//------------------------------//
// Broken Feathers — Part One 
// Story: Broken Feathers: Frozen North 
// by That Avi Nerd 
//------------------------------//

	"You need to relax."

"I am relaxed."

"You are not relaxed. Your muscles are tightening up around this thing and it's going to make it harder to pull out." 

"Then just pull it out!" 

"I can't pull it out because you're not relaxed!"

"I'm relaxed!" 

"Just hold still."

"Fine, make it— Gah! Faust!" 

"Yeah, see? That's what happens when you don't relax." 

Stryker spat the tiny splinter out of his mouth. Phantom rubbed the spot on the side of his neck from where it came from painfully. Though the pain was dwarfed by that coming from his right wing, which now hung limply on his side. Anything the pegasus would do to cause the wing to move, even slightly, sending a trill of pain through his nerves that brought him to his knees. 

The three ponies had been brought into the cell not long after the end of the fight in the courtyard. Stryker and Archer were both still unconscious upon their arrival to the cold stone box that was to be their home for the night. During the late twilight hours, Stryker finally woke. Archer, however, remained unconscious in the corner. 

"Why bother? We're just going to get hung anyway." Stryker stopped for a minute to glare at the stallion. Then he smacked the pegasus across the muzzle with his hoof, stunning him. "The hay was that for?!"

"The Phantom I knew wouldn't give up that easily. He was the most stubborn pony I had ever met."

"The Phantom you knew is broken." Stryker pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. Phantom continued his lament. "My best friend who was dead, is alive, and is the bad guy... My sister, who was missing for years, is back, and is the leader of some mysterious force against my ex-best friend. An innocent filly got ponynapped. Rainbow Dash is alone in a place that is probably on fire now. On top of it all, you were lying to be all this time."

"I know it isn't much... but I'm sorry for what I did. We can't just give up, not like this. Nyx got away, back to Palmyra, and back to Rainbow Dash. If they're anything alike, then they won't sit idly by like we are." 

There was a pause between the two as they each contemplated their own ideas about the current situation. A quick movement off to the side caught Phantom's attention. He looked over at Archer, who's hooves were twitching slightly. That, and his eyes moving rapidly under closed lids, were all signs that he was in the middle of some intense dream. Which was a better sign than his previous state which consisted of the earth pony moving less than your average boulder. 

Archer's breathing increased, and the pace of his hooves picked up. Every few trots, a hoof would catch a piece of stone sticking up from the floor, and he would rotate slightly. Normally it would be something to laugh at, but it was downgraded by the current circumstance. All of his movements abruptly came to a halt, leaving the entire cell as still as could be. Archer greedily sucked up a large quantity. His eyes flew open, and his pupils dilated. He shot to his hooves, backing himself further into the corner with ragged breaths. 

The pony slowly calmed himself down, steadying his breathing and soaking in his environment. When his vision finally focused and he better saw the two ponies in front of him, he calmed down further.

"You're awake," Stryker pointed out.

"Indeed," Archer replied. "What happened?"

"Um... I'm not sure... the shield broke and I was knocked unconscious." Stryker turned to the pegasus. "You know what happened?"

"You got punched," Phantom said. "Hard."

"Ah." As if to relieve any pain, Archer rubbed his jaw with a hoof. "That explains why my head hurts so much. What happened to you, boss?" 

Phantom began to rise from his laying position, only getting to a sitting position before a twinge of pain brought him back to his stomach, putting the stallion in even more pain. Stryker shot over to the ailing stallion, trying to stop him by saying 'Whoa whoa whoa whoa! Just stay down." The unicorn motioned with his head for Archer to walk over to the other side of Phantom, to which the earth pony obliged.

The thing that had once been Phantom's pristine, clean, powerful wing was now a limp, ravished collection of feathers and bone that barely held onto his midnight blue body. The sight alone forced Archer to look away, gagging.

