Embers - Interlude #2
32
(Interlude #2)
*Embers*
In the end, she just wasn’t strong enough.
Derpy spent the day curled up on the roof of her best friend’s house, listening to the empty home creak and settle under her hooves.
---
It rained again that afternoon, but only for a short time. Most of the storm had been used up the previous night; the water that was left had a piercing coldness to it, the kind that clung to the body and left a bitter taste in all it touched. A fog descended onto Ponyville and brought a ghostly chill with it, the final autumnal dampness that would not truly leave until the end of winter washed it all away. There would not be another warm day this year.
Night came early, though perhaps it only seemed that way. The evening brought with it another breath of coldness, as though the sky itself had sighed, and pyres to the end of summer’s warmth flickered in hearths across town. In a small cottage on the border of both Ponyville and the Everfree Forest, one of these fires was just beginning to die.
At Fluttershy’s splintered writing desk, Twilight Sparkle hunched over a pair of open notebooks, her tongue partially stuck out in concentration. With utmost precision, she ran a tiny surgical knife down the spine of the open book on her left, seamlessly extracting one blank page. A waiting stick then floated over and smeared the cut edge with a special book glue from the library before the whole leaf drifted over and nestled between the open pages of the book on her right. With a couple last, careful tugs to make sure that it was in exactly the right place, Twilight carefully aimed her horn and shot a needle-thin line of gently searing energy along the edge to fuse the page in place, then turned three pages over and began the process again.
Fluttershy sat on the edge of her bed, watching Twilight work with a faint smile. She ran a fine-toothed comb through the entire length of her mane; she’d missed an appointment with her hairdresser while she’d been imprisoned, so it was starting to get long even for her. She kept up the grooming in the way that Twilight had instructed, going through each patch several times. Over the bed itself, Byuk hovered soundlessly. He held an apple in his talons, but for once wasn’t biting into it right away, instead watching it and the mares in front of him with an unusually thoughtful expression. It was just the three of them; no animals had followed them up the stairs.
After several lengthy minutes, Twilight finally lowered her tools and leaned back to catch her breath. “How’s your magic?” Fluttershy asked, snatching the opportunity to speak without interrupting.
“It’s fine,” Twilight answered. She looked back gratefully, but didn’t smile. “The Seal ate my excess magic as fast as I could make it, so I’m not overloading from underuse. By the morning I should be back at full strength again.”
“I’m happy.” Her smile widening, Fluttershy laid her comb aside and darted forward, nuzzling Twilight’s neck as she started to turn back towards her work. “Do you have to finish this now?” she asked, rubbing her hooves across her marefriend’s shoulders. “It’s over. There’s no danger any more.” Her voice became quieter, but her mouth drifted closer and closer to Twilight’s ears. “I thought we could... maybe... if you want... celebrate?”
Twilight twitched once and then shoved her away. “Some of my friends died today,” she said flatly. “This is no time for celebrations, of any kind.”
Fluttershy shrank away. “Oh,” she mumbled, retreating to the safety of the far side of the bed. “I just thought... since you wanted to stay with me...”
“With you?” Twilight wrinkled her nose. “I’m only here because this is the one place I can work without somepony else constantly checking on me. There’s nothing suspicious about somepony wanting to spend time with their marefriend after a tragedy. If I could get away with it, I would work alone.”
“Oh,” Fluttershy repeated, vanishing even further behind her own mane. “I’m sorry.” She turned and stared morosely into the fireplace. The flames held no reflection in her eyes. Somewhere in the ashes was the letter that Twilight had written to her, those eternal weeks ago. “When I killed Applejack,” she said after a pause, “I made it painless. I told her to die happy.”
Knife halfway to another page, Twilight paused again. She breathed in sharply, her teeth clenched and her eyes tightly shut, and a spark of purple crackled down her horn. Even so, her words came out calm and measured. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
The pegasus allowed herself a small smile. “You’re welcome.”
“She’s right, though, isn’t she?” Byuk said at last. He stretched, his dark wings brushing and passing through the ceiling. “It really is over. I almost can’t believe it.” He turned to face Twilight fully, watching her with an almost foal-like expression of awe. “You took on both L and Mer, and you still beat them both, fair and square. I feel like I should be giving you a prize.”
“No.” Twilight shook her head. She twisted away and stood up, her concentration now well and truly broken. “No, this isn’t over. Not by a long shot. If I were the melodramatic type, I might say that it’s only just beginning.”
“What?” Fluttershy gasped. “But... I don’t understand. We beat L, right?”
“We did, yes. But L was never my real opponent.” Her gaze drifted between Fluttershy and Byuk. Both were staring at her in incomprehension. “You still don’t get it?” she snapped. “Misguided as she was, Harpy was still one of the greatest minds in Equestria, maybe the world. Do you think she didn’t know her aide was a changeling? More importantly, do you think she was with her willingly?”
The others watched in silent confusion as Twilight hopped onto and over the bed, scowling into the spitting fireplace. “Bon Bon wasn’t there to protect her,” she continued. “She was there to keep her in line. That’s what changelings do; they seduce, and they control. Most solo infections are fatal after a few months. The two of them were together for eight years.” She trembled furiously, her tail twitching from side to side. “First, she sucked out her love. Then, she drank away her fear. And after that... she took everything else. All her memories, all her dreams, everything that made Harpy Chords Harpy Chords, stripped away piece by piece until there was nothing left but logic and pain. She was a puppet. No... she was a golem. A doll made from flesh, hollowed out and made to fight crime, without distractions, without fear, and without ever stopping. The perfect little detective.”
