All is Darke

Chapters

Prelude to Darkness
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7

Prelude to Darkness

*Note: This is my first fanfiction, constructive criticism would be appreciated.

"The night will last - FOREVER! " Nightmare Moon laughs evily, triumphantly exclaiming her return from banishment on the moon. Ponies everywhere in Town hall were screaming in terror as Twilight Sparkle and her newly found friends went to the Treebrary to figure out the location of the Elements of Harmony - the old castle of the two royal sisters in the Everfree forest.

---------------------------------------------------------flash forward-----------------------------------------------------------

"... the element that brings all of these elements together, the element of- MAGIC!" With this exclamation, Twilight Sparkle becomes surrounded by a magical haze and emits light that lifts her other friends up in the air. With their newly found friendship, they summon a rainbow of magic that blasts away at Nightmare Moon.

"Nooooooooooooo!" Nightmare Moon cried in agony, and the friends settled in for a group hug... until that is, Nightmare Moon stood up again.

"Foolish ponies! Didst thou think your measly friendship that you found only within the course of a day would be enough to defeat me?"

"Bu- but, we used the Elements! Nightmare Moon should be gone! I just don't understand, how could this happen!?" Twilight Sparkle was going into panic mode. "Alright Twilight, think calmly about this and assess the situation. 1 - We were able to harness the Elements of Harmony. 2 - Nightmare Moon is still here. 3 - Therefore, the Elements didn't work. But how could this be? Princess Celestia used them in the past to ban-" Twilight's though process was interrupted as Applejack tackled her from the side.

"Look out, sugarcube!" Applejack managed to save Twilight from being hit by Nightmare's magical blast. "Listen, Ah' know you're thinking about how we failed, but Ah' reckon that our only chance is to take action, so stop thinking and use some of that fancy magic of yours!" With that, Applejack returned to the rest of her friends, where they danced to and fro to avoid Nightmare Moon's magical bolts of darkness.

"This entertains me, foolish ponies! Dance more for your new sovereign!" Nightmare Moon cackled as one of her bolts singed the tip of Rainbow Dash's feathers. "Oops! Did that hurt? Better dance faster or your head will be next!"

"Thats it, time to bring in the PAIN!" Rainbow Dash backed up to the end of the hall and charged at top speed towards Nightmare Moon.

"Rainbow Dash, no!" Twilight yelled out in warning a moment too late. Nightmare Moon simply stepped to the side, and behind her stood a magical Darke portal that she had been hiding the entire time.

"Wait, what in the hay is tha-" Rainbow Dash flew straight into the portal, her last words lost over the magical force being gathered there. The portal closed in on itself, leaving no trace of it or RD.

Suddenly, a shocked silence enveloped over the ponies while Nightmare Moon simply sneered from her throne.

"Ah yes, Rainbow Dash was always the most headstrong of you six. It was so easy to fool her into my trap, and now you are no longer able to harness the elements."

"Wh-what have you done to her?" Twilight managed to whisper, barely audible in the wide chamber of the throne room.

"Oh, I simply sent her on a little trip. She'll be back...maybe." Nightmare Moon's cackling shook the entire chamber, causing rocks to fall on the group of friends.

"Now lookie here, Miss Moon, Ah reckon you better bring our friend back to us or you're in for a world a' hurt, ya hear? I ain't going to stand for one of my friends being transported to Celestia knows where with all tha- OOF!" Applejack's speech was interrupted as the portal opened up beside her and Raindbow Dash's battered, unconscious body slammed into hers, causing them both to skid into the opposite wall.

"Rainbow Dash! Applejack! Are you alright?" Twilight called over to them, but the only response was a scarcly audible groan from AJ.

"Hah! Two of your group hath fallen, miserable peons." Nightmare Moon surveyed the remaining four ponies with contempt. "Look at your little sun-filled faces. Disgusting! By the time I'm through with this country, none shall dare REMEMBER the sun again!"

Fluttershy had been cowering in her spot, too afraid to speak until she saw Rainbow Dash fly out of the portal into AJ and hit the wall. With two of her friends down, she snapped into an angry rage.

"How DARE you? You will NOT lay another hoof on MY friends or I will do UNSPEAKABLE THINGS to you. I don't care if you're Nightmare Moon, stay away from my friends! Do you understand!?" Fluttershy had her warface on, with her stare at full power directed at Nightmare Moon, who was actually stunned for a moment before shaking it off.

"Forgive me if I don't exactly quiver in fear at thou words, young mare. I am a goddess! You are a simple peasant. It's time thou learnest thy place in this world, young Fluttershy..." Nightmare Moon charged another magical beam and fired it at Fluttershy.

"NOPONY TOUCHES FLUTTERSHY!" Pinkie Pie jumps and pushes Fluttershy out of the way, recieving the full power of the beam which froze her on the spot.

"P-Pinkie Pie...?" Fluttershy's rage had abandoned her, now close to tears. "No!" She wheeps on the statue of her fallen friend, unable to deal with reality any longer.

"Oh Celestia..." Twilight's head was downcast, and she had lost just about all hope when Rarity came to her side to comfort her.

"Twilight, dear, we simply musn't give up yet! We can't! If we do, it means the end of all sunshine! All happiness! I'll have to convert my entire fashion line for gloomy weather! It will be a disaster! We MUST defeat HER" Rarity glared at Nightmare Moon for causing all this pain to her friends.

"I'm sorry, Rarity... I can't... There's no hope left, Equestria is as good as gone..." With a sigh, Twilight simply lay down on the floor, refusing to budge. Tears lined her eyes as they shut, refusing to take in her surroundings any longer.

Rarity gives a comforting pat on her shoulder before rising up to face Nightmare Moon. "You...I'll DESTROY YOU!"

Harnessing the power of her Element of Harmony, Generosity, Rarity generated more magical power than she had ever known in her lifetime. Under her hooves, gems started to float through the floor and surround the air around her. Gathering the rest of the energy inside of her, she launches herself at the evil princess with a vengeance.

Nightmare Moon marvels at this. "So, thou hast decided to fight for thy friends. What an...admirable attempt. One doomed to FAILURE." Nightmare Moon proceeds with a charge of her own, her horn glowing with darke energies as she ran.

When the two magically charged ponies made contact, a ball of light was created from the impact, throwing both combatants to the opposite sides of the room. Rarity hit the wall with a crunch and did not get up again.

Nightmare Moon stood in the middle of the carnage, gazing at her handiwork. "Hmm, not bad for one that has been out of practice for a millenia, although I suppose practicing on those moon bunnies helped me along." Staring at Twilight Sparkle with contempt, she added " Thy friends fought for thou, and what dost thou do? Cower like a diamond dog! You were not deserving of their friendship. Although I suppose I must thank you. Because of your cowardice, I am now able to take the throne! " She turned at faced an open window, ready to take flight and conquer the rest of Equestria when Twilight whispered "No..."

She turned around suddenly "What didst thou say?"

"No... I won't let you!" Around Twilight, a magical corona suddenly appeared and filled the entire room, encasing both her and Nightmare Moon within an impenetrable barrier. A second barrier forms around Twilight herself, rising from a magic circle inscribed on the floor with light.

Nightmare slams herself against the barrier and recoils from the touch of pure magic against her own Darke soul. "What hast thou done, you peasant!" She rushes again against the barrier, yet it still repels her.

"This barrier" Twilight struggles to speak words under the pressure of her spell, " is the most powerful defense spell that I know...It's designed to keep evil out...but can keep you in just as easily... I ...will...not...let...you...pass!"

"No!" Nightmare Moon rushes now towards Twilight but is halted by the barrier. "You think thou canst keep me here forever!? I will outliveth your puny life a thousand times and again!"

"I don't plan to keep you here forever...just long enough for Princess Celestia to arrive" Twilight grunts as Nightmare Moon blasts away at the barrier.

"You" -blast- "will" - blast- "not" -blast- "keep" -blast- "me" -blast- "here!" With a final blast, Twilight Sparkle's energy gave out and she collapsed, panting on the ground. Nightmare Moon looks with grudging respect. "Perhaps you hath trained this one well, dear sister. Now, on to Canterlot! But first..." Nightmare Moon summons another portal and spreads the elements of harmony all over Equestria and beyond. "None shall dare oppose me again!"

Back at the palace, after decimating the Royal Guard with almost contemptuous ease, Nightmare Moon faces off against Princess Celestia. Outside, the skies were already turning dusk at midday as the night slowly encroached upon the day.

"I once called you my sister...but now you have become a monster!" Celestia glared at the opponent before her, horn ablaze with a fiery light.

"Hah! Sisters? You ceased to be my sister when you sent me to the moon for 1,000 miserable years! But now, it is my time to rule the throne, and you cannot stop me!"

"For the sake of the kingdom and all of Equestria, I will protect my subjects... from you!" Celestia and Nightmare Moon engage in magical combat, beams of light connecting with each other as each alicorn struggled to enforce their will onto the other. However, Nightmare Moon was not to be defeated. Her magic, augmented by the power of the stars for this, the day of her escape, was more than a match for Celestia even on her strongest day of the year. Nightmare froze Celestia into a crystal state, her body forever battling with the cold. Nightmare Moon laughed an evil, haunting laugh that could be heard as far as Ponyville. "Now, Equestria is mine! All mine!"

------------------------aftermath--------------------------------

Nightmare Moon was quick to install her regime. After throwing all of the royal guard who rebelled into prison, she quickly overtook the rest of Equestria. Legions of shadow knights traveled across the land, spreading terror and fear wherever they went. They shut down the libraries and magic institutions, outlawing all written materials except those approved of by the royal chief of publications. Schools were converted to fit the new teachings of Nightmare Moon. Scrolls of history and magic were burned by the hundreds as Nightmare purged the land of any trace of sun or Celestia. She enacted a curfew where every pony had to be in their houses by 8 at darknight (the new night time) and lights out at 9 darknight. Nopony was to leave until their homes until 1 dusknight (the new daytime). This curfew was heavily enforced by her shadow guards, who harshly dealt with curfew breakers and any other ponies who found themselves on the other side of Nightmare Moon's law. Some were lucky - they were forced to work in the quarries, mining mysterious minerals for her Lunar highness. Others were never heard from again. Ponies everywhere in Equestria weeped at the downfall of their princess Celestia, currently missing but presumed lost forever.

And so Equestria was plunged into darkest night for many years to come...

Chapter 1

A dark, night filled century after Nightmare Moon rose to the throne:

"Stop right there, criminal scum!" The shadow guards raced after a young unicorn with a purple coat and bluish black mane and greyish eyes. Artemis was trying to figure out how he got caught in this mess and why he was running for his life when he turned a corner and found a small, unoticeable cave. Without any misgivings, he slid into the smaller than average opening and hid there, catching his breath as he heard the guards run past.

"Which way did he go?" Guard number one yelled as he ran.

"I think he went this way, lets go!" Guard number two yelled in response as they ran in the opposite direction of the cave.

With his breath slowly coming back to him, Artemis could now properly think back on the days events.

Earlier that day (or dusknight):

"Come on, Artemis, don't be such a wimp!" Cloud Shaker (also called Orion by his friends because Cloud Shaker is such a mouthful) had his hooves on Artemis' shoulders. His wings were making random movements, testament to how frustated he was becoming with his egghead brother. Orion, as you can tell, is the more headstrong of the two and twice as adventurous. He had a wild streak a mile wide and couldn't resist any opportunity to break the rules. In fact, just last week he had already been caught by the Shadow Guards when he and Artemis had decided to go steal apples from a tree growing in an abandoned courtyard. The punishment was harsh: working in the quarries for two days straight with minimal food and water. But that still didn't do anything to suppress his rebellious nature. Already he was concocting a new plan that was highly risky.

"I told you, bro, I don't want to go exploring the outer boundaries of Ponyville! You know what happened the last time the Shadow guards caught us! Can't we just stay inside and read a nice scroll within the safeness of the house?" Artemis (named Charming Blade at birth but switched names like his brother because it was also a mouthful) was shaking his head vehemently. While he enjoyed practicing old forms of swordsmanship at the school, Artemis was much more the academic. It was more likely for you to find him in his study than in any other place in Ponyville, and in fact any other room in the house that they occupied. While coming off as somewhat mild to ponies who don't know him, Artemis also harbors a characteristic adventurous streak that seems to run in the family. This is how he was convinced to go apple stealing with his brother the last time they got caught, though it was more about the abandoned houses "illegal" magic scrolls that had been outlawed by Nightmare Moon's commitee of publications management. Working in the quarries was dusty, but at least it had been for those scrolls. Magic scrolls were hard to come by in this place, as they had all been outlawed by Nightmare years ago to prevent uprisings from taking place.

"Pft, you're such an egghead sometimes! You need to get out of the house more. Seriously, this place is starting to smell." Orion takes a sniff "Phew!"

"It does not!" Slightly embarrassed, Artemis uses his magic to open a nearby window and cycle new air through the old. "The air was just stale, thats all. I've been busy reading an ancient text on some ancient forms of swordsmanship and I found it qui-"

"Yeah yeah, I know how you much you like those swords and stuff, and thats why we need you! You're the smartest and most able bodied unicorn we know, as well as the most magically talented. Think about all that time you spend reading those ancient scrolls just to glean the smallest spell from them!"

"I'm sorry, Orion, but I just can't be bothered with this nonsense over exploring the outside of Ponyville for treasure. Now, if you would excuse me..." Artemis turned back into his chair and started drifting deep into his reading state, oblivious to his surroundings.

"Ugh! You're like the most eggheaded fighter I've ever known! Fine, I'll just have to gather the rest of the gang and go with them. " In a last ditch effort to convince his brother, Orion threw in the hook. "Thats a shame though, we could have used an expert on ancient stuff to decode the hieroglyphs on the walls of the ancient ruins we found..."

Artemis' head flew up. "Did you say ancient ruins?"

Orion shrugged. "You wouldn't be interested anyway, after all that scroll on swords did seem very interesting and I wouldn't want to bother you with our 'nonsense'." He started walking out the door when Artemis said "Wait!"

"So you'll come with us? You're the best brother I've ever had!" It was hard for Orion to contain his excitement. As much as he hated to admit it, he needed his egghead brother to fall back on for support, because there was nopony he could trust more.

