5 - The Color of Wednesday and Other Madness Part 2: Witch
“Burn the witch!”
The smell of woodfires was strong.
“Burn the witch!”
The shadows of the pine trees shook in time with those of the pitchforks.
“Burn the witch!”
The ropes chaffed at her side, holding her to the wooden pole set atop the wagon that would take the young girl to her execution by pyre.
“Burn the witch!”
Midnight swore she’d seen this exact thing in a movie once.
“Burn the witch!”
The crowd’s chanting was as incessant as it was monotonous.
“Heard you the first time!” Midnight growled, and experimentally tugged at the ropes. They held fast, but there was something else going on. A sort lethargic give to the ropes that felt desperately familiar to her. It was like pulling at quicksand.
“Burn the witch!”
The crowd carrying her along with them were all dressed like they were from a pageant, or some historical reenactment from pilgrim-times. She was looking at a veritable sea of petticoats and buckled hats. Rarity would have had a stroke.
So would Twilight, actually. Mostly due to the outfits looking historically accurate for once.
But that wasn’t the oddest thing about them. No, the fact that they marched in eerie lockstep wasn’t it either. Nor was the fact that their shadows seemed to move in time with the pine trees instead…
The oddest thing about this crowd was that there were only, of a crowd in the dozens, about six faces spread out amongst them. Six very, very familiar faces.
“Burn tha’ witch!” cried Applejack.
“Burn the witch!” Rarity agreed.
“Burn the witch!” Rainbow Dash shouted.
“Burn the witch!” Fluttershy… didn’t.
“Burn the witch!” Pinkie Pie bounced in lock-jump with the others.
Sunset Shimmer said nothing. There was only one of her, and she led the parade of pilgrims between the pines, possibly towards a pyre, if the purple poindexter presumed precisely…
Midnight shook her head loose of alliteration.
Where had that come from…?
“This seems a little odd,” she mused atop the cart leading her to a rather grim fate, if her memories of history class could still be counted upon, “Are you guys sure you’re not here to burn Cinch? Definitely more of a witch, if you catch my meaning.”
“Burn the witch!”
“M’kay,” Midnight rolled her eyes, “About as conversational as the real ones, I see. Still, most likely a dream.”
She looked up into the starry, starry night sky… literally. As Twilight, she’d never taken the time to appreciate Van Goat’s work, but now that the sky had taken on a goopy, oil-painting veneer, she couldn’t help but admire the old lunatic’s handiwork.
“Definitely a dream. Don’t need to test that… eugh,” she sighed, irritated, “If this memory split thing means that I turned into an Art Major, like some sort of darn hippy…”
Her growls and existential murmurs were drowned out by another, “Burn the witch!”
“Hm,” she settled back into the pole holding her to the cart, “no Twilight. I guess I’m flying solo for once. But, how did I…?”
Her mind drifted back and forth, trying to fight its way out of the dream-soup it’d found itself in. She could remember most of the day before this, or, at least she hoped so. There was something about that cute boy, Flash Sentry. And something about a prank on Rainbow Dash. Discord being a professor…
“Celestia,” Midnight mused, “I was in her office…”
Though the trees were, ostensibly, pine trees and conifers, Midnight noted with some botanical irritation that, as she began to recall her pre-sleep memory, the forest began to fill with dry, stereotypically dead trees. The sort from old cartoons that tended to turn into skeletons and boogiemen the second lightning struck, monsters theatrically grasping at the swirling clouds and baleful moon...
Trees that were entirely unseen in Canterlot’s biodiversity index. It was the wrong climate and latitude. It was wrong on so many levels, if this had been a movie or something, Twilight would have spiked its review average with a scathing scientific critique.
Midnight would have settled for harassing the director on MyStable. The old Midnight, of course. New Midnight would…
“Memo: review revenge tactics that don’t cause unnecessary drama or threaten friendships…”
However, as the mob passed this copse of corpse-trees, she could see that the dead branches formed a series of frames from her angle of approach. And within each frame, a scrap or fragment of the memory played.
There, where two v-branches met to create a wooden equilateral rectangle, Midnight watched herself enter the Principal’s office during sixth-period and have a seat. And here, where two branches hooked around one another, creating a spiraling circular frame, Vice Principal Luna set down a thick notebook, a massive test of every subject, with a pencil on the side.
Above her, Midnight looked through three branches as they framed both the swollen moon, and both Principals as they placed a friendly hand on her shoulders.
She could hear them, as clear as they’d been a few minutes ago.
“You’ll do fine,” Celestia had said, warm and motherly, “Just do your best.”
Luna, as stern as Principal Cinch had ever been, but with a subtle undertone of care and concern, added, “Whatever this test proves, we shall ever be here to help you.”
“Right,” Midnight sighed, “The Aptitude test.”
She idly wondered if anything different would pop up, to differentiate her and Twilight. She hadn’t much hope for the thing at first. Despite being, in some ways, different people now, she and Twilight had shared eighteen years together in the same head. At least, from their point of view.
Suddenly, her comment about ‘darn hippies’ seemed ill-timed.
“Burn the witch!”
“Ah, shut up!” Midnight snarled. She tugged experimentally on the ropes again, but that went nowhere, fast. She returned to muttering, “Stupid test. Probably bored me to sleep.”
She paused.
“Oh… guess that’s one difference…”
The unlit pyre came into view. A platform of dried tinder. A stage where Midnight was, according to this dream’s narrative, to dance a kindling jig. She wasn’t sure where that particular idiom came from, but it cut down on the fear of burning alive, somewhat.
Not that she should be afraid. She was just dreaming. Lucid dreaming, in fact. Technically, that meant everything in Midnight’s dream should be doing as she wanted.
“Wake up!” she shouted into the cold void. Even her echoes were muffled by the pines.
“Burn the witch!” the mob continued to chant. Instantly, with no transition, Midnight was atop the pyre, the wooden pole she’d been strapped to having teleported, seemingly without warning.
“Come on, lucid dreaming!” Midnight furiously tugged at the ropes some more, “Loosen! Turn into noodles! Explode! Something!”
But nothing loosened. Nothing turned to noodles. Nothing exploded.
Except, a torch. A single torch, at the back of the crowd, suddenly flared to life.
It bore an aquamarine flame.
Midnight paused, her heart – even if it was her dream heart – skipping a beat as it appeared. Then, a little flame of anger relit itself within her. And suddenly, contempt for her own unimaginativeness overcame any shock the sight should have held for the once-demon.
“How original!” she spat, “Remind me to check with Princess Luna about this later. Clearly, I need help with metaphors and symbolism.”
Midnight snarled, and threw a look up at the moon that would have stripped bark from a tree. The only thing she got in return was a cold, implacable silence.
“Useless freaking Moon horse. Seriously, we’d be better off teaching the VP how to dreamwalk,” she muttered, dimly aware of her Daydream Shimmer – Midnight snorted a little at that, or would have – carrying that blue torch through the crowd and towards the pyre.
Midnight hissed venomously, “At least she’s around…”
A voice, soft as rustling leaves, melted out of the shadows behind her.
“I have said as much before, though until recently, nopony would take my suggestion seriously.”
Midnight froze. The wind froze. The shadows and the swaying trees all froze. Even the angry mob froze, mid-shout and step for some of them. The torch-flames held by Sunset seemed to slow, and stop in their undulating, fiery dance. The whole dream world held its breath.
There was a quiet creaking noise, just to Midnight’s right. She turned her head as far as she could, ropes permitting, and stared, wide-eyed.
The Princess of Night, Luna, appeared every bit the royal Alicorn. Midnight wasn’t entirely sure on the conversion rate, but she was quite shocked to find Luna stood as tall as she did. Whether that was real, or part of the dream, there was no mistaking the raw, palpable magic that infused her very being.
Luna’s deep, blue eyes were locked onto Midnight’s, yet they shared no emotion. They were as unfeeling as ice, as good a conversationalist as a tombstone.
“When I said useless moon horse…”
The mob began chanting again.
“Burn the witch!”
