//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Darkened Sky 
// by GreysonWest 
//------------------------------//

I tore flank across the road, barely looking around as I did so. Everypony I passed turned to stare at me but I didn't care, my mind was racing through the past few days. The battle with the timber wolves, finding my sister, fighting my mother after she became a Shadowborne; it had all supposedly been my mother's fault, with her mind manipulation magic, but according to my father, psychomancy is something my mother had zero skill in whatsoever.

There was only other possible suspect for who could have caused it all.

"Stormbreaker!" I bellowed, putting a tiny effort of magic into the words to make them louder. This had the unintended

side effect of channeling some of my anger into them, which caused the windows of the shops on the nearby street to rattle wildly in their frames and clouds to form and darken overhead, but I didn't care. Rain had begun to fall, not heavily yet but increasing quickly, and the darkening of the sky revealed something I hadn't realized. There was a soft, ambient light glowing around me. It took me a moment to realize that my horn had begun glowing with the minor effort of magic I'd made, and my overflowing emotions had never let the spell end, forcing more and more power out around me, which, now that I thought about it, explained why the weather kept worsening.

I saw my brother's outline ahead of me near a copse of trees. I skidded to a stop maybe ten feet away from him, my breathing heavy from the exertion. I glared at him with as much fire as I could manage. He returned my glare with an even look, and then a slow smile spread across his features. His voice came out low and quiet, and I almost had to strain to hear him over the steadily increasing rainfall. "How did you figure it out?"

My voice came out almost as a growl. "I'm a private investigator, Stormbreaker. Father told me what mother's cutie mark was really for, and when he mentioned she didn't have the ability to perform psychomancy, I put two and two together. It never really made sense to me why our sister White Squall went mindless without mother around to mess with her head, especially since you and I were trying to protect her psyche. Then I thought about the battle against our mother. She had become a Shadowborne, yes, but I don't think you were telling me the truth about why. It wasn't some bitter hatred against me for being the more powerful. The darkness crept into her heart out of despair because on some level, she knew what you were doing to her. That was why, when we fought her, she focused on attacking you, and only attacked me to get me out of the way." I leveled my gaze at him, and borrowed frost from the air to put into my voice.

"And, you're the one putting the squeeze on father's heart. You wanted to make him into a Shadowborne as well, but you couldn't. He has too much faith in Celestia for that kind of thing to ever work. So, you brought me here, hoping your old mindlock on him would still keep him at my throat, but I think I figured out something you haven't. You see, just before you killed our mother, she cast a spell that wasn't targeted at either of us. She leveled herself a death curse, but instead of channeling that rage at you or me, she aimed it at the brainlock you had on father."

Stormbreaker's gray face grew a touch paler. "Sh... she broke it?"

"Yes, you bastard!" I practically screamed at him, I was so angry. The seemingly ambient light around me flared at my words, and thunder crashed overhead, so loud that it shattered several nearby shop windows. Somewhere in the back of my awareness, I heard ponies all over the place yelling in fear, and the chaotic tumult of hundreds of hooves beating the roads towards home. That was fine with me. Fewer ponies out and about meant there would be fewer ponies that might get hurt. My brother was one heck of an evocator, which meant this fight was going to get sticky. Or more likely, burn-y. Suddenly the rain, which had grown to something just barely shy of a monsoon, was a huge comfort. Fire would have trouble staying alive in the rain, and my brother knew it.

That was when I realized he was laughing. "I'd forgotten you had such a temper!" He said, genuine cheer in his voice. "Now then, I guess this means we have to fight?"

"We don't have to, 'Breaker. You could always take the curse off of father's heart and be done with it."

He smiled widely, showing me his teeth. "And what if I don't?"

I widened my stance and lowered my head, angling my horn towards him. "I'll break it the old fashioned way. By killing you." Lightning crashed overhead. It wasn't my doing, but I'll be darned if I won't accept a little dramatic flair thrown my way by nature.

"Then I guess we fight. I won't go easy on you, brother." I watched as heat rose around him, condensing into steam, and then into a small cloud. He jumped on top of it and it floated up into the air. "But before we do, I think you need a bit of a practice round. After all, you haven't had a real battle in quite some time." At his words, his horn began to glow, and a pulse of thunder shattered one of the nearby trees to kindling. Over the course of a few moments, the kindling reassembled itself into three large, wolfish shapes. My jaw dropped open. Timber wolves? I'd fought these things before, but it had been in Everfree when I was saving that filly from those two Shadowborne; Derelith and Whately. I'd been able to free Whately from his darkness, but...

Realization hit me like a fifty pound sledgehammer. I hadn't killed Derelith that night, I'd only disrupted his darkness... and all of that darkness had gone into Whately. Derelith had been freed. Derelith, had been my brother.

I was quickly pulled from my mental meanderings by the low, rumbling growl coming from one of the timber wolves. They had me surrounded in a triangle formation, heads low, red eyes glowing like fire through the rain. They circled slowly, and I kept focus on the one in front of me, looking for any cues it might give off if the others started to move. It wasn't until I felt the sharp pain across my back that I realized they were smarter than that. I spun quickly, electricity sparking from my horn... and called down lightning.