//------------------------------//
// Part II: Party in Tartarus 
// Story: I Am the Night 
// by Ezn 
//------------------------------//


I AM THE NIGHT


by Ezn



PART II
PARTY IN TARTARUS


“RIGHT BANG-UP job you did with Mista Breezy here, your Lordship!” said Detective Inspector Copper Fuzz.
The slightest hint of a smile crept onto Luna’s stoic face. “All in a day’s work.”
“It’s ‘Mister Freezy’, you filthy patch-pony!” yelled the bruised, windswept stallion in the back of the police cart.
Copper Fuzz snorted concealing a laugh. “No’ much of an improvement there, Mista Freezy. Nex’ time you try to tangle wi’ Coltland Yard ‘n’ Princess Luna, it might be to your advantage ta come up with a betta name!”
Luna chortled. “And weapons more frightening than giant fans as well!”
“Tha’s the spirit, Princess!”
But by the time Copper had turned to share a grin with her, Princess Luna was already gone.

/^oo^\


A tall, hooded figure moved swiftly and silently through Trottingham’s winding alleys. Her eyes scanned the ground ahead of her, and her ears flicked and swivelled as they monitored the area around her. Six months of fighting crime had taught Luna to always be ready for an ambush.
She came to a sudden stop as her ears picked up a light hooffall to her left.
“Show thyself!” she growled. “Your Princess commands it!”
A small fireball jumped in front of Luna, landing on the cement and sitting there for a second before splitting into ten separate fireballs of magnificent colour and shooting up into the sky in a fan formation, each one trailing smoke.
As the smoke cleared, Luna recognised a haughty smirk. The unicorn mare in front of her had a blue coat and a silver mane, and wore a green-and-purple suit and top hat. A purple mask covered the fur around her pink eyes.
“Riddler.”
The pony bowed, but with no humility. “Yes, yes, it is I, the CUNNING and DEVIOUS Riddler, Queen of the Cipher, Empress of the Enigma! Fear not, Batmare, for the Riddler’s reasons for engaging you this night are purely social! Your wits shall be strained to breaking point another day.”
“What dost thou want?”
“I’d like you to drop the silly voice, for one, but I guess that’s probably not going to happen. Mainly I want to give you message.”
“What message?”
The Riddler reached inside her green jacket and with a flourish pulled out a scroll, which she swiftly unravelled. She cleared her throat before starting to read.
“There’s a party coming, Batmare. Ensure that you receive your invitation.”
The Riddler rolled up her scroll.
“Is that all?” asked Luna. “What does it mean?”
With a chuckle, the Riddler shook her head. “You know it’s not the Riddler’s style to give these sorts of things away, Batmare. Have fun figuring it out!”
A green lightning bolt shaped like a question mark flashed as the Riddler teleported away. Luna resumed her walk. Why did they always call her “Batmare”?

/^oo^\


Luna glided on outstretched wings in the cool night air, her cloak flapping behind her, and the moon rising ahead of her. The white spires of Canterlot were coming into view, and her heart leapt at the sight of her castle.
But as she drew closer to it, she noticed another familiar sight. Against the night sky there glowed a bright light with a shadow in the shape of a crown cut out of it. Her signal was up; the city needed her help.
Luna was tired after her long flight, but she knew her duty. Silently, gracefully, she banked left, heading for the police station.

Commissioner Applejack was waiting on the roof, standing next to the spotlight. She sighed in relief as Princess Luna alighted before her.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Princess!” she said. “There’s a dangerous villain on the loose – been busy robbing the city’s party supply shops blind since you left for Trottingham!”
“Tell us more, Commissioner.”
“It’d be more appropriate fer me to show you, Princess.”