Fluttershy gulped. She slowly edged closer, and this time Twilight didn’t push her away. “She wasn’t perfect,” the pegasus said quietly. “She couldn’t beat you.”
“I know.” Twilight sniffed, revealing something other than anger in her voice. “And that might be the worst part. They couldn’t drain her completely; they had to leave just enough of her soul to keep her alive. Deep down, I think Harpy... no.” She shook her head again, drawing up the name that Rainbow Dash had told her, the one that eight years of servitude had tried to bury. “Lyra Heartstrings. Lyra was still in there somewhere, trying to get out. I think I met her once, right near the end. Her music was so beautiful. And now, she’s...”
Her voice broke, and her shoulders shook. Her head drooped ever lower, uncomfortably close to the glowing logs. Fluttershy wrapped a wing around her. “It wasn’t your fault,” she whispered. “You didn’t know.”
“I should have known,” Twilight snapped. “The signs were there. I should have been trying to save her. But now that she’s gone, all I’ve done is condemned another pony to take her place.” The sadness left her and her voice hardened again. “And that’s why this isn’t over. Because if L is the greatest weapon against Kira that Equestria has... then the pony with the power to create L is the most dangerous enemy of all.”
She turned away from the flames. “So that’s why I won’t be accepting any prizes just yet,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Byuk. “And that’s why you and I,” she continued, planting a surprise kiss on the tip of Fluttershy’s nose, “have a lot of work to do. Round two is starting, for real this time. But this time, things are going to be different.”
Moving swiftly, Twilight grabbed Fluttershy’s forehooves in her own and pulled the startled mare upright. Leaning heavily against one another, they began a slow waltz to the beat of the crackling of the fire. “This time, we’re going to be the hunters,” Twilight whispered. “We now have three Death Notes under our control: Byuk’s is owned by you, Geldus’ is owned by me, and Mer’s is owned by...” She sighed. “Rainbow Dash. Once my new Life Note is finished, that’ll give us a total of four killer notebooks at our disposal, when nopony believes that more than two even exist. And now that everypony thinks that L was Kira all along, it’ll be easy for me to take over the team for good and point them in a new direction.”
Byuk’s ear twitched. Although he couldn’t be certain, he would have sworn that from somewhere he heard soft string music, perfectly in time with the two mares’ dancing. “What direction’s that?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Twilight purred. She spun Fluttershy around herself, finally matching the other mare’s contented smile. “I’m in exactly the same position that L was in when she started chasing me. I don’t know who I’m after, where they might be, or if they even have a name, but I know that the threat’s out there somewhere. And I know that if more innocent lives are at stake, then I won’t stop at anything to find them.”
The god’s smile blossomed outwards. “I don’t know who it is either,” he exclaimed. “We really have gone back to the beginning.”
“But what next?” Fluttershy asked, a twinge of worry in her voice. She paused to allow Twilight to momentarily lift her into the air, spreading her wings to help. While her own diet had been steadily improving over the past week, Twilight was growing increasingly frail. “Even if we win, how are you going to keep up with your work while looking for L’s maker? Will you... will you still be Kira?”
Twilight slowed. Instead of answering directly, she leaned back and smiled up at the god floating over them. “Byuk?” she said. “Do you remember what I told you, when we first met?”
“Um...”
“I told you I was going to become the ruler of the new world.” She snorted in amusement. “I was being facetious, of course. I never thought that Kira would end up as anything more than a footnote in Equestria’s history, even back then. But now?” She smiled bitterly, turning back to look fully into Fluttershy’s open eyes. “It’s only now that I’m starting to realize just how wrong I was.”
The dance intensified. A log tumbled over in a shower of sparks, sending Twilight and Fluttershy whirling across the room before rejoining in front of the mantlepiece. “We’re not justice, Fluttershy,” she continued. “We’re not heroes. We’re killers, you and me both. Kiras to the ends of the earth. We’re everything Lyra always said we were; we’re scum, we’re murderers, we’re deluded little foals trying to fix the world with powers we don’t even understand.” Her eyes sparkled. “And I say let’s prove her right.
“There’s no going back for ponies like us. If we’re going to be monsters, let’s be monsters like Equestria’s never seen. Monsters so great and terrible, the world will never need another monster again.” She spun Fluttershy around in the middle of the room, faster and faster, leaving the other mare panting and struggling to keep up. “We’ll be the creature that every pony who walks in the darkness fears. We’ll be the apex predators, the monsters that eat other monsters, the evil that lurks in the hearts of all ponies. We’ll fill their campfire stories and their legends; we’ll haunt the nightmares that make grown mares scream themselves awake; we’ll be the bogeycorns that parents use to threaten their foals.” She drew Fluttershy close, giggling and whispering into her ear. “If you don’t eat your alfalfa, I’m going to tell Kira on you!”
After a second to catch her breath, Fluttershy giggled as well. “No more bullies,” she answered, feeling herself fill up with excitement. “No more murderers. No more things that go bump in the night. We’ll be scarier than all of them!”
“Now you’re getting it.” Twilight grinned and spun Fluttershy away, releasing her from the embrace only to tangle her up in another. “If this world can’t be taught to love us, then we’ll teach it to fear us instead. All other evils will be stomped out, one by one, and we’ll slip into their places. No one will ever be tempted to walk down the path to darkness if all that lies that way is us. But there’ll always be a resistance; something to give the naive ponies who still believe in old justice hope. A group of faceless noponies, the one defence against the last true evil in the world.” She smirked. “A group led by me.”
“That’s perfect!”
“I know it is.” The unheard music began to wind down. Twilight drew Fluttershy close and then leaned her over backwards, lowering her almost to the floor. “But we won’t be rulers,” she murmured, leaning over her marefriend like a blanket. Her muzzle passed over her warm, quivering throat; she could feel her rapid heartbeat. “We’re not here to lead, not monsters like us. A better word would be...” Their lips were almost touching.
