//------------------------------//
// Chapter Six 
// Story: The Shadow of Mortals 
// by Silverlinings 
//------------------------------//

Chapter Six




Twilight, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie and AJ sat around the end of the massive hall table. They were reviewing the notes they had taken throughout the day, when Applejack piped up and asked, "Hey, Twi? Y'think you can take a look at somethin' we found?"
"Is it relevant to the case?" Twilight didn't want to waste any time on frivolous, pointless things when there were at least twelve missing ponies that needed saving.
"Pretty relevant, yeah," AJ pulled out the mirror and placed it on the table.
Twilight looked confused for a second at the strange artifact. She focused her magic around it, but that was immediately broken. The purple unicorn looked utterly baffled. She had some of the most powerful magic in all of Equestria, but whatever was in the mirror was a hundred times more powerful, and a hundred times more dark.
"Where did you find this?" Twilight examined the carved handle, looking for anything of significance.
"That house we went to," Pinkie replied. "But it gets spooookier," Pinkie waved her front hooves around, ominously. "Look at your reflection."
Twilight glanced into the mirror for a second, to humor the mare of laughter, but did a double take at what she saw. The reflection was of her... but different. Spooky, just as Pinkie had said. In the mirror, Twilight had no unicorn horn. She was an ordinary earth mare, with the largest, most soul piercing eyes any pony had ever seen. They were larger than normal, glossy and had tears running down the sides. All of a sudden, right where the reflection should've had a horn, a burn mark appeared. It slowly started to grow, burning it's way through her head. Reflection Twilight's skin began to boil, blood flowing from her tear ducts. At the exact same time, both Twilights screamed, one in pain, the other in fright. The real Twilight, who had screamed in fear, knocked the mirror away.
Every other pony looked from one to another. "Twilight..." Rarity slowly approached the purple mare, "Dear, are you ok?"
"No! I'm not!" Twilight went on to describe what she had seen. The expressions of her friends growing more and more horrified with every dark detail. "This mirror is evil. Not Discord evil, but pure, dark, visceral evil." Twilight stared at the mirror, and although it was an inanimate object, she could feel it staring back.





Kali, Willow, and their new friend Platinum all sat around the table, smiling and laughing. It took Willow a minute or two to warm up to Platinum, but now it seemed as though they'd been friends for ages. All three of them had a similar trait: they had almost no friends. Kali had been ostracized for not having her cutie mark yet. Willow had lost standing, mainly because of his shy demeanor, but also because he was the only one willing to be friends with Kali. Platinum was a shut-in who almost never left the confines of the castle, so she had little overall experience with ponies her age at all. This reoccurring quality of isolation allowed Platinum to understand how lonely the two other ponies were. But they had each other. Platinum was grateful for Kali's hospitality and immediate friendship, but she still felt like she was crossing some kind of line. This was their special hangout, and Platinum had just waltzed in. She didn't show any of this uncertainty, of course, but instead laughed at the ridiculous story Kali had told about her life.
"But enough about me," Kali said, wiping a tear from her eye, "What about you, Platinum? What's your life like?"
The teal filly thought for a moment, thinking of where to start. "Well," she replied, "my grandmother is Lady Diamond Jubilee, my ancestors help found Stableton-"
"We know all that," Kali smiled a waved a hoof, dismissing the formal history lesson. "We want to know about you."
"Oh, well.." Platinum thought some more, "since I don't really get out much and I have no siblings, I enjoy reading a lot of fiction in my free time. You know, adventure and danger and such. I also enjoy a good joke, now and then." She giggled to herself, remembering how she had frightened Silverlinings and made Burnout laugh so hard.
"That's cool," Willow's eyes lit up a little. "What kind of adventure stories?"
"The romantic, knight in shining armor goes to rescue the princess sort of stories." Platinum answered, feeling a little silly at her response, but it was the truth. She loved the concept of these stories.
Willow looked slightly put off. He didn't realize books like that were still around, let alone relevant.
"Don't get me wrong though," the unicorn filly added, "I like other books, too."
After a couple minutes, Kali asked, "Anything else? Anything important we should know?"
"Hmm..." Platinum rubbed her chin thinking, "Not at the moment, no." She looked over at Willow, "What about you, Willow? What's your life like?"
"Oh, umm..." Willow was never good on the spot. He cleared his throat, "I have an older sister who takes care of me. I'm generally shy..."
"I caught that." Platinum giggled.
Willow smiled and continued, "I like sketching and cartography. Cartography is map making," he explained, "I just wish I was a pegasus so I could get a better view of an area." He sighed at the prospect.
"Hey," Kali said, looking outside, "It's getting kinda late. We should probably head back soon."
The two other ponies nodded in agreement, as they too got up to leave.
"Yeah," Platinum sighed, "every pony up at the castle is probably worried sick as to where I've been..."
The three friends exited the cavern and started heading back down the trail.
"Hey," Kali nudged Platinum, "You'll come back, right? To hang out?"
The silver maned filly smiled, "Of course. I'll visit everyday if I can. Same time right?"
"Yup," Kali smiled back.





