//------------------------------// // 07: The One Who Watch The Watchers // Story: The Drakon // by Azrael the alicorn //------------------------------// CHAPTER 7: THE ONE WHO WATCH THE WATCHERS Applejack was on her way to the Twilight castle when the scream of her friend made her pass from a slightly fast pace to running like hell. In few minutes she reached the palace. And she wasn’t alone. Rainbow Dash had just arrived with Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy with Rarity the last one to gather with them. “What’s going on inside there!?” asked the white unicorn, worried sickly. “I think Noir has decided to play a little surprise to Twilight” suggested Applejack. “Noir? You mean that black dragon of yesterday?”. “That’s right”. “Then what are we waiting for!?” asked Rainbow Dash, rushing at the door, followed by the others. They didn’t know what the Avatar Of Darkness could want from Twilight, but they didn’t wanted to leave her friends alone with somepony, well, some dragon who could treat an alicorn as if it was nothing but dust. As soon as they ventured inside the castle the group started to call for Twilight and keeping their eyes well opened to see where that dragon could hide. “Over here!” said a familiar voice. Spike stood in the door of the library, concerned, making them sign to come in. The Mane 6 rushed inside vast room, finding their friend sit on the chair with eyes wide opened and holding the part of her body where it was placed the heart while taking deep breath to calming it down. Oddly enough, Noir was nowhere to be seen. “What happened, Spike?” asked Applejack. She had decided to wait until their friend would calm herself down before asking her for. “Until some minute ago Twilight was searching for any kind of information about that black dragon you had clashed recently and then, out of nowhere, that very own dragon appeared right behind her, scaring the living heck from both of us!” explained the young dragon. “Where did he go, Spike?” asked Rainbow Dash, who wouldn’t allow some dragon to scare one of her friends, no matter how powerful he was. “Oh, I didn’t go anywhere, Rainbow Dash” said a voice coming from right beside them. The group entered so fast and were so focused on their friends that they had completely missed Noir. He stood near a pile of books where on the top sit the crow that he called Ezio, reading them with not that much interest yet careful to not damage them. “Nor I plan to go anywhere in the next days, unless I want so” added, closing the book and giving his full attention to the Mane 6. The group of mares got surprised noticing that Noir was not as tall as the last time they had meet him. Now on all four he was taller than Celestia, but he didn’t seemed to have any problem standing on the two hinder legs and moving around, making him as tall if not a bit more of Discord. Twilight, who had finally managed to catch her breath and calming herself, got up from her seat and confronted the yet towering black dragon. “What do you want from us?” asked, trying to not sound too harsh. While she couldn’t completely trust him and being quite frustrated for having lost some year of her life because of his lack of care for scaring the living heck out of her, she didn’t wanted to give him an excuse to get angry. “I’m here to keep an eye on you”. His reply made every single pony (And the young dragon) look quite surprised. Predicting what the next question would have been he answered it right away, “I have seen part of how you deal with the threats that wants to take over the world. And I’ve studied your power of Harmony and friendship. While it may sounds all nice and harmonious, I couldn’t help but notice how it’s deep nature. Of how it can easily wash someone (And no, I won’t say somepony) minds, turning him/her/it into something completely different”. “Is it really a bad thing?” asked Fluttershy. She backed away in front of the glare that Noir gave her. “Of course it is. Do you seriously think that changing a person whole life is a decision yours to make just because you wield such power? Are you so arrogant to believe that filling someone minds with happy and nice thoughts is any different from filling it with evil?”. At those questions none of the Mane 6 could reply, some of them were quite taken aback from those armor piercing questions. “You didn’t thought about it, did you?” it wasn’t a real question, “So, because of this, I’ve decided that in the meantime that Luna clears her mind from the doubts I will make sure to understand exactly what you do to protect this world without abusing of that powers of yours”. “Just out of curiosity, what happens if we do?” asked Pinkie Pie, curious. Noir didn’t answered with words. He walked till the solid wall and placed a sharp claw on it. Applying the same strength that someone would use to make a hole in a layer, he scratched it as if was made of paper and not near indestructible crystal, even getting close enough to shatter it. The view, united with the sound it made, was enough to send a shiver to