Night Gale's New Problem

   Luna and Night Gale returned to the castle, Luna a bit wearily of Night after how he reacted to Citadel. Night knew what he did, buried the past for nopony to discover ever again. Celestia met up with the two ponies returning from their trip, she was surprised that Luna had snuck out to follow Night to Citadel, yet, slightly cross at her sister's action also.

"Did you find the book, Night?" Celestia asked the stallion, looking towards his direction without getting a look back.

"Yush," Night unlatched the saddle bag and presented the book to Celestia, "It's right here, with me."

"Is... something bothering you?" Celestia asked, noticing the monotone in Night speech pattern.

"I found more than I bargained for. Now, if you don't mind, I must go ask Shadow for directions how to use the spell, what page it's on and so forth." Night walked past Celestia,leaving her with Luna. Celestia watched Night until he was out of sight.

"What else did you find down there?" Celestia asked her sister, turning to look at her.

"Something that Night does not wish for me to speak about." Luna simply replied.

   Minutes passed by, then those minutes turned into hours, several hours passed by before Luna checked on Night. She found him in the ballroom, sitting in the middle of the floor, sobbing to himself, the book open next to him, and head bowed.

"Night," Luna cooed softly, reaching out for the stallion, "Night, what's going on?"

"I can't fix it, not by myself, not strong enough." Night replied, calm but surely with tears roling down his cheeks. Luna touched Night's shoulder, the pony flashed, the hoof retreated. Night raised his head, then stood turning towards Luna with a big grin, his mane covered his eyes.

"That's it! Luna, go get Celestia for me, she has stronger magic than I do! Hurry please, we don't have much time either before...." Night faded out for several moments then returned in the same manner. ".... the spell completely destroys us!"

   Luna galloped out of the ballroom to go fetch her sister. Night was smiling to himself as he turned around to the book.

"You clever bastard you. You knew I wouldn't be able to fix it alone, but when this is over, the spell on that m-" He was interupted by Luna returning withhe sister.

"That was rather quick." Night swept his mane from his eyes.

"You requested me, Night?" Celestia was gazing at Night's newfound joy as he hopped up.

"Why yes, need you to perform the spell on me. I can't fix it myself, not strong enough, but you! YOU are greater witht the prowess of magic then I." Night explained, handing the book over to Celestia.

"Are you sure about this?" Celestia asked Night, raising a brow towards her age old friend.

"Very, but first.." Night trotted on over to Luna and locked himself to her lips for a few minutes before returning to the center of the ballroom.

   Celestia looked over the spell that was present on the page and charged up a good supply of magic. She shot it towards Night, with a successful landing, he was surrounded by a ribbon of magic with clock ticks on both the top and bottom. It slowly wrapped around the pony and lifter him from the ground below. Night surely winked towards both sisters before being ungulfed in an orb of energy. The orb expanded greatly, quadrupling its size then contracted into a smaller orb that was half of its origninal size. The orb then took te form of a pony, having yet to have released it's grip. It then spat out a different orb of golden aura. The original form landed softly of the floor and went into a mist, reavealing Night unconcious, and going up into the air. The golden orb had yet to do anything, probably waiting for something to happen.

   Night woke up shortly and stood up in full. He looked towards the orb of gold and smiled greatly.

"It's all right, you can come out of there now." Night told the aura. The orb quickly took the form of a second pony and burst into bits, releasing the smaller Shadow Pony from not only his prision, but from Night himself also. Celestia took a step forwards, lowering her head, and pointing it at Shadow.

"What is HE doing back out?" Celestia demanded, charging up her magic in case of an attack.

"In order for the spell to have worked completely, I had to break a previous spell that released Shadow into this world once more, but rest assure, he is willing to change." Night explained, putting himself infront of the Shadow Pony. Shadow was in his origninal form, pure black accompanied by white eyes that glowed, no mane, no tail.

   "I didn't expect him to break his own spell because of him being the only pony to noticed my change. Rather odd I would require him to break his spell for this one to work." Shadow started rambling, his voice was changed further to something more civilized, almost posh. Night looked behind himself and moved away, turning towards Shadow.

"Well, what am I supposed to do? Let you talk to me in my head the whole time? I don't think so." Night said back to Shadow.

Shadow only smiled sheepishly and shrugged. Night turned back to look at the now standing down Celestia and her sister.

"Now, if you both don't mind, I have a filly to go see." Night stated, walking past both princesses and out the ballroom.

   But there was something Night couldn't shake as he was flying back to Ponyville to see Dinky, the strange disappearence of Lunar Dawn. Where had she gone was anypony's guess as much as his. He would have to figure that out soon, if not later. Night is worried about where one of his firends being gone, that is, until he made a discovery. Dinky went missing also, but tracks were left at the door. Time for Night Gale to divise a plan to catch the pony targeting him through his friends. Prevent them from getting to anypony else.