//------------------------------// // Chapter 15 // Story: Light's Shadow // by Jorofrarie //------------------------------// All I want to do here is thank those dedicated few who have stuck with since the beginning of my writing, and who motivated me to keep this story going. The weather had been ruined, the day torn apart. The sky itself seemed to weep openly at the loss of life. A terrible canvas of blood and bone was strewn across the dirt. Huts, decimated and wrecked, lay nearby, some still smoking slightly in the near-darkness. This place looked like it could have sustained much life and happiness, but all that was around was death and sadness. But there were footsteps. They were crunching slowly on the dirt and… other things… Snap. Snap. Crack. Thud. Thud. Thud. The buzzing of flies could also be heard, the distinct noise easily audible above the sound of the faint rain. The footsteps stopped for a moment, next to one of the desecrated huts. A rustling noise, and a piece of scorched parchment was lifted from the rubble. The silhouette of the man holding the parchment seemed to observe it, until it dropped the parchment and let it drift over to the corpses and bones that littered the ground. As if settled it was dyed a sickening red as the still-wet blood was soaked up into the material. Every zebra had been killed, regardless of age or status. They had all been killed, every one of them. There was nothing left for Him in the village, so the only move that would benefit Him would be to move on. And he knew where to go now, thanks to the map that he had found only moments ago. He knew exactly where he was, and exactly how to find a densely populated area, and how to then find where Light was hiding. It was only a matter of time. Soon the whole world would look like the zebra village. The sound of the bones snapping underfoot only made the Director’s spirits lift higher as he made his was towards the nearest town, the clouds weeping overhead, sending a warning to all life. Keep away. ---------- I am forever proud of my student, Twilight, but she must realise that it was not her fault. All of the questions in the world could not have lead to us suspecting this... -Celestia Chapter 15 Completely Insane Researchers Wow. I mean, just wow. That’s all that I could say about it. I think I’d actually broken a world record. No, really, I’m serious. What for you ask? Most awkward silence among ponies. Yep. And was it awkward or what. If there were some sort of scale of awkward from 1 to 10 then this would easily be a 50, that’s just how awkward it was. And of course no one wanted to break the silence, because that’s exactly what you don’t do in these situations. So there we were, sitting in that room. Fluttershy had just finished her rage session, and I was sitting there, not a little unnerved by the sudden and copious amounts of AAAAAAARRRGGGHHHH!! Yes, that is a real thing. Deal with it. I was just shocked from that; I didn’t know that she had it in her. She had to be the most shy person, pony, whatever, that I had ever met. So for her to suddenly just change moods and go on the warpath… It was just a lot off-putting… And now we enter the time of the uncomfortable silence… I’m not sure how long we’ve all just been sitting here, but it has been too damned long, and that’s all I know. Ever since Fluttershy had settled down and waited we had just sat there, no one speaking, or moving, or being interesting… Huh, it was actually pretty boring… And I know a lot about boring. I mean really, does the phrase ‘trapped in a statue’ mean anything to you?’ So anyway, here we are, nothing happening… Twiddle the thumbs… Don’t make eye contact… Find sudden interest in shoes… pot plants… anything… I think that was the point where everyone had had enough. An unspoken agreement that what we were doing was boring as hell rang through the air. I could almost swear that I heard the noise of Rainbow’s patience snapping. It didn’t sound nice. Now, there are a few ways that someone can break an uncomfortable silence. They can: 1. Quietly speak up and try to get your attention, 2. Clear their throat, tap you, something a little bit more obvious, but still kind. Or they can, 3. Start by shouting and trying to punch you in the face. And I’ll make this even more fun by letting you guess which option the irritable blue winged rat chose, but you only have one try. In hindsight, attacking the dangerous and unstable creature that is sitting quietly in the living room could be considered a slightly stupid, idiotic, insane, completely bonkers, off the end of the fruit loop, missing a gasket idea. So really it was just an idea that Rainbow would come up with. Maybe she thought that she could catch me by surprise. All I know is that a hoof to the nose, while it may not completely break, is still painful as