9| The Dark Side
The Matrix of Friendship
Chapter 9- The Dark Side (Sunspot)
“I don’t trust someone without a dark side.”
“We’ll let’s just say you haven’t seen it yet.”
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“Remember.”
Luna walked over to the side of Twilight’s bed, and placed her forehoof gently underneath her chin, directing her head upwards. In a new, softer voice, Luna spoke.
“How are you feeling?” Luna blinked, and smiled at Twilight. There was a sort of mutual-respect that they had for one-another, having known what each other has been through. Luna replaced her forehoof under her to let Twilight speak.
“I… I think the right thing to say is that I’m… better… than before.” Twilight looked down, averting her eyes.
Luna’s expression increased in seriousness. “You did sustain a slight concussion, along with numerous cuts and bruises. When I found you, you had almost no energy left, and you ended up being unconscious for almost six hours.”
Luna sat down onto her rump. “…But I’m glad to see that you are alright.”
Twilight returned a half-hearted smile.
Suddenly, Luna’s eyes flashed, becoming a sinister green, and producing an evil purple flame at the back of them. Her eyes shot open wide, and she stood up. Shortly after, her horn began to take on a similar effect-- green accented purple flames spewing from it.
A deep rumble could be heard from the flames, much deeper than normal fire. The green in Luna’s eyes became brighter and brighter, slowly obstructing Luna’s vision.
The tip of her horn suddenly transformed into a deep black, absorbing all light. It began to infect the rest of her horn, travelling down it like a wave until it reached the base. It stopped for a short moment, before continuing onwards. Luna remained rock still as it quickly enveloped her entire body, right up to the tip of her flowing tail.
It was now as if a glowing, flaming pair of eyes and a horn, were part of a shadow’s body.
All Twilight and her friends could do is stand and watch, terrified, as the shadow stood beside Twilight’s bed, unmoving. They were too petrified to move.
The shadow began to speak, however not in Luna's normal voice, or even the Royal Canterlot Voice. It was deep, distorted, and reeked of evil.
“H-hello?”
All Luna could see, was a vast expanse of cloudy blue. There was no ground. Or roof. Or walls. She was floating.
There was a foggy haze of an ethereal blue hue, clouding her vision. Slowly, it dissipated, revealing what looked like stars. Bright white orbs of light that seemed so close, yet, so far. They gently twinkled, changing intensity, and sometimes even changing colour ever-so-slightly.
Suddenly, Luna felt ground under her hooves, and stood up. She looked down expecting to see some sort of solid object, but saw nothing but the starry blue expanse.
“Hello? Sister? Is some kind of joke?” She looked around, but saw nothing. Slowly, she began to walk forward, aimlessly.
“If it is, I find hardly any humor in it.”
The starry blue haze of an expanse kept going on. It felt like it had no end.
But slowly, the faint outline of an object came into view.
It was big.
Very, very big.
Despite the lack of a light source, it felt like it cast a faint light on where Luna stood. And, she couldn’t even see it yet.
As Luna walked, it slowly drifted into view. At first, only its dark outline could be seen.
Is- is that Canterlot castle?
The object was shaped almost identically as Canterlot Castle, and looked to be the same size. The shadow of its majestic towers, topped with small penthouses flying small triangular flags towered over the main body of the shadow, just as Canterlot Castle was.
More and more detail began to seep through the fog, and as Luna walked forward, the image of Canterlot Castle became clearer and clearer. Eventually, Luna reached the gates to the castle.
It is Canterlot Castle.
It just floated there, high above Luna in the blue expanse. No support of any kind to be seen, not magical, not physical.
Suddenly, from deep within the walls of the castle, the tall outline of a pony appeared. It looked like it was rushing, trotting along just short of galloping.
As the haze cleared, through the gates, Luna could begin to make out the white and gold body of her sister.
"Tia!"
Celestia leaped into the air spreading her wings, and quickly flew the last portion of her journey. Luna caught a quick glimpse of her face, and it looked worried and panicked, a sight Luna knew all too well-- was once in multiple lifetimes.
With a flash of golden magic from her horn, the castle gates swung open and Celestia touched down onto the ground in front of Luna. The two thousand-year-old sisters stared blankly at each other at a moment, before Celestia leapt forward and brought Luna into a loving hug.
"I love you, Luna. But I don't have much time..." Celestia's voice sounded a little raspy, like she was sick or exhausted. And what did she mean by 'don't have much time'?
Does the have to go? Where's she going to go?
"Tia, what's happening?" Luna began to work herself up, thinking of all the worst possibilities. Most ponies saw Luna as calm, and emotionally sturdy. But between herself, and very few others, she was anything but. Luna had experienced things. Learned things. Done things, which one doesn't simply just forget.
