Luna stared out into the night, the driving rain echoing strangely against the windows of Canterlot Castle. The shadowy smokey creature had departed scant seconds before her arrival, sensing the presence of an immensely potent magic-user. The upside was that this indicated that it was a lesser version of the great unnameable beasts that lurked between worlds – she confessed, her dimensional theory was a bit rusty, but she held strong recollections of youthful experimentation with her sister, paging through ancient tomes and examining beastiaries filled with creatures with names altogether too full of punctuation, but absent vowels. One of those creatures would not have cared in the slightest.
Indeed, while the crisis was still in its offing, it did not yet look to be a catastrophe on par with the escape of other beasts of Tartarus. Not yet. But reports were beginning to trickle in, as messengers braved the storm to report to the castle, and Luna did not find herself hopeful about the balance of the night to come.
The night princess had sent pegasi to investigate the Canterlot weather factory, but the scouts had reported the factory to buttressed by wicked-looking stormheads, impossible to navigate, and spoke of high winds that had made even returning to tell the tale an uphill fight. By all accounts, it had been fortunate that they had returned at all, but the news that they had brought, that the storm only seemed to be escalating, brought Luna no happiness. Reports from the streets suggested that the ponies that made Canterlot their home were withstanding the manifestations of fear thus far, and no fatalities had been reported, but the casualty list was disheartening to say the least. There had been no indication that events would escalate this quickly, and thus no real preparations had been made.
Luna had considered asking Celestia to raise the sun, hours ahead of schedule. The effects on Equestria would have been chaotic, but creatures of dark magic often found direct sunlight interfered with their wicked doings. Celestia had not agreed to do it however – the cloud cover was too thick, and effectively burning it off in anything like short order would have required the sun to come far closer to Equestria than would have been healthy for those parts of the nation not currently experiencing torrential rains, sleet, and hail. A message had been sent to Ponyville, but thus far, there had been no response from the former bearers of the Elements of Harmony – probably because it was one in the morning.
So Luna stared out at the darkness of the streets, uncanny when compared to the lively lights that dotted the city most evenings, even late at night, and let out a breath that she had not been consciously holding, steaming the window where the moisture in her exhalation met the cool glass. Her guard had volunteered to go out there, and find the monster, to magically call Luna and Celestia when they had done so. She had let them go out into the darkness, the rain, the sleet, and face what lay in waiting.
She just hoped this would not be a choice that she would live to regret.
* * *
“For the record, I regret the life choices I've made that have brought me to this point.” Sticky Wings smiled when she said it, and the rest of the squad chuckled. Sticky often ran her mouth when she was nervous, and if there was nervousness enough to go around, then at least Sticky was in good company. The dark and the rain were oppressive, both in effect and spiritually, although the wardings and alchemical preparations that Ice Pick and Zorada had lavished upon the squad kept the worst of the dark magic off of their backs.
That said, it was difficult to figure where to go next. The streets of Canterlot were darker than they ever were, hailstones the size of cobblestones having shattered the lanterns that traditionally had lit the roads and paths of the city. Even magical light illuminated scarce feet in front of Ice Pick and Hot Streak, and cast weird shadows upon the walls of the buildings that they passed. It was, Sticky decided, an experience not unlike being in a haunted house on Nightmare Night, with the noted difference that there were genuine monsters trying to kill you, you were soaked to the skin, and it wasn't actually all that much like a make-believe fun scare at all.
Gawain, wearing a yellow slicker that had been designed for a pegasus over old pieces of gryphon-shaped armour borrowed from the Canterlot Historical Preservation Societyxxviii, kept pace with Sticky. The armour chafed uncomfortably, but he was mostly keeping dry, his eyes scanning the dark pathways as the squad passed them. The city that he had come to hadn't been like this. It had been friendly, welcoming, and not a little over-inclined to burst into musical numbers at a moment's notice. This was Canterlot as described by the equine poet Polearm Jostler in MacHoof: A haunted place that knows no joy, nor warmth/ The windows like dead eyes do mark our place/ How like the fearful soul the town becomes/ When death doth threat each step to show Her face. The gryphon screwed his courage to the sticking place, and hurried to catch up with the group.
