Shadow of the Past, Brought Forward Once More

by Super Ponyman

Rating: teen
Tags: Sunset Shimmer, Violence, Crossover, Death, Midnight Sparkle, Alternate Universe, Human, Twilight Sparkle, Thriller, Original Character, Dark, Adventure, Shining Armor, Equestria Girls
Length: 41068

Twilight’s cousin Dusk Shine has come to Canterlot to study the magical creatures, however, after a day gone horribly wrong, he obtains magic like his cousin, but the magic of an all too familiar name.

Hey everyone, so it’s been a bit... had college work to do and such.

This does take place in the Burning Star Saga universe, but there are new characters. Most of who are related to the Mane Six.

Anyways, while Dusk Shine is often the name of the Rule 63 Twilight, here in my universe he is Twilights Cousin.

While on a vacation from college staying with his cousin Twilight, Dusk Shine chronicles and experiences the strange things that magic has brought into the light. But as the days go on and more and more things are revealed by the light of reality, more and more dangerous things start creeping through the cracks.

Humans will learn that sometimes, in order to keep their world from coming apart, some things should be left very much alone.

In order to get context for this story, please read The Black Sun. It will give context for the entire thing.

(Oh and btw, read this story in light mode. Some of the text is colored ”Like this” and if you read this on dark mode, that text would be unreadable. So yeah, light mode only.)

Published 2020-07-19 08:40:00 UTC
Last updated 2023-06-19 02:15:51 UTC

Chapter 2: New Nightmares and Old Habits

(Canterlot City, Skyline)

Canterlot City was a tourist city, and sunset watching was a big attraction for many of it’s residents. The way the blazing summer sun crept behind the mountains that held the Everfree back was oddly beautiful to them, seeing nature at its most beautiful.

With a last gleam of brightness, The evening sun fell beyond the mountains overlooking Canterlot City, leaving most with a feeling of love for they’re lovely sunset views.

However, Savior, the Guardian of Canterlot and Defender of the People, had always hated sunsets.

To him, a former native of The world known as Equestria Beta, Realm of the Power Ponies and other such stories, Sunsets represented the dying of light and the coming of nighttime. The sight of the sun setting seemed much like some ancient god had turned his eye away from the world for the next 12 hours.

And during those 12 hours, every being to afraid to face the light of justice came crawling out of the shadows, eager to continue whatever dark schemes they wished to partake in.

He was once called Dr. Oculus Bright Mind, a experimental military scientist developing new weaponry in order to combat the growing threat of the numerous beings that had come out of Equestrias history to try and dominate the world.

He was not the original Ironheart, that honor or dishonor belonged to another Bright Mind who created the moniker of Ironheart, named so for the loud thumping metal body he was bound to.

Despite his incredibly powerful body and numerous weapons, along with a will to challenge the universe, the original Ironhearts mind was terribly scarred by decades of abuse and neglect of his talents. Whatever sanity he had left when he preformed his transfer from his organic body into that cold metal shell had quickly been erased, leaving a mind running on pure instinct and reactions to a hostile world around him.

The first Ironheart gained his fame as the “Night Terror” of his worlds Manehattan, swooping from the skies and causing carnage like a demon from the blackest pit of Tartarus. He tore a path of carnage across the city before six brave mares stood up to him and attempted to save him from a path that would have led to the destruction of all.

He Refused. Ironheart was broken inside, he felt empty and no longer wished to live, but he wanted to raze a city as his final message... so he had to be stopped no matter the cost.

Despite all the compassion that the Princesses showed for his plight, He couldn’t live with himself anymore and destroyed himself for good.

Savior, known as Ironheart Beta, was well on this path, having started his path at about the same time as the original, although it was thankfully stopped by Mare-Do-Well and the Power Ponies. Unlike the first Ironheart, he retained his core value of justice for all, and it was what saved him from the same destruction that took the original one away.

Now, Savior was given the task of embodying what Ironheart needed to stand for. Absolute Justice for the People, and he would not let his other self down.

Perhaps that version of him would be proud of what he became, of how he dragged the Ironheart title out of the darkness and into the light.

Who knows? Savior clearly didn’t, and even if he could ask the being himself, he’d probably get a bullet shot at him for even resembling the original.

In his journey to uphold that value, Savior took his iconic name and repainted himself both physically and mentally to seem more... welcoming to the common person.

Many of his more dangerous weapons, such as his Lightning Blade, Flame Spouts, and Plasma Claws were locked away behind a “Lethal Force” mode that could only be activated by someone other than him. A Self Shutdown sequence was also added to his armor, to subdue him if he was to lose control. This was done as a sign of trust between the him and the people he was protecting.

He would not make the same mistake as the first Ironheart by going at it alone... so he made a few friends in this city he now watched over.

He quickly became friends with the Fire-clad Warrior known as Burning Star when he had arrived to deal with a monster known as Black Sun, who Savior had also been following across worlds.

Strangely, Savior was one of the only ones not caught off guard when Prince Eclipsio betrayed them and attacked.

If he learned anything from his study of the Prince’s history on Burning Star’s world, it would be out of character for Eclipsio to not try and start a conflict.

The Prince was a warmonger, he thrived in conflict. Being a Demon Prince of War disguised as a Peace loving Alicorn probably didn’t help him.

Savior probably figured that the ordering of his own sisters kidnapping was a desperate play for starting a war between worlds, or at least it would finally give him the opportunity to overthrow them and put Equestria back on its Imperialist Routes and conquer the world. Either or, would result in mutual and near total destruction, which would make the Prince all too happy to see what he described as “Useless Humans” and “Pathetic Ponies” die short and painful deaths.

All the while Eclipiso would laugh and gather more power off the bloodshed, due to being a Demon Prince that thrives off suffering and conflict.

To say Savior was furious upon finding that out would be like saying Burning Star had “some” mental issues. It would be one hell of an understatement.

Thankfully, Savior didn’t have to wait long for the Prince to slip up, and in truly idiotic fashion no less!

Naming your lethal enforcer Black Sun, after a phenomenon that you, the Prince of Eclipses, can cause by turning the sun black during an ECLIPSE?! Not to mention, creating said servant out of the husk of a dead boy that had significant emotional attachment to the people you are actively trying to KILL?!

Savior didn’t know whether to laugh or pity the being for such a hilariously specific detail that led to his downfall and subsequent erasure from reality.

Although, he did suspect He would return eventually. Call it paranoia, leftover from his time as Ironheart Beta, To think an enemy is truly defeated After one loss would be foolish and short sighted.

But he could not fault the humans, if they wanted to forget he existed, he would let them.

Perhaps, that would be the true death of Prince Eclipsio? Being wiped off the face of the multiverse and forgotten like a bad dream. It seemed fitting, in the end.

(Red Light District, Griffonstone Houses)

But back to the present... Savior was currently sitting atop a rooftop in the Red Light District, specifically one of the buildings that made up the largely impoverished Griffonstone Houses. He was on stakeout, keeping an ocular sensor active for anything that was out of the ordinary.

Despite liking the life that he had with Sunset after she quietly welcomed him into her home in the suburbs, he felt at home in the alleyways and drudges of the city.

This was his world. It was a world of violence, pain, and crime.

And despite casting aside his old personality as the second Ironheart, Savior couldn’t help but feel a slight twinge of sadistic joy whenever he crashed down on a gang meet up and started bashing heads and breaking limbs.

He would at first give them a chance to surrender and give up peacefully, like any man... machine... thing should we’re they presented with a situation like this.

If not, well... let’s just say that Savior had enough money from helping to rebuild the city that paying a couple suits for “excessive force” would rarely trouble him.

Savior lept from his perch atop the apartment and sat atop the ledge of an ancient chapel in the complex, his newly upgraded Savior 2nd Gear armor making him reflect his surroundings thanks to implementation of a miniature illusion spell core given to him by Sunset.

For an outside viewer observing the building, all they would see is another statue of the gargoyle like creatures on the chapel roof, completely unaware that one of those wasn’t a statue.

On his first mission with this newly upgraded armor, Savior despised its general asthetic, being modeled by Shining and Sunset as a fusion of Black Sun’s Archdaemon Combat Suit and Savior’s original Ironheart V1 suit. With a couple of design choices from Sunset’s friend Rarity however, as well as a few magical implants thanks to Sunset, he created the Savior 2nd Gear.

This new armor set surpassed both Black Sun’s Archdaemon Combat Suit and even the original Ironheart Alpha’s armor by almost tenfold. No longer was the threat of running on only a nuclear core and risking explosion a threat, thanks to the hybrid Arcane-Nuclear battery that sat in his power core. With it drawing magic directly from the weave and combining it very carefully with the atomic energy in his suit, creating a powerful energy shell that coated him in an extra layer of invisible armor.

Not to mention the newly upgraded armor plates itself, having his old Carbon-Titanium and Magisteel being replaced with a replica of Ironheart Alpha’s Shell, laced with arcane circuits to allow magic from the battery to reinforce it.

Savior wasn’t sure how durable it was until Twilight lost control of Midnight Sparkle during a training exercise and hurled him through several acres of the Everfree Forest’s trees and into the side of a abandoned Oil Tank, causing a massive explosion.

Savior survived unharmed, and promptly flew back after putting out the fire with his new Foam Grenades.

His thrusters in his wings had been heavily upgraded, now being able to reach speeds nearing 1,500 mph, it wasn’t uncommon to unleash Sonic booms whenever he took off towards a target. The shockwaves would certainly help in fights, as taking a fist moving Mach 2 would cause some serious damage.

While many of his more lethal weapons had been locked behind his alternate ”Lethal Force” mode. his subduing tools of nano-fiber Garrote Wire, automatic taser dart launcher, Electrified Nightsticks, and deplorable flash bangs were all heavily upgraded.

His HUD inside his Raptor-like helmet was also improved, granting him better clarity to his Infared, UV, and night vision settings. His sensors were also given a general boost, thanks to some notes Shadow Armor left behind.

Over the six months time between the Canterlot Tower collapse and now, Savior grew to love this suit.

The armored protector heard voices below his perch, and peered down to see two young men leading a group of people into the makeshift chapel he was sitting on top of.

These Chapels were new structures that had been springing up all over the city, and were dedicated to the study of the Arcane Arts.

To Savior, this wasn’t inherently a bad thing, but humanity had just awoken again to magic after several thousand years of being ignorant of it.

It was only a matter of time before some idiots let that power go to their heads and start a cult or something like that.

Savior crawled silently to the bell tower of the chapel, hearing the tell tale muttering of magical chants from below. Whoever was down there was speaking in almost complete gibberish.

Whilst Savior was fluent in multiple languages of magic, due to him once being a student of it when he was still of flesh, most of the words he was hearing weren’t related to anything he had studied.

Savior ran the chant through his internal computer in his suit and the translated audio played into his audio receptors.

”Ancient Ones from beyond our realm, We, the Awakened ones call you from your prisons. We call you to send us a sign. A sign of your greatness! A sign called by our beacon.”

Savior immediately began recording what seemed to be a ritual of some sort. His hands were ready to ignite into his Stun Gauntlets and shut down this whole thing, but his own morbid curiosity was getting the better of him.

Several humans, most of them young men, were clad in dark blue hoods and had etchings of arcane glyphs inscribed along the hems of their robes. They were all kneeling in a circle in the dilapidated building that they had arranged as some sort of make-shift altar to whatever dark works they sought to bring into fruition. Strange runes were carved into the floor in a circular pattern, and red splotches of what Savior knew was blood.

The chanting continued, and the head cultist exclaimed, “We have seen your incarnations. We have seen with our own eyes what you can create. We have seen the one who calls himself the Embodiment of Fire and Rebirth and the Swallower of the Sun and Moon. Their actions have inspired us, opened our eyes to your glorious incarnations of fire and darkness!”

Savior thought for a moment on those words before he realized who they were talking about and quietly face-palmed whilst thinking, ”Oh lovely, Burning Star and his entourage drew too much attention to themselves and have a cult now. It was unavoidable, Eclipsio did knock down a building with little effort. Sunset’s gonna love hearing about this when I get back...”

He continued to think to himself while taking down his observations on his wrist mounted display. ”As of now, it seems as if this Arcanist group seems relatively weak. Nothing that is putting the fabric of space time in danger, and I doubt they are going to go full sacrificial cult.”

Saviors hopeful thought died as one of the hooded figures brought in what looked to be a bound and gagged woman.

”Shit. They went full sacrificial cult...” he cursed as he prepared to intervene.

”Now! We shall call you from your prisons, Ancient Ones! With this sacrifice, I shall open the gateway to the world where your champions came to us! Let the blood of this sacrifice awaken them!” The head cultist exclaimed as he raised a jagged ritual knife above the woman’s head.

As he swung the knife down, the room erupted into a shower of light and noise as Savior crashed through the roof of the building, scattering flash grenades and causing the roof to cave in, burying the exit in rubble.

The head cultist shook his head free of the flash grenades and opened his hand, as lightning filled his palm he screamed, ”Brothers! It is the One That thinks himself Savior! Destroy Him Brothers!”

Savior activated his targeting systems, locked on to the approaching group, and unleashed a barrage of stunning electrical bolts from his gauntlets at the screaming cultists, knocking most of them away and forcing the others to dive for cover away from the spray of electric energy.

“In the name of Justice, you all all under arrest!” Savior announced, flaring his metal wings and igniting into the air above the remaining group.

The cultists ignored him and let loose several fireballs and bolts of magic from their hands, Savior generated an energy shield and rushed to the floor. The impact of his heavy body sent a shockwave across the room, flooring several more enemies.

The head cultist waved his hands as a large barrier arose around him and the unconscious woman, Some cultists started to lay down suppressing fire with their own magical abilities.

Savior ducked behind an overturned table and bookshelf and started saying to himself, ”Well Twilight was certainly off when it came to how fast humans could learn magic! Then again, there was so much magic being used six months ago and these people probably are just imitating some of Burning Star’s simplest techniques. Better do this quickly.”

Savior kicked the rubble he was hid behind forwards into the approaching crowd before running into close quarters with them, from there it was easy to dispatch them.

Most of the opponents he was fighting swiped at him with bits of stone or crude knives, all of which he either parried or dinged harmlessly off his hard shell.

Savior swung a roundhouse kick boosted by his leg thrusters into the group, knocking over four and hearing several bones snap as he sent another one into a wall where his body collapsed limply.

One of the cultists attempted to jab his facial area with a knife, he caught his arm with his armored hand and crushed it. Savior heard more bones crack as the cultist dropped to the floor in pain before going still from a metal boot to the stomach.

Savior made it past the other groups by discharging a burst of energy from his rockets as he smashed into the energy shield the head cultist put up.

The lead cultist fired a ball of lightning from one hand as he sent the one holding the knife into the woman’s back area, causing her to scream in agony. Blood began to pool around the floor as the head cultist began to chant.

”By the blood of this living body! I command thee Ancient Ones, send us a champion to save our lives from this monster!”

Within seconds, Savior was flung back as a dark whirlwind erupted from the magic circle, all the while the woman was floating mid air as Savior began to trade blows with the leader. Rotten books and loose parchment was ripped up into the whirling vortex. purple and red symbols began to swirl in the vortex, and crackled with arcane thunder.

Savior knew whatever was happening was linked to the leader, so he had to stop him, any means necessary.

With a grunt, he force self activated his Lethal Force Mode and drew his Lightning Blade, which sprung to life with a flash and crackled with several million volts of electricity, Turning the blade a bright white.

The leader extended his arm and swung a blade of electrical power at Savior, who had enough and swung his Lightning Blade as his arm, cutting it cleanly off.

”Foolish Mechanical Man, you are too late! You cannot stop the process now!

Savior immediately wrenched the leader’s body upwards to his face and snarled, “No, but I can stop you, maybe that will do it.”

The leader had little warning as Savior impaled him on his Lightning Blade, which did slow the whirlwinds velocity, but did not dissipate it completely. The woman’s body collapsed to the floor, but the whirlwind remained, howling around like an angry tempest from the depths of Tartarus.

The leader managed to cough out some words, “Hah... too late... the Ancient Ones have already arrived on this world... you cannot stop progress...”

Savior gripped his neck and said, “The Ancient Ones can go screw themselves...”

with a quick flick of his wrist, Savior snapped the leaders neck, letting him twitch and sputter before dying in his grasp.

Savior threw the leader to the ground before diving into the whirlwind and tackled the woman’s body out of the vortex. Which caused it to sputter and explode in a flash of red light and dust.

Even with his armor, Savior was both blinded and deafened by the resulting explosion, with blew him out the side of the building and into the alleyway, as well as collapsing the building on the cultist gathering, most likely killing the rest of them.

“DAMN IT!” Savior cursed as he ripped his helmet open with his right hand, now caked in dirt and blood from the battle. He slammed the ground with his left, leaving a small crater.

Despite the chaos and downright unpredictability of crime fighting without the aid of Police, Savior had been on a flawless record for a while, his perfectionist attitude driving him to keep getting better.

This was his first failure in six months... and first killing in six months...

the last one was stopping Eclipsio from destroying Canterlot Tower. Despite it being a shared burden between him and Burning Star’s group, Savior had taken it very personally. He had sworn an oath to avoid taking lives and he had just broken it out of anger.

It was his duty to protect the people of Canterlot from beings that seek to overthrow the natural order, to be what Ironheart was imagined to be, and he screwed up.

He screwed up big time. With all the self imposed pressure, it felt as bad as when the Tower fell...

Now, another building collapsed and an innocent woman was dead, all because he couldn’t do anything about the magic ritual.

As much as his cybernetic body was a blessing and a testament to the strength of his mind, he had scarified his natural form in order to obtain his new one. Along with that sacrifice came any capacity to use magic... which to a former unicorn that was an expert at the magical arts, was certainly a shock.

Twilight and Sunset had attempted to restore at least his appearance to that of a human, but no matter what they did they could not unravel what force bound Savior’s soul and mind to this body. The best they could come up with was creating an illusionary spell that made him resemble a more... approachable appearance, instead of a hulking automaton smelling of smoke and exhaling cinders from his air vent of a nose, and spewing sparks from a mouth lined with metal teeth.

Savior sighed and spoke to himself, ”Damn it all... i had that covered as well. I just got distracted by the ritual lingering in my mind. Next time, don’t pay attention to the ritual, just swoop in and start hitting people. If Burning Star had taught me anything in my observation of his... lessons. Don’t overthink in a fight, or make plans during one. Bad things happen, and anything that can go wrong, will.”

The metallic humanoid lay back on the asphalt, thinking to himself. ”I really do wish Burning Star were here sometimes. It gets terribly lonely doing this on my own. I wonder where he went off to?”

Savior sighed and closed his helmet again, the raptor like visor snapping shut and his HUD lighting up again. He swapped to Night Vision and began to search for the dead woman’s body, which had also been blown out of the building by the explosion.

He saw nothing in the alleyway besides the occasional stray cat and other verminous creatures, so The armored being took to the air and began searching from above. He activated Heat Source vision, as he would notice a lack of heat from a corpse.

“How far did this woman get flung? I can’t see her body anywhere.” He said as he soared over the neighborhood, trying to find any sign of the body.

He eventually landed back where he started and fell to his rear, groaning into his hands.

“Gah! I’m usually not this slow! Maybe I’m getting old? No, I am a machine, they don’t age. Outdated perhaps? Impossible, I created this body to be the pinnacle of engineering. What could I be missing?” Savior grumbled, lifting his head to his sensors and recalibrating them for sonar as he repeated the process.

He had done this a million times in the past, on Equestria and on Earth, why wasn’t anything showing up?!

Savior flew high into the air above the city and increased the power of his scanner arrays to their absolute maximum, yet still nothing was turning up.

Savior sighed and said, “Well Crap... not only did I mess up the takedown, I’ve lost the body of the woman. Tonights just getting worse and worse...”

As he flew back to his base of operations, Savior was thinking to himself. ”Two things don’t add up here, One... it’s not like a corpse to just straight up disappear, I saw it when I landed in the alleyway after I was flung out of the building. Two, Where did it go? Corpses just don’t get up and walk away, do they? No that’s impossible... even with all the magical things and beings from another world, I am drawing the line at the undead.”

As Savior was flying away, a figure was watching from the shadows, smirking at his hasty retreat.

“Yes, go. Leave this place, forget what you saw and return to your normal, everyday life. Enjoy it while it lasts...”

The figure then broke into a manic smile, showing razor sharp teeth.

“Because it will soon be over, when I consume all in my path.”

Chapter 4: The Darkening Burden of Shining Armor

(Canterlot City, Early Morning, Downtown CCPD Precinct.)

The people of Canterlot awakened to breaking news plastered all over the papers and online. The already panicked people had their fears justified once more as they read the headline in the Canterlot Times and watched the news report on Channel 2, on the Canterlot Morning Report.

”Innocent Bloodbath! Arcanists take another life!”

“Late last night, a female body was discovered in the Griffonstone Houses with a fatal stab wound in the back. Savior, our armored protector who was on site clearing out the cult from a dilapidated building, expressed his regrets for not being able to save the woman’s life.”

The newscast was on in the office of the Downtown precinct, many of the officers of the force couldn’t look away from the video surveillance footage of Savior fighting his way through the broken down church.

”I did all that I could, but the woman was already dying, she was dead the moment the knife went into her back, as it punctured her heart. I did dispose of said group of cultists, and the majority of them are now in the custody of the CCPF’s new Anti-Magic Squad (AMS). I offer my condolences to the family of the deceased woman, and I swear I will find and stop these Arcanist monsters.”

On the news, the anchorman spoke, “That was Savior, the Protector of our city. Can we still rely on him or will this new Anti Magic Squad be enough to stop the Arcanist Menace? Tune in at 12 PM for the interview with the head of the downtown CCPF Precinct, Shining Armor. This is Quick Scoop, signing off. Up next, the weather, followed by a look at the-

Shining Armor spoke, his eyes hardened into a flinty glare. “Shut it off Sunset Shimmer, we don’t to see anything else.”

Sunset obliged and toggled the tv off with the remote, and the various officers returned to their duties.

The pony turned human turned around to look at Shining, noticing the sour expression on his face.

Like Sunset Shimmer, Shining Armor had changed in the six months since the fall of Canterlot Tower. Considering he was directly involved with the assault on Eclipsio’s orbital fortress and even provided assistance with the Black Sun investigation, it was inevitable that even he came out changed by the ordeal.

Shining Armor’s pristine blue and white hair had turned a pale gray shade, presumably because of the immense stress he was under in the aftermath of the battle and the cleanup of the destruction. His eyes grew sharper, more intense, almost like it was projecting scrutiny on whatever he looked at.

Several officers in the precinct joked that Shining’s glare could cause a hardened criminal to soil themselves. Sunset initially dismissed this as a joke, until Shining was interrogating the suspect and caused said suspect to shake in terror by just Shining staring at him.

Attitude wise, Shining had grown colder, more ruthless. he was still on the side of the law and fairly reasonable, but Sunset noticed that something had changed in the man. He no longer seemed to care about non magical crime and seemed feverishly devoted to bringing these Arcanist Cult members in. Be it in cuffs, or in a body bag.

Shining had only recently been assigned to head of the downtown precinct from his senior officer role in the school district. He had a feeling that Commissioner Slate wanted him at the forefront of the effort to take on the Arcanists, as his involvement with the individuals known as Burning Star, Shadow Armor, and Eclipsio Alicornus (the name Shining Armor gave him during the investigation) made him an expert in all things related to this new threat.

Not only that, but his seemingly personal connection to Savior (via Sunset Shimmer, though that wasn’t mentioned in his report) made him the perfect liaison between the CCPF and the vigilante that protected the city.

Shining wasn’t all too fond of the newfound popularity his position gave him, especially the media pressuring him for interviews on what actually happened between him and this “Burning Star” character.

This is the reason why he hired Sunset to be his personal assistant, she would be the one to take questions for later, when Shining wasn’t buried in paperwork or hiding from the media.

Contrary to Sunset Shimmer, who seemed to be a natural at news interviews, Shining didn’t like the media. He felt as if they exaggerated the negative and never reported on what actual positive impact that Savior and the newly upgraded Police Force had on Canterlot.

