> The Enemy Of My Enemy
>  by Emo Rainbow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prolouge: New management
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The harsh storm was all that could be heard from within the confines of the crystal cottage. Lock Heart didn’t know what to expect when the curse was lifted, but she certainly didn’t expect it to be so cold. It had been so long since she could think straight; it should have been obvious now that she could think about it. The Crystal Empire was always like this, but without the crystal heart protecting them they were all doomed. Their only chance for survival would be if the king placed them all under his control again, but that would be a fate worse than death.

As the raging snowstorm outside continued to pile snow over their house and front door, Lock Heart huddled closer to her shivering son. If it weren’t for the freezing climate they were both experiencing causing her to shiver uncontrollably she didn’t think she’d be able to look at him without crying. After centuries of putting this teenage colt through unimaginable slavery and torture, was this how it would end? Buried in a snowstorm? She was ashamed to call herself a mother, how could she even claim to be one when she failed to protect her son from so many atrocities?

“M-m-m-mom?” Shatterstar asked in a shiver from beneath her as she covered him like a pony blanket. 

“Y-yes honey?” She replied in the strongest voice she could manage.

“A-a-a-are w-we gonna d-die?” He asked in fear, to which Lock Heart responded with a fiery determination that seemed to reheat her entire body. She hugged her beautiful red-maned colt even harder than before as she felt a surge of energy deep within her.

“No honey, we’re going to make it out and we’re going to be safe.” She said with certainty. No matter how bleak she thought things were she could never let Shatterstar think the same. Hope and the will to carry on were something that she never wanted him to lose, even in the worst of times. Her words seemed to do the trick as Shatterstar stopped shivering and calmed down, but before Lock Heart could smile to herself in victory she realized that she too had stopped shivering. The house was no longer unbearably cold, just a regular cold, and it felt amazing.

“Mom? I feel so much better now!” Shatterstar exclaimed as he tried pushing her off of him. She slowly lifted herself off and allowed him to move freely, and as they stretched out and embraced their newfound warmth they noticed that the storm that had just been outside of the window had almost completely stopped. Lock Heart rushed to the window with Shatterstar coming up from behind her to get a look as well.

“Look, mom! It’s so pretty!” He exclaimed as he pointed upwards. Lock Heart followed his hoof and gasped at the brilliant and clear night sky above them, lit up by thousands of stars and the shining moon. Lock Heart could have sworn she could see a painting of a pony on the moon, but that was probably just a trick of the eyes. She and her son's ears both swiveled around as they heard the sound of heavy metal hooves marching through the streets of the empire. With their previously snow-covered door now completely spotless Shatterstar rushed outside to see what was happening. 

“Shatterstar no!” Lock Heart yelled as she chased after him, however, once she reached him she saw him frozen in awe as he stared down the street. She followed his gaze and her eyes widened at the sight of an army of silver-clad ponies marching through the streets of the empire. At the front was a giant alicorn pony with black and blue armor and an ethereal blue mane filled with stars that shifted around like a watery mist. This was one of the princesses of Equestria who had tried to save them from Sombra so long ago. She failed then, but seeing her now she looked much larger and more menacing, so surely this time she couldn’t fail.

With caution still in her heart, she pulled Shatterstar away from the street and put him behind her. The ponies marched past them without even a glance in their direction, until finally the princess stretched out her wings and halted them all. Looking around Lock Heart could see other crystal ponies exiting their homes to see what was happening as well, and already they were beginning to cheer and cry tears of joy. 

“EVERYPONY! STAND BACK!” Shouted the princess in a voice so loud that it seemed to shake the very ground. The Equestrian soldiers all started taking steps back as a shadowy cloud began to coil around the base of the crystal palace and rise upwards towards the balcony overlooking the city. Lock Heart would have backed up as well if she weren’t paralyzed with fear at the sight of King Sombra reforming atop the castle with green flames surrounding him. He laughed maniacally and blasted a ray of dark magic toward the princess who swiftly dodged it and took off into the sky towards him. From the impact point of his magical attack came two large spires of jet-black crystals that he hopped on top of to move freely at that height.

While the two monarchs battled in the sky, exchanging spells and threats, a struggle had broken out near the base of the castle. A small force of mind-controlled crystal pony guards had come out to confront the vastly superior equestrian forces without a shred of self-preservation. Before any of the crystal ponies had a chance to warn the equestrians that they were being controlled they had already been decimated in a hail of arrows and magic. As this happened Lock Heart covered Shatterstar's eyes and pushed him back inside.

“Mom!” He complained as he tried to wiggle out of her grasp and continue watching the fight between the king and princess.

“No Shatterstar, stay inside now!” She commanded firmly as she shut the door behind them. Rushing over to the windows she covered them all up and told Shatterstar to follow her to the back of the house. The battle raged outside as roars, explosions, and shockwaves rocked the house's foundations back and forth until one final blast echoed its way across the city. After only a few minutes of fierce battle, the noise had slowly ceased, and the city was eerily quiet. Though this should have been taken as a positive sign, Lock Heart couldn't stop herself from having a bad feeling about it. The silence was almost as deafening as the clashes of battle only moments prior, and that feeling of dread reached an all-time high when a heavy knock came at her door.

“Go, hide.” She told her son as she pointed to the cupboard in the kitchen. The knock came again, and this time it was much louder. Without responding she approached the window and carefully peeked outside to see who it was, only to see their neighbor, an old pony named Sly Craft, who was trotting in place outside looking strange, like a mix of confusion and excitement was overtaking him. Seeing that there was nopony else around, Lock Heart slowly opened the door just a bit to greet him.

“Hello?” She asked nervously.

“Lock Heart! You need to get out here! Bring Shatterstar too, because it’s a miracle!” He shouted in excitement to the mare. Lock Heart opened the door fully while the sound of another door opening in the kitchen signified that Shatterstar was curious as well.

“What are you talking about?” She asked the stallion.

“It’s over! That’s what I’m talking about. Sombra’s been defeated and the princess wants to address all of us. Come on!” He said with tears in his eyes before practically skipping down her steps and towards the castle, where there were hundreds of crystal ponies gathering in front of the tall and dark princess.

“What now? Do we go?” Asked Shatterstar who had sneakily joined his mother outside. Lock Heart didn’t know how to answer him, because frankly, she didn’t know what to think about this. They were finally free from Sombra, and with him gone, who would lead them? What would the crystal ponies do now? It seemed that there was only one place where these questions could be answered. 

“I guess we need to go see what the princess has to say. Just stay close to me okay?” Shatterstar nodded his head in agreement and followed his mother down the street toward the castle. Once they had joined the cheering crowd at the center of the city, the princess raised her wings to settle everypony down. They all looked up at her in anticipation, waiting eagerly for what she was going to say next.

“Greetings, crystal ponies. Behold your Savior, Princess Nightmare Moon! Ahahahahahahahaha!"  She laughed in a seemingly maniacal fashion that made Lock Heart, as well as many others, feel quite uncomfortable. In the end, they couldn’t fault their hero just for a strange quirk, right? That would be unfair. A pony in the crowd raised his hoof, and once the princess had stopped laughing she rolled her eyes and pointed at him. “Yes, you.” 

“Umm, I thought your name was Princess Luna? And What about your sister Princess Celestia?" He'd brought up two very good questions that many ponies in the crowd agreed with finding the answers to. The princess, however, seemed to be scowling with a slight eye twitch. She glared at the stallion who had asked, and tremendous amounts of magic began to gather in her horn. “Haha! Never mind, forget I asked.” He squealed in fear at the terrifying sight of the princess. 

“What happens now that Sombra’s gone? Who will lead us?” A pony who was dangerously close to Lock Heart and her son had shouted, gaining the attention of everypony there, including the princess whose horn slowly dimmed back down. Lock Heart slowly tried to move away from the stallion who had drawn everypony's eyes but found it extremely difficult to move anywhere. With a sigh, the princess seemed to accept the change in subject, much to the relief of everypony else, and answered him.

“Well, currently I have no intention of ruling yet another colony, once we find the crystal heart you will be free to elect a new leader.” At the mention of the crystal heart, many of the ponies gasped and started whispering to each other excitedly. Lock Heart could feel Shatterstar grab onto her tightly as he smiled. He didn’t know the crystal heart for as long as she did, but she just knew that the thought of it would certainly lift his spirits. The heart had a special connection to the crystal ponies, you didn’t need to see it to feel its magic wash over you. 

“We will provide aid to all who need it, please stay gathered so the guards may do a count of how many there are. For now, I will assist in the search for the heart.” She said with a toothy grin on her muzzle before taking to the air and entering the castle from the balcony. The crowd all cheered her on in celebration as her soldiers began separating everypony into lines.

Lock Heart had seen the princess before, and she knew that she was acting very strangely, but she still had hope that things were finally turning around. “Let’s go get something to eat.” She said to her son who nodded happily in agreement.





Nightmare Moon walked through the halls of the palace as her soldiers destroyed everything in search of the heart. The crystal heart was one of the most powerful artifacts in history, and if she could find it she could use it to achieve a power far greater than any creature could ever hope to face. None would dare oppose her after that, and every single petty resistance both in and out of Equestria would be crushed.

“General Disarray, has any progress been made in the search?” She asked the bright saturated peach-colored pony next to her wearing onyx armor that had fur lining the back of its helmet. The pony had freckles on his face, a frizzy red mane, and glasses. 

“For the crystal heart? No. For other items of value well…” He levitated a simple magic-infused emerald up to her eyes so she could get a good look at it. “That’s a different story.” He finished, prompting Nightmare Moon to give him a deadpan stare.

“It’s just a magic-infused gem general. Do not waste my time on silly jokes!” She exclaimed at the general who had recoiled at her outburst. 

“No no no princess. This gem is naturally infused with magic. We found hordes of them in the castle vault, and since I doubt the crystal ponies figured out how to infuse gems with magic while they were enslaved for the last thousand years, I’d say that these came from the mines beneath the city.” He replied while adjusting his glasses and inspecting the gem up close.

“Why do you find this to be so important?” She asked, making him scoff at her.

“Are you dense? Naturally infused gems are-hrrk!” He was cut off as fierce gripping magic wrapped around his throat and sent him flying into the wall. Several of the nearby guards looked at what was happening and quickly fled the area, likely knowing that now was a good time to steer clear of the angry princess.

“What did you just say to me you worm!?” Princess Nightmare Moon asked through clenched teeth.

“Forgive me, princess! Forgive me! I was out of line!” He squealed as his windpipe was being crushed harder and harder. The princess grunted and dropped him on the ground where he gasped for air and thanked the princess for her mercy. After two minutes of labored breath Nightmare Moon growled in frustration.

“Well? Finish what you were trying to say. I don’t have all night.” The general gulped before fixing his glasses and composure while standing up. 

“Well, princess, what I meant to say was that these gems are extremely valuable. Naturally infused gems are exceedingly rare in Equestria, only happening in conditions of extreme magical pressure after hundreds of years.” He pulled out a different gem that was also magically infused and floated the two next to each other for comparison. “No matter how hard a pony may try to infuse magic into a gem themselves, it always has a limit, but naturally infused gems are close to a hundred times as strong as the highest quality gems available to us today.” He walked around searching for something to test and eventually found a lone guard hiding in a corner and holding a light bulb. After taking it he placed it on the artificial gem which made the light glow brightly, then he placed it on the natural gem, and as soon as they made contact the light bulb exploded into a million tiny shards.

“You see? Think of the possibilities princess! Entire cities powered at a fraction of the cost, and spell amplifiers with some of the purest magic we can find. Don’t even get me started on the military applications.” He started gushing until Nightmare Moon zipped his mouth shut with magic.

“Please try to keep your excitement to a minimum. While I am certainly intrigued by this discovery our main goal is still the crystal heart.” She said before continuing her walk back to the throne room. 

“Mmph mmph mm!” Nightmare Moon looked at Disarray with a raised eyebrow as he tried responding but only gave out a muffled phrase. She rolled her eyes and unzipped his mouth so he could speak. “As you wish.” He repeated much more clearly. The two ponies passed a few more guards who were searching furiously until they entered the throne room where pegasi and unicorns were searching every nook and cranny.

“Private Sentry! Report!” Disarray yelled at an orange pegasus guard who had his back turned.

“OH! Yes, sir!” He saluted and led them to the throne at the back of the room. “Go ahead Stone, show 'em what we found.” He told a grey unicorn mare next to the throne. Focusing magic into her horn she fired a powerful spell at a crystal at the top of the throne, the crystal absorbed the magic before swirling around and fading away.

“As you can see it’s absorbing magic, meaning it must be a catalyst for something. Regular magic has no effect so Stone thought that if you could try princess, you might be strong enough.” He explained, making Nightmare Moon frown and General Disarray cringe.

“What do you mean might?” She asked as she narrowed her eyes at the now nervous stallion and ever-inexpressive mare. The guard started babbling in fear as he tried to explain what he meant until Nightmare Moon began cackling. “Looks like SOMEPONY needs to develop their sense of humor.” She mocked.

"G-good one princess." Private Sentry said nervously as his partner joined his side. Wasting no more time, Nightmare Moon focused on the crystal and fired a bolt of her blue and black magic toward it. The crystal absorbed the magic and within moments the middle of the throne room had opened up to reveal a winding staircase leading downwards into a dark chamber.

“Oh Sombra, you sneaky demon.” Nightmare Moon chuckled to herself as she, the general, and the two guards began their descent. As they walked down the stairs and into the depths of the newfound chamber the female guard Stone illuminated the room with her horn. They descended further and further until finally reaching the bottom much to the princess' annoyance. They attempted to search the bottom of the pit, but all that could be seen was a plain, out of place, wooden door against the wall. General Disarray ordered Stone to open the door, but when the grey mare approached and attempted to open it the door shifted away at an incredible speed to the other side of the wall, making her expressionless unchanged face tilt in confusion.

“Here, let me try.” Sentry said as he lunged at it, only for the door to go straight upwards resulting in his face smashing into the wall. Several more attempts were made, with even the general joining in, and despite how amusing it was to see them repeatedly fail and run into each other like a bunch of stooges Princess Nightmare Moon's patience was running thin.

“Enough you imbeciles, look!” Nightmare Moon said as she pointed to the top of the door where a crystal identical to the one atop the throne was located. The guards picked themselves up and coughed in embarrassment as they stepped away from the door, making Nightmare Moon shake her head at their antics. Just as she’d done before, she fired a bolt of magic at the crystal, turning it black and making the door latch onto the wall with a loud crunch of the stone.  Everypony present watched as it began to glow as if a portal had been opened behind it, and slowly Nightmare Moon approached the handle. Before opening it, however, she stopped and thought to herself about what she would do if she tried to hide something this hard. Not wanting to stumble into a trap herself she simply turned to the orange pegasus behind her.