Luna looked up to Celestia, and for a tiny moment, perhaps a one-hundredth of a second, she changed. Luna couldn't place it, it happened far too quickly, but something about Celestia flickered, if only for an immeasurable amount of time.
"I-I had a battle with discord. I cast the… Iridius spell. But he teleported me to him, and we both got hit." Celestia stopped, and looked down away from Luna, like she was carefully considering how to put what to say next.
"My...boduwsdesyoed" Celestia kept looking down at her hooves as she mumbled her words.
"W-what?" Luna bent her long neck down to hear Celestia better.
“M-my bouwadestyrysd” Whatever it was, she was certainly having a struggle saying it.
“Tia I can’t hear you if you keep mumbling! What is it?” Luna’s resolve began to crumble as the anticipation of finding out whatever horrible piece of information that Celestia had, increased.
“My body was destroyed!” Celestia flung her head up, a grimace, but not quite tears on her face.
“…Oh…”
Before Luna had time to think, it happened again, jumping her out of her thoughts.
The flicker.
For the second time, Celestia changed. The undefinable difference to her flashed before Luna’s eyes in a fraction of a second.
Only this time, it felt like it lasted just a tiny bit longer.
"Something's awoken within me, sister. Something I never knew existed. Soon, it's going to consume my mind."
"And my mind is the only thing that's left of me."
For the first time in her life, Luna was speechless. Her mind swirled with emotions and actions, not one in particular floating to the surface. For a moment, she stood there—mouth unmoving, in complete and utter paralysis.
And to think, that it was not long ago that I was there, helping another pony when they were lost. When Twilight Sparkle needed help to realize her emotions... to realize her thoughts, I was there for her. I was there to help her through the struggles of life.
What would I tell myself?
“Friendship does not end, not even within death. Friendship carries on…through the ages.”
But this is more than friendship. Celestia... she is my sister. I've grown up with her, been by her side, for thousands of
years.
"Remember the pony she was."
B-but I don't want to remember! I want to see her every day, talk to her every day, and just be with her. Not remember her every day.
Not be alone.
Celestia flickered once again, and this time—this time Luna saw it. She saw the change. It was just there for a tiny amount of time, but this time, that tiny amount of time was just enough.
Whatever was there for that tiny amount of time… it was dark.
“Tia… don’t go… Please!”
“There’s nothing I can do now… it’s too late. I’m sorry.” Celestia pulled Luna into another hug. “Listen… you need to gather the elements of harmony. Whatever’s coming… I can sense it’s bad. Prepare the girls… warn them. Whatever happens… they must stay safe.”
Celestia began to flicker more and more, now happening once or twice a second.
“Could the elements of harmony save you?” Luna was holding back tears, something that took her back to when she was much, much younger.
“I do not know for certain.” Celestia’s voice was now becoming distorted, sounding deeper and deeper by the second. “The elements of harmony are powerful; they can do many things. But I don’t think even they could save me.”
Celestia tightened her grip on Luna, and the two sisters embraced in a hug as the darkness consumed her mind.
Celestia flickered one last time. This time, she didn’t change back.
Luna started to become cold. The once warm embrace of her sister was now replaced with a chilled body clinging to her that stung to the touch.
Luna screamed and struggled, breaking free of the dark being’s hold. She backpedalled until she decided that she was far enough away, but when she looked up… it was gone. Celestia…whatever it was, had gone.
An eerie screech sounded, echoing off the non-existent mountains, like an eagle’s call. Luna looked up, searching for the origin of the sound, but in that moment, the blue space turned to black.
Nothing could be seen, there was complete darkness. Luna darted her eyes around, searching for some source of light to lock onto, but there was none. Where the castle previously towered, now showed nothing other than the infinite blackness that consumed her vision. Even the stars been snuffed out.
And then a brilliant, flaming flash of orange exploded in the sky. A streak of orange, yellow, and green shot down from above, colliding with the ground merely metres away from Luna, creating a brilliant flash of…
Black.
A dark flash.
How…how is that even possible?
Luna’s thoughts were instantly interrupted, however, at the sight of what was before her.
The pony in front of her stood up, and raised its head to stare directly into Luna’s eyes.
“Mmmmmm…greetings….sssisssster.” As it spoke, its voice was so deep and loud, that Luna could feel her whole body vibrate. As its tongue slithered inside its muzzle to pronounce the S’s, the snake-like sound sent shivers down Luna’s spine. Quite simply, its voice could be summed up in one, small, four-letter word.
Evil.
