Glimpses

by Pen Stroke

Variance 3 - Blessed

The basement stank of old cedar and musk, but none in attendance complained. It was humble, but it was their sanctuary away from the prying eyes of the public and even their friends and families. None would understand their purpose. All were too blinded by the regime of indoctrination that washed over Equestria every second of every day.

Silent Shepard didn’t care, however. The belief of their members was stout. They would not be swayed, and slowly, their numbers would grow as more and more ponies questioned the status quo. He tapped his hoof against his podium, and the few dozen ponies in attendance fell silent. The small basement beneath Silent Shepard’s bakery was not much of a church to their queen, but they took care to make the most of the space.

“For the night eternal,” Silent Shepard said to his flock.

“For Equestria’s true queen,” the ponies replied, before they sat on the low and simple pews that occupied most of the room’s floor space.

“Welcome again, brothers and sisters, as we come to speak and hold in our hearts Equestria’s one and true queen,” Silent Shepard said with a smile as he spoke to the congregation. “Yes, we come to commune together to speak of her wisdom, her strength, and her beauty. We, who are her blessed children. Everypony, feel the blessing and let it manifest.”

Silent Shepard closed his eyes, rolled his shoulders, and felt a shiver crawl up his spine. When he opened his eyes again, they had changed to an almost luminescent turquoise, though the pupils were still round. Every other pony did the same, all of them soon sharing the same eye color.

“Yes,” Silent Shepard said with a smile. “Yes, we are all her children here, for we all feel the rekindling of her sacred blessing. The time will come again for the beauty of the eternal night, but next time, we must hold our true queen in the highest regard. It was our weakness. It was our faults that disappointed her. It was us who drove her to return this kingdom to the rule of the unworthy sisters. It was our failures that led her to take away her most sacred of blessings. Yet she did not forsake us. She wished only for us to mature, to once more grow ready for her eternal rule and the eternal night.”

“For Equestria’s true queen,” the congregation said again, muttering it as if the ending to a prayer.

“And our queen prepares for her return to power by continuing to play the innocent, to hide in plain sight of our enemies while sending us, her faithful, her true wisdom. Behold, the gospel of our queen as released this very day.” Silent Shepard reached within his podium, his hoof grasping and lifting up a thick paper square. It was a record sleeve, the front of which was decorated with a skeletal alicorn walking on what appeared to be the surface of the moon.

Silent Shepard smiled as he turned the album slowly so that all could clearly see the cover. “Yes, the new gospel has been released. Our queen and her closest acolytes speak once more to us through the subtle interpretation of their lyrics and melodies. This is why we gather here today, to begin our sacred duty. So let our queen’s words be played. Let us hear her sweet voice as she speaks to us as a queen, as a mother, as a goddess.”

“For Equestria’s true queen,” the congregation repeated as a few members stood. The album was taken from Silent Shepard. The vinyl record was carefully removed and placed on a simple, spring driven record player. The arm was cranked, the needle was placed, and the horn was turned towards the congregation. Soon, after a few moments of popping and scratching, the music began. Hard drums, driving guitar, subtle choral voices, and other tones mixed together into a style that the band, Nightmare, had become semi-famous for.

The congregation bobbed their heads to the beat. They shut their eyes, and sat silently absorbing the album. No words were shared between songs. The brief reprieve between the tracks was taken as a moment of silent meditation. Silent Shepard himself remained at his podium, simply observing his brothers and sisters with a subtle smile. Surely, this album would be the one where their queen would reveal her plan for finally overtaking Equestria once more. The album art gave them a hint that they would, perhaps, launch their attack from the place of their queen’s long imprisonment: the moon.

Then came a slam, which caused the needle on the record to skip. Eyes opened around the room. Some looked to the record player, others looked to Silent Shepard. His eyes were focused on the stairwell that led down to their hidden sanctuary. The slam came again, and bright sunlight flooded the stairwell. Silent Shepard opened his mouth to shout, to warn his brothers and sisters, but it all came too late. A flashing blue-red spell zoomed down the staircase, and the moment it hit the floor, the room was flooded with a blinding light and an ear-piercing bang.

“They’re bringing them out. Get the camera ready.” She had pad and pencil in magic, jotting down notes at a mile a minute. Yet, there were no camera flashes occurring next to her. Her eyebrow twitched in irritation before she brought a hoof to her lip and blew a loud, piercing whistle.

“What!? I’m awake… where am I?” The photographer stammered, his wings twitching as he glanced around.