“You there. Enter this door.” She said as she returned to where she was standing prior. 

“What? Why?” He asked in fear and confusion. 

“Because I command it.” She said through clenched teeth while flaring out her wings. The guard gulped and looked to his partner and general for help, but the general merely turned to look at something else while Stone continued to silently stare at him. With a sigh of resignation, he walked towards the door nervously while Nightmare Moon and the others stepped to the side to make sure they were not caught in any surprise blasts from whatever lay beyond the door. The guinea pig guard placed his hoof on the handle and hesitated while taking a deep breath. “Get on with it!” The princess shouted, making the young guard flinch and swiftly open the door, but what they saw was yet another wall behind it.

The guards sighed in relief while Nightmare Moon groaned in aggravation. “A dead end, I should have known. There’s no way he’d leave the crystal heart somewhere so obvious.” She remarked before turning to head for the stairs.

“Oh well, come on you two back to searching.” General Disarray said as he followed the princess, but after a few seconds, neither of them followed. Both Nightmare Moon and the general turned around to yell at them, but before they could they stopped and inspected the strange sight before the door. The grey mare was waving her hoof in front of the other guard's face, desperately trying to get the orange stallion's attention, while he seemed to be sitting in front of the wall and staring at it with an expression of fear. Nightmare Moon and Disarray walked back down the stairs as they watched him mumble to himself and shift in place.

“No, no I did nothing wrong! Why? Why are you doing this? Why do you hate me so much?” Tears began to flow from his sickly green eyes but all the while he never stopped staring at the wall. His words had started becoming less and less coherent, and soon he was openly crying and begging for ponies to listen to him. Nightmare Moon ordered the others to stay put as she watched the effects of the door unfold before her, its undoubtedly dark nightmare properties piquing her interest unlike anything else she'd ever come across. After having her fill of the guard's torment she nodded to the other guard who wasted no time in bucking the door shut and smacking the guard across his face, sending his helmet flying off of his head and revealing his dark blue mane. “What!? Where am I?” He asked in a panic as he fell to the ground and frantically searched around the room for familiar faces.

“Get a grip private and tell us what happened to you.” General Disarray said as he helped him up. Stone meanwhile picked up his helmet and put it on his head as she patted him on the back. The orange guard wiped away a few stray tears and started to explain himself as best as he could.

“I was back home, in Canterlot. Everypony there was screaming at me, telling me how worthless I was, how much they hated me. That they wanted me to leave forever because I didn't belong there. I-It was like my worst nightmare had come true.” His voice started shaking and Stone continued to pat him as her face showed very slight signs of worry. Nightmare Moon wasn’t interested in his well-being though, all she heard was 'nightmare'. She turned to look at the door once again, a sinister smile growing on her face. She may not have found the crystal heart, but as the leading expert on all things nightmare herself, she believed she had stumbled onto something even better. It’s one thing to have nightmares in your dreams, but if Sombra found a way to create living nightmares, then she wanted to know how. 

“The search is over for now. Have as many of your ponies as you can start transporting the gems we have discovered,” The general and guards saluted as she quickly started flying up towards the top of the pit. “Time to let my new subjects know that I spoke too soon. This will make for an excellent colony.”
> Chapter 1 - Inspection
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shatterstar slowly stirred awake on top of his cushy bed as the last vestiges of sleep were overwhelmed by the fierce cold that not even the walls of his home could block. He felt his body shiver as his efforts to keep out the cold only resulted in more holes emerging in his once impenetrable blanket cocoon. The open freezer that was his room attacked him from all sides, turning his hooves into icicles and further dragging him away from the once pleasant warmth of his favorite blanket.

He groaned as he looked out the bedside window to his right and saw the sky as black as it always was with several small clouds hovering overhead and peppering light snow over the streets. Shatterstar let out an annoyed sigh that anypony who could never tell what time it was would do, but with his sleep now being a thing of the past he decided there wasn’t much else to do except get up and start the night properly.

Lifting himself out of bed he stretched his cold and stiff body on the floor of his room, his aching joints all popping in approval at the well-deserved movement. He moved on to stretching his sadly underutilized wings which also popped in approval. With his body thoroughly stretched he quickly grabbed the brush on his dresser and sat down in front of his mirror. His dull red mane had no split ends or unkempt features to speak of, instead, it just laid dully on the top of his cream-colored head as it always had done. With a huff, he attempted to brush up and style it, but every attempt resulted in it falling like a wet noodle. He sighed in disappointment and slowly put down the brush, but as he saw his sad face in the reflection of the mirror he shook his head, slapped his cheeks, and forced a smile onto his face.

“Get a grip Shatterstar! Today is the day! You will make it!” He kept his forced smile up for a few minutes before dropping it and groaning, figuring that so long as he was in his house he could drop the thing for at least a little while. With that thought, he stepped away from his mirror and made his way downstairs to continue his morning routine.

As he reached the bottom of the narrow stairs and entered the small first floor of the house he quickly peered into the living room on the right where an old grandfather clock, the only clock in the house, stood against the wall. He saw that it was eight-thirty in the morning, not a bad time to wake up in his book, and nodded his head in quiet pride due to him waking up on time for once. Popping into the kitchen he quickly whipped himself up a simple cheese sandwich and devoured it as quickly as he could to not waste any time. With his hunger fully satiated he grabbed a purple scarf hanging next to the door and prepared to head outside, but before he did, he made sure to stop in front of a small crystal picture frame on the table below the hanger.

“Don’t worry mom, I’ll see you soon.” He said to the picture of his mother, Lock Heart, who was forever immortalized as a smiling young mare in front of the crystal palace. With that thought fresh on his mind a genuine smile of his own finally appeared on his face, giving him the energy he needed to step out into the cold morning air of the crystal colony. 

The streets were fairly empty, save for a few crystal ponies and equestrian guards walking to and fro beneath the bright street lights. Shatterstar walked down the steps of his front door and across the snow-covered street towards the houses on the other side. He made his way between two houses and down the alley where he found a much smaller house hidden in the dark behind them. He approached the small one-story building made of magenta crystals and knocked on the door to gain the owner's attention.

“Chivalrous! Come on out here or we’ll be late!” Shatterstar heard the sounds of crashing and thuds coming from inside and instantly recognized it as the approaching carnage of his clumsy friend Chivalrous Deed. The door opened up a tiny bit and a small golden eye peered through the crack and looked at Shatterstar who just smiled in return.

“Shatterstar? What time is it? It’s still dark out.” The meek stallion said from behind his door.

“Uh, where have you been for the past five years? It’s always dark out, in fact, It’s getting close to nine in the morning.” He replied while pointing one of his wings up at the moon.

“Wait, seriously?” He asked nervously with a sharp and nervous increase in his volume. “Well just give me a minute to get ready and I’ll be right out.”

“Can do!” Shatterstar replied with a smile and an endearing salute. Chivalrous closed the door and despite not being able to see from outside, Shatter could most certainly still hear him as he crashed and stumbled through his cluttered house. As he waited for his friend to return Shatterstar looked up at the dense clouds beginning to form above him, as they did so they began to drop more and more snow at an alarming rate. Shatterstar looked around to make sure that nopony was watching and flew up towards the clouds with a feeling of glee as he busted them up into specks in mere seconds.

With the clouds now fully busted he started to slowly hover back down to the ground, but as he did so he noticed a few more clouds not too far away. Seeing as how nopony had spotted him yet, and how it would only be helping ponies out, he decided to bust just a couple more clouds while he had the chance. Pretty soon though, a couple of clouds turned into a sea of clouds as he was zipping all around the sky like a ping pong ball bouncing between bumpers, busting every cloud he could see. He took a quick break to catch his breath as he watched the clouds already starting to be reformed, and with a smile, Shatterstar got ready to start all over again. That is until he heard a door open from below.

Looking down Shatterstar saw the alabaster coat of his friend who had now returned with a blue beanie and grey scarf. He looked around for Shatterstar for a moment before immediately becoming anxious and afraid when he couldn't spot him. “Shatter? Where are you?” Shatterstar chuckled softly and was about to call out to him, but a sinister plan formed in his mind before he could. Flying to the reformed clouds he stitched a few together and hid inside of them, then under the cover of his freshly made disguise, he finally started descending closer to his skittish friend.

“If you got snatched up by a yalfor, then you wouldn’t hold it against me if I go back inside, right?” Shatterstar crept closer and closer to his nervous friend until he was just above him. He waited patiently until the unattentive Chivalrous finally looked up and saw the large black cloud looming overhead. “What the?” An avalanche of snow dropped on top of him, covering his mouth and cutting him off before he could say anything else.

“Gotcha!” Shatterstar shouted in excitement as he popped out of his cloud and waited for Chivalrous' reaction. The victim, instead of getting angry or sad or…anything really, he simply stepped out of the pile of snow and began to empty his beanie.

"Good one dude, you got me," Chivalrous said quietly as he turned his beanie inside out and shook it. Shatterstar groaned in frustration before hopping out of his cloud and busting it apart. 

"You're no fun." He pouted, an action that only seemed to make Chivalrous chuckle. "Oh, so I'm a joke? I'm just a big joke now?" He asked in mock offense, feeling accomplished when it succeeded in making Chivalrous laugh just a bit louder. Shatterstar laughed as well until he saw the four-foot pile of snow right outside of his friend's front door. 

"Ready to go?" Chivalrous asked innocently before Shatterstar raised a hoof in protest.

"Hold on, let me get this. I'm sorry dude." He said as he started to push the snow out of the way with his bare hooves. 

"Hey, don't worry. I'll get it later." Chivalrous said politely.

"Are you sure? This is my fault."

"Positive." Looking at the pile nervously, but remembering the time, Shatterstar backed away from it and began walking back to the street with his friend.

Once the two of them had made it onto the cold Crystal road they simply walked in silence, which gave Shatterstar some time to look around and admire his surroundings. Even in the dark of night, one could still see all of the beautifully crafted crystal architecture of the colony, thanks mostly to the helpful lights installed on nearly every surface of the city. Needless to say, he was glad for the inspection days, albeit only barely, since it finally allowed him some free time to appreciate everything that the Equestrians had helped them save. That wasn't to say he particularly LIKED the Equestrians, what with their demand for Crystal's and restrictive policies, but he could still acknowledge when they did some good. 

On nights like these, he'd normally be hard at work down in the mines, much like many of the other crystal ponies, but on inspection day all they had to do was inspect their overall health and the rest of the day was theirs. Even if the day didn't pan out as he'd wanted, even if he wasn't ready yet, he was at least glad that he could watch those around him rejoice at the prospect of being reunited with their families.

Shatterstar smiled warmly from that last thought and turned to Chivalrous in Hope's to raise his spirits as well, but when he turned to look at Chivalrous fully expecting a smile from him he only saw an even more anxious look than he'd normally have. His hoofsteps were small and slow, and every time he glanced at their destination he'd look down at the ground just as quickly. Feeling concerned, Shatterstar slowed down his pace so that he could walk next to, and check up on, his friend.

"Hey, dude. You alright?" Shatterstar asked sympathetically as he brushed some leftover snow off of his buddy's beanie. Chivalrous snapped his head up and looked at him as if he had forgotten he was there before chuckling halfheartedly.

“Yeah! Yeah, I'm...It’s just…” He paused for a moment and looked at the crystal castle still far off in the distance, then he sighed heavily and closed his eyes. He was about to explain himself, but the moment he looked at Shatterstar he immediately cut himself off before he could. “Nevermind.” He said abruptly before walking much faster than last time, it was almost a sprint. 

“Come on now I can tell when something’s bugging you. You can tell me.” Shatterstar said as he jogged over to his speedwalking friend. Chivalrous continued to look at the ground as his pace slowed back down from a brisk walk, to a trot, to a slow walk, and finally to a standstill. He looked around to see if there was any way to change the subject, but seeing none in sight he finally caved and pulled Shatterstar to the side of the street.

“It’s just that I’m...y’know…” He trailed off expecting Shatterstar to finish his sentence, but he only tilted his head curiously. With a sigh, Chivalrous finally got it off of his chest. “I’m having second thoughts about this.”

“Second thoughts? Why?” Shatterstar asked in genuine confusion. Chivalrous started pacing back and forth as he struggled to provide an answer.

“Because I just can’t see this going well. What if the detection spell goes wrong and melts my face off?” He pulled on his face for added effect, but before Shatterstar could interrupt he continued. “What if I’m not eligible? Or I’m wanted for a crime I committed and they arrest me? What if I offend a guard, or…” Chivalrous paused as he faced Shatterstar, his chest rising and falling as he hyperventilated. He looked down at the ground and rubbed his left leg with his right hoof in embarrassment and a hint of shame. "What if my family doesn't want to see me?" He said so quietly that he hoped Shatterstar hadn't heard him, but unluckily for him, that was not the case. 

Shatterstar wordlessly stepped towards Chivalrous who began to back up in fear as his friend closed the gap. Before any other actions could take place Shatterstar lunged at him and gave him the biggest hug he could manage, wings included. 

"Why in Amore's name would you ever think that?" He asked as he continued to hug his skittish friend. 

"I...I don't know. It's just that they haven't written to me, and my brother didn't say anything and…" Chivalrous started to choke up as he struggled to put his thoughts into words, but thankfully he didn't have to try anymore as Shatterstar broke the hug and took control of the conversation.

"Snap out of it! Of course, your family wants to see you! If they don't then I'll personally walk up to each of them and give them some of this!" He jumped a few feet into the air and started punching and kicking in such a ridiculous way that Chivalrous couldn't help but smile. Once Shatterstar had landed he didn't let up and continued to try and raise his spirits. "And even if they don't, you still have me, buddy! Just think," He grabbed onto Chivalrous and waved his hoof in front of their faces as if he were painting an image on the night sky. "No more snow!" Chivalrous perked up a tiny bit. "No more hard work in the mines!" Chivalrous began to smile at the thought. "A brand new colony with so many new ponies to meet!" Chivalrous' smile deflated with that last one, but quickly Shatterstar managed to recover. "I mean plenty of new books for you to discover!" Chivalrous had a thoughtful look for a moment before smiling warmly and nodding in agreement.

"You're right, that does sound nice." He said warmly.

"I'm right? Of course, I'm right!" Shatterstar proclaimed loudly. "However," Shatterstar turned his back to his friend in an exaggerated manner to make it look like he was skeptical before turning ever so slightly to look at him with a raised eyebrow. "I still don't believe you, you might just have to say it again." 

"I-I said you're right." Chivalrous started in a meek voice.

"I'm sorry what was that?" Shatterstar asked as he brought a hoof up to his ear.

"I said you're right." Chivalrous repeated, this time a bit louder. 

