The Enemy Of My Enemy

by Emo Rainbow

Chapter 4 - Closing in

The doctor galloped down the halls at a speed he hadn’t reached since his track days in high school, and despite taking the first place spot in the regionals, he was still feeling the burn in his old bones. As he continued his fervent retreat his glasses flew off of his face, severely impairing his vision and leaving the crystal halls unbelievably blurry. Quickly he skid to a halt and grabbed his precious corrective tools, but as soon as he put them back on he was greeted by a massive cloud of smoke that was barreling through the hallway directly towards him. The glare of the ethereal green eyes and red horn digging into his retinas to apply an unhealthy dose of pure terror.

The unicorn quickly stumbled back into panic mode and jumped into the nearest door, slamming it behind him as the shadow monster careened past his hiding place leaving destruction in its wake. The doctor hyperventilated as he desperately tried to calm down his racing heart, but with what little sanity he had left he piled every single piece of furniture in the dark storage room against the door. He didn’t exactly know WHAT was out there, but after seeing what it had done to his fellow ponies, he couldn’t bear to face it head on once more.

After pushing a large filing cabinet into place behind the overturned bed frame he slowly backed away from the door and finally felt his heart rate decreasing. He sat in the corner of the empty, windowless, room and curled himself into a little ball while his horn illuminated the room with a bright yellow light.

“It’s okay...I’m safe.” He said with a shaky and terrified voice. “I’m...safe.”

“Oh really?” Called a voice of a young, but very threatening, stallion. The voice echoed around the room, and almost immediately the doctor saw the shadowy goo clinging to the ceiling. It swirled and contorted in horrifying directions, maximizing the visual horror, and from out of the shadowy goo came a large pillar of darkness. The pillar quickly gained a creamy color and took the shape of a young stallion with fiery red hair that flowed like water.

“How safe do you really feel?” He said with an upside down toothy grin that showed off every one of his sharpened teeth as he stood atop the ceiling of the room. Suddenly the door he had barricaded was slammed from the other side by a large force, sending bits of furniture to the ground after every consecutive smash. The doctor fired an offensive spell at the pony out of fear, but without even flinching the spell was destroyed by a large red horn that had sprouted from the pegasus’ forehead.

“No...NO!” The doctor screamed as the door crashed open, allowing a flood of colony guards to slowly trudge into the room. Each of them with a large onyx helmet on their heads instead of the standard issue ones, and all of their eyes glowing a sickly and unnatural green hue.

“Hahahahahahahahaha!” The demon pony yelled as the doctor was forcibly taken and converted to his cause.

---

“Ah, there’s nothing like a hearty helping of fear to get the blood flowing, eh?” Sombra remarked happily as he mentally licked his lips.

“I admit, that was fun, but he still didn’t know how to get down there.” Shatterstar complained as he walked past the mindless drones they had managed to assimilate in their time of searching. See what had initially started as covert exploration to find an entrance to the underground caverns of the castle turned into a madhouse of screaming and fighting as they were spotted almost immediately after leaving the throne room. What had ensued was a wild goose chase encompassing the entire palace, where both Sombra and Shatterstar learned that taking control of their minds was not only easier to manage, but way more efficient when it came to questioning.

“Hey you! Dum, dum.” Shatterstar said as he pointed to the newly assimilated doctor that turned to him in an emotionless and robotic fashion. “Are you sure you have no idea how to get down into the depths of this place? Cause if you’re lying, I swear to Amore that I will make you pay.” He said with a menacing snarl that made his hair flare out into spikes.

“I do not know, master.” The doctor replied with a calm and emotionless tone that was identical to the last response he had given.

“Repeating your questions won’t help. If he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. There’s no way they could lie to us anyhow.” Sombra said as they continued to aimlessly walk the halls of the palace with no destination in mind, their steps echoed by the accompanying sounds of metal hooves pounding on the floor as the crowd followed them wherever they went.

“Don’t you have some...like, explodey fire-y thing? Can’t we just dig our way down to wherever they are?” Shatterstar said as he pawed at the ground. Due to Sombra’s affinity for magic Shatterstar could essentially see the magical aura of living creatures if he tried hard enough, and based on the large blob of fiery magic several miles beneath the castle, it was a safe bet to say his ponies were being held there. In their short time together, mainly out of necessity due to their recent escapades around the castle, he picked up on some of Sombras old bodily traits given by the dark magic. While he still couldn’t cast spells, he was still proud that he had picked something up so quickly.

