17th day of Rising Sun
455 Years after the Defeat of Discord by the Sisters

“I hope this is the right way,” Pallas grumbled, as she struggled to walk through the thin sand. “This stuff keeps getting into the joints in my hoof and seizing it up.”

“They were nice enough to give us supplies, so I’m sure they pointed us in the right direction.” Bianca said, from under the black cloak she’d taken from Shadow, leaving the crystal unicorn looking oddly naked, despite her armor. Bianca simply needed it more, the albino thestral especially prone to sunburn. Resplendent Shadow’s armor was much lighter than what Pallas wore, mostly leather and padded cloth instead of steel plate. it also left her flank exposed, her cutie mark of a pony’s face in silhouette standing out against her partly-transparent body.

“I don’t like it,” Moth said. “There’s only the four of us here, and this is the worst place to fight.”

“Worst place?” Bianca tilted her head, lowering the hood to get a better look around. They were in an open plain, the dunes of sand the only thing breaking up what was otherwise almost totally flat. There was just enough dust in the air to make it so anything more than a mile or two away vanished into the haze.

“There’s nowhere to hide. No cover to use.” Shadow explained. “We could easily be outnumbered, and have nowhere to rally. Worse, both myself and Fluttering Moth aren’t well-suited to open combat. Our talents lend themselves more to assassination and headhunting.”

“If we run into an army, I’ll take care of it,” Pallas snorted.

“No doubt, Black Wind,” Shadow said. “I would prefer not to let it come to that. We need to be very careful until we are able to meet the rest of our army, provided they were not scattered as we were.”

“If you guys are assassins, does that mean you could take out the Emperor yourselves?” Bianca asked.

“It would be an interesting challenge,” Shadow said, considering the question. “However, I don’t know enough about the target to make an assessment. In truth, I believe Fluttering Moth’s skills would either be much more useful, or completely negated, depending on how it interacts with the Emperor’s own abilities.”

“What was that, anyway?” Pallas asked, glancing back and shaking her metal leg, dislodging a stone from the ankle. “The griffons were just falling apart. There wasn’t even blood.”

“It’s my family’s special technique,” Moth said. “The history goes back before the founding of Equestria. A technique developed for assassinations on targets that could attack at range or who were too strong to engage in direct combat.”

“...Unicorns and Earth Ponies,” Pallas muttered.

“Yeah,” Moth shrugged. “See, pegasai have always had a thing for ranged weapons, since they let us keep the advantage of flight, you know? But against a unicorn, you don’t have time to reload, and with an earth pony, they can take a lot of arrows before they go down.”

“And unlike a bow, you can do it unarmed,” Pallas noted.

“True,” Moth nodded. “But the range is relatively short compared to modern crossbows, and alert sentries will hear the average pegasus in flight. A large part of the teachings of Adeio Anemos are how to fly silently. One of the most basic exercises is to fly using only pegasus magic, with no wingpower involved at all.” She stopped flapping, hovering in the air despite the apparent impossibility of it. The air looked distorted and bent around the edges of her wings, as if from a great heat.

“Could you teach me to do it?” Bianca asked.

“You don’t need to learn to fight,” Pallas said.

“She should learn how to defend herself,” Shadow countered. “In the Crystal Empire, all those with any noble blood at all were practiced at fencing, to defend their honor and lives.”

“Yeah, well. I can’t teach you,” Moth sighed. “Adeio Anemos needs extremely strong pegasus magic. I don’t think a thestral could do it at all. And if you can learn Dark Magic from Respy here, I’d be really surprised.”

“Perhaps a few basic techniques,” Shadow said. “But… yes, it would be difficult. Dark Magic has its advantages, but most of it builds on basic unicorn magic. At best I could teach the theory, but the middle of the desert is hardly the best place for that.”

“Good for practicing, though,” Moth put in. “Plenty of old wise ponies out in the desert with a bunch of secret techniques!”

“Like us,” Shadow snorted. “You do realize that right now, we are in fact those wise ponies, carrying techniques lost to time? I suppose that means there is some truth to old stories about such things.”

“Pallas, you can teach me, though, right?” Bianca asked, hopping next to the much larger thestral.

“I would be amused to see you learning Black Wind’s style of throwing herself at the largest enemy she can find,” Shadow said. “It is not conducive to one’s health, and so I cannot recommend it.”

“I think she’s implying you’re gonna get yourself killed,” Moth added, helpfully.

“Thanks, I got that,” Pallas snorted. “Okay, here’s the secret technique. First, you hit them as hard as you can.”

