//------------------------------// // Chapter thirty two. Separate occurrences // Story: Shadow in the Dark // by Thestoryteller //------------------------------// The moon. The giant rock circling the earth that you will always see when you peer out of your window at night. Yes it is a truly wonderful, beautiful, and amazing thing. Or at least it was. There was a time that the moon was home to many creatures. Batponies, Shadow ponies, Moon ponies, and of course the famous Vampire Batponies. Back then the moon wasn't always a desolate and uninhabited place. I mean it was still a giant rock that floated in space, but there was life on it. Empires were constructed, King's and Queen's were crowned, and life was happy. And then Nightmare Moon was banished to the moon. And everything went to Tartarus. Nightmare Moon had completely annihilated everything on the moon. The once empires that stood high and proud on the empire were brought to ruin. The Shadow Knight's that protected the creatures of the Moon were wiped out, the Shadow Ponies fled to the Crystal Empire, the Batponies went into hiding, and the Moon Ponies were imprisoned on the moon along with Nightmare Moon. Yes the moon had become a horrible place after Nightmare Moon's banishment. And few had dared to set foot on its surface since then. But twelve ponies had dared to set hoof on the moon. They were Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, Thorn, Flash Sentry, Lightning Strike, Soarin, Ranger, and Silver Platter were all teleported to the moon. Since the battle for the Crystal Empire was still under way, Twilight had ordered the Guardian's to take back the Empire without hurting any live ponies. Fluttershy gave the same orders to her army as well. Once the twelve had all met up, Twilight teleported them all to the moon. Unfortunately teleporting to the moon is no simple task, so it wasn't that much of a surprise to everyone when Twilight collapsed from exhaustion. Her legs shook and wobbled as she tried to lift her weight. She was a bit surprised as Flash helped her up and wrapped her foreleg around his shoulder. "So Nightwing is in there huh?" Fluttershy asked, indicating towards the Lunar Arce. "Yep, he's in there alright." Lightning Strike said. "Wait!" Pinkie jumped. Darted her head from left to right, the shoved her nose to the ground. Inhaling deeply, she sniffed like she was a bloodhound. "What is it Girl? What'cha pick up?" Applejack asked. Pinkie slowly lifted her head from the ground. And bolted. Taking off at the speed of a bullet she sprinted towards the city in front of the Lunar Arce castle. "...should we follow her?" Ranger asked with hesitation. "Probably for the best, Celestia knows what might happen to those's she'll come across." Rainbow Dash said. "Don't you mean 'Celestia knows what might happen to her if she comes across the enemy'?" Ranger asked. "No." Twilight shook her head. The group the ran after the speeding demon known as Pinkie. In the city of Lunar Arce Cheese Sandwich wandered aimlessly through the town. Without any clue as to where he was. It was strange, one minute he was casually moon walking on the moon with his betrothed, Nightwing, and the next thing he knew he had awoken in a completely different part of the city with a capital L drawn on his forehead with a sharpie. He had to give the drawer some credit, his L's looked really spiffy. Cheese Sandwich the came to a halt. His hairs began to stand on end, his heart was pounding loudly, his stomach had butterflies inside of it. All signs pointed to one thing that Cheese knew all to well. But before he could even register a single action or word he was tackled by a pink blur. A ball of brown and pink rolled around the path until the ball unfurled and Pinkie landed on top of Cheese. "Cheesy!" Pinkie yelled gripping Cheese tightly and crushed him with a mighty bear hug. "Pinkie!" Cheese yelled gripping Pinkie and giving her a large bear hug of equal proportions. "I missed you so much Cheese." Pinkie smiled, slowly her face came closer and closer to Cheese's. She was about to kiss Cheese, until He placed his hoof on her muzzle. Somehow, he had put on a black tux. He looked away from Pinkie with a pained look on his face. "I cannot." Cheese said dramatically. "Cheese...whatever do you mean?" Pinkie asked. She too had somehow magically put on a white dress with white dress slippers and a white sinamay hat that had a pink flower tied around the top of the hat. "I am...betrothed to another." Cheese said, unable to look Pinkie in the eyes. A dramatic tone enters the area as Pinkie gasped. "Who is this scoundrel!" Pinkie demanded. "He...is..." Cheese paused. "You." Pinkie gasped once more. "Marry me Cheese Sandwich." Cheese turned away. "No." "Why?!" Oh screw this. bibbidi bobbidi boo, the rest of gang showed up. "Awwww, do you have to ruin our fun?" Pinkie whined. You were about to recite a scene