I've taken a slightly different approach than he, I believe. In mine, can Rainbow figure out exactly what's going on? Can she protect her friends- and, possibly more importantly, when/how does she plan to reveal her identity to them, if ever?
("Can she protect her friends" is a typical duh question. The other isn't.)
“Maybe…” She pauses, gazing out at the sparkling aura only she could see. “Maybe it’s been long enough.” She lets out a sigh, before turning away from the window. “Maybe I can tell them now.”
She walks sedately over to her desk. Unlike most of the furniture in her mansion, it’s made of cloud, hardened by a combination of pegasus magic and something far, far stronger. She reaches to the cloud behind it and, with a gentle tug and a thaumic equation, she flips the desktop inside-out. The meager contents of the desk, consisting of a single Daring Do novel, a scrap of paper displaying this week’s weather schedule, and the desk lamp she uses when she composes the weather each weekend, simply disappear. Vanishing tracelessly into the inside of the cloud slab.
In its place, the entire desk is suddenly covered in papers, levers, gears, wires, switches, sprockets, bolts, and lasers. She gives the circuit a once-over, glancing quickly at the tiny section on the left side with threads of red and green light glowing through the air, culminating in a great big red light at the front.
She breaks the orange beam reaching all across the front with her hoof. “Dad is dead.” She removes her hoof, watching the light flicker through the right side of her contraption. Processing her voice, extracting the meaning, recomposing the data, compiling it with everything stored in that steadily glowing corner. Eventually, the flickers reach that corner, change a few beams… and the great, big red light blinks to bright green.
She sighs. To bad that’s not the only input she has. She breaks the orange beam again. “We killed him.”
After a minute of processing, the light turns an angry red. She shakes her head- but she’s got more.
“The Crystal Empire has returned.” It fades to a gentler red.
“The Crystal Heart was returned.” Back to the angry red.
“Princess Cadence has taken over the Crystal Empire.” This takes it longer to process- and the red begins strobing gently. She shakes her head- and doesn’t break the beam again. “Figures,” she mutters. “I wonder what it’s going to take.”
She begins studying the new light matrix. She designed this machine; she knows its every working. She knows how to determine why it thinks it’s such a bad idea to talk freely to her friends. To tell them about her real past.
She jumps almost a foot in the air, very nearly reaching for the forbidden in surprise, when somepony yells up to her home, echoing through her standard cloud flooring. She manages to stop herself short, closing her eyes firmly against the forbidden energies born into her, before inverting her tabletop again- back to the book, schedule, and lamp- and turning to push open the window.
“I’m up,” she calls down. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“Princess Celestia wants us to come see her immediately!”
She raises her eyebrow. “You know the train left ten minutes ago, right?”
Pinkie nods. “But we don’t need that. Twilight’s going to teleport everypony!”
She lets out a sigh. Twilight’s teleportation spell is always so disorienting. “Alrighty, I’ll be right down.”
Huh, she managed it. Twilight actually managed to teleport everypony all the way from her castle to the Canterlot throne room without losing somepony, ending up off-target, or causing somepony to lose their lunch- events that had happened without fail in all of her previous attempts at the same feat.
Not that she has ever lost her lunch over something so minor as teleportation turbulence. No- Pinkie has been the most vulnerable to that, with Twilight herself a close second.
But they’re in the throne room. She shakes off the disorientation with her customary speed, faster than any of her friends can. The same speed she brags about all the time. The same bragging she uses to build the skin-deep image everypony sees… and disguise her real self. The real reason she’s able to reorient herself so quickly.
She waits patiently for her friends. Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Cadence, the former two on their thrones, wait with her.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Celestia greets, as soon as she judges everypony has reoriented themselves enough to listen.
Twilight emits a small yelp, instantly losing all her progress as the last to recover- this time- and becoming a heap on the floor while everypony else bows.
Celestia politely waits until Twilight both reorients herself and assumes a bow before turning to Princess Cadence. “Cadence?” She prompts.
Princess Cadence nods, stepping forwards to begin. “You may rise,” she begins- and waits until the Element Bearers before her do that before she continues. “While we thank you for your help in defeating King Sombra, We once again require your assistance.”
Celestia nods. “Long ago, when we first sealed King Sombra away, we believed we were done, until he should return. His daughter, we believed dead.”
“This, until just last night,” Princess Luna inserts. “Visiting Night Guard Unicorns detected dark magic remnants in the Crystal Empire- recent ones, with no match to Sombra’s signature.”
Cadence nods. “We believe they belong to his daughter. We request that you return to the Crystal Empire with us to aid in the investigation- and, when we find her, help contain her.”
Celestia finishes. “Can you do this?”
Twilight nods. “Yes Princess,” she states. “We’ll get started right away.”
“Hold on a sec,” Rainbow interjects. “What happens if… she finds out we’re looking for her?” She waves a hoof in a northern direction.
Twilight raises an eyebrow. “We stick together,” she states. “If we do that, she can’t hurt us.”
Rainbow sighs. “What if she hides instead? Or runs away?”
Twilight only stares.
“That is a good point, Rainbow,” Celestia nods. “She is believed to be even more powerful than Sombra. If she tries to hide, we will not be able to find her. We must conduct this investigation in secret.” She turns towards Cadence. “Perhaps we could arrange for an extended visit, on the pretense of wanting to explore the Crystal Kingdom?”
Cadence nods.
She watches out the window as the train approaches the Crystal Kingdom. The irony is almost tangible, to her. She and her five friends are on their way too the Crystal Kingdom with Twilight’s sister-in-law, Princess Cadence, to hunt for a dark magic user. Everypony thinks they’re looking for King Sombra’s long-lost daughter. But she knows better. They’re looking for somepony likely far less powerful than Sombra’s only daughter.
