Dark Side
"Hello, dear reader. You may wonder how this notebook got where you have undoubtedly found it, or who I am. Rest assured, for I will answer both questions shortly. Before that however, I must ask you to bury my bones, if you can find them. If you do, you will have my eternal gratitude.” you read the first few lines of the manuscript you found.
At first, you only wanted to expand your basement to get a little more room for your massive collection of enchanted comic books... This, however, has been completely forgotten by you now. The smell that hit you after breaking down the first wall of your Ponyville home's basement, was enough to tell you that something was up.
Never, in your wildest dreams, you would have imagined to find what you did in the end though. Just behind the wall of the basement of the house you grew up in, you found a small room that smells of rot and decay. Magical lanterns still cut through the darkness with their feeble glow, even after all the time this room must have been sealed up.
You shudder a little as you think about the Pony's last request. His remains lay at your hooves, while his diary is floating next to your head. From the look of it, the dead Pony was an Earthpony stallion, but you can't make out any other features that could confirm this. For all you know, it could just as well have been a Pegasus mare with the habit of wearing a stallions attire.
This thought gives you a little pause, and you bend your neck to take a look at the simple fabric of the corpses shirt... or what is left of it.
But what should you do? Usually, you would go out and get the authorities involved, but you are not so sure about that anymore. What if somepony got the wrong idea about this? Could it have been that your own parents or grandparents knew about this? Could it be that they were even a part of it?
You shake your head to clear it. Once more, your glance falls upon the slightly rotted notebook in your magic. Maybe, if you read it, you will learn what exactly happened here. As much as you want to grant this Pony his last wish, you don't want to ruin your parents reputation. Hay, your family's reputation! With this thought in mind, you trot back into your basement and pull over one of the old garden chairs your father always wanted to paint, but never got around to it until his death a year ago. A heavy feeling befalls you, as you float the notebook in front of you and start reading it past the first paragraph...
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My name is True Sight. My special talent is... or was, for I am most likely not alive anymore if anypony other than myself is reading this... the gift of truth. The open eye on my flanks symbolized that talent, and I could always tell if somepony was lying to me.
While this might be a very desirable talent to have, I can tell you that it brought me nothing but grief. Suddenly I was able to see secrets and lies all around me, driven by an unstoppable to expose them. It brought me fame and wealth, for it opened the doors to the Equestrian Police force for me. No case was too hard, no clue too little. In the end, I always found the culprit.
One day, the crowns of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were stolen from the palace's treasury... As the best officer in the force, I was put on the case...
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You close the book for a moment, deciding that the semi darkness of your basement is not suited to read this story after all. Your nice, brightly lit, living room seems like a much better option all of a sudden.
After making yourself comfortable on your sofa, you continue reading. The next few pages describe how True Sight was summoned to the royal palace in Canterlot, and promised a promotion if he solved the case at hoof. Something had seemed off about the Princesses to him however. Both of them had, as he described it, a dark aura around them that he associated with dark secrets and lies.
This is a shock to you, since you couldn't imagine what kind of dark secret the Princesses could have. Both of them ruled the land with kindness. Not to mention that the yellow press always did its hardest to find out everything about their private lives.
Then, it gets interesting again. True Sight had managed to track down the thief, only to find them dead when he arrived at her hideout.
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The scene before me was one of pure slaughter. The Unicorn mare who, according to my investigations, had tried to sell the crowns to an underground salespony, was all pasted all over the walls of her home. Only one piece of her body was still intact. Her head. Her face was distorted in a grimace of absolute pain.
The investigation team found her hooves in different places of the house, her skin in the kitchen freezer, and her organs in a frying pan on the stove. Some, however, were missing.
Namely: Heart, liver and kidneys.
I assumed that I had interrupted the murderer during their meal, and made my way to the palace to inform the Princesses about this setback. Upon my arrival though, I was surprised to find that the Princesses were wearing their crowns.
They acted strangely when I started to question them about it, and I got the distinct feeling that they were hiding something from me. After about thirty minutes, Princess Luna finally admitted that one of the royal guards had bought the crowns back from some shady Pony in the suburbs of Canterlot.
It didn't fit at all, especially since the Princesses actually ordered me not to investigate any further.
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What? The Princesses not wanting this case solved? Why? Even you start to doubt the immortal rulers of Equestria as you read on. Apparently True Sight ignored the order given to him, and began to look further into the matter.
No amount of questioning the dead mares neighbors revealed anything new however. They hadn't heard any screams, or anypony entering the house. Nor did they see a Pony fleeing from the premises.
You scratch your chin with a hoof, thinking. If the neighbors didn't see anypony, then they had to be invisible, or be able to teleport. Both kinds of spells, you know from personal experience, are hard and not everypony has access to the knowledge on how to master them.
You decide to skip a few pages to get the solution to this mystery early. It is, after all, already getting dark outside, and you want to get this off your shoulders as fast as possible.
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Two months of investigations had not brought me any new revelations, even though I had questioned almost every Pony in Canterlot. One evening, two days ago, I decided to go and speak to the Princesses once more. Maybe their own secret tied in with this.
To my astonishment, I did not encounter any guards as I entered the palace. Not a single Pony was there. Thinking of this as odd, I made my way towards the throne room... What I saw there, was horrible.
The Princesses stood around some kind of magical Glyph on the ground, with a few dozens of the royal guards lying in the middle of it. All of them looked like they were unconscious, while red and black tendrils extended from the Princesses crowns towards them. The first Pony they touched, shriveled up like an old tomato, the stallion opening his mouth in a silent scream, before turning to a pile of dust.
Though shocked, my sense of justice kicked in at that moment, and I charged in without thinking about it any further. Had I any chance to arrest the two most powerful beings in Equestria? No.
So it came as no surprise that both of them laughed at me when I told them that they were arrested, their eyes flashing a sinister red. The struggle that followed was neither long, nor violent. In fact, they subdued me pretty quickly, while still sucking the life out of their guards.
Why they didn't do the same to me, I have no idea. Instead, I was forced to watch as they finished their gruesome ritual. Afterwards, several dark robed Ponies dragged me off to the prison you, my dear reader, have undoubtedly found this notebook in.
They didn't strip me of any of my belongings, which is the only reason I was able to write all of this down for you. I failed in the end, so it is up to you now to expose the Princesses. They are using their guards, and other Ponies to prolong their lives, I'm sure of it. This can not be allowed to continue. Please, my dear reader... do something about....
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The light in your living room suddenly cuts out, as you are reading the last paragraph in the notebook. Jumping up, you look around in the sudden darkness. Your eyes are adjusting to the shadows painfully slow, and even your magic is failing you. No light spell emerges from your horn, no matter how hard you try. It doesn't even begin to glow, and you realize the all the magic has been sucked out of the air.
From one moment to another, you feel a sharp and burning pain in your side. Something hot and wet runs down your side, as two pairs of red eyes open up in the darkness above you...
For the next several hours, you really wish you had listened to your father, back when he had told you your passion for reading would get you in trouble one day....