“Princess,” Twilight asked, “what just happened?” She kept her voice steady, but not easily.
Nightmare Moon did something Twilight had never heard her do before. She sighed. "The myths your parents ascribed to were… reflections of the truth. I did have a sister, ever so long ago. I banished her to the sun when her arrogance and lust for power grew too obvious for me to ignore any longer. Tonight, she returned. I showed this to you because I… I need you to realize what we will be fighting for in the nights to come. You have seen what she is capable of. She could…”
Two slitted pupils focused on Twilight, and they softened. Or maybe Twilight just hoped that they would. “You understand, do you not? She could…”
Twilight looked at her, eyes wide.
“Everything I have worked for, Twilight. Everything,” the Empress of the Night, the most powerful being in the darkened world, whispered, and blinked back tears. “Twilight—” she started, but couldn’t finish.
Twilight reached out to touch her mentor, to give her whatever small comfort she could, but of course she could never do that. She put her hoof on the ground and waited, always the dutiful student.
“Return to Ponyville. Continue with your mission.”
Twilight nodded, and turned towards Ponyville. Off in the distance, a flare arced into the air.
It was wet all around her. The mind, even an alicorn mind, has nothing that satisfactorily prepares one to experience such a sudden shift in surroundings, and Celestia thrashed about in confusion before fixing her gaze upwards. She panicked, seeing nothing but darkness above, then came to her senses. Of course it’s dark.
Her wings beat slowly, propelling her upwards. She surfaced, and gasped. Celestia allowed herself a moment to recover, breathing hard on the muddy shore of the pond. She raised herself up and flew.
Somewhere behind her, a light sparked.
Something cracked behind Celestia. She turned her head, wings still pumping feverishly, and could make out the shapes of ponies running across the darkling plain. Somewhere behind her, the blasted remnants of the forest burned, casting a sickly red glow that reflected off… What is that? Another crack, close now, and incredibly loud. Something struck Celestia’s wing. She glanced over, assessing the damage.
Nothing had hit after all—no, that wasn’t true, there was blood gushing out. Maybe it was just a glancing blow—but no, the pain came and came strong. The projectile had found bone, and Celestia’s wing seized up. She flapped harder with her other wing, legs flailing uselessly, but of course, it was helpless.
She fell, and the ground flew up to catch her. Celestia reached towards it with her magic, and managed to slow her descent. A quick glance to the left, and to the right, and she caught sight of another cluster of lights to the south. She commanded her hooves to run, and they obeyed.
They were all around her, eyes peering through the darkness. Something whizzed by, but Celestia suspected that Nightmare's ponies didn’t know where she was, not exactly. Her pace slackened as she realized just how tired she was. Shots cracked all around her, and she flinched again and again. Nothing hit her, though, and she looked around in confusion. Somepony stepped towards her.
“Princess, you have to trust me. I’m going to teleport us out.” The pony walked to her side, and pulled her arm across his back.
Celestia disappeared, and reappeared… where was she? Curious faces crowded around her. Safe enough, she thought, and collapsed, and slept.
They’re all dead now. You don’t have to be, though, as long as you listen very carefully to me. What’s your name?
Hard Knocks. That’s a lovely name. Now, remember what I’m going to say to you. The alicorn is gone. You saw her flying west, towards Canterlot. She killed everypony except you, and told you…
What do I tell him?
The alicorn told you to tell Nightmare Moon that she’s not afraid of her, that she’s going to kill her. Now go back to your princess. No, wrong way. Go north. There we go.
“Ma’am, we don’t have the area secured. Stay in the carriage. We have this handled.”
Twilight frowned. “Dash, I’m sure that it’ll be fine. I have done this before.”
So be it, Rainbow Dash thought, and sighed. It’d be a problem if Sparkle died at an inopportune moment. “Yes ma’am. Right this way.”
Another night, another set of raids. Dash had doubted whether they could increase ops tempo anymore than she already had, but since Sparkle had gotten back from Everfree, they’d been working faster than ever before. She was driven.
Dash could recognize that feeling easily enough. It had been hers, at one point, watching Night Guards swagger across Cloudsdale streets, matte black uniforms exuding coolness. It had been hers when she trained obsessively to meet and exceed the Night Guard’s physical standards. She had even studied—studied—at the Guard school.
What happened?
Dash asked herself that question so often, but she knew what had happened. She saw that face whenever she closed her eyes, heard that voice.
“Lieutenant? Care to fill me in on what happened here?”