from something that could've potentially gotten sued for. So yeah, I had to put a stop to it somehow. "But we were just having fun." Cheese said. And that's fine, but you can get in a lot of trouble for reciting things that are protected by copyright. "But-" No buts. There is no room in this story for butts. "Hehe." Pinkie giggled. "You spelled 'butts' instead of 'but'. ....you know what? I'm done. Do whatever it is you wish, just don't blame me when the space cats come to arrest you. "Space what now?" Cheese asked. "What are two talking about?" Lightning Strike asked. Both Cheese and Pinkie whirled around to the rest of the group that stood before them. Without a moment of hesitation, Cheese Sandwich leaped into the air and landed in front of everyone, with twelve straws in his hoof. Noticing the confusion on everyone's faces Cheese rolled his eyes. "What, have none of you crackers ever heard of drawing straws?" Cheese asked. "We've heard of it, but why are you offering to play it?" Twilight asked. "Look, there are twelve straws. Two with the number one on it, two with the number two on it, two with the number three on it, two with the number four on it, two with the number five on it, and two with the number six on it. Nightwing is somewhere in that castle and I'm pretty sure that he could be anywhere. So we should all split up and try to find him." "I guess that's a good idea, but there's thirteen of us and only twelve straws." Flash stated. "Then there'll just have to be an odd guy out, any takers?" Cheese asked. Ranger stepped forward. "I think I should do it." "Wonderful, now everyone draw straws and let's do this." Cheese smiled. Twilight cursed under her breath, understanding why Nightwing didn't exactly get along with Cheese in the first place. It had only been ten minutes and in that time Cheese had already stated three fourths of the dictionary. The numbers of those who were chosen in order, Silver Platter and Rarity got the number '1' Lightning Strike and Applejack got '2' Flash and Fluttershy got '3' Soarin and Rainbow Dash got '4' Pinkie and Thorn and Ranger got '5' And Cheese Sandwich and Twilight got '6' Once the everyone had their numbers chosen they all set off in different directions in hopes to find Nightwing. The moment that Twilight knew that everyone was drawing straws she immediately disapproved of the method. The entire point of the method was to create random teams of two. Their was no strategic methods involved, it was nothing more than random guessing. And that of course irritated Twilight. And more irritation was piled on as Cheese kept on running his mouth about the inside's of someone named 'Dr. Seuss'. "Hey, stop thinking about how irritating picking straws is and focus." Cheese Sandwich said, getting right up in Twilight's personal space. "Huh?" Twilight asked curiously. Cheese shook his head in disappointment. "Your so busy with your head in the clouds you failed to notice the giant door that's right in front of us." Cheese pointed to the large black double door that stood before them. "Seriously, you must be really high, because I don't think anyone could've missed that. I mean look at the size of that thing, how could you not see it?" "Quick patronizing me." Twilight grumbled, using her magic to swing the doors open. The two entered through the door and walked into a room. A large one at that. A torn red rug that stretched from the door the two entered in all the way to the other side of building laid beneath their hooves. "It's about time." Both Cheese and Twilight instantly braced themselves for combat. Twilight's lit with purple magic and Cheese pulled out his signature anti-tank rifle 'Da Penetrator'. From the the far end of the room a pony walked along the red rug. But it was no normal pony, in fact it had been the very pony in which the two were trying to find. "Nightwing?" Cheese asked the pony, lowering his cannon, or Da Penatrator as he liked to call it. Indeed it was Nightwing. The Vampire Batpony with red eyes, dark grey fur, and dark blue mane and tail. Along with a very unhappy look on his face. Yep that's him. "What the Tartarus do you two think your doing here?" Nightwing asked. "Actually, more importantly, how did you two get here?" "Would you believe me that if I told you that we got here because you brought me here and that princess Twilight brought others here because she has a teleportation spell capable of transporting multiple ponies from point A to point B?" Cheese asked. "Um...yes?" Nightwing said half confidently. And was then shot with in the chest by a purple beam. The beam plowed Nightwing through multiple pillars before he was practically engraved into the wall parallel to Twilight and Cheese. Cheese was a bit suprised by the sudden outburst of Twilight and turned to her and asked, "Wow, you must be really really smart. I mean, I had no idea that you even had the slightest thought