The grey skies clouded over the city, casting it in it's long shadow. The roads were lifeless, without so much as a rumble or hum of a vehicle's motor. The sidewalks were cold and empty, with wet autumn leaves floating down upon the cold gravel. The tall buildings of downtown Equestria were devoid of color and life, standing tall and grey, as the raining clouds began to drift over. The concrete buildings were set between the long winding roads, and could hide many a secret alleyway or two.
And that is exactly what princess Luna was hoping for. In the dark alleyway behind a red brick cottage, she peered around the corners, surveying the desolate streets. Her lavender eyes darted from one side of the street to the other, flinching at the slightest sign of movement. Finally, Luna exhaled, pulled up her dark violet pull-over hoodie, and hid her face from the harsh winds as she went across the road. Rushing down the roads, her back hugging the wall, and peering around every corner. Ducking behind a small, dark pickup truck, parked right outside the main entrance to the tall, rectangular building, that read with the bold words: "Town Hall", Luna checked both the small backpack she had, as well as her surroundings one more time . Peering through the windows, the dimly lit building provided poor visibility for her. Luna could only make out the subtle, small movements made by the few other people cooped up inside. Scanning her environment quickly, she opened the door with as much dexterity and stealth as possible, and closed the door behind her with only the small creak of the large, oak doors closing shut. Lifting the heavy wood-bar to enforce the door, she turned to the people inside.
"Is everyone accounted for?" she asked delicately, turning to the people inside the barricaded building. The dark building lit up with a deep violet light emitting from the dark orbs of pure magical energy that Luna was forming at the end of her fingertips, reflecting off her darker violet skin. Despite the orbs being only the size of baseballs, when she let the orbs float up into the air, the entire building was lit up with an angelic, white light. Long shadows were cast over the empty desks, and onto the group of people huddled together inside. People of various shades of red, yellow, green, and grey collectively slipped out of the shadows, meeting the violet princess. A low clamour of voices collectively gathered around her, greeting her. She took off her backpack, and handed it over to one of the older members in the group there.
"I brought some food,"she said,"but only enough for us to survive for about two days, even if we ration as little as possible."
The man nodded and said, "I will do the best I can. Thank you, Luna."
Luna gave a small nod back. "Your services are always helpful, Mr.Cake."
Mr. Cake nodded to his wife, and the two crept cautiously back into the building, where the meal they were cooking was just about to be done. Luna looked about all the other people, who continued to simply stand around idly. In a sterner tone, she raised her voice, but not loud enough for her words to reach outside.
"Has anyone seen princess Cadence?" she asked. In her mind, Luna was worried sick about the princess in training. With Cadence's pregnancy reaching its end, and the child expected to be delivered within the next week, the princess of the night knew that if the situation didn't change drastically, the child would not last for long.
One of the younger members of the group - a short boy with a chubby freckled face and orangish skin- tugged on Luna's jacket.
"She's with Shining Armor, in the meeting room," he whispered, in a high, crackling voice.
Luna nodded, motioned for him to return with the group, and walked into the hallways of the town hall. She turned left and went down to the third office on her right, knocking twice gently on the door.
"Come in," came a voice from inside the office. The voice was deep, yet fairly youthful, without being too coarse. Luna peeked into the room before entering it swiftly and locking the door behind her.
On the couch that was put snuggly in the corner of the dark room, was a young woman who was peering behind the curtains which was drawn, only glancing back at Luna for an instance. Her eyes were a light emerald green, contrasting with a pale but rose skin tone, and one hand pulling back the curtain ever so slightly, while the other protectively covering the unborn child in her womb. Alongside her was a snow-white toned male, with short blue hair that barely touched his ears, and stopped at his chin-level. His eyes gleamed blue, and his body frame was wide from shoulder to shoulder, but narrow in the way that made him look frail somehow. No doubt due to the lack of food that was available, not that he had the appetite to eat anything at the moment.
"Shining Armor?" Luna asked. The man turned, and sighed.
"What is it?" he asked, with the same voice he used to respond to her when she was outside. Now that she was in the same room as him, Luna could hear the worry in his voice, and got the sense that he was putting up an act of strength that was clearly falling apart. Not wanting to dig too much into his personal struggles (she already had a good idea of what was bothering him), she straightened herself before the captain of the royal guard.
"I need more information on the situation. How bad has it gotten?" she asked.
