As Twilight turned back and forth, her piercing lavender eyes full of worry as she thinks about her possibilities, her brain went into overload as she contemplated her decision. As she recalled each location with intricate detail, each corner replaying in her mind like a silent movie right before her eyes, she reached a conclusion with a simple snap of her fingers. "I got it!" she said, making the girls turn to her, awaiting her answer, "The cafeteria is small, at least compared to the Auditorium. So, we may only need three of us to go in. Considering the size of the Auditorium, which will correspond to how many creatures will inhabit it, the people who go there will need more offensive powers. Thus, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie will go save Vinyl and Octavia."

"Ah getcha," Applejack said, crossing her arms, "We'll be right there."

"Yeah! Let's go kick some monster ass!" Rainbow Dash cheered out, and the four girls allocated began rushing towards the Auditorium, their necklaces still showing their position in the dark corners of the hallway.

With a nervous shuffle of her feet, Fluttershy stammered out "U-Um, Twilight? What can me and Sunset do, exactly?"

"Well," Twilight began explaining, "You can communicate with animals, and I know for a fact you bring some in through your backpack."

"Wait, she does?" Sunset questioned, as a loud squeak emanated from the shy girl's bookbag. "Well, what do you know?"

"And since Sunset's power is empathetic," Twilight continued, "it may help us figure out what the creature's plan is, so that we can stop it in it's tracks!"

Nodding, Sunset began to run down the hall with the other two following, straight to the cafeteria doors that housed the spawn they had only barely seen, yet still permeated the priorities of this world's Elements of Harmony.

"...Huh," Pinkie Pie mused out loud, "Didn't know you knew how to do that, Rarity." As it turned out, the door to the Auditorium was actually locked, presumably by either Vinyl or Octavia so as not to disturb their practice. Not that it helped with keeping out Shadow Creatures, it seemed. Still, it was surprising that the first response of the fashionista was to crouch down, pull out a hairpin, and get straight to work with unlocking the door.

"Well, of course not!" Rarity exclaimed, her delicate fingers clicking in each tumbler to the lock as she spoke, "It's not very lady-like to just blurt out "Yeah, I'm an adept at lockpicking. I'm sure a lot of drunken parties will be fun with that knowledge." Besides, I've never had to use it until now." And with that last word breathed out, the door clicked to signal that the door had been unlocked. Placing the hairpin back in her dark violet hair, she wrapped her hand around the knob and pushed it open, only to stare agape at what lay inside.

Vinyl and Octavia sat on the stage, cello and turntable left on the ground, absolutely frozen in fear, as spawn came towards them in a swarm. Each creature was unique in some way, in both features and characteristics. Some were fast, some were slow. Some could fly, while other seemed swift enough to appear to teleport. One had four arms ending in six-fingered, clawed hands. One had what seemed like a scorpion's stinger. Another had tentacles bursting out of it's back. All in all, they were horrifying to look at, which only made the rainbow haired-Element of Loyalty smile at the prospect of a fair fight.

Rushing forward at lightning speed, Rainbow ran up and socked one in the face hard, sending it sprawling to the ground as purple blood leaked out of it's mouth. As it began to stand up, a blue, shimmering shield smack it away, sending it flying into the wooden stage, which caught the attention of the other creatures. The tentacle beast swooped down and, with quick reflexes, wrapped one of the dark tendrils around Rainbow Dash's leg and threw up, sending her flying towards the brick wall. Rarity gasped out at this, and sent a shield out, which caught Rainbow Dash from the throw, and the fall to the stage. Chucking a can of sprinkles out, Pinkie wasted no time in getting the spawn's attention on something else, before a pink explosion enveloped it, sending two tentacles flying away in arcs of purple liquid.

Two of the more bird-like Spawn raced towards the pink-haired menace, but with a quick punch, Applejack knocked them out of the sky, with their winged bodies hitting the bleachers with a satisfying thud. A creature with two twitching heads and bright purple eyes began charging at the downed Rainbow Dash, before Applejack rushed towards it. Throwing out a super-strong punch, the cowgirl was surprised to see the beast dodge her attack before raking it's claws out, slashing three bleeding cuts across her right arm. As she howled in pain, the Spawn felt one head get pulled back as Rainbow Dash swiftly sent it into the stage, making one head explode into a gory mess of purple and black. "Y'know," Rainbow Dash says, shaking off the liquid from her hand, "This is probably the most violent thing we've ever done."

"I guess it's a good thing we can restrain ourselves with humans," Pinkie said, rushing another can out, which exploded and took out two more winged Spawn, "I would hate to see this with something that wasn't just darkness. Humans shouldn't be piñatas or confetti! That's not a good substitute."

With another hard punch to the gullet of a humanoid Spawn, Applejack said, "Yeah, ah guess yer right, there. You takin' this well, Rarity?" When she turned to the girl, she almost chuckled with how uncomfortable she looked, her face contorted into a grimace, but didn't as she clutched her arm in pain.

