During the last few days, Antonius had taken cooking lessons from Celestia. They had started with - surprise! - cake, which had gone pretty well, then they had also cooked ‘real’ meals. Not that Celestia did not consider cake a ‘real’ meal, but Antonius was able to convince her that for him, savory food was a bit more suitable.

He would never forget her face when she had seen him handle a knife; it had only taken him a moment to neatly slice a carrot. When he had smiled at her after that, he probably should have put away the knife first, true, but the lessons still had been a success.

Now Antonius Varus was in his quarters, working on the report for his chapter when there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said, looking up from his data-slate.

To his surprise, Celestia’s secretary entered his room and told him:

“Hello, Lord Varus. Princess Celestia requests your attendance. Please put on your armor, get your weapons and come to the throne room as soon as possible.”

“Celestia wants me to be armed? Sounds like an emergency,” Antonius mused.

“I can assure you, Lord Varus, it is an emergency. Now, please make haste.”

Raven left and Antonius quickly put on his armor, fetched his weapons and proceeded to the throne room. Celestia, Luna, Cadance and Shining Armor were already waiting there.

“Hello, everypony,” he greeted,
“what is this emergency that requires my services?”

“The Crystal Empire has returned!” Luna told him.

Antonius was alert. He remembered the story of that empire - and the evil unicorn that had terrorized it.

“Has this ‘Sombra’ also returned?” he asked.

“Probably,” Celestia said,
“that’s why I want Cadance, Shining and you to travel there, look for the inhabitants of the Empire and see if Sombra really has returned. In any case, I will also send Twilight and her friends there, but I want you to act as a quick response force and assess the situation.”

“Good,” Antonius replied,
“with the Land Speeder, we should be there in no time.”

“That was a part of my plan, actually.”

Antonius turned to Cadance and Shining Armor:

“Okay, let’s go and kill every evil, shadowy unicorn we find.”

“Antonius,” Celestia quickly said,
“saving the Empire’s inhabitants has priority, okay?”

“Sure,” he replied,
“but such situations are usually not solvable by nicely asking the oppressor to leave.”

Antonius, Cadance and Shining said good bye to Celestia and Luna, who stayed in the throne room to wait for Twilight, and went down into the hangar. Some equipment had already been prepared and was waiting next to the Land Speeder. They stowed it away and Cadance and Shining put on their harnesses. Shining got in first and Antonius buckled him up. Then Cadance sat down in front of him. As Antonius was buckling her up, too, she suddenly asked with a grin:

“What’s the save word?”

Shining face-hooved and Antonius asked in confusion:

“The what?”

Cadance’s grin faltered and she said:

“Oh, you don’t… forget it, it was just a joke, anyway.”

“Hmm. Pull in your manes, we’re about to start.”

Now Antonius jumped into the Speeder and started the engines. Then they left the hangar and turned northwards, traveling at maximum speed.

“This is awesome!” Cadance cried, almost drowned out by the roaring of the Speeder and the wind.

“Hey, that’s what I was about to say!” Shining screamed back.

A few hours later, they arrived at the northern outpost and stopped. There was no sign of an enemy, but a snow storm tremendously limited the visibility, so the area could definitely not be called ‘clear’. The guards stationed in the outpost left the building to greet them:

“Princess Cadance, Prince Armor, Lord Varus! We are glad that you are here!”

“Any sign of hostile activities?” Antonius asked.

“No, not really, but…”

“But?”

“We cannot shake the unsettling feeling that something… evil is watching us.”

“Acknowledged. Try to hold this outpost and wait for the Element Bearers, we will proceed further northwards.”

Having said that, Antonius accelerated the Land Speeder again and they left the outpost behind, pushing forward through the storm at mediocre speed.

“Al,” he voxed,
“telemetry.”

“Connection established,” came Al’s answer.

“I wonder if we’ll really see Sombra,” Shining said.

