“Ow. Ow. Ow. Maybe rolling down the stairs wasn’t such a good - ow - idea after all!” Crystal berated herself as she bounced down the staircase, making to the floor below the roof in time to see a red flash appear in front of her. Out of the flash, Trixie stepped out, clad in all her stage magician’s glory.

“Lyon has told Trixie to make sure you don’t run away. Trixie doesn’t see the problem though. You seem to be doing just fine in staying in one place.” Trixie told Crystal, much to her chagrin.

“I’m not staying in one place. See?” Crystal said waddling slowly towards the next staircase on the other side of the corridor. Trixie placed a hand on the ice ball covering her and tutted.

“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t go anywhere like that.” Trixie cooed, lighting up her horn and firing a red beam towards Crystal’s legs, freezing them in place to the floor.

“What? Trixie, let me out of here right now!” Crystal shouted at her attacker, her eyes literally burning pits of fire.

“What can you do to stop the Great and Powerful Trixie? Burn her?” Trixie asked obnoxiously a smug grin on her face.

Crystal’s eyes lit up further, an idea forming in her head. She breathed in and puffed her cheeks out, feeling power form in her breath before breathing out a harsh wind full of crystal and ice particles.

The force of the wind knocked Trixie back, pinning her against the wall as the various sized chunks of ice and crystal assaulted her, pinning her in place by stabbing her purple, star-studded dress into the wall.

“Is that … ice?” Crystal asked herself, trying to light her feet on fire so she could melt the ice as she looked at Trixie at the same time. She saw Trixie sparkle as she struggled to get free even though the shards of crystal were embedded into the wall. “How did I breathe ice? I can’t even use that damned ice spell Jason taught me.” Crystal breathed, struggling to get out of the icy prison her feet were in. She then felt them melt, causing her to slip, slide and crash into the floor.

“You alright, Crystal?” Cana asked, breathing a sigh of relief that her cards worked on Crystal’s frozen feet. She grunted as she tried to get Crystal back up but soon realised it was much easier to roll her instead.

“I’m fine. I just didn’t expect you to use your cards on me.” Crystal said hurriedly, trying to keep her lunch down as Cana rolled her.

“What did you do to Trixie?” Cana asked, eyeing the struggling woman for a bit before letting Crystal roll down the stairs herself.

“That charlatan breathed crystal and ice into me!” Trixie answered haughtily. Cana just shrugged, mildly surprised at the ice thing before hurrying down the stairs after Crystal.

“Crystal?” Cana called out, not seeing where Crystal had gotten to. A shout sounded out from the direction of one of the windows. Cana ran up to it and found Crystal rolling down the hill screaming something along the lines of her being a maniac as she rolled into the forest. “Well. Shit.”

“Twilight, what are you doing?” Pinkie asked her friend, staring quizzically at Twilight.

“Trying to figure out how to destroy the moon. That’s the only way they said it would work and I’ve asked every single villager. They all said the same thing and without any of my lab equipment, I can’t run tests on them.” Twilight explained, gazing up at the sky above the village where it was getting darker by the minute.

“Okey doke! But I don’t see how the moon is connected to their curse.” Pinkie replied, spinning around to look at the small village.

“The worst part about this is that I can’t see a connection either!” Twilight said exasperatedly, throwing her arms up in the air before sitting on the ground suddenly. “Can you build a pit?” Twilight asked her, looking at the front village gates.

“Of course I can! I can build big pits short pits long pits smalls pits round pits square pits-” Pinkie was cut off when Twilight held her muzzle shut with a hand.

“I just want you to build an average-sized pit about fifteen feet deep. Can you do that? I want you to put in front of the village gates in case anyone we don’t know wanders in. Okay?” Twilight told Pinkie slowly and when she finished, Pinkie nodded her head energetically, racing off and nearly taking Twilight’s hand with her. “That girl just doesn’t know how to keep still,” she muttered, smiling to herself at Pinkie’s antics.

