"They've been gone quite a long time," Starshine muttered with a sigh as he watched Armora walk across the ceiling, which was actually the floor, considering Starshine was laying on his back out of boredom. "I wish that they had taken us with them. It's boring and lonely being here." Armora buzzed a bit at this and while Starshine couldn't understand her words, he figured that he had either offended her or was bothering her. "Sorry Armora, I just hate being left behind." Armora nodded as Starshine rolled back to his hooves and ran to the window, hoping to see if either were coming back.
"I didn't think Diamond Dogs were so dangerous," he muttered as he pressed his face to the glass. "I know that they're mean, but I didn't think they would kill any ponies that entered their lair...you think Sombra and Trixie are alright?" He looked to Armora as she said this and she shrugged in response before spinning around, drawing her blade as she looked around the room. "What's the matter Armora?" Strarshine asked her as she ran over. "What...?" He stopped talking when he saw a familiar pony sitting on one of the couches, looking around the room with her face hidden.
'Hello again, Starshine,' she said to him. The eeriness of her voice and the fact that her mouth never moved made Starshine back away a bit. 'I am sorry that my appearance startles you, but it is much easier to speak to you like this instead of my other form.'
"Why are you here?" Starshine asked before yelping, as Armora threw her blade right through the silver mare's head. Armora snarled and pulled her blade out of the wall, narrowing her eyes as she looked around the room.
'I keep forgetting just how sensitive the changelings can be,' the silver mare muttered as Armora looked right through her. 'Even though she cannot see or hear me, she is still aware of my presence.'
"Um, you're that silver pony that Trixie and I met back in the forest, right?" Starshine asked as he placed a hoof under his chin, causing the silver mare to chuckle lightly as Armora noticed where Starshine was looking.
'The one and the same,' she said with a hidden smile. 'But I did not come here to speak to you. Can you inform me where Trixie is? I cannot seem to sense her with my magic and that...worries me.' She moved her head slightly as Armora reached out to touch her, causing the changeling to frown as she looked at her empty hoof. Starshine looked at the silver mare with confusion as she continued to toy with Armora, much to the increasing frustration of the changeling.
"Wait a minute, you mean you don't know where she is?" Starshine asked as he tilted his head.
'I thought that I had made that clear, but no, I do not,' the silver mare said as she sent a small silver orb out the front door, Armora chasing after it with her blade drawn.
"But, aren't you like a god or something?" Starshine asked her once the silver mare closed the door behind Armora, chuckling again as Armora started to try and kick the door down. "And why'd you lock Armora out?"
'Forgive me, I was a bit of a prankster in my youth,' she said as she opened the door again with her magic and watched as Armora can barreling in. 'And no, I am not a god. I am powerful, but only in certain ways. In other ways, I am helpless. Now I will ask again, where is Trixie...and Sombra for that matter?'
"The two of them went down into the lair of the Diamond Dogs," Starshine said as he pointed towards the window to a cave. "But that was a few hours ago and I'm starting to get worried." Starshine never saw the silver mare's eyes narrow, but he did watch her quickly stand up and give off a blinding flash. The moment the flash had ended Armora leapt at her, but the changeling's blade passed right through the mare.
'I have no desire to fight you, but I do have something to tell you,' the silver mare said to the changeling, who narrowed her eyes in response. 'Trixie and Sombra are in danger. I know because I cannot sense them and there are only a hoofful of items that can prevent me from doing so. One I would know if he were here, and the other is an ally of mine, so that can only leave the material called 'anti-source.' And if it is...' she muttered as she sent her magic into the ground, frowning when it hit a massive deposit of the material.
"Wait, what's anti-source?" Starshine asked as he ran up, but Armora held out an arm to stop him.
'Anti-source is a material that can nullify any kind of magic that it comes into contact with,' the silver mare explained quickly as she looked to Armora. 'And since both Trixie and Sombra are magic users, it is safe to assume that they are in danger. I can feel your emotions and it seems that you have aligned yourself with Trixie, so I assume you are willing to fight for her. You must rescue the two of them. This and other worlds depend on it.'
"What about you? Will you help us?" Starshine asked.
'I am made of magic and the stones down there naturally cancel out magic. I will be of no use to you,' the mare said with a sigh. 'But at the least, I can watch the wagon for you.' Armora looked at the silver mare with suspicious eyes, not sure if she could trust the mare or not.
"Come on Armora, we have to help Trixie and Sombra!" Starshine yelled as he ran out the front door of the wagon. Armora let out an annoyed buzz and raced out the door after him, stopping only for a minute to look back at the mare one last time before she took off. The silver mare closed her eyes and sat down as the door closed behind them, lowering her hood to let her mane flow down to the floor.
