Shining and a few guards with helms marked with red and teal hair stood on a stage with a crowd before them, and they sparkled as much as the assembled ponies did. He watched as a unicorn mare and pegasus stallion trotted off, with a little unicorn foal held in a saddlebag-like open-top holster on the mare's back. He smiled at the infant, who giggled back at him, and turned to look at the assembled crowd as they trotted up to the couple and fawned over the baby.

Cadence, who also gleamed, stood next to Shining. "A cute little filly. I hope she grows up to be a fine mare," she remarked, exchanging a look with the stallion.

Shining nodded with a grin, and made to speak when a brief, golden glow embraced his cranium and faded in seconds. A masculine voice echoed into his mind, and it had a deathly serious tone to it, "Meet me at the guest rooms. It's urgent."

"Cady, I just got a telepathic message…" Shining stated, his grin falling as he spoke.

"From who?" Cadence asked, a brow raised.

"I haven't the foggiest. All I know is it told me to meet up at the guest rooms and that something was urgent," Shining replied, shaking his head.

"Why the—" Cadence paused, and her eyes slowly widened. "Our guests!" she exclaimed, wings flaring wide.

"What about them?" Shining asked, a brow raising up.

"I escorted them to the guest rooms! If one of them sent you a telepathic message, and said it was urgent…" Cadence trailed off, and immediately, Shining's eyes widened as he got what she meant.

"In that case, let's head that way…" Shining murmured, his ears twitching as murmurs graced them. He turned away from the alicorn to find that the crowd of ponies looked at him, and that they were whispering amongst themselves. "It is alright. Just carry on as you normally would," he ordered in a calm bellow, and the crowd instantly hushed. He took a moment to look at the assembled guards and addressed them, "Make sure things run smoothly while I go sort something out."

The guards nodded with salutes, and with that, Shining and Cadence rushed off of the stage and to the nearest leg of the castle. They reached a flight of stairs and galloped up it in a frenzy, then blazed down the hall with the bend, going into another hall, and took a left in a matter of minutes. They went down a few more halls, only stopping in one with many doors upon seeing Matt waiting outside of a door expectantly. They skid to a halt and took a moment to catch their breath, barely noticing that the Fantasian held a scroll in his magic and that his crystalline shimmer had receded quite a bit.

When the rulers of the Empire managed to gather themselves, they turned their attention to Matt. "What's so urgent that you sent me a telepathic message about?" Shining asked in a flat tone.

"This," Matt replied, forking over the scroll he held. "It came through Spike, and the girls began to freak out over it. Natalie insisted that somepony get you over here, so I volunteered."

"Uh-huh," Shining murmured with a nod as he took the scroll. His eyes widened as he saw pictures of two unicorn stallions, and a third earth pony one with visible scars going clean over his eyes, plastered onto the parchment. Below the pictures, a simple message had been scrawled in impeccable hoofwriting which he read aloud.

"'Dear Shining Armor, this is Sergeant Riverwater. I am sending this through Celestia, and I'm also afraid to report that the hotel staff whose business had been shut down have escaped—when, I don't exactly know. All I know is, they've been out for a while, and their sentence has yet to be carried out. The Canterlot division of guards have yet to find them—they could be anywhere in Equestria at this time. If you are still with the Fantasians, keep them away from the hotel staff if you are able,'" Shining said, eyes glued to the letter.

Five minutes passed, and nopony said anything during that time. Eventually, Shining began to scowl. "Joy, last thing we all needed—" He threw his hooves and the scroll up into the air, his glimmer faltering so fast it made him seem duller in appearance than before. "—rapists escaping the dungeon before they can be dealt with!"

Cadence's eyes flicked between Matt and Shining, and she asked in a soft voice, "Do you want the guards to be on lookout tonight?"

Shining nodded, still scowling. "Yes," he answered. He used a hoof to gesture to the scroll and added, "And tell them to watch for those three, and toss them into the Empire's dungeon if they see them."

"Can I punch one of them next time I see them?" Matt asked, his voice tight.

