Much to Twilight's disappointment, the wave of scanning magic she and Cadence summoned brought up nothing at all in terms of dark energies or dark manifestations. It took a little bit more convincing, but the pink alicorn finally settled down, much to the relief of her husband. Spike and Rarity later visited the castle, with Cadence getting to see Crystal for the first time. The day for them was rather uneventful save for these few encounters, but that was for them and not those in the sewers.
The foals in the sewers found themselves astonished with the clock that had protected them all from the impending wave of doom that was coming for them. They all took a liking to the clock and placed it high above in a crevice where no pony but they and the rats could know about, let alone reach. As time went on, the foals grew, and so did their family, abandoned by the cruelty of fear. Crunchy Apple was still the eldest and the biggest of them all, and while the rest of the foals still resented Stellar because of the sayings of Sour Blackberry and his increasing band of nay-sayers, the giant stallion remained friendly and kind towards the fluffy filly. In fact, Stellar began to only go to Apple and do what he would say just to spite the others. Other times she wouldn't do what he would say as he would ask her to help her 'family'. The older the filly became, the more she started to feel...something towards the stallion. She related it to the feeling of eating crunchy, warm chocolate chip cookies.
Stellar Shadowrette continued to learn how to properly take what was needed from the markets, becoming increasingly talented with sneaky actions. She even started to steal books from the local library that taught her how to maintain clocks and replace broken parts. Bizarrely, the clock that the strange shop mare gave her would never lose its shine let alone its incessant ticking and tocking. Every day of the celebration for the 'hero' another scanning barrier would sweep across the landscape, forcing the foals to cope with precision timing to be protected by the clock's strange magic.
Things were going well, but Crunchy knew that they couldn't remain hidden forever, and the day where they must show themselves to the kingdom would soon come. Hopefully, they will be ready by then and will be able to coax the princess into caring for them and scolding the crystal ponies. Until then, today was a new Hero's Festival, and it was time to get the goods. Crunchy was instructing the young foals while a twelve year old Stellar readied her own brown bag.
Despite her time in the sewers, Shadowrette's coat kept its glossiness and slight fluff. Her mane and tail became a bit poofier than before and began to curl a bit at some ends. Her eyes became more imposing and were filling with strength and confidence, something to behold when faced with what she has gone through over so many years. They even seemed to have become glistening and luminescent like polished marble. As for her figure, well, years of exercise and eating only the necessities had given her a rather elegant but strong figure. She hadn't yet begun to develop the curvy figure of a full grown mare, although it seemed muscles were seeping into those portions instead. Not too muscular, but not too effeminate either.
"Let's see. The wave thingy is gone...So I can do what I want. Let's see, the best place to get food and supplies is near the podium where the 'hero' will share the tale of Sombra being defeated and yadda yadda," Stellar.
"Stellar!" Crunchy apple shouted.
"Y-yes?"
The foals had already left topside in small groups like the day Stellar went outside for the first time, leaving Crunchy with free time on his hooves.
"I'm going to leave with Sour Blackberry and Cucumber Salad to look for a few more abandoned foals. The rats say that they some have been spotted near the industrial district. In the mean time, I want you, Cornflakes, and Extravagance to go to the surface and find some costumes, like wigs, make-up, and all the similarities."
"Why?"
"Because mares and stallions in cloaks during the day would seem a tad suspicious, don't you think?"
"True. Listen um..."
"Yes?"
"I...Never mind..." Stellar sighed with a blush.
Crunchy lift an eyebrow in confusion but shrugged it off. He needed to tend to other things in the sewers and couldn't stay for somepony's indecision, leaving Shadowrette in the literal dark with a reddening face formed from both anger and embarrassment.
"Stellare. How're y'er doin'?" Cornflakes asked.
"Fine. What about you?"
"Not much fer y'er ta know."
Cornflakes was a strange earth colt. Although he was two years younger than Stellar and was born in the 'posh' district of the kingdom, he inherited a bizarre accent that no pony knew of. Stranger still, he would often go to a library and read there instead of taking them back. He was practically nothing but creamy yellow with the exception of his eyes that were as dark as Sombra's. He would often say that he liked his eyes like that and that they gave him the impression of being some sort of 'dragon of darkness', although it was actually hard to see them due to his mane cut going over them in a half-bowl shape. Perhaps it was this that allowed him to travel unscathed in the streets of secret hatred? What he did know, and others didn't, were the fine mechanisms of locks and door mechanisms. This meant that Crunchy would often need to force Cornflakes in returning his stolen goods. It was unfortunate that so much time practicing his 'talents' left him a kleptomaniac.
"Ugh. Should we stay or belay? I want to get this over with," Extravagance complained.
"You never want to do anything, mud princess," Stellar snuffed.
Stellar looked away from the filly with a grin, enticing Extravagance's rage.