“Okay,” Bianca said. “Then what?”

“Then you hope it worked. If it didn’t, you did it wrong and need to try again.” Pallas grinned.

“That’s a terrible secret!” Bianca complained, fluttering up to land on Pallas’ back and biting her ear, growling.

“We’ll make a fierce warrior of you yet,” Pallas said, ignoring the bites and walking along as if Bianca was weightless.

“We could fly over it,” Pallas suggested. “If we wait for nightfall, it’d be hard to see us against the sky.”

The four were lying down on top of a rocky bluff, overlooking what looked like a combination between a prison and a farm. Groups of ponies, chained at the leg, moved between the rows of greenery and tended to the crops. Griffons in what looked like actual military armor watched them from guard towers.

“And leave them?” Bianca frowned.

“I have to agree,” Shadow said. “While we might be trying to meet up with Luna, our purpose in coming here was to liberate the ponies imprisoned under the Empire.”

“You’re right,” Pallas said. “I mean, obviously, you’re right.”

“Waiting until nightfall is a good start,” Moth said. “Our night vision is better than theirs. Shadow and I can take out the guards, then you can sweep in and make enough noise to draw out any stragglers. At night, the ponies should be locked up and well out of the way. Basically impossible to screw up.”

“Thankfully, it’s something our talents are well-suited to,” Shadow nodded.

“I don’t think we’ll have time to wait,” Pallas said, starting to get up. “Look.”

A bell rang, the prisoners and guards turning to look. Three griffons led a pony out of one of the low, stone buildings and to a wooden post, a bit in her mouth and one of the griffins tugging at it like she was just a draft animal. Batlike wings were tied at her side, the ropes painfully tight.

“A thestral?” Bianca whispered.

The lead was attached securely to the post and the three griffons waited as the prisoners were assembled around them, griffons lashing out with batons to force the ponies into line.

“These are war prisoners,” Shadow said, calmly.

“But- if they have thestrals, they might have…” Bianca trailed off. Pallas looked at her. “...they might have my parents.” Bianca finished, whispering.

“One moment,” Shadow said, focusing. An aura of dark magic surrounded her horn, and the air distorted in front of her.

“-stealing food and giving it to the prisoners in isolation!” Barked a voice, sounding like it was right in front of them.

“It’s a clairaudience spell,” Shadow explained. “Like a telescope for sound. Now we can hear what they’re saying.”

“For this crime, the prisoner is sentenced to thirty lashes, followed by a week in isolation so she can appreciate how important our policies are,” the griffon continued. There was a sharp crack. Pallas stood up, looking down at the camp. The griffon had pulled out a long whip, snapping it above the crowd. The restrained thestral whimpered and flinched.

Pallas growled.

“Hold on,” Shadow said. “We need to handle this carefully-” before she could continue, Pallas launched herself into the air, armored tail kicking up a cloud of dust as it lashed against the ground.

“So much for careful,” Moth muttered.

“The rules are simple for a reason!” the griffon warden shouted. “It’s so you stupid ponies can follow them! If you don’t grow food, you don’t eat! If you waste food, you get punished!” He cracked the whip again, right next to the thestral’s ear. She flinched, screaming through the bit in her mouth.

The griffon swung the whip, this time intending to land a blow across the pony’s back and wings. There was a sudden jerk, and the lash was torn from his talon. A dark shape slammed into the ground next to him with the sound of screeching steel and heavy hooves.

“No,” Pallas said, growling with the whip hanging from her teeth. She bit down, the leather cutting apart between her fangs. She spat the two halves out and glared at the griffon.

“What’s this? Some actual excitement?” The griffon smiled. “Soldiers! Show this rebel some hospitality!”

Pallas stood still, glaring at the warden as a dozen griffons surrounded her, drawing an assortment of blades, no two quite alike. Part of her wondered if they were salvaged or scraps left behind when the regular army went across the sea in their failed invasion. She flexed her wings, the edges catching the light.

“Attack!” The warden yelled, pointing. The griffons rushed in, not even attacking at the same time. They were either out of practice or had never been trained at all. Pallas lowered herself, crouching like a tiger, and pounced. Her wingblades slashed through griffons to either side as she tackled one right in front of her, biting his neck and tearing, ripping out his throat with her teeth and roaring a challenge to the rest as blood dripped free of her mouth, staining her helm’s lips red.

“Don’t just stand there and let her kill you! She’s just a pony!” the warden snapped. Pallas turned and ran through the griffons, eight of them exploding apart as she slashed. The prisoners watched wordlessly as the guards died, until a wave of gore splashed over them like a red tide, severed limbs rolling to a stop at their hooves.

