Ponyville
November 1st

For the first time since its inception, nopony in Ponyville had celebrated Nightmare Night. Half of Equestria already seemed to be trapped in an unrelenting nightmare already, even those away from the fighting were starting to feel its effects. A cloudless night had passed like any other, the stars above shining as though nothing had changed in the land they silently watched over. Those that knew however, could only see it as an illusion of peace. The guardian of the night was unable to perform her duty, her dream realm defenceless against the fears that lurked within pony hearts and minds. And there was more to fear with every passing day. The best many ponies could do at this point was to put everything they could into their waking hours and supress those fears as much as possible.

Such thoughts had remained in Rainbow Dash's mind for days on end, worsening the ceaseless concern over how many more of her friends wouldn't be lucky enough to come out of this. If she wouldn't be lucky enough. The night of the attack on Ponyville still haunted her weaker moments. The memory of her surrogate sister crying uncontrollably into her chest, of her distraught expression as she vainly tried to revive her mother. She had wanted to say that the same wouldn't happen again, that Scootaloo's father would still be alive after all this, that she would. But after a day as harrowing as that, how could she look anypony in the eye and tell such a hollow lie?

At the very least, she was comforted by the fact that Scootaloo had found a safe outlet for her emotions. In the calm days since the attack, the two of them had met up every afternoon, taken to the skies over Ponyville and engaged in a series of high-velocity stunt flights to take their minds off things. It doubled as a chance for Rainbow to give her wings a proper test and make sure her fitness hadn't been affected, while allowing Scootaloo to engage in the flights she had been denied for so many years. They had extended an invitation to the other flyers in the group, but Fluttershy didn't want to slow them down and Twilight was never in the mood to try and relax these days. Even if that thought bothered Rainbow, she could still be free of her concerns for a short while.

Now that she was back in the skies, her thoughts could focus on her flight for the day over everything else. The ever-welcome sensation of wind rushing around her, senses working overtime to ensure she could take the route laid out, even the whirring of her wings as they made minor shifts in position was a positive to her. Sure they were a little heavier and more taxing than her natural ones, but they reacted almost exactly like she expect them to. She couldn't push them quite as hard, but simply being able to fly again was a relief she hadn't realised just how badly she'd needed.

"You ok sis?" Scootaloo's voice called from behind her. She looked back to see the younger mare pulling up on her left side, gliding alongside her.

"Yeah, it's not like you to zone out like that." Deep Note's voice came from her other side. She'd gotten so caught up in her thoughts that she'd forgotten that he'd agreed to come along with them this time. That was a sure sign that she was overthinking it. It was time to scale down her thought process and focus just on what she was here to do.

"Sorry, just a lot on my mind," She admitted, looking down at the lands below them. They were flying north-east of Ponyville by now, over a hilly area that led toward the Foal Mountains. "Alright, we're on course in ten seconds. Follow my lead."

The others nodded and dropped back behind her, Deep trailing back slightly and Scoots following behind her. Rainbow grinned slightly to herself as the fact that she was leading relaxed her further. For a brief moment, she imagined herself as back with the Wonderbolts, leading her squadmates through daring manoeuvres like they had been born knowing them. Those days were long gone now. Even if she fully adapted to her bionic wings, she knew that she likely wouldn't be able to match their skill anymore. That was a lesser mentioned part of the team's strength though, knowing when the right time was to step aside and let new legends begin their journey. Soarin had done it before her and he'd done well with his life afterward. She would too.

Plus it left her time for things like this.

Rainbow rolled onto her back and dropped into a fast dive, closing her eyes and letting all her concerns be blown away in the rushing air. A quick glance skyward confirmed the other two were following her and another downward showed they were headed straight for one of the higher hills. Her wings flared open with thirty feet to spare and she pulled up enough to fly parallel to the hillside, spinning slightly as she pulled around the next hill in front of her. She could hear her wings creak slightly from the g-forces but Moondancer had assured her that they'd been through worse during stress testing. She didn't need to hold back.