She hasn’t seen the mentioned spell traces herself just yet; unlike most ponies, she will be able to read the spell traces, to extract such information as what spell it was… What it was cast on, when, and so on. She plans to extract that information from any and all spell residue she can find before she tracks down the spellcaster and makes her decision.
If this new dark caster is good, like herself, she’ll teach them how to hide their dark energies. If not, she’ll avoid a confrontation- and instead find a way to subtly guide her friends to the discovery. She hopes she won’t have to protect them.
She smirks as they approach the station. Her friends, and the Princesses, think the traces were left by Sombra’s daughter. Yet, little do they know they’ve recruited her to help them in their search. She hopes briefly to herself that she hasn’t gotten too rusty.
It’s been only three centuries since she last used her power, after all. Besides, she isn’t so careless so as to leave traces detectable by Light magic.
The train pulls into the station. As she trots towards the exit, she opens her thaumic senses. She normally keeps them ‘closed’, so to speak, as it wouldn’t do for a pegasus to react to that which only a unicorn could sense- or even some things they couldn’t.
What’s more, since she’s only using her senses, she still won’t leave any non-pegasus magical traces of any sort.
She settles down in her “new” room in the Crystal Castle. Princess Cadence and Shining Armor had seen no reason not to assign each of them a room in the castle; they’ve got more guest rooms than they seem to care to count, since they repurposed her father’s slaves’ quarters as guest rooms.
It so happens the room they assigned her is the one she grew up in.
The one her long-term transmogrification spell is anchored in. The spell she’d used to convince her father she hadn’t changed, so long ago.
She can finally release it. Be who she truly is.
And, of course, convince her friends she never changed through the use of smaller, shorter-term spells, until she can get back to her cloud home. Which, of course, is a piece of cake. She’ll anchor a thousand-year-newer spell in her desk. One that lets her activate and deactivate it from afar, rather than this monstrosity. She walks over to the desk in the room, looking over it for a second, before looking back towards the door.
She touches into her power. The power she’d been born with, been trained in. The power she hasn’t touched for centuries. She stretches her senses outwards, reviewing this sector of the castle. Nopony is anywhere nearby. She locks the door with a flick of energy, binding them firmly shut- and wards her room against Light magic teleports with another. She then reviews her work.
Yes, she is getting rusty. The traces of these spells, while scattered to her various anchor points, will be detectable by Light magic. She scowls, focusing her memory. Her power, her ability. There’s a technique she’d figured out, that let her hide her activity even from her father. She concentrates for a minute, but comes up with nothing.
Oh well. Perhaps she’ll remember it soon, as she uses her power more.
She reaches forwards, touches the wall behind her desk. She closes her eyes, and concentrates on the passcode she’d made to release it so long ago. The war is over.
The spell matrix unravels itself. As soon as it starts, she concentrates her power in containing and absorbing the released energy; it wouldn’t do to unleash a power surge for the entire Crystal Empire to feel just when she needs it the least.
The surge is far greater than she expected; she’s grown stronger over the years, and faster than she’d expected. She lets out a sigh; she’s managed to contain most of it. Just as her growth has strengthened the surge, it has also strengthened her ability to contain it. The only scraps to escape should be fairly vague, and spread to no more than the nearest few rooms of the castle. Which are, at the moment, empty.
She lowers her hoof back to the floor, hanging her head down, as if staring at her hooves. She’s taller now; she can feel it. She lets out another sigh, remembering her birth colors. The ones she’d spent the first ten years of her life hiding with an illusion, because her father hated them. Honestly, she hates them too. She’d been an acid green pegasus with a sickly green mane and tail.
She opens her eyes, staring down at her hooves- and stops immediately.
They’re not green. They’re sky blue.
She whips her head around, checking her sides. The cutie mark remains unchanged; that had appeared long after she’d run away. Her wings have also retained their modified color. Her mane- and tail- have even retained their modified coloring as well.
She spreads her wings wide, sitting on the floor as she stretches her neck upwards and backwards. She’d been transformed for so long she’d grown into her chosen colors.
She feels for her power again. It’s far more potent than it had been before; this is the main reason she’d had to use a passcode unlock for her transform spell, rather than a counterspell: She’d sealed most of her power away with it. She finds her power. She takes a very small portion of it- she wants to minimize her footprint- and lights off the next spell on her plan.
The shadows seem to reach out for her, and she melts quickly into them, disappearing into the darkness. A minute later, the shadows expand once again, forming up to leave a normal-sized, cyan pegasus with prismatic mane and tail.
She smiles. That was successful. She reaches out with her power again, cancelling both the anti-teleport ward and the lock on the door, before heading back out. It’s not bedtime yet- and during the night, when everypony is asleep, will be the easiest time for her to perform her investigation.
Should somepony observe her, her colors might seem muted, or desaturated, as she leaves her room behind to go find the evidence, find the local darkcaster’s intent.
But first, she needs to hear where the Guards spotted it; even for somepony like herself, scouring the entire city for such signs would take weeks. Especially doing it in secret, that could stretch it to months.
But here is where she has an advantage. Light magic only has general time travel spells; she can also simply look through time. Far easier- and since she knows where Shining Armor was explaining the evidence locations to Twilight earlier, it’s a simple matter to walk over and read the past before she heads out.
A Guard walks right past her, missing her completely.
Oh yes. Should somepony observe her, her colors are a bit muted. But they won’t be able to see her in the first place. She watches him pass, suppresses a shudder, and continues on her way. It’s been a long time since she last shadow walked, let alone around other ponies.
It takes her only ten minutes or so to reach the room they’d been discussing in. Her friends would love to know the castle as well as she does. As a matter of fact, she’s willing to bet even Princess Cadence would!
It takes her all of two minutes to listen to Twilight and Shining’s entire past exchange. Mostly because she skimmed the parts she wasn’t looking for.
