Rainbow and Twilight finally arrived at Canterlot, finding the city unusually quiet.

“Can you fly a little lower?” Twilight asked, and her friend took a small dive, gliding right above the buildings.

They both quickly noticed that the streets were mostly empty, and soldiers were patrolling the roads. They weren’t the royal guards of Celestia, but the batponies of Luna, to the surprise and worry of the two mares hovering above them.

“Look to our nine,” Rainbow said, and Twilight turned her head, witnessing a group of soldiers putting chains on some civilians and loading them in carts.

“Why are they arresting them?” Rainbow wondered.

“They are taking them from the news agency,” Twilight noted as some of the batponies were pulling out the last of the workers and closed the building with red tape.

“Looks like Luna didn’t like what they said about her,” Rainbow commented as they approached the castle.

“That means that she is ruling. Celestia wouldn’t do something like this.”

Rainbow frowned. “After all that has happened recently, I know that she would.”

They eventually landed at the entrance of the castle, finding it heavily guarded by batponies carrying heavy crossbows.

Twilight quickly approached the officer in charge. “We need to enter the castle.”

“Castle is off limits until further notice,” the batpony informed.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s student. And me and Rainbow here are part of the bearers of the elements of harmony. You’ve to let us through.”

The officer shook his head. “As I said, I have orders to not let anypony in. You must wait until the lockdown is lifted.”

“And why are you in lockdown? What is Luna afraid of?” Rainbow questioned rather aggressively, putting the guards on alert.

“There is no reason for me to disclose that information. Leave now, or you will be arrested,” the officer warned.

Twilight was starting to lose her patience. “I’m the sister of the captain of the royal guard. Tell him to come here. If you won’t let us through, he will.”

“He has more pressing matters right now. Leave, this is your last warning.” The officer raised his hoof, and the soldiers readied their weapons.

“Fine, we will do this the hard way!” Rainbow shouted and jumped into the air with the intention of simply flying over the gates, but a purple magical shield trapped her before the batponies could shoot her down.
Shining Armor appeared from behind the checkpoint, and slowly walked over to Twilight as he put Rainbow back on the ground.

The purple unicorn quickly started questioning him. “What happened to Sunset? Is Celestia okay? Why are Luna’s guards working during the day?”

Shining answered calmly. “I wish I could explain everything Twilight, but what Night Fang told you is true, I’ve my hooves full at the moment.”

“Then give me the abridged version! We are talking about my mentor and sister for Celestia’s sake!” Twilight shouted, not believing her brother’s reserved attitude at the situation.

Shining sighed. “Celestia is hiding in her office and refuses to let anypony in other than her sister. Luna is ruling in her place for now and she’s facing very strong opposition. Half of my soldiers are about to start a revolt against the batpony guards, and the other half is deserting. I can barely keep things from falling apart by myself.”

“And Sunset?” Twilight asked, desperation clear in her voice. “Please tell me what the news say is false.”

Shining lowered his gaze, creating a tense silence that was about to make his sister cry, until he responded. “I didn’t see what happened, and I don’t know where she is. But…”

Another tense silence put Twilight on the verge of emotional collapse, and even Rainbow was about to explode.

Shining finally answered. “Even if she’s alive… she’s not the pony we knew anymore.”

Twilight froze in shock.

“You’re lying!” Rainbow shouted, almost headbutting the stallion.

“I wish I was,” Shining looked at her sister with sad eyes. “Go back home. I will send you a letter if we find her.” And with that, he turned to leave the checkpoint.

Rainbow was about to pursue him, but the guards were ready to shot her if she tried, so she turned around, and saw Twilight galloping away.

“Where are you going?!” Rainbow shouted as she caught up to her.

“I have an idea about where Sunset could be hiding. You go back to Ponyville and tell the girls everything.”

“Are you crazy? I want to find Sunset too!”

Twilight stopped and turned towards her friend, showing the seriousness in her eyes and voice. “Rainbow, whatever we thought that Sunset was going through is either wrong, worse than we thought, or both. And I have the feeling that we’re not only being denied information, they are taking it from our memories. I want all of our friends to know about this. We can’t afford to lose any information if one of us gets their minds tampered.”

Rainbow gritted her teeth in frustration. “Why suddenly everything got so fucked up?!”

