Commander Hurricane’s eyes flew open. Immediately, the fogginess of sleep vanished from his mind, and blinking once, he focused on the glass of water sitting on the nightstand next to his bed. Tiny ripples covered the surface of the liquid, which gently rocked back and forth in its container.

Something was wrong.

The aging pegasus slipped out of bed and closed his eyes, letting the muscles in his body relax. Sure enough, he felt the very end of a series of tremors reverberating throughout the castle. Could it be an earthquake? No, it didn’t last nearly long enough; a few seconds at the most. An earthquake that short wouldn’t have been strong enough to be felt.

Something was definitely wrong.

Hurricane immediately approached his armor stand and began strapping the pieces to his body. He’d been a soldier for twenty-five years now, and the slightest disturbance in the night would wake him from his uneasy sleep. As far as he could recall, he hadn’t slept soundly in years. Close to five, if he were to be exact.

It took Hurricane only a few minutes to don his armor and strap his sword to his side; he’d donned it nearly every day for so many years now that it was like a second skin. Once everything was secure, he lifted his black-crested helmet from its stand, but nearly fumbled it in his hooves when he heard a voice right behind him.

“Oh, good. You’re already awake.” Aurora couldn’t help but reveal the tiniest bit of her fangs in a small smirk as the stoic commander jumped and cursed beneath his breath. "I guess Celestia already went to bed, right?"

“Aurora?” Hurricane finally managed, roughly slapping his helmet over his head to hide his fluster. “She's... What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

The thestral rolled her eyes. “Spooky undead magic. Short version is there’s intruders all over the castle. Don’t know how many, but they look like that rebel group you guys have been dealing with.” She began to walk towards the door, stretching and working her jaw from side to side. “Your daughter’s a real ice queen, you know that?”

Almost immediately, hooves connected with Aurora’s shoulders, sending her flailing into the wall. Hurricane pinned her against it, his muzzle only a few inches from Aurora’s, and his magenta eyes burning with desperation and fury. “Typhoon? She’s here?” His grip tightened on Aurora’s shoulders, making her grimace. “What did you do to her?”

“Relax,” the thestral said, calmly pushing against Hurricane’s chest just enough to relieve the pressure of his grip. “I didn’t even hurt her. She’s a tough girl, I’ll give her that. And a hell of a fighter. Killed me three times in that fight, but thank the Mistress I’m already dead.”

Hurricane suddenly released his grip on Aurora, sending the thestral flatly flopping to the ground. The pegasus commander looked around him in a bewildered fashion, and his breathing gradually increased into pants. “I have to find her,” he muttered, already spreading his wings and galloping towards the door. “I have to stop her before she gets hurt.”

“Ungh…” Aurora groaned, climbing back to her hooves. She heard the doors open and saw Hurricane’s armored body slip through the crack, his short tail disappearing in a tense swish. “H-hey! Wait up!” she shouted, galloping towards the door herself. “You don’t even know where she is!”

By the time she burst through the door, Hurricane’s hoofbeats had turned into the near-silent swishes of his wings, the wingblades strapped to them rattling slightly as he disappeared from sight. Sighing, Aurora slapped her hoof to her forehead and shook her head. “Ugh… and the father of the year award goes to…”

Without anything more, Aurora broke into a gallop down the hallway, then vanished into the dark shadows filling the castle.

Twister wretched and heaved, vomiting cold, cold water all over her chest and forelegs. She coughed and hacked on the water still in her lungs, and her small frame shuddered as it struggled to expel the remainder onto the ground. Finally, gasping for breath, she groaned and flopped onto her side, her numb limbs shaking and her teeth chattering.

“Oh, good. You’re still alive,” came a disinterested voice from behind her. Groaning, Twister rolled over to see a thestral mare with a shaggy white coat and a crimson mane standing over her. A teasing glint lit up the mare’s slitted eyes. “Although I wouldn’t have minded if you stayed down a little while longer. You’ve got soft lips.”

Twister sat up and rubbed a fetlock against her muzzle. “Ha ha, but you’re not the first mare I’ve kissed in my time,” she muttered, her voice still coarse and rough from nearly drowning. “Sorry to tell you, but I’m already happily married. And frankly, you’re not my type.”

Then her eyes widened, and she froze in place. “Tempest…” she murmured, and she began to bewilderedly look around her. “Tempest! Where’s—!”

The thestral roughly placed her hoof over Twister’s muzzle. “Don’t pluck your feathers, Legatus. Your grandnephew’s safe. Seventh is taking care of him.” She nodded over her shoulder, and Twister craned her neck around the mare’s toned body to see Tempest curled up and shivering under the shadow of a unicorn thestral, who gently ran a hoof up and down the little colt’s back.

The tawny mare let out a sigh of relief. She coughed lightly into her hoof and looked out at the moat in front of her, not more than ten feet away. “You’re the one who plucked Tempest out of the water?”

The thestral slowly nodded. “And you as well,” she added. “You’re lucky I was by the infirmary. I heard glass shatter and saw you fall into the moat below. Seventh was nearby so I hoofed the colt off to him when I had to go fishing to haul you out.”

She turned away, watching her sibling smile at the little colt, and she absentmindedly tongued one of her fangs. “The kid’s fine. A little shaken up, and a little chilly, but it’s water that’s been sitting under the summer sun for weeks now. It’s hardly even cool.” A brief pause, and she shrugged her bat-like wings. “You should have some numbness in your extremities, but that’ll go away after a few minutes. Shortness of breath, chills, and dizziness are common, but you weren’t under long enough to get permanently addled. Just… take it easy.”

Then, without warning, the thestral mare snapped open her leathery wings. “Stay put,” she ordered, shooting a sidelong glance at Twister through her slitted eye. “I’m going to see if your friends are ransacking your office and deal with them.”

“Wait!” Twister weakly exclaimed, lunging forward and nearly tripping as she reached for the undead’s outstretched wing. “My brother, Hurricane… he needs to know what’s happening!”

“Commander Hurricane has already been alerted by one of my siblings,” the mare explained. “The Legion is already mobilizing. Just stay out of the way.” Then she flapped her wings once and shot out into the night sky before violently twisting and corkscrewing through the shattered window with a hiss.

Twister couldn’t help but frown as she watched the thestral disappear. She didn’t know nearly enough about their kind as she’d like to, given their sudden appearance in the halls of the castle, especially at night, since Lūn’s arrival in Everfree. They were a big question mark in Twister’s book of potential assets, and the only connections she could draw to them was their subservience to the goddess of the night. She recalled the foal’s tales about the sun’s darker sister and her army of demons and shadows, and wondered if there wasn’t some merit to them.