"I'm sorry, for a second I thought I heard a mouse trying to speak." Shatterstar looked at his friend who had now planted his hooves into the ground and narrowed his eyes.

"You're right!!" Chivalrous yelled with passion as he leaned forward on his front hooves. 

"Yes! That's the spirit my boy!" Shatterstar shouted gleefully with an accompanying flap of his wings, doing a small flip and trotting in place excitedly upon landing. "Now come on let's hurry up and get out of here!" Shatterstar said as he waved his friend over in the direction of the palace. Chivalrous took a few steps forward before stopping and looking at the castle in the distance curiously. Soon, a devilish smile appeared on his face, and with a cheeky look at his friend, Chivalrous bolted down the street.

"Race you!" He laughed as he took the lead with an unfair head start.

"Hey, no fair!" Shatterstar yelled in annoyance, but despite his tone sounding aggravated, in reality, he couldn't have been happier. This was a race that for once he hoped he'd lose.





Both Chivalrous and Shatterstar stood side by side near the end of one of the many long lines beneath the castle. At the end of the line was a large group of examination booths with green curtain entrances, and in each one was an Equestrian doctor ready to scan the crystal ponies for entry into the castle. For the past three years, both of their attempted migrations to the second crystal colony had been halted right then and there. Each attempt led to them being told that their physical aptitude didn't meet the harsh standards for transport, meaning that they had to wait for quite some time for their next chance. Luckily for them though, the inspections were becoming much more frequent than before. This time it had only been three months in between inspections, and Shatterstar knew that there was no way they could fail.

The line continued to move slowly, and in the two hours they had spent waiting they had seen so many ponies run away crying back to their homes, and ponies cheering as they headed inside of the castle. This year there seemed to be far more ponies who were turned away, and it did not give either of the young stallions much confidence in their results.

"Hey, uh...Shatter?" Chivalrous started, gaining his friend's attention. "I think I forgot my saddlebags back at home. I should go get them!" Chivalrous said as he attempted to beat a hasty retreat, but he was quickly thwarted as his tail became snagged by Shatterstar's mouth. Shatter yanked his nervous friend back towards his spot in line and tossed him to the ground, eliciting a whine of pain from the white pony.

"Listen here Chivalrous. You've made it this far already, so don't let all this waiting go to waste!" The white stallion gulped as he looked towards the booth behind him, the last pony in front of them finally stepping out with a look of sad resignation on his face. "Now pick yourself up, get in there, and don't take no for an answer!" Shatterstar said as he picked up his friend, dusted him off, and pushed him towards the booth. The doctor inside shouted for the next pony to enter from within his small examination booth, and with one last gulp of fear, Chivalrous nodded and slowly entered through the curtain.

Shatterstar watched his friend disappear into the booth, and despite his outward confidence, he couldn't help but feel a little nervous himself. The minutes passed as the crowd of ponies continued conversing around him, and suddenly a thought crept into his mind. What if he didn’t make it? Why was it taking so long? Could he be turned away yet again? All of his thoughts were interrupted as the loudest cheering he’d heard all day echoed all around the bottom courtyard of the castle.

“Woohoo!” Chivalrous yelled as he galloped out of the station and hug-tackled Shatterstar. “I made it, I made it, I made it!” His vice grip cut off Shatterstar's air supply and by extension his ability to speak. As he lifted the poor pegasus many of the other crystal ponies began to look in their direction until Shatterstar finally wheezed out a sentence.

“Geez Chivalrous, I’m glad you made it but that’s no reason to come here and play strangle the pony bird.” Shatterstar stammered as he felt his bones scraping together, and his wings desperately trying to flap their way out of the grip. Quickly Chivalrous dropped him, allowing Shatterstar a chance to breathe and rub his bruised rib cage.

“Sorry, I’m just so excited! You were right, and I can’t believe I’m saying this but I’m so glad I was wrong.” Shatterstar smiled at his normally quiet and reserved friend's sudden shift in mood.

“So what are you doing out here instead of going inside?”

“Oh, there are still a few things I want to take with me. I can’t just drop everything I own like some of these other ponies.” Chivalrous started back down the street before turning around. “Good luck Shatterstar!” Shatterstar returned the wave and nodded his head with pride for his friend.

“Next!” The doctor called from within the station. Shatterstar turned back towards the station and, with a determined smile on his face, made his way inside. Once he stepped through he was greeted by two simple wooden stools facing each other, in the chair to his left was a smiling brown unicorn in a doctor's coat waiting patiently. “Hello sir, name please?” He asked as a clipboard encased in orange magic floated in front of him. Shatterstar took a seat and cleared his throat.

“Ahem, Shatterstar sir.” The doctor searched the clipboard for his name and let out an ah sound once he’d located it. 

“Well, well, well Mr. Shatterstar, how does the saying go again? The tenth time's the charm?” He said with a hearty laugh, obviously finding his joke quite funny even if it was kind of at the expense of the pony sitting in front of him. Shatterstar shoved down his urge to say something he’d regret and just continued smiling at the doctor who was preparing his scan. "Well, no need to delay any further, let's see if you made the cut huh?" With a wide smile, the doctor's horn conjured up a dim orange light that washed over Shatterstar, revealing various vessels and bones within his body like an x-ray scan. The doctor shut his eyes and made several noises of contemplation as the scan came to an end. 

Picking up the clipboard he scribbled something down and handed a familiar pink slip to Shatterstar. “Well, this one goes to eleven I suppose. Terribly sorry by the way. NEXT!" Shatterstar was stunned and speechless as the doctor pushed him out of the station and accepted the next crystal pony. Everything had happened so fast that he didn't even have a chance to respond, he was just sitting there with the pink slip in his hooves. 

"W-w-wait, there must be some kind of mistake." He said slowly as he tried to reenter the booth. However, after he had taken a single step he was immediately halted by a large earth pony equestrian guard who jumped in front of him. 

"You have failed inspection, vacate the premises or you will be dealt with." His threatening voice was ignored as Shatterstar mindlessly continued towards the booth behind the guard.

"Mom...Chivalrous...I need to be there." At this point, he had been walking forward into the guard who had already been blocking him from moving any further. With a grunt of frustration, the guard grabbed Shatterstar with ease and carried him away from the bottom castle courtyard. Once they had reached the end of the long lines he tossed Shatterstar onto the ground.

"Come back when we have another inspection, until then wait at your home for the next block of instructions." The guard said before turning around and walking away. Shatterstar, however, wasn't done yet.

"I need to make it!" He yelled as he picked himself up and quickly took flight. Almost immediately he was beginning to soar over the lines of ponies until he heard a strange boom come from the ground. Following the sound, he saw the earth pony guard jump up several feet into the air to meet him before winding his hoof back and smacking him downwards with one mighty swing. Shatterstar plummeted to the ground at a blinding speed, where he sunk several feet into the layer of thick snow until he hit the hard crystal road beneath it, jamming his left hoof in the process. The guard landed back onto the ground without a sound and planted his armored hoof on Shatterstar's head, pinning him there.

"Don't test me crystal! I swatted you down like a fly, and I could crush you just as easily as one." He pushed down on Shatterstar's head for a moment to emphasize his point before growling to himself and turning away to leave. Slowly the pegasus lifted himself and rubbed his aching hoof, as well as his head which now had a massive migraine. Looking down, defeated, Shatterstar shakily stood up and started his limp of shame down the street where he came from.

He didn't know what to do, or what to feel at this point, he was just so confused. After so many attempts and so many failures he was sure that this would be the time, but now all he wanted to do was crawl into bed and never come out. He didn't plan for this to happen again, and now he was going to be here all alone while his last family member would go off to bigger and better things. How was he even going to tell Chivalrous that he wasn't coming? Shatterstar continued his slow walk back home until he heard the sounds of hoofsteps in the distance, and as he looked up he then realized that he was going to get his answer much sooner than he wanted.

“Hey, Shatter!” Chivalrous called as he ran back up the street towards the castle with his saddlebags on. Shatterstar lifted his head and put on his best smile, even if there was only a small chance it would fool Chivalrous he still had to try and hide his pain, both physical and emotional.

“Hey, dude. What’s good?” He asked in a bit of a tired voice that immediately caused Chivalrous to raise his eyebrow in suspicion. 

“What happened? You look awful,” He looked closer at Shatterstar, inspecting his bruises and even his hoof that he was trying his best to stand on. “What could have done this?" He asked full of concern.

“What!? Nothing! Nothing happened to me. I was just... uh, so excited that I passed the scan that I started flying. You know how reckless I can be so I had a...bit of a rough landing?" He looked at Chivalrous hoping that he would buy the story, and while he did look skeptical he still seemed to believe him. 

"Well, at least you made it! That's great news, but we should probably get you to a doctor." Shatterstar waved off the notion, wincing a little as he did so, and continued to walk down the road while attempting and failing to hide his limp. 

"No, no I'm fine. I just need to get MY saddlebags, then I'll meet you there, haha!" He said with a forced triumphant laugh that quickly turned into a pained chuckle.

"What? Shatterstar you're crazy I'm not just gonna-" He was cut off as Shatterstar began to run down the street as fast as he could away from his friend.

"Too late already getting them, can't hear you, see you there!" Once he was out of Chivalrous' sight he ducked into a nearby alley and fell to the ground clutching his hoof. "Ahhhhhhhhh!" He hissed in pain as he tried to massage it away, but every time he even touched the tip of his hoof the pain only multiplied. He sat up and leaned against a dumpster in the alley as he continued to take deep calming breaths. 

"What am I thinking? Why did I just lie about all of that?!" He continued to whisper quite loudly and looked around the dumpster to see if he had been followed. "Okay, just think about this. What do you want?" He thought about it for a moment and couldn't get an image to appear. He continued to breathe and calmed his heart rate back down. His hoof started aching, and his pain started fading as he imagined the smiling faces of his family greeting him in a sunny yard in front of a house. The sky was blue, just like he remembered it, and everypony he loved was there. They were happy, he was happy, and they never had to worry about being told how to live their lives. This, this was what he wanted.

"Then why don't you go get it?" He said to himself with a pained smile as he looked up at the swirling black storm clouds above him pumping copious amounts of snow into the air. He continued to stare at them in sadness until a thought popped into his head, a memory of this morning. Slowly, he picked himself up off of the ground, and hope began to well up inside of his heart, so much so that his smile of pain turned into a smile of determination. The clouds were swirling and thick, massive and cold, and above all else they were perfect.

“Just wait a little bit longer guys, I will make it!” He triumphantly shouted to himself as he rocketed into the low-hanging clouds that completely obscured his form. On any normal night, he would never dream of flying straight into the center of a full-on snowstorm, but right now every fiber of his being was filled with a fiery determination that would not be swayed. Acting fast, and temporarily forgetting the pain in his hoof, he began grabbing several pieces of cloud, stitching them together into a disguise just as he did before with the prank. After a couple of minutes, he was now hiding in a portable cloud that fully obscured his location within the storm before quickly making his way back to the castle.

From afar it would be hard to tell whether or not the castle had any windows, but up close it was much easier to see. The windows seemed to be made of a reflective material that made each one look identical to the outer walls of the castle. Unsurprisingly, many of the windows he found were locked or just weren’t meant to be opened, but it didn’t stop him from trying to pull on every single one as hard as he could. Eventually, his perseverance paid off as a window leading into what seemed to be a really old and dusty office room pulled up and allowed him entry.

The cloud disguise burst as he forced himself through the incredibly small opening in the window, after which he tumbled to the ground and hit one of the many stacks of boxes filling the dusty room. Shatterstar, now upside down on the floor, was being attacked from all sides by built-up dust that rushed into his airways, making him gag and sputter uncontrollably. He righted himself as best as he could once the irritation began to slow down and finally got a good look at the no longer spinning room. Everywhere he looked there were stacks of papers and piles of boxes, and from what he could see all of the boxes were filled to the brim with papers and documents. Carefully, Shatter stood back up to avoid disturbing the thin layer of dust that was on every conceivable object inside of the office, for fear of getting another coughing and sneezing fit as a reward.

As he looked over the stacked boxes he got a better look at the rest of the room. There was a desk up against the wall to his right that again had some boxes on top of it, and mounted on a wall above the desk was a very ornate sword with intricate designs, obviously meant for decoration and not combat. On the plaque the sword was on, just beneath the blade, he could make out a name engraved on the wood that said Chairman Grotto . Shatterstar couldn't help but find that name familiar, but seeing how it was currently not the priority he moved on to the right side of the room. There was a line of filing cabinets to the left, the last of which looked less like a cabinet and more like an impenetrable safe with a padlock and key lock built into it.

Turning back to the piled-on cardboard boxes, Shatterstar reached into the one on the desk and curiously pulled out a paper in an attempt to read it, but to his surprise, the entire thing seemed to be written in some sort of gibberish language that he could only assume was Equestrian. Tossing the paper aside Shatterstar shuffled past the boxes and towards the door of the office, but as he grew closer to it he heard two sets of hooves approaching from the hall outside as well as muffled chit-chat. With little time to react Shatterstar dove behind the desk just as the two mystery ponies entered.

They closed the door gently and walked to the center of the room, both of them cutting off their conversation in unison as they walked inside. Shatterstar’s heart was pounding, somepony must have seen him come in through here, and now there was no way out. His fears only intensified when they shut the window that was likely never even used until he came along only a minute prior.

“Huh, that was weird.” One of the guards, a stallion, said while the other one simply remained quiet. The two continued shuffling around the room as they moved boxes to and fro, and while one seemed to be grunting from the effort of moving them the other merely produced the sound of magic. Keeping the mental notes in his mind that there was a unicorn and an earth pony/pegasus he continued listening for anything more out of the two. 

“Okay, we don’t have much time. Let’s crack this thing and get out of here.” The stallion said before the sound of the padlock slowly turning filled the silent office. Time moved agonizingly slow as Shatterstar waited in his uncomfortable position beneath the desk. He wanted to leave so badly, but he knew that if either of them even glanced behind the desk they’d surely spot him, so the sooner they found what they wanted, the sooner he’d be safe. 

A series of noises emanated from the safe until a very loud and distinguishable click was heard. The stallion cheered in excitement then grunted as he attempted to pull open the door of the safe. After the struggle, the guard caught his breath and made a confused noise.

“Oh, there’s a key too? Stone can you check the desk for a key?” Shatterstar’s heart dropped into his stomach as he heard the other guards' hoofsteps get closer to his hiding spot. With no other options Shatterstar curled into a ball and tried to make himself look as nonthreatening as possible, and before he knew it he was face to face with a grey mare in silver guard armor. Shatterstar flinched in surprise as he saw her, a unicorn with lime green eyes and a short dark grey mane that worked nicely with her light grey coat. Her basic appearance wasn’t why he flinched though, it was her expression that caught him off guard. 

