Stars glittered over the murky water that surrounded Everfree Castle. Their perfect reflections on the still liquid made it look like one could peer through the center of the earth and see the night sky on the other side. That illusion broke, however, when the ripples from a small barge scattered the reflection into thousands of tiny pieces.

The barge was no more than twenty feet long and about half as wide, with a thick canvas tarp that covered its bulging center. Two torches, one each at the stern and the bow, provided all the light it needed to navigate the small moat around the castle.With no wind to propel the craft, four ponies maneuvered it with long poles that they jabbed into the water. On the deck, another four ponies slowly shuffled back and forth, keeping an eye on the tarp, the ponies with the poles, and the eight legionaries staring down at them from the top of the small dock built into the side of the castle.

Two ponies in armor at the front of the barge, a mare and a stallion, shouted harsh, clipped commands to the ponies propelling it. After several seconds and a few careful maneuvers, the eight ponies on board managed to get the barge moored with its port side facing the castle. The armored ponies hopped off of the unassuming craft and began striding up the docks towards the Legion contubernium, which moved forward to meet them. At the halfway point, both parties stopped, and the stallion of the duo from the barge cleared his throat and nodded over his shoulder.

“Shipment for the castle armory,” the stallion said. The shadows hugged his coat, but the starlight glimmered off of his dark horn, and his piercing blue eyes seemed to have a light of their own.

“What kind of shipment?” the lead centurion from the contubernium asked.

“Arms, armor, basic marching equipment that we liberated from the rebels,” the unicorn replied. “What else would we be bringing to the armory?”

The centurion squinted at the barge and the ponies waiting patiently on it. The unicorn caught his gaze and shrugged. “The boys’ll need some help unloading it. You look like you’ve got plenty of ponypower just standing around. Lend them a hoof, will you?”

“Right, right,” the centurion muttered. He gestured with his wing, and six of the legionaries behind him fluttered over to the barge. The centurion watched them go, and used the motion to try and catch a glimpse of the mare by the unicorn’s side, who’d remained quiet the entire time. Other than her armor, however, he couldn’t make out any of her features. The shadows from the castle hid them too well. All he could see was her praetorian armor, and he mentally kicked himself for forgetting to salute.

“So,” he continued, hoping that the praetorian would forget his little offense, “I don’t see many unicorns in the Legion, especially not in Everfree. Did command choose your horn for the heavy lifting on that shipment?”

The unicorn chuckled. “Yes, yes, there’s always something menial for us unicorns to do in the Legion. Although, if you would be so kind, we have some paperwork we need to fill out.” He gestured with a dark foreleg to the barred door behind the centurion and raised an eyebrow.

“Of course,” the centurion said. He pivoted slightly and nodded to the legionary by his side, who immediately flew up to the door and said a few words through a heavy iron slat. Within a few seconds, the door unbolted and slowly slid open, and two more legionaries stepped outside.

“Security is tight tonight,” the unicorn commented, already walking up the stairs with the praetorian by his side. The centurion followed on their heels, and he rapidly gestured for the three legionaries standing in front of the door to help with the barge.

“Yes, well, we’re on a bit of a heightened alert,” the centurion said after clearing his throat. “Last night we found four of our legionaries who were supposed to be on sentry duty at the castle at the far end of town. They were… crucified by the rebels.” He noticed the mare’s tail swish, and he cleared his throat again. “But I’m sure you already knew that, ma’am. I don’t pretend to know everything that’s going on in the Legion, but I figure a praetorian such as yourself would.”

“Hmmm… yes,” the praetorian answered, and the centurion paused for a second. Her voice sounded familiar… His thoughts were broken by a surprised yelp behind him and the ring of steel on steel.

He whirled around just in time to see nearly three dozen armored ponies leap from beneath the tarp and immediately beset the legionaries standing around it. The soldiers, taken completely by surprise, fell one after the other with hardly a fight. The water splashed as blood and entrails dropped into the liquid onyx and swords fell away as their owners were crumpled under the onslaught.

Too late the centurion realized his mistake. Before he could open his mouth, a thin, icy blade erupted from his larynx, immediately freezing the wound shut. Frozen droplets of blood clattered over the stone like glass marbles before plopping into the water below. With his dying gasp, he turned to see the mare standing behind him with her teeth on the blade of the skysteel sword, and in the moonlight, he could make out her features clearly. Donning a cold, expressionless facade, Typhoon yanked the blade out of the stallion’s neck and watched him fall, lifeless, into the water below.

Five minutes later, the heavy door shut behind a large group of ponies standing in the hallway. Several torches placed at regular intervals provided the only illumination in the stone corridor, and the flickering lights glittered off of each pony’s armor. At the front of the group stood Typhoon, with her unnatural green eyes fixed on the unicorn making his rounds through his troops, and a neutral frown on her face.

Abaddon exchanged a few terse words here and there with his followers, but Typhoon noticed that more often than not, nothing had to be said. A look would suffice to draw the motley group in line, and when nearly three dozen ponies clad in stolen armor and outfitted with Legion weapons arrayed themselves behind him, Abaddon turned to Typhoon.

“I need the layout of the castle,” Abaddon said, striding forward until he was just inches away from Typhoon’s nose. “We have to pick our priority targets and take them down before the alarm is raised. That barge got us a sizable team, but it’s not going to hold up in an open fight.”

“Of course,” Typhoon answered. “Where do you want to go? I’ve got the castle memorized like the back of my hoof.”

“Explaining would take too long,” Abaddon responded. Typhoon raised an eyebrow but remained silent. “I have a better solution.”

His horn charged with green energy, and before Typhoon could ask what he was doing, he touched the tip to her brow.

The mare’s wings flared out and she moaned in agony as hundreds, thousands of chittering voices and whispers flooded her mind. She couldn’t make out what any of them were saying, much less focus on any one voice in particular. A powerful presence probed and sifted through her mind, picking out memories, examining them, and casting them aside after a moment’s consideration. Slowly, the presence collected a bundle of memories about every room of the castle and pulled them away, leaving Typhoon momentarily confused and disoriented. A second later, however, they seemed to flow back to her, and she once again remembered where she was.

The glow around Abaddon’s horn died out, yet Typhoon still heard the whispers and voices echoing in her skull. A piece of the powerful presence also remained, almost watching over her and everything she did. Gritting her teeth, she cursed inwardly and collapsed against the nearby wall.

My apologies. Initiation is… rough for those unprepared.

Typhoon froze in place. She could’ve sworn she just heard Abaddon’s voice break away from the murmurs in her skull. But that couldn’t be. He was standing right next to her; maybe it was—

No, you were on the right track. Look at me.

Typhoon did so, and she found Abaddon staring right back at her. He raised an eyebrow, and Typhoon touched a hoof to her temple. Groaning, she shook her head. “How…?”

