“So, would you care to explain what happened here?”

“You know... I’m not entirely sure what you are speaking of, my dear Princess.”

“You know exactly what I speak of, Discord,” Celestia demanded while motioning to the crumbled stone on the ground at the foot of the statue’s pedestal. “Now, what happened here?”

“Perhaps the wind knocked it over, Tia... I don’t rightly know,” the draconequus answered, uninterested, as a light breeze pushed its way through the Canterlot Royal Garden, rustling the leaves of the topiaries and trees.

“Enough games, Discord; who broke them!?”

“Fine, since you really must know, I was having a lovely conversation with somepony, when I may or may not have said something to offend, and would you believe that they tried to kill me? The nerve!”

“You are already contained, and pose no threat to anyone. Who and why did somepony try to kill you? Tell me now or I'll—”

“You’ll what!? Destroy me? Lock me away forever? Heh—the thought is laughable; even with your supposed limitless power you can’t destroy me, you and I both know this. Oh, and about our little friends in pieces down there...” Discord made a purposeful dramatic pause, before continuing in the sing-song manner of foalish taunting. “Somepony knows your seeecret!”

Celestia expression slowly sank into mild shock for a brief moment, before she narrowed her eyes and lowered her horn towards the statue. “You are treading on dangerous ground—”

“It’s funny you should say that, because that’s exactly what I told the pony that was here last night,” Discord interrupted in a smug tone.

“Told who!? Tell me!” Celestia demanded with a stomp of her forehoof.

Discord’s delighted laughter exploded through the Princess’s mind.

“Ah-ah-aaah... Now, why would I go and spoil the surprise by simply telling you? Besides, I have a feeling that you’ll find out on your own in the near future.”

A loud yawn filled Celestia's mind.

“Now then, if you would excuse me, you’ve disturbed me from a rather lovely nap that I would very much like to get back to... Goodbye, Tia.”

“Wait!” the alicorn cried out from her mind.

Celestia waited, staring coldly at the statue. As seconds stretched on into minutes, she became infuriated by the consummate silence that answered her call. The alicorn growled in anger with the thought of the draconequus knowing something of this magnitude that she did not. She turned, and stormed back to the castle, deep in thought about who would try to destroy Discord, and what he was hiding.

“So this is it?” Fireshade asked, sounding thoroughly unimpressed. “Well, at least it’s pretty big, even if it is severely under-equipped.”

“Well, my resources are rather limited,” Twilight replied flatly.

Fireshade slowly made her way further into the common room. Stopping in the center of the room, she turned around in-place, taking in everything. The bare light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, six large doors lined along one wall—judging by the iron plating and tiny barred windows, she assumed they were cells—the workbench covered in parchments of notes against the opposite wall. The workbench itself, literally, covered in notes.

“Twilight, what’s all this?” asked the yellow mare as she studied the scrawlings on the long table against the wall.

“Oh... I, uh, ran out of paper the other night,” Twilight answered, giggling uncomfortably.

“How much time have you been spending down here?”

“Well, since my accident... all of it. Except for when I’m at Section 5 or sleeping.”

Many of the writings and doodles seemed like any other research notes, detailing important findings in schools of magic that Fireshade had never heard of. One drawing, in particular, stood out to her. A large circle, with many unfamiliar symbols and what appeared to be letters of an unknown language within. “What about this?”

Twilight’s eyes lit up as she began to explain. “That is called a sigil array. This particular one makes it possible to teleport objects with almost no effort. It’s absolutely amazing... Would you like to try it?”

“I guess... How does it work?” Fireshade asked, looking suspiciously at the strange symbols making up the array.

“The runes on the array amplify the spellcasting. They take the spell you cast into the array and then use the latent magical energy radiated from the planet’s leylines to amplify the spell. Once it draws enough energy, it discharges the same spell you cast on it, only with much more power than you put into it. It’s similar to our energy storage devices in operation, but it uses magic principles instead of engineered technology and it only stores the charge for a split second.”

The pyromancer squinted slightly as she continued to inspect the drawing. “Huh... Okay, what do I do?”

“It’s very simple. You just begin your spellcasting like you normally would, but instead of casting on the object, you direct the spell to the array.” Twilight moved a large book onto the array, and then pointed to a drawing on the floor at the far side of the room. “This array is permanently attached to the one over there on the floor, so you don’t even have to concentrate on where you’re sending the book!”