“Well you’re certainly catching on fast to some of my abilities, why don’t you tell me?” Sombra said in annoyance, garnering a roll of Shatterstar’s eyes. “Besides, I’d prefer it if we didn’t level the entire palace just to find your stupid friend.”

“Well what now?! We’ve searched everywhere! Where could they have possibly gone to move over one hundred ponies down several miles in a little more than an hour?” Shatterstar yelled in frustration as he stood up on his hind legs and flailed his hooves in the air for emphasis. The two stood there in silence as they racked their brains together to find a solution, when suddenly, after several minutes of deep contemplation, an idea so obvious struck Sombra and made him feel slightly idiotic.

“Wait...you don’t think that…” He trailed off, already sensing that Shatterstar was on the same track.

“Of course! The ballroom! I’m such an idiot!” Shatterstar said angrily, obviously picking up on what Sombra was implying.

“I-I mean yeah! Duh! Took you long enough.” Sombra recovered in order to maintain his sense of superiority. With their minds in sync, they wasted no time in flying down the halls at a breakneck speed with one destination in mind, the ballroom. To Shatterstar’s surprise, each of their new minions was able to keep up with their blinding pace, adding a menacing thunder of hooves behind them as they travelled deeper into the confines of the palace.

Shatterstar burst through the doors of the ballroom and immediately began looking for anything that could point to an entrance to the underground. All of their servants popped in behind him one by one, totalling around thirty once they were all piled inside, and stood around aimlessly as he searched.

"There's gotta be a lever or something," Shatterstar said as he flew across the room and over to the stage that had been left there from doctor Geiger's speech. "Something that'll show us the path they took." He frantically combed the area, but progress was unbelievably slow. Sensing this, Sombra cleared his throat to gain Shatter's attention.

"Why are you doing so much of the work? We do have minions after all." Shatterstar looked up after hearing Sombras words, and sure enough he saw all of the zombie guards just standing there and creepily staring at him. Slowly, he touched down on the stage and looked at all of them nervously, their green eye holes staring into his very soul.

"What...what do I say?" He whispered.

"Who cares? Anything you tell them, they'll obey without a second thought. Just try to be as specific as possible, I guess." Sombra replied, eager to see how the pegasus would handle the coming predicament.

"Heh, heh," Shatterstar laughed nervously as he watched the crowd and gulped. He slowly floated into the air above them and prepared to speak, if he was willing to enter a blood pact with the demon king of old, then he could certainly talk to a crowd of mind controlled equestrians. "Um...Ponies! Listen here!" All of the guards and doctors snapped to attention at once, causing a loud smack to echo around the large ballroom. Shatterstar flinched from the sudden movement, eliciting a chuckle from Sombra. "R-riiiight. Um...just...tear this room apart! Find any mechanism, like a lever or button, that could lead us somewhere hidden." The ponies all nodded their heads in unison and dispersed throughout the ballroom ready to follow their orders.

“Very poor choice of words.” Sombra commented with a smile.

"What do you mea-holy shit!" Shatterstar said in shock as the ponies dug their hooves into the walls, ground, and stage in order to very literally tear the room apart. "Wait, when I said tear...aw hell." Shatterstar watched with growing anxiety as the ponies continuously dug their appendages into the hard crystal with little regard for their safety, and already he was beginning to feel a little sick from the sight.

“Ha ha! They’re certainly an enthusiastic bunch, aren’t they?” Sombra said with a laugh as he enjoyed the sight of their bleeding and broken hooves continuously punching the walls. Shatterstar on the other hand clenched his gut and looked away from the horrid display as fast as he could, the harsh noises still being more than enough to make his stomach churn.

“Sombra, I’m gonna be sick!” He said in a muffled voice as he clasped his hoof around his mouth.

“Oh gods, puhlease don’t vomit again! It’s an utter nightmare to clean it out of this place!” Sombra said with an annoyed and arrogant tone. Shatterstar managed to barely hold down the contents of his stomach, which baffled him since he knew he hadn’t eaten much in the last few days, and with due speed he shouted at the underlings to stop.

All of them retracted their mangled hooves from their holes in the walls and ground, and as they all stared at him vacantly once again, a couple of them fell over due to their injuries.

“Well, so much for that. I just made some popcorn for the show as well.” Sombra said before a loud crunch rang in Shatterstar’s ears.

