Rest had fallen short for me and earlier feelings of optimism were fleeing as I laid next to the window gazing upon the quiet night sky. Pegasi respected their curfews around this district for not soul was victim of my sight and not a single wing trilled above that reached my ear. The stars had lost their pride and wind was full of sloth. A garden of moonlight rained from above, the source was angled away and distant. I reached out placing my hoof on the window glass and was aware of the shadows that it cast in the moonlight on the floor aside me. I slid my hoof slowly down watching it descend like it was a distinct phenomenon being witnessed from afar.

I picked myself up from the floor and moved to the foot of the bed where I looked more closely at the birds that were positioned over the doorway. Each of the three species were so different and yet all three shared in the wonder of flight, a feature that I did not naturally have and with each passing moment I uncontrollably felt myself blaming myself for not persisting to make sure Hope was okay. I flailed at the stern gaze of the owl's preying eyes illustrated over and I pulled myself back down to the window finding a calming, yet spiteful agony in it once more.

To my surprise two indistinguishable birds danced in the background and I was drawn to watch them as they circled in the moonlight's gentle light in fair conversation. Several moments passed as the two small creatures soured before the two placed themselves on the adjacent building to me. The two I could see now where ravens of the night whom continued to speak whisper between themselves on their chosen perch before pivoting my way to allow me a better view of their structure. They both were of the typical black; however, their pupils reflected an uncanny purple in the moonlight as they patiently sat looking down near me at the world below.

Seconds morphed into minutes as the two ravens did not alter their gazes and it became increasing obvious that the two had fixated on something. The window prevented me from seeing what it could have possibly of been there, but as the gaze endured so did my curiosity and I was eventually driven into action. I arose from my position and proceeded onwards to the night world.

The house was quite and still as I followed the same path that I had used earlier to escape to find Hope missing. The exit was as last time silent as I hurried around the side of the building to find the two ravens instantly take flight. The two creatures circle above me precariously before taking in the direction of the Northwest, deeper into city grounds, engaging my attention and making it nearly impossible for me to ignore the situation that had already struck my interest. I gazed momentary around me to assess the risk, finding my earlier assumptions correct; the skies and the streets had suffered a death of activity that would be revitalized with the crack of dawn. I sparked my horn to boost the cloud walking spell to be safe causing myself to go momentary light-headed and acting against every other better judgement I had at the time I followed the wingspans in the night.

The streets held a gloomy sort of tranquility to them as each hoof step softly bounced off the clouds below in my modest gallop. Every few minutes or so I would catch eye with the ravens that were intermediately traveling, leading me forwards, but the majority of my gaze was fixated on the stars above with their light, the moon behind me with her grace, a single comet's bittersweet song, and how all of them worked together peacefully determined to maintain a balance through the night that Luna watched over. The whole night in itself reminded me of Luna and it left me to wonder what happens in the case that she fails to comfort the young filly in conjured distress or the defenseless soul bound to a night without dreams. Surely no pony alone, Alicorn or not, could watch over every pony and simply put I felt she couldn't. For seventeen years I have experienced the horror of nightmares over the years and only in one and one alone could I recall seeing Luna in the dreams.

I drew myself closer and closer to the heart of the city westwards following the ravens' proceeding into a new district. It was not hard to figure out the layout for the City of Wings; the elaborated housing with broad streets began to narrow gradually as I continued with the houses rescaling to in many situations only a fourth of their preceding counterparts.  The air was thickened and my view of Luna's gift began to become more obstructed through the quantity of smog that resided above this new district region. The clinging of metal bars smashing each other in ferocious rage echoed through the skies and resulting in artificial flashes of lightning in the distance. The clinging of the two alloys were unmistakably loud; however, every pony was sound asleep in the district as they had become accustomed to it, it seemed. My two guides seemed unaffected by the poundings and continued forward until the housing broke into a large ring in which there stood the port and the industrial center of the city, the grandest of our empire.

A medium sized fence had be fabricated around the plant and the gates were assured to be sealed. The fence served no function to the port for a fence could be simply flown over by any normal pegasus, especially in Cittàdiali. The fence instead acted as a civil guardian, protecting young fillies and colts from transcending into a location not suitable for them that would place their young lives in perilous circumstances. A long row of lifts aligned my left side of the interior and without getting any closer I could make out a tall cylindrical silo that belonged to the Serentian weather factory in the due center of my view. The right was composed of four to five large scale buildings without extrusions or identifying features that would indicate production bringing me to the conclusion that they might be used for storage; a theory that made since considering that Cittàdiali would need a considerable stock of necessities in the case that a disaster hindered intercity commerce. Lying beyond the buildings was a minimum of at least eight stallions working industriously on the frame of another structure, unidentifiable to me. A click, a flash of light, and a metallic cry followed each other in a rhythmic pattern; one right after another relentlessly.

