Heart of Light

by TheCrimsonDM

Chapter Nine: Burn Notice

It was an early morning, the sun shone through the blinds and right into Twilight’s sleeping eye. A curse flew from her lips as she attempted to rise. The hard surface underneath her head smelled of alcohol. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest, but none more so than the exploding headache that was forming. She did eventually manage to pick herself up. The desk she had been lying on was covered in crumbled up pieces of paper, notes filled with gibberish, and seven empty bottles of whisky; no shot glasses required.

For a moment Twilight thought about how she could manage to drink that much whisky without at the very least throwing up. Her answer came in the form of last night’s dinner coming back up on the floor. She scowled bitterly at everything in the room. I can’t believe this happened again.

It took a few pain killers, a cup of extra strong coffee, followed by several healing spells and a mop to make her feel better again. She’d clean the rest of her room later. For now she had more important tasks. Such as finding out who was assaulting her front door this early in the morning.

She went downstairs, and straight to the door without breakfast Twilight cursed her luck. It was only seven in the morning, just barely. It took a moment to figure out how door handles were supposed to work, and it was very tempting to simply remove the door completely but that never worked out for her. Once she did she opened it up only to find nopony there.

“I could have sworn that I heard somepony knock,” Twilight said to herself. The morning sun glared down at her. And Twilight scowled at its decision to come out today. Still she went back inside to prepare breakfast. Even after seven years of practice cooking for herself she still wasn’t very good at it, so she resorted to one of her all time favorite morning treats. Scrambled eggs and ketchup.

After sitting down, with her breakfast and a second cup of morning caffeine elixir, she covered her eggs in ketchup. The eggs would be good for keeping her coat shiny, and the ketchup would be good for her taste buds. Still something felt a little off, like she was being watched. She looked around, yet could spy no reason to worry. So she dug in.

The eggs tasted nothing like they should have, and for a brief moment her mind flashed back to her first party in Ponyville. The one where Pinkie Pie had invaded her tree house and in retaliation Twilight attempted to get drunk, but instead of grabbing the bottle of alcohol, she grabbed the bottle of hot sauce.

Fire raced across her tongue as she decidedly read the label of the ketchup too late. It read, “Nope Ketchup, the best ketchup in all Equestria.” On the back it read, “Not actually ketchup, warning, extremely hot, hot sauce.”

It was one of those darned prank bottles of ketchup. Twilight screamed flaming agony as her horn lit up and yet another healing spell was draped upon her poor burning tongue and throat. From the corner of her eye, near the back door she spotted the pink unicorn filly responsible, Amber Light. Amber was busy attempting to suppress a giggle. Twilight’s eyes flared up as she stared at the filly.

“You,” Twilight called.

The filly ceased her laughter, her eyes shot wide, and before Twilight could even make a move the filly was out the back door and gone. Twilight made a mental note to at some point speak with Trixie on the subject of her daughter’s pranks. Even Rainbow Dash’s kids didn’t prank her as much as Amber Light did.

With her breakfast now completely ruined Twilight settled on eating a bagel. It was bland, it was boring, but it was food. Today she was going to need to make a trip to the local library to seek out information on Book Mark’s tomb. Hopefully she could find it there, as it was nowhere in any of her personal books. Then again, it helped that the owner of the library was one of the Seekers of Truth.

Twilight sniffed herself first and the sour scent almost made her vomit a second time. “Okay, shower first then I’ll go speak with Moon Dancer and Candle Light.”

The morning had Valiant getting up and going to school like normal. It wasn’t until after school, when she was walking home with Sweetie Belle each of them holding saddlebags full of heavy school books that things stopped being quiet and became more interesting.

“Scootaloo can’t stop talking about that health class,” Sweetie Belle said with a roll of her eyes. “It won’t be nearly as much fun as Rarity’s stories are.”

Valiant tried not to make any rude remarks about either Scootaloo’s weird obsession with sex, or Rarity’s only occasionally interesting stories. Instead she chose the better part of valor, silence.

“Have you seen Snips and Snails lately?” Sweetie asked.

Valiant remembered them, they were awkwardly cute when they were foals, and that didn’t really change as they grew up. They just sort of looked awkwardly handsome now. Of course their personalities completely soured that for Valiant, but she admitted, from a purely artistic approach that they could be considered good looking.

