//------------------------------// // 124. The Midnight Dour - Part 4 // Story: Blaze the Pony Tale // by Wolven5 //------------------------------// “Twilight!” Midnight whispered, his eyes getting nervously shifty, glancing back and forth between the books on the bed and Twilight, the look on her face demanding an explanation. “Well?!” Twilight took a step towards Midnight, making him yelp and stumble, falling onto his rump as he puzzled desperately to think up an explanation without telling the truth. “Midnight, did you glamour yourself as me and trick Spike into telling you where to find these books?! Those are priceless! Some of them are even one of a kind or first editions! Princess Celestia entrusted them to me and I’ll be damned if I ever let anything happen to them! And while we’re on the topic of trust, why haven’t you told anypony about your nightmares?!” Midnight groaned, and shook his head, scrunching his eyes as Twilight bombarded him with demands and questions. “You know that as your friends and family, we’d do anything to help you whatever your problems may be! However, your behavior lately has been next-to-inexcusable! Avoiding your friends, refusing to talk about your problems, taking out whatever’s bothering you on those around you- What are you even looking for among these books?!” “Er- Well- I was-” Midnight struggled to muster up an answer when Twilight noticed a book that did not belong. “What book is this?” Twilight levitated it to herself, much to Midnight’s discomfort and mentally kicking himself in the rump for setting it down. Twilight looked at the cover and familiarity spread across her face as she opened the tome and looked at the words and the characters in which they were written. “Wait… This book is written in Precursor Equine…! That’s one of, if not the most, oldest of languages ever spoken by ponykind! Midnight, where did you get this?” “None of your business!” yelled Midnight as he wrenched the tome away from Twilight, the both of them shuddering when his aura mixed with hers to take the book back. The outburst took Twilight by surprise, such that she jolted away, holding up her hoof instinctively in self-defense. But what frightened her was the way Midnight was looking at her. It was angry, defensive, frustrated, maybe a little scared, but the way he glared at her didn’t compare to what she felt! Midnight’s mana was surging unstably. It was fluctuating, as though he wasn’t totally in control and was struggling to keep it from bursting. She felt the cold of the Frozen North, the intensity of the sun, the volatility of a lightning storm, the power Midnight held inside was seething to get out and Midnight was trying so much to contain it. She now realized her interrogation had only served to pry open the lid, allowing a mere taste of ti to stream out as Midnight growled angrily, his eyes turning a frightful red! “You can be the most nosy, snooping, obsessive and neurotic little drama-queen that it makes you more trouble than you’re worth! But – silly me – you excuse your behavior by saying ‘it’s my duty as Princess Celestia’s prized pupil’, ‘it’s for the sake of knowledge’, ‘I know what I’m doing because I’m so much smarter that you should all just blindly follow my obsessively-compulsive disordered mind like the control freak I am!!’” Every word stabbed at her heart as Twilight gaped tearfully at her student, her friend! And he wasn’t quite through. “You think because you have such favor from the princess you get to trot about and tell everypony what to do! Like when somepony doesn’t fit into your perfect little world of reason and logic, like Pinkie and her Pinkie Sense, you go out of your way to disprove something you couldn’t understand! Or if you feel like your self-image is in jeopardy, you go and cast a ‘want it-need it’ spell on an ugly rag you call a doll and cause everypony in town to violently gaga over it! And what about the time Rarity offered to make everypony a nice outfit? You took advantage of her generosity and turned down the outfit she originally made you! Oh sure, you accepted it later but only after you saw how you all had been selfish jerks! And the time you kept a ridiculous pinkie promise and didn’t tell Rarity and Fluttershy how they each felt about the modeling career? Like Pinkie, you haven’t learned that sometimes promises need to be broken, especially when they do harm rather than good! How you drove everypony up the wall over nothing when ‘Future’ Twilight tried to warn you about it and you wouldn’t let her get a word in edgewise and insured that moronic paradox! And-” Instantly, clarity brought Midnight back to his senses and he felt his heart break at the way Twilight was looking at him. It was fear, it was shame, it was a Twilight he couldn’t bear to look at and the full impact of all his words hit him like an apple-buck to the face. Twilight’s eyes were streaming with tears, her nose runny, she was hyperventilating, and on the precipice of shattering to pieces! Midnight felt tears of his own well up as a horrible thought crossed his mind. …What have I done?! Midnight whirled and grabbed the book he’d been looking for and his tome, instantly teleporting out of there, leaving Twilight to sink to the floor and cry. Midnight ran along the path towards the orchard, stifling his sobs as he felt so disgusted with himself, so ashamed, his actions, his words, all of the rotten things and cruel words he’d said and done to everypony that day! …None of it compared to making Twilight cry. He was so deep in emotionally-turmoil he didn’t see the rock in his path. “Augh!” Midnight tripped head over hooves, wounding up in the dirt. He laid there. An outcast. A monster. A fool so caught up in his own problems he had all but driven everyone he loved away when all they had done was offer their kindness, their compassion, their love for him, and he had spurned them all. No… it was- Midnight grunted as he slowly stood up, feeling a bruise on his barrel as his eyes