//------------------------------// // Book 1: Curiosity | Chapter 6: The Mystery Revealed // Story: The Midnight Series: Incomplete Edition // by Notowa //------------------------------// Chapter 6: The Mystery Revealed As they drove to Twilight's house, the clouds above were heavy, and it began to pour. The winds felt like it was carrying the truck to a whole different direction than where they were destined. They could hear the thunder outside, but no traces of light were seen in the skies. Applejack parallel parked toward Twilight's house, and the rain was starting to drizzle down, which made Rarity hesitant to walk out, her makeup would be ruined by the rain. Luckily, Applejack had spare umbrellas in the truck, allowing Rarity to use it. The girls couldn't care less about the weather, but to find the truth about this destructive side of Twilight. Sunset opened the door, allowed everyone in and shut the door. The girls sighed of how cold it was inside Twilight's house. Fluttershy went to find Spike, she was calling out his name. The girls started to search Twilight's place for any clues as to how she became this way. Sunset was looking through Twilight's room, into her drawers and dressers to see if anything stuck out to her. Sunset was feeling a bit uncomfortable looking through Twilight's stuff, but she was hoping that she would find something to make Twilight seem less villainous. Applejack was looking around the other rooms like the bathroom, or other closets. Scavenging through boxes and cabinets or drawers, but she could not find anything remotely useful or helpful in this situation. Pinkie Pie was scouring the couches in the living room, she ended up finding some pocket change during her search, but she rendered them useless. Fluttershy kept trying to call out for Spike, even crawling around the kitchen cabinets for any traces of fur or activity. Rarity was cleaning up Sunset's meat-shoe traces on the floor, which led up to looking at the suspicious locked closet, trying to find a way to open it. Rarity tried to lockpick the lock of the closet. Princess Twilight was with Sunset, more or less, looking around with her, but was also making sure she wasn't missing any updates in the book. Rainbow Dash was trying to look like she was helping in searching, but she was focusing on the meat that was left out on the floor. "Shit!" Rarity yelled as she failed to open the lock, alerting everyone around the area. "Excuse my language, but there's nothing here!" The girl began to return together in the living room. Fluttershy, however, was still on the search for Spike. Applejack was convinced she was right, and they were wasting time, uncomfortably searching through Twilight's personal belongings. "This can't be..." Sunset said under her breath. "T-there has to be something we're missing!" "C'mon Sunset, we looked everywhere!" Rainbow Dash said, disgusted to look anymore. "We've tried, Sunset." Applejack assured. "There's nothing here. We've been wasting time, when we could be across town for the other portal." Sunset rage was coming back to bite her. "You're not looking hard enough!" Sunset yelled back to Applejack. Applejack drew back, but she returned fire, the thunder rages, allowing the lighting to strike the trees or the surface, making the very ground shake. The girls stood back and watched them go off on each other. "What are we even looking for?!" Applejack asked. "I don't know!" "What if all this time, this wasn't a problem we can find, but something we did?!" "So, you're saying it's my fault?!" "No! Am saying what if we did do somethin' to upset her?!" "Like what?!" "Maybe, for example, ignorin' her?!" "So, you are blaming me?! Don't act like neither of you were listening in for her?!" "She's spent the most time with you, hasn't she?! And I am not blamin' 'you', I said 'we'!" "Whatever! You are all thinking about it, right?!" Sunset yelled. Princess Twilight tried to calm both of them down. "Girls, please stop. This is helping no one..." Princess Twilight said calmly. "Okay, fine! I'm the problem! I admit it!" Sunset said, cooling off a little. She started to tear up. "I-I ... ignored her... when she was the one... there the whole time... for me... I'm sorry..." The girls began to feel sad for both of them. Pinkie Pie got up and put her hand on Sunset's shoulder. Sunset pulled her in for a hug. "We all ignored her, when she probably needed us the most!" Pinkie suggested. The others drew closer. "I'm sorry Sunset..." Applejack said sincerely. "I didn't mean..." "I know..." Sunset interrupted. Sunset Wiped her eyes. "These past couple days, I just felt... emotional..." "I