The Umbral Shard

by Ponibius

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Thriller, Original Character, Royal Guard
Length: 31930

Twilight Sparkle has had to adjust to a great deal as Equestria’s newest princess. However, her routine grinds to a halt when a when One of King Sombra’s artifacts has resurfaced, an object whose dark reach threatens Equestria.

Twilight Sparkle has had to adjust to a great deal as Equestria’s newest princess—safeguard the Cutie Map, solving friendship problems, managing her new guard, and saving Equestria on a semi-regular basis. However, her routine grinds to a halt when a new threat emerges in the Smoky Mountains. One of King Sombra’s artifacts has resurfaced, an object whose dark reach threatens the whole region. With no time to lose, Twilight must gather her untested guard and face the malicious power of the Umbral Shard.

A Winningverse story.

Published 2016-12-27 18:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-02-06 21:34:56 UTC

Chapter 1

The Umbral Shard: Chapter 1

It felt good to get back to doing some science again. My old lab and everything in it had been lost when Tirek had destroyed the library, and while it still hurts to remember that event, I had at least gotten a start on getting myself settled in my new crystal-castle-palace-tree-thing. The major parts of the new floor plan were finished, having done things like assigning rooms and furnishing them, but I was still working on little details like what to call my new home. Getting that to happen was a project in of itself though, since the royal funds would have to be reallocated.

Still, I had at least gotten some of the equipment, tools, and materials I wanted for my new lab. Newly built shelves lined the walls, a third of their space covered by meticulously organized jars and boxes that held a multitude of alchemical and magical materials. Another shelf was filled with reference books on magical crafting. Along the back wall sat a long crafting table, equipped with a variety of tools I had purchased in Canterlot. In the center of the room was my alchemy table, loaded with bunsen burners, beakers, and tubes spread across its surface.

It was still a far cry from what I’d had in my old lab, but I was confident that it was only a matter of time before that was corrected. If I followed the plan I had outlined, the new lab would be even better than the old one. A big advantage of my royal status and new home was that I now had a lot of money and plenty of space. Even if it didn't feel close to a home yet.

I was in the middle of setting up my alchemy set when a burst of inspiration took me. A talk with Zecora had made me curious to try out a particular alchemical recipe. Her potion that allowed the drinker to look back into past had major potential: imagine if you could go into the past and see any historical event, or hear what was actually said instead of what was merely recorded. The potion could revolutionize the study of history, provided it could somehow be focused and made predictable in what it showed its drinker.

In addition to my hopes of improving the field of historical research, it would be a good way to make sure my alchemical tools were all working. Seeing nothing but a win-win scenario before me, I pulled out the alchemical materials needed for the modified potion and got to work.

It was sometime later when I heard somepony clear their throat behind me. “Highness, do you require assistance?”

I jumped at the sudden interruption and nearly knocked over a beaker filled with green glowing liquid. I snatched it with my magic and held my breath as it sloshed inside the beaker. The potion could have melted right through the table if it had spilled; either that or caused the table to get up and start walking around. It depended on how the potion interacted with the table.

After making sure the beaker was settled, I turned around to face the pony behind me. Standing there with a dull expression on her face was Captain Storm Kicker of the Royal—my guard. She was a tall pegasus mare, strong in build, and with a dual black and white mane and light-blue coat. The somewhat antiquated looking, ancestral full-plate armor she wore was painted crimson and her wingblades sat at her sides. She stared at me with half-lidded eyes, not seeming particularly pleased with me.

“Oh, Storm!” I gave her the best smile I could manage. She reserved that frown for when she was unhappy about something but didn't want to say what. She could be irritatingly formal at times. “I didn't hear you come in.”

“My apologies, Highness,” she said in a tone that wasn’t particularly apologetic. That made me try and think why she might be so unhappy, but nothing immediately sprang to mind.

Fishing for what might be upsetting my ever stoic guard captain, I said, “I was just setting up some of my equipment.” I gestured at the still as of yet unopened boxes sitting on one side of the room.

Her frown only deepened. “Do you require assistance?”

“It does seem like there is a lot to do,” I hazarded. Was she upset because I had done something mundane for myself again? She could get a bit prickly when I took care of certain activities that she deemed beneath my station as a princess. She had been less than pleased the last time I had taken out the garbage, reminding me how it undermined my image in the public eye when ponies saw me doing that, and had pointedly taken it out herself or gotten Spike to do it since.

To be fair, I had been ambushed by the paparazzi when I had done that, and had then gotten a rather scathing article written about me in the tabloids. So she probably had something of a point about that. Still, I didn't think it was too much for me to set up my lab the way I liked it while in private.

“Shall I call in your new guards to help?”

Her question had a pointed edge to it and it took me a couple of seconds to properly process what she was really saying. “Wait, did you say my new guards?” I felt a sinking feeling grow in my stomach.

Storm’s tone moved to a careful neutrality. “Yes, the new guards you're scheduled to meet in fifteen minutes."

I blinked. “That was today!?”

“It is,” Storm stated blandly. She pulled out a copy of my monthly schedule and presented it to me. The upcoming meeting with the new ponies in my guard was circled in red and was, in fact, fifteen minutes away. No, actually twelve minutes now that I took a moment to look at the clock.

It had been decided that I needed my own guard since becoming a princess. Only Storm had taken the post thus far due to a number of factors—the fact we didn't have room for the hundred guardponies of a Royal Guard company for one. Plans to construct a new barracks to house everypony were being put into place, but that type of undertaking took time.

Still, my new castle had more space than the library and we had decided some guard officers would be transferred to Ponyville. The fact my old home had been turned into a crater by Tirek had probably added a bit of emphasis to the need to bolster the number of guards I had on hoof to protect me. My fellow princesses had even mentioned the idea of going ahead and transferring a full platoon to Ponyville, even if the new barracks weren't nearly ready to house them yet.

But in the meantime, I had some good panicking to do over forgetting about the meeting with the first wave of my new guard officers. “Oh nonono! I lost track of time!” I was normally much better about that type of thing. It's why I made my schedule to start with, to avoid incidents like this one.

Storm did a much better job of retaining her composure than I did as she stood impassively before me. “Shall I delay the meeting, then?”

“Yes! No! I don't know!” I paced as I tried to think about the fact I now only had ten minutes before an important meeting. “I'm not ready! I mean I have a speech ready, the introductory brochures for Ponyville printed, and Pinkie’s probably on top of setting up a Welcome to Ponyville Party as we speak, but there’s so much more I wanted to do! What should I do?”

“First, I would suggest a few deep breaths.” Storm brought a hoof to her chest demonstratively. “Less panicking, more calming.”

“Right, deep breaths!” I took some deep breaths like Cadance had taught me. Nice, calming, not panic inducing breaths despite the fact I had every reason to panic.

After I spent a solid minute calming my breath, Storm asked, “Feeling better?”

I let out another long breath and nodded. “A little, yeah.”

Storm nodded. “Good. Now, what is your intention for the new soldiers, Highness?”

With the firm way she had said that, it was safe to say the new officers had already arrived at the palace. “How about you show me where they are? Lead the way.”

A long moment crawled past before Storm replied. “Perhaps a moment to ... compose yourself?” She cleared her throat and jerked her head ever-so-slightly at a nearby mirror.

A quick glance at the mirror quickly showed me what was wrong. My mane had become disheveled during the process of setting up my new lab and now sported some dirt that had covered the boxes the new shelves had been in. My coat had a layer of dust and chalk on it, and a black splotch covered part of my leg from when I had dropped a inkwell and splattered myself. My appearance was decidedly unprincessly and not how I should look for a first impression.

An awkward laugh escaped my throat. “Um, maybe I could take a few minutes to freshen up first? Maybe even put on my crown?”

“That might be wise,” Storm agreed with grave sternness.

“Mind holding down the fort while I take care of that?” I smiled, though it felt badly strained at the edges. I was dropping the ball for something I knew was very important to Storm and that wasn't making me feel really good. Though she always tried to hide what she was thinking behind that stoic demeanor, I had known my guard captain long enough to notice the slight skip to her step since the news we would be seeing more ponies joining my guard.

She inclined her head in affirmation. “It would be my pleasure, Highness.”

“I'll be with you in half an hour.” I turned to head to the bathroom but stopped after a couple of steps as something occurred to me that I should say. “Thanks Storm. Don't know what I would do without you.”

“I expect you would manage quite well,” Storm said. “You did before I joined you.”

“I guess,” I said. “I’d still have Spike around to help and it’s not like I'm completely helpless. Still, it's nice to have you around to help as well.”

A slight smile crept onto Storm’s face. “It is my pleasure to be of service.”

Forty-seven minutes late, I arrived in the throne room to meet with my new guardponies. I had tried to quickly clean myself up, though there was only so fast I could go if I wanted to be presentable. So that meant a nice shower, putting on some makeup, and putting my crown on. I had debated putting a dress on as well, but that probably would have been overdoing it and I was in a hurry.

Storm was waiting in the throne room with a trio of individuals, each of whom was wearing the red dress uniform of the Royal Guard. A pot of tea with an accompanying set of cups sat on the table and the four of them were in the middle of a conversation that cut off as I trotted into the room.

I put on the best smile I could for them, trying to show the confidence I wasn't really feeling at that moment. “Hello, everypony. Sorry for being late.”

“Royalty is never late, Highness, everyone else is just early.” Storm’s words had been courteous, but I could sense her irritation. To be fair, she had good reason to be less than happy with me, even if she was too polite to express them.

Deciding to move past that, I said. “So how about you introduce me to everypony, Storm.”

“Of course, though in one case introductions will not be needed.” Storm stepped aside to present the first new member of my guard—a pony I was already familiar with. “You remember Knight-Magus Twinkleshine, of course”

“That I do!” I hugged my old Canterlot friend and a wide smile grew on my face. “It’s great to see you.” After rekindling my friendship with Twinkleshine, I had found out she had joined the Royal Guard’s Magus Corps. Not too much of a surprise when she was a knight in the Order of Sol Invictus, where it was traditional for anypony in the Order to join the Guard.

Twinkleshine hugged me back, if a bit reluctantly, before looking me over. “It’s good to see you. Even if it is a bit of a surprise that I got assigned to your guard.”

“Being a princess does have its privileges considering it let me pull some strings to get you here.”

It had been a pleasant surprise to see Twinkleshine’s name on the list of potential officers for my guard, and I had quickly seized the opportunity. Storm had seemed reluctant to make my friend the head of the Magus Corps detachment of my guard, but in the end she had accepted what I wanted. Getting one of my friends into my guard did help me feel better about its creation. Even if I wasn't going to be nearly as lucky with everypony else who joined. Meeting new ponies was just something I was going to have to treat as an opportunity to make more friends, or even chances to solve their friendships problems. That sounded like something the Princess of Friendship should be doing.

“I'll say.” Twinkleshine’s eyes glanced about the throne room’s interior. “Nice new castle, a crown, your own guard. What’s not to like?”

My smile became rigid as she listed some of the big changes in my life. “It is taking a bit to get used to, to be honest.”

“Her Highness has adjusted quite well,” Storm said, inserting herself back into the conversation. “And I am sure having a friend will help her. As Princess of Friendship, it is only proper that she has friends.”

I couldn't quite place my hoof on it, but there had been something a little off with the way Storm had said that. Maybe she still had some reservations with me picking Twinkleshine because she was my friend. Friend or not, Twinkleshine was still qualified for the position, otherwise she wouldn't have appeared on the list the Royal Guard had given me to pick from. Whatever the case might be, I was sure it would work out, and Storm had agreed with me in the end.

“I’m sure this will work out just fine,” Twinkleshine said.

I smiled at Storm in an attempt to reassure her. “I think it's great that I'm going to have some friends around in my guard.”

Storm nodded in agreement. “As you say, Highness.”

Before we could continue, the deep voice of one of my other new guard officers spoke up with a sense of wry amusement. “I didn't realize we would be getting quite this warm of a reception, Captain.”

I turned my attention to the hippogryph by the name of Lieutenant Speedy Tracker. As was the case with all hippogryphs, Speedy had the head and forelegs of an eagle, the body of a lion, and the rear of a pony. He was tall, about Storm’s height, if not a couple inches taller, and had the strong, muscular body of someone who regularly exercised. He grinned widely and I couldn't help but notice a mischievous glimmer in his eyes.

Storm fixed the hippogryph with a flat look and spoke with a dry tone. “Twinkleshine has history with the Princess. You do not, Speedy.”

“Ah, yes, history.” Speedy nodded with false gravity. “The bedrock of all friendships.”

Storm looked him up and down. “And I see you have not changed.” Her words had been an attempt to sound serious, but there was more than a trace of familiar humor in her voice. Storm gestured at her fellow guard for my benefit. “Highness, this is 2nd Lieutenant Speedy Tracker. He served under me in the Patrol.”

I nodded. “I remember. Nice to meet you, too. Storm's said a lot about you.”

“Good things, I hope,” Speedy said, the grin on his face being accompanied by a jovial tone. “Otherwise I'm going to be very hurt.”

Storm spoke dryly, but there was still the whisper of a smile on her lips. “I only told her the truth.”

“Oh?” He rubbed his chin. “Like that time I pulled you out of that—”

Storm’s eyes narrowed dangerously as she interrupted Speedy. “Do you think continuing that is wise, Lieutenant?”

Speedy cleared his throat and shuffled in place. “I think I'm going to practice my right to be silent now.”

“That is very wise of you,” Storm said with exaggerated graveness.

“You know me. I can be very wise,” Speedy said. “Especially where upsetting my commanding officer is concerned.”

“You do learn.” Storm waited a long moment before adding, “Eventually.”

“It is one of my virtues.”

“Along with skills to suit your name,” Storm agreed.

“We could certainly use somepony with Long Patrol experience,” I said. “We are pretty close to the Everfree Forest, so I'm sure you can be a lot of help.”

“Well then.” Speedy dipped his head in a gallant bow that wouldn't have been out of place in an old play involving valiant knights battling dastardly dragons. “You won’t have to worry about the big bad monsters from the forest while I'm here.”

“Tone, Speedy,” Storm chided, sounding like she had done this many times before. Which she probably had considering how familiar they seemed to be with one another.

Storm had warned me, if in friendly terms, that Speedy liked to think of himself as something of a dashing rogue. If not for that, seeing one of my guards acting in such a way would really have thrown me off. As Storm had told me, the Long Patrol, being a unit that focused on patrolling the borders and wildernesses of Equestria, had a tendency to be made up of individuals who were a bit rougher around the edges. Of course, considering we were on the edge of one those dangerous wildernesses, Storm and I had thought it best to have a detachment of the Long Patrol as part of my guard. Thus the reason why Lieutenant Speedy was here.

“Right right.” Speedy waved dismissively. “Be a little more respectful towards the princess, I understand.”

“See that you remember it,” Storm said firmly. “We are no longer in the Patrol, and royalty must be treated appropriately.”

“I'll make sure to keep that in mind, Captain,” he said more seriously.

“Good.” Storm stepped to the next pony in line. “And that brings us to the last new member of the unit. Our EIS liaison.”

The Equestrian Intelligence Service agent was a relatively plain-looking earth pony stallion. He possessed a dark-green coat and a neatly trimmed blue mane. Nothing immediately stood out about him, and he stood at attention in a manner that was neither rigid or relaxed. When he spoke it was in an almost bored tone that lacked much in the way of any inflections. “Masked Inquiry. Pleasure to meet you, Princess.”

I gave him the best smile I could manage. “Nice to meet you too, Masked.”

“I hope the waffles and haybacon you ate this morning were satisfying.”

The statement threw me off. “The—er, what?”

“Your breakfast,” he said in that continually plain tone he used.

I couldn't help but blink. I had eaten waffles and haybacon that morning. Though it had only been me, Spike, and Storm at breakfast. At least as far as I knew—the paranoid part of my brain said. “Wait, you know what I ate for breakfast?”

“I know what everyone eats for breakfast,” Masked said as if it were the most casual thing in the world to say.

After taking a few seconds to digest what I had been told, I said, “You're joking, right? You’re just pulling my leg.”

“It's my job.” Masked narrowed his eye ever so slightly, the most expressive thing he had done since I had met him. “I never joke about work.”

Unsure how to reply to that, I looked to Storm for some idea on how to take this. Storm replied with an indifferent shrug and said, “He comes highly recommended.”

“I'll make sure to keep that in mind,” I said, sounding more hesitant than I had intended. Pinkie had caused me to grow somewhat accustomed to ponies knowing odd things about me. Like my fear of quesadillas. But that was Pinkie, not some spy agent I had just met. One that shouldn't have even been in town when I had eaten breakfast. That caused me to start considering a number of things that were probably going to keep me up that night. Still, I didn't want to make a bad impression on the EIS agent, as odd as he might be. So I put on a smile and said, “I can see you're very dedicated to your job. I'm sure Princess Celestia has good reasons for sending you.”

“She does,” Masked said. “She believes I can balance out your more ... idealistic impulses.” After a moment he added. “At least, that's what she told Princess Luna. Or more specifically, that's what a note I found in Princess Luna's trash said. She didn't say it in so many words, but that was the jist of what she wrote.”

I opened my mouth but then closed it. Where did you even start when you heard something like that? First, I had to wonder what Masked was even doing in the Royal trash. Second, did Princess Celestia really think I was overly idealistic? Surely not. Ethics had been one of the subjects we had discussed in detail, and my former teacher wouldn't have taught me to be excessively idealistic. She was too good to make a mistake like that.

That being the case, I tried opening my mouth to say something, but once again, nothing came out. After trying this for a few times, all while Masked continued giving me that passive, evaluating look, all I could manage was to spread my lips in what I hoped was at least an adequate smile. “Good to know.”

“I look forward to serving you, Princess,” Masked said with a slight inclination of his head.

“I'm confident we can be good friends with time,” I said, trying to rally against the stumbling block that had interrupted my introduction to my guard.

“I'm sure we can.” His bored, neutral tone didn’t change an iota. I fought down the urge to sigh and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope for the best. At the end of the day, the best I can do is all I can do.

Trying to salvage the conversation, I turned to face all of my new guards. “Really, I would like to spend time with all of you and get to know you.”

