Ren and Murr both donned a set of green armor, in order to better blend with the grassy fields north of Canterlot, yet still south of where the Crystal Empire would later appear. It had been several hours since nightfall.

They crawled up on top of an awkwardly sloped hill in an attempt to observe their targets, of which there were at least one hundred if not many more. They were huddled around fires, upon which several small woodland creatures were being spit-roasted. Ren gagged at the sight, Murr was more or less unaffected. They both wordlessly acknowledged that Fluttershy would flip out at this. She knew full well that certain creatures were completely carnivorous, and couldn’t survive on plants and products thereof. She would concede that certain creatures had dietary parameters that had to be met, lest they die.

But shadows couldn’t eat anything, as far as Ren and Murr knew.

“Good lord, did you send enough shadows after us, Bael?” Ren scoffed quietly.

“I can seriously hear him maniacally laughing and saying ‘No kill quite like overkill’ over and over,” Murr replied, cringing.

“Wait, what is that?!” Ren asked, spotting something. “Is that a fucking pony!?” He pointed to the offending figure, hanging over the fire.

“Oh my God, it is a pony! And it’s still moving!” Murr confirmed, horrified.

“Oh, that is it. It’s on, now. Murr, I’m going to distract them –“

“By yourself?! There must be a hundred or more shadows there, it’s suicide!”

Ren paused. “Are you done freaking out? I’m going to distract them. I want you to free that pony, and if you can’t heal it, end its suffering.”

Murr face turned solemn. “Alright, but don’t do anything stupid. We go back together or we don’t go back at all. We stick together, no matter what, remember?”

Ren looked at his comrade in a strange way. “Weird to hear you say that after you abandoned me.”

Murr’s frown deepened. “Are you still on about that? I took the damn oath, stop guilt tripping me!”

“Okay, fine, let’s just go already!” Ren exclaimed, running off to the side of the hill and giving a loud whooping yell.

If you thought that the shadows would be intelligent enough not to take the bait, you’d be absolutely wrong. It seems that their time spent under the hopeslayer has dulled their wits. All at once, a giant battalion of shadows mobilized, hauling off after the mage like bats out of hell. Ren, for his part, was keeping ahead of them, but only barely.

Murr jumped from the top of the hill, landing a short distance away from the spitroasted pony, a young mare. He cringed as he heard her pitiful cries, as his perch atop the hill blocked most noise from that direction. He approached the mare, whose eyes turned to him.

She screamed as loud as she possibly could.

“Shut it! I’m not here to eat you!” He said, casting a frost streak at the flames below her, putting them out. He began to take apart the spit assembly. “I’m here to help you. I know this hurts, but please keep it down, we don’t want them coming back.”

Ren jumped as high as he could from his lofty perch, having led the shadows back up onto the hill. He hoped they would jump off after him. He didn’t account for them being ethereal – normally he would, but having over a hundred of the bastards chasing him was hardly normal. He cursed under his breath as they began surrounding him while his breath returned to him. They were more resilient than they let on.

He angrily entered a stance, pulling out his wand of shadowfire. An ornate stick with (admittedly rather distracting) blue flames topping it off, the wand had been infused with a gout of sacred shadowfire, the source being kept by Asheron himself. It was said (and subsequently proven) that spells cast with this wand would be more effective against shadows.

He started casting blindly, rings upon rings of fire exploding into being around him.  Shadow after shadow dissipated around him, leaving piles of black ash in their place. Eventually, though, Ren had cast himself dry, and he wasn’t doing great physically speaking either, having been knocked around a fair amount by the more corporeal shadows.

He had no idea that he was being watched from afar, though it wasn’t by any sort of adversary.

---

Twilight Sparkle’s horn flared to life as she cast a diagnostic spell on her new friend. Being as skilled at magic as she was came with certain perks – where that particular spell could normally only be used within line-of-sight distances, she could cast it over several miles – and in her current state of distress, that range extended to what were effectively the borders of the known world.

She had related the news to the princesses, who were largely unfazed by the turn of events. Celestia was even convinced that Ren would be able to solve the problem without resorting to violence. Oh, but if she knew how wrong she was. Luna, on the other hoof, was more worried for the safety of Ren and Murr over the safety of her subjects at the moment – understandable, given the princesses’ almost unlimited power which they would surely use in the defense of their subjects should it come to that.