Fireshade looked to the point across the room. “But what if I don’t want to send it there?”

“This one is called an ‘anchored teleport array’. It will only send objects to the receiving array, but there’s other sigil magic that can be utilized to send things anywhere you want. Although, they’re a little more... uh, difficult to handle.” The mage quickly glanced to one of the nearby iron-clad cell doors, and back to her friend with a sheepish grin.

Following the direction that Twilight had looked, Fireshade immediately understood what she had meant by ‘difficult’. Near the bottom of the door in question, jutted a mangled piece of metal, seemingly fused to the iron sheathing. Without a word, she grasped the door in her magic and slowly swung it open. On the inside of the door clung another, similar piece of metal. “What is that?”

“Uhm... it was a steel rod.”

Fireshade chuckled. “So... don’t want to use that to transport ponies, then?”

“Uh, no. Not yet,” Twilight answered while scratching behind her ear. “But that was the first time I tried to use it. Once I get some practice, I’m sure it will be completely safe... So, are you ready to give it a shot?”

“I dunno, I’m not very good at teleportation spells.”

“But that’s the great thing about sigil magic; you don’t have to be good at it. The array will do almost everything for you.”

“Okay.” Fireshade closed her eyes and concentrated on the book laying within the circle on the workbench. She then shifted her focus to the array itself. Before her horn had even begun to glow, there was a loud pop, causing her to flinch. She opened her eyes to see that the book was gone. Quickly turning around to face the opposite wall, she saw the book laying on the stone floor. “But I… But I didn’t even release my magic to the circle.”

Fireshade looked to the other unicorn, slack-jawed, to see a huge smile plastered across the face of her friend.

“I told you it was amazing,” Twilight stated.

“Amazing? More like impossible.”

The lavender mage was now hopping with excitement and speaking very fast. “That just shows how powerful sigil magic is! You didn’t even have to fully cast the spell. Just allowing your innate magical energies to surround the array by concentrating on it is more that enough power to send the book across the room. Imagine how far you could send something if you actually put a fully charged spell to the array!”

“And this came from one of the secret books you found?”

“Yep, and there’s a lot more where that came from.”

“Why would the princess keep this from ponies?” Fireshade asked, moving close to the array in order to inspect it once again. “This sort of thing could change everything. I mean, we could move more goods faster, all across Equestria. And if it’s this powerful, I bet it could be adapted for pegasi and earth ponies to use.”

“Because she’s scared it can be used against her. Apparently, it was once fairly common knowledge amongst mages and was used quite often. There are some very dangerous arrays described in the book, but almost any magic can be dangerous if not used properly.”

As Twilight explained, the yellow unicorn began wandering along the row of doors, peaking into each small window as she passed. Stopping to get a better look at what was inside the third door, and without looking to the other unicorn, Fireshade asked, “So, what about that chemical and the book about the princesses?”

“All of the books and the document on the compound are in there. The actual chemical is in the storage locker.”

Fireshade opened the door in front of her. “You still have some?”

“Yes, I had three vials. Now I have two full vials and one partial,” Twilight answered while the yellow mare perused the books on the makeshift shelf in the cell.

Taking a small binder in her magic, Fireshade turned and walked back out to the main room. “How much did you take?”

Twilight was becoming curious with her friend’s sudden interest in the chemical. “About half a vial.”

“No... I asked you how much. I need to know exactly.”

“I don’t know exactly.”

Fireshade let the binder drop onto the workbench as she turned to the lavender unicorn with a smirk. “Wait... So, you’re telling me that you tested an experimental drug on yourself, by yourself, and you don’t even know how much you used? What in the world did you do, Twilight, just pour the vial down your throat and say, ‘Yup, that should do it’?”

“Um... yeah, that’s basically how it went.” Looking back on it now and hearing it worded in that manner, Twilight believed that it very well could have been the stupidest thing that she had ever done.

Turning towards the workbench and taking a seat on a wooden stool, Fireshade flipped open the document she had retrieved from the shelf . “Wow, Twi. I thought the grand magus would have known better,” she said as she scanned the table of contents of the report.

Twilight looked down to her hooves in silence. I should have known better... I act like such a foal sometimes.

