Celestia's journey through the frozen woods had been going four hours as of current, the sun now fully set beyond the tree-laden horizon from when she had left the home at dusk. At the current time, Celestia found herself extremely grateful for 2 items; her flashlight and the several multicolored glow sticks, as the freezing cold Black Forest was completely pitch black, and the moon's light was of no help because of a heavy cloud bank that had rolled in hours earlier.

Celestia wished she would have been able to find a compass or map since she had no idea what heading she held or what part of the Black Forest she was in. The Black Forest was the second largest forest in the entirety of Equestria, and also served as a border marker for the nation of Stalliongrad and the Gryphon Kingdom; where the eastern part of the forest ended; the Gryphon Kingdom began. There were several towns located within the Forest itself, but without knowing the two things mentioned earlier; location and heading, it would be pure luck for her to actually stumble upon one of the towns.

She would have to wait until the daytime in order to do any sort of navigation; the sun's position in the sky would serve as her compass. South would be the best direction to travel, Stalliongrad's Capital was situated almost right at the bottom of the Black Forest, if she could make it to the Capital, she could alert President Mikhail to her situation and get herself into a hospital. After some thought, she realized a problem with her idea; the Capital was a dot compared to the immense Southern border of the Forest. Even if Celestia managed to exit the Forest perfectly at the center of the Southern border, there would be an entire hundred and fifty miles to comb in each direction in order for her to find where the City of the Capital was located.

The great amount of hope Celestia had gathered for herself began to melt away as she thought of just how far away everything was, and just how little supply she actually had. A fear began to grip Celestia's emotions the longer she thought about her situation; it seemed horribly impossible to find her way out of the forest, the possibility of her starving to death in the cold, lonely wilderness felt more likely than anything.

She wasn't one to give up, though; especially since she had only been in the forest for a mere four hours and fifteen minutes. She had taken several small breaks wherein she gave herself time to sit down, drink some water, and eat a few crackers and cheese before moving on, but now she felt the need to find a place to unroll her sleeping bag, build a fire, cook some dinner and call it the night. Celestia's movements paused as she scanned the surrounding area with the beam of light produced by her flashlight, the only thing being visible were trees, trees, and a few smaller trees.

She let out a sigh and continued on walking, it would be quite the task to find a nice area of rest in. The thought of finding a cave of sorts to sleep in had crossed her mind, but swiftly did she remember that the Black Forest was known for having an extremely high population of bears; however, most would be hibernating, but she didn't want to risk waking one if she happened to come across such a thing.

The walking and searching continued, Celestia's eyes following the flashlight beam everywhere it traveled in hopes that it would find someplace to rest. Luckily, by time Celestia had escaped from the house, her vision had cleared up almost 100% from the traumatic brain injury she had suffered, though things were still blurry through her left eye, as the White Stallion had caused quite a bit of damage to it physically.

After only a few more minutes of walking, Celestia found what looked to be a nice spot to settle down for the night; a huge pine tree (there were many other trees around, but this tree had the trait of being the only one with a canopy to extend most of the way to the forest floor). Underneath said pine tree was a perfect circle absent of snow, and the trees branches reached out enough to create a nice canopy. Celestia stepped over to the tree and knelt down, carefully unloading her big, clumsy pack from her figure and onto the pine needle laden ground beneath the tree.

She had not brought any firewood from the home, but that was not an issue, as plenty of deadfall lay on the forest floor, and with the assistance of her magic, she could turn the dead fall into nicely sized logs. Celestia stood up from her kneeling position and searched the surrounding area with her flashlight, the small scan quickly locating a few pieces of deadfall.

Without moving from her stood position near her tree, the Alicorn pulled the log across the icy snow with a spell, the log carving a nice path through the snow as it traveled. The log was now sliced into foot-long segments by Celestia's powerful magic, the spell used to cut the wood being one that only she and the Royal Guard knew because of its potentially destructive capability. With the logs cut, more magic was used to create a small, circular clearing in the snow to allow Celestia to place the logs in a semi-dry spot. She thought to build a proper fire using kindling and stacking techniques, but instead, the log was combusted with the use of a moderately powerful spell.

