"Foals, all of them," muttered the black alicorn. Her guards were once again dragging away a petitioner who had annoyed her. The petitioners, guards, and servants had worn a clear path through the frost that now thickly adorned the throne room. Traceries of white crawled up the walls and a fuzzy blanket of tiny crystals covered the floor. Ice, pure and pristine, the perfect form of order, met her eyes almost everywhere she looked now. Everywhere except that path from the door to her throne. She frowned at the expanse of clear stone. She would rather have the frost. Perhaps she should forbid them to come here and speak to her at all.
But then who would worship and flatter her? Who would bring word of how much her subjects loved her eternal night? What was the point of all she'd done to grasp power if she never saw her subjects? She might as well be back on the moon. No! She'd fought hard to gain this power!
Her mind went back to those early battles. The strange unicorn that had tried to use the Elements of Harmony against her had been the first to oppose her, but there had been others as well. They were all dead now. Dead or enslaved... as all who dared stand against her should be!
For a moment she could taste the magic of that first death spell, and hear the thud of the unicorn mare's body hitting the floor. She had never killed before that moment.
The alicorn pushed the memory aside. The sentimental, childish part of her that had once been named Luna had cringed away from killing, with thoughts about such things as the value of life, wrong, and right, and justice. But Nightmare Moon was above all those. She had long since rid herself of all but the merest wisps of that weak foal Luna. Wrong was whatever displeased her. Right was whatever pleased her the most. The only justice was the justice she dispensed, the justice where those who pleased her were rewarded and those who failed were punished, which was exactly as it should be. And as for those who rebelled against her... death was what such stupid and flawed creatures deserved! But ponies were all stupid, all flawed, and with each passing day she despised them more. Messy, demanding, emotional creatures. Ice was so much better than any living thing. Her magic caressed a tendril of frost, once again tracing its curls and branches.
Perhaps she could make servants of ice.
Yes. Yes! Servants of ice. She was already working to weaken the sun, her sister's sun that she hated so much. And the weaker the sun grew, the stronger the ice would become. Someday perhaps all the flawed, stupid, messy ponies would be dead and frozen, and she would be served by perfect, pristine, elegant creatures of ice. She imagined that world, and she smiled.
Her horn began to glow. "Time to do battle once more, my dear sister. You have held out admirably for such a weakling, but now tormenting and draining you is more than just a hobby. It's my new goal in life."
She threw back her head and laughed.
"Here we are."
They had reached the fringes of Manehattan as the "daytime" stars were sinking and true night was arriving. The city was an unsettling mixture of normal pony life and stark reminders of the harsh reality of Nightmare Moon's rule. They had passed through the suburbs, where some houses glowed with light as ponies prepared for bed, and the occasional happy shout of a child still at play could be heard. But many houses, as many as one in three, were dark and deserted, and none of them had lawns or gardens anymore. Most showed some attempt to clear away the dead plants and put other things, statuary and sand gardens and beds of gravel, in their place. But many of the still occupied homes had the sad, rotten remnants of grass and flowers still moldering in their yards, a testament to crushed spirits who could no longer care enough to try and make their surroundings pleasant.
They had passed swiftly through the residential suburbs and into a commercial area, where Pinkie Pie led them straight to a deserted warehouse.
"The rebel base! Nopony ever comes here anymore, so it's safe. And we're surrounded by enough unicorns that you can do your magic now. Though a big enough spell might still get noticed by sompony."
"Scrying isn't a very powerful spell," said Twilight, looking around the dark room. She lit the tip of her horn, feeling a kind of relief to be able to use ordinary magic again. She hadn't realized how much she depended on it until she'd had to do without. "Now I just need something to scry in. We should have brought a bowl or something."
"How about a bucket?" Pinkie Pie dashed off, and returned bearing a battered tin bucket. The building turned out to still have running water in a grungy little bathroom next to the receiving office, so soon the bucket was filled and the four ponies were gathered around it.
"Should I cast the spell, or do you want to?" asked Twilight, looking at Luna.
"You go ahead. You know Rainbow Dash better than I do."
