//------------------------------// // All the World's a Stage // Story: Hoofed by Your Own Petard // by Tortfeasor //------------------------------// Hoofed by Your Own Petard Disclaimer: Remember two things. Exercise daily, and I don’t own My Little Pony. Chapter Ten: All the World’s a Stage Twilight blinked away the blackness as consciousness slowly returned. Groaning at how sore she was the lavender unicorn rubbed at her eyes with her hoofs. She knew she had to get back up but while she was down she wanted to take just a few seconds to relax on her soft bed. Wait, soft bed? “Twilight!” The cry came from several throats and suddenly the pony in question found herself pressed into the bed by the weight of several ponies. She opened her eyes to a riot of colors. Snapping her eyes shut against the onrush of her senses Twilight gathered herself and slowly opened her eyes again. The riot of colors came back but this time Twilight was ready for it, and after a short while the colors resolved themselves into the coats of her friends. “Girls?” Twilight croaked. Her throat felt like she’d had barely anything to drink for days. But that was impossible; she’d had breakfast at Applejack’s apartment before leaving for the… the library! Her friends slid off her when they heard her speaking and Twilight took the opportunity to examine her surroundings. She was lying in a positively opulent four post bed with enough pillows to serve her entire apartment building back in the undercity. The slightest movement told her that the sheets were made of silk and she suspected the curtains hanging from each post would prove similarly soft. The room she was in would probably better be described as part of a suite than a single room. The floor was polished black marble with flecks of what looked like gold in each tile. Plush carpets, Twilight assumed they were made of silk or something equally expensive, were strewn liberally about the open areas. The walls, at least the ones she could see, were an expensive looking white limestone that reflected light about the room. Finally her eyes came to rest on the bookshelves. Virtually every inch of wall that wasn’t a window or a hardwood paneled door was given over to shelf after shelf of books. If Twilight didn’t know better she’d swear somepony had emptied half the royal library and brought it into this room just for her. Here and there a few curtains hung in dark yet tasteful colors, but a quick estimate made Twilight think those spaces were where another bookshelf wouldn’t quite fit. “We were so worried about you Twilight.” Fluttershy’s voice brought Twilight out of her observations and back to her friends. “You gave us quite a fright there darling,” Rarity said. “What, what happened?” Twilight asked. “Last thing I remember we were in the library in Manehatten and I was opening that window. I think there was a spell on it or something because after I got the window pane out the whole world went black.” “Oh dear,” Fluttershy’s smile dropped, “I was afraid this would happen.” Twilight looked at her friend’s faces for an answer that wasn’t coming. “Afraid what would happen?” “Best just to say it straight out,” Applejack said. “You’ve got a fair case of memory loss.” “Memory loss?” Twilight looked and saw no hint of joking on her friend’s faces. “I… Well… How did that happen?” “Trixie,” Rarity scowled at the name. “She’s never been able to let go of her jealousy for you and this time she took it too far. I have it on very good authority though that she didn’t get away this time and she’ll finally pay for her crimes.” “And good riddance to her!” Rainbow Dash pounded the large bed with a hoof. “I’m only sorry I wasn’t the one to bring her in.” Turning to look at Rainbow Dash almost made Twilight jump out of her fur. Her friend was wearing a dark purple flight suit with black hoof coverings. A pair of goggles hung around her neck and where her cutie mark would appear once she got it there was a winged skull emblazoned on the flight suit. Apparently though Twilight’s surprise was enough to draw the notice of her friends. “I told you not to wear that fashion disaster,” Rarity scolded. “Even if Twilight had all her memories I can hardly imagine wanting to wake up to that.” “Well excuse me, princess demandy-pants. Some of us happen to have real jobs around here and we were actually working before coming here. Besides, once Twilight gets her memory back she’ll be fine and we’ll all laugh about this.” “I have a real job,” Rarity scoffed. “How well do you think you would eat without the food my ministry distributes?” “Pretty well,” Rainbow Dash laughed, “what pony in their right mind would say no to the Shadowbolts?” “Twilight!” The unicorn in question could have sworn she heard Applejack’s voice, but when she looked over at her friend all she got was a questioning glance in return. “Sorry, I thought