“It’s how I keep on top of things,” Abaddon said, this time with his actual voice. “I can plan raids and hear things from miles away. And I can communicate with my agents directly, no matter how far apart we are.” Like this.

The praetorian blinked, and again she rubbed her temple. “How does it work?”

“You don’t need to know how,” Abaddon said, beginning to move towards the end of the hall. “It just does. I can hear everything you’re thinking. If you need me, I’ll never be far away.”

Typhoon hesitated for a few seconds, but when Abaddon’s ponies started walking by her, she shook her head and trotted up to Abaddon’s side. Weird, she thought, and as she did so, she noticed it echo slightly in her head before it faded away. Spells like this would help with infiltration missions. How come I’ve never heard of it before?

Because nopony else knows it, Abaddon thought back. I’m the only one who can cast this spell. I’m the only one with the knowledge and experience to maintain it as well. Diamond mages have tried experimenting with something similar in the past, but I’ve had time to perfect it.

Time? Typhoon thought, cocking her head. When did you have time to make something like this? How old are you, anyway?

Older than you’d think, Abaddon responded. He stopped in front of another large door at the end of the hall and waited for Typhoon to arrive at his side. From here on out, no noise. I’m going to pay the guests from the Union a visit. Typhoon, take a small group with you and find Star Swirl. The rest of you will take out priority targets throughout the castle, and if things go wrong, retreat back here. His eyes slid over everypony present, and then he nodded. Every four ponies gets a unicorn dedicated to keeping a silence spell up at all times. If they can’t hear us, then we’ll be in and out before the rest of the Legion responds. He spared the time to shoot a glance in Typhoon’s direction. Now you see why I needed to give you this, Typhoon.

Typhoon shrugged. I’m surprised you didn’t give it to me earlier.

I needed to make sure I could trust you first. The black stallion turned around and wrapped the door handle with his magic, slowly prying it open. Around him, several unicorns lit up their horns, and the usually squeaky iron hinges made not a sound as the door opened. Any competent mage could trace the spell back to me, given enough time. I needed to make sure you wouldn’t make a foolish mistake and run back to the castle before I had time to talk to you.

The mare furrowed her brow while the other ponies moved past the two of them. But how have you kept this a secret for so long? Wouldn’t somepony spill the beans eventually?

Abaddon shot her a small and sickening grin. Tell me, Typhoon, did you ever take one of my followers alive?

Typhoon opened her mouth but stopped and frowned. No, come to think of it. They all died immediately upon capture. They poisoned themselves.

Not poison, Abaddon mused, leading the way through the door with Typhoon following. The second part of the spell. You’re a praetorian; I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you the concept of the greater good.

He paused at the opening into a much larger corridor where several strike teams were already splitting off and making their way to different parts of the castle. He placed his hoof on Typhoon’s shoulder for just a moment and smiled lightly. Please don’t get captured. But if you do… at least I can spare you from Star Swirl’s torture.

Twister awoke with a violent, choking cough. Her head flew back from the table where it had been resting, and her chair momentarily teetered on two legs as her shoulders flew into the backrest. She pounded on her ribs with her hooves, and a few seconds and a few painful coughs later, she hacked up half of a slimy brown feather lodged in her esophagus.

The mare stared at the thing resting on the stack of thank you letters, drafts of bills, and other pieces of legislative tedium with an exhausted annoyance for interrupting her precious, stolen sleep. By the light (or lack thereof) coming through the windows, Twister figured it was well past midnight. She looked at the stack of papers she had left to finish going through and the number of broken quills scattered around her desk and groaned. Despite her happy dreams, the paperwork hadn’t magically finished itself while she slept.

As she had expected, the arrival of the Union delegation had become a legislative nightmare. The unrestrained mouth of its archmage only made it worse. And when Wintershimmer’s foul temperament angered the patrician families of Cirra, they all forwarded their complaints to her. As Legatus of Cirra, Twister had the undesirable duty of responding to them all and trying to soothe their wounded egos so they would continue to supply the Legion and the government (but mostly the Legion) with the funding it needed to operate.

Twister frowned at the paperwork she’d done, and what still had to be finished. She figured it was past time she hired a secretary. Or two.

A walk would do her tired mind some good, she told herself. Her finely carved chair slid back with a slight groan and she reared onto her hind legs, stretching her limbs as far as they could go. The familiar rush of alertness made her happily sigh, and she began to walk across her office with a blissful roll of her neck. If only she could be curled up in her own bed with Echo’s strong forearms wrapped around her waist…

At least the stallion had grown used to Twister’s late nights; she’d spent more than she cared to remember sleeping at her office, trying to patch together the laws and documents that would govern how the amalgamation of three distinct pony nations would work. Why did her brother insist on her having her own office at the castle? Twister knew why. After what happened in Cloudsdale five years back, he kept trying to keep a closer eye on her and fold her deeper and deeper into the safety of the Legion. If only she could go back to running everything out of the office in her home. Then at least she’d always have her husband close by to take care of her. Like two nights ago after the banquet…

Twister smiled rosily and she felt a shudder run all the way through her nethers. She definitely was not disappointed by what she had come home to. The heat building between her flanks made her wonder if she could sneak a quick flight back to Cloudsdale before morning.

She sighed and shelved those thoughts for now with a turn of her head. There she saw Tempest, curled up in a little ball on top of his pillow, sound asleep on the couch by the back wall. The poor foal was absolutely exhausted after spending the whole day running around with the kids of Finder’s friend, Marigold. Pathfinder had suggested the idea to arrange a little play-date between Tempest and Marigold’s kids the night after the banquet, claiming it’d be good for the foal to get his mind off of his mother. Twister agreed, and she was glad to see that it was working, at least for now. Tempest was thankfully sleeping through the night for the first time in days. Still, Twister didn’t want to leave in case he did wake up again and needed somepony to soothe him.

The brown mare frowned and pulled her long mane back over her shoulder. She was out of luck for tonight, but tomorrow night, she was going to try to hoof off Tempest to Finder and Rain to foalsit. Then she’d fly up to Cloudsdale and rut Echo until she passed out.

It was definitely that time of the month…

Yawning, Twister leaned against the door to her office and lazily unlatched it with a wing. She didn’t want to stray too far, but she figured a quick trot up and down the halls would do her some good. Her hooves echoed against the warm flagstones, which had seemingly captured the heat of the summer night and felt absolutely pleasant to touch.

Her thoughts wandered to and fro with a sleepy lethargy as she let her hooves guide themselves. She mentally tallied off the things she had to do when she got back to her office. Coordinate the final stages for the farewell ceremony, draft up an agreement outlining the Divine Sisters’ roles in helping Equestria (if one could be so bold as to ask a goddess to sign a contract), and prepare for another committee meeting with Mayor Greenleaf. For the first time in ages, she was actually looking forward to that one. Clover’s explosive outburst against her father at the banquet had really stirred Parliament, and now the Mayor moved like he was afraid somepony was going to throw rotten fruit at him. Or bricks. It was always fun to watch a rival’s career go up in flames over some stupid scandal or another.