Then she heads outside, still covered in her shadow-walk, and heads out into the town. Somewhere along the way, she releases the shadow walk, her colors returning to normal, and switches to a more Light-based invisibility spell. This one shouldn’t stand out to a fellow shadowcaster like the shadow walk will- and, unless they’re looking for it, they won’t even know she was there. Much like Light casters against the shadow walk.
With her colors now seeming extra bright and oversaturated to any that might observe her, she trots off for the first of the locations the magic had been detected at. She has an investigation to perform.
She returns effectively empty-hooved. The signatures she’d found were generic manipulation magics, like levitation, used on various objects. She’d timescanned a couple of them, and seen nothing dangerous. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t even seen the spell in the scan- dark magic has a tendency of not appearing in timescans. Still, all she’d seen was a few market transactions, none of which looked suspicious to her.
She lets out a sigh as she flops down on her bed. She’ll pass off her tiredness tomorrow as having missed all her ‘naps’ on the day prior. She can’t tell them the truth. Yet.
“Okay then,” Twilight states, at the breakfast table. “Here’s the plan. We don’t want this to look like anything is going on, so for the first day, we’re just going to explore the town- as a party. Me and Rarity will be watching for any additional traces- and checking out the ones we’ll pass on our way. I’ve got our entire route planned.
“For tomorrow, we’ll split up into teams of two, with a Unicorn guard attached to each team. We’ll then perform a similar sweep- but of some of the smaller areas of the town, wherever we find the most clues during day one. The parties- me and Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie, Rainbow and Fluttershy- will each go on a different route… I’ll have to plan those tonight.
“On day three, we’ll pick whichever part carried the most clues on day two and search the area alone, save a Unicorn guard with each of us. I’ll have to plan those routes tomorrow night.
“Day four and beyond depend on what we find on day three.” She draws to a close.
Rainbow suppresses a sigh. She’d been afraid of this; Twilight’s overthinking, and lack of training/experience, is going to create a situation in which they’re all vulnerable after their enemy has enough time to figure out what’s going on, rather than before. It’d make more sense to her to simply explore- as singletons with undercover Unicorn guards to accompany- until they find clues… then “explore” closer into that area.
Not that a unicorn would actually stand much of a chance against a skilled or powerful shadowcaster.
Yet she, being both skilled and very, very powerful, could completely ignore the attacks of a more run-of-the-mill shadowcaster. Her natural wards would deflect it without any effort on her part.
Fortunately, if somepony does get cursed, her power should be more than enough to fix anything shy of death itself. Even ‘permanent’ curses; she’s strong enough to dispel them anyways, so long as she wasn’t the original caster.
Unfortunately, performing any such repairs will require her to reveal herself as who she is.
They head out.
They find nothing new.
Three days have passed. Twilight’s method has, rather predictably, not turned up anything. More importantly, her crazy search has driven off any chance she might have had at locating their target during the night. Or even of discerning a purpose; no fresh spell traces can be found anywhere in town. Not even her own, from last night at least- she hadn’t gone out, electing instead to get her rest.
She zips across precisely thirteen rooftops, makes a perfect ninety-degree angle, crosses three more, and slams to the ground in the alleyway, glancing conspiratorially at either end for a second. She’s started playing games with the Guard trying to follow her- he can’t fly and, he hasn’t figured out yet, his magic is useless against her.
Then she feels a surge of dark magic nearby… But it’s not a simple spell trace, or even a spell. No. This…
She spots her target, dead ahead. This was a quick shadow-walk from that alley and a little blanket spell so nopony would notice the pony emerging from their shadow walk.
This blanket spell, of course, has no effect on her. But a shadowcaster is invisible to another shadowcaster if they don’t actually use their power; she is safe from detection.
The unicorn steps forwards, looking at her. “Something wrong?” She asks.
Rainbow looks up at her, having pretended not to have noticed her appearance- like a regular pegasus might. “Huh? Well, Twilight seems to think so.” She rolls her eyes.
“Oh? What is it?”
“Some kind of dangerous unicorn, I think. She’s only dragged the rest of us along for the Elements of Harmony… yet she’s insisting we help with the search.” She glances behind them; they’ve started walking down the street. “I’ve taken to playing games with the Guard trying to keep me safe.”
She snorts. “The Royal Guard, keep an Element of Harmony safe from a dangerous unicorn?” She lets out a sigh. “Please tell me he’s a unicorn as well.”
Nod. “He is. He’s pretty slow, though- I made it past thirteen houses before he seemed to realize I was gone.”
“Oh?”
Nod. “That’s when I turned.”
“Nice. She didn’t say anything about this dangerous unicorn, did she?”
She shrugs. “Just a little. Something about Sombra’s daughter, I think.”
“Sombra’s-?” She actually breaks out laughing. “She hasn’t asked anypony here about the aforementioned daughter, has she?”
Shrug. “Why?”
“It’s common knowledge in the Crystal Empire right now- just like it was a thousand years ago, before we were frozen in time- that Sombra’s daughter was not a unicorn, but a pegasus.” She chuckles. “A pegasus that ran away, as a matter of fact, while she was still young. I understand he vowed to punish her until her hooves fell off for that.” A sigh, looking towards the ground. “But she died out in the snow someplace. Nopony knows where; her body was never found. … What?” She’d finally looked back up at Rainbow.
Rainbow is, of course, feigning complete and total surprise at learning Sombra’s daughter’s race. She’s actually unsurprised by any of it; she knows the common knowledge part to be true, and the rest would have been easy to acquire since. It’s not like the regular Equestrian newspapers and texts that have worked their way up here in the short time since the Empire reappeared have been held under lock and key.
“She’s a pegasus?” she asks.
The unicorn nods. “Yep. And dead. I wonder why … what’s-her-name is having you search for a dead pony?”
“Twilight,” Rainbow supplies, to a nod, as they reach a nice little cafe, and seat themselves at one of the outdoor tables. “And that’d be because Princess Celestia told her to.”
“Princess Celestia…? Oh, she’s the head Princess of Equestria, isn’t she?”
