Midnight dropped his apparently useless shield, lashing out with a magical blast. A magical blast that did absolutely nothing to the approaching creatures. They didn’t even break stride.
Meanwhile, Diamond rushed the enemies approaching from her direction. Blacklight remained tight against her legs – these things looked like they were about her age after all – but her punches and kicks were still enough to send several sprawling.
She laughed, “This is the best they’ve got?”
Midnight snorted in frustration, “Given that we can’t seem to touch them…”
There was a momentary pause before both ponies glanced over their shoulders to check on the other’s situation. They blinked in unison. Midnight sighed, “I seem to have been relegated to support magic. As you were Captain.”
The alicorn spread his wings and took to the air, hovering ten hooves off the ground. The earth pony drew back to a position that was not quite under him, one that kept her enemies at an equal distance on all sides.
A particularly brave one darted in, lashing out at her, and she responded in kind, blocking with one forehoof while striking with the other. As both hooves passed through the flinching creature, Diamond’s eyes widened, and she threw herself into a sideways roll on honed instinct.
Her eyes narrowed as she regained her hooves. She had hit these things once, so what was different? She went on the defensive, dodging and slipping around her enemies as they grew emboldened.
She tried to stave them off, but they weren’t flinching as badly. They knew she couldn’t hurt them; her hooves would just slide through them like… Shadow!
That was what was different, the first time she had been slipping just slightly into shadow so that she could move faster. She had never used the trick for anything but a single rush in a straight line, but…
She shrugged. Now was as good a time as any to try.
Midnight watched as he floated overhead, layering protective and strengthening enchantments on Diamond. He swallowed nervously, but pushed the feelings away. He had to trust her, she had earned that much. He would intervene if she was seriously in trouble, but for now she was holding her own.
And then he saw that roguish grin, the one he had supposedly invented. He couldn’t help smiling at it. She had this. He didn’t know how she was going to win, but she had figured it out, that much was clear.
There are times on the battlefield when a pile of enemies will literally explode outwards from an individual. This wasn’t one of those times, but it was akin to it. Diamond stood again in the center of a circle of enemies, but this time, it felt different to all involved.
The balance of power was clear.
“No.”
“Ditzy, please, be reasonable.”
“No. No more Doctor. No more running.”
“Ditzy, please, think about Sparkler and Dinky.”
“I am. What kind of example are we setting for them?”
“Ditzy, please–”
“Ditzy, please, Ditzy, please, have you forgotten all the other words?”
“…Ditzy, I… You’re right. We can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep running off and abandoning our friends when things get to this point. We had to keep the girls away from the Darkness for as long as we could, but we can’t do that anymore. We can’t afford to and neither can they.”
The stallion took a deep breath. “That said, tonight we run. Tonight is different Ditzy. Tonight, nothing good happens. Tonight has a lot of ways it can go, all of them bad. Ponyville burns. Ponyville falls. Ponyville turns. Twilight and her friends die. Midnight falls to despair and Starless Night returns. And in the absolute best case scenario, dozens of foals are slaughtered in the streets.”
The pegasus leaned back. “W-What? No… No, there’s no way–”
“It’s the unfoals Ditzy.” The Doctor waited for a half beat while his wife processed that sentence, then added, “Tonight is the night they blow a hole in the universe.”
Ditzy sat there for a full minute while her mind raced. Then she stood up, trembling, and called out, “Girls? Pack your things, we’re taking a trip.”
Diamond was starting to get a little worried. This was too easy. These things didn’t know how to fight, they were relying completely on their ability to phase through attacks, something they couldn’t seem to do with her.
She was waiting for the bit to drop.
Midnight was making the same observations, but was significantly less worried. For now. They would just have to deal with things as they came. Until then, he just kept layering support spells on Diamond.
The earth pony’s ear flicked as his eyes narrowed. “Well that’s annoying. Still, I suppose it’s to be expected. After all, there must be some reason why she is the only mortal my master considers a worthy opponent.”
“I assume you refer to Black Diamond?” The alicorn replied.
