The Obsidian Castle has moved to a new location, a large flat area surrounds it. Everything is dead, no grass, no trees, nothing. Just dark dirt and the red sky above, its nearing sunset but there may be hours left in the day as Celestia and Luna are delaying the movement of their planetary orbs for this moment.

Quite a ways away from the castle is a large hill; Lucky, Rain, and Peaches are hiding on the other side of it out of the sight of the cult and their large castle.

"Lucky, I think I see them," Rain points a hoof over to the right side. To the right, still behind the large hill, is a huge army of royal guards moving in their ranks closer and closer to their position exactly like Celestia had said in her letter.

"Exactly as planned, they will scout out the area then move over to the side of the castle for their part of our assault," Lucky grins slightly, loving how their plans are working like they should.

The guards do exactly like they were told, moving over to the side of the castle while staying hidden behind the large hills on the outskirts of the castle. Every pony is still quite a ways away from the castle but close enough to see it slightly.

The three ponies turn back to look at the castle, as they do a bloodcurdling scream is heard from their right side. They quickly jerk back to see what in the hay is going on to see a guard on the ground in a spasm, almost like they are having a seizure. At that moment all of Lucky's senses black out, all she can see is a pitch black background with the bloodshot eyes that Celestia described in her letter.

She begins to scream.

Peaches has her pinned to the ground in an instant yelling in her face, after a few moments of the blood curdling screaming she wakes as if it was a dream. Her face has gone pale, eyes dilated, sweating like nothing before.

"What's wrong? They know we're here!"

That must have been their plan, nothing more than to pinpoint where they were.

A lightning bolt strikes the hill obliterating it throwing the ponies sideways onto the ground. As they stand up they notice that the screaming has stopped, the illusions must have stopped also. Every pony turns to look towards the castle; the cult is out and ready for the assault which was supposed to be an ambush.

Wretched Darkness, Regal, Vexation, Ornament, a scientist like pony, and a strange looking tan and yellow pony are at the gates. Wretched, the scientist, and the tan pony stay behind as the rest rush forward towards Lucky, Rain, and Peaches.

The guards are still trying to reassemble from the illusion earlier as the lower cult members rush down into their hiding place. Chaos takes over from there; the royal guards were unable to gather in their ranks before the cult members attacked. But it seems that Blades training regime worked, as the guards quickly take over the situation.

By the time Lucky can turn around and realize what is going on the changeling's have flung her sideways away from her friends. Regal attacked Peaches separating them from the group, leaving Rain in the middle confused on what to do.

"Rain, don't worry about me I can take him! Go to Lucky she's outnumbered!"

Rain jumps up and begins flying in Lucky's direction, picking up everything she dropped during the explosive attack they were recovering from a few moments ago.

Peaches unsheathes her large sword to get ready for the next attack, which comes quickly in thrust from the gray unicorn. His punches are quick and heavy, almost enough to throw Peaches over but her training in chaotic movements against Blade helps her with quick and heavy attacks.

With one of the attacks she uses the momentum to shove herself backwards then jumps forwards. Once she reaches Regal she smacks him in the jaw with her large sword, turning his attention to the side. Dislocating his jaw and nearly knocking it off his face, but perhaps the most shocking thing is that none of these wounds are bleeding at all. It's almost as if the resurrected have no blood.

"Darn it, sword get with it and sharpen already!"

Regal's head snaps back into place then his jaw shortly follows, the results of the cult's experiments finally showing themselves.

"What the-"

Regal charges Peaches causing her to put her guard back up, his heavy punches taking a toll on her stamina. Each punch sounding like its metal clashing with metal, deafeningly loud bangs coming from the clashes. Peaches grabs the chain on her sword, throwing it at Regal which he guards the dull sword with his bare front legs. She then pulls the sword back, twirls around, and then sends it flying back at Regal from the side. The pure weight of the sword causes the unicorn to be pushed sideways a good foot or so. But once again never cutting him at all, the dulled blade become more of a nuisance than a blessing.

As Regal turns his attention from the sword to the earth pony wielding it his eyes widen, Peaches is running straight at him but by the time he can begin to raise a hoof she punches him in the face sending him onto his back.

"We have years of torture to give you..." Ornament paces around Lucky. They can see Peaches fight from the side; a small smirk appears on Lucky's face knowing that her friend is doing alright.

Rain comes in from the side, ramming Ornament in the side knocking the air out of his lungs. Giving Lucky enough time to stand up and ready herself. Her eyes begin to change, one holy and the other evil, one white and aqua blue, while the other is black with yellow irises.

Lucky sends a beam of holy light towards Ornament, white static around the beam. The air is humming with power from the attack. The changeling puts up a barrier that shatters with the attack, his eyes widen and he looks over to Vexation for a brief moment as another beam is sent in his direction.

Ornament flies into the air dodging the attack, "It's nice to know that a level one barrier won't work anymore, it wouldn't be any fun if that's all it took this time around. How long were we dead for anyways? It had to be a few months at least."

"So it's true! You all were dead then resurrected; such dark magic could only be used by your cult."

"You're just jealous that you can't manage it!"

Vexation rolls her eyes in the background, "Ornament, stop being so annoying!"

"I'll be annoying until you help."

"Ugh, fine..." Vexation walks forward beside her counterpart, magic begins to form into her horn. A dark beam is sent towards Lucky and Rain from the female changeling as Ornament rushes towards them.

Lucky puts up a barrier which blocks the beam, it collapses in time for her to crash Ornament into the ground with her levitation spell. The changeling's wings not strong enough to match the unicorn's spells.

Meanwhile Rain is in the air charging down, she puts her back legs down and kicks with all her weight into the male changeling as he is crashed on the ground from Lucky's spell. The air is smashed out of his lungs once more; Lucky begins another beam, this time a pitch black laser that sends Ornament shooting backwards crashing into another dirt mound.

