//------------------------------// // CHAPTER NINETEEN // Story: Dear Faithful Student // by Muramasa //------------------------------// CHAPTER NINETEEN: WEBS SUNSET SHIMMER / ROYAL GUARD I only took a few steps before I realized I had no idea what I was doing. I had no idea where Twilight was. She had planned to go ask Celestia about Zephyr's journal with the rest of the girls (including the imposter), but she could have grown tired of waiting for me and done that hours ago. I didn't really know where I was going, and on top of that, I didn't properly think through exactly what Zephyr was bringing to the table. I'd given Applejack and I a quieting spell, but I realized quickly that it would be of no use. Zephyr's thralls moved entirely silent, and so it was likely a stretch to think that they hunted based on noise. Of course, it would make it tougher for Zephyr to find us -- assuming he was even looking for us in here -- but I could hazard a guess that he had anticipated such tactics from a castle filled with some of Equestria's greatest mages. The thralls would be the main enemy. Zephyr's power outage was nothing short of ingenious, as I had another consecutive feeling of dread drift down my spine as I realized that my little flashlight wouldn't do us any good. The creatures didn't make any noise when they moved, and by the time I could see them in the pitch black with my flashlight, they would almost certainly already be upon us. "Sunset. Sunset." Right. Applejack. Applejack usually could handle herself just fine, but the horror show she was about to witness was probably nothing like she had ever fought before. I needed to come up with a plan to get us to Twilight, but after hearing that noise behind us as we retreated I was well aware that I needed to throw something together real fast. "Sunset--" "Let me think, AJ! I'm getting there!" I didn't mean to snap at her that harshly, and it seemed as if she'd taken the tone to heart when she snapped right back with aggression I never thought could be put into a whisper. "Well move on with it, then!" she seethed, inching a bit closer to me. "Whatever went bump in the night back there is gonna come up on us right quick. I can sense it." I could feel a small irritation develop, and I felt entirely free to roll my eyes on the basis that she couldn't see me do it. "Well, yeah, I'm sure you did," I fired back. "I think I sensed it too when I heard a Celestia forsaken--" I stopped. I could almost feel the heat from Applejack breathing over me. I could feel that something was wrong. I could feel Zephyr's thralls closing in on us, and I didn't have to see to know they were here. We gotta sense it. "Applejack, I'm going to hit you with an enchantment," I told her, whipping around. "It's going to dull your senses quite a bit, but it's going to give us an upper hand -- err, hoof." I could barely make out her form, but I knew it reeled back as I powered up my horn. "What?" She seethed, whispering just about as loud as she talked. "What are you gettin' at now?" I still need a bit more time to prepare the enchantment, so I gladly explained the situation to her as I went through the motions. "Twilight told me Zephyr's thralls don't make any noise, which is probably why he just cut the lights. If we try to use a flashlight, we'll get eaten alive by those things. Maybe literally." Her form stood perfectly still, and when it seemed she'd gotten the information, I continued. "This is a clairvoyance enchantment. It's going to make your eyesight, hearing, smell, touch and taste significantly worse, but you'll be able to sense anything coming at you with plenty of time. It kind of sends, uh, pulses, too, so you'll be able to feel the layout of the area around you as well. It's very similar to how vampire bats have sonar, I'm told." That last metaphor seemed to sell Applejack on the idea, and I could barely see her nod enthusiastically as she braced herself for the spell. "You're quick as a whip, Shimmer, you know that?" she asked me, bracing for the spell. "A little too well," I told her, and once I could feel it bursting through me, but I made sure to catch myself in order to give Applejack one final warning. "Oh, and one more thing," I said, holding back the spell the absolute best I could. "I haven't ever used this, but I'm told the effect it has is a little bit creepy." "Creepy?" she asked, cocking her head to the side. "What do you mean by tha--" I'd prepared the enchantment to the best of my ability, and I could no longer keep it contained as I fired it off and let the effects wash over us. It didn't seem possible at the time, but the black that embraced us got even blacker. While I could make out a few outlines a few seconds ago, everything now faded and washed in the void. It felt as if someone had thrown a blanket over everything, and the sound of my breathing no longer hit my ears as the spell completed its work. That was fine, though. I didn't need them. I could feel everything. The first thing I did was turn back to where I knew Applejack was. What I was greeted with was a disturbing array of flickering lines that made up a vague shape of her body, the outline looking as if a spider had attempted to create a web mosaic during a seizure. It wasn't pretty to look at, but it was there with every pulse, and I could feel the shape of the palace draw itself around me: the hallway, the stairs behind us, and even the chandeliers above appeared in the spell's sickly line art picture. Thankfully, she herself didn't set off the spell, as I'd made sure to tag her as friendly (and vice versa) when I was preparing the enchantment. "Alright," I said, hearing