Sliver's Eclipse

by Ashrunel

Tragic Mirth

Jazz Hooves breathed a sigh of relief as the last customer of the day sauntered out of Mane Melody. It had been a hectic day, and with Pipp gone on a trip to Bridlewood, her and Rocky Riff were the only two left to run the beauty salon. Pipp had recently launched a new line of mane stylizing creams and sprays, and they were all the rage. Jazz couldn’t remember when the last day Mane Melody wasn’t filled to the brim with customers was. Still, there were bright sides to this kind of popularity. Business was booming, and with all the extra revenue they were raking in, Pipp had talked to them about potentially expanding Mane Melody in order to be able to service more customers at a time. Jazz had remarked that there were still only three of them working there, but Pipp had insisted that they would figure out a way to manage.

She turned to Rocky, who had sat on the floor, looking equally exhausted. “Man, that was some day, huh?” He said, turning to look at Jazz. “I must’ve styled 60 manes today, easily.”

“You can say that again,” Jazz replied, sitting on the floor as well.

“Man, that was some day, huh?” Rocky said teasingly. Jazz looked over at him in exasperation but couldn’t hold back a smile for long.

“See? Told you I’m funny.” Rocky said, a smug grin plastering his face.

“Sometimes,” Jazz assured him. “Sometimes.”

Suddenly, a distant boom sounded, and a wave of dark energy tore its way through Mane Melody, shattering the front windows of the store. Jazz and Rocky were knocked backwards onto the ground, and a ringing filled their ears as they struggled to get up, dazed and confused.

“What…in the hay…was that?” Jazz gasped.

“I…have no…idea…” Rocky heaved, massaging his head. “It sounded like it came from the direction of Canterlogic.”

Racing out of Mane Melody, being careful to avoid the broken glass shards, Jazz and Rocky soon found themselves on the streets of Maretime Bay, joined by dozens of other ponies who had come outside to see what had caused the concussive blast.

Lit by the dying rays of the setting sun was a massive hole in the side of Canterlogic. Dark smoke-like wisps poured out from it.

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Jazz gasped. “What the hay happened?!”

“Don’t know, but we need to go help!” Rocky exclaimed, spreading his wings and quickly lifting into the sky before shooting straight for Canterlogic.

“Hey! No fair!” Jazz yelled after him, before she turned and ran at breakneck speed through the streets of Maretime Bay, desperately trying to keep up with Rocky. As an earth pony, she was fast on the ground, faster than a pegasus or unicorn could run. Rocky wasn’t the fastest flier, at least not compared to someone like Zipp, so they reached Canterlogic at roughly the same time, Jazz just a few moments behind Rocky.

“In lighter circumstances, I would say that you owed me a smoothie from Sunny’s stand for that race loss,” Rocky remarked slyly.

“Rocky! Not now!” Jazz berated, before they both turned to the smoking hole in the side of Canterlogic. The dark tendrils had grown larger and somehow even darker.

“Is that…magic?” Jazz breathed warily.

“Dark magic, by the looks of it,” Rocky said grimly. “But we have to investigate. If anypony is still alive inside, we need to get them out.”

Jazz nodded grimly and the two of them made their way across the rubble and into the darkness of Canterlogic. It was darker than night inside, the strange black magic obscuring almost everything. Jazz lost sight of Rocky even though he was right in front of her.

“Rocky? Rocky!” She hissed in a scared whisper. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” she heard Rocky reply. “Just stick by me and follow the sound of my voice.”

“Do you even know where we’re going?” Jazz inquired hastily. “There’s no way we’ll be able to find the source of this magic if we can’t see even two hooves in front of us!”

“Hello?” Rocky called out. “Hello, is anypony there? It’s Jazz and Rocky, we’re here to help! Can anypony hear me? Hello?!”

As if on cue, all the dark magic seemingly was sucked away from them, towards a central point, almost like water draining down a sink. Jazz and Rocky stopped, blinking, their eyes adjusting to the flashing emergency lights that cast everything in a red glow every few seconds before it was once again shrouded in darkness.

“What the hay? Where did it all go?” Jazz whispered. She had never been more frightened in her life, and she could tell from the way Rocky was holding himself that he felt the same way.

“I…I don’t know,” Rocky breathed. He opened his mouth to call out again when suddenly a dark tendril manifested from seemingly nowhere and impaled Rocky through the chest. He gagged, coughing up a black liquid that didn’t look like blood. Or maybe Jazz just couldn’t tell in the hazy darkness. Either way, she shrieked at the top of her lungs, but before she could run to his side, an identical dark tendril impaled her as well. She gagged as a nauseating feeling of darkness instantly overpowered all her senses. It was horrible, pungent, and she was drowning, falling into a black abyss, losing herself, who she was, who she would be…and then there was only…darkness.

. . .

Out of the black night, a dark winged creature shot straight towards Hitch, leg outstretched in preparation for a devastating kick. He didn’t even have time to react, and the kick hit him square in the jaw, sending him flying backwards before he landed hard on the ground.

“HITCH!” Misty screamed, but suddenly she was tackled by another dark shape and thrown to the ground in a maneuver that Pipp didn’t recognize. Whatever it was, it left Misty twitching and immobile on the ground. Angrily, Pipp moved to lunge at the attacker, but was sideswiped by the same dark figure that had attacked Hitch. A hard blow hit the side of her head, and she saw stars as she was sent flying into the dirt. Meanwhile, Izzy had managed to reach Misty’s assailant with surprising speed, and attempted to grab the figure in her magic. However, before the magic could take hold, the figure grabbed Izzy by the horn and flipped her over before kicking her squarely in the stomach. Izzy gasped as all the wind was knocked out of her, before another blow sent her spiraling to the ground, gasping for air and hardly able to move.

