Darklight

by snoninja7

Chapter Fourteen: Sworddancer

Twilight and Derpy found themselves in a sitting room standing on a table full of plates and partially eaten breakfast food.

The Doctor, who was sitting in one of two easy chairs next to the table, looked momentarily surprised. Then he began a long monologue that neither Derpy nor Twilight could successfully interrupt.

"Why HEEELLLLLO Derpy, I am so glad to see you! I heard you just got back and I wanted to see you, but then I found out that you had gone to Cloudsdale and I remembered that I was forbidden from going there after what happened last time (maybe I can fool them with my Ponyville accent and voice)... And HELLO Ms Twilight Sparkle I'm so glad you could finally come to my home... I really wish you would have let me come help you, Derpy, I know you said everything was fine but almost three weeks was such a long time without you, though, sure, it gave me plenty of time to do some, erm, repair jobs that have been building up around here each time you visit, so I'm afraid I haven't been keeping up with what is going on around here like I know I should... Oh my, you will never guess who has come over to visit me today! You know, once you get past the abject terror he can be a fascinating pony to talk to, I must say he is an absolute treasure of historical knowledge. Wait, did I forget to tell you tell you who he is? Oh, HA HA HA, I feel silly that I haven't told you yet, you see he's- OH my GOODNESS!!"

A pair of wicked looking sword blades flew up under the power of a levitation spell and placed themselves precariously close to Twilight's and Derpy's necks.

"If you are as smart as I know you are, Ms Sparkle," said a gravelly voice, the same one that had terrified generations of palace guards, "You'll sit tight and give honest answers to every question I will now ask you."

A dark grey unicorn pony with close cropped mane and goatee, wearing a metal breastplate and empty scabbards on his back, stepped back into the room. He was known as General Blade, not because he was a general (he was in fact the retired captain of the palace guard, and Equestria had no standing army), but because the name seemed to fit him better. Plus, no pony except Princess Celestia and his late wife Seraphim knew his real name, and no pony was brave enough to ask. He was only average height for a guard pony, but he could snap anyone in line with the force of his voice and commanding presence, and everyone knew that he had plenty of fight to back up his mouth. He was also known as the Sword Dancer, though never to his face, because he could wield his swords with levitation spells while simultaneously casting swiping blocking spells with both his horn and two swords, doing so in such a way that he appeared to be dancing.

He glared at her, inches from Twilight’s face, and bellowed. "First of all, why are you here in clear violation of the terms of your house arrest?! Let me remind you that every one of your friends and family members, at great personal risk to themselves AND their reputations, pleaded with Nightmare Moon on your behalf to keep you out of prison, and made binding promises to keep you out of trouble! Now I don't look kindly on ponies who take a show of love like that from their own friends AND THROW IT BACK IN THEIR FACES!! SO TELL ME, WHY DO I NOW FIND YOU HERE?!!"

Twilight and Derpy were both petrified with fear. The two swords were still suspended close to their necks. Twilight replied, slowly, trying to regain her courage, "I have information about the conspiracy that Princess Celestia needs to hear."

"And what information is that?!"

She answered his questions with brief accounts of her journey to the Mist Continent, of meeting Darklight and Raven's Wind, the fights with the golem, and the discoveries that she made about Darklight's true identity. General Blade also questioned Derpy to collaborate the story with her own experiences.

"The amulet Darklight wears is a disguise that Prometheus makes him wear to conceal his true identity, even from himself," Twilight explained. The swords had been pulled back a bit now, but they were still close to her neck.

"And what is his true identity?" asked Blade. His eyes never left Twilight's or Derpy's the whole time he spoke with them.

"He is an alicorn pony with a mane like fire, and a coat and cutie mark that look almost identical to Princess Celestia." Then Twilight finally spoke the impossible conclusion that she couldn't shake from her mind: "I think he is her son."

