Cadance opened her eyes to darkness. She was warm. Smaller bodies were piled around her like a living blanket, the various snores and breaths a grating, discordant, comforting din. She almost drifted back to sleep, lulled by the warmth and the comfort. Until she saw Twilight standing apart in the dim purple glow of the flames about her hooves.

Her breath caught in her throat in momentary panic. But the archdevil seemed barely inconvenienced as she studied the odd effect that rippled about her hooves, the edges of them glowing as if hot. Cadance watched her lift one to examine the stone beneath, a dim half circle hoofprint of heated glow remaining as the fire itself died away.

She felt the pony atop her shift slightly and turned her attention to Fluttershy, who was perched atop the pony pile like a mother hen, her broad wings blanketing all the ponies below her. Very much awake, she was watching Twilight with curiosity until she noticed Cadance awake. “She’s been at it for maybe five minutes.” The thestral whispered softly. “I think she’s wrapped up in figuring it out now.”

Nodding her understanding, Cadance's horn lit faintly. Fluttershy gave a ticklish giggle as she found herself and the rest of her slumbering charges gently rearranged, the Archdemon emerging from the pile and gathering the rest back into a cohesive clutch. Dropping a fond kiss upon the thestrals brow, she left Fluttershy to nestle down atop the mound again as she padded softly towards the Archdevil.

Her eyes took in the still puckered and healing scars, assessing their continued regeneration. Already they looked much better, though total healing would require more energy than a single pony could provide.

Cadance’s throat tightened in memory of Green Leaves, the infernal alicorn suppressing the urge to keen her sorrow. Pushing the thought away once more, she turned her attention to the quiet, fizzing flames that continued to wash up around Twilight’s hooves, glancing at her own just to assure herself that the odd reaction was indeed unique to the lavender alicorn.

“It’s the ley energy.” Twilight murmured softly in greeting, glancing up into Cadance’s eyes before returning her attention to her upraised hoof. Settling it back to the stone, where just as before it began to burn. “We’re perhaps three miles from the Prime node under Canterlot, this close the bedrock is saturated with runoff from the local ley nexus. This residue appears to react caustically to my own Fel power.” She paused for a moment, dragging her hoof sideways, causing a line of fizzling sparks. “I hadn’t anticipated this.” She admitted with a sigh.

“So, tapping the ley in the short term isn’t viable.”

Twilight gave a harsh snort, shaking her billowing ethereal mane in annoyance. “I can't even begin to build a theory about what that might do to me.”

Cadance grimaced, biting her lower lip as she pondered, casting back through her memories to dredge up anything that might shed some light, no matter how small. She came up empty hoofed. “Alright, so what about the portal? Why did it suddenly go unstable like that?”

Twilight was silent for a long moment, “I think that was all me.” She murmured softly, brow furrowing as she glared at her still flaming hooves. “I’m getting the distinct impression I wasn’t supposed to be able to leave Tartarus.”

Cadance blinked and took a moment to digest the nuances of that. “Rarity said she thought you’d gotten… wedged?” She prompted. Hoping her intellectual counterpart had more detail to give about her predicament.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed with remembered pain. “It was… very much like that actually. There came a point where no matter what I did, I could neither progress nor withdraw. I was fundamentally ‘stuck’. That’s when the portal energies starting tearing strips out of me. I was aware of Rarity pulling at me, but I was paralyzed by the pain, unable to act. Had the girls not hauled me through as they did, I think I would have been stuck until the portal flayed me to paste. This may be a reason why previous Powers didn’t seem especially focused on escape. They were very solitary creatures. With no aid in gaining passage, an interdimensional gateway was probably suicide for them.”

Cadance nodded with a sympathetic wince. “My predecessors certainly had no trouble with it, considering the wealth of portal data they had amassed. That proved extremely helpful in making this possible. Well, for now, we’re through, we can figure out a return trip if and when it becomes necessary.” Her lips quirked in sudden inspiration. “But in the meantime, will you be flaming everywhere we go?”

Cadance watched Twilight’s expression, darkly focused and intense per usual, go blank as the comment registered in her magnificent brain.

Hah, critical hit!

She could almost see the processing that was occurring as her counterpart worked her way through the question. Grammatically, syntactically, scientifically, there was probably at least one bunny trail followed into the realms of language and prose. Then her mouth twitched upwards rustily at the corners. Ahhhh humor had gotten a bite on it! Any second now!

Twilight giggle-snorted, and Cadance felt her own mood burst free of the pall of worry at the sound of it.

Vinyl plodded along the rain slick cobbles, neither appearing to hurry nor to loiter. It was difficult with her heart hammering as it was in her chest. Her ‘performance’ for Twitch had only been enhanced by the sudden quake that had shook the city. She had done what any good performer would and improvised.

Her little jury-rigged infrasound generator had by that point been beating like a rabbit's terrified heartbeat, the unheard pulse of it lending weight to her carefully choreographed horror show. A dark house, the creak of hall boards, the absence of external sound. Flashes of lightning with no rumble of thunder. Natural phenomena all provided without some usual component. Not enough to perhaps immediately be noticed, but it would leave the mind on edge, searching for bits of sensory experience suddenly missing. And under it all, the infrasound would be coaxing the heartbeat to quicken, the stallion to get jumpy and not know why.