Storm nodded in agreement. “As I am sure they would like to get to know you.”

Twinkleshine smiled in encouragement. “You already know me, so we're covered there.”

Speedy’s smile was more cocksure in nature. “I see no reasons to reject the friendship of a princess.”

“Neither do I,” Masked said.

“Great. So with introductions out of the way...” I cast a spell and summoned up the agenda I had written for the meeting. “I wanted to go over some things with all of you. We have a busy day ahead of us, so we better get on top of it.”

“What did you have in mind?” asked Twinkleshine.

“Oh lots of things.” I smiled as I levitated over a stack of papers to each of them. Speedy quirked an eyebrow as he took the papers and looked to Storm, whose only reply was to shrug. “First, I would like to go over the introduction I have written for Ponyville and the surrounding area–as well as the rules and regulations Storm and I have come up with for my guard. Then we’ll take a tour of the town so that we can show you around. We’ll also be taking that opportunity to introduce you to some of my friends, as well as some other ponies in town.” My smile widened as I thought over the busy day we had in front of us–and with the best part at the end. “And then we’ll take a test tomorrow morning to see how much you’ve learned!”

Speedy used a talon to flip through the sixty-two pages of review material, his frown growing as the pages passed the tip of his talon. “Are we being assigned ... homework?”

“Not really homework,” I assured him. Really, why did everypony—and everyhippogryph in this case—hate homework so much? I usually learned a lot from homework and they would too. “It’s more that I wanted to test how effective my lecture and tour are. Thus far I’ve only gotten to test this on Storm, and a single pony doesn't make for a good testing pool.”

The corner of Storm’s mouth twitched ever so slightly, for whatever reason. “Her Highness has been most thorough in her preparations, and I've helped ... refine the process with her. We managed to cut down the amount of reading by half for you and made the test less ... comprehensive.”

I frowned as I remembered that process. “That was pretty hard. I’m still not exactly okay with some of the stuff we had to cut from the test.”

“I'm sure your guard will be happy to learn about the entirety of Ponyville’s history in their own time,” Storm said in that carefully neutral tone she often used whenever we disagreed about something.

Not really wanting to get into an argument about that again, I instead said, “Though if anypony does want to read the complete version of my guide to Ponyville, I have a few of them printed out.”

Masked raised his hoof. “I'd like one.”

“Great!” I levitated one of the comprehensive guides to the EIS agent and then turned to smile at Storm. “See, I told you that somepony would want one.”

“I'm sure your EIS liaison will put it to good use.” Something about the way she had said that made me realize I had just given Masked—the pony who had just admitted to going through the trash of royalty—a whole bunch of information about Ponyville and my friends. This might be something I was going to have sit down with Storm about later.

Twinkleshine covered her mouth as she giggled. “Oh Twilight, you never change.” She leaned towards Speedy to whisper loudly. “You should have seen her at school when we did group projects. She was something of a slave driver.”

“I was not,” I objected. “I just wanted to make sure that everypony got a perfect score for our assignments.”

“That much I can't argue about.” Twinkleshine flipped through the pages of the guide. “Though this might be overdoing it just a little bit.”

“That’s why I'm running all of you through this,” I said, trying to not sound defensive. “Once we’re done, I would like all of you to fill out my survey to tell me how helpful you’ve found this and give any suggestions on how to improve the process.”

Speedy tapped at the sides of his brow with a talon. “Why do I suddenly feel like I've volunteered to become a lab rat?”

“Do not worry, Speedy,” Storm said. “Knowing how things are in Ponyville, you will get the opportunity to see some action soon enough.”

“Twilight, you simply must let me design the uniforms!” Rarity jutted out her jaw in a look intended to generate sympathy in anypony that saw it, and despite knowing that, it was working on me.

“Somehow I guessed you would bring that up sooner or later.” I put my teacup down on the table in the room I had designated as the living room. The room had plenty of couches, cushions, and tables should I have plenty of friends over. Even if it was going to take a bit more time to make the place seem more homey with things like paintings and other knick-knacks. It had been a couple days since the first wave of my guard had shown up, and no doubt Rarity having to pass some of my new guards to see me had prompted this subject coming up.

My friend frowned. “Am I that obvious?”

I smiled reassuringly to try and put her fears at ease. “To be fair, I would feel pretty bad if I didn't make you my first choice for who to design my guard's uniforms.”

That instantly turned Rarity’s frown into a smile. “Oh, you're too kind, darling.”

“Besides, fashion isn't exactly one of my talents.” I picked up one of the muffins Spike had made for my get-together with Rarity.

“Well, I wouldn't say that,” Rarity said with obvious politeness. When it came to the world of fashion, Rarity had somewhat pointedly suggested that she should accompany me anytime I should go and shop for clothes—those that she didn't make, in any event. Sadly, even reading about fashion hadn't exactly given me the instincts Rarity possessed. “But I would be delighted to help you.”

“Thanks.” It wasn't a surprise that Rarity wanted to help me. For one, she was my friend. Second, she would probably pitch a fit if she had to constantly look at a guard whose appearance she disapproved of—or at the very least ‘subtly’ make her disapproval be known. Third, it would probably be a boon to her business’ prestige to design the uniforms for a princess’ guard. “Storm's suggested that it might help my guard's esprit de corps. Since otherwise they would look like every other standard unit in the Royal Guard rather than a, er, royal guard.”

“Oh, but of course it would.” She flicked her hoof in agreement. “Did you have anything in mind?”

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about.” I took a quick sip of my tea and put it down. “We’re going to need a design for both their armor and dress uniforms. And I will note that the other royal guards each have their themes based on their princesses.” I couldn't help but crack a forced smile as I imagined having a whole group of ponies dressed up to match me. “As awkward as that would be to do with myself. It feels more than a little bit narcissistic to have a whole unit of guardponies themed on me.”

Rarity hummed in contemplation as she rubbed her chin. “Well, I could certainly try something. Hrm ... gold for Celestia, midnight purple for Luna, crystal blue for Cadance...”

“I'm sure my guards would appreciate something nice, considering they're going to be wearing it all the time,” I said, trying to think practically about the issue. I looked down at the lavender fur on my leg. “I guess some shade of purple is the most likely?”

“That would be the obvious choice, yes,” Rarity said. Though I detected a note of disapproval in her tone. “But really, do we want to be obvious?”

I studied the slight frown on her face and hazarded a, “Um, no?”

Rarity’s frown immediately turned into a wide smile. “Exactly!”

Having successfully guessed the answer she desired, I said, “So we want something a bit more ... unique, then. Did you have something that might fit the bill?”

A broad smile crossed Rarity’s face as she slipped a folder out of her saddlebags. “Of course I do! I'm not an armorer, but I think I have some quite fetching designs that you simply must see.”

“No reason I can't look at them,” I said. “We can always run them past Storm after I've examined them.” There didn’t seem any reason to say no to just looking, anyways. That would have hurt Rarity’s feelings, to say the least.

Rarity was in the middle of opening the folder when there was a knock on the door. We gave each other a curious look and I called out, “Come on in!”

Storm opened the door and led a pegasus I didn’t recognize into the living room. He had a slim build, though not outright thin, and was on the small side. His light-green mane was a messy tangle that didn't look like it had been brushed in days, and his blue coat looked matted to his skin due to sweat. Even from across the room I noticed the deep bags under his eyes and the way he was nearly dragging himself along. Something about the pegasus and the grim expression on Storm’s face made me worry.

Stopping short of us, Storm saluted me. “My apologies, Highness, but something came up that I thought requires your immediate attention.” She nodded to the pegasus standing besides her. “Breezy Day here wished to speak with you about something that happened in his town recently.”

Breezy bowed in front of me. “Princess Twilight—Your Highness, I'm sorry to bother you. It's just...” He shuffled in place, his eyes glancing at Storm.

“It’s okay.” I put on a friendly smile for him and motioned for him to stand. “Just start from the beginning and tell me what brought you here.” Whatever the reason he was here, he was clearly uncomfortable in my presence. That only made me more curious.

Taking in a long breath, Breezy spoke in a slow and deliberate manner. “It's about something that happened near my town—Icepeak is its name. It’s out in the Smoky Mountains, off Icepeak Mountain. I don't really know how to start, but I'll just come out and say it. We woke up one morning and there was this strange tower that had suddenly appeared up the mountain and away from town. It hadn't been there when everypony went to sleep but was there when everyone had gotten up.”

Okay, that did sound weird. Not sure how to take this yet, the best thing to do right now was to ask some questions to get the best idea I could about what was going on. “Can you describe this tower for me?”

He nodded. “I can, or at least as much as anypony that hasn't gotten up close to it. It looked like it was made of some sort of weird black crystal, and I'd guess it was about four stories tall. It was all spiky, kinda like your castle—not that there’s anything wrong with your home, Highness!”

“It’s okay.” Admittedly, my castle was a bit ... foreboding to look at. What with its dark blues, spiky architecture, and big, spacious, and cold hallways that could be very intimidating... But issues with my new home aside, it was distracting us from the larger issue on hoof. I waved for him to continue. “Do you know how it got there?”

Breezy shook his head. “Not a clue, and neither did anypony else. It made everypony more than a little bit worried. So the mayor set Hurricane Bolt—that’s our weather team manager—and a few other pegasi to inspect what was up with the tower.” His ears flattened to his head and he spoke with little more than a whisper. “They didn't come back. We waited all day, but there was no sight of them. We considered sending some ponies after them, but the mayor worried that we were just gonna end up throwing more ponies into something they weren't ready for.”

“Then what?” I asked, prodding him to continue.

“Next morning when we all woke up the tower was even bigger,” Breezy said. “Adding that to the fact that nopony sent to the tower had returned yet, the mayor decided it was probably time we got some help before things got even worse. So considering I'm the fastest flier in town, I was sent to try and get help from Princess Celestia.” He gave me an apologetic smile. “No offense intended, Princess. It just that we’re used to thinking to go to Her Highness whenever something like this happens.”

“It’s fine,” I assured him. Admittedly, I still reflectively thought that way myself. It came from centuries of ponies thinking of Celestia as their greatest protector. “But then you came to see me instead?”

Breezy nodded. “When I got to Canterlot I found out that Princess Celestia was overseas on some diplomatic trip and that Princess Luna is visiting Princess Cadance in the Crystal Empire. So I was told to come to Ponyville to see you.”

“Makes sense.” I rubbed my chin as I thought the matter over. “Is there anything else you can tell me about this crystal tower?”

He shook his head. “I'm afraid not. I'm just a simple weather pony. This is all beyond me.”

Rarity placed a hoof over my foreleg. “This does sound like a problem that’s best nipped in the bud if we can. It might be nothing at the end of the day, but if it isn't...”

“That’s what I was thinking too.” I frowned as I considered our options. “My first instinct would be to get the girls together and see if we can deal with this. Though there’s the little problem that Rainbow is in Vanhoover for a Wonderbolts tour and Pinkie is in Canterlot for a baking contest.” A quick glance at the map confirmed that it wasn’t currently active. Near as I could tell, it would tell us whenever there was a mission for the Elements of Harmony. Not that I knew exactly how to use the Elements right at that moment. We hadn't used them since our battle with Tirek, so the question if we could even use their powers wasn't one-hundred percent certain.

“That is a problem,” Rarity agreed. “My instincts are telling me that whatever is happening at Icepeak is only going to get worse with time.”

“Right, and it's going to take time to gather everypony.” I frowned as I considered the problem.

Storm spoke up to interrupt my thoughts. “If I may suggest an idea, Highness. This might not be a bad opportunity to have a field test for the members of your guard.” Quickly she added, “Merely for information gathering and reconnaissance, of course.”

I heard what Storm hadn't said, she didn't want me putting myself in danger. Understandable when her entire job was to keep me safe. Still, her suggestion had merit. I could head out to Icepeak with my guard immediately and once there we could evaluate the situation and see first hoof what we were dealing with. From there we could pick the proper course of action. Either it would be something we felt we could handle, or we would get additional help if we couldn't. I could easily send a message to Spike if need be to help set things into motion if we needed reinforcements. Not to mention, like Storm said, it would be a good opportunity to test my guard—what there was of it at the moment.

Having made my decision, I said, “Sounds good to me, Storm. Think we can be ready to leave in about an hour?”

Storm saluted me. “I will make it happen, Highness.”

I could only hope that this idea would work out as well as it sounded in my head.

The next day found me flying beside my balloon as Storm and Speedy dragged it through in the sky. After talking over our options between flying and taking the train, we decided flight would be faster, even if that option demanded we be a bit creative on how to bring along the ground-bound members of my guard. Though having Masked and Twinkleshine ride in my balloon seemed to be working, even if it was slightly irksome that Storm wouldn't let me help pull the balloon, it being one of those things Storm considered to be beneath my dignity as a princess.

I glanced back to make sure the balloon’s passengers were alright as I flew next to Storm. “We really need to figure out a better arrangement for traveling once we get back to Ponyville.”

Storm nodded, her wings pumping to keep flying forward. “Agreed if we are going to be traveling in force on a regular basis.”

“Which we're probably going to be,” I said. “I'm used to traveling by train for long distances, but that might not always be the best option if we need to get someplace fast. So we’re going to need some sort of better option to help us bring along the non-flight capable units of my guard.”

“Indeed so,” Storm agreed. “Otherwise we will need to maintain at least fifty percent fliers in our forces.”

“We'll need to sit down and go over the math of all that later.” I reminded myself to keep flapping my wings. It was far too easy for me to forget to keep doing that when I really got to thinking. Which was a bit of a problem since flying long distance could be pretty boring, leading me to fall into my own internal thought. “Going with that many fliers would really affect some of the plans we've already got. It’s not something I'm really wild about at this moment.”

Storm nodded. “It would restrict our forces considerably. I would prefer a more flexible force, like we have already discussed.”

“I'm sorry for interrupting your conversation,” Masked called out from the balloon, not sounding particularly apologetic with that flat and even tone he always spoke with. “But I believe we are approaching the town, Your Highness.”

I looked forward as Mount Icepeak rose up ahead of us, its peak still covered in snow and ice even during the warm months of the year. According to the maps, the town of Icepeak should be along the base of the mountain. Hopefully the troubles in Icepeak hadn't gotten worse during the time it had taken us to get here.

Storm looked to Speedy. “Speedy, check the areas up ahead.”

“Yes, Captain.” Speedy unhitched himself from the balloon and then shot forward ahead of us. Even with his arms and armor he was a fast flier, and unburdened of the balloon, he quickly increased the distance between us as he reconned before the rest of us.

Slowly but surely he became a dot in my vision. An hour later he flew back, a worried frown having replaced the smile he normally carried. “The huge crystal fortress isn't supposed to be there, right?”

“Fortress?” I tilted my head in confusion. “Don't you mean a tower?” It was possible he might have mislabeled the tower we were here to check out, but it didn't strike me as likely that someone in the Guard would make that kind of mistake.

Speedy shook his head. “Nope, it's a full-fledged fortress. Maybe it grew?”

Deciding to see what we were up against myself, I cast Extend’s Eagle Eye to enhance my vision. Focusing my vision forward, I saw what Speedy was talking about. Sitting on a plateau, Icepeak clung to the side of the mountain. Farmland surrounded the town and there were paths that led up around the mountain to mine entrances.

But those things weren’t what truly drew my eyes. The bulk of my attention was on the large crystal fortress sitting further up the mountain. Castellations ran along the walls with multiple towers jutting out periodically, and a large keep dominated its center. Needless to say, our problem had just gotten a lot bigger on us.

“Um, I think we have a problem.” Casting another spell, I created an image of exactly what I was seeing for everyone else to see.

Storm frowned as her eyes scanned the fortress. “Indeed so, Highness. I hope we have sufficient force to resolve it.”

“You and me both.” I had a very bad feeling about this.

Author's Note

I would like to thank my prereaders Chengar Qordath and Comma-Kazie for all their help. As well as Show Stopper, JiiKoo, Jeray2000, Billymorph, 621Chopsuey, Rodinga, Trinary, and Swiftest Shadow for all their help editing this chapter.

Chapter 2

The Umbral Shard: Chapter 2

“So, any suggestions on what our next move should be?” I asked everyone.

The crystal keep loomed large as we drew close enough to make out the details. While they had looked black from a distance, the crystalline fortifications and walls were an extremely dark shade of red. The battlements cast long shadows over the surrounding area. It was possible that the fortress was somehow benign, but something about it made my hair stand on end. It just felt wrong to me, even if I couldn't put specific words to my feelings.

Speedy tightened the straps to his steel talons. “We don't know anywhere near enough about what's goin' on here for my liking.”

“Our lack of intel on what we're dealing with is a problem,” Masked agreed. “The only way to figure out our best course of action is to find out more.”

Storm nodded. “Obtaining additional information is the obvious next step.” She pointed down to the town of Icepeak. “I would suggest speaking to one of the local officials.”

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” I said. Chances were they had a much better idea about what was going on, and it would be good to make sure everyone in the town was okay. “Let’s land in town and see what we can find out.”

We set down in the town square where there was plenty of room for us to land my balloon. My hooves touched the ground, and I pulled my saddlebags out of the balloon basket. I swiveled my head this way and that to see if there was anypony to talk, but there was nopony in sight.

I frowned, not liking the silence at all. “So is it just me, or does there seem to be nopony around?” It was possible everypony was hiding, what with the new giant, evil-looking fortress hanging over their heads now, but I would have figured the arrival of a princess with accompanying guards would have prompted somepony to come out of their hiding spot.

Twinkleshine climbed out of the balloon and glanced around. “Have to admit, it feels like a ghost town.” She turned to the buildings and called out. “Hey! Is anypony out there!? We’re here to help!”

If anypony heard her they didn't make themselves known.

Speedy frowned and loosened his greatsword from the scabbard on his back. “I don't see anyone here, and I didn't see anyone on the way in, either.”

Storm turned to me with an inquiring glance. “A detection spell might be called for, perhaps?”

“I'll give it a shot.” Twinkleshine’s horn glowed. Her head pivoted slowly as she scanned the town. “I'm not finding any ponies nearby.”

Speedy frowned. “Well they have to have gone somewhere.”

