Obsidian's horn glowed a sickly red and the door swung open. The jail, just as the dark pony had expected, was rather dank, with thick cobwebs all over place. Not the place for one of his servants to languish. He smiled as he wandered through the corridors, feeling entirely at ease. Being so empty of prisoners, there was little need for guards. The only cell being guarded was Trixie's. The two guards froze at the sight of a black cloaked pony walking towards them. They tensed, crossing the spears they carried in front of the bars. Trixie was resolutely staring at the wall, a bored expression on her face. Obsidian chuckled lightly as his horn glowed again. Both guards crumpled to the floor, coughing and hacking. He smiled as he made sure to step on the guards armored bodies. They groaned weakly. Taking the key from the unconscious bodies, Obsidian pulled the door open. He stepped over the threshold and smiled down at Trixie. The Blue Unicorn tutted lightly, swinging her head round in anger.
"I've told you before! The Great and Powerful..." Trixie froze as she saw who she was talking too. Immediately, the blue Unicorn fell to the floor, sprawling in the dust at Obsidian's hooves. "Oh master.....Please forgive me! I didn't know that it was you." Obsidian smiled slightly, using his magic to hoist Trixie to her hooves. She smiled nervously as Obsidian walked back out of the cell and tossed her the star-embossed cloak and hat she was known for. "Master? Does this mean...?" Obsidian nodded with a wide smile. He turned to leave, barely aware of the Unicorn scrabbling to keep up with him. The pair strode through the empty jail in partial silence. Trixie was talking loudly about how she would reap horrible vengeance upon not only Twilight sparkle but Jay, and the dark skinned human. She continued to rant loudly, her voice reverberating around the corridors. Obsidian smiled, enjoying the large amount of malice that Trixie had put into every syllable. Just as they reached the door though, Obsidian held up a hoof. Trixie stopped dead. Both of them watched as a Rainbow maned Pegasus, stepped inside. Obsidian frowned. He hadn't counted on Rainbow Dash arriving. He'd hoped to be gone with his servant by the time any-pony had noticed. The Pegasus smiled happily as she saw Obsidian.
"Yo Shadow! Why're you hear? Carrot Top said she'd seen ya here..." She froze. The Rainbow maned Pegasus had just seen Trixie standing behind him. Obsidian's smile faded slightly. Trixie bared her teeth in a snarl, mirroring Rainbow Dash. The Pegasus had tensed her muscles slightly. She was clearly getting ready for a fight. Obsidian held up a hoof again and Trixie backed off, smiling wider than before. Obsidian's horn began to glow again. Rainbow Dash took a step backwards. "Shadow? W-W-What do ya think you're doin? What?" The Pegasus realized to late what Obsidian was doing. The spell hit hard. Rainbow Dash floated up into the air but she hadn't flapped her wings once. She floated up, her legs stretching out straight. Her wings fanned open, each feather seeming to straighten out. An intense look of pain and surprise was plastered across her face. "Shadow..." Rainbow Dash gasped. Obsidian smiled wider, showing his pearly teeth. His horn glowed brighter. Rainbow Dash screamed. A long drawn out scream, that echoed around the cells, making the bars rattle. Trixie laughed loudly but it was drowned out by the paralyzed Pegasus's screams. Obsidian watched, feeling his elation increase. Finally, Obsidian relented. The Pegasus dropped to the ground. She was barely breathing. Trixie moved forward. Obsidian smiled as the unicorn gave Rainbow a hard kick. Rainbow coughed, sending specks of red flicking across the ground. Obsidian stepped over the prone Pegasus, placing a hoof on Rainbow Dash's body. Rainbow Dash stared up at Obsidian, her eyes beginning to close. Obsidian leaned down so his lips rested slightly against the Pegasus's ear.
