As their battle intensified, both Lightning Dash and Shadow Blaze felt somewhat a pleasant sensation. As fellow Knights of Harmony, they hardly had a chance to go full out against each other and their rivalry always kept themselves at an edge. Suddenly, hoof connected to hoof and an impressive shockwave knocked even the prepared Nightmare Moon out of her balance for an instant. Both Knights parted and looked at each other from afar, both of them not even close to become tired as yet and none ready to assume the weakest sign of defeat.

“Your skills are impressive,” said the black alicorn, her smile never fading. “Well, let’s see how you deal with unforeseen complications.”

Charging her horn with magic, the alicorn aimed it at the ceiling where a massive cloud cover started forming above the fighting duo. They then shot against each other, none of them giving a damn to the fact that the temperature had cooled about two degrees in less than a second.

****

Scarlet Boulder hid herself behind a stone wall. Her opponent, not able to foresee this, punched right at the hard stone, even if her strength was enough to break through. For Scarlet Boulder, that meant a breach and with a quick punch on the stone wall, it cracked effortlessly and parted in many smaller stones, her hoof passing through it uninterrupted and connecting right into Night Cloud’s chest.

Being thrown backwards by the strong attack, the unicorn mare looked deeply at the red earth mare, anger filling her up, “You’re giving me the nerves already…”

“I’m not giving you anything, silly! Well, maybe a punch or two…” Scarlet Boulder grinned at her.

“How can someone be so impulsive? Don’t you ever stop to listen to the world around you?”

“Of course I don’t,” Scarlet’s sincere smile surprised Night Cloud. “The world is always moving, always walking to a future. Ponies should not stop to listen or they would be left behind. The beauty of the world we live in is its ability to change and evolve and that’s what I’m always listening to. But and you? What are you listening to right now?”

Taken aback by the question, Night Cloud raised an eyebrow, “You know I’m your enemy, right?”

“You are?” Scarlet asked really surprised. “That I remember, my only enemy is Nightmare Moon. She’s an evil pony that must be stopped so Princess Luna comes back. By the way, do you know her?”

“Nightmare Moon and Luna are one and the same,” Night Cloud answered.

“Of course they are, silly,” Scarlet grinned. “But being the same doesn’t mean they aren’t different.”

“You’re not making any sense…”

“Yeah, sometimes life doesn’t make a lick of sense…” Scarlet looked up at the canopy. Among the slowly moving leaves, she could, sometimes, make the form of the moon shining softly into the night.

Night Cloud saw on that the perfect opportunity to attack… only to look at Scarlet Boulder curiously, “You’re… not worried about fighting me?”

“We were fighting?” Scarlet Boulder looked at her again, smiling. “I remember us trading a few attacks. But if it was a fight your armor wouldn’t be in such a shape, neither would mine.”

Night Cloud looked at her puzzled now, “What are you meaning with that? I’ve always been going full force on you!”

“No, you haven’t. You’re holding back, I can feel it,” Scarlet Boulder said with a smile. “Whenever you touch the ground, you’re hesitant, almost as if you don’t want to fight.”

“I-I do not!” Night Cloud yelled at Scarlet.

“Then why haven’t you attacked me when my guard was fully open?” Scarlet Boulder grinned. “The armor you use, it’s called Harmony Armor. Even if yours are a bit different, it is the same as mine.”

“What does that have to do with me holding back?”

“During trainings, my friends and I had to use our full strengths so we could get used to it…” without much of a warning, Scarlet Boulder seemed to disappear from Night Cloud’s view only to reaper at her left side, a powerful punch throwing the Nightmare Shadow a couple meters to her left and, upon touching the ground, the momentum pushed her back another half meter.

Night Cloud looked at her scared and then felt a breeze on her side. Looking there, the plates of her armor located there were completely destroyed, leaving her unprotected coat beneath it.

“All the six of us have trained on full strength for two reasons. The first, so that we could develop our powers even further, the second, so that our armors could endure stronger attacks,” Scarlet Boulder said with a smile. Night Cloud though, gave a couple of steps back.

“You’re monsters…” she said. “You… shouldn’t be that powerful! You… Y-you took too much time to find us in those caverns!”

Scarlet Boulder shook her head, “Actually, no. We noticed instantly. We were reporting to Princess Celestia before getting there.”

“Y-you’re lying…”

“Well, I could be. Honesty is Shadow Blaze’s virtue…”

Then Night Cloud’s eyes widened even more, “Shadow Blaze? You mean… one of our brothers?”

“Hmmm… he did say something about him being a Child of the Night or something…”

Night Cloud giggled then. “So… he’s as powerful as you?”

“Even stronger indeed!” Scarlet Boulder said with a smile. “Both him and Lightning Dash and Ice Sapphire are the most powerful of us all.”

“So it’s true…” Night Cloud said with a smile. “Our Mother had a spy among Celestia’s numbers…”

“A spy?” Scarlet Boulder looked at her curiously.