Twilight nodded. Her horn glowed as she constructed the spell. A moment later the image of a rainbow-haired blue pony had appeared in the bucket. She was standing in a stall, head down, looking listless. Twilight's heart lurched to see her like that. And with the harness off the full extent of her mutilation was clear. Broad scars ran down her sides, and there was no remnant of her wings at all. Her mane and tail were limp, the bright colors seeming to mock the horrors that Rainbow Dash had endured.
"Poor Dashie," said Pinkie, her voice thick with unshed tears. "Poor, poor Dashie."
"At least we can set her free," said Twilight grimly. "Now let's see where she is." The spell zoomed out, their point of view passing through a wall so that they could see the stable where Dash was being held captive. Then it pulled back further, letting them view an urban commercial district. Then further, and they could see towering buildings, and then a slice of ocean. A moment later the Pony of Liberty came into view, brightly lit and glowing against the dark ocean. "She's here then, in Manehattan."
"I am surprised they have not pulled the statue down," said Luna. "She stands for tolerance, love, and liberty. Not really things that this Nightmare Moon seems to value. Although... I suppose she may not know that. I learned it while reading a book on the history of the griffon kingdom. One of their greatest artisans made her as a gift to Equestria, to symbolize the friendship between the two nations. I wonder how much time Nightmare Moon spends with books?"
"I heard that she spends almost all her time just sitting in her throne room, being creepy and brooding. And that half the time if you get in to see her she'll just have you thrown in a dungeon," said Pinkie Pie.
"That sounds about right. Brooding is all I did on the moon. Living with Celestia I quickly got back into the habit of reading and learning, and now I have friends as well, but without anypony to encourage her to change, the old habits from so long on the moon are probably still with her. And she has all her own crimes to brood on now, as well as her hatred for everypony else. She's probably more miserable now than I ever was. And misery breeds more hatred."
Twilight dismissed the spell, leaving the bucket showing nothing but the reflection of the ceiling above. She took her saddlebags from her back and set them on the floor. After a moment of rummaging she came up with a sheaf of papers. Luna was momentarily amused to see that the one on top was a checklist of Elements and ponies. An overly-complete list, since the first entry was "Twilight Sparkle – Magic." Below that "Pinkie Pie – Laughter" was checked off as well. Twilight shuffled that one to the bottom of the pile, revealing a page of closely-written notes. "So now we need to make plans. I've read a lot about tyrants and oppressive government, but Pinkie, you've been living here, you can probably tell me a great deal. The books said," she glanced down at her notes, "that one of the almost universal conditions in a tyranny is that every subject or citizen has to have official paperwork of some kind. It said that sometimes the ruling tyrant will settle for making certain classes of citizens identify themselves, there was a bit about one of the zebra nations and their treatment of specific zebra clans... But anyway, I've seen ponies wearing those moon badges, does every pony have to wear one?"
Pinkie blinked at Twilight. "Badges? Badges?! We don't need no stinking-" she stopped abruptly. "Wait! You're right! Everypony does wear a moon badge. Though they're not all the same."
"Well, we're going to need some badges then, if we're to move around without getting caught. I'd hoped we could just go straight to the rescue, but I don't want to botch this. So we're probably going to have to spend some time in study and research. If there are different kinds of badges they probably mean different things. Ranks, maybe. If we can get our hooves on a high-ranking badge we might be able to walk right in and set Rainbow Dash free."
"Good idea," said Luna. "At least the study and research. I am not sure about ordering Rainbow free. Maybe with a disguise... we do not want to let Nightmare Moon get any hint at all of who we are and what we are up to. She may not know about the Elements of Harmony, but if she notices we are setting her slaves free she may take steps to stop us. And if we confront her before we've gathered all six elements... well, I should be able to fight her to a standstill, I have said that. But a lot of bystanders might get hurt in the process, and a standstill is not what we want, we want a decisive victory." Luna wasn't going to mention her own fears and doubts; she couldn't bear to lay more on Twilight's shoulders.
"Right. The first order of business then is to find out more about the badges. Time for some more scrying, I think."
Dale, Luna, and Pinkie started setting up a sort of indoor camp while Twilight once again cast her scrying spell and started looking for the information they would need.
