Finally I'm done with finals and can really crack down on this. Expect more frequent updates and better quality, and I think I've gotten to everyone who reviewed in the following:

BaconLettuceTomatoSweg: Yep, pretty much, no, I don't think I take that long, and #poundsign.

Thatdudethere789: Thanks. I don't think I have the liberty to reveal that yet.

flutterlikeanangel: But everyone loves my cliffhangers… Eh, that might happen at some point, but it's happening a lot sooner.

ash the pokevenger: As much as I've thought about it so far, I don't know. But I like the idea.

spisaacman: No big deal. I do that for everyone as soon as I get the chance to reference it before I post.

Psychic Nature: I'm a little bit of a poet as well, so it wasn't that hard. I think I'm gonna keep it to just the species they use in the shows.

werewolf lover99: We're cool, dude. Stunk Cabbage, though? Umm, cool I guess… Doesn't really make sense, though.

TheAwesomeCoolJay: I do be original.

ash the pokevenger: I didn't put it in a title chapter, but it was back in Stagonia for reference.

BaconLettuceTomatoSweg: Konami Code? Yes, again. Oh, and VERY OFTEN.

Psychic Nature: I wouldn't be too sure of that…

flutterlikeanangel: Indeed.

Thatdudethere789: I did. I'm still coming up with them as I write.

Analyn Rockwand: Sure it works. You don't know how yet, but don't dismiss it because it doesn't make sense at the moment.

RandomPerson65: Sure he would. If someone said that kind of thing to you, it would work its way into your brain and you would sit there wondering forever. It wasn't that he believed it, more like it was curiosity and not knowing. If you can't disprove it, that means it could be real.

Christian Wolf99: What's with the -99 suffix on everyone's name… oh well. Thanks.

Spike the Hedgehog: As if I'd ever stop! I love making this! I WILL NEVER STOP. NEVER.

flutterlikeanangel: I was eating waffles and I had an inspiration.

Christian Wolf99: LOL, done with those.

It was raining for the third time in four days. Rainbow Dash hardly felt the constant downpour on the top of her head as she ran and flew from town to town, finding the temples and restoring the elements and collecting the emeralds. She'd already covered Horseoska, where she'd almost frozen her flank off in the snow, and Gallopbat. All she had left to cover was Ponyville and the strange unnamed place up in the north.

But instead of feeling hope at her success or anything of the like, her soul and mind were constantly consumed with grief and sorrow. She'd never felt so alone and depressed except for that time when she'd driven out Cobalt because of his dark change. She knew she wouldn't feel this way if she hadn't been able to save him, but both times it'd been because of her. Her shock and anger. Her ignorance. Not only was the depression because of sadness, it was also because of the guilt gnawing at the her insides.

She let out another burst of silent tears that joined the rainfall on her face. The tears had been going for days and kept coming, always at the most random times, like when she was battling off dark monsters. She supposed that was the side effects of the guilt and grief.

Halting at a signpost, she saw it was the one she'd been looking for, dreading, the one that read PONYVILLE in big gold letters on an ornate background of purple lined with gold. She took a deep breath and walked toward the Golden Oaks Library.

AT EGGMAN'S BASE

Cobalt's blindfold was taken off to let him see where he'd been wheeled this time. He was still in the bodybind that he'd been in when Eggman shot the video, and he was starting to get a really bad cramp. The muzzle had infuriated him at first, because it made him unable to use his witty and sarcastic comments. He was in the control room again.

"Soon, my plan will come to actualization, and the world will kneel before me!" Eggman cackled from outside of Cobalt's vision.

The dark blue pegasus tried to say, 'like that's gonna happen', but what ended up coming out was simply a bunch of muffled noise through the rough rope muzzle that bound his jaw together.

"Oh, a reply?" Eggman looked him in the face. "That's the first time in a while."

"Hmmphmm!" Cobalt growled angrily, his eyes narrowing and the new permanent scar under his eye tingling.

"Oh, getting angry, are we?" Eggman sneered. "Let's fix that, shall we?" he drew back a fist and whacked Cobalt across the face. The pegasus let out another grunt of pain. "Better?" Eggman mocked. "No? Let me help." He punched him again, this time on the eye, and then the jaw.

Cobalt let out a muffled scream and closed one eye from the pain. He could feel blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth.

"Sir, this is a violation of your promise." A robotic voice said monotonously from the corner, the voice coming from a round robot face built into Eggman's control desk. "You specifically stated over the video–"

"To Tartarus with the video, I can do what I want with my hostage." Eggman spat. He furrowed his brow. "Great, I'm starting to talk like the locals." He kicked Cobalt's wing in anger, causing it to break and burn like wildfire. Tears of pain began to stream from the captive pegasus' eyes.

