//------------------------------// // By Cover of Night // Story: Friendship Is Magic - Extended Cut // by AdmiralSakai //------------------------------// (♫) Rainbow Dash spotted Pinkie Pie standing casually in the middle of the trail a split-second before the Lunars reacted- they could see better in the dark than Dash could, surely, but for that brief moment they must simply not have believed she was really there. “’Scuse me,” the baker said, trotting closer, “Would any of you know how I can get back to Ponyville from here? I’m kinda lost…” For a moment, it seemed as though the skinny pegasus in the helmet was going to step forward. Then her unicorn friend drew his blade and held it flat-side-out in front of her chest. “I do not like this…” Vortex muttered. They all just stood there for perhaps a second or two, the Lunar soldiers looking from Pinkie to Dash and then back again. From somewhere in the canopy high above, she heard Fluttershy call out “Go.” Rainbow Dash tucked her legs underneath her and hit the dirt. “Go.” Applejack charged out of the underbrush behind the party, hammer in her jaws and already swinging. Ignoring what sounded like an awful ruckus already taking place not too much farther up ahead, she barreled straight for the unicorn with the sword- who, as it turned out, proved to be none other than Foxglove’s guard, Smoky Mirror. It was, she supposed, next to impossible to actually take the wiry stallion by surprise, what with his head seemingly always on a swivel-mount as it was, but Applejack figured she’d just about managed it. The unicorn yelled something inarticulate and leaped sideways out of the way, his sword moving in the opposite direction entirely to slash across Applejack’s throat. The farmer bit back a curse. If she’d been wearing the same sort of armor Smoky himself was wearing and not the more modern Landsknecht gear, she didn’t have the slightest doubt that strike would’ve sliced her windpipe open. Even with the armor it still hurt worse than a drunken brawl with a hydra, but Applejack refused to let that slow her down as she wrenched her hammer out of the trailbed and wound up for another swing. By that time, though, the unicorn was already halfway back up the trail, blade swinging for the back of her head. Applejack twisted her neck and managed to turn the hammer’s motion into a desperate parry, then powered forward to close the distance between them. “Go.” Rarity pulled herself up onto the top of the berm she’d been hiding behind, and locked eyes with Twilight Sparkle on the other side of the trail. Before Rarity could even draw her rapier, the scholar had already fired some sort of force-spell that made a noise like a firecracker going off underwater, and swept out a cone about four yards long with an expanding disc of shimmering magenta energy. Much of it slammed into the berm beneath Rarity’s hooves and gave it a noticeable kick; what passed overtop left her with a low ringing in her ears and an awful, squeezing sensation just behind her eye sockets; but the two bat-winged Lunar pegasi on either side of the hunkered-down Rainbow Dash got far and away the worst of it. They had just made it into a low hover ahead of their bent-horned unicorn comrade when the wave hit them; now they flapped aimlessly in seeming confusion, Rain Chaser fumbling with her elaborate helmet as her leather-clad stallion friend flapped desperately to gain altitude, fighting against the magenta glow of Twilight’s telekinesis. Further back she saw Applejack charge out of cover and take a wild swing that missed her Lunar unicorn target entirely. Rarity lifted her rapier into a guard position and jumped up over the berm, ready to assist, when Twilight called out “Help, I can’t holdhim!”. The tailor twisted around mid-gallop and added her telekinesis to Twilight’s own, gritting her teeth against a surge of feedback as the bat-pegasus thrashed and flapped to get free. She considered lifting one of the odd, vaguely squarish stones that dotted the path to throw at him, but it was taking all of their combined force just to keep him from climbing any further- whatever else she might have said about those bizarre, bat-like wings, they were certainly extremely strong. She spared a look at where the other Lunar pegasus had last been standing and saw that the bat-filly was gone. “Twilight? What about Rain Chaser? This wasn’t part of the-” she shouted, before the sound of rattling armor cut her off. On the other end of the trail, Pinkie Pie and Chaser were rolling around on the trail in a tangle of armor, hooves, and lurid-pink tail. “Wait, which one’s -guh- Rain Chaser?” The baker asked, before continuing to slam her hooves into the other mare’s face and chest. “Wait, which one’s -guh- Rain Chaser?” Fluttershy didn’t know the answer to that question and, in all honestly, didn’t particularly care. She glided down from her perch in the branches up above whisper-quietly, her greenish-brown cloak almost invisible in the shadowy forest, and slunk through the melee more or less completely unnoticed. Rainbow Dash was, for once, doing exactly what she had been told to do, which was to stay low and keep out of the way, and thanks to the rest of Fluttershy’s companions the Lunar guards were nowhere near her. She was tracking the melee with barely-contained jealousy, but when she saw the other pegasus her mouth dropped open. “F-Fluttershy?” “I’ve got you, just hold on…” As she fiddled with the ropes binding the weathermare’s wings, Fluttershy realized that whichever Lunar had patched Dash up hadn’t done a particularly good job. There were still smears of dried blood on the end of her muzzle, judging by the depth of the portions Fluttershy could see the wound on her right hock should really have been poulticed instead of just bound, and at any rate the cloth it was wrapped in was saturated with blood and starting to come loose; perhaps more dangerously her wings had been bound far enough behind her for so long that there was some risk of tendon injury. Finally the ropes were unknotted, and as they slipped free Fluttershy cast an appraising look at the astral steel shackles wrapped around Dash’s hooves. They looked far too sturdy to stand much chance of forcing, and she didn’t have the key. “All right, it looks like I’m going to have to try to pick those locks. Try to hold still just a little longer, okay?” Rainbow was already struggling to her hooves, however. “Doesn’t matter, I can still fly!” “Wait, no, you-” Fluttershy reached out a hoof to hold her friend back, but it was already too late. Rainbow flicked her wings forward, then howled in pain as the left one failed to stop at full extension. The smaller pegasus was at her friend’s side in an instant, struggling to pop Dash’s wrist back into joint as the weathermare quivered and nearly chewed through her own lower lip in her struggle to stay quiet, but it was already too late. “The prisoner! And -oof- and another!” The bat-pony that was wrestling with Pinkie Pie called out in between strikes. She managed to slip above the larger mare and free her wings from where they’d been pinned, immediately swinging them down and using the hooked joints to draw deep cuts against Pinkie’s shoulders. The baker yelped and lost her grip- just for a moment, but that was all it took for the Lunar to wrench herself free and dive towards the still-grounded pegasi. Fluttershy was only dimly aware of somepony -it might have been Rarity- yelling “Look out!” behind her, far too late for it to do any good. “Look out!” Rarity yelled, but she knew it was far too late to do any good. She could see her rapier shining on the ground where she’d dropped it, not very far at all from the path Rain Chaser was taking towards Dash and Fluttershy. She