Awakening Fluttershy's Dark Sky

by Misty Shadow

Duel With Death's Ruler

The next day…

It was 5:15 P.M., and the ponies had arrived at Arc Rising cemetery. Having led them there after spending some time going over their strategy, Maud Pie had prepared adequately for the situation at hand. Her and the others had entered the graveyard, ready to face the Goddess of Death.

"Come out Goddess of Death." Maud declared with dull energy. "You're finished."

"Yes, I am…" the Goddess of Death said as she and a still unconscious Spike materialized. "Finished waiting for you to show up, that is. You're fifteen minutes early, and yet I wish you had come sooner, my beloved children. I would've scheduled a sooner time, but I just love this time of the day so much, the time when the night draws so close. Plus, that would've meant less time for me to spend with my dear child, Spike…"

Twilight Sparkle and her friends growled as they witnessed the Goddess of Death hugging Spike and nuzzling him affectionately.

"You sicko…" Twilight insulted her angrily. "Give him back right now! Don't even think about using him as an advantage in whatever screwed up games you want to play with us!"

"Ah yes," replied the Goddess of Death, "you may have him back alive and well."

With those words, the Goddess of Death levitated Spike down to the others. Twilight felt his pulse, and after breathing a sigh of relief upon realizing he was alive, quickly teleported Spike back to her castle, in his bed safe and sound.

"I don't want the poor thing to be lonely inside me without his friends for even a short while. I want all of you to be inside of me together, after you learn the truth about yourselves of course, my dear children…"

"What do you mean, "truth"?" Applejack asked in frustration. "And would ya stop calling us yer kids?"

"Yeah, it's super creepy!" Rainbow Dash yelled.

"We weren't told that you were our father!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed, holding a script in her front legs that she was waving in the air.

"I am your father," replied the Goddess of Death, "in a loose sense of the word."

"Phew…" Pinkie breathed a sigh of relief. "That's not so bad."

"I'm one of the gods who helped create you." the Goddess of Death explained. "Your parents in this world are not the ones who conceived you."

"D'oh!" Pinkie grunted as Twilight, Applejack, and Rainbow looked upon the death goddess in shock.

"Heh heh heh…" the Goddess of Death chuckled. "You seem shocked. But deep down, you know it to be true. You all have found it bizarre that the only memories you have are the ones that have been written into your brains by the Gods of Reality and Fantasy. Remembering not your childhoods, not the experiences that made you who you are today, not even how you became friends. You all know deep down that you are just shadows of your former selves, real people who have been reduced to fictional characters…"

"Shut the fuck up!" Twilight shouted. "That's crap! We're not "fictional characters" to be used for your shitty idea of entertainment!"

The death goddess then turned her attention to Twilight, chuckling now at her hammy acting…

"You don't have to try so hard to pretend, Twilight…" the Goddess of Death said amusedly. "Surely, you knew about this from reading that book…"

Twilight's friends turned their attention to her as well.

"What does she mean by that, Twilight?" they asked.

Twilight gulped and began to sweat nervously. She then sighed in despondence.

"I'm sorry, guys…" Twilight said in a crestfallen tone. "But what she's saying is true. We're not who we were made to believe we were. We're not even from Equestria. We used to be human beings from another world. The reason we don't have any memories of it is because the gods who brought us here and transformed us wiped our minds clean of any of them. I kept quiet about it because I was worried it would hurt you."

"What are you saying?" Applejack and Rainbow asked as Twilight turned her head the other way and said nothing else. "Twilight!"

As Applejack and Rainbow tried to talk to Twilight, Pinkie walked over to Maud Pie and said…

"Is that the same reason why you never told me that I was a human clone too? You didn't want me to be upset?"

"Mostly." Maud responded as she pulled out her sword, the cross on the end of it glowing once more. "I also knew that by what my superiors wanted to happen, you were going to find out eventually. I guess we all figured the best time would be right here when you were together with your friends staring Death in the face."

"Until we were staring Death in the face?" Pinkie said in confoundment. "That's...not really the ripest time to spring life-changing information on someone…"

While the others were talking, they didn't notice the Goddess of Death muttering something under her breath as her horn lit up. Four spirits left her body, and flew out into the distance, the others paying them no mind.

"Come on," replied Maud, "it's not like you can't take it with you to the grave."

