"Alright," said Shadow Shroud to the Crusaders. "Stay right here. You are not to leave this room. Am I clear?"
"Wait!" said Apple Bloom. "What if the Pony of Shadows finds us here and you're gone?"
"I don't see how anypony could find you here," replied Shadow Shroud, somewhat unsure. "This is a secret room only accessible via a secret passage in the courtyard. We're lucky we found it by accident, even though it was a fright when I thought it had swallowed you three up. "I suppose she probably does know where it is" he thought, "but... why would she think to look for you here?"
The fillies looked at the skeletal pony uncertainly. He sighed.
"If she finds you... run, if you can. And scream, scream as loud as you possibly can."
"Are you sure we can't just go with you?" asked Scootaloo.
"I'm sure. I need to confront the shadow pony, and it wouldn't be safe to bring you three with me. She won't find you here."
"Will you at least come back to check on us soon?" pleaded Sweetie Belle. "I don't want to be stuck in a weird dark room for long."
"You can crack the door so that you can see the moonlight," answered Shadow Shroud assuringly. "But no more than a crack."
"Alright."
"Okay. I'm going now. I'll be back soon, I promise.
Twilight, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash all turned around at the sound of movement outside of the room.
"What's that?" asked Applejack.
"I don't know!" whispered Twilight.
"Well, I'm not scared," said Rainbow Dash confidently. "Let's go see who's making those funny noises!" She flew toward the door.
"Wait, Rainbow!" cried Twilight.
The door suddenly flew open, interrupting the pegasus's flight abruptly.
"Rainbow!" cried the three remaining ponies in unison, but they all froze when they saw the pony in the door. Rainbow Dash let out a groan from the floor.
"It's you!" shouted Twilight accusingly. She tried to use a spell, but to her horror, her horn merely sparked and the magic died away.
Before she could say anything, the pony in armor let out a strange cry and fired a burst of shadowy magic at Twilight. Its cry sounded as if it was coming from a very long way away while retaining full volume. Twilight dodged the burst of magic and tried to use another spell, once again failing.
Rarity was discovering similar difficulty with casting magic. However, Applejack was succeeding in keeping the pony distracted by walking cautiously around her without actually making any move to attack her. The pony released another bolt of magic, this time aimed at the farm pony, which she had been prepared for and dodged easily.
At almost the same moment, Rainbow Dash's hind hooves collided with the pony's armor, making a loud 'CLANG' noise and throwing the pony to their stomach. Somehow the pony was able to roll out of the way of any further harm and was back to their feet before anypony could react, but to everypony's surprise, the armored pony turned around and galloped through the door it came from, slamming the wooden door.
The mares had only just started to move after the pony when suddenly they heard a voice from the outside.
"Whuh-oh! She's seen us! Run!"
"Apple Bloom!" shouted the mares. Applejack made it to the door first, but it refused to budge. She slammed it with a hoof, but it still remained shut.
There was screams from the three fillies. Applejack suddenly got a wild look in her eye and turned around before giving the door an all-mighty buck that caused it to explode outward in splinters.
The mares hurried through the door, but suddenly Applejack stopped. As the other mares emerged from behind her, they froze too.
In the courtyard before them were the Cutie Mark Crusaders, each seemingly bound by dark ropes of magic. The armored pony was looking down at them. The fillies either could not or did not speak, but each had a look of terror on their face.
The armored pony looked up at the mares, and then suddenly began to speak.
"We... meet again..." said the eerie voice of the mare, as though carried by the wind. The voice was unmistakable. It was then that the mares realized that they had been mistaken about the pony's identity, but their faces were already frozen in shock.
"Let them go, for goodness sake!" shouted Rarity.
The pony hesitated only a moment before answering with, "Of course... I have no quarrel with mere foals... and I have no quarrel... with even you... three... So you may take the foals and leave this castle... as soon as you surrender yourself to me... Twilight Sparkle..."
Color drained from each of the mares faces.
"No..." whispered Rarity.
"No, Twilight. This can't be!" said Applejack.
"There has to be another way!" insisted Rainbow Dash.
"But..." began Twilight. "We can't take that chance. I have to do it."
"Twilight!" whispered Applejack in deep concern.
"Do you promise," said Twilight shakily, "that everypony else can leave if I agree to this? That they will not come to harm?"
The other pony seemed to hiss in annoyance, but immediately afterward answered with "Yes... I swear it."
"Then I..." She approached the fillies. "I surrender. Do what you will!"
Twilights friends stared at her incredulously.
"You... are mine now, Twilight Sparkle."
Ropes of dark magic began to form around Twilight. Her friends could only watch, dumbfounded.
As soon as the magic was complete, Twilight looked up into the face of her captor. "You gave your word," she growled, somehow managing to come off as threatening.
Without a word from the other pony, the bindings around the fillies disintegrated into nothingness. The fillies did not move.
The armored pony turned back toward the mares. "Take your foals and leave... lest you all intend to bear witness to these coming events..."