could, even at this range, lift it up and do some serious damage, or she could keep her hold on that frightening purple-clad one, but Rarity knew very well her own limits. She couldn’t do both. “Terribly sorry, Twilight.” She reached out with her telekinesis and yanked her blade upward, twisting it sideways in the air with all the force she could muster. It skittered across the armor on Rain Chaser’s shoulder and down on under her wing, scarcely injuring the bat-pegasus while sending a spike of force-feedback knifing through Rarity’s horn that set the unicorn’s teeth on edge, but it had done its job. The Lunar cried out in a mixture of surprise and anger as she spun off course, hoofblades carving long furrows in the Everfree mud as she struggled to push herself back up from a full-on collision. She’d not gotten within a yard of Dash or Fluttershy. By that point, though, Vortex was already long gone. As soon as the telekinetic pressure on him had become anything less than completely immobilizing, his entire body goggles and all had begun to fade away and become insubstantial, and in under three seconds he’d simply evaporated into thin air. “Dammit!” Twilight shouted, and began hurling bolts of pure force one after another- at Rain Chaser, at Smoky Mirror’s armored figure far off down the trail, and at the bat-winged shadow that flickered maddeningly between the trees just out of easy visual range. But she was rapidly beginning to realize that having studied the structure of kinetic bolt spells well enough to cast novel variations in her sleep, and actually hitting another pony who moved fast and stayed out of direct line-of-sight, were two very different things. After a few seconds she had to stop, as the ache underneath her horn developed to the point where concentration was impossible, and contemplate the fact that the entire engagement was going sideways extremely quickly. “Marvelous display, Darling,” Rarity called out from across the trail, making a strangled little nnh! noise when Rain Chaser seized the opportunity to swat the unicorn’s rapier back out of her telekinesis. “Just a suggestion, but if you opened your eyes you’d be able to see it too!” “Gonna be a while, Ah’m afraid!” Applejack yelled from even further away. “This slippery varmint just won’t stand still!” “Hey, you’d better be careful!” Rainbow Dash added, Fluttershy still struggling to set her twisted left wing,“That purple guy can… I dunno, turn into smoke or somethin’!” “Rainbow, it would’ve been very nice to know that before he’d just done it!” (♫) “Look out!” Somepony called out, far behind Applejack. It might have been Rarity, or it might have been Twilight Sparkle. It didn’t particularly matter, because at the moment there was precious little the farmer could do to help either way. “Gonna be a while, Ah’m afraid! This slippery varmint just won’t stand still!” She yelled, by way of explanation, and then took another swipe at Smoky Mirror for good measure. Her hammer wound up doing quite a number on the tree right behind where he’d just been, but as usual by that point the stallion himself was already long gone. She’d managed to graze him a couple of times before now, and he was sure as Tartarus going to feel the bruises in the morning, but that was the extent of it. Applejack was not as dumb as a lot of ponies took her for. She knew full well the bent-horned Lunar unicorn was trying to run her around and tire her out; then wait for her to slip up. What she was reasonably sure he didn’t know in turn was that between the enchantments on her hammer, the enchantments on her armor, and her own admittedly limited ability to draw strength from the ground under her hooves, it’d take a good long while before he’d even put a dent in her stamina. If it came to that, and privately she hoped that just maybe it would, Applejack was entirely capable of keeping this up all night. The farmer knew she wouldn’t be much use against either of the bat-pegasi, especially that scary flying cloud, and she also knew that if she let an experienced swordstallion like Smoky Mirror get anywhere near Rarity or Twilight, they were as good as dead. So she was fine keeping him occupied until somepony could help her properly pin the bastard down. She reared her head back and made a wide, powerful, and most importantly obvious swing for his chest, hoping that he’d duck under it just like the last few times she’d tried to power directly through his guard. She flicked out a forehoof to strike at where she was expecting to find his unarmored chin, but somehow he knew to stay put this time and refused to take the bait, slashing along her ankle for good measure. It hurt, of course, but that was nothing new. She tried to circle around him, shoving the handle of her weapon towards his head five or six times from different directions to try to goad him into the underbrush, but under the sort of fine telekinetic control Applejack was used to seeing only from Rarity his blade flipped, twisted, slid, and effortlessly parried each and every blow. She was already bleeding for a dozen cuts through the gaps in her armor- which was why she absolutely could not stop moving. She couldn't afford to pause for breath, even for a second. Then he could slide that blade straight through her visor and be done with her. It really wasn’t any different from what she was trying to do to him, just with speed and precision replacing her overwhelming blunt force. He was smart; she’d give him that, and it’d be a damn shame when she ended up pancaking his skull. Applejack felt the steam from her breath building up inside her helmet, the blood pooling in her sabatons from the dozens of tiny nicks she’d sustained on her legs. It hurt, but all her life she’d trained herself to push through the pain until her job was done. This was no different. She didn’t even realize that the entire time Smoky had been leading her further and further away from her friends until she heard Twilight Sparkle swearing a blue streak about something and had absolutely no idea what it was. Pinkie Pie scampered underneath one of Twilight Sparkle’s big, lens-shaped shields, a ball of lightning scorching a few of her tailhairs as it exploded directly behind her. The claw marks dug into her shoulders were annoying, to say the least, but she was reasonably certain they were just flesh wounds- which, if she was being entirely honest with herself, most injuries to her were. She’d hurt herself worse than that by running into furniture before. She’d be fine. Taking advantage of the brief protection her friend’s spell was offering, Pinkie produced a good-sized rock and hurled it right back along the path the lightning ball had taken; but, of course, the stallion who had produced that lightning was no longer anywhere nearby. It wasn’t that his movements were random- Pinkie had a damn good handle on randomness, after all, and if that had been the case she’d’ve been able to nail him every single time. His flight was purposeful, but whatever logic directed it was effectively impossible for her to grasp. That, or he was just doing that stupid thing where he turned into smoke and became effectively untouchable for some indefinite period of time, which as far as Pinkie was concerned should really be considered unsportsmarelike conduct. The Lunars would probably just call it being ‘clever’, though, and insinuate that everypony else was a sun-blind idiot for not having spontaneously developed ephemerality themselves. She was, at least, lucky enough to be looking right at him when he came in for another pass, which was good because Twilight was staring in the other direction entirely and would have been absolutely no help at all. She tossed another projectile at him, and he actually