Alright, we pick back up where we left off. King Sombra's shadows are closing in on the Crystal Empire.
Cadence, who looked pretty beat at the end of last episode, is recovered a bit and uses her magic to re-establish her spell, which slices off Sombra's horn.
The horn dissolves into a puddle of magic goo.
Shining Armor is concerned for his wife and wants to get the Crystal Heart, Twilight tells him to support Cadence instead. We could have had some Rainbow Dash-Twilight action, but Twilight figures getting the heart is Celestia's test, and orders Rainbow to go keep the Crystal Faire going.
Hmm, have those two done anything together, just the two of them, besides implied Daring Do bonding? You wasted an opportunity, Twilight!
Rainbow agrees with me and is annoyed at Twilight waving her off, but she consents as Twilight explains that she needs her friends to keep the crystal ponies occupied so they don't sink back into depression.
Applejack is seen already guarding the ersatz heart. The crystal ponies are getting restored as they play the games, eat foods, etc.
Rainbow whispers to Rarity what is going on. Rarity tells Spike, who rushes off in alarm to help Twilight. Blogspot is being a pain with the screenshots so I lost track, but somewhere in here it shows that magic goo from his horn and it turns into a shade crystal.
Rainbow is trying to give out flugelhorns, Pinkie Pie really wants one. So, at least they did get that horn away from her.
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| Aww, look at Pinkie in the jester's outfit. |
Applejack yanks her by the tail and tells her to cool it,
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| "Mayday! Mayday!" |
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| "Huh, seeing my awesomeness does have a way of putting ponies into a pretty good mood." |
The first one is dissuaded into some 'crystal empire nectar,' but another approaches.
Applejack gets rid of him with some crystal fritters, then sends another off to go watch Rainbow jousting. She urges Twilight to hurry it up and laments that the crystal ponies are 'more curious than a cat!' Back in the crystal palace, Twilight is searching everywhere. Spike tries to check under a rug and Twilight scolds him, saying it's Celestia's orders.
Aww, Twilight is so pleased with herself she claps her hooves.
Spike is scared of the spiraling stairs, but Twilight is undeterred. She casts a light spell and heads on down, but turns back to order Spike not to come.
On the way down, she stops and rips a crystal from the wall to try and gauge how far down this thing goes.
After a few, it finally hits and Twilight looks shocked.
So she was going down here as fast as she could, now she's having doubts. She tells Spike to look outside and we see Sombra is starting to corrupt some of the Empire. He menacingly whispers, "Crystals..."
Spike yells back that things aren't going good, and Cadence's magic must be fading faster than before. Twilight decides to start running down the stairs, they crack under her weight, then she trips.
She falls all the way to the bottom and catches herself with her magic.
She finds herself in the Canterlot throne room.
Princess Celestia is doing paperwork and asks, "What are you doing here?" Twilight says she doesn't know, she opened a door and - Celestia interrupts and says "And now you must go." Twilight asks where, Celestia responds, "It doesn't matter to me. You failed the test, Twilight." Hmm, crazy door she had to open with dark magic, a Celestia that is acting really mean...
Twilight is of course devastated.
Fade to black for commercial, when it resumes it actually shows an exterior shot of Canterlot, so presuming this is some kind of trick, they're messing with the viewer as well. Celestia is laying the smack down and says not only will Twilight not move on to the next level, she won't be continuing her studies at all.
Twilight can't understand and says Celestia didn't mention any negative effects if she failed.
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| "Didn't I?" |
Devastated, Twilight lays down and cries. :(
Spike narrates what is happening to him and ends up in tears as Twilight shuts the door. Twilight deduces that it is King Sombra's dark magic - a doorway to your greatest fear. Spike's nightmare was Twilight telling him she didn't need him anymore and was sending him away. Twilight consoles him, telling him that's a fear that will never come to pass, and gets renewed vigor.
She uses normal magic on the door's crystal this time and it opens into... more stairs. So this Sombra knew that in order to get down there, they would have to have figured out to use dark magic. Then, the wacky door was rigged up so they would think, 'Let's use the same thing again' and of course it was a trap. Pretty clever. Twilight invites Spike to go with her this time. As they begin their ascent, we cut back to Shining Armor and Cadence. Cadence is struggling.
Sombra laughs and as it cuts to him, his horn regrows. Clouds of purple start flying towards the Crystal Empire.
So Rainbow Dash is looking awesome and all kitted up. Fluttershy can barely handle walking with the lance. Now, from what I recall of jousting, the objective was to hit the opponent's shield with your lance and/or dismount him. Obviously the ponies are the 'mounts' so not quite sure what they will be doing.
Pinkie sees the magic bubble darken and blows her flugelhorn, apparently starting the match.
Rainbow Dash immediately charges. As the lance nears her, Fluttershy freaks out. Hell, I still can't tell you what the objective is here because Fluttershy just goes flying away, so presumably ir's to knock the opponent out of the ring, but it's Fluttershy so what wouldn't knock her out.
Rainbow is undeterred and explains that the fate of an entire Empire is on the line here. I'm not sure why, but Rainbow is really zealous about this whole thing.
Fluttershy starts to cry.
Now, Rainbow and Fluttershy go way back to when they were fillies/foals, so Fluttershy crying is probably nothing new to Rainbow. But still, her friend is in tears, begging her not to hurt her again, and she responds: "Okay, okay, I'll take it easy on you next time. But not too easy. I've got a reputation to maintain!" As Fluttershy heads back towards the joust, the purple clouds corrupt an entire building or something.
Back to Twilight, she and Spike are panting as they go up the stairs. Spike collapses and asks if this isn't another trick, stairs that go on forever. Twilight looks up, then starts casting a spell.