She rose to her hooves with a groan and began to stumble over to Tempest and the stallion watching over him. The thestral turned slitted eyes towards Twister and gently nudged the foal sitting at his hooves. Tempest’s damp ears perked and he looked in Twister’s direction. Gasping, the little colt stood up and bounded over to the tawny mare, throwing himself around her forelegs.

“Aunt Twister!” the shivering colt exclaimed, nuzzling Twister’s legs. “You’re okay!”

Twister smiled and nuzzled the colt’s forehead. “I’m okay, Tempest. I’m just glad you are too.” She bent down and scooped Tempest up into her forelegs so she could cuddle him easier. “I didn’t mean to scare you, either.”

To her surprise, Tempest emphatically shook his head. “I wasn’t scared, Aunt Twister!” he exclaimed. “The stallion over there said that that shouldn’t scare somepony like me. So I wasn’t scared!”

“Did he now…” Twister murmured, eying the thestral sitting half a dozen yards away. The thestral stared back with an even and expressionless gaze, seeming almost statuesque. If anything, he seemed to be intently focused on the foal in Twister’s forelegs.

“Mmhmm!” Tempest hummed, vigorously nodding. “And he said I was going to be a great legionary someday, like Mommy! He said he was going to help me!”

“Help you?” Twister echoed, looking down at Tempest with a look of disbelief. “And what exactly does he mean by—?”

She looked up, only to see the unicorn thestral was already gone, vanished into the night.

Twister narrowed her eyes, trying to catch some glimpse of the fleeing stallion, but there was nothing to be found. It was almost as if he was never there to begin with.

“Hey, Aunt Twister?” Tempest murmured from the mare’s forelegs. “Why was that mare kissing you?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Twister mumbled, not really paying attention. Her mind—and her concerns—were elsewhere, as she looked upon the castle which she knew was filled with ponies trying to destroy fragile Equestria.

Typhoon leaned away from one sword slash, then dived inside of another, slamming her shoulder into a legionary’s throat and sending that mare to the ground. Growling, Typhoon quickly pivoted and flung her left wing out, the blades on its crest deflecting a sword swing aimed for her exposed shoulder. Her sword followed the motion, and that too repelled another strike from the pony momentarily flanking her.

Sparks filled the narrow hallway as Typhoon’s limbs and mouth turned into a deadly waltz of blades, parrying strikes and delivering quick ripostes when possible. Her wingblades locked an opponent’s sword in their grasp, and Typhoon pulled him forward with a ferocity that carried the stallion off of his hooves and impaled his neck on her opposite wing. She threw her weight immediately to the left of the corpse she held tight and pivoted about its dying spasms to block a slash aimed for the back of her head with its armor. With a firm yank, she tore her wing free and shoved the body forward, making the stallion who’d struck at her reflexively open his forelegs to catch it. Flaring her wings, Typhoon leapt into the air and bucked the corpse under the chin, sending its head cracking back and causing the helmet it wore to shatter the living legionary’s nose behind him into a bloody, broken mess. As that stallion howled, Typhoon somersaulted in midair and slammed her hooves down on the stallion’s brow, just beneath the brim of his loose helmet, sending shards of his own skull into his brain and killing him instantly.

Hoofsteps echoed off the stone behind her, and Typhoon quickly bit onto a handle protruding from a leather bandolier bolted to the front of her armor. In one whirling motion, she turned completely around and loosed a small throwing knife, which easily found a home between the charging legionary’s eyes. Those eyes went cross and her legs collapsed, and the body slid the last few feet to Typhoon’s hooves.

Sensing no further danger, Typhoon bent down and calmly snatched the dagger between her teeth. One firm tug was all it took to pull it from the fallen legionary’s skull, and she remorselessly slid it back into her bandolier. A small, shaky movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she turned to see the mare she’d floored slowly shuffling back against the wall, one hoof clutching at her bruised throat.

“Please…” the mare croaked, shying away from the approaching Praetorian. Her hooves trembled in fear and she quickly averted her pink eyes. “M-mercy…”

Typhoon stared intently at the mare, who knew her life was being weighed by her executioner. A tiny flicker of magenta momentarily disturbed the emerald of Typhoon’s eyes, and the blond mare winced and placed a hoof to her temple. The helpless mare cowering on the ground chanced a glance at Typhoon, a tiny glimpse of hope in her eyes.

Just then, the entire castle rumbled, and Typhoon spread her legs out. Her eyes reverted to their solid emerald coloration. Abaddon? What the hell was that?

My objective, the stallion thought back from elsewhere in the castle. I’m going to buy you whatever time I can, but hurry. We need to get out of here.

Not until Star Swirl is dead, Typhoon thought back with a touch of hate. Then I leave.

Abaddon’s thoughts were silent for a moment. Then he responded, Very well. Finish what you’re doing and hurry.

Typhoon nodded and slowly turned around, eyeing the hallway that approached the mage’s tower. She could be there in five minutes if she hurried.

The mare at her hooves clasped her hooves together and began to weep. “Oh, thank you, thank you,” she cried, interpreting Typhoon’s apparent disinterest as her pardon. “A thousand times—”

She didn’t get to finish. Typhoon leaned onto her front legs, pulled her rear pair up, and then bucked straight behind her. Her rear hooves connected with something firm before crunching through it, muffling a shout of pain from behind her. A second later she walked forward, not checking to see if the legionary was dead or not.

That was the only mercy Star Swirl’s minions deserved.

Typhoon pressed onwards, but another figure galloped around the corner towards her. Instinctually, Typhoon drew her weapon and began to charge forward, but a faint spark of recognition slowed her advance. She came to a halt no more than fifteen feet from the newcomer, who stood stock still in shock.

Commander Hurricane’s eyes widened and his mouth fought for words he couldn’t get out of his throat. Standing before him was the daughter he’d longed to see again for so long, but now he almost wished she wasn’t there. The mare in front of him was not his daughter. Her armor was plastered with drying blood and a trail of savagely mauled bodies laid in her wake. Her eyes, once a magenta like his own, but now piercing emerald, bored through him with a fury that Hurricane had never known his daughter to own.