hell. Not that I found it painful or anything… yeah, I’m just that manly… Tears? Nah, they’re just reflexes… Yeah… A collective gasp echoed around the room, all directed towards the blue menace. She, of course, remained oblivious to it and just kept looking at me, fire burning in her eyes. I don’t think that she even wanted me to be injured or anything by that; it was more revenge than anything. And then she turned around, walked off, and sat down on the other side of the room. Simple as that. The fact that she hadn’t noticed any of her friends, or the frickin’ god-pony thing that was staring at her was either a testament to how out of it she was, or to how dark the room was getting. Night was fast approaching, and not a single pony had had the smart idea to, oh I dunno, light a bloody candle or something. Darkness it was then. A few seconds was all it took for Rainbow to suddenly notice the attention she was getting. Now, while she may be an attention whore and must absolutely adore a crowd, this kind of attention is usually unwanted. Sure enough, Rainbow blushed and fake coughed into her hoof trying to hide her face. Everyone still looked at her. Rainbow Dash shrugged, “What? I’ve been wanting to do that for ages,” she said slowly and nervously. Still no response. “Aww whatever, I wanted to do that, get over it.” The ponies that were staring at the cyan pegasus all shifted their gaze towards me. I just shrugged, “She does kinda have a point there…” Rainbow just pointed a hoof at me and nodded, “See? He’s okay with it! It’s fine… Really!” Applejack chipped in, rising from her sitting spot on the floor, “Rainbow, it really don’t matter, you jus’ don’t whack strangers in the face, no matter how messed up they are, or how much they deserve it. No offense…” I just nodded at her, it seemed to be the right response. Applejack took that as an acceptance and turned away to sit back in her spot again. Of course, none of the other ponies had moved at all as this was going on. I mean, really, what was their problem? I mean, yeah, the whole evil dark insane schizophrenic monster that kills people thing wouldn’t have helped, but they could just get over it. But no, they all looked at me as though I was about to turn Undercover Peacekeeper on their as or something. I looked around the room. Nothing much to see really. There were the ponies of course, but they weren’t much to look at, and they weren’t doing anything anyway. Celestia was deep in thought, Luna was glancing at me when she thought I wasn’t watching, stuff like that. Wait, glancing at me? Yep, sure enough, Luna was occasionally sneaking a quick look every time I looked away. What was she thinking? I kept looking. Rainbow was looking at the hoof that she had used to punch me reverently. Did it really mean that much to her? Loooooser… Twilight was talking to herself. I think that mare has some slight mental issues… Pinkie was pulling assorted baked goods from nowhere and using them as sad-food. How she wasn’t the size- and shape- of an extra-large beach ball I will never know. There wasn’t even a gap between different pastries; they would all go in without pause. Fluttershy was staring at me meaningfully, as if trying to get a point across to me. How sh- Wait… … …Dammit! Oh no, I am not starting this conversation off! I am not good at starting conversations! For the first few weeks of knowing Air she thought that I was gay! How much worse can you even get at conversations! She kept looking at me, those crazy eyes getting wider and more ridiculous. There was only so much that I could take until I would inevitably crumble under the pressure of it all… No! I must stay strong! These ponies are like sharks! They can small your weakness! They use their cute powers to make you do things! But I will be strong! For the sake of all non-pony life forms! NYYYYAAAAAAAAAAA! “Sooo… How’s the weather?” FUCK! I think that I may have broken the ponies. They were all looking at me like I had just gone insane, even Fluttershy, the one that had started the whole evil staring contest in the first place. What? I said that I wasn’t good at staring conversations… Okay, let’s give it another try… *Ahem* “I mean…” This wasn’t working… “You know what? Fuck it. I don’t even care. Someone just say something already! I can’t take the bloody tension anymore!” I stopped my tiny rant puffing for breath slightly. The ponies looked completely taken aback, but I thought that I could see a tiny glint of understanding, and appreciation, in more than a few of them. But none of them moved. Well, I tried. I shot a quick look at Fluttershy before falling backwards with a dull THUD! The ground was more than glad to welcome me in my time of need. I heard a faint tapping, the sound of hooves against the wooden floor, hesitantly getting louder. I could only see the