A mere shadow

The work day has ended and the nightclubs haven't started up yet, the sunlight is failing as Celestia keeps it on it's course and the gentle moonlight is taking it's place. Two ponies make their way through the mostly empty streets of Canterlot.

"You ready?" Shadow asks.

"I think the question is more along the lines of, are you?" Dawn replies with an edge to her voice.

"Why is THAT th-"

"After all, I was just coming along and doing what you told me to do, you were the instigator."

"If you think about it, Ageus was the instigator." Shadow shoots back.

Dawn lowers her head shamefully and mumbles, "I'm sorry Shadow, I don't think I'm ready at all..."

"The sooner this whole ordeal is over the better."

They stop a little ways away from the draw-bridge of the castle. There are two solar unicorns just leaving and lunar unicorns, clad in the armor of the Royal Lunar Guard, taking up their places.

"Come on, Dawn, I'll do all the talking, but you have to come along and give me moral support at least." Shadow whispers to Dawn as they make their way over the draw-bridge, they stop just short of the guards as they cross their spears and command, "HALT! State your business inside the castle."

Shadow takes a slight step forward, signifying that she's the spokespony, "We have important information for the captain of the lunar guard." She states boldly.

"Give us the information, and we will give it to Captain Echo Shade."

"No, we will only speak to your captain."

'Cause there's no way I'm telling you two that it was me and my friend that stole the relics. You'd arrest us on the spot!

After an uneasy moment of silence the guards come to a solution, "Very well, tell me your name and what this information is about at the very least."

"Hmm... Very well, tell him that it's Shadow and Dawn. We have information about the stolen relics and we will only talk to him."

The guard nods and levitates a scroll and quill out, after a moment he sends it off in a burst of magic.

"Um... Are we just supposed to wait here?" Dawn whispers to Shadow.

"I guess so..."

And so they wait, thoughts flying through Shadow's head like a whirlwind.

What if he immediately knows? And doesn't let me explain my side of the story? Aegeus has been responsible for so many thefts... And it's not like he has the relics, I do. If every thing goes according to plan he'll never lay a hoof of them anyways.... But he could just take the relics and not care about Aegeus.... The only reason I ever took them in the first place is so he would be put behind bars!

Shadow stops her thoughts in their tracks, she's never been this nervous with much more dangerous things than this before...

Of course he'll want to capture this criminal... There isn't any reason he shouldn't...

* * *

Echo Shade paces his office, what he probably should do is take a couple guards and return to Shadow's house, arrest her on the suspicion that she is the thief and search her house. The evidence all points that way, she and her friend, Dawn, had visited the museum and that night the pegasi had broken in stolen the relics...

His thoughts are disturbed as a scroll materializes above his head, he picks it up and spreads it out on his desk.

Captain Echo Shade,

There are two pegasi at the gate claiming to have information on the stolen relics, their names are Shadow and Dawn, and they will only speak to you.

Sincerely, Dusk

Pushing his thoughts to the back of his mind Echo Shade spreads his wings takes off for the gate.

* * *

As Echo Shade draws nearer Shadow sets her face into an expressionless mask. He lands between the guards and the mares.

"Shadow, Dawn... Come with me please." He says after a moment of studying them, Shadow's expressionless mask and Dawn's nervous demeanor. He takes off with the mares right behind him, and instead of going back to the castle he heads up and sits on a cloud.

"Echo Shade..." Shadow says, not quite knowing how to tell him.

"You have information on the lost relics." He replies.

"Yes... And, um, the certain ponies that stole them..."

Dawn breaks in here much to Shadow's surprise. "There are two mares, they stole the relics... But you see, they didn't want to. An evil stallion captured one and threatened her if she didn't get the relics for him. She could have gotten away if she tried but she wanted to think that the stallion has power over her. She agrees to get the relics then finds her friend and tells her the plan of stealing the relics but not giving them to the stallion until they get some help. But they're afraid that the stallion they come too won't help them, and will just lock them up in jail and try to defeat the stallion himself. But he really need somepony, like the mare that was captured, to help him otherwise things won't end well...."

Echo Shade looks at Shadow with a new respect in his eyes, "You were that afraid that I was going to lock you up, but yet you still came to me for help... That day when I found you in the forest knocked out....  That was His doing wasn't it?"

Shadow let out a breath she didn't know was holding, "Yes... And I was trying to be fairly obvious to you when we came to the museum the day before. I... I was hoping..."

To tell the truth she doesn't know what she was hoping, but the look in the black stallion's eyes tells her that he understands.

"The relics are safe then, so... What's the plan?"

Shadow relates her plan to Echo Shade as they fly back to her house. Shadow will turn up with the relics with Dawn not far behind. Echo will 'happen' upon the exchange and recognizing Ageus as a criminal proceed to arrest him, if he resists Shadow and dawn will help restrain him.

"It's too bad we don't have a unicorn to help us." Remarks Dawn.

"The fewer ponies that come along, the better. I can make myself almost undetectable and he will already be expecting Shadow and most likely you as well Dawn. After all, it was reported that two ponies, not one, broke into the museum..."

They landed and Shadow winced and stumbled as her leg had grown stiff during the long flight, she spread her wings for balance and one of them landed on Echo's shoulder startling him.