'And once again I am powerless to help those who need me,' she said with rage hidden in her voice. She then sighed again and stroked her hoof back to move her mane, placing her hoof on the tiny golden lightning bolt on the back of her neck. 'Even you.'
/T\
Armora watched from the shadows as the two Diamond Dogs walked past them, none of her muscles moving an inch until she was certain they were gone. Once they were, she released Starshine and switched her body from a rock to normal. She then motioned for the foal to follow her as she crept along the walls. If she had learned anything about Trixie in the time they had been together, it was that Trixie hated to waste time, so Armora assumed that she would have gone right to the base of the dogs as planned.
"Is that it?" Starshine whispered to her, as both he and Armora came out of one of the tunnels to see a number of houses that were centered around a palace of sorts. Armora quickly pushed the foal behind a pile of rocks before turning herself invisible, watching as another pack walked by them. "So, where do you think the dogs are keeping Trixie and Sombra?" he asked her. Armora buzzed, but when Starshine looked at her in confusion, she whipped out her blade and began to write in the dirt.
'In Chyrsalis' Castle, prisoners were kept under the castle in the dungeon. I assume that's where we'll find them.'
"Okay then, let's go," Starshine said as he tried to rush out, but Armora grabbed him and pushed him back, shaking her head as she moved forward on her own. Only when she was certain the way was clear did she wave Starshine over. She figured their best bet was to move between houses when the dogs weren't looking and even though it took a while, they were slowly able to make their way closer and closer to the castle.
'Stay here,' she wrote in the dirt before changing herself almost invisible again, slowly moving towards the castle entrance. She had to be wary of the dogs' sense of smell, because while her transformations hid her appearance, they did not cover her scent. The palace only had two large, but dumb looking guard dogs protecting the entrance, and she figured that getting by them would be easy enough. She slipped behind them with ease and then picked up a stone, which she threw into a trash can in the distance.
"What that?" one of the dogs said as he looked over. "Should we see what that is?"
"No, you heard orders. No leave spot," the other one said as he went back to looking ahead. Armora frowned as she heard this, figuring that the dogs would have run off at the sound. They must've been better trained than she thought. 'Well,' she mused, 'the hard way it is.' She slipped behind one of the two dogs and waited until the other moved its head, so that its partner was out of its field of vision before she wrapped her hooves around the dog's neck and dragged it behind the rocks, where she choked it out. She wasn't quick enough, though, to get the other dog before it turned to where its partner was no longer.
"Hey, where you go?" it asked before it reached down for the horn on its hip. He never reached it, though, because a blade shot out from behind the rocks and struck the dog in the throat, causing it to claw at its throat as it fell off to the side. Armora came out from behind the rocks and quickly retrieved her blade, making a buzzing sound that was a call for Starshine to join her.
"So, you got past the guards?" Starshine asked as he came running up from behind a building, not noticing the dogs to the sides of the gates. Armora nodded as she pulled on the chains to open the gate, slipping inside with Starshine before the gates closed. Armora drew her blade as she looked around the empty chamber, trying to figure out where to go. "Shouldn't we go down? That seems like the kind of place that they would keep a dungeon." Armora nodded as she moved towards the first tunnel she saw going down. Starshine followed her as silently as he could as they both descended, noticing that it was getting darker and darker as they did so. With a flick of her horn Armora cast a small green light that lit the way slightly, but all of her other senses were focused around her.
"Wait, I think I see something," Starshine said as he moved past Armora and ran into the light in the distance. Armora hissed in frustration and ran after him, but she heard him shriek before she exited the tunnel.
"Another snack running around down here?" the dog said as she rounded the corner just in time to see the dog pick up Starshine and dangle him over its mouth. In a blur she threw her blade right into the Diamond Dog's throat, causing it to drop Starshine as it collapsed to the floor in a pool of its own blood. Starshine looked at the bleeding dog with horror in his eyes as Armora walked over and pulled the blade from its throat, wiping the blood off her blade on the dog's vest.
"That...was brutal," he said in a soft whisper when Armora pulled him back to his hooves as she moved forward, on alert for any dogs that might have heard Starshine's yelp. "So...do you think Trixie is down here?" Armora smiled as she looked down a tunnel to see a row of cages, motioning for Starshine to follow as she ran to them. But her joy faded as she looked inside the first of the cages, to only see a pile of bones. She looked through the other three cages as well only to have the same results. She made sure to move Starshine along quickly past a cage that had two unicorn skulls in it, just in case it was the worst.
