we've traveled five zones, played 20 challenges, won 10 crystals, will spend 50 seconds in the dome, the overall success rate by far is 50%", said the maze master.
" So Sunset, what's our next game going to be", said O'Brien.
" A skill game, for Pinkie", said Sunset.
" Okay then, I have just the game", said O'Brien, leading Pinkie Pie to a room in one of the temples.
" This is a two and a half minute game, starting the second the door closes, now in the room are twelve pods, six of them have keys, but only three of those keys can unlock the chest with the crystal inside, and you only have 15 shots", said O'Brien.
Pinkie Pie enters the room, finding herself in front of a bamboo fence, hanging on the celling 12 balloons (Pods), and in front of her, a dart blower, with 15 darts.
" As you only have 15 shots, you can only afford to make three mistakes, if you want to burst all the pods, any more than that, and some of the pods will remain", said O'Brien.
Pinkie Pie fired her first shot, bursts a pod on her first shot, a key falls out she uses it on one of the key holes, and it fit, and she fires her second, also hitting a pod but it had nothing in it.
Ten pods remain, five had keys, five don't, and she still needs two more keys to open the chest.
" Two minutes left", said O'Brien.
Pinkie Pie then fires her third and fourth shot, gets both pods, but only one had a key, she uses that key on the remaining locks, but it didn't fit.
She then fires her fifth shot, but she misses, and she fires her sixth, and hits a pod, which has a key in it.
She uses the key on the remaining two locks, but it didn't fit on either either.
Seven pods remain, three contain keys, four don't, and she still needs two more keys, and she only has 9 shots left.
" A minute and a half remaining", said O'Brien.
Pinkie Pie then fires her seventh shot gets a hit, but it had no key, she fires her eighth shot, misses.
She fires her ninth and tenth shot, hits both pods, but only one has a key in it.
She uses that key on the remaining locks, and it was able to fit in one of them.
Four pods remain, two contain keys, two don't, and she still needs one more key to win the crystal, and she's down to five shots, if she misses more than two times, then she won't be able to get all the pods.
" A minute left", said O'Brien.
Pinkie Pie then fires her eleventh shot, and her twelfth, gets another two pods, but they were both empty she fires her thirteenth and misses.
" Okay you have two more shots, and two pods, both definitely contain keys in them, miss one more time, and one of those pods will be left up", said O'Brien.
Pinkie Pie fires her fourteenth shot, and got the pod, and another key.
She uses it on the remaining lock, and it fit, she opened the chest, and the crystal was there.
" 30 seconds left", said O'Brien.
Not bothering with the remaining shot, or the remaining pod, Pinkie Pie grabs the crystal, and leaves the room.
" That was brilliant Pinkie, and you still had time to spare, so tell me what was going through your mind the last second", said O'Brien.
" Well, that last key could've been the wrong one, and the remaining key still hanging up there could've been the one that was right, and I could've missed the final shot, and lost the game, so many possibilities were happening in my mind, and I thought I wasn't going to get it, but I'm glad I did", said Pinkie Pie.
" And I'm glad you did to, because now your team has eleven crystals, 55 seconds in the dome, and that is a score nobody from the original show tried to reach", said O'Brien.
" Well in all fairness, they only played 13-16 games, we're assigned to play 24 games", said Pinkie Pie.
" And out of those 55 seconds, 40 seconds is guaranteed", said O'Brien.
" Our next game will be a mystery, and I choose Twilight", said Sunset.
" Now Twilight, this is a two and a half minute game, inside you'll find five shrine cabinets, each with a different animal, the crystal is in one of them, but this is an automatic lock in, open the wrong shrine, you're locked in", said O'Brien.
The door opens, Twilight goes in, and the time starts, she finds herself in a small maze.
" Now inside the maze are four guardians, find them and they'll give you hints on where the crystal is", said O'Brien.
Twilight looks at the five cabinets showing five animals, a Wolf, a Python, a Tarantula, an Eagle and a Turtle.
" I mean, she could take a chance with the cabinets, but the odds are 1 in 5, aka 20%", said O'Brien.