"Celestia..." Archer said, quickly trotting over to the other side of the two ponies. "What happened to you?"

"Cypher clipped me, that's what happened," Phantom explained.

"Ah." The earth pony trotted back over to his corner and sat down, once again taking in the details of their little abode. "Once again we find ourselves stuck in a cell."

"With no princess to bail us out this time," Stryker said, looking through the cold, black, iron bars, as if somepony should have been standing there.



Bang! An iron bared cell door slammed shut, locking three stallions inside of a small, dark room. Immediately, the white earth pony of them staggered into a wall, collapsing onto a bed a laughing to himself. A tan unicorn sat in the center of the cell, facing hoofing and cursing under his breath at the events that had transpired. Meanwhile, the midnight blue pegasus turned back towards the cell bars to confront the guard who had closed them.

"Flash..." Phantom hiccuped. "Come on... You don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do," Flash Sentry replied sternly. "Breaking up a bar fight between Royal Guard and Night Guard is not how I wanted to start my shift! What in Equestria were you thinking?!"

"Hey! They... They ins—" the pegasus hiccuped again, "ulted me."

"You attacked a platoon of Night Guards over an insult?! Stryker, you're sober, right?" The unicorn he was addressing turned around, nodding. "What happened?"

"Phantom's telling the truth," Stryker said. "We were sitting at the bar, getting ready to leave when those Night Guards showed up. Naturally, tensions rose. One of them said that Phantom couldn't guard anything, not even his own sister." Flash Sentry found a new interest in the stone floor. "So, Phantom nocked the guy out. The other Night Guards went after Phantom, then Archer got involved, then more Night Guards, then I got involved... and now we're here." 

Flash nodded, filling in the end pieces of the story in his head. Just a few minutes into his shift, a pony ran up to him and told him about the fight in the bar a few blocks from him. By the time he arrived to the scene, the inside of the bar had been destroyed, and a platoon of Night Guards were strewn along the ground. Standing in the center of the carnage: his three squad mates, broken pieces of glass and table legs in hoof. Now, he looked at his friends through iron bars. 

"What do you think will happen when Captain Dash finds out, Phantom? And you two," he said, nodding to Stryker and Archer, "what about Captain Armor? Better yet, what about Princess Celestia? We're supposed to be the best in the Guard."

"Right!" Archer called from the bed. "We are the best! We took out a platoon of Night Guard!" Both he and Phantom tried stifling their laughs, but failed. The latter of the two even swayed from side to side, threatening to fall over.

"The princess will not be happy."

"No," said a feminine voice that echoed through the dungeon, "I'm not." 

Flash Sentry took a step to the side, allowing the owner of the elegant voice to be seen. A tall white alicorn whose sparkling mane was caught in an eternal breeze stood before the ponies. Her magenta eyes were usually the kindest you would ever see, but tonight, they made the stallions feel very, very small. 

The three imprisoned guardsponies bowed, with Stryker being the only successful one of them. Archer attempted to roll out of the bed and onto his hooves so that he could properly address the alicorn. That much he accomplished. However he didn't stop rolling once on his hooves, so he fell onto his other side with a thud. Phantom managed to bow for the most part, but in his drunken stupor he didn't stop until with his jaw connected with the cobblestone floor. 

Pick himself back up he said, "Hey there—hic—Sun Butt."

Both he and Archer guffawed, uncontrollably falling to the floor despite having just picked themselves back up. Princess Celestia's already angered expression fell even more as her eyes narrowed. Flash Sentry facehoofed. Stryker slapped Phantom across the muzzle, bringing the pegasus back to his senses. 

"I am very disappointed in you three ponies." Princess Celestia's words contained a harshness that forced the three jailed guards to look away. It was, essentially, the vocalized version of Fluttershy's Stare.

"Look, your highness," Stryker began, "they technically star—"

"I do not care who started it, I care only that you attacked fellow members of the Guard. Insult about your past or not, Phantom, you had no right to do what you did."