/^oo^\


The floorspace of Swanky Soiree’s Event Emporium was littered with bare stands and upended shelving racks. All the windows had been broken, and the door hung on a single hinge. But the most striking feature of the room was its walls.
“None of this is the work of an ordinary criminal!”
Applejack gulped. “I was afraid o’that. I expected a message, but these here are just colourful brush strokes. The other stores are the same, and none o’ my detectives can make heads nor tails of any of it!”
Luna stared at the violent, diagonal lines of pink, blue, green and yellow paint all around her, and found she could do no better than Applejack’s detectives. Every time she thought she saw a letter, it was lost when she tried to find another, and the paint seemed to actively resist any mind’s attempt to form pictures from it. All she saw were lines, but they were more like splotches, and yet not splotchey enough to be lines. If Luna didn't know better, she'd have sworn the paint was swimming and changing before her very eyes.
“Do any establishments like this remain unmolested, Commissioner?”
“Only one – Jokester Blue’s Japery Barn.”
“Then we shall wait there tomorrow night.”
“I’ll set up a stakeout!”
“No – too risky. Whoever this pony is, they mustn’t suspect a trap. The element of surprise will be our only advantage.”
“...Very well then, your Highness. Good luck.”

/^oo^\


After lowering the sun and lifting the moon, Princess Luna donned her faithful cloak made out of her faithful magic bats and strapped a utility sash – a new addition to her arsenal – over one shoulder. The sash contained a variety of useful tools in little pouches, from smoke bombs to flares – things that would have been a waste of energy to conjure up magically.
Giving the mirror one more resolute glare – but still not being able to shake off a pervading sense of unease – she spread her wings and glided out of a castle window, headed for Jokester Blue’s Japery Barn.

Once there, Luna teleported inside and hid herself among the rafters – it was fortunate for her that the Japery Barn so closely resembled its namesake, with its high ceilings and the faint smell of hay and workpony sweat.
Luna waited. She did not have to wait long.
CRACK! A loud splintering shattered the silence as the Japery Barn's large door was violently kicked apart. Luna's attention immediately focused on the light streaming in from the opening it had left – the multicoloured light.
Luna heard the loud flick of a switch, and loud, thumping music poured into the barn, shaking the walls and nearly knocking her from her perch. A large speaker wheeled inside, followed immediately by a ball-shaped device that cast lights of different colours all over the walls. Luna dove for cover behind a shelf.
“Who's ready to party?!” shouted a loud voice. "I know the Batemare is, because I can see her tail!"
Cursing inwardly, Luna rose from her poorly chosen cover and faced the intruder, scowling.
The intruder smiled, the edges of her mouth moving just a little bit too high. She was an earth pony with frizzy pink hair and a face that had been painted like a clown's, in two different – very familiar – shades of blue. Luna's breath caught in her throat.
“And how are you this super-duper, fantasterrific evening, Batemare? I'm having a ball, thanks for asking!”
“You. We have sought thee for months!”
“And you'll have to go on soughting for just a little while longer, because I'm gonna go away again right after I pick up a few essentials! But don't worry, you're still invited to the party!” Pinkie giggled.
Luna snarled and dropped into a fighting stance, ready to pounce. “Enough! Thou art coming with us!”
“You'll have to catch me first! Oh! We can make a game of it! Whoever catches a pony first gets to put them in jail!” Pinkie grinned manically, and then spun into a cartwheel. “I hope I it's me! Catching, that is, not getting caught!”
Luna swiped at her with a forehoof, missing. Pinkie came out of her cartwheel and tapped the Princess gently on the nose. “And it is! I win! I caught you! You have a right to remain loud! Everything you say can and will be ignored when I crank up the tunes!”
Her eyes flashing with mischief, Pinkie whipped a remote out of one of the patchwork saddlebags on her back and slammed its only button, making the music louder. The room shuddered, and Luna could barely hear herself think.
Pinkie's other forehoof was still on her nose. She swiped at it, missing again as it shot up and twiddled her ear.
“Hehehe!” Pinkie giggled. “You're so slow, Bat Princess! How could anyone want somepony so slow to be their princess? It just doesn't make any sense!”
Luna's head ached. “Why art thou doing this?”
Pinkie shrugged. “For fun, mostly. That, and parties, but parties are, like, the best fun! But you'll find out all about that soon enough!”
“The only thing we are going to find out is which jail cell thou shall sleep in tonight!”
“Witty! Super duper joke, Batemare – I think I might be rubbing off on you, hehe!”
Luna snarled. The loud party music was fast giving her a headache, and with her faculties thusly impaired she was having a hard time coming up with a plan to ensnare Pinkie. She was running out of time... still, there was always her signature move. Luna reached for the clasp around her neck.
“Uh, uh, uh, Batemare, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. But then, if I were you, I wouldn’t even have those bats in the first place! Too dreary! Have you ever considered getting a cloak made of confetti?”
Luna paused for just a moment, and an evil grin flashed across Pinkie’s face. With her inequinely fast reflexes, she reached over to the giant speakers and pulled a black cord hanging from their side.
There was a clank as the fake front of the bottom speaker fell off and clattered onto the floor. Behind it Luna could see the faint circular shape of a cannon barrel.
TSSSS. Too late, Luna heard a fuse burning. She dived for Pinkie.
BOOM!
“Argh!” Luna felt a pain in her side as something solid slammed into it.
“Tell me how you like the new cloak, Batemare!” Pinkie’s giggles filled Princess Luna’s ears as she drifted out of consciousness.