"I'll be back for you Rainbow Dash. Shadow may be lucky to have you but luck doesn't last for ever." He pushed down hard. Rainbow Dash gave one last bloodied cough, then her head slumped against the floor. She didn't move again. Obsidian turned to Trixie, who was still smiling widely. "Come with me Trixie." He said, holding out his hoof. Trixie, taking special care to tread on one of Rainbow's limp wings, took the out-stretched hoof and smiled adoringly at the other pony. Obsidian's horn glowed a bright red. Then both of them were gone. Neither of them had noticed the small metal statute of a three headed dog, that had been sitting by the doorway.
Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes. She was lying on a cold stone floor, tight metal shackles secured around her hind legs. They were so tight that it hurt. Sitting up shakily, she looked around at the dark, almost pitch black room. Apart from a small fire burning in front of her, the room was shrouded in shadow. Since waking up...she supposed it was yesterday, it was hard to tell because the room she was in didn't have any windows, she'd been left alone, except for yesterday. She still shivered. Discord had returned. She'd demanded to know what Discord had done with Jay and had got only a laugh in return. Twilight sighed, reaching her hoof up to rub the space in her mane, where her horn had once been. Like the first time she'd met the chaos loving creature, he'd stolen her horn, removing her ability to cast spells and thereby removing her only way of fighting back effectively. She wondered vaguely, where Jay was. Discord had only told her that "He was busy playing one of Discords favorite games." The sly way that he'd said that had made Twilight nervous. Hunger gnawed at her slightly as she shifted around trying to keep war. Discord hadn't provided any food for her in the last two days. She supposed she'd just have to wait for her friends to rescue her. Though, to her despair, she realized that she had no idea where she was. Discord was known for being tricky and slightly random with whatever he did. Unless her friends had an extremely lucky guess, or Discord revealed where she was then her friends had little chance of finding her. She hoped that Jay was doing okay. Discord had a way of turning even the closest of friends against each other. He could even change a ponies very nature. Twilight still remembered the way that even staunch hearted AppleJack had been changed from the honest, kind-hearted farm-pony into a horrible, dishonest liar.
After a few minutes of sitting there, jumping at every small sound, Twilight began to feel a familiar itch stirring inside her. It was the itch for something to read. Twilight didn't like having nothing to read or anything to distract her from her worries. She found herself thinking about what her friends were doing by now. She guessed that Rarity was over-reacting as usual, Rainbow and AppleJack were butting heads, Pinkie ...Twilight smiled at the thought of Pinkie. The pink party pony could always bring a smile to any-ponies lips, despite the situation that the they would be in. Settling down, she attempted to pass the time by counting the amount of crackles that each stick made, as they burned in the flames. It didn't work. With a sigh of annoyance, she folded her forelegs in front of her and plonked her head down. A small chuckle made her look up. Something was sitting on the opposite side of the small fire. It had the same stature and shape of Zyon and Jay. It was dressed in what appeared to be a thick white robe, with gold threads stitched around the trim. Black gloves covered the creatures hands, which were folded over each other on the creatures knees. A large circular ring was on one of the creatures fingers. Embossed on a bright purple ring were three heads, almost like a three headed dog. Thick silver straps were crossed over the creatures chest, upon which were several other rings, with different colored gems. The creatures head was covered by a white hood. All that Twilight could see of the creatures face was a small amount of pale skin and a pair of red lips. Twilight had guessed that her company was a human.
"You need to stop moping around Twilight Sparkle." The human said quietly. He had a friendly voice but unlike Zyon's voice, this humans voice was slightly higher. "Discord has already broken Jay, not that he wasn't broken already..." Twilight gasped, covering her mouth with her hooves. The human looked up at her. His eyes were covered by a plain white mask. "Jay needs your help. I have seen it." The human said quietly standing up and stretching. Around the humans waist was secured...Twilight frowned. It didn't look like Jay's driver, which was rectangular. This one, while black, had a design of a human hand pointing down. Around the rim was a red outline. "I'm not going to help you to much." The human said staring down at Twilight, who sat frozen. "I'm supposed to only be an Observer. But I find that so boring." The human slid the ring of his finger, clipped it to the harness and replaced it with another ring. "I hope to see you again Twilight. Good luck with Discord." The human pressed down on one side of the device around his waist. The red hand tilted. The fingers had been pointing downwards to the right. The hand switched direction for a second before it returned to normal. The human pressed the hand with the ring on it against the hand. Immediately, a deep voice sounded.