Shining shook his head. "Unless there are no guards around, and it's just you and them when it happens, or if it's purely in self-defense," he replied. "Kinda like what happened to them before I trotted into that room…" He shivered at the thought.

Matt nodded. "Alright," he stated tersely. "In the meantime, I'll keep my eyes peeled for the bastards."

Shining nodded back. "Fair enough," he sighed. "We'll assemble the guards and brief them. For now, you stay put with you and yours." Matt nodded again and trotted into the room whose door he stood beside, finding himself with his companions once more. Natalie donned a stoic look, Anna had one foreleg wrapped around Lance's neck and the other around Sarah's, and Maria sat next to Fenrir. The filly was red in the face and had narrowed eyes.

"You're squishing me…" Sarah croaked, turning a little blue in the face.

"I-I can't breathe…" Lance groaned hoarsely, going towards a shade of purple the longer Anna held him.

Speaking of, Anna let the two go and mumbled in a low voice, "Sorry…"

"If I see—" Maria started, but she stopped when one of Fenrir's paws rose up and hovered in front of her muzzle.

"Yes, we are aware. You will bring unto them more righteous retribution," Fenrir groaned, rolling his eyes at the foal. He turned to Anna and added, "You do realize there is a very high probability that those foul stallions are not in the Crystal Empire as we speak?"

Anna nodded, though she shuddered faintly.

"Furthermore," Fenrir began, maintaining eye contact with Anna as he spoke, "if and when we do possibly bumble into them again, we will detain them quicker than they are able to detain you. Is that understood?"

Anna nodded again, and she began taking a few deep breaths as slowly as she could manage. Taking a moment to think over Fenrir's remarks, she realized he had a very valid point. "You're right—what are the chances they're in the Empire with us?" she asked, a small smile spreading on her face. Her body began glowing again, almost as if she were transforming into living crystal once more.

"But what if they are in the Empire with us? Sure, there's a teeny-tiny chance of that happening, but suppose those corpse-fondlers decided to start poking around the palace, and managed to evade any guards in doing so?" Katie piped up, a faux frown on her illusion-disguised visage.

"Then one of us stays up for the whole night and sounds the alarm," Alexander replied, his wings shifting. "And you yourself have a particularly high-pitched screech that can break a unicorn's concentration, if they happen to be casting any spells." At this point, all eyes fell on the wraith and Alexander added, "You're staying up until sunrise tomorrow."

"Wait, so I'm the alarm?" Katie asked disbelievingly, a brow raising up.

"Essentially, yes, but only for tonight," Alexander replied, turning to Lance and garnering a nod of approval.

Katie crossed her forelegs together. "Alright, I can deal. I'll yodel as loud as I can if I see the three stooges snooping around in the halls," she stated.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

The guards stationed outside the rooms that night found themselves with their hooves clutching spears tightly, a foreign extra amidst their posts, and a heavy darkness blanketing them. Katie had shaken off her illusion, though she could not shake off the crystalline shimmer she'd acquired, and stood vigil with her clawed shoes on. She cared little about the looks the guards sent her way every few minutes, and every time they asked how she'd gotten so bad in shape, she'd merely mutter "Long story" and leave it at that.

"If you were a Mythonian changeling…" a lilac-coated pegasus guard muttered under his breath, hoping that Katie couldn't hear him.

But her long ears stood to attention, and hear him she did. "Lemme guess, your spear up my ass?" she scoffed coldly, her utterance causing the pegasus to stiffen on the spot. "Just be glad I can't drain you of your love because I have a jagged stump of a horn," she added, her voice oozing with sour notes of bitterness.

"She's just a changeling with shoes," another guard murmured, turning to the lilac pegasus as he spoke. "She wouldn't hurt a fly."

"You think I can't fight?" Katie asked, turning to the second guard with a brow raised.

"You wouldn't stand a chance. You're small, burdened quite heavily with atrophy, cannot use active magic since your horn's just a broken stump, and all you have are frail wings and a set of shoes as your defenses," the guard pointed out, frowning as he turned to the wraith.

"Doesn't mean I'm completely useless. Even I have my strengths," Katie retorted, wings buzzing for one minute and folding flat against her back the next.

