Shining Moon was looking over a map of Equestria, when a messenger came into the tent. He saluted and snuck closer to his commander, whispering in his ear. Shining slumped in his chair. “How many cities?” he asked.
“All of them, except three. Las Pegasus, Manehattan, and Cloudsdale sir. And all three have gone on lockdown,” said the messenger bleakly.
“Any word from our spies there?” continued Shining Moon after a moment of hesitation.
“No, nothing but dead silence. Best case scenario they have gone into hiding. Worst case, killed or tortured for information of our whereabouts,” replied the messenger grimly.
“Thank you, please call in my second-in-command.” Shining returned to gazing at the map with despair. The messenger flashed him another quick salute and quickly trotted out. The unicorn ignored him.
“Dear Celestia. What are you doing, Nightmare Moon? Why act now? What are you playing at?” he mumbled, shaking his head.
A few minutes later, an ombre orange unicorn walked in and stood at attention. “Reporting for duty,” he said.
“Good, Brisk, you are here. Nightmare Moon is making her move. Crushing the hope and spirit of every single city and town in one fell swoop. I fear that our camp may be next. I want you to double our watches, keep our eyes open, and have scouts surveilling our perimeter twenty-four-seven,” commanded Shining.
“Is an attack imminent?” asked Brisk.
“Honestly, I have no idea, but we need to be ready if it is,” finished Shining, dismissing him as well.
He sighed as Brisk left. Standing up sluggishly, the stallion grabbed a mirror from one of his chests. Casting the scrying spell, helocated Moon Melody fighting alongside Solar Comet. The two battled two crystalized ponies clad in full black armor. A small smile returned to his face upon seeing his marefriend disarm one of her opponents. Deciding that it was probably a bad time to communicate, he would wait to talk with her and share the devastating news.
“Stupid ponies, can’t they see that Nightmare Moon has full control of them already? They are just puppets on a string, mesmerized by her power and wealth,” Dasher muttered just as she opened her eyes, staring blarily into the cloudy ceiling above her head. And I failed to convince them otherwise. What a waste of time and effort. Continuing to pity herself, she decided to forgo enjoying the city. Choosing the best way to punish herself, she opted for a long journey of flying back all the way to the Unicorn Range.
She knew she shouldn’t have pushed herself this hard to get back, but she didn’t care. With her hard gaze fixed on the horizon, barely making sure she was going in the right direction, Dasher continued with her self-deprecation. You should have tried harder. You could have done better convincing them. You just flapped your gums while Titanus Moon made his points. Maybe if you hadn’t gotten caught up in all the attractions, and dug deeper into their characters, you could have completed the mission successfully.
Spending all day talking to herself, laying blame after blame onto her failure, she continued. Eventually, towards the beginning of the night cycle when her muscles started to ache, she reached the familiar ground. Thoroughly exhausted, she didn’t even bother to check the area. Throwing together a rushed tent, she surrendered her misery to the sweet release of sleep.
“Ow ow ow…” she moaned the following morning as she rubbed her abused wings, momentarily forgetting her anger. “Okay, note to self, never do that again.” Lying back, she reviewed what she wanted to do that day. Option one, I spend the day making my way back. The journey will probably take much longer with sore wings. And I don’t really feel like returning and accepting my failure so soon. Alternatively, I could spend today relaxing, blowing off my duties at the encampment. I am sure everything will be fine when I return.
Choosing the latter, she got up and wolfed down a quick breakfast and began to exercise. Alternating between wing pushups, jogging around the area, and pull-ups with the help of a nearby branch that supported her weight, Dasher pushed her muscles. Yet as she was working out, anger began to boil up inside of her again. Seeing as how she was getting nowhere, she decided to let her anger out on a poor tree.
Punching it twice immediately gave her more inspiration to continue. “Stupid,” she punched, “politicians,” punch, “and their,” another punch, “stupid dilemas.” Turning around and giving the tree a good buck, something Applejack Moon had shown her how to do, she stomped off to another tree to continue her assault.
Three trees later, and covered in sweat, she collapsed. “Heh, look at me, mutilating trees,” she huffed out, panting. “I wonder what Flutter Moon would think of me now. She loved trees. I am sure this would have broken her heart.” Getting up, she felt that she was strong enough to fly, and began looking around from above for something else to do.
Spotting a few timberwolves and a manticore fighting over a fresh kill tempted her to fight them both. Yet the manticore reminded her too much of Flutter Moon, and she decided to stave off her attack. Growing bored, she fell back into the tendency of being lazy, grabbing a cloud and pulling it to rest above her campsite. Finding it infinitely better than her rough bed, she decided to take a quick nap.
Yet her sleep was interrupted by screeching below. Jolting awake, Dasher fervently looked around, making sure she was not under attack. Satisfied of no impending force, she briefly checked the time before gazing through the cloud to find what had disturbed her slumber. Seeing a large group of raccoons ravaging through her tent and packs, she gritted her teeth. Scrambling to get up, she broke up the cloud and descended. “Scram ,you vermin!” she shouted, shooing away the thiefs. Grumbling, she took stock of the damage. The perpetrators had taken anything of food value, running off with her cooking kits. Finding all of her bags ransacked, her papers torn into shreds and other gear with claw marks, she was glad to find that Flutter Moon’s scrapbook was undamaged. She sighed, flipping through to make sure each page was fine.