the group of ponies and the young dragon. “Something tells me” commented Noir, who did nothing to hide his sinister grin, “that you wouldn’t like it”. *** “So let me get this thing straight. This… map, gets activated by the marks on your… flanks?” asked the dragon. After his rush arrival into Ponyville and inside the castle of the Bearers of Harmony the Mane 6 allowed him to show him around the building. Noir wasn’t that much intrigued by how it looked. He didn’t liked how cold the interior of the place was while yet being all shining and stuff. After that they lead in the meeting room where the map was. “In short… yes” answered Twilight Sparkle who, just like the others, was still thinking about what the black dragon just told them. For how much she hated to admit it Noir was right. Maybe… no, no maybes. They really didn’t thought about the power they wielded. Twilight felt horribly knowing that she didn’t even tried to study the magic of Harmony, taking it just for what it looked from the simple appearance: a force of good. And instead things were much more complicated that they may appear. She could only hope to not fall again in such mistake… or else Noir would make sure that was the last error in their short life. “And exactly how does it works? What is the connection between this thing and your marks”. “I… don’t really know” had to admit the lilac alicorn, making the dragon facepalm in frustration. “So you never took your time to study how this maps works and just obeyed whatever thing it told you to do without even asking yourself why?”. If I’m going to meet again those 4 dudes I will have to apologize for having mocked their will to obey those three talking statues, at least those things made more sense compared to a map that works because some butt sign, thought Noir. “No” muttered Twilight, even more ashamed. “And you follow this map because…?”. “Because as the Bearers of Harmony is our objective to spread friendship all over Equestria” said Rainbow Dash. “Spreading friendship? You know how absurd it sounds?” asked Noir, irritated. “Hey, we have helped a lot of people. AND without using our brainwashing powers” pointed out Rarity. “And you think that friendship will fix everything? You are more naïve than I thought you were the first day” mocked the dragon. “How dare you say that?” asked Applejack. “I open my mouth and it happens. It helps that I have this uncanny ability to be brutally honest” answered Noir, “Now, as I was saying, you have quite a simplified vision of how or what Harmony truly is. Not that I’m surprised giving how dumb your ruler is” at those words the Mane 6 and Spike had to swallow the offense, knowing full well that they lacked the power to defend the name of the princess, “Harmony is not about making every single creature a friend to each other. Nor is archived by annihilating the forces of evil or, in the case of Discord, redeem them. No, the TRUE Harmony is when two opposites exist at the same time and both have their victories and defeats. What you have here, what you are trying to get is not Harmony. The only thing your action actually do is to bring this world into an order that will bring utter chaos in your sugary world. Or, in the least worst of the cases, it will only help your dearly beloved Princess Celestia who, despite being the damn ruler of this syrupy country doesn’t do anything to defend it, leaving this job to a team which has much less experience and put their lives on the line continuously”. At rant completed Noir remained silent, staring how his words had strike down the right nerves of those foolish foals he had in front. “Then what do you propose to do? How can we truly help Equestria?” asked Twilight, almost pleading. The tone of her voice and the concerned expression of the other ponies and young dragon were met with lack of concern from Noir. “Sorry, I’m not here to help you out. I’m here to help Luna and in the second place to keep an eye on you to make sure things doesn’t go awry in the meantime”. “But—“ “Do you really expect me to give you the answer to such question? Are you already so corrupted by the naiveté of this world that you think that every single answer in this existence will be delivered to you without you had to do any kind of sacrifice to actually deserve it?” he stopped, noticing the troubled expression of the group. “Oh FOR THE LOVE OF- Would you please stop moping?!?”