Blade's expression didn't change. The swords moved back, and with a quick flourish resheathed themselves in the the scabbards on his back with a metallic 'shink'. The other three ponies finally started to relax. He smiled and said, "You can always trust a Sparkle, that's what I always say. I'm sorry that I had to be tough with you there, Ms Sparkle, but for the sake of my Princess I had to be sure about you and Ms Hooves. I can see in a pony's eyes when they have had their memories altered by Prometheus, and I don't see it in yours. The fact is I kept this little meetin' with the Doc because I had a hunch you would be stoppin' by and I wanted to hear your side of the story. A lot’s been happenin' in Canterlot that’s been botherin' me lately, Princess Celestia’s pretty strict about protocol in the guard and right now those procedures are not being met, which has got me concerned. I don’t think it has anything to do with Shining Armor or Thunder Chaser, as I hoof-picked them myself for the top command and I only pick the best. I’ve got a feeling that there is something else goin' on higher up in the command chain, so I thought I’d take a trip up to Canterlot and check things out myself. Mind letting an old warhorse tag along with you?”

“Absolutely!” said Twilight in relief, “You're the best bodyguard Princess Celestia ever had! We’re pretty much on our own right now, we could use any help we can get.”

"Thank you kindly, ma'am, but I know I don't deserve that kind of praise.” General Blade said with a polite bow, "You know, any day I can't spend smashin' the face of evil is a wasted day. What do ya say, Doc, are you up for a little business trip to Canterlot?"

"You know I am!" replied The Doctor, "It's been downright boring around here since the two of us fought off that weeping angel invasion at Canterlot gardens."

Blade looked nostalgic "Yep, good times were had by all that day."

Twilight had no idea what anyone was talking about. "But how are we going to get to Canterlot with the trains inoperative and everyone trying to arrest us?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that!" replied Derpy, sounding very excited.

"Why shouldn't I be worried?! It's too risky to use a teleportation spell and we don't have any other way to get there!"

"Of course we do! We're going to use the phone booth thingy!"

"Police box, Derpy!" the Doctor corrected, "And it's called the T... oh, never mind."

"What?!" cried Twilight, "You mean this thing MOVES?!" A chair appeared out of nowhere and boosted her into a seated position. Straps secured themselves of their own volition around her. Similar chairs secured her three companions, who were all more excited than she was.

General Blade was surprised only at Twilight's reaction. "What, you didn't know the Doctor's phone booth could fly?"

"POLICE BOX!" The Doctor loudly corrected.

"You'll be wise not to correct the pony with a pair of swords strapped to his back, son!"

"But I'm over nine hundred... "

"Let that be a lesson to you Ms Sparkle—always pay attention to what is going on in the background. That's where both the enemy and your best allies like to hang out. Remember that, it's my number one rule for preemptive flank kick."

The chairs carried the four ponies into a large control room with a central console covered with switches and levers. A tube that glowed with a pulsing green light rose from the console up to the ceiling. The Doctor started pushing some of the buttons. "I hope you like the new seats! With all that free time, I thought to myself ‘Why not have floating, flank-hugging seats that grab you just when you need them?’, and what with the infinite accelerations through time and space and the fact that I haven’t quite put my hoof on the problem with the inertial field failing at the wrong time. Plus they’re so much fun to race around in, though I’ll have to do something about the colors, doesn’t quite go with the room’s drab alien theme. By the way, we will be in Canterlot in... well, five minutes ago if we want really."

"Take it slow, Doc," said General Blade, "I've got some things I have to tell each of you first. Of course, doing so will likely get me court marshaled, but if it can save Equestria in the process, it's a small price to pay."

Author's Note:

Commencing super long Author's Notes:

There might be a few of you saying "AAAAAAH! An alicorn OC shipped with a Main 6 character that's Celestia's son! I hate it when writers/artists do that! Mary Sue! Mary Sue!" So I thought it would be good to explain myself and give some background.

