The Pursuit
The changeling filly raced through the sky clutching the black book tightly against her. The plan that she had made was simple. Let the other changelings know that she had the Liber Tenebrarum, and then the swarm would leave the town and return to the hive. But then when they left Equestria, she would slip away unnoticed. Although, after that she didn't know what she was going to do.
She pushed it out of her mind. At the moment, she still needed to stop the changelings from attacking the town. The filly flew to the center of the protection spell that had appeared, and using her vocals that only a changeling had, let out a high-pitched note to the entire town.
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Shining Armor raced through Ponyville, which had now become its own battlefield. The ponies that fought to protect their homes were locked in a clash against the changelings, and it seemed that the changelings were becoming quickly overpowered. As victory seemed to near, the changelings were being driven back towards the edge of the protection spell.
But then, in the middle of fighting, the changelings all stopped and raised their heads, as if they heard something. Curious to what was happening, the captain was shocked to see all of the changelings turn at once and fly back through the protection spell. Shining looked up at the changelings who had been outside the protective dome to see that they too were flying back from where they came from: Beyond the Everfree Forest.
Seeing the changelings flee, everypony began to cheer and celebrate the victory. That is, everypony except for the cautious captain. He scratched his chin with a hoof, "Why would they give up so easily?" But then his mind turned to why they had come in the first place.
His eyes widened as he realized what had happened, "Oh, no"
He started to run to Rowan's house, but he was stopped when his sister caught up to him. Twilight had a worried expression, "Shiny! What's wrong. The changelings just got up and left all of the sudden."
The captain continued to run past her, "Follow me."
Twilight quickly ran to catch up with Shining. The captain looked over his shoulder at the purple unicorn, "Are you all right?"
Twilight shook her head, "I'm fine, but a changeling knocked Spike unconscious. He's with Fluttershy now."
They both reached the door to Rowan's house, which was wide open. Twilight gasped as she looked at the trashed room inside.
"Come on." Shining Armor ran inside and began to climb upstairs. Twilight followed closely behind.
Both of the unicorns walked into Rowan's room to see Rowan curled up on the floor. The gray unicorn was sobbing into his hooves. Shade was by his side, trying to comfort the colt.
Shining Armor ran up to help Rowan, "Rowan, what's wrong? What happened?"
The gray unicorn had tears blurring his eyes as he answered in a choked voice, "They took it. They took the Liber Tenebrarum."
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An hour had passed and with the changelings having left, the townsponies at Sweet Apple Acres began to head back into town and help repair what had been damaged in the battle. Rowan stood outside with Twilight and Shining Armor as they tried to assess the situation. He was still glum that the changelings had taken the Liber Tenebrarum, but he wasn't going to let his sorrow keep him from helping others in town.
Shining Armor looked out at the town in front of Rowan's house, "We need to send a message to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They need to know what's happened, and they should know why the changelings took the Liber Tenebrarum. But we can't send a message quickly with Spike unconscious, and we can't send a message to Canterlot because the Princess is already on her way here with reinforcements."
Twilight was lost in thought, "But then what are we supposed to do?"
Shining Armor sighed, "The only thing we can do is wait for the princess to arrive. Until then we need to help the town repair itself."
The two unicorns nodded and started back to town, but then Twilight stopped as she realized that Rowan wasn't following them.
"Hey, Rowan! Are you coming? We could really use your help."
Rowan shook his head, "I... I'll help in just a second. I just need to do something first." But in his mind, he added with deep determination, I need to get the book back.
Twilight smiled, "Okay, don't take too long." With that she trotted off into town.
Once the purple unicorn was out of sight, Rowan ran back into his house, Shade following closely behind him. Making his way through his trashed main room, he entered into the kitchen. Using levitation, Rowan grabbed several pieces of food, as well as some sausages for Shade, and stowed them away in his storage spell as provisions for the trip he'd be making to the changeling hive.
With enough food gathered, Rowan galloped out of his house with Shade. They ran through the streets of Ponyville, passing by several ponies who were repairing their homes that had been damaged in the attack. As Rowan watched them struggle to make repairs, he cringed as he thought to himself, This is all my fault. Shaking his head, he quickly quickened his pace towards the forest's edge, But I'm going to set it right.
Rowan reached the end of town, with the Everfree forest standing before him. Rowan reared back as he readied his horn, "Okay, time to see where you changelings came from." He launched his navigation spell, which quickly picked up the fresh trail that the swarm had left behind. He smiled, "Time to go, Shade."