“GL-7658a... Must have been before I worked in the biochem division. You did know I was a chemist before you showed up, right?” The mare sitting at the table knowingly flipped the report to a particular page and paused for a moment to read through the words.

“No, I thought you worked in the weapons division.”

“Heh, like they would trust me with that stuff.” Fireshade looked up from the document with a slightly raised eyebrow. “Antipsychotic? Twilight, why were you testing an experimental psychiatric drug on yourself?”

“I-I-I uh... I...”

Go ahead, she trusts us.

“I may have been hearing a voice,” Twilight said very fast, running the words together.

“What do you mean, a voice?”

“It’s not what you think!” exclaimed the purple mare. “I started hearing it after the generator accident. It’s me... this voice that I’m hearing, it’s me. I thought I was going insane, but I believe it to be an internal vocalization of my subconscious.”

“Oh? How so?”

“It’s the only thing that saved my life when I tested the chemical on myself... I-I had panicked, I didn’t know what to do, I thought I was going to die.” Twilight sat down on the floor and paused for a moment. “My inner voice told me what to do to save myself; if I couldn’t have heard through to the only rational thoughts my mind was producing, I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now.

“Looking back on it now, I knew how to save myself, if I saw somepony going through the same thing I was, I would know exactly what to do, but I couldn’t do it for myself. Everything it says to me is things that I already know, it’s just stuff that has been buried for years, or in the case of my experiment, things that I can’t access when I need to.”

Fireshade looked back down to the report. “Huh, wish I could hear my rational sub-conscious thoughts... All I get is an overwhelming urge to hurt ponies from time to time.” She chuckled to herself at this thought.

A few moments passed in silence as the yellow unicorn continued to read and Twilight pondered the last statement.

“Anyways, what did you use for the missing reagent and precursor?”

“What? Why does that matter?” Twilight asked defensively.

She’s helping already.

“I’m trying to figure out what you did wrong. Whether there’s something inherently wrong with the drug, or if it was a simple overdose... or if you used the wrong chemicals to create the synthesis reaction.” Fireshade looked to her friend. “So?”

“I, uh... it was ethyl diazoacetate and piperidine.”

“Why?” Fireshade asked without bothering to look up from the book.

Twilight’s lips tightened and her eyes narrowed as she began to grow annoyed with the line of questioning. “Is it wrong?” she asked sharply.

“I don’t know yet.” The mare looked up from the book with wide eyes and a soft smile. “I’m just trying to help, Twilight, and the more information you can give me, the easier it will be for me to do that.”

Twilight sighed. “Fine... I chose the piperidine, because it was used in several similar pharmaceuticals, and the ethyl diazoacetate, because it seemed to be the easiest thing to use to facilitate the reaction.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard. Now, can I take this with me and work on it in m—”

“Absolutely not. Do you have any idea what would happen if you were to get caught with that outside of Section 5?” the lavender mage fired off almost immediately. “And they would want to know how you got it... and they probably wouldn’t stop until they found out.”

“Geez, settle down,” Fireshade said with a chuckle. “Believe me, I’m well aware of what would happen. I’ll just work on it here, if that’s alright with you.”

“That’s fine, but I have to go meet with Arcana. Spike told me this morning that he wanted to speak with me.” Twilight turned and began walking towards the main door to the cell block.

“Okay, I’ll be here for a while.” The yellow mare turned back to the book and continued, “This may take some time to work out, but I’ll get it. This may not be my special talent, but fire isn’t the only thing I’m good with.”

Several sharp knocks echoed through the office of Head Mage Arcana. He looked up from his mundane paperwork to grant access to his visitor, already well aware of who it was. “Come in, Mage Sparkle.”

The door slowly swung open, and the lavender unicorn walked into the office with an air of confidence. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Yes, Twilight... two days ago,” Arcana responded with a glare as hard as stone.

She quickly glanced to the side and back without moving her head away from her superior, the previously present confidence quickly dissipating. “Oh... I just got the message this morning.”

“Where have you been, Mage Sparkle? I’ve sent messengers three times now, and all three times, you were nowhere to be found.” The unicorn behind the desk looked her over. Her mane looked as though she hadn’t brushed it in days, and her eyes, with deep dark rings beneath them, appeared slightly bloodshot. “And to be quite frank, you look terrible. Have you been sleeping at all?”

