Sun Never Sets 2: Fires of Friendship

[Blacktail River West, Southwest of Mt. Eclipse]
[Friday, 10:40am]

Starlight spent nearly twenty minutes flailing around in the powerful river current, just fighting to stay conscious and above water as the flow swept her away. Her powerful mechanical body was waterproof, but it had nothing to perch on to give her any sense of control of herself. If only she could get a grip on the riverbank, she could pull herself up, but she hardly had a grip on her own center as she bobbed up and down and thrashed in the stream.

She had a single thought bouncing around her head that she had to catch.

Close your visor, idiot!

The moment she closed her mind around the thought the metal cover shot up and sealed around her face, keeping the water from getting into her eyes, nose and mouth and giving her just a little more mental foothold.

As she eventually got a handle on her senses, she realized she'd been tightly gripping her sword in her left hand the entire time. Doing her best to flip herself so that her chest and stomach were facing down, she stabbed straight below with her sword in an attempt to catch herself against the bottom of the river. Unfortunately, the tip of her ultra sharp and molecularly slicing nanoblade bit right through the soft rocks and sediment of the riverbed and proceeded to carve straight through it with no resistance whatsoever. She was, however, pulled down further into the water where she received a faceful of dirt and debris blasting up from the crevice she was making beneath the river.

Unable to slow herself down but now with a focal point, Starlight steadied herself and pulled her sword from the mud and kicked her legs against the water beneath her. She concentrated on pulling energy from her power cells into her torso and engaged her impulse boosters. Teal lights lit up over her body and a short pulse of energy was released to her left side, but it did little more than splash the river water away from her while pushing her only a small bit. She focused what little tilt she did get into a roll and paddled her arms in an overhead motion, engaging her legs to start properly swimming against the current. It took so much concentration with ice cold water slamming into her head and shoulders every second but she eventually got the rhythm right and swam against the river, slowing herself down and immediately redirecting herself to the edge of the riverbank.

She desperately reached out with her cybernetic hand and gripped firmly against the dirt, then joining her natural hand in as well to eventually heft her entire body out of the water. Letting her sword fall out of her hand she rolled onto her back, let her visor recede, and just stared at the sky, breathing heavily and letting the feeling of stillness comfort her.

"Starlight? Are you okay?" She heard Sunburst calling over her radio.

"I'm okay," Starlight breathed. "But I just got kicked into a river and have no idea where I am..."

"The Freefall shows you as west of the mountains," Cadence said. "You just took a heavy hit, how are you feeling?"

"Feeling fine, Cadence." Shaking some of the excess water from her clothes and body, Starlight stood. From her sword too, she swiped the blade around in a single crisp motion to flick all the water free from it, and with a brief pulse of power through the casing of her scabbard the inside of it heated up and flash-evaporated the water within it. Now relatively dry, Starlight sheathed her blade and studied her surroundings.

She was back in a forested area, far from any buildings or manmade features.

"Guess I should follow the river back up?" Starlight was on the opposite site of the river from where she started.

"Yes, but it looks like there's no easy way to cross the river until quite a ways ahead." Shining Armor was in her ear now. "It looks like there's more activity going on around the Cathedral. You need to get there ASAP. Follow the river."

"Mind telling me what that demon I saw back there was?" Starlight asked. "It looked an awful lot like Nightmare Moon."

"You witnessed and confirmed the neutralization of Nightmare Moon yourself, does it really seem like her?" Shining Armor asked.

"No, not really. Seemed more like it was someone wearing her old suit of armor."

"It must be some demon that the cultists were interacting with, then. An imitator," Shining Armor said, "That area is mostly sterile, the only kinds of demons that can breach the barrier between worlds are ones directly summoned by the people there."

"Whatever it was, it kicked my ass," Starlight said.

"You'd do best to avoid them for now, Starlight," Cadence offered, "I know you might want to battle them again, but fixating on that might get in the way of the mission."

"That's right," Shining Armor continued, "The number one priority is the Devil Sword fragments, then dealing with the Platinum Knight."

"And finding Trixie, if she's here..." Starlight mumbled. "Yes, sir. I'll avoid combat with the demon knight if I can. Proceeding with the mission."

Starlight shifted her legs in the grass, passively directing a bit of her energy to repairing the damage she'd received. The dents and bullet impact on the lower portion of her body slowly smoothed themselves out, and the electronic insides beneath Starlight's knees mended themselves as magic coursed through her system. She needed to be careful with her power cells though, her energy reserves were running low.

As she gradually made her way back up the side of the river, Starlight made another call on her radio.

"Spike, where are you now?"

"Starlight!" Spike's synthesized voice seemed as eager as ever to talk. "I'm headed back up the road we were on, have you cleared out the hostiles there?"

"The minor enemies, yes, but their boss showed up and threw me into the river. Watch out for a big demon knight guy if you're coming back through the main road. I'm somewhere downstream now, making my way back up."

"Got it. I'll keep moving ahead and let you know what I see."

The call ended, and Starlight let herself break into a proper run, wanting to recoup for the greater distance now imposed between her and her objective.

