//------------------------------//
// Chapter 17 - Break of Dawn 
// Story: Shadows' Call 
// by NPP6 
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	Diamond charged while Cunning froze in shock. She made it within a few hoofsteps, raising Blacklight to deal a savage blow… And was then blown backwards by an invisible force as Featherdown and Page Turner screamed in pain.
It was enough to bring Cunning out of his stupor. He smiled gently at the filly on the ground. “The Warrior of Night indeed. You truly were our greatest enemy, the only true threat to us. But you’re still too late, the device has almost finished charging the spell, and you can’t get to it now.”
“Really?” Diamond picked herself up. “How’re you going to stop me?”
“I’m not.” Cunning shook his head, gesturing to Page Turner and Featherdown as he did. “They are.”
Featherdown snorted. “Right, we’re gonna help you.”
“Yes, whether you want to or not. You see, the two of you are powering an advanced self-contained barrier spell. You can’t leave your circles, and your friend can’t cross the line you create.”
Page Turner chimed in. “Wait a second, that doesn’t work. Trying to make a spell unbeatable like that… It would turn the power brittle, weaken it. She could just shatter it if she applied a little pressure.” Three sets of surprised eyes turned to him. “What? My talent is magical theory.”
Cunning shook his head. “Regardless, the spell is such that only those with the mark of Demon Blood upon their souls may cross the barrier as long as you two remain alive. In order to get past you, she would have to strike one of you down.”
Diamond kept her expression deliberately neutral as she ran through her options, inventoried her resources, and tried desperately to come up with a solution. In the end, she could only think of one, and it was one she didn’t particularly care for.
As Cunning walked away from her and towards the machine on the spire, she trudged over to Page Turner. “I’m sorry. But you know what I have to do. I can’t hurt my friend.”
He nodded, smiling sadly. “I get it. Just promise me you’ll make it worth it. Stop these bastards and save Featherdown, alright?”
“I swear it.” Diamond ran him through. 
“NO!!” The heart wrenching cry was enough to draw Cunning’s attention. He turned to see the point of Diamond’s blade sticking out of the colt’s back, the other end obviously in his chest.
“Huh.” He sat down rather sharply. “Did not see that coming.”
Featherdown continued screaming, pounding on the barrier hysterically. Page looked at her, then turned his head back to Diamond. “Take care of her.”
“Always.” Diamond let the colt slide off of Blacklight, slipping her weapon back into her shadow as she did. She looked down at him, hesitated for a moment, then drew a small black cube out of her shadow and leaned forward…
Just as the spell shattered. She bowed her head, then as Featherdown rushed over, she slipped a small black cube into Page Turner’s mouth. “Eat this, it’ll give you two time to say goodbye.”
Diamond left him as Featherdown charged forward, anguish transforming her face. “You can have your vengeance later, for now, don’t waste what little time he has left.”
“I hate you.”
“You knew the kind of nightmare I could become. I’m sorry that I had no choice.”
Diamond turned away from her friend and began stalking towards Cunning. “And as for you. Congratulations, you made me stab an innocent colt. Good job. Now the price for his blood is coming out of your flesh.”
Diamond charged the shocked stallion again, and this time it went slightly better. She managed to get several hits in, even chipping his horn. But in the end, she was thrown back by a spell she was too slow to dodge.
“You’ve fought well Captain,” Cunning’s voice was gentle as a light appeared around his horn, regenerating it. “But you’re not the only one with protective magic on them. And despite your sacrifices, you simply cannot go on. Admit it, even now you are fighting to simply stay conscious through the fatigue. You’ve been going too long; your body simply can’t keep up.”
“Then maybe I can help her out a little!” A blast of light slammed into Diamond, driving her to her knees. She looked back to see Featherdown standing over Page Turner’s body, smiling at her.
“Wha–”
“An energy boosting spell. You should be able to go one more round, but after that… it’ll all hit you at once.”
Cunning blinked, raising a hoof in confusion. “Excuse me, but didn’t she just stab your best friend? Since when are you two friendly again?”
Page Turner groaned as he rolled over onto his stomach, lifting himself slowly onto his hooves. “Since we figured out that that cube she fed me was doing more than leaving my mouth tasting like sugar.”
As the spell fell apart, Diamond ducked her head to hide her relieved smile. Her gamble had paid off. She looked down at the black cube she had been about to use, silently grateful that she wouldn’t be wasting it.
She couldn’t take any risks though, for all she knew she had to keep the spell fooled. Returning her expression to neutral, she looked up and put the cube in Page Turner’s mouth…



Fate sighed, pulling out a pair of shears. She paused as she sensed the tension in the air, looking around the group. She rolled her eyes. “Relax, I’m not gonna pull something like that with you all here. If you’ll excuse me though, I need to go make sure my father doesn’t do something stupid. Any help you can give would be appreciated Destiny.”