“I think we will,” Cadance replied,
“although I’d be able to live without it.”

She had barely said that as a dark cloud started forming in front of the Speeder.

“Sombra ahead, I guess,” Antonius told them flatly.

The cloud piled up, and suddenly, two green eyes with red irises appeared in the darkness, flaming purple, and stared at them.

“Hmm… painting the word ‘evil’ on his brow would not have been less subtle,” Antonius commented.

“Less wisecracking, more evading!” Cadance screamed.

“Right,” Antonius agreed, and changed the direction the Speeder was heading with a right turn.

Sombra roared like a wild animal and started pursuing them.

“He’s right behind us - and gaining on us!” Shining shouted.

“Can’t this thing go faster all of a sudden?” Cadance asked.

“Of course it can still go faster,” Antonius answered,
“but that wouldn’t fit my plan.”

“Plan? What plan?”

Antonius increased the height until there were on a level with the ‘face’ of Sombra, then he waited until his enemy had almost reached them.

“Is your plan to get us eaten?” Cadance screamed, looking back at their pursuer.

“No,” Antonius answered calmly.

“Then, what is your plan?”

Antonius grinned beneath his helmet and replied:

“I’ll have him taste the rainbow!”

Now he gunned the engines and fired the Speeder’s jet blast directly into Sombra’s ‘face’.
It made an impact.
Sombra roared, either in pain or annoyance, and stopped, allowing Antonius and the ponies to put some distance between them. Once the low visibility had obscured their foe, Antonius lowered the height again and steered the Land Speeder to the left back on their old course.

“Could you please tell us should you intend to do something like that again?” Cadance called.

“If I have the time,” Antonius answered.

A few seconds later, the storm was suddenly gone and he slowed the Speeder down again as they passed two crystal pillars.

“What happened to the storm?” he wondered,
“did we pass some sort of barrier?”

“I guess that was the border of the Crystal Empire,” Shining said.

He was obviously right. In front of them, there was a tall spire in the distance in the middle of some kind of town or even city - and everything seemed to be made of crystal.

“That’s our destination!” Cadance shouted,
“get us there as fast as possible!”

Antonius headed directly for the spire. It was some kind of castle, standing on four pillars connected by giant arches. They passed smaller buildings on each side of the road they were traveling and they even saw some ponies on the roads, but they seemed to be in almost catatonic conditions and did not even look up.

They finally reached the castle. Antonius stopped the Land Speeder close to one of the pillars where he had seen an entrance and jumped out of the vehicle, drawing bis bolter at the same time. Cadance and Shining quickly unbuckled themselves and also got out of the Speeder.

Antonius charged through the door into the building, scanning his surroundings for any sign of hostile activity, but there was none. Empty halls and hallways, made of crystal, were everything there was.

“We need to get to the throne room,” Cadance said,
“it should be upstairs.”

So they went upstairs, always watchful for an ambush.

“This castle is empty,” Shining mused.

“Seems so,” Antonius replied,
“stay alert, though.”

“Have you seen the ponies outside?” Cadance asked,
“they seemed so sad and… dull.”

“First, let’s get rid of Sombra. That should cheer them up,” Antonius opined.

They finally entered the throne room, still without any trace of an enemy.

“Okay, here we are,” Antonius said,
“now you can do whatever it is that you want to do.”

At that moment, there was a roar outside.

“Sombra!” Cadance stated and dashed onto a balcony, followed by her two companions.

The dark cloud that was Sombra was still beyond the city limits, but he roared again and started moving towards them.

“No,” Cadance stated with determination and lit her horn.

Around the city a turquoise force field came into existence and created a dome that closed above the castle. Sombra recoiled as he touched the field and roared again.

“He’s really eloquent,” Shining deadpanned.

“A great feat,” Antonius said, turning to Cadance,
“how long do you think you can sustain this field?”

“A few days, perhaps. In any case long enough for Twilight and her friends to arrive and help us.”