“Anyway, Applebloom and Scootaloo have been arguing over which one of them they were going to get to date. They wanted my opinion, but I… well… I’m not very helpful there,” Sweetie shook her head slowly.

Valiant gave her an odd look. “They’re both rude, self absorbed, and obsessed with Trixie.”

Sweetie took a moment to reply to that as if processing it first. “Oh, so I take it you don’t like them either.”

“I don’t like ponies that way,” Valiant said coldly.

“Oh, right… sorry. Is this a bad conversation topic for you than?”

Valiant shrugged. “I don’t really care.”

“I was just trying to blow off some steam, sorry…”

Valiant was already half way down this particular rabbit hole. She figured she might as well go all the way in. “Finish the story.”

For a moment Sweetie didn’t say anything and when she did she sounded unsure of herself. “Well, after they asked me to be the tie breaker I told them that I didn’t like either of the pair. They um, were interested in who I did like. I might have freaked out and told them that I liked smaller ponies… than Pip walked right past us and they began laughing at me. Now they think I have the hots for the local pirate.”

That brought a small giggle out of Valiant. “Pip, he’s almost as short as me.”

Sweetie looked off to the side, apparently becoming very interested in the passing houses. “Yeah… almost.”

They reached the cross roads where they usually split up and Valiant smiled up at Sweetie. “See you later.”

Sweetie offered a warm smile back, her cheeks were slightly pink. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” They both laughed a little before Sweetie added, “You should really think about joining me and the crusaders for lunch sometime. It uh, could be really fun.”

Valiant shook her head. “I only hang out with Applebloom because we’re cousins. And I don’t like Scootaloo.”

The pink on Sweetie’s cheeks deepened a shade. “Uh, what about… just lunch… with me?”

Valiant didn’t really see a reason why not, but still it was an awkward enough question. Of course she’d agree to having lunch with Sweetie, why was that even a question anymore? Valiant only smiled and nodded.

“Really! That’s great. I’ll, um, see you later than.”

Valiant turned away to go on her own way, Sweetie Belle stood in the road for a moment only watching her go before leaving herself. It took another couple of minutes before Valiant was halfway home. Her walk home was the longest between her and Sweetie Belle, in fact she usually just went to Rarity’s place first because it was closer, but after last night she decided it was best to go straight home so as to appease Maud. No sense in worrying her further, she only just barely got out of having to have Maud walk her to school in the morning.

The closer she got to home, the more Valiant became aware of something watching her. Old instincts kicked in and Valiant took a roundabout way through town keeping her eye open for anything behind or around her. Boulder’s voice played in the back of her mind, “Wait until you lose him before you go home.”

It took an extra ten minutes before she was sure she knew exactly who was following her. Some colt with gray fur and a wild black mane. She couldn’t make out his cutie mark. She turned around a sharp corner and hid her tiny self behind a box. The colt came passing by a couple seconds later, though he stopped at the corner and didn’t go any further. Behind Valiant she heard a door close with a bell jingling. She was in front of the Quills and Sofas store.

“Hmm,” the colt said. He looked only maybe a year or two older than her, but not quite adult yet. He also wasn’t smiling.

Valiant laid there, her heart racing as she waited for the colt to move, or leave, or something. He did none of these things. He simply leaned against a wall, and made himself look comfortable like he was taking a break in the shade of the building. A couple of minutes passed by and the colt still didn’t move. The door to the store finally opened again and Miss Cheerlee walked out. She looked over and down at Valiant.

“Valiant Heart? Whatever are you doing hiding behind those boxes? Aren’t you a little old to be playing hide and seek?” Miss Cheerlee asked.

The colt looked down at Valiant’s hiding spot, his eyes widened only ever so slightly giving away his surprise. Valiant quickly rose up and got out from behind the box. She glared at the stallion with her best death stare, and he glared down at her. Miss Cheerlee stood there for a moment before frowning.

She cleared her throat as she joined by Valiant’s side. “Is he bullying you?”

Valiant shook her head.

“Well I’m just going to stay here for a moment, I need to make sure that I have my receipt anyway,” Miss Cheerlee said as she pretended to dig through her saddlebags.

The colt retreated around the corner and just as he disappeared from sight said, “You’re quite perceptive, that makes it more fun.”

