The rest of the school day passed almost blissfully. Morning classes flew by with nary a problem. A few of the teachers who’d been consulted on her condition and her tests gave Midnight a sympathetic look, of course. But they otherwise left her alone to her own devices.
Oh, and what devices they were…
Lunch was tense, of course. Twilight seemed half out-of-it, but she wouldn’t allow something as minor as sleep deprivation prevent her from going to school. She had a perfect record to maintain! She was the most model of students, and a shoe-in for Valedictorian!
She hardly noticed the way Midnight watched her all through lunch. And through their shared classes.
Sunset was more annoying, pressing in with questions and concerns. Like she really cared.
Midnight ignored her, as best she could.
There was a plan, now. And letting Sunset in too close would ruin that. Even Trixie and the other Rainbooms were kept at an emotional, and physical, arms-length. At least, as much as Midnight could manage.
Which was difficult when it came to Pinkie Pie, naturally.
“Sleepover at my place tonight!” she announced with a cheer, a burst of confetti, and an alarming amount of party horns blaring for one person to have done so with one mouth.
Applejack scratched her chin, and asked, “Didn’t we have a sleep over at yer place jes’ last week?”
“Oh, no darling!” Rarity responded, scooching just a bit closer to the farm girl, “That was the week before. Last week…”
“Last week was when Sunset and Twilight went to the Crystal Empire!” Pinkie helpfully explained, all while removing lunch-cupcakes from her voluminous mane. “They spent the whole weekend trying to fix the magical imbalance thingie, but got caught up with Starswirl and a time-spell that went kookie, and not the good kind of cookie!
“Buuuut,” Pinkie said in a drawn-out drawl before she hopped over the table, and nearly landed in Midnight’s lap, “Then Midnight got dragged through a time portal to this time from back when she was all spooky at the Friendship Games…”
Twilight frowned, and tried her best to calm the excitable thing down, just a skosh.
“Pinkie, we don’t need to relive the entire…”
Rainbow Dash had slapped her hand over Twilight’s mouth, to which Twilight only gave a tired, half-hearted resistance.
“Hey, I wanna hear about it! You guys never talk about your adventures in magic horse land,” she chuckled.
Sunset shook her head, and said, “Dash, we’ve only been on one adventure, and it was…”
“Crazy!” Pinkie threw her hands up for emphasis. “Cuz there were different versions of the Pony-Us’s from all these different timelines, and there was a big old misunderstanding, and magic battles, and Flurry Heart was super-duper baby cute! Oh, and Twilight built a new horn for Fizzlepop, so that was nice.”
Truth be told, Midnight was tuning most of this out. She’d have plenty of time to reminisce with Pinkie Pie after what had to be done.
How does she know so much about what happened, though?
“And since it’s the first Friday since we got Midnight added to our group…” Pinkie’s words caught Midnight’s attention, rather suddenly. “It’s almost like a birthday party!”
Midnight frowned.
“A… birthday party?”
“Well, why not?” Pinkie wrapped one arm around Midnight in a deathly tight hug, and smiled her ridiculous, infectious smile. “You need a real welcome to the world! And what better way than a sleepover?”
Midnight paused… and found that the words weren’t quite there to describe what she thought of that.
Sunset, however, had no such issue.
“No, Pinkie,” she said, tiredly, “No party today.”
“W-what?” Pinkie’s face deflated with the precise sound of a dog whining. “But… but why not?”
Sunset pointed accusingly at both Twilight and Midnight.
“These two need sleep, for one thing,” said Sunset, giving a meaningful, but no less sympathetic look to each of the twins, “We all know they need it.”
“But at a sleepover…”
“Um…” A quiet whisper from Fluttershy caught Pinkie by surprise. “Pinkie? Your sleepovers almost never involve sleep. They’re mostly just… uh, pizza, cake, and video games mixed with party games.
“Which is fun,” she said, blushing, “but not what Twilight or Midnight need right now, right?”
Sunset speared another hunk of her salad with her fork, and nodded approvingly, even as Pinkie slowly melted down into a puddle next to Midnight.
For the rest of lunch, no one had anything of substance to add to the discussion. Pinkie and Rainbow tried coming up with a good day later in the next week to hold the sleepover, while AJ complained about how, with her three new horses-turned-cousins helping around the farm, she had nothing to do. For a workaholic, there was no worse fate. Rarity and Fluttershy chatted about… something, with Sunset, but Midnight had little enough reason to listen close to that sort of nonsense.
Twilight kept trying to meet her eyes until the bell rang, but she never seemed to get there. And, for Midnight’s part, she couldn’t quite seem to make her eyes meet Twilight’s.
Did Twilight want to talk? That will just have to wait, Midnight thought. Can’t really do anything until we’re alone tonight, anyway.
Cordwood’s fifth period came and went, a lesson on how best to let unfettered anarchy guide one’s daily life, and Midnight was finally free from school for the day. She didn’t even wait for Twilight before she took off, heading straight for the mall, knowing she’d have time all to herself while she waited. Even Trixie would be busy at home this afternoon.
And on this day, a most momentous day, Midnight honestly felt like some ice cream.
Fifteen minutes later, she had some.
The Shadow had been quiet. This was a good thing. For once, Midnight was all alone with her thoughts, without doubt and second-guessing to get in her way. Without a wriggling concern in the world.
At least, she knew, so long as the plan worked out.
She wondered, idly, how it would feel to have this serenity all the time. Surely, this sort of bliss, this uncompromised peace of mind was worth anything?
Yes, anything, she thought. Anything at all.
She took another lick of her ice cream cone, and smiled to herself.
“It all makes sense, at last,” she sighed, contentedly, and leaned back into the bench outside of the Happy Scoops ice cream parlor, “There’s just… one too many Sparkles…”
As was the case the day before, Canterlot Mall was virtually deserted right now, in the time between lunch and when the high schools got out. Midnight had the run of the place, if she so chose. She could go anywhere, or do anything.
“Maybe I’ll go flirt with Aria again,” she laughed. “That ought to be fun.”
She quickly wolfed down the rest of her ice cream… and after the brief, but intense headache that followed, Midnight was ready to go.
Get the fun in now, she thought to herself, before tonight…
As she walked, she thought of that moment. That future, blessed moment when everything would come together. A moment she wouldn’t miss for the world.
Can I really do it? She thought this, but quickly pushed the doubt aside. Of course I can! And once the deed is done, there’ll be no more nightmares. Simplicity itself, despite the danger involved…
And all she had to do now was wait for Twilight to head home, and join her sister there.
Not that a party with Pinkie Pie wouldn’t be fun…
But just as she turned the corner, and headed through the food court, something suddenly felt off.
At first, Midnight couldn’t name the feeling. It was like a brief whiff of a foul odor from a passing garbage truck while you were trying to eat a fancy meal. It was like suddenly tasting copper on your tongue. Like hearing the sound of an elephant while camping in the woods.
In fact, hearing was just the right word for it.
There was a sound, just on the edge of hearing.
No, a voice. A voice she was very familiar with, coming from just the other side of an artificial mall-hedge.
“Water and a salad. Light on the croutons, and lightly drizzled with Bitalian seasoning,” Abacus Cinch said, each syllable snapping to attention as she reached it, “I don’t want to have to swim just to eat whatever dead leaves you poured out of a can.”
Midnight, by reflex alone, dove for cover, landing hard on the dirty, tiled floor.
“It… it can’t be…” she whispered.
She pinched herself.
Nope, she thought, dismayed. This is real. This is happening.
Then, from a prone position, she slowly lifted herself up, inch by inch, until she could peek past the decorative pots and their green shrubs at the source of that fiendish voice.
On the direct other side of the hedge, Abacus Cinch, former Principal of Crystal Preparatory Academy, sat at a plastic table wedged into the space between the food court’s Royale Burger outlet, and the indoor jungle gym area.
Midnight clasped a hand over her own mouth before she could gasp in surprise. It was either that, or to swear like a sailor, and either option would give her away.
Standing up, she quickly surveyed the landscape.
Hedges to my right and nothing to my left. A mostly empty mall.
Perfect! No witnesses!
Thinking quickly, Midnight traced out a rectangular shape across the face of the hedge. Aqua-blue magical light shone, softly in the air where her fingers passed, and everything within that rectangle began to fade away, as if Midnight had lowered the plants’ opacity to near-zero.
The effect was one-way, Midnight knew. The spell was a simple spying-tool back in Equestria – she assumed, in any case – as it was quite subtle, and even directly amplified sounds from one side of itself to the other.
Cinch had her back to Midnight as she harangued the poor waitress. The put-upon girl was probably a year out of high school, and from the silent screams in her ever-widening eyes, Midnight could guess she was recalculating her decision to go into food service.
Huh… it’s weird seeing Her outside of school, Midnight thought with a frown. And what is she wearing?
The former principal, indeed, did not quite fit Midnight’s memories of her. While her hair was still done-up as it always had been, it wasn’t as tightly wound as Midnight remembered. And, possibly related, she wasn’t wearing anything like a suit.
More… a rumpled sweater?
A dark purple sweater, paired with simple pants and sneakers. It was bizarre, to say the least. Cinch was nothing if not the epitome of professional style, back when she ran Crystal Prep. Seeing her like this, almost human, was unreal to Midnight.
