Persona: Canterlot's Dark Hour

6th of April

The blue-maned stallion stepped off of the train with his headphones planted firmly on his head blasting music into his ears. He sighed openly, he had been on a long trip to get here but he’d made it. He had arrived in Canterlot.

He walked slowly out of the train station where there were a few ponies dotted around but it was too late for there to be many still awake. The clock on his m-pony-3 player read 23:58. He continued walking for a little under two minutes and then he noticed a strange green light covering everything. He looked at the floor and noticed that where rain water had once been there were now pools of a deep red liquid which strongly resembled blood.

It was then that he realised the music in his headphones had stopped, the lights on the street had also gone out and nopony was around. But for some reason there were a bunch of coffin-like objects littering the streets. He had never been awake this late before but somehow he knew this wasn’t a normal thing to happen.

He decided to continue on to the dorm he had been told to go to, this was too much for him to figure out by himself. Making his way through the streets he noticed the distinct lack of ponies. Even homeless ones. He could have just blamed the time of night they were in but even then there were usually a few ponies who worked the night shift out and about.

He found the building he was looking for and upon not seeing anything he could ring or knock on to allow him in he just walked directly through the front door. Upon entering he saw that no one was awake. Not surprising. This was a highschool dorm after all.

“Hello,” he heard from behind him. He turned around and noticed a stallion, a Pegasus like himself, stood behind the counter. “you’re quite late aren’t you? You don’t want to get caught out this late at night.” The strange Pegasus was of a pale white coloured coat and had a pitch black mane; oddly enough he had no cutie mark He smiled and gestured down with his eyes. The stallion looked down and noticed a sheet of paper on a clip board “It’s a contract. Don’t worry, all it says is that you’ll take responsibility for your actions. Y’know, the usual stuff.”

He handed the stallion a quill. It was hard to believe that with the advancement of so much technology that they were still using old feathers to write with. The stallion took the quill and wrote his name on the contract. Mist Twister.

The mysterious Pegasus took the contract “Nopony can escape time. It delivers us all to the same end. You can’t plug your ears and cover your eyes,” The contract suddenly vanished from his hooves “and so it begins.” With that a strange darkness covered the stallion and when it cleared away again he was gone!

Mist Twister stood there baffled before he was interrupted from his thoughts “Who’s there!?” the voice came from his far left. He turned to see a pink mare with a brown mane and what appears to be a bow as a cutie mark. She appeared to be wearing a choker with a heart on it… and she was holding a gun.

Ten Minutes Earlier

Sugar Petal held the gun in her hooves with the barrel planted directly against her head. She was nervous but she had to learn to do it eventually. It felt like suicide and the image didn’t help with that but she knew it wasn’t going to kill her.

She was still afraid though. Her sweat began dripping onto the floor of the mare’s bathroom and the puddle was growing with each passing second. It had to be done. If she was going to be of any use to anypony then she was going to have to do it.

       Just as she was finding the will to try again she heard the front door of the dorm open and close. That was odd. Everypony was already inside weren’t they?

She waited a few minutes before standing up and finding the courage to go outside and look. Could it be one of them? If it was then she would have no choice but to do it. She exited the bathroom and called out “Who’s there!?”

Upon looking she saw a pale yellow Pegasus stallion with a dark blue mane, it covered his eye on the right side. His cutie mark showed a shield of some sort. What could that represent?

It didn’t matter. The point was that he was here and he shouldn’t be so he was either one of them or he was an intruder of some other intent. Sugar raised the gun towards him and was about to pull the tri…

The lights of the dorm snapped on, shocking Mist out of his calm stance. Despite the gun he had remained incredibly calm throughout the situation and even made the observation that she was rather pretty. The mare turned her head and visibly calmed down. Mist looked past her and saw quite a beautiful mare with a long red mane and a white coat, her cutie mark was of a fencing sword.

Thinking on it he found it quite odd that both of them had some kind of weapon as a cutie mark but then again his was a shield so he pretty much completed the pattern.

The new mare stepped forwards, she was wearing a saddle bag and upon closer inspection he could see that she had a gun strapped to it. It was just one weird thing after another tonight.

“I didn’t think you’d arrive so late.” She said. “My name is Moonlight Shimmer. I am one of the students who lives in this dorm.”

The brunette mare looked confused “Who’s he?” she asked.

“He is a transfer student. It was a last minute decision to assign him here. Don’t worry, he’ll eventually be moved to a room in the boys’ dorm.”

The other mare looked a little worried no “Is it okay for him to be here?”

“We’ll see.” Moonlight replied. Mist couldn’t help but think she was hinting at something. “Anyway I think introductions are in order. Sugar this is Mist Twister. Mist this is Sugar Petal.”

“…Hey.” She said cautiously.

Mist decided to ignore the guns, thinking it better not to ask. “It’s nice to meet you.” He greeted softly.

The softness of his voice took both of the mare aback. It was clear that he didn’t talk that much, then again judging from the file Moonlight had been given on him she wasn’t surprised.

Mist noticed that they both had red bands on their forelegs. The band had the word SEES printed on it. Was this some sort of club dorm?

“It’s nice to meet you too.” Sugar finally said back.

Moonlight spoke up “Well since you arrived so late I’m assuming you’ll be needing some rest. We’ve moved all of your things to a room at the end of the hallway on the second floor.”

“I’ll show you,” Sugar said “just follow me.” She had a warm smile on her face which was odd considering the circumstances of their meeting. She was probably just being friendly.

They walked up the stairs to the second floor where Sugar took a right and Mist followed, they then walked all the way to the end of the hallway and stopped outside a room on the right side. It wasn’t a very eye-catching hallway, it had a green carpet with an assortment of white rectangles on it and a grey wall.

“This should be pretty easy to remember huh? Since its right at the end of the hall.” She said enthusiastically. “Oh but don’t lose your key or you’ll never here the end of it. So, any questions?”

“What’s that contract for?” Mist asked. He was curious about that.

“What contract?” Sugar didn’t appear to know what he was talking about. A thought occurred to her “Hey, can I ask you something?” He simply nodded. “On the way here from the station was everything… okay?”

He wanted to mention the strange things outside but thought he was probably hallucinating from the lack of sleep. He had signed a non-existent contract after all. “Yeah.”

“Never mind then.” She said dismissively. “Goodnight.” She then walked away and back down the stairs.

Mist used his key and entered his new bedroom. They had indeed brought all of his stuff here from his old dorm. They had also been considerate enough to make the bed for him which was good since he didn’t have the energy to do it himself. He removed his m-pony-3 player, put it on the counter next to the bed and lay down. He fell asleep almost instantly.