Splitting aMid the Night

Midnight walked across Ponyville's streets on a bright, sunny day. She had many methods of going faster, but she was in no hurry. She had rosen so early, actually, that she had decided a small detour was the right thing to do so that she could take in the marvellous nature around Ponyville. Right as she passed close to the Everfree Forest, a tan pegasus with red mane stumbled out of it, looking slightly confused.

Is that Shimmer? Better quickly get away. No, wait, it's a stallion. Ha, silly me.

He apparently spotted Midnight and started moving towards her. Running away still felt like a valid option, but the stallion didn't look like he meant her any harm, so Midnight stood still and watched him get close. Surely, he had just misflown and needed directions to get back to Cloudsdale, which she would gladly provide.

"Hello? Can I help you?" she asked, mind set on making this the first pony who would get to meet nice Midnight.

"Just whom I've been looking for, which is little surprising seeing as I conveniently placed our appearances together."

Being nice to ponies was significantly harder when they behaved as weirdly as this one, Midnight found. She inspected the stallion, finding few more details other than his cutie mark, which was a tear-shaped drop of blood. "Uh, yeah. Well, my name is..."

"Let's just get past this outdated protocol, shall we? You're Midnight, I know you. As for me, it's technically Ignatius Verne, but most just call me IV for short. To be honest, there's little you can directly help me with. I'd just like to get to know you better."

Midnight was feeling more and more weirded out with every second in his company. "O-kay. So, what do you wanna talk about?"

"Odd. By this point, they're usually already in love with you. Oh, my little Midnight, I can see you struggle to keep up your personal utopia you built with Twilight's help while I threaten to pull you back into the dark place you know you belong into. This world is broken, give in. Anyway, moving on to something that will just so keep you with me, let's follow standard pony discussion points and exchange information about our special talents."

IV certainly was somepony to get used to, but Midnight kept going. Knowing how things always ran, he would probably be important for her later and turn out to be a quite lovable pony. " I can teleport around really well and cure ponies of stuff, I guess. Really boring, if you think about it. So what's yours? Bleeding? Oh, I can help you with that!" Midnight moved in on him, mind solely on the matter, and began to look IV's body over for any wounds. So far not finding any, she rubbed a hoof on his flank to see if the mark on it may be actual blood.

"As much as I appreciate that we're friends after all, I'd like to ask that you would kindly take your hooves off of that plot. Coincidentally, you are right, even though you're wrong. You see, I'm a personality snatch. No, not a Changeling, though I wouldn't mind getting to feed on your love either. When I want to know what a pony I know is thinking, it just takes a bit of concentration and, tada, I'm them." Apparently to prove his point, IV briefly shut his eyes in concentration. "Surely, you'd want to know if I just did anything at all. I redirect your attention towards my rump, where you will find a mark familiar to you has appeared. You'll want to ask how in Equestria this is possible, but, judging by my previous behavior, expect that I'll take the question out of you before you can even ask, so you wait for me to say it. However, assuming that I know what you're thinking, you'll find that I won't keep talking, and ask. However, since that'd be boring, I'll just take the liberty of answering before you can ask. The point is, as if I knew. Somehow, it just works. Empty your mind and the rest will follow, even if it's not your own rest."

"Uh, okay. So, if you can imitate ponies..."

IV cut her off, "No, I won't impersonate Sparkle for you. Do you really need another pers- pony to tell you that she won't have any objections once you finally get a bloody move on?"

"The perfect opportunity will come and I will be ready."

"You are patient, of course. Want to know what my past has taught me? There may be a perfect opportunity for everything, but you need to be ready to take acceptable ones as well such as not to lose everything when you miss the perfect one. If you're approached by a five-headed hydra that wants to give you brochures about how to cure sugar addiction, you would run at the first opportunity, right? Speaking of which, you will now fall in love with me for some random, pulled-from-plot reason."

Examining him closer, Midnight had to admit that he didn't look too shabby. Perhaps they'd be able to work something out. Just as a bridge solution until she could claim Sparkle. After all, everypony needs some love from time to time.

"Ha, always works. Now, my darling, what should we do?" IV said.

