It wasn't hard for Crimson to follow Ebon's notes, as they were merely two sides of the same coin, so it was almost like he was reading his own notes on this world. There were scraps of paper, whole journals, and books, ones he assumed that he had checked out and his mother never came to collect, scattered everywhere. Ebon had located so many artifacts and recovered them that it amazed Crimson as to the effort his counterpart went through to keep his world safe, though there was one note he made sure to keep in mind while he searched. Ebon had been thinking the same thing that Crimson had told his new allies, they needed to recover the Elements of Chaos before the Tree died and Darkstar began her assault on his home world.

Ebon had also been kind enough to offer his own plan on how he would have reacquired the Elements, though the moment Crimson noticed it he realized that it would require one item from the Vault to make it work.

"How's it coming?" Midnight asked, walking into the chamber before staring at all the moved papers and books.

"I may have found a way to recover the Elements," Crimson replied, beckoning her over before pointing out what Ebon had been working on, "Ebon devised a plan to use your latest allies, the Changelings, to get passed the Shadowlot guards and get you six close enough to the Elements without raising suspicion. He planned on coming with you guys, so he could keep an eye out for danger, like his mother or aunt, and make a hasty escape once the Elements are recovered."

"So besides my friends, myself, and a few changelings, what else do we need?" Midnight asked, curious as to how they could pull off such a heist without her mentor finding out.

"The Eye of the Changeling," Crimson said, pulling out a small drawing and showing her, "a special necklace that allows the wearer to pass themselves off as a changeling or even have their powers until they take it off. This is how Ebon planned on getting passed his mother, which means that we'll need to access the Vault before we leave for Shadowlot."

"You mean we get to see what Ebon hid from us?" Midnight asked, her eyes widening as she wondered what he might have hidden away beneath their hooves.

"A small section of it anyway," Crimson said, moving out of the chamber as he began to retrace the path he used to get to his own Vault, "though we'll never find his Vault if he hid it someplace other than where I put mine."

He and Midnight moved throughout the entire castle, going from the hallway where Ebon's lab had been stored to the abandoned throne room of the Two Sisters. From there they crossed to the courtyard, where Princess Twilight and her friends had found him back in his home world, and approached a stone wall not too far from the center. Crimson, taking a chance that this was where Ebon had placed the Vault, tapped the stones in a certain order, the same one that he had placed on the wall in his world, as it was the combination to open the way for them. As he tapped the stones they glowed bright blue, but after a moment, a moment that Crimson used to wonder if Ebon's code was different, the stones receded into the wall and opened the pathway he had been seeking.

Resting before them was the hidden passage that Ebon and Crimson had, at the same time he suspected, built into the foundation of the ruined castle, surrounded by ancient runes that protected it from scrying, or searching for it. The runes, nearly as old as Time itself, prevented their mothers from finding it, in the off chance that they discovered a magical trace leading them back to the castle.

"Impressive," Midnight commented, eyeing the spellwork as they walked passed the stone wall, "I would have never thought to look for something behind that wall."

Crimson chuckled as he lead Midnight down the passageway, the torches lighting themselves as they approached, exactly as Crimson thought they would. There was a few twists and turns, all of which Crimson was expecting as they descended under the ruined castle, until they came to a solid door made of ebony, silver, and gold. To most this door would be impossible to open, but the moment Crimson approached it there was an unlocking sound before the door separated into three pieces. As the pair approached the doorway the pieces slipped into the walls around them, disappearing from view and allowing them to enter the Vault.

What Midnight found was a large ring, one that she suspected that wrapped around a good portion of the ruined castle, that was filled with all sorts of magical items. She was sure that the majority of them had been either lost in some war, lost to the passages of time itself, or even locked away in her mentor's armory. She approached the edge of where they were standing and gazed down, gasping as she found out that there was another nine rings that should could see from where they stood, though she had to wonder how deep it went. There were thousands of magical artifacts, many of which she was sure that they could use against Darkstar and stop whatever she was planning this time.