Her support team was right. Fighting that demon was out of the question for the time being. She was a stealth specialist, she needed to use her skills to subvert enemies rather than take them head on. Running headfirst into an armored wall was asking for a beatdown. Best way was to attack from behind or with superior numbers. Spike had limited combat capacity, but he might be able to pose enough of a threat to allow Starlight to strike from a different direction. There were also environmental factors in play as well. The demon's big sword might be harder to swing around if they were in thick with the trees, and their shotgun could only have so much penetration power and range.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a large rumbling of footsteps somewhere off to her left. Metal clashed against the dirt and gunshots rang out, pulling Starlight out of her run and making her rush to the bushes for concealment. There wasn't a path through the trees here, so making anything out clearly was difficult, but she thought she could see the shape of a person running parallel to her. Following the one were ten others, all similarly sized and shaped but in varying amounts of armor.

Curious. Starlight pursued from her position of relative stealth, inching closer and closer to the chase scene playing out in front of her until she could see things in greater clarity.

The man being chased suddenly pivoted as he crossed a tree, raising a pistol and taking out one of his pursuers with a headshot.

To Starlight's surprise, the bodies chasing him all appeared to be living corpses, ancient warriors with decaying flesh and rusted armor, yet they still moved with sound mind and proficient mobility. The man being chased wasn't one of them, Starlight saw, he was still living, with slicked spikes of blue hair and dark leather jacket, he was still alive and facing an entirely different kind of threat from the machines Starlight had to deal with.

The man blasted another of the undead soldiers, and then turned to keep running. The living dead were showing up here too? This was getting crazy. Starlight resolved to help this stranger as he continued his run through the trees. She jumped from a hiding spot and rolled through the woods as a teal and gray blur, drawing up her sword and slashing through the furthest of the undead from the front, catching him right across the back of the neck. As he fell, the chase screeched to a halt, but when the others turned to look, Starlight was already back into hiding.

Noticing the chase had stopped, the man turned again and dropped another of the undead mob with precision. One of them rushed towards him with a spear, but he twirled around the weapon and elbowed the reanimated legionnaire in the side of the head. The undead's jaw shattered, and the man he was trying to impale promptly broke his nose with a fist and knocked him to the floor with two more bullets. Starlight dashed across the trees with her sword again, stabbing straight through the back of an undead taking aim with a crossbow before he could fire. Another soldier took notice of her, but his head was quickly taken off his shoulders with another swift slice of Starlight's blade.

As the group of living dead were getting picked off, they began to scramble, some looking about for Starlight and the rest all focusing on their original target. The man they were chasing threw a roundhouse kick into one of them, then shot up another at close range, then switched to a knife to slash the sword out of a third's hand before they could swing it. The knife plunged down into the first corpse he'd kicked, and his pistol reached over to finish off the one that dropped his sword.

Starlight cartwheeled out of the way of a crossbow bolt as it hurtled towards her, and she punched her Tetherhand out into an undead soldier rushing her with a spear. With her Bullet Reflex active, she carefully lined up a slice with the spear and cut it in half, and smashed its wielder back into a tree with an explosive palm thrust. She quickly had to intercept another bolt with her sword, but the man she'd come to the aid of gunned the crossbowman down from his end of their little thicket.

"Starlight Glimmer?" His voice was familiar, and when she saw his face she knew why.

"Flash Sentry." Starlight had met the man five years ago during the Canterlot City Incident. A SRAPH operative, highly trained and competent. Someone who valued civilian lives just as much as she did.

They both seemed to regard each other with suspicion rather than surprise. Neither of them seemed very surprised to see the other here to begin with, but they weren't exactly expecting to cross paths.

"I guess the Order of Light is interested in whatever's going on here, then?" Flash asked.

"Yep," Starlight nodded. "And the Seraph Agency is too?"

"Yeah." Flash nodded in kind.

They were both silent for a moment, just looking over each other and seeing how much had changed in five years.

"When were they going to tell me about the living dead?" Starlight asked.

"Same time they were going to tell me about the killer machines," Flash replied. "How long have you been here?"

"Just since this morning."

"I got here yesterday," Flash replied, "Things got crazy."

Another loud sound took both of their attention again. A small red bird fluttered up through the branches overhead, and the air around them suddenly seemed to hold its breath still. Charging through the thicket came a heavily armored undead soldier in polished bronze armor, riding on the back of a half-skeletal horse clad in similarly pristine armor and swinging a massive meteor flail in a circle above his head.

Commander Hurricane whipped the flail around right for Flash, but he leaned back and rolled to safety beyond a tree. Starlight too flipped out of the way, and the end of Hurricane's weapon sliced deep into the trunks of the trees it passed, igniting each of them with a bright lightning. As Flash and Starlight evaded, another undead body sprung out from hiding from behind a wide tree trunk, armored just as the other soldiers were but carrying a composite bow. This one was an archer, with a quiver full of arrows slung across the back and one already pulled tight against the drawstring.

Flash noticed the archer first, redirecting his roll as arrows began to fly in his direction. Starlight spread out in the other direction, the two scattering as they finally broke from the treeline and onto a narrow dirt road The agent and the cyborg both came out into the pathway with two directions of visibility. They saw each other, but then both turned around to see Commander Hurricane and his horse cutting through on Flash's side, and the archer rolling into a firing position on Starlight's side.

Starlight felt her back press up against Flash's as she held her sword at the ready. Looks like they weren't out of this yet.

"Looks like I'm not so outnumbered anymore," Flash said in a challenging tone, "Face it, Commander—You're already history."

"Interesting observation," Hurricane replied laughing, his scratchy and booming voice filling the open and cold air. "But there's always more history to be made! Private Pansy?"

"Yes sir!" The archer responded to the name, her voice distinctly feminine and soft but also gravelly and scratchy in a weird way, coming from half-rotted vocal chords.

"Take the half-machine. This little soldier is mine."