She scowls. “Princess Luna is right up there with her… But yes, I suppose.”
“Princess Luna… Ahh, yes. Sorry, I’m just a lot more familiar with Princess- what was it, Mi Armoire Cadena? Hmm...” She scowls, and shakes her head slightly in thought.
“Mi Amore Cadenza, or Cadence for short,” Rainbow recites. “She married Twilight’s brother, Prince Shining Armor.”
“Ahh, yes. That’s the one I have no trouble remembering.” She smiles. “That and Sombra, but he is no more… Right?”
She nods. “As near as anypony can tell, he was killed when the Crystal Heart did its thing.”
“Right. Um… Do you know why Princess, um, Celestia, told her to?”
She racks her memory… or at least, gives the impression of such; she actually remembers it quite clearly, as is the nature of the mind of a shadowcaster, but her facade wouldn’t survive that kind of memory. “Um… I think Princess Luna said something about a night guard and a spell trace that wasn’t Sombra’s.”
“A spell trace that wasn’t Sombra’s… Like, a dark magic spell trace?” She seems suddenly worried.
Shrug. “I donno, you’d have to ask Twilight.”
She seems to wince. “If there’s a darkcaster running around, I’d rather not paint a target on my back by getting too close to the one that made Sombra’s defeat possible. Think you could ask for me?”
She tilts her head. “She probably won’t be too willing,” she states.
A sigh. “I figured as much. If… If she doesn’t want you to tell me… Perhaps this can help convince her.” She uses her unicorn magic to pull parchment and quill out of her saddlebag- Rainbow notices some minor darkcasting in use, to pull it instead from a pocket in space- and lays the blank page out on the table in front of her. She starts scribbling on the page as she continues speaking. “I’ve spotted four residual dark magic spell traces in the marketplace, dated after Sombra’s defeat. Something you may have noticed- erm, you might not have, being a pegasus, but she might have- is that each of them bears a different signature. I’m staining this page with my signature- and she should be able to tell it doesn’t match any of the traces.”
She finishes scribbling on the page, rolls it up, ties it, and offers it to Rainbow. “If that’s not enough, I don’t know what is.”
As Rainbow takes the scroll, she feels the magic signature stamped into it. Sure enough, it matches the mare in front of her- and doesn’t match any of the three traces she’d spotted in the marketplace… Which, now that she thinks back to them, were unique. “So… If she says yes, how will I find you again?”
She shrugs. “Say my name three times fast, anywhere outside the Crystal Castle, and I’ll come running… Though, I would prefer you find someplace discreet to do that, like here.”
“Ahh… Your name is?”
“What-? Oh…” She face-hooves. “Pointed Gold. Sorry about that.”
“Why would it only work outside the Castle?”
She shrugs. “Difficulty getting into the Castle aside, it’s easier to hide the blanket spell matrix that makes it work in the clutter of the town’s magic use. If I were to push it into the Castle, somepony would notice.”
“Ahh… Okay.” She stows the scroll in the saddlebag Twilight insisted she carry with her, and glances back towards her landing site. “He’s probably going to get here soon. I’ll see you around, then!”
Pointed Gold nods. “Until next time!” She then vanishes in a Light magic teleport.
Rainbow evicts herself from the cafe, checking both ways up the street before trotting back the way they’d come.
Then she pauses, looking at one of the houses she’d flown over.
Close to fifteen seconds passes before the Guard finally gallops through the gap between it and the next house, looking terribly frightened.
“Rainbow!” he yelps. “Run! They’re here!” He points a hoof briefly back at the alley. “Run!”
She obeys, after glancing up at- and feeling- the dark spell traces in that alleyway. The… less-than-friendly spell traces. With no ponies anywhere nearby, but they feel brand-new. She takes off running- and makes sure not to go so fast he can’t follow. She picks a route such that the dark spellwork effecting him- she can sense it- will wear off before they reach the castle… or cross paths with another Guard. Rather helps that she can sense them.
He seems worried about not running into another Guard on her route until they reach the castle- but when they reach the castle and he requests the check for dark magic curses, one of the other Unicorn guards confirms the presence of residual traces- but the lack of any active curse… or effect from one. The other Unicorn guard at the door scans Rainbow- and, rather predictably she thinks, doesn’t find anything. After all, any dark magic used on her is simply absorbed- leaving no trace, or effect, whatsoever. Such is the nature of shadowcasting on a shadowcaster that’s an order of magnitude- or more- stronger: She’s completely immune to their spellwork… and only experiences the effect if she wants to. Even then, only for as long as she wants to.
She lets out a sigh and, at the Guards’ insistence, waits inside the castle for her friends’ return.
That’s how long she’d waited. For nothing to happen.
It had taken three hours before everypony else started trickling in. Twilight had been last, ten minutes after Fluttershy, the first.
Then it had taken six hours for Twilight to run test after test after test.
Then it had taken two more hours for the discussion on tomorrow’s tactics.
In the end, half of the night had been wasted away. She’d tried to recommend they stick together, but Twilight had overridden, stating that time is of the essence. Tomorrow- or today, it’s well past midnight- they’ll be heading out… Solitarily again, with three unicorn guards apiece. Pointed Gold’s scroll had sat, ignored, on her end of the table for the entire meeting.
During Twilight’s testing, she’d wondered mildly if the alicorn might actually catch her; after all, she is a very powerful Light caster- and simultaneously capable of shadowcasting. Unlike Celestia, who had cast shadowmagic through a Light magic spell- and in that form, generally christened ‘dark magic’ or ‘darkcasting’, it truly is incredibly easy to get corrupted by and suckered into it. Well, for a Light caster; unless Twilight goes crazy with it, her innate shadowcasting abilities will shed the damage with time.