“Shadow Blaze… He works for our Mother… We were told that one of Mother’s children was infiltrated in Celestia’s numbers, we just never though he would be so powerful!”

“Shadow Blaze isn’t a traitor!”

“Of course he’s not. However, with whom is his loyalty? Your loved Sun Princess or Our even more loved Mother?”

“He’s loyal to us, his friends! He won’t harm us!”

“Our Mother is in good hands now! Thank you for bringing our true leader to her!” Night Cloud smiled and prepared to attack Scarlet Boulder again, “I may not be strong enough to defeat you, but I’m going to give you a lot of trouble!”

****

Lightning Dash performed a back-roll just in time to avoid a large ice stone, big enough to easily crush a full grown pony, Celestia excluded. As soon as it broke apart against the floor, though, Shadow Blaze used the mist it created to attack Lightning Dash by surprise. The strong punch of the earth pony sent the pegasus flying backwards, but Lightning Dash just turned in mid-air, placing both hindhooves on the wall behind him and shooting himself against Shadow Blaze once more.

The earth pony jumped backwards, his four hooves meeting against the cold surface of another falling ice stone, giving him impulse to go higher still. Before the stone could destroy itself with the impact against the ground, Lighting Dash got under it and, focusing his magic, sent it back up against Shadow Blaze. The earth pony, gotten by surprise, charged his attack and destroyed the incoming ice stone, only to find the same trap used against him.

However, instead of punching his enemy, Lightning Dash pressed a hoof against his neck and the whole earth pony’s body against the wall.

“Wake up, Blaze! She’s just using you! She’s not your mother yet, but Nightmare Moon!” Lightning Dash tried again.

After a cough, Shadow Blaze tried to take the hoof from his neck, “You know… nothing…”

“Then help me… Help me get Princess Luna back! Then you can tell me what really happened…”

Shadow Blaze then kneed Lightning Dash’s belly and, in that moment of surprise, the earth pony turned in a back-flip and kicked Lightning Dash’s muzzle with his hind hooves, falling back safely at the floor. The pegasus looked at him, his wings flapping strong still. Besides their strong and serious battle, both ponies could feel each other enjoying the battle. A smile crossed both their faces.

“You won’t surrender, neither will I…” Lightning Dash said as a matter of fact. “The first to lose admit he’s wrong?”

“Suits me fine.” Shadow Blaze agreed, his four hooves erupting in flames.

Electric sparks enveloped Lightning Dash’s hooves as well, “So be it!”

Shadow Blaze jumped against Lightning Dash once more. From her vantage point, Nightmare Moon had cancelled her ice storm, now just watching their fight. They were a match to the long gone Knights of Harmony. Maybe Celestia continued the order in her absence? No. Or else, her Children, specially the Nightmare Shadows, would have said to her.

****

Night Cloud shot another magical blast against Scarlet Boulder, which simply jumped to the side. Getting furious against the earth mare, the unicorn charged her horn to cast her most powerful spell. However, Scarlet Boulder looked at her still smiling. Upon seeing a dark cloud slowly growing from Night Cloud’s horn, she jumped backwards and kicked a stone against it, only to see the stone be consumed by the dark cloud.

“Surprised huh?” Night Cloud chuckled. “My Dark Matter Cloud will dissolve anything that it touches!”

The earth mare’s smile, then, faded, “So you’re fighting serious?”

“Don’t come with that bullshit of you be just playing! When you broke my armor, you got me distracted so my magic diminished!” She straightened her body and took a step forward, “What are you going to do?”

Step after step, Scarlet Boulder walked towards the cloud that surrounded her enemy completely. As her body touched it, Night Cloud firstly thought she would scream in pain, but nothing came. Not too long later, Scarlet Boulder appeared right in front of her, having crossed the whole cloud and without any damage to her armor at all. The Nightmare Shadow’s eyes widened a lot more and before she could say anything, Scarlet Boulder punched her right in the chest. The impact sent the unicorn flying backwards, her cloud slowly dispersing, and a couple trees breaking under the pressure of her body, the chest plate completely gone after the attack.

Night Cloud got up and looked at Scarlet Boulder, fear in her eyes, “That was… That was moon metal… how could you break though it?”

“So your armors aren’t magical?” Scarlet Boulder asked. “Well, that makes mine a lot more powerful than yours. As you can see, I was playing. I don’t like to hurt other ponies. I prefer to give them a chance to be happy, to make a choice for a better future. But it seems you already made yours right?”

Night Cloud slowly stepped back, “You’re a monster…”

Scarlet Boulder closed her eyes, “Monster, assassin, guardian, hero, villain… I swear I would be whatever Equestria needed me to. That’s what it means to be a Knight of Harmony. However, you can count your blessings. My General asked for prisoners, so I won’t kill you.”

“You… won’t catch me! I can teleport!”