"Wait a minute…" Pinkie said as she thought what Maud said over. "Are you implying that it's...good that we know this?"

"Of course it's good that you know this," replied Maud, "because it's the truth. Lies and half-truths that we tell ourselves can only provide us with fleeting comfort. Truth, however, no matter how painful it may be, provides us with an eternal solace of happiness and peace...once it's accepted."

"I weary of all of this conversation," said the Goddess of Death, "it's about time we fight."

"Good," said Maud as she got into a fighting stance with the cross on her saber still glowing, "because I can't wait to hurt your spirit any longer, my dear friend…"

THE BATTLE COMMENCES

The Goddess of Death's unicorn horn lit up, and she shot a blue laser beam up towards the sky. As she held her right hoof close to her face and began to chant something, Maud took her sword in hooves, and rushed towards the Goddess of Death. Before she got a chance to slice her, however, she was struck in the back by a white laser beam from the sky and became temporarily stunned. Looking up towards the sky in puzzlement, she saw where the attack had come from, a star amongst many other stars in the sky. While Maud wondered why only one of the stars attacked her, the others glanced up at the now starry sky as well, equally confused.

"It's only a quarter after five in the evening…" Twilight said. "It's not even that dark, yet...there are stars in the sky?"

"No," replied Maud Pie, who had recovered from the blast, "they're not stars...they're souls. The Goddess of Death called them back into this world to aid her…"

"Wrong." the Goddess of Death chimed in. "They've always been in this world. This world is its own, yet it's also connected with all the worlds that came before it, as well as the World of the Dead and the afterlife in the moon. The gap has always been bridged, we just need to find the will to realize it. Before this world's creation was conceived, I had already called those who had died to become a part of me, a star in the sky, or…"

The Goddess of Death then punched the ground with her right hoof, and the ground began to rumble.

"...one with the earth."

When the shaking ceased, a massive horde of spirits began to rise from the graves in the cemetery...only to start melting. The others saw the Goddess of Death chanting a spell that was causing them to liquify and became mortified.

"STOP!" they shouted. "Do you realize what you're doing?!"

"Relax," replied the Goddess of Death when she finished chanting, "I haven't done them any harm. I've conversed with every single one of these souls in the sky and in this cemetery, made friendship with them all. They will eventually become one with me at the end of it all, but for now, I need their help to get uncompliant subjects back on the right track. You, my friends, are a shining example of such subjects…"

"Subjects?!" Rainbow exclaimed. "We're not your flunkeys! Stop fooling yourself!"

"We ain't gonna comply with whatever the hay you're tryin' to do, and we never will!" Applejack yelled. "So there!"

"I am not asking for you to comply…" the Goddess of Death said as she began to take off her robe.

It was then that Maud Pie looked up at the stars in the sky again, and saw them growing brighter. Upon also noticing the now-liquid spirits merging together into a massive mass of liquid and the opening to the graveyard becoming blocked off by all the gates of the graveyard becoming giant, blue, magical barriers, she realized what the Goddess of Death was trying to do.

"Oh shit…" she thought to herself as she began to transform into a being of pitch-black, yet transparent shadow.

"I am asking for you…" the Goddess of Death continued as she threw off the robe and revealed her face. "...to die."

Everyone saw that the Goddess of Death was actually...

"EVERYONE, TAKE COVER." Maud shouted apathetically as she ran towards the others, leaped in the air, and fully transformed into shadow to wrap them in a shield.

Very shortly after Maud covered the ponies with the shadow shield, lasers from all across the sky were fired, and the mass of liquid that the spirits from the grave had melted into had begun to flood the place, bringing the tombstones with it as it rose up. The shadow shield kept the ponies afloat on the giant spirit pool that would've drowned them. Try as they might, the stars could not break through Maud's shield and stopped firing with a need to recharge.

After the ceasefire, Maud Pie lowered the shadow shield, reshaping it into a platform for them to stand on. The Goddess of Death was now flapping her wings in the air and panting after expending a large amount of magical energy on the assault, tiring out and trying to catch her breath.

"I know what you were trying to do now…" Maud said. "You were just pretending to take the battle slow, talking and using your big reveal to distract us so you could easily eliminate us all with one big move. Unfortunately for you, I'm legitimately taking this battle slow, only rushing into action when necessary. I fully expected you to counter that first swing I was going to make, but I tried anyways and didn't try to attack after that because I wanted to see your way of fighting. Now that I know your battle style, I can make an effective counterattack."

