Remember Falling

When Rarity woke up in the morning, she was confused when Spike wasn't next to her in the bed. She remembered going to the library to check on him then offering for him to stay with her for the time being until Twilight was found.

The white unicorn brushed the blanket off of her and stood up. Rarity then noticed that her bedroom door was open when she clearly remembered shutting it last night. She walked outside the room but when she saw what was outside her door she gasped in a mix of surprise and horror.

Opal was hanging from the ceiling by her tail. The poor cat was also shaved bald, tied it up, and had her mouth duct taped shut.

"Opal! Don't worry darling, mama will get you down from there!"

Well Rarity was trying to free Opal, she could have swore she heard laughter coming from somewhere...

What the buck was going on?!

I laughed as I watched Diamond's reaction to what I did to her cat. Oh man, this was hilarious!

"Uh, Twilight?"

I stopped laughing and turned towards Firestarter, who was sitting up in the sleeping bag I created for him last night, rubbing his eye sleepy.

"Yes, kid?" I smiled.

"What are you laughing at?" The purple dragon asked.

My smile grew wider. "Oh, just at a private joke."

"Oookay, whatever." His stomach growled loud enough for me to hear 4 feet away. His face turned pink. "Heh, sorry Twilight. I haven't really ate since you left..." he said with embarrassment.

"You haven't ate in a week?" I frowned and tisked with disappointment, "This simply won't do."

I stomped a hoof, creating a plate of sapphires in front of Firestarter. His eyes widened and he grinned with barely contained glee. He was about to reach for one before he paused and thanked me.

"Think nothing of it kid! Now eat, you must be famished." I said and sat down.

Well the baby dragon was stuffing himself silly, I took a peek around ponyville through my 'peepers'. I frowned at what I saw. The royal guard was strolling around town. Strange... did it have something to do with the letter Firestarter sent a week ago to Sunny?

My eyes wandered over to said dragon. I better ask him what was on that scroll.

"Hey, kid. I have a question for ya." I said, surprising him and making him drop the gem he was about to take a bite out of.

"Yeah?" He picked the gem back up and looked me in the eye.

"Out of curiosity," I twirled my hoof around, "what DID you write to Sunny a week ago?"

"Sunny?" He squinted his eyes before they widened when realization dawned on him. "Oh! You mean Princess Celestia? I wrote about how Discord was murdered and that you were missing. Wait, how did you know about that?"

I smiled mysteriously, "I know things. Many, many things."

Once Firestarter was done, he climbed onto my back and we continued our journey into the forest...

"So let me get this strait, sugarcube. When ya woke up this morning, ya found Opal shaved bald, hogtied, and hanging from your ceiling. On top of that, Spike is missing now too?"

"Indeed, darling." Rarity nodded.

Applejack shook her head slowly at this.

Rainbow Dash punched her hooves together and growled, "When I find whoever took them, I'm going to-" She cut herself off and started boxing the air.

"Um, maybe if we asked nicely, they might return Twilight and Spike?" Fluttershy mumbled out quietly.

"And a party, everypony likes parties! Hehehe, right? Right?" Pinkie Pie added with a hopeful smile. Everypony in their circle could see that the pink mare was working really hard to keep herself together. She was taking the disappearance of Twilight and Spike the hardest of them all.

The five of them stopped talking when they overheard a few of the royal guard pass by talking about how they were going to move their search further into the Everfree forest.

Applejack sighed, "I hope they are alright..."

Spike watched Twilight with deep thought as they walked deeper into the forest. The creatures of the Everfree seemed to avoid them like the cutie pox for some odd reason.

He wasn't sure what to think of her anymore. She lied to him for 12 years about how powerful she really was, but that he could understand. He would too if he had the powers that Twilight did. No, what he couldn't understand was her new look and behavior. It was almost like she was a whole nother pony! And...

He glanced at the really strange cutie mark she now had. The mark had both a good and evil feel too it. It... it kind of freaked him out.

But despite her (rather dark) changes, the purple dragon still loved Twilight very dearly and was willing to follow her down to the pits of HELL if needed.

He was a dragon, and how his kind was. He wouldn't have it any other way.

Suddenly Twilight stopped walking. Jolting him out of his thoughts.

"Twi-?"

"Shh!" Twilight shushed him. Spike went silent and listened to the sounds in the distance. There was a lot of shouting voices from behind them coming their way.

What's was happening?

I stopped walking when I heard shouts in the distance. It instantly but me on edge.

"Twi-?"

"Shh!" I shushed Firestarter and twitched my ears, listening closely. Whoever they were, they were rapidly approaching from behind.

"Hold on, kid." I commanded my draconic companion.

"Okay?" He wrapped his arms around my neck. I lifted my hooves off the ground, making Firestarter gasp in surprise, and floated up into the tree above us. I grabbed the kid with my magic and stuffed him further into the tree leaves well I made a hole and watched the ground below.

I watched as a group of royal guard approached. They were lead by, of all things, Warrior. They stopped under the tree and began inspecting where my hoofprints stopped. They than begun talking to one another.

"Who is it?" Firestarter whispered/asked.

"The royal guard." I growled back.

Suddenly Warrior looked up at where I was hiding. His eyes widened.

Shit!

Warrior begun shouting for his underlings to make formaton around the tree me and Spike where hiding in. They pointed spears up at us.

The unicorn's horn glowed and magnified the sound of his voice. "In the name of royal pony sisters, I command you to reveal yourself!" He shouted.

Firestarter begun panicking making me roll my eye.

"Stay here, kid. I'll take care of this." I whispered to him than laughed loudly and said, "If you insist!"

I disappeared and then reappeared, floating above them with a grin. All of them but Warrior took a step back nervously making my grin widen even further.

"Hello, pathetic ponies!" I announced and took a bow, "Cipher at your service!"

Warrior glared up at me. "Cipher, you are wanted for questioning of the murder of the spirit of chaos; Discord and the disappearance of the Element Of Magic; Twilight Sparkle. Please come quietly back to Canterlot with us."

I tisked and crossed my forearms, "Sorry, I can't do that Warrior."

He raised an eyebrow at my nickname for him, "If you don't come with us we will have to use brute force."

"Try it, Warrior," I smirked darkly. "It will end very badly for you."

"Then it shall be force," the unicorn then commanded his underlings to attack. They charged.

I cashly flicked my wrist, setting several of them on fire with blue flames. The guards screamed with agony as their fur and soon the're skin begun burning away. I watched with sadistic glee, eating up their screams like they were honey.

Well I was worried about the ones burning, a rope wrapped around one of my hooves and begun trying to pull me down. I burned to rope away and glared down at the guard that did that with slight annoyance. I pointed my horn at the guard and shot a beam of pure energy at him. It completely insinorated him on the spot.

I heard something approaching quickly from my left. I turned and dogged a rapid fire sword attack from Warrior. He used the sword in his magical grasp with well trained perfecton. It was like it was another part of his body.

I teleported behind him and kicked him with my hind hooves on the back of his head. Warrior gasped and fell to the ground with a grunt, clearly disoriented. I took the chance and grabbed him with my magic and started repeatedly bashing him against the ground, laughing like a maniac well doing so.

"Twilight! Twilight, stop! STOP!" Firestarter screamed from the top of the tree I left him in. I looked up at him with a crazed smile, cocking my head to the side when he continued shouting, "Look what your doing! Your going to kill him! Your going to kill your brother!"

My... brother?

I looked back down at Warrior, who was laying on the ground with a glazed look to his eyes. At some point he passed out from the pain with his eyes open.

It was like I was waking up from a long sleep and finally was noticing who I was looking at.

My eye widened.

"S-Shining...?"