The guardians headed down the long, frozen path leading to Macalania Temple out in the distance. The entire temple looked like it was build on a frozen stalactite, where the Chamber of the Fayth can be seen down at the bottom of the spire. Rainbow Dash was astonished at how well built it was, despite it looking like it could break off to the water down below if spring or summer came around, melting the ice bridge and blocking access to the temple. Though, with how cold Macalania is, that wouldn't have been a problem.

As they reached the temple, the whole building seemed to be bustling with activity, as everyone was already beginning to celebrate Fluttershy and Blueblood's wedding. This only made the pegasus groan in annoyance as they seemed to be celebrating the wedding reception already, before they were even properly wed. Before they were able to walk inside, they were stopped by one of the priests as he noticed Pinkie Pie with the group.

"What's she doing here? Her kind are not welcomed in this holy place!" he said.

Rarity approached the priest, almost threateningly. "You are going to deny access to one of Fluttershy's guardians?"

"W-What!? An Al Bhed a guardian!? Preposterous!" the stallion said, aghast at the worst of ponies being a guardian to a summoner.

"She is willing to give her life to protect her summoner," Rarity said. "I believe that constitutes her right to enter, despite her race."

"...Fine then...She is allowed entry. But if anything happens, it will fall under all of your heads." With the priest's warning in mind, they headed inside, where the early celebration was already underway.

Music was playing, the priests and nuns of the temple were excited for the wedding, and it irritated Rainbow Dash. Along with the happy ponies, Coco spotted them and ran up to them, just as ecstatic as the rest of her peers.

"Isn't this exciting!?" the acolyte asked. "I can't believe that Maester Blueblood and Lady Fluttershy are getting married! All of Spira will rejoice once the wedding takes place!" Coco soon realized that none of them seemed as happy as the temple with the news, especially Rainbow Dash. "What's wrong? You don't look happy."

"...It's complicated, Coco...Where is Fluttershy, anyway?" Rainbow asked.

"She went into the Cloister of Trials with the maester." Another groan escaped the pegasus, Fluttershy all alone with the stallion and nopony else around to protect her from him.

"AHH! Lord Orion!?" A mare came out from one of the side rooms in a panic.

Figuring it was the sphere Fluttershy had with Orion's will, the guardians rushed passed the distraught nun and found the sphere resting on the table. "Judging from the surprise, I'm guessing we're going to get some answers from Blueblood's dad's will."

Rainbow played the sphere back, the previous Guado maester appearing in the recording, looking terrified. "To anypony who finds this sphere, I implore you to hear me out, for I don't have much time. I am going to tell you the truth about my half-blood son, Blueblood. I love him as much as my wife, but I fear he is not to be trusted. I sense a darkness in his heart, and as of right now, he is using Faust, the Guado, and even the summoners. If my son is not stopped, he will destroy all of Spira, far worse than Sin will. Because of me being unable to help him, he has turned into a twisted, sadistic monster, a fiend in pony form.

"The prejudice cast upon him and his mother in Blueblood's youth had made him suffer and turn this way...I do not blame him, for even we Guado were hated by the ponies of Spira, not as bad as the Al Bhed, but the principle of hatred remains the same...For my punishment, I will die by my son's hooves, and quite soon as I make this." Suddenly a knock was heard in the recording, the Guado looking over at the door on the other side of the sphere.

"Father! Are you in here!?" Blueblood said, Orion growing more fearful with each powerful knock.

"Please, whoever is watching this. Stop Blueblood! Stop my son before it's too late!" The recording ended as the Guado shut off the sphere, possible to hide it on him as soon as he was killed.

Out of the group who was horrified at the disturbing truth, Applejack was more pale than Twilight, almost wanting to lose her lunch. Rainbow Dash's suspicions were right all along, knowing there was something up with the Guado the moment she laid eyes on him.

"Good. Now I have the perfect excuse to kill him and end this stupid wedding!" Rainbow was about to run out to rescue Fluttershy, only to have her tail stomped down by Applejack.

"Rainbow, what are ya thinkin'!? Blueblood's a maester!" she argued, though completely unsure of herself as she didn't want to believe what she saw and heard.

"Applejack, come on! You saw that, right!? Blueblood killed his own dad! I knew he was no good, and there's proof, recorded proof, that he's a no good killer!" Applejack stammered, trying to find a way to argue her way out of this situation, but Rainbow Dash didn't give the mare a chance. "That explains why Orion stayed behind when he wasn't sent! This explains why he didn't give a flying feather about Operation Mi'ihen! He doesn't care about anything other than himself, and Fluttershy's alone with him! He's gonna kill her!"