General non magical crime such as physical assault and murder had dropped since six months ago, considering criminals were now wary of attacking people that could have magic that could obliterate them in a shower of gore.

Of course, Sunset informed Shining that was a rare event to happen, as causing a powerful magical burst required a certain level of training. With magic just starting to become commonplace, even Canterlot High started teaching students about simple self defense spells such as barriers and using blinding light to incapacitate their attacker.

Sunset (along with both the Pony version of Twilight and even Shadow Armor) had been kind enough to lend the school some books on basic Equestrian magic, and despite some difficulties and several accidental eruptions of magic, most people began learning some form of magical self defense.

There were of course some who were natural prodigies. Turns out, Terran Magic (the term coined by Pony Twilight) was very similar to Equestrian magic in its capabilities, but the main difference was that Equestrian magic drew upon the users own ability and magical aptitude, while Terran magic drew upon the environment and the energy of the world around you.

Even Shining found himself trying to learn some form of magical defense, albeit after his younger sister badgered him into learning it to protect himself. Twilight may have been rather poor at communicating with strangers, but with people she already knew and was comfortable around, she would talk your ear off.

He eventually settled on barrier casting and some lightning magic. Simple, but effective abilities that could protect himself and Allies and restrain his enemies by projecting of magical electricity to stun and render criminals (and occasionally stalking reporters) unconscious.

However as he was learning the basics of magic, he did tell Sunset that he was beginning to manifest powers he hadn’t learned from the books she lent him, specifically what he learned was called “shadow projection”. An ability that let him extend his own shadow as a physical object, which seemed to be an omen of bad things to come.

Sunset inquired into it by asking the pony version of Twilight. Her response was mixed, to say the least.

”Shadow Projection? It’s not an unheard of form of magic, but it certainly is rare. In regards to if there was anything wrong with it, not entirely. With practice you could turn your body into a living shadow, transform it into a physical object, or even manifest duplicates of yourself. It’s nothing too extreme or directly dangerous to you or others. The only negative thing I can really think of relating to it is that your eyes will suffer from some light sensitivity issues at first. But a good pair of enchanted sunglasses should fix that. I’ll send a pair over, just give me some measurements and I’ll get right on it.”

Shining recieved the enchanted sunglasses the morning after Sunset wrote to Twilight, As soon as he put them on, he never took them off. As normal light was starting to bother him as a result of his “condition” now.

Before he went any further, he asked if there was anyone famous on Equestria that had used Shadow Projection before.

Her response was ominous, ”A famous user of that type of magic? The only one I can think of off the top of my head was King Sombra. He was an evil monarch that had the ability to turn himself into a living shadow and control other ponies minds. But my friends and I destroyed him several years ago when he tried to take over Equestria, Shining Armor. As tenacious as he was, we were first hand witnesses to his destruction. I doubt he could have survived what we did to him, but if your really concerned about it, I can send over my notes on him if you think these powers you acquired are related to him. Personally I think your nerves are getting the better of you, human BBBFF, just relax and try to take these things one day at a time.”

Shining tried to relax after that, but ultimately his assumption regarding this “Sombra” was correct.

King Sombra was alive, and he had unintentionally brought him back six months ago!

(Flashback to Six Months ago. Twilights House, Bathroom)

Shining Armor opened the door to his home and walked inside... his steps uneasy and hyperventilating as his body ached.

Then he doubled over in pain as a surge of power wracked his entire body.

“Graagh! What is this... pain?! What is happening... to me?!” He yelled as he staggered to the bathroom.

He went in and locked the door, ripping off his coat and grabbing at his chest, realizing what he stuck in his pocket. He pulled it out and his eyes went wide...

The crimson artifact he took from Shadow Station was glowing bright red and emitting bolts of black lightning that rippled across Shining’s entire body.

Shining screamed in agony as he slammed his hand against the tile wall, putting a large hole in it.

He then collapsed to the floor, not moving...

No sound was heard as the body of Shining Armor lay on the bathroom floor...

Then, a breath of air filled his lungs, it was short and raspy.

Shining’s body stood up and he looked in the mirror, his eyes had turned a bright red and the whites had turned a sickly green. Purple flames slowly poured out of his eyes as he looked at both his hands.

Shining then spoke... his voice unnatural, like someone was speaking through him. It was deep and ominous, a voice that could strike fear into anyone or anything that heard it...

“The king has returned... long live... the king...”

Shining Armor shook his head, his eyes widened in disbelief as his pupil in his left eye had turned red and the white of his eye was a sickly green. Dark smoke poured out of it and his teeth had grown into sharpened fangs.

“What the hell are you!? What did you do to me?!” He shouted into the mirror, as he watched the left eyebrow on his face raise.

The voice responded in Shinings own voice, but with a deep echo. I should be asking that, you ignorant fool. How do you not know my name?”.

Suddenly, Shining felt a twinge of pain as something emerged from his back, it was a mass of black that looked like a very dark storm cloud.

Except Shining knew storm clouds didn’t ripple with glowing red and green lights and they didn’t form into a somewhat shape of a face. Glowing green Eyes emerged from the cloud, along with a set of sharpened teeth.

Said cloud-face began to speak to him, it’s voice chilling the human to the bone. ”I am the Shadow King, Sombra. I am the rightful ruler of the Crystal Empire of the Frozen North, before some fools called Shining Armor and Cadenza managed to get annoyingly lucky and dissipate me in my weakened state.”

Sombra’s shadowy cloud began to drift around Shining, still tethered to his body. ”I appear to be in a bathing chamber of some kind. As for you, who and what in the name of Tartarus are you?” the cloud asked, thrusting it’s gaseous form forwards and causing Shining to stumble back into the bathtub.

The further frightened human spoke, “My name is Shining Armor. And what Is the Crystal Empire? All I can think of relating to that is the school Crystal Prep. Were you some sort of founder there or something?”

Sombra’s cloud looked down at Shining’s feet and arms. Upon spotting no hooves he growled out, ”No you fool. The Crystal EMPIRE. My rightful place of power in Equestria! Are you an even bigger fool than I thought that you don’t even know of the kingdom you stole from me?!”

Shining looked confused, “Stole from you? What on earth are you talking about?”

Sombra paused at Shining’s expression, ”What did you say? What on Earth? Wait, Where are we exactly and what am I doing in your body? What exactly are you?”

Shining’s confusion grew, “You’re in Canterlot City. On the planet Earth. As for what I am, I’m a human being.”

King Sombra’s wispy eyes widened, ”Earth? The name of my world is Equis. Are you saying that I am currently in the body of some sort of strange hairless primate?!”

Shining frowned, “Hairless primate? Really? That’s a little insulting.”

Sombra scoffed, ”It is an appropriate description of what you resemble, worm. How did some creature like you acquire the shard of my horn?”

“I take offense to that, first off.” Shining said while scowling at the spectral set of eyes, “Secondly to answer your question, I found your horn on board a fortress floating in the sky above my planet. The door had locked me in, and when I grabbed this horn it emitted a burst of energy that fried the locks and wrenched open the door.”

King Sombra raised one of his non existent eyebrows, ”Did you now? Well As much as I hate to say it, I guess some thanks are in order for freeing me from that prison, albeit unintentionally. But that still doesn’t answer my question about who you are, exactly…” the shadow hissed, eyes glowing brighter.

Shining out his hand to his own face and groaned, “Oh boy this is gonna take a while to explain.”

He turned his head to the ceiling where Sombra’s cloud was floating, “My name is Shining Armor by the way.”

At the mention of his name, King Sombra paused, before saying in an utterly confused tone.

”Im sorry, WHAT?!”

(Shining Armor’s Room, about 1 hour later.)

After a long and mentally painful conversation with the Shadow King, punctuated by him laughing at random intervals, before realizing Shining wasn’t kidding and that humor quickly turned to venom-filled ire.

Sombra paced, or rather floated back in forth above Shining’s dresser, deep in thought. ”So let me get this straight, This is a planet called Earth. When I was obliterated by Twilight and her miserable friends on Equestria, the sheer power of the blast rocketed my horn across space and time, landing on this world. I was picked up by a extremely powerful Alicorn turned human named Prince Eclipsio and his lackey, a resurrected human warrior called Black Sun. My horn was imprisoned aboard some sort of high altitude sky station. That is until six months ago, where another Alicorn named Burning Star fought and killed Eclipsio and Black Sun in battle. Do I have that right so far?”

Shining nodded and said, “Yeah pretty much. I did actually help Burning Star during the pursuit of Black Sun and even played a role in stopping Eclipsio, I’d like to mention.

Sombra’s smoke cloud stared at Shining, making a disbelieving frown. “I find that completely ridiculous, Shining.”

The young man jumped up and said to the cloud, “Well it did happen! You can look through my memories to prove it!”

Sombra’s cloud rolled its eyes, ”No, I’ve seen your memories of the ordeal. I just find it ridiculous as to how you not only survived an encounter with two of the most powerful magic users I have ever seen, and not only managed to contribute significant support, but you actually helped in completely destroying an Alicorn with powers that far surpassed my own. You, a normal, non magical human being managed to help kill one of the most powerful and dangerous creatures in the universe.”

Shining Armor crossed his legs and smirked, “Yeah, I guess I did help do that. What do you think?”

King Sombra went silent for a moment, before letting out an honest laugh, ”Grah-haha-haha! well it seems I made my assessment of you being a complete invalid like your equestrian counterpart too early. You clearly have much more potential and cunning that he ever could dream of having. I must say, I’m impressed, and that is rare praise from me. Perhaps you won’t be such a terrible host after all.”

Shining Armor beamed, before he raised an eyebrow, “Hey King Sombra? Mind if I ask you something?”

Sombra’s cloud shifted downwards, making the gesture of a nod.

“How come your so… amicable towards me? Last I checked, you were the Tyrant Shadow King, so why the more friendly attitude?” Shining asked, genuinely confused.

King Sombra’s shadowy cloud let out a puff of smoke, indicating a sigh. ”Well, when I look at you I still see a simple fool who is out of his depth. Although that could change with time… No, that will change with time.”

Shining Armor felt a chill run though his body as Sombra’s smoky visage rushed into his face.

“What do you mean by that, exactly? Sombra?”Shining asked Nervously, receiving no response.

(Present Day, Canterlot City Police Precinct)

After six months of training (in secret) to harness the Shadow Projection abilities King Sombra’s spirit had granted him, Shining had gotten much stronger than he let people believe.

Beneath the facade of a rather inexperienced magic user was a powerful spirit of one of the most evil and dangerous unicorns in Equestrian History.

When Shining Armor asked for more info on King Sombra, he got his reply from Twilight after the kings spirit had revealed itself to him.

Shining immediately wanted to let Twilight know about Sombra’s apparent resurrection, but he refrained when Sunset explained that the portal form Equestrian Alpha to Earth Alpha via the Crystal Empire mirror was broken on her end due to an attack of rouge changelings that sought to invade Earth, and the Princess was still unable to send living beings through it, only non living objects.

This was the reason why Twilight had not come to deal with this so called “Prince Eclipsio” herself, as Princess Twilight was more than capable of handling him no matter how strong he said he was.

Sunset did ask as to why Shining asked about King Sombra, he said that he wanted to learn more about this “Shadow Projection” he supposedly was a master of.

From a purely pragmatic perspective, As evil as King Sombra was, you couldn’t deny that he was a master of his craft. Shining did promise that if he felt even the slightest bit unsafe or felt corruption rising in him, while reading these notes, he’d immediately tell Pony Twilight or at least Sunset.

Said pony turned human entered Shining’s office and placed another stack of paperwork on his desk, earning a groan from Shining, who was still working on his laptop.

“Here’s the daily reports from our patrol officers on any magical activity, Captain Armor. Those arcane monitors Savior gave us are coming in handy in finding these creeps.” She said, a small smile on her face.

She slunk into one of the office chairs in the room, saying in an exhausted tone, “I hope we finally get the rest of them soon, then we can focus on finding who created these cults and hunt them next. Anything I can do for you to lighten this stack of papers?”

Shining Armor grunted in irritation, Clearly not paying attention at the moment.

Sunset spoke again, “You really should use your words, I don’t speak grumbles.”

The captain of the Police Precinct lifted his head from his laptop and said, “No. I don’t have anything else for you to do, take an early day, Sunset. I have to read some more of these notes Princess Twilight sent over.”

“You worried King Sombra might exist here and your trying to find him or something?” Sunset replied, a orange eyebrow raised.

The reply she got was a terse, “Yes. Now please go.”

Sunset gave the captain a worried look, but ultimately got up from the office chair and left.

“Alright Shining, just don’t forget to sleep. I’ve had to tell Twilight this several times because she wouldn’t go to sleep when she was engrossed in her reading, I hope I don’t have to tell you more than once.” She said in jest.

The response she got from Shining was again, terse and short, but this time it was accompanied by a steely eyed glance that made Sunset’s blood run cold

“I heard you, Sunset. Now leave.”

Sunset did as Shining asked and walked out of the room In a hurry, trying to ignore the chill she got when looking back at Shining.

”Wonder what’s eating him? The news probably got to him more than he is letting on, so he is trying to appear strong for the rest of us.” Sunset thought, before exiting the building, hopping into her car and driving off.

The rest of the officers slowly started making their afternoon patrols and picking up the papers Shining had laid out in regards to Anti Magic Defenses, and his office was soon empty, leaving Shining Armor alone.

The captain took a quick look around to see if anyone was watching, before closing all the blinds in his office windows and locking the door.

Most of the officers that were coming back from their morning patrols knew that Shining always did this around mid morning, and that he wasn’t to be disturbed. Apparently whatever magic… arcane… stuff their captain was trying to learn via the books he kept in his desk was very light and sound sensitive.

The first (and last) person that walked in on him doing… whatever he was doing was a paper runner that brought him the newspaper last week.

The officers heard the door slam shut and lock, and a ear-piercing scream filled the office. Several of the police at their desk immediately ran to the door and wrenched it open, thinking something horrible must have happened.

What they found was a young man lying on the floor and Shining sitting at his desk with the most serene face they have ever seen.

When his men questioned him on what happened, the captain responded with a simple, “He isn’t well, get him help.”

The paper runner on the floor was pale faced, shivering. His eyes were wide and bloodshot and whenever he felt someone look at him, he turned his head to not look at any of them directly.

The boy was taken to the hospital for a psychological evaluation, muttering “don’t look at me! Don’t look!” for the entire ride.

Later that day he was diagnosed with Arcane Poisoning, apparently he had been trying to use magic to boost his stamina so he could run his routes faster and he had effectively gone into the magical version of an overdose.

From that point forwards, the officers began to suspect something was amiss and avoided the captain during the mid morning and afternoon hours, as they were afraid whatever happened that day could have happened to them.

They reported Shining to the commissioner for a quick psychological evaluation himself. He came out fine, all things considered. He was displaying normal behavior with the exception of a feeling of heavy stress and anxiety that was common of people in his position.

The doctors prescribed him some anti anxiety medication and told him to relax and rely on his fellow coworkers more, or hire a personal secretary to take some of the work off.

The response Shining gave was a quick, “Sure thing, Doctor. I already have someone in mind.”

After that, Sunset Shimmer was hired by Shining Armor to be his personal secretary and assistant going forward.

She secretly would also serve as his liaison to Savior so he would stay in the loop regarding any more deep magic problems that his new Anti Magic officers couldn’t handle, that way he could prepare for any other cultists that would mysteriously end up bound, gagged, and unconscious on the precincts doorstep or on the roof of the building where Savior caught them.

The first few times he started doing that and the precinct wasn’t ready, Shining wasn’t exactly thrilled to have the possibility of a magical explosion happening on the roof of his building.

All those things aside, his fellow officers did notice that Shining had changed greatly since six months ago, When the two beings now known as Eclipsio and Burning Star clashed in their city and shattered most of downtown Canterlot and one of the highways.

The police had all changed and grew a little more wary and dour, but Shining was the most noticeable.

Over the course of the past six months, His fairly sunny and hopeful demeanor was slowly worn away, replaced with stone-cold determination and devotion to finding and bringing these cultists to justice.

The officers respected and looked up to him for that, and their worries about him slowly went away.

(Shining Armor’s Office)

The office was all quiet, until a sound not unlike a gusting wind swept through the office and Shining Armor emerged from the shadow of the file cabinet. There were now two Shining armors in the room!

… before one of them shifted and disappeared with a swooshing sound. It was a shadow duplicate!

This was an extremely useful power Sombra’s shadow form had granted him, the ability to leave behind false constructs of himself. They were limited to a certain distance (about 1-2 miles at max) and only could do tasks that Shining gave to them mentally. They were limited in verbal response, and tended to dissipate when exposed to sunlight for too long.

With all the shutters closed and the door locked, no one saw him shift in and pop his body double like a balloon, Shining sat back in his chair, placing his hand on his shirt and pulling up a piece of twine that hung around his neck.

“That was too close… you really need to get some patience, there.” Shining said to the air, feeling the thing he was tugging on vibrating.

A soft red glow filled the room as the shard of King Sombra’s horn was pulled out from underneath Shining’s shirt, it pulsed and sparked as if it had a life of its own.

Which was true, as the horn suddenly vibrated as Sombra’s spectral head emerged from the shard, a displeased look on his face.

”I have been patient, boy. The Equestrian Unicorn posing as human is right, you have been reading over these pointless reports for several hours. It would do the both of us good if you were to focus now on continuing to practice harnessing the powers of my Shadow. While that was still impressive for only six months of practice, you need to improve. At least until you can find more pieces of my horn…”

Shining Armor looked annoyed, “What do you expect I do? This is my job, King Sombra. It’s not my fault that I was moved from patrol to an administration position, Commissioner Slate did that so he would have a loyal ear in the downtown area. I swear he keeps getting more and more paranoid every month due to the Arcanist attacks on a steady rise. Plus, I’m tired of doing the paperwork, having a shadow double do it for me is easier.”

Sombra scoffed, ”while I agree with your stance on paperwork, I disagree on your opinion on these so called Cultists. These cretins could barely fight off even the youngest unicorn from my world. How did this cult’s faith in both Eclipsio and your former ally Burning Star survive this long, considering human propensity to kill each other over stupid reasons?””

The captain turned to a tack board he set up, multiple lines connecting various articles to pictures and newspaper clips.

Most if not all of which were related to the Arcanists, Eclipsio, and reports on Magic in general. Important info was marked with a red pushpin, while supporting info was marked by blue pins.

They all converged on a single photo, a photo taken by Shining’s body camera when he was witness to Eclipsio’s shattering demise.

The picture showed Eclipsio’s armored demon body fly into pieces, all appearing to dissipate into nothing, with the exception of one object.

A Black and Silver medallion like object that looked similar to Twilight’s own Magic Battery.

Six months ago on the day the tower fell, Later that evening, Twily had picked up the magic battery in a telekinetic field and brought it to the precinct. Although with no safe way to contain it, Shining’s only real option was to take it home with Twi and have her work her magic on it to analyze it. Maybe give him and the police some clues as to what the hell exactly was Prince Eclipsio.

Burning Star had told them that he was a demon-like entity from his home dimension, but that wasn’t enough information for Shining.

King Sombra had assisted in his own way with the investigation and analysis (in secret of course) by explaining to Shining Armor what exactly was a Demon in Equestrian history and identifying the source of Eclipsio’s magic.

Before King Sombra had taught him anything, he first taught him that while magic could be channeled from yourself or the environment around you, it works and is more effective if you have some sort of singular focus to channel it through.

On Equestria, Ponies focused their own natural magic through themselves. Unicorns primarily used their horns, Pegasi used their wings, and Earth Ponies channeled their natural affinity for the land through their legs.

With Alicorns it was different, though. Because of how powerful an Alicorn was and because they possessed the traits of all pony races, their entire body was a focal point for magical abilities. This amplified their own physical and magical strength to an immense degree.

This is the reason King Sombra gave to Shining when he was describing the reason why he lost the War for the Crystal Empire and ended up having to seal it away with him.

Sombra was a better tactician, far more skilled fighter, and quite possibly one of the most powerful Unicorn sorcerers second only to Starswirl the Bearded himself… But he was still a Unicorn.

King Sombra lost due to a lack of raw power and the fact that Celestia and Luna had attacked him together.

Facing only one of the sisters would have been preferable, as he had Been able to defeat Celestia or Luna when on their own during past battles.

But the two of them together was simply too much for the King, even with all the measures he took to limit their power, they still triumphed and Sombra had to rely on his failsafe of sealing the empire along with him.

“Twilight had spoken to me earlier Sombra, she said she finished her analysis of Eclipsio’s magic battery.” Shining said to the smoke cloud of the Shadow King. “It appears to be of similar construction to her own magic battery that she used during the friendship games when she… well… was transformed.”

King Sombra grimaced, ”Transformed? What do you mean, Boy? You are saying the Equestrian magic she had collected transformed her into something else, that would only occur if she had collected the magic of an Alicorn level pony, which you told me wasn’t on this planet during the time of this educational competition.”

“What exactly happened, why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Sombra nearly shouted, a little upset over not knowing about something that strong being in someone his host knew.

Shining looked worried, “I was afraid that you’d immediately ditch me and try to possess her. You struck me initially as the type of individual that would gladly throw his Allies under the bus for more power.”

King Sombra looked annoyed, ”You think that of me? You’d be correct, and I considered it initially. Unfortunately I discovered while I was educating you on my shadow powers that due to the nature of my spirit still being weak at the moment, I can’t do it. If I was stronger, yes I would leave you in a heartbeat. However, your extended contact with my horn shard has left a permanent mark on it, I couldn’t separate from you now without endangering both your and my existence.”

”Take solace in the fact that you are still useful to me, boy. You may be weak, but even pawns can become Queens if they survive for enough time. I still intend to retake my kingdom and rule what is rightfully mine, even if I have to drag you into it, but you will have the luxury of being first hand witness and my vassal for that day. At least until I get my full horn back.”

“So you’d actually leave if you could?” Shining said, feeling disappointed in himself.

King Sombra was nothing if not pragmatic and honest with him, ”Yes. I would, but with everything i have learned about this world and it’s people from you, I highly doubt there is no one else that comes even close to the amount of strength I would need to find the shards of my horn, not to mention no one knows any magic that I can perform. If I even try to transform into a shadow, a normal human would just be reduced to nothing.”

Suddenly, King Sombra’s tone softened, voice showing what could be considered sympathy, or at least pity. ”however… you have already come in contact with my horn and seem willing and determined to learn my craft. Plus, you seem to share the same natural aptitude for magic your sister does. That is enough reason for me to stick around, at least until a stronger person comes along.”

Shining nodded and then closed his eyes, “Alright that’s fair, but we should start practicing now, right? Maybe I can use your Shadow Form to get to the Griffonstone houses, do my investigation?”

He felt his body shift and fade, when he opened his eyes, Sombra’s signature green eye glow consumed his vision.

”Yes, I believe we shall, boy. Time to harness your inner darkness, and become like shadow!” King Sombra roared as his voice began to mix with Shinings own, as the two vanished into the darkness of the office.

The office was silent, then a shadowy projection of Shining’s body emerged from the floor, a fanged grin showing.

the shadow of Shining armor spoke, ”Oh this is going to be fun.”

With a crack of what sounded like a thunderbolt, Shining’s shadow dissipated as he vanished from the office, flying out into the city towards the Griffonstone Houses, leaving behind a duplicate of himself in his place.

The duplicate then opened all the blinds and unlocked the door, before sitting at his desk and finishing Shining’s paperwork.

The officers returned to their normal duties instead of eavesdropping on their captain, No one the wiser that Shining had left the building to investigate the scene himself…

Chapter 5: Wrong Place, Right Time

(Canterlot City, Main Street Ruins)

The midday sun bathed the city of Canterlot in is glorious radiance. It was the middle of summer, which would normally mean a wide array of festivals and fairs would show up.

But due to the recent Arcanist attacks, many of them were cancelled.

To say The city of Canterlot was hurt by the battle of Eclipsio and Burning Star would be the understatement of all understatements.