"How does my illusion look?" Luna looked back at herself. Her wings were invisible, and she was wearing an illusory gown that rippled with rainbow swirls of color, which covered her cutie mark completely.
"You look very elegant," said Twilight. "Good enough to make Rarity jealous." For some reason Twilight Sparkle was blushing, but Luna didn't get the chance to think about exactly why that might be before Pinkie cut in.
"Do me next! Do me! Do me!" said Pinkie Pie, with her usual boundless enthusiasm. Luna smiled and cast a second illusion spell. This one was much simpler, it merely hid Pinkie's cutie mark, replacing it with a cluster of flowers.
Twilight's cutie mark was disguised as well, and Dale had one added to his blank flank. He looked back at the compass rose that Luna had chosen. "Any reason for that particular design?"
"You look like a royal. And Twilight tells me that quite a few of them have... what was the phrase?"
"Sucked up to Nightmare Moon," said Twilight with an expression of disgust. "And fallen over each other to kiss her flank. Though I shouldn't have been surprised, given the only royal I know, Blueblood, is definitely one of those thriving under Nightmare Moon's rule. She seems to encourage some ponies to lord it over other ponies, just so long as everybody bows to her."
Luna sighed. "I suppose I should feel relieved that I can hardly imagine behaving like that. But in any case, the compass rose is so Dale and I will seem like a high class couple, just the sort of pony who would hire a carriage for no particular reason, and I in particular shall play the sort of pony who would be shallow enough to insist that the carriage or the pony pulling it match her outfit." Luna grinned. "We know they do not have a rainbow carriage, so they shall be forced to produce their only rainbow pony. Then we just hijack the carriage and set Rainbow Dash free. Easy as pie!"
"Pie is actually kind of hard," said Pinkie with a frown. "At least if you want the crust to be any good. Though pie filling is really easy!" Her frown changed to a broad grin. "And delicious! I like to just eat it without the rest of the pie sometimes! I really miss pie. When Black Snooty is all gone I am going to make every kind of pie and cake and cupcake there is in celebration, and have the biggest party ever!"
"I am looking forward to it, Pinkie." Luna smiled gently at the pink pony. She was very glad that Pinkie seemed so lightly touched by the hardships she'd endured. Pinkie had begun to lose hope, but having that hope again had been all she had needed to bounce back to nearly her old self. If anything she was stronger for the challenges she'd faced. Luna suspected that Rainbow Dash might have a harder time of it, but there was nothing they could do about that but rescue her as soon as possible.
"Well... let's go," said Twilight, apparently mirroring Luna's train of thought.
They set out through the city streets. The half abandoned commercial district where they began was nearly silent, but as they approached the heart of the city the light and sound grew, until they were surrounded by bustling ponies of every color and description. All of them carried a crescent moon badge of some kind. Most wore simple laminated cards on cords around their necks, but some had jeweled badges, or beautifully embroidered badges sewn to their clothing. Luna's illusions included badges for all four rebels. They would hold up to examination by any but the most skilled of unicorn mages. As this was Manehattan and not Canterlot, Luna wasn't very worried. There were unicorns enough here, but the best had always lived in the royal city of unicorns, where all the best schools of magic and the most prestigious magical societies were.
They reached a street where nearly all the shops were shuttered, closed for lack of business or, more likely, because the proprietors had done something to catch the attention of Nightmare Moon's Night Guard. The quartet had already passed several of the intimidating guardsponies. They were obviously picked from the strongest colts in Equestria, huge draft ponies wearing black enameled armor. Most were earth ponies; Twilight Sparkle's scrying had revealed that Nightmare Moon kept the Black Corps of unicorns and the pegasus Shadowbolts close to her, sending them out in overwhelming numbers to utterly crush any signs of organized resistance they could find. Pinkie's rebels had been raided by them twice, both times cutting their numbers massively. That was how a force that had once been made of much of the population of Ponyville had been reduced to only a dozen ponies.
It had made Luna's heart race, to walk past those armored ponies. Some part of her was certain that they were going to see through her illusions and arrest them all on the spot. Only Dale's silent mental reassurances had kept her expression calm. She had no idea how Pinkie Pie and Twilight were managing.
