The Grand Galloping Gala
A Dark Shade of the Past
by InfinityBreach
Chapter 38: The Grand Galloping Gala
Celestia was happy that Luna had decided to take her place this year for greeting guests. It's good that everypony is becoming a lot more accepting of the princess of the night; it made Celestia's job much more easier. Earlier that day, she had advised her guards to keep a strict watch on one of the guests that would be coming. A certain black horse, who she was wanted to be rid of.
"Having Eclipsal so close to the castle is bad.. if he were to find out who he really was… he could destroy everything I've worked so hard for!" Celestia muttered, staring out her balcony. She looked down just in time to see a familiar purple light flash on the grounds of the castle.
"It appears as though my faithful student has finally arrived…"
*Eclipsal's POV*
I blinked my eyes a few times to get used to the change in lighting, and finally looked around. We were at Canterlot Castle, which was adorned in banners and streamers to celebrate the Grand Galloping Gala.
"Wow…" I muttered, looking at the display of amazing fireworks going off in the sky. "This place looks so cool…"
"Yeah, it is." Spike stated, pointing to a tower on the other side of the castle. "See that tower over there? That's where Twilight and I used to live, before we moved to Ponyville."
"So I guess you two were royalty or something like that?" I asked, when Twilight let out a slight snort.
"We aren't really royalty… well, I guess now we technically are because of my brother… anyway, enough with the pleasantries. It's time to get down to business. I'm going to find Celestia. Everypony else stick with the plan; got it?" Twilight said.
We all nodded our heads, before going our separate ways.
I walked up the stairs to the entrance of the castle, with Spike by my side. When we got to the top, I was surprised to see Princess Luna there.
"Hello, Luna!" I smiled, waving at her.
"Oh, why hello there, Eclipsal! I didn't know you would be going to the Gala this year, or I would have sent a carriage for you and the others." She stated, smiling down at me. "Hello to you too, Spike. You are looking quite dapper this night."
"Heh, thanks Luna." Spike said, with a blush. "So Celestia has you out doing the welcoming this year?"
"Actually, I decided to do this myself, the ponies have become much more accepting of who I used to be thanks to you and the bearers. I must thank you for that. By the way, where are the others?" Luna asked.
"Well I think Fluttershy went to see the animals in the garden… but I have no idea where everypony else went." I said. 'I raise suspicion, and it would be obvious for Fluttershy to be in the garden. I can't mess this up.' I thought to myself. 'It would ruin Twilight's plan..'
*Speaking of Twilight, let's see what she's up to!*
"Princess Celestia… Princess Celestia… hmm… where is she?" Twilight said to herself.
She had entered the castle through a different entrance upon seeing that Celestia wasn't at the main entrance, just to avoid the huge crowd. The tough thing about looking for the Princess is that she could literally be anywhere; she could be in the middle of a crowd of rich ponies who are trying to get on her good side, or she could be in a secluded corner to avoid those exact same ponies.
Twilight walked around swiftly, looking everywhere she could, until she ended up in the courtyard, where there were a few food vendors attempting to sell their confections. Twilight knew that Celestia loved sweets, but also knew that she didn't like eating them around other ponies.
'Surprise, surprise.' Twilight thought to herself. 'She isn't here, either.'
Twilight let out a sigh, and looked up to see the finale of the fireworks.
She watched the blasts of light for a few moments, when she saw a flash of rainbow out of the corner of her eye.
"There she is." Twilight stated, as she saw Celestia enter back into her room through her balcony.
*Eclipsal's POV*
A white stallion ran up to Luna, standing between me and her.
"Luna, stand away from this pony! The entire guard has been asked to politely escort him to the dungeons, by your sister herself." He stated, before noticing Spike. "Spike! Get over here, it's dangerous!"
"This guy?" Spike said, poking my cheek. "Dangerous? Maybe to bad guys, but that's about it."
"Shining Armor, what is with this atrocious manor of which you are treating one of my friends?" Luna asked, a stern look sitting on her face.