understand." Applejack assured. Princess Twilight stood back, and watched them all hug it out with each other, she smiled, they had a lot to discuss. But, she noticed that one of them was not present. "Where's Fluttershy?" Princess Twilight asked the girls. The girl turned toward Princess Twilight, and they all headed for the other rooms to see where Fluttershy was. "Fluttershy?" Princess Twilight whispered. She found her in Twilight's room in her closet. "Shh!" Fluttershy angrily whispered. "Sorry!" Princess Twilight whispered. "Girls, in here!" As Princess Twilight went back to normal volume. The girls headed for Twilight's room. "Shht!" Fluttershy whispered back, started to get pissed off at them, continually digging through a mountain of clothes in Twilight's closet. "What's going on Fluttershy?!" Rainbow Dash yelled. Princess Twilight quickly went to hold down Rainbow Dash's mouth. The girls saw how quick she was to cover Rainbow Dash's mouth, they held their own mouths as well. Fluttershy got up, and stormed at them, looking at them with her captivating and hypnotic angry eyes. "If you guys won't shut up! And let me concentrate! I will make sure that you all suffer and I'll have your hides hanging on my wall in my shed! UNDERSTAND!" Fluttershy yelled. The girls nodded gently, not saying a single word, and still having their mouths covered. Princess Twilight was so scared, she was gripping onto Rainbow Dash tightly, she began to suffocate, turning into a darker tint of blue of her skin. "Umm... thank you... sorry..." Fluttershy returned to being her usual self, and continued to dig through the clothes. She heard a faint whisper coming from the closet, ontinued to dig through, she found Spike lying beneath the clothes, he was wrapped up in strings. "Spike!" Fluttershy cried. Spike quickly ran out of the room. She followed, the girls were relieved and let go of their mouths. Princess Twilight finally let go of Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash kneeled to the floor, trying to catch her breath, coughing. "I'm so sorry Rainbow!" Princess Twilight said sincerely. "I swear, we keep doing this to each other..." Rainbow Dash commented while breathing heavily. "We are not... going to accomplish... anything!" "You're right..." Sunset said. "We need to stick together, and not hurt each other." "Yeah, I'll forgive you this time Twilight!" Rainbow Dash said as she got up, feeling normal again. "We have to make sure we don't piss certain people off!" "Okay...?" Princess Twilight responded. The girls headed for the kitchen, where Fluttershy was at, watching Spike eat Twilight's meal on the floor. He also was drinking all the water that was left in the bowl, as well as eating the food that was left out for him yesterday. "Poor Spike, what could have done this to you...?" Fluttershy added. Fluttershy tried to comfort him, but he was hostile, and growled whenever she came near him. Fluttershy examined him, and it seems that he was in there for the past couple of days, underneath the clothing, wrapped in strings. All compressed tightly, he showed signs of struggle, but he knew that if he continued to resist, he would strangle himself and stopped breathing altogether. Fluttershy was traumatized by the look of Spike, he clearly was hidden and suffered for a long period of time. "What happened to Spike?!" Applejack asked. "Sunset... I don't think Twilight would do this... why would she...?" Fluttershy said as tears streamed down her face. Fluttershy held onto Rainbow Dash for comfort. "There, there..." Rainbow Dash patted Fluttershy's head, reluctant to give her a full hug. "It's alright darling..." Rarity commented, holding onto Fluttershy's shoulder. "You found him!" "Yeah... I did..." Fluttershy sniffled, and she smiled. "Okay, that is one mystery solved, now how about this closet?" Applejack questioned, pointing at the locked closet in the living room. "It must have something, since it is locked." Sunset added. "Let's try to not break it." "We clearly don't have a lot of time to look for a key." Applejack assured. "We need to find out what's in there!" Moments later, Spike came along, and sat on the head rest of the couch to get everyone's attention. Spike was happy, and was allowing Fluttershy to comfort him. Spike was patting his collar, the dog tag he had on. Fluttershy went to see what he was doing, and she took it off, and it was an oddly shaped metallic tag. Fluttershy turned it over and it was the closet key. "Girls, Spike had the key!" Fluttershy yelled in excitement. "Open it!" Applejack said. The girls gathered around to see what was in