Twilight crept through the Hedge like a shadow, making no noise and blending with the bookshelves and papery vines like a creature born and bred there, even in her iron armor. Changelings coming to join the effort on the Citadel, as it was becoming known, had brought tales of another group of changelings attempting to kill or capture any trying to join up with Twilight. They called themselves the Darkest Dawn, and seemed to believe that changelings should be going back to their masters, rather than seeking freedom.

Twilight, sworn to protect the rights and safety of the changelings of Equestria, had set out a few days later with Trixie and a few volunteers, with Luminous minding the reports and requests for her time while she was gone. Luminous had taken the increase in responsibility very seriously, and Twilight had seen her last going over the reports of the Citadel's construction in the wee hours, until she had been forced to order her squire to go to bed.

Twilight almost chuckled at the thought of Luminous waking up early just to go over her reports again, but she maintained her stealth as she and her fellow changelings inched through the Hedge around the last place the Darkest Dawn had struck. Icebell, one of the volunteers, froze as he heard something, and sounded the alarm: a whistle similar to that of birds nearby. The whole group stopped and listened, and for several moments, nothing happened.

Then, slowly, Twilight heard voices, “Stones, I told you no one was out here,” a petulant, nasal voice was complaining, “We walked all this way and there's-”

A grunt interrupted him, “Look at the Hedge, you idiot. She's here, somewhere close,” the voice was like rocks tumbling over each other: sharp and grumbling all at once, “He said the books always followed her, so if the bloody Hedge is suddenly made of shelving, you can bet she's close by.”

Twilight looked back at her fellow changelings in surprise, who grimaced and nodded, staying silent in hiding. She hadn't realized she cast so large an effect over the Hedge, and was beginning to realize what a liability she was on a stealth mission like this. Her thoughts were chilled and brought to a halt by the third voice, which menaced with a bubbling hatred, hot with venom and chilled with madness.

“Curse that Twilight, curse her and break her! It's because of her we're back here, back in this miserable pit,” the voice took a moment to spit derisively, and Twilight had to motion for her group to stay still as several of them took umbrage on her behalf, which, while touching, would only result in deaths and a longer time tracking the group. “If she's around here, maybe we can catch her. He said he'd send us back if we did. She can't be so hard,” Twilight smirked a little at that, but most of her attention focused on the proximity of the speaker, who was getting very close, “She's only a mare after all.”

Twilight took that moment to burst through the thorns into the path of the speakers, who were, rather surprisingly, ready for her. Three charging ponies, a pegasus and two earth ponies, were mid-flight as she looked around, but they had obviously expected her to come alone. Icebell tackled the pegasus, who looked like he had been made of obsidian boulders and a cutie mark of a tooth, and pinned him painfully by the wings to the ground, scattering pages of nonsense that littered the ground of the Hedge. One of the other volunteers, a black unicorn covered in ancient runes that glowed with his eyes, neatly caught one of the earth ponies, a slim, ratlike pony with no fur, a long, skinny tail and a cutie mark of cheese, in a bubble of force. The last hostile frothed with rage, and savagely fought off two other volunteers with bucking kicks and snarling promises of violence. When he spotted Twilight, he ripped towards her like a madpony.

Twilight didn't even flinch as he charged and calmly stared at him, casting and whispering to the fae contracts she had made. As he was about to strike, mere inches from the casting unicorn, he suddenly stopped, his eyes widened, and he very gently curled up in terror, sobbing, while chains of some dark material formed from his tears and bound him tightly.

The other changelings were noticeably impressed, and stopped struggling, the stony pegasus especially staring at Twilight with something approaching awe as she levitated over his sobbing compatriot and set him down nearby. She flicked her glance over to the rest of the volunteers and for a moment, her gaze sharpened, then Twilight whispered softly, “A diversion... No...” She turned her attention, which was now filled with a quiet fury, sending sparks of letters and angry phrases from her burning mane, to spread brief fires of literature amongst the scattered pages littering the Hedge. “Where,” Twilight asked in a low, dangerous tone which made even the volunteers with her flinch, “Did your fellows take Trixie?”

The encampment of the Darkest Dawn was a wretched place. It was in a clearing of the Hedge, set on a hill, with some stabilizing influence on it that prevented Twilight's presence from affecting it as she approached, alone, towards the gatehouse. The camp was encircled with a wooden palisade, which was tipped with carved spikes and every log was covered in strange runes that were unpleasant to look upon. Twilight snorted as she heard what sounded like a pair of gates being hastily slammed shut once she was in bowshot, realizing just how poorly managed the place was. Once she had approached within speaking distance, she turned up her amplification spell on her armor with a thought and addressed the camp, “PONIES OF THE DARKEST DAWN, I AM DAME TWILIGHT SPARKLE,” the sheer volume of her voice rattled the gates and the palisades, not to mention the nerves of the ponies behind it, “AND I HAVE COME FOR THE RETURN OF MY FRIEND, WHO YOU HAVE TAKEN, AND FOR THE LIVES OF THOSE YOU HAVE SLAIN OR CAPTURED, WHICH DEMAND REDRESS OR RELEASE!” She turned the volume back down, sat down in front of the gate and waited.