The shadows began to sway, and the fire guttered back to life. Sunset was still marching through the crowd, and was halfway to the pyre.
Luna spared the assembly a moment of her concentration, snorting quietly as she took in the sight.
“Are witch-burnings very common in your world?” she asked, as easily as someone might ask about whether or not it would rain today.
Midnight blinked a few times, just in case she was imagining things.
“Uh, not for a couple centuries. Why…?”
“No reason,” the ancient diarch shook her head, “I always found them excellent civil servants, despite the odd hexing or cow mutilation…”
“Nice, nice. Lovely,” Midnight spoke quickly, one eye on the approaching torches, “But, if you haven’t noticed, I need to get out of these ropes.”
The Princess nodded slowly, “Yes, you should get on that. This may be a dream, but due to your lucidity, and without control, your mind might awaken real memories of pain to simulate the burning.”
Midnight stared at the Princess. When nothing else seemed forthcoming, and Midnight’s eye began to twitch, she asked, “So? Give me a hand, er, hoof here!”
And now it was Luna’s turn to stare at Midnight. She blinked lethargically, then turned to watch Not-Sunset’s progress. She was almost upon the pyre.
“Why would I do that?”
“Because…” it took a moment to properly register what Luna had said, and it would take several more before her calculations caught up.
“Aren’t… aren’t we friends?”
The Night Princess’s eyes never wavered from Midnight’s own. They stared into Midnight with the chill of a winter storm.
“I was friends with Twilight Sparkle,” she hissed. “I do not know you.”
Midnight didn’t know if she could shed tears in a dream… but she wasn’t about to find out now. It only took another moment for Sunset to reach the pyre. When she held up her torch, it caught Midnight’s eye, and held her attention.
“We commit thee to the flames,” she intoned, “For the vile act of murder.”
Midnight just sneered back, “Suicide, maybe. Even then, that was Old Twilight.” Her attention was focused on the witch hunters, so Midnight failed to notice Luna’s ear twitch as she said this.
Nor did she notice Luna’s face as Sunset spoke.
“Nay! ‘Twas not that murder, but the murder of Good Sunset Shimmer, whom you condemned to Life beyond Death!”
Midnight sighed, “Is my subconscious really still on about that? We talked through the first thing last night, and the whole Alicorn thing this morning!”
“This morning…?” Luna chimed in, quietly, as if unsure of the words.
“A crime committed,” one of the Applejacks called out, “Must be a crime, avenged!”
“Should I apologize to AJ for dreaming up her being the one to call for the death sentence?” Midnight glanced back at Luna, who was watching the proceedings with a careful eye, “I mean, it’s kinda stereotypical, what with the accent, and the cowboy hat…”
“Burn the witch!”
Midnight scowled at the Moon Princess, “Could you at least make them stop that!?”
Luna seemed to have only just heard her. “What?”
“Useless Moon Horse!” Midnight pulled at the ropes with newfound desperation.
The torch lowered, bringing the blue flames closer to the kindling.
“No, stop!” Midnight gasped… then, paused. A moment of confusion passed across her features.
What was she so scared of? That a dream might burn her?
And then, as the pyre lit beneath her, Midnight became acutely aware of what she feared.
The fire burned. Tongues of flame began to lick and tear at the wood beneath her, and it was hungry for more. Wood blackened, and smoke billowed. The sheer heat of it couldn’t be described. It was like stepping out of a freezer and into an oven, like the air-conditioning hadn’t just died on a hot summer day, but burst into flames.
She couldn’t breathe. Almost immediately, it was like she was choking. The smoke and the fire ripped at her lungs, burning her face and legs and hands and eyes and lungs.
Luna noticed. Her face had watched, impassively at first, and then with growing suspicion as the ceremony had commenced. But now, that suspicion had changed again.
The anger had melted away, as had any trace of her previous misgivings. Suddenly, the Princess of Night looked worried.
With little prompting, she stood up on her hind legs, and as she fell to her front hooves, she used her momentum to add to a mighty flap of her dark blue wings. The wind roared like a rippling roll of thunder, and the flames instantly blew out from the pyre, illuminating the night in a pale blue light.
Sunset, the mob, the trees and the shadows… all of it was instantly swept aside. Like smoke, like ash driven by a cleansing rain. The dark and terrible night was repaired, replaced by the globular moon up above, and a clean, flat plain of blue below.
Midnight felt the ropes, and the pole holding her up, vanish instantly. Soft grass broke her fall, thankfully, though she was quite confused as to how she’d been winded by a fall in her own dream…
She quickly regained her feet. Nothing lay around her. The forest, and the mob, were gone.
“Huh,” was all Midnight could muster in that moment. She started glancing about while brushing off her pantlegs. Dream or not, she was conditioned to check for grass stains.
The dream had become somehow even more surreal. A flat, featureless plain of blue grass beneath a silver moon that hung oppressively low in the sky. At a certain angle, Midnight wondered if it could touch the horizon.
Despite the lack of features, Midnight couldn’t help but hear something new. The chanting mob and the rustling of shadowy trees had been replaced by the distant chirping of crickets, and the wind had somehow taken on the scent of… lavender?
But featureless it would not remain. Despite turning around in a complete circle more than once, Midnight saw that a hill had appeared just a few hundred meters away.
And right at its crest, she could see a familiar shape. A Princess-shape.
Midnight sized up the hill. She wasn’t entirely sure if its dimensions agreed with Euclopian Geometry, but that would be normal around here. In any case, it was much too far away to walk.
“Well, fine,” she hummed, “Let’s see if this lucid dreaming thing is working properly…”
There wasn’t a conscious thought involved in what happened next. It was second nature for Midnight to draw upon her magic. Even an oneiric connection to her magic was real enough for her purposes here. The familiar sensation of wings fluttering at her back was almost worth the angry mob and blunt-force metaphors this daydream had tried to pull with her.
Almost. And there was one being around who might have answers for her.
Defying every aerodynamic law on the books, as well as any formal understanding of geometry and spatial physics, Midnight’s wings carried her up to the top of the hill in a way that would make Mrs. Harshwhinney, her science teacher, rip her teeth out in frustration.
As she landed, Midnight noted that the Princess at least had the courtesy to look shamefaced over… whatever had happened back there.
“Let me begin by apologizing profusely… Midnight Sparkle,” Luna said, sitting stately on her haunches, “I did not mean to cause you great discomfort or stress tonight… or, today. I am unused to working at this time…”
“Well, it sure didn’t look like it!” Midnight released more of her anger in that quick declaration that she probably meant to, but from her perspective, she wasn’t the one who had to explain herself.
The Princess looked down at her hooves. Her ears twitched, and fell flat against her head as she seemed to mull over her thoughts.
Finally, Luna looked up at the, rightfully, angry teenager, and asked, in a hollow voice, “Has anypo- anyone told you the tale of Nightmare Moon?”
Midnight frowned. She wanted to stay angry, if only for another moment or two, but her mind was already churning as the name was said. She folded her arms, and threw her thoughts back to her calculations.
“Lemme see…” she bit the inside of her cheek, “I think Sunset mentioned her, once. Some sort of pony boogieman, right? Or, I guess she was a story, but Sunset seemed very serious about it.”
“Indeed,” Luna nodded, “My sister told me that Sunset was one of the few ponies she ever told about the truth behind those stories and fables. I suspect the… grandiose nature of those legends, and her own supposed role in them, might have contributed to her original arrogance and thirst for power.”
“The truth?” Midnight tapped her chin in thought, “The truth about this… Nightmare Moon? Wait…”
Another ear-twitch. And a subtle shifting of the Alicorn’s hooves.
Midnight’s mind made a connection.
“You mentioned her, the last time you were in my… my and Twilight’s dream,” Midnight said, slowly working through her thoughts, “You thought I was some sort of dream-demon, an… Incubus? Like her.”
For just a moment, Midnight could hear the strands of Crystal Prep students chanting off in the distance, conjured out of the ether.