store for them. Meanwhile, back in Equestria. Twilight was well covered beneath layers of thick trees and bushes of all types of odd colors. There were thorns and briars everywhere, which was making it harder to walk through, or to find a path that leads somewhere outside the heavy and moist environment. The ground with each hoofstep felt like she was sinking into it, the air was hard to breath, and she could barely see where she was going, because her eyes felt watery over the smell of a swampy gas filling her senses. "Where am I?" Twilight asked herself, as she was trampling over a thicket of thistles. The voice came back, and was loud in her ears. "Idiot!" The voice yelled. "How can you have possibly made things worse?! You had one simple job to do!" "Shut up!" Twilight yelled back. "It's not like you were helping at all?!" "I offered you guidance! Use your damn head for once! You are supposed to be the smart one!" "Yeah? I can't lie!" "No shit?! You're a terrible liar! I would have made the situation better myself!" As Twilight was dragging around her hooves, she fell, not before she heard a loud screech. Twilight looked above her, she saw a large carnivorous bird diving to pick her up. Twilight ran, and before the bird could latch it's talons into her, Twilight dodged the bird's catch. Twilight, out of breath, fell to the ground, and she saw it circling back around to attempt another hunt. Twilight ran, regardless of the pain in her legs from scraping it against the thorns. Twilight took some cover under a burrow, but not before a small creature, startled, and growled at Twilight. Twilight ran the other direction, but before she could think, the bird swoops in, Twilight dodged once again in time. The bird took hold of another prey, as it flew away, back to it's home. Twilight struggled to breathe, but she was relieved, laying on the ground ready to pass out. It was not long until she saw a flash of a rainbow that flew past her gaze in the sky. Twilight got back up, and headed for another place to take shelter. Twilight contemplated on being captured by them, it would be less of a pain and she at least won't be eaten for dinner. Before Twilight thought of anything, she tripped and fell into a great depth of darkness, screaming as she fell deeper and deeper. Meanwhile, back at Twilight's place. The girls unlocked the closet, and opened the doors. They found stacks of boxes that had papers filled to the top and with notebooks with separate files. The girls dug into them to see if they could find anything regarding her insanity. The girls dug through their own separate pile of papers and files, but they were all Twilight's past school work. Even the answers to the exams they all studied for, in which Rainbow Dash found and decided to take pictures of it while nobody was looking. "This is hopeless!" Sunset yelled, pushing a box to the corner with her boot. "There's nothing useful to finding out why Twilight is crazy, or getting Princess Twilight back home! You guys were right... I just wasted our time!" As Sunset sat down on the box, with her hands in her face. "It's okay, Sunset..." Princess Twilight assured Sunset. While she went to take Sunset's hands away from her face. Princess Twilight smiled, and Sunset smiled back. Spike went over to the closet, to point at something. Applejack went over to him to see what he was doing. "What'cha doing there, sugarcube?!" Applejack commented. Spike grabbed a book from the closet, it was hard to grasp with his paws. Applejack grabbed it, it was stuck, until she pulled it. It opened a secret walk-in compartment within the closet. "Everyone, you're not going to believe this!" Applejack yelled. The girls surrounded Applejack, and they all headed inside. They entered through an open storage unit, they were surrounded by Twilight's science equipment and boxes full of chemicals, paperwork, blueprints, and samples of some sort. "Man, is Twilight breaking bad in here, or what?!" Rainbow Dash commented. "Let's hope not!" Sunset said. "This looks promising!" As she picked up a recently used blueprint of a familiar object. While the girls went through some of the interesting finds Twilight kept. "Don't do drugs, kids!" Pinkie said directly to the reader. "I see..." Princess Twilight said. "So, a locket that could absorb Equestrian magic!" "Wait, again?