The usually familiar streets were unfriendly and alien, with dark shadows twisting familiar sights into weird and monstrous figures. Even the sight of Canterlot Castle, now a fading outline mostly obscured by the storm, looked spiky and vicious in the eldritch storm.
It was Hot Streak that heard the sound from the alleyway, a sob that she might have believed to be dark rain gurgling down a gutter had it not repeated again, slightly louder, a moment later. Not a cry of terror – if anything, that would have been better. The evening was obviously full of terrible things; their presence was made extremely clear, in a 'you're being watched by predators' vibe that managed to pierce their shield and cause the hair on back of her neck stand at attention.
But a sob of fear was different. A scream meant that someone was startled by something terrible. A sob meant that they despaired of escaping it. “This way!” She broke into a run.
Strictly speaking, they weren't on a mission of mercy for everypony that was out in the night, out in the rain. Their mission was to find the source of the dark rain, and to send for the princesses – and to either shut it down, or to slow it down long enough for the princesses to do so. Stopping to save somepony wasn't expressly forbidden, but it didn't accomplish the end goal, and the end goal was under the header of 'at any cost'.
This crossed Hot Streak's mind for a fraction of a second, but was not given leave to linger.
Many ponies faced situations, in the course of their lives, where their abilities were insufficient to the tasks presented to them. Hot Streak had always lived with that, and perversely, its reflection, all at once: she had always had power to spare, but her control had been wanting. Now, she was finally able to bring her prodigious gifts into order, and it would take an act of divine power to stop her from using it to help a pony in need.
The alley was longer, darker, and dingier than it had any right to be, but Hot Streak had a gift, and magic charged with emotion was always stronger. Her magical aura flared, and the sleet sizzled as it touched it, the dark magic and the rain dissipating with equal alacrity as it steamed off of the unicorn's magic. A guardpony – Day Guard, one Sergeant Hoplite, she vaguely recognized – was cornered at the end of the alley by a creature with too many. Too many eyes, dark, beady, insectoid. Too many limbs, long and withered, a mockery of the equine form. Hot Streak had little doubt that this was Sergeant Hoplite's greatest fear, and if she was breaking with Guard tradition by showing emotion at all, it was difficult to blame her.
Hot Streak wasn't at all convinced that she wouldn't get some nightmares of her own just from seeing it.
But then, the creature was dark magic, and they were prepared for that. With her aura lighting up the alley, keeping the magic raining from the clouds from continuing to reinforce the miasma of fear and despair, the rest of the squad was able to advance.
Hot Streak snarled. “Hose it down.”
Most of the squad had a stash of alchemical 'water' balloons, loaded for bear with Zorada's mixture of antimagical gel. That would have been enough of an unpleasant surprise for the nightmare beast, but Sticky had known someone in the Palace gardener's corps, and had managed to secure a couple of the sprayers that they used. The gel was pressurized, and if Sharp Salute and Zorada were a little overzealous in their liberal application of the goop, it could at least be said that they were thorough.
Hot Streak and Sticky helped pry Hoplite free from the wall, to which she had been quite forcefully plastered. “You're going to be okay.”
Hoplite looked a little shellshocked. “I... am?” She shook her head. “I am.” She wiped her face, more managing to shift around the goop than to clear it off of herself. “What is this stuff?”
Zorada considered giving an ingredient list. Instead she managed an enigmatic smile. “You might be happier not knowing. It's not toxic to ponies, and it will wash out fine with some vinegar.” She paused. “Well, eventually.”
Sticky gave Hoplite a reassuring pat on the shoulder, not coincidentally one of the least-goopy places on the guard's torso. “Get to one of the shelters. We'll take care of what's going on tonight.”
As the guard broke into a gallop, heading toward one of the nearest emergency shelters, Ice Pick raised an eyebrow. “We can?”
