Awakening Fluttershy's Dark Sky

by Misty Shadow

The Murderer Revealed...

At Jelly Rockets…

Most of the ponies had left the amusement park after word of Myra Michaels and Edward Miles' warning had spread. The Dark Sky members and Water Rinse, however, were still there. The Dark Sky members, with the exception of Ghost Rainbow Dash, had gone to the mirror funhouse, while Water Rinse was just sitting down by the men's bathroom, feeling depressed. He had seen G.R.D. pass by and go into the men's room, and after what had happened earlier, couldn't even muster the drive to say anything about it. Eventually, Maud Pie/Myra, who was strolling by looking to see if everyone had been evacuated, saw him.

"Hey," she said as she walked over to Water, "there's two killers on the loose. This place isn't safe. The possibility of you dying here has gone up."

"Oh, are you with the police?" Water replied in a jeering tone. "Are you looking for these killers so you can talk with them and then let them off the hook because a witness with enhanced vision saw the victim holding a gun? Or because they're incapable of holding a weapon properly? Or because we have bigger problems to worry about than ponies dying?"

"Actually, that last one has some logic behind it." Maud said. "All of the ponies in this world are immortal. They come back to life after they've been killed. I hate to sound insensitive, but I personally don't find it to be a huge deal. On the other hand, I can understand them being scared because it's painful to die. I don't want to see them get hurt."

"Well, I'm not scared to die." Water proclaimed. "Not after the injustice that I witnessed today. I was sexually harassed and no one even cared. The one who harassed me got off scot-free. It was horrible. I don't want to live anymore. This world is far too corrupt. I wish that the ones who have corrupted it were dead."

With that, Maud breathed a sigh.

"I understand why you are so upset." she said in a genuinely sympathetic tone. "I feel the tragedy of your soul...part of my power is the ability to learn the root of one's inner conflict by feeling their spiritual energy. You're mad at yourself, aren't you?"

"...? What?!" Water cried.

"You still haven't forgiven yourself," continued Maud, "for the time Spitfire caught you sniffing her underwear and she beat you up for it. You knew you had done wrong and felt guilty, but secretly, you felt the punishment too severe. You never believed Spitfire really loved you, and secretly, you hated her. But that only made you feel more guilty. Out of guilt, you punished yourself for years, becoming a feminist to advocate the rights of others and try to make the world a better place as penance. Yet you're still angry at Spitfire deep down… When you got sexually harassed today, it subconsciously reminded you of the underwear incident, only this time, the roles were reversed. You, the victim, tried to solve the problem without violence and got punished for it while the offender went free. And now that you feel you can't do anything to give the people who have wronged you what they deserve at all, you feel the only solution really is to hate them in secret, calling them the people who corrupt the world so that others will relate to your problem. But you feel that's wrong, so you hate yourself. Are we on the same page here so far?"

Water Rinse just sat in silence for a few moments before he started to tear up.

"You're absolutely right!" he yelled as he cried. "I'M A LOSER! PLEASE HELP ME! I DON'T WANT TO BE A BAD PERSON! I just want a happy life! Show me the right WAAAYYYYY!"

"Oh, well I wasn't done yet," replied Maud, "but if it's advice you want, I would suggest for you to forgive who wronged you-"

"You're right," said Water, unintentionally cutting her off as he wiped the tears from his face, "I should just forgive that ghost pony. She may be a dick, but I don't need to see her get her karma to feel better about myself anymore. If she continues to be a dick, she's giving herself her own karma, and if she mends her ways, all the better. But that's not my concern anymore, I played my part. It's over."

"It's very good that you've realized that," Maud told him, "but that's not enough. You also need to-"

"Yes…" Water replied. "It's not enough to just say it…I need to show that I'm over this! Then it's decided! I'm going to march into that men's room, look that ghost straight in the eye, and say that "I'm over what happened!"! Thank you for your advice, ma'am. I'll be sure to remember you."

Maud just gave him a dull, yet concerned and discomforted stare as Water Rinse held out his right front leg and offered her a hoofshake.

"You're welcome…" she said with unease in her apathetic tone as she shook his hoof.