“Right…” the waitress said slowly, unsure of what was up with the sharp-faced spinster to put her in such a foul mood, not realizing it was her default state, “Salad with seasoning… and for the little one?”
Little one?
With a flicker of mental energy, Midnight caused the spell to rotate its view. The ‘screen’ she looked through shifted its perspective, like her flying drone camera.
Abacus Cinch was not alone. Sitting with her at the table was…
It’s like someone condensed diabetes into a person, Midnight wondered at the sight of the most sugary-sweet, obnoxiously cute creature she’d probably ever see in her life. Tight blue curly-curls framed an almost cherubic little pink girl’s face, complete with freckles and a smile that could probably reflect sunlight at the right angle.
Midnight hated her on principle.
“Could I pwease have the Princess Meal with the chocolate brownie?” the little girl asked, and in the most ridiculous baby-girl voice imaginable, “Mommy said I could, since I’ve been good.”
MOMMY!?
Midnight’s brain stopped functioning for several seconds. Her jaw nearly fell right off her face, and her eyes threatened to shrink down into microscopic points.
What…? Why did… how… WHO!? Who would ever conceive a child with that…?
She shook her head, and blinked away the cloud of confusion. Cinch having a kid was… very strange, considering the rumors about her. She had a reputation of prim professionalism, to a fault. No love life. No social life.
Crystal Prep Academy was her legacy. No children required.
Also, what poor soul would ever come within a mile of her cold, dead… heart?
The Shadow didn’t say anything.
Yes, heart. I was going to say heart…
Midnight refocused on the child, her mind trying to run through the calculations again.
She was probably in middle school, a bit younger than those CMC kids always hanging around Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Da—
“Those are their sisters, aren’t they?” Midnight clenched her eyes shut, and resisted the urge to slam her head into the hedge. “Thank you, memory-splitting spell. Thank you so much…”
Cinch spoke again, her voice as sharp as ever, and just as disapproving.
“No, I think not,” she said with a clip. “Cozy will have the Kid’s Meal. Plain hamburger. Apple slices instead of fries.
“And a water,” Cinch added with a raised eyebrow and enough vocal smirking that Midnight wasn’t sure she’d actually heard that part.
Once the waitress had taken off with their orders, Cozy Glow’s face went through a radical shift. Almost from the moment the waitress had her back turned, Cozy went from the sweet, sweet childlike smile to something Midnight swore she’d seen in a slasher film once.
Alright, the poster of a slasher film. The point still stood though; that kid’s face was terrifying.
“Really?” she sneered at her mother, folding her arms in a professional pout, “The Kid’s Meal?”
“Really?” Cinch sneered right back, “Your Principal’s car?”
Cozy huffed. And then, she growled beneath her breath, “They couldn’t prove anything…”
Cinch shook her head, and glanced towards the ceiling.
“They could prove enough,” she said, softly. Then, in a lamenting tone, she added, “Consider this some small amount of punishment for the test-answers ring, then.”
Test-answer ring…? Wait, their car!?
So many questions rumbled through Midnight’s mind that she couldn’t decide which to dwell on first. But, with her spell still active, data collection was first and foremost in her thoughts. She quickly refocused on the strange, strange characters before her.
“You know you’d catch more flies with honey, right?” Cozy groused. “That’s a saying you old-folks use, right?”
Cinch pinched the bridge of her nose, and sighed. “Cozy? You do realize that… that manipulating people, even while ostensibly being nice to them, is wrong, yes?”
Midnight was about to comment on the richness of that remark coming out of Abacus Cinch, of all people…
But Cozy Glow beat her to it.
“Coming from you? That’s rich,” she laughed, catching even Midnight a little off-guard, “You know, even the orphanage heard rumors about why you got canned!”
Midnight winced, at that, though with more than a little self-satisfaction.
Cinch’s reputation took a hit? If it later turned out that there was a Spirit of Karma out there in the world – like an anti-Discord or something – Midnight would very much like to shake their hand.
“Yes, well…” Cinch didn’t seem to have a comeback to that, which left Midnight pumping the air just a bit enthusiastically. “In any case, Cozy, manipulating people isn’t the only purpose of being nice. And I wouldn’t say I was un-kind to that young lady, was I?”
Cozy just laughed, and fished out a phone from her light blue dress’ skirt pocket.
“Lady, you kill me sometimes.”
Getting roasted by your own… kid? Midnight smirked, even as she was still working out just what was going on, and why she couldn’t look away.
She sighed, and shook her head. Either way… watching Cinch suffer is almost worth this little… hello? What’s this now?
In the background of her spell’s vision, Midnight could see movement in the mall. The deliberate sort that caught Midnight’s attention. To her mind it looked like something out of a movie. A lone figure striding through the halls, flanked by suits and reflective aviator glasses that practically screamed VIP.
Or, Lawyer…
Said lone figure was a tall, slender, downright gorgeous woman with light-green skin and a full, expertly-cut mane of orange-on-orange hair, clasped with a beautiful ladybug clasp that sent a brief shiver down Midnight’s spine.
Even odds, she laughed, Model or Lawyer?
The two men flanking her weren’t precisely as perfect for their task. The slightly larger one was a dark cyan, with slicked-back pinkish-red hair, and a heavy suitcase at his side. The other, a green-skinned lad with a decidedly more… frumpled appearance to his suit and orange hair, only just managed to keep in lockstep with his fellows.
As the woman approached Cinch’s table, Midnight caught a flash of pearly white teeth – almost fanglike – as she grinned at the former principal.
“Abbey!” she cried happily, dropping her expensive purse onto the table as she came to a stop.
Midnight’s breath almost caught in her throat a moment later, as Cinch… smiled.
It’s like a solar eclipse in its rarity, she thought, or a plague…
“Chryssy,” she almost sighed in relief. Cinch stood up from her seat, and got just close enough for her sister – the cheekbones are a dead giveaway – and her to exchange a few quick cheek-kisses. “So good to see you again!”
Once the greeting had concluded, Cinch tilted her head slightly to one side, and acknowledged the two others who’d followed Chryssy to lunch.
“It is also… nice to see you two as well, Pharynx…”
She nodded to the larger man, who seemed not to move a single muscle in return.
“… Thorax,” Cinch continued to nod towards the green… well, man might be pushing it, considering his age.
And his response, evidently.
“Hi Aunt Abbey!” Thorax gleefully cried out, and added to his display with a follow-up wave. “Oh, and is this our new cousin Cozy Glow? Nice to meet—”
“THORAX!”
The young man flinched, and snapped back into a rigid, upright state as Chryssy snarled his name, rounding upon him with blazing emerald eyes.
“Sorry, Mo- I mean… Miss Chrysalis…” he stuttered as his voice swiftly left him.
If Midnight didn’t know any better, she would have thought she’d seen Pharynx smirking underneath his reflective glasses. But, no… it wasn’t a smirk she saw, but something just a little bit angrier than that.
No one hurts my sibling but me.
How appropriate, given the times.
Chrysalis maintained her glare for another moment, before hissing, “Not on Firm Time… Intern…”
Thorax visibly swallowed, but maintained his stance.
“Okay, I like her,” Cozy chuckled darkly, “We can be friends.”
Satisfied that order seemed to be restored, Chrysalis turned back around to face her sister. She gave a quick snap of her fingers, which caused Pharynx to suddenly jump to life. Like clockwork, he unclasped his briefcase, and swept a small sheaf of paperwork into his boss’ hands.
“Everything is in order,” she said with a cruel smile, and set the papers down. “Principal Blaze has agreed to the settlement. Assuming she doesn’t want her social media past to become tragically public, she’ll allow Cozy to remain at Peril Peaks Middle School. All you need to do is sign on the dotted line.”
Midnight reorientated the view from her spell to get a look at the settlement as it slid over to Cinch’s grasp. Chrysalis’ firm name was emblazoned right at the top – Shutterbug & Associates – with a green honeycomb symbol next to it, which sparked something in Midnight’s memory.
Didn’t dad do their taxes or something?
“I see Hydia, Reeka, and Draggle aren’t on the letterhead anymore,” Cinch said idly as she looked over the document.
Chrysalis smirked, and said, “What can I say? It’s a cutthroat business.”
“Should it concern me that I don’t know how literal you’re being right now?” Cinch said with a grim snort. She hummed absent-mindedly for a moment, then looked towards her daughter.
“Cozy? Why don’t you go use the playset for a bit while I speak with my sister?”
The diminutive Cozy narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why?” she asked, “What’s up?”
“I would like to catch up with my sister,” Cinch answered plainly, “Is that so wrong?”
“Unexpected, maybe…” Cozy sighed. Then, standing up, she rolled her eyes and added, “Alright, why not? Hey! Drones! You’re with me!”
While Thorax smiled happily at the prospect, and already turned to follow his little cousin away, Pharynx took a moment to stare at Chrysalis. With his heavy shades on, his expression was unreadable.
“Oh, go on,” Chrysalis sighed, “Keep her from damaging public property or inciting a riot, will you?”
And, with a slight grimace, he did so, turning about and strutting off to play babysitter.
Chrysalis took a seat across from Cinch, and fixed her sister with an incredulous raised eyebrow.