“It always has been. We just didn’t see it.” Twilight felt a shiver run down her spine.
A lot of things she knew were being put into question. Her image of the world was shattering, and she feared it would shatter her too if she thought about it too much.

“Okay, I will bring everypony up to speed. We will deal with this together,” Rainbow told her confidently before flying off towards Ponyville.

“We will… but Sunset is alone,” Twilight thought before resuming her dash towards Moon Dancer’s home.

A few hours earlier.

Shining Armor practically charged into the room, setting his eyes on Phalanx, who was being guarded by two soldiers that had chained him to a chair.

“Why did you do it?” Shining asked, cutting to the chase as two other guards behind him entered the room and closed the door.

“She was attacking you. She destroyed part of the castle. She needed to be stopped,” Phalanx responded calmly.

“That’s a lie! You could’ve easily killed her with that shot, you missed on purpose. So, you will tell me why, or I will beat it out of you with my own hooves!” Shining was losing his temper very quickly. He had trusted Phalanx, who had stuck with him through thick and thin since he became Captain of the guard, and now he had shot Sunset when she was at her most vulnerable.

Phalanx raised an eyebrow. “Threatening me with torture? That will get you in quite a bit of trouble with the princesses.”

Shining got closer to the traitor, his eyes trying to pierce through Phalanx’s uncaring attitude. “Nopony here will talk about what happened in this room.”

The traitor smiled. “If I betrayed you, why would you trust in any of your soldiers?”

Before Shining could react to his words, one of the guards behind him tackled him to the ground and the other quickly put a magic-nullifying ring on his horn.

While the captain of the guard tried to fight the two soldiers, Phalanx stood up from the chair, revealing that the chains had been loose the whole time.
“Don’t beat yourself up over this, you can’t learn about betrayal until it happens to you.”

Shining tried to curse him, but one of the guards knocked him out with the butt of a heavy crossbow.

Twilight climbed up the steps of the white tower where Moon Dancer lived and reached the door, slamming her hooves against it.

“Sunset! Are you in there?!” she shouted as loud as she could.

The door opened with a slam, and Moon Dancer charged at her.
“What did you do?!” The pale unicorn screamed in Twilight’s face as she closed the distance.
She was clearly in severe distress; her mane was loose, covering half of her face and her one visible eye was bloodshot after hours of shedding tears.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked confused.

“Every time something bad happens to Sunset you’re somehow involved! She already died three times because of you! You forced her to curse herself back to life repeatedly!” Moon Dancer screamed, pinning her against the stair railing.

Twilight was far too shocked to think clearly. “I- I’m not- How do you even know that?”

“She told me. Because we talk, you know? Like friends do. Unlike you,”

Twilight could almost taste the venom in Moon Dancer’s words. “Wh- what are you talking about?”

Moon Dancer put a hoof against Twilight’s chest, pushing her a bit over the railing. “You told me that you were sorry for how you acted with me when you lived here. You told me that things would be different. But nothing changed!”
Moon Dancer pushed her further. “When was the last time that we talked? Whent you wondered how I was doing or wanted to share something of your life with me?”

Twilight glanced towards the long fall the pale unicorn was pushing her into. “Moon, I live too far away for me to come visit you often.”

“You send a letter to Celestia every week! Is it too hard to take a few minutes of your time to have another letter sent to me? You don’t even write them yourself!”
Moon Dancer was now looming over Twilight, pushing her more and more against the railing of the stairs.

“I- I just-” Twilight mumbled incoherently, not knowing what to say to defend herself.

“There is also a train that goes directly to Canterlot. You should know since Spike takes it from time to time and even spends a few days here. In this tower. With me.”
Moon Dancer took a moment to catch her breath, but her anger didn’t subside.
“I wonder why you don’t come with him. Wouldn’t you like to spend time with your baby brother in your old home, with your old friends? Or does your social circle only have room for to those five and sometimes Sunset? Every time you’ve been in Canterlot was because of her.”

