Follow Night Mist as he must overcome a great darkness few would dare face.
For Sunset and her 6 close friends, all is harmonious. And Life couldn't be better at CHS in Canterlot.
But for her very old friend, Night Mist, his world has become a Battle Field, with him at ground zero, and a dark, nightmarish force.... closing in. Follow Night Mist, as he must battle the darkness that pursues him as well as the darkness within himself.
We are at a place and time way before the events that happened at CHS. Everywhere was, for the most part, quite harmonious. At this time of night, everything was still and quiet. Then the silence was broken as the sound of a motorized speedbike (Road Approved Dirt Bike) zooms by, followed by the sounds of sirens and other motorized vehicles giving chase.
In most cases, most would see this as a thrill seeker trying to see how long they can evade the cops, or a criminal on the run. But this was different. The boy that the cops and other people were in pursuit of was in a state of panic. His mind focused on getting as far from Canterlot as possible. No one could understand why. So they chased him to get some answers.
This boys name, was Night Mist. Night Mist wasn't your average teen. He excelled in both education and physical activity. But he also, wasn't a normal boy. Ever since his parents passed away two years ago, he had found out that he had a special power. Some may say it was just a bunch of lighting and effects, but others believed it was something of a far greater power. And he had been trying to avoid detection from things like the press, and so far, it had worked.
But right now, something had severely spooked him, causing him to panic and take off as fast as possible. Some of Night Mist's good friends, who among them was, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Peanut Butter, who some called P.B., and Shadowmane were getting rides from their parents to try and get him to come to his senses, since he was speeding from his foster home as fast as possible when they were heading to meet him.
Soon, Night Mist turned sharply onto a dirt road, hoping that the cops' loss of traction on their cars would get him some distance so he could find a place to completely evade everyone. He hadn't counted on his friends' parents vehicles to be built for the terrain, and so the breather was short lived as he kept speeding away. But he soon realized that going this fast for this long ate away at his gas and he was running on fumes.
Just when he thought that they might get a chance to grab him and question him, he saw salvation. A forest. It was his last chance, and soon he made a sharp turn to the edge of it, once in the forest, his bike finally lost power and he jumped and began to run. His friends and the cops weren't so deterred to give up chase, so they pursued him into the woods, leaving their vehicles. They yelled to Night Mist to stop, and that they wanted to talk to him. At the same time, they explained to the cops that Night Mist had only sped off because of something that spooked him, and they agreed that charges for reckless speeding were not going to be pressed.
While Night Mist thought he had gotten some distance with his athletic nature, just then he came upon a cliff. It sat right next to a massive and powerful waterfall, and the river bellow was deep. As he was trying to gather his thoughts he heard, "Night Mist, wait please."
Night Mist turned around. He saw his friends catching up to him. "Stay back," Night Mist demanded.
"Nighty, we're all here to help ya. Ya gotta calm down and come back with us. Tell us what's going on," Applejack said.
"I-I can't," Night Mist said.
"Nighty, you can. Your caretakers are worried sick, you bolted away without even telling them where you were going. We know nothing has happened between you and them to make you want to run away from them," Shadowmane said.
"I'm not running away from them," Nighty defended himself.
"What do you mean? You are out here and they are at home wanting you to come back," Peanut said.
"No, you don't understand. She's after me. She's trying to find me to get control of my gifts. If she does, she'll hurt everyone close to me," Night Mist stated.
"Who?" his friends asked in unison.
"...... Ask the vice principal. I can't stay any longer. Tell Sunset, I did this to protect her," Night Mist said as he turned around.
All Nighty's friends went wide eye and A.J. yelled, "Nighty! Don't!"
But her words fell upon deaf ears as Night Mist made the leap. They all rushed to the edge to see Night Mist land in the water bellow. But it was so dark and loud, they could not find any sign that he came back up. A.J. was about to jump in after him, but Peanut grabbed her arm and said, "A.J. the rocks, it's a miracle he missed them."
All three friends stood at the stone edge gazing at what lay below and some tears were shed. The parents and siblings came to comfort the three, not knowing the fate of Night Mist. No one had noticed a dark entity hovering above and soon whisking off into the distance.
Just then A.J. woke with a start, having the awful nightmare of her friend when she realized that Sunset was laying next to her panting and tears forming in her eyes. A.J. then knew that Sunset had accidentally seen the fate of one of her old friends, due to their most recent adventure back at Camp Everfree. She scooted over to Sunset, and gave her a sisterly hug, allowing Sunset to let out her sorrow.
