Shadows of the Night

Another morning of no customers. You'd think that more ponies would like to beat the afternoon rush. I trotted from the front door window back to my seat behind the counter. I normally had more tact than to read during business hours, nopony had been in all day, so I figured I could let myself slide and catch up on some of the latest fashions from Photo Finish. As I reached under the counter I noticed my hooves looked a little off from their normal sky blue, I’d need to visit the spa soon to fix that.

As I began to read, I nearly squealed at a beautiful gown that I would look simply divine in. ‘Though I’d definitely need to change my mane-style if I really wanted to pull it off,’ I thought absently as I blew a strand of sea-green mane out of my eye and flipped the page with a spark of magic.

Someone must have been watching me because no sooner had I muttered, “What I wouldn’t give for anypony to come in though.” when the customer bell tinkled at the front door. Quickly stashing the magazine under the counter I put on my customer smile and before I even saw who had come in I began my introduction, “Hello there! Welcome to Trotter’s Travel Agency where we get you there and back again. I’m Trotter, how can I help you?”

I’d seen more than my fair share of… uniquely shaped ponies as well as other hoofed mammals in my time, but the first thing that crossed my mind was that I was looking at the specter of Nightmare Moon. It stood easily twice my height, walked on its hind legs, and was covered from top to bottom in black. Much to my chagrin, I lost hold of my smile for a few moments.

“Just give me a moment to look around, please.” He said, in a calm voice.

Okay, tall creature, most likely male from the voice, covered from head to toe in a black cloak, and is leaking scentless smoke. Has a decent voice, if a bit devoid of any accent, still could be worse. At least he’s acting pleasant.

Giving a silent nod, and reapplying my smile, I watched as the creature turned around and began looking through the brochures. I hoped he hadn’t notice the slight tremble in my fore hooves until I placed them on the wooden counter top.

I saw him pass over the exotic locales section which sported such locations from exotic jungles to beautiful mountainous and breathtaking desert canyons. I’d personally been to nearly half of all the locations we had to offer. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe there was beauty to be seen in every corner of Equestria. He brushed past most of them with relative speed, that was, until he came to the cities display case. Watching him bend over, something that I had to admit made me a little sick from seeing somepony bend that way in the middle, I noticed him take one of the brochures in his forepaw and stare at it for a while, deep in contemplation, a good sign.

He shook his head, and I thought he was going to put it back, but instead he came up toward me, and I saw his eyes glow yellow from under his hood. As scary as they looked, they seemed sad, which certainly made it easier for me to not feel so scared. Placing the brochure down on the table, it was an older one, done in grand old opry styled letters, his fore-paw covered all but the bottom lines ‘The City of Progress’. Taking in a breathe he said, “Pardon me, but how much would it cost to get to Bitsburg?”

“Oh, that depends on how long you want your vacation to last, you can take a train, that will be about two days, to get all the way there, or have it stop part way by the coast and take an extended cruise there, about a week in all, or you can use our new airship, which normally takes about four days due to the greater abundance of turbulent upper winds due to the routes proximity to the volcanoes in the wastelands. Not that you would have any trouble. The ships are all of the highest safety standards. But, once you do get there I would recommend either the Star’s Hotel or the Green Pasture, two of the best hotels, each one offers reasonable prices, but-”

“Could you please tell me which travel mode is cheapest?” He said, interrupting me.

“Oh that would be the train, while you spend a few more days in transit than the airship, it’s still quite nice to see all the landscape-”

“Thank you that will be all” he said, as he walked back to put the brochure up and then walked out of my shop. It slightly peeved me how he had cut me off, though it’s only his loss because he left without me helping to set up a deal and get him his transport at a discount by buying a bundle package. Still, it was a nice diversion from the boredom, all things considered. Besides, I’d have a pretty

interesting story to tell the girls for the Friday outing.