"I'll admit, you got me there," the guard conceded with a nod. "I'm just saying you look…"

"Weak?" Katie finished for him, punctuating her response with a huff. When the guard nodded again, she rolled her orbs at him and chose not to say anything else, largely because she couldn't make a good enough rebuttal against his 'you look weak' point to save her hide.

A few more minutes ticked by in silence, and the wraith looked down at the floor to find that it managed to reflect the light of her orbs, although it had done so poorly. If anything, she was seeing two dull cobalt spots between her front hooves instead of azure—she figured that the darkness of the hall must've played a part. Shrugging her shoulders to no one in particular, she glanced back up and gave her surroundings a cursory glance.

Nothing had changed, from what she could tell. The guards kept giving her looks, though this time none of them uttered so much as a peep of concern. She made to examine her shoes and make sure they were fitted properly onto her hooves when she noticed a creeping chill accompanied by very soft tremors slowly inching their way up her legs.

She lifted one leg up and brought it very close to her muzzle, and caught sight of the faintest of reflected light that wasn't very noticeable at first. In addition to this, the horseshoe attached to her raised limb pulsated with blue mana, and she felt a coldness in the air that hadn't there before. She stared at her limb, barely aware that the guards around her suppressed shivers themselves.

She set her leg down and groaned, "Great, I may need to take my shoes off for a bit."

"And why is that?" the lilac pegasus asked, turning to her with a puzzled frown on his muzzle. He blinked when he noticed his breath began to form small clouds in front of his face, and he shivered again.

"Ice is growing on my legs," Katie replied, waving a frost-laden hoof for emphasis. "My shoes are enchanted."

"Is that why it suddenly turned cold in here?" another guard questioned, garnering a nod from Katie.

"Yep. The enchantments bring down the temperature of wherever they're activated at—just enough that I can turn stab wounds into popsicles, if it comes down to it," Katie replied, her wings briefly spreading and buzzing again.

The guards exchanged glances with each other, and those who had wings curled their feathery limbs around their stomachs as the temperature dropped a little more. The earth ponies and unicorns made to siddle close together, but Katie stopped that by uttering, "You guys are wearing metal armor. You'd only freeze quicker if you huddled up fully dressed as you are."

Another guard piped up, shooting Katie a vexed look as he spoke, "Are you able to de-activate your enchantments or something? Methinks you're channeling mana through your hooves."

"Are changelings even able to channel mana through their hooves? Especially this one, since she's hornless?" the lilac pegasus inquired, gesturing to Katie with a wing.

"Yes I am, to answer both questions at the same time," Katie replied with a giggle. As the guards looked at her, they noticed her shoes pulsating with blue mana for a few seconds before the glow died down. The temperature shifted again, and the halls turned comfortably warm in seconds. The assembled bunch sighed in relief and took a minute to relish the favorable mild heat, hardly noticing that any ice coating the wraith's legs rapidly melted in the same span of time.

A door opened, and into the hall stepped a bleary-eyed Armin. The changeling had shed his disguise with a brief flare of green flames, though he sparkled as much as the guards even after the fires that engulfed him died off. "Who did what with mana now?" he groaned, raising a holey hoof to yawn into.

"They asked if I could channel mana through my hooves, which I just stopped doing," Katie answered, making certain to punctuate her response with a buzz of her wings.

Armin blinked and rubbed his eyes, yawning again. "So, why do changelings channel mana through their hooves, and have unicorn-like magic on top of that?" a guard asked.

"Makes it… easier to shapeshift into an earth or unicorn pony," Armin replied with a sluggish shrug. "What's the point… of taking one of those forms, without access to innate magics? If that were the case… you may as well ask me to dress up in a sheep costume."

The guards exchanged glances with one another, as if expecting the tag-wearing changeling to shapeshift into one of them. The lilac pegasus asked, "And if you have access to innate and active magics simultaneously… would that make love-sucking easier to pull off?"