had to dodge this time, although all that gave Pinkie Pie was the chance to slam into Twilight and push her out of the way of his lightning bolt. The mage cried out, surprised, and the spell she’d been charging fired off sideways to strip the leaves from a tree that was nowhere near either of the bat-winged pegasi. It was only then that Pinkie Pie realized Twilight’s shield-and-spellwork had been gradually edging the two of them closer to where Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were still hunkered down. She produced a smoke charge, one of the little quick-popping ones that Rainbow Dash had ordered about a month ago and subsequently lost interest in, and hurled it to the ground about a yard ahead of them. It detonated immediately, enveloping the two mares in a thick white cloud. “Pinkie, what’re you doing?” Twilight demanded, “Now I can’t see, and-” The first bolt of lightning struck a good three yards from their position. “C’mon!” Pinkie set off at a full gallop right for Fluttershy’s hideout, the sound of Twilight’s rapid, desperate panting the only confirmation she needed that the mage was following along behind her. Lightning spells incinerated the foliage around them but Pinkie didn’t let that slow her down, ducking and weaving in a complicated pattern that nonetheless always brought them closer to where she wanted to go. Then they were out of the smoke cloud and charging full-out for the natural dugout where the pegasi had taken shelter, Vortex- for the moment- far behind them at the other end of the trail. Then something else shot overhead, fast and dark and making the telltale snap-snap-snap of leathery wings. “Oh, no,” Twilight muttered, “That filly’s coming around for another pass…” Rain Chaser saw the mage and that scrappy mud-thrower running for the prisoner, but she didn’t care. She was a leatherwing, one of Princess Luna’s finest. She was faster than both of them combined. Skimming just above ground level she adjusted her course slightly, aiming for the prisoner herself- as Captain Vortex had nearly learned the hard way back in town, the armored mare was almost certainly a much greater threat than the upstarts’ quiet little healer should she make good on her escape plan. Her hooves met solid ground again and Rain Chaser charged forward, one bladed wing held out at neck level ready to slice. That was when the healer stepped out in front of her charge and looked Chaser dead in the eye. The Lunar pegasus skidded to a halt in spite of herself. In the six months she’d spent fighting against the Sun-Tyrant’s army, Rain Chaser had personally killed four different ponies. Three hadn’t known there was a blade headed for their throats until it was too late; the fourth had cursed and spat as she struggled to free herself from the wreckage of a collapsed watchtower, and then died promising Chaser would pay for her treason a hundred times over. She’d never seen a Solar just stand there and look her in the eye. “Well?” The healer asked, then shook her head. “You don’t have to do this.” Rain Chaser was a leatherwing, one of Princess Luna’s finest. She’d flown a pallet full of blasting-crystals all by her lonesome to the Solar garrison in Manehattan to earn that honor, and then lain in the back of a wagon for six days with nothing to do but feel her skin stretching and wingbones shifting in order to make good on it. She could hardly back out now. She raised her blade again. “B-by my oath to Princess Lun-” The Solar mage struck her from the other side with a beam of pure force that knocked her off her hooves and sent her rolling to an undignified stop in the underbrush easily four yards away. Pinkie had gotten Twilight to where Dash and Fluttershy had gone to ground, and for that the scholar was eternally grateful. But she’d still come up empty for ideas as far as the problem of that one leather-clad Lunar pegasus was concerned. If they were going to get out of this mess, and quickly, before one of the other Lunars could break off and call for reinforcements, they’d need to do something more than just hold him off- and even that was proving to be a tall order. “Shield, blast, blast, shield…” Twilight muttered, trying to find any sort of a rhythm or pattern to the way he was flitting about up above and strafing them. Her amniomorphic shields – a magical innovation of Starswirl the Bearded’s that had been largely ignored at the time of the Rebellions and only fully realized three centuries hence– were more than proof against the stallion’s lightning spells, and shooting at him at least temporarily forced him to let up in his assault, but he was getting bolder and more direct with each passing second. “Shield, blast, blast, blast- dammit!” A bolt slipped through the space where her shield by every right should have been, and lanced across Fluttershy’s left foreleg. The pegasus cried out and fell to her haunches, shaking and struggling to rise as the Shadowbolt circled around to finish what he’d started. Before he could make it, however, Rarity jumped up from behind the berm on the other side of the trail, grabbed Fluttershy in her telekinesis, and hurled her bodily under the next shield in Twilight’s pattern. “I can’t see Applejack any more!” The white unicorn called. “Whaddaya mean you can’t see Applejack?” Twilight shouted back, then for the first time since their struggle had begun thoroughly searched the area around their dugout and realized the farmer was nowhere in it. “This is bad… this is really bad…” Rainbow Dash muttered, searching unsuccessfully for any weapons left in the pouches of her now dented and bloodied armor. Twilight stopped focusing on the pattern of her shields, throwing out a new and larger dome that would hold just long enough for her not to have to worry about it. She spotted the other Lunar pegasus just pulling herself to her hooves in the underbrush four yards away. She spotted Rarity’s sword, still lying unattended and largely unnoticed in the middle of the track. She had a plan. Twilight’s telekinetic abilities had always been strong- clumsy, certainly, but strong. She knew that she could easily kill the stumbling Lunar soldier with that sword… but a dead mare wouldn’t be much help against her two more experienced fellows. So Twilight decided to make her help. She waited for the Shadowbolt to realize her shield wouldn’t break immediately- it took him two more lightning strikes and a head-on physical charge against it, which was more effort than Twilight had anticipated and enough to leave her nauseous and dizzy, but then just as she’d predicted he broke off his attack and winged his way over to Rarity’s less obvious but more vulnerable position. As soon as his back was turned, Twilight grabbed the rapier in her telekinesis, shot it through the air, then twisted it in place and stabbed it cleanly through the leathery membrane of the fallen bat-mare’s left wing. For a humble farmer, Applejack was certainly a lot more adept at violence than Smoky Mirror had expected. At this point he felt he’d have an easier time breaking down a curtain wall with a field knife than genuinely besting the Solar loyalist, but that wasn’t necessarily his job. So he fell back on his training, let his body and blade move without thought, and focused on keeping himself – and his squad – alive. Then, from somewhere a good twenty yards or more back the way he’d come, he heard young Rain Chaser scream in agony. “Ruttin’ mage just stabbed me! I am- agh, that hurts…” Immediately, Smoky reversed course and leaped back the way he came, slashing and parrying madly to ward off Applejack until his blade was at the very edge of where his telekinesis could effectively support it, struggling to buy himself even a few seconds of breathing-space. “Private