"Ha ha ha…" the Goddess of Death laughed. "I like the way you're talking, Maud. You're really getting into this whole thing, aren't you?"

"I've been fully immersed in this little tale from the start, Luna." Maud replied. "Though to be honest, I still find it kind of weird calling you the Goddess of Death, Prince Luna."

The Goddess of Death, Prince Luna's identity has been fully revealed!

Question #3: Did Twilight CON the riddler in her dream?

A. Yes

B. No

Yes

Twilight began to chuckle to herself. Luna took notice.

"Do you find something funny about this, Twilight?" Luna asked in irritation, remembering what happened in Twilight's dream.

"So, did you have fun getting out of my dreamscape on your own?" Twilight asked cheekily. "Or did the stars aid in your escape again?"

"Oh come on, really?" Luna replied. "I'm PRINCE Luna, a human clone of the real Princess Luna. Also, the version of me Rarity and Discord created for this universe never was Nightmare Moon...oh shit..."

With that, Twilight began laughing.

Luna began sobbing.

The others began pondering what was going on more than ever.

Maud began staring apathetically.

Rarity and Discord began wondering why they wrote this scene. Way to spoil a really big plot twist, don't you think?

No

"Why Princess Luna…?" Twilight's friends asked as they sobbed. "Why are you, of all ponies, the Goddess of Death?!"

"It's Prince Luna," replied Luna with a grin on her face, "mind you. And the reason I became the Goddess of Death was simply because it was my responsibility as a creator of this world. Someone had to maintain the death that goes on in this world. Everypony has to die when their time comes. If I hadn't taken the role, somepony else would've had to. I feel it's only noble of me to bear the burden."

"Oh, that's so kind of you!" Rainbow Dash shouted sarcastically.

"If yer really just doing your job, then why did you kidnap Spike?!" Applejack asked angrily. "Why are you trying to kill us even though our times haven't come?!"

"I don't understand you!" Pinkie Pie yelled. "What are you trying to achieve?!"

"Eternal peace, of course." Prince Luna answered. "Once I've assimilated you all, I'll be one step closer to my goal of becoming one with everyone. And once I've achieved full assimilation with everyone, I'll finally be able to make everyone happy...forever."

"..." everypony else remained silent, not knowing how to respond.

"I love all of you, my subjects." Luna said wholeheartedly. "I only wish for us all to live together in perfect harmony."

With those words, Twilight Sparkle shuddered, feeling like she had heard those words from somewhere before…

The others, focused on Luna, didn't notice Twilight's nervous reaction. Maud Pie, however, noticed the others embraced in thought about how to take in all of this, and knew that she had to say something…

"I know what you are all thinking." she told them. "And yes, she does mean all that. This Luna is not completely evil, in fact, she has a lot of good in her. As her friend, and fellow god, I know."

"?!" Twilight and her friends went in shock. "Wait Maud, you're a goddess too?!"

"God." Maud corrected them in her reply. "Yes, I'm the God of War. It's a title I'm not too proud of, so I'd like to get off that subject, thank you."

"Okay, but…" the others said back. "Maud, you're a good god, right?"

"I can say my intentions for the universe are good," replied Maud, "but sadly, that doesn't make me a "good god". I'm not "good" or "bad". Neither is Luna or our three superiors. We just do good, evil, and neutral things that we think will benefit the universe and its inhabitants, swearing allegiance naught to good, evil, or neutrality, but a mix of all three."

"Wait, wait, wait." Rainbow Dash intervened. "Now I'm really lost. Is Luna really a bad guy, or not?"

"Is she...just one of them villains we're supposed to feel sorry for in the end?" Applejack asked in puzzlement.

Luna, who had been overhearing this entire conversation while flying just a little ways away from the group in air, sighed as she began charging up a laser blast with her horn, some of her magic power having returned.

"Maybe she's like a rival character who's not really evil, but acts like a jerk even though deep down inside, she has good intentions!" Pinkie proclaimed. "Or maybe, she's a supervillain who borders on being an antihero after gradually getting less evil as the-"

Pinkie Pie was interrupted by a laser beam from Luna's horn being shot at her and Maud reestablishing the shadow shield to block it.