“Shutter, focus. Police raid. Relapsers. Take pictures. Make money. Make headlines. Go.”

The sidewalk gray pegasus, Shutter, groaned, nudging up the neck mount that held his camera and lowering his head to the eyepiece. “Right. One of your sources actually turned out to be legit. Are you sure I’m not still dreaming? ”

“Save the comedy for your stand-up classes,” Byline Bloom said as she pressed herself against the police barricade. Her more energetic mood compared to Shutter was reflected in her more vibrant colors. Her yellow coat almost blended with the chest high, yellow magical barriers being projected by unicorn officers keeping the crime scene secure. Her lighter, tulip yellow mane was pulled back in a ponytail, ensuring not a single hair would get in the way of her eyes.

She made a note for each relapser that came out the door. There was one after another, and whenever it seemed to stop, it was but a delay in the stream. Most of the ponies she didn’t recognize, but she could spot a few that were well known enough in the area. The familiar ones had their faces on advertisements or were in the papers for one reason or another. It was a diverse group, with the only common thread between them being their excellence in their individual fields and careers.

You couldn’t be a relapser, at least not yet, unless you had been originally infected, and you were only infected if you were one of the best at something.

Each pony arrested was properly bound. Hooves were cuffed, magic was blocked, and wings were bound to ensure almost zero chance to escape. The last of the approximately three dozen was the pony who owned the bakery that was above the basement. He had a cardboard standee of himself welcoming customers in, though the standee looked a lot happier than the real pony was at the moment.

“So did we just chase the police here, because I don’t count dumb luck and siren chasing as a ‘legitimate’ news source.”

“Can’t you spare me your skepticism until after we’re done?” Byline asked, not looking up from her notebook.

Shutter took a photo of all the arrested ponies lined up on the street before lowering his camera. “Nope, you pulled me out of bed. You get skepticism at full blast.”

“My friend told me a customer he was waiting on at the cafe today wouldn’t stop complaining about music.” Byline paused from her note writing to glance at Shutter. “Someone in the mare’s building was blaring music every Friday for hours on end for the past two months. The same music, the same band, and at the same time, like clockwork. The building manager couldn’t do anything about it because it wasn’t any of the apartment tenants.”

“So? Manehattan is a noisy city. What made you think that was a good tip?”

Byline smiled, levitating her pencil to tap Shutter’s camera before pointing back at the crime scene. “It was a good tip because of which band the mare said was being blared. I tracked her down at the restaurant tonight, got the whole story. It was going to be perfect. We would catch these relapsers sneaking in and out of the basement. It would have been a big story. We would have broken this open before the police even knew.

“But I guess that mare filed a noise complaint,” Byline said as she glared at the nearest officer.

Shutter brought his camera back up, though he was just looking through the viewfinder in search of another picture. “Oh yes, what a horrible police department we have. They’re actually doing their jobs. Those monsters.”

“I thought I was getting skepticism, not sarcasm.”

Shutter smiled. “It’s a combo platter of the consequences of dragging me out in the middle of a night, and there’s more to come.”

“Fine, just keep taking pictures,” Byline said as she went back to scribbling on her notepad. “We’re the only reporters here. This is an exclusive, and I want good pictures.”

Shutter rolled his eyes as he kept taking pictures. “This isn’t going to be some exclusive. The police will make a statement, will provide pictures, and every paper in Equestria will be running it before the day is out. This is just another relapser cell.”

“No, I can feel it. Something is going to happen here,” Byline hissed.

“Make a hole,” a third voice bellowed from behind the pair. Byline, like some of the other onlookers, glanced back, but she was the only one to smile. A pony was approaching the police barrier. It was Manehattan Police Chief Siren. She had seen him enough in person and through pictures to be able to recognize him even blocks away: light blue coat, aged white mane and mustache, and gray trench coat. He was flanked by a pair of earth pony officers, and he did not look at all happy. 

It was the perfect time to ask some questions. “Chief Siren! Chief Siren!” she said, scrambling away from the police barricade and towards the approaching chief. “Byline Bloom, Manehattan Gazette. Do you have any comments on this large bust of relapsers? Do you think there are any more groups in the city? Has there been any news on a permanent cure from Canterlot? Have there been any reports of the curse spreading beyond the original infected?”

Chief Siren visibly bristled and looked back at one of the officers escorting him. His hushed comment didn’t escape Byline’s ears. “How did these vultures get here so quickly?”

