Humans Meet Ponies

by TwiPON3

11: A Little Self-Evaluation

Still in the bathroom.

---

"Something's wrong. I actually need Midnight Sparkle, and I've gone without my glasses this whole time?" I said, having some weird revelation, "I'll worry about that in a minute. Right now," I said, ripping off the very tattered vest and throwing it onto the floor, "Just gotta make myself decent and just focus on that."

The vest, or what was left of it actually, came off, along with the belt, which miraculously survived everything.

"Okay," I said turning to the sink and splashing cold water on my face, "So far, so good. Mostly."

Off with that scratchy shit, on goes something... normal?

The shirt was practically already ripped off, but the replacement Pinkie gave felt brand new and practically WELCOMED freedom.

"Wow," I said, looking in the mirror at myself with the new top, "It's almost... welcoming."

This is what she was going to talk about? Wow. I was just hurting myself. Could this be friendship?

I heard a knock on the door.

"Twilight?" Sunset said, "Everything okay in there?"

"I can't give any definite output just yet. Maybe in a few minutes?"

"Sure thing."

She walked off.

After I was sure she was gone, I did some more self-reflection out loud.

"Okay. Wow. This is... comfortable. Oddly comfortable."

When I went to take off my skirt, to change it with the pants, it just gave way. Evidently, touching it was the last straw.

"Really?" I asked myself, leaning on the counter, "Time to get this one over with."

When I went to change into the pants, they actually felt protecting.

Okay... So the shirt was one thing, but this? I'm not... is it some kind of perv-protection? Whatever it is, it should be enough to get Manor to stop trying to sneak pictures.

"I feel... safe from them. Manor and his friends... won't be able to sneak pictures anymore."

That left only the footwear and faux-eyeware.

"I don't know how this is going to go down with anyone, but I may have to ask Pinkie Pie to help me get some more of these. If that's what friends do."

I sat down on the floor and took off my CPA footwear. Actually, it was more like ripping because of how much damage everything had sustained already.

Wow, Sparkle. You REALLY needed this. They're just too uptight there, but changes are damn sure coming at that hellhole. I can just feel it.

"Okay," I said after I pulled the socks on my feet, noting their lack of delicacy, "This must be what it fells like to be laid back. With the other ones, I had to watch every little thing I did with my leg. It would even cramp up really bad sometimes."

The sneakers were next. As I put my feet in them and tied the laces, I felt like the inside of it was conforming to the shape of my foot.

Padding? Now they won't get as sore when I walk.

"Wow. It's like, they made shoes just for walking. I'm getting out more."

As I got up and put the faux-eyewear on, I took several steps back to examine the changes that had happened over the past several minutes.

"Holy crap. I look like a whole new person."

Everything looked great, but something was... off, so I went back to the mirror.

"Pony ears, a muzzel, and a horn?"

I turned to the side and looked at myself in the mirror like that, only to find that I had a tail with the exact same colorscheme as my hair.

"Please be vestigial," I said, hoping it was.

But it wasn't. It was an actual appendage. I tried using the horn for magic at the mirror to see if it still worked, and it did. What I saw next, though, both scared the shit out of me AND made me feel better, but she was... different... now. Aggressive, but not hostile. But she had manifested herself physically now. Colorwise, she was the same as earlier..

Midnight Sparkle.

Her eyes weren't the same as before, instead, they were now... normal, but the irises were the same color as the magic was that she had manifested at the Friendship Games. She didn't have a messed-up horn made of magic, but one similar to mine that was real. She didn't look maddening of any stretch. Really, she just looked like a clone of me colored to look like herself at the Friendship Games. The only magic that I could tell that she had was the same as what I had.

"Dammit, Twilight Sparkle," she said, "Look around you. What do you see?"

I stammered.

"Get over it already!"

"Who... What..."

"It's me," she said, in an annoyed tone, "Midnight Sparkle."

I began to scream, but she shoved her hand into my mouth, preventing it.

"You do need me, but you don't want to admit it. Earlier when I had full control in that room, I knew I needed you. That's the black smoke."

My fear turned to confusion.

"Dammit!" Midnight said, "Use that fucking bigass brain of yours and THINK dammit!"

"What? What do you mean?"

"I'll fucking show you!" Midnight said, turning the mirror into a screen.

"What..."

"Shut the hell up and watch."

"It's Ms Cinch's office."

"Who's in there?"

"Ms Cinch."

"And?"

"Cadence."

"Look how this goes down."

"Cadence, if you would, please grab Miss Twilight Sparkle from class. I'll call Shining Armor up from the lobby."

"Yes ma'am," Cadence said before leaving.

Cadence left to go get Twilight.

I looked at Midnight.

"Dammit, at the mirror!"

Ms Cinch looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown.

"What if this doesn't work? What if she says 'No'? What if she just freezes right in the middle of an event?"

She pinched the top of her nose.