a soft, garbled version of the words come out. "Come at us." Applejack couldn't hear me start walking, but I knew she could see me, and I checked to see if she would file in behind me when I started walking. Sure enough, her broken form drifted like a wraith as I took a few steps forward, and I breathed a sigh of relief that the spell had actually worked on her. As I started to meander through the still, feverish shell of Celestia's palace, I let a string of goals ring through my mind to keep myself sane as I made my way to the common area. Find Twilight Sparkle. Get her to fix you. Gather the elements. Don't get killed. The first and last of those goals were the most pressing. I had neglected to tell Applejack that the Clairvoyance spell kinda lasted forever, and it would require Twilight to fix it (I could have done it myself, but it would take far too much time to risk). The last one was of grave importance, too: this was a fantastic method to deal with Zephyr's thralls, but if the stallion himself came upon us, he'd almost certainly figure out what was happening with deadly efficiency. We headed up a different set of stairs to the second floor, watching yet another similar looking hallway appear before us. Thankfully, I'd memorized the entire make-up of the castle when I was a filly, because there certainly wasn't enough landmarks to allow anypony to discern one hallway from the next otherwise. We'd gotten halfway down before I felt it. A horrible, creeping dread shooting up my back like an electrocution. Alarms in my body I didn't know I had were convulsing and screaming, firing off a warning that shook through my skull. B̵E̶H̵I̷N̴D̵ ̸Y̶O̸U̵ I whipped around with a spell I knew was at the ready, but I was greeted with a tangle of outlines overlapping through muffled noise. It only took me a moment to realize what had happened: Applejack had likely sensed the thrall's presence first, and once she looked to me and held a hoof to her head in what I assumed was a salute, I knew she'd taken care of the problem. She said something to me, but I couldn't make it out, and I responded with a smile I wasn't entirely sure she'd be able to see. I feel a lot better with her on my six, I mused, continuing to walk forward. I was surprised we had made it this far only encountering a single thrall, and I wondered what Twilight and the others had done when they realized what had happened. Maybe they've been helping us out with-- R̶I̵G̴H̸T̵ I immediately whipped to the threat and fired off a quick spell, and I knew it had hit its target. The pile of lines that must have been a thrall immediately slumped to the ground, and I saw Applejack give it a kick for good measure as continued to trudge on. If Twilight could be found anywhere, it would be in Celestia's chambers. That's the first place she would go, and I don't blame her: not only were we planning to go there anyway (assuming she hadn't already done so), but Zephyr taking on a budding princess was a far different ballgame than Zephyr taking on a demigod who had already killed him once already. I knew where it was: I just had to get there. We weren't super far from it, but with Zephyr's thralls prowling around the castle, any walk was a walk just a bit too far. As Applejack made our way through our own little horrorscape, my last goal ran through my mind like a broken record as I dealt with every guard-turned-thrall in our path. Don't get killed. L̶E̷F̴T̶ Don't get killed. B̵E̶H̵I̷N̴D̵ ̸Y̶O̸U̵ Don't get killed. L̶E̷F̴T̶ Don't get killed. A̵B̷O̷V̸E̷ ̶Y̵O̶U̷ The outlines that approached and fell one by one had long been gone the moment Zephyr cursed them with his magic, but every one that Applejack and I fell would never have a chance to come back. I tried not to think about it too much -- and with our desperate need for survival, that wasn't too difficult of a task -- but it couldn't help but linger in the back of my mind with a shuddering sense to pair with the clairvoyance spell. Eventually, we found ourselves staring at the long hallway I knew to lead to Celestia's chambers. It was just a few more paces, and I prayed to whatever deity might have held domain over this universe that Twilight was around here somewhere. The walk there was suspiciously uneventful, and I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure Applejack was still ok. She had lost her signature Stetson somewhere along the journey (at least that's what it looked like) but that was the least of my concerns: so long as she kept her head, everything would turn out for the best. I could see the door only paces away, but right as I was about to make a sprint for it, the spell flared up again with a force. I̵N̶ ̵F̵R̵O̴N̷T̷ ̷O̸F̷ ̴Y̸O̷U̶ I was foolish to think that I could have made a run for it. There were guards stationed directly in front of Celestia's chambers at all times, and so it was only natural that Zephyr could have gotten to them during what I presumed to be siege on the castle. I readied a spell as always, but before I could cast it, the feverish lines that formed the shape of the thrall splintered into a billion pieces on the floor. What was that-- L̶E̷F̴T̶ I still had my spell at the ready, but as I was about to fire it off, I heard mumbling from the direction the spell had indicated me to attack in. "Sunset? Applejack? Can you hear me?" S̸T̴O̸P̸!