“Mind telling me what that was about?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Cinch lied, flipping another page of the legal document, “I really do wish to catch up.
“How is father doing, by the way?” she asked in a tone that suggested to Midnight she did not care in the slightest.
Chrysalis shrugged, and crossed her legs in an ‘I’m being patient with you’ way, and said, “Oh, a little crazier than usual. Don’t you read his letters when he sends you coffee?”
“I drink tea,” Cinch replied, and somehow in a colder voice than her usual. “But I can’t expect him to remember such things…”
“I don’t see why you have to be that way…”
Cinch glanced up from the paperwork, a frown fixed upon her brow.
“He made time for your birthdays, Chryssy,” she said, “Not mine.”
“He was in prison…” Chrysalis shook her head, and sighed. “You two are exactly alike.”
Cinch stiffened, if that were at all possible. Which Midnight hadn’t even considered before now.
I suppose there’s always one more number past infinity...
“Look,” Chrysalis said, exasperated, “I mean it. He’s… he’s talking about magic now.”
Cinch’s eyes fidgeted, and froze on the page. A small smirk touched the corner of her mouth, as she drawled, “Really?”
“Yes,” Chrysalis said with a sad shake of her head, “He’s talking about Old Man Cordwood like he was a wizard, or something.”
“Or something,” Cinch agreed, still smirking. “I suppose, since you never took his classes, like I did, you wouldn’t understand…”
Midnight watched all this in silence, mind running through computation after computation, potential plot after potential plot.
She’s seeing a lawyer. Could be she’s finally preparing to go after Cadance for her old job. Or CHS for what happened at the Friendship Games. Petty, yes… but she was willing to blackmail teenagers to win an academic competition.
Regardless of the reason, this was important. Of that, Midnight was certain. She had to know what was going on here.
Eventually, Cinch nodded, and slid the settlement back across the table.
“Very good,” she said, simply, “Everything seems to be in order. Well done.”
Chrysalis smiled, a bit more genuinely, and brushed her nails against her suit lapel.
“Thank you, sister. I always…”
“Almost,” Cinch corrected, tapping the table with her finger once for emphasis. “Almost everything.”
The scowl on Chrysalis’ face was immediate.
“Almost!?” she snarled, “Do you have any idea what I had to do to get that information?”
Cinch raised an eyebrow, and asked in a quieter voice, “I assume you hacked a database somewhere?”
“For legal purposes, I won’t comment on that,” Chrysalis snorted, her ire temporarily subsumed by her own lawyer-speak-joke, and muttered, “It wasn’t even hard. Thorax found a backdoor some other hacker had used to do the same thing before…”
She hummed, curiosity flashing briefly past her eyes.
“I wonder what Princess_Sunshine was digging for…?”
Sunset Shimmer sneezed, rather violently at that very moment, which caused her to bang her head against her locker door.
“Gah! Sonofa…”
“You know, darling?” Rarity, touching up her makeup at her own locker, said in a dreamy tone, “They say that when you sneeze, it is because someone is talking about you. How scandalous! How romantic. How…”
“Runaway!!!” Pinkie Pie’s screams echoed down the halls of CHS as she tore past her friends, pursued by a huge monster, a tower of grey fur and muscle bellowing like a raging elephant.
The sneeze was suddenly forgotten about.
“… I could use a better ‘programmer’ for the firm,” she finished. Then, returning to the matter at hand, she jabbed the paperwork with a pointed finger, and said, “So, you better appreciate all the work I had to put in to keep your adopt-a-spawn from juvie.”
Cinch paused, at the mention of Cozy. Her eyes took on a glassy, faraway look that Midnight knew first-hand was a calculating one.
Come on… spill, Midnight mentally snarled. What’s this all about?
“I do appreciate the work you’ve done so far,” she said, a touch quieter than before, “And I am… sorry, if that did not come across. I only wished to amend the arrangement in one particular way.”
Chrysalis’ frown changed dimensions, slightly. It quickly shifted from a bitter, hateful scowl into something that almost… regretful. Sympathetic, even.
Midnight wasn’t sure if that look on her face was unnatural because Chrysalis was a lawyer, or because she was related to Cinch.
I mean, I guess it can be both.
Cinch glanced at the paperwork again, and then back up to her sister’s eyes.
“I would like to transfer Cozy to… to Canterlot High School, for next year,” she said, though her tongue seemingly attempted a rebellion when she came to the name of the school. “It would be a…”
WHY!?
“Why!?” Chrysalis’ surprise perfectly mirrored Midnight’s own. “That’s… But Celestia…!”
“While their academic standards are…” Cinch hesitated to pick a word that would complete that sentence.
She mulled her words over for several long, awkward seconds.
“… below that which I had once set for Crystal Prep,” she continued, in an admittedly fairer-handed manner than expected by Midnight, “I have found that CHS has certain social qualities to it that might help with Cozy’s development.”
Midnight frowned.
Social qualities?
Chrysalis seemed to be thinking the same thing, judging by the way her face scrunched up. Like she was smelling something foul in the air.
“What happened to you?” she asked suddenly.
“I… I beg your pardon?”
What she said!
Chrysalis’ eyes narrowed, and her lips drew back into a thin line. “What happened to you?” she asked again. “Abbey, I know losing Crystal Prep was bad, but I didn’t think it was this bad!”
Cinch sighed, “Chryssy…”
“First thing I hear about you in the news is that your local flex-contest, those stupid Friendship Games, went up like a Roan Candle over some… some kid throwing a fit according to the paper…”
Midnight managed to repress a snarl… and a fireball, as well.
Not inaccurate, she angrily conceded, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to blow up your house later…
Chrysalis started tapping the plastic table with sharp clicks of her manicured nails as she spoke. “Then, despite still having the confidence of the Board, the Patrons, and your legal defense team…”
Here, she huffed, and shook her head.
“Seriously, I had a Wrongful Termination Suit in my hands when you just… resigned! Without a fight!”
“The entire student body…” Cinch tried to break in, but with a sharp wave of her sister’s hand, she fell silent again.
I need to learn how to do that…
Chrysalis breathed in, slowly, and went right back to her charges.
“You won’t let me investigate Cadance, despite that witch having it coming,” she said, beginning a finger count, “You won’t let me sue that little hussy Shimmer for getting in said fit-thrower’s face and potentially causing the original emotional duress…
“Did you know she doesn’t have parents?” She stared at Cinch a moment, perhaps gauging her sister’s reaction - stone-faced, as it stood - before pressing on, saying, “Never filed for emancipation, either. I could have had Child Services cart her away, if you’d just let me…”
The magical ‘screen’ nearly cracked itself, under Midnight’s bear-like grip. Her teeth-clenching was starting to make her jaw hurt, too.
Listening to this… this… Lawyer is going to give me a heart attack. Or her…
…
“… if you’d just let me…”
Midnight’s growing anger sloughed away from her, like loose snow falling off a rooftop. She felt a strange chill settle, somewhere in her heart. Something in the way Chrysalis said that sounded…
If you’d just let me, Midnight repeated to herself. And again. And again.
Cinch could have done all this… gone after Cadance, gone after Sunset… but she was the one restraining Chrysalis?
She decided she needed to hear more. This didn’t make sense. It couldn’t. There had to be an explanation… somewhere.
Chrysalis threw her hands up. “So, I thought, ‘Hey, Chrysalis!’” she descended, slightly, into an odd parody of her own voice, “Abbey knows what she’s doing! Surely, this is just one step in her masterplan for getting back at Celestia for that thing that happened in fifth-period Science…!”
“Chryssy…” Cinch growled, and to Midnight’s delight, blushed deeply at whatever memory had resurfaced.
“But then, nothing!” Chrysalis snarled, and slapped the tabletop with both hands. “You just… retired! Walked away from everything! I thought you might get a Chancellorship, or a Deanship, or just join the Schoolboard and bury CHS under a mountain of bureaucratic hellfire.
“But… nothing…” she finished with a distressed sigh that actually took Midnight a little by surprise.
Perhaps realizing she had said that last bit at a rather worryingly high volume, Chrysalis half-turned, and glanced over her shoulder to the local play area, where Thorax was… as was possibly typical of him, playing ‘horsie’ with Cozy Glow in the ball pit, while Pharynx watched, shaking his head at the sight.
“Then, after you started writing that book,” Chrysalis muttered, more quietly, “You get a bug up your chimney about adopting… and then you go and pick the one kid everyone I talked to had pegged for a serial killer.
“I have to ask, Abbey!” she swiveled back around… and Midnight almost dropped the spell entirely as tears, actual tears, formed in Chrysalis’ eyes. “Tell me what’s going on. You’re like a different person these days. Just… just let me in, okay? What’s all this about?”
Midnight scoffed, internally. Yeah, good luck with that. Cinch doesn’t have a heart. She doesn’t care about people, only results.
Abacus Cinch sagged in her chair, and looked away from her sister. The lines around her mouth, her crow’s feet beside her eyes, all began to deepen as a long, airy sigh escaped her lungs.
And when she looked back, she seemed ten years older.
“I very much considered asking for your… assistance with the matter,” Cinch admitted in a weak, breathy voice. “But… in the end, I suppose I didn’t think anyone would believe me as to what had happened.”
A soft, sad smirk touched Chrysalis’ lips. “So, there was something more to it? It wasn’t just some little girl having a freak out?”