Swiping her tail away, Rainbow ran on ahead and the others followed. "This can't be happenin'...This just can't..." Applejack slowly caught up with the others, still feeling conflicted.

Shoving their way past the celebrating ponies, the group made their way through the icy corridor of the Cloister of Trials, though to Rainbow's surprise, they didn't have to solve it. As they reached the room before the Chamber of the Fayth, the guardians brandished their weapons as Blueblood stood patiently at the door for Fluttershy, along with his two Guado guards.

"Blueblood!" Rainbow shouted, holding her sword out to the backstabbing stallion.

"Hush. Lady Fluttershy prays to the fayth," Blueblood said.

"I'll hush you up, you killer!" Blueblood slowly turned around, revealing his smug grin as he climbed down the steps, his guards flanking him to defend him. The door to the chamber opened, Fluttershy walking out as she found the others with their weapons out, though Applejack was hesitant to fight. "Fluttershy, get away from him!"

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"We saw Orion's sphere!" The summoner gasped, having forgotten about it when she took it with her. "He killed his own father in cold blood...His will to 'take care of Blueblood' meant to stop him. And we're going to do that!"

"So, you knew too, Lady Fluttershy?" Blueblood looked at Fluttershy as she ran over to her guardians, her gaze looking anywhere except for him. "Why did you come here?"

"...I..." Fluttershy looked up at Blueblood, pulling out her staff. "I came to stop you."

"...Hmm...So you came to punish me? What a pity." Rainbow Dash stood in front of Fluttershy while the others surrounded their summoner, prepared to defend her from the maniacal stallion. "I see. The Code of the Guardian. 'Protect the summoner at the cost of one's life.'" Blueblood began to chuckle, sounding more sinister than he had before. "If you all are willing to end your lives so soon...allow me to take them!"

"I'll fight you too!" Fluttershy said. "I'm not going to let you hurt my friends!"

"W-Wait!" Applejack shouted. "Why is this happenin'!? Maester Blueblood, ya didn't really kill your pa, did ya!?"

"...I did." Applejack wilted as Blueblood admitted to murdering Orion Guado. "And I loved it! Just as I'll enjoy taking care of you all, make Fluttershy my bride, and then kill her!"

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" Rainbow rushed forward to slash at Blueblood, but his guards were a lot faster to protect their leader, despite his murder.

One of them grabbed the blade between their clawed hooves, tossing it away with incredible strength while the second kicked Rainbow back to the others. "I'll end your life first!"

Blueblood began to cast his black magic spells, aiming them at Rainbow Dash. However, before any of the spells could hit her, she, along with the rest of the party were shrouded by four glowing orbs, each of them holding the color of an element: red for Fire, blue for Blizzard, teal for Water, and yellow for Thunder. The red orb disappeared, nullifying the harmful effects of the Fira spell the stallion cast.

"I said I'm not going to let you hurt my friends!" Fluttershy said, spinning her staff as she recast her Nul spell on Rainbow. "I will fulfill your father's wish to stop you, even if it means having to kill you to save Spira!"

"...Your eyes burn radiantly with resolve." Blueblood shuddered as he relished Fluttershy's boldness in the most disturbing way possible. "I love it!"

"You are sick." Rarity rushed forward, along with Spike, both of them attacking the Guado bodyguards. They couldn't match the unicorn's incredibly powerful and heavy diamond katana or Spike's enhanced speed as he thrust his spear with incredible reach. They both were easily felled, giving Rainbow enough time to grab her flung sword and defend Fluttershy again, Rarity pointing her blade at Blueblood, undeterred by the loss of his bodyguards. "Your father was right about you on that sphere; you're no stallion. You're just as bad as the fiends. Not even Sin would look at you as an ally if it was able to think."

"Sin is of no concern to me," Blueblood said. Rarity leapt up in the air and slashed her blade down on the half-Guado unicorn stallion, only for the blade to be stopped by his hoof, stopped by his more than average pony strength. "Not even death will stop me." He managed to swipe the heavy blade out of Rarity's grasp, threw it aside, and bucked the mare hard in the face. Spike quickly caught her before she hit the ground. "Feel my pain...Anima! Destroy my enemies!"

Like before in Luca, Blueblood summoned the powerful aeon from the ground with the same hook shooting up from the ceiling. Anima was dragged up and looked down at upon the party. Seeing how strong it was, taking out every single fiend that attacked the stadium, it could easily take everyone else down without even batting an eye.

"Ok. We may actually die," Rainbow commented.

Fluttershy stepped past the cyan pegasus, looking up at the depressing gaze in Anima's eye. Holding her staff in her hooves, she lifted it up before her, a small flurry of snow cascading around her. She crouched low, pillars of ice shooting out of nowhere and striking the ground behind the pegasus. From the snow, an ice blue unicorn mare, standing a few inches taller than Spike's height, floated down into the ice, her face being reflected off the pillars of ice.