For a long time, none of the mares spoke a word, and neither did the armored pony. Finally, Applejack found the courage to say in a strained voice, "Come here, you three. Please."
For a moment it seemed that the fillies were about to follow her order, but Sweetie Belle held out a hoof and stopped them. She turned and looked straight up at the armored pony.
"Miss Shadow Pony?"
The armored pony hesitated, and then looked back down at the filly, somehow appearing surprised. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom looked at Sweetie Belle as if she were insane.
"Sweetie!" snapped Rarity in disbelief.
Sweetie Belle ignored her. She turned to look at Twilight, who's expression was begging for her to do as she was told. Sweetie Belle's face hardened even more. She turned back around and picked the ceramic chocolate box off of the ground. It had remained unnoticed until then. The added confusion did little to help everypony's state of mind.
"These are the finest candies in all of Equestria," continued Sweetie Belle without pause. "They're really expensive and really, really yummy. So..."
She produced a key and inserted it into the lock and turned it. She lifted the lid, revealing at many gold foil wrapped spheres inside.
She paused and stammered for words. After looking down at the ground, she finally managed to say, "If I give them to you... Will you let everypony go?"
There was dead silence for a full fifteen seconds.
And then there was a burst of magic.
Everypony watched, horrified as the box fell to the dirt and round candies exploded away from it in all directions, littering the ground with golden specs everywhere. The armored pony was shaking slightly.
And then, against all expectations, laughter began to fill the air. It started off quietly, but quickly escalated to a distant and hollow guffaw. The armored pony began to lose control of herself as laughter overtook her completely.
And then there was a sudden motion from above quickly followed by the metallic rattling of armor.
The nightmare let out a ghostly groan as she lifted herself from the dirt that she had been plastered into, having sobered up immediately. She scrambled to her hooves and looked up and saw a robed figure behind a strange dark shield that collided with her helmet a moment later. It hit with far more force than it should have been able to give and caused her to stumble back several steps. The robed pony wasted no time in charging her down with another shield bash.
The frustrated shadow allowed her armor to simply fall away as the shield hit her a fourth time. The armor was flung behind her violently, leaving behind a dark and featureless form.
The shield collided with her once again and she let out an eerie scream of rage before dissipating in a cloud of smoke.
She reappeared behind the robed pony and fired a beam of magic at him. However, the robed pony managed to get the shield in front of the beam, which proceeded to have apparently no effect. The robed pony started charging at her again and she let out a sound that might have been a snort and vanished once again before reappearing again and repeating the attack.
Meanwhile, the three mares were trying their best to ignore the battle and usher the crusaders to safety. They had rapidly fled the scene, but Rainbow Dash was already back. She dive bombed at the shadow pony, but to her surprise, she passed through as though the other pony did not exist, although it give her the strangest feeling of discomfort.
Rainbow Dash hovered in the air and observed as the battle escalated, wracking her brain for some way of helping. The shadow pony had apparently decided to simply blast the robed pony with as much magical power as possible as quickly as possible. To Rainbow's astonishment, this too seemed to have no effect, as the shield seemed to somehow project a magic dome around the pony that she knew to be Shadow Shroud, absorbing the blast completely. The bombardment was disrupted as the Pony of Shadows vanished again to avoid her approaching opponent.
The Pony of Shadows did not follow up with another magic blast. Instead, she simply stood still and watched Shadow Shroud carefully. He charged once again.
She deftly dodged tried to fire another beam of magic, but the other pony anticipated the counter attack and swung away from the magic.
But even as the skeletal pony was turning around for yet another counter attack, the shadow pony pounced on him. He did not have time to react since he was still recovering from the last attack and suddenly found himself being thrown to the ground. He desperately tried to pull his shield into position for a solid bash, but to his horror, the shadow had managed to pin it below her body. Her face was peering down at his with far too little distance separating them.
Both ponies hesitated. Shadow Shroud realized that the hood which normally concealed his identity so well had been thrown free from his head from the impact. He continued to struggle in vain, but the shadow pony did not even seem to react. Suddenly he stopped struggling and also began staring, but his focus was no longer on his opponent.
There was an unnatural and erratic light on the ramparts of the wall above him. It seemed to be a part of a strange object that he could not make out. After examining it for a moment, he realized that there was a oblong tube object decorated with spiral stripes and with several more tubes protruding from it, all fixed in a small wooden frame support of some kind. It was pointed in their general direction. He realized that the light was coming from combustion.
A moment later there was an extremely loud and shrill whistling noise as the strange object lit up even brighter and hurled itself at the ground below, and then the world around them exploded with light.
The tubular monstrosity hit the ground and ricocheted, all the while unleashing strange sparking lights in a spherical pattern around it and overloading the ears of everypony present with overwhelming popping and cracking sounds. It quickly lodged itself in the ground, where it continued releasing sparkles and also began making 'BANG' sounds that were accompanied by a flashes of light.