A bloodied body falling to the ground at her hooves as she rounded the corner broke her from her thoughts. She instinctively screamed and jumped backwards, but strangely, her voice didn’t make a sound, and her hooves dropped to the stone quieter than air. The legionary on the ground silently choked on the dagger buried in his larynx and reached a bloody hoof towards Twister before it fell to the ground, dead.

The mare looked up the hallway to where the body had come from, and she froze like a statue. There stood four ponies, two pegasi, a unicorn, and an earth pony, all wearing ill-fitting legionary armor, and each splattered with blood. Behind the quartet stood another unicorn whose horn dissolved mana into the air, giving everything an almost unnoticeable pallid tint. Two more dead legionaries coated the hall with their blood and viscera, and a fourth slid down the wall as the earth pony removed his shod hoof from the remains of the soldier’s skull.

As one, they all looked at Twister.

She didn’t waste any time screaming; some instinct told her to save her breath for the sprint back to her office. Her hooves silently pounded across the ground for eight strides before her wings took over, giving her a speed boost her legs simply couldn’t match as she zeroed in on her office door. In two seconds her hearing restored itself, as she noticed the frenzied whipping of the air at her sides and her own panting breaths. Whatever spell the unicorn had been casting, she’d escaped it for now.

The door to her office had been propped open when she left, and as she entered the threshold, she slid onto her side and kicked the stop away. Now lying on her back, she could see the entire hallway behind her between her outstretched legs. Seeing the five ponies galloping towards her, she gasped and frantically scrabbled at the edge of the door. She managed to close it just enough that she could buck it shut, causing the heavy bolt to tumble from its upright position and latch the door shut. No more than a second later several harsh thuds shook the doorframe before they eerily fell silent. Even still, the door didn’t stop bulging, and dust and grit dangerously spilled from around the edges of the latch.

Twister didn’t waste a second. Scrambling to her hooves, she grabbed whatever furniture she could move and piled it against the door. Panting, her head whipped back and forth before she jumped in Tempest’s direction. The little colt had started to stir from the noise before the unicorn’s spell silenced it, and Twister’s hooves shook him the rest of the way awake. The colt blinked wearily and rubbed his eyes, trying to reorient himself. His lips moved as he mumbled something, but Twister couldn’t hear anything he said. She glanced back in the direction of the door just in time to see the latch break open and the earth pony start muscling the piled chairs and tables out of the way.

Before the intruders could get through, however, Twister lunged forward, scooping up Tempest with her forelegs and kicking off of the wall with her rear legs. Her focus set on the window behind her desk, Twister squeezed her eyes shut and angled her shoulder forward, all the while hugging the trembling Tempest as close to her chest as she could. The impact and the brief moment of resistance knocked the breath from her lungs, but the glass yielded all the same, sending Twister tumbling out of her office with a hundred tiny needles of fire burning into her neck and shoulders.

The pain and dizziness that followed left Twister disoriented and struggling to flap her wings appropriately, and she began to plunge towards the ground some three stories below. She opened her eyes and saw droplets of blood flying away from her, and she realized her neck was bleeding profusely. Gritting her teeth, she hugged Tempest tighter against her body and angled her spine towards the ground to soften the blow for the little colt.

A harsh slap against her back forced whatever breath she still had from her lungs, and soon cold settled all across her body. Her mind still reeled and spun a thousand miles a minute, but she managed to relax her limbs to let go of Tempest. She felt the colt’s little body drift away from her, and she watched as his little body kicked and paddled and flailed in the moonlight shining through the water.

Water…

Twister’s body ached, but a few tests informed her she could still move her limbs. She grunted, and in doing so, lost precious oxygen. She’d already sunk halfway down the castle’s moat, and with some pained paddling, she managed to right herself and look around. The water stung her eyes, but she grimaced around the pain until she could find Tempest flailing in the water. One painful stroke after another, she rose to the surface, even using her wings as paddles to help push herself through the water. The dirty water stung all of the fresh cuts across her neck, shoulders, and back, making it feel like she was laying on a bed of hot coals from a fire. Her lungs burned, and the surface felt miles away.

Just then, a dark shadow swooped across the water, dragging Tempest away with a short splash… and then stillness. Bubbles burst from Twister’s muzzle, and she redoubled her efforts, frantically splashing and flailing her way to the surface. Her ribs felt like they were about to burst, and she reached out a hoof towards the flickering moonlight above her, only to fall a few inches short.

Her lungs cried out, and her reflexes overrode her brain. Cold, cold water poured down her gullet and into her lungs, and too late her body realized its mistake. Incredible pain filled Twister’s chest, lancing up her neck and behind her eyes, and her limbs spasmed with the pulses of dying nerves and the panicked response from her muscles. A few small bubbles of air escaped Twister’s muzzle, and then her eyes rolled back as her body began to sink, a shadow flitting past the moonlight the last thing she saw.

Two more. Left hallway. They’ll be here in a few seconds.

Okay. Opposite sides of the threshold. Typhoon thought back to her comrade, and as one, the two ponies, one pegasus and one earth pony, pressed themselves into the small corners directly adjacent to the hallway. We’ll drop them after they step into the silence spell. The rest of you, take the positions of that last pair.

Typhoon’s emerald eyes focused on the two pegasi standing a ways further down the hall, back where they’d just dealt with a patrol. The two rebels immediately stood side by side close to one of the walls, and the fading glow of a unicorn’s levitation spell was all she needed to see to know the bodies of the legionaries she’d taken down were safely hidden. Adjusting her grip on her sword, Typhoon crouched low and leaned further back into the corner as the clop of hoofsteps grew louder and louder.

“…I mean, you should have seen the Commander after the banquet the other night, Fireburst! He was practically trailing smoke when he walked past me!”

“Are you sure he wasn’t actually trailing smoke, Ace? You know he does that occasionally.”

“No, but… well, maybe? I was just trying to avoid catching his eye.”

Just to her right, two legionaries strolled into the hallway. One was a pegasus, and the one farther from Typhoon was a unicorn. They stopped a few paces away from Typhoon and waved to the two rebels further down the hall, mistaking the stolen armor for that of their fellow soldiers.

“Whatever,” the unicorn, Fireburst, continued as they resumed walking. “I saw Celestis leave shortly after he did. Did she calm them down?”

“You could say that,” Ace replied. “She went into his room shortly after he did. Neither left for a while…”

“Pff, you don’t mean…?”

“Maybe…”

“No, really?”

“…Nah probably not.”

Fireburst chuckled. “Yeah, you’re proba—?”

