Dark Side of the Story
There were times when Sunset wished she could ask her friends’ pony counterparts about the early socialization of Princess Twilight. Sometimes it came from simple curiosity; it was hard to imagine what the mare who’d helped Sunset see the light had been like at the beginning of her own journey. Sometimes Sunset just wanted to hear about the times the princess had let slip but refused to elaborate on, like whatever “the Smarty Pants Incident” was.
But oftentimes, she wanted to hold up the two Twilights and make sure that the human’s behavior wasn’t out of the ordinary by Twilit standards. The princess was even less comfortable talking about her counterpart than she was about her embarrassment-checkered past. When human Twilight seemed to forget that interacting with people was an option for days at a time, her pony self was of little help.
Thankfully, that was where her mother came in. Sunset and Twilight Velvet had come to a mutually agreeable arrangement shortly after the younger Twilight’s first retreat into her lab after a lunchtime faux pas had convinced her that all her new friends hated her. A call one way or the other to confirm would get Sunset heading to the garage lab, using the spare key as necessary.
She tried not to think too much about Mrs. Velvet’s knowing grin every time the older woman handed it to her.
Instead, Sunset mentally prepared herself for what she might find in the lab. Twilight was terribly unpredictable when she holed herself up in there. It all depended on why she’d gone in in the first place: shame, inspiration, resentment, pure absent-mindedness… It could be just about anything.
Once Sunset unlocked the door, she knocked on it as she opened it. Startling Twilight had been kind of fun at first, but now that she had telekinesis, that had become a good way to get something heavy and expensive thrown at the startler. “Hey, Twi. You’ve been in here all weekend. Feel like coming up for air?”
Twilight didn’t answer or even turn around. She stood with her back to Sunset before a whiteboard, muttering and occasionally scribbling something in… Well, she was blocking a good chunk of it, but Sunset could see bits of calculus, a flowchart, and what seemed to be a doodle of an Equestrian pony in one corner. A bundle of printed notes hovered next to her in her magic, a page occasionally flipping.
As far as Twilight’s science freakouts went, this was looking like a five or low six on the ten-point scale. Sunset smiled as she looked for a light switch. Even in the middle of the day, the place was gloomy as Tartarus. “Okay, Twilight. Something tells me you haven’t gotten a lot of sleep for the past few days. How about you find a good stopping point and—”
She froze as the other girl finally reacted, turning to glare at her with one eye. One green-glowing, violet-tinted eye. To Sunset's horror, she realized that the other girl's skin tone wasn't just because of the poor lighting; it really had gone darker.
“Do you mind?” she snarled in a tone Sunset had hoped to never hear again. “I don’t usually get to work in physical reality.”
“Midnight." Sunset brought up her fists and immediately felt stupid for trying. For one, telekinesis gave Midnight an arbitrary range advantage. For another, the closest she'd come to actually studying human martial arts was the fencing team. She still held the attempt at a fighting stance; it was better than nothing. "How did you—”
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know." Midnight rolled her eyes as she turned back to the whiteboard. "I may not say much, but I’ve seen the times your hair smolders or your sclera go dark. Like right now.”
“I…” Sunset took a wary sniff. There was a definite hint of burning hair that hadn't been there before. She let her fists drop and took a deep breath. “I’m not rising to your bait.”
“No idea what you’re talking about," Midnight said with clear disinterest. "I really am in the middle of something. Twily can have the body back after I confirm my suspicions." She gave a dismissive wave. "And before you throw around any more unfounded accusations, it has nothing to do with Equestria, so don’t worry your pretty pony head about it.”
Sunset moved closer, trying to get a look at the project. “What is it, then?”
In a blink, Midnight stood an inch in front of her, eye to eye and close enough for Sunset to feel the heat of the teal flames now licking at the other girl's glasses frames. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just throw you in the vague direction of the door.”
Eye to eye... Sunset took a step back and glanced down. Sure enough, Midnight was hovering a few inches above the ground. She hadn't teleported; she'd just yanked her body in Sunset's way. “You might, might be able to deal with me. But let’s not forget that we all agreed to this so your mom would stop dragging you out of here.”