flared red. “This is your fault…!” Don’t you mean our fault? Heh-heh-heh-heh-ha-ha! All I did was pull one tiny thread and watched, all a’giddy, as your pathetic little fantasy unraveled into a mess! All you said, all you did, came from that part of you so ugly you lock it away and try with all your heart and soul to pretend it doesn’t exist… But sooner, or later… it makes itself known, makes you slip, loosens your lips and out slithers what you really think, your most harsh and blatant secrets and opinions, your soul laid bare for all to see, and how exposed and vulnerable it makes you feel compels you to hide it to regain some illusion of composure… But even if it comes to that, your words have left their taint! “Well… with this ritual,” Midnight looked at the tome he’d received from the Hooded Pony and the book he’d taken from Twilight, determination steeling his resolve. “I won't have to worry about you ever again…!” Hours passed, and Celestia had almost lowered the sun, Luna just beginning to beckon the darkness of the night by the gentle glow of the moon. Everypony had searched, but didn't find coat nor mane of Midnight. He wasn’t at his workshop, he wasn’t at Pepper Pony’s or Sugarcube Corner, he wasn’t around Sweet Apple Acres, simply nowhere to be found! Finally, everypony gave up and decided to try again tomorrow. Twinken looked out his bedroom window, worrying for his brother. He gazed across the orchard and could see the workshop. How often he had seen Midnight tinkering away at some tool or device that would serve a magical function. A lot of them turned out to be failures which Midnight had instead called ‘wrong approaches that pushed them closer towards the one that would allow them to succeed’. Midnight so very often showed himself to be unusual, in how he acted, how he talked, how he looked at the world and saw something nopony else did. What had happened to the big brother he loved so much and looked up to as the hero he was? Not because he was the Element of Faith and a Guardian of Harmony but because he had given Twinken that which he had for so long wished to have, a family, somepony to love him, somepony for him to love, somepony to share the ups and downs of his life with, somepony he couldn’t help being thankful to for volunteering to be his big brother at the Sibling Revelry. Big brother… Twinken sighed morosely and was about to shut the window when something caught his eye. He scrunched his eyes as he gazed out… and saw a light shining from the window of Midnight’s workshop. Twinken knew the time to act was now. He looked down from his window and shuddered at how high he was from the ground. It was too risky to try and sneak out, Big Mac liked to stay up a little late going over the farm ledger, partly because the quiet of the house helped him to concentrate better than during the day. If Twinken tried to sneak out, the creaky stairs would betray his venture long before he made it to the door. He could tie the bed sheets together to make a rope but something told him he had to get to the workshop now. I never really tried without Midnight or Twilight around, he thought before furrowing his brows, but here goes! He gritted his teeth and envisioned the spot on the ground beneath his bedroom window, he imagined he was there, he willed his presence there! A gentle red aura of mana flowed along his horn and…! *FLASH* Twinken felt like he’d just suddenly fallen and landed nearly at the same time and shook off the rush. He stood up and realized, “I… did it!” However, a distant flare of light regained his attention and he saw, from the look of the workshop, he had no time to revel in his new magical skill. Feeling a little winded, Twinken decided to hoof it rather than try teleporting again. But as he got closer and closer to the workshop, something compelled him to turn back. Maybe I should tell Applejack or Big Macintosh…? Wait, every time I’ve tried to come to Midnight’s workshop… I always felt like I had something else to do. But when I concentrate on something other than the workshop, it gets easier to think more clearly! Twinken looked at the workshop and felt that compulsion badgering him to leave and do something else, but he focused on the strange light coming from the shop, and on his concern for Midnight, and it helped him to hold his ground. “Wait a minute… Midnight!” Twinken realized that somehow Midnight had placed a spell, either on Twinken himself or the workshop. Some kind of bewitchment that distracted him from the workshop and find something else of interest. Wait… distract? …A Distracter Spell! Twinken recalled reading about distracter spells in a spellbook Midnight had given him – Basically, a distracter spell served to send astray anyone who approached the object onto which the spell was cast. The spell would subtly bewitch the mind into thinking of something else other than the ensorcelled object, whether it be something as minor as a flower or even thinking one had forgotten they had to be elsewhere for some reason. “But Applejack was able to go to the workshop today to send Midnight out on those errands…” Twinken pondered when he realized, “then Midnight linked the spell to me so only I would be affected by it!” Before he could dig further, the clink of a door made him jolt and dive behind a nearby apple tree. Carefully, Twinken peered and saw Midnight, an inscrutable look in his eyes, saddlebags strapped to his barrel, but what concerned him was the knife Midnight carried in his aura. Twinken wanted to come out and try and talk to his brother again but… there was something so very wrong that stayed his hooves as he watched Midnight slowly walk deeper into the orchard. Twinken knew he was gonna need some help. *KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK* “Twilight! Please answer, it’s Twinken!” Twinken wailed at the door to the library, yelling his head off. “Twilight! Please wake up! I need your help!” The door opened, causing Twinken to fall forward with a