Shards of Darkness

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Pushing Up Blueberries
Chapter 2 - Black Lineage
Chapter 3 – Viva Las Pegasus
Chapter 4 - Embrace of Evil

Chapter 1 - Pushing Up Blueberries

Shards of Darkness

01 - Pushing up Blueberries

“PLEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASE Momma?” begged Fluffy Cotton, having practically adhered herself to her mother’s foreleg. “I wanna play Space Pirate Mito and everypony knows you can’t be a famous pirate without a treasure!”

“Oh, alright, fine,” surrendered the semi-exasperated Blueberry Lemonade. Her leg was falling asleep and at the rate her daughter was refusing to let go, those bills were never going to pay themselves.

“YAAAAYY!” exclaimed the filly.

“Just wait right here while I get some treasure for my little pirate swashbuckler,” Lemonade said, trotting off to her bedroom and pulling out her jewelry box from its hiding spot. Given the last time her daughter had played space pirate pony, she had to be careful with her precious stones. Fortunately, after a recent examination of her stock, Lemonade just so happened to know she had a couple of low quality gems of various kinds. She couldn’t recall where she’d gotten them, but they’d been cheap, if she remembered correctly.

Judging from the joyous expression on her daughter’s face, the fact they were garbage gems was of no consequence. Hopefully she didn’t bury them in a place where she’d lose them since they were, in the end, still gems.

But knowing her daughter? Well, she couldn’t be trusted with valuable gems for a reason. And indeed, later that day when Cotton got bored of fighting Buck Reigns of the Future Police, the borrowed gems were lost to the back yard. And it had started raining so any hope of recovering them was lost.

The real horror, though, was when the next morning, Fluffy came bursting into the master bedroom excitedly exclaiming that the gems had “sprouted into a crystal tree.” She was insistent on that fact despite gems not being seeds, and dragged her mother out to the backyard.

Blueberry Lemonade fainted on the spot at the sight of the new dark crystal tree haphazardly jutting out of most of what had been her carefully manicured backyard, especially given that it had uprooted and ruined her prized blueberry bushes.

It was with concern that Twilight Sparkle noted her companion looked somewhat tired, leaning her head on the ledge of the rail coach’s windows. They’d left Ponyville only an hour ago with half of one left to go, but the normally vociferous unicorn hadn’t really said a word since they’d left.

“So, Coltumbus,” said Twilight, “You ever come through there before?”

“Yeah, I didn’t spend long there but I remember that town,” replied Raspberry Beryl, in a tone that indicated she didn’t want to talk about it. That got Twilight’s attention, namely because of the alarm bells that set off in her head.

Raspberry Beryl was a pony with a checkered past, to put it mildly: one bad enough that when she’d first come to Ponyville, she’d been almost as bad a case of wallflower as Fluttershy, but fearful of making any major connections purely because she wanted to keep herself able to flee when the truth got out. Twilight knew the worst of it: complications from her birth had claimed her mother, driving her father into a drunken abuser who had gone so far as to forcefully remove Razz’s original horn with a hacksaw, which in turn had led to Razz partially succumbing to her dark heritage and gaining a monstrous visage with powers to match. Things had continued to go downhill as she’d killed her father at the same time, her rage from abuse exploding violently, and a trail of destruction in her immediate escape from Lonesome Dove.

Alone, Razz had then been forced to sell counterfeit gems, disguised dark crystal, roaming from town to town while trying to hide her true appearance which had already acquired a reputation of being the “return of King Sombra” as her moment of revenge on her father had granted her a similar curved horn, granting her a potential mastery of the dark forces of the left hoof path, but at the cost of any light-affiliated magic being beyond her ability. Her legacy of mishaps followed her from town to town all the same, culminating in her handiwork accidently nearly claiming the life of Twilight’s beloved assistant and little brother Spike the Dragon when he tried to eat a diamond that was really dark crystal.

It was only through the perseverance of Apple Bloom’s belief that Razz was a good pony at heart that had Razz decide she was done running. And after a major disaster at the national trial where Razz nearly repeated her mistake in a fit of dark magic rage, Apple Bloom once again helped Razz ultimately avoid making things worse for herself as well as everypony else. The final tragedy was when, in the final battle against the resurrected monster known as Fair Vista, she consciously prevented her healing magic from curing the devastating wound sustained to her leg in order to have enough power to finally vanquish the ghostly werewolf for good. But ever since, despite her magical and physical handicaps, Raspberry had proven to finally become strong enough to put her dark past behind her, even going back to Lonesome Dove to bury her dark origin once and for all.

So at this point, after everything had come to light, with Razz even relying on Twilight as a confidant when it had come to going back to Lonesome Dove, Twilight had thought something as comparatively minor as a town freaking out over Razz’s secret being revealed would be almost “who gives a damn anymore” territory between them.

“Before you go and overthink it,” said Razz, interrupting Twilight’s train of thought, “It isn’t anything world-ending like you and the rest of the girls face every other week. It’s just that Coltumbus was one of the first places I went to after everything went to shit in Lonesome Dove.”

Twilight gave her friend a sympathetic smile. “How long ago?”

Razz chuckled. “Pre-dates my meeting Heliodor, that’s how early.” Razz then turned to rub the back of her pet emerald phoenix, who had spent the entire trip asleep and seemed to be nowhere near waking up. “Long story short, I was still getting my ‘act’ together so to speak, particularly my normal guise. Having to keep it up all day is actually great exercise for magical stamina, as I’m sure you’re aware, Twi, but back then I was just a teenage filly trying to understand the dark curse and my ‘gift’ in how I would survive. I wasn’t as strong then as I was even when I first came to Ponyville.”

“So you’re saying your guise dropped in public?” Twi asked, concerned.

“High noon, right in the middle of town. Everypony was screaming, the guard was scrambling to deal with the ‘dark pony’ that was ‘attacking the town’ or something…it was too much like the townsponies back in Lonesome Dove surrounding the burning house. It’s one big personal embarrassment, hence why I’m not too eager to go back.” She sighed, then straightened her posture. “But I guess when you’ve traveled most of Equestria and every time you’ve moved, it’s because of basically that happening all over again and again, you gotta face the music at some point. Especially when you’re the Archmagus of Darkness and dealing with that shit is the only reason you aren’t dead in the eyes of Equestria’s archaic laws.”

“Uh, your title is ‘of Dark Magic’, not ‘Darkness’ for the record.”

“Yeah, I know, but one of the colts – Pipsqueak, I think? The spotted transplant from Trottingham – was talking about how the ‘darkest pony since Nightmare Moon vanquished the evil cloud over Everfree’ and as much as I try to not associate with anything even remotely evil sounding, the moniker gives me a chuckle in private.”

Twilight couldn’t help but giggle. “Well, I’m sure Coltumbus isn’t going to be Lonesome Dove Part 2.”

Razz nodded appreciatively. “Yeah, I don’t think anypony wants to live through that episode again.”

The town of Coltumbus was very much one of those ironically named towns. It had been named after an old Unicornia explorer who was trying to prove the world was shaped like a pear, and that by marching across the Unicornia Plains you would reach the ocean. Turned out, that wasn’t the case, and while future generations of ponies laughed at Coltumbus’ insanity, the name was kept.

As for the town itself, it was centrally located in Equestria and was home to one of the most verdant plains in the land. This gave Coltumbus its other claim to fame: it was one of the few farmlands that didn’t have Apples connected to it. In fact, the Carrot family was the big player here, with Cavendish Carrot, the uncle of Golden Harvest, being the mayor of Coltumbus.

Razz looked around the town as they walked down the main road, away from the train station. “Made running away real easy back then,” commented Razz, who despite being a far more confident-in-herself mare than she had been almost a decade prior, still seemed to walk with trepidation in her form. She was not to be faulted for that, as going down the main route of town to the site of the dark magic outbreak, several of the townsponies looked at her with glares of suspicion. They remembered both her own little mistake years ago, despite nopony having been hurt, as well as the incident at the trial when somepony in particular almost got what he deserved but at a cost Razz ultimately would not pay.

“Well, you were right about Coltumbus being a major farming town,” said Twilight, trotting abreast her friend. “Frankly, I think if she saw the land, Applejack would be completely jealous.”

“Probably,” Razz replied as she looked at the contingent of guards that had come with them Right now, they were divided into two groups, with the first keeping the super energetic foals and fillies from swarming Razz to ask her about that foreign looking bird roosting on her forehead; and the second group doing the actual guard duty for the alicorn princess. Nevermind that Twilight didn’t need the guard protection, given that she was literally magic personified, or the fact that Razz herself was likely the most dangerous individual alive…when she so chose to be.