After several minutes, a voice called out from behind the doors of the camp, “Leave this place, emissary of a false goddess,” the voice cracked a little on the last word, then continued, a little steadier, “We seek only to undo the damage you have done!”

Twilight laughed, and responded at a more reasonable volume, “Damage? What damage? I extended an invitation to all changelings to help me build a place for us to live.”

“Your world is not life,” another, older voice responded harshly, “It is cold, and dark, and we want no part of it. Your friend and those we have taken are forfeit,” the voice carried the tremble of madness in it, like a vibrating thread, “We will give them to the Beast in exchange for our return to our great leaders, and there is nothing you ca-”

Twilight cut him off with a sharp whistle, which echoed across the encampment like the call of some huge songbird. Abruptly, chaos erupted inside the encampment as not one, but three huge shapes emerged from the surrounding Hedge. Three massive, draconic shapes, dragon changelings, advanced on the encampment from three sides. One, a massive dragon made of ice, seemed to boil with an inner light and clouds of steam rolled off him at all times as the fire within battled endlessly with the icy changes enacted upon him. The second, a massive, hulking dragon that seemed to ooze arrogance and avarice, advanced with an awesome, perfect gait that terrified even as it impressed. The last was shorter than the first two and missing an eye, but looked to be made of scars, his body malformed and hideous, yet full of a terrible strength as he shouldered the thorns of the Hedge aside with disdain, taking barely a scratch.

Twilight turned the volume up on her amplification enchantment again, this time to its highest setting, “YOU WILL NOT. YOU WILL RETURN MY FRIEND TO ME, AND THOSE YOU HAVE TAKEN, OR YOU WILL BURN,” the gate rattled and the whole hill seemed to shake with the weight of Twilight's command, which was delivered with a bone-chilling certainty, “IF YOU KILL ANY OF THEM, IF YOU REFUSE TO COME OUT, OR IF YOU TRY TO ATTACK ANY OF US, YOUR MISERABLE ENCAMPMENT WILL BE YOUR FUNERAL PYRE! NOW-”

Twilight broke off as the gate opened with a creak, to reveal a bruised and bloodied Trixie, surrounded by similarly abused-looking changelings. Trixie saluted, then, to Twilight's amazement, grinned, revealing a missing tooth, “You didn't have to shout, Twilight, we were on our way out anyway.”

As it turned out, Trixie had been in the middle of organizing a breakout right as Twilight and her group had descended on the camp, which was now in total disarray. The dragons sat in a triangle around a group of terrified-looking changelings, who all huddled in the middle of the encampment. Twilight and Trixie, who had assured Twilight she was fine, were helping the wounded and the sick, of which there were a depressingly large number, both of survivors and those supposedly in charge of the camp.

Whatever leader the camp had had was apparently hideously ignorant of basic camp discipline and hygiene. Filth and mud ran together in between crude wooden huts, made worse by the spring in the center of the camp, which was rancid with ill-use and pouring the filth between the huts. The whole place stank of misery, and yet there was a curious defiance about the changelings who had been running it. They genuinely believed, according to Trixie, that their lives had been better under the yoke of their keepers, and were all desperately trying to bargain with the Beast to be returned, mainly by offering those who had been 'misled' by Twilight into trying to reintegrate into society.

Trixie had gathered those who had been captured by the Darkest Dawn members, and rallied them into a prison break using, to Twilight's surprise, a few bits of cloth, some string and some sticks. How she'd managed it, Twilight had no idea, but Trixie seemed more baffled by the appearance of the dragons-changelings, who were managing to keep the prisoners contained by the sheer weight of their presence. “But,” she asked Twilight in hushed tones, “Where did they come from?”

Before Twilight could answer, the scarred dragon rumbled a response, “We sought Dame Twilight Sparkle, and were awaiting her in her Citadel when she arrived, calling for volunteers for a rescue mission. We three are those volunteers.” He nodded to the other two dragons without taking his eye off the prisoners, “I am Archaemonstrixillator, this is Kazarhoth,” he nodded to the icy dragon, which nodded to Twilight and Trixie curtly, “And that,” he nodded to the arrogant-looking, sneering dragon, “Is Kretellmanstrix.” Kretellmanstrix flicked Twilight an appraising look, which she returned steadily. Archaemonstrixillator nodded to Twilight once more, “We would speak to you, ere this is over, Dame Twilight Sparkle, though I fear I must interpret for my fellows. They know your language not.”

