Prologue
“Have you ever wondered what happens after?”
“… So you must make sure that you try and make some friends okay Jack?” I heard a voice say. I opened my eyes and turned to the source of the voice. A large white mare was sitting near me with a multicolored flowing mane and tail, with a bright sun cutie mark. She had on golden horseshoes and a golden tiara. I felt a breeze and then realized that we were on a golden chariot being pulled through the sky by two pegasi. We were headed to what looked like a large mountain off in the distance.
“Princess Celestia,” I heard one of the guards call out, “We’re nearing the castle.”
“Your name will now be known as Midnight Song,” the white mare continued after she acknowledged the armored Pegasus. “And you will live in Canterlot. You are allowed to do as you please, as long as you don’t cause trouble.” Celestia said almost with a chuckle. “But you must remember to wake up.” I drew my head back in surprise, the calm, soothing voice of Celestia had abruptly become loud and almost seem to have a tinge of worry.
“Midnight you need to wake up.” I heard the voice again.
*******
I awoke from my lucid dream in a small bed being shaken by Mystic Melody yelling something to me about being late for something; I wasn’t awake enough to process what she was saying to me. I blinked my eyes open to see the ticked off yellow bat pony, with long green hair that had slightly covered one of her eyes, on her flank she bore a microphone, who was impatiently tapping her hoof waiting for me to get up.
“Come on,” she said as I started to get out of bed, “we need to be ready for our performance in thirty minutes and you haven’t even woken up yet and … and … you were having that dream again weren’t you?” Mystic’s angry face turned to one of worry and sadness and the mention of the dream.
“Is it that easy to notice?” I asked as I started to get up and wipe the sleepiness from my eyes.
“Not necessarily, I was just asking and you gave me the answer I needed.” She gave a weak smile for a second that almost immediately changed back to its former serious look. “Now enough of that we need to hurry Power Chord is waiting outside for us, and you know how he hates to wait on us.”
“Almost too well,” I said as I started for the bathroom to get ready. “I still remember the time he left us in Las Pegasus after our gig and we had to wait an hour until he finally decided to turn the wagon around and get us.” I laughed as I grabbed my brush with my hoof and brushed my two-toned blue hair and tail out of its disarray and into a more organized mess. I looked at myself in the mirror to see if anything else was out of place and then stepped back out of the bathroom.
“Did you even do anything?” Mystic asked, as she looked me up and down. The normally happy bat pony in front of me was clearly in distraught which, for the life of me, I couldn’t quite understand.
“You forgot didn’t you?” she asked reading my thoughts. “Ugh! This morning is the Summer Sun Celebration and tonight we have the most important gig that The Dark Return will ever play because the big producer is going to be there. You know, Audio Jack?” She said patronizing my memory. “So I just want us to look good.”
“Yes,” a green-coated unicorn with short dark blue hair and a simple guitar cutie mark said as he walked into my room. “Let’s have a well dressed rock band. Shall we also have a nice string quartet open up for us? Oh I know, maybe we’ll serve the audience tea and crumpets too.”
“Oh come off it Power Chord you know what I mean by looking good.” Mystic said to the unicorn. I lazily waved to him, still half asleep, I yawned and stretched out my wings to get rid of the stiffness.
“So are you two ready now or am I going to have to go without you, again?” Power Chord said as he waved back.
“Yeah, we’re ready.” Mystic said.
“Then let’s get our flanks in gear and set up.” Power Chord said as he began to walk back outside. Mystic Melody and I followed suite as we began our walk to the bar. Outside I could see the full moon and the stars shining bright. There was a gentle breeze blowing in my mane, it was all nice. Something didn’t feel right about it all though, almost as if something bad was about to happen tonight. I shook my head throwing the thought out of my head. What am I thinking? This was going to be a good night, we will play in front of lots of ponies, one being Audio Jack, and are contracted to make records then we will become famous. I caught up with Mystic and continued on walking next to her as Power Chord led the way, mumbling something about us running late.
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Questions, comments, is your cutie mark telling you to be an editor and you want to fulfill that destiny? Then email me at midnight.song960@gmail.com
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is copyrighted by Hasbro, Inc.
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Chapter 1
“Quick, someone please, he needs help!”
I was born on the nine hundred eighty second year of the singular rule of Celestia. I am eighteen years old. I earned my cutie mark at the age of six. My mark is a musical note. I was raised in Canterlot by my parents who both passed away about three years ago. My name is Midnight Song; I am the drummer in a rock band called The Dark Return. My friend Power Chord is the guitarist, and Mystic Melody is our vocalist. We don’t have a set piano player because no pony has ever wanted or even been able to stay in the band. Mystic and I are both bat ponies while Power Chord is a unicorn, since they are the only ones who can effectively play a guitar. Tonight we have a gig down at Soda Jerk’s outside bar and grill, where the famous record producer Audio Jack is. It’s been Mystic’s dream to get a record produced by us.