"This was much more brutal then I expected," she said, blocking an attack by yet another winged creature, "I mean, yes, they aren't human. But look at all this blood! Gloriosa and the Sirens never bled when we fought them!"

As a blue blur smashed into two more Spawn, Dash smiling as she took them out, she suddenly found herself with a sharp pain in her chin as she was catapulted through the air. With more shields, Rainbow made it down safely, though the blow rendered her unconscious. As they looked at the newcomer, they noticed the Spawn were backing off, escaping through a conspicuous hole in the ceiling that went unnoticed in the chaos. The newcomer, hunched over in a ready stance, had a V-shaped head crest through which four purple eyes were visible. It was muscular, and had two arms with clawed fists, consisting of five fingers. It had four legs with hooves, and unlike The Spawn, this one was more then a solid black, with black fur, the grey crest and what appeared to be grey skin. It had a maw, showing white, razor sharp teeth that were stained in red blood. When Pinkie braved the new creature and attempted to rush towards Rainbow, the new creature roared in anger and violence, intimidating not just the party girl, but the two captive musicians in the process. With nothing left to accomplish just standing there, the new creature charged towards them...

With frustration in her voice, Sunset growled as she kicked the locked door to the cafeteria, with the entrance not budging no matter how hard she kicked or where. "I don't get it! Why is the cafeteria even locked?!" she vented, giving up with fire still in her orange eyes as she stared the door down.

Scratching her chin, Twilight soon concluded "It may have been barred when the creatures began showing up, only for them to lock themselves in when they broke in some other way."

"So, um," Fluttershy stammered out, her hands wringing and rubbing each other in nervousness as she continued, "how do we get inside?"

"Well," Twilight thought, her eyes scanning each edge of the door as she pondered, "we could...break the hinges? That's going to have to bust this thing down."

Peering around the hallway, her vision enhanced by both her phone's flashlight and the glowing gem hung around her neck, Sunset breathed a sigh of relief as she spotted a fire axe in a nearby case, with a red "In Case of Emergency" warning on the glass front. Opening the cabinet, Sunset wrapped her hands around the weapon as she went back towards the door. With a few mighty swings, each one knocking a chunk off the actual door, the hinge at the top broke apart, which forced the door open slightly. With her telekinesis, Twilight finished the job by popping the door off it's last hinge, confirming her hypothesis as a broken wood plank was on the other side. With their lights, the three girls could finally spot the Spawn, including the scorpion tailed one previously invading the Auditorium. With the horrors before her, Fluttershy squeaked as she hid behind the wall, not daring to look at the dancing shadows. All in all, there wasn't a large number of The Spawn in the room.

With a purple glow wrapping around one of the more humanoid Spawn, Twilight waved her hand and sent the beast flying away, letting it smack into a wall. The scorpion tailed Spawn roared at this and charged, stinger at the ready, until the blade of a fire axe suddenly slashed it's way into it's head, spilling blood out through the slashed face. As it slid down with a soft thud, two winged Spawn rushed towards Sunset and Twilight, but before they could strike, a trio of blackbirds swooped in and distracted the beings, which caused them to fly away in the confusion, which showed the avenue for their entry: a small, though sizable, hole in the wall. One Spawn that seemed to be covered in arms charged towards the trio, but Sunset's axe slashed through several arms, slicing them off in purple arcs. Before they could growl, Sunset pressed her fingers to the creature's head, and looked inside of it.

What she saw was the sun, shimmering brightly in the clear sky, before it suddenly dimmed and dimmed until clouds of charcoal black rushed in, covering the Daystar with their influences. As two glowing white eyes appeared in the black sky, Sunset saw Canterlot, and was horrified to see bodies litter the street. The view then shifted, and what she saw was truly traumatizing: Equestria, specifically that world's Canterlot, which was bathed in shadows as more ponies either died, or shuffled about with the same white eyes, all groaning and growling. The phrase "The Lombado falls when shadows rise" burned in her mind, before another loud roar brought her out of the vision.

In her attempt to view the motivation of the Leader, Twilight had apparently sent steel chairs flying towards several Spawn, as several dead shadow creatures lay across said blunt objects, and the roar was a signal to retreat, as each Spawn soon left the room, including the still bleeding, multiple armed one. Sunset stood there for a second, as she thought to herself "...What is the Lombado? What does that even mean?!"

Author's Note

Whoa! Gore and cliffhangers? Seems like my plot's getting a bit darker.

So, yeah, that was the new chapter, and the longest one yet. I will do one more chapter of calling this a Comment Driven Story. If I don't recieve any comments, I will simply remove the Comment Driven elements and continue the story myself. No big deal. But participation is always welcome, and I would be happy if you left a comment, if only to review what's there. If you don't like the darker direction, then I do apologize. It's just that the plot I have in mind deals with that sort of thing. I hope you enjoy.

-Greatness942