She didn’t look surprised to see him hiding there, she didn’t look angry at his attempt at trespassing, she didn’t even seem mildly confused by his presence. She just looked blank, as if all of her emotion was gone or muted. She looked at him with half-lidded eyes that seemed to stare into his soul and tilted her head, giving him the only indication that she was confused. The two stared at each other for what seemed like forever until the stallion spoke up.

“Stone? You find anything?” Shatterstar watched in terror as she lifted her head and nodded yes at the stallion across the room. He thought that he was done for until her horn glowed a deep magenta and pulled out a key that seemed to be stuck to the bottom of the desk right next to him. She gave him one last look before leaving his line of sight for good. 

Shatterstar's jaw dropped as he was yet again left speechless at the turn of events he had found himself in. He didn’t know what to make of the situation, but in the end, he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to no matter how much time he had to think about it. As he continued to struggle with the meaning of his life, the sound of turning gears filled the room as the two guards had succeeded in their task to open the safe. He heard the sound of papers being shuffled followed by a horrified gasp.

“We...we need to get this to the spears, right now!” Was the last thing the stallion said as the two finally left the room, and Shatterstar, in peace. The crystal pony in question let out a huge breath that he hadn’t even realized he was holding and flopped onto his back, letting out a pathetic whine as a swirl of emotions attacked him. 

He took a few moments to recover and freak out into his hooves, but eventually, he had calmed down enough to slowly reorganize his thoughts onto the entire reason he came here in the first place. Slapping his cheeks with his hooves, he got back up and swiftly made his way out the door and into the hallway outside. He could see multiple doors lining the hallway from left to right with decorative plants next to each door and tapestries still hanging from the roof. With no guards in sight, he carefully walked down the hall to the right in search of where the crystal ponies were supposed to go. 

As he walked he made sure to step on any carpeted surface he could see to produce the least amount of noise possible, since every single step on the crystal floor would echo down the halls and make him freeze in place like a cat. He cautiously continued to walk down the hallway until he saw the entrance to a spiral staircase in the distance. He trotted his way over, but instead of walking down the steps, he hovered a few inches off the ground to reduce the noise.

He continued to search the innards of the castle, switching between walking and flying whenever he needed to, and for some reason, he hadn't encountered very many guards. Every so often he would spot a doctor of all things, but aside from the guards in the office, the castle seemed to be barren. Shatterstar kept wandering aimlessly until the sounds of celebration echoed from down a narrow hallway to his left. He galloped down the hallway as fast as he could, following the sounds through the twists and turns of the maze-like palace. 

As the guiding sounds got to their highest possible volume Shatterstar rounded the final corner and came face to face with two guards standing just outside of the ballroom doors. He stopped for a moment as the two equestrians eyed him curiously, but neither made any attempt to stop him or detain him. Shatterstar gave them a nervous smile and wave that the guards awkwardly reciprocated as he walked past them and into the ballroom.

The large ballroom was filled with music and the sounds of crystal ponies talking and laughing with each other. He could see a group of ponies dancing while another group of ponies was sitting down and consoling each other, most likely for anything they may have left behind. While all of that was fine it wasn’t it still wasn't his main objective, so Shatterstar traveled deeper into the crowd of ponies to find his friend.

“Excuse me.” He called out to a nearby crystal pony who was minding his own business. “Have you seen a dull white crystal pony with a dull blonde mane and saddlebags?" The pony nodded his head and pointed towards the back of the room. Shatterstar followed his direction and almost immediately saw Chivalrous talking with somepony obscured from his current angle. Shatterstar smiled widely as he attempted to sneak in close and surprise him, that is until he saw exactly who Chivalrous was talking to.

The brown unicorn doctor that had turned him away was smiling happily as he sat and chatted with Chivalrous, giving Shatterstar a mini freak out as he desperately searched for anything or anyone to hide behind. At first, he thought he’d found the perfect place to hide, that is until the mare he was hiding behind so rudely yanked her legs away and shot him a dirty look. Quickly changing tactics, Shatterstar then moved behind a nearby chair to continue watching their conversation, wishing desperately that he could hear it from where he was, but with all of the rowdy ponies in the room that was not a possibility

Shatter chanted prayers to himself, hoping to get rid of the doctor sooner, until finally the doctor stood up and shook Chivalrous’ hoof before finally walking away into the crowd. Shatterstar wanted to call out to him but he didn’t want to risk getting the doc's attention, so he quickly picked up a small piece of crystal on the ground and tossed it at his head. His aim was true as the launched projectile hit its mark and got the desired reaction out of his friend, making Chivalrous turn to look for the source of the projectile.

“Shatter! You’re here!” Chivalrous exclaimed before running up to Shatterstar and giving him a quick hug. “How did you get here? The doctor told me you weren’t ready."

“Shhh!” Shatterstar pulled his shouting friend aside and away from all of the nosy ponies nearby. “Listen, I got in through...other means. Long story short I’m here now and we’re doing it together!” Shatterstar whispered as he hoof bumped him. Chivalrous gave him an uneasy expression, clearly unsure of how to feel about the situation, but he quickly shook his head and dropped them as he opted to instead enjoy the moment.

“Attention! May I have your attention please!?” Shouted a very familiar voice from the back of the room. Everypony’s murmurs and conversations ceased as the brown doctor from before stood on a stage in front of all of the crystal ponies. Moving quickly, Shatterstar hid with Chivalrous deep in the crowd of a hundred or so ponies in hopes that he wouldn’t be recognized.

“My name is Dr. Geiger, and I want to congratulate you all! Today is the day that you will all begin your new lives!” The crowd of ponies all stomped in cheer at his proclamation, even Shatterstar despite the pain in his hooves slowly returning. “Now you may be wondering where you’ll all be going.” The room went dark as he continued talking, and shortly after a projected image of a large city hanging off the side of a mountain was shown behind him.

“This is Canterlot, the place where hopefully all of you will be going.” Shatterstar felt a sense of unease at the doctor's use of the word hopefully, but otherwise, he ignored the stallion's words and focused on the projected images. There were large buildings with huge shopping centers as well as ponies of all shapes and sizes smiling and interacting with each other. The images didn’t seem to have color in them but it still got the point across that Canterlot was the place to be.

“Canterlot is not only a metropolitan paradise but also the center of all of the Equestrian scientific discoveries. Dare I say that it's the greatest city of science not just in Equestria, but in all of the world!” A few more images popped up of scientist ponies in a lab wearing lab coats and gloves as they looked at beakers filled with nondescript liquid. “Canterlot castle, in its emptiness, was repurposed for all things science. From technological advancement,” An image of several ponies working on some strange contraption that looked a lot like a giant coffin flashed on the wall. “to military advancement,” There was another picture of ponies watching an explosion contained in a room. “and most importantly, alternative power sources.” The doctor said with a shift in his voice tone, sending a shiver down Shatterstars spine. With one final click, the projector stopped, and all of the lights in the room returned.

Once the light had been returned, everypony present noticed a newly revealed army of unicorn guards all with their horns charged in a multitude of colors. Some of the crystal ponies gasped, but before any of them had a chance to react all of the unicorns discharged their spells at the crowd, and once a pony was hit they immediately fell to the ground in complete paralysis. It only took a few seconds for the entire crowd to be pacified, all except for Shatterstar who was left standing, shocked and horrified at the sudden turn of events. He looked down at the panicked and pain-filled expression of his friend Chivalrous as he lay motionless on the floor, his eyes darting all around in fear.

Shatterstar couldn’t take his eyes off of him, his terrified expression forever being ingrained into his mind. It was then that a beam of magic hit him square in the chest and dispersed all over his body. Shatterstar closed his eyes and waited for the darkness to take him,  but quickly he noticed that there had been no negative effects. Slowly he opened his eyes and saw all of the guards, plus the doctor, staring at him as if he had four wings. A few more of the unicorns fired the spell in an attempt to paralyze him, but each one had the same lack of effect, causing many of the guards to start panicking until the doctor started shouting again.

“He’s not ready! The spell won’t work! Get him!” He barked as he pointed accusingly at the last crystal pony standing. Shatterstar looked down at his friend's fearful expression as the incoming guards rushed toward them. He didn’t want to leave Chivalrous here with these guards to be a part of whatever it was they were planning, but the look in his paralyzed friend's eyes told him everything he needed to know.

‘Run.’

With great reluctance Shatterstar forced himself to turn tail and run out of the ballroom doors as fast as he could. The guards were hot on his tail but Shatterstar could already hear them panting heavily. He figured that using those spells had taken a lot out of them, and despite the stabbing pain in his hoof he figured that for now, he’d have the advantage. 

“He can’t be allowed to escape!” One of the guards behind him shouted. Shatterstar looked behind him as the guards continued to grow in number and saw more fresh guards joining the chase, including some pegasi with crossbows. How he missed all of them as he scoured the entirety of this floor earlier he would never understand. Already Shatterstars legs and lungs were starting to burn from the extra effort he had been using to dodge crossbow bolts, and eventually not even his adrenaline could keep him on his hooves for much longer. He twisted around a corner to his right, but with a crack, he fell on his broken left hoof and crashed into a table holding a large flower pot. It fell on top of him, shattering into pieces and cutting up his body, but before he had a chance to register the pain he got back up and took flight, just narrowly dodging a volley of crossbows in the process.

Shatterstar continued to fly as fast as he could despite not having any idea where he was going, coupling this with the looping castle walls only made the idea more disheartening. Feeling the pressure, he ducked into a nearby room with very large doors and slammed them shut, and once inside he noticed that the doors had a large crystal brace that he quickly knocked down to lock himself inside. He backed away from the door and silence filled the room, the walls seemingly being designed to cut off all of the sounds from outside. The moment of respite was interrupted by a large force crashing against the door and shaking the entire room. Shatterstar began to shiver in fear as he realized that the army of guards outside was attempting to bust down the door all with the sole purpose of killing him.

The booms grew louder and louder, and without much time to think Shatterstar frantically looked around the room for anything that could help him out of this, and as he did he noticed that he had indeed found his way into the throne room. The room looked like it had windows, but none of them were operable and all of them were too thick to break. He looked for any areas to hide but in this room, there was only one object, the throne, and hiding behind there would be like hiding under a bed. He looked at the door and saw that a large crack had appeared in the brace, so with his time running out he looked up at the high ceiling and saw a chandelier hanging at the very top. With the door only moments away from being opened he decided to take his chances and rush towards the ceiling to hide on top of the massive chandelier. 

As soon as he found a reasonable position to wait, he looked down and watched the doors burst open, followed by the massive horde of guards that rushed into the room one after the other for a total of fifty, all of which were searching frantically for him. Almost immediately some of them checked behind the throne and near the windows, but to their shock, they couldn't find any trace of him. He watched from above as the guards continued to search for him everywhere until he noticed one guard acting much differently from the rest. She was kneeling and looking at her crossbow the entire time while the others searched, and suddenly she snapped her head in his direction and fired. Shatterstar dodged the bolt she had aimed for his head, but when he did the bolt hit the chain connecting the chandelier to the ceiling instead, sending both it and him downwards. 

Time seemed to slow down as Shatterstar jumped off of the chandelier and spread his wings, but as he spread them another bolt fired in anticipation hit him directly on his right wing. Shatterstar screamed in pain as he fell from the immensely high ceiling directly onto the destroyed chandelier and onto the glass-covered ground. He rolled across the floor covered in broken glass and blood and when he stopped he began instinctively wheezing and gasping for air.

Shatterstar tried to move, but nearly every part of his body was broken and aching. He tried to scream in pain, but all he managed to do was gurgle blood as his lungs were punctured by his shattered ribs. His body trembled from the pain, and all he could see was the pooling blood beneath him as he lay face down on the ground. He let out a pathetic whine as he felt a hoof turn him over onto his back, once he was there he saw the blurry figures of the guards all staring down at him. 

It all hurt so much, and as Shatterstar began to feel colder and colder his thoughts turned to his mom. He never got the chance to see her again, and now he’d never get the chance to see Chivalrous. What would happen to his friend? Shatterstar began to cry as these final thoughts invaded his last moments of consciousness.

"Well...let's finish this guy off." The female guard said with a hint of pity in her voice as she loaded another bolt into her crossbow. Before she could follow through with her plan though, the ground felt like it had disappeared beneath him. He felt like he was falling down a pit with the guards watching him as he fell. The walls became black and the light grew dimmer and dimmer until only darkness remained. 

‘I'm sorry, buddy.' Shatterstar thought to himself as he closed his eyes for the last time.
> Chapter 2 - The Deal (Revised)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shatterstar walked through the empty void feeling confused and scared. Where was he? How did he get here? Why couldn't he feel the ground beneath his hooves? All of these questions and more flooded his mind, with not a single answer coming to meet him.

He felt a deep pressure surrounding him as if the darkness was trying to crush him but only had enough strength to make him feel uncomfortable. His ears felt like were ringing horribly, and his head felt dizzy and swollen. Shatterstar feared that if he didn't find an exit soon he would pass out, and then he would truly be in trouble. Why would he be in trouble at all? He had completely forgotten why, but he knew deep down that time was of the essence.

"Shatter!" A voice called out from the darkness, faintly echoing all around him and leaving it vague as to where it came from. He spun around in confusion as the sensations of sound, coupled with the deep pressure in his eardrums, discombobulated him. "Shatter!" The voice called once more, this time a little louder and a little clearer than before.

Shatterstar tried to call back to the voice, but nothing came out when he had attempted, not even a wheeze. Feeling more determined he continued in what he believed was the direction of the voice. He had only taken a few steps before things went completely out of control. 

"Shatterstar! Shatterstar!" The voice chanted and echoed from all directions, piercing his ears as they grew louder and more violent. He spun around frantically trying to pinpoint his friend's location. He felt a hoof on his shoulder and spun around to see a white stallion with golden eyes frantically shouting at him. "Help me! Please! Don't leave me!" As he said those final words the stallion faded into the void, leaving Shatterstar to pick up the pieces.

'Chivalrous?' Shatterstar attempted to ask, but once again no words came out. It was at this moment that the memories had finally begun to return to him, the ballroom, the chase, and...his death. Shatterstar looked down at his hooves in confusion, the feeling slowly coming back, but just barely. Could this have been the afterlife? If it was, then why had he ended up in such a dark and menacing place? As that last thought entered his mind, he felt it, an overwhelming presence that made his heart sink.

"Heh, heh, heh." A deep booming laugh echoed through the darkness and grabbed his attention once more. He felt a soft tingle in his hooves as the void seemingly shifted all around him, coalescing into a smoke-filled cyclone directly in front of him. Shatterstar tried his best to turn and run, but his strength seemed keen on leaving him just as the moment required he use it. Slowly he fell to the intangible ground as his breaths became heavier and much more pained, almost like there was an obstruction in his lungs.