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Didn't she have that same thing during the Friendship Games?!" "She did, the first time we've ever met each other!" Sunset commented. "She had a device that would absorb our element's magic, that's when she became... Midnight!" "Midnight?" Princess Twilight asked. "So, is it like a darker side of herself?" "Yeah, you could say that, she almost sucked our entire school into Ponyville." Sunset responded. "Oh my..." Princess Twilight said. "Twilight, what do you think these are?" Rarity asked, holding a few odd samples inside containers. "Are they labeled?" Princess Twilight asked. "Not that I can see." Rarity added. "Bring them over here." Princess Twilight suggested as Rarity brought them over and set them on a table with a lamp that Sunset turned on. They each examined the samples, they all looked like they were pieces of some objects, they each were colored differently, and were made out of rock or gem stones. Then, it hit Sunset. "I know what they are!" Sunset yelled, alerted everyone in the closet. "They are the pieces to her locket, she used parts of it to remake another one!" "Hey guys, I found something else too!" Applejack said, as she read on the blueprint Pinkie Pie pointed out. "It seems she was in the middle of experimenting with the remake on various subjects"." "How could she absorb Equestrian magic from anyone?" Sunset asked. "It reads..." Applejack continued. "Twilight has been gathering it from people who acquired magic, under various circumstances. She contained them before they were to use the magic for themselves." "Well, that explains why we haven't seen any trouble for the past few months..." Rainbow Dash added. "Yeah, and so she would use it for herself?" Princess Twilight asked. "It seems like she hadn't used it for any other purpose, but to gather magic from enemies." Applejack added. "Well great..." Sunset said. "That's not all!" Fluttershy said. "It seems the locket does absorb the magic, but it can be filled with darkness as well. She said, it can cause her to have nightmares, and hear "voices"..." "So the Midnight inside of her, is starting to have more control over her as she continues to use it." Sunset concluded. "Why didn't she take it off, or put it away?" Rainbow Dash asked. "I have no idea." Applejack added. "The rest of it is unreadable..." "She could be using her own element to gather the magic." Sunset theorized. "Okay, so we did find out what has been going on with Twilight, however, how can we return to Equestria now?" Sunset asked. "No idea..." Princess Twilight said. "But, if we can, we should move this to the living room. It's getting stuffy here." They all were crowded in there, for everyone to see anything, and after breathing all over and talking, the air felt dense and warm. They all went out of it, and closed the doors. They all felt the cold, breathing down their arms and necks as they approached near the door. The weather outside was still drizzling and thundering. "So what now?" Applejack asked, as they all sat on the couch, surrounding each other talking about how they were going to get Twilight and Princess Twilight back home. Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash sat in one couch, Princess Twilight and Sunset sat in another, with Fluttershy on the floor sitting criss cross so she can comfort Spike after all that he has done for them, and Pinkie Pie came laying right on top of Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash. "I don't know, but I guess you can say... we all came out of the closet?!" Pinkie Pie said, as she held her phone out with the comical drumbeat playing. Rainbow Dash was the first one to laugh, they all started to laugh, calming themselves down a little, with all that they have discovered about Twilight's experiments. "Pinkie, you're so random!" Rainbow Dash enlightened. Meanwhile, back in Equestria. Twilight continued to fall, she would skid across some branches and vines, and she would try to grab them, but with her hooves she could not latch on tightly enough to reduce her fall. As she came closer to the ground, she was stopped immediately in mid-air, by the use of a spell. Twilight looked around, but she saw darkness, she tried to see what saved her from what could have been a fatal accident. Twilight dropped to the floor, and a light flickered from somewhere in the darkness by a nearby creature. The light was a bright green, which matched whatever was laying there within the place Twilight landed. Twilight's heart was racing, breathing heavily, she tried to find an edge or something to find light among the dark. Until, a large horn glows in the darkness, brightening up the area. She looked and saw an alicorn, that was mangled and covered with holes, sharp fangs like a bat, a transparent and faded light blue mane and tail, black coat, and her eyes were bright green. The alicorn was circling her, making