The two crows I had followed had deteriorated from existence and I spun around finding no evidence of the whereabouts of the two feathered beasts. Originating from the center of the area, screams of metal engulfed the district as one of the smaller of the lifts on the left began to descend downwards. I witnessed six ponies make their down from the city in slow decent towards the lower port below; none of them had wings and none of them appeared to be workers. The hiss of wind appeared behind me and I leaped closer to the walls of the structures of the outer ring to stay out of sight. Two pegasi soared above, their eyes preying for something, and followed the six ponies down the hole. I watched in curiosity as they descended and turned to continued to indefinitely watch the stallions working on the structure in the distance. So much work had to be done by the group; however, they were making great progress through their synergy. The hole left by the lift was automatically covered up by a thin layer of cloud to prevent ponies from falling accidentally, and upon the layer touching down the stallions in the distance instantly took slack and recessed, catching my surprise and causing me to ponder.

They were not working because they were good employees, they were fearful of group that had just descended.

The streets and buildings had not changed in the time I was gone, and even though I had not paid close attention to the path I had traveled, the general shifts throughout the city served familiar and assured me that I was traveling in the correct path back. The mist of the air seemed to had spread farther than I could have imagined and the fibrous hands of smog reached to the corner of the district that was serving as a temporary place of rest. A black feather from a raven lied on the very edge of the final turn and I galloped gently towards it to pick it up. I placed my hoof on the feather and felt moisture embrace my neck. The house keeper's filly face was drowned in tears and as she looked up from her gaze three words departed her mouth: "Please, help her."

I led her back to the house and was stunned to find the door of the house was broken to pieces without need; the door had been unlocked beforehand. The interior of the house was trashed; cabinets and drawers had been ripped out of their slots and a variety of glassware had been thrown in anger against the walls. "What happened?" I demanded from the filly who was still in shock.

"Two black pegasi came her and attacked mama looking for something. I escaped out through a window before they arrived like mama told me; however, when I heard the screams of pain I ran as hard as I could away with tears gushing down my face looking for help. Not a single light was on and I was scared, so very scared when I ran into you!" the filly exclaimed almost hyperventilating.

I gave the young filly my attention and placed my hooves on her shoulder and mane, looking deep into her eyes in an effort to calm her through surprise. "Easy now, young one. I am going to find out what is wrong and where your mother is, and I know she is okay," I told the filly in the calmest voice I could manage.

"You promise!" the filly inquired with large eyes.

"I promise, cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye" I smiled at her pushing an imaginary cupcake in my eye. The filly broke a small smile and he tears ceased to flow down her face. "Now you have to promise me that you will stay here, I will be back in a few minutes." She nodded and I followed the debris throughout the house looking into each of the first few rooms, finding nothing. The master bedroom was no different being empty as well; however, as I motioned to depart the room I found a thin, dark layer of moisture trailing out into the hallway. I pursued the continuously widening path and found at several points the path was broken, continuing less than a foot ahead each time leading into my bedroom.  I pushed the door open slowly to find the mare lying in the center of floor causing me to twitch in horror; her eyes slowly followed my hoof steps as I approached her concerning.

"They came looking for you. They were looking for you and I did not tell them. I couldn't after all and I wouldn't because I promised her I would look after you," the mare breathed. Her body was in shambles with her hooves being displaced at their joints and cuts aligned her torso without order. The two attackers assulted her until they had deemed her useless and left her without help. None of the wounds were fatal; however, as a whole the mare was left in fatal condition. A light green rose was gripped tightly in her forehoof unsoiled or harmed. "Madam gave me this rose before she left telling me it will help us if we run into problems. I do not think his is what she would of had in mind. Promise me that my child is safe and that she will continue to be."

"I have made more promises recently than I would like to and I am not going to let you give me that responsibility," I commanded at the mare sparking my horn with blue light and inspecting the wounds of the mare closer, wrapping some of them gently with my magic with shards of fabric from a mauled sheet.

"I knew that bump on your head did not make sense. How do you have wings though?" the mare questioned.

"They are not real; mighty hard to tell otherwise though. My sister has a very skilled ability to create such things I guess." I informed her. The fragments of fabric were continuously being draped in blood and I feared that there was not enough I could do to slow down the bleeding.

"Thank you for trying, but I am afraid we are fighting a losing battle," the mare sighed.

"It is not over yet! Stay here with me!" I demanded of her.

