//------------------------------// // 9. The Slaves of Erebus // Story: Trouble at Midnight Castle // by RainbowDoubleDash //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash leapt into the air and made to go after Cozy Glow. Her intent was echoed in Tirek, who forced himself to his hooves and started forward, even as one hand clutched at his torso. Before either of the two could get close to the exit, however, they were both seized in a magical aura and dragged away from the exit to the chamber. “What the – ” Dash looked around, and saw that it was Scorpan, spear held in a trembling hand. She almost started shouting at him, but then she saw his face. He didn’t look like he wanted to fight – instead, he looked broken, almost like he was on the verge of tears. Tirek was not nearly so restrained. “Release me!” “N-no…I need…you need to listen…” Tirek growled, gathering up his magic and forcing it around himself, then shoving his hands out, breaking the aura that surrounded him. Rather than heading for the exit, however, he started advancing on Scorpan, even though he was limping now. “This is your fault,” Tirek said as he bore down on Scorpan. “You…if you hadn’t been in my way, I wouldn’t have – Cozy wouldn’t have – ” “Whoa, hey!” Dash cried out. She struggled, but she was still held tight in Scorpan’s magic. She decided to not care as she jabbed a hoof at Tirek. “You’re the one who was dead-set on getting your hands on the Rainbow of Darkness even though literally everyone was telling you it was a bad idea, including Cozy! You’re as much to blame as he is!” Tirek turned his ire on Dash, but before he could lay into her Daring Do galloped over to her side, turning to face Tirek. “Hey, focus, both of you!” She looked between Dash and Tirek. “The situation’s changed, a lot, and none of us are going to get what we want if we spend time shouting at each other!” “Speak for yourself,” Glory’s voice put in. Dash’s gaze shot over to her, and saw that the unicorn had made her way over to where the Sun Stone lay. She was gingerly pawing at it with her hoof while muttering “ow” at the heat it gave off. Her horn lit up. Scorpan’s reaction was immediate, wings spreading and lunging forward, releasing Dash from his magical hold. The ponies all whinnied and started to move to protect Glory – or stumbled away in fright in Glory’s own case – but Scorpan only snatched the Sun Stone from where it lay. He held it high over his head and used magic to keep it there – and positioned it, Dash noted, so that nopony’s shadows were reaching out of the room. Glory took a moment to breathe with a hoof at her chest, before her eyes narrowed. “Oh come on! I came all this way and spent a fortune and had to fight for my life and survived an airship crash and had to give up my yacht for that thing!” Scorpan ignored her, instead looking down and using his magic to conjure up what looked like a sundial, its gnomon casting a shadow that didn’t match the direction of the light from the Sun Stone. His eyes widened and he started muttering to himself, ignoring everything else in the room. “Much as it pains me to say it, Miss Pose,” Caballeron said, trotting up to her, “there may be more important things to – ” “I know! I’m not stupid, I can put things together as well as anypony else.” Glory sat back on her haunches, one hoof fumbling with the goggles she still wore on her forehead. “The Sun Stone was containing the Rainbow of Darkness, and it needs to stay here to do that. I’m not so selfish that I’d risk the whole world just for a gem.” She glanced up at the jewel in question, before lightly stomping her forehooves on the floor a few times. That got Scorpan’s attention, making him look at her curiously. “But I want to at least hold it once…!” “I don’t believe this,” Dash moaned, covering her eyes at the petulant sight, and at Caballeron rubbing Glory’s withers to calm her down. “Hey, at least she figured out on her own that she isn’t getting it,” Daring pointed out. Glory heard her, and made a rude gesture with her hooves. Tirek, meanwhile, glanced between the Sun Stone and Scorpan. He started forward again, but when he did Scorpan dispelled his sundial and held forward his spear defensively. The action brought Tirek to a halt, and he grit his teeth. “You…imposter.” He pointed at the Sun Stone. “How do I use that to remove the Rainbow of Darkness from Cozy Glow?” Scorpan gripped his spear tighter, but then shook his head. “You…you can’t. None of us can.” “Why?” Dash asked, and couldn’t help but take to the air and fly closer to Scorpan. He didn’t move his spear, at least, as she looked him in the air. “Look, yeah, maybe the Rainbow of Darkness is powerful, and Cozy is kind of pure evil, but come on! She’s just a kid.” “She was bad enough to lock up in Tartarus,” Daring pointed out. Scorpan blanched, eyes on Dash. “You locked a filly in Tartarus?” “Not forever!” Dash objected – and it didn’t escape her notice that it was the most coherent sentence Scorpan had yet put together. “Princess Luna was going to let her out in a year, said that it would be a ‘time out’ for her so she could see what was in store for her if she really wanted to follow in Tirek’s hoofsteps. Princess Celestia and Twilight thought it was too long but then Luna just looked at us and said ‘oh yes, imagine how terrible it would be to be trapped in one place for a whole year.’ It was super awkward.” “Princess Luna became an evil mare called Nightmare Moon and had to be locked away for a thousand years,” Daring provided for Scorpan. “And it’s not like she was just left alone down there!” Dash continued. “She gets visitors, like, all the time! Psychiatrists and stuff, and the Princesses.” Tirek started to say something, but before he could Caballeron stepped forward. “We are getting off track,” he noted, and nodded to Scorpan. “You conjured a sundial, Lord Scorpan. Was there a purpose to that? Can you explain how it is that Cozy Glow can be freed from the Rainbow of Darkness?” Scorpan looked between the four ponies and Tirek. He backed up a few paces from them, then lifted it, leaning against it, and all of a sudden, he looked old. Nothing physically changed about him, yet his slumped body, sagging wings, heavy breathing, everything about him seemed to take on every single one of the centuries of age he had on him. He shut his eyes and shook his head. “Erebus…Erebus can be forced from the filly with the Sun Stone, with a ritual I was able to create. But…but she must want it to leave her.” “Well, good news there, she hated it,” Glory pointed out. “Cozy Glow agreed with us on not wanting the Rainbow of Darkness, so that’s step one down at least – ” “No!” Scorpan interrupted. “No, you don’t…you don’t understand. Erebus can’t, can’t use its full power if she fights it. But it…it is inside of her. It feeds on darkness. It conjures up memories, visions and it…talks. It talks, it reasons it…it will convince her.” Scorpan hung his head. “It knows everything about you. Every thought, every emotion, every memory, and it uses them. It convinces you. It gives you all the power you could ever want…” He cupped his hands together, then closed them into fists. “But it’s a trap. It pushes you. You…you do things you never thought you would. But it makes them so reasonable. So sensible. It makes them sound right.” Dash swallowed. “Uh…okay, that…kinda’ sounds bad. Cozy probably wouldn’t take too much convincing…” “You underestimate her,” Tirek said, and grinned at Dash. “Again.” Scorpan took a few breaths. “There…there is time. Erebus has a weakness – light. Sunlight especially. In sunlight it is robbed of practically all his power. Can only writhe in pain…can only suffer. It is daylight out.” He gestured at the altar where the Rainbow of Darkness and the Sun Stone had been. “Midnight Castle…the enchantment of darkness that surrounds it, was dispelled when Erebus escaped. It cannot leave the castle until night falls.” “Okay, that’s good news,” Daring said, rubbing her forehead a moment and thinking. “We’ve got a little time until sunset. Maybe six hours? And…an entire, pitch-black castle to search…and we’ll just have to hope that Cozy is fighting the Rainbow of Darkness.” “Yes…but all of you are here. You are in the light. Erebus can’t make dark slaves of you as long as no shadow it controls can reach you.” The ponies paused. “Ah…” Caballeron said, raising a hoof, “what is a ‘dark slave’…and what would it mean if there were others in the castle besides us?” Cozy Glow still couldn’t see in darkness, but somehow that wasn’t an impediment to her movements at all as she looked into the darkness of Midnight Castle, she just knew where everything that lurked in the shadows were. She flinched and braced herself while entering, expecting on some level that Erebus would rise up and seize her…but it didn’t. In the darkness that surrounded her as she trotted forward, Erebus shifted. “Okay,” Erebus whispered with Cozy’s voice. “So those ponies I noticed are just a bit ahead. They’ve made a camp in the main hall. Go on, have some fun!” Cozy intended to. She crept forward and past the utter, magical blackness of Midnight Castle’s entrance and stood in its main hall once more, looking at the vaulted ceiling with stone gargoyles perched in it, the broad staircase leading up and the bronze double-doors leading to the spooky hallway. Three earth ponies had set up small tents and awnings and a table in the center of the room, lit torches to see by, but were focused on each other and a card game they were playing. They didn’t notice Cozy lurking just beyond the edge of their torchlight, a shadow still wrapped around her and turning her completely black. The ponies looked familiar…Cozy squinted at them, digging through her memories, and realized that they matched the description of three hench-ponies that usually served Doctor Caballeron in those stupid Daring Do books. Had Professor Dash really gone all-in on buying some kind of event vacation or something like this? Cozy shook her head, bringing herself back into focus. Regardless of who these ponies really were when not pretending to be goons, they were supposed to be practice. Cozy sat back on her haunches and started gathering up the abundant shadow beneath her, and couldn’t suppress a grin at how it all just moved and shaped itself and solidified at her whim. She rolled it around in her hooves like she would snow, and soon had a ball of shadow in her grasp. “Okay, now…” Cozy drew back her hoof, then threw it forward as hard as she could, aiming for the biggest of the three stallions. The orb of utter blackness sailed forward…losing a lot of its speed in the process and sailing right over his head. Cozy pouted. The stallions, on the other hoof, all leapt and whinnied in surprise. “What was that?” The smallest of the three demanded, looking around. “I dunno,” the middle-sized one, wearing a red handerchief, said. He peered into the darkness where the ball had landed noiselessly, just beyond the torchlight. “Rogue, go check it out.” “How about you go check it out, Biff?” The biggest stallion countered. “I’m not that curious.” Cozy rolled her eyes, gathering up darkness again into another