Water then went into the men's bathroom. Ghost Rainbow Dash was in one of the closed jelly stalls playing her favorite game…

…Holy Nectar of Celestia on the Nintendo 3DS. In it, a neurotic Princess Celestia was in heaven, fighting off the Aero Knights of Chi, who were trying to blow her out of heaven by playing their flutes. To fight them, Celestia used fruit weapons. She used oranges as tear gas bombs, bananas as boomerangs and guns, and pineapples as pineapples (grenades). In the tutorial, Celestia shouted…

"RUB MY BANANAS WITH THE STYLUS TO SHOOT! SELECT YOUR CHOICE OF EXPLOSIVE AND BLOW IN THE MICROPHONE TO SEE THE RESULTS! I'M LIVING ON IT!"

"Ha ha ha!" G.R.D. laughed. "Oh Celestia, I'm not even playing this with a stylus…"

G.R.D. rubbed her right hoof across the game screen to shoot the weapons, but to her dismay, got a stream of glowing, blue ectoplasm on the screen.

"Wha-aw shit!" G.R.D. shouted in frustration. "I'm leaking!"

*KNOCK* *KNOCK* *KNOCK*

"Please open this door and come out!" Water declared. "I know you can touch objects! There's no point in denying it!"

"Aw…" G.R.D. groaned as she put her game away in her ghostly pocket and opened up the stall door, inadvertently getting ectoplasm on it. "How did you know?"

"I came to a natural assumption when you FELT ME ON THE INSIDE," explained Water, "and I heard you in the bathroom just now. How could you play whatever that game was if you couldn't touch it?"

G.R.D. let out a sigh.

"Look," said G.R.D., "if you're still upset about what happened, I'll have you know that I didn't plan on getting totally off the hook for that. I didn't think that what I was doing was "wrong" or "right", I just...did it. But I've been doing some thinking now, and...I'm sorry."

"Oh, um...well…" Water hesitated to reply, not expecting an apology. "All is forgiven. Just please don't do that to me or anyone else without consent ever again."

"Sure," responded G.R.D, "I'd already resolved to not do that again. Are we cool now?"

G.R.D. asked that while holding out her right front leg for a hoofshake, having momentarily forgotten that it was leaking ectoplasm.

"...Yes." Water answered after hesitating for a little while again, and he took G.R.D. right hoof and shook it.

"Now if you don't mind," said G.R.D., "I gotta go empty the remnants of my privates."

G.R.D. floated over to one of the jelly urinals, looking at her right hoof and being reminded of the fact that it was exuding ectoplasm.

"The ectoplasm producers in my right hoof must be stimulated from touching him and Hoops…and that game..." she thought. "I hope this stops soon…"

"Wow…" Water said to himself, looking at his right hoof and feeling stunned. "That went uncannily well. I guess life is fair sometimes…after being sexually harassed, all I have to do to put the issue to rest is clean up some slime."

Water then went over to the sink, washing his hands and smiling to himself...before noticing what was going on in the jelly mirror. G.R.D. was hovering over a urinal and urinating in it while in a squatting position…

Water Rinse got a look of horror on his face as the sight triggered his memory. It was what Maud Pie was trying to tell him about earlier, the start of his trauma…

Fifteen years ago…

Water, a three-year-old colt, was knocking on the door to the bathroom, where Spitfire, his eight-year-old sister, had just entered.

"Pwease let me in Spitfire, I gotta go!" Water exclaimed.

Inside the bathroom, Spitfire was hovering just above the open toilet's hole, the seat being covered by a potty chair.

"And so do I…" Spitfire answered. "I won't be in here long."

Spitfire began to urinate in the toilet while flying just above it in a squatting position and thinking to herself…

"I should've thought of this long ago...I can finally go without moving this stupid thing all the time or having to sit on it like a baby."

Outside the bathroom, Water couldn't hold it anymore and started banging on the door really loudly and crying…

"Let me in! I gotta go NOW!"

"Shut up, you brat!" Spitfire called back. "You're such an annoying brother!"

It was then that Water lost his temper and swung the door open as hard as he could, only to find his sister urinating over the toilet. She stopped urinating when she saw Water and got an abashed look on her face. In shock, Water let it go and peed all over the bathroom floor. Soon, his mom walked by, and when she saw what had happened, she was furious, and clenched her front hooves in rage.