Shining Armor sighed, shaking his head in frustration.
"What do you think?" he asked gruffly. "I've sent my best scouts and infiltration teams, including Flash Sentry, to the main castle building hours ago, and they still haven't reported back to me. I trained them to at least inform me of their position every 30 minutes, unless they already told me they would be going dark."
Shining Armor was no stranger to fearing the worst, but this time his eyes were filled with both unfaltering rage and unshakable dread.
Luna looked over at the office table, as Shining walked slowly over to it, with his head tilted down in front of him and with both his hands scratching his hair. On the table was a map of the city, with the streets and landmarks labeled. Some thirty or so pins stuck out of it, each pinned at various locations, and some tied together with string. A two-way radio lay next to it, with the dials have been adjusted to minimize the low and faint but noticeable sound of static.
Shining Armor's weapons lay next to the map. A long two-edged sword that curved down the middle, and had a deep groove along the edge, to where the blade appeared to be two blades stacked on top of each other. A round shield, red and rimmed with bronze metal, embroidered with a silver charging unicorn, lay next to it, with the same two-layer design. Though the sword was quite large, almost five feet long and half an inch thick at its greatest, the shield eclipsed the sword in size, with its diameter longer than the sword and it's hilt.
As Shining stood at the table, staring at the map with his left arm across his chest and his right hand over his mouth, Luna followed Shining's gaze to a certain blue pin on the map. The pin stuck right over an image of Celestia, smiling and waving to an off-image crowd, still looking young and beautiful as ever...
The picture immediately made Luna tear up slightly. Looking at the picture again, her mind immediately went back to her sister and the fear that she may never see her again. Luna's memories flashed through her mind, recalling when they were younger, Luna had thrown a tantrum after a rather heartbreaking break-up. Celestia had come to her side to comfort her, and all Luna did was tell her sister to go away forever. She never forgave herself for that. Celestia was always there as her light and older sister, since the day they could first talk. Even after all these years, she didn't ever stop thinking of ways to repay her for her kind words that day, despite her sister's outright refusal to believe it was warranted. Every time, Celestia would smile exactly like how she was doing in the photo on the map, but with even more sweetness and sincerity to Luna.
Luna missed Celestia. Her worry for her sister kept rising, and would keep rising until they found her. She sincerely hoped "they" meant her and the others who wanted her to return safe and alive.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Shining Armor picked two united pins on the map and tossed one of them into a box of other pins. He twirled the second one between his fingers while eying the map, before throwing the pin like a dart with enough force to embed itself into the map and table. The pin landed on an intersection of roads south of where the palace was located.
"There," he said, as Luna approached the table. "That's where I dropped off my scouts before I had to rendezvous with Cadenza and take her to safety," he continued, briefly glancing at his wife on the couch, who only very quickly broke her gaze outside the window at the sound of her name.
"Luna, I think we both know what it means when a team drops off so close to the target, and they don't respond for that long."
"Shining", said Luna softly, "we don't if they... if they're... dead." She fumbled over the last word.
Shining stared hard at the map, huffed, then looked back to Luna, then to Cadence, then back to Luna.
"I'm not risking any more men than I already have, Luna," he said, his voice beginning to ever so slightly turn angry. "We still have zero idea as to who started the attack, or even what they look like, or what they want ..."
Here he turned to Luna. "Unless you have anything to add? Did you see what happened? Any details? Anything?"
Luna shamefully shook her head in response. "Once I heard the alarms, and saw my sister surrounded by cloaked people and screaming for me to run, I ..."She paused.
"I bolted out of there without even a second thought. Next thing I know, the whole city is up in arms and crying for her blood, as well as mine..."
Shining listened to her words cautiously. It did line up with what little he had heard from others and his own experiences. The unexpected alarms blaring, followed by the people wanting Celestia to be "held accountable for her crimes", which was followed by the report from one of his soldiers of a certain case of jewels being stolen. The people became anxious, calling out for Luna to tell them where her sister was, threatening her if she didn't tell them....
If it wasn't obvious at this point, the situation only escalated from there.
Shining, however, was not going to take any more chances. He nodded, sighed, and then reached for his sword, directing it's tip towards Luna's neck. Luna winced, and Cadence turned around in a state of panic and fear upon hearing the sound of the metal slicing through the air. The sword hummed, then produced an ethereal blue glow along the groove of the blade.The blood through his veins began to glow as well, producing the same haunting blue glow through his skin, while the skin around his hand which gripped the blade was glowing almost white.