Chaser!” he called out, “What has become of thee?!” Her voice seemed to come to him from a great distance, unsteady and slurred, about to break down completely, “Pinned… pinned my wing… they are… all around me… I cannot… Captain… anypony… please, I need help!” Smoky yanked his longsword back towards him just in time to prevent another hammer strike from either breaking it or knocking it away where he’d never be able to find it again. He slammed the flat of his blade into the sun-addled farmer’s neckplates once more, aiming to stun because he knew it was currently impossible to do any more damage, and then dashed back the way he came. In the thicket where they had been ambushed, he couldn’t see any of the Solars, but he could see their hoofwork plenty well enough. Private Rain Chaser was crouched on her haunches on the edge of the trail, her left wing held out at an awkward angle and pinned in place by a slim silver rapier. As the Lancepesade watched, vaguely appalled, Chaser struggled to twist her neck around far enough to grab the handle, gasped in pain once again as the movement put additional tension on the delicate membrane of her wing, and then after a few seconds more of struggling let her head flop forward onto the ground, glassy-eyed and panting. “Hold fast, Private!” he called out as he bolted forward, “I shall-” He never got to finish. From behind the berm off to his left, a white unicorn in a duelist’s harness abruptly materialized, horn already alight. He spun in place, raising his blade in a guard position… and then the mare hurled a globe of mud and greenery directly at him, completely engulfing his weapon and slipping past it as more or less a single cohesive entity. Smoky reeled backwards as the projectile slammed into him, seeping through the joints of his armor and the visor of his helmet to cover him in foul, sticky Everfree mud. He stumbled, blind and suffocating for a horrible moment before his telekinesis found the catches on his helmet and yanked it off, backing away by reflex as he coughed and wiped at his eyes. When he could see again, the unicorn was running at him, a dagger that matched the silver rapier held in her telekinesis and already heading directly for the gap between his legplates. Smoky jerked away, barely managing to avoid a strike that could easily have hamstrung him, but the mare was impossibly nimble and he still felt cold metal slide across the bone of his right pastern. He stumbled, thought of Rain Chaser still trapped, now somewhere behind him where he couldn’t see, grit his teeth against the pain and forced himself to stand. When he looked up again, Applejack was standing next to the white mare with her hammer in her teeth. He held position and picked his blade up from the trail where it had fallen, painfully aware that now he was fighting two of the Solars. “Ruttin’ mage just stabbed me! I am- agh, that hurts…” The bat-pegasus that Rarity had identified as Rain Chaser thrashed and struggled in the Everfree mud, one wing pinned in place by a silver rapier. Twilight Sparkle was briefly reminded of a bug on a piece of corkboard; then she was surprised by just how little the comparison bothered her. “Private Chaser!” a stallion’s voice called out from deeper off the trail, “What has become of thee?!” “Rarity…” Twilight muttered, just loud enough that she could be sure she was heard, waving her hoof at the tailor’s hiding-pace on the other side of the trail, “Get ready.” A flash of purple mane was her only acknowledgment. “Pinned… pinned my wing… they are… all around me…” Chaser continued, “I cannot… Captain… anypony… please, I need help!” Fluttershy stared at Twilight, aghast, and began to step forward. Twilight brought a hoof up to the pegasus’s chest. “Wait for it…” On the trail below Rain Chaser struggled to free herself, before collapsing back down on the trail. Twilight had meant to stab her with the hilt facing towards her tail, to make any escape impossible by simple anatomy. As always her telekinetic control hadn’t been quite up to the task, but given that the transformed Lunars did not, in fact, show a significantly elevated tolerance for pain it had ultimately been unnecessary. “Hold fast, Private!” the Lunar stallion who had disappeared with Applejack came galloping out from cover, “I shall-” Rarity wrenched a collection of earth from the berm she was behind and hurled it at him; she charged after him as soon as it hit and both ponies disappeared back into the underbrush. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash both stepped forward to join Fluttershy, eyes narrowed. Twilight shook her head and started scanning the canopy up above. “Wait for it…” “Somepony, anypony… please, I… I do not want to die out here…” Rain Chaser sobbed. High up in the canopy, something foggy and iridescent slithered out of the shadows. It drifted towards the stricken bat-filly with agonizing slowness, seeming to wrap around the rapier’s handle of its own accord. Then very rapidly it started to define and solidify, collapsing back into the form of a stallion clad in purple leather with the handle clutched securely in his jaws. Twilight unloaded another kinetic spell square in his side, with enough force to toss him half a meter back. He cursed, Rain Chaser howled, and the blade ripped out of her wing and spun away over the berm on the other side of the trail. The Lunar stallion immediately rallied, grabbed his comrade around the barrel and pulled into a steep climb, but with her weight to carry and the possibility of fading back into the ether removed, he was just that critical bit slower. Most of Twilight’s spells and Pinkie Pie’s missiles still missed him- but not all of them. When Rain Chaser wriggled out of his grasp a few seconds later and split off in the other direction, he was flying with a noticeable list to the right. (♫) Struggling to ignore the searing pain in her left wing, Rain Chaser flapped hard to gain altitude but could only manage to maintain a low hover. Her earlier fear had all but deserted her, replaced with a far more familiar vicious outrage at seeing Captain Vortex tricked by that Imperial mage- tricked, no less, with herself as bait. If she died to cover his escape, then so be it, but she was at least taking a few of those sun-blinded dogs down with her. She twisted her head side to side, searching for a target. She thought she saw a flash of brilliant pink amidst the trees and lurched in that direction, but when she looked directly at it there was nothing left- not even hoofprints in the mud. “Show thyself, coward!” She called out, disgusted at the tremor she could still hear in her voice. “Hey, so, does that mean you didn’t like my entrance?” The earth mare replied from somewhere behind her. Rain Chaser wheeled about and snarled, finding herself face-to-face with the Imperial for the first time since she’d carved up the pony’s sides- but now, somehow, they were both in the air. “Well, I guess it was either that, or… ‘Surprise!’” Something hard and metallic slammed into the back of the bat-filly’s skull, and then her wing wasn’t hurting her any more. Only out of the corner of his eye did Smoky Mirror see Rain Chaser break free- he couldn’t spare the attention from his task of defending against the two mares in front of him. He could only afford to consider the event at all because it meant that the slim white one’s rapier wasn’t stuck in the ground any more; if she realized that and got ahold of it, his situation would become even more untenable. Gaining ground was out of the question; it took all of his skill and stamina just to hold them off in a fighting retreat. He heard voices in the distance, Chaser’s and another mare’s, before Chaser abruptly fell silent. He didn’t dare