Chapter 9: Rock Village
At the castle in Canterlot, Shining Armor had gestured to some pegasus soldiers in the Royal Guard to patrol the sky for any sign of Lurker activity as well as to some unicorn guards to cover the ground.
Since the White Lotus clan campground attack, Talos might send his army to invade Canterlot and Celestia has ordered every guard to patrol the area in case of any infestation.
As the guards left to patrol the area, Cadance and Flurry Heart came up to Shining Armor.
"Honey, have you managed to order the Royal Guard to scout the perimeter of the city?" Cadance asked Shining Armor with hope and concern.
"Yeah. Celestia and Luna's been getting worried after what happened to Pakku, Bumi, and Iroh." Shining Armor answered.
"I'm really scared about this, Mommy and Daddy. What if Auntie Twily and Uncle Chase don't make it back in time with my cousins?" Flurry asked with concern.
Cadance looks down at her daughter with a warm smile.
"Don't worry, Flurry. Your aunt and uncle have been through the most toughest times to save Equestria. If there's one thing we know about them, it's that they don't give up." Cadance said with a smile.
"Your mother's right, honey. All we can do now is hope they will end the Demodragon threat for good." Shining Armor said in agreement with Cadance as Flurry smiled at her parents.
They soon walked inside to join Celestia and Luna in the throne room once they opened the doors before they closed them.
"Were you able to send the guards to patrol the borders, Shining Armor?" Celestia asked hopefully as Shining Armor nodded back in reply.
"Good, then if it appears that Talos will invade this place as well, we must be prepared at any cost." Luna said with a firm look. "Have you heard back from the Elite Ninja and the girls?"
Cadance and Shining Armor looked at each other for a moment before they turned back to the royal sisters.
"We haven't gotten a letter from Twilight or Chase. We think they might've been attacked by the Lurkers and had to find refuge." Shining Armor said with worry for his sister and brother-in-law.
"I hope they have Nyx and Darius with them safely. I can't risk losing those kids." Cadance added with concern for her niece and nephew as she held Flurry Heart close to her, making her daughter lean against her mother's fur coat.
"All we can do for now is pray they will return, Cadance." Celestia said with hope. "Chase will lead his family and friends in this situation for sure."
Cadance, Shining Armor, and Flurry nodded back with hope.
Suddenly, something crashes down through the ceiling of the throne room, making the five ponies look up to see four of the pegasus soldiers of the Royal Guard landing in the middle unconscious.
The sight of it made Cadance, Shining Armor, Flurry, Celestia, and Luna gasp in shock. They look up to see three Gorilla Lurker soldiers dropping down, landing in the throne room as Dark Eco electricity sparks around them.
They rose up and growled at the five as Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and Shining Armor powered up their magic while glaring at the Lurkers.
That's when the throne room doors open, gaining their attention as the unicorn soldiers are tossed inside, unconscious with Dark Eco electricity surging around them. Then the two talking Gorilla Lurker soldiers walked in.
"Well, lookie what we got here." The first one spoke with a sneer. "Looks like we made our job a whole lot easier."
"The Lurkers!" Luna said in alarm while glaring at the soldiers.
"You dare come into our home and do this?!" Celestia demanded in anger.
"Foolish move coming in here." Shining Armor added with a glare, but the Gorilla Lurkers smirked at them.
"Oh, actually, we didn't do this alone. We have somepony here who is excited to see you five." The second Gorilla Lurker said with a smirk as he and his partner moved aside as a black cloaked hooded figure walked into the room.
Soon he removes his head, revealing himself to be Celtic as he chuckles sinisterly, making Celestia, Luna, Shining Armor, Cadance, and Flurry Heart gasped at the sight of Zhao's student.
"My old friends. Pleasant to see you again." Celtic greeted the five with a devious smile.
"Celtic Shanyu?!" Shining Armor said in shock and horror.
"You… You're alive?!" Cadance asked in shock while taking notice of Celtic's prosthetic leg. "But how?"
"You can thank Chase Young and his family for that. After our last battle, Talos found me and put me back together with this new metal part." Celtic answered with a glare as he gestured to his leg. "He's a genius at making different body parts out of metal thanks to his Lurkers."
"First you've been working with the Quinkan and now you're with the Demodragons! Don't you have any shame in working for the enemy?!" Cadance asked in rage while glaring at Celtic as she held Flurry close to her.
"Tell that to the Basilisk Ninja clan. With Equestria under Talos' control with the Dark Eco, we're one step closer on bringing back the curse. And this is only the beginning." Celtic said with a devious smirk before pointing at the five ponies. "Get them!"
The five Gorilla Lurkers charged at Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Shining Armor, and Flurry Heart, but the four adult ponies still had their horns lit as they fired some magic beams at the soldiers.
The five Gorilla Lurkers fell down as Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Shining Armor, and Flurry turned back to Celtic.
"Looks like your soldiers are down for the count." Shining Armor said with a glare, but Celtic smirked.
"Good thing I brought something else to help me." Celtic said, reaching into his cloak and immediately pointed the Dark Eco crystal at the five ponies, firing a beam from it straight at Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Flurry Heart, and Shining Armor in an instant, striking them.