"Shining, what on Earth are you doing?!" Cadenza yelled, panicked and shocked.
"Give me one good reason to trust you," said Shining Armor, his gaze unbroken and harsh. "You expect me to believe that you were the only person who saw Celestia at the time of the incident, then bolted out of sheer cowardance, without so much as even bothering to look back at the people attacking her?" he growled.
"You're not exactly convincing me here."
Luna paused, not moving despite the blade centimeters away from her neck.
"You weren't there," she responded defiantly, "You didn't see the energy pouring out of their bodies."
Shining's eyes showed glimmers of hesitation, but shook his head, shifting his body to a more comfortable position.
"I don't see how their aura have anything to do with your inability to even try-"
Luna cut him off, "Shining, their auras were not normal. They were much more chaotic, uncontrolled, like an ocean in the middle of a thunderstorm."
Shining huffed, unable to confirm or refute her claims. Luna continued, "I've only seen that kind of aura once before, and that was with...."
She gulped. "When she turned for the worse," she finally said.
A dead silence filled the room. Not a single person dared to say her name. It was a bad memory to Shining, a traumatic one for Cadence, and a painful one for Luna.
"Shining", said Cadence, who got off the couch slowly as her husband Shining Armor and Luna rushed to her side. "We're all confused here," she said, with a hint of knowing pain in her voice.
Shining looked at Cadence, then to Luna, who stood there silently.
"Which is why," continued Cadence, turning to her husband and standing up, "we should still wait and see if anything comes up-"
"Don't give me that crap," said Shining, who sat Cadence back down. Cadence clearly wasn't pleased with being cut off like that, puffing her cheeks in frustration. Shining got up again, grabbing his white shirt that was covered in dirt, pulling it over his head, and sticking his thick arms through the arm holes, before grabbing his sword and shield and the scabbard. Securing the heavy weapons on his back with the straps of his armor, he turned to Luna.
"Luna, now that you're here, I'm going out to check out the palace myself. Look after Cadence for me," he said, heading towards the door. In response, Luna stood up, and vanished before Cadence in a small flash of violet light, before immediately appearing before Shining Armor with the same type of flash. She put her hand on the door handle, blocking his exit.
"Shining, just listen to us," said Luna, Shining shoved Luna to the side, or at least, he tried to. Once he put his hand on her shoulder, Luna grabbed his arm, and used her foot to throw Shining off balance by sweeping his front foot. Shining stopped for a moment, stunned, but proceeded to throw Luna over his shoulder and slamming her onto the ground, causing a huge "thump" sound. Shining raised his fist to knock Luna out, right before Luna raised her hand in a clenched fist, several inches away from Shining's neck. Her hands shone with blackish-purple light, producing a white smoke-like wisps that enveloped around her entire hand and forearm. Within a blink of an eye, the wisp swirled and straightened itself, going from energy to gleaming metal, producing a simple but sharp dagger's blade between her index finger and middle finger. The dagger continued to emit the white smokey aura as the tip poked ever so slightly to Shining Armor's chin.
The two of them stared at each other, weapons gripped, but seeing that Luna clearly had the advantage, Shining was the first to let his sword hilt go. Standing up straight, allowing Luna herself to get up, he walked over to Cadenza, panicked and distressed at what just happened. Panting, Cadence allowed herself to take a breather as her husband kissed her forehead and lay her down on the couch.
"You can't stop me," he said. "I won't let anyone else die..." Here, his eyes grew distant, and his voice betrayed his hurt tone. Yet another painful memory that shone in the back of everyone's minds.
Luna looked at Cadence for a moment, who proceeded to sign in exasperation.
"Fine. You can go," said Cadence, who sat up slightly. "Just be careful, okay?"
Shining Armor was silent, considering her words. He put his hand on the door handle and took the radio with him.
"I promise I'll try," he said, almost half-smiling, and walked out the door. The two women watched as his shadow through the glass screens of the office room moved to the side before meeting with another shadow of a smaller figure.
"Evening, general," came a voice from past the wall, from the second shadow. The shadows passed each other again, once again the door opened. This time, however, Mr.Cake was the one who entered the room.
"Um, Luna?" he asked the princess, rather timidly. "We have a bit of a situation outside...."