All is Darke

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.