Then the screaming started.

The last guard had frozen in fear, far away enough from her path of destruction to survive for a few moments longer. The griffon’s courage broke, and he turned to run. A bladed wheel, with spikes like the rays of the sun, slammed into his neck, severing his spine.

“Cowards don’t deserve to live,” the warden hissed.

Pallas spat. “You’d kill your own soldiers?”

“If they run, they stop being soldiers,” the warden corrected. He tore the circular blade from the griffon’s neck, brandishing both at Pallas. “These are wind and fire wheels, and I was taught by Brise himself, one of the Four Directional Winds. You don’t have a chance against me, girl.”

Pallas tilted her head, looking at the camp, the prisoners, and the warden.

“Someone told me once that you have to be a true warrior to defeat a monster,” Pallas said.

“So you consider yourself a true warrior?” the warden snorted.

“No. But I’m a much better monster,” Pallas said, before roaring and launching herself at the warden. The warden brought up his weapons, crossing the spikes and catching the wingblade Pallas swung at him. Sparks erupted from the gap, and the spines sheared away, Pallas’ wingblade tearing a laceration from the warden’s shoulder all the way to his hip.

Pallas stepped back as the griffon clutched at the wound, blood spraying freely into the air.

“You might think you’re special, but you’re wrong!” the warden spat. “I’ll show you my secret technique!” He spread his back legs, claws gripping at the earth for traction as he spread his wings, wind and fire wheels spinning as he manipulated them with his claws.

Pallas watched them carefully, the sharpened wheels almost blurring as the griffon spun them.

“Now let’s see how long you last against the Schwarze-Rad-Tanz!” The griffon flapped his wings, kicking up a strong wind, a tornado forming around Pallas. The warden grabbed a flask from his uniform and threw it, a cloud of smoke erupting as it shattered, the thick black fog quickly getting sucked up into the zephyr and blinding Pallas.

The griffon jumped into the whirlwind, and sparks flew as his blades bounced against Pallas’ armor.

“Using the speed and rotation of the wind, the power of my attacks is tripled! And the pressure keeps you trapped in the center! You’re helpless against the Schwarze-Rad-Tanz!” The warden cackled.

“Is this all you have?” Pallas asked.

The warden crowed and banked back towards her. Pallas spun, bucking with both back legs as he came towards her. The warden was launched from the storm like a cannonball, trailing sticky black smoke and crashing into a wall.

“My name is Black Wind, and a technique like that is useless against a Lunar Dragoon.” Pallas turned away from him as blood fountained into the air from here her bladed hoof had impaled his chest.

“They’re still panicking a bit,” Shadow noted, stepping out of the darkness.

“Civilians are good at that,” Pallas muttered.

“Hey!” Bianca said, happily, as she landed. “Hello, everypony! We’re with the Night Guard! We’re here to rescue you!” Bianca turned to the two Dragoons. “Go check for more guards. I’ll make sure the prisoners are safe. You guys are kinda scaring them right now. Moth is watching from up above to make sure we don’t get into trouble.”

“Alright,” Pallas said, flicking a wingblade to remove some of the blood. She stepped up to the bound thestral and, carefully, untied her restraints.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“It was nothing. Those guards were pathetic.” Pallas snorted.

“They might be weak, but their leader is strong,” the mare said, obviously afraid.

“I took care of him,” Pallas said, nodding to where the warden was impaled against the wall, the impact having driven him into it hard enough to make the griffon stick, like a bug splattered against glass.

“Not the warden,” the mare whispered. She looked to a tall, dark building at the other end of the camp. “The warden’s master.”

“Fascinating,” the griffon said, watching from the thin windows of his tower. Behind him, two chained Zebrican shamans stirred a huge copper cauldron. “One of my students beaten in seconds. Finally, someone strong has appeared in this Tartarus of ours.”

He turned to the shamans. The zebras didn’t meet his gaze, looking away in fear. In the pot, the mixture turned bright blue, then green, then finally the dull black of tarnished silver.

“Perfect,” Brise muttered, as he gripped the edge of the cauldron, the thick copper bending in his grip. “I knew repurposing some of the fields for alchemical ingredients was a good idea.”

The cauldron was two paces around, heavy enough to require a reinforced floor. Brise lifted it above his head, letting the contents pour over his body, staining his feathers the same metallic black.

Smiling, he crushed the cauldron in his talons, tossing it aside.

“Now, to properly greet these interlopers…”