"My name is Begonia," the mare supplied a slight grimace.

"Stay with it, Begonia!" I picked up the rose that fallen limp aside her with my magic and tried re-positioning her head and legs to allow more blood to stay near the vital organs. I took hold of the rose and when I took a firm grip on it the pedals shimmered a bright green aura. I had a feeling it was you. I let go of my efforts on Begonia and focused my magic on the rose. I shifted my magic to a green aura and the rose pedals spread out flat. The flower turned to green dust that scattered to the floor and formed a green circle of magic rose pedals around Begonia lifting her from the floor and surrounding her in a green aura. "She never stopped looking out for you," I smiled blissfully as the wounds on Begonia's torso shrank and her breathing rate steadied. She lost consciousness in exhaustion and I left her to sleep for the time being as the rose pedals continued to dance around her, mending the numerous minor cuts and bruising.

The filly had patiently awaited my return as she sat quietly beside the door. She opened her mouth to speak but I cut her short, informing her that her mother was going to be okay and thanked both of them for their hospitality. I sparked my magic and straightened up the house a little, reforged the door, placing it back on the hinges, and marveled at the filly's sudden confusion. "It is okay; I understand, but I do not belong here anymore. Allow your mother to rest peacefully and do not disturb her. And get some rest yourself, a young filly needs her sleep." I provided a final cheer of glee to the filly and hurried out the door without any more description.

Determined in rancor, I retraced my steps back towards the port with Luna's disk watching from above once more. The air was strained with tension in the high rising city and did not dare to speak the slightest whispers in fear of backlash from the bitter hunter. The port shared in this silence and the workers of the night were scattered throughout the facility keeping watchful eyes. Two stallions wore harnesses and were resilient pulling the manufactured structure that they toiled on before under a tarp and on wheels towards the grandest of the lifts.

I traveled alongside the right edge of the industrial circle and aligned the buildings of scale, which I was able to now testify as warehouses, between the group and I. Then using the shadows cast by the housing and the warehouses I crept my way forward which aided in my concealment. Rounding the storage structures I witnessed a Flight Corps Pegasus shouting commands at the workers loading the vessel, made inaudible by the hum of the warehouses' refrigerating systems. The soldier was of the lowly rank of a grade one lieutenant officer and held no right to be in uniform out of shift and especially no right to be giving orders to civilians. I waited and watched, and watched and waited until the task of moving the structure was complete and the lieutenant ordered the workers to gather through the common gestures to do so. Worker stallions motioned around the area and caused a momentary outbreak of chaos that allowed me to circumvent around the workers while distracted as get closer to the lifts. The crowd gathered and moved collectively to the warehouse that I was beside without word; a final worker had stayed behind for the moment and dialed in codes to a keypad beside the life before closing the pad and chasing the group inside.

The edge of the large lift cracked as the locks of the lift released and the enormous platform began on a slow descent down. I rushed forward and jumped a yard down onto the falling platform before a cloud cover placed itself over the humongous hole that formed for the lift departing. The cloud lock above touched the edges of the lift's boundaries and small mechanical components extended from the cloud that grasped onto the main cloud of the district sealing the hole off marking my officially depart from City of Wings for the port system below. I leaned my way over the edge of the falling platform and was quick to discover that the region above for industry was nothing compared to the dozens of square miles of metal and structures that laid on the surface below. The region was surrounded by small mountains at every angle forming a natural dome around the entire urban micro-city and isolating this valley from the world outside, save for three heavily guarded paths through the mountains, the main of which was sealed by a large mechanical door.

Earth pony workers gathered on the floor below awaiting the end of the lift's journey, and upon the distance being light enough, I hurdled myself to the Earth below and hauled into the shadows of the new region that I frankly did not know even existed. I rested out of sight and watched the ground ponies motion to retrieve this new item. One worker dressed in blue versus the orange of the group circled around the object in confusion, and it could be seen that he had not been expected the package to descend and was lost without any instructions. The pegasi that I had witnessed earlier swooped upon the inspector and after a very haste conversation, the stallion ordered his men to fall back and ignore the object. The pegasi watched with blistering eyes the workers leave and the larger of the two pegasi waved his hoof in the air upon their departure signaling the appearance of a new group of five stallions that grabbed hold of the structures foundation and collectively pushed it forward. The hoof steps of the workers acted as cover as I darted along the lines of shadows in slow, concealed pursuit.

The two pegasi hovered above and behind the group, supervising their movements. "You think this will work for us?" the smaller of the two dark pegasi questioned to the larger.