"But my sister—"

"I am fully aware of the history surrounding your sister, and I am truly sorry. But acting on violence, against your fellow Guards, at least, will not bring her back." She paused, glancing over the three ponies. "I am having you released, on the promis that this will not happen again. Stryker, you are the sober pony amongst the group, correct?" He nodded. "Then I trust you will keep the members of your squad in check. Let this serve as a warning: should any of you," she casted a glance at Flash Sentry before returning the majority of her attention back to the others, "do something like this again, you will be stripped of your rank and service. Am I understood?"

"Yes, your highness," the four replied in unison.

"Good." Using her magic, Princess Celestia unlocked and slid open the cell door. "Lance Corporal Sentry, take the Sergeant and his guards back to their barracks and watch over them, they are not to leave until the morning, and only then if they have sobered."

"Yes, your highness," Flash Sentry bowed, leading the three released ponies down the hall of the Canterlot dungeon. Princess Celestia watched for a few minutes as they slowly left her view. Once they did, she snorted to her self and headed in the other direction, wondering what trouble those four would get into soon. 



The three ponies sat in their cells, all staring at the ground, apparently having been thinking about the same moment in time. 

"Come on," Stryker said, "let's get the rest of these splinters out."

"How many more?" Phantom sighed. 

Stryker took a moment to himself, inspecting the pegasus' neck and legs for splinters. 

"One hundred and three."

Again, Phantom sighed. "Alright," he took a breath, "get it over wi—FAUST!"

Stryker turned his head to spit the splinter out. "You need to relax, there's still a hundred and two left." 



Ba. Ba. Brrrraah.

For the umpteenth time that morning, the snared drums repeated their cadence of death. There was a short pause before it played again. Each tap and roll echoed through the courtyard, deterring any birds from landing nearby. 

Ponies stood in front of the newly repaired gallows, though there wasn't quite as many as the previous day. However, that was compensated by the much larger Glacien Guard presence. Atop the platform, stood what appeared to be a Glacien Lieutenant. With Captain Cypher disappearing, presumably to the Palmyran Forest, one could assume that this was the next in command; other than the king, who, watched the proceedings from a balcony connected to the main part of the castle on the other side of the courtyard.

"We have been betrayed!" the guard shouted. "By these Caren who pretended to be our allies. Pretended to fight the Nightingales with us. They dare turn on us! He! dares turn on his!" he thrusted a hoof to the pony standing beneath the gallows. 

Phantom Knight ignored the unicorn, choosing only instead to muse himself with the gently swaying rope that dominated his vision. In a back recess of his mind, he wished that they would go ahead and execute him now instead of rambling on. He briefly considered running forward, sliding his neck through the rope, and keep running forward so that he would hang himself, but the bindings on his legs had prevented that. 

"For their crimes," the guard continued, "they shall be executed on this day."

"Heh," Stryker snorted. "Some birthday, eh, boss?" The unicorn was standing behind Phantom, with Archer directly behind Stryker. During the march to the gallows, they were told by a guard that they were going to watch each other die one by one, with Phantom being the first.

"Equestria has declared war on his!" The guard paused. "We must make the first strike! And—"

"Look, pal," Phantom interrupted. "I know you're monologuing and all, but listen, we've got two options: either hang me now, or give me some food. Because I'm going to starve by the time you get done." 

The guard's face twisted and skewed with annoyance. But as much as he thought Phantom was joking, the pegasus was not. Even now, his stomach growled. It had been sometime since he had eaten, let alone eaten anything decent. Last night's jail 'supper' consisted of a single stale biscuit, that was shared amongst the three of them.

"And we make that strike here! Today! Now!" The guard moved in front of Phantom, levitating the rope in his magic and sliding it around the neck of the pegasus, tightening it. "Any final words?" 

