CHAPTER 8—Darkest Twilight
It was a second that felt more like an eternity, as most tragedies are.
Within that second, Twilight felt so many emotions, all of them negative. She had so many thoughts, all of them conused and angry. Her stomach attempted to jump to her throat, only to get stuck between her heart and lungs. She backed away from Bang-Twerp’s body, the spark of life in his eyes gone.
She came out of her shock, shaking Bang-Twerp, slapping his face with a clang. “Bang! Bang-Twerp, you wake up!” she cried. “Th-This isn’t funny!” But the robot would not wake; he could not.
His body slumped in his chair, where she’d found him this morning. She couldn’t tell how long ago he’d died, perhaps a few hours at most. She was only out for her walk, and came back, and…
… and here he was. She was only out for two hours. She could have been here. She should have been here!
Twilight’s horn shimmered, purple light fixating over Bang’s body, bathing it. She remembered reading a book on Machina anatomy: they all had a Master Spark, a piece that controlled the rest. If she could locate his, she could force it to move again, bringing him back.
She can do this. She can save him.
As she scanned his body, her emotions began to flood her mind, breaking her concentration. Twilight attempted to stifle them, only to fail. She would fluctuate in and out of her focus, fighting tears one second and then jumping back to the task at hoof.
After a half-hour of trying and failing, Twilight began to scream, at a loss for anything else she could do. No matter how hard she tried to find his Master Spark, she could not find it, unable to get a grip on herself.
And how could she? Bang-Twerp, the only decent Machina in the entirety of Gearlotte, was found this morning slumped in his favorite chair, dead. Causes unknown. She scanned his body again, trying to find that damned Master Spark.
She cleared her mind of her emotions, trying to focus—focus—FOCUS on the Master Spark. Searching every part of Bang-Twerp’s body (Their Master Sparks were usually in the head or the torso), yielded nothing. She couldn’t find his Master Spark, because Bang-Twerp did not have one.
This was wrong. All wrong. There was no way this could be a natural death. Someone must be responsible! Someone must have stolen Bang-Twerp’s Master Spark. There was no way a Machina could survive without one.
In the end, powerless to stop Bang-Twerp’s terrible future, she collapsed in his lap and sobbed.
*****
The day of the funeral wasn’t like how it was in movies. In the movies, the funeral usually came with a side-order of rain, but Gearlotte had special mechanisms that prevented rain from falling on the buildings and rusting their non-tin metals. (It didn’t totally prevent the rusting, but hey, they get an A for effort.)
Twilight entered the funeral parlor. Inside were a few Machina (all Steamers of various designs), evidently the ones working here. It was a rather tight room, not exactly the kind of place you would expect a gathering of mourners. There were no decorations or flowers, as besides the coffin on the dais, there were merely bare walls and a naked floor—all metal. Twilight looked around, half-expecting someone else to be there by now, but it seemed she was the only mourner present, the workers all detached from this grim picture.
One of the Steamers spoke up, his voice deep and dumb. “You attending the passing of…” He looked down at his schedule. “…Bang-Twerp?” Twilight looked up and nodded, sadly. She slowly, reluctantly walked toward the coffin—which was more of a metal box with a glass cover—and looked in, still in complete disbelief.
It had been a few days since Bang-Twerp’s sudden passing, but Twilight was not so sure that she could recover. It felt as though when Bang-Twerp died, he took a large piece of her with him.
The authorities all said that the evidence suggested he had been without a Master Spark for a while now, which explained why she could not find one. Twilight did not understand how that was possible, until she was told that most Machina are able to function up to almost a year without a Master Spark, living off their “basic reserves”.
Almost a year. Bang-Twerp had gone for almost a whole year without the most important part of a Machina’s anatomy, and he never told her. Why? They were scrounging up money left and right. Was he saving up for a new one? (She imagined they must have been quite expensive.)
Why didn’t he tell her? She would have gladly forsaken the flowers he gave her to eat for weeks if it meant he could afford a new Master Spark. He told her (more like implied) that he would have a terrible future, and that she would too.
Her mind began to leave this place, this cramped funeral parlor, and go back…
*****
There they were, Twilight Sparkle and Bang-Twerp, again on the catwalk balcony connected to his apartment. She in the washtub bed, he leaning over the guardrail. The sun was down now, the sky hazy and dark. She could even remember the smell of burning oil in the air.