*****
“… Testing,” Mystic, said into the microphone in front of her. “Testing, one, two, three. Can you hear me back there Power Chord?”
“I can hear you just fine Mystic,” Power Chord said as he started to return to the stage walking over to me. “Have you finished setting up your drums the way you like them?”
Soda Jerk’s outside bar and grill was a simple outdoors (duh) bar that was able to hold about fifty ponies at all of the tables. The entire bar was surrounded by a white picketed fence with a gate at the front.
“Just about,” I said as I moved one of the drums over a little. “There we go, I’m set.” I picked up my drumsticks with my hooves and tested to see how far away each drum was while I sat down on the stool. “What about you?”
“Yep, everything is ready. Hey, um, piano guy are you set up?” The pony that was doing the keyboards looked to Power Chord and nodded. Our keyboardist tonight was a rather quiet stallion with an green stallion pegasus with a nicely kept red mane and tail and a treble cleft, I think his name was something like Ivory Keys or something close to that, but he did his part without complaint so that was enough for me.
“Well if everything is ready, then you could start playing because the customers are here.” I heard Soda Jerk say as he walked up to us. Soda Jerk was an orange stallion earth pony with short, rustled blonde mane and tail and a glass mug filled with foaming cider. I looked up and saw several ponies walk in through the gate.
“Hello everypony!” Mystic yelled into the microphone. “We are The Dark Return and we are going to play some music for you!” the crowd got to their tables and started to stare at us with anticipation.
“One,” I yelled as I raised my drumsticks into the air and started to beat them together in synch with my words. “Two, one, two, three, four.” I brought my drumsticks down on the drums and started to play. Power Chord joined in a beat or two after me and then we began playing.
****
I’ll be honest now, I never really pay much attention to what’s going on whenever we play, or I go into another world whenever we play music. Bottom line, I never remember what happens during our concerts or practice sessions. After we finished the performance, however, I do remember the audience all stomping their hooves on the tables and ground in appreciation.
As we got off stage for the next group to get on, a red Pegasus mare with a straight black mane and tail who had a record as a cutie mark walked up to us from the crowd. “Hey,” she said with a light voice. “I’m Audio Jack, but you probably already know that, if you don’t mind I would like to have a word with you three.”
“A… Audio Jack wants to talk with us?” Mystic said pressing her hooves to her face trying her best at suppressing the unbelievable amount of joy she had. “She wants to talk with us? Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” I jumped over to Mystic and grabbed her as she began to faint.
“So I guess that’s a yes then?” Audio said giggling. We nodded our heads. “Then come over here.” We followed Audio Jack over to her table. “I am going to keep this simple; I think that you guys have a lot of talent and could go far. However, I think that you need to get some more help perfecting little problems you have in your music. So what I plan to do is give you a recording contract, if you go to lessons to get better as well.”
“So you’ll let us make a record if we go to some music classes?” Power Chord said a little perplexed.
“Yes, the classes will be short, not even a week. You will have perfected your abilities and be even better. So what do you say, Do we have a deal?” Audio slid a piece of paper in front of us with a pen with her hoof. I thought that Mystic was going to lose it when she saw the contract she was practically bouncing off the ground.
“Let me look over this real quick.” Power Chord used his magic to pick up the contract and started skimming through it for a while, then he set the paper down and picked up the pen with his magic and signed it. He then used his magic to give the paper to Mystic and me and we both signed it as well. Audio Jack then took the paper and put it into a brief case that had been sitting on the ground next to her.
“Thank you for your time, show up at my office next week and we’ll talk about your classes and recording.” Audio said. She then picked up the brief case with her teeth and walked off. The second that Audio Jack was out of sight Mystic jumped into the air and soared about screaming with delight.
*****
“So what do you want to do now?” I asked Mystic. About an hour had passed since our meeting with Audio Jack and Power Chord said that he had to get home, saying something about it being late. Mystic and I were still at the bar sitting at a table. Mystic was finally starting to calm down from her outburst of joy earlier.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I was thinking we could go and see if there was anypony who could tell us about that dream you keep having.”
“You know that only Princess Luna is able to go into somepony’s dreams.” I said as I looked up at the moon. The seal on the moon depicted a unicorn mare, reminding us what happened to Luna all those years ago. I had always liked looking at the moon, and had always wondered what it looked like without that seal there. As I stared up at the moon, I happened to notice something.