When Luna awoke an indeterminate amount of time later, Pinkie was long gone, having left only a destroyed shop and a mountain of vandalised playing cards in her wake. Luna scolded herself for being so easily defeated, and then left the shop, her cloak dragging across the dirty floor.

/^oo^\


Commissioner Applejack was starting to get used to spinning around on the chair in her empty office and suddenly seeing it wasn't as empty as she supposed. She didn't even raise an eyebrow at Luna's sudden appearance in front of her.
“The perpetrator was the girl from the bank robbery, the first crime we ever stopped – our singular unbested nemesis. It is just as we suspected.”
Princess Luna had a way of talking to others as if she were delivering a monologue to an unseen audience. That, too, Applejack had become accustomed to. 
“She is skilled, Commissioner!” Luna declared, biting back the bitterness in her voice. “Skilled and very dangerous. She brought us to our knees with lightening reflexes and devilish trickery. And when we eventually arose, the clownish vagrant had left with most of the Japery Barn’s stock in tow.”
“And you’re saying you think she’s Ms Pinkie Pie, from the bank robbery?” Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow. “Seems a mite bit odd ta me.”
Princess Luna said nothing. She had been just as perplexed at finding out that the dangerous party shop burglar was the same confused, well-intentioned young mare who’d escaped from that jail six months earlier and not been heard from since. Something terrible must have happened to her to trigger such a violent and frightening change in personality.
“Be vigilant, and inform us of future burglaries and similar crimes,” Luna said at last. “Thou knowest how to reach us.”
“You got it, your Majesty!” Applejack said, spinning in her chair. “If anythin’ turns up, you’ll be the first one to know.” And once again, she looked out on an empty office. 

