//------------------------------//
// Personnel File 19: Casting Shadows 
// Story: SPD Emergency 
// by cyberlord4444 
//------------------------------//

	“Ugh, it’s too quiet around here,” Dusk complained, her echoing hooffalls all the more noticeable in the empty hallways of S.P.D. headquarters. ‘I might as well get some exercise since I can't sleep,’ she thought on a whim, veering towards the nearest elevator, figuring she might have some fun picking up on the simulation from yesterday without anypony watching since it was so late.
 
                Stepping across the small distance from the elevators, she saw the yellow light hanging above the closed grey doors. Somepony was already inside. Then, the motion sensor activating, the doors hissed open as a line of thin and similarly yellow lights lit up, forming an outline, squaring just past the control box inside, leaving just enough space to reach the bench along the wall.
 
Past the designated protected zone, a tan mare was busy dancing her way through a hail of medicine ball sized rubber projectiles blasting at her from all sides. But, while the wiry strands of violet magic that stretched out from the obstructive mass of mane was eye-catching, what really caught her attention were the darkened blades on their ends. If anypony knew a shadow when they saw one, it was her, and she marveled as they effortlessly halved the flying balls, sending them to thump upon the padded flooring.
 
                After a few more dizzying seconds, a buzzing klaxon went off. The launchers in the walls reset, hissing closed as hatches in the floor hinged open, disappearing the spent and ruined rubber, leaving the tan mare to brace herself against her knees, breathing noisily as her spell fell to bits of violet glitter and paling shadows under the quiet and sterile lighting of the empty room.
 
                “Whoa,” Dusk said, her bright yellow eyes going wide, “that,” wondering what else this mare was capable of, “was impressive.”
 
                Lifting a hand to raise the drooping bits of mane covering her eyes, the tan mare looked up, blinking until she could spare the other to wipe away the sweat stinging at them. Even still, it was a few moments more until the mare had gulped enough air to steady herself, and, dragging her hooves towards the benches said, “Thanks.”
 
                Sitting down, hard, the tan mare then busied herself with unscrewing the cap to her large thermos, chugging down the rest of its contents, and screwing the lid back on. Wiping her lips with the side of her hand, she turned her head to the black furred mare beside her, and then asked, “You new to the night shift or something?”
 
                “I’m new, yes. But I’m not part of any night shift, I just couldn't sleep because this place is too quiet.” Dusk giggled, “What are you doing in here? Other than training obviously.”
 
                “Nothing,” she replied, shaking her head, her mane slowly repeating the action. “Name’s Marri by the way,” she said, pausing, head tilting tiredly to the side, then added, “I was just about done,” slowly rising from the bench, “nice meeting you miss ...”
 
                “Just call me Dusk.” Dusk replied with a smile. “So,” she fidgeted, glancing to the side.
 
                “Don’t worry, I won’t stay around to gawk,” Marri said, moving slowly for the door, “she’s all yours,” tossing a limp hand over her shoulder to the training room behind.
 
                “O- ok,” she said turning towards the control panel. “Um,” she paused, biting her lower lip “Dusk Roze, requesting to resume Training exercise ‘Tome’s Karma’, please?”
 
The room clicked into motion, white light flaring first into thumb sized cubes and then dimming into the worn wreckage of the randomized cityscape while the atmospheric lighting glowed into a ruddy twilight over their hard-light brethren. A torn and distant mumbling and groaning sounded through the streets of the simulation as a computerized voice, hidden in speakers across the room, gently stated, “Program: Worst Case Scenario 47 - Zombie Apocalypse selected. Resuming File: Tome’s Karma.”
 
                “Whut,” Marri blinked quietly from the doorway, turning drunkenly on one hoof, “there’s a protocol for a zombie attack?”
 
A wide, white weapons rack extended up from the floor beside the manual control panel. Moving quickly, Dusk grabbed a pair of standard issue pistols, a short sword, and a shotgun, securing them to her person and moving to stand in the red circle at the center of the room.

Flaring yellow, and then green, the circle disappeared as zombies began pouring from open windows and staggering out of misshapen doorways, shuffling their way to the only live meat in the ‘city’. Unholstering the first pistol, Dusk lined up her sights and began to fire, each successive shot splattering rows of festering grey matter, courtesy of the undeads’ helpful bottlenecking in their mindless shamble to reach the living mare first, leaving Dusk ample time to duck into the windowless alley and put some distance between her and the ever growing hoard.
 
