They landed in an alley that looked little different than any of the others in the city. Jack and Rainbow were slightly off kilter from the teleport and Twilight was still breathing heavily. “Come on, we have to find the car.” Jack said, steadying herself on a wall.
“Yeah, I got it.” Dash stopped swaying on her feet and shuffled to the mouth of the alleyway. Jack was beside her quickly.
It opened out onto a small square, a dusty space that looked little used. The car that had sped away with Rarity was parked at the edge, her kidnapper pacing around looking frustrated. There was no sign of the shadow monsters.
“Twilight, you try and sneak around and zap away with Rarity. Jack, you an’ me make a distraction.” Jack nodded, cinched her hat on tighter and took a grip on her gun. Rainbow checked her gun, she had a full barrel left to go. The extra moments of perpetration gave Twilight a chance to catch her breath and prepare to make her move.
“I’ll go ahead, he won’t notice me.” Twilight said at last, slipping from the alley to the opposite side of the square. She was close to the car and Rarity when everything went wrong.
Jack and Rainbow were about to make their move as Twilight inched closer to the door of the car. A sudden crackling filled the air and Rainbow felt the magic buzzing at her wings. Hoops must have too, the sky-man was wincing and bending doubled over.
Bright light consumed the square. Once the dazzled women could see again the square was empty.
“Rarity!”
“Twilight?”
They rushed over to where the car had stood, of their friends there was no sign, only the imprints in the dust of tyre tread.
-*-
Outside the smart home of one of the more wealthy city families stood a disparate group. The slightly harried looking owner, Head of Research at the Museum of Antiquities, was surveying the damage to her porch window. Shining was running a spell to try and find more evidence as Luna and her tribe’s people searched the perimeter.
A flashing light at the gate soon turned out to be a police car, two officers alighted. “Corporal Pinkie said there had been a break in?” Cadence sighed in response.
“Yes, they broke in here.” She rubbed at a growing bruise on her arm, she had been caught a glancing blow by one of the shadow creatures. “They fled into the city, a sky-man called Hoops and some summoned spell creatures.”
The officer nodded as he took notes. “We’ll get on the chase.” He snapped the book shut and jumped into the patrol car. “We’ll be along again to collect a statement ma’am.” The car turned in her drive and drove off.
“They are not exactly efficient. “ A’triet said, appearing at her elbow. Cadence jumped.
“You should stop doing that.” She glared at him. “Have we found where they all went yet?”
“The princess is scrying.” He said, pointing to Luna who was stood over a birdbath glowing in a spell.
“I hope Twily is alright.” Shining said his voice tight. He was holding something. Cadence approached and blanched when she saw what it was, strands of navy hair tangled with a tied leather whip.
“Rainbow was with her, she wouldn’t let anything happen?” Cadence touched his palm. The contact seemed to unwind her and she stumbled against the man, burying her face in his chest, tears in her eyes. “I should have stopped you both from ever going there.” Her slender fingers brushed his palm and the grim evidence of an attack on his sister.
He placed his free arm around her, stroking her hair. “Twily is determined Cadey. She’d have gone without me if she had got to Dash first.” He sighed and leaned his chin against her head. “She’s strong too though. We know she’ll be fine.”
A light cough drew their attention from each other. Luna stood, a pointer spell hovering at her arm. “I have a location for them. We should make haste.” She nodded to A’triet and Mēi who were swiftly at her side. Remaining close, Cadence and Shining joined them.
-*-
The teleport spell had been very unexpected and her spell booster had a short term effect. Twilight felt dreadful and really wanted to just lie down for a while. But Rarity was still locked in the car, wherever they were and she had promised to get her out. She grimaced and pulled herself up out of the sand she had face planted into when the spell dropped, it was the last movement she made of her own accord as sudden shadowy limbs shot out and grabbed her.
“We’ve got an unexpected prize.” Hoops leered as he rounded the car. “You two, get the other one. I need to find out what we should do with our little librarian.” He ordered the shadows to their task, they dragged the limp Rarity away while the other held her tight and marched her after the sky-man.
“The ruins?” Twilight looked around at their new surroundings, amazed that once again she had been teleported such a distance.
“Yeah, my new employer is based here y’see. So she brought us back here once I had secured the goods.” Hoops said as he walked ahead. At the mouth of the main door to the palace a black pillar stood. A smile cut through the solid darkness.
“You brought our agent; good.” Its voice scratched and growled the words. It turned to follow as Rarity was pulled past it and dropped to the floor. Satisfied, it returned attention to Hoops and Twilight “A boon also? You spoil us.” An arm reached from the pillar and beckoned the shade to bring Twilight closer.
“Not getting me in there.” Twilight said, hoping her voice sounded strong as she dug her heels into the sand and begged for her magic to return to strength. The creature pushed harder and Hoops cruelly grasped a hand about her neck, forcing her to her knees at the threshold.
The arm’s tip split into digits, inky black in the mid-morning sunlight. One extended and reached around Twilight’s chin, caressing it. “Ah... She is strong in the power and gifted... A fitting new host.” There was a rumbling from behind them, the sand was being forcibly cleared to reveal a paved courtyard. A stone slab was dropped to it, shackles clear on the corners. “Put her there, We need her ready for our freedom.”
Twilight’s eyes widened, she wanted to shout or scream for help but it was pointless. Everyone who would were back in the city.
As she was secured to the stone she saw Rarity in the temple, the woman stood as if a puppet and followed the strip of pure blackness.
Things were not looking good.