"Shadow?" He notices her favoring a leg and then sees the white bandage on it. Mentally berating himself for not noticing earlier or remembering the fact that one of the intruders had gotten injured he puts out a wing to steady her. "I'm an idiot, I should have noticed that earlier, and remembered the fact that one of you had gotten injured..."

Dawn watches the interlocked wings and obvious note of concern in Echo's voice with certain amusement, she so called it.

"I'm fine, it's just stiff... That's all..." She glances back at their wings, then looks at Echo, they blush and step away from each other.

Barely suppressing a snicker, Dawn trots between the two embarrassed pegasi. "Well come on then, we don't have enough time to stare into eachother's eyes all night."

"Dawn, we glanced at each other for a second. It does not qualify as staring into eachother's eyes!" Shadow storms past the gleeful Dawn and put on her pre-packed saddlebags, then tossed the other pack to Dawn. “Do you have everything you need Echo?” She asks turing back to the stallion, he nods and they take off again towards the edge of the Everfree where Shadow had woken up. Aways from the clearing Echo Shade lands separates from the mares he would sneak up while

Shadow and Dawn were talking to the villains. The mares land and Dawn remains a few yards back cloaked in the shadows.

* * *

A grey earth pony stallion with a brownish mane stands nervously in the middle of the clearing, he'd been here last night as well but nopony had come. He was just about to resign himself to the wrath of Ageus when out of the shadows a cloaked figure arrives.

“Do you have the relics?” He asks, thankful he kept his voice steady.

“Where is Ageus, is he so much of a coward that he has to send out one of his lowly slaves?” Shadow challenges, grateful herself that she was able to maintain such a regal and challenging tone.

Before the earth pony could reply an equally challenging voice rang out behind him, “Are you so much of a coward than you keep your friend behind you in the shadows?” A tall figure in a cloak strides out from the trees and shoves the earth pony back towards the trees. “You have the relics I presume?”

“Don't I always achieve what I want?”

“If that were the case I would be behind bars, wouldn't I Shadow?” He beams inwardly at the quick flash of anger that rises to the mare's eyes.

Shadow opens one of her saddlebags and pulls out the sapphire statuette, she glances past the stallion in front of her and sees Echo Shade standing there. He nods slightly and starts towards Ageus.

“So you do achieve certain things you wish to.” The emphasis Ageus placed on the word 'certain' grinds on Shadow's patience. But Echo Shade is only a few feet away now.

“Well, what do we have here? I see a known criminal, and the thief that stole the relics. How very nice.” Echo Shade, now standing directly behind the other stallion proceeds to sweep the legs from under him and pin him on the ground. “You, sir, are under arrest.”

Dawn leaps forward with a net woven from the fiber of a plant that nullifies magic power, in other words, putting the net on somepony like Ageus would effectively strip him of his magic until it is removed.  But she isn't fast enough and in a flash of light from the unicorn's horn she vanishes.

“WHAT IN LUNA'S NAME DID YOU DO TO HER?!?!” Shadow yells in her fury grabbing the net from where it lay on the ground and thrusting onto Ageus, pulling it tight with the help of Echo Shade.

Even on the ground and tied up as he is Ageus couldn't prevent himself from cackling, “Oh, she's not dead. Yet.”

Shadow stops any further remark with a blow to his head, knocking him out. “You. Monster.”

Echo drapes his wing across her shoulder as she stands where she last saw her life-long friend. "He did say she wasn't dead."

"Yet. That she wasn't dead. Yet. Implying that she would die a long and painful death."

"He will tell us where she is. Don't worry."

"I wouldn't count on it."

She shrugs his wings off her back and strides back Ageus pulling back her hoof to strike his face again, but Echo Shade catches it and twirls her around.

"Violence is not the answer here. There are many skilled unicorns at Canterlot, we will get her back."

The look in his eyes, the... Love? She saw there made her stop. "You're right, violence is not the answer. We need to take him back to Canterlot." She picked up the relic where it had been dropped and replaced it in her saddle-bags. "We need to go."

Echo Shade swats a mosquito then joins Shadow by the prone form of Ageus, he wants to give her a reassuring look but she's pointedly looking away. Together they pick up the netted figure and begin the flight to Canterlot.

About five minutes into the flight Echo's breathing becomes ragged and labored. This surprises him since they are barely over the treetops and he can fly for miles without tiring, even carrying something. Besides the fact that half of Ageus really isn't all that heavy. He concentrates on flying ignoring Shadow like she's ignoring him.

Shadow is not actually ignoring Echo Shade, in fact she's practically staring at him, wondering why in Luna's name he looks

so very tired and why is breathing is ragged. Just five minutes ago he had as much energy as she does. She's about to offer to carry Ageus herself or that they rest, when he collapses. Suddenly weighed down with the whole weight of Ageus she barely has time to grab Echo's tail in her teeth. It's too dense to land and she see's no clearing within a reasonable distance. With each passing second the pain in her neck and the strain in her wings increases.

She sighs as she comes to a decision.

Shadow untangles her hooves from the net, letting the unicorn stallion fall to the trees below. Then she lets go of Echo's tail, swoops down and catches him neatly in her hooves. Now with the pain in her neck practically gone and the strain in her wings greatly diminished she turns and heads towards her house.