Waking Night

by CrowMagnon

Part 4 - Need to Know

Waking Night
by Crowmagnon

"We all wear masks, Mare-Do-Well. We all keep secrets, even from ourselves. You made me want to believe that I'm a good pony who's done bad things, but the truth is... half the time, it's the other way around."

--Sweet & Sour, from Mysteries of Mare-Do-Well #79

---

In the dark, dark depths of the vampony stronghold, Lady Moonshadow stood before a large full-length mirror. Rather than casting an accurate reflection, however, the mirror's face was subtly warped, making everything in it appear just slightly wrong.

Staring unblinkingly at the twisted reflection in front of her, the vampiric pegasus allowed her crimson eyes to lose focus and look beyond the surface. In this unfocused state, it was not the green blur that she saw, but the warps themselves which began to move and ripple beneath her gaze.

Slowly, sensuously, Moonshadow licked her lips before speaking the words, "Wake, Eclipse. I would speak with you."

With a sluggish, writhing pace, the phantom image began to twist itself into an amorphous shape with the vague form of a face, insofar as it seemed to have two eyes and a mouth that, when opened, let out an eldritch hiss that crawled in her ears.

"Mooonshadooow," it hissed. "Is it yet time to free me?"

Moonshadow grinned, revealing her fangs to the phantom in the mirror. "Very nearly. Tomorrow will mark the thousandth Waking Night. My forces are ready to ensure that it is the last."

"One thousand years," Eclipse groaned. "A millennium imprisoned, watching, yearning for my chance to repay Celestia for what she did to me..."

"Oh, my 'beloved mentor' is all yours, as long as you honor your end of our deal. And for added irony, it will be one of her latest apprentices who delivers her to you on a golden platter."

"An apprentice? How can you trust this 'apprentice' to aid us? Or have you returned to the good graces of your former master while I slept?"

"That was nine centuries and many, many lifetimes ago," Moonshadow replied with a dismissive wave of her hoof. "Any trace of affection I might have once felt for Celestia died along with Moonshine. As for Celestia's more recent student, though, she is very motivated to help us." With a wicked smirk, she added, "She simply doesn't know it yet. Savor this anticipation, Eclipse. Tomorrow night, Equestria will once again be ruled by shadow."

Eclipse's voice eagerly hissed, "Yessss. Free me, Moonshadow! Give me Celestia, and I will give you Dream Valley! You will have everything that you desire."

Moonshadow smirked at that and replied, "Well, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. There are so many realms to explore and conquer, I don't want to limit myself when we're just getting started."

-----

"Lt. Sparkle? Twilight?"

"Mm?"

"We're almost to the exit now. Are your eyes okay?"

"Oh. Yeah, yeah, I'm better," Twilight muttered. In truth, the spots in her eyes after that blinding flash had faded away to nothing about halfway through their trek to the exit, but she had continued to rely on Fluttershy for guidance and support to get out of the labyrinth. When they stepped out into the open, she finally let go of the pegasus and wobbled unsteadily on knees that felt too weak to hold her up.

"So, what do we do now? Find another Guard so we can give our statements, or...?"

Instantly, Twilight's body stiffened up, and she barked out, "No! No, you don't have to, because I was there, and... and this is classified. Top secret!"

Fluttershy's gasped and hopped up into the air, hovering as she brought her hooves to her mouth. "Really?!"

Twilight quickly pulled the pegasus toward her with her magic and shushed her. "Shhhh! Yes. Yes really. Listen, these are... these are some very dangerous ponies. They could have eyes and ears anywhere, so for your own safety, you need to just stay quiet about the whole thing until I get in touch with you again. Understand?"

Fluttershy thought about it for a moment and replied, "Well... not really. Wouldn't my husband and I be safer if we got some extra protection from the Guard while we're--"

"Top secret! Don't tell anypony, not even your husband or employees. This is strictly need-to-know," Twilight desperately hissed at her.

"Umm... or I could do what you said. Okay," Fluttershy conceded.

Twilight nodded slowly. "I'll be back after I get this all worked out. Until then... not anypony." She made a zipping motion across her mouth with her hoof. When Fluttershy nodded and echoed the gesture, she teleported away in a flash of magic.

-----

When Twilight reappeared, it was into the familiar space of her quarters. She took a moment to check her surroundings before she levitated the pillow from her bed over to herself and began screaming into it as loudly as she could.

When she paused to catch her breath, she took several deep breaths. "Oh, Celestia... what did I just do? What did I just do?"

I saw what could very well be a serious threat to national security, and told the only other witness not to inform the proper authorities. And now my best friend is skulking around Canterlot with an alicorn-level magic weapon and some kind of secret agenda I don't know anything about!

"Okay... okay, don't panic, Twilight. Do not panic. You get stupid when you panic! DON'T! PANIC!" she said aloud in a desperate attempt to calm her fraying nerves. Her hooves clopped against the hardwood flooring as she paced in circles. "Trixie must have her reasons for getting mixed up in something like this without telling me. Think it through. What is it about Moonshadow's Fang that she might need it for?"

Moonshadow's Fang. Forged two hundred years ago at the behest of the vampony Lady Moonshadow. Known abilities: Absorption and focused release of solar energy. Able to draw out Princess Celestia's magic, it was used to weaken her considerably for a time. Lady Moonshadow herself was destroyed, and Celestia's magic was returned to her before she could do anything worse with it. The Fang was then secured in the most top-secret vault in Canterlot.