“Goddesses.”
They stayed that way for several long seconds. Twilight’s eyes shifted, no longer locked on her partner’s, but on something slightly to her left. As Fluttershy ever so slightly strained forward, Twilight drew her head back. “Shy? Don’t move,” she said in a more natural voice. Then she let go.
Fluttershy pinwheeled in the air for a second before her limbs gave out and she fell onto her back with a squeak. Twilight moved away, zipping to the side of the bed. “Aw,” Byuk muttered, rolling onto his own back and finally taking a bite of his apple. “That was starting to get good, for a second there.”
Quick as she’d left, Twilight returned with the discarded comb and tucked it carefully behind Fluttershy’s ear. “And... gotcha!” she announced triumphantly, pulling it away with a tiny metallic shape caught in the tines. She took this over to the desk, while Fluttershy rolled disappointedly onto her hooves. A quick blast of purple light caused the camera louse to disentangle itself from the comb and stand to attention on the wooden surface. “Fully charged and restored to default settings,” Twilight announced proudly. “Once I’ve locked it to a screen, I’ll be able to use this to keep track of you while I’m gone.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I should also ask Colgate about copying spells, in case we need to communicate without the risk of being traced...”
While she pondered, Fluttershy crept up behind her. “Twilight?” she asked at even less than her usual volume. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah, what?”
“Who’s Moondancer?”
Twilight froze. Catching the cue, Byuk froze as well, the apple’s core halfway to his mouth. “Who told you that name?” Twilight asked coldly.
“N-nopony.” Hesitantly, she reached past Twilight and touched the notebook that was now hers, flipping back to the first page. “I, um, I was looking through some of your old names this morning, and I noticed... that.” She pointed to the top corner of the book. “Who was she?”
Twilight stared. The dedication stared back, less than two months old but written by what felt like a decades younger version of herself. She remembered when she’d made a point of looking at it every night; now, she wasn’t sure when it had even last crossed her mind.
For Moondancer.
“Fluttershy?” Twilight turned again. Her smile had returned, a far softer smile than before. Something subtle in her face had changed; she seemed a little as she had been without her memories. “Thank you for reminding me.”
With a sharp tug of her head, a line of magic tore the page from the book. She crumpled it into a ball and hurled it across the room, scoring a direct hit in the fireplace and looking back before it burst into flames. “I can’t have you keeping anything with my writing on it,” she continued, leafing through the pages. “We’ll have to destroy all of these so they can’t be identified if you’re captured. I should have done this a long time ago, actually.” She smiled up at Fluttershy briefly, only to notice her quivering eyes and trembling lips. “What’s wrong?” When she didn’t answer, Twilight put the book down and faced her fully. “Come on, what’s the matter?”
“T-Twilight?” Fluttershy whispered, barely audible. “Do you still hate me?”
She’d been prepared for this. “Only as much as I hate myself.”
“Oh... I’m glad.” Fluttershy forced a smile. “I was... worried that you were maybe still mad at me. I know we’re partners now, but... sometimes it feels like I’m just a burden to you.”
“A burden?” Twilight put on her most innocent face. “Shy, Mer is gone now. There’s no one watching out for you. If I wanted you gone, believe me, you would be gone.” When this failed to immediately calm Fluttershy’s nerves, she sighed and shifted over to the edge of the bed, waving Byuk off and gesturing for Fluttershy to sit beside her. Hesitantly, the pegasus acquiesced, snuggling up to her side. “You were the one who bailed me out during the Applejack fiasco,” Twilight continued. “If this new opponent is anything like L, then I’m almost certainly going to need your help again before the end. Whether either of us likes it or not, you’re the only pony I can really trust right now. Heck, if you look at it that way...” Her smile softened, and she gently stretched a foreleg around Fluttershy’s side. “You’re the only pony I can really call my friend any more.” She muttered under her breath. “Sad as that might be.”
“Thank you.” Fluttershy nestled closer, but also shivered. “I’m just scared, Twilight. I wasn’t always on your side. In fact, for a little while, I... hated you.” She gulped. “Back when I was the old me, and I thought that you’d killed Rarity and Pinkie Pie. That was... it was too much. I lost my faith. If Locket hadn’t told me that it was just a misunderstanding, then even if I’d found your letter, I might... I might have...”
She stopped when she realized that Twilight had stiffened. They sat there a moment longer before Twilight spoke again, a familiar coldness coming to her voice. “How much of my old Death Note did you read?”
“J-just the first few pages,” Fluttershy stammered quickly. “I didn’t have a lot of time.”
Another lengthy pause. “Fluttershy,” Twilight intoned, “if I told you that Locket was wrong... that Pinkie Pie’s and Rarity’s deaths really were my fault... would that change anything?”
All heat from the fire seemed to vanish. Fluttershy trembled as she felt Twilight’s grip become firmer around her side. “No,” she breathed.
The silence stretched out longer. The embrace only became tighter, twisting the pair towards each other. “Twilight?” Fluttershy eventually asked. “Did... did you...”
“Byuk, leave us,” Twilight ordered.
The god knew better than to disobey. “Gotcha,” he said, drifting upwards. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” When there was no answer, he shrugged and vanished through the ceiling.
For the first time since Fluttershy’s unexpected night-time appearance, they were alone. “You were right,” Twilight said, running her free hoof through her marefriend’s lengthy mane. “I don’t have to finish my book tonight. We might not have another night like this. We should savour it.”