With a swipe of her hoof, the aeon shattered the ice into pieces, tossing aside a blue cloak she wore as she arrived. Fluttershy caught it as she stepped away, the cloth smoother than silk and warm to the touch, despite the chilly air around her. Rainbow stared in awe at the new aeon the summoner called, though she was wondered how something as small as this aeon was supposed to take down Anima.

The demonic aeon began to roar as its eye glowed, prepared to unleash the same move it used to kill the fiends in Luca. Anima fired, but the entity of ice leapt out of the way, missing her as she sent shards of ice raining down on the immobile aeon. Each shot missed as the graceful aeon of ice as she continued to strike the overpowered aeon.

"What the hay is that aeon?" Rainbow asked.

"Shiva. The aeon of ice," Twilight answered, amazed at how versatile Shiva was as she avoided Anima's instant-kill beam blast of energy. "It's...more powerful than Blueblood's aeon."

"So, that thing IS an aeon? Then Blueblood was a summoner." Rainbow noticed Blueblood was looking at Shiva, holding that manic grin on his face as his pupils began to shrink, growing more insane by the minute. "...Why?"

As Anima was close to being defeated, Shiva summoned all of her magical power, casting a harsh wind that made the ground around the aeon freeze over. Her horn began to glow brilliantly as the air grew colder around her, charging a massive sphere of freezing winds over her head. Flicking her head, aiming her horn at Anima, a powerful blizzard shot out from the orb of wind and directly at the enemy aeon, freezing the being in place as its body turned to ice. After unleashing her power, she lifted her head up and lightly tapped her hoof to the ground, the sound echoing in the silence as the ice shattered.

Anima screeched as it was defeated, its large form disappearing. "That power," Blueblood whispered. "I want it...I need it...I must have that aeon for myself!"

The manic stallion began shooting out a barrage of spells at the group, each one nullifying their damage as a random orb disappeared surrounding the party. "Ok, that's it! He's going down!"

Having enough of Blueblood's constant spellcasting, and his growing insanity, Rainbow Dash rushed forward, avoiding his spells as Fluttershy continued casting magical nullifying spells to negate his magic's attack. The pegasus halted his constant casting by punching him hard in the face, followed by a few good slashes to his body. Before he could recover, Rainbow ended the stallion's life before he could counter, thrusting her blade straight through the stallion's abdomen.

Blueblood let out shuddered gasps, slowly looking down at the blue sword stabbed into his body. Blood seeped out of the wound, staining his robes, coughing up blood as he struggled to breath. Rainbow Dash pulled her sword out, not even concerned she killed somepony with her own hooves, knowing he had this coming since Operation Mi'ihen. Even though the others were glad to have ended the stallion, Applejack felt sick as she had watched in horror, unable to fight back because of the possible consequences they would all suffer.

"...Fluttershy...Do you...pity me now?" Blueblood let out one last breath as he fell on his side, dead.

"Good riddance." Rainbow felt a heavy weight lift off her shoulders. There was going to be no wedding out of Spira's sake. There was going to be no more problems with Blueblood. She felt a whole lot better now, wiping the blood on her sword on the stallion's robes. "Let's get the hay out of this place."

"Lord Blueblood!" Tromell rushed in, along with a few more Guado guards, approaching their deceased lord's body. "What have you done!?"

"Hey, your so called leader was dangerous!" Rainbow argued.

"Fluttershy, send Blueblood, now," Rarity said.

"Oh no you don't, traitors!" Tromell shouted as the Guado guards lifted the stallion up and carried him away. "You will all regret this!"

"What the hay are you doing!?" Rainbow shouted as the Guado ran out of the room. "Blueblood's the bad guy here! Not us!"

"It's not going to be easy to convince everypony else," Rarity said. "Let's hurry!"

As they ran out into the icy corridor, the group stopped as the pathway suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing but pillars spread out too far to leap across, leaving the non pegasi grounded to the actual Cloister of Trials below the used to be bridge.

"Oh come on! I thought the Cloister of Trials were already completed!" Rainbow complained.

"No. The puzzle begins as soon as the summoner finishes praying to the fayth," Rarity explained. "Not every temple has the same rules, testing them and their guardians' wit along with their faith."

"Then let's hurry up and solve this stupid thing and tell everypony that Blueblood had gone mad!" As irritating as it was to have to solve the trial, they needed to do it quickly before everyone was considered a traitor for killing a corrupted maester. Next Chapter: Chapter 29: Escape to Bikanel Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 10 Minutes