you said something.” Rarity and Rainbow Dash were glaring at each other, clearly ready to restart their sniping, when they were interrupted by Pinkie Pie. “Come on you two. I’ve been telling you over and over that only ponies like Trixie win when we fight each other.” “Indeed,” boomed a voice from the doorway, “I do not like my highest ranked subordinates fighting.” Twilight looked where the voice came from and saw a midnight black alicorn in armor and with the night sky for a mane standing in the door to her room. Every instinct in her body said to fight or flee but sheer surprise suppressed those instincts when she saw her friends bowing before the pony she could have sworn was supposed to be their mortal foe. “Welcome back my faithful student. It is good to see you are unharmed.” Faithful… Student? She was Nightmare Moon’s student? Twilight had lost more than just her memories, she’d lost her entire world. What could have happened that she’d gone from trying to overthrow Nightmare Moon to taking Trixie’s place at her side? “Um, your majesty,” Fluttershy squeaked, waiting for Nightmare Moon to glace her way before continuing. “It looks like Twilight has lost a lot of her memory. She said right after waking up that the last thing she remembers is breaking into the library in Manehatten.” “I see,” Nightmare Moon stepped into the room. “You must find the world changed a great deal from what you remember. I will allow your friends to bring you up to speed. After that, meet me in my private study.” Twilight nodded numbly at the retreating monarch and then turned back to her friends. “It’s okay,” Fluttershy was smiling, “we’re here for you Twilight. We’ll help you get over any bumps till you’re back to normal.” “I…” Twilight paused and thought. “What happened after I opened that window?” “We got the book darling,” Rarity said. “Yeah,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “Fluttershy and I went in and they never saw us. We scooped up your precious reference guide and by the time we came back you were starting to come to.” “It was that easy?” Twilight knew her friends wouldn’t lie to her but she couldn’t quite believe what they were saying. “Come on Twilight,” Pinkie Pie grinned. “After all the work we put into getting that book we deserved to pull it off like that.” “Besides,” Applejack shouldered aside her friends, “that’s not the whole story. After you got back on your hooves we went back into the sewers. We started heading out of the city in a random direction to throw off all the pursuers Trixie was going to send our way. We were going to read the book once we were safe but when we came up onto a deserted street it wasn’t quite as deserted as we thought. Nightmare Moon was waiting for us.” “And we’re still alive how?” “That’s what we thought at the time,” Applejack continued. “We knew how completely outclassed we were and I don’t think any of us expected to live past the next few minutes. But thankfully for us Nightmare Moon had something different in mind. Rather than wiping us out she offered us a chance to work for her. Of course the alternative was wiping us out but we were still quite surprised to get the offer in the first place. It turns out she’d been watching us and was impressed with us. At the start we were skeptical to say the least, but she lived up to her end.” “Not killing us or giving us fancy jobs?” “Both, darling,” Rarity took over. “Nightmare Moon wanted to reorganize the government she’d taken over from Celestia but she needed capable ponies to put in charge. After seeing us in action she’d decided we could be those ponies. It was, I admit, a bit of a shock coming back to Canterlot in the company and employ of the pony we’d sworn to vanquish. And it took more than a little getting used to at first to work with ponies we’d previously seen as villains. But, we were all there to serve Nightmare Moon and Equestria. Over time it became easier for all of us.” “But what about all the horrible things she wanted to do? All those terrible things you read about in Coltcinnati.” Rarity’s smile somehow didn’t make it to her eyes. “If we’d said no in Manehatten we couldn’t have done anything to help anypony ever again. Here though, even if we can’t stop all those things from happening we can at least make sure they aren’t as bad as they might have been. Scant comfort sometimes, but the simple fact is that we lost the second Nightmare Moon defeated Celestia.” “What about Trixie? Didn’t you say she attacked me or something?” “She’s a traitor twice over,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “When we got back to Canterlot and Nightmare Moon made you her student Trixie decided to do what we’d been trying to do. She proved rather dangerous already knowing where the elements were, but she couldn’t beat the six of us when she was working for Nightmare Moon, and she had even less of a