Putting such cheery thoughts aside, the small delegation soon approached a house blocked off with classic DO NOT CROSS police tape and two of the few officers of the Coltumbus Police Department.

“Ah, finally,” said the older of the two, probably the sergeant if not chief of the CPD. “Chief Copper Badge, at your service. Wasn’t expecting the honor of a princess coming here.”

“I am here by request of Archmagus Beryl,” said Twilight.

“Yes, Ms. Beryl, I remember her,” Badge said with a tinge of disgust. “Pretty sure much of the town knows about her from what she did back then.”

“You mean don a lifelike Nightmare Night costume, get yelled at, and run the hell out of town without harming a fly?” countered Razz right off the cuff. “Because if I did anything worse than that, please let me know.”

“Well, I, uh…”

“Thought so. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

The backyard of Blueberry Lemonade’s home had largely vanished under the massive onyx monstrosity that had erupted from the ground like some kind of evil volcano. Fortunately, whatever happened, or whatever caused its growth, only fueled it very briefly so the only damage was a completely ruined backyard.

“So, you’re the dark magic expert of Equestria?” asked Blueberry. “I know everypony talks about how you apparently freaked them out years ago, but I only moved here five years ago so I don’t know what the hubbub is about.” She cautiously looked over to where her daughter Cotton was playing with Razz’s pet phoenix.

“Frankly, I don’t think the ponies who think they have a problem know what they’re on about, either,” grunted Razz. “But please, how much do you know about what happened here?”

As Blueberry recapped her daughter’s space pirate treasure leading into an inexplicable evil crystal growth, alarm bells immediately went off in Razz’s head. The rain couldn’t have played a part in this, crystals aren’t organic like seeds, she thought, but no question it was the gems. Could they possibly be…?

“Here, let me check something,” said Razz, as both ponies were now standing in the small patch of grass left between the house and the crystal growth. Her horn lit up in purple and green miasma – which Blueberry couldn’t help but flinch at the sight of, let alone be anywhere near – and subsequently the entire crystal tree was encased in a black aura.

“Pardon me for asking, but…” started Lemonade, “why is your horn lighting up in a different color to whatever you’re doing to that abomination?”

“Nature of the beast, so to speak,” explained Razz nonchalantly. “Dark magic is inherently more unstable than normal magic, so the green and purple you’re seeing is raw magic flow – trying to contain that kind of power in as refined a manner as conventional magic is no different than effectively mounting a time bomb on your forehead. At the same time, exposure to such raw power uncontained while simultaneously coursing through a cranial extremity is what makes dark magic so corruptive to the minds of anypony who uses it.”

“Anypony except you, that is,” the other pony noted.

“Yeah, I’m the one exception, given my special talent for it gives me an immunity to its mental corruptive effects…at the cost of being able to do anything else, magic-wise.” A second later, Razz thought to add, “And I swear to Celestia don’t you dare call me a one-trick pony!”

“I, uh, wasn’t even thinking about that.” Blueberry seemed to be willing to just take her daughter and go somewhere else, away from this mess she wanted no part of. “So, uh, what are you doing with the tree?”

Razz then stopped her magic flow, whatever she had been doing evidently now being done. “I was testing how unstable the magic absorption rate is of the crystal mass. Just because it isn’t still growing doesn’t mean it’s dead or even inert. Even for me, the de jure expert of dark magic in Equestria – by virtue of being the only expert in any capacity – I have to be careful around these things. Fortunately, this one only exploded in growth overnight because of the seeded power in whatever spawned it. Essentially this is what happens if you try to contain dark magic as much as light magic.”

“That’s great…can you get rid of it? I’m just glad this happened the week after the town’s flower judging competition had my flowers earn third place.”

Razz nodded. “Yeah, but even with my expertise and Twilight’s high power magic, taking down dark crystal or even outright destroying it is a real hassle. Is there an inn where you and your daughter could stay for tonight? If Twi and I work through the night, we should have your land back to you – the crown will pick up the tab.” She then grimaced as she added, “Can’t say the same for your flowers, though: dark magic really isn’t good for trying to keep plant growth down to a manicured and non-carnivorous state.”

Blueberry blanched, “You’ve actually done that kind of stuff?!”

“Pff, no!” exclaimed Razz. “But as the only one who can read King Sombra’s grimoires and not go insane in the process, let’s just say I’ve read some shit I have no intention of verifying.”

“Ah, right, yes, well…” Blueberry gulped. “I think I’ll take you up on your offer of the free stay at the inn tonight.” Hurriedly, lest she learn more about the left hoof path than a simple mare should know, the mother turned to fetch her child. “Cotton, dear, we need to go pack up!”

That night, the small group of guards stood outside the house, which looked strange with the bright lights radiating from the back. In reality, however, the light was just two super-powerful, magically charged spotlights focused on the crystal tree. Working in unison, Razz was carefully snapping off sections of the mass before letting Twilight destroy them with ample amounts of alicorn powered magic. They’d been at it since that late afternoon, stopping only for a brief dinner and to catch their breath. It was proving to be harder than Razz had thought, citing unforeseen instability in how the crystal had grown in such a rapid manner.

“How does this make it any different than the comparatively ‘controlled’ growth shown simply by being around Sombra when he was still in his shadow form?” asked Twilight, firing off a beam that shattered a ‘branch’ into nothing.

“My best guess is because after a thousand years of sustaining himself in shadow form through dark magic, he pretty much was more dark magic than pony at that point.” Replied Razz, breaking off a large piece of the trunk. “The crystal was therefore more an extension of himself and thus, incidentally, easier for him to control. Even though I can do shadow form, it isn’t the most comfortable feeling in the world and even with my inherited power from him, I still have to actively resist giving into emotions because I know full well what happens when I don’t. Sombra, on the other hoof, embraced the power despite how far it twisted him.”

“Every time you go into detailing your predecessor, I get more and more disgusted at what a monster he was, and how glad I am he’s dead.”

“Oh, please, I’m the one who has to learn about the worst shit he’d done – believe me, there are things I haven’t told you because I don’t want to burden you with the nightmares. Luna has her hooves full dealing with mine sometimes.” After a few more minutes of crystal obliteration, Razz sighed in relief. “Alright, that should do it for the parts of the tree that need obliteration.”

Twilight looked at what was left – the stump. “Uh, Razz? I think we still need to get to the root of the problem here?”

“Of course, but simply destroying this would leave us without knowledge of how to stop it from happening again.”

“How do you know it will happen again?”

In reply, Razz re-ignited her magic and ripped the stump out of the ground. She then rotated it 90 degrees away such that the full bottom of the stump could be seen by the unicorn and the alicorn. There, within the core of the onyx crystalline mass, were several tarnished gemstones of varying kinds. “Because those are some of the earliest counterfeit gems – pure dark crystal with the color change and solid encasement spells layered on top of them. As opposed to my later ones which I’d figured out how to weave in the color change and protective spells inside the crystal, making them impossible to break short of a dragon eating them as we all learned the hard way.”

“Yeah, we already know about your counterfeiting operations back in the day, but you didn’t make them like bombs!”

Razz sighed. “I was desperate for money and didn’t know as much about dark magic as I do now. But looking back on it, selling the early ones was a mistake. The spells on top of the crystals fail over time, even succumbing to weathering like heavy rains. And because the dark crystal wasn’t properly sealed, keeping it bottled up causes a chain reaction where it comes out violently, as I already explained to Blueberry Lemonade earlier.” She pointed at the massive crystalline structure floating in the air. “What we have here, Twilight, is a real situation we need to get on top of if we don’t want ponies thinking Sombra is in the rain or something and crystal exploding everywhere.”

“Yeah, I can see how that’s a problem, but still – why the stump?”

Razz chuckled. “The only original gems of mine we know are now in our possession. If there’s a way to re-seal them, even temporarily before I can properly dispose of them, then this is our only ticket. I’d also suggest that you have a national investigation of ponies with low quality gems they may have gotten on the cheap – try to corral as many as we can before disaster strikes again. Remind me when we get back to the hotel and I’ll give you a list of my aliases, as well as descriptions.”

The alicorn gave her friend an odd look. “Aliases?”

“Yes, not something I’m proud of,” the mulberry unicorn admitted, “but sometimes, when you’re on the run and word gets to the next town, it’s better to be a lime green unicorn with pink hair than my coloration. And believe me, in some places? It’s probably the only reason I’m still alive.”