Byline Bloom just smiled, raising her voice a little to ensure she kept the chief’s attention. “A good reporter always has her sources.”

“Or gets damn lucky,” Chief Siren said. The unicorn officers maintaining the yellow barrier began opening a hole as the chief got closer. “Look, we are making no comments at this time. An official statement will be released in the morning. But I tell you what… If you just sit outside the police line without giving me a reason to arrest your flank, your luck might just pay off.”

“How so?” Byline tried to follow the chief through the barrier, but one of the officers accompanying him made sure she stayed outside while he stepped into the cordoned off street.

“Because you’ll get pictures I promised a lot of ponies weren’t going to get taken. So I didn’t see you, you didn’t see me, and you better leave my name out of your article.” With that, Chief Siren turned his back on Byline, trotting into the scene as the hole in the police barrier closed.

“What do you think he meant by that?” Shutter asked.

“I don’t know.” Byline began scanning the scene. There was obviously something there they could take a picture of, something that would be excluded or minimized in the official report. But what? Was one of the relapsers an important pony? Was there something significant about the location? Was there an implication that the relapser situation was going to get much worse after tonight?

“Uh… Byline?”

“What? I’m trying to see what Chief Siren was talking about.” She glanced at Shutter, but found he wasn’t looking at her. He had his camera to his face, pointing it skyward as he snapped pictures about as fast as his camera would allow. He even reached the end of his film, causing him curse and quickly scramble to replace the cartridge. It was only then that Byline looked skyward for herself, her eyes locking on a set of winged figures silhouetted by the ever glowing lights of Manehattan's skyline.

Four pegasi officers were flying in a tight formation around what looked to be a cloud. It was no fluffy cumulus. It was a writhing, star speckled clump of miasma, one that began to swirl and take a more distinct shape as it made its final descent towards the crime scene. By the time the cloud was near the ground, it had solidified into a tall, slender, flesh and blood alicorn.

“Everypony back at the paper is going to flip,” Byline said with a wide smile as she began to write as quickly as she could. It was Nyx, there was no doubt about it: the coat, the cutie mark, and there certainly wasn’t another alicorn in Equestria sporting Nyx’s current look. She had several piercings in her ears and one metal bar in her nose. Her eyes were accented with a heavy dose of eyeliner and eyeshadow, and her mane was trimmed very short. It almost looked like fire swirling on her head, especially in comparison to her tail, which was still long and flowy.

“What is she doing here?” Shutter asked as he finished reloading his camera and resumed taking pictures. Nyx was speaking with Chief Siren, her eyes drifting over to the arrested ponies on occasion.

“This is probably the biggest relapser bust we’ve ever seen in Manehattan, and she’s on tour with her band in the city. Think about it, Manehattan Central would be overwhelmed taking care of all these relapsers at once. Someone called in a favor to get her to help,” Byline said, her words almost exactly mimicking the notes she was writing as theories flowed from her pencil like water from a spigot.

“Byline, stop writing and look,” Shutter said, elbowing her in the side. “I think she’s treating them.”

She looked up from her pad, her pencil pausing as her eyes watched what was playing out before her. Everything they had heard about the relapser treatment said it took regular unicorn doctors days to cleanse a pony and another week of recovery after that before the victim was back to normal. Nyx was simply washing her tail over the arrested ponies. Some were calling out to her, pleading to her like children to a parent. But she continued her work with a cold indifference.

One of the arrested was particularly loud, screaming at the top of his lungs. He was the one the police had brought out last, the owner of the bakery above the basement where the group met. “Please, queen, goddess, have we not been loyal?! Have we not done as your sacred gospel describes?! We are your children, your Children of Nightmare! We live only to serve! If we have failed you, we ask only for a chance to redeem ourselves! Release us from these bindings, and we will begin a coup right here! With my congregation at our side, we can overwhelm these blind sun-lovers and retreat to your glorious castle. Ple—!”

His words were silenced as Nyx’s tail enveloped him. All of the arrested were now lying unconscious in the street. They were as motionless as the dead, but police officers were going through and checking the life signs of each one. Byline could only assume that, since no one was panicking, none of them had been killed by the procedure.

Nyx moved back over to Chief Siren, speaking with him as her pegasus escort prepared to take flight.

“She’s already done!” Shutter said. “If she can cure a relapser that quickly, then why doesn’t she just fly around to the hospitals and cure everyone herself?”

