The three say their farewells before boarding the train, knowing that they will not be coming back for some time. It was agreed with the princesses that any other planning would be done through letters, so the three could get back home to enjoy their free time and get ready for the fights ahead.

"That all worked out better than I thought it would," Peaches sets her sword down against the wall of their train cabin before sitting down on one of the benches.

"Especially now that we have the royal guards to help with the cult members and the castle," Rain sits down in front of Peaches next to Lucky on the next bench so the three are facing each other.

"We need to work on our plan, we know from the note book that their main members at least seem to be immortal or something. So we can assume that all the members we fought last time will be back. Regal, the large gray unicorn we fought first. Then there are the changelings, Vexation and Ornament."

"And the leader, we kind of fought him last time I guess."

"Right, and this time he may have a new body. Something else we have to worry about," Lucky's eyebrows furrow as she rest her chin on her hoof, "There's also that scientist that we read about, whether or not he is still around I don't know. With all these monsters it will be best to not get separated, even though we have trained quite a bit we cannot underestimate them. But on the note that we do get separated, try to be safe."

"Right."

"For items we need to bring, I think it's rather self explanatory that Peaches brings her sword and anything else she needs for it. Rain, make sure to bring an in depth first aid kit along with some medical tools. Let say, scalpels and such that may be needed for surgeries. Anything you can think of, I hope you don't need to perform anything like that but it's never good to be unprepared. "

Lucky continues on, "Rain, if you can I think it would be best if you carried the stuff Celestia gave us for sealing their leader. You are our only Pegasus and probably one of the most agile ones here, it is very important to keep them out of harm's way. "

"Wow, you certainly have thought some of this through quite a bit haven't you?" Rain looks towards her friend from the window.

"We have had time, last night was a rather long one."

"Next stop Verre!"

The train stops at its destination, the three ponies depart at the train station. Once again it is rather quiet, not a lot going on in the small town of Verre, just the ponies that live there walking back and forth from wherever it is they are going, even a few are enjoying the outdoors and sitting down on benches scattered around town. Perhaps a few of them are even travelers.

"Alright, we will go get some of the medical items we talked about earlier. Rain, I am sure you know where to go for this."

Rain heads off to the hospital and the medical supply store by it to stock up on anything she can think of with the other two shortly behind her. Putting together a small kit in a spare saddlebag, everything that Lucky mentioned was stuffed into it. Including some extras she could think of, but nothing too fancy as not much can be fitted into a saddlebag yet still be comfortable to maneuver in. The store offered a surprising lot of different things for the purpose of healthcare, including emergency first aid kits.

~Streets of Canterlot~

In the shadows of a closed store hides Wretched Darkness, the ponies in the town of Canterlot unaware that the sinister creature is even outside their doorways. Its shape seems to be that of just the shadow in the corner, not a single pony can tell that he is there.

The shadow slithers its way down the wall then in between the cracks of the pavement, moving its way towards the castle. Once it reaches the castle walls it begins to reach upwards onto them, creeping its way in through one of the windows where an unknowing guard is making his rounds.

The shadow forms into the guard's shadow, then continues to form bandage like appendages which wrap around the guard. The guard drops his flashlight in the process, pure terror reflected in his eyes. The first thing to leave him is his voice as his mouth is wrapped in the bandages. After a few moments his whole body is wrapped, only then do the bandages become clear so one can see the guard like nothing had happened. Now Wretched Darkness has control of some pony else, and can get into contact with those in charge.

He walks down the hallways in search of the throne room, its near sunset so both princesses should be in there or at least somewhere close to it. Wretched sees a chef with a cart walking down the next hallway, staying a safe distance away from the chef Wretched follows him to the throne room. The baker uncovers the food, which is now shown to be some manner of cake, and two slices at that, then walks into the throne room.

When the chef walks back out of the room Wretched extends his front leg unnaturally forward and crushes the poor pony against the wall, when he does so his hoof expands to cover the whole ponies body so no sound is made from the assault. The throne room door is opened and Wretched continues inside to greet the princesses.

"Guard, what is the matter? Why have you entered our room at such a late hour?" Luna uses her "Canterlot voice" towards the guard.

"Luna, this is not a guard. Or at least the thing we are speaking to is not." Celestia drops her cake down onto the platter it was brought in on.

"I see you two are just as fond of me as the last time all those years ago," Wretched cast the guard aside, who quickly runs outside the throne room in shock.

"We will never be fond of you! Not sense what you did!" Luna is still yelling royally.

"You still haven't told us why you changed so, you didn't used to be so set on violence like you are now. What happened? What changed?"

Celestia hit a nerve, a flow in energy is felt in the air. "I felt the Light, and Dark, of Insanity. Something you two will never understand! How could you understand what has happened?"

Blade rushes through the doors, the guard that ran out standing behind him. Blades face expresses pure anger towards the creature that dares to stand before Equestria's supreme rulers.

"Go back and tell the other guards to evacuate the castle, keep every pony away from the castle until we say differently." Blade motions for the other guard to leave the throne room, "How did you get in here? We had guards stationed in every hallway!"

"Oh not every hallway my Prized Blade, and what does it matter how many guards you have stationed if I can just take control of them? You merely gave me a way to get in here easier."

Wretched's front leg extends at an amazing speed towards Blade, who quickly unsheathes his two swords and blocks the attack. Even with him blocking the attack it still pushes him out into the hallway causing dust and debris to fly into the air.