***

It will forever remain a mystery to me why those in the service industry always try to talk your ear off. It’s a business just like any other, so it was beyond me why they didn’t try to streamline the process. It was just as easy to be pleasant and to the point as it was to be long-winded and sound caring. Besides, I’d learned that I could cheaply get somewhere by train, and that was good enough for me. No need to stay there and get a headache from word-vomit.

Sticking mostly to the shadows would be much faster; also it bothered me how everyone just stared at me. It was still morning so I could probably get down to the train station simply by shadow striding the whole way. I would have gone on thinking of ways to get through the town, until Caligo interrupted, ‘You should not fear the stares of others. Their actions belie their own weakness, show them you have none and simply walk forward.’

“Walk without showing fear, I like that.” I said with a half grin, mostly due to the fact that doing something like that was a few steps above my pay grade. That and I would technically get there a little faster by sticking to the shadows, out of sight. I was just about to start a connection to the next alley over when a locked part of my mind opened up suddenly.

‘It really wouldn’t be the end of the world if you gave yourself a break every now and then. Even if you just faked it, you might find you enjoy the role you make for yourself.’

That gave me pause, and not just from the sudden jolt from Somnium’s interjection. Maybe she was right, I thought, starting to give more than a dismissive thought to the idea. Worst case scenario, the ponies might freak out and cause a stampede and becoming a great way to reaffirm that I would do better away from them. But in all honesty, something like that wasn’t very likely to happen since the direct sunlight would clear away my shadows before they had the chance to exist outside my cloak, so no real chance of scaring anyone. It would also be a nice chance to keep my vision steady. As fun as it was to zip around, if done for an extended period in such a rapidly changing local, through shadow-stepping it kinda made me a little dizzy, though not so much anymore since I’d been getting a handle on my powers. I could do this, probably, just zone out and focus your vision on your goal ‘get to the train station’.

Taking a breath, and putting my best foot forward (that would be the left one for you rightnocentric-handers out there), I stepped out of the alley I was in and began to walk down the street. A few gasps and negative mumbles assaulted my ears despite my hood dampening the noise, but I still kept going at it. Though, it helps to keep your confidence when you can pull at your shadow onto the wall next to you and have it itself decked out in armored regalia. The gasps I got afterwards were much more satisfying as their eyes kept double-taking between skinny ol’ me and my much bulkier shadow.

‘I wonder if I could get myself something like that?’I absently thought, gazing at my shadow, until the general mechanical buzz of train approaches and departments hit my ears.

The train station was actually less straining on the eyes than I had remembered it from the show. It still had some light pastel colors, but they were subdued, and were almost enjoyable to look at.

Walking to an open window that said ‘TICKETS’ I was greeted with a happy face of a grey stallion that quickly turned to subdued terror as my tall frame, and what little vapors of darkness that could escape from my hood to wither in the direct sunlight, loomed over the small window as I stooped to be seen.

“How much for a ticket to Bitsburg, sir?” I asked.

“Oh, umm, well, that depends. Do you want business or coach passage mister…?”

“Rumor is fine,” I said raising a hand, “and I’m fine with anything so long as I can get a room to myself.”

“Ah, coach class then. That will be fifty bits.” He said printing the ticket once he saw me fish through my breast pocket and count out the money onto the counter.

Not having ridden a train, save once when I was six, and the memories hazy at best, before I started to walk away I asked, “Do you know when meals are served and what prices I might expect?”

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that Mr. Rumor, the meals are complimentary, though snacks and extras of such will cost you some extra bits, but they have menus for that.” The stallion said, finishing with a small wave as I went to the appropriate track and marveled at the thought of complimentary meals, though it was weighed with a pinch of salt that it was likely the case that the meal was included in the ticket price, still, bulk deals normally helped save money, and I no longer had much savings, save what I carried on myself.