The unicorn stopped abruptly, as did his pegasus companion. They tried to speak to each other, but the silence spell from the rebel hidden around the corner stole their words. Before they could turn around, Typhoon was already lunging for the pegasus standing in front of her. Hiems swung low, catching Ace’s hind leg in the cannon. The stallion’s leg split in two, and he started to topple backwards. Before he could even scream, however, Typhoon reversed Hiems’ course and plunged it straight into Ace’s side, just below the rim of his armor. Her left wing whirled forward in one smooth motion, and the razor scales along the crest tore the stallion’s throat out. By the time he hit the floor, he was little more than a mangled corpse.

A mist of wet, sticky droplets sprayed onto her right side, and she flinched and recoiled away from the blood. At her side, her earth pony companion removed his hooves from the mushy bowl that once was the unicorn legionary’s head. Two of the unicorn’s limbs were mangled and broken to the point that shards of bone poked through the flesh, and a slowly expanding pool of blood stained the floor around the earth pony’s hooves. The earth pony didn’t so much as blink as he wiped his hooves off against his coat.

Typhoon shook her head. This is why I never took earth ponies on stealth missions. Too messy.

But efficient, the earth pony countered. We can kill without weapons.

Yeah. Good for kicking in the front door. She frowned at the mess at her hooves. No sense hiding these bodies. We’ll never get the stains cleaned up in time. We need to move and take care of our targets before another patrol finds them. She waved her wing and immediately took off down the hall that the patrol had come from, her companions hard on her hooves in the eerie silence of the unicorn’s spell.

As she ran, Typhoon briefly closed her eyes and stretched out into the web of voices surrounding her thoughts. Whispers and other murmured words bounced off her consciousness as her mind singled in on the bright core at the very center of the web. Abaddon, she thought, mentally projecting the words at the core itself. We’re on our way to the archmage tower. No difficulties so far.

Good, Abaddon’s thoughts replied. There have been no problems on my end, but move swiftly. One of my teams reported that a pegasus eluded their grasp, although she fell into the moat surrounding the castle. We might not have much time.

Right. I’ll deal with Star Swirl and then withdraw to the loading area. The mare leaned around a corner, quickly scanning it for patrols, and gestured to the ponies following her with a wing before continuing. How far are you from the Union delegation?

Not too far. We met some slight resistance along the way but nothing that we couldn’t take care of. I don’t think Jade’s personal guards will be any worse than pegasi from the Legion. There was a brief pause, and then, Stay on guard.

Typhoon nodded, even though she didn’t think Abaddon could tell, and withdrew her thoughts back to her own immediate group. She didn’t bother explaining to her companions what she and Abaddon had ‘spoken’ about; it wasn’t important, and she wasn’t entirely sure if they couldn’t listen in anyway. Moving as one small clustered group, the five ponies silently raced around the corner of the hallway, knowing that at any second the legions of Equestria might begin filling the castle with thousands of soldiers.

Static electricity filled the air and tugged on the sweat-laden hairs of Typhoon’s mane. The mare didn’t think; she reacted. Down! she mentally screamed, and she let her forelegs buckle beneath her armored weight while her hind legs and wings flung her skidding body to the far side of the hallway. A second later, purple lightning filled the hallway, its twisting and jagged arcs scouring the stone walls with scorch marks before the tendrils of electricity connected with the armor of the earth pony that had been following her. A bright flash filled the hallway and blinded Typhoon, and the thunder that followed shook the castle to its very foundations.

Typhoon jammed her right legs out and used her momentum to lift back onto her hooves. Her mouth reached for her sword in its scabbard on her left, and she used the motion to check on her squad. The earth pony who had taken the lightning bolt in the chest was little more than a shriveled and blackened corpse, and the rest of her followers were struggling to pick themselves up. The thunder had swept them all off their hooves, and wisps of smoke trailed from their coats. Typhoon realized she could hear their groans; the unicorn’s silence spell had been broken.

Hiems slid from its scabbard with an icy hiss, and Typhoon spread her wings. A dark unicorn mare with a pronounced and lethal horn stood alone at the far end of the hall, just before the stairs leading to the archmage tower. Her yellow, slitted eyes casually flitted between the members of Typhoon’s group like a predator stalking cornered prey, until they settled on Typhoon herself. Then they widened in recognition, the vertical slits becoming slightly more ovular. “Typhoon?”

It didn’t slow the mare in question at all. Her wingtips snapped against her haunches with a powerful downstroke that sent her speeding down the hallway. The strange unicorn widened her stance and her horn began to crackle with a kind of Arcana Typhoon had never seen before. Still, even if it looked different, Typhoon felt the familiar tentative grasp of telekinesis beginning to form around her wings. Tightening her grip on her sword, Typhoon quickly twisted her wings, throwing her body into a sickening corkscrew that shook off the vestiges of magic before they could solidify their hold on her. Only at the last second did she realign her wings and throw her entire weight into the sword swing aimed for the unicorn’s neck.

To her surprise, however, Hiems ricocheted back as if it had struck solid stone. The unicorn had thrown up a shield of such a deep midnight purple that it looked almost black, and a small series of fractures spread from the very center as the magical shield rejected Typhoon’s attack. Still, as her Empatha continued to run through her veins and sharpen her senses, Typhoon noticed the pained grimace on the unicorn’s face and watched the way her legs widened by an almost imperceptible margin. The strange unicorn was strong, yes, but it had taken her a great amount of effort to block that one attack.

Once more Typhoon’s wings shoveled the air around her, and she added her own effort to the rebound from the blocked attack. In a blur of color she whirled completely around and struck again, forcing the unicorn to once more throw down another quick but exhausting shield. With each blocked attack, Typhoon pressed her advantage harder and harder, slowly chipping away at the dark unicorn’s shield and driving her adversary back. Quick slashes from her bladed wings kept the unicorn off balance and forced her to continue backpedaling to protect her vulnerable flanks, and the corners of Typhoon’s mouth turned the slightest bit upwards when she drove her sword tip first through the web of cracks on the unicorn’s shield and felt it give.

But to her surprise, the shield didn’t break, and as she realized her mistake, the arcane ward wrapped around the blade and tugged sharply. Typhoon tugged back, refusing to be disarmed of her weapon, and locked the handle in the bars between her teeth to tighten her grip on it. “Typhoon! Stop this!” The unicorn shouted, slitted eyes boring into Typhoon’s through the murky field of magic separating them. “I know your father! I can take you to him!”

“Don’t... believe... you...” Typhoon growled around the handle of her sword. She whipped her head back and forth a few times to shake it free of Aurora’s grip. “Why should I trust a demon?”

“I’m not a demon!” the mare shouted back. “My name’s Aurora! Please, I can take you to Hurricane! He’s been worried sick about you!”