Pinkie was done within ten seconds, having dug out the pit with nothing but her bare hands. She looked over to Twilight and grinned, putting a pile of woven leaves and fronds together over the pit in an effort to camouflage it. “There. Done!” Pinkie announced, dusting her hands off.

“That was fast.” Twilight commented, slipping an arm around Pinkie’s shoulders once she was finished.

“I pride myself on being fast! Wait, that’s Rainbow.” Pinkie said, thinking on it for a bit.

“Still though, you are fast when you want to be. Probably all that sugar you eat on a daily basis.” Twilight replied before looking up and frowning at the moon. “I just can’t believe they want us to destroy the moon.”

“What was that? Too busy looking at a flying rat.” Pinkie said casually, shrugging and pointing to a far off silhouette.

“A flying rat?” Twilight asked in surprise.

“Oui, oui, capitan! Ze rat is flying by it’s tail!” Pinkie reported in a terrible Prench accent, now wearing a military uniform and using her hands as binoculars.

“Knock it off! Is the rat doing anything other than flying?” Twilight asked, knowing there was no use in arguing with the overly-hyperactive mare. She watched the villagers look at Pinkie weirdly out of the corner of her eye before looking at whatever Pinkie was looking at.

“Ze rat is holding a bucket! A giant bucket! Also, it iz wearing a black corset with a frilly headband. And haz torqouise fur ma-am!” Pinkie continued her observations, rotating her hands around her eyes to zoom in.

Twilight blinked and waved a hand in front of Pinkie’s hands, trying to see if she was actually using binoculars. Sighing, she scratched her head at Pinkie’s observations and went further into the village. “Let us know if they mean business!” Twilight called out over her shoulder to which Pinkie gave thumbs up.

“Who’s Deliora?” Levy asked him, having gotten over her initial shock of seeing a giant iceberg in the middle of an island.

“Deliora is a demon. I didn’t find this out until later on, but he’s a demon from one of Zeref’s books.” Gray said, clasping his hands in front of his face as he watched Levy sit near him.

“Deliora is one of Zeref’s demons?” Levy asked, eyes widening in fear as she looked back up to the iceberg. “How did someone manage to encase him in ice then?” she asked another question and turned her attention back to Gray in time to notice him flinch and a pained expression crossed his face at the question. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“How’d you know that?” Gray asked, looking at her in faint surprise.

“The way you reacted. You briefly got a pained expression and you flinched.” Levy stated the obvious, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Leave it to you to notice that. No, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s too painful to remember at the moment.” Gray said, chuckling and shaking his head before getting up and stretching. He stopped when a harsh purple light burst out of the ceiling to land on top of the iceberg. “We need to head up and see if they noticed this.”

Levy nodded in agreement and followed him back through the cave system and up the stairs where they nearly collided with Cana.

“Crystal. Ice. Hill.” Cana said hurriedly to her teammates and pushed past them, running out of the temple and down the hill. Levy and Gray shared a look before splitting up, with Levy going after Cana and Gray rushing up the rest of the stairs to the top. Once he got to the top, Gray skidded to a stop at seeing some sort of cult kneeling around the same purple light.

“What is going on here?” Gray asked out loud, looking around at the other people assembled. The ones that weren’t kneeling were looking at him beneath darkened hoods. One person in particular, was wearing the same dark robes as the others and a dark purple helmet with curved rams horns protruding from the top of it.

“Hello Gray. I can’t believe you managed to track me down in such a short amount of time,” the helmeted person said with an echoing chuckle.

“Lyon?” Gray asked in surprise and soon after got into a fighting stance. “Why is Deliora down under the temple?”

“That’s easily answered. I want to surpass Ur.” Lyon answered, taking off his helmet to show snow-white hair on top of a pointed face.

