Chapter 8: Gathering Forces

It has been nearly a day since the ‘incident’ with her student. Celestia had expected her sister to assault her as soon as she returned, but it came worse… much worse. Instead she decided to take away her beloved student. Twilight had been around her for so long now, it would break her immortal heart to see the innocent mare wander on this darkness filled path.

She knew that her student would find out eventually, but Celestia had hoped it would have been on her terms. The princess was no fool, she knew she had to pay for her sins one day. The first rule of immortality was that it did not matter how long you live, one day, you will die anyway. Not this time though, Celestia would find a way to fix this without hurting Twilight and her sister. Easier said than done, with their powers combined her student and Luna could likely kill half of her army in less than a day, they had the Nightmare on their side after all.

If they really wanted to, they could become a major problem for her reign. Twilight was an expert tactician, maybe a bit naive, but extremely intelligent nonetheless and Luna was a true master on the battlefield, what force could stop them if they worked together properly? The easiest way to prevent this would be to capture Twilight and convince her that siding with Luna wasn’t very clever, on the other hoof who would be able to stand a chance against Twilight? Morning Blaze only reinforced this fact, she was one of Celestia’s strongest unicorns and she ended up in the hospital, fatally injured. She had to think of something…

At this exact moment Morning Blaze appeared in the Solarium, right in front of the princess. Good that nopony was present in the room at such early hours, “Morning Blaze, what did I tell you about teleporting around the castle?”

“My apologies, princess, but I was in a hurry. I searched for Spike around Ponyville, just like you ordered me to and I found him. He was in the local hospital with three mares, they claimed to be Twilight’s friends. As I explained why I was there, they all seemed to be really sad. He in particular was very upset with the whole situation, but he insisted on staying in Ponyville to assist them. They told me what happened during the time Twilight was away, it is just as you feared, Celestia, Twilight and two other ponies of this group with the names of Pinkamena Diane Pie and Rarity joined Nightmare Moon and went towards the Everfree forest. A pegasus with the name Rainbow Dash, who got injured in the first fight with Nightmare Moon, wanted to immediately search for her friends, but I told them they should come to Canterlot first, to discuss things with you. They will likely arrive later today,” Morning Blaze said with a serious tone.

“You did a good job. It is worse than I thought, we have to arrange a meeting with all captains, as well as the generals and the leader of the Archmages, proven that we can persuade him to leave his laboratory.”

“Very well, I will tell everypony to meet here,” the yellow mare agreed. If Celestia gathered all the leaders of the military, things looked darker than she originally thought.

Their first training went surprisingly well, Rarity learned the basics of Maat and Isfet and Luna showed Twilight some extremely advanced techniques, they would be of good use later.

None of them slept more than an hour during the night to be honest. Pinkie Pie was especially unnerving, since the meeting she had been bouncing all around the hideout and she was not even a little bit tired the next morning. After their first breakfast with Luna, the three of them began to train with her. Since Pinkie wasn’t able to use magic (that didn’t stop her from trying though) she had to watch them, not that it wasn’t interesting, especially some tricks Twilight learned were quite fascinating.

Right now they were discussing where to find their first allies.

Luna spoke up first, “My guess would be the Whitetail Woods, they would be perfect for a bat pony hideout. The sun barely comes through the thick foliage of the forest and it isn’t too far away from our old castle.”

“Well, since it’s the best trail we have, we might as well give it a shot. Is there anything special to know about them?” Twilight agreed.

“The best would be to show some restraint, if they haven’t changed, then some of them could be really aggressive towards strangers. I’m sure most of them know that I returned by now. Explain that we work together, but defend yourself if necessary, they respect strength.”

Twilight knew that this would likely be quite difficult, she had to be very careful, “That settles it then, Pinkie, Rarity and me will travel to the Whitetail Woods to locate the remaining bat pony population. What will you do?”

“I will stay here and gather my strength, the last few days were quite taxing, we have to be ready in case Celestia becomes too desperate, which will happen eventually,” Luna stated.

The lavender unicorn opened a door to the edge of the forest and everypony, except Luna, entered the black rift.

The forest was exactly like they imagined it to be, big, dark and green, there was not much else unfortunately. After around half an hour of searching the little group found an abandoned fireplace with some logs around it, presumably a temporary resting place of the bat ponies or maybe just a little camping place.

Rarity was already fed up by this whole searching in the woods thing, “Twilight, darling, do you really think they live in this plain and dark forest?”

“Rarity, I have absolutely no—” she stopped as she got the familiar feeling of danger, she had to protect her friends. In a fraction of a second the lavender mare summoned her sword and rammed it into the ground. By doing this she created an invisible vortex sphere around the group that would destroy any impending projectile. The air crackled around Twilight, all of her power was busy protecting the little group at the moment.

Her friends were heavily startled by her sudden actions. Just as they were going to ask what was going on a barrage of spells crashed into the barrier. Fireballs, ice and lightning bolts, even some dark projectiles tried to destroy her protection. As soon as the unknown attackers stopped their assault, they revealed themselves by surrounding the little group.

Luna was right, they were indeed bat ponies, some of them had black bat wings and only a few could be seen with a twisted black horn. One of them stuck out in particular, his dark brown fur was covered in scars from countless battles, the longest one was over his right eye all the way down to the cheek, the eye was still working though as he stared at them angrily. Even his dark red hair seemed to be burned at the tip. Weapons of choice seemed to be extremely sharp wing blades as he wore them at the moment.

He spoke with a very raspy voice, “What do we have here? Another group of wanderers with a death wish or maybe not?” Now he pointed at Twilight with his right wing blade. “You are different, nopony could block our spells so easily. So what do you want here? Speak now or be silent forever.”

Twilight dissolved her barriers and held her sword ready to strike. The bat ponies seemed to understand, they stayed at a distance, “Luna sent us, as you should know she returned and now we are planning a war against Celestia. So we want all of you to join us.”

“Hah! You and our queen, allies? She must be in serious trouble if she sides with weaklings like you, but if you really tell the truth then we have no choice, we must be loyal to our true queen.”

“You will see my abilities soon enough. Let’s introduce ourselves before we go, shall we? My name is Twilight Sparkle and over there is Pinkie Pie and Rarity.”

“My name is Silver Night, calling me Silver will suffice and those are my fifty comrades. We are the last bat ponies in existance,” Silver finished. He couldn’t really imagine why his queen would side with peasants like this, but the stallion couldn’t risk losing her again.

Twilight opened another door back into the hideout and said, “We will discuss the details later, let’s meet up with Luna first.” They were not as many as she hoped, but enough to be useful and they found them first try. Things couldn’t be better at the moment.

Around the same time as Twilight and her friends returned from their ‘adventure’ in the forest, the last higher ranking members of the military arrived in the Solarium. For this special occasion the princess cancelled all other events for one evening. It was a miracle by itself that Morning Blaze could convince every single one of them to show up, the captains were not the problem though, only the three generals and the leader of the Archmages had their own interests and business.

Celestia waited for the last one to take his seat, of course it was Dr. Specter, self-proclaimed genius and leader of the Archmages. Better late than not at all. To say that all of them had a rather eccentric personality would be an understatement, but she could not deny that these nine ponies were the strongest fighters she had.

Now the meeting could begin, “First, I wanted to appreciate the fact that every last one answered my summon. Most of you have their own business to attend to, but I can assure you that this is, indeed, urgent.”

“Let’s leave the formalities out, we don’t have all day,” Mistral, the only female General said. The light-blue furred mare had her long white hair bound in a classical pony tail. As all the other Generals she wore an elegant suit under her coat, unlike the coats of the captains the word ‘Justice’ was imprinted on it. The suits were themed after their individual fighting style, hers was entirely blue.

“Always so snappy, Mistral. Maybe you should try to meditate,” the second General with the name ‘Law’ replied, it was an open secret that this wasn’t his actual name, but not even Celestia knew his real one and as long as he was loyal that didn’t matter. The beige stallion with the wild, red and slightly spiky hair was the youngest of the leadership, he was quite fierce, but had a lot of potential. His suit was coloured in different shades of red.

“Be quiet, you two. I am sure that Celestia has a good reason to summon us,” the last of the trio ended the dispute. Dawn Comet, was actually the oldest pony in the leadership circle, but by no means the weakest. His gray, almost white short cut hair matched pretty well with his dark-yellow fur. Somepony could think he would be as radiant as Celestia with his extravagant bright yellow suit, his age certainly did not help.

The princess tried to ignore the three Generals and continued with her meeting, “Some of you already heard about it, Nightmare Moon returned to Equestria. Currently we believe she hides in the Everfree forest and she convinced my faithful student and two of her friends to join her. The Nightmare makes her unpredictable, she will do everything to end my reign. If that happens, the entirety of Equestria could be plunged into eternal darkness. To prevent that we have two immediate options, the first would be to track them down and start a full scale attack or secondly, we capture Twilight to eliminate her tactical advantage and find out where Nightmare Moon has hidden the Elements of Harmony.”

Morning Blaze and Shining Armor, leader of the second division, both shouted at the same time, “We can’t harm Twilight!” They looked each other in the eyes and nodded shortly.

Celestia was slightly stunned at the sudden emotional outbreak, “I know she means a lot to the two of you, believe me… I feel the same, but she presents a serious threat to the crown at the moment. Of course we won’t harm her, but she is the likeliest one to know where they are, the best would be to locate their hideout first and decide after it.”

The Captain with the white fur and rather wild blue hairstyle named Thunder Flare spoke up, “I don’t know why you three want to spare them, she and her friends betrayed the crown and Twilight Sparkle even dared to attack the princess. In my opinion we should execute her as soon as we are able to.”

Normally nopony had anything to say against him, the only exception were the generals and the princess of course. He was undeniably the strongest Captain, his first division was known to be the elite of Equestria. Also he was the only former criminal with the rank of a Captain, even his coat showed that, a blue skull with two crossed lightning bolts was imprinted on it.

“You won’t even lay a single hoof on her, Thunder Flare!” Shining Armor said angrily.

“Oh yes, that’s right, she is your little sister. What a shame, but what do you want to do about it? We are Captains of the Equestrian military and we won’t defend a criminal,” Flare mocked.

The Ruler of the Sun magically enhanced her voice and shouted, “ENOUGH! You two will stop immediately and Shining Armour is right, Thunder Flare. We will not harm her, our primary goal is to find Nightmare Moon hideout and stop her.”

“If I may interrupt your little ‘chat’, your highness, but what exactly am I doing here?” Specter asked, he did not try to hide his boredom at all.

Celestia gazed at him for a few seconds, deliberating on what to say, “I am very well aware of the fact that you consider neither yourself nor the Archmages as a part of the Equestrian military, but in this special case we need all the assistance we can get. For the duration it takes to defeat Nightmare Moon, your forces will assist us in every way possible. In exchange the Equestrian Crown will grant you access to all resources you deem necessary for this task, within reason of course.”

Now that got him interested, “Interesting offer, princess. Are there any restrictions to this deal?”

“No, as long as it helps achieving our goal you have have no restrictions. Armour, weaponry, guards, money, even access to certain areas in the archives, anything,” she knew it was risky giving them this much freedom, but they needed their tactical and magical strength if she liked it or not.

“You certainly know how to hook somepony. I accept your generous offer, the Archmages of Canterlot will assist the Equestrian military until Nightmare Moon is defeated,” Dr. Specter replied. His black coat with the word ‘Magic’ fluttered as he stood up. “Now, if you would excuse me, we have some preparations to make.” After that he vanished with a quiet spark.

“As trustworthy as always, it would surprise me if he does not even try once to stab us all in the back,” Eclipse stated. She was the leader of the third division and the only expert in the leadership circle for darkness and void magic, well except Celestia. Her deep blue fur and equally dark, nearly black, long hair stood in a stark contrast to the white coat she had to wear in formal meetings.

The Captain of the fourth division had enough negativity for the day, everypony was so mean to each other at their meetings. Her name was Misty Melody and she was probably the only pony to ever see things even remotely positive. Her appearance certainly showed that, with her light pink fur and darker pink hair she looked like the happiest unicorn in Equestria, “And you are always the optimist, right Eclipse? Can’t you all just lighten up even if it’s only for this occasion?”

Exactly that was the reason Celestia did not like these meetings. Even herself could not deal with this group for a longer period of time. She sighed and said, “Well, I guess that concludes our meeting. I will assign all of you to your search territory in the next few days, if anypony happens to find them, I must warn you. Do not approach them, even if Nightmare Moon is alone, not even I can hope to defeat her in single combat without the Elements. The only thing you will do then is contact me right away, after that we decide what to do. You can go now, thank you all for coming.”

One by one left the Solarium, leaving only the princess and Shining Armor.

“Princess, I trust you… I really do, but… do you really think that after everything that happened, Twilight will just go with us willingly and tell us everything she knows?” Shining Armor asked concerned.

“I am not sure either… I don’t want to lose her, but we have to do what is best for Equestria. If that means we have to force her, than we have no choice. But I am sure we have time to fix this. I might have an idea how to higher the risk for them without attacking them, maybe, if things get too dangerous for her, she will see that it isn’t worth it.”

“If it means I get my little sister back I will help you as much as I can.”

“Excellent, then I have a task for you…”

Finally Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and Spike arrived in Canterlot. The train ride felt like it lasted an eternity. Because of the current situation, Equestria’s capital was just as empty as their home town. This lack of day/night circle was really annoying for everypony involved, it was so much harder to meet up when you have no idea what time it is. Well, despite all that they arrived at the Castle.

They had to wait in the courtroom, apparently Princess Celestia was busy with an important meeting.

Spike did not like this uncomfortable silence at all, so he decided to ask something that was bugging him for quite a while now, “Do you guys think that Twilight and the others will come back?”

Applejack knew that it was her job to tell him the truth, but… could she herself accept the truth? “Well… Shoot, Spike, Ah don’t know either. They all seemed a might upset. Ah hope the princess has an idea, but don’t you worry, sugarcube, we will do everythin’ we can.”

“Stop worrying so much, Spike. If we find them Nightmare Moon is gonna wish that she stayed at her goddess-forsaken moon,” Rainbow Dash said, absolutely serious.

The creaking sound of an opening door interrupted their conversation, finally Celestia had shown up. All four of them bowed before her, she just nodded shortly to let them know that they could move again.

“I am glad to see that you arrived here safely. Since we do not have much time at our hooves, we have to move things along fast. Please tell me what exactly happened in the Everfree forest.”

Applejack started their tale of misery, “Well, it started at the town hall…”

Half an hour later she finished up her report on the incident with Nightmare Moon.

“I have to say that I am impressed, Rainbow Dash. Not many ponies would voluntarily face Nightmare Moon to save her friends, you really are an impressive group.”

Praise from the princess herself was nice and all, but that was not why they were here, so Rainbow tried to reinforce that fact, “Thanks, princess, but that’s not the reason why we’re here. We want to find our friends, they can’t stay with that criminal.”

“Of course I trust in your abilities, but none of you stand a chance against Nightmare Moon or Twilight for that matter. I can’t let you journey into a suicide mission. Have faith in the capability of the Equestrian military, we will bring them back.”

The farm pony was not convinced at all, “No offense, princess, but ah won’t stand on the sidelines to watch our friends gettin’ rescued by some unknown soldiers. Either ya let us help or we will search them ourselves. Right, guys?”

They all gave an approving nod. Celestia sighed quietly and replied, “Very well, you will be allowed to help us, but not without proper training. None of you can fight against real targets or know how to counter magic. I offer you to stay in Canterlot to train with my guards and if and only if I deem you ready you can start to search for Twilight.”

“What do ya’ll say?”

Fluttershy said with a bit of hesitation in her voice, “Umm… I think it sounds reasonable. I would like to search for them right now, but… but we are not ready yet.”

“Screw the training, everyday we don’t search for them, is another day for Nightmare Moon to brainwash our friends or whatever cruel things she does to them. But I know the advantages of a good team, so whatever we decide I will stick with you guys,” the blue pegasus answered next.

“I can’t stand living with the fact that Twilight is in the fangs of this wicked monster. I want her back more than anything but I’m with Rainbow Dash you decide, Applejack.”

“Shoot, Ah don’t really like it, but Ah think the princess is right. We saw what could happen to us at the old castle, she wasn’t even trying to fight us and nearly killed you, RD. So Ah think we should take the offer.”

Spike said absent minded, “We understand.”

“Excellent, I will arrange your stay at the castle. Spike, you can stay at Twilight’s tower if you want to. For Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy I will provide you with one of the castle’s suites. Expect the training to begin in the next few days.”

“Alrighty then, let’s do our best to get our friends back!” Applejack exclaimed.

All of them shared this special moment, “For our friends!”

The group returning from the forest consisted now of fifty bat ponies, Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie. The lavender mare was still not sure about Silver Night, of course he and his comrades could prove useful, but the more ponies they recruit for their army, the more likely it would become to get stabbed in the back.

Their makeshift headquarter changed quite a bit since they left. The main hall was a bit larger with more tables and chairs and numerous new doors were added, all of them now had neat little labeled signs, like ‘bathroom’; ‘sleeping room A’, ‘sleeping room B’ etc.

Since Luna was nowhere to be seen, Twilight shouted, “Luna! We’re back.”

After a few seconds the door to the operation centre opened and the Princess of the Night greeted them, “You were faster in tracking them then I expected. I am pleased to see that some of my followers were still out there.”

The lavender unicorn rubbed her head awkwardly, “Well, we did not really find them, they kind of ambushed us, but yeah here we are.”

Silver and his group stood in a well organised pattern and bowed for their queen. As the leader he had the honor to speak with her, “Princess Luna, it is a great honor to be in your presence. None of us could have imagined that you would return, we will serve you till the end.”

All of the bat ponies cheered for Luna. She had to admit that this was something she could get used to, but this wasn’t the right occasion. After raising her hoof to silence them she exclaimed, “Silver Night and all the others, we will need the help of every single pony present, with our powers combined we will show Celestia what it truly means to face Justice!”

Again loud cheering before Silver could speak, “I might have an idea where to find our next possible allies. In my younger, more rebellious years I left the forest to explore Equestria. Long story short, I ended up in the downtown of Manehattan. I don’t want to bother you with all the details, but there I met a boss of a rather big mercenary ‘business’ named ‘Capone’ and before you ask, I have no idea if that is his real name. We became friends, kind of at least, before I left. The only problem is that this was almost ten years ago, but we may have a chance to find and convince him to join us.”

“Why would a mercenary gang join us? What advantage would they have?” Twilight asked.

“They are mercenaries, Twilight Sparkle. We give them what they want and what they want is most likely money. If we win, we could offer them part of the royal treasury,” Silver Night replied.

Luna waited until they finished, “Very well, it is at least worth a try. I suggest that Silver Night and Twilight travel to Manehattan tomorrow. Since you two are the strongest of this group and it would be very unwise for me to be seen by the public just yet.”

Twilight nodded in agreement, “Good, now if you all excuse me, I have to pay somepony a visit.”

Rarity grabbed her friend by the shoulder and said, “Darling, where are you going? You can’t just go out all alone at… well, I don’t know if it’s night time or not, but still.”

“It indeed is night time right now, I still have a very strong connection to the moon, so I can somehow feel where it should be if it weren’t for the battle with my sister’s sun,” Luna chimed in. “You can’t stop her anyway, if she has a plan then we should trust her. This whole rebellion or whatever you want to call it is based on trust.”

“Yeah Rarity, we should trust her. She’s our friend after all,” Pinkie stated cheerfully. It eluded everypony how she could be so happy all the time.

“Well alright. Be careful, darling.”

“Oh I certainly will. I’ll be back soon,” Twilight said before opening another door and disappearing with it.

It had been a long and stressful day for Morning Blaze, the meeting with the leadership of the military went horrible as per usual and it had taken her quite a while to finish Celestia’s ‘special’ assignment. Hopefully it was worth the effort, if everything went right this would increase the pressure on Twilight and she would realize the risk of being a criminal.

For now however, she just wanted to nestle into her bed and rest.

It had been almost two hours after she went to bed. Morning was half asleep as she heard a weird whistled melody. The tune itself was rather cheerful, but at the same time it was strangely haunting for the yellow mare. Like it was made by a pony that was happily selecting the next victims for his or her’s never ending killing spree.

She slowly opened her still sleepy eyes. At first the yellow mare couldn’t really realize what she was seeing. The first thing Blaze noticed was a ridiculously sharp blade a few centimeters above her head, waiting for her to stand up. The second was the source of this creepy melody, a lavender coat, a magenta mane with a pink streak in it and a devilish smile on her face.

Twilight saw that Blaze finally woke up and greeted her immediately, “Well, well, well, look who has finally woken up. Lovely interior you have here.”

As Morning Blaze came back to her senses she instantly teleported out of her bed and summoned her weapon to face her student. “It was a mistake to come here. You will either leave with me voluntarily or you won’t be able to leave, ever again.”

The lavender unicorn laughed shortly before she stated, “You are always so overly dramatic. Please, if I wanted you dead, I could’ve killed you right as you were sleeping. I’m just here to give you a chance, leave Celestia behind and join us, we could use an Elementalist like you or we will crush you alongside her.”

“Twilight, what has this maniac done to you? The student I knew would never do something so cruel.”

“She opened my eyes, Blaze. You have no idea what happens behind the scenes, you are all blinded by Celestia’s fake ‘Harmony’. Now back to my initial question.”

“I think you already know my answer, I would never betray the princess.”

“What a shame, well then, it is time to take my leave. I hope you know what you are getting yourself into,” the lavender mare said.

“How do you plan on getting out, huh? This whole building has dozens of barriers around it that prevent teleporting. Not even Celestia could do a spatial manipulation in here.”

“I think you don’t realize how much Luna has taught me. I can go wherever I want, whenever I want, just like this.” She sunk into the shadow below her, disappearing completely only to reappear behind Blaze and cutting of a strand from the back of her mane with Yoru.

“See? If I were not so full of mercy you’d be dead right now,” Morning Blaze jumped forwards in surprise and turned around. Simultaneously she deadlocked her blade with Twilight’s to prevent her from striking again.

“How in Equestria did you mana—”

“Let’s not stall our little chat with boring details about chaos magic, Blaze. I learned quite a lot about it, okay? This is your only warning, our next encounter won’t end so well if you stand in my way again,” Twilight said before sinking into the shadows again. “Oh and tell Celestia that there won’t be any mercy for her. Goodbye.”

Not good. Not good at all. Morning had to get to Celestia as fast as possible.

Twilight looked quite satisfied as she stepped out of magical door to their headquarter. Playing mind games like that was more fun than she expected. She stopped for a moment to repeat that thought… was that how Celestia felt all the time? Manipulating the ponies around her to gain personal advantage? The lavender mare shuddered at the thought of becoming like Celestia, she meant nothing for Twilight anymore. Celestia was meaningless now, the princess’ feelings for her had been fake all along, she was sure of it.

“Twilight, darling, we are so glad that you are back. You might want to see this,” Rarity stated concerned.

She handed her four rectangular papers. As Twilight took a closer look, she saw that they were actually wanted posters and not just any, they were about Luna, Pinkie, Rarity and herself. All with high quality pictures of them and their cutie marks. They were already searching for them all over Equestria. She had not expected Celestia getting so desperate so quickly, but that also meant that the princess saw them as an imminent threat.

After looking at them for a while, Twilight read them out loud.

Wanted: Twilight Sparkle
Physical appearance: See Image
Defining traits: Extremely intelligent, Love for books, Versatile in use of magic

This individual is wanted for the following crimes by the Equestrian Court:
- Assault and battery
- Treason
- Conspiracy
- Acts of terrorism

A sum of 100,000 bits will be paid in exchange for credible information about the individual or the successful capturing of the individual.

- Signed, Princess Celestia: Monarch of Equestria and Great General of the Equestrian Military

“Celestia is already getting impatient, quite unlike her,” Twilight said.

Luna nodded shortly and replied, “Pathetic attempts to higher the risk. Who in their right minds would approach a criminal voluntarily?”

Pinkie bounces over to Twilight and stated happily, “Do me next! Do me next! This is so exciting.”

“Pinkie, you do realize…” In that moment, the lavender mare realized that her pink friend would likely not care anyway. “Nevermind.”

Wanted: Pinkamena Diane Pie
Physical appearance: See Image
Defining traits: Hyper energetic, Always cheerful, Reality defying capabilities

This individual is wanted for the following crimes by the Equestrian Court:
- Treason
- Conspiracy

A sum of 15,000 bits will be paid in exchange for credible information about the individual or the successful capturing of the individual.

- Signed, Princess Celestia: Monarch of Equestria and Great General of the Equestrian Military

“Aww… Why are you more worth than I am?” Pinkie asked frowning.

“Pinkie, that’s not—”

“Twilight, darling, just read out the last two. This won’t get us anywhere.”

Wanted: Rarity
Physical appearance: See Image
Defining traits: Fashion designer, Obsessed with beauty, Noble expression

This individual is wanted for the following crimes by the Equestrian Court:
- Treason
- Conspiracy

A sum of 25,000 bits will be paid in exchange for credible information about the individual or the successful capturing of the individual.

- Signed, Princess Celestia: Monarch of Equestria and Great General of the Equestrian Military

Luna’s poster only had some kind of sketch of the alicorn, apparently they didn’t dare to face her.

Wanted: Nightmare Moon
Physical appearance: See composite sketch
Defining traits: Extremely volatile, Insanity, Tactical knowledge, High magic abilities

This individual is wanted for the following crimes by the Equestrian Court:
- High Treason
- Conspiracy
- Murder
- Assault and battery
- Genocide

A sum of 300,000 bits will be paid in exchange for credible information about the individual. DO NOT APPROACH! HIGHLY DANGEROUS

- Signed, Princess Celestia: Monarch of Equestria and Great General of the Equestrian Military

Rarity looked at her picture and said, “Oh my, this picture of me isn’t flattering in the slightest.”

“Celestia will get more desperate as time moves on, that’s why we all have to be very careful now. Nopony leaves alone anymore, at least you should be a group of two,” Luna explained.

“Silver and Twilight will try to find his old friend and I suggest Rarity and Pinkie Pie to search around a smaller town as well.”

“Okie Dokie Lokie. This is gonna be so much fun! We totally got this, right Rarity?”

“Why of course, but remember we have to be discrete and if we see some guards we hide, okay? Because I don’t want to be in need of a rescue.”

“Right, totally secret. Nopony will even notice us. Hey, wait a minute… does that mean we are Ninjas now?”

Twilight face-hoofed herself and stated, “Yes, Pinkie Pie… you are a Ninja…”

“Wohoo!”

The lavender mare was really glad that she was not the one travelling around with the crazy pink mare all the time. She was not so sure about Silver though, he did not look like the most trustworthy of pony, but for now she had to deal with him.