Twilight shook her head, finally finding the resolve to fight back. “Moon Dancer stop! You know that Sunset has-”

“Problems, I know!” Moon shouted in her face. “I know all of them and she knows mine! Because as I said, we talk. And not just the ‘Hey how are you doing? I miss you so much, we should see each other sometime’ empty, streamlined chat. We talk about what is happening in our lives, what we want, what we like, what our problems are and how we plan to solve them. We give each other advice, we share laughs, and remind each other that there is somepony that cares for them.”
Moon Dancer got right in Twilight’s face. “Sunset is incapable of understanding friendship, yet she’s a thousand times better as a friend to me than you ever have.”

Moon Dancer let go of Twilight and walked back to the inside of the tower. “Don’t ever come back.”
The doors closed with a slam, and a magic spell locked them shut.

Twilight fell to the marble floor, tears running down her face.

Another piece of her life was now gone. And this one was her own fault.

“I need to fix this. I can’t let a friend down. I’m sure I can convince her to give me another chance,” she told herself, trying to gather confidence, but it had been too much.
Sunset was missing or dead. Celestia was pushing everypony away. Luna was imprisoning ponies. Shinning had dismissed her. And Moon Dancer hated her.
Half of her life was falling apart, and it was all happening at the same time.

Twilight regretted sending Rainbow away. Now more than ever, she needed a friend.

“Twilight are you okay?” a soft voice asked her.

The unicorn lifted her head, finding the worried eyes and reassuring smile of Cadence. Twilight hugged her almost desperately, letting more tears flow from her eyes.

The pink alicorn hugged her back, covering her body with her wings to comfort her. “Don’t worry Twilight. I’m here for you.”

“Why is this happening? Everything is falling apart, and I don’t know what to do,” Twilight cried, hugging the alicorn more tightly.

Cadence stroked Twilight’s mane with her hoof in a comforting manner. “I don’t think any of us knows what to do right now. We need time to fully process what is happening before we can find solutions.”

Twilight shook her head. “I can’t just wait; I need to know what happened. I need to know if Sunset is alive.”

Cadence looked at the vulnerable pony in her hooves, and chose her next words very carefully. “I don’t know if she’s alive, but…” she said sounding nervous and unsure.

Twilight lifted her gaze to see Cadence’s face. “But what?... Do you know something?”

Cadence took a deep breath. “A few days ago, I discovered what happened to Sunset in her foalhood.”

Twilight pulled away from her. “What? How?”

“Unlike my aunts, I can freely leave Canterlot and meet with some friends from all over Equestria. I asked a few favors, and they pointed me to one of the… survivors.”

“Survivors?” Twilight’s pupils shrank at the word, fearing its implications. “Why didn’t you say anything until now?”

Cadence sighed. “It’s… complicated.” She looked around them and got closer to Twilight as she whispered. “Do you still trust Celestia?”

Twilight froze. “Why?... No. She can’t be the one responsible. Every time Sunset gets hurt, Celestia is there for her. She helped her multiple times. She gave Sunset her crown. She taught her how to control her magic. She is my mentor. I know she’s-”

Suddenly, for the first time in Twilight’s life, the rational part of her brain took her image of Celestia, and shed a new light on her mentor.

“She wasn’t there when Sunset died in the gorge. She prohibited me from discovering Sunset’s past, even if it was to help her. She didn’t send Sunset to Ponyville to learn about friendship with me, it was her own choice. She gave Sunset the crown… but before that… what Sunset wanted the most was…”

Twilight remembered what Sunset said to her when she had lost control. “Lied. Manipulated. Discarded.”

Twilight looked at Candace with fiery determination behind her eyes. “Tell me everything.”

After sealing her door shut with a spell to keep Twilight out, Moon Dancer walked to the large mirror in her bathroom.
She looked at herself, or more specifically her mane, with disgust.

Sunset’s voice resonated in her mind. “The copycat manestyle gives it away.”

Moon Dancer gritted her teeth and pulled out a pair of scissors from a nearby drawer. She then used her magic to pull the two purple streaks of hair from her mane and tail until she had easy access to their roots.

With four quick chops, she let go of her obsession with the one who she thought was a good role model for her life.

Moon Dancer left the scissors on the floor along with the discarded hair and returned to the center of the tower. There on the floor, in the center of a green ritual circle surrounded by ten white talons, was her book of necromancy.

She picked up the foreboding book and opened its ancient pages, quickly finding the ritual she had been preparing since she read the news of Sunset’s death.