Phantom felt the tips of his feathers twitch, and the hairs on his spine slowly rise. A small smile crossed his lips. There was a dull, buzzing sound, something like what a swarm of parasprites would make. It started off quietly at first, quiet enough for the Glacien to fail to notice it. Slowly it grew in volume. Phantom spoke over the noise in the hopes of disguising it further.

"You, my dear sir, may follow me to Tartarus." 

The guard open his mouth to speak, but was cut off by an explosion of light and sound directly behind him. For a brief moment, Phantom shut his eyes tightly, turning his head to the side. When he looked back, the Glacien was falling to the platform. In front of where he stood, a cyan mare with a rainbow mane. Her hoof was outstretched to where the stallions muzzle had just been. Beside her: Twilight Sparkle, whose horn was fading light. To the her right, was a black pegasus. All, save for Twilight, were wearing black armor partially covered by a black cloak and hood. 

Nyx ran forward, knife in hoof. With a single slash, the rope fell from the cross beam. 

"What are you guys doing here?" Phantom asked. He held perfectly still so that Nyx could cut the remaining rope around his neck. 

"Uh, Element of Loyalty, remember?" Dash said, stepping over the guard and moving towards them. 

By now, alarms had been raised, and unicorns were advancing on them in mass numbers. Bolts of magic sailed past the platform, fired by the Glacien guards. Any that would have hit the Equestrians were blocked by a lavender bubble that surrounded the gallows. 

"Can't keep this up for long," Twilight grunted with tightly shut eyes. She opened them and looked at Stryker and Archer. "I can only take two back with me."

Nyx nodded. "You get them out of here, Dash and I will take Phantom back." She turned to her brother. "You good to fly out of here?" Phantom shook his head, turning to the left so that the three mares got a good look at the wing that hung limp at his side. Both Rainbow and Twilight developed a slightly noticeable green hue to their faces. "Okay, that complicates things. Dash, you get his good side."

The pegasus nodded, moving to Phantom's left side for support. Nyx braced herself on his right, minding his injured wing, she wrapped hooves around his right leg, while Rainbow Dash did the same to the other fore leg. 

"We'll see you guys there," Twilight said. Under the cover of a white flash and snap, Twilight, along with Stryker and Archer, disappeared. 

Her forcefield went with her. A torrent of spells flew past the three remaining pegasi, with a few bolts connecting with the support beams of the gallows just to their sides. Nyx counted down. On one, she and Rainbow Dash pushed down on their wings, rising to the air. Phantom's face twisted and contorted. He groaned through clinched teeth in an effort to expel the pain shooting up his side.

Rainbow Dash and Nyx carried Phantom into the skies above the courtyard. Spells followed them, directed by unicorns who were desperately trying to strike the fleeing pegasi. Nyx led the maneuvers, calling out directions for Rainbow Dash to help carry the stallion in. Each time they moved, more pain tugged at Phantom's nerves. 

With in a minute, the three were clear of the castle and out of range of the unicorn guards. Rainbow Dash and Nyx settled into a stable flight at about the same height as the area's cumulous clouds. 

"Nyx!" Phantom yelled loud enough to be heard by the two pegasi over the rushing wind. "You've got some explaining to do!"

"Me?!" Nyx looked down at her brother. "You have some explaining to do! Why are you here?"

"Why am I here? I'm here to stop a Changeling attack and stop a civil war! Why are you? here?"

"I'm leading that civil war! What are Changelings doing here?"

"Sorry to interrupt guys," Rainbow Dash said, "but can we maybe save this for later and focus on getting back in one piece?"

"Fine!" Phantom and Nyx replied at the same time.

The group continued flying on in silence, trying to stay as stable as possible. With each round of turbulence, Phantom felt a new spike of pain. His eyes narrowed, and he clinched his teeth. When his eyes were open, his vision was surrounded by swirls of black and red. He felt as though his head was filling with helium. A tingling sensation started in his hooves, crawling up his legs. The same feeling also began in the base of his broken wing and he quickly lost feeling in it.