Chapter 2 - Black Lineage

Around the stroke of midnight, few were up who would have even seen a cloaked pony stealthily enter a dilapidated building on the outskirts of Baltimare. Specifically, the old Blue Ribbon Corn Feed building that had been abandoned when the heart of the town moved closer to the port. To most ponies knowledge, the building was so out of date that only the land had value, but no company seemed interested in the location. As a result, the almost century old brick work was cracked and covered in overgrowth. But the fact there were no missing windows, with an almost even split between ancient cracked panes and suspiciously new, if somewhat dusty, panes went overlooked.

“Praise be to the Shadow,” the cloaked pony whispered into the door, with the presumptive door keeper opening it in response.

“The Shadow be praised,” he answered in response.

With purpose, the arrival trotted through the secretly occupied building, past similar cloaked ponies in prayer near dim candles. Upwards the pony ascended through the building, which more and more seemed to be in good repair and only the exterior facade intentionally left derelict. At the top floor, in what used to be the office of the President of the Blue Ribbon company, a lone stallion was deep in meditation, facing away from the newcomer.

“High Templar Pure Faith,” the pony said, “The first of the prophesied four may have surfaced!”

“Yes, Paladin Shoelace?” Faith replied in a bored tone. He had been following Emerald Joy for years, and yet had always been one step behind. He opened a singular eye to look at a picture on a corkboard, that of a lime-green unicorn with a curly pink mane adorned with a bright blue hairbow. However, her deep rose-hued eyes always gave her away – at least until she finally vanished somewhere south of the Everfree.

“I bring you news on the whereabouts of Emerald Joy,” exclaimed Shoelace. “Look!” The pony then withdrew a folded newspaper, tossing it toward Faith. Faith in turn lit up his horn to pick up the paper and examine it. The headline was some corny way of talking about how dark crystal had erupted from some insignificant pony’s back yard.

“She calls herself Raspberry Beryl now,” the acolyte continued, “and she now is in the employ of the usurping princesses.”

“I care not what she calls herself,” Faith grunted with some disgust. “That mare may be descended from Sombra, as she so claims, but she also withdrew her wrath from succeeding where our master said the true firstborn would.”

“But what if it was just a ploy, to weave herself into the corrupt government to allay suspicion? After all, she was the one sent to investigate this dark magic outbreak, but what pony other than her could possibly have caused it?”

“Well, for one, the Solar Tyrant’s secret daughter,” the templar spat. “There have been rumors of Sunset Shimmer returning. And despite how she is despised by the public, you know as well as I that it was merely a ploy for Baroness Shimmer to be held in reserve as an assassin to do her mistress’ bidding.”

“Even so, sir,” Shoelace argued, “why use that kind of asset for such a matter? No, this is Emerald Joy – or Raspberry Beryl, as she is now known – and it is clear she bows her horn to the Solar Throne, at least publicly. The truth may be another matter.”

“This…is true. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Shoelace. Gather the other faithful – we must have a meeting.”

Shards of Darkness

Chapter 02: Black Lineage

The path felt strangely unfamiliar to Razz as she trotted away from the safety of Ponyville and toward the ruins of Everfree Castle. Not that she needed to fear for her own safety – Heliodor was keeping close watch as he soared above, ready to defend her if need be, which would have been quite a shock as phoenixes were not native to this region of Equestria. If that failed then she herself could effortlessly reveal how she was most likely the scariest and most deadly thing in the forest right now. And for a time, she’d appropriately even lived in the forest in the past. Before being taken in by Ascot and Cashmere at the Traveler’s Retreat, Razz had made a safehouse of sorts amid the ruins of Everfree Castle, a place both to hide temporarily as well as forge her counterfeit gems when she still sold them. She now no longer offered her services as a gem peddler – fact was her art was still concentrated dark magic simply colored brightly, and even when properly “disarmed” they still held inherent risk of being eaten by dragons. But, on occasion she was called upon to whip up something from crystal, usually for use of the alicorns, and so she maintained the old space as a workshop as while she had legal permission to practice dark magic – not like she had a choice – it still freaked ponies out when she generated dark crystal in public.

Though in this case, as she hauled the extracted mass salvaged from Coltumbus, the distance from civilization was necessary in case something went horribly wrong. Despite being sure they were some of her original early counterfeit crystals, Razz still was unsure how volatile they were, and that was really dangerous even for her.

Suddenly, Heliodor swooped down and perched on a nearby tree that grew from the ruins of a small house nearby. He chirped in a concerned tone, gesturing to the castle proper which, since the last time he and his mistress had been there, had scaffolding erected around it.

“Yeah, yeah,” sighed Razz, “the whole Castle Everfree Restoration project , but don’t worry, Heelee. Nopony’s doing work today so we should be okay.”

Another chirp, this one longer and more warbling.

“Yeah, I know – when they turn this whole place into a historical site, we’re going to have to find a new labspace. Twilight’s already looking into getting funding for a new facility for me down by Deep Drop Falls. But that’s still a couple of years away and I need a place to do my work now, so here’s where we are for the nonce.”

She then trotted into her old safehouse, her magic reaching out to grab tools normally used to shape forming crystal. “Now let’s see if I can break this bastard apart to the goodies inside.”

“Well, that was fun,” groaned Twilight. After having helped deal with the weird dark magic incident in Coltumbus, she’d been recalled to Canterlot to take part in diplomatic talks with the minotaurs – an unspecified issue with Princess Cadence had prevented her from attending and thus necessitating Twilight’s involvement. They had been long and involved an unhealthy amount of flexing on part of the minotaurs. At least Iron Will and his wife, Princess Circe, were doing well with a child on the way.

“On the plus side,” said Princess Celestia, “relations with the Kingdom of Minos are at the highest they’ve been in years.” She then blushed as she added, “though I do agree, the flexing was a bit much.”

“I, for one, am starving!” said Princess Luna, followed by her stomach visibly growling. She picked up her pace and trotted off to the royal banquet hall. Celestia and Twilight followed suit, also having grown rather hungry. The castle staff, being only the best in service for their ladies, already had a feast ready and waiting for the alicorns.

“So, Twilight,” said Celestia, walking over to take her seat, horn lit up as she dished up some Horsegarian goulash. “What was the matter in Coltumbus that Razz needed your help with recently?”

Twilight gave both sisters a brief recap of everything that had transpired in Coltumbus, from the overnight appearance of the dark crystal tree to Razz’s theory of how it came to be. Twilight then had to remind Luna exactly how the events played into Razz’s early life, and the lunar alicorn lightly smacked herself in the forehead. “I feel completely humiliated for forgetting that, especially all the times I’ve helped her with her nightmares from those days.”

“it’s moments like those that should remind our faithful ponies that despite all our power, we alicorns are not infallible,” Celestia noted. She took a bite of the food before her before continuing. “But I digress, that’s besides the point here. Did the situation get wrapped up before you came here?”

Twilight shrugged. “Sorta. We took all night but we removed the crystal growth from Blueberry Lemonade’s backyard, so there’s no danger to the town anymore. But Razz took the stump back to her little hideout in the Everfree Castle to examine it and verify that it is just her old handiwork that’s coming back to bite us in the rear and not somepony else.”

“That is still a worrying concern,” voiced Luna. “Does Razz have a ballpark estimate of how many towns may have her defective gems in them?”

The youngest alicorn shook her head. “No, she doesn’t, so far the only clue we have is from what Lemonade told us: the only reason she gave her daughter those specific gems was because she remembered they’d been gotten for cheap and that they looked low-quality, so if her daughter lost them in the dirt – which is exactly what happened – then little in the way of value would have been lost.”

“Did Razz have any ideas on where to proceed, or is she still at square one of that?”

“She suggested that the government come up with ways of ‘examining’ the gems in the possession of everypony. The exact nature of which she didn’t specify but all in all, it would have to be a massive national action coordinating the local police forces, town militias, the Guards, and possibly even the Army and the Navy.”

“That isn’t an option,” sighed Celestia. “Obviously that would put ponies in fear that something is not right with the gems they’re getting wholesale, and a large national investigation would only damage the precious stone economy.”

“What if we just were honest about the matter?” Luna suggested. “Razz clearly understands that at the end of the day, she is at fault for these dangerous counterfeit gems being out there, but at the same time I’m sure she would be okay with such an investigation being concentrated only on gems that were food grade or lower. I’m certainly guilty of worse – we legitimately have an entire national holiday based on how I turned into Nightmare Moon, need I remind you two – and counterfeit gems are as an unrelated note a rising problem as well even without the context of dark magic being involved. We could kill two birds with one stone and we’re the richest country on our planet so reimbursing ponies for any gems we need to take certainly wouldn’t be a problem either.”