Shade barked in response and they both ran into the forest, or rather, they would have if not for the sudden pull of magic that drew them away from the forest. Rowan whipped his head around to see that it was Twilight who was holding them back. The purple unicorn frowned at him, "Rowan! What are you doing."
Rowan phased into his cloud form, escaping Twilight's holding spell, and reformed by the tree line of the forest, "I'm going after them. I'm getting the book back."
Twilight gasped, "But you can't just leave town! It's stupid to try to face the changelings alone. You'd get yourself killed."
Rowan narrowed his eyes at her, "They came here because they wanted the book. It's my fault that they attacked the town. I put everypony in danger by bringing the Liber Tenebrarum here." He turned his eyes away from her and looked down at the ground in guilt, "But it's not just that. When Princess Luna gave me the book, she expected me to protect it with my life. I failed her when the changelings took it."
Twilight shook her head, "But, I'm sure that she'll forgive you. It's only a book after all."
Rowan glared at the other unicorn, "Just a book? The Liber Tenebrarum is the only record of shadow magic in history, and there is only one in existence. I failed my teacher by losing it. How would you feel if you failed Princess Celestia?"
Rowan found that he had hit one of Twilight's soft spots as she stood with her mouth agape in shock. Sighing, Rowan turned back towards the forest, "Look, Twilight. By the time Celestia arrives with reinforcements, the changeling's trail will have disappeared. I'm going to get back the book and I'm going to fix all of this, and I'm going to do it alone. It's my fault and mine alone for why this happened. So, don't follow me." With that, he used his cloud spell and flew high into the air, following the diminishing trail of the swarm, and left behind a silenced Twilight by the forest's edge.
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The changeling filly flew fast at the head of the swarm, still clutching the Liber Tenebrarum against her chest. They had left Ponyville long before, and now she prepared to slip away from the swarm, unnoticed. She slowed down slightly, and let the rest of the changelings fly past her.
Once she was at the back of the swarm, she looked around for a sufficient hiding place on the ground below. Since they were out of Equestria, the terrain below was rugged and dry, but there were several large boulders that could serve as a good hiding place. She spotted a large boulder with an overhang, which would hide her from anyone flying above.
She prepared to drop down to it, but then she was tackled from the side, almost knocking the book away from her grip. The filly clutched the book tightly as she spun out across the sky, but she quickly righted herself.
She turned to look at her attacker, which she was surprised to see that it was another changeling. Her eyes narrowed as she realized that he wasn't a drone, so he had attacked her for his own purposes.
"What are you doing?" She questioned the other changeling.
He let out a growl, "Give me the book, now."
She quickly held it away from him, "And why should I?"
"Because if you don't, I'll kill you." He glared in rage, "I should be the one to return the book to the queen. I've spent all of my time spying on those pathetic ponies in Ponyville, and I've never recieved a reward for my efforts. I deserve the reward from the queen."
The spy turned his head and sneered at her, "You, however, will only return the book to regain favor with the queen."
The changeling filly growled at him, but the spy continued, "Back before the attack on Canterlot, the queen wanted you to dispose of the unicorn, Twilight Sparkle, after she became suspicious of the queen's identity. But out of weakness, you refused to obey your queen and mother. Isn't that right, Princess Naractia."
Naractia flinched at the sound of her own name, which she had given up ever since Chrysalis forced her out of Canterlot, after disobeying the queen.
She remembered the night when her mother asked her to dispose of Twilight Sparkle and for her to take her place in the wedding. She had refused to do it, so Chrysalis had forced her out of Canterlot, calling her a useless failure.
The spy saw that he'd hit a soft spot in the changeling princess, "Now give me the book, you failure." The spy suddenly charged Naractia and tackled her again. The princess spiraled through the air, but then regained control of her flight pattern. She quickly turned and flew away, trying to evade the spy's attack.
The spy screamed in rage, "Get back here! That book belongs to me!" And began to fly after her. Naractia flew as fast as she could, trying to find a place where she could lose her pursuer. But then her eye caught a large canyon just below her. She dipped down and flew into the maze of stone.
The spy was already on her tail, "Give it up! You can't lose me and I'm a faster flyer than you. Save yourself the pain and forfeit the book to me."
Naractia cringed as she weaved through the stone canyon, "Darn it, he's right. I won't be able to keep up this chase for long. But I can't afford to lose the book to him."