Cinch winced, but did not look away.
“In point of fact,” she said, slowly, “It was a… student. Though a ‘freak out’ is not how I would describe what happened at those games. But then…”
Cinch gave a rueful smirk, something far more sad than triumphant.
“Well, you’ve seen the video. You know what happened next.”
“Of course, I…” Chrysalis paused, and stared. Her nose scrunched up, and she narrowed her eyes. “You’re… not talking about those silly hooftube videos, are you? The one those Conspiracy Nuts have been talking about?”
Conspiracy… oh, no…
Midnight vaguely recalled, through the mists of time and mental blocking, that Twilight and Sunset had made some effort to scrub the internet of any evidence of what had happened at the Friendship Games. Sure, most videos were just a blurry phonepost from a couple miles away, but enough were closer to the action that the story of the Canterlot Witch had sprung up on a few online forums.
Is that where I got the burn-the-witch dream from? She wondered.
She gently facepalmed at the memory.
I’m literally an internet meme. I hate… everything.
Cinch had said nothing. She simply stared back at her sister without emotion. Not a hint of snark, or humor, or anything to assuage Chrysalis that her sibling was anything other than deadly serious.
Or, mentally unbalanced.
“You’re just like Dad…” she sighed. “You can’t tell me that some… magical being attacked the games, and you got blamed for it!”
“I can,” Cinch said, simply. Then, shaking her head, she added, “Some of Celestia’s students had obtained… powers. Magic, or not, they used supernatural abilities to cheat at the games. Or, so I thought at the time.”
When Chrysalis said nothing – merely frowned in concern at her sister’s mental wellbeing, Cinch continued.
“Well, what was I to do? Crystal Prep had never, and would never, lose a competition to Canterlot High School,” she said, a familiar edge seeping back into her voice. “I had a student who had been studying some of the local phenomena…”
“Local legends? Bighoof sightings?” Chrysalis sneered, “Any pixies or fairies hanging around?”
Though her attention was primarily focused on Cinch, Midnight couldn’t help but pout at the way Chrysalis so casually misrepresented her initial research.
Cinch shrugged. “She collected samples of a strange energy she’d detected around CHS… and I asked her to use it, as Celestia’s students had. To win the Games.”
Chrysalis gave a weary sigh, and glanced at her watch in clear annoyance.
“Abbey, if you’re not going to take this seriously, I have other clients…”
“Did Dad ever mention how Cordwood’s car can fly?” Cinch asked, suddenly.
Chrysalis’s eyes widened by a few inches.
Cinch smiled, and asked, “Or, how the old Professor was millennia old, and taught all the ancient philosophers in history? Or how about Cordwood’s ability to snap his fingers and cause random objects to appear out of thin air. Or turn into cheese. Or…”
“Okay, stop!” Chrysalis held her hands out, pleadingly. She looked worried now, licking her lips over and over again. “When did he tell you…?”
“I haven’t spoken to our father in six years, Chryssy,” Cinch said with another proud smirk, and crossed her arms. “I know all this because I decided to take his Economics class, and you didn’t.”
Chrysalis stared at her sister with unblinking eyes. Her hands gripped the edge of the plastic table so tightly that her knuckles had begun to turn white.
“But… how…?”
Cinch shrugged, and said, “I have no idea why I couldn’t remember any of it until the other day. I suspect something happened with the Professor. Something that has caused him to… reassert himself in my memory.
“Regardless, what I said was true.” Cinch uncrossed her arms, saying, “I saw magic – real magic! – and all I could think about at the time was winning a stupid, stupid game. And I did it…”
She paused, and stared into the distance for a second or two. Midnight felt a chill as she watched this, before remembering that her former principal couldn’t see her through the spell.
“I forced my student to do something quite foolish,” Cinch continued, “In an act that shall haunt me forever, I might add. And… well. You know the rest. It was impossible to retain my position, considering all the trouble that caused me.”
Cinch sighed, and closed her eyes. While she now had Chrysalis’ undivided attention, she seemed content to just… sit there. Thinking.
Or plotting, as Midnight might describe it.
Because that’s what this is, she reasoned, quite reasonably. A plot. Cinch is always up to something…
She has to be.
“And, when I left, I was indeed upset,” Cinch continued, “But I felt then that I could find… some other way to strike back at those who’d cast me out. Those six brats at CHS. Cadenza. All of them. Some way that didn’t make me look like an old lunatic hag blathering about magical girls…”
Midnight glared through the spell so hard that she felt she could almost set the older woman ablaze right then and there. And she half-wished that was the case.
“But no one wanted me after the Friendship Games,” Cinch went on, folding her fingers before her. “I was damaged goods, after that debacle. You know how allergic schools are to even the speculation of controversy. And what could be more controversial than a high-ranking administrator from a prestigious school suddenly, and quietly, leaving her position under the intimation of pressure from the student body? Not even a formal request for my resignation, nor a proper censure.
“No school, public or private, would touch me with a ten-foot pole,” she said with another shake of her head. “And why would they? I could have committed all sorts of impropriety, and left under the threat of legal recourse, as you well know.”
Chrysalis said nothing. She didn’t need to. Lawyers knew, all too well, that even the accusation was enough to torpedo most careers. Education just got the worst of it.
“So, I decided that, if I could not teach or administrate, the least I could do was write,” Cinch said, leaning back into her seat. “I believe I mentioned that once before?”
“You did,” Chrysalis quietly agreed, and gave a quick nod. “You… said you wanted to pass on your teaching methods? All you’d learned as a Principal of a school, so that others would follow your example, I think you said.”
“Let us hope you prove to be up to Crystal Prep’s exacting standards, Miss Sparkle.”
That’s what Cinch had said, on Mid… on Twilight’s first day at Crystal Prep. Despite her record-setting entrance exam test scores, Midnight would add.
You demanded more than perfection. You painted a target on my back, and gave everyone else in school a gun…
“My legacy…” Cinch said wistfully, “If I couldn’t have Crystal Prep, I would have the future of education.”
She leaned onto the table, and almost whispered in a conspiratorial fashion, “But, do you know what happened next?”
When Chrysalis said nothing, Cinch leaned back, and said, “For such a work to be as complete and fulfilling as I felt it needed to be, I required research. Not just my own notes would do. I had to bring up my competition. Papers and journals written by those who did not believe, as I did, in academic competition…”
“It is the fate of genius to be harried by vipers, Miss Sparkle. I’m sure I don’t know how your test results were made public to the other students, but perhaps this is a boon! Now your slacker peers will have a more visible goal to reach if they wish to compete with you.”
Midnight clenched her fists tight as the memory came swarming back to the fore.
Gee, thanks, Midnight bitterly thought as blood seeped from where her fingernails dug into her palms. Then Lemon Zest snapped my bra, and Sunny Flare poured gorilla glue in my locker. The day before, I had an invite to a slumber party, and the next?
Sugarcoat slammed a door in my face. That’s what your philosophy got me…
“I even went back and read a few older texts.” Cinch waved her hands about in an airy, disinterested manner. “You know, the stuff they had us read in college and post-graduate; Gusty’s Guide to the Classroom, Aurstallion’s Ethics, and even a few of Grogar’s old child psychology essays and suchlike…”
“They still let that dinosaur write?” Chrysalis managed a feeble laugh at the chance to poke a bit of fun.
Cinch shrugged at her sister’s quip, and pressed on. “I read it all in earnest, looking for the arguments my book would inevitably have to destroy. And…”
She stopped. Cinch looked down at the table before her, and laid her hands out flat on its surface.
Chrysalis prompted her with a drawn out, “And…?”
“And…” Cinch bit her lip. “And I couldn’t help but feel something was wrong. Every argument against me rang with a bit of truth. Every argument for me sounded… well, hollow.
“Especially at night,” she said, turning aside, “When I… saw her.”
Midnight’s eyes widened at the way Cinch said that. She was a connoisseur of implied undertone, Midnight was, and there was something different about that ‘her’. Something primal.
She tried to swallow, but Midnight’s mouth had gone dry.
Cinch was afraid.
Of her.
“… Anywhere to avoid that… Monster…!”
That’s what she’d said.
“I couldn’t get away from Twilight Sparkle,” Cinch hissed after a moment, and covered her own eyes. In a quivering tone, she went on. “I would read a passage on something like Mascow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and then I would dream about…”
Cinch shuddered, and wiped at her eyes for… for some reason Midnight could not identify.
Cinch doesn’t cry, she reasoned. Impossible. Truly impossible.
Stop being crazy, Midnight.
Stop it.
She gritted her teeth, and failed to notice the steam coming from her eyes.
STOP IT.
“I didn’t provide her a safe space in which to grow,” Cinch went on, “She was my brightest pupil, by far, and I wasn’t satisfied. I thought, if I could push her harder, further, that she would be my crowning achievement. A gold star forever besides my name. I used her to build Crystal Prep’s reputation, foisting whatever challenges I could onto her, so long as it meant she had what I thought she needed; a fire at her heels…”
Put your school on the map…
“… and, yes, put Crystal Prep on the map, where it belonged,” Cinch said, “Months of that. Seeing what I turned her into, laughing like a madwoman. A demon.