/^oo^\


Luna was awoken from her mid-afternoon nap by the gentle touch of a hoof. She rolled over on her couch to stare up blinkingly at Pennyworth, her stout, dependable maidservant.
“There’s somepony interested in having audience with you, your Highness. Says she’s with the media.”
Rubbing one eye with a forehooves, Luna raised herself off her couch and quickly donned her royal horseshoes and crown. Between her reclusion in the past and the busyness of her new life, it had been a very long time since she’d held audience with anypony... over one thousand years, she realised. She hoped she wasn’t too rusty at it.
Luna trotted through the long, cavernous hallways of Canterlot Castle and soon came to the large, cavernous throne room. Even though it had fallen into disuse, the cleaning staff had kept its various furnishings and decorations immaculate, gleaming and dust-free. It was just how she remembered it.
Princess Luna took her seat in the rightmost of the two thrones at the far end of the room, averting her eyes from the other. Although her sister’s throne was no larger than her own, she felt as if it were casting a long, cold shadow over her.
The double doors opposite Luna’s throne glowed with unicorn magic and gradually opened. A pegasus mare with a green mane and a yellow coat entered the throne room and bowed low before Princess Luna.
“Rise, my subject,” Luna told her, momentarily wondering if she should have used her Royal Canterlot Voice, but then dismissing the thought. She was still tired. “State thy name and thy business.”
The yellow pony grinned widely. “My name is Truth Chaser, and I’m here to humbly request your Highness’s presence at an upcoming, very important media event in Canterlot City Hall.”
“About what?” Luna asked.
“Well, your Majesty, my colleagues and I were hoping you would see fit to honour us with the privilege of interviewing you, in your new capacity as a nation ruler unafraid to get her hooves dirty and personally stand up for the rights and well-being of this fair nation’s citizens. Ponies are interested in hearing your side of this story, Princess Luna, and my associates and I are interested in being the medium for you to tell it.”
Luna considered for a moment, scrutinising Truth Chaser’s too-wide smile. It would be an opportunity for her to gain some much-needed rapport with her ponies – rapport like she had had.
“We shall grant thy request!” Luna boomed.
“Thank you, your Highness! You won’t regret it!” Truth Chaser was ecstatic. “Be at the Canterlot City hall at six o’clock tomorrow night, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
Luna nodded, and Truth Chaser bowed lower than before and said her farewells. She fluttered out of the throne room on a cloud of joy, leaving Luna alone with her thoughts.
What was she to say to her subjects? A day earlier, she would have proudly reported her total dominance over crime and evil in Equestria, having never been bested by a villain. But after Pinkie Pie succeeded in committing robbery under her snout, she was unable to say that truthfully anymore.
She would be honest with her subjects, she decided. She would tell them of her victories over the past six months and of her imminent victory over Pinkie Pie, even while admitting her temporary defeat. Her little ponies would understand.