Sticky shrugged. “Damned if I know.”
* * *
The gel had worked, and now the question was where to apply it for best effect. The squad had run into a few more of the shadow beasts, rescued a hoofful of civilians, but had no idea where to go next, in order to actually solve the problem, rather than treating the symptoms. The streets were quieter now – those ponies that weren't taking shelter in the buildings had made it to the communal shelter – but the rain was still dark, heavy, and enervating.
The squad had taken shelter in an abandoned coffee shop. Sticky had shaken hooves with the doorknob, and it had 'miraculously' come open for her. Sharp Salute had considered reprimanding the pegasus, and then thought better of it, even though he had tried the door immediately before her and found it to be locked. They were leaving bits for the coffee and doughnuts, at his command though.
“It's got to be somewhere up high.”
Zorada gave Ice Pick a look. “Theoretical magic is your field, Icy, but why?” She gestured around. “Once it got the weather machines going, why would it stay up, instead of enjoying the fruits of its awful labour?”
Ice Pick shook his head, in thought. He had a map of downtown Canterlot spread out in front of him, still miraculously dry despite his soaked saddlebags. “That's just it, though. Oppressive magic coming from on high. It's... hard to explain. Basically, you can't cast magic you don't believe in, at least a little bit. Every time you send magic out into the world, it's a reflection of the way that you want the world to be.”
Zorada frowned. “Assuming that dread beasts from other realms work the same way.”
“If it's using our magic, it's doing it our way.” Ice Pick gestured at the map. “If we weren't in the heart of Canterlot, I'd say it was possible that it could be using wild magic, or... something. But an effect this large? In the heart and home of Pony power for the last ten centuries?” He shook his head. “It would be fighting an uphill battle. At the very least, it's using our rules, even if it's using them in an unconventional way. So it has to be coming from on high, because that's how you oppress.”
Sharp Salute looked over the map. “So it's looking down on us, hence the 'oppressive' vibe. I get it.” He snorted, amused with himself. “I must've been paying more attention to some of those eggheads at the briefings over the years than I thought. I actually understand what you're saying. If it's set up somewhere near where it was summoned, then it would have to be somewhere that ponies aren't going all the time. We'd have heard a report if there was some strange cult activity going on in a high-traffic area.”
“Could be the air-mail headquarters.” Gawain offered. “They'd be closed on Sunday, and they're pretty high up.”
Sticky rubbed her jaw, unconsciously, a clear sign that she was thinking. “Risky, to use a government building though. And it's not very central to the heart of the city.” She jabbed her hoof near the middle of the map. “The Tower of Art, on the University campus. It's been shut down for renovations for more than half a year now. Something about an alumnus coming back from the grave and funding the repairs.”
Ice Pick nodded. “It's the best bet. Twenty-three stories up, heart of the downtown, and lightly trafficked at best. The workers don't do weekends, which is why the renovations have taken eight months.” The diminutive unicorn frowned. “Now we just have to get there.”
* * *
Getting to the Tower of Art hadn't been difficult. The rain was just as oppressive as when they had entered the coffee shop, but the end of a long struggle was in sight, and it was difficult to take the spring from the squad's stride. Getting into the tower was no less simple; Sticky's alacrity with gentle entry into restricted areas had proven no less capable on the University furnished lock than the coffee shop's.
The real problem was getting up the tower.
When the Tower of Art was a functioning building, it had a lift installed that operated using simple levitation. Some comedic escapades with a malfunctioning controlxxix had finally encouraged the University to disable the magical lift, and, with the funding provided for renovations, install a mechanical one, that ran on counterweights, using magic only for safety.
Sharp Salute kicked a counterweight, sitting neatly in a pile of counterweights, unhelpfully unattached to anything like a lift mechanism. “I guess we're taking the stairs.”
Ice Pick groaned. “It's twenty-three stories.”
Sharp Salute gave Ice Pick a look. “Have you been holding out on your ability to magically conjure and install an elevator?”