“That woman…" The flames fell back to embers as Midnight gritted her teeth. "Ugh, fine. That actually makes for a clean segue.” She moved aside, revealing that what Sunset had seen was mostly unerased scraps of earlier work. A family tree dominated the whiteboard, various people circled and annotated. Midnight waved towards it like the world's least enthusiastic game show prize girl. “Behold, the Twilight family legacy.”
Sunset ignored whatever Midnight had to say about herself and looked for the next most recent note. “Twilight Twinkle, tried to blow up the Crystal City Central Bank to get the Federal Reserve to enforce a radioactive currency standard.”
Midnight nodded. “Grandma insisted the right half-life would naturally counteract inflation.”
The branches led back through the centuries, if incompletely. Some vanished in a lack of either data or interest. Breaks in the lines indicated skipped generations, sometimes several. Sunset called out some highlights, if she could call them that: “Dusk Gloss, psychologist, part of the Stampferd Prison Experiment; Black Satin, chemical engineer, tried for crimes against humanity after World War I; Eventide, poisoner, burned as a witch.”
“Or possibly the other way around," noted Midnight. "The translation’s spotty.”
Sunset turned to her. “What is all of this?”
“Like I said, my family legacy. Monsters, madmen, maniacs, we’ve got it all!" Midnight threw up her hands, spun on a heel, and bowed to Sunset. "And here’s Twilight Sparkle, bringing new efficiency to the process." As Midnight straightened back up, Sunset could see tears in her eyes. "Why wait years for a horrific ethical lapse when you can simply slice off the crazy part of your brain and give her her own self-awareness?”
Seeing Twilight cry, no matter what she called herself, tore at Sunset's heart. “Midnight—”
“No, you’re right, ‘crazy’ is needlessly pejorative. Let’s go with your preferred term, it’s much more traditional: Demon." Even as tears started to drip down her cheeks, Midnight twisted her expression into a mad grin. "I’m a raging she-demon, and I’m trapped in this little bone cage with the hapless young witch who summoned me.”
“If you do anything to hurt her, I'll... Um...” Sunset trailed off. How was she supposed to finish that knee-jerk ultimatum?
Midnight sneered. “What, you’ll hurt her worse? Or will you call in the rainbow brigade, however long that takes?" Sunset's phone flew out of her pocket, resting on the whiteboard's marker tray. Midnight leaned against the wall, arms crossed, though wiping her eyes did lessen the impact. "Come on, Sunset, if you’re going to threaten me, give it some teeth.”
Sunset took another deep breath. Impulsive action wasn't going to get her anywhere. “Look. I understand you’re upset—”
“Good for you!” Midnight cooed like a kindergarten teacher, complete with patronizing applause. “I’m sure I have some gold star stickers lying around here somewhere.”
“This isn’t healthy. For either of you.”
“Ha!" Midnight shook her head. "We’re not healthy, little pony. And that includes the two of you.”
The next breath tasted like sulfur and bad life decisions. Sunset clenched her fists, letting the pain of her nails poking into her palms keep her focused. “This isn’t the way to deal with it.”
“And what is? I stay holed up in my little corner of her mind so you can all pretend I don’t exist? Honestly, I’d expect that behavior from her.”
“We stop pretending this doesn't exist when it's not boiling over." Sunset looked at her hands, and the red stain on her skin that had crept down to her wrists. "We talk it out. We consult experts. This isn’t the first time magic has done regrettable things to someone’s mind.”
“But we’re not some desperate camp counselor or self-important intern," said Midnight. "We can’t just make a wish and rainbow it better. We already tried that and the results were less than satisfactory." She moved back to the whiteboard, markers uncapping themselves as she shuffled through her notes. "That’s why I’m researching the long, sordid past that led to the Friendship Games. We need a foundation if we’re going to fix this. Whatever ‘fixing’ it even means.”
Sunset put a still-ruddy hand on her shoulder. Midnight flinched, but didn't shake her off. “Whatever it means, I doubt it involves isolating yourself from the world just to obsess over the problem.”