The shadowy clouds continued to merge and grow as he tried desperately to lift himself. He felt a sharp pain in his chest, his hooves, his wings, his entire body felt like it was on fire, and that let him know that he was, in fact, still alive, but just barely. The pressure began to fade as the clouds finally took form, creating a long curved incorporeal horn as well as two glowing green eyes with purple wisps of magic on the ends. With the aid of these defining features he could swear he saw a face within the clouds, a face he had hoped to never see again.

"It seems as though you're lost. Perhaps I can help?" Shatterstars breaths became more labored, and his heart rate increased as the shadow approached him. "No no, don't answer. I know I can help." His shadow increased in size until he was nearly the size of the entire void itself, making him a large set of eyes staring down at him like he was a bug.

"You see, this is my prison. I was used, and then tossed into my own pit for a laugh." His enormous eyes closed in on Shatterstar with a raised eyebrow. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you suffered a similar fate?" This time Shatterstar didn't attempt to answer and only tried to crawl away from the monstrosity.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Sombra said as he curled his shadows around Shatterstar's legs, pulling him back and forcing him into one spot. "It's rude to crawl out of a conversation with somepony, especially when that pony is only trying to help." The shadow said in an annoyingly smug manner. Shatterstar felt a burst of anger flow through him and with it a flood of strength that helped him not only respond, but fight Sombra's grasp as well.

"Help?! I think you've done plenty to 'help' me as it is, or is a thousand years of 'help' not enough these days?!" Shatterstar spat as he somehow managed to break free from the shadows and shakily stand back on his hooves. Sombra froze in place, his shadowy clouds absentmindedly writhing around within his form, and stared at him. Narrowing his eyes, the shadow pony began to shrink until he was at Shatterstar's eye level, stepping towards him until he was only a few paces in front of him.

"So you are strong." Sombra closed his eyes as he let out a long drawn-out sigh, and despite not having a mouth or physical body, his shadowy form accompanied his actions with a shrug. "Listen Shatterstar," Sombra began to slowly walk around him as he talked. "This place is a prison that is worse than Tartarus. I know that I've only been here for five years, but in here it feels like... a millennium."  Sombra paused for a moment and looked down in a display of what seemed like sorrow, but all it managed to do was get Shatterstar to scoff. Sombra snapped his head towards Shatterstar and continued with a more harsh tone in his voice, almost as if he was offended by Shatterstar's choice of response. "This prison was designed to keep spirits at bay, and without a physical body there is no escape!" He turned towards Shatterstar who was currently panting and swaying back and forth as his strength began to fail.

"Poor baby." Shatterstar wheezed out with a chuckle, as blood began to drip from his mouth. As time went on, more and more of Shatterstar's injuries began to return which made Sombra turn extremely frantic.

"Listen, there is a way out. You are the way out! If you let me into your body then I can-" Sombra was cut off by Shatterstars roarous laughter that sent him to the ground in a fit of giggles and pain-filled coughs.

"That's rich...you need my...help. Haha." Shatterstar felt the pain starting to fade as he laid down and got comfortable in his spot on the ground. Sombra stood over him with narrowed eyes and placed his shadowy hooves on Shatterstars shoulders.

"You absolute fool! You can feel it can't you?! You're dying!" The entire void began to rumble as Sombra grew angrier. "I can save you! Let me into your body and I can heal all of your wounds. So long as we are joined...you'll even be immortal!" Sombra pleaded as his only hope for escape slowly died in his hooves, laughing the entire time.

Shatterstar gave no response and slowly stopped laughing as he felt the pain slipping away. His breaths slowed down, and the call of sleep reached out to embrace him. There was no need to fight with this monster, no need to give anything up because in death all would know peace. Shatterstar believed that, and he was more than ready to feel it for himself. As Sombras cries echoed in the distance he finally started to fade...that is, until he heard a single word, a name uttered into his ear. 

"W-w-what...d-did you...say?" Shatterstar said as he looked up at Sombra's bright green eyes.

"I said, Chivalrous. Chivalrous Deed? Don't tell me you forgot." Sombra said in a faux offended tone. Shatterstar once again felt some strength reenter his body, but only a small amount compared to last time, only about enough to bat away Sombras shadow hooves. 

"How...do you know that name?" Shatterstar asked, his anger beginning to resurface faster. Sombra merely shot him a devious look as he threw his head up in glee.

"Well, it's easy to see the minds of others when they're trapped in here with me." Sombra said with an exasperated sigh. But in all honesty I didn't even need to try and read yours, what with that little game of hide and seek you put on before I spoke to you." Sombra continued to walk absentmindedly as Shatterstar stared at him in disbelief.

"There were others? Trapped here?" Shatterstar asked, not knowing what to expect as an answer.

"Of course there were. Ponies who saw something they shouldn't have, ponies who could have blown the whistle on everything." He paused for a moment as several pillars of shadows appeared next to him and changed into the forms of three different crystal ponies, a blue stallion, an orange mare, and a pink unicorn mare. "Everyone of them had something to prove, every one of them had something to lose, every one of them refused my help, and in the end...every one of them died." He stomped on the floor, and each of the created ponies began to move and speak as if he had recorded them perfectly.

"I can find my own way out, then I'll show everypony what's really going on in that castle!" The first stallion said triumphantly before he began to thin in a matter of seconds. his muscles shrank, and his bones became more visible until he looked like a walking skeleton with a thin layer of skin around him. Finally, the stallion crumbled into dust and faded back into the void.

"I'm dead anyway." Said the orange mare as she slowly just faded away into dust while lying down.

"I'll never accept help from you! You're nothing but a liar!" Said the unicorn mare as she fired a spell forward into the darkness. She too crumbled into dust, but not before being hit by an invisible force that left a gaping hole in her chest. Shatterstars eyes widened as he saw the last pony's demise and looked over to Sombra.

"Ah yes, Clear Spring. Probably the biggest missed opportunity, unlike the other ones she did earn my respect. I tried to offer her a deal, much like the one I'm offering you," Shatterstar looked away from the shadow pony's gaze and growled to himself. "But in the end, she kept fighting me every step of the way. She was convinced I was the one trapping her here, and she was so sure that annoying me to no end would somehow get me to release her. Believe me, I would have in a heartbeat if it meant it'd get her to shut up, but eventually, I could take no more and finally...dealt with her." 

"And what is this exactly supposed to prove to me? Aside from the whole vile and ruthless murderer part that I'm sure we're both well aware of at this point?" Shatterstar said sarcastically. Sombra looked at him with some slight amusement and shook his head while letting out a soft chuckle.

"Oh, I think you know what I'm trying to prove." Sombra said simply as yet another pillar rose from beneath them, this time taking the form of Chivalrous. "I can see it all, you're anger is leaving you wide open just like the others." He walked over to the pony clone and grabbed its face while facing Shatterstar, then he began moving its mouth like it was a puppet. "Why Shatterstar? Why did you leave me to die?" He said in a mocking high pitched voice that made Shatterstar grit his teeth in anger. His vision became red as he forced himself back up to his hooves one more time. "Well mister Deed, I think it's because he was too stubborn and selfish to try and save you." Sombra answered the puppet before picking it up and walking further away from the slowly approaching pegasus.

"You think you can just mock me...and get away with it?" Shatterstar asked as he limped angrily towards the shadowy pony holding his friend up like a toy.

"Yeah." Sombra replied without even skipping a beat. Suddenly Shatterstar lunged at the pony, phasing through him while simultaneously tackling the puppet to the ground. The action took Sombra by surprise, stunning him for just a moment before he turned to face the wounded pony.

"Don't you dare lecture me on selfishness!" Shatterstar screamed from his spot on the ground as the puppet Chivalrous slowly faded away like all the rest.

"Well you do have a point, Sombra said with a much calmer tone. But being an expert on selfish actions myself I can see when another pony has begun to take the same road as I. You just have yet to admit it to yourself." Shatterstar wanted to reply, but he couldn't refute the truth in the words of the demon. The last thing he wanted was to listen to this monster, but he was genuinely disgusted with how close he was to giving up. "You were so willing to die, but where would that leave your friend huh? Do you want to spite me so much that you're willing to toss everything aside just for that? That's pretty darned selfish if you asked me." He said with a satisfied tone in his voice, and despite not having a mouth, he could practically see the grin on the shadow pony's face.

Shatterstar looked all around the void and quickly raced through all of his options. He felt the blood pooling out from his body, the warmth leaving him at the same time, and knew that time was running out. Even if he could magically find a way out on his own, he'd die before he could ever reach it. There was always a possibility that he could survive long enough for somepony to find him, but again he'd run into a similar problem of bleeding out long before something like that could ever happen. Finally, Being able to take the pain no longer, he reluctantly looked back to the only real option he had left...Sombra.

Shatterstar knew that the last person he should trust was Sombra, but it was either that or be left to die without ever seeing his friend's face again, and without ever finding out what was going on in the colony. He had to get out of here no matter what, and if that meant making a pact with the demon of the north, the shadow king himself Sombra then so be it. However, he was not just going to give his body up willingly.

"Listen here monster," Shatterstar said as he rolled onto his back and leaned on his front hooves while looking up at the shadow pony. "I hate you, and you hate me, But dammit we need each other's help. So if you want even one hair on my head then I have a few conditions." Sombra looked genuinely surprised and softly chuckled after hearing those words.

"But of course. I mean naturally, we'd both have some conditions to this little agreement." Sombra added.

"Woah, Woah, Woah. No one ever asked for your input." Shatterstar said suddenly, an action that made Sombra immediately increase his size and yell.

"Don't you even dare! This is a two-way street you little insect! You need me, I need you, and as much as I may hate having to resort to this, I'm sure you're not thrilled about this turn of events either. So let's skip the bartering, as well as the pissing contest, and negotiate some terms of a proper contract!" He said angrily as a cloud of shadows formed into a long piece of paper. As much as Shatterstar hated to admit it, Sombra had a point. He'd have to listen to his demands as well, but he knew that they were both on a time crunch which would certainly make the negotiations more...interesting.

"...Fine," Shatterstar muttered, after which Sombra shrunk back down and motioned for him to continue. Shatterstar had to think for a moment before finally bringing his conditions to the table. "I want your help in saving my family, once we do we'll kick the Equestrians out of the colony, you tell me where the crystal heart is," Sombra hummed in contemplation on that one in particular. "And when all is said and done we will not sit on the throne." Shatterstar finished with steely-eyed determination. Sombra sat down and brought his hooves to the area where his mouth should have been. 

"Okay, first what I like. I'm fine with helping your family, kicking out the Equestrians sounds fine, but I wouldn't mind adding some executions to that one, but I can't very well agree without adding some conditions of my own. What should they be?" Shatterstar gestured for him to wrap it up as he pointed to the pool of blood he was currently laying in. "Right, well first off I need your help in restoring my physical form so that once we're done we can go our separate ways."  Shatterstar nodded along with the king.

"Okay, that doesn't sound too bad of a deal." Shatterstar conceded as he weighed the pros and cons of Sombra gaining his old body back.

"Also I can't relinquish my right to the throne or the crystal heart. Sorry." Shatterstar did a double-take as Sombra threw in that last bit at the end.

"You're right? Since when was the all-powerful artifact of love and compassion the right of a malicious demon pony? And you stole the throne from the princess! That doesn't...give you..." Near the end of his rant, Shatterstar started coughing up blood violently and losing most of his breath.

"Oh dear that looks really bad indeed. Somepony should probably heal that." Sombra said in a sarcastic tone that made Shatterstar glare at him harshly despite his current predicament. "Well as much as I adore the art of negotiating, it seems as though we're both out of time." Sombra stepped closer and knelt beside the wheezing pegasus. "So what will it be partner?" The look in Sombra's eyes was just as determined and steadfast as Shatterstars. He couldn't tell whether or not he'd seriously let him die there, dooming them both. He thought to himself quickly as his last shred of air began to fade and came to a decision that he knew he'd regret later.

"You...get me...the heart...and you'll get your throne." He said through clenched teeth. Sombra hummed thoughtfully, his expression unchanged until he suddenly gave a defeated sigh and stood back up to full height.

"Well I guess that's as good as I can get it...for now." Shatterstar knew he'd heard him say something under his breath, but what exactly he had said he couldn't make out. There was no time to ask as Sombra quickly signed the contract with a shadowy quill and floated it over to Shatterstar before realizing a slight problem with that plan. "Oh, right, you're dying. How are we going tooo..." Suddenly he made an ah noise as he came to a solution. Carefully, he lifted Shatterstars bloody hoof and stamped it against the paper, finally sealing them both to the contract. "Perfect! I hope you're ready... partner." Wasting no time, Sombra's shadow form broke down into a formless cloud with only his eyes and horn remaining wholly visible in the darkness. The pressure around Shatterstar returned and all sound was drowned out as the cloud rushed towards him and entered his body forcefully through his mouth.

All form of breathing was cut off during the process, and although he was in pain before, this was a new level of excruciating. He tried to scream as he felt his bones shift back into place, the loud crunches and cracks accompanying it making it all the more jarring, and his crossbow hole slowly burning shut as new muscle and skin reformed. He pounded his hoof into the floor and instinctively tried to close his mouth and heave his guts out at the same time, but the abundant shadows continued to force their way into his body. Eventually, the ordeal stopped, leaving him healed but in a great amount of pain.

Suddenly Shatterstar felt like he was hovering, and looking down he saw his own body, lying down on a dark and cracked stone floor. His body looked the same, except now there were some new features. His dull red mane was now fiery red and flowed like it was made of water, much like how Sombras had once done. His cream coat, which was once dull and dirty, now glowed vibrantly and nearly lit up the room itself. The most significant addition was the new sharp red horn on his forehead, except instead of being a solid physical object the horn seemed to be partly transparent like it was a ghost.

Shatterstar felt a strong pull below him and suddenly his spirit was dragged back into his body. In an instant, he suffered from sensory overload as all of his bodily functions quickly evolved to accommodate the new soul that had entered his body. He took slow and very deliberate breaths as his ears rang and his eyes burned, the senses all screaming in protest from the sudden shocks. Finally, after his breathing had finally steadied itself, he shifted to breathing in through his nostrils but little did he know, that was the worst decision he could've made.

"Ugh! What in Tartarus is that smell!" He said while desperately trying to cover his nose, the efforts proving futile as his improved sense of smell amplified the disgusting stench surrounding him. He spun around the darkroom as he felt the squishy sensation of the ground beneath his hooves, the feeling, and smell making him recoil in disgust. All around him were piles upon piles of garbage, from rotten food to medical waste, and even some broken furniture that looked like it was several years old while managing to smell like it was several decades old.

