Jerome

"Well, this is extremely frustrating," I noted. Magic-learning was hard.

My group, which was me, Fluttershy, Pinkie and Bodil, with Shining Armor as our teacher, wasn't exactly doing well.

Especially compared to Adam, Rainbow and Ty. Last time I looked over at them, Ty was floating.

"Okay. Keep trying to lift this rock. Picture yourself doing it, then just do it," Shining said encouragingly. Gee, that helps.

I stared at the small rock on the floor, and imagined myself making the rock float. Nothing happened.

Then, Bodil sneezed and the rock turned into a banana.

"...What," I said blankly, staring at the banana. "Well, that's something," Shining noted.

"How did I do that?!" Bodil asked, at the same time Pinkie asked, "How did you do that?!"

"Um...I think it was caused by your sneeze," Fluttershy suggested.

"What, so I have to sneeze to do magical crap?" Bodil asked.

"Not necessarily. But it seems you could. At least you can do something," Shining added.

"...Can I have the banana?" Pinkie asked. "Uh, okay," Bodil shrugged.

Pinkie grabbed it off the floor and started unpeeling it, only to find that inside was a banana-shaped rock.

"Wow, okay then!" I said with a laugh, then focused on the banana-rock that Pinkie had placed back on the floor.

"Hey! Where's Adam and Ty?!" Rainbow exclaimed. Everyone turned to look over at them, but only Rainbow and Vinyl were there, looking around confusedly.

"I'm pretty sure whoever had the yellow magic teleported both of them," Twilight said, walking over. Since she obviously could already do magic, and didn't know how to teach it to anyone other than unicorns, she had sat back and watched with Rarity and Luna.

...Except Rarity apparently wasn't here. Where'd she go?

"...Teleported to where?" Rainbow asked.

Twilight shrugged. "They couldn't have gotten far. Is anypony else missing, or was it just the two of them?"

"Uh, Rarity's gone," I called out.

"Oh-Rarity actually just went outside. She said she wanted to admire the statues, rather than sitting in here, I suppose. Haha, typical Rarity!" Twilight explained.

"We're back!" someone called in a singsong voice, and the front door that led to the spiral staircase swung open, and Rarity, Adam and Ty walked in. Rarity seemed bright and cheery, while Adam and Ty seemed kind of tired, and confused.

"Rarity! You found Adam and Ty!" Twilight exclaimed.

"Why, of course! They had just...appeared, by the statues, I suppose," the white unicorn explained.

"Im surprised they didn't accidentally go to outer space or something," Jordan remarked.

"Well, that would be kind of cool..." Ty said thoughtfully.

"Are you guys okay? You don't look too good," Vinyl asked concernedly.

"I guess teleporting just kind of wore us out," Adam said with a shrug.

"Yeah, it can be at times...why don't you two get some rest? In fact, why don't we all get some rest?" Cadance asked. Everyone nodded and murmured their agreement, assuming that it was bedtime.

As I walked towards the door on the left wall, which led to sleeping quarters for members who preferred to stay here, which we were using, I looked back at the banana-rock-who I'm calling Brock, from now on, by the way,- and quickly focused on it.

Brock was illuminated in a pale brown aura for a second, then stopped glowing.

Soon, I thought as I headed with everyone else towards the door.

●※●

"Twilight!"

I blinked open my eyes sleepily. It was still dark in the room I slept in (well, it was always dark, but no torches were lit.) it was almost like a dormitory, I guess, with a couple beds in the room. Me, Mitch, Fluffle Puff, Twilight, Applejack, and Quentin slept in this room.

"Twilight!" the voice whispered again, an as my eyes adjusted to the dark I could make out a minecraftian figure shaking a lump on a bed that was probably Twilight.

"Hmm...?" Twilight moaned sleepily.

"Twilight, wake up. Celestia, Cadance, Shining and I need to talk to you," the figure explained, and I recognized the voice as Bonk's.

Cyan stripes on her body began to glow faintly, bringing just enough light to see Twilight getting out of her bed. "Uh, okay. Lead the way," she said, and Bonks and her quietly walked over to the door and slowly closed it behind them.

After a few seconds, I whispered to the darkness, "Anyone up?"

"Yeah," I heard Mitch whisper back. "Bonks and Twilight woke me up. What's going on?"

"I dunno, but I feel like we should follow them."

"Lezzgo," Mitch said, and we quietly got up and left the room.

Outside, the hallway which had many doors leading to other dorms was dimly lit with a purple torch, which was about as normal as Mitch's wings, but then again, we were in an underground magic guild.