"I think I see more cages down there," Starshine said as he squinted his eyes to look down the poorly lit tunnel. Armora nodded and moved forward with her blade in her teeth, peeking out from around the corner to see who was in the room. "TRIXIE!!" Starshine yelled in joy as he ran by Armora and up to the cage where Trixie and Sombra were both laying on the floor. "Something's wrong with them! Get the cage open!" Armora slid her blade into the lock and twisted it once, snapping the lock off the cage and allowing it to swing open. Starshine ran inside to Trixie's side, but then began to wobble a bit.
"Ugh, I feel weird," he muttered as Armora helped him pull Trixie and Sombra out of the cage. "Like, the bars of the cell were weakening me or something. Come on Trixie, wake up." It took a few minutes, but eventually both Trixie and Sombra groaned and got up, both of them looking ragged. "Thank Faust you're alright!" Starshine said as he tackled Trixie, who fell over.
"Starshine?...What are you and Armora doing here?" she asked in confusion as she tried to shake the cobwebs from her head. "I thought that the silver...?"
"She's the one who told us you two were trapped," Starshine said as he let go of Trixie, cracking up a bit as Sombra fell over behind him. "So we came down to rescue you."
"And you got past all the guards?" Trixie asked as Starshine helped her up.
"What guards? There was only like, two or three." Trixie looked worried about that, since the last thing she remembered before passing out was that there were a large number of guards moving throughout the castle. What happened to all of them? "Come on, we need to get the two of you out of here," Starshine said as Armora moved Sombra onto her back, making sure he was as uncomfortable as she could make him.
"Hold on...there's....somepony else we need to get," Trixie said as she pointed to the cell next to theirs. "We need to set something right." Armora dumped Sombra off her back before sticking her blade into the lock and snapping it off, helping the prisoner out of the cell.
"Thank you for your help, my friend," the older dog said to her with a thin smile before he started sniffing the air. "I can smell it, the other members of the pack are preparing the feast. If we leave now we may be able to sneak past them."
"Or, we can use this opportunity as a chance to help you reclaim your throne," Sombra said as he picked himself off the floor, glaring at Armora who shrugged innocently. "If we leave the throne in the claws of that buffoon, then we can bet that he will continue to run your pack into the ground. And if you really are the king you said you are, then you wouldn't let that happen, would you?" Bark smiled at Sombra as he looked into Sombra's eyes, not able to see them, but somehow Sombra felt he could still see him.
"You know of the pain I am in, and have found yourself in a similar situation as to the one I find myself in, King Sombra?" Bark asked him. "It is not an easy place to be in."
"You have no idea," Sombra said with a shake of his head as he headed for the exit. "Well, with or without you, I will be going out to stop Snarl...Jerk deserves it after he locked me up."
"Oh very well, I will help you to stop him," Bark said with a sigh as he got down on all fours and started to move forward, navigating the room with the utmost precision.
"How are you doing that?" Starshine asked as he ran up alongside the former king. "I thought you were blind?"
"Oh, I am blind," Bark said as he looked back and smiled. "But that doesn't mean I can't see." Trixie, Armora and Sombra followed the dog as they moved through the tunnel, heading back to the castle above. Once they were in the main room again, Fang lead the two of them through multiple tunnels and pathways that they would have never found themselves. Eventually they came to the end of a tunnel that was a dead end, causing Sombra to smirk.
"This is what we get for letting the blind guy lead us. A dead end." Bark turned to Sombra with a smile on his face and Sombra shivered a bit as he felt the blind eyes looking through him again.
"Like I said, I can still see. And I am not the only blind one here," he said as he pressed a paw on a brick, stepping back with another smile as the wall moved to the side to reveal a passageway. "This will lead us to the main hall where the pack is. There we will find Snarl." The group followed the grey dog into the path as they each began to prepare for what might be on the other side. "I can smell them and there are a lot of them. This may be the last chance for us to escape."
"Please, I never flee from a battle unless I'm certain that I can't win," Sombra said as he moved past the dog and headed towards the exit. "And I always win!"
"I've read about gods less arrogant," Trixie said with a sigh as she moved past Bark as well, Armora following suit.
"Come on, let's go get your kingdom back," Starshine said with a smile as he walked past Bark.
"The four of you are really ready to risk everything to help a stranger?" Bark asked with disbelief.