"You fucking little SHIT!" she screamed in a demonic voice as she smacked Water across the side of the head so hard he flew back and smashed his forehead against the toilet. Bleeding from the head, his blood dripped down to the floor, and Water laid in the puddle of urine and blood on the floor, about to pass out. Before he passed out though, he heard a demonic laugh and saw a ghostly figure flying over him and trying to grab him…

Back to the present…

"I...remember now…" Water said as he stared in disbelief at his reflection in the mirror. "That was the day...my family...died to me."

Water slumped to the jelly floor, feeling like a horrible spell had been cast on him, and laying down, looked up at the jelly ceiling. He thought to himself…

"My father left...my mother was mentally ill and hated me...and my sister just thought I was a nuisance...she thought all I was good for was a laugh...I was never loved…"

Water shut his eyes, only seeing the ghost mocking him in his head...

In actuality...

"Hey bro," said someone with a familiar voice, "are you okay?"

Ectoplasm dripped down onto Water's face…

"Dude, talk to me!"

"...!" Water was astonished as he remembered something else.

Fifteen years ago, after Water had been hit…

"Ah ha ha ha ha!" Water's mother laughed maniacally, horrified by the mess and what she had done. "What a disaster…"

Spitfire hovered over to her brother and grabbed him.

"Are you okay, Water?!" Spitfire exclaimed with tears in her eyes, deeply worried for him. "Please, talk to me!"

A tear fell out of Spitfire's eye and landed on Water's face…

...

Water opened his eyes, now seeing a ghost trying to comfort him…

"Hey dude," said G.R.D., holding Water Rinse after lifting him off the floor, "are you alright?"

Water looked up at G.R.D., no longer feeling hexed, but instead feeling happy and relieved.

"Y-yeah," replied Water, "I feel...better than alright. I feel like...an enormous weight's been lifted off my shoulders. And the one who lifted it...was you."

"...Really?" G.R.D. said. "I mean, yeah, well...heh heh, I do confess to benchpressing some pretty heavy-duty stuff in the past."

"It's strange," said Water, "but...I'm actually really glad I met you now. It was a bad thing that you did to me, but...it's turned into the best thing that's ever happened to me. You intended to demean me, but I feel greater than I've ever been. Up till now, I've lived a life of self-loathing and false humility, fussing over every mistake I made, thinking I was the one who was picking myself up every time I fell. But now I know the truth, I never did pick myself up after I fell that day. It was both on that day and today that I was picked up by an enemy who turned out to be a friend."

G.R.D. blushed upon hearing that speech. She started thinking to herself…

"Wow...I don't believe it. I thought this guy was just a stuck-up loser at first, but...maybe he's just like me. He's not on anyone's side, not even his own, he's just happy to know the truth. Looking at a bad thing that happened to him as a good thing and accepting it...just like how I came to accept my death."

Water Rinse got up on his own and brushed his back, trying to get any jelly bits that may have been in there out of his mane.

"Thank you for your help," said Water, "but I need to get going now. I want to visit my sister back in the Mortal World, I don't want to try to avoid her anymore. I'm going on a vacation."

"Oh, uh...that's cool." G.R.D. replied, looking at her hooves, trying to maintain her cool and confident stature.

Water then started walking away to leave the bathroom, but just as he opened the door…

"So…" G.R.D. said. "When you come back, would you like to hang out with me?"

Water paused, standing still with the door ajar and looking back at G.R.D.. He began thinking to himself before smiling and saying…

"Yes. I would like that. You're cool."

Water then left the bathroom, leaving G.R.D. surprised and feeling happy, not really expecting him to say "Yes.". She then looked back at the stalls and at her right hoof, and started to frown out of guilt as she remembered what she did.

"You know," she said to herself, "I think my days of peeping are over. I don't feel like doing it anymore..."

She then thought about what Water had said to her, and said to herself with a smile...

"...Not after seeing real beauty."

Outside the bathroom, Maud Pie saw Water strolling by and looking happy, and she too was grinning as she felt his aura and knew what had happened.

"I guess it was more fun this way." she thought.

And so ends the story of a seemingly unrelated pony's encounter with the Dark Sky...but what is going on with Twilight, her friends, and her two best friends right now? Let's take a look back and find out…

Ninja Time God Rarity and Fantasy God Discord were leading Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the pony gang down the stairs. Eventually, they arrived at a door. Engraved on it was a plaque that said "The Risen One's Home".