That did it, Valiant ran around the corner after him in order to… well she wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but stop him from leaving was one thing that came to mind. She rounded the corner, but was rewarded with nothing. Just a busy street and shadows of the buildings creating little pockets of cool air. The colt was however nowhere in sight.

“What is that about?” Miss Cheerlee asked.

Valiant shook her head.

“You should tell your parents, in fact, I think I’ll just walk you home if you don’t mind,” Miss Cheerlee said, it was more of a statement and less of an offer.

However Valiant had a different plan. She turned and fled, not straight home, but rather to the only other pony she could think of who might be in trouble at the moment as well as the most likely to keep her safe until Trixie and Maud were both safely home. Valiant went straight to Twilight’s Tree Castle.

It was only when she was at the castle doors themselves that she noticed a black shadow climbing up the side of the castle. It flew up the side of the castle ignoring both gravity and physics alike. The shadow slipped in through one of the windows. Valiant’s heart nearly stopped as she came to a halt just outside of the castle. There were very few staff in the castle, and no guards. Twilight had more than enough firepower to deal with any threat that came to Ponyville, but that only worked if she knew about it.

She wanted to go home, her leg was hurting again and her heart was beating fast enough to pop right out of her chest. She recalled seeing the alicorn on the train, and how Twilight left to go deal with it. There was nothing that Valiant could do to stop the bad guys. Even when she did finally break free to find Twilight, all she did was end up helping a cat look for gold. She didn’t find any, but she could have tried to stop the cat from stealing, she didn’t. She just couldn’t force herself to fight it.

This time however, Valiant wasn’t going to let her fear keep her from helping. There was a shadowy thing inside the castle, and a spy in the town. it was very unlikely that these were merely coincidences. Valiant knew that she and Twilight were both targets because of their quest, and so they needed to work together to stop this. It was time that Valiant Heart bucked up and rose to the challenge. It was time Valiant lived up to her name and showed a little heart.

Valiant pushed the castle door open and walked inside.

Twilight was busy focusing on her primary research. Locating the tomb of Book Mark. At first this seemed an easy solution, just look up his name, and find his tomb or place of burial. Unfortunately there was a single flaw in her plan, the name Book Mark was so utterly common that she didn’t find just one tomb, but so far over fifty from the last hundred years. If only she knew more about the pony in question, but all she had to go on was his name and his connection to the seekers.

To top it all off like some kind of final insult she kept finding quotes related to these deceased ponies. Anything from, “Loved his family more than anypony else.” To, “Greatest abs in Equestria.” And even her favorite so far, “I’m not dead, I’m just sleeping.”

If she was ever allowed to die, she might have to put the last on one her tomb. It seemed fitting enough considering that Alicorns didn’t die. Of course during the restless night she had spent researching each ponies, their lives, family, friends, and deaths she had come across nothing of use. To top it all off, one of her servants, a cute little Pegasus with reverse colors to Fluttershy’s and a flower cutie mark, continued to bringing in new files on all the ponies named Book Mark. Sure she was doing it under Twilight’s orders, but as the stack grew ever larger, and Twilight’s task ever more insurmountable, she could only offer glares to the servant who looked meekly away and retreated, always to come back with more files.

“I hate this job,” Twilight said bitterly. For a moment she paused, this wasn’t too much unlike researching books or studying. How come she hated this so much now? Shouldn’t she like this? Her and Valiant would spend countless hours simply reorganizing the library at h- Twilight forced a cold stabbing feeling away from her chest. She now knew the primary reason she hated doing this research. With a sigh she lowered her head and continued her work anew, all alone.

Valiant Heart ran through the castle halls looking for Twilight. It couldn’t be that hard to find her, after all she really only did a couple of things in the castle anymore so most of it was left to be dusted by the hoofull of servants scattered about. It should have been impossible not to find Twilight in fact, yet when she checked the library she wasn’t there. Neither was Twilight in the den, her old bedroom, her office, the map room, the throne room, the torture dungeon, or even in Twilight’s favorite bathroom. Twilight was simply missing from all the usually places.

“Darn it!” Valiant cursed as she rounded the corner and nearly tripped over her own hooves. Her chest was burning, along with her legs. It was getting hard to breathe, and she was feeling a migraine approaching.

Boulder’s quiet voice whispered in the back of her head. “You should rest.”