Fluttershy looked up at her in fear and wonder as their faces came closer together. “Twi—”
The fire burned for another hour before the last of the cinders went out, each speck of ash releasing the last of its heat with a spark and a final, whispered sigh.
---
Colgate was no stranger to the insides of hospitals. She could hardly count the number of hours she’d spent in waiting rooms or standing over hospital beds, even if her only purpose there was to take a statement for an accident report for the Mayor. This, however, was the first time since she was a filly that she’d been on the waking up side of the situation.
Consciousness arrived like a brick to the back of the skull, bringing with it an almost equivalent amount of pain. “Uhhhhhgn,” she moaned, instinctively curling up and clutching at her head as a wave of soothing pink light washed over her. A sharp twinge in her middle immediately straightened her out again, and she blinked unevenly around the still-foggy room. To one side, a blur of darkness refused to disappear from the pale background. “Nightly Dose?” she croaked.
“Good evening, Colgate,” the black doctor replied, finishing her spell. “Good to see you with us again.” Before the policemare could formulate another question, Nightly Dose picked up a clipboard and began reading from it. “Moderate concussion, two bruised ribs, severe magical sprain, lacerations across the head and right side, fourteen assorted nicks and scratches, six bruises, rope burn around the right front hoof, and one paper cut... Colgate, I know police business is your business, but on behalf of all of us at Ponyville General, what the hay have you been doing?”
Colgate just blinked at her. The world was almost, but not quite, coming into focus. She wondered if all doctors were normally this loud. “Where’s Big Macintosh?”
“He’s dead. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that?” When the only response was a surprised gurgle, she shrugged and laid her clipboard aside. “Oh, that reminds me. Your friend here had a message for you.”
In another pink wave, the curtain in the middle of the room drew itself back, revealing the room’s second bed beyond it. Its occupant was laid out on her belly with her face turned away and the covers pulled up to her neck, but four or five different colours were easily visible in her mane. Colgate gasped. “Rain—”
“Whoa, shh,” Nightly Dose shushed her, pressing a hoof against her lips. “She’s asleep. Real sleep. We had to re-set her leg this afternoon, and her wings are still due for a final cleaning. She needs her rest. It’s been a... trying day.” She shot the sleeping mare a filthy look that Colgate couldn’t read, then looked back with her earlier, calmer expression. “Don’t suppose you know anything about that, either?”
Colgate felt faint. “No,” she answered honestly.
“Huh. Anyway, the message...” Nightly Dose closed her eyes, reciting exact words from memory. “‘I know things look bad right now. Well, I mean, they kind of are bad right now. We... we lost Applejack. But don’t worry. It’s finally over. We got her.’ Whatever that means.”
The policemare shivered as she took this in. It hurt to move. “We got her?” she repeated.
“I guess so.” The doctor shrugged. “Anyways, informative as this is, I didn’t wake you up just to chat. You’ve got a visitor.” In a series of short, rapid movements, Nightly Dose closed the dividing curtains, shoved a cup of juice into Colgate’s hooves, picked up her clipboard again, and opened the door. “Oh, and from the sound of it,” she added with a satisfied tone, “this meeting has been a long time coming.”
Colgate sat up as Nightly Dose left the room, but immediately shrunk down into her sheets again when she heard the heavy hoofsteps outside. Oh no. Not him. Somepony, anypony but him. She took a quick sip of her drink – Why was it always grape flavour? – but could barely keep it down, resorting to simply hiding behind the flimsy cup. Her entire career flashed before her eyes as the door’s frame was filled by a bruised, armoured, seethingly furious Captain Straw Bolt.
Fear of death was one thing. Facing down Kira, the God of Death herself, was not far removed from it. Those were things that she could quantify, things that she could control; she knew exactly what the price of failure would be, and she knew how to prevent it. This fear struck her in a far deeper, more primal part of herself. This was the fear of her father after she’d been found making hoof-paintings with the papers in his office; this was the fear of Professor Crackdown after she’d failed her first major spelling test. All she knew was that she was completely under somepony else’s control, that she had wronged them in some way, and that she had absolutely no idea what they were going to do to her.
The full realization of this fillyhood fear had time to flash back and forth across Colgate’s brain several times before the enormous captain barked out not a name, but a number. “Sixteen.”
Colgate peered out from behind her cup. “Wha?” she asked weakly.
“That is how many laws you broke last night.” Straw Bolt stomped forward, slowly spreading his wings, only the presence of the nearby sleeping mare keeping his voice at a reasonable level. “Shall I list them?” he continued, spitting the words. “Mass property damage. Acts of terror. Threats against Equestria. Unauthorized uses of illegal magic. Assault on a member of the Canterlot City Guard. Unlawful imprisonment. Possession of unauthorized experimental weapons. Espionage. Multiple traffic violations. Conspiracy to commit all of the above. And those are just the crimes we know about already.” He leaned over the bed, towering over Colgate as she shrank further. “If Princess Luna’s whereabouts aren’t discovered soon, we may have to add treason to that list as well.”
Colgate’s eyes widened. “Princess Luna—”
“Do not interrupt me!” Straw Bolt roared. His breath blew her mane back, leaving her pale and painfully trembling. “You have absolutely no idea how much trouble you’re in, have you?” he growled. “Half of Canterlot staff has been emptied while we clean up your mess. Even the Royal Guard are making inquiries, and they haven’t given a pig’s behind for anything outside of Canterlot since Nightmare Moon. It’s been a full day and we’re still finding lost old ponies trying to crawl their way back into town. It’s only a miracle that nopony’s been killed.”