“That sounds like an ideal plan,” agreed Celestia, who turned to Twilight. “When you speak to Razz next and see if she’s learned anything, ask her how she feels about it. As Luna pointed out, she’ll most likely have no issue with that idea, but she is a minor princess nonetheless and we need to cover our bases.”

“Of course, Celestia!”

After several hours of experimentation and discoveries, not all of them exactly reassuring, Razz was confident that her original gems were responsible for this outbreak. But the final test was, ironically, impossible for her alone to carry out. She had created a perfect replica of her early batch of counterfeits, a crude faux ruby, with the improper sealing spell. It was somewhat amusing in how difficult it had been, as her greater expertise in dark magic over the past decade really hammered in how much of an inexperienced hoof she’d been back then.

But the final piece of the test she needed was a controlled weather spell. And as far as dark magic was concerned, “control” as a concept was relatively difficult as that was what was traded off for raw power output and even violating some basic magical laws. Maybe with practice in the far future, Razz could manage what she needed now, but between little experience in those kinds of spells and having the power output to unintentionally generate a massive land-locked hurricane if she sneezed at the wrong moment, it wasn’t worth the risk.

Fortunately, the preferable alternative soon appeared in a flash of magic.

“Hey, Twilight!” greeted Razz, while Heliodor tweeted in kind from his perch nearby. “Have a nice day with the minotaurs?”

“Mostly, though if I look like I’m avoiding Bulk Biceps later today, it’s because I’ve seen enough muscle flexing to last all week.” She then shook her head and changed subjects. “I need to go over what Celestia, Luna, and I want to do about this issue with the crystals, since it does involve you, but first what have you found about the samples from Coltumbus?”

Razz chuckled. “Believe it or not, you’re just in time to help me with the final test. How good are your weather magic skills?”

Twilight blinked. “I’d say pretty good, why?”

“Here, let me show you,” said Razz, who looked to her hidey hole and engulfed her horn in the familiar green-and-purple miasma. Out of the structure came the faux ruby, and Razz explained its nature. “Since this is as close to a replica as I can make now, I want to test the natural erosion forces on its protective barriers and measure how long it takes to break the resistance and cause the dark magic inside to expand.”

“Aren’t you afraid that it will break into something large like what happened at Coltumbus?”

“Nah, the danger with this kind of dark magic builds up over time if not properly sealed – as grim as a comparison as it is, the worst this sample will give us is about the same as what happened when Spike ate my hoofiwork at Nightmare Night. Horrifying if it happens inside a living body, but otherwise we’re talking the size of a tuft of grass at best.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Twilight said in a wary tone. The idea of setting off dark magic eruptions, even under controlled conditions, did not sit easily with the princess. She’d channeled dark magic before, but whereas Razz could channel it seemingly without much issue, it was a different story to one of Twilight’s abilities. To the young princess, dark magic produced a powerful, intoxicating effect…that felt completely and utterly wrong. To unleash that kind of sick power even indirectly disgusted Twilight internally, but…Equestria had been saved because of Razz’s knowledge of the left hoof path. If anypony could be trusted in such a situation, then Twilight’s disgust at dark magic paled in comparison to how much she believed her friend had everything under control.

After casting a measuring spell – which after the experiment was performed, she could essentially “access” and immediately know the desired information – on the ruby, she teleported Razz and herself to an open clearing within the Everfree, as to avoid damaging the archeological Everfree Castle site. On cue, Razz buried the ruby in some soft , loamy soil, and then backed off while Twilight in turn opened her wings. Launching into the sky, she quickly grabbed the nearest cloud, then used her magic to agitate the water molecules inside it to a point where it would become a miniature thunderstorm. Dragging the cloud back down to the ground, she then bounced on top of it briefly to kick the storm off. She finally disembarked, landing next to Razz and casting another, stronger spell.

“And now, we wait,” said Twilight, confidently. “Merry Meteo's Monsoon Madness amplifies rain so it will continuously pour at a faster rate – specifically, one month per day, or one year every twelve days!”

“Every twelve days?” Razz gasped. “We’re talking an effect that breaks after years! I thought you wanted answers ASAP!”

Twilight shrugged. “Hey, even though I’m a princess, even I can’t fast forward the weather.”

Razz sighed. “Okay, fine, can you at least cast spells to protect the area so nopony disturbs it, as well as some kind of alarm spell so we know when the gem bursts?”

“Yeah, can do.”

“Good, do that and then take us home – I’m feeling wiped and we have a long wait ahead of us.”

The next day…

“By Sombra’s goatee, are the princesses truly this stupid?” asked Shoelace, stupefied by the news headline.

“Well, unfortunately they are a smart kind of stupid,” replied Pure Faith, a dark grimace on his face. “Smart enough to overthrow our master and rule undisputed for ages...yet foalish enough to do something as moronic as this.”

The newspaper in question boldly announced a government investigation into the presence of dangerous forgeries of gems across the country. All citizens were to examine their gem collections where applicable and any suspiciously low-quality gems – or any gems they had reason to suspect were fake – were to be taken to their local Guard garrison. The article specifically named the reason being the incident in Coltumbus having been due to forgeries made of dark crystal. Ones made by none other than the so-called “Archmagus of Dark Magic” herself; Raspberry Beryl.

“Clearly her plan is to gather all her gems of the past into places of authority so when they detonate, they take out all the guards at the same time! It’s genius!” Shoelace swooned. “We must do our part to help her in this endeavor!”

“Making even obviously low-quality fake gems of dark magic requires great skill and effort, and we do not have the luxury of the mastery that Raspberry does!” Faith reminded his acolyte. “We must make do with what resources we have available! Find me the best gem forgers in the country, I have an idea…”

Shoelace bowed. “It shall be done at once!”

Chapter 3 – Viva Las Pegasus

Shards of Darkness

03 – Viva Las Pegasus

Razz found herself waking up in unusual circumstances. This was most certainly not her cozy room at the Traveler’s Retreat, nor was it anything she’d ever seen before in her life. Despite there being no obvious light source, she could easily make out a field of large crystals of purple coloration. There was a discernible path that led both in front of her as well as behind, but the vaulted ceiling couldn’t be seen at its most upper reaches and without any sort of flight, she couldn’t ascend elevation herself.

“Hello?” she called out, her voice faintly echoing before vanishing. “Any pony there? Heliodor?” No response. That only reaffirmed two realities of the situation for her: first being that this had to be a dream of some sort as she didn’t recall ever coming here, and her loyal pet wouldn’t have dared let her venture alone into such a place, and the other being the nagging feeling being identical to the last time she’d found herself in a field full of purple crystals. Though in the case of the latter, those crystals were of a far deeper shade of purple as they’d been true dark crystal, rooted from her own out-of-control dark magic that had encased the majority of the population of Lonesome Dove, her hometown. While she’d emerged much more sure of herself after that incident, finally silencing the demons within her own mind stemming from who she had been, of who she now was, she didn’t like thinking of the few days leading up to that resolution. But, without anything else better to do, she decided to just go forward and see where the path led.

For what could have been five minutes or five centuries, Razz walked alone in silence. Even though the light level meant she could see where she was going, it was still low enough that she felt the need to ignite her own horn in light to illuminate the surroundings. Unfortunately, because of both her special talent and the damage done to her when her father sawed off her original horn in a drunken rage, the only kind of light casting magic she could do was dark magic – ironically. And as if that contradiction wasn’t enough, the kind of light that was thus produced was blacklight.

“Yeah, because if there’s one other job I should be good at with my special gifts, it’s being the light source at a rave party,” groaned Razz. “Bet Vinyl would hire me in an instant just for that.”

“It makes you very easy to find, however,” chuckled a new voice. As Razz looked up, she wasn’t that surprised to see she was now joined by Princess Luna. “I must admit, it was odd coming into this dream and not being able to identify whose it was at first, but your light made that a trivial matter.”

“What, you couldn’t tell it was my dream from the copious amounts of purple crystals everywhere?” joked Razz, rearing and gesturing to all the crystals that surrounded them.

“Well, no, because these are natural crystals, much like the ones in the caverns beneath Canterlot. Yours, no offense, are darker in shade and still have that tiniest tinge of foreboding around them.”

“Yeah, but at least they aren’t inexplicably pointy like I am in my true physical form.” Razz then changed topics slightly. “But you said this is like the caverns under Canterlot…I’ve never been there.”

“Then I must conclude this is not a dream, but a vision,” said Luna, forebodingly. “But if it involves you and the caverns under the castle, then I fear it is not a good one.”

“Or, just to play changeling’s advocate here, this isn’t the caverns under the castle and it’s just some random cavern full of large crystals.”