“Yes. It would seem that while our protections against Midnight Star hold, Black Diamond is capable of fighting us.”
“That complicates things.”
“Not overly. She will be dealt with.”
The turning point, Midnight would later decide, was the blood.
It was an accident on all sides really. Diamond had been trying to subdue her foes without bloodshed, exactly as she had been trained. Her opponents certainly weren’t going out of their way to injure themselves. And then it happened.
One of the things tripped while she was trying to punch it. It was a good thing that Blacklight was still tight against her foreleg, otherwise her enemy would have lost its head. As it stood, the creature was left with a nasty gash in its cheek as its blood soaked Diamond’s weapon.
She hesitated momentarily after that, and when she resumed fighting, her style had shifted slightly. Midnight knew why. Blood changed things. Bleeding opponents were alive. Whatever these things were, they weren’t mere magical constructs, and their size indicated youth. It seemed that some dark sorcerer had forced what equated to foals into his service.
It was at about this point that Midnight decided that there would be no quarter for whoever was behind this.
There was a faint rustle, more a motion of wind than a sound, and when Midnight returned his attention to the battlefield, he found the fight had ended. Diamond had pinned one of her foes to the ground, and Blacklight was against its throat. Idly, Midnight noted that it was the same creature that she had cut earlier, the slice on its cheek still bleeding.
“Alright,” Diamond panted, “Now I’ve got some questions and you’re going to give me answers. If you don’t, well…” She lazily glanced down at her captive, “We all know I’m already a killer.”
There was a faint sound, somewhere between a buzz and a hum, but not really a drone. It was felt more than heard, and it accompanied the circle of enemies around her backpedaling several paces.
The next sound was quite audible. It was a battlecry.
Diamond rolled with the impact as she was tackled from the side. As she hit the ground, she melted into her own shadow, letting the filly who’d tackled her continue to roll across the ground as Diamond escaped. The ranger rose up as the other filly got back on her feet.
She was wearing a loose brown cloak that revealed nothing about her, the hood even covering her face. That didn’t matter, Diamond had seen her face when they had made contact. She had a cornflower coat, an azure mane, and silver eyes. She was also a unicorn.
Diamond didn’t bother with the dance. “Who are you?”
“We are the ones without a voice. The children of the futures that your kind stole from us.”
“My kind?”
“The born. The real. We are the ponies who are not because you are. Those who could have been, had things been different.”
“So what, you’re… un… ponies? Unfoals?”
“Yes. And we’re taking back what was taken from us. From tonight on, the future belongs to us, our master, and his allies.”
“Oh? And what does it take to be one of your master’s allies?”
The cloaked filly laughed. “For you? There’s no chance. He hates you too much.”
Diamond’s eyes narrowed. “So Demon Blood’s behind this.” She smirked. “Oh, don’t look so surprised, I don’t have all that many enemies on his power level yet, it wasn’t hard to figure out. Let him know I’m coming for him.”
The magic blast struck without warning. This filly was quick on the draw, that was for sure. It struck Diamond across the chest, pushing through the hardened shadows armoring her body. The jagged cut it left was roughly nine inches long, though fortunately not very deep.
It began healing instantly, shining with a dark blue aura. Midnight smiled from his position in the sky. “I might not be able to touch you foals, but my magic can still affect her.”
The cloaked filly stood still for a moment, then shook her head and snorted. “Retreat.” She looked at Diamond, and the black filly saw her face a second time. “This isn’t over.”
The filly vanished into the undergrowth with the rest of the unfoals.
On a hill outside of town, a tan earth pony colt’s eyes widened. “That’s…” The unfoal shook his head and turned to his companion. “Change of plans, Midnight Star and his Shadow are loose in the Everfree. We have to strike before they have a chance to return. Alpha priority targets are now to be ignored, focus on betas and gammas.”
The alicorn nodded. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, my sister just woke up. I’ll try to talk to her, but something tells me I’ll need to sedate her again. After that I will gladly help you burn this place to the ground.”