"Or maybe…" Luna said in frustration. "There are just no bad guys or good guys, like Maud was hinting at. Quit standing around and talking, either fight me or surrender."

Immediately upon hearing that, Maud took off her red coat and unveiled the sides of it, revealing an assortment of guns.

"The first option works well enough for me." Maud said. "We'll talk later, guys. For now, we fight."

Maud showed the gun collection in her coat to the others and laid it down on the shadow shield floor.

"These are supernatural guns, capable of wounding spiritual beings just like my sword." Maud explained. "Applejack, Twilight, Rainbow, choose your weapons. Once you each have a gun, I want you to take aim at the sky and get rid of as many of those soul stars as possible. Pinkie, you come with me. I'm going to need you to help me close in on the Goddess of Death and finish her. To do that though, we're both going to have to be in our true form…"

"Okay…" Pinkie nervously agreed, knowing she had no choice.

As Maud went over her strategy with Pinkie, Applejack, Twilight, and Rainbow each selected the gun they wanted from Maud's coat. Rainbow had chosen a pair of submachine guns, Applejack had chosen a magnum, and Twilight had chosen a simple pistol, with an end that was shaped like a gatling gun of course. They were somewhat surprised to find that the guns felt fairly heavy, considering that Maud was carrying at least fifty of them on her back along with a sword. She must be strong, being a god...

"By the way," said Maud after she was done talking to Pinkie, "feel free to fire those guns at liberty. They never run out of ammo, the bullets they shoot are created by magic. Also, you don't need to take out all of the soul stars, just enough to make it easier for Pinkie and I. Are you ready?"

"Yeah…" Twilight answered. "But just asking, what are you and Pinkie planning to do? What did you mean by "true form"?"

Maud smirked in response.

"You're really enjoying playing along with this too, aren't you?" she replied. "Regardless, you'll know when you see it…"

With that, Maud finally lowered the shadow shield again and turned it back into a platform. After chanting something as she held her front hooves to her face, she slammed them down and expanded the shadow platform to cover the entire flood. Now, everywhere in the cemetery was safe to walk on.

"This will cost me energy…" Maud thought to herself. "But I should have enough time…"

"Everyone, let's go." Maud cried.

"Right!" Pinkie said as she transformed into a demon with a body made of cake, with hot, pink frosting dripping off her. She got behind Maud as they both started running towards Luna. Luna tried to shoot them with lasers from her horn, but Maud and Pinkie evaded them. Worried, Luna flew farther back away from the two.

"Damn it!" Luna exclaimed as she looked up at her subjects in the sky. "Please, help me! Shoot them!"

The stars, having fully recharged now, got ready to fire at Maud and Pinkie, but were disrupted by Applejack, Rainbow, and Twilight firing their guns up at the sky. The combination of a multitude of magic machine bullets, magnum bullets, and gatling gun bullets quickly got rid of over half of the stars above the cemetery. Luna saw all the wounded star souls falling out of the sky, bleeding ectoplasm and blood as they fell onto the shadow platform below, and was mortified.

"My children…" she said with tears in her eyes. "My children are hurting each other…"

It was then that Maud and Pinkie had gotten close enough to Luna, and using her back legs, Maud thrusted her back hooves into Pinkie's chest and hurled her up at Luna. Pinkie clutched Luna tight and pressed her hot frosting coat against her. Luna cringed in pain as she felt the intense heat.

"AAAGGGHHH!" Luna cried. "You...can harm me too?"

"Yup," replied Pinkie, "Maud didn't just help me control my inner demon, she also helped me discover how to harm spiritual beings. The sword that she carries can also imbue other beings and even things with the power to effect spiritual matter. That's how she enhanced those guns. Maud never planned to defeat you on her own. She wanted us to work together as a team. She wanted us to know that she's our friend."

"But-" Luna began before she was cut off by being stabbed in the back with a sword by Maud. In pain, Luna stopped flying and fell to the ground along with Maud and Pinkie. Because of their powers, none of them were hurt by the landing, but Luna was writhing in agony from both the wound in her back and something else Maud had stabbed...

Maud slowly pulled her saber out of Luna's body, revealing a white book with a black star on it on the end of the blade. Upon catching sight of the book, Twilight became surprised by how much it resembled her book.

"What have you done…?" Luna said in pain as she saw Maud getting ready to pull the book off the blade. "Stop...NO!"