Not only was most of downtown and Canterlot Tower leveled in the chaotic fight of the two warriors, Main Street and Broadway were reduced to ruins and blocked by fallen buildings, effectively cutting the city in two. The ruins of the area were dotted by small camps of Arcanist cultists and several stakeout points of the police’s Anti Magic Force who played a pivotal role in keeping the chaos caused by the groups within the broken down remnants of downtown.

The “Arcanist” Term was a blanket term, as there were several groups that splintered off during the six months that passed since the climatic battle of the two Alicorn-turned-humans. They split from the main group in order to worship the beings that their personal ideologies aligned with presumably, or just because they were against the opposing group, which they viewed as the lesser evil.

The first group was the “Followers of Midnight”, led by Archpriestess Greyhound. She was a tough old woman in her 50s who was a former teacher at Crystal Prep. Her gray hair and intense silver eyes revealed an intelligent and driven woman willing to learn and solve the mysteries of magic. She was on campus during the friendship games incident, and became interested in magic. The members typically wore purple robes with hot pink lining, emblazoned with a patch of Midnights signature Neon Green energy horn and mask

Despite the schools efforts to cover it up, one does not cover up a cataclysmic breach in space-time revealing an entirely new dimension easily. Videos leaked onto several sites on the internet, including “Tweeter” and “Teddit” (censored for the sake of keeping panic down.) and over time, a following formed around the being known as Midnight.

Most of the members of this following were simply people who got suckered in, but several were fanatical towards the worship of what they viewed as some sort of divine figure. And to be fair, Midnight did indeed give off that sort of aura, between the Giant wings and incomprehensible power that seemingly had no limit, she commanded attention and respect.

There were also some who were attracted to her in a more… personal way, and it was understandable as to why. Midnight was tall, dark, and had a dominating presence.

Essentially, these people wanted to be stepped on, and most of the members of the cult ignored them.

The followers of Midnight’s founding principles were persevering and obtaining knowledge of magic to analyze and improve on, seeing it as a medium of study to spread to the rest of the city and eventually the world.

Like all the cults, they were waiting for Midnight to eventually return. However, they were the only one out of the other two that KNEW who Midnight was bonded to, the girl known as Twilight Sparkle.

In order to prevent the more extreme members of the cults from potentially turning Midnight against them by earning the enmity of her host, Greyhound had ordered that no member would interfere in Twi’s life. This was partially because the former teacher felt partially responsible for how Twilight snapped at the Games and for not seeing the signs earlier.

The second cult and arguably the most active one was the Knights of Fire, who followed Burning Star, who they referred to as the God of Fire and Rebirth. These self proclaimed knights viewed magic and the arcane arts as a new form of defense against the enemies of their order and humanity at large. They wore primarily black vests with Kevlar armor plates to replicate the look of bulky armor.

They were led not by a priestess or religious figure, but rather a High Commander, who wished to lead like this to Distinguish themselves from being not a cult, but a sect of magical warriors.

They were dogmatic and aggressive, but ultimately had a strong code of honor and morals. Despite being considered dangerous to the public when they were preforming their combat drills, They actively worked with the CCPF when they needed help dealing with an exceptionally powerful threat, usually in the form of another cultist from the other groups gone rouge and/or mad with power.

The Knights set up their base in the broken down CPPD Academy that was near Canterlot Tower. There they could practice and train in a more formal environment. It was also close enough to the edge of the ruins that they could immediately get proper law enforcement. Several members also volunteered to educate the Anti Magic Force of the CCPD on proper defense and neutralization methods for rouge Magic users (coined “Magi” by the High Commander of the Knights, Blaze Shine)

They wished for Burning Star to return and see how far they have come in following his message of defending the people by growing them strong enough to survive on their own.

Overall, they were reasonable, albeit rather stubborn to adhering Burning Star’s lifestyle of doing what is necessary to survive, even if it isn’t all that nice.

The last and arguably most dangerous of the groups (due to them being the first and most fanatical in their beliefs) was the Sons of Eclipsio. They were a group of crazies that essentially believed Eclipsio was some sort of messiah figure, here to liberate all of humanity from the misery of existence.

In short, they were fatalistic nihilists that showed their devotion to Eclipsio by killing or attacking anything that wasn’t them. They also made a habit of kidnapping and ritualistically killing magic users to use their magic to enhance themselves.

They are currently led by High Priest Zeron. Zeron was powerful and infamous magic user who got lucky enough to gain a proficiency in the same Distortion Magic that their “Loving Savior” used to annihilate the downtown area in the fight for the worlds survival. His fanatic devotion to Eclipsio’s ideals was only rivaled by his unbelievable hatred for humanity.

Zeron wasn’t elected leader and he didn’t start the cult initially, he gained leadership after killing every other possible candidate for the role, leaving only him to rule.

They were enemies with the other two groups and often went out of their way to kill members. Their base of operations was set up around the Crater that was Canterlot Tower, as the residue Magic from Eclipsio was so strong that it permanently tainted the group, leaving it prime for Zeron’s abilities as well as granting those who were members of the cult significantly more power than the others.

No citizen of Canterlot City dared to go near the ruins, as their fear of these magic-using fanatics hunting them down and killing them was almost city wide, the only people that dared to go in were Savior (due to his Anti Magic Weaponry) and the Anti Magic Force of the CCPD.

Occasionally you’d get some idiot wandering in on a dare, but they were often sent fleeing out by a member of any of the groups, determined to keep their sacred grounds untainted. Most sane people avoided this as a result.

However, one person wasn’t entirely all that aware of what danger truly lied with in, and he was determined to find out and document these people, even if it could get him killed.

(Canterlot City, Broadway.)

The street of Broadway was the only relatively safe way in and out of the ruins of downtown, with relatively Few buildings wrecked and broken, and none really blocking the road. People felt fairly safe walking across it to get to the southern part of the city, as regular police patrols and the armored vigilante Savior were seen nearby often.

However despite these factors, it was near constantly contested by all three cult groups as it was their only way out of the ruined city center.

Dusk Shine walked briskly down Broadway, trying to look like as little as a threat as possible. He knew that some Arcanists were often seen along this block, but he wasn’t worried. It wasn’t night yet, and Savior had been seen flying in the general area.

Unbeknownst to the young man, Twilight had passed a tip onto Sunset, who told Savior to look after the little guy.

Savior accepted, but not without commenting on how little Dusk seemed to care about his own safety, to which Twi told him about Dusk’s rather… reckless childhood, and reckless was still understating it.

Dusk was raised in Everton by her aunt Shine Spark and uncle Starburst. It was a nice college town and actually the home of the college Twilight was trying to get into during her time attending Crystal Prep.

He was a good kid, if a little naive and unaware of the world. Always having his head buried in history books, learning as much as he could from the past in order to prepare for the future. When Sunset heard Twi tell her story about him she was immediately reminded of Pony Twilight before she had moved into Ponyville from Canterlot.

Although, Sunset was sure that Twilight didn’t have a pension to get into fights over basically anything that contradicted what he saw in books and texts.

Dusk, despite being brilliant in academic smarts, wasn’t exactly the most tempered individual. He was obnoxiously stubborn, prone to spouts of violent anger usually resulting in him snapping pencils in rage. He often got into scuffles with the other bookworms that usually ended with them running away. Savior attributed it probably to either a lack of love or attention from his parents, or the desperate desire to prove himself different from Twilight.

Twilight admitted it was probably a bit of both, as nice as her aunt and uncle were, they were extremely busy with their jobs, often working themselves to utter exhaustion…

which Savior had an honest laugh at and said “Must run in the family then?”

But, all that changed six months ago when he got into Everton, Dusk quieted down and learned to temper himself more. He was doing great, being a straight A student with several awards in both history, writing, and math, but was still rather isolated in terms of social contacts.

Sunset hypothesized that was why he was sent to Canterlot, not necessarily to write a report, but to make friends like the Twilight of her world was sent to Ponyville.

So far, that hadn’t been successful, as Dusk had spent the majority of the last 2 nights sealed away in the guest room of Twilight’s home. This was the first time Dusk had left his room (and the house) for anything other than dinner or a bathroom break.

So Dusk decided after making dinner for himself that he was gonna go for a walk, and investigate these “Arcanists” himself… Which Twilight would have told him is an idiotic thing to do if he wasn’t already out the door when he said it, he as the reason Twi called Sunset to tip off Savior.

Dusk was many things, tactful was not one of them.

He had come all this way to Canterlot in order to study and document the details surrounding Burning Star, his relation to the Black Sun incident, and the fall of Canterlot Tower. He was going to get some direct and first hand answers and not some secondhand and clearly edited report from Savior’s logs.

His plan was simple, to get into the ruins of the downtown area, find out as much as he could without being seen and only coming out if the group he was observing seemed peaceful, then leave quietly.

It presented little to no risk and he was certain he could get out of there without issues.

Dusk slowed his walking speed down and relaxed his posture, trying to appear calm. Despite not being able to use magic, he could feel the sheer magical pressure in the air.

Earlier today, Twilight told him that Equestrian Magic can leave something similar to a fingerprint of magical residue. It usually would be rather minor and only people and ponies would be able to feel it, but especially powerful spells and life forms, such as Burning Star, Eclipsio, even Midnight Sparkle could leave a strong enough imprint that even those that don’t have any abilities could feel the effects and sense the residue.

Burning Star’s magic felt like the heat of a scorching desert, Eclipsio’s magic felt like a hollow cold similar to the blackness of space, and Midnight’s magic felt as if you got zapped by static electricity.

Obviously the residue had diminished over six months, but certain areas still felt like this as a result of the tremendous amount of energy that was unleashed by the two titans of magical might.

Dusk became uneasy, feeling several people staring at him from the broken windows and gaps in the ruined buildings and a dull, dry heat suddenly struck him, concluding he was in an area where Burning Star was fighting six months ago.

”Dry heat, intense glares and the smell of smoke. I must be in Knights of Fire territory. They are relatively peaceful in comparison, though that’s not saying much. They are still a cult.” the young man thought to himself, feeling sweat starting to form as his nerves started to get the better of him.

Despite being completely terrified of what could happen to him, he pressed on. This story and document would make his life. At least to him, All the greatest reporters and authors in history got to where they were by testing the boundaries of what was acceptable and safe, and he wanted to become the man who documented in his book he was writing based on the paper he was penning at the moment, titled “Rise of Magic”

…it was a working title.

Dusk felt A feeling of terror shoot up his spine as he heard something clang behind him, immediately wheeling around to see a piece of a rusted fire escape drop from a broken apartment building. The loud clanging sound reverberated throughout the empty street, echoing throughout the crumbling surroundings.

The young man frantically looked around, trying to find where it dropped from, or who threw it down to frighten him, but he didn’t feel anything wrong…

This was good. He wasn’t being watched anymore.

The young man breathed out in relief as he let out a nervous laugh. “Oh Faust, I hate every minute of this, but I chose to come out here, I need to find out more.” He said, the fear slowly disappearing with every deep breath he took.

That feeling of terror returned in full force when he heard a voice from behind him, sounding a combination of amused and curious.

“Find out more about what, child?”

Dusk Shine wheeled around only to smack face first into a woman’s chest, falling on his rear with a high pitched yelp.

“No! Don’t kill me don’t kill me don’t kill meeeee!” The now absolutely terrified man yelled, frantically flailing his arms in front of him as he felt himself be picked up by an invisible force and floated into eye view of his attacker. He was suspended upside down as she raised an eyebrow at him.

She was a woman in her late 20s judging by her younger appearance. She was tall, easily being six feet high and her arms and legs showed toned muscles. Her hair was red with white streaks and covered one of her glowing red eyes that were focused into a glare that seemed to pierce into Dusk’s soul.

The woman narrowed her eyes in annoyance at the young man’s panic, “Oh quit your blubbering. I’m not gonna hurt you, I’m just a little curious as to why some kid is sneaking around my territory. You realize what tends to happen to No Mag (Non Magical) people when they stumble in here right?”

Dusk’s “blubbering” did not cease, in fact it increased significantly as tears began to form in his eyes, “I-I-I- I am Dusk Shine! I’m just a kid from Everton! My cousin is Twilight Sparkle one of the Rainbooms! Don’t hurt me I don’t want to dieee-eee-e!”

The woman groaned, her temper clearly starting to flare, “Ok, that’s it. Either you calm down and talk like a normal person, or I’m gonna drop you on your face and give you something to cry about!”

Dusk shut up immediately, not wanting to have the woman drop him on his face and break his nose on the pavement. He took a few deep breaths, collecting himself before saying, “Alright, alright, ok… sorry about that you scared me.”

The woman snickered as she rotated Dusk to right side up, “I’ve seen people panic when they get grabbed by Telekinesis before, but you take the cake for the biggest freakout I’ve seen in a while.”

Dusk scowled, “oh come on, it wasn’t that big of a freakout, my cousin has had worse, trust me.”

“Seeing is believing for our little group, kid. Now scram.” The woman said, slowly preparing to toss the little guy like a softball out of their territory.

“Wait wait wait! Don’t throw me out, I’m here on a mission!” Dusk said, panicking like his life was on the line, which considering he had no magic to protect his body from the impact of a long toss, it was.

The woman paused her windup and looked at the young man, her eyebrow raised, “A Mission? From who? Why did you come all the way from Everton to Canterlot? You do know about what’s going on here right?”

Regret flew through Dusk’s head about trying to keep things secret, but preserving his own life came first. “I am here to document and study magic! I came all the way from Everton to do this and then publish a report on it! It’s the only reason I’m here!” Dusk screamed, quickly panicking and trying to save his skin.

The woman looked confused for a moment, then smiled, “Are you now? Well why didn’t you say that to start?! Hah-ha! Commander Blaze Shine is always looking for new recruits and an out of town kid will let us expand a little more. Plus, the fact you seemed to be able to sense the magical residue says you have the potential for magic in you.”

Dusk Shine’s face immediately twisted into one of both confusion and regret, “Wait that’s not wha-“

He was cut off by the lady putting her finger to his lips, “Shush, Dusk Shine. I’ll take care of the talking, ok? So don’t worry your blue little head. You can document and study magic perfectly well under our commanders tutelage.”

Dusk tried to speak but his mouth was forcibly closed by the lady’s telekinesis. She let out a bemused laugh, “Oh I’m being rude, I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Strikeout, I’m the head of scouting for Knights of Fire.”

She place a hand on Dusk’s head and ruffled his hair, “Welcome to the club kid.”

If Strikeout could hear Dusk’s thoughts, he was screaming all the curse words he knew in the ten languages he knew.

(Canterlot City Ruins)

Savior perched upon the spire of a ruined church, surveying the city with his Thermal sensors, hoping to pick up any signs of Dusk Shine. He had been watching the kid from the air and he suddenly dropped off his radar, this worried him.

His thermal sensors were usually the best way to find people, but considering he was in an Area filled with the residue of Burning Star’s magic, they were completely useless.

This wasn’t good, spotting him via normal eyesight would also be near useless, as the crumbling buildings and homes made great cover.

He swapped to his Magic Sensor array, causing his helmet’s visor to glow bright blue as it sent out a pulse to detect any nearby excess magical discharge that could be produced by an Arcanist.

”Come on kid, where are you?” he muttered to himself, rapidly scanning the area.

Savior’s sensors were not working as well as he needed them to, the Magic density in the air was high, and while his systems were able to filter out most if not all of it, it was still struggling to pinpoint Dusk through the haze of the residue.

Eventually, a ping popped up. The sensors pinpointed Dusk Shine, he was only a couple blocks away. Savior let out a sigh of relief that he didn’t just vanish…

Only immediately to be replaced by a sense of urgent fear as he saw that he was being carried by someone’s telekinesis.

Savior’s chest tensed up as A feeling of terror suddenly erupted in his cybernetic heart. Try as he did to purge himself of emotion when he made the transfer from his pony body to this one, he never was able to get rid of his emotions.

A fact that ultimately he was thankful for, as it let him stop himself before he made a severe mistake and annihilated Manehattan.

In the span of a second, Savior’s wings extended into flight mode and his Electric Wire launcher activated as he rocketed off towards the trapped boy. His old instincts kicking in as he immediately activated his anti magic weaponry and set the output to near lethal levels,

”Dammit Dusk, how did you get yourself captured after two days here?! Are you really that void of self preservation?!” the cybernetic hero screamed in his head.

(Broadway)

Strikeout was still talking to Dusk about the Knights of Fire when Savior collided into the road in front of them, firing a electric net at the woman. She dropped Dusk behind a piece of rubble as she prepared a fireball spell.

Strikeout slung the Fiery projectile, which immediately disappeared when it made contact with the net. She screamed in pain as she was quickly enveloped and shocked with enough electricity to kill most normal people.

Dusk quickly scrambled to his feet as Savior drew his magic casters and pointed them at the downed woman, making a mad rush towards Savior as he fired several stunning shots into Strikeout’s chest. Strikeout twitched, then stopped moving.

“Savior! Thank Faust you are here! I thought I was going to- ACK!” Dusk was speaking as Savior picked him up by his neck and pulled him close to his face mask, his orange eyes burning into the young man’s skull.

“You are a fool, Dusk Shine. You’re lucky that Sunset contacted me, or you would have been kidnapped by these cultists.” The armored warrior growled, his voice low and raspy.

Dusk struggled in the metallic life form’s grip, trying to free himself, but to no avail. “I was honestly just trying to find out more about this current situation regarding the Arcanists!” He shouted, legs kicking uselessly in the air. “I knew of the risks, but I went in anyways! The knowledge was work that risk!”

Savior’s artificial eyes narrowed, “Really? You saw the risks and you still went in? How intrepid of you.” He said in a voice dripping with sarcasm, turning his head away to roll his eyes at this boy’s severe lack of self awareness.

Dusk heard the sarcasm and frowned, clearly not amused. “Oi. I didn’t see you immediately coming to my rescue when that woman grabbed me, so don’t act like this isn’t your responsibility as well. Didn’t you say you would help save people from the cults? Yet you didn’t even notice I got grabbed until she walked out into the open.” The boy said with newly found smugness.

Savior, unimpressed by Dusk’s little display, dropped the boy to fall on his back with a soft thud, earning a groan of pain.

He then sighed before saying, “Listen, I was busy with my patrol route as is. I can’t just pay attention to one particular guy all the time, Dusk. I’m not a babysitter, and It wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the city if I had to keep bailing you out of trouble that you just walking into.”

Dusk looked offended, “I didn’t just walk into that woman, she ambushed me! You can’t expect me to keep track of every little thing happening around me!” He said with a childish whine.

The armored hero rolled his eyes again, his weapons folding up into his arms. “Yeah, I do. Dusk Shine, because of these Arcanists, this city is dangerous, this part exceptionally. I don’t expect you to have full knowledge of your surroundings, but I do expect that you would be like most people and have a sense of self preservation and know that maybe going into the ruins that have said magic users stalking about in them would be a bad idea that a normal person wouldn’t do.”

Dusk picked himself up and sat down on an upturned street lamp’s base, “Well how then would you suppose I get the information I need for my analysis on Magic, hmm?” He said with surprising disdain.

Savior turned towards the boy, frustration mounting and his eyes glowing brighter. “How? Oh I don’t know, how about ASKING ANY OF US?! I mean for Pete’s sake Dusk, Your cousin is quite possibly the most magically adept person on earth at the moment. She could tell you, Sunset could tell you, hell, I COULD TELL YOU! I was once a Unicorn on Equestria, after all. I may be unable to use magic now, but I still retain my incredible intelligence on it.”

Dusk looked off to the deeper parts of the ruined city and exhaled through his nose, “You don’t have the knowledge I need. I already know how that type of magic works, I need to know everything, even if that knowledge is something that you consider to be dangerous.”

The armored warrior’s shoulders dropped in exasperation as he let out a gust of air that could be considered a sigh, “Dusk, there is a reason why The CCPD and I consider these magic users to be dangerous, especially the Sons of Eclipsio.”

Dusk shuddered, since he had heard stories about that particular Cult. Most notably their hatred for No Mag individuals and their “Cullings” of them.

“Weren’t those the ones that killed that woman and tried to summon something a few days ago?” He asked, already having an idea of the answer.

Savior shook his head grimly, “Yes. And you were walking into their territory, you absolute fool.”

To that response, Dusk looked confused. “What? That makes no sense, I’m still in the Knights of Fire territory, how could I be even remotely near their area?”

If Savior still had eyebrows, they would have fallen, “That may be true, but the edge of the Sons of Eclipsio territory is right there.” He said, gesturing to an area that seemed to have a strange purplish haze emanating from the buildings.

Dusk, being a No Mag, didn’t see what Savior was pointing towards and raised an eyebrow, “What? I don’t see anything Savior.”

The armored hero looked at Dusk with a perplexed stare, “That!” He gestured, “You don’t feel and see that miasma, Dusk?!”

The boy looked even more confused, “No. I don’t feel or see anything besides the summer heat.”

Savior went to reply to Dusk when his sensors picked up a massive spike in magical energy, his arms flew up as an energy shield emitted from his left arm.

“Dusk, Get behind Me!” The cybernetic hero roared, and the boy scrambled behind him as ordered…

Just in time as a TREMENDOUS bolt of Lightning struck the shield, sending the remaining energy that did not dissipate on contact scattering off, scorching the environment.

Savior grabbed Dusk Shine in his arms and blasted into the air towards the outskirts, not getting ten feet off the ground when he was struck again by another bolt of Lightning.

Dusk dropped to the ground hard as Savior lost his grip, flying into a nearby building and breaking through the crumbling wall, burying him.

His left arm burst through the rubble and a burst of arcane energy emitted from the palm, shattering the rock around him. The lights on his helm turned red as Savior’s lethal force mode kicked in, rushing out of the wreckage with his machine guns active.

Dusk struggled to stand, but he was quickly pressed face first into the floor by the heavy boot of a man.

“Boss, I found the kid, but Savior is here. Do I kill him?” The unknown attacker said, his foot pinning the young Dusk to the floor.

“No, Thunder Strike. I need Dusk alive and unharmed, do not hurt him. Keep Savior occupied, I will take Dusk Shine myself.” Another voice, much more frightening responded from behind the man called Thunderstrike.

Dusk craned his neck back to look at the person pinning him to the floor, and he froze in terror.

This Thunder Strike was huge and imposing, dressed in silver lined, black robes with an eclipse symbol on them. His eyes were a neon yellow and seemed to glow with unrelenting fury. He carried several knives in his belt and Dusk could see what looked like burn scars on his yellowish-green face.

Savior smashed into the man, his guns firing as the man pushed back off of Dusk. The two began to brawl, blasts of power emitting from both.

Dusk was suddenly wrenched upwards facing the second man, and he immediately started praying to whatever god exists because he had a feeling who this was…

“Well, we finally meet, Dusk Shine. I’ve been waiting for you.” The man told him, a twisted smile on his face.

Savior boosted away from Thunder Strike, dive bombing him with his clawed boots like some sort of metallic bird of prey before firing a mana grenade at him. It exploded in a flash of light and staggered the mass of muscle that was Thunder Strike enough that Savior could break away and engage the person currently holding Dusk in his grasp.

Said man simply extended his hand and a ball of black purple light shot out, forcing Savior to dodge upwards and fire several mini flash bangs from his suit’s arms.

Dusk winced as the bursts of light and sound deafened and blinded him and his captor, managing to wrench free of his grasp and actually deliver a punch square-on to his attackers face.

Dusk managed to shake off the effects of the flash bangs and assumed a defensive position as the man who just held him stumbled back, reeling from the hit.

The man turned towards him, his face still in the twisted smile that he saw earlier. “ah, so you do have some fight in you, This should be interesting then.”

Dusk hit the deck as the man pointed at him and a silver colored beam of energy erupted from his finger, slicing a telephone in two.

“Who are you?! How do you know me?!” Dusk demanded, desperately weaving away from another cutting beam of power.

The figure let out a cackle, speaking in a voice that sounded unlike anything the young man ever heard.

“I… Am Zeron.”