Walking past a small blue-grey bench I looked over to the large train schedule and gave a quiet whistle. The trains to Bitsburg, the non-commercial ones, only ran once a week and that was the day I’d come, and with fifteen minutes to spare too. I felt inclined to call this sort of thing lucky as I followed the signs to the right track.

I had to stoop to get through the train doors, but luckily most ponies had a wider gait than me, so it wasn’t a tight squeeze. The interior had a soft feel about it, I came into, what I guessed was a lounging room. The larger yellow trimmed windows gave way to blue carpeting with dark blue swirls ran through it to pastel green overstuffed pillows, or at least that what I called them, though they looked closer to bean bags with a generalized seat shape, but I guess that made sense as it would be easier for four legged creatures to get in and out of them. Looking towards the guide plates bolted to one of the walls I followed the arrows. There wasn’t much of anyone there save one stallion that was far too engrossed with his paper to notice me.

Looking towards the end of the car, I saw a brass plated sign that said ‘ROOMS’ and headed that way. Once I crossed over the carpeting changed from blue to a brilliant dusky red carpet with dark wooden walls with curves and designs carved into them. To the left of the carpet were the rooms as noted by the next brass plate that said ‘A ROOMS’, looking down to my ticket, trying to find which section of it let me know my room number, I  found it marked B3. Crossing over to the next car I found it to be a continuation of the A class rooms and held the same style as the previous.

The next car was a slightly dramatic change as the carpeting, now a little less plush, changed from a vibrant red to a deep forest green with speckles of mint green diamonds speckled through them. The paneling was also lessened, less carvings, more blocks of squares put around the top and bottom of the walls in a pleasing pattern. The brass plate read ‘B ROOMS’ and my room was three doors down. Stooping through the door I saw that the room itself was much the same design as the outside hallway, but with a bed, with a green cover and white pillows, storage underneath, a simple sink, housed atop a wooden cabinet. It was like a small hotel room, but more compact. Very high speed low drag, always nice. Still it made me wonder what the big deal with business class rooms were, probably just added a mini-fridge or something inconsequential.

Sitting down on the bed, which was about two feet short if I’d decided to lie down, not a big deal though. The room was heated and the carpet was soft or at least was compared to the hardwood floor I’d grown up with, which always made it seem like such a novelty to me. But I always gave it a little more underserved softness than it deserved, well, except the carpets in Canterlot Castle, those things almost rivaled the beds, at least the really high class carpets did, the hard rock floor beneath gave it the perfect firmness too. That had been a fun night going into a trance in the middle of an unused hallway.

It didn’t take much longer for the conductor to give a shout to any other passengers to come aboard and then feel the lurch of the train into motion. As I got comfortable on the bed I watched Canterlot slowly fade into the distance as the reality of it all began to sink in. I was going to have some time on my hands, time to think, and ask questions. One in particular had been bothering me, and had been for some time.

“Caligo, why is there such a difference between when I fight with you in the mindscape and when I try to fight things outside?” Thoughts of the mountain lion and my own emotionally charged states filtered through my head with the supposed sparring matches that, while didn’t happen nightly anymore, in fact they had stopped for a while now that I thought about it.

‘The training you received is not the kind to teach you how to fight, but how to be mindful of what can happen.’

I exhaled, and then repeated the process two more times, “Would you please clarify?”

‘It is as you said, mindscape, though according to some of your surface thoughts the closest resembling word would be imagination. Your ability to read the shadows, which is bolstered by my presence, is enough of a tool for you to attain minimal damage in confrontations. Everything else that you have been put through was simply a way to make you think of things differently. You have not attained anything other than through thought, I thought that would be self evident in the fact that what one thinks and how one acts are two separate realms.’

Well that was great, I’d been spending my time, feeling pain and mental exhaustion… for a mental waiting room.

“Right, we’re going to stay away from that from now on, m’kay?”

‘As you wish.’