Meanwhile, a familiar figure started to enter Canterlot. A face that was all too familiar to the gang that had earned CHS a reputation.
As the sun rose, Applejack and Sunset were heading to school with their friends. They had spent the night at Pinkie's again. However, A.J. and Sunset were not feeling so right as rain. While they did get plenty of sleep, both of their heads were spinning. The vision of Night Mist's possible deathly dive was playing over and over in their heads.
But just then, a thought struck Sunset. "Applejack, I... I know it's not a subject you like to talk about, but before Nighty jumped, he said "Ask the Vice Principle". He said she would know. Did you ever get the chance to talk to her?" Sunset asked.
Applejack thought for a moment, then she said, "To be quite honest, I don't think I did. For a while, I was in too much grief to talk to anyone. But.... I did notice that she was having her own time of grief about the whole thing. Maybe..... maybe it's time we actually talked to her."
"Hey A.J. was there anything that Nighty said after he said what Sunset was talking about? Like, anything? I'm just curious. I never wanted to ask in the past since you, P.B., and Shadow were his best pals and, well you know," Rainbow Dash said.
A.J. looked at Sunset and she nodded, and A.J. sighed as she looked back to Rainbow Dash answering, "He said that he was doing what he did to protect Sunset... I didn't say anything before because, well... you know, all the stuff that happened in the last year. But last night she found out what happened. She took it pretty hard."
"Oh.... wait. Then what was with Flash Sentry dear?" Rarity asked.
Sunset stopped walking and sighed, "For a while.... he was my rebound. I wanted to hide my pain, but after a while, that pain became ambition to what happened with me. To be honest, what I saw last night in A.J. thoughts, it reminded me of all that I had..... and lost."
"Oh Sunset, we're so sorry," Fluttershy said as she hugged Sunset to help comfort her.
"I know. But my life has taken a turn for the better. Thanks to all of you in part," Sunset said.
"And I have you to thank for turning me around Sunset," Twilight Sparkle said.
"Hmhm, never thought I'd be the inspiration to another. Especially when the other you was mine. Kind of weird how that worked out," Sunset said.
The group chuckled and A.J. joked, "Guess you could say, "The Student Became the Teacher"."
"Or "The Teacher Became the Student"," Pinkie added.
"Touche' darling," Rarity said.
"Well, let's get to school. The faster we get there, the faster we can get some answers," Rainbow Dash stated before zooming off.
"Rainbow Dash..... always in a rush," Rarity said, as she shook her head in disapproval.
"Well, it's kind of her thing Rarity. She can't help it," A.J. said.
Soon the others started off trying to catch up to Rainbow. Soon they got to the school, and for some reason, found it deserted, or at least, that's how it looked. Everything was just eerily silent. "Okay, this is really weird," Rainbow Dash said.
"Tell me about it," Sunset replied.
As they made their way further down the halls, it felt as if something might be wrong. The school was never this quiet. Then, as they opened up the gym doors, "SURPRIIIIISE!"Chanted the school.
"Wah!" Pinkie bellowed as she jumped into Rainbow Dash's arms.
The whole group was in shock, but smiled to see everyone was happy. And P.B. and Shadowmane were at the head of the group. "What's all this for?" Sunset pondered.
"Well, duh Sunset Shimmer. One, it's your birthday, and two, it's the anniversary you all defeated those siren girls," Shadow said.
"Wait, that day was your birthday Sunset?" Applejack gasped.
Sunset blushed with a goofy smile replying, "Um, yeah, but with so much that was going on, I didn't wanna say anything."
Rainbow Dash's jaw nearly hit the ground when she heard this. "Well, it's like my uncle used to say. You gotta put your past behind ya. Live for today. Or to put it more simple, Hakuna Matata," Shadowmane said.
P.B. chuckled, "Yeah, your uncle's a swell guy, he should visit more often."
"Well, anyways, you won't believe how hard it was to keep this secret from Pinkie Pie. We wanted to impress her," Shadowmane admitted.
"What do ya think Pinkie?" Peanut Butter inquired.
"It's Super Duper Amazingly Amazariffic," Pinkie cheered.
"You do know that's not a real word right?" Applejack retorted.
Soon, everyone got their party on. The Principle and Vice Principle had announced that today would be a free day for both students and teachers and class would resume on Monday, since today was Friday. Everyone was in a great mood.