Dusk took in Zeron’s appearance, his mind struggling to stay focused as he dodged out of the way of both Zeron’s magic cutter lasers and the scuffle between Savior and Thunder Strike.

Zeron was covered head to toe in heavy black and silver robes, Eclipsio’s signature Eclipse mark emblazoned on each of his shoulders and on his chest. His face was obscured by a hood that only showed the glow of his eyes and mouth, alight with magical power. His hands were deathly pale and sparked with silvery white energy that coalesced into small balls on his finger tips.

Zeron sent five beams of power from his fingers as Dusk desperately tried to dodge, ducking three but getting slashed by two across the leg, causing him to drop to his knees.

Zeron advanced on the prone boy as Savior finally broke away from Thunder Strike with a crack of his Shredder Gun, and fired a grapple wire around his waist.

Savior was about to pull him in when Thunder Strike slammed a knife into the back of his armor, calling down a bolt of lightning to it, using it as a lightning rod to call his next strike to him.

Savior’s armor sparked and warning lights rapidly flickered on his display as 300 million volts of electricity went straight into his cybernetic systems, frying his internals and dropping him to the floor, not moving.

“NO! Savior!” Dusk screamed, looking back for a brief moment as Zeron grabbed his neck with his right arm and restrained him with his left.

Savior attempted to stand, before the giant boot of Thunder Strike smashed his head into the pavement numerous times.

He was about to finish the cybernetic hero off with a giant lightning clad fist before Zeron turned towards him and spoke in a fierce tone that made Dusk’s blood run cold as he looked at Savior’s motionless body.

“Enough, Thunder Strike. Destroying him now isn’t worth it. We don’t have time. The fools that call themselves enforcers of the law are on their way here now. We must be going.” Zeron hissed out, watching Thunder Strike back off and walk besides Zeron.

Dusk craned his neck away from Savior’s body as he saw the red and blue lights of police cars and the sounds of shouting officers.

“You, ack… won’t get away with this, Zeron. Savior Will find you and make you pay.” The young man said, struggling to get free.

The insane cult leader suddenly twisted Dusk’s neck to look at him, as he said, “Oh I am counting on that, Dusk Shine. I welcome it, After all, Nothing will hurt Savior more than knowing that he was right about this little runt having no chance of surviving in here.”

A crack of sound pierced the silence as a familiar silver gray portal opened, and Zeron stepped inside with Dusk in his grasp.

Thunder Strike roared (yes, Roared) before dropping a bolt of lightning on himself as he stepped through the portal, destroying it in a flash of light and electrical power.

The police cars skidded to a halt and several officers rounded the corner only to see Savior’s unmoving body, signs of a battle…

All officers felt the chill of the darkness of space. Eclipsio’s signature residue indication.

Either he, or someone similar to him, was here.

Shining Armor damn near flew out of his car, running like hell to pick up Savior’s motionless body.

He pulled off Savior’s chest piece and ran some of his magic into the magic battery, hoping for some reaction.

Thankfully, Savior’s internals kicked on again as his eyes, err… optics lit up as he flailed out of Shining’s grasp, his weapons still drawn and the barrels still glowing white hot.

“Savior, he’s gone. Magic detectors indicate someone with Eclipsio’s magical signature were around here, what happened?”

He swung his head around as his internal sensors kicked in, picking up only Shining Armor and the officers…

But no sign of Dusk Shine.

Savior, in a rage, ripped himself free of the captains grip and fired shots into a ruined building wall, continuing his barrage until the wall was nothing but powder. Shining put up his hand as a shield extended from it, protecting the officers from the spray of debris and any stray bullets.

He had failed, again.

If Savior still was a flesh and blood person, he would cry and scream, anything to let this pain out, but the silent hum of his systems did nothing to console him.

As cybernetic hero’s weapons finally ran dry as the magazines ejected, Shining dropped the shield and tried to speak with him.

“Savior, wait. Don’t fly off, I will have my best men on the Anti Magic Force find him… just let us help y-“

Savior cut Shining off with a loud screech of his metal teeth gritting. “No. You aren’t going to get yourself involved in this situation. You will get yourself killed. Because I hesitated and didn’t immediately get Dusk out of here, Zeron now has him in his clutches. Zeron is my problem.”

Shining cut in, his eyes intense. “That isn’t an ask for permission, I’m sending men with you to find Dusk. Hell, I’ll lead the charge.”

Savior’s bladed wingfeathers extended and brushed underneath Shining’s chin, as he hastily turned part of his neck into a shadow in order to keep his neck from being torn open.

“No Shining! I am not letting you throw your life away. I have to do this myself.” The armored hero said, his voice low and somber.

Savior continued, sitting down on a upturned stripped chassis of a car, “Shining, I told you that I was once a creature that sought to spread fear and destroy those who I thought deserved it. I was the Night Terror… I did all those horrid things because I felt like I needed to leave my mark on the world by any means… even if said means we’re evil.”

The hero looked at Shining, seeing the young man look confused, he continued again. “I felt above the law, and I was. Nopony… err, no one could stop something like me. Until the Power Ponies of Equestria Beta stepped in and made me their number one target. For the first time in my new artificial life I had something that challenged my own biased views on justice.”

Savior grabbed his mask from Shining’s hand, placing it back on his face. “Against all odds, They won against me and my superior technology and firepower. Yet when I bent my head awaiting my inevitable execution for the horrible things I had done, and yet no death came.”

Turning towards Shining, Savior made what could be called a smile, “They showed me mercy. I didn’t know how to process it. But I accepted the hoof up from Mare Do Well and Matter Horn and managed to turn my whole view of life around, but then everything went wrong.”

“What? What went wrong Savior?” Shining Armor asked, now worried.

Savior ignited his jets, a look of sorrow in his eyes, “They were killed by Black Sun, who I found out was under orders of Eclipsio to kill me. I escaped by using Mare do Well’s Trans Dimensional gateway to get here, they stalled him while I got away.”

Shining stepped back in horror, as multiple pieces of his hypothesis on Savior’s reason for fighting fell into place. Suddenly, Savior’s complete disregard for his own well-being and his general disgust at Dusk Shine’s made sense. He saw too much of his younger self in Twily’s cousin.

“That’s why I want to put an end to these Cretins, Shining. So no one but me has to suffer and get hurt.” Savior said, his engines heating up.

He took off into the air, announcing to the police. “Come if you want to this, Shining. But be warned, you all will likely die. I’d prefer it if I end up biting it rather than you. I’m just a machine, you are living breathing humans.”

“I can be replaced. You can’t.”

With that last word, Savior rocketed off into the sky, leaving a trail for Shining and his officers to follow, He had already gotten a lead on the Sons of Eclipsio while they were talking apparently.

Shining Armor put a hand to his face and walked back to the squad car, signaling everyone to head back to the precinct and gear up in their Riot Gear.

It wouldn’t be all that helpful considering most Magic was able to bypass conventional armor, but any protection helped.

As soon as Shining sat in his car, King Sombra’s voice echoed in his head as his face appeared in the hanging mirror.

”Foolish Self sacrificing automaton… he must understand that this boy’s life is inconsequential to this game as a whole. A single pawns defeat means nothing.”

Sombra’s voice took on a inquisitive tone, ”Why does he waste time on this Dusk Shine individual, Shining? Surely he can’t be that important.”

Shining, now annoyed at Sombra’s rhetoric, spat back. “First off, screw you that’s my cousin your talking about. Secondly, Dusk is Twilight’s cousin, if he ends up biting it, she might go completely off the deep end and go full Midnight Sparkle again. As much as I hate to say it, She’s already unbalanced enough right now with the guilt of being the inadvertent cause of all this magic in the first place. Something as horrible as him dying might just be the thing that pushes her over the edge.”

King Sombra’s voice went silent for a moment, almost like he was trying to come up with a response.

He responded in a mocking tone, ”Well, I’d never think that Twilight’s BBBFF would think that little of his little sister. It seems my personality is rubbing off on you after all, Shining Armor… Grah-Hah.”

The captain shook his head and covered the mirror, saying “No, you aren’t rubbing off on me. I’m just being realistic here. Twily’s great at many things, but handling strong emotion is not one of them… which is why for the sake of Both of our lives we are not going to tell her about this.”

King Sombra’s reflection disappeared, while his actual smoke-like form emitted from the horn pendant around Shining’s neck. ”Lying to her now? You are becoming more like me, Shining. Don’t bother denying it, this is what you are meant to be, what we are meant to be. A ruthless, merciless embodiment of justice and punishment.”

Sombra’s voice took on a much more smug, almost boasting tone, ”When I was king, I was like you in that regard. I pursued my vision of justice and protection, and I achieved it. It was the sisters who invaded me because of how I treated my subjects. I was king and the Empire was mine to rule by conquest! They would die if not for my protection. I had every right to treat them with complete disregard, if not for me, they would freeze to death or be eaten by the Umbrum and Windigos.”

“Last I checked, Sombra… you were a warrior tyrant that tortured and enslaved your own people, and you crystallized and then shattered Princess Platinum. How is that being a fair king?” The captain snapped back,

Shining Armor’s eyes began to glow green and smoke began to pour out of them, Sombra’s influence growing stronger.

”Shining, something you must learn is this, and you must learn it well.”

Sombra’s voice suddenly combined with Shining’s as the captain felt his face contort, he looked into the mirror to see his face starting to resemble Sombra’s. Or at least, What Sombra’s would have looked like were he a human…

”Everything, even morality, is Subjective, Shining. The only constant in this world is power and control.”

Shining’s face took on a dark grin, ”And WE WILL Be King Once Again! Grahahahha!”

”NOT WHILE IM STILL ME!” The young man screamed as he lifted the pendant into the light of a nearby street lamp, burning away Sombra’s form.

Shining Armor forced Sombra’s influence out of his mind and he ripped the pendant off his neck and tossed it into the glove compartment, hoping to drown out the callous laughter that the Shadow King howled out from the back of his head.

Shining Armor gripped his ears, trying to unhear the mad cackling of the Shadow King.

“Oh Faust on high, what have I gotten myself into?” He worried to himself.

”What am I Becoming?”

Chapter 6: Save At All Costs!

There will always be places the light of Justice and Moral Decency cannot reach, where criminals fester and scheme.

Where the only thing in the world that matters is how much money and power you have, and barring that, how smart you are.

The City of Canterlot was no exception to this. It already had its fair share of nightclubs, gentleman’s clubs, and other less than legal practices just like any other city. However, up until about six months ago, most of it was unnoticed and thankfully not very popular, since it was limited to the red light district.

But over Six Months ago, they had a downtown.

Over Six months ago, over a thousand people were still alive.

Until that cursed day six month ago, life was simple…

Then two beings that parts of mankind now considered to be gods walking among them, descended upon the city and shattered the comfortable and monotonous lives the humanity of Earth Alpha were living.

Now though, in this new present... people needed some semblance of relief, any would do. Business for the red light district skyrocketed, so much so that the bosses that ran the place ended up claiming most of Griffonstone Houses and a piece of the Hollow Shades Apartment complex.

This wasn’t limited to the city, obviously. The Federal government beefed up, prepared to assess and handle any fallout from the clash of Burning Star and Eclipsio. A warrant for their immediate arrest was issued, and some more radical groups asked for their execution for their destruction against humankind.

The world eventually caught wind of the crisis of Canterlot Tower’s fall, and the discovery (or rediscovery according to some) of magic. Several foreign governments, specifically The UK and France reached out to help their overseas neighbors recover.

In exchange, they asked for any knowledge on magic, as to identify and hopefully prevent, or at least prepare, for any tragedy involving magic in the future.

A coalition of friendly magic users were inducted into the UN, known as the IMMA (International Magic and Mystical Association).

They didn’t have any territory, rather they were seeking to use any vacant land they could, and several spots were found in Canada.

While it still was under the authority of the UN. IMMA was an organization of Mages and for Mages, making special mention to distance itself from the general population of No Mags, not out of exclusion, but more so for their own safety.

The IMMA formed basically overnight, and thus we’re still suspicious to the UN. How did an organization of this mass and support come out of the woodwork so quickly? Where did they come from?

Most importantly, the main question was this.

What EXACTLY went down during the Tragedy of Canterlot Tower and how much of it was real and how much was faked to calm the public?

All these questions were in the heads of every person on the planet, and sooner or later, they hoped for at least something resembling and answer.

Wether that answer would be one of peaceful cooperation, or a call for war, would be found out soon enough.

But, if the Sons of Eclipsio had their way, it would be the latter, and Humankind would not survive a second dose of Eclipsio.

(???)

Dusk Shine awoke to a sore pain in his neck, his body finally starting to recover some stamina as he shook off some nauseated feelings.

Despite what tv showed, waking up from being unconscious, especially after being rendered unconscious via severe pain, was not pleasant.

Dusk Shine’s head hurt, he was dizzy and struggling to keep his eyes open. His thoughts were muddled and slow, almost like swimming through jelly.

He did notice he was secured to what looked like a bed frame by silver-black binding spells. In the low light of the moon he could barely make out the shadows of the door, then dread sunk in.

The door was ajar slightly, which meant two things.

Either there was someone here, or someone forgot to lock the door.

”Great, first time you try to be the intrepid journalist Dusk and you get yourself kidnapped by an insane cult and now you have a concussion as well.” he thought to himself, thinking he was alone.

“Oh I assure you, Dusk Shine of the Sparkle Family, you are far from alone here.” A familiar voice echoed from a small distance in front of him.

Dusk’s body immediately kicked into fight of flight as he tried to struggle his arms free. Finding no physical strength he focused his willpower and determination inwards, ready to fight off any mental attacks by resisting them.

“Oh come now Dusk, if I was able to mind control people, I would have done so already.” The voice responded to his inner thoughts, a chillingly smug tone to it.

Dusk mentally cursed, earning a laugh from his captor.

“Fuhahahah-HA. If I could do that, Dusk, I certainly wouldn’t do it to you. Your more than just some piece of meat for me.” Said the voice, almost jokingly.

The source of the voice stepped into the soft light, and Dusk’s fears were realized.

It was Zeron, he could read Dusk’s thoughts.

“Besides, trying to control someone’s body and mind, especially for a long period of time, is exhausting. Even I would struggle with it, and I am the strongest magic user in the world, barring PRINCE Eclipsio and… Burning Star.” Zeron said, putting particularly heavy disdain on uttering the latter’s name.

Dusk saw Zeron up close and his appearance chilled him to the core, he was beyond human description, but Dusk would try to take it in.

Zeron’s face and hair were uncanny, possessing pitch black eyes and stark white hair, his mouth had several of his fang teeth showing, hanging over his Normal ones in a sharp toothed grin that iced his heart.

Zeron wasn’t huge and imposing, he was about average height but Dusk summized that the shoulder pads he wore made him look bigger than what he actually was.

The cult leaders skin was pale, almost ashen white, and several magic lines ran down onto his hands and fingers.

Dusk thought back to what the report Savior gave him said.

”Magic Lines were conduits in the human body in which the flow of arcane energy can reach your extremities and your other parts of your body. In biological terms, Dusk, they are the circulatory system for magic, with your soul as the heart.”

Dusk had seen what magic lines had looked like from Twilight’s notes, they usually ran straight down the middle or side of your limbs, ending at your joints or where your limb of body part connected to the rest of your body. Twi’s had three pairs of lines, one down her arms, one down her legs, and one down where her spine connected to her head.

Zeron’s did not run straight, in fact they were jagged, almost scar like. It looked as if he took a knife and scraped them into his skin in some attempt to unlock his abilities. They didn’t look fresh, but faded and old.

Which considering what Dusk saw (or at least remembered) earlier, he did and with great success.

Zeron happened to be topless at the time, for some reason… and Dusk saw His chest was covered in the scars as well, running all across his body. His body was toned and lean, almost too perfect to be called human if you ignored all the scars and sigil-like marks on his chest.

Dusk was surprised that he was topless as well, which earned him a laugh as Zeron noticed his surprise.

“Well Dusk? You comfortable? I hoped Thunder Strike did crush your skull like a grape, he was supposed to only stun your and bring you in for me, yet Savior must have made him go a little too far…” Zeron said, eyeing Dusk like a predator watched its next meal.

Dusk found words to say and said to his kidnapper, “Could be worse, it’s not the first time I’ve been bound, unconscious on a bed frame. Although that time was for a more private reason…”

Dusk’s cheeks heated up at the memory, hoping to keep his mind thinking as he thought of some way to escape.

Zeron picked up on that thought and said with a sneer, “I assure you, Dusk, even if you were to get past me, which you won’t. You would have to get past Thunder Strike, and the other members of my group that I have here.”

Dusk Shine sighed, “Guess I can’t hide anything from you can I, Zeron?”

Zeron shook his head, “No, Dusk. There are some things even I am unable to read. My specialty isn’t in Mind Magic after all, I only really picked it up to aid in my, well, process of extracting information.”

Within the blink of an eye, Zeron dashed over to Dusk and grabbed him by the throat, quickly depriving the young man of oxygen.

He dragged Dusk’s face to his, Dusk feeling his hot breath on his face, “Which you will give me Dusk Shine, or I promise this will be more uncomfortable than it needs to be for you.” The cult leader said, eyes aglow with malice and power.

Dusk Shine’s mouth moved before his brain could and he blurted out, “Ok, are you trying to interrogate me or seduce me? Because your not good at either.”

(Warning Here: Be Warned)

Zeron laughed for a moment, it was a hollow laugh that seemed to echo in the room they were in… which seemed to be a good thing.

Until Zeron placed his finger on his cheek and slashed a large gash across it, earning a pained yell.

Zeron then placed his finger on Dusk’s chest, and Dusk felt a sharp pain, like being stabbed, erupting from it.

“You think your funny don’t you? You think Savior will come and rescue you? He won’t.” Zeron snarled, his voice devoid of the snarky tone he had earlier and replaced with cold contempt.

“Me? Funny? I’m hilarious, at least in my own opinion.” Dusk shot back, his face in pain but still managing to crack a smile.

Zeron removed his finger from Dusk’s chest, but not before dragging it off to Dusk’s right, leaving a cut across his collarbone. He saw as crimson blood leaked from it and dropped onto the floor.

Zeron looked at Dusk with what could be described as wanting eyes, “So, here’s what I wanted to know… why exactly did some nobody from some college town come here?”

Dusk responded, “Well, I was coming to visit my cousin. I was doing a report on magic. Nothing more.”

Zeron slashed him again, this time on the left cheek and left collarbone.

“Liar. You are lying to me Dusk, and I know it.” Zeron, spoke, voice oozing with sadistic joy.

Dusk knew The cuts weren’t fatal, they were skin deep at most, but they were excruciatingly painful.

“What do you mean I’m lying, that’s the only reason I’m here.” He said, trying to come off as convincing as possible.

It failed, as Zeron smashed his fist into the left side of his face, directly into the open cut. His nerves exploded in pain, but he grit his teeth and stood firm, his face twisted into a defiant scowl.

Zeron took a look at him and snorted a laugh, “Hah! You think you can endure this pain, Dusk? You don’t know how much I will inflict upon you!”

Dusk ignored him, his pain tolerance was always stupidly high, getting into constant fights and learning basic CQC as a kid tended to harden your body real quick.

Physically at least, Zeron wasn’t doing much beyond trying to loosen his tongue with torture.

Dusk spat blood on Zeron’s face, “You think this hurts? I barely felt it.”

Wrong, Dusk’s pain tolerance was high, But not endless.

Plus, He did not know what Magic was truly capable of…

And he soon found out as Zeron opened his palm and unleashed a stream of electricity onto his body, targeting the individual cuts he made. The bolts streaked straight to his nervous system and he figuratively and literally lit up like a Christmas tree with the feeling of pain.

Dusk’s entire body convulsed in agony, screaming in pain as he was fried like a fish, before Zeron cut the power and said to him, “I know you felt that, cur. You clearly don’t understand how much danger you are in right now.”

Dusk let out a grunt of pain, before saying. “No Zeron, I knew what I was getting into when I came here, but I didn’t think someone like you would be so pathetic as to beat up a journalist.”

Dusk felt horrified as Zeron calmly put his finger onto the drop of blood he spat on his face, before reshaping it into a sharpened needle made out of blood and bone.

With a hungry look in his eyes Zeron plunged the needle into Dusk’s arm near his left elbow joint, and then another into his right, earning another cry of pain, “I am impressed you are able to take this much abuse. It seems I may underestimated your will.”

Zeron simply stepped away and smiled into the cracked mirror on the wall, “But don’t worry, I will get what I want out of you soon enough.”

Dusk summoned his resolve and screeched, “What? What the hell do you want from me exactly?! I literally came here 2 days ago!”

Zeron looked over his shoulder, at Dusk’s wounded form, before saying. “I want, no I NEED you.”

Dusk was about to spit back with another question before Zeron slugged him in the gut, breaking one of his ribs. “Also, I am the one who will be asking questions. I’m the one in control here!”

Dusk’s mind was burdened by the pain, but enough was still there to pick up on that last sentence.

”Im the one in control here? Hm, he certainly doesn’t act like it.” Dusk thought, trying to keep himself guarded.

Strangely, it worked. Zeron wasn’t responding with more torture.

In fact he seemed almost… distant.

Then he began to spoke, not to Dusk however.

But to, himself?

“I am in control of this situation. I know my master. I know you will return with time. I have not been idle. I almost have it, just a little more time.” Zeron said to… no one.

He was talking into the sky, looking out a broken window.

Now as well as feelings of pain, Dusk felt confusion.

He wanted to chock it up to just the insane ramblings of a cult leader that believed in a genocidal Alicorn Demon thing, but it struck him as odd.

But that feeling was quickly quashed by more pain as Zeron nailed him again with a blood needle, this time in his left hand, it pierced straight through his palm. Dusk yelled, his tolerance wearing. He was still staying stable, though.

Zeron clearly had tortured people before, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to perfectly thread those needles around all the major blood vessels that would cause Dusk to bleed out quickly.

Zeron immediately turned around and grabbed Dusk by the face again, his nails digging into the open cuts on his cheeks. “You are going to give me what I want, Dusk Shine. Or this will be where you will die.”

Where the hell was Savior when you need him?

(Segment over, For Now)

(Canterlot City Mall Ruins, 2 Hours after Dusk awoke…)

Savior landed in front of what was once the Canterlot Mall, his sensors flaring with how much residual and active magic was emanating from the building.

Six months ago, Give or take a week or during those six months… Savior made his debut into the public eye by taking down Black Sun. He also saved the Rainbooms from a deadly fate, and managed to gain a clue as to who was really pulling the strings.

From that point forward he ceased to be a secret protector, he chose to make his presence known to the city, and probably to the world.

They didn’t know who his identity was, but they did know he stood for justice and the protection of the people.

Fat lot of good it did when the Tower fell. People got paranoid real quick, and despite his reassurance that he was there to protect them and stop the bad guys along with the police… people still felt nervous around him.

Especially given the fact that his suit was unofficially considered a WMD, and he looked like a giant mechanical/cybernetic organism that flew and shot missiles and bullets.

Savior’s audio receptors picked up the sounds of cars approaching as a riot van and police cruiser pulled up.

Clearly Shining Armor wasn’t taking his warning seriously, that idiot.

Was he brave, stupid, or some inane combination of both?

Whatever the case, his judgment of Shining’s character could wait as the doors of the van opened up and six officers armed in the Anti Magic gear he supplied piled out.

Savior’s Anti Magic gear was originally designed for his cybernetic form, as normal humans didn’t have the magic capability to wield it, let alone activate it.

The irony about it was that it required a magic spark or an electric current to activate, in order for it to negate Magic…

It was experimental Magitech for a reason. But, the CCPD felt like it was worth the risk. Any protection would help against this still little known force.

Shining also stepped out of his car, wearing standard body armor and wielding his gun and a magically charged nightstick. It sparked and shine with electric magic, Shining’s preferred style.

Savior also saw that on Shining’s side was the lightning blade he gave him during Black Sun’s attack on the hospital six months ago. It was deactivated at the moment, but all it needed was a quick charge and it would shine with enough energy to slice through even reinforced steel and the strongest barrier Magic out there.

