Author's Note

So I'm back! I decided to take a month break to both refresh myself and cement in where I wanted this story to go and I'm extremely excited to tell it!
Please feel free to comment on suggestions, criticism, etc. etc.!

Can't Let Them Leave

It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,

Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt,

It lies behind stars and under hills,

And empty holes it fills,

It comes first and follows after,

Ends life, kills laughter.

“Captain Spar Roar, report!”

Luna burst through the barricaded door with Snow Lancer in tow. She skidded along the marble floor of the throne room and turned, firing a spinning blade of magic that cut through the beasts that followed like butter. Snow Lancer and another guard began to build up the barricade once more, with two unicorns racing over to recast the shielding spell.

“Princess Luna!” The captain yelled. He raced over and bowed.

Luna rolled her eyes. “Stand up, Captain. You can bow when this is over.”

“Yes, ma’am,” He stood up and nodded. “Ma’am, we lost ten ponies that we know of to these things. Three more mortally wounded.”

“Did you find out where they got in?” She asked. She knew where, of course, she had seen it when she interacted with the spell in her room. They weren’t invading from the outside, they were snuffing the guard out from the inside.

“Somewhere from the catacombs. At least that's what some patrols said when we found them.” He answered.

Snow Lancer trotted back up to Luna and nodded. “Door is good to go, I’m not sure how long we can keep it up though, the Spell-tossers look exhausted.”

“They’re about to be even moreso.” The alicorn sighed. “Captain, I have a plan, though I do not think you will enjoy it.”

Free Spar gulped. “Alright… better than sitting here twiddling our hooves.”

Luna turned to Snow, “Do you have the book?”

The unicorn nodded and brought out the book in her levitation, handing it over to Luna’s. She began to flip through the pages, barely scanning them before flipping some more. After a few seconds she stopped on a page toward the end of the book with a “Ahah!”

“Snow Lancer, go get all the, what did you call them, Spell-tossers?” Snow smiled sheepishly and nodded. Luna almost chuckled, but suppressed it. “Go get all the able bodied ‘Spell-tossers’ and have them meet me outside.”

Snow Lancer nodded and ran off. Luna started to walk toward the doors with Captain Free Sparrow in tow. “For the record, ‘Spell-tosser’ isn’t the official name.” He said.

Luna nodded. “Yes, I am aware. How many guards do you have that are battle-ready?”

“About twenty-seven. Though practically a third of those are fresh out of the academy, including the one you came in with.”

“Well they are about to get much needed experience, yes?” She flung the doors open and took a deep breath of the fresh air, free of the smell of blood and death that hung in the air of the castle. She stepped further into the courtyard. This spell was taxing. Taxing to those who helped cast initially and to those who maintained it. Fortunately, Luna was well overqualified to maintain it, and unlike the Crystal Empire, she only had to hold it for a few more hours at most. Hopefully.

She stopped in front of a fountain, conjuring a piece of chalk and beginning to inscribe the first rune from which the others would copy. Being such a complex and powerful shield spell, it required runes. One main rune that the other runes will draw power from. This only made it slightly less taxing for the caster.

Right as she finished Snow Lancer returned with the unicorns. Six in total, the others Luna assumed were keeping the door’s barriers up.

“This is the plan. Those creatures cannot leave this castle. It is of utmost importance. They are taking those who sleep and slaughtering those who do not. The citizens would not last thirty minutes.” She scanned their eyes. They were scared, terrified even. The ears of those without helmets were flat against their head. To be honest, she was scared too, but for different reasons. She continued, “This spell is a shield spell, one of the most advanced ones to date, however it is meant to keep things out, as if any of the runes fail the shield will fall. You will split into pairs and copy this rune exactly onto the walls of the courtyard, each pair will inscribe two runes, creating a total of six.”

She paused once more and stepped away from the rune, allowing everypony to engrane it into their memories. She waited for a minute before starting once more, “This is a delicate operation. If these runes are smudged by anything, the shield will falter and we will be all that is standing between them and the city.” She stomped her foot on the ground. “Get to it, ponies.”

The six quickly split off into pairs, running off toward the inner wall of the courtyard to begin. Only Snow Lancer and Spar Roar remained.

“Princess, I don’t seem to understand, is our intention holding out until sunrise? Kill all the monsters in the castle?” The captain asked and turned back toward the throne room. “If I’m honest, I’m not confident enough in some of these ponies to have the will to hunt them.”

“I am not going to tell them to hunt the beasts. There is more at play than meets the eyes. A strange magic is coursing through this castle and into the rest of the city. And there is… something else.” She hesitated in explaining further. There were only a handful of beings that could produce such demonic golems, things not even found in Tartarus, and each one could lead to catastrophic events if they couldn’t defeat it.