Discord then opened the door. Everyone in the group walked in and found themselves in a living room. Inside the living room was a floor lined with white, quadrilateral tiling, a ceiling with wooden support beams, a television, a gray and black carpet, a blue round table with a glass top, a yellow couch with pink pillows, and King Sombra lounging on said couch in his shadow form.

Twilight, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash gasped at the sight of Sombra and shrieked. Upon hearing their hollers, Sombra looked up at them, shuddered, and buried his face in the pillow he was resting his head on.

"AAIIIEEE!" the trio shrieked.

"MMMPH!" Sombra made a muffled yell into the pillow.

"AAIIIEEE!"

"MMMPH!"

"MMMPH!" Pinkie screamed with her mouth closed, trying to imitate the muffled cry.

"AAIIIEEE!" Sombra cried as he got his head out of the pillow and zoomed off into the kitchen.

"Agh!" another pony in the kitchen cried as Sombra bumped into her. The pony then walked out into the living room, revealing herself to be the Goddess of Death, Prince Luna. She was wearing a black-blue apron with an insignia of the moon on it, and holding a plate with a stack of blueberry pancakes on it with her left hoof.

"Great wobbling waffles!" Prince Luna exclaimed as she tried to whistle by blowing into her right hoof. "Even my muffled whistles aren't that loud!"

Everyone besides Rarity and Discord gave her a good ol' blank and confused stare.

"What-you're back?!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "Here?! Now?!"

Applejack looked over to Rarity and Discord.

"I thought y'all said she wouldn't come back until the plot demanded it!" she yelled.

"The plot IS demanding it." Rarity explained with a smirk.

"Demanding it for the sake of a joke!" Discord proclaimed happily. "Oh yeah, and it's also demanding it for an upcoming plot point about who killed Fluttershy."

"?!" Twilight and her friends went. "You mean-?!"

"Yes…" Prince Luna said as she put down the pancakes ominously. "Before any of you can become gods, if you so chose, you must also solve the mystery of your friend's death. It is the only way the path leading you to discover the purpose of being good, evil, and neutral will open…"

DUN DUN DU-

"Hold on a second!" Pinkie Pie shouted. "Isn't being evil, like...wrong?"

"Obviously yeah," replied Prince Luna, "HOWEVER, a combination of goodness, evil, and neutrality is very right."

"I see…" Pinkie Pie said suspiciously as she slowly and ominously poured blueberry syrup on Luna's pancakes. "I'll trust you...for now…"

Now where were we? Oh yes…

DUN DUN DUN

It is time to reveal who the killer is…

"So wait," said Rainbow Dash, "are you saying we have to find out who killed Fluttershy right here, right now? That's an...abrupt change of pace."

"Don't look now," said Discord, "but that's the reason for it…"

Sombra came out of the kitchen and walked into the living room.

"...Sombra...is the reason?" Rainbow asked confusedly.

"Actually no," replied Sombra in Fluttershy's voice, "I'm the reason."

"?!" Twilight and her friends jumped a bit in shock.

"Yes my friends," continued Sombra in Fluttershy's voice, "it is me, Fluttershy. This is the reason for my shadow powers of the Sombra variety. To become a god, I had to become good, evil, and neutral. I had to fuse with him, an evil being, along with a human boy, a neutral character, in body, mind, and soul."

"Y-you all were being serious about that stuff?!" Applejack shouted at Rarity and Discord, who both started giggling in response. "At best, I thought you were just trying to be symbolic!"

"We take symbolism very seriously around these parts, my dear." Rarity explained.

"Yeah," said Discord, "I mean, just look at me! I practically represent a tragedy of Shakespeare!"

"But Fluttershy doesn't represent Sombra!" Dash yelled. "Or a...human boy!"

"Guys, please calm down." Fluttershy pleaded. "Don't yell at them like this is their fault, I...chose to be this way. I even chose who I wanted to fuse with. I had to become the God of Life...if I didn't, something just awful would've happened to the entire universe…"

"Huh?" Twilight and her friends said. They started thinking…

"The universe? Only once did Rarity and Discord ever mention the universe…"

That and one other time...