that the pony right before us wasn't the actual Nightwing but in fact was an imposter." "That wasn't the actual Nightwing?" Twilight asked, half suprised and half disappointed. "...okay...moving on." Cheese said turning to the Nightwing imposter. "Hey you." Cheese shouted to the imposter. You can drop the act now, we know that your not Nightwing. Good try though." A light purple ring appeared around the Nightwing imposter. The ring began to skim it's way down from the imposters head all the down to its hind legs. Revealing that it was Starlight, big surprise. Slowly, Starlight began to pull herself from the wall she had been forced into. She fell to the floor, her injured limbs shook and trembled as they tried to support the weight of the ponys body. "I knew that many ponies disliked Nightwing-" "Dislike doesn't even come close." Twilight said, practically demanding that Starlight change the word she had just used. "Hate-" "He wished" "Despise-" "Yeah right." "Loathe?" "I suppose that's closest estimate." Twilight said, not complete satisfied with the word. Starlight held her head with her hoof in frustration and said, "For crying out loud, how many enemies does this one pony have?!" Starlight demanded. "Let's see." Cheese paused, pulling out a book and a pair of readers glasses which he placed on his muzzle. He opened the cover and licked his hoof. Turning the page he adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. "Let's see, there's Celestia, Twilight, Whomever is in charge of this whole scheme thing, that one pony who kept him as a slave for two years, Cerberus, about half the demons in Tartarus, some guy named Micky, everyone one associated with the Democrats, Dairy Queen, some country called Turkey-" "ENOUGH!" Starlight shouted, her magic blew away the book and Cheese's glasses. "Boy...the library's gonna be very mad after I show them what happened." Cheese sighed. "Cheese." Twilight tapped his shoulder. "Evil pony right in front us." "Oh yeah. Don't worry Twilight I've got a completely awesome and full prove plan." Cheese said with complete confidence. "And this plan is?" Twilight asked. "Sacrifices must be made." "Wha-" Twilight was cut off as Cheese lifted Twilight from underneath and hoisted her high above his head. Standing on two legs Cheese screamed, "Here take a sacrifice!" And chucked Twilight at Starlight. When the two collided they both tumbled about as Cheese made his daring escape. "Have fun." He smiled as he dashed his way out the door. It was said that no sound could ever be heard on the moon. Of course this saying is false due to their being a breathable atmosphere and all. But the reason that saying exist's is because silence fell on the day all life on the moon ceased. Nothing moved. Nothing spoke. Nothing lived. There was only silence. And the ruins that were filled with the unbreakable silence. There was only on time that the unending and unbearable silence had been broken. The moment Nightwing had first set hoof on the moon. The silence had been broken by the click of a pair of hooves. Nightwing learned of his races extinction that day. He learned that his whole race had been extermination in the blink of an eye. It seemed impossible, practically unbelievable. How could a population of more than three million Vampire Batponies be pushed to the brink of extinction. Unfortunately Nightwing learned of that as well. A battle had taken place between the Shadow Knight's, the Sentinel's, and the Order. Each army had their reason to fight in the battle. The Shadow Knight's fought in hopes that they could defend themselves from the order. The Sentinel's fought to prevent the large army of Shadow Knight's from taking over Equestria. The Order fought to rid their land of the vermin they called the Vampire Batponies. In the end, the battle ended with all three army's troops dead. All three fell to the terror that all feared. Nightmare Moon. The creature had eliminated all three army's with hardly any problems at all. With their forces in ruin, an evacuation had been ordered to all Vampire Batponies to return to the moon for safety. Some refused. Others fled to the moon, seeking shelter from the Order. But when Nightmare Moon was banished by Celestia, she did not know that over three million souls had evacuated to the Moon. And as you might've guessed, They were all slaughtered. It wasn't until after Luna's return that the world learned of the extinction of the race. Not in any time or in any history had a race gone extinct. Not one, not These things Nightwing knew all to well. And he had walked through all of the ruins the were spread across the earth. And not one of them had anything that seemed like something that could be used to have destroy Equestria or something along those lines. And that puzzled Nightwing. He took a moment to look at his surroundings once more. He had been moved to a somewhat medium sized