chance once we were working for Nightmare Moon.” Twilight flopped back into her pillows. “I’m going to need a really strong drink or a lot of time to process all this. Any idea when all my memories are supposed to come back?” “I don’t know,” everypony turned to Fluttershy at the question, “it could be in an hour or you could never get that part of your life back. Memory loss can be tricky to deal with under the best of circumstances, and magically induced memory loss isn’t the best of circumstances. The best thing we can do is keep you in familiar surroundings and help you through this.” “We’ll give you a few minutes to yourself,” Rarity said, “but do stop by our suites after you speak with Nightmare Moon. Even if you don’t remember anything we can still give you a list of do’s and don’ts to help you muddle through until your memories do come back.” “Twilight!” She swore she heard Rainbow Dash cry. “Did you say something Rainbow Dash?” “What?” The pegasus turned around. “No. Just hurry up and get better, okay?” Twilight waved to her friends as they walked out the door. Slowly she slid out of bed and began walking around her bedroom. She walked over to a full-length mirror and took a look at herself. Lavender coat, purple eyes, horn in place, same neatly trimmed mane, and was that a cutie mark? She turned to look at her flank and sure enough there was a crescent moon and what she took to be several stars adorning her flank. Twilight wasn’t sure what to make of that. Yes she’d dreamed of getting her cutie mark for years, but to get one serving Nightmare Moon? Pushing the thought out of her mind she walked out into the hall, and realized she had no idea where to go. Fortunately a royal guard was standing outside her door and motioned for her to follow him. As they walked through the halls Twilight realized that she was quite content to be following. She’d gotten a look at his eyes and they had the soulless look of a pony being mind controlled by Nightmare Moon. How could her friends and her other self ever be okay with that? And this all felt… wrong somehow. She’d never been in the royal castle so she had no clue how it was supposed to look, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with her beyond losing her memories. She looked around and didn’t see anything particularly odd or out of place but that subtle feeling refused to go away. Being apparently incapable of speech the guard simply stopped when they reached Nightmare Moon’s study. Fortunately however he was also apparently incapable of getting mad when Twilight unceremoniously walked into him from behind. Silently the guard walked away and Twilight was alone. She waited several long seconds before knocking on the door. At the summons from within she opened the door and stepped into the study of her worst enemy, and apparently lately her master. “Ah, Twilight Sparkle, it is good to see you up and about. Good help has been almost impossible to come by since I banished Celestia and destroying every rebel group by myself would prove endlessly tedious.” Twilight blinked in confusion. “I’m sorry, I’m not quite following you.” Nightmare Moon walked out from behind the large desk. “Simply put, there are still ponies who resist my rule. As my apprentice it is your duty to use what I teach you to put an end to them.” “I… kill ponies?” “Oh I can see you have lost your memory,” Nightmare Moon chuckled. “What did you think your cutie mark represented? Your special talent is helping me bring about nighttime eternal. I think I’ll order the executioners to make Trixie’s death a particularly long and painful one for stripping me of your assistance.” Twilight fought every instinct in her body not to scream and run from the room. “I suppose I can place your brother in charge of the squads that will carry out your duties while you’re incapacitated. Talent appears to run in your family.” Shining Armor? But Twilight had made absolutely sure to not mention that her brother was a royal guard. She’d made sure to not mention she had a brother at all. If he were to show up and attack them she didn’t know that she could raise a hoof to defend herself. But a Twilight Sparkle working for Nightmare Moon wouldn’t have that problem. In fact, being Nightmare Moon’s apprentice’s brother would probably help his career. Back before she’d lost her memory, the real world a part of her mind insisted, he’d only been promoted to a junior lieutenant a few weeks before the Summer Sun Celebration. She rather fondly remembered that their parents had taken them both out to dinner to celebrate his promotion and her impending graduation. “My brother?” Twilight finally stammered. “Ah, I can see how you’d ask that,” Nightmare Moon’s smile failed to reassure Twilight. “Since you and your friends joined me I’ve been trying to find among the guards ponies who can operate for me on their own