Twilight nodded without bowing, while Trixie continued to stare, slack-jawed, “It would be my pleasure, noble dragons, to receive you. I only regret I had no time when you arrived to greet you properly.” While outwardly calm and relaxed, inwardly, Twilight was frantically running through her mental library of dragon courtesy and culture, while Archaemonstrixillator translated her words to the others, who seemed to relax a fraction, though, Twilight noted, Kazarhoth relaxed a moment before the translation began. She suspected the icy dragon knew more Equestrian than he let on, but she didn't bring it up and instead addressed all three dragons, “For now, Archaemonstrixillator, Kretellmanstrix, and Kazarhoth,” she nodded to each in turn, “I thank you for your assistance, it was most timely. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a camp to disassemble,” With that, she turned away, and pulled Trixie in step with her to begin preparations to disassemble the camp and care for those that were ill or wounded, either in being taken by the Darkest Dawn or by the mismanagement of the leader of the camp, who was currently being held in the middle of the large group of those who had been identified as the core of the Darkest Dawn.

Twilight arranged the survivors into squads, those that weren't seriously ill or wounded, and had them systematically pillage each hut, looking for survivors or possible clues that might lead to other similar groups. The survivors readily did as she asked, very obviously intimidated by her presence and the dragon-changelings that were under her command, though many of them obviously wanted a piece of the leaders of the camp. Twilight and Trixie categorized everything that was brought out of the houses, most of which was worthless junk, though some potent magical objects were present amongst the rubbish, along with some terrified survivors that had been chained inside. She used magic to change several of the huts into small wagons, sufficient for individuals to use, and arranged the wounded and whatever property had been taken from them in the wagon train.

Twilight looked over the last of the wounded, sent Trixie ahead with the survivors and the pillage, then approached the prisoners, all of whom were looking outraged, terrified, defiant, or some mix thereof. “You have all committed great wrongs here,” she said softly, her voice low and dangerous, like the rumble before a storm, “You kidnapped ponies, stole from them, enslaved them,” her voice rose with her ire, the images of some of the poor wretches that had been chained in the huts fresh in her mind, “you have broken so many laws that, were we in Equestria, the Princess would have to banish you!”

“What law is there in Equestria?” One pony, the leader snarled, pushing his way to the front until a growl from one of the dragon-changelings halted him. He was a skinny, filthy-looking stallion, with furless skin that oozed slime like some gangrenous wound. His pus-yellow eyes rolled in madness as he shouted at Twilight, “Equestria is nothing! Nothing! We know the truth, while you lie there asleep, asleep and lying to yourself and others. What authority has a Princess when we have been to the land of dreams?!” His voice was growing in volume now, and there was a general disturbance in the dozen or so behind him as ponies began to get riled up, “We who have seen the TRUTH, the truth that the true rulers are coming, they will come for us, and take us from this wretched world that yo-”

He cut off, mid-rant, while Twilight's horn glowed and sparked with power as she whispered inwardly to the core of her faerie other-ness. Her mane was an inferno of fury now, and the shadows around her hooves seemed to reach with claws of darkness towards the leader. The stench of burned paper was overwhelming, and the leader seemed captivated, unable to speak, along with the whole crowd of changelings, pony and dragon alike. Twilight's presence demanded their attention, and when she spoke, they all trembled, “What you speak if is not truth. What you sought was the lies the creatures from beyond this place wanted you to believe. You were their toy, nothing more, no matter what they said, and convincing other ponies otherwise is nothing short of criminal. As such, I shall lay my judgment now.” Twilight seemed to be wrapped in a darkness that only emphasized the flames of her mane and the words flicking through them, words of fury and justice, while her eyes blazed like violet beacons. A whispering at the edge of hearing began as she spoke next, “All you members of the Darkest Dawn, you will be released, but you must swear upon the truth of your very selves that you will never again harm another mortal or changeling, nor attempt to convince others to do so. If you do not so swear, then I will personally see to it that you are brought before the Princesses for judgment. If you break your oath, then you shall never again see the light of night or day.” She glared around at the large group of changelings, “Do you so swear?”

One by one, the changelings all agreed after a varying amount of hesitation, and a curious tingling at the back of Twilight's mind told her instinctively that they were bound. She asked the dragon-changelings to escort them out to the edge of the clearing, and when they were all gone, she burned the horrible camp to the ground, searing the earth clean of the sickness the presence of the camp had brought and satisfying her inner fury somewhat. Still, she knew they wouldn't be the last, and the thought of that, and of what the ponies who survived had gone through under the hooves of the Darkest Dawn made her sick.