"Well, I don't know about Sombra, but Trixie loves to help others," Starshine said as he ran ahead. "I don't think there's anypony she won't help." Bark smiled at this as he followed the young colt to the end of the tunnel. The two of them came to a stop there next to the others, who were overlooking the hall where a massive number of Diamond Dogs were all eating and drinking, with Snarl sitting on a throne at the end of the room.
"Alright, here's the plan," Trixie said as Armora and Starshine moved closer to her. "Armora will sneak up on the ceiling while I use my magic to get behind Snarl. Sombra-"
"HEY ASSHOLE!" Trixie slammed her hoof into her face as the sounds of screaming and barking reached their ears, followed by the sounds of Sombra yelling his magic words with explosions quickly following. Trixie growled about what an idiot he was, as she and Armora jumped down to join in the battle while Starshine and Bark watched from above.
"What be this?!" Snarl roared before a chair thrown by Sombra caught him in the face.
"This be ursurping!" Sombra yelled back as he threw himself into the king, knocking him off the throne and to the floor. "You're a terrible ruler, killing and eating ponies while using your pack as your personal slaves. You make me look good by comparison." Snarl snarled and swiped at Sombra, who dove out of the way. "And that's really hard to do. You must suck at being a leader!"
"I swear, he does this just to hear himself talk," Trixie said with a roll of her eyes as she blasted a number of dogs away from her, while Armora separated some of the dogs' heads from their bodies. Armora buzzed in response and Trixie shook her head. "I still don't know what you're saying." Armora tackled Trixie out of the way as a number of stones were thrown at them. "Thanks," Trixie muttered as she looked at the anti-source that had barely missed her. The two of them looked around as more dogs began to run into the room, surrounding the two of them. Sombra wasn't doing much better, as Snarl had him by the throat and was choking the life out of him.
"Armora, if I fall I want you to take Starshine and get him out of here," Trixie said, but Armora placed herself in front of Trixie and motioned for her to leave instead. Trixie smiled and stood beside Armora, both of them ready to fight to the end. However...
"That is enough!" All of the Diamond Dogs gasped as Bark lowered himself down from the secret tunnel, looking at all of his pack with sad eyes as he began to move forward. The dogs parted before him as walked towards Snarl, who dropped Sombra to the floor as he began to move towards the former king.
"Why you here?" Snarl asked in rage. "You no king now. I leader of pack. I king!"
"You're no king. You took the throne through force, killed all who tried to stop you or disagreed with you," Bark said with complete disappointment in his voice as he closed his eyes. "But that is my fault. I should have raised you better. I am the one who failed you. So in turn you failed the kingdom."
"You failed this kingdom with your weakness!" Snarl roared as he charged towards Bark, both claws raised over his head. Bark opened his eyes as he leapt into the air and struck a single mighty blow to the face of Snarl, bringing the dog down with a thud.
"But that doesn't mean I still don't love you," Bark said with sorrow as he looked down at the unconscious dog. "You'll always be my little pup." Bark then looked over at all the dogs who were watching them, waiting to see what would happen next. "Snarl has failed you as a king. Therefore, he is no longer leader of this pack. A new leader must be chosen! But it will not be me...I have failed you as well. I am the one who kept the tradition of killing any pony that came here, but I have been shown mercy and compassion by those who we hated. So when a new leader is chosen, it must not be one who will make the same mistakes of the leaders of the past, but a leader who looks to the future. That is your choice to make." The Diamond Dogs all began to leave the room, most of them holding their heads in confusion.
"What will happen to him?" Trixie asked as they looked down at Snarl.
"He will be imprisoned from his crimes," Bark said with a sad sigh. "Can I ask you to take him down to the dungeon. I do not know if I could bear it." Trixie nodded and motioned for Armora and Starshine to follow her. Only after the room had been completely emptied, besides for Sombra and Bark, did Sombra finally ask the question he had been holding in.
"So, what do you mean I am blind?" Bark turned to face Sombra with his teary eyes. "And I know that you were talking about me, because the other three are far too foolish to notice the hint. That was a direct shot at me, wasn't it?"
"Yes, I was speaking of you," Bark said as he sat down next to Sombra. "As for what I meant, I meant that you are blind in a metaphorical sense. You refuse to see what is going on around you, and you let what has happened in the past blind you to those in the present."
"The hell does that mean?" Sombra growled, but Bark had gotten back up and began to leave, looking back at Sombra one last time.
"I cannot open your eyes for you, that is something you must do," Bark said as he walked away. "But I tell you this because you have similar eyes to mine. You have experienced a heartbreak that shattered your life." Sombra narrowed his eyes as the dog walked away from him, knowing exactly what he was speaking about.