Pansy immediately drew a different type of arrow from her quiver and let it loose in Starlight's direction. As it impacted the ground, a small charge on the arrowhead exploded into a fiery blast and left a cloud of smoke in its path. Starlight's visor had already come up, but another arrow flew through the smoke and struck her directly in the visor before she even had time to process what had happened. The metal tip deflected off the metal plate, but the impact rocked her head and she nearly fell flat on her back.

When Starlight caught her balance and looked through the cleared smoke, Private Pansy had disappeared. Confused, Starlight ran to where she'd just been, expecting a sneak attack at some point, but nothing seemed to happen. The cyborg turned back to her ally and saw Flash rolling and maneuvering out of the way of a charging Hurricane on horseback. The horse seemed to have its own energy about it, sparking and slightly distorting the air around it as it pranced and leapt back and forth with blinding speed and remarkable agility.

As Flash took aim and fired, he found that his pistol rounds were just bouncing away from Hurricane's armor as if caught and flicked away by some unseen force. So too was the horse's armor, the covering over its head, neck and chest repelling bullets before they even made contact. When he got close, it seemed like the bullets at least bounced away, but something surrounding them kept projectiles from hitting with full force.

He had little chance to get close, though. Hurricane and his horse had plenty of room to rush up and down the road, taking swings at Flash with his flail and easily recuperating when he missed. Flash adjusted his aim towards the horse's unarmored sides and legs, but the undead steed was unnaturally tough, tanking the bullets through its legs and eating up what few shots Flash scored on its underbelly. Shooting the horse only served to piss it off, it now seemed to want to directly charge into Flash with each pass, rather than allowing its rider space to swing his weapon.

After a swing of the flail came way too close to his cheek Flash switched out his weapons, taking up his shotgun and waiting in the center of the road for Hurricane to come at him again. Another gunshot rang out behind Hurricane though, following a bullet pinging off the back of his helmet.

Furious, Hurricane turned to see Starlight with her revolver drawn and aimed at him. The much wider bullets she had loaded proved enough to breach Hurricane's unseen defense, but the hit was still only a glance.

"Private Pansy! I ordered you to support me! What is the meaning of this?"

"Uh, can we trade opponents, sir? The metal lady looks very scary."

Neither Flash nor Starlight could tell where Pansy's voice was coming from. She was very good at hiding.

"I will not tolerate cowardice in my ranks, soldier!"

"Oh, not cowardice! It's uh... tactical reassessment, sir."

Hurricane grumbled, but did indeed turn his horse around to face Starlight. Starlight fired her revolver again, but even against the large round he simply grit his teeth and ignored the bullet, working his meteor flail into a spin that gathered sparks of electricity around it. He guided his steed forward and sent the round end of his weapon screaming in Starlight's direction, but she drew up power into her metal arm and punched the solid sphere with her Tetherhand balled up into a fist, the glowing teal imprint of her hand knocking the ball back up into the air and shifting Hurricane's balance.

Starlight leaned in and drew her blade, running up to Hurricane's mount as it reared back to kick its front hooves into Starlight. She did a short hop to the side as the horse slammed down, and then swiped up and across at Hurricane himself. In his off hand he drew a shortsword and deflected her weapon away, quickly running his horse a short distance forward out of Starlight's reach.

Flash immediately had a trio of exploding arrows fired out at him from behind the trees. He tracked the movement as well as he could, but as the arrows blasted into clouds of smoke his vision was completely obscured. Pansy quite bravely jumped from the trees and sent another arrow in Flash's direction, but rather than fall back as she expected, Flash came forward and fired his shotgun off, just barely missing the undead archer. She spun and swung her bow out in front of her, hooking the end of his firearm between the body and drawstring to pull it from his hands and close in on him.

His reaction was quick, coming up with his knife and catching the bow before it could strike him in melee, and then catching Pansy's foot as she attempted to kick at him. Twisting his shoulders, he rolled the archer to the ground behind him in a kneeling position, then rose with the knife still at the ready. No follow up attack was available though, as Hurricane's flail smashed down on his position, just inches from hitting him as he fell away onto his back.

Again, Hurricane's steed charged him down, but Flash reached out for his shotgun and fired right up into the horse's underside while laying flat on his back. That was enough to stumble the mount back, shaking Hurricane from his position atop it. The horse snarled and huffed, angrily attempting to crush Flash beneath its hooves again. Once more, Flash caught it right in the act of rearing back with a full spread of buckshot, causing a pained whine as the undead beast finally toppled over and sent its rider crashing to the ground.

Hurricane rolled along the road but gracefully caught himself on one knee, and the horse also managed to stand again after being shot twice. While Hurricane reoriented himself, his horse committed to running Flash down one final time. Pulling the trigger of the shotgun only yielded a discouraging click, but Flash quickly switched to his knife and spun out of the way just as the horse passed him. Sweeping his arm out horizontally his blade caught the horse just beneath its plates, but felt a sudden jerking downward in his wrists. A magnetic force pushed down on his knife, but for the second he felt it he pushed back with all his might and pierced through the decaying hide of the ancient creature, slicing through the length of its body as it charged past him and leaving it with a sizzling wound as whatever magic that kept it reanimated was disrupted by the blade.

The equine finally knelt in defeat, eliciting a neigh of surrender before fully collapsing.

Now off of his horse, Hurricane had engaged Starlight in sword-to-sword combat, putting his flail away and focusing on defending against the cyborg's powerful bladed offensive. His own blade, a single handed gladius, surged with lightning as it bound against Starlight's own energized nanosword. It was arcane in nature, the Commander clearly having some manner of control over electrical forces.