On the first day, he'd thought that those kind of injuries, like his scar, would heal with his transformation at night, but apparently that only happened when he was in the dark, and since he was always kept in the light, that transformation was disabled, so he was forced to wait until the injuries healed naturally, and they wouldn't do that for several days.

AT THE GOLDEN OAKS LIBRARY

Twilight blinked her eyes open, the bleary look in them quickly narrowing into irritation at whomever was knocking at her door in the middle of the night. She threw off her covers and stomped down the stairs, grumbling with every step. She threw open the door and growled, "It's seven o'clock in the morning; this'd better be good."

"Oh… I guess I'll just leave then…" the soaking wet light blue pegasus at her doorstep murmured, turning around as if to walk off. "Sorry."

"Rainbow Dash?" Twilight gasped. "What the… why are you here? Wh-where's Cobalt?"

"Captured." Rainbow muttered, turning back around to face her friend. "My fault. I just figured I'd need a place to stay for a few minutes."

"Captured? But–" Twilight began, but stopped, seeing the same guilty and despondent look on her friend's face that she'd seen just a month and a half ago. "Never mind, come on inside."

INSIDE THE LIBRARY

The two had taken a seat on the sofa, and Twilight was now questioning Rainbow about the journey she'd just relayed.

"So… how long have you been searching?" Twilight asked. "Exactly?"

"Uh, about three days, five hours." Rainbow, who was now wrapped in towels to dry her off, answered.

"And have you slept in that amount of time?" Twilight added, noting that the large dark circles under the pegasus' eyes had returned and become more prominent.

"No." Rainbow sighed.

"Have you eaten in that amount of time?"

A muffled growl came from under the towels, and Rainbow held her stomach. "No." she got up and started to pace across the floor, getting tired of being questioned already.

"Have you done anything except try to rescue Cobalt in that amount of time?" Twilight finished her list of questions.

Tears welled up in Rainbow's eyes once again. "No…" she sobbed, her tears dripping onto the floor and her wings and eyes drooping, while her ears flattened.

Twilight couldn't deny that she did take a little sigh of relief that this time there at least weren't any cuts or bruises to deal with.

"It's just…" Rainbow continued, the tears still flowing and her speech punctuated by hiccups. "I… I'm so worried about him…" she explained, her pupils huge and her expression pitiable by anypony. "The… the last time I saw him he was bleeding all over the floor… a-and I think Eggman–"

"Rainbow Dash, think!" Twilight interrupted. "Really and truly think! Eggman clearly stated over the video that he wouldn't harm Cobalt in any way until a week passed, right?"

"Yeah…" Rainbow agreed, starting to see her point.

"So he'll be fine for… what? Four more days?"

"Three days and eighteen hours." The light blue pegasus supplied the exact time.

"Exactly, so you really need to get a grip right now, and stop worrying." Twilight finished, sure that the problem was solved.

"But it's still my fault." Rainbow muttered inaudibly to herself. She raised her head with a fake neutral expression on it. "Well, thanks for letting me get dried off," she held up a wing. "The ol' feathers really needed that. But I'm gonna have to get going and find the temple now."

"Here, take a biscuit for the road." Twilight turned to summon one from the kitchen pantry, but when she turned back around, Rainbow was gone. "I swear…" Twilight muttered, shutting the door. "That pegasus is going to get herself killed one day."

OUT IN THE EVERFREE FOREST

"Mother of Celestia this was a bad idea!" Rainbow screamed at the top of her lungs as she hurtled through the forest to Zecora's cottage at near top speed. She knew that this would normally be a bad idea, as the noise would attract predators, but she doubted they'd want to try to keep up with a deadly fast blur.

The cottage coming into view, she attempted to stop all forward momentum by digging her hooves into ground. What occurred immediately afterward could only be described as a slight cross between a skid and a crash, which resulted in Rainbow rolling head over hooves in the mud and coming to a stop just a few feet in front of the cottage. She struggled to her hooves and gave herself a quick once over. "Not too bad." She muttered. "Only a few scratches… covered in mud, though, that's a bit bad, but I suppose you have to expect flying in the rain in a forest to get a bit messy."

She felt inside her mouth with her tongue and spat out some more mud. "Eugh."

Stepping forward, she knocked on Zecora's door. Five seconds later, she heard slow, sleepy footsteps from inside the cottage. The zebra who had helped them so often opened the door, her eyes tired. "From whom at my door is my prescence sought? Whoever it is, is out here earlier than they ought."

