The New Problem

Hours prior, Sunrise Standing had stumbled upon a cavern. It was nondescript, except for the fact that dark magics were flooding the place. He wondered if he would find an ally here, one that would also have given themselves to the dark magic as he did. The vampony smiled, flashing his sharp canine teeth as his red eyes lit up at the idea of this. He walked through the cavern trying to find the epicenter of this dark magic. If he found it, then surely he would find the master of this place, he figured. The magic grew stronger and started to enter him, his wings grew sharper, his fur and mane grew paler and the hunger within him grew. This place, it wasn't ordinary he figured, it was something special. He began to wonder if it was a prison of some sort.

His suspicions would be confirmed once he reached a spot on the ground, the epicenter. There wasn't just magic in this cave. Through the magical pulses, he could feel a consciousness. One that was very angry at being imprisoned by the feel of it. He smiled and started to gather magical energy into his horn, "You who have been imprisoned here. You who have great rage for the ones who did this to you. I call you forth!" he yelled as he cast the spell.

The dark magic in the area started to gather and a portal of shadow appeared before him. A unicorn stepped out, but this one was different, he had a curved horn that was red, different from the coat. His eyes were as red as the normal unicorn's but the white of his eyes were glowing green instead. The mane of this pony also seemed to wave about. Sunrise smirked, perhaps he had found a fellow aberration.

"Finally, I am once again free to take over Equestria!" the shadow pony boasted.

"I'm the one who summoned you from your prison, you're going to work with me," the vampony replied sternly.

"Do you think that you have the clout to command a king? Do you believe that you, a commoner has the right to tell King Sombra what to do?" the shadow pony hissed.

Sunrise looked over this pony and started to use his senses to see if there were some way to bring this creature under his control. But it was strange, though he could tell there was dark magic in this being, he couldn't tell exactly how high the concentration was.

That didn't stop him from baring his fangs threateningly, "Listen here, I brought you back into this world for one reason. The person I am after has allied themselves with a lavender alicorn. If we work together, we can beat her," he growled.

Sombra started to laugh at the notion of him working with anyone else, which annoyed Sunrise. The vampony tried to bite the shadow pony, but was shocked when his teeth harmlessly passed through. His opponent had no problem capitalizing on this opening, using a magical blast to send him flying backwards into the cavern wall and knocking him out instantly.

"You'll make a fine prisoner and an example of what happens to those who defy me," the shadow pony said ominously.

In the present time, Moonlight galloped through Ponyville with Twilight and Luster Dawn. Everything was disturbingly quiet, something that none of the three of them liked. It was as if no one was there anymore, as if they had all been ordered by their enemy to fall back to Canterlot. "The quickest way to the city is by teleportation, but for some reason I can't get a lock on the city. It's as if Sombra is blocking it from me somehow. We'll have to take the train," Twilight stated.

The dark blue unicorn nodded and made her turn towards the train station, but her intuition told her that this was a bad idea. A hoof slammed through the wall next to her, slamming into her and sending her rolling into a nearby shop. "You will not make it to our king!" the voice belonging to the pony called out to the three of them.

The Princess started to cast a spell, but a burst of magical flame erupted from the shop and hit the pony square in the chest. The flames didn't spread and instead died out on contact, surprising the pony long enough for Twilight to finish casting her sleep spell. Moonlight walked out of the shop looking far more angry than she was hurt. "That was a cheap shot," she pointed out as she rubbed her face.

"Princess, that pony is wearing some kind of weird mask. What is it doing?", Luster asked.

"It's for mind controlling ponies. Unlike Sombra, we haven't given into the dark magic, so he can't control us without using those masks. They've never hid within ambush before, that's new. Usually he just waits until we confront him in his throne room or he attacks us directly," the alicorn stated.

The investigator nodded and started to gallop towards the train station, hoping that her feeling was wrong and that they would be able to have a quiet train ride over to Canterlot. The others followed suit and the three of them arrived in short order. It was empty, but that in and of itself provided another problem. None of them knew how to operate the trains.

The two Equestrians looked at the investigator who shook her head in disappointment. "I'm sorry, I never learned how to be a train conductor where I came from. Even if I did, your trains are different enough to the ones from my world where I wouldn't be able to operate them anyhow. Our best bet to get there fast is from the air, but I assume that you aren't capable of carrying two ponies at once while flying," she stated with disappointment.

"I can, but I would have to hold you both in my magic. Perhaps I could cast some sort of spell to make us move faster or something like that?" she offered.

The dark blue unicorn didn't bother to wait, she climbed aboard the train in hopes that someone would be able to work it. She found the train engineer with a shovel in his mouth and the same mask that the pony that had attacked her was wearing. The shovel was swung at her head and she ducked under it, just barely avoiding getting hit by it. She capitalized on her position to jump onto the engineer of the train and she grabbed at the mask to rip it off the face. A blast of magic sent her flying backwards instead of her intended outcome.