Midnight tried to respond that it would probably be quite enjoyable in the park, but found herself unable to, no sound coming out of her no matter how hard she tried. Square bits of the world around her began to break off and fly into the sky.

Witnessing this, IV looked more annoyed than distressed or anything. "Of course. I was so close to see the tail end of this. Oh, darn you, past me."

Midnight didn't understand a thing anymore. She tried to get to IV's side, to reach out for him, but before she could, the entire world, including her, shattered into squares and fell.

Next thing she knew, Midnight was lying in fetal position on something soft. Somewhere on her back, cold tried to assault her, but it was powerless against the warmth surrounding most of her body. She blinked and made out the color blue in most of her vision, except for a blurred line of pink on the right end. After a few seconds, she had managed to secure herself in this world enough to be able to draw conclusions from what she saw. She had been tossing and turning in her sleep so that the blanket now covered only half of her. She got up wit ha sigh. She had no idea how late it was, perhaps she had missed her alarm, but she couldn't really care either. According to the height of the Sun, or lack thereof, and what her alarm clock said, she had actually woken up ahead of time. When she looked for her brush, she found it being offered to her by her own hoof. While that'd be normal if she didn't have the habit of using magic for everything, what unnerved her about this fact was that the hoof wasn't connected to her body. Rather, it went to another one of her kind, which sat in the corner.

"What a pleasant, unexpected surprise. And by pleasant I mean not at all pleasant!" Midnight commented on the matter.

"I just thought I'd come by and check on you. You know, making sure you don't deviate to the wrong side of the river, like some others. Nice work not caring about hallucinations, by the way." The illusion moved its lips, but Midnight could hear what it said directly inside of her head.

"Did I fool you, filly?"

"Ha. Ha. Ha. I wasn't the one who thought up yesternight. Maybe she's not the one for you after all."

"Why do I even bother talking to you? Who even cares if she's a mare or not? I'd gladly take a stallion version of her. That'd even be beneficial, we could... hey, stop planting those thoughts in me. Just because I could, does that mean I have to think about it all the time?"

"Yeah, it actually does. That's a hardwire not even I could help you with, even if I wanted. Two point four, remember that."

For some reason, Midnight felt herself blush when this topic came up. Even though it was obvious that Noon also knew it if she had noticed it, she hoped she wouldn't. "I'd like to honorably claim those of others that I save."

"Wouldn't push your number below two in any case, though." Noon grinned at how she had once again managed to catch Midnight without any defenses. "Will it be you or Sparkle? Or perhaps both?"

Midnight regained control of herself and turned away, now facing the window. "Should you have nothing to contribute, begone, fiend."

"Would you kindly face me while denying my true origin?" Noon snapped. Just to see what would follow, Midnight obeyed. "That's better. As it would happen, I do. Angels do not descend for nothing."

"So? What is it?"

Noon resumed a serious expression. "Darkness is coming. Through innocent blood, the fires of Tartauros will be relit."

Midnight had no way to hide her confusion, so she didn't even try. "Does this come with an explanation what the hay it means?"

"No, not really. They told me to deliver this message, nothing else."

"Well," Midnight said, assuming the grin Noon had had earlier for own use, "then I'd better work on losing my innocence and maybe take Sparkle's in the process. Then we'd be safe, right?"

"You're impossible," Noon said with a frown before spontaneously combusting and rapidly burning into ash. From the ash pile, after the flames had died down, her head rose again like a phoenix. "Oh yeah, make sure to prepare plenty of coffee. They'll need it," it spoke before finally going down again, the pile vanishing shortly after.

Walking down the hall, Midnight suddenly felt she needed to test a suspicion, secretly hoping she wouldn't have to confirm it. Unluckily, she had to quickly avert her eyes and go down into the kitchen to make breakfast when Pegasus Eye revealed three times as many essences in Vinyl Scratch's room as there should be. What hurt her most wasn't the sight itself, however. Rather, it was a desire she felt somewhere deep down in herself to raise the multiplicator to four. It was going to be one of those long days again. She sighed once more and went to do what she had to do