̴ It was a mare's voice, and one I knew all too well. I powered down my spell in a millisecond, and sure enough, the vagueness of Twilight's form flickered in front of my eyes, among other ponies whose features I was unable to recognize. Though I could just barely hear my own words, I made sure to get the message through. "Twilight, I put a clairvoyance enchantment on Applejack and I," I told her quickly. "Take it off." Twilight reeled back for just a moment, but thankfully, she understood what had happened fairly quickly. She charged up her horn for what had to be about half a second, and in a flash, every sense I had violently flooded back to me as the real palace formed around me. Twilight had been using a light spell on her horn, and so I was able to see her far clearer than I anticipated. Her, Trixie and Silver had been standing in front of the wooden door, which I was unable to tell was open when I was approaching it. I quickly realized there was another pony beside them: Sakura, the head of the Sunspears, remained stone-faced behind the trio. I looked back to Applejack, who was stretching out her forelegs upon being freed from the enchantment. "That... was genius, actually. I don't know if I would have thought to cast that." I couldn't help but let a wry smirk fly upon my face at the compliment, but Applejack was far less amused. "Yeah, and don't you ever start thinkin' 'bout it, either," she began, not even attempting to lower her voice. "'Creepy' was sellin' it a bit short." She instinctively reached up to her head, and when it made contact with nothing, she looked up with a horror that I was certain far surpassed the fear she'd just experienced. "And where's my damn hat?" she cried, glaring at me with a look that would kill. I opened my mouth to explain, but to my surprise, Silver spoke up before I could. "The enchantment dulls all of your senses, including touch. You probably never felt it fall off on the way here." Applejack looked towards the ceiling, fervently whispering to herself in what I assumed was an attempt to formulate how seething she was. "Ya put me through one 'a Mac's campfire stories," she started, glaring at me once again. "And then ya made me lose my hat." "You're also alive," I retorted. "And you can probably get it once we deal with this. Has anypony seen Zephyr, by the way? And where's Celestia?" Twilight looked down to the ground with a rare grit in her teeth, but it was Sakura who answered for her. "Celestia is not here," she began. "She attended to an emergency letter she received from a village near Canterlot proper. I was tasked with standing guard at her chambers, but... I noticed my guards were not circulating their shifts, and I knew something had occurred. I sought out Princess Twilight immediately when the lights were extinguished." While Twilight stared at the floor, I found myself looking to the ceiling in despair. He caused a distraction to get Celestia out of here. Luna is in Saddle Arabia. We're all alone, and Starlight... Starlight! My head whipped back downward, and I took a step forward towards Twilight as she reeled back in shock. "Where is Starlight?" I asked frantically. Twilight seemed even more confused, and she turned back towards the three ponies behind her. "What do you mean? She's right--" she stopped, and soon after, the trio behind her mimicked her confusion as they twisted and turned around them in a fruitless search. "She was right here. No, no, no, no, no..." Trixie glanced up to me with that look of petrification she gave me when she told me who Starlight was, and I suddenly felt a wave of nausea wash across my body. The cover of darkness would have been a perfect time to slip away, but we couldn't afford to let Melody escape, especially when we had a chance to end both threats at the same time. "Twilight, that wasn't Starlight, it was Melody Waltz, and we have to find her. I don't know where she slipped off to, but it can't be good. I'm going back out." It took Twilight a few moments of shock to comprehend what I'd just said, but after looking back at Trixie and receiving a fearful nod, she turned back to me with an ire that could have sent me to Tartarus then and there. "Starlight was a changeling this whole time," she started, her voice quieting to a seething still. "And you knew? And you didn't tell me?" Twilight winced a bit from the raise in her voice -- I'd entirely forgotten our most valuable asset was still hungover from the night before -- but I shook my head as fast as I could before stepping back. "I was going to, but I didn't wanna play the hand -- er, a, hoof -- too soon. I gotta go find her." "Then let me go with you." It was Sakura who had said it, and her aura wrapped itself around the sword at her side as she stepped forward. "I've slain many thralls today, and I will do it again if I must. There are not a lot left, but a greater threat roams the halls as well. We will find this imposter." I turned back to Twilight, and although I could tell she was a bit perturbed at the revelation -- and perhaps angry at herself for not realizing a mare she cared for dearly was a fake -- she nodded sagely as she backed up towards the rest of the group. "I'm going to find the elements. If you run into Zephyr, let us know somehow. We're gonna win this." Despite the brevity of the situation, I could feel a sly smile draw across my lips as Sakura and I jogged into the darkness. "We always do," I told her, and with that, the three ponies disappeared into the void. I'd thrown up a light spell for us to see, and when we'd gotten a fair distance away, I turned to her as we ran, attempting not to blind her with my horn. "Arigatoo, Sakura," I told her, decently confident I didn't butcher the pronunciation. I'd never seen Sakura smile, and my attempt to communicate in her native language was still unable to accomplish the task. She nodded curtly, though, before focusing back ahead of her. "It is my duty to protect the Princess and her