“I’m an alicorn with the power to intervene with the dreams of ponies – including my own after the whole Tantabus affair,” deadpanned Luna, “so I think I know my shit when it comes to predicting bad dreams.”

Just then the crystals started to crack, uncomfortably similar to what was seen with the crystal tree back in Coltumbus. Only those had been small gems compared to these spars, the size of two-story houses.

“Yeah, I’ll change my vote to your idea!” hastily blurted Razz. Any other course of action proved impossible as the gems then exploded, sending razor sharp points right through Razz’s body.

“AAAAAH!” screamed Razz, waking up with a jolt. Breathing heavily, she slowly regained her senses and remembered it had only been a dream. Especially since the strands of hair over her eyes were the telltale black and red of her true, corrupted form – she still needed to find a way to let herself sleep in her preferred colors – while her forelegs were coated in the associated dark raspberry fur.

A cacophony of noise then drew her attention to the right. With bright green and gold wings unfurled, ready to leap into action, a worried Heliodor looked at his mistress with distress.

“Oh, it’s alright, Heelee,” soothed Razz, getting out of bed and petting her beloved friend on the head. “Just a bad and rather violent dream.” He cooed, still with concern in his voice, to which she chuckled. “No, we’re not going to leave, you’re just being silly now. It was just a dream, not the entire town like you’re thinking of. We never have to worry about losing our home ever again.”

But as Razz comforted her pet, she couldn’t help but wonder what she should be worried about. After all, Luna said it was some kind of vision…is this thing with my dark crystal forgeries much worse than anypony believed?

Following a successful attempt at getting back to sleep and not encountering the same dream, Razz woke up in a much better mood and went through her daily regimen of self-care. She was just about ready to get some of her mother’s coffee and start her shift on the bed and breakfast’s front desk, when there was knocking at the door.

“Just a second!” Razz called out, the sounds of the shower going around her dying off simultaneously. After casting a quick instant-dry spell on herself as to not keep the pony at the door waiting, she hurriedly opened it to find her mother, along with a wheeled tray with a cup of steam-wafting coffee.

“Thought you might want some, dear,” said Cashmere, smiling as her adoptive daughter took the cup of brown goodness in her magic and brought it to her nostrils. “Sounds like you’re going to have a busy day.”

“Busy day?” asked Razz, her heart sinking. “Don’t tell me, there’s a guard here for me.”

“No, there isn’t a guard.”

“Phew, thank good-“

“It’s Princess Luna.”

“The princess?” gawked Razz. In hindsight, she should have expected this, given how that dream had gone, but still, this was yet again another instance where her expertise in dark magic would prevent her from helping out at the Retreat.

“Are you all worked up because you can’t work the desk again?” asked Cashmere, “Because you should know better than that, dear.”

“Know what, Mom, that I should just be a deadbeat taking up the former guest room in your house-slash-business who doesn’t do anything to help?”

“Raspberry, you’re family – don’t feel like you need to do anything around here when you’re needed elsewhere. Your father and I can get along just fine with the help of Light Fixture as well as Spic and Span, and while you helping at the desk is a great boon at times, well…” the elderly mare sighed, “you refuse payment because of your salary as Equestria’s Archmagus of Dark Magic and the stipend you get for being a princess. It’s great that you hold supporting the family business so high in your personal priorities, but at the end of the day we’re only running a bed and breakfast – and you’re a pony with a unique gift of helping protect the entire country.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Razz said, approaching and then hugging Cashmere. “I just want to underscore how important this place is, given it’s the only real home I’ve ever had.”

“And it’ll always be here – unlike Princess Luna, who I think may be getting a little impatient.”

“Ah, Raspberry, good to see both you and your loyal phoenix are doing well,” greeted Luna who was still waiting at the front desk. Flanking her were two of her batpony night guards, both doing their hardest to stay awake given the domain of the night had given way to that of the day several hours prior.

“Good morning to you, too, Luna,” greeted Razz in kind. “Would your guards like some coffee?”

“Yes, I do think that would be appropriate – I’ve asked these two stallions to work far longer than their shift detailed.”

“I’ll handle it, dear,” said Cashmere, who promptly turned and trotted off to the kitchen to fetch more coffee.

“Anyway, I feel I must apologize for what happened last night as well as my inaction,” morosely said Luna. “But your dream was collapsing at the same time the crystals were erupting, and my magic within dreams is limited in that situation. If I did not escape, I would have been trapped in your mind and, through absolutely no fault of your own, your mind is privy to incredible levels of dark knowledge, and the last time I was exposed to overwhelming amounts of dark magic of any kind, well…”

“You threw a temper tantrum out of jealousy and declared your intent to murder everything on the face of the planet by denying them solar energy?” joked Razz.

Luna shrugged. “Pretty much.”

“The important thing is you got over it, your highness,” remarked Cashmere, who returned with a tray hosting two piping-hot cups of coffee. The two bat guards eagerly took one cup each and thanked the matron.

“Yes, with help admittedly, but I’d like to think we’re all past living Nightmare Night as a horrifying reality. But the reason I am here is more than just to apologize for my inaction in your dream, Razz.”

“I got impaled by dark crystal,” shrugged Razz. “It isn’t like I’m a stranger to horrifying pain like that even in my dreams if I’m honest.”

“I thought as much, but what kind of a friend would I be if I didn’t apologize?” Luna sighed before continuing, “However, more importantly, there’s been an incident with the national recall of any suspicious gems to try and get as many of your forgeries as we can – a guardhouse in Las Pegasus has been consumed in dark crystal.”

“Oh no…” gasped Razz. “How many did-“

“None, thankfully, the volatile gems were inexplicably slow in growth so while nopony could stop the growth before it destroyed the building, everypony was able to get out safely. This only happened a scant few hours ago, however, so time is of the essence.”

“Then I suppose I’ll just have breakfast there then – let me grab Heliodor and we’ll be off.”

Razz had expected to travel to Las Pegasus by pegasus chariot, which was usually the means by which transport was achieved for royal duties. However, Princess Luna had evidently decided on a much faster method and the moment Razz had returned to the main room with her bird mounted on her horn, she teleported them all right outside the Las Pegasus Guardhouse that was no longer a house.

“Oh, my,” gasped Cashmere, “I didn’t know you intended for me to come along, too!”

“Ah! Uh, no, I didn’t,” bashfully confessed Luna. “Sorry, I’ll send you back.” With another bright flash, Cashmere was gone, presumably back home.

Razz, in the meantime, was too busy getting to work. “Heelee, if you would, please?”

The bird chirped in acknowledgement and lifted off, soaring over to a nearby normal tree and taking his perch. Most of the time, his mistress didn’t mind him on her horn, which ever since he’d been a chick he’d favored when the duo were in unfamiliar places. Since the day they’d first met, when she’d rescued him not even several hours old from the paws of angry diamond dogs, that horn was a perch of sanctuary to the young phoenix. However, he understood that Raspberry’s role in the world had become greater than ever, and there were times she needed to focus. And having a ten-pound bird of prey attached to her forehead did not help with that, so he reasoned as long as he was within eyesight, he could protect she who had always protected him.

Razz, making sure her sometimes mischievous bird was within eyesight, then turned to fully focus on the damage in front of her. The Las Pegasus guardhouse, despite the attempt to make it blend in through use of similar building materials and style, stood out from the glitz and glam of the rest of the block, let alone city, by virtue of not having one iota of neon signage on it. Though ironically, given the more eccentric locale hotspots like The Colten Nugget or even the minotaur-owned Bullagio, a giant, gaudy-as-hell dark purple tree bursting from inside the two-story structure and through its roof actually made it fit in a bit more.

“Alright, who’s the pony in charge here?” said Razz, getting right to work.

“That would be me,” said an off-white pegasus stallion, who approached Razz. “Sergeant Diamondplate, at your service.”

“A pleasure, Sergeant,” greeted the mare in turn, “I’m Archmagus Beryl, though you probably already know why I’ve been called in.”

“Yeah, it’s your mess we’re cleaning up isn’t it?” he chuckled. When all he got in reply was a hard stare from the unicorn, his chuckling got a little less enthusiastic. “Easy now, just kidding – everypony knows you were just a poor kid tryin’ to make a buck and didn’t mean no harm. Plus, the crown is giving out compensation for any fake gems so no harm, no foul, right?”

“I suppose,” said Razz, shrugging, “but I don’t like being associated with potentially lethal disasters like this,” she gestured to the ruined guardhouse, “simply because several years ago I needed to eat.”

“Well, fortunately for you, I don’t think this was one of your forgeries.”

Razz blinked. “Come again?”

