> Lanterns of Equestria: Blackest Night
>  by The Literary Lord
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lanterns of Equestria – Blackest Night

PROLOGUE: IN THE BEGINNING

Once upon a time, in another universe, there was darkness.

It was the era before reality became defined, at the point before existence that constitutes all came to be, in the time before the very concept of Time itself existed, when the Universe was anything BUT. 

There was nothing, nothing but an absolute, lifeless darkness that stretched infinitely in all directions.

And for a time, it was the way things were.

Then, at an unspecified point of history, a spark was struck, either by design, or accident. 

And there was Light.

It was WHITE Light of Creation. In later days that point of history would come to be known in many names: Genesis, The Big Bang, the Dawn of Time, the Carving of the Heavens, Alpha, the Beginning of Everything, and so on.

The absolute darkness in the universe was replaced by the Light, and for a while, it filled all of reality with its brilliance.

From this beginning came many things – among them Time, Matter, Energy of all kinds, Electromagnetism, Gravity, Nuclear forces, etc. From all this, stars were born, planets came into being, galaxies would fill the filaments, and the Universe as we know it came into existence.

And from this Light, came the ENTITY. 

Again, no one knew whether the Entity came naturally, or was the product of some design, but what was known is that before life, the Entity was its embodiment. 

Overtime, the Entity began to affect the universe around it, and from its very existence, life arose. It gave birth to the living beings that would come to populate the infinite worlds across the vastness of the cosmos, and as the embodiment of all life, all life is linked to it, and it to all life. 

For a time, all was good. 

But it did not last.

With the advent of life, there was imbalance in the cosmos. The darkness before creation was not pleased by having been displaced by the White Light, to have nothing filled with something, to have impassiveness replaced by action, to have lifelessness given over to life.

Eventually, this darkness, the BLACK as it would be call, sought to regain its dominance over universe, by eradicating all life. 

It battled the White Light, and it was stopped by the White Light, but this victory came at a price: In the process, the White Light of Creation was splintered into seven different colours.

At the same time, as life evolved across the Universe, they experienced various feelings as they struggled to survive and prosper, a byproduct of their existence. These feelings became Emotions. There were seven primal emotions in all, and the Seven Colours of the WHITE came to represent them

And so from the first living things, came the Emotional Spectrum. 

In each instance, when they arose, the Entity's power touched them, and the first life-forms that experienced them became entities that embodied them: 

WILLPOWER came into existence when life first moved on its own accord. When transformed into power, the GREEN colour of the Light represented it, and the whale-like Entity of its Embodiment came to be known as ION.

Before long, the creatures on the life-bearing worlds escaped the oceans and into the land and air. As life hunted other life for subsistence, other life fled from those that hunt. The terror that drove their struggle for survival became an emotional power: FEAR, and with it, the YELLOW entity PARALLAX was born, bearing the form of a monstrous insect.

The imperative of life was reproduction, and when life became aware of it as a concept, to experience the imperative as an emotion, and with sentience the concept shed its skin and grew beyond the mere passing  on one's genetic material, the VIOLET light of LOVE was ignited, and the PREDATOR came into existence, wearing the form of a predatory reptile.

As time went on, life-forms became secured in their own existence, and grew a craving for more than what it needs to survive. When the first creature devours more than what it needs, it becomes consumed with AVARICE. The entity of greed, ORPHIDIAN, took the shape of an ORANGE serpent.

With sentience, emotions became more volatile. With the first murder, when one life killed another not out of necessity, but from the extreme emotion felt of being wronged, the entity of RAGE took the form of a demonic bull, crimson RED, and it bore the moniker of the BUTCHER.

Living came with many trials and hardship, and more often than not survival was a slim possibility and life despair at their own predicament. HOPE was born from the first act of prayer of a sentient being, and ADARA took off upon BLUE wings.

And at last, with emotions, came understanding, and COMPASSION is offered to all. The cephalopod form of the PROSELYTE stretches across the universe with its many arms of INDIGO.

It took billions of years before sentient life would discover the power behind the emotions they experience, and then harness them for their use. 

When one of their numbers caused irreversible damage to the Universe in his thirst for knowledge, distorting space-time and resulting in evil and entropy unleashed upon all cosmos, The Malthusians, the first intelligent lifeforms in that Universe, took responsibility of their own actions and became the immortal Guardians of the Universe. They sought to combat and contain evil across the Universe and oppose those who ruled by fear. 

To this they needed an army to establish order across the Universe. The first army, the robotic Manhunters, failed with their limited programming that culminated in the destruction of all life in an entire Sector of the Universe. 

Shamed but undaunted, upon Oa, the world at the centre of Creation, they found ION, the embodiment of Willpower, and learned how to manipulate its Green glow. They forged a Central Power Battery to store this energy. They forged Green Power Rings to allow life-forms to manipulate this power by thought alone, and established their second Army: the Green Lantern Corps.  

For billions of years since, the Guardians would seek out individuals who have the most willpower, the ability to overcome great fear, and arm them with these rings, and the Green Lanterns would police the Universe, battling evil wherever they tread.

But as time went on, the task became difficult as various evils and menaces arose and the Green Lanterns struggled to keep it contained. 

Then they learned of the Prophecy.

In the forbidden final chapter of the Book of Oa, which its laws upon which the Green Lanterns took as their guiding principles, it was prophesized that other Lantern Corps shall be formed, each harnessing the powers of one of the other six emotions in the Emotional Spectrum. 

A War of Light will follow as the Lantern Corps battle one another over conflicting goals, and at the climax of the conflict, the Black, the darkness before time and the enemy of the White of which all Emotional Entities descends from, shall rise once more and tries a second time to destroy all Life and Emotion from the Universe.  

This prophecy would come to be known as the "Blackest Night". And despite the efforts of the Guardians to prevent it, nothing could stop it from coming to pass.

Sure enough, other Lanterns Corps were born as the sentient beings, both good and evil, discovered the other Emotional Entities and their powers: 

When Sinestro, a former Green Lantern that had fallen to evil, seeks revenge against the Green Lantern Corps, he asked his allies, the Qwardians, to forge Yellow Power Rings that could tap into the emotion of Fear, of which PARALLAX was the embodiment of, and thus the Sinestro Corps was formed. 

The Zamarons, female offshoots of the Malthusians who refused to abandon emotions and became the Guardians of the Universe, discovered how to harness the Violet light of Love, the domain of the PREDATOR, and created the matriarchal Star Sapphires, in hopes to protect and spread the power of love across the Universe.

Atrocitus, one of the few survivors from the Sector that the Manhunters had massacred of all life, became consumed by rage in his hatred for the Guardians of the Universe, whom he blamed for the loss of everything he loved. Having discovered the BUTCHER, the embodiment entity of Rage, he created the Red Lantern Corps, composed of individuals across the universe which have been wronged severely and was overwhelmed by anger and hatred.

Larfleeze, a former slave and criminal, discovered the Orange Power Battery of Avarice, upon a world in the Vega Star System billions of years ago, and became the wielder of its light as Agent Orange under the corruptive influence of OPHIDIAN. While he had made a deal with the Guardians to remain in the Vega System, a misunderstanding caused him to believe the deal was violated, and thus the Orange Lantern was unleashed into the universe.

Realizing the Blackest Night would come to pass, two of the Guardians of the Universe left the Guardians to seek an alternate power to which could help the Green Lanterns in the struggle to come. They discovered the Blue Light of Hope, ADARA's domain, and formed the Blue Lanterns along with their greatest champion, the missionary Saint Walker.

The Green Lantern Abin Sur, who learnt of the Prophecy himself decades earlier, discovered from the tribal natives of the planet Nok how to harness the Power of Compassion, embodied by PROSELYTE, and formed the Indigo Tribe with one of the natives, using the power of the Indigo Central Battery and the Indigo Rings that force empathy and compassion upon even the worst creatures in existence. 

And at last, the players were assembled, and the War of Light ensured. 

The struggle culminated upon a world called Earth, the third planet from its Sun, which for intents and purposes was insignificant, save for a few things – the most important was that it was there that the Entity, the embodiment of all life, was hidden by the Guardians of the Universe ages past. 

It was upon this world, now populated by a thriving race of sentient beings, the Black made its move to eradicate all life from the Universe. Its herald, Nekron, arose from that world, and created the Black Lantern Corps from the dead of that world and those across the Universe to facilitate the destruction of all life, with the ultimate goal to find and destroy the Entity. 

Against the threat of Nekron, the Black and its Black Lanterns, the various Lantern Corps set aside their differences and made war against them. 

Together with the heroes of that world and helped by the White Entity itself, they combined their power, and vanquished the Black Lanterns. Thus the Blackest Night came to pass.

But then, an unexpected complication arose.

In the aftermath of the Blackest Night, The Guardians of the Universe, frustrated by what they perceive as the climax of a string of failures in their war against evil, were finally pushed over the edge. 

Having judged their second army, the Green Lanterns, as failures, they ultimately made the conclusion that the only way to impose order upon the universe was to conquer it and wipe it clean of free-will and all other emotions.

Unto this, they created from their own flesh and advanced science their Third Army, and unleashed upon their own Corps and towards the Universe in their collective madness. These beings would assimilate other sentient beings into copies of themselves, and wage war across the Universe.

It was at the advent of this threat did our story begin.

Unbeknownst of all, while the other heroes and Corps struggled desperately to stop the Guardians' Third Army, the pantheon of Emotional Entities plotted in secret to preserve their own existences, in the event that the Third Army prevails and all free-will and emotions are purged from the universe.

Using their respective powers, they scoured the Universe, and then beyond, seeking a place where their power could seek refuge.

Eventually, they found that refuge.

In another parallel universe, far away from their branch of realities, they found a world both vastly similar and different from those they knew: like the planets of their universe, this world bears diversity of life of many kinds, each individual capable of a complexity of emotions. 

Unlike their universe, the emotions of that world in the parallel universe have actual power, in the form of magic.

The Emotional Entities knew magic, of course – one of the Green Lanterns once wielded a special Green ring that was powered by magic. But whereas in their own universe magic was a secondary force hidden at large from the inhabitants of the universe and wielded by a few, in the parallel universe magic was the underpinning foundation of the reality, and which was affected strongly by emotions there in addition to spells and rituals, hence giving emotions power. 

Whenever thinking creatures of that place reaches emotional balance, Harmony is achieved. When they worked together, their magic joint by emotions that embody friendship, their magical power is increased to the point it could even overwhelm gods.

As far as the Emotional Entities were concerned, it was perfect.

And so one night, as battle raged across the stars, seven special power rings were formed. 

And unto each ring the Emotional Entities bestow part of their essence, and instructed them to seek out individuals on that parallel universe world that best embodies the emotional power they contain.

The rings were then sent to the parallel universe.

The portal that enabled their passage was promptly shut, never to reopen.

They came to rest in orbit high above the world, gathering at a specific spot over the planet where the flow and diversity of emotions was the strongest. 

A land called Equestria.

And they waited. 




LANTERNS OF EQUESTRIA: BLACKEST NIGHT
> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

(By ~BrutalityInc and ~ardashir)
(Edited by ~BrutalityInc)

CHAPTER ONE: CALM BEFORE THE STORM

In the dark, in the endless night between the stars, something waited.

Far above Equestria, beyond the life-giving warmth of Celestia's sun and the cool light of Luna's moon, lay only a darkness as still and silent as the night before the first dawn. Of all the beings on the blue and green globe below only two had ever gone so far from their homeworld. And when Celestia and Luna satisfied themselves that nothing lived beyond their own beloved world, they ignored it. They believed it empty and devoid of life.

Lifeless, yes; empty, no.

Something that did not live, that had never lived, floated, and searched, and waited with the patience of oblivion itself.

Then, silently, it stopped in its track, as if it found what it was looking for. And quietly, without fuss, it made its way towards the unsuspecting world.

====

( = FAR BELOW... = )

It was cold high up at the cliff sides of Rambling Rock Ridge most nights. The place was barren, lifeless, a wasteland of rock and dust. The only life here are bits of grass in between, weeds struggling to survive on the dirt between cracks of the rock faces. 

It was not entirely devoid of everything of value, however. The place is rich with minerals, and from time to time, Rarity Belle of Ponyville would come up here to look for gems and diamonds to include into her fashion designs, while Diamond Dogs living nearby would come to dig up some gems to place in their hoard. 

Tonight, however, this place would receive some different visitors. 

At the tallest cliff-sides, stands a collection of plaques and statues, ancient tombstones that had been worn and weathered by the ravages of time and nature. And in front of the tallest monument of them all, stood two ponies, one cyan pegasus and a small orange filly.

"Dash, do I gotta do this?" Scootaloo asked her mentor and idol. 

Rainbow Dash sighed, ruffling her wings in irritation. "Yeah, Scoots. This is, well..." The cyan pegasus looked from the monument before her to the smaller gravestones all around and then to the small orange filly beside her. "This is just something we pegasi do, ta, y'know," She waved her hoof vaguely in a circle, "Ta remember who an' what we were before we got to be part of Equestria." Dash smiled hopefully down at Scootaloo. The little filly snorted as she turned and looked at the statue before her.

"I don't know why I gotta. Didn't you teach me everything about her when you played Hurry-cane in the Hearth's Warming pageant?"

Dash just shook her head, her multicolored mane spilling over her neck, as she looked at the statue. Dark gray granite for the body, obsidian for mane and tail, Commander Hurricane's memorial rose before the two pegasi. Centuries' worth of graves surrounded it, many of them with inscriptions so old they could no longer be read. Hurricane looked down from the mountaintop and across Equestria, the mare's face combining pride and benevolence.

"Not everything, squirt. Some things we pegasi kinda keep to ourselves about her."

"She was a space alien?!?"

"What? No!" Dash scowled at Scootaloo. "Where'd you get that idea?" The filly shrank back, looking dismayed. Dash sighed and ruffled her mane. "Naw, it's okay. It's just that," she turned her gaze back to Commander Hurricane, "Hurricane was never really all that happy with how things turned out after the Three Tribes came together. Oh, she was glad they got rid of the windigos, yeah," Dash explained to the wide-eyed Scootaloo, "but the other stuff? About how she was happy to stop ruling and raiding the Earth Ponies, and fighting with the Unicorns? How she an' Pansy got the pegasi to start electing our leaders an' stopped the line of the warlords, even though she got killed by some pegasi that wanted ta go back to the bad old days?" She shook her head.

"It didn't happen?" Scootaloo asked, her eyes wide.

"Well, it did, just not the way everypony thought." Dash looked at the statue, looking proud and fierce in its molded armor and crested helmet. "Hurricane thought that she'd keep ruling the military as First Warlord, but after the pegasi settled in Cloudsdale, they decided they'd rather be a democracy than a conquering army. Hurricane, well, she didn't like that..."

"So?" All of Scootaloo's attention was focused on Dash now. The mare puffed her chest up a bit as she went on.

"Hurricane got some other pegasi together, an' they started plundering Earth Pony farms and Unicorn towers. They did it in the dark, so nopony could see who did it," 

Dash swallowed, wondering if Scoots was ready for this, "an' they went and robbed some griffins, once, just to try and get them ta fight with Equestria. The other ponies she'd faced the windigos with found out. They smoothed things over with the griffins an' told Hurricane that if she couldn't live there in peace she hadda go. So Hurricane came here an' said she'd wait until the pegasi came back ta her and they could rule Equestria. They all stayed with Pansy. She died all alone years later. Some pegasi visited her now an' then, but none of them ever stayed. She's supposed ta have said that she wished she'd never found Equestria, that everypony shoulda froze to death rather than come here an' forget what they really were. Finally she died, an'," Dash shrugged, "We made this statue over her."

"We did? She's BURIED here?"

"Squirt, you're standin' on her!" Dash grinned as Scoots jumped and hurried back off of the marble slab she'd been standing on. The blue pegasus said, "Anyway, Pansy said he wanted everypony ta remember who Hurricane used ta be, not what she became at the end. An' then –" 

Something caught her attention. "What the hay?!"

Both pegasi looked upwards as something boomed through the sky overhead. Dash saw colored streaks flying through the sky, all the colors of the rainbow. For some reason she felt her eyes drawn to the crimson one. It looked like a ball of fiery blood flying through the air. An instant long something burned inside her before the crimson ball vanished over the horizon.

"What was that?"

"I dunno," Dash said, ruffling her wings up. She let Scootaloo climb on her back and flew off down the lonely mountain. "But I'm gonna get the others together an' find out!"

Atop the mountain then, silence and emptiness for a moment. And then something dropped from the sky towards the monument and the marble slab covering all that remained of a dead and fallen heroine. Something glittered like obsidian ice as it hovered.

[ = Flesh. = ]

[ = Yes. This one. She will be Our Champion. She will bring the Peace of Oblivion to this world. = ]

It dropped lower, going through the marble slab as though it were mere water. Down, down, until it reached a pile of bones and armor and feathers. A voice that echoed from the hollow emptiness between the stars began to speak.

[ = The Blackest Night falls from the skies... = ]

Twilight Sparkle looked up into the sky as the fireballs passed over head. She wondered at the sudden unexpected and irrational fear she felt at the sight. Spike stood beside her. He pressed close, not wanting to lose her or anything else he valued.

Far off in the Everfree, in the lost village of Sunny Town, its undead inhabitants looked upwards for an instant. Then they returned to forcing the sobbing and pleading Ruby into the fire. Again. 

[ = The Darkness grows as all hope dies... = ]

"Ooh, pretty!" Pinkie Pie said as she looked up in delight at a lovely ball of blue light flying overhead, as though searching. Part of her wished she could reach up and bounce it on her nose. 

And at Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack looked skywards without fear and wondered what was happening now. Her big brother stood beside her, as stolid as ever. Applebloom watched the fireballs too. One looked like it was coming down in the Everfree; maybe she could find it and get a meteor-finding cutie mark? She looked at her blank flank and frowned. She was OWED one after all this time!