“Lies!” Typhoon screamed, and instead of pulling away, she suddenly lunged towards Aurora, trying to use the undead mare’s strength against her. Feeling the tension on her magic lessen, Aurora gritted her fanged teeth and sharply yanked on the sword with almost enough force to break it free from Typhoon’s jaws.

The force behind the unicorn’s telekinesis caught Typhoon off guard and tore her hooves from the ground, leaving her wings to flail and try to adjust for her sudden weightlessness. Aurora turned her body alongside the soaring pegasus and winced as she redirected her telekinesis to slam Typhoon hard against the opposite wall. The pegasus let out a pained grunt and immediately tried to stand, but Aurora whipped her head back and forth, slamming Typhoon first against one wall, and then another, yet the mare refused to surrender her grip on her weapon. “Give up!” Aurora shouted, her fangs glistening in the dull light of the moon outside and the torches that dotted the hall. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will not let you take any more lives today!”

“Rrraaaauuugghhh!!” Typhoon screeched as she kicked off of the ceiling she’d just been slammed against. She released her grip on her sword completely and rocketed downwards, icy filaments forming along her wingtips. Her bladed wing crests slashed through empty space where just a moment before Aurora’s neck had been, as the thestral rapidly twirled to the side of the attack. Rolling forward, Typhoon spun across the floor of the hallway, and the ice along her feathers exploded from her body in every direction, filling the small space with thousands of shards of ice as sharp as glass. Aurora cried out in pain as the ice pierced her thick hide to tear into the flesh beneath, and she crumpled as bloody shards burst from the back of her neck to shatter against the far wall. Hiems osculum clattered onto the ground a few feet away as the thestral’s magic cut out.

Panting, Typhoon twisted and rolled back onto her hooves, her wings outstretched by her sides. Her eyes narrowed at the body of the thestral, and her ears picked up the hoofsteps of her companions finally making their way to her sides. Satisfied, she took two strides towards her sword and bent down to pick it up, only to hear the cracking of vertebrae and her companions bristling in alarm. Snatching Hiems from the ground, Typhoon whipped around to see Aurora standing back up.

Grimacing, the thestral poked at the bloody holes in her neck as they began to close over. She spat a wad of thick, brownish blood on the stone floor in front of her and shook her head. Typhoon and her companions all took a nervous step back as Aurora made a show of licking her fangs and cracking her neck. “Right,” the thestral purred, taking slow strides forward. “No more games.”

As one, Typhoon and her three companions lunged towards the thestral, weapons glistening. Aurora didn’t even move as they charged her, and she smiled as their weapons sliced clean through her figure. Typhoon blinked in surprise as the illusion vanished, and she heard a pained screech from her right. She spun around to see Aurora sink her fangs into the throat of the unicorn and tear it out in one jagged and bloody motion. Her telekinesis wrapped around the fresh corpse and hurled it at Typhoon, catching the praetorian in the chest and knocking her back while Aurora withdrew several paces further down the hallway. Her fangs made mincemeat of the flesh in her mouth, and she dipped her head as she swallowed it raw. Before Typhoon’s eyes, every slowly oozing wound on the thestral’s body closed over, leaving her with no blemishes other than the foreign blood lining her muzzle.

Then it was Aurora’s turn to charge. Her hooves fell across the stone with a strange weight to them as she targeted one of Typhoon’s pegasus companions. The pegasus took to the air to get whatever advantage he could against the thestral, but Aurora lit her horn again and the stones around the pegasus tore themselves from the walls and pelted his armored body. Disoriented, the pegasus missed Aurora jump into the air just below him and impale her horn through the thin armor covering his stomach. Blood flew from the pegasus’ muzzle, and Aurora twisted her body in midair to land atop her adversary as they hit the ground. Using her own weight, Aurora backflipped away, and her razor sharp horn split the pegasus open from sternum to navel. A hoof crushing his windpipe was all it took to end it.

Typhoon and her remaining pegasus companion darted to either side of Aurora. The stallion spun into a maelstrom of whirling blades and launched himself at the thestral, while Typhoon jumped into the air, kicked off of the stone walls, and dove down towards Aurora from above. Aurora quickly slid to her right, away from the spinning stallion, and crouched low beneath Typhoon’s leaping attack. A quick pulse of mana caught Typhoon in the stomach and hurled her clear over her companion, who lashed with all three blades at Aurora’s side. Once more the thestral summoned a midnight shield of arcane energy, but the force alone was still enough to send her sliding a few feet to the side.

Growling, Aurora’s horn crackled with power. A blast of pure mana connected with her own shield from behind, combining their volatile energy, and the arcane construction exploded outwards with a bass crack. Typhoon’s companion didn’t have time to dodge, and pure energy seared his hide and caused his armor to take on a dull red glow wherever the sparks struck it. The undead mare smiled as the stallion cried out in agony, her gruesome fangs glistening in the midnight light.

The air screeched right next to Aurora’s ear, and the mare only had enough time to throw up a weak shield to the side of her neck before Hiems connected. Under the force from such a powerful blow, Aurora’s shield shattered immediately, but not without softening what would have been a decapitating strike into a deep slash just under her jawline. Aurora’s limbs flailed as Typhoon propelled her across the hallway with that single blow, and stagnant blood splattered across the floor. The undead mare crashed into the window behind her, shattering the glass panes. Only the heavy iron between the panes kept her from tumbling out, but even those too groaned under the impact of Aurora’s body.

Aurora opened her eyes through the haze of pain just in time to see Typhoon charging at her, sword raised high. The blood pouring from the deep slash in her neck bubbled as she let out a cold breath, and the air shimmered around her. A longsword that rippled with the ghostly energy of the stars above and the fire of distant galaxies appeared just in front of Typhoon’s sword, bringing the mare’s charge to a dead stop. Typhoon snarled and tried to turn towards the side, but Aurora stomped her hoof against the ground and created a shockwave that sent the legionary reeling. Flaring her wings, Typhoon suddenly jumped up and towards Aurora’s left, forcing the mare to turn to keep her sword between the pegasus’ deadly trio of blades and her body.

Crippling pain suddenly shot through the undead mare’s flank, and she cried out as the stallion she’d burned withdrew his sword from her leg. He punched forward with a bladed wing, the scales of which caught Aurora just below the ribs and tore into her cold flesh, before she turned and spat fire directly at his face. The stallion howled and dropped his sword as he immediately began swatting at the flames covering his muzzle, giving Aurora just enough time to return her attention to Typhoon, who was already diving towards her.

Her spectral sabre parried the deep slash of Hiems, but it could do nothing against the bladed wings Typhoon jabbed forward. One caught Aurora just above the knee of her right foreleg, and the other tore through the still arteries at the base of her neck. Aurora tried to counter with a jab of her own weapon, but she knew she was outclassed by Typhoon’s swordsmareship. The blond pegasus leaned to the side and quickly tore her wingblades from Aurora’s neck to snag the spectral sword in midair and snap it in two between the scales on her wing. Then she pressed as hard as she could, becoming a storm of skysteel death that rent flesh and sundered bone. Brown blood splattered across the walls and Typhoon’s coat as the daughter of Hurricane unleashed her full fury upon the undead mare. But just as Typhoon swung with enough force to cleave the mare’s head clean off, she suddenly vanished into a fog of black smoke, and Hiems passed harmlessly through.