"Your sister told us to watch out for a pony that looks EXACTLY like this one! Black body, blue eyes, even the mane that is styled the same way his is." He stated, looking between us.
"One problem there." I said, raising a hoof, so my horseshoes were in plain sight. "I'm a horse. See? Not a pony."
"That can't possibly be true..! Horses went extinct a long time ago!" Shining muttered.
"It's true what he says, Shining." Luna replied.
"But, how could one be here? Now? This shouldn't be possible!" He exclaimed, looking more confused.
"He's with your sister's group." Luna stated, as if that would explain everything.
Apparently it did. Shining relaxed, an sighed. "Sorry about that, buddy. I'm Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard."
"And also Twilight's older brother. And technically the new prince of the Crystal Kingdom." Spike added.
"Yeah... those things too.." Shining said, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.
"My name is Eclipsal. Eclipsal Shade." I greeted him with a smile, and a hoofshake to which he accepted.
"Now that everypony knows who everypony is, how about you treat Eclipsal to a tour of the castle? With all of the other guards looking for somepony who looks just like him, I feel as though he'd be safer with you. Plus, we don't want to raise another scene like your sister did..." Luna said, flinching at thoughts of the past.
"Good points, Princess. I'll do that, as an apology. If you see Tarnished can you tell her she's in charge for the night?" Shining asked her.
She gave a nod, and we said our goodbyes, while Shining brought us into the other parts of the castle.
"Where to start... where to start..." Shining muttered.
"How about Twilight's tower?" Spike asked.
"Oh yeah. I always forget Twily has her own tower." Shining replied. "It's just kinda weird for me. I've grown up always protecting her, and being her guardian just like a brother should be. But now, she's a guardian; not only for me, but for all of Equestria."
"Yeah, she sure has changed since before we moved to Ponyville." Spike smiled.
We continued walking through the halls, when a flash of color caught my attention behind a set of doors.
"Hey, what's in here?" I asked, which made the other two stop and turn to me.
"Oh, this is the stained glass hallway, isn't it?" Spike asked, to which Shining gave a nod.
"Can I see it?" I questioned, which Shining gave another nod.
We walked in and the first thing that caught my eyes were the image of 6 differently colored crystals surrounding what appeared to be a book on the window, with lines coming from the crystals and making one large rod-like object.
The next window had six spheres, black, white, dark blue, light blue, yellow, and grey, once again surrounding a red figure.
"Princess Celestia won't tell us of what happened during these times... she didn't really want them here, either. Apparently Princess Luna was very insistant on keeping them here, though." Shining explained.
I looked to the next few windows, examining them.
It started with the six spheres, then the red figure between them disappeared. The others looked kind of sad.
Then it started with the black one. It looked like it was broken and taken by some monster. An array of rainbows emitted from the other five, destroying the monster.
I watched from window to window, as the spheres were taken down by the rainbow one by one, until there were two left, the yellow one and the white one. Then the hallway ended.
"Yeah, this entire area is really filled with mystery. A few of us guards have tried to make sense of it, but the windows were done long ago by an unknown artist." Shining explained. "I think you'll recognize the other parts better."
The other side had was extremely more detailed to other windows. The first window showed three ponies who had gathered together on a hill, driving away a group of light blue ponies.
The second showed two ponies descending from the skies, one white with a pink mane and the sun floating by her, and one blue with a teal mane and the moon hovering next to her.
The next one showed a dragon like creature mixed with various animal parts, controlling the ponies of the one beside it showed the ponies from before hitting the creature with light, turning it to stone.
This one showed what looked like the white pony fighting off a black form, with green eyes. On one side was the sun, glowing brightly, while on the other was filled with green fire.
The one beyond that had a picture of some strange looking pony, with a deformed helmet on it's head. Black colored magic flowed from him, and surrounded the are below him, with the ones touched by his magic turning pitch black. The same two ponies from before fought against him, locking him in some sort of crevice.