“Unleash the magic…”
“Indeed,” Luna clipped, banishing the song with a quick flick of a wingtip, “I feared you were a dark corruption in Twilight’s psyche, a monster that needed vanquishing. It wasn’t until I witnessed your… birth… that I realized you had been born from something fundamental to her person, to her soul.
“Tulpa, is what I named you,” she shook her head, a moment of past frustration creeping up on the ancient Princess, “Neither inherently good, nor evil. Merely…”
“Twilight with an attitude adjustment,” Midnight finished. Her head dipped, slightly, at the thought, but she straightened quickly, and asked, “So, you’ve seen something like that before? An Incubus?”
Luna exhaled a breath she’d been holding in. Her shoulders sagged slightly, and even her mane, drifting in a wind none could see, seemed to deflate somewhat.
“Nightmare Moon was a corruption. She… I was driven to become a monster of my own making.”
Midnight blinked. “You?”
“Me,” the Princess sighed, “I had grown jealous of my sister’s… well, everything. She was tall, and fair, and had all of the love and attention she could ever want, while I… at least, I felt that I had been abandoned. At first by the ponies… and then by Celestia.”
Midnight’s eyes widened noticeably. She slapped her forehead softly.
“You pulled a Friendship Games over a thousand years before I… we did?”
“Indee—” Luna cocked her head to one side, “That is certainly one way to describe what happened. I allowed my jealousy and anger to fester until it had become an Incubus, a ‘dream-demon’, as you described it.”
“And those are supposed to drive people insane,” Midnight nodded along, piecing some of what she’d heard together, “But… I’m guessing there’s not a lot of differences between an Incubus and an ‘Evil’ Tulpa?”
Luna nodded, sadly. “Yes. I… that is, you present a lot of moral and ethical conundrums. And for one such as I, who has dealt with such things in the past…”
Midnight chuckled, darkly, “Oh. I guess I spooked you pretty badly. I probably look like a bad guy to you,” she indicated her slightly more ‘punk’ aesthetic, happily carried over from the waking world.
“A misconception of which I am guilty, and thoroughly ashamed of,” the Princess added quickly, “I had heard from the Princess Twilight that you… and your sister were dealing with much tribulation in the realm of dreams, and…
“I couldn’t believe it,” she sighed and began to sheepishly rub the front of one foreleg with the other, “I secretly felt that you were… like her. Nightmare Moon. Not a real po—person. Just a shadow of hate and darkness.”
“Even though you knew I wasn’t a dream-demon?”
The Princess nodded, “There’s no excuse for what I did to you, not when I was suspected of the same upon my return. I let my past dictate my actions, and for that you have my unending apologies.”
Midnight watched, almost in horror, as Princess Luna bowed her head. There was just an unspeakable wrongness to the sight. Granted, Midnight had no love of royalty, but this felt somehow off.
“Look, it’s fine,” she reached down and tried to heft Luna up by her shoulders… withers… whatever, “We’ve all made mistakes. And Sunset’s always going on about how our pasts aren’t our today. A lot…”
Midnight scowled. “Like, all the time.”
“She speaks from experience,” Luna tittered, and returned to her full, standing height. “If indeed, it turns out your spell granted Sunset the Alicornhood she once so coveted, I should think she’s earned the right more than some of us.”
“Oh?” Midnight’s eyes lit up, “Are you saying you and Celestia ascended? Other Twilight mentioned there was some sort of debate on the issue…”
Luna rolled her eyes. She’d gotten that question incessantly for years now, and her sister had dealt with it for a millennium. Her own Twilight had, mercifully, stopped asking after she’d taken on more and more Princess duties, finally lacking the time necessary to ponder useless trivia.
But… there was a twinkle in Luna’s eye today. A moment of weakness. A mote of understanding between herself and this former-tulpa.
Perhaps, she could tell this one being? One who wouldn’t really be able to spill the proverbial beans to Equestria…?
“Well, about that…”
The moon shook, and a low rumble rolled across the land and sky.
“What was that?” Midnight glanced up, a crease of worry on her brow, “Is my subconscious still trying to get me for something it thinks I did?”
“Drat,” Luna stamped one hoof, “I thought we had more time. You’re being woken up. Which means we’ll have to wait until tonight to discuss Twilight and your dream concerns. And, maybe your questions about personhood.”
The moon began to blur, melting into the horizon like a runny egg, and the ground did likewise melt into the sky. Princess Luna and Midnight alone remained un-melted, with the Princess beginning to rise into the air.
The whole world became a swirl of white and black as the sky and the earth became one. Luna drifted, further and further, into the silver-white of the sky, while Midnight began to fall into the black.
It was all very surreal, but that was normal by now.
Midnight called out, “Wait! Who told you about that stuff? What do you mean by tonight!?”
Her eyes narrowed.
"Wait... weren't you human the last time you were here in my dream? How...?"
“Fare thee well, Midnight Sparkle!” the Princess called down, her form shimmering and melting away at last, “Adieu!”
Midnight didn’t panic as she awoke. Though she was falling into darkness, it almost felt more like she was coming up for air. She idly wondered about this, but only until the familiar sensations of an office chair cushion, and two hands shaking her shoulders, brought her back to the light.
“You actually fell asleep?”
The halls of Canterlot High were rapidly emptying with the end of school, which left Midnight and Trixie plenty of space to walk side-by-side. So long as they walked slowly, and kept their distance from the press of humanity up ahead of them.
Midnight kept looking for torches.
“Well, it was really my time,” she said with a mockingly bored tone, eliciting a giggle out of her Bestie, “I finished the test. So, I decided to kick back.”
Trixie raised one eyebrow, “That’s definitely not a Twilight move. I swear, she looks miserable whenever she finishes Cheerilee’s quizzes. What did Luna say?”
“Which one?”
The two girls made their second-to-last turn on their way to the band room, narrowly dodging a rubber band battle between members of the Gaming Club, Wallflower Blush carting a human-sized cactus in a toy wagon, – Midnight waved – and what appeared to be Bulk Biceps giving Derpy, Octavia Melody, and Vinyl Scratch piggyback rides atop his arms’ namesake.
CHS was a weird place, and not for the first time did Midnight wonder if it’d always been like that, magic or no.
“Pony Luna,” Midnight continued, “Seemed to know something about our dream-troubles, but we were interrupted by the VP herself.”
She chuckled, “And she wasn’t thrilled. Thought I had fallen asleep instead of testing. She practically flipped when she saw I actually did it.”
Trixie frowned, “Not happy you did the test she gave you?”
“Not happy I did the test in record time and chose to hang around instead of come back to her like a puppy-dog with the completed answers.”
They made the last turn, and Trixie snorted with laughter. “Yeah, Twilight would do that. Guess you’re a lot sassier than her. That’s good!”
Midnight joined in a hearty chuckle. “And you? I thought you’d be off doing your show. That is why you took a zero-period, after all.”
Trixie raised her chin up into the air, and said, with her typical affectations, “The Great and Powerful Trixie has learned many a trade secret in her quest to become a famous magician. First, I abide by the ancient rule of ‘always leave them wanting more’. If I did my show every day, people would soon grow bored of it.”
“People can get bored of Great and Powerful?” Midnight asked with a smirk.
Trixie pouted, “A tragic commentary on the human condition!”
“Alright, well, I have a famously low opinion of the human race anyway,” Midnight shrugged, trying to mask her amused smile, “I did almost destroy it, if you recall?”
“Eh, you were, like, twenty seconds old at the time,” Trixie noted dryly, “If I had that kind of magic, I probably would have too!”
Midnight smirked, “I’ll grant you that. You’re definitely the ‘petty vengeance’ sort of gal. But you said ‘First’? Does that mean there’s a second reason to skip performance days?”
Trixie’s face flushed red.
“Oh… well, with the number of fireworks and explosives I use, sometimes I just need an extra day with the aloe…”
Both girls broke into a giggling fit as they approached the band room doors. Slowly, each got themselves back under control, though the warm smiles and good feelings remained.
Trixie indicated the other room with her thumb.