One thing that I think is important for a story like this is to put a lot of effort in planning things out from the perspective of the antagonist. Prometheus doesn't just want to kill Celestia, he wants to DESTROY Celestia, and it's important to understand the difference. Destroying Celestia means targeting the ponies that are close to her, her family and close friends. This means that Luna, Cadence, Shining Armor, and the whole Mane 6 are in Prometheus' cross-hairs (I'm not forgetting Blueblood too, but he's not a hard target). However, I wanted to take it a step further: I needed a character that is closely related by blood, who Celestia loves and cares about deeply, that can be tricked and coerced into helping Prometheus. This is where Darklight comes in.

Also, I tried to get to the core of who Celestia is as a character, and I thought to myself: "She would make a fantastic mother." We see that in her relationship with Twilight; I don't think Celestia is asking her to do so many things that she can do herself because she is lazy, Celestia does it because delegation of authority is a great way to build new leaders. I know Lauren Faust said some things to refute this, about Celestia's family connections, but I wasn't satisfied with what she said on the subject. A woman can do a lot in 1000+ years, and even with the challenges of immortality (which I tried to answer as well), I thought "Why wouldn't Celestia want to find a special somepony and have some of her own children?" Some might say that she would rather focus on her kingdom, but I think she could do both. I also figured if there was room in the MLP multiverse for Celestias that are despotic tyrants or amoral deviants, or both at once, there must be room for at least one Celestia that is a mother. I tried to set up a plausible framework for this that was true to her personality, but more on this in the next chapter.

Then I ran into a problem. After writing most of the story, I started noticing the backlash against alicorn OC's on Tumblr and pony related websites. I also heard a lot about it at a writer's panel at Equestria LA early this year, where some very prominent authors talked about how sick they were of alicorn OC's. The backlash against OC's related to canon characters is pretty bad too. Double, possibly triple whammy (don't forget the shipping) against a critical component of my story. I was getting very worried, and I began to wonder if I should even publish it.

I tried to think of ways to get around it. Could I make Darklight a more distant relative? Could I make him something more 'acceptable', like a unicorn? I tried to think how I could change things, and I quickly realized that I such an effort would be futile. Any attempt, if I could pull it off, would seem too contrived, and would most likely destroy the core of what I thought was a pretty good story.

My responsibility as an author is to tell the best story I can, and to do this I need Darklight to be exactly who he is. Part of the reason that alicorns are so disliked is that they are seen as too perfect, but the alicorns in my story are not perfect at all. Celestia makes some very big mistakes that have and will cost her and her kingdom. I also wanted my OC's to be powerful, not because I wanted to be popular or anything, but because they have to be to face an enemy like Prometheus.

I hope everyone is still with me and enjoying the story. It isn't perfect, and there are plenty of areas where I can see room for improvement, but I think the core story is good and compelling. This is all my opinion though, I'll leave it to you the readers to make your own judgements as to how well I actually do.

And if you don't like General Blade, whatever. I had too much fun with him to care. :)

Comments

[BronyPonyMan]

i think you did just fine. and i love general blade, he's a lot like my dad! especially the whole 'holding blades to peoples neck' thing. he did that once when i brought over a friend and i didn't tell him before-hand. he thought someone broke into the house, so he tied him up and held a honest-to-faust short sword to his neck until i came back from my trip to the corner store.

[DreadedCandiru2]

I like him too. Mind if I hear him speaking in Hunter Gather's voice? He sounds like the kind of stallion who could say things like "Lesson ONE: Never trust anypony!! The second after Faust crapped out the third cavepony, a conspiracy was launched against one of them!!"

[snoninja7]

3339840 Dude, your Dad is awesome! Seriously, any zombie response team needs to have him on it. I'm really glad you like Blade, I wanted to make him a tough as nails warrior with a big heart, with just enough craziness to make him fun and interesting. He's not just a comic character though, he's got some depth to him as you will see in the next few chapters.

[snoninja7]

3340567 I really like that quote there! Blade is pretty suspicious of ponies that aren't being honest and upfront about all of their motives, but with him it is more that he is really good at figuring out what ponies he can trust.

I'd love to hear him quote something too. I got a lot of inspiration for his character from George C. Scott's portrayal of General Patton for his character, so I can totally see him saying: "When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do."

[BronyPonyMan]

3341700 sweet!