Wretched's leg shoots back to its regular shape, as the dust clears Blade runs back into the room crashing into the now metallic creature with his two swords. A small amount of shock rushes onto his face as he tries to analyze how Wretched turned into metal so quickly, or even at all.

Celestia readies a charge of magic in her horn; Blade jumps back away as Celestia releases the bolt.

As it hits Wretched Darkness another cloud of smoke fills the air. Both alicorns and the pony are shocked to see that their attack did nothing to the strange creature.

"My scientist have amazed me again, I don't even have to dodge an alicorn's attack anymore!"

Luna runs towards Wretched, magic power being charged in her horn. As she gets close to the pitch black creature she twirls to trip him. Her leg merely fazes right through him though, as his legs turn into liquid then reform as a metal afterwards.

Wretched kicks Luna in the chest sending her sideways then slaps her sideways farther with an extended leg from the side. Luna slides back to the side of her sister.

Wretched Darkness melts onto the floor, then fills all the walls and ceiling with a pitch blackness never before seen by the three ponies. The same insane eyes open all over the room, staring down the group.

"What in Equestria is going on...?" Blade tenses up, readying for an attack from any direction.

Luna begins a barrier spell, but the speed of the barrier isn't fast enough. A spike of blackness shoots towards the three, Blade jumps in front of it blocking it with his Swords once again sending him backwards.

"You're going to get yourself killed!"

The spike shoots backwards to the wall, Blade gets back up and regroups with the two princesses, "You have brought me here to help with this, so I will do all in my power to protect you two and this wonderful kingdom we live in against this monstrosity."

"Such a noble stallion we have here lets test that."

Spike like tendril and tendril strike Blade's swords, flinging him into the air in all directions. Celestia and Luna try to levitate him out of the way with no luck. Both alicorns begin to throw beam after beam of magic in all directions at the shadows loaming around all the walls and ceilings causing the eyes to close.

One of the throne rooms wall collapse from the attacks from the sisters, letting enough light in for Wretched Darkness to be forced back into his normal pony shape.

Blade rushes towards Wretched with another strike of his swords, Wretched's front leg extends and swipes hitting Blade's side sending him flying out the now collapsed wall. Luna flies out the opening catching Blade before he falls to his death.

Celestia is next to follow, she flies out the gap to group with the other two ponies. Wretched walks up to the edge of the collapsed walls.

"How does it feel to have your castle turned to rubble before your eyes? While it may only be a wall right now, before long I will reduce your whole castle to nothing!"

"Luna, ready your barrier. We will keep him occupied for now."

"But sister, you can't possibly think that you can hold him off for that long-"

"Just do it!"

Luna hasn't had her sister raised her voice in a long time, she lowers her head as magic energy raises into her horn.

Celestia levitates Wretched, thrusting him onto the ground with a loud thud. Blade rushes at the creature splattered on the ground just to be thrown into the air by a large tendril formed from Wretched's strange body.

Celestia's infamous holy beam is thrown towards Wretched yet again, throwing him against the castle away from Blade.

Wretched's front leg extends hitting Celestia sending her backwards as it overpowers her. Celestia rapidly flaps her wings trying to stop the thrust and return to the battlefield.

The leg bends sending Celestia into the air against her will, and then it bends again sending her crashing into the ground, stunning her for a few moments.

Back where Blade, Luna, and Wretched are, Wretched forms one of his legs into a large blade. As he walks towards Blade he slices one of the castles trees in half. Wretched bounds towards Blade, readying his blade like leg to strike the earth pony.

As Wretched's sharp weapon meets Blades body, Blade stabs both of his swords through Wretched's body. Both assailants remove their weapons, walk back a few steps, and then view their wounds.

Wretched flies backwards yet again against the castle walls, right before Blade collapse he is levitated gently towards the royal sisters. A deep gash is across his whole body where Wretched struck him, from the shoulder all the way down his stomach, if he doesn't get immediate medical attention he will bleed out shortly.

Wretched's wounds on the other hand, have healed completely, like his body is made of some sort of liquid.

At that moment Luna's barrier spell begins to take effect, its center begins at Luna herself. But it expands to cover all of Canterlot, forcing Wretched out of the city limits.

"I guess that means our battle is done for now, none the less a successful experiment and enjoyable time. I haven't been able to leave that Obsidian Castle ever sense the last battle." Wretched Darkness returns back to his Obsidian Castle.

As Lucky, Rain, and Peaches return to their home in Verre they receive a royal letter from Celestia herself.

Dear Students,

You were probably wondering why the sun has not set in the sky yet, we were assaulted by Wretched Darkness, the leader of the cult short moments ago.

There were only a couple casualties, and many injured are being treated. One is Blade; he was the main fighting force against that monstrosity with Luna and I. The most we could do was delay the assault enough for Luna to cast a large scale barrier spell to push the cult leader out of Canterlot.

Before we could end the fighting Wretched wounded Blade terribly, we are doing our best to save him. His whole body has been gashed open and he has lost a large amount of blood, he is unconscious at the moment but out doctors have managed to close and clean the wound.

We fear the worst, if the leader attacked Canterlot head on by himself then what sort of force is the whole cult and how will we be able to defeat them?

He got in the castle by shape shifting into different cracks and crevices then taking over the body of one of our guards. After doing so he followed a chef to the throne room, crushing the poor pony to death before assaulting Luna and I inside the room.

We are sending a guard that can cast the barrier spell to Verre right away; we would hate to see this same fate fall upon every pony there. They will not bother with telling any pony when they have arrived; they will simply cast the spell. I have sent a similar letter to this one to the rest of the town so it should not scare any pony else.