“Typhoon…” the aging stallion croaked. “What have you done…”

“Father,” Typhoon responded, albeit blunt and cold. She winced as a brief flicker of magenta stole the emerald from her irises. “You were dead…”

“Dead?” Hurricane echoed, struggling to keep his voice level. “What do you mean? Typhoon, what happened, what have they done to you? This isn’t like you at all…”

Typhoon sneered and began to stomp forward. “Leave his body alone, mage,” she spat, staring through Hurricane’s eyes as if she could see somepony on the other side. “He’s earned his rest.”

Hurricane recognized the murderous glint of an enraged soldier in his daughter’s eyes, even beneath the emerald, and began to backpedal. “Typhoon, put your sword down. I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but we can help. You’re safe now! Star Swirl can—!”

“No!!!” Typhoon screeched, and with an enraged flap of her wings, launched herself at her father, sword at the ready. Hurricane hardly had time to cross his own bladed wings in front of his chest before his daughter was upon him in a clash of skysteel, and the impact nearly knocked him off his hooves. Flailing his wings and forelegs, he managed to right his balance just enough to block another of his daughter’s attacks.

“Typhoon!” Hurricane grunted between attacks nearly too fast for him to block—nearly. “Stop it! It’s me, your father!”

“Lies!” Typhoon spat, managing to slip a wing underneath Hurricane’s defenses and scratch the breastplate of his armor. “I won’t let you use his body any longer! I’m going to let you rest in peace, dad, and then I’m going to kill him for defiling your body like this!”

Without his sword, Hurricane realized he was at a tremendous disadvantage against somepony as skilled as his daughter. Kicking away from the last attack, he withdrew a few dozen feet down the corridor and drew Procellarum. Even that distance was hardly enough to save him from Typhoon’s wrath; the mare was upon him almost immediately after he steadied the weight of his weapon. With a powerful buck, Typhoon caught Hurricane’s unguarded chest and sent the older pegasus tumbling backwards into a large room.

“Hurricane!”

Typhoon turned her head at Aurora’s voice. The thestral mare came galloping down a connecting hallway to the room Typhoon and Hurricane found themselves in. Gritting her teeth, Typhoon built up ice in her hoof and stomped it hard onto the ground. The ice shot out towards the hall and suddenly rose from floor to ceiling, completely sealing that passageway off. Aurora slid to a stop and pounded her hooves against the ice before realizing how thick it was.

“Stay out of this,” Typhoon growled, leaning harder onto her hoof and causing a volley of ice shards to explode out of the wall and force Aurora away. The thestral tried to counter with her magic, but her sharp horn sparked and sputtered on her forehead. She spat something Typhoon couldn’t hear, and then doubled back down the corridor.

A large weight landed on Typhoon’s shoulders, and she felt forelegs try to sweep her limbs out from underneath her. Gritting her teeth, Typhoon fought to gain what room she could with her wings and let Hurricane’s momentum carry her into a roll to the side. As soon as her father’s back hit the ground, she thrashed with all her might, loosening his grip on her shoulders just enough to break free. Her natural agility let her pirouette away as she bounded and spun on her forehooves until she was a good ten feet away. Then she charged.

Hurricane readied himself for the blows, spreading his legs wide as soon as he stood up again. Typhoon led with her right wing, so Hurricane countered with his left, and the scales from both wings locked together in a shower of sparks. The glow illuminated Typhoon’s muzzle as she swung Hiems Osculum at Hurricane’s helmet, forcing the dark stallion to disengage and withdraw before it could connect.

Sneering, Typhoon slowly stalked counterclockwise around the room. Her hooves echoed a menacing staccato off of the stone floor, one that reminded Hurricane of the many desperate battles he’d fought in his life. Instinct offered to take over, but the stallion refused to heed its directive; he didn’t want to chance hurting his daughter.

Typhoon seemed to sense the legendary Cirran commander was holding back. Her grip seemed to tighten on her sword, though to Hurricane it seemed more through pain than from determination. Her eyes flickered magenta for the briefest of seconds, and Hurricane thought he saw for a moment the daughter he knew trying to break free. Just as he was about to rush forward, however, Typhoon’s eyes solidified in a sharper glaze of emerald. Wordlessly, she dove back towards her father, ice building along the crests of her wings. Hurricane quickly spun himself about to meet her charge, and skysteel sang as it smashed together as Typhoon’s ferocity pressed the commander back, who carefully yielded ground to her incoming onslaught. He kept one magenta eye trained on Typhoon’s wings, which so far hadn’t entered the fight, while the other focused on predicting and blocking his daughter’s deadly sword slashes.

The walls of the room echoed with blows as Typhoon held nothing back, and she threw her entire weight into three strikes aimed right along the end of Hurricane’s blade. The attacks slightly jostled the stallion’s grip on his weapon, and he withdrew a pace to readjust it; just the opportunity Typhoon was looking for. Shouting in exertion, she took a step back and smashed her two wings together. The charged Empatha exploded outwards from the angle of her wings, showering the immediate area in front of her with razor sharp shards of ice.

Hurricane heard the crack of ice, and he instinctually turned his back towards Typhoon and ducked his head. Searing hot bolts of pain shot through his flanks and his exposed legs, but he felt many more shards of ice shatter against his legendary armor. He forced the pain out of his mind and spun around as fast as he could to protect himself from Typhoon’s onslaught, but to his surprise, his daughter was already there, sword swinging wildly for his neck. The commander quickly reared up and angled his sword down, trying to block the blow and deflect it away from his exposed neck, but all he managed to accomplish was nick the tip of Typhoon’s sword with his own. The contact, small as it was, interrupted Typhoon’s swing just enough to bleed off some of the dangerous force behind the blow. Even robbed of the momentum to maim or kill, however, Hiems sailed past the last of Hurricane’s defenses and struck his exposed breastplate.

The force of the impact forced the breath from Hurricane’s lungs and lifted him off of his hooves as Typhoon’s sword bit into his onyx armor. Typhoon didn’t end her swing as soon as it hit Hurricane’s armor; with a roar, Typhoon followed all the way through the strike, hurling her father towards the opposite side of the room. The stallion hit the floor hard and rolled away from further attacks, but was slow getting to his hooves. Hurricane felt the aching in his aging, hollow bones, and he tasted copper in his mouth. Gritting his teeth, he spat a bloody wad onto the ground at his hooves. His body was covered in numerous small cuts from Typhoon’s magic, and a solid line cut across the front of his armor, bisecting the lightning bolt motif. His heart began to race, and he quickly swallowed to try and force it back down.

