Shadows of the Night

(Author's Note: Prereader(s): LunarLover, RockingDoubleK thank you)

Over the next couple of days I proceeded to fall into a more intense version of apathy akin to my brief stay in Ponyville. The positive side to this, however, was that I wasn’t lying prone and was actually on the move. My umbrella allowed me to move about in the city outside of Canterlot whilst under the guise of my shadow-proxy. It felt strangely novel to be out in the sunlight, let alone see a few sunrises, of which, while beautiful, were significantly shorter than Earth ones since Celestia raised it up to roughly seven o’clock in the sky each morning.

It became readily apparent, however, that the umbrella was woefully ineffective against the force of the noonday sun, it was just too strong, and made my shadow waver. So after the first day, I actually went to the bank to take some money out of my account for a new one, and probably some sweets while I was at it. Sure I got a few looks from some of the more hoity-toity ponies there by having an umbrella open indoors, but most of their whispers, of which were much easier to hear in the partial shade of the bank building, turned to questions of the latest fashion trends once they got a look at the suit I placed around my proxy.

So there I was, third day, having gone through the little money I had taken out of the bank on a bigger, sun-blocking umbrella, and lots and lots of blueberry muffins, and now I refused to get any more out until I’d depleted my own food stock, otherwise I’d just waste my money on more of those muffins, with nothing to do. Caligo had remained silent, as had Somnium, she gave a few kicks and squirms now and again, but I mostly just felt her concern for her brother half.

I was happy enough to leave well enough alone, though it would have been nice to have been given some pointers on how to work the new power boost. I know, I was loathing getting it, but it was pretty rockin’. I was getting pretty good at it too, my proxy was now able to make noise of its hooves hitting the cobbles, and while I could sort of manage hair, it took way too much concentration to make the hair move just right, so I just left them in their ephemeral shadow state. I was rather pleased to find that with the advent of turning a shadow solid I was then able to place it into the light, though it not only took much more effort to do so, but also took much more of a constant stream of energy to maintain. All in all, pretty obvious that it would be like it was, but for all of my experimenting there was one thing I just couldn’t figure out, nor work, hooves. I just couldn’t seem to pick up anything with them, and in fact I’d had to make them concave or add small claw like appendages to them in order to pick things up with them no matter what I tried.

All the experimentation was one of the reasons I could justify to myself for simply loafing around for so long. I had to do something with myself. I couldn’t just disappear into the void of grey doldrums, not again.

It was then that, quite by happenstance, whilst I was in the lower part of the city of Canterlot, technically downtown, due to the literal slope of the town due to its mountainous origins, where the less affluent, for Canterlot citizens that is, lived, I came across a poster festooned board placed upon the outside of a drinking establishment. A few of the posters were of wanted criminals, but most of the space was devoted to either the killing or capturing of dangerous creatures. I know that Equestria was not the land I’d been led to believe by the likes of the HUB, many a rather blue oriented story told by my former friends in the break room was obvious enough for that. I felt a little disappointed, however, that most of them were also just creatures that were merely myth on Earth.

It would be rather nice to make the world safer from monsters, but when the posters mentioned where to find such beast, it gave description of their normal haunts and predacious routes, even the ones that were stationary, I noticed one or two pony-eating plants, would be out of my reach for two simple reasons: one, I wasn’t knowledgeable in the arts of tracking, two, I wasn’t knowledgeable of the environments around here in general. What good would superpowers be if I couldn’t find the thing I was trying to fight?

“Now that we are once again fit, shall we not find some employment Brother?” I turned.

“Indeed we shall brother of mine.” Said the second of the pair of pegasi brothers, and more slightly built. That is to say he had a good deal of muscle on himself, but his brother was so heavily muscled the word svelte came to mind when seeing them both together. They both shared mango yellow coats and red manes streaked with white stripes, with a few bits of it coming out the front of some, admittedly, worn looking fedoras.