Twilight paced the room, unsure what to do with the dreaded mirror. She glanced, every now and then, over to the accursed trinket. She knew she needed to examine it, but she was afraid of looking into the reflection, again. After about an hour of pacing and thinking, she took a deep breath and approached the mirror, her eyes closed. She slowly opened one eye, and looked down at the object. She saw... herself, anticlimactically. Just her, no distortion, no blood. It was a perfect reflection. This puzzled Twilight. What had happened to the evil Twilight that had looked back at her?
She decided to worry about it later and began to examine the handle that the mirror was set in. She examined the dark wood and concluded the mirror was quite old. Beyond old. Older than Celestia! This shocked Twilight, who continued to examine the intricate mirror handle. When she began to examine the small area around the glass, she noticed something. There were gems embedded on the mirror's edge: a vibrant, purple amethyst, pink tourmaline, orange carnelian and diamond, along with a dull, yellow canary and aquamarine gem. 
Twilight was curious as to why the aquamarine and canary gems were so faded, while the other four were so gleaming. Several theories ran through her head, but none of them had enough evidence for validity. She picked up the mirror with her hoof and began walking toward the door. Right as she was about to open it, the door swung open in her face, causing her to drop the mirror. Pinkie and Fluttershy stood in the door frame.
Right as Pinkie was about to yell something, Twilight cut her off, by yelling, "No pony look at that mirror!"
Pinkie did little to heed her friend's words, while the yellow pegasus quickly covered her face with her wings, but it was too late. She had glanced down at the mirror for a split second and saw it: her reflection. She was shaking under her wings at just the split second she had seen of her evil reflection. It had soulless, black eyes, with an air around her, that permeated ferocity. She was also cloaked in dark hell fire. 
Twilight quickly grabbed the mirror and pulled it away from her friends. She looked down to notice something that confirmed one of her suspicions: the canary stone was glowing like the others. This mirror had something to do with the Elements of Harmony.





Silverlinings stood, speechless. It wasn't that he couldn't come up with an explanation for the picture or that he was shocked Rainbow Dash would snoop around in his room. He was surprised at Rainbow's reaction to the picture. It was as though she were trying to hide the fact that it... that they ever happened. Silverlinings cleared his throat, and stared at the cyan mare. He slowly began approaching her as he muttered, "Rainie, I..."
Rainbow held up her other hoof, the one not holding the framed picture, to indicate to Silverlinings to stop talking. She gave a hefty sigh and said, "We've been done for years, Sil. I've moved on..."
"Have you?" The white pegasus didn't look convinced. "How many came into your life, after me?"
Dash was taken aback. She thought for a moment. "Well... no pony..." She said eventually. "But I just haven't found the right pony."
"Yeah," Silverlinings nodded, and looked down, "That's what I thought." The two stood in awkward silence, before Silver simply said, "Eight."
"Huh?" Rainbow looked confused.
"That's how many times I've tried to move on," Silverlinings sighed. "Of course five of those didn't last two weeks."
Dash was now the one in shock. She thought Silverlinings was some kind of clingy, obsessive stallion, but she could tell by the way his eyes slowly began to water, and the unsteadiness in his breath, that he had genuinely tried to move past this.
He gave a faint smile and slowly shook his head, "They all had the same problem...."
These words snapped the mare back to reality. She blinked a couple times to refocus before asking, "What was the problem?"
Silverlinings looked up into her brilliant pink eyes, a single tear trickling out of his vibrant yellow ones. "They weren't you..."