Savior chuckled at the sight, Shining was still learning the intricacies of the magical enchantment of weapons. While Savior personally couldn’t do magic anymore, his systems had every recorded spell in Equestrian history on them, as well as many sources of Terran magic he learned of first hand or via the Internet.

As inaccurate as the internet sources were in their validity, they still held merit in order to compare his numerous theories on how Equestrian magic differs from Terran magic.

Said theory could wait as Shining jogged over to him and put his gun and stick away, before speaking to Savior.

“So, this is the place Ironheart? Takes you back doesn’t it?” He said, using a name Savior had not gone by in years.

Guess Shining felt nostalgic, so did Savior caught up in the atmosphere of his first public show off.

“Yeah, I guess it does. I didn’t even know my cybernetic brain was able to simulate the feeling of nostalgia.” Savior replied, charging his weapons and loading his guns for the inevitable fight ahead.

Shining did the same, as he motioned for his men to charge their Anti Magic equipment, as an invisible dome of power formed around the party. Savior began to walk towards the entrance of the former mall, which was blocked by rubble.

Savior’s audio receptors in his helmet picked up noise from inside the wrecked building. His left gauntlet unfurled into a double barreled magic caster, a steady hum building as it charged up with a blast of arcane power.

His right gauntlet opened and a tube popped out and extended, a breaching charge being loaded for firing.

Shining also was hearing the voices, his hearing being enhanced by Sombra’s magical power. Wisps of dark blue magic snaked down His arms, and a haze of black fog covered his hands, his deep blue eyes turning red and gleaming in the darkness of the night.

The air was still and silent, no one dared make a sound as several of the officers began to hear running footsteps. They gripped their Anti Magic shields tight, fear slowly creeping up on them.

Then they heard the whine of a spell charging up…

Within what felt like an instant, Savior’s breaching charge flew from its launching tube and he fired his magic caster at the broken window on the left side of the malls entrance, hearing a scream of pain as a sliver and black robed person fell out of the window, a searing hole in his chest from the shot.

The breaching charge detonated in a burst of explosive power, and Savior took to the air and flew above the mall, probably to pinpoint Dusk’s location, while Shining and his men charged through the main entrance.

Before the assault went off, Savior told him about what exactly happened and what he would be facing regarding the Sons of Eclipsio.

Unlike the other two prevalent cults, who seemed to focus on the defense of their own, the Sons of Eclipsio only sought to attack and kill anything that wasn’t them. From what info they gathered via analysis provided by informants and encounters with the group, They put little effort in teaching their members how to defend against normal humans.

In short, They thought themselves so powerful with their magic that how could human beings manage to fight them in any possible way.

This was in professional terms, “Completely Dumb.”

Ever since Savior began to provide anti magic gear and Magitech weapons, the Sons had been struggling to fight back. They usually relied on the strongest amongst them to do all the fighting, such as Thunder Strike and Zeron and anyone else.

The mall itself had two main entrances and a couple of side ones, so Shining stationed several ambush officers on the smaller entrances on stakeout.

It was hard to arrange all of this in an hour, but thanks to assistance from Savior’s presence during the meeting.

Shining’s plan was a classic bait and switch with a twist, Savior was a giant distraction. He would blast his way through the mall to draw out Thunder Strike, before leading the powerful magic user into an ambush Shining had set up outside of the south entrance of the mall.

While he knew he couldn’t kill Thunder Strike with a simple ambush, and the officers knew they could likely die, they still went along with the plan. They swore an oath to protect this city and its people from those who would do it harm…

And while it wasn’t directly said…This included magic, monsters, and whatever the hell the Tragedy spawned six months ago.

Shining Armor’s group rushed into the building, meeting little resistance as most if not all of the cult members were busy trying to take down Savior.

”Absolute fools, they cannot be this stupid, falling for a distraction this obvious. Shining, remind me again why you have had trouble with these cultists?” Sombra’s voice echoed in Shining’s head, since his horn was once again around the man’s neck.

As much as King Sombra’s presence was evil and dangerous, Shining needed him for this.

”Mostly we have trouble with Zeron, as he always seems to be constantly near the members of his cult. He is a leader that prefers to be on the front lines. Reminds me of what you told me about yourself, funnily enough.” Shining responded to him in his head, but only getting disappointing silence from Sombra.

”In what way?, Sombra’s finally responded with, cold fury in his voice.

A sharp pain ripped through Shining’s skull as Sombra increased his influence over his host. Shining’s hair began to turn black, but Shining managed to resist the powerful spike of influence, letting it return to the dull gray it was.

Shining Armor rounded a corner, saying to his officers as they followed, “Split up into groups of five, if you see any of the cult members, engage and arrest them if you can. Lethal Force is authorized, but use it as a last resort if they won’t come quietly. Sweep and clear the rooms as you go.”

One of the officers spoke up, Stone Spike. “If lethal force is authorized, Sir, why did you say that we should try to detain them. In my own observations, the Sons of Eclipsio members aren’t ones to surrender.”

Shining gave Stone a look, “I know. But I’m required to say that as to not get into more trouble with the commissioner, he already doesn’t like me. For some reason he thinks these people can be reasoned with.”

The rest of the officers looked at each other, then let out a short chuckle. Stone Spike spoke up, “Hah! You know captain, I think he’s the one who needs a head check.”

The humor cut off when Shining’s ears picked up the sound of spells charging up, he immediately signaled for everyone to raise their shields and brace.

Out of the dark corridor, several fireballs, bolts of electrical power, and blasts of cursed energy flew. They disappeared on contact with the Anti Magic shields, then Shining and the officers opened fire.

Shining unleashed a stream of electricity from his right hand, while he fired his gun with his left. Several of his officers took cover behind door frames and pieces of rubble and fired along with him.

They heard the sounds of cries of pain and fury as several cult members rushed out of the dark with spells in their hands. They fired wildly at the group of police officers, who quickly took cover.

A member slashed at Shining with his hand coated in sparking magical energy, Shining simply turned his body into shadow and let the strike pass through him, before delivering a electricity covered fist to the man’s face. The man fell to the floor and went still, as another leaped over his body and fired a bolt of fire towards the captain.

Shining weaved his body out of the way of the searing projectile before slipping behind his attacker. He restrained the cultist with his nightstick, throwing him over his shoulder and into the other members.

Suddenly, An officer cried out in agony.

Shining’s head wheeled around, seeing a cultist stabbing his man with a magical construct of a sword. He turned into shadows and pried the insane cult person off his fellow officer, using his momentum to sling the cultist through the wall. It crumpled easily and Shining stepped into the room beyond, using his advantage in the dark to sneak behind and quickly snap the cultist’s neck.

Sombra’s voice spoke through Shining’s mouth, his influence at its peak. ”These cultists are spineless and weak, Zeron must truly be scraping the bottom to send these whelps out to face us.”

Thankfully, no one noticed Shining’s voice change despite being in the room with an injured man. He was clutching his arm in pain, the slash wound went across his arm above his elbow.

This was bad, Shining didn’t have any medical training, nor did he bring any EMS (didn’t get the clearance. Stupid Commissioner.)

”Why are you concerned if he dies? He knew what he was getting into. Only thing we could have done was kill the person who did this, and you just did that.”

Shining Armor ignored Sombra’s retorhic and wrapped a shadowy binding around the officers wound. While he was no expert in healing magic, he could at least keep the wound from bleeding out more.

The officer still shuddered in pain as several of Shining’s men ran over and began to get him out of the firefight and into a safer position.

Shining Armor looked into the darkness, his vision perfectly clear thanks to Sombra’s own power over the dark. He heard a crash in the distance, knowing it was Savior’s explosive entry.

Already he saw at least a dozen bodies of cultists on the floor, they weren’t moving. Most of the others that were still alive were retreating, or were advancing on Savior’s position.

“That’s our Cue, men. Move in deeper and find Dusk Shine. Fan out and check the store fronts, Zeron probably needs a decent amount of space to use his magic, as evident by his attack out in the open this evening. So, check the bigger storefronts, Squad B, your with me.” Shining bellowed, his voice mixed with Sombra’s.

The officers saluted, beginning to fan out and travel down the balcony paths of the mall, checking each store as they did.

Meanwhile, Shining Armor turned into a shadow and slipped into the darkened corridor on his left, heading towards Savior’s position. Squad B followed close behind.

”Hold on Savior, I’m on my way for backup.”

(Abandoned Canterlot Mall, Food Court)

The largest group of cultists were gathered in the food court remnants, using the large space as their gathering hall.

Zeron was currently in there, taking a break from torturing Dusk, he had been running low on magic and Dusk’s perseverance was much greater than the expected.

”It must be Eclipsio’s spirit in him. It’s the only explanation as to how he could survive all that.” the mad cult leader thought to himself.

He continued to think, trying to understand how someone as unimportant as Dusk could keep going even after all he did to him. ”A human being, especially one without magic could never be as strong as me. I cut him relentlessly and he is being bled out slowly. I need him near death to draw Eclipsio’s fragment out of him. It’s the only explanation as to why he keeps going.”

Zeron then spoke to his assembly, “Members of the Sons of Eclipsio, I’m sure you all have now heard that our sacred temple has been breached by the foreign invader Savior and those that think themselves the authority of law and order. However, they have no chance against us! For we, the chosen members of the Entourage of the Swallower of the Sun and Moon will never fall to them!”

The cultists screamed their support. Zeron was ever an expert at playing to a crowd, considering he was a public servant before everything happened.

He worked primarily as public relations for Grey Ghost Arms, a weapons and body armor manufacturer. They supplied weapons to the military and police and struck it rich in the months following the Fall of Canterlot Tower. With how many people panicked, their stock skyrocketed and purchases of weapons exploded.

All according to Zeron’s plan, keep the public panicked and armed. So that when it was time to loose his wrath upon the city, it will descend into chaos. People killing in the streets, absolute anarchy and violence abound.

And while the police and government were trying to reign it in, his followers would resurrect Eclipsio. He would feed on the war and chaos, and grow strong again! It was a foolproof plan, nothing could dissuade it.

Zeron would be rewarded for his service! He had to!

All that he was missing was the fragments of his master’s body, which he believed were inside Dusk, and he had good evidence to support it.

How else could he survive all the pain he inflicted? Either Dusk had a previously unknown resistance to magic (which wasn’t uncommon in some No Mags), or he had internal magic that he was unable to access for… some reason.

Zeron looked at his handiwork on Dusk, who was currently unconscious. He had fainted when he began to cut into his arms and legs. Not enough to make him bleed out, but enough to expose his dormant Magic Lines, and boy did he have a bunch!

Zeron was surprised to see that Dusk had not one, not two, but five different Magic Lines on his body. Two down each of his arms, one down both of his legs, and one running up his spine. The only problem was that they were inert, due to Dusk having no magical power whatsoever.

Suddenly, the skylight glass above them burst with a bang as Savior dropped through it, slamming downwards like a falling anvil and opening fire as he did. Several cultists were shredded by the initial salvo while others dove for cover and returned fire with bolts of flame and darkness.

Zeron sighed, ”amateurs” waving his hand as a portal opened up next to his head, before firing a silver-black laser of magic from it. It struck Savior in the wing, knocking him into a small overgrown grove of trees that was in an indoor planter.

Savior emerged from the planter and fired a trio of concussive rockets towards Zeron from his right arm, and a powerful grenade from his left.

Zeron conjured a shield, blocking the rockets, but shattering from the explosion of the grenade, he stumbled back as he returned fire with a stream of arcane power. Savior put up a shield using his wings, as the blast scattered away. It pushed him back, but did no damage.

“So, Savior. Come to face me directly, now? How bold and foolish of you.” Zeron said calmly, opening fire with several bolts of dark magic. Savior retaliated with shots from his magic casters, the two attacks collided in a burst of power. Smoke filled the area, as Savior continued to fire.

Zeron batted the bolts aside, they collided with the decrepit food stands, then he took the opportunity to run in with a solid magic sword in his hand, Savior saw through the smoke and draw his Lightning Blade.

Zeron was a strong mage, but only average in up close combat, but all he needed was to get close enough to slash Savior, forcing him to block and unload a Dark Burst spell in his face.

Savior’s sensors immediately picked up his attack plan and he flicked his wrist forward, sending the Lightning Blade in a thrust towards Zeron’s chest. Zeron blocked and tried to fire his attack, Savior dodged out of the way quickly and kicked the insane man in the face.

Zeron’s face crunched inwards as his nose broke, while his adrenaline was keeping him from feeling it, the blood now dripping out was starting to annoy him. If he started using healing now, it would give Savior an opening to probably finish him off.

He needed more time, so he cast Obscure, shrouding the area in black fog. When Savior took to the air, he charged a blast of Dark Magic, letting it rip from both his hands one after the other.

Savior flew out of the way and crashed down with a mighty bang. The shockwave sent Zeron skidding back even with his shield up. To make matters worse for him, gunshots began to rain down from the balconies above. Bullets whizzed through the air and several pierced his body. They passed harmlessly though thanks to his abilities over distortion.

He paid the officers no mind as he continued his assault on Savior, who

The cult leader chuckled, “Fu-haha-h. You’re not one to bring backup, Savior. Seems the fools that call themselves the enforcers of the law think they can strike me down.”

Zeron moved his right arm up and a portal opened above him, as giant black tentacles shot out and smashed into the balconies above him.

Anyone that wasn’t immediately killed by the attack fell to ground level, struggling to stand.

Zeron didn’t have to say anything as his fellow associates fell upon the police like ravenous wolves, slashing and blasting away at them with magic blades and bolts of darkness.

The cult leader smirked, even as Savior clashed his Lightning Blade with his own solid magic sword. “You must realize, Savior, that you are doomed. Did you not-“

The cult leader was interrupted by Savior breaking his magic weapon and blasting Zeron point blank with his shredder gun, sending him flying backwards.

Shining Armor arrived just in time to see Savior back up, hearing with his enhanced ears a sound like something straight out of hell.

”EVERYONE HIT THE DECK!” he yelled, voice his own for once in the past 10 minutes.

The officers, at least the ones that were not dead or unconscious, obeyed and immediately took cover.

Savior’s feet sent out anchor pins as the lights on his armor began to glow red, the noise from before getting louder as he leveled his arms and wings towards Zeron, who was starting to get up.

Several cult members swarmed the man, unaware that they were running to their rapidly approaching deaths by pissed off cybernetic monster.

Savior said one thing before all hell broke loose

”Shut Up and Die!”

Hell broke loose in a cavalcade of gunfire, explosions, and magic blasts. Shining took the initiative and threw Sombra’s shadowy form around his officers that had taken shelter in the corner. Even through the curtain of darkness a bright light threatened to burn it away, were it not for Shining throwing everything he had into the barrier, it would crumble underneath the sheer pressure of the assault that Savior was unloading.

Savior’s Machine guns, shotguns, rifle barrels, all manner of firearms were white hot as the cybernetic hero filled the air with lead, shells, and slugs. Cultists were filled with bullets and dropped, or they were completely shredded to ribbons by the torrent of fire.

Magic casters flashed, bolts of superheated arcane energy screaming outwards, disintegrating the enemies. The bursts of power so intense that Savior’s own armor was starting to warp from the strain.

Savior’s wings opened up and unleashed shards of steel. Giant blades of metal rained down upon the cultists, ripping them asunder or impaling them like skewered meat. Some were torn completely in two in a spray of red viscera.

Grenades flew from his shoulder pads, reducing the surrounding area to dust and any cultist to a fine mist as they were blown away in a blast of fire and shrapnel.

All the while Savior stood silent, the only noise coming from him was the sound of his weapons.

Shining was in awe, while he was aware Savior’s Suit was classified as a WMD, he thought it was just hyperbole, or meant to intimidate criminals.

But seeing the sheer amount of dakka that he was unloading into a single point, even his own estimates were off by a considerable amount.

After what felt like ages, his clips ran dry. Savior stepped back and felt more reload in, keeping the ends trained on the place he shot Zeron into. His armor was glowing, seething.

The armor plates glowed white hot as steam rose from the vents, the ground was visibly melted around his feet, and a massive uneven pit was dug about 20 feet into the dirt where Zeron landed.

Between all the gunfire, explosions, and weapons, Shining’s ears were ringing. Sombra’s voice cut through his mind like a hot knife through butter.

”Well now, it seems your friend has much more power than I thought. I haven’t seen that much firepower since I fought Celestia AND Luna together. No wonder they used to call this thing “The Night Terror”. What in Faust’s name would possess someone to create a weapon like this, and where can we get one?” the King said, uncharacteristic awe and shock in his voice.

The silence was cut by something that sounded like clapping, it came from the pit that Savior had dug with his hurricane of death he unleashed.

The smoke cleared with a gust of wind, and both Shining and Savior’s mind ground to a halt.

Zeron stood in the pit, genuinely clapping.

He was alive!

After everything that was just shot, launched, and casted at him, that bastard was still alive?!

“Bravo, Savior. Bravo indeed, but unfortunately for you, that won’t work the same way it did with Eclipsio and Burning Star. You can’t just overwhelm your enemies with the size of your power output.” He said, standing tall and the same smug look on his face.

Zeron was alive, but he wasn’t unharmed…

Zeron’s entire right arm was burned away, nothing but a stub of his elbow, his right leg was the same, as was the entirely of the right side of his head

What shocked Shining and Savior was what the were seeing. It was completely impossible!

Zeron’s missing right half was replaced by a silvery black cloud of magic, forming the shape of a leg, arm and the bit of his head that was missing out of a black fog.

Savior’s sensors were on fire trying to analyze what he was looking at, and Shining’s mind was trying to comprehend it as well, even Sombra was drawing a blank.

Savior watched slowly as Zeron floated out of the pit, a confident look on his face as a portal opened up next to him.

“Especially when you have a hostage in the line of fire, now.” He said, and Zeron’s hostage was pulled into view.

Shining’s face hardened and his heart leapt into his throat, It was Dusk!

He looked like he was dead.

(Trigger warning again. Don’t worry this is short.)

Dusk’s body was lacerated in multiple places, fresh wounds on his arms and legs. His face was ugly and dark, dried blood on his cheeks and his left eye were swollen shut by bruising. His chest was bare, covered in scars and line-like slashes, an almost surgical precision to them around Dusk’s ribs. Particularly his left side.

He looked like he had been tortured for 4 weeks, but it’s only been 4 hours.

Just as he felt the ammo load in and the capacitors charge full of magical energy so he could finish Zeron off, Savior’s sensor array picked up a small heartbeat. It was weak, and slow.

(Ok warning over, back to your regularly scheduled reading)

Dusk wasn’t dead, not yet. But he would be dead if they didn’t get him out of here, and hopefully blow this monster back into hell.

Zeron’s remaining hand opened and a minuscule ball of black stuff appearing in it. It seemed to writhe and visibly shake as he placed it in his palm.

Zeron continued his monologue, pacing back and forth in front of Dusk’s strung up body. “Oh poor, poor Dusk. You all don’t know what I know, but when you find out… fu-haha-haha! Oh the surprise it will be for you!”

“What surprise? Spill it!” Shining Armor yelled, Sombra’s influence rapidly growing.

Zeron simply laughed, his voice distorted. “Fu-ahahahhaha! I will admit that little attack there was powerful, enough to kill even the strongest mage or even harm someone like Burning Star…”

The area around Zeron erupted in silvery black power, sending Savior skidding back as the madman roared out in a voice straight out of a nightmare, ”But I am ZERON. I am the first chosen follower of PRINCE ECLIPSIO! the Swallower of the Sun and Moon! Destroyer of the Great Alicorni Race! I will not fall to something as primitive and crude as a group of humans and some malfunctioning cybernetic weapon?”

Zeron reached his hands towards Dusk’s chest, near his heart, still speaking. “I mean really now, What can you do? Nothing! the moment I have a hostage and this little orb you freeze up Savior! So desperate to save the life of some “nobody with no magic.” Shows how much you know!”

Savior’s systems were blaring red, his sensors finally analyzed what was in Zeron’s palm, and how bad of an idea it was to open fire.

Shining’s heart was hammering and his eyes were focused squarely on Zeron when Savior’s voice spoke through his earpiece.

”Tell your men to lower their weapons. It’s an emergency.”

Shining relayed back, “I’m aware it’s an emergency, he has a hostage, he has my damn cousin as hostage! Why should I lower my weapon?!”

Saviors voice blared across the radio, “Beacause Zeron is currently holding ANTIMATTER IN HIS PALM AND WILL KILL US ALL IF WE FIRE ON HIM.”

Shining’s hand shot up and the officers lowered their weapons, fingers still on trigger. He knew what that was, Twilight helped him through college level physics (she was at the age of 13) and she told him about how matter and anti matter… didn’t mix well… to put it lightly.

”I don’t believe it, Antimatter. This scum can summon Faust-damned Antimatter?! What can I do?! Savior’s internal thought process relayed. He was running any solutions that could allow him to kill Zeron, save Dusk, and not blow everything in the city up in a gigantic annihilation event of Matter colliding with Anti Matter.

No solution.

He had a cerebral network in his head that was a fast as a supercomputer, and it came up with no solution.

He ran the problem again, no solution.

No solution.

No solution.

That word flashed over and over in Savior’s network, but he still kept running it.

Then he thought of something, it was risky, but it could work.

Savior stopped using his machine brain and used his organic one, or what little synapses and neurons he had left to come up with a plan. It was a human… pony plan. One void of any computation, logic, or reasoning.

It was a gut feeling plan, and it would work.

Savior knew it would.

Shining heard something over the radio, “Shining… this is my last gift to you, I give you hope. You know who will need it…”

Savior’s armor suddenly shot off his body, grabbing Dusk before Zeron could react and his internal cybernetic body flew towards Zeron. It grabbed him and flew into the air, using any leftover thrust from the original rockets in his feet to take him higher, taking him away from Shining and the city.

Zeron kicked and thrashed against him, the Anti Matter orb thrust towards him, but stayed suspended in its bubble, Savior’s old Ironheart magic shell was still strong, “What are you doing?! You know this isn’t the end of me! It’s impossible for you to defeat me, Savior! What is this reckless display!?”

The plan he came up with had little chance of working, his computer saying it would be mathematically impossible…

Only one problem with that word.

”Impossible”

Looking back from this moment, he did the impossible many times.

He found comrades in Burning Star and Sunset Shimmer, the meeting of both of them together was impossible and the defeat of Eclipsio even more so.

He traveled to a distant world, previously believing it to be impossible, creating the Savior Armor to help stop Black Sun’s rampage.

He was defeated despite his advanced technology, by Mare Do Well and the Power Ponies, which was impossible for anyone else, and turned his whole outlook around.

He did the impossible and fused with the weapon he created, and became Ironheart, the Pony of Vengeance.

…And now that weapon, no that tool… would be passed to another. He knew who would pick it up, they just would have to find the hero, the hope in themselves, as he did.

So yeah… Savior didn’t believe in impossible.

After all, he was Doctor Oculus Bright Mind.

The word impossible, meant little more than dust in the wind, which he would be soon if he had his way.

“You see, Zeron. I might not be able to kill you…”
Savior’s voice sparked, his body heating up and glowing.

Savior’s reactor began to hit critical, he had been overloading it as he flew higher, much to Zeron’s growing alarm.

“…But I will be able to buy these people more time… plus… I already have a plan.”

Zeron tried to struggle free, but it was too late, He was too high and Savior blasted him upwards along with him.

“What plan?! What are you planning?! SAVIOR!” The cult leader roared, still flying higher into the air, now past the clouds.

Soon, Savior saw the sun rise over the horizon, it was dawn… his time was done.

But he did not fail them… he did it. He successfully defended Canterlot from the last remnant of Eclipsio.

He could rest knowing that his own investment would also pay off… if they figured it out.

Under the blaring warning sirens and Reactor Critical Message flashing in his eyes, Savior muttered the phrase that Mare Do Well once told him.

”You want to be a hero, Bright Mind, Then do it your way.”

With a short exhale, Savior smiled and said his last.