"What have they done to my pit?! This is a place of sacrifice, not some trash heap!" Sombra's voice, now ethereal and ghost-like instead of booming and menacing, said from within Shatterstars head. Shatterstar felt startled by the unexpected appearance of the king's voice in his head, but the effort he would have used to freak out about it was currently being used to keep himself from hurling. 

"Well I guess they figured that a bottomless pit would be a good place to dump all their unwanted items," Shatterstar said with a muffled voice as he tried to step around the mushy garbage. He had made it a few steps around one of the many piles until he stopped and realized what this meant. "They were just going to kill me and dump me in a garbage pit!? Those bastards!" He stomped his hoof into the squishy ground in anger, and as a result felt his stomach trying to heave due to the loss of his only smell protection, however ineffective it may have been.

"Don't you do it! Don't you do it, boy!" Sombra said as he too felt Shatterstar lurching forward and about to heave. "I haven't vomited in over a millennium don't you dare ruin-"

*Hurk*

"Ugh." Sombra could only groan in disgust at the shameful display his new body performed. Wanting nothing more but to escape the wretched smell Shatterstar looked up towards the top of the pit and noticed just how deep they were underground. Looking at the walls he could see the remnants of a destroyed staircase that didn't seem to be in any form of working order anymore, and with a look at his wings, he wondered if he could at all make it back up to the top.

"I know what you're thinking, but I can tell you that we absolutely can."

"Huh?" Shatterstar asked while attempting to look up at his head, an area where he assumed Sombra was situated.

"You're wings aren't as puny and weak as they were before today. You're with me now!" Suddenly Shatterstar felt his wings open without him telling them to, and before he even knew what was happening his wings began to flap mightily, sending him into the air like a rocket.

"What are you doing?!" Shatterstar shouted in confusion as his wings continued to flap faster and faster without him controlling them. 

"Getting us out of this pit. I want my revenge dammit." Sombra replied, flapping their wings so fast that the air resistance was quickly becoming too much to handle. In a matter of seconds, it became almost impossible to move freely at the speed they were going, and soon Shatterstar felt his ears pop, they were going way too fast.

"You have literally never had wings before today, you don't know what you're doing. We're going too fast!" He pleaded to the mad king who was still hijacking his wing control.

"Nonsense! The faster we fly the faster we get out, simple." Sombra replied ignorantly.

"That's not the problem you retard! The faster we go the harder it'll be for us to slow down, and if we can't, then they'll have to be scraping us off of the ceiling!" Shatterstar was through arguing and tried desperately to regain control of his wings. In his mind, he felt a strange tugging sensation as he went back and forth between feeling his wings and his wings going numb. The entire time he was flying erratically in all directions, corkscrewing, and ramming into the walls over and over again as he wrestled for control. 

"What are you doing? I'm the one in charge here!" 

"Like hell you are! My body, my rules!" Amid their fighting, they had failed to notice the entrance to the pit fast approaching. With no time to react or slow themselves down, the two minds smashed directly into the crystal ceiling above them, burying themselves several feet into the crystal. Shatterstar closed his eyes as he waited for the pain to come, but slowly he opened his eyes as he realized that he really couldn't feel any pain at all. "Huh, you know what? That didn't hurt as much as I thought. Does your magic give me some sort of pain resistance?" Shatterstar asked curiously.

"Uugggggghhh." Sombra groaned in pain as he felt every single piece of crystal-crushing him the moment they had made an impact. "Well, partner...if you want control so bad...you can take it now." Sombra said shakily.

"Wait, what do you mea-aaaaaaggggghhh!" Shatterstar's sentence was cut off as he felt pain course throughout his body, from his wings to his head. Nothing felt broken, and he'd certainly felt worse when he was about to die earlier, but this was still a pretty close second, just above getting beaten by the guard, but right below dying.

"Well that's good to know, I can feel pain now. Oh joy." Sombra said dryly while shifting around inside Shatterstars head. "Well let's not waste any time, anypony could have heard that impact, there could be guards coming here as we speak!"

"Yeah, just...just give me a sec," Shatterstar said as he took a moment to let the pain settle in his nerves. After more urging from the demon in his brain he slowly started dragging his body out of the hole in the ceiling. He crawled closer and closer to the opening and noticed that there was a group of lights shining directly at the hole. He heard some murmurs coming from within the room and slowed his approach, getting as close as he could so that he could hear without being spotted.

"What do you think happened?" Somepony said from below.

"I don't know, maybe one of the dud gems we tossed in the dumping pit was charged? Maybe it blasted something back up?"

"Come on, you know that no gem is that powerful. The only gems that are are faaaar away from here bud." Shatterstar patiently listened to the two conversing and waited for his moment to leave.

"What are you waiting for? Get them!" Sombra suggested angrily. 

"I'd rather not. Better to stay hidden until we find Chivalrous, after that we'll move on to taking out the trash. For now, we better keep ourselves out of sight." He whispered.

"Okay, I understand the reasoning for that plan... but, and this is just a suggestion, they won't be able to see us if we cave their heads in right? Shatterstar rolled his eyes as he felt the king trying to influence his thoughts from within. 

"I'll keep that in mind, but for now I'm going to wait." He replied, unamused by Sombra's suggestion.

"Hmph! Fine, just don't be surprised when they run off and get back up." Shatterstar scoffed at the idea.

"Yeah right! Equestrian guards are stupid. We'll be fine." He said with a confident smile.

"Is it just me or did you hear somepony talking?" Shatterstar's smile and heart dropped the moment he heard that.

"Maybe? Wait here, I'm gonna go get some backup." Shatterstar cursed under his breath and quickly made his way to the exit as he heard the hoofsteps on the hard crystal floor. 

"Honestly, I hope you keep this up. I absolutely love saying I told you so." Growling to himself, Shatterstar forced himself out of the hole in the ceiling and fell several feet down to the throne room floor as tiny crystal shards fell around him. He quickly spread his wings wide in an instinctual intimidation maneuver as he slowly lifted his head and opened his eyes to glare at the shivering equestrian guard. Shatterstar looked past the guard in front of him and looked at the guard closest to the door attempting to leave, who now instead stood completely still with his eyes glued to the dark pegasus.

Before any action on his part could be made, Shatterstar felt a hard object come into contact with his face before a distinguishable snap was heard. The guard cried in pain as he fell and gripped his broken hoof, causing the other guard to call out his partner's name and rush at Shatterstar as well. Shatterstar didn't even have to move as the new guard made the same mistake and attempted to perform a leaping kick where he promptly broke his back right leg in the process. The two stallions rolled around on the floor gripping their broken body parts and shouting like it was the end of the world, leaving the pegasus looking down at them in confusion. 

"What just happened?" 

"They are both smarter, and much dumber than I thought they'd be. Equestria does pick such winners to join its ranks." Sombra chimed in smugly. With his confusion promptly set aside, Shatterstar went into full panic mode as he heard the loud echoes of the guards traveling out of the busted throne room doors.

"Hey! Shut up! Shut up!" Shatterstar pleaded, receiving no coherent response from the guards as he tried desperately to stop their cries. Seeing no other options, Shatterstar raised his hoof and smacked one of the guards in the head, knocking him out immediately and sending his helmet across the large throne room. The guard's head slumped over, and the sudden loss of sound made both Shatterstar and the other guard stop and stare.

"Is...is he?" Said the still-conscious guard nervously. Slowly Shatterstar poked the guards' bodies as he struggled to find an answer. 

"Nice hit, but he's still breathing. Try hitting just a bit harder next time, and maybe you won't have to hit him twice to finish the job." Shatter sighed in relief as he heard Sombras answer and turned to the other guard.

"Don't worry, he's alive," He looked back to the unconscious guard and recoiled from the mark he had left on his face. "But just barely." Suddenly, he heard the sounds of struggle as the other guard shakily stood up.

"You monster, you won't get away with hurting my friend!" The guard said as he struggled to stand up on only three hooves. Shatterstar looked at him, then looked off to the side where he heard the snickering of Sombra in his mind. 

"Let me handle this." Before Shatter could even protest, his horn sparked to life and lifted the guard into the air. At the same time, he began tearing up one of the large curtains on the windows and used their pieces to tie up and gag both of the guards effortlessly before dropping him back to the ground. Feeling a little smug, Shatterstar walked over to the scared guard on the ground and looked him in the eye.

"I think I just did." He said with a devilish smile that made him feel giddy inside, while at the same time making him feel uncomfortable. Quickly he dropped the smile and shifted back to a more serious expression as he remembered what he was there for. "Hey, you! Tell me where the crystal ponies were taken," He ripped the gag out of the stallion's mouth and roared. "NOW!" The stallion screamed like a little filly as tears began to well up in his eyes.

"They're being prepared for transport! You'll find them downstairs in the underground facility, just please don't kill me!" Shatterstar quickly reapplied the gag and smiled at the guard, his sharp teeth unsettling the young stallion.

"Thank you kindly!"

"The underground facility? Are they tampering with more of my things?!" Sombra asked angrily, the noise-making Shatterstar wince in pain.

"Could you stop the shouting already? Jeez, you're like an angry child!" Shatterstar emphasized by smacking the side of his head in frustration. Looking down once more Shatterstar could see the confused look on the guard's face, because as far as he knew Shatterstar was a crazy demon pony who was talking to himself. "Hey! Don't judge me!" He said before smacking the guard across the face, knocking him out effortlessly.

"Well, now that that's done I think it's time to spread some oh-so-lovely fear, don't you?" Sombra said excitedly as Shatter made his way to the door.

"I already said we weren't going to do that. Chivalrous is our top priority." He peered out into the halls, looking left and right questioningly. "Uhhh... where to?" 

"Take a right." Sombra said sadly, disappointment evident in his voice. The emotions seeped out of Sombra and into Shatterstar, giving him a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Ugh, fine! We can attack, but only if they truly get in our way." Shatterstar said in annoyance. Thankfully it had done the trick, as Sombra's mood improved and cured the depressive feelings in their chest.

"Oh I hope they get in our way." He said happily, and Shatter could almost see the smile on his face as he said it. With a shake of his head, Shatterstar sprinted down the hall and followed each of the directions Sombra gave.

'Don't worry buddy. I'll be there soon.' He thought as his pace quickened to that of a blur. He hoped that the Equestrians were ready because once his friend was safe they would have Tartarus to pay.
> Chapter 3 - The Spears
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Several hours earlier






"Come on Stone! We need to hurry!" An orange Pegasus clad in silver guard armor by the name of Flash said as he pushed himself against the harsh winds on the outskirts of the Crystal Colony with one hoof raised up to block the fierce snow from clouding his vision any more than it already had. He looked back to see if his partner, Stone, was still following him and was shocked to see vast sheets of snow with his partner nowhere in sight. He looked all around until he did a one-eighty turn and came face to face with the grey mare in question, her half-lidded eyes and expressionless face catching him off guard just as it always had.

"Gah!" He shrieked as he recoiled and opened his wings on reflex. As he did so, the wind nearly carried him off until Stone's iron hoof grabbed onto him and kept him in place. With an embarrassed cough, Flash sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Thanks stone. Now come on! we need to pick up the pace." He said, quickly trying to get back on track. "According to my unerring natural sense of distance and direction the hatch isn't for another three miles. We don't have any more time to waste." He said as he looked upwards with confidence. He felt a nudge on his side and turned to see Stone pointing to something nearby. Following her direction he squinted his eyes and saw the hatch they had been looking for only a few steps away to their left. "Oh...well, uh, that's what I meant. Three paces." Flash said awkwardly as he shrunk away from his triumphant pose.

Stone nodded her head and lead the way at a brisk jog while Flash trudged his way closer at the speed of a snail. After a few minutes the two had made their way to the wooden hatch where they knocked on the top of it, mimicking a certain melody that was meant to be a passcode. Once they had finished they stepped back and waited for the response, but as they did so, Flash noticed that Stone had begun staring at him quite intensely.

"Uhh...you're really staring into my soul there. What is it?" He asked the silent mare who just blinked ever so slowly in response. To anypony else it may have looked like a normal occurrence, as normal as a total lack of emotion could look at any rate, but to Flash it meant something else entirely. "Of course I did it right!" He said feeling offended. "It's da-da-da-da-DA, da-da-da-da-da right?" He said mimicking the melody that he had just knocked. Stone shook her head no and proceeded to knock on wooden hatch herself. "No no, you're doing it all wrong!” He interjected and proceeded to knock on the hatch the correct way, however before he got more than a few knocks in he was interrupted by Stone knocking on it at the same time. He shot her a glare as he continued to knock, this time even faster due to a burst of spite he had begun feeling. Stone seemed to feel the same way if her rapid knocking was any indication, despite her obviously not showing it.

They continued their antics for a few minutes until a violent rumbling beneath them caught both of their attentions. Suddenly the hatch burst open with a shower of brown dirt and rocks revealing a familiar light brown diamond dog wearing orange lensed goggles and covered in bits of dirt staring right at them. She leaned in to get a closer look through her blurry and cracked goggles, grabbing a hold of them and pushing them outwards as if they would focus.

“Could you two please stop all that racket?” She asked politely before gasping in surprise as if she had just realized something.

"Hey!" She yelled accusingly while pointing at the both of them. "Where's the pie? You are the pizza ponies aren't you?" Flash made a few short noises of confusion while Stone gave a very unamused blink in response. Flash growled and wrapped his left hoof around Stone, pulling her blank-faced self close to him and moving right up to the diamond dogs snow-covered goggles. 

"Lottie! It's us! Flash and Stone! We have urgent news for the spears!" Lottie rubbed her goggles lenses with a finger and looked at the two of them back and forth before gasping and nodding.

"Nope! I have no idea who you are!" She said while she was still smiling and nodding. Running out of patience Flash barked at her to move aside which she promptly agreed to with a dopey salute. Flash and Stone crawled into the hatch which led to a long tunnel leading into the base. The ponies, with the diamond dog in tow, crawled through the tunnel for a few minutes until the familiar warmth of the base began to reach them, signifying their close proximity. Finally the two ponies tumbled out of a hole in the compacted dirt wall and into a massive, expertly crafted cave dug deep beneath the ground of the former Crystal Empire boundaries. 

The dirt floor was covered in thermoplastic mats that protected bunches of wires that ran to all of the lights all over the field base. The cave had various pillars of rock and hardened wood supporting the ceiling every few feet, spread apart so as to not take up too much space. In addition the headquarters was filled with creatures of all kinds, exchanging information, reporting in, maintaining their equipment, and training for their missions. There were griffins, diamond dogs, changelings, only about three minotaurs total, and a horde of ponies all running around frantically. They heard some scratching from behind them as Lottie sealed up the tunnel and flipped onto the floor on her back looking up at them.