What she was about to do was strictly forbidden and would come at the cost of tainting her magic and soul forever. But Moon Dancer needed to know if Sunset was alive. And if she had done everything correctly, she would get not only that, but also answers about what Sunset was.

Taking a few deep breaths to prepare herself, she lifted her right foreleg over to the circle, and started to chant the first verses of the ritual while her horn glowed with magic.

As the words of the dead language were recited, the circle started to glow, revealing thin runes that had been drawn along the exterior.
After a few seconds, the talons started to shake on the floor and then they were lifted into the air by an unknown force, positioning themselves around Moon Dancer’s leg.
Six of them moved above the joint of her hoof, standing equidistant from each other, and the other four stood right below her knee.

When Moon Dancer finished reciting the text, the sharp talons dug into her flesh, and started to glow with bright white magic.

The unicorn moved her leg like if it was a key on a lock, and a dimensional crack suddenly appeared in front of her.

The fissure expanded in the air, slowly forming two large gates, four times taller than Moon Dancer.
The massive doors slowly opened, and the unicorn saw four bright white lights staring at her from a dark void beyond the gate.

Moon Dancer swallowed a lump in her throat. “I must request something from you,” she said trying to hide her nervousness and fear.

The lights move closer to her, and when they left the void to enter the room, she realized that they were the pupils of four black eyes that stared at her from the head of a large grey crow-like being with a bone-white beak and three large claws at the end of what supposedly would be its wings.
It was wearing a clean leather apron, and on its back was a full-looking large bag that was tied to the crow’s neck with a harness.

The alien creature stood right in front of Moon Dancer and opened its beak to speak.

Even if it seemed to talk calmly, the sound that came out of its mouth was akin to hundreds of shrieks in different pitches that threatened to make Moon Dancer’s ears bleed. And that horrible sound was only the background noise to the creature’s actual words, which sounded like they were being spoken by a crowd of creatures rather than a single being, in a language that were giving her a huge migraine.

“EPIB LW GWC ZMYCMAB WN UM?”

It took Moon Dancer a full minute to decipher the simple question she had been asked. “Sunset Shimmer’s soul. Is it in the afterlife? Can I bargain for it if it is?”

The crow’s eyes started to move in every direction with great speed, seemingly observing something beyond the pony’s comprehension.

“WP, GWC IZM BITSQVO IJWCB Ontokho.”

“What? No, Sunset Shimmer. A pony like me with gold and crimson hair and a cutie mark of a red and yellow sun.”

“GWC EIVB BW SVWE IJWCB ACVAPQVM, Ontokho’s XZMDQWCA AWCT.”

“Sunshine? What are you talking about? Explain it to me!” Moon Dancer demanded, the forced communication and the stress on her mind generated by the voice of the creature making her start to lose her temper.

“QB QA I TWVO ABWZG, GWC EQTT OW QVAIVM JMNWZM PMIZQVO ITT WN QB.”

Moon Dancer was feeling her sanity start to break apart, so she needed to be quick before she went insane.
“How can I find out without losing my mind? Is there a ritual I can do? Do I need to become a full-fledged necromancer?”

At that moment, the voices coming out of the creature’s beak seemed to express one single sentiment; disgust.
“Q LWV’B VMML UWZM VMKZWUIVKMZA.”

Having the voices talk with the same intention seemed to alleviate the stress on Moon Dancer’s brain, so she decided to continue her interrogation.

“Then what can I be?”

The crow’s eyes took a closer look at the unicorn, inspecting her beyond the concepts of time, physics, and spirituality. “Oynon.”

Before Moon Dancer could ask what it meant, the creature introduced one of its hands inside the bag on its back and pulled out the dead body of an artic fox.

“TMIZV BW CAM TQNM IOIQVAB LMIBP, IVL GWC EQTT TMIZV BW TQABMV.”

The creature left the corpse in front of Moon Dancer and quickly went back to the void, the doors closing behind him and disappearing faster than it had been summoned.

After taking a few moments to calm down from the mind-shattering experience, Moon Dancer looked at her leg. The white talons had dug themselves inside her flesh and left only ten small scars as evidence of their existence.

“Very well, let’s see what I can do with this.” She picked up the body of the fox with her magic, noticing that the color of her aura had become paler. “No reason to turn back now.”