“And then came the interview,” she finished with a deflating sigh, “I don’t suppose I’ve mentioned it?”
“Not to me,” Chrysalis said, hand inching across the table towards her sister, as if she both wanted to hold her hand, and was also fearful of the touch. “What happened?”
“I got into contact with old Grogar, actually,” she said with a sniff, “I wanted to get a few… I don’t know. Quotes from him? He was my inspiration, you know. He taught me everything I knew about teaching, about education…”
Silence fell between the sisters. Chrysalis waited, patiently for Cinch to continue, probably never having seen her like this before, and not likely to see her like this again.
Midnight didn’t notice the way the air shimmered around her, as blue flames licked at her eyes. No one did. Not yet.
Like what? Sad!? What does she have to be sad about? She’s not sorry.
No, never sorry.
She’s Cinch. She’s a heartless witch!
“Turns out,” Cinch said, as quiet as a church mouse, “the man I’d… I’d spent my youth idolizing. The philosopher-teacher whose essays I’d built my life around. And he wanted to interview me.”
“And?” Chrysalis asked, trying her best to give a sympathetic quirk of her eyebrows, and only somewhat succeeding. “What did he say?”
Cinch laughed, a hollow, biting laugh. “Ah, well. After I asked him about his old theories and research… he called me a monster.”
“… No…”
“Oh, yes,” Cinch said with a nod, “He’d long since rejected his old work! Tossed the whole thing out. He was horrified by me, by what I’d done. Said he never meant to implement his theories, only speculate.”
She continued to chuckle to herself, but the tears were beginning to hit the table beneath her.
Midnight focused on the laughter.
The tears are an anomaly, she reasoned.
They have to be.
This isn’t fair…
Midnight could feel her teeth scrape against one another as her rage continued to build. The spell allowing her this view of her sworn enemy was beginning to crack under a newfound strain, a pressure from within.
Blue flames licked at her eyes.
“I was obsessed over leaving a legacy in education,” Cinch said while lightly dabbing at her eyes again with a small handkerchief, “and I got one. Even Cozy has heard of my… reputation. My cruelty. My hubris.
“I’m the monster,” she whispered.
Another moment passed in silence. Chrysalis seemed as lost in thought as Cinch was lost in memory.
The two simply sat in silence as the air heated around them.
“So, adopting Cozy Glow…?” Chrysalis asked, stroking her chin in thought.
“Another chance,” Cinch said with a helpless shrug. “I drove one student to madness and despair. I don’t think she’d ever accept an apology from me… and I don’t think I have the right to ask anything of her. But this child, I can still help. Even if that help is just sending her to Celestia.
“If I can help her,” she whispered, “maybe then… there would be hope for myself?”
“She’s an admitted arsonist and sociopathic liar,” Chrysalis chuckled, “I don’t think either of us would be qualified to help someone like that.”
“Yes, well…” Cinch half-smiled again, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “It won’t make up for failing before, but…”
Chrysalis would have laughed, except for two things. One was just tact, which she possessed in abundance.
Two was that the wall of hedges behind her sister had suddenly burst into flames.
Worryingly, blue flames.
Chrysalis and Cinch leapt out of their seats and rushed around the table to get away from the sudden conflagration. There was no smoke to be seen coming from the fire, and it burned far, far too quickly to be natural.
Cinch knew, immediately, what it was. She’d seen fire like that before.
“Twilight…?” Cinch breathed in a hushed tone.
The flames receded inward, vanishing the plants and the sisters’ table instantly. Something Cinch could only assume was due to their magical nature. For there was no other explanation but magic at this point.
As the blue flames condensed, they vanished in a flash of light… leaving behind the sight of a young woman standing in the now empty space. Her eyes blazed with a blue corona, and black wings reached out from her back in a terrifyingly familiar way to Cinch.
Midnight’s eyes were filled with fire, yes. They bloomed into blue-hot flames just like that fateful night two years past.
But beyond that, Cinch could feel the hatred that also filled her former student’s eyes.
Pure and unadulterated hatred.
Pointed at her.
“Twilight!?” Chrysalis asked in obvious fright, “That Twilight?”
After the span of a breath passed, she drew up her purse, and quickly rifled through its contents. Chrysalis whipped out her phone, and held it up in her hands.
“This is harassment!” she snarled at the creature before her, and hit record. “Intimidation! If you want to keep this civil, Miss Sparkle, you won’t make me upload all this to hooftube. You want this all a matter of public discourse? Regardless of what allegedly…”
Midnight didn’t spare her a glance. She raised one hand, and made the tiniest of gestures with one finger.
Chrysalis’ phone glowed bright blue, then leapt from her grip with the speed of thought. It wrenched itself apart in the air, sending a hail of plastic, glass, and metal showering down to the mall floor all around the terrified woman.
All save for the SIM card, which neatly snapped itself in half… and then caught fire before hurling itself into a nearby trash can.
The worst part was, for Cinch at least, that Midnight hadn’t said a word. She wasn’t even looking when she destroyed the phone.
Her eyes were still fixed on Cinch.
Cinch stared, slack-jawed at her former pupil’s approach. She swallowed twice, trying desperately to add some moisture to her mouth. A glance behind her confirmed that while Chrysalis was shaking in her heels, the children were at least able to take cover behind the miniature jungle gym they’d been playing at.
“Miss Sparkle…” she began to say. But, as she turned around, there was now less than an arm’s length between her and Midnight.
Slowly, Cinch turned her eyes downward, until she was looking directly into two pits of blue-hot flame. Unfiltered rage poured out of them, almost driving her back.
“What are you doing?” Midnight hissed, hateful eyes locked on Cinch’s own.
“I…” Cinch swallowed again, “I beg your pardon?”
Midnight waved one hand about her head. “This!” she cried, “Poor, misunderstood Abacus Cinch, pouring her heart out to her sister. Weeping over how she failed one student, and wants to make amends…”
Cinch could almost hear Midnight’s teeth grinding in her mouth as she spoke. It wasn’t hard to notice the droplets of blood falling from the girl’s hands as she spoke, either.
“Where was all this remorse two years ago?” Midnight snarled, teeth bared, “Or four years? How convenient that only now you started thinking about what you did to me.”
For a moment, Cinch considered raising her hands up, just to blunt some of the fury beaming directly at her face from Midnight. But she held herself still.
In a voice that sounds infinitely calmer than she herself felt, Cinch said, “It isn’t fair, I know that. I wish I could take it all…”
Midnight snarled again, “NO!”
Her voice ricocheted off the high mall ceiling, and came down with reverb. It seemed to startle her almost as much as Cinch herself.
Then, shaking her head, Midnight took a shuddering breath, and continued.
“No,” she said again, quieter yet still seething, “You don’t deserve to say that to me! You don’t have the right.”
Cinch was silent. She observed the way Midnight’s hands quivered with suppressed fury – astounding and terrifying in equal measure that this was her former student holding back – and her eyes kept avoiding direct eye contact.
“Why now?” Midnight asked again, “Why couldn’t you have changed earlier? Why not before you encouraged all my classmates to try and sabotage me!?”
“There isn’t an excuse,” Cinch said, simply. “I shouldn’t…”
“Shut up!” Midnight hissed, the flames around her eyes flaring in intensity. “You ruined my life, Cinch. All I wanted, back then, was to do well in class and maybe make some friends. I didn’t need the stress of watching out for constant pranks and harassment! Or the unceasing hostility from everyone around me!
“It wasn’t supposed to be that way,” she said, arms waving dangerously about her, “I wasn’t supposed to be this way!”
Midnight took a moment to breathe. And another.
“You saw the portals that day, right?”
Cinch seemed taken aback by the question. All she could do was nod, slowly.
Midnight’s lip twitched. Smiling, smirking, or… something else. Cinch couldn’t tell.
“There’s a whole other world, past those portals,” Midnight said, her voice growing more and more menacing for all it’s lack of emotion, “There’s other versions of me, my friends, everyone. I met myself, from that world.
“Do you know what the Me from there is like?” Her tone sharpened, and Midnight took one more step towards Abacus Cinch. “She grew up with teachers and mentors who nurtured her talents. She never had to worry about the kind of school environment – no, the tartarus you created for me to live in.”
She shook her head again, her eyes briefly losing contact with Cinch.
It was a wonder, Cinch thought, to see, even amongst blue fire… tears.
“She’s a Princess,” Midnight said, voice cracking, “She made friends. She… She’s done things no one could ever imagine, and I keep comparing myself to her because of you. Because you broke me…”
The black wings on Midnight’s back seemed somehow less full now. Less real. Their feathers were falling out, and vanishing. And though the flames remained, Cinch could still feel the heat coming off of them.
Midnight shuddered, and held back a sob.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered. “I’m supposed to be better than this. I’m supposed to tell you that… that I’ve outgrown you. That you can’t hold me back anymore. That… that I don’t hate you, that I pity you, but then you go and start saying these things…
“How can I hate you, when you’re like this!?” she cried, fire flashing back to life all around her, giving Midnight a full-body corona, “I’m supposed to be better than this, so why!? Why am I still this angry!?”
The tears flowed freely now. They dripped down Midnight’s cheeks, and flashed away into steam as they fell. Her whole body was shaking, equal parts rage, self-pity, and misery all rolling together.