“I’ve been studying... privately,” Twilight answered slowly, shifting on her hooves uncomfortably.

The head mage raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Studying what, exactly?”

Shitshitshitshit...

Calm down, just make an excuse. Think Twilight, we can come up with something.

She looked down to the base of the desk in front of her. “Well, sir... if you must know, I’ve been with Fireshade.”

“Studying?”

Twilight looked up and smiled. “I guess you could call it that.”

Arcana’s eyes grew wide as the older unicorn blushed slightly. “Oh... well, I—” He paused to cough before speaking again. “You’ve been easily keeping up with your assigned duties, but I don’t think you’ve been spending nearly enough time in the labs getting ready for your upcoming appointment to Grand Magus. You need to make sure you personal life isn’t getting in the way of your responsibilities.”

The smile faded from Twilight’s face and she answered simply, “Yes, sir, I’m sorry.”

“You do realize that ‘sorry’ will not be sufficient once you are Grand Magus? The level of responsibility required from you will be such that there had better be no situations where an apology would be necessary.”

“Look, I said—” She allowed a slow, drawn-out yawn to interrupt. “I said I’m sorry. I don’t know what else I can do... It won’t happen again?”

“Uh-huh...” started the grey unicorn as he tapped the top of his desk with a quill. “As it were, the development work your team has been doing is nearly complete, and you will be leaving us for a short time. How do you feel about going to the academy for the next month?”

Twilight walked over to the long bookshelf against the wall and began to peruse the tomes stored there. “Well, I have to say, that I’m not excited about it. I would much prefer to stay here where I can continue my studies in magic.” She turned around to face the other unicorn. “I mean, why do I even need to know this tactical stuff? How long has it been since a grand magus was required to take command of a military unit?”

The grey unicorn’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Well, if you were ever here for more than a few hours a day, I would maybe agree. Anyway, how do you expect to oversee the military training of our army’s unicorns without any military knowledge?”

“Delegation... It’s not as though I’m going to be personally training them. It has been my understanding that I’m going to be operating on an administrative level,” Twilight said as she waved a hoof about.

“Regardless, this training is required before you take your new position.”

“I know that.” She looked down to the floor and mumbled dejectedly, “This just seems like a waste of my time.”

“You don’t have to do the military training, if you don’t want to.”

Twilight quickly looked to Arcana with a smile and a brightness to her eyes that hadn’t been present for days.

Then, he continued his statement, “But if you choose to do that, don’t expect to be welcomed with an appointment to the position that you’ve been working so hard for. Am I making myself perfectly clear, Mage Sparkle?”

Her smile instantly vanished and the cold, glazed look to her eyes returned. “Yes, sir, perfectly.”

“Good. Now, before you leave, I have one more thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

Arcana set down the quill he had been idly fiddling with as his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed once more. “I know you’re up to something more than fooling around with my apprentice. I don’t know what it is yet, but I intend to find out, Mage Sparkle. I realize that it was some time ago, but don’t forget that private conversation we had the first evening you were here.”

Twilight allowed a smirk to cross her lips. “Believe me, sir, that conversation is not something that is easily forgotten.”

Opening the door with his magic, Arcana spoke again. “Now get out of my office. You need to go check on your research team, and I’m sure you have preparations to make before you start your classes after the weekend.”

Without a word, Twilight turned to the door and walked out of the office of the head mage. Just as she cleared the threshold, the door slammed shut behind her.

Now what? He knows what I’m doing. He’ll go to Celestia. He’s goi—

Stop. He knows nothing. It’s pure speculation and conjecture. We need to get to Fireshade and let her know what has happened.

I need to make sure Arcana doesn’t know that I’m leaving again so soon.

The mage turned towards the lab and made her way downstairs, through the main lab, and into the corridor that wound down to the depths of Section 5.

After finally getting through the blast-door and entering the underground clandestine lab, she made her way across the massive facility. As she walked through, she noticed more ponies than what would normally be comfortable making cursory glances her direction, avoiding eye contact, but still wanting to get a quick look at her.

I know Arcana said I look terrible, but is it really that bad?

She continued, unabated, through the lab to a large storage room at the furthest point from the main entrance. Twilight flipped on the lights as she entered the room and closed the door behind her.