Private Pansy had gone and disappeared again, Flash unable to locate her after defeating the horse, but he'd soon have his answer as an explosion blasted between Starlight and Hurricane's battle. Taken aback, Starlight was kicked onto her side by Hurricane, only spared from being impaled as Flash put pistol bullets into the undead soldier's back.

Hurricane spun to face him, his off hand outstretched and drawing in a swirling cloud of electricity around it. After a moment of charging, he brought his meteor flail into a tight circle over his head and supercharged it by twirling it through the lightning around him. A moment later he cast the weapon straight at Flash, who panickedly dropped onto his side to dodge the massive end of the weapon. Crackling over and past his head the flail crashed into the trunk of a tree, where it sliced through the trunk and struck with an explosive discharge of electrostatic energy. With only a few seconds of notice, it began to fall in Flash's direction, slowly at first but then coming at him just as fast as the flail.

Not bothering to stand, Flash shifted his weight on the ground and rolled along the gravel road as the towering pillar of wood and browning leaves collided with the earth just a few meters from him. He covered his face as branches broke off and splinters shot out in his direction.

He heard Hurricane calling out to his subordinate through the violent splintering and snapping of the tree.

"To me, Private Pansy!" Hurricane called. "We need to fall back and regroup!"

"Finally, an order I can get behind..."

"I did not ask for your opinion on my order! Fall. Back!"

Before Flash could recover fully, the two reanimated soldiers were making their way back up the road north, leaving Flash alone with the defeated horse.

He looked back at the tree and found Starlight in a kneel, the entire top third of its trunk being cleanly sliced through and in several pieces behind the cyborg. Flash could faintly smell the wood burning from her direction, with scarce ashes even blowing away from her feet in the wind. He was relieved, Starlight had survived too.

"You okay, Flash?" Starlight approached him as he pushed himself up from laying flat on the ground.

He tried to respond, but there was a dusty feeling in his throat and so he coughed instead. After a moment, he managed something. "I'm alright. That's not my first run in with Hurricane, his men ambushed me and some of the local Nocturna people on our way up this road."

"Let me guess," Starlight interjected, "On your way to their Cathedral?"

Flash nodded, but seemed amused. "That's a good guess. I'm guessing you've met the Convent already?"

"The Order and the Convent aren't exactly friends," Starlight replied. "I had to—ahem, 'persuade' a few of them to tell me about their situation."

"Hey, go easy on them if you can." Flash looked a little worried at Starlight's demeanor. "I was helping them evacuate the townsfolk here."

Starlight's eyebrows raised. "You're working with the cult?"

"They're mundane," Flash said. "The real problem is the demons, and this supposed 'Daybreaker' character."

"Someone claiming to be Daybreaker is one of my targets," Starlight said. Flash had a confused reaction to that.

"You don't think it's really her, do you?" Flash asked. He knew Daybreaker's true identity, and he knew that Starlight should too. Starlight wasn't sure what to believe, even though the two of them had witnessed the unmasking of the Platinum Knight, or Daybreaker, or the Sister of Light or whatever she called herself.

"It doesn't matter," Starlight replied, tone mechanical and cold, "The official stance of the Order is that the Platinum Knight is an imitator of the true Sister of Light. Whether it's the 'real' Daybreaker here doesn't make a difference, I'm here to make them stop threatening this region."

"But we know who the Platinum Knight is..."

"I know, but..." Starlight shook her head. "Look, the machine dragons captured the Nocturna's leader while I was in the village. I need to get to their cathedral and get some answers from her."

"They what?" She was supposed to be secure there. "Did the civilians make it out?"

Starlight decided not to mention the fact that she might've accidentally aided in the dragon's ability to capture Mother Evershade.

"Yes."

Flash shook his head, running a palm across his forehead in frustration. "Dammit. We need her alive."

"I know," Starlight said, voice still cold. "Word on the street is that the Nocturna have kidnapped Trixie as well. And I'm going to make the old lady tell me where she is."

"They what?" Flash didn't believe they'd do something like that, but he'd certainly felt like they had something to hide during each of his interactions with them.

"Watch your back around them, Flash."

He nodded, only exhaling softly in thought.

Off to their side, the defeated horse that Hurricane left behind seemed to twitch with a residual spark of life. Its legs shifted as it let out another pained yowl, and then began to glow brightly with a golden surge of magic. The horse couldn't get back up, but a low whine burned out and away from it as it heated up, its undead body starting to shift apart and melt away beneath its armor. Electricity pulsed through the creature though, keeping it from dying completely as it started to twitch further on the ground.

Flash and Starlight slowly approached to get a better look, and got a clearer understanding of what was going on.

It was in pain, but something about it the magic within it was keeping it from dying completely.

"Poor thing," Flash shook his head. "It was a normal animal once upon a time, wasn't it?"

Starlight didn't respond, she seemed to be in thought, studying the magic coursing through the undead beast. Its bones were becoming more visible in some spots now as what was left of its coat burned away.

Flash drew his shotgun and loaded a single round into it, closing up the action with a dissatisfied look on his face.

"Guess we shouldn't let it keep suffering."

Starlight held out an arm to stop him. "No. Let me."