"This...is...amazing..." Midnight said, trying to keep the excitement trapped inside her and keep Crimson from finding out about how excited she was.

"His collection is ten times the size of my own," Crimson commented, walking over to a large leather bound book and pulled it open, "Now, let us see where he placed the Eye so we can get our operation underway. There's no telling what Darkstar and Nightmare Moon are up to this time."

"IS THAT THE CROWN OF THE DRAGON KING?!" Midnight shrieked, hurrying down the stairs to the ring that held the legendary crown that she had only read about.

Crimson moaned and continued his search, silently wishing that he had made the journey to the Vault alone so he wouldn't have to worry about this sort of thing.

---------------------------------------------

Nightmare Moon sighed as she watched, from a distance, the construction of the gateway that her sister wanted to use to invade the world she continued to call Prime Equestria, though she wasn't wrong with calling it that. Several of her personal mages, loyal to her and currently on loan to her sister, had sent her a set of documents, copies of the official report that Darkstar got all the time, not long ago. Their findings, however, proved that Nightmare had been right about the gateway before her sister had even introduced such an idea and started the construction.

The power to fuel the awakening of such a gateway, one that could rip the fabric of reality apart so Darkstar could travel to Crimson's Equestria, could cause shock waves across both worlds. Her sister wanted to conquer every world she came across, the Prime Equestria being no exception, but she failed to understand the consequences of what her actions would bring. The gateway, unless shut down and destroyed before it could be activated, would first consume whatever world it was opened to before damaging the world it was used it, but the bad news didn't end there. Nightmare's mages claimed that, if the gateway was used on the Prime Equestria, that the destruction of that world would ripple across all the worlds, destroying everything and everyone.

Darkstar didn't seem to care what she was trying to do, but now that Nightmare knew of the dangers she needed to find the only pony in her realm that could help her defeat her sister, before it was too late. The problem was that she had no idea if Glimmer had found and killed Crimson already or if Crimson had gotten tired of playing with Glimmer and had ended the game.

"My Princess?" a guard said, causing Nightmare to look up from the report she had been staring at and notice him standing there, "Princess Midnight Shine, the Elements of Chaos, and a band of changelings await you in the castle gardens. Shall I tell them that you are busy and send them away?"

"NO! I mean, no, I'll see them now," Nightmare said, surprised by how quickly she had told the guard not to send them away, "Thanks for informing me that they were here."

The guard bowed and left the throne room, causing Nightmare to sigh as she considered how she was going to ask Midnight to betray her mentor and save the worlds from destruction. Before she left the throne she picked up the folder of reports she had been collecting and knew she'd need them to convince Midnight of what her mentor was doing. She was only thankful that Darkstar was preoccupied with the construction of her gateway and not interested in running Shadowlot until she was finished with her war. As she walked towards the ironclad doors she wondered why Midnight had brought a group of changelings with her, but figured that they had to be hungry and desperate to side with their old enemy.

---------------------------------------------

Midnight sat on a bench and looked at what her friends and the nervous changelings were doing, though most of them were standing as still as the statues around them. It made her wonder if Order's fragments were around the garden somewhere, she she expected her mentor to be smarter than that and never really considered looking for them here. Though she knew why they were all nervous, despite being in a seemingly peaceful garden; they were in the middle of their enemy's territory and there was no telling when they'd be found out by Darkstar. That fear had, all by itself, prompted Midnight to ask to speak with Nightmare, though she wondered if the Princess would leave her busy schedule to speak with them.

She had been trapped in her thoughts for a moment, but when she noticed a movement to her left she thought it was Nightmare and turned to face it, though she only found a changeling guard rubbing his head.

"Listening to the Hive hurts more than I thought it would," the guard moaned, though she knew that it was merely Crimson in disguise, "I don't know how they get used to such a terrible pain."

"It takes constant practice," Queen Meta, having changed how she looked, her mane style and shape of her horn, so nopony would think it was actually her, said "If you had told me before we came here that you were planning on using the Eye to disguise yourself I would have given you some lessons on how to block the Hive Mind. We shouldn't be risking this, as the Hive Mind can damage those that aren't used to it and we cannot risk losing you before we finish what we started."