room. There wasn't any pillars, He had gone down three flights, and Moonstone was fiddling with some kind of device. He was still in brimstone chains, so for he time being he was stuck and could do nothing about it. Amongst the silence there was a form of awkwardness between both Soarin and Rainbow Dash. The two had been walking for an hour now without saying a word to each other. The two wanted to start some kind of conversation but couldn't think of a good way to start one. "Um-" the two said at the same time, making the two cringe. "You first-" the two said in unison once more. "So... Um..." Soarin's eyes wandered, not even daring to look Rainbow in the eyes. "Yeah..." Rainbow Dash looked down swaying her foreleg back and forth, kick up some rocks. "Dear God this is just...just no." A voice came from the shadows in front of Soarin and Rainbow Dash. "Who's there!" Soarin demanded. "Well that all depends I guess." A golden armored claw struck the ground. "By this time I suppose it's only natural for people to forget an old relic like myself." Another golden claw struck the ground, making Dash flinch just a bit. "My name is Bloodwing, I am a divine soldier of the Greyclaw family." A griffon armored in gold plated armor all over his body except for his face entered into the light. "And I know this might be a bit straight forward, but could you do me a favor and drop dead?" He asked. "Wha-Tartarus no!" Dash yelled, spreading her wings she took off, flying rapidly towards Bloodwing. And was immediately put to a full halt as Bloodwing grabbed her by the neck and shoved her towards the floor. She was pushed into the floor with a powerful force that was strong enough to make her one with the floor. "Dash!" Soarin yelled. Bloodwing's eyes glared down upon Rainbow Dash. She could feel his cold dead black eyes practically boring their way into her skull. "The average mare Pegasi is usually three times faster than the average of the stallion Pegasi. However-" Bloodwing removed his claw from Rainbow Dash's neck and caught Soarin's punch. "The average stallion Pegasi are normally stronger than the average female." A wicked smile began to spread across his face, his eyes staring deep into Soarin's. "But I think you and I both know that your no normal Pegasus." Soarin's response was a glare of his own. His pupils changed from emerald green to a dark yellow. A strange magical mist the same color of his pupils began to spill out of his eyes. The air around them became a bit thicker than normal and colder as well. Soarin lifted his other foreleg, a lightning ball formed above it. "I might not be the smartest in Equestria. But even I know what happens when lightning strikes gold." Soarin said, the ball of lightning began to flatten itself out and form a pike-like bolt of lightning. "Hmmmm." Pinkie 'hmmmm' as she closely inspected one of the cracked bricks that held together the remains of the ruined castle. "Well?" Ranger asked, anxiously waiting for her response. "Hmmmm." Detective Pinkie did another one of her world famous 'hmmmm's. She stroked her nonexistent beard, acting as though she was a wise hermit. Finally she lifted her head from the stone and faced Ranger. And she gave him a look that she never wished to give. A look of seriously serious seriousness. "You were right." She groaned. "We have been going in circles." Ranger sighed. "See what did tell you, I was sure that we had passed the rock fifty times now." "First of all mr. Over exaggeration, we've only passed it thirty one times, not fifty." Pinkie pointed out. "Second?" "Hm?" "What's the second thing?" "What second thing?" "You said first of all, that means you should have a follow up sentence to say." "Oh...well that's it." "Then don't say 'first of all' if you don't have a follow up sentence." "Okay fine, sheesh." Pinkie rolled her eyes. "So we've been currently going in circles for a while now, how do we know where to go?" "We could try to retrace our steps?" Ranger suggested. "But we've been going in circles all this time, we'll just get even more lost than we already are." Pinkie said. "Let's just go ask for directions." "From who?!" Ranger demanded. "This place looks completely deserted." "Well there's somebody coming this way, we could go ask him or her for directions." Pinkie said bouncing away. "I've got a bad feeling about this." Ranger groaned, walking after Pinkie. Outside of the castle, both Flash and Fluttershy were observing the buildings that stood in front of the castle. "So sis?" Flash looked to Fluttershy. "How have you doing, you know, running a kingdom and all." "It's not as hard as you might think." Fluttershy said. "The High Council is in charge of most of the paperwork and..." Fluttershy shook her head. "What am I doing?" "What do you mean, your having a conversation with me." "No not that. It's just that, this day has been so bizarre. First we were turned to stone, then