The Legend of "The Darkside of the Moon"

"I am a God!"

Snap!

Shade removes her hoof from Discord's neck. Blood dripped down her nose and she breathed heavily. Groaning made her ears swivel behind her and she limped slowly to the battered body of Luna. Shade wipes her fetlock across her nose, staining her coat orange. She nudges Luna gently.

"Luna," Shade coughed.

Luna cracked her bruised eye open, "Is he—"

"Yes," Shade smirked.

"My… body…" Luna groaned.

"Luna?" Celestia called out.

Shade turned around and saw the alicorn rise to her shaky hooves slowly. Celestia stepped over the Elements of Harmony and made her way to her sister.

"Thank you, Shade," Celestia smiled faintly.

Shade huffed, "Some artifacts the Elements of Harmony turned out to be. They only petrified his lower body."

"He was extremely powerful," Celestia said.

"He is gone now," Luna voiced.

Cracking sounds made the mares turn to Discord's giant body. The rest of his body began to turn into stone. After his body was stone solid, it exploded into chunks of rock. Shade used the rest of her magic to shield everypony. Shade fell to her knees.

"What is that?" Celestia questioned aloud and walked over to the rubble of Discord. A small black ball of crystal laid in the middle. Celestia picked it up and it was like a marble in her frog. "Curious," she hummed.

Shade got to her hooves and labored to help Luna stand. They walked over to Celestia who paid them no mind.

"The same thing happened to Tirek," Luna spoke.

"Something bigger is behind all of them. Something is powering them and controlling them." Shade added.

"Then we need to get to the bottom of this," Celestia stated and tucked the marble under her wing.

"For once, I agree with you," Shade remarked.

The three mares limped away into the sunset.

Shade opens her eyes and stares at the digital clock on the desk. Two hours had passed since she fell asleep. She sits up in bed and throws the covers off her as she swings her legs over the side of the bed. She runs her fingers through her long, wavy hair.

Shade hates to wait. Shade hates having to trust someone else. Shade knows trouble will hound her every step she takes to retrieve the orb, if the past provides any insight.

She grabs the glass of water on the night stand and quenches her thirst. Sunset Shimmer. Now, there is a woman who takes shit from no one and is straightforward. Shade can admire that—she also notes to stay away from Sunset as much as possible, lest complications arise. She quickly shakes her head to dismis the thought of Sangria.

"To Hell with her," Shade grumbles and gets up out of bed.

Shade opens the door to her room and discovers her doppelgänger standing in front of her.

Nightshade swallows audibly. "I-I w-wasn't doing… um… hello…" she stammers.

"What do you want?"

Nightshade tucks a strand of white hair behind her ear and adjusts her black glasses, "I wanted to get to know more about you…"

"You bring vodka?"

"No?"

"No vodka. No talk," Shade says and pushes past Nightshade.

"Wine?"

Shade stops in her tracks. "I'm going to need a lot of it," she sighs.

Nightshade jogs to catch up to Shade. She motions to Shade to follow her.

"Why do you have so much wine?" Shade slurs as she takes a large gulp of wine from her fourth bottle.

"Papa always sends me it as a gift for my anniversary being employed here," Nightshade answers then takes a sip from her first glass of wine.

"So, he's alive over here…" Shade mumbles. She rests her arms on the back of the swivel chair and lays her head on her arms to stare at Nightshade.

Nightshade, thinking Shade is sufficiently drunk enough to talk about personal things, tests the waters. "Your father is dead?"

"Quite."

"How did he die?"

"No! My turn to be asking question," Shade says in a Russian accent on par with Nightshade's. "Why are you so…" Shade motions a circle around all of Nughtshade with her free hand, "so you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you act like…" Shade stops and sits up to stare into Nightshade's eyes, "You were raped, too?"

Nightshade flinches and turns away from Shade. She fiddles with the pillows on her bed before whispering, "Yes." She chugs her glass and sighs, "I was given up for adoption at the age of three. Papa says he had to give me up so I could be safe. My adoptive parents were nice. Rick… he would touch me when I was ten and when I was twelve he… raped me. Laura hated me. She knew about it and did nothing about it.

"One night, Rick came to my room and took advantage of me and… I… wanted it to end—wanted him to stop. The next morning I woke up in the hospital. Police told me that my parents were murdered and that I was covered in their blood." Nightshade looks back at Shade with wide eyes, "I don't know what happened. I would have dreams of them dying, afterwards. Then a Voice began to talk to me. She told me she would protect me. Two years later, I'm a freshman in high school, people had avoided me because they thought I was cursed an 'Omen'. So when the star running back of the football team invited me to a party I felt happy."

"Stop." Shade says, "I can figure out the rest of the cliché from here." Shade empties the bottle of wine and tosses it on the floor with the others. "I refused to let those bastards have control over my mind. I made them pay. I didn't curl up and sob and wish for them to go away. I made sure they died. I made sure to avenge my father's death.

Nightshade moves to the edge of the bed and whispers, "The Voice, she's real. She manifested herself somehow and began to kill the players who raped me. She spread videos on the Internet showing her killing one, then two, the the videos became live streams, and then she hacked into news programs to broadcast their deaths. After the fourteenth guy died, she introduced herself as 'Justinia' the 'only just and true judge who will rid the world of injustice'. Her cult became a religion in weeks."

"Uh-huh…" Shade grunts and bites the cork off a fifth bottle. "Aren't you full of surprises."

"People still avoid me and I avoid everyone, especially males," Nightshade concludes.

"I don't trust anyone—male or female. Males broke my body and females broke my heart. Fuck them!" Shade smashes the bottle of wine on the ground, "I don't need anyone!" Shade passes out and slumps out of the chair to hit the ground. Luckily, she misses the broken glass.

Nightshade sighs and gets up. She arduously heaves Shade up and struggles to drag her to the bed. Once Shade is in bed, Nightshade covers her twin with a blanket. She cleans up the room before drifting off to sleep herself.

Shade pants and glares at the brown stallion in front of her.

"How could your father think we would not do anything? He is going against the Hierarchy. And now you know what we do to ponies who go against the Hierarchy's wishes," the stallion said.

Shade's heart sank to her stomach. Grey Vulcan hung from the ceiling off the warehouse with his limbs severed and meat hooks held him. His eyes were red with tears and shame. He witnessed all the atrocities done to her and the bastards tortured him.

"I. Will. Kill. You. All." Shade vowed with gnashed teeth.

"That is adorable," the stallion mocked and slaps the filly's cheek.

Shade screams in agony as a rods penetrated and sodomized her. Her limbs are encased in blue magic and snap in half. The pain made her vision go white and she saw a red stallion open up her father's belly with a rusty meat hook before she went into shock.

"Fucking monsters…" Shade murmurs in her sleep.

Nightshade wraps her arms around her twin and holds her close. "Shhhh…" she comforts Shade while petting the top of her head.

"Monsters… all of them…" Shade whimpers as tears roll down her cheeks.