The next showed a shining city of blue, with a chained heart above it, the black magic from before seeming to grasp the city itself.
The next one showed the two ponies who saved the world many times, fighting against eachother. The blue one looking as if it had turned evil, or been tainted by something bad. A blast of light from the other locked her away.
"And here we are." Shining said, pointing at the next window.
There were six crystals in the middle of the frame, with six spheres drawn out from them, respectively, with a pony in each of them.
My smile grew as I noticed who they were. "These are the girls, aren't they?"
"Yup!" Spike exclaimed. "You know, when Twilight first came to Ponyville to host the Summer Sun Celebration, the Princess told her to make friends. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't convinced Twilight to make friends with the five ponies we met, she wouldn't have let them go with her to fight Nightmare Moon."
I looked to the next window, to see them fighting off Nightmare Moon.
"Oh, really?" I asked. "You make it sound like she didn't like making friends."
"She didn't." Shining said. "She thought they were just hindrances to learning. She felt like there was just no reason to them. I think Spike and I were her only friends."
"Well, it's a good thing she found out about how good friendship can be. I have no idea where I would be without you all as my friends.." I muttered, continuing on to the next window.
This one showed the girls defeating the dragon that the other two ponies defeated before, using the elements.
"I helped out with this one, too." Spike proudly stated.
"Oh really?" Shining asked. "I didn't hear the full story of what happened with Discord before, only the fact that Twily and her friends defeated him."
"Well, Discord used his chaos magic stuff to turn everypony into the opposite of what their elements were! Well, except for Twilight… but then there was this huge fight outside of the library, and even she became just like the others… without the magic of friendship. She decided she didn't need friends anymore. But then, the princess started to send me a bunch of the old friendship letters Twilight wrote before, which game me a stomach ache for half a week…" Spike rubbed his belly, with a distasteful look on his face. "But anyway, Twilight read them all, and became back to her normal self again! Then she used the memories from those letters, and used magic so that the others could remember them too. Then of course, they defeated Discord."
"Sounds like you really are a hero, huh?" I smirked to Spike, rubbing the top of his head with my hoof.
"Yeah, but Shining is one too!" Spike said, pointing to the next window.
On it was what I guessed was Shining, and some alicorn that were twisted in the shape of a heart. A black form with green eyes was at the bottom of the window, being blasted by the pink light of the heart.
"This is from the Changeling invasion last year." Shining explained. "That was the day I was getting married. The queen had taken the form of my bride… and I should have listened to Twily when she realized something was wrong." Shining let out a sigh. "But I didn't, and because of that Canterlot almost fell. It's a good thing she found my real bride, however.. if it weren't for her, Cadance and I wouldn't have been able to use our love to blast away the changelings."
"Huh. Why didn't you believe Twilight when she told you something was wrong? I would have, because she's usually right.. albeit, a bit overreacting." I said.
"Well, because she was overreacting, I didn't believe that it was true, and that this was one of her random worry attacks or something." Shining muttered sadly.
"Yeah. We all believed that she was worrying over nothing, but in the end it was something. A big something." Spike sighed, before pointing to the next one. "This one is a good one; it's the one that I'm in!"
"The Crystal Kingdom incident you were talking about at Rarity's?" I asked, examining the window. It showed Spike with a light blue heart above him, which I recognized to be the one that was chained down in an earlier window.
"Yup, that exact same one." Spike said. "This is the last one though; there is a new one being made, but it's not done yet."
"How did you know about that?" Shining asked Spike.
"Well, I am Twilight's assistant, so I do catch wind of these things." He stated proudly.
"So, now are we headed to Twilight's tower?" I asked, to which they both nodded their heads.
*In Celestia's room*
There was a knocking at the door.
'Who would bother me now, of all times?' Celestia wondered, as she yelled, "The door is unlocked, feel free to come in."
In entered Twilight Sparkle, with a serious look on her face. "Princess Celestia.. I need to talk to you about something important."