From the moment Hitch had been attacked to the moment Izzy had been subdued, not fifteen seconds had passed. The pair of dark assailants had taken them out with such efficiency and ferocity that they hadn’t even gotten the chance to fight back.

Groaning, Hitch groggily looked up to get a good look at their attackers. He was in no shape to fight, but he could at least try and identify who they were. The figures were now close enough to the Brighthouse to be illuminated by its light, and what Hitch saw made his blood run cold.

Standing before him were two ponies, one pegasus and one earth pony. However, that was where the similarities to normal ponies stopped. Both of their coats and hooves were a pure midnight black. The pegasus, who appeared to be a stallion, had bright red hair swept back in a pompadour style, and the earth pony, seemingly a mare, had bright blue hair tied to one side in a ponytail. The eyes of the stallion were glowing a bright red, and the mare’s a glowing bright blue. And they were staring directly at him.

“Jazz?! Rocky?!” Pipp cried out in confusion and panic. “What…what the hay happened to you?”

The dark Rocky threw back his head and let out a sickening laugh that was wholly unnatural and evil, before turning and approaching Pipp. His eyes burned with a malevolent glee that made Hitch’s blood run cold. “Sorry Pipp, Rocky isn’t home right now. But I am! Mirth is the name! Want me to take a message for Rocky-Rock though? Not that he’d be able to hear it…he’s safely locked away…in here…” He tapped his head with his hoof, snickering gleefully.

“M-Mirth? What?!” Pipp stammered out. She frantically turned to Jazz. “Jazz? Jazz! Jazz please, you’ve gotta snap out of it! It’s me, Pipp, remember?!”

The dark Jazz didn’t approach Pipp as the one called Mirth had, but instead regarded her from afar with a cold, almost melancholy gaze. “The one you call ‘Jazz’ has been locked away in my mind. A sad fate for her, really. Not that I care. But you may call me Tragedy.”

“What the hay?! ‘Mirth’ and ‘Tragedy’?! What kinda silly names are those?! Are you guys in a stupid acting troupe or something?!” Izzy called out angrily.

Mirth alighted his wings and shot towards Izzy, stopping just short of her, their faces inches apart. The usually-excited unicorn’s eyes were filled only with fear as she stared into the bright red, wickedly-gleeful pupils that Mirth possessed. “Aw, you really don’t like them? That’s just too bad!” He snickered before slamming his hoof into her face, causing her to snap backwards and into the ground. “Unfortunately for you, it doesn’t matter to us if you like our names or not! It’s who we are now, and there’s no changing that!”

“B-but, what happened to you?” Pipp breathed. “Why attack us like this?”

“Oh, that,” Tragedy spoke up solemnly. “We were given life anew by the Sliver of Darkness.”

Everypony’s blood ran cold at the mention of that name, save for Mirth and Tragedy, of course. “The S-S-Sliver of D-Darkness?” Misty stammered.

“Oh yeah, the Sliver of Darkness!” Mirth cackled, floating upside-down over to Misty, resting his head in his hooves behind him. “Y’know, dark artifact from ancient Equestria, ‘corrupts’ every creature it touches, mysteriously found earlier today by Sunny Starscout, blah, blah, blah, y’know?” He was now inches away from Misty’s face, an upside-down sadistic grin plastered across his face.

“Wait…found by Sunny?” Hitch questioned worriedly. Is that what she was studying today at Canterlogic?”

“Indeed,” Tragedy remarked coolly. “Always the naïve and curious fool, she brought the Sliver to Canterlogic for closer examination. She had found it on the beach of Maretime Bay, seemingly washed up from the sea. During her research, she discovered that the Sliver had been contained in a protective spell cast by none other than Twilight Sparkle many years ago.”

“Then…what happened to the spell? How did it get brok--” Izzy stopped dead, realizing.

“Opaline,” Misty breathed.

“What?” Pipp said, looking over at her.

“O-Opaline,” Misty said again. “I bet when she cast that spell to remove all protective enchantments during our final battle with her, it also removed the one surrounding the Sliver. It makes sense, since Twilight’s protection spell around the Brighthouse was also destroyed.”

“Ding ding ding ding ding!!” Mirth blurted out, cackling. “Looks like we have a winner, folks! Yes, that narcissistic alicorn’s spell allowed the Sliver to be freed, and thank hoofness for it too, or else we would never have been born!” At this last remark, he returned to Tragedy’s side.

“But…but why attack us?” Pipp asked. “You still haven’t explained that part!”

“Because…” Mirth began slyly.

“She ordered it,” Tragedy finished solemnly.

“She? What do you mean, ‘she’?” Hitch demanded angrily.

“Oh, I think you already know the answer to that, Hitchy-Witchy,” Mirth said, his crazed grin returning. He turned to Tragedy and they pressed their heads together. Upon doing so, a dark magical pulse was sent out into the air. Mirth turned back to the four defeated ponies.

“She’s coming,” he said gleefully.

“No…” Izzy breathed, “It can’t be…no, no, no, no, no!”

Izzy continued her series of “no’s” incessantly. The Unity Crystals flickered and grew so dim that they barely emitted any light. Hitch’s hair suddenly stood on end, and from the reactions of his friends, he could tell that the same thing was happening to them. He could feel a presence coming, a presence darker and more powerful than Mirth and Tragedy combined. Against his will, his eyes slowly looked to the heavens, and out of the gloom, descending like an angel of darkness, was her.

Everypony’s eyes were glued to her as she descended silently through the blackness. All they could see apart from her dark form were her glowing orange alicorn horn and wings, as well as her glowing orange eyes...which regarded them all with unbridled…hatred.