Valiant growled. “Well if I’m hearing voices in my head from my imaginary friend, than yes, I think I should.” She quickly checked around to make sure nopony heard her speaking and quickly berated herself for letting her crazy get the best of her.

“I think you may have misunderstood exactly what I am,” Boulder replied.

Valiant rolled her eye. Somehow the hallway had gotten darker ahead of her. Sure it wasn’t usually that bright in the castle to begin with, not nearly enough windows, or sconces, yet the ivory tower had a sort of magical luminescent quality to it that kept it from ever becoming too dark.

A cold chill ran down the length of Valiant’s spine. Boulder’s voice came in loud and clear, “Remove your eye patch now.”

Normally she might hesitate, or ignore him altogether completely, but she knew that her broken eye had the ability to see the unseen. The hallway ahead was dark, almost pitch black, but when she removed her eye patch that darkness lifted only to be replaced by the gray colt that she had seen outside. Held in his telekinetic aura, which was most suitably black and rotten, he held a folder with several papers inside of it. It looked like one of Twilight’s secret files.

Of course when she closed her broken eye he vanished and the darkness returned, so she decided to keep that eye open above all else. For a moment the stallion was staring at the folder with obvious delight, but when he looked out at Valiant Heart his eyes narrowed and he stuck his tongue out. Valiant returned the childish offense with one of her own, she blew a raspberry.

His eyes widened as he looked around and behind him, as if trying to figure out what Valiant was staring at. When he found nothing he returned to looking at her. “So you can see me can you?”

Valiant felt her legs begin to shake and an old fear crawl up her spine. “Put, that, down.”

“What was that? I stole this fair and square, besides my contractor would be remiss if you two found this first.” He offered a playful, yet dangerous smile.

“I don’t care,” Valiant said, although she was far too small to win in a straight up hoof fight, she still had the determination not the let this sleezeball ruin her and Twilight’s chance at finding the Seeker’s Archive.

“Look, I don’t like to muscle ponies around, especially not foals like you,” he said. “But I need to get out of here, so I’ll just go this way, and you can give me that death stare all the way out of the castle.”

Valiant’s entire body shook as she took a step forward. She had no idea what she was going to do, but she had to do something, anything to get him to back off the folder. It was Twilight’s and it was important. Yet the colt didn’t seem to care.

“I guess if you’re that interested in me, maybe I should tell you my name?” he smiled slyly and winked. “Or not.”

Valiant glared.

“Oh fine, if you really want something to sink your teeth into, call me Shade. Though let it be warned that you’ll never see another stallion quite like me,” His eyes flashed black, no white, no color to the iris just a pitch dark inkiness that seemed to go forever like staring into a bottomless pit. For a brief moment Valiant felt like she might fall into the darkness of those eyes only to be devoured by a horrible unseen monster. When his eyes returned to normal, the fear dissipated.

He turned and began walking away. “We won’t be meeting again, I can’t afford it. So you’ll just have to see me in your dreams.”

If Valiant let him go with that file she could very well kiss her chance at getting into the archive goodbye. Though she wasn’t sure what was in there, she knew that he was here to steal it, and here to stop them from finding the archive, or at least that was her best guess. Without a real plan to go on, all she had left was instinct.

And instinct after seeing both Maud and Trixie in action told her to go running in head first.

She charged in head first while loosing a high pitched battle cry which sounded much more like a scream. With more force than she had expected she tackled into Shade’s back knocking him to the floor. The mere contact with his body caused her skin to light up with a burning sensation. He didn’t seem much better as he screamed and rolled over onto his back. The folder fell to the floor, luckily still closed by a paper clip. Maybe it was because Valiant was more used to physical pain, but she wasn’t fazed by the burning sensation as much as him. Valiant scooped up the folder in her mouth, shoved it in her saddlebags, and took off down the hall.

Behind her she caught glimpse of Shade rolling over onto his forelegs. His back was scorched black where she had made contact. For a brief moment Valiant almost stopped dead in her tracks wondering what happened to him, but upon seeing the ice water glare in his eyes she picked up speed. By now her rear leg was hurting again, and a slight gimp was impeding her progress. Still she pushed on ahead. Behind her the darkness spread out like an all devouring void, as the shadows grew over the sconces the flames went out, and as they covered the windows the sunlight was eclipsed by the darkness.