That got Midnight to shrug away the hand, and to turn back and shout, “Oh, what do you know?”
Midnight had stopped hovering a while ago, so Sunset was free to use all five inches of height advantage she had to loom over the smaller girl. “What do you?”
"E-excuse me?”
“You’ve been working on this all weekend, right? And that’s just while you had control of the body. What have you concluded thus far?" Sunset gestured at everything behind Midnight. "Look at all of this. What are you even trying to prove?”
“I…" Midnight's eyes darted about, her hands fidgeting in a very familiar way. "I mean, I’m still in the preliminary research phase, and this isn’t exactly a problem I can just blast apart into its component quarks." She cleared her throat. "Not that I can do that anymore.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow, trying to ignore the heat crawling up her neck. “Surely you have a hypothesis.”
For a few moments, Midnight said nothing. Finally, at a rate that would do Pinkie Pie proud, she rattled off, “I am everything Twilight fears and hates about herself. All of the thoughts she denies having and the desires she dares not pursue. ‘Midnight’ is a convenient disambiguation; I am Twilight Sparkle just as much as she is. My ancestors didn’t need another world’s magic to go mad, just societal pressure. Desperation. Probably some false accusations from angry villagers." She paused for breath and used it to sigh. "Goodness knows Crystal Prep didn’t prioritize its students’ mental health.
“Twilight buried everything she couldn’t bear to acknowledge about herself, and then her psyche got turned on its head at the Friendship Games, with me on top. You can force me down like you did at Camp Everfree, but you can’t get rid of me without lobotomizing her."
"Okay," said Sunset. "We—"
A pulse of force shoved her away from Midnight, who began to pace. “But that can’t be what’s actually happening!”
Sunset shook her head. Smoldering hair filled her nose again. “Why not?”
“Because then I can’t fix it! Then I can’t free her!" Midnight sprang towards Sunset and grabbed the collar of her shirt. "I shouldn’t exist as a separate personality, Sunset! Twilight is broken because of me, and I can’t go see magic in action to gather data on it without you and the girls blasting me back to square one! And if if you do let me stick around, I clearly cause you to relapse!" She released Sunset and thrust her hands at the other girl. "Have you looked at yourself?"
"I'm aware." It was worse than Sunset had gotten in a long time, yet she didn't feel anything near the anger it usually took to trigger her own transformation. "But—"
"So you'll have to excuse me if I’m eating into Twilight’s social time, but I’m trying to make her fit for human society!” Midnight punctuated that with several deep breaths.
Sunset let her catch her breath. "You done?"
"Yeah." A chair slid into place behind Midnight just in time for her to slump down into it. "I think I needed that."
“Where’s the rest of Twilight?”
“Oh, she can hear this whole conversation. And she’s as surprised as you." Midnight blinked. "Really? I’ve been trying to tell you this in your dreams for months...” She scowled at the apparent reply.
Sunset coughed into a fist. She'd been ignoring it, but her nails were getting worryingly sharp. “Um—”
“Oh, come on! How else were you supposed to interpret us bodily fusing together into a greater whole?”
“Midnight—”
Midnight rolled her eyes and sighed. “Okay, yes, maybe I was being a little melodramatic, but you’re the one who kept all the restraint for yourself, so really, that’s your fault.”
“Hey!" Midnight jumped, and the smoke detector gave a worrying beep before both girls stared it down. Sunset looked back to the other girl and said, "How were you trying to tell her?”
That got her a hand shoved in her face. “Shut that adorable mouth, horse girl. Your intellectual betters are talking.”
Sunset gently moved it aside. “Just because Twilight has a slight lead in our chess games—”
“Seven to three isn’t slight, Sunset.”
“Just because she has a slight lead doesn’t make you my ‘intellectual better.’”
“Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetcheeks." Midnight sprang up and kissed Sunset on the lips.
That left Sunset stunned long enough for the internal dialogue to sort itself out. Especially since she had her own to get through.
All I'm saying is that she's hotter this way.
We can talk about this later.
