On the rooftop of an old warehouse, a circle of thirteen black-cloaked ponies broke out in wild cheers as they saw the disappearance of the Mare in the Moon, saw that the Sun remained unrisen. At this moment, the Heavens were literally overthrown. Equestria lay naked beneath the gaze of a power older and greater than that of any Sun-Princess.
"Now!" commanded their leader. "Call the Shadows to us!"
They raised their muzzles to the shockingly-featureless Moon, emitted barbaric cries, sounds which it did not seem possible could come from the throats of any Ponies. As if in answer to their shouts, other cries began to erupt throughout the great city of Manehattan, cries of fear, of panic, of terror as the throngs of celebrants in the streets realized that the Sun was not rising, began to dimly grasp the implications of such a cosmic anomaly.
The thirteen were not alone. In other cities, other places across the land of Equestria, other covens and other beings were celebrating what they imagined to be the beginning of their triumph. Many voices rang out, calling to the Shadows.
And the Shadows answered.
Scarce-seen against the black starry night, with that insanely-unblemished moon leering down, came thousands of little flashes as they teleported from a quarter-million miles away. Each a shapeless mass of ebon against the night, with some number of shifting yellow-green objects which served them as eyes, they drifted down in answer to a myriad calls across the Earth. The feasters from afar had arrived, to sate their singular hungers and even stranger thirsts.
And from the silver orb above, a dark and extremely alien intelligence gazed upon the Earth and found its confusion good.
It begins, would have been the best translation of the results of its mental processes into the thoughts of our kind of life. Now commences the conquest.
***
In the depths of the Palomino Desert, on a hill, in a circle of standing stones older than the current conformation of the Solar System, a group of what looked like Ponies wearing black cloaks looked up at the sky and buzzed their wings in welcome. Their leader, a tall mare with flowing phosphorescent green mane, raised her head and smiled in triumph, revealing teeth far too sharp for any pony. She wore no cloak, no more than did any of her followers.
At last, she thought. The power. The power I need to lead my Hive to victory over Equestria. The power I need for my kind to take our rightful place as the dominant species of this planet!
"Come to me, symbionts," she cried aloud. "Come to me, and serve Chrysalis!"
They came.
***
In the hills of the Whitetail Woods just above the town of Dunnich, there was another hill, another circle of standing stones. There stood an old mare, twelve of her followers, a host of very fluffy ponies, and one of her many grand-daughters. She was by far the largest of those grand-daughters, but also by far the least noticeable, save when one looked at her through certain lenses or said certain Words.
The followers chanted a song in a language long forgotten, the tongue of the ancient Age of Wonders, but peculiarly modified, as if affected by millennia of an utterly-alien history. The very fluffy ponies did not sing, but they looked up at the sky and blew raspberries with their long pink tongues.
"Pffftftpfpfffttff," they said. "Pfffthpffff!" The sounds began to join together into a great chorus, with a hint of some greater meaning, limned in the sentiments of madness.
The least noticeable of all the leader's grand-daughters decided to join in.
"PFFFTTHHFPFFFF!!!" she said in a deep basso from her dozens of invisible mouths, with her dozens of long invisible tongues. "PFFFTHPFFFFFT!!!!!"
The chorus synchronized their raspberries on her own.
A wave of unconditional love rippled up to the black night sky. It was so intensely concentrated that its mass-equivalent briefly rippled the fabric of the Universe. Overheard, Shadows screamed, flared and whiffed away into wisps of glowing vapor.
No Shadows would touch ground near Dunnich.
Granny and her followers smiled. So did her grand-daughter, though of course no one could see her, since her whole colossal fluffy form was invisible.
That least noticeable grand-daughter was one of twins, but she was the one who took more after her father.
***
In the old decaying port town of Hinnysmouth, the citizens, all clad in concealing cloaks and strangely-wide sabatons, looked up at the sky, at the abnormal Moon, for one last time as they stood by the edge of the quietly-lapping Stormy Sea. Their large, unblinking and curiously-protuberant whitish-yellow eyes shone strangely in that silvery radiance. They looked almost sad as they saw the Shadows begin to fall.
They did not worship the Great Dark. They had other gods.
Then they began to sing, in unison. Their individual voices had a peculiarly liquid, gargling quality to them, but their combined tone was oddly pure.
Something shimmered in the sky. They knew that their town would now be invisible from above, especially to the senses of the Shadows.