Then the quake had hit, and she had been forced to quicken her pace. Her magic sneaking a tiny ultraviolet spotlight into the room, attaching it to the front of his desk. She lowered her hood, giving a few last rapid blinks from the contact lenses she’d just finished putting in. Full sclerals hurt, the lenses seeming two sizes too large, as they always did.

As the quake subsided she’d found the wall switch with her magic and doused the magelamp in the room, stepping into the doorway and waiting for a few anxious seconds for a little lightning.

C’mon….. C’moooooon!

As the needed lightning flash struck she flicked on the spotlight. The mare-like shriek from the amped-up stallion was a perfect complement to her skill at makeup. Skull face paint, and eyes aglow with corpsefire in the spotlight. She probably looked like something that had just crawled its way out of tartarus! She remained motionless, unblinking, simply staring at Twitch as he recoiled in terror, his chair knocked over with a clatter.

The glow of her own magic washed out in the UV light, making it easy to snatch the panicked stallion by his tie and bodily drag him forward out of his chair over the desk, his paltry meal knocked aside by scrabbling hooves, the beer bottle smashing to the floor in the process

Out from beneath Vinyl’s hoodie rose her other prop, an absurd fantasy dagger. Patterned in a skull motif, polished to a glittering finish. She’d used it at a few shows that wanted darker music and imagery for their patrons. Now with a glittering blur, it slammed down into the table, it’s false edge nailing the poor ponies tie to the near side, leaving him unable to back away without strangling himself as he gibbered and screamed. She then suppressed her magic hard, using only the barest amount to create the next effect. She wanted it to look nothing like unicorn magic for her next ‘trick’.

Vinyl remained motionless, hardly daring to breathe. She surreptitiously lifted a photograph from her pocket in her magic as the stallion squirmed and pleaded with the spectre in his bedroom. Out of his sight a tube of carmine ink carefully spattered the precious photograph, drops glistening wetly along the lower edge before her magic gathered a small orb of the liquid beneath it so when she slapped it down next to his face the ‘bloody’ photograph made a satisfyingly disturbing blood smear beneath it. Octavia smiled up out of the picture at Twitch, her muzzle spattered by the crimson ink.

Even as his panicked gaze was drawn by the movement of the photograph the ink was already running out from beneath the crumpled edge. The stallion watching in horror as the red liquid bunched into a single word question.

‘Where?’

Twitch had gabbled out all he knew, which hadn’t been much. Only whose henchponies had been responsible for emptying the holding cells that night, the answer confirmed Vinyl’s worst fears, and she’d almost fallen out of character. Not that it had mattered, as Twitch’s eyes rolled up in their sockets and he began to seize. Vinyl frantically freed his tie and dragged him bodily to the floor, trying to keep him from biting his tongue or injuring himself in the spasms.

From under the ice covering her soul came the nauseating knowledge that she’d frightened him all too well as she held his rigid body through the worst of the wrenching spasms. As the seizure finally ebbed, she had dragged his body half into the hall, laying him down carefully, assured herself repeatedly he was still breathing as she quickly snatched up all her little props, every item that would tie her to this sad scene.

Watching from a cramped alley across the street, she had a good view of the guard patrol that found his conspicuously open door, their initial entry and then the firing of an emergency flare into the sky to bring help for the stallion they found down and unresponsive. Watching his pathetic huddled form being loaded into an ambulance wagon had been accompanied by a sick revulsion for herself and what she’d just done to a stallion who had the bad luck to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yet even then, a part of her mind reasoned that at least this way, he wouldn’t be able to alert the guard about his horrifying encounter. The seizure had struck so quickly he might not even remember what had happened… if he woke up at all.

That last supremely cold and calculating thought had driven Vinyl numb with grief. Was she really weighing the pros of having propelled a stallion into an early grave by way of sheer terror? What was happening to her? She had found a rain barrel to dunk her face and scrub away the matted makeup and had fled that section of town with however much haste she could get away with unnoticed.

Deep into the entertainment quarter she had plodded, down thoroughfares past theatres and into the lower levels where most of the bars and underground clubs were found. The Guard had given up patrolling down here, not enough ponypower to try to maintain the capricious and self-centered ‘laws’ that came down from the nobility. They made a ‘bust’ every now and then, turned over a rave or trance bash for narcotics and illegal booze. And nowadays, thanks in part to Vinyl herself, for illegal music.

The rain had been brief, and from the looks of it had only touched part of the festering cancer that was Canterlot. ‘The City of Unicorns.’ It was called, and Vinyl couldn’t help a bitter twist of lip at what the decay of the once shining capitol of Equestria said about those same unicorns. Even as the thought crossed her mind she felt a familiar beat coming up through her hooves from the cobbles. She paused, letting the pulsing beat speak to her as her eyes closed. Yeah, it was hers.