"So, what are a couple of pizza ponies like yourselves in such a hurry for?" She asked with a dopey smile and her tongue sticking out. Flash looked over to Stone who nodded and began charging a spell, the light of which making the goofy canine ooh and aww as she saw it. Not long after she had begun charging the spell a flash of light conjured a set of documents out of thin air and into her magical grasp.

"We need to take this to the commander, it's urgent!" Flash said with a voice full of worry.

"Can I see it?" Lottie asked innocently while reaching her hands into the air and squeezing them in a childlike grabbing gesture. 

"Ughh never mind! Come on Stone, even if she's in a meeting she needs to know now!" Flash said hastily, getting a curt nod from Stone in response. The two rushed through the crowd of spears, apologizing for each one they ran into along the way, and made their way through the halls to the back conference rooms where they hoped to find the commander. They rounded the corner to their left and ran down the hall towards the conference room's metal doors where they saw two of the bases three minotaurs standing guard on the outside. 

The minotaur on the left was about seven feet tall with light brown fur covering him from his waist up and deep brown fur covering him from his waist down. He wore a simple leather jacket that had various symbols and insignias on it, and the back of which had a holster for his unreasonably large battle-ax. Well unreasonable for Flash, but entirely reasonable for a menacing minotaur. He had a short snout and small beady eyes as well as enormous arms that were bulging with muscles from every angle. His legs, while naturally smaller than his upper body, were still quite large and very powerful. Finally, his most distinct feature was the horns on his head, with the left horn pointing upwards and the right horn pointing downwards.

The minotaur on the right, a female minotaur, was much thinner than the other but still extremely muscular and intimidating. Unlike the other she had dark blue fur covering her upper body and black fur covering her lower body. Her features were nearly identical to the other minotaur, save for the horns, choice of weapon, and choice of clothes. She wore a dark leather cuirass decorated with various throwing knives, and on her back was a gigantic war hammer. Her horns were much smaller than the other minotaur and both pointed upwards. Needless to say, these two were excellent choices for guard duty.

"Halt!" The guard on the left said, sticking out his large hand to stop them. "You know the rules Sentry, the commander is in a personal conference. No one goes in there until she's done." He said with a deep and heavily accented voice. 

"I understand Tauro, but this is too urgent to wait! The commander needs to know now!" Tauro raised an eyebrow at the frantic stallion and looked as if he was contemplating letting them in.

"Well…" He trailed off as he placed his hand on his chin in thought. Before he could finish the thought though, the other minotaur sighed loudly and shook her head. 

"Tauro, you need to stop being so gullible. How many times has Flash barged in because you let him? Only for it to be a false alarm, which in turn gets us both in trouble?" The female minotaur said in a raspy, yet feminine voice. Tauro continued to grab his chin and began thinking even harder, and with him preoccupied the other guard turned to Flash and Stone. "Listen Flash, I know you may think it's super urgent, but it can probably wait until she's done." She said with a bit of attitude while still sounding like she meant well.

"Morgan, hey! You're looking good." The minotaur just crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. "Listen, I know I don't have the best track record when it comes to urgent news, but me and Stone are the only castle infiltrators available. Any information we find is of the utmost importance!" He pointed to the file and documents in Stones magical grasp. "Especially now! This time we...we found something truly terrifying." He said with a shiver as the memory of what they had found, and what they had seen replayed in his mind. Morgan looked at him for a moment, then back to her intensely thinking brother who was too preoccupied to open the door for them. She let out a heavy snort through her nostrils and squinted at the duo.

"Listen, this is the last time okay? If I find out you pissed off the commander one more time," She unholstered her hammer and held it in her hands menacingly. "Then you and I are going to have a little talk." Flash nodded in understanding and turned to grab the documents while Morgan unlocked the large metal door. He reached for the file with his mouth and bit down, but all he got was a mouthful of air as Stone moved the file to the other side of her head. 

"Come on Stone. Hoof it over so I can brief the commander." She shook her head no and continued to move it away after every attempt he made to catch it. "Grrr, come on! You've been there every time she's chewed us out for a decision I made. If she somehow sees this as nonurgent then I don't want you to deal with miss hammer over there too." Morgan scoffed as she continued to unlock the door, but ultimately ignored the two pony's quarrel.

Flash continued to try and catch the file, but each time Stone had thwarted him, until eventually he was out of breath and on his flank panting heavily. As he sat down to catch his breath Stone sat down right in front of him and stared just as she always did. Flash looked deep into her eyes and chuckled while shaking his head in disbelief. 

"You are one weird pony Stone." Stone continued to give him the same blank stare, and Flash in turn lifted his hooves up defensively. "Okay, okay! We're a couple of weird pony's." Stone blinked in satisfaction and stood back up before offering Flash a hoof. He accepted it and stood back up himself, but strangely enough Stone wouldn't let go of his hoof. He looked at her strangely, her blank face giving him nothing to work with, and continued watching as she slowly and awkwardly tried to wrap a hoof around him.

"Are you...are you trying to give me a hug?" He asked confusedly. She gave a quick nod that made him smile. "Come on Stone, that's not how you hug," He grabbed onto her and pulled her into a large bear hug, spinning her around and lifting her slightly as he did. "This is how you hug!" He said before gently setting her back down. He could see that the look on her face remained ever unchanging, but for a split second, before it had disappeared, he could have sworn he saw a hint of joy in her eyes. They were torn away from their little moment as they heard the loud sound of the doors locks disengaging. 

"Make it quick you two," Morgan said quietly as she held the door open for them, looking around cautiously as she did so. The two ponies were about to make their way inside until they heard a loud crotchety voice shouting at them.

"What in da blazes do ya think yer doin!?" Shouted a voice that made all present parties freeze with terror, and slowly the ponies turned around to see the third minotaur of the base, He was quite small compared to the other minotaurs, coming up to about an average pony's eye level. He was much older and had a long flowing beard, as well as graying blue fur that further showed his age. One of his eyes was permanently squinted, and his face was wrinkled through years of stress and anger that had persisted his entire life. He wasn't strong enough to walk on his own, so he had a small cane that he was using to support himself. The small minotaur looked at the two ponies then hobbled his way over while pointing at Morgan.

"Morgan! You best be shuttin that door before I shut it for ya!" He yelled with his signature strange accent. Morgan looked at him with wide eyes before smiling as widely as she could and closing the heavy door. She stood back at attention and did a double-take as she saw her brother Tauro still intensely thinking, she could practically hear the gears turning in his head. She laughed nervously and gave him a good kick to grab his attention.

"Huh, what?" He looked down and saw the scowling face of the tiny graying minotaur. Wasting no time he snapped to attention just like his sister and only focused on looking forward so as to avoid the gaze of his intimidating elder. The old minotaur looked over the two youngsters before stepping in front of the door and turning to face the pair of ponies. 

"Now! You two best be leaving. The last thing the commander needs is a couple a troublemakers takin up her time when she's in the middle of a meetin!" He said with a stomp of his cane for emphasis. 

"Frolo! You don't understand we-"

"No you don't understand! Every time! You come to er with some nonsense!" He said while pointing at Flash accusingly.

"But if you'd just-" Again Flash was cut off from trying to show Frolo the files as they were batted away with his cane.

"But nuthin, I don't care! It's me an me kin's duty to keep rabble-rousers like you two out of the commanders…" He stopped for a moment as he thought to himself. "Well she doesn't have hair, but you still can't go in. That's final." Seeing no way past the old cooks stubbornness Flash turned around in defeat and started to head towards the hallway. 

"Come on Stone, let's get out of here." Despite his call, he didn't hear the familiar hoofsteps of his partner clinging to him like his shadow. "Stone?" He asked questioningly as he turned back to see the grey unicorn standing mightily in front of Frolo. 

"Ho-ho! Ya really want to test yer mettle eh?" He dropped his cane and cracked his fists, legs, and neck. "Or are ya really too daft to realize when you're outmatched?" Flash ran up to his partner, her face still blank, but even so he could tell that her eyes had narrowed even if only slightly. Her horn crackled to life with magenta magic, and her stance became slightly lower as she prepared to do the unthinkable.

"Stone, please!" He said pleadingly, grabbing her attention in the process. "I don't want you to get hurt...or worse." He looked over at Frolo who was leaning backward and jutting out his fists in a comical fashion. "We'll find another way, trust me." Stone blinked a couple of times before dropping her magic and giving a quick nod. Flash sighed in relief as he pushed her away from the would-be confrontation and headed back into the halls. He didn't need to look back in order to feel the gaze of the elderly minotaur lasering its way into the back of his head.

The two ponies reentered the main area of the base and walked off towards a very small rest section where only a couple of other agents had been sitting. The area was comprised of only a handful of tables and chairs, as well as a couple of dispensers filled with basic foods like cereal and bagels. With so much going on and every creature trying their best to keep up with their duties, there was little time to rest amidst the chaos, but thankfully it was there for those who found they had at least a little time for themselves. The duo sat down, Flash looking extremely upset and Stone looking like...Stone, and watched as all of the other agents in the cave as they continued on with their work. 

"This is nonsense!" He said suddenly, drawing slight attention from the two other ponies sitting at a table to their left. "Heh, sorry guys," Flash said sheepishly, eventually getting the other agents to return to their food. "That stubborn old coot, if he knew what we knew then he'd let us in there in a heartbeat! This can't wait, right Stone!" He looked to his partner for confirmation who just continued to stare at him loyally like she'd always done. "Yeah, we need a plan. How are we gonna get in there with the trio guarding the doors?" He asked himself as he brought a hoof to his chin. Suddenly there was a loud crash that caught the attention of nearly everypony nearby.

Looking over to the entrance of the rest area, Flash and Stone saw the same diamond dog from before tussling with a griffon in an attempt to take his bag. She was down on her hands and feet like a large wolf and growling as she tried to tear the bag away from him with her mouth. The two continued to struggle for a minute or two until eventually the Griffin broke free and hovered a few inches above the ground, his talon outstretched in the universal gesture of halt. 

"Lottie! No!" The grey griffon said nervously as the diamond dog slowly approached him with a hungry look on her face.

"Come on, I know you got it. Just give it to me, GIVE IT!" She screamed as she lunged at the griffon once more. Despite his quick reflexes, Lottie had managed to grab the bag while laughing maniacally. She jammed her face into the bag and began rummaging through it before emerging with a mouthful of marshmallows and a satisfied smile. The griffon however had fallen to his knees and had his talons reaching out towards her in sorrow.

"Those were my favorites." He whispered softly before holding his face in his claws. At this point almost all of the other agents had gone back to their normal duties, writing this off as just another day on the job, but to Stone and Flash this was exactly what they needed. Slowly the two turned and looked at each other, Flash with a knowing smile, and Stone with a tiny little curve at the very edge of her mouth. With a quick whistle Lottie's ears perked up and swiveled towards the two ponies, her head following shortly after.

"Oh Lottie! Come here girl!" Flash said while patting his legs. Slowly Lottie crawled her way over to them and sat down with her legs crossed, her head tilted in confusion as she watched them. 

"Yeah?" She asked innocently. There was a pause as Flash turned his head away from her, then in one swift motion he faced her with a big smile.

"Who's a good girl Lottie?" He asked with a voice somepony would make towards a normal housepet. Lottie looked confused for a second before looking behind herself, then back to the strange stallion.

"I like to think I'm a good girl." She replied with uncertainty.

"Who's a good girl Lottie?" Flash repeated with more and more excitement in his voice. Due to this it achieved his goal of making Lottie very excited as well.

"Is it me? Am I a good girl?" She asked as she stood up, her tail beginning to wag ever so slightly. Flash discreetly nudged Stones side, prompting her to hide one of her hooves behind her back. Lottie was immediately drawn to this motion and ran circles around Stone in an attempt to see what she was hiding. "What is it, what is it, what is it, what is it?" She repeated ad nauseam the longer she went without seeing it.

"It's a very special treat, for good girls like you Lottie." Lottie looked at Flash silently, slightly adjusting her goggles as she did so. "But if you want this super, magnificent, awe-inspiring, splendiferously awesome treat," Each adjective he added made Lottie's eyes grow wider under the orange lenses of her goggles. "Then you have to do a little something for us first." He said with a devious grin. Lottie wordlessly nodded her head and ignored the obvious red flag, as if only the idea of a reward was enough to get her on board for anything the two could have wanted. Luckily for her though, they knew exactly what they wanted her to do.





In the darkness of the conference room there was only one bright light. This light was the green hue of the messenger beetles atop the conference table, used to communicate with other cells in the insurgency, the Spears of Sunlight. Currently the commander of the Crystal cell was Knave, a small changeling with pink eyes, a green membrane on her head that mimicked the appearance of hair, and large chitin armor covering most of her body minus the helmet. 

She was currently leaning over the table and conversing with the other cell leaders in a joint decision brief with their joint commander. The conference had been going on for quite some time, but luckily for the changeling it seemed to be getting closer and closer to the end.

"With all due respect sir, the colony is a much higher priority than the appleloosan logistics stations." Knave said as the visual feed from the beetles shifted to the image of a pure white unicorn stallion with a partially light and dark blue mane wearing purple old guard armor. He donned a contemplative look while another voice in the feed scoffed.

"Not at all! Sure they get power Crystals from the colony, but they could get them from anywhere else! These logistics stations are solely responsible for supplying their badland forces, and with them out of the way we could easily allow the Storm King's forces an opening to attack Nightmare Moon's troops." Said a large muscular earth pony stallion with a mustache and cowboy hat as the feed shifted to show his form as well. Soon another voice entered the fray, once again making the visual feed smaller to fit all of them at once.

"Hardly! The last thing we need right now is the Storm King to gain any more influence than he already does! What we need to do is intercept Cloudsdale and use its high mobility as a new base of operations. Not to mention the offensive capabilities that could be used for its weather factories!" Replied a female thestral with a high society accent. 

"We don't have the time, nor the resources, to maintain an entire CITY as a new base Butusov! The entire reason we're hiding in frickin tunnels is because if the princess were to find our location, we'd be dead in seconds. The last thing we need is to make ourselves a target inside of Cloudsdale." Knave shouted in frustration towards the thestral on the screen. 

"Finally! Something we agree on." Said the cowpony as he looked to the side accusingly. 

"And you!" Knave yelled as she pointed to the stallion. "Those logistics stations are some of the most heavily guarded areas in western Equestria specifically because they're so vital to the troops there. How in Celestia's name do you propose we even begin to destroy them?" Knave asked the shocked stallion.

"Pffft! That's easy! We just bum rush em as fast as we can, good old fashioned blitzkrieg. They can't stop all of us." The thestral snickered quite loudly and covered her mouth with a hoof. "What's so funny?" Asked the stallion. 