But then, from the sky above, the spy came crashing down on top of her, knocking the changeling princess against the canyon wall. Naractia fumbled with the book as it almost fell out of her grip, but she managed to catch it again. She whipped her head around to see the spy circle about in the small canyon, coming for another attack.
She silently cursed to herself, "I can't take another hit like that. But while I'm holding the book, I can't fend off his attacks." But then a desperate idea came into her mind. She opened up the first page of the Liber Tenebrarum and grabbed the top of the page with her mouth.
It was then that the spy crashed into Naractia again. The impact threw the Liber Tenebrarum into the air, and the page that she held in her mouth ripped out cleanly from the binding. The spy hadn't noticed the page that had been torn off, but he saw the book fly through the air and flew fast after it, snatching it out of midair.
Naractia clutched the single page of the Liber Tenebrarum against herself, as she heard the evil laughter of the spy as he flew away to rejoin the swarm with the book. The pain stung her, not just from the several scrapes and bruises that she had received, but also the reality of her failure.
She had tried to keep the book away from her mother, Chrysalis, in an effort to keep the queen from hurting anypony. But now, she had lost the book and it was on its way to the changeling queen.
Naractia slowly fell to the canyon floor as her wings began to fail her with exhaustion. She curled up in anguish while she rested her wings. She looked at the single page of the book, "At least I was able to keep this part away from the queen." She sighed, "But she still has the rest of the book, and who knows what she could do with it."
But her a little voice in her head reminded her that she could use the book's magic, too. She scanned the length of the page she held, which was written with very ancient text. She'd never been taught to read, but the words seemed to explain themselves to the changeling princess as if it were natural to her. She soon realized that it was a spell that was written on the page.
She began to commit the spell to memory, "If I'm going to get the book back, then I'll need to have magic on my side as well."
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Rowan flew through the air in his cloud form, following the trail left by the changelings. He looked down below him to see Shade running as a shadow on the ground. He smiled at the wolf's devotion to help.
Rowan looked ahead to see the edge of the bad-lands, the border of Equestria. Beyond the border, there was nothing green and alive. Rowan sighed at the irony that the changelings would be hiding in this barren place. This meant that it'd be harder conditions for him if he somehow got stranded out there.
He looked up to see that Celestia's sun was high in the air, signaling that it was about noon. Rowan's suddenly felt hungry as he realized that he hadn't eaten that morning. Deciding that eating would be the best thing to do before leaving Equestria, Rowan dipped down and descended to the ground.
Rowan landed onto the grassy field below that outlined the border of Equestria, and resumed his unicorn form. Shade quickly ran up next to him, melding out from his shadow. Rowan smiled, "All right, Shade. Time to eat something." He glanced warily at the land outside the border, "Who knows when we'll eat next out there."
Shade barked happily as Rowan pulled out a couple sausages from his storage spell. Rowan tossed them to the wolf, who snatched them at of midair, and then pulled out a piece of bread and a banana for himself.
Rowan sat down while he ate his lunch. He looked around at the field where they were, which was rich with green grass and dotted by the occasional flower patch. With the sun over-head and a slight wind blowing, the place seemed pleasant.
Rowan took a bite of bread, enjoying the scenery around him, "Wow. This is place is peaceful. Makes it seem like I'm not going to dive head first into a changeling hive." But then he remembered what Twilight had said before he'd left, "Maybe she was right. It was stupid to go after them alone. I could die out there." He felt something like a rock growing in his stomach at the possibility of dying.
He shook it out of his mind, "Whatever. I'm going after the Liber Tenebrarum. It's my only chance to get home." Rowan sighed and fell backwards onto a patch of grass, "But until then, I have to give my *all* here, or else I'll never get home."
Pushing the thoughts out of his mind, he finished eating his lunch while enjoying the gentle breeze that blew through the grassy plain. He looked down at Shade, who was resting on the grass after his long run on the ground. Rowan got up onto his hooves, "All right, Shade. Time to go."
Shade stood up with a bark, while Rowan prepared his cloud spell. As Rowan changed into his cloud form, he watched Shade meld into his shadow. The unicorn chuckled at the weirdness of the scene, "How did my life get like this?"
