"So you managed to get yourself kicked out of the castle.. but, did you find anything out?" Spike inquired to Twilight, who was standing in the kitchen as she prepared herself something for lunch.

"I did, and at that, something very intriguing." She responded with a grin.

"And what would that be?"

"Well, to start, I found a photo of the wreckage that gives evidence something external, other than a snowstorm, caused the helicopter to crash, the timetables of when the first rescue teams..."

Suddenly, there was a quick rapping at the door of Twilight's Library home, the sound interrupting her explanation.

"I'll get it," Spike called as he stood from his seat and jogged to the door, reaching up to turn the handle and open the door.

Upon opening, the door revealed both Rarity and Fluttershy, their figures bulky with winter clothing.

"Oh, darling, it's good to see you're back from Canterlot. I assume your trip went well, hm?" Rarity inquired upon entering, Fluttershy following behind.

"Well, not exactly..." Twilight responded shyly, a nervous smile taking her expression.

"Oh no, what did you manage to do?"

"I... well... got myself kicked out, but it was for a good cause and my efforts were not in vain!" She added quickly.

Both Fluttershy and Rarity gasped lightly.

"How in the... wait, darling, what do you mean; it was a good cause and your efforts weren't in vain?" Rarity asked suspiciously, taking a step closer to Twilight and leaning her head inwards.

"Oh, boy. It's a pretty long story..."

"We've got all the time in the world, darling. Isn't that right, Fluttershy?"

Fluttershy's ears perked up at hearing her name, as her thoughts had drifted from the conversation.

"W-wait... what?" She blundered.

"I said, we have all the time in the world, don't we, Fluttershy?"

"Oh... yeah, we do."

"Alright, you brought this upon yourself. Before I tell you anything, I need to know you will not tell a single person other than our friends, alright?"

"With a warning like that, I'm willing to bet your explanation will be interesting."

After a very long-winded explanation, Twilight had finally finished with her reasons behind her expulsion from Canterlot Castle.

"Well... it sounds like Princess Luna wasn't too happy about your theft of those papers." Rarity spoke.

"Yeah," Twilight chuckled, "I don't think she was having a very good day to start with. At least I figured something out."

"Yes, about that photo, and all of your evidence for that matter, what exactly do you hope to do with all of this?"

"I can't do anything now. At this time, I simply need more... which is why I'm glad you two stopped by." Twilight explained.

"W-wait... what do you mean?" Fluttershy responded.

"To truly be sure about my theory that the helicopter crashed because of somepony's input, and not a storm, I'm going to have to travel to the crash site itself and investigate. I was almost about to tell Spike that we'd have to buy train tickets and tell you two and the rest of the girls that I'd be gone for a while, but you came in before I could."

"Well, what kind of friends would we be if we didn't volunteer to go with, isn't that right, Fluttershy?" Rarity spoke, poking the yellow pegasus with a hoof.

"Oh, yeah! We'll go, too."

"You two are sure you'd want to go with? It's a long train ride and an even longer walk to where the site is."

"I feel we should visit this place anyhow. It is, after all... where it happen." Rarity lamented, her voice lowering as she reached the end of her statement.

"If you two want to go, I think it would only be fair if we told everyone else. I'm sure the rest of the girls would be upset if we ran off without asking."

"Oh, goodness, I guess you're right. Should I go with Fluttershy and tell the girls of our plan?" Rarity inquired.

"Actually, that would be perfect! While you do that, Spike and I can run down to the train station and buy the tickets!" Twilight responded in an excited tone.

"Well, it's a plan, then. Come, darling, we've got a mission." Rarity said to Fluttershy as she turned for the door.

Cloud Drop pushed open a frosted glass pane door, entering Canterlot Castle's War Room, the moment he entered the 20-odd officers and commanders stood from their positions and turned to face him.

"Commander on deck!" A Lieutenant beside the door shouted.

Simultaneously, the group of Stallions saluted.

"At ease. Captain Tide, tell me what's going on." Cloud spoke as he walked to the large, oval table at the center of the room, his eye shifting to the appearance of Nightmare Moon's.

Every Officer in the War Room was a member of the New Order, which not only allowed all other members to have an advanced picture of events, but allowed the New Order control over what happen and what word got out, something that would end up to be extremely pivotal in the success of the overall mission to be accomplished by the New Order.