ball. “Something moves in this castle for the first time since the Doc went off and you’re not curious?” The middle-sized stallion demanded. “What if it’s Daring Do?” Cozy rolled her eyes harder. “Look, I’ll go,” the smallest stallion said, trotting off to where the ball had landed. He retrieved a torch, holding it in his mouth. He only needed to move a few feet to find the shadow-ball, which he looked at curiously and immediately reached out to poke. The other two stallions let out whinnies again and moved forward to stop him – making Cozy’s next thrown shadow-ball miss as well and in fact not even be noticed. She threw her hooves in the air. “Why do you touch everything?” The biggest stallion demanded. “What? We’re explorers, aren’t we?” The small stallion said. He tapped at the shadow-ball. “It feels weird. Cold. What is this?” “The thing that’s gonna turn out to be an egg for something that bites you,” the middle-sized stallion said. “That was one time!” “Yeah, and then we spent the next three days stuck on a boat with vampony-you! That was the first time the Doc and Daring teamed up!” “Come to think of it the second time was when you rang the gong,” the big stallion noted. “And then there was the whole thing with Kali-Mare…every time we’ve had to work with Daring Do, it’s been because of Withers.” “Not every…” The small stallion paused, thought, and didn’t notice when Cozy’s third shadow-ball landed short of them. “…huh. It really has been every time…” Cozy was trembling with annoyance, not helped by the fact that she could feel a giggle being barely suppressed in her throat – and not hers, but Erebus’. “Do you want some help aiming?” Erebus asked. “Shut up,” Cozy hissed back. She gathered up shadows into another ball, readied to throw, but just as she was about to the three stallions moved to gather around the original shadow ball. She’d begun her throw, tried to check it, and instead the shadow ball slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor at her hooves. Cozy let out a shriek of anger – which caused the stallions to whirl around, something which she only barely saw due to her turning and bucking the shadow ball. It went sailing straight ahead with a lot more force than her throws had been able to muster, and hit the small stallion square in the chest. He let out a gasp as he fell backwards. “The hay?” the middle-sized stallion demanded, noticing the shadow-ball that had come up short as well. “Who’s throwing – what’s that over there?” He pointed straight at Cozy. The big stallion started charging right at her. Cozy’s eyes widened and she let out a whinny, turning and running out of instinct at such a large pony bearing down on her. Unfortunately, despite not being able to be seen in the darkness, her hoof-falls certainly gave her away, and the big stallion turned to give chase. “Why are you running?” Erebus demanded. “Because you are!” The big stallion said. “Not you!” Cozy realized that Erebus had a point. She struggled to get her panic under control, considered a moment, then skidded to a halt, grabbed the shadows behind her, and pulled them over her in a dome while making them hard as rock. She giggled when she heard the big stallion impact the shadows and be sent stumbling to the ground. “There. You’ll get a knack for it,” Erebus whispered. “You can control any shadow that is connected to your shadow, no matter how many shadows there are in the chain. Use that! You have to get to a point where it’s instinctive.” Cozy pulled back her dome, looking out. The big stallion was picking himself up, while the other two were coming over, squinting at her – they could still barely see her in the darkness. Cozy put one hoof on the darkness of the floor beneath her and willed their own shadows to grab their hooves… And it worked! The stallions let out frightened whickers as their own shadows moved up and grasped at their legs, holding them in place. Cozy giggled, casting aside her dome and stepping out of the darkness and into the torchlight. “Hi!” Cozy said as she pranced over to in front of the three struggling stallions. “Okay, so now that I’ve got your attention – ” “What are you?” The smallest stallion demanded. Cozy frowned at the phrasing, but then looked down at herself and saw she was still wrapped in blackness. “Oh, right,” She said, letting the shadows fall off of her. She looked back up to the three. “My name’s Cozy Glow! You may have heard of me.” The stallions stopped their struggles and stared. “A…foal?” The small one asked. “The hay?” “Wait, I think I remember something about this,” the middle-sized one said, eyes growing wide. “You’re that filly that Tirek manipulated into trying to destroy Equestria – ” Cozy bristled, taking to the air and jabbing a hoof at him once she was at eye level. “That is not what happened! That was all my plan and – ” Cozy noticed too late that the shadows around the three stallions’ legs had disappeared. The big and small one retreated back into the torchlight, while the middle-sized one in front of her reached out for her. She let out a yelp, flying backwards and away, out of reach of the earth pony. “Hey, what gives?” Cozy demanded as she hovered well above the earth ponies, who were looking back up at her. “How did they escape?” “You let us go!” The middle one said, retreating into the light as well with his companions. “No I didn’t!” “Actually, you did,” Erebus said. The ponies stared at her like she was a crazy pony talking to herself…which, fair enough, that would be how it looked. “You can control any shadow you’re touching. But if you’re flying, you’re