“No?”
The old guardspony raised a brow. “Then we're taking the stairs.”
* * *
It was later. Stairs had happened.
Strictly, Gawain and Sticky could probably have flown up ahead of the rest of the squad, had they felt any strong desire to meet an otherworldly evil alone, without backup, and without the extremely heavy tanks of anti-dark-magic goo. When this had been pointed out, the idea of taking a head start by way of flight had been summarily and enthusiastically dismissed. Despite the Night Watch's enforced guard training (which had largely consisted of scrapping with one another at the least provocation), Sticky was still slight of build, but Gawain was sturdy enough to make the hauling of the tanks in shifts slightly less unpleasant.
Nevertheless, by the time they reached the top floor, Ice Pick had revisited his supper frequently enough to acquire regrets about his dietary choices, and Hot Streak found herself desperately missing the dark-magic-soaked by thoroughly cool rain.
The door that stood in front of them was heavy and oaken, like many of the doors in the pars of the University that had been built around a certain time. This, Zorada explained, was deliberate. Chemists and potion-makers were frequently put in the tops of towers, so that in the event that a mixture turned out to be rather more potent than expected, there would be a reduced wastage of ceilings and floors. Heavy doors tended to be built into facilities where magical experimentation took place for much the same reason, and were reinforced against magical leakage as well.
Ice Pick looked uneasy. “Then the fact that I can feel dark magic through that door is...?”
“A bad sign, yes.”
The squad exchanged glances. They hadn't yet faced any real threat; the odd brawl or street fight, and a few cases where they had benefited from total surprise. This would be, hooves down, the greatest challenge that they had yet encountered.
“Ah, buck it.” Sharp Salute snorted. “What, you wanted to live forever?”
The door slammed open. The room beyond was... coated. Dark shadows, coalescing on every surface, squirming and writhing, as if the very walls and floor were alive, always on the outer edge of one's field of vision. And there, at the end of the room, was the being that they had encountered only once before. One that had been forced to flee only by the presence of a living goddess, who would not be appearing this evening.
It turned, and Looked at them. It had been different before, when It had come into their home, where they had some measure of advantage. Now, they had come into Its place of power, where every inch throbbed Its name. Now, It knew that It could win.
“Welco-” It began to hiss, menacingly.
In fairness to the Being of Outer Darkness, when last It had manifested on the Prime Plane, there had existed neither water balloons nor high-pressure sprayers. It rallied surprisingly gamely in light of this, and had intercepted both of the streams of fluid, which were diverted carefully, steaming as they countered the dark magic that covered the chamber, and the balloons, which were gently caught and therefore failed to break.
The squad exchanged worried glances. The being sputtered indignantly. “Did you really think that it would be that easy?”
Ice Pick held up a hoof. The squad huddled. There was much murmuring. Finally, Ice Pick came up again. “On the balance of things, we are prepared to commit to 'we didn't expect it would work, not really, but we sort of hoped that it might'.” There was nodding, as the four Night Watch members behind him gave agreeable gestures.
The being glowered at them. “You fools! You have sacrificed everything, and for nothing! You are the last of the effective resistance to my power, and soon, I shall defeat you all! What have you to say to that?!”
The huddle re-formed. The being waited patiently, as the murmuring recommenced. Ice Pick was once again chosen as spokespony. “We think there's one thing that you haven't taken into consideration. One thing that you could not possibly have considered, but which may lead to your downfall.”
The being scoffed. “And that is?”
“We aren't just random guards that showed up to oppose you. We're a rag-tag team of unlikely heroes, drawn together by fate, with an eclectic set of skills that, by design or coincidence, happen to compliment one another extremely well.” Icy gave his best confident smile, and the being paused. Unlikely heroes tended to have tricks up their sleeves, in worlds where Narrativium reigned.
“You don't mean?”