I saw my future, and yours too, he had said.
What? she asked, now alert. What’s wrong, Bang? Does something happen?
Bang-Twerp smiled at her reassuringly. Although his face was hard to read because of the mismatching parts, she could tell there was something he was hiding, something heavy. He apparently thought he had already said too much. Instead, he decided to change the subject.
My m-mother, you kn—y’know how sh-she could see the f—the fu—the future?
Twilight looked deeper into Bang-Twerp’s eyes—more specifically, his “future eye”. She said nothing, allowing Bang-Twerp to continue his story.
Her eye is sp-special. It can, uh, it can d-do magic.
Twilight Sparkle leaned into her forehoof, her face made into a curious expression. A machine that can do magic? she asked. Really?
Yeah, he confirmed. She b-became a te-test s-subject for some, uh, big… science… group… people… He motioned his arms as he said this. The awkwardness of his choice in words was adorable, causing Twilight to smile warmly.
An-Anyway, so she became a t-test subject in order to g-get more money. So sh-she could help me, uh… so she could pr-pr’vide… f-for me. Even though his eyes were more like immovable dots on his face, at the time, Twilight Sparkle thought he was thinking over his next words carefully.
When Twilight thought about it now, she realized he really meant to say, “So she could help me afford a Master Spark.” What was keeping him from telling her about his condition? Did he just not want her to worry? He already caused her worry with his cryptic implication of a bad future. Was he trying to spare her from the grim reality of his impending doom?
Again, Bang-Twerp changed the subject.
Is it true? What th-they say ab-about unicorn horns? he asked. Twilight looked at him curiously.
I dunno, she said playfully, what DO they say about unicorn horns?
Bang-Twerp began to fidget and behave sheepishly, as though expecting her answer to be something akin to “Ah, that’s just superstition.” I’ve, uh… I’ve always heard that unicorn h-horns gr-grant people g-good luck if you t-touch them.
At this, Twilight smiled. Of course! she humored him, The reason why it’s rare to touch a unicorn’s horn is that we’re just too fast for them! Only a few have ever managed to catch a unicorn off-guard.
Th-Then, you, um…
I don’t mind. Twilight, although tired, was delighted that there were some superstitions regarding unicorns that were more cute than insulting. She leaned down her head, offering her horn.
Slowly, Bang-Twerp reached out his hand. The slim fingers of his right hand touched Twilight’s horn, and quietly, they wrapped around it. Twilight closed her eyes and caused her horn to glow a bright purple.
Bang-Twerp gasped, wondering if he should let go of her horn, this warm and radiant spike. After a second or so of his initial surprise, Bang-Twerp slowly removed his hand. The fingers were beginning to glow purple as he took it away.
So what did you wish for? Twilight asked him, settling back into the wash tub. (Even casting a glow effect reminded her how tired she was that day.)
Bang-Twerp looked at his hand until the glow went away. His eyes turned to Twilight as she lay in the wash tub, quietly. With that same hand, he reached down and stroked Twilight’s head. She had fallen asleep before he had given her his answer.
*****
Her eyes watered, and her nose began to run. “Here come the waterworks,” whispered one Steamer to the one next to him. The other Steamer chuckled. A few of them were playing a game of cards to pass the time until they had to take the body.
“So, what ya know about that corpse?” one of the card players asked Twilight Sparkle.
“That he was my best friend,” she whispered, her voice monotone and broken. She rested her front hooves on the casket and placed her forehead on them, her face stained with tears.
“Everybody’s best friends with corpses,” sneered the Steamer. “What I mean is, what, was he rich?”
Twilight Sparkle snapped up suddenly. She turned to the Steamer, her anger bubbling. “Don’t you care?! My friend just died! How can you be so insensitive?!”
The Steamer nonchalantly drew another card from the deck. “Lady—unicorn—whatever the heck you are, ya gotta understand. We been in this business for a long time. We see corpses every day. They come and go. Hate to break it to ya, but those corpses only meant somethin’ when they was still breathin’.”
Twilight’s jaw nearly hit the floor at the Steamer’s disturbing lack of empathy. The Steamer continued.
“When a Machina dies, their body just gets melted down to get made into something else. See those buildings out there?” He pointed outside the parlor. “They were built from materials made from melted-down parts. Those parts had to come from someplace.”
His card playing buddy folded his hand. “Or someone,” he added.