Shadow Shroud had thrown up his shield and was trying to protect both himself and Twilight (who had curled up into a ball) from the exploding monstrosity. Once the thing had become stuck in one spot, he took time to search for the shadow pony.
To his utter disbelief, he discovered that the flaming, sparking object was provoking a severe reaction from the creature of nightmare. She was distantly screaming in pain as the flashing waxed and waned alongside the ever-present fury of fiery sparks. Her form appeared to go transparent with each flash. He watched as she actually moved to hide in the breastplate of the ancient pony armor, although it was not complete protection.
The eye-burning and ear-assaulting device was showing no signs of letting up. In fact, it seemed to grow more severe as time went on.
Shadow Shroud began to slowly move, continually bracing himself against the rain of sparks and burning specs that pelted his shield. Although his progress was slow, he was slowly creeping closer to the nightmare.
Even amongst the cries of pain, the Pony of Shadows gave Shadow Shroud a threatening look. This was, of course, ignored, as the pony was currently under too much stress to act.
Shadow Shroud stopped his advance and carefully stopped down and picked up an oblong ceramic box, key still in place and lid still hanging open.
And then he picked up the piece of armor that the shadow was currently lodged inside of and exposed the inside to the lights.
The nightmare immediately replaced her screams of pain with howls of rage as her form was involuntarily drawn toward the relative darkness of the box's interior. It was as though her form had changed to liquid and was being sucked into the box from the armor. In moments, the dark form of the pony had disappeared inside it.
And then Shadow Shroud slammed the lid and clicked the key. After this, he began applying the strongest containment and suppression spells he knew to the box, ignoring the agonizingly loud sounds coming from the strange device, and ensuring that the creature now trapped within would have no hope of escape by brute force.
Suddenly, as he was applying spells to the chocolate box / makeshift prison, the sounds and around him vanished rather suddenly so that he looked up from what he was doing for a moment.
Twilight was standing right beside him with her horn alight and the strange tube device was drenched with water, quelling its rage.
He looked back to the box and finished casting the last of the spells. The box had started to shake violently, which concerned him, but it was not unexpected. The monster within wanted out. Once he was certain that the magic would hold, he finally allowed himself to relax a little. He turned back to Twilight.
She was stammering. Shadow Shroud did not allow her to do this for long, however.
"You have no need to apologize to me," he said in a weary voice.
"No, that's not true," Twilight burst out. "I was wrong about you. You never put those fillies under a curse, and you are not an evil pony! Maybe you did use a little bit of necromancy, but you have proven to me that even with your body gone, your sense of morals is still completely in tact, and I should have seen that"
"You were only trying to be reasonable, and to be safe, Twilight. I specifically chose to betray your trust, all in the name of helping others. You had no way of knowing. It's over now."
"But why couldn't I have been more like Scootaloo, or Apple Bloom, or Sweetie Belle?" demanded Twilight, close to tears. "They saw you for what you are when the Princess of Friendship refused to see it!"
Shadow Shroud did not even get a chance to answer, as Rainbow Dash suddenly landed between the two ponies.
"That..." she began. She hesitated. "That was not something I was expecting to see when I woke up today," she finished. "And I guess... we have you to thank."
"Actually," thought Shadow Shroud, "I can take far less credit for all of this than I can even begin to explain. But I will worry about that later."
"I'm just glad that everypony made it out safe," said Shadow Shroud sincerely.
"You did far more than that," replied Rainbow Dash. She looked to Twilight. "You saved everypony. It was amazing!There's no way you were trying to hurt Scoot and the others. That blame goes to the Pony of Shadows," she finished disgustedly.
"They were supposed to be somewhere safe, away from that nightmare," replied Shadow Shroud with frustration. "They shouldn't have been captured like that, and I let it happen!"
"But they were being held hostage to begin with," replied Rainbow Dash, confused.
"Only in a fashion. They were magically forbidden from leaving the castle grounds, but they were allowed to roam free. They shouldn't have been used as leverage."
"Well, that's strange. Why would she let them wander around only to hold them for ransom later on?"
"I don't know," replied Shadow Shroud. "To be honest, I don't want to know. I just want to get away from here."
There was a moment of silence. "So what are you going to do with that... box?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"I suppose the safest place to keep it would be... in my place," proposed Shadow Shroud. "If you don't have a problem with that?"
"Actually," said Twilight. "I think we might want to ask for opinions from the princesses on this matter. Both of them."
Shadow Shroud gave her a confused look. "You refer to two princesses other than yourself, I assume."
"Princess Celestia and Luna. Let's just say that... They both... have a personal interest in this. Especially Princess Luna."
Shadow Shroud let out a sigh. "Well then, lets go find everypony else and let them know that we're safe."
Twilight gasped. "How could I forget about them? They must be worried sick!"
"I'm dying to ask," said Rainbow Dash as they hurried off, "Where did you get that huge firework thing?" The admiration in her voice was not lost upon Shadow Shroud.
"... Would you believe me if I told you that it was just... there?"
"Really? You're sure? I... I don't know whether to believe that or not."