"Well, Admiral, do you want to good news or the bad news first?"
Captain Tide, one of the many officers that reported directly to Cloud Drop, asked.

"Bad."

"Alright. Yesterday, Princess Celestia murdered our brothers Corporal Red Hoof, Specialist Shield Arc, and 1st Lieutenant White Dust. She escaped into the forest, and we're preparing airborne and ground-borne search teams to retrieve her. Star Yield and Lieutenant Colonel Gate, CO of our forward Garrison in Stalliongrad, have devised a cover story for our search, which I'll fill you in on in a moment." Captain Tide explained, his words causing Cloud Drop to rest his head on his hooves.

"She killed them? How bad was it?" Cloud inquired, his head still lowered.

"According to Star Yield, she wasn't clean about killing them. Corporal Red Hoof was shot through the heart, Specialist Shield Arc was shot in the leg, stabbed in the chest, and had his throat slashed, and... oh jeez," Tide paused, composing himself before he continued, "1st Lieutenant White Dust was stabbed through the spine, had his horn severed, leg shot, throat slashed, and around 10 stab wounds to his face. Star said he could barely recognize him."

Cloud let out a sigh, finally lifting his head from the table.

"I knew the Corporal and the Specialist... I'd been to Shield's house for dinner, one night. He had a wife and daughter."
He spoke.

There was a moment of silence before the Captain spoke again.

"Well, to fill you in on the story, we're actually searching for someone that broke into the Magical Research and Development Bureau in Stalliongrad and stole spell-working materials on a military level of power. As for the murder of our three brothers, they were killed in an attempt to stop the thief. As morbid as it sounds, their passing might work in our favor; it'll add some urgency to this search."

"So we're chasing an unknown suspect that has stolen highly powerful and dangerous spells, and probably used those same spells to murder three of our Guardsmen. Sound's good, but we can't just go around the entire Black Forest looking for Celestia; we need to come up with some sort of search plan." Cloud Drop said.

"Why do you think you're here?" Captain Tide spoke with a smile.

"Captain, get me a map of the Black Forest."

With a salute, Tide left from his position at the table and moved to a large storage case containing detailed maps of almost every area around Equestria, and after several moments of searching, he returned with a long, cylindrical case with a white label that read, 'Topographic - Black Forest, Stalliongrad' in typed letters. Upon opening the case, Cloud Drop fixed the map into a special holding tray built into the table which allowed the maps to be measured and marked upon, as one of the tray's components was a clear plastic plate that covered the entirety of the map's surface.

"Alright everyone, gather 'round, we've got a plan to devise," Cloud spoke loudly, his voice getting the attention of the Officers in the room.

With everyone in the room now surrounding the table and map, Cloud took a black marker from a wooden holding box, took the cap off, and drew a small circle around a specific spot on the map.

"We know that right here is the house Celestia was in, and according to Star Yield, she went due north from the home,"

In accordance to the map's legend, Cloud drew an arrow pointing directly north on top of the circle he had marked earlier,

"But, I know Celestia; and she won't be heading north for long. She's seriously injured and knows that the world is coming down on top of her, so my best guess is that she'd be heading towards the Capital so that she can get herself to a hospital and get in touch with President Mikhail, as he's the only friend she's got anywhere close. So, with that, we can narrow our search to this general area, but we need to consider the fact that she probably doesn't have a map and compass, so I think we should have this extra search avenue right up here,"

Once again, Cloud brought the marker to the map, adding a large circle that encompassed the circle he had previously drawn, the Capital City, and a small area in front of the home itself,

"Another thing we can narrow down is where she'll be moving. As most of you know, the Black Forest is not flat, and because Celestia is horribly injured, she will naturally take the path of least resistance. If we confine our searches to all of these low-lying valleys, fields, clearings and frozen lakes, we'll have a much easier time."

After his extremely long-winded speech, Cloud gave a sigh and browsed across the faces of the Officers fixed on his words.

"Any questions or suggestions?"

"Well... how will the search teams be broken up?" Asked an Officer to the left of Cloud Drop.