allies," she said. "My job is not done until this Zephyr is destroyed." I was certainly glad to have such a skilled pony like Sakura at my side, but there was still a point of inquiry I had in regards to just how useful she would be. "So if we don't use a spell like I did to get around," I told her as we rounded the corner in a light sprint. "How are we going to know when--" "Duck," she said calmly, and instinctively, I obeyed her command without question. Her blade only barely swooped over me, and I could feel some of my mane clip off as the katana connected with what I assumed to be a thrall. I whipped up as quickly as I could, but when I turned to right where she had swung, I saw the body of the thrall laying sprawled upon the ground, almost completely obscured by the darkness. "How... how did you... " When I turned, Sakura had already begun advancing forward through the darkness. It didn't take me long to catch up to her, but when I did, she had another point of inquiry. "How many thralls did you slay?" she asked me. I didn't know exactly, but I had a feeling I knew where she was getting at, so I gave her the best estimate I could. "Uh, little more or less than ten, I think? How many guards are stationed at the castle?" "Eighty-seven," she replied. "Our group defeated twenty-six of them, and I suspect the rest of the Elements are battling more. He could very well have reached servants, so we must stay on guard." Despite the fact that her knowledge was a large part of her job description, I was still impressed with her ability to keep track. As we rounded another corner, we were immediately greeted with the site of a pony in guard armor with his back turned to us. He was obscured by the shadows even through my light, so it was hard to make out the colors of his mane and tail. Slowly, his head turned in complete silence, but the rest of his body did not follow suit. Like an owl, the guard's head twisted 180 degrees, and I was finally able to see what Twilight and Rainbow had so often discussed: eyes that lacked any sort of physical form, instead being filled with a pitch-black emptiness darker than the void around them. Those eyes stared at me for a second, the thrall seemingly contemplating its next action, but it quickly ran towards me at a far greater speed than a normal pony could manage. It didn't turn back around, though, and so it charged at me running "backward" with a sickly perfect efficiency as his soulless eyes continued to stare at me all the while. Thankfully, I had charged up a spell the moment I saw the thrall standing there, and I fired it off just as it was only mere inches from my face. The resulting explosion knocked me to the floor, but it sent the thrall careening down the hallway where an eldritch nightmare like itself belonged. I'd never actually seen any of Zephyr's thralls (the outlines I'd received under the effect of the clairvoyance spell were plenty enough), so to know that was what I had been fighting all this time sent the thousandth chill that night careening down my spine. "Tartarus!" I exclaimed, getting up and dusting myself off. "How could anypony create that... thing!" Sakura seemed to understand that I was okay, because she didn't enquire once about the fall I took as she continued on. "Where would this changeling go?" she asked me. "She left after we entered Celestia's chambers, and she was not in the main boudoirs we passed--" Suddenly, Sakura violently flew to the forward, careening into and through the wall of the hallway I'd been facing. The impact saw the wall debris hit me with enough speed to cut, and when I put down the foreleg I'd used as a shield and whipped around, I saw a stallion whose identity I knew immediately. I was told that Zephyr had arctic white fur and an amber main and tail, but I couldn't quite make out the colors in the darkness. I was also told he had sickly green eyes reminiscent of dark magic and King Sombra, though, and that didn't appear to be the case: He still had a purple glow seething of dark magic, but his sclera burned red bright enough to be its own light source. His pupils had dilated to pinpricks, but as horrifying as his visage was, there was something else that caught my attention: He wore a necklace that looked to bear a large, broken horn and some sort of red-jeweled amulet. "You," he said, his calm and sterile voice echoing across the hallway. "You're different." I could feel my teeth grit as I fired up my horn, charging a powerful bolt of magic atop my light spell. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked him, taking a few steps forward. Zephyr didn't move an inch, and it took me a second to realize that he wasn't blinking. "The Princess and her students use the inferior magic," he began. "They refuse to embrace the darkness for the power it holds. But you... I sense a darkness dwelling deep in your soul, mare. You've tasted its power, but you've given it up. Why?" I doubt Zephyr could see it, but I knew I'd gone white as a corpse at that declaration. I picked up my jaw in a second, though, and I gave my teeth an extra grit as I continued to charge up my spell. He's deceiving you. You haven't gone down that road in years. He knows who you are. Don't let him get to you. "Because it's webs and webs of pain," I replied, taking another step forward, closing the distance to about fifteen feet. "And you fight and you fight and you fight, and when you break out of one web, you get trapped in another. I'm done with that. And you're about to be, too." My magic was ready to burst, but if Zephyr was willing to talk, I'd gladly let him until he ate the end of my spell. "You should never have left