"Convincingly, and theoretically, yes," Armin replied with another yawn. He smacked his lips and added, "I'm going back to bed." With that, he turned around and trotted back into the room, but not before he assumed his pegasus guise again. The door clicked shut behind him, and the guards were once again left alone with the wraith and an otherwise-empty hallway.

The lilac guard grumbled under his breath, "This is gonna be a long night…"

"What're you on about this time?" Katie asked, ears swiveling as she articulated her question.

Another pegasus guard that was stationed next to the wraith, one sporting an orange coat and a blue mane, piped up, "Don't mind Zephyr Bolt. Sometimes he gets cranky."

Katie turned to the guard next to her, a brow rising to her hairline. "I doubt that wanting to shove his pike up my ass would constitute as 'cranky,'" she scoffed.

Zephyr decided to insert his two bits, and he looked at the orange guard as he scoffed, "Flash Sentry, I'm not cranky. I just find it distasteful that the Fantasians brought changelings with them."

"I can't help what I am, okay? You shut your cakehole!" Katie hissed, turning to Zephyr with narrowed eyes. Before she could channel mana through her hooves and bring down the temperature of the hall to water-freezing levels, an orange hoof moving to rest on her withers stopped her. She turned to Flash, who sent her a wry grin.

"She's right, Zephyr. It's like if I inexplicably wanted to be a unicorn one morning—deep down, I'd be denying myself for what I am," Flash stated, turning to Zephyr and shooting him the same grin he just gave the wraith. "I can't just hack off my wings, glue a twig to my head, and proclaim myself a unicorn. I just couldn't pull it off, because I can't use active magic. That's alicorn and changeling territory."

Zephyr huffed and grumbled something unintelligible under his breath. The unicorn guard nearest to him gave him a nudge with a hoof, and smiled fondly at Flash. "Well said, Sentry," he chirped, garnering a sheepish grin from Flash. He then turned to Katie and addressed her, "Do you work for anypony?"

Katie shook her head. "I'm just tagging along with the general and his unicorn trinity," she replied.

"And why is that?" Flash asked, a brow quirked.

Katie turned to him and did not fail to answer, "Back on Fantasia, they gave me a warm place to sleep. And when I found that Lance had changelings under his command, the desire to trot with him grew that much stronger."

"And…?" Flash persisted, sensing that the wraith had left something out of her response.

"I wanted to find out how, exactly, he got the changelings he has to obey him," Katie concluded, her orbs dimming as she spoke. "Gryphons are one thing—I couldn't give a flying hoot, so long as they didn't tear into me with their beaks. Changelings are another kettle of fish altogether."

"Did you broach this topic with him?" Zephyr piped up.

"No, because somepony else beat me to it," Katie replied curtly. "He pretty much dodged the question with a vague answer—and as a changeling myself, to me, that's very fishy if you asked for my input."

"Like how you dodged our inquiry every time we asked?" Zephyr murmured, his wings flaring for a moment.

"You really want to know why my face is split in two? Why I'm a trotting stick insect? If I told you, you'd shit your post every night for six months on end just thinking about it," Katie replied, crossing her forelegs in a pouting manner. "No disrespect, Zephyr Bolt, but I'd rather you kept your job as guard of this castle."

Zephyr and Flash exchanged wide-eyed looks, blinking as Katie's tirade lingered in their minds. Their wings shifted uncomfortably as they began imagining several unpleasant scenes in which Katie could've been rendered pencil-thin and with her face marred by her split grin. They shook their heads to rid themselves of the thoughts. Whatever the case for her damaged horn and atrophy and other issues, they resigned themselves to the fact that she wasn't going to spill the beans anytime soon.

Once again, the hall fell as silent as a tundra after it weathered a vicious snowstorm. And this time, the tranquility lingered for quite a while.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

Anna dreamt as she slept, and the dream world decided to place her in an area that was pitch-black as far as the eye could see. Instinctively, she channeled mana into her horn and conjured a green light from its tip, illuminating her surroundings and finding herself on a trail large enough to fit three ponies if they trotted side by side.

This place, wherever it was, boasted a large stone structure jutting out to one side and an edge marking the road's width on the other. She looked at the rocky surface, then up to find that it seemed to simply go so high it was impossible to see if it had a top, as if pure black had consumed it.