She knelt, the strange electromagnetic magic repulsing her entire body slightly as she leaned over the fallen creature and held her mechanical hand out. The golden electricity was drawn to her hand, and she felt the now-familiar surge of magic beginning to absorb through her rigid, metallic skin and empower her body. The horse was very still as the magic left its body, allowing the energy to be released from itself and eagerly accepting the offer to finally shed its earthly form in full. The arcane power was concentrated and glowing brightly, balled up under the now visible rib cage of the wilting creature, and with grit teeth Starlight bit the bullet and stuck her hand in to grab it.

There was little in the way of flesh left as the creature was now rapidly melting away, and by the time she'd taken the strange ball of lightning in a closed hand the horse was just a skeleton surrounded by plated metal and scraps of chainmail. Starlight herself felt fuzzy in the head, like a static was building behind all of her senses and leaving her overcome with a rapidly swelling numbness. The lightning in her hand was starting to push back against her fingers, threatening to jump out and escape, and with her fleeting will Starlight squeezed her fist as tightly as she could around the magical sphere and crushed it in her palm.

A self-contained wind rushed around her for a moment as the magic infused with her cybernetic body, a blinding flash of light causing something from the horse's remains to quickly shift and also swirl around her until she finally regained control of herself and her head began to clear.

Starlight found herself kneeling, with her metal hand pressed against the ground for support. Her vision came back in full, and she saw that her left forearm had taken yet another strange new shape. The metal was a bronzed color, a smooth and round shape along the sides until forming into a large flat toe on one end, one with a smooth casting around its edges.

C-011- "Stampede": The new metal limb was made in a bronzed shade, standing out against the gray of the rest of Starlight's body. It had a smooth, round profile and a slightly curved length, ending in a single large and flat toe with a hardened casting around its edges. The same golden sparks emanated from the limb, as well as the slight pusles of distortion from some kind of arcane magnetic field surrounding it. Beneath her, Starlight saw that some of the defeated horse's armor was missing. This material had taken the form of a dense horse leg on the end of her arm.

Flash wasn't sure how to respond to Starlight's sudden transformation. He just waited patiently as she stared at her new hoof, then reached down to pick up the previous forearm that had detached from her elbow during all of that. Without even thinking about it, the detached hand just sort of stuck to the end of her hoof, and she was able to awkwardly fix the spare limb to a strip on her belt.

"How... How are you holding things with a hoof?" Flash asked.

"Magnets? I think?" Starlight answered. "I'm not really sure."

She passed her sword from her left hand to her hoof, finding it hard but not impossible to manipulate it. She couldn't really use it to fight with a weapon due to not having a very flexible wrist joint or fingers, but the energy contained in the horse leg made her feel jittery and restless, she could just feel an electrical discharge occurring were she to smack something with the solid metal hoof. It even had a horseshoe built into the foot part, giving her a nice ridged edge to crack against an enemy.

Flash had idly shifted his shotgun into a reverse hold over his shoulder, and with its magazine feed facing up he began to reload it as he looked over Starlight.

"So are arm exchanges a new thing you're doing, or..."

"I just found out I could do this a couple hours ago," Starlight looked impressed with herself, but also seemed the slightest bit twitchy. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Are you feeling okay?" Flash asked. Starlight flexed her shoulders, let her feet bounce one after the other in place.

"Of course, I'm just..." Starlight's eyes darted around for a moment before fixing back on the road north. "Just... We've got places to be, don't we? We should keep moving."

"If you're feeling weird we should take it easy-"

"No, no, I'm fine, really." Starlight held her hoof up in protest, and it seemed to want to dig at the air of its own accord. "Just feeling energized after taking in that magic. It's like drinking a coffee, we really should make the most of that before it wears off right?"

Flash finally relented. "If you say so. We've just gotta follow the road north."

"North, got it." Without another word needed, Starlight immediately took off up the road, vaulting over the fallen tree like it was nothing and quickly bolting down the path. Flash was startled, but quickly moved to run after her, keeping pace just behind her. She seemed a bit too eager to run for some reason, not in an attempt to get away from him, but to move in general.

"Hey! Wait up!"

"Starlight, hey, where are you?" Spike's voice picked up on Starlight's radio.

"Spike! I had a run-in with some zombie soldiers and met an old friend. I'm heading north along a road now."

"I've got bad news," Spike said. "It looks like there's a bunch of demons or something crowding the Cathedral. I can see some dragons inside trying to fight them off, but I don't know who's gonna win..."

"Does it make a difference?" Starlight asked. "I'm fighting both of them right now."

"Well the demons are probably just going to kill Evershade, the dragons at least want to keep her alive."

That was a good point.

"We're on our way. Does it look like we can cross the river at any point up ahead?"

"There seems to be a very shallow crossing just before a lake, but that's all the way at this end of the river," Spike said. "Oh yeah, and there's also a lake. Between me and the Cathedral. There's a few boats here that you can take, but I can't really stop anyone else if they want to use them."

"I don't know how far away we are. Just hold position there, me and Flash are on our way."

"Flash?" Spike's synthesized voice peaked with interest. "Flash Sentry? He's here too?"

"Heh, yeah. Looks like the Seraph Agency on the case too."

"Cool, it'll be good to see him again."

"Hang tight, Spike."

[Blacktail Forest, South of Mt. Eclipse]
[Friday. 11:30pm]

"Starlight, your heart rate is spiking, slow down!"