Cinch almost reached out her hands. The compulsion to… to do something, was so strong. Even the briefest of human contact would be better than the sound of Midnight sobbing. Wracked and consumed by what Cinch had done.
“Twilight…” she whispered, but held back from reaching out. “I… I don’t have an answer for you.
“I’m so sorry…”
In retrospect, that was definitely not the thing to do.
Midnight’s face came back up, and the fire which had been guttering, reignited. She reared up, magic flowing like a burst dam, and drew a spark of lightning and fury to her hands. The restaurant’s tables and chairs began to shake and rattle as a baleful wind whipped about Cinch and Midnight. The lights flickered in their sockets, and sparks flew from every metal surface.
With wings outstretched, Midnight let out a terrifying howl and drew back her arm, lightning ready to strike.
Cinch closed her eyes, but did not flinch. Whether she was too scared to move or to think was not something she had the presence of mind to consider.
And then… nothing.
No strike came.
Cinch slowly opened one eye, and found no one before her. The table, chairs, and even the hedges had reappeared exactly as they had been before Midnight’s appearance.
The only sign that she’d really been there appeared to be a scorched mark on the ground. A pile of ash that perfectly resembled the Sparkle sign she’d always worn.
Chrysalis’ arms flung around Cinch, and pulled her into a tearful, scared embrace. But, for all she wanted to, Cinch couldn’t seem to bring herself to hug her sister back. Her arms hung limply at her side.
“Okay,” the sound of Cozy’s voice brought Cinch out of her stupor, “That was… metal.”
Cinch sighed, and turned around to look at her daughter, who was even now peering at the burn with curious eyes.
Cozy frowned, then, and looked up at her adopted mother.
“Did… did she look surprised to anyone else?”
Midnight was surprised.
Very surprised.
One moment, she stood in the mall, hands blazing with destructive magical energy, and her most hated and despised of human beings directly in front of her.
At her mercy.
And then, in the next…
“AHHH!” she screamed, nearly dropping out of the air, arms and legs flailing. A blue hand snatched her wrist, and a yellow one her ankle, simultaneously steadying and panicking her more than ever.
“Midnight!” her sister’s voice cried out, “What are you doing here!?”
Midnight held her breath, and looked around for the source of the voice… only to glance up at her horn.
“W-when did I pony up?” she asked, her voice quivering.
“How did…?” Twilight’s voice cried out from their horn, “Wait… did you teleport here when I ponied up? How does that make sense!?”
They were floating in the air, high above the school, all of the Rainbooms. Rainbow Dash was holding onto her hand, and Fluttershy was at her feet. Together with Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Sunset Shimmer, all seven girls were ponied up, and flying in their characteristic heart-shaped formation.
They were overflowing with the Elements of Harmony, sending wave after wave of rainbow light into the skies around them, though their attention seemed fixed on a spot down below, where what appeared to be a giant, shaggy grey and pink monster, a bus-sized yeti of a thing, was smashing CHS’s track and field bleachers to bits.
“What the heck is going on!?” Midnight stammered, “What did I miss?!”
“Shh!” Twilight hissed, “Sunset’s almost done!”
Blinking, Midnight looked to the girl in the center of their heart-formation. Sunset was…
Well, it was obvious her Alicorn transformation had done something for her, that was clear. Sunset’s magical outfit had turned to a white-and-gold number, and great golden wings held her aloft in the air without apparent effort.
She was talking to the creature.
“… and the Magic… of Friendship!”
The world exploded into rainbows. As the titanic rainbow laser flew down atop the strange creature, transformed by Equestrian magic no doubt, Midnight… felt something.
It was like coming indoors from a winter chill, and finding a grand roaring fireplace. It was like a mouthful of hot marshmallows, or the sound of music filling your head, your chest, your heart.
It had been so long since Midnight had felt… that type of magic.
If she weren’t already crying, it would have brought fresh tears to her eyes.
As it stood, the light faded quickly, and the Rainbooms came down gently to the earth. As soon as her feet touched ground, Pinkie was off like a shot, towards the crater left by their magical hug blast.
And as soon as Midnight touched down, she collapsed. Like a puppet with their strings cut. She felt herself fall out of sync with Twilight as she did so, leaving her sister standing with the others.
It took a moment for Midnight to swivel her head upright, and another for the world to stop spinning.
“What… happened?” she asked, groggily.
She looked up, and past her sister’s concerned face she could see Pinkie Pie… holding up a smaller, grey girl with long grey hair.
Wait… I know her, don’t I?
“What happened to Marble?” Midnight asked, pointing out Pinkie’s sister with a feeble hand.
“Omigosh!” Twilight cried, and lifted Midnight to an upright position, “You would not believe the time we’ve had. I guess Pinkie’s been dealing with some stuff, or… not dealing with some stuff at home? And Marble… oops. I mean, Octavio, has been going through some other things, and was feeling like Pinkie abandoned him and then she found this magic ring…”
She sighed, and shook her head.
“It’s been a lot,” she concluded. Then, brows knitting together in a concerned frown, Twilight placed a hand on Midnight’s knee. “You, ah… you’ve had a day of it too, right? How are you holding up?”
Midnight stared at her sister. For a single moment, her composure held… but not for much longer than that. Tears flowed, and her mouth twisted into an awful grimace as the last few minutes flooded back.
Another gasp tore itself from her lungs, and she buried her head in Twilight’s shoulder.
“Whoa!” Twilight cried, and quickly wrapped her arms around her sister, “Hang on! What’s…?”
“Cinch!” Midnight sobbed, brokenly into her sister’s shirt, “A-at the mall. She w-was there, and I… I had to talk to her…”
The hug tightened. And Midnight allowed herself to cry harder.
“Twilight…?” Midnight whispered.
Twilight pressed her head into the crook of Midnight’s neck, and whispered back, “Yes?”
Midnight licked her lips, and said, “I almost did something. Something terrible. If… if you hadn’t pulled me back…”
“I know,” Twilight said, simply. “I know. I’d… I don’t know what I would have done.”
A sobbing laugh choked its way out of Midnight’s throat.
“Heh, I’m the evil twin, remember?” she asked, “You… you would have been fine…”
The other Rainbooms held themselves back, from either party. Pinkie and Marble were almost mirrors of Twilight and Midnight’s shaking, crying huddle, and no one knew if any of them were even needed at this point.
Still, no one moved until the last tear was shed.
Hours had passed. After a few more minutes of sobbing, Midnight was well enough to stand. She and Twilight had walked home in a zombie-like stupor, neither willing to bring up what had happened, either at school or at the mall.
Focus, the Shadow reminded Midnight. Forget about Cinch. She doesn’t matter. No one else does. Right now, it’s just you and Twilight.
Don’t forget what must be done.
Midnight said nothing. Not internally. And not at dinner, once she and Twilight had gotten home. There wasn’t much to talk about. Luna had called home, and let the family know what Midnight’s options were in terms of schooling.
No one wanted to talk about it tonight. Velvet and Night Light kept things as casual as they could, of course. Steady, tight hugs. Head pats. Words of infinite love and encouragement.
It was nice.
It just wasn’t welcome. Not yet.
Especially not the news that, following their late-night research session, Twilight and Midnight would be locked out of their lab for a few days.
Parents’ orders. Sleep, and lots of it was the punishment for such curfew-defying logistics.
Dinner was conservative, in terms of talk. Everyone was exhausted, after all. And clean-up following that was similarly muted.
Almost time, the Shadow laughed.
Almost time.
Destiny.
The… removal of a Sparkle Sister…
Midnight sat on her bed in her pajamas. She stared at nothing, despite her eyes being locked onto the now five-day old scorch mark in the middle of her bedroom floor. A reminder of her first night here, when she and Twilight…
You became one.
Become one again.
It would be a relief to no longer hear the Shadow’s words. To be free. To start to be whole again.
The door opened, and Twilight entered, a towel around her shoulders. She was also in her pajamas, and had her hair long. The shower had visibly relaxed her.
“Well,” she said, dropping heavily onto her own bed, “That was… a day. Right?”
Midnight said nothing. She merely stared at her sister.
Into that silence, Twilight coughed. Then, she looked down at her feet. Then, back up.
“So, first Friday?” she said with a wide, fake smile. “I promise… they’re not all as… bad.”
Twilight sighed. She looked over to her shelf, where a painfully memorable doll sat. she gripped Smarty Pants in her magic, and drew the stitched pony to her hand.
As she pet the thing, she hummed.
“I know this hasn’t been the best day, or even the best week for you,” she whispered, eyes still on the doll, “But… it will get better. I promise.”
You have no idea…
“Can we talk?” Twilight asked, suddenly. “It’s just… the news today, about… about School. If it were me, I’d…”
“You would do exactly as I did,” Midnight said in a monotone, “Probably.”
Twilight was silent, for a moment. Then, looking up with sorrow in her eyes, she said, “Midnight? Do… do you want to talk about it?”
Midnight pursed her lips.
Now. Now is the time.
“Kind of,” said Midnight, rising from her bed. “Or, something very… close. Very close to that.”
“O-oh?” Twilight’s frown shifted. It was less open now, more guarded. More suspicious.
As she should be, the fool.