the way of darkness," he told me. "Let me show you what it can do." I couldn't hold on any longer, and the spell fired from my horn directly at the stallion. It was nothing more than a raw collection of magic, and it illuminated the castle with blinding speed before colliding right where I'd aimed it. The area of effect was massive, and the floor tiles and pieces of the wall flew into the air like fireworks. The act itself had exhausted me, and despite a heavy panting, I could feel a Cheshire grin creep across my face. "How about that, buddy?" I taunted, calling into the rubble. "That's what real magic can--" Once I got a look at the crater I'd created with the light spell, however, my eyes widened to meet Luna's moon. There was nothing there: the spot where Zephyr had been was now a ruin, and he was nowhere to be found amongst the carnage I'd created. What!? No, he couldn't have possibly-- "Embrace it," he whispered, his mouth almost directly touching my right ear. Before I could react, I felt myself launching forward, and I careened into the wall that was left from my blast with a force that stripped the breath from my lungs and shot a jolt of pain through the right side of my body. With a desperate gasp for air, I somehow brought myself to a standing position only moments after colliding with the wall. It was extremely difficult to breathe, but I wasn't going to let Zephyr know that, and he merely stood curiously from where he'd thrown me as I reoriented myself. "That strength is still within you," he said. "What is your name? At least allow me that." I had to think fast. Zephyr was obviously considerably more powerful than I was -- I had a feeling the glowing amulet and mysterious horn on his neck had something to do with that -- but if I could delay him, I could give time to the elements to intervene in a battle they (hopefully) have heard by now. Back against the wall now... well, what remains of it... "Sunset Shimmer," I told him, feeling my horn light aglow with magic. "Don't forget it." With all the force I could muster, I threw a piece of the debris I'd created earlier right at his face. His eyes widened greatly as he saw the piece of the wall fly towards him, but he couldn't react this time: it shattered upon impact with his face, and I made sure to keep the pressure up as I advanced towards him with every consecutive piece I launched at him. "Stay. Down," I growled, throwing them more frantically with the satisfaction of each collision. After at least eleven pieces or so, I found myself standing just a few feet away from Zephyr, but when I went to reach for the last one with magic, I felt a harsh resistance fight me back. Zephyr looked to me with perhaps the most sinister smile I'd ever seen on a pony, and it took me a second of squinting in the dark to realize that his horn was bursting with dark magic. I was even more distraught to look at my progress: the amount of debris I'd thrown at his skull was enough to kill a pony twice over, but the only thing to show for my efforts were a few deep gashes across his face. "If you haven't noticed, I'm still standing," he replied, and suddenly, I felt a massive impact on the back on my head. Thankfully, he didn't knock me out, but the force was enough to knock me straight into him. I didn't get far, though, because he quickly grabbed a hold of me and levitated me in the air, holding me just above eye level. I did my best to counteract the spell, but it was no use: the hits I'd taken had drained a considerable amount of power, and on top of that, Zephyr using my own plan against me hit my head hard enough that it was disrupting my ability to concentrate on my magic. "If you will not answer to the darkness, so be it," Zephyr started, taking a step closer. "But you will answer to me. I'm looking for Princess Luna. Where is she?" Despite my continued struggles, that was enough to make me reel, and I raised an eyebrow at the stallion who'd bested me as I gave up my attempt to escape. "Luna? You aren't here for Celestia? The other students?" Zephyr seemed to expect the first point of inquiry, but the second drew his eyes wide open, and with both eyebrows, raised, he pulled me towards him with his magic until there couldn't have been more than two inches between our faces. "Other students? What do you mean other students?" At that, I felt my jaw drop open, and my eyes shot open to match Zephyr's. "What? You didn't bring them back? This wasn't you?" It appeared that I had confirmed Zephyr's suspicions, and an empty shock washed over his face as he continued to hold me in the air. "Celestia's other students have arrived too, then," he began, snapping out of his daze and returning his gaze to me. "That is of no importance. You still haven't answered my question, Sunset Shimmer, and for the good of your health, I would advise you to do so." Zephyr didn't follow that up with an imminent threat, but he didn't need to: I was perfectly content with dashing his dreams with a snark plastered across my face. "Luna just left for Saddle Arabia. I don't know what you want from her, but you ain't gettin' it." To my surprise, Zephyr didn't look defeated as I'd envisioned: instead, he raised his eyebrows curiously, followed closely by that smirk I'd grown to detest. "That is disappointing. I was hoping to speak with her, but it is no matter: I have what I need from this castle. But what will I do with you, Sunset Shimmer? You were certainly a worthy opponent." I had a snarky response primed and at the ready, but before I could speak, another voice replied for me. "Let's try this, shall we?" I could only barely see the hot pink beam slam into Zephyr's