Chapter 10
We all stood facing each other in the cold air, waiting for one of us to say something. Armor finally spoke up, "We ready to do this?"
"I'm as ready as I can be" I said, nodding.
"Ready!" Twilight stated.
"I'm… I'm… ready" muttered Fluttershy.
"Then, let's do this" Armor said, cracking a half-smile. Twilight teleported us all to the front gates of the castle. The night air was cold and the ground was covered in white snow that had just fallen no more than 2 hours before as we stood in front of the large metal gate that led into the castle.
"When we go in" I said as they turned their heads to listen. "Our first priority is to make sure that Princess Celestia is OK. Then we go after Nightmare."
"Got it" they all replied in unison. We walked into the huge building to find no light whatsoever in the opening hallway.
"I'm gonna assume that Nightmare is already in the throne room" I thought out loud.
"What if Princess Celestia is too?" Armor added.
"Then… that's gonna be problem." I swallowed nervously. We moved through the darkened hallway up to the stairs, which we began to go up. I whispered to them "We just want to see who's in there. If it's only Nightmare, we leave and search elsewhere. And for the love of God, be as quiet as possible. We can't alert Nightmare if he's in there." I popped my head around the corner at the top of the stairs so I could get a good look into the throne room. Sure enough, Nightmare was sitting on the throne, but Celestia was nowhere in sight. "She's not there! Go back!" I mouthed back at them. They turned around and began to walk back down the stairs, but I stayed at the top of the stairs for a little bit longer.
"Aren't you coming?" Twilight whispered up at me. I let out a quiet sigh and turned around.
"I guess we split up into pairs of 2" I said softly. "Twilight and Armor, you two take that side of the castle. Me and Fluttershy will take the other side. If anypony finds the Princess, bring her back here ASAP." The teams of 2 split up and went off in their separate directions. It was awfully quiet while me and Fluttershy searched all the different rooms. The only dialogue between us for what seemed like a few hours were occasional "she's not in here" or "is she in there?" We finally gave up and went back to the front hallway to wait for Twilight and Shining Armor.
When we got back to the front hallway, Twilight and Armor were already waiting there for us. "No luck?" I asked them.
"Nope, none" Twilight answered sadly.
"Where could she be?" Fluttershy asked, probably thinking out loud.
"We can only hope that Nightmare didn't… you know" I hinted.
"If he did" Armor said with a diabolically angry face.
"There's got to be someplace we're missing" I sighed, pacing.
From up the stairs, we heard a voice… but it wasn't the slow, demonic, bass-tone voice that Nightmare had. Instead, it was the voice of… Princess Celestia…