At this speed each hill came seconds after the last, her body twisting and weaving as she pushed herself around and over them at lightning speed. On each maneuverer her ears flicked backward, listening out for any indication that her wingponies were having trouble with the course. They seemed to be doing alright though, not surprising considering she'd chosen an easier route for today. One thing she was still learning was how to judge how close she was getting to the ground with her wings. Feathers were highly sensitive to objects in their vicinity, to the point that she had sometimes brushed the ground while in flight just to guess how many blades of grass she had felt. Her new wings offered no such benefit, but that was such a small detail compared to what they gave back to her.

Before she knew it the hills were behind her and she was pulling back into the cloudless sky. After a few hundred feet she stopped and swung around to check on the others. Scootaloo was just pulling up behind her while Deep was trailing slightly, looking winded in comparison to the other two.

"D-damn, you were really pushing it back there." Deep panted as he rejoined them, looking round on the off chance there was a stray cloud to have a breather on. He wasn't that lucky today.

"Awww, that was nothing," Scootaloo told him as she offered a hoofbump, one that he returned after a moment. "Rainbow could do something like that in her sleep."

"I used to, sure," Rainbow admitted, chuckling slightly at how surprised her sister looked at that admission. "Really though, I'm more impressed by you two. Deep, the fact you could keep up at that speed was really good. Scoots, your stamina is really coming along. You keep that up and you might have to switch out the scooter for a flight suit."

"Thanks, but you're still leaving us in the dust," Scootaloo countered. "You're probably even ready to join in next time Tantabus makes a move."

"Well..." Rainbow glanced back at her wings for several seconds before looking at the others with renewed vigour. "I'm not going to throw myself into danger for nothing more than payback. But it would be nice to get back into the action."

"You might have your chance." Deep commented, pointing back toward Ponyville.

Rainbow and Scootaloo followed his gaze, tensing in anticipation of the worst. To their relief, there was no sign of immediate trouble anywhere in sight. The only difference between the view now and when they had left was a flare of white magic hovering in front of Twilight's Castle. All three of them shared a quick look before moving to fly back as quick as they could. As they approached the castle, the sight of Aurora standing at the foot of the main steps put them all at further ease. He was the one casting the flare and from the look on his face, it was merely to attract attention.

"Ah, that worked," Aurora commented as the pegasi landed in front of him, ending the spell he'd been using and dissipating the flare. "I wasn't sure if you'd be near enough to see it."

"Wasn't easy," Rainbow admitted as she folded her wings back in, ears twitching slightly as the whirring faded. "So what's going on?"

"Twilight's called for a meeting. I'm pretty sure she's got a new plan for dealing with Tantabus."

"You mean it really could be over soon?" Scootaloo asked hopefully. Aurora's horn lit up for the briefest of moments, his eyes paling the same way, before he looked over at her and smiled.

"I hope so."

In her heart, Trixie knew that she had only gotten this far through the actions of others and a lot of luck.

Twelve other ponies had been with her in the map room when everypony had gathered to stand for Equestria. Less than a fortnight later, only eight remained. She had fought and risked so much alongside them, yet had been helpless to save Rarity and Bounty. The only reason she hadn't been killed too was down to Starlight's intervention. Another pony who wasn't able to continue. How many more wouldn't be sitting here before this was over? Either another fallen pony, one left crippled or even ending up like Quick Fix, too broken by the pressure to keep standing. The more she thought about it...

"Trixie, You okay? Everypony's almost here."

Trixie shook her head slightly as she was pulled from her thoughts, blinking quickly as the map room came back into focus around her. She'd been so caught up in them that she had almost flopped down against the map without realising. She straightened up and looked round to see who else was there. Twilight was nowhere to be seen, but Applejack, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash had taken their seats. Pinkie Pie and Rarity's remained empty. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Deep Note were waiting around the other side of the map, while Peace Walker was the one checking on her.

"Hmmm? Yes I, ah," Trixie stammered, trying to regain her composure but only managing to fluster herself further. "Trixie was just, mulling over any further magic she knows that might be of help. Yes."

"Hey, I've seen that look in your eyes before," Peace replied, her voice dropping to a surprisingly gentle tone. "That stressed concern. I've worn that look more times than I care to admit."

"You...Really?" Trixie asked with sudden, cautious concern in her voice. Peace nodded and placed a hoof on her shoulder.