“Huh?” Dash said, startled out of her reverie. Sparkle pointed at a splatter of blood on the wall.
“One of the prisoners got violent, and I was forced to take action.”
It wasn’t exactly true. She’d been careful to make it look like that was what happened. It was Dash’s responsibility to make sure that nopony who could tell the Guard anything would be allowed to go to the interrogators.
It was hard to do. Dash knew a lot of them. They were good ponies.
She looked around suddenly. There was something off about the situation. Something, something... Her eyes searched the crowd. Where was it? What was it? There, a gun held by one of the prisoners.
Two thoughts ran through her mind simultaneously.
What the hell? Don’t they know that they could blow this whole op?
A Night Guard’s first duty is the protection of her superiors.
It seemed to her that things moved very slowly. She yelled “Gun!”, Twilight turned her head towards her in surprise, and the prisoner raised the gun. She moved quickly, tackling Twilight to the ground. Shots rang out.
“Are you okay?” Dash asked, lifting off Twilight.
“As far as I can tell. The assassin?”
He was lying on the ground, glassy-eyed and barely breathing. He’d been shot several times for good measure.
“Oh,” Twilight said abstractedly. “You’re bleeding.”
And so Dash was. Quite a bit of blood flowed out of her back leg. She was suddenly, painfully aware that it hurt like hell.
Rarity flopped rather gracelessly onto the couch. It wasn’t exactly an action fit for company, but she didn’t have any at the moment. Oh, this is simply heavenly, and after such a trying day… She vaguely considered turning on the lights. I suppose I could, but it’s rather restful just—
Something squeaked, over by her desk. Rarity’s horn lit up, scarcely illuminating anything past her frightened face. It could be a hitpony, or worse, a former employee. Granted, after the last incident, Rarity had been more careful about access to her office, but still…
She peered into the darkness. There was a face there, behind her desk, and a pair of wings.
“How did you get in here?” Rarity asked, trying to place that face. Probably not one of mine. Pretty, though. “I do have security.”
“These stallions were nice enough to show me my way in,” Fluttershy said casually. She looked at the bulky ponies dimly silhouetted against the window. “Wait outside no matter what you hear, and don’t let anypony inside.”
“But those are my…” Rarity said as they shuffled out of the room. Fluttershy looked at her expectantly. “Bouncers,” she finished lamely.
Fluttershy walked over to sit next to Rarity. She retrieved a revolver from her pack, and pushed it gingerly into Rarity’s side.
“Now,” she said quietly, “what did you tell the personal student?”
“Personal student?” Rarity asked innocently. “You’ll have to be much more specific, darling. I see a lot of personal students.”
Fluttershy mumbled something, and dug the gun into Rarity’s side. “You know who I’m talking about. Sparkle.”
Rarity smiled. “Oh, very well. You’ve caught me. Now, what exactly might be in it for me, should I choose to div—”
Fluttershy's pistol moved fast, and the grip slammed into Rarity's face, knocking her onto the floor. Fluttershy stood over her, a hoof pressed against Rarity’s throat. Her eyes, gleaming dimly in the dark, peered into Rarity’s own.
“Tell me what you told her,” Fluttershy said.
The unicorn chuckled. “Not likely.” Amulets are so underappreciated, she mused. And they make such charming accessories…
Fluttershy looked confused, but recovered quickly and gazed into Rarity’s eyes again.
“Tell me.”
“You have lovely eyes, my dear, but I’m afraid it’s not going to work.”
“Tell me,” Fluttershy said, pressing down harder. “I still have the gun here.”
She fired to the right of Rarity’s head. Her ear rang, and Rarity hoped that it would be heard outside. Not that it will make a difference…
“Tell me!” Fluttershy said, pulling back the hammer.
“I’ll uh,” Rarity wheezed out, before deciding that a whisper would be more suited to the circumstances. “I will, I will. But I’ll want something in return, naturally.”
“Your life.”
“Now, now,” Rarity said. “You need to know what I, ah, informed her of, is that correct? Now, correct me if I am wrong, but I don’t believe that I’ll be able to do that if you kill me. So let’s just dispense with that little pretense and get down to business.”
Fluttershy lifted off Rarity and sat on her haunches, breathing hard. “What do you want?”
Rarity smiled. “I’ll settle for knowing what you have planned for the next few nights.”
“No.”
“You do need what I know, I’m sure. You wouldn’t have been sent, otherwise. Just a hint will do, I promise.” She all but batted her eyelashes at Fluttershy.
“She’s here,” Fluttershy murmured. “The lights up to the north, they were—” She stopped suddenly.