“So, what are you up to in there?”
“Not a clue,” Midnight admitted, “I was just told I’d be hanging out with Rainbow Dash and Rarity today.”
Trixie frowned, “You don’t know?”
“It’s that whole… Friendship lesson… thing,” Midnight waved her arms about, as if that would save her from explaining further. When that clearly didn’t help, she continued, “Basically, this is my parole for trying to blow up the multiverse and destroy my sister’s soul.”
“Yikes,” Trixie muttered, “Tough sentence. What? Did you run over the judge’s dog?”
Midnight managed to avoid snorting with laughter, and instead slipped into a more serious tone.
“First of all, Spike is my dog too. And second, while dull, how is this a worst punishment than, say, being turned to stone? Or shot into a black hole?”
Trixie’s face scrunched up, and her eyes narrowed. “How? Oh, I don’t know… how about the part where you get stuck hanging out with Dash and Rarity?”
“I know you guys used to not get along…”
But Trixie’s hand cut off any further commentary. Her own serious expression made Midnight almost suspect she was actually being serious. Maybe. Perhaps.
The magician explained, “Rainbow Dash, as you well know, is one of the most arrogant people Trixie has ever met! She’s always ‘sports’ this, and ‘awesome’ that! It’s so annoying to hang around a blowhard. And Rarity is no different, always claiming to be so superior to everyone else…”
Midnight fixed Trixie with a look. It was a long, hard, confused look. Midnight had heard the phrase about a pot calling a kettle black, but to see it play out in front of her eyes…
“What?” Trixie asked. Genuinely, asked.
“I…”
That is where Midnight left it. Former villain, or not, she valued her friendship too much to say a single thing just then. Instead, she opted to walk into the band room.
Which was not the best move she could have made, apparently, as the moment she and Trixie entered…
“What are you doing here?”
Amazing, Midnight thought. That was in stereo.
Two voices had said it. One, on Midnight’s right, came from Trixie. The other, however, came from a startingly familiar person, with astonishingly poofy hair.
In the corner of the band room, three girls sat like judges in a singing competition, side by side. The poofy-haired one, with an incredible orange mane of hair, gave Trixie a cold look of disdain while the magician glared angrily back. The second girl, with her long, purple pigtails, eyed Midnight with something in between utter contempt and some form of shock, or perhaps surprise.
But the last girl, the one with the long, blue ponytail…
“Hiya, Midnight!!!” Sonata waved one hand like an excited toddler, and beamed a smile that could have been seen from orbit.
“Uh, hey, Sonata,” Midnight waved back, weakly, “What are you doing here? What happened to the sushi job?”
The former Siren giggled and hopped up out of her chair, “Oh, don’t worry about that! We all got today off for singing practice…!”
Sonata’s eyes widened, and her smile faltered.
“Well, at least, I thought I got the day off. Man, it’s a good thing Sunset has all those photos, or Mr. Fukiyama might…”
“But for real,” Trixie cut in, her glaring eyes never leaving Adagio’s, “What. Are. You. Doing here?”
A hand gripped the stage magician’s shoulder, and Midnight reeled her friend back, “Okay, down girl.”
Adagio flicked her mass of hair back, and stood up, seemingly obliging Aria and Sonata to join her. Her bored expression held on Trixie for another moment, before she effortlessly switched back to Midnight.
“Your friend, Sunset? She invited us here to help with our singing.”
Midnight cocked her head to one side. “What? Why would she…?”
“Because,” Aria growled, standing beside her sister, but otherwise seemingly more interested in the state of her nails than this conversation, “Our voices were damaged by relying on magic to sing for a thousand years. The Rainbooms said they’d help us recover.”
She paused, scowled… and then added, “Nice outfit,” in a slightly embarrassed tone, and with an equally embarrassed blush.
Midnight noted how her outfit could have been one of the Sirens’ if Rarity had added a few more spikes and studs. She tugged lightly at her jacket’s collar, and tried to get things back on track.
No need to be up in each other’s faces, she reasoned, Trixie and Adagio already seem to have some sort of past beef with each other.
“Uh, thanks…?”
“No one praised Trixie’s outfit,” the blue teenager pouted, without breaking eye contact with Adagio.
“Because no one… almost no one,” Adagio flicked an annoyed, raised eyebrow glare at Aria, who hardly noticed, “cares about you or your outfit.”
Sonata tapped her fingers together, lowered her head, and whispered softly, “I care…”
Aria sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, “Sonny? Shut up.”
“And as for you, Princess,” Adagio sneered, hands on her hips, “If you think I’m going…”
“I’m not that Twilight,” Midnight said, flatly, her face settling into a genuine frown. This conversation, like every one like it, was now back to an infuriatingly similar pattern. “I’m the former Tulpa, now sister, of this universe’s Twilight Sparkle. You met the pony princess Twilight.”
“What does that even mean!?” Adagio snapped, “Where are all these extra Twilights coming from!?”
Sonata tapped her chin thoughtfully, “Didn’t they say something about a portal to Equestria last time we all hung out?”
“And she’s like, an evil clone of the human Twilight, or something. I do remember what Sunset said, Dagi. I wasn’t just stuffing my face when we asked for the truce,” Aria said with some irritation, recalling the dinner they’d crashed to beg Sunset and company for any sort of help. Being broke, with no van, and no prospects had finally brought them to this: accepting the Rainboom’s silly ‘friendship’ garbage.
She then met Midnight’s look, and smiled with half-lidded eyes.
“Which is pretty metal, all things considered.”
Midnight didn’t know exactly what this conversation had turned into, but that last comment at least gave her an out.
“Yeah, well… ex-villains gotta stick together, right?” she tried to give the three a winning smile. It felt more like she was baring fangs, but maybe that would work with fish-ponies. She hoped, anyway.
Trixie pouted, again. “Please tell Trixie they weren’t invited to the Reformed Villains’ Club too?”
Aria shrugged, eyes never leaving Midnight. Sonata nodded, vigorously, even fishing out her membership card.
Adagio… laughed.
“Villains Club?” she chortled and cackled in a way that made her sisters frown, either in embarrassment like Aria, or in concern like Sonata. That mad laughter had always been an omen of bad ideas about to play out.
But then, Adagio crossed her arms, and stroked her chin in thought.
“Then again,” she said, musing, and smirking at Trixie, “Who else could compare to some of our exploits? We’ve got over one thousand years of what you call ‘villainy’. Might be fun to lord some of that over you. What say you, girls?”
“Can we please not make this one of your ‘brilliant plans to conquer or control something’?” Aria did the air quotes herself, accompanied by a miserable scowl that spoke volumes of her opinion on said plans.
Sonata, perhaps feeling bold, added haughtily, “Yeah, the last plan you had wound up with you turned into a fish, and me eating a tire.”
Trixie, snickering, asked, “Really? A fish?”
“Yeah, a fish,” Adagio scowled at, really, everyone in the room, but fixed Trixie with it last, saying, “Better a fish than a gullible idiot! I don’t think we even had to bribe you with anything to make you turn on your friends last time, Trixie.”
Adagio smiled, and looked away from the seething magician to Trixie’s best friend.
“Trust me, you could do a lot better in picking friends, Midnight. She’ll drop you the second someone waves a bit of fame in front of her nose, like the little rat she is…”
Midnight blinked. Clearly, Trixie had done some rotten things to the other Rainbooms. No one had questioned that. But, whatever she’d done, it didn’t come close to Midnight’s own former villainy, so she really had no room to judge anyone by that metric. But this Dazzling…
What exactly is this fish trying to do? Tick me off? Mess with Trixie? Is she really just that petty that she’d try to start a fight out of habit!?
“Oh, that is IT!” Trixie pulled up her sleeves and clenched her fists until the knuckles turned white.
Ah, Midnight frowned, option D; all of the above…
“You wanna go, Dazzling!? Let’s do this!”
This has officially become stupid, Midnight sighed, mentally. She took a deep breath, and set her face into a stone grimace.