[ = We are your death and your demise... = ]

Rarity froze as she felt something thunder by overhead. Sweetie Belle whimpered; she never liked thunder. The filly who'd been asking, more like ordering her, to make her loveliest dress for her mother froze up too. Rarity instinctively went to stand close by both Diamond Tiara and her little sister, her presence comforting them.

Fluttershy awoke with an eep as the sickly cockatrice she'd been caring for dashed under the covers to hide. Lovingly, she gathered it in, singing softly to calm the frightened monster. It gave her its petrifying glare for a second before it settled down, cuddling against her.

[ = By my black hoof, THE DEAD SHALL RISE! = ]

The marble slab exploded as something forced its way up and out. A whinny like a scream shattered the air as bones set themselves together, armor reformed with a new symbol. A black ring set itself around one forehoof, downloading more than a thousand years of history into the mind within that rotted equine skull.

[ = Commander Hurricane of Pegasopolis... RISE. = ]

"What... what happened to Pegasopolis? Why are my people no longer warriors?" The thing that stood there hung its head low, shaking it in disbelief at what it saw. "Why are two horn-headed, part dirt pony freaks lording it over my people? This is not what I fought for! Did the pegasus tribe die when I did?" 

"NO!" she roared skyward, her voice like that of a legion, "RISE, MY PEOPLE, RISE!"

Hurricane lowered her head and retched up black slime that swiftly reformed into dozens, and then hundreds of black rings. 

"Go." she hissed. "Restore the true pegasi." As the rings began burrowing their way into the dozens of graves all around her, Hurricane looked down on Equestria below her. She felt like she ought to hate it, but all she felt was a cold hunger. 

"Platinum," she said. "Puddinghead. Pansy," something twinged inside, like the memory of an old pain, "Those other two foals. Is this the world you wanted? We were wrong. We should have let the windigos take us. That would have been true peace, a death with honor rather than life without. Better death for everything than living to see all that made us us abandoned by our cowardly and undeserving descendants. I see it so clearly now."

"And now," she felt a vast number of chill presences nearby as more undead pegasi joined her, all of them showing the symbol on her armor in place of their cutie marks. "And now," she repeated, spreading her wings, "I can finally do what I should have done then. I will bring the final peace to all Equestria." She flew up into the sky, her army following her in flawless loyalty.

"And when the last of our worthless children finally joins me, my Blackest Night will shroud them all forever."

====

( = THE NEXT DAY = )

This was just another normal day in Ponyville. 

It was noon, and Celestia's Sun hung high against a clear sapphire sky. Without a trace of clouds from one end of the horizon to the other and the cover it provides, the Sun's blinding glare makes it hard for ponies to see with their eyes fully open, its warmth could be felt in every corner of the quiet farming town, flaking the white walls of the town buildings, casting ink-black shadows of ponies and country houses on the ground. The heat hung in the air, bearing down upon the land like oven, leaving ponies to wonder if Equestria had suddenly become one big sauna. 

All in all, the day was becoming quite uncomfortably hot. Most of the town's residents had taken shelter indoors to escape the Sun as soon as the opportunity presents itself, except for a few ponies. 

Three of them could be found on the edge of Ponyville, on a cliff-side amidst the rolling hills and fields of emerald grass, near the farm residence of Sweet Apple Acres.

For those three ponies, today was just another perfect day at doing what they do best. 

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS AVIATORS!!!"

Finding their talents and getting their cutie marks. 

Applebloom wanted to find the meteors she saw last night, but today she had something else to do with her fellow Cutie Mark Crusaders. Scootaloo had came up with their latest scheme to earn cutie marks, and insisted they try to work it out before they do anything else today.

It took Scootaloo, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle over a week before to design and assemble the contraption, but it was done – laying before them on a makeshift ramp was their glider-aircraft. It stretched a dozen meters from one end to another, and had the overall appearance of a bird, its wings unfolded to its fullest span. Upon its structure, bits of garbage, old newspapers and straw poked out between the cracks of the polythene film that covers its surface. Suspended between the two wings was a basket big enough for three fillies. A tail pole extend to the rear to tail fins made of cardboard.

Given its shape and appearance, the glider might stand well on its own as its own abstract, modern art, were the Cutie Mark Crusaders not intend to actually fly it.

"So, whaddaya think?" Applebloom asked her two friends behind her, Cutie Mark Crusader capes adorned upon their backs, "Does it look great?"

"Not really as good as I imagine it would be..." Sweetie Belle reflected as she gazed upon the finished product in their latest scheme, "It could have looked better."

"Who cares about that?" Scootaloo brushed it off, "As long as it could fly straight I couldn't care less."

The three of them paused for a moment to regard their masterpiece.

"So, what do you thing we should we call ourselves after we get our cutie marks? I got a few ideas already."

"The Three Pigeons?" Sweetie Belle suggested.

"Nah, that's silly." Scootaloo shook her head in disagreement, "How about the Flying Trio? 

"We'r could always jus' figure it ou' lateh." Reassured Applebloom "First thing we ought' ta do before launch is ta give da gal a name!"

"A name?" 

"Yeah... I mean, it jus' sound... wrong if dat thin' don't have a name, would it? I mean, it certainly deserves one if it's gonna git us our Cutie Marks."

"How about... the Albatross?" Scootaloo suggested.

"What's an Albatross?" Applebloom asked.

"Albatross is a bird that lives by the beaches, and got the biggest wings of all other birds in the world." Scootaloo explained, slightly baffled by Applebloom's ignorance, "What? You never heard about the albatross before?"

"We don't live near the coast," Sweetie Belle responded, "and we are not exactly the best when it comes to paying attention in class."

Scootaloo resisted the urge to groan.

"... Albatross, huh?" Applebloom paused to contemplate the name, "I like it! Albatross it is! I bet it's gonna fly as good as one!"

"Well it BETTER fly! I'm tired of being stuck on the ground as it is. It is high-time I get into the air!" Scootaloo insisted. Applebloom and Sweetie Belle couldn't help but notice the look of determination on Scootaloo's face. 

Unknown to them, the glider meant more to Scootaloo than just getting their cutie marks.

Scootaloo had always wanted to fly, and at her age, she should have been able to. But she couldn't – she was a late bloomer. Whereas her idol pulled off a Sonic Rainboom at roughly her age, she herself could barely get off the ground, and it was all because her wings were simply too small.

It frustrated her to no end as her body had made her a prisoner on the ground, unable to join the other pegasi fillies in the air. The taunting of the other mean pegasi children were bad enough, and the stories of the 'Rainbow Factory' used to scare pegasi fillies to work harder on flight didn't help either.  

The straw that finally broke the camel's back was when Diamond Tiara taunt her about it in class last week, right after another pegasi filly in school finally got off the ground, leaving her the only pegasi in class to yet to take flight.

The glider is her chance to finally be able to get her place in the sun. She wants to be absolutely sure that it would not end up like their other hare-brained schemes. One way or another, she's going to fly. 

"And it WILL fly!" Applebloom declared, looking confident. In her heart, she actually wasn't really sure. But that's all there is to it. She turned to face her friends, "Cutie Mark Crusaders! Put on yer helmets and git ready fer launch!" 

The unicorn and pegasi filly gave each other a look of uncertainty. Then, Scootaloo picked the red hoof-ball helmets they brought along and placed it over her head, followed by Sweetie Belle. 

Together as one they mount upon the basket that they had jerry-rigged into a cockpit. Applebloom took a moment to look at the controls: A series of wires run along the length of the wings around the edges, connected to wheels and pulleys, and at the center of this web of wires is a crude steering mechanism that was one part baseball bat and other parts kitchen ware.

The three fillies looked down upon the ramp, pass the cliff-side, and see the entirety of Sweet Apple Acres and Ponyville stretched out before them. Sweetie Belle gulped at the sight.

"Alrighty then, let's do a lil' final check!" Applebloom ordered, "Wings!"

Scootaloo took a quick scan at the wings, looking for structural breaks in its crude, piled-together and badly taped frame, "Looks good!"

"Steerin' wires!" Applebloom called out.

"Holding!" Sweetie Belle confirmed, strumming the strings a bit.

"Wheels!" Applebloom call out ones more.

Scootaloo peaked underneath the glider to see the wheels, which they scavenged from a rusty old Manehatten shopping cart, "Check!" She replied, "So are we going or what?"

"We're goin' alright!" Applebloom snapped, her expression changed to that of a determined look, "Sweetie Belle, when Ah count ta three, kick it off!"

Sweetie Belle grabbed the strings connected to the wooden blocks that are blocking the wheels, holding the glider from sliding off the ramp too early. Sweetie Belle gave a nod.

"On mah mark..."

Scootaloo began to sweat, both from excitement, the summer heat and uncertain worry.

"One..."

Sweetie Belle gulped again and held onto the side of the basket with her other front-hoof.

"Two..."

Applebloom licked her lips, gripped her controls tightly, and stared down the ramp in front of her as if she was staring down the two bullies at school.

Time seems to slow down for the three of them. 

"THREE! Launch!"

Sweetie Belle pulled as hard as she could, and the blocks slid off.

And so did the glider.

It accelerated down the ramp, going faster and faster as the wheels creaked and turn underneath the contraption and the glider reaching full speed. The crusaders felt the wind searing at their faces, their manes and tails fluttering backwards, their own tears and drool streaming behind them, their stomachs churn like when they were in a roller coaster, and the g-force pressing their bodies to the back of the cockpit.

They held on for dear life as the glider reaches the end of the ramp, goes off the cliff, and flies off into the wild-blue yonder.

====

Applejack wiped beads of sweat off her forehead as she watched another tree's worth of apples fall into waiting buckets. She's proud of her own stamina and strength, but under overwhelming heat of the noon day sun, even the ever durable and dependable earthpony was finding it hard to press on (She's going to have a few harsh words with the weather department later, that's for sure).

Right now she was thinking about the fireballs that streaked through the skies the previous night. The others saw it too, it seemed, from where they were (except for Fluttershy, who was tending a cockatrice that was scared out of its wits). 

Shooting stars are always a spectacular sight, and in any other night she would had admired them, but not this time - while she did not feel fear, she instead felt an omnious feeling that something big is about to happen, and that it was related to those shooting stars. Call it a hunch, call it intuition, call it experience from having to deal with this kind of thing many times in her many adventures with the other Mane Six, but it was a feeling she can't shake off.

For one thing, seven shooting stars the colours of the rainbow descending from Princess Luna's night sky like gemstones can't possibly be natural. 

"Meteors usually burn up brightly in the atmosphere in the colours of gold-red or white, depending on their composition. And they never burn up in colours of green, blue or violet," AJ remembered Twilight explaining, flipping through an astronomy book, when the other girls met up at the library.

"Well if they weren't natural, then what're they? Have any ideas sugarcube?" AJ asked her then. She already have ideas, probably the typical villain of the year they face now and then.

"There are a lot of supernatural phenomena relating the night sky. The Zebras believed the stars are evil monsters out to get them and destroy the world, and that meteors are one of the ways they use to corrupt creatures on this world to disharmony and evil. Just ask Zecora, if you're into that sort of superstition." Oh there goes Twilight again, AJ thought, rolling her eyes.

"Could it be aliens? I would LOVE to start a 'Welcome to Equestria' party for them!" Pinkie Pie bounced with glee at the thought.

"And if they ain't friendly do I get to buck them in the face?" Rainbow Dash mused.

"Look, I don't know as of now, but it got the Princesses worried. Princess Luna had told me in a letter she didn't cause the meteor shower. They're already investigating it, so am I, so I figure we'll have to wait and see."

There was nothing else they could do, so for now she let it slip back to the back of her head. AJ got other problems to worry about. When she got back to the farm, Big Mac told her that a swarm of parasprite suddenly appeared out of the Everfree forest and nearly ate through their new barn. It didn't made sense, given that they already had a once in a century parasprite attack. 

And just to add fuel to the fires of mystery, a whole horde of critters, from small animals to timberwolves, manticores, stormed out of the forests, scurried through the fields, AWAY from the woods. Fear was evident and clear in their expressions and panicked cries.

Something had spooked them, it seemed, and that had AJ worried. Just what could spook the creatures that lived in the forests of death itself?

She spent the morning cleaning up the mess, and only now did she manage to get back on track, harvesting the apples. Well, whatever it is, it couldn't come at a worse time. Just when the barn was getting fixed, it looked like it was about to collapse again, and with the family saving up as much money as possible to pay off their latest debts it would have to stay that way. Which ultimately means, of course, that they had more work to do.

AJ sighed. Despite her pride, sometimes she just wished she could have some of the fancy magic Twilight and Rarity could do. It would certainly help her a lot...

The sound of a mighty crash knocked her out of her train of thought. Eyes wide with surprise, she turned left and right to locate the source of the commotion. 

"Wha' in tarnation?!" AJ gasped when she look towards the barn, to find something had crashed upon it.

Without a second thought she dropped her baskets of apples and galloped at full speed towards it.

====

Applebloom was dazed, and everything she saw was spinning around her.

A minute ago they were still airborne, the wings of their aircraft actually holding despite its crude design, keeping them aloft in the air as it glided. She could remember the breeze brushing on their faces, the smell of clean air from high in the sky, the wobble in the cockpit as they flew, and best of all, the sheer joy and excitement they all felt in their apparent moment of triumph.

It lasted for ten seconds.

What happened next was a blur – she remembered feeling a mighty gust of wind sweeping them from their left, and her struggling to bank left and keep them from spinning out of control. She remember screaming, from either Scoots or Sweetie, warning her as the strings break and bits of the wing twist and fell off.

The whole thing shook, spun, and then came crashing down.

She shook her daze off, and she looked around her. She's still in the cockpit, as were her friends, having been fortunate enough to not fall out of the basket during the dive. That would had been disastrous. 

"Gals! Y'all alright?" Applebloom asked.

"I'm fine!" "Yeah..." were the responses.

She took a moment to examine herself and her friends. Their capes were torn, the helmets dented, but otherwise they appeared to have survived without a scratch on their bodies. That could be said less of their ride – what's left of the wings were torn film and pieces of garbage skewered upon bent and broken wooden frames. The bottom of the basket cockpit had crumpled where it landed on hard surface. As far as things considered, it was effectively destroyed.

And to make things worse, Applebloom discovered, it wasn't the only thing that's broken – they had smashed right onto the roof of her family's barn, the wooden planks crumbling where they landed. And that's not counting the fact that the whole thing was already busted as it had because of the parasprites.

She was certain she would get grounded for this.

And despite it all...

"We still couldn't fly or get our cutie marks!!" Scootaloo shouted in frustration when she noticed their flanks remained as they had been - blank.

"Scootaloo, we just crashed on the roof of Applebloom's sister's barn, and the only thing you care about right now is whether or not we get our cutie marks out of this?!" Sweetie Belle suddenly snapped at her, eyes narrowing and face in a scowl. 

Scootaloo recoiled a bit at Sweetie Belle's admonishment, and Applebloom just stared in confusion as she took off her helmet. Sweetie Belle had never complained when their schemes ended disastrously (which is most of the time). To hear it from her like this shocked the orange pegasi filly.

"I... that's not what I mean! I was just..." Scootaloo tries excuse herself, but was interrupted by a familiar voice below.

"APPLEBLOOM!" Applejack called to her sister at the side of the barn, voice with both concern and admonishment, "Whaddaya do this time around?!"

"Em... Ah...It was an accident!" Applebloom shouted down from where they were on the roof, "We jus' lost control of our glider and it just crashed on the barn roof! We didn't mean ta! Ah just don't know wha' wen' 'rong!"

Augh, AJ thought, rolling her eyes in disgust. She was getting REALLY tired of their antics, and on their own barn's roof no less! "Applebloom!" AJ admonished her, "Yer can't jus' go fly around gliders and expectin' ta git yer cutie marks bah crashin' it on houses! It ain't safe! And don't you know how long we tried ta fix this roof?!"

"Ah'm sorry!" Applebloom apologized again. Sweetie Belle was glaring at Applebloom behind her.

"Jus' stay still! Ah'm comin' up ta git y'all" AJ called in annoyance. She's going to give Applebloom such a talking to. 

AJ looked back to see where her brother Big Mac was, "Now I wonder where did that big red stallion put teh ladder...?"

Suddenly, she heard a creaking sound, followed by a groan, coming from the woodworks. She looked up at the shattered roof.

"Eh, Ms Applejack, I think the roof is..." 

Whatever Sweetie Belle was going to say was interrupted when the twisted woods and beams that were supporting the ruined glider, already weakened by the parasprite attack, finally gave way with cacophonous cracks, The planks fell, the support beams toppled, and Applejack watched with horror as the glider slid through the gaping hole on the roof and fell.

"APPLEBLOOM!" Applejack called out in fear and panic.

The Crusaders screamed as one, and just barely managed to leap out of the makeshift cockpit before it came loose and tumble towards the ground. What's left of the glider was shattered into a thousand pieces upon impact.

Applebloom hung on for dear life on a broken plank on the roof with two her two forehooves, with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle hanging onto her by hind hoof and waist, kicking in the air as they struggled to just hold on.

"'Bloom! Sweetie! Scoot! Hold on! Ah'ma comin' for y'all!" AJ called out to them as she circled around the building and ran into the barn through the doors.

AJ could see the three hanging over the pile of rubble that was the roof and the glider. If they fell, there was hardly any doubt their chance of survival. Besides the Crusaders, the support beam is cracking and bending, causing the plank they were holding on to twist further and weakening Applebloom's grip. 

"Big sis! Ah'm sorry fer everything! HELP ME!" Applebloom cry out in fear. Never had she felt fear of death more since that terrifying adventure at Sunnytown.

"I don't know if I can hang on much longer!" Sweetie Belle added. Now more than ever does she regret agreeing to the scheme.

Scootaloo looked at the ground, and for a moment it was almost like it was coming towards her. More than ever did she thought the ground as her enemy and regarded it with both fear and frustration – if only her wings weren't so small, she would had flown out of here, or even better, didn't even need to suggest this scheme to begin with. And now it looks like it'll get them all killed; it both angered and terrified her.