initiative. One of your first acts as my apprentice was to suggest your brother and convince him to accept my offer.” Twilight sighed in relief that her brother was safe but it still felt wrong that either of them was serving Nightmare Moon voluntarily. “What to do with you though?” Nightmare Moon tapped her chin with a hoof. “I suppose having you study the basics of what I taught you will have to do for now. Best to operate on the assumption it will take you long enough to recover your memories that I can simply teach you what you need over again. I’ll have a list of what I want you to read by tomorrow sent to your suite. Be back here again tomorrow no later than three hours past moonrise.” “Uh, yes your majesty.” Twilight had lost, or never had in the first place, her experience of dealing with royalty. Twilight stepped out of the door to see Applejack talking to a pony. The orange earth pony waved her over and dismissed the other pony. “I see you survived your meeting with the queen,” Applejack smiled, “how did it go?” “Well I’m still alive,” Twilight replied, not sure if that was a joke or not. “Nightmare Moon basically wants me to start over in my studies. Nopony knows how long it’s going to take me to get my memories back and it will keep me busy while I’m waiting.” “That makes sense,” Applejack nodded. “And I’m sure we’ll all feel much better knowing you’re back on your hooves and studying again.” “Thanks,” Twilight watched a pony go by with a stack of papers in her mouth. “So what brought you over to this part of the castle?” “I was just making sure we had the official line of a story going to press right. It wouldn’t do for the Ministry of Honesty to be telling lies.” “Wait,” Twilight said, “’official line’? Isn’t the truth supposed to be you know the truth?” “Of course,” Applejack didn’t sound very convincing, “but how you tell the truth matters a great deal as well. The Ministry of Honesty makes sure that ponies get honest news in an appropriate manner. After all, the greatest truth is our duty to Nightmare Moon and I have to make sure that nothing in the news contradicts that.” Twilight stayed silent. Her friends had become very different ponies and she wasn’t sure the change was for the better. For that matter what would happen to her when her memories came back? She wasn’t sure she wanted them to come back anymore. “Twilight!” She turned to see Pinkie Pie walking down the hall, and the exact same pony she’d seen walking down that hall with a stack of papers in her mouth just a few minutes ago. She shook her head and while the pony was gone the sense of déjà vu remained. “Hi Pinkie Pie,” she called. “Oh, hi Twilight!” The pink earth pony smiled and waved frantically. “I didn’t see you over there. Are you feeling better now?” Pinkie Pie hadn’t seen her? But she’d shouted Twilight’s name. And the déjà vu with that pony walking down the hall. Something was seriously wrong here. “So how’s the castle?” Pinkie Pie bounced along next to her. “It must be so much fun to get to explore it all over again for the first time. You get to meet everypony again, and make all new friends! I definitely won’t have any trouble making sure you’re happy.” Twilight was a good liar only in comparison to Applejack. Fortunately Pinkie Pie was on such a roll that Twilight suspected she could have said pretty much anything and her friend would simply keep going. “Yeah, it’s great being here with you girls. Everything’s all new to me all over again. Say, I never caught what it is you do around here.” That last one seemed to catch Pinkie Pie’s attention. “Oh, silly me! I forgot that you forgot. Well, I run the Ministry of Laughter. You see, if ponies aren’t happy they might blame Nightmare Moon for their being unhappy, and if they blame Nightmare Moon because they’re unhappy then they might go join ponies like Trixie who were trying to overthrow Nightmare Moon. So it’s our job to make sure they’re always happy and laughing and to convince ponies who aren’t happy and laughing that they should be.” Twilight was suddenly struck with the thought that she really, really didn’t want to know how Pinkie Pie’s Ministry of Laughter ‘convinced’ ponies to be happy about living under Nightmare Moon. It was cruel really, these ponies looked like her friends, they walked and talked like her friends, but Twilight was certain beyond a doubt that they weren’t the friends she’d last seen in Manehatten. “Please come back Twilight.” Twilight looked around; she could swear she’d just heard Fluttershy! But the yellow pegasus was nowhere to be seen. Fluttershy, Twilight didn’t even want to think about what her kind hearted friend would be like in this horrible mockery of a world. Desperate to be alone Twilight turned at the next intersection, and ran directly into Rainbow Dash. “Hey there Twilight,” Rainbow Dash untangled herself. “Better watch where you’re