"Fine, fine, just let me get my saddlebags ready. And I'm the only brother you've ever had!" Laughing, Artemis headed to his room that he hardly ever spent time in. As he entered, a fine layer of dust was swept up and made him cough violently.

"You alright up there, bro? You sound like an old grandma!"

Artemis sighed. "Orion is a smart aleck as ever," he thought to himself. Better spend more time in here, it's really starting to get that "creepy haunted bedroom" look. After opening another window and dusting up a bit, Artemis finally found what he was looking for on top of his scroll covered desk. "My saddlebag! Still as good as ever." Opening the bag of course released another cloud of dust that invariable lead to more coughing and smart jibes from the lower floor. Inside lay several more scrolls that he had been meaning to read since he got them from the old, completely "legitimate" scrolls store. "Oh, confound it..." Artemis quickly dumped the scrolls in an ever increasing 'To Read' pile and started packing the neccessities he needed for this latest adventure.

"Magnifying glass - check. Scrolls for identifying ancient Equestrian civilizations - check. Omnibus of all written languages since the beginning of Equestria - check. Ooh, magical lantern. That should go in too."

"Leaving within this year would be nice, Artie!" Artemis could hear Orion's wings flapping in boredom downstairs.

"Give me a couple more minutes and I'll be set." Artemis hastened in his packing preparations.

After checking off several more items and filling the last spot with a water bottle for drinking, Artemis trotted down the stairs where his brother was waiting impatiently.

"You take longer to pack than Grampa Silas took to walk across the front lawn! This isn't exactly a camping trip you know," Orion jabbed at his brother. "Come on, the others are waiting for us at our usual spot!" With that, Orion quickly took to the skies, glad to finally be in the air and on their way to what he thought would be the greatest adventure yet.

From the ground, Artemis shifted uneasily in his saddlebags. "Why is it I get the strangest feeling that after today my life will never be the same? I must still be jittery after reading that horror scroll last night." After tightening the straps, he quickly trotted off after Orion on foot to meet up with the others at their usual place.

'The usual place', as was referred to by the friends, was an old storm cellar under an abandoned guard tower. The tower had been in use during Celestia's reign, but now there was little need for it as Nightmare's armies of the night had set up their own structures on clouds all around Equestria. Now, it was a popular roost for renegade griffons, darke birds, and all sorts of woodland creatures that had stayed after the sun went out. Nopony would expect the group of friends to make the storm cellar their ultimate hide out...

Artemis was panting heavily from carrying his saddlebag such a long way when he spotted Orion leisurely resting in a tree by the derelict guard tower. "Figures he would be the first to get here," he muttered under his breath. "Now I can almost hear him say-"

"Man, at this rate we're going to have to rename you slow poke, bro! Can't you trot any faster?" From his tree, Orion held an air of detached nonchalance when the truth was he had poured all of his wingpower into getting here before Artemis did. "He's getting fast for somepony stuck on the ground all the time," he thought to himself. "Better get back to my old flying habits so he's not the one jabbing at me."

"-that." Artemis inwardly sighed. He had been secretly practicing running through the forest as far as he dared to go, but it seemed that his legs would never allow him the speed to catch up to his fleet-winged brother. Of course, he'd never let his brother know this. Should Orion ever find out, it would be material for countless ribbings in the future that Artemis would much rather like to avoid. "Are we just going to hang out here and get caught by the shadow guards or are we going to get into the place already?" he called out.

"You go on ahead, I'll keep watch for the rest of them, no worries. If you hear a whistle, you know the drill." Orion assumed a more hidden position in his tree, keeping his eyes on the horizon in case a shadow guard happened to be coming up the path. Shrugging, Artemis walked into the tower and, while making sure nopony was watching, used his magic to reveal a large door hidden under a desk. He slowly trotted inside, making sure to close the door and move the desk back over it before heading down deeper into the cellar. To his surprise, the lights were already on inside.

"What the hay," Artemis thought to himself. "Is it an intruder?" Assuming battle stance, he quickly opens the door only to encounter his friend Flicker doing some cleaning up around the place.

"Hey there, Artemis. You startled me for a moment, I thought the Shadow guards had found this place out." Flicker's soft voice carried itself across the room to his ears, delighting his ears with its melodious tones. With her berry punch coat and soft green hair, she was a very attractive and kind pegasus pony. In fact, Artemis couldn't remember the last time Flicker had ever raised her voice at anypony, even when she was upset. She knew how to stand her ground, though, as many bullies soon learned when they had been schoolmates. In fact, a lot of those bullies consequently turned around and became her admirers, a many a stallion professing their undying love for her. Though he himself had no attraction towards her, it secretly gave him enjoyment to watch her as she politely turned each pony down with the excuse that she was waiting for that special somepony to come and change her life forever.

"Nah, you know that brother of mine, he's never let the shadowguard waltz up to this place on his watch, it would ruin his image," Artemis joking replied. He caught a faint whiff of something in the bunker air - cinnamon?

"That is true. He always seems to be ready to prove his greatness as a pegasus and fighter." Flicker laughed softly and Artemis joined her. Everypony in their circle of friends knew Orion's big headedness over certain subjects. They also (though would never say it outloud to him) acknowledged that he had the skills he boasted so many times about in the past.

"Want a cinnamon bun? I baked them myself. Thought it would hold us over until Orion finally gets around to telling us his entire plan."

"Hb hab't tolgd you ygt?" Artemis had already taken one of the offered buns, his mouth full of delicious, melting pastry.

"I mean, he hasn't told you yet?" Swallowing the delicious treat, Artemis once again appreciated Flicker's skills in baking.

She chuckled. "Don't swallow too much at once now, you know what happened to Mishap the last time he had some of my cinnamon buns."

"How could I forget? It was so hilarious when he tried to force down the buns with some hotsauce and only ended up running around begging for water." Artemis had a wane smile. While he doesn't normally laugh at the misfortune of others, Mishap was the running exception. All of the friends had fallen victim to his pranks at least once in their lives, Artemis included. With a mischevious smile and wild blue/purple hair, Mishap was always near the scene whenever somepony found whipped cream in their pillows or hot sauce in their drinks. His tannish body and stout horn soon became a thing to look out for around the cellar, for one could never tell what shenangians he would be pulling next.

Flicker had a slight frown. " I wouldn't go that far, it seemed like he was in legitimate pain for a moment there." Being the way she was, there was no way she would have a laugh at the expense of another pony. At least, not TOO much of a laugh.

Artemis' smile died on his face. "Sorry Flicker, I didn't mean... I mean, you know..." He awkwardly stared at the floor, shuffing his hooves against the ground. Though they were friends, Artemis did not have much experience socializing with girls. Most of the time, he had his snout stuck in more dusty scrolls, but thats a story for another time. He was beginning to wonder when the others would show up when he heard the door to the cellar opening up.

"Heya, everypony! No need to hold your applause!" Mishap waltzed, smile pasted broad across his face as it usually was. "Whats up? Something wrong between you two?" He eyed Artemis in particular, who was still staring at the floor without a word. "Seems to me like another would be suitor just got nipped at the bud."

Artemis' head shot up swiftly. " I did no- She did- There is nothing between us!" His face turned a violent shade of red at the implication.

Flicker also blushed. "He's right, we don't have any feelings for each other. After all, how could I fall in love with him? He's one of my best friends."

Inside, Artemis' heart twinged a bit at the remark, but he decided to ignore it as coincidence. "Anyhow, where's the rest of our friends? Orion's just wild to tell us about this crazy new adventure he's got in store for us today."

"He didn't tell you? They've already gone ahead of us to the ruins to scout it out. We were the last ones to arrive, so we're the follow up party. And might I add, the infinitely more FUN party!" Mishap was already heading out the cellar door when he called back. "You two lovebirds coming or not?"

"Like I said, we are not- Oh forget it, lets just get moving to the ruins." Artemis reshouldered his saddlebag and started off towards the door when Flicker said "Hold on a moment, Artemis. You've got a little something there." She raised a hoof and wiped away some pastry crumbs that had been on his face. "There, we wouldn't want you walking around like that, would we?" She smiled so warmly that Artemis couldn't help but blush. "Thanks Flicker..." He quickly turned away and started towards the door. "We should get going, we wouldn't want to have gone through all this just to miss Orion and his show boating, would we?"

Her soft laugh followed him as they climbed up the stairs. "No, we certainly can't have that now."

Chapter 2

Orion was waiting for Artemis and Flicker as they stumbled out into the fresh air of the dusknight. They coughed, having grown too used to the isolated air of the storm cellar.

"Having fun, you two?" He snickered. Obviously, Mishap had told him of what happened down below in the cellar. Artemis turned red again.

"We were just chatting and enjoying a snack, nothing more." Artemis returned stiffly. He shifted his gaze for a quick glare at Mishap before continuing. "Anyhow, what's the big deal? Why'd we have to meet up here if you're going to send the other two to the ruins before us?" Despite his feelings of embarrasment, Artemis' basic instincts as a scholar and insquisitor kicked in.

"Actually, the real reason we came here is to throw the shadowguard of our scent. Autumn found out the other day while snooping by some shadowguards that they're getting suspicious of our movements the past couple days. I figured that if we sent her and Charger up ahead to distract them, we could rendevouz here and meet up with them safely at the ruins." Orion raied his eyes at Artemis, giving him the 'tell me later' look.

"Oh, my. Do you think they're watching us now?" Flicker glanced nervously towards the clouds, trying to spot any that seemed out of place.

"Nah, they've probably lost interest and went back to doing whatever they do in those guard towers up there." Orion gestured to his watch. "We're running out of time. We better get moving if we want to get to the ruins in time. Oh, and Flicker?" Orion looked over to her while her wings were spread. "No flying. From this point on, we can't risk having the shadowguard spot us. We're going to have to hoof it out."

Flicker guiltily closed her wings against her body. "Alright, Orion. But would you mind telling us at least what we'll be doing in the ruins?" Artemis and Mishap murmured their agreement.

"I'll explain on the way, we've got no time to lose." At that, Orion started up the gravel path towards the mountains. Artemis, Mishap, and Flicker all glanced at each other before starting up the path, each wondering what could possibly be eating Orion up so much that he was in this much of a hurry.

Meanwhile, at the ruins:

"Ugh, this is SO. BORING." Autumn kicked at some rocks for the millionth time. Gazing at the shrouded moon, she thought once again of how she could be doing other things right now instead of being on a dangerous, risky treasure hunt in the middle of some broken down ruins. Like drinking hay shakes with her other girlfriends at the cafe they loved to frequent.

"Don't do that, it ruins my concentration." Nearby, Charger had assumed a Zen stance and was breathing slowly in through his nostrils, exhaling deeply through the mouth. He appeared calm and completely void of all emotions.

"Typical Charger," Autumn muttered to herself. She couldn't remember a time when Charger actually expressed happiness or joy. His face was constant, unmoving like the face of the mountainside she must have examined countless times while waiting for the rest of their friends. "You know, the least you could do is be a conversational partner, ya hear? A gal like me gets lonely after a while..." She sighed, resigning herself to doing nothing and set her plot on the ground, tired of standing all dusknight.

"That girl gets tired of things so easily. The least she could do is not complain since she offered to help despite her busy schedule." Charger thought to herself. "I admire that she's such a giving pony, but she lacks patience. Perhaps I could give her some lessons in Zen after this crazy business is over." Withdrawing back into his meditative state, Charger slowly became aware of vibrations heading up the path towards the ruins. He snapped his eyes open. "They're here."

"Finally! I can hardly wait to get this thing over with." Autumn stood up with a groan, legs sore from all the kicking and standing she had done in the past hour or so.

Orion lead his friends up the path to the ruins. "...so when I came across the gold coin, I knew there was treasure to be found. I'll bet there are some magical artifacts that weren't caught in the Purge a century ago. If we can dig 'em up, we can do all sorts of cool stuff with them."

"Like what?" Artemis, of course, was doubtful of the existence of these magical artifacts. He of all people knew the thoroughness of Nightmare Moon's purge through written accounts passed down through the ages and the difficulty of finding even the simplest magic scroll on the black market.

"Uhh, I don't know, like magic stuff? Come on, bro, I thought you knew this."

"Thank you for the wonderful explanation, Captain Obvious." Artemis face-hoofed. Sometimes his brother could be a real pain.

"Come on, you two, we can't be getting at each other's throats already! We're not even there yet." Flicker's voice seemed to calm them both down.

"Yeah, guys. Any more arguing and you're going to attract the entire shadowguard here!" Mishap said this half jokingly, but nopony missed the implied warning in his words.

Orion shook his head. "You're right, Flicker. I'm sorry, Artemis."

"Apology accepted, brother. Now let me at these ruins." Artemis rolled up his imaginary sleeves and head straight to the first wall he could see.

Flicker decided to explore the east side of the ruins with Mishap, and together they uncovered a lot of interesting artifacts such as old frying pans and strange statues made of a mysterious metal. However, they quickly ran out of things to do.

"Hey, Flicker." Mishap called out to her from his side of the east half, turning over rocks to see if there had been anything he missed earlier.

"Hmmm? What is it, Mishap?" Flicker looked up from a vase that she recently uncovered. It's craftmanship was beyond comparison with any of the vases she saw in Ponyville, and wished that she could take it back home with her.

"Take a look at this." Summoning up some magical energy, Mishap converted all the rocks around him into butterscotch rock candy. "Pretty neat huh? I figure it'll be useful whenever we need a snack. Want one?"

"Thanks, but no thanks, Mishap. I have no idea where that rock has been, and it's probably not safe to eat something that used to be a part of some ancient ruins. I appreciate the gesture though. " Flicker smiled warmly at Mishap before returning her gaze to the other relics she had found.

"Suit youself." Mishap stuffed his mouth with candy and moaned in pleasure as the deliciousness of butterscotch permeated itself all over his taste buds. "Mmmm. That's good stuff, rock candy." He continued shoveling more of it into his mouth as he lay on his back, trying to figure out if it was safe to play any pranks on his dear friends.

While Flicker and Mishap explored the east half of the ruins, Artemis tackled the entire northern section by himself. It was covered in an amazing amount of mysterious runes that he was not familiar with, and he was determined to decode the meanings behind the messages. "Hmmmm. These markings don't match any of the markings recorded in the omnibus. Interesting..." Artemis took out his field kit from the saddlebags and began work on identifying the runes in hopes that he could glean some meaning from them. He hardly noticed that Autumn had walked up behind him, engrossed in his work.

