//------------------------------//
// Chapter 11 - To Catch A Thief 
// Story: War of the Unfoals 
// by NPP6 
//------------------------------//

	Midnight glanced over the waiting foals as he materialized out of shadow with Starlight and Featherdown. “Where’s Diamond?”
The still nameless colt technically married to Applebloom spoke up, “After informing me of exactly how she was going to geld me if I tried anything untoward with Applebloom, she collapsed.”
Applebloom picked up from there, “We put her in Nyx’s old room, figured that was probably the safest place in the castle.”
Midnight nodded. “Safest place you could have put her. I hope she didn’t overextend herself too badly…”
“I’m fine.” The group turned to see the filly in question descending from the battlements into the courtyard. “Shadow Nap, recharges you like lightning.”
Midnight blinked, then nodded again with a smile. “Alright then, I need you to help me retrieve a few things from my study. Featherdown, could you please show everypony else to the Main Hall?”
The unicorn filly led the others away, and for a moment, master and apprentice watched each other in silence.
“So where is she?”
“In my shadow. Wow, I actually just said that.”
“Where’d you get the scar?”
The ear in question flicked. “Port Salinus.”
“That was you!?”
“Well… The Duke was me, the Pirate handled the marauders and Distra took care of the lich.”
“And then you vanished before we could arrive…”
“We couldn’t risk you meeting me, it could have locked in a causal loop, and we still had things we needed to change. Still do really.”
“Isn’t the Doctor constantly talking about why we can’t do that?”
“Yeah, well… We’ve got an ace in the hole.”
“Really?”
“Time herself told us what to change. If… what we saw happen, happens, then… Did the Doctor ever tell you about the Time War?”
“Every moment in time and space burning at once.”
“Alright, now imagine that happening to hundreds of universes. That’s where we were heading. That’s why Distra’s time magic hijacked her teleportation spell.”
“So what are you doing tonight?”
“Mostly dealing with an unforeseen consequence of the unfoals. Right now though… I need a few minutes alone with Button.”
“Why… What are you preventing?”
“The same kind of thing you are with Scootaloo. Oh, don’t give me that look, it wasn’t exactly secret once it all came to a head. Listen… Button’s going to take the absolute wrong lesson out of tonight, and it’s going to get him killed. Soon. I have to stop that from happening.”
“Not arguing, but why him?”
“We lose him, his mother falls apart, not to mention the direct effects of the disaster he fails to stop. And then we go a little further down the road. Sweetie Bell never recovers, and a few years from now it kills her too. Rarity goes dark trying to avenge her. The other crusaders… Applebloom tries to stop Rarity, gets claimed by her powers. Scootaloo keeps charging into the forest, trying to push herself further and further. One day she doesn’t come out. After Rarity goes dark, Spike turns into a wreck, blaming himself for being the on to introduce her to dark magic. It just keeps snowballing from there.”
“I see.” In a flash of blue light, several scrolls and items appeared next to him. “I need you to get one more thing for me, take Button with you.”
Diamond nodded, “Oh, that’s right, that one thing. I think it’s in the trophy room.”
One of the scrolls floated up, spun slowly, then vanished. “Yes, I do believe it is.”



The star of prophecy smiled as she watched events unfolding in the starlight windows slowly floating around her. “It’s all coming together.”
“Two thousand years of preparation… And you still haven’t gotten lost like Sunny did.”
Asteralda glanced over her shoulder. “Hello Snowy, come to watch the show?”
“Yeah, figured that you’d have the best seats. Tonight’s really the night?”
“Yes. In fact, we’re only minutes away.”
“Oh I can’t wait to see the Zodiac and the rest try to control things after this.”



The five mares stepped out of Sugarcube corner ready for a war. Silence and empty streets greeted them.
“What? They were holding a perimeter before, where could they have possibly gone?”
Applejack paled as the answer occurred to her. “Nightstone.” She breathed.



Diamond and Button came running out of the vault at the shouts of alarm. Applebloom’s husband and Lily were running towards them. “The Unfoals know something’s up, they’re attacking the castle.”
Diamond grimaced. “Alright then. You.” She hoofed the nameless colt the scroll she and Button had retrieved. “Get this to Midnight, he’s going to need your connection to the original spell. Lily, Button, you’re with me. There’s no way they’re getting past all the wards, so they’ll have to come through the front door.”
Button nodded, but then paused mid-step. “Question. These guys are vulnerable to things that aren’t quite real, right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“So say I used an imaginary sword with a real hilt…”
Diamond grinned. “That’ll be perfect.”
Lily sighed. “My imagination’s not quite that good, but I can definitely play support.”
Button smiled, swinging what was left of his keyblade off his back as a new blade of starlight grew from it. “Alright then, let’s do this.”



Midnight struck, and with it, a blue star rose over the horizon. The sun and moon moved as well, and, after a moment of simply sitting there, a line of light lanced between them. Another beam came from the midnight star, all of them cutting through the stone of a forbidding castle to focus on a single point, a crystal, set as the keystone in a decorative arch set in a wall as ornamentation.