The five ponies screamed in pain as the purple electricity surges around them before it stops and they fell to the ground unconscious while the Gorilla Lurkers got up and surrounded them.
"Magic. A fool's useless power." Celtic said as he approached the unconscious ponies with a smirk. "Another bait for Talos' plan to get his powers from Chase."
He then turns his attention to the two Gorilla Lurkers that could speak.
"Babak, Bruter. Take them to Master Talos. We must begin our next phase to bring the Black Dragon back." Celtic said sinisterly.
"You got it, sir." The first Gorilla Lurker soldier named Babak, who has the left scared ear, as he, Bruter, who has the long scar across his face, and the rest of the soldiers began draggin the five ponies out of the throne room.
Once they were gone, Celtic was the only one left in the throne room as he turned back to the empty seats of Chase and Twilight. He lits his horn and fired a few beams at the curtains, catching them on fire. He continues to fire some beams around the room before he eventually stops as the whole place was now on fire.
"Soon this world will belong to the Demodragons." Celtic said with a chuckle as he walked out of the throne room sinisterly while the most of the debris comes down.
(Scene changes)
Back on the pirate ship, the Mane Sixteen, Capper, Calaeno, and her crew continued to set sail through the air, heading straight to the Continent of Mu.
"So let me see if I got this right. After you guys fought off two of Talos' Lurkers, one of them used the Dark Eco crystal's powers on Chase and his elemental powers are cursed?" Capper asked, getting the story on what's going on.
"Yup." Chase said before he glared at Sunray, who did the same. "If somepony had just listened to me."
"And now, you guys are on the way to the Continent of Mu to get the remaining three Eco crystals in hopes that you can cure him." Mullet concluded as he turned to Chase.
"Yup." Rainbow said as she flew up to Calaeno with a smirk as the pirate captain smiled back. "And with you guys by our side, we're gonna need all the help we can get if we're gonna take Talos down."
"You kidding?" Calaeno asked with amusement before she smiled. "We're with you ponies and Spike all the way."
"So how long until we get to the continent?" Antonio asked while looking down at the ocean.
"We should be there any second if none the least." Jade replied back while looking through her binoculars.
"I hope you're right, Jade. Because I got a bad feeling this journey is about to get harder for us at the moment." Twilight said as she and Chase stood next to each other.
That's when the ships bell rung, gaining their attention.
"Hey, guys! Land ho!" Boyle exclaimed while pointing at something ahead.
The Mane Sixteen and the crew looked ahead to see that Boyle was right. Sure enough, they saw the Continent of Mu as it was a whole lot bigger other than Equestria with different landscapes.
The whole group looked at the Continent of Mu in amazement.
"We made it, guys." Chase said with relief and became determined as he turned to Calaeno. "Let's see if we can land this thing, Calaeno."
"Aye aye, Chase." Calaeno said with a salute as she took the wheel and began to descend the ship somewhere.
As they continued to descend lower, Antonio noticed a docking area down below.
"There's a docking area, guys! Let's land there." Antonio said as they descended to the docking area.
Eventually they touched down in the water with the ship close to the docks and they got off the ship. But when they walked off the docks, they saw something that made them stop in their tracks at something shocking.
There was a village that had homes made out of rock, but what was concerning the most was that there were some huts that were on fire with flaming boulders everywhere.
"What is this place?" Chase said while looking at the area around him still having a shocked look on his face. "What happened here?"
Jade sees a sign on it as she walks up to it, wipes down some moss off it, and sees some writing on it.
" 'Welcome to Rock Village'." Jade read the sign before she taps on her medallion as the magical screen showed the area around them. "Hmm."
"Got anything, Jade?" Sokka asked hopefully for an answer.
"It looks like we've arrived at Rock Village." Jade said as she tapped her medallion, making the screen go back into her necklace in the center. "This place used to be a peaceful village with warriors preventing any threat from attacking the area. But I guess Talos must've gotten here before us."
"There's a hut that hasn't been taken down." Pinkie said, pointing at a very large hut away from the village.
"Well, I guess that's where we should go." Chase said as he walked on a path that leads towards the hut.
"Ya'll heard him. Let's move." Capper said as he and the others followed Chase to the hut.
Once they were at the front, Chase knocks on the door for moment in hopes there would be someone there, but there was silence. Opening the door, Chase and the others found the place in a bit of a mess.
"What happened here?" Sunray asked in concern as they entered the place and Chase found a picture of Gol and Maia on it as they were at the front of the hut which seemed like many years ago.
"Looks like this was one of Gol and Maia's labs." Chase said while looking at the picture with Twilight joining him as she noticed it.
"Yeah, and it seems like this place was trashed by Talos' Lurkers." Nyx said while looking at some books of instructions based on making Eco energies.
"I guess now we won't be getting information on where the other Eco crystals are." Darius added as he looked at a few books before placing them down.
Jade then noticed a warp gate that was deactivated and saw a button on the wall, connecting to it.