"Hey, Artemis." Autumn flashed him one of her dazzling smiles. If there had been a competition for best smile in ponyville, she would have won it.

"Oh, erm. Hello, Autumn." Artemis glanced up distractedly from his paper covered in various calculations and hastily scribbled words, many of which were scratched out. "What can I do for you?"

She glanced up airily. "Oh, nothing. I just figured that even when you're working, you'd make more of a conversational partner than Charger over there."

Artemis glanced over at Charger. While he didn't deny that Charger was a great friend and completely trustworthy, its true that his stoicism seemed a little over the top at times. "I can't say that for sure. I'm swamped trying to even figure out which era these inscribings came from." He turned back to his calculations when Autumn sat down next to him. Her body was so close to his that he could smell the scent of flowers on her mane.

"Mind if I watch?" Autumn asked with such sincerity that Artemis couldn't refuse, regardless of how embarrassed he was to be in such close proximity to a girl.

"Ah, uhm...sure. Just try not to get to confused when you look at my calculations." Artemis quickly looked down to hide the fact that he was blushing for the umpteenth time that day. "Today is just not my lucky day," he thought. "As soon as we get done with this crazy adventure, I'm reading that scroll that teaches one how to be less awkward around girls, confound it." As he continued his work, however, these idle thoughts were pushed aside and replaced with various facts on history and runes.

Autumn gazed at her friend while he worked. While it was true that Artemis was a little bookish for her tastes, there was no denying his attractiveness. His scholarlyness lent him a certain charm that was rare to be found in stallions today, which is what had attracted her to his circle of friends in the first place. While she now appreciated the comadarie of the others, she still would have preferred to spend time with Artemis alone so that they could get to know each other better. She noticed that Artemis' tongue was stuck out, much like how children would stick their tongues out in times of intense concentration.

It was such a cute expression she could almost feel herself growing red, and she turned away when she realized she had been staring too much. "Whats gotten into you, Autumn? Get a hold of yourself. It's not like you LIKE him or anything? Why are you so embarrassed?" Even with this internal peptalk, she couldn't bring herself to look at him again and instead focused on the drawings on the walls. For images that could have been inscribed thousands of years ago, they seemed pretty fresh. She appreciated the intricacy and beauty of the designs, which mainly featured the stars and moon. "This gives me new ideas for that artist's block I've been having." She mentally filed away the images to later use in the future and returned her gaze to Artemis, who was still busily scratching away at his notepad.

Orion shifted through the only standing structure left in the ruins while Charger stood guard outside. He grunted in frustration as he carefully made his way around the room, examining it in a gridlike pattern like Artemis had taught him in the past, but to no avail. The room was completely empty of anything interesting except for a small stone table that sat in the middle of it. There was a stone half sphere set into the stone that appeared to be large enough to fit a fairly large apple. Orion pondered what the table could have possibly been used for when he stumbled over a raised section of the floor with his front hooves. Somehow, he had missed the hidden door in his first survey of the room. After attempting to lift it to no avail, Orion called out to Charger. "Hey Charge, would you mind coming in here for a bit? I found a secret door in the floor, but it won't budge!"

Charger entered from the front opening, and together they muscled open the door, unkwowingly triggering the first of many magical security systems placed to stop ponies that were a little too curious from finding out the contents of whatever was down there.

"Hey, did you hear that?" Orion, spending so much time around his brother, had a higher perception of magic than most non-unicorn ponies.

"Nope. Must have been your imagination." Charger peered down the opening in the ground. "Looks like a long way down."

"Pfft. I fallen further in my colt years than this. I just wish I had a glow-lamp." Orion also peered down the darke opening. "You think there's anything down there?"

"Probably. Most ponies wouldn't bother trying to dig underground unless they're really trying to hid something." Charger glanced at Orion. "Mind if I stay up here? I won't be much help to you without a rope or a ladder. It'll be much easier if you just fly down there and explore by yourself."

Orion was about to protest before he realized two things. One, that he would have appeared cowardly if he insisted on having somepony else accompany him into the dark, creepy hole. Two, Charger was right. Without a rope or a ladder, there wasn't anyway for an earthpony to make their way down there. At least, not safely.

"Alright, wait here if you like. I'm going in." Orion jumps up and flys down into the tunnel, but the suddenly flies back up and pops his head out of the hole. "If you hear my danger whistle, send somepony down to help me, alright?" Without waiting for a response, Orion hurtled back down into the dark.

"Will do, Orion." To Charger, it didn't matter if he was speaking to the actual pony or just air, as long as the words had been said. He took up a guard position outside the hole, watching diligently for anything that could go wrong topside. Nopony, however, was prepared for what happened next.

By the time Orion had gone back from his spelunking adventure, it was nearly turning darknight. If they didn't hurry, the shadowguards would catch them and force them to work in the quarries for breaking curfew. He coughed violently and gestured for some water, with which Charger readily complied. After quenching his thirst, he said angrily "Nothing! Not a hidden chamber filled with magical items, or even a vault filled with gold! Just a bunch of wine caskets, for Celestia's sake!"

"That's a shame. You had been down there so long I thought you found the motherload or something." Charger shook his head. "It's getting dark. We really need to get going if we don't want to get caught by the shadowguard."

"Alright, lets gather up the others." Orion and Charger ran out of the structure and went to tell the others that they were going to leave. They didn't notice a small alarm pulse that was being sent from the spire on top of the structure heading for Ponyville's nearest ShadowLegion outpost.

Getting Flicker and Mishap to leave was pretty easy, seeing as how they had run out of things to do hours ago and had resigned themselves to playing Tic Tac Toe. The hard part was convincing Artemis to leave his precious runes.

"Come ON, Artie! We really got to leave now if we want any chance of slipping back into Ponyville without alerting the guards!" Orion used his most persuasive voice in his efforts to get his brother to leave his ancient drawings.

"You don't understand, 'rion! I've finally figured out what these symbols are! This is the alphabet for the legendary moonscript, a language used by a civilization that predates ours by thousands of years! This wall contains the last surviving full alphabet of sunscript we're ever likely to see! I must copy it down for the future generations." Artemis quickly scribbled more characters into his notepad, but it was doubtful that he would finish in time.

"Argh, brother! Come off it! We can come again some later time, but we really have to leave now! You're putting the rest of us in danger with your eggheadedness!" Orion reached over Artemis' shoulder and took his notepad.

"Hey! Give that back!" Artemis tried to grab back his precious notes unsuccessfully, as Orion took to the air to keep it away.

"No! Not until you say that you're going to leave with us now! Our lives will be endangered if you continue doing this!" Orion glared at his brother. "You know I'm right, you're just too thick headed to accept the truth!"

Artemis glowered at his brother while realizing the truth in his words. "I suppose you're right," Artemis agreed grudgingly. "But at least let me copy down this one last character. It could be key to helping us translate ruins in the future."

"Fine. But ONE character. The rest of us will be waiting at the path back down the mountain. Don't keep us waiting. And hey, bro," Orion jabbed Artemis' shoulder. "Be safe, alright? I wouldn't want to lose you after putting up with you for all this time!"

Orion quickly flew back to the head of the path where Mishap, Charger, Flicker, and Autumn were waiting.

"Are we finally going to leave?" Autumn asked nervously. She hated the look of those shadowguards and had no intention of encountering one willingly.

"Not yet. Artie's going to copy down 'one last character' and then we'll be on our wa-" Orion was interrupted by the sound of hooves charging towards them.

"I did it! I finally have a copy of the moonscript alaphabet as well as some wall engravings as well!" Artemis waved around the notes in his mouth triumpantly before placing them back in his saddlebag.

Autumn groaned inwardly. She REALLY hoped that she didn't like Artemis - sometimes his bookishness was unbearably annoying. "Can we finally get a move on? I plan on taking a long bubble bath when I get back home." Autumn tossed her mane in the wind and shivered a bit. Since the sun no longer shone in Equestria, the night winds carried as much bite as one might expect in the northern regions of Equestria and the lands beyond, where nights could bring temperatures down to freezing.

"I second that motion. Not the bubble bath part, because you know, that's totally uncool." Mishap also shivered in the cold.

"Alright, alright! Lets get moving then!" Orion, as he moved to lead the group off the mountain, noticed that Artemis had stayed near the end of the group where Flicker was. "Coincidence? I think not. I'll have to ask him about how he feels about her when we get back. Knowing him, he's probably head over hooves but doesn't have the guts to confess," he thought to himself.

Chapter 3

Gravel crunched under their hooves as the group trotted down the mountain path towards Ponyville. Artemis was deeply immersed in explaining to Flicker the finer points of moonscript and the civilization that used it, and Flicker (for the most part) seemed to be listening.

"You see, before even Princess Celestia had begun her rule about two millenia ago, there was a tribe of alicorns who had descended from the stars." Artemis explained. His face was lit up like a child finding his presents on hearthwarming eve's day.

"They were considered gods by the earthpony tribes of old, and soon the two races interacted. The star alicorns shared their magic and wisdom, while the earth ponies shared their strength and hardiness. When the two races interbred, it lead to the creation of two other species - pegasi and unicorns. Under the guidance of the star alicorns, the pony races of pre-Equestria advanced in science and knowledge, as well as healing and fighting. However, for reasons unknown to this day, the star alicorns were mysteriously wiped off the face of the planet, leaving the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns to fend for themselves. The three pony tribes..." Artemis was in the 'zone' again, and he was just barely conscious of his surroundings as he went deeper and deeper about the history of the star alicorns.

Flicker tilted her head, listening to Artemis as he carried on with his history lesson. For some reason, she had just noticed that Artemis' face took on a strange new quality when he talked of ancient things like civilizations of the past. It made him appear more alive than he usually was. It also caused Flicker's heart beat to slightly raise a tick, though she herself was not aware of it while enjoying learning more about what the beautiful moonscript was.

Orion was at the head of the group in a deep conversation with Charger. "I just don't understand, why the hell would that door be so secretly hidden if it didn't have anything more important than casks of aging wine behind it!" He fumed with frustration - the entire treasure hunt had been a wild goosechase, regardless of whatever knowledge Artemis might have obtained. "It just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sorry for leading you out here for nothing."

"Don't blame yourself too harshly. You saw a chance, and you took it. Nopony else would have acted much differently from you." As usual, Charger remained the stoic, but his face seemed to have a little warmth as he spoke. After all, it wasn't every day Orion admitted he was wrong about something.

"Ugh. I just want to get home and put this entire business behind us." Glancing back at Artemis, who was still animatedly talking with Flicker, he rolled his eyes. "I don't get how he does it."

"Does what?" Charger raised his eyes, one of the few facial emotions he allowed himself to have.

"Does that thing with his history stuff. He always gets so excited over a bunch of old events that happened thousands of years ago. You'd almost think he would rather live in those times than now." Orion sighed inwardly. Sometimes he wondered how he was brothers with that egghead. The differences between the two were almost insurmountable.

Charger nodded. "You'll figure him out eventually. Brothers always do."

"I sure hope so." Orion looked towards the skies, which darkened as the minutes passed. "We'd better start moving faster," he muttered to himself. "We're going to get caught by the shadowguard at this rate."

Meanwhile, silently observing from the clouds, the shadowguard get ready to sweep down on their prey as the group trudged down the gravel path towards Ponyville.

"Shall we punish them now?" The shadowguard closest to Commander Silverfang had a wolfish grin on his face, one not too different of the predator waiting for the right moment to strike.

"Yes. On my mark. Remember, men, these are dangerous criminals who have committed acts of treason against her Lunar highness. They must be apprehended swiftly and silently so that the knowledge they have obtained does not spread to the general public." The Shadowguard Commander eyed the group once more, then held his hoof up. "Go."

At his command, a full regiment of shadowguard pegasi dropped from the skies and headed straight for the unsuspecting 6 that were on the ground. Silverfang pursed his lips in displeasure. He did not enjoy forcing ponies into the quarries, but he had to do everything he could to keep his family safe from the wrath of Nightmare Moon.

They might all have been knocked out and captured by the shadowguard had Mishap not taken an opportune moment to look up at the moon and jump in surprise as he saw 15 shadow guards headed straight for them. "Run! Its the shadowguard, they've found us!" Mishap used his magic to create a miasma of poisonjoke fog that confused the shadowguard as they flew into it. "Don't mind my awesomness, lets go!" He started running down the path alongside Autumn, Charger, and Flicker as they made for Ponyville's boundaries. Orion had started to follow them when he noticed that Artemis was missing.

"Artie!" He ran back into the fog only to narrowly avoid capture by a slightly woozy shadowguard. Bucking his way through the fog, he found traces of Artemis' footprints on the floor, but no Artemis. "Where have you gone, you stupid brother of mine," Orion feared the worst, but remembered the plan of action he and Artemis had agreed on years ago. 'If ever we are separated in a time of danger, find a safe place to sleep till dusknight and make your way to the storm cellar.' Heeding these words, Orion quickly hightailed it back to Ponyville, managing to make it back into his house within detection. "Damn it, Artie. I swear on Celestia's name, if you let anything bad happen to you, I'll kill you." Trodding over to his bed, Orion fell into an uneasy half sleep riddled with worry and nightmares of Artemis being caught by the shadowguard.

When Mishap had thrown up the poisonjoke fog as a diversion, Artemis snapped from his academic haze and re-entered a reality of blue clouds surrounding him. At first, he though he was dreaming until he almost bumped into a shadowguard.

"Oh sweet Celestia!" Artemis grabs a nearby stick with his magic and knocks the shadowguard out without a second thought. The guard crumpled with a groan, and Artemis quickly ran down the path towards Ponyville to make his escape. Unfortunately, two shadowguards had spotted him as he exited the fog and quickly gave pursuit.

"Stop right there, criminal scum!" The guards yelled out after him as they gave chase.

After recounting the days events, Artemis finally decided to explore his surroundings. Apart from a strange bluish light that was being emanated from crystals growing off the walls, the cave seemed fairly normal. That is, until he found a tablet at the end of the cave that held moonscript on it. Dusting off the tablet, Artemis used magic to light up the room a bit more to read it properly when the tablet starting glowing. Yelping, Artemis dropped the tablet, which levitated in the air instead of falling towards the ground. The words inscribed started floating off the stone and making an outline at the back of the cavern that look slightly like a portal, then fizzled out.