“Hey, were the stars always that close to the moon?” I asked, pointing at the moon with one hoof.
“What do you mean?” Mystic Melody replied, tilting her head slightly in confusion.
“Those four stars around the moon, it almost looks like they’re getting closer to the moon.” Mystic looked up to the moon and tried to see what I was telling her.
“I think you’re just seeing things Midnight.” She looked back at me with a shrug. I continued to watch the moon and it almost did seem like the stars were getting closer. “… Midnight… Equestria to Midnight, hello?”
I shook my head and looked back to Mystic. “Sorry, I must have zoned out, what is it?”
“Soda is asking if you want anything.”
“Oh, no thank you,” I turned to see Soda Jerk standing next to me. “I’m not hungry right now.”
“Oh, I insist,” Soda, replied. “It’s on the house, after the show you gave I think that I should repay you at least through a meal.”
“… Okay,” I said, “I’ll have a salad then please, with a cider.” Soda Jerk then walked off yelling something to the ponies in the kitchen.
*****
“You know what I wish?” I asked Mystic. We had left the bar and gone off to a field of soft grass and were laying down staring up at the stars.
“What?” Mystic said not looking away from the sky.
“I wish that Princess Luna was back, so then I could find out why I constantly keep having the same dream.”
“You know that Luna is Nightmare Moon right now, and if she were to come back then she wouldn’t even care for you. Heck, she’d probably kill you for asking her to do such a stupid thing.”
“Maybe, but what if she comes back and gets cured of her sickness, or whatever it is that caused her to do what she did? Then I could probably talk to her.”
“I hope so; I mean how long have you been having that dream anyway?”
“About…” I started to think how long I had been having that dream. How long was it? It felt like I had been having that dream for forever now, but when I started to think about it I couldn’t remember at all. “… I don’t know how long actually. It just feels like it has been quite a long time.”
“Maybe it has something to do with what happened to your parents?” Mystic said hopefully.
“No, I don’t think so. If my dream had anything to do with my parents then I think I’d be having them in my dream.”
“Yeah, maybe, but you never know it might…” Mystic’s thought was cut off by something. I turned to look at her to try to figure out what was happening.
“What is it?” I said after not finding my answer from looking at the yellow mare. She then pointed a hoof up towards the sky. I looked up to see what she was pointing at and had noticed that the seal on the moon had disappeared. I jumped up to my hooves; I had a mixture of both joy and terror. I was excited because I’d finally be able to find out about my dream; the terror was because I knew that wasn’t Luna who was coming back, but Nightmare Moon.
“Quick, we need to warn Princess Celestia before it’s too late,” I said as I took to the sky towards the castle. “She’s the only one who can to stop this.”
*****
When we finally made it to the castle and past the guards we galloped into the throne room only to find Celestia being magically sent off to who knows where. I looked to see who was doing this to find a tall, black alicorn with a dark swirling mane and tail clad in matching dark armor standing there casting the spell.
“Stop!” I heard Mystic Melody shout. “What have you done to the princess?”
The dark alicorn turned to look at us, her turquoise eyes filled with hatred. “I did what I should have done one thousand years ago. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment at Ponyville.” She said in a dark voice as she began to walk towards us. I felt a deep hatred boil inside of me. No! How could this be happening? I was not about to let this imposter of the princess of the night walk right past me. Besides, I had to get to Luna in there to find out about my dream and my one shot at saving her was just beamed out to some forsaken land or possibly even killed.
Mystic did as the alicorn said, I, however did not move an inch. I crouched into an attack position, growling. The alicorn stopped and began to laugh, “Is he serious?” She asked Mystic who was almost cowering. “Doesn’t he know who I am?”
“Midnight,” Mystic whispered to me shakily. “That’s Nightmare Moon, who knows what she’ll do to you, move before she hurts you.”
“She’s right you know.” Nightmare Moon said wickedly. “I might just kill you, I don’t care, but since you are a subject of mine I’ll give you a warning first.”
“I am not your subject,” I growled at her. “I am a subject to the true ruler of the night, not some pathetic bitch like you.”
“Enough!” Nightmare Moon yelled in anger. She then called on her magic, I felt something wrap around me. Nightmare moon then used her magic to lift me up and throw me out of a nearby window. The next thing I knew I was in unbearable pain from the shards of glass sticking in me and I was falling to my death from an unbelievable height and was unable to open my wings, then I passed out.
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Questions, comments, is your cutie mark telling you to be an editor and you want to fulfill that destiny? Then email me at midnight.song960@gmail.com
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is copyrighted by Hasbro, Inc.
=======================================================