"Hey, guys. This must be one of the warp gates Chen told us about. Let's see if it works." Jade said as she pressed the button and the warp gate turned on.
In about a few seconds, Santos and Jewel jumped through the warp gate as they landed in the lab.
"Mom, Dad!" Chase said in relief as he hugged his parents, who hugged him back before they separated.
"Is everypony alright?" Santos asked his family and friends with concern. "We heard of the Lurker Shark attack and when the portal was opening up, we had guessed something was opening up on the other side of this world."
"We are now, Dad." Jade said with an assuring smile. "We managed to get here as quickly as we could."
"We're glad you all are okay. But maybe we should move away from the portal." Jewel said with concern.
"Why?" Chase asked curiously as his parents move him and the others back a bit from the portal.
Just then…
"Whoa!" Chen yelled out loudly, coming through the portal and landed on his stomach with a loud thump, making the others cring at this.
"Grandpa Chen?" Sunray asked in surprise as Roby and Grazer jumped through the portal joining the group.
"Roby!" Rarity squealed lightly as she rushed over to Roby and hugged him, making him return the favor with a smile.
"Hi, Rarity." Roby greeted the unicorn fashionista as they broke the hug.
"Grazer." Chase said as Grazer hugged him with a smile.
"It's good to see you too, Chase." Grazer said as he broke the hug as Chen got back on his hooves.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to that teleporter tingling sensation." Chen said to the group with an annoyed look before he looked at the messy lab in surprise. "Hey, it looks like Gol and Maia threw a party."
"Yeah, not the party you're thinking of, Chen." Pinkie said with a nervous look before she smiled. "But it would've had some cake here."
Jewel then walked over to a telescope and looked at the fiery area of Rock Village.
"Oh my! Rock Village is on fire!" Jewel said while looking at the horrible sight.
"One heck of a party here." Chen said, completely oblivious to the situation.
"No, no, Dad!" Jewel said as she turned her attention back to the village. "I mean Rock Village is being bombarded with flaming boulders!"
"We noticed it, Jewel." Twilight said as she became concerned. "But I don't understand. Where did those boulders come from anyway? There's no volcano insight."
Spike went up to the spyglass and looked through before he noticed something that made his eyes go wide.
"Uh, guys. I think I know who threw those boulders at the village." Spike said with a scared look.
Walking outside, Chase and the others saw what Spike was talking about as they saw a large object in the open of the mountain pass. It was a rather large Lurker monster that his body was much similar to the Bone Armored Lurker, but different.
In his appearance, he had dark blue fur, black hair on his head, shoulders, and growing in as a beard along his jaw and chin, which is wrapped with a brown cloth. He has thin legs and a thin waist, possibly being much scrawnier than he appears to be. He has a red loin cloth around his waist, secured with a sand red belt, white horns growing out of his skull, giving him a devilish or demonic appearance to him, and what appears to be red foot/shin wraps, and his left arm has a collar as his hand has five digits. But what was most different about him was that he has orange armor with red tubes running through it, and his right arm was replaced with a mechanical claw with four digits.
The Lurker monster lets out a massive roar as he uses his right mechanical hand to conjure a flaming boulder and throws it at an abandoned wagon, crushing it in the process as fire burns up most of the wood.
The others looked shocked by this before they turned their attention back to the monster.
"That's one big Lurker monster." Rainbow said in awe by the sight of the monster before they went back inside.
"Okay, we are definitely gonna need some fire power for this." Sunray said with a cocky smirk as he uses his fire element to conjure a ball of flame in his right aura hand, only for Jewel to stop her son.
"I don't think it's that optional, Sunray. This Lurker monster appears to be more invulnerable to anything." Jewel said with a grim look.
"How are we gonna get to Talos now with that thing blocking our way?" Trini asked with concern.
"Looks like we might be in luck." Santos said, while looking through the spyglass as he noticed a large levitation machine by the edge of the mountain. "Seems as though Gol was working on a levitation machine to move the boulders. Assuming it's operational, we're gonna need to collect the Eco crystals in hopes one of them will work on it."
"And I thought we were almost on a demon's path, this is so much worse." Antonio said with a defeated chuckle, which Jade slapped him on the back of his head in annoyance. "Ow!"
"We better take a look at Goal's notes." Chen said as he turned to Chase. "Chase. Go check the area and see if there are any villagers, then come back and give us an update. And take your family with you."
Chase nodded as he bowed his head in respect to his great grandfather before he turns to Jade, Sunray, Trini, and Antonio.
"Come on, guys. Let's go check it out." Chase said as he and his family walked out of the hut.
As they walked down a path towards the village, the large Lurker monster lets out another devilish roar and a few rocks fell down into the water.
Author's note:
Here's chapter 9, everybody. This is the first look of the area around Rock Village as well as the princesses, Shining Armor, and Flurry being captured as well as Celtic explaining of how he survived the last battle. For now, the heroes will remain unaware of what's happening, but we will get to it as soon as I reach the battle they'll have with the Lurker monster. I'll be back later to do the next chapter soon.
Peace out.