side. For the very first time, I heard him grunt in pain, and he dropped me to the floor in an instant. Thankfully, the moment I'd heard the voice, I prepared for the occurrence, and I landed square on my feet before whipping to the right to follow the noise. Sure enough, Cobalt stood triumphant with Violet at his side, entirely unable to hide a gleaming beam of joy. It wasn't hard to see why: a medium-sized machine floated in the air beside him, hovering gently with a set of propellers. He appeared to be missing his horn, but I quickly picked up on why that was: he was wearing some sort of black apparatus over it, which blended in perfectly with the utter lack of light. "What is that thing?" Zephyr spat, recovering from the blast. I'd already known what it was -- I gave Cobalt the plans to build it, after all -- but he decided to explain it for him with an underlying snide. "This is what is called a drone," he said. "And it's quite versatile, I must say. I cannot take credit for the invention, but I certainly take credit for its improvements. Example A." Suddenly, I felt myself being yanked back from my standing position, and after a blink, I realized the drone had dragged me right next to Violet with some sort of magical force. Zephyr's growl from earlier was still very much present on his face, and he quickly shot off a beam of dark magic directly at us. It never hit. A light blue shield surrounded the three of us, and the bolt bounced harmlessly off. I didn't quite know where any of the drone's combat equipment was coming from, but it took a look at Cobalt to get a feel for what he'd done to it: just like he'd done with his new prosthetic leg, Cobalt had mapped the drone's actions to the apparatus on his horn, and it appeared he could merely think of an action for the drone to take. It ran on magic, for sure, but there were clearly a couple of bells and whistles on the drone that made every action easier than simply casting a spell. "You'll have to hit harder than that, my friend. I've designed this fellow here to be the end-all, be-all of combat magic. Would you two care to help me out?" Violet and I looked towards each other, and with a knowing nod, we both turned to the enemy now at the middle of the hallway. "Gladly," Violet answered, and together, we rushed towards Zephyr with our horns blazing bright. The drone led the charge, and just as it did a moment ago, it threw up a magical shield in front of us. I knew we couldn't shoot through it, but we didn't need to: the shield was just there for the approach, and once we got in close enough, he dropped it just before we launched our double attack. Zephyr, unfortunately, was expecting it. I had hoped to see Celestia's second apprentice flying down the hallway when I opened my eyes, but instead, I saw both Violet and I's magic bolt suspended in the air in front of him. Violet took a step back, and I could feel my jaw start to fall for the thousandth time that night: the reaction time and magical ability to hold one essence of another pony's magic required a staggering amount of power, and to hold two was absolutely unheard of. With a smirk, he angled them slightly upward, and he fired a dark magic bolt of his own that sent all three magical shots flying towards the drone. Cobalt didn't have enough time to react, and the drone had only just started to deploy his shield when it caught the full force of the massive collective of magic. The drone exploded into a thousand pieces, and the light from the rupture was enough to brighten the room for only a second. I was glad I closed my eyes in time, because a few pieces of the shrapnel managed to cut my face and body. When I opened them, Zephyr had dropped his wry smile, and he twisted his neck to a crack as he advanced toward us. "Note to self: re-write the next field test to improve durability," Cobalt muttered, backing up as Zephyr walked forward. Violet shook her head, and she and I began to back up right along with him. "I do not believe the fiercest levins could match such force," she replied, and Zephyr merely stared unwaveringly at our small retreat. "This was fun at the start, I'll admit," he said, stopping in his tracks. "But I've grown weary of these nuisances." I knew Cobalt and Violet weren't going to like my next suggestion, but I said it anyway, digging my hooves into the tile as I faced the stallion lost to the darkness. "Sakura is in the room to the right. Grab her and get out of here." "Sunset--" "Go." I wasn't going to tell them the real reason I wanted them gone, but thankfully, they didn't ask. I gave a stern look to Cobalt, and with a disgruntled sigh and a nod of his head, he fled the scene with Violet, disappearing somewhere in the darkness to retrieve the Captain of the Sunspears. Zephyr had thrown me around like a ragdoll. He'd obliterated a machine Cobalt had finely crafted over the course of months. He turned a wave of over eighty highly-trained guards into lifeless thralls, and he'd completely cut the lights in the mass of Canterlot Castle in a matter of seconds. He was more than powerful. He was a monster. With a primal yell, I shot as many magic bolts at him as I could muster in rapid succession, but it was simply no use. His form seemed to melt as he avoided each and every one, changing positions with each blink of my eyes. I tried to grab a hold of his physical form with my magic, but he stifled that, too, and it wasn't before long before I found myself in the air right above him again. I thought he might have tired himself out as I attempted to break free, but it was still a fruitless attempt: Zephyr seemed even more powerful, and I could only watch