roof from my awesomely relaxing ground-hugging position, so obviously I couldn’t see who was approaching me. Might have been a good thing too. The tapping stopped, and I could hear the talking of the pony that was standing next to me quietly. But who was she talking to? I couldn’t hear anyone else talking? Oh, wait… I think I may have a faint idea of who this is… “H-hello? I’m T-twilight Sparkle…” Called it. I sat up suddenly, almost making the purple menace fall back from fright. Definitely not the most stable pony. She continued, “And I’m wondering…” I think I know where this is going, “If I can ask you some questions…” TEN POINTS! I sighed and turned my gaze on the unicorn. Her face was nervous and her eyes were shifting every few seconds. Even her stance showed just her nervous she was. Trust me, I’ve dealt with this stuff before, I know the signs. I kept my eyes on her for about a minute, not looking away. She only got more and more nervous, and I swear that at one point some of her hairs stuck up in crazy strands. Screw unstable, this pony is insane… But I just know that I’m going to have to answer some of these questions, one way or another… Here we go… “Go ahead then, I’ve got nothing better to do.” That grin that she gave me could have frozen over the heart of the director himself, that’s how fucked up it was… Twilight Some ponies can handle stress. Very well. To them it’s just a point of their lifestyle. For example, a royal guard stationed in one of the dirtier places of Equestria would have a much more stressful lifestyle than, say, a gardener… Or maybe a librarian? Okay, being in a statue may not be all bad. I did have a chance to hear everything that Celestia said as she walked by and talked to us ‘prisoners’. Fun fact, she does actually talk to herself. But mostly she talked to the statues. Oddly enough, for a princess that knows all of the statues are alive she does give away a lot of personal information. *Cough cough* stalker *cough cough* Anyway, this is Twilight we’re talking about here, so ignore me… She was nervous, incredibly so. Sitting in the corner, a small, creepy smile on her face. Now that she knew that he wouldn’t attack her instantly she had to get some information from him. The only problem would be how exactly she would go about that… THUD! Huh? What was that? Twilight turned to look at the source of the noise. It almost looked as though somepony had gotten a big white pancake and smooshed it on the floor. His coat was spread out everywhere, still rippling slightly, and it gave a general… flat look to him. And there was no one else near him, and no one was making a move to talk to him… Perfect. The grin only hitched itself wider over her features as the thought rooted itself in her head. Twilight put first one hoof, then the other, in front of her and crept tentatively across the room. Her friends were watching her, but they knew better than to disturb the librarian when she was in that… particular mood… Twilight herself looked almost like a cat stalking its prey, her body low to the ground, her hooves touching the floor ever so softly. And then she was in front of him, and there was nothing left to do but get his attention. Her motivation started to drain away as she stood there, debating what to do… Her mouth felt like it wanted to speak but her brain was saying otherwise. It was probably the only thing that stopped her from saying something at that very moment. “H-hello? I’m T-twilight Sparkle…” That traitor. Light sat up without warning, and it was all that Twilight could do to not start screaming like crazy. Her nerves were already on edge, and he wasn’t doing anything to settle them. Even her friends seemed a bit taken aback at his movement, all of them watching tensely. Oddly enough only Luna seemed to be relaxed… Why wouldn’t he stop looking at her? Light’s eyes never went from Twilight the whole time that she was standing there… What would his response be? Please let it be please let it be please let it be- “Go ahead then, I’ve got nothing better to do.” Twilight’s whole mind shut down completely, but rebooted a moment later in interrogation mode. She had just been given free reign to interro- I mean, talk to a brand new species that had never been properly documented in the whole of Equestrian history. She, Twilight Sparkle, would push the boundaries of science. A distinct snapping sound could be heard as Twilight’s grin stepped up another notch. Her head whipped around to face Light, the manic beaming directly into his mind. Twilight’s friends were looking at her worriedly, they knew what the outcome of this would be, and they knew that nothing good could come from it… Celestia facehoofed. Unseen to Twilight, Luna started silently laughing in the corner at Light’s expression. This was going to be an… interesting conversation.