4th day of Moon's Rising
454 Years after the Defeat of Discord by the Sisters

Dragons, as it turned out, were actually quite difficult to kill, and wouldn’t go down just because they’d lost a limb or two. That very fact was the reason she was currently plunging towards a maw filled with fangs and arcs of deadly plasma instead of the comparative safety of the cobblestone of the street.

Pallas would still be going down either way. It hadn’t been the dragon that made her fall out of the sky. That was thanks to an oversized crossbow bolt winging her from what seemed like an impossible distance. Burning crystals fell around her, the remains of the strange payload strapped to the bolt. If she had been a unicorn, she might have been able to figure out what was going on with that.

Then again, if she was a unicorn falling from this height would be even more fatal than it already was.

Pallas’ wing flared out, and she tucked its counterpart to her side, sending her into what pegasai called a death roll. The reason for the name was that typically, a pony going into a death roll didn’t come out of it quite as alive as they went into it. The average pony was tough, but not ‘withstand a few dozen Gs’ tough, and there wouldn’t be Wonderbolts to compare Pallas to for a long time.

Not that her exit maneuver was something a Wonderbolt would use. Pallas slammed the wing she’d held back into the dragon’s face as she skimmed to the side of its jaws, just barely clearing the teeth. The place where she’d broken the scales on its face was still weak, and her blade slid into the flesh beneath, dragging a ragged line down the dragon’s face as the dense meat slowed the cut and Pallas herself.

Pallas jerked to a stop as the edge hit a still-intact scale, almost popping her wing out of the socket. She pulled herself to the dragon and latched on with her spurs just as the pain from the laceration seemed to register for the huge beast, the monster thrashing and roaring. Wings came towards her, the dragon trying to swat her, and she let go, dropping down to the street.

“Looks like I’m going to have to find a real way to finish you off,” Pallas said, mostly to herself since she was pretty sure the dragon didn’t speak Equuish.

There was a flash like lightning as the dragon started to breathe, a thin blade of plasma streaming into the sky like a huge sword. It swung down as the dragon swept it into the city, trying to blindly hit Pallas. Even the bedrock couldn’t handle the constant abuse any longer, steam erupting as the plasma blade hit the water table and flash-boiled it, the ground cracking open and splitting.

Pallas took to the sky as a gorge opened, ruined homes on the edges falling into the abyss, steam and sand spilling up in a red glow, the bottom of the chasm obscured by the debris but already showing the maleficent blood-red of an active volcano.

“This is insane!” Pallas laughed, starting to get light-headed. “Where in Tartarus is Luna?! Where’s Celestia?! This is her bloody city! Why isn’t she protecting it?!”

The dragon roared in challenge. There was only one thing to do. Answer it.

“Everypony just stay calm,” Wind Dancer said, standing on top of a table in the bar. The ground shook, almost throwing her from her perch. “I don’t know what’s happening, but the Guard will take care of this. We’re in the safest city in the world.”

“It’s a griffon attack!” The shouting pony looked like he had to be a refugee.

“It’s not,” Wind Dancer said loudly, trying to keep her voice strong and level. She wasn’t a mid-ranking officer just because she had the nicest flank in the Night Guard. Though it had been useful. “The griffons wouldn’t attack. There’s a griffon ambassador in the palace negotiating the peace treaty.”

“How would you know that?!” A unicorn demanded.

“I’m a member of the Night Guard. I promise that-” Wind Dancer was cut off as the ground shifted, the entire building tilting to one side. A wall cracked and shattered, the southern corner of the tavern dropping down into an abyss, ponies falling into the darkness.

Ponies screamed, running for the door. Wind Dancer dove for the nearest of the falling ponies. She couldn’t save all of them, but she could save one of them. He reached for her, the others vanishing into the smoke and dust of the chasm.

Wind Dancer grabbed his moves, fighting to gain altitude. This one time, the world seemed to approve of her efforts, thermals from the geological disaster giving lift to her wings. She managed to get out over the city before they gave out and she was forced to spiral down, not strong enough to carry the earth pony for long.

“Thank you! Thank Celestia for you!” the pony gasped, as Wind Dancer set him down safely.

“Thank Luna. She’s the one paying me.” Wind Dancer smiled weakly. Outside, the sounds of destruction were inescapably loud, a distant and awful roaring. She turned to the pony. “Make it count. I saved you, so you pass it on and save somepony else. Get everypony you can and get them running out of the city. Its not even safe to stay inside now.”

Pallas flew into a bank of smoke, razor-edged spines flying like hail around her as she made a tight turn, trying to avoid the barrage. Several bounced from her armor, one lucky shot getting between the scale-like plates and jabbing into her flesh.

She came almost completely around just as the dragon erupted from the smoke. Milk-like blood poured from it in a thick rain from the wounds Pallas had carved into its flesh.

Pallas was impressed that it was able to fly at all, six night-colored wings beating at the sky. It just looked too big and heavy to get into the air. Then again, the same could be said for her, especially with the armor.

“Why aren’t we out fighting that monster?” Private Red Zinger adjusted his grip on his spear. He glanced back at the door he was guarding. “I mean, I’m sure this prisoner is important and all, but ponies are dying out there!”

“The orders came straight from the Solar Circle,” Jasmine Bloom said, turning slightly to meet his gaze and shrug. She tugged at a strap on her peytral. As part of the reserve guard she’d only been called to duty at the last minute, and had both less practice getting her armor on and less time to do it.

“I don’t like it. I never even hear about them, then suddenly we’re supposed to take orders from them like they’re the Princess herself.” Red Zinger sighed. “And that means kidnapping some pony who’s barely more than a foal and throwing her in a cell? While the alarms are going off and the whole palace feels like it’s coming down around us?”