"Yeah, deal." Rainbow sighed inaudibly, letting out a huge yawn. "Hey Zecora."

"Hello, Rainbow Dash. Is it my help you ask? For anything you need, I'm sure I have a flask."

"What? Like… alcohol?" Rainbow asked, wondering why this responsible adult figure would be offering her, an underage filly, alcohol. "No… potion. Definitely potion. Nah, I don't need anything like that… unless you have one for luck."

"Potions for other things, I have a lot. But something for luck, I have not." Zecora told her, with what seemed to be a hind of regret in her voice.

"Eh, that's okay." Rainbow shrugged. "Hey, have you seen a temple around here?"

"Ah, the temple a quarter mile from here. It is one the local beasts hold dear."

"Great." Rainbow muttered. "Now I have to fight monsters."

AT THE TEMPLE

"Take that!" Rainbow shouted at a monster as she karate kicked it in the face. In one swift motion, she sank her newly grown fangs into its throat and shook it like a dog toy. It dissolved into shadow. It felt good for her to vent a bit of her anger and frustration on the forces of evil. It let her let go of some of her grief.

Some. Not all.

By the time she'd taken out nearly all of the dark forces and native monsters, she'd fought her way into the middle of the temple, in which the final element of harmony to be rejuvenated should be placed: the element of magic. She reached into her saddlebags and brought it out, swapping it with the emerald in the stone basin and watching as it got revitalized in a flash of lavender light, snatching it out of the air before it could fall to the ground.

Something about the stillness of the air made her uneasy as she began to walk out. It was quiet… too quiet… that kind of quiet that you feel before a storm is about to break. That nervous apprehension that sends chills up your spine and makes you want to run. As if… as if something important is about to happen and you don't know what so you're frightened. That kind of quiet stillness.

There was a noise behind her and she whirled around to confront whatever it was. In an absolute shocker, there was nothing there. She breathed a sigh of relief and turned back around. That was when she screamed. That was when the enormous creature in front of her slapped her aside like a rag doll. The (she liked to call it this) Dark Guardian knuckle walked over to her collapsed form, and Rainbow, sensing an opportunity, played dead and let it snuffle over her with its disgustingly wet nose. She held her breath until it was a little bit away, convinced she was dead, then launched herself at its back and started savagely ripping away at the back of its neck with her teeth.

The Dark Guardian let out a screech of outrage and started clawing at its own back and leaving oozing trenches of sludge-like blood just to get her off. Thankfully it missed her, or there wouldn't be any more point in writing this story. Using her teeth as an anchor, she swung around to its front and then released her previous bite to rip away a section of its throat.

She fell to the ground and spat the section of slimy, oozing flesh onto the ground. She almost felt bad for the creature as it clutched its throat and writhed around in dying agony before falling onto the ground, utterly motionless.

Almost.

Feeling that would distract her.

And to be honest, she didn't want to feel anything.

AT ZECORA'S HUT

Rainbow stretched, glad to be back to her normal form once more. She'd decided to stop by Zecora's place to thank her for the info. She approximated that it was about eleven or so in the morning by now, so she wasn't surprised to see the zebra outside of her hut picking herbs. "Hey Zecora."

"Ah, did you find what you were looking for? Or were you turned out by the beasts at the door?" Zecora asked.

"Ah, you know me." Rainbow said with a half smile. "Not gonna give up because of some dark monsters."

"But a great sadness you hide. In your heart guilt does reside."

"What?" Rainbow laughed nervously. "No… no way."

Zecora's eyes suddenly went white and Rainbow jerked back in shock. "Huh? What?"

A hissing, snakelike voice issued from the zebra's mouth. "Darkness shall fall…" it said, and almost as if nothing had ever happened, Zecora's eyes returned to normal and she shook her head. "Did anything happen to me? I feel more unnerved than I should be."

"Uh…" Rainbow gulped. "No…" she murmured nervously, and decided to file this information for later.

"Oh well, I shall see you again very soon, but now the time is approaching noon." Zecora gestured to the sky, indicating the sun had reached its climax.

"Oh!" Rainbow yelped. "I've gotta get going!" she stretched her wings. "Thanks for the help Zecora!" and she rocketed up into the sky, stewing on that… prophecy the wise zebra had just issued.

Darkness. Will. Fall…

Yeah, I know I kind of changed the Dark Guardian's appearance. It now looks a bit like one of those Temple Run Monkeys, but bigger. Now all that's left is Eggmanland. And you all should've expected Eggman not to keep his promises.

Also… QUESTION! Do you think I'm making this story too dark?

Radicool223 out!