Shadows' Call

by NPP6

Chapter 17 - The Wall

Diamond… Diamond… Dia–
“Blacklight? Is that you?”
Yes.
“Y’know, I seem to remember Zap Apple mentioning something to me about how you wouldn’t talk to me very often.”
To be fair, I don’t think your career as a Shadow Ranger could really be considered “usual.”
“In other words it’s not her fault I keep needing to hear you.”
Pretty much.
“Since when are you sarcastic?”
Well I had to learn personality traits from somepony, now didn’t I?
Black Diamond sat up with a groan. She looked around, blinked, took a second look, blinked again, and then looked down at her hooves to make sure she hadn’t gone blind. She hadn’t. “Don’t suppose you know what’s going on?”
The last thing I remember is us getting thrown off that arch.
“Same. Guess that means we’re in that pit somewhere… or dead.”
I doubt it. This place seems too unpleasant to be Elysium and too boring to be the underworld.
“Okay, so why are you and I the only things around?”
I imagine there’s at least a floor, we just can’t see it for some reason.
“What, I can see my hooves, but not the floor? That’s not exactly how light works.”
But maybe it’s how darkness does?
Diamond opened her mouth to respond, then closed it. After thinking it through for a moment, she reached out with her shadows and deliberately felt for the Darkness.
She would later describe it like swimming. When you’re underwater, you don’t feel wet. Until it occurs to you that you should, you don’t even notice the water really. Until that moment, Black Diamond had not realized exactly how much darkness was around her.
Instinct told her to flee the threat, but it was everywhere, all around her it was the same… no, not quite. In that direction, it felt just the tiniest bit weaker. She reached out with a hoof, taking one step, two… just as she was about to give it up as a trick of the darkness, she felt something solid.
She rushed to it, knowing the safety having her back to something could provide. Running her hooves along the surface, she decided that this must be the wall of the pit. She waited for a while – she would never be sure how long – watching for a light to break through the darkness. None came.
Eventually she decided that she had to at least try to get out of here on her own. It was a while before she could come up with any ideas though, and when she did…
“Blacklight, I’ve got a really terrible plan.”
I like it already.
A few minutes later, a blade stabbed into the packed earth wall. It was followed by its counterpart, before being removed and reinserted a little bit higher up. After a few minutes of climbing using her blades as pitons and pushing herself up with her back hooves, Diamond paused to catch her breath.
Blacklight took the opportunity to broach a delicate subject. This is damaging your body Diamond, not just the climbing, but… doing it in this Darkness is making it worse. What if we let… Her get you out of here?”
Diamond considered it. She really did. In another world, on where she didn’t have Blacklight, one where she never became a Shadow Ranger, she would have asked herself the same question. And in that other world, she would have given the only answer she thought she could, surrendering to the being she named Dark Demise so that she could save her friends.
Even in this world, it was tempting. She could just give up, give in, and her goal would be accomplished for her. It would be so easy, all she had to do was say–
“No.”
In a secluded corner of the ethereal plane, Midnight smiled. Atta girl.
“I appreciate the concern Blacklight, but I can’t let her out. Not ever. She is my nightmare, nopony else’s. And she doesn’t get to come out and play just so that I don’t have to push myself as hard. I will take her to my grave with me before I let her have even an instant of freedom.”
As Diamond continued her climb, her focus was such that she never noticed that there was just a little less darkness around her.

The stallion cowered against the wall as the dragon stalked forward, green eyes glowing with a flame rivaled only by the ones the stallion had seen him breathe out.
“A month ago some of your friends took two fillies from this town. The black one is my sister and the white one is the sister of a pony I care about a lot. Where are they?”
Both parties ignore the puddle forming under the stallion. “P-please! I-I don’t know anything!”
“LIAR!!!”
The cultist dropped to the ground, clasping his forehooves over his head. “Please! Please! I can’t tell you! If I say anything, they’ll kill me!”
Green flames licked the edges of the dragon’s mouth. “And just what do you think I’m going to do if you don’t?”

In a mostly empty cavern, a small black filly opened her eyes slowly. There were machines all around her, including one holding her. They were spitting sparks and magical energy where mechanisms and rune lines had been broken.
In short, somepony had done a number on this magitech, and she had finally woken up.
Gingerly, she stood, stretching out muscles that were rather stiff from her long imprisonment. After taking a moment to make sure all her parts were where they were supposed to be, Nyx picked a tunnel at random and trotted into it.