He knew he was holding back, but what more could he do? If he tried harder, he risked hurting his daughter, or even worse. But shortening his blows and simply trying to defend himself was wearing him down. Typhoon, though not as strong as him, had youth on her side, and through sheer force of will she was outlasting, even besting the living legend. Given time, Hurricane had no doubt that she could end the fight.

The blond mare began circling again, and Hurricane matched her, slowly regaining control of his breathing. He glanced at the mark she’d inflicted in his armor and drew a punctuated breath. Nopony had ever managed to hit him like that before.

He looked back at Typhoon and locked eyes with his daughter, sensing another attack incoming. If he didn’t fight back, he knew she was going to kill him. But could he risk his own daughter’s life for his own?

Typhoon’s cry of fury and the snapping of her wings at her sides didn’t give him the luxury to think.

Diadem bolted upright, toppling the small tower of gemstones arrayed before her. She looked around her as she felt the vibrations that shook the castle to its core subside. Squinting through bleary and bloodshot eyes, she took in the scattered pieces of paper covered in scrawled notes, the gemstones spread across her desk, and the large shard of void crystal lying in the corner.

Right… her research…

Diadem swished her tongue around her teeth and gums to try and clear the icky dry taste out of her mouth. She must’ve been sleeping for longer than she thought. She glanced at a nearby clock and rubbed a sore spot on the side of her muzzle. Was it really that early in the morning?

The aqua teenage mare sighed and leaned back in her tall wooden chair. She had no idea what had caused the castle to shake like that, but in her mind, she wrote it off as seismic activity. The land around Everfree was really unstable, as evidenced by the multitude of caves and tunnels that ran beneath the city. That, and it was situated next to the tallest mountain she’d ever seen, between two large fault lines.

Diadem’s lazy and tired magic took hold of the notes she’d scrawled and shuffled the papers before her weary eyes so she could refresh herself on what she was trying to accomplish: a system of gemstones that could efficiently transport mana from one location to another, like circuitry. Diadem knew the parts and their hypothesized uses—sapphires for absorption, diamonds for storage, emeralds for emittance, and rubies for amplification—but getting them to work in unison was proving to be the challenging part. She’d tried using some void dust to draw mana from one gem to the other, but that tended to consume more energy than it transferred.

The filly screwed up her face and tapped a hoof against the desk she was working at. Charging the sapphire by itself and then placing it in direct contact with the diamond hadn’t done anything, and trying to force energy out of the sapphire was horribly inefficient. She scratched her muzzle and went back to tapping against the table. Maybe she could fuse the gems into some composite with the strengths of each and the weaknesses of none?

Tap tap tap tap t—

Diadem’s ears perked at the sudden silence. She tilted her head and glanced at her still beating hoof, noting the distinct lack of sound. Frowning, she pounded her foreleg against the table several times, but neither that nor the wobbling gems made any noise.

She glanced up, and her teal eyes sharpened as she stared at the far wall—or rather, the air between her and the far wall. Sure enough, she caught the faint rippling of light as a spell moved through it. It was gently curved towards her, going to her left and her right, which meant its point of origin was behind her…

The unicorn turned about in her seat just as she saw the door gently open behind her. Her eyes widened as she saw several figures standing in the open portcullis, their armor smeared with blood, and eyes quickly darting around the room before they settled on her. Silently, two earth ponies in the front charged forward, followed by a pegasus above. Two unicorns, both with horns glowing, remained at the threshold, but only one directed her horn towards Diadem.

In a silent shriek, Diadem raised her forelegs in front of her face and cowered behind them. She clenched her eyes shut and curled up, afraid she was going to die, until she felt a tugging sensation on her horn. Cracking one eye open, she saw a solid teal wall separating her from the surprise assailants, fed by mana from her horn, and flickering under the heavy beating the ponies on the other side inflicted upon it.

Slowly, Diadem relaxed her limbs and managed to crack a relieved smile. She felt the barrier siphoning her mana pool as it withstood the assault, but that hardly concerned her. It was like skimming the top layer off of an ocean each second. She could withstand the scattered and random attacks for hours if she needed to. Sliding out of her chair, she trotted up closer to the shimmering shield and stuck her tongue out at the frustrated ponies on the other side.

The earth ponies and pegasus on the other side of the shield glared at her and withdrew, and the unicorn who Diadem assumed wasn’t maintaining the silence spell stepped forward. He lowered his horn towards Diadem’s shield, and with a burst of vibrant energy, shot concentrated mana forward like a razor into the center of her arcane barrier. The shield crackled and warped, and as Diadem focused on channeling more mana to compensate for the damage, the earth ponies and pegasus began focusing their attack on the cracks, making them slightly wider.

While Diadem’s mana pool was effectively limitless, the damage inflicted to her shield far outstripped her ability to reinforce it. It would collapse under such a concentrated barrage of attacks in a few minutes; the mare knew she needed to act fast. Backing away from her barrier, she quickly scanned the rest of the room for another way out, something she could use, anything. She felt the draw on her mana flicker and pulse with each hit, and it felt like a dragon was slowly driving its talons into her forehead.

Diadem’s frantic search turned up nothing. There were no other doors or windows, and certainly not any secret passages. No weapons or anything she could use to defend herself. She stopped by her desk and watched as her barrier cracked and bulged. Swallowing hard, she realized she was going to die in that small little room.

Her eyes caught sight of the gems lying on her desk. Maybe…

Her magic snatched up the sapphire. The glossy sheen of the blue gemstone was brilliant, strong, and swirled with magic she’d pumped inside, but it was also brittle. Sapphires exploded when overloaded with mana. Diadem knew that. She doubted the ponies on the other side of her barrier did.

She kissed the gemstone for good luck, then held it right to the tip of her horn and shut her eyes. She didn’t need a complicated spell—just mana. She carefully filled it with what she could until she could feel the unstable gem shaking and wobbling in her magical grasp. Then, turning to her failing barrier, she found a sizeable crack and telekinetically shoved the crystal through. Lowering her horn, she quickly zeroed in on the stone and shot a quick burst of mana into it.

The gemstone grew so bright Diadem could see it through shut eyelids, and then suddenly the light disappeared in one brilliant flash like lightning in a bottle. Of course there was no sound to accompany it, but Diadem could feel the percussion of air against her chest. When the light faded, Diadem opened her eyes to see three ponies lying on the ground, smoke pouring from their seared flesh and burnt coats. Only the two unicorns remained standing.