When she had found the writ of seizure upon her door, and after a panicked search and several attempts to get any of her neighbors to confirm what they had seen that night, the night Tavi had been taken, she’d packed a few things in a hurry and lost herself in the bowels of the city. Places she’d never taken Tavi, though she’d told her marefriend tales of them. The ‘rough side of Canterlot’, ‘places where you didn’t go if you didn’t know your way around’.

It was from the darkest of pits that new music had poured forth. Sadder, angrier, more violent. While she had begun her subtle search for any news of her Tavi, she’d allayed her powerlessness by venting her rage and hate for the city that had betrayed her into music such as she had never before composed. Almost overnight Vinyl Scratch became a wanted pony for incitement. Her ‘renegade’ album had gone viral. It didn’t matter what the official word was, her pain touched something in ponies, something dark and painful. Something that, right or wrong, begged to find expression.

She’d cut and dyed her mane and tail that same night. She was thankful that her cutie mark was amenable to dye and makeup as well. Her cherished bass note all but obliterated, replaced by a carefully designed ink brush and swirl. For now, Vinyl Scratch was a spectre somewhere in the underground, never showing her face. That left Onyx Scribble to do the heavy lifting of her goals in the world.

She stood immersed in the heavy, aggressive beat on one of her angrier mixes for a full minute before she drew in a shaky breath and forged ahead. Her work had paid off, she had a name, she had a place, and with those, she was one step closer to taking back what belonged to her.

It was barely two hours later that she pushed through the door to a well kept hostel in the merchant quarter. A hooffull of bits and she had the room of her choice, north facing, upper story. It was a nicer room than she was used to, but the warmth and comfort of the amenities were not why she was there. Dousing the lamp and opening the window she gazed down the long straight main avenue of the merchant quarter to the gated premises of the newest magnate power of Canterlot. The mansion of the so-called ‘Brothers Horn’.

Cold crimson eyes took in the gate and the guards. Twitch had given her a name, a famous one. And now she had a place. The Horn brothers were dangerous. The elder was unstable and ruthless, the younger a fop of a stallion. They had coasted into Canterlot years ago as if they were the Flimflam brothers, promising answers to various ailments with their potions and ‘enhancing medicinals’.

True their stuff seemed to work, even combatting the magical malaise that many unicorns had started to suffer in the past two or three years. But on one point all outside sources agreed. Their concoctions, no matter how useful, were addictive as heck. And once they started providing stimulants to the merc units that the nobles maintained for their ‘personal protection’ their fortunes were made. They very quickly became the sort of wealthy that even the high courts couldn’t touch.

They were now noble in all but name, skirting the laws and having everything their own way like every scion of the major houses did. In truth, bits now meant more than blood, and they had a controlling monopoly.

It didn’t matter. All the bits in the kingdom weren’t going to keep her out. She just had to figure out how to get in without becoming another nameless statistic. Simple right?

Rarity let out a soft sigh, the fel-unicorn settled as comfortably as possible upon the hard stone floor. Before her lay a ragged collection of blackened threads and burned fabric where a magnificent cloak should be. The portal had done an incredible job wrecking one of her masterpieces.

Each of her friends' cloaks was a labor of years, consuming her energies and many hard to replace resources to craft. They were resistant to magic and bolt and blade, each clung to their wearer's body and spirit, passively gathering any ambient magical energy from its surroundings and using it to repair itself or refresh its wearer.

Unfortunately, the raw magical forces that Twilight’s cloak had been subjected to were an order of magnitude beyond its abilities to resist. It had been flayed as much as its wearer had been, far beyond what its own self repair abilities could ever mend.

There was a second option if Rarity had the strength for it. Taking a deep breath, the devilish unicorn gave it another go. She reached deep inside until she felt the dimmed spark of her own energies, her sense of the outer world fading to bare shadows upon her perceptions. Silently she cursed the portal, first for draining her, second for making her expend so much to retrieve her mistress.

A pony of sense would have weighed her exhaustion against the repair of what was essentially a secondary accessory to a being of Twilight's power. But Rarity was a mercurial devil for whom common sense was at best a useful convenience at times. She had built in her mind for decades how these fledgling hours of their return to the mortal plane would play out. And for Twilight to not have her proper accouterments was unthinkable! It was wrong, and that was the end of it.

Still, her sense of personal affront at the realities of their crossing was not aiding her in finding the energy she needed. She felt the light stickiness of sweat beading against her brow and was about to relent when another spark entered the closely shrouded proximity of her senses.

For a brief moment, she feared it was Twilight. Her mistress was not known for patience with matters she considered trivial. And in the grand design, Rarity’s preoccupation with style would self-admittedly be quite a petty concern. But that didn’t allay the pang it would give her to be ordered to let this go.

But the slight hint of lavender in the other spark was just like her own, the mark of Power amidst the almost brutish glare of cyan. She dimly felt Rainbow Dash settle down beside her, leaning against her as a wing draped casually over her back. She neither opened her eyes nor held back the soft smile that touched her lips.