"Those idiots better damn well hope it is effective, or they will experience a fate I will promise is worth than death. We have already one thing not work out smoothly as we predicted tonight and I am not going to have two failures in one night. If this thing does not work, then everyone of those pieces of urban industrial scum are going to experience a place many magnitudes worse than Hell," the larger snarled.

"We were too impulsive tonight and we should've given it more time and thought."

"Screw time and thought! That bastard got lucky! I will find that lord and with Serentia now down two of the best captains, we will have our revenge! He will come hunting for that mare soon enough regardless and when he does we will succeed!"

"And what if no one shows up for her? I mean it is very possible that we traced the wrong magic."

"No! We were on the correct path and he is too honorable to leave her behind. Regardless, he has three days to appear and hand himself over or this mare is just a waste of our time and is expendable."

"You have got to be stupid to let a catch like that go in three days. Even if Armonia does not appear in three days, she is still valuable to someone powerful probably and she could be beneficial to us in other ways." the pegasus spun a coin around his hooves.

"Three days or we get rid of her," the larger one barked. "And you must be stupid to even thinking I was going to let anyone walk away from us. Why don't we just make giant posters and buy billboards to encourage recruitment! I mean, it is not like high-level treason is punishable severely in all of the governments around here or anything."

"Whatever," the pegasus waved the larger off in surrender. "I have no idea why I have to deal with you You have no sence of practicality."

"I will show you a sense of practicality!" The larger roared towards the smaller, who starred at the other unaffected by the threat. "Well someone has to keep you and your 'practicality' in line," the larger huffed causing a small burst of laughter to escape my throat. The two pegasi instantaneously stopped in their flight and motioned around causing me to flee into a quick alleyway. "Did you hear something?"

"I will check it out. Probably another one of those damn birds again." The smaller black pegasus began to move towards me while the larger continued to push the workers forward. The pegasus systematically checked every corner, every alleyway and every cold street light on his way back towards me and as he continued to get closer I could feel panic begin to trickle down my neck as sweat flooded. The wing flaps of the black pegasus echoed throughout my ears and alongside my heart beat, the two deathened me. The pegasus reached my alleyway and took two body lengths in when the two ravens from earlier flew past the pegasus and headed straight up skywards. The pegasus rolled his eyes and retreated back to the street. "Figured it was these damn birds, they are everywhere in this city," he cursed under his breath.

"That was a close one," a voice declared behind me. I flailed and my mouth opened to shout when a hoof pulled my muzzle shut and a second hoof kept me still. "Easy now," the voice commanded. I turned to see a long-time familiar face.

"Ambassador Legatus, what the hell are you doing sneaking up on me like that! Actually, what the hell you doing here!" I whispered aggressively.

"Oh Bladz, it has been years since I saw you. You're no longer a filly anymore I see, even though your mane is still styled essentially the same way."

"Why are you here?"

"Come on, walk and talk with me. I will explain on the way to where I am staying."

"They have abducted one of my friends, I cannot walk and talk right now."

"So? Running straight into an organized terror group with hopes that asking for your friend back is a better idea than walking and talking for a few minutes?" Legatus teased. I did not say anything and stood stubbornly knowing he was right. "That is what I thought, now let's walk and talk." Legatus grinned sharply as we continued down the alleyway.

"So? What are you doing under this city, Legatus?"

"I came interested with rumors about two of the captains, but when I got here I found something off and decided to stay to keep a watch out. Also, call me Eclipse, there is no need for formality here." the stallion smiled. Legatus had been staying at a high-comfort suite during his stay at almost no cost because how well he was at making friends with people. He pulled a seat from under a coffee table and invited me to sit down placing a cup of hot tea and a saucer in front of me. "I find this blend very delightful if you ask me," Eclipse proclaimed taking a sip from his own glass. "So what brings you here?"

"Lord Armonia instructed me to investigate some unusual activity in the area and that is how I got here. A hard landing placed my friend and I in need of care; however, and she had to be sent to the hospital. While I was still out of it and trying to recover, she got abducted by those two I am assuming."

"Oh, that does not sound like very much fun." Eclipse formed a frown upon drinking some more tea, and I took my first sip. "Pointless to stay up when we cannot do anything. Night is soon going to be over and we do not want to miss out on sleep while we can get it." Eclipse yawned. I was stern, yet I didn't argue. "Well I will catch up with you later," Eclipse finished his tea and placed it on the counter. "You can stay wherever you would like I guess, no where really for me to object to really."

"Le, I mean Eclipse, what were you doing up so late anyway?"

"These two birds kept pecking at my window. Got up to wave them away." Eclipse yawned and waved me a final goodnight.