Which reminds her, of course, of exactly how she knows Twilight can shadowcast. She remembers feeling Twilight’s dark spellwork inside the building. She remembers the second one, at the bottom of the pit- the one that had gone awry. It’d been a good thing the then-unicorn had not engaged in any further darkcasting activities; she’d nearly gone too far on that one. She remembers meeting Twilight later, and trying to decide how best to cancel the effect without alerting everypony- before noticing the gradual fade of the normally self-feeding effect. She’d gauged the fade; if she remembers correctly, and unless something has changed, Twilight has rather typical shadowcasting abilities- that is, compared to other ponies with shadowcasting abilities. Back in the day, shadowcasters were less than one in a thousand. Nowadays, shadowcasting is often mistaken for dangerous darkcasting, so nopony shadowcasts, even if they can.
Hence why Twilight doesn’t know she can.
She wonders who she got it from- mom, dad, or both? Given how much time has passed, when combined with Celestia’s agenda, she wouldn’t be surprised if whichever it was is also unaware of any shadowcasting ability… and for several generations before them as well.
She smiles to herself. They wouldn’t be shadowcasters until and unless they actually used their shadowcasting ability; rather, as her father would have said, they simply have ‘shadowpotential’.
He had lacked it. His wife- her mother- was a weak shadowcaster. Exactly why she had turned out so strong herself, she doesn’t know.
Come to think of it, he did like keeping secrets from her. One room in particular, he never let her near. She’d never snuck in; he had all sorts of alert magics placed on it, and she hadn’t considered a week’s torture worth the sating of her momentary curiosity. So, she’d never explored.
But he’s dead now. Even if he isn’t, she’s Twilight’s friend- and, like they’ve been doing ever since they arrived, every one of her friends- including herself- have been wearing their Elements of Harmony everywhere.
The Elements of Harmony… a power so powerful it solves problems not by destroying or blocking, but by correcting. An action often many times harder than the alternative the Crystal Heart employed. She lets out a soft chuckle, folding her wings to allow herself to land haphazardly on her bed. If he’s still alive, her Element alone is probably strong enough to purge him of the corruption- especially alongside her own power! That done, he’d be… What, just another unicorn? She’d have to find a way to keep him from darkcasting again, though.
Perhaps he kept something in there. Something she can use to discover the hidden details of her youth.
Or her father’s secrets. It’s always possible he wasn’t hiding something about her youth behind that door.
All his alarm spells were personal- they’d notify him and him only. Not anypony else that might happen to be nearby, and with no regard for distance. Since he’s dead…
She looks over at the door, tilts her head. Ten minutes. She’ll wait ten minutes, then go explore for that chamber. That should be more than enough time for everypony to fall asleep at this hour; they’re already headed to bed, with more than a little grumbling about the early morning Twilight’s demanding for tomorrow. She’d made certain she was one of them.
The following morning is uneventful, save for the scramble to find enough guards. She’d located that secret room, but hadn’t opened it; as expected, the invisible door requires a surge of shadowmagic to open. A surge, of course, too strong for her to hide from the guards stationed nearby- unless she can remember how she hid her power so long ago.
About ten minutes after heading out into the town, she gets an idea- and starts plotting how to ditch her guards.
It’s not hard. Two minutes later, she uses a yawn as an excuse to stretch her wings, before propelling herself forwards with a powerful downstroke- and pivoting almost instantly into an alleyway. Six or seven quick pivots later and she’s sure she’s lost the guards; a dodge into an empty alley and a shadow jump halfway across town and she’s certain. She emerges from the empty alley she appeared in, looking up and down the secondary road, before selecting a direction and starting to walk, muttering under her breath. “Pointed gold, pointed gold, pointed gold.”
She feels the tiny surge of energy as the blanket spell activates… Yes, it’s a shadowmagic spell. She smiles softly as she continues walking.
Shortly, a unicorn trots up next to her. “You called?”
She looks over at the unicorn- yep, the same one as yesterday. “Yes, actually.” She lets out a sigh. “Twilight didn’t listen. Too busy trying to be as conspicuous as possible today- three guards a piece today. Little harder to ditch, but nothing significant.”
“Shoot. Um, did she answer, or…?”
Shake. “Never listened to the question. I did a little digging in the library, though- and is it just me, or isn’t there a third kind of magic?”
A raised eyebrow. “A third kind of magic? Like what?”
“Well, there’s the Light magic of the normal unicorn, pegasus, or whatnot, there’s the Dark magic that Sombra used… then some of those books seemed to refer to something else as separate from dark magic- calling it ‘shadow magic’.”
“Shad-?” The unicorn glances around at their surroundings. “Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private?”
She nods. “Lead the way,” she states.
As it turns out, her ‘somewhere more private’ is an indoor restaurant booth.
“So, this is more private?” she asks.
Pointed nods. “Yes. And if you can promise not to tell, I can tell you why.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Sure, I can promise.”
The unicorn raises an eyebrow in turn, then huffs. “It’s more private because the whole place is run by my people- and we’ve got a blanket spell on the street to keep anypony else from coming in.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Well, from coming in uninvited. In any case, everypony in here either already knows or is allowed to know everything I’m about to tell you.”
She nods. “Ahh. Makes sense. Anyways, the ‘shadow magic’?”
“Yes. It’s… Well. There’s actually only two types of magic- Light magic, and Shadow magic. Light magic is your typical magic- earth pony, pegasus, unicorn. Anypony can use it.
“Shadow magic is a completely different animal. It’s hereditary, far more powerful than Light magic, and it doesn’t care what breed you are. It is detectable by Light magic, though to our knowledge, there is no way to find out if somepony is capable of it until and unless they use it.”
She tilts her head. “Then what’s this dark magic?”
She nods. “There is a spell we Unicorns can use to channel shadow magic through our Light magic. Rather erroneously called the ‘Shadow Technique’. The problem, though…
“Shadow magic itself is just as benign, just as safe, as light magic. When you use it through a Light magic spell, though, it’s very, very easy to accidentally corrupt yourself- so much that shadowmagic cast through a Light magic spell is considered Dark magic. Unfortunately for shadowcasters- that’s those ponies directly capable of shadow magic- Light magic cannot tell the difference between shadowmagic and dark magic. We can, since we can actually read the signature, but they can’t.