“In my defense, I thought my intentions were very clear.”
Still tuning back into reality, Sunset wasn't sure who Midnight was talking to. Possibly just addressing the room at large. But it still gave her a good transition point. “How do you feel about starting with the magic of ice cream and laughing at soft sci-fi movies? Then we can broach the subject with the others and some Equestrian experts." She offered her hand. "All four of us.”
After a moment of hesitation, Midnight took it and gave an uneasy smile. “That… sounds nice.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.022 seconds
Total duration
1,010 users online
433,078 hits today, 2,561,572 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I love it! Timeline shenanigans accepted
It’s a pity that Midnight Sparkle and Demon Sunset can only experience the hidden away and private parts of their dates. I’m sure they enjoy the make-out sessions and other intimate stuff. But they can never take a walk out in the park together, share a milkshake at a diner, squeeze hands during the scary part of a movie at an actual theater etc.
Although maybe they could get creative. Both forms have wings, a romantic flight on a moonless night under the stars too high for most bystanders on the ground to spot could work. So long as nothing tempts their low restraint anyway. Like say spotting Principal Cinch’s house from the air…
Oh, marvelous.
And reminds me of this (huh, the image won't embed for some reason). Who thinks that if Midnight dug deeper she'd find that all her ancestors also did it for love?
11225269
Damn that's good. Dramatic and angsty.
The one idea I had was the newly Alicorned Twilight flapping about about her impending immortality, getting upset and angsty over the fact that she'll have to watch all her friends grow old and die.
Only to have Spike go "Gee. That must be awful. Imagine living with the knowledge that you'll outlive all your friends and family?" With twilight realising that they've never discussed that aspect of his lifespan and that he had a similar realisation when he was six.
I like the idea of an angsty Twilight consternating over whether or not she 'ruined' Spike in some way, by having him grow up as a Dragon shaped pony. With Pony values. Attracted to Pony partners. Spike seems very happy with the arrangement but I always liked the idea that Dragons are so hostile, or dismissive of Non-Dragons because their lifespans are so long. One moment their friends are there and the next they've blown away like smoke in a few decades. Dragons learnt long ago not to form bonds of friendship with the other races, let alone a romance because the heart can only be shattered so many times.
Ironically I think Celestia might be a useful voice of Wisdom in such a scenario...
Yeah, that's a good idea.
...
Ha! Yeah.
...
HA! Wow, is this the first time we've seen... I forget her name, but Demon Shimmer, speak in red?
...
Yay! Ice cream! And expert medicine!
...
When Pinkie Pie was brought up, I wondered if this was gonna go into a thing about how her bloodline also has a dash of weird, the "pink", etc.
----
Typos?
Twilit [intentional?]
and expense > and expensive
11224958
If they keep thing relatively low-key and avoid igniting any part of their anatomy, they can get away with being in public... again, as long as nothing tempts them to start wreaking havoc. Like seeing Principal Cinch buying groceries.
11225279
Certainly a possibility. Hers is a family of deep convictions and deeper passions, for good and for ill.
11225484
Midnight reflexively avoids thinking about the Pink One as much as possible. There's mad, and then there's plain crazy.
11226410
Now I desperately want to see the Demon Duo egging Cinch's house for Halloween. Think you can hook a bro up?
lol
At this point I don't know how far you've read into my material but yeah I had the same idea that Midnight is right there always waiting to come out. You can't go through that kind of transformation and come out whole. At least I don't feel so. Sunset is just more comfortable and at peace with her demon because pony girl is more like, "oh, great there is a horny snarky voice in my head. It must be Tuesday.". Where Twilight has the baggage and human stigma that voices in your head are baaaaad and tries to fight it.
11292789
Thank goodness for her horse girlfriend. And her horse demon girlfriend.
"It really says something about us when we manage to fit a four-person polycule into two bodies, doesn't it?"
"Eh, I grew up in pony Canterlot. You got all kinds marrying themselves in front of the statue of Discord."
... And I just accidentally came up with a new headcanon.
Look this makes perfect sense to me. Grandma Twinkle knows best.