Maud ignored Luna and pulled the book off the blade. With that, a hole with light shooting out of it was created in both the book and in Luna's chest.

"AAAWWWAAAGGGHH!" Luna screamed as she clutched the hole in her chest.

She continued to scream and clutch the hole in her chest for about twenty seconds as Maud just stared at her dully. Finally, Maud got tired of watching said scene and just stuffed the book in Pinkie's cake frosting, which ruined all the pages in the book, causing Luna to explode in a mess of blood and ectoplasm. All the souls that had compromised her body split apart and flew away in all directions, with the exception of one. This soul hovered over to our heroes and began to transform into a familiar figure with yellow fur and pink hair. Twilight and her friends gasped as this spirit manifested into...

"Fluttershy?!" Twilight and her friends exclaimed in shock.

"Oh my," said Fluttershy's ghost, "did I startle you guys? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."

"Yup, that's Fluttershy." Rainbow said with a smile.

"Oh Fluttershy!" Twilight squealed with delight as she hugged a surprisingly tangible Fluttershy tightly. "I knew it! That was your voice I heard earlier! Oh, I'm so glad to see you again!"

"I'm…" Fluttershy replied, feeling mixed emotions from Twilight's near-suffocating hug. "...happy that you care so much Twilight, but...I've only been gone for four days."

"Gone?!" Pinkie shouted. "Is that what you call it?! You were dead! For four days! I had to plan a reunion party for when I got to see you again in heaven!"

"You...know when you're gonna die?" Applejack asked, feeling slightly creeped out.

"You seem...awfully nonchalant about the fact that you died, Fluttershy." Rainbow said with a confused look on her face.

"Well yeah," replied Fluttershy, "I don't see what the big deal is. This is only the fourth time I've died at least."

"WHAT?!" Twilight and her friends cried in understandable shock.

"Yeah…" Fluttershy said. "You see, I'm actually a god. The God of Life, to be exact. I'm immortal now, even without the phoenix feather I used to have. All the versions of me that have died throughout the tales of the Dark Sky were just different incarnations of me. They may be mortal, but even though I am them, I am also still my eternal self, my true self, in the Immortal World."

Twilight Sparkle and her friends just looked at Fluttershy with absolutely dumbfounded stares… Maud Pie, on the other hand, just pulled a plastic bag of marshmallows out of her fur pocket as Fluttershy looked over at her in confusion.

"Why are they so…" Fluttershy began to ask. "...astonished to hear this? I thought I asked you to tell them about who I really was as soon as you met them."

"I'm sorry sir," apologized Maud as she poured a good amount of marshmallows on her left hoof, "but I could not find an appropriate time to deliver said information. We were busy taking care of an unexpected threat, the Goddess of Death, who had so rudely imprisoned the soul of your incarnation in this world. I do expect and deserve whatever punishment you wish to give me, however."

"Oh no," replied Fluttershy, "it's no big deal. I should've made this incarnation of me stronger. I just wanted to conserve my power for maintaining life in this world and the Immortal World, making sure all the animals, plants, and ponies are happy, even with all the mayhem that goes on in it. Also, inside the Goddess of Death, I overheard all the conversations you had with Luna, and wow. You saved me some time by telling them about your godship and our agenda."

"So…" the others thought. "Fluttershy...is one of the three superiors Maud has, apparently. I guess that's...one new thing we know…"

Maud put the marshmallow lot in her mouth and started chewing the food before looking back at the others and noticing they still looked very puzzled. Sighing, she turned back to Fluttershy, who started giggling.

"Don't worry," said Fluttershy with a cheeky smile, "everything will be explained...so long as they come with me to the Immortal World, a place where everyone is immortal…"

Fluttershy made a hoofsnap with her right hoof and a swirling, yellow and pink portal appeared behind her. Looking at Twilight and her friends and still smiling, she said…

"If you want to know the reason why you are here, you will have to trust me and follow me…"

"..." Twilight and her friends went, realizing they didn't have much of a choice here...granted that they truly cared about unraveling this mystery of what their creation was about.

"I'm not forcing you to come with me," said Fluttershy, "but come now, could you really ignore such a chance?"

Decision #6: Should Twilight and her friends go with Fluttershy straight away or not?

A. Follow Fluttershy to the Immortal World (Epilogue)

B. Decline for the time being (Encounter With the Four Souls)