As another part of halloween continues, I had this drawing in my head for quite a long time. This is of another time, long before the starting events of season 3 of MLP. And an even different event of Petal never meeting Plum.
Something terrible happened to Crimson Scale, a common treasure hunter. His wife, Shimmer Scale was turned to pure crystal and shattered, Crimson’s arm was hurt and is slowly encasing him in crystal, and the villan who did all this Sealed Petal Scale in a crystal prison. So now the common treasure hunter must hunt down elements of harmony, harm the ponies who wield the elements, and use those crystals to free his daughter. In the story, Crimson is nothing more than a villian who fights multiple times against the elements of harmony.
This is him in the last fight between the girls as they find where he was fighting. At this point, the girls could have chose to ignore him and his worsening crystallization, but he would be encased, and Petal would be lost. If the girls even knew what this villain's true intentions were, they probably would have helped him save his daughter. But this last fight, and the light reflecting off the giant crystal hid what was inside of the girl. By the time Crimson was defeated and encased in crystal, the girls saw too late.
Petal scale was freed, and the wielders of the elements promised to save her father. But they had another villian to deal with. The one who placed this curse upon the father...