"What if she doesn't WANT to go to Everton? She could snap at any minute and take out my spark plugs! She could expose me for who I actually am! In the middle of the games! To Canterlot City High School!"

"What're you trying to show me?"

"You just saw Cinch! In public, she's got a g-!"

"Not that one!" I said, "None of the ones on that list! The others, I can live with. NOT that one, though."

"You just saw Cinch! In public, she's got a damn reputation to flaunt around! The OTHER SIDE of her is a weak dumbass!"

I thought for a second, then went and banged my head against the wall.

Why the hell?

'Why the hell' what?

"WHAT!?"

I snapped back around.

"Dammit, I'm YOU! MIDNIGHT Sparkle is a part of TWILIGHT Sparkle!"

"So, you're..."

"Still in shock, huh."

"...just the dark side..."

"Keep coming."

"...of me."

I heard footsteps coming down the hall, then a knock on the door again.

"Sunset!" Sunset yelled, "You okay in there, Twilight?"

I looked at Midnight in shock. She was a part of me, so we communicated by thought.

What do I do?

Open the damn door!

But if she sees you...

Just trust me for once here, willya?

I sighed.

Sure.

"Just a second," I said as I went to unlock the door.

"Everyone's worried about you. That whole 'Midnight Sparkle' thing that happened earlier, it was pretty screwed up."

Oh for God's sake, just let her in.

I was pissed.

"Will ya get in here?"

"Listen, I can respect"

I pulled her in and locked the door behind her.

"What... was that about?"

"Damn, woman," Midnight said.

Sunset looked around me, only to find her. Sunset was scared now.

"Listen, she's not dangerous!"

"That's not what scares me."

"What does, then?"

"Why... does she look... like that?"

I thought for a moment, splashed some water on my face, and just took what Sunset was seeing right now to heart.

"She's a side of me that I didn't know I had because I was such an idle pushover this whole time."

"Wow."

"Yeah," Midnight said, "Imagine how I felt when she had a spine a minute ago."

"Wow. So, that thing in the room earlier, and at the school, you don't want to take control now?

"Are you for real?"

Sunset scowled.

"No. I can't exist without her, and I DON'T want to exist without her."

"And you don't want to know more about magic so much that you'd rip holes in the space-time continuum?"

"Half of that's true. I want to keep everything IN TACT."

"And..."

"That magic kicked everything into an unbearable overdrive."

"So you..."

"Listen, everyone's going to come in here if we don't finish this up now," she reached into the last remaining pocket on my old skirt and pulled out the pocketknife that Shining had given me when I turned sixteen and opened it, "Just slice through me now, and if you want to pick this up later, just Skype Twilight."

Sunset ran cold. I, on the other hand (probably because I was there the whole time), was okay with it.

"Y-you want... m-me to... k-kill you?"

"You'd have to do that to Twilight if that was ever going to happen."

"No!" Sunset said before looking at me, "Do something."

"She's just a physical manifestation of my dark side being projected by Equestrian magic. Slicing through her would be like taking the batteries out of a flashlight," I said, beginning to get just plain annoyed, "Whenever I use magic on a mirror, she'll come back."

"I don't know!" she said, very scared.

"Give me the knife," I said, "I'll do it."

Sunset couldn't do anything but watch as I took the pocketknife and sliced right through her, causing her to dissipate into smoke that found its way into me.

"Y... you..."

Sunset was almost the color of Rarity now.

"Just look," I said, putting the gift in my pocket and picking her up.

"What?"

Once again, I used what I called "null magic" on the mirror and successfully brought her back to the physical world.

"Happy, dammit?" she said, "Now can we get the hell out of here?"

Sunset regained her color, so I blasted Midnight Sparkle's physical manifestation into smitherines.

"I'm so stupid," she said, "How did I not see that coming."

"What?"

I reached into the skirt pocket and pulled out the only other thing in there before I threw the rags away, which was my phone.

"Here I am, from Equestria, and I don't know that you can't kill a manifestation of a part of something?"

I went back over to her.

"Really?"

"On second thought, let's just go back with everyone. It makes sense now."

Author's Note:

I know that this is probably gonna get a lot of stuff along the lines of "this needs a 'DARK' tag on it" or "why does Midnight not want to do what she was doing earlier" or "watch the language" or "why does Midnight not want to kill Twilight?". The truth is that Midnight Sparkle is just a manifestation of an unseen dark side of her that is projected with magic.

No Sci-Twi means magic can't manifest within her.
Magic can't manifest within her means no Midnight Sparkle.
so..
No Sci-Twi means No Midnight Sparkle

Nothing gets murdered here, and Midnight's language and temper are the result of her being the dark side of Twi. Sure, those thoughts probably come in her head now, but they could have just as easily BEFORE magic happened. All that Midnight is (at least at this point) is just Twilight's dark side coming into the world as its own version of her. Expect to see more (just... not like that) of their magic working in this way.