Three centuries ago, she’d have demanded the ruffian unhoof her immediately, and Rainbow would likely have had some biting jibe to offer back. Now, after so long together, the intimacies shared, some willingly, others not, there was no irritation with the familiarity, only appreciation of just how warm a pegasus’ wing could be.

So close together, the discrete boundaries of the individuals became indistinct. It wasn’t true telepathy, there were no words, no defined thoughts. It wasn’t exactly empathy, though bursts of emotions were infrequently experienced. It was more a distinct comprehension of another soul, another spark with different color and flavor than her own.

She found she basked in the feeling when she could indulge it.

Dash was worried and alert, as she should be, with their mistress injured and all of them half-starved from the jump to the mortal plane. Of them all, Rainbow was probably the most highly strung beneath her essential bravado. Resting at this point would be making her jumpy, thus whatever Rarity was doing was a useful enough distraction from her jitters.

And with a second spark involved…

Rarity pushed once again, and this time she felt the pegasus push along with her as if they had done this very thing a hundred times before. Rainbow had only basic knowledge of the magic Rarity and their Mistress wielded, but she understood energy. Her pegasus nature was predisposed to harnessing elemental lightning after all. So the inner process of drawing power and pushing it out was deliciously second nature.

Rarity allowed her head to dip as her horns began faintly glowing and felt Dash reach a hoof to touch the nearest corner of the burned and frayed mess before them.

And to Rarity’s senses, a thin arc of color flowed off both their sparks, illuminating the ragged threads to Rarity’s augmented inner sight. The colors flowed through the physical material like water, pooling inside its fragile structure until pale violet met cyan. She heard Rainbow gasp and felt the sympathetic jolt as their differing energies encountered each other. And like striking sparks off a flint stone, the impact set magical fire amongst the crazed tatters before them. Their colors fleeing back to their sources as the glow quickened in their wake.

It didn't take much to get the process to kickstart, each thread giving a shiver before one thread became two, became twelve… became innumerable. Each weaving together, growing longer and longer as the remains duplicated and divided, again and again. Each thread knowing precisely where to go in concert with its neighbors, the arcane blueprint for the entire cape stored in every fiber of its mass.

It was beautiful to watch like an invisible artist was sketching the cloak back into existence. First the outline, the lines growing darker and bolder as they grew more substantial, strands of glistening black filling in from the edges towards the center, weaving new web as if coloring in the inner space of the sketched rough. Rarity nestled into Rainbow and felt the pegasus snuggle right back, her own inner sense of satisfaction mirrored back at her from Dash’s magenta eyes.

They both started a little at the soft chuckle behind them. Rainbow’s head jerking up to see their Archdevil looming over them, watching as the cloak became whole where it lay before them. With a foalish giggle, the pegasus scrambled to her hooves, gathering the garment from the stone floor and holding it out to the larger devil almost shyly.

Twilight bowed her head, allowing the colorful devil pegasus to settle the garment over her neck, nimble hooves closing the clasp as a soft purple field of magic from Rarity billowed the fabric out to swath her as it should. Black and regal, Twilight’s cloak was embossed around the hem in arcane sigils of startling depth and complexity, rune arrays of strange form and function. As it draped about her it drifted oddly, tucking behind her wings, the fabric gathering here, tensing there, giving the Archdevil full use of her wings unless she tucked them close. With a flick of her horns, the arrays on the garment caught fire with a violet glow, running through their paces for their mistress, ensuring her of the functionality of the myriad enchantments woven into the webbing of the cloth. As the runes along the hem lit, various designs and pathways likewise caught fire across the fabric, the simple garment showing itself to be a carefully constructed multifunction spell array, needing only the magic of its wearer to power and direct it.

Just as swiftly the glow drained out of the arrays and the cloak returned to velvety darkness about her. A purple foreleg slipped out, quick as a striking snake, to catch a sky blue pegasus up. Rainbow giving a little gasp, quickly stifled against Twilight’s lips as the pegasus was thoroughly and comprehensively kissed, going limp in her mistress’s clutches, mewling softly and pawing tenderly at her chest ruff with a trembling hoof.

Rarity felt a fanged grin coming to her lips at the familiar and stirring sight. As much as they both belonged to their mistress in ways both wonderful and terrible, the Archdevil and the pegasus shared a bond deeper still. Rarity was a Devil of Power, certainly. But Rainbow was Her Herald. Content with her own lot, she did not begrudge Rainbow Dash her intimacy with their mistress… she had witnessed what it took to make an Archfiend’s Herald.

Rainbow collapsed into a softly giggling heap as Twilight released her. The Pegasus with a dreamy, glazed look that so often accompanied such moments. Rarity lifting a hoof to titter behind it at the sight. Rainbow would be bubbly for a good half hour from such a moment with Twilight, the poor dear would barely be able to focus until she got that high out of her system.

The Fashionista, however, had let her attention wander with the Pegasus, and so let out an unladylike squeak as a deep lavender field of magic snatched her from where she lay. Strong forelegs encircled her, nestling her deep against a warm purple furred chest. She went limp against her mistress, burying her nose into her fur and drawing in a long, slow breath. Her eyes drifting closed as she clutched at the Archdevil with her hooves, trying and not quite able to encircle the alicorn’s neck.