Giving one last look at the space where the door had appeared, Moon dancer went to work on her test.

Inside Twilight’s library, Applejack was walking in circles, gritting her teeth in frustration. “Everything’s just falling apart. This looks even worse than Nightmare Moon.”

“It is, we can’t just blast the problem with rainbows this time,” Rainbow said with her hooves crossed, her eyes showing the same frustration Applejack was feeling. “We can’t do nothing! We don’t know even half of the damn story!”

While the two most hotheaded of the group boiled in anger, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rarity were crestfallen.

Pinkie had her mane completely straight, and had lost some of her vibrant colors.

Fluttershy was looking through one of the windows, worrying about everypony’s safety, but especially Sunset’s. She lamented having all those doubts about her when she lost control.
Once more she had judged her instead of helping, and it looked like she wouldn’t be able to make amends this time.

Rarity, who had received the most damage to her body during Sunset’s outburst, looked like her mind wasn’t there.
Her eyes seemed lost, staring at nothing in front of her despite being open, and were it not for some small movements as she breathed, one would think she had been frozen in time.

A clawed hand grabbing her leg seemed to snap the fashionista out of her stupor, and she turned her head down to see Spike looking at her worried. “It’s going to be okay, Sunset never gives up. We will find her.”

Rarity was almost shocked by Spike’s resolve, finding no words to respond. Even if he was the youngest of them, he seemed to be calmer than everypony.
“Come on Rarity, you need to be stronger than this. Spike and your friends need you right now.”

The unicorn stood up and whispered a thank you to Spike before addressing her friends. “As you said Rainbow, we don’t know much about what is really going on, but I’m sure Twilight will come back with that information. We need to be ready to help her when she does.”

Applejack blew air through her mouth. “You’re right. Even if we can’t make a plan right now, we should still be ready to take action.”

“You’re right, we need to be there for Twilight,” Pinkie said standing up, a bit of her colors returning to her body.

“I should go and check on her, she may need help in Canterlot,” Rainbow offered, stretching her wings, but Fluttershy stopped her.

“You have covered that distance at top speed three times already. If you keep pushing yourself, your body will give out and you won’t be able to help anypony.”

Rainbow seem like she was about to object, but her friend’s words convinced her to stay. “Okay, we need to form a plan to confront the princesses then.”

Rainbow’s friends were surprised at her words, and how nonchalantly she had said them.

“Darling, I don’t think Luna and Celestia are our enemies here.”

“They are,” a stern voice declared.

The six mares and dragon turned towards where the voice had come from, and saw Twilight entering the library, her mane frazzled, and eyes filled with determination.

“What did you discover?” Rainbow quickly asked.

“Celestia and Luna have been lying to us the whole time. What happened yesterday occurred in Sunset’s village when she was a foal. She destroyed the town and incinerated everypony in it.” Shock and fear filled everypony’s hearts, but Twilight continued. “Celestia hid everything. She adopted Sunset and built the School for Gifted Unicorns to keep track of anypony who could become a threat like her.”
Twilight gritted her teeth. “That’s why she chose me as her student. And Sunset’s replacement.” She turned her head towards Rainbow Dash. “You knew it.”

Rainbow’s hooves were trembling. “I- she- she made me Pinkie Promise. She said she would tell you when she felt ready.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’m not blaming you for anything Rainbow, I just wanted to confirm it.”

“Wait, if you replaced Sunset, why did Celestia choose her as the heir to the kingdom?” Applejack asked.

“She already had a student to deal with the major problems of Equestria with the power of friendship. Sunset would be the one to handle the rest of her responsibilities. We both do her work, and she retires with her sister by her side and her lies buried. Everypony believing her to be the perfect ruler she always pretended to be.”

“Did Princess Luna know about all this? Is that why she…” Fluttershy stopped herself from finishing that sentence.

Twilight took a deep breath. “I refuse to believe she’s dead. So, either she’s hiding or she’s secretly in prison.” She took a pause before continuing. “We need to infiltrate Canterlot Castle.”

“What?! Why?” Pinkie asked.

“We need to have the elements with us. They may not be weapons exactly, but they are the only thing more powerful than an alicorn that we can get. Plus, if Sunset has been captured, she will probably be in the dungeons of the castle,” Twilight explained.