The spell spat out results on a sheet of paper, as per the norm, and Twilight squinted at the small print. The readout was fairly straightforward, showing some simple statistics. Ren’s health, stamina and mana were all shown in red ink, meaning they were below normal. The color caught her eye, and her breath hitched in her throat as she realized that he was in all likelihood not returning home, or even to her, in one piece. The statistics were represented as numerical fractions, the current value being the numerator and the normal value being the denominator. His health was listed as being one-hundred forty-six out of three-hundred fifty-five, his stamina was an especially shocking zero out of four-hundred ninety-seven, and his mana was forty-four out of six-hundred sixty-two. Specific numerical values certainly weren’t needed, in fact a percentage would communicate the gravity of the situation much more clearly, but such was the nature of the spell, originally designed by a doctor so that he could keep an especially close eye on his patients’ recovery.

But then, the numbers changed dramatically, turning green, which indicated a higher than normal value. His health was reported as being twice what it normally was, while his stamina was merely a few points over his normal maximum. His mana, however, was the most drastic change – it was shown as being almost twelve thousand.

Twilight shook her head at those numbers. She balled up the paper in her magic and threw it away, casting the spell once again.

No change from the exorbitantly high amounts.

She was left scratching her head, wondering just what was going on with him.

---

Ren’s body glowed with excess mana as he poured his very soul into his attacks. The shadows in his immediate vicinity were obliterated outright, their almost demonic cries echoing through the still night.

He wasn’t certain of what had happened to him either, at first feeling like utter garbage and then all of a sudden feeling better than he had in his entire life. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he resumed his deadly assault upon his adversaries.

Most shadows were far more sentient than this – making intelligent decisions for themselves and obeying no one but themselves. Bael’Zharon must have altered these in some way for them to be as utterly stupid as they were being – trying to rush him from his sides, in his state? Such a move was suicide, and yet there they were, eagerly smiting themselves upon his flames. Giving a grim smile, he turned up the heat, making the cries more frequent as more and more shadows inexplicably became piles of ash. He wasn’t sure how intangible beings could burn, but he wasn’t going to complain.

He glanced over to Murr, who was busying himself with taking the spit out of the mare’s body. He grimaced as he faintly heard her cries. If he was dying inside at her screams, there was no telling how Murr was doing.

---

“Stop! Please, stop screaming! Not so loudly, at least,” Murr pleaded as he felt his strength failing him. He never did well with screamers – pity was for the weak, and he felt pity, therefore he had been weak.

Now, however, he saw it as an asset. He had a heightened sense of empathy for others, really lending himself to healing spells that required the caster to feel the pain of the healed in one form or the next. And it would seem that in order for the healing spell to not simply fail, it would have to be a sort of transplant spell – taking health from him and giving it to the target, the skewered mare. This meant that he would have to cast Stamina to Health on himself directly afterward, lest he succumb to his new 'wounds' or the shock that receiving them all at once would bring.

Before he could do any of that, he’d have to pull the skewer out of the mare, and she was not cooperating to save her life. Poor thing. He really couldn’t blame her, he’d be afraid of all bipedal creatures too if the most outstanding experience he had with them was them spit-roasting him. He debated whether casting a sleeping spell as a unicorn would kill her or not, seeing as she was basically living on adrenaline at this point. He shrugged. If he didn’t she’d die anyway.

So he morphed into a unicorn, casting the aforementioned sleeping spell on the target. Acting fast, he morphed back and yanked the bar out of her body, casting Gift of Life on her. He had honestly been afraid that the spell wouldn’t go through, that she’d die, but his relief was momentary in nature as he felt all of the pain of her injuries assault his senses at once. It was a fight to stay conscious, and it goes without saying that Murr fell to the ground. It was almost funny, how that spell worked – it did no actual damage to the caster, instead making them feel all the pain of the injuries (and subsequently make their body think that it had sustained them). He fought to stand, peaking his arms in the movements that corresponded with the Rushed Recovery spell, the seventh-level variant of Stamina to Health. His pain left him, and while he felt quite winded as a result, he could definitely say that was better than the alternative.