"I think teams of three and four would be best. She'll be unwilling to be re-captured, obviously, so larger teams equal more bodies she'll have to deal with."

"And team composition?" The same Officer asked.

"Three man teams will have two Unicorns and a Pegasus, four-stallion teams will have two Unicorns and two Pegasi. The Pegasus can search from the air while the Unicorns handle ground searching as well as actually taking down Celestia. Every Unicorn in the Guard knows the sleeper spell, and that's what they'll be using to stop Celestia; remember, we want her alive." Cloud concluded, silence following his words.

After a quick visual sweep of the crowd, Cloud's eyes landed on one of his Officers who appeared to be contemplating something.

"Major, you look like you have an idea."

"Ah... I, well... okay, so Celestia is the most powerful being strength-wise and magic-wise, right? Well... a lot of our Spec-Ops guys have magic detection spells, do you think we could use that to aid in the search? If she's injured, she'll probably be using her magic a lot, and because her signature is larger, she'd be easier to detect using the spell." The Major explained.

"Wonderful idea, Major. Have a single Spec-op join in with each of the search teams. Everyone else take note; search team composition will now be 4 to 5."

The Major responded with a firm salute, and the other Officers throughout the room gave their signs of acknowledgment.

"Alright, any more questions?"

"No, sir!" The crowd responded.

"Great. We've got a plan, now let's put it into action. I'll be back here in 20, I've got other things to tend to." The Admiral announced, his words causing his group of Officers to return to their stations.

Just before exiting the War Room, Cloud Drop paused and turned to Captain Tide.

"Captain, what was the good news?" He asked.

"We got a box of doughnuts." The Captain returned, his hoof raising to point to the mentioned box sitting atop a wooden table beside the door.

Cloud lifted the lid and scooped a chocolate-frosted doughnut from the container with a hoof.

"Good to hear."

Snow whipped through the air like a fine dust as Celestia slowly marched her way through a storm that had struck the forest, the horribly high winds and superfluous amounts of snowfall only adding to the already high level of difficulty of her journey. Luckily, the storm had decided to hit during the daytime, which meant it wasn't as cold as it could have been.

Even with her multiple layers of fairly thick clothing, the icy wind seemed to pierce right through to her core, Celestia's teeth chattering and body shaking more violently than it had ever before. She had thought (even if the thought was more of a self-administered moral boost than anything) that the storm could have a few advantages; the insane amount of snowfall would surely cover her tracks, which would; subsequently, allow her to cover more ground in a surreptitious manner and it would also make it basically impossible for any search parties to find her if one happen to be in close proximity.

She doubted that anyone was close by, though, as her trip was into its second day and she had not encountered a single pony from the 'New Order'. She had thought about it; true, it took a while for troops to be relocated from Canterlot to Stalliongrad's Capital and the cities near it, but Celestia knew that not far from the edge of the Black Forest sat a small base operated by the Royal Canterlot Guard, and Celestia knew the ones behind this whole 'New Order' business; they are cunning, smart people, ones that would have seen the base as a strategic point and used it as such.

Celestia's thoughts temporarily switched from the subject of the New Order to the blizzard and snow surrounding her. She had initially been impressed and proud of her workmanship with the crutch she had crafted herself, but a design flaw, or what an engineer would call an oversight, had started to show itself. When she had begun testing the crutch indoors, it worked just fine, and moving through the forest earlier in her trip it had worked fine, but the crutch's handling ability in the current, less forested area was proving to be less than what Celestia would have hoped for.

Combined with the less dense coverage of trees and blizzard, the current area had at least an entire foot of snow, meaning that every step took much more time and energy, seeing that the crutch had no weight distribution. The Blizzard's concealment of her position and hoofprints would have been an advantage if it were not almost negated by the fact her movement speed was horribly handicapped. Celestia did take a moment to realize that things could be much worse, for instance; if she had not taken the high-strength painkillers to keep her levels of pain in a manageable state, it was certain that she would have either dropped dead a while ago, or been in so much crippling pain from her wounds that moving more than a mile in a day would be completely impossible.

She was also extremely glad that the house had been equipped with so many things needed for her escape, in fact; the subject of these items was still a curiosity to Celestia. It made little sense for so many items used for camping or surviving without solid shelter for long periods of time were kept in a house equipped with all of the proper amenities.