The assailants took a few shocked steps back, and Diadem advanced to match them. Now she was the dangerous one, and she reveled in it. Building her energy, Diadem ­shoved her magical barrier forward, sundering the feeble barricades the other two unicorns erected to stop it, and slammed them against the far wall. Twisting and shaping her magic, Diadem quickly wrapped the two in a net of magic, opened up a large nearby window, and hurled the intruders out into the dark night. The last she heard of them was a short scream, followed by two splashes from somewhere far below.

Diadem simply stood at the threshold to her study and let her heart rate return to normal. Only then did the questions pile in, stripping the pleased smile from her face. Who were those ponies? What did they want? Why were they trying to kill her? Were they trying to kill her? She realized she’d acted on an assumption, but she had a feeling she was right…

What if there were more? Surely those couldn’t have been the only intruders in the castle. Besides, if they’d gotten this far, then she had to warn somepony.

…Star Swirl. She should tell the archmage. She knew Clover wasn’t at the castle for ‘personal matters’, whatever those were (as far as Diadem had known, Clover’s personal life and her archmage career were one in the same). But the old stallion never left the castle anymore. Especially not since Lunis and Celestis had arrived in Everfree in the flesh. He had to be somewhere in the castle. Probably sleeping.

Diadem started for the door, very pointedly ignoring the three ponies lying on the floor and the accompanying nausea they instilled in her stomach, but hesitated and looked back at her desk. The gemstones and void crystal were still scattered across the wooden surface. Should she… well, the sapphire worked so well the first time. She figured she could get some use out of the other stones, especially the void crystal. In one sweep of her magic, she scooped them together and dumped them in a pouch hanging from her shoulder. The void crystal of course stung and sizzled as she tried to gather it in her magic, but the pain was little more than somepony pinching her horn. It hardly bothered her.

With all her supplies gathered about her, Diadem rushed into the hall, quickly looking left, then right. She didn’t see anypony in the long hall surrounding the research studies, but she did notice several of the doors had been opened. Apparently, hers wasn’t the first room those ponies had checked.

One door after another, Diadem peaked her head inside and quickly scanned for ponies or gems she could use. All of the rooms were fortunately empty of the former and unfortunately devoid of the latter. She figured she must’ve been the only pony crazy enough to be working this late in the studies.

Then what was that noise she heard in the next room over?

Diadem carefully snuck over to the next room, walking on the tips of her hooves. The door was askew but not fully closed, and she gave it a gentle push with her magic. It opened easily on oiled hinges, and she peeked around the corner, only to see nothing.

A clash of swords echoed from down the hall, and Diadem jolted upright and barged into the room. Almost immediately she felt a wave of mana pass through her chest and tug on something she couldn’t describe within her. Her world faded to black as her vision exploded in stars and bright lights, and for the briefest of moments, she couldn’t make sense of up and down or any orientation around her. Then the tug subsided, almost turning into a forceful push back into her core, and when her senses finally came back to her, she realized she was lying on her side and feeling terribly nauseous.

“Ah, the prodigal apprentice,” a stallion rasped from the corner by the door. When her world finally stopped swimming before her, Diadem found herself looking up at the wrinkled and desiccated face of Wintershimmer. The old stallion’s perpetual sneer only seemed stronger and more pronounced from Diadem’s vantage point, and she quickly righted herself on wobbly hooves to try and escape it.

“You’re lucky I recognized you,” Wintershimmer said, his rheumy eyes looking over Diadem’s body in an unpleasant way. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to replace your soul in time. That would have been the second time I’d be blamed for causing another mage’s untimely demise, and I do hate repetition.”

“My… soul?” Diadem managed. Her throat felt surprisingly sore for simply falling on the ground, and her legs tingled with an icy heat. “You mean—”

“Oh, ye of little faith. I made my capabilities quite clear in the throne room,” Wintershimmer interrupted. His eyes narrowed at Diadem with haughty disdain. “Star Swirl probably told you it wasn’t possible. Of course. The fool can’t even count to seven and he’s trying to make sure his pupils do the same.”

Diadem blinked. “What?”

“I had this discussion with you when we first met. I’m not interested in having it again.” With those harsh words, the Union’s archmage went back to transcribing notes from an old, dusty tome into a bundle of scrolls he had spread across the table.

Clover’s apprentice recognized the former. “Hey, what are you doing with the Grimoire?” she asked, angrily stomping up to the old stallion. “Give it back!”

Wintershimmer’s magic shoved the filly away and held her back. “I’m breaking no laws or oaths by copying the material in this book,” the stallion dully replied. “I studied it when I was younger than you, and I wrote eleven pages in it before I left the Diamond Kingdom. Although it appears Star Swirl tore them out. Hmph. His efforts to excise me from history and magical theory are as dogged as they are childish.”

Diadem frowned and simply crossed her forelegs as she leaned against Wintershimmer’s magic. She figured it was the more reasonable thing to do instead of seizing the elderly pony in her telekinesis and shaking him violently until he stopped. “He probably has a good reason,” she muttered, turning her head from side to side. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of a pony simply lying on the floor behind the door. “Did you kill him?!”

“If applying enough mana to sever the empathic bonds that stitch his soul to his body counts as killing him, then yes.” He turned slightly in his seat and glared at her over his shoulder. “Otherwise, no, he’s sleeping.”

“And you ripped his soul out too,” Diadem muttered. “Great. I’m going to go find Star Swirl. You know, somepony who will actually help!”

Wintershimmer snorted. “You would be safer staying here, making yourself useful. You might even learn something, for a change. I think you need a true archmage to teach you the ways of our art.” He turned around in his chair, and even though his eyes were firmly set on Diadem, his quill continued magically transcribing the pages of the Grimoire behind him. “You’re strong but you lack discipline. Focus. You succumb to your emotions too easily. Your raw talent is a swirling maelstrom within you that you can hardly control. Most apprentice archmages your age should have a spell with their name attached to it by now, but you have nothing to speak of. But for some reason you’re confident?” He shook his head. “No. Raw power is nothing. Skill is what makes a mage strong. And that is why you’re weak.”

Diadem thought for sure she felt a tooth crack as she ground her teeth together in fury. “I am not weak!” she exclaimed, dissipating Wintershimmer’s spell with a surge of her own energy. The Union’s archmage merely watched her, curious, as she stomped forward. “Just because I don’t have my own spells doesn’t mean I’m nothing! I don’t care how powerful you think you are or how bad you think your life was! I spent months trapped in Onyx Ridge with a void ring around my horn! I had a brother once, but the crystal ponies sold him and I never saw him again! I don’t care about what mopey sob story you invented for yourself to get over the fact that you never were as good as Star Swirl, you still aren’t as good as Star Swirl, and you’ll never be as good as Star Swirl, because I’ve actually struggled and suffered, and I’m stronger because of it!”