“When did you...nevermind, nevermind. Bigger problems Shatter.” He said to himself as he ignored Sombra’s antics and flew down to where the equestrians stood/sat. “Gather around me!” He ordered, prompting all of the ponies to crowd him in a very up close and personal matter, so close that he could feel their heavy breaths bearing down on him. “Not that close!” He screamed, already feeling his anxiety acting up from the unwanted contact. As expected, the ponies all began to move away towards the walls, but Shatterstar was already one step ahead.

“Not that far either! Like...three feet radius, three feet radius!” His commands finally yielded some results, as they succeeded in creating a small circle around him.

“What are you doing?” Sombra asked curiously.

“I’m checking their wounds. YOU are going to heal them.” Shatterstar stated matter of factly as he manually brought all of the most injured ponies to the front of the circle.

“Beg your pardon?” Sombra replied with a dumbfounded expression. “You’re the one who told them to ‘tear this place apart’ why do I need to fix that?”

“Because I said so.” Shatterstar replied angrily. Suddenly he felt a loud pop in his ears followed by slight ringing, nothing too serious, but it was definitely annoying.

“Don’t think that just because we’re stuck together that means you can order me around!” Sombra yelled angrily as the ringing continued, but all Shatterstar really did was stand there and dig into his ear with a hoof. “How do you like this?” He asked smugly as the ringing continued.

“Uh...is something supposed to be happening to me?” Shatterstar asked in confusion.

“What? You…. you should be kneeling in pain due to my overwhelming power! Can’t you feel it!?” Sombra cried in frustration.

“Well I certainly feel something,” Shatterstar said as he walked over to one of the guards and lifted her broken hoof. “I feel embarrassed for you. Now could you stop messing around and heal these guys…” There was another moment of silence as the ringing momentarily stopped. “...please?”

With a loud grumble their horn sprang to life, and in a torrent of cloudy black magic the hoof was set back into place and sealed up with practically no scarring. With that little triumph of understanding, Shatterstar guided his horn all over the minions as they were healed one after the other.

“You know what the best kind of work is Sombra?” He asked with a coy eyebrow raise. There was another long pause, so Shatterstar took that as a sign to continue. “Tea-”

“If you say teamwork I will give you a seizure. You have no idea how close I am to your brain stem.”

“Point taken.” Shatterstar replied, but even if he didn’t say it that didn’t stop him from thinking it.

Shatterstar looked out onto the crowd of ponies surrounding them and gave one last check to their health. While it was true he held no real sympathy for these equestrians, he wasn’t some monster that would just allow them to break away like tools. He counted only twenty nine from the crowd gathered and looked around the room for the final pony, eventually spotting her near the back of the ballroom on the side of the stage with her hoof jammed in a wall. Quickly, he flew over to her and tried to dislodge her leg, but upon closer inspection he could see that there was some form of dark metal mechanism hidden just beneath the walls surface.

"Hold on, what've you found here?" He questioned as he too reached his hoof inside along with hers. He felt the cold metal gears just beyond his sight and reached even further into the back of the wall, inadvertently moving one of the strange mechanisms in the process. Suddenly there was a loud clang as a large piece of metal fell onto his hoof and pinched it harshly with bone crushing strength. This in turn allowed the mare to pop out of the hole herself while leaving Shatter to take her place, luckily for him the pinch didn’t really affect him on the pain scale.

“What are you doing?” Sombra asked as Shatterstar continued to dig his hoof further into the wall.

“Just hold on a second, I think we just found the answer to where they took them.” With a loud clunk from within the wall, he could feel several of the gears turning and grinding around his hoof. He thought it strange that the crash from earlier hurt so much, but now he was having his hoof be chewed up by metal and he was totally fine.

“I mean...why are you...using your hoof? We have magic!” Sombra said with a yelp in his voice as Shatter yanked his hoof out of the wall.

“Huh, I guess you’re right. Not like it hurt anyway.” Shatterstar said as he rotated his hoof experimentally and smiled at the lack of damage present. Sombra let out a low grumble under his breath, but ultimately remained quiet as they both watched the room for any signs of change. Suddenly the floor began to rumble as the sides connected to the wall dislodged and slowly descended into a dark abyss below. Shatterstar, and the gathering of minions who followed him to the wall, all watched from the stationary stage area as the floor began to descend and quickly made a dash for the platform.

“Who would have guessed this was the answer.” Shatterstar said in amazement as him and the crowd all descended into the depths with yet another floor sliding out from above and covering the entrance.