“Excuse me fine sir, but would you mind scooting over so that we might see the job board?” The larger of the two pegasi politely asked me. I must admit that the sight of him was a tad more intimidating due to the show of courtesy than the small sword that adorned his back. Now I’m not the most observant crayon in the pickle jar, but if the worn scabbard was anything to go by, then he definitely knew how to use that thing, same for his brother, who wore, I think it’s called, a rapier, the thin scabbard being quite too thin to hold much of anything else.

As I side-stepped away both brothers then took up position and began to pour over the board with an act ease of familiarity that comes from multiple acts of use. They then began to mumble amongst themselves, something I was hard pressed to overhear with the sun muffling the sound around me, about all I could make out was that they were trying to find a job that, while normally below their normal difficulty, but were doing so to make some quick cash for a bigger sword, and something about having been, perhaps, a bit overzealous in attacking some fuzzy monstrosity a few days ago.

“Pardon me gentlecolts,” both of them looked up, “but I couldn’t help but notice that you seem to be in a bit of a bind.”

Both of their eyes immediately hardened, “Now what do you suppose he means by that Crash?” The smaller, but still quite muscled of the two pair asked to, obviously now, his brother “Crash” still without tearing his eyes away from my proxy.

“Oh dear, my apologies, I- I meant no offense, I too have found myself in a bit of trouble, and I think we might be able to mutually benefit by creating a partnership. Might we talk about this over a drink?” I asked, my proxy gesturing to the bar behind the job board.

While their eyes didn’t completely stopped being steely, they were noticeably softened at the mention of drinks, “I do believe what we have here, brother Burn,” the larger of the two said, “is a business opportunity.” He ended with a grin, which was then reciprocated by his own brother.

“Heh, quite. Now if you’ll just head on in, I’ll be with y’all in but a few moments, I’m afraid I have to attend to the call of nature.” That wasn’t true, but they bought it and I needed the time to go to the bank and get some bits out of my account, since it occurred to me that I had rather just implied that I would be providing drinks for them.

Thankfully the bank was devoid of lines when I popped over there, small miracles. One hundred bits would probably do, but just on the safe side, I got three hundred just to be safe.

The whole excursion took a few minutes, acceptable time used for my excuse, and I made my way into the thankfully darkened bar called “Princess’s Mane.”

Putting my umbrella on a peg of the empty coat rack I took a glance around the room,

despite the bright morning sun shining outside it was remarkably dim, or at least I guessed at, the bright lights over the few pool tables were in stark contrast with the rest of the place and since Discord was still imprisoned in stone I’d have to guess the grey-scale view of most of the booths was due to my dark-piercing eyesight.

I finally caught sight of the two brothers, Crash and Burn, they were at a corner booth farthest away from the door, and gave one the greatest lines of sight. There wasn’t much business going on and I had little more trouble than to weave past a few of the unused tables that still had their seats placed upside down upon them as I made my way over the bar and asked for a root beer float, making sure to emphasize that I meant the soda and was non-alcoholic, all the while minding my p’s and q’s. Never be impolite to a barkeep. I then made my way over to the rather jubilant couple, of which the barkeep had already informed me that I’d already been kind enough to pick up the tab for them, as they toasted to themselves over something or other and took a sip of some sort of apple infused drink if the smell was anything to go by once I sat myself and my proxy down across from them.

“Now what exactly is your problem good,” he waited for me to give my introduction, of which I quickly gave once I realized what he wanted, “Ah, Rumor, that has made you come to the belief that we,” Burn said while he and his brother struck a small pose in their seats, “Crash and Burn, Monster Hunters Supreme, might should be able to profit, let alone need your help?” A little rude, bluntly rude, but, on the other hand, I had dropped some pretty heavy eaves to listen on their conversation outside.

“Right, down to it then. I have recently come upon a deal of power and find myself in a position where I wish to do some good with it, but my control over it is still lacking. My conclusion was to use this raw power and to refine it, with use, in a profession which is known to normally be far from a city where nopony might get hurt should something go awry, and in turn also provide a service which would, in general, benefit the populace. Monster hunting, of which, you two seem to know something about…”

“Heh, our reputation precedes us.” The large Crash intoned with a raise of his mug, downing the rest of its contents, and then ordering another.