After taking a step, Celestia felt a light 'clunk' beneath her hoof, a clunk not resulting from her stepping on something such as a rock. Celestia took a step back and began to sweep the heavy blanket of snow from the surface of whatever object she had set hoof upon, and after moments of digging, she began to see a wooden surface.

"What is this, a box of some kind?" She asked aloud.

With a little more of the snow removed, Celestia was able to pry the wooden object from its snowy home to find that she had come across a sled. With her magic, she held the sled in the air, examining its condition while pondering and what she might use it for; if it did have any purpose. A thought clicked into Celestia's mind; she could use the sled as a secondary means of transport for the equipment and food she carried on her pack.

The pack became surrounded by Celestia's yellow aurora, the many straps unclicking as it was lifted from her figure and brought to rest atop the sled. With the bag's straps used to secure it to the sled, Celestia now had another issue: how to drag the sled along. After some brain-storming, Celestia used a spell to sever the short rope loop attached to the sled and extended the rope ot it's full length, tying the loose end to the suspender straps of her bulky, canvas pants. With a weight lifted from her shoulders, she continued on through the blizzard.

The blizzard had taken its sweet time; a near 5 hours, to finally clear up. In that time span, Celestia had traveled what had seemed to be a fair distance; she was gauging this assumption by the fact the landscape had changed quite a bit. Instead of the fairly flat, lightly forested area she had traveled earlier, she now stumbled her way through a now hilly and heavily forested area.

The inclines and declines of the hills she had been encountering, along with the darkness brought on by the night, had combined to form a very difficult terrain to traverse, especially with Celestia's current condition. She was starting to become worried about her condition, as well; the morphine that had been allowing her to continue was being used faster than she had anticipated, as it was taking 2 full injectors of morphine a day to keep her moving, not one as she had figured.

This meant that her supply of 20 injectors would run out much quicker than she figured it would. She'd have to cut down on the number of morphine injectors she used per day in order to maintain an adequate supply, which meant things would start hurting a lot more. Previously, Celestia had administered herself morphine right as she woke, and then around halfway into the day, which so far had been sufficient in quelling her pain enough to allow her to continue with her journey. Next morning, she'd have to see how long she could move without needing the morphine; the more she can stretch her supply, the better.

Celestia's thoughts constantly wandered over to the subject of how horrible her health was as of current; it was certainly top of the list in terms of urgency. She constantly found herself wondering how long it would take her body to heal from the extensive wounds she had sustained, or whether her body would ever recover. She was certainly scared of the apparent damage done to her brain, and she wondered if it would have any effects on her ability to function in the future.

Her eyesight had taken a most likely permanent toll from both her brain injury and the physical damage sustained by her one eye, which still had not healed all the way. It was all scary; her situation, her health, the fact the only people that knew she still lived wanted to kill her, the idea that she could never make it out of the Black Forest alive. Even in Celestia's mind, her chances of actually making it to her goal seemed to be 0.

Suddenly, a light snap of a twig echoed into Celestia's ears, her body freezing as she turned swiftly to face the direction of the sound. Her eyes scanned the dark forest as she quickly produced her flashlight from the small bag around her neck, the light quickly being clicked on, a beam of light shining through the murky black. Her eyes locked onto two greenish, bright dots floating in the darkness; a pair of eyes.

The two dots swiftly disappeared, whatever creature they belonged to wished to not be spotted. In order to scare off whatever had been following her, Celestia shot a bolt of high-powered energy into the base of a tree that had been fairly close to the eye's last position, a thunderous crack echoing through the forest as the impact spot exploded into a field of splinters and bark.

Slowly, the tree began tipping to the side, eventually falling to the snowy floor with a crash. Celestia stood still for a moment, staring at the destroyed tree before turning to continue on walking. Whatever had been watching her would certainly have been scared away by such a blast. With her flashlight still hanging in her magic, Celestia did a sweep of the area, carefully scanning to ensure that nothing lay in front of her or to her sides. The scan produced no results, Celestia dropping the flashlight back into her bag and she continued walking.