"H-Hey..." Phantom's voice was barely audible over the wind. "Something's not right..."

Nyx kept her attention forward on the horizon. Rainbow Dash barely noticed, briefly looking down at the stallion. His head was bobbing up and down while his jaw hung open. Phantom's eyes were drooping but it was clear that he was trying to keep them open. 

"We need to land, Nyx!" Hearing Rainbow Dash's words, Nyx looked at her brother and quickly nodded. With a free hoof, she pointed down to a white field below them that would provide ample room to land. 

The pegasi directed themselves towards it with a sense of urgency. Landing in the field, Rainbow Dash moved off to the side and let Nyx lay her brother in the snow on his good side. She quickly took mental notes, trying to identify the problem aside from the obviously broken and dislocated wing.

"What's wrong with him?" Rainbow asked.

"I think he's going into shock," Nyx said, lifting open one of her brother's eye lids to look into his pupil. Reaching into a pouch on the side of her armor she pulled out a small bag filled with a clear liquid and a thin tube that had a thick needle at the end. Extending Phantom's front right leg she found a spot were a vein ran through his forearm and stuck it in. "Here." She handed the bag over to Rainbow Dash. "Keep the tube beneath the bag and make sure the fluids keep dripping. Can you do that and fly?"

Rainbow Dash took the bag in her mouth and nodded.

"Good. Now, help me get him up." The two mares braced themselves beneath Phantom, spreading their wings and preparing for flight. "Hang in there for me, okay Phantom?" 

Nyx casted a glance to her brother whose breathing had began to slow. His head and eyes were also starting to droop. 

Phantom couldn't hear what his sister had been saying; her words came to him in the form of dull mumbles, along with every other sound. His eyes were closing against his will and what he could see were only blurs and were quickly fading to black. He only barely felt himself being lifted off of the ground before losing complete consciousness.



Phantom's fluttered open. The firs thing he noticed was that he was no longer flying. The second thing was that his armor was missing. The third thing was that he was laying down on a soft white sheeted bed in the back of a wooden room and next to a semi-transparent silk curtain that was the only source of light. The room itself was barren, like a backwoods cottage with its wooden floor, walls, and ceiling. A nightstand stood to Phantom's left, on top of which was a plate of several sandwiches. 

He reached over to grab them, feeling the incessant growling in his stomach. A tube pulled on his foreleg, asking it to stay where it was. Phantom traced the tube out from his foreleg and up to the top of a silver metal pole, where an I.V. bag was hung, dripping a clear liquid into the tube which followed it down and into his foreleg. He grimaced slightly, not being a fan of needles in the first place, let alone a large bore needle like that of an I.V. 

Phantom placed his chin on his foreleg above where the needle was and pushed down, using his other hoof to pull the needle out of his arm. He found a first aid box on the nightstand to his right, from the inside of which he retrieved a ball of cotton and medical tape. Phantom placed the cotton over the entry point for the needle then wrapped the tape around it and his foreleg several times. Flexing his it to make sure it wasn't too tight, he reached over for the plate of sandwiches and eagerly bit into them.

The taste from the sandwich caught Phantom off guard. He had expected it to be something that he had tasted before, like a daisy sandwich or maybe ever one with roses, as was common for pony food. It was sweet, extremely sweet but not too much so; almost like a warm buttery-sugary-cinnamon feeling. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the taste. The sandwich even left a warmth behind that spread through out the pegasus' body, relaxing him.

Opening his eyes he saw what was making the sandwich taste so great: Cherry Blossoms. The pink and white petals stuck out from between the bread in jagged edges where Phantom had just bitten into. Satisfied, he bit into it again and again until it was gone before proceeding to eat the remaining three. 