Before Lucky can send another beam their way a nearly invisible wall is set in place, Vexation's horn lit up with magic aimed towards it. Ornament's wounds heal as he flies back regrouping with his partner.

"This is going to last forever, we didn't account for them healing this quickly," Lucky looks around for some sort of idea, "Unless we can get both of them down at the same time we can't use this box Celestia gave us either-"

"Lucky, focus on Ornament and leave the rest to me. Once you get him wounded enough that he has to stop and heal distract Vexation."

The clear barrier in front of them melts away; the two changelings ready themselves for the next wave of attacks.

Lucky sends another beam towards Vexation, causing her to put up another barrier; while the female changeling is occupied Lucky begins to assault Ornament, occasionally attacking Vexation who is not really putting up much of a fight at the moment.

"You're both being annoying!" Vexation stomps in a fit of rage.

Ornament has dodged most of the beams, seemingly satisfied with his test of powers the first time around. He raises high in the air then plummets towards the ground, before hitting anything he rushes towards the unicorn, Lucky falls sideways dodging the flying changeling, before Ornament can turn around Rain swoops in from the side causing him to lose his balance.

A large piece of rubble the size of a boulder is thrown into the side of Ornament with the power of a levitation spell, and then the piece of rubble is slammed on top of him crushing his body and stopping any movements for the moment. Rain flies down landing beside the boulder, taking the box given to her by Celestia out of her saddlebag. She sets it down before flipping it open, light shines through the box onto the large rock, Ornament is sucked inside in a small tornado like spell, then the box seals shut like it were before.

The two ponies turn their attention over to Vexation, who is visibly unmoved by the performance, "About time, we were sick of him anyways."

Lucky slings the boulder sized piece of rubble into Vexation's shield causing both to splinter apart, a beam of black light is sent through before Vexation can put up another shield sending her backwards a few feet as a mere blocking with the hooves would not completely dull the power behind a concentrated spell like that one. It leaves her legs burnt with some smoke coming from them, but once again they heal in a matter of seconds.

Lucky concentrates on the ground, focusing her magic on the dirt beneath the changeling's hooves. It begins to shake a bit, so Vexation flies a few inches above it hovering out of the sands reach. Then spikes appear from the sand penetrating Vexation's legs keeping her from moving, her face wincing in pain.

The sand had turned to stone, and the unicorn's magic kept Vexation from using hers to free herself. Lucky rearranged the sands particles so they would lock together then held them in place with magic. All she could do was watch as a blue Pegasus came up before her with a black box to seal her in it. However; Lucky wasn't protecting Rain with magic, so Vexation used her own levitation to push the pegasi farther away.

Lucky's concentration went from the spikes to Rain in an instant, freeing Vexation from her painful trap. The changeling snaps the spikes then she falls to the ground, pulling them out of her legs. As Vexation begins to hover, Lucky calls upon the ground once more, raising the sand above her enemy then crashing it onto her, temporarily grounding the hovering enemy.

Before Vexation can dig herself out of the sand once more, Lucky charges another one of her trademark beams, sending it right into the changelings head as she rises out of the dirt, slamming Vexation back down onto the ground. She stays down for a few seconds giving Rain enough time to seal her away.

Lucky walks over to join her pegasi friend; they both look over to the black box that now contains both changelings.

"It seems that knocking the head off one makes it harder to heal quickly."

Rain doesn't know if she should wince at the twisted humor or laugh at it, either way Lucky does have a point. The worse the wound the longer it takes to heal, even for these seemingly immortal monsters.

Regal stands back up from the punch Peaches gave him; the gray unicorn's body heals back to normal in a matter of seconds. He begins to charge magic into his horn, a thin layer of aura moves over his entire body.

While the unicorn is focused on his magic, Peaches runs towards him to smash her large dull sword into him again. This time a loud crash results but no physical damage is done to the gray stallion, the aura surrounding him must be some sort of magical armor.

Peaches quickly retreats back out of Regal's reach to think of a new plan besides blindly attacking him. A speck of blue and a speck of three colors; soft turquoise, yellow and blue, appear in the corner of her sight. Lucky and Rain must have finished the changelings.

"We would ask how you were doing, but it seems that nothing has changed very much."

"Well, I was doing fine then he had to cheat and use his magical unicorn powers!" Peaches waits for a comeback from the mute Regal, but all she gets is silence.

Once Regal notices Rain is the one carrying the sealing instruments, the sand around his feet begins to vibrate as he appears to be readying for a charge. Lucky turns as fast as physically possible to Rain, "Run! Fly away!"

Rain stumbles at the response before flying as fast as her wings can carry her. Regal almost teleports next to her but is shot down by a beam of light from Lucky's horn, catching him off guard and landing him onto his side. Peaches gallops towards the stunned unicorn before he can target Rain again. Lucky tries to perform a levitation spell on him to stop him from moving any farther, but for some reason Regal is not even attempting to move or go towards Rain. He is just standing there watching as the Pegasus flies away.

His attention is turned to the other two as Peaches slams her dulled blade into his face again, with no injury being dealt, simply another loud deafening crash. He begins to walk towards them, Lucky straining to keep the levitation spell on him even though it is doing nothing but tiring her out even more.

She tries the spikes she used against Vexation; they chip away once they hit the aura around Regal's skin. Her beams of light and dark simply push him back a few inches; her attack earlier must have worked so well because he wasn't guarding against her directly. Nothing is working against whatever shield it is that he put up.

A bolt of lightning lights up the dark red sky, a large boom fills every pony's ear drums. Every pony's attention is turned to the blue Pegasus falling to the ground out of the sky and the insane smile on Crimson's face.

"One down and two to go…"