But, perhaps more importantly, it looked exactly like Celestia.
Only, it…her… whatever this pony was… was the opposite colour entirely. Its coat was a deep black, absorbing all the light that hit it. It wore a deep blue crown, along with an identically coloured necklace, both decorated with large bright green gems.
Its horseshoes were dark blue, unlike Celestia’s normally golden ones. Its mane was a combination of dark pink, dark orange, dark green, and a blackened yellow. Within it, being perhaps the most mysterious of all, were dark spots, where Celestia’s mane would normally sparkle.
And even that wasn’t the worst part.
Its eyes were white. All white, except for a green retina… and a black reflection of their surroundings. Their stone cold, motionless stare bored into Luna, in a frightfully alien display of supernaturalism.
Finally, Luna’s eyes drifted downwards and to the side, landing upon its cutie mark.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. Its cutie mark certainly wasn’t a reverse-colour of Celestia’s. No, it was a whole different shape entirely.
Luna jumped back as it spoke again.
“Ahhhhh…” It tilted its head up, and glared down at Luna with a psychotic grin. To punctuate its actions, on cue, a flash of bright orange lightening erupted in the background, bringing with it the window-shattering shockwave of thunder.
“Do I sssssscare you?” It laughed hysterically, generating a deep rumble.
Its cutie mark was a circle. A black circle, the outside of which, white rays of light extended from, fading as they got further away. Luna stared at it, trying desperately to figure out what its cutie mark was of.
I’ve seen many a cutie mark in my time. A flower? Perhaps a star. Sometimes even an hourglass. I’ve seen lyres. I’ve seen lemons. I once saw a frowning cat. But… what’s this? A ring? Maybe a wheel?
It had to be something. But what? She’d never seen anything like it before.
The dark being spotted Luna staring at its cutie mark, and angled itself slightly, allowing Luna to get a better view of it. “I ssssee you’re looking at my cutie mark.”
Luna’s eyes darted from its flanks to its face. She conveyed a swirling pool of emotion in the shimmering azure orbs.
Curiosity.
Wonder.
Bewilderment.
But mostly, fear.
Whatever it was… every…every factor of it seemed like it was purposely designed to instill fear.
Luna blinked for a moment, and swallowed the tightness in her throat. “…Wh…what is it?”
It put on a large, sinister grin. “Ohhhh? Silly Lunaaaa, don’t you know what it is?”
Luna said nothing, giving it all the confirmation it needed.
“Mmmmm…I’m dissssapointed in you, sisssster.”
The evil Celestia slowly trudged forwards towards Luna, dragging its dark-blue royal horse shoes along the... ground. If you could even call the invisible surface floating in the dark blue dimension, that.
It circled round behind Luna, grinning madly. Eventually, it returned to the front, and stopped. It had its body angled again, so Luna could see its mark clearly.
Suddenly, an explosive ripple washed over them, the dark blue of the dimension giving way to a bright light… the Sun. It was darker and larger than usual, so much so, that Luna could easily look into it, and see its craters and imperfections in some detail.
A shimmering orb began to fade into existence, and slowly took the bluish grey form of the moon. It rose from below where Twilight and the inverted Celestia stood, and slowly made its way up to the sun.
As it neared the end of its journey, the two celestial objects began to overlap. As the moon’s edge gradually passed over the surface of the bright sun, it obfuscated the sun’s rays, dimming it. The circle that was the sun slowly began to shape into a bright yellow crescent. But the moon did not stop, it continued to pass over the surface.
As the moon covered more and more of the sun’s surface, the dimension they were in began to dim, darkening as if the sun was setting. An eerie coolness descended upon Luna, sending chills down her spine--something darkness never gave her.
The moon finally reached its destination, and ground to a halt. It was now directly over top of the sun, perfectly covering the powerful source of light, and casting an infinitely large shadow upon the dimension.
In fact, it was so dark now that only a bright yellow ring could be seen in the sky where the sun once was.
The ring…
It’s exactly like its Cutie mark.
“…oh…” Was all Luna would, could say.
The glowing ring in the sky perfectly resembled the cutie mark of the evil Celestia.
Luna had never seen anything like it. Eclipses never happened in Equestria, with their system of the sun and moon being controlled by Demi-gods. Even though Luna had heard of ancient, far off lands of experiencing events such as those, she had never seen what one actually looked like in real life.
And… It felt wrong.
She couldn’t describe it. It was a feeling of uneasiness, of discomfort. It just felt like something was horrifically, tremendously wrong.
A dark sun?