Masked walked up to one of the nearby houses and, with a serious lack of concern for the privacy of others, tested the door handle. The door opened easily. “This home isn't locked up. Either these ponies are very trusting or they had some other reason for leaving it open.”

“Plenty of ponies don't lock their doors in Ponyville,” I said. “It kinda comes naturally when everypony knows and trusts one another.”

“Perhaps,” Masked mused, not sounding convinced. He walked to three more houses and opened the front door of each of them without issue. “This is beginning to look like a pattern.” Before anyone could say anything, he stepped into one of the houses. Probably to see if anyone was inside, I told myself. If that wasn't the case, I'd have to have a talk with Masked about ponies' right to their privacy after we got back home.

Storm frowned deeply, her head turning to look around us. “This is ... highly irregular. Highness, can you detect any sort of spells over the area?”

“Let me check.” I cast a couple different magic detection spells and concentrated to feel out for magic in the area. My brow furrowed. It was as though there was something lacking in the atmosphere around us, though it was hard to describe in so many words. “I'm feeling ... something.” I trotted and followed the sensation, and the others followed me.

We arrived at the edge of town and stopped, stunned. Before us was a farm with its farmhouse and barn, but we all looked past them at the fields. The crops, all of them, seemed to be drying up and dying as though the farm was suffering a drought. Even the trees on the property looked on the cusp of death with their withered leaves.The sense of something missing from the land felt all the stronger here. It was like some gnawing emptiness that sought more substance.

“This doesn't feel right,” I said, trying to pin down exactly what was going on with my magical senses.

Twinkleshine cast her own detection spell and shivered at what she felt. “Ugh, you’re right. It's like there's something missing from the area.”

“Nothing looks right either,” Storm said. “The farms are abandoned. No farmer would leave behind their crops to wither in the field unless circumstances were truly dire.”

“Near as I can tell, all of the houses were suddenly abandoned,” Masked said, nearly causing me to jump as he walked up from directly behind us. “In two homes the occupants were even in the middle of making meals. Whatever happened did so suddenly and without warning.”

Speedy flapped his wings and took off. “I'm gonna head up high to keep an eye out for any nasty surprises. I'd rather not have whatever happened to the ponies of this village happen to us.”

I nodded to him, agreeing with the idea. Until we had a better idea about what was going on it seemed best to be as cautious as possible. “Go ahead and do that.”

Speedy flew higher and started circling above us. While he scouted for us, I returned to studying the unusual magic affecting the land. “I think I know what's happening.” My gaze turned to the fortress looking over us. “That fortress is draining the magic from the local area which must be how it's growing so fast. It's sucking up magic to convert into matter. That takes a lot of energy if you want to make anything permanent, and as I'm sure everyone has noticed, that’s no small beachside sandcastle.”

Storm frowned deeply as she took the view of the crystal fortress in. “That cannot be healthy for anything that relies upon magic to live. Such as ... everything.”

I shook my head. “No, it really isn’t. Just look at what having the local magic drained has done to this farm.” I hated to think what it would do to the finances of the poor ponies whose crops had been ruined. Thought I hated what the same effect would do to ponies even worse.

“Everypony stand still for a second,” I said. “I'm going to cast a spell that should help protect you.” I quickly cast a life force protection ward on everypony around me. “There, that should keep anypony from getting the magic drained out of them. At least for a few hours. But I wouldn't recommend sticking around if we can help it.” Trying to deal with magic draining malignities by using magic was always troublesome at the best of times, but a protective ward was the best I could do in a pinch. A suit of cold iron or a magic circle built to block outside magical forces would work a lot better, but those took time to set up—time we didn’t have if we wanted to jump on this problem.

Storm nodded. “It will have to do until we get out of here.”

Before we could decide on our next move, Speedy dropped back down to the ground. “I've got a camp of some sort in sight over near the mines.” He pointed at the camp further up the mountain. “I saw some activity up there, but it was hard to see what was going on.”

“Did you see anypony?” I asked, casting a protective ward on Speedy while doing so.

Speedy shook his head. “Can't say for sure that I saw anypony, but there were definite signs of life.”

“Think we should check it out, then?” I looked to Storm to confirm that this was the best course of action. “I'm really not liking any of this.”

Storm nodded. “That seems like our best chance to find answers, and answers are what we need right now.”

I couldn’t argue with that—doubly so when it probably wasn't healthy to be anywhere near that fortress. I knew I had read about things like this, but I couldn't remember exactly what this fortress might be. That was the one problem about knowing so much, sometimes it could take time to remember the specific piece of data you needed. Pity I didn't have time to do any research quite yet. Making sure everypony was safe was the highest priority at the moment.

Hearing no further objections, I decided on our course of action. “Then let's get going. The sooner we figure out what's happening the sooner we can figure out what needs to be done.”

“Just so.” Storm looked to the Long Patrol lieutenant. “I do not want whoever is in that camp to see us coming, so we stick to the ground for now. Speedy, take point. We will see if we can find a position to scout out the camp before approaching it.”

Speedy saluted. “Yes, ma'am.”

It took us an hour of walking uphill to reach the same plateau the camp was on. When we got close enough, Speedy waved for us to join him at an outcropping of boulders lying against the mountain. I cast an illusory veil over the group to keep us from getting seen as we approached the hiding spot. Thankfully, we reached the outcropping without incident. I cast an eyesight enhancement spell while Storm pulled out a pair of binoculars from her saddlebags to scout out the camp.

At first glance, the camp looked like some sort of archeological site, with carefully measured-out boxes in the ground which had been marked by strings, and a layer or two of soil had been removed from each enclosure. A couple of tents had been staked near the site and a pair of tables set up near them.

It would have seemed like a normal archeological site if not for the ponies working at the camp. Specifically, how those ponies were being treated. Most of them were in chains, making them look like some kind of press-gang as they dug into the rocky soil with shovels and mining tools. These must have been the missing villagers from Icepeak. Around them were half a dozen ponies directing the villagers as they dug.

What was curious about the apparent overseers was that each wore a crystalline necklace. At least at a quick glance, they seemed to be made of the same dark red crystal as the fortress. It didn't strike me as a coincidence.

Storm lowered her binoculars to speak to me in a quiet voice. “You see those collars, Highness?”

“To state the obvious, they don't look normal,” I said in an equally quiet voice. “And you see how it's only the ponies bossing everypony around that are wearing them?”

Storm nodded. “Likely a control device of some sort.”

My eyes turned back to the camp as one of the overseers became particularly loud as she barked at one of the villagers. “I wouldn't dismiss the idea, but I would have to study one of them to be sure.” I didn't want to get ahead of myself and make assumptions without more proof. Still, sometimes a spade was just a spade.

“That would require obtaining one,” Storm pointed out.

Masked grunted in disapproval, lowering his own binoculars. “It seems doubtful they will just give us one. At least not in the way we would like.”

Storm returned to looking through her binoculars. “I suppose we could try luring one of the overseers away to subdue for questioning and to take a collar. Though that risks them raising the alarm.”

Twinkleshine’s eyes narrowed as one of the overseers struck one of the workers, knocking her to the ground. “Maybe we should just cut out the middlemare and deal with all of them at once? I can think of plenty of good reasons to put a stop to this rather than dance around the issue.”

“An assault on that level would certainly be noticed,” Storm cautioned, her eyes flicking my way.

“Are we going to leave those ponies like that?” Twinkleshine gestured at the camp. “There are children over there.”

“If we do free everypony, then at least some of them should have an idea about what is going on.” Masked shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “That’s one argument in favor, anyways.”

“That is so.” Storm looked to me. “It is your choice, Highness.”

I scowled as I thought the matter over. It might be safer to see if we could get one of the ponies away to ask what’s happening, though there was the chance we would get caught trying that. The overseers seemed to be watching everypony pretty closely, and who knew what they would do if they noticed somepony missing. Especially if it was another overseer. That didn’t even get into what unknown magics might be involved with those crystalline collars they had. I didn’t like it, but it seemed like a more proactive action was the best way to go about this.

“I say we put a stop to this,” I declared. “It isn't safe for any of these ponies to remain near that fortress. We need to get them out of here and figure out what’s going on.”

“Very well, then.” Storm drew a simple map into the dirt, making a point of marking where all the sentries were. “Naturally, the biggest problem is dealing with all the sentries before they can cause any problems.”

My eyes scanned over the map, considering how best to approach the problem. “Maybe we could take out all the sentries at once? I could cast an invisibility spell over everyone here, and augment that with a silence spell so they don’t hear us approach. That should let us get close without being seen, at least. It might also help if I cast a telepathy spell to let us communicate silently.”

“I can help with the spellcraft,” Twinkleshine offered. “I also have some spells I could use to disable a pony.”

“Speedy and I are skilled with silent takedowns,” Storm said.

Masked raised a hoof. “I can help with that too.”

Storm nodded. “Our best shot is as many simultaneous takedowns as possible. That cuts down on there being any complications.”

“Problem is, there are five guards,” Speedy pointed out. “If we’re going to do this efficiently, we’re going to need everyone here to take down one guard each.” He didn’t look at me, but I could sense that he wasn’t sure I would be up for it.

That was the issue, wasn’t it? Everyone around me was a member of the Royal Guard, while I was a princess. True, I had learned a lot of spells that could be used to defend myself, but that wasn’t the same as being a soldier. If I messed up and couldn’t take down the overseer I was assigned...

I took a long breath to steady myself. “I can help too. There’s a stun spell I know that should do the job.”

Storm considered that for a moment before nodding. “That should be enough.”

My mouth felt dry, but I was committed now. “Let’s try and do this without seriously hurting anypony. Chances are those collars are some sort of control devices, so they probably aren’t even in control of their actions.”

“We will try and do so, Highness.” Storm gave the ponies of my Guard a telling look. “Speedy, Twinkleshine—you two are to take the guards on the far side. Masked, you take the one on the right of us. Her Highness and I will deal with the two on the left.”

We all nodded at the plan. I could guess why Storm had assigned herself to stay with me. In addition to being the head of my guard, Storm did have a pretty powerful set of ancestral armor she wore. Enchanted by Princess Celestia herself, Shadow’s Armor as it was called did have a few nifty features like its ability to absorb magic directed against it and flame-enhanced wingblades. That did probably make her my most powerful protector in the event of a fight.

“Any questions?” Storm asked.

Nobody had anything to say, so Twinkleshine and I went about casting a series of invisibility spells, globes of silence, and a telepathy spell to allow us to communicate. I also cast a See Invisibility spell on myself to help me see what everyone was doing. That done, we all slowly advanced towards our targets. I followed Storm’s lead, my heart beating faster and harder as we moved from rock to rock to keep hidden. The invisibility spell should’ve kept us all hidden, but Storm seemed to be of the opinion that we were better off being safe than sorry. There were ways to beat invisibility spells, after all. Even the best of such spells didn't render the individual they were cast on completely invisible, and as I’d just demonstrated, there were plenty of ways to beat them magically.

During a period of time that felt like it could have taken anywhere between a few minutes to over an hour, Storm and I approached the sentries we had been assigned to deal with. We reached a small boulder near the camp undetected. Both of the sentries’ backs were turned to us, their focus solely on the ponies busy digging deeper into the earth for whatever it was they were searching for.

Storm pointed to herself and the other overseer closest to us. “I will take care of that one. Can you deal with the other one, Highness?”

I looked to the other overseer and didn’t see anything that obstructed me from casting a spell at him. “I think so.”

That settled, Storm called out across the telepathic link. “Is everyone in position?” She received a series of affirmations. “Everyone move forward to take out your sentry. Disable them on my mark.” Storm slunk forward towards her designated overseer.

My heart continued to beat heavily, but I moved alongside of Storm. I wondered how close I should get to cast my spell? Naturally close enough to hit easily, but how close was that? Was there a book that I could read that would tell me that type of thing? Too late to find out now, either way. Now it was no longer tests or assignments. This was the real deal, and that information didn't make me feel any better as I closed in on my ... target?

“Alright everyone, on three,” Storm said, directly behind her sentry, invisible to all but my magically augmented eyes.”One... Two... Three!”

Storm lunged and wrapped her forelegs around the sentry’s neck right above the crystalline collar, cutting off the blood flow with a carefully applied choke. The invisibility spell broke down at the contact, the illusion dropping at the violent action. The sentry went rigid with surprise and tried to struggle against Storm’s hold, but she already held the leverage on him and it wasn't long before he started going limp. Pity that the momentary struggle caught the attention of his fellow sentry, and her head turned to look at the now-visible Storm.

The other sentry’s eyes widened. “Wha—”

Her protest was cut off when I hit her with a stunbolt spell. To my surprise, instead of going down, she merely staggered a few steps and let out a grunt of pain. Her eyes shot to me, my own invisibility spell canceling out with my attack. My chest lurched and I charged another bolt. She moved to turn my way, but her response was too slow. I hit her dead center with a much stronger bolt, and she dropped to the dirt with a startled gasp.

I prepared a third bolt almost by instinct, though held onto the magic as I waited to see if she would get up again. The first bolt should have been enough to knock her out. Had I subconsciously held back on the spell in my desire to not hurt another, potentially innocent, pony? I wasn't quite sure how to feel about that.

Storm carefully laid the pony in her grasp down. She looked over to the pony I had knocked out and then to me, nodding in approval. “Her Highness and I have downed our targets.” Her gaze shifted to around the camp. All around the camp I saw the ponies of my guard standing and none of the overseers. “All targets down. Is everyone okay?”

Everyone confirmed that they were over the link.

Masked looked around in a measured manner. “No additional hostiles spotted.”

I let out a long breath of relief. “Okay, that could have gone a lot worse. Could we find some rope to tie these ponies up? And let's see if any of them have a key for the chains.”

“I see some rope in the camp.” Masked trotted into the camp past more than a few stunned onlookers. A couple of minutes later we had all the overseers tied up, and we began the process of unlocking the chains restraining the villagers.

Speedy pointed to the pony he had captured. “Mine's got the fanciest collar. Think he's special?” The pony he pointed to did seem to have a larger collar than the rest of them, though I could only guess what significance it held.

“I can check.” I stepped up to the group to look them over. They didn’t seem all that dangerous now, being unconscious. More than a little bit of me hoped it was those collars that had made them enslave the villagers of Icepeak, but I was going to need to study them either way.

One of the ponies that had just been freed came running over to me. Storm immediately inserted herself between me and the earth pony and shot him a suspicious glare, making him come to a sliding stop before us.

“Princess Twilight!?” He bowed before me, a mixture of relief and worry on his face. If I had to guess, the brown-coated pony was of middle age, though with the hard, weathered look of a pony who had lived his life in the unforgiving mountains. “I ... we weren't. Sorry, my name’s Pebble Quarry. I'm the mayor of Icepeak. Thank goodness you're here, we need your help.” His eyes drifted to the crystal fortress.

“What's happened here?” I asked, motioning for him to rise. “We got your message that your town needed help, but the pony you sent didn't say it was nearly this bad.”

“I'm afraid it got a great deal worse the day after Breezy Day left.” The mayor wiped his brow. “First all our crops started to die—all at once, like some blight swept across our fields. And then...” He shook his head sadly and gestured at the tied up ponies. “Those ponies came down from their archeological site and demanded we work for them, or else. All of them wearing those weird collars.”

Storm’s eyes narrowed. “I take it the collars are new?”

Pebble nodded. “Never seen the likes of them before. We thought something was wrong with them. Last month they came to our town. They said they were from Hoofington University, and asked if they could go around digging for historical artifacts. So we told them we were happy to let them go about it, as long as they didn't mess up any of our farmland or dig anywhere dangerous.”

My brow furrowed as I considered this. “So nothing seemed odd about them?”

The mayor shook his head. “Nothing odder than them being a bunch of booksmart ponies. You don't see many of their types around here, but they didn’t seem dangerous. Until recently, they were always nice enough to my ponies and didn’t cause any trouble. That’s part of what made their change so scary: I couldn’t imagine that lot harming anypony before that castle sprung up.”

My curiosity was thoroughly piqued by this point. “Do you know what they were looking for?”

“They didn’t say anything specific—just that something happened around these parts, and that there were some artifacts they were hoping to dig up. I honestly forget what.” Pebble shrugged helplessly. “We’re simple folks up here, Princess. We’re happy to be left well enough alone, and as long as these ponies weren’t bothering us we didn’t care much about what they were up to. Didn’t hurt when they bought food and other supplies from the town, either.”

“Curious.” Masked started looking over the tied up archeologists, and I couldn’t help but notice they weren’t exactly the most intimidating bunch. College professors and interns didn’t tend to strike fear into the hearts of ponies. At least when there weren’t grades on the line, in any event. “So a hooffull of academics were able to force you to work for them? You do seem to outnumber them by a fair margin.”

Pebble gulped and looked around nervously. “It wasn’t them we were really scared of. It was—”

The mayor was cut off as a tremor shook the ground beneath us. The townponies screamed in terror, and some of them immediately started running. Pebble’s eyes widened as the rumbling grew louder. “It's that monster! Everypony run!”

Speedy jumped off the ground to get some air. He jabbed a talon to point beyond the camp. “Incoming!”

I took off after Speedy to see what he had seen. It wasn't hard to figure out what had caught his attention: a mound of dirt, moving towards us at high speed as what looked like a grey fin sliced its way through the ground. The cries from the ponies around me became more panicked as it hurtled towards us. More ponies ran, but Twinkleshine and Masked hadn’t freed all of the townponies yet, and far too many were still shackled.

“Bulette!” Storm cried out, taking position beside me.

My heart sank at the disaster unfolding before me. Bulettes were vicious apex predators that could easily run down a healthy adult pony, to say nothing of the young, old, and those still chained. I wasn't wild about it, but my guard and I only had one choice to keep a lot of ponies from getting hurt.

“We need to stop it!” I called out. “Keep it from getting into the camp!”

Almost as one, Storm and Speedy took off in different directions, each moving to flank the approaching bulette from different angles. Twinkleshine let out a curse and tossed the set of keys she had procured to the mayor. She pointed to the ponies that still hadn't been released. “Keep unlocking those chains! We’ll deal with the monster!”

Her horn glowed, and an illusionary Twinkleshine appeared directly in the path of the bulette, standing defiant before the onrushing monster. “Hey you! Got a problem with us?! Take it up with me!”