After a few moments of waiting for a response, Spike nudged the stallion’s head with his foot. When nothing happened, he threw his eyes skyward. “Why do they keep fainting at that part?”
Twist and Sparkler stepped out of the shadows. “Would you huth really killed him?” The former asked.
Spike turned to her. “Black Diamond told me that Nyx needed me to be a dragon, and I feel like most of the dragons I’ve met would, but… I don’t know?”
“That’s probably the most truthful answer you can give.” Sparkler pointed out.

Diamond was gasping for lack of breath and abundance of pain as she cleared the last few inches. Blacklight slipped quietly back into her shadow so as to not be in her way as she dragged herself over the cliff.
The filly rolled over after she arrived on horizontal ground, ending up on her back. She opened her eyes…
And found herself staring into the shocked face of the stallion who had thrown her into the pit she had just climbed out of.
“Heh,” The unicorn shook his head. “You have to be the single most impressive filly I have ever met.”
“Does… that mean… you’re ready… to give up?” Diamond panted out.
“No my dear, I am afraid that Cunning, Pupil of Blood’s Eye does not surrender. Not even to those who have his master’s rarely gifted respect.”
“Oh… is Ghosty… here too?”
“Unfortunately, no. Lord Demon Blood has had to pull all of his energies back to Tartarus for the ritual. Worry not though, he will greet you in the flesh soon enough.
“So that… is the plan…”
“Yes. And it will soon be accomplished… Even if our campaign in Ponyville has hit some snags that Vengeance failed to warn us about.”
“Is not my fault! I am only colonel! Only able to access colonel’s records! What we hear over communicator spells obviously work of Special Forces. Must be classified! I only able to access records made by those my rank and below, that way guard works!”
“I’ll stop you.” All eyes turned back to the black filly.
“I’m afraid not young one. The only pony with any chance of that is–”
“Sir! The alicorn filly is loose! The Warrior of Night has escaped!”
“Oh!” Featherdown smirked from where she and Page Turner were chained up. “Did I do that? Oopsie!”
Cunning shot her a glare before rounding on the cultist delivering the news. “Tell me, how is it that after months of preparations, after deceiving the guard, after modifying the memories of the workponies carving out our lair so that they actually believe they’re working on that ridiculous ‘subterranean railway’ we conned the city into letting us ‘build,’ after pulling off our entire operation under the nose of the princesses themselves, HOW is it that a pair of fillies manage to derail everything in a single night?”
Featherdown snorted. “That’s easy, adults are incompetent.”
“One finds it difficult to argue with the sentiment given the circumstances.” Cunning growled. His attention turned to the assembled cultists. “That filly is the only one who can stop us. Get those unicorns into the spell circles, and then get out there and find her!”
Featherdown and Page Turner were dumped unceremoniously into a pair of geometric designs on the ground. Diamond meanwhile, had a pair of manacles placed on her forehooves with the chains connecting to a large metal ball.
The cavern promptly proceeded to empty itself of cultists, leaving only Cunning with the three foals. He facehooved. “I am an overglorified foalsitter.”
“And you have to watch us too!”
“Again, I find it difficult to argue with you.”
Okay Diamond, think. Cult Rule #37: All Cultists are inherently supremacists. Supremacist Rule #19: All Supremacists are inherently egotists. Egotist Rule #46: The easiest way to gain an advantage over an egotistical villain is to get them talking, preferably monologuing. “Question.”
Cunning turned to the now-somewhat-less-winded Black Diamond. “Yes?”
“That’s the second time I’ve heard you ponies say that Nyx is the only one who can stop you. The last time a prophecy got mentioned. I was just wondering if you could tell it to us, since we haven’t had a chance to hear it yet.”
“Fair enough. You have at least earned that much. Besides, we have a while yet before the release spell is ready. This prophecy is over seven hundred years old. Listen with care, because there is true power in these words. Some say that Asteralda herself had a hoof in crafting this rhyme…”

