The Ponyville police station was tiny even by small town standards. It sported a small lobby, several offices and locker rooms, and one jail cell in an isolated wing of the building. By the acrid smell of the cell I surmised that it was primarily used as the drunk-tank. Public intoxication was probably the worst thing the town had been forced to deal with before the last several days.
I lay stretched out on one of the concrete benches built into the wall, trying to remain oblivious to what bodily fluids might have been spilled there in the past. To my right sat a rather irritated looking Vinyl Scratch. One of the lenses of her trademark sunglasses had been broken out of the frame, revealing an angry purple shine around her left eye. Undoubtedly her smart mouth had put her on the receiving end of one of Bronze Valor’s armored hooves.
Across from us sat a pale pegasus wearing a green bandana in her tussled pink mane. She looked as though she might have had an encounter with Bronze Valor as well. It apparently had been enough to scare her silent; she had not spoken a word to us the entire day.
“So… what are you in for?” Vinyl Scratch tried to coerce conversation from the pegasus. “Me and this stallion here? We tried to knock over Sugar Cube Corner. We were gonna be rolling in dough for long time but he got greedy and went back for one last cupcake. The fuzz showed up and threw the cookbook at us.”
I grimaced hard and covered my face with a hoof. I didn’t know if I was more embarrassed for Vinyl or the pony she was trying to get a rise out of with such a terrible story.
“Because all royal guards try to blast the heads off of cupcake thieves.”
Still no response from the pegasus.
I still hadn’t told Vinyl anything about the Taken ponies or the Dark Presence. The princess’ notion of keeping things as under wraps as possible had made an impression on me. I had been thrilled to see that Vinyl Scratch was alive and kicking, but the fact remained that I had gotten her in trouble with the law. The last thing I wanted to do was put her in more danger by exposing her to any more information about the Everfree than the manuscript page she’d found already had.
Bronze Valor had taken the manuscript page along with the rest of my equipment when he’d taken me into custody.
Thankfully Golden Prose, wherever she was, still had the pages pertaining to Hardtack Jack and Bookmark. That limited my suspiciousness by a factor of two. Unfortunately the page I did have featured none other than the royal guard himself. That certainly wouldn’t go over well.
The phrase ‘being left to sweat’ was being taken far too literally here. The muggy cell was barely lighted let alone ventilated. Sweat dripped from all the cell’s occupants even as the sun set outside. I was starting to think that something had happened to Bronze Valor when suddenly the fire exit door burst open and the guard stormed inside, Deputy Ironbars close behind.
“Front and center, Mossy Hooves. I need a word with you!”
Lazily I oozed off the bench and onto my hooves.
Bronze Valor looked so full of himself that I thought he might pop at any second. He raked one of his hoof-guards across the cell bars, savoring the ringing sound it made.
“So where’s that little author friend of yours, eh? Did you kill her too once you realized I was on your case? Ditch her body in the Everfree like Hardtack?”
I ignored the guard and instead focused my attention on Ironbars. “This stallion is off his rocker, I don’t know what he told you but he’s not with the royal guard. He was relieved of duty a long time ago.”
A fire ignited in Bronze Valor’s eyes and he shot a hoof between the bars trying to get at me. “You’re a LIAR, colt!”
Now it was my turn to be smug. I stepped backwards just beyond his reach and smiled. “Well if you’re calling me a liar I guess you’re calling Princess Luna a liar as well. I heard it from her. Come to think of it, the sun set a while ago. Shouldn’t her guards be taking over or at least joining the investigation for the night?”
Bronze Valor neighed loudly and took a step back, lowered his head, and fired several magical bolts from his horn. Two scorched the floor at my hooves and one went wild, grazing mercifully through the missing notch in my ear. I pranced backwards out of the way before he could get another bead on me.
The guard was so focused he didn’t even notice the deputy until the pegasus bucked the guard hard in the shoulder, sending him spinning sideways on the floor.
“Bronze Valah, ah don’t care if your heyah on royal authority or nawt, but you will nawt shoot unaamed prisoners!” The deputy drew his revolver and leveled it at the guard. I hoped he didn’t try to say anything more. His accent was hard enough to understand already.
The magical flare around the guard’s horn eased and he slowly got to his hooves. “I see what’s going on here… that bitch of the night has gotten to all of you! You all have the darkness inside you!”
Everyone’s ears perked up. None of us had ever heard of Princess Luna spoken of in such a manner. More importantly he seemed to know about the Dark Presence! I needed to know what he knew.
“You’ve got it all wrong!” I bolted to the front of the cell and pressed my face against the bars. “Princess Luna came here to warn us about the Dark Presence! I know what really happened all those years ago!”