Right after she'd ended her call to Spike, Cadence's voice broke right through her comms. The whole time, she'd been at a full sprint down the road, very much enjoying the feeling of speed her mechanical body allowed her. When she heard Cadence's voice, she let her legs slow down and gently stopped her run. She hadn't noticed that the environment had changed, the path she was on was less populated with trees and instead there was a valley of raised earth picking up to either side of the road. Trees were still covering her surroundings, but the lifting hills to either side just made it so they were less noticeable from the ground.

Starlight's heart was racing, but she only noticed now that she'd slowed down. Her breathing was rapid, but it was almost automatically brought back under control after just a few moments.

"Am I really doing that bad?" She asked.

"You just took in another seriously large surge of magic," Cadence explained. "You need to let yourself return to normal before doing anything seriously strenuous."

"I feel like I could run a marathon right now, it's really not a problem."

Sunburst had a thought he wanted to add. "I don't know, I think it makes sense."

"What do you mean?" Cadence asked.

"Think about it. She just took in the energy of a magical, undead horse," He explained, "It just seems like some of that equine spirit is in her now."

Cadence was quiet to that, as if thinking it over. "Do you think so?"

"At least, that's my best hypothesis," Sunburst said.

"Makes sense to me," Starlight said. "That's not a bad thing, is it?"

"Well, not necessarily," Sunburst replied. "Just let us know if you feel the sudden urge to lick salt."

"Heh. Will do."

Flash caught up with Starlight just as her call finished. He was nearly left in the dust, but his physical endurance let him keep after her even when she moved so quickly. It took a bit more time, but he was again close enough to call out to her before too long.

"Starlight! Are we doing this together or what?"

Starlight turned back with a slightly apologetic look.

"Sorry about that. I just don't want to lose them."

"It's fine, but there might be more enemies ahead. We don't want to get separated." Flash took a look around them as Starlight shrugged her shoulders. The raised ground around the road made it seem like they were still going to be moving uphill from here.

"Come on, I can take care of myself," Starlight replied. "Don't tell me you still need babysitting."

"Not at all." Flash shook his head. "Don't tell me you forgot that nobody wins on their own?"

Starlight's eyes fell in thought again, her lips tightening as she prepared to make a remark but failing as she remembered the time she'd instilled that very same point in him the last time they met. Maybe all of the solo operations she'd done were starting to warp her perception.

"Point taken."

Starlight kept walking forward, but at a pace that Flash could more easily keep.

"One question, though," Starlight asked, still looking back over her shoulder as she walked forward. "Is that really Commander Hurricane? Like one of the guys that founded your country? As a zombie?"

Flash gave her an incredulous look. "I don't know what to tell you. He looks and acts the part. Seemed a little more focused than the history books would tell you, though."

"How many men does he have with him?"

"More than you'd think. No idea how they got here, though."

Their conversation and forward momentum was harshly cut off as a long, spiked shaft hurtled in from the sky from further down the road. The leaf-shaped metal tip crunched into the dirt path beneath them, both Starlight and Flash already stepping in separate directions to get out of the way. The javelin they'd been airmailed was followed by half a dozen more, all following a dangerous trajectory that spread across the road in a wide arc.

Starlight pushed forward and Flash jumped back, the volley of javelins separating them as they both snapped their attention to the small group of undead soldiers pushing from further up the road. In the distance they ran in a wedge formation, carrying tall, slightly curved shields and preparing to throw a second volley of javelins their way. In unison, they all popped up and hurled their own two meters of weapon out with incredible precision, forcing their two targets to worry about evasion as they continued to charge closer.

Flash took cover behind a tree, feeling a close cracking of wood as one of the javelins punched through a branch above him and snapped at the midpoint. When he peeked around the corner again he saw the line of legionnaires was close enough to draw swords and engage Starlight. She held her revolver steady but the wall of metal shields was enough to repel her bullets, and a flurry of shortswords made their way for her immediately after her cylinder went empty.

With a lean back into a handspring, Starlight replaced her revolver with her sword and immediately pushed an oncoming spearpoint away from her, this one held by the group's leader. This soldier, with a more decorated helmet and a brighter red covering on his shield, stood a few heads taller than his followers and expertly pushed Starlight back and away with the reach of his spear. He held it steady in an overhand grip, and had a larger amount of reach than the sword wielders at his flanks.

UNDEAD CENTURION- Control and Conquer: This soldier was clearly an officer, standing with a far more complete uniform than his subordinates. A dark red skirt, a fully protected front chest plate, and a well preserved shield with gold and red colors across it. Along the bottom of the shield were the words "LEGIOS X", something that appeared to be worn away or just barely legible on the other shields in the formation.

The Centurion's spear went straight for Starlight again, but as she sidestepped it and thrust her sword out he was able to deflect her nanoblade away with his shield. Sparks sheared away from the shield as Starlight's blade bounced away from it, an arcane interaction between the two weapons occuring. Starlight recognized this, whatever magic was powering the undead's resurrection was channeling through their weapons and armor. The magic formed some kind of barrier that kept other forces out, but also served as an insulation that prevented Starlight from absorbing it.

The legionnaires to either side of the officer jumped to his support, all stabbing forward while keeping their shields presented. Starlight was forced into a rapid series of deflections, unable to single out just one opponent as each of them worked in cohesion with each other. When she was hidden from sight she could take them out one at a time, but fighting them all at once...

Bullets streaked in from behind Starlight, striking the Centurion and forcing him to keep his guard up and back away from the melee. Flash came through with his handgun raised, shifting his aim to the edges of the formation closing in around Starlight. Half of the line split off from her, shields lifting to cover from the projectile fire, but Starlight took a swing at the soldier closest to her and caught him between the shoulder and neck, tearing into him and then kicking him to the floor.