The sun had set around 30 minutes ago, and normally Celestia was able to see a little bit after the sun set as the moon provided a sufficient amount of light, but tonight's sky was hung with a very dark cloud bank; possibly the same storm that had hit earlier. The use of a flashlight was required for her to make her way around in the forest without hitting trees or tripping over logs, but luckily she was currently moving through a densely packed part of the forest; meaning that the light from her flashlight wouldn't reach too far into the woods, which is a plus if one is trying to not be detected.

She had still not seen any signs of patrols, but that did not mean they were not out. She had become increasingly nervous and vigilant over the past days, every little sound making her jump to attention. The night was certainly her least favorite time. Trying to get herself to fall asleep was a task all in itself; Celestia would lie with her eyes fixed upon the forest, her ears fixed on every little sound from the wind rustling the pine needles to the occasional howl of Wolves roaming through the trees. That was her greatest fear in the darkness; the Wolf packs. There was something about their sound that sent a chill colder than any Stalliongradian night through her body when she heard that rhythmic chorus of howls.

Setting her thoughts aside, Celestia stopped and knelt down; it was time for dinner. With her supply sled now at her side, Celestia began getting the required items for her to have a meal, the only thing missing being wood for a fire. After a short search with her flashlight, Celestia's eyes landed on a few pieces of dead-fall lying a short distance from her position. The wood was promptly levitated from it's snowy home to Celestia.

The log was divided into segments and arranged into a tent formation in a clearing Celestia had built for the fire, several pieces of bark and random wood being placed beneath the tent-shaped log formation, and with everything set up, Celestia cast a spell to ignite the kindling she had organized.

With the fire burning nicely, Celestia had found a fairly flat rock to place near the fire in order to allow her can of beans to be cooked by the fire instead of using her stove; she would prefer to keep the stove's fuel for an emergency. While staring into the fire, Celestia heard a rustle of pine needles from behind her. She quickly equipped her flashlight and began to scan the area she had heard the noise come from. Her search revealed nothing out of the ordinary, but that did not mean that something wasn't lurking in the forest beyond.

She slowly turned back around, her heart beating out of her chest as she turned her attention back to the fire; something was certainly following her. Again her ears detected an odd noise, this time, it was not a rustling of foliage but the sound of something fairly large sprinting through the snow. Celestia turned just in time to see nothing more than a blur as it collided with her, the blur growling and roaring as it began its attack.

Celestia let out a scream as her front legs flailed in a futile attempt to remove the animal, the entire time its claws slashing and digging into her chest. She quickly cast a powerful spell that sent a concussion wave through the air surrounding her horn, the blast powerful enough to stun the animal and allow Celestia to frantically kick it off herself. The animal roared in anger as it sprinted off into the murky darkness beyond, leaving Celestia in a state of shock and horror as she tried to figure out exactly what happen.

Her vision blurry with tears and body shaking in horror, Celestia frantically moved herself closer to the fire as she began to survey her body for wounds that had been inflicted by what she was assuming to be a Mountain Lion. After patting around her chest, Celestia raised her hoof to see her boot and coat sleeve coated in a dark red liquid, the sight causing her to exclaim in fear as she examined her chest closer. There were several deep, very painful slashes along the length of her chest, the blood from each slash causing her coat to be soaked in fresh blood.

With heavy, fearful breaths Celestia began to remove her several layers of coats and jackets to access the wounds, each movement causing the wounds to hurt more and more with each passing second.

After having removed every coat and jacket, Celestia was finally able to see just how bad she had been injured by the Mountain Lion; six cuts, each around five inches in length, and with the amount of blood pouring from each cut it was nearly impossible to tell just how deep each one was. Still in a state of shock Celestia pulled her supply sled closer and found her medical supplies; if something wasn't done about the blood loss immediately Celestia feared it would mean her life.

After a moment's work, Celestia managed to get each wound bandaged and cleaned, the area surrounding her dotted with bloodied rags. She slowly laid herself on her back, her entire body still shaking in fear after the attack. Fresh tears found their way to her eyes once more, her chest heaving as the realization of what she had lived through struck like a bolt of lighting.

"My luck to get attacked by a Mountain Lion..."

Author's Notes:

I've spent more time than I'd like to admit trying to fix any grammar and spelling errors in this long story... but I know there still are some. If you spot one, please notify me