/^oo^\


“Princess Luna! So glad you could make it! We’ve eagerly awaited your arrival! Please, follow me.” Truth Chaser bade her inside the city hall, still wearing her over-large smile.
Ponies bowed and greeted the Princess with “your Majesty”s and “your Highness”s as she followed Truth Chaser down a narrow hallway and into a small dressing room. Make-up ponies swarmed Luna and gently, apologetically, but still overwhelmingly puffed powder onto her face and polished her tiara.
“Show time in five!” called a voice through a crack in the door, and the makeup ponies hurried to finish Luna’s face before gracefully ushering her outside, where Truth Chaser led her further through the hallway, up some stairs and onto a stage.
Applause thundered through the crowd Luna had only just noticed. The city hall was packed to capacity, and all eyes were riveted on her.
“Yes, fillies and gentlecolts, it’s Princess Luna, Regent of the Night, Crowned Ruler of Equestria, and – most recently – Sworn Protector of Justice!” The unicorn stallion who had spoken ushered Luna to a cushion placed to one side of the desk he stood behind. He had a blue coat and a slicked-back, white mane.
Princess Luna waved to the crowd. “Greetings, citizens of Canterlot! Your Princess of the Night art overjoyed to meet with you this fine evening!”
“Please, have a seat, your Highness,” said the stallion. “Moving the sun and moon has got to be tiring work!”
As Luna passed by the stallion’s desk, he whispered, “Don’t think we’ve been introduced, your Highness. My name’s Piercing Insight.”
Luna nodded and took a seat on the cushion beside the desk, staring out at the audience. The applause died down, and every eye in the room focused on her, waiting.
“Your Majesty,” Piercing Insight began, speaking in a loud, clear voice, “tonight’s crowd of eager ponyfolk have all come here for one reason, and one reason alone: to hear what you have to say to them. With all due respect, your Highness has been reclusive for a very long time, and even now that you’re out championing our equine right to a safe and prosperous society every night, the ponies of Equestria feel that they don’t really know you, that they don’t really have a sense of the pony beneath the crown, the one behind the bats.”
Luna nodded understandingly, wistfully recalling the evenings she had spent helping Celestia read the hundreds of letters she received every day. She had not followed her sister's example of warmth and openness thus far, but that all would change this night.
“Then let our subjects bring their questions to us!” she shouted, grinning widely out at the audience.
Piercing adjusted the notes on his desk. “Excellent! I’ve gone ahead and prepared a few questions for you myself, based on what I understand are the public’s most pressing concerns, so let’s go through those, and then we’ll open to the floor.”
Luna nodded her consent.
“First question,” Piercing began, “what event spurred this sudden interest in fighting crime as a vigilante? Forgive any impertinance, but you’d been out of the public eye for many years, and your sudden appearance six months ago as the face behind the mysterious thwarter of a bank robbery came as quite a shock to myself, the rest of the media, and indeed the whole of Equestria and many of our neighbouring countries.”
“The answer is a simple one, my subjects,” Luna said. “We were privy to a conversation detailing the insidious bank-robbery plot the night before it happened. The two ponies involved were in the castle’s employ for a time before their transgression was committed. Furthermore, the blackguards intended to assume our visage to aid their scheme!”
Piercing nodded attentively, the corners of his mouth curving up slightly. “So you might say, your Highness, that your actions at the bank that day were in defence of your own royal image.”
The back of Luna’s neck prickled. She did not like Piercing's tone. “What dost thou mean to imply?”
A murmur went up from the crowd.
Piercing touched his snout with a forehoof before answering. “Nothing at all, your Majesty – I’m just trying to assemble the facts, as any good journalist would. The people want Princess Luna’s perspective on all this, they want your side of the story.”
Luna bit her lip. “Very well then. What is the next question?”
“Princess Luna,” Piercing asked, adjusting his spectacles, “does your new intensive crime-fighting schedule interfere at all with your royal duties? Some of your critics have –”
“Thou wouldst question thy Princess’s competence?” Luna asked, a fire kindling in her chest.
“Erm, well, yes,” Piercing stammered. “Princess Luna, let me be frank with you: you’ve been gone for fifteen years, and a thousand before that. Your esteemed sister is no longer with us. The Equestrian public are not as quick to defer to a Princess as they may have been back in your day. They have a right to know what's going on in the upper echelons of power, especially if they are to be expected to respect and trust that power, those upper echelons.”
Scattered gasps rippled through the audience. The fire within Luna blazed stronger, and her eyes hardened into a glare.
“We have lived and ruled for hundreds of years. We are more than capable of dividing our time among different duties and performing each one with diligence and skill.”
“Ooookay then,” Piercing Insight replied, shuffling his notes again. “Let’s go on to the next question.”
Jerkily, Luna’s head bobbed up and down on her neck in a stiff nod. So much of her wanted to tell Piercing off for his insolence and have him arrested for defamation, but she knew that would likely not win her any love from her ponies. The world had changed, and she would need to change with it, or go back to living reclusively in the past.