The moment the door-latch clicked, a magenta glow bathed the room as she cast a dampening spell she learned from one of her banned books. Several seconds passed and the magical illumination dimmed, leaving only the harsh, white light of the electric bulbs clinging to the ceiling. Satisfied that her naturally radiating magic was sufficiently hidden, she opened the door and reentered the lab.

Walking quickly, but not so fast as to cause undue attention to herself, she made her way towards the exit of the lab. Twilight had gotten halfway to her goal when she heard a voice from behind her that caused her blood to run cold.

“Leaving so soon, Mage Sparkle?”

She turned around fast enough to cause her to stumble a bit when she stopped, facing the source of the inquiry. “Head Mage!” Twilight exclaimed. “Uh, no... I was just looking for Fleet to get a status update on the project.”

“Don’t you think he would likely be in the research area reserved for your project?” Arcana asked in a condescending manner while eyeing the lavender unicorn suspiciously.

“I... I already checked there, but he wasn’t around. Now I’m just kinda wandering around to see if I can find him,” Twilight responded with a sheepish grin. “Maybe he’s back now. I’ll—uh... I’ll go check.”

“Very well, if you need anything, I’ll be here in my office.” He stepped around Twilight and began walking towards the bank of offices attached to the wall above the entrance to the lab.

Damn it. I can’t just leave with him here. Fireshade is going to have to wait.

Twilight then made the decision to actually do what she said she would, and walked to her team’s research area.

Small parts and lengths of wires cluttered the top of the large, metal table in the middle of the sequestered research area. Seated at the table was Fleet, busily assembling parts and arranging them inside a small box. Sapphire stood at the workbench arranged against a portable wall, plugging wires into a similar device as what the tan unicorn was working on, connecting it to a much larger power supply.

“Hey guys, how’s it goin?” asked Twilight, announcing her arrival.

The blue pegasus finished plugging in a cable, and turned away from the bench. “Oh hey, look who decided to show up! You gonna stick around for more than a few minutes this time?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”

Fleet looked up from his task and smiled. “Hiya Twilight! You’re just in time, I’m assembling the last of the working prototypes now, and Sapphire is charging the other three.”

“Excellent!” The lavender mare trotted over to the desk opposite from the workbench and found a technical document titled ‘Miniaturization of Magic Energy Storage’. Flipping through the pages she saw many, highly detailed diagrams, showing everything from the internal construction of the capacitors to the Section 5 logo engraved on the outside of the case.

I wonder if a unicorn could use these to increase their magic output...

Twilight sat down and began to read about the intricacies of the devices that were now in the final stages of development.

Hours had passed since Twilight left to see Arcana, but for Fireshade it may as well had been minutes. She sat, unmoved from the stool she was on when her friend left, happily studying the research document about GL-7658a, stopping every few minutes to jot down a note or make a quick calculation.

The sound of the door at the entrance slamming against the wall echoed through the room, as Twilight stormed in. “Fireshade, we have a huge problem.”

Without looking up from her notes, the yellow unicorn replied simply, “Oh?”

“Yes! Arcana knows we’re doing something. He said he doesn’t know what, though.”

There was no response from Fireshade as she flipped to the next page in the document.

“I had to tell him that we’re ‘together’,” Twilight said while motioning her hooves in a manner pantomiming quotation marks.

“Uh-huh...” A moment passed, then Fireshade finally looked up to the lavender unicorn, absolutely mortified. “What!? Like, together together?”

“Yes, together together! He kept asking me where I’ve been and why I look so tired... I didn’t know what else to say. So, I guess we’ll just have to play it off that way from now on.”

The mare sitting at the workbench looked up, as though deep in thought. “Well... that shouldn’t be too difficult.” Her eyes lit up as she made eye-contact with Twilight and smiled. “Oh! Does that mean we get to be all cuddly and lovey-dovey in public to keep appearances?”

The purple mage was not amused and scowled deeply at Fireshade. “Stop it. Do you think I wanted to tell him what I did? This is serious, Fire, who knows how long it will be before he figures out what is going on... and who knows what will happen then.”

“We’ll probably have to leave.”

Leave? I don’t want to leave.

We’re in too deep, already. If we are found out we will have to run away from here.

Twilight glanced to the floor. “Yeah... we need a contingency plan for getting out of here when we’re found.” She looked back to the pyromancer. “I’ll take care of it... What have you been doing all day?”