speculate what had happened to Captain Vortex. He ducked and parried, hunting desperately for an opening that would give him the chance to disengage and flee. He found none. Something shifted in the bushes behind him. He didn’t dare turn around. If he had, he might have had a chance to avoid the full-body tackle from their blue pegasus prisoner… but probably not. The two ponies flipped over and slid across the leaf-litter, armor scraping on armor. The pegasus batted away his weak right hoof, jabbing for his throat and starting to press on his windpipe. Eyes watering and vision going faint at the edges, Smoky reached out telekinetically for his blade- and found, to his surprise, that another field already had a hold of it. He struggled against what could only be the telekinesis of the white swordsmare for a good few seconds, even as the fuzziness behind his eyes intensified and he could feel the energy of his own horn trickling away to parts unknown. Then something very definitely solid intervened and plucked the weapon out of his grip; to where he couldn’t tell, and somepony who sounded vaguely familiar was saying, “Now, now, Rarity, you already got yer own…” Lancepesade Smoky Mirror had been fighting other ponies for a very long time, longer than he could really care to remember, it seemed, and he was very, very tired, and the weight on his chest and neck were extremely heavy, but at least he was warm and his belly was full. He let his eyes drift closed, sure that when he opened them again he’d be back in his cot by the fire, and maybe be able to get down another bowl of broth. “I commend thee for thine cleverness, mage, even as I wonder about thine morals,” the Shadowbolt’s voice filtered down from somewhere in the canopy, “Mine oath forbids me from letting thine little band take me alive, but before I… confess that I thought that a pity. Now, my doubts have quieted.” Twilight Sparkle stood stock-still, out in the open, horn pointed skyward. A bolt of lightning lanced down from above, and stopped short a foot from her head against the smooth dome of an amniomorphic shield. Its job done, she let the shield dissolve, and fired a stunning-bolt of her own back the way it had come- this time, unlike her previous two attempts, she was rewarded with a strangled cry of pain. “There you are…” The Shadowbolt came tumbling down from whatever branch he’d been perched on in a cloud of displaced leaves, managing at the last moment to turn his fall into a glide and pivoting directly for her. Had he been uninjured, he might even have made it. But even at this distance Twilight could see the awkward angle he was holding his right wing and the blood trickling from his ear, and his descent was far too slow and his flight path far too linear. She wrapped him in the tightest telekinetic field she could manage, and held him in place. “So… mage… am I to become the bait… in thine next trap?” He asked, thrashing ineffectually against her field. “Or will… my fellows in thine town… receive mine hide… sliced to ribbons… as an example of what happens… to those who stand against the Tyrant’s rule?” “Hold still,” Twilight hissed, then gathered herself and spoke more clearly as she started to pull his frantically-kicking body towards the ground. “Hold still and let me bring you down here and I won't have to hurt you.” Just as she’d anticipated, his form began to soften and fade, losing its details and going hazy around the edges. In her telekinesis he felt more like some sort of gel or thick fluid for a few seconds, then not much of anything at all. Almost immediately the wisp of purplish vapor that had just been the Shadowbolt shot upwards out of her grasp, making for the treeline- and then slammed into the interior surface of the perfectly spherical, airtight shield bubble she’d been preparing the entire time he’d been taunting her for just that purpose. The whole structure pulsed on an odd, syncopated low frequency as soon as the mist came into contact with it, but it held- which was more than could be said for whatever spell was responsible for the Shadowbolt’s incorporeality. He resolidified rapidly from the point of contact backwards, and hit the bottom of the shield with a meaty thud, and after a moment of gasping surprise began scrabbling against it with hooves and wings. “What? Stars, what is this, I cannot…” “Stop thrashing around in there,” Twilight ordered, “Take off your wingblades, stand in one place, and I’ll put you on the ground.” “Nay… nay…” "Stop moving." He ignored her and continued his squirming, so she simply made the shield smaller. He had to hunch up with his wings wrapped around his barrel now, where before he’d been able to extend them almost fully. “Stop it,” she ordered again. “Twilight? What are you doing, you got him!” The scholar acknowledged, and ignored, Rainbow Dash standing directly in front of her, and kept her focus on the shrinking ball of force above her. That bat-winged freak had done more than enough damage to her and her friends. She wasn’t about to endanger them again just because she couldn’t keep her focus. “Stop it.” "Let me go. In the name of the Sun and Moon I beseech thee to let me go…" The stallion appeared to be hyperventilating now, but Twilight didn’t think she had the time necessary for him to exhaust the air in his bubble and suffocate himself into passivity. More aggressive measures were called for. “Stop it.” She constricted the sphere again, shuddering when she felt something snap. His howl of pain only confirmed what she already knew. “Stop it.” “Twilight, that’s horrible, you’re killing him…” Rarity stammered, looking from the trapped Shadowbolt to Twilight and back again. “Stop it.” She continued to contract the sphere, feeling a hip, a shoulder, another wing dislocate. “Through the benevolence of Our Luna I am reborn,” the stallion repeated, over and over again, “Through-the-b’nv’lence-of-’r-Luna-I am-reborn…” “Stop it.” He was banging his head against the shield, now, or at least he had been before Twilight had taken away the room required to pull his neck back. “Stop it.” “Twilight, you got him, that’s enough!” Fluttershy said. Twilight looked down from the sphere, just for a moment. The five mares from Ponyville were staring back at her- at first she thought they all simply looked uncomfortable, which was understandable. Not every pony off the street had the mental fortitude to do what she was doing, even if it was in the immediate best interests of those same ponies. She thought that maybe they might have been surprised, which also made sense, given the novelty of the methods she was using. Then she realized they weren’t looking at the shield and its captive at all. They were looking at her, and they were all disappointed. “I’m sorry,” was all she said, before she dropped the shield to the ground and let it dissipate. The pony inside stayed curled up more or less the way he had been for just a moment, before he flopped onto his back and began pulling in long, shuddering breaths that gradually took on the quality of coherent speech- “Luna, oh, Luna…” Twilight trotted over to him, pressed her horn to his forehead, and muttered a quick sleep spell. She looked up, conscious for the first time of the fact that wherever it wasn’t covered in mud or leaf litter, her tunic was entirely soaked through with sweat. “Is… is everypony okay?” she asked, as soon as she had the breath again to speak. In front of her, the five townsponies slowly and carefully lowered their weapons. One by one they nodded. (♫) Fluttershy broke ranks first, her healer’s satchel clutched in one wing, and almost immediately their odd, impromptu skirmish line dissolved into a few loose clusters. “Can somepony please get these shackles offa’ me?” Rainbow