"Oh nothing, I just think that if you spent half as much time thinking of plans as you do maintaining that hairy caterpillar on your lip then maybe this war could have been won already. Or maybe just your sector at the least." The stallion growled and seemed to be ready to continue throwing insults until the joint commander halted them all.

"That's enough!" The group fell silent as the unicorn looked at the screen with determination. "All of your plans have merit, as well as their own shortcomings, but we only have enough resources for one mounted attack, and we still haven't heard from Sunburst or Capper either." The subordinates nodded in understanding as the unicorn let out an elongated sigh. "Return to your respective missions, until then I'll take your ideas into consideration and relay them to the princess. Good luck to you all." The commander said with a salute that the others returned.

"To you as well sir." The trio said in unison as the commanders feed cut off. An uneasy silence fell on the group that was still left in the conference until a snooty huff broke it.

"Well, I still think Cloudsdale's a good idea. Good luck changing my mind." The thestral said as her feed ended. Knave was about to ask her colleague if he had any idea what made that thestral so stubborn when she was again beaten to the punch.

"Seriously, they wouldn't be able to stop ALL of us. That'd be absurd." The stallion said while cutting off his feed as well. Knave let out a long sigh as she stared at the green static in the comm line above the table, her exhaustion finally catching up with her after the long day and even longer conference. Deactivating the beetles, Knave pushed them off to the side of the metal table before sitting down for a much-needed rest. She leaned back in the chair with a sigh as she massaged her temples and lazily looked over the unkempt papers left strewn about on top of the table.

She inspected an old image of a group of Equestrians loading nondescript cargo into the trains near the colony, large rounded crates that looked eerily like sarcophagi. Every time she saw the image she would get a chill up her spine, but in the months that followed the capture they hadn't found a single thing indicating what they were doing within the colony, what it was they were shipping to Equestria. Her best guess was a new type of crystal that required such a drastically different containment unit, but realistically it could be almost anything. She had tried multiple times to get somepony inside to figure things out, but every time she had anypony get close to the colony they were almost always discovered too soon. The only two ponies she had actually managed to get inside undetected were at their best decent and at their worst more often than she'd liked. After months of having them undercover they had turned up with bust after bust, and it was beginning to try her patience. Despite having this area under her influence, she found that she could influence absolutely nothing within the territory itself.

Knave sighed in frustration as she pushed the picture to the side and leaned back in her chair once more. She looked up at the dimly lit dirt ceiling of the conference room and thought hard about her next course of action. She knew that the Crystal Colony had more to it than the others knew, but she couldn't go in without the Colonel's support. All she needed was something to prove her point, undeniable proof that the Crystal Colony needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. As she mulled things over her thoughts were interrupted by an audible scratching noise coming from up above. She followed the sound until her gaze focused on a patch of dirt directly above her shifting around unnaturally, so with a feeling of dread she tried to get up and run. Her reaction times must have been shot after staying up for so long without eating since by the time she had gotten up to move it was already too late. The roof caved in, sending a shower of moist dirt and rocks down onto the changeling followed by a weighty brown diamond dog who had flopped onto the ground face first. Lottie looked around in confusion until she felt the dirt mound beneath her start to move and speak. 

"Get. The heck. Off of me!" Lottie gasped and scrambled to her feet as the commanders head and forehooves popped out of the mound. "Lottie! What have I told you about digging in the base!?" Knave yelled angrily while glaring at the normally well-behaved diamond dog. She tried to pull herself out of the mound, but each time she only seemed to be getting more stuck. "Are you just going to stand there? Help me!" She said while looking up at Lottie in annoyance, prompting Lottie to nod frantically and help pull the changeling back up to her hooves.

"Sorry ma'am! I just really wanted the prize." Lottie said feeling just a bit guilty as she helped the commander dust the dirt out of her holes. As they both continued Knave stopped and thought to herself as Lotties words quickly registered with her.

"Prize?" Knave questioned, but before Lottie could respond another rustle from the hole in the ceiling caught both of their attention. The two of them looked up just in time to see a pair of ponies fall out of the hole and onto the mound below where they bounced and landed on the cold hard floor next to it. The first to hit the ground was an orange pegasus stallion, followed shortly by his grey unicorn partner falling on top of him and crushing him with her rump. The two ponies laid there in pain for a moment while Knave just face hoofed at the sight of her incompetent infiltrators. 

Flash dizzily looked up and saw the disappointed gaze of his CO looking down at him and Stone. Wasting no time, he quickly rolled Stone off of his back and stood at attention while saluting the changeling. "Ma'am! If we could please just have a moment of your-!" He was about to finish his sentence until he felt a quick rush of blood to his head due to his quick recovery from the ground, making him feel nauseous to the point of almost falling back down. Knave watched as the stallion clumsily righted himself, and as the grey mare slowly stood up and took her place at his side. She sighed and looked back over to Lottie who by now had begun fidgeting very anxiously.

"Lottie?" Knave started softly.

"Yes ma'am?" Lottie responded carefully. 

"Have you gotten your prize from these two yet?" She asked with sincerity. Lottie shook her head no, which prompted the commander to look back to the two agents and stare at them for a few moments. "Well?" She questioned while gesturing towards Lottie with her head. Flash laughed and smiled nervously as he nudged Stone with his hoof, getting a nod from the mare in response before she slowly walked up to the excited diamond dog and presented her with a small spool of red sewing thread. Lottie gasped in excitement as her eyes widened beneath her cracked goggles.

"Yay!" Lottie screamed ecstatically as she picked up the spool and fell to the ground in playful joy, messing around with the thread-like a newborn pup. 

"See? She's being well compensated." Flash justified as the diamond dog in question continued to roll around in a fit of giggles on the floor. Commander Knave looked down at Lottie and let out a heavy sigh at the childish antics of her crew, before falling back down into one of the chairs that were not covered in debris. She placed her head in her hooves as the exhaustion of hunger and sleep deprivation continued to take their toll.

“Um...well to be fair ma’am, we wouldn’t have had to do this if Frolo wasn’t so harsh. Right Stone?” He looked down at his companion hopefully who just stared back at him unblinking. “Ugh, well You don’t need to be so vocal about it,” Flash said with a roll of his eyes. “Besides, I know for a fact that this was both of our ideas. Don't try to deny it." He finished with an accusing point of his hoof, to which Stone responded with a quick head butt. The action wasn’t exactly painful, but it was more than enough to send a message. The antics of the two infiltrators were cut off as the commander took in a very loud deep breath and raised her head once more.

"J-just tell me what you want already. Get it over with so I can go and eat." Knave said with deep frustration evident in her voice. He gave a quick nod of understanding and looked over to Stone, who promptly conjured their pilfered file and levitated over to Flash’s outstretched hoof dramatically. Knave’s eyes widened with curiosity as she watched the dramatic exchange occur, until the file was quickly handed to her. “So do you mind giving me an explanation as to what this is?” She asked as she opened it up and began to read.  

“Of...course.” She heard the hesitation in his voice and suddenly felt a sense of dread, a feeling that told her she should be taking this a little more seriously. She sat up and fell silent as she continued to read the documents within the file. “You see ma’am, as you already know there have been recent reports of small groups of Crystal Ponies disappearing. Upon further inspection though, we have come to discover that this has been going on for years. Hundreds, if not thou-” Suddenly the door swung open as the three minotaurs outside rushed in as quickly as they could without warning. Tauro Tackled Flash to the ground and held him in a headlock as both Morgan and Frolo strolled inside calmly. 

"Sorry commander. It seems no matter how well we try, these two are still determined to bother you no matter what." Morgan said as she felt another smash to her knees from the elder minotaur's cane. 

"I oughtta have you two tossed in the snow for the Yalfors!" Frolo shouted angrily as he approached the still grappled Flash. "Sorry about the commotion ma’am, what do you want to do with em?" He asked as he looked up at the commander with closed eyes and a calm smile. There was a moment of silence as nobody in the room made a sound, so curiously Frolo opened his eyes and noticed that Morgan, Stone, Tauro, and even Flash were all staring at the commander. Even Lottie, who was for some reason still in the room and covered in red thread no less, was stood to her full height and staring at the commander. Finally Frolo followed their gaze and let out a confused noise as he saw the changeling staring down at the documents and reading through them with unnatural speed. Her eyes were darting left and right furiously, and it seemed that every few seconds she was flipping through another paper and moving onto the next one. "Ma'am?" He asked with concern as her hooves began to shake. Suddenly she closed the file, and the look on her face was like she had just seen a ghost.

"Frolo...let them go and prepare all of our fighters for combat." She said as she slowly placed the file down on the table. The elder minotaur looked confused for the first time in years and just tilted his head at her. "Did I stutter? We don't have time for this! We need to stop the Crystal Colony's next…" Knave paused in disgust for a moment before continuing. "Shipment." Still a bit confused, but determined to serve, Frolo quickly whacked Tauros’ hand to loosen the grip he had on Flash’s head.

“You heard the commander! Get your grubby mitts off of that damned pony and get ready to crack some skulls!” He screamed as he quickly rushed the two behemoths out of the room, and even though he had left the sound dampening walls of the conference room they could still hear his screams and orders echoing through the cave base.

Stone helped Flash back up to his hooves as he worked on catching his breath, and looked at the commander blankly. Knave was about to speak but stopped as she tried to figure out what the unicorn had meant. She looked over to Flash for help, so he quickly cleared his throat and recomposed himself.

“What do you want us to do?” He asked, with Stone nodding in agreement. Knave nodded in understanding, despite not understanding in the slightest how he could not only comprehend that mares lack of expression but even translate it into words.

"Right...well thank you for bringing this information to my attention, we'll need to move quickly if we want to stop this." She started to place the beetles back into communication formation on the table and activated it with her magic. "Right now you're the only infiltrators I have inside, so take these with you." She tossed two of the beetles to the ponies, and as they made contact the stone-like beetles suddenly sprung to life and crawled beneath their manes where they were hidden. Flash made a bit of a nervous laugh as the beetle disappeared, the sensations of its cold appendages making him shiver awkwardly. 

"S-s-so ma'am...not to question your judgment, but these are going to help us how exactly?" He said nervously as he felt a small stinging sensation when the beetle had latched onto his scalp. 

"These beetles help cross-communication over long distances. Portable versions take a lot of magic to run without an array and are only reserved for the most vital of agents," She activated the remaining set of beetles on the table which sent a large bubble of swirling green energy up above it then turned around to face the two once more. "And it looks like you two are it." Stone and Flash looked at each other for a moment before donning looks of confusion, at least in Flash's part.

"So why did you give Stone one?" He asked plainly, his silent partner nodding in agreement. Knave looked to him, then to her, then she promptly face hoofed. 

"Tilleadh!" She called in a strange tongue that made the beetle from beneath Stone's mane jump out and return to its master. "I swear THIS is what happens when I don't get a proper meal, I can't think straight!" As she gently placed the bug back on the table Flash cleared his throat to regain her attention.

"Moving on. What's our plan exactly?" Flash asked curiously. Knave hummed in thought for a moment and began twisting the remaining beetles around to find a frequency.

"We're going to prepare for an attack on the colony. We're going to need the support of the Colonel's forces in order to stand a chance against the Crystal Colony forces, and with these files you've given me I'm sure we can get it." Finally as she set the frequency and waited for a response she finally wrapped up her plan with the two vital pieces beside her. "You two need to head back to the castle and forge some documents explaining recent malfunctions with the equestrian Express. Nothing too fancy, just something that would keep any average equestrian satiated if they didn't look too hard. All we need is a day at the most for the Colonels forces to arrive." As she explained the two infiltrators once again shared a look of confusion. Regardless the commander continued. "While you're at it, I need you to knock out as many of their communications and alarm systems under the radar, we don't want them calling for help when we commence the raid."

"Okay, that part makes sense, but why the forged documents?" Flash questioned for the both of them.

"Because, we want to stop their next shipment as soon as possible, and time is of the essence. With the documents in place to 'explain' the trains malfunctions we can avoid them learning of our sabotage before it's too late. While you handle that..." Knave walked over to Lottie who was still sitting in her corner and half paying attention to the whole ordeal. "Our resident demolitions expert and engineer is going to, very discreetly I might add, sabotage the Equestrian Express. Halting it's latest shipment." She said as she placed a hoof on Lotties shoulder. Lottie's ears twitched and suddenly all previous remaining interest in the thread was tossed aside in favor of this.

"You mean I get to blow stuff up!?" She asked with so much excitement that she began to shake her and Knave in place.

"No! No, no, no. No explosions. They need to think this is like a...track or engine error." Lottie nodded in agreement and jumped to her feet while striking a heroic pose and pointing her right arm towards the wall in front of her.

"Of course! I just need to disintegrate the front locomotive! Genius tactic ma'am!" Lottie said with a happy smile. Knave quickly waved her hooves in front of the dog dismissively while fighting back the urge to scream.

"No! This needs to be covert, and you're the only one who understands how this new model works…somehow." She added at the end under her breath. "Just make sure they can't tell it's sabotage until it's too late. Clip a few wires, I don't know! Just no disintegration." She finished sternly while pointing to the hyperactive, and possibly psychotic, diamond dog. 

"As you wish," Lottie said while looking down slightly. With that squared away Knave let out a relieved sigh before giving Lottie a knowing look.

"Just in case, make sure you take two others with you before you go." Lottie nodded reluctantly before sulking out of the conference room. "As for you two. Report back to me when you plant the information, then I'll be able to give you further instructions. If everything goes well, and we have no surprises along the way, then we'll have the Colony and the ponies within set free before the end of the week." 

"Yes ma'am!" Flash said with determination as both he and Stone placed their silver guard helmets on in unison. "What do you say Stone? Are you ready?" She looked up at him, her blank eyes glistening ever so slightly, in a way that made Flash laugh. "Yeah I know. Always ready." The two turned and left the room, shutting the door behind them. As the heavy doors slammed shut the feed from the comms on the table finally reached through, as a familiar voice responded.

"Major? I hope you have a good reason for calling so soon on this frequency." The Colonel said in annoyance as he approached the screen.

"I do sir. I have urgent news that was just reported in by my infiltrators from within the Crystal Colony. It's of the utmost importance, and it is incredibly grave. The lives of many of the Crystal Ponies could be at stake." She answered, getting a raised eyebrow from the colonel in response. Before he could verbally respond however, a second feminine voice responded to the commander as a pink alicorn entered the frame next to the white stallion. 

"Then by all means, relay this information immediately. It had better be worth our time though." The mare said with a stern no-nonsense look. Knave gulped nervously as the image of the supreme leader of the Spears of Sunlight looked down at her expectantly.

"Yes princess."
> 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.