not touching anything, silly.” “How does that make sense?” Cozy demanded, throwing her hooves wide. “Darkness isn’t even there to begin with, so why does it matter if I’m on the ground or not?!” “It just does,” Erebus answered. “But, come on, you’re doing pretty well for this being your first time!” “Uh…Biff?” The big stallion asked of the middle-sized one. “She’s, uh…she’s talking to herself. And talking back.” “I am not talking to myself,” Cozy said. “It’s complicated, you wouldn’t understand.” “Yeah, I don’t care,” Biff said, grabbing a torch and pointing to the others. “I care that you just told us what your weakness is! Get the torches, get us surrounded with light.” Cozy ground her teeth together at Erebus speaking through her mouth while, faster than she could land on a solid surface again – one of the gargoyles near the ceiling – the three ponies had managed to surround themselves with glowing torches. She sat down on her haunches, staring down at the three, who were looking back up with…apprehension, maybe? A sort of nervous curiosity? Not fear, though, which is what she would have expected. And kind of wanted… “How the hay did you even get all the way out here?” The middle-sized pony – he seemed to be the leader – asked. “Did you stow away on the airship or something? Do you have any idea how dangerous this place is?” “I mean, she’d have to, if she was in the airship when it went down,” the smallest stallion said. Cozy shook her head. “I wasn’t in the airship, I was already here. We got here before you dumb LARPers did.” She paused a moment, then grinned at them, leaning down. “And it was my idea to shoot down your airship! I figured you were here for the Rainbow of Darkness and there was no way we were gonna let you get there first.” She’d wanted to inspire more fear. Instead, they just looked confused. “What the hay is the Rainbow of Darkness?” Cozy rolled her eyes, leaning down on her barrel and putting her head in one hoof. “Right, you weren’t downstairs for everything…I don’t want to explain it.” She narrowed her eyes. “What I want to know is why you aren’t afraid of me! I can control shadows! Isn’t that scary?” “Sure, ‘til we figured out how to stop it,” The big stallion said, pointing to the ring of torches they were surrounded with. “Now you’re just a little pony.” Cozy grinned, getting up onto her hooves. “I know something you don’t know…” she sang. “Oh yeah?” Cozy wrapped shadows all around herself again…and stepped things up a bit. She made herself appear bigger, made the shadows around her wings look like bat wings, gave her head a horn like an alicorn’s, but curved like Sombra’s had been, and she filled her mouth with fangs. Behind her, her shadow-adorned mane and tail started waving, moving and undulating as though in a breeze that wasn’t there. Cozy willed the shadows on the floor beneath her to surge forward. Torchlight wasn’t sunlight – it couldn’t stop them, couldn’t even slow them down, she knew that already. Each torch was seized by an arm of shadow-stuff and pulled back and away from the trio before they could do anything more than yelp, then shadows smothered the flames and plunged the room into blackness. Cozy decided to try something new: she ran down the side of the pillar the gargoyle was perched on. Her hooves found purchase on the vertical surface as easily as if she was on the ground. She still couldn’t properly see anything – other than the vague motion of Erebus lurking and turning within the shadows – but once again that didn’t make a difference, she still somehow just knew where the other ponies were. And with them now surrounded by total blackness, they were at her complete mercy. Darkness grabbed hold of them from every side. She hoisted the small one into the air on a pillar of darkness that grew out of the ground, trapped him in a cage of metallic shadow. The big one had tried to run, but she tripped him up, sent him sprawling and then had vines of darkness wrap around him and hold him in place on the floor, squeezing him tight. And the middle-sized one, the one who was in charge, she grasped his hooves and held him in place, trapped him in a standing position as she trotted right up to him. He screamed like a little filly – Cozy would know – as Cozy made a staircase of shadows for her to climb, right up onto his back. He swung his head around to try and keep her away from him, but an arm of shadow lashed out of the ground and grabbed him around the neck, holding him in place as she leaned right up to his ear. “I’m not a little pony. I’m a monster. Rawr!” Cozy giggled – and swiftly began full on laughing as she sat back on the pony, rubbing her hooves together. Now this was fun! There was absolutely nothing that any of them could do to her as long as she was in control of the Rainbow of Darkness. She heard the small one crying out from within his cage above her and the big one almost sounded like he’d broken down into tears, and the middle one was…actually not making a sound. Had he passed out? Fainted from fear? Cozy started giggling again until she heard a strangled gasp from right in front of her. Her eyes widened, despite the pointlessness of the action. She had the arm around his neck release him, and the stallion took in a huge, gasping breath. She’d been choking him without even realizing it, the darkness… “What the hay, Erebus?!” Cozy demanded. She climbed off of the stallion – ignoring the sounds he was making, the hoarse words begging her for mercy – and tried to look directly at Erebus’ undulating form in the shadows. “Why were you choking him?!” “I wasn’t!” Erebus