The mare trotted to the edge of the road and peered down, careful to avoid slipping off. She found the same thing with the bottom, which turned out to be a steep drop—if anything, she may as well have been standing on a floating road with a rock wall in the middle of nowhere. Anna sighed to herself and turned around before freezing.

Something was off from second numero uno—where, logically speaking, half of the road should have been, there wasn't so much as an inch of path behind her. The unicorn turned around again and shook her head before moving away from the edge of the road and trotting onwards. She found that the trail wound up and up, like a flat curvy ramp that was constructed by nature itself. Minutes passed without incident, but as Anna climbed and climbed, she couldn't suppress a series of creeping chills that tingled along her spine and occasionally caused her tail to jerk.

She kept trotting on for what felt like hours on end, and eventually stopped to catch her breath, eyes locked onto the trail. "Wh… where does it end?" she asked herself, panting between words. Anna turned to the rocky wall, and noticed a particular opening that she was certain hadn't been there before.

Or, was it there to begin with, and she narrowly avoided trotting past it just now? Anna wasn't sure. She simply ignored it for the time being and began cantering along the path, and her horn illuminated the trail and the rock wall at her side. Paying just a smidgen more attention to these two things, she noted that nothing had really changed—even as she spent what felt like more hours following the damned road.

Once again, she halted to catch her breath after a while, making sure to look over the wall as she stopped. An opening was there, a gaping entrance to a black abyss from which a silent cold draft blew. Anna shuddered as the fleeting zephyr caressed her body, and for a moment she stiffened as it managed to go under her tail and touch her most sensitive areas. "N-not gonna stick around for this," she murmured, and with that she resumed trotting—this time at a brisk pace.

The road and wall remained consistent as she went on. Constant. Steadfast. "Just how much longer do I have to travel before it ends?" she pondered as she continued to climb up and up. Stopping for the third time, she found the same damned things—trail, wall, hole-in-wall. Another breeze came from the opening, this one colder and strong enough to lift the hairs of her tail and make them waft to one side. A hoof flew to her mouth and muffled a startled groan as the gale poked at her nethers, the feeling not unlike sticking an ice cube between her secondary lips.

Then the glow coming from her horn changed colors abruptly, from a brilliant green to a near-blinding crimson. A voice hit Anna's ears, just barely an echoing whisper, "The sinner's back. The sinner has come for round two." Immediately, the archer responded—she broke out into a frenzied gallop, making sure not to slip off of the road's edge as she fled from the hole in the wall. As she ran, her heart starting to race a good fifty miles a minute in her chest, she noticed that the accursed breeze didn't touch her once.

But the whispering voice dogged her every step, as if its owner constantly floated just behind her ears, "Give up, filly. Running from your sin won't do you any good."

"I didn't sin!" Anna barked, adrenalin coursing through her blood and causing her to gallop as fast as her legs could carry her. Though after a few minutes, her limbs gave out and she tripped, landing ungracefully upon the road with ragged breaths.

"Then why do you flee if you didn't sin, hrrrrm?" the voice asked as Anna scrambled to stand. It laughed when the unicorn fell down, her legs shaking and trembling as she hauled herself right back up. "Oh, do stop with the futile effort," it scoffed. The archer disobeyed and started galloping again, but as she raced along the road, she glanced over her shoulder.

Darkness met her vision, and she turned back before skidding to a halt. She gasped when her front hooves slipped off of the edge of the path, and had she not grasped herself in her magic and sent herself to the wall, she'd have fallen off to the all-consuming black below.

"Slipping off and tumbling to your doom would have been the better alternative to living with your sinfulness," the voice growled as Anna peeled herself from the wall and started galloping once more.

"I don't have any sinfulness to live with, you invisible prick!" Anna howled in a hoarse voice, eyes squinting and vision blurring as she continued onward. Her legs burned, her chest begged for oxygen, and her eyes watered as she denied her body rest.

