“I need to see the creature,” said General Blueblood. He was an old unicorn with gray fur and a blond mane and a descendant of Princess Platinum. Made him think he was somepony that was important. Sure maybe he was in charge of an entire branch of the Equestrian Military. Maybe he had the highest rank for magical combat. Maybe he was nearly a head taller than Sunset. None of that mattered to Sunset. “The council has decided that the creature is a potential threat to Equestria and I must ascertain the truth.”

“You are not going to go anywhere near my filly,” said Sunset. There was a crack in the air as her magic split out of her uncontrolled. It had been a while since anyone had been dumb enough to push her this far that her emotions were spilling out of her in semi-physical form. “I told you that you aren’t going subject her to a banishment spell or any tests.”

“I have the council’s direct orders,” said General Blueblood.

“Orders that Celestia is currently fighting against,” said Sunset. “The council can suck it for all I care. You can leave now or I will make you.”

“What is a foal such as yourself going to do?”

That was a mistake. No one underestimated Sunset. Just because she was technically underage and therefor prohibited from taking the military aptitude tests didn’t mean that Sunset didn’t know how she matched up to the much older unicorn. He was an ant he just didn’t realize it. Her horn lit up with a blinding amount of mana. She really didn’t need to use this much but she didn’t care. The council had argued to have Moon dissected and only with Celestia’s constant argument did they back down. There was no way Sunset was going to hand her over to some boneless cowards that only wanted to know if they could use her for their own gain. She sent her magic through an array focusing it on teleportation. Manehattan would work. There was a pop and the General was no more. Well he was just a thousand kilometers away.

Sunset slammed the door to their suite. It was funny how quickly she had started thinking of it as her own as well. She had her own official room but hadn’t slept there in a week. The frame had cracked from the force of it and Moon was wailing because of the surprise.

“Sunset,” shouted Cadence. “What has gotten into you?”

“That jerk lapdog for the council is back trying to take away Moon. I…I just lost my temper,” said Sunset. She was still boiling on the inside but she wasn’t angry at Cadence and she had not wanted to frighten Moon. “Look I need to go blow some steam off, are you good with watching Moon for an hour or two?”

“You really need to learn a better way to cope with your anger,” chided Cadence.

Sunset didn’t want to deal with that right now. Not with Cadence being right. Her horn lit up again blindingly bright and she popped from one side of Equestria to the other. There were always monsters to be hunted on the far reaches of the frontier. It was what the military did most of the time. Hunt monsters left over from the Discordant era. Chaos beasts were tricky creatures coming in all sorts of sizes and shapes. Some, though few, were harmless enough but most seemed to have been raised on a diet of pony flesh and would seek out villages if left alone. It had kept Equestrian border growth to a minim as no mater how many were killed there were always more. The teleport had taken more out of Sunset than she had wanted. She pulled out a pink gem that was on a small necklace and strung it around her neck. It was a mana battery that Moon had charged. The filly pulled more mana into her than five times the average rate of a unicorn. More than even Sunset did and Sunset had decided that leaving a single gem to fill with the excess mana was too dangerous. So far they had created two of them that were the largest mana batteries Sunset had ever dealt with. It was why the nobles wanted access to Moon so badly.

Pulling from the mana battery instead of her own wellspring she cast a beacon spell. It was intended to lead Chaos Beasts away from villages but it worked well enough to bring them out to Sunset herself. She started to take small teleportation jumps to find a creature. It wasn’t too likely one would just happen to be where she sent herself. No it would take more effort than that. It did however only take four teleports and about an eighth of the mana from the battery to find one. The roar was unmistakable. It was a lyndwurm. They were dragon like creatures that had a long snake body and two front legs. They didn’t fly but could swim through the very ground at high speeds. They had a nasty bout of fire they could shoot out of their mouth and were nearly invulnerable to fire. Nearly. Sunset started placing wards on the ground. One to stop the creature from digging into the earth. Another to prevent incoming long range teleportations. Another to protect herself from the fire of the lyndwurm’s breath. A fourth to protect her against brunt force impacts. The wurm appeared before she had the time to apply any other wards. Still she had gotten the important ones.

The beast was huge. Much larger than any Sunset had seen before. It had deep blue scales and a series of horns ran down the length of it. It barreled through the trees knocking them over like it was parting tall grass. This would be a challenge, exactly what Sunset was looking for. The lyndwurm looked confused at the appearance of only one pony. Not even a snack for such a creature. It shook its head and lunged at Sunset with a head many times the size of the pony. It hit a barrier that just barely held the force of the impact before it shattered. Pulling on her mana she let loose her flames. Sunset was after all most capable with fire magic. It might have been more effective to use other elemental spells but there was something satisfying with burning the nonburnable. The creature roared out as she seared off a piece of its scales. The plasma was so hot that Sunset couldn’t look at it, and had to direct it based on magical feeling alone. Where the plasma touched the creatures flesh melted. It jumped away from the flames moving quicker than any creature that size had the right to. Looking at her handiwork Sunset swore as the flesh of the creature started to stitch itself back together. Regenerative powers were rare among Lyndwurms but those that did were a pain to deal with. You had to destroy the thing down to the last bit or it would eventually reform. She placed a shield around the lyndwurm. It wouldn’t hold the wurm for long but it didn’t need to. Pulling on every bit of mana that was available to her, Sunset ignited the atmosphere inside the shield. There would be nothing left of the creature after this. The shield popped as the Lyndwurm thrashed against the pain. The plasma split out scorching everything in its path. The wurm was no more but so was an entire stretch of Equis, evaporated by the heat. Sunset felt exhaustion falling in on her. She had pushed too far. Darkness spread through her vision and she fell to the ground.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cadence was going to strangle Sunset. She had left Cadence alone with Moon for six hours now. Where was she? Cadence didn’t eve know what the mare did to blow off steam? Maybe she had taken a nap and overslept? Any of these were possible and Cadence had no idea how to find out. Maybe Celestia would know how to find her. If anypony did it would be the princess. The only problem was that Cadence had no idea where she would be right now nor did she really think she could carry Moon with her very far. Not with her telekinesis so spotty. If Moon was just a bit smaller things would be easier. Still Cadence didn’t see she had much choice. At least not if she wanted to sleep tonight.

“Come on Moon, we are going to go find Mama,” said Cadence. There was no way she wasn’t going to encourage Moon to call Sunset that at this point. No matter how much Sunset hated it.

“Ma,” Moon said. It was hard to tell if the foal knew what she was saying as there were times where she would just keep repeating it over and over. Thankfully she didn’t go on one of her stints.

Cadence had more experience walking with three legs than she may have wanted to admit and at least Moon wasn’t all that heavy. That or Cadence’s earth pony magic was kicking in. Moon held on tight and it was only then that Cadence noticed that she was shaking. Maybe she was as worried as Cadence was. It had been the longest that Sunset had been gone for the filly and that might have something to do with it. It wasn’t that she needed to be changed or eat both of those Cadence had just taken care of.

The castle was quite with all the bustle of the day gone. Of course there were still the guards but at this point they were about as much there to Cadence as the suits of armor that decorated the Castle. It was a bit bad of her but seeing that they tended to ignore her as much as possible Cadence didn’t feel all that bad about it. It was better than the stares that the other castle staff gave her. It had been almost seven months and the maids still acted like she was some new strange thing. Cadence could only guess as to how bad the stares were going to get with Moon. Maybe she would get as bad as Sunset when it came to defending the foal.

Cadence walked with as much purpose as she could. There were a few places she could start to look. It was around the time that Celestia raised the moon which meant she should be on her balcony. Cadence had been there once before to watch how the moon was raised. It was a complex bit of magic that she wasn’t certain that she would ever get a handle on. Sunset could probably do it if Celestia asked. Of course she hadn’t. It was really hard to see the princess as the god that Cadence used to think of her as. Not having watched her for the last few months. Maybe she was just slipping or needed a break to get her head back on straight. As far as Cadence knew, Celestia hadn’t taken a vacation in centuries. Maybe when Cadence learned to control her magic she could let Celestia have that vacation, with the help of Sunset. Celestia definitely deserved it.

The trip from her suite to Celestia’s wasn’t too long but Cadence had to switch to keeping Moon up with levitation part way there. It had slowed her down as she had to concentrate on her magic but at least this way her legs weren’t cramping. Moon had been quiet the whole trip and hadn’t even been looking around. In fact for the most part her face was buried in Cadence’s mane. Hopefully the filly was just worried and not feeling ill. It wasn’t like Cadence could do a thing about either of those options.

The guards stopped her in front of Celestia’s room. She had expected this on some level but it still was annoying. She knocked with her magic, feeling particularly proud she managed to keep Moon in her grip while doing so. Eventually the door opened and Celestia poked her head out of the door. She smiled at Cadence before opening the door the rest of the way.

“Do you need something? Not that I mind the visit,” said Celestia.

“I was hoping you knew a way to find Sunset. She teleported off to who knows where earlier and she hasn’t returned. I’m a bit worried,” said Cadence. She was a more than a bit worried at this point but she didn’t need the guards to see that. It had been one of the few things Celestia had impressed upon her. Never look concerned in front of her subjects. Not that they were her subjects. Not really.

“How long ago? Sunset sometimes will spend upwards of a day out blowing off steam,” said Celestia.

“Six hours ago,” said Cadence. “Well give or take a bit. Just with Moon, I figured she would be back by now. I’m worried something might have happened to her. Can you check?”

“I have a scrying enchantment placed on her. Shouldn’t be a problem to check where she is at least. Here come in. No point in standing out in the hall.”

Cadence nodded. Celestia’s room was a bit of a mess if Cadence was being honest. It had not been what she had been expecting when she came to the castle. No she had expected everything to be immaculate. Finding it a messy but working system of paperwork books and other odds and ends had taken Cadence for a trip. Further still was the blanket that Celestia slept with. It was a dark indigo one with a moon on it. It was obviously ancient and only kept together because of the enchantments on it. It was just one more thing Cadence hadn’t expected. The balcony was kept clean though and free of any plants that might have otherwise decorated the large open area. An arch more than twice Celestia’s height lead onto it with brilliant stained glass doors to close it up if the princess wanted to.

As it was the doors were open and a cool night breeze wafted through them. Moon shivered and squeezed Cadence a bit tighter. It was easy to forget that the foal didn’t have a fur coat to keep her warm. Maybe some sort of clothes would be in order for her. If just to protect her from the elements.

Celestia’s horn lit up as she walked out onto the balcony. It glowed briefly before sending out a pulse of faint magic. Her face grew somber for a moment and she shook her head. Cadence grew worried at the princess’ silence. What did she now know? Cadence’s mind jumped to the worse possible conclusion and images of a beaten and bleeding Sunset flashed through her. She couldn’t help the tremble that ran through her. Moon started to cry quietly and Cadence tried to shake her anxiety away. It was effecting Moon.

“She is out in the frontier. I will go retrieve her. Don’t worry I’m sure she is fine. I’ll be back in a minute.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celestia sighed to herself. How many times had she told Sunset to not go hunting chaos beasts by herself? More than Celestia cared to count which to be fair started at two times. The teleport shouldn’t have taken anything out of her but it had and Celestia panted as she landed in the far reaches of her realm. Was it just that she had risen the moon so recently or was something else effecting her? The moon had become more difficult to control as of recent. There wasn’t much time left before her sister returned and ended everything. Cadence wouldn’t be ready by then and at this point Celestia had given up hope on finding another Alicorn. She wasn’t certain how long it had been since she had genuine hope any more. Certainly not anytime in the last half a century.

She pulled on her magic again sending out another ping of her tracking spell. It wasn’t the most accurate at long distances and it might take her a bit more than a minute to find Sunset. Hopefully not too long, Celestia didn’t want to worry Cadence more than she had already. She took to the air flying was less taxing and nearly as fast as teleporting around. She headed in the direction her spell told her that Sunset was in.

The forest was in disarray. Sunset had found a chaos beast and fought it for certain. If the number of felled trees were any indication it must have been a massive one. Why didn’t Sunset have any sense of self-preservation? Her spell had told her Sunset was still alive but beyond that Celestia knew nothing of her student’s condition. Eventually she came across a massive and fresh crater. It looked like the very sun had touched Equis, a trademark of Sunset. Celestia wouldn’t be surprised if the young mare was better at fire spells than even Celestia herself. She certainly had made more use of them in the past decade than Celestia had in the past century. Still there was no sign of Sunset nor what ever monster she had been fighting. Celestia could only hope that the lack of remains was because of Sunset’s fire magic.

The trees weren’t disturbed as she continued past the crater. It wouldn’t be too far now before she found Sunset though she would of course be hidden beneath the canopy of trees. Flying the last few kilometers, Celestia ducked into the trees and landed on the ground. With the canopy as thick as it was the area was pitch black. Lighting up her horn, Celestia scanned the area for any sight of Sunset. She had to assume that the young mare must have been unconscious or she would have just walked out to met Celestia. That or she was trying to scare Celestia. Again.

“Sunset?” called out Celestia.

There was no response. Had she been blown this far by some sort of explosion? Casting the tracking spell again Celestia walked a bit further. Sunset seemed to be underground somewhere. Pulling on her magic, Celestia cast a earth melding spell. She sunk into the ground able to pass through it as if it was air and breath with similar ease. Eventually she came to a cavern of sorts. It was definitely not natural and there were a number of creatures that could have dug such a tunnel. Most of them were nothing to worry about but that didn’t stop Celestia worrying that she had run into a Aether Sliver hive. She hadn’t seen one of those in such a long time and she didn’t want to have to fight through them to find her student. She passed through the walls again heading deeper to find Sunset. It took her three more tunnels and one large cavern to confirm her fears.

Aether Slivers were twisted worms mutated to feed off the wellspring of those they farmed. This particular hive had somehow captured a chaos beast of moderate size and had built their hive around the creature. Hundreds of the drones swarmed over the large snake like creature. It was little surprise that they had taken Sunset, she had a wellspring rivaling the beast. It was good that Celestia had come when she had, if she had not the hive may have grown much larger in even just a few days of having Sunset to feed off. The drones had started to buzz with their odd vocal chords. The warriors of the hive would be on their way. Celestia had only a few moments to find Sunset. Pinging her tracking spell Celestia shot forward propelled by magic and her wings. She let her connection to the sun open and the fiery nature of that magic burned away any drone that was unlucky enough to get close to her. Sunset sat in a feeding pod guarded by four warriors. Shooting out beams of plasma Celestia ended their lives before they could react. They were nearly mindless and Celestia had no concern for their lives. She should purge the whole hive if she could. Letting them fester would only cost many of her ponies lives down the road when the went out searching for more food.

Ripping Sunset from the pod, Celestia placed a powerful shield around her charge. She was unconscious and had a number of tubes and other things implanted into her. It would take some lengthy surgery to safely remove them later. For the moment she would be alright. Celestia let her heat pour out of her. It wasn’t as easy to channel the sun at night but she didn’t really need easy to roast the entire cavern. The fire consumed everything. The drones, the chaos beast, the very earth around them. Only Sunset was spared from the hungry flames. Not even Celestia was left untouched. She would be feeling this for at least a week as the flames at at her flesh. It was a slow process for her and she shook off the pain floating deeper into the hive looking for the queen. It would not succumb to the flames quite so readily as the drones. Not if it had fed off of Sunset as of recently. Besides the physical form of an aether sliver queen was unnecessary for its survival. No she would have to destroy the creatures very soul if she wanted to free Equis of its taint. How many more of Discord’s nightmares would Celestia have to deal with?

The queen collided with Celestia. Its claws pierced her side and punctured a lung. That would add another week to her recovery. Turning up the heat, at the risk of Sunset, Celestia focused the sun’s fury in front of her. The plasma broke through the creatures carapace, burning away at is flesh. The smell made Celestia gag and she had to pull back on her connection to the sun. It would only get worse if she continued to burn the queen.

“By the silver light of the holy heavens, purge from this realm darkness, on the wings of angels and sword of justice claim this soul for judgment,” shouted Celestia. Sanctified spells required a prayer to cast. The heavens accepted her plea and a silver fire erupted from her horn. The magic acted of its own will circling the queen. There was no escape for it now. Swirling around the queen, the silver flame created a sphere of magic. With a pop the sphere dissipated and there was nothing left of the queen. Celestia collapsed to the ground. Her fight had taken more from her than it should have. When had she gotten so weak? Shaking her head she gathered her magic for a last teleportation. Going back to Canterlot was always easier than leaving. She had beacons there that helped minimize the strain. Pulling Sunset close to her she released her spell sending the two of them back to the Castle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celestia had returned with Sunset in tow. Neither of them looked in good shape. Tubes and spikes riddled Sunsets body and Celestia was bleeding profusely from a wound in her chest. Cadence for a moment could only panic as Celestia lost consciousness. She set Moon down and rushed to her mentor. Screaming for the guards she tried to press a cloth against the hole in Celestia’s chest. The doors burst open and two guards ran in. One of the guards started casting a spell while the other ran for more help. Cadence did her best to help the guard but without the use of her own magic she couldn’t do much of anything. A full set of other guards ran in and levitated Celestia out of the room. A pair of guards grabbed Sunset as well, running off without Cadence. Her hooves were stained with blood and she could only stare at them for a moment. Moon shook her from her stupor as the foal wailed loudly. She had too many important things to do to sit there staring at her hooves. Grabbing Moon in her magic she tore out of the room ruining towards the medical wing of the hospital.

She barely noticed the distance as she skidded to a halt in front of an operating room. The door was still open and a team of doctors were working on Sunset. There was a clear magical barrier over the door that must have kept contagions out. A similar glow could be seen over the mouths of each of the doctors. Walking down the hall towards the mass of guards. They let her slip by to look through the door. Another team of doctors were working on Celestia. Her wound had looked rather small but was leaking a smoking purple ooze. That couldn’t be good. She couldn’t hear anything from inside the operating room. Celestia couldn’t die, could she? Who would raise the sun without her? Sunset was the only other pony who might have the strength. She had heard that before Celestia it had taken teams of a hundred ponies to accomplish the task working in unison. Did the ritual still even exist?

Cadence sat there clinging to Moon pacing between the two operating rooms. Celestia was done first but hadn’t woken. The doctor’s didn’t know if she how soon she would recover, if ever. The ooze had been a poison that attacked her wellspring. Cadence didn’t pretend to understand what that meant but she could tell the gravity of it. Sunset took hours to come out of surgery. Cadence wasn’t certain how so much thorns had been in her let alone how she had survived that but Sunset seemed stronger than Cadence had expected as not even an hour after surgery she was waking up. Apparently what ever creature had held her had a serum they injected her that encouraged healing. It had been meant to keep her healthy for feeding but had also helped her recovery.

“Fuck my head hurts,” mumbled Sunset.

“Language,” chided Cadence. “I am going to strangle you. If you ever scare me like that again…”

“Sorry,” said Sunset. “Didn’t expect the bugs. Celestia got me out, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, though not with out some complications,” said Cadence. “She is unconscious down the hall. The doctor says the creature that attacked her poisoned her with something attacking her wellspring.”

“Fuck. She should have just left me to the bugs,” said Sunset. Sunset turned away from Cadence, she didn’t really need to say anything else, Cadence knew what she was feeling. “Sorry I went off like that. It was reckless of me and now I’ve put us all in danger.”

“What is important is that your alive,” said Cadence. “Still we need to figure out something in the next few hours or the sun might not raise today.”

“Celestia has shown me the spell formula. I don’t think I can do it alone but if you can help I can make sure the sun raises. Not certain how long we can keep that up though.”

“How can I help? I don’t know magic.”

“You don’t need too. Moon is going to help too. I need more juice than I have. However with a bit of luck and some training you can help power the spell as well. The principle is similar to the light spell we had talked about. Except you are going to have to push even more mana out. As much as you can at once. I can take it from there and shape it properly. Don’t worry I think I can do this with just the juice from Moon’s batteries.”

Moon was currently sleeping in Cadence’s grip. The foal had stayed up most of the night with Cadence but had passed out around an hour ago. Both Cadence and Moon would need lots of sleep today, if the filly could sleep today. She would be a bit grumpy probably. Oh well Cadence could take a grumpy filly over a broken heart any day.

Author's Notes:

So some of you might say I am portraying Celestia a bit unfairly here but I wanted her to have a bit more depth in this story. She is fallible and more importantly very very stretched thin. Really she needs a break. Maybe she will get one.