we had to go to the Crystal Empire were an army of my Deer are fighting and I'm not there to help them, and now we're on the moon trying to find Nightwing." "Well...when you put it like that, today does seem like a pretty crazy day." Flash said. "Quite so." Flash and Fluttershy stopped. Both looked to one of the buildings that was somewhat still standing. On the roof of said building was a unicorn who was lying on the roof who both Flash and Fluttershy knew. "Comet Tail?" Flash raised an eyebrow. The unicorn stood up and leaped off the building and in front of Flash and Fluttershy. Revealing that the unicorn was indeed Comet Tail. But he look different, his mane was red with a black lining and his pupils were completely black. "Comet Tail...how did you get here?" Flash asked. "Oh you know used some magic here and there and just like that it I'm on the moon." "But-agh!" Flash cringed, a massive pounding entered his head. "What's the matter best bud, having a bad headache?" Comet Tail smiled. 'I think it's best that I take over Flash.' Dark Side said. 'Trust me, your not gonna want to see this.' Flash's mane turned black the tips turned crimson red, his eyes turned the same shade of red as his mane, and a smile grew on his face. He turned to Fluttershy and said, "Sorry about this, but I don't think you should see this as well." Fluttershy was about to say something but the words were unable to escape her mouth as a black tendril arose from her shadow and knocked her out. Making sure she was completely unconscious, Flash turned to Comet Tail. "It's been a while hasn't it Devourer?" "Indeed it has, Ravager." Comet Tail said. The two stared at one another. Wicked smiles worn on their faces, anxiously waiting for the other to make a move. They both knew that the fight that was about to start could only end one way. "So Moonstone." Nightwing spoke. "Why the clones?" "I told you before, I have no reason to discuss my plans with you." Moonstone replied. "I know that, but why clones? And more importantly why combine the DNA of Vampire Batponies and ponies?" "Did you even bother to listen to what I just said?" Both Moonstone and Nightwing had entered a elevator looking thing and we're heading down. And they had been going down for a while. It had been so long that Nightwing wasn't even sure if they were even on the moon anymore. "Somewhat, I have a good idea of what your plan is, but why the clones?" Nightwing asked once more. "Argh! It was a failed experiment okay?!" "So it was an experiment?" Nightwing said. "Let me guess, you thought that you could erase a ponies DNA and replace it with Vampire DNA. But you didn't account that DNA can't be removed, you can only add to it. Therefore you must've thought that if you added Vampire DNA that it would've overridden the pony DNA. But instead the two merged and created a hybrid, not a vampire or a pony. But instead it was mutation of both. Am I right?" "Shut up." Moonstone growled. "Now that I have a clear understanding of the clones, there's just one last thing that doesn't add up." His tone became serious as he looked directly at Moonstone. "Where do I fit in in this whole plan of yours?" Moonstone remained quiet. "That time you sent Clutterstep out to stop us from finding you base, you made sure that you killed both Flash and Lightning Strike. But not me and Comet Tail. Little did I know that you actually took Comet Tail when I was trapped in that dream world Starlight created. But why do you need me?" "I will be so easily tricked." Moonstone growled. "Really. You think that if you can ignore me you won't give me any details on your plan, well you are mistaken-" Nightwing was cut off as his body was thrown against the elevator wall. The chains began to tighten around him as Moonstone approached him. "Do not think that you can outsmart me, I have waited far to long for this day to pass and I will not let it be ruined by you." ding The elevator doors opened and Moonstone stepped out, levitating him to follow. When Nightwing got a glance at the new room he was in his eyes widened in shock. They had entered a large, no, a massive, no, a humongous room that seemed to capable of holding fifty hoofball fields. The room was shaped like that of a sphere, and in the center of it was a large shard of what had a close comparison to a complex crystal. Only, bigger. Circling around the large crystal was a steel walkway with railings. On the opposite side of the elevator door was what appeared to be a large tunnel that the large crystal could fit in. In front of the elevator was a strange looking wide control panel with all kinds of buttons and levers. The chains that Nightwing was bound by came to life. Stretching outwards toward the large crystal. "Even now it draws you to its very self." Moonstone said. "What is that thing Moonstone?" Nightwing demanded. "It is called Empyrion. The Master Crystal." Moonstone answered.