-*-
Pinkie ran through the city. She had dropped a description of Rarity, the car the sky-man and his monstrous assistants to every patrol she had come across and was now rushing to the location that she just knew they would arrive at. She knew the city well, many routes that had been lost to time were safely tucked away in her memory. Jumping through a crack in a wall that to a casual observer was too small to enter via, she ran along a fence line and over another.
Then, unexpectedly enough to alter her balance, her targets were far out of range. “What?” She muttered, righting the fez on her head and turning about to try and get a line on Rarity again. With no luck she concentrated on Rainbow.
-*-
A breathless Pinkie skidded to a halt in the small square. Her hair wilted when she saw Jack and Rainbow slumped against one of the buildings, defeated. “Guys... I came as fast as I could.”
“Magic.” Jack said. “Teleported away.”
“No idea where.” Rainbow added, absently fiddling with her revolver, the bullets in a useless pile at her feet. “They were there and then they were gone. Twilight got caught up in it.”
Pinkie joined them then, slumping to the ground beside Jack. “Sorry I was late.” Her hair had wilted further. “I got some of the boys on the case... I guess it would have been better if I had chased the car down.”
The three women sat, tired and at a dead end as the new day dawned.
-*-
Luna made her way through the streets of the city carefully. She and her guardians were unused to such built up areas, though A’triet was finding the metropolitan area fascinating enough to wander with something akin to awe. His sister was less enamoured and remained close to their princess, she had only accompanied her in the search as a means to escape any unfamiliar visitors to Cadence’s mansion.
They were following the scrying spell Luna had cast; Rainbow had left enough of her kit behind before leaving to get a good anchor for the spell. As they walked the streets and pathways of the city Luna grew increasingly concerned. Suddenly a burst of familiar magic rippled through the area. Even A’triet and Mēi felt it, “Oh my!” the healer squeaked, her wings briefly manifesting as a pale yellow outline.
“I felt that one through the ground.” A’triet muttered, looking down at the cobbled street.
“She teleported them from the city. We are too late to catch them here.” Luna said, keeping her voice strong despite her fear. “Quickly, if they took the afflicted woman we must make haste to the temple once more.”
They doubled their pace through the city, the princess and healer eventually taking to the air for speed, Luna holding A’triet aloft with a spell.
They sighted three familiar figures in a square beneath them. Luna pointed them out to Mēi and they headed for the ground.
“You’re late.” Jack scowled at them, keeping her hat low to cover tear-filled eyes. “Magiced away to who knows where.” She gripped her fingers around hat brim and rifle.
“Twilight too... She was caught up in it with them.” Rainbow looked at the trio, “Even Pinkie isn’t sure where they went.”
“The ruins.” Luna stated simply. She tried to keep impatience or annoyance from her tone. “They have been returned to the Flare Prison. Rarity to release the Nightmare and, if what I heard was right, it will take Twilight as a new host.” She looked down at the three chasers. “We were unable to follow you swiftly because you left without leaving clue to your goal.”
“Twilight zapped us here; she had a spell on their car.” Rainbow stood from her seat on the floor. “The bastard had tried to strangle her, so I don’t think logic was high on the list in her head.” She was gratified that the last statement at least gave the tribes people and the princess pause.
“I was the one who ran off.” Pinkie whispered from behind the curtain of flat pink hair. “I should have got someone else or waited for you all.”
“Sitting and moping won’t work though.” Rainbow grabbed the Corporal’s limp arm and pulled her up. “We need to get them out of those ruins.” She nudged Jack with a foot, earning a glare and getting the Appleoosan to stand. “So, Princess, you get us back with Shining and Junior and we’ll head out to get our people back.”
“Very well.” Luna allowed herself a small smile, maybe there was hope yet to defeat the nightmare.
-*-
“They are where!” Cadence railed at the gunner; helpfully Shining was holding her back. Mere moments before they had been alone at the house when their missing associates had suddenly teleported back into the hall.
“The ruins, again.” Rainbow said, trying a calm response. Though both Cadence and Shining looked concerned and worried.
“What... what happened here?” The man held out a handful of whip and hair. Rainbow slumped a little, she was still worried and tense, itching to go and find Twilight, the evidence of her earlier failure brought down her facade.
“They... Hoops caught her in a whip; he was trying to strangle her...” Rainbow said as evenly as she could. Cadence looked like she was about to be sick and Shining looked angry.
“We need to go and find her. Now.” It was strange, Shining had gone from a goofy guy to a serious and angry big brother.
“I have been trying to create a teleport script.” Luna said from the corner of the room. She was laying chalk marks in certain places known only to herself. Though, as she made her latest they would fizz away as soon as the chalk stick left the floor. “The marker for landing at the palace site is being blocked.”
“Blocked?” Cadence hurried over to her mother and watched as the chalk marks were lifted again.
“We are unable to teleport there; we will need to find somewhere else.” Luna sighed and held her forehead. “It may take time, time we do not have.
“I’m flying then.” Rainbow said.
“You can’t fly all that way before midday!” Luna and A’triet said together.
“I can, I will. I’m not going to leave Twilight or anyone hanging ever again.” The gunner ran to grab her faithful shotgun and a handful of ammunition. Then she ran right through the group of incredulous observers. As she strode through the open doors and into the driveway, cyan blue wings manifested from her shoulder blades, encompassing an impressive span. The sky-woman took the usual stance of a sport flier and soon was airborne, flying through the city.
“We need to teleport as close to the ruins as we can.” Cadence said, she went to a sideboard and took out an amulet. “The camp will be close, mother?” The magic of the amulet had begun to glow, the princess, Shining, Jack and the tribes people drew closer.
“It should be.” Luna nodded and placed a hand on Cadence’s arm.
“Then let’s go.”