countered. “You are in control, you’re the one who grabbed him that hard. What’s it matter, anyway? Don’t you want to see how strong my shadows can be?” “Not like that,” Cozy said. She turned to follow Erebus’ ever-shifting presence. “These ponies are just a bunch of LARPers, they haven’t done anything to me, they don’t deserve to die. They’re gonna be my minions!” “Minions?” “Yeah!” Cozy turned to the three stallions. She decided to give the middle-sized one a break and instead trotted over to the big one she had pinned to the floor, jabbing at him with one hoof, eliciting squeals of terror. “Or, what I mean is, I thought of something for you to do rather than just offer commentary. As long as we’ve got two minds up here, we can take advantage of that.” “How do you figure?” “Like this!” Cozy changed the nature of the shadows around the big pony. She had them wrap around him, seal him inside of them like she was sealed inside her own shadow-suit…careful to make sure it wasn’t airtight, though, she didn’t want a repeat of what had just happened. “Whoa…” Erebus intoned as the big pony stood up at Cozy’s direction, the shadows around his body moving him. “That’s really neat!” “Uh-huh!” Cozy agreed, and rubbed her hooves together. She glanced behind herself and up, at where she knew the little stallion to be, and repeated the process, then closed the third one inside a shadow-suit of his own. The shadow-suits clamped the ponies’ mouths shut, silencing most of their cries for help or mercy. “See, I know I could just make shadow minions if I wanted,” Cozy said, and amused herself by using shadows to create a few ponies marching around her in a circle. “Buuuut nopony would feel bad about hitting those. But if there was a pony inside one of them, a pony they knew…then because of their friendship, they’d hesitate! Pull their bucks!” “So where do I come in?” Erebus asked. “Simple: controlling minions would be a lot of work for me,” Cozy tapped her head a little, “especially since I’m still getting used to all of this. But you could focus on puppeting them around, while I focus on other things! Sound good?” Erebus was quiet, and Cozy was almost worried, before Erebus started giggling through her mouth. “That’s great! And super creative! Okay, sure, I’ll focus on the puppets.” “Right. But don’t hurt them!” Cozy started trotting towards the hallway, and from there, the subterranean layers of Midnight Castle. The three dark slaves she’d created followed along at a steady pace. “I still want them to actually be my minions at some point once we take over Equestria. But for now, they get to be the honorary first members of the Cozy Guard!” She glanced at the three, even if she couldn’t see them. “You three be good until we’ve got Midnight Castle squared away, okay? Just need to save my best friend Tirek, and then I can let you go!” She heard the three ponies gasp and cry out from within their shadow suits, and grinned. “Oh, right, you don’t know. Tirek’s here! And…he’ll probably want to drain your magic. Huh, I guess I won’t be letting you go. But that’s okay! I’ll still bring you back to Equestria with me and you can recover and then you can be my subjects when I take over Equestria!” That thought put a little more spring into Cozy Glow’s step. With shadow-magic like this, Grogar would be a cinch to defeat – surely even he wasn’t a match for every shadow coming at him at once from all sides! Hay, even Tirek or Queen Chrysalis wouldn’t be a match for Cozy now. She’d just gone from being the weakest member of their alliance to the strongest! Yes, things were definitely looking up – there really wasn’t anything like shadows to brighten up Cozy’s day, as long as Erebus was by her side! Tirek wanted to grab the facsimile of Scorpan and smash his face into a wall. He wanted to grab his wings and pull them off. He wanted to take the fake’s spear and shove it down his throat. He wanted to strangle the life from him, he wanted to stomp him underhoof, and above all else he wanted to drain all the magic that the false Scorpan had, every last iota of it, to reinvigorate himself, to grant him the power he’d had before he had set hoof in Midnight Castle, and then use that power to drain the magic of the ponies here. But though there was probably some way to make all of that happen, his thoughts invariably turned to Cozy Glow – and to the Rainbow of Darkness. The power it had…power that was now controlling her. Power that should have been Tirek’s already if not for these accursed ponies and this false image of his brother that mocked his memories and Cozy getting in his way… Tirek grit his teeth as Scorpan finished explaining what he had meant by dark slaves. “I see this as no cause for concern,” Tirek said, cutting the air with one hand. “If this Erebus thinks that doing this will slow me down, it is sorely mistaken.” “Yeah, I wasn’t exactly planning on pulling my bucks against your goon squad anyway when push came to shove,” Rainbow Dash said, looking to Caballeron. “No offense, but you are bad guys.” “Some taken,” Caballeron retorted, though he glanced to Scorpan, “though I feel you miss our benefactor’s point. I doubt that the shadows you hit will be harmed all that much…but the ponies inside of them will be. The same blow that might stagger a pony will only inconvenience one of these dark slaves, am I right?” Scorpan nodded. “Yes. To disperse the shadow around the pony will require…much more force. Much more than would be needed to fell a pony. And…and all the while, the victim inside…no control. Helpless.” Rainbow Dash checked herself