Intrigued, Artemis applied magic to his horn once again and pushed against where the outline had formed. Suddenly, Artemis was blasted by a corona of light as a marble box engraved in more moonscript floated through the now transparent wall. By the time he was able to see again, the box lay at his hooves, ready to be opened. He hesitated. What if this was a trap? But his hooves moved faster than his common sense, and he found himself opening the box before he could stop himself. Inside the box was a set of 5 different scrolls, each one sealed shut with a different colored ribbon. Puzzled, he started to read the inscription that was on the box.

'Ye who hath been chosen: thou art the successor of our knowledge and our wisdom. Use them well, for in your hooves will lie the fate of a nation, and the world.' Below this inscription, a title read "The Celestial Tomes".

"Interesting." Artemis was, of course, puzzled by the existence of such scrolls in the first place, as well as the meaning of the inscription. While the moonscript made it clearly evident that this box had been prepared by the star alicorns millenia ago, he was not certain as to why they went through such lengths to keep it hidden, nor why he was chosen as the successor of such knowledge after all these years had gone by. Ignoring his common sense, he reached for the first scroll, one sealed with a blue ribbon.

As Artemis began to translate the moonscript written on the first scroll, his brow furrowed deeper into his face. He began to frantically skim through the other scrolls until his suspicions were proven correct. "These scrolls...how can this be possible..."

The scrolls were a complete history of Equestria, from past to future. But they had been written by the star alicorns, before Equestria even existed! "This can't be happening."

He read the beginning, of how Celestia and Luna had originally ruled Equestria dually in peace. How Luna grew jealous of the citizen's love for her sister Celestia. How she became Nightmare Moon and was ousted by the Elements of Harmony to the moon. And how she had come back after 1,000 years to take over Equestria and spread the elements of Harmony all throughout the land, never to be used again. The scoll also had some script on the beginnings of how Equestria had formed between the three pony tribes, but Artemis disregarded that, thinking that he already knew the full Hearthwarming Eve's tale by heart. Little did he know that held within that one paragraph was information he would so desperately need in the future only to curse himself for not reading it sooner.

By the time he had reached the end of the scroll, Artemis had sifted through thousands of years of history, ending at the beginning of Nightmare Moon's Darke reign. Reaching over for the other four scrolls, he found that he was only able to open the second one tied with a crimson red ribbon. When he attempted to open the third, a magical energy forced his hooves to burn and drop the scroll.

"Curious." He thought. "If I am indeed the chosen, why am I only allowed to read the first and second scrolls?" He unsealed the scroll of red ribbon, jumping back in shock as a magical message of moonscript flew off the page and hovered in air.

'Artemis. These scrolls contain the entire fate of all that is Equestria, including dark events of the future and Equestria's eventual fall. Whilst thou art the successor of our knowledge, as it was with the previous successor who had lived 100 years ago, thou must acquire more wisdom before being able to gaze upon the rest of the scrolls. Gaze upon Nightmare Moon's first 100 years in power, and the next 900 years afterwards'

Artemis' mind was suddenly flooded with the information contained in the scroll, blacking out from the overload of magic entering his head.

It is dusknight now. Artemis awoke with a start, woozily taking in his surroundings before realizing he was still in the small cavern. The Celestial Tomes lay on the cavern floor, 2 of them left open from his readings. Sighing, he re-sealed the two and placed all 5 scrolls back within their marble box, then resealed the box itself. As he did so, the box sank through the floor and was replaced by an iron sword. At its hilt was a piece of moonstone.

Artemis jaw dropped in awe. "A-a sword from the time of the star alicorns!" He excitedly picked it up and examined it. Though old, it had still kept its quality and felt strong to the touch. He admired the carvings along the hilt, as well as the wavy patterns on the blade. "Its beautiful..." Alongside the sword, a sheath had appeared. Artemis placed the sword into its sheath, then strapped it around his body. "Almost as if it were made for me." When he turned to exit the cave, however, more flashes of light appeared at the spot where the sword had appeared. Artemis stared at the new objects for a moment before deciding that he must bring them back to his friends. Struggling to pack them all into his saddle bags and failing, he muttered a spell and stuffed all the items into a transdimensional space that acted as a magical storage locker. Panting from the effort, he made his way out of the cave and headed towards the guard tower, the rendevous point where he and his brother Orion had set many years in the past when they had been separated.

Orion, managing to have wasted his entire night away with worrying, had finally managed to fall asleep when he heard a knock on the door. Groaning, he forced himself off the bed and shuffled off to the door. His body was a mass of aches and sores from the bucking he had done yesternight, and he had not made it any better by trying many new weird sleeping positions in an attempt to drift away from reality. As he opened the door, he yawned. "Artie, is that you...?" As the light of dusknight hit his eyes, he squinted. The figure before him was obviously not his brother. In fact, the more he stared at the outline, the more it looked like-

"Good dusknight, Orion." Flicker was standing shyly at his door, trying not to stare at Orion's disheveled appearance. She peered around him into the darkness of his home. "I just came wondering if Artemis and you had arrived safely back. I already checked up on Autumn, and she's now checking up on Mishap and Charger."

Shaking his head, his face took on a more serious tone. "We got separated in the poisonjoke fog yesterday. I don't know where he is, but if he's safe he should be at the guard tower. That's where we agreed to meet if ever we got separated, like we did many years ago..." Orion had not realized that he was zoning out until Flicker shook him gently.

"Did you sleep well? You seem exhausted." Flicker's face had a shade of worry. "Maybe I shouldn't have woken you up. I can come back later." She started to leave before Orion put a hoof on her shoulder.

"No. Stay. I'll enjoy the company. Plus I'll need somepony to come with me to check the guardtower for my egghead brother of mine. Come on in. I just need to get washed up, and then we'll be on our way." Orion gestured into the house, and Flicker gladly complied. In truth, she had never entered the home of the brothers before, and she had been curious for the longest time what secrets the house concealed.

"Don't mind the mess, most of it is Artemis' and his 'knowledge seeking'" Orion's voice emanated from the bathroom as he started up a shower. Any other words he could have said were drowned out as a torrent of water fell out of the showerhead.

Flicker sat awkwardly in the living room, trying not to listen as Orion washed himself in the shower. Looking around, she began to see why Orion blamed Artemis for the state of their house. Every corner of the room was covered with scrolls that stretched from floor to ceiling. She could make out scrolls on every type of subject, from gourmet cooking to ancient sword arts and even the early fashions of Equestria.

"As expected of Artie, he sure can't keep his hooves off any kind of scroll." Flicker smiled to herself, remembering a time when she had chanced upon Artemis in the storm cellar some time in the past only to find him surrounded by scrolls. He had been so concentrated on his studies that he nearly jumped out of his seat when she nudged him in the back to get him to notice her. Returning to the present, she noticed a strange light creeping in from the outside and looked out from a nearby window to see something of the most peculiar nature.

When Orion had emerged fresh and ready to go, he found Flicker examining something closely from a window in the living room.

"I hope I didn't take too long." Orion flashed a smile at Flicker, who turned to eyeball him.

She chucked. "You certainly didn't, not with your tail looking like that."

Turning his head around quickly, he noticed that his tail still had bedhair sticking up in random spots. "Rats," he muttered. "I can never manage to get the tail." Trying to hide his embarassment, he quickly shifted the topic of conversation. "What were you staring at?"

"Oh, nothing." Flicker turned her gaze back outside the window. "There was just some weird light in the sky earlier, and it looked pretty. It was a cerulean blue, almost as if there's still a daytime sky above all this dusknight..." Her face seemed sad, as if her ancestral memory remembered what a sunlit sky looked like and wept that it could not see it anymore.

"Oh...I see." For the first time in his life, Orion felt awkward around Flicker. Him, the most awesome, confident pegasus around who was undoubtedly humble ((author: snicker)) did not quite know how to react to her. It's not like he ever wondered about those types of immaterial things like if there was a daylit sky above the night. He left those to his intellectual brother as he was completely inept at this sort of thing. Shaking away this awkwardness with force, he asked "We should get to the tower. I want to know if my brother is safe or not."

Hearing Orion's voice shook Flicker from her daze. She had been imagining what it would be like to feel the sun on her feathers while flying through a beautiful blue sky and did not realize that she had drifted away into her own little world. "Oh...right. Of course." Determined not to reveal that she had been zoning out, she quickly left the house with Orion following, heading for the tower.

Struggling under the weight of his saddlebags, Artemis carried onward towards the guardtower. Although he had unsconscious for at least several hours, he felt no better rested than if he had stayed up all night. Magically implanted memories danced around the edge of his mind, maddening him with their proximity and how they managed to escape each time he tried to focus on them. Probably because the entire while his stomach protested at it's lack of food. He had not eaten anything since the cinnamon bun Flicker had given him, and now his entire body craved a good apple pie.

"Damn. I knew I should have included snacks in my saddlepack when I headed out yesterday." His stomach growled at the thought, and Artemis shook his head. "I hope 'rions waiting at the tower when I get there. I'm not sure I can make it back home without having a bite to eat." Resigning himself to the long trek, he continued walking the distance from the mountains to the cellar, where hopefully some food awaited his consumption.

Autumn and Mishap were leisurely trotting through the market street. It was a relatively beautiful dusknight, and a cool breeze blew, making Autumn's reddish mane streaked with white move attractively in a windswept sort of way.

Mishap's mane just blew into his face. Spitting out his hair, he asked, " Where exactly are we going again, Autumn?" He was annoyed that she had not spoken to him since she had rudely woken him up to see if he was alright from yesternight's adventure. "How could she resist talking to a pony like me? I'm generally amazing!" He thought to himself. "Maybe its because of that one time when I slipped itchingpowder into her saddlebags and it got all over her makeup." He suppressed a snicker.

Autumn kept walking, seemingly oblivious to Mishap's question. "Alright, thats cool. Just keep ignoring me, Autumn, I'm fine with that." His eyes were suddenly attracted to the Ponyville Jokes and Gags shop. "She's so far in space that she couldn't notice me missing for a couple minutes," he thought. "Hey Autumn, I'm just going to go check out that shop for a couple minutes, that fine with you?" After getting no response once again, he said "Alright, I'll be back. Just don't get lost without me." Winking, he trotted happily over to the Jokes and Gags store where they were selling their newest creation, the stink grenade.

Autumn was deep in thought, which was unusual because what she was thinking about was something she normally didn't care for at all - the moonscript. When she thought back to the shapes and how each character was written, something nagged at the back of her mind that she had seen the language before. But where? She'd never touched a scroll in her lifetime that she didn't have to, rather spending her time out with friends drinking shakes or doing shopping. "Hey Mishap, do you remember the writing that was all over the walls at the ruins yesternight?" When no response was made, she turned around. "Mishap?" Suddenly, she found herself all alone in the middle of Ponyville's market street in the middle of the dusknight, with Mishap nowhere to be seen. "Where did he go?" Peering over the crowd, she spotted his wild blue mane over at the Jokes and Gags shop. "You have got to be kidding me." She quickly started walking over to Mishap to try and stop him before he decided to purchase anymore gags for his future pranks.

Charger was not at his home, instead choosing to spend the beginning of his day in the Zen garden of Master Silent Breath . "Breath through the nostrils and let the air completely rejuvenate your body." Silent tutored his pupil carefully through the higher exercises of Zen. Knodding his approval, he returned to his meditative pillow and sipped tea, being careful not to make any noises to disrupt Charger's thoughts.

Charger's mind was in a state of complete peace. All the troubles of yesternight had been pushed from his mind, leaving only a rejuvenative pool of mind energy for his consciousness to take a dip in and recharge itself. Exhaling deeply, he shivered in bliss as a breeze of wind blew across his electric blue mane. "That felt nice," he thought to himself. After sitting in the same, humid corner of the garden for over an hour, any type of reprieve was appreciated. After sitting there for a couple more minutes, he finally started to get up and stretch out his body, now aching from the rigors of the exercises.

"Thank you for your time, Master Silent." Charger bowed deeply to his master, who returned the gesture.

"Go, and may the stars guide your path, young earth pony." The old unicorn closed his eyes and resumed his meditative state, moving occasionally only to sip his cup of tea.

As Charger left the garden, he caught sight of Orion and Flicker as they walked towards the guardtower. Wondering what could be wrong, he started after them, his powerful earthpony legs carrying him over the land has easily as wings could carry a pegasus through the air. As he got closer, he noticed that Orion had a rather grim look on his face and Flicker's movements were slightly tinged with sadness. "This can't be good." Charger started to run faster to catch up with them before they turned a corner and left his sight.

"I'm...finally...here." Exhausted, Artemis collapsed at the base of the tower. He had been walking without food or water for over an hour, and now his body could take no more punishment. "ugh. Just a little further..." Cursing that he did not have more endurance, Artemis starting inching towards the door of the cellar, the pack on his body weighing heavier by the moment. Finally, he managed to open the door and slip in, struggling to get to his feet as he did so. As he closed the door behind him and entered the cellar, his worst fears had been confirmed: there was nopony there, and definitely not any food or water to quench his desire. Groaning, Artemis shed off his saddlebag and sword, plopping himself on the nearest couch.

"I hope you get here soon, 'rion. I can't move anymore..." He tried not to fall asleep, but his eyes wouldn't listen as he slowly succumbed to his exhaustion.

Chapter 4

Charger managed to catch up with Orion and Flicker, overhearing some of their conversation before they noticed.

"Argh. I wish I could fly, but that would only attract attention to us, and attention is the LAST thing we need after being chased by the shadowguard yesternight. If only I could walk faster!" Orion was fluttering his wings with irritation. He was itching to just fly ahead to the tower and finally be sure of his brother's safety because it was driving him up a wall.

"Orion, I'm sure Artie will be fine. He's a resourceful pony, and he's armed with more knowledge than probably the rest of us combined." She smiled reassuringly. "I'm sure by the time we get there, all you'll hear is the grumbling that his stomach makes when he's extremely hungry. After all, he probably hadn't had a bite to eat since one of my cinnamon buns in the cellar."

"What happened to Artemis? Is there something wrong?" The two abruptly halted their conversation as Charger barrelled in, so to speak. "Whoops. Should probably have called out to you guys before charging in here. My apologies."

