Nightshade, Scarlet, and Glade arrived back in Ponyville and to their surprise Pinkie Pie was already there, “Hey you came back! A lot sooner than I had thought! Oh and you brought-” Pinkie stopped and stared at Nightshade, “Oh no! Oh no no! No not good! Not good! Why are you here?!” she exclaimed.
Scarlet and Glade both turned their attention to Nightshade who had paled into a ghost white color, “Uh hey Pinkie,” he said. Pinkie looked at Nightshade closely and snorted, “Ooooh she is going to blow her top if she sees you!” she says. Nightshade looked on the verge of a panic, “You can’t let her know I’m here Pinkie! Please don’t let her know! This is an emergency!” he said.
Pinkie put his hoof in Pinkies mouth, “Twilight cannot know I’m here! I’m here-” he said but a shriek split the air and Nightshade turned to see Twilight standing with a fiery expression on her face, “I would love to hear your excuse as to why you’re here you big jerk!” she yelled.
Nightshade was sweating heavily and started to back away but Twilight’s horn ignited with magic grabbing Nightshade and pulling him away from the station towards her castle! Scarlet and Glade both glanced at each other and laughed and began to fly after Twilight.
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Within the Sentient Palace Kisashi had finished his training session with Melody and handed her over to Star Bright to master control over her voice and prophetic abilities. Star Bright and Melody were within a chamber that resembled space. Melody felt a little off and dizzy within the chamber thinking she would fall into an endless pit.
“Calm your senses. Relax and let go of your fear. Take a deep breath and smile. Here you can be yourself and use your powers to their limit. Do not fear in harming me I promise that I’ll be quite alright standing so close to you,” Star said in a soothing voice.
Melody nodded as she began to sing a low and sweet melodic tune. The music lifted Star’s spirit and she knew the spell to be a healing spell, “Now focus and let out your anger and hate. Attack your surroundings,” she commanded in a hard tone. Melodies tone began to harden and the speed of her tune increased sending out vicious magical wave’s that rippled in the air.
Star noticed the power radiating from each wave and smiled, “Very good now try and let it all out!” she yelled over the noise. Melody smiled and began to sing a dark song but her mind told her to stop and an image of her brother formed in her head and she let out a cry falling to the ground unconscious.
Star ran to Melody and checked for injury and noticed the magical wound radiating with a blue aura from her wrist, “You need to let go…” she said. Odion arrived and helped carry Melody to her bed and sat down beside her in a meditating position, “It seems that she requires one that holds more wisdom to magic than power and grace… She needs to forget her loses… Only then can she truly use her singing,” he said to Star bright who only nodded with a tear glinting in her eye staring down at her poor little Melody…
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Nightshade sat strapped in a chair as Twilight yelled at him, “How could you stay with them and not return here?! You said you had feelings for me and I believed you! You lied to me! I know I’m not one to believe in fairy tales but I thought maybe just once there was something else besides my duties as a princess and the drama that enters equestria every other day! Do you have any idea how I felt when you chose to stay behind?! DO YOU?!” she yelled.
Nightshade smiled nervously, “I gave you my reasons Twily I-” Twilight cut him off, “Oh don’t you even think of trying to smooth talk your way out of this one Mr.! I remember every detail to your explanation about staying behind but you could have at least visited! Wrote to me anything!!!” she yelled.
Scarlet and Glade sat in the throne room listening to Twilight’s ranting while playing a game of cards with Spike and Pinkie Pie. A loud crash rebounded throughout the castle and the four of them jumped and ran to the room the two others were in. Nightshade’s chair had been thrown into a wall with him attached into a wall. Twilight’s horn radiated with a bright light her hair was a flame and the four of them backed out of the room slowly as Twilight began to throw Nightshade around the room some more only a lot harder.
After a couple of hours Nightshade came out of the room with a cast and bandage around his head with a smiling Twilight following close behind. Nightshade glared at her with his one eye that wasn’t covered but she merely giggled and planted a kiss on his cheek which made him blush dark red.
Scarlet laughed, “So much for mister macho huh?” she whispered to Glade. Glade nodded and smiled, “Idiot…” he mumbled. Twilight left the room for a second and came back with a violet locket and a blue locket. Both lockets matched their coat colors and Twilight placed the violet one around Nightshade’s neck and the blue one around hers, “I’m sorry for overreacting… I made these during our adventure before….” Her voice trailed off as Nightshade kissed Twilight on the lips, “You over think things a little too much Twily…” he said breaking the kiss.
Glade wolf whistled and turned away as Twilight blushed a very dark shade of red while Scarlet merely giggled looking at Glade. Nightshade healed his wounds and began to leave the castle, “Come on guys we need to go get the next hero,” he said. Glade nodded and followed, “You guys go ahead I’m staying behind. Princess Twilight may I speak with you for a little while?” Scarlet asked.