”Ganbare… San Setto…”

With a deafening bang, a white light filled the skies as Zeron and Savior’s collective blasts of power detonated above Canterlot City. Shining had to cover his eyes as the light burned to look at, let alone be near.

Windows blew out and as the entire city rocked with the force of the explosion. People were jolted awake and looked out their windows in horror. They didn’t know what it was but they did know whose light that was…

Savior.

A white explosion filled the air right above the ruins of Canterlot Tower’s surroundings, it lasted for what seemed like an eternity before it dissipated, leaving only a shining red star in the sky.

Shining saw the Star come into being, before saying to his fellow officers, “Gentlemen, a moment of silence. We have lost one of our own.”

The yellow light of dawn broke across the city… and people woke to the sound of the explosion.

They thought it was another magical anomaly, they hoped it wasn’t what they thought it was, but it was.

Those that knew, knew well what it was…

And those that didn’t, would soon find out.

Chapter 7: A Costly Dawn

(Canterlot City, Ruins of Downtown Mall)

The dawn that broke over Canterlot City was a solemn one, no hope came with those first rays of sunlight, only a cold sense of emptiness and dread.

Savior, the protector of Canterlot City, was gone. He had sacrificed himself in order to save them all from Zeron, the last remnant of Eclipsio’s power was finally destroyed…

The general public thought it was over… but some knew better, most notably the various Cults that called the city’s ruined center home.

The Sons of Eclipsio all fled at the sight, knowing their leader had been destroyed, albeit temporarily. They scurried back to their hidden paths and alleyways that led back to the conclaves. They knew Zeron wasn’t dead, he was immortal.

After all… how could he not be if he was the first follower of Eclipsio?

The less delusional and insane Followers of Midnight looked to the skies and saw the explosion, the sheer force of it floored Greyhound, who was instructing new members at the time.

The explosion wasn’t just a physical one, but a magical one. The shockwave rippled out to every magic user in the city, hitting them like a gust of hurricane force wind.

The Knights of Fire weren’t at their base at the time, but they did see the explosion and took a moment of silence before continuing on their trek to their destination, Blaze Shine herself leading the charge. They were going to get to the bottom of this, or die trying.

While both cults had no real love for Savior and his desire to undermine what they saw as a genuine faith to gather behind, they did respect and appreciate his takedown of the More dangerous magic users, as they would be slandering magic as a whole.

Shining Armor was the other person who knew about Savior and Zeron’s true fate, as he stood in the aftermath he knew this wasn’t over. He’d seen enough movies that the whole “no body, not dead.” Cliche was ringing in his head.

Despite the slow transformation of his body thanks to Sombra’s Horn, he did have access to the Shadow Kings abilities, as well as his amazing intellect. While the powers were certainly useful, the newfound knowledge he gained from him regarding magic (especially Dark Magic).

If he knew Zeron, which he didn’t but he could make some educated guesses, he probably found some way to escape the explosion using a similar spell to how his Shadow Form worked.

”For once, Your assumption is correct, Shining. Zeron was using a spell similar to my shadow form, however it wasn’t that specifically.” Sombra rumbled in his head, sounding inquisitive.

Shining asked Sombra quickly what was puzzling him, and he responded, ”What is puzzling me is two things, my host. One, Zeron’s shadow form isn’t exactly what you would consider… normal.”

Shining continued to speak with the Shadowy King, while coordinating the cleanup of the crime scene. ”Then what is it then? Even if you don’t know exactly, any information is useful.”

King Sombra grumbled in annoyance, ”Closest I can tell, It’s ancient magic I haven’t seen since the war against Celestia and Luna. It’s ancient, even by my estimates.”

Shining took a breath, the extended contact with Sombra’s mind draining him considerably. As strong as he was, Sombra’s soul was heavy. It made him feel like he was walking underwater at times.

Shining walked over to the medics, they had finally arrived in the quiet aftermath. they were busy resuscitating Dusk Shine’s body and putting bandages on his wounds. They had managed to stop the bleeding, but Dusk was still unconscious. Several of the more magically attuned medical officers were analyzing his cousins vitals.

Further back, several of the other officers were looking somberly

“How’s he doing?” Shining asked the medical staff, hoping for some good news.

the lead officer, Tourniquet, looked at him and said glumly, “Sir, by all logical reason Dusk Shine should be dead, he’s should have lost enough blood to fill a pool and his organs should have been turned nearly to mush, yet they are repairing themselves somehow.”

Shining thought for a moment about Zeron’s final words before he went up like a firework, the words he spoke were… odd to say the least.

”I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise... I’ve seen enough movies to know what that means.” the captain grumbled internally.

Sombra chuckled at the remark, ”Haha, you really are a fool for basing your knowledge of our enemy off of cartoonishly evil villains from movies. I guarantee you, I am much more dangerous than any of them are, because unlike them, I am VERY REAL.”.

Shining ignored the evil laughing, which was hard as it echoed inside of his head.

Like all deals with the Devil, Sombra’s powers did come with several downsides. One of which was having his voice constantly criticizing you on your decisions and his constant desire to take over fully only held off by Shining’s incredible will and Sombra’s general lack of motivation to break it.

An officer tapped Shining on the shoulder before he could inquire further, “Sir, you might want to look at this. We’ve found something in the hole Savior dug with his attack. It’s immobilized several of our men!”

Shining quickly walked over and took a peek into the hole, several officers were down there on the floor, trying to stand but unable to. They were bound by some sort of black energy and stuck to the floor.

”I recognize that magical signature, Shining. It’s my own, a piece of my horn is down there. Retrieve it now.” Sombra’s voice echoed in his mind, sounding eager to regain more of his powers. Of course he would obviously, someone as power-hungry as him would love to-

Shining clutched his head and grit his teeth as King Sombra sent a painful barb of influence directly into his brain, clearly annoyed at his hosts criticism.

Sombra’s voice went cold, ”Careful who your speaking to, fool. I am a King, I’m supposed to be superior to others. You are still some fool who wishes to be something you would have never become without me, and even then I will never allow myself to be used for this “heroism”. Remember that my interests still align with yours in destroying this Eclipsio. The moment they do not, you will no longer be of use.”

”Yeah, I know…” Shining Armor thought, ignoring the rambling and descended into the pit, channeling Sombra’s magic to free the trapped officers. They quickly scrambled away, their fear overtaking them.

The Captain began to survey the area, looking for the Horn Fragment. Using Sombra’s magic as radar, he sent a projection of his Shadow outwards. It crawled along the sides of the pit until it found a difference in the side. There was a crack in the top of a broken water line, just big enough for something to fit in there.

It looked like something had broken through the top of the water pipe and lodged into the main, although Shining was skeptical that a simple shard of a horn could do all that.

Heck, he was having a hard time believing that when Black Sun’s space station exploded that shards of the horn just happened to only fall in Canterlot’s general area and not all over the planet, it seemed too coincidental.

Sombra’s voice spoke, it carried his tone of superiority as usual, ”Shining, I’ve learned In my long life that there are no Coincidences, that all things happen for a reason, be it fate or destiny, I do not care either way. Retrieve my horn quickly.”

Sighing, Shining reached into the pipe and felt around for the horn shard, finally grabbing something and pulling it free of the pipe.

Said thing he grabbed sent out a surge of black electricity across his arm, causing a rush of pain. Shining grit his teeth as he pushed Sombra’s Magic into the horn shard, letting it stabilize upon contact with its owners power.

Slowly, Shining Armor opened his hand and what he saw made him question the reason he was doing this, as well as the reason Sombra was as well…

The horn shard was a blood red in color, purplish-black Magic bubbled and frothed from it and sparks of black lightning streaked across the surface. It was about as big as his thumb in size, yet the magical energy he felt coming off it made his seem like a dim bulb in comparison.

Before Shining could react, Sombra’s presence quickly took control of him and his arm flew to the broken horn hanging from his neck, placing the piece on the end of the horns tip. The captain’s body crackled with purple-green static as he tensed up in pain, shutting his eyes and covering his ears.

It was a fruitless endeavor, Sombra’s howling laughter echoed around his head, as Shining felt his body change once more.

The captain opened his eyes, still unable to control his body as Sombra made him look into the puddle of water at his feet, smiling a feral grin and what Shining saw terrified him.

Shining’s teeth had grown sharp, canines now visibly longer, his glare had grown harder, and his previously dark blue eyes had turned Sombra’s signature red, with his sclera a sickly green and dark magic sparks emitting from them…

Sombra relinquished control over Shinings body and spoke to him in his mind, his voice sounding pleased and amused. ”There… much better. Oh don’t look so upset Shining Armor, you should be thanking me. Were it not for my powers over Shadow Projection, you and your little band of police would be scorch marks on the wall. So now, we have more things you can play with.”

”Like what exactly, because it better be good or at least effective enough to stop whatever Zeron had done to his body.” the captain responded, a little annoyed at Sombra’s tone.

Shining Armor then looked at his hand as he felt something begin to take shape in it. It was a black rod like thing that began to stretch out, bending at an angle. It ended at a jagged triangle as a large curved blade sprouted, taking a irregular shape.

With a flash of light, the projection solidified, and Shining was suddenly holding a scythe made of shadow energy. However it soon faded from his hand.

”Behold, one of my favorite spells, Shadow Crafting. And this is a welcome surprise, an albeit incomplete projection of my legendary weapon, the Scythe of Umbra. This will prove useful for our future endeavors, Shining Armor.”

Before Shining could ask what next they will do, he heard shouting from his men outside the pit, quickly sprinting up the side despite it being a pretty steep incline.

He reached the top only to be greeted by a pair of fireball-holding arms shoved in his face by someone in a red and gray tunic with armored chest plates. Upon their arms was an armband bearing a Star of Fire surrounded by a wreath of laurels.

Several of his officers were on the floor, not moving other than their breathing and were being restrained by more of the strange clothed individuals.

Shining immediately knew who these guys were, The Knights of Fire. He thought back to the his assessment of their movements he made.

They probably saw the explosion and thought Burning Star had returned, either that or they arrived to try and take on the Sons of Eclipsio, only to just miss them and take his men hostage.

“Drop your weapon and surrender, Pig. Or you can kiss your ass goodbye.” Said the cultist pointing the fireballs at him, ire in his voice.

Shining Armor rolled his eyes and quickly sent his shadow underneath the young man and tripped him, dropping him to the floor. He then planted his foot directly on his chest and bound his limbs down with tendrils of shadow.

”Alright all of you stand down, or your friend dies.” his voice boomed and hand turned into a sharp spear made of Shadows, Sombra’s influence growing as his hair began to change.

“Oh don’t be so melodramatic, Captain.” An unfamiliar female voice spoke from the balcony above.

Shining looked up to the balcony, seeing a hooded figure in red and gray armor. The figure hopped from the ledge and landed in front of him. Even with Sombra’s enhanced eyesight he could not see into the hood the cultist had on.

The hooded female spoke, her voice tinged with amusement and a small bit of surprise. “So, you are the rumored Captain Shining Armor, brother to the host of the Arcane Demon, Midnight Sparkle… your taller than I thought.”

”Enough talk, Knight of Fire. Who are you and why are your associates trying to capture my offficers?” Shining hissed out, Sombra’s voice mixing with his own more.

Shining’s danger sense went off as the figure went still, then sent a fire covered fist towards him, unpinning the person he was stepping on. He danced back before catching the woman’s arm and shoving her back.

Sombra’s voice rung out in his head, also sounding guarded. ”Shining, be on guard. This person isn’t like these other cultists, she’s much stronger, I could feel the sheer strength behind that punch. I’d prefer you’d Don’t get hit by them.”

The hooded woman was quick to capitalize on Shining stepping back and opened her right hand, and a plasma fireball formed and quickly fired away. She strafed to the right, alternating firing between left and right to keep Shining in front of her.

Shining turned his body to shadow and let the first attack pass through him, though not without feeling the heat of the scorching projectile. The second shot was blocked by a magical shield he projected from his hand. He began to return fire with a trio of electric pulses. The woman somehow batted them away with the back of her hand, swinging a haymaker towards him covered in flames. A giant fist made of fire swung down towards him, leaving no room.

Shining couldn’t dodge the attack, but he could lessen the impact, putting his arms up and funneling Sombra’s shadow into a barrier and letting the attack push him back a bit.

”Well magic clearly ain’t working, time for tried and true bullets.” he grumbled, feeling the burns on his arms.

He reached for his gun and fired twice, shooting the woman in the arm. She flinched in pain, but stood firm.

Sombra’s voice rung out, ”Normal bullets aren’t going to work, allow me.”

Shining felt Sombra’s shadowy form creep down his arm around his pistol, transforming it into a demonic-looking hand cannon. Shining smiled and leveled the gun, Red lines traced down its sides and a trio of great black bullets shot out with a loud crack similar to a thunderbolts fall.

Blaze wasn’t fast enough and they pierced through her own shield and perforated her arms. She staggered back, blood leaking from the wounds.

She suddenly spoke, “Well you certainly know how to brawl, I can see why our idol Burning Star liked you so much. Although it pales in comparison to his radiant aura of fire and power, your aura is darker, more subtle.”

”Ill take it as a complement, now do you mind telling me who you are?” Shining returned, slightly annoyed by the raw burns on his arms.

The woman paused for a moment, then she giggled madly, pulling back her hood to reveal her face. Shining Armor quickly took it in, as it was who he suspected it was.

The woman had pale orange-yellow skin, with red tattoos across her cheeks in the shape of Fire. Her left eye was purple, while her right eye was glowing red. She had a head of long, red-orange hair that had strange purple streaks in it, it was tied into a split that hung down onto her shoulders. Her nose was pointed, almost perfectly triangle shaped and her lips were colored a dark red.

She finally spoke, sounding strangely… amused? “I am Blaze Shine, Commander and Leader of the Knights of Fire… And you’ve got the situation wrong, dear captain. I was simply passing through with my personal guard to investigate the site myself. Your officers jumped the gun so I ordered my people to restrain them for now, really trigger happy lot aren’t you?”

“Can you really blame us? Tonight’s been rather dangerous, Blaze Shine. My men went into this building under my orders to use lethal force if attacked.” Shining snarked back, Sombra’s influence still present.

“Well that certainly is different from what I heard about you, Captain.” Blaze Shine said, speaking his title with a mocking tone. “Last I heard about the stalwart Shining Armor was that he was a hospitable, even tempered Officer. Some sort of naive White Knight of Justice, and I came to offer some of my peoples hospitality.”

Shining let Sombra’s influence over his voice fade away, but let a long shadowy spike form in his left hand. He leveled it in front of him saying, “Well you have an interesting way of showing hospitality don’t you? I presume you are here for the same reason I was? Hunting the Sons of Eclipsio and Zeron?”

He knew he was being too causal, especially with a known criminal cultist with several suspected attacks pinned on her, but he was far too tired and out of patience to care at the moment.

If this cult leader was willing to cooperate enough at least for a chat, then chat he will. Hell, maybe he could gather info on the cult, but his gut said that was a pipe dream at the moment.

Blaze Shine circled to the left around where Dusk was lying, whilst Shining circled to the right, his spear still leveled while Blaze had a fire covered fist summoned and pointed at him.

“Enough about the Sons of Eclipsio and Zeron. I’m here for Dusk Shine, primarily. One of lieutenants, named Strikeout reported that he was coming into our territory to study us and possibly learn about our group here. Would you care to give him up to me? I promise he will be unharmed, and I will return him to you within the week.” Blaze said, a too wide smile on her face.

“You know I won’t let you do that, Blaze. He’s my cousin, and I did not come out here and fight a bunch of insane people just for another group of insane people to take him. Get out of here before I reach my limit with you false amusement.” Shining growled out, his temper flared and patience already spent.

Sombra’s mind screamed to duck and Shining hit the deck as a giant blast of fire scorched the wall behind him, Bad move in hindsight as that line seemed to tick Blaze off and cause her mask to break. Her face went from smug to apoplectic as she slung two flame spears in his direction. Shining rolled out of the way and turned into a shadow to slip behind her and knock her out.

It didn’t work, Blaze caught his arms and threw him forwards to the ground, landing next to Dusk’s body.

He barely had time to put up a shield as Blaze Shine condensed a ball of plasma fire in her hands and let loose a strong explosion of heat and plasma fire.

Sombra’s voice snorted a laugh, ”Well she is certainly special, isn’t she? She could be a fairly decent Master of Fire Magic if she got her temper under control. Even with me, She does outclass you in raw power Shining, I recommend we end this quickly.”

”I agree, time to extinguish this fire.” Shining quipped in his head, earning a groan from Sombra, clearly not a fan of quips.

Shining sprung to his feet and let Sombra’s shadow overtake his body, feeling the rush of the kings magic fill him and reinvigorate his body. He thrust his hand forwards sending a shadowy version of Blaze Shine’s fist attack out…

but instead of a single big one. he sent a dozen smaller ones in an effort to incapacitate Blaze Shine, not kill her on impact. It proved effective as Blaze couldn’t block them all and was quickly pushed off balance, allowing Stone Spike, who had been approaching from the back to tackle her and force her on the ground.

It didn’t work, despite Stone Spikes best efforts, he was quickly pulled off by the other Cult Members. While they were busy pulling him away from their leader, the officers broke free of their bonds quickly and drew their weapons, ready to support Shining Armor.

Blaze Shine jumped to her feet, narrowly dodging Shining’s axe kick towards her head, and the two engaged in melee combat, sans spells.

Blaze was powerful, each strike to Shining’s arms as he blocked and deflected her blows sent waves of pain across his entire body. She hit like a runaway train, but she lacked control. She overextended constantly, but he couldn’t capitalize on it due to how many attacks she kept throwing out. Every hit he did get in, she simply ignored and pressed her offense more.

Shining was agile, he danced away from her blows and blocked the ones he could weave and dodge. He fought like a hardened warrior, aided by Sombra’s own knowledge on hand to hand combat. The only problem was that he was running low on magic, and Sombra was starting to exert too much influence over his mind.

Shining jumped back from Blaze Shine’s roundhouse kick that sent a wave of fire outwards. He returned with two punches to her chest, hitting her directly in the area under her breasts.

Bad move, in hindsight, but Shining Armor was too tired to care about being fair right now.

Angry, impatient, and now absolutely red in the face from embarrassment, Blaze Shine finally scored a solid hit to the captains jaw. It sent Shining to the ground, and Blaze stomped on his chest before he could get up.

She leered over him, her face red with both embarrassment of having her knockers punched and fury from well… having them touched at all… she screamed at him.

“How dare you do that to me?! Do you know what I am going to do to you, Shining Armor?! I will burn you alive for what you did!” Blaze yelled in his face, grinding her spike heeled foot into his chest.

Shining couldn’t move, his body couldn’t take any more punishment and he had been fighting for close to 20 minutes straight by his estimation. A fight of this length would have made Savior proud… for a human at least.

Sombra’s voice echoed in his head, almost screaming ”Get up Shining Armor, you are not going to die to some overconfident wench that thinks she can beat you! Get up damn it!”

Shining couldn’t stand, but his enhanced ears suddenly picked up the sound of something approaching at high speed

“THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR HURTING ME! BURNING STAR PUNCH!” Blaze Shine prepared a giant fist coated in Fire to slam down on Shining’s head, he forced any remaining magic to his face. Maybe he could survive, but he knew he probably wouldn’t… this was the end…

As this was happening…

A shadowy figure watched from the air, diving down through the open roof.

Shining would be toast but a purple-black light struck Blaze Shine in the back. She wheeled around to see who hit her.

“Who dares interrupt my judgement?!” She roared, eyes literally ablaze with fire magic.

Shining struggled to stand, but only got to his knees, and what he saw both confused and terrified him. It was his sister, Twilight. She must have sensed Savior’s demise and come to investigate as well!

But something was… wrong. Very Wrong.

Dusk’s body was enveloped in a Purple-black aura and quickly shuffled off to the side as the true attacker revealed itself.

Corvid-like wings descended from above and several cultists opened fire, pinging harmlessly off off them as the mysterious attacker unveiled its wings.

Shining looked on in horror, knowing who it was.

It was his sister, but it wasn’t her Pony up form, she was transformed into Midnight Sparkle! Wisps of smoke and clouds of magic poured from her surroundings as her hands sparked and burned with pitch black spell-fire. Her hair was glowing and billowed like unnatural Fire, a dull purple and black light emanated from it and her eyes shined bright purple, black smoke coming out of them.

”Judgement? Don’t make me laugh, child… Well, Well… isn’t this peculiar. I’m out for a little investigation of the magical explosion in downtown and I find a cult group here. How… exciting.” Midnight said, her tone mocking.

Blaze Shine signaled the rest of her cultists to focus on the now moving on Midnight, who immediately began to charge her body with magic. Bolts of purple and black electric magic arched along her arms and charred the ground around her.

Blaze Shine’s thoughts flew by a mile a minute. She looked on in shock as Midnight sent out a wave of darkness, flooring every single person in the ruined food court, and binding them to the ground.

Shining then heard her speak again, as his sisters face twisted into an ugly grin. ”Is this all you can do, no challenge, no strength to your cause and yet you think you can take me on?!” she said cruelly,

He waved out his hand, sending a crescent shaped blast of Black-purple magic towards her. She split it, and sent a similar shaped wave of fire towards Midnight.

Shining and Sombra watched on in both amazement and confusion as Midnight reached out her hand, opened it, and a tear in space-time opened up. It showed a image of what Sombra’s mind told Shining was Equestria’s Everfree Forest. The wave of fire flew into it, striking a tree and setting it alight.

”Shining, I thought you told me that your sisters corrupted form was gone. She said it herself, care to explain this?!” Sombra's voice rumbled in Shining’s head, clearly surprised by the recent development.

Before Shining could respond, Midnight spoke again, her voice echoing with her laughter. ”Oh too bad, Blaze. Seems your little group didn’t have the mettle to face someone like me. And here I thought I would get a challenge, guess I was wrong about you.”

Midnight began charging several spheres of purple-black magic in his hand before saying in a lackadaisical voice. ”Oh well, I guess this is what I get for expecting people to have developed enough magical skill in six months…”

The Knights immediately did the smart thing and bolted, Blaze Shine shouting after them, “Cowards! I will burn you all for running from this idiot!”

Midnight Sparkle laughed, juggling a sphere of arcane power on her palm before casually throwing it at Blaze Shine, making her dive out of the way as it exploded with a bang, scattering debris and making Shining Armor take cover.

The captain rushed to where Dusk Shine was lying, he was still unconscious, but breathing slowly. Shining Armor extended Sombra’s shadowy form into a shield once more In order to prevent any further danger from coming near his cousin.

Blaze Shine attempted to fire back with three bolts of fire shot from her fingers, but Midnight swiped them away with a casual wave of her hand, opening a portal that ended up teleporting them right back into her face.

Blaze was knocked off her feet, hitting the dirt and bouncing several times before slamming into a fallen support column hard. She struggled to her feet and faced her enemy, still willing to fight.

“Don’t dismiss me that quickly, Magic-born demon. I’m still able to stand, I still have fight in my body…” she said, eyes glowing, but her flames only came out in embers.

Midnight rolled her eyes, summoning a portal under Blaze Shine, teleporting her somewhere unknown. She couldn’t be bothered to kill the impotent girl right now, she had bigger problems. She quickly rushed over and Shining saw that her her piercing glare noticeably softened.

Twilight’s consciousness regained control of her body and she levitated over her cousins unmoving body and let out a sigh of relief as she heard his heartbeat. The reason Shining knew Twi’s mind had come back was seeing her eyes change back to the normal purple with white outsides instead of the frightening Green with purple black pupils.

Midnight spoke towards Shining Armor, but it was Twilight’s voice that came out, “Shiny, are you alright? I tried to get here quicker but Midnight was being uncooperative. You had a full plate to deal with tonight, didn’t you, BBBFF?”

Shining sighed before saying with grit teeth. “Yeah, I have been busy. Turns out the cultists Zeron, leader of the Sons of Eclipsio kidnapped our cousin, Tortured him as well.”

Twilight went still… letting out a small “what?”