“Certainly not very efficient, this would take a lot of planning as well as power.” Sombra said as he contemplated how such a marvel had been achieved. In order to sate his curiosity, he cast a detect magic spell that spread out across the platform and towards the walls. What was revealed was a multitude of magically infused crystals embedded into the wall that resonated with an opposite frequency to the platform. What they were witnessing was essentially a magical magnet elevator meant to carry large groups of ponies down to the depths of the palace.

“Leaving one pit, just to enter another. How ironic.” Sombra said to himself with a low chuckle. They continued their descent with little problem and a heavy silence for several minutes until the momentum of the lift became slower and slower as it finally reached the deepest destination they seeked. Shatterstar focused his vision yet again, and the small blob of magic he had seen deep underground before was now manifested as a countryside wildfire as he stared through the large metal door to the signs of life beyond.

“This is it...we’ve made it to where these monsters have been hiding them.” Shatterstar said with relief and anger all tangled up within his voice. He ran straight for the large metal shutter doors that looked as if they were meant to lift up with the intention to bust them down with raw strength, until a nagging feeling in his head stopped him.

“Hold it right there!” Sombra shouted sternly as he enacted what little control he had over their body to halt Shatter’s movement.

“What’s the big idea? First you want revenge, now you stop me? You’re sending mixed signals here.”

“Just hold yourself for a moment and take a closer look you nitwit! There’s more than just crystal pony magic in that ball of fire.” As Sombra had pointed out, Shatterstar squinted and could make out the faint traces of Equestrian magic that seemed to be much more tamed and smooth like water, as opposed to the raging inferno that he had identified within himself and other crystal ponies. While he could tell that there were a lot of them present on the other side, he couldn't tell the exact amount. What was obvious now however, was that he needed to come up with a plan of action. Luckily his go to seat of the pants improv approach was about to be tested yet again as his enhanced ears picked up on a crowd of hoofsteps approaching the doors.

“Get ready soldiers! Whoever’s on the other side is about to get a world of hurt.” The group of guards all hoo-aahed in approval as the sounds of unsheathing weapons and magical output rang against the metal.

“Fly up! I have a plan!” Sombra shouted the moment he heard them. Without further need for explanation, Shatterstar jumped up into the air and hovered about five feet above the platform. As he did, Sombra used his dark magic to lift up the thirty ponies along with him as they prepared a silent ambush.

The doors swiftly rose up from the ground, and a band of twenty guards all ran in with their magic, spears, and crossbows at the ready. They waited for a few seconds to make sure that there were no more, and watched in silence as they looked around the empty platform in confusion.

‘All it would take is for just one of them to look up.’ Shatterstar thought to himself nervously as his heart began to pound. This was about to be his first REAL fight, and he hoped he would start it off with the ever lucrative element of surprise.

“Don’t worry, if these thirty idiots of ours were stupid enough to not sound any alarms as we assimilated them, then I think it’s safe to assume that most Equestrians have an I.Q in the single digits.” Sombra replied with a chuckle, eliciting a choked gasp from Shatter.

‘You can hear my thoughts...that’s just great.’ Shatterstar replied with audible frustration in his voice.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s suituational...I think. Anyway, on my mark...” With their little interaction wrapped up, they refocused their attention on the task at hand. “Steady…” The guards moved further inwards and revealed an extra two that stepped in through the opened doors. “Steady…” Shatterstar licked his dry lips anxiously as he watched them, his heart beating even faster. Suddenly, all of the bright lights within the lift’s atrium shut off, and with it the metal doors slammed shut behind the guards. “NOW!”

Shatterstar pounced on the guard furthest to the back and chopped his hoof down onto the guards armored head, dropping the earth pony instantly within the newfound darkness.

“Attack the guards! Knock them out, and do not kill!” Shatterstar yelled, trying to remain as specific as possible while maintaining brevity as his and Sombras minions dropped onto the ground one by one, some pouncing on the guards like him, and others merely landing nearby and engaging. The Equestrians, while caught off guard from the attack, managed to recover quickly and used their other senses to combat the minions with relative ease, however neither party was managing to land any definitive blows in the first few seconds of combat. As soon as the final minion was dropped however, Sombra immediately entered the fray and lifted up a large earth pony stallion as he was swinging his spear wildly and tossed him into a unicorn mare near the edge of the lift, crushing them both into the wall.