Twilight then goes into the maze, and began looking round for guardians, it wasn't long till she found one.
" Guardian, where is the crystal", Twilight asked.
" It is in the shrine that cannot fly in the sky", said the guardian.
" The eagle is the only shown animal that flies, so it's not that cabinet, which means it's either Python, Tarantula, Wolf or Turtle", said Rarity.
Twilight then continued searching, for the remaining three guardians.
" Two minutes left, and as you've deduced that the crystal's not in the shrine of the eagle, there's still four more shrines, the odds are now 25%, but why take the risk", said O'Brien.
Twilight then finds the second guardian.
" Guardian, where is the crystal", Twilight asked.
" It is in the shrine that doesn't use a shell", said the Guardian.
" So we eliminate the turtle, which leaves the wolf, python and the tarantula", said Applejack.
Twilight then continued searching for the remaining two guardians.
" A minute and a half left", said O'Brien.
She searched, but she was struggling.
Until she was able to come across one.
" Guardian, where is the crystal", said Twilight.
" It is in the shrine that cannot fly in the sky", said the guardian.
" I think you've done him already", said Sunset.
" A minute left", said O'Brien.
Twilight searched around, the pressure was getting to her.
Taking a different route, she comes across another guardian.
" Please don't let this be someone I've crossed paths already, guardian, where is the crystal", said Twilight.
" It is in the shrine that has legs to walk with", said the guardian.
" The Python, it's not the python", said Derpy.
" It's either the Wolf or the Tarantula", said Fluttershy.
" One more guardian to find", said Sunset.
Twilight then searched about for the last guardian.
" 30 seconds remaining", said O'Brien.
" I'm going to make my way back, I don't think I have enough time", said Twilight.
" Should I take the risk, it's a 50/50 chance, and even if I get it wrong, we already have so many crystals, we can afford the risk", said Twilight.
" But then again, I already got locked in once, I don't want to get locked in twice", said Twilight, knocking on the door.
O'Brien then opens the door, and lets Twilight out.
" I'm sorry girls", said Twilight.
" It's alright Twilight, you didn't want to risk getting locked in a second time, but do you wish to know where the crystal was out of curiosity", said O'Brien.
" Yeah", said Twilight.
" Well then, the remaining guardian, the one you haven't seen will tell you his clue", said O'Brien.
It was then, the fourth guardian approached the group.
" Guardian, where is the crystal", said Twilight.
" It is in the shrine that lays eggs", said the guardian.
" Then that's means it's not the wolf, it's the tarantula", said Twilight.
" And all you had to do afterwards was open the cabinet with the tarantula, and grabbed the crystal, maybe if I had given you an extra 30 seconds it would've work, but never mind Twilight, now, we still have eleven crystals, 55 seconds in the dome, 45 seconds guaranteed, two challenges remain, however, if you fail one more challenge, you won't be able to overtake them, and if both challenges are unsuccessful, then you won't be able to be level with them", said O'Brien.
" Our remaining two games are a physical and a mental", said O'Brien.
" Well, everyone's played three games except for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy", said Sunset.
" I'll go", said Fluttershy.
" Which means I'll be last", said Rainbow Dash.
" Okay then, first off the mental game for Fluttershy", said O'Brien, leading Fluttershy to another room.
" This is a two minute game", said O'Brien.
He opens the door, and Fluttershy walks in, she finds a small wall, with eight square holes, she notices a message.
Complete the eight letter word, using the letters scattered.
She finds herself surrounded by tiles, most of which are plain on both sides.
" Eight of those tiles contain letters that will spell out a word", said O'Brien.
Fluttershy began searching, not long before she finds one of the letters, L.
" So there are two parts in this game, first is finding the letters, second is spelling the word", said O'Brien.
Fluttershy continues searching until she finds another letter, Z.
" Could you think of any eight letter words that might contain Z and L", said O'Brien.
" Zucchini, oh wait, it doesn't have an L, Lavender, wait, no Z on that one", said Pinkie Pie.