Growling, Typhoon quickly darted several steps back, wary of whatever trick Aurora was playing. Her companion wasn’t as quick to act. Just as he put out the last of the flames on his muzzle, the smoke suddenly attacked his face, and he choked as it forced its way down his throat and into his lungs. A second later, the pony began to writhe in agony and let loose a bloodcurdling scream as a daggerlike horn suddenly protruded from between his ribs. Typhoon watched in horror as Aurora slowly broke free from the stallion’s chest like some terrifying parasite hatching from its host. Once she left her bloody shell behind, Aurora squared off against Typhoon as crimson vitality dripped off of her coat.

“What are you?” Typhoon hissed, taking slow steps away from Aurora.

Aurora smiled, displaying her fangs to their full and terrifying length, and matched Typhoon’s retreat. “One of the Mistress’ chosen.”

Then she lunged, and Typhoon darted to the side, attempting to use the walls of the castle to protect her flanks. Icicles formed along the crest of her left wing, and she spun to the right to catapult them at Aurora as she closed in. The thestral swatted them aside with her magic, but she had to choke back on her charge and throw a quick shield in front of her face as Typhoon’s sword suddenly whirled around towards the thestral’s chest. Once again, rather than let Aurora recuperate her strength and prepare more shields, Typhoon pressed her attacks, and Aurora quickly materialized small bursts of arcane energy to ward off the attacks. Suddenly, two long arcane stilettos appeared on either side of Typhoon’s head, and the pegasus darted back as they crossed in front of her nose. Now she was the one backpedaling as Aurora swung her arcane weapons with deadly speed and grace, and while they lacked the strength to penetrate the protective shell of her skysteel armor, they drew blood from the scratches and cuts they tore across her face and neck. But even those were shallow cuts; Typhoon realized the thestral was holding back, as if not wanting to seriously harm her.

Blood dripped into Typhoon’s eye form a cut above her brow, and she quickly flapped her wings to put some distance between herself and the thestral. Aurora watched her go, content to let Typhoon waste time and energy, and she slowly walked towards the pegasus. Eyes darting around the hallway, Typhoon changed her strategy, and allowed ice to begin building along her wings.

Aurora paused and narrowed her slitted eyes at Typhoon. Typhoon’s ice Empatha was the strongest in the world, and even if she’d survived several of Typhoon’s sword slashes and blows, Aurora was leery of the pegasus’ magic. So when Typhoon advanced at a gallop, Aurora widened her stance and prepared her shields.

Typhoon kept her eyes locked on Aurora’s, and when she was no more than fifteen feet away, she suddenly hopped into the air and flung Hiems at Aurora with all the force she could muster. As the mare expected, the thestral quickly manifested a shield to deflect it, but in the effort it took to do so, she lost track of Typhoon’s heading. Where she expected the pegasus to strike from above, Typhoon suddenly dropped to the ground and scraped her bladed wings along the ground, aiming for Aurora’s hooves. The thestral jumped at the last second, clearing the blades with a surprisingly high bound, before landing back in place and turning to Typhoon as she passed. With one final twist, Typhoon righted herself again, and only after she smiled did Aurora realize that the ice along her wings was missing.

Leaning forward, Typhoon stomped onto the edge of the trail of ice that ended right at her hooves. The ice rippled with energy towards Aurora, who realized she was standing on a thick slab of ice left behind from Typhoon’s passage. Suddenly, half a dozen spikes, each several inches thick, burst forth from beneath her and skewered her body, lifting it from the ground, and letting it hang limply in the air. Aurora’s fanged maw hung open in one long silent scream, and her forehooves scrabbled at the icy protrusion bursting forth from between her ribs before ultimately falling slack.

Typhoon panted and watched the still figure of the thestral for several seconds longer. Only when Aurora didn’t move did Typhoon allow herself to take a deep breath and retrieve her sword. With one exhausted motion, she slapped it back into its scabbard and moved towards the door to the archmage tower. Abaddon, she thought, stopping by the door for a minute to catch her breath. We’re in trouble.

Yes, I saw the fight, Abaddon replied. And felt it. We need to move quickly. I can have another team at your position in five minutes.

There’s no time. They’ll only slow me down and I have to catch Star Swirl by surprise. Gritting her teeth, Typhoon spun around and bucked the door open. I’ll see you back at the hideout when it’s all over.

Right. Stay safe.

Typhoon hummed and glanced up the staircase. Shadows covered the interior and for the moment there weren’t any frantic hooves storming down it. Cracking her neck, Typhoon placed her hoof on the first step and glanced back over the shoulder towards the spikes of ice.

Aurora was gone.

Typhoon narrowed her emerald eyes at the ice for a few seconds longer. With a silent curse, she turned around and galloped up the stairs as fast as she could.

Luna opened her eyes, and the yawning emptiness of eternity spread out before her. Tiny motes of white light drifted gently through the soft glow of the emptiness, some larger than others, and some shining with different colors. Unfurling her silky wings, Luna gave them the merest twitch and propelled herself through the emptiness, free of gravity and the other inconveniences of physics.

They did not exist in the dreamscape.

The tiny motes that drifted past Luna’s ghostly form were the dreams of millions of ponies. Abstract as they seemed, Luna knew how to read them perfectly, as she’d been able to do for thousands of years. The size of the mote represented the intensity of the dream, and the color embodied the emotions tied to it. Most were white; they were dreams that the beholder would forget upon awaking. Happy dreams were yellow, peaceful dreams were green. Luna would occasionally stop at a blue dream to soothe a frightened pony and disperse their night terrors, or pause at the angry dreams that burned with a red fire and calm their creators down. Each interaction could take anywhere from seconds to minutes to Luna’s mind, but she knew that a dream only occupied a fraction of a second in the real world. Time, though as inexorably constant in the dreamscape as in the waking world, only crawled by.

Luna always felt a quiet comfort in the dreamscape. Here, and only here, could she be free of the duties and expectations of the waking world, especially ever since following Commander Hurricane to Everfree. In the dreamscape, she could see a thousand sights and live a thousand lifetimes, all in a single night. She was an actor, and the dreams were her stage. She could be a comforting mother to an orphaned foal, a dead brother absolving their sibling of their mistakes, or a child helping a grieving father in the one world where he dare let his emotions show. Her physical body did not exist in the dreamscape, and Luna shaped her projection into whatever a hurt soul needed to see the most to help them sleep soundly at night. It brought back her memories of when she was just a wandering pegasus, young, alone, and only able to feed herself with what ponies gave her for her street performances… and what she stole from them when they weren’t looking.