"Its not a big deal, Charger. We were just talking about Artie and if he was safe." Flicker looked over at Orion as she said so, watching a hint of sadness flicker across Orion's face. "We got separated from him yesterday during the surprise attack by the shadowguard."

"Artemis missing? That can't be good." Charger turned to address Orion. "My condolensces. I'm sure your brother will be fine."

"I know. I still can't help worrying about that fool though. After we lost our parents to the war against the changelings five years ago, Artemis has been the only family I've ever had. Awkward and eggheaded, yes. But family nonetheless." Orion stared in the direction of the guard tower. "If anything happened to him, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. Don't tell him that though." Orion's tone of voice shifted to slightly embarrassed. "I have a rep to keep up with, after all."

"I won't say a word to anypony else." Flicker motioned zipping her lips.

"I promise as well." Charger nodded.

"Thanks, you two. You're some of the best friends a pony could ever have. Unless, of course, I could become friends with myself. Then I'd be the best friend I could ever have." The way Orion had said this with such a straight face was too much for Flicker to bear, and she broke out laughing. Charger allowed himself a small grin.

"What? Its true! I'm one of the most loyal, brave, awesome friends somepony could ever have!" Orion looked at his friends a moment longer before turning his head. "Oh whatever. Are you coming or not, slowpokes?" Orion's face had a ghost of his old smile on it as he jabbed at his friends. "I was planning to get there before nightfall, in case you were wondering."

When he turned and quickly sped up his walking speed, he could hear the sounds of Flicker and Charger as they hurried after him, Flicker still laughing gently as she went. "I'm never going to live this down if Artemis hears about it," he thought to himself. "Maybe I can convince Charger and Flicker to somehow not tell him." Shaking his head, he thought "Nah, that would actually make them more inclined to tell him. Maybe not Flicker, because she's nice, but Charger definitely wouldn't let this slip by. Oh well, just go with what life throws at you, I guess." Turnin his head back, he called out "My grampa Silas was faster than you two! Hurry up, Artie's probably waiting for us at the cellar!" He laughed outloud as he raced down the path that lead to the outskirts of Ponyville.

Autumn had finally managed to drag Mishap away from the Jokes and Gags shop after struggling with him for half an hour.

"Lemme go! I was just about to get a pack of their new stink grenades!" Mishap attemped to rush back into the shop and complete his transaction, only to be stopped by Autumn's golden-coated body every time.

"Oh no, you don't! The last time you went into the Jokes 'n Gags shop, my face got covered in itching powder! Do you realize how many days it took for my face to stop itching?" Autumn was determined not to let Mishap pass her by. The fate of Equestria (or at least her handbag) was dependant on her keeping him away from another gag.

"Look, I'm sorry the powder got in your makeup! I didn't know!" Summoning up a burst of magic, Mishap managed to surround Autumn's hooves with dissipating StickiGoo. While it wasn't permanent, it would keep her there for at least five minutes, just enough for him to finally acquire the stink grenades that he needed for his new pranks.

"How dare you! Let me out of here right now!" Autumn struggled against the goo but to no avail. "When I'm out of here, Mishap, you're going to be in for a world of hurt!"

"Thats a problem for future Mishap!" He quickly rushed back into the store and handed his bits over to the storekeeper, who handed him his lovely package of new toys. "Thanks mister!" Mishap called out to him as he rushed back out the door.

"Young'uns sure are full of energy these days. I remember when I was just like that fella, runnin' around everywhere and pulling practical jokes." A smile broke out on the storekeeper's face as he reminisced the old days. He sighed with satisfaction as he started reading his newspaper again, thoughts already wandering back to his greatest prank when he was a colt, the giant rubberband ball escapade.

Back outside the shop, Autumn finally managed to break free from the StickiGoo. In his haste, Mishap hadn't done quite as good of a job as he could have, meaning the goo he summoned lasted only for one minute instead of five. As Mishap rushed back out the door, he skidded and ran in the opposite direction of Autumn, who was now chasing after him.

"If I get my hooves on you, Mishap, there's no telling what I'll do to you!" Autumn yelled out in an uncharacteristic vengeance.

"No thanks! I'd prefer you'd keep your hooves to yourself, thank you very much!" Mishap struggled to keep ahead of Autumn. While he was a competent runner from all the times he escaped the scene of a prank, Autumn was well toned from running practices for the annual Running of the Leaves race that happened in Whitetail Woods. He quickly turned a corner only to narrowly miss running into Orion, who had been racing ahead of his friends as they headed towards the guard tower and - hopefully - his brother.

"Hey, watch where you're goi- Mishap? What in the hay are you doing here?" Orion was immediately confused as Mishap dove behind him and took cover.

"Hide me! Fast!" Mishap covered his head in his hooves as he hid behind Orion, hoping that Autumn wouldn't notice.

"Mishap! You can't hide from me now! I'm going t-" As Autmun rounded the corner, she spotted Mishap hiding behind a stallion's legs. "Hah! Found you!" Then Autumn finally realized who the group of ponies were. "Oh....erhm. Hello, everypony. What's going on?" She hoped that her hair hid the fact that she was extremely embarrassed to her friends. "How could I let Mishap rile me up so much? I let my friends see such an unladylike side of me." Autumn thought, wanting to bury herself into the nearest hole and stay there forever.

"We were just on our way to the usual place to see if Artemis was there." Orion was still regarding Autumn in a strange manner, like he would regard a mystery vegetable that he had found in his dinner.

"Is something wrong between you and Mishap?" Flicker looked concerned; Autumn was not usually one to lose her composure over things.

"Oh, no. Mishap just played a little prank on me and I mayyyy have taken it a bit out of proportion." If there was a shade of red deeper than the one she already had, Autumn's face turned that color.

Charger shook his head. "You really ought to take some Zen lessons with me. They help ease the mind and calm the soul." He paused for a moment, contemplating his next words. "I could teach you some basic breathing exercises if you want. They can help calm the hottest anger within minutes."

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm not really interested in that sort of thing." Autumn could feel her face slowly returning to it's normal color. Wanting to avoid any further discussion on the topic, she asked "Did something happen to Artemis? Why would he be at the usual place?" She was surprised by the tone of concern that had entered her voice as she spoke. "I can't seriously be worried about that brainiac, can I?" She shook the thought away.

"Well, you see..." Orion's voice trailed off, leaving it for Flicker to fill in.

"When we got attacked by the shadowguard yesternight, Orion got separated from Artie. We're not sure where he is, but Orion says that Artemis would probably be at the storm cellar if he's still safe." Flicker explained. " I hope he's safe too," she added under her breath.

"Oh, Orion... I'm so sorry. I guess I shouldn't have asked." Autumn's face was downcast; she hadn't intended on causing Orion any pain from remembering his brother's absence.

"Don't be. You deserve to know. After all, you're his friend just as much as you are ours." Orion had a small smile on his face, indicating that he was fine.

"I hate to interrupt, but we've got company." Charger tilted his head towards some shadowguards that were further down the road. They were holding up posters that had pictures of the six friends on them and asking ponies who were passing by whether they had seen these individuals or not.

"Shadowguard! How did they figure out who we were!?" Orion was immediately alert. He didn't expect the shadowguard to be actively looking for them after the little treasure hunt disaster. After all, the only thing they'd done was stay up past curfew, right?

"Guys, don't look now, but I think they've spotted us." Mishap whispered, glancing over to the jokeshop. Inside, they could clearly see the shopkeeper pointing in their general direction to a couple more shadowguard that had entered the Jokes 'n Gags shop.

"Alright, stay calm." Taking charge of the situation, Orion took in their surroundings. They were in a generally empty alley with no other ponies around and very close to the outskirts of town, with little to no buildings in between. Without any buildings to hide in, their only chance was to try and sneak past the guards. "Mishap, can you cast an illusion spell on the five of us?"

"Can cows say moo? This'll be a cinch!" As discreetly as possible, Mishap surrounded the friends in a purple haze. When the spell was over, they all appeared to be normal earthponies with different mane and coat colors than their actual selves.

"The spell will only last for a couple minutes." Mishap panted under the effort of maintaining the illusion. "I never tried using it on this many ponies before."

"Then we better move fast." Orion caught a nearby road that lead straight towards the mountains. "Alright, here's the plan. I'm going to walk near those shadowguards guarding the path. When I give the signal Mishap, break my diguise. I'll head off towards the mountains and distract them while the rest of you can slip past. Meet me back at the guard tower, alright?" Orion prepped himself for the task ahead, making sure his wings felt ready to fly. "You ready, Mishap?"

"I'm always ready. Just go for it!" Mishap gave him a friendly shove, but Orion could tell that he was only doing this to cover up his worry.

Nodding, Orion and the group of friends started towards the exit, Orion a bit faster than the rest of them. When he reached the outskirts, he started whistling fairly loudly, signalling Mishap to drop the spell.

The shadowguard were taken aback when one of their prey had suddenly appeared in front of them in. "Oh, what the hay!?" Orion exlaimed in mock surprise. Turning to face the shadowguard, he said "Send my best regards to your captain, gentlemen!" Giving them a mock salute, Orion quickly took off and flew straight for the mountains.

"He's going to escape! After him!" The shadowguard broadcast the message to all his comrades before taking off after the 'fugitive'. "He's heading towards the mountains, cut him off!"

"Aye, sir!" fourteen other shadowguards followed after him in fast pursuit, half of them breaking off and heading west to enact a pincer maneuver.

"This one will make an excellent specimen for my 'experimentation'" The guard in the lead shivered in excitement. He could almost taste the fear this pegasus would have when he brought out his "toys" for interrogation.

Far below, on the ground, the group of friends had managed to get past the outskirts of Ponyville and were now heading towards the guard tower under the cover of the trees. Mishap finally couldn't hold his spell anymore and the haze burst apart, showering the nearby trees with purple sparks of light. Despite his exhaustion, he managed to make one joking remark. "Please, no need to hold your applause! I know that my presence can shock you to silence sometimes!" He took a half bow and waited, with no applause forthcoming. "Sigh. The work of an artist is never appreciated" Bringing himself back up to a standing position, he was promptly splashed with cold water from the river. "Pbbbft. What was that for!?" Mishap glared at Charger, who was holding an empty bucket in his mouth ((author: don't ask where he got the bucket, it will remain one of this fic's unknown mysteries))

"I thought your head might be getting too big from the heat and decided to cool it down a bit." Charger, as cool as ever, kept a straight face while Autumn snickered in the background.

"Serves you right, Mishap! That's for the StickiGoo you got me with earlier!" Autumn had a huge grin on her face as she said this, which in itself looked so hilarious that the entire group broke down laughing except Charger, even Flicker.

When they had finally stopped laughing, Flicker suddenly was overcome with concern. "I hope Orion will be fine. Those shadowguards sure looked big. and mean. and scary. an-" She would have continued on if Mishap hadn't shoved his hoof into her mouth.

"I think we get it, Flicker." After removing his hoof, he stared into the woods. "Instead of worrying like this in the woods, can't we worry about Orion at the cellar? You know, where there's furniture? and books? and other stuff we could do?"

"Mishap's right." Charger looked up at the clouds with suspicion. "With the shadowguard looking for us, we're not going to be safe anywhere in view of the clouds. We'd best get into the safety of the tower before figuring out our next move." With the voice of undeniable reason, he started trotting down the path. "Coming?"

Flicker, Mishap, and Autumn soon followed after Charger, their outlines quickly becoming lost in the shadows of Whitetail Wood.

Far up in the clouds, Orion was too busy dodging attacks from the shadowguards unicorn units that were on the ground to be thinking of anything else but escape.

"Get him! We must bring him back to Commander Silverfang for interrogation!" Behind him, a group of eight shadow guards were giving hot pursuit. Orion briefly wondered what happened to the other seven until one of them had slammed into him.

"I got him, I got him!" The shadowguard clamped down, forcing Orion to begin a rapid descent.

"Don't let him escape! We must scour him for anything he knows!" With the other fourteen pegasi bearing down on them, Orion swore, trying as hard as he could to get away from the guard that was still holding on to his neck. He didn't even see one of the shadowguard pull a sack over his head until his world suddenly turned dark.

"Hey, get this thing off of me!" Orion felt himself getting weaker by the moment. "You dirty bastards, you lined this thing with chloroform!" His struggles grew weaker and weaker as his mind started to shut down. Finally succumbing to oblivion, he dropped like a stone through the air and was caught safely by the magic of the shadowguard magic division.

"Commander Silverfang will be pleased with this one. Get him to the command post." The unicorn ponies activated their teleportation spell and mass transported all the shadowguard to their temporary home in the region, leaving only scorchmarks on the ground where they had previous stood.

Even in his semi-coma, Artemis could feel his brother's consciousness winking out. "Orion..." Barely after uttering this word, he fell into an even deeper coma, haunted by a nightmare where his brother had been killed by the shadowguard. A tear slid down his cheek, lending his face a sad appearance even in sleep.

The group of friends finally managed to make it to the tower. As they descended, Autumn caught up with Charger. "You don't think Orion was captured, do you?"

"Don't worry about Orion. He's one of the best fighters I know. He wouldn't be caught so easily." Charger said this with complete confidence, but in the back of his mind wriggled a small worm of doubt. "What if he really did get captured? How could I face Artemis again if he isn't captured as well?" As he approached the door, he heard a noise he was familiar with many times. "Guys, I don't think we have to be worried about Artemis anymore." He quickly opened the door and switched on the lights to reveal the battered, unconscious form of Artemis knocked out on the couch. He was infinitely more dusty and disheveled in appearance than he was yesterday, and his stomach was growling like an angry bear.

Flicker rushed forward, examining Artemis' body for any wounds. When she found none, she let out a sigh of relief. "He's perfectly fine, everypony. Just a little battered up and hungry." By coincidence, his stomach growled to affirm the fact. Everypony laughed. "I'll get to making some food for the rest of us. I'm famished." After hearing the rest of the friends' general agreement, Flicker headed towards the stove and started cooking up whatever she could with the ingredients at hand.

"Mind if I help, Flicker?" Now that Autumn knew Artemis was safe, she needed something to do to keep herself from worrying about Orion.

"Not at all, Autumn." Flicker gave her a smile. "Would you mind getting some water from the well by the tower that we could boil? I might be able to whip up some stew.

"I'll get it." Without another word, Charger climbed up the stairs with a bucket in mouth to fetch the water for Flicker.