“Looking into this chemical you tried to kill yourself with.”

“And?” The lavender mare took a step closer to Fireshade.

“And it’s pretty amazing stuff. The base recipe can be altered in very minor ways to create vastly different results. The way it acts on a pony’s brain is like nothing I’ve seen before...” Fireshade turned to her notes and shuffled through the mess of papers while she continued to talk. “You used an incorrect reactant in the synthesis, the stuff you made is no antipsychotic.”

Twilight furrowed her brow and her head tilted slightly in confusion as she looked to her assistant. “What did I make, then?”

Pulling out one page from the pile of notes, Fireshade scanned it quickly, and then smiled to Twilight. “Best I can tell without any sort of testing is that you created an extremely powerful sedative. Wanna hear the neat part?”

“I gu—”

“Good. In extremely high doses, judging by the chemical structure, it’s likely that it would act as a wicked hallucinogenic. And from what you told me, at least that much is true... Wanna hear the really neat part, now?”

“Ok—”

“I’ve been doing synthesis calculations all day, using slightly different chemicals from the original base. GL-7658 can be turned into a number of really scary—or really useful—compounds. I think the ‘a’ designator was intended strictly for the antipsychotic. Who knows how many of these have been made. We can potentially create anything from an organic poison to a compound that could possibly lower the subject’s inhibitions to the point that they would do almost anything at a mere suggestion.”

Somepony that would do anything without question would be extremely useful.

“Hmm...” Twilight mused as she thought of applications for this sort of chemical.

“We’re going to need to test them... and we’re going to require more equipment.”

“Make a list of what you need, I can take care of the equipment. There’s a few things I need to procure for myself, anyhow.” Twilight picked up a piece of white chalk with her magic while simultaneously pulling the sigil magic book from the bookshelf and floating it to herself. “What can we test this stuff on, though...”

Fireshade jumped off the stool and made a run for the door to the rest of the dungeon. “I have an idea, I’ll be back.”

“Wait! Where are you going?” Twilight asked as she flipped open the book.

“I’m going to go find something that we can use for testing. I don’t know if I’ll get it tonight, but I’ll get it!” she exclaimed excitedly as she trotted out the door.

The lavender unicorn shrugged, and then examined one of the many diagrams in the book she held aloft. With the chalk, she started drawing a large circle on the floor. Twilight heard hoofsteps approaching and looked up to the doorway just in time to see her friend barge back into the room.

“I forgot the list for you!” Fireshade giggled. She rushed over to the workbench and quickly scrawled out a list of half-a-dozen items. When she was happy with the list, yellow mare threw down the quill she had used and ran out the door once again.

Twilight shook her head and continued drawing the complex sigil array.

Year 8 of the 2nd Diarchy, 80th day of the Southward Equinox
Personal Journal, entry 9

The official report on the power generator accident was released yesterday. The final consensus on the cause is that the gemstone powering the generator was physically flawed. They believe it had a microscopic crack running through it. The only reason they came to that conclusion is because there did not appear to be any issues with the equipment itself. There’s no evidence to support the findings other than they couldn’t find anything else wrong. I’m quite disappointed with this conclusion. Although, it does mean that the magic energy generator technology is safe. That could be useful in the near future.

I haven’t been to my underground lab since Fireshade left to retrieve whatever it is she wants to use for testing and I finished drawing out the array to retrieve equipment from Section 5. She still hasn’t come up with anything, but she told me yesterday not to worry about it. Apparently she thinks she can take care of it, so I’m going to let her. In actuality, I’m a little worried about what she’s up to.

Arcana has become exceedingly suspicious of me. I’m pretty sure he realized that I can mask my magic, as well, after our encounter in the Section 5 lab. Which is very unfortunate, because the only place I have ever come across a spell of that nature was in the book Illusion, that was retrieved from the vault. He hasn’t brought it up yet, but there’s no way he could not have noticed that my magic aura was gone or, at the very least, severely muted. Perhaps I could play it off as though I developed a version of the spell myself. Doubtful.

Arcana is on to me, and it’s only a matter of time before he figures out what is going on. I don’t know if he is aware of the level that Fireshade is involved—or if he believes her to be involved at all—but she and I are being as careful as we can. However, there’s only so much that we can do to keep him from getting too close.

Military training begins tomorrow.