. His sudden outburst managed to snap them out of their self-pitying, “You’re supposed to be the defenders of Equestria and yet is so easy to break you down? Do yourself a favor and try to put yourself together” with that said he turned to the exist, “Now I’m going to take a walk around town. And I hope that once I will be back to find you have snapped out of your emo self”. At rant finished he walked out of the room, ignoring the calls of the Mane 6. “Oh great, I’m sure the people of Ponyville will not panic at his sight” commented Spike, sarcastically. *** Effectively the population of Ponyville got quite startled at the sight of the dark dragon walking in the streets. Some ran away, others simply kept a safe distance from him, while many looked at him with increasing curiosity. Noir didn’t thought much of it, as he just wanted to vent out his frustration. What made him angry wasn’t just because of the stupidity of those ponies, but because of what he thought of them. While he was searching info about their lives he noticed that most of that group reminded him of his friends back in his own world in fact of personality. And while sure they did share some similarity, they were not that gullible. In a way he felt like that comparison offended their intelligence. “Dumb ponies” muttered Noir, turning his head to Ezio, who had placed himself on the right wing of the dark dragon, “Death wasn’t kidding when he mentioned that there were some dumb stuff going on here”. “Is nothing to be ashamed of, to be angry at those ponies” commented a voice behind him. He turned around, noticing that behind him stood a female pony with pink fur and a purple mane with a bit of green. “Is that you Diamond Tiara?” asked Noir, surprised, “I can’t believe it! I’ve scared you so badly that you turned into an adult?” “I’m not—“ “By the way, nice trick changing your mane, I didn’t recognize you at first”. “I—“ “And you finally got rid of that stupid tiara. Let me tell you, that thing made you look like a complete brat. Not that you weren’t a brat before, mind you”. “SILENCE!” screamed the unicorn, furious for getting interrupted over and over by that dragon. Noir got silent for a second… and then smiled softly at her. “Oh, your voice still sounds as bratty as before. It’s true what the old said say: some things never change”. “I AM NOT DIAMOND TIARA!” “Really? You sound almost the same” commented the dragon confused. “Just listen to me!” said the not-Diamond Tiara, trying her best to calm herself down and avoid undesired attention from the other citizens, “My name is Starlight Glimmer and—“ “Starlight Glimmer? Really? Is just another variation of the name Twilight Sparkle! What’s going to be next? Sunset Shimmer?” asked Noir, annoyed. “Would you just listen to me!?” asked the pink unicorn, who was getting exasperated by the rambling dragon. “Fine, fine. What do you want?” “I’m here to make you an offer, Noir”. “Oh, you know my name? How quaint. Can I ask you how?” “Let’s say I’ve been watching that little scuff that you had yesterday” said Starlight, with a confident smile. Actually she was just following Twilight Sparkle when she and her group ran to help Celestia, but she didn’t reveal that particular to the dragon until he didn’t joined her, “I have to say, your power is truly amazing, Avatar of Darkness”. “Thanks. I do my best”. “So, I wanted to ask you if wanted to join me into—“ before she could complete her speech she got once again interrupted by the dragon. Only that this time it wasn’t fooling around. “Helping you to get revenge on Twilight Sparkle. Yeah, I know that”. Those words were enough to make the pink unicorn lose a bit of her cool, “How do you know that?”. “I’m the Avatar of Darkness. That should be good enough for an answer.” “Well, yes, I want Twilight to pay for what she has done to me” said Starlight Glimmer, seeing no reason to keep a secret to somepony who apparently knew everything about her, “I had created a perfect town where everypony was equal and she ruined everything! But I know I can’t face her and her friends alone. Will you help me?”. “No”. “What?! Why? You hate them as well!”. “Let’s put things clear, StarLightYear, I don’t hate Twilight nor her friends. I’m just annoyed by theirs arrogance and stupidity. That doesn’t mean I want to destroy them for it” although I have to admit that I wouldn’t lose my sleep if I turned them into ashes, thought Noir, “I have a far more urgent matter at hand that requires my full attention. I won’t lose my focus by helping some random mare who can’t keep her emotions in check”. “You” muttered the pink unicorn, glaring at the dark dragon with anger, “You will regret this!”. “Oh” Noir replied with a large and sharp smile, “And how do you plan to do so? Should I check out your plans? I’m sure Twilight would be intrigued to know that”. At those words Starlight rage almost vanished, while a surge of panic showed on her muzzle. “You know what? I’m going to make you a favor: I will be kind enough to not get too much interested into spoiling your plans and revealing them to Twilight. As long as you get out of my way… NOW” roared the Avatar of Darkness, suddenly and with pure malice. Without a second thought she used her magic to teleport herself away. Noir could have stopped her on the spot. While she had a powerful aura it was still nothing compared to him. Yet he didn’t felt to interfere mostly because he didn’t wanted to get involved in some personal business of which he didn’t give a damn. Of course if in the near future this Starlight Glimmer (Of which Noir was still sure that had some links to Diamond Tiara) may be a threat to his objective... well, in that case that silly unicorn would have a bad time.