The older of the two sisters nodded, calling the Death card out of one of the windows and holding it down with her hoof. Fate smiled, sliding the two blades of her shears apart as she vanished.



In the cave, Fate appeared just in time to block the scythe with her knives. A kick was delivered, driving the old stallion back a pace. With some distance now gained from the foals, Fate began her duel with Death, unseen by those around them.
“What was that cube anyway?” Page asked.
“Some special medicine a friend named Poppinjay gave me.”
Cunning resisted the urge to facehoof. “Poppinjay? Really? The Alicorn of Foals? Just how many of those imprisoned meddlers helped you get here?”
Diamond shrugged. “No idea, there were probably a few who didn’t introduce themselves.” Fate shot the filly a smile while Death rolled his eyes, leaning on his scythe while he waited for somepony he could claim. As unseen as the other two, Destiny made a brief appearance to drag her family members back to her home. “But there were enough that I can’t let everypony’s hard work go to waste. I’m going to stop you.”
“I doubt that. Perhaps you had a chance once, but now? You’ve become corrupted. You’re no hero, my master and I have both seen the darkness in your heart.”
“Yeah, and you know what should terrify you about that? So have I.” In another version of this story, those last three sentences marked the point where Diamond Tiara was completely eclipsed by Dark Demise. As things now stood however…
Blacklight slid into attack position as Diamond continued. “And you know what? It’s staying there, where I can control it, bind it. And if I can keep my Nightmare locked away in my heart, then think about what I can do to yours.” As she stepped forward, she realized that something felt… off. She ignored it as a side-effect of the energy spell and willed her back legs to walk normally instead of the tight… something they were trying to do.
For a split second, Cunning was worried. For a brief instant, he wondered if this filly might not be able to bring about the end of his plans. Then he saw something in one of the tunnel entrances and shook the feeling away with a sinister smile. “Maybe you can. You’ve certainly proven you’re capable enough, perhaps you could defeat me and stop my plan. But can you stop all of them as well?”
Taking their cue, cultists poured into the cavern. There were roughly thirty of them, having called in every member of Blood’s Eye within ten miles of Manehatten to deal with the “little emergency.”
“So what are you going to do now Ranger? Surrender seems your only option.”
“Diamond!” Featherdown shot her friend a grin. “Don’t worry about these bozos, we’ll take care of them. Just end this!” Page Turner tried to add something, but stumbled as he tried to step forward. Gently helping her weakened friend to first his knees and then the ground, Featherdown amended her declaration, “Okay, I’ll handle these bozos.”
“Hah,” One of the cultists laughed, “The filly’s gonna try to ‘handle’ us? Her and what army?”
There was an audible ring of hoof striking skull. “You idiot! Why do you keep helping them like that? Are you even on our side?!”
His response was pre-empted by a loud “CHARGE!!!” as almost sixty foals poured into the room, a white unicorn filly leading the way.
Featherdown found herself gaping in shock. “How…”
Sweetie Bell and two of the older foals were on lookout at one of the entrances. They could hear bits and pieces of what the cultists were planning, but didn’t dare try getting closer for fear of being seen. Then they heard somepony gallop up and – fortunately neglecting to modify his volume – state, “Come on, we need to get everypony to the central cavern. Some of the foals have Cunning trapped and we can’t risk them interrupting the summoning.”
By the time the other two looked, Sweetie was already following the regrouping adults, and surprisingly quietly at that (She had actually done quite well when the Crusaders tried for their ninja cutie marks). The two older foals exchanged a nod, and the colt followed her while the filly went back to get the other foals.
Featherdown shook her head with a smile. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. The point is…” She found a piece of chain lying on the ground and hefted it in her magic, silently hoping that this wasn’t going to become a thing. “…We’ve got this.” She charged into the fray.
Diamond turned to Cunning. “I guess this is it then. Let’s finish this.”
“Agreed.” Cunning drew a rapier from under his cloak.
Diamond took a deep breath, steadying herself. Around her, the world went silent, and then...
Diamond lunged, leaving a single poof of dust in the place she vacated and an ultraviolet trail in the wake of her blades. The battle was met and flowed. Right hook, spin and drop, left roundhouse guillotine kick, right yourself, cross block, straight kick, jump, double axel, leg sweep, dodge back, back hoofspring, brace and brake. Diamond slid to a stop an inch from the edge, immediately rushing forward again.
Cunning took a step back to absorb the impact as he caught the filly’s blades on his own, then began to press an attack of his own. Uppercut, slash from left, stab, parry, feint, block, whoops, duck her back hooves.
Diamond concluded a full rotation of spinning around the sword locked in her blades and dropped to the ground, pressing her advantage. Sweep with blades, step, uppercut, Yes! Caught him on the chin. Block with rear blades, drop, tight hoofspin, buck, tumble and pop.