helplessly as he stared at my suspended form. "Sacrificing yourself to save your friends," he mused, floating me around in a circle as he spoke. "A cliche in my time, even. And yet, here you are. I suppose I'll make it--" I was blinded momentarily by Cobalt's drone exploding, but it didn't compare to the eye-melting light I experienced at that moment. The lights in the castle flooded back on, and it took a series of rapid blinks to allow my eyes to adjust. It was certainly painful, but knowing exactly who had done the act made it more than worth it. "You're going to release her." Celestia had stood at the exact place where Cobalt and Violet had made their introduction earlier, and when I looked to her, I saw a glare that could have ended Zephyr far more gruesomely than before on its own. "And perhaps I won't put you down again. I don't know where you got your hooves on the Alicorn Amulet and Sombra's horn, but you know they won't help you. Not over me." I had expected Zephyr to quiver at the sight of the mare who killed him all those years ago, but he seemed to instead relish in her arrival: he turned to her with a grin touching his ears, and he gestured to me with a single hoof. "Release her? As you wish, my loving mentor." Zephyr was one to talk of cliches, because I knew where exactly where I was going next, and it wasn't safe on the ground. Sure enough, I was quickly flung behind him further down the hallway, but I didn't travel long before I hit the tile and skid across it for a good few seconds. The impact was far harder than when I'd hit the wall the first time Zephyr threw me, and to my own dismay, I felt my limbs losing feeling and saw a ring of darkness slowly overtake my vision. "No..." I muttered, desperately fighting my eyes as the closed on me. "Not... now..." Celestia and Zephyr were talking. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but their words were the lullaby that put me to sleep. The first thing I noticed when I awoke was the stark white walls of the room. The second thing I noticed was the pain. Every breath I took shot a sharp jolt of it through my chest and into my left shoulder and back area. It was excruciating, and any attempt to lessen it resulted in shortness of breath. Upon looking down, I saw a white bandage wrapped around my chest, and it only served as a reminder of my very last memory. Zephyr! Celestia! I had no idea what happened, but I quickly reminded myself that I likely wouldn't be laying down in what appeared to be a hospital bed if Zephyr had won. No, I was recovered and placed here, but with the pain in my body and a blank space where a memory should have been, I preferred answers sooner than later. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait. The door at the front of the room opened after just a few minutes, and a pony with (interestingly) a dark red coat with a mane and tail of the exact same color walked into the door. She had a white uniform on, and a clipboard hung at her side engulfed in a hot pink aura. She was preoccupied with it when she walked in, and she had turned around to close the door again, so when she turned to look at me for the first time, she stopped in her tracks. "Ah, you're finally awake," she said, absolutely no hint of shock or surprise present in her tone. "I'm Doctor Scarlet. How do you feel? Are you coughing, by any chance?" I didn't know how talking was going to be, but I managed it through the sharp pain as I replied. "Really bad. The entire left side of my body is on fire. No cough, though." Doctor Scarlett gave me a warm smile, and she trotted over to my bedside and pulled up a chair from the corner of the room via magic. "That's good. You broke a rib and punctured a lung at some point during your fight, and we had to surgically remove the air and a bit of blood from your chest. You woke up in between the time you were knocked unconscious and when we operated on you, but I doubt you remember that." I shook my head to confirm her suspicion, but I made sure to immediately fire off the million-dollar question. "When am I going to be okay again?" I asked her. I felt a sigh of relief when that warm smile returned to me, and the doctor glanced over at her clipboard before replying. "The healing process was rather easy to speed up with magic since you didn't tear anything. We fixed the broken rib and made big strides on the lung, so I'd say three or four weeks. You're free to walk around, of course, but unless it's a life or death situation, I wouldn't be looking for combat until then, obviously. Is there anything I can get for you?" I nodded curtly, and I stared at the wall above me to distract myself from pain. "Yeah," I told her. "Get me Princess Twilight." Twilight looked good as new when she walked in. Her boot was gone -- I suspected she'd shed it when the lights went out -- and the general glow of her figure was probably quite the comparison to what I assumed was a ghastly form on my part. That worried look she seemed to always have on her face persisted, however, and I couldn't help but chuckle at the expense of my comfort when she sat down beside me. "I'm fine, Twi," I told her immediately. "I'll be fine in no time. but I need to know what happened. I didn't quite catch the end of it, as I'm sure you know." She nodded, and it was her turn to flicker a wry smile as she started. "Well, I already told you, but you were a bit out of it," she joked. "Zephyr's confrontation with Celestia didn't last long: he assured her he had what he needed, and he teleported out of the castle like he did in the Crystal Empire. I found all the elements safe and sound, and we were making our way to you guys