“Thus, even though Celestia’s ban singles out ‘Dark Magic’... I don’t believe she’s aware that shadowmagic is a different thing- and besides, all her guards mistake it for the dark variant anyways.” Sigh. “Then of course, even among shadowcasters, there’s a wide variance. From the very weak to the very strong. Sombra himself wasn’t a shadowcaster, instead relying on his strong Unicorn powers and his cunning to manipulate his dark magic. His wife, as I recall, was a low-level shadowcaster… but his daughter, perhaps the most powerful we’ve ever seen.” Shrug. “No clue why. In any case, you might actually be capable of shadowcasting yourself, I think.”
She blinks. “What-?”
Nod. “That blanket spell is markedly less effective against shadowcasters, particularly the strong ones- and you didn’t even seem to notice it as you walked in, even though I never told it you were invited.”
She blinks. “Oh, yeah. About that…” She rubs a hoof on the back of her neck. “I might happen to be descended from Sombra.”
Blink. “What-? His daughter survived?” She sounds part-worried, part-relieved.
She nods.
“Did- Do you know if she chose to follow after her father, or to follow the path of good?”
“Good, I think. It’s not every descendent of an evil overlord that can claim to be one of the Element Bearers of Harmony.”
Nod. “True. So… If you don’t mind me asking, where might I find her grave?”
“Her grave?”
“Yeah. It’s a rare pony indeed that can grow up with Sombra and not be evil upon departure. I’d like to pay my respects, if at all possible.”
“Her grave?” she repeats, though without the incredulity. “I wasn’t aware I had one.”
Silence holds for a few seconds before Pointed continues. “So… you mean to tell me that not only is King Sombra’s daughter still alive after all this time, but she’s one of the Element Bearers of Harmony themselves?”
“Yeah.”
She puts a hoof to her forehead. “Oh, by Cadence does this change things…” She sighs. “You’re certain you’re his daughter?”
She nods slowly. “Yeah.”
“Then-! Oh, ponyfeathers.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”
“Then-! Oh, because if- but that’s impossible! And it means-!”
Sigh. “You mean you’re not going to ask me to prove it?”
“Uh… what? Why would I?”
Groan. “Ask Twilight sometime, and she’ll tell you that just anypony could walk in here and claim to be anypony they wanted to. I mean, you do know what she looked like, right?”
Several blinks, and a facehoof. “Yeah.” Shudder. “Nasty shade of green. Rumor has it Sombra kept her disguised while inside so he didn’t have to look at it, either.”
“Green?” she asks, widening her eyes in false surprise. “Yikes.”
“Yeah. Exactly how she got such a nasty shade I have no clue- but at least nowadays, if somepony has a foal of such despicable coloring, there is something that can be done about it.”
“They couldn’t do that back then…?” she asks, even though she knows the Chromatic Reassignment Treatment being referred to was “invented”, by herself, about a hundred and eighty seven years after Sombra was sealed away. As a matter of fact, she had actually designed it just months after his defeat. “Huh. I thought that was just… a thing. Like Equestria.”
A snort of laughter emanates from the unicorn. “Yeah, no. Sure, it’s not exactly recent- it was invented some eight hundred years ago, I hear. But we, here in the Crystal Empire, missed a thousand years.” Sigh. “And I suppose it’s possible your Element of Harmony fooled the anti-unwanted spell as well.” She heaves an even deeper sigh, planting her face in her hooves. “Why can’t anything go right?”
“Something wrong?”
Pointed nods. “Yeah. The thing is… We- the organization of which I’m part, whose name is too secret for me to share with you- aren’t the only shadow magic organization in this town. Nah- we’re one of two, and we’re at war. In secret, because any open shadow- or dark- magic is immediately pounded upon by Cadence’s guards.” She sighs. “We call them the ‘cultists’; we don’t know what they call themselves, but they’re the pro-Sombra faction, his loyal supporters. We’re anti-Sombra, pro-Cadence. It’s thanks to us that they can’t just go open with their shadow magic, storm the castle, and win. Then, there’s enough of them they’d probably be able to drop Celestia and Luna as well, especially now that they’ve had a thousand years to soften up.”
“Luna hasn’t,” Rainbow states. “She’s been on the moon.”
Blink. “Right. So, they might have a challenge- Celestia’s still had that time to soften up and, without her sister, is probably useless at combat right now. Not unlike Cadence. But anyways… That war? We’re losing.”
Blink. “Losing?”
“Yeah. Those signatures in the marketplace were some of our people, placing them specifically to draw Princess Cadence’ attention. So long as we’re still here to fight them, Cadence and her Guards can overpower them- and drive them to defeat. Once that’s done, we can return to our normal lives.” Sigh. “Well… the normal lives we never had.” Shrug. “Meh.”
“Doesn’t that mean she could catch you?”
“Certainly, yes. It ups the stakes- but we knew she’d be looking for us, so the moment our scout returned to report her Guards had spotted the signatures we’d left for them, we went silent. The Cult didn’t; they didn’t know she was looking. A couple of them very nearly got caught. A constant risk even before, but they didn’t realize it was even more of a risk- or that it was happening with increased frequency- until Twilight started storming around with increasing numbers of guards. That’s when they got the hint, and went silent as well. At this rate, we’re more likely to be caught- because unlike us, they aren’t afraid we’ll attack them!” Sigh. “We can’t. For one, we don’t know where they are- and for two, there’s more of them than there are of us.”
“They know where you are?” she asks.
Shake. “No. That’s why they haven’t attacked us- but we can’t lower our detection matrices, in case they attack Cadence. If they fight Cadence and us together, they’ll lose, and they know it. The problem is, we can’t exactly work with Cadence- and if they fight us separately, we’re toast. They know that.”