“Good. I usually prefer to get rid of an enemy instead of just locking them out, but I doubt that my bolter or chainsword will be very useful against a cloud. Be that as it may, we should update the princesses and the Element Bearers on the situation.”

Antonius fetched his PDA and called Celestia and Twilight. After a second, both their faces appeared on the screen.

“Hello everypony. The Crystal Empire has indeed returned, and so has Sombra. We were able to outsmart him and have taken the castle. Cadance has created a shield around the Empire to prevent Sombra from entering. Since he is currently using a non-corporeal form, I refrained from trying to outright kill him, since my weapons were not made to deal with such creatures. I think we need some offensive magic here.”

“We are on our way,” Twilight told him,
“but we will still need quite some times to get to you. Once we have arrived, though, we will do whatever we can to protect the Crystal Empire.”

Well, that hopefully meant that Antonius would finally get to see the Elements of Harmony in action. He could barely wait for it.

“Good. We will hold the city. Call us when you are close so that we can escort you through the snow,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Thank you for keeping us up to date,” Celestia said,
“and good luck.”

They ended the conversation and Antonius put his PDA away.

“Now, all we can do is wait for Twilight and her friends,” Cadance stated,
“and I need to stay here to keep the field up.”

“Do that,” Antonius agreed,
“Shining, you should stay here, too. I will roam the castle and the city and look for anything that might be of use for us.”

Having said that, Antonius left the throne room and searched the castle, but all he could find was small swords, lances and armor, everything clearly inferior to his equipment. He left the castle and walked up to the Land Speeder. A pony was standing there, looking at the vehicle, but she seemed to be mentally absent.

“Hello, good mare,” Antonius greeted politely.

The pony turned towards him and her eyes went wide.

“Glowing red eyes…” she mumbled in fear and started moving backwards.

“Wait! It’s just a helmet!” Antonius quickly said and took it off.

The mare stared at him for a few seconds, then she asked:

“Who are you? What are you? Why are you here?”

“I am Antonius Varus, a human, a warrior of the Ultramarines. I am here to help you.”

“Help us?”

“Yes, and perhaps you can help me help you. Do you know of anything that might be useful against Sombra?”

The pony shivered.

“That name… no, I don’t know a thing that could be used against him… but please find something.”

“Can you at least tell me what happened to this place? I only know that it was cursed and somehow gone for about a thousand years.”

“A thousand years?”

“Yes.”

“It fells like it was just yesterday.”

“Can you tell me more about it?”

“No. I’m sorry, but I cannot remember anything before King Sombra’s reign… and I don’t want to remember anything about the time of his reign… I can’t help you.”

The mare shuddered, then she turned around and left, her head hanging.

Antonius had no idea how or why, but the spirit of this pony was obviously broken. A sad husk missing the energy typical for ponies. There were no answers for him to get from this source, so he turned off the Speeder and started roaming the city, looking for useful equipment.

Unfortunately, while every halfway decent imperial settlement had at least some sort of barracks or armory, this pony city was completely unarmed apart from the equipment in the castle. He was not too surprised by this fact, though. Ponies were rather peaceful, after all, and if they had a weapon that would be useful against Sombra, they would already have used it.

Antonius froze.
Or have they been put in this catatonic state so that they would not think about using such a weapon?
No, that was idle speculation.

He continued his search and talked to some other ponies, but his efforts were futile. When it started getting dark, he returned to the castle. He checked the Land Speeder, just to be sure. It was okay, just the luggage had been removed, so he entered the castle and went to the throne room. There, he did not only find the luggage, but also - as expected - Cadance and Shining. The stallion was just offering his mare a sandwich.

“No, thank you, Shining,” Cadance said.

“You haven’t eaten all day,” he replied with some worry in his voice.

“I’m not hungry. Really, I couldn’t eat a thing now.”

Shining did not look too happy about that and turned to Antonius:

“Well, Antonius, do you want to eat something?”