Sharp fangs gently closed about her ear tip, the soft, tender prickling like a kitten’s milk teeth, it sent a delicious shiver down her spine as her breath halted in a gasp. She was suspended off the floor by Twilight’s height, even seated. Her body supported in Twilight’s hug, her hind legs still supported in her magic, until she felt a serpentine tail curling snugly about one, Her muscles tensed a little as if trying to paw at the ground a little, old pony instincts demanding her legs be free, free to run from a predator. The muscled tail resisted the movement, pulling her leg to stillness even as a serpentine tongue flicked along the inner cup of her ear. The loss of mobility made the pony hindbrain jittery, but the loss of control did even more…. stimulating things to her conscious mind.

The results were delicious. Rarity couldn’t help herself, she gave a soft, submissive whine, Twilight knew just how to play her. The archdevil gave a husky little purrr back, tugging on her poor captured ear before snaking that merciless tongue down inside it, sending another shudder down her spine. I-if she kept this u-up….

Slowly she was lowered into a confused heap beside the now gleefully leering Pegasus. She pouted at Rainbow with all her might even as the flashy devil’s grin grew larger.

“Mmmmm, that’ll teach you both for wasting energy.” Twilight murmured with a predacious grin. “But the cloak is as beautiful as ever… thank you so much Rares.”

Her eyes narrowed at them seriously. “No more foolery, gather your things, we’ll shortly be moving out. You’ll just have to bear it until we have a plan.” She spoke in a commanding voice. Her eyes however holding a flicker of smugness for the dawning distress on her wayward pets expressions.

As Twilight moved off, Rarity and Dash looked at each other, both assessing how pent up the other suddenly looked.

“Y’know Rarity… I hope the cloak was worth it.” Rainbow grated out with a huff. Her cocky grin returning as she leaned closer to the devilish Unicorn. “I think she wants us hungry when we leave.” She whispered, letting her tongue slide sensually along her gleaming fangs.

Rarity gave a soft little shiver as she tamped down the warmth in her belly with difficulty. Pondering Dash’s point she looked up at the pegasus. “Mmmmph, means she has an idea of what she’s going to do I would opine.” She whispered back, just as softly.

Their smiles matched each other as they scrambled to their hooves to make ready. If their mistress had a plan, then she was grooming them to play their parts. That was reason enough to put up with the itch the wicked fiend had kindled for them both.

Twilight, meanwhile, strode towards the other side of the chamber, eyes taking in the new burst of activity all around. Cadance was concentrating at her portal, green fel magic lancing out into the rune work, shifting a few key portions of the arrays to permit what they needed next. The others were now gathering and checking over the gear they had brought, each pony having a pack or satchel beneath their cloaks, each one in charge of some modest amount of the necessary gear for what would hopefully come next.

As Twilight reached the wall she paused, looking down at the silver dagger that lay glittering greenly in the bright light from Cadance’s spellwork. The edge dull and rust colored now, a small pool of tacky fluid having formed beneath it. Grimly her horns lit, the nearness of silver making her eyes narrow in concentration as she forced a few beads of the blood to lift and congeal into a sphere the size of a marble before her. Stepping away from the grisly object, she studied the tiny scarlet drop.

Slowly she began to chant words in a tongue now forgotten to mortals.

Blood of mine enemy, Seed of my foe,
Shed in my name, I bind thee!
Speak of thy line, the panoply of thy house,
And concede to me thy sovereign!

Her eyes grew brighter with their own glow, from plum to byzantium to red violet, her slit pupils fixed upon the droplet of deepest carmine as her spell formed. The blood droplet began to glow with its own ruddy light before with an unexpected sizzle, it blackened, growing hard and ashen in her magic, condensing into a jet black cabochon.

Twilight just stared at it for the longest while, weighing the results. Her face was a study of conflicting emotions, passing across her features one after another before slowly her expression cleared of conflict. She began to chuckle softly as she tucked the dull gem into the darkness inside her cloak.

One down, seven to go.

The office was dark, the windows heavily shuttered, only a single lamp glowed upon the desktop, casting a bright circle of light upon masses of files and paperwork, all arranged in neat and orderly stacks.

Pale eyes read through the currently opened folder, the pony who bore them flipping slowly through the pages, scanning through the latest findings related to the anomalous quake that had shaken the city merely hours before. Beyond the illuminated workspace the door of the office opened after a single perfunctory knock. Several ponies in the armor and livery of Arcana Security hustling a bound pony into the room.

The sudden noisome burst of activity was ignored by the shadowed pony as they continued to read. The rest of the room might not even exist for all the attention paid to it. By the time the security squad had secured their guest to a steel chair in front of the desk and departed with the most hurried of bows, the details of the quake had been absorbed and the folder could be safely set aside. A pale hoof moving to riffle through another stack, pulling free another file, beginning to pore over that information as well. The room silent save for the soft movement of paper, and the pained breaths of the bound pony.