“And I can track you. Geomancy, remember? Whenever you pop up, I’ll be there. And we’ll see who’s going to get tired first,” Scarlet Boulder said.

“You can’t be that fast!”

“I don’t actually need to,” Scarlet Boulder answered, her tone surprisingly calm.

“What?”

“Earth. It’s everywhere,” then, a small amount of earth rose from the ground and covered Scarlet Boulder’s hooves. Before Night Cloud could say anything, Scarlet Boulder disappeared from her sight, only to stand behind her. “By moving the earth around my hooves with my geomancy, I can move faster than any pony else.”

Night Cloud instinctively turned to face Scarlet Boulder and jumped backwards to get away from her, “I-i-it’s impossible! What kind of metal is your armor made of by the way? To resist my Dark Matter Cloud…”

“Metal?” Scarlet Boulder asked. “My armor is the representation of my wish to protect other ponies. It’s made by magic and enforced by my wish to protect others, different from yours.”

“Such a thing… doesn’t exist!”

Scarlet Boulder then only looked at her one more time deep into her eyes, “You can hear my thoughts. Wouldn’t you know if I was lying?”

“Dear Mother…” she said, “Please help me!”

“Oh, don’t bother her, please. She won’t be there that fast!” and then Scarlet Boulder launched herself against Night Cloud.

With her armor gone, the unicorn only closed her eyes and waited for the final blow, which never came. Opening her eyes slowly, she noticed Scarlet’s armored hoof stopped right in front of her eyes. Then, the Amazon softly placed her hoof on Night Cloud’s face and then smiled.

“Now I remember from where I know you…” Scarlet Boulder said.

“What?”

“About thirteen years ago… we were only five at Littlehorn, both going at school there…” Scarlet placed her hoof down, “I remember, your parents were royal guards, right? And you wanted to protect everypony… What happened to you?”

“What… you…” and finally Night Cloud’s ability, reading Scarlet’s thoughts, recognized her, “No… you couldn’t be…”

Scarlet Boulder giggled, “Yeah, I know, my mane wasn’t this untamed back then. I just grew tired of taking that long a care of it every day. But may I know why you decided to fight against pony kind?”

Night Cloud’s face closed in fury, “Or so you say! I wouldn’t expect anything from someone that works under that tyrant…”

“Tyrant?” Scarlet Boulder looked puzzled now.

“Celestia!” Night Cloud almost shouted in fury. “She thinks that she can choose which ponies live or die!”

“Oh? How comes?”

“You probably don’t know… but Celestia sent fifty ponies to a death trap in the Griffin Kingdom seven years ago.”

“You mean the mission to help the peace agreement between the griffin and hippogriff?” Scarlet Boulder asked, surprising Night Cloud. “It was not a death trap, silly. My parents were there and they’re not dead! Indeed there was a big fight there and many ponies lost their lives… But it was not Celestia’s fault. Some nasty griffins didn’t want peace and they attacked. As they returned, my parents left the Guards and joined my grandma’s rock farm where I grew up!”

“What? But Mother said it was Celestia’s fault…”

Scarlet Boulder closed her eyes, “It seems like you have been used, Night…”

“And I am very sorry for your loss, my little pony,” even Scarlet Boulder was taken aback by that voice’s owner. Celestia walked among the forest as if it was just a stroll by the park. “Night Cloud, is it?”

“C-C-…” Night Cloud gulped. “Princess Celestia?”

Much to the surprise of everypony, Celestia bowed to Night Cloud, “I’m really sorry for your parents, Night Cloud. That was a mission nopony suspected to take a turn to the worse. But I haven’t send ponies at my will. I asked for volunteers. Your parents were very dedicated to the Royal Guards, and their names shall be forever remembered as the heroes they were in that battle.”

“H-heroes?” she asked.

Celestia just nodded with a warm smile, “Two brave ponies that put themselves between the enemies’ spears and their targets. All the Guards mourned their pass, but when I was about to break the notice, their little child had already ran way and nopony knew where to.”

Night Cloud wanted to scream it was a lie, that Celestia was faking it all, that nopony was right only her Mother, but Celestia not even resisted her mind-reading abilities, different from her Mother that never let her listen to her thoughts. Celestia’s thoughts matched precisely what she said and Night Cloud was confused beyond words. Finally the unicorn mare couldn’t hold on any longer, broke down and cried.

Celestia softly hugged Night Cloud and turned to Scarlet Boulder, “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her. Lightning Dash and Blaze are in the castle deep in this forest. You must join then as soon as possible.”

Scarlet Boulder only placed a hoof on Night Cloud’s shoulder, “Don’t worry, friend. That monster that lied to you will pay! I will bring a pony which you can really call your Mother! I promise!”

And then, Scarlet Boulder turned around, rushing towards the old castle.

Author's Note

Finally chapter 13! Sorry guys. Took a really long while! Got some problems to solve though and I can't promise a scheduled constant upload of stories right now. I will try though. Thanks for your patience and hope you like it!