But it had to have had help. The beings that came to mind were not natural to their plane, they needed to be summoned. Her and her sister had snuffed out many cults with such goals before her banishment, and Celestia was sure that she had destroyed all evidence and knowledge of the creatures apart from books locked in the vault, books not even Twilight Sparkle had read.

This book would be good to have on hoof, however that required a trek through the dark while maintaining the shield.

“Princess!”

Luna snapped out of her thoughts and turned toward the wall. A unicorn mare raced over to the three. “Princess, there's… well, there's already a shield up.”

Luna raised her brows. “Come again?”

The unicorn led them to the courtyard’s main gate, where the rest of the unicorns she had sent to draw the runes. They were huddled about the mouth of the gate, murmuring of fear and entrapment. The crowd parted as they approached, allowing Luna and Captain Sparrow to approach. Luna felt the presence of the magic before she even got to the threshold. It pulsed with a shimmering that was invisible to the wandering eye, only able to be seen if you were looking for it. The princess put her hoof against it and gave it a few pushes. It was solid.

Unlike the spell she was about to use, which was designed to keep things out for the most part, this one was designed specifically to keep things in. The portal didn’t budge. Not even giving recognition to any of the few spells Luna threw at it. Solid, complete and powerful magic, skillfully engineered and skillfully casted. There were only a hoofful of wizards who could create such a spell, and Luna knew for a fact that none had been in the castle for weeks.

“Luna,” Snow Lancer called, “this is the same signature as the sleep spell.”

The Captain was about to scold her for not addressing the princess with her respective title correctly, but Luna spoke up over him. “Are you sure?” She crossed over to her, who stood a few yards from the gate at a portion of the shield that wasn’t following the wall.

“Absolutely certain.”

Luna decided to find out for herself. She pressed her horn against the wall and tuned into the inner workings of the spell. True to Snow’s word, the shield was being casted by the same pony who was casting the other. It wasn’t hard to find a similar signature in spells, for untrained unicorns it mostly came down to a certain feeling when they focused. For Luna, who had centuries to learn the finer points of magic, it came in images. What flashed in her mind was terrifying. The beasts weren’t being made from nothing.

They used to be the slumbering castle staff..This magic’s build she was familiar with, she was certain of it.

She knew who was responsible.

The bat-pony and the unicorn sat in front of Celestia’s bed chambers. They sat and thought. Thinking of what they could do. They didn’t open the door, and neither had said a word for several minutes. They heard frequent roars and cries. No doubt produced from the abominations that were the Liptis.

Really, Fury Shield didn’t actually think that's what they were referred to. Whatever being that created them, they had no name. For something as disgusting as them. He certainly wouldn’t have named them anything if he was in that being's shoes. He sighed and rose to his hooves and Mythic Aurora rose with him. He grabbed the handle to the door with his magic and pushed.

The room was in absolute disarray. Tapestries were torn and ripped to shreds, tables smashed to pieces. Her whole elegant bed frame had collapsed in on itself. They couldn’t find a single drop of blood in the chaos, however. No scorch marks, no residual magic floating in the empty air. It didn’t even look like there was a fight, so why was it in such a state?

Something knocked on the door. Fury immediately unsheathed his sabre and spun around. Standing in the door was a pony, a unicorn to be exact. She had a black coat on that concealed her face with a hood and tail. She stood alone with no weapons or allies. Of course, she probably didn’t need it.

“Sad,” She said, “I was hoping the Princess would be here, that would have made Him very happy.” Her tone was smooth and calm. The words flowed from her mouth like water, concise and with purpose.

“Who?” Mythic asked. She stomped her front hooves on the ground, her metal claws swinging down in preparation for combat.

The cloaked pony laughed. An uncomfortable and menacing sound that bounced off the stone walls of the hallway and the bedroom. “It is not for me to reveal Him. He shall do that soon enough.” The hood looked between them before her horn flared up and shot a beam of light at Mythic.

Fury Shield quickly threw up a barrier in front of his companion before getting thrown back into the wall himself. He groaned as he lifted himself off the floor, blinking his eyes multiple times and staring at the figure.

“Well, tata!~” She sang before turning around and running. Fury threw his sabre at her but it missed her by an inch, instead sticking into the stone wall.

“Buck!”

Mythic flew out of the room, using Fury’s sabre as a spring to launch herself at the fleeing cultist. Fury wasn’t too far behind. The cultist flung spells behind her. Mythic dodged them with relative ease and Fury was able to block the ones coming right at him. The cultist turned down a corner and Mythic flew after and immediately attempted to stop.