"How DARE you call me that!"
Extravagance was more colorful than Cornflakes, but her personality was much more annoying. She developed a sense of unjust entitlement that came from her being abandoned by her family when they learned that her mutations were not something to keep as a trophy, so she lost it all. She was a very recent newcomer, but she still hadn't changed from her snooty attitude. Her mane and tail were a pale shade of purple and were extremely curved everywhere, giving both an appearance of 'bed head' and that of a finely made hair style. Her coat was a shiny silver-gray that were slightly hidden by the black mist serving as her wings. She was a pegasus, making her mutation extremely obvious and nigh impossible to hide. As for her eyes, they were simply olive colored.
"Let's go tay da streets. I'er dun want to here y'ere complainin'," Cornflakes complained.
Extravagance glared at Stellar but hurried along, pulling Cornflakes away with her. These two actually weren't wearing cloaks, unlike Stellar. They were lucky enough to be minorly affected and able to pass their mutations off as costumes for the Hero Festival.
While walking through the crowd, Stellar couldn't help but think again at how her life would have been had she been born a 'normal' pony. The streets were still as bustling as ever during the festivals, and not much else could be really noted, although Cornflakes began to chuckle. He was tossing a golden watch up and down.
"What...Where did you get that?"
"Some staylion at theh mayrkets."
"You have to give that back!"
Cornflakes thought for a moment, then said: "Mmmm. Later."
Stellar sighed. "You better not steal more stuff."
"Too late," Extravagance said.
Cornflakes was already wearing a straw baseball cap with 'Slam bam thank you, m'am!' written on it.
"Extravagance, you know the most about make-up and mane and tail conditioners. Do you know where we can look first?"
"Hmph. Are you implying that I'm not 'natural'?" the mare swished her gleaming mane with pride.
Stellar and Cornflakes both looked at her with disapproval. The mare huffed and replied:
"Fine. I guess you can't admire true beauty. Anyways, there's two stores around here. Me and Cornflakes will go to it and take some stuff."
"Where's the other?" Stellar asked.
"It's down the street to the left. It should be at the end of all of this stuff for the festival. It looks like a giant balm of lipstick."
Stellar shrugged and followed the directions, carefully passing through everypony and leaving her companions behind the second she heard her instructions. Shadowrette wasn't a pony who liked the company of the others from her sewers, so any chance she got, she would leave her current group behind.
"Ugh. This huge crowd is so annoying. I can't go anywhere without smacking into somepony."
Finally, the mare gave a gasp of fresh air after having painfully squeezed herself through the last group of ponies entering the festival zone. She was capable of seeing that the sky had now become darkened with undulating gray clouds, although brief beams of light would pass through them often. One of them brought itself ever so briefly upon a building just around the corner. Enamored by the beam, Stellar went to check what it had illuminated. To her joy, it was the lipstick shop. It was just as stupid as Extravagance said. It just looked like a giant black tube of lipstick with a golden ring under the 'lid'.
"What kind of idiot would make their store look like this? It's like making a store look like a merry-go-round," Shadowrette chuckled to herself. "Plus, I just wanted to get myself some snacks. Not fair," she pouted.
She looked around for anywhere she could enter besides the front door, but the only other door was on the balcony above and it was too far up to reach.
"Ugh. It's times like this I wish I knew how to use magic. I guess I'll just be going through the windO--"
Stellar was rammed into by somepony and found herself tossed far away, rolling around on the ground painfully at the end of her brief flight.
"Are you okay, miss? I did not think anypony would be in these streets at this time of hour."
"Uh. Yeah. You just broke a rib or all of them, but I'll be okay."
"Oh. Good. I was...worried...what in the Abyss..."
Stellar had encountered a small group of crystal guards that were galloping for a reason unknown to the mare. They were at least six of them composed of one unicorn, two pegasi, and three earth ponies. Not only did the one on the ground seem shocked at something, but the others were looking mighty angry and were moving menacingly closer to the mare.
"Wh-what? What is it?" Stellar tapped her head and then her back, discovering that her cloak had been torn off. "Oh no. Wait!"
"It's a corrupt, and this one looks just like Sombra!" the fallen guard shouted.
"I-i-i-it's just a disguise. You know? For the festival!"
"Do you take us for foals? We have enough experience with you pawns of Sombra to know the differences...No. You ARE Sombra. I feared this day would come. Grab it! We'll take it to the city dungeon before the king and queen notice anything," an elderly guard ordered.
"L-leave me alone! I haven't done anything!"
The fallen pounced towards the mare, hoping to grab and cuff her, but the pony was too quick and pounced out the guard's grasp. Darting towards the crowd, five of the guards chased after her while the elderly guard used his magic to bring up a squarish projection in front of him depicting a few other guards doing some rather menial things such as filing paper work or cleaning their office.
"I've found the Reborn. It's in the festival."