He spent the time quelling his stomach's anger by looking around the room more. The wood was a light brown, indicating that the floors, walls, and ceiling were made of oak. A certain musk hung in the air, giving the room a slight haze. It seemed to be the result of burning candles, one of which laid on the nightstand to his right and had appeared to burn itself out. The door directly across from him seemed to be made of a similar wood, with a wooden L shaped knob. Light shone under it, with the occasion spot being covered up by thin, spaced shadows, likely the effect of ponies moving about on the other side of the door. Looking through the window provided no evidence as to Phantom's location; the angle of the light was blinding enough that it concealed any details other than a blue sky, even if he looked through the gap in the curtains.

The option of escape came to the forefront of the pegasus' mind. He was in an unknown area with no idea of what was going on. Since Phantom could hear the faint voices of ponies on the other side of the door, he couldn't tell what they were saying, and there for wasn't sure o their identities. Instead, Phantom chose to see about climbing out of the window with the hopes that he would be able to open it without having to break it.

Phantom sat up and turned himself to the left, accompanied by a series of pops in his back and neck as he did. He leaned forward to climb off of the bed and stand next to it. A sharp pain shot through his right side immediately afterwards. Phantom looked towards the source of the pain, noticing a series of white bandages that wrapped around his right wing and barrel. Slowly memories tricked back to him. 

There shouldn't be any reason for him to run, he had already escaped the Glaciens thanks to Rainbow Dash and Nyx. 

His eyes widened, and his jaw opened. Nyx!

Phantom bolted for the door, not caring that he was going too fast or a room of that size. Seeing his lapse in judgement, Phantom tried to stop but ended up sliding across the wooden floor, his hooves bouncing over the cracks like train wheels over track joints. Just as he skidded to a halt in front of the door, it swung open and smacked into his nose. 

Nyx stood on the other side, hoof covering her gaping mouth. 

"Celestia!" she said. "I'm so sorry, I thought you'd still be in bed! You alright?" 

Phantom held a hoof on the tip of the muzzle and his eyes remained shut as he sighed. He let the metallic smell and taste of iron sink in as a wetness pushed up against his nasal cavities and hoof. His teeth ached with a head pounding pain. Pulling his hoof away to examine it, he saw the tip covered with a crimson ooze and felt a thick liquid trickle down to the floor.

"Oh my." Nyx reached into a pouch on the right side of her armor and pulled out a hoofkerchief and handed it to her brother. "I am so, so sorry. Is there anything I can do?" 

Phantom took the hoofkerchief, holding it against his nose with his already stained hoof. "Sit rep," he said.

Nyx tilted her head to the side. "I beg your pardon?"

"Situation report."

"Oh, I see."

Nyx turned and left the small room with Phantom following close at her side. They entered a larger room of a similar design of the first. This one had multiple windows on each side, covered by curtains of similar design. Ponies in white gowns milled about stretchers that had ponies laying on them with bandages wrapped around bloodied wounds. Nyx kept her eyes forward as her and Phantom continued past the wounded ponies and out a set of double doors.

They found themselves in the middle of a cobblestone street, bustling with activity from ponies in similar black armor as Nyx. Pegasi flew in formations of three above the city, coming and going every so often. Earth ponies carried carts up and down the streets with haste and unicorns were marching in formation towards the city walls. 

"How's your wing feeling?" Nyx asked.

"Nyx..." Phantom's voice was muffled, still covered by his hoof and the bloody hoofkerchief. 

"Right, right, sit rep, I know. You started going into shock on the way back so Rainbow Dash and I landed and gave you an I.V. and flew you back here to Palmyra—"

"I'm well aware of that. You know which situation I'm talking about..."

"My disappearance... of course it's that one." She turned to head down the street towards a large castle, Phantom at her side. "To be honest, I don't remember all that much, it was a long time ago and I was fairly young.