Applejack knew she couldn't hold up the supports herself even with all her strength; that was Big Mac's territory. If only she was STRONGER! She saw a path to the crusaders through the twisted, mangled rubble of wood. The distance to cross was daunting, however. If only she could FLY! But alas, she couldn't. She doesn't care. Her sister and her friends would fall to their deaths if she don't save them now!

She made her way up a beam. Her heart was pounding her chest. Her guts twists and eyes opened wide with worry as she looked at the ground below her. She doesn't care. She must get to them no matter what! 

The woodwork creaked and shook slightly as more of the rubble collapse upon themselves. AJ held on for dear life. She cringed, sweat was starting to form. But then she saw that Applebloom was slipping. She was down to one hoof. The Crusaders cry out in panic. AJ squashed her fears and pressed on. She was almost there!

Applebloom shouted out to her sister as her muscles strained to handle the weight of two fillies on her. Inch after inch of her hoof gave way as the plank looked it was about to break.

The only thing in between Applejack and Crusaders was a wide gap three meters wide. She could easily jumped it if it had been on the ground. Cornsarnit! If only she brought a rope or anything!

"APPLEJACK!!!" Applebloom call out as the wood she held onto finally gave way, and she slipped.

Applejack watched with horror as the three crusaders fell, screaming the top of their lungs.

"APPLEBLOOM!"

She loved her little sister, and that love, and her determination to protect her from all harm, regardless of all costs, allowed her to overcome all the remaining fears she had in her heart, and find the courage jump off where she was at and catch the crusaders. AJ leaped towards them.

If she could take the fall for them, they just might survive. She didn't care if she would die in the process. 

She is not afraid of death, she is not afraid of ANYTHING, as long as her ones she love are safe.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and Applejack could see her life flashing in front of her eyes.

( = Suitable candidate located = )

Big Mac was on the other side of the farm when it happened, and only he saw what happened next, just as he was galloping towards the barn, having heard the commotion. He watched as a blazing comet appear suddenly over the horizons, before diving downwards, right through the roof of the barn like a mortar shell. The whole place lit up with a blinding green glow.

"Wha' teh hay?!" that's all Big Mac could exclaim.

The mysterious green glow enveloped the whole inside of the barn, covering everything in emerald light. Applejack couldn't see, but she felt something slipped upon her right hoof as she fell towards the crusaders. She felt power coursing through her! Electrifying her! Just what in Celestia's name is going on?!

( = Abigail Jacqueline V of Equestria = )
( = You had the ability to overcome great fear = )
( = Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps = )
> Diamond in the Ruff
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bottom of Call Horn Bay Fjord, Southern Antler Range, Western Mountain Earldom, Noon.   

“Why are we hanging out here in this fjord again High Tide, “ a blue finned sea pony slowly floated between encrusted wooden pillar s thrusting up from the rocky bottom of the bay like the jagged teeth of some ancient monster. The dour colors and the murkiness of the water gave the bay bottom a depressing feeling to Whitecap. She thumped one of the beams with her tail, a cloud of dirt rising around the struck object. “This place gives me the creeps!”

A flash of yellow passed in front of her in the gloom, disappearing for a moment in the silt clouded water and then reappeaed. High Tide came to a stop next to her friend, hovering next to Whitecap and the wooden post. She looked up to the surface at the beams of sunlight piercing the water.

“Ah…it’s not so bad. Besides the caribou trade is good! They like the salty kelp and safe jellyfish we give them and the fruits they give us are so tasty,” High Tide turned upside down for a moment, and giggled. “You like those golden apples don’t you?” 

“That’s not the point. Do we have to meet them here? This is where they…you know..”

“Burn their ships with their dead? Come on Whitecap, don’t be such a twitchy tuna.”

Swimming in a circle, Whitecap held out a fin pointing out at the bay bottom as she went. “This entire place is a gravesite. There must be hundreds of their sunken longships here! Couldn’t we have just waited for the others at the dock? Why do you like this place?”

High Tide swam up into a beam of light, her scales dazzling in the dour setting they were waiting for their friends in. She smiled and gestured with her tail to the docks where the Caribou ships were tied up. “Have you ever seen one of their burials Whitecap? I got…”

“I know I know…you got invited to the old chief’s funeral because he liked you. You’d spend days listening to him just ramble on and on about all the fights he’d been in, the trolls he’d slain the things he’d seen. I swear, it’s like you wanted to grow legs and antlers and go out with him on a raid yourself.”

High Tide stuck out her tongue. She was about to say something in Caribou language when her ears pick up a familiar sound. She turned around, her ears pointing in the direction of the sound she had heard. In the distance she could make out the rough shape of the trade cart being pulled by Sea Mist and Wave Jumper. 

“The others are here Whitecap, you can calm down…”

Black stones splashed into the water next to them streaking down like shooting stars 
from the sky. They fell like sparks from a volcano but instead of glowing with heat and light it was like they absorbed what light was around them, ‘glowing’ with darkness. As they neared the bottom of the bay the sea ponies could hear a voice like a buzzing surface bug coming from the strange unlit objects.

[=FLESH=] 
[=FLESH=] 
[=FLESH=] 
[=FLESH=] 
[=FLESH=] 
[=FLESH=] 
[=FLESH=] 

The black sparks buried themselves in the bottom, boring into the dirt like a digger crab and disappearing.

“Wha…what was that High Tide,” Whitecap asked, her voice almost cracking.

The ground around them began to move. Wooden beams began to fall and a rumbling sound came up from the bay bottom. Once again they heard the strange voice of the black sparks, this time louder.

[=Issonsöngur Stedison of Westhold=]
[=Lodinnhorn Bitrson of Westhold=]
[=Bitregg Eljundottier of Westhold=]
[=BaniSteinn Hraustrson of Westhold=]
[=Rammligr Ljoistason of Westhold=]
[=Hvitrvindr Eldingson of Westhold=]
[=EldingFognudr Modrdottier of Westhold=]

[=RISE=]

Silt formed a cloud over the area making a shroud of darkness obscuring what had erupted from the seafloor. High Tide heard Whitecap coughing and made out the outline of her friend in the cloud. She pushed her muzzle forward until she touched the scales of her friend. Following the contours of Whitecap’s skin she found one of her fins. High Tide clamped firmly down with her mouth on the appendage and pulled. 

“This way! Come on!”

They swam in confusing darkness for a moment, High Tide leading. She used her memory and the end of her nose to guide her, dead reckoning the two of them out of the storm of dirt. Clearing the silt cloud the sea ponies turned around to see if anything followed them out, hovering in place and watching and waiting. The voices of Wave Jumper and Sea Mist called out behind them.

From the swirling cloud of sea bottom came a dark shape. At first the ponies could not make out what it was. Sea Mist looked over Whitecap, checking to see if her fins had been hurt in the confusion. High Tide kept peering into the floating dirt trying to makw out what was within. There was a noise sounding like a drowned and damaged bugle trying to sound a note. 

A decayed leg with a hoof at its end appeared from the edge of the cloud, followed by another. Two sharpened metal points thrust out connected to curve antlers the shredded and decayed velvet skin covering hung from the great prongs that grow from the cloud. 

The corpus of a great caribou emerged from the silt, clad in armor that High Tide was sure belonged to a Jarl. It had a strange device on the chest plate she had never seen any other caribou warrior use before. Bloated rotting flesh and half scorched bones seemed to be knitting themselves back into their original shape. The head of the creature turned to face the sea ponies. They felt a chill in their hearts when its dead gaze fell on them.

[=FEAR=]
[=FEAR=]
[=FEAR=]
[=FEAR=] 

“Ah…is that High Tide? Do you not know me anymore, “the jumble of decay shaped like a caribou said. “ Have you missed me and my stories child of the sea?”

“ICE SONG?!” 

[=Love=][=Compassion=][=Hope=]

“Ah..You did miss this old head butting stag,” the body of Jarl Ice Song said. It was becoming more whole by the moment, years of decomposition undone as if by magic: a loose hanging jaw had returned to its set and became tight again. Missing teeth returned, muscles grew anew, filling out the bulk of the old Jarl’s body. Skin appeared and his coat returned. It was a miracle.

“Ice Song! It IS you! You’ve come back!” High Tide shot forward away from her friends, swimming furiously to the renewing body of one she loved as dear as her own grandmother.  “How…how is this possible? Did you make it to Valhalla? Did your spirit make it to your ancestors? How did you come back and who…er…what are those,” High Tide pointed with her tail as she floated before the returned form of the old chief. She suddenly felt strangely weak.

The other sea ponies were still, hovering next to the trade chariot unsure what this all meant. They all knew the old chief, or at least knew of him. High Tide was the one who loved the deer folk most and she was very close to Jarl Ice Song when he was alive, he had loved their friend dearly. His death had hit her very hard. When news of his death came she refused to eat anything for a week. He had requested that she attend his funeral and willed to her a golden saddle belt. Now, the old warrior was before them, in the renewed flesh. High Tide almost danced in front of him. It was the happiest they had seen her for a long time.

“Some came back with me…see,” he pointed behind with a black band decorated hoof at the still swirling cloud of dirt. More shapes appeared from the cloud, caribou bodies in the process of reforming like Ice Song had done. “And for you my golden sea nymph I have one more tale to tell.”

The Jarl reached up with his legs taking the sea pony into an embrace. The world seemed to reel to High Tide, coldness creped through her body. All strength and feeling seemed to be flowing out of the. She felt an ache in her chest.  She looked up at the old chief with half lidded eyes.

“I…I” she stammered. “Wha…” a hoof was pressed into her side.

[=LOVE=]

“The story is this little one: Ragnarök has come!”

[=FEAR=]

The hoof glowed with darkness and plunged into her. Searing, blinding pain shot through her whole body. Her scream echoed over the bay bottom. Whitecap swam forward enough to see the caribou’s hoof impaling High Tide. A boiling cloud of red shot out from her as Ice Song withdrew his leg. He let go of High Tide’s body, the broken sea pony slowly fell to the bottom, blood trailing out of her like ink form a retreating squid.  On his hoof what looked like tentacles made of darkness held their friends heart.

[=Charge 5.23%=] the black band on the leg of the caribou corps buzzed. The heart of their friend seemed to melt away. 

[=FEAR=][=RAGE=]
[=FEAR=][=COMPASSION=]
[=FEAR=][=WILL=]

Inky blackness erupted from the black ring, spinning like a whirlpool and curling itself into a hoop. It became solid, like the one on Ice Song's leg. 

[=FLESH=] the ebony thing called out.

The black band floated down to the still body of their friend. It expanded becoming larger and larger as it moved down and slipping itself over High Tide’s tail and set itself on just above her tail fin. Golden yellow of her scales became dull. Material of black with white stripes formed around her body from her tail to the band around her neck. A triangle crest with five prongs like a dragon’s talon was on the front of her body over her middle. The crest was identical to the one the Caribou had on his chest plate. 

[=High Tide of Aquastria - RISE=]

The sea pony’s head snapped upward, her body followed as she rose up and floated again under control. The wound the caribou caused had disappeared under her new garment. High Tide turned and drifted towards her cowering friends huddling around the sea chariot.

“H-High Tide? W-What’s happening….what happened to you?”

Unlight flared from her black neck band as large black barbed hooks appeared at the end of all High Tide’s fins. Black spear like spines grew out of her back giving her an appearance like a horrific lionfish. 

[=FEAR=][=COMPASSION=]

Black Lantern High Tide smiled, “the same thing that’s about to happen to you!”


============<0>============


Rambling Rock Ridge west of Ponyville 12:30 PM

[=Scanning for Suitable candidate sentient=] 

The loose ring flew only a meter in front of Applejack. She had ordered it to only go as swiftly as she herself was flying and today she was not in a hurry. After creating this ring with a quarter power charge, she had fully recharged her own ring and flown east like she said she would. Only after she was outside of Ponyville had she instructed this ring to begin looking for a wielder. Bon Bon’s words had struck a nerve and she had made her first decision as Corps Leader: The Green Lantern Corps would not recruit from Ponyville any longer unless there was no choice. Applejack had told Rarity and Twilight her policy decision via Rarity’s Indigo ring. Rarity and Twilight agreed with her thinking. The inducting of neighbors and associates in the various lantern corps tasted wrong to the fair dealing farm mare, it smacked of favoritism and she would not have that, not on her watch!

Twilight then informed her about Mac’s mission with the group of lanterns sent out under Princess Cadence and Fluttershy. They were going to look over things after the town of 29 Fronds had been wiped out! The princesses had asked the lanterns to look things over and stop the Black Lanterns if they attacked towns nearby and one of the towns close enough to count was Appaloosa. ‘No wonder Mac looked concerned’ she said to herself. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing Ah’m out here lookin’ for another recruit’ she thought as Twilight read the letter from Princess Celestia requesting help, ‘we might need them sooner rather than later’.  Trixie apparently was the first lantern to reach Appaloosa and had reported all was well, which relieved Applejack greatly. 

She had been in the air for about an hour now, getting far enough from home that Ponyville was now part of the horizon. She was over a beautiful sparkling cloud layer when the ring came to a sudden stop. Applejack, felt in her mind the ring letting go from her control like the one before had indicating that it had found somepony.

[=Suitable candidate found=] chirped the ring. 

It suddenly flashed brightly and then dropped below the clouds, the green light tail through the clouds allowed Applejack to follow the ring down. She cleared the layer; the vista below her was barren scrub and rocky high hills. There were pit holes scattered over the landscape, looking like giant gopher holes. She saw the ring streaking into one of the larger pits, disappearing into the dark.  She started to follow and as she descended she realized what the holes were, the large dog guarding the entrance was a dead giveaway as to who was alive out here. 

“Figures,” she said shaking her head. “Ah wonder how Rarity is gonna to handle this? Heck, how am Ah gonna handle this?” As she entered the mouth of the pit, Applejack heard a crashing sound deep inside the tunnel. 

<0>


“Engineer told you we should have shored up the tunnel more!” a large dog miner said as he shook, dirt flying off his coat in sheets. “That is the third time today!”

“I walked mine an hour ago-three times since then- dang,” a medium sized dog responded, pulling out a long brown rope like thing out of the pocket of his red vest. He bit into the cord and tore off a few inches and began chewing. “How bad is it,” he asked smacking as he talked while he chewed. “if we didn’t need to find more of those gems because of our last move…” 

“They’re still digging?” Another Diamond Dog growled as he ran in from another mine tunnel, panting when he came to a stop in front of them. This dog was like the one eating; medium build and wearing a blue vest festooned with tools, spikes, a lamp, twine and rags. He was caring a combination pick and hammer that he used to support himself like a cane. The dog was almost heaving, his tongue lolled as he gasped for breath. “I told you to stop Rover! The tunnel needs to be reinforced. It’s not stable! By my sire’s ears you never listen! “ 

The tool vested dog looked around the dome staging chamber. “Where are the extra shoring materials, there’s only a minimum here?”

“We don’t have any extra Rufus and it will take a least week to get more lumber. The ponies don’t give it away and we’re still settling in from the last move! I got these from cannibalizing some of the old played out mines, and I was only able to take what was safe to grab.”

“You,” the tool laden dog pointed at the larger mining dog with his pick hammer. “Take me down there. We’re taking some braces and I’ll tell you where they should go.” The large dog nodded and lumbered over the wall picking up large wood and metal beams and placing them in a mining cart. There was a deep rumble sound and a thick cloud of dust erupted from the mine entrance.

Engineer Rufus slung his pick hammer over his shoulder and let out a low growl, ” I know that Rover! I told you to stop digging for a reason!” Rover responded with a louder growl while baring his teeth. “I told them to go slow and careful and when I was down there an hour ago it was fine. I’m NOT stupid! I am Alpha here Rufus! Remember that!”

Rufus backed away unbent. ” An ‘Alpha’ should be more careful with his pack Rover instead of hoping to stay lucky.” He turned away and ran after the large miner pulling the cart full of braces. From his belt canteen he poured water onto two cloth dust masks he pulled from a pocket of his vest, placing one over his muzzle and offering the other to the miner dog. Both pulled on their goggles and entered the mine. There was an even louder crash. What looked like thick smoke poured out of the mine, bathing the two dogs in dirt head to tail. Rufus waved with his pick hammer at Rover indicating that he was still going in.  

The churning torrent of dust and noise coupled with the crush of workers struggling to find their way out made Rufus howl to grab their attention. He barked and flashed his light, directing the confused canids to the mouth of the mine. As the diggers passed by he questioned if anyone else was left. Between coughs and growls he learned that more workers were partially trapped at the end of the shaft and the ceiling was slowly falling in. Rufus asked if there was anyone that could help and he got a few volunteers, whom he gave more water soaked masks. He took the lead making his way to the shaft end.

The impromptu rescue party reached the cave in area quickly and went into action. Rufus directed workers to place the few supports he had in the key areas to slow the collapse. Wielding his pick hammer he drove spikes into the beams to lock them in place. The whines of the wounded and the low growl of the rock overhead created a din of desperation has the dogs worked quickly to get as many out as possible. Rufus, being one of the smaller dogs wiggled underneath debris and fallen structural members, prying here, lifting there, able to get into spots the larger workers could not.   

“Engineer,” a large gold coated miner called out to Rufus from the other side of some fallen mine wall. “There are three of us trapped here…”

The creaking of an overhead beam told the lead dog what he needed to know. He looked at the bowing structural member and thrust his pick hammer in to act as a corner brace, the shaft of the tool reinforcing the beam temporarily. Rufus then dug with his bare paws quickly, helping to make a hole large enough for the miners to escape.

“Hurry…I don’t know how long that will hold,” the overhead beam still creaked and the shaft his tool was starting to curve a bit. “Get out of there!” 

Dirt was falling like rain now, darkening the little light he had. His limbs felt heavy and he was having trouble breathing, choking as he yelled to the trapped workers to make for safety. They all were going to have to leave soon or be buried; the whole thing was coming down. ‘I can’t smell anything but dirt and I can barely see a thing in this darkness,’ he thought. Around him he could hear the cracking of timbers warning him of their eminent failure. ‘What I wouldn’t do to have some screw braces right now’ he thought when he was blinded by the most intense green light he had ever seen.