Twilight's rump hit the edge of some rocks and moss, pinning her up against a corner like how Rainbow Dash did to confront her. "Princess Twilight..." the alicorn said. "No, you're not Twilight! No wings?!" "I'm not!" Twilight answered. "Interesting... I see you're on the run. Why?!" The alicorn yelled, her words echoed in the dense place, returning to her like it circled back to haunt her again. "I-I don't know what you mean?" Twilight responded. "Running from the others, why?" "How do you know about that?!" The alicorn smiled. "You clearly don't belong here! Who are you?!" The alicorn asked. "Twilight..." "Imposter! Although, I could use you to finally get back at those pesky mares in Ponyville!" Who is she?! Twilight questioned herself. Twilight remembered a specific creature, one from Princess Twilight's stories she told back at the mall, the way she described that particular creature in the story. "You're... you're Chrysalis, aren't you?!" Twilight asked, hesitantly. "How do you know my name?!" Chrysalis yelled. "My sister told me..." "Hmph, smart pony!" "Let me go!" "No, since I can't have the real Twilight, I will have to make do with you!" "What are you...?!" Twilight was picked up from off the ground with Chrysalis's magic, and she was tossed around the cavern. Chrysalis crackled at how weak and vulnerable the imposter Twilight was. "I'm having way too much fun!" Chrysalis said while laughing. "So weak!" As she put Twilight on the ground. Twilight got up from the ground, and she stood her ground against her. Before she could react, Chrysalis's vision in the dark gave her the advantage of beating Twilight down with her hooves. Twilight laid on the floor, bloodied, weak with bruises. Twilight was blind, she could not see without her glasses, possibly broken from the impact, and fell off somewhere. "Stop... please..." Twilight cried. Chrysalis flashed the light again to see where Twilight was. "Poor little pony..." Chrysalis said sarcastically. "What?! Can't use that horn of your's?!" Back in Ponyville. Applejack and Rainbow Dash met up together, continuing the search for Twilight. "Ah found no traces of her here!" Applejack yelled, as Rainbow Dash was flying in the air. "No luck with me, either!" Rainbow Dash added. "The place I haven't checked in Ponyville was the Everfree Forest." Applejack commented. "Yeah, good luck finding her in there!" Rainbow Dash said sarcastically. "What do we do now?" Applejack asked. "I don't know, but we should meet up with the others!" Rainbow Dash suggested. "Gotcha!" Applejack responded. Back at the Everfree Forest, inside a disclosed cavern. "C'mon, just one more trip to the other side?!" Chrysalis teased. Twilight couldn't say anything as she was beaten badly. Being picked up with Chrysalis magic and tossed around like a rag doll. Chrysalis laughed, and she thought of bringing her out to show the other ponies to surrender and get her revenge on them. Chrysalis opened up the cavern, throwing Twilight aside, as she was too weak to get up. She could see the warm sun up to the sky, and breathing the vapor of the Everfree Forest's swamp gas. It made Chrysalis disgusted, being reduced to this since the Mane 6 destroyed her kingdom. Before Chrysalis picked Twilight up, she found an odd object, almost sticking out of her body, where the heart would be. Chrysalis, forcibly took it out, and it was a powerful object. Afterward, Twilight began to rapidly heal from it being removed. She took it, and could feel the power inside was dark and forceful. Chrysalis placed it on herself, it sunk into her skin, she could feel it nearly sticking out of her body. She crackled of how much more powerful she felt. She blasted a fiery green wave of light which signaled all nearby villages and areas of ponies, a warning to her destructive capabilities. It was waved that shook the ground, it made the trees whistle and blew to the ground, it made the winds circulate back the other direction. Everyone in Ponyville was screaming and crying for what they thought was an earthquake, but it was much worse. Applejack and Rainbow Dash on their way to meet up with everyone was seeing the green flames burst from the Everfree Forest. Rainbow Dash couldn't stabilize her flight in the sky and was taken down. Applejack fell to the ground. The green flames flashed and were teleported to where they were. They saw Chrysalis laugh and started to wreak havoc on the innocent ponies' cottages and shops, making everypony run for their life. The rest of the group on the search for Twilight, gathered, and was devastated that Chrysalis rose up once again to cause destruction.