A sharp pain shot through Twilight’s muzzle as she bolted upright in her seat and blinked her eyes repeatedly, unsure of what had just happened. The unicorn looked around and realized she was in a classroom with about forty other ponies, a dozen of which were either staring at her or snickering quietly into their hoof.

“Miss Sparkle?”

Twilight looked to the front of the room to see a light-blue, earth pony mare standing at the podium in front of chalkboards that filled the entire front wall. “Y-Yes, Colonel Chevalier?”

The earth pony smirked. “Perhaps you would like to answer the question?”

“The question, Ma’am?”

The colonel released a deep sigh. “You have been given word that an invading force is marching towards the fortress under your command. What is the first thing that should be done in order to ensure your defenses are ready?”

“Uhm...” Twilight scratched at her chin, pondering the question. It seemed fairly straightforward, so she answered with the first idea that came to her. “Send an infantry unit out and make a preemptive attack against the enemy.”

“No. There’s something else you should probably do before that.”

“Destroy the incoming infrastructure to slow the enemy.”

“Try again...”

“S-Set... uh, landmines?” The mage’s inflection sounded more and more unsure with every wrong answer.

A cadet across the classroom from Twilight groaned loudly, and then spoke up before she had a chance to make another incorrect attempt at answering. “Send out a pegasi scout patrol to assess the enemy forces, and secure all structural defenses such as drawbridges or gates.”

“Very good, cadet.” Chevalier looked back to the lavender unicorn. “Perhaps next time you can pay attention instead of napping, Miss Sparkle.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Twilight sighed dejectedly.

Looking over her shoulder to the clock, then back to the class, the colonel gave a broad smile. “Well, it looks like we are out of time for today. You are all dismissed and we will see everyone at 0500 for PT tomorrow.”

The room exploded with sound as everypony rose from their seat simultaneously. Twilight, however, continued sitting, brooding over how much she detested this training. Once the room was mostly cleared out she got up and made her way to the door. She headed straight for the building’s exit and began her long walk back to the castle.

It only took a little more than an hour for Twilight to get back to the castle. Once there, she headed straight to the dungeons, rather than her apartment. She still had much more reading and studying to do in order to learn all that should could from her borrowed books.

Specifically on the subjects of illusory magic and chronomancy. The study and research of these fields of magic had devoured all of her spare-time and then some. The mage was thoroughly convinced that they were likely the key to being able to read the texts about the princesses, but the specific spells needed to unlock the books were elusive, and still out of reach.

She walked into her makeshift lab and threw her training books to the side. Twilight noticed some papers strewn across the workbench, so she hastily took them in her magic and placed them in a single stack to go through later.

Entering the ‘library’, the lavender unicorn took the two tomes she required off the shelf with her magic and took them with her to the workbench. She flipped open the book titled ‘Illusion’ to the marked page where she had left off as she sat herself down on the stool and began to read.

Several minutes passed in silence when, suddenly, Twilight’s left ear twitched at a nearly imperceptible sound. She stopped reading and looked at the wall directly in front of her, waiting for the sound. A few seconds later it came again. It almost sounded like somepony sobbing quietly.

Twilight got up as quietly as she could, still listening for the sounds. The noise was coming from the back of the room somewhere. Walking slowly along the line of cell doors, the mage suddenly had a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. She approached the last door and was almost scared to look inside.

Rearing up on her hind legs and placing her forelegs on either side of the window, she moved her face close to the steel bars. Upon a pile of straw in the corner of the tiny cell lay a familiar dark-blue, pegasus mare.

The pegasus looked up at the ironclad door and noticed the purple-colored eyes peering in. “T-Twilight?” she inquired weakly between sobs, before scrambling to her hooves.

The eyes of the lavender unicorn grew wide with shock at what she saw. She dropped back down to all fours, and took several shaky steps back from the cell door. A blue face, fur matted down with tears, appeared in the tiny window, and Twilight quickly moved herself to the same wall that the door resided, in an attempt to hide herself from view. She backed up to the wall and sat down on the floor, breathing heavily, unsure of what to do.

“Twilight? Is... Is that really you!? You have to help me! I met a unicorn in Canterlot, and she seemed so nice, and then I woke up here... I feel stra—”

The voice was cut-off as a magenta light flashed through the the room. Twilight had constructed a barrier around the cell to mute the sound from within.