But it can also be fun…
Trixie reared back, ready to throw a world-ending punch right into Adagio’s stupid, human-but-secretly-a-fish-pony face, when a flash of blue light lit up the room. Aqua flames roared all around her, causing the air itself to shift into a hot breeze, and within the blink of an eye, Trixie Lulamoon had vanished.
All that was left of her was a patch of lightly burned carpet.
The Dazzlings each took a step back, eyes locked onto the space where she’d just been. Adagio’s eyes widened, and her pupils shrunk to dots, while Sonata covered her mouth to hold back a startled scream, and Aria’s face blanched until she looked like a ghost.
For all they’d done in the past, they’d never…
As one, they turned fearful eyes up, and saw Midnight Sparkle, in all her terrible glory. Her eyes were surrounded by a flickering, blue corona that mimicked her old glasses, and her eyes, half-lidded and boring holes in the air before her, had shifted to their former color; purple irises, and faintly glowing aquamarine sclera.
She stood still, almost regally composed, even as one hand still smoked from where it’d touched… and then disappeared, the magician.
“W-what?” Sonata cowered behind her sisters, totally disbelieving what she’d just seen.
Adagio said nothing, but the horrified look in her eyes was all too familiar to Midnight, who had seen bullies up close when their favorite plaything decided to bite back.
Almost as fun now as it was with Cinch back then…
“Cool…” Aria squeaked out, her face crimson. Then, realizing what had just happened, she muttered, “… bad for us, but cool…”
“What was that about being able to lord over lesser villains?” The smirk on her purple lips perfectly accentuated the wicked tone of Midnight’s voice. Even her hair had started to flare out from the magical power flowing through her just then.
“Did…” Adagio glanced down to the scorch mark, then back up to the… monster before her, “What are you?”
Midnight huffed, “My name is Midnight Sparkle. I’ve almost destroyed the multiverse on three separate occasions so far, the last time being this past Monday. Remind me, Dagi,” she sneered, “How many worlds have you destroyed lately?”
None of the Dazzlings said a word. For the first time in an age, they were the ‘small fish’ in a much bigger pond than they realized.
Just as Midnight hoped. “So, maybe cut out the attitude around me, m’kay?”
“You…” Sonata’s eyes were welling up. She and the other Sirens had only ever fed off of people’s negative emotions. Sure, they started a few fights, some feuds, a couple wars in the past… but they’d never directly killed anyone before.
She whimpered, “You k-killed her…”
A raspy voice sounded from the door, “Who got killed?”
All four teenagers spun towards the band doors, where a rather confused Rainbow Dash stood, guitar case slung over her shoulder. She frowned, a suspicious look falling on the disturbingly… evil-looking Midnight.
“She killed Trixie,” Aria said, a small smile starting to form on her face.
Rainbow raised an eyebrow at Midnight. She pursed her lips, and seemed to think really hard about what she’d just heard.
“I mean, I’m not surprised…”
The band doors slammed open as she said this. Fluttershy stood there, shivering and shuddering, music sheets falling out of her quaking arms. She looked right on the verge of a complete panic attack, her eyes locked in fearful terror at who stood next to her, their foot still outstretched from where they’d kicked the door in.
A completely alive, completely soaked, Trixie Lulamoon threw a scowl at Midnight that looked like it could set her on fire.
“You teleported me into the school swimming POOL!?”
The Dazzlings blinked, slowly. Their wide, vacant stares shifted from Midnight, to the suddenly alive magician, and then back. Adagio and Sonata slowly began breathing normally, their terror replaced with sheer relief. Aria, though, just seemed disappointed.
Midnight’s hair and eyes returned to normal with the barest flick of her hands, dispelling her magical appearance. “I thought you needed cooling off.”
“THAT WAS UNCALLED FOR!” Trixie cried, her flailing arms splattering a disgruntled Rainbow Dash in the process.
Midnight just shrugged, and pointed her thumb over at the Dazzlings.
“Tricked them, didn’t it? I thought you liked magic acts?”
Trixie’s eye twitched.
“Why am I friends with you?” she growled.
Fluttershy walked up to the dripping magician, and handed her a large, fluffy pink towel with a bunny stitched onto it.
“You look like you could use this,” she said, quietly.
“Thanks,” Trixie quickly began drying herself off, face first. Fluttershy had the good grace not to draw attention to Trixie’s smile, hidden behind that towel. She looked so proud of her Bestie for pulling that trick. It’d be a shame to ruin it now.
Then, Trixie looked at the towel, a strange look in her eyes. “Fluttershy?”
“Y-yes?”
“Why do you have a towel in here?”
Fluttershy smiled, “Oh, Dashie and Applejack are always pulling tricks with Pinkie Pie, usually on each other. I have all sorts of cleaning supplies in here for emergencies.”
Rainbow Dash, at this, snickered, and got to pulling her guitar out from its case. “Alright, alright! You dopes ready to learn how to be awesome singers again?”
She let loose a rip from her instrument, punctuating her words with a grungy sound that reverberated in Midnight’s bones.
“Well,” Midnight shrugged, and gave a mock-sigh, “I’m already here, so why not? But I thought Rarity was going to be here as well.”
Sonata, alone of the Dazzlings, hopped forward, light and life returning to her eyes.
“Ooh! But now we get Fluttershy? You always had the prettiest voice! That’s gotta count for something!”
Fluttershy ducked behind the grand piano, face briefly resembling an overheated lava lamp.
“Yeah, well…” Rainbow took to retuning her guitar strings as she faced the five newcomers to her band room, “Apparently, no one told Oakley Apple about her and AJ, so all three of them are kinda busy working out their little love triangle.”
Trixie’s eyes popped open. “Wait, Rarity’s a…?”
Rainbow nodded, “Yup. She’s into wrestling, or boxing… or whatever. So, the Apples are having a little match outside to figure it all out.”
Midnight frowned.
“AJ and Oakley… are going to have a wrestling match… which Rarity is into, for some reason… and you’re not going to go see it?”
“I promised to help you guys out,” Rainbow looked up to Adagio and her sisters with what appeared to be a genuine, open and accepting smile, “And a friend doesn’t go back on their promises to a friend. That’s loyalty!”
“That’s the sappiest thing I’ve ever…” Adagio began to say, before a rough elbow from both Sonata and Aria made her pause. She took a breath, and forced a toothy smile onto her face.
“How… nice of you,” she managed. Trixie grinned, only the reminder of a dip in the swimming pool keeping her exultation at the Dazzling’s discomfort in line.
“Hey,” Rainbow turned back to Midnight, “You haven’t been using your magic a lot today, have you?”
Midnight folded her arms, and gave the cyan rockstar a grin of her own.
“Even if I did, what’s it to you?”
Rainbow let out a quick bark of laughter, and gave her a thumbs-up. “Nothing to me, but you do remember what happens if one of us uses our magic too much?”
“I…” Midnight’s eyes unfocused for a moment. She tapped her chin, and started glancing around. Finally, a sheepish look came over her, and she had to turn back to her friend and admit, “Memory gap.”
Just as she said this, off in the distance there came a sudden, thunderous boom. It sounded like a small meteor crashing down somewhere near the gym. Everyone in the room shifted with the rattling hit, and looked to the windows… where a small dust cloud was drifting by.
“Oh dear,” Fluttershy sighed, “I hope Oakley’s going to be okay.”
Rainbow snickered again, winking at Midnight.
“Too much magic makes the rest of our powers go a little bit haywire,” she snorted at Midnight’s sudden discomfort, “Let’s just hope Flash wasn’t thinkin’ dirty while hanging with Sunset.”
“Rainbow!”
“What, Shy?” she laughed, “I’m sure she likes it…”
Then, composing herself again, Rainbow Dash started playing a melody on her guitar, and nodded to the others, “Alright, now for real! Let’s make some music!”
Music, as it turned out, would have to wait. Poetically, the former Sirens needed more help just hitting the right notes to form their three-part harmonies, which they claimed was the biggest part of their original act.