“Twilight.”
That’s one of Twilight’s problems; once she gets started, nothing can stop her. It’s in force today, though- just like yesterday.
“Twilight.” Fluttershy added her voice to the statement.
Twilight’s been going on about how nopony’s found anything since they arrived, and talking to herself- at the conference table- about exactly how to go forwards.
“Twilight.” Applejack and Pinkie Pie join as well. Rarity and Cadence smile; Shining Armor- who Twilight is allegedly talking to, glances up at her, an eyebrow raised, and looks back at Twilight.
“Twilight.” All three joined in this time.
But Twilight doesn’t respond.
“Twilight.” Even the Guards around the room join in.
Still no response. Twilight is still talking constantly about what different routes everypony should take.
“Twilight!” In the absence of new voices to add, everypony gets just a little louder.
“Twilight!” Even louder, after no response.
“TWILIGHT!” Everypony is yelling this time- but Twilight still doesn’t seem to notice.
Rainbow sighs, and starts filling her lungs. Everypony else glances at her, raises eyebrows, and covers their ears. Oh, but they have no idea.
She dumps some of her power into it, boosting her voice an order of magnitude or so higher than even the Royal Canterlot Voice… and making all that volume a directional directly toward her target. “TWILIGHT!”
Twilight’s ears flatten against the noise but, as the echoes die down and the surprised yelps from everypony else in the room fade to nothing, Twilight’s still ranting to herself about routes as her ears return to their prior position.
She facehooves. “Somepony kick her.”
Rarity, the nearest pony, jabs a hoof into Twilight’s withers. “Twilight!”
No response, save to push Rarity away with her levitation.
Rainbow jumps up onto the table, trotting forwards. “Just so everypony knows, dark magic is actually shadow magic cast through a light magic spell. Shadow magic, used directly, is no more dangerous than light magic.”
Princess Cadence raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think she’s listening,” she states.
Rainbow nods. “Yeah, but you are. To a Light magic user, shadow magic looks like dark magic- but it really isn’t.” She reaches Twilight’s end of the table and, completely without ceremony, holds a hoof into the air, conjuring a shadow magic spear that she slams down on Twilight’s papers, piercing straight through them. Then she sits on the table. “Twilight!” Everypony else is still staring at her slack-jawed.
“... but then if- huh, that’s not supposed to be there- if we go west…” Twilight casually lifts the boiling black spear out of her scroll and sets it on the table as she continues talking, as if uninterrupted.
Several ponies facehoof, including Rainbow. The spear dissolves into nothing.
“That could have been a legitimate attack,” Rainbow mutters, “and she wouldn’t have noticed.”
“Try hitting her with it,” Pinkie suggests.
She shakes her head. “Shadow magic isn’t like light magic, Pinkie. Even one blow to an extremity could prove fatal.” She jumps into the air, digging deeper into her power to summon the ingredients for a cloud into the room, whirling around as she gathers them together above Twilight’s head with her pegasus magic, grinning evilly. “Light magic, though, is almost impossible to deal fatal damage with a single blow.” She builds the thunder cloud above Twilight’s head, then stands on it, looking down over the edge. “Twilight!”
No response.
Nopony else moves, either.
Then she gives the cloud a good stomp.
BOOM!
Thunder echoes through the room as, at the same time as rain starts falling from the cloud, a bolt of lightning lashes out, connecting to the tip of Twilight’s horn.
Cadence winces as Twilight lets out a similarly echoing scream before landing back on her hooves, and looking up.
“Twilight!” everypony yells, all at once.
“What?” Twilight demands.
Rainbow sticks her head off of the cloud, stroking it to stop the rain. “About time you responded,” she states. “I was starting to think I’d have to start shredding books.”
“R-Rainbow! Don’t you even joke about that!”
“That wasn’t a joke.”
Blink, before her eyes go wide, pupils shrinking to pinpricks. “Wh-what?”
“Twilight, I just had to hit you with a lightning bolt to get your attention. If that didn’t work, what else could I have done?”
“Uhh…”
“Yeah. The thing is, I found something. And I found it yesterday.”
“Huh? What is it?”
She holds out and drops Pointed Gold’s scroll.
“Wha-huh? You wrote it down?” Twilight asks incredulously, before opening the scroll. “Uh… Oh. Oh. This changes things.”
“Met her again today,” Rainbow states.
Twilight doesn’t seem to hear her, moving to her stabbed scroll once again.
Rainbow taps her cloud, eliciting a rumble of thunder, but no rain.
Twilight screams anyways, though brief, and looks up. “Wha- S-sorry, was I doing it again?”
She nods. “Yeah. I met her again today. And I’ll only tell you what happened if you’ll actually listen to us next time! I don’t want to have to set fire to another library!”
“Another!?”
“Yeah. Tirek did the last one.”
“L-l-last? There were more?”
“Sombra burned several libraries during his reign,” she states calmly. “And because of that, I know exactly how to burn down an entire wing of a crystal castle.”
“Uhh…”
“Um,” Cadence begins.
Rainbow glances up at the pink alicorn’s worried expression. “Don’t worry, this castle is made of Crysteel- much harder to burn down.” She looks at Twilight. “The Castle of Friendship, though, is plain old flammable crystal.”
“Noo!” Twilight yelps.
“Then listen.”
Shudder. “Alright.”
She sighs, dispersing her cloud once again and dropping back to her spot at the table. “Alright. The issue is thus.
“We’re not looking for King Sombra’s daughter. We’re looking for something a lot less dangerous.” She smiles up at everypony. “Out in the streets, there are two entire factions of shadowcasters.”
“Shadowcasters?” Twilight interrupts.