She stomped forward on her pubescent lanky limbs and jabbed a hoof into the archmage’s side. “And though I might not be as strong or as skilled as you are now, one day I’ll be the better of the two of us, and I can only hope you’ll live long enough to see it!”

Panting, Diadem glared at Wintershimmer for two seconds longer before she pointedly turned away and stomped towards the door. A blood coated pegasus appeared in the threshold and prepared to charge her, but Diadem’s magic took hold of him and flung him over her shoulders, where his head collided with the stone walls with a solid crack and his body fell limp. With an angry growl and a swish of her tail, Diadem disappeared around the corner, her hoofsteps echoing along the stone floor.

Wintershimmer watched her go, lips pursed, and continued to stare at the door long after she was gone. His nostrils flared once, twice, and his face fell back into its resting scowl before he turned back to the Grimoire. Only a groan near the far wall caught his attention, and he saw the figure Diadem had hurled into the room twitch and moan in pain.

The archmage calmly let his horn build with energy and reached out to the stallion’s chest. Only when the pegasus continued to groan after Wintershimmer’s third attempt to strip his soul did the old pony’s eyes narrow in confusion and curiosity.

The two pegasi met in a clash of blades that showered them both in sparks. Wings and swords moved faster than the eye could follow, but none could seem to strike home; father and daughter were equal in skill and tenacity. After a few more fruitless strikes, both combatants spread their wings and retreated several yards to regroup before returning to the fight.

Hurricane worked his jaw around the handle of his sword. His heart was beginning to pound in his chest, and along with it were small stabs of pain from the aging muscle. He watched his daughter, who eyed him with a frightening intensity, and noted how quickly she paced back and forth, how controlled her breathing was. Hurricane knew he raised his daughter to be an excellent soldier like him; he only now realized that out of the two of them, she was the superior.

Well, superior in sword fighting, but in magic…

Typhoon pounced again, and Hurricane sheathed his sword and took to the air. He frantically beat his wings and felt the air stir and swirl underneath them. Before Typhoon had even halfway closed the distance between them, Hurricane released two miniature cyclones from beneath his wings straight at his daughter. Typhoon opened her wings and tried to dive aside, but the air caught them all the same and flung her away from Hurricane. She spun out of control, landing roughly on the ground, and turned her green eyes towards her father in a glare of hatred.

A plan settled into Hurricane’s mind. He knew he couldn’t stand up to his daughter in a direct fight, and couldn’t strike back without risking hurting her. He’d wear her into submission with his Empatha.

Typhoon took wing as well, brow furrowing as she tracked her father in the large room. On the ground, their Empatha was on equal footing, but in the air, Hurricane’s wind bias held a clear advantage over Typhoon’s ice. Typhoon knew this, and she knew that the only chance she had of freeing her father’s soul was to force his body to the ground and stop him from flying.

But first she had to get to him.

Hurricane didn’t make that easy. Just by flying circles around the room, he used his magic to stir the air into frantic spirals that made it hard to fly in any direction but with the current. No matter how hard Typhoon beat her wings and tried to catch up to her father, Hurricane remained perpetually out of reach, his mostly still wings simply riding the air that refused to heed Typhoon’s commands. The mare began to pant, and when she held her wings out straight to glide and rest them, she inexplicably dropped out of the air.

She hit the ground and rolled smoothly out of the impact in a bundle of limbs and blades. Glaring up at her father’s lazy circles, she chewed on the leather-wrapped handle of her sword and paced back and forth. Ultimately, she began to run opposite the rotation of the ‘storm’, holding her right wing aloft and letting ice build on the crest.

From twenty feet above, Hurricane squinted down at his daughter. A glistening trail of ice began to stretch off from the end of her wing, fluttering and moving in the wind like a white ribbon. It eventually ran the perimeter of the room until Typhoon approached the end from behind, grabbed it between her teeth, and shook her head.

Immediately, the trail of ice grew taut, brittle, and shattered, sending thousands and thousands of little shards as sharp as nails into the currents of Hurricane’s wind. They climbed with alarming speed, and Hurricane had to flare his wings and pull back before they worked their way up to him. The storm died down and the shards of ice began to fall, but now something else rocketed skyward in their place.

Typhoon broke through the weakened currents of the storm before Hurricane could whip them up again. Her father only noticed her at the last possible second before her hooves collided with his stomach, and he had just enough time to tilt away so instead of pummeling him directly, Typhoon only latched her forelegs under his and tumbled upwards with her father. After a second, Hurricane managed to plant his rear hooves on the armor covering Typhoon’s chest and kick her off, sending her spinning wildly towards the ceiling.

The mare expertly recovered and dove again, but before she could approach, Hurricane waved a wing covered in fire. A blisteringly bright wave of flame shot into the space between father and daughter, and Typhoon had to flare her wings and pull up hard to not fly into the fires. When she did, she found her head in a cloud of mist; unable to see, she turned wildly, with only the gentle tug of gravity to remind her of up and down.

A heavy weight collided with her chest, winding her, and forelegs wrapped around her neck from behind, forcing her to drop her sword. Hurricane managed to wrap his lower legs around his daughter’s and restrain her, but now his wings worked twice as hard to keep him aloft. Pulling back harder on the headlock, he tried to disrupt Typhoon’s concentration on her magic so she couldn’t impale him with ice, and charged his hoof with ice of his own before jamming it into the nape of Typhoon’s neck.

Typhoon felt the cool kiss of ice searching for the nerves in her neck. She knew the trick; she’d used it many times before. Using her magic to seemingly slow the pass of time, she quickly honed in on the spot on her neck Hurricane was touching, and summoned her own magic to the same spot. Ice met ice, but Typhoon was the strongest ice empath in the world; her magic met Hurricane’s, overwhelmed it, then took it for herself. A cool, reinvigorating rush ran through her whole body, making her hooves tingle and her wingtips twitch.

“Really?!” she choked out. “Did you think you could freeze me?!”

Hurricane’s eyes widened as he felt a cold pulse of magic explode from Typhoon’s body, seemingly passing straight through his core. He heard the distinctive cracking and squeaking of ice, and he looked at the feathers of his wings only to realize they were icing over. With his lift gone, the two pegasi began to plummet, and Typhoon managed to disentangle herself from her father’s numb limbs and land on her hooves.