Three of the soldiers charged in on Flash, his pistol only staving one of them off as the others thrusted their weapon points forward. Very quickly, Flash replaced his gun with his knife and swiped down at the oncoming swords, engaging the soldiers in proper melee combat. His shorter blade managed to hook one of the swords, allowing him to bind its wielder's arm and land a stab into the side of the undead's neck. Little blood was spilled, but the ghastly glow behind the living corpse's eyes flickered as his body seized up, and then toppled to the floor as Flash kicked his legs out from under him.

Two more swords tore across his vision, and Flash had trouble getting another one of them off balance with an outright counter. When one of the blades came back around for him he ducked, and from a crouch he fired off two rounds into the legionnaire's leg. The undead soldier had little in the way of shin protection, the rounds punching through his wasting calf muscles easily bringing the warrior to his knees before he could swing his sword again. With the soldier crippled, Flash took him by the shoulder and forced him to the ground by the back of his helmet. The other undead quickly stabbed his sword down at the crouched Flash, but Flash put a hand on the ground and kicked himself into a pivot, his boot striking his ankle right as he came in for a downward stab.

As the second legionnaire fell, Flash came back up to a kneel and caught him by the neck, then slammed the soldier's head against the grounded soldier's head. With both his opponents stunned and disoriented, Flash pressed the barrel of his weapon against the side of the top soldier's helmet and fired twice. Each shot punched through the metal at such an immediate range, passing through both of their heads and rendering them lifeless once more.

When he looked back up, he saw Starlight smashing her metal hoof against the shield of one soldier while slicing apart another at the arm. Her blade drove through the chest of a third, but as the impaled soldier pulled away she lost grip on her weapon.

Another of the undead stepped in to her side and struck against her, but she deflected the blade away with her metal horse leg and began to charge her energy into it. The hoof crackled with arcane lightning for a moment before the curved metal plate at the end suddenly blasted off of its base with a high pitched boom and a rippling shockwave. The electrified horseshoe smashed straight into the legionnaire's shield, easily shoving it out of the way and continuing in a rigid line through the soldier's chest to launch him straight to the floor. The horseshoe did not fall, it harnessed some sort of magnetic force to resist gravity, staying put above its target even as Starlight twirled out of the way of another attack.

When Starlight pointed her hoof towards the next closest soldier, she sent a pulse of her energy through her arm, and the horseshoe very rapidly shifted its position. The solid metal flew into the side of the soldier's helmet and sent him into a horizontal flip, giving Starlight the opportunity to pull her sword from his chest and slice him apart.

The Centurion's spear immediately filled the corner of her vision. With a quick deflection she backed away, and then with another pulse of energy through her arm her horseshoe returned to her limb with a snap. Starlight fired out the Stampede's horseshoe again, but the Centurion immediately knocked the projectile away with a powerful and directed shield bash.

As Starlight brought the horseshoe back to her, the tip of the Centurion's spear stabbed at her again, well out of the range of her blade. Before she could be pushed back too far, Flash jumped to the other side of the Centurion and lit up his shield with the last of the rounds in his magazine. The Centurion recoiled, but jumped in Flash's direction, only to have his spear redirected by Starlight's sword.

Sliding a fresh magazine from his pistol, Flash crossed behind Starlight and fell into a tight formation with her. The Centurion was on his own now, no other soldiers to back him up or hide behind. His shield glowed for a moment as he straightened his body out, and the collection of dents in his shield straightened themselves out in kind.

"One left," Flash said. "Let's wrap this up."

Starlight nodded, a quick sword flourish following a shifting of stance as she bent her legs slightly and prepared for another round.

And then leapt back into combat.

[Blacktail Forest, South of Mt. Eclipse]
[Saturday, 12:25pm]

The sun was just beginning its descent from the sky, just barely visible to Sunset Shimmer as she looked up through the thick blanket of trees overhead. She and Eve were following along the side of a river, pushing up a gradual slope until it turned to a steep incline. There was a small break in the trees here, and they both got a good look at what lay ahead of them.

The land sloped back down and Sunset saw a wide, calm lake resting at the foot of the mountain. She couldn't see where the river connected, but it must've been from here that the river flowed. A short pier and a dock house was close on Sunset's side of the lake, but she couldn't see any boats around. There was a path branching off to the right of the lakeside, but that path dipped back into obscurity of the forest. It was a nice change of pace from the tree-filled hike, but what caught Sunset's attention the most was the structure at center stage just beyond the lake.

Other rather, the remains of what structure had been.

A huge, dark stone building lay in total ruins on the backdrop of Mt. Eclipse. Rubble, ashes, and broken glass glinted in the light of the setting sun. A few walls still stood in various conditions, giving a sense of its previous shape but its height and any grandeur it might've held before was completely unrecognizable now. Some of the trees surrounding it had been burned to a crisp, and the entire area seemed to be the epicenter of an all encompassing blast mark.

This was the Nocturna Cathedral. Or whatever was left of it.

"Destroyed..." Eve whispered. "We were too late to do anything here."

"We would've been too late anyway," Sunset said, taking note of the blasted out building's general features far in the distance. "There's no smoke or fire present. It had already been destroyed by the time we got here."

"If only I had found you sooner, we might've-"

"You didn't know, Eve."

Eve was quiet as Sunset cut her off, but the demon didn't look any more consoled by the situation.

"We might as well check the place out, see if anyone survived," Sunset said. "C'mon."

