//------------------------------// // " 'AIR EH NAMBLIES BE KEEPIN' ME WEE MEN?!" // Story: The Kingdom of Darkness // by abcd_z //------------------------------// Lunatic Fringe and I walked in silence, the flickering light from the edges of the black spot in the sky casting odd shadows over the world around us. I stopped walking. "Lunatic?" "Yes, Derrick?" "What's the plan?" "We shall walk to Dark Shimmer's house and get information about your lodgings from her. Then we will meet each of her friends in turn and get you acquainted with the rest of the town. Once you've had time to settle in, perhaps a few weeks or so, we might discuss some minor tasks you could do for us. But there is no pressure." I fidgeted, shifting my body weight from side to side. "What if I don't want to do that?" I asked. Lunatic looked at me uncertainly. "Well, I suppose you don't have to work if you don't want to, but the success of our town requires that every pony do their part." I shook my head. "That's not what I meant," I said. "Think about it. One of the two rulers of Equestria and her personal student were both acting very out of character the last time I saw them. I don't know how much you remember about them from your time as Luna, but attempting to kill or imprison me, an innocent human, because of the actions of my species, without even giving me a chance to defend myself, goes contrary to almost everything I know about them." I took a deep breath. "I don't know exactly what it is, but I'm afraid there may be something very wrong in Equestria." Lunatic sighed. "I fear you may be right," she said, "but if there is something wrong, is it truly in your best interests to get involved? They have threatened you, attacked you, tried to kill and imprison you, and if you get involved again you may not be able to survive." She placed her hoof on my shoulder and looked into my eyes. "You might die. I would do my best to protect you, but there is only so much I can do against such power." "Stay here with me," she continued. "Help me with my new kingdom. Be a pillar of strength for the ponies who would look to you for guidance." Lunatic blushed, her hoof still on my shoulder. I was suddenly very aware of how close her face was to mine. "...for all of the ponies who look up to you. Even the ones that aren't so little." I felt my face flush as I stared into her eyes. I understood what she was implying, but... I took her hoof off my shoulder but didn't move away from her. "I appreciate the offer, and once this is taken care of I may take you up on that. But right now? Something is wrong, and my friends are right in the middle of it. There's no way I could do any less." Lunatic smiled weakly. "Of course. Well, in that case let us travel to the Castle of the Third Sister. It is where I live when I spend time here, and there are some scrying magics there that may be useful to us." Lunatic kneeled and allowed me to get on her before she leaped into the air and took flight towards where the Everfree Forest would have been in Equestria. I had had time to think about it in the Everfree Forest and while walking with Lunatic to the Kingdom of Darkness, but it was only during this conversation with Lunatic that my thoughts crystallized. Something was wrong with Celestia and Twilight, and I needed to get to the bottom of it. Why had they acted the way they had? Was humanity truly so repulsive that simply being human was enough to scare them senseless? Was it something I had done? Perhaps most importantly, would I ever get my friends back? --------------------------------------------- Meanwhile: Two ponies ran down the grey stone castle hallways, yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs. One was a pegasus, the other was a unicorn. Both of them were covered in jungle camouflage and wearing pink earmuffs. The unicorn swung a rubber chicken in his telekinetic grip while the pegasus screamed, "AIR EH NAMBLIES BE KEEPIN' ME WEE MEN!?" Hrm. Maybe we should step back a few days. --------------------------------------------- One week ago: The two armored guards took the train back to Canterlot in silence. Eventually the white pegasus spoke up. "Hey..." "Yeah?" "Actually, I was going to call you by your name, but I realized I don't know what it is." The grey unicorn grunted. "It's Flashbang." "Flashbang?" "Yeah." "And that spell you cast was a...?" "Flashbang." "And your cutie mark is of a..." "Flashbang. Look, is there anywhere you're going with this?" The white pegasus shifted uncomfortably. "Erm, not really. Look, did anything about that encounter seem... off... to you?" "What do you mean?" "Well, think about it. The only human in Equestria shows up, claiming that some unknown entity has brainwashed all the other guards, and that we should ignore anything they try to tell us. We know he was running from the guards." "Yeah. So?" "What if he lied to us? What if that was just an excuse to keep away from the rest of the guards who were trying to detain him for perfectly legitimate reasons? What if that whole brainwashing story was just to keep us from finding out we were supposed to stop him?" The pegasus continued frantically, "What if we were supposed to stop him, and he helped him instead? Oh, Celestia, we might have just aided a figutive from the law! You know what that makes us? Traitors!" Flashbang said, "Calm yourself. Let's look at this rationally. We're two intelligent ponies, right?" "Well, yeah." "It's a well-known fact that the smarter a pony is, the harder he is to fool. And there are the two of us here dealing with the one human, which means that, relatively speaking, we're twice as smart as he is." The pegasus smiled. "Oh, yeah." "So you see, it's very unlikely that the human fooled us." A long silence, then: "So then what are we going to do about the brainwashing? As far as we know, whoever was brainwashing the guards is still there. What if... what if he got to Celestia?" "Stow that talk! Princess Celestia is our leader and the pillar of our community. She's a paragon of mental strength and there's no way she would have fallen victim to some cheap voodoo mind tricks. She's just too strong for that!" "But what if she did? Think about it. What should we do?" There was a pause as Flashbang considered this before responding, "Whoever's doing this mustn't know that we're on to them. Whatever we do, it will have to be sneaky. It will have to be subtle, and it will have to be cunning." One week later the two guards stormed the castle wearing pink earmuffs and jungle camouflage, swinging a rubber chicken and yelling at the top of their lungs.