when the lights came on. Sakura is okay, but she's in the next room over nursing her wounds. We checked Celestia's chambers, though, and the Zephyr's diary Celestia had was gone. That must have been what he was after." That made sense: Celestia had indeed mentioned what he was wearing on his neck during our battle, and it seemed as the relics had boosted his dark magic tenfold. His diary contained his work, too, and if he wanted to replicate any rituals, that would be the place to find them. The talk of Zephyr brought something else to my mind, though, and my eyes widened as I looked to Twilight frantically. "There's something I need to tell you," I told her. "I mentioned that the other students were here as well to him, and... he had no idea, Twilight. I think he was just as surprised at his resurrection as we all were." That was enough to send Twilight reeling back, and she shook her head vigorously at the news. "No, no, no. That's impossible. It makes too much sense," she began. "The ritual, his motives for Chrysanthemum, our connection as students. It's... it's not him?" I could feel a hint of frustration in her voice, and I didn't blame her. We had seemingly started on the right track towards discovering why this was all happening, and to be stripped of that progress at the apex of the problem was more than discouraging. I shrugged -- a mistake, as it sent another shot of pain up my body -- and once I was done wincing, I looked to her again with what I knew to be somber eyes. "And what about Melody? Please, please, please tell me you found her." I could feel a nausea building in my stomach when Twilight immediately shook her head, and she looked to the floor as she replied. "We... we couldn't find Melody. She just left. We don't think she took anything, as far as we know, so her motives in pretending to be Starlight are still up in the air. Which leads me to the last thing... " A few tears started to roll down her eyes, and the gesture let me know her next news would be far from good news. "We sent out a search party for Starlight," she began, her voice breaking up with each passing word. "And we don't know where she is. And I've been sending letters to ponies in Ponyville and Spike and ponies in Canterlot and... and nopony knows. And I just hope, Celestia, I hope, that somewhere, she's, oh--" "She's alive," I told her curtly. "I know she is. We'll find her, Twilight." I had partly assured her to calm her down, as her tears had evolved into a full-on fit of crying, but I also believed my own words. Starlight Glimmer was a force to be reckoned with in all stages of her life, and I knew well that Melody Waltz would regret the day she ever laid a hoof on that mare. I rested a hoof on Twilight's as she cried, and upon feeling the contact, she looked up from her bout of sobbing. "We're gonna find Starlight," I told her. "We're going to stop Melody. We're going to stop Zephyr, too, and we're going to solve this mystery. You know how I know?" With a look of defeat in her eyes, she stared at me with a face pleading and begging for anything through a well of tears. "How?" she whispered. I chuckled and removed my hoof from hers, placing both of them behind my head as I looked to the ceiling once more. "Because I've fought you," I told her. "And Zephyr didn't tornado me eight feet through the ground." Along the edge of the castle, two guards had walked silently across the hallway. Rubble from the fight had littered this section of the castle, and although the castle servants had cleaned up most of it, very small pieces could still be seen here and there. "So all the thralls just... collapsed?" One guard asked, his eyes darting from wall to wall to asses the damage. The paintings and vases seemed unharmed for the most part, and he took time to admire them as his partner spoke. "Yeah. They've got some doctors looking at them now, but... they're gone. They couldn't fix them at the Crystal Palace, and we've tried just about everything we could here. Celestia's making a public speech about the incident today." The guard nodded as he scanned the walls emptily. He had quite a few friends stationed with the castle garrison under the Sunspears, and the city guards always used to tease them about "getting it easy". No one could have known the horrors of what would end up occurring in the Princess' own domain, however, and the thought that some of Equestria's finest had been turned to husks so easily left a numbness in him that could not be quelled. They walked in silence until they reached the very end of the long hallway, but as they were just about to turn left to head down the backside of the castle, the guard stopped in his tracks. "There's a painting missing here," the guard said, pointing to a spot on the wall. A barren, dark square graced the wall next to another work, and upon further inspection, it appeared to be the only space on the long wall that wasn't occupied by an art piece. His partner waved it off almost immediately, however, already beginning to round the corner. "Eh, it was probably ruined in the fighting and the servants removed it. I'm sure they'll replace it soon with something else." The guard continually stared at the empty space, letting his partner's words run through his mind as he comprehended them. "This isn't anywhere near the debris, though. It's... you know, you're probably right. I'm just paranoid, I guess." Taking one last look, the guard followed his partner around the corner, and the two of them trotted in silence as they continued their round of the castle. Probably just nerves, he thought to himself. What would somepony this powerful want to do with a painting?