The single-log fire now burning nicely, Celestia knelt down and pulled herself under the tree beside her belongings and opened up one of the duffle bags held on her pack, a random can of food being picked from the mix of objects contained within. The fire's light was not enough to allow her to read the can's label, so the flashlight was once again produced, its bright beam allowing her to see that the can was filled with a kind of soup.

"Some warm soup would be quite nice about now." Celestia spoke to herself.

Happy with her selection, she turned back to her pack to get both the can opener and the gas-powered stove. With the can open and set upon the lit element of the stove, Celestia lay herself down into a more comfortable position, groaning lowly as she moved. Over the five hours since she had first administered herself with morphine its effect had not worn off in the slightest, a trait of the highly powerful medicine Celestia was happy with. One thing she was not happy with was the meager amount of heat being produced by the campfire; consequently, two more logs were added in order to incite a larger flame.

"There, maybe now this worthless fire will actually start keeping me warm."

Celestia had been just fine temperature wise when she was on the move, her body's natural temperature management working fine as her body burned calories, but the second she had laid down her body began shivering and her teeth set off clattering (more than they had already been). The two logs that Celestia had added were burning at a steady pace, the fire now produced creating enough heat to where her face no longer felt numb from the horribly cold air.

With the heat came light, something she realized might be an issue in the future; with just how much light the fire produced in comparison to the pitch blackness of the forest, it would be very easy to spot at a substantial distance. From the air, it would be ten times easier to spot, and Celestia was certain that both ground and airborne search teams would be used. Having remembered the soup still resting on the stove via her stomach growling, she discarded her train of thought and turned to address the now boiling soup. After nearly burning her lip from attempting to taste a spoonful of the liquid, the burner was turned off and the soup was left to cool, a process that would not take long given the temperature.

The soup had been consumed a mere minute after Celestia had turned off the burner, the temperature resting on a fine line between scolding and warm; perfect for how cold it was outside. With a stomach full of hot soup, thoughts turned to the sanctity of sleep as Celestia begun putting things back into their respective bags and unpacked her sleeping bag and few blankets.

As she looked at the bag and blankets, the realization that the task of entering the sleeping bag without tracking in a horrible amount of snow would be quite the undertaking. Having placed her temporary bed and blankets underneath the tree, Celestia slowly stood herself upright and began removing as much snow and frost from her heavy winter clothes as possible, the puffs of white dust seeming to shimmer in the orange light of the fire as the crystals settled to the earth. Now clean of snow, Celestia paused, looking thoughtfully at her bed as she figured ways of entering the sleeping bag with little or no snow getting inside.

After some thorough investigation and troubleshooting, a plan was worked out; Celestia had sat herself down on the portable bed and removed her heavy boots, she planned on keeping every other item of clothing on while she slept, but the boots didn't add much additional warmth and had a superfluous amount of snow packed into the tread. Boots off, she meticulously pulled herself into the warm, soft interior of the bag, the whole process allowing her entrance with almost zero moisture entering as well.

With the addition of the blankets, the horribly basic sleeping sack made a surprisingly comfortable bedding, especially with the floor beneath being made of soft pine needles instead of dirt and rocks. She thought to leave the fire burning through the night, but it would attract attention in a fashion that wouldn't allow her to counter it in any way, as whatever might be drawn to the flames would arrive while Celestia would be fast asleep.

With the thought, Celestia embraced each log in her magic and rolled them in the snowy blanket of the forest to snuff the flames, the action reducing each log to a charred, smoldering cylinder. With everything said and done, Celestia tried to relax and shut her eyes, a silent fear lurking in the back of her mind that something might attack while she slept.

Celestia's high-pitched scream of pure terror echoed through the Black Forest as she abruptly sat up, violently looked around her dim surroundings, eyes wide and body in a cold sweat as she awoke from one of her many nightmares. She scrambled to open her small supply bag that had been close by to retrieve her flashlight; with the object floating in her magic, she clicked the light on and fearfully scanned her surroundings, the beam of light protruding from her flashlight not revealing anything out of the ordinary.

"It was just a dream... it-it was just a dream, Celestia. No one hurt you, it w-was just a dream." She spoke frantically, using a hoof to feel her entire body to ensure her injuries had only been a product of her mind.

