The Alternate After Party

by Blackdrag-rose

IX: Discovery

Rainbow Dash had spent the last week traveling across Equestria, flying from Ponyville to Manehatten, in a quest to discover the truth about one stallion. The one stallion who had somehow befriended Sunset Shimmer and had taken down a storm despite the injuries he had sustained. He had somehow summoned the power of the wind itself and used it to combat the might of the ever growing storm, eventually destroying it in the process. Now he was known to everypony far and wide as a master of wind, yet that was the problem she had been trying to get past.

For the last week she had found nothing, not a single piece of paper, that detailed the pegasus' existence or revealed anything about his life. Manehatten, the city he claimed to be from, told her that he had never been there at all and that they wished they had been the birth place of such a hero. In fact they had no records of any of the four ponies that had appeared with Sunset Shimmer a week ago, which meant one thing. Rocket Sky and his friends were imposters.

So when she returned to Ponyville just before lunch she landed right in front of the tree that served as Twilight's house, making it the only time she had never crashed into the building. She threw her hoof up onto the door and gave it a rapid knock, keeping her eyes peeled for the strange stallion she had seen before the storm. Twilight opened the door and Rainbow threw herself inside, giving Twilight no time to question where she had been before she could even close the door.

"Where have you been Rainbow Dash?" Twilight asked, closing the door as she noticed the saddlebags her friend wore, "We've been worried about you for the last week. You suddenly disappeared just as Rocket went into the hospital and missed him awaken a few days ago."

"Look, Twilight, I have something to tell you," Rainbow took a deep breath as she prepared herself.

"Really?" Twilight asked, curious as to what her friend had to tell her, "What is it?"

"The stallion that everypony has been going crazy over is an imposter." Rainbow admitted, tugging the bags off as shock appeared on Twilight's face, "Before you go off about me making this up to get some attention I want to tell you this; don't even dare say I would do such a thing. I flew all the way to Manehatten to research Rocket Sky and his friends for myself, and guess what I came up with. I came up with bucking nothing from every department in the entire city.

I figured that you wouldn't believe me, not without proof that I was telling the truth, so I asked the ponies who had helped me to write me a authentication letter. A letter that says that they searched their respective departments and found nothing on Rocket Sky, Peachy Keen, Tick Tock, and Inner Wisdom. The four of them are very convincing fakes, but that changed when I discovered their answers were nothing more then lies."

"This is terrible Rainbow Dash," Twilight said, looking over the letters quickly.

"I know right?" Rainbow asked, though there was almost a hint of joy in her voice that Twilight agreed with her, "To think that every one of us, the Elements of Harmony no less, had been deceived by a bunch of noponies so easily."

"That wasn't what I meant Rainbow Dash," Twilight groaned, nearly tearing a letter in half, "What I meant is that their history has either been erased or they're outcasts from a nation that they no longer have any faith in. They're ponies with no history and they are trying to create new memories until they need to move on. That's whats so terrible Rainbow Dash."

"I never thought about that Twilight," Rainbow weakly said, wondering how she could have missed something.

"And when did you start using such big words?" Twilight asked, looking up from the last letter, "I don't think I've ever heard you say authentication before."

"Its the Daring Do books," Rainbow explained, "I guess I learned something from them after all."

There was a knock at the door, so Twilight opened it to find Peachy Keen standing on the other side. She was huffing as if she had been running all over the town, as if she had been looking for somepony and couldn't find them.

"We've got a problem," Peachy said, taking a second to catch her breath, "Rocket is missing. I can't find him anywhere in the entire town."

"There's something else about him that I can't place my hoof on," Rainbow spoke up, remembering something else about the stallion, "We might have a problem with him. During the storm I saw him as an alicorn, a fully freaking grown alicorn that could have done something like he had done."

"So we have a missing 'alicorn'?" Twilight rubbed her head, this was starting to seriously annoy her, "Okay then, if we were a pegasus stallion with absolutely no record of his existence then where would we go? Where, in the vast majority of Equestria, would a single stallion go?"

"Crystal Empire," Tonto said, stepping through the doorway of the library, "Blue pony seek the Windigo. She go to Crystal Empire and that where blue pony went."

~Cave outside the Crystal Empire~

Rocket had known that somewhere deep in the tundra outside the Crystal Empire rested a cave where Sombra, the Black King and the Master of Shadows, rested while he tried to form a plan to conquer the Empire. That was where the eerie voice had told him to go, the pony he was told to seek out by somepony he knew was watching over him. Sure the train had taken him to the outskirts of the Empire, but he paid it no mind as he trekked through the snow. He just needed to find the eerie glow of the cave and he would have found the stallion without problem.

The one thing he was uncertain about was he willing to accept the fact he was likely going to have to embrace the darkness to get what he needed. Without his magic he was going to have to resort to using the darkest arts to restore his real power. Then he could turn back on Discord and teach the jerk a lesson that he was never going to forget. The problem was that he was afraid that the darkness might be stronger then he was expecting and it might consume him in the process.

"Hehehehe."

Rocket turned to his right and sure enough he found the cave he was looking for, complete with the eerie laughter that could have belonged to Sombra. He likely thought he had found himself an easy target that he could use to take over the Crystal Empire, which he wasn't going to allow. Rocket was going to teach the Black King a small lesson before he obtained the dark arts.

"I know your there Sombra," he called out, his eyes scanning the darkness as he searched for the stallion, "Come out come out wherever you are. You know I'm going to find you."

"Hehehe, I doubt that," came the stallion's voice, though he wasn't sure where he was yet, "I am all around you, yet I am not. I am but a shadow, a blemish of your mind, an eerie memory that you can't help but recall."

Rocket noticed something in the corner of his eye, but he paid it no mind as he advanced into the cave. If the Black King tried anything then he was ready for it, but considering everything that had already happened to him he doubted there was anything worse waiting for him.

"Got you," came a snarl as the darkness crashed Rocket into a wall and held him there.

Rocket watched the dark grey unicorn, complete with his black short spiked mane and tail, his silver armor attached to his legs and neck, his smooth horn, the fangs in his mouth, the cape that covered his flank, and the hideous crown that rested on his head. His eyes were the complete deal; red irises, green coloring, and the eerie purple mist that let others know he was a master of the dark arts. Rocket held no fear of the stallion; he was expecting the stallion to pour the darkness into his mind and attempt to corrupt his mind.

"Go ahead," Rocket smirked, taunting the fallen king, "Do your worst Sombra."

~Ponyville~

"Your telling me that our friend is secretly an alicorn?" Wisdom questioned, trying to make sense of the situation as they boarded the train, "There is no way in Tartarus that Rocket is an alicorn pretending to be a pegasus. Even if he was then it still doesn't explain why he felt the town without telling us where he was going."

"Stallion go to Crystal Empire," Tonto replied, "He seek the Master of Shadows. Nature will be out of balance."

"If he's seeking Sombra then we have to act fast," Twilight said, "Darkness is a disease, if it gets into his veins something bad is bound to happen. If Rocket truly is an alicorn and the darkness takes root in his body then we are all royally bucked. I'd hate to see what power he could have is something like that came to pass."