My thumb and forefinger ground into the bridge of my nose, and I was a little pissed at this little finding, as evident by the darkening of the room from the excess shadows pouring out of me in my current state. Stretching my hand out in front of my, palm facing upwards, I concentrated my attention to a few inches above my hand. The shadows reacted and what looked like a black flame sprung up and flickered and waved and grew to about the size of a small shrub. I’d always liked fire, and it always calmed me down to see it. Speaking of which, I wondered if they would let me see the engine room. I wouldn’t know if I didn’t ask after all, and it was getting close to lunch, or so my stomach said, and I headed out of my room, moving to the front, thinking the dining area would be beyond the lounge.

Apparently all the passengers had gotten on before I had and had been in their own rooms stowing away their gear, because when I got to the lounge room it was chock full of ponies. Some were simply staring out onto the swiftly changing landscape, many others were reading or simply talking, and I even saw a pair of yellow pegasi playing a game of checkers. None of them seemed to bother noticing me, all too wrapped up in their own business, until a shocked, “oh my” came from a stallion with a monocle, who had just put down his paper, saw fit to notify the others causing me to flinch as others began to look up.

A small sigh whispered passed my lips. Part of me hoped it wouldn’t become a thing, but another part of me, in part prompted by Caligo, reminded myself I don’t need to worry about them.  I could do this. I had a mission: find food, and after that see if I could look at the engine room. Striding past the whispers and gasps, not paying attention save that I didn’t trip over anything, I stooped through the small door and made my way to get some food.

Quite nicely I’d been right, the dining car not only was in front, but it was the very next car. It had a very crisp, light, feeling to it, the large windows streaming in sunlight helped with that. The paneling and squared table tops of stainless steel blended in well with the white table clothes and drapes. The food had been laid out in a buffet style, which was nice, and I helped myself a nice plate of fruit and a bowl of some sort of bean soup. I recognized the black eyed peas at least. Not that all the stuff looked foreign, just that I’m not a savant when it comes to remember the names of certain things.

I’d just gotten to my seat when I heard, “Ticket sir?”

The light flooding light made it hard for any shadow to hold its place. In effect I was snuck up on, though focusing my thoughts inward to pre-emptively ignore the others in the car. Something in my mind felt like it was trying to click that maybe I was going about things wrong, but something took hold of it and brushed it away before I could think past my hand going to my breast pocket as the stallion, a unicorn, floated out a ticket puncher from his vest and gave it a small hole, then went on his work to the next group of ponies, who I noticed was a group of females who tittered when I noticed them looking at me and then started to whisper again. It made an embarrassed blush shoot to my face. I was glad that I had my hood up even it did mean I had to pay attention to brush my fork up against it.

I had almost finished my meal when the sound of a whirring and a clinking came towards me. Looking up, I was greeted with the sight of four grey, segmented, tentacles which lower four red legs and torso. The light-grey metal brace curved around the ponies back and fore hooves. A light blue gem with beveled edges housed under the chest apparatus. I was speechless. It was the mechanical arms from freakin’ Spider-Man 2, the Tobey Maguire one.

I was too shocked to see something like that, in part because Doc Ock is my favorite Spider-Man character, and also just seeing that level of technology in Equestria. I almost squealed.  It was obvious that the crystal was powering it, but I suppose that made more sense for a power source than the total lack of explanation you usually get. I however had apparently taken too much time in my stare at the mechanical marvel to notice much else until the red earth mare’s orange tail flick in annoyance as she cleared her throat, though in my defense the arms and what looked like some sort of mounted spot welder were quite eye catching.

A confident half-grin slid across her face, her blue eyes half-lidded, “You know, most people say some form of greeting when someone sits down next to them.” She said, her mechanical arms coiled beneath her putting her just below eye level with me and giving me an easy view of her slightly wild orange mane and her cutie mark, a large gear, lying flat with a billowing smoke stack coming through the centre.

“Oh, uh, hello ma’am.” I said, a little put off at someone not only foregoing the pony affectation for words dealing with multiples, but mostly because she had come up to me period. Most ponies seemed rather put off by my real self.