going, you don’t know this place anymore.” “Yeah,” Twilight tried and failed at laughing. As she was getting back up she noticed Rainbow Dash had doffed the flight suit but on her flank was still the winged skull. “You put your cutie mark on your flight suit? I knew you wanted a cutie mark pretty bad Rainbow Dash but isn’t that just showing off?” Rainbow Dash looked at her flank and then as she looked back to Twilight realization dawned on her face. “This? The logo was on the flight suit first. When we signed on with Nightmare Moon I became captain of the Shadowbolts and head of the Ministry of Loyalty. The Shadowbolts are her personal guard. And the first time I went out with them it just clicked. This is what I was meant for. When we came back and I took off the flight suit this little baby was there.” Rainbow Dash was the captain of Nightmare Moon’s personal guards? Twilight didn’t need to ask about what the guards did, or the Nightmare Children who worked alongside them. The thought of one of her friends doing the same made bile rise up in her throat. She pushed past Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie and took off down a hall at random. As she ran down the empty halls she swore they were changing. Paintings didn’t look the same as she passed them, the patterns in the marble floor seemed to swirl as she approached, and she noticed that while the hallway was perfectly bright none of the torches were lit. She finally skidded to a halt and flopped down onto her haunches. Twilight didn’t want her memories to come back. Whatever she had become she didn’t like it one bit. She looked at a nearby door and bit back a scream. Three butterflies could only mean one thing. No, she refused to see what had become of Fluttershy. After her other friends she didn’t think she could take another horrible revelation. She thought it would break her completely to see what horrors Fluttershy was inflicting on other ponies in this sick and twisted world. “Twilight!” She swore she heard all her friends calling her name, but she was alone in the hallway. And the wall in front of her seemed to be cracking where it was solid a moment ago. “What’s going on here?” She frantically looked around. “Am I going crazy or what? No, there was something with that window back in the library. There was that alarm, but an alarm spell wouldn’t have made me go unconscious. But I don’t know any spells that could do this to a pony. If I thought she was real I’d ask Rarity…” “Did somepony say my name?” Twilight turned to see the pony who looked exactly like her friend. “Why Twilight, I didn’t expect to see you in this part of the castle. What brings you down here?” Twilight fought down her urges to run, scream, vomit, and generally make another scene. Instead she forced herself to smile and follow her friend down the hall. “Just exploring,” she said, “I do need to learn where everything is all over again.” “I hadn’t thought about that,” Rarity seemed completely unfazed as a painting changed from Starswirl the Bearded to a scene of the view from Canterlot at sunset. “The sheer number of things you have to listen to me Twilight.” Twilight stumbled and stared at her friend. “What?” Rarity stopped. “Is there something on my face? Oh dear, don’t tell me my makeup is fading already.” But Twilight wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. Instead she watched as a series of cracks ran their way down a wall. Twilight wasn’t an architect but she was pretty sure that walls weren’t supposed to do that. “Rarity,” she said, “do you see what’s happening to that wall?” “Of course darling,” Rarity said with a dismissive wave. “Everypony knows none of this is real.” Twilight should have been shocked but she was beyond that. This world was all wrong and one way or another she was going to bring it crashing down. She started drawing magic into her horn until sparks began to come off it. Rarity should have noticed something was terribly wrong but instead she simply prattled on about how her Ministry of Generosity set the food rations that condemned most ponies of Equestria to slow starvation. That was just one more nail on a lid long since closed tight. Rarity, the real Rarity, would have torn Canterlot down brick by brick before being a part of wholesale murder. All her friends were nothing more than cruel perversions of what made them unique. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, none of them would ever do the things she’d heard them casually talk about. Twilight kept drawing magic into her horn until she couldn’t hold anymore. Just when she felt like she was on the verge of injuring herself she forced all the magic out in a huge wave. It was a terribly crude way to fight a spell but she didn’t see any other options. The world turned stark white behind the wave of magenta energy and then exploded around Twilight Sparkle.