"Everything is a risk when we deal with Darkstar," Crimson commented, rubbing his head some more, "I will risk a little pain to secure the Elements of Chaos and give this world some more time before Darkstar does whatever she's doing."

"Shh, here comes Nightmare," Midnight said, spotting the Princess as she walked across the grass to where they were sitting, "Princess Nightmare Moon, I'm glad that you could give us a moment out of your busy schedule."

"Its more like the schedule that my sister wants me on," Nightmare huffed, eyeing the two changelings standing beside Midnight, paying close attention to the one rubbing its head every now and then, "Midnight, I know you likely brought these changelings to add them to Darkstar's army of followers, but I have advise you against giving her any more aid."

"Excuse me?" Midnight asked, confused as to why Nightmare would tell her to stop what she was doing.

Nightmare's eyes darted to the changelings around her, a queen and a guard she noted, before sighing and deciding against her better judgement to move this indoors. She needed Midnight on her side, so they could find Crimson and enlist his help on stopping Darkstar before she literally destroyed everything. Though she had to count herself lucky that her guards generally stayed away from her, which meant that she could easily tell Midnight what was going on without it reaching her sister.

"Some of my mages are helping my sister put together a gateway that will allow her to travel to whatever world she wishes," Nightmare explained, silently hoping that Midnight would trust her at this critical point, "and they're reporting that the awakening of such a gateway will literally destroy everything, as she's planning on invading the Prime Equestria once more. If she's allowed to open that gateway for more than a few minutes then it will devour Crimson's world, which will set off a chain reaction that will destroy every world in existence. I'm not sure if my sister even cares about what she's trying to do, so I have to ask you to stop aiding her and help me devise a plan to stop her.

Midnight, I need you to look over these reports, help me find Crimson, and then convince him that his world is in more danger than he could possibly know."

"Um, may I take a peek at those?" Crimson asked, hoping that his act as a curious guard might succeed.

"Oh drop the act for her Crimson," Midnight said, causing Nightmare to raise her eyebrows as the flames raced over the changeling to reveal a unicorn wearing a golden necklace with an emerald in the center, "We planned on coming here to take the Elements of Chaos, so we could save the world from choking, and that meant that we needed something to get him through the guards without being seen."

"The Eye of the Changeling, of course," Nightmare commented, understanding why Crimson wasn't appearing as an alicorn, "I am quite surprised that you managed to find it so quickly. I suspect that my nephew Ebon found it somewhere and hid it where only you could find it. Now, what's this about taking the Elements of Chaos? If we're going to act against my sister than I'm going to need to know how we're going to go about doing it."

Not even an hour later the Element Bearers, each accompanied by a changeling guard and baring a map of where the Elements were located, separated and went their separate ways. Their plan was simple, follow the maps and find their way to the locations of their Elements, where they would reacquire them and then regroup at the castle. Nightmare Moon, on the other hoof, would be accompanied by the Changeling Queen, who she discovered was the long thought to be dead Queen Meta, while she delved into the castle and recovered the pieces of Order's state and Nova's horn.

If she was going to go against her sister once more than she could need to make sure that her allies got something better than one of the Princesses of Shadowlot, like the Spirit of Harmony and the King of Light.

"Are you sure about this Midnight?" Crimson asked, running alongside Midnight and her guard, "Are you absolutely sure that we can trust Nightmare Moon to uphold her end of the deal and continue to aid us till we stop her sister?"

"Crimson, you saw the report like I did," Midnight replied, moving across the street while avoiding the shadows that were walking around, "if that gateway opens then everything dies. Darkstar is going to destroy each and every world in a single instant, which is something that we need to stop at all costs. I trust Princess Nightmare Moon to do the right thing, which at the moment is giving us all the help we need to get the Elements, our missing allies, and then an escape route."