                Still in the doorway, Marri watched from the monitor in the main control panel as the program kept a clean third-person view on Dusk’s movements. Swooping under the clumsy blows of the zombie apparitions, leaping over, and even onto the upturned carts, benches, and newspaper vending machines of the simulation to keep the toxic splatter of gore at a distance, Marri stood, transfixed by Dusk’s marksmareship, fluidly switching from her spent pistols to the automatic shotgun strapped over the sword at her back, pumping it in a quick, but controlled bursts as fresher zombies, still retaining more useful muscle mass, began to break through the crowd with disquieting speed.
 
                Weaving through the shuffling carnage, Dusk found herself scaling the emergency ladder to a warehouse, her shotgun discarded, no use holding onto it in this particular scenario, when the roll-up doors of the loading bay groaned into a screeching rent of metal, and, from the twisted hole lumbered out an amalgamation of blistering flesh and protruding bones, a unicorn, though it was hard to tell from the way its massive chest-muscles barreled up into its head, obscuring the lower half of its face, leaving a sickly purple smog of magic to ooze out from its distorted orifices. Giving a roar, the beast made for Dusk. Ignoring the feeble, metal stairway to the roof, it, instead, punched holes straight into the brickwork of the wall, heedlessly turning its unfeeling hands into mush as it hauled itself up.

Steeling herself against the lone adversary, Dusk still couldn’t help but hold a sideways-grin as the meat-tank charged its perspective meal. Her yellow eyes flared with an internal light as her body lost all definition, parting like blackened fog as the beast decapitated itself on the sword that was held aloft by the smoky black tendrils clouding around it.
 
                Marri rolled her eyes, “great, now we’ve got another Walker sibling,” she mumbled, turning back to the hall as the earth pony reconstituted herself, the training doors finally hissing closed, signifying her, now, very apparent exit.
 
                Ears twitching towards the sound of what should have happened fifteen minutes ago, Dusk swung her head towards building directly between her and the exit, again reminded of just how unalone she really was as zombies from the building’s internal stairwell splintered through the door. Taking full advantage of her distraction, their hits landed upon her physical form, ending the training program.
 
                Dashing for the exit as the cityscape twinkled away, ignoring the computer’s call to update the saved file, Dusk focused on only two things: reaffirming her earth-pony form and catching up to Marri. Running down the hallway, the elevator’s lights still dead, she made for the showers, catching up the white maned mare along the bend, and, leaping to a halt in front of her breathlessly huffed, “How much did you see!?”
 
                “Huh?” Marri blinked, slouching a bit further as she stepped back, squinting as she once more raised the mane from over her eyes to get a better look at the wide-eyed mare. “Am I not supposed to know about that training mode?”
 
                “No, not that! The other thing!” Dusk said frantically.
 
                “Uhhhh,” Marri croaked.
 
“I don't care if you saw the training thing but please don't tell anyone about the other thing you saw!” Dusk begged, “Please, I don't want to be burned at the stake like some witch or a monster!”
 
                Marri stood there, silently, her face slack before her eyebrows slowly rose, and then fell. “You do know that being an Earth Pony with special power isn’t really new here, right?”
 
                “But I’m NOT an Earth Pony!” Dusk wavered, her eyes watering.
 
                “Eh,” Marri sighed, “you’ve lost me.”
 
                “I’m a bucking Shadow Pony!” Dusk shouted, throwing out arms that melted away to darkness, her body fully reverting to her true, if still pony shaped, light devouring, glowing-eyed form.
 
                “Huh. Neat.”
 
                Dusk’s left eye twitched, reverting back to her Earth Pony disguise before running off, tears glistening down her face. Understanding only that she had been caught and making for the only safe place in her spiraling world, her room down in the barracks and wanting only to hide away from the oncoming torches and pitchforks bound for her once Marri told somepony.
 
                Now alone in the corridor, Marri felt like she was missing something important, but she was already running on fumes, and, whatever it was, she wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it in the scant few minutes she had before she was going to pass out. So, with a small effort of will, Marri started, again, on her path to the showers, making sure to scribble a note into her locker for her to reread in the morning after she’d gotten a good night’s sleep back in her extra-firm bunk.
 