" A minute and a half left by the way", said O'Brien.
Shortly after O'Brien said that, Fluttershy found a third letter, T.
" See if you can find some vowels instead of consonants, since it's an eight letter word, you're likely to find three", said O'Brien.
Fluttershy then found the letter U.
" Halfway there now, there's even a chance she'll find out what the word is before she finds the last of the letters", said O'Brien.
Fluttershy was soon able to find the fifth letter, E.
" A minute left", said O'Brien.
Fluttershy was then able to find another letter, A.
" So the letters are L, Z, T, U, E and A, any thoughts", said O'Brien.
" I have a theory, but I might be wrong, one more letter should confirm my theory", said Twilight.
Fluttershy struggled a bit, but was able to find the second to last letter, H.
" It's Hazelnut, the last letter she'll find is N", said Twilight.
" Well in that case, if she finds it, she must place the letters on the wall spelt in that word, so from the first letter on the left end, to the last letter on the right end, 30 seconds left", said O'Brien.
As soon as he said that, Fluttershy found the last letter, N.
and first thing she did after finding it, she began to place the letters onto the wall, spelling out the word HAZELNUT.
" Ten seconds", said O'Brien.
Once the crystal was released, Fluttershy grabbed it, and left the room.
" Well done Fluttershy, we now have twelve crystals, 60 seconds in the dome, 55 seconds of which is guaranteed, Rainbow Dash, if you win the final challenge, you'll overtake Crystal prep, however if you get locked in, you'll remain below them, if you can avoid getting locked in, you'll at least be able to level with their score", said O'Brien.
" The final game is a physical game, you ready Rainbow Dash", said O'Brien.
" As I'll ever be, I'm the one who started this journey with the first challenge, might as well be the one to end it too", said Rainbow Dash.
O'Brien then leads Rainbow Dash to the final challenge.
" It's a three minute game, and as it's the last challenge, I'm concluding the journey with an automatic lock in, the crystal is kept inside a tomb, in which the floor is sacred, do not touch the floor, if you do, you'll be locked in", said O'Brien.
The door opened and Rainbow Dash finds herself surrounded by obstacles.
The first obstacle was a small ledge on the wall, Rainbow Dash walked across it.
The second part was a small gap, but a long staff in the middle, using the staff, she launched herself across.
" Two and a half minutes remain", said O'Brien.
The third obstacle was a small rope bridge, she walked across it, nearly falling, she was halfway through the tomb.
The fourth obstacle was a rope swing, she swings across.
" Two minutes left, remember once you have the crystal, you need to return the same way", said O'Brien.
The fifth obstacle was a balancing pole, she walked across it safely.
She then finds a ladder, which she climbs, and finds the crystal in a small shrine, she grabs it.
" Excellent, now you have to make your way back, and remember, don't touch the floor, you've got over a minute and a half", said O'Brien.
Rainbow Dash then climbed back down the ladder, and across the pole, both attempts took her a bit longer as she nearly fell off.
" Now you have a minute left, maybe pick up the pace, or you won't make it back in time", said O'Brien.
Rainbow Dash then swung across on the rope, and crawled back on the rope bridge.
" 30 seconds", said O'Brien.
Rainbow Dash then launched herself across the pole.
" 15 seconds".
Rainbow Dash then walked along the ledge, and makes it to the door just in time.
" Well done Rainbow Dash, that was very intense", said O'Brien.
" Nearly slipped on that last bit", said Rainbow Dash.
" What's important now is you made it out, and with another crystal, and that's all the time we've got, all the challenges are finished, you have collected 13 crystals, you've got more crystals than crystal prep, and therefore you will spend 1 minute and 5 seconds in the dome, which is where we are going to now, we've done all the games, we've traveled through all six zones, there's only one more place to go, and that's the dome, follow me", said the maze master.
He then leaves the Aztec Zone with Sunset, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Derpy and Rarity, running past the back of one of the temples, revealed to be a path leading out of the maze.
" TO THE CRYSTAL DOME", O'Brien shouted as they left.
Final Chapter: The Crystal Dome.