Dash called, and a moment later Applejack was at her side. There was a sharp clang of metal giving way under immense force, and then the blue pegasus was laughing and staggering around as she tried to stretch her legs. “You really should let me close that wound on your leg,” her saffron friend muttered, “Wouldn’t want it to scar or anything…” “You kidding? I’m gonna look badass with a scar like that!” “Oh, darling…” Rarity cut in, “We both know you’ll just get all broody over it, like you did last Hearth’s Warming.” “What happened… last Hearth’s Warming?” Twilight asked. “She got into a fight with Rarity’s tool rack and lost,” Pinkie Pie answered, as though that was the only explanation required. “Land’s sakes, Fluttershy!” Applejack hissed, “Stuff some nettles in there while you’re at it, they’ll at least seem like no big deal!” “I’m sorry…” the healer stammered, almost sub-audibly, “The herbs will staunch the bleeding and hold off any infection. The burning means its working, but, I'm sorry, I'll stop." “Well Ah reckon Pinkie Pie could use ‘em more than Ah can, seein’ as she’s got some kinda’ problem with wearin’ armor…” “It’s simple, really! Haven’t any of you ever heard of armor penalties? The less I wear, the harder I am to see!” “Harder to look at, maybe…” Rainbow Dash muttered. “Pinkie, darling,” Rarity explained, a bit less quietly, “Your coat is day-glow pink, and I’m surprised Nightmare Moon couldn’t see that mane of yours from orbit.” Feeling strangely left-out of their good-natured bickering, Twilight turned to the unconscious Lunars. They looked a lot less threatening now that they were laid out helpless in the mud; less like something out of a fever dream and more like actual ponies- and thin, patchy-coated, rather small ponies at that, even the youngest among them sporting her fair share of scars. “Rarity?” Twilight called, remembering that the tailor had also managed to avoid serious injury, “Do you… think you could help me bind these guys?” “Would you believe that’s not actually the first time a pony’s requested my services in that department?” the white mare asked, her primly arched eyebrow at odds with her generally battered condition, but she trotted over regardless and began quickly assembling a set of crude manacles from the rope in her saddlebags. While that project was underway, Twilight rifled through the Lunars’ own equipment. She discarded their weapons first and foremost. Smoky Mirror’s sword proved to be worn but serviceable- iron, of course, since he predated the Bessemare process and cheap steel by a good five centuries, but the finest grade a commoner would likely have had access to. The Shadowbolt’s wingblades were of much finer quality even than that, genuine if impure steel stamped with the insignia of what Twilight guessed was a defunct branch of the Cloudsdale noble families. They would’ve fetched quite a lot of money at auction, in fact, if their user hadn’t seen fit to batter and scratch them to within an inch of usability. The quality of Rain Chaser’s iron blades was much poorer, to the point where Twilight wondered if they’d originally started out as wingblades at all and not a pair of side-mounted scythes or similar piece of agricultural equipment. She carefully replaced the battered tin canteens and the few tiny cloth bags of dried oats each Lunar carried, noting with chagrin as she did that Chaser’s canteen still held a stamp of the Solar emblem under a crude layer of black paint. Next, she briefly fanned through the small wood-bound books she’d found- discovering them to contain mostly woodcut illustrations of smiling, slit-eyed ponies at work and play under starry night skies, a great many portraits of Princess Luna, and few if any words- before replacing those as well. The runestone she located on Vortex which matched Applejack’s description of the one Foxglove had presented was quickly taken for later analysis. Finally, she extricated an iron nullifier ring from one of the Shadowbolt’s pouches and slipped it over Smoky Mirror’s horn. Contrary to popular belief, nullifiers were not a direct application of earth pony magic, nor any active magic at all, although they had first originated in the Confederacy of Earthshire and some of their components were alchemically produced. The rings were hollow, and shards of crystal were suspended within them in a solution of mineral spirits with nearly the same density- thus making them neutrally buoyant. Any external magical field excited the crystals and caused them to circulate chaotically; pressed up against a magical organ like a unicorn’s horn, pegasus’s wing, or earth pony’s hoof, that feedback effectively prevented any sort of coherent spellcasting. A quick telekinetic probe revealed to Twilight that the shackles with which the Lunars had bound Rainbow Dash had been constructed with a similar mechanism- still not yet routine in the late First Century- although Applejack’s unique brand of concussive lockpicking had rendered them inoperable. As soon as all three soldiers were properly bound, Rarity looked back to Twilight. “Now what do we… do with them?” “Do with them?” Pinkie Pie shrugged, “Can’t we just leave ‘em for somepony else to deal with when we’re done saving the world?” Applejack shook her head. “We all just splashed a lotta’ blood around, and made an awful lotta’ noise. This here’s the Everfree. If we leave ‘em out here in the middle a’ that, without weapons or even any kinda’ light, they’re gonna get ate.” She stepped a little closer to Twilight and looked the smaller mare in the eye. “If… that’s what we’re really set out to do… somepony might as well just go ‘round and slit their throats while they’re out and be done with it. It’d be… cleaner, that way.” Everypony seemed to balk at that suggestion, which Twilight supposed had been Applejack’s intent all along and also to the rest of the party’s immense credit. The scholar fished out her much-abused map and theodolite. There were a cluster of four Cairns nearly equidistant from their estimated position not far away, spaced in a rough arc, but when she examined the nearby beacons she found only three and a roughly double-wide gap between the second and third. Either everypony at that Cairn had already cleared out… or the Forest had made sure they’d never woken up to begin with. “No, no, I’ve got another idea,” she said aloud, “Fluttershy, do you think you can get those soldiers walking?” The little yellow pegasus didn’t answer for a few seconds, chewing contemplatively on one of the strands of her mane. Then, “Yes, I… well, at least I think I can, but… if it’s all right with you… they got hurt pretty bad and it’ll be easier to take care of them while they’re still unconscious.” Twilight nodded. “Sure.” Fluttershy immediately busied herself bandaging the transformed ponies’ various cuts and scrapes, even managing to repurpose the rope immobilizing Rain Chaser’s wings into a very effective binding for the compress she applied. Up close the sword wound in her leathery wing looked both painful and dangerous, and its owner looked very young indeed, and Twilight registered a brief pang of regret at what she’d put the filly through. The metal plate lying next to her bent muzzle was rather more difficult to process, and Twilight shot Pinkie Pie a confused glance. “Whaaat?” the baker asked, “Applejack always does swear by her cast-iron pie pans…” By the time Twilight had finished attempting to wrap her head around that statement, Fluttershy had gotten the bat-filly secured again and had moved on to Vortex. She splinted and bandaged as best she could, but the Shadowbolt had suffered mostly magical impacts and crushing trauma- even Twilight could tell that more than a few of his bones were broken, and there