“Princess Luna,” Piercing began again, his voice falling into a now-familiar groove, “is it true that White Collar, the unicorn apprehended by your Highness for attempting to rob the First Equestrian Bank, had an accomplise who escaped?”
“Yes,” Luna replied curtly.
“And is it true that that accomplise was a young pink earth pony going by the name of ‘Pinkie Pie’?”
“That art also true.”
The left corner of Piercing’s mouth rose. “Is this Pinkie Pie, then, the same pony who now terrorises the party-supply shops of our fair city?”
“Yes,” Luna forced out, blowing air through her nostrils. “But we are hot on that villain’s trail.”
Just then, a pink blur of motion came into Luna’s view. PLUNK. Somepony had thrown a pink birthday cake with a single candle on it onto the far end of the stage. The candle burnt with a hissing, crackling sound.
Luna’s eyes widened in horror. The light on the candle went out. There was a loud POP, and the stage was suddenly full of pink smoke.
“Surprii-iise!” called a high-pitched, cheery voice.
The smoke cleared, and Luna saw Pinkie Pie standing on the opposite side of Piercing Insight’s desk, smiling at him.  Her face was painted two shades of blue and a ratty purple coat hung off her back – it created a deranged, dangerous appearance.
“I hear you’re a fan,” she growled.
Luna sprang into action. “Freeze, scoundrel!”
“Freeze?” asked Pinkie. “But how can I freeze when you're so very hot on my trail, Batmare?”
That name again. Luna grimaced.
“Now, now,” said Pinkie, “let’s all just relax and have fun! We’re all friends here – such good friends that I even went to the trouble of coming here to throw you all a surprise party!”
Twin pops went off in the audience, and streamers fell around shrieking, transfixed ponies.
“It’s okay everypony,” Pinkie said to the crowd, “we’ll get to Pin the Tail on the Pony in just a tweensy-weensy moment! Just have to honour our birthday girl first!”
“It is not our birthday,” Luna growled.
Pinkie whipped a calendar out from inside her coat and glanced at it. “Close enough!” she said, discarding it behind her back. “But we’re not just celebrating your birthday today, Princess Batmare! We’re celebrating mine too!”
“Speakest not in riddles, knave!”
“Ooh! The Cunning and Devious Riddler’s birthday’s coming up soon as well! Thanks for reminding me, PB! I’ll send her your best wishes.”
“We grow impatient.” Luna’s horn was glowing softly, but she was hesitant to attack Pinkie, especially when so many other ponies might get caught in the middle. She well knew that her opponent was too resourceful to be so simply defeated.
“Fine, fine,” Pinkie droned, waving a dismissive hoof as she sauntered up to the desk Piercing Insight was shaking and shivering behind. “Today, exactly six months ago – it’s not a year, I know, but do I look like Calendar Mane? – you foiled a bank robbery. Your first bank robbery.”
Pinkie was right.
“And in so doing,” she continued, slowly moving her gaze across the frightened faces of the ponies in the audience, “created me.”
Everyone was silent.
“But that's not all she's done, fillies and gentlecolts! Nooo, not even close!” With the clumsy swipe of her hoof, Pinkie scooped up the sheaf of papers on Piercing’s desk and flipped through them, muttering to herself. “Breezy... Riddler... Penguin... yep, just as I thought!”
Much to his horror, Pinkie Pie roughly patted Piercing Insight on the head, just behind his horn. “Good job, Pokey! You were right on track, and I do love all the suspense and buildup you had planned for this, but I think I’ll cut to the chase for all the ponyfolk here tonight.”
Luna sucked in a deep breath.
“Ponies of Canterlot!” Pinkie Pie yelled at the audience. “For six months, your city and indeed the whole entire country of Equestria has been having a huge party! A huge super-villain party! You’ve got me, you’ve got Riddly, you’ve got that pony with the fans – and worst of all, you’ve got Batmare, the one pony you have to thank for starting it all!”
Gasps and protestations rippled through the crowd. Luna bit her tongue, still desperately trying to figure out if she could get the upper hoof on Pinkie without trotting straight into a trap.
“Don’t act so surprised, everypony!” Pinkie continued. “It’s not like it wasn’t obvious. I mean, did you have any of these supervillains before Her Royal Battiness took to the streets?”
The crowd grumbled. Luna had to do something fast.
“That’s what I thought,” Pinkie said. “But it’s nothing to grumble about! Thanks to Princess Luna, I’m organising a huge party for everypony in Equestria! You’ll find invitations under your seats – and here’s one for you, Batemare.”
In a flash of pink movement, a white card shot from Pinkie’s jacket and landed at Luna’s hooves. She looked down.


You are cordially invited to Miss Pinkamena Diane Pie’s


PARTY IN TARTARUS


Bring a friend!


“Please do bring a friend!” Pinkie implored the audience. “Friends are the greatest thing in the world! I was going to bring my best friend, but sadly little Pipsqueak will be in no condition to at-attend...” Pinkie went silent for a moment, her crazed grin faltering. “But that’s okay, I’ve got you, Batmare!”
“When’s the party starting?” somepony shouted from the crowd.
Pinkie looked at her watchless left wrist. “Right... about... now.”

THUD. The room shook from a sudden violent thumping somewhere outside. Luna thought for a moment that it was an earthquake.
“Yay!” Pinkie’s face lit up with an all-too-wide grin. “Our first special guest has arrived!”
At the words “special guest”, Luna was already in the air, seeking the nearest window.
“Batmare’s very excited to meet our special guest, and so she should be! I think they’ll get on famously!”


[Luna will return in the exciting conclusion: I Am The Night Part III: Nightfall]