That silence drew out, one file drained to be replaced with another until it was almost unbearable, before the pony behind the desk, not even looking up from the latest one, finally spoke.

“I realize this must all seem in rather poor taste.” Mistral Arcana began with slow, cultured aplomb, her tone conversational, yet not familiar. “I wanted to take a moment of my very precious time... to thank you. You didn’t run, which surprised me.”

More soft riffling of paper, her pale eyes continuing to devour more data to add to her own understanding. “I’m sure you realize how useless a gesture that would have been, and how little it would have mattered. Still, we were expecting you to try. In appreciation for your not having made us expend all that effort, I’d like you to know that your wife and your servants got away cleanly.”

Still she continued to read, eventually lifting a gold pen in her magic and beginning to add details to the latest folder that held her attention. “This isn’t personal, though I am quite certain you’ll disagree on that score. I’ve honestly admired your efforts, and would never have interfered like this if it weren’t for some rather unpleasant acquaintances we both have the misfortune of sharing a city with.” The pen continued to write in tight efficient letters, easily legible and permitting the maximum amount of information to be carried in the space available.

“Even the… shall we say, inquiries, you’ve spent the afternoon having with my security staff is more of a formality than anything else. I’m quite certain you have neither knowledge nor connection with our charmingly seditious friends, the self-styled ‘Underground’. Still, it always pays to be thorough when you’re forced to get your hooves dirty like this.” Another swap of files, another spate of tense, quiet penwork. “This Underground has apparently decided to move from governmental protest to targeting our research projects. Several sensitive projects have been hindered or brought to public attention in manners not in our best interests, and their attempts to obstruct us have now reached a level that isn’t tolerable.”

Finally the last folder was levitated into her outbox and she lifted her frost blue eyes from the almost empty green velvet work surface to regard her guest. “While I mentioned I admired your efforts and would usually have never dreamed of interfering in this manner, your connections and reputation have made you the single most effective tool in my sphere of influence to handle this problem. You will have your trial, a highly publicized one, of course. You will be presented with the evidence against you and after strenuously maintaining your innocence against incontrovertible proof, you will be sentenced to death for your treasonous acts.”

“Your execution will also be public. The common ponies need to see their justice system at work after all. I am rather hoping that we will see some unexpected guests there. If the underground wishes to present themselves to the commoners as the champion of the downtrodden, then they certainly must make an effort to not let this travesty come to pass. I’d rather hope they will come to your rescue, and run headlong into the combined security forces of the nobility. It would simplify matters greatly.”

“Of course, they could choose not to. It’s said their leadership is exceptionally talented at sniffing out ambushes and traps. So perhaps the risks will be too great for them. Perhaps they will let that blade fall on you. You have my sincerest apologies if they do. But I hope you can take some small comfort in the knowledge that if they don’t appear, they will have only delayed the inevitable. For when the tampering with the evidence that convicts you comes to light, and is traced to the hooves of known Underground sympathizers, they will have lost the public trust. Your wrongful death will be the rallying cry that brings about their ultimate irrelevance.”

“I realize that might be cold comfort, and really, why would I expect you to go along with this little drama I wish to create?”

Lifting a series of photographs from the desk, the final items that remained upon its surface, she flipped slowly through them, showing them one by one to her guest, hearing them catch their rasping breath around bruised ribs as they saw them. “Do this for me, and your lovely wife will depart my sphere of influence intact, with all those tragic waifs and hardluck cases you’ve taken in over the years. While they got away as cleanly as you could wish, that doesn’t mean I don’t know where they are. Make this hard, and the next set of pictures you see will be much less comforting.”

She left the photos spread out upon the desk. Fleur Dis Lee, the famous fashion model, looking harried and distraught, but alive and well in a nondescript lower city hotel suite gazing off the edge of the photograph. So vulnerable, but also safe, for the moment.

Fancy Pants took a harsh, shuddering breath, his swollen eye already tearing, now joined by tears from the uninjured one as he let out a snorting sob from around the gag he wore. Chains bound about his legs, keeping him in a seated position against the uncomfortable steel chair, the dull onyx band of a magic suppressor snug around the base of his horn as he stared down at his beautiful wife in the photographs.

“I trust we understand one another.” The soft, conversational voice of the glacier who acted like a pony observed. It was not a question.

The top of the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns tallest tower was a massive observatory, or it had been once. Now, abandoned and forgotten, no pony was present in the high stone tower to witness the green flicker of sparks against the inner wall. It spat and sputtered before flaring into a shuddering circle of green flame. Rainbow Dash stuck her head out of the wall for a split second for a look around before disappearing again.

Moments later she piled through the portal with AJ and Fluttershy right behind her, the three ponies fanning out looking for threats even as the others leapt free of the flaming portal. Cadance coming through last and turning to hold up her hoof.