“Oh,” Rarity said slowly, savoring the moment. “That’s very interesting indeed.”
Fluttershy pointed the gun at Rarity. “So?”
Rarity smiled nervously. “Now, in the interests of you not killing me immediately after I tell you what I told Miss Sparkle, how about we add a little something to the deal?”
Fluttershy stared at her for a few seconds, then nodded reluctantly.
“A favor, from me,” Rarity said. “I can assure you that they’re quite useful.”
"Done. But if you're lying to me—"
"Naturally. Now, as you might have guessed, Miss Sparkle is aware of your, ah, various haunts in the River District, as well as the south side. On the other hoof, I don't have the faintest idea what you've been up to west of the river—I think you can imagine just how many of my clients come from there. Now, in terms of specifics...”
Rainbow Dash tossed restlessly in her hospital bed. To all appearances, she was experiencing a nightmare. But this was no figment of her imagination, and she couldn’t sleep.
It had been three years ago. The mare stood before her, fear and resentment and defiance fighting for control of her face.
“I’m not going back. You can’t—”
And Dash drew her gun.
“Nopony leaves the camp. You know that.”
The mare did know that, and offered a hopeless smile.
“Please. At least let them—can’t you see they’re starving? Let them go. That’s all I’m asking for. Please!”
“Back in the fence! Now!” Dash had yelled, and drew her gun. The mare ran. Dash had... Oh, sweet stars... Dash had shot her, clean in the back of the head, hoof steady from years of practice.
The foals perched on the mare’s back started to cry weakly. Dash had walked over to them, helplessly hoping that there was anything she could do besides...
“Dash!” somepony called out. “Miss Sparkle wants to see you as soon as you’re able to walk.”
She rolled out of bed, hooves touching the floor, one painfully. “Able and willing.”
Oh, Dash, you're here. Good. I wanted to thank you for saving my life. Personally.
I've been thinking, and I decided. You should be heading up this, um, task force. You'll receive a promotion to lieutenant colonel. I think. Which comes with a, um, significant pay raise and some other perks.
No need to thank me, Dash. Do your job. That's all.
Celestia blinked, her vision blurry from sleep. Inevitably, the memories came back: a sudden pain in her wing, a fall, a terrible brightness, smoke billowing up from what had once been her city. Somehow it was all one, part of the same nightmare. Oh, Luna. What hast thou become? She rested her head on the pillow again. Maybe she could just stay here, and sleep forever. Or not.
Motivation comes and goes, she reminded herself, but duty remains. Figuring out where she was would be a good start. Bare walls, a concrete floor. Not terribly encouraging. But there was nothing of the prison about the room's door. On the contrary, it seemed of rather cheap construction, and wasn't even within line of sight of her bed. Celestia peered at it curiously, sitting upright. Her muscles screamed softly in protest. She mentally shouted them down and carefully placed a hoof on the floor.
The door opened. The unicorn from earlier walked in, and seeing Celestia, bowed almost to the ground. “Princess. It’s good to see you awake. We were worried.”
Her mouth opened, laboring to form the words. “How long did we sleep?”
“You’ve been out for a couple nights.” He stared at Celestia as if he couldn’t quite believe that she was really there.
Celestia nodded uncertainly. “Who art thou?”
The unicorn mouthed the sentence, then shook his head. “Of course that’s how you speak. I’m sorry. I would have told you about us earlier. but—”
“The apology is… unnecessary. Knowing whose care we are in is.”
“I’m the leader of this movement,” the unicorn said, and smiled self-deprecatingly. “Such as it is, anyways. We protect ponies from the Night Guard and all the rest of Nightmare Moon’s tools of terror when we can. And we’ve been waiting for you, preparing for the day when you—”
Celestia had allowed some measure of worry to creep onto her normally stoic face.
“This is probably too much for you right now. We can pick this up later,” he said.
“NO!” Celestia cried, in the voice of royalty. The unicorn looked more than a little awed. “We would not waste the least minute while our little ponies suffer,” she finished more quietly. “Tell us everything.”
The unicorn grinned uncertainly. “We’re going to help you take back Equestria. But for right now, we’re just trying to let you rest and heal. Eventually…” That nervous grin solidified into a beatific smile.
“Eventually?”
“You’ll raise the sun.”
“What is thy name?” Celestia asked curiously.
The smile stayed on his face. It wasn’t one of elation at the prospect of power—Celestia was familiar enough with that—but of faith rewarded.
“Shining Armor.”