[= You have been chosen=]

“What in the name of,” a glowing green band wrapped itself around his paw looking very much like a set of knuckles the guard dogs would sometimes use. 

[=Rufus Della Axle of Canidia you have the ability to overcome great fear =]    

Immediately he was swathed in green light, his vest and tools disappearing, replaced by a garment made of something he could not identify. His mask and goggles disappeared in a flash of the green light but what was strange was that he could breathe as well as he could in clear air and he could see, the dust not obscuring his vision or hurting his eyes!

[=Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps=]

“What is…” he asked out loud.

“Engineer?” 

A whine came from the floor of the mine. He could see the three diggers he had freed! They had stopped to gawk at the site of him despite the danger of the cave in. Snapping wood sounded from the walls. ‘If the wood could just hold together longer,’ he thought. In his mind he felt something reach out and ‘slot’ with him, like gears meshing together and beginning to turn, transmitting ones motion to the other making an endless cycle of connections.

The ring flashed, bathing the walls with a brilliant green light. The cracking and groaning sounds began to die down. In his head, Rufus swore could ‘feel’ the light giving holding power to the compromised mine braces, making the structures able to hold and stop the cave in. The mine appeared and felt stable for the moment, almost safe. He turned his attention away from the braces and to the fallen workers. He took his thoughts off of the mine for the moment to the struggling workers. The moment he did so the light dimmed and  the walls began to fail again. The feeling in his mind and the sounds of cave in refocused his attention to the mine braces. Strength returned to the failing structures becoming solid again.


“Hurry up! I don’t know how but this magic light has stopped the cave in. Get out of here,” the light enveloping the mine walls had banished the darkness of the dust, allowing the miners to see the way out. 

“Rufus?” a miner gestured at him in his new garments.

“No time. Get out! NOW! ” 

When they had scampered to safety, Rufus relaxed. For a moment he was still, not taking his thoughts from the mine walls, lest they begin to fail again. He started to take slow deliberate steps, making his way to safety. He held the idea of the green light strengthening the mine braces in his mind while he walked. 

He looked down at the glowing emerald object on his left knuckles. It was like the thing had attached itself to his paw. The band felt like metal but looking at it he could see that the material was like crystal and metal combined. If it had been a gem it was have been the most perfect gem he had ever seen! Completely flawless, seamless! 

A symbol of some kind was ‘formed’ on the face of it, like it had grown out of the material not carved or shaped: a circle bracketed by and connected to two parallel lines. Light seemed to shine from within from every part of it, but here was no flame or bulb; no source for the light coming from it. The thing appeared to be formed of light itself. It was as if it was…MAGIC!

There was the noise. It almost made him forget about the idea of the mine being held up in his head. There was a groan from the earth when he almost let go of the thought. He could hear a commotion, the shouts of his fellow dogs, their barking at something but he could not see what it was.  When he got to the opening of the shaft he beheld another strange sight.

In the air near the top of the main staging chamber shining with the same light he had just seen was a pony. It was a female, about the size of Rufus and wearing the same kind of clothes he was now clad in. On one of her front legs was a bright glowing band just like one on his paw.  The sight of the pony made him forget about the mine and with a rumbling crash, the cave in completed, dust exploding into the staging chamber. 

The glowing pony landed in the center of the chamber floor.

“Pony,” Rover growled in Equestrian, “I saw light in tunnel! Your light! You made cave in! It your fault!”

“Uh…R-Rover…” Rufus stuttered trying to make himself heard over the din in the pit. The light had stopped the cave in, not caused it, Rover had not seen that. He also knew somehow that he had made the light from the object he now wore stop the collapse.  The pony wrapped in the same light he had just seen in the mine didn’t do it.

Four large miners rose and stood besides the Diamond Dog leader. All of them held a tool of some kind ready to use as a weapon. The dogs all sounded a low growl, their lips curling back exposing their teeth. Rover glared at the strange mare exposing his teeth as well. 

“GET HER!”

The four large dogs rushed forward barking insults, tools swinging. There was a shower of green light before them and a brick wall made of green luminance appeared. The tools struck the wall then rebounded almost hitting their wielders. One dog ran into the wall, his body compressing from the impact before he collapsed to the floor. Barking and growling filled the room.

Two more dogs behind the pony rushed forward, reaching out to tackle her. She leaped into the air before they could lay paws on her. The pony then hovered above them out of reach. A glowing rope appeared flowing out from the glowing band on her fore-leg, flying at the four dogs that had attacked her first. Another rope flowed out; making its way to the two dogs that had attacked her from behind. The green strands struck the six attacking dogs, weaving around and between them tying them together like bundles for caring. The loose ends of glowing rope then reached straight up and wrapped around overhead beams, the trapped dogs swinging like fresh trapped wild game. 

The pony then landed where she had lifted off from, the sound of her landing echoed from the chamber walls. Cracks in the stone floor appeared under her hooves. She was covered in green fire.        

“All right that’s ENOUGH,” the pony bellowed. Her voice was like thunder and her eyes arced with green lightning. The Diamond Dogs all became silent and still. Rover trembled both from fear and rage. His ears were lying flat; eyes narrowed. His mind plotted trying to figure out if he could attack himself. He had half raised his hand when the pony’s gaze fell upon him. The Diamond Dog froze. 

A large miner behind the glowing mare took a quiet step forward, his pick raised to strike. She caught the movement in the corner of her eye. “You really want ta try it?” The dropped pick clattered on the floor. She then gestured with her head for everyone to be in front of her. There were whines from the miners as they regrouped in front of the green glowing mare. The ropes lowered the tied up attackers, disappearing when their captives were on the ground. Released, they joined their compatriots behind their leader.

Rover raised a paw cutting silencing his pack, “What you want pony?”

“Ah’m not here ta fight…at least not any of y’all. All Ah’m looking for the one who got one of these,” she held up the blazing band. A few of the dogs barked and pointed to the caved in mine. Applejack looked in the direction they had gestured and her gaze met Rufus’s. She pointed at the engineer with her ring hoof. He was still standing at the cave entrance still unseen by the other dogs save the last he had rescued. 

“Ah’m here for him.” Her ring shone, brightening the chamber as she pointed to behind crowd.

The semi circle of dogs turned around and saw their strangely dressed engineer. They began to growl and yip. Rufus, held up his ‘knuckle’ and it lit up as if answering the ponies light. He walked forward, the crowd parting so he could reach the pony and their pack leader. The dogs sniffed at him as he as he passed by, trying to discover what kind of material he was clad in. Their eyes wide in wonder at the vision of their pack mate dressed the same as the intruder.

Rover looked the engineer up and down, his eyes boggled looking at the strange outfit. “Rufus! Why you like this pony,” he continued to growl in Equestrian. If there was going to be issues the pony should address them and ponies were notorious for not being able to understand Diamond Dog language. “What goes?”

Rufus held up the glittering green knuckle band so that the pack leader could see it better. He recalled how it had attached itself him and how with the green light from it a miracle had occurred allowing all dogs to get out of the collapsed mine. Rover nodded as he listened. He turned and asked the truth of what he had been told, the rescued miners responding that it was as their engineer had said. 

“When it appeared it spoke to me and said: welcome to the Green Lantern Corps,” there was a murmur as a large miner came forward. His tail was wagging as he approached Rover. 

“Lantern! We heard about them from traders from Ponytown. They said ponies had strange new power and fought…the dead that move again!”

More whining and barking erupted. Tails went between hind legs. Many of the dogs shifted uncomfortably in place, some huddled together. Applejack’s eyes moved around. The dog’s reactions told her something was going on. The Diamond Dogs were scared. Terrified! Rover raised a paw and the sounds died down again. The pack leader’s ears were flat besides his head, his tail low.

“You’ve seen em! You’ve seen these things….these zombies? “

Rover nodded. “ Zombies? Yes…them we have seen pony. Some of our gone, they take! We flee from old mines to here. They kill some of us.” The dog sniffed then spat at the ground. ”Nothing we do stops them, not cave in, not fire, not weapons. We flee. We open old mines again. They leave us alone here, so we are safe.” Rover sat on his hind legs visibly relaxing. “You not welcome here pony. What you want with Rufus? What is magic thing he now has?“

“The ‘ring’ he’s wearing now was told to search for anypony..er..anyone who could use it properly. It chose him,” Applejack pointed again at the ring wearing Diamond Dog. “It picked him as a warrior, as the one who could use it to fight the ‘zombies’…they’re called Black Lanterns.”

The dogs murmured , yips and growls shot back and forth. 

“Pony is lantern…she come to hurt us..”

“No…lanterns with colors fight no color ones…”

“Why she want engineer?”

Applejack stood still and let the ‘discussion’ go on, her gaze never leaving Rufus. Her eyes seemed to be searching within him for an answer to a question, a very  simple question with a complicated answer: ‘Who are you?’

Who indeed? 

The dog who the ring had been chosen spoke, “You calling me to war pack pony?”

The mare shook her head then looked at the engineer in the eyes again, ”That ring called ya…Ah’m here ta see if’n the answer is yes or no. If it’s a nah, Ah take back an’ it goes home with me with and ya go about yer life. If it’s a yes, Ah take ya with me and ya train ta fight an we fight tah’gether.”

“To serve ponies! To serve Equestria and fancy princesses! Feh,” Rover snapped.

Again Applejack shook her head. “No. Our job now is to fight the Black Lanterns. The Green Lantern Corps does not serve any one country.  The corps job, “ she turned her gaze onto Rover ,”Is to protect all…EVEN YOU!” 

“Corps? A pack? A war pack,” Rufus asked as rubbed the band with his other paw.

“Humm… Ah guess the answer to yer question is yes!”

“Maybe Rufus keep here and we have it’s magic for us!” a small dog yipped. 

“Sorry, isn’t gonna happen,” her aura glowed brighter for a moment.

“Only ponies are lanterns,” the dog who spoke said.

“No. That ain’t true either!  There is a griffon lantern,” Applejack sat on her rump and looked into the eyes of the dog chosen again, “you would be the first Diamond Dog lantern.”

“Rover…I’m engineer. I’m responsible for mines. I have…”

The leader of the Diamond Dogs shook his head.  The awakened dead had chased them out of their homes. There had been no way to stop them, no means. They were the stuff of nightmares, unstoppable. Now a pony glowing in green light said there was a way to stop them, a weapon that could hurt them, and that power was in the paws of a Diamond Dog! A new tool…but a tool must be learned before it can be used correctly, a weapon must be trained with to be effective…

…and you can’t train for war if you are always busy stopping cave-ins and planing shafts. 

“The law on war pack is clear! Engineer Rufus you are called to war pack! It is yes or no. Before all: what say you? ” Silence fell for a moment as the assembly listened for the engineer’s answer. 

War pack…called to war pack! His grandsire had been a warrior long ago. He was thought too small to be a warrior but was fierce and made a name for himself. Later because he was intelligent he became an engineer like Rufus himself was. Now a magical band had called on him to be a warrior, to wield it. The walking dead had chased them out of their homes and killed many. They needed to be stopped. But that meant leaving. 

‘Can I do this,’ he asked himself. Rufus stared at the green crystaline band. ‘I don’t know, but I want to find out.’ 

“I say..yes. I will go.”

Ears flat in sadness Rover asked simply, “Who should be new engineer. You pick, it’s your right.”

“I pick Fido,” Rufus answered. He had raised himself up to his full height. “My family?”

“Will be well. We keep in duty to you,” the chief dog replied. He then barked three times and spoke loudly commanding attention for what he was about to say.

“Rufus goes to war pack for us, becomes a warrior! His things shall not be touched! Bring me a great gem..a green one to match his war pack colors! “ It took a moment and then a large beautiful emerald appeared and was pressed into Rufus’s paws by a small dog. The miners then came forward, pressing their bodies against their engineer. They nuzzled him and licked his face as they gave him what looked like their version of a farewell. Rover then raised his forepaw up and there was silence.

“Good hunting. Come back to us as the living, not dead!” Rover licked his face and then bowed his head.

Rufus turned to fully face the pony waiting patiently for the pack to bid their lantern recruit goodbye. Pointing at different tunnel in the wall he said, “I need my things. Please wait pony lantern.” He ran off using all his limbs. Rover then approached Applejack and glared at her with an evil eye.

“Every time you ponies show up, it becomes big headache!”

“Well don’t feel too bad about it. The pain ain’t all one sided.” Applejack smiled, ”Should I tell Rarity y’all said hi?”

Rover winced. He put his paws over his ears “Please, no more today miss lantern pony.”

After that there was silence while Rufus was gone. When he returned he was caring a large satchel bag that looked like it was almost bursting. Applejack was not sure exactly what the Diamond Dog had packed but the straining seams on the carpet bag indicated the bag was packed full and he apparently was ready to go.

Her ring brightened as a farm cart formed out of green energy. The watching dogs barking here and there at the appearance of the vehicle from nothing. Applejack hitched the cart to herself with a construct yoke and then looked over her shoulder at Rufus.

“Go ahead and get on in and we’ll get goin’.” Rufus threw his bag in first then hoisted himself aboard. When he had settled in he indicated he was aboard. 

“We’ll teach ya about flyin later in more…open surroundings.” 

“Fly? ME?” That idea was too incredible to the tunnel dweller.

“Yep, the ring allows any who wear it ta fly. How do ya think Ah’m doin’ all this right now? ”

Applejack and the cart lifted into the air, hovering for minute. The Diamond Dogs watched in silence as the pony and their pack mate flew silently out of the mine and into the sky disappearing behind the cloud layer.

For a few minutes there were no words said as Applejack concentrated on flying, the constructs and figuring out exactly what she was going to with this critter? What did he even eat? Where he could sleep was not a problem, but feeding the dog was going to be an issue…he surely ate meat! Maybe Gilda would help out with that. 

She turned to get a better look at the new recruit in the sunlight. The dog sat back in the wagon, using his carpet bag as a back rest. He was bigger than she thought, not like the huge digging dogs, but about as tall as Big Mac. Blue eyes narrowed from sunlight, his pointed muzzle and his dirty grey coat gave a slightly wolfish appearance. His curved tail ended in the typical spiked ball. His tongue hung out of his open mouth like Winona’s did when she was on a train poking her head out the window. Ears that normally stood upright now flapped backwards in the wind. Applejack flipped around so she was still pulling the construct but face her passenger. 

“Excuse me there partner can Ah ask ya a question?”

The dog nodded, “Yes lantern pony, what you want to know?”

‘Ok THAT has to stop.’ “Look now, ya don’t have to call me that…”

“Yes, of course warpack leader.” He answered in a rough voice. Applejack winced slightly. Equestrian sounded a little harsh when it was spoken by a Diamond Dog.

“No…no. Ah’d prefer you use mah name if ya please. We are just getting ta know each other. Here let’s do this again an’ do it right! Let me introduce mahself properly: Howdy there, Ah’m Applejack,” she flashed bright teeth as she smiled. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The dog just stared at the pony for a moment, his expressionless face like a statue carved of grey stone. He then closed his eyes as if he were remembering something 

“I am Rufus of Long North Tunnel. Engineer Master of Mining for the Diamond Dogs. Greetings Applejack of…um, where do you live?”

“Ponyville” 

“Yes, of course. Greetings Applejack of Ponyville.” Rufus closed his eyes again and brought up his hind left leg using it to scratch behind his left ear with a kicking motion. ”It is custom for us to include our home when we greet others. I meant no disrespect asking you your home.”

“Nah, its fine. Ah didn’t know yer custom. You might say we’re learnin’ about each other from scratch, startin’ over again and doin’ it right, ya know- making up for last time.”

“Last time?” He tapped his nose with a paw finger , ears flat, eyes closed. Then the blue eyes became large as his ears stood up. “Miss Rarity?”

Applejack chuckled, “Yep.”

There was the sudden crack of laughter followed by coughing. Rufus’s tail wagged about wildly. “Yes, she made impression on us…Rover had nightmares about her for a moon!” His chest heved as he resumed laughing.

The farmer joined the miner in mirth. It was something in common-a fussy unicorn that could get under both of their skins the same way, yet they both could laugh about it. Friendships have started on less. 

The dog let his laughter fade, wiping a tear away from his eye. “What was it that you wanted to ask me ‘Miss’ Applejack?” 

“Aheh. Yeah.. .why ya doing this,” Applejack did her best to make the same face she had seen on the dog as they flew. She let her tongue out the side of her open mouth, her nose flared and lips flapping around like her tongue. She was sure it was goofy looking. It might even be insulting, but it WAS how he looked and she was curious to know.

The diamond dog closed his eyes and shrugged, sticking his nose back up and opening his mouth letting his tongue roll out into the air again. He loved the feeling of the wind rushing through his ears, and marveled at seeing the clouds rush by underneath, the fluffy tops of the clouds was something he was sure that he would never see, let alone fly over like a dragon or a pegasus!  His eyes closed and mouth lolled open the large purple tongue flapped in the wind. “It…feels like the right thing to do.”

She shook her head. “Fair enough. Just thought Ah’d ask.”

“Now I have question for you Applejack. No, two.”

“Go ahead,” she turned back to face in the direction of flight, looking down at the ground occasionally to check if she was on path to home. “Fire away.”

Rufus held up the gleaming knuckle-ring on his paw, “What is this…and what is a ‘Green Lantern’?”
> LoE-Blackest Night: Ditzy Doo part 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Amethyst Star was determined to be in a bad mood. The bright, sunny Ponyville weather wasn't going to change that. The happy, smiling ponies she passed weren't going to change that. And her father chattering away as he led her to a field on outskirts of town most certainly not going to change.

"You're gonna love Ponyville, Sparkler," said Gem Star. "There's a bowling alley, a movie theater, and this bakery that makes the best cakes you have ever tasted."

Sparkler gave no reply and continued to scowl at the path in front of her. Gem Star sighed

"Sparkler, I know this is hard for you but I hate it when you try to close me out," the elder unicorn said. "Can you at least say something."

Sparkler briefly glanced at the surrounding area. "It's fine." she said tersely before returning her gaze to the path in front of her. Gem Star looked liked he wanted to say but then he simply sighed and continued down the road.