I narrowly avoided catching a hoof to the face as Bronze Valor threw himself against the bars in another fit of rage.
“You know what that monster told you! She thinks she has everypony fooled but I know better!” He seethed, sounding more frantic with each breath. “I told Celestia the Presence would return if she tried to bring her sister back but SHE DIDN’T LISTEN! Once you’re touched by the darkness there is no coming back! I can see it in your eyes, her evil is in you. You came back here to infect everyone!”
The lights in the cellblock flickered and I felt a shiver of panic run down my spine. The pink-maned pegasus and Vinyl Scratch were both looking back and forth between Bronze Valor and myself, trying to decide which one of us was to be trusted now. I couldn’t blame them.
“No!” I spat back, suddenly realizing I had no real convincing argument. “She saved me from the Dark Presence! If she had wanted to she could have left me there to be taken!”
“And the princess of the bucking night just happened to fall from the sky and save a nopony like you while letting who knows how many be taken? You’re BLIND! She’s playing you just like she played her sister after the banishment ended! I saw the manuscript pages; I know you’re just another hoof-puppet!”
I banged my hooves on the bars of the cell as the lights flickered again, this time returning duller than before. I knew in my heart I was still in control of my own actions. I knew that just as surely as I knew that what Princess Luna had told me was true. I could see in her face and hear it in the somber edge in her voice. She had wanted to give me the entire story, hadn’t she? My exhaustion was the only reason she hadn’t managed to.
Vinyl Scratch flung herself to her hooves, finally unwilling to remain silent any longer. “You know as well as anypony else that the Elements of Harmony purged anything evil from Princess Luna! This is just some kind of personal vendetta! What was it? You couldn’t get your hooves into Celestia’s bed and then got rejected by her sister as well?”
The insinuation broke whatever bit of remaining restraint Bronze Valor had left. The guard let out a feral yell and opened fire wildly with his magic once more. Deputy Ironbars let loose with his firearm as well, turning the narrow cellblock into a storm of blue lightning and gunpowder thunder. The three of us in the cell hit the deck and rolled, trying to avoid the crossfire.
I don’t know which of the two fired the fatal shot, but an errant round struck the overhead light fixture. The bulbs shattered and sprayed the area with a fine snow of glass. Instantly the room was cast into darkness and all was silent except for the sound of heavy breathing.
The only light remaining in the cellblock was a pale red glow cast from the emergency exit sign over the back door. It was just enough for me to see the expressions on everyone’s faces. Vinyl and the pegasus were cringing and hugging the floor still. Ironbars and Bronze Valor we panting but appeared to be listening to something. I paused and listened too.
It started off dull but I immediately recognized it as the humming of cicadas that seemed to herald the arrival of the Taken. I realized that Ironbars was probably out of ammunition, but more importantly we had no lights. We had nothing to fight them with.
“Deputy, you have to let us out!” I shouted at Ironbars, refusing to peel myself off the floor for fear of making myself a target for Bronze Valor. “The darkness is coming! We need to get into the light!”
Before the Ironbars could respond Bronze Valor hurled himself through the darkness and rammed the deputy away from the cell door. “Don’t listen to him, you idiot! It’s a trick! If you let him out he’ll let the darkness in!”
The Dark Presence didn’t need someone to let it in.
The entire building shook and the same dragon swarm roar I had heard outside the orchard shrieked in through the barred windows. Suddenly the fire exit at the rear of the cellblock burst open, tearing itself free from its hinges and disappearing into the night. A snarl of black, shadowy tendrils snaked their way in from the darkness, seizing Bronze Valor by the midsection.
The guard shrieked in terror and wrapped his hooves around the cell bars, trying desperately to resist as the tendrils yanked and thrashed. They were trying to pull him back out into the raging torrent outside from which they had spawned.
No one moved. Terror had gripped the others and locked them in place. I had seen the storm before and I was still terrified, but somehow I found my way to my hooves. The storm raged outside but I could hear Bronze Valor’s voice above it. He was screaming out for someone to help him. I didn’t move. I could, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t.
Bronze Valor’s grip finally faltered and the tendrils snatched him out through the door in the blink of an eye, instantly silencing his screams. Before anyone could make sense of what had happened the black snakes whipped back inside and snatched up Ironbars by the hind legs. The deputy flailed wildly and managed to wrap his right fore hoof through the cell door.
This time I found it in myself to move. I lunged toward the cell door and managed to catch the left shoulder of the pony’s uniform in my teeth through the bars. Bracing myself against the bars I held on for all I was worth.
I didn’t know how long either of us could hang on. No light was coming and once Ironbars was gone there was no possible way for us to escape. The keys were clipped to his gun belt and there was no way for me to get at them without risking losing my grip.