Figuring as how he could see in the dark with his transformation, Shatterstar grit his teeth and started helping a few minions that had managed to pin down one of the thestral archers as they tried to fly away. His legs were being weighed down by three ponies desperately clinging to him, and as a result he was aiming his crossbow directly at the nearest one. Shatterstar flew at him just in the nick of time and managed to tackle him through the air and into the wall, smashing his head into it with a loud crunch and knocking him out.

Looking back onto the scene, the fight was already becoming one sided as the outnumbered equestrians were quickly ganged up on by a crowd of onyx helmed ponies, and a large black tendril sprouting out of his horn that continued to knock them around like ragdolls. Feeling confident, Shatterstar dive bombed into the middle of the remaining eight guards that had backed themselves into a makeshift corner. He attempted to attack them all from the back as they were distracted, but what he didn’t expect was a large muscular leg to raise up and slam into his throat.

Shatterstar stumbled backwards from the force of the blow and was immediately hit by a magical blast to his face, the magical residue feeling gooey as it hardened around his eyes and slowly started to cover his entire head and impair multiple senses. He felt a long wooden spear sweep his legs as he stumbled, sending him to the ground where they then proceeded to stomp on him from top to bottom. He raised his hooves in defense as he desperately lashed out at his attackers, before they were quickly dispatched by both Sombra and the minions.

Shatterstar took a moment to catch his breath and let the embarrassment of his failure wash over him, but Sombra wasn’t willing to let him just slip by.

“You know, I was skeptical about this whole ‘teamwork’ thing, but if it’s this entertaining every time I might just warm up to it.” Sombra said with a grin as he dispelled the goo around his face. Shatterstar exhaled through his nose, causing a drop of blood to splash out, and shamefully picked himself up.

“I assumed that with my strength I could just power through them from within. Clearly I was wrong.” Shatterstar conceded as he cracked his joints.

“Well I suppose you weren’t too bad, I’m sure the little filly’s back at your elementary school would have cried in fear from the display.” Sombra said as his tendrils and horn slowly faded away from sight.

Shatterstar grit his teeth and grumbled under his breath, making sure to remember to practice his fighting skills the moment he got the chance after all was said and done since he wasn’t too sure if his pride could take another hit like that. As he moved on from the embarrassing display he had just put on, he ordered his troops to gather up the unconscious guards and prop them up against the wall.

“So, how did you know the power would shut off like that?” Shatterstar asked as he crouched in front of one of the unconscious guards and inspected their injuries.

“Well… I didn’t.” He answered simply, a response that made Shatterstar look up in confusion.

“You what?” Shatterstar said in disbelief as he looked all around at the carnage that followed their little skirmish. “Then… how?”

---

"Hnnnngh, and there!" Flash said as he overloaded the final battery and watched as it sizzled and popped before his very eyes. He shielded his face from a few wayward sparks that spurted from the busted node, but as they bounced harmlessly off of his hoof he was proud to see his work finally complete. "That's the last of the breakers up here, how are we looking Stone?" He called down to the blank faced unicorn on the ground level as she had her face buried in another of the room's breaker boxes. As soon as Stone lifted her head out of the box Flash gasped with worry as he saw her look at him with a mess of wires in her mouth that she was chewing on with absolutely no care given.

"Uhhh...doesn't that hurt?" She gave him a nod, but continued chewing on the wires until all of them snapped at once, lighting her up like a hearth's warming tree. "SWEET CELESTIA!” He screamed as he flew towards the ground to check on her. “Stone! Are you okay!?" He watched her with concern for all of ten seconds until the lights dimmed down and revealed her unchanged expression devoid of any pain, as well as her dark grey coat only being slightly singed from the shock.

Immediately after the blast of electricity, the entire palace sounded as if it was powering down as many lights within the room flickered and shut off, leaving only the powered gem torches to provide luminescence. After the initial shock, they waited for the sounds of any panic outside, but to their surprise there was none.

“Is everypony set to guard the palace taking an indefinite smoke break? I swear there hasn’t been a single guard since we got here.” He said in disbelief as he looked all around the room in confusion. He was feeling a tad bit anxious, as there was no way they’d ever be able to break into the power room as easily as they did, even on a slow day. Shifting his fears to the side for a moment, he looked back at Stone who hadn’t once taken her eyes off of him this entire time.