yelp. “Ow…” he looked up and felt his heart ache to see Twilight! Her eyes were and puffy, her mane disheveled, her face stained with tears, she looked like she’d had her heart broken. “Twilight…?” Twinken didn’t know what to say. “Twinken… I’m sorry but… I’m not up to see Midnight right now…” Twilight looked away, tears welling up again. “But Twilight! I just saw Midnight, and I’m scared!” Twinken ran in and in front of Twilight so she’d have to look at him. “Listen to me, I know Midnight’s been really bad today, but…” Twinken explained to Twilight about the distracter spell that only affected him to keep him away from the workshop, as well as Midnight heading into the orchard with a knife. “Twilight… I’m scared he’s going to hurt himself!” Almost everything was in place. Ordinarily, translating a foreign language should’ve taken quite a while but Midnight had used the speed-read spell Twilight had taught him. Twilight… Midnight fought the tears as he remembered what he was here for. The ritual had demanded several things, only a few of them had been somewhat troubling to find. But he’d done it. As he drew out the ritualistic circle in the dirt with the required serpent scale, he checked the tome to make sure he had it down to pat. Once he was satisfied, he added the powdered manticore stinger in the right places, and set up the torch. Are you certain you know what you’re doing…? the Voice said, letting the question hang mockingly. “I’m certain that once this ritual is complete,” Midnight countered, “you will plague me no more… Time to get started.” Twilight had somehow managed to rally everypony as they followed Twinken to Midnight’s workshop. “He came out here, and then went that way!” They looked in the direction the little colt pointed out and Twilight cast a sensor spell – Midnight was definitely in that direction. But she sensed something else was at work. “Twinken, go back to the house and wait. We’re gonna go see Midnight.” Twinken wanted to protest but the look on Twilight’s face and the sound of her voice instilled into him a sense of obedience. He teared up and to everypony’s surprise, he hugged Twilight, whispering, “I’m sorry Midnight hurt you… but he’s lucky to have you.” Then to twilight’s surprise, Twinken teleported away. Deciding to save it for later, Twilight yelled, “Come on, everypony! We got a friend to help!” The ritual was underway. Ribbons of magic encircled Midnight’s horn, spreading out in a nexus and intertwining with the sorcerous flames of the torch. The lines of the ritualistic circle were steadily glowing, and Midnight felt it, like a dark feeling literally a pit in his stomach, his body feeling sick as the ritual performed its work. In a corner of his mind, Midnight could hear a voice screaming this was wrong, that he was making a horrible mistake, Maybe it is… but I just can’t live like this anymore!! “MIDNIGHT!” He flinched and looked to see everypony approaching. No! Not now! Twilight was aghast at what she saw – Midnight was clearly performing a ritual, the ribbons of his own magic intermingling with fiery whips snaking out from the torch, weaving together like a web as Midnight’s body began to smoke. “Midnight, what are you doing?!” Twilight screamed. “…What I have to,” Midnight knew the time had come for the incantation. "Throughout my essence, you cannot hide The Light and Dark shall now divide From my being, impure be riven My Soul I pray by Faust forgiven!!!" The web fell upon Midnight and everypony gasped in horror as Midnight let out an unearthly scream! His eyes flared like beacons as wherever the web touched him his coat erupted into flames. “Midnight!” Everypony ran to help Midnight but tendrils of eldritch flames lashed out, stopping them all in their tracks. The blue unicorn was completely engulfed and his screams of agony were lost in the roar of the fire. But almost quickly as the flames had ignited, they were quenched. Everypony saw Midnight standing in shock, parts of his coat and mane burned, his eyes had turned entirely white and looked lifeless. But then he threw his head up and they watched in terror as a pillar of smog erupted from his mouth and went skyward before spreading out in a haze that slowly but surely began to blot out the moon and stars. “What’s going on?!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “I don’t know! But I think something’s up there!” Twilight pointed and they all saw a mass fall from the sky, cloaked in shadowy smoke. It landed with a thunderous thud in front of them, and almost immediately the smoke was blown away by a blaze of ominous blue flame. Within they could see the outline of what could only be a pony! Soon it cleared enough and what they saw blew them away. It was a unicorn stallion, tall and brawny, his coat black like oil and even shimmering like oil on water, his mane and tail were raging cursed flames much like the ones that had wreathed him a moment ago, his horn long and sharp like a poisonous thorn, his eyes burning red with miasma poisonous purple radiating an intense blue, and he smiled wickedly, revealing fangs. “…Midnight?” Twilight whispered in horror, everypony gaping at this creature. But then they noticed something nearby the abomination before them. It was Midnight lying unconscious, but his coat had paled to a sickly color, his horn burned and charred like a used matchstick, his mane now entirely white, and the very sight of him evoked the concept of helpless. The dark unicorn sneered as he answered in a tone so soft, so sinister, “In the 'flesh'... Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee…!” From the dark tower of Canterlot Castle, the Hooded Pony had observed the pillar of smog begin to blacken the heavens and from where it had began did ignite an evil flame. His heart tightened with guilt he held his hoof to his forehead, shaking in sorrow that what he had done was meant to happen. It did not alleviate the guilt for he could only whisper with a heavy heart, "...What have I wrought?"