At first, the five mares looked unsure about their friend’s plan, but Rainbow quickly agreed to it, followed by Applejack, and the rest soon followed.

“Can your brother help us?” Fluttershy asked.

Twilight shook her head. “I’m afraid he’s still too conflicted with the situation to cooperate with us. We would be committing treason, and he would be forced to stop us.”

“How are we going to infiltrate the castle when both royal guards are on full alert without your brother’s help?” Applejack questioned.

“How about the Gala?”

Everycreature looked at Rarity. “It’s in three weeks, enough time for us to prepare a proper plan and for the tension to die down a bit. Most of the castle will be open to the guests and we’ve already been invited.”

“Rarity, I don’t think Princess Luna will be in the mood to host a party with all the difficulties she’s having,” Twilight objected.

“Actually, it would be foolish for her not to host it!” Spike exclaimed, getting everypony’s attention. “The Gala would be the perfect event to show to the public that she’s a benevolent ruler and clear her bad reputation. The festivities would be a good way to calm the nerves of the more influencial ponies in Canterlot, showing that their way of life won’t be affected by the change in rulership. And keeping a tradition from after she was banished could be seen as her accepting the modern ways of Equestria.”

There was a moment of silence after his explanation. “Spike darling, since when have you been good at politics?”

Spike scratched the back of his head. “I learned a thing or two while we lived in the castle. What do you think?” he asked Twilight, who seemed to be analyzing the plan.

“Sunset may not have much time, but we can’t risk being captured too. Other than maybe Rainbow, neither Luna nor Celestia have reasons to suspect us planning something against them. We can keep up appearances until we get the elements and find Sunset. And if she finds us first, we have to show her that we got her back.”
Twilight looked at her friends. “I know you’ve already helped me confront Nightmare Moon, and that Sunset is a friend to you as much as she’s a sister to me. But even if we use our connection with the elements to avoid severe punishment by the princesses, getting caught will have heavy consequences. We can lose far more than just Sunset if we screw this up, and I can’t ask you to take that risk for me. So, if you want to just wait for Sunset’s return or suggest a less risky method to approach this, I will hear you out.”

Twilight’s friends took some time to really consider what they could lose with this little rebellion. Not only their livelihoods, but their families could be affected by their decision. Even if they were heroes, going against the princesses would make everypony in Equestria hate them, and maybe even persecute them themselves in defense of their rulers.

“As the one who has the most to lose,” Applejack said stepping forward. “I say that I wouldn’t rest peacefully again if I just stayed at home. We need to get to the bottom of this, and make sure Sunset is safe.”

The rest of her friends nodded in agreement, and even Spike looked determined to find Sunset and uncover the truth.

“Very well, we have three weeks to prepare.” Twilight sighed, feeling the incredible weight of what she needed to do, and the fear of losing more than she already had. “Thank you all for being with me, you’re the best friends I could ever ask for.”

All her friends gave her one big hug, giving her the strength she needed to continue, and then they started working on the infiltration plan.

The ambiance in Canterlot Castle was horrifyingly tense.

Fights between the guards occurred with alarming frequency, and even the staff was at risk of being attacked if their allegiance with either of the princesses was exposed to public knowledge.

And if that wasn’t enough, there had been reports of a thief working from the inside, stealing food and medicine from the kitchen and infirmary in broad daylight, but nopony had seen them yet.

The thief was smart, and always waited for the best moment to act, like right now, when one of the chefs had left various loaves of bread on one of the kitchen tables while he worked.

The thief quickly entered the kitchen through the window and grabbed one of them with its sharp talons before retreating to the outside of the castle, making sure nopony saw her.

If they did, they would recognize her immediately as Celestia’s phoenix.

Philomena flew away from the castle into the mountains surrounding the capital, until she reached a cave near the summit of one of them.
She entered the shelter and left the bread near a small pile of stolen supplies before flying deeper into the cave.

She landed on the ground and tugged a lock of crimson red hair with its beak for a few seconds before letting go.

Sluggishly, a heavily bandaged orange hoof pet her on the head.

Author's Notes:

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Missing files have been found! Initiating recovery procedures.

Five more chapters until the end.

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Next chapter: Chapter 39: Chained