//------------------------------// // Chapter 15: The Dots Cannot Connect // Story: A Mentally Unstable and Powerful Changeling...Yeah // by Taken-By-Insanity //------------------------------// Shade left the servant’s quarters with a sigh, ready for the busy day of work ahead of her. “How did I even become the secretary?” She asked herself as she started walking down the halls. “Helping organize and documenting all of the citizens, taking out a large portion of the royal’s money to jumpstart the Empire's economy, and so much more. It’s only been a few days! I swear, if anything else comes up that I need to help with, I’ll be starting to have migraines.” Shade stopped as she arrived at the doors to the throne room. She took a deep breath. “Breath in…then out…” She exhaled. “After a few weeks, you’ll be back to just being a maid and you can fade into the background again.” She put on a small smile and entered the throne room, finding the royal couple in the middle of a conversation. Cadence stopped speaking, looking toward the doors. “Oh, Shade! Good morning.” “Good morning, Cadence.” Shade replied with a bow of her head. “Good morning to Captain Armor, as well.” Armor returned the head bow and Shade sighed. “So, besides continuing to document all of the citizens of the Crystal Empire, is there anything else we need to do today?” “I’m pretty sure that’s all we’re doing today,” Cadence said with a smile. Shade internalized a sigh of relief. “Before we get to that though, I’ve been meaning to ask something.” Shining Armor admitted. ”Oh?” Shade thought to herself. “What is it?” She asked. “How did you know about the Crystal Heart before the rest of us did?” He asked. “And how were you really able to notice where all the traps were when we first got here? Last I checked, the only spells you say you know are basic telekinesis and the spells that your talent uses.” Shade looked at Armor with a raised brow. “What traps? I never even heard of the Crystal Heart until it showed up.” She lied. “The traps around the courtyard when we first got here.” Armor explained. “You used an analysis spell and used it to track where the traps were. You also mentioned the Crystal Heart and even went after it before we realized what it actually was.” “No, I didn’t do any of that.” Shade shook her head. “I don’t even remember what happened when we entered the Empire. One minute, we were about to walk in and the next minute, I’m in one of the halls of the castle and that shield was up.” “Wait…” Cadence put on a pondering look. “Do you remember when you kicked down the door to the room my wedding was taking place in while Chrysalis was impersonating me?” “Uhm…” Shade paused to recall the memory. “No? I remember being in the room with fireballs, but it’s really fuzzy. I…wasn’t really myself.” The couple looked at each other with a raised brow. “Shade...” Cadence slowly said. “Do you have a kind of split-personality disorder?” “I don’t think I do…” Shade tapped her chin in thought. “That might explain those blackouts I’ve been having.” She muttered. “Then again, I don’t know if that really means I do. And everyone who has such a disorder can have different experiences with it.” “Well, we can talk about it later, if you want,” Cadence said, interrupting Shade’s train of thought. “We have a lot of work ahead of us, after all.” Shade nodded in agreement. “Yeah, no time to lose right now.” She turned away from the couple and went for the doors. “I’ll go get the paperwork before citizens start coming in.” As she left the room, her eyes momentarily went black as she frowned. Her eyes quickly turned back to their white voids, but she kept the frown as she sighed. “Gods, I miss just being a maid.” She walked down the hallway, heading to another room in the castle. A crack echoed the room of thrones, a black appendage once again impaling a red unicorn. “You should really find a method to calm down.” Depression neutrally stated. “And you should go hang yourself again.” Fury grumbled. Depression raised a brow. “There would be no point in doing that. We both know I’ve already tried that.” “Depression.” The pink pegasus called with a frown. “Don’t be so nonchalant about suicide. You know how much I dislike it.” “Sorry, mom.” Depression nodded. “U-Um.” The earth pony on the purple throne timidly spoke. “So, what are we gonna do about the royal couple? We can’t really leave them knowing that the host is having personality problems.” “We’ll have to alter their memories, somehow.” The monochrome unicorn replied. “It’ll be difficult since none of us know any spells that can do that, but I’m sure we can find some.” “What if I tried eating their memories?” The orange earth pony colt asked. “I haven’t tried doing that yet. I wonder what they’d taste like.” “Eating the memories would be the same as wiping them.” Depression countered. “What we need to do is make them remember the events differently. If they don’t remember what happened, we’d have to wipe everyone’s memory. Not only would it be suspicious that nobody remembers that day, but it would also take a lot of time and energy.” “Depression is right.” The monochrome unicorn nodded. “We need to at least make the couple remember the events differently. As far as we know, they’re the only ones who’ve connected the dots.” “Oh!” The earth pony on the purple throne suddenly stood from his seat, a confident smirk on his face. An image flashed into existence on the throne. A cloud of darkness with glowing red eyes and yellowed teeth shining through it. “What is it, Fear?” Depression raised his brow. “My power can come in many shapes.” The child cryptically said. “Sometimes, fear can change what one remembers about something. If we can get them while they’re sleeping, I can maybe mess with their heads, change their memories.” The pink pegasus hummed in thought. “It’s the closest thing