"Ah, There they are," Gem Star said after a brief silence. Sparkler looked up and saw her father pointing at a gray pegasus mares some distance away, laying a picnic blanket down. Seeing them, the started to wave at them.

"Now listen, Amethyst," her father whispered as they neared the picnic blanket. "I don't expect you call her 'mom' or to become best friends but I expect you to treat her with respect; like you would with anypony else. Got it?"

"Yes." said Sparkler, still not looking at Gem Star.

"Good. Oh, and don't say a word about her eyes. I'm back, sweetie!"

Wait, what about her eyes? thought Sparkler when the mare turned to face her and gave Sparkler a shock. One of the mare's bright yellow was focusing but the other had was pointing to an area to the left. Sparkler realized she staring and quickly looked away but found herself looking back unable to resist.

Gem Star, however hadn't noticed his daughter's discomfort yet. "Ditzy Doo, this is my daughter, Amethyst Star. Amethyst Star, this is Ditzy Doo."

"Hello!" said Ditzy Doo brightly, extending a hoof. "Did you have a nice train ride?"

Sparkler realized she staring again and hurriedly broke it off. "Um, Yeah. Yeah, it was... nice," she said shaking Ditzy's hoof and trying to avoid looking her odd eyes. "I'm um, happy to meet you."

Ditzy frowned slightly. "You forgot to tell her about my eyes, didn't you?" Ditzy asked her husband, sounding slightly incredulous.

"Erm, Well I've kinda had other things on my mind lately," said Gem Star sheepishly rubbing the back of his head.

"Sorry! It just caught me off guard. I'm sorry," Sparkler apologized, now feeling too uncomfortable to remember that she wanted to be angry.

"It's alright," Ditzy reassured her. "Most ponies stare at them at them at first. You'll get used to them..." she trailed offed awkwardly and the trio sat quietly for a moment. Then a burbling noise broke the silence.

"Oh! Look like somepony's awake!" said Ditzy, walking over to a small bundle covered in a blanket that Sparkler hadn't noticed at first.

"Sparkler, There somepony else I'd like you to meet," Gem Star as Ditzy pulled off the blanket. "Say hello to Dinky Doo, your half-sister."

A small gray unicorn foal yawned and stretched. Seeing Sparkler, Dinky cooed excitably and moved towards her. Sparkler's heart melted. So much for staying angry.

"Hi, there," Sparkler said to the foal. Dinky giggled at being talked to and then taking Sparkler's hoof, she promptly tried to fit it into her mouth.

"See? I told you they get along fine," Said Ditzy, while Sparkler tried retrieve her hoof from Dinky.

"Yeah. I guess you're right..." said Gem Star, coughing slightly at first and then more violently.

"You alright Dad?" Sparkler asked concerned.

"Yeah," said Gem Star as his daughter and wife looked at him, worriedly. "It's just... I just swallowed wrong. That's all."

<o>

Ten years later.

Ditzy Doo rang the bell to the library for the second time and waited, but it appeared that Twilight Sparkle wasn't home. A few short weeks ago, Ditzy would've assumed that Twilight was off with her friends, either doing some mission for Princess Celestia or just hanging out, but that was before the strange rings fell out of the sky. Before the dead started to rise.

A scratching noise from the other side snapped Ditzy out of her thoughts and the door started to creak open. Looks like Twilight was home after all. Either her or Spike--

Or a giant timberwolf wearing a yellow uniform and a glowing power ring.

The timberwolf regarded the pegasus in front of it and growled, "What... do you...want?"

Most ponies upon meeting a horror from their worst nightmare would've screamed and ran, but Ditzy wasn't like most ponies.

"Good afternoon, sir!" she said cheerfully. "I have a package for Twilight Sparkle. Is she here?"

"Mistress Twilight.. is...busy." replied the timberwolf, speaking slowly and carefully enunciating each word. It clearly wasn't used to speaking yet.

"Well, in that case, Can you make sure she gets this?" she said, handing it the package. "And could you sign this, please?"

Ditzy handed the timberwolf a clipboard and a quill. It looked at both with confusion.

"You just take this and make a mark at the bottom of the paper there, see?" Ditzy explained patiently. "It's so my boss knows you got the package."

The timberwolf gingerly dragged the quill across the paper and after seeing the quill leave a mark, scrawled more furiously. After a few moments, it passed both back to Ditzy. Ditzy flipped the clipboard around to examine it and realized that the timberwolf had scribbled over the entire form.

"Works for me!" she said, stowing the quill and clipboard back into her mailbag. "Thank you and have a nice day-"

Ditzy was cut off by the sounds of screams coming from the ponies on the street behind her. The timberwolf looked up into the sky and snarled. Struggling to focus her eyes, Ditzy turned and also looked up. Flying low over the town and dripping red plasma from it's mouth was a Red Lantern. As Ditzy watched, the Lantern made a sharp-turn and sped off in the directions towards the Red Lantern's floating fortress and was gone.

Ditzy turned back to the timberwolf who was still looking at the sky. "Erm, So, anyways, have a nice day."

"Yes...you too..." the timberwolf grunted in reply and then--taking the package with it--retreated back into the library.

On the street, Ditzy checked her mailbag and looked at the label on the final parcel that needed delivered. "Ooo," she said, recognizing the address. "He'll be glad to see this."

And with that, she started down the road towards the center of Ponyville. Normally the citizens of Ponyville were a happy and content herd but since this crisis had started, a more somber mood had taken over; best exemplified by the snippets of conversation Ditzy overheard. Some of it was about the Red Lantern but the majority was about something more sinister.

"--they're like vampires--"

"--been spotted near Appleloosa--"

"--they ate the heart of that gryphon--"

"--got the general and the whole platoon too--"

"--surely a punishment from the goddess--"

"--what are the princesses even doing about it--"

Ditzy hated seeing the other ponies like this and made a special effort to wave to or say "hello" to as many as she could. A small gesture, sure but sometimes a small gesture goes a long way. Eventually, Ditzy reached her destination: a jewelry store near the center of town and in front of it was the store's owner.

"Hey, Sparkler!" Ditzy called to her as she trotted up to her.

Sparkler turned and smiled at her. " Hi, Ditzy. You still doing your rounds?"
"No, I'm all finished--oh, except for this," Ditzy said tapping the parcel still in her mailbag.

"Is that--?"

"Yep."

"He'll be glad to see that."

"That's what I said. And since it and I are going to same place, I was going to stop at the post office and then head off home. I just wanted to make sure you were still coming over for dinner."

"Actually," said Sparkler as she locked the door to the store. "I was just about to head over there now. Would you like some company?"

"Of course," replied Ditzy as the pair began down the street. "Say, did you see that Red Lantern that flew by a couple minutes ago?"

"How could I not? Everypony freaking out the way they did. Not that I blame them, mind you, I don't like those rage creeps much either. Did you hear about that Red Lantern that Rainbow Dash recruited at Manehatten?" The duo stopped to let a group of royal guards ponies through. "The guy gets a ring and the first he does is blow up the office building he works at. Seriously, what's Rainbow Dash thinking these days? I mean she never was the sharpest knife in the drawer but ever since she got that ring she's turned into a complete nutjob. What do you think?"
Ditzy didn't respond at first--a member of the Indigo Herd (Flim from the looks of it) suddenly passed overhead and entered Rarity's boutique. "Huh? Oh, well she seemed to be the same to me, just a little more... intense. When I talked to her the other day--"

"You've talked to her?" Sparkler said amazed.

"Yeah. I ran into her while she was helping with that rainstorm last week."

"She's still working on the weather patrol?"

"Didn't you know? She was moving some clouds around this morning even."

"I don't--I didn't really think Rainbow Dash would do that. I mean--if I got my hooves on some magic artifact that gave me superpowers, I'd probably quit my job."

"Maybe she really likes the work." suggested Ditzy turning to look back at the boutique.

"Maybe..." Sparkler trailed off as the last of the guards passed by allowing the mares to continue. "And speaking of Red Lanterns, I've been meaning to ask you--was Dinky there when Scootaloo--?"

"Oh no," said Ditzy, shaking her head. "Dinky had a dentist appointment early that day. By the time we got back it was already over."

"Ah, good. I'd been worrying about that for awhile now..." Sparkler paused and then as the two approached post office: "Hold on Ditzy, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about."

Ditzy frowned slightly as Sparkler gathered her thoughts before continuing. "Listen, ever since Sweet Apple Acres I've been worried about you, Dinky, and Time Turner. I don't think you're safe out there and I just... thought maybe it'd be better if you guys came into town for awhile. You could stay with me or--or Carrot Top if there isn't enough room. I'm sure she wouldn't mind" Sparkler sighed heavily. "I know I should've asked you this earlier but I was just afraid--"

"You were afraid that'd I wouldn't listen, right?" interrupted Ditzy.

"Yeah. I was," admitted Sparkler.

"Come on, Sparkler," said Ditzy, placing a reassuring hoof onto Sparkler's shoulder. "You know I wouldn't just dismiss anything you'd have to say if it was important."

"So are you going to do it then?"

"Hmm, I didn't say that." Out of the corner of her eye, Ditzy noticed a flash of indigo emerging from the boutique. Rarity and Flim sped off in the direction of the library. "But I will definitely think about it."

Ditzy turned to go into the post office. "Now we better get a move on. Time Turner picked up Dinky from school today and we probably should get home before she drives him crazy."

<o>

In a small house just outside of Ponyville, Time Turner realized he was in trouble.

"You gonna move or what?" Dinky asked from the other side of the chessboard.

"I'm thinking." replied Time Turner nervously examining the board.

"You've been thinking for like five minutes." said the foal, idly playing with one of Time Turner's white pieces (of which she had a lot.)

"This isn't something you just rush into and I'm sure I can turn this around...Ha!" Time Turner slid one of his pieces forward. "There! Your move."

"Good." Dinky moved her queen diagonally two spaces. "Checkmate! You're getting better at this, Time Turner. Want to try again?"

Just then, the front door open and Ditzy and Sparkler walked in. "We're here!" Ditzy called out.

"Hi Momma! Hi Sparkler!" Dinky said running over to hug the other unicorn. "I've missed you!"

"You saw me just yesterday, how could you miss me already?" asked Sparkler, returning the hug.

"I know but I really like seeing you!"

"So what have you two been up to?" Ditzy asked Time Turner, giving him a peck on the cheek.

"Oh, nothing much," Time Turner said as he put the chess pieces back into their box. "Just playing some chess...or losing at it in my case."

"Aw, don't feel bad," Ditzy fished the package out of her bag. "See? Your new Doctor Whooves book came."

"Oooh! Great!" Time Turner's voice briefly became a squeak as he excitably took the package and starting to tear it open.

Sparkler shook her head at the sight of a grown stallion acting like a foal."Nopony has any right to be that excited over a book."

"Hey, this isn't just any old book," Time Turner said as he flipped the book with a goofy smile on his face. "This is, in my opinion, one of the--if not the greatest book ever written!"   

"Ah, yes. The story of an crazy pony being chased by talking trash cans. Truly a literary classic."

"Alright, that's enough, Sparkler," said Ditzy gently as she hung up her mailbag. "And Time Turner, can you please put down the book and help make supper? Dinky, could you set the table? Dinky?" Ditzy suddenly realized that Dinky was looking out the window. The three ponies exchanged glances before trotting over. "Dinky? What is it? Is something wrong?"

"Look." said Dinky pointing out the window.

Outside, moving past the house, was what looked like just about every lantern of every color flying in loose formation towards the Everfree Forest. It was kind of pretty. And also kind of scary, seeing as how terrifying monsters and rage-fueled super soldiers made up a good portion of the flying mass.

"Oh, my..." said Time Turner stunned.

"I don't think I've seen that many in one place," said Sparkler in awe.

"Where are they going?" asked Dinky, pressing her nose against the window. "Did something happen?"

Ditzy watched as the last of the lanterns disappeared into the Everfree. "I... didn't hear anything," Then seeing the worried looks on the other's faces, she quickly smiled. "But I'm sure it's nothing that they can't handle! Come on now, supper isn't going to make itself."

Time Turner and Sparkler both muttered agreements and left for the kitchen. Dinky took one last look out the window before running after the others. Ditzy also took a final glance towards the forest and after a moment, sighed went in the kitchen.

Despite her words, she couldn't shake the feeling that something terrible was about to happen.

<o>

Since the dead started to rise, Princess Celestia had ordered that all remaining graveyards in Equestria be placed under strict guard and the Peaceful Rest Cemetery, located a few miles outside Ponyville, was no exception. A platoon of Celestia's finest-comprising of all three tribes- stood watch over the deceased. Vigilant, armed to the teeth with the latest in anti-necromantic weaponry and completely bored out of their skulls. After the excitement at Sweet Apple Acres a few weeks ago, the action had shifted elsewhere and leaving the graves in the surrounding area untouched and the frustrated guards protecting a bunch of crumbling tombstones. Thus, when the darkened horizon in the direction of the Everfree Forest suddenly came alight with a multitude of colors, more than a few were glad for the distraction.

"The heck's going on over there?" an earth pony named Macabre asked his friend while looking through a pair binoculars.

"Something to do with those lantern-ponies," responded the unicorn named Ferak dully, shifting his fire-lance from one shoulder to the other. "Overheard the captain talking about it. Zombie incursion or something."

"Aw, what? Seriously?" Macabre angrily threw down his binoculars. "When I volunteered for this gig, I thought there was going more zombie killing. Instead there's just a whole lot of-of not zombie killing going on!" Macabre kicked a nearby tombstone. "Hey! You hear that?! All your little friends are coming out to play, so why aren't you?!"

"Don't do that," said Ferak, sounding very unconcerned. "Somepony might complain. And I hate complainers."

The annoyed earth pony sat down next to Ferak and fumed. "This is outrageous. Everypony else is getting to have all the fun! When are we gonna see some action?"

"Are you serious?" said a new voice. The two guards turned in surprise to see a pegasus mare walking up to the pair. "Sorry, I couldn't help overhearing. I'm Crosscut by the way, I was sent to replace that guy who hurt himself--"

"Whoa. Say that again." interrupted Macabre.

"What?"

"Your voice," said Ferak, looking slightly bemused. "You sound just like Princess Celestia."

Crosscut fluttered her wings irritably. "Oh, yeah. That. Everypony says that."

"This is awesome!" exclaimed Macabre. "Quick say something about friendship!"

"How about--no."

"Okay, Okay, I get it. Sore subject. Anyways, I'm Macabre and this is Ferak. Make fun of his name and he'll shoot you."

"It's true." conceded Ferak.

"And you were saying something?"

"Yes, you honestly want to fight those things?" asked the pegasus. "I mean, have you even seen them?"

"Have you?" asked Ferak.

"As a matter of fact, I have."

The unicorn raised an eyebrow at this. "Really? Would you mind telling me where?"

Macabre had lost interest in the ongoing conservation. He examined his hoof, wondered idly if he needed a manicure, then hummed a tune to himself while he looked around graveyard...and noticed something strange with the ground a few feet away. Frowning slightly, Macabre trotted away from his fellow guards as they continued their discussion.

"You don't believe me?" asked Crosscut looking frustrated.

"I'm just curious is all," replied Ferak. "Where'd you happen to see one of these dark lanterns or whatever they're called? 29 Fronds? Appleloosa? Tartarus's Point?"

"I was at the outpost outside Oaton."

"Funny. I don't remember hearing Oaton getting attacked."

"I didn't say that we were attacked, I just saw it."

The ground before Macabre shifted and moved almost like water. Taking a quick glance around, Macabre noted that there was several similar spots around the graveyard, unnoticed by the other guards.

"Alright, alright, my mistake. So how close were you to it?"

"Uh, well, not that close..."

"How close were you?"

"It was about a--a fair distance away."

"'Fair distance'? How far is that suppose to be?"

"Hey you two!" Macabre called out to the pair. "Either of you know what's up with the ground?"

A tendril of dirt wrapped around the earth pony's neck and pulled him into the ground.

Ferak and Crosscut stood in stunned silence for a moment. Crosscut recovered first.

"We're under attack--" she started to cry out, only to be cut off as the ground suddenly exploded. A scream that sounded like Celestia's pierced the evening sky and then was quickly silenced.

Pandemonium gripped the graveyard as the battalion found themselves being attacked by the dirt beneath their hooves. Some of the pegasi tried to fly away, only to be dragged back down by thick dirt tentacles. The unicorns uselessly fired magic at the muck that was encasing their legs. The earth ponies could only scream as they were pulled under.

And then, as quickly as it began, it was over. An eerie hush settled over the now empty graveyard, the only evidence that there had been anypony there moments ago, were a few empty helmets and the occasional fire lance sticking out of the ground. And for a few seconds there was silence. Then...

"What'd I tell ya?" exclaimed Black Lantern Puddinghead, bursting from the ground. "Not only am I able think inside a chimney, I'm also able to think underneath a full layer of topsoil!"

If Black Lantern Smart Cookie still had eyes, she would've been rolling them now. "Of course you did, your chancellorship, how could I ever doubt you?"

The banter between the two wasn't genuine. The black rings were programmed to act and respond to situations like their host bodies had in life, even when there were no victims around.

Puddinghead floated over to a patch of dirt. "Now come on, Smart Cookie," she said, digging up Ferak's body. "The stripy pony's distraction isn't going to last to forever. Hello there! I've always had a certain respect for the unicorn people!"

A hissing sound filled the air as a mass of black rings descended on the graveyard.

<Flesh.>

<Flesh.>

<Flesh.>

Puddinghead placed her rotting hoof onto Ferak's chest. "Do you mind if I have a little heart to heart with you?" Digging ring generated talons into his body, the Black Lantern tore his heart out in a spray of blood and gore. "Sorry, stupid joke. I know." Behind her, Smart Cookie did the same to Crosscut and all around the black rings flew to all the graves.