But now they had reached the first stop. "Here's where we wait," said Twilight. The street was no grungy back alleyway, which the carriage driver would be suspicious about, but it was utterly deserted. The rebel quartet needed there to be no witnesses to what would happen here.
Twilight and Pinkie Pie stopped there, sitting on the curb and chatting, trying to look innocent; just two friends who'd happened to meet and stop to talk. Luna and Dale continued onward and soon reached the stable. Luna had to work hard to keep an expression of disgust off her face as she watched a carriage drive out of the building. A number of nearby kingdoms had gone through unfortunate periods of slavery. Equestria hadn't; Celestia would never have put up with such a thing and her influence was part of the reason that slavery was less of a problem in the modern world. Obviously, though, some ponies were all too eager to rake in the bits wrung involuntarily from the hard use of others.
Still, she wasn't here to abolish slavery. She was here to rescue Rainbow Dash. With Nightmare Moon defeated and Celestia back on her throne, the slavery problem would take care of itself.
Dale held the door for her as she walked inside. The front room was half guardroom and half office. She ignored the two uniformed Night Guard and approached the earth pony who sat at a desk just inside the room. He was dressed in gold-trimmed black as well, but his neatly pressed outfit wasn't so much a uniform as it was the livery of a high class servant. On a bench behind him half a dozen young ponies dressed in plainer versions of the same livery sat and fidgeted in the way of bored young colts everywhere.
"May I help you?"
Luna put her nose up in the air and spoke down to the servant in the haughtiest tone she could manage. "I require a carriage immediately."
"Yes ma'am. It will be twenty bits."
Luna dropped a bag of bits on the desk. They clanked just as they should. It took everything she had not to hold her breath as the clerk took them. If he had a touch-stone to test them for illusion it would not go well. Their scrying hadn't caught him using one, but that didn't mean he might not have one, and if something made him suspicious... but no, he simply dropped the illusory bits into his cash box.
"Thank you. I'll have your coach prepared right away."
"Not just any coach, young stallion," said Luna, her nose still in the air as she tried to do her best impression of the snottiest royal unicorn mare she could remember. "I have particular requirements. I must have a coach and pony as magnificent as my gown. I insist upon transportation that is stylish."
The clerk looked at the rainbow swirled dress. His eyes went just a little bit wild. Luna could almost see him thinking that he didn't know anything about style or how to match a coach or a pony to a gown. And she suspected that the consequences for upsetting a customer, when the customers tended to be favored subjects of Nightmare Moon, might be dire. "Uh..."
"Perhaps you could let us look at the coaches and ponies available?" broke in Dale.
The clerk's expression of relief was almost comical. "Yes, of course, right this way."
The office led into a huge barn of a room, where several black and silver carriages were parked in a line, waiting to go out the huge double door to one side. Beyond them, at the back of the room, were the stalls where the unfortunate pony slaves were penned. They were not prison cells; in fact, they looked to have been adapted directly from cow stalls. The building had no doubt actually been a barn before being converted to its present use. Cities did sometimes have a few quasi-farms near their hearts, sometimes dairy farms providing fresh milk to the residents, or sometimes working donkeys who did much of the hard labor that some ponies found beneath them.
The stalls might as well have been cells, though, for all the chance of escape they afforded. Luna noticed a glow of magic as she walked through the door into the room; a similar glow hung over the large double doors. Even if a pony slipped their bridle and got out of their stall, they wouldn't be leaving: the magic would keep them trapped inside. No doubt harsh punishments awaited those who made such a futile attempt.
She had to work hard to keep sympathy and sorrow from showing on her face. Dale was an immense help, projecting a gentle reminder of what they were here for and how important it was into her mind. That thought was enough to make her expression hard and serious again, which would pass well enough for the necessary hauteur. She swept her gaze across the carriages, and frowned at the clerk. "These will do, I suppose. Black, at least, does not clash. But I really must insist on something a bit more showy. Let me see the ponies."
"Of course ma'am." The clerk led her, with Dale trailing after, past the coaches and to the row of stalls. It was actually a double row of stalls, which a second row back to back with the one facing her. A corridor led around the end of the row to the other side, but she immediately made out the pony she was looking for on this side, several stalls down.