Still, they were taking no chances. One by one, they shed their cloaks, revealing forms that were clad not in hair and fur, but in scales like those of fish. Their hooves were more like broad fins than anything belonging on creatures of equine origin. Behind their jaws waved great piscine gills. They stepped toward the water, lurching in an ungainly fashion. They slipped into the sea, their motions becoming graceful as they entered their true environment. They swam strongly, out toward the reef that glistened a mile offshore in the moonlight.
Y'ha-Nthlei, they sang. Shooby-dooby-doo.
From below, their kin answered them.
***
In the Northern wastes, twisting masses of Shadows fell on a seemingly vacant ice plain, riven by crevasses. The Shadows fell, twisted, and oozed into the glacier, as if they were being absorbed by the ice itself. Or perhaps something under it.
Something stirred, not yet awake but awakening.
The ghost of a deep and malign voice mumbled, mushily and sleepily:
Crystalssss...
***
In the War Room beneath Canterlot Palace, Princess Celestia waited tensely, her senses extended to watch her sister. She had to be alert -- if Nightmare Moon teleported to Canterlot, Celestia would have to lead her away, and fast, before Luna could destroy the capital.
If that happened, her main plan would have been spoiled, her champions wrongly positioned to purge Luna of the Nightmare. Her role then wold be to fight Luna somewhere in the wastelands, buy time, and probably at her own life's cost. Afterward, perhaps the new Bearers would be able to use the Elements against Nightmare Moon. Celestia wouldn't know until her next incarnation here, certainly wouldn't be able to help the Ponies before much of the population had perished.
Her every thought was bent on Luna. She certainly had no attention to spare for the strangely-formed statue in the Palace Garden, nor to notice the hairline crack beginning to form on its outer shell.
***
In Tompkins Square Park, the Great and Powerful Trixie stood for a moment looking up at the Moon, her mouth gaping in utter astonishment. It's gone, she thought stupidly. The Mare in the Moon is gone. How is that even possible? I mean it's a whole world, right? How can it just look all different from one night to the next?
An instant later she registered the larger anomaly. The Sun, she realized. Where's the Sun?
For a horrible space of time -- objectively perhaps a few seconds -- Trixie's mind reeled at the implications. She dimly remembered an old tale -- but no, she thought. That's surely not true. That's just a myth, like Sea Ponies.
Murmurs were spreading through the crowd. Trixie could see the fear spreading, rising. She knew that it would not be much longer before it reached a sort of social phase transition point, turned her audience into a panic-stricken mob.
Wait a moment. Turned ... her ... audience.
Her audience. She had contracted to play until sunrise, and the Sun had manifestly not yet risen. It was still her audience!
How dare this ... astronomical phenomenon ... attempt to upstage the Great and Powerful Trixie! Yes, it's spectacular, Trixie must grant that, but it has no subtlety. No timing. No ... professionalism. And it wants to take Trixie's audience away from her?
Well, the Great and Charismatic Trixie will just have to see about that!
Trixie looked up at the sky, at the mad Moon, the Sunless morning, and made a silent vow.
Anything you can do, the Great and Spectacular Trixie can do better!
Trixie set her high-peaked starry hat firmly on her head. She turned the volume on her voice up all the way. She faced the crowd.
"Well," she drawled dramatically, "this is certainly an interesting turn of events on this fine Summer Sun Celebration morning! Perhaps it is the work of the legendary Fenris Wolf!"
The audience turned to her, eager to hear some explanation, any explanation for the impossibilities above.
Her tone grew confidential.
"Have you ever heard how the Grrreat and Powerful Trrrrixie once journeyed to the Northern Wastes, to save a town that was going to be devoured by Fenris?"
The Ponies gazed at her, mesmerized by her showmareship, as Trixie launched into yet another improbable tale. They relaxed. Everything they were seeing was clearly all part of the magic act.
The show must go on.
***
An emergency command center was being set up in the cellar of City Hall.
Mayor Orangetree received report after report of the unfolding events, minute by minute, hour by hour, as the Sun failed to rise, as a city began to lose its sanity. The reports were not reassuring.
"Rioting in Blueskin Heights," came the news from the City Watch. "Looting, arson -- fires springing up all through the neighborhood!"
"Large crowds gathering in Great Oval Park, according to Watch pegasi. No violence yet, but the situation is tense." Great Oval Park was the biggest stretch of greenery on the whole island, carefully preserved and landscaped to look like the presumed wild state of what was now a colossal city.