“Give that back you little brat!” He shouted as he chased after her.

He was taller, stronger, and faster than her, all of this without the extra help of Valiant having a bad leg. So her chances of escaping this way were swiftly dwindling. Beside her she saw Boulder Dash running, though his hooves never made a sound as they hit the floor. He had a serious expression on his face.

“What?” she cried as she stared at him.

“I want that folder!” Shade screamed in return.

“Excuse me!” Valiant said shooting a dark look over her shoulder. “I was not talking to you.” She looked back to Boulder as Shade gave her one of the oddest looks she’d ever received, it also helped that he slowed down a bit.

Boulder shook his head slowly. “This was a mistake, you can’t face his kind yet.”

“What are you blabbering on about?” she demanded.

Shade shouted again, “I didn’t say a damn thing!”

“Shut up and let me talk to him!” she screamed back.

Boulder actually gave her a weak smile. “You know he thinks you’re completely insane.”

“Does it surprise you that I agree?” she said. Her legs, chest, and lungs were on fire from all this exercise.

Boulder looked back at him. “He is a creature of shadow, of darkness. If you can build up enough of your inner light, until it explodes, it should be enough to dissuade him from chasing us any further.”

Valiant rolled her eyes. “How do I do that?”

“Like in the train, only this time don’t stop gathering, and don’t let it go.”

Valiant rounded a corner, but she was already slowing down. She double checked to make sure the folder was still in her bags, it was. Yet Shade was nearly upon her now. Decidedly Valiant looked ahead and focused on the warm light inside her body. It was bright, as usual, but it could be brighter still. It was hard to focus on both moving her legs and gathering energy from the outside at the same time, but she somehow managed it. There was something wrong though, it was hard to gather light, for all around her existed a hungry darkness that was eating all the energy she could easily grab. Focusing on the bits of light which were ahead of her, and not behind, she managed to gather the light into invisible balls before running straight through them. They filled up her body, easing some of the stress on her leg as she continued moving forward, but more importantly they were increasing the brightness of her inner light.

The more she gathered, the harder it became to hold it all in. it felt like she was a water balloon being filled with too much water. She felt the light slipping through cracks and trying to escape but she put mental blocks on those cracks and kept it in. The more light she gathered, the more it seemed to fill her up inside. It didn’t hurt but it was like eating too much, she felt like she was going to vomit.

Behind her the clip clop of his hooves were drawing so close they were practically booming. Just a little more she promised herself, just a little more.

“Now I got you,” he said as his black magic aura tried to surround the folder in her saddlebags. The aura slipped off of the folder. “What the? That can’t happen? What did you have magic grease on your hooves or some crap?” he tried again, it failed. “Screw this.” He reached out with a hoof, he almost had the folder in his grasp as Valiant Heart felt all the energy she’d built up come back out, starting from her mouth.

The world exploded into a bright flash of pure white light, first from her mouth, then from her entire body. The light was so bright in fact that it was as if a miniature sun had come into the hallway and exploded. Shade screamed in agony as he was forcefully flung back away from the light. His body was covered in white flames as he slammed into the wall with enough force to crack it. Nothing else was affected like this, the paintings didn’t budge an inch, nor did the furniture. Only he was moved by the light.

Valiant Heart continued running until she was out of the miniature sun. Her mouth tasted like sunshine and regurgitated oats. The magical light lasted a few seconds after she was away from it, and she watched it collapse behind her fading into naughtiness. Still she ran, ran, and ran some more.

After a few more minutes of running she realized she was no longer being followed. So she slowed down to a trot until she came across Spike’s old bedroom. The door was cracked open and the light inside was on. Valiant burst through the door and was overjoyed to see both Twilight and Meadow Flower in the room. Though it was odd to see Twilight anywhere near this bedroom, it was nice to see her, and with piles upon piles of folders it was made even better.

The pair stared at her in silence for a moment before Twilight pointed a hoof at Valiant’s chest. “Are you okay?”

Valiant Heart smiled as she sat down and rubbed a hoof over her chest fur. Of course she was just fine, but why did her fur feel singed. She looked down and saw for the first time that where she had felt that burning sensation after crashing into Shade, there were black scorch marks. But that wasn’t the worst part.

There was no way she was going to be able to explain this to Maud or Trixie.