"So…" Pinkie Pie began talking. "Does this mean that to become gods, we have to fuse with King Sombrero and a guy from Canterlot High to become good, evil, and neutral?"

"No," replied Fluttershy, "times have changed since I became a god. At the time of your transformation, you guys were given essential upgrades in the tower of Starcatch so that you would never need to literally polymerize with other beings to become evil and neutral as well as good. Your minds and souls will always be yours and the ponies who are you so long as you wish it. Basically, your fusions have already been done for you."

"Upgrades?" Twilight asked. "But wait, that means-"

"Yes…" Discord said with a yawn. "We planned this from the beginning, blah blah, is this still a mystery, or what?"

"Yeah," Rarity chimed in, "can we get on with some sleuthing here? Even Shadow Shade novels don't have exposition about science fiction fantasy…"

"..." Twilight and her friends found this odd and began thinking again…

"Why are Rarity and Discord complaining about all this exposition when they're the ones who wrote it? And science fiction fantasy? But besides that time back at Starcatch, the only sci-fi element that's been hinted at in this story so far is...no...are they trying to give us clues?"

"Alright," said Rarity, "let's get this show on the road."

"But where do we start?" Twilight asked. "How do we begin to solve an unsolved case from two years ago when we're not even at the scene of the crime?"

"Twilight, Twilight…" Rarity said, nodding her head in disappointment. "I am disappointed in how much you underestimate me...with my time powers, I can summon us to the time plane in which the killing happened, and we can see the killing in all of its...erm, for lack of better word, messiness."

Discord snapped his fingers and made a video camera appear.

"Hold on," intervened Dash, "if we're going back in time, can't we just stop the killer from-"

"NO!" Rarity shouted. "Absolutely not! Time does not work that way, at least not anywhere in our world! It works differently here than it does in what they call "real life". Time was created in this world as a series of separate planes. You can't change the future by altering the past because altering one plane does not affect the other planes! All the events in one plane are counted as having already happened, never as something that is happening! It's like with the pages of a story book. The author has already decided everything that has happened in the story. You can't just edit the beginning of a story book by writing whatever you want on the first page, and expect it to change the ending! It won't even change the beginning, the author's canon is still entirely valid! What has happened has happened! Understand?!"

"...Yes." a stunned Rainbow replied.

"Good!" Rarity exclaimed with a wide grin. "Now, let us begin our journey back in time…"

Rarity pulled a scroll from out of her black robe and began chanting something. When her chant had finished, a white, swirling portal opened up in front of the group. Rarity and Discord immediately entered. Twilight, Applejack, Dash, and Pinkie all got ready to enter, but looking back, they saw that Fluttershy/Sombra didn't follow.

"Aren't…" they said with a pause. "...you coming too?"

"I'm fine…" Fluttershy replied. "I don't need to know who the killer is…"

Beyond the fact that the killer stood before me not as herself, but as her former self...

When Twilight and her friends entered the portal, they were transported to Fluttershy's house, on the day where Fluttershy was murdered…

The part of the house they had been teleported to was the dining room. As they stepped into the kitchen, Twilight Sparkle and her friends began getting chills.

"Ooooohhh…" Pinkie Pie groaned, trying to contain her discomfort. "I really don't want to be here…"

"Neither do I…" Applejack concurred. "The way Fluttershy was killed wasn't even exactly natural…what kinda killer is able to just slip into a house, do tha rotten deed, and leave without leaving behind any evidence?"

"The butler, obviously." Rainbow said sarcastically with a naughty grin on her face.

Twilight and the rest of her friends all went, "UGH.".

"Rainbow…" Twilight said bemusedly. "This is NOT a place for jokes. We're about to witness our friend's death, for Star Swirl's sake. I think even Rarity and Discord would agree that this part of the story is supposed to be completely serious. There's nothing wrong with comic relief, but there are just times and places that are not meant for jokes."

While Twilight was talking, she didn't notice that Fluttershy was behind her in the dining room, picking up the teacup and feeling it before drinking it. The others did notice Fluttershy though, as well as a dark, swirling interdimensional time portal that a ninja came out of.

"Uh...Twilight," said Dash, "I'm seriously completely not joking when I say that there's a ninja behind you."