“We took photos of each and every gem turned in and there was a particular set that seemed really off the mark. Of course, that was shortly before they exploded into this, but we saved the pics if you wanna see them.”

“As soon as possible, if you would be so kind.” She then turned to her pet and motioned for him to return.

“Leaving so soon?” asked Luna, who was busy delegating with a few other guards.

“Yeah, I’ll check back in with you later,” the archmage replied, before Heliodor resumed perching on her horn and together the duo headed into what was left of the guard house.

The immediate state of the guardhouse’s interior looked like the inverse of Twilight’s home – both the original Golden Oaks Library as well as the Crystal Tree Castle. Where the purple pony’s home was like a tree hollowed out in order to accommodate living space, here it looked like the living space had been forcefully hollowed out to make way for an evil crystal tree growth. Several guards were already at work trying to chip away at the tree, but they were having little to no success as it appeared the hardness of the crystal approached that of diamonds.

“Unfortunately,” said Diamondplate, “the photos are still in the developing room, which is on the other side of…this thing.”

“Yeah, well, let me see if I can’t bore a hole through this,” said Razz, with Heliodor again taking off to find a safe perch to give her space.

“Pardon me asking, but…how?”

“Simple. Well, actually, it’s anything but as far as the actual process is concerned, but essentially I sync my magic frequency with that corresponding to the dark magical connections holding the crystalline structure together and I simply carve my way through it like butter.” Firing up her dark aura, Razz gestured for the other guardsponies to step back, before she blasted the closest ‘branch’ of the tree with her power. She was only at it for a couple of seconds before she stopped, a look of surprise in her eyes. “Okay…that’s not what I was expecting.”

“Why, what’s the problem? Is it not actually dark crystal?”

“No, it is. But…the structure is far more haphazard and downright chaotic, as if the seed gems were carelessly or ineptly thrown together. Even my earliest work wasn’t this clumsy or unstable.” As if to prove a point, Razz then fired up her magic again and summoned a small dark crystal stalagmite of her own making right next to the larger trunk. Surprisingly, hers – which under a microscope or supersensory telekinetic spell would prove to be far more geometric and thus ‘stronger’ in structure – was in fact more of a royal purple, as opposed to the giant gnarled crystal mass which was far darker, bordering on black – closer to true, raw dark magic left to its own devices.

Like what was seen during Sombra’s brief return when the Crystal Empire resurfaced.

But he’s dead, so…are there other ponies trying to recreate his crystal pillars? Razz blanched at the thought, partly because of how much work it was going to be to root out a bunch of misbehaving ponies, but also the idea that this was happening at the same time her original forgery gems were blowing up.

Unless they’re connected somehow?

“Sorry to interrupt your train of thought,” Diamondplate cut in, “but are you able to remove this…thing? We can’t get to the pictures with the tree still in the building, after all.

“Yeah, I think I can…it’s gonna take me all day though, this is unrefined dark crystal. Much more potent so I suggest you evacuate the building. Again.”

“Again?”

“Yes,” Razz said, charging up her horn again. “Studies show that being around exploding dark crystals is bad for your health.”

“Exploding?”

She gave him a smile. “If we’re lucky, only that.”

Chapter 4 - Embrace of Evil

Shards of Darkness Chapter 4

04 - Embrace of Evil

As it turned out, removing the tree from the confines of the Las Pegasus guardhouse had taken close to two days...and only a little bit of exploding, mainly due to side spells that had been woven into parts of the gem, that being an extra concern. While that was enough to confirm by that point that the dark crystal in question had not been one of her creations, that only made a far more disconcerting realization ever clearer: somepony was intentionally using dark magic to create fake gems. But where Razz had only done it to survive, whoever was doing it now had to be intentionally trying to set off dark crystal ‘bombs’ to destabilize local guard stations.

Except the whole idea seemed stupid, since even destroying where the guards were stationed on a local basis across Equestria wouldn’t accomplish anything. The local police forces were not involved in the collection of fake crystals and so both they and local law and order were untouched. The local guard garrisons at risk were only a unit or two at most, meant more for just keeping a guard presence should riots break out than actual military action – one of the benefits of having so many pegasi in the service was the high mobility to deploy guards wherever necessary.

All in all, because it was more or less an open secret at this point it was Razz’s craftsponyship that was at risk of exploding into dark crystal masses, the presence of fake fake gems only made Razz look to have been an even more dangerous threat by pure ignorance. And that pissed her off tremendously.

“I have enough problems with ponies trusting me already,” grumbled Razz under her breath, “I don’t need one or more scumbags working to ruin my flip-floppy reputation even more.”

Sensing his mistress’ dour mood, Heliodor landed on her horn as usual and leaned down, cooing in an attempt to lend support. In turn, she stopped to look lovingly at him, reaching up to scratch him under the chin. “Oh, I know I’ve always got your support, Heelee. Don’t think for a second I ever doubt your loyalty.”

“Hopefully, you don’t doubt mine either,” chuckled a familiar voice. As Razz turned, she wasn’t surprised to see Princess Twilight approach her. “Don’t worry, before Luna left you to your own devices two days ago, she sent me a letter informing me of what was known, though admittedly it was little overall.”

“Well, I can give you the skinny on what I’ve discovered so far simply by excising that damn crystal tree out of the guardhouse back there.” Razz then recapped her thoughts on the matter.

“But why would somepony – or someponies – want to basically commit minor terrorism that isn’t going to accomplish much of anything?”

“That’s what I want to know – I highly doubt they’re doing it to corner the market on cheap-ass crystals. I only got away with it because I’m the only pony alive who can safely handle that much unbridled power without going batshit insane. Terrorism is the only angle that makes any sense, but surely there’s gotta be more to this than being a moderate nuisance.”

“Well, sorry to inform you, but a smaller outbreak just occurred in Berryville. Not nearly as big as what Luna described the growth here being but….”

Razz sighed. “Fine, fine, just teleport us there already so I can get to work.”

Being much smaller than a city like Las Pegasus (even smaller than Ponyville!), the Berryville guard outpost was subsequently both smaller in staffing as well as size. Which unfortunately meant that even though the giant obsidian mass erupting out of it was considerably smaller in girth than the one in Las Pegasus, the building itself was completely ruined and would need to be razed. But first, the tree had to go, and there was only one unicorn who could do it in any kind of effective time frame.

“So, they had pictures of the compromised gems back in Las Pegasus?” asked Twilight, walking alongside Razz as they headed to the building. She’d teleported them to the public park in Berryville, as opposed to directly there, as the wider open space meant an easier chance for the pair to arrive without trouble.

“Yeah, even from the pics it was obvious to me whoever is making these dangerous fakes aren’t even trying to make them as accurate to my spells as possible.”

“Maybe somepony is trying to frame you?”

Razz couldn’t help but blurt out a laugh. “Like I’d need help doing that if I had any interest in actually becoming Sombra’s successor.” The looks she got from Heliodor and Twilight prompted her to add “Kidding, just kidding, I’m not nearly as obsessive as that bastard - my prosthetic means I am not exactly a fan of stairs, for starters.”

“Doesn’t change the validity of the point,” continued Twilight. “You’re an easy scapegoat because everypony knows about your handicap, and with the news about your old forgeries getting unstable, somepony or someponies looking to cause trouble for the Guard could easily try to make you look responsible.”

“But then isn’t the worry that, because they’re obviously using dark magic, they’re eventually going to go batshit insane and become an actual threat to anypony other than guardhouses?”

“That’s my worry if we don’t figure out who these ponies are – assuming they exist. But that’s why we need to clear out this latest tree-splosion as quickly as possible!”

Twilight had once again proved her skill in foresight by having numerous guild mages on hoof to help clear out the tree. With Razz’s assistance, Twilight managed to invent on the fly a suitable counterspell to safely defuse the dark crystal tree, which she then instructed the mages on hoof to use.

“This way, we don’t have to ship you around all over Equestria,” chirped Twilight. “There’s plenty of mages, but only one of you, but we don’t need your immunity to dark magic corruption to handle these trees.”

Razz facehoofed. “I can’t believe I forgot I could call upon the Guild in case of emergencies,” she sighed. “And I’ve been doing all this running around for nothing.”

“I wouldn’t say it was nothing,” Twilight insisted. “We got some good leads out of this.”

“Could’ve done it just as easily with a local mage casting the nullification spell and then giving us an after-incident report,” added Razz with a smirk.

“Well, yeah, that’s true.”

Suddenly, Heliodor burped loudly, spitting out emerald and gold flames that materialized into a scroll. One sealed with what was clearly Luna’s personal seal.