“That’s what you told me when you attacked Ponyville. Are you still on about that?” Gray asked, placing a fist into an open palm to prepare an attack. Lyon simply nodded and thrust out a hand, shouted an incantation and made an ice tiger that lunged towards him in a biting motion. Gray stepped to the side and gritted his teeth in pain when the tiger turned its head and bite into his arm.

“Ice-Make: Arrow!” Gray shouted, moving his hands into position as an ice bow and arrow appeared in them. He pulled back the arrow and let it loose, repeating it a few times before the weapon could vanish. Lyon leapt out of the way and nearly banged his head into a nearby pillar, only stopping himself by twisting around and hitting his back into it. He gritted his teeth and shot the other hand out.

“Ice-Make: Mouse!” Lyon shouted, a small mouse squeaking as it made its way towards Gray. While he looked down at the mouse in confusion, Lyon made another spell. “Ice-Make: Dragonfly.” A hoard of dragonflies flew out from behind him and barreled into Gray, making him cough and move backwards. “Give it up, Gray. You’re no match for me.” Lyon said cockily.

“Ice-Make: Floor!” Gray said in return, falling forward and putting his hands on the roof, making it slick with ice. Lyon kept his footing and laughed at Gray’s foolish attempt to knock him over.

“You should know by now that that won’t-” Lyon was cut off when a large hammer slammed into the back of his head, making him fall forward and crack the ice.

“You should really learn when to shut up.” Gray groaned, panting as he slowly walked towards Lyon.

Crystal wanted to shout obscenely at Cana for letting her roll down the hill but knew that it wouldn’t do her any good. At least her life force wasn’t feeding Lyon any more, which probably meant she could use fire to melt the ice around her body. She pinballed off a few trees in the forest before coasting to a stop near a cliff overlooking a beach. She didn’t know how but she managed to get back up on her feet and stood for a few moments, watching the waves crash against the shore.

“I don’t think I’m getting out of this ice any time soon.” Crystal told herself, breathing out a cloud puff. Even though her head, arms and legs felt perfectly fine in the open air, she was somehow breathing out ice. “There is no way this ice is affecting me like the Sombra’s crystal was.” Crystal shook her head at this and swore the ice ball had shrunk slightly. “Nope. Can’t handle this. I need to get back to the … village,” she sighed and realised that she had no idea of where the village could be.

“NO! BRING THE BUCKET UP MORE ANGELICA!” A far-off voice shouted out, causing Crystal to look up at it. What she saw caused her to glare in despair and waddle into the forest.

“Giant flying rats. This world will be the death of me, I swear.” Crystal vowed to herself and went to waddle as fast as possible in a random direction, praying that was where the village was.

After some time, she huffed and puffed her way back up the hill the temple was located on to see if she could spot the village from there. Squinting her eyes, she found a few spiked poles poking up out of the trees. Glad to have finally found a direction, she went to take a step but was stopped by being hit in the back of the head and tumbling back down the hill. When she came to a stop at the bottom, Crystal glared at whoever or whatever hit her.

“Gray! I finally find the village and you go and hit me in the back of the head!” Crystal yelled at him before realising he was looking up to the temple roof. She groaned and slowly made her way back up the hill and over to Gray when she realised he wasn’t listening. “You okay there?”

“Crystal?” Gray asked and looked at her, his eyes widening in fear when he saw her state.

“What? Something wrong with my face or this giant ice ball I’m stuck in?” Crystal asked sarcastically.

“The ice ball. You need to get back to the village. It’s the only place that’s farthest from Lyon’s range.” Gray answered, his troubles momentarily forgotten.

“That’s where I’ve been trying to get to icypole! I was about to go there too when you went and thwacked me in the back of the head!” Crystal cried, demonstrating by managing to reach around and hitting him in the back of his head.

“Not my fault! I got thrown off the roof by Lyon!” Gray protested, giving Crystal a push and forcing her back down the hill.

“Oh come on!” Crystal shouted, rolling back into the forest. Gray ran after her and tried to direct her back to the village without her getting back up.