Midnight walked slowly across the room, hands behind her back. Her footfalls were absolutely silent, muffled by the thick purple carpeting. And yet, in the pregnant pause between her and Twilight, those footsteps were as loud as thunder.
“Yeah,” Midnight said as she came to a stop. “I actually have a… rather important question for you as well.”
Twilight glanced to the door furtively, and then back to her sister, looming like a shadow above her.
“D-do you?”
“Oh, yes,” Midnight smirked, and knelt down till she was eye level with Twilight. She braced her hands on the bed, and leaned forward.
Now, do it! The Shadow cackled with delight.
Destroy her! Take your life back!
“Twilight…?” she whispered, eyes afire.
“… Yes?” Twilight whispered back. A solitary drop of sweat dripped down her temple, and she bit her lip.
Unleash the ma—
“What does the Voice in your head say about me?” Midnight asked, casually, one questioning eyebrow raised.
Twilight… blinked.
“What?”
What?
“You know, the Voice?” Midnight said again as she leaned back and smirked her smirkiest smirk, “Sounds like you, but isn’t? Keeps telling you that you suck at life? Probably keeps trying to get you to kill or absorb me for…”
She shrugged. “I’m guessing, everyone’s protection because I’m crazy and evil?”
Twilight’s eyes widened, and her pupils dilated down to specks as her jaw dropped almost to the floor.
Wait… what!?
“Seriously, how close am I? One to ten it for me—"
“You hear it too!?” Twilight gasped, and clutched at the sides of her head, “But… what? How…? It told you to what me!?”
A grin flashing across her face, Midnight leapt back to her feet and gave a triumphant whoop at the angled ceiling.
“Ha ha!” she laughed, “I’m not crazy! You can hear it too!”
What are you doing!? the Shadow cried. This isn’t what we planned!!!
“No, it wasn’t,” Midnight huffed, “Face it, Shadow. I played you good.”
“What?” Twilight asked, frown returning.
“In a moment, sis,” Midnight said, waving Twilight’s concern away. “Was I right? About what it was saying? The voice?”
A blush bloomed over Twilight’s face. “Y-yes…” she squeaked, and looked away in embarrassment. Then, biting her lip again, she turned back and quickly added, “But I would never do something like that! Not to you!”
Midnight’s smile, already pushing back the lines and the wear and tear of her sleepless nights, softened.
“Of course, not,” she said, reaching out a hand to gently cup her sister’s face, “I know you wouldn’t do that, because I never would either. We’re… well, a little closer than most sisters.
“And that,” Midnight said with a sudden icy edge, “is why I knew the voice wasn’t me. That, and the fact that it was trying to out-mind-game me.”
Twilight laughed, darkly. “You were the best at it. Believe me…”
Her face scrunched up. Then, with an understandable amount of worry and dread in her eyes, she hummed and asked, “Wait, does this mean our split personality has a split personality?”
“Yeah, we’re a basket case,” Midnight chuckled wearily, and started back towards her closet. As she spoke, she pulled the door open, and glanced through her options. “I mean, sure… I tried to get you to destroy the universe and devour all the magic in Equestria. But getting everyone killed wasn’t really the end goal, you know?”
“Hm, right,” Twilight snorted and rolled her eyes. “You were just going to destroy the universe to sate our curiosity. No big deal, right? Oh…” she gasped, “But the voice keeps trying to get me to fight you. To… to, um…”
“Kill me,” Midnight huffed, “Yes, I get it. You don’t have to feel embarrassed. It was trying to get me to do the same thing over the whole Everton-Community-College thing.”
Twilight blanched.
“Uh…?”
“No, I don’t want to talk about it yet,” Midnight sighed, and then stepped back from her closet. Fixing Twilight with another look, she shrugged, and said, “That’s in the future. And right now, I want to deal with this particular problem. Leave the rest till we’re clear of this.”
“What even is this?” Twilight asked. She stood up from her bed and started pacing the room. “Is this really another… um, another us?”
“Not enough data. Don’t know yet,” said Midnight, a flicker of her blue magic jumping between her outstretched fingers, “Hang on…”
There was a flash of blue fire in the room, which only barely caught Twilight’s attention as she continued to ponder the revelation Midnight had given her. When she did look over, she found her sister completely dressed again in her purple denim outfit.
“Why are you getting dressed?” she asked.
Midnight shrugged, and quickly checked her hair in the vanity mirror they’d left up on the writing desk. “Well, I’m not leaving in my pajamas. Rarity would probably kill me from miles away.”
“Leaving…?” Twilight did a quick double-take, then shaking her head, she cried, “You can’t leave! Where are you going!?”
“I just said we don’t have enough data,” Midnight said, rolling her eyes. She waved her hand again, causing another flare up of magic to dance across her fingers.
A similar flash swept over Twilight’s form, leaving her dressed once more in her somewhat iconic blouse and skirt.
The spell had even re-tied her hair up.
“Okay,” Twilight sighed in annoyance, “One: I can dress myself, thank you very much. You got the skirt backwards, by the way.
“And second: Where do you think you’re going?” She waved her hand, and a purple flash of magic righted her attire. “The lab is locked up, and none of our friends are going to be awake. How exactly are you planning to…?”
She paused. A scowl quickly overcame her face, and Twilight had to pinch the bridge of her nose.
“No.”
Midnight nodded, and stepped to one side of the Sparkle symbol still burned into the carpet. “Yes, actually.”
“We don’t know what this is yet!” Twilight protested, “You don’t know if she’s another split personality, or something else!”
“Considering she tried to get us to kill each other,” Midnight said with her own scowl forming, “I’d say she’s definitely something worse.”
Twilight crossed her arms, anger falling aside before curiosity once more.
“But what could be worse than…? Oh, no.”
Midnight grinned. “Yes?”
“We tore our own mind apart with magic…” Twilight whispered.
“Indeed, we did,” said Midnight, nodding along. “Very traumatic, that.”
Twilight resumed her pacing, wearing out the carpet in a small circle besides the scorch mark.
“If we’ve been sharing the same dreams,” she mused, “then it could be that our Split wasn’t as final as we’d hoped. There might be a small amount of our shared Dreamrealm that’s still connected. That sort of oneiric tether would be under a tremendous amount of stress…”
“And what happens when you add magic, stress, and dreams together?” Midnight asked, her goblin grin hinting that she’d already pieced it together herself.
The pacing stopped.
Twilight’s face went white as a sheet, eyes as wide as was humanly possible.
She turned, and gasped, “An Incubus!”
“Hey! Got it in one…”
“Luna was right!” Twilight cried, clutching at her head with both hands.
Midnight frowned. “Don’t give her credit,” she snorted, “I mean, she thought I was the soul-eating dream demon.”
“But that’s good!” Twilight laughed. She leapt forward, and planted both hands on Midnight’s shoulders. “She was right about the cause! She was just working from incomplete information. A simple mistake, but then again, she’s not a scientist…”
“You’re taking this very well,” Midnight said with feigned worry. She couldn’t stop a little bit of her sister’s sudden enthusiasm from infecting her, still. “Kind of too well, actually. You do know she’s still trying to destroy our sanity, right?”
“It’s an answer!” Twilight giggled, and snorted. “And besides, I survived you doing the same thing. Some rank amateur manifestation of mental trauma and existentialism can’t compare to you!”
“I’m not sure that’s a compliment, but…” Midnight started to say, before the giggles got to her too.
And, for the first time in what felt like years, Midnight felt the weight fall away from her shoulders. She stood in her room, embracing her other half, her sister… and all they were doing was laughing.
It just made the prospect of facing the Shadow a little less awful, to be there.
With Twilight.
For once, Midnight wasn’t too upset to be crying.
But, after their laughter had subsided, neither let go of the other. Still apart, physically, Midnight and Twilight each felt the same thing, holding the other. A sort of meditative, openness. A warmth.
“So,” Twilight said, hesitant to break the spell, “Where are you going?”
Midnight sighed, and regretfully drew away from her sister. “Well, we have a dream demon to get rid of,” she said with a shrug. “Best place for that is…”
“The Dreamrealm?” Twilight asked, an unamused frown returning to her brow. “Really? Without Luna…?”
“That Princess is useless!” Midnight scoffed. “If she knew what she was doing, she’d be here right now, helping us. Wouldn’t she?”
“You can’t just jump into the Dreamrealm!” Twilight shouted back.
“Well, what choice do I have?” Midnight said with a huff. “Shadowlight has control over our dreams right now. If we try to go in the regular way, we can’t guarantee we can still lucidly dream, since she’s clearly been denying us that so far!”
“You can’t… Shadowlight?” Twilight asked, bemused.
“You know, like… Twilight? Midnight?” Midnight said with a smirk and a hammy eyebrow wiggle. “It fits, right?”
That is not my name…
Twilight snorted, “Well, that settles that. Shadowlight it is. But I…”
Midnight reached a hand out, cutting Twilight off with the gesture. She kept it out, palm up, in an invitation.
“Come with me?” Midnight asked, her bravado fading from her expression.
Twilight stared at the hand. “Come with you?”
“I…” Midnight began. But then, she paused. She drew in another deep breath.
And then, she said, “Twilight? I can’t do this without you. I need you. You’re my… my better half. My sister. The only constant for me, in this disaster of a week, has been knowing that you’ll always be there with me.