She pointed. "That one. That's the one I want."
"The blue one, ma'am?"
"Yes. With the rainbow mane. It will match my dress beautifully."
Rainbow Dash was standing with her head down and her eyes closed. When the clerk went in and led her out, she followed him with a broken, dazed docility that made Luna want to weep. She had to look away while the clerk harnessed her friend to the carriage. One of the young liveried ponies came out and held the door open for Luna and Dale, who climbed in. It was an immense relief to Luna to not have to look at the scarred, listless form of her friend anymore. If they hadn't been mere minutes away from setting her free,she might have been tempted to abandon the plan, attack the clerk, and let her go right there on the spot. As it was, she had to keep herself occupied with other thoughts. Attack and defense spells filed across her mind's eye in an expanding tree of possible needs and scenarios, as she and Celestia had practiced. A corner of her attention noted the sound of the driver shutting the door and climbing into his seat.
The driver called back, slightly muffled, "Where to?"
Luna gave him the address of a house just on the other side of Twilight's ambush so that his route would be certain to pass by it. He flicked the reins and Dash started forward at a slow, tired amble.
"This one's a little bit slow, ma'am. If you're in a hurry I can make her go faster."
"No need for that, I am in no hurry at all," said Luna, cringing at the idea of the driver whipping Rainbow to greater speed.
"A slow ride is a much more comfortable one," said Dale, loudly enough for the driver to hear. He gave Luna a small, reassuring smile. With the door closed and the driver unable to see, Luna dared to smile back. The coach rattled its way along without any further conversation. That was just as well; the closer they got to the ambush point, the more nervous Luna grew. Twilight had practiced the knockout spell several times on Dale and Pinkie, who'd both volunteered to be guinea pigs. But what if something went wrong with the spell this time? What if a guard came along just then? What if something else went horribly wrong?
Just as she started to work herself up into a panic, Dale silently soothed her once more. He projected reassurance and calm, that sank slowly into her, and gradually her stomach stopped clenching in fear.
:I don't know what I would do without you,: she said to him through their mental link.
:You'd manage,: was his warm response. :You were doing fine when we were chasing Flutterhsy and fighting all those creatures.:
:That is different. Battle is... different. Dealing with ponies, especially in the heart of such a crowd of them, that is harder. Some random pony could walk by at any moment and do anything at all. They are so unpredictable! I am much more used to books, or even battles, than all these ponies.:
:True enough, I suppose. But the odds are on our side, and Twilight has planned this all out rather meticulously. It should go off without a hitch. It'll be going off in just a moment, in fact. Look:
Luna obliged, glancing out through a gap in the curtains. She recognized the corner of the street they'd left Pinkie and Twilight on, and watched the sidewalk pivot slowly as the carriage made the turn. She caught a glimpse of the two mares in ambush, still sitting, apparently ignoring the carriage as it rattled towards them. Twilight was still looking away, even, when her horn started to glow, and Luna spared a fleeting thought to admire the unicorn's finesse. When Twilight finally turned directly to the driver to finish the spell, the colt slumped over instantly, painlessly, and with absolutely no fuss. He would stay out for several hours, or until somepony woke him.
Rainbow apparently didn't even notice. She kept plodding along until Pinkie Pie landed directly in front of her, startling the rainbow-maned pegasus out of her stupor. Immediately, she craned her neck back to look at the driver, which is when she saw Luna and Dale scrambling out of the carriage. Her attention was grabbed next by her harness suddenly beginning to glow; when she looked down, she saw the buckles of her harness unfastening themselves. When she looked back up, she saw Twilight's horn glowing with a matching hue. As all the pieces slotted into place in Rainbow's mind, the alarm in her eyes began to fade.
When the four rescuers gathered in front of Rainbow, she still hadn't moved. Her eyes had faded back to half-lidded hopelessness, and she stared at the other ponies' hooves.
"Let's go, go, go!" said Pinkie.
"You're free now, come on," said Twilight.
"No," said Rainbow Dash flatly. "I'm not going anywhere."