"Oh really?" the voice scoffed in a mocking tone. "Then tell me what this is!" Anna skid to a halt and screamed as she felt an object with a deathly cold and absurdly rough surface wedge itself into her rectum. Her legs buckled, and she laid down on the trail as a burning pain surged through her nerves in a matter of seconds, her front hooves reaching around in an attempt to pry whatever-it-was out.

Anna stopped when she felt metal clamp around her forelegs at every joint, and she tried moving them to find that they were now cemented to the trail. Her back legs kicked at the ground uselessly, and this only left her with her ass in the air and her tail being swept to one side. She looked at the rock wall, and began panicking as from that accursed opening a shadowy creature trotted into view. It had glowing orbs that stared back at her, taking in her current position for one moment before dimming the next.

It crept towards her, and two more dark beings emerged from the crevasse and flanked it. Anna made to tell them to stop right where they were, but a black limb shot to her muzzle and held it shut against the road. One of the creatures trotted around out of sight, and she cringed as a limb—claw, hoof, or paw, she couldn't tell—prodded at her left cutie mark.

"She's marked," the creature behind her scoffed as it continued to poke at her hip.

"Doesn't matter—her talent's useless," the thing holding her muzzle shut stated.

Anna started struggling, making muffled whines of protest as she felt a limb trail to her nether regions. She made to thrust her back legs outward in an attempt to buck the living daylights out of whatever was behind her, but her rear hooves only found air to sail through. Worse still, the limb kept trailing on undeterred, as though detached from its owner. When it managed to touch its undeserved prize, she stopped thrashing and squealed when it grabbed her by the clit and twisted.

"There we go. Be a good little filly. Don't want this happening again, do we?" the creature behind her hissed, tugging at the sensitive nub for emphasis. Anna's ears fell back against her head as a new wave of agony hit her, but it became a dull throb when her clit was released. A musky scent filled her nostrils, and all it did for her was make her stomach start turning. Anna squealed again when her clit was yanked at again, and this time it was pulled and twisted hard enough she released then and there from sheer pain.

"Awww, looks like our little sinner likes it," one of the shadows scoffed in mock-disappointment. Anna began struggling, and she doubled her efforts, but all it took was a smack to her rear end to get her to cease immediately. Limbs grasped her hips, and she felt a form press itself flush against her back.

She woke up right as she felt something pressing against her entrance, eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. Anna laid there for an indeterminate amount of time, as stiff as a statue and with her heart thundering madly in her chest. "Just… a dream," she whispered to herself, though her method of self-comfort did little to ease her. Slowly, she sat up and looked around, her eyes falling on a form that lay next to her in a bed lined with crystal.

And she instantly met with crimson eyes framing a burnt orange face. "You look like you've seen a ghost," Lance murmured, blinking sleepily.

"Had a… another nightmare," Anna murmured in a low voice, fidgeting in place. She idly crossed her rear legs, only to blush and find a rather wet patch of cloth under them.

"Good thing I'm not currently wearing my uniform," Lance murmured, sitting up with a sigh. "Did something prod you there in your dream?" he asked, using one of his wings to gesture to Anna's rear legs for emphasis.

"G-grabbed… and pulled… it hurt," Anna murmured, shuddering as she recalled the unpleasant sensation. The mere thought of it only made her cross her rear legs to the point her inner thighs began aching from being pressed together.

Lance sighed and moved a hoof, letting it rest on her shoulder. "If it helps, just stay up and trot around for a few. It was just a fucked up dream, and nothing more," he stated in a calm voice, his wings shifting uncomfortably when Anna fidgeted immediately. He quirked a brow and asked, "Wait, you were…?" When the mare next to him nodded hesitantly, he physically slapped himself in the face with a hoof. "Forget I said that…"

With that, he himself got out of the bed, and Anna followed suit on a wobbly set of legs. He turned to look at her, noticing that her tail hung heavily behind her rear legs, and that some strands clung to her fetlocks and gaskins. "You okay?"

Anna shook her head. "Still… dealing with…" she trailed off as her back legs buckled, forcing her to sit on her haunches.

"Would a midnight bath sound good?" Lance asked, watching as Anna made to stand again.

"That would be good," Anna murmured in reply, nodding fervently.