He audibly ground his teeth. Colgate didn’t dare speak again. “Now,” he continued, “I’m going to be extremely charitable and choose to believe that it was that infernal detective L who put you up to this, but don’t believe that any court of law in the world will care about the distinction. Keeping Ponyville safe was your responsibility; not his, yours. For all his alleged successes, I wouldn’t trust that conceited fool to protect a kitten with its own personal fortress, yet you willingly allowed him to blunder about in this town that you were assigned to look after. Have you lost all respect for the sanctity of the law, Romana? Are you under the delusion that the ability to show off absolves you of any and all responsibility towards others? You’ve brought disgrace upon your entire department, Romana. You’ve brought disgrace upon us all. And for what?” His words struck like stones. “For what?”
Colgate gulped. The first few sentences had been knives in her sides; every word after that was another twist. Even so, a glance in the direction where Rainbow Dash lay was enough to give her the courage to state her answer. “We got Kira.”
“Oh, did you.” Straw Bolt snorted. “Do you honestly believe that?”
“...Yes.”
“...Hm.” The captain folded up his wings. “It hardly matters what you believe. There’ll be an official inquest soon; you’re outside our jurisdiction now, but a single word from Celestia is all it will take to let us arrest every last miserable one of you. We’ll get what we need then. But right here, right now, between you and me, let me ask you just one thing. After all your brash displays of carelessness, after you had me insulted, assaulted, humiliated in front of a crowd of your precious citizens, after I have watched you willfully disrespect everything that all ranks of the Guard and the police stand for, I have just one question.”
He leaned close, baring his teeth, and then spoke in a surprisingly calm and normal tone. “Where is Sunny Days?”
Colgate’s trilling heart grew still. “What?” she asked.
“We found her,” the captain answered, backing off. “We found her being guarded by golems and thugs in the forest, half-starved and barely conscious. Lieutenant Quicksilver and I brought her back to Ponyville personally. So where is she?”
It took a moment for Colgate to answer, thoughts clashing as her mind rapidly switched gears. “I’ve heard nothing,” she choked out.
“Then you and I share a problem.” Bolt began to pace around her, shifting from fury to intense thought. “I’ve already been through all my contacts in Canterlot, while I was there raising the alarm over your fiasco. They had nothing. According to mine and the Royals’ reports, confirmed by high-ranking members of the Royal Guard, Sunny Days was recovered and returned safely to her family four days ago. Clearly, that is not the case, so now I’m asking you.” He looked sharply at Colgate. “Tell me the full story. Not just a report; I want to hear Sunny’s complete history. Where she comes from, why she’s important, what other forces might be after her. Leave nothing out. Tell me everything.”
Even once the shock had worn off, it still took her some time to collect herself enough to take another sip of her juice. “You first,” she said.
---
There was only one permanent structure in the Shinigami Realm. It was made of four walls and a roof, a mile wide in every direction, with a single door set into one side. The whole building was carved from stone slabs two feet thick, a material older than time and harder than steel, yet barely a shade darker than the sand around it. There were none who lived who could say where it had come from, save perhaps its sole occupant. This was the home of the Shinigami King.
The shinigami Sidoe approached the structure nervously. Like most gods of death, he had not come here since receiving his Death Note, an uncountable age ago. Everyone who met the Shinigami King moved far, far away immediately afterwards, both out of respect and uncontrollable terror. As such, the journey here had been a long one. He had passed three distinct tribes of gods on his trek, each more fearsome-looking than the last; it was speculated by some that groups formed in wide rings based on how far individuals had fled after their creation, with the bravest clustering around holes to larger worlds nearer to the center. Sidoe did not know, nor did he particularly care.
The final steps up to the building were the most difficult, and comprised a full third of the time of Sidoe’s journey. Now that he was here his terror had only increased, but he didn’t dare turn around. If he left now, the Old Man would know.
The structure’s door opened inwards as Sidoe approached, leading into deep shadows beyond. Next to the building’s size it was improbably, almost absurdly tiny – Sidoe had to stoop down slightly to fit through. Immediately the sand beneath his feet gave way to cold, hard stone, a sensation so unfamiliar and jarring that the god nearly turned and fled at the touch. Deep, unnatural shadows cut off the light from outside mere inches beyond the doorway, leaving Sidoe in absolute darkness.
Sidoe.
There was no noise, nor even the impression of noise. The words crawled over Sidoe’s skin, ripping through him like tiny needles. It wasn’t a painful experience, but neither was it pleasant, a voice seemingly written into the very fabric of reality.
Why are you here.
It was not a question. The Shinigami King did not ask questions. It was said that he knew all things, and expected any answer given to match up to what he already knew. Sidoe steadied himself and took a deep breath. I have nothing to fear. “I have been unable to find my Death Note,” he said in a loud, clear voice. “I laid it down while I rested, and when I was awoken by Mer it was no longer by my side.”
There was movement from within the blackness. Shadows slid across shadows, conflicting glimmers and reflections appearing as tricks of the eye in the nonexistent light. The pressure of the air (if it could even be called that) rose smoothly but rapidly, and Sidoe felt, though could not detect by any other means, the presence of a hulking, impossibly vast shape crawling towards him. The movement halted in unison with the first true noise that the Shinigami King had made, a sound like the simultaneous opening of hundreds upon hundreds of eyes.
Not very long ago, Byuk came to me with your Death Note. He said to me that you had died because of your sloth, and requested my permission to claim the Note as his own.
Sidoe trembled. He could not tell whether the Old Man was miles away or mere inches in front of his face; he didn’t dare move for fear of brushing against the elder God’s skin. “And what did you say to him?” he asked.
I told him yes.
The smaller god folded his fingers in irritation. That was just like Byuk to pull something like this; that monochromatic troublemaker had been pulling childish pranks on him for as long as either of them could remember. It was the reaction of the Shinigami King that worried him. The King of Death was supposed to be notoriously difficult to fool.