“If you have something that is not made of grass, I will accept.”

After dinner, Antonius asked:

“Do you know if there are any nocturnal predators in these ice-wastes around here?”

“I’m not sure,” Cadance answered,
“only very little is known about this area.”

“Then I should better take the Land Speeder and patrol our perimeter,” Antonius mused and got up.

He should probably have thought about that kind of threat earlier, but with them being quite short at number, securing this city and gathering information at the same time did not work; Cadance had to stay in the throne room, and as the critical unit of this mission she needed a guard. That left only him to take care of everything else, and while he was an Astartes, he was still just one person.

Antonius left the castle and started the Land Speeder. The first thing he did was traveling southwards to the two crystal pillars they had passed earlier that day. It was dark and cold now, and the streets were empty. No ponies, and also no sign of hostile activity.

When he arrived at the pillars, he took his auspex and scanned the area.
Nothing. So, either Sombra had withdrawn, or - and Antonius thought this to be the more probable explanation - the auspex could not detect him.
Damned non-corporeal creatures, he really preferred targets he could put bolts into.

He travelled along the shield Cadance had created, stopping every few hundred meters to scan the area. He was up in the north when his auspex showed a life sign slowly closing in on the city.

“Cadance, Shining,” Antonius voxed,
“we have an unidentified signal incoming from the north. I’ll go and see what it is.”

“Okay,” Cadance answered,
“but do not leave the safety of the shield.”

“Acknowledged.”

He drove the Speeder to the location where the creature - or whatever it was - would get in contact with the shield, headlights facing northwards. Then he got out and drew his chainsword.
He did not have to wait for long, then a dark silhouette appeared in the headlights’ beams. The creature was quadrupedal, and as it came closer and was better illuminated, Antonius could see that it had white fur and red eyes. It reminded him of a lion, or an arctic variant of that animal.

“Al, any idea what this creature is?” Antonius voxed.

“Well,” Al answered,
“it seems to be a large feline species. It displays similarities to lions, although with adaptations to the arctic climate. It is most likely a predator. Exercise caution.”

“Good idea,” Antonius answered flatly and kept watching the creature.

It arrived at the shield and carefully stuck its head through it.
So, this creature was indeed a ‘normal’ life form, not some sort of daemonic entity, or the shield would - probably - have stopped it like it had stopped Sombra.
It came closer, its eyes focused on Antonius.

“Buffet’s closed,” Antonius shouted and activated his sword,
“so if you want to prey on me or a pony, just don’t.”

Either the creature did not understand him, or it did not care about his words: It jumped forward, lashing out at Antonius with its claws.
He dodged the attack and brought the chainsword down on the creature’s neck. The weapon’s teeth separated the animal’s head from its body, and the fight was over.

“Cadance, Shining,” Antonius voxed.

“Yes?” came Cadance’s answer.

“I just eliminated a lion-like creature that thought me to be a snack.”

“So, we don’t only have to deal with Sombra, but also with arctic predators? Great, really great.”

“Hmm, should not get too boring around here.”

“Antonius,” Shining said,
“do you think you can intercept every further intruder before they get into the city, or into the castle?”

“Well, I could keep patrolling the northern perimeter and use the auspex, but I can’t guarantee that no creature slips through. I’m a little too few for this task.”

“Then you should come back.”

“Shiny,” Cadance said,
“you are here to protect me, and we can’t let the Crystal Ponies be unguarded.”

“I know that I could probably protect you,” Shining answered,
“but since we don’t know what kind of creatures are out there, and since you are so important to this mission - and to me - I don’t want to take any risks.”

“I have to concur,” Antonius told them,
“your safety, Cadance, takes top priority. Even if a pony gets mauled, it will be insignificant compared to you getting killed.”

“I don’t like that way of thinking,” Cadance mumbled.

“You don’t need to. It is still imperative to prioritize that way. You’re our shield generator, after all. I’m coming back.”