Luna passed by a blue mote, and her horn briefly pulsed as she touched it to the dream. Almost as soon as the magic died, Luna moved on to the next swath of the dreamscape, discarding the façade of a long-lost marefriend and resuming her neutral identity for whatever the next dream required. She briefly considered visiting a yellow dream and finding some stallion to curl up next to for a few minutes… maybe more.

Mistress…

The mare’s voice echoed through the dreamscape, sounding both near and far, loud and faint. Stopping in place, Luna closed her eyes and folded her wings in front of her chest. A pulse of energy shot out from within her core, blowing away the motes that floated around her body until the whole of the dreamscape began to collapse and dissolve into thin wisps around her. When Luna opened her eyes again, the night sky above Everfree greeted her, and the sore muscles in her haunches reminded her of the hours she’d been sitting down, unmoving.

“Speak,” Luna commanded. A frown adorned her face; she didn’t like being interrupted in the middle of a dreamwalking session.

“There are… intruders…” the mare sputtered from behind her. “Typhoon…”

Luna’s ears perked. “Intruders?” She slowly turned around and looked over her shoulder to see Aurora leaning against the railing of the balcony, gaping holes in her chest and sides, and a puddle of coagulating brown blood beneath her. Gasping, Luna quickly stood up and lowered her horn to Aurora’s brow and channeled energy through it. Within seconds, bones began to snap back into place and sticky flesh started to knit itself together all over the thestral’s body.

After a minute or so, Luna finally withdrew her horn from the fully restored body of her night guard. The edges of her billowing ethereal mane hung flat and pale blue, and her face appeared a few years older. Aurora’s eyebrows raised in alarm, and she quickly rushed to Luna’s side. “Mistress!” she cried, placing her hooves on the taller mare’s shoulders, but Luna shook her head and brushed them off.

“I am fine,” Luna insisted. “Repairing a body as badly damaged as yours is harder than raising a new thestral entirely. But I do not abandon my children when they need me most. Now, speak; who did this to you?”

“Typhoon,” Aurora answered, taking a step back to give Luna her space. “And others. They were in the castle. I killed the four ponies with her but she got the better of me.” She winced and rubbed the new flesh on her chest where just minutes prior a six inch thick icicle had been and grimaced. “We need to alert Hurricane and rally the Legion.”

“Right,” Luna said, turning back to the edge of the balcony and spreading her wings. “I will gather the rest of the Guard. Find my sister and Hurricane; they will no doubt be close together, I would think.”

Aurora bowed. “As you command.”

She turned to leave, but Luna called out to her. “Third Sister, do be careful. I do not think I can restore your body from such damage a second time. We do not know how many more of these rebels fill the castle, so avoid combat at all costs.”

The thestral mare nodded one last time and then disappeared into the shadowy interior of the tower. Luna watched her go, and then with one bound, leapt off of the balcony and swooped low over Everfree towards a rocky crag in the middle of the forest where the Night Guard had laid their roost.

The pegasus squirmed and struggled at the green aura surrounding his neck, only to find nothing to struggle against. His wings flailed and his hooves sought for something to fight, but all he could find was empty air. His mouth opened and closed several times, but there was nothing but eerie silence as desperation filled the stallion’s eyes.

Abaddon apathetically hoisted the pegasus off of the ground with his magic alone and slammed his hapless prey into a nearby wall. Even as the pegasus continued to struggle, Abaddon and his five followers pressed onwards. The unicorn’s horn flared brighter, and the pegasus suddenly stopped struggling as his throat was crushed to half its original size.

Despite the concern in Typhoon’s thoughts, Abaddon was hardly worried. The thoughts and visions of all of his Founders blurred with reality all around him, and he smiled to himself as he watched his groups slowly pick apart the castle’s defenses. There had been some slipups—the most concerning being Typhoon’s failure to kill the strange unicorn without a commotion—but his teams were moving just as he planned throughout the castle. He’d have to figure out what sort of magic the unicorn Typhoon fought was using. It was certainly powerful, and he didn’t even have to be close to the fight to sense it.

An image from outside the castle blurred through Abaddon’s mind, briefly slowing his steps. He could faintly see a large and winged figure diving off of one of the castle’s towers and soaring into the night, away from the castle. He recognized the silhouette of Luna almost immediately, and he habitually scowled in response. Hopefully the alicorn was simply taking a night flight and wasn’t flying off to rally a response.

As much as he wanted to believe the former, he had to treat the situation as if it was the latter. He would have to hurry things up a little. He reached out with his thoughts and immediately began to redirect some of his strike teams to key chokepoints in the castle, using the knowledge he appropriated from Typhoon’s memories. He also sent out a general alert to the members of his ranks embedded in the Legion itself, however few they were at this point, to prepare to delay the Legion’s response. He figured that their sacrifices would buy himself a few crucial minutes to complete his task and get out. Nothing else mattered.

Abaddon peered around the next corner and caught sight of a quartet of crystal guards not twenty feet away—just outside of the zone of silence the unicorn behind him was casting. Without turning around, Abaddon directed his troops with his thoughts and prepared to take them down.

A small gust of air followed Abaddon’s unicorn companion as he rushed around the corner, quickly engulfing the four guards inside the zone of silence. That unicorn was followed by two pegasi and then Abaddon himself, with two more earth ponies taking up the rear. The Crystal guards sharply turned towards the approaching rebels, and quickly lowered the lances bolted to the sides of their armor and take defensive positions.

Abaddon’s horn flared to life, bathing the door between the crystal ponies with a green glow and locking it in place before any of the guards could rush inside and alert Jade to her imminent danger. The two pegasi on his side both hurled themselves into the air and dove for the nearest two Union soldiers, wingblades reflecting the shimmering light of Abaddon’s magic. But the Union soldiers responded quickly, bracing their lances with a foreleg as the pegasi charged. One pegasus failed to dodge the sharp point of a crystal pony’s diamond lance and impaled himself upon it, the sharp point easily piercing his stolen Legion armor and emerging from his back with a spatter of gore. But the second pegasus followed the first and dove underneath the body of his compatriot, knocking that crystal pony back and creating a hole in the Union’s defensive line.

The floor practically shook as the two earth ponies thundered past Abaddon on either side, aiming for the hole torn in their line. The crystal ponies, however, though shaken from the surprise attack, quickly rallied and regrouped, aligning their lances towards the charging earth ponies without needing to speak. Just before the earth ponies would hit their lances, however, Abaddon took his magic from the door and wrapped it around two of the weapons, yanking the attached soldiers forward. Though the lances were bolted to their armor and thus couldn’t be disarmed, Abaddon’s interference still put the two Union soldiers off balance enough that they couldn’t brace against the earth pony charge. Lowering their shoulders, the earth ponies barreled through the line, knocking two of the crystal ponies back and sending a helmet flying down the hall.