<Grass'n'Clouds of Equestria>

<Blackbelt of Equestria>

<Esmeral Bookwise of Equestria>

<Firefly of Equestria>

<Fizzy Orange of Equestria>

Puddinghead watched Ferak's heart as it disintegrated into ash and chuckled to herself. "Oh, Smart Cookie, this is going to be a night to remember."

A black ring flew over to one particular grave.

<Gem Star of Equestria>

<RISE.>

<o> 

"...and then, Ditzy, you said something about, 'the doctor is out, but he'll be back soon' and then you started beating me," said Time Turner. "Do you think it means anything? I mean, dreams are supposed symbolic and stuff, right?"

Ditzy placed some more dishes onto the counter as Time Turner continued to wash them. "Eh, it probably just means that you read too many Doctor Whooves books."

"Or that you need to see a psychiatrist," added Sparkler from the table where she was helping Dinky do her homework. "Seriously, Time Turner, that was the most depressing thing I've heard in a while--and there a zombie apocalypse going on right now! Speaking of which..."

Ditzy flinched slightly at that. A part of her had hoping that this wouldn't come up again.

"Ditzy, have you been thinking anymore about what we were talking about earlier?"

"Talking about what?" asked Time Turner, scrapping at a stubborn spot on a plate.

Ditzy sighed. "Sparkler doesn't think we're not safe out here and wants us to move into town for awhile."

"We're moving into town?" asked Dinky.

"Focus on your homework, dear," said Ditzy taking a seat at the table. "And I'm...well, I'm still not sure."

Sparkler frowned at this. "Oh? Why not?"

"It just that..." Ditzy heaved another sigh before continuing. "When I talk to ponies on my route, they're so afraid and panicked by all the zombies and they're all talking about leaving and going to somewhere safer like Cantorlot or Manehatten. I hate seeing ponies act like that and if I did move it'd feel like I was giving in to that same fear."

Sparkler frowned at this and moved closer to Ditzy. "But you wouldn't be moving away, it's just into town, and it's like it would be forever. We all know that it's a matter of time before either the elements or the lanterns end this."

Ditzy mulled this over in her head for a moment before turning to her coltfriend. "So what do you think?"

"Oh, um," said Time Turner, almost dropping a plate. "Well, I hate to admit it, but I'm with Amethyst. I mean, It wouldn't hurt to just play it safe for a little while. And, really, is there any good reason to stay here?"

Ditzy closed her eyes for a moment...

...Gem Star and a very pregnant Ditzy stood in front of the house, looking at it.

"Well? What do you think?" asked Gem Star. "I know it isn't much, but hopefully it's only going to be a temporary thing."

"It's alright," said Ditzy, nuzzling him gently. "As long as you're here, it's perfect..."

"No, you guys are right," she said. "I'm just being stubborn, I guess. I'll talk to Carrot Top in the morning, see if it's alright if we stayed at her place for awhile-"

Fzz-zap.

Four sets of voices cried out in the surprise as the kitchen was suddenly plunged into darkness.

"M-Momma? What happened to the lights?" asked Dinky, running to Ditzy.

"Did we blow a breaker?" asked Time Turner, looking around.

"I don't see how..." said Sparkler.

Shh!" said Ditzy, after rubbing Dinky's head reassuringly. "Did any of you hear that?"

The ponies stopped and listened. After a moment, there was nothing. Then...

Cre-CRSSSH!

A side of the kitchen exploded. Time Turner was knocked forward and onto the table, crushing it. Ditzy and Sparker threw themselves to the ground, Ditzy using her own body to shield Dinky from the falling debris.

An immense black wrecking ball now floated in the new hole in the side of the kitchen. After a second, it flickered and faded away...leaving something else standing in it's place...

"Oh, sweet Celestia..." whispered Ditzy as the three watched it enter the kitchen.

A wide rictus smile appeared on Black Lantern Gem Star's rotting face. "Honey I'm hoooome!"



To be continued...
>  LoE-Blackest Night: Ditzy Doo part 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Careful now, Sparkler," said Gem Star. "You don't need to put that much magic into it. You don't want to lose the stone again, do you?"

Sweat ran down Sparkler's forehead as she reduced the flow of magic to her gem-cutter spell. A thin beam of light carved through the gem in front of her, glowing and sparking as it did.

"Alright, now carefully make a cut there...and there...and viola!"

The gem fell apart into a collection of smaller gems. Sparkler panted from the exhaustion, while her father beamed. "See? I told you'd get better at this."

Sparkler wiped some sweat off her forehead. "Yeah, but I'm still not as good as you..."

"Hey, now, don't sell yourself short, said Gem Star, scooping up the gems and passing them to his daughter. "It took me twice as long to get you're at now." The older unicorn rubbed Sparkler's head. " you're gonna be a fine jeweler one day..."

"Gem Star?" called voice from another part of the house. "Gem Star! Get in here!"

Gem Star scowled at the door of the workshop. "Oh, what now?"-Then turning back to Sparkler.-"I'll be back. Just...just keep practicing until I do, okay?"

With that Gem Star left the room. Sparkler sighed despondently and played around the gems on the table, trying very hard to ignore the loud, angry shouts coming from the next room.

<o>

"What? No greeting?" asked Black Lantern Gem Star, looking around at the ponies grouped together in the kitchen. "No 'Hello, Dad, nice to see to you'? No 'Hi, honey, it's been awhile No?"

Gem Star gazed at each of ponies--perceiving their emotions as color swirling around their bodies--until he rested his eyes upon Dinky clinging to her mother.

<Fear.>

"Well, if nopony has anything to say," Gem Star levitated the fridge with his power ring. "How about we just right to it then?"

Dinky screamed as the ponies dived to the floor as the fridge flew overhead through the wall behind them. Ditzy covered her head as plaster and bits showered her head.

"Ahh! No! Get off me!"

The sound of her child's voice caused Ditzy's head to shoot back up. The thing that called itself Gem Star had crossed the room and was gripping Dinky in between his hooves.

"Hey, hey it' okay," it cooed at her. "I'm your daddy, see?"

Something snapped inside Ditzy. "No, no, NO!" She launched herself at the Black Lantern, tackling it and causing it to drop Dinky. "GET YOUR HOOVES OFF MY DAUGHTER!"

A black colored clamp gripped Ditzy by back of her neck and yanked her off Gem Star. "Come on, Ditzy, let's not fight in front of the children-"

A blast of magic scorched the side of the zombie's face. Gem Star hissed and the construct holding Ditzy dissipated as it turned it's attention to Sparkler. A second blast tore through Gem Star's head, tearing half of it off.

"Time Turner," said Ditzy to the earth pony as he helped her back to her hooves. "Take Dinky and go get help."

"What? I can't just-" Time Turner started to say.

"Don't argue! Just go!" Ditzy jumped onto the disoriented Gemstar's back, throwing him into a headlock. 

Time Turner looked unsure of what to do at first, but then he ran to a huddled, cowering Dinky.. "Dinky, come on!"

"B-But what about momma-?" Dinky asked as Time Turner pushed her out the kitchen door and through the living room.Sparkler attempted to shoot Gem Star a third time, but a construct claw forced her head downward, blasting the floor instead.

"Is that who you replaced me with, Ditzy?" the zombie demanded, half it's face still smoldering from Sparkler's attacks. Ditzy said nothing in reply and tightened her grip around the Black Lantern's neck. "What a wimp. I would've stayed behind and protected you. But that doesn't matter." Gem Star's ring glowed ominously. "They're not going get far."

<o>

Time Turner hustled Dinky out the front door. "Come on, Don't stop!"

"T-Time Turner?" asked Dinky as the pair started to run across the front lawn. "Will-will Momma and Sparkler be okay?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Of course," said Time Turner, distractedly looking back at the house. "Of course they'll be alright. We just go get help from town and then everything will be fi-"

Thunk.

Time Turner yelped in surprise as he unexpectedly ran into a solid, jet-black wall. Groaning, Time Turner rubbed his head in pain as Dinky helped him up. "Time Turner, look!"

As the two watched, the wall expanded from where Time Turner ran into it and formed a immense dome surrounding them and the house, trapping them inside.

Time Turner tried to think of something to say. Something to reassure Dinky.

But all that came out was: "Oh, crud."

<o>

Gem Star threw Ditzy off, tossing her into the living room and onto the coffee table, breaking it. Groaning, Ditzy struggled weakly to get back up as the fight continued in the kitchen.

Sparkler smashed a chair leg over the back of the zombie. "You are going to pay that!"

"Ah, Sparkler, don't think I've forgetton about you." Gem Star grabbed the chair leg with his magic, tearing it away from her. "So how have you been since I died?"

"Shut up," snarled Sparkler, narrowly dodging the chair leg as it was thrown at her.

"Come on, Sparkler, you know I hate when you try to close me out like this," said Gem Star. "Can you at least say something."

"Shut. Up," she repeated, throwing a punch at Gem Star. "You are not my father."

Gem Star caught Sparkler's hoof with his ring. "Still angry after all these years, huh? It's okay, I understand if you still hate me."

Sparkler fired a magic blast into Gem Star's face at point blank range. The zombie's muzzle to practically disintegrate, sending bits of bone and flesh flying.

"I didn't hate my dad," she growled as Gem Star's face re-constructed itself.

"Oh, don't lie, sweetie, of course you do. After your mother and I had our...disagreement, you couldn't stand to be around me. Somedays you wouldn't even say two words to me. Hell, you got along better with my rebound girl than me-"

Sparkler bucked Gem Star in the chest. Not as powerful as an earth pony's, but strong enough to stun the zombie and allow Sparkler to tackle him to the ground

"Okay, one, I never hated my dad. Ever," she said, struggling to hold Gen Star down. "Two, my dad would never call Ditzy his 'rebound girl'. And three-" Sparkler gripped the black power ring on Gem Star's hoof with her magic. "-the dad I knew would never, ever be caught wearing such an ugly piece of-" She started to pull the ring off-

Sparkler's head felt like a sharp spike had been shoved through it. From all sides, she assaulted by images and sounds of ponies dying. Ponies screaming as Black Lanterns plunged hooves or claws into their chests and pulled out their hearts. She saw a pegasus get his wings bitten off. She watched as a family of diamond dog were crushed in cave-in. She witnessed a Star Sapphire get torn limb from limb. All the while, dark, sinister chant was repeated again and again in the back of her mind...

Then the pictures shifted and focused on a single image. It looked like an ape's corpse, rotted and blackened, and dressed in tattered, black clothing. For a moment, nothing happened...then it's eyes opened and it turned it's head and looked at her.

"I...SEE YOU...INVADER."

"AARRRGHHH!" Sparkler threw herself back onto the floor, clutching her head while her horn smoldered.

"Sparkler!?" The recovered Ditzy forced herself back onto her hooves, ignoring the pain in her hind right leg and stumbled back to the kitchen. "Sparkler!"

Part of Gem Star's hoof had came off when Sparkler attempted to pull his ring off. The black lantern waited as root-like tendrils reconnected it, looking scornfully at the still-writhing Sparkler. "Feh. She's always done that; Acting without thinking. She gets that from her mother." Then the zombie turned it's attention to Ditzy standing in the hole to the kitchen, looking stunned. "Now, Ditzy, I think it's time for you and me to have a little talk. About our daughter."

<o>

Five minutes from now...

Time Turner uselessly slammed himself against the force field. "Oof!"

"I don't think that's gonna work," said Dinky, watching Time Turner struggle.

Time Turner again smashed at the wall. "I don't know what else to do, Dinky. We need to get help somehow..."

From the house behind them, came a piercing scream.

"Momma?" asked Dinky, a look of worry and fear on her face.

Time Turner bit his hoof, racked with indecision, as he looked around desperatly-and finally set his eyes on a small, blue toolshed in the middle of the yard. 

Time Turner quickly ushered Dinky towards the shed. 

"Time Turner, what are doing?" asked a surprised Dinky as Time Turner threw open the shed doors.

"Quick, get in here," said Time Turner, pushing her inside.

The inside of the toolshed was exactly as one would expect to be: dark, dirty, and cramped. Dinky tried her best not to trip over the various tools as Time Turner spoke to her again, "Now stay here and don't come out until it's safe. I'm going to go help your mother."

"What are you going to do?" the filly asked as Time Turner grabbed a shovel.

"I-don't know. Something I guess."

"That doesn't sound too good."

"No. No, it doesn't," Time Turner uttered under his breath, then more loudly he said, "I'll hopefully be back soon." And with that, he closed the door, leaving Dinky alone in darkness.

Time Turner turned back to the now silent house and suddenly felt his insides turn cold. That thing was still in there and as far as he knew, he was too late. Sparkler and Ditzy could very well be dead. Or worse. A part of Time Turner's brain told him that the wisest thing to do now, was to go back into the toolshed with Dinky and pray to Celestia, Luna, and whatever other deity he could think of, to make the scary monster go away.

Time Turner did not do this. Instead, he swallowed hard, picked up the shovel with his mouth, and started running towards the house.

Brave heart, Time Turner, he thought to himself as he approached the front door...

<o>

The present.

Ditzy once again found herself being thrown across the room. This time it was into the bookshelf. Heavy hardback editions of A Brief History of Equestria and Doctor Whooves and the Hatredicon Imperative fell down onto her head as Gem Star loomed over her.

"To be honest, I really am disapointed in you," he said. "Very disapointed in you." Ditzy threw a book at the black lantern who easily dodged it. "Ten years! I've been gone ten years and where do I find you? Exactly where I left you!" Ditzy gagged as a magic aura wrapped around her throat and forced her up and slammed against the wall. "I hated it here, I never wanted to live in this house forever! " the zombie barked into Ditzy's face, he's hot, rancid breath nearly causing her to pass out. "So tell me, why are you still here?!" 

Gem Star dropped Ditzy back onto the ground. Ditzy coughed and gagged as the Black Lantern continued "Did you get too attached to this dump? Did you think to yourself, 'Oh, this is where my poor, dead husband and I used to live, I can't possibly leave here-even if it means my daughter has to be raised in a pigsty'.  Huh? Is that what you thought? Answer me!"

Horn glowing, Gem Star lowered his head and shot a thin beam of light at Ditzy's wing, causing her to scream in pain as the gem-cutter spell singed her feathers. Then Gem Star stopped. The pegasus gasped, and struggled to focus her wayward eyes. Her left eye was looking towards ground, where she could see Sparkler starting to stir. Meanwhile, her right one was looking upwards at the angry Black Lantern glaring at her.

"Well?!" he demanded.

"Gem Star," she said through gritted teeth. "Never...tried to hurt me."

"You never did anything to deserve it before." Gem Star's ring glowed and a knotted rope appeared in his hooves. "Say, honey, you remember when I was laying on a hospital bed, hacking my lungs out, and I told you that it didn't feel that bad? I was lying. It felt like this."

Gem Star threw rope around Ditzy's neck and pulled it tight. Ditzy struggled to breathe as she futilely clawed at the rope wrapped around her throat. Within a few moments, her head was starting to feel light and her lungs felt like they were burning. The Black Lantern stared into Ditzy's eyes as her flailings grew weaker, grinning madly.

"Remember, honey," he said, as her vision started to blurr around the edges. "I'm doing this because I love yo-"

THUNK!

The rope vanished and Ditzy fell onto the ground, gasping for breath. Gem Star's head hung limply off to one side before it righted itself with a disturbing crack. Growling, the Black Lantern twisted his head around 180 degrees to view his attacker. Time Turner stood precariously on his back hooves holding a shovel with his front hooves. The earth pony dropped the shovel and fell over backwards when the zombie's head spun around.

"Now, boy," said Gem Star, the rest of his body spinning to re-align with his head. "Just what did you think you could accomplish by doing that?"

"Oh, crud," said Time Turner.

<o>

Dinky carefully pushed open the shed door and peeked out. It had been only a few moments, since Time Turner had left her there and things had gotten quiet. There were no screams or shouts coming from the house anymore. The black dome in place prevented any outside noise fro getting in and so a rather eerie calm settled over yard.

Then the front windows of the house exploded outward as a body was violently thrown through it.

Time Turner rolled to a stop, blood running from his nose and various cuts on his body, as Gem Star followed through the window.

"I remember you," he said, producing a whip with his ring. "You're that wimpy clockmaker that was always hanging around Ditzy." The Black Lantern whipped Time Turner across the back, causing him to yell in pain. "I always thought you wanted her for yourself. Bet you were beside yourself when I kicked the bucket."

"That's-that's" Time Turner said, breathing heavily as the Black Lantern approached. "That's not what happened-"

"DON'T LIE!" Gem Star kicked the prone earth pony's midsection before  dragging him upright by his mane."I can see every emotion you're feeling right now, and whenever I mention Ditzy's name, you feel..."

<Love.>

<Hope.>

<Compassion.>

"'Compassion?!' You feel sorry for her? Is that why you're with her? Because you pity her?" Gem Star's ring glowed and a dagger appeared in his hoof. "Do you think she's completely helpless? That she needs your help to function at all?"

"No-no, that's not true-" a horrified Time Turner started to say.

"Oh stow it, you pathetic sack of filth, " Gem Star drew back the dagger and stuck it into Time Turner's side. The earth pony stood wide-eyed for a moment, making a sickengly, gurgling noise before falling limp. The Black Lantern let him collapse to the ground.

"I'm doing Ditzy a favor here," Gem Star said as the dagger fizzled out of existence. "She's can do better than you." Gem Star rolled Time Turner's moving body over onto his back. "Especially when compared to me. I actually helped support Ditzy and Dinky. That house over there? I bought that with my blood, sweat, and tears. What did you do for Ditzy? Besides being a massive waste of her time-?"

A rock struck the back of Gem Star's head. "Again?" he said, turning around.

Standing a few feet away was Dinky struggling to heft up another rock with her magic.

"Ah, there you are, Dinky," the Black Lantern said, cracking a wide grin. "I was wondering where you'd gotten to."

"Uh oh.." Dinky said, wide-eyed, dropping the rock.

<Fear.>

The filly started to back away, but a black construct-claw grabbed her by her front hooves and yanked her towards Gem Star.