Within the stone chamber deep beneath Canterlot’s School for Gifted Unicorns the fiery runework of the portal began to fold upon itself. The layer of stone surrounding the arrays collapsing and shifting, rushing together like some form of madly shifting block puzzle. The shimmering portal above it wavering, but remaining stable until the runework had packed itself into a tight cube no larger than a puzzle box, which flew through the collapsing portal to land securely in Cadance’s waiting hoof. The portal giving one last burp of light before it vanished entirely, leaving the silent chamber in utter darkness.

Twilight winced as she took in the dishevelment of the massive telescope, a hulking mass of tarnished brass, slightly askew on its precision mount. The observatory dome had been carelessly left open, possibly for years.

Poor Percy.

“Hi! My name is Twilight Arcana Sparkle!” A cheerful little filly stated proudly, nopony was in the room, so she didn’t have to be silent while the adults worked. Thus she could properly introduce herself to the amazing telescope which her father had said she might get to look through tonight. And big important things like observatory telescopes deserved politeness just as much as big important ponies did! Beaming with the uncomplicated joy of the very young, she murmured in a sotto voced reply. ‘Good day my lady! Sir Percival Starbright Farseer at your service!’

Twilight shook herself out of the sudden keen memory, gazing sadly upon the ruin of a very old friend. She’d been on a first name basis with the big scope by her second year of school, and it had always been a warm and comforting presence during her astronomy period. Her eyes narrowed and she snorted for the time she was wasting. It was a lump of brass and crystal, nothing more. She had many many other things to attend to. Things that mattered.

Striding through the obviously dilapidated chamber, she pushed open the door to the exterior balcony with a rusty groan of complaint and stepped into the rapidly dimming dusk. The sun shading into fiery orange as it neared the horizon, the moon soon to rise. The others filed out onto the wide terrace, blinking in the fading light, and taking in their first sight of Equestria in a very long time. It was a jarring experience.

Canterlot stood nearby, as tall and imposing as ever, in fact, more so. The white stonework of the city stained grey with soot from hundreds of tall smokestacks. The industrial quarter has swollen cancerously to consume a great deal of the slopes beneath the city proper. Canterhorn Falls still fell amidst the new construction, but the outflow beyond the city was nearly as sickly grey as the stones of the once proud capitol itself. The land around it, once green and verdant, was now yellow and brown in the fading light.

She heard a sudden hissing gasp of distress, Rainbow Dash had scampered to the railing, eyes darting this way and that. She lifted her forehooves onto the railing as she craned her neck to look about. “Where’s Cloudsdale?! If the sun is over there, we’re mid to late summer… Cloudsdale should be somewhere between Ponyville and Appleloosa, heading towards the Gulf of Las Pegasus to take on water for the snow factories. Wh-where is it?!”

“Rainbow.” The soft voice of Fluttershy murmured, stepping up to wrap a wing around the now smaller pegasus. “Look at the clouds…” The sorrow in her voice was unmistakable.

Rainbow blinked, again looking out over the south basin of Equestria, the elevation of Canterlot giving a truly far and wide panorama. Twilight clenched her teeth as she drew a lightning quick conclusion of what the demonic thestral had noticed. A second later Rainbow let out a sob and she knew her guess was correct.

“The weather… H-how can it all be wild? Wait.. t-the area around Ponyville shows a bit of work… it can’t be! No! What the buck did they do!? They couldn’t h-have! Not Cloudsdale!” Rainbow’s panicked and angry denials were belied by the tears in her eyes, by the snarling clench of her fanged jaws. Her wings twitched, as if ready to throw off Fluttershy’s bat wing and leap from the balcony to find her foalhood home.

“Enough!”

The word was like a whipcrack, aborting any notion of Dash leaving the ground.

“We all have answers we need. But I will not have us scatter and leave an entrenched enemy at our back!” Twilight snarled in a commanding voice, eyes narrowed as she watched lights flickering into being all over Canterlot. “We cut off the head before we do anything else.”

“Yes Mistress.”

“Y-yes Mistress.”

Rarity and Dash immediately capitulated, as was proper. AJ nodded easily, though she was likely as anxious as Dash was for news of her family. Fluttershy and Pinkie turning to look at Cadance. Centuries of submission to the greater fiends they each served left them hanging on the word of their Archdemon.

Cadance was troubled, and Twilight knew why. Shining Armor. It would be a physical pain for her to not immediately teleport to the Crystal Empire and secure the Love of her demonically extended life. Yet a teleport of that magnitude would light up every magical sensor for three kingdoms with demonic energy, alerting far too many to an archdemon on the prowl. She readied her most persuasive arguments, if Cadance broke away now, their sortie would be over before it began.

“Agreed.” The Archdemon of Lust responded, with only a hint of reluctance in her voice, Fluttershy and Pinkie both relaxing at their mistresses agreement.

Okay, one hurdle cleared.

“Well then…” Twilight began in a business-like tone, horns lighting with a soft purple glow as she spread her senses out towards the school beneath them. Delicately she probed, and slowly she located the 36 arcane detectors dotted over the structure, most directed outwards, a few pointed at the dormitories, none aimed at something so innocuous as the abandoned observatory tower. And they were the exact same models as she remembered from her own foalhood!