The bulette rushed in on the illusion of Twinkleshine. It burst from the ground, a beast covered in grey plates, speckled with dark red crystal shards, and possessing a large toothy maw. Nearly as long as a train car, there was a boom as it landed on Twinkleshine’s illusion with four extended legs ending in wicked claws. The illusion immediately fizzled on contact, and the bulette flicked its tail balefully as its arrow-like head swiveled to find more prey.

“The flesh behind the dorsal crest is a weak point!” Storm called out, trying to position herself to strike at the bulette’s vulnerability.

Speedy flew low, pulling out his greatsword as he tried to get the monster’s attention. “Or just trick them into eating a bunch of fire gems.”

The bulette turned its head towards Speedy and peeled back its lips to reveal row after row of razor sharp teeth. It charged my hippogryph bodyguard, moving with a speed that belied its bulk.

Not wanting the monster anywhere near my guards, I charged my horn and fired the magic as a single bolt of pure magical energy. The magenta bolt struck the bulette full on the head, momentarily halting it. The bulette’s head smoked, but it was otherwise unharmed.

My eyes widened at the sight. I hadn’t been holding much back with that strike, and the bolt should have damaged or stunned the creature. Instead, it had done virtually nothing. Was it actually magic resistant? I had never read of a bulette being resistant to magic, but they normally weren’t covered by crystals either.

Still, its momentum had been stopped, and Speedy took the momentary distraction to dart in. He swung his sword horizontally at the bulette’s knee, but the bulette bore down on him, throwing off Speedy’s swing. The blade skimmed off of the natural armor on its leg, and Speedy flapped his wings to try and open the distance between him and his target. But the bulette was far too quick and it snapped its jaw forward to close on Speedy.

Before that tooth-filled maw could close around him, I cast a teleportation spell and pulled my guard out of danger in a burst of magic. Speedy blinked and turned his head to look my way. “Thanks, Highness. I owe you.”

“Defeat the monster first, worry about thanking me later,” I replied, reviewing what spells I had available that might get around the bulette’s apparent resistance to magic.

Seeing her opening, Storm dove after the monster from its side. She extended her wingblades, which glowed red-hot as they lit with magical flames. The bulette’s dorsal crest sizzled as her blades bit into it and became lodged between the plates of its hide. It shrieked and reached up a claw to try and dislodge Storm, forcing Storm to awkwardly ward off the claw with her free wingblade.

Twinkleshine cast another spell, and a small globe of light appeared near the left side of the monster’s head. It flashed right into the bulette’s eye with a blinding light. The monster roared in anger as it flinched away.

Storm planted her hooves on the bulette’s back and kicked off of it. Her wingblade came free and she took flight to get away from where the monster could strike at her.

Speedy charged back in, his greatsword extended as he leveled its point at the monster’s side. His blade struck between the plates and stabbed into its flesh. In one swift motion, Speedy shifted the grip on his sword and kicked his hooves against the bulette’s plate hide. His sword was wrenched free, and he backflipped to land on his hooves, his wings flapping to pull him back out of the range of the retaliating jaws.

Twinkleshine’s orb of light continued to flash into the bulette’s eyes, repeatedly blinding it. The bulette started spinning, clawing, and biting randomly, unsure where the next attack was coming from. Storm took the opportunity to dive on the bulette once again and her fiery blade sliced into the monster’s back, forcing it to switch directions once again.

An idea struck me as I watched the exchange. Maybe I couldn’t cast a spell directly against the bulette, but there were plenty of spells that would hinder it, like Twinkleshine’s flashing orb of light. I fired a blue beam of magic, stopping it just short of the bulette. A wall of ice formed as my magic froze the water vapor in the air, shaping the ice into blocks and, freezing the bulette’s legs in place.

The bulette roared in pain and anger as it thrashed about in its attempts to free itself. I kept up my spell, freezing the underside of its neck to hold its head in place.

Seeing her opportunity, Storm once again folded her wings in a dive. This time her red-hot blade sliced deep into the weak spot behind the dorsal crest, the bulette unable to dodge or attack. The bulette went limp, and slumped as far over as the ice would allow it. Not content to leave it at that, Storm struck at the bulette’s neck twice more, making sure it stayed down.

Twinkleshine carefully stepped forward and scanned the beast with a spell. “You got it, Captain.”

Speedy circled around, his gaze fixed on the monster and his sword at the ready. “Can't be too careful. But yeah, it looks pretty dead now.”

I cautiously stepped forward, frowning. The fact I had helped cause the death of another creature was ... going to take some adjustment. Deep down I knew it was necessary to save the townponies. I wasn't Fluttershy; I couldn't talk down a rampaging manticore, and it was my duty as a princess to protect my subjects.

That didn’t mean I had to like killing to protect them.

I put such philosophical thoughts aside while I concentrated on more practical matters. They were at least something I could grasp more easily.

I studied the carcass carefully as I circled it. “This is weird. You don't normally see a bulette in mountainous terrain. They normally stick to lower elevations.”

Storm landed next to me and nodded. “They prefer softer terrain. Usually more prey for them there, too.”

Due to her time in the Long Patrol, I trusted her judgement on this. Bulettes were one of those monsters that the Long Patrol had to deal with now and again. They were just too aggressive to live harmoniously alongside ponies, and so they had to be driven off from areas settled by ponies. Not an easy task considering such large predators had very large territories.

Twinkleshine joined us in studying the dead bulette, fiddling with one of the crystals jutting off of its natural armor. “And normally they don't have a bunch of crystals growing all over them either. How much you want to bet all of this isn't a coincidence?”

“I think that would be a pretty safe bet.” I extended my magical senses to study the crystal. Even at a quick glance I could tell there were multiple spells interwoven into its magical matrix, one of which was the property that allowed it to absorb magic. “Looking this over, I'm pretty sure they're what caused my first spell to fizzle. I think they make the bulette magic resistant. Twinkleshine, did you notice anything odd when you knocked out your archeologist?”

Twinkleshine’s muzzle scrunched up in concentration. “It did take a couple of stunbolts to take him down. At the time I thought it was because I didn't hit him hard enough, but now...”

“Crystals on the bulette, crystal collars, and a large crystal fortress,” Storm mused unhappily. “The connection seems clear.”

I nodded. “Those collars are probably absorbing magic and setting up some sort of magic resistance field. I would have to study these crystals more, but I'm going to guess that wearing their collars isn't the healthiest thing in the world considering they are almost certainly draining their wearer’s magic—in addition to the mind control.”

“Nasty,” Speedy grunted. “So who’s pulling the strings? There must be someone controlling all of this, right?”

Before I could answer, there was a crack of magical energies in front of us. A vertical red line of magic formed and then opened up to form a circle. Within the oval was the image of an elderly earth pony stallion sitting on a throne made of dark red crystal. On first impression, he struck me as a pony more comfortable in a university lecture hall than some would-be conqueror. He had a faded tan coat and grey mane, and a handlebar mustache and a neatly trimmed beard of the same color. The stallion adjusted a set of spectacles that contrasted oddly with the crystal crown clinging to his head and his eyes narrowed.

“What is the meaning of this?!” he demanded, leaning forward on his throne. “Why has my work been disrupted? Who are you ponies?”

Sensing my cue as a princess, I stepped forward to address whoever this was. “I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle, and whatever it is you’re doing here has been stopped because forcing ponies to work for you is a teensy-weensy bit illegal in Equestria.”

The stallion’s glowing red eyes glared at me, and he sat back against his throne. “Princess Twilight Sparkle? So already I've drawn the attention of royalty to my new realm?”

One of my eyebrows quirked. “Yournew realm? Mind explaining that?”

Speedy rolled his eyes. “Lemme guess, he's Emperor Crystal Badguy Evildude?”

The stallion stomped a hoof. “Quiet, fool! I will not be insulted by some minion. I'm Obsidian Tomb the Gravemaster! High Lord of the Umbral Shard and Emperor of Icepeak. And unless you want to suffer my wrath you'll withdraw from my territory immediately, and promise to pay me tribute for your transgressions.”

Speedy smirked. “I like my name better.”

He might have been amused by this Obsidian Tomb character (whom I highly suspected had given himself that ridiculous name), but my chest tightened at the mention of the Umbral Shard. That name reminded me of something I had read, and it had not been a pleasant read. “Wait, you found one of the Umbral Shards?”

“Obviously.” An arrogant grin spread across his lips, and Obsidian picked up what I could only guess was the Umbral Shard itself. At first glance, it didn’t seem all that threatening, merely being a shard of the same dark red crystal the fortress seemed to be made of. “If you've heard about my magnificent artifact, then you know that you've crossed an invincible enemy.”

“You should get rid of that thing immediately!” I warned him, my wings snapping out. “It was made by King Sombra, and you have no idea how dangerous it is! Do you know what it’s doing to the countryside around you?”

Obsidian scoffed. “Please, I have already mastered the Shard and its power.” He pointed to the carcass of the bulette. “My pet was but a fraction of the power I can bring to bear. Challenge me and you will regret it, Princess Twilight.”

Storm leaned in to whisper into my ear. “From what I understand, we must stop him as soon as possible. He will likely learn more about how to use the shard over time, and considering how dangerous he is already...” She let the implications hang in the air.

I nodded grimly, keeping my eyes on Obsidian Tomb through the communication spell. “Sorry, but that isn't happening. We can't let you keep such a dangerous artifact. You’ve already hurt the ponies of Icepeak with it, and as a princess of Equestria I have no choice but to stop you.”

The madpony huffed derisively. “So be it. Come for me if you dare, but you'll only find your doom.” He grinned in a way that made a shiver run down my spine, and his eyes glowed with red magic once more. “Who knows, it might be nice to have a princess as a slave.”

He dismissed the communication spell with a wave, leaving empty air before us.

“Well, that was pleasant,” Twinkleshine said with obvious disapproval.

Speedy snorted. “Warlocks. Most of them should be in theater with how much they love melodrama.”

I cast an anti-scrying spell to keep Obsidian from spying on us. Somehow he had known that we had disrupted work on his dig site, and if it was through magical means I wanted to keep him from knowing what we were going to do next. We needed a game plan, and we needed it now.

“This is really bad, everyone.” I pointed to the crystal fortress looming over us. “Back when King Sombra was the ruler of the Crystal Empire, he created the Umbral Shards to help him expand his empire. According to the history books I read, he gave them to his most powerful commanders to help take over a piece of territory by quickly building those crystal fortresses to dominate the area.” My wings flicked as I remembered some of the more unpleasant things I had read about. “They're bad news all around. You’ve already seen how it’s sucking the life out of the land and how it’s capable of mind control, and it only gets worse from there. It can also create crystal golems and give its user a range of magical abilities. From there, historians have only been able to guess what else the Umbral Shards can do.”

Masked trotted over from where he had been unlocking the ponies of Icepeak. “By the sounds of it, it would be a bad idea to give him time to fortify his position.” He gestured at the bulette. “If he can control more monsters like that, then we could quickly find ourselves dealing with a nightmare of a threat right in the heart of Equestria.”

Storm nodded in agreement. “We need to neutralize him as fast as possible.”

“It doesn't sound like we have a choice if we want to keep this from getting any worse.” My glance fell to the dead grass under our hooves. “I don't want to think how bad it could get if we let it keep going.”

The Umbral Shard had apparently only been discovered a few days ago, and already things had gotten this bad. My history books had certainly suggested they were very dangerous. After Equestria and the Crystal Empire went to war, it had usually been Princess Celestia and Princess Luna who dealt with the Umbral Shards directly. Everypony had hoped that all of the Umbral Shards had been destroyed during the war, but one of them seemed to crop up again every couple of centuries or so as evil artifacts tend to do. Had these archaeologists stumbled upon one of them during their work?

Storm stretched out her wings. “Forward is our only option, then.”

“What's our plan of attack?” asked Speedy. “I’ve never stormed a fortress before.”

“We need to find a way inside,” Masked said. “After that we need to find Obsidian. If we can capture him and seize the Umbral Shard, then we should be able to shut this problem down.”

That plan sounded simple enough. Of course, the execution of said plan was another problem entirely.

Twinkleshine frowned as she rubbed her chin. “Anyone want to bet he’s in the tallest tower in the fortress? There should be some sort of throne room in that thing. That sounds like something a guy who calls himself Obsidian Tomb would do.”

“Sounds right to me.” Speedy took to the air and turned to face the rest of us. “I'll find the best route to it.”

I frowned, not entirely wild about this idea. “Are you sure about going alone? I'm reasonably sure he's watching us, and those fortresses are supposed to have formidable magical defenses.”

“Someone needs to scout,” Storm said, and while she supported her friend, her frown suggested she wasn’t happy about the idea.

“How about we cast some spells on him to keep him from being seen?” Twinkleshine suggested. “That should give him some protection, at least. Magic is pretty easy to counter if you know what you're dealing, and whatever magic the Umbral Shard is using is going to be dated. It might be powerful, but no way it’s up to date on magical theory. Not to mention this guy is an earth pony, so he’s not going to know much about spellcasting, or at the very least, the practical side of it.”

Storm’s frown deepened. “If we are worried about hostile magic, I would be better suited to it.” She tapped on the breastplate of her crimson armor. “Shadow’s Armor is resistant to magic, in addition to other enchantments. That gives me an edge here.”

Twinkleshine shook her head. “You're also the captain of the princess' guard, and possibly the best suited to protect her againstmagic if Crystal Von Evil-Doom decides to try something direct against her. And just saying, I don’t want the first outing of Twilight’s guard to result in her being captured and turned into some creep’s slave. That’s going to look a little bad on our record.”

“She's not wrong, captain,” Speedy said. “That fancy new armor of yours belongs right next to the VIP so you can keep her safe.”

I bit my lip, not exactly thrilled by this discussion. We were in a really dangerous situation, but like we all agreed, we had to stop Obsidian before he could cause anymore harm. To do that, we needed to know how best to get into that fortress.

“Speedy seems like the best option,” I said, unable keep the reluctance out of my tone. “But I want you to be careful. If it looks like it might be too much, you're to come back immediately.”

Speedy saluted me. “Relax, I don't plan on dying heroically.”

“If you die, I am demoting you,” Storm said with the utmost seriousness.

Speedy snickered at the threat. “Well now I definitely have to live. Can't have my parents get the death benefits for a 2nd lieutenant instead of a 1st lieutenant.”

Twinkleshine grinned wryly at the gallow-humor. “All the more reason to come back. Besides, you still have your duty to report back to your princess. You can’t do that if you’re dead.”

Speedy nodded. “Also true. If I neglect my duties I might get demoted again on top of the demotion for dying, and at that point I won't even be an officer anymore.”

I couldn’t help but smile, despite the grimness of the situation. “So you have your orders, lieutenant. We’ll get to work on getting everypony out of Icepeak . If things get ugly, I don’t want anypony near this place. That and I want to study those collars. They might tell me something about the Umbral Shard that I can use against it. But first, let me and Twinkleshine cast what we can to help you out.”

Author's Note

I would like to thank my prereaders Chengar Qordath and Comma-Kazie for all their help. As well as Show Stopper, JiiKoo, Jeray2000, Billymorph, 621Chopsuey, Rodinga, Trinary, and Swiftest Shadow for all their help editing this chapter.

Chapter 3

The Umbral Shard
Chapter 3

“I'm not the only one a little bit horrified by whatever these crystals are, am I?” I asked as I studied one of the crystal slave collars. After Speedy had left, Twinkleshine and I had taken the ponies with the slave collars to Icepeak’s town hall to see if we could free them. That proved to be an even higher order than I thought with the magic absorbing properties of the collars, in addition to their unique construction.

Twinkleshine shook her head, studying the collars alongside of me. “No, not at all. This is some seriously nasty magic.”

“I’m pretty sure a slave collar that drains the magic of its victim to strengthen its suppression of the will of the pony wearing it meets the definition of nasty,” I agreed. “Not even getting into the crystal's other baseline properties.”

“Yeah, I'm seeing at least a dozen illegal parts to it,” Twinkleshine said as she circled the ponies tied up in front of us. All of them gave us nasty glares as we studied the collars. They hadn’t been particularly helpful when we tried to reason with them, and in the end we had been forced to put magic silence bubbles over their mouths to keep them from pointlessly threatening us about their new dark master, Obsidian Tomb. I wouldn’t have found it surprising if Obsidian was giving them commands just to try and distract us from what we were doing. “Shame we can't lock up whoever made this a dozen times.”

“I'm pretty sure King Sombra is dead.” After considering the manner of Sombra’s demise, I added, “Which means he's probably only mostly dead, and given Equestria's record with merely mostly dead nemesi...”

Twinkleshine sighed and nodded. “They always come back for another round.”

“You would think Princess Celestia and Princess Luna would have done him in.” I cast some additional scanning spells on the collars, my old ones having been drained away by the crystals. “But that only seemed to keep Sombra down for a millennium before he came back alongside the rest of the Crystal Empire. I would say that the Crystal Heart got him pretty good, but I can’t be certain that he’s gone forever.”

“Better to be cautious and get a happy surprise than to just be disappointed,” Twinkleshine confirmed. “But it seems like we always get the oddball cases.”

I gave my friend a wry smile. “Just think of it as one of the benefits of the job.”

Twinkleshine’s reply was a flat, “Yaaay...”

I chuckled. “Is that anyway for a pony of my guard to act?”

“Oh, sorry.” She cleared her throat and straightened up like she was on parade ground. “Oh yay, more ancient evils for us to fight!”

“That's more like it!” Despite the current situation, it felt good that we could still joke around. Part of me felt guilty for it since Storm and Masked had evacuated the town, but I wasn’t exactly going to help anypony by just brooding and letting the stress get to me. Still, I returned to my scans and looked at the magical composition of the crystals. “Now we just need to hammer out whatever weaknesses there are to these crystals. No magic is perfect, and we should be able to find some sort of drawback.”

“Agreed.” Twinkleshine wrinkled up her nose in thought. “I guess we could start with the usual things about crystals. I'm sure you've read a book about them at some point.”

I nodded. “Both magical and non-magical. Cadance let me borrow quite a few books from the Crystal Empire’s library, in addition to materials from the Canterlot Royal Library.”

