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// Lost in the Maze 
// Story: Heir to the Throne 
// by Arkantos 
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Sunset, in the Canterlot gardens, said, "This is a statue of the great Lord of Chaos Discord, and believe it or not, he could rip through reality itself." 

Both groups from Ponyville and Cloudsdale uttered a small, "Oh?" But Rainbow Dash said, "He doesn't scare me! Let me at him!" Sunset heard but ignored her. 

The two groups moved on and soon Sunset’s job was done. Shining Armor took over  leading the two groups. 

Sunset started to walk back to her home but she saw four fillies heading straight into the hedge maze. She rolled her eyes, for it was her job to make sure no pony got lost. So she ran to them.

Before she could stop them, they went deep into the hedge maze and she lost them. She then wandered in the maze herself, hoping to find them.

"Rarity, why in the world are we following?" asked Applejack. 

"Hush, darling." Rarity said. "I'm being expired by, well, I don't know what it is, but I’m sure it can help me to be more inspired, and I think it went this way." 

The farm pony said with a worried look, "Well, I hope you know a spell to get us out of here because I think you got us lost." 

Before Rarity could say anything back to her buddy, she and Applejack entered the part of the maze where Twilight’s statue was and before the farm pony knew it, Rarity was appreciating the lifelike statue. But Applejack was getting uncomfortable just looking at it.

"Uh, Rarity? I don’t think we belong here." She continued, saying, “And I don't like that statue, so do you think you can stop admiring it?" Rarity gasped and said, "What? It’s just a statue of an Alicorn filly. And why would princess Celestia keep a good statue from the public? I mean, it’s not like..."

But she stopped suddenly, because she started to feel the dark and stormy emotions that were coming from the statue. 

Rarity said, "I think it would be wise to move along now." And with that, the two fillies ran back the way they came. But in the shadows, two purple venom eyes were watching them.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy where following a pony with an unusual look on his face. He looked very worried.

They followed him, but not too close, for if he saw them...well, Rainbow hated to think of the punishment she and Fluttershy would get. They were not supposed to be this far from the group. Rainbow suddenly stopped, because the pony known as High Blood had stopped.

The place where he stopped was unusual. They were in front of a building with words above the door that said Canterlot Catacombs, but he wasn't going into them. Rather, he was talking to another pony. This other pony spoke in a French accent. Both Rainbow and Fluttershy remained silent and listened to the conversation.

"This is just great! We lost the only thing that could stand up to an invasion! So now what?" exclaimed High Blood. 

"There's no way that Celestia did it," said Quiz Lamoni, "and there's no thieving pony. They’re too busy grabbing useless, shiny Items in museums." He thought for a second and continued."But we got some weird reports in several smaller towns; someponies complaining about nightmares."

Most likely on the same night the armor suddenly disappeared. High Blood thought about it. snap

Without warning, Fluttershy accidentally stepped on a twig from the hedge.  High Blood and his companion started to walk over to where the two pegasuses were, but Rainbow Dash thought quickly and grabbed her friend, bolting away.  They got several miles away before slamming into Applejack and Rarity in the maze. Rainbow Dash was the first to shout, "Hey! Watch where you’re going!"

Applejack promptly replied with, "Don't you pegasuses know to look to make sure you don't go crashing into other ponies?" 

Rainbow retorted, "Not when I’m flying so fast I can't see! When I'm going that fast, everything becomes a blur! So you tell me when you go as fast as me and manage to not see things in a blur! You call me when that happens!"

But as Rainbow helped Fluttershy up from the ground, she realized that she had gotten her and her friend completely lost. 

"So, do you know how to get out of here?" 

Applejack said, "I was trying to figure that out myself. Do you think you could just fly up and point out the way to the exit?" 
Rainbow scratched her head and said, "Yeah, about that, I used a lot of my magic for my dash and for carrying another pegasus." She used her wing to give Fluttershy a pat on the back as Applejack helped Rarity. Applejack said, "But I thought you pegasuses could move clouds and manipulate the weather and fly into the sky with no problem?"

Fluttershy replied, "Well, the adult pegasuses can, but as fillies, we have a limit to our magic. I mean, it would be like me asking you to do all the spells that an adult unicorn could do"

"Well, went you put it that way," said Rarity. "I didn't think to see it that way." 

Then Fluttershy continued, "We pegasuses need to learn the techique used by the adults." Then the yellow pegasus went to hide behind Rainbow’s back.

Applejack said, "Well, I guess we should walk back together."

As soon as they got out of the area, they became even more lost. A couple of seconds later, Sunset made it to where the four fillies had crashed into each other and saw no ponies there, so she made her way to where Applejack and Rarity ran out and came to where the statue of Twilight would be.

She entered the clearing and saw a couple of statues she did not recognize.. She was wondering who these ponies were and why they were hidden away, but she sensed a feeling of dread in the air and she didn't like it. She saw the statue of Twilight. How did she know that name? She read the plaque on the base of the statue.

"Well, it looks like they’re not here, and I don't blame them. I mean, who in their right mind would stay here around all these creepy statues?" She then started to walk out, back into the maze.

However, as soon she got into the maze, the world got dark really quickly, and it wasn't long before she was in complete darkness. Sunset lit up her horn and saw six sets of armor that she had never seen before. They looked like Celestial Solar Guard armor, but with a color mixture of dark purple and dark blue, a small highlight of silver, and on the chess piece where the sun would usually be, there was a full moon.

Sunset tapped on the armor lightly, but as soon as she did, all six of them suddenly started pouring out smoke from inside, smoke that took the former of a pegasus. Sunset looked into the helmet of the armor she had tapped on. There was no pony inside it, but instead, there glowed two purple venom eyes which stared at her. She backed up quickly and the smoke suits of armor drew their swords and prepared to attack her. She tried to run away and out of the maze, but her exit was cut off by a wall of bones of ponies. She backed away from the wall even more quickly than she had backed away from the smoke suits of armor, for in the wall of bones were many pony skulls with the same purple venom eyes glowing magically in the skulls sockets. 

Sunset used her defense magic, creating a ball of fire and shooting it at the smoke suits of armor. The smoke cleared and the suit that got hit collapsed into a pile of regular armor. She prepared to cast an ice spell, but stopped because the other suits of armor were backing away as if  they were commanded to. Then, from the area she had walked out from, she saw a cloaked figure emerge. 

"Who are you!?" she yelled, but the cloaked figure just zoomed by Sunset. She turned around and saw a dagger poking out from the bottom of the figure’s cloak, dripping with blood. She then looked down and saw that her side had been gouged by the dagger.  The cloaked figure started to remove its hood, but then, quite suddenly, Sunset woke up, sweating profusely. She knew she had been having another nightmare.  

Sunset then remembered the reason she was out there in the first place and she continued her search for the four fillies that had gotten lost.

As soon as Sunset got out of the area filled with shadows, Twilight said to herself, "So, Celestia has a prize pupil. Oh well, it does not matter. Be assured, Sunset Shimmer, we will see you again.." And she lit up her horn and the magic aura went over Warpath’s ax. Twilight did a magic scan on the ax, but it was just an ax with a disintegration spell on it. She felt that if she were to hold it, she would be gone forever. However, the magic that had cast the spell on the ax seemed to be similar to the magic of an Umbrum.