Twilight smiled and nodded, “Sure thing Ms. Blitz. You boys go fight some monsters and stir up trouble while we have some quality girl time,” she said winking at Nightshade. Nightshade sighed and walked out the door towards the Everfree Forest.
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Nightshade and Glade made it to a stone path that lead through the forest surprisingly to Glade they didn’t run into any problems. “I made this path specifically to avoid all casualties. Anypony can find this path if they knew how to look but it seems no ponies been down this way since I came here,” he said.
Further down the path they crossed a large bridge made of stone, “Geez those two have been busy heheheh. That’s what I get for leaving them alone just for two months,” Nightshade chuckled. They reached a large building made of white stone covered with ivy with a brown wooden door. “There she is my pride and joy of this realm. Took me six months with help from my friend Raven to ship the supplies I needed to build her. Everything I need to know about Equestria from food to ancient history is stored here,” he said opening the door.
Glade walked in first and his eyes widened looking at the book shelves and stands that filled the inside of the building, “You’ve got your own personal museum in here!” he said. Nightshade chuckled, “I know and I bet if I showed Twilight she’d go nuts just looking through the shelves alone while trying to reorganize them,” he said with a smile.
An explosion sounded from below and a red coated pony with black hair came flying from the basement corridor. Another pony with a grey coat and silver hair came up after him with a wry expression on his face, “How many times must I tell you not to touch my experiments!” he said to the red pony.
“Sorry Silver but it couldn’t resist! Those new swords looked amazing! I mean come on they extend with that red button and-” Silver cut the red pony off, “Twinblade that red button amplifies the power within those blades! The power hasn’t been properly sedated and that’s why it exploded! The extension happened after you hit the blue button!” he yelled.
Twinblade smiled sheepishly, “Whoops,” he said. Silver turned to Nightshade, “Finally you’ve shown up! Two months with this maniac and look at what we agreed to do! We built a more civilized path and that bridge! You have any idea how long it took to actually do that?! It took 5 weeks! For both the bridge and path all together!” he said flapping his wings.
Nightshade laughed, “Sorry but you know the rules when it comes to being a sentient,” he said smiling. Silver snorted and walked back into the basement, “Oh looky here a new guy!” Twinblade said looking at Glade, “Name’s Twinblade. I’m a mercenary that tends to overdo things when it comes to the mission but everything usually turns out ok,” he said. Nightshade sighed, “Don’t you have something better to do than sit here and annoy us Twinblade?” he asked.
Twinblade straightened and his expression hardened as he spoke in a deeper voice which seemed to suit he lad to Glade’s eyes, “Your right… I’ll have the report done soon…” he said walking out of the house and disappearing in a flash of black and red, “You’ll get used to Twin’s multiple personalities. He was tortured in the past and almost died but I brought him to the Sentient Palace and cured most of his insanity; however fragments of his shattered mind remains with separate personalities roaming his psyche,” Nightshade said.
Glade nodded slowly, “Who tortured him?” he asked. Nightshade turned and sighed, “Tirek was the one who had done did it…. Darn it! I’ve talked to Pinkie to much!” he yelled then straightened himself leading Glade down stairs. Glade noticed the artifacts that were in the walls behind glass panes as they descended the stairs. Glade turned and noticed one of the panes was containing the Alicorn Amulet.
“Where did you get that?” Glade asked. Nightshade smiled, “Silver found it when we first built this building. It was buried at this exact level inside a box. The negative energy radiating off of it stung really badly so I had it quarantined to this exact spot where it would never be touched by anypony ever again,” he said.
Reaching the basement floor Glade looked around and saw multiple machines and a mass variety of weapons for both human and pony alike, “You guys built all of this?” he asked staring a red sword with a label that said, “Rogue.”
Silver laughed, “No that idiot barely did anything! These are all ancient weapons, armors, and other equestrian artifacts we’ve discovered over the past ten years. I merely upgraded them and or fixed them up a bit. This one-” Silver said pointing a hoof at Nightshade, “Did the heavy lifting and leaving the boring work to me. Not that I don’t enjoy it that is. Just wish I had a little help once in a while instead of staying down here in the dark,” he said.
Nightshade smiled, “We both know that’s not why you’re down here…” he said. Silver snorted and turned away, “Why are you here anyways Nightshade?” he asked. Nightshade summoned a Flash Drive and plugged it into the monitor before Silver and images of Night Walker appeared on the screen.
“That is why I’m here… His name is-” Silver cut him off and examined the photos more closely as his eyes shifted from green to lavender, “Night Walker… He was formed from your physical being but Roark’s energies… Whatever you left in the Shadow Dimension formed itself a new body and now… It’s seeking utter destruction….” Silver said as his eyes shifted back to normal leaving everyone with unanswered questions on their minds.