"Ugh..." I mentally groaned, annoyed as Discord continued his singing. It was bad enough when he'd begun singing 'Twelve million two hundred thousand bottles on the wall', but the song that never ends... Really may never end. "SHUT UP!!!" I mentally shouted at the patchwork creature. I've been doing so well at staying sane these last thousand or so years, but I swear I'm about to snap.
"Tony! Did you feel that?" Shadofang asked, cutting the link with Discord. Sweet relief...
"No, what was it I'm supposed to be feeling again?" I asked curiously while looking at Fred, my best bush friend. Hey, when you've been stuck in the same position completely conscious for a thousand years... Well, you find things to do that most would call crazy. I call it mental survival.
"The darkness! All that delicious dark energy!" She made a sort of content purring noise.
"If this is about the whole 'Embrace your inner darkness, enjoy the plight of others thing..." I began, thinking back on the many times she's tried to convince me that evil was the way to go.
"No!" Shadofang cut me off, "Well, yes I still think you should, but that's not what I'm talking about! Someone, or something, has released an extreme amount of dark energy!"
"Which means...?" I asked, wishing I could twirl my hand in a 'go on' motion.
"Which means that we could harness the excess energy to break this stone prison and leave that mismatched annoyance behind!" Shadofang answered, a bit impatiently.
Leave Discord behind? Could I really do that to the guy stuck in pretty much the same position as me..? "This is the song that never ends, never ends, never ends!"
Yes, yes I can. "Alright Shadofang, I'm all for it!"
"Excellent!" She responded before small specks and motes of darkness began to draw close to us. "By the way, this will go a long way towards convincing you that darkness is the way to go!" Shadofang said, almost too quickly for me to catch.
"Wait, what!?" I asked, before I felt something twisting at my mind. "What? No!" I felt it digging and prodding, twisting my way of thinking to better suit whatever dark being it belonged to.
*BOOM*
With a ground-shaking explosion and a tall tower of dark-energy, I broke free of the stone prison. "FREE AT LAST!!!" I laughed maniacally.
"Well great! How about helping out a fellow pegacorn-enemy pal?" Discord mentally projected at me as soon as the display ended.
I looked at him with a frown. "Like hell I'm going to help your annoying self out of there! Find your own way out!" I told him angrily before disappearing in a swirl of shadows, leaving behind an angry Chaotic Deity.
"TTOOOONNYYYY~!!!!" Said Chaos Deity mentally yelled, unable to shake his limbs at the sky in all his petrified glory. "And after all I did for that brat too, he should be grateful I was willing to sing for him." Discord thought, giving a small mental pout.
"Princess Celestia, Princess Celestia!" A pony guard burst into the throne room, immediately giving his report. "Princess Celestia, The 'Dark Menace' has escaped his petrification and..." The pony trailed off, noticing the lack of tall white alicorns in the room. Luckily, the Guard Captain happened to hear the report and immediately ordered that a messenger be sent out to the wonderbolts so that they could track down the Dark Menace.
"Message for Spitfire." an adorably cross-eyed grey pegasus pony said, holding out a letter to the pony behind the desk.
Spitfire took the message, opening it and scanning the contents as the grey mare left the room. "Somepony get Lightning Crasher in here! We need him yesterday!" She ordered loudly and urgently.
A few minutes later a darker grey Pegasus stallion with dark blue eyes and a red and black streaked mane and tail walked in. "You called for me Spitfire?"
"Yeah, we've got a crisis situation and my recent training accident prevents me from leading a team to help." The orange mare replied, indicating her bandaged wing. "So I need to you to lead this mission."
Lightning gave a crisp salute, "Yes sir!"
"Alright." Spitfire nodded, "The Dark Menace has escaped his prison and was last seen headed towards Ponyville. I need you to take the team and attempt to stop him. Unfortunately we have no idea what he's capable of, seeing as he was petrified before he could do much more than cause a panic."
"Understood!" Lightning resonded.
"Dismissed." Spitfire said, waving him out the door.
Once he'd left Spitfire's office, Lightning quickly went about getting the team together to hunt the Dark Menace.
I arrived at a town with colorful ponies running around like headless chickens. "This is where the energy first appeared..." Shadofang informed me, materializing into her ghostly form. "But it's already left..."
"Well let's go find it then." I said impatiently, taking to the air floating into the night sky. "Hmm... Shouldn't it have been morning by now?"
"That doesn't matter." Shadofang interjected, "The energy trail leads that way." She told me, pointing at a nearby forest before retreating back into the ring.
"Wow, no need to be rude..." I muttered, floating in the specified direction. "Wait.. What's that?" I wondered, squinting my eyes at what looked like a few specks in the distance. They were growing in size way too fast, almost like they were... Crap!
I quickly swept my shadowcloak around my form, using it to teleport to the ground. Just in time too, as several blurs flew straight through the spot my body had once occupied before making a U-turn. Landing in front of me, the blurs turned out to be several uniformed pegasus ponies. "Dark Menace, you are to surrender immediately by order of the Wonderbolts, and by the authority of our monarch Princess Celestia!" The lead pony told me.
"Monarch?" I asked, "What happened to that other one? You know, the really loud one with the picture of a moon on her ass?"
"I'll only repeat this once! You are to surrender unconditionally and immediately otherwise we are authorized to use force!" Lightning repeated, looking a bit annoyed.
"Ugh, I don't have time for this!" I said, looking up at the sky with exasperation clear in my tone. I pointed Shadofang at the group of five, 3 of which had the common sense and reflexes to move as I did so. The other two were not so lucky and had their shadows removed, quickly reducing them to gaunt, haggard, feral looking things with blank eyes.
"Ghouls, keep those three busy while I continue with my business!" I ordered before floating towards the forest once more.
Lightning moved to stop the Menace, but was quickly intercepted by one of the growling ghouls. "What the hay Blaze!? Move out of the way!"
The ghoulified Pegasus gave no response other than attempting to tackle her superior. Lightning, surprised at the sudden attack from one of his subordinates, made no move to stop her. Thankfully, Blaze was tackled mid-air by one of the other ponies who had managed to dodge. "What are you waiting for Commander? Go after the Menace! Soarin and I will keep these two occupied!" Fleetfoot yelled.
Shaking off his shock, Lightning nodded resolutely and flew off in pursuit of the Dark Menace.
"Hmm..." I looked up at the castle, it must've looked amazing once... But currently it was crumbling to pieces, eroded from centuries of abandonment. "Interesting..." I'm starting to have my suspicions as to who released all that dark energy.
Walking inside, I was greeted by a large pegacorn. "So you reached the castle after all... I su-" She opened her eyes, apparently realizing that I wasn't who she seemed to be expecting. "Who are you?" She demanded, glaring at me.
I blinked, looking at the black pegacorn. Something about her seemed familiar... "Moonbutt?" I asked. "You look a lot different, you old banshee."