“Well, make with the recitation, O living encyclopedia.” After a moment, she amended, “Er ... Your Highness.”

I rolled my eyes, but grinned. Storm had been rather insistent on maintaining a certain level of decorum within my guard, even when some of them were my friends. It was one of those things we were still trying to find a good balance for. “Crystals are generally highly harmonic with magic. It’s why they're favored for use by a lot of magi and other magical practitioners, and also why the Crystal Empire loves crystals so much. But they aren't perfect; for one, crystals are weak against sound magic.”

“So, obvious starting point number one,” Twinkleshine agreed. “The right frequency can usually break a crystal.”

“Right, the frequencies have to match the harmonic level of the crystal's baseline magical pitch,” I said. “But the frequency is consistent for specific types of crystals.”

“So we could figure out what we need to break these.” Twinkleshine gave me a wry smile. “Time for an experiment?”

“That's what I was thinking.”

“Right.” She rubbed her chin. “Anything else before we unleash the power of sound?”

“There is one thing.” I hefted one of the shards we’d pulled from the bulette we had killed earlier. “I am curious about one of the properties of these crystals. Namely, that they're of an artificial nature.”

“Artificially created crystals are usually a lot more regular than natural ones,” Twinkleshine pointed out. “None of the those little quirks and imperfections.”

“No, and they seem to have some sort of connection with the Shadow Plane, too.” I rotated the shard as I examined it. “It's helping give the crystals some of their magical properties.” The Shadow Realm wasn’t the nicest of extraplanar dimensions out there. Near as anypony could tell, a lot of it was inherently hostile to the material realm. That might explain how the crystals here had the property to drain magic.

“Well, in that case light's the natural counter to shadow,” Twinkleshine said.

“That’s what I was thinking.” I hummed contemplatively as I considered our options. “Do you think a modified thunderflash spell could be the key?”

Twinkleshine shrugged. “Sounds like a good place to start, at least.”

“So, do you want the honors of trying first, or do you want to grant that honor to your princess?”

“Well if it's an honor, you should probably take it,” she pointed out with a wry grin. “You're the boss-mare.”

I couldn’t counter that perfectly good logic. “Why thank you, Captain,” I said with equally serious levity.

I stepped up to one of our glaring prisoners and cast a low level thunderflash spell—though unlike a normal casting, I directed a steady trickle of sound and light to the crystal collar. The result was a small buzzing ball of light that floated near the collar. Twinkleshine watched carefully as I gradually modified the audio frequency and the harmonic level of the light. I grew more confident as the collar didn't absorb my magic like it previously. After a minute’s work of moving through different frequencies, the collar cracked and fell off its victim’s neck.

The newly freed pony blinked and looked around. He mouthed something, but the silence spell kept me from hearing whatever he said.

I smile widely. “There we go! Want to give it a shot yourself, Twinkleshine?”

“Sure.” Twinkleshine replicated the frequency I had used for her own thunderflash spell on one of the other collars to similar results. “There we go. So, bust the rest of these?”

“Sounds like a good idea to me.” If at all possible, I wanted to question these ponies about what had happened to them, and to get them out of Icepeak alongside everypony else. That being the case, the two of us broke the rest of the collars, leaving a circle of confused and tired looking ponies.

We were in the process of breaking the last of the collars when Storm trotted into the townhall. She saluted me before speaking. “Highness. I see you are making progress.”

I nodded, gesturing at one of the broken collars on the floor. “We figured out how to get around the crystal's anti-magic properties. It seems like light and sound are the key to breaking the crystals, though we have to hit them at a specific frequency if we really want to do any damage.”

Storm nodded. “Very good. For more good news, we have finished evacuating most of civilians.”

“That is good news.” That was at least one thing off our plate. I didn’t like having to tell everypony they have to evacuate their homes, but I didn’t want anypony near that crystal fortress if things got worse.

I dropped the silence spells over the freed slaves, and a cream-colored earth pony mare was the first to speak. “W-what's going on?” She winced and rubbed her head. “Ow...”

Storm’s eyes narrowed. “That is what we would like to know.”

One of the other ponies, an earth pony stallion who looked like he belonged on a college campus studying in a library rather than enslaving other ponies, widened his eyes as he got a good look at us. Having a princess with her guards standing over you could be pretty intimidating. “I didn't drink too much again, did I?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” I said.

“What is the last thing you remember?” Storm asked, a little harsher than I would have liked.

“Um,” the mare grimaced as she thought. “We were work on a dig—we thought it was some old military camp dating back to the Crystal Wars. And then Dr. Steady Spade found ... something, right?” She looked to her fellows for confirmation.

“Right.” The stallion nodded. “That ... red crystal thing? He pulled it out of that stream. Remember how we thought he was nuts digging through that ice cold water, but he insisted something was there?”

Twinkleshine looked to me and Storm. “Sounds like our evil artifact.”

“I think so too.” I turned back to those that were answering our questions. “Do any of you remember what happened next?”

The stallion frowned in concentration. “Um, Dr. Spade said he wanted to study the crystal in private in his tent, and then...” His nose scrunched up in concentration. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry, but everything’s just a blank. I don’t even remember how I got here.”

“Does anypony remember anything else?” Storm asked.

The rest of the archaeologists shook their heads.

I frowned as I considered this development. “Short term memory loss can be a symptom of mind control, and they’re acting a lot like the crystal ponies immediately after the Crystal Empire returned. I don’t think they’re going to be much more help. Not unless we want to spend hours working them over with mind magic, which isn’t something I want to rush on considering their minds are probably already weakened thanks to those slave collars.”

Storm nodded. “Let us see them to safety, then.”

I untied the ropes holding the archaeologists in place. “Okay everypony, we're evacuating everyone from the area for your own safety. Follow us and we’ll show you where you need to be heading.”

A murmur ran through the group, but they complied with my instructions as we headed out of the town hall. As Princess Celestia had told me, speaking with authority and acting like you have a plan is often enough to get ponies to follow you in a crisis.

Within half an hour we had the lot of them on the road leading away from Icepeak and following everypony else evacuating the town. I felt reasonably confident that it was safe to let all the archeologists go. It was possible that at least one of them was lying about what they knew about the Umbral Shard and their involvement, but that struck me as unlikely. Even if they had originally been conspiring with Dr. Spade—Obsidian, whatever I was supposed to call him—they had been backstabbed pretty hard when they’d had those slave collars slapped on them. There was also the fact I didn't want to split up my guard when we were looking at assaulting the crystal fortress here as soon as Speedy came back from scouting the place out. Obsidian and the Umbral Shard were the far greater threat, and I couldn't afford to divide what forces I had to watch a hooffull of ponies who might have done something illegal.

“Well that went simply enough,” Twinkleshine said as we watched the archeologists depart.

I decided not to voice my private doubts on the matter. A leader showing too much doubt about what they were doing could be caustic to the morale of those around them. “At least we got those slave collars off of them,” I said, focusing on the positive side of things. “I just wish we could have found out a bit more than we did. I feel like I've been running around blind here.”

“Perhaps Speedy will uncover something,” Storm suggested.

It should make things easier for us if we could get in someplace that wasn't the heavily fortified front gate. “That's my hope. Any sight of him yet?”

“He is on his way back,” Masked said directly behind me. With a start, I spun to face the pony I swore hadn't been there a second ago. He wore that continual bored expression he normally wore as he continued speaking. “Though I think something might be wrong.”

I frowned, pushing my annoyance about nearly jumping out of my skin to the side, the feeling of concern making that task easier than it normally would have been. “What’s wrong?”

“See for yourself.” Masked held up a pair of binoculars and pointed in the general direction of the fortress.

I looked to see what he was pointing at. It wasn't long before I found Speedy flying in our direction. “I see him. He's coming our way.” I frowned as I noticed something about his flight pattern. “Is it just me, or is he having trouble flying? He seems to be favoring his left side.” Had he gotten himself hurt?

Twinkleshine’s eyes glowed with a vision enhancement spell. “I think you're right. And by the looks of it, he's got company.”

I looked further behind Speedy to see a trio of figures hot on his hooves. They seemed to be made of the same red crystals as the fortress and beat bat-like wings. They looked quadrupedal, similar to a dragon, though with a hunched body that reminded me of a gargoyle. “You're right. They look like some sort of crystal golems, if I had to guess. From what I’ve read, the Umbral Shard was able to make some of those.”

Storm’s wings snapped out. “I'm going to help him.” Without another word, she took to the air and flew in Speedy’s direction.

“Storm, wait up!” I took off after her. Even with all of her armor, she still showed how strong of a flier she was. Still, I managed to slowly close the difference with her.

Storm glanced behind her and frowned. “Careful, Highness.” She pumped her wings harder to open the distance back up between us.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that Storm wanted me to stay behind her as we closed with Speedy. She probably wanted to attack the gargoyles well before they could get to me—or at least, she wanted to soften them up first. Part of me was annoyed at the treatment, but she was my bodyguard at the end of the day.

Besides, I saw a more immediate problem: calculating the distances and speeds of everyone currently flying, the gargoyles were going to get to Speedy before we did. That being the case, we needed to take a different approach.

I called up to Storm as I continued flying hard. “Storm, we need to teleport if we’re going to beat those golems to Speedy. Are you ready?”

Storm glanced back at me with a grim look to her eyes. “Can you teleport us behind and above them?”

I re-worked my calculations. One advantage to teleporting in the sky over doing so the ground was that I didn’t have to worry nearly as much about teleporting into a solid object. “I think so. Get ready!”

I concentrated and cast a teleportation spell. We popped back into existence above and behind the gargoyles and facing the right direction. It took Storm only a moment to reorient herself before she dived down on the trio of gargoyles. Not wanting her to get too far away from me, I dove behind her, if at a slower pace.

Storm’s wing blades glowed red-hot as she prepared to strike. As though sensing Storm’s intentions, the gargoyle Storm had been bearing down on flipped itself to face her. Crystalline claws flashed out. Storm ducked and rolled to the side, slashing out a wing as she streaked past. The wing blade cut into the gargoyle’s chest and took a chunk out of it. The gargoyle flailed as it was knocked off-balance and it flapped its wings desperately to regain control.

Seeing that Storm had been slowed down by her attack, the other two gargoyles dove after her, quickly closing the distance. Not liking the idea of Storm facing two-to-one odds, I took aim and shot off a thunderflash spell. It streaked toward the rearmost gargoyle and struck its back, exploding with violent light and sound that sheared off its wings. The gargoyle immediately plummeted towards the ground.

That proved that my magic would be at least somewhat useful against the Umbral Shard’s power. I was restricted primarily to light and sound magic if I wanted to get anything done, but that was better than nothing.

The remaining unharmed gargoyle reached for Storm as it closed on her. It had almost grabbed her when Storm’s armor lit with a nearly blinding light. The armor’s innate ability caused the gargoyle to freeze in place, the light magic a natural counter to its own shadow-based magic. Storm banked sharply to the side as the gargoyle plummeted past her.

Storm made another sharp bank and dove down after the gargoyle as it slowly regained movement. Her wingblade flashed out and cut off the gargoyle’s wing. The ends of the severed wing glowed from the heat of the wing blade and the gargoyle lost control of its flight and fell after its fellow.

The gargoyle wounded in her initial attack had by now recovered, and dove after Storm. Storm was badly positioned to deal with the renewed attack, but I had no intentions of letting it reach her. I had another thunderflash spell charged and fired it. The spell hit its body squarely and blew it to pieces in a flash of light.

Storm spun around to fly back to me, her head swiveling for threats. “Are you alright, Highness?”

“I’m fine, none of them got anywhere near me.” The whole battle had taken no more than a couple of minutes. Everything had happened so quickly I barely had time to really contemplate what I was doing. The whole thing reminded me of the changeling invasion of Canterlot, where I had to just react to circumstances developing around me.

“Then let's catch up with Speedy and see how he’s doing.” Storm’s worry was clear. I hadn’t been wild about sending one of my guards into probable danger, and it was probably even worse for Storm, considering Speedy was her friend.

It didn’t take us long to catch up with Speedy, who was definitely favoring one side as he flew along. He had been flying along slower now that the gargoyles hadn’t been chasing him. “Hey, take it easy,” I said gently. I created a glowing white disk of magic underneath him. “Here, stand on that.” He looked like he was about to drop out of the sky on his own accord, which was about the last thing I wanted him doing.

Speedy dropped down to the disk with a pained grunt, clutching his left side as his face twisted with pain. His body was drenched with sweat and I could see blood seeping through his talon. “Thanks. Thought I was a goner there for a bit.”

“You just relax for a bit while we get you back to the others,” I told him. “You can tell us what happened once you’ve had a few minutes to catch your breath.”

We flew back to Icepeak and landed where the others were waiting at the edge of town. Storm’s lips pressed together in worry as she looked Speedy over. “Time to give you some medical attention.”

Speedy nodded. “Sounds good.” He grimaced as Twinkleshine and I carefully helped him out of his armor. It didn’t take long to figure out where he was hurt. There was a trio of clawmarks that ran for a few inches along his side. They didn’t look too deep, but the large dent in his armor where one of the gargoyles had managed to slash through told me he had been hit pretty hard. “I was trying to find another entrance into that place besides the gate when some of the damned gargoyles came to life. Nearly took my head off before I got away. Didn’t realize how bad I had been hurt until I was halfway back here.”

Storm pulled out a med-pack from her saddlebags and opened it. “I see.” She pressed a bandage against his side to try and stop the bleeding from his wound.

“Unfortunately,” Speedy continued, “if there’s another way into that fortress, I didn't see it. Those gargoyles were the only defense I saw, but who knows what other nasty stuff the place has.” He winced in pain as Storm cleaned his wound.

The fact that Speedy hadn't discovered anything made me feel all the more guilty for sending him off on his own. If he had found something useful then I could at least have justified sending him on the dangerous task. Now it felt like I had made a bad call letting him go. The logical part of my brain said that I couldn't have known what he would find until he actually went, but that was cold comfort as I looked at Speedy’s injuries.

Twinkleshine stepped up to get a better look at Speedy’s injured side. “I know a couple of spells that can help with your wounds at least.” She first cast a painkiller spell, another to disinfect the wound, and then a final one to speed up coagulation. That done, she pulled out a needle and some thread from her pack to sew his wounds shut.

Speedy tried to not move as Twinkleshine went to work but he still flinched despite the painkiller spell. “I think they might have bruised my ribs. Broken them, even.”

“Let me check.” Twinkleshine cast a medical scanning spell and grimaced. “Four of your ribs have been cracked. I don’t think they’ve punctured your lungs or anything, but there isn’t much I can do about them.”

“I was afraid you'd say that.” Speedy gave us a grimace of a smile that failed to show his usual humor. “Hate getting hurt on the job.”

Storm finished putting on a bandage and made sure it was going to stick. “We can at least get you ready for transport.”

Speedy gingerly pressed a talon against the bandage. “I guess this is your way of saying I'm done for the day?”

Storm smiled dryly. “Don't enjoy your break too much.”

Speedy returned that smile. “Broken ribs will make that hard to do.” He stood up with Storm’s help and took a couple of seconds to steady himself. “Thanks for the save, by the way.”

“The Patrol guards its own,” Storm said, repeating one of the Long Patrol’s mottos.

I bit my lip. “Sorry you got hurt.” Unfortunately, I had to agree with Storm about sending Speedy away. With cracked ribs he wasn't going to be much good for the upcoming fight. My decision to send him scouting the fortress had resulted in us being a guard down and nothing to show for it. That didn't make me feel particularly good.

Speedy waved off my worries. “Risk of the job, Your Highness. It could have been a lot worse, and at least now I can encourage the civvies to keep moving. Even if I'm not exactly going to be moving all that quickly myself.”

“Here, let me give you an update to pass along.” I pulled out some writing supplies and quickly jotted down a report about everything we had discovered about the Obsidian and the Umbral Shard. “I better write a second one to send to the princesses magically while I’m at it.”

“Need some help getting there?” Twinkleshine asked.

“I think I'll manage.” Speedy walked with a limp as he tried a few test steps, but he seemed mobile. “I've gotten this far, at least. Best of luck, everypony. By your leave, Captain—Your Highness.” He saluted us and the other guards saluted back.

Formalities out of the way, Speedy took my report and departed down the road to try and catch up with the evacuating ponies. That left the rest of us to decide what to do next.

“So, I guess we need to figure out what our next move will be,” I stated, using a spell to send the second report I had written to Spike. He would make sure it was forwarded to the other princesses.

Storm nodded. “Our obvious goal is the tower.”

I frowned as I looked up at the fortress looming over us. “And there doesn't seem to be an alternate entrance, which means we either have to find a way through the front gate or through its walls.”

“So ... we have to go the brute force way.” Twinkleshine didn’t sound the least bit happy with the prospect.

“Looks like it,” I said with equal enthusiasm. “Since I don't even want to try teleporting in there blind. There are all sorts of things that could go wrong if I tried.” I remembered the incident where I had been trapped by one of Sombra’s defenses for the Crystal Heart and how useless my teleportation had been. There was a significant chance that fortress would have a similar defense, and it wasn't something I wanted to find out. There was also the not insignificant risk of teleporting into a wall.

“Very well then,” Storm said. “We can certainly apply raw force.”

“It's not my style, but I can do that if I have to.” I checked the time of day and frowned as I realized something. “We better get going. We don't have much sunlight left for the day.”

“And I would rather not face this warlock at night,” Storm agreed.

“Right, he's probably only going to become more powerful then,” I said. “From what we've heard, the fortress grows during the night, and I'm willing to bet that’s when it reaches the apex of its power.”

Twinkleshine frowned and nodded. “It's called the Umbral Shard. I'm gonna bet more shadows makes it stronger.”

“Everypony gather around,” I instructed. “I'm going to teleport us up by the fortress. No time to waste, I want to finish this before anypony else gets hurt.”

Everypony did as I instructed and I cast my teleportation spell.

We popped back into reality near the fortress, exactly where I’d planned for us to. It had been something of a risk to teleport so close to the fortress, but I wanted to give us as much time as possible to deal with Obsidian and get that artifact away from him before nightfall. This also minimized the time Obsidian would have to throw something else at us. There was also the fact that I wanted to finish this crisis quickly so that no one else got hurt, and that there were already too many victims from Obsidian using the Shard.