“If her cure worked, there wouldn’t be relapsers at all,” Byline said as she made notes of everything they had seen. This was gold, pure reporter gold… or at least silver. No, gold would be getting an interview. If only she could get that... Byline paused a moment, some tiny voice her head warning her against the idea.

She chose not to listen.

“Nyx Sparkle! Princess Nyx Sparkle!”

Shutter flinched as the crowd, the police, and Nyx herself looked over at Byline. “What are you doing? The chief said we needed to be quiet.”

“Like I’m going to listen what he says,” Byline snapped at Shutter before putting a hoof into the air, waving it like a filly trying to get her teacher’s attention. “Nyx Sparkle, I’m Byline Bloom of the Manehattan Gazette. Just a few minutes of your time, please!”

Nyx turned to look at Chief Siren. The Chief put up a hoof defensively, saying something to the alicorn. She said something back, and they ended up exchanging words for about a minute before Nyx visibly sighed. She then turned and started walking towards the police line.

“I’m only going to warn you once,” Nyx said once she was closer to Byline. “You ask a question I don’t like, I’m taking your film and crushing the camera.”

“Deal,” Byline said, paying no mind to the look of horror that formed on Shutter’s face. “Now, did you just treat the relapsers here?”

“Yes.”

“Have there been any developments in a permanent cure for the Children of Nightmare’s blessing?”

“No.”

Byline nodded her head. No surprises there. The Canterlot researchers would make a big announcement if they made any real progress. “Is Canterlot still working on a cure?”

“Yes.”

Again, there was no real surprise there, but that was fine. Byline knew what she was doing. She was fielding easy questions. She’d lull Nyx into a false sense of security before laying out a real question. “Is there a reason you don’t help with the research?”

“I do help.”

Byline paused, stumbling in her rapid-fire chain of questions. “You do help?”

“I help by not being there.”

It took her brain a moment to process the words, but Byline smiled and nodded. “Oh, that’s interesting. That is interesting.”

“Glad I can be interesting. You done?”

“No, not by a long shot.”

Nyx frowned, lowering her head a little so she could be closer to Byline’s eye level. “I can’t be out here all night. You get one more question.”

“But—”

“One,” Nyx repeated as she stood back up to her full height.

Byline opened her mouth to protest, but then shut it as she began flipping through her notebook. One question, one question? She had dozens of questions. How could she pick just one to ask? She licked her lips, glancing between her notepad, Nyx, and Shutter. Her mind began to latch onto an idea: the ultimate question, the one she had been toying with ever since she began to really learn about the relapser situation.

“Nyx, is there any connection with the fact that your mother was identified among the first relapsers shortly after your band sold its first album and you had moved out of the castle?”

There was dead silence. Nyx just stared at at Byline, her wings extended. The sight of an alicorn with her wings out caused many of the onlookers near Byline to quickly step back, as if she was the ground zero for a magical explosion. Shutter was clutching his camera to his chest, fearing for its safety as if it was his own son.

“Most reporters know not to ask me about my mother,” Nyx said. “I don’t like being accused.”

Byline firmly shook her head. “I’m not accusing. I don’t think you caused anything, but I do think you were affected.”

The silence resumed. Some police officers were anxiously creeping closer, preparing to try and hold Nyx back. But then, Nyx began closing her wings. The tiniest of smiles cracked onto her face as she leaned in close, whispering so only Byline could hear. “I’m staying at the Rising Phoenix hotel downtown until five o’clock tomorrow afternoon, when I’ll need to leave to get ready for my evening concert. Ask for me and give them the code phrase ‘lumberjack snowflake.’ They’ll let you up to my room. If what you just said is your actual belief, an interview with you might just improve my own opinion of reporters.”

Byline nodded, unable to manage any other words. Nyx turned to leave, shifting back into a smoky cloud before being followed into the sky by the pegasi officers. The crime scene began to close up. Ambulances from Manehattan Central Hospital began to arrive to transport the arrested ponies. Some of the onlookers began dispersing, but Byline and Shutter remained.

When Byline finally managed to collect herself, she looked back at Shutter, who was standing mouth agape. She just smiled, lowering herself down from the police barrier before putting a hoof on his shoulder.

“So, do you feel like I still owe you a coffee and a donut, or will you be satisfied getting an exclusive interview and possibly landing the story of the year?”

“I still want my coffee and donut,” Shutter said, though the smile on his face was almost as big as Byline’s. “And don’t look so proud of yourself. You just got lucky.”

“Hey, working hard just means that when you do get lucky, you can really seize the opportunity.”