"Yeah. Come find me after the meeting and we'll talk through it, see if we can find something to make you feel better from it. Okay?"

Trixie nodded and patted Peace's shoulder in thanks. Before she could reply, the door to the foyer opened and Twilight entered the room, flanked by Spike and Aurora. She looked as though she'd been up half the night on one of her study sessions, but there was an energy to her movements that showed the truth. She was fixated on her objective, to the point that the atmosphere around her was slightly...Unnerving. Her expression tightened into one of harsh determination as she moved round to her throne and flapped onto it, not making eye contact with anypony. Spike remained by her side while Aurora hung back slightly and closed his eyes, studying everypony's reactions through his magic.

"Thank you all for coming," Twilight started as she looked around at everypony, sighing sadly to herself before continuing. "It's been an extremely tough few days for everypony and the fact all of you are still here means more than I can say."

"We made a promise that we would, I'm going to stick to it." Sweetie Belle replied, sounding unusually serious.

"Err, we did?" Apple Bloom chimed in after a moment. Sweetie shot her a glance but said nothing.

"I finally have some good news," Twilight continued, cutting any further discussion off. "Collaboration between myself, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna over the past few days has started to show results. Although it hasn't been finalised yet, I feel confident in saying that we have almost everything we need to stop Tantabus now."

"Can you define what'cha mean by 'almost everything'?" Applejack asked while everypony else was still absorbing the information.

"We have managed to create the spell guaranteed to separate Tantabus from Sunset Shimmer, returning it to Luna while giving Sunset Shimmer a chance of surviving the procedure."

"Oh. Only a chance?" Fluttershy said quietly, drawing everypony's attention. "Not to sound critical, but can you give Sunset a better chance? She's as much a victim as everypony else."

"We're still working on improving her odds in such a..." Spike started, glancing over at Twilight. It was subtle, but he could tell there was a scowl on her face. "Limited time. Trust me, her likelihood of surviving something like this was zero a few days ago."

"Exactly. That gives us one of the two main things we need." Twilight added as she leaned forward and tapped a hoof against the edge of the table.

After a few moments the map flared into existence again, everyone focusing on it. It was somewhat soothing to see that, for all the chaos that the continent had endured, everything still looked peaceful as far as the map was concerned. Twilight got up in her throne and placed her front hooves on the map as the studied it more closely.

"That brings us onto the other thing we need," She continued. "Namely, finding out exactly where Tantabus is hiding. Aurora?"

"I'm afraid I don't have anything new to go on," Aurora said as he opened his eyes and stepped up to the map. "Commander Night Glider has been running the EDF scout teams at maximum efficiency in an attempt to narrow down Tantabus' hiding spot, only to keep coming up with nothing. At this point, I theorise that either Tantabus has surmised we're attempting this and is moving in time to avoid our searches, or she's hiding outside of Equestria's borders."

There were murmurs among the group as they quietly took in this thought and made their initial comments to each other. Trixie looked unnerved, even taking a step back from the map. Deep's expression remained neutral, but his eyes betrayed a sense of conflicting emotions. Applejack momentarily glanced over at the pegasus before turning to Sweetie Belle, offering some extra support to her alongside Apple Bloom. Aurora looked round at them all and focused himself internally, feeling out through his magic to gauge their real reactions. Like when he had come in, there was still a clash of fear and hope swirling throughout the room. It was much more intense than before though, and there was now an undercurrent of anger emanating from Peace Walker, and Twilight.

He wished he wasn't surprised to feel it.

"I think it's more likely to be the latter," He continued, drawing everyone's attention back to himself and calming the situation. "If we put our heads together as we go over each spot, I think we can narrow it down further."

"Good idea," Twilight commented, sounding like she had her emotions under control. That or she was really good at faking it. "Where should we start?"

"Over here," Aurora moved around to Fluttershy's chair and pointed to the land in front of it that led off the map. "The Undiscovered West. That-"

"Wouldn't be possible," Rainbow Dash interrupted, getting up quickly and leaning over toward him. "The changelings of Outlani have been patrolling that area for months. They've got scouts combing the mountains inside and out, intercepting any stragglers from Chrysalis' rogue hive."