My guards quickly spread out, keeping a wary eye on our surroundings. When no threat immediately jumped out on us, Twinkleshine flashed me a smile. “I wish I could do that spell.”

“It's not the easiest to learn, unfortunately,” I said as we approached the fortress as a group.

“I guess not. You're the only one I know who can use it.” Twinkleshine stared up at the foreboding spires and jagged crystals jutting from the fortress’ defenses. The place was even less hospitable up close than it was at a distance. The one small comfort I got was that nopony was doing anything like firing crossbows at us from the battlements.

Yet, anyways. There were still plenty of ways for everything to go wrong.

“Princess Celestia only teaches it to her students, and that's just about it,” I said, trying to distract myself from what was ahead of us. “At least as far as I know. You have to be pretty powerful to have the magic to cast it to start with, not to mention how difficult it is to pull off. That and Celestia doesn’t like to have it spread around too much.”

Twinkleshine let out a long sigh. “So much for me ever learning it, then.”

I gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but there are plenty of other spells I can teach you.”

“Alright then.” Twinkleshine grinned appreciatively. “I’d appreciate it. It certainly sounds more interesting than standing around looking stoic around the palace all day, every day.”

Masked cleared his throat to interrupt us. “Perhaps we should concentrate on the little matter of assaulting the fortress before we stop to make lesson plans?”

“That seems wise,” Storm agreed flatly.

“Oh, right.” I pulled my thoughts from the future magical studies to that task at hoof. The gate stood before us, made of the same crystalline material as the rest of the fortress. “So, any last minute clever ideas, or are we going with the brute force method?”

“I think that is our best plan,” Storm said as she took place besides me. “Do you think you can bring the gate down, Highness?”

“I think I’ve got something that can do the job.” My horn lit up as I drew deeply on my magic. “Everypony get ready. Anything could be on the other side of the gate, and this might get a bit loud.”

Everypony readied themselves as I poured magic into the biggest thunderflash spell I had ever cast. A glowing white orb shot from my horn and collided with the center of the gate. I closed my eyes and flattened my ears as my senses were overwhelmed by the resulting explosion. I felt more than saw or heard chunks of the gate splinter and break away as they fell, the impact of the large chunks of crystal shaking the ground beneath us.

When I was finally able to blink away the spots in my vision, I saw a large gap in the gate. I smiled at the confirmation that my magic was a match for that of the Umbral Shard. “That seems to have—”

Something flashed within the the fortress, and faster than I could process the sight, a lightning bolt flared from the hole in the gate. My eyes widened as Storm stepped in front of me to take the hit, arcs of electricity shot off of Storm as she was struck and she went rigid from the discharge.

“Storm, are you okay?!” I looked her over as she grimaced with discomfort, her armor smoking from the hit she had taken. She grunted and nodded, but that’s all she managed as a reply. It seemed that her ancestral armor had taken the brunt of the damage, but any kind of electrocution wasn't pleasant to go through.

Before I could examine her, a loud, bestial roar echoed from within the dark depths of the fortress.

Twinkleshine backed a couple steps away from the gate. “That's ... not a good sound."

A barrage of heavy footsteps rumbled from the gate as the creature that had fired the lightning at us emerged. It was long and covered in blue scales, with a large head, fang filled maw, and a pair of curved horns that all reminded me of a dragon. As big as an adult dragon, but it ran along the ground on six pairs of legs and didn’t have any wings. Shards of dark red crystals dotted it exactly how the bulette had been.

“Behir!” Twinkleshine cried, running out of the way of the charging beast.

“Ah!” I grabbed Storm and teleported into the sky and out of the monster’s reach.

Storm shook her head as she regained her senses. “Look out for its mouth—that’s the biggest threat!”

With its first pick of prey now beyond its reach, the behir turned to charge Masked. It snapped its head at him, rows of pointed teeth promising a quick death to anypony caught in that maw. Masked rolled to the side at the last second, and in the same swift moment, chucked a small flask into the behir’s jaws. The smoke potion broke inside its mouth and smoke exploded outward. The behir started coughing violently as the smoke filled its lungs. Masked took the opportunity to run and get more distance from the behir.

Seeing her moment to strike, Storm pulled herself from my grip and dived at the behir, aiming at the back of its neck. She was nearly on it when the behir spun with a speed the belied its size. Its tail whipped out at her. Storm tried to turn, but the tail still hit her with a glancing blow that was still strong enough to send her tumbling. She hit the ground, bouncing twice before rolling to a violent halt.

Rage flashed through me as I saw Storm take the hit. I wasn't going to let this monster get away with hurting my friend! A blue beam shot from my horn and hit the behir’s mouth, causing a solid layer of ice to cover it. The behir shook its head from side to side as it tried to shake the ice off, its forelegs clawing at its face. I was in the middle of casting another ice spell when the behir shot me a baleful glare. Its chest heaved and the ice around its jaw shattered as a lightning bolt blasted out its mouth and right at me.

The unexpected attack forced me to convert my spell into a defensive ice shield. A solid wall of ice intercepted the lightning bolt with a crash as the lightning blast blew away my impromptu shield. Chunks of ice blasted into me and my body went rigid as electricity ran through me. I fell, my cognition and control of my body gone. The next thing I felt was my body plummeting into the ground, and my vision went white.

I just lay there, my whole body hurting from my fall. Around me there were shouts and more roaring, though I couldn't put any of it into context as spots covered my vision. Slowly the spots dissipated and I could start to take in the sights around me: I looked up to see Twinkleshine standing in front of me. She must have been trying to protect me, for the behir was glaring down at us as it moved forward, skitting along on its many legs.

Twinkleshine fired a light enhanced stunbolt that slammed into the face of the behir, and its charge was brought to a halt. But its progress was only momentarily stopped, for it quickly recovered and made a few more steps before Twinkleshine stunned it with another stunbolt. Twice more the scene played out, with Twinkleshine only able to slow the monster down, but unable to fully stop it despite my magus guard pouring forth her magic into one attack after another.

Masked came in along the flank of the behir and fished a gem out of his saddlebags. He threw it and the fire gem exploded against the behir’s scaly hide. The behir jerked at the explosion, but when the smoke cleared it showed that no damage had been done to the monster. The crystals dotting its scales glowed as they absorbed the magic of the fireballs. It didn’t even bother to give Masked any of its attention, instead continuing its advance on me and Twinkleshine.

“Little.” Twinkleshine fired another stunbolt into the behir. “Help. Here?” Twinkleshine’s flanks were covered in sweat, and she panted as tried to get another spell off.

I got my legs under me, my whole body protesting in pain as I forced myself to my hooves. Vertigo seized me and I stumbled a couple of steps before I regained my balance. I needed to help Twinkleshine ... but how? My thoughts felt scattered as I tried to piece together what needed to be done. I wasn’t in much shape to cast anything complicated, but I needed something that could bring this thing down. Taking in my surroundings, I saw that I had landed—crashed near the wall, Storm was still down, and I didn’t know how bad she was hurt. She was moving, but it was clear she was struggling.

The idea that Storm might be hurt burned away much of the fog that had clouded my mind. I needed to stop this fight and now before it got any worse. A nearby tower on the fortress battlement caught my attention and I drew magic into my horn. I might not have been in much shape for finesse at the moment, but brute force could work just fine at the end of the day.

I double-checked my calculations and shot another, massive thunderflash spell at the juncture where the top of the wall and the tower met. Chunks of crystals burst from the wall, and the tower spiderwebbed as its structure was fatally undermined. The tower first tipped and then fell, crumbling under the stress of its weight—right down on top of the behir.

The behir let out a startled roar as it was buried under a pile of crystals. For a moment I thought that had done the monster in, but as the dust settled I saw the behir still squirming under the rubble. It seemed that behir were made of tougher stuff.

I was in the middle of trying to think what my next move should be when Storm got back to her hooves. She turned to face the behir and took to the air, unleashing the lightning blast that had been stored in her ancestral armor as she let out a primal warcry.

Storm flew in a arc, aiming for the monster’s neck, and her wing blade flashed as it slashed into the monster’s scales. The blade bit into flesh as Storm’s momentum lent her blow the extra power needed to cut through the tough scales. Storm’s blade sizzled with blood as she planted her hooves to continue her attack.

The behir jerked as the back of its neck was opened, but the rubble held it in place. It howled as Storm slashed time and again into the opening she had made as she sliced ever deeper into the monster. The behir jerked a final time and collapsed, motionless.

Storm stood at the ready, her wing blades glowing and ready to strike again. When the behir did not stir, she fluttered off its back and landed next to it to study it. “It’s dead,” Storm called out. She had made a good effort to remain stoic, but I could sense the relief in her voice.

I felt a strong urge to sit down and, not seeing a reason to resist that urge, did so.

Twinkleshine turned to me, worry obvious on her face as she looked me over. “Twilight, are you okay? You took a nasty hit there.”

“I'm breathing, at least.” Now that I had a moment to register it, it felt like my whole body had just had an intimate experience with a sledgehammer. I was having trouble seeing out of my right eye and touched a hoof to my eyebrow. The pressure caused me to wince in pain at the nasty swelling. One of the chunks of ice must have gotten me.

Storm was next to start looking me over and she pull her med-kit from her saddlebags. “Please relax, Highness.” Her wings flicked ever so slightly as she withdrew an icepack that she pressed to my forehead. “I am sorry that you were hurt. That should not have happened.”

I shook my head, immediately regretting doing so after the way that made my head hurt. “You got hurt on my account. You’re about the last pony I’d blame for me getting hit like that. You did take a lightning bolt for me, remember?”

Storm frowned deeply as she considered my points. “I remember, Highness.”

“No broken bones, at least,” Twinkleshine said as she finished scanning me. “Lots of scrapes and bruises, but nothing some time and bed rest won't make better.”

“I'm going to have to veto the bedrest for now. We still have a job to do.” I looked Storm over to see if she had suffered any injuries of her own. “What about you, Storm? You took a nasty hit yourself.”

“I am fine,” Storm said without any inflections. “Shadow’s Armor protected me from the worst of it.”

The neutral way she had answered me made me worry. There were limits to how much protection even the best enchanted armors could give you, and Shadow’s Armor had some ... quirks that most sets of armor didn't.

It seemsed that Obsidian wasn't kidding about controlling other monsters. Given time, he would probably come to dominate even more of them, and who knows where that could end. The idea of him managing to enslave something like a dragon and inflicting it on the neighboring communities wasn't a pleasant idea.

“The behir was probably the last of them, I hope.” Storm glanced the way of the dead monster. “Behirs are not known for getting along well with others, and are intelligent. So it couldn't have been easy to control.”

“Magical mind control isn't easy,” I said, the analytic part of my brain working. “It takes a lot of power, which is probably why the Shard drains the magic from the victims it manages first.”

“As long as you’re willing to ignore the health and psychological damage caused by pulling that.” Twinkleshine applied a bandage. “It’s not something I would recommend ... well, at all, but especially for long term use.”

“I don’t think Sombra really cared about who he hurt as long as he got what he wanted.” He had turned nearly the entirety of the Crystal Empire’s population into slaves, after all. It was a lot of work to turn the Empire back around after it returned and Sombra had been dealt with.

“Can’t disagree with you there, Twilight.” Twinkleshine finished patching me up and nodded at her work. “You good to move around?”

“I’ll have to be.” I grunted and stood. The simple act came with a lot more pain than I liked, but there wasn’t anything to be done about it. Still, I was at least mobile.

Storm frowned and there was a tenseness about her as she looked at me. “We can withdraw if you want to, Highness.”

It wasn’t hard for me to hear the unasked question. She was wondering if I could continue after the beating I had taken. Fair enough, she was the captain of my bodyguard and her first job was to keep me alive. Me jumping into danger like this was about as counterintuitive towards that job as you could reasonably get, assuming anything about this situation was reasonable anymore. It was tempting to pack up, get some reinforcements, and come back later. Shame I didn’t think that was a good idea. As we had discussed, this crisis was only going to get worse with time unless we put a stop to it now, and I was determined to see this mission to the end so that nopony else got hurt by Obsidian.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her. I turned to face the broken gate and did my best to ignore the protests of my body. “We need to finish this. We’ve come this far, and I have no intention of giving up now. If we’re ready, we need to get going. I’d rather not give Obsidian anymore time to create more nasty surprises.”

I didn’t get any protests from my guards and we headed into the dark recesses of the crystal fortress.

“Once more unto the breach,” Twinkleshine glowered.

Climbing stairs is pretty awful when you’re beaten up, and we found ourselves climbing a lot of stairs. We had started our exploration of the fortress by combing through its first level to try and find Obsidian. That wasn’t a particularly pleasant task; the fortress was almost pitch dark, forcing Twinkleshine and me to cast light orbs to let us see. The dark red walls seemed to drink in whatever light we produced and the shadows looked like they had a life of their own as we moved within the building’s confines.

What’s more, I could sense the fortress trying to siphon off our magic. My wards against it were holding for now, but it didn’t make the place feel any less hostile. Especially when the place just seemed so lifeless. My own palace had at first struck me as cold and lifeless due to its size and lack of ponies to fill up all that space, but that sensation was a magnitude worse in the crystal fortress. Everything was made of the same dark red crystals, every crevice promised to be hiding some hostile creature within, and I could feel the hostility emanating from the place. My instincts screamed for me to get out and get out now. Shame we had an important job that excluded me screaming and running away in terror.

At least we hadn't been attacked by anymore monsters—yet, anyways. Still, it did give me hope the Umbral Shard might be nearing its limits. It was either that or we were being lured into a trap from which there was no escape, so instead I was going to think on the positive side that didn't involve me and my guard walking into a swift and horrible end.

Not wanting to only listen to the sound of my hooves on steps, I said, “I just want to go on the record of say that the top of the highest floor of your fortress really isn't a convenient place for a throne room.” I took a moment to stretch out a twinge in my leg. The staircases that ran up the side of the tower didn't make it easy to figure out where we were. Signs were sadly lacking in the fortress, as were any windows that might have given us any kind of reference. Whether that was some sort of defense feature, intentionally done by our mad archeologist, or just how the Umbral Shard did things, I couldn't say.

Twinkleshine shrugged. “Obsidian’s types usually go more for dramatic than practical.”

“I suspect it's a mental deviance,” Masked said. “Ponies who go mad with power have certain pathological tendencies.”

“That is one explanation,” Storm said unhappily, her watchful eye turning anywhere where an enemy might jump out of.

“Mine is at the base level of the palace, thankfully,” I said. “I guess the Tree of Harmony agrees with me that something like my palace should be more or less practical in its design.” Even if I still got complaints from ponies about how the castle didn't fit the architecture of the rest of the town, though it wasn’t like I had a say about the matter.

“Though we do have the secondary throne room,” Storm reminded me. “The map room works well enough for some purposes, but a grander throne room for public events would be ideal.”

“You do have a point,” I admitted. The map room was fine for meetings and conferences, but it wouldn’t be as useful when lots ponies wanted to see me for things like court decisions. “The one benefit to the palace having so many rooms is that it lets me turn a lot of them into anything I want. Not that the whole place is exactly conventional to begin with, mind.”

Twinkleshine flashed a smile my way. “You've never been all that conventional.”

“I can't really argue with that.” It was hard to argue that anything about my life was conventional. Really, I considered myself pretty lucky overall, the odd monster or recently released evil demigod-like being aside.

Before we could continue the conversation, Masked held up a hoof to catch our attention and bring us to a halt. “We’re near the top. Likely we’re near our quarry.”

I couldn't tell how Masked knew we were near the top, but I thought it best to trust his instinct for now. It was possible that Obsidian was hiding in some obscure broom closet, fearfully holding himself in the fetal position, but given how the rest of this day was going I doubted we were suddenly going to be that lucky. “Alright, game time.”

We silently ascended the last of the stairs to reach the top of the fortress tower. Imposing support pillars flanked each side of the large room, though the room itself was relatively empty except the throne sitting on a raised platform. Sitting upon that throne was Obsidian Tomb with his crystal throne and a glowing Shard of crystal in his lap.

He scowled deeply as we stepped up to him, each of us ready to leap into action as we did so. “You really are a stubborn lot.”

Twinkleshine shot him an unamused frown. “Let me guess: we underestimate your dark powers of evil darkness?”

Obsidian’s frown turned into seething glare. “Do not mock me!”

I couldn't help but give the would-be tyrant a wry grin. “Sorry, that's a bit hard to do what with your big evil fortress, your silly crystal crown, the monsters, and the enslavement of the local ponies. You realize you've hit just about every stereotype of villainy there in the book, right? And I should know—I've read a book about the subject.”

“You think it's funny to make fun of me?”

Storm grinned also, though hers has an icy edge to it. “No, but one of my friends would, and I want to honor him. If Speedy were here, I believe he suggested a warlock name along the lines of Shadow Crystal McEvilguy.”

“Enough!” Obsidian’s outburst resonated throughout the throne room, anger burning in his eyes as he stared down at us. “Mock me all you want, but you're not going to stop me here. Not when I have the Umbral Shard.” He held up the artifact in question as its pulsated red. “There is so much I’m going to be able to do with its power. It'll make the last twenty years of my career seem like my pre-graduate years.”

Twinkleshine frowned, the lack of confidence she had in Obsidian’s plan obvious on her face. “You do know the Umbral Shard has a long history of failure, right?”

Obsidian’s eye twitched and there was the slightest bit of hesitation when he next spoke. “Only because the previous fools who used it didn't properly appreciate it!”

“Pretty sure all of them said that,” Twinkleshine countered.

“It does seem to be a consistent theme with these types of things,” I agreed. “You can trust me on that. I’ve read about lots of incidents like this, and I’ve even experienced a few of them.”

“Enough!” Obsidian stomped a hoof. “I won’t be belittled by you!”

If Storm was the least bit unsettled by Obsidian, she didn’t show it as she gave him a level look. “Well then, perhaps we should just capture you.”

“Give up, and I'll be lenient to you.” I stepped forward so that we could better look at one another. “You can still stop this before it goes any further. Enough ponies have been hurt already, so there’s no need to make this any worse than it already is.” I didn’t see it as likely he would just stop because he asked me too, but it was worth a shot.