“Ouch, I’m not that old. Name’s Sprocket.” She said, putting out a hoof.

Collecting myself I said, “My name is Rumor. Might I ask why you decided to come over here? Everypony else seems more comfortable staying at a distance and fiercely whispering about me.” I’d spent the last couple of months in Canterlot, some of the vernacular had rubbed off on me.

“Well you seemed a little lonely over here all alone. And the other part might have something to do with how your yellow eyes are glowing a little menacingly underneath your hood.” She said with a small snicker.

“Oh.” I said then pulled my hood down.

“There ya go, you don’t look half bad.”

“I’d have to say the same to you. I haven’t seen anything that those in Canterlot.” I said, forcing a small blush away from the complement.

“Oh you like the arms huh? Yeah, I made them myself, bio-enhancing mechanical arms. Since I’m not a unicorn I had to figure out some way to safely do my more, eh-herm, explosive experiments. So I figured this would be the best choice considering that I just couldn’t get the hang of any machines that induced levitation, my attempts to do so always result in being too bulky for ease of use. The arms are just so much better at finesse anyway since they react to my thoughts.”

Sprocket seemed pretty proud of herself, but I have to admit I would be too if I were able to make something like that, even if it did use the cop out of using magic. Sorry deus ex, but my heart belongs to science.

“But what about the cost, I mean, isn’t it dangerous to have something like that permanently fused into your spinal cord?”

“Oh no, it comes off, but I like to keep it on for the functionality. Besides the whole thing is a brace so it keeps everything nice and secure, but the spinal implants are filaments so they’re designed to move around. They’re also laced with crystals charged with a low level healing spell so there’s no worry for rejection. But hey, I didn’t figure you to be up to date with all this sort of mechanical and biological fusion techniques.”

“Well, not really, I just know about a guy who once did something similar, but it didn’t work nearly as well as what you have.”

It really amazed me just how easy it was to keep on talking. Well, listening mostly, Sprocket did most of the talking. She had come up to Canterlot in search of crystals and gems, and having heard of recent events, she went to mine some of the crystals under Canterlot herself. I was hard pressed to follow exactly which kind was which since I just associated crystals with colors and shine, and the fact she kept using the scientific names of them, but she was quite animated over the whole thing. The big deal was that most of her mechanical works were powered by the stored magic within each crystal, which she couldn’t do herself as an earth pony and had to make use of a unicorn assistant to do so. Crystal power was a relatively new discovery that was really only now being exploited. The trick was finding a gem that could a hold a sufficient charge for a sufficient amount of time. She had been going through many different types and kinds, as well as different cuts. She hoped that the recent batch would prove useful, but first she would need to cut them and then find somepony to charge them up for her, something that normally took a good while if she found a good charge holder.

“I just want to make things a little easier for earth ponies ya’ know, it can be a little frustrating to only have our so called earth magic, but that’s only useful if you’re our farming. Any pegasi can always make use of flying no matter where they are, same for just levitating anything for unicorns.” She said with a far off gaze, like maybe she wasn’t talking to me, but her gaze focused again and said, “But that’s just for extension work. Others in the field have found ways to completely replace broken or irreparably damaged body parts. But you’ve been a pretty good sport about listening to me this whole time, but why are you going to Bitsburg Rumor?”

“Oh it really was pretty interesting to hear you go on, but I’ve heard that the police are a little short-staffed there, and I was going to see if I could get a job.”

“No offense buddy, but as true as that is you don’t exactly look very strong, especially for someone as tall as you are. What good do you think you would be against a diamond dog, or gryphon, or even a unicorn?”

“Well,” I said with a smirk, “I can do this.” Scooting out of the sun light, which had begun to bother me less as the conversation had continued, I began to expel darkness, making a cylinder of black around me. Concentrating, I pushed three tentