Putting my hoof on the ridge of the roof, my horn glowing keeping a bubble of invisibility over us as I overlooked the city and the closest part of the castle along with its guard post.

I’m Batcolt.

If just the wind could pick up some to make my cape move.

Of course, being late afternoon in the middle of winter didn’t help that much with that impression. The gloom might but the snow fall were way to cheerful to match.

“Well?” Sunset asked as she moved up next to me, her horn lighting up to pull her own cloak a bit tighter and adjusting her scarf.

“Should be any minute now,” I said and put my wing across her back against the cold.

We didn’t need to wait long. A pair of unicorns wearing cloaks over their Legion armour. Moving close to the guard point they threw their hoods back and started to pelt the group with spells.

Only spells allowed for this were non-dangerous ones and paint spells. Basically, they were made specifically for this kind of thing and developed by the guard. They acted like the most common battle magic but left a bright spot of paint on the coat if the one that’s hit.

Didn’t wash out, just faded away naturally after a couple of weeks.

To the Solar Guard’s credit, they reacted quickly to the surprise attack. The unicorns throwing up tower shield spells while the Earth Ponies went for their weapons and the Pegasi went to the air.

Well, not all of them. Two Pegasi stayed on the ground alongside of a unicorn and an earth pony. They didn’t look happy as they rubbed the spots the spells had hit.

As soon as the surprise was over, the two Legion mares broke into a galop to escape, heading across the square towards the street to the right of the building Sunset and I were on.

The Guard Pegasi flew across the square to chase down the unicorns.

Close for our own Pegasi to strike from a building to the right. Not the roof, too easy to get spotted by a flier without invisibility. Instead the five crossbowers struck from the windows on the second floor.

Two salvos from two sets of bolts flew across the small square with just a couple of seconds apart. Hitting a flying and moving target with a crossbow bolt is not easy. It’s actually damn hard.

Luckily, they were a lot better at it than I was.

Three of the six guard Pegasi went down for landing, cursing loudly enough that I could hear them from where I was.

As soon as they fired, the Legion skirmishers grabbed their crossbows and escaped through the back of the building.

The rest of the guard Pegasi quickly circled around and returned to the guard post, clearly wary of other ambushes.

They were right to be.

Down the alley to the left of us, the unicorns joined up with a group of earth ponies. The six of them were carrying crossbows and arched some bolts across the square towards the guard post as the unicorns threw up shields to catch return fire.

This wasn’t a hit and run. As soon as they had fired, they reloaded and fired again. None of the bolts actually did anything, the guard unicorns deflecting and stopping them.

But volley after volley seemed to make the guardponies decide that enough was enough. They left half the unicorns to hold the checkpoint but the rest galloped out in protection of the rest of the unicorn shields.

As soon as they did, the Legion group turned and galloped away with the Guards in pursuit.

“We’re up I think,” Sunset said and shifted out from beneath my wing, “Let’s do this.”

I nodded, and we allowed the Legion to galop pass before I threw up the illusion of a stone wall growing out of the ground in the middle of the street between them and the Guard.

The following guard ponies skidded to a halt.

“It’s a trap!” the sergeant of the group yelled, and instantly went into a protective posture like they had been trained, the unicorns shields shifting from being semi circles to stop bolts and spells to be a full-on dome.

They didn’t get the chance. While I put up the illusion, Sunset were timing her teleportation perfectly, flashing out of existence before reappearing in the middle of their formation.

“Hi guys,” she said with a grin, charging a second spell. They had just enough time to realize what was happening before she cast the spell, sending them sprawling across the street with a shockwave.

Jumping off the roof, I glided down to the street on my wings, sending a pair of spells flying, ‘painting’ the two unicorns before they could recover enough to put shields up or get back on their hooves.

“And you’re all dead, congratulations,” I said as my hoofs hit the cobble stone, folding my wings.

“Not yet!” the sergeant who’s name I couldn’t remember answered as they got back onto their hooves.

“You lost your magic support,” Sunset said with a smile, “Which mean…”

“Nighty night,” I said and cast an area sleeping spell across the group.

A couple of them managed to keep standing, wobbling on their hooves as they struggled against the spell. Mind spells like ‘sleep’ can actually be resisted with enough will power. It’s generally also pretty low power so easy to dispel. Hence needing to take down the unicorns first.

But asleep or no, they were still a very easy target and Sunset quickly tagged them before moving on to their sleeping companions.

“Trust me on this,” I said and trotted past the closest one still on his hooves, “You’d be glad you got taken down early,” I reassured him as Sunset joined up next to us and I wrapped us back into a bubble of invisibility.

Similar things were happening at the other points of entry into the castle. Not the same, we didn’t have the ponypower for it, this one was by far the largest one.

But random spells and arrows raining down on the guards at random times should keep them nice and tense.

Next Chapter: Chapter 13 Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 56 Minutes