Looks like we have a cool new use for magic, reverse gravity or some such. Twilight uses it to slide up the smooth part of the stairs' bottom.
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| +1 Unicorns/Magic |
Rarity says she's running out of hat making materials and Applejack says the princess isn't looking good.
Pinkie is trying to entertain by juggling flugelhorns on a beach ball. She slips and the ball knocks the cloth off the ersatz heart, which crashes to the ground in front of the crystal ponies. They call them out on it not being the real thing, and Rarity and Applejack try to cover for it, with Applejack saying the real one is on the way. King Sombra laughs and whispers 'Crystal heart...' and the crystal ponies start to panic.
Back to Twilight, she is ecstatic, saying she had studied gravity spells thinking they might be on her test, and she proclaims that she "was prepared for this!" They reach the top and find the crystal heart. Which is pretty much just a better cut of Twilight's with it's own magic glow.
Despite all the Daring Do books Twilight has read, she stumbles right into the trap Sombra left under the heart. Her hoofstep on the circle triggers a magic effect, which Sombra can detect, and dark crystals spring up and trap her.
Okay, so as I was watching the above, I was thinking "The crystal heart was probably in plain sight, if you could fly." Lo and behold, it was apparently just sitting way up at the top of the palace's tower.
Shade crystal are sprouting up out of the ground, Spike is panicking but the crystal heart was thrown near him. Twilight tries to teleport out of the crystal prison and Sombra's magic throws her back in. Ouch. She's fallen down stairs, ran into a wall trying to go through that door, now she's smashes into a wall. Poor Twilight. :(
Twilight is lamenting that she should have seen this coming, but she was so eager to save the day and so forth she got owned. Spike tells her she has to deliver the heart or she fails the test. Twlight decides that since she might not escape in time, the test be damned, Spike needs to get the heart down to the Faire.
Spike grabs it in his mouth and walks out on the tower's ledge. Below, Applejack and Rarity try to comfort the crystal ponies as corruption continues to spread.
Poor Cadence, she's been run dry and her magic finally ceases. As her spell ends, her barrier is destroyed. The crystal ponies start to panic.
Sombra makes his way in, he hisses, "My crystal slaves..."
Spike is making his way down the palace with the Crystal Heart. He calls out that he has it, Sombra sees it and declares, "That is mine!" Sombra is apparently some kind of snake or worm as he burrows through the ground towards the Heart. Spike trips and starts to fall. Shining Armor picks up Cadence and she spreads her wings. She sees the heart and there's a glint in her eyes.
As he approaches the Heart, Sombra actually gets his body back, a shock to him.
Hahaha, Shining Armor picks up Cadence and throws her in the air like a paper airplane.
She snatches the Heart and Spike, and the Heart's proximity seems to have rejuvenated her.
Cadence is super pissed and lands perfectly on Twilight's heart, destroying it with her hooves of fury. As she flew past, a crystal pony cried out, "The crystal princess!" Cadence tells them that the Crystal Heart has returned, and to use the light and love within them to ensure that Sombra does not. She throws the Crystal Heart into its spot, where crystals pop out as an altar for it, so Twilight's was even more obviously fake. The crystal ponies start to do their thing and they become fully rejuvenated, their coats and manes being crystallized.
The energy hits Sombra and he is annihilated. No joke. He is obliterated into bits.
As they are leaving, Rarity is complaining that she lost her crystal form already. Applejack tells her that sometimes it's better if things are a rarity. Rarity is touched.
Shining Armor says it's starting to get embarassing having his little sister saving him. Twilight corrects him that Spike saved them, and then she gets mopey about failing her test.
Back in Canterlot, Twilight's friends are waiting outside the castle, stressed out about Twilight's test results. Inside, Celestia has already installed a stained glass for Spike saving the day.
Twilight slams open the door and hits Spike in the face. Her friends are either appalled that Twilight just smashed the hero of the day, or just nervous that she failed.
Of course, Twilight passed!
Rarity starts singing a reprise of the Failure Song, or whatever it is, from part 1.
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| Prepared for this! |
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| You clearly have just what it takes |
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| To pass a test with such high stakes |
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| We knew for sure you would prevail |
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| Since when does Twilight Sparkle ever fail? |
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| Turns out you were Turns out I was |
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| Turns out you were Turns out I was |
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| Turns out you were Prepared... for this! |
What I learned from this episode:
- At this point, I would be extremely surprised if Twilight is just some Joe Blow unicorn with lots of magic talent and not some prophecized hero. I mean seriously, her big test to move up in her training is to take care of a 1,000 year cursed, crazy magical empire?
- I don't think they showed it very much, although it was on display in A Canterlot Wedding, but Mi Amore Cadenza's cutie mark is a crystal heart. She is also apparently the 'crystal princess' but that got like 0 recognition after a crystal pony yelled it out.
- Twilight goes through all this BS, falls down stairs, slams into walls, and Spike ends up getting the 'kill confirmed' for it. Lame! =] At least she smashes the door into him at the end.
- I still don't get why Rainbow Dash was going HAM about things. I guess she actually understood the situation was dire, unlike Twilight who kept thinking it was going to be some grade school test.
- Applejack seems to be acting as the second-in-command when Twilight is out of the picture. I don't think she was like that before, but I may not remember.
- King Sombra got destroyed, yet if you notice on the screencaps when his horn is flying away it's the reddish one from his corrupt shadow form, and not the pure grey of when his body was back. Probably some significance to it. Or, perhaps he always was the shadow form, and the crystal heart allowed him to get a body.
- Quite a bit of magic usage in these episodes, and it ends with Luna conjuring up a presumable spell book. Unicorns and magic, hell yeah.
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