we’ll get.” “Actually.” The monochrome unicorn spoke up. “What if Sombra kept a library of dark magic spells? I think we should look around the castle and see if we can find one before we try Fear’s idea.” The earth pony, Fear, suddenly lost his confident smirk and sat back down. He silently hugged a stuffed bear that certainly wasn’t there before. “Okay.” Fear agreed. “We’ll start looking once the host is done with today’s chores.” The monochrome unicorn stated. “They’ll go to sleep and I’ll control the body since I’m the most familiar with dark magic out of all of us.” Shade opened her eyes with a frown, black irises occupying the voids of white. She stood from her bed and headed for the door. Black smoke covered her form, replacing her with a monochrome unicorn stallion. White fur, black mane and tail, and those cold black eyes. “Now, where would a library be hidden?” The stallion left the servant’s quarters and entered the hallway, quickly making a right and heading down it. He put a hoof against the wall as he walked, his eyes closed in some form of concentration. He froze midstep, a quiet gasp escaping his lips. “That’s a lot of magic.” Throughout the whole castle, the stallion could feel magic coursing through it. It was a spider web of different magic auras, radiating positivity. If he pushed his senses a little more, he could tell that the magic reached outside the castle and into the city. “Is this how the Crystal Heart moves its power?” He continued walking, hoping to find something different. In a web of positivity, negativity should stick out like a sore thumb. After an hour of uneventful searching, something finally stood out near the throne room. An innocent-looking wall stood in front of the stallion, but he could sense it. “Like a fly struggling to escape before the spider comes.” He put his hoof to the wall and channeled some magic into it. “Perhaps helping a little will reward me with something.” A shape of a door appeared on the wall, the crystal turning black. The stallion pushed open the door and closed it behind him, the crystal turning back to its vibrant blue. On the other side, the stallion looked at the room he found himself in. “What a well of knowledge.” He pulled out a random book and looked at the title. “‘Dark Magic for the Traumatized.’ Fascinating, a book solely for unicorns who experienced enough trauma to need dark magic to replace regular magic.” He put the book back and looked at another. “‘Curses and Ailments.’ It seems that this library isn’t sorted at all.” He tapped his chin in thought. “Would memory alteration count as a curse? Unlikely.” He put this second book away and went back to looking. “If only Greed was with me.” He muttered. “He always has a knack for finding things. But, then he’d obsess over it as he does with everything. Stupid double-edged sword of a talent.” He waved a hoof and a statue of a pony came out of the ground. His horn glowed and the statue moved moments after, looking toward him with a blank expression. “Look for any books that could have memory alteration spells in them.” He told the statue. It nodded and started to assist looking through the bookshelves. With a wave toward the floor, an orb came up from the floor, like a drop of water going in reverse. He repeated the gesture to make another statue a few more times, creating more statues before giving them the same orders. They joined the first statue in the search. “While they do that,” the stallion walked to a wall. “Let’s find out where the couple sleep.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “In this web of magic, it’ll be difficult to find two specific auras. But, I have all night.” The room then went to near silence, the statues making the only noise of pages being flipped and hardcover books being placed back on the shelves. Time slowly ticked by as the statues and stallion continued to search for their objectives. The statues suddenly stopped their search, putting the books back and standing straight. One statue did not do this and instead walked over to the stallion. “What is it?” The stallion asked. The statue passed the book to him before assuming the same position as the other statues. The stallion looked at the cover with a hum. “‘Mind’s Plaything: Malicious Illusions.’” He turned a few pages and quickly found a table of contents. “‘Page 73: Memory Alteration.’ Just before Personality Alteration.” The stallion flipped to the mentioned page and began reading. “‘In order to effectively use these spells, you must focus on your feelings revolving around bad memories and your wish for the past to be different. The helplessness of this is especially essential.’ Well, lucky for me that my past is full of such feelings.” The stallion sighed and continued to read in silence. After a few minutes of reading, he closed the book and set it on a random shelf. “Now, to find the royal couple-“ He suddenly gasped, putting a hoof to his chest as he leaned against the wall. He took a few deep breaths and sighed. “Damn it, her dreams are too happy. Fear, you need to make her paranoid.” He talked to the air. He sighed and got off the wall. He pushed against the door and it opened, closing behind him once he left. He heard footsteps approaching and froze. ”Shoot, there’s nothing I can hide behind.” The steps came closer. ”Wait, I could just use Fear.” His eye color changed from black to purple. With a wave of a hoof, purple smoke flew down the hall before quickly fading away. An armored guard came around the corner, a purple tinge in his eyes. He passed the stallion without batting an eye. “Fear’s abilities are very handy in a sneaky situation.” He muttered to himself. The stallion went in the opposite direction of the guard. “Perhaps their bedroom is close to the servant’s quarters, somehow. There’s still plenty of moonlight to burn before my time is up.”