Frantically I waved back at Vinyl Scratch, hoping to spur her into action. I pointed towards the key ring in the hopes that she would use her magic to retrieve it before one of us lost our fight against the tendrils.
Vinyl Scratch either misunderstood my plan or chose to disregard it entirely. Blue magic flashed from her horn and snatched the deputy by the shoulders, pulling his entire body more tightly against the cell bars. I was afraid the tug of war would tear the stallion in half, with the darkness taking the half we needed to escape.
It was now or never. I let go of Ironbars uniform, praying that his grip and Vinyl’s magic would hold until I got the keys. Luckily for us they didn’t have to.
The door to the rest of the station slammed open and a crimson fireball screamed down the corridor, past Ironbars, and into the maw of the storm outside. The black tendrils dissolved into sparkling ash and in a roar that shook the building the twister outside ascended back up into the night sky.
Ironbars collapsed onto the ground in a heap and immediately doubled over in pain. I couldn’t tell if it was the pain of being stretched or the sickening feeling of being in contact with the Dark Presence. As much as I wanted him to bounce back to his hooves and let us out, I knew he needed to recover.
I pressed my face against the bars and tried to look down the corridor to see where the fireball had come from. When I saw the battered face of Golden Prose peek through the doorway I almost cheered in delight. She was looking much worse for the wear, but she was alive.
“Mossy!” She called out as she noticed me. “You’re alive!”
“YOU’RE alive!” I shouted back incredulously.
The goldenrod mare galloped down the corridor, my flare gun still levitating in her magic by her side. I could see many superficial scratches on her flanks and chest. She looked filthy enough that I would almost believe she had dug her way back up through earth that had swallowed her up.
The deputy was in no shape to resist as Golden Prose snatched the keys from him and unlocked the cell door. Vinyl Scratch trotted out and I started to follow, but then remembered the pink-maned pegasus.
“What… what was that?” She stammered as she pulled herself off the floor at my approach.
“It came from the forest, I-“ Before I could even begin an explanation the pegasus was in my face.
“My plants! I have to protect my plants!” The mare practically shrieked in my face before bolting out of the cell and down the corridor. She was out the emergency exit before any of us could even comprehend what was happening.
“That mare is off her rocker…” Vinyl Scratch muttered as she checked on Ironbars. “Just let her go.”
I was tempted to go after her but there was no way I was facing the darkness again with no light or weapon.
“Thank you… you both… you saved mah life.” Deputy Ironbars finally managed to raise himself to his hooves. He was shaky and I could see muscles twitching under his skin like angry snakes. Vinyl Scratch leaned against him to steady him. “What in the wahld was that?”
It hadn’t been my intention to save him. My first reflex had been to try and stop the darkness from taking him, but after that I had made a conscious decision to risk his life to save myself. And what about Bronze Valor? He had been willing to kill us, but only to make sure that the Dark Presence’s taint wouldn’t spread. And I had let him die for that.
“You don’t want to know, trust me.” I said quickly, refusing to let myself think about the guard anymore. I had more important things to worry about; like not letting the deputy or Vinyl Scratch hear anything more than they needed. That was troublesome because I did need to relay the information Princess Luna had given me to Golden Prose.
“We need light to fight it. Is the rest of the building still lit?” I turned my attention to Golden Prose.
She nodded, and with that we took off back into the police station.
In the police station’s armory we stood around a small folding card table and examined what we had to work with. Golden Prose had managed to find my saddlebags when she entered the police station, so that meant I had my emergency flares and the remaining rounds for my flare gun. The mare herself still had a few flares and a couple loose bullets for her revolver. What Ironbars brought to the table was more substantial.
From the locked gun safe the pegasus had retrieved a wicked looking pump-action shotgun. It was too cumbersome for him to use, but Vinyl Scratch had scooped it up in her magic with the enthusiasm of a school filly with a new doll.
Both of Golden Prose’s flashlights in her saddlebag rig were still intact and I still had one good one in mine. Unfortunately the only portable lights the armory had to offer were small spotlights. They were too cumbersome to rig into a saddlebag, but Ironbars volunteered to wield one and pair up with Vinyl Scratch.
That just left me. There were other revolvers in the gun safe but I knew I would be useless with one. Golden Prose didn’t need her own partner with a light so I was going to have to find a way to make myself useful in a fight. I had only three rounds left for the flare gun and I wanted to save them in case the shadow tornado made a reappearance.
I trotted over to a red metal case mounted on the armory wall next to the fire extinguisher and bucked the glass out of the front of it. I may not have been good with a gun, but I’d chopped enough wood in my life to know my way around an axe.