A few runes left the scroll that the nameless colt had just given Midnight, glowing as they floated through the air to key points around the spell circle. Distantly, and explosion could be heard.
Midnight took a breath as he stepped into the center of the circle. “Alright, here’s hoping this doesn’t kill us.”
“Wait, what!?”
Midnight’s only response was to close his eyes. A heartbeat later, light exploded from his hooves, racing across the stone floor of what had once been a throne room to create what looked like a flower with eight petals. The light spilled from the tips of the petals, closing a circle around the stallion. Three more circles appeared, forming around three fillies spaced equally around him. The trio began to float in the air as rings of runes appeared around them individually and the spell as a whole. Slowly, a septagram inscribed itself across the spell circle, growing as a single line bounced off the circle’s edge. Across the circle from Applebloom, at the point where the star’s drawing had begun and finally ended, stood the colt. A pair of circles around him lit up, runes rising into the air. The two circular walls of magical symbols began to spin in opposite directions, lifting the colt into the air, though less so than any of the fillies.
Midnight spread his wings, threads of light leaving them to reach out to every intersection the mystic circles had. Recognizing her cue, Starlight lit her horn, placing the spell and everypony inside it into a containment bubble. Shadows began tracing along the light of the magic, growing along it like ivy. When the entire spell was wrapped, the shadows sank in, merging with the rest of the magic, strengthening it. Midnight’s eyes opened, shining white as he smirked. One by one, the four foals in the spell with him opened theirs as well.
When Midnight lit his horn, Starlight opened the barrier in the designated spot, leaving him the window he needed. Energy rushed through him, the kind of volume that only an experienced mage could hope to create and only an alicorn could hope to control. As magic poured from his horn, the spell around Midnight began to unravel, dimming from where it had begun, losing its detail, until the only thing left of the intricate patterns was a set of five beams, four connecting him to the foals, and the fifth pouring from his horn into a purely decorative stone archway, one that had never been intended to have ponies travel through it.
Finally, the cords connecting Midnight to the fillies withdrew, gently depositing them on the ground. After a moment, this repeated with the colt. Midnight continued pouring magic into his target for several more minutes, then the stream thinned and died as the light faded from his eyes. After he collapsed, Starlight Glimmer alone was privileged to bear witness as a nebula of magic formed around the archway, trying to escape even as it pulled itself back in. Slowly, the magic was drawn and compressed, until the only sign of it was a faint, almost oily shimmer to the stone inside the arch.
And then there was a noise, a single chord, the same sound as the ringing explosions left in her ears. There was a flash, and a concussive shockwave roiled out from the arch, and then Starlight knew no more.



There was a wash of energy, accompanied by the sound of an implosion. It sent Diamond, Button, and Lily reeling along with their foes. The black filly was the first to pick herself up, and as she looked around, she noticed the light streaming from the few windows she knew the Main Hall had.
She smiled as she helped the other two pick themselves up. “Well, it worked.”



Twilight and her friends looked to the sky as energy cascaded across it, almost reminiscent of a Sonic Rainboom. Pinkie Pie’s eternal grin grew almost manic. “Ooooooh, I like his style!” She was the only one who stayed standing when the shockwave passed over the group.
“What’cha mean Pinkie?”
“Well, he gets it! A party’s no fun if you don’t invite enough ponies!”
“What?”
“Pinkie.”
“Fair enough.”



Discord, Celestia, and Luna watched in curiosity as the lines of light faded, leaving only a glowing gemstone. After a moment, Discord shuddered. “What? Why would he do that?”
“What?”
“What is happening?”
“Well, Midnight – had to have been him, nopony else’s magic tastes like that – just anchored this one point in reality rather heavily, allowing him to bridge the dimensional gap for a single instant. I’m just not sure why, or for that matter, how he did it without… unless… oh, now that is clever. Oh, I love the way that pony thinks, he always was my favorite of you lot – no offense KK.”
Celestia’s eyes leveled. “KK?”
“Yes, it’s your new name.”
“We see nothing wrong with it sister.”
“Laugh it up Luna, wait until he renames you.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“What, you respect her but not me?”
“Oh no, not at all, I simply have no desire whatsoever to see what Midnight turns into if somepony starts calling his precious Luna by a pet name. And even less desire to have that coming after me.”



“Well, it was nice while it lasted.” The alicorn colt sighed.
“What?”
The colt turned to look at the ghostly stallion behind him. “Midnight had several hours to come up with a plan and the entirety of Ponyville’s resources at his disposal. You felt that just now, whatever he came up with, it shook the deep magic. We’ve got no chance, so I’m taking my sister and leaving. We’re done here.”
“We’re done when I say we’re done.”
The colt raised an eyebrow. “Stop posturing, we both know how badly a fight with me would end for the both of us.”
“Yes, and we both also know how badly a fight with me would end for her.” The unconscious form of a purple-maned black alicorn filly was carried into the light by a pair of unfoals – the name had stuck since it came across the telepathic link from the skirmish in the forest.
The colt’s eyes narrowed. “Bad choice. You know where this goes.”
“Yes, yes, you’ll kill me at the first opportunity I give you, I know. I will simply have to not give you that opportunity.”
“…We’ll see.”