Subtlety gave a single bark of laughter as he closed the doors behind him. Somehow, some impossible way, he had made it through that gauntlet of terror to the crystalline castle on the outskirts of town. He allowed a little more laughter to escape as the adrenaline died down, then turned to see what he could find here.
He froze at the very first thing. After a heartbeat, his mind caught up. He had always been prepared for this eventuality. He bowed, not able to keep a certain flair out of the gesture, but minimizing it enough that Princess Celestia couldn’t quite accuse him of mocking her.
“I throw myself on the mercy of the Crown.”
It was going perfectly, he felt. He heard a door open behind him, the sound of a fire crackling cheerily in a hearth telling him it must be a sitting room of sorts. This was the legendary kindness he was counting on being able to take advantage of. In “penitence,” he would turn Crown’s Evidence, betraying the entire cult if he had to. In mercy and gratitude, the Crown would grant him a royal pardon, and he could move on to his continued pleasurable existence.
And then his vision came screeching to a halt. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’m not the princess who you would appeal to for that. Your crimes are unfortunately out of my jurisdiction.”
Subtlety was visibly confused, but decided to roll with it. “Oh. My apologies. Well then… Could you please escort me to the correct princess so that I can throw myself on the mercy of her crown?”
“And just WHAT,” came a voice from behind him, “makes you even think that you would ever get mercy from me after you took my daughter away!”
Subtlety turned slowly, horrified as he realized that “crackling cheerily” was the absolute wrong way to describe the fire that was behind him.

Luna turned to the stallion sitting between her and the recently arrived Lace Heart. “Midnight, how is it that the Star of Prophecy has crafted words of power to release Demon Blood?”
Destiny coughed. “Actually, that’s my fault. A few mortals got their hooves on some of my cards… Tried using this insane ritual to bend my domain to their wills. Asteralda had to save me and tack that last stanza onto the end… She actually did that a lot with the dark prophecies, waited until the last minute to stick something hopeful on the end before the sorcerer involved could craft a countermeasure.”
Fate laughed, “There was that one time she was a little too quick on the draw though. She and that stallion went back and forth for a week. Two thousand verses by the time they were done. She only beat him by making the whole thing self-fulfilling and then destroying the trigger.”
Midnight looked at her in surprise. “When was this?”
“Oh, that one was a few centuries before you lot were born.”
“As I recall Fate, you weren’t very old yourself. You were what, twenty?”
“...mrgmr…”

“So that last bit was talking about me, huh?” Featherdown, Page Turner, Black Diamond, and Cunning all looked to see a purple maned black alicorn filly trotting out of a tunnel.
“You know,” Cunning said to nopony in particular, “I’m honestly considering surrendering to you foals just so that I don’t have to be continually pained by the blatant ineptitude of my brethren.”
“Seriously?” Nyx chirped, “You’d do that?”
“Consider it, yes. Take that course… no.” There was a flash of crimson as a spell lanced towards Nyx. Her dodge was decent, but her atrophied muscles betrayed her. For once, Technique’s slow development process worked in the favor of those he served. Had Nyx been put under the same suspension spells as the others, she would have been in better conditioning.
As it stood, she fell prey to the second blast.
“NYX!!”
Diamond’s scream shook loose some of the dirt on the ceiling with its sheer volume. Cunning glanced upwards in surprise. “Huh. Didn’t think about that. Countermeasures for cave-ins are now on my to-do list.” He turned to the earth pony struggling to drag her ball and chains across the dirt floor toward her friend. “Oh, and don’t worry about her, she’s only sleeping. My master was rather explicit that none of his sisters be harmed.”
“Sisters?”
Cunning turned to Page. “He speaks! And yes, sisters. I’m sure brothers would have been included too, but they’re all imprisoned as well, so…” He shrugged. “The point is, the alicorn is disabled, but unharmed.”
“…Not the other one.”
Cunning turned to Featherdown. “The other one?”
“Bloody Marely. Or Lace Heart if she’s normal again. She’s loose in here with us.”

Lace looked at her friends. “It’s better to let them keep thinking that, right?”
Afterburner shrugged. “I guess you’re not technically the Element of Honesty anymore, so why not?”