wasn’t really much that could be done to set them in the field. The pegasus trickled a few drops of some malodorous sort of potion on the ground in front of his muzzle, then tilted her head as though surprised that nothing further had occurred. “Could you, maybe… lift that spell you put on him?” She asked. “Well, technically, yes, but then he’d have to go back into the bubble again, and he didn’t take that well to it last time. It’ll wear off in an hour or so on its own.” Ordinarily, simply binding a pegasus’s wings in close to his body effectively neutralized any spellcasting capacity he might have possessed, but the Shadowbolt’s bizarre ability to become incorporeal wasn’t anything Twilight was even remotely familiar with. She wasn’t taking chances. Fluttershy rolled his head to one side with her hoof, eyeing the nasty swelling along his jaw. “He’s probably better off unconscious anyway.” “So… who’s gonna move him? ‘Cause… I guess it might as well be me,” Rainbow Dash suggested, “I guess I owe him that much.” “Don’t worry, the other Lunars are gonna take care of him,” Twilight said, as Fluttershy repeated her administration of the aromatic potion for each of the ponies in question. This time the effect was more obvious. Smoky Mirror groaned and rolled onto his haunches, eyes gradually sliding open; Rain Chaser bolted upright, screamed in inarticulate fury, and charged forward at Twilight before quickly ending up back on her barrel in the dirt. Gently, Rarity and Twilight lifted the both of them back to their hooves. On their hooves they stayed, shifting around and looking awkwardly from one another, to the Ponyville mares, to Vortex and back again. (♫) “Imperials…” Smoky Mirror finally said, almost growling. “Woke us up to read one last sanctimonious speech ‘ere our heads come off, hmm? Well, be on with it, then.” Rainbow Dash quickly glided forward. “No, no, that’s not right at all!” The Lunar unicorn seemed to look right through her. “Hmmph. That mage of thine would do it, I think.” He rolled his head towards Vortex’s supine form, “She has already mostly finished with the Captain. So, please. Spare us the indignity of parading us around this damnable forest. We are ready.” Beside him, Rain Chaser was starting to hyperventilate, shivering hard enough to rattle her armor as tears built up around the edges of her slitted yellow eyes, and when Smoky looked over at her his expression took on a complicated mixture of sadness and warmth. “Well, I am ready, at least,” he finally finished. “Calm down,” Fluttershy said, “We’re not going to hurt you.” “T-t-t-t-then what of… Vortex,” Rain Chaser finally stammered. Twilight looked her in the eye and tried to muster the same tone she was used to using to talk undergraduate students through dangerous magical rituals. “He’s just under magical sedation- asleep, like he’d been given a draught. It was the only way I could keep him from hurting himself any worse trying to fight us.” Smoky Mirror seemed unconvinced. “Then… what is to become of us?” Twilight looked to the others, and they nodded back to her. “You’re going to follow us to shelter- another Cairn, an empty one. We’re going to leave you there until a search party can come back and get you out of the forest safely. Now, that might be the lawful authorities, in which case you can expect to be brought back to civilization and given full medical care just like any other injured traveler, or it might be your own troops in which case it’s entirely up to them how they handle your failure, because we’ll be long gone.” “The Lunar Republic doth not kill our own fighting mares and stallions over such things,” Rain Chaser snarled, abruptly, “’Tis an excess solely of the Sun-Tyrant!” “They actually told you that?” Twilight asked. She supposed she should’ve been angry at the slander, but it was hard to muster anything other than bewilderment. “Look. When this is over, you and I are going to visit the locations where you think these massacres occurred. I’m willing to bet they’ve already been excavated, and there’s not a single body that… you know what? Never mind. They said the exact same thing about Princess Luna in the Solar accounts, and it’s just as unsubstantiated, and it doesn’t. Matter. Now. You three are my responsibility, and I’m going to make sure you’re treated decently to the best of my ability. Understand?” Even as Pinkie Pie and Applejack nodded in approval, the Lunars showed no reaction that Twilight could determine- then again, they didn’t resist, either, as Rainbow Dash and Rarity worked together to sling the unconscious Shadowbolt onto their backs in a dual firemare’s carry. Twilight was surprised to discover their armor, and Vortex’s in turn, was outfitted with exactly the sort of buckles necessary to secure a pony in such a position- something that in the modern Army and Royal Guard was reserved for dedicated field medics. The two Lunars bore their companion’s weight with obvious practice, and Twilight found herself wondering just how many of their fellows they’d had to carry in such a manner. Then, much to her own surprise, the Lunars started moving, and without any spoken signal the Ponyville party coalesced into a loose formation around them. Twilight, theodolite still held in her telekinesis, once again took point. For a few minutes, maybe ten, they walked in uncomfortable silence; nopony from the town had anything at all to say. Then, quite unexpectedly, Smoky Mirror sighed and looked around at the lot of them. “I… in another time, I would have surely loved to duel thee, Lady… Rarity, was it? And thou, Applejack. We… Our Sovereign could have used more ponies like thee… back when it mattered. All of thee, answe-” “Shut up, shut up!” Rainbow Dash abruptly snapped, and the Lunar stallion flinched backwards as though struck, “I am so ruttin’ tired of you yellow-eyed freaks trying to recruit us!” “Well, of course they’re trying to recruit us. They lost, remember?” Pinkie Pie cut in. Smoky didn’t seem unduly perturbed by the baker’s remarks, but he shut back up again just the same. “Hmph. Brave talk from thee now that we are bound and beaten,” Rain Chaser muttered. That seemed to embolden her comrade once again. “...But thee. Mage. Thou taketh joy in this, dost thou not? Thou art no mere scholar. I would be willing to wager thou hast the blood of the Sunslut herself in thine v-” “No.” Twilight had had enough. She rounded on the Lunar, theodolite hovering, temporarily forgotten, over her shoulder. It had, in fact, been only fifty years or so since Princess Celestia had last seen fit to take a husband, but her -admittedly rather numerous- mortal children were all carefully tracked. Twilight Sparkle knew perfectly well that she wasn’t any more related to her patron than half the population of the Central Mountain Dominon- not that Celestia would have allowed anything of substance to come of it if she was, for that matter; the Princesses did not play favorites. But that wasn’t what was bothering her. “No. You’re wrong. You’re both wrong,” she continued, looking over her shoulder and never once slowing her pace, “I don’t enjoy any of this. When you came after my fr- these ponies I’m working with, all I could think about was how to… neutralize the three of you as quickly as I could because I. Don’t. Want. Any. Pony. To. Die. Today.” She punctuated each word with a stamp of her hoof. “I… don’t know if any of you even remember what that was like, that there was a time in Equestria where ponies weren’t fighting each other to the death day and night, and… in this age, in the Equestria I grew up in… that’s normal. We’ve lived in peace for… hundreds of years, a thousand years, and… I want you and your comrades to be alive to see that, and I’m terrified that