"Really all I remember is I came home, and I went to make something to eat, and somepony came up behind me and grabbed me. We struggled around a bit and I got they injected me with some kind of sedative. When I woke up, I was in some kind of dark cell on what I think was a train. I don't know how long it was... it felt like weeks... but finally it stopped and I was brought out in Aquila. The  ponies who were guarding me brought me to the castle and I spent a couple of days with the royal family, still don't know why."

Phantom and Nyx reached the entrance to the great white Palmyran castle: a pair of finely crafted white wood doors. Nyx held one open as Phantom entered inside.

The interior struck him much the same way the interior of the Canterlot castle had; polished marble floors, white stone walls and ceiling. A blue carpet trimmed with gold stretched out to an elevated stone platform in the center of the room. From the ceiling hung a massive chandelier, lit by sapphire blue flames. Black banners hung from the walls, crested with a pair of blue wings cupped in a shape that resembled a heart, or when a pegasus was hugging a foal with them.

While Phantom stood and marveled at the purity of the castle compared to the rest of Palmyra, Nyx walked past him. When he didn't follow after her, she flicked her tail in his face to get his attention. Snapping out of his trance, he trotted up along side the mare while she continued her explanation.

"They kept teaching me these things about Glacien culture and history, it was weird. They wouldn't let me leave the castle and I had a guard on me at all times of the day and night. One day though, Queen Centauri took me out for a walk in the garden and for what ever reason I don't think she thought that I would try to escape.

"It took me several hours to build up the courage to actually do something, since I was actually growing feelings for the queen; she'd protect me from the guards who had been treating me like crap. Now that I think about that, it was probably their plan the entire time. Some kind brain washing if I were to guess." 

Nyx led Phantom to the other side of the platform, which by now looked to be solid white marble like the rest of the floor. She placed her hoof on a very specific tile that gave way to her touch, sinking in deeper than the rest of the stone. A grinding sound echoed through out the hall, giving indication that stone was rubbing up against stone. 

In front of the two ponies, the marble platform split in two and the halves drifted away from one another, revealing a series of marble steps lit by evenly spaced torches that also had the seemingly common place blue flame. The steps didn't extend for too long of a distance, at the bottom Phantom could see where they stopped and led to a small corridor. Light from another room was just barely visible.

Nyx took the first steps once the the divided platform stopped moving, continuing her story.

"Eventually I worked up the guts to actually try something but as you know, I wasn't the greatest flier. All I could manage was a short hop over the garden wall on the roof of the castle and fell. There was a cart of hay in the street below that caught me and I hid there, too afraid to move. Somepony came by and took the cart out of the city, following some gravel road. 

"It felt like I was in the hay for hours when the cart finally stopped. I heard screaming, yelling, and the sound of metal hitting metal. Then it all stopped. I waited and waited for something to happen when somepony started removing the hay. It was some mare wearing the same black armor that I'm wearing now, she was in a group with a bunch of other ponies who had just attacked the driver of the cart. She and the others started arguing, I don't remember what they said exactly but I think it was about me.

"She took me in and raised me along side Stryker and Syntax, telling me about what the Glaciens had done and how they were fighting back. For whatever reason, I believed them and started training with them. Don't ask me why, I just don't know. After awhile, I kinda forgot about coming home... then the mare who took me in got sick. Before she died, she said that I had the greatest potential to end the war and restore peace to Glacies once more, then named me the leader of the Nightingales."

The pegasi reached the bottom of the stairs. It was a short walk to another door, this one made from simple wood and a black iron latch. Nyx opened it and allowed Phantom to enter the next room first.

It was a large rotunda made of a similar white marble with ivory columns sat atop plinths that supported the ceiling along the edges of the walls. On each column was a blue flame lit torch. Ponies of all tribes and colors sat around sleeping bags that were spread throughout the floor. Some were sleeping, some were reading or writing, some were simply relaxing and some were sharpening weapons. 