He looked over in Ren’s direction, where, as predicted, the mage stood kicking the ass and taking the name of all who rose against him. He winced as a shadow screamed particularly loud, reverberating through his skull. The sound chilled him to the bone, and would likely haunt him until he died. When Ren got into one of his rages, it was best to leave well enough alone and do what he told you to do. Of course, he’d be upset over this later, and he’d go back to his usual mild self, although even that was quickly changing – he was starting to stabilize a bit.

This wasn’t a fight. It was a slaughter. Ren was definitely most unpleased about what they had done to this poor mare, although he’d probably regret his actions later. Not that Murr could blame him – had he been in the same position, he definitely would have done the same thing. Shadows, as far as he knew, didn’t and couldn’t eat anything – they lived off of the fear that their enemies had for them. So spitroasting locals served no real purpose, other than to provoke a reaction. And oh boy, did they get a reaction – although it probably wasn’t the one they were hoping for, if the screams that echoed into the night were any indicator.

He suddenly felt his eyes drawn to the mare, now upright and eyeing him with an expression of curiosity and mild distrust.

“Why—why did you heal me? I thought you were going to eat me!” she exclaimed.

“I already told you, I wasn’t going to eat you – if you look in that direction, you’ll see an… associate of mine dealing with your captors. He was most upset at your predicament,” Murr responded in a tired voice. He’d sleep forever when he returned to the library.

“But – they were going to cook me! And eat me! And you don’t look so different from them—that sounded racist, sorry…”

“No offense taken. I will concede that shadows are very similar to humans, sharing their rough shape and psyche. But shadows are what you might call ‘corrupted’ humans – most aren’t this violent, most just want to live out their lives in peace. These must have been brainwashed into fanaticism by our enemy. And, unless they’ve developed new needs and abilities, they can’t eat. So roasting you serves no practical purpose to them – they likely just wanted to see how you handle pain.”

“That’s – that’s horrible! Why would they do that to another creature?”

“Most wouldn’t dream of harming something else. But these in particular have, like I said, been brainwashed in some form.”

“Um, your friend looks like he’s in trouble. Are you going to help him?”

“Believe me, I’ve got a close eye on him. He’d be very angry with me if I left you unguarded on a whim and he didn’t need my help, so I’m staying here until he absolutely needs me.”

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea to me…” she said warily.

“I know, but it’s the only choice that I really have. I don’t want to be the object of his ire any more than those shadows do.”

“He’s getting smacked around like a piñata out there! Do something!” she said more forcefully.

“He’s got this in the bag, I tell you.”

And then, Ren’s aura exploded into life, burning off excess mana as his body tapped into his extra energy in a self-preservation move. If Murr was surprised by this, he gave no indication. He always did have one hell of a poker face.

“See?” Murr asked the mare, in a bit of a smug gloating tone. “I told you. He’s got this in the bag.”

“Alright then, I stand corrected.”

The rest of the shadows were quickly dispatched, their screams mostly merging into one long, painfully loud screech. How Ren could put up with this was a mystery to Murr.

Then, the dust kicked up by his most recent assault settled, revealing Ren, still glowing, kneeling, catching his breath. Murr picked himself up and went to congratulate his comrade.

Murr’s walk picked up to a run when Ren’s body ceased glowing and he slumped over.

---

Twilight cast the spell for a ninth time, looking at the results and smiling briefly at having what were likely far more accurate figures this time around. Her smile quickly faded as she saw the numbers – Ren was hanging on by a thread physically speaking, and he had a negative value for his mana. She hurriedly cast the spell again, this time on Murr, breathing a sigh of relief at his mostly normal values.

Murr would see that Ren made it back. At least, she hoped he would.

She looked over to Pinkie Pie, resting peacefully in her bed. The pink party pony had asked that Twilight stay with her, and in her current state Twilight simply couldn't refuse her. She had been through a fair bit already at the hands of Bael'Zharon, albeit indirectly.

Her mind filled with anger at the name. If he ever came here  and decided to start wreaking havoc, she didn't even know how strongly she'd react. He'd better hope that he would only be dealing with a pissed off Ren and Murr, because Twilight Sparkle was the Element of Magic for a reason, and she intended to show him if he ever got it in his head to hurt her friends.

She wasn't the least bit shocked to find that she included Ren and Murr on that list. Next Chapter: I... I got nothing. Estimated time remaining: 11 Minutes