With visual confirmation that her wounds were not real (at least, the fatal ones inflicted in her nightmare), she allowed herself to calm down, her rapid breathing beginning to slow. Her nightmares had been odd in the fact that they were so vibrant and memorable. Normal dreams she had in the past felt like dreams, and once she awoke, most happenings couldn't be recalled, but the psychologically crippling nightmares plaguing her mind felt extremely real, and thus far, most of what happen could be recalled and in very exact details down to the color of the handle on the blade wielded by Luna; dark green.

After looking around the dark forest, Celestia brought up her small supply bag and retrieved her clock; 04:31, she had only slept for a mere 6 hours. Without much thought into the matter, Celestia pulled herself from her sleeping bag and began packing up her things; she could have gone back to sleep, but the extra few hours wouldn't have done much, and the looming fear of more nightmares was a reality that scared her away, as she had gone through the ordeal for the past weeks almost every time she attempted to sleep. With her blankets returned to their respective bag, the sleeping bag rolled and packed into its pouch, and everything tied back down to the backpack frame, Celestia continued on her frigid journey through the Black Forest.

"How much longer until we reach the house?"

"Take a look and see for yourself."

Star Yield, who was currently sitting in the cloth-covered back of a heavy-duty utility truck as it clunked along through the forest, leaned out of the open back and peered to the front of the truck to see that the house in question was only a rough fifty meters in front of the vehicle's path.

"Well, we made it faster than I thought we would." Star commented back to the Stallion sitting across from him.

This Stallion, who was currently dressed in thick winter clothing standard issue to the Royal Canterlot Guard, was the Commanding Officer of a nearby military base operated by the Royal Guard as a forward garrison to the border of the Gryphon Kingdom. He, as well as a large group of other soldiers and officers, had been indoctrinated into the New Order as they sat in a valuable seat; they gave easy access to transportation in order to set up the logistics required to maintain the home in which Celestia was being held in.

Going through the Forward Operating Base cut down transport times significantly, and made trips to the home more convenient for those who had to go through one. In example; Star Yield's trip had been only a tiny thorn in his side because of how little transportation he had to worry about in order to get to the home, but this trip had been fairly convenient anyway; his presence had been requested by three assigned to 'take care' of Celestia on grounds that an Aura restoration was in need, but it had occurred only two days before he planned on traveling to the home himself for a check up. The truck Star rode in jolted upward violently, the impact nearly slinging him from his seat as the vehicle came to a stop.

"We're here!" The driver, a fairly young soldier, called through a small sliding window in the front wall of the truck's cabin.

"You can shut off the engine, I might be a while!" Star yelled as he stepped from his seat and exited from the rear of the truck's cabin.

As Star passed along the left side of the truck the front of the home became visible, and something immediately caught his eye. The front door appeared to be cracked slightly. After a short pause to confirm what he saw wasn't a shadow causing the illusion of the door being open, he continued on through the deep snow towards the home.

Upon reaching the front steps of the rectangular porch, he pushed open the door with a hoof and stepped inside the eerily quiet home, a nervous pain coming to his stomach as his eyes browsed over the interior of the home. Star Yield took several more steps into the home after his eyes landed on the kitchen; every door had been ripped from it's hinges and a good percentage of the food was missing.

"Oh no... oh no no NO! White Dust!? Red Hoof!? Anyone?!" He shouted, sprinting from the kitchen and down the hallway towards the two bedrooms.

Each bedroom was completely barren of life, and several more seconds of looking revealed a striking lack of various items throughout the two rooms; it was clear someone had rummaged through each of the rooms and taken a plethora of things.

"She couldn't have escaped, she can't escape!" Star ranted as he quickly moved from the hallway to the basement door.

Upon entering the landing which lead to the basement steps, Star Yield was met with the gruesome sight of Red Hoof's body, dried, almost black, blood covering the wooden panels of the landing and most of his chest, a hole about an inch in diameter carved cleanly in the center of his chest where Celestia had shot him. Star recoiled backward at the sight, his hoof going to his mouth as he stumbled back from the doorway, hitting the wall at the adjacent end of the hallway.

