Twilight Sparkle Vs. Paintball

         Twilight's POV:

     I sat and regulated my breathing, taking slow, calming breaths as I tried to get over what I'd just done. I'd been coming back from looting a directory stand to find that Celestia had been near my fort! In a blind panic I'd whipped out my weapon and fired, hitting her straight in the rump and knocking her down the stairs that appeared right in front of her.

    There were two things wrong with this:

    1: I'd just shot my mentor in the rump, and

    2: I'd caused her to fall down the stairs

    I hoped she was okay. But then Luna had come whipping around the corner and charged straight towards my fort, waving the image of a white flag. I raised my own and let her fly up to me on the catwalk, and we talked in hushed whispers as we watched from the towers.

   Luna dropped all pretense of the royal we way of speaking as she talked. "I wanted to find you. Well, you and your friends, which, by the way, you can summon into the game when you get out, also known as when you get shot."

   I replied in another whisper, "Really? Why there?" She turned and looked at me. "That's the gear room," she answered, putting special emphasis on those two words.

  I blushed. "Oh. Right."

  And we sat and negotiated an alliance as we watched the thirty-second floor of the library carefully.

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  Nightmare Moon's POV:

   I stalked along the edge of the fort me and Sombra had put together, immediately rallying together in an alliance. Together we'd been hunting for Luna, but so far, no cigar. She'd hidden herself really good, or she'd already made an alliance with somepony else, and depending on who that pony was, she was marked as an enemy.

  Sombra was scouting the library as a shadow while I guarded our fort, looking for Luna and any enemies along the way. He'd taken a pencil and a directory I was able to snitch from a table. I'd taken everything off that table that was useful, even things that weren't.

  But when Sombra got back, I was going to use Luna's memories and a directory to find some spellbooks with spells so advanced and complex it took a memory like a camera or the book itself to even use the spell. Maybe even find some glyph books.

   For the time being however, I saw a shadow slink its way towards the fort, sliding up the wall and meeting me. He grabbed my directory with his magic and took everything he'd marked on his directory and copied it onto mine: three enemy forts and Luna's default ball of magic, half-intangible, as if she'd started to shape it but stopped, and it was carrying traces of her magic, so he was absolutely sure.

  "Crystals," he said to me as I grabbed my map back from him and transformed into my own shimmering mist, answering him before I left, "Of course I'll be careful, silly. Guard the fort with your life and your gun."

  And I left, slithering over the wall and across the floor, following where the directory said to go as I headed towards the spellbook section.

  I didn't notice it until later, but a black flash of color peeled away from me and ran in the opposite direction as I continued down the rows of bookcases.

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  Cadence's POV:

   Chrysalis came dashing into our fort, which was a ledge high above the fiftieth level, where the levels stopped being separate floors so much as they were a ramp that spiraled upwards, labeled only by the signs along the gilded railings. As a child, I had become very familiar with this library, as it was the only place Twilight had ever wanted to go.

   Thusly, I remembered the ledge on which Shining Armor had proposed to me even better than the rest of the library, so we set up our base camp there. Chrysalis still was more than a bit apologetic about that whole fiasco, but since we'd become friends again, the holes that peppered her body and wings had disappeared, along with her horn straightening and filling out.

    She explained this as that when a changeling grew hungry, its horn grew jagged. If it allowed itself to dwell on its hunger, or started to starve, the holes appeared or grew larger. Some of the changelings had been completely swallowed by the holes growing on their bodies before the queen had been forced to set her sights on her former friend's kingdom and attack.

     I'd forgiven her, of course, and invited her to game night to calm the tension between my aunt Celestia and Chryssy. She'd admitted to me that she'd been planning on taking a few hits from Celestia, maybe two or three, to make up for beating her in the magic duel and giving her a headache, but I'd convinced her to just let what happened happen and enjoy the game.

    She zipped up to me and bounced up and down twice. "You need to get the remote ready! Nightmare's headed that way!"

    I started. Nightmare Moon, Celestia had explained to me, was my third aunt, technically, but had merged with Luna as the result of an evil spell that gave them a nasty personality and aunt Dream's form. Not nice, but it did teach the two of them a few things about magic and what spells ponies should handle with caution.

    I grabbed the remote and grinned. I'd rigged the spellbook section with a net, thinking I could scoop up Twilight and have her join our team, but aunt Dream was even better. If she refused to join, I could shoot her and send her to the gear room. Perfect.