"TELEPORT! NOW!" There was a golden flash and the human vanished. Twilight stood and walked round the fire, determined to examine the space where that human was. She stepped on something with a loud clank. She looked down. A Lockseed was sitting on the floor. She sat down and looked at it. On the front of the Lockseed was a crimson looking inscription. A golden thread twisted around the color, forming into the shape of an apple. Twilight stared at the Lockseed before she realized something. The shackles on her hind-legs didn't have a chain long enough to reach around the opposite side of the fire. They'd popped open without her noticing. Twilight reached up, feeling nervous. Her horn was back! The next thing she knew, there was a loud crash and a door she had not previously noticed before was swinging open. She could see a stone corridor. Taking the lockseed in her magic, she moved out of the room, keeping all her senses alert. Something was wrong though, thick chunks of the stone corridor had been torn from the wall, thick dark stains had been sprayed across the floor. Small bits and pieces were still tumbling from the ceiling. Twilight seriously hoped that she would never find out what those stains were. She continued to walk through the corridor until she reached an old wooden door. Sounds of fighting, told Twilight that she had reached the center of the action. She pushed open the door. The scene that met her eyes made her insides, turn to ice.
Shadow tossed Jay's pillow, now shredded with feathers oozing out of slashes Shadow had made. Since arriving back at the Library, he'd ignored the coughing form of Spike who'd attempted to catch his attention, the panicking unicorn had ran up to Jay's room and systematically dismantled the room. He'd turned over the bed, torn the sheets of the mattress and blown apart the bedside table in his mad search. He looked around the half destroyed room, panting heavily. Stepping over the smashed table, Shadow sat on the floor. His pause was interrupted by the door crashing open again. AppleJack and Pinkie Pie had just burst into the room. Both of them looked ready to explode with anger. AppleJack charged at Shadow with a roar of anger and knocked Shadow off his hooves. Standing over him, the pair of mares glared down at him, Pinkie looking as though she was going to start spitting with rage. Her mane was no longer its normal poofiness. It was down and straight. AppleJack had lost her hat.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TA RAINBOW YOU....YOU.." AppleJack was so angry that she seemed incapable of speech. Shadow stared up at her, feeling frightened. "SHE'S BEEN SENT TA THE HOSPITAL BECAUSE OF YA...YOU..." Shadow, too frightened for words, simply shook his head in stupefied fear. Pinkie, who was actually spitting with anger, hauled the unicorn to his hooves. "COME WITH US!" Shrieked the angry farm-pony, pulling Shadow out of the room, down the steps. But their angry march was interrupted by Spike. The dragon was sitting in front of them, his spined back against the door. Tears were in his eyes. Surrounding the dragon were large amounts of burnt parchment. AppleJack and Pinkie froze. AppleJack after giving an angry glare at Shadow walked forward and sat in front of Spike. "Spike? What's wrong Sugar-cube?"
The baby dragon looked up. The tears broke free as he jumped up and wrapped his arms around the farm-ponies front.
"I...I can't do it..." He sobbed Quietly. "I can't send any messages to the Princess. That spell only unravels under one reason..." Spike looked up at them, his eyes going very red. Shadow froze. The only reason that spell would've broken was...Shadow fell onto his backside. A feeling, much, much worse than panic was rising inside him. If that spell had unraveled...then something had happened to the Princesses. And if that was the case. That meant that they were on their own. Twilight, Jay, Zyon. Even the Princesses had vanished. Discord was on the loose. Things were going from bad to worse.