Sigh. “Dark magic is shadow magic cast through a light magic spell,” Rainbow states. “A shadowcaster is capable of casting shadow magic directly- and shadow magic cast directly is as safe as light magic.” Grin. “As a matter of fact, I’m perhaps the most powerful shadowcaster in the world. The only issue with shadow magic is that, to the uneducated Light-magic user, it looks like Dark magic.”
“But- you don’t have a horn!”
“Only light magic cares what body parts you have,” she states. “Shadow magic doesn’t. Shadow magic can and often will heal the caster, even when not being actively used. Anyways.
“Pointed Gold, the author of that scroll, belongs to one of those two factions of shadowcasters. The good one- the pro-Cadence faction, who have been fighting to protect the Crystal Kingdom’s new royal family since Sombra’s defeat. The other faction is the pro-Sombra faction, the real threat. They’re not afraid to use dark magic as well, so they’re stronger.
“Both sides know of this imbalance. They also know that, if they go out into the open, Cadence and her forces will attack them.” Sigh. “If the Sombra faction goes into the open, they know the Cadence faction will also attack them- and they will be defeated. However, they also know that if they fight either army independently, they will win.”
Cadence blinks. “Meaning, we need to team up with the good faction to defeat the bad.”
Twilight nods faintly.
“Exactly,” Rainbow states, turning to Cadence. “Those magic traces Luna’s Night Guards detected- those were actually left intentionally by the good faction. Because if the war between the two factions goes on unchecked for much longer, there won’t be enough of the good left to save us from a frontal assault on the castle.”
Cadence tilts her head. “Then why draw our attention to themselves?”
She shakes her head. “They weren’t. They were drawing your attention to the presence of shadowcasters in the city, with the hopes of making the place more dangerous for the same without the Sombra faction knowing. Since they knew, they went into hiding as soon as they confirmed their traces were seen, but didn’t lower their detection matrices against the Sombra faction’s attacks. The idea being that, at least until they figured out what was going on, many more Sombra-faction casters would be caught than Cadence-faction casters, allowing them to even the fight and potentially make it a clean, silent win. After which, of course, they’d ‘return’ to non-shadowcasting normal lives.”
“Then- then!” Twilight stammers, but doesn’t get any further.
“So this whole scare is a set of loyal subjects that are using powers that look like illegal powers, trying to alert me of a set of non-loyal subjects using the same?”
“Yeah. Though the non-loyals aren’t afraid to use the actual illegal powers.”
“And Twilight’s ridiculous search patterns-!”
“HEY!”
“-haven’t exactly helped, have they?”
Shake. “The Sombra-faction has seen it, and figured out what’s going on.”
“How can we remedy that?”
“With cooperation with the Cadence faction. If we slowly ‘disappear’ them into the Castle, then reduce the search efforts to standard post-disaster scans- as if we think we’ve got them all and just want to make sure… They’ll probably think it’s safe to come back out. And if the Cadence faction left in the open is virtually- or completely- nill, they’ll probably stage an attack on the Castle… without having a clue that both their enemies have teamed up.” She looks up from the diagram she’d just made on the back of Twilight’s planning parchment. “Of course, neither party has a clue who I am.”
“Really?” Twilight asks. “Doesn’t everypony that reads the news know?”
She shakes her head. “They know who I pretend to be, my facade, sure. But they don’t know that I actually am Sombra’s daughter.”
Silence scatters through the room. A quill falling on a piece of parchment would be loud.
She nods. “Yeah. Strongest shadowcaster in the world for over a thousand years.” She sighs. “Not that hard to immortalize one’s self with that much power.” She glances up at Cadence. “I still can’t figure out how I ended up so strong when Sombra wasn’t a shadowcaster at all- everything he did was dark magic- and his wife, my mom, was a weak shadowcaster.”
“But-! But-!” Twilight begins.
“Ask anypony in the city,” she continues, turning to Twilight. “They’ll tell you Sombra’s daughter was a pegasus, not a unicorn. They’ll also tell you about my original colors- terrible colors- and a rumor that he kept her disguised around the castle.” Sigh, and she looks at Cadence. “That’s our trump card. Because I’m so strong, magic- light, shadow, dark, whatever- is useless against me. If the Sombra faction comes into the open, I’m plenty strong enough to crush them all in one fell swoop.”
“Well that sounds easy,” Shining Armor states.
She nods. “Yeah, but I’d rather not reveal myself to the world. I mean, imagine the repercussions! I’d never get another peaceful nap again! So, I have a different idea, that should be no more dangerous for anypony involved.” She looks at Twilight again. “I already know Twilight has shadowcasting abilities. If she didn’t, her use of dark magic during the fight with Sombra and retrieval of the Crystal Heart would have corrupted her bad enough for the Element of Magic to refuse her long ago- she messed up one of her spells.” Sigh. “Yeah, I felt it. I also know that the normally self-feeding corruptive influence of that spell residue was being slowly but soundly defeated by her own shadowcasting abilities.
“So my plan is thus. While we do the good-faction-recall thing, I want to find out who, out of all present- Elements, royalty, even the Guard, if you like- has shadowcasting abilities, and how strong they are. Those who are capable, we train up to at least tell the difference between shadow and dark magics. That’s pretty easy, so nothing we can’t do in a day or two. Then, when I designed the Chromatic Reassignment Treatment, I based it on the same spell I used to alter my own colors.
“It’s been over three hundred years since I last shadowcasted, so I’ve forgotten a few things... but that spell matrix contains everything necessary for a shadowcaster to completely eliminate both the active casting signature and all traces… which is not possible with dark magic.” She grins up at Twilight. “So, with Twilight’s help, I’ll pull that detail back out of the spell, probably teach her some combat magic- she’s a quick study, shouldn’t be too hard- and be ready whenever the Sombra faction goes openly hostile.”
“Wait, you designed that?” Twilight asks.
“Yep,” she nods. “Just a few months after Sombra died. Didn’t have reason to share it- neither was it safe to do so- until much, much later, though.”