He stared at the body for several long moments before finally regaining his composure, taking a few reluctant steps towards the doorway in order to pass the body and moved further into the basement. The sight of just what had happened in the basement unfolded after Star had made his way down the steps, the bodies of both White Dust and Shield Arc becoming more visible with each step down the creaky, wooden steps.

"She killed all three of them. She... she actually killed them."

With wide eyes and a hoof covering his mouth, Star Yield paced back and forth in the former war-zone that was the cell, his eyes fixed on the mutilated body of White Dust. He had thought about her escaping, picturing that one day he would get word from a messenger and arrive to find them bruised up or uninjured at all, but he had never once fathomed that Celestia would travel to such an extreme to kill the three stallions; with this thought, it was easy to see that most of her effort had gone into White Dust, as evident by the mutilation done to his facial features.

Star Yield couldn't help but feel guilty, but with this guilt came a horrible anger, the flames burning in his mind growing larger as he stared at the bodies, their bloodied images filling him with the sense that serious revenge was required. Celestia would be re-captured, and before her being transformed to Nightmare Moon, he would assure that her final moments would be nothing but pure pain.

Through his anger, Star had a thought; the bodies hadn't begun decomposing and the dried blood was dark, but not as dark as it would be if it were older, this meant that Celestia was close, and knowing that she was very seriously injured, Star figured that she hadn't made it too far.

Star Yield swiftly turned towards the stairs, sprinting up the short flight and past the body of Red Hoof as he made his way to the front door, his hoofs sliding a little distance as he came to a stop on the snowy deck of the home. His eyes landed on the snow lining the ground in front of the home, fairly large hoof prints still visible in the white, fluffy ice. She had gone in a perfectly straight line out the door; North.

"She escaped! She killed all three of them and escaped!" Star cried as he ran from the deck and towards the truck.

The driver opened the door to the cab and climbed out and the Officer riding in the rear hopped down to meet Star Yield as he trotted up.

"Wait, what!?" The Officer asked, a frightened look on his face.

"She escaped!! I don't know how, but she did! And... I saw the hoof steps, she went north!"

"Get back in the truck, we're going after her." The Officer spoke heavily, his face going from one of fear to one of slight anger.

"Wait! We can't just run after her, she left days ago... we need a plan and more hooves on the ground than just ourselves."

"Yeah, you're right."

The two stood silent, thinking of ways to approach their situation.

"We can't just have search teams without an explanation... so we need to make some sort of excuse." Explained the Officer.

After a moment's more thought, Star Yield's face lit up with joy as he had devised a (in his opinion) brilliantly flawless plan.

"I've got it! There's a Magic Research Center near the Capital, isn't there?" He inquired to the Officer.

"Yeah, the Волшебный развития и исследований Бюро (Magical Development and Research Bureau), it's in a smaller town to the east of the Capital, but what does it have to do with your plan?"

"We'll have one of your troops break into the facility and steal some sort of spell-working materials, doesn't matter what it is, it just matters that it's something that the people at the Center would want back!" Explained Star.

"And we say that the search parties are to find the thief!" The Officer added.

"Exactly!"

The Officer turned and began walking back towards the rear of the truck.

"We need to get back to base and get this into action, the more we wait around, the further Celestia gets from us." He said over his shoulder.

"Indeed. If we can get at least one helicopter to aid in the search, then the little lead Celestia has would basically vanish." Star spoke as he followed the Officer into the rear of the truck.

"Take us back to base, and make it quick!" The Officer shouted to the driver, who nodded in response as the engine of the truck started back up.

"There's only 10 days until the Solar Eclipse. If we can't recapture her by then, this will all be for nothing." Star Yield said.

"We'll have her back in three days maximum, especially if I can get helicopter support." The Officer assured.

"I sure hope so."

Star peered out the rear of the truck at the house, his thoughts turning back to the sights he had seen in the basement of the home.

"What about their bodies? Shall we come back for them?" He asked.

"I'll have their bodies retrieved once I have someone break into the Magic Development Bureau."

"Wait... why is that?"

"I can say that they were killed by the person that broke into the Development Bureau. That should add some urgency to things, won't it?"