There was more movement in the blackness. Sidoe found himself glancing in all directions, his widened eyes searching out familiar shapes in the depths. Was that a bulging, globelike mass being suspended by chains? Were those fingers, thin as cobwebs, enclosing him in their web? Was that a great horned head, slowly turning towards him? He forced away any treasonous thoughts that Byuk’s deception had been allowed intentionally, just in case the Old Man could somehow hear the contents of his head. Either way, he was not expecting an apology. “And where is Byuk now?” he asked between gritted teeth.
He has fallen into the Pony Realm.
The Pony Realm? Sidoe almost asked, but bit his tongue at the last second. For all his transgressions already, there was nothing ruder than asking the King something that he could easily figure out for himself. Justine will know, he reassured himself, beginning a slow turn away towards the door. There was no need for goodbyes; Gods of Death had no use for them. As he turned, however, a last thought that had been nagging at him throughout his journey rose back to the top of his mind, and even with the light of the door in front of him, he found himself pausing to ask one more question. “I am uncertain how long I laid asleep. How long do I have left to live?”
Sidoe regretted the question as soon as he’d asked it. Shinigami time was, by necessity, relative; being connected to so many different worlds, each with their own system of measuring time, meant that a standardized system was virtually impossible. From the perspective of the Shinigami King a day might translate to a thousand years in another realm, or vice versa. Still, what the ancient God said next chilled what passed for Sidoe’s blood.
Very soon, you will die.
---
Even in the aftermath, the underground base was still not completely silent. A low, rumbling snore echoed down the empty corridors, reverberating strangely through the structure’s looping architecture. The sound seemed to come from everywhere at once, rumbling across every surface, leading in no direction in particular.
If one were able to follow the sound to its source, however, they would find, tucked away in a secluded storeroom in the deepest, darkest depths of the base, only a dragon not much bigger than a school-age foal. Spike was curled up on a chair in the middle of the room, a makeshift club made from a stick clutched in one claw, restlessly mumbling to himself in his sleep. Every third or fourth breath, a small puff of smoke would escape from his nostrils, quickly rising up to join a growing patch of soot on the ceiling. Underneath the chair was a heavy steel box, locked with a padlock to which he did not know the combination, just large enough to contain a pair of notebooks.
The rest of the base was more or less as it had been left. Mer’s ashes still had not been swept up. Lyra’s and Bon Bon’s bodies had been collected and delivered anonymously to the hospital. Jazz had spent the entire day cleaning up shards of broken crystal from around and inside Minty, partly disassembling the abacus to do so, but had eventually collected his findings in a box and retired to bed himself. It was just the two of them in the base. All was still.
Something flickered.
In one corner of the base’s main chamber, an abandoned stratoscreen crackled to life. Three words flashed across it for a fraction of a second before dissolving into static and winking out completely. Tiny lines of purple energy crackled around the edges of the screen, growing stronger and closer together before all at once leaping in a violet spark to the next screen in line. The image flashed again, the static lasting for an immeasurable moment longer, and then the light gathered again and jumped onto the next screen, and then the next. Around the room each screen lit up in turn, faster and faster, until the full circle had been completed. The spark lingered, rolling across the stone surface as though looking for something, then burst apart in a ghostly wave that vanished into the walls and ceiling.
On the surface, more screens flickered to life. The emergency screen in the Ponyville weather office flashed the message once, then went out. A young couple watching a late-night horror film were treated to the same three words, there and gone before even one could be read. Three days-old foals were simultaneously awakened by a crackle of static from the next room over. The spark continued.
The sole stratoscreen in Appleloosa, dedicated night and day to displaying nothing but sketches of Butch Castle and Sundancer the Kid, flashed the words onto an empty street.
Faster and faster it went, further and further. A retirement home in Manehattan, a rhubarb den in Vanhoover, a sky-high billboard in Los Pegasus. It crackled its way across Cloudsdale, snaked through the winding streets of Canterlot, and then halted.
The screen lay propped up on a desk in an office room, lavishly decorated. The walls were pink, the lower border trimmed with hoof-drawn hearts and flowers. To the left of the desk was a row of filing cabinets; to the right, a bookshelf filled with fairy tales and coloring books. Behind the desk, a broad window looked over an icy, mountainous landscape. In the corner nearest the door, a heavy-set pegasus pony slumped in a threadbare chair, fast asleep. The only object on the desk besides the screen was a small, unadorned plaque which read:
Warm Quilt – Administrator
The message displayed itself for over an hour before it was finally seen. It was only after the moon had risen into the sky that a unicorn mare entered the office, rounded the desk, and read the three words that were waiting patiently for her.
Twenty minutes later, there was a faint knock at the still-ajar door. A pair of colts looked in nervously, one peering over the head of the other. “You called, Mammy?” the smaller one said.
“Yes, dears,” Warm Quilt said. “Please, come in.” She’d moved to her own chair behind the desk, folding her forelegs carefully on the wood in front of her. She was pink and pleasantly plump, with the kind of fullness that one could feel themselves sinking into just by being close to her. She was not particularly old, but she had the weathered, prematurely aged look of a pony destined from birth to be a grandmother; thin streaks of grey could already be seen running through her purple mane. Although a faint quivering around her eyes revealed that not all was well, even now she wore a smile as habitually as others might wear a tiara. Her cutie mark was a small, plain, unadorned white heart.
Without prompting, the colts sat in the two chairs directly in front of the desk. “What’s going on?” the smaller of the pair asked, fidgeting in his seat. “Are we in trouble?”