The fact they had an original act surprised Midnight, and intrigued the part of her that was always hungering for more information on Equestria. But, sadly, outside of the beginning of a silly story about Discord getting them their first venue, which Sonata told in a gleefully nostalgic tone, there was no explanation forthcoming. Not if Adagio had anything to say about it.
And she did.
With that, a course of action was decided on. After listening to the Dazzlings perform the musical equivalent of a protracted medieval execution, Rainbow realized she should probably have tried teaching them how to harmonize first, preferably with a live demonstration to begin. She corralled Fluttershy and Midnight, leaving Trixie to sit at the piano, and led her fellow Rainbooms in a quick, musical show.
Which was where the problem reared its ugly head.
“Uh…” Sonata squinted and pulled her hands from her ears, “Did you guys mean to sound like our van’s gearbox just now?”
Adagio snickered, “Really? After all that talk, this is what you’re teaching us with?”
Rainbow Dash scrunched her face up in the wake of that… sound. It wasn’t music. She was sure of that much. It was… actually, a creaking gearbox wouldn’t be half off, she admitted to herself.
Rainbow looked to Trixie, still sitting at the piano.
“Don’t look at me, Dash,” the magician warned, matching her glare for glare, “I didn’t do anything.”
Rainbow huffed at that, and turned her eyes back to Midnight and Fluttershy. She frowned, noticeably, as she did so.
“W-what’s wrong?” Fluttershy hunched her shoulders by a margin, and she wilted beneath her friend’s critical eye, “Did I do something…?”
“Dunno… here, let me try something…”
Rainbow Dash hit a lower note with her voice. Scratchy, though some called her singing voice, Dash’s sound was pitch-perfect, bringing to mind the sound of a well-rosined cello. It was a filling sort of sound.
Then, with her own chops proven, she pointed at Fluttershy, who instantly got the picture. Her own voice… was angelic. Even Adagio closed her mouth when she heard the shy, pink-haired beauty hit a high note that could, and had, made a grown man weep. It certainly brought Sonata down onto her knees.
Aria actually had to look away, just to save her reputation in the face of such melodious perfection.
As the singular note finally died, the only sound that followed was Trixie, clapping very slowly.
Rainbow Dash nodded with a smile, and turned to look at Midnight.
“Great,” Midnight sighed, “You know, it’s never fair, going after Fluttershy…”
Dash shrugged, “Yeah, I know. But we gotta figure this out. So, show me those lungs, Nighty!”
“That’s not my nickname.”
But Midnight knew Dash was right, about the singing, anyway. She squared her shoulders, and took a long, deep breath. She fixed the note she wanted in her mind; not to high, and not too low. The mid-tone was her goal.
She opened her mouth, and a strangled birdcall came out.
“What was that!?” Rainbow Dash shouted, staring agog at her band’s backup singer struggling to hit her note.
Midnight coughed, and felt the base of her throat.
Nothing physically different, she thought, no lumps…
She took a breath, and tried again. But, again, her voice came out at an odd pitch, warbling just shy of the mark. Her eyes widened as she heard her own… awful voice.
“Oh dear!” Fluttershy came up on her left side, her eyes almost watery with worry, “What’s wrong with your voice?”
Trixie came up on Midnight’s right, gripped her shoulder, and said, “I know I give her a hard time, but Twilight never missed a note like that!”
Adagio folded her arms across her chest, and shot Midnight a contemptuous look.
“Oh my! Is little Midnight having trouble with her middle notes?”
“Shut it, Adagio,” Rainbow grumbled over her shoulder, “Most of you is hair.”
The former Siren sniffed, but said nothing. She’d already won that round, in her mind.
Rainbow went back to Midnight.
“Hey, what’s going on? Did Twilight keep all the memories about singing, too?”
“No, nothing like that!” Midnight snapped back, a bit too forcefully, “The spell that split us shouldn’t have made our physiologies too different from each other, since there was only one original to model our forms on…”
Dash’s eyes began to glaze over. “Huh?”
Midnight rolled her eyes, “We tried to avoid making either of us too physically dissimilar… uh, different from each other. And I remember singing before, so I’m not sure what’s changed.”
“Well, you are a lot more purple than Twilight,” Trixie shrugged, “Not to mention your hair and eyes. How’s that not being too different from each other?”
Midnight opened her mouth… and then shut it again. That was a very good point. She folded her arms, and scratched at her chin, information processing at a lighting pace behind her eyes.
“I’m glad we’re not paying you guys by the hour,” Aria hummed, taking a seat along one wall.
“We’re not paying them though,” Sonata raised an eyebrow at her sister. Then, her face began to sweat, “Wait… we’re not, are we?”
Meanwhile, Midnight continued to ponder under the glare, metaphorical or otherwise, of her friends.
Dash, foot beginning to tap with her impatience, was the first to ask, “Well?”
“I’m thinking!”
“Well, think harder! If you don’t know, then how can I know!?”
“I… I think, maybe, Twilight and I weren’t as precise as we could have been,” she conceded. Midnight’s brow furrowed until a deep canyon of worry had dominated her face, “Rarity mentioned she thought I might be a few centimeters different in height. It’s not insane to think something else might have shifted around or changed.”
“Like vocal cords?” Trixie winced at the thought, the very idea of losing one of her talents like that.
“Y-yeah, I suppose so…” Midnight said, quietly, eyes downcast, “I mean, I know my voice changed a little bit after the Friendship Games, but I didn’t think it changed that much.”
Rainbow Dash’s face shifted. Her annoyance at the situation melted away, replaced with genuine concern for her bandmate, her friend. She held out one arm, and gently settled her hand on Midnight’s shoulder, right next to Trixie’s.
Adagio, watching on, smiled. She took a quick breath, and opened her mouth.
Only to have a purple hand cover it.
“Aria?” she whispered.
“Just knock it off, Dagi,” her sister replied in a weary tone, “Leave her alone.”
Adagio and Sonata, never ones for dropping a matter or holding off on a mean-spirited tease, were completely, and utterly, speechless.
It would have been hard to speak at all, anyway, considering the high-pitched squeal of a gasp that suddenly filled the room. All eyes swung about, and took in the sight of Fluttershy, mouth agape.
“Uh, Shy?” Rainbow winced at the sound, “You doing okay there?”
“Better than okay!” the normally reserved teenager clapped her hands together, “Midnight?”
“What’s up?”
“Quick!” Fluttershy picked up Rainbow’s blue-and-red guitar with almost manic energy, and started tuning and tweaking it in her hands, “Do some scales!”
Trixie glanced over to Rainbow, and whispered, “Is she gonna be okay? Trixie doesn’t think she’s ever seen Fluttershy this energetic.”
“Tell me I’m not missing another memory,” Midnight said, mostly to herself.
But the pink-haired girl only beamed back at her friend.
“Scales, missy!” she cried, and then plucked a chord.
Midnight answered, “Do.” Her ears caught the sound as she sang it. In fact, everyone’s ears perked up as the rich, low note reverberated through the room.
Fluttershy plucked.
“Re.” The note was still good, Midnight’s voice still rich and full.
Pluck.
“Me, Fa, So.” The voice hitched, it scratched, it struggled to fully embody the notes as they hit the mid-range.
Pluck.
“La, Ti.” Better. Not great, Midnight could hear, but not terrible.
Pluck.
“Do.”
The whole room fell silent as the last note died. Midnight idly touched her neck, as though she could feel the change that had occurred. The Sirens silently appraised the sound, Adagio briefly stunned at what she’d just heard. Rainbow and Trixie smiled, each starting to see just what Fluttershy was getting at.
And Fluttershy herself looked about ready to explode.
“Ooh!” she squealed, and hopped up on the balls of her feet, “I just knew it!”
Midnight looked to her, a smile back on her lips, “What did you know? How?”
Fluttershy, still somehow bursting at the proverbial seams, pointed at her throat and started chattering like… well, like Pinkie Pie.
“I probably never brought it up, but my brother Zephyr Breeze used to sing in a little kid’s choir. He had the voice of an angel…”
Rainbow’s face shifted, slightly, to a greener coloration.
“… but when he got older, his voice changed,” Fluttershy said with slightly less of her surprising vitality, and more of a long-past sadness, or regret, “And, for the last couple of days, whenever I’ve been around you, Midnight, I kept feeling like you reminded me of something. And now I know what it was!”
“Wait, wait,” Rainbow snorted, one hand going to her side, “So, you’re saying that…”
Midnight’s arm wrapped around Rainbow’s neck, and pulled her into a tight headlock.
“Mention any part of my anatomy dropping, real or imagined,” Midnight hissed, “and you’ll be picking guitar strings out of your teeth for weeks.”
Dash kept on laughing, snorting and snickering as she pulled herself free from her friend’s grasp with ease, neither Sparkle being particularly athletic or strong.
“Man, you’re actually easier to rile up than Twi,” she chuckled, “I’m gonna have fun with that!”
Sonata, next, stepped up and said, “So… Midnight’s voice just changed? And not just got worse?”
Fluttershy nodded, and readied a guitar pick.
“Now, Midnight, I wanna try something else before we get back to practice,” Fluttershy turned her blue, gentle eyes back to her friend, “Would you mind, very terribly? Your voice sounds a lot like one of my favorite singers…”
Midnight felt like she was falling into those eyes.
She’s not even using the Stare…
“Uh, sure. What do you have in mind?”
“Do you happen to remember any of the Skullcrusher songs I sent you… uh, Twilight?”
Midnight blinked. Then, a thin smile creeped out onto her face. She giggled, menacingly.
“While Twilight tried to purge them from her own memory, I actually found myself partial to Death, Death, Bloody, Bloody, Vengeance War. Know it?”
Fluttershy nodded enthusiastically, and tittered, “That’s a classic!”
Trixie frowned, and looked helplessly to Rainbow Dash, who could only look helplessly back at Trixie.
None of them had any idea what was going on. None of them were prepared.
Fluttershy let loose a peel of METAL from the guitar in her hands, before she began a driving, pounding rhythm that shrieked from the speakers, and threatened, appropriately enough, to crush the skulls of everyone in the room, the school building, and most likely anyone within a one mile radius of CHS itself.
Midnight took in a breath, held it in her chest until her heart began to swell, and let out her inner-rage into the mic…
Vice Principal Luna felt her teeth chattering in tune with the vibrations threatening to shake her desk apart and hurl her coffee to the floor. With enormous effort, she held everything within arm’s reach still, including her favorite knick-knacks and family photographs she normally displayed.
“W-what is that… horrible racket!?”
Picture frames fell from the walls. Lamps shattered. Desks toppled over all around her. Luna feared, for a moment, that the molecules making up her school were shaking to pieces.
Inside her sister’s office, however, where a previously infuriated and frustrated Principal Celestia sat with her colleague, the Lord of Chaos and current Social Studies Chair, Disqord, there was nothing but bliss.
After the day I’ve had, Celestia leaned back into her shivering chair with a smile, I could use a little more of this in my life.
“Reminds you of your Groupie days?” Disqord smirked from the ceiling, where his seat remained in defiance of gravity, “Following Skullcrusher on tour?”
“I hate that I stayed pen pals with you,” Celestia sighed.
The song ended, a wave of pink light letting the rapidly de-pony-fying Fluttershy back down to the ground. Outside of Midnight and her, however, no one else seemed to realize that at first, their ears still ringing, and their bones still shaking from the onslaught they’d just endured.
While the two metalheads giggled and laughed at the display, other reactions were mixed. Trixie, for instance, stared dumbfoundedly as she noted the grand piano had shifted a few inches during the song. Adagio’s hair had lost some its massive volume, deflating in a way eerily reminiscent of that one time that Pinkie Pie learned about gluten-intolerance, and was now swept back from her stricken face, while Sonata quietly tried to pick her jaw up off the floor.
But for Rainbow Dash and Aria Blaze, there was only one proper response.
“Awesome!!!” each cried out and punched the air. If either of them had not been deafened at that moment, one of them might have noticed the other.
“That was perfect!” Fluttershy beamed, “You sound just like their lead singer!”
Midnight planted her hands on her hips, and puffed out her chest. “That sounds about right, if I do say so myself.”
“Wait, what?” Rainbow Dash’s jubilation at her friend’s sudden singing skills dried up instantly. “What does that mean?”
“What do you think of this?” Midnight held a hand out, as though she were tracing a headline in the air, “Midnight and the Rainbooms!”
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed as a swell of panic, and anger, flashed across her face. She hunched her shoulders, and said, “Hey, wait just a dang minute…!”
“Fluttershy! You want to be my lead guitar?” Midnight turned back to her fellow Cruncher to say this.
Fluttershy’s eyes widened… and then a curious smile touched her lips.
“Oh… that does sound fun…”
“HEY!” Dash gripped Midnight’s collar in her hands, and whipped her back around, “What’s the big idea!? You’re really thinking about stealing my band!?”
Vibrant, angry pink eyes met cool, calm aqua. Dash didn’t even notice the growing grin on her friend’s face, nor the one on Fluttershy’s.
“I was actually thinking…” Midnight reached up and ruffled Rainbow’s always-messy, namesake hair, “you’re so easy to rile up. I think I can have some fun with you!”
Rainbow’s face froze. Her eyes were wide, her irises shrunk, and her mouth open. She didn’t move a muscle for several seconds, until she snapped her eyes to something over Midnight’s shoulder.
“S-shy?” her voice squeaked out, unsteadily.
Fluttershy blushed, but her smile remained. She demurred, and said quietly, “Sorry, Dash. It was just a joke.”
“I just…” Rainbow mouthed a few silent words, then sputtered, “Just… what… I don’t…”
Finally, she paused, and drew a deep, deep breath through her nose. Dash closed her eyes, and held still another moment, before releasing her breath, and staring straight at Midnight’s grin.
“Alright,” she said, begrudgingly, “Good one, Sparkle. But you’ve just started a prank war you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
Midnight just shrugged at her. “Yeah, I figured. May the best tulpa win.”
“So…” Aria took a step towards the two prank-competitors, her perpetual frown even more so than usual, “Are we ever going to start this practice thing?”
With little more than a follow-up chuckle, the Rainbooms got back to work. Rainbow took the mid-tones, with Fluttershy going high, and Midnight taking up the reins as their low voice in the harmony.
The song, this time, was better than Midnight remembered it sounding.
An hour and a half later, practice was over. The Dazzlings had actually made some progress in that time, which seemed to surprise Rainbow, at least a little bit. It would take weeks, possibly months, but even with just this one practice, it looked like the former Sirens would sing once again.
But all good things must come to an end. And all band practices as well, regardless of quality. Adagio needed to head out to Carousel Boutique to take her late shift, and both Trixie and Fluttershy knew their parents would want to hear from them soon. Sonata, meanwhile, had coupons for the local taco shop, and took off at almost a dead run to make it before closing time… which wasn’t for another six hours, but she wasn’t going to take that chance.
Which left Midnight, Rainbow Dash, and Aria to clean up the room while Trixie and Fluttershy went outside to make their phone calls. There usually wasn’t that much cleanup needed in this room, but it still had to be organized for the next day.
“So,” Midnight finished stacking some chairs without her magic, wary about overcharging one of her friends’ magic unknowingly, “Who do you think won?”
Rainbow hummed to herself for a moment as she locked away the instrument rack.
“I’d say… AJ.”
Aria, sitting at the piano with a tired look in her eye… or indigestion, raised an eyebrow, and said, “I saw that Oakley guy on Monday. Dude’s like… seven feet tall, proportionally. I don’t think your blond gal’s gonna beat him. Not without a growth spurt, anyway.”
Midnight nodded, “Can’t deny he’s got Apple in him. Even if he was a horse last week, from what I can tell, the magic that made him, Cinnamon, and Cookie human left them with Apple genes.”
“Yeah?” Rainbow smiled, “Well, good for them. He’s still gonna go down!”