“Charming,” Cadance replied.

Antonius grinned, put away his chainsword and jumped into the Land Speeder. Then, he made a beeline back to the castle. Parking the vehicle close to the entrance again, he entered the throne room a short time later.

“Hello, Antonius,” Cadance said,
“we were just discussing how to protect the ponies here from Sombra and the local wildlife.”

“And? Did you find a solution?” Antonius inquired.

“Sort of,” Shining answered,
“we thought that you should guard Cadance while I’ll keep an eye on signs of trouble in the arctic.”

“Works for me,” Antonius agreed,
“might I suggest imposing a curfew, though? That way, the predators would not be as much of a threat anymore.”

“We can’t just order the Crystal Ponies around, Antonius,” Cadance replied,
“they have gone through enough of that already. And honestly, something tells me that preventing them from coming together would be the wrong thing to do… perhaps we could impose a night curfew, though…”

“Redundant. There’s nopony out in the streets. Probably because of the climate.”

“Ah, good. Then, we will go ahead with our plan.”

“That means, however, that we won’t have time to gather information from the locals. While my attempts have not been fruitful, we still should not let that slide.”

“Agreed. This will be the part of Twilight and her friends when they arrive.”

Hmm? He had always thought the part of the Element Bearers would be to blast Sombra…
Well, perhaps the plan had to include an peaceful attempt at dealing with the situation… that could still be discussed when they had arrived.

“Okay,” Antonius said.

“And now, Shiny,” Cadance said, turning to the stallion,
“you should probably rest a few hours. We’ve had a busy day today, and tomorrow won’t be more relaxing. You should go to the next room, as we would probably disturb your sleep.”

Shining and Antonius both gave her a skeptical look, and Cadance groaned in exasperation.

“Not what you think! Geez, stallions! I have to stay awake to keep the shield going, and I have to talk to someone to not fall asleep. That would disturb you, wouldn’t it? So, our improvised bedroom is the next room just over here.”

“Arguing with you won’t change a thing, will it?” Shining asked flatly.

“No,” Cadance smiled.

“Well, then…” he said, unpacked a bedroll and vanished into the next room, saying
“goodnight, ‘mom’!” as he left.

“That poor pony,” Antonius grinned.

“Ah, shush!” Cadance said,
“I’m a very nice mare.”

“I take you word for it.”

“Hey, I took care of him after our wedding!”

“Isn’t that part of the reason why you get married?”

“That’s not what I mean… perhaps I shouldn’t tell you… ah shucks! I can tell you that he wasn’t in the best condition after our wedding.”

“That does not speak in favor of you.”

“I’m serious, Antonius. He woke up at night and was frightened of me! He thought I was the Changeling queen! With a lot of tender loving care, I managed to work against the trauma he had suffered. Now, he is his old self again, and this little banter is a sign that he is okay.”

“Hmm. Yeah, being mind-controlled and forced to betray your allies must be a horrible fate.”

“Certainly. But we should talk about something more cheerful. This topic is a little too dark for the situation at hoof.”

“No objections. What do you want to talk about?”

“Hmm… good question… oh, I have an idea! What about calculating your chances for a ‘happily ever after’?”

“For a what?”

“Your chances for a successful relationship with a pony.”

“WHAT? No. Definitely no.”

“Oh, but it would keep me awake.”

“How about that: If you are in danger of falling asleep, I will slap you,” Antonius suggested.

“That’s not a good idea,” Cadance said without batting an eye,
“I would be startled and the shield would collapse.”

“Any other methods to keep you awake?”

“Nothing as reliable as a round of shipping!”

“You’re not going to back down, are you?”

“No,” Cadance grinned.

Antonius sighed.

“I think I hate you a little bit,” he said.

“No problem. I’m not on the list anyway.”

“You have a list?”

“Of course. Let’s start with Celestia!”

“Oh, this is going to be a long night…”