“They say she’s a high value target, I’m not going to ask questions,” Jasmine said. “And it’s not kidnapping. We’ve got her in protective custody.”

“The rumors going around are that we’re supposed to, you know… take care of her, if somepony tries to rescue her.” Red shivered.

“Then we’d better hope nopony tries.” Jasmine sighed. “Look, I’m sure we won’t have to do anything. I wouldn’t want to kill a foal. If something happens, we can always refuse the order as being illegitimate. We’re not supposed to kill prisoners. Right?”

Red was silent except for an odd gurgling hiss.

Jasmine frowned and turned to him. “What’s-” Her eyes went wide. Red Zinger was clutching at his neck. Blood spurted from between his hooves. He dropped his weapon, and the movement drew her eyes to the wall, where his shadow was cast against the white wall - and not cast alone. Another shadow stood with his, holding a slim blade through Red Zinger’s throat.

Jasmine jumped towards the unseen intruder, trying to pull him away from Red Zinger. Her hooves caught only air. The other shadow hadn’t moved, it was just as though there was nothing casting it at all.

“Magic!” Jasmine whispered. “It has to be dark magic!” She turned on her heels, galloping away. There wasn’t anything she could do for Red Zinger now. Behind her, the shadow peeled off of the wall like a pony stepping through a thin curtain, revealing a unicorn in black armor, with a shimmering coat of jade.

A dark shape dropped down in front of Jasmine, a pegasus whose lavender feathers and coat were almost entirely hidden behind draconian armor. Jasmine opened her mouth to scream, and the pegasus flapped her wings. The breath was sucked from Jasmine’s lungs, and her ears popped. She felt bubbling in her open mouth and eyes as the water started to spontaneously boil.

She didn’t have time to process what was going on. The pegasus flapped her wings again, and the air distorted in long arcs like ripples on a pond. There was a moment of terrible pressure and tearing, and Jasmine fell apart in neat, bloodless sections.

“Any other guards, Respy?” The pegasus folded her wings, stepping lightly over the body, her hooves barely making a sound as they touched the ground.

“Those are the last two whom stood in our way,” the unicorn said, raising her visor. She was almost transparent, with the distinctive glittering coat of a crystal pony. Her eyes leaked purple trickles of magic from her long-term use of dark magic. “And please, Fluttering Moth, don’t call me Respy.”

“I’m sorry, would you prefer me to call you Smoky Quartz, the Dark Magus of Shade and the Doom of The North?” Moth snickered.

“I gave up that name after Sombra fell. You know that. Just... Resplendent Shadow. Unlike you, I haven’t taken this new start lightly.”

“Hey, it’s important to me too,” Moth shrugged. “Now lets grab the kid.”

“We can agree on that,” Shadow said, kicking the door open. A white thestral sat inside, collared like an animal with a chain thick enough to hold a minotaur.

“Aren’t you a little short to be a Dragoon?” Bianca joked.

Pallas grabbed the wall, spurs squealing as she went from a panic dive to avoid another burst of ultraviolet plasma right to a total stop, her limbs protesting the rough treatment. She took a deep breath, looking straight down from near the top of the clock tower she’d landed on. It was right near the edge of the disaster zone, less than half a block to the gorge the dragon had opened up and already leaning as the ground started to subside under it.

The dragon slammed into the ground with considerably less grace than Pallas had managed, the street cracking under its weight. The beast reared up and tried to brace itself on the tower, like a cat stretching to reach something above it.

The tower tilted more, the cement and bricks at the base cracking as they started to shatter from the stress. The dragon lit up like a Hearth’s Warming bonfire, energy crackling from between its fangs and along its spine.

Pallas started running, going straight down the tower, spurs keeping her affixed to its surface. Spines slammed into the bricks around her, and she ducked to the side as a stream of cutting energy sliced through the air, the plasma so close she felt her skin blister even through her armor.

She jumped and landed on the dragon’s face, stabbing into its eye with spur. Thick jelly spurted over Pallas’ hoof as it sank in nearly to the knee. The dragon bellowed, trying to grab for its wounded eye and falling back, unstable from reaching up. A shadow fell over Pallas. She looked up to see the top half of the tower tipping towards her.

Pallas tried to disengage, her hoof stuck in the dragon’s eye socket. She swore, glancing up as cracks spread and the dragon took a step back towards the abyss. Something popped, and Pallas’ hoof came free in a stream of gore.

She flew down and away, rubble impacting on her back. She hit the ground running and took off again as the cobblestone broke apart under her, the street crumbling. The dragon roared and spread its wings, trying to get into the air.

The top of the tower hit the dragon just as it took off, forcing it back to the ground. The ground protested, shattering under the weight and crumbling into the abyss, a cloud of steam and smoke exploding into the sky as the dragon plunged down towards the distant red glow.

Pallas circled the rift, watching the monster fall. The glow from below brightened and flared as a column of purple flame exploded out into the sky, outshining even the sun for a few brief moments. And then it simply sputtered and stopped.

She set down on a rooftop, her hoofsteps the loudest thing she could hear, her ears ringing from the constant din of battle.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Pallas said, before taking a step and falling on her face, armor scraping on the ground. Her joints ached, she’d torn a few muscles, and every motion made her burns flare up in pain.

“Never mind,” Pallas hissed. “It was bad. There had better be a damn good reason why I didn’t get any support.” She crawled to the edge of the roof, looking down at the city. Ponies were starting to come out of the wreckage to put out the fires and free others from rubble. She couldn’t even begin to guess at the casualties.

Her ears perked up.

“The magic circle!” Pallas stood up, suddenly remembering what she’d seen before the wounded dragon had blindsided her. She wasn’t really in any condition to fight, but that had never stopped her from doing something stupid before.