[ the next day... ]

 
                Opening her locker door, Marri noticed the folded sheet of yellow notebook paper atop her uniform. Grabbing the enfolded, questionably-legible message, it read: Dusk. New Girl. Fur: Black. Mane/Tale: Dark Blue. Distressed that I know she is a shadow pony.
 
                “Oh dear,” Marri sighed, crumpling the message back into her locker before putting on her uniform. Then, exiting the locker room, she made for Time Stamp, the desk sergeant.
 
                Mr. Jolly Green himself, while a bit busy, assured Marri that he’d be sure to pass along her message to the new recruit: that she wanted to talk, and that she’d be taking her lunch break at precisely one o’clock.
 

[1:01 post meridian]

 
                Keeping an eye to the entrance, Marri sat alone, per usual, in her seat in the cafeteria’s leftmost corner, her back to the wall, giving her a full view of any potential threats without unnecessary blind spots. Taking another bite of today’s chicken, grilled, she watched as the midnight mare cautiously made her way inside and looking repeatedly over her shoulder, almost as if she expected someone to spring up on her.
 
                Grabbing a tray, Dusk filled it, making her way down the cafeteria’s lunch line as she scanned the room for Marri. Spotting the unicorn as she paid for the meal, she made her way timidly over to the table in the corner and sat down, her hands trembling too much for her do more than hold her fork.
 
                “So,” Marri said, keeping her voice respectfully low, watching Dusk ignore her grilled chicken, “being a shadow pony’s got you upset it seems.”
 
                “Please don't tell anyone.” Dusk whimpered, drawing in on herself “They'll hunt me down and kill me like that monster Sombra.”
 
                “Okay,” Marri replied, shrugging as slivers of violet flared under her mane into strings of magic that then spiraled down her arm to worm into the flesh of her wrist, whereupon it split cleanly from her arm, cold lilac flames extending the severed hand as she forked up another slice of chicken from her plate as the flames curled it back up to her mouth. Chewing quietly, Married reattached her wrist, letting the magic come to a sputtering close.
 
                “Wha...?” Dusk sniffed, staring at the, seemingly, healthy looking hand.
 
                “The guys back at the big top called me The Phantom of The Circus, but,” Marri said, looking up, “you could call it something a bit... monstrous. Though, that’s hardly a fitting descriptor given some of the things I’ve seen the foals around here pull off. Why, I’ve even heard that we’ve got a few ‘retired’ assassins on the payroll. Apparently, it takes all sorts here.” Taking another bite, this time without the aid of magic, she then added, “even you.”
 
Silently, Dusk looked down at her food, pushing it aimlessly around her plate, occasionally glancing towards Marri, still busy eating. Then, taking a breath, she asked, “Why are you being so nice to me even though you know my secret? My mom told me that ponies would have run away while screaming ‘monster’ if they found out... but not you. Why is that?”
 
“Because I am an actual member of S.P.D.” Marri replied flatly, forking up a new bite even as she continued to chew, “Serve and Protect. So don’t sweat the small stuff. If you don’t want anypony else to know, then they won’t. Now eat your chicken.”
 
Dusk looked back down, blushing at her foalish actions as the pit in her stomach finally started to unclench, and began to eat. Silently cleaning her plate, having skipped breakfast in her worry, gathering her nerves, she then asked, “So… what squad are you in?”
 
“A-Squad,” Marri replied, chewing for a few more moments before adding, “eventually.”
 
“I hope you make it,” Dusk smiled. “Oh, uh, I’m in B-Squad.”
 
“Well then, I’ll probably see you around,” Marri nodded, wiping her mouth.
 
“Want to go to the training simulators? We could work on our skills together.” Dusk suggested, her smile growing.
 
“Huh,” Marri said, standing up, “you know, I have been wanting to try Hell Week Protocol: Steeple Strike. It’s the only simulation I can’t do on my own.”
 
“What’s this ‘steeple strike’ thing?” Dusk asked, following beside her, stacking their trays into the ‘return’ pile.
 
“Oh, it’s the one where you and your opponent are placed on two small standing circles, and you're supposed to knock the other one off.”
 
“That doesn’t sound so-”
 
“From fifty feet up.”

“I see,” Dusk said, her gaze falling to the floor before a smirked wormed onto her face. “Challenge accepted.”