“Oh, that’s a surprise,” said Twilight, who took the letter in her magic and opened it up. “Princess Luna says she’s had some ponies doing some assistance work on the side and wants us to meet with them in Baltimare.”

“We’ll be all over the country by the end of the day at this rate,” sighed Razz.

“Look on the bright side,” Twilight commented. “You’re not doing it on the run, right?”

“Depends on your definition of run,” the unicorn drolled. Twilight, in turn, nodded sympathetically and then went to make sure the mages who would remain on site were on top of the situation. Once satisfied, she proceeded to teleport herself, Razz, and Heliodor away once again.

Razz stumbled through the doors of the guardhouse, glad that this one at least wasn’t requiring her assistance in clearing out another dark crystal tree.

“You okay?” asked Twilight, looking worried. Razz seemed unsteady, while Heliodor was disoriented enough that he’d gone from Razz’s horn to resting on her back, spread-phoenix position.

“Yeah, we’ll be fine, just not used to teleporting so much in a short time span.”

A mare with a cream coat with purple eyes, complimented by a blonde-and-pink mane pushed back with a maneband, seemed to be the one in charge. She noticed Razz and Twilight had entered, then approached, sticking out a hoof to bump. “An honor, your bookishness,” she greeted Twilight with a bow, before turning to Razz. “And I presume you are Archmage Raspberry Beryl? Pleasure to meet you. I’m Agent Sparkfire, from the Agency.”

“Agency?” asked Razz.

“Yeah, we’re not as glamorous as the guard proper, but we like it that way. As it is, two days ago, Princess Luna asked us to do some groundwork to figure out where all these bad gems are coming from. To give you a helping hoof given you were so busy cleaning up the mess.”

“Well, I appreciate your help, since like you said, I’ve had no time to follow leads on this. If anything, I’ve felt like a sentient vacuum cleaner for evil crystals the past few days.”

“I recall hearing about a similar incident a year or two ago when Rarity got crazy over a book and turned all the streets in town to gold, forcing Princesses Twilight and Cadence to clean it all up.”

Razz rolled her eyes. “Completely forgot about that. I was out of town on business, so I guess I missed that little shindig. ”

“Don’t remind me,” groaned Twilight, obviously repressing bad memories of the incident. “Regardless, the letter Princess Luna sent us told us to meet with you here in Baltimare.”

“Good,” said Sparkfire with a nod, “because this whole nonsense with exploding dark crystals might be over sooner than we thought. Princess Luna told us that you suspected ponies are making lower-quality fake crystals compared to your originals – we’ve already been briefed on how your origins tie into all this.”

“Good, I’d hate to have to go through that lecture again,” said Razz.

“Anyway, another group of Agency operatives intercepted a group of ponies trying to smuggle in a cartload of dark crystals into Vanhoover, and it didn’t take much to get them to spill the beans on where these things were getting made.”

“How ‘much’ are we talking here?” asked Twilight, eyes narrowed slightly. “As much as they are breaking the law, these are still Equestriani citizens and I’ve heard the stories of extremes the Agency has gone to before.”

“We dealt with it in the most efficient and effective way we could, your highness,” Sparkfire replied breezily, as if discussing the weather. “Doing so is a part of our charter, after all.”

“Explain,” Twilight stated. It was not a request.

“Well, we threatened to use Pinkie Pie on them,” the spy clarified. “No offense to Lady Pie, of course, but threats are most effective when they’re followed through.”

“Pinkie Pie?” chuckled Razz, “That’s tantamount to a violation of some wartime agreement right there.” Out of the corner of her eyes she could see the angry look on Twilight’s face, and promised to apologize in private later, but now was not the time for pleasantries.

Sparkfire, however, neither seemed to notice or care. “They apparently thought so, too.” Sparkfire allowed herself a small smile at the thought, before getting back to business. “As it stands, they said that the main hub of this operation, which is called the ‘Covenant of Sombra’ –“

“What a surprise,” deadpanned Razz. Heliodor – having recovered and was now standing upright on Razz’s back – face-winged for his mistress.

“Yeah, tells you enough right there, but essentially this whole operation seems to be based on your divine example.”

“My divine what?” exclaimed Razz, stepping back in shock. “They think I intentionally wanted this crap to happen?”

“Well, you did announce you were the descendant of Sombra,” pointed out Twilight.

“Yeah, but I was kind of completely livid over the death of Heliodor at the time and, well, how else do you explain this?!” Razz temporarily dropped her guise to expose her true, physically corrupted appearance, causing a few gasps of shock from other ponies in the immediate vicinity – though Sparkfire was not one of them.

“Not to mention the fact that Sombra wasn’t really divine,” Twilight, having recomposed herself, added.

However, Razz was more focused on Sparkfire’s lack of a reaction. “What?” asked Sparkfire, when Razz gave a questioning look about that nature, “If I may be perfectly frank, you’re no scarier than a Nightmare Night costume compared to things I’ve had to deal with. Like Bugbears.”

“Fair enough,” replied Razz, putting her guise back up to look less evil and pointy.

“Anyway,” continued Sparkfire, “Anypony involved in the investigation knows you’re not involved with these wackjobs, Raspberry. But we’re gearing up to assault this place – it’s an abandoned feed factory just outside of town – and if you and Princess Twilight would be willing to lend a hoof, we can tie this thing up before dinner.”

“You’ve got it!” said Twilight, answering for both herself and Razz.

The Blue Ribbon Corn Feed building was certainly an eyesore – between the cracked brickwork, rampant overgrowth of vines and such, and faded signage, it was a real wonder why the whole area hadn’t yet been leveled and turned into some bright new neighborhood.

At the moment, however, an elite team of agents led by Sparkfire, joined by Twilight and Razz, were hiding in the tall bushes just outside the grounds of the ancient building. Missing from the group was Heliodor, as due to being the only known domesticated green phoenix would’ve given away their position, so he was ordered to wait back at the guardhouse. He’d reluctantly agreed only after a slew of promises from Razz that she’d be alright without him, as well as the agreement that if things got out of control, he could fly in to counterattack.

“Ponies have definitely been keeping this place up and running for something, though,” noted Twilight, pointing to the windows. “Notice how despite being abandoned, the worst panes are only cracked, there’s no actual missing panes which is impossible without upkeep of some sort.”

“Good catch, your highness,” said Sparkfire, “I wish I had agents half as observant as you sometimes.”

“We probably should hurry, though,” advised one of Sparkfire’s subordinates, “it’s getting on to evening and based on what we know of the Covenant, they like to use the darkness to hide their activities. We need to get these bastards now while they’re asleep or we’ll have a fight on our hooves.”

“Hold on,” said Razz, lighting up her horn and evidently fidgeting with a spell. “There’s a few sensory charms around the perimeter, nothing too complex for me but definitely dark magic – be sure to have your shield spells ready because I can’t tell you what’s behind those doors.”

Then it was Twilight’s turn to show off her magical skills. “Hmm…they’ve only got one guard on duty, he shouldn’t be too hard to take out. There’s a lot of magical suppression going on – probably a lot of low level dark magic cancel spells designed to hamper something like this from a normal unicorn, but it seems most of the guards are actually asleep. There’s a lot of magic use in the basement, though, that’s probably where they’re making all the dark crystal.”

“Yeah, in that case be extremely careful, you all know what their dark crystal can do if destabilized, but there’s a crapload of it in there that could blow the entire building apart. We need to tread lightly.”

“Don’t doubt what the Agency can do,” said Sparkfire, “we’re no strangers to dangerous missions. But if nopony else has anything to say, then let’s get this done!”

The sneak attack on the feed factory went a little too well for Razz. Something seemed off. Sure, things had gone off without a hitch, the guards putting up no resistance and practically the entire terrorist cell – from the cultists to the unicorns who had only just started producing that day’s supply of dark crystal – was in custody within fifteen minutes.

But that was when Razz sensed a singular presence in what had been the upstairs offices of the building. A dark magical presence stronger than any single other Covenant pony now in shackles.

“Are you sure you want to do this on your own?” asked Twilight. “I’ll come with you – it’d give me a chance to put that training you’ve given me on fighting dark magic”

“No – whoever this is, I think they want me to come alone. This…’Covenant’ seems obsessed with Sombra, and therefore me, so I’m probably a demigod, as far as they’re concerned. If I can talk this individual down, then that’s a confrontation avoided.”

“Well, you’re the expert here. But just remember that you’ve got me and Sparkfire’s agents if you need backup.”

“Thanks.”

Five minutes later, Razz was stealthily navigating the abandoned, moldering insides of the factory, passing through the light streaming through the holes in the room. She moved as silent as death itself until she saw artificial light emanating from a doorway, likely the owner’s office, if she guessed correctly.