Cunning paled only slightly. This explained a few things. “I see… Well, that might be… problematic, however, not enough so. You see, the prophecy was quite clear. The Mare in the Mirror is not capable of defeating us.”
Diamond’s ear twitched. There was something about that… “Mirror?... Heart…” Her gasp was audible enough to cause Cunning to turn just as he passed between Featherdown and Page Turner where they stood at the entrance to the bridge.
“Alicorns.” Was the response to his questioning gaze.
“…Sun, Moon, Star, Shade, Blaze, Heart. Shade in stone, Blaze in fire, Heart in mirrors, and the first three in their own…”
“The alicorns are all imprisoned except for Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Nyx, and Cadance. Including Demon Blood. He’s the Alicorn of Tartarus, isn’t he?”
Cunning smiled. Most of the members of Blood’s Eye didn’t know that. “Yes. Yes he is.”
“And that corrupted him.” Eyes turned again to Featherdown.
“…We’re also the generation of alicorns that has to deal with the problem of Nightmares…”
“He’s a Nightmare, isn’t he? An alicorn of Darkness, his only form is the Nightmare, that’s why they had to seal him away.”
If Cunning didn’t know better, he’d have thought he was getting choked up. “You fillies… you are the only worthy opponents we have faced in all Equestria. You came so close… I promise you, that when I am the Right Hoof of Demon Blood, you both shall have places of honor under your new liege.”
Because Diamond’s “Patron” was Midnight, Poppinjay couldn’t protect her…
…Diamond’s “Patron” was Midnight…
“I already have a liege.” Diamond again found herself the center of attention. Her mind was only halfway on the conversation though, the memory had triggered a similar one.
“E’en if thou wert ours to have bow…”
“Oh don’t worry, replacing Celestia won’t be that hard. It’s not like you know her personally.” Diamond was more focused on the flashback than her conversational partner.
“…such would be unnecessary from one of thine rank.”
“When did I say anything about Celestia?” The memories were flowing unbidden now, trying to fit themselves together like pieces of a puzzle.
“…I only able to access records made by those my rank and below, that way guard works!”
“Who then? Luna? The purple one? This filly?”
“…I am known among the masses as Nyx of the Night…”
“No. None of them. I am a servant of Midnight Star!” The name was shouted as a battlecry, as the filly dove forward into a hoofstand, her manacles bulging and then shattering as Blacklight took his place back from the interlopers. The hoofstand turned into a hoofspring, and the filly landed several yards closer to Cunning than she had started.
Cunning stared for a moment, then closed his eyes and shook his head gently. “It seems,” He opened his eyes to meet Diamond’s gaze, “That I have underestimated you yet again, although at last I understand why. We thought your kind extinct Shadow Ranger.”
“Reports of our demise were greatly premature.”
“Clearly. This also explains why my master was worried when he detected the meddling of yours.”
“Not as worried as he should have been.”
“The prophecy is still clear though, only Nyx’s heir can stop us.”
That made Diamond pause. She had forgotten, in a brief, adrenaline filled moment, all about Nyx being…
I have just become the third Captain of the Shadow Rangers.
As the final piece clicked into place, Diamond began to laugh. It was slow at first, and quiet. Little more than a chuckle. Cunning became worried when it became a manic giggle. That feeling solidified to terror when the full-bellied bellow of laughter was echoing around the cavern.
“And just what is so funny!?”
Diamond smiled, but it lacked the genuine humor of her laughter. This was as predatory as the tone of her words. “Us. The Universe has been playing a joke on all of us, and I just got the punchline. Would you like me to share?
“You see, it all starts with you. With just the tiniest error of calculations. The moment when you decided that Nyx’s namesake was her heir.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, it was an easy mistake to make, if you only looked at this Nyx’s end of it. But you forgot all about the old Nyx. Do you know who she was? What she was?
“She was Nyx tis nýchtas, third Captain of the Shadow Rangers. The last one to know Midnight Star personally.
“Now for the punchline, the part I only just figured out. Let me introduce myself:
“I am Black Diamond, Captain of the Shadow Rangers and the first one to be trained personally by Midnight Star in a millennium.”
Cunning’s eyes widened in realization as the filly continued with a dark chuckle. “You spent this entire time chasing the wrong filly. Nyx Sparkle isn’t the heir of Nyx of the Night, I am. I am the Night Warrior you’re so terrified of.”