"Oh, well in that case, can you watch this while I go look for some extra ingredients?" Flicker gestured to the pan of vegetables that were frying on the stove. After Autumn nodded, Flicker took up a basket and headed out to look for herbs, but not before stopping by Artemis' sleeping form. "I'll be back soon, Artie. Try to wake up soon, alright? I'll cook a whole big dinner for you and everthing, just please. Please wake up again." Flicker quickly exited the room, some tears running down her face to see one of her friends in such a state. "I'm sorry, Artemis..."

Back at the command outpost for the shadowguard, Orion awoke to find himself secured down to some strange mechanical device. "Let me go! I've done nothing wrong!" He yelled without much success, his voice being met with vibrations as it bounced around the room. "Damn it." After struggling against his bonds for a few more minutes, Orion gave up. "I'm sorry, bro...looks like I let myself get caught. I hope you're not stuck in here with me..." Orion sat with a defeated look on his face, not sure of what to do anymore except fall asleep and wait until his capturers decided to speak with him again.

Commander Silverfang had all the monitors in the command center be switched to the the camera feed coming from the surveillance camera in the new prisoner's cell. Something about this one caught the commander's eye. "Hmm. Send in a guard with some porridge. I wouldn't want our captive to starve." He gestured to one of the guards standing nearby to relay the message to the head chef. "Now, my dear pegasus, I hope you rest well, for it will be the last of it that you have for a while..." A wave of displeasure once again went through the commander for what he was about to do, but his desire of self preservation won out over his morals. "Send in the torturer. We begin the process at midnight."

Chapter 5

*I apologise before hand for the crappy torture scene, I didn't want to turn this into a gorey grimdark.

Artemis was running for his life from mythical creatures when he awoke and found himself surrounded by his friends. "No! Not the scrolls! Anything but the scrolls!" He sat straight up, looking around wildly to see if there were still any creatures trying to eat his saddlebag. When his eyes adjusted to the artificial lighting, he found Flicker staring at him overhead, looking concerned.

"Artie? You alright?" Her voice, while graceful as ever, was noticeably tinged with concerned.

"Ah. I'm fine. Just a nightmare. Well, a couple of them anyway." The tension immediately went out of Artemis' shoulders. He was safe now, and there were no scroll eating demons trying to steal his saddlebag. As the rest of his body returned to reality, he suddenly remembered how hungry he was. "There wouldn't happen to be anything to eat, would there? I'm famished."

Flicker smiled, then walked over to the kitchen and brought back a bowl of steaming hot soup. "Eat up. There's plenty to go around. You can thank Charger for the water and Autumn for making sure it didn't boil over while I got some vegetables and herbs."

"Thanks" -slurp- "guys." -slurp- "I don't know what I'd do without you." Artemis inhaled the stew within a minute, and his face looked up hopefully at Flicker as if in askance for more.

"Oh, no you don't mister." Flicker scolded him gently. "If you eat too much at once, you're going to get indigestion. Slow down a bit. Drinking water wouldn't be a bad idea either." She offered him a glass.

After gulping it down, Artemis noticed that there was somepony missing from the room. "Hey, where's Orion?"

Charger turned his head away while Mishap buried himself deeper into his newly acquired "Practical Pranks" scroll that came with the stink grenades he had bought earlier today. Flicker's face was downcast.

"Hey, come on now, guys. What happened to my brother?" Artemis started to develop a worried look on his face. What if his nightmare had come true? "Guys?"

"I'm sorry, Artemis..." It was Autumn who finally broke the silence. "Your brother distracted a regiment of shadowguards to allow us to escape safely. It's been five hours since. I think...he might be captured. Maybe even dead." She lay a hoof on his shoulder.

Artemis was in shock. "Wh-what? That can't be true. It CAN'T." He looked around wildly at his friends. "HE CAN'T BE DEAD. ITS JUST NOT POSSIBLE. HE'S ALIVE, I KNOW IT." Struggling to get up from the bedside, Artemis reached for his sword.

"Artemis, what are you planning on doing?" Flicker was shocked. She had never seen Artemis act this way. Even when he was in his angriest moments, he still kept an air of sweetness and composure. She'd never seen him go off on a rave like he did right now.

"I'm going to get my brother." Artemis found that he couldn't pick up his sword as his magic was still weak, and cursed. "Damn it all." Dragging himself up from the bed, he started hobbling determinedly towards the door until Charger's brown barrel chest stood in his path. "Let me go! I have to save him!" He attempted to move past Charger, but was stopped everytime.

"Look at yourself. You're tired, battered up, and you're not thinking straight. You want to assault a shadowguard command post in that state? It's suicide!" Charger stood resolutely in his path. He refused to let his friend face certain death.

"I have to try!" Artemis collapsed on the floor, tears forming in his eyes. "I have to try..." Suddenly, he was overcome with grief. Orion, his only family left in the world, was captured and possibly dead.

Without thinking, Flicker embraced Artemis warmly. "It's going to be alright, Artemis. Your brother is a tough one. But you need rest. How else can we go to rescue your brother if you're still battered up and exhausted?" She hugged him tighter, trying to transfer some of her happiness into him.

Being enveloped Flicker's warmth, Artemis' panic and sadness slowly drained out of his body. In her arms, everything looked like it was going to be alright. He was safe. "Yeah... you're right Flicker. I'm in no shape to attack the shadowguard. Maybe with a few more hours of rest..." Artemis felt his eyes grow heavy as he fell into sleep once more, this time with blissfully warm dreams.

Flicker continued to hold him, even as he slept. Cradling his head like a baby, she started humming an old mare's song that her mother sang to her when she was just a filly. Artemis' face looked at peace as she did.

After staring for a couple minutes, Charger yawned himself. "We should all get some rest. We're going to need energy if we plan on getting Orion back from the shadowguard." He chose the nearest couch and promptly drifted off to sleep. The others murmured their agreement and followed in suit, Autumn staring at the outline of Flicker and Artemis before her eyes shut.

Flicker felt her own eyes grow heavy after a while. She tried to resist, but Artemis' body just felt so warm. "Well, maybe a short nap wouldn't hurt." she lay Artemis' head down on a pillow and lay down near him, but not close by. The last thing she could see was Artie's face dozing peacefully before her mind entered the dream world.

It is midnight now. Orion awakes to the sound of hooves walking down the cold metal corridor leading to his cell. The door opens to reveal the shadowguard that had first spotted him, followed by a tray of tools that were covered by a red liquid... blood?

"What do you want? Why was I brought here?" Orion kept his defiant gaze towards the guard, making himself sound tougher than he actually felt.

"You fully know why you're here. But just because I'm feeling nice, I'll humor you." The guard dragged a chair towards Orion and sat facing him. "Spit it out. You saw something at the ruins. I want to know what it was. Or else..." his gaze wandered over to the tools that were next to him and smiled cruelly. Orion hid a gulp.

"I didn't see anything at the ruins, alright? I thought I might find some treasure by exploring the place, but it was completely empty, apparently looted from long ago." Sweat started to form on Orion's face, and not because of the room temperature. He wasn't sure what this guy wanted, but he looked like he meant business.

"Thats...a shame. That wasn't the answer I was looking for." Reaching over to the tray, the guard picked up something that resembled a cattle prod. After examining it for a couple moments, he flipped a switch. Suddenly, sparks appeared at the end of the prod. "This is such a beautiful piece of equipment. Top of the line, in fact. Shame to see it go to waste." The guard violently jabbed it into Orion's stomach, causing 50,000 volts to flow out the end into his body.

"Argh!" Pain blossomed from Orion's stomach, the heat spreading quickly through out his body. "M-make it stop!" He could hardly spit the words out from the intensity of the shock treatment, which almost froze his nerve system.

The guard complied, switching off the power for the rod but keeping the point in contact with Orion's coat, which now had black scorch marks on it. He sighed. "Unfortunately, my orders are to keep you alive, so I can't go as far as I would usually go. However, that doesn't stop me from keeping you as close to death as possible." Reaching for a dial on the prod, he casually doubled the voltage that would be spit out from the end. "Have I jogged your memory yet?"

"All I did at the ruins was open a door in the ground that lead to some aging wine casks, alright? I didn't see anything worth mentioning." Orion hung his head, feeling the effects of the prod intensify then slowly fade.

"Oh, but I want to hear it all." Switching on the prod, the guard jabbed it deeply into Orion once again, this time in the shoulder. The only sound that emerged from Orion's mouth was an unending scream of pain. "Mmmm. A beautiful symphony of torture. What other melodies can I elicit from this one...?" He said menacingly, reaching towards the tray for a scalpel.

"Artemis."

A light shines onto Artemis' eyes. He groans. "Another five minutes, mom. Please?"

"Artemis, wake up. We have to get going."

"Noooo, not to the doctor's, he looks at me funny." Artemis, still half asleep, struggled to get away from the hooves that were trying to shake him awake.

"Artemis, your brother is still in trouble! We have to get going now!"

Eyes flying completely open, he finds himself staring face to face with Autumn. She giggled. "You're finally awake, sleepyhead. I was starting to get worried about you."

Resisting any urge he had to quickly get up and bolt away, Artemis mumbled something under his breath.

"Hm? I couldn't quite hear that." Autumn looked at him with those smooth, amber eyes of hers.

"I said, can you move back a bit? You're really close to my face..." Artemis was blushing slightly. Again.

"Oh. whoops." Autumn moved back to hide a blush herself. She hadn't realized how close she'd gotten to Artemis. "Sorry about that, it was just really hard trying to get you to wake up."

Artemis, with his eyesight adjusting, looked around the room. "Where is everypony?"

"They're in the tower itself, trying to look for any weapons that could help us when we go to that command post." She sighed. "I'm afraid we haven't had much luck."

"We won't be needing any weapons. I've been studying an illegal scroll on how to imbue parchment with spells so that anypony can cast the spell inscribed on it. It only has a limited number of uses, but I think I can enchant enough combat scrolls for everypony to use." Gesturing to the stack of parchment and ink wells in the corner, he asked "Could you please bring me a couple sheets of parchment?" Artemis started drifting off in a daze, focusing only on the parchment in front of him and the incantations he had to perform. As he started, a blue light emanated from his horn and lit up the room in an eerie glow.

Flicker, Mishap, and Charger arrived back in the cellar to find Autumn rushing back and forth, arms covered in magically glowing blue ink. Artemis was in the middle of a parchment whirlwind, chanting strange words under his breath that came out as blue characters of moonscript and imbued themselves onto various parchments as he directed. It was an almost eerie sight to see their friend work so much magic.

"A-Artie? What are you do-" Flicker was promptly shushed by Autumn, who was gesturing to remain silent. Flicker quickly stuffed the words she was going to say back down her mouth, choosing now to gaze in amazement as Artemis 'worked his magic.' Deep inside, her heartbeat raised a tick again as she stared at him working, eyes open and alive with life, his mouth curled at the ends in a half smile. She'd never seen anything like it her entire life.

Charger and Mishap stood there, gazing in wonder as more and more magical parchments left the whirlwind and entered a neat pile that Autumn was currently organizing between fetching more paper for Artemis and making sure he didn't run out of ink wells. Well, Mishap did anyway. Charger stood there, appreciating the show of magic while his face showed no emotion. If one could not read his thoughts, they would never know that he was actually deeply impressed at his friend's ability, for it may very well turn out to be what they need to defeat the shadowguard.

By the time Artie was finished, there were four stacks of magical scrolls, each amounting to about 30. Exhausted, he fell back into his chair and would have dozed off right there had Flicker not shaken him gently awake again.

"Artie, What is this...?" In truth, Flicker was a little frightened. Being a simple pegasus, she never really felt the need to attend the traveling magician's shows or the magic demonstrations held at the arena by the shadowguard in order to instill more fear into the citizens. Seeing so much powerful magic being wrought in at the same time was a quieting experience for her. However, she also felt a more complicated feeling deep inside that she couldn't explain. It felt like admiration, but went a little deeper. She pushed it away from her. Whatever it was, she didn't want it to ruin her friendship with Artemis.

"Oh, Flicker. You're back." Artemis smiled wearily. "As you can see, all I did was work a little magic that I had learned from an illegal spell which I had no idea whether it would work or not..." He stopped midsentence as he noticed Flicker's face growing stern.

"You didn't know if it would work?" Flicker asked quiety.

"Well, urhm..." Artemis quailed under her gaze. "Not one hundred percent sure, yes..."

"How could you put yourself in such danger! What if something had happened to you? We already lost Orion, I don't want to lose you too!" Flicker was near tears and so flustered that she didn't even notice her hidden feelings leaking out.

Artemis flinched. This wasn't the reaction he had expected at all. "Well, ah, uhm...I'm sorry for worrying you." He looked downcast. "Its just that I really want my brother back. I'm willing to risk my life to some magical mishaps if I can give us a better chance of doing it..."

Flicker calmed down a bit. "It's not fair to put him on the spot like this, Flicker. He just lost his brother to the shadowguard. I would be willing to try dangerous stuff too if it meant I had a better chance of saving somepony I cared for..." Suddenly, she hugged Artemis. "Promise me you'll never try something like that again, ok?"

"I promise." Artemis' response came muffled as his face was buried in her mane.

"Uh, ahem. If you guys don't mind..." Autumn cleared her voice a bit. For some reason, it made her feel really uncomfortable to see Artemis' in Flicker's embrace like that.

Suddenly realizing what position she was in, Flicker pulled away and stared at the wall. She silently scolded herself for acting so spontaneously.

Artemis, still recovering from the surprise hug, suddenly coughed as well. Turning to face the rest of his friends, he walked over towards the scrolls. "You're probably wondering what these are for." Aftering seeing affirmative nods from Mishap and Charger, he continued. "Seeing how I'm the only one that possesses a weapon-"

"That we have no idea where it came from." Mishap finished the sentence. "I think we're all thinking the same question: where did you get that sword? Where were you yesternight after you escaped from the shadowguard?"