at that. “Oh,” she said. “Right…w-well, at least there’s only three, right?” “For now,” Scorpan said. He looked over the small herd of ponies, and Tirek, his grip on his spear tightening. Tirek balled his hands into fists, daring Scorpan to act against him. He didn’t. “There are too many of you. You…I must take you outside – ” “Oh thank Celestia,” Glory Pose mumbled. “ – use the Sun Stone to guide you out into the sunlight. You will be safe while the sun shines. Then I will venture through the castle alone.” “You will not.” Tirek said, stomping a hoof, and ignoring the pain it caused with practiced ease. “It’s your fault that Cozy has been possessed – if you hadn’t tried to blast me while she was in the way, then we wouldn’t be having this discussion!” “Actually, I bet we would, only with Cozy Glow and with you having run off possessed by the ancient evil artifact,” Rainbow Dash said. Tirek balled his fists as he turned on Rainbow Dash, but the pegasus looked totally unintimidated. Daring Do dove between the two of them before either could do anything, holding up her hooves. “Dash, please stop antagonizing Lord Tirek.” She’d no doubt only used his title as a means of trying to appease him. Tirek decided to play along with it – he had bigger concerns at the moment as he returned his attentions to the false Scorpan. “I will join you in hunting down Cozy. And when you drive the Rainbow of Darkness from her, it will be mine.” Scorpan stared back at him, eyes looking over his face. His grip on his spear tightened and he closed his eyes, but rather than speak, he turned, walking directly away from the door and to the wall opposite it. It appeared like featureless bricks, but without hesitation Scorpan pressed his hands on two of them. They pushed in with little effort, then a large section of the wall with it, sliding to the side. Beyond a spiral stair led upwards and out of sight. Scorpan looked back, using his spear to call the Sun Stone over to him, illuminating the hallway. “This leads to the first floor. From there, I can get you outside.” Glory wasted no time in rushing over, Caballeron only a few steps behind. Rainbow Dash and Daring Do were slower to follow, keeping an eye behind them on Tirek as he came forward as well. His pace still favored one leg over the other three, but he ignored that pain, as well as the pain down his right arm as he folded both behind his upper back. Scorpan watched his approach for a moment, but eventually turned and held the Sun Stone magically over his head. He tapped it with his spear, and the light and heat that it was giving off quadrupled, making it painful to look at and making Tirek feel like he was standing outside in the Nether Lands. “Stay close,” he said, “as close as possible. And…beware the shadows. If they move wrong, let me know, immediately.” “Won’t Erebus know about this secret passage?” Daring Do asked as they started moving. Her words made Glory jump. “Won’t it figure that you’ll use this to get us out?” “Yes. But…but it will know that I know that. And I know that it knows. And it knows that I know that it knows. And – ” Tirek snarled. “I will strangle you.” Scorpan glanced back at Tirek, but nodded. He moved the Sun Stone over his head randomly a few times, pushing back all shadows, cutting the ones cast by their group off from the ones that lurked ahead and behind them. A wise precaution, Tirek had to admit, and one that would perhaps keep them safe should Erebus attack them…not that Tirek anticipated the need. He had every confidence in Cozy Glow to not give in to the Rainbow of Darkness so easily. “Hey, Tirek,” Rainbow Dash said, interrupting Tirek’s musings, “I gotta ask…how did you and Cozy get out of Tartarus?” Tirek looked down at her. “Is now really the time?” “Might not get another. Last time I saw you, you were helping me and my friends leave.” She eyed him. “And you weren’t nearly so buff, either, how’d that happen without anypony noticing a bunch of drained ponies missing their cutie marks?” Tirek growled. “I see no reason to tell you.” Rainbow Dash groaned. “I bet it was Sombra. It was Sombra, wasn’t it? Something he did in case he failed again? Don’t know how he came back, but hey, it happened before.” Tirek kept himself from grinning, not wanting to indulge the pegasus. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know how I’m gonna stop you, but even if I can’t, as soon as I get back to Ponyville and get my friends together, we’re gonna hunt you and Cozy down.” “Then perhaps I shouldn’t let you return,” Tirek noted, looking her in the eye and grinning at her. “I could use the pick-me-up right now…” “Yeah, yeah,” Rainbow Dash droned. She took to the air, flying head of Tirek but looking straight at him with forelegs crossed over her chest, having no difficulty at all flying backwards. “Except then I won’t be able to help you get Cozy Glow free from Erebus. She was my student, and even if she was a little psycho, I can’t just leave her hangin’. So…how about it? Is that truce offer still on, until we deal with Cozy and Erebus?” She held out one foreleg. Tirek stared at the outstretched hoof a moment, before reaching out his own right fist. “Until Cozy Glow is free,” he agreed, touching his fist to Rainbow Dash’s. “And if you stay out of my way when I claim the Rainbow of Darkness as my own, I’ll even spare you and everypony else here as well.