Before Shining could explain that he was healing himself somehow, his sense for magic went crazy Midnight’s personality exploded back into control. Her voice deafening as the very air around her ripped asunder with tears in space-time.

”How dare they! They believe that my cousin is easy pickings simply because he possesses no magic!? They will PAY FOR THIS! I will FIND THEM AND TEAR THEIR BODIES APART AND SCATTER THEM ACROSS THE UNIVERSE, JUST AS THEIR PRECIOUS ECLIPSIO WAS!” Midnight’s voice roared forth, Shining putting up a shield to block the sheer force of magical energy pouring out of his sister.

Said magical force was distorting the world around them, the air seemed to twist and write with purple-black magic bolts flying in all directions.

All the while, Twilight screamed bloody murder. She had transcended beyond outrage into a level of fury that had not been seen since Twilight first transformed into Midnight Sparkle.

Shining disregarded his own safety and dropped his shield, rushing to his sisters side, Shining wrapped her in a hug. “Twilight! Please calm down! Dusk is safe now, we got him back. We got him back… it’s ok.”

The maelstrom managed to lift the captain into the air as Midnight ascended, as well as throw back any police officers from trying to get close. They weren’t armed, they legitimately were trying to get close to Midnight and calm her down as well.

Eventually after what seemed like an eternity (but what really was about 5 minutes), the vortex around Midnight subsided. Shining dropped onto the ground, landing hard on his feet.

Midnight collapsed to her knees, the dark form disappearing and leaving Twilight in a heap, sobbing like a child. Her anger quickly vanishing and replaced with anguish and fear.

“He’s gone Shining, he’s gone… who can save the city now?” She stopped and gasped, “Who will tell Sunset about this?!”

Shining pulled his sister into a tight hug, “I’ll tell her, she deserves to know.”

No matter what she was underneath, Shining still loved his sister, no matter what stress and frustration she felt, he would always be there for her.

The sweet moment was broken by Sombra's mind grumbling in Shining’s head, ”Ugh… can you be any more of a sap, boy. Your sister has every right to be angry, so why haven’t we hunted Zeron down yet?”

Shining rolled his eyes, trying to ignore him, but Sombra continued his little rant. ”Speaking of Zeron, I finally figured out what magic he was using, and I determined Savior’s sacrifice ultimately was pointless.”

”Oh yeah, and what’s that? Some kinda familiar summoning so he doesn’t have to be here physically?” Shining Armor asked sarcastically.

Sombra’s mind answered as bluntly as possible, and Shining could tell he was being serious.

”YES. Hence the reason why I called his sacrifice useless. He didn’t kill Zeron, more like he essentially destroyed a connection he had to the outside world.”

Shining’s blood ran cold, but before he could respond, he glanced over at the rest of his men, who were looking at him with pleading eyes.

Shining’s attention snapped back to reality. The reality that he was a police officer, and he was at a crime scene.

He pulled Twilight up and guided her towards his lieutenant Stone Spike, he said to him, “ Lt. Stone, Take my sister home please.” He then said to Twi, “Listen Twilgiht, I’m happy and relieved you came and saved us, but I need to do my job now.”

Twilight nodded and walked towards the hole Savior made with his breaching charge, exiting the ruined mall and driving off with Stone Spike.

He then turned to the medical staff near Dusk’s body and said, “Take him to the hospital, put him in the ER. I’ll be by later to talk with him when he wakes up.”

The medical team placed Dusk on a stretcher, and carried him away.

Shining let out a long sigh, looking now onto the Armor that Savior left behind.

It stood motionless, still slightly glowing white from the heat and the exhaust vents that lined the armor.

It stood there, and Shining took in its visage, without Savior in it, he started to notice small things about it.

The suits armor was broken in some places, almost scarred and cut. Blood from the cultists he killed during the rain of fire he put out coated the gauntlets and was splattered on The chestplate. The magic reactor had gone dark, the pale white-blue light no longer shining like a star in the darkness. The Helmet’s visor was cracked down the middle, and when Shining touched it, it collapsed away and the armor opened up, revealing the now deactivated internals.

Shining was amazed on the internals, they were unlike anything he had seen in his life. While he had seen cybernetic armor in comics and movie he read as a child, seeing it here, in reality was like looking onto something straight out of a comic… but he could touch it with his own hands.

But he didn’t… it would be a disrespect. He did however know what to do with it to make it able to be moved.

Shining pressed his hand to the now inert Magic Reactor and turned it to the left, as the armor collapsed into the reactor via a spatial compression spell imbued into the armor and he held it into his palm, the officer sighed again.

The suit of armor, one that inspired hope for an entire city, was now empty of its pilot.

Savior, the white star of hope of the city, was lost to them now…

What made it hurt all the more was that there was no backup memory or anything of that sort. Savior had mentioned that the spell he used to transfer his mind into the machine was not able to be preformed again, it would only work once…

He sat down, looking at the dim magic reactor in his hand, before putting it in his pocket. He began to walk towards the blown hole, his mood grim.

“Twi’s right… how am I going to tell Sunset what happened?”

(Canterlot City, Sunsets House)

An hour later, after explaining the situation to the commissioner about the incident, Shining’s cruiser pulled up in front of Sunset’s house, and instantly his sense of something wrong went off. Not his danger sense, just something inside of him sensed something wrong.

He put his car in park and stepped out, he was out of his uniform, and dressed in his casual clothes. He wore a blue and white T shirt and a pair of black jeans, Sombra’s horn was left in the car, he didn’t need to hear him chime in on trying to help Sunset grieve was useless and that they should be trying to take revenge.

He had enough of Sombra’s rhetoric and stuffed him in the glove compartment. The Dark king screamed expletives and snarled like a wild beast, but he stuck him in there and locked it. This was a human thing to do, help a friend process grief.

Shining Armor walked up to Sunset’s door and knocked, “Sunset? It’s Shining Armor. We need to talk. Something’s happened to Savior.”

No response, so Shining tested the door. The knob turned and the door opened, Shining sensed something was definitely wrong now.

Sunset never unlocked her door expect for Savior coming in, and that immediately set the mood as grim and Shining’s mood as worse.

Shining stepped into Sunset’s house, calling out “Sunset? Are you home? It’s Shining Armor.”

No response, This wasn’t good. Immediately Shining sped into the living room, calling Sunsets name again, trying to find her.

Eventually Shining’s ears picked up the sound of a quiet, “I’m down here…” he looked to the basement steps, proceeding down to the elaborate headquarters that had been set up for Savior.

Shining had only seen it once, during its construction when Burning Star sent that tech-Savvy Kirin named Frostclaw to assist Sunset and Savior in the setup of the computer systems, engineering and repair stations, and even the recharge system.

Saviors suit, despite having a tremendous capacity for power, still needed to be recharged every 10 Days, and the amount of sheer electrical amperage it would have taken would have blown out the electrical wiring of Sunsets house, as well as causing a blackout for most of her neighborhood.

So Frostclaw had created a special station that tapped into the main generator at the Canterlot Hydroelectric plant. He did this via some magic device that created a magical gate that allowed power to flow through… which would then convert into magical energy… it was a little too complicated for Shining to understand.

Shining stepped into the room and his eyes went wide, unable to grasp what he was seeing.

Along the walls ran great cables of electrical wire. Various machines and racks holding all manner of sharp weapons and firearms lined the walls and hung from the ceiling on a conveyer belt. Tables covered in bits of Savior’s metallic cybernetic shell sat against the walls, stains of grease and cooling fluid were present on all of them.

At the back of the room sat the empty Armory Terminal Savior’s armor would be hung in, where it would recharge and be repaired. Shining looked down at Saviors folded up armor, thinking what he should do now.

Next to the armory was a vast table stacked with computer monitors and computer towers, this was the Stable, a supercomputer array that Frostclaw built during the days when they were hunting Black Sun six months ago…

Six months ago… simpler times. When the world of Magic was still unknown to him and he was just a simple chief of his small little group of officers from a small precinct.

Shining saw the body of Sunset Shimmer sitting the the chair in front of the monitors, all of which displayed various counters and measurements.

All of them displayed zero…

She was slumped over, her head on her arms and her normally beautifully smooth hair was frayed and spread out around her.

Sunset heard Shining’s footsteps and let out a sob. “I know why you’re here, Shining. You don’t have to tell me what happened.”

“I’m guessing You already know?” Shining sighed, the mood taking a turn for the depressing.

Sunset suddenly spun around on the chair and glared at him, eyes bloodshot and red, cheeks stained with tears. She spoke, great pain in her voice, “Already know… I saw it with my own eyes. I was sitting at the computer when Savior suddenly called me, I saw the readings on his reactor starting to go critical.”

She wheeled around and shoved a finger towards the monitor displaying Savior’s former reactor pressure. “I asked him what did he think he was doing. That there had to be another way… he said that this was the only way to defeat Zeron.”

Shining didn’t dare tell her the truth, that “Zeron” was simply a familiar shaped like it’s owner. He would tell her when it was the right time, not when her grief was still hot.

Shining had lost one friend today, he won’t lose another.

“I’m sorry, Sunset. I wish I could have done something but, I’m not that great of a magic user.”

That was a lie… Sombra’s spirit made him one of the most powerful magic users on the planet.

But a little lie to make her feel better would be good, at least until she figured it out and got angry.

But he could worry about that later, for now he needed to comfort his friend.

Shining reached into his pocket and placed the collapsed Armor on the table. “Savior’s Armor was left behind, it’s all that’s left of him. I don’t know what he wanted me to do with it, all he said was that “You’ll know what to do with it.””

Sunset gave him a confused look, “What the hell does that mean? Why did he leave it behind?”

Shining shrugged before saying, “I have no clue. I don’t claim to know the thoughts of a cybernetic war machine. But I’m making the decision to leave it with you.”

He turned to leave, “I can’t stay long, Sunset… I need to go talk with the Commissioner about tonight’s events. again… I’m sorry about not being able to save him.”

Sunset didn’t respond, only holding the device that Savior’s armor was contained in close to her chest and sobbing once more.

It killed him to see her like this, but Shining had a job to do, and he knew Twi would be a much better comfort than he could ever be.

He exited Sunset’s house and got into his car, before driving off to City Hall, He needed to tell the commissioner.

And he knew he wasn’t going to be happy.

Chapter 8: The Midnight Watch

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Chapter 1: Life After The Fall

Author's Note

Whew Boy... I am rusty from being away for so long, but I’m trying to get back into writing.

The first part of this chapter is mostly just a recap of what happened in the time frame in between “The Black Sun.” And now. The later bit is an actual intro to our main character, Dusk Shine.

(Note: this is not a Burning Star Saga continuation. This is a side story from the previous entry. There will be mentions of him in this story, but no in person appearances.)

Chapter 1: Life After The Fall

(Canterlot City, Main Street)

Canterlot City was a fairly large city. It was usually a petty quiet, occasionally a few crimes would happen, but nothing too dangerous that the C.C.P.D (Canterlot City Police Department) couldn’t handle...

That is, until Black Sun, the Armored Monster arrived... and everything went to hell in a handbasket really quickly. All of a sudden, large crimes were being committed by people who were motivated by Black Sun’s spread of fear to the citizens of Canterlot City

Eventually, the being known as Burning Star and his group of heroes emerged from Equestria... and attempted to resolve the issue.

Only to make the problem worse!

As the group were closing in on Black Sun’s identity, an impromptu betrayal by Burning Star’s former ally Prince Eclipsio forced the Alicorn of Fire to scramble together with the police in an attempt to stop the maniacal Alicorn from annihilating the city and eventually the planet.

In order to accomplish this, Prince Eclipsio needed power, both magic from this world and his In order to power his ultimate weapon, so he did something incredibly risky that had incredible ripple effects across the city, and eventually the world.

Using his unfathomable power, he forcefully awakened the arcane field that was the source of magic on Earth Alpha.

While it had its benifits to the everyday human, such as Granting those with connections to the field limited forms of Telekinesis and some telepathy.

It also brought along massive power struggles. The newly awakened Acanists, as they were called, used their newly acquired magic to start conflicts.

Regardless, His power forced Burning Star and his allies to confront Eclipsio and out a stop to his destruction. The Alicorn Of Fire eventually succeeded, but at a very great cost.

The pride of Canterlot City, the 80 story tall Canterlot Tower, was utterly destroyed by the resulting battle. Hundreds of lives were lost, and the surrounding area was reduced to a state of ground zero.

Canterlot has been wounded, and even after six months passing... no one had a clue as to how to cope with the fallout of the disaster that had become known as the “Battle Of Canterlot Tower.”

This battle eventually ended with one of the heroes sacrificing his life to destroy Eclipsio and save the city and the world respectively, he was mourned by his friends and family, obviously, finally being remembered by them after many years of obscurity.

Naturally, the police, especially the commissioner wanted Burning Star and his group to answer questions as to why they involved themselves in this.

Why did they arrive?

What possessed them to cause so much collateral damage to the city?

And most importantly, where did they come from?

Before any questions could be asked, Burning Star and his allies mysteriously vanished, leaving the city defenseless to the new assault from the Arcanists eager to tear society down in favor of one based on strength above all else.

This state Of defenselessness did not last long as another figure came out of the shadows to answer the growing crime problem. He was clad in white and gold armor that shined like a blazing star of Hope. He flew through the air and brought justice down on the wicked and evil criminals that dared to disrupt the peace.

most importantly, he wasn’t afraid to say that he stood for the people of Canterlot, even emblazoning the city’s coat of arms on his back as a sign of support for the city.

This being was Savior, the Defender of Peace and Prosperity. Savior had admitted to working against Black Sun and Eclipsio, however... he neither confirmed or denied any collusion with the destructive being called Burning Star.

Knowing that this was probably the most reliable answer, Canterlot went back to some semblance of normality, allowing Savior to act as their guardian until life could finally start making sense.

They memorialized the dead, and tried to move on. It was hard at first, the resulting dust and debris kicked up during the collapse of Canterlot Tower caused many problems.

Horrible terminal illnesses like Cancer and Multiple Sclerosis began to become more common. Obviously the cost of repairing and rebuilding buildings around the site was expensive, forcing a harsh increase in taxes. Savior supplied advanced technology in order to rebuild, but it was only a fraction of what they truly needed.

But the worst impact was the psychological damage done to the city.

The once peaceful city was reduced to a state of perpetual paranoia. While Savior’s appearance and the beefing up of the Police Force thanks to his technology provided some semblance of relief, there was no doubt that Canterlot was irreversibly scarred by the knowledge of magic, and its incredibly destructive applications. It was also adjusting to the introduction of magic and the arcane arts as a whole. The Arcanists that emerged stirred unrest, but they could quickly be put away by Savior and his wide variety of Anti-Magic technology.

But for some, life slowly went on. One such group that quickly adapted to it were the Rainbooms Of Canterlot High... who were currently sitting in the cafeteria of their newly built school building eating lunch.

During the few days before the “Battle at Canterlot Tower,” Black Sun had launched a massive assault against the school, assuming that the Rainbooms were there. Thankfully they were not, they were on a school trip to the Everfree Forest.

Black Sun had gained knowledge of this, and took off after them. This had led to the so called “Battle on Stardust Speedway,” where Burning Star and the still allied Prince Eclipsio fought hard against the monster. The mechanical being rained death upon them, but he was eventually forced to retreat.

(Canterlot High, Second Building Cafeteria)

But back to the Rainbooms. One member of the group was sitting uneasily. This was Twilight Sparkle, the human version often referred to as “Sci-Twi” as to not confuse her for the pony version that lived on Equestria.

She was currently in the middle of the newly opened Arcane Lab studying the forces of Magic with Sunset Shimmer, who since she was once a Unicorn, retained some Knowledge of arcane force from her home. Sci-Twi was also coming to terms with an... terrifying and interesting revelation of her own.

Because of the reawakening of the arcane field, her magic-powered megalomaniac persona known as Midnight also reappeared. Thankfully, she was much easier to control and Twi even began to test out transforming into her when more powerful magic was needed for her experiments.

It wasn’t easy, Midnights mind, maddened by both the new influx of magic from the arcane field on Earth Alpha and Twi’s own insecurities when it came to her truly incredible power were eating away at Twily slowly... and she feared that it was only a matter of time before she would transform and never revert back.

Rainbow Dash had gone back to the soccer team, albeit she was much more careful this time. Her encounter with Black Sun had left her legs in bad shape from the massive amount of magic being thrown around during the duel between Black Sun and Burning Star. Despite not being in combat directly, The concussive force alone badly damaged her body, forcing her into a six month Hiatus from all athletic activities.

Fluttershy was affected the worst, her injuries, both physical and psychological, were so severe that she had to be taken off world to Equestria Alpha to recieve medical treatment and therapy. After six months, She had not returned yet.

Applejack had retreated to her farm home for the semester, taking classes from there. Despite her love for her friends, protecting her family had become her number one priority, ever since Granny Smith had suddenly fallen ill with some terrible disease born of the lingering effects of the ancient magic Eclipsio unleashed upon the world.

Savior, who was once a master of the field of magic before his transformation into what he was now, had offered his knowledge on what afflicted AJ’s Granny. Eventually he diagnosed her with Arcane Poisoning. It would usually clear up, but it would be some time, and he did not know if her elderly body could take the immense stress that Arcane poisoning would place upon her body.

Rarity had buried herself in her job as a seamstress, in her role as a student, and anything else she could do. She was working herself ragged, trying desperately to keep busy. The conflict had left her shaken, as her own home in the Canterlot Tower apartment complexes had been obliterated in the battle. She was currently staying with Pinkie until her home had either been rebuilt, or at least she could find another home.

Despite her looks, Rarity had not gotten any new male crushes as of late. Most of the boys in Canterlot High seemed to avoid the Rainbooms like the plague, mostly out of fear for their own safety.

Not that the Rainbooms would hurt them, but out of fear that another horrible monster would arrive and they would fin themselves in the crossfire again.

Pinkie appeared to take the massive upheaval well, but she was hurting deep down. Eclipsio’s rage and seemingly callous demeanor when taking lives disturbed her on a personal level. She deliberated on and off with herself on why he did what he did, even asking Savior for advice, but the answer was always the same.

”Eclipsio used us Pinkie. He fueled his rage with our misplaced trust in him and he used it against us. It wasn’t personal towards us, to him we were just obstacles that needed to be removed. Nothing more.”

Out of all of the Rainbooms, Sunset Shimmer took it the hardest. Partially because she had some unspoken affection for the one that sacrificed himself... and partially because on some level, she understood the Prince’s grudge.

When she first arrived on Earth from her Equestria, she saw how naive people were. She exploited it and she LOVED IT. In a way, she was very similar to Eclipsio. The Prince had even sought her for counseling, he was intrigued by her.

Despite the similarities, she stopped at the idea of taking another’s life, even in the presence of a feeling of revenge. She also felt deeply disturbed by the Prince of Eclipses curiosity, borderline obsession with previously repugnant personality and her Arc Daemon form she took on when she donned the Element of Magic a few years ago...

She understood why, as she eventually learned that Eclipsio was a daemon prince in disguise as an Alicorn. He must have seen some sort of dark kinship between her and him. Either that or some sort of twisted attraction towards her Daemon form.

Both ideas were already spine-chilling enough on their own, but the fact that Eclipsio even confronted her post-betrayal to offer her immortality if she stood alongside him as he annihilated mankind made her sick.

Her personal analysis of Eclipsio in that moment and post-Canterlot Tower battle is that the Prince had a dangerous god-complex. He believed that morals and human laws were beneath him. That humanity would either submit to him or die.

There was no other choice in his mind. After all... he was Prince Eclipsio, Swallower of the Sun and Moon and self proclaimed “Dark God of Destruction.”

What were morals to a god? They were inconsequential, useless.

She was thankful that he was stopped and presumably gone for good as far as she knew, but she still had a feeling he would be back... someone like him wouldn’t be gone for long.

At least if pop culture had taught her anything, no good villain ever stays dead. Despite her despising thinking this, she did hope he would stay dead, and hopefully forgotten.

Currently, Sunset was walking home from her new job as secretary to Twilights Brother and Chief of Police, Shining Armor.

He had insisted unexpectedly for her to be assigned to his personal entourage, along with Savior, as she had the direct connection to the armored guardian.

Sunset was surprised by the offer, while she had an interest in law enforcement, especially after seeing Burning Star and his allies coordinating with the CCPF, she never expected to get a job in one until she passed college.

But regardless, Sunset was walking home when she spotted Twi walking towards her, the spellbooks Sunset gave her in hand. One was being levitated in front of her face with her magic, pages turning slowly.

She stopped in front of her and said, “Hey Twi. Still reading up on those spell books I gave you?”

Twilight looked up from her book and replied, “Of course. These spells are incredible, Sunset! How have i not figured out these incantations until now? I’ve already figured out how to preform prolonged telekinesis as you can see.”

“I can see that, Twilight. But don’t you think you should give it a rest for a bit? I mean you’re reading while walking, what happens if you bump into someone?” Replied the red-headed girl.

Twilight was too busy reading to respond, silently mouthing the names of spells that Sunset had learned years ago.

Sunset looked at Twilight with a worried look, as much as she admired her for her passion in learning magic, Twi was far too engrossed in it.

If anything, she needed to pace herself, last she let the power go to her head like during the Friendship Games.

Twilight eventually snapped the book shut and said, “Sunset. I can’t thank you enough for you lending me these. I’ve learned more in the past six months than my entire school life studying magical forces.”

Sunset shrugged, “Cool, I guess. But seriously, Twi. Don’t read and walk, you could trip and fall.”

Twilight nodded as she responded with a sheepish grin on her face, “R-Right. Sorry. I just get so engrossed in this book sometimes that I can’t put it down until I have memorized a chapter beginning to end.”

The Purple-haired girl waved goodbye and crossed the street towards the bus stop. Leaving Sunset to walk up her front years pathway to her newly renovated house.

In the six months that had passed since the crisis that shook the city, Savior had established his base of operations underneath Sunset’s home, as it was still filled with the advanced computers and tech that Frostclaw had stolen from the government. Strangely, they still hadn’t come looking for it...

”Wonder what’s taking so long? Frostclaw wasn’t exactly subtle with his theft from what I heard.” Sunset wondered as she opened the door and was greeted by the smell of burning meat and a beeping smoke alarm.

“Great. Savior is trying to cook again. I should probably teach him how soon, I still can’t believe he doesn’t know how to cook... you’d think with all that advanced technology he’d at least search how to cook...” She groaned under her breath.

(Cnaterlot Suburbs, Twilights Home)

In contrast to Sunset, who preferred to be closer to the main city of Canterlot, Twilight’s home was picked specifically by her as far away from the city as she could get without getting out of the bus line’s route. She needed peace and quiet in order to study and experiment with the arcane arts, and doing that in a heavily populated area was dangerous.

It was a squat little home of only two stories, lying on a wide and tall hill. it was made of dark red bricks and brownstone and covered in moss that had to have grown over the course of several years. It had no garage, instead it had a large basement with several sub areas that extended throughout the inside of the hill. She had dug our these rooms using an excavation spell.

She opened the door and walked up the stairs to Her bedroom. Once she was there she plopped down on her soft bed, Leaned back against her pillow and took out the spell book again, resuming the chapter on Arcane Shields.

She was just about to finish a page when a loud banging came from her front door. She closed her book with a sigh and began plodding down the steps.

The banging got louder and a male voice pretty much shouted from the other side of the door. “TWILIGHT! Open this door, I’ve been out here for an hour!”

Sighing, Twilight opened the door to find a very familiar face in front of her.

It was her cousin on her Father’s side and Crystal Prep Alumni, Dusk Shine.

Like Twilight, Dusk had purple hair that was often styled straight order to make it more manageable. However, while Twilight often had it tied up in a ponytail that hung behind her, Dusk tied the rest of his hair up with bindings, forming a dark purple top-knot. He also had shiny black streaks replacing Twilights normally Pink streaks, And his eyes were much deeper colored, almost looking indigo instead of Twi’s purple eyes. While Twilight was only 16, Dusk was several years older than her, being 20 going on 21.