"Listen, some crazy stuff happened to me yesterday. I want my brother to be here when I explain it so I don't have to go through it more than once. Is that alright?" Hearing no objections, Artemis continued. "Well, seeing as how we have no weapons to equip ourselves for the fight against the shadowguard, I took the liberty of enchanting a couple scrolls with combat spells so that we have some means of defending ourselves. If you would see here." Artemis picked up a stash of scrolls. "These scrolls have been separated by color. There are fifteen blue scrolls, ten red scrolls, four green scrolls, and one purple scroll. Blue scrolls are one shot scrolls; once you use it, its finished. Red scrolls are charged with two uses, green are charged with three, and the purple scroll is charged with five. I've given you all a basic set of spells to choose from, from fireballs to lightning and even air blasts. The only instruction you need is how to aim it and how to activate it."

"All you have to do is concentrate your mind on what you want the target to me and say the command word. As all of the runes are written in moonscript, I've also added an Equestrian translation that you should be able to read just fine. I'll show you." Taking out a blue scroll that he had imbued just for the occasion, he chanted the word "Ice". Suddenly, the bookshelf was encased entirely in an icy shell. The scroll had burned to ash in Artemis' hooves after it had been used. "You see? It's simple. We don't have any time to practice though. You're going to have to get good at it in while we rescuse Orion."

Using more of his magic, Artemis stuffed the scrolls into saddlebags and gave one to each of his friends. "Are we ready? Then lets go rescue my brother!" Heading out the door of the cellar, he thought. "Just you wait, 'rion. We're coming for you. Hold on a little longer."

Orion was half unconscious. He didn't know who he was or why he was there. His entire reality was the onslaught of pain. His eyes had shut long ago, for the blood wouldn't stop dripping into them. Another shock of pain - this time in his lower back. His entire body tenses and recoils, his throat unable to scream any longer. He felt more small cuts along his legs and chest as that damned scalpel continued to slice through skin as easily as scissors could cut through paper, but no longer felt the energy to resist. All he could do is sit and wait for the nightmare to end.

The guard held a look of crazed bloodcraze on his face. "Yes, yes! More blood! I must make a masterpiece of this one!" His deranged laugh echoed down the hallway towards the guards keeping watch outside, who shuddered. Any pony who could laugh like that, they concluded, was clearly out of his or her mind.

Commander Silverfang was in his study when he felt an urge to stare out into the night sky. Though barren, it provided a certain measure of peace to his conflicting soul.

"If only somepony could rescue me... take me far beyond this miserable reality out into the stars." He stared long and hard into the night, thinking of home and duty.

Little did he know that his redemption was close at hand as five ponies appeared on the doorsteps of the command post.

Chapter 6

Getting to the shadowguard outpost wasn't a problem. After all, when you've studied as many magical scrolls as Artemis had, of course you'd have a couple teleportation spells up your sleeves. Artemis was able to mass transport all of his friends at the doorsteps of the outpost after casting a spell on all of them to allow them to walk on clouds. Glaring up at the dark structure that loomed before them, Artemis gulped. His brother was somewhere in this...thing, and he had to figure out where he was. Swallowing down his fears, he faced resolutely at the doors. "Lets go."

Their entrance was, to say the least, hardly stealthy. Charger barrelled into the doors while Mishap threw up another poisonjoke fog, this time making it so that his friends could see in it. All around them, shadow guards perked their heads in surprise, and then outrage.

"Intruders! We're being attacked! Get them!" Swarms of shadowguards appeared from all angles and stampeded into the fog, where Artemis waited to serve out his vengeance.

Up in his room, Commander Silverfang began to hear the sounds of combat emerging from the main hall. "What in the world could possibly be happening? Are we being attacked?" He immediately shrugged off the thought. "Nopony would be crazy enough to assault us in our home territory, when the moon gives us our highest strength."

Suddenly, a messenger arrived. "Sir! We're being attacked! We don't know how many of them there are because one of them threw up a fog cover, but a lot of our men are getting injured!"

Silverfang was incredulous. "You're kidding me."

"I kid not, sir. We are being faced with a real threat here, and need your orders to take further action."

"Well, tie up the brigands and bring them to me! I want them bound and gagged at my feet before the dusknight comes!" Silverfang turns quickly back to the window, listening as the messenger leaves the room. Actually, he felt a little bit of respect for the ones assaulting his base. "At least they have some backbone, unlike the troops I have around here. Honestly! I get tired of their gambling and drinking for dusknights and darknights without end!" Shaking his head, a thought suddenly crossed his head. "What if my troops are so out of shape that they can't defeat them?" Suddenly worried now, he reached over to a magical PA system. "All troops currently on their sleep cycle: we are being attacked. All troops to the main hall to apprehend the aggressors." Sighing, he went over to his couch and sat down. "That should take care of this matter."

Down below, more squads of shadowguard piled into the hall, only to immediately dodges bursts of magic that were emerging from the cloud.

"Artemis! I'm running out of scrolls here!" Mishap struggled to keep up his fog cover while blasting a shadowguard away with a 'Freeze' spell. His pile had gone dangerously low as he took the main job of casting spells, being in the middle of the group.

"Don't stop! We have to find my brother!" Artemis was swinging his sword with a superiority none of the shadowguards could compare to. Ponies fell left and right as his sword (enchanted with a spell so that all those who were cut by it were not physically harmed but sent into a deep sleep) swung deep into the advancing forces.

"Oh, please go away, Mr. Shadowguard. We really do have to find his brother; he important to us, you see. Sorry!" Flicker used an 'Aire' spell to blast a regiment of guards into a nearby wall. "I really am!"

"Don't apologize to them, Flicker! They're trying to kill us, remember!?" Autumn was doing fairly well; being the one watching Artemis as he enchanted the scrolls, she got the fulldown explanation of how to use them to their maximum efficiency. Seeing that Charger was about to be flanked, she unleashed a barrage of five fire scrolls that burned the shadowguards and forced them to retreat.

"Thanks." Charger had long run out of scrolls and proceeded to rely on brute strength, bucking his way through the guards easier than a hot knife cuts through butter. While the unicorn shadowguard tried to take him out, their spells bounced off and revealed a 'Shielde' spell that surrounded him, although it wouldn't last long.

"Can't do it anymore guys," Mishap panted under the strain of his spell. "The fogs going to drop!" Suddenly, the fog cover collapsed, revealing the attack force to be a mere five ponies. Now that they had clear view of their opponents, the shadowguard quickly had them surrounded.

"Drop the scrolls now." A commanding voice echoed from the end of the hallway. Commander Silverfang had come down to view the commotion, alarmed that it was taking so long for his troops to stop the attackers.

Artemis was eyeing shadowguards left and right, going over his options. It wasn't looking good. Transmitting his thoughts to Mishap with his magic, he asked "Do you have enough juice left for another spell?"

"What do you have in mind?" Mishap sounded tired, even in his thoughts. The strain of using the scrolls while keeping up the fog were starting to catch up with him.

"If we can do a mass teleportation, I think we should be able to get directly to my brother's prison cells."

"Do you even know where it is?" Mishap already sounded skeptical.

"Well, no. I'm kind of hoping that since we're brothers, there's a special bond that will allow me to find him. Or his general location."

"Well, alright then." Mishap cut off the connection and started gathering all that was left of his magic into his horn.

Commander Silverfang looked on with unease as none of the ponies dropped the scrolls. "I must have really lost a lot of my terrifying aura. Must be old age." Shuddering at the thought, he once again addressed the group of invaders standing in the middle of his main hall. "By the power vested in me by her imperial highness, Nightmare Moon, I order you five to drop the scrolls now or face severe consequences!" To emphasize this point, he gestured all of his shadowguards to take up arms. Armor clanged throughout the hall as the guards got into battle position, awaiting further orders. "Well?" Silverfang was intensely curious as to why they weren't dropping their scrolls. "They're clearly outnumbered. If they're thinking of fighting their way out of this, than they're bigger fools than I tho-" The words died in his head as the group suddenly vanished in a blast of magical power. Scorch marks remained on the floor where they had stood. "Blast! A teleportation spell!" Looking around the hall and seeing a lack of action, he yelled out. "Well, what are you waiting for? Start searching the outpost! They could still be on the grounds for all we know! Find them and bring them to me as soon as possible, or all of you will have your drink rations cut in half!" At the last threat, the mass of shadowguards surged out of the hall. In a job as boring as this, drink was the one entertainment they had left to them. They certainly weren't going to put it at risk.

Sighing, Commander Silverfang shook his head. "Incompetent fools, the lot of them! In the old days, these soldiers had more backbone to them. Perhaps I've been in this profession for too long." After surveying the mess in the entry hall and assessing the damage, he shrugged and started back up the stairs. "Ugh. I'll make them all clean it up in the morning."

Artemis and Mishap weren't able to transport everypony that far. In reality, it was all they could manage to simple move them all a floor down. In the dark depths of the outpost, Artemis could hardly see a thing. "Is everypony alright?" He spoke in hushed tones, unsure of how far he voice would carry in these dark halls.

"I think I'm fine." Flicker's voice came a little ways down the hallway to Artemis' left. "Mishap's looking a little bad though. I think he's done more magic than his body could handle for the day."

"Wait, how could you even see down here? It's pitch dark!" Artemis struggled to move, than realized he had been pinned down under something heavy. "What the hay? Who's on top of my face!"

"Oh, that's Charger. He seems out for the count for some reason." Autumn's voice appeared somewhere near Flicker. "Poor Mishap. It looks like he really put out all he had. Which is surprising, because usually he doesn't do anything but prank other ponies."

Artemis immediately recognized the smell of Charger's meditation candles on his coat. "Damn. To go all this way and be foiled by being stuck under Charger," he thought to himself. "I've got to find a way to get him off of me. Let's see..." As he tried to summon more magic, he felt sparks fizz off the top of his horn and then flicker out ineffectually. "Well, magic is out."

Suddenly, he could see again. The sudden exposure to light, however, blinded him again. "Argh. Thanks, whoever that was." Blinking his eyes furiously, he could make out a brief outline of...Autumn? "Autumn, was that you?"

"Yep. Just shoved him off of you. It was easy." Autumn shook her mane to emphasize how she hadn't even broken a sweat doing it.

"Oh. Thanks, I guess..." Artemis was shocked. He didn't know Autumn had that kind of strength inside of her. Charger WAS one heavy pony. "I've got to ask her about that later. Now that I think about it, I really don't know anything about her. Maybe we could talk over some scrolls back at my place!" He smiled as he thought to himself, suddenly looking forward to getting his brother out of here. He loved talking to anypony over scrolls. It was one of his most pleasurable activities. "Say, Autumn..."

"Hm?" Autumn noticed that Artemis had a sort of half giddy look on his face, which was peculiar considering the situation they were in. Although, it did make him look cute. "Oh, stop it, Autumn. Can you not be thinking about boys...or Artemis... every moment of the dusknight?" She scolded herself in her head.

"When all this is over..." Artemis seemed to hesitate now. What if she said no? His inexperience seemed to be crippling him again at this crucial moment.

"Yes...?" Autumn was curious now. "What could he be so nervous about? Maybe its just me, but is he even blushing a little there?" She thought. She was tempted to stare more closely at him, but realized that this place was completely innappropriate for that kind of thing. Plus it would have been really noticeable to the rest of their friends.

Artemis sighed. He hadn't the nerve after all. "I'll just have to ask her later. I've got to concentrate on finding my brother."

Taking a deep breath, he shook his head. "Never mind. I'll ask you later." Looking down both ends of the hallway, he started thinking. "Now, which way should we go...Left? Or right?" Artemis was expecting on a soul link between him and his brother to lead the way, but it apparently wasn't working. "Come on, think: where would some shadowguards take my brother for capture?"

"Uhm... Artie?" Flicker sounded nervous all of a sudden, a hint of terror entering her voice.

"Yes, Flicker? What is it?" Artemis was too deep in thought to notice how her voice had subtly changed.

"You might want to turn around." She said this so softly, he almost couldn't hear her."

"Turn around? Why would I want to turn around?" Artemis turned face to face with a group of shadowguards. "Oh."

"Surrender your weapons now! You cannot defeat us. Resistance is futile." The shadowguards readied their weapons, from swords to crossbows to throwing knives.

"Sir, I think that unicorn is looking at us funny." 2nd Lieutenant Darkwing whispered into the ear of 1st Lieutenant Shadownight. "He might be setting up more antics."

"You there! With the blackish-blue mane!" Shadowmane bellowed at Artemis. "Stand down now, or we'll hurt that electric blue-maned friend of yours!" A couple of shadowguards redirected their weapons to aim at Charger.

Artemis glared at Shadownight. "Leave my friends alone. I'm the one you want."

Shadownight eyed this pony up and down. While looking bookish and not the sort of type to be the leader, he was the one taking charge of the situation. "Actually, we want all of you. You're all accomplices to the one fellow we've already captured, snooping around in the forbidden ruins! Guards, arrest them!" The squad of shadowguards flowed past Shadownight, inhibitor rings and weapons at hand ready to capture the friends.

"Stop!" The purple one yelled out. "We'll put down our weapons if we can have an audience with your leader." He had a brave face on, but his knees quivered at the sight of all those weapons pointed at him.

"Artie, what are you doing?" The berrypunch one sounded worried, the perfect victim to harass.

"You there! Not another word out of you!" Shadownight yelled at Flicker. "That's right, I'm talking to you in the berry punch coat. Stand down!" Turning his head to Artemis, he said, "Continue."

"Well," said Artemis. "We're actually personal agents of Nightmare Moon herself. The whole escapade at the ruins was a test to see how ready you were to capture criminals, and you failed! Not only have you only managed to capture one of our men, we practically had to walk into this base ourselves in order for you to capture us. Now, take us to your leader so that we can reprimand him!" His voiced assumed complete authority and veribility in what he was saying, making the 1st Liuetenant question himself for a moment.

"This all seems very fishy...but my orders were to take you up to Commander Silverfang, so take you up to him we shall." Gesturing to the guards, he said "Put them all in leg cuffs, inhibitor rings, and wing braces. We can't let them escape again."

The shadowguards moved forward to do his bidding. Artemis protested. "How dare you treat agents of Nightmare Moon in this fashion! You're going to be severly punished when I speak with your commanding officer!"

"Can it. If my commander can verify your legitimacy, I'll apologize." Shadownight smiled wolfishly. "Until then, you're our prisoners. To the command room!" He started walking down the hall, listening to the group of friends be mare/stallion handled the entire time. "That should take some spunk out of your voice." Allowing himself a smirk, he looked forward to seeing how the commander would deal with this bunch.