“So, please,” she managed to say without a sob, or a sigh, or a croak as her walls came down, “Come with me?”
Twilight slowly tilted her head up, back to where she could look straight on at Midnight. Her face was unreadable, a mask of calculations and reasoning at war with itself.
And then, she smiled.
“If you’re going to go blowing things up in our subconscious,” she said, taking Midnight’s hand in her own, “I’m coming with you.”
Spike trotted down the upstairs hall with trepidation. He knew that this was his moment. The moment that would define his entire existence from here, on.
But it was something he had to do.
For himself, and for his family.
“Twilight?” he said as he kicked open the bedroom door, “Midnight? I want to talk about turning me into…”
The little dog stopped. Something was different with the room. Something major.
If he had to put a paw on it, Spike would guess that different thing was the fact that the entire back wall was now a swirling green vortex of fire and lightning looking out into the yawning depths of star-studded space. The scorched sparkle symbol in the floor radiated with the same magical light, and seemed to be the anchor of the vortex’s axis.
And framed in that magical gyre, stood the unified form of Twilight and Midnight Sparkle. A winged purple girl with pink and aqua highlights, and a long purple coat over the more familiar light blue ponied-up outfit he had seen before.
“I can see you’re busy,” he offered, nonplussed, “We can pick this up again later…”
Before he could say anything else, however, a slightly more openly startled Shining Armor came careening around the corner, and soon stood himself in the doorframe.
“Midnight? Twilight!” he called out over the rumbling wind that sounded from the dimensional portal, “What’s going on here!?”
“Oh, Shiny!” Twilight’s voice said from the glowing horn in her forehead, “We, uh… were hoping you were asleep, actually.”
A purple aura wrapped around a nearby book. Shining saw the cover for a brief second, a fusion of his sisters’ sparkle-sign, and a crescent moon. Midnight… Twilight? One or both of them snapped the book open, and began writing inside the cover using one finger. From the way it sparked with eldritch light, Shining could only guess that she was using magic of some sort.
He was suddenly struck with how oddly blasé he and the rest of the family were becoming to stuff like that.
“There!” Midnight said, satisfied. She tossed the journal back onto her bed, and said, “I’ve let Princess Loony know where we’re going. Happy?”
“It’s a simple safety precaution!” Twilight’s voice grumbled, “You’d think after not-testing the Mind-Split spell, you would congratulate me on being more careful with spellwork.”
“Where are you going!?” Shining shouted, concern in his voice.
“Like I didn’t just get done explaining this,” Midnight sighed.
Twilight, however, was more than willing to explain anyway.
“We figured out what was wrong,” she said, still a disembodied voice echoing from her horn. “There’s a sort of malevolent dream construct created by fear, anxiety, and stress called an Incubus. And it’s more or less trying to destroy our mind and take over our body.”
“Seriously,” Midnight scoffed, “Imitation is a form of flattery, I get that. But it couldn’t have done its own thing?”
Shining blinked a few times. He stared at his oddly conjoined sibling, and then at the portal behind them.
“So, you’re going…?”
“Into our own dreams,” Midnight answered simply.
“Right, into your own dreams,” he repeated back. “And you’re going to fight a…?”
“Dream demon,” Twilight added, helpfully. “We’re calling her Shadowlight, at the moment, lacking any other meaningful designation.”
The body of Midnight-Twilight tilted her/their head to one side. Then, she/they stared at the portal with a glare.
“Shadowlight is a great name,” Midnight huffed to… no one Shining could see. “You’re just mad that we’re going to blast you in a second.”
Shining Armor, deferring to his sister(s)’ track record on things of this nature, ignored how she/they – he really needed to ask them if there was an easier name to call them while fused – seemed to be talking to themselves.
He nodded, once. Then, twice. He hummed, a little, as he considered this new information.
Then, he stepped over Spike, and into the room.
“Cool,” he said, “Let’s do this.”
“What?” Twilight’s voice asked, startled, “You… You’re not going!”
“Oh, yes I am!” he repeated, and planted his hands on his hips in the most police officer-way he possibly could. “I’m not letting you two go on your own! Even if it’s not a school-night.”
“Shining, we’re literally going to be fighting for our lives against a construct of nightmares, existential fear, and possibly madness,” said Midnight, scowling at her brother’s bluster. “What are you gonna do? Arrest the Incubus!?”
He just smirked, and reached behind Twilight’s bed. Pulling out the aluminum baseball bat Rainbow Dash had given Twilight for her last birthday – Dash was awful at gifts, Midnight realized – Shining swung it around his head experimentally, and then turned back towards his sisters.
“Then you’re gonna need your BBBFF there to help you out,” he declared.
“That’s…” Midnight shook her head, and sighed. “That’s very… nice of you to say, but it’s too…”
“Hey!” Spike barked, “If Shining’s going, then I’m coming along too!”
He hopped forward, and landed right at Midnight/Twilight’s feet.
“You’ll need me in there!” he said, patting his chest, “I saved the day the first time something crazy like this happened, after all…”
Twilight laughed at the way Midnight groaned at the recollection of Spike’s contribution to her first defeat.
“… And you’ll of course need your LBBFF!” he finished with aplomb, “Little Brother Best Friend Forever!”
“What we’re doing is stupid dangerous!” Midnight protested, only to watch as both Shining and Spike walked up to the portal, and came to a stop besides her.
“Yeah?” Shining asked. “And you think I’d let either of my LSBFF’s go do something stupidly dangerous on their own?”
Twilight muttered, “You’re taking this way too well. At least tell us to wait, or get help from the others, or…”
“I’m learning to roll with all this magic stuff,” he said with a shrug. “And if I asked you to stop, you wouldn’t.”
Spike added, “And you’ve probably got a good reason for both of the other things…”
“And it’s you two,” Shining said, more softly, and set one hand comfortingly on his sisters’ shoulder. “I’d do anything for my Little Sisters.”
“You’re stuck with us!” Spike laughed, and gave his best doggie grin.
Midnight and Twilight held their collective tongue for a moment. Neither said a word as they stared past their… brothers. Whatever went on in their fused mind right now was their own secret counsel.
But Shining knew by the way his sister blinked that she was trying very hard not to let what she was feeling show. The smile was hard-pressed to show on her lips, but the wetness in her eyes couldn’t hide from him.
“Alright then,” said Twilight, holding out their hands, “Hold on tight, and don’t let go.”
Hands and paws clasped tight, Shining, Midnight, Twilight, and Spike drifted up into the air under the twins’ magical power, and turned towards the portal.
Midnight flapped her wings once, and carried all four of them into the black night of her mind.
Principal Luna didn’t really think of herself as a night person these days. Working at a school had long disabused her of the ability to stay up into the wee hours of the morning, gaming or partying or reading or whatever she happened to feel like doing that particular night.
Which was why the ringing doorbell and pounding at her front door was just so infuriating when it came at this time of night.
“I should be up,” she thought, bitterly. “But I’m a responsible adult now,” she mocked with a – somehow – bad impression of herself.
Sighing, she treaded down the hall of her and her sister’s shared home, past a dozen portraits and paintings of family long-gone or distant. The ringing bell wouldn’t stop, it seemed. Despite being long after a reasonable hour, someone was determined to get Luna’s attention tonight, regardless of the cost.
Yawning, and with great irritation, Luna threw open the door.
“Someone had better be dead,” she grumbled, and looked out into the darkened streets.
There was no one there. At least, not at her eye-level.
She looked down at the thing sitting on her front porch.
It was a pony. A four-and-a-half-foot tall pony.
With wings and a horn. And a flowing, ethereal mane of dark starlight.
“Greetings, Your Majesty,” Princess Luna said, and gave a regal bow to her human counterpart.
Luna didn’t respond. She didn’t even blink.
“I am most sorry for this intrusion,” the Princess said with a shake of her head, “I was hoping to continue your training in Dream Magic tonight, but something has occurred… something grave, that requires Our immediate attention. Yours, and mine own.”
Principal Luna still didn’t respond.
Princess Luna did not seem to notice.
“Quickly!” she cried, and stood on her hind legs in a most dramatic fashion, “Twilight and Midnight Sparkle are in far more danger than We suspected. We must enter the Dream Realm and reach their friends soon! Before it is too late!”
Luna did not respond.
Instead, she collapsed to her floor, fainting straight away.
“Oh, good!” Princess Luna stamped her hooves approvingly, “You already guessed my plan’s first step.”
She hummed to herself. “Oh, but my regular magic is all but nonexistent in this dimension. How will I carry you to… ah!”
Her eyes lit up as a veritable boon walked into the entryway from the hall. A spectacularly tall human woman who bore more than a little resemblance to Luna’s own sister.
“Excellent!” the Princess cheered, “Dearest Celestia! We have need of your hands! Gather up yonder slumbering Luna, and we shall make haste to save your most Faithful of Students!”
Principal Celestia looked down at her unconscious sister.
Then, she looked up at a magical, winged horse that looked like her sister.
And then, she also fainted, and dropped to the floor.
Princess Luna rolled her eyes at this display, and shook her head. She entered the domicile quickly, closing the door behind her with a hind-kick, and began the delicate process of shoving her unconscious double across the floor, towards what looked like a comfy couch in their living room.
“I guess I’ll meet you there then, shall I?” she grumbled.