Rowan flew up into the air and continued down the trail that the changelings had left behind, with Shade following below on the ground. Rowan looked behind him at the grass plain as the trail led them across the border. As soon as they passed over the invisible threshold of the border, the gentle breeze that had been blowing completely vanished. And Celestia's sun, which had spread love and light throughout Equestria, scorched the earth outside the border with a vicious heat wave.
Nonetheless, Rowan continued to fly through the desert air at high speed as a cloud of smoke, completely unaffected by the intense heat of the blazing sun.
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Naractia focused on the canyon wall where she'd been practicing the spell that she'd learned from the ripped-out page of the Liber Tenebrarum. She'd never learned how to use any magic before, but that was mainly because of her mother, Chrysalis.
Naractia pointed her horn towards the stone wall and began to run through the spell that she'd memorized. She began to feel the spell take effect as her horn glowed with a dark red aura. Suddenly, a beam of magic shot out from her horn and blasted a boulder-sized, chunk of stone out of the wall, which land with a crash onto the canyon floor in front of her.
The changeling inspected her work, taking great satisfaction towards her success, "This spell will be useful." But then she cringed at the thought of using it on somebody else. She'd never wanted to hurt anybody, not even the changelings. Of course, being changelings, it was in their nature to fight against each other. So in the past, Naractia had to fight back when the situation called for it.
Naractia wouldn't even hurt her own mother, no matter how badly she felt that the queen deserved it. But she still regarded Chrysalis as an enemy, and rebelled whenever she could.
Naractia shook her head and looked up at the small patch of sky that was visible in the canyon. The sky was starting to turn orange as the sun began to set. By now, the Ponyville spy would have already given the queen the Liber Tenebrarum.
She sighed, "I don't know how I'm going to get the book back now." But then she silenced herself as, in the sky, she spotted something that resembled a black cloud, moving rapidly across the sky. Naractia was about to fly up closer to see what this strange cloud was, but then another black figure suddenly leaped over the crevice of the canyon.
Her pupil-less eyes widened as she recognized the second figure. It was a wolf, or rather a shadow of a wolf. And the only wolf that Naractia had ever seen that was Shade, the wolf that had accompanied Rowan back in Ponyville. Then something in her mind clicked, "If that was Shade, then that black cloud must have been Rowan!"
Grabbing the page of the Liber Tenebrarum, she flew to the top of the canyon. Careful to keep out of sight, she peered over the canyon wall at Rowan and Shade. She was surprised to see that they were heading towards the changeling hive. She wasn't sure how Rowan was tracking the swarm, but she was sure that they would reach the hive within an hour or so.
Suddenly, an idea popped into her mind. She beamed, "Maybe I don't have to go after the book alone." Being as discreet as possible, she began to follow the two as they made their way to the changeling hive.
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Rowan followed the trail left by the changelings as the sun was setting behind the horizon. He looked ahead and was surprised to see that he and Shade were nearing the end of the trail. He grinned, "That must be the hive."
Before the hive came into view, Rowan lighted down onto the barren ground below, behind the protection of a large boulder. Shade quickly ran up to him, melding out of his shadow form. Rowan smiled at his loyal companion, "You ready, Shade?" The wolf raised his head and gave a small growl, ready for a fight. Rowan nodded at him and peered around the boulder for a better look.
The entrance to the hive was a single cave, and inside the entrance there was only one changeling standing guard. Rowan grinned, "I just need take him out with a fire crescent, then getting in will be no problem." Taking in a deep breath, Rowan prepared himself to use magic.
Once he was ready, he stepped out from behind the boulder and began to walk towards the entrance to the hive. The changeling guard saw him and turned around to alert the rest of the hive, but he never got a chance as Rowan shot a flaming crescent at the guard, taking the changeling guard out.
Rowan began to run to the entrance, with Shade on his heels. But before he reached the cave, the sun vanished behind the horizon, and with no moon up to light the night yet, the barren land grew dark. Rowan stopped in the darkness and used his magic to repel the shadows.
But when the darkness drew away from Rowan and Shade, Rowan's eyes widened as his jaw dropped and Shade bent down into a defensive position, growling loudly. They found themselves completely surrounded by a swarm of changelings who had been hiding in the darkness outside the hive.
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Naractia was in shock as the entire hive appeared around Rowan and Shade. In her mind, she feared that Chrysalis must already be harnessing the power of the Liber Tenebrarum and the changeling force was waiting outside the hive for anyone who might try to stop her. She thought silently to herself, I need to help them, or else Chrysalis will kill them both. She shook her head, But I don't know what to do.
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