“When I hold all the cards?” He waved off my offer. “Don't insult me.”

“A little too late for that,” Masked said flatly.

“Fine. If you want to see my full power, then that is what you'll see.” The atmosphere of the room somehow changed as Obsidian stood. He placed the Umbral Shard against his chest and more of the dark red crystals started growing over his chest. Quickly he was covered by an ever-growing layer of crystal. Soon he stood taller than all of us, larger and thicker than even Princess Celestia in his crystalline armor, with only his head exposed.

My guard took up defensive positions around me as Obsidian gestured at the floor. The shadows about us seemed to flow around us as though they were some living, flow cloud with its own nefarious purpose. They coalesced into four figures in front of us, each of them equine in shape. Each one of them was a different pony breed, and upon a second look, I realized they were shadowy mirrors of myself and my guards.

“Oookay, this looks pretty bad,” I said, considering our options as it looked like we were about to get into a fight.

Storm spread her wing blades, her eyes flicking between our opponents. “Yes, it does.”

Obsidian grinned widely as he became pleased with our discomfort. “Witness the true power of the Umbral Shard.” He flicked a hoof at us. “Get them.”

As one, the shadows charged us.

Hoping to counter this latest threat before it could get rolling, I took to the air and fired off a thunderflash spell. To my surprise, a globe of darkness shot from my counterpart’s red glowing horn and intercepted my spell. Instead of a bright flash of light and sound, there was a muffled pop as the two spells countered one another. That really wasn’t good. Not only could my shadow alicorn counterpart cast spells, but it was skilled enough to cast an exact counter to my magic. That was going to make things rough if it could keep that up.

Twinkleshine cast a stunbolt as the shadows closed with us but was countered by her own shadow double as it cast a stunbolt of darkness. Then they were on us. Masked’s double threw a series of quick punches at Masked that forced him back as he threw up his own legs to counter the blows. I dived around a pillar to keep my own shadow from colliding with me while Twinkleshine and her shadow faced one another, horns glowing.

Storm just stood as her shadow charged her. “Clever, but not clever enough.” The shadow slashed out its wingblade, and Storm shot up her hoof to intercept the wing blade. Instead of the clang of metal on metal like I expected, there was a crackle of magical energies and the wing of Shadow-Storm slowly got sucked into Storm’s ancestral armor.

The shadow tried to pull itself away from Storm and dug in its heels, but Shadow’s Armor kept right on sucking it in. The armor dragged in the shadow by its wing until the whole of the shadow was absorbed, leaving nothing left of the magical construct.

“You think you're so clever?” Obsidian growled.

Storm smirked back at him. “Evidently clever enough.”

“Lets see how clever you are when I grind you into the dust.” He roared and charged Storm. His crystal hooves sounding like boulders crashing into the ground as he ran.

"If you grind me into dust.” Storm counter-charged. When they closed, Obsidian swung a trunk-like leg at Storm’s head. She ducked and struck at his other arm with a wingblade. The blade took off a chunk of the crystal armor but did little more as Obsidian rose the leg to strike once again, using pure strength and mass rather than any kind of skill.

With a precision that only a lifetime of martial training could give, Storm stepped a hair’s breadth to the side as the crystal legs slammed down with enough force to send shards of crystal flying. Storm struck with a quick blow from each of her wing blades to break off more of the crystal. She wasn't able to get any more strikes in as Obsidian charged at her in a blind rush that forced her to flap out of the way of the hulking form of the archeologist.

“You fight like an untrained archeologist.” Storm grinned confidently. “Fitting.”

“I don't need to be a great fighter to beat you!” Obsidian swept his leg in another great arc that Storm easily sidestepped. “I have the Umbral Shard!”

“Then why are you losing?” Storm asked as she took another chunk out of the crystal armor’s leg.

“I'm not losing! You can't even hurt me!” He kept up his attack, swing on wild blow after another and all but ignoring the counter strikes she was giving him every time he opened himself up.

I grimaced as I realized he had a point. Storm’s plan to nick away at the armor’s legs until they gave out might work, but then I saw a problem: the crystals on the leg Storm had struck were growing back, with the first blow having already fixed itself. Obsidian wasn't landing any blows, given the gulf of combat skill between an archaeologist and a guard captain, but none of Storm’s hits were anywhere near decisive. Wing blades were intended for quick, slashing strikes against flesh, not for puncturing armor.

I wanted to go to her and give her help, but I had my own problems. My shadow double flew right at me, firing one dark bolt of magic after another my way. I ducked and weaved among the columns of the room, creating a shield to block those blows I couldn't dodge. I fired back, trying to hit my double with bolts of light, but it did exactly what I had done and dodged and blocked the attacks.

I flew behind a column and cast a pair of illusions of myself. My illusions and I all darted out from the column and flew to try and triangulate on the shadow double. The shadow head snapped between the three of us, not sure which of us was real, before it cast it own spell. When it was done it whipped its head my direction and shot another series of bolts at me, forcing me back on the defensive. It must have cast some sort of anti-illusionary spell. Did it know every spell I did, or did the Shard actually have a repository of spells built into it?

Whatever the answer, I returned fire—or tried to, before something grabbed my leg and violently yanked away. My back hit a nearby column and the air was blown out of my lungs. Looking down, I saw a tentacle-like shadow had wound around my leg and was holding me in place as I tried to yank myself free.

My double charged me, and I could feel its malicious glee from having caught me with one of its spells. It raised its hooves to slam into me, but I teleported myself out of danger. The shadow hit the column hard enough to knock off a sizeable chunk of crystal, and made me very happy I had avoided that.

Masked was being pushed back as his shadow attacked with unrelenting aggression, tossing one sharp punch after another. Their legs collided in a series of precise blows as each tried to overcome the other. The shadow got in a blow that struck Masked across the face and sent him staggering back. It stepped in to take advantage of the momentum it had gained, but this time it threw a punch that was too aggressive. Masked caught the shadow’s leg and yanked the shadow forward by taking a quick step back. The shadow imbalanced, Masked twisted the leg and set the shadow to the floor. Holding onto the leg, Masked struck the elbow of the shadow and it broke in an unnatural direction from the blow.

Masked brought his hoof down on the shadow’s head, but as he did so the shadow exploded in a gaseous cloud of shadow around him. It flowed away from him and then reformed, back on its hooves and unharmed.

Masked frowned at his double. “Now that’s just unfair.”

Twinkleshine was locked in battle with her own shadow. She fired off several bolts at her double that veered in from different angles. In response, the shadow created a group of black orbs around itself that absorbed the incoming bolts. It then launched the orbs at Twinkleshine, who brought up a shield to block the incoming attacks. The two magical forces collided, sending Twinkleshine a couple steps back.

“That's really annoying.” She grimaced and blasted a chunk of crystal loose. She caught it before it could land on the floor and tossed it at her double. The shadow didn’t even blink—if it even could blink—as it caught the chunk of crystal and tossed it back at Twinkleshine. She let out a cry of surprise and her hooves scrambled desperately as she barely dodged out of the way of the incoming crystal. The crystal struck the far wall with enough force to cause it to shatter on impact. “Okay, need something new.”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out!” I said, being made to teleport out of the way of several shadow tendrils reaching out at me from the ceiling. This wasn’t going well. We weren’t landing any hits that were keeping our opponents down, and it was only a matter of time until something went terribly wrong. Twinkleshine’s spells were coming slower with each casting, Masked was fighting against an opponent that didn’t seem to have equine endurance, and Storm was fighting an enemy she couldn’t really hurt but only needed to hit her once. We needed a game changer and quick.

Twinkleshine winced as her shadow threw more shadow orbs into her shield and several cracks formed in its surface. “They've gotta have some sort of weakness!”

I thought quickly and a smile spread across my lips. “You're right! Twinkleshine! Cover me!” I teleported past my shadow and began charging a spell. Twinkleshine’s horn glew brightly and a trio of continuous laser beams streaked out of her horn. One of the beams flew at her double, forcing it to create a shadow orb to absorb it as it continue to fire. The other two beams sought my double. My shadow flew away from it, but the lasers turned at sharp corners to follow it, making it teleport out of the way, only for the lasers to turn once again to go after it.

Knowing that my shadow would only be occupied for a short time, I charged my own spell as I faced the wall of the throne room. Unleashing my magic in another thunderflash spell, the wall shuttered and then exploded outward as its elemental opposite destroyed it. Sunlight from the setting sun poured into the dark chamber temporarily blinding me from the sudden bright light.

I turned to face the throne room, and with a spell that Celestia herself had taught me, I drew in the rays of the sunlight and harnessed them for a new spell. I targeted Masked’s shadow double and a concentrated sunbeam shot from my horn. It struck the shadow and it disintegrated on impact, leaving nothing left of the conjuration. I turned on Twinkleshine’s double next and fired again. The shadow put up the largest shadow orb it had created yet, but soon it melted away exposing the shadow. It threw up a leg in a wholly insufficient defense and a mere moment’s exposure to the sunbeam destroyed it also.

My shadow double fired a stunbolt my way, but Twinkleshine intercepted the attack with a shield. “Get it, Twilight!”

I fired on my double next, but it was far more nimble than the other shadows, and teleported away from my attack, retreating further into the throne room. Seeing what it was doing, Twinkleshine ran to try and triangulate the shadow between us, firing off several light bolts at the shadow to try and hem it it. It dodged and teleported out of the way of our combined attacks. Storm broke off her own battle with Obsidian, beating her wings to dart after the Shadow to keep it moving and to try and angle it into our attacks. She also intercepted several of my missed sunbeams, absorbing them with her armor as she also worked to pin in the shadow.

It kept up this dance for several moments, dodging everything we threw at it with wing and spell, making me wonder if we weren’t going to be able to catch it before I and Twinkleshine ran out of magic. But while its attention was on me, Storm, and Twinkleshine, it had lost track of Masked. He slipped out from behind a column at an opportune moment and threw a ball-like object at the shadow. It hit the shadow just under the wing and a grey adhesive exploded over its side, trapping its wing and sending it plummeting to the ground.

Seeing my moment, I fired a sunbeam, hitting my shadow double squarely and it exploded into nothingness.

Obsidian’s glare turned on each of us as we all looked to face him. “So what, you stopped my shadow doubles. Let the sun set and I'll have the edge again.” His words may have seemed confident, but I could hear a note of worry in his voice. He was breathing heavily from his battle with Storm and sweat beaded down his face.

“Sorry, but this fight isn’t going to take that long,” I told him, and direct the rays of the dying sun his direction. Obsidian raised a leg to block, but the leg shattered when the magical sunbeam struck it.

Obsidian staggered and Masked took the moment of weakness to toss a pepper-bomb into his face. The bag burst on impact and a red dust spread all across his features and he cried out in pain. Storm flew in to flank his other side. Her armor burst into illumination as she channeled the sunbeams she’d absorbed. Those beams sliced into the crystalline armor at near point-blank range. Twinkleshine fired at the remains of Obsidian’s legs while I drew in all the power of the dying sun into me.

I aimed and fired with everything I had. The beam hit Obsidian dead-on and he howled as the light tore away at his armor. He fell to the floor among shattered crystals that smoked from the assault they had been subject to.

The Umbral Shard also fell and clinked as it hit the ground. It slid towards Storm and stopped short of her, glowing weakly as it sat there. Obsidian reached weakly for the Shard from the floor and blinked tear filled eyes, groaning weakly as he did so. “No... It’s m-mine...”

Storm frowned as she stood over both Obsidian and the Shard. “It’s over.” She raised her hoof and brought it down on the Shard.

Only instead of cracking or breaking a weird resonance echoed through the room and I felt a thrum of power as magic coursed through the air. Storm stood there, stock still. That ... didn't look good.

Twinkleshine slowly and cautiously approached Storm. “Uh ... is that a problem, Twilight?”

I landed next to Storm and spoke gently to her. “Storm, are you okay?” I waved a hoof in front of her eyes, and they didn't blink in response. No, instead they stared forward vacantly. This was really starting to worry me now. “Storm? Answer me.”

“Yeah, that's a problem,” Twinkleshine said as she joined my side. She glanced down at the softly glowing Shard, which Storm’s hoof was still firmly planted on. “Big problem.”

Masked slapped some shackles on Obsidian before looking up at us. “Can you figure out what’s happening?”

Fear clenching at my heart, I studied the Shard and the leylines of magic flowing between it and Storm. “It must be the Shard. It's doing something to her.” I recognized the type of magic coming from the artifact and my eyes widened. “Mental control. It's trying to control her mind! I have to stop it!”

I reached for the Shard, but Twinkleshine grabbed my hoof. “No! It'll just get you too!”

The two of us locked gazes and I saw the Twinkleshine’s were full of steely conviction as she held onto my hoof. I shot her a glare that told her I wasn't going to give up on Storm. “I can't let it hurt her!”

“And she would rather die than let it hurt you!” Twinkleshine shot back.

“It is her job,” Masked added. “We all volunteered to sacrifice ourselves rather than see you harmed.”

I yanked my hoof from hers. “Well maybe I'm not okay with that!” I hadn't asked for all of this; to be a princess, to have my own guard, to take on this kind of responsibility, to have the lives of ponies be on the line when I made decisions. “She needs me, and sometimes a princess needs to go into danger too!”

Twinkleshine’s brow furrowed as she refused to back down. “And sometimes she needs to let her guards do their job and keep her safe!”

We continue to lock gazes, and I thought carefully about how to proceed. Twinkleshine made some good points, as reluctant as I was to admit it. A theory did strike me, though. Could the Umbral Shard actually have been the one in control the entire time? There were certainly recorded incidents of sapient artifacts that had seized control of anyone that picked them up. It would explain how some archeologist suddenly got it into his head to take over a chunk of Equestria. He certainly didn’t look anything intimidating as he lied moaning on the floor in shackles.

If only it was as easy as removing Storm’s hoof from the Shard, but I was reasonably sure that wouldn’t break the connection between them. The Shard was powerful enough that maintaining a mental connection with somepony shouldn’t be that hard. Even if that did work, suddenly ending the direct mental connection between them could have more than one nasty side effect.

I shook my head, forcing my thoughts back to the matter at hoof. “I need to make a decision on which is more important this time. Storm may be my guard, but she’s also my friend and the Shard is hurting her. So I’m going to help her.”

Twinkleshine held my gaze for a long moment before she broke it and sighed. “Alright, but you’re not doing this alone. I’m helping you, and you can’t stop me.” She grinned with a savage edge. “Not only am I your guard, but I’m also your friend. So you can’t say you’re helping a friend despite what anypony else says and then turn around and say I can’t help, Ms. Princess of Friendship.”

I returned her grin, it making feel a bit better to have Twinkleshine by my side. “Well, technically I could cite you with insubordination, but for some reason I just can’t bring myself to do it. Being the Princess of Friendship and all.”

Masked sighed and stepped near us. “I suppose I’ll be joining you too. Maybe more ponies will allow us to overwhelm the Shard. And besides, I don’t want to be the only one to have to explain to everypony what happened to the princess I was supposed to protect. That would be far too much paperwork.”

Part of me didn't want them to join me in the danger of going into a battle of wills with the Shard. Especially as I looked my guards’ faces. Deep bags hung under Twinkleshine’s eyes and her shoulders sagged from all the spellcasting she had done today. Masked wasn't looking any better. His lip had been split and a nasty bruise surrounded one of his eyes from where he had been hit by his shadow double, and I had a feeling he was keeping up a brave face with that unreadable mask of his.

There were plenty of things that could go wrong if we went into a mental battle with the Shard, and far too many unknowns for my liking. But I sensed I wouldn't be able to convince them not to help, and there wasn't time to argue. Storm’s face was white with concentration, and despite the apparent passiveness in her frame, I could feel an underlying tension to her body. She was fighting, and who could say how that battle was going to go given time.

“Everypony ready?” They all nodded to me, and I placed a hoof above the Shard. “Get ready. Touch the Shard on three. One. Two. Three!”

I pressed my hoof against the Umbral Shard and a wall of psychic force slammed into me. The attack was so sudden and brutal that I nearly lost the contest of wills as soon as it started. The Shard pressed its will against my own like an unending wave crashing over me. It was all I could do not to drown under that relentless pressure and I threw up my mental defenses to push right back.

I could feel the desires of the Umbral Shard. It wanted to dominate, control, and conquer—pushing and pushing until all fell under its sway. It was an almost unthinking, blind impulse. Like the base urge of a shark to feed on whatever run across its path. There was no goal or motive behind the desire, no purpose, no plan for what came after it achieved its aims, there was only the desire to conquer for its own sake. And right at that moment, what it wanted most was me, an alicorn to bring under its dominion and use to further its goal of unending conquest.

That knowledge made me push back all the harder, and for a moment that seemed to drag on for an eternity, we fought in perfect balance to one another with neither gaining an advantage over the other. The outside world was irrelevant to me, my world was the struggle against the Shard as I mustered every fiber of my being to fight.

Having weathered the opening assault, I drew on all my lessons for how to win battles such as these. I fortified my will with the knowledge of what would happen if the Shard should win, and about how many ponies would be hurt. Fire fueled my belly when I remembered how Speedy had been hurt, how Storm had been drawn into this same conflict and needed to be saved. I thought of my friends, my family, Celestia, and everyone else that depended on me.

Slowly but surely, I pushed the Shard back, its will buckling against the pressure of mine. Its desperation grew and it tried to regain the momentum. Images of Canterlot falling, of ponies fleeing its might, and my fellow princess’ enslaved were used to try and fill me with despair. Instead, I took those images and used them to feed my own determination to stop it. I battered it down, broke it down, and brought its will under my own until I made it submit.

My breath came in ragged gasps and sweat had matted my coat. I was exhausted, but I had done it, I had won. That just left me with the question of what to do with the Shard now that the threat was over. Now that I had it, I was suddenly quite curious about it. What could we learn from studying its construction? While a lot of the magic it used was illegal, there should be something useful that could be glimpsed with careful study. Plenty of forbidden spells and artifacts had been studied and beneficial information gained in the past. Why not now?