“No, sweetheart. Nothing like that.” She looked back and forth between the pair in front of her, then down at her own hooves. “My little ponies,” she began. “It saddens me to have to tell you this, but...” She sighed and looked once more at the screen, then spoke the message aloud.
“L is dead.”
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What a fantastic wrap up of season 2! I look forward to season 3 :D
-looks at Author's Note-
Brofist.
Oh how I've missed this fic. Even if it's just an interlude it's still intensely gripping.
iambrony.dget.cc/mlp/gif/gVTJs.gif
Could someone pleaseeee give me a recap of this chapter??????????????
The Interlude chapter was unexpected, but fulfilling nonetheless. Now things are gonna keep getting crazy.
It makes me wonder what Celestia's doing at the moment...
3716057 Honestly, I'm surprised you're still reading. I guess I must be doing something right.
allright when you said stuff about season 3 i was worried it might get sappy but after reading this it fits death note and twilight has officially LOST IT
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
3716293
> Twilight has created a 4th Death Note out of pieces of the other 2.
)
> Twilight figures out that L became the greatest detective due to having all of her emotions drained by a changeling, effectively turning her into a puppet.
> Twilight absolves to find the leader of whatever group turned L into a puppet and kill them so it doesn't happen to anyone else
> Twilight and Fluttershy have decided to turn the name of Kira into the Ultimate Evil by destroying all lesser evils (in other words, they're doing the same thing they've been doing, they're just wording their reasons differently
> Colgate and Rainbow are in the hospital.
> Luna is missing.
> Colgate is in really deep trouble for the previous night's actions with the giant golem.
> Sunny Days is missing.....again.
> Fluttershy's Death Note, which used to be Twilight, wasn't actually Byuk's because he stole it from a Shinigami by telling the King that the Shinigami died and asked to keep it.
> The Shinigami now has a limited amount of time to find and get back his Death Note and kill someone before he himself dies,
> The message of L's death has reached the place where she came from, meaning N and M are about to enter the fray.
3716436 She lost it a while ago. Now however, she's finally realized it for herself.
After reading this chapter, I've now decided that every time I leave a comment on this story, I'll do it in points so that I can say everything that I want to say:
1. (If this world can’t be taught to love us, then we’ll teach it to fear us instead.) Is that a Friendship is Witchcraft reference?
2. Twilight is slowly losing herself, such as when she saw her note about Moondancer and simply through it away so it couldn't trace her. It's being done in a great way, but I'm worried that she's simply becoming a pony version of Light.
3. Please don't let Near be Sunny days. i can already see how that would go.
4. Is season 3 going to be the last season?
5. Sidoe is the same shinigami from Death Note, which means that this is the second time he lost his Death Note.
3716781 guess thats true i just hard to tell somtimes i guess i could say she really lost it when she killed rarity and pinkie and turned her back on friendship.....dang
3716782 yeah throwing away the moondancer page yep shes snaped oh boy
And then...there were 3...
3 left standing
2 to play the game,1 to try and stop it.
3 laid to rest,
2 in violence,1 in happiness.
How many will be left when all is said and done?
3716782
It could be more that she knows this is no longer just for Moondancer since her goal is now to purge the world of all evil by making herself and Fluttershy the greatest evil.
Sunny Days' name was written in the Death Note chapters ago. She's not Near, she's just gone to die.
3716998
I meant that she is now treating something that was at first the only thing that kept her from becoming a simple murderer, like nothing but an obstacle that gets in her way. Combined with the fact that she told Mer that the Death Note is more important than the magic of friendship, she is clearly slipping.
What I meant by that is that if Sunny Days is as smart as Near, Twilight wouldn't be able to kill her instantly and she might get caught before she dies.
3716386
Well, I have to.
If I'm continue to be hating on your story, it would behoove me not to do it prematurely!
Wait...
Could Sunny Days possibly be linked to Celestia???
This chapter really impressed me. I found fascinating that Twilight was aware of her actions as Kira and knew that her actions are horrific.
And I like that even when Twilight manages to kill L she still felt sad and remorseful. And I have to say that I like how in a way she both loves and hates Fluttershy. Hate because of the ponies she had to kill with the death note while Love because she understands why she's did it.
And unlike Light Yagami who was so crazy and narcissistic who believed to be the only good and pure person in the world both Twilight and Fluttershy are willing to become monsters as a way to prevent any more evil. Maybe they'll force to remember some of her friends and family members they were force to kill as a way to honor them.
When I began reading Death Note Equestria I was surprisingly disturbed with the way you developed Twilight. Twilight using the death note to kill her friends that's kind of cold but now that I know that she's aware of her actions it makes me feel happy.
I wonder what will happen to both Shy and Twi. Will they die?
Also since you stated that Pinkie Pie might return I'm interested to know what purpose will she serve to the plot.
Still I'm interested in where it's going now.
I would say that Joker's review got everything right, but they were clearly mistaken about which pony gets the Best Pony title. <<< Look at my original joke, guys!
I guess I'm still lurking here (feels like a decade since the EqD days
) because I'm waiting for:
- A bombshell to shake things up some more (C'mon Sunny! Princesses! Pinkie! Golem #2! Anyone!?). Don't play NearPony and MelloPony straight, for example. If we're keeping the story largely within Sunny's expected lifespan, have the colts mix up with the remaining CMCs or something that gets our interest by being radically different from the Death Note series(es) we all know, and/or puts in more of the pony aspect of this universe. Make the golem plot more prominent (now I think of it, L's golem comparison in this chapter looks like a hint). At the very least, don't just substitute Shining Armour for Light's sister!