There was just one Union soldier left, and with the one unicorn maintaining the silence spell, that left just Abaddon to take him down. Abaddon leered and cantered forward, his horn quickly charging up another spell. The Union soldier quickly lowered his lance and began to charge, but not before breaking the cord of a necklace hanging around his neck. The crystal pony grabbed a small shard of void crystal hanging at the end of the necklace between his teeth, spat it into his hoof, and hurled it with frightening precision at Abaddon’s forehead.

To his surprise, however, Abaddon merely caught the void crystal in midair with his magic. While the magic holding it sputtered and flickered as the crystal devoured its mana, Abaddon simply poured more mana into the black gem until it wobbled and began to grow in size. Only then did he slam it into the ground at the crystal pony’s hooves, where it immediately shattered.

While the blast was silent, the shockwave that filled the hallway nearly swept Abaddon off of his hooves. He quickly widened his stance and peered through the settling smoke and void dust that separated him from his opponent. The crystal pony had by far taken the worst of the explosion as the void crystal detonated at his hooves, and was struggling to stand. The soldier’s armor hung loosely from his shoulders and glowed red in spots, and hairline cracks and fissures covered the his crystalline skin all the way up to his face. Panting, the Union soldier raised his lance once again in Abaddon’s direction, but had to resort to leaning against the wall for support.

Pitiful, Abaddon thought. He reached out with his magic, quickly forming a web around the hapless soldier caught in the center. That web solidified into a sphere of Arcana with the soldier trapped in the middle, and Abaddon quickly swept the pony into the air. Then, lowering his head, he swiftly constricted the sphere. The crystal pony quickly threw his feeble limbs outwards to try and fight against the wall of mana closing in on him, but Abaddon was far too strong. With a placid expression, Abaddon watched as the diameter of the sphere condensed to about six inches across, and he chucked the remains of what once was a pony and armor over his shoulder, where it hit the wall with a dense thud.

Around him, the rest of his infiltration team assembled, leaving the broken, mangled, and sometimes quite literally shattered bodies of their foes behind. The pegasus and one earth pony were nearly unharmed, while blood oozed from a deep wound in the side of the second earth pony. The tip of the shattered lance still protruded slightly from the wound, but the stallion didn’t show any discomfort. If anything, the lance had staunched the bleeding from a torrent to a slow trickle.

Abaddon nodded to the pegasus and wounded earth pony and his horn glowed with energy. In a green fire of arcane magic, he quickly disguised the two ponies under an illusion to make them look like crystal ponies. The two ponies quickly detached lances and armor from the bodies of two of the Union soldiers and donned them to complete the disguise. Next, Abaddon nodded to the unicorn behind him, who dissipated the silence spell. Once the unicorn was finished with that, Abaddon gestured to the two disguised rebels and took a few steps back from the wall.

The first of the rebels walked up to the door and pounded hard on it. “My queen!” he shouted, pounding again. “Queen Jade!”

Abaddon’s ears twitched and he listened intently through the wall. “Mmmffff… Azurite?” Jade’s voice sounded tired and lazy, and Abaddon blew a tense but relieved breath through his nostrils. The Union’s queen hadn’t woken during the brief scuffle outside of her door.

Hearing Jade’s voice, the rebel nodded to Abaddon and opened the door, his disguised compatriot following him inside. Abaddon closed his eyes and quickly sought out the connection to that pony’s mind. Through his eyes, Abaddon saw the glittery form of Queen Jade sitting up in a very large bed against the far wall of the room. At her side, an amber earth pony stirred at the noise, blinking and rubbing his eyes with a fetlock. The rebel’s vision raised an inch or two as he and the pony standing next to him quickly saluted.

“My queen, there’s been a situation,” the rebel continued, feigning a nervous glance over his shoulder. “You’re not safe here. We have to leave the castle immediately.”

Jade seemed to force her exhaustion away with a single crack of her neck. “Status report,” she ordered, straightening her posture and looking as regal as she could despite being caught naked in bed in the middle of the night. At her side, Smart Cookie managed to sit up enough to try to make sense of what was happening.

“We’re not entirely sure, but numerous armed individuals wearing Legion armor are roaming the castle, slaughtering anypony they catch.” He turned towards the door and gestured with his head. “We can’t keep this position safe anymore.” He pointed a hoof towards the doorframe for emphasis, where the dead body of one of the rebel pegasi still lay impaled on a lance.

“Right.” In one fluid motion, Jade rolled out of bed and onto her hooves. Her horn lit up and surrounded Smart Cookie’s body in a ghostly glow, helping him out of bed and onto his hooves despite the brief, shocked flailing of his limbs. Her wing wrapped around Smart Cookie’s frame in a brief hug before she nudged him forward. Together the two cantered to the door, passing the disguised rebels, who immediately followed on their heels.

Abaddon opened his eyes and strode forward, his horn beginning to glow with energy. The wall to his left shimmered, casting flickering shadows on him and the earth pony that had stayed behind as they blocked the doorway.

Jade stopped, taking a defensive step back and instinctively casting a wing in front of Smart Cookie to protect him. “Stop!” she shouted, her own horn beginning to glow. “Who are you? What do you want?”

A smirk tugged at Abaddon’s lips. “Equestria sends its regards.”

The two ponies behind Jade suddenly lunged forward with their lances, planting them both in the alicorn’s sides. Jade stumbled forward from the blow, her eyes bulging, while Smart Cookie screamed and lunged to support her. The alicorn nearly collapsed to the ground, resting on her knees, and the magic dissipated from her horn.

His prey effectively immobilized, Abaddon released the energy stored in his horn.

With a sickening crunch, the wall separating him from Jade’s quarters exploded inwards. Huge chunks of stone, some as big as a pony’s head, filled the room as deadly projectiles, immediately flattening Jade, Smart Cookie, and the ponies standing behind them. A second later, Abaddon bared his teeth and shifted his attention to the ceiling of the room. With a second burst of incredible force, the ceiling bulged, cracked, and finally gave way, raining down even more titanic stones and detritus on the trapped ponies. The force of the impact and the weight now piled on the floor was too much for it to bear; with a loud rumble, that too gave way, pouring into the dark abyss of a room below.

When all was said and done, and the dust from the collapsed walls and floors of the castle had cleared, all Abaddon could see was a pile of rubble two floors below him.

“Long live the queen,” he muttered, eyeing it for a moment longer as the last pieces of stone shifted once more, then fell as still as death.

Author's Notes:

I know it's been a long time, so here it is. The chapter was originally twice as long, but at the suggestions of my editors, I split it in two. As a result, I had Typhoon murder two of their OCs.

The next part should be released next week. I threw in some music to make it up to y'all.

Enjoy!