Twilight entered the train and the engineer nodded his head, "Our king wants to see you in particular. Bring your student with you," he said chillingly.

Luster Dawn entered the train and rushed over to Moonlight who for the second time had been launched off the ground. "Are you alright?", she asked.

"Ugh, I don't know who this Sombra guy is, but I'm going to give him a piece of my mind when I find him!" she yelled.

The train started moving and the pink unicorn helped the dark blue one to her hooves. The two unicorns then looked at the Princess who sighed. Moonlight then turned to Luster and shook her head, "You grew up in an era of peace, while you might be helpful, you don't have any experience. It might be best if you were to hang back or stick close to Twilight," she stated in a matter of fact tone.

Twilight nodded and this caused her student to look a bit sad until the Princess gave her a reassuring hug. "So aside from these mind control masks, what should we expect from our enemy?" the investigator asked.

"He is capable of turning himself into shadow to avoid attacks, he can use portals of shadow to move from place to place. Not only that, he can inflict unicorns and alicorns with dark magic blocking crystals to stop our magic. Without my friends, I'm not sure if I can do this. I've never been able to defeat him on my own," Twilight said sadly.

Moonlight placed her front left hoof on Twilight's front right leg, "You're not alone, you have us," she stated.

The Princess smiled and nodded, with renewed hope and confidence as the train barreled towards Canterlot's train station. She and her student both stayed together, waiting in silence as the train continued along. The investigator on the other hand closed her mind and readied herself. She expected to find Sunrise where they were going and she was going to capture him at all costs.

The train stopped at the destination and the three of them exited it, making a beeline for the castle. At the castle, they saw a white unicorn with a blue mane and a pink alicorn. "Cadance, Shiny! What are both of you doing here?", Twilight asked.

"Sombra took over Flurry Heart, she's acting as his Princess at the moment. We came here to try to get her back!" Cadance replied quickly.

Moonlight could feel the rage boiling within the Princess and judging from the facial expression of the pink alicorn, she could surmise that this Flurry Heart was her daughter. She was torn between her goal of finding Sunrise and helping this mother. She figured that she could solve both problems at once by fulfilling her objective so she walked up to the castle doors and raised her head, "Sombra! We're here! All five of us! You wanted to see Princess Twilight? She's here and we are her entourage! Where she goes, we go! Now let us in!" she screamed.

The doors to the castle opened and the five ponies rushed in. Luster Dawn and Twilight made a beeline for the throne room, while Cadance and Shining Armor left to search the castle for their daughter. Instinct told the investigator that she shouldn't go search the throne room as that wasn't Sunrise's style. He'd much prefer a smaller room so that his opponent wouldn't have as much space to move around. She joined up with the rulers of the Crystal Empire in their search for Flurry Heart.

Whereas Sunrise Standing proved difficult to find, the same could not be said of Flurry Heart, the white alicorn walked out of a room, "Mother, Father... why don't you join me with Sombra, we can be one great family again!" she taunted.

"You know that we can't do that Flurry, you need to come back to us. Take off that mask and stop letting him control you. We're your parents and we love you," Shining Armor replied.

"Please Flurry, come to me. Come to Mommy," Cadance said tearfully.

Moonlight rushed forward between them, realizing that this wasn't going to end well and she erected a barrier in the nick of time to stop the two parents from getting hit with a magical blast. She felt drained after it hit her barrier. This was to be expected as she had been using a lot of her magic that day. She didn't know the extent of an alicorn's power, but she knew the extent of her own. She didn't know if she could win a fight against one, but she knew that she had to at least buy some time.

"You two, I'll buy you some time and direct your daughter's aggression towards me. You keep trying to reach her!" she yelled to the other two ponies.

They nodded and kept trying to reach their daughter who was now focusing on the dark blue unicorn. The investigator rushed towards the alicorn in a feint, but she was quickly lifted off the ground in a telekinetic hold. She tried to use her own magic to break the hold, but her horn merely sparked. Her stomach sank from this revelation in addition to the rapid acceleration into the ceiling. She slammed into it at high speed, letting out a scream before being slammed into the ground and immediately losing consciousness.

The two other ponies looked horrified, but the eyes of the mask that Flurry was wearing stopped glowing all of the sudden. None of them noticed that the dark magic started to leave the mask and enter the prone unicorn. The two parents ran over to their child who looked at them, "Mom? Dad? What happened? Is everything alright?" she asked.

The three ponies embraced in a hug, "Everything's going to be fine, sweetheart," Shining replied.

"Yeah, I didn't know if we'd be able to reach you, but it was thanks to Moonlight that we had enough time to do so," Cadance said.

The three of them didn't notice that Moonlight was standing back up, her eyes were glowing red with the whites of her eyes having become green. When she fully rose to her feet, she clapped her hooves to get the attention of the three ponies, "Excellent. The parents are reunited with their child. Such a touching moment indeed. If you do not mind, my king would like to see all of you now..." she said in a chilling voice.