“You seem pretty sure about that,” Aria said through thinning lips.
Rainbow and Midnight laughed at that. And then, Rainbow Dash started pointing one finger at her shoulder.
“Summer camp wrestling match…”
She then traced her finger down to her opposite wrist.
“… sliding into home base,” then pointing to her ribs, “… tiddlywinks…”
Midnight shook her head, “I think she deadlifted her house once when I… when Twilight was over to help with the whole Flim Flam Brothers thing.”
“She carried her Granny’s old jalopy to the repair shop once,” Rainbow Dash chuckled, and gave another helpless shrug to Aria, “But I hope that answers your question?”
Aria’s blanching face was enough of an answer, it seemed.
And just like that, the room was clean. Everything was put away, the trash was gone, the floor swept. All that was left for them to do was turn out the lights, and head out.
Rainbow strut out into the hallway ahead of the other two, eager to reach the front of the school and find out which Apple was the one in Rarity’s eye, or however that saying went. Midnight stayed back just long enough to lock the doors behind them.
She turned to follow her friend, and came face-to-face with the angriest of the Dazzling sisters.
“Oh!” she cried, almost crashing into Aria, “Uh, did you need something?”
Aria said nothing. Her scowl, and that weird, sickly look on her face, usually was enough to speak volumes, but all Midnight could think was that she needed a bubbly drink and an antacid.
Midnight glanced to the left, and to the right. No one else was in sight. The halls were entirely clear.
“Well,” she said, after another moment, “I guess… I’ll see you around…?”
She squeaked as Aria blinked.
That’s some glare, Midnight thought, meeting the other girl’s stare, Kind of impressive.
Aria’s lips pursed, and she breathed through her nose.
“Midnight,” she finally said, her face almost a grimace at this point, “I…”
Midnight’s eyes winced. She could tell how hard… whatever this was, was for the Dazzling. Whatever it was, it was important. That much was certain. But what…?
Purple hands snatched at Midnight’s collar, dragging her face closer to Aria’s.
“You dress cool,” she said, her scowl increasing in intensity, “You don’t take crap from anybody, and you got great taste in music.”
“Uh…” Midnight’s brain tried to enter a state of calculations… and kept popping up as an ERROR.
Aria growled, “But… you didn’t actually vaporize Trixie.”
Midnight’s confusion rose suddenly, right up to the point where she would normally have voiced her puzzlement.
But that didn’t happen.
She couldn’t voice anything.
Not with Aria’s lips pressed into hers.
***
ERROR. ERROR. MIDNIGHT.EXE HAS STOPPED FUNCTIONING.
***
Aria broke contact.
“You broke my heart, Sparkle,” she hissed, holding onto the sides of Midnight’s face with her hands, “You broke my heart.”
And back to the kiss. Midnight’s mind reeled, as some fragmentary semblance of brainpower started firing again. Her eyes were wide open, unlike Aria’s, and were even now snapping from one side to the other, desperately looking for something to make sense, or at the very least give her a way out of… this.
Not that… this isn’t… nice?
The kiss finally broke with a smack. Breath, real air, rapidly filled both girls’ lungs for the first time in a minute.
“Hmm,” Aria hummed. A soft smile clung to her lips.
“Guh,” Midnight… made a noise. She thought she could taste strawberries.
“Cool,” Aria nodded, her face returning to its resting witch-state. She locked eyes with Midnight, and started jabbing her shoulder with a pointed finger.
“Hey, Midnight.”
“Guh?”
“Saturday, seven o’clock,” Aria stated, imperiously, “Movie theater in the mall. You’re getting the popcorn. Got that?”
Midnight’s brain didn’t have a lot to add to the conversation.
“Sure?”
The Dazzling nodded, once. Then, she turned, and left, one hand trailing, ever so gently, along Midnight’s cheek and jaw.
Midnight stood there, alone in the hallway. Alone. In the hallway. Her mind running through her present situation like someone who left to get milk, and returned to a tornado’s ground zero.
“Did…?” she finally learned how to talk again, “Did I just agree to a date… with a Dazzling?”
“Sounds like it.”
Midnight’s head slowly swiveled to one side.
At the end of the hall, mere feet away, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Trixie stood, mouths agape, and eyes wide.
“How much did you see?” Midnight asked in a voice so meek that Fluttershy felt she was too quiet, "or, hear?"
Rainbow rubbed her hands together, a glint of mischief in her eye.
“Oh… I’m going to enjoy this for a while…”
Trixie, a manic grin coming over her features, opened her mouth, and started singing, loudly.
“Midnight and Aria! Sitting in a tree! K-I- --”
Dash and Fluttershy hardly flinched as the blue magician vanished in a flash of blue fire. Midnight, herself, just placed her head in her hands, and gave a ragged sigh.
“This day just won’t end, will it?”
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YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!! 😍😍😍😍😍
10197872
You are a very fast reader, my friend.
10197875
That was me being super excited to see a new chapter popping up. Now I'm definitely feeling. YEEEEESSSSS!!! At the start it was hard to pick between midnight and trixie or midnight with aria. But I'm definitely shipping midnight with aria!!!
Wezze,fantastic
Moar?
"Liberal arts! I'll never live it down! It's not even a soft science!"
I would love to see one Luna train the other in dream magic.
"Still, they do wonders against vampires and invading fae."
I've always liked the idea that knowing about Nightmare Moon contributed to Sunset's rebellion. If she felt like she was just a tool or pawn to bring Luna back into the fold...
"No!" it cried. "This point will remain ambiguous and the audience is just going to have to deal with it!"
Not really something to brag about... though this is Trixie. Bragging's her ground state.
Or, in the case of Trixie and Rainbow Dash, blue.
This explains so much, and yet so little.
Other than the general miasma of negative emotional energy you gathered around the school.
Fluttershy confirmed for hoopy frood.
Midnight belting out Skullcrusher is amazing and I love it. Though now I wonder if Twilight ended up shifting to more of a soprano. Either way, it's definitely not helping Aria's developing crush.
"I'm trying very hard not to think too hard about that."
And speaking of Aria... Oh, that date will be one to remember. Looking forward to it.
10198283
Yup. Basically. But... you read The Legend of Trixie as well, don't you? Might be we'll get some answers there...
Point of order: why is there no Luna emote? Best Princess deserves more love.
10197993
"I-it's not l-like I like you or anything, baka..."
10198244
10198067
Coming right up!
Moon horse, Metalshy, and Midnaria. This is a good day.
10198882
Let me rephrase. I mean the previous chapter with her and trixie made it hard to pick shipping wise
A new chapter and a new ship! Nice 👌
I had a suspicion that Muh Fav Aria Fukin Blaze had a little crush.
I did not expect her to act almost immediately upon it here.
Still, I like it.
If this chapter was divided to 4 parts this part is somewhere between first 2 from top to bottom
... not the ship we need but the ship we deserve.
i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/872/113/a45.png
...Wow, this was a lot to come back to!
Always up for riding a new ship, at least.
I hope Twilight and Midnight both become alicorns.
You mean instead of coming back?
There's a special 2 for 1 deal
I miss having lava lamps...
What is agog?
10370579
It means very curious or eager to hear or see something.
I like the fact Midnight, in this chapter is implied to like girls.
Also, I still have to remember which of The Dazzlings is which.
Just remember Aria is the one with Purple air.
Also, I don't know how after having watched at least 2 or tree times Rainbow Rocks.
How, I didn't get that all The Dazzlings members have names related to term in music especially signing. I just got it after reading some of your stuff.
I can't sing myself but I can shout.
10434746
Shouting is just singing, but very, very loudly.
Was actually pleasantly surprised how much people liked Aria in this one.
Okay, I'm a bit late to this party but I just gotta say it: Headbanger Fluttershy: Perfect!
Personally, I ship SunBlaze, but hey, this was amazing, A++ my friend.
This is actually a pretty fun read
10807229
Thanks for saying so!
The Dazzlings are being put in their place by Midnight.
You've made her such a great protagonist.
this line is too funny for its own good