I really had no idea they had a reputation, I counted myself rather lucky at this point, but I had to play it cool, lest I blow this opportunity, “Quite, so my proposal comes down to this, you, as veteran monster hunters would be able to help me with navigation to jobs and such, and I would be able to tag along and add some more power to the group.”

“O-ho, and I suppose you think we’d just split the earnings of the job three ways then too eh?” A skeptical Burn in tone, of which upon seeing his brothers face Crash quickly adopted it as well.

“What? No, not at all, I need you more than you need me. Not only that, but technically my tagging along would be a form of training. So, how does a 45-45-10 split sound?” Sounded fair to me, they get twice my earnings themselves, and is ultimately a mere ten percent loss to them, though I hope I wasn’t asking for too much.

“So let us get this straight,” Burn said, “you wish to accompany us, on the job, so you can get a better handle on your power, which you claim to have raised recently. You do realize, good sir,” taking a quick sip of his own beverage, “that this is quite the dangerous line of work, somepony like you could get hurt quite easily out there. Not only that, but we do a good deal of our work at night. Celestia’s golden orb will not be there to help guide you through forest and underbrush, and, when it comes to sneaking up upon our marks, the telltale glow from your horn would immediately either send it away or draw it right to you, and, should your spell go awry or cease to function, it would not be our fault, if you’ll pardon my bluntness, how gruesome your death would be.” He finished with a sharp look down the… I guess “bridge of his nose” was the phrase I was looking for, but when it is so close to being a greater part of the facial structure as a whole, it feeling like I should be using a more horse-anatomical phrase.

“I believe you are close Mr. Burn, but I believe we have a slight misunderstanding. When I say I wish to refine this power, I don’t mean to be able to use it period. I mean to be able to use it without always using lethal damage.” My mind wandered back to that batch of delectable blueberry muffins and how in my greed to not wait until I could act safely in the shadows my shadow proxy had crushed my first four muffins I’d attempted to grab, whilst out for everypony to see into dried compact bars that, while still tasty, was much harder to chew, and were dry as granola. “That, and I’m rather counting on doing most of this work at night, in case you hadn’t quite noticed, I have rather sun-sensitive skin, hence the umbrella.”

This only drew a smirk from Burn, as Crash was a tad busy with finishing yet another mug. ‘Blimey I hope that doesn't cost me too much.’

“An impressive claim, I must say we are both rather intrigued,” he said while giving his brother a light hearted jab to the side, causing Crash to catch a little of his drink in his nose, sending him into a fit of coughing, “it all sounds like quite the promising ordeal. However,” my heart began to sink, here comes the rejection, “We’re going to have to see some of these abilities in practice. And since you have shown such zeal for working at night, then what do you say to a small night sparring match so that we might properly gauge your skills.”

He paused, obviously waiting for my reply, “Sounds fine to me sir, when and where,” A small tinge of happiness having crept into my tone.

“Wonderful,” Burn said with a small clap… err, clop, “then how about tonight at nine just outside the trees on the South side of the mountain.”

It sounded fine to me, and we concluded our business with Burn calling for another round of drinks, for a toast. We then each chugged our beverages in turn. The Brothers Crash and Burn then made way to leave on whatever business I had interrupted earlier. Though I couldn’t help but obviously mishear Crash saying something about “not being able to wait to wipe the floor with some hopped up on magic unicorn”, it would have been terribly rude to have said that to someone who had just had to shell out one hundred and fifty bits for somepony who had ordered some of the strongest stuff in the house for a business transaction. Terribly rude, but I brushed that little thought away and treated myself to another root beer float for succeeding in the first part of my rather impromptu interview.

(Author's Note Mk. 2: My thanks go out to gentleman author Troutking for his permission of OC use. Should you feel inclined, you may see Crash and Burn's introduction in the chessverse in "What was Lost")