"Ugh, I hate sleeping. It's so awkward with these things now," Mitch complained, talking quietly as to not wake anyone and stretching out his wings slightly.

"How long do you think it'll last?" I asked.

"What, the wings?"

"No, your manicure. Ma gawd, Mitch! Lyra's spell has to wear off eventually."

"Uhh, I dunno. Probably at, like, the worst timing, like when I'm a trillion feet in the air."

"That would be good," I noted.

"No, it would be very bad, sir!"

We came to the end of the hallway and stopped. "Uhh, where do we go?" I asked.

"Well, Bonks said that Cadance, Celestia and Shining wanted to talk, so they're probably going to Celestia's room," Mitch said thoughtfully.

"Uhhh..." I said blankly.

Mitch sighed. "Don't worry, I know where it is, just follow me..."

We walked through the big main room, where the tables were still gone, to the door at the front wall. We walked down the hallway inside towards the final door at the end, which I remembered was Celestia's room. Lucky for us, the conversation just seemed to be starting.

"...brought you here because, as you may have guessed, there's something that we've hidden within the statues," Celestia was saying.

"Yes, actually," Twilight said curiously. "I sensed a forcefield around it, and revealed it with a spell. I didn't take it down, but it seemed like it wouldn't let magical spells pass through, but it would let physical objects through."

"That was my forcefield," Bonks said. "I put it up to trick anybody who tried to find the...secret."

"What is the secret?" Twilight asked.

"It's okay, you can trust her," Shining said assuringly, probably to Bonks.

"Okay. Herobrine's Amulet," Bonks said.

Outside the door, Mitch raised an eyebrow.

"But I thought that Herobrine had it?" Twilight asked.

"Well, he did of course, at some point. But it was stolen during the war with Minecraftia by a guy AntVenom, who you probably don't know. He was a friend of Adam's, and he had had an amulet just like his, therefore just like Herobrine's Amulet. He actually just painted his amulet red, since it was purple like Adam's, and replaced it," Bonks explained.

Go Ant, I thought.

"You don't really see him around too much anymore, though," Bonks continued. "He's most likely scared Herobrine would find out it was him who stole the amulet, and come after him. I would be, too, honestly."

"Did Herobrine ever find out it was fake?" Twilight asked.

Cadance gave a small laugh. "Of course, Herobrine found out eventually! But it actually wasn't until a couple weeks after Minequestria was made. He still hasn't found the real one, of course, since we have it...or, had it."

"Uh-oh..." Twilight said with realization.

"Yep. The amulet's gone," Shining Armor said bluntly.

"How do you know?" Twilight asked.

"Well, Bonks set the field so that she'll be able to tell when the forcefield is revealed or passed through," Celestia explained. "She sensed it today, and naturally went to check to see if the amulet was there...it wasn't."

"Where was the amulet hidden?" Twilight asked thoughtfully.

"Heheh...you just-" Bonks started, but Celestia cut her off.

"Before you say that, I think we need to attend to other business. There are two minecraftians outside, I can see their shadows in the ray of light under the door."

Mitch and I had enough time to look at each other for a split second before the door swung open, slamming into Mitch.

Shining Armor leapt out, horn glowing a surprisingly meanacing magenta. He saw me, and his horn glowed brighter. "What are you doing here? You must have stolen the amulet!"

"What?! No we didn't, I swear-" I started. "Where's the other one?" Cadance asked. Bonks looked over at the door, where you could see one big yellow wing splayed out behind it. "Here."

"Jerome? Mitch? What were you doing?" Twilight asked confusedly.

"We were just...uh..." Mitch stuttered. "Eavesdropping," I finished, earning a glare from Mitch. "You just woke us up getting Twilight, and we wanted to see what all the commotion was," he continued.

"Hmm..." Celestia said, narrowing her eyes. "It couldn't have been them," Bonks explained. "Two minecraftians passed through the field, but also a pony. Which two minecraftians and a pony were alone by the statues today?"

"But...why would Adam, Ty and Rarity want Herobrine's amulet? They're on our side!" I pointed out.

"Well... they might not," Cadance said darkly.

"What do you mean?" Twilight asked nervously.

"You see, when I went to check on Herobrine's Amulet, the compartment wasn't empty," Bonks explained. "They left something in its place."

There was a cyan flash, and something familiar appeared in her claws.

"Uh, isn't that Herobrine's amulet?" Mitch asked bluntly.

"No," Bonks said, and put a claw up to the gem and scratched it a bit. Underneath the red where she scratched was a deep purple.

"This is the fake amulet, the one that Ant painted to replace the real amulet," Bonks said.

"And we know who could only have that."