A Blackwater Story: Pitch Black
He looked over the wires leading to the detonation box for the umpteeth-dozen time, nervous energy frittering away at details that he was already 110% certain were properly set and ready. Nothing to leave to chance, one might think - but after so many checks, there was no doubt LEFT in him; it was pure physical habit by now.
Actually, more like a facial tic that refuses to quit.
Pitch had used a lot of explosives in his colthood; he had NEVER used this much all at one time. He wasn't afraid, though - not at all. It was more like the opposite was true; he was so excited, he was about to simply EXPLODE with anticipation!
He had checked the wind, made the precise calculations, and completed the circuits as perfectly as his brilliant mind could focus... when it DID focus, that is. Though he had never really known much in the way of anything 'soft', there was no denying that what Pitch Black lacked in physicality, he more than made up for in brains.
Twisted, addled brains... but brains, all the same.
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His grandfather, Serious Black, had been the one to get everything started here, and it had now fallen to him to keep it going. The problem was, there was nothing to keep going WITH; the gigantic emerald that had been originally uncovered by Grandpa Serious had been chipped and whittled away until not a single sliver was left of it.
The resultant emeralds, once cut and shaped, had been of exquisite quality and had gathered a slow, yet steady market for the semi-precious gems. Though there had been many talks of the value of emeralds increasing, Pitch had yet to see it, even once. Luckily, the market was just frozen - not dropping... though it had gotten to losing bigger and bigger chunks of the original ore to make the same profits.
Nothing lasts forever, and the same can be said of giant emeralds; whittled away to nothing, it left the Black family with a bit of a savings... but not enough to last for the rest of their lives. Pitch was the only Black that had stayed here at the family boarding house after the rest had all gotten 'The Wanderlust', and went into Equestria... possibly beyond.
And here was poor Pitch, left to look after the old homestead as it floundered and sunk into debt. Debt that wasn't looking as if it would solve itself anytime soon... and debt that none of the other Blacks would claim responsibility for. It would be up to him to find a way to solve this issue, and hopefully soon.
And a solution was already in his mind.
From an early age, he had always had a fascination with fire, and the things that made fire. Though there were a number of different substances and materials that worked rather well in fire, there was one in particular that had captured Pitch's attention since the earliest days of his colthood:
Black Powder - or rather, the dynamite that contained it.
Pitch's father, Tar Black, had been quite a prospector when he was young, trying to scout the area around the mountain to find anything that was even close to the value of Serious' find; he'd tried for years until he'd simply hung up his gear and became a grumbly old nag who sat around drinking cider and telling stories of how great he had it as a colt. As a result, he had a good bit of quality equipment stored at home -including his stash of prospecting tools, rigging for demolitions, an entire case of dynamite and ragged fuses for each questionable stick.
Pitch found them at the tender age of five.
The first thing he did was blow up a barn.
Okay, NOT on purpose - but that fact didn't seem to matter to the farmer ponies who came charging after him with shovels and pitchforks. He had wanted to test out exactly how powerful these things were, so he'd planned to simply light one and throw it into one of the farm's many haystacks. He figured the hay would take the brunt of the blast; at worst, there would be hay everywhere.
The sheer magnitude of the blast was far, FAR more than he'd expected; the haystack didn't just go all over the place - it was obliterated... along with roughly half of the barn that had been a wee bit too close to the pile of straw. To say the farm owners took it badly was putting it mildly; there had been talk of civil action until the family simply moved away, opting to leave rather than fight the (at the time) rather rich Black family.
Tar hadn't been pleased with Pitch; it had been several months of rock-kicking before the errant colt had been allowed to have a day off... and his siblings had teased him mercilessly. But they were gone, and there was to be no further income from this stretch of land, and Pitch was left here all by himself to tend the land while his siblings roamed Equestria looking for fortune and fame.
He DID miss them; his family didn't actually HATE him - they just had their own lives going on, and they had each sort-of expected him to stay here anyway. Honestly, he had sort-of been expecting to stay, too - he couldn't be mad at them for being right. So, eventually, they all said their goodbyes and went on their merry ways, leaving Pitch all by himself.
All by himself. With a plot of rather useless land. And enough dynamite to blow everything here to Tartarus.
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If he started with the west wall, then the vibrations from the falling rock should carry along the mountainside, and collapse both sides of the canyon-like mountain area where the emerald had once stuck up from the ground. It would fall in on itself like a box whose sides had been taken away, and the entire plot of land would be buried under rubble, including the boarding house itself.
Which, incidentally, had been insured by Grandpa Serious a long time ago for a LARGE sum of bits.
Armed with this knowledge (and plenty of dynamite), Pitch set about to lining the western-most wall of the mountainside with sticks of explosive doom, wiring them together for maximum effect. Once finished, he stood back from his work and smiled - this was gonna be an ENORMOUS explosion, and Pitch would be the ONLY one to see it... so he could blame it on a rockslide and claim the insurance, hopefully settling his family's debt and maybe even having a bit or two for himself in the end.
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The handle was calling to his hooves, repeating his name like his mother, calling for him to wake up in the morning.
The explosion will be beautiful, Pitchy; don't you want to SEEEEE iiiiiit?????
He looked back along the mountainside for the twenty-third 'one last time', then could no longer hold back his anticipation - he gave a half-whinny, half-mad-giggle sound that would have made any sane pony think he was insane, and shoved the plunger down into the box with BOTH hooves, grinning like he'd just found his Special Somepony... and her name was Kaboom.
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There are a number of things that sometimes simply happen: accidents, mistakes, coincidences, deja vu... they are a common part of life; the unexpected can change your life, if you aren't careful. Sometimes, you manage to get yourself into a world of trouble thanks to a single decision, and Fate laughs cruelly at you as you sit and wonder where it all went wrong.
Then, there are MIRACLES.
When the wall went, it didn't collapse in a line like Pitch planned; it all fell STRAIGHT DOWN, piling up at the front door of the boarding house, yet not even disturbing the rosebushes his sister had planted outside. His plan had failed, and worse? He'd used up ALL his remaining dynamite to arrange this - he'd assumed he wouldn't need to make a second blast!
However, when he looked up at the mountain, his jaw nearly hit the ground.
From one side of the mountain wall to the other were large, warped-looking green stones that seemed to almost thrust into the open air like it had offended them. It was emerald, LOTS of emerald, in several chunks that put Grandpa Serious' find to shame! They jutted out from the wall like jagged, twisted fingers, grasping greedily for the open sky.
At first, Pitch simply stood there, agape at the sight in front of his eyes. Then, he began making his way to the house; he had to send word out to ALL of his family that could be reached by post, and implore those in turn to locate the ones that were out of writing's reach. There was reason to come home now - they wouldn't have to roam Equestria even one more day.
And he wouldn't have to be alone ever again.
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EPILOGUE
The Canterlot Archives show that Pitch Black never married - yet he remained on the Black property, living in the boarding house there through its remodeling, and was known as a strange, but playful and well-intentioned uncle to his siblings' children.
Pitch Black passed away at the latter end of his middle-aged years due to illness, and was interred at 'Blackwater Ridge', the family cemetery. His headstone marker still has scant traces of child drawings, lovingly made, that depict what looks for all intents and purposes like a colt/filly riding on the back of a stallion whose coloration would have matched Pitch's own perfectly.
In modern times, the area where the mountain wall was brought down is now where the rows of storage sheds are found, though The Blackwater Vault, located at the end of the rows, came later.