Nightmare Moon might take it away before you even have a chance! You understand?” “I am sure the view from the gallows will be breathtaking,” Rain Chaser murmured. “Nopony’s going to be hanging anypony,” Rarity said. “You’re… there was an amnesty, a long time ago… for rebels just like you.” “Well…” Pinkie Pie continued, “You did kidnap Rainbow Dash, and tried to assault the rest of us, but I’m sure this whole mess counts as extenuating circumstances and, anyway, you’ll earn your parole in, what, five years?” “Less, with good behavior…” Applejack muttered, then trailed off when Fluttershy gave her an odd look, “What?” “So… striking nobility is not a hanging offense?” Chaser asked, just as quietly. Twilight finally stopped walking, turned around, and ducked down to meet the Lunar filly eye-to-eye. “Rain Chaser… none of us are nobles, and even if we were… no. You’d never be hanged for harming us.” She stood up straight again and addressed them both. “This isn’t the Equestria you fought for any more, but it’s also not the Equestria you’ve been fighting against. It’s been a thousand years and the whole world’s changed. I’ll admit that I really don’t have enough information to properly compare, but… I’m willing to bet most of those changes’ve been for the better, and however much better it might’ve been back in its day, the Lunar Republic isn’t going to improve on that.” They started moving again. Twilight for the most part kept her eyes on the trail in front of her, but every so often she spared a look backwards to see Smoky Mirror’s jaw working back and forth, almost-but-not-quite able to form words. Finally, he spoke up again. “But… the Sun-Tyrant rules unopposed… thou may not knowest the difference, but…” Pinkie Pie rounded on the Lunar stallion then, her chubby features unexpectedly venomous. “Listen. How many times are we gonna have to pound it into your thick batty skulls that we’re. Not. Suffering? You were in town; you saw all the shops, and all the food and… stuff your own guys stole, right? Nopony’s hungry any more, and even I know that wasn’t true back when you were born. Did you read any of the newspapers? Do you really think a ‘Tyrant Celestia’-” here she waved her front hooves in a vaguely ‘spooky’ gesture “- would let them print so much stuff that made her look so bad?” “Your Princess knows all that,” Rainbow Dash continued, “But she didn’t tell you. Did she?” The Lunars just stared at her, soundlessly, their expressions growing more aghast by the moment. “She didn’t try to negotiate. She didn’t give anypony any time to even look around. She threw your lives away out here for nothing. For less than nothing, even, just… not even to make anypony rich, just to make the ponies in our town poor!” “How… how darest thee speak of Our Luna in such a manner,” Rain Chaser stammered, but it sounded almost perfunctory; the fire had gone out of her. Twilight kept moving. “I’m not saying you’re wrong about Princess Luna. Even though I’ve… frankly come to admire her, I never met the mare. If you tell me that Luna would never do what Nightmare Moon’s doing, then I certainly don’t have any reason to disagree with you. But you have to acknowledge what Nightmare Moon is doing, and… if she is, then… the mare giving you orders can’t be Luna.” There was a long, heavy, painful silence, for a minute at least. Sneaking another glance behind her, Twilight could easily detect the Lunars’ indecision; how Rain Chaser looked to Smoky Mirror, and Smoky Mirror looked to the unconscious form of Captain Vortex. Up ahead the trees were thinning out, ever so slightly, and the young scholar was just about able to make out the low, dark shape of a stone structure half-buried in the soil. They wouldn’t be burdened with these strange, anachronistic ponies for much longer, and Twilight was surprised by how much she regretted that fact. Then, as if sensing that same undercurrent of urgency, Applejack spoke up, her voice strained and earnest. “Y’all… listen. We can’t promise a lot; Ah don’t understand a tenth a’ any a’ this, and even Twilight ain’t much better off, but… If there’s a way to bring back Luna, the real Luna… if there’s any a’ the real Luna left in that Nightmare Moon… She ain’t our enemy. We’ll do what we can for her.” The Cairn was clearly visible now; its great iron doors open wide, unlatched from the inside. Twilight had, for a brief moment, expected to find rotten horrors and swaddling vegetation, but there were no signs of anything that had even once been alive. They all came to a gentle halt at the entrance. “Thou… thou wouldst do this… for us?” Smoky Mirror asked, quietly. Applejack nodded. “That’s the honest truth.” “Then… thou wouldst best know that Our Luna has indeed… not been herself for some time.” said the unicorn, “She has heeded the counsel of her generals less and less, and produced strategies seemingly from thin air. I had heard from one of the Captains that she speaks to herself near constantly.” “Do you… know when this began?” Twilight asked. “Aye. Not long after… not long after she began to resurrect our fallen,” said Rain Chaser. “That’s interesting. If she’s really mentally controlling that many revenants, she’d be experiencing intense telepathic feedback- I’m not surprised she’s behaving erratically, I’m surprised she’s able to function at all!” Smoky nodded. “Aye. All of our number who… survived guard thine town. Our Lu- Nightmare Moon’s court and guard are made up entirely of the dead. This struck me as strange as soon as I woke, but… now I believe I understand why.” “She holds court from the old Castle;” Chaser finished, “Only from there do the sending-spells come with our orders.” Rarity stepped forward and gave a small bow. “Thank you. Truly. I know this can’t be easy for you, but… helping us might’ve made all the difference.” There seemed to be nothing more to say. Twilight shot a brief pulse of magelight into the interior of the Cairn, revealing it to be as empty and desolate as the tomb it so closely resembled. Only against the distant rear wall did her magenta light catch the glimmer of silver. She stepped inside and the Lunars followed, closely accompanied by a wary Applejack and Rainbow Dash. “Listen,” the scholar said, “Helpful or not, I really can’t risk the two of you following us- you might interfere, or you might hurt yourselves. So… I’m going to have to cast a low-level sleep spell on you, like the one we used on Vortex.” At Twilight’s unspoken command, Dash and Applejack stepped around the Lunars, unbuckled their still-insensate Captain, and carefully slid him to the stone floor. “It won’t hurt, or have any long-term negative effects, or last more than half an hour or so, but… you probably don’t want to be standing when I cast it.” Rain Chaser looked to Smoky Mirror. Smoky Mirror looked to the unconscious form of Captain Vortex. Then he looked back at Twilight and nodded. With practiced ease, both soldiers lowered themselves to their haunches and rested their muzzles on the flagstones. As her friends looked on, Twilight knelt and pressed her horn first against Rain Chaser’s helmet, and then Smoky Mirror’s, watching their slitted yellow eyes slowly drift closed. Then she stood, slipped the nullifier off of the stallion’s horn, untied the ropes around their hooves, backed away, and pulled the iron doors almost-but-not-quite closed. “Do you… really think this is going to work?” Fluttershy asked. “I… don’t know,” said Twilight, “But I think it’s the best chance any of those ponies are going to get.” “Now we’d all best get movin’,” Applejack admonished, “We’ve been movin’ slower than a pack mule on a Friday night.” Rarity chuckled, Pinkie Pie shook her head, Rainbow Dash shot the farmer a particularly confused look, and on they walked.