She skidded into the wall, her eyes wide as she turned tail and ran back the way she came. “Nope nope nope nope nope!” Fury Shield raised a brow and slowed down once the first Liptis rounded the corner. And then the second, then third, then fourth. Fury leapt out of swiping range and swung his sword, cutting the first beast's throat with a gush of blood. He ducked under the second swipe from a totally different Liptis, and was quickly being surrounded.

He kept backing up and brought his sword back as he did, arcing it darnward in a vicious swipe that severed its new one’s right arm, and then shot it up through its mouth and out the top of its head. He pushed it away from him with his hoof, starting to quickly back away from the growing pack of monsters. There were six of them now, not counting the two he already took down. They rushed and pushed each other to get to him. “Sweet Celestia!” He shouted before shooting his sabre at the nearest one. The thing actually had the sense to shift its head and the sabre stuck through the head of the one behind it.

Mythic Aurora let out a war cry as she leapt over the unicorn, her hooves high above her head. She brought them down, sinking her claws right into the beast’s head that had dodged his sabre. He twisted and pulled, effectively slicing through the monster’s head and decapitating another. Four to go.

Mythic launched off of the Liptis, twisting to the right to avoid an overhead strike from the one in front of her. She swiped and cut off its arm and sent her other clawed hoof into the chest of another. The beast roared and pushed its head down, and bit off her ear. The thestral cried out in pain as the Liptis yanked her over its head by her ear. She was flung to the far side of the hallway, missing an ear. Before the beast could even turn around Fury Shield cut off the top half of its head.

One rounded to his left and swiped. He jumped back into the wall and not out of the swipes range. The razor sharp claws of the beast tore into his shoulder, barely missing his neck and cutting two thick gashes in his shoulder. It hurt. Bad.

Adrenaline pumping, and obviously no time to whimper over pain, he ducked under the swipe from the other hand and leapt straight into it. His horn pierced its chest. He felt its claws tighten around his tail and yanked. It reared back its free arm and siped down. Fury barely caught it by sticking his sabre through its palm. It became a game of strength. For some reason the beast didn’t drop him to ensure victory. In an instant and yelling to make sure of success, the unicorn forced the sabre and the thing’s hand back and pierced the beast in the eye.

He landed on his bad shoulder and let out a yowl of pain. Blood trickled down his face and into his eyes from his horn. Mythic Aurora yelled, charging at the remaining Liptis that loomed over him. She collided with it and pushed it up and over him and down. She stabbed it in the chest. Over and over again, ripping out its insides and covering herself in its blood. It brought a claw up and took her by the wing and sent her into the wall. A vicious snapping was heard as her wing broke at the base and she howled from the pain.

Having sat this out long enough, Fury Shield stumbled to his hooves, ignoring the flaring pain in his shoulder as he grabbed his sabre and brought it down through the arm that reached over for Mythic and into its head.

Mythic slowly lifted herself out from under the creature. She had taken an absolute beating. Her right ear was gone, and blood oozed out and dripped down the side of her head. Her left wing was bent downward, its bone sticking out through skin and the webbing of the bat-like wing torn to shreds. She was crying. Sobbing.

Fury quickly realized that either of them could pass out from blood loss.

He limped over, gasping in pain every time his left shoulder moved. He sheathed his blade and pulled Mythic to lean on him. “Buck… don’t faint on me, Mythic.” He muttered through gritted teeth.

He led them to Princess Celestia’s room as quickly as they could manage. As soon as they were in Fury slammed the doors shut and layed Mythic down on her good side. Obviously he didn’t know how to set a broken wing, much less a bat pony's, but he could deal with the head. He rummaged around the room for anything he could use as a makeshift bandage. Eventually he just decided to use the bed sheets. He returned to the sobbing Mythic’s side. She had taken off her front shoes and was clutching her head for dear life.

With his magic, he pried off her hooves and started tightly wrapping the stips of bedsheets around her head. She ended up looking ridiculous, like a comical drawing of a pony who hurt their mouth, the impromptu bandage wrapped up over her head and under her snout multiple times before the blood stopped seeping through. He fell back against the wall and bandaged his own wounds.

He had to keep shaking Mythic to make sure she didn’t pass out, she normally just responded with a whimper. They stayed there for a while, ten minutes at most before either of them said anything.

“We…. should probably get to the throne room.” Mythic Aurora suggested. She pushed herself to her flanks, cringing the whole way up.

Fury Shield nodded and stood up.

They didn’t meet any resistance or foe on the way there. What they did meet when they arrived was a siege.