"Jeez, you really scared me there,” He said with a sigh of relief as he patted Stone on the shoulder. “Y’know, you are one tough mare, extremely strange and unorthodox, but tough nonetheless," Stone turned to Flash and gave him a quick jab in the side, but due to her overwhelming strength it was very hard to tell whether she was being playful or just cruel. "Can you blame me for thinking that? You could have just magicked the wires into dust, but no, your first instinct was to chew on them until they…" He stopped when he noticed that her mouth was still moving around ever so slightly. "Would you spit that out already!?"

"Hey, what's going on in there!" Another guard shouted from outside of the power room as they started fidgeting with the locked door. Flash froze in place and made the shush motion to Stone, but stopped when he figured he could trust her to keep quiet, call it a hunch. Suddenly they heard the door handle itself starting to shake as the sound of a key being jammed into the lock reached their ears. His next plan was to immediately start playing dead, but he barely got one syllable in before the door was practically torn off of it's hinges by the entering mare.

"What is the meaning of this?" Cried captain Stardust, a blue on blue unicorn mare that utterly oozed authority and strength the moment she entered a room. She was the commanding officer of the colony guard and was one of the most accomplished and intelligent spellcasters this side of the globe, and she was looking at them with fury in her eyes. She looked up to the gnawed remains of the security lines and to the various boxes and sections with tools and machinery jammed inside. There was no hiding the very obviously sabotaged batteries and power lines behind them.

"Okay Captain, we can explain." Flash started with his silent partner nodding furiously right next to him. "You see this...giant...black...bird thing swooped in through the windows in the hall!" Flash felt a strange tug on his wings as Stone grabbed them and began flapping them manually to mimic the motions of a bird. He looked back to captain Stardust, who looked perpetually angry at the moment, with a nervous smile and quickly batted away Stones hooves as he continued trying to bullcrap their way out of this mess.

"Then we chased it all the way down until it came into here," Stone started jogging in place. "It swooped down and knocked everything around, and started wrecking the place," Stone sat on her haunches and made various swooping hoof gestures while blowing raspberries and making explosion noises. "Finally it gnawed on those wires and we finally managed to chase it off after an intense fight!" Stone just stood still and spat out a mangled mess of wires that had been stuck in her mouth this entire time. Flash let out a pained sigh and face hoofed as the Captains left eyebrow rose very condescendingly.

"Really? That's the story you're going with?" She asked him with rage permeating every single word.

"Uhhh...yes?" He answered with a shrug.

"Why are there tools in the outlets then? Did the bird lodge them in there?"

"It was surprisingly dexterous ma'am!" Flash continued with a nerdy salute that Stone slowly mirrored. He was determined to ride this train straight down to Tartarus.

"Yes, and you say the bird gnawed on those wires despite the fact that there are obviously teeth marks on them?" She said as she narrowed her eyes.

"Well...you see I...the thing I always…" He tried several times to finish the sentences but luckily Stone was there to nod furiously in his stead.

“What of the other guards set to this post!?” The captain shouted as she stepped closer to them. “Where were they when this… thing attacked the power mainframe!?” Flash wanted to cower, but in his line of work he knew first hoof what it was like to stare down the mast of a crossbow while keeping calm.

“There were no guards here ma’am. We haven’t seen any other guards all night. We just assumed that it was strange break times since we just got back from recovery.” Flash said with a perfect mix of calm and nervous inflections, the words flowing much more naturally as he was able to tell an actual truth for once. Captain Stardust backed away slowly and dawned a look of contemplation, considering his words very carefully as she did so.

“You’re right… neither have I,” She started as she fully stepped away from them and paced back and forth in front of the duo. “I only recently arrived as well, but the missing guards, the damage caused to many of the halls, and now this.” She said as she pointed to the wall of sabotaged electronics, not noticing the pegasus profusely sweating next to his stoic partner. “Something is very wrong here,” She said as she lifted a glob of black goo held in a vile with her magic. “And I think I know who’s responsible.”

“Who could that be?” Flash asked in his most convincing clueless voice in order to goad her train of thought away from them.

“Questions for later soldiers, for now you two need to follow me. If this creature just barely attacked you then we don’t have much time. We need to head to the ballroom.” She said as she made her way for the door, stopping only to make sure the duo were indeed following her.

“You mean...follow follow?” He asked hopefully, garnering a narrow eyed glare from the captain. “Hehe, following it is!” Flash said nervously as he and Stone begrudgingly followed the captain down the darkened halls. They only hoped they’d have a chance to inform the Spears sooner rather than later. It was clear that there was something much more unexpected happening within the palace.