They still had a ways to go, so they set off down the slope. Eventually, they made it to the lakeside, still far from the cathedral, but able to see the coast on the other side from the pier. Looks like someone else had taken a boat over, but there was nothing left for Sunset or Eve.

Sunset spotted something else across the water as well.

A tall figure fully adorned in dark, plated armor stood at the tip of the cliff opposite the lake, looking down from in front of the destroyed cathedral directly at Sunset and Eve across the lake. A tattered piece of cloth formed a cape around their shoulders, and a huge two handed sword was slung over their back. Sunset knew a demon when she saw one, and Eve quickly picked up on where Sunset's eyes were focused.

"That demon," Sunset said, her eyes struggling to make out the details on their armor at this distance. She thought she saw a jagged spike on their helmet and a crescent moon on their chest, but that would mean...

"It can't be. Nightmare Moon? Here?"

Eve's head fell. She recognized the demon as well. "No, not Nightmare Moon."

"How can you be sure?" Sunset didn't let her eyes drift away.

"I've seen that demon before." Eve said. "Umbra Angelo, a powerful warrior that serves the Lord of Chaos."

"What's with the getup?" Sunset asked. "That looks like Nightmare Moon's suit, at least."

Eve nodded. "They say it's the very same armor. Nobody knows how they acquired it, or even who they are underneath it. Even their name seems to confuse their identity, Umbra suggests they'd be feminine, but Angelo suggests they'd be masculine. Nobody knows anything about them, the only thing certain is their strength."

"Is that so?"

"It's said that Umbra Angelo has slain countless powerful demons in their pursuit of power. It's rumored that they've even killed another disciple of Daybreaker."

That was enough to break Sunset's eyes away from the shadowy knight in the distance. With a deadly serious look in her eye, Sunset snapped her focus onto Eve immediately.

"Killed?" Her face held as straight and neutral as it always was, but Sunset's heart rate slowly picked up at Eve's words.

Eve nodded, a bit surprised at Sunset's expression. "I... Yeah, I heard that there was another that studied under Daybreaker. She traveled to the demon world to confront the Lord of Chaos, I think, but... she was unable to overcome Umbra Angelo."

Sunset's eyes floated away from Eve, back across the water, but when she looked back to where the black knight once stood, she found nothing there. Umbra Angelo was gone, they must've moved along.

"Are you okay?" Eve asked. She didn't seem quite in tune with what about Sunset was changed, just that something within her had shifted. "Did you not know there was another Daughter of Daybreaker?"

Sunset's head shook, and her breathing started to pick up a little. She took the lollipop she'd idly been sucking on from her mouth as her lips twitched softly. "No, I knew, but I didn't know that she was... killed."

Eve had a sudden moment of realization, her hands raising to cover her mouth. "Oh my gosh, Sunset—you knew her, didn't you? I'm so sorry..."

"Twilight Sparkle was my best friend," Sunset said, her gaze falling to the lakewater as her tone was pressed flat of any emotion. "You're telling me that demon killed her?"

Sunset's cheeks felt tight, and for a moment her eyes went blurry. Keeping her mind focused on her air intake, she shut her eyes, pushed her lollipop back through her lips and breathed out through her nose. It'd been five years since she last saw Twilight Sparkle, but she always hoped that she'd somehow see her again. Twilight always had a plan for everything, always, but it seemed like she finally bit off more than she could chew. It was easier to think about her just being gone, somewhere else, but dead?

There was a pain in Sunset's heart, a gap that suddenly made her feel like she was exiting her body. Her hands trembled, but she reminded herself to breathe. It was something beyond her control. All she had to do right now was breathe.

"Are you okay, Sunset?" Eve asked.

Then, Sunset had control of herself again. There was never any confusion or conflict in her mind despite her feelings. She knew what to do with her pain, she always did.

"Yeah," Sunset replied, back to her cool and confident demeanor. "Nothing's changed. I'm going to tear down everything the Lord of Chaos is building here, and if Umbra Angelo gets in my way then that's just one more devil to pull the trigger on."

"To avenge your friend, right?"

"No." Sunset shook her head. At this point in her life, she knew better. She was angry and hurting, but she knew that vengeance wouldn't solve her pain completely. "It's not for the dead. It's for everyone still alive. So nobody else has to lose people to this kind of thing."

Behind her, Eve suddenly had a wild smile on her face, seemingly in response to Sunset's strengthened resolve. Sunset noticed this, but when the taller demon hunter turned around Eve was doing her best to straighten that smile back out. It was too late to hide, though, and Sunset was already intrigued.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Sunset asked.

"Nothing! It's just that... your confidence is infectious, I guess..." Eve trailed off. "I, uh..."

It took Sunset a moment, but after seeing the way Eve's face was quickly flushed with faint color and her smile going from enthusiastic to embarrassed, she figured out what was going on here.

"If you have something to say to me, please just let it out before we get surrounded by monsters again..."

Eve's eyes lit back up and she put a hand on her chest in an attempt to refocus herself. Whatever was on her mind, it was really sending her demonic heart flipping.

"It's just..." Eve started up again, trying to find the right words to phrase her feelings. "You're so much like how I imagined Daybreaker to be. Listening to you talk so seriously about all this is so exciting! Even if it's... kind of dark."

Sunset let a smile of disbelief grow on her face for a moment. "Uh huh. Forgot I was talking to the president of her fan club for a minute there."

"A fan club? Do you think that's a good idea?"

"I think a better idea is to keep moving."