“No point in delaying the inevitable,” she sighed, opening it and entering.

What she found was a room, lit by countless candles, decked out in royal purple, green and silver trim, which did little to brighten the room given all the walls had been painted black, but on the walls were runes and writings Razz immediately recognized as being medium-level dark magic – the sign that she was going to have to get serious as even a medium level dark magic user had more than likely crossed the sanity threshold of rationality.

“At last, we meet, Destined Beryl,” said a cloaked figure in the middle of the not-that-large room. He turned, pulling down his hood to reveal himself to be a remarkably generic looking elderly unicorn. “I am High Templar Pure Faith, your devoted follower.”

“My what?” said Razz in an annoyed deadpan. This was another reason why she’d wanted to come alone – she’d figured the one in charge was a total psycho devoted to worshiping her ‘evilness’ and the last thing she wanted was her circle of friends to know about a bunch of weirdos treating her like the coming of a dark Celestia (or ‘Daybreaker’ if that awful fanfiction Rainbow had made her read had any merit). The teasing would be far worse than death.

“Your follower, of course – it’s obvious that you’ve only led those silly agents and that worthless new princess to be the glorious first sacrifices to achieve your preordained greatness! It is your destiny to take up where your ancestor left off, crushing the princesses and bringing Equestria to a new age of power! Enshrouded in the embrace of darkness will you –“

“I’ve heard some dumb shit in my life but this is probably among the top ten.” said Razz, rolling her eyes. “I mean, after all that business where I lost my cool and had the entire freakin’ government at my mercy, yet I was more concerned about avenging my pet bird, I would have thought ponies at least had an inkling that I’m not actually Sombra reincarnate.”

“You can drop the act, now,” said Pure Faith, confident in how the blessed one before him surely wasn’t serious. “But it has become clear to us that the whole ‘failed’ ploy was in fact just your attempt to cozy up to the fools in charge, as to better seed the oncoming destruction, which as loyal servants of The Obsidian Throne we have sought to aid you in!”

“Wait…let me get this straight. You’ve been spreading volatile gems around Equestria because that’s what you thought I’d been doing?” Truthfully, Razz had suspected something like that to be the answer, but it didn’t make the pure stupidity of the plan any less surprising.

“Uh…yes? I mean, why else would you sell gems that were basically dark magic time bombs?”

Oh, this idiot’s a piece of work, Razz groaned silently. “I didn’t do it intentionally! There was also the fact where I was homeless and hungry and the only thing I could do that wouldn’t immediately brand me for death was selling fake gems so I could survive! I’m not some glorious dark leader, I’m a mare who spent the latter half of her adolescence running from town to town committing involuntary treason against the country to survive! And that was in part due to being related to that piece of shit Sombra!”

Pure Faith stood there, his brain apparently finally registering that maybe Razz wasn’t what he’d convinced himself she was. “But you’re a scion of the Dark Lord himself, you have his powers, why wouldn’t you-“

“Because I’m not a power hungry despot! All I’ve wanted in my life is to be normal and while I’ll never be able to achieve that, I’d rather use my power to protect ponies than use it to make them live in fear! I owe Sombra nothing and I won’t let him have control over how I live my life!”

“How disappointing,” said Faith, finally getting the message. “Your existence as a false messiah must be punished.” His horn lit up as his eyes narrowed. Razz then heard the door behind her slam shut and the *chink* of the lock – like that mattered. She wasn’t worried as she’d also guessed what the inherent ‘backdoor’ plan had been for the cell if they’d been raided and she hadn’t been present.

Razz! came the voice of Twilight in her mind, through telepathy, All the crystal down here is starting to-

GET EVERYPONY OUT NOW! Internally screamed Razz, before firing up her own magic…and encasing Pure Faith’s hooves in crystal. “You’re not getting anywhere, you old bag of bones!”

“I would gladly die to see you silenced, impostor!” he cried out, probably not really thinking about his responses.

“Nopony’s dying tonight!” she cockily replied back, “because you’ve forgotten that dark crystal is my specialty!”

A bright flash of purple deposited Twilight, Sparkfire, her agents, and all the arrested ponies a safe distance away from the Blue Ribbon Corn Feed building. And not a moment too soon as the entire structure promptly exploded, sending old brick and shattered glass everywhere. Twilight threw up a shield to protect those around her, but a little debris made contact due to the distance.

“Oh my Celestia,” gasped Sparkfire, “what happened?!”

“I think Razz’s attempt at negotiating with the leader went south,” replied Twilight, “and so the leader tried detonating the entire crystal stockpile to kill everypony inside.”

“But, that means-“

“No, it doesn’t. I know Razz, she would have to have known this was a possibility all along, but that’s also because she understands dark crystal more than anypony. She wanted to stay in the heart of that trap in order to defuse it.” Twilight looked around. “Still, better to be safe than sorry.”

The princess of magic immediately empowered her horn, and a thin amethyst tendril shot out from it, enveloping the building in a bubble. The bubble expanded and split, becoming two, then three. Finally, when Twilight completed her spell, the ancient factory was encased in a four-fold barrier, impenetrable to all but the most potent of forces.

“This should contain the blast,” Twilight said with a smile.

Sure enough, a flash of blackish-purple light then flared up, depositing an unharmed Razz next to Twilight. “Yeah, that stockpile could have sent shards flying everywhere, but as it stands now what used to be Blue Ribbon Corn Feed is now a giant crystal eyesore – like the castle at the center of the Crystal Empire, but with far less furnishing.”

“I’m going to have that damn thing painted someday,” grumbled Twilight.

“And what of the leader?” asked Sparkfire.

“Take my hoof and I’ll show you,” replied Razz, sticking out a hoof. Sparkfire took it and in a flash, the duo ended up right where Razz had been standing before the explosion – a deck of wood planks where the upper levels of the building had once been. However, now it was supported by a dark crystal mass underneath and in front of the duo was a pony whose expression was frozen in that of shock. “May I introduce to you, Agent Sparkfire, the former High Templar of the Covenant, Mr. Pure Faith. The real scumbag who tried to run my reputation through the mud.”

“Well, I must say things are looking nice and tidy, then,” complemented Sparkfire. “But, ah, what about him? You plan on leaving him to die like this?”

“Oh good heavens no, I’ll help dig him out - I may have Sombra’s power, but unlike what Faith over there thought, I’m not a cruel monster like him!”

A few days later, Neon Lux sighed, brushing a lock of neon green mane out of his face. In his onyx hooves he held a copy of the local paper which described how a group of cultist terrorists calling themselves the ‘Covenant of Sombra’ had gotten their plots served to them by Raspberry Beryl, Princess Twilight, and a group of government agents.

“I told High Faith his idea was going to fail but did he listen? Noooooooo…” sighed Neon Lux. As the true mastermind of the Covenant of Sombra, getting a cultist network off the ground was difficult enough in a world where the majority of the population saw no problem with letting a bunch of namby-pamby princesses with pretty wings and giant forehead spikes run the country. Losing Pure Faith and his cell was a blow that would take a long time to recover.

“High Templar Lux,” one of his underlings addressed, “the mare you requested to see has arrived.”

“Send her in!” he demanded. Maybe it would help take his mind off the horrid news. As he turned, he was surprised to see a rather young looking mare, coat of white with a two-tone mane of orange and pink, with a butterfly cutie mark enter. “Are you the one who sent me this letter, this…prophecy that will rebuild this nation in the image of the dark one?”

“Indeed I am,” said the mare, looking right into Lux’s neon pink eyes with bright emerald irises that seemed to glow, “I am the Oracle Tiny Dynamine, and Sombra’s unfinished business he left on this world I intend to finish!”

Several days later, after all the Covenant mess had blown over, Razz was working her comfortable shift at the front desk of the Traveler’s Retreat, loyal Heliodor perched on his stand next to her, when Twilight walked in.

“Oh, good afternoon, your majesty,” joked Razz, “how may I help you today?”

“Very funny Razz,” mock-groaned Twilight. “As it is, I just wanted to let you know about our little experiment.”

“Our experiment…?” asked Razz, vacantly, before recalling with shock. “Oh no! I completely forgot!”

“Yeah, I know, I forgot as well – good thing I put that alert spell on it. Believe it or not, that crystal finally exploded earlier this morning. That’s totally going to help us get to the bottom of what was causing all those ruined guardhouses, right?”

Razz didn’t reply with words, instead just sitting there in a stunned silence. Then, gradually, she started laughing, with Twilight following suit. The whole thing had been a bunch of loony Sombra worshipers, but they were all caught now and wouldn’t trouble anypony ever again.