"Could she have slipped past them?" Deep suggested.

"Unlikely," Aurora told him, moving to the south side of the map. "The area is extremely difficult to move through on hoof, not without giving yourself away. Even if she made it into Outlani, Ambassadors Outreach, Apple Tart and Water Flare are the only ponies there at present. If somepony else had entered uninvited, we would have heard about it by now."

"So we can rule that out on our first pass. Where next?" Scootaloo said as she jumped into a hover next to Rainbow's chair, moving over the map to look closer.

"Well, there's two possible areas in the south. First, the Arimaspi territory in the west. The most dangerous region in the known world, which would make it perfect if a safe spot existed somewhere within it. Alternatively, the Forbidden Jungle in the east; Threats somepony as strong as Sunset could handle and a lot harder to search. Of course, that would have required her to get to either of them in the first place."

"Wait, what about here?" Peace asked, pointing across the map. Aurora followed her hoof and his eyes widened slightly as he saw where it was pointing at. The Badlands of the south-east.

"Well...It's possible. The scouts investigating the area only went as far as the perimeter. I can't see it though, it's too exposed. The only landmark is a six mile wide crater surrounded by a hundred miles of nothing in every direction."

"It's also so thick with traces of dark magic that unicorns can taste it in the air," Peace told him, waiting for Aurora to think that point through before continuing. "If Tantabus is using magic anything like she did as Nightmare Moon, she's got a LOT more of that power to work with by holding up in that area. Not to mention it's a huge area to cover and-"

"She's returned home..." Twilight suddenly spoke, dawning realisation in her eyes.

Everyone looked at her at the same time. Applejack, Rainbow and Fluttershy all had varying degrees of understanding on their faces, Aurora and Spike nodding thoughtfully. Everypony else looked completely lost at her words though. Twilight paid no mind to them as she stood up fully, looking more determined than anypony had seen her in some time.

"There's no further time to be wasted," She said as she got off her throne. "I need to get there right now and bring her in before she hurts anypony else. Just-"

"Wait!" Fluttershy suddenly snapped, her exclamation stopping Twilight before she could leave. "You don't even know if she is there. Even if she is, you're not emotionally fit to do this alone. If you go now and something happens, all we're going to get is another situation like Ponyville. One where you wont be there to help us!"

The atmosphere in the room changed in an instant. Twilight tensed up and looked back at Fluttershy, looking like she was biting back her frustration. The two of them stared each other down for several long seconds, seeming silently daring the other to react first. Spike, Rainbow, Scootaloo and Peace were between their chairs and all looking between the two as if gauging whether they would need to intervene. Everyone remained silent for several more seconds before Twilight sighed and sat back down.

"I know. I know," She said quietly, the fight suddenly seeming to drain from her. "I'm just...I'm scared of losing anypony else."

"It's okay, Twilight," Spike told her gently, moving closer and placing a hand on her shoulder. "None of us can probably even imagine what it must feel like, all those lives weighing on you."

"Tell you what," Rainbow spoke up, turning to face Twilight. "You need to make sure she's there, I haven't had a chance to actually get out into action yet. What'd you say to me taking a flight over the Badlands and seeing if we can find any sign that Tantabus is actually there?"

"Ooh! Can I go too?" Scootaloo asked eagerly as she landed again. Despite everything, she still had that same spark for working alongside her sister as she'd had for decades.

"Sure," Twilight told her, taking a slow breath and managing a small smile. "Two set of pegasus eyes are better than one. Just, no heroics."

"I didn't plan on it." Rainbow reassured her, flexing her wings out for a moment.

"Good. Now, it's a little late in the day to begin right now and I need to be in Canterlot first thing tomorrow. Aurora, will you be available to teleport them to the area for me?"

"Of course. We can handle the planning stage too." Aurora replied, sounding more confident. Twilight nodded and leaned back in her throne, slowly looking round at everypony.

"Okay, thanks. Everyone else, all I can ask right now is that you keep doing whatever you can to keep everypony's spirits up. Dismissed."

Author's Note

And with this chapter, Black Sun becomes the longest story I've ever written. Hopefully you're enjoying it so far.

The best part? This is roughly the halfway point.