It was with great relish that she touched each and every one, not disabling them which might alert somepony to tampering, simply resetting the wavelength of arcane emission they were calibrated to pick up. Set it to the lowest gain possible and set the amplitude cap near the top of the available spectra and you’d need an angry alicorn going magic happy at three feet to get a peep out of any of them.

With the sensor web out of commission, she could let her magic wash through the school in a low level scan. Nothing a sleepy unicorn might feel, but enough to get an idea of what she was dealing with. Her smile slowly grew as the inner workings of the facility came into focus for her.

“Okay, detectors are handled. All we have to worry about is experienced teachers sensing something. From the feel of it, we’ve three sensitives to take care of. The Dean, the librarian, and the third is probably the primary level magic teacher. I want those three neutralized tonight.”

“Cadance, you’ll subdue the Dean, and his quarters will be used as a holding place for any others we manage to take in one piece.”

“I’ll take the Library.” She rolled her eyes at the soft titter that ran through her friends. Of course she had the Library… she tried very hard not to smile, settling for a tight smirk. “If I can take the Librarian alive, I’ll send them to you, Cadance, otherwise I’ll dispose of the body.”

“Rarity, I want you and Dash to handle the magic teacher. Try to do it quiet and deliver him or her to Cadance as soon as we’ve eliminated the other two. Then find two other teachers to neutralize. You’ll be leading some classes tomorrow!”

“As you wish.” “Alright! Gym Class!”

“Pinkie.”

“Yeppers Bossmare?” Said Stealth Pink…. Her curvy body covered in a matte black body suit, a weird pair of three eyed green glowing goggles pulled over her face. The grin beneath the odd headgear as playful as ever.

Twilight chuckled softly, her expression softening a little. “You’ve got the kitchens. Get to baking.”

“Oooooh! Excellent! Any special requests?” She asked as she trotted soundlessly over to an absurdly oversized duct cover and began prying it off, setting it silently to the side as she began crawling inside, her head popping back out to hear the answer.

“Baker’s choice, just make sure they’re potent.”

“On it! Triple batches coming right up! Send me staff as you can and we’ll blow the roof off the cafeteria!” And Stealth Pink darted out of sight and silently disappeared into the copious and absurdly pony sized ductwork of the school.

Twilight couldn’t help but chuckle again. Turning towards AJ and Fluttershy, she paused, arching an eyebrow curiously. The pale yellow thestral was draped over the worn railing, looking far down below.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked in a whisper, seeing the taut, hunting sense of the batpony.

Her large ears twitched in acknowledgment, but she did not change her position, gesturing silently with a hoof downwards before lifting the hoof to touch the near ear. Something below that can hear like me. This was silent communication that they all were intimately familiar with, the demonic thestral had physical senses superior to even archdevils and had often been their strongest guardian and bloodhound over the centuries.

Twilight’s eyes narrowed and her gaze shifted to Rarity, also tensed and alert. Her slim horns began to glow softly, the subtle crinkly feeling of a very powerful aversion spell crept over the archdevil. She could see the soft blue bubble with her magical sight as it slithered out from the pale devil to encompass all of their friends.

Fluttershy relaxed as she felt the tingle engulf her. “Batponies, coming out of a crevice below the gardens. They must be night caretaker staff. They look underfed, the poor dears. I think it’s their rookery. Imagine, living in a dirt burrow… Why aren’t they up here? Are they not allowed into the building?”

“Sadly, I think they are not. What I was able to glean from Green Leaves suggests the noble unicorns are oppressing the other tribes and even lesser unicorns who haven’t the blood ties to protect them.” Cadance sighed and shook her head, making her ethereal mane billow in the nonexistent breeze that moved it. “It’s like a return to the preclassical feudal period all over again….”

“Regardless, this is useful to us.” Twilight interrupted, ignoring the nerdy impulse for a history debate. “AJ, I want you to take the gardens, and if the bat pony rookery is indeed dug beneath it, then you can assist Fluttershy to contain them when they return for sleep with the dawn.”

“Oooooh, I hope they don’t make me hurt them!”

“Use your experiences, if they’re cowed enough to live in a dirt hole in the ground and haven’t fled elsewhere, they probably lack any strong alphas. Give them that and maybe they will fall in line for us.” Twilight counseled. Despite her demonic nature, Fluttershy was still the most nurturing pony she had ever met. Given proper direction, she’d probably have the bat ponies eating out of her hoof by nightfall.

“With tha resources in them there gardens, I should prolly be able ta recover their poor diet. I doubt the day staff is as bad off. If Shy kin bring em around to our way o’ thinkin they’d make darn good skirmishers when the school wakes up to us.”

“Good thinking, approach the tasks as you see fit, but I’d like you in full control of the surrounding grounds and gardens before we move on the student body as a whole. There could certainly be those that try to escape, I want them caught the instant they step on the grass.”

Her ponies, her friends… her allies and slaves, all bowed to her respectfully before hurrying to prepare for their tasks. Soon leaving her and Cadance alone atop the ruined tower, looking out over the bloated city they were here to conquer.