Certainly a self-building fortress would be useful if some work-around could be found for the excessive magic draining it did to the land. Magic had come a long way in the millennium since Sombra had ruled. Who knew how many ways I could improve upon the Shard’s design for the benefit of ponykind? I could always test it in the Everfree Forest once I fully studied it and made whatever modifications needed to be done. Not like the complete loss of the Everfree would be a loss even if something unexpected catastrophe struck.

Then if it worked... Yes, there were several potential benefits. I could even leave my mark on the field of magic with a discovery like this. I bet even Princess Celestia would congratulate me and—

NO!

I clamped down on my will and guarded my thoughts against the subtle suggestions of the Shard. I counted to ten as the Shard fought against me with renewed vigor, taking the time to re-gather and make sure they really were mine. That had been way too close. The Shard had been such a blunt instrument up until now that I hadn't expected to try something tricky like use my desires to undermine my will, but now I knew what to watch out for. How many others had fallen for the trick in the past? Best to worry about little details like that until after the Shard had been disabled.

I beat back the Shard’s will once again and its power waned against my offense. With the Shard on the defense, I began the really tricky part. Careful not to draw too much of my attention away from the Shard, I started casting a stasis spell to contain the artifact. Fatigue and the Shard’s frantic struggles slowed the task, but I felt Twinkleshine join me in helping to cast the spell, and slowly, very slowly the spell started coming together.

Desperation flowed from the Shard, and I felt it beg and plead for me to stop, sending me images of what it could do for me. I ignored it, remembering all it had done and would do if it got he chance.

Finally, it offered me its friendship. Promising to redeem itself if only given a chance. I was tempted to take that offer, but deep down I knew the offer was a lie. This thing wasn’t really sapient, nothing like a pony, anyways. It would use whatever methods it had to enslave everyone around it for its dark master, and it would pretend to be my friend to accomplish that goal. I wasn’t going to give it the chance to hurt the people I cared about again.

I completed the stasis spell and a white orb of light wrapped itself around the Umbral Shard to trap it.

“I think that should hold it.” I let out a long breath of relief now that I could relax. The Shard was safely contained, at least for now. The stasis spell was only a temporary measure at the end of the day. I looked to the others and asked, “Are you all okay?”

Storm shook her head and blinked her eyes a few times. “I ... think so.”

Twinkleshine rubbed her and scrunched her eyes shut. “I could use something for this pounding headache, but I think I’ll survive.”

“I’m fine,” Masked said simply. If he was suffering any of the strain the rest of us were feeling he was doing a good job of hiding it.

Before I could take full stock of everything that had just happened, the fortress shuddered. Cracks worked their way up and down the nearby walls and pillars as a tremors ran through the structure.

I grimaced as I realized what was probably coming. “Um, I think there might have been some side effects to containing the Shard.”

Twinkleshine nodded, giving the crumbling walls a nervous look. “Yes. We should go. Now.”

I quickly cast a spell to creating a large, magenta disk of magic and waved to everypony. “Anypony that can't fly, jump on!” Everypony did as I said, though I had to levitate Obsidian and Storm onto the sphere. The former being in no shape to move, and Storm still not looking like she was fully with it yet. “Let's get out of here!”

The tremors were becoming worse with every second and flecks of crystal were falling from the ceiling. I beat my wings and flew towards the hole I had created in the wall as fast as I could. Soon we were outside as the last rays of the sun fell past the horizon. Not slowing down in the least, I glanced back to see one of the towers of the fortress break from its foundations and fall, crashing into the main keep. A chain reaction was set off as every structure of the crystal fortress collapsed, scattering broken crystals all about as the willpower holding it together was cut off.

Soon all that was left was a utter ruin—the legacy of the Umbral Shard.

Author's Note

I would like to thank my prereaders Chengar Qordath and Comma-Kazie for all their help. As well as Show Stopper, JiiKoo, Jeray2000, Billymorph, 621Chopsuey, Rodinga, Trinary, and Swiftest Shadow for all their help editing this chapter.

Chapter 4

“I’m really happy to get this thing off of my hooves.” I placed the Umbral Shard into the magic suppression box, its interior lined with enchanted gems that literally glowed with power, and shut the lid. I took a moment to make sure the silver engraved rune circles were fully sealed before I was satisfied.

“You did a very good job recovering this, Twilight,” Mom said, locking the capsule with a key. Considering Mom was the senior magus of the Sealed Repository, her compliment wasn’t small praise.

We had come straight to Canterlot after capturing the Shard to intern it in the Sealed Repository—Equestria’s foremost institution for the storing and neutralization of forbidden artifacts and knowledge. The spell I had used to capture the artifact was only a temporary measure, especially with how dangerous it was. An evil artifact prone to possessing anyone it came across was not something I wanted in my bags.

Thankfully, the staff of the Repository was more than ready to assist us. After making sure that I wasn't going to fall over from the injuries I’d sustained battling the Shard, I had been shuffled to one of the smalls rooms designated to process forbidden artifacts. The center of the room was dominated by a basic work table, and all along the walls sat shelves filled with tools and magic components intended to deal with dangerous objects—such as the box we had modified to hold the Shard.

The Repository had a wide variety of options to deal with such artifacts. It would have been better if we could destroy Sombra’s little war machine, but that wasn't something to be attempted lightly. Simply taking a hammer to it wasn't likely to work—and even if it did, there was enough magic packed into the shard that it was liable to cause a thaumaturgical explosion with enough force to level a city block. That had been the case during the Crystal War when Celestia and Luna had dealt with the original set of Umbral Shards. No, instead it needed to be carefully studied first. Maybe then a safe way to disable it could be found. That was one of the major jobs of the Repository.

“I had a lot of help,” I said as I helped her secure the box. “It certainly wasn't easy.”

“I wouldn't expect it to be.” Mom looked me over, frowning at the fresh set of bandages. “The Umbral Shard is a nasty artifact.”

“That's putting it mildly.” I placed my hoof on the box, seeing if I could sense the artifact’s presence through the protective wards. “Sombra was a real piece of work to come up with something like this. I hate the idea of more of these things being around.” It was a good thing Celestia and Luna had already destroyed most of them long ago, and that we had stopped Sombra before he could really get going again. If he had built up any momentum again the results would have been ... bad.

“This Shard's been a running problem for us,” Mom said as she cast some additional protective wards on the box. “It's not the first time we've had it in the Repository, if it’s the specific Shard I think this one is. Every time it's gotten away from us, it's caused all sorts of trouble before we get it back.”

That was worrying to hear. The last thing I wanted was for this thing to get out again. “How did it get out? And then to all the way to Icepeak? That town is pretty far from anywhere important.”

“From our records, we lost it a century and a half ago when a fallen magus stole it.” Mom frowned contemplatively. “The Shard knows how to find the weak-willed.”

That was quite the mystery. I wondered what happened to the Shard thief—or maybe it was more accurate to say that the Shard stole the magus in question? Maybe the magus had died before he could accomplish whatever goal he had in Icepeak. It was possible that the Shard was searching for something around Icepeak, maybe even as part of some long forgotten instructions given by Sombra.

“We might want to have some ponies look around Icepeak to see if there’s anything worth checking out,” I suggested. “The Shard encouraged Professor Spade to dig around there for some reason—or at least I think that was the Shard’s influence. If that's the case, then it was probably searching for something.”

“There’s a good chance that's true,” Mom agreed. “It’s possible the Shard was merely reflecting a portion of the professor’s psyche, but I won’t know that for certain until I have time to properly study it. We’ll arrange an expedition to look into it, in any event. No sense being sloppy with something this dangerous.”

The head archeologist was currently in custody at the local Guard barracks. He claimed he didn't even know what he had done under the Shard’s influence, but we were still holding him until we knew exactly what had happened. I was reasonably sure Spade was being honest about being controlled by the Shard, but there were procedures for incidents like this.

Unable to sense the presence of the artifact, I withdrew my hoof from the box. “Hopefully we can safely destroy the Shard before too long, however this all turns out.”

“That'd be nice.” With everything that could be reasonably done to negate the danger of the Umbral Shard’s power in place, Mom picked up the box and nodded for me to follow as she left the room. We emerged in a stone hallway. The Sealed Repository was carved right into Mount Avalon, and thanks to centuries of expansion through digging into the mountain, the complex was quite large. It was a bit of a necessity to house everything stored here. “We'll certainly try everything we can think of to disable it. We’ve learned a few tricks since last we held it, and I'm pulling records of past encounters to comb over. At the very least, we should be able to keep this thing contained.”

“Just be careful. The last thing I want is for this thing to get out again.” I frowned as I considered its previous escape. “Especially if it tries to use you or somepony else here. The archeologist who found it didn’t know what he was dealing with until he had been ensnared—and it nearly got Storm too, for that matter.” I winced slightly at the memory. She had been a bit shaken up by the experience afterwards, not that I could blame her. After all, I had nearly been drawn in by it too.

Mom’s head tilted slightly. “Storm had trouble with it?”

I nodded. “She touched it when the archeologist dropped it. Knowing the Shard, it probably drew Storm to stomp on it to try and destroy it.”

“Possibly.” Mom pressed her lips together in thought. “I presume she resisted it in the end? I didn't think she would be too vulnerable.”

“She did. With our help, at least.” My ears wilted as I thought back on the incident. “Even if I’m worried about how much Storm’s getting beat up in my service. I think wearing Shadow’s Armor only encourages her to take greater risks. Shame there isn't much I can do when Storm wants to wear that armor, and I'm not going to order her to stop from using it.” I would feel a lot better about that if not for the record of those who have worn the armor in the past. Those who survived using it immediately turned it back into the Kicker Clan private vault after using it once. The rest didn't live to old age.

“It is an extremely powerful artifact, and no doubt useful for keeping you alive,” Mom pointed out.

“Those were the reasons she gave to me for wanting to keep it.” I grinned for Mom, but I didn’t really feel it. “I guess I should be flattered?”

“She does seem to take her duties very seriously.” There was an audible click as the vault unlocked, then the grinding of gears as the vault slowly opened.

I stepped out of the way of the opening door, waiting to get a peek into its interior. “I can't argue with that. It has taken some getting used to, on top of actually having a guard at all.”

Mom’s horn glowed and the lights inside the vault lit. “It seems like you're managing just fine.”

I wasn't sure what to expect, but the interior of the vault struck me as ... mundane, considering its purposes. Steel containers dotted the large chamber, steel bars subdivided the room, and the walls were covered by lock boxes that were reminiscent of a bank vault. Which, in hindsight, had probably been the intention of the design.

Still, I couldn't help but look around as Mom trotted forward, the box floating in her magic. “I'm figuring it out, I think. You can grow used to anything with time.”

“Glad to hear it.” Mom opened one of the steel crates and placed the box inside of it.

I looked inside of the crate and noted the numerous arcane wards covering the interior. Whoever had built this thing had put a lot of time into its protections. “Though what's bothering me the most is ponies getting hurt on my account.” I shuffled in place. “But that's what they're there for, or so I keep telling myself.”

“Yes, that is their job.” Mom placed a hoof on my shoulder and gave me a comforting smile. “Being in charge isn't easy, dear, but it is part of being a princess. The reason they protect you is because they think you're that important, and you are that important. You’ve saved Equestria how many times now? Not even getting into how many ponies you've helped.”

“I know, I know.” I sighed. “It's all part of the new world I'm in. Responsibilities, duties, ponies I work with... I understand all of this intellectually, but I'm still processing it deeper than that.”

“You’ll figure it out, Twilight,” Mom assured me. “You’re probably the smartest pony I know, and I know you'll adapt to this. Just like you have with every other challenge put in front of you.”

I smiled and nuzzled her, feeling a bit better. “Thanks for the talk, Mom. Even if you didn't exactly tell me anything new.”

Mom nuzzled me back. “Sometimes just going over the right old information helps. Now then, do you want the pleasure of locking this nasty thing up? I think you've more than earned this.”

“Sure.” I grasped the lid of the crate. “It would be my pleasure.”

With the Umbral Shard safely locked away, I made the hospital my next stop. It was no small struggle to keep the hospital staff from giving me a full examination. Little surprise when I was far from being in pristine condition at the moment. All the bandages I was covered in pretty badly undercut any attempt on my part to say that I was fine.

It was a bit weird, actually. I knew I was injured to some degree, but injuries hadn’t bothered me as much since I became an alicorn. That seemed to be one of the perks of my ascension, along with not needing as much sleep, food, or water as I used to. That was always to Storm’s lament, who said I didn't take as good care of myself as I should. Thinking about her brought me back to why I was in the hospital to start with.

Once I convinced the hospital staff that I didn't need emergency attention (again), I got directions to Storm’s room and made my way there, knocking on the doorframe when I arrived. “Hey Storm, how you doing?”

Storm looked up from her hospital bed. She was wearing a light green hospital gown, and Shadow’s Armor was on a stand in the corner. “I am well.” The words were basic enough, but I could hear her underlying grumpiness.

I gave her the best smile I could under the circumstances. “You're not too uncomfortable are you?”

“As comfortable as anypony can be in a hospital,” Storm said in her usual stoic manner.

I grimaced. “Sorry about that. You know, the whole you being hospitalized over protecting me.” Storm had been more banged up than she had been willing to admit in Icepeak. I wasn't sure how much pain she had been hiding—her armor did have enchantments to suppress the sensation—but the nurse at the Sealed Repository had been insistent on sending Storm to the hospital after looking her over. Storm hadn't exactly been happy when I insisted she go, even if it was for her own good. That behir had gotten in a good hit, and I wanted her to get looked at.

“It is hardly your fault, Highness,” Storm said. “Do not feel guilty. I merely did my duty. Sometimes that comes with risks.”

“I know, but I still do feel guilty about it.” My ears wilted as I sat by the bed. “It's hard not to. It's just how I am.”

Storm nodded ever so slightly. “I know, Highness.”

“It's just...” I took a moment to consider my words. “Taking time to get used to. Becoming a princess, my duties, the palace—all of it. This was never anything I really asked for. It just kinda fell into my back.”

“I think you are doing admirably.”

I smiled. “Thanks. And I do appreciate what you and the rest of my guards are doing. Just because I'm still a bit unsure about everything doesn't mean I don't recognize it.” Now if I could just have them do their jobs without getting hurt on my account...

“We only do our duty. But...” Storm’s eyes looked away from me. “I certainly like to be appreciated.”

I grinned wryly. “How about I get you and the rest of my guard a medal or two? That seems the least you deserve.” I frowned. “It feels like you deserve a lot more than that when you're putting your lives on the line. Especially when all of you got hurt.”

Speedy had needed to have his ribs treated and get a number of stitches, and though Masked was mostly just bruised up, his lip needed a few stitches. Thankfully, all Twinkleshine needed was some rest after channeling so much of her magic. Everyone would recover from what they had gone through at least. Storm hadn't been willing to talk about her injuries, but she didn't look too bad, all things considered. I suppose I should be thankful that was the worst of it.

“Would you do any less for us?” Storm asked.

I shook my head. “No, I wouldn't.” The fact I had thrown myself into danger multiple times for the sake of my friends and others precluded any argument to the contrary.

“I know, and in time they will know that too, if they don't already.” A slight smile creeped onto her lips. “You are my princess. You are also my friend. I value both of those equally, and defend you on both accounts.”

I couldn't help but smile at that. Storm was certainly my dedicated protector, if nothing else. “As long as you don't mind me doing the same.”

Storm gave me a flat look. “Highness, I think you will do that whether I mind it or not.”

I smiled and rubbed the back of my neck. “Guilty as charged?”

Storm cracked a smile of her own, and she actually chuckled. It was nice to hear. Too often she was so stiff and formal, and it felt good to see her relax a little. “Indeed so.”

“Funny enough, it's a little hard for me to stop being who I am,” I said.

“I was about to say as much. You would not be the princess you are if you were less inclined to act so.” Storm fixed me with a wry smile. “Even if it does occasionally vex me.”

“Even when you're friends, sometimes you get on each others nerves.” Even my best friends sometimes bothered me for one reason or another. You just can't have different ponies be together and not have that happen from time to time.

“You do not get on my nerves, Highness. You merely...”

I could tell she was trying to find a diplomatic way to state what she wanted to say, and I offered my two bits. “Take positions that cause certain complications in carrying out your duty?”

Storm nodded. “Not out of any malice, of course.”

“No, of course not,” I said with perfect princessly severity. “I love my guard and fully appreciate all they do for me, as is only appropriate for a princess.” The levity aside, my tone became more serious. “You are going to be okay, right?”

“I will be,” Storm said. “The doctors just want to hold me overnight to ensure that there are no unexpected complications.”

I let out a relieved breath. “That's good to hear.” I didn't expect for Storm to tell me how badly she was injured, but I knew that she wouldn't lie to me about that.

Storm smiled dryly. “While if need be I would be willing to give my life to protect you, I see no need to rush into it.”

“You better not be.” I poked her shoulder. “You're too useful to go die heroically on me.”

“Well, that settles it,” Storm said. “If you are ordering me not to die...”

“Which I am,” I commanded.

“Then I am not allowed to.” Storm tried to stretch out a wing and winced. “I should be ready to return to duty soon enough.”

I knew I should discourage her from returning to duty before she was ready. She was more than stubborn enough to get back to work before she was done healing. “Of course, but first, I'm ordering you to recover fully before you return to duty. I don't want you limping around the castle because you didn't take enough time to let your body heal.”

“Very well then,” Storm said, straining to hide the displeasure in her tone. “Any other orders, Highness?”

“Yep! There was one more thing.” Knowing this was coming up, I pulled out a half dozen books and placed them on Storm’s nightstand. “I brought you some books to read while you're recovering. I've read all of them myself to make sure they’re worth your time, so I know they're all good and I'm sure you'll love them! Maybe we can even have a small book club meeting to talk about them when you finish reading them.” I smiled widely. I didn't want the captain of my guard to be bored during her downtime.

Storm’s eyes flicked from the stack of books and back to me, and she gave me a smile that seemed oddly strained for some reason. “But of course, Highness. Thank you.”

Author's Note

I would like to thank my prereaders Chengar Qordath and Comma-Kazie for all their help. As well as Show Stopper, JiiKoo, Jeray2000, Billymorph, 621Chopsuey, Rodinga, Trinary, and Swiftest Shadow for all their help editing this chapter.