Phantom noticed what sat in the center of the room: a dragon. Specifically a granite statue of a dragon. He was particularly large, no where near the size of the one he had heard that was reported in a mountain cave outside of Ponyville not that long ago. He wasn't small, either. The creature was probably thrice the size of Discord; somepony could easily fit inside of it's mouth. Scales covered its body and a pair of horns extended from the top of the dragon's head and stretched towards its back. Hiss tail had a tip that resembled a single edge blade. 

The dragon was reared up as if it were about to strike and its wings were extended, the tips of them touched the edges of the walls. He was caught in a silent roar that showed his sharp teeth and slithering tongue. Around the dragon's neck was an indentation, like there was once been some kind of a necklace that had been removed. What struck Phantom the most was the eyes of the granite statue: they were glowing a bright blue that he had trouble looking at for too long.

Twilight Sparkle sat at the bace of the statue, staring up at it with an investigative eye while scribbling down things in a notebook. To her side was the rest of the Elements of Harmony, all in a circle chatting amongst themselves. Phantom's eyes quickly found Rainbow Dash, both with the help of her rainbow mane and the glowing crystal on her tiara. She seemed to notice him at the same time.

"Phantom!" she cheered, flapping her wings and rocketing towards him. Within moments she was embracing the stallion in a tight hug, one that shot pain through his side. "You're awake!"

"Yea—Gah. Yeah," he grunted. "Rainbow, watch—the wi—wing, please?"

Rainbow Dash quickly stepped back, bowing her head slightly and rubbing one hoof on the other. "Oh! Sorry. How is it?"

"Fine. Nothing I haven't felt before." He looked past Rainbow Dash and into the eyes of the stone dragon. "That him?"

She looked over at the dragon, then back to Phantom. "Yeah, that's Boreas. Twilight's been having a field day since she came back from your rescue."

"And the glowing in his eyes and in your tiara?" 

Rainbow Dash shrugged. 

"Haven't figured it out yet," Nyx said. "Twilight seems to think that it has something to do with it being the day he can be released; something about his resonant magical energy being at its fullest or something."

A Nightingale ran up to Nyx, urging her attention. The two whispered to one another so that nopony else could listen. Phantom tried his best to eaves drop on the conversation but something else caught his attention from the nearby wall.

"Faust!" some stallion yelled. Phantom turned towards the disturbance and saw Archer flip a crate, spilling the cards that rested on its top, and Stryker sliding away from the mess while sitting on a smaller crate. 

"You were close, though," Stryker said, calmly raising to his hooves. 

"That what you say ever time!"

"So that's a 'No' on another game, then?"

"Yes, that's a 'No.'" Archer huffed away from the unicorn, trotting past Phantom while on his way to the other side of the rotunda. "Hey, boss." 

"Thanks," Nyx said to the other Nightingale as they departed. She turned her attention back to pegasi next to her. "We've got a pretty big problem on our hooves." 

A dull bang sounded throughout the room. The bass of the noise was intense enough to shake the floor and everypony present. Once the reverberations were finished, silence reined. Everypony looked around as dust fell from the ceiling, waiting to see if the noise returned. It did. This time in shorter, more rapid successions.

"That the problem?" Phantom asked.

"Yup."

"Glaciens?"

"Yup. They have cannons with them; they've begun their attack."

"How long until they breach the walls."

"That's the big part of the problem; they already have. This city is over two thousand years old, it doesn't pose much of a defense against the Glaciens' weaponry. They've already breached the walls and are being delayed by our inner forces but they won't be able to hold them long."

All the Nightingales throughout the room were standing, putting on the rest of their armor and taking up their weapons.

"This is our last stand," Nyx continued. "We must hold the Glaciens off until at least after midnight, when they will no longer be able to free Boreas. So, Phantom, you in?"

He looked around. To his right, Archer slung a bow over his shoulders and put a few extra arrows into a quiver on his back. On Phantom's right, Stryker tied the last knot on his cape, pulling the hood up and smiling at the pegasus. Turning back to his sister, Phantom gave his reply. 

"Where's my armor?"