Twilight raised a hoof to rub her forehead. "I don't get it... what would Trixie want with the Fang? How did her contact get their hooves on it in the first place? I just don't understand..."

Suddenly, she jolted upright as if hit with a zap of lightning. "Maybe Shining Armor does, though! She was at his office earlier, so he might know what she wanted it for!"

Although it wasn't much to go on, Twilight bolted out of her quarters and ran as hard as she could across the Royal Guard compound without a care for what her subordinates or fellow officers might think if they saw her in such a state.

A few minutes later, she found herself racing down the corridor toward her big brother's office, and it was only the training and decorum that had been drilled into her throughout her service on an almost molecular level that kept her from simply barging through.

Instead, she skidded to a stop in front of the door, took a few seconds to catch her breath and gather her thoughts, then lifted a hoof to knock.

There was no sound.

That was not to say that there was merely no sound coming from the other side of the door. There was no sound coming from the door itself when she tapped her hoof against it.

Silencing spells were commonly used by unicorn officers to discuss matters of importance without being overheard. Even earth pony and pegasus officers would often keep enchanted items around to produce the same effect. That the Captain of the Guard would do so came as no surprise to Twilight, but her sense of urgency compelled her to employ a trick that Shining himself had taught her early in her training.

By focusing her magic on a smaller, weaker version of the force field bubbles that her brother was so famous for, she carefully crafted it into a magenta sphere no bigger than her hoof. One that was designed to subtly repel other magics.

Once it was formed to her specifications, Twilight moved the anti-magic bubble and pressed it against the enchanted door. There was some resistance where the two spells met, but as she pushed it further, the silence parted and flowed around it like a stone in the middle of a river. This granted her a small spot to strike in order to get Shining's attention.

Just as she was about to knock, however, Twilight heard her brother angrily ask, "No! I am not hoofing the Fang over to Trixie, not even for you! When I took this office, I swore an oath!"

In response to that, a quieter female voice replied, "And your service has been exemplary, Captain Armor, but your oath was to serve the interests of Equestria above all else. You cannot stop what is coming, but you can lead our little ponies through the aftermath. That is your destiny."

Twilight furrowed her brow and hesitantly lowered her hoof. Instead of knocking, she allowed curiosity to overcome her and pressed her ear against the door where her counterspell was active. From the other side, she could hear Shining angrily pacing in his office. "Unless my cutie mark washed off in the shower, my destiny is to protect ponies!"

"No, Captain Armor, this is inevitable," the other voice replied. Twilight frowned and did her best to focus. It seemed familiar, but was muffled enough by the door that she couldn't quite identify it. "When it happens, there will be confusion. Panic. Chaos. They will look to you and Cadance to provide calm in the storm. That is where you should devote your energies. Not toward prolonging the life of one little princess who is not long for this realm anyway."

"Shut up! I can't believe you, of all ponies, are telling me to just... just sit back and watch my sister's best friend commit treason! You can call it 'destiny' or 'the greater good' all you want, but if Trixie Lulamoon ever gets her hooves on the Fang, I will track her down to the ends of Harmonia and buck her straight through the gates of Tartaros myself!"

Twilight gasped in shock at what she was hearing. Her mind started racing, trying to make sense of it, but before she could even come close to formulating an answer, she heard Shining ask, "Wait... did you hear something?"

As a pinkish aura of magic formed around the door handle, Twilight immediately started to panic. With no time to think, she acted purely on reflex, and disappeared in a flash the same instant that the door swung open through the space which she had inhabited a mere split second ago.

Author's Note:

Well, this one ended up being a bit shorter than expected. I'd been having a little trouble deciding which elements to use here and which to hold onto for later, but I think it worked out well enough in the final version. This is also the last of the "day before" chapters, so the next ones will start going into Waking Night proper. Hope you enjoy, and feel free to comment.

Comments

[Hopeful_Ink_Hoof]

Well... technically if Fluttershy told her husband, she still would not have said anything to anypony now would she?
Moonshine... she was in Luna Eclipse: The Rock Opera, wasn't she?

[CrowMagnon]

6967915 No, you might be thinking of Sungleam, but Moonshine did the foreword for Chapter 2.

[Comickook]

Hello there. Thanks greatly for getting the next chapter up. I really appreciate you going to the effort. As usual, excellent job on the exchanges, emotional content and future chapter set-up in all the right places. I'll definitely be looking forward to more of this as soon as time and inspiration will allow.

[CrowMagnon]

6968495 Well, thank you for the continued comments, but you don't need to copy-paste the same basic message every time.

[RanmaChaos]

Another enjoyable chapter. Great job.

[Dramon Creator]

Secrets and lies are everywhere Twilight Sparkle, but don't lose faith. So long as you have determination, and make sure to properly investigate, you'll get to the bottom of this mystery. Indeed, if you continue to walk down this path, you'll likely find your Loyalty....

I'm almost certain that the person Shining Armor was arguing with is Celestia. I could be wrong, but one of the only people who would disregard the Sun Princess's safety so completely is the alicorn herself. I'm not expecting you to reveal any spoilers, but if you're willing to give a heads up, please do!

[CrowMagnon]

7009608 An entire ice palace, actually. This version's screw up wasn't quite that epic, but at least Celestia took it in good humor.

[Frankie2]

Well, this is getting intense. It's a good thing Shining doesn't know that Trixie already has the Fang...for now.