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “I guess we’ll see.” She dropped down to the ground, but moved up alongside Doctor Caballeron. “And, hey, uh…what about you? You gonna help get your goon…I mean, your, uh, employees back?” Caballeron grit his teeth. “If it were possible…but if they have been made into dark slaves, then our best hope will be to remove Erebus from Miss Cozy Glow, and our best chance of success at that will be to expose as few ponies as possible to becoming more dark slaves. Much as I hate to admit it, I will actually be more useful if I am not in the castle.” “What he said,” Glory added. She and Caballeron both then glanced to Daring Do. Daring Do looked back. “No, I’m staying. I’m not leaving Dash alone in here. I’ve encountered traps where you have to watch your shadow before, this isn’t any different. Well, except that the shadows will be moving on their own this time…but I can manage.” She fluttered her wings a few times, and tilted back her pith helmet. “Besides, saving the world is kind of my thing, same as Dash.” Dash grinned, slapping a wing against one of Daring Do’s own. Tirek rolled his eyes, but was surprised when the pegasus took to the air to look at him just as Rainbow Dash had. “One thing I’ve got to know first, though,” she said. “If it comes down to it, Lord Tirek, which would you pick: the Rainbow of Darkness, or Cozy Glow?” Tirek bristled. “What kind of question is that?” “The kind that I know will come up. Call it…pattern recognition. At some point you’re going to need to choose between the two. So, which will it be?” She flew up closer. “That little filly called you her best friend. Are you?” Tirek snarled, pushing past Daring Do. “It won’t come up,” he said, and completely tuned out any attempt she made at getting his attention again. There wasn’t going to be a choice. The Sun Stone would be used to force the Rainbow of Darkness from Cozy, and then Tirek would claim it and Cozy would be free. So why bother trying to pick between the two? It was foolish to even waste time contemplating such a thing. He was still larger than the ponies, so him moving up had forced them all behind him…which unfortunately meant that he was not walking directly behind his brother. The facsimile of his brother, in any event… “So, what are you?” Tirek demanded of the creature walking before him. “A magical construct? A golem? What simulacra did my useless brother create to mock me?” The creature’s grip on his spear tightened. “I am Scorpan.” “Time is suspended in Tartarus, creatures there don’t age. That’s not the case in this castle. Scorpan is dead.” Scorpan looked at him. His shoulders and wings sagged. “Perhaps…perhaps you are right. Perhaps there is not really a Scorpan anymore, just…me. Just…just the gargoyle that imprisons the Rainbow of Darkness. Forever.” He looked ahead. Twitched his hand, sent the Sun Stone wobbling through the air, pushing back shadows. “It must be.” “You haven’t answered my question.” Scorpan stopped, turning on Tirek. Still filled with power, he actually stood nearly as tall as Tirek did, and the few extra steps of the stairs that he was on brought him to eye level with the centaur. He banged the butt of his spear into the ground, drew himself up, clenched his free hand into a fist. “I live,” Scorpan said, his voice steadier than it had been since he had first started speaking, “I sleep, I live again. I suspend myself. Seal myself in stone. I am awakened when the castle’s defenses are breached. Every time I close my eyes, every time I feel the rock and shale crawl up my fur and close around me and the dreamless, thoughtless void takes me, I wonder if it is for the last time…I hope it is for the last time.” He glared hard at Tirek, then turned around and started walking again. “That is how I’m still alive. Still alive to be here, to meet you again. To see you again, to see you like…this. Still. To lose the one last shred of hope I didn’t even know I still had.” Tirek barely heard that, instead focusing on what Scorpan had said. He…froze himself in stone? Released himself when the castle was breached? That was certainly possible…easy, even. Tirek could think of ways to set up the enchantments, arrange the spells of Midnight Castle to trigger such an event. And Tirek had taught Scorpan much of the magic that Sendak the Elder had known…and then Scorpan had had years of additional freedom to learn himself… …was this Scorpan? Could Tirek really be looking at his brother? And if so…how did that knowledge lessen his desire to wring the gargoyle’s neck? This was the traitor, the mutineer, the one who had turned on him and alerted the ponies to his plans, had aided Star Swirl and Celestia and Luna in imprisoning him in Tartarus, who had robbed Tirek of a thousand years of freedom… …and look at what it had gotten Scorpan. A lost kingdom just as Tirek had lost the chance to create his own in the nascent Equestria. Isolation and a prison just as Tirek had been imprisoned. A fitting punishment, perhaps. There was symmetry to this, a symmetry like what Tirek had attempted to inflict on the Princesses of Equestria when he had escaped from Tartarus the first time. Scorpan had gotten not one ounce less than what he deserved… They reached the top of the stairs, which terminated in an apparent dead end, the stairs going right up to the ceiling. But Scorpan reached up and again, without even needing to look, pushed in two bricks in the ceiling and then heaved, lifting it up and over his head, sliding aside a large block. The six of them emerged in the dark chapel to Lord Tirac, which looked outright alien in the hot, bright light of the Sun Stone. The stained-glass windows continued to refuse to let in any light from outside, and every creature paused to look at the great image of