But then Sunset remembered something she nearly forgot about and soon got A.J.'s and the girls' attention, along with Peanut Butter and Shadowmane.
They soon were able to track down Vice Principal Luna. "Hello Vice Principal L-" Sunset was cut short as Luna chimed in and said, "Please, you can call me Luna outside of work and School related stuff, and this qualifies."
"Okay, well, Luna. Um, A.J. and I had seen something last night. A memory from the past if you will. It was.... it was about Night Mist," Sunset said.
Luna coughed a bit choking on her Cider from swallowing a little much. She had not expected Sunset to bring this subject up. "Excuse me, um, what about Night Mist?"
"Well, we don't really talk about it that much, and Sunset was sort of in the dark about it til now, but, it was about the night he jumped," A.J. answered honestly.
"I see. And why do you bring this subject up? I know he was a good friend to all of you, but why bring this up today?" Luna inquired.
"Well, there was something Night Mist told us before his jump. He said "She" was after him. We didn't know who he meant, and he didn't give us the chance to find out, but he said you would know what he was talking about," Applejack said.
Luna sighed, "I see. Well, I guess there's no way around it, but, far before any of you were attending this school, even before you were born, I wasn't the righteous, yet understanding principal you all know. When my sister and I had just graduated from here, we were heading out to get training for new jobs. Before becoming school principals however, our interests were more towards finding rare artifacts of our world, some that we found are still even being analyzed to this day."
"Wow, I'd love to see them, perhaps I could help decipher them," Twilight said.
Luna chuckled. "Perhaps we'll make a field trip there in the near future. But I would advise to be careful. To continue my story. As we found more and more ancient relics of our ancestors, I started to see Celestia getting more praise then I was. Or so I was believing. See, one artifact we found has some sort of, I guess we could say magic, but not the good kind. When I had come into contact with it, it had unlocked a part of me that most of us keep caged up. And to this day, art of what happened in the process are all around for people to remember what happened," Luna said.
"Wait..... you mean those paintings and wall carvings of a winged person unleashing some sort of, well, magic..... that was you?" Sunset asked.
Luna nodded. "Huh, that actually makes a good connection to something back in Equestria," Sunset mumbled.
"What was that darling?" Rarity asked.
"Oh nothing. Go ahead and continue Luna," Sunset offered.
"Alright, well, thankfully, my sister was able to find something to, what I thought was, cage the beast, and bring me back to normal. I never did archaeology again though, and neither did Celestia. We agreed that we would let others handle it, and soon got into our roles we are today. But I have heard rumors here and there that a dark form of some sort, roams around, and has been seen everywhere to Canterlot and beyond and sometimes vanishes in a dark mist. I felt they were no more the rumors, but... now that you say that it's after m, uh, Night Mist, I have reason to believe that my darker form of Nightmare Moon has separated from my being and she is at large. It seems she has a life of her own now, and has magic that she is using for who knows what. Why she was after Night Mist, well, it could be because of his gifts, that she was wanting to have control over his mind. But, if he didn't survive the fall, I don't know where she would go next. I would think she'd come straight back to me. Since we are sort of connected," Luna said.
When the group heard her say this, that offered them some hope that Night Mist was still alive. Sunset was wondering why Luna had stumbled on a few of her words in the story though. She felt Luna knew something, and didn't want to make it known. But besides that point, if this Nightmare Moon was after Night Mist and his power, who's to say she hadn't already gotten to him. Peanut Butter then spoke, "Well, maybe, me and Twilight can come up with a device of some sort, to help track her. Remember that doohickey you were using before the friendship games.... you know, back before you arrived here as a competitor?"
"Oh yeah, we can use that as a base device and make some adjustments to maybe hone in on this Nightmare Moon's magic force. Good thinking P.B.," Twilight complimented.
"I try," P.B. gloated.
"MegaNerds," Shadowmane coughed.
Everyone, including Peanut and Twilight laughed at the friendly insult.
No one was aware that a familiar face, with a hood from his sweatshirt covering it, was now in the city of Canterlot trying to find places to avoid his pursuer. He had heard about the recent events that had happened at CHS, and knew the group responsible. He knew, that right now, if anyone could help him, it was them. But he had to be careful, if his pursuer got near, they would use the group to their advantage. He had to be tactical about this so it would turn out for the best. "It's good to be home again. Just wish it were for better reasons," he said. He then made a dash for the school, hoping his pursuer was far enough not to follow him for the moment.