This horrible revelation hit Twilight Sparkle hard enough to leave an emotional bruise. It felt like reality had just turned her around specifically to punch her in the face. “What…” she began to sob. This world… it was more horrible than she realized. A whole group of people being “outmoded” and rushed to their extinction? Only for their bodies to be taken apart and melted into building materials?
“What the hell kind of civilization IS this?”
The card player looked to her again, his three eyes expressing pity this time. He waited a few seconds, then turned back to the card game before quietly delivering an answer. “…The only kind we got.”
She turned back to Bang-Twerp’s coffin and draped herself over it, her hot tears streaking along her face. She buried her head in the glass, looking into the face of her now-dead best friend. She closed her eyes, and thought about the good times he and she had shared.
But Bang-Twerp was with the Great Inventor now. He was in the arms of the man who, in his last act in life, built Machina like Bang-Twerp; and he was getting his parts fixed, traded out. Bang-Twerp was being made just as beautiful on the outside as he was on the inside. He’d lose his stutter, and stop wobbling off-balance when he walked. He was where his mother—she was a great lady—was now, and they were able to see each other again after so long.
Twilight Sparkle, in her despair, for a moment, wished she could go with him, away from a world this insane, to someplace far better. Her moans reverberated off the walls of the parlor, her mourning wails causing the place to feel haunted.
*****
Evidently, the Steamers weren’t very careful workers. Everywhere they carried the coffin, they’d fumble it somehow, jostling the corpse inside. More than once, Twilight had to grab the coffin to prevent it from crashing to the ground, and carried it with them—something she shouldn’t have had to do.
Something she hated having to do.
It was the third or fourth time they dropped it when Twilight Sparkle finally snapped at them. “For crying out loud! You guys work at a funeral parlor! Don’t you know how to handle a corpse?! Where’s the dignity and respect?!”
Her outburst caused the Steamers to roll their eyes. One muttered, “I don’t get paid enough for this.”
As Twilight demanded to know where they learned to carry a coffin, they went to a nearby bar, telling her if she’s SO concerned about her friend’s body, she can carry it to the cemetery herself. Twilight raged.
“WHAT KIND OF…” she sputtered, not quite able to find her words. “… WHAT KIND OF HEARTLESS CREATURES ARE YOU?! Leaving a corpse in the street?! A coffin, wha—why—why would you—and—” She let out a frustrated scream as the last Steamer disappeared inside the bar’s dark interior.
Reluctantly, Twilight Sparkle looked at the coffin. Machina were walking by them on the street, not caring about a small purple unicorn (only virgins could see her!) and a corpse (only decent people could see him!). Using her telekinesis, Twilight delicately picked up the coffin, the oblong box floating into the air surrounded by her purple glow.
The cemetery was only across the road. Just a few steps to bring Bang-Twerp’s body to its final destination. Where he would be melted down. And as a cruel last joke, they’d put his melted metal body into a press and make a bucking toilet out of him. It would be SO fitting, wouldn’t it? And the world would laugh and laugh as the monsters in this town took turns shitting into it, expelling their used oil and used-up coals onto the memory of the only good man this miserable town ever bucking produced!
Suddenly, a Diesel ripped across the road, seemingly from nowhere. He looked like the kind of “skater punk” she would have seen in Equestria. His long arm hit the coffin, knocking it out of Twilight’s telekinetic grip and onto the road with a crash. The Diesel let loose a cruel laugh and a whoop as he sped away, grateful for the chance to cause misfortune and misery to those tragedy had left behind.
For a second, Twilight was unable to process what just happened. It seemed an eternity was passing her by, slowly, as she saw Bang-Twerp’s hand—the one that had touched her horn that night, touched it for good luck—dangling from the broken glass of the coffin’s front. The impact had not only broken the glass, but caused the already-jostled corpse to almost fall out.
It almost looked like Bang-Twerp wanted to rise from the grave. His hand, once alive, did not move. He made no effort to come back to life. To come back to Twilight, and help her to live, survive, in this cruel city.
He didn’t come back, and Twilight felt, in passing, that such an act as remaining dead was just as cruel.
*****
The cemetery really wasn’t a cemetery. Not the kind somepony gets buried in, where their family and friends can at least pay their respects and leave them flowers. (How silly, Twilight now thought; leaving flowers. Wouldn’t the flowers have meant more if they were still alive?)