"Wha-" Twilight replied as she turned around and froze in fear as she saw what was about to happen.

"Now," said the ninja in a robotic voice, "you take a nap."

As the ninja prepared to stab Fluttershy with the blade, Twilight saw what was written on the card that fell out of their outfit. In horror, she put her hooves up to her face and screamed. It was as if she knew she had seen this before somehow...

"AAAAAHHHHH!" she bellowed.

"Twilight!" Pinkie yelled as she and the others came closer to her in concern.

"I...know who did it…" Twilight said. "The murderer…"

Twilight was saying this right as she and the others were seeing the ninja stab Fluttershy in the heart, and being sickened by the sight.

"...is not that ninja…"

The others were baffled by what Twilight just said until they saw the killer's face after the mask was taken off. He was just a white robot pony with raven hair. His face didn't match the face of any pony they had ever met. This immediately struck them as off. They knew it couldn't be that simple. They knew that there was a deeper connection, one that Twilight soon revealed...

"The real murderer...is the one who hired that ninja…"

With those words, time stopped. Ninja Time God Rarity had paused time in this plane.

"I believe us gods have stood here doing nothing in silence long enough." Rarity said. "It's time to gather up all the evidence. Did you get everything recorded, Discord?"

"That's my name." Discord replied as he pressed the appropriate button on the camera to stop the filming. "Recording is just a game. You know I got everything."

"Wait," said Pinkie, "why were you guys videotaping that? We all saw everything that happened."

"First of all," replied Rarity, "not all of us. We're going to have to call in some extra ponies to help us with this case, and I don't feel like taking them back here each time. Second, this video could prove to be vital evidence, especially with you guys as background witnesses who could testify to its full authenticity."

"Heh heh," chuckled Rainbow, "the way you talk about this...you're making it sound like we're preparing for a court case."

"Exactly…" Discord said slyly.

"...Huh?" Twilight and her friends went.

Some time later, in a courthouse…

*THWACK*

"Court is now in session!" Judge Discord declared as he banged his gavel. "Is the defense ready?"

"The defense is ready, Your Honor." Fluttershy, who was standing at the defense attorney's bench dressed like her alter ego, Phoenix Wright, replied.

"Is the prosecution ready?" Judge Discord asked.

"The prosecution is indeed prepared, Your Honor." Rarity, who was standing at the prosecuting attorney's bench dressed like Miles Edgeworth replied.

"Very well then." Discord said. "Let us begin the trial for the murder of Fluttershy. Would the defense like to make an opening statement?"

"Yes Your Honor," replied Fluttershy, "I would like to say for the record that even though it may be my own killer whom I am defending, I will do everything in my power to prove him innocent."

"But hold on," said Discord with a devilish grin, "it has been proven who your killer is. How can he possibly be innocent?"

"It's simple," chimed in Rarity, "Your Honor. This trial is being held for the murder of Fluttershy, not the murderer of Fluttershy. New evidence has come to light suggesting that the killing was not a one-man job, but rather a complicated scheme devised by a criminal mastermind. Fluttershy's ultimate goal in this trial is to prove the mastermind's guilt."

"Oh…" Discord hummed, still grinning and pretending to have been unaware of this information. "So this trial is not being held for the killer, but rather his boss…"

"Thank you for reminding us, Your Honor." Fluttershy said sarcastically in thought. "We only have the attention span of a second…"

"Anyways," said Discord, "does the prosecution have an opening statement?"

"I do as well," responded Rarity, "Your Honor. I would like to state for the record that even though the new evidence that has been discovered may present an interesting new possibility, that is all it is at the moment. A possibility. And I will do everything in my power to prove it to be an impossibility."

"Huh huh heh." Discord laughed. "Glad to hear that both of you are feeling confident. Now I know that it will be fun to watch either of you lose. But enough talk. Please call forth your first witness, Mr. Rarity."

"Of course Your Honor," replied Rarity, "however, before I do, I would like to take a quick moment, if I may."

"You indeed may…" Discord said slyly, knowing what she was going to do.

Rarity made these words known only to a select few as she spoke…

Be warned, Decision Makers. We are at the final decisions of the stories, and all of them are extremely important. Some decisions you make from this point on will affect what ending you get. Be on your guard...