Eclipsed

        "That's strange....." Andromeda muttered, her left ear twitching as she sent her magical senses through the castle, detecting several pinpoints of energy around some of the Storm Guards, which was odd because they were all pegasi. Their natural magic levels were normal, but they carried unicorn magic.

       That did it. She'd been smelling, or rather, sensing, a rat for a week. Something was wrong, and it was always in the Storm Guard. What was it with her sister? She was going to find out what the feather was going on if it took her to the end of time.

       Which, most likely thanks to her whole inherited 'immortality thing', she'd be alive for.

* * * * * *

       Prisma looked around at her assorted peers, mares in hoof-made robes. The robes were surprisingly not anything like anypony would've thought. To put it bluntly: the assorted mares were wearing assorted colored robes, representing from red down in rank. There was one red-dressed mare of each race, but the other ranks, orange through purple, were far more random.

       What nopony else knew was that one of the purple-rankers was a navy-magenta blend colored mare with her horn sticking out of her hood and her wings carefully concealed under her loose robes. Upon her first deployment, Andromeda went immediately for a Storm Guard that was lounging around on a marble bench in a side hallway.

        Stuffing the armored grey stallion into one of the burlap potato sacks she was levitating on her way to the castle kitchen, she magically cloaked it so it was invisible and quickly went on her way.

        Her disguise had worked perfectly, and her older sister hadn't suspected that her guards, the Legion of Light, had concealed her younger sister perfectly.

        If her plan went perfectly, she would figure out what was going on and, if necessary, end it once and for all.

* * * * * *

       Aura vanished around a marble corner as Orion watched her. Despite the fact that his sister's guards were all pegasi, all it had taken was a lesson from Andromeda, and his horn was not there. In visuals, at least.  His wings and stature had been cloaked as well, and he had swapped his colors around so he was a normal-looking orange pegasus stallion with a short blue mane and tail.

        He hadn't bothered to change his cutiemark, he was under armor, for the love of Luna! Although in hindsight that was a bad idea, seeing as the armor covered his flank snugly and left no wiggle room. Everypony in the castle knew his mark, so all it would take was one wrong move and the armor would slide, revealing his careful watching of his elder sisters.

       When he'd asked Andromeda what would happen if they were revealed, she'd turned her hoof into a strange thing with five small wiggly things that looked like miniature hooves.

      "Five syllables: that would be real bad,*" she said, extending one of the mini-hooves with each word. it had confused him beyond belief, but it was just a side-affect of living with too many mares he supposed.

        Too many mares........definitely.

* * * * * *

       "Are they still up to it?" Aura asked, flicking her mane out of her face as Prisma walked in, pushing her ethereal mane out of the way with some Nightmare Moon-colored magic.

        "Yes.....although I still don't know what they're doing. All I know is that Orion is in your guards under a cloaking spell, and Andromeda is spending all her free time as a rank purple in my Legion of Light," Prisma responded, a quizzical look covering her regal features.

        "Well, I do, I've got her journal write here. Get it? Write here?" Aura said, giving herself a magical pat on the back as she said her......clever.....pun.

        Prisma facehooved and grabbed the journal, a carefully kept gold-trimmed leather book with a slightly worn spine and yellow pages. It wasn't too elaborate except for the gold replica of Andromeda's starburst cutie mark that represented her jack-of-all-trades type skills.

       She opened the book and flipped through the carefully written entries (Andromeda prided herself on her penmareship) until she reached a three page spread. She allowed herself a small

      "Aha!"

    of victory, then began intently studying the same three pages, over and over. By the third re-read of the third page, her face had blanched so much that her black fur was the only thing keeping her from looking like Celestia.

* * * * * *

Me and Orion have infiltrated the LOL and the Storm Guard, and our sisters don't suspect or haven't shown any signs of suspicion. I have captured one of the male Storm Guards with the unusual magic spikes around him, and have him locked up in my lab. My sisters will catch on if we're not careful, so this must be executed perfectly and with the right pacing, or it could end up a really really really really big mess.

        The captured Storm Guard woke today, I fed him and gave him something to drink. He has so far revealed nothing unusual and the spells-as I have figured them out-surrounding him are complex. He has denied the use of magic on his person, but evidently he has no idea who I am since I keep my disguise on at all times when around him. That purple robe could be longer, though.

       I will kill the ones who don't give me information until I get some kind of clue about what's going on or I kill them all. Better get my biology books and my hidden knife out, I suppose.