- Certain characters to become more reminiscent of their in-show selves. Hopefully I sensed Fluttershy's plot-hooks correctly, though it'd still be hard to save that character. I actually thought Linky McWhats-Her-Face was a memory-wiped disguised version of her at first, given Shy's strange letters from Photo Finish and how much closer Linky's characterisation was to her's than what we got later on (shame, would've been a great bombshell and made a side-character's storyline interestingly relevant). And Twi's is pretty much meant to be a near-unrecognisable conflict at this point. Unlike the review though, I do like what's been done with Rainbow.
- Basically Death Note: Equestria having more Equestria instead of seeming like an Equestrian Flavoured Earth with Magic. I...can't really explain this one. I mean, Equestria going downhill is the reason for this story, but it still seems too... Earthlike. Perhaps there's a point I want to make here about this Equestria's worldbuilding but can't as it's 3am, or I'm just expecting this fic to suddenly cater to my taste in alternate universes like an idiot. Sorry.
That said (well...rambled and moaned at 3am about, I suspect
), the amount of effort put in and some genuinely tense parts still make it worth sticking around.
3716386 3716573 3716362
I'm only guessing but I can see this happing:
Mello=Gilda
Near=Sunset Shimmer or maybe Trixie?
The Griffon kingdom=Kira's Kingdom
Is the The Crystal Empire and the Crystal Ponies gonna play a role in the story?
So Twilight's going from Light Yagami to Lelouch vi Britannia?
3718153
Never mind that that's not even remotely plausible, I can't get that image out of my head now.
3718437 The ongoing stealth edit confirms that stratoscreens and other crystal tech are based on Crystal Empire imports, but other than that, they'll probably be keeping to themselves.
3718442 I really need to watch Code Geass. And also to figure out how to pronounce it.
3718537
Leh-loo-sh vee Brit-tan-eeya
3718442
I honestly thought that too, but there are some key differences between the two.
3718437
One problem though, the end hinted that N and M are both colts.
3718153 The reason Equestria is so Earth-like, is that the crossover wouldn't work otherwise. The plot of deathnote relies on humans being humans.
Think of it like the hearth's warming eve play - the mane six are still very recognizably themselves, but they have to change a bit, or the story won't work.
Same here. Canon Twilight would have gone into twitchy eye mode and got herself caught before L even appeared. But that wouldn't make for an epic story, would it?
3719976
That and Rainbow probably would've beaten the hell out of L halfway through the story.
Thes best storu ever!!!
*slow clap* Very good sir/ma'am very good indeed.
made an account just to say this is the best crossover ever
3716573
Twilight resolves, not absolves.
3742166
...taken out of context, that sentence is a brilliant analysis of her motivation.
Somehow I don't think that Twilight got the relationship between Bon Bon and Lyra right. Bon Bon was too enraged when Lyra died. If Bon Bon did drain Lyra's emotions to make her a better detective, then it was at Lyra's insistence, not some shadowy third party.
Soooooo... Mirror Pool Pinkie survived?
Plz? PLEASE? OMG PELEEASBHERTBVAWLWBkanwhvbaglw4 l'
I wonder who will be the successors of L... Vinyl and Octavia?
Sheesh, I can't believe this fic is still going. Even after all this time, I'm still happy I'm reading this. I remember this is one of the first fics I ever read because it got featured on Equestria Daily. At the time I had not watched Deathnote nor knew what a good fanfiction was. Naturally, this was the best thing I've ever read.
Now that I have watched Deathnote and have spent a considerable amount of time reading, writing and otherwise surrounding myself with fanfiction, I've come to realize the flaws and faults in this fic. Perhaps it's simply nostalgia, but I still find myself loving this fic. I'm really looking forward to see what comes in future chapters, and I really hope this fic continues for as long as possible. It truly is a joy to read.
Until then, I'll be waiting.
3773655
I think Twilight is loosing her ability to sense empathy in others as she becomes more and more like Light
Whew. I put this off for too long. Good to finally read this. Shouldn't ever let my favourites build up like that again.
3936867
This. This right here. Finally, I'm caught up after months of neglect as well.
Keep it up, Nine!
I played kindertotenlied during twilight and fluttershy's dance. It fit very well. 1 more chapter and i'll be caught up with this amazing story.
Seems about the right time to post this
i.pinimg.com/736x/cb/bc/3c/cbbc3ca052d4cd3c1ff1502f93241178--tola-death-note.jpg
I like to point out how degrading the ending was for L's character. The idea that L was the way she was throughout the story is chalked off as her being drained by a changeling, when in fact there are natural reasons for her to behave the way she does. She's on the spectrum. Not to mention the fact that twilight assumes she could not show kindness, when in fact although she's had trouble expressing said emotion Lyra has showed kindness.Despite this it's still a good story. Honestly want to see Twilight and Fluttershy lose sooner rather than later, but alas we'll just have to see.
alas, L... no, strike that. i don't lament the death of L. i lament the death of the one who died to create you. alas, Lyra. a mare should never be reduced to a fragment of herself. to a single letter of her name.
Gosh, stop the madness, stop the madness!..
Twilight's not a colt!
And neither is Fluttershy!
What in the name of hecks is wrong with the author?! Why did no one enforce review and post-editing??
Should I complain to the site's staff?..
Oh, the irony... A "Death note" crossover -- and it fails to stand the trial!
Oh, Kira! Where are you? Do bring justice upon this site! Make the stories good! I know it's possible, because everything is already written with a talent... They just lack censorship.
O Kira! Bring death upon... (No, we don't want to, ah, deprive people of life... No. We want them deprived of what makes them bad... We want them corrected...) Bring death upon the stories' depravities, Kira! And cleanse the world of fiction!