He wore a purple T-shirt and grey sweater over it, complimented by navy blue jeans and dark sneakers. His t shirt also had a 8 pointed dark blue Star on it as opposed to Twi’s Purple six pointed star that she had patched on her school dress.

“Hi Dusky, what are you doing here a day early?” Twilight greeted him, surprised by his arrival and slightly unnerved by the glare she was receiving from him.

Dusk huffed, “I caught an early train from my university out of the city. I then got a cab and got caught in traffic with quite possibly the most infuriating driver I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting. I’m tired, hungry, and I want to go to bed.”

He realized he was glaring and softened his gaze, letting his cousin relax a bit. “Erm, sorry. Was letting my temper flare a bit.”

Dusk walked past Twilight and hauled his suitcase in with his arms. It screeched along the floor before Twilight picked it up with her telekinesis.

Dusk noticed his bags floating and yanked them out of her power saying, “I don’t need your magic to help move my stuff. Sometimes a good bit of brute strength is needed.”

He scraped his bags across the hall and began taking them upstairs. Twilight followed him up to her guest room she had for when one of her friends was over for overnight studies.

He spoke down to her from the top of the stairs in an exasperating voice. “Besides, you rely too heavily on your magic, Cousin. I’d get out and build your body up a bit. Besides, Technology has the edge over magic.”

Twilight lowered her eyebrows in exasperation and she pinched the bridge of her nose, “Dusk. I get that we haven’t seen eye to eye when it comes to the whole technology vs magic debacle, but you could at least take the help when I offer it.”

Dusk Shine rolled his eyes, “I get that. But I’m not the type of person who relies on others to do my own work. Plus, your recent track record of keeping problems of a magical nature under control is pretty crappy right now. Considering the whole fiasco surrounding some guy called Burning Star.”

Twilight arched an eyebrow and asked her cousin, “Wait, why do you want to know about Burning Star?”

Dusk pulled out a calling card and answered back, “Because I’m doing an investigation into him, Cousin. Burning Star was a strange and overwhelmingly powerful being, whose mere presence seemed to warp the fragile fabric of the universe. Whoever he was or is, I want to find out.”

Twilight helped take Dusk’s laptop out and plugged it in before saying, “And what were you looking to find out about him? I had meant him a couple times during his time here fighting that monster called Black Sun. Maybe I could tell you some stuff about him that I observed?”

Dusk’s eyes practically lit up as he opened his laptop and brought up his digital notepad

“Yes I would like to hear what you thought of him. Try to tell me as much as you can about him. What did you observe? How strong was he?” He said, fingers eagerly hammering away at the keys.

Twilight laid down on Dusk’s bed and put her chin on her fist saying, “From what I could gather, Burning Star’s attitude was... intense to say lightly. Other than Rainbow Dash, who probably beats him in sheer competitive spirit, Burning Star was passionate and determined, but still rather melancholy. He seemed to be very aware of the soreness of the problem at hand and judging from what Sunset told me about him, he had been dealing with some personal issues for a while.”

Dusk typed away in silence before asking another question, “Ok, cool. How about his powers? You see anything that really that was astonishing or beyond belief?”

Twilight nodded, “I don’t think much he did was able to be believed by normal people, even I was having trouble grasping the sheer volume of magic that was flowing from him in his fight with Eclipsio. However, his spells were very uncreative and purposeful in use, since he mostly was using combat magic. He could blast fireballs, summon small meteor fragments, fly. Very basic abilities to me, at least. While he certainly had the power to even surpass me, he has very little skill in spellweaving anything truly advanced or even using magic as a utility outside of combat. I rarely saw him use anything beyond simple telekinesis to catch his weapon and pull it towards him.”

Dusk finished typing for a moment and asked, “Why do you think that was exactly?”

Twilight shrugged her shoulders, “I’m not entirely sure. But judging from what I could observe, whoever trained him, trained him specifically and entirely for combat in Magic, he also seemed to have advanced hand to hand combat techniques, probably as backup against non-magic opponents or when magic isn’t a safe option. In short, He is a warrior, not a thinker. I’m not saying he is unintelligent, but he clearly runs more on instincts than thought. Makes him predictable, but you shouldn’t underestimate that.”

Dusk clicked his laptops trackpad and saved his document before saying to his cousin, “Ok that’s enough for today. I think I have enough information to start my analysis of Burning Star.”

He motioned for Twilight to leave the room as he said, “Right now I’m just really tired from the train ride and the cab ride, I’ll see you in the morning Twilight.”

With that he shut the door and Twilight heard the sound of Dusk flopping onto the bed.

Twilight replied, “Ok. See you tomorrow Dusk. Love you.”

Twilight walked into her room and closed her door before she began to get undressed and changed into her pajamas.

”I didn’t think Dusk would be here till tomorrow. Wonder why he is really here? Can’t be just because of some Fire-clad Equestrian showing up a while ago? Twilight thought to herself as she laid down.

She closed her eyes and thought to herself, Whatever he’s after, I’m sure it isn’t that big a deal. With Savior flying around, we really don’t have that big of a risk of him getting jumped.”

She sighed to herself, ”My cousin may be smart and good at a great many things, but good at magic is not one of them...”

With that she fell asleep in her soft bed, letting the cool air and hum from her air conditioner put her to sleep.

Chapter 3: A Meeting with A Magical Maniac

(Canterlot City)

Dawn broke over the city of Canterlot, it’s glorious golden rays streaming over the city, driving away the darkness of the night and sending those that hide in the shadows scurrying back to the ruined buildings.

The destruction of Canterlot Tower wasn’t just limited to the tower itself, most of the surrounding area, which was largely businesses and high rise apartments, were totally blasted when the building collapsed. The entire city was cut off from its center by a gigantic series of ruined homes and broken office buildings, all of them either had been utterly pulverized, or broken in half during the ordeal that was Prince Eclipsio and Burning Star’s climactic dance of destruction.

Many of the people of Canterlot now just avoided the area out of fear that whatever or whoever caused it might come back and finish ripping apart the rest of downtown.

Despite Savior insisting that he would be able to protect the people of the city and help rebuild the property lost during the fight, some still were afraid that the beings now known as “The God of Fire and Rebirth.” And “The Swallower of the Sun and Moon.”, were still around, hiding somewhere.

Despite said promise, the ruins surrounding the utterly gigantic crater that was the tower were occupied by the magic cults that were referred to as “Arcanists,” and they would leave what they viewed as “holy ground” without a long and hard fight.

(Twilight’s House, Dusk Shine’s Room)

Dusk sat awake on his bed, typing away at his computer, a report paper on the Arcanist group from Twilight (who got it from Sunset who nicked it from Savior while he was recharging) in one hand, and a fresh banana muffin in the other.

The muffin he received when he went to go pick up the mail this morning. A strange blond haired and derpy eyed mail woman gave one to him instead of his package. Even when he corrected her she didn’t take the muffin back, she just gave him the package and wandered off to the next house.

Dusk ultimately didn’t mind, he appreciated getting free things, especially free food. It tastes so much better than food he had to pay for.

An analyst and all genius, Dusk was much more like his cousin than he’d admit. In his own way he admired magic and saw it as a powerful substance.

Twilight saw magic as an extension of herself and utilized it to help her friends and family, rarely using it for anything violent. To her, Magic came from the bonds between people, citing the term that Princess Twilight used when once explaining it to her.

”Friendship is Magic, other me. Friendship in its own way creates a power that is a form of magic. It’s much safer than drawing on raw and unrefined magic from nature, and it never will corrupt you.”

However, Dusk saw magic as an ambivalent force with no good or evil sides to it. It was a method for both understanding the world around you and shaping it to your whims. To him, Magic was just another type of energy, like Electricity or Sunlight. The idea that friendship being a source of magic was a curious hypothesis, but ultimately his studies on it went nowhere, due to his lack of well… friends to test his hypothesis on.

Regardless, Dusk sat cross legged as he typed, muttering to himself what he was reading off of the report.

“The Arcanist Cult.”
This group of power worshipping individuals sprung up around about a month after Burning Star and Prince Eclipsio mysteriously vanished, at least that was the story told to the public. In reality Burning Star likely left in such a rush in order to either avoid consequences or the more likely option, make sure everything is going back to normal on his home dimension.”

Dusk took a quick bite of his muffin, savoring the sweet taste and making a mental note to go buy more of these from that wall eyed girl, if she even had more.

He then continued reading, writing notes on his notepad.

“Home dimension? Burning Star was some sort of inter-dimensional traveller of some kind?” The young man said to himself.

”From an outsiders POV they appear to be a benevolent, but passionate organization that seeks to spread the ways of magic to those that show budding talents in it. However, they are not to be trusted, and they seek to advance the studies of magic and arcane arts through any means necessary.”

Dusk paused on that line and took a note down on his notepad.

“Any means necessary. Huh, sounds like something Twi should know about. She might be able to expand upon what that could entail so I don’t make assumptions.” He said, before continuing to read the document.

Based on the considerable effort it takes to even control and manipulate the arcane field, the fact that every member of this cult is fairly good at magical combat lends me to make this hypothesis. Someone or something is teaching them magic, or granting them magical powers.”

Dusk paused on that last sentence, making a special note to NOT tell Twilight about that last part. Mostly because he knew what she might do.

Dusk closed the file’s envelope and shuffled it away into his messenger bag, he would be going out later to buy more printer ink as he had run out in the 3 cartridges he brought with him.

Turns out transcribing your cousins detailed and extensive (not to mention very accurate due to her photographic memory) recounting of the battle that toppled the biggest building in the city takes a LONG Time.

Twilight also thought as well as to include her description of Burning Star’s whole entire life story (which itself alone took up 1/3 of the whole paper he was writing).

But with a flash of his fingers and the press of the save button, the first piece of his Analysis of Burning Star” was complete.

“Ugh, Finally.” He said with a groan. “I’ve been at this all night, and it’s still only part 1. When Twilight said she’d recount the whole story I didn’t think she meant literally.”

Dusk immediately snorted a laugh, “oh who am I kidding, of course she was. Heck she probably would have given me a side packet of paper containing said story just in case I needed more info. She really needs to get more social skills.”

Dusk sighed and looked at a picture of Twilight holding her medal from the Friendship games. She had that same fake smile he saw on everyones faces when he sat in his college classes.

Twilight had always been the more bookish and intellectual of the two of them, while he excelled more in social situations. As a result, Twilight often got her kindness and intellect taken advantage of, especially by her peers.

Her little “incident” at Crystal Prep where she essentially transformed into some sort of magical demon woman because of both peer pressure and her desire to please them didn’t make the problem more obvious.

But that was two years ago, and as far as he knew, Twilight destroyed Midnight Sparkle, or at least she no longer was a threat to her or anyone else.

The young man looked out the window at the rising sun, smiling to himself before yawning and looking at the clock. His eyes widened as he read the time.

“Oh my goodness, it’s 7:30 AM. I’ve been up all night for 12 hours writing this whole thing?!” He said shocked, before another yawn broke through.

Dusk turned to his bed and he knew that he needed to get some sleep, he took his shirt off and changed out of his pants, leaving only his underwear on, before crawling into bed and pulling the sheets over his head.

Minutes later all that could be heard was the sound of content snoring…

And the sparks of heavily charged magic.

(Twilights Magic Lab)

Little did Dusk know that only two floors below Dusk’s room, his cousin was busy with experimenting with magic.

Powerful, ancient, and unknown magic.

Twilight’s lab was essentially a repurposed storage room in her basement, but she had preformed all sorts of different magic to make it into a proper place to study magic and it’s effects.

Multiple lines of purple protection runes were etched into the walls and ceiling, bathing the room in a soft purple light. These served as a way to contain any unpredictable discharges of magic, which were distressingly common whenever Twilight attempted to control her Midnight Form.

Several ritual circles drawn in magic-infused chalk littered the floor in various sizes. These were containment fields, primarily for setting up any magic that required specific ingredients or were too volatile to have out in the open air.

Other than the purple glow of the runes, the room was primarily lit by candles instead of electric lights, since candles were often perfect conduits for magic.

Twilight sat in the middle of one of these circles, her glasses off and secured away so they wouldn’t break from an accidental surge of power. Several books floated around her as she read a tome in front of her.

Twilight had read through the majority of the books Sunset had lent her and had asked for more books on magical practices from an older point in History on Equestria. Her reasoning being that by studying said magic, the Rainbooms would be better prepared should something or someone like Eclipsio showed up again.

Plus, Twilight made a resolution to learn how do defend herself with magic, in case these Arcanist Cultists happened to get a little too close for comfort.

Sunset was hesitant to give Sci Twi those tomes, asking if she was in control of herself, even considering using her power to read minds in order to check if Twi still had Midnight in her head or not.

Twilight admitted that Midnight was still in her head, but she had been quiet ever since the Camp Everfree incident. Heck, Sunset assumed that Twilught had tamed the form when she Pony’ed up and grew proper Alicorn like wings.

This was technically true, Midnight had been really quiet and hadn’t tried to take over forcefully since then. Even during the rare times she had tried to assume control she had been relatively harmless, with Twi being able to control her emotions.

She had not told her that she was now able to transform into her willingly and on command. The form he used during the Camp Everfree incident was simply an illusion to cover her Midnight form. Twilight was afraid if she did tell her that, Sunset would have not given her the books.

In the end, Sunset hesitantly gave Twilight the only ancient tome of magic she had, which just so happened to be a tome on The Writings of Clover the Clever, a book that contained primarily teleportation spells, levitation, and the most important part, the strongest Mental Defense Spells she could find.

She would need them, for this would be the first of many times she would use Midnights complete form. The most Twilight used of Midnight’s power before was manifesting her wings to fly back to her house when she couldn’t be bothered to pay for the bus or summoning her reality-warping powers to dispose of dangerous objects by dropping them into the gap between dimensions.

An obviously stupid use of her powers, but using them constantly and with routine helped her body ease into using them. She had a feeling she would need to use them more in the future, only for defense, nothing more.

Although if her own suspicions about the magical cult in Canterlot were true, she had a feeling that using Midnight’s immense magical strength will be the only thing to prevent the end of the world.

After some investigation and experiments, She discovered that Midnight’s immense magical power was fueled by a combination of emotions and her insecurity. She even hypothesized that Midnights manifestation and general disposition was a result of her lack of control over her emotions.

While testing her limits, She also underestimated how powerful Midnight actually was. When she was warping space with her magic, it wasn’t her magic at all.

She discovered that Midnight’s presence alone distorted the fabric of reality around her, causing those rifts to form, albeit much slower.

Twilight closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, before slowly swinging her arms outwards. The candles surrounding her slowly lit with purplish-blue fire and she began to float into the air.

The room began to shake as the purple light emanating from Twilight’s hands grew more intense, as well as purple lines of magic began to run up her arm and to her neck.

Twilight’s hair came undone from its ponytail as she began to breathe in and out slowly, Her hair grew in volume as it turned a midnight purple and hot pink, flaring up into a billowing mess. Sparks of ultraviolet magic arched in between the strands.

She felt her back ache and shoulders crack as purple black, hawk like wings erupted from her shoulder blades, draping over her body. Her arms thickened and gained some muscle, as her hands and fingernails elongated into sharp talons.

Finally, Twi felt a tingle as the glowing horn and mask of neon green magical energy enveloped her face and forehead. She opened her eyes, Her pupils turning to slits and the whites of her eyes turning deep purple.

The transformation complete, Midnight stretched her arms as she let out a small chuckle.

”Ahhhh… it’s so good to come out again, seriously Twilight, you must learn to unwind or these shifts will be far more painful then they already are.” she cooed, feeling the magical energy around her twist and writhe, her mere presence starting to distort the air around her.

Midnight landed on the floor and walked over to the full length mirror, where a reflection of Twilight was shown instead of Midnight’s own.

”Im only transforming into this in order to continue my analysis of Eclipsio’s mana battery, don’t get the idea that this is going to be permanent, Midnight.” Twilight said, her mirror image making a scowl.

Midnight rolled her eyes and groaned, ”Yes, Yes, I know. I’m aware of the little deal we made on our way home from Camp Everfree. You’d learn more about magic from Equestria, and I wouldn’t discard your friends like the weak people they are.”

Twilight frowned and shouted in Midnight’s head, ”My friends are not weak! They are strong in their own ways, and you know that, Midnight. I will not have you slander them!

Midnight cackled, paying more attention to the air distorting around her body as reality struggled to keep itself together in the presence of her existence. ”Oh please, Twilight. Spare me the lecture, I am well aware that your friends have those little crystals created by the magic of Equestria. But need I remind you? WE were the ones that opened those rifts. So really, WE are the ones responsible for their rather simple powers.

”They didn’t even say thank you for it, how ungrateful of them. Though I wouldn’t expect thanks from people so desperate to matter! Hahahaha!” Midnight cackled, floating up and turning upside down.

She flared her wings outwards, sending a gust of wind that blew out all the candles. Without the protective field emanating from them, the space around her started to warp, and small purple tears in space started to form.

Twilight rolled her eyes again, ”I really should have taken Sunset’s advice and gone to see that new psychiatrist Dr Wolfe, he’d probably be able to help me deal with you more effectively than me having to self treat with Internet self help tips.”

Midnight put a hand to her head and dramatically sighed, ”Oh woe is me, I’m Twilight Sparkle. I have immeasurable magical power but I’m too afraid to use it because it turns me into a monster! Oh Sunset, please save me from myself! I mean, you have experience with being a demon! You can save me-hahaha!” she whined, voice dripping with sarcasm, before breaking into laughter at how stupid she sounded.

”I do not sound like that!” Twilight’s reflection barked back, ”And I certainly don’t need Sunset to save me from myself. I can control you, I just need to find out more about mind magic in order to do it.”

Midnight raised an eyebrow, ”You think you can control us? Oh Twilight, how naive of you. NO ONE can control us. Even if Burning Star were here now in this moment, even he would never be able to contain or subdue us. What makes you think you can, hmmm?”

The dark being smirked, letting purple electricity magic run across her arms. ”You know you can’t lie to me, I’m in your head, I’d know what you really want.”

Twilight’s mirror image looked off to the side, defeated. ”I’d control you by casting a mental defense spell. That way you could only have your powers manifest instead of your personality. Though on reflection, I think I’d need a better solution to dealing with you.”

Midnight pressed a finger to the mirror image of Twilight’s lips, a confused look on her face, ”Why do treat me like I’m some sort of disease, Twilight? I’m a part of you, I’m everything you should be, and yet you ignore and hide all of this… she gestured to herself, ”Perfection behind the facade of a bookish nerd. My existence proves that you have the power to be someone else, someone more… well… imposing.”

Midnight snickered as the mirror image of Twilight looked confused, ”Imposing? What are you saying? That I want to be like this? I want to be unrestrained and out of control?”

The dark being conjured a portal up, showing Canterlot High School before saying into Twilight’s ear. ”Not exactly, I never said you would be out of control, I’d give you everything you deserve, everything you need to become the woman you are supposed to be. All you have to do is just let go for a while, say, a month at most. Just let me take the reins. I will show you what you are meant for, no, I will obtain the knowledge of all magic you so desperately want. It’s A guilt free victory for you too, since you can blame it on me taking you over.”

Midnight Sparkle’s face twisted into a disturbing grin, ”Besides, if Your friends you cherish so much found out that I still exist, even though you said I was gone. We both know what they would do, Twilight. They’d abandon us, it’s in human nature to hate and fear things they don’t understand.”

Midnight was about to continue before she gripped her head in pain as Twilight forcibly transformed back, dispelling the transformation in a flash of bright purple light. Within seconds, the tears in the fabric of reality began to shrink and close, thanks to the containment rune lines on the lab’s ceiling.

“They’d never do that, they are my friends. The girls would understand and respect why I made my choice. They may think it was a poor decision, but that’s ultimately on them. I chose to summon you back because I felt you could be of some use in stopping further threats to the world. I didn’t bring you back for anything else.” Twilight said, her face hardened into a stern expression.

Midnight, now the one reflected in the mirror, flashed a sharp toothed smile, ”Oh come now, Partner, we both know that is not the ONLY reason you brought us back. The power, the feeling of absolute freedom, you wanted to feel that way again. I am you, Twilight. I just am the the you that decided to… let my hair down and show off how powerful we are. Is that so wrong, the desire to let go of what burdens you?”

Midnights words pierced into Twilight’s mind, ”Plus, if you say I’m insane… what does that say about you? Well?”

Twilight looked away from the mirror, making the image of Midnight vanish, “It says that I need to discuss this with an actual therapist, and not just talk to an insane manifestation of my magic gone rouge.”

Midnight rolled her eyes and sighed in Twilight’s head, ”Thats one way to put it, Partner. Another way to look at it is this, you don’t trust your friends and family enough to show them this side of you. You are afraid they would abandon you because of what this side of you represents, aren’t you?”

Twilight stood still and took a deep breath, “I’d think they would understand that I want to be a little more assertive and determined, but what you are proposing isn’t that. You are saying that deep down, I want to dominate and control everything, that isn’t me. Why on earth would I ever want that?” She said with a hushed shout, her lavender colored eyes staring into Midnight’s dark purple ones.

Midnight put on a knowing look before saying, ”Twilight, you want control because you have felt like everything in your life was out of your hands, from your parents sending you to Crystal Prep to peers forcing you to unleash the built up magic in that magic battery you made, which birthed me into this world. I’m not about to go back into a cage because you feel uncomfortable!”

Midnight suddenly reached an arm out of the mirror and grabbed Twilight’s arm!

At least that is what Twilight felt and experienced. If one were to look from an outsiders point of view, all yo would see is Twilight drop to her knees and crawl over with her arm extended to the mirror.

She forced the girl to look at her, a horrific look on Twilight’s face. ”Make no mistake PARTNER, just as you chose to try and reawaken me, I made the choice to agree to our little deal and come back. I Can and will possess you whenever I want, Twilight. But I won’t do that, wouldn’t be fair. As long as you are cooperating with me and providing me with knowledge, I’ll leave your boring little life and friends alone.”

With a maniacal grin Midnight’s reflection faded from the mirror and Twilight tried to stand, but sunk to her knees exhausted and frustrated.

Then she began to cry softly. Small sobs echoed in the mostly empty lab, further establishing how helpless she felt.

In a way, Midnight was right. She did indeed want to carve her own destiny and not have it chosen for her. She did want to control things that were not in her control.

She knew that Midnight’s power will allow her to control and manipulate just about every form of magic possible, and through that she could finally set herself free of a flawed and dangerous world world that makes her unhappy.

She did want badly to go to Equestria or and learn from the Princess of Friendship and element of magic, Twilight Sparkle the Alicorn.

She wanted to travel to alternate universes, like Equestria Gamma. She wanted to learn about the Alicorn of Fire, Burning Star, from the man-er… stallion himself. She wanted to study his multiverse theory, find her universe’s place in the whole thing.

She had the power to do all those things,
But she still chose to remain on her Earth because going to that world, taking the easy way out, would leave her friends she loved so much behind. If she had to choose between the all the Knowledge of magic in detail and her friends, she would choose her friends any day.

Because as curious as Twilight is, she values the hard fought friends she had, over the knowledge she could have.

Twilight got up from her knees and stood on her two feet. She had sweated through her CHS sweater and her purple and pink hair was a mess. Violet lines of mana ran up her arms and legs, pulsing in rhythm with Twilight’s heartbeat.

”If Midnight is so powerful, she could at least invest in altering my appearance so I don’t look as if I’m the spawn of a demon and a rave show.” Twilight grumbled as she left her lab and ascended the basement stairs, remembering to turn on the cleansing runes in order to scrub the area of any leftover magic discharge.

With the cleaning procedures finished, the lab went into the magical equivalent of a standby mode for computers.

Twilight sighed to herself, remembering Midnight’s words vividly in her head.

”Maybe I should rest a little before trying to speak with her… me… it again.”

As Twilight walked to her room, she said. “I mean, could it be more unfortunate to have a demon in your head?”

As Twilight was about to find out soon, there is much worse than having a demon in your head.

And it may have been closer to home than she thought.

(End Chapter 3)