“Oh yes!” Icy was in full swing now, and all eyes were upon him. “Representing years of experience and wisdom, Sharp Salute is the embodiment of Empiricism!” The old guardpony managed a heroic pose and an enigmatic expression, as he was thrust to the forefront of the little group.
“No!”
“And with the courage to overcome the obstacles presented by life, and the drive to see a project through to completion, Sticky Wings represents Tenacity!” Sticky gave a sheepish grin, and a shy wave.
“With his outsider's opinion on Equestrian culture, Gawain here provides a valuable insight into how non-Pony agents might approach a subject! Thus, he embodies the element of Relative Objectivity!” Gawain gave Icy a skeptical look, but nevertheless adopted a militant stance, facing the Being.
“With the willingness to face the facts ahead of her with all that she has to bring to bear, and an unwillingness to be dissuaded by her own handicaps, Hot Streak truly is the Element of Optimism!” Icy had managed to work himself up into a sufficient rhetorical lather that he was spouting off Capitol Letters in his little introductions, and despite herself, Hot Streak felt buoyed by his somewhat backhanded compliments. The room's temperature lifted by three or four degrees as she beamed.
“With my book learning and desire to overcome obstacles through explanation and reason, I myself represent the Element of Rationalism!” The being was staggering now; it knew of the power of principles, and Icy had a showman's flair to his professorial tone. “Together, we are... the Elements of Inquiry, here to kick your shadowy butt back to whatever netherhell spawned it!”
The shadow beast cowered, fearing a flare of magical energy that would overcome even its dark defences as a mystical superweapon powered by principles was brought into reality. When no such flare of energy occurred, it blinked, considering. “Wait... that makes absolutely no sense. And weren't there six of you?”
Icy shrugged. “Sure. There's probably no such thing as Elements of Inquiry, and even if there was, it's practically impossible that beings embodied by it would just happen to come together because Princess Luna was looking for the best of the worst.” He grinned. “But, while you've been paying attention to me, you haven't been keeping an eye on Zorada. And as you yourself pointed out not that long ago, that's a sucker's bet.”
The zebra mare took this as her cue, and opened both of the heavy tanks of goo, directly behind the shadow beast. It barely had time to squawk in protest at the lack of narrative fulfilment as alchemical antimagic managed what nonexistent mystical superweapons did not, dissolving it, and banishing it, really and truly, from the world.
* * *
“Not a half-bad job.” Sharp Salute managed a smile. The storm had started to dissipate as the being fuelling it had melted, and the squad had left the heavy alchemical goop behind at the top of the tower. Going down had been a lot easier than up. “That was one hell of a distraction. How'd you manage to come up with all of that?”
Icy shrugged. “I get alumni newsletters from Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. There was a five-page spread about Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony. Who knew that carrying a chip on your shoulder about your much-more-successful graduating class would come in handy?” He gestured at Zorada. “Real credit goes to Zorada, who rallies extremely gamely to absurd strategies.”
The zebra gave a smile. “A sucker's bet indeed."
Gawain glanced up at the sky. The storm had passed, but the cloud cover had remained, and with the streetlights still damaged beyond functionality, the night was still dark, if not stormy. “So what do we do now?”
Hot Streak paused. “Um. Go home?” She gestured about. “It looks like the crisis is over.”
Sticky shook her head. “No way. Sure, we got rid of the monster, but someone summoned it. Someone wanted all of this ruin and destruction, and while I might not be the legendary non-existent Element of Tenacity...” She gave Ice Pick a rueful grin. “But I want some answers. I want to know who, and why. All of this was awful, and I want to stop them from doing it, ever again.” She held up a tome, scavenged from the tower. “And I think I found a good place to start.”
Sharp Salute nodded. “Good instincts for a guard.” He smiled, technically. The edges of his mouth rose, and he showed teeth. It was a little vicious for the Royal Guard, but then, they were Night Watch. They went out, while the sun was resting, and made the world a little safer. “Let's go kick some teeth in.”
xxviii Without asking, but not without a little malicious spite.
xxixComedic, that is, with the benefit of hindsight.