Tirac, arms spread wide as darkness – as Erebus – spread across the land before him and caused all whose shadow he touched to suffer. “Such power,” Tirek mumbled as he looked at what Lord Tirac had once accomplished, the breadth of his domain. Scorpan looked to Tirek. “Power has a price. And it did not avail him in the end.” Tirek grunted, not wanting to even begin that debate. He turned around…and froze. At the other end of the dark chapel, standing in its entrance just beyond the Sun Stone’s light, was an alicorn…a jet-black alicorn with batlike wings and a slightly curved horn, with a mane and a tail that were long and flowing shadow-stuff and eyes that stood out only by somehow being even darker than the rest of her. But what stood out most about the alicorn was that she was shorter than Rainbow Dash. She was the smallest alicorn that Tirek had ever seen, and he’d seen four out of the five in existence. Perhaps Princess Flurry Heart was shorter…but certainly not by much. “Tirek!” The alicorn cried out in a familiar voice. The blackness bled off of her, and Tirek had to fight back the urge to recoil when he found himself looking at the familiar pink fur and red eyes, and the much less familiar but still recognizable blue mane, not done up in its usual curls thanks to the desert’s heat outside. “Uh-oh,” Cozy Glow said. “Tirek, did these bullies take you captive?” “Hey!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Who’re you calling a bully?” She paused. “Uh, also…who’s calling me a bully? Cozy Glow, or Erebus?” “Oh, goody!” Cozy Glow said, looking at Scorpan, who was frozen in place, spear held forward, free hand held like he was ready to throw something – the Sun Stone through magical power, probably. “Thanks, Scorpan, for letting them use my – ” “Wait, hang on, shut up,” Cozy interrupted herself, scowling and looking a little to the side. “Let me talk.” “Got it,” Cozy Glow said. Tirek blinked. “Cozy…?” “Yup!” Cozy responded. “Uh…also, Erebus. The Rainbow of Darkness. He talks through my mouth sometimes. But this is me.” Daring Do took a step forward – though she also made sure to remain behind the Sun Stone, keep her shadows away from Cozy. “How can we be sure of that?” She asked. “How can we be sure you are who you say you are?” “That’s rich, coming from a LARPer who won’t even break character!” Cozy countered. “Now shut up, I’m talking to Tirek.” She turned back to the centaur. “It’s okay! Me and Erebus had a long talk, and now I’m using the Rainbow of Darkness. We didn’t have anything to be worried about after all! All he wants is to just be used, that’s it – no strings attached! He had plenty of opportunities to turn on me but didn’t take any of them!” “Lying,” Scorpan said. His eyes were huge, and he was trembling. Whatever sanity he had been able to seize had slipped from his grasp, it seemed. “Lying, lying, lying…” Cozy grinned widely. “Nope,” she said, and then turned back to Tirek. “Come on! Just get over here, I’ll cover you.” Tirek almost did start forward, but checked himself. “Daring Do is right,” he said. “How can I be sure that it’s actually you? That you’re in control?” He inclined his head. “Step into the light.” Cozy didn’t. “Erebus…doesn’t like it,” she said. She actually took a step backwards, into deeper shadow. “He doesn’t like the light.” “So Erebus is in control.” “No.” Cozy stomped his hoof, “no, he’s not, he’s my partner, just like you and Chrysalis!” “You and WHO?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, eyes and wings both going wide. “You’re working with Chrysalis?! Did she let you two loose?! And – and was she behind Sombra?!” One of Tirek’s eyes narrowed. Had Cozy just made a mistake, let her anger get the better of her and say something she shouldn’t have – or was Erebus trying to distract him by bringing Rainbow Dash into this? He stepped forward again. “Cozy Glow. Step into the Sun Stone’s light.” “No,” Cozy said. “I shouldn’t have to! You should trust me! You’re my best friend!” “Then as your friend, I’m asking you to prove that you are in control. Erebus can lurk in the darkness for a few moments.” “No.” Cozy’s eyes were wide as she glared at Tirek. “You…you wanted the Rainbow of Darkness. You wanted it really bad. Wouldn’t even listen to me when I was telling you it was a bad idea, even though you’re supposed to trust me. You’re supposed to listen to me! I’m your friend!” Tirek growled. “I had waited a thousand years to seize the Rainbow of Darkness! Of course I wasn’t listening to you when you stood in my way – ” “And you still want it now, is that it?” Cozy demanded. She shook her head. Darkness started creeping up her legs, turning her fur and feathers black. “Want to take the Rainbow of Darkness from me?” Tirek clenched his fists. He wasn’t listening to her? Why wasn’t she listening to him? “I want to see if you’re telling the truth. If you are, then you should be able to separate Erebus from yourself.” “So you can have it?” Cozy demanded. “No.” “Cozy, get into the light, right now.” “Promise me you won’t try and take Erebus away!” Tirek’s eye twitched. How could he make that promise, with how long he’d waited, with how much he’d gone through? He cut the air with one hand. “I will swear no such thing.” Cozy stared back at him. The darkness that had been creeping up along her swallowed her whole, turning her into the solid-black alicorn again. Its void-like eyes narrowed. “Fine. Then I guess we’re fighting. It’s okay. Friends fight sometimes. But I’m gonna win.” She stepped backwards, completely into the shadows. Tirek lost sight of her almost immediately.