"Easy, now," he said examining her closely as she tried to wriggle out of the construct. "I didn't get a good look at you earlier. And you know what? You seem okay. Despite all your momma's bumblings, you turned out alright." The Black Lantern placed it's hoof on Dinky's chest as she continued to squirm. "Now shh. Everything will be fine. In a moment, it'll all be over and then we'll go get Momma and Sparkler, and then-"

<Rage.>

"What-?"

THUNK!

Gem Star roared in pain and dropped Dinky, who quickly got back up and ran off. Behind him, breathing heavily, stood Ditzy, shovel in hooves and a look of fury on her face.

"I've told you once and I'm going to tell you again," she growled through gritted teeth before once again swinging the shovel at Gem Star's head.

THUNK! 

"Stay-"

THUNK!

"-away-"

THUNK!

"-from-"

THUNK!

"-MY DAUGHTER!"

THUNK! The force of the last blow broke off the blade of the shovel and sent Gem Star sprawling onto the ground, his face mangled and broken by Ditzy's attack. Seizing the opportunity, Ditzy pounced onto the zombie's back and tried to throw him into another headlock.

"Ditzy!" Sparkler, still somewhat unsteady, ran out from the house and towards Ditzy and Gem Star.

"Sparkler, get out of here-!" Ditzy started to say when Gem Star suddenly got back up, knocking Ditzy off.

"Do you always insist on doing everything yourself nowadays, Ditzy?" asked Gem Star, your voice slightly distorted as his snout repaired itself. "I don't see why Sparkler can't join in."

Gem Star's horn flared and he pointed it at Sparkler. Seeing this, Ditzy jumped up and smashed both her hooves onto Gem Star's head just as he fired the gem cutter spell again, causing the spell to hit the ground directly in front of Sparkler, missing the mare by inches. 

"Seriously Sparkler, go make sure Dinky and Time Turner's okay-" Ditzy said through as she struggled to force the black lantern back to the ground. 

Sparkler, however, stared at the scorched spot in the grass. "No... wait," she said before towards Ditzy. "Hold him! I have an idea!"

Ducking under a construct knife thrown by Gem Star, the unicorn grabbed the Black Lantern by the arm helped Ditzy pull him down.

"What are you doing, Sparkler?" Ditzy, as Sparkler wrestled with Gem Star's ring arm. 

"Yeah, what are doing, Sparkler?"  Gem Star asked, attacking Sparkler and Ditzy with ring-generated snakes. "You're not going to try to use magic on my ring again, are you? That didn't go so well last time."

Sparkler ignored the construct-snakes' bites and focused on the black ring. "I didn't forget," she said. "That's why I'm changing my approach." Sparkler's horn flared up. " This is for you, Dad."

Sparkler fired the gem cutter spell at the black ring at point blank range. The Black Lantern roared in pain and tried pull his arm away, but Ditzy held it in place. 

Sweat ran down Sparkler's forehead as she increased the flow of magic to the spell. The thin beam of light intensified, spraying sparks off of the surface of the ring. But despite this, the ring seemed unaffected. It's not working, she thought desperately. Oh sweet Celestia, it's not working.

Then something strange happened. Sparkler's magic suddenly changed colors, from it's usual purple to a brilliant white. Ditzy felt the light shine on her fur and it felt...good. Gem Star screamed in pain as light hit him. Then the ring too started to change colors as well. It shifted from black to a glowing-hot red, then deep cracks appeared on it--and then it finally shattered.

<Connection Severed.>

Like a switch had been flipped, Gem Star's body went limp. The constructs and the dome surronding them and the house faded away, and as the mares watched, Gem Star's body crumbled into dust.

Both mares shakily sat down on the ground, out of breath, their body bruised, battered, and bleeding. They quietly stared at the pile of dust in front of them.

"It's over now," said Ditzy, more to herself than Sparkler. "It's over. Finished." And for a moment neither mare spoke. Then a foal's voice broke the silence.

"Momma?" Dinky called out fearfully. Momma, Time Turner's not waking up!"

"WHAT!?" Ditzy's head snapped up and look towards Time Turner's unmoving body. "No, no, NO!" 

Briefly forgetting her injured wing, Ditzy tried to fly over to Time Turner, causing her stumble before she regained her bearings and reached the earth pony. 

"Time Turner?" The mare shook the stallion who flop over lifelessly. "Time Turner!"
"Is he still breathing?" asked Sparkler as she ran up to them.

Ditzy placed her head onto Time Turner's chest and listened. "I think so--yes. Yes, faintly." Ditzy raised her head back up. "Sparkler, go get something to bandage up Time Turner with."

Sparkler ranback into the house. Ditzy gently stroked Time Turner's face. "Come on, Time Turner, be okay. Be okay. I can't lose you too..."

"Um, Momma. Momma!" Dinky tried to get her mother's attention, but Ditzy was too focused on Time Turner.

A moment later, Sparkler re-emerged with some towels. "Here. This is all I could find."

"Alright, good," said Ditzy, taking them. "I think these will work."

"Do you know what to do?"

"I--think so. I do know we need to stop the bleeding, help me tear those towels up."

"Momma! Sparkler! You need to look--"

"Not now, Dinky," said Sparkler, tearing up the towels up with her magic. "Do you know what to do? Can we even move him?"

"I--I don't know," said Ditzy at last, becoming increasingly agitated. "I just don't know, I mean--look at him!"

"Momma, look--!"

"What!? What is it, Dinky?!" snapped Ditzy, whirling on her daughter. "What is so important--" Dinky wordlessly pointed off towards something glowing off in the distance. Something glowing green and getting brighter as she watched. "...oh."

<o>

"So then what happened?" asked Twilight Sparkle.

"After that it was over," said Ditzy, resting her head in her hooves. "Raindrops took us here and we got Time Turner help in time."

The two were in the Ponyville Medical Center waiting room. The yellow lantern sat, out of uniform, next to the mailmare as she listened to her story. "And how is Time Turner doing?"

"Good. They gave him a magic transfusion when he came in and he managed to pull through. He was even awake for a little bit, but they're making him rest now." Ditzy heaved a sigh. "Nurse Redheart says it was pretty close though. She says that the fact he's an earth pony is the only reason he made it as long as he did..."

"And how are you doing?"

Ditzy's left wing was tightly wrapped in bandages. "I'm alright. A few cuts and bruises and the doctor says that my wing just looks worse than it actually is. I should be back to flying in a couple of days."

"That's good." Twilight fell quiet for a moment before speaking again. "I didn't know that your husband had died. Sorry, I mean, I just never thought to ask..."

"It's alright," reassurred Ditzy. "It was a long time ago. Dinky was just a baby when it happened."

Twilight fell silent again, longer this time. For a few seconds, she simply stared at the floor tiles for a few seconds. And then: "I'm sorry."

Ditzy was slightly taken aback. "What?"

"This shouldn't have happened. We should've-" Twilight closed her eyes and ran her hoof over her forehead. "We were tricked. Flim discovered a mass of Black Lanterns gathering in the Everfree and we all thought that they were preparing for another attack, so we got everypony together and tried to head them off. But when we reached them, they all scattered and led us on a wild goose chase through the forest." Twilight sighed before continuing. "And while we doing that, they sent a bunch of other Black Lanterns to raid the graveyards." Twilight gestured around the crowded waiting room. "And a lot of ponies got hurt or worse because of it. Because we made a mistake." The unicorn stared down at her hooves, ears flattened in shame. "So, I'm sorry."

Ditzy watched the yellow lantern slump down in her chair in disgrace. Biting her lip, Ditzy carefully considered her next words before placing a reassuring hoof onto Twilight's back. "Look, I know I can't speak for everypony, but I don't blame you."

Twilight looked up in surprise. "You...don't?"

"No, I don't," replied Ditzy, shaking her head. "What happened tonight, you had no way of knowing would happen. Nopony can fault you for that. And to be honest, right now I'm just glad that my family made it out alright."

Twilight seemed to be mulling this over in her head. "I still believe in you Lanterns, you know," Ditzy continued. "I still think you guys are our best hope right now."

"Thanks, Ditzy," Twilight said at last, smiling weakly. "Though, I doubt that everypony will share your opinion."

"Of course they won't. You can't make everypony happy. Just keep your chin up and do what you what think is right, it's what I do."

"Yeah, I guess so," said Twilight getting up from her chair. "Well, I should get probably going now. I have some things I need to discuss with the other Lantern leaders."

"Yeah, I should be heading off too," replied Ditzy following Twilight to the door. "Me and Dinky are going staying at Sparkler for now."

"That's probably a good idea," said Twilight, summoning her costume with her ring. "Oh, and Ditzy? Thanks for the talk, I really needed it."

"Ah, it wasn't that much," said Ditzy, smiling and rubbing the back of her head. "But you're welcome."

And with a final wave good-bye, the two parted. Twilight flew off towards the library and Ditzy took off towards town. 

Unable to fly with her current injuries, it took Ditzy longer than usual to cross town. Despite the time of night, Ponyville was alive with activity. As she walked down the street, Ditzy passed several Royal Guards running back and forth from one commanding officer to another, overhead Lanterns of various colors streaked across the night sky, and even a few bleary-eyed citizens came wandering out their homes to see what all the commotion was about.

At last, Ditzy reached Sparkler's jewelry shop. The pegasus looped around to the rear and headed in through the unlocked back door. Carefully closing the door behind, Ditzy made her way upstairs to the apartment above the store and carefully poked her head inside.

Sparkler sat on nearby chair. Wordlessly, she gestured for Ditzy to be quiet and pointed at the couch where Dinky lay sleeping.

"She wanted to stay up and wait for you, but she ended falling asleep about an hour ago," whispered Sparkler, as Ditzy sat down next her daughter. "She's been through a lot tonight."

"We've all been through a lot tonight," said Ditzy quietly as she gently stroked Dinky's head.

"So...what do we do now?" asked Sparkler, leaning forward in her chair.

"Well, I still need get some things from the house," said Ditzy. "Twilight says it'll be safe to go get them now. So I'll need to do that, and then I'll need to let my boss know that I won't be able to work for the next few days."

"So, that's it then?" Sparkler sounded a little agitated. "We're just going to pretend that this night didn't happen?"

Ditzy blinked in surprise at Sparkler's outburst. "That's...not what I meant. Is something bothering you?"

"Yes, something's bothering me, Dad came back to life and tried to kill us--!" Sparkler almost started to shout before she caught herself, quickly glancing at Dinky who rolled over in her sleep.

"It's just that..." continued Sparkler more quietly this time. "That thing wasn't really dad, was it?"

"No, Twilight explained it to me back at the hospital. She said that it was just the black ring using Gem Star's body to try and get into our heads."

Sparkler sadly looked down at her hooves. "I know that I kept saying that it wasn't dad when I was fighting it...but I wasn't sure I believed it. It sounded so much like him, and the things it said..." Sparkler sighed. "The one thing I really regret, is that I never made up with Dad before he died. When he ended in the hospital and they said he wasn't going to make it, I wanted to apologize to him for all the times I argued with him, but I couldn't think of what to say and by the time I did...he was gone." The young mare squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "So, ever since then, I've had that hanging over me ever since. I loved dad, I really did. But I'm afraid that Dad died without knowing that."

"Sparkler, listen to me." Ditzy got up from the couch and walked over to Sparkler so she could look her in the eye (or as best as her own eyes would let her). "In those last few days, when Gem Star was in that hospital bed, unable to move or talk, you know who was next to me the entire time? You were." Ditzy smiled. "You might not have said anything, but that alone would be enough to prove to him how you really felt."

"You think so?" asked Sparkler as Ditzy sat back down on the couch.

"I know so and deep down, so do you." Ditzy replied, going back to stroking Ditzy's mane. "And about tomorrow, I know it might sound I'm being a little--I don't know--unrealistic? In denial? Something like that, but anyways it's what I have to do. I can't just sit around and do nothing, I have to keep moving forward and work my way through it. It helps me deal with the situation better. And you know why? Because I believe things can get better if you try hard enough. Sure, things might take a turn for the worse or not turn out like we want them to, but along the way we acheive a lot of litte victories and that's what's important to me. Take tonight for instance. Time Turner's going to be alright. You, me, and Dinky got out okay, in spite of all that happened, we got out better than what we might've."

"I...see," said Sparkler, slowly. She had noticed something odd about Ditzy's eyes, a flicker of something. "So you think we have nothing to fear now?"

"We're in the middle of town surrounded by soldiers and Lanterns," replied Ditzy, leaning back into the couch. "We're probably in the safest spot in Equestria, outside of Cantorlot."

"You still think the Lanterns can keep us safe? After what happened tonight?"

Ditzy simply smiled at that. "Absolutely."

And as she said this, Ditzy's eyes again briefly flickered blue.
> Equestria Blackest Night Breezies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nightingale was considered insane by most breezies, and for good reason. The world outside their own kingdom was simply not healthy for a breezie. Yet a handful had in bravery, stupidity, recklessness, a desire to see and learn, or just plan having nothing left to live for, had chosen to adopt Equestria as their own home. Not all of them lived long lives afterwards. The smart ones kept to the gardens of Equestria, often employing themselves as landscapers and gardeners, communicating with and encouraging the growth of flowers that impressed even Earth ponies at times. 

The Breezies had an . . . odd relationship with Equestria . . . they had to venture out into this dangerous world, travel across a massive kingdom, filled with giants and monsters, collected the pollen they NEEDED to survive, and return home in one piece. If not for the help of the pegasi, the breezies knew their civilization, their species, their entire WOLRD, was doomed. 

Not all Breezies were happy about this that they were sentenced to survive purely on the kindness of giants. 

Maybe that was why Nightingale had chosen this path. He didn't want to be somebreezie's glorified pet. At this way, he was returning something to the whole. After all, the swarm looked after you, and you looked after the swarm. If the ponies constantly gave to them, shouldn't they return something somehow?

If only ponies didn't keep mistaking him for a girl! To be fair, to Nightingale, the stallions and mare of the giants looked alike too.

The garden was at a private estate near Canterlot, nicknamed a 'breezie reserve' by some. They were exotic animals that needed protection from going extinct. The not-so-false truth of that statement bit at Nightingale's mind. 

Sweetscent was on top of a flower bud, watching the beautiful moon and stars, that had been HER reason to stay in this world of giants and lethal dangers at every turn. The garden breezies had an unspoken rule NOT to judge each other's reason for staying on this side of the portal, considering normal breezies considered them all nuts anyway.

Of course there were the horror stories of griffins and diamond dogs keeping breezies as trophies and playthings, but Sweetscent said she didn't want to believe in THAT Equestria, looking up at the moon and the stars, THAT was the Equestria she chose to believe in. 

Sweetscent would paint pictures that the giants had to use magnifying glasses to appreciate the beauty of. They still sold rather well, breezie anything was hard to copy by. 

Nightingale saw the black ring, it nearly went -THROUGH- him as it dug its way into the ground below him, and a minute later, the corpse of the great-grandfather of the garden's owner, buried there by his grand children, rose from the dead, in a black costume with sliverish designs. 

"Such pretty little fairies, you'll look so much better in our collection!" The zombie cackled, a glowing black butterfly neat appeared. The breezies caught up at the zombie didn't move slow at all, little black jars WITHOUT holes on top appeared as well, which the breezies were stuffed into. 

"ThAt'S it! FEEl afraID! THInk oF yoUR loVED onES! Be anGRY! WAnT yoUR freeDOM, make YOUR heARTs evEN moRE tastY!" The thing laughed. 

Nightingale had never known such anger. Why? Why had they been cursed to be so small? So weak? So helpless? Why were they doomed to forever be nothing but parasites almost! Nightingale unleashed a stream of curses at the zombie, banging his head against the top of the jar, determined to rip the zombie's face off with his tiny hooves or dying trying! But he'd make it die again first!

Sweetscent saw through the tinted black glass that Nightingale couldn't break through the glass, but she didn't tell him to stop, it at least set an example to the others to not give up. Sweetscent prayed for help. Princess Luna's moon watched over them didn't it? That meant Princess Luna looked over them. The Princesses loved all their subjects, even their adopted ones. An Equestria where this could happen, where this would happen, it wasn't the Equestria Sweetscent had chosen to come to, to form a life here in the face of overwhelming danger, she had chosen to stay, to see the beauty of all of it. 

She saw the other breezie's faces, the faces of despair. There was Jinglebell, he didn't look like telling a joke right now. Leaf Dance whimpered inside her prison. Cobweb mumbled to herself it had been a mistake to ever leave home. Sun Light banged his head against the black glass, looking on the verge of a break down.

She saw the hungry look in the zombie's dead eyes. Looking more hungry the sadder her friends got. 

"Everybreezie! I know the giants will help! It's their nature, it's a part of them, we breezies are a part of their swarm, their family, they've never let us down once before, and they wouldn't let us down now! Just believe!" 

"Whatever delusions you impose on them won't matter," said the zombie of Flower Arrangement, "Sink to your wOrst despair, thEn I'll free you of the suffering called life, and you'll then do the same to my grandchildren grEat-grand children! You'll carry the blessing of death on your wings!"

"NOT IF I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT!" Nightengale snapped. 

"YOu dOn't."

"I'LL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT!" 

Sweetscent said, "That isn't going to happen! This is Equestria! We're not going to hurt Flower Setting and her family and neither are you!"

"Your hOPE is INGnorance."

"BUCK YOU!" 

"I believe! You don't know until the end! I don't know what's happened to you Flower Arrangement, but your family always loved you! They said you were a great giant! I don't know if this is a nightmare or real! But if it is! I chose to have a happy ending! And if it isn't, I'll make one! Every breezie! Everything has to turn out okay, we'll work something out, I'm sure of it!"

The other breezies looked towards her. 

A red star and blue star zipped from Ponyville towards the garden, moving at a speed to put Rainbow Dash in awe. 

[ = Nightengale Of Breezie Blossom = ]

[ = Sweetscent Of Breezie Blossom = ]

[ = You Have Great Rage In Your Heart = ]

[ = You Have The Ability To Instill Great Hope = ] 

[ = You belong to the Red Lantern Corp = ]

[ = Welcome to the Blue Lantern Corps = ] 

For a moment the two rings swirled around each other, and then both shattered through the top of the black constructs, and shrank down to doll size, and fitted themselves around the breezie's hooves.

