Julius Sombra

If there was one thing about the Princesses of Equestria that made criminals like me quiver, was that they were extremely tactful when it came to these kinds of situations. The important thing was to stay low and cover my tracks, covering any trace or any hoofprints. But, I had always underestimated the fact that they had magic…magic far greater than my own and far more greater than my father's. Little did I know however that a former evildoer like my father and I was about to be given a second chance.

…

At that moment in Canterlot castle, the 4 Princesses sat in the throne room while a creature made up of several body parts from other creatures appeared before them in a white flash. He had a look of fear on face, but nothing compared to the fear that I had on my face.

"Do you know why you are here, Discord?" asked Celestia, firmly looking down at him with crossed eyes.

"Yes," he answered meekly, snapping his fingers to transform into a prisoner with a prison uniform. "I'm here to be arrested because I betrayed you and joined forces with Tirek. So, if you wish to arrest me for my actions, then do so now."

And he put his eagle talon and lion paw out thinking that the cuffs would be put on him. To his amazement, they didn't.

"Put your claw and paw down," ordered Celestia and Discord did as he was told. "You have already apologized for your actions in the form of aiding Princess Twilight in obtaining her castle and title of being the Princess of Friendship. There is something else that we need you to help us on that requires your abilities."

As she spoke, Discord noticed Twilight winking her eye down at him, almost as if to say that he shouldn't have to worry about any form of punishment. Losing the prison garb, Discord eagerly and excited awaited to hear what the princesses needed him to do.

"We have another prisoner that had escaped with Tirek," said Luna, walking down to Discord's level. "In fact, like Tirek, he is just as dangerous and capable of harm. He has the dubious distinction of being the only creature to murder a princess."

Discord's face literally turned white upon hearing this and I could only imagine why.

"Murder as in, kill without provocation, without mercy?" he asked, nervously, briefly turning into a tombstone. "Look Celestia, I'm a creature of chaos, I don't kill in any way, not even if I ever wanted to do so."

"I know that you don't want to kill," said Celestia, stepping down from her throne. "And I know that you have a good side Discord. In fact, your betrayal was perhaps a good thing in the end as it allowed what had transpired to happen."

"That is true," replied Discord, realizing what she said was indeed true and teleporting himself to Celestia's throne and sitting on it. "With what you said about everything leading to Tirek's defeat. By the way, I've got a good guess that what you are asking me to do is find another escapee and bring him to justice."

"Not by yourself, Discord," cautioned Twilight. "While you have since atoned for your actions, not everypony can trust you fully. Besides, this is something that both Celestia and Luna feel that must be a group effort."

"A group effort?" asked Discord, teleporting himself off the throne. "As in we five work together to catch an escapee?"

The response was swift and immediate from Celestia, who looked at Discord right in the face.

"Yes."

…

"Well then," said Discord, snapping his lion paw, teleporting himself and the princesses out of the throne room and placing them right outside the Crystal Empire. "Where do we start?"

"The first thing we need to do is to lock down any particular areas," said Cadence, looking out towards the empire she governed with Shining Armor. "Especially the Crystal Empire. That is exactly where Prince Julius will go."

Activating her horn, Cadence fired a spell that enveloped the entire kingdom, making it seemingly invisible. This caused the rest of the group to drop their eyes in shock.

"It may seem like it is invisible, but it's really not," explained Cadence. "Only creatures who are pure of evil cannot see the Crystal Empire. For you, its only temporary."

Within a few moments, the spell wore off and the Crystal Empire was visible to the Princesses again.

"Very well," said Celestia. "Then there is the distinction that there needs to be some kind of a trail. We need to start at the first place that Julius is likely to go to after escaping from Tartarus."

"Well, there is always the Everfree Forest," suggested Twilight. "I am pretty sure escapees would hide out in there. There they could hide and recharge themselves before moving on to Celestia knows where."

"Perhaps we will start at the forest and work our way forward," said Celestia. "If there is a trail, then we need to follow it and see where it leads."

"No sooner said than done," chuckled Discord and with those words, he snapped his lion paw and they all found themselves in the Everfree Forest. No sooner did they arrive did they see what appeared to be one of the chains I had freed myself from after escaping.

"It's a chain," Twilight remarked examining the chain. "It appears to have been smashed off, supposedly by a rock or something."

"Spread out and see if you find anything else," ordered Celestia and they all splat up to find any trace of any evidence of our escape.

…

A little while later, they reconvened at the same spot.

"I found nothing," sighed Cadence. "Not a piece of clothing, a hair, nothing."

"This is a forest that is wide and open," said Luna, holding what appeared to be a cuff in her aura. "There is bound to be something to be found. I did manage to find a cuff that supposedly belonged to one of the escapees. I am not sure if its Tirek's or Julius', but its looks like an ankle cuff, which does belong to Julius."

"All right, it seems to me that all we found were the broken chains," said Celestia, contemplating the next step of options that they had . "However, we need to get a perspective on the situation and we have an entire patrol of guards who was a witness to the escaping."

…

Meanwhile, while the Princesses made their way to Tartarus prison, I had reached the edge of the Everfree Forest and was now back on the road to the Crystal Empire. Little did I know that Cadence's little spell to protect her home would put a monkey wrench in my plans…