"Looting of the Check-Off Wing of the Museum of Equestrian Arts," said a third Watch officer. "Several important properties, including the Alicorn Amulet and the Codex of Shades, have been stolen by a pony or ponies unknown. Precinct is requesting backup!"
"Word from Canterlot! Mobilizing all Guard formations to deal with the crisis. Guard commanders are ordered to offer all due assistance to the municipal authorities. That's you, Mayor."
"I know," he said, running a hoof over his tired eyes. Orangetree was the first stallion ever to have won the office of Mayor of Manehattan. As such, he had always felt a responsibility to ambitious young colts everywhere, to show that a stallion was capable of the sort of leadership that one normally expected to see in a mare. He had never expected a test like this. Now it looked as if more than equal rights between the sexes was at stake in his Administration. If he failed now, thousands might perish.
He did not fully grasp the magnitude of the crisis. But then, nobody did, save perhaps Celestia.
And even Celestia did not know the key role that was being played by a certain little show-mare ...
***
Thirteen black-cloaked ponies galloped through Manehattan. They still wore the hats and cloaks, but they had discarded their yellow glasses. They no longer needed them, as now the lambent illumination from their slitted pupils was terrifying enough. Where they cast their gazes, the calm took fright, the frigtened panicked, and those who were panicking went mad.
They were of course weak hosts. None of them was an insane Alicorn, nor a Changeling Queen, nor a Prince of the Crystal Empire. Their leader, the strongest of them, had originally been a mage of only mediocre power and skill. The other twelve were wastrels, mostly overgrown rich colts and fillies who had never quite managed to deal with the responsibilities of adulthood, the sort who would try to find hidden messages in gramophone records cranked backwards.
Their Shadows were likewise weak riders. They had little force of will, and between the weak hosts and weak possessors, it was difficult to discern which was really in charge of each symbiosis. There would be no epic duels here between high honor and low hungers, as neither party had the strength of character to initiate such a struggle. They quarreled, of course, but that is always the nature of fools and Shadows, even the weakest.
Nor were the powers of these Shadow Ponies all that impressive. Really good mages, such as the teachers at Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, could have easily handled any of them -- save perhaps their leader -- one-on-one. And that leader -- who styled himself the Nightstallion of Manehattan -- would have stood little chance against an Alicorn.
But there were thirteen of them, and they did not face alicorns, or even top unicorn mages. Instead, they faced outnumbered Watch officers, and terrified civilians. They galloped from place to place, galvanizing ponies to fear, crowds to riot, and then galloped away before the authorities could even notice their presence. The Nightstallion cast a web of illusion about them, so they seemed to appear and disappear without warning. It wasn't as smooth as one of Trixie's illusions, but it worked well enough in the confusion and darkness.
They started riots, set fires, spread chaos. In their wake the Watch fought with fear-maddened rioters. Windows were broken, shops looted of their wares. Fires wrapped buildings, and Manehattan's Bravest, the fireponies, struggled desperately to contain the blazes, keep them from spreading and destroying the whole city, Watch and Fireponies alike were being stretched increasingly thin.
Now the Guards were coming on the scene. Disciplined, hardened for battle, organized in formations, the Guards were not easy for rioters to overrun. The Guards held, but here the Shadow Ponies had new tricks to play. Guards confronted a crowd, the situation tense on both sides, an officer addressing the crowd urging calm, ordering them to disperse and go home.
A Shadow unicorn appeared in the midst of the crowd, took aim. The officer fell to a magic bolt. The Shadow Pony disappeared once more, as the angry and frightened Guards returned fire, spraying the civilians with hostile energies. There were screams as ponies fell, hysterical shrieks as mothers lost sight of their foals, groans of anguish as the terrified crowd trampled the fallen. Blood spread over the cobblestones, horror spread through the minds of the Guards as they realized what they had just done. The Shadow Ponies smiled, and galloped off to inflict more death and suffering.
They are so weak, thought the Night Stallion, so predictable. It is so easy to take advantage of their desire to help one another, to turn their own protectors against them. Their love is nothing compared to the power of our hate!
Which thought belonged to an evil pony, and which to the alien demon within him? It did not much matter. Of this opinion, they were of one accord. Hate was strength, love was weakness, and the weak deserved only to perish.
Nine hundred miles away, the soul of a very good pony struggled to restrain the murderous lusts of her own Night Shadow. But among the Manehattan Coven, Pony and Shadow were united in their evil.