Commander Silverfang had been calmly sipping a glass of wine when Lieutenant Shadownight barged in. He spit his wine out at surprise, which unfortunately made contact with his very expensive Solar Era painting. "Damn! That was a family heirloom and priceless beyond measure!" He thought. Despairing, he desperately started wiping off the painting with a special cloth before glaring at the bothersome lieutenant. "Well? What is it you want?" Silverfang snapped at his officer. This night was not going well at all.

"We've captured the brigands like you said sir. They're claiming to be elite agents of Nightmare Moon doing a 'field test' for her Lunar majesty." Shadownight kept his face passive, but inside he was smiling with delight. "I can't wait until we throw these ones into the dungeons. Especially the berry punch one..." Unconsciously, he licked his lips in anticipation.

"F-Field test!?" Silverfang splutterred. "That's absurd! I've never heard of such a thing in my lifetime as an officer. Bring in these cretins, so that I can question them myself!" Furiously turning to face the window, he thought to himself. " 'Elite agents' indeed. Hah! No field test would have resulted in so much collateral damage. Still...this is her Lunar majesty we're talking about. What if they actually are her agents? Better handle this delicately." For the thousandth time that day, he wish he had chosen another occupation besides shadowguard.

"As you wish, Commander." Shadownight felt a flicker of dissapointment move across his face. "Just wait patiently. You'll get your chance yet," he thought to himself reassuredly.

"Ugh. Get your hooves off of me." Autumn had never been mare handled like this in her life. More than frightened, she felt indignant. "How dare you treat me in this fashion? Let me go!" Strugging against her leg cuffs, she was roughly pushed into the command room by a shadowguard.

"Move along, prisoner." Autumn couldn't exactly see the face beneath the armored helm, but she was sure it was smirking at her.

"Why, of all the ne- oof!" She couldn't complete her sentence as Mishap and Charger got shoved into her, knocking the air out of her lungs. "Those shadowguards are SO rude!"

Artemis and Flicker were the last ones to get shoved into the room. "Stop stalling, Mr. 'Secret Agent'. I'm sure Commander Silverfang will be able to recognize your credentials. If they exist." With a harsh laugh, the shadowguards locked them into the room, leaving them alone with the dark figure in the high-backed chair. A contingent of guards lined the plush room, presumably the Commander's personal guards.

For a while, the only sound that could be heard was the crackling of a fireplace in the background. Finally, the mysterious figure before them spoke. "Leave us. I wish to speak to these prisoners alone."

Silently, the shadowguards filed out of the room in an orderly fashion, marching past walls covered in priceless paintings and beautiful crystal clocks, their gears humming softly in the clear, lusterous casing.

Standing up, the figure eyed each one of them individually. "So. You're agents of Nightmare Moon, or so you've told my agents." After pacing in front of the line, he stopped in front of Charger. "You. Show me your credentials."

Charger made no movement, his body completely stock still and void of motion.

"Answer me, fool!" Commander Silverfang gave Charger a rough shove, and Charger collapsed to the floor with a thud.

"What the bugger?"

"He's unconcious." Artemis spoke out from the end of the line. "He was knocked out when we attempted that mass teleportation spell in the main hall." He was careful to keep his voice as empty of any emotions as he could so as not to betray his thoughts.

"Oh, really?" Silverfang walked back towards Artemis' end of the line. "So maybe you'll answer all my questions for me." Staring hard into Artemis' eyes, he said once more. "Show me your credentials." A menacing undertone could be detected, and Artemis suddenly felt that he made the wrong move. "Well?"

The silence persisted. Silverfang shook his head. "That was pretty gutsy. Trying to bluff your way out against the shadowguard. It didn't get you far, but that took courage. Or stupidity. Maybe a little of both." Going back to his seat, he poured another glass of wine into a crystal goblet, then set it aside on the dark oak table that shimmered as the firelight played across it's surface. "Now then. Back to square 1. Why are you here? You should have known it would be pointless to assault a shadowguard outpost, especially at night where our powers grow strongest." Flicking his eyes back and forth, he hoped to tease a response from one of the female ponies by frightening them into telling him. His eyes settled on the one with a berry punch coat. "You. Tell me what you know, or the purple one gets it." To emphasize his point, he pulled a crossbow out from under his desk and aimed it straight at Artemis. "Don't test me, lass. At this range, it might as well be point blank for a crossbow of this caliber. And I will not hesitate to shoot him if I don't get the answers I like." Cocking the crossbow, he sat there. "I"m waiting."

Flicker was trembling. "I-I don't know what you're talking about." She looked close to tears, and her voice was laden with anxiety.

"Not the answer I was looking for." Reaching for the trigger, Silverfang aimed straight for Artemis' heart when Autumn said "Wait! We're here to rescue a friend of ours. He's a grey pegasus with a reddish/grayish mane. We think he got caught by your guards earlier because they were looking for us." Autumn stared defiantly at Commander Silverfang. "That all you need to know, old guy?"

"Hmph. If you assume that, you must know why we're so intent on chasing you down. " Silverfang looked sourly at Autumn. By calling him old, she'd touched one of his sensitive nerves. "Pray, do tell how you were planning on rescuing your friend by assaulting us in our base, with a full moon out, and only five ponies!" He was now face to face with Autumn, eyes laced with disbelief, hardness and... was that pity?

Autumn looked to the floor. She couldn't handle staring at the Commander for so long. Amused, he let out a low laugh.

"I suspected this might be the reason why we were assaulted. Guards! Bring in prisoner 598 from prison cell B!" He called out towards the door.

Two shadowguards entered, carrying a battered, cut, bloody gray mass of feathers. One of the guards gave the mass a kick, and it moaned with a voice that was all too familiar to the group.

"No..." Artemis was shocked speechless. "NO!"

Chapter 7

Orion dropped to the floor with a thud. Groaning, he attempted to open his eyes in the lukewarm darkness of the firelit room, but his blood-splattered mane was in the way. He couldn't even move his legs to brush away the hair, as they had been cut so badly it pained him deeply to move.

" 'rion!" Artemis tried to rush forward but was pushed back by the shadowguards standing by his brother. "Let me through!" Forgetting he had an inhibitor ring on, he attempted to use magic. A loud bang shot through the room as the inhibitor ring detected the use of magic and sent a magical shock through Artemis' body, causing him to crash into a nearby wall. "Urgh..." He quickly fell unconscious from the combined stress of the impact and the shock that had coursed through his body moments before.

"Artie...?" Orion opened his eyes again after hearing his brother's voice. He heard a loud bang and a sick crunch as a body made contact with the wall. Wincing, he tried lifting his leg up to his face only to discover the clank of chains rattling. "Damn, they've cuffed me." This thought was quickly followed with "I hope the rest of the gang are alright." He felt the urge to cough, and a gob of blood exited his throat onto the floor.

"Damn it, he's ruining my carpet with all this bloody mess!" A new voice entered Orion's range of hearing. Whoever it was spoke with authority, so he was probably the one in charge of the entire outpost or at least high in the command structure.

"Stand him up!"

Orion felt himself getting lifted up into the air, being supported by two shadowguards. He heard a small gasp as his underbelly was exposed, no doubt criss crossed with various cuts from his demented torturer. Suddenly, Orion felt a strong kick in his stomach and pain blossomed once more, rendering him unconscious as well.

"Damnation. It'll take me weeks to get these carpets properly washed and aired out!" Commander Silverfang's mood was turning from sour to downright irritable. "First the main hall, then the painting, now the carpets..." Grumbling, he looked at his guards. "Set him up in that corner over there so that he doesn't track anymore blood on this thing." The guards moved to do his bidding. He sighed. "Well, I assume that was the one you were looking for."

"What have you done to him!?" The one in a goldish coat sounded angry, but Silverfang could feel the fear that was hidden deep inside of her.

"I asked him nicely for information. He refused my offer." Silverfang stared down at the outspoken earthpony. "The same will happen to you if you don't talk."

"I-I'm not telling you anything!" She continued to look defiantly into his eyes, despite the fact that her voice was not the only thing that was shaking.

"I see. I guess I really only have one choice in this matter." Calling in some Unicorn shadowguards, Silverfang directed them to drag the purple, the grey, and the white bodied ponies into a magic circle, along with the tannish woozy unicorn. "Send them to the dungeons! I'll have them tortured at length to an inch of their lives, then send them off to Nightmare Moon! Perhaps she can take some...entertainment from them."

The unicorns surrounded the pile of ponies, horns aglow with magical energy ready to perform a mass teleportation to the dungeon cells.

Flicker was watching in horror as the events unfolded in front of her eyes. If she didn't do something, all of her friends would soon be gone beyond their help...and then the Commander would go after her and Autumn.

"Please, stop! I'll tell you everything!" Flicker yelled out, tears forming in her eyes. She knew that it was probably wrong to help the shadowguard, and that it could turn out for the worse, but she didn't care about what could happen in the future. The only thing on her mind was how her friends will definitely be sent to to the dungeon if she didn't speak up.

The commander motioned to the guards to stop their incantation. The room suddenly grew dark as the magical energy that lit it up dissipated. He nodded at Flicker, as if gesturing to her to continue.

After taking a couple deep breaths, Flicker managed to have her words not trip over her tongue as they exited her mouth.

"W-we were just exploring the ruins out there in the mountains for treasure..." Reaching into the remains of her scorched saddlebag (those magical battles are tough!), she brings out a golden coin for the commander to view. "W-when Orion found this, he thought we could all hit it rich and make new lives for ourselves outside of Ponyville..." Her head down low, she prostrated herself in front of the commander. "Please...let us go. We meant no harm to her Lunar Majesty, and I would have never let my friends go if I knew it was restricted. Please, spare our lives..." Tears rolled down her cheeks in fat globules that split as they hit the floor, ruining the commander's carpet even further.

The commander, still as imposing a figure as ever, took pause. "You say you were...searching for treasure? Merely because you found this gold coin?" Leaning in closely until his eyes matched Flickers's, he murmured softly. "Stupid child, those ruins had been looted years ago. There is nothing left of that place except for a couple old scribbles and a few nondescript pieces of pottery. Still, as much as your original intentions were innocent, you attempted to attack a Shadowguard fortress and inflict harm on the troops of her Lunar Majesty, Nightmare Moon. For that, you will be punished..." Barking some orders to his other guards, Flicker felt herself being roughly thrown on top of her friends quickly after Autumn. She gasped, the sudden impact causing her to have a sharp intake of breath as the unicorns performed their mass teleportation spell.

Suddenly, all the world was a blur of light as Flicker felt her body being forcibly moved through space and time, causing her to black out. "Artemis..." She thought no more, succumbing to the outside magical influences assaulting her consciousness.

Silverfang sighed, then looked at his carpet in distaste. "You've ruined my carpet even more, I see." Glowering menacingly at the unicorns, he pointed his hoof towards the scorch marks that were all that remained of the six that had assaulted them.

"Apologies, Commander, but our magic is not refined enough t-" The guard's explanation was interrupted as Silverfang drew a dagger and pointed it at the offending unicorn's throat.

"I don't recall asking for your opinion." Making sure his point was made, Silverfang resheathed his dagger. "Cleaning this carpet is going to be a bloody mess..." he thought to himself. "Might be cheaper to get a new one."

Calling over his guards, he gave them simple instructions to magically remove the carpet for washing and repairs before retiring to his private quarters. Sighing, he removed his combat gear, starting from the battle grieves and moving upwards towards the chest plate, with the helm coming off last. When he finally removed his helmet, Silverfang watched in the mirror as his appearance changed. As he lost his fangs and fish-like ears, his eyes shifted from a deep gold to a deep purple shade. His coat also changed from the dusk grey of the Shadowguards to a more vibrant red. Shaking himself out so that his mane hung freely, Silverfang decided to open another bottle of his personal reserves and take a long sip to mull over the days events.

Deep within the depths of the fortress, Artemis slowly opened his eyes to see - nothing. Fumbling around blindly in the pitch black of his cell, he accidentally tripped over another pony, causing him to fall to the floor. "Ouch..." Attempting to stand on his four legs once more, he struggled to his hooves only before collapsing again on the floor. "Faust damn it." He muttered to himself. "I used too much energy from all that magic earlier, and now my body is paying the price for it." As if on cue, his body was suddenly overcome with a wave of dizzying exhaustion that all but knocked Artemis straight back into his unconsciousness. After resting for a couple of minutes, Artemis found that his eyes had finally adjusted to the dark interior of the fortress and provided the slightest bit of vision in an otherwise impenetrable night. "Is anypony else awake yet?" His voice was barely above a whisper, ragged from the incantations of the hour past.

Orion, who had been the pony who Artemis tripped over, groaned out in pain. "I wish I wasn't, Artie. How did you find me?"

" 'rion!? You're alive!" Artemis let out a sigh of relief. "You were cut to ribbons when I saw you up there in the commander's room. I was almost afraid that...that you wouldn't make it." Even his exhaustion could not keep the tears out of his eyes, although he tried. Artemis hated crying in front of his brother, who always managed to make it haunt him later on in life.

"Alive, but not sure if in one piece." Trying to raise his hooves to his chest, Orion cringed as the movement brought fresh cuts of pain across his body. "I've been cut up badly by those bastard guards and their blasted torture instruments. How about you guys? And you still didn't say how you found me."

An uncomfortable silence grew between the two brothers, punctuated only by the unconscious moaning of their friends who still grappled with their pain-induced nightmares. "I...came in through the front door of the outpost looking for you." Artemis' said this softly, which only greatened the contrast with the volume of Orion's voice.

"You WHAT!?" Orion was shocked. "For an egghead, you were pretty stupid."

"Look, I was worried, alright? All I wanted was to pop in to rescue you and pop out again but things kind of went ouf ot control." Even in complete darkness, Orion could tell of the shame that had suddenly entered his brother's voice.

Struggling to move his battered body, Orion turned so he could face his brother. "You stupid egghead brother... but I love you for that anyway." Giving him the rough approximation of a bropunch, he lay prostrated on the floor, lacking the energy to do anything else but attempt to recuperate from his wounds. "What's going to happen to us now, though..." Leaving that grim though hanging between himself and his brother, he closed his eyes and slowly drifted into a pained, fitful sleep.

If anypony is actually reading this, sorry. I'm really not that great of a writer.

This chapter is noticeably shorter than the other ones because I feel that if I keep trying to continue it's going to fall flat, so yeah.