Nightengale snarled in rage. 

Sweetscent gasped and felt certain more than ever that all would be well. 

Neither had time to look at the blue and red costumes they now wore. 

Together the two flew at the monster. 

---

"Hey! Listen!" 

The next morning, BL Pinkie Pie opened her eyes. And found a little fairy glowing blue sitting on her windowsill. 

"Uh, excuse me, the magic ring said I should talk to you." Said Bluelantern Sweetscent shyly.  

---

RL Rainbow Dash looked with her forehooves crossed. But inside she was in awe. Rage was practically dripping off the tiny form in front of her. 

"What's this puny little thing?" RL Biceps said point at the Red Lantern Breezie, who surprise grabbed his hoof with their own hooves and threw slammed him into the cloudly floor . . . several times. 

"Now whose puny?!" Red Lantern Nightengale said. 

"Alright! Stop! Isn't how we show loyalty to teammates around here!" RD intervened with a snarl. "Either of you!" 

RL Nightengale snorted. 

"So . . . you're a breezie huh?" The prime red lantern said appraisingly. 

"Want to make something of it?"

"Naw . . . just wanna say, welcome to the herd. I'm Rainbow Dash, I lead this pack, you got a trouble with how things are done around here, tell it to my face! Them's Scootaloo and Gilda, when they speak, they're speaking for me, you got a problem with what they say, take it up with me. Got all that?" 

"Crystal." 

---

"POUND! PUMPKIN! MR. AND MRS. CAKE! I MADE A NEW FRIEND!" Pinkie Pie shouted. 

---

"Dash! I have to take orders from -- that?!?" The little orange pegasus filly thrust her hoof at the hovering ball of crimson energy. Nightingale merely snarled, dripping acidic blood, as Scootaloo added, "Come on, I've been here longer than anypony but you!"

"Put a sock in it. You and Gilda are still at the top of the food chain, and if you want to stay there squirt, I suggest you treat our newest pack mate with respect due!"

"Okay," Scootaloo growled, giving the little flying red spitball a meaningful sidelong glance. "Fine." She waited until Dash left the room, and then wheeled on the newest member of the Red Lanterns: "Okay, rule number one; I'm second to Dash around here! I've been fighting for months now, and if I ever give an order when we're facing those Black Lantern freaks, you listen! Rule number two," she flew closer and snarled, "Remember rule number one!"

"What's with the attitude little giant? Scared a little newblood might do better at cleaning out the rot than you?" Nightingale hissed. 


Scootaloo snorted, burning bloody foam shooting from her nostrils. Only in her dreams, or rather nightmares, did she ever remember once having been weak and helpless. She did not care to be reminded of it, especially not by something a tenth her size at the most. Nightingale smirked at her as the little orange fireball buzzed closer.

"I'm not scared of anything, least of all whatever you can or can't do," Scootaloo spat. "All you need to know is this: if any of my Corps, but especially Rainbow Dash, get hurt because you can't hold up your end of it, you'll answer to me! That and..." She hesitated, wondering how to say this. "If you see some silly little marshmallow of a unicorn filly, or a raggedy yellow-coated earth pony with a red mane, leave them alone. They were, I mean are friends of mine." She grinned and added, "The nasty little pink earth pony with the skunk stripe mane is fair game, though!"

###

And somewhere many miles away, as she reported through her link to Rarity about how she'd helped some Yellow and Green Lanterns clean out a small gang of the Black Lanterns in Manehattan, Diamond Tiara wondered why it felt like her ears were burning.
> Equestria Blackest Night: Cadence Love And Hate
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Star Sapphire Queen Fluttershy looked at the crystal cocoon at the base floor of the new castle her Star Sapphires had made in her honor. She couldn't stop blushing about it. Fluttershy had never wanted to be a leader. But now she was one. All the Star Sapphire looked to her for advice and decisions. She HATED attention, she had always been an introvert. But this wasn't a career she could escape from like she had when she had been a model.

Peewee's mother. Little Strongheart. Cheerilee. Cadence. The Ursa Major. And the doctors and parents she had recruited across Equestria to act local protectors of their loved ones. They were to follow their heart after all.

Queen Fluttershy's castle gave her a perfect view of the fortress Red Lantern Lord Rainbow Dash had converted her cloud house into. She knew Twilight had expanded her basement to act as a center of operations for her Yellow Lanterns. She wondered what Applejack and Rarity were doing for their groups as they got larger. 

She felt something else as well, something at the back of her mind, it reminded her, of that time at the Gala, when she had terrified Princess Celestia's animals screaming "YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE ME!"  Communicating and connecting with animals was supposed to be her special talent, Princess Celestia's animals should have been domesticated, and used to ponies to begin with. What right did those animals have to run away from her in terror? She had made friends with WILD ANIMALS! . . . And she had nearly acted like one herself when they had rejected her aggressive love, expecting them all to act exactly like animals she had befriended and had come to see as part of her family. 

Some ponies in Canterlot were now traumatized at the SIGHT of her, 'The Yellow Demon!' screaming at the sight of her and huddling in a corner hugging themselves, Rainbow Dash had tried to bully them into 'Leaving Fluttershy alone!' . . . the end result had been in them even more scared to pieces at her. As it turned out, the animals at the Gala had been scarred by the incident as well, and it was harder for Rainbow Dash to simply intimidate them into simply accept Fluttershy. 

Princess Celestia herself had had to step in to insure things smoothed over for her hurt subjects and the residents of her private menagerie. Fluttershy knew Applejack and Rainbow saw the Canterlot ponies as just aloof and snobbish cut-outs, but Fluttershy wondered how their families felt. 

Queen Fluttershy shook her head, looking back at the crystal in front of her. "Cadence, what is this?"

"This crystal my queen is meant to purge a pony destructive impulses and feelings that exist only to harm others. My ring told me about them when I began looking through its archive. The original Star Sapphires used them to convert members of other Corps, like the Yellow Lanterns, into Star Sapphires." Cadence explained calmly. "I've just finished it."

Fluttershy was horrified. "You're ... you're not going to try and use this on Rainbow Dash and Twilight's herds are you?"

Princess Cadence shook her head. "No Queen Fluttershy. This is for me."

"What?" Now Fluttershy was just confused.

"I'm the alicorn of love Queen Fluttershy. But the violet light chose YOU first, to wield the prime ring. I was BORN to be love incarnate! But the first ring chose you . . . I didn't think much about it at the time. We had lives to save, and little details like that shouldn't matter when we're protecting our loved ones. But then I had a chance to think about . . . and the answer came. I HATE the changelings Fluttershy. Not just Chrysalis who led them, or the ones who followed her in her invasion, but all changelings, everywhere." Shame filled Cadence's voice as her horn and wings drooped. "I hate them Queen Fluttershy. They're a them to me. A single creature. It doesn't matter if they have individuality, emotions, and free-will, or not. I just hate them. I don't LIKE hating them Queen Fluttershy. It goes against everything I'm SUPPOSED to be. I want to, I NEED TO cleanse myself OF that hate! This is not who I am meant to be. This isn't who I want to be. I . . . please Queen Fluttershy, give me your royal command to cocoon myself and rid myself of this hate." 

Queen Fluttershy look at Cadence in shock. She heard a shocked whisper run through her assembled Star Sapphires; even the Ursa Major grunted in disbelief. "But, but that can't be! Cadence, you've always acted noble and forgiving..." She broke off as Cadence shook her head.

"That's just it, Queen Fluttershy. I've acted like that, but I don't feel it. I need to do this, majesty. I need to become myself again, and be free of this poison." Shame showed in her face. The pegasus looked at the crystal and ran her hoof over it. 

"How safe is this?" Fluttershy addressed the question as much to her ring as to Cadence, and the ring answered first.

( = Process approximately 99% successful in altering personality of contained subject to more loving attitude. = ) It seemed to hesitate. ( = Process can sometimes alter subject's personality in unexpected and dangerous ways. Can make subject dangerously obsessive. = )

"What?" Fluttershy looked at Cadence. "Did you know this?" Cadence said nothing, but she didn't look Fluttershy in the eyes. "Cadence, you mustn't! What if this damages you? What if it made you into a Nightmare, like Luna?"

"My queen," Cadence said, taking a deep breath, "sometimes I wonder if that's what's already happening. Sometimes, in my dreams..." The alicorn shook herself. "I see -- myself, but not myself. Dark and majestic like Luna, with a dark pink coat and a broken heart for a cutie mark as I starve Changelings with my mere presence until they shrivel and die. I, I won't become another Nightmare Moon, Fluttershy." She looked her in the eyes, desperate. "Please let me do this. I beg you!"

*How long will this take?* The Ursa grunted, the ring automatically translating her words. *We know of a new offensive planned by the flying-dead-rots of the Black. What if you are contained while they attack?*

"I," Cadence took a breath, "I don't care. I have to do this. I WILL cleanse myself, or..." 

( = Attention all Star Sapphires = )

Pony, bison, phoenix, Ursa Major, all froze as they heard the voice of the battery through the rings. 

( = Love is in danger = ) 

Images began to flash from their rings, showing them a multitude of sites across Equestria where beings that felt love had that love under attack. Little Strongheart gasped when she saw Braeburn and a Red Lantern griffin fighting in the deserts of Appleloosa. More scenes followed, mares and stallions trying to defend each other, a flock of griffins fighting to protect their cubs from their undead former flockmates, even, a dragon fighting to protect a small egg in its hoard. Among them, nearest Cadence, was a mare with a bulging saddlebag such as some mares used to hold their foals fleeing from several Black Lantern changelings. Despite herself the alicorn snorted and scraped the ground with one forehoof.

"Queen Fluttershy!" Strongheart said as she looked at the image of Braeburn. "I, I MUST go to aid him!" Even as she spoke the power of her ring acted on her emotional tether and took her away in a flash of purple light. The others began to vanish in similar flashes of light. Last of all were Fluttershy, the Ursa Major, and Cadence. 

"Oh dear!" Fluttershy looked at the vision of the griffin flock. The Ursa grunted at the sight of the mother dragon. It vanished as Fluttershy said, "We'll discuss this later, Cadence. For now, go and help that mare and her foal!" She disappeared as Cadence took one last longing look at the crystal cocoon before going to the side of the mare.

One last fight as my old bad self against those monsters, and then back here. For healing.

If I'm still alive, of course.

**

Cadence felt herself surrounded by the purest, warmest love, just long enough to bask in before she appeared in a clearing in a forest on the edge of the Badlands. Where the Changelings originally came from, she thought. Then a shriek yanked her attention away.

She flew up into the air and let her ring zero in on the threatened love. There. Below her and slightly to the left. She dropped down and found herself behind a small --- herd? Flock? Swarm? - of Black Lantern changelings as they closed in on a panicked mare. Burn scars showed across their bodies. Okay, guess the Red Lanterns really did kill a few of the bugs.

Good.

She shook her head at that thought.

"hIve SIsteR," one of the undead horrors said, "whY do yoU sEEk to DeNy us THis priZe? wE Feel yOUr Love for iT; gIvE IT aNd YouRSeLf to Us!" The other surrounded the frantic pegasus mare, closing in and chittering with glee. Like at the wedding when they attacked Canterlot...

"NO!" Cadence roared as she charged in. "You will not harm either mother or foal, monsters! Love prevails!" The Changelings flew up and away from her as she charged by them. All save one with damaged wings. Cadence formed the power of her ring into crystalline armor around herself, making sure to have some nice sharp edges facing forward. They sliced the undead changeling into pieces, sending it hissing to the dirt as it slowly began to reassemble. The alicorn hurled more of her crystals at the others. As Cadence watched, they began to nibble on the crystals, chittering with glee.

Okay, maybe using love as a weapon against creatures that eat love wasn't the best idea, she thought as she hurriedly scooped up the mare, her horn glowing as she used her innate magic. The foal wriggled within the bag it hid within. Cadence gently caressed it through the bag, hearing it whimper in fear.

"You'll be all right now," Cadence promised, "You and your little one." She took to the air and used the power of her ring to help speed her flight, swiftly leaving the Black Lantern Changelings behind. If she had ring-bearers of the other corps there with her she'd have stayed her ground, but not with this mother and foal to protect. After several moments she dropped to the ground to rest. The pegasus smiled at her in relief.

"Thank you, ring-bearer -- You!" The pegasi's smile of relief turned into a look of shock. She cringed back. "Please, don't hurt us, my queen! All the rest in the hive are slain and risen as undead, else I would have never fled!" 

"Oh no, I won't -- wait, WHAT did you call me?" Suddenly wary, Cadence snatched the bag from her grasp. The mare gasped. Before she could do any more, Cadence opened it and thrust her muzzle inside. And her eyes went pinpoint-pupil when she saw the contents: a small, as yet wingless, changeling nymph. It looked up and chirped happily, reaching up to nuzzle against Cadence's nose like so many little foals she'd looked after. 

Cadence recoiled with a shriek. She glared at the mare. She, it, looked at her helplessly.

"W-wait, you're n-not a transformed Queen Chrysalis..." Her eyes went wide and the 'mare' vanished in green fire, reappearing as a changeling. Relief sounded in her voice as she said, "No, you're one of the ones who make the love-crystals, the ones hiding us from Queen Chrysalis and the flying fire-blood ponies and," it shuddered, "our dead swarm-mates! Thank you, oh, thank you!" It hurled itself at her, nuzzling its head against hers.

"Gah!" Cadence used her magic and forced the changeling back, stuffed the bag into her foreclaws. The little nymph looked out at her, green eyes almost glowing. "Just, just stay away! I didn't know what you were, or else..." She broke off. Or else what? She'd have left them to die?

Both alicorn and changeling whipped their heads around. Crashing noises came through the trees, the sounds of their pursuers coming ever closer. An instant long Cadence wondered if she could just fly away and leave these two here. 

The nymph chirped at her, sounding confused. The changeling looked at her, eyes wide with hope and sudden fear. 

Cadence hovered, looking at them.

What. Do. I. DO?

**

The Black Lantern Changelings swarmed along behind their last remaining hive-sister, bearing the only viable nymph their small hive managed to hatch since their defeat as part of the great swarm in Canterlot. Their tattered wings buzzed though they truly no longer needed them; their normal empathic senses were honed to an even greater pitch as they followed the crimson and green-streaked strong violet 'scent' of the ring-bearer mare, mingled with the yellow and blue-flavored almost as strong violet 'scent' of their hive-sister. Their wings buzzed with excitement. Their hearts would taste delicious once they tore them from their chests!

There. The prey waited before them. They hurried into the clearing where she stood, the alicorn princess. She looked at them, wearing a crown made of those delicious-smelling violet crystals. Green energy gathered along her horn and shot out at them. They dodged it with a contemptuous hiss, hurling black bolts of their own that struck her down, as they began to close in.

Only then did it sink in as they charged. GREEN energy?

A mass of several tons of stone and earth slammed down into them from above, held in a purple crystal grip, as Cadence buried them under a small mountain. The Black Lanterns didn't even get to squeal before they were mashed flat beneath it. It wasn't enough to kill, but it was more than enough to hold them until Cadence could gather reinforcements from the other corps. She sent a swift spell of Twilight's invention off for just such aid as she turned to the fallen changeling. 

"Ring-bearer?" Cadence dropped down beside it and saw that its wounds were minor. She wondered if she ought to be happy or annoyed about that. At least none of them showed the signs of that unnatural festering that Fluttershy told her almost claimed Big Macintosh. The changeling spoke again. "Ring-bearer? Thank you for saving me and the little one." It looked at the bag. Cadence picked it up with her magic and handed it back to the creature. She fought not to recoil as the nymph stuck its head out and nuzzled the changeling. Yet al the same, her ring felt warmer by these two. 

Did that mean that changelings could love, even if only each other?

Snarls came from the mound of rubble as the Black Lanterns began to dig their way out. But even as they did a massive shadow passed overhead and yellow-laced dragonfire washed down over them. The snarls turned to screams as Cadence sent her own ring's power over them, along with indigo light from the staff born by, what was her name, Diamond Tiara as she also arrived. It only took a few moments and the Black Lanterns were forever destroyed. The dragon, arrayed in the yellow and black of Twilight's Yellow Lanterns, dropped down before Cadence. She shivered as she felt the changeling and her nymph press against her, seeking comfort and protection.

But she didn't pull away.

"Star Sapphire," the dragon growled. Cadence forced herself not to flinch back from the reek of sulfur as it lowered its head to look her in the eyes. "I bear message from Lady Twilight. If you are the one called 'Cadence', then she and your own queen wish you to return to discuss, what is it, a 'crystal cocoon'?" To her side Cadence saw Diamond Tiara using her staff's power to heal what she could of the changeling's wounds. The dragon added in a bass metallic rumble, "They wish to know if you must still hide within to deal with what you feel about bug-ponies." It looked at the two changelings. The adult flinched back.

"No," Cadence said. "Not these ones anyway. I'll return and tell them myself." The dragon simply nodded and took to the air, leaping into the sky before its wings unfolded with heavy thumps like sails filling as it flew away. Diamond Tiara said nothing. She just looked at Cadence and the changelings. Cadence looked at her and then at the changelings. The look the adult returned was full of hope and trust.

Sigh. The universe is determined to have its fun with me, isn't it?

She flew over to them and created a carrying platform that the changeling stepped onto, holding the nymph. It looked at the platform hungrily. Cadence quickly made a small crystal heart from her ring and gave it to the little one to chew on. 

"Come along, lady," Cadence said to the changeling. "I hope you can still keep a pony form while feeding," that, "your little foal. It might make it easier for the POnyville ponies to accept you." The changeling simply flashed with green fire and turned back into the pegasus mare from before. 

"Thank you again, ring-bearer," it said. "Oh, and my name is Vespid." It showed her its gold and black stripes. 

"Of course, Vespid." And here's hoping I'm not the one who ends up getting stung. And with that in mind Cadence, Diamond Tiara, and the two changelings flew off towards Ponyville.