Cunning took another step back as the filly’s rear hooves caught him in the face, further aided by the rapier that was caught in her blades until that moment. His own blade cut his cheek as the filly finished spinning on her hoof and rolled to one side, jumping up and dashing in again while his guard was weakened. He was obviously on the defensive now. Block, dodge, duck, stab, backstep, block, parry, riposte, sidestep, backstep, step, stab, backstep, block, block, back…
Cunning’s surprise at finding himself at the edge gave Diamond all the opening she needed. Her crosscut shattered his sword, and then her hoofsweep brought him down. The stallion looked up to find the tip of her blade between his eyes, pushing just hard enough to draw a single drop of blood.
“Yield.” The filly whispered.
Cunning smiled at her. “My dear, to make that demand you have to be in a position of power. Which you are not. You see, you can’t do anything. If you kill me, the enchantments on my cloak will take you with me. Cut my horn off and the enchantments will regrow it. Throw me over this edge and you can’t be sure I won’t be empowered further by the Darkness in this pit. Continue this stalemate long enough, and my master will arrive to end it. Leave me as I am and I will keep you from stopping us, defeating you the instant your back is turned.”
Diamond considered him for a moment. When the pressure of her blade eased, he smiled at her. A smile that was cut off as abruptly as his forehoof as she slashed through it. “Go ahead, focus enough to use magic through the pain.”
She turned away from the screaming stallion to face the device that they were now only a few yards away from. “How do I stop it?”
The stallion looked up at her, still clutching the bloody stump of his leg. “You… you can’t. I told you… you’re too late.”
Diamond changed her response when the crystals ringing the thing started lighting up. “What does that mean?”
“It’s starting,” Cunning sighed.
Diamond didn’t bother asking. There was only one “it” to start. “Fine then, I’ll just break this thing like I’ve broken all your other toys.”
Cunning laughed, his sanity slipping due to both the pain and the Darkness pulsing around them. “No you won’t… The energy backlash… would level Manehatten… Even you can’t… cause that much slaughter.”
Diamond frowned. “Why is it shaped like an ice cream cone?”
“WHAT!? The release cannon… looks nothing… like dessert!”
Diamond looked at him. “Cannon?” A smile crept onto her face. “It’s aimed isn’t it? That’s why you said that Demon Blood had to pull back to Tartarus, this thing is pointing at his prison. That means all I have to do is adjust the aim, make sure it misses.”
More laughter. Cunning no longer lived up to his name in any fashion. “It’ll never work! Without an alicorn to absorb the energy with their release, the cannon’s beam will annihilate everything in its path! From here to the end of existence!”
“Alicorn? You didn’t… you did, oh yes you did!”
“Stop smiling! You have no way to win! STOP SMILING!”
“Oh, but don’t you see, it’s funny! You keep making the exact same mistake, over and over and over. You keep putting me in no-win situations, you can’t win this duel, you can’t stop our plan, you can’t get past this barrier, yadda, yadda, yadda. Don’t you get it? I serve Hope you idiot! ‘Can’t’ is like catnip for us! No-win situations are what we live for! And you’ve gone and done it again, given me everything I need!”
“What are you talking about?! You are going to die here at the hooves of my master, and then Equestria will be bathed in blood!”
“No. Maybe I die, maybe I don’t, but I’m going to take one last chance.” Diamond walked up to the device and began pulling levers and spinning wheels, the cone suspended in the center moving as she did so. “I’m going to bet that you didn’t make this specific to Demon Blood. That it works on all Alicorns.”
“Even if that were true, you wouldn’t dare risk millions of lives on the off chance that you might be able to point it in the right direction!”
“Oh trust me, there’s no chance there. I can feel his light in the brightest of days, do you really think that a few yards worth of dirt and rock can keep me from knowing exactly where the Midnight Star is?”



Death, Fate, Destiny, Luna, Afterburner, Lace, and Shade all turned to stare at Midnight. “For the record,” his voice was quieted by shock, “I didn’t plan on that at all.”
Death shook his head at his oft-time opponent. “Just get going, you’re more fun when you’re corporeal anyway.”
Midnight nodded, still slightly numb, and then turned and walked through an enormous version of his cutie mark, blinking across the universe to pull himself back into his star.



Cunning stared at the filly in front of him as the device she was manipulating powered up fully. He saw her lips move, a single word that was stolen away by what happened next.
The cannon fired, a beam of light lancing up at an angle into the roof. A wave of energy washed out from it, sending everypony it contacted into dreamland. Unseen by those battling in the cave, a brilliant dawn broke over Equestria, made unique by a lightshow in the skies over Manehatten. What most of them did see was a brief glimpse of the raw dreamscape before they slipped into their own. For them, the world went white.
Black Diamond Tiara on the other hoof would forever say that as she lost consciousness at the epicenter of the blast, her world went blue.