"My faithful student, you may feel free to ask me anything." Celestia said, before levitating a kettle of tea off the table, and offering some to Twilight who politely declined. They both sat down at the table in the room, Celestia sitting next to the wall, with Twilight on the right side of the table from her.
"So what would you like to talk about, Twilight Sparkle?" Celestia asked, taking a sip of her tea.
Twilight lifted her head up, and maintained eye contact. "Who is Shaded Darkness, and what is darkness to begin with?"
Celestia froze, her face going completely blank for a moment, as she forgot to continue holding onto her tea, which fell to the floor.
The room was silent for a minute, as Celestia put herself back together.
"Twilight…" She began. "How do you know of that… that… monster?"
"I found information regarding him." She stated. "And the powers he held.. along with a few of the other original bearers."
Celestia froze once more, taking a few breathes.
"Twilight. Sparkle. Listen to the words I am about to say." She began.
"Shaded Darkness is a MONSTER. ANYTHING THAT USES DARKNESS IS A MONSTER. REMEMBER KING SOMBRA? HE WAS SHADED'S APPRENTICE." Celestia yelled at Twilight, who had gotten up and begun to walk away.
"DAKNESS IS EVIL, TWILIGHT. You must not let it deceive you!" Celestia said. "Darkness is evil…"
Twilight quickly said goodbye to Celestia, and walked out, leaving her to her own workings.
"I guess I will have to go to the Royal Archives after all.." Twilight muttered.
*Eclipsal's POV*
We finally made it back to the party, after having seen Twilight's tower.
"I'm still a bit shocked at how empty it was." I told Spike. "I mean, Twilight LOVES books!"
"Yeah, but the books wouldn't be in use anymore. That's why Twilight moved them all to the basement of the library." Spike explained.
"I had no idea there was even that much room up there…" Shining said, shaking his head.
"She's your sister, dude." Spike and I said at the same time.
"And speaking of Twilight, there she is!" Spike added, as we looked to see Twilight galloping towards us.
"Come on yo-" She began, before noticing Shining.
"Erm, hi BBBFF. I wanted to show my friends the rest of the castle. I heard Applejack was looking for you though; she apparently has a few ideas for some romantic dinners you could make for Cadance." Twilight stated.
"Ah, that is a good idea. Hearth's warming eve is coming up soon. I think I'll go and try to find her." Shining said before turning away. "Have a nice night you three!"
After he was far enough away, Twilight turned back to us. "We need to get to the archives now, while we still have a chance."
"Okay, just lead us there and we'll see what we can do!" I said.
We ran back through the castle, sneaking through various hallways.
"So, what did you find out from the Princess?" Spike asked Twilight.
"I… I don't know to be honest. She freaked out, and started repeating that darkness is evil or something like that." Twilight said, before sighing. "If it's something really bad about the princess's past, I feel like I shouldn't be doing this.. but another part of me thinks that whatever is in the archives has the answers to the connection between Victory, Nightmare Moon, Discord, Shaded Darkness, and everything else we've dealt with up until now."
"Well, just follow what your heart says." I told Twilight, to which she nodded her head.
"By the way.. why did you have Spike and I join you in getting to the archives?" I asked her.
"Spike is my number one assistant, and he knows how to get through books quickly. Your magic is extremely fluid and strong, meaning if we get into a jam you can get us out of it." Twilight explained, before turning and running up a flight of stairs.
At the top of the stairs was a circular hallway. "Okay, it's right there." Twilight stated, pointing to a gigantic double door.
She walked up to it, and put her horn in one of the holes on the door, igniting it. Then the door slowly started to open.
"Okay. Spike, I want you to go through the magic section; find anything you can on darkness. Eclipsal, look for anything on the past, before the princesses were royalty to begin with. Give the books to me, and I'll review them." Twilight said.
"Yes, mam!" Spike and I exclaimed before getting to business.
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... This story is on fimfiction too?
God i'm slow
1887449 That's why in the beginning of every chapter I have a section for people who commented/reviewed from both fanfiction and fimfiction
I am glad your back to writing