This place was an intimidating metal yard protected by a chain-link fence. Large smoke-stacks stretched into the sky, like titanic devils, belching their horrid fumes into the sky, corrupting the innocent fresh air. Small industrial buildings lined some of the area, with guards (Mostly Steamers, though there were Diesels, too) keeping watch.
One such guard had stopped Twilight before she reached the main gate. He was a Diesel, shiny, brilliant in this ugly atmosphere. Still, his metal and attractive sleek shape drew nothing more from Twilight Sparkle but disgust—disgust for these creatures. Robots that merely pretended to live.
“Do you have any ID?” he asked her.
She fumbled for words. She figured the funeral workers were the only ones allowed in. But the funeral workers were no longer with her, probably already too drunk to stand by now.
“Listen,” the guard explained, “If you don’t have any ID, I can’t let you in.”
“I-I have a body.”
The guard gave her a once-over. “I see,” he purred. “I bet it has some… interesting uses.”
Twilight wanted to smack him, bend his face and break his eyes. Damn him! Coming onto her when she clearly was trying to see to it that her friend’s corpse was taken care of! But at the same time, she wondered why she even wanted to put this body into that horrible smelting house—why?
So he could be melted down and made into something useless?
She glared at the guard, changing her mind. Saying nothing, she took the coffin with her, and walked down the road, to no place in particular. Just away. Behind her, she heard the guard chuckle, and felt his robot eyes lustfully watching her hips, her hindquarters, clearly enjoying the view.
With a mere thought, she was able to make him scream. It was only for a second, and out of sheer surprise. Hearing him bump into things, calling for his friends, shouting, why can’t I see?! Where did my eyes go?! as she kept on walking, coolly.
And his eyes would still be in his head—and they’d be just as useless as his brain.
She shook her head. No. She was better than these cretins, and better than this town. Her violent fantasy disappearing, she once again felt that guard’s eyes grabbing at her bottom, hungry for but a taste, as she walked away, her dead friend in tow.
Damn him.
*****
He looked so peaceful now. His casket was merely a window, more of a display case. As if to show the world that he was more of a toy—a toy to be tossed around and abused by a tyrannical toddler. Ironically, he was the town’s go-to chew toy.
Twilight Sparkle looked into the coffin, through the broken glass she didn’t bother to repair. They were alone in an alley, her and her friend. This alley… she remembered. Her voice was thoughtless and monotone.
“You remember too, don’t you?”
No response. No quirky facial expression, or thoughtful glance. He had forgotten.
“This is the alley where we met.” She pointed to the dumpster next to her. “I had been living in this dumpster for days when I met you. And you were being bullied by some thugs, and I saved you.” She looked to the body.
A mere shadow. A broken toy in a broken case. Refused by the world in both life and in death. Twilight’s hollow eyes began to water, her throat contracting, clenching as if thirsty. With a slow pound of the hoof, she broke more of that glass, knocking as much of it out as she could.
With her telekinesis, she lifted out the glass and set it aside. Twilight then crawled into the coffin, and curled around Bang-Twerp. She forced her telekinesis onto him
—she hated this—
and drew his right hand onto her horn. She forced the fingers to clench. She made her horn glow, one more time, for Bang-Twerp. For his good luck. For all the good it did him.
—she hated that she couldn’t save him—
Tears began to streak down her face in torrents. She looked into his eyes, those dead and unknowing eyes. The curiosity behind his gaze was gone now, gone forevermore. She looked at his mouth, those metal lips—and for a second, wondered how he would have tasted in life, envying the girl who had shared his first kiss. She put the thought away, embarrassed.
—she hated herself—
She closed her eyes, and let her horn stop glowing. She allowed his hand to stay wrapped around her horn. Before she knew it, she was asleep in his arms, and dreaming of being where he was now. There, she met the Great Inventor—and he was a wonderful man—and Bang-Twerp introduced her to his mother, who really was as great as he’d claimed.
And they were all…
… so… happy…
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
... Well, readers, this is it. This is Twilight's darkest hour. You think some of the other things in this story were depressing or scary? Well, we have just hit rock bottom. At least, we have for me.
When writing this story, I knew I'd have to cause conflict. To have conflict, the villain must first be given the upper hand. To resolve the conflict, the hero must be given the strength to endure.
To be given the strength to endure, they must first be taken over your knee, the author's knee, and be bent and broken.
Good God, it hurts.