"I trust your judgement on this then," Crimson commented, spotting a stone pillar ahead of them, with a familiar gemstone set in the center of it, "Well I'll be, she let us right to the Element of Darkness. Now, if I were Darkstar I would have placed a lock on this one Element that would prevent it from leaving until the other five were removed from their positions."

"I'm starting to hate it when your right," Midnight moaned, her magic search finding a spell that fit what he was speaking of, "Tell the others to remove their Elements the moment they find them and then get out of there. If Darkstar is attuned to these pillars then I don't want them anywhere near them when the Element gets removed."

The changeling guard nodded and relayed the message to his comrades that were following the Element Bearers, each of which sent back a reply to verify that the message had been received. The Queen was also informed, so their newest ally would know how much time she had before she had to be back at the front of the castle with her things. Not a moment later the sky above them shimmered and Crimson spotted six separate colors surrounding Shadowlot, which he assumed were the barriers the Elements produced, before one of them faded. Crimson knew what happened before it had been reported in, one of the Elements had been removed and the barrier it had produced had been stripped from the sky.

"Good job Angelshy," Midnight commented, naming the pony who took the Element, "Come on girls, get the rest of them before somepony tells Darkstar."

The sky shimmered not a minute later, though the blue barrier dropped and told them that Pinkamena had found her Element without too much trouble. Before the sky had a chance to make the barriers fade a third barrier, the orange one Crimson noted, shattered as well and robbed the city of half of its protection. Crimson noted the Elements of Chaos were making decent progress, but then the fourth barrier, the red one, shattered into pieces and they fell from the sky, crashing around the city. Not a moment later Crimson could hear the shadows screaming, which meant that they knew the barriers were failing and that it was a matter of time until Darkstar found them. That was seconds before the fifth barrier, the purple one, shattered like those before it, leaving them with one more Element to grab.

Midnight, not wanting to waste a precious second, threw her magic around her Element and ripped it from the pillar, shattering the magenta barrier in the sky and exposing the city to Darkstar's enemies.

"Let's go," Midnight said, stashing the gemstone in her bag as they began the trek back to the castle.

Along the way they found shadows running for their lives, screaming about the barriers being down and that they were totally exposed without them. Some, Crimson noted, were pointing up at the sky with joy in their eyes, almost as if they had been wanting this since the barriers had been put up. As they slowly drew closer to the castle Crimson ignited the necklace he wore and his guard guise reappeared, allowing him to blend in once more. Once his group reached the castle he spotted Nightmare Moon standing outside, though once she spotted them she beckoned with her wing and the royal guards let them pass.

The guard apparently thought they had been in the city and came to help, but Crimson wasn't complaining as they made their way right into the passageway that Nightmare lead them to.

"We need to hurry before my sister notices," Nightmare said, leading them through the castle until they came to a deserted passageway, "This tunnel will lead you down to the train tracks that head to Ponyville, where I keep a spare train hidden in case something similar to this happens. You'll notice a lever near the main one, if you pull that it will activate the secondary track that I had designed to lead into the Evergleam Forest, which will get you close to the ruined castle. I intended for this to be my escape route in case my sister was under attack and could have lost, but you need it more than me right now. Take the bag in the train and resurrect Order and Nova, though they'll need to be filled in the moment they're back.

I will join you in the castle when I am able, but make sure to keep those Elements safe and restore the Tree when things here die down."

Midnight nodded and the group left Nightmare behind, leaving her to deal with her sister and whatever mood she was in, while they made their way to safety. Midnight prayed that Darkstar was too occupied to notice what was happening in her city.

---------------------------------------------

"So the barriers are gone and the Elements have been taken," Darkstar commented, mostly to herself as she stood high over the workers that were working on her gateway, "No matter, there is nopony foalish enough to attack me while I am in my city. I will find Crimson and end his life before I begin my invasion of his world. Soon none of his plans will matter and he will understand that I cannot be defeated."

As she laughed the workers shuddered as they listened, unaware of the danger they were in the moment their master activated the gigantic gateway for the first time.