“Everypony has a dark sssssside, Luna.” Luna couldn’t see the source of the corrupt voice in the new darkness, and it made it all the scarier. In a flash of magic she activated her night vision, and while it did allow her to see the distant stars of the dimension, the inverted Celestia was nowhere to be seen.
“My other form…Celessstia. She does a great job of hiding it…” A pair of flaming dark green eyes appeared in the darkness, contorted into a menacing grin.
“She does a great job of hiding meeeee.”
Luna began to back up, slowly placing each hoof behind the other as the retreated from those evil eyes.
The eyes followed her.
“Look in the sky. What do you sssseee?” The pair of floating eyes in the darkness expressed themselves as the voice spoke.
“A-an…e-eclipse?” Luna squeaked shakily. To see her sister become something so horrid and dark, scared her more than anything else ever had or probably would. She had never been this scared before.
Never.
Nothing ever really scared the princess of the night. Ponies were more scared of her than she was of anything.
As a foal, only one thing scared Celestia. The night. As every filly and colt would hate to admit, they were all scared of the dark.
But not Luna. She owned the night. It was her time, and she loved it.
Luna was dragged kicking and screaming from her little reverie by the dark voice that she was now far too familiar with.
"A ssssolar eclipssse." It still held that same maniacal grin.
"That is who I am..."
"I... am Solar Eclipse."
Luna’s eyes widened. The 'it' had a name.
You might want to hull down a bit, I have lots to talk about... 
How late this chapter is...
I apologize immensely for this chapter taking so long. I've had trouble staying motivated, and with so many other commitments and possible procrastination providers in my life right now, writing is become more and more of a task.
Why this chapter has a different name...
Nobody probably noticed, but I promised that the chapter would be named 'Sunspot'. Well, while writing the chapter, (as I usually do) I came up with what I think is a better name for it, so here we are.
I must inform everyone that this story is now going on an indefinate hiatus, and may never be continued.
That's the gist of what's happening, but for anyone who may want to know full details, they are as follows...
I feel as though this story has fallen into a bit of a hole. It's premise isn't that attractive, and it wastes a lot of my time that could be spent on far more interesting, self-contained stories. I have a lot of trouble writing this story because I don't see an end in sight.
Now that I am done with this chapter, the story will go on a long hiatus/cancellation. From now on I'm going to be working on a few new fic ideas, one of which I have already mentioned. Perhaps one day, if enough people want me to continue this story, I will. But for now, say goodbye. (Although you're going to be getting your fair share of the characters in other stories.)
I'm going to be turning over a new leaf when it comes to my writing, so I ask all of you-- what can I do to improve? Think about it now, post it in the comments, and then have a look at what I think I need to improve on myself.
Longer paragraphs, and not relying as heavily on formatting.
I'll be working on those things in my next stories, and hopefully my writing shall improve.
If I decide that this story won't be continued, then I will most likely post a epilogue, describing the ideas I had for this story, and just generally talking about it.
Thanks for reading,
-MrSp33dy123
[END TRANSMISSION]
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I was sure evil celestia was solar flare. Bu this sounds cooler though.
6388314 Ah yes, I've heard of Solar Flare. Isn't she from the comics? If not I think I've heard of her from some fanfics and fan art.
I think Solar Flare may have been a slightly better choice, but at the time of writing this (which I started a couple of months ago) I hadn't heard of her. I think Solar Eclipse is good in the sense that's it unique, though.
I'm glad you liked it
6390794 well your character has a different backstory but solar flare is nightmare celestia
6390902 A nightmare celestia? I thought she was more on the light side. Hence the 'Flare' part. I don't know, I wanted to have a Celestia alter-ego that was dark.
I wonder if Chapter 10 will come to be.
6399611 Did you read the author's notes?
To put it simply, it's not something I plan to do anytime soon.
6399674 I hope it doesn't get cancelled. Besides, I'm smart enough to realize you forgot about Spike.
6399679 That has to be one of my biggest mistakes I've ever made in my entire writing career. Wow. I'm usually the one trying to get Spike more attention.
My plan was for him and Twilight to go on a journey to find the Matrix together, so he certainly wasn't going to be underutilized.
6400041 However, if this story DOES go on hiatus, will the hiatus end?
6400051 I thought I explained this, but I'll say it in case I haven't already.
It depends on how much attention this story has. It certainly sounds like you like it, so I might get to continuing it at some point. But, to answer your question, not until I have completed the fanfics that I have planned out ATM.
I can give you a sneak-peek at what they are, if you really want.
6400383 I might get to reading your other fictions, and yet, I'm still trying to get support for my speakeasy post, and my lost elements post, as well as my GDoc.
Why did you cancel this?
it was a good idea.