Chasing off a few more stragglers, Dasher sweeped the perimeter, hoping to find anything the filches had left behind. Returning empty hoofed and hungry, Dasher was mentally kicking herself for not securing her camp. Now with nothing to eat and still on adrenaline, she scavenged around, looking for anything edible. Remembering the raspberry bush, she was delighted to find it still held an abundance, and picked as many berries as she could. Going to bed hungry would be no fun, but she figured that a warm meal would be waiting for her back at the resistance camp.
Taking note of the familiar landmarks and the correct formation of trees, Dasher looked around as she flew on, eventually locating the clearing where she began her journey. She circled around and landed, plopping down on the ground. Nopony came to greet her. She waited, munching on a stray daisy before her muzzle, trying to figure out what to do next. Minutes ticked by as she lay there. Groaning, she got up and trotted in a random direction.
As she was passing a few trees, one in particular caught her eye. She would have normally breezed right past it, as it looked exactly like the others, except one key difference. While all the trees had been growing in one direction, this one was bent and faced another. Drawing closer and placing a hoof on it, she noted that the lines of bark on the tree seemed too perfect, like somepony had… Removing the hoof, she felt the familiar texture of paint on it. Duh.
Circling the lone tree, Dasher tried to figure out what she was supposed to do next, was she to buck it or knock? Opting for the latter, she thwacked the tree a little above the middle. With a resounding CLANG filling the area, an annoyed voice responded, “Alright alright, don’t get your tail knotted, who goes there? Is that you again, Moonshower?”
“Uh, actually it’s me, Dasher. I am waiting for entry to the camp,” Dasher said, surprised. “Excuse me, but are you a tree?”
“Don’t be silly, ponies can’t be trees. Unless of course, you were cursed as a tree, then I figure--” continued the tree, before Dasher cleared her throat in annoyance. “Huh? Oh yeah, entry code words?
“Requesting entry to the huggermugger. Access level three, and would you hurry up? I am kind of hungry,” Dasher commented, rolling her eyes.
“Yeah yeah, access granted. Please wait for teleportation,” completed the voice, before being cut off. Dasher could hear some bustling and creaking then... nothing. Tapping her hoof on the ground impatiently, she waited for something to happen. After a moment, she could hear a pop and a sizzle, and then felt the world fold in on itself.
Being spit back into reality, Dasher stumbled around, before a pony came over and supported her. “You are still alive! You are Dasher, right?” exclaimed the guard as he led her off the teleportation platform.
“Of course I am alive, why shouldn’t I be? Did something happen?” exclaimed Dasher, confused and a bit scared by his tone.
The guard's face fell. “Yeah, something big. Haven’t you heard? What was your mission?”
“Cloudsdale. What happened?” said Dasher, panic rising in her chest.
“Cloudsdale! That's amazing! If you were able to get out and live, maybe others have too. But I don’t think I should be the one to explain everything right now,” he continued, noticing her look. “You need to go report your mission to Commander Shining Moon, as I am sure he will be happy to see you alive.”
The guard turned without another word and quickly led her to the command tent. Looking around, she noticed that everyone’s face was downcast, few sat together or talked. Others were running around while supervisors were yelling louder commands that usual. She took note of the increase of ponies keeping watch on the walls of the camp, and the jitteriness they exuded.
She was just about to ask about the increase in security when they reached the command tent. Entering, she found Shining Moon standing next to an orange pony looking over a list of some sorts, too far for her to see. “Commander Shining Moon, sir! Dasher here reporting for duty after returning from her mission to Cloudsdale,” said the guard, a little too enthusiastically.
“At ease and dismissed. Brisk, may I have the room with Dasher please,” said Shining Moon, looking at the ombre stallion. With the guard and Brisk leaving the tent, Shining turned to look at Dasher. She saw pain in his eyes, along with bags under them from loss of sleep. “I am glad you have returned safely, Dasher, and I am sure you have many, many questions of what transpired while you were gone. But first, please tell me what happened in Cloudsdale,” he said.
Dasher went into a rapid-fire summary of the past few days’ events. Shining nodded his head when she talked about her dealing with the ophiotaurus, and equally shook his head when she spoke of her interaction with the leaders of Cloudsdale. “...and that's about it. But shouldn’t you already know all this?” she finished.
“Yes, but I wanted to hear your side of the story as well. I am sorry to find that your first mission was not successful. But don’t lose heart, as we have more precedent matters to attend to,” said Shining Moon, getting up.
“Just give me some food, and I will be ready for whatever happens. But I still want to know what happened, why is everypony so sad? Did we lose Moon Melody?” asked Dasher.
“Thankfully no, she is somewhat safe at the moment, I believe,” said Shining Moon, letting out a sigh as he glanced at the mirror on his table. “Though it is a little hard to explain, as we are still scrambling to find the full ramifications, but… well, I don’t know how to phrase this the best.” Looking up, he stared directly into Dasher’s eyes.
“Nightmare Moon has made a move to take control of the population. By brute force, she has taken every single foal between the ages of three to sixteen, to do Celestia knows what to them.”
Dasher froze, every hair on her back rose in fear. Her mind processed the information, but came up blank. She blinked a few times, then sputtered out. “What!?”