The storm above died down. Her father wasn’t so lucky, and his icebound wings refused to carry him as he slammed into the ground.

Hurricane winced as he stood up, feeling a sharp pain in his right foreleg from the impact. A quick glance at his wings revealed little but feathers cased in ice. At least the blades along the crests were ice-free. He needed to be able to move his wings if he wanted to survive a direct onslaught from Typhoon now, and ice freezing the scales together would have stripped that motion from him. Even still, he would need to get airborne, and to do that, he needed to melt the ice coating his feathers. Unfortunately, the ice covering his wings did its best to snuff out the flames, and Hurricane slowly felt the limbs growing numb from the cold.

Typhoon widened her stance and took several large breaths to control her heart rate. The sweat that beaded on her brow immediately turned to frost, giving her face a glistening, almost crystalline appearance. Loading another layer of ice onto her wings, she swallowed hard, snatched her sword from the ground, and dove at her father again.

Hurricane rushed forward to meet her and pit his strength against hers rather than letting her momentum knock him over from a standstill. He brought no Empatha of his own to the collision other than the natural boost to his reflexes that the wind gave him. With his wings frozen, he simply couldn’t. He quickly honed in on Typhoon’s sword and blocked it with Procellarum before Typhoon had any chance to build up power behind it, and his wings sought out Typhoon’s ice-ridged ones. Before she could flare them forward and shower Hurricane in ice shards, his wingblades gouged deep into the icy crests and locked them outstretched at her sides.

The two pegasi struggled against one another, swords held in such tension that they couldn’t move, and Hurricane’s wings glued to his daughter’s. They slowly circled around as Typhoon sought to gain some leverage or purchase she could use against her taller, heavier father. Pressing his advantage, Hurricane put as much of his weight as he could onto his front hooves and slowly started forcing his daughter down. Emerald eyes locked with magenta ones, the former filled with hate, the latter with grief. Typhoon’s hind legs, shaking with exertion to try and hold her up, began to buckle. Hurricane’s muzzle was so close to Typhoon’s that he could feel her cold panting tickling his nose.

With a grunt, Typhoon let her legs collapse beneath her and rolled onto her back, carrying her father with her. Hurricane tried to flare his wings for balance, but too late he realized that Typhoon had extended the ice along hers to freeze both their wings together. Using her father’s strength against him, Typhoon pulled Hurricane’s body over her and bucked upwards as hard as she could with her now freed legs. Hooves connected with Hurricane’s unprotected gut, propelling him over Typhoon’s head. At the same time, Typhoon sharply pulled her wings downwards, and she felt a sharp tug of resistance before it loosened all at once. She quickly dispersed the ice on her wings before the momentum of Hurricane’s soaring, armored body dragged her along too.

Hurricane hit the ground chin first and rolled several times before falling in a ragged, feathery mess at the edge of the room. His lungs fought and fought for breath, but he could hardly breathe between the buck to the gut and the incredible pain at the base of his shoulders. Gritting his teeth, Hurricane forced himself back to his hooves, but he had to fall back against the wall behind him just to stand. His wings dangled by his sides, useless, dead weight pried from their sockets and held to his body only by skin and muscle.

The dark pegasus spat a tooth onto the ground and tried to focus on his daughter through the red haze covering his vision. Whatever advantage he once held was gone now. With two dislocated wings slowing him down, how could he stand up to Typhoon’s brutal assault? He tried to take a step forward, to maybe make one last desperate ploy to harmlessly stop his daughter, but Typhoon easily swatted Procellarum aside and slammed him back against the wall. Hurricane bit down on his cheek and tried to strangle the cry of pain as his dislocated wings slapped his sides.

Typhoon dropped her sword and stood on her hind legs so she could hold Hurricane against the wall with her hooves. Her emerald eyes glinted with malice, anger, but also relief. “It’s over, father,” she whispered, her voice somehow tender after the savage fighting she’d just endured. “I’m setting you free.”

“Typhoon…” Hurricane managed, still in too much pain to fight back. “Listen to me! None of this is how it seems! Those rebels have been screwing with your mind, making you believe things that aren’t true!” He tried to struggle free, but Typhoon forcefully shoved him back against the wall. Grunting, Hurricane looked Typhoon in the eyes. “You know how I fight, Ty. You know I was holding back. I never wanted to hurt you. How could I hurt the daughter I love so much? Please…” He placed a hoof against Typhoon’s armored chest. “I know my baby girl’s in there somewhere.”

Emotions. Memories. Experiences. Hurricane felt them slip through his hooves into Typhoon’s body. For some reason, this seemed to have an effect on the mare; she grew rigid, still, almost unable to move. Gritting his teeth, Hurricane pressed his hoof harder against her chest. Memories of Cloudsdale. Swift Spear. Her first day of training. The feeling of pride Hurricane felt when he watched her graduate from basic. Memories of Tempest, the little foal still waiting for his mother to come back.

After several long seconds, Typhoon’s face contorted in pain and she squeezed her eyes shut. Stepping away from Hurricane, she pressed her hooves against her skull and collapsed onto the floor, writhing in agony. Alarmed, Hurricane mustered what strength he could and rushed to his daughter, gripping her shoulders between his hooves and gently shaking her. “Typhoon! Typhoon!” he yelled, accidentally spitting small flecks of blood from his split lips onto her coat. He continued to gently shake her and call her name until she stopped convulsing and opened her beautiful magenta eyes.

Confusion distorted her features and she glanced in Hurricane’s direction with unfocused eyes. “…Dad?” she murmured, touching his face with a hoof. “What is… where…?” She looked around herself, her eyes focusing on the decorations in the room. “The castle? How did I get back here?”

Hurricane let out a cry of joy and wrapped his daughter in his forelegs. “Ty, you’re back. You’re back, my filly.” He held his daughter tight, despite how much pain it loaded into his shoulders. “I missed you so much.”

Typhoon confusedly patted her father on the back. “I… I don’t know where I went,” she murmured. “I remember going on patrol… getting attacked…” She shook her head. “Then the most awful nightmare I’ve ever had.”

“It’s over,” Hurricane whispered, releasing his hug so he could press his forehead against his daughter’s. “And you’re home safe. That’s all that matters.”

Typhoon smiled faintly, and then her eyes caught sight of Hurricane’s wings, his wounds, and the blood between them. “Dear Mobius! Dad, what happened to you?!”

“The best night of my life,” was Hurricane’s response, forcing a smile onto his face. Typhoon noticed it and smirked.

“Dad, are you… smiling?” She giggled lightly and shook her head. “You look goofy.”

“Forgive me for being happy,” Hurricane replied. He nuzzled Typhoon’s forehead and brushed her bangs out of her eyes. “I’m going to take you to the infirmary, then…”

Typhoon blinked as Hurricane’s expression suddenly changed from joy to one of horror. “Dad?” she asked, reaching up to touch his face. The mere motion made her dizzy, and she had to instead press her hoof against her brow. “Ugh… Dad, what’s… wrong?” She coughed and felt something warm and wet begin to trickle down her throat. “I… I don’t feel so good…” She brushed her muzzle with a hoof and held it out to see.

It was slick with blood.

“Typhoon!” Hurricane cried, shaking her again. “Typhoon! Look at me!”

The mare’s eyes rolled back and she opened her mouth to mumble something Hurricane couldn’t hear. The blood pouring from her nostrils covered her face and lips with smelly scarlet vitality, and when she coughed, she spattered Hurricane’s face with blood.

“Typhoon!” he screamed, cradling his dying daughter’s body in his hooves. She didn’t answer him, and so fixated was he on her paling face that he didn’t notice the hoofbeats of ponies galloping up behind him.

Abaddon watched Typhoon’s spark fade away as if he were watching the final moments of a flickering candle before it snuffed itself out. He felt no remorse, nothing for the young mare as her life extinguished. After all, he was the one who had ended it.

If anything, Abaddon was disappointed. His tool had broken itself before it had accomplished its purpose. Abaddon had been watching the entire fight between Hurricane and Typhoon as he withdrew from the upper levels of the castle before the Legion could cut off his escape. He saw the mare defeat her father, nearly tearing his wings out in the process, and move in for the kill before he suddenly started losing control. Rather than risk everything by letting the Legion interrogate her, Abaddon had no choice but to cut the strings before he lost his grip on her mind entirely.

A pity. He’d hoped that Typhoon could have killed Star Swirl before he discarded her. He was the only pony Abaddon was truly concerned about for his coming plans. And after watching that fight, he wasn’t worried that Hurricane had lived. Typhoon had proved herself to be the better combatant of the two, and she wouldn’t be a problem any longer.

Abaddon opened his eyes and continued galloping down the hall with the twelve ponies around him. Even if Star Swirl was still alive, the archmage was old. Abaddon knew that his apprentice, Clover, though an archmage herself, lacked the same skill and intuition that he did. When Star Swirl finally did die, then Abaddon would be ready to strike in earnest.

He was patient. He had waited years for the opportunities he seized now. He could wait for decades before striking again. In fact, that was the next step in his plan. With Queen Jade dead and the Commander Maximus of Cirra crippled emotionally and mentally by watching his daughter die before him, all Abaddon had to do was wait until the flames of war whipped up and consumed both nations. He’d already won.

As he galloped through the halls and towards the exits of the castle, his band of followers quickly swatting aside and storming past any confused resistance they came across, Abaddon couldn’t help but wonder about one thing. The strange unicorn Typhoon had fought. What was she? Abaddon had certainly never run across any of her kind before. She was an unknown, a threat, a liability. He hated unknowns more than anything else. He resolved to use his agents to figure out more about the mare and if there were any others like her.

Abaddon realized the ponies around him had slowed to a canter and were nervously looking around. Some even sniffed the air and shivered in the cold. Wait… cold? Abaddon stopped and furrowed his brow. The narrow hallway he’d been moving down was frightfully cold for the middle of a summer night.

“Fool…”

The words seemed to carry through the shadows themselves, piercing through Abaddon’s hide to his very soul. The speaker sounded dark, strong, dangerous from that one little word. Instinctively, Abaddon’s followers surrounded their leader, readying weapons to defend him against whatever would emerge from the tar black of the night.

“Did you think you would leave alive?” the voice asked, sending little tremors through the stone. “That these walls would become anything more than your tomb?”

The winds in the halls picked up, whipping Abaddon’s mane back and pushing against his very being. Gritting his teeth, he squinted in the direction of the winds billowing down the hall, only to see the shadows begin to flow like a torrent of water towards him. His horn flared to life and he surrounded himself in a small green shield as the darkness washed over him.

He heard screaming, which quickly fell to silence. The screams still echoed on long afterwards in his head.

With a burst of magic, Abaddon dispersed the shadows around him and looked around wildly. His escort was nowhere to be seen.

Taking a short, shaky breath, Abaddon spun in place. “Show yourself!” he demanded, nostrils flaring. “You can’t hide in shadows forever!”

A deep bass chuckle filled the halls. Around Abaddon, the shadows drifted like smoke towards one central point. The ball of midnight and starry mist grew legs, a head, and began to take shape. Out of the dispersing fog strode a tall unicorn with hair the deepest black of the night sky and a mane only slightly lighter. Blood red, slitted eyes bored into Abaddon’s, and the thestral smiled to display two terrifying rows of frighteningly sharp fangs. He seemed to stride straight out of the heart of darkness, and the shadows flowed around his fetlocks like tiny tongues of black flame.

Abaddon sneered and let his horn crackle with power. “You’re another one of them. How funny, I was just wondering about your kind. Who are you?”

The thestral stopped. His fanged smile seemed to grow larger, more menacing, a look only enhanced by the slight tilt of his head to the side. “Me?” he asked, touching a shaggy hoof to his chest. “My siblings simply call me the Eldest. And you hurt one of my little sisters.”

Shadows burned like dark flame beside Eldest’s head, and a dark, twisted scythe that seemed to be forged from the emptiness of the universe itself appeared beside him. His magic took hold of it, giving it a test swing and a flourish before he angled it in Abaddon’s direction.

Deadly, predatory eyes honed in on the plain unicorn at the other end of the hall. “Nopony hurts my siblings.”

A small smirk found refuge in the corner of Abaddon’s mouth. “I was hoping to test the abilities of your kind in some capacity. What better way than by killing you?”

A magic blade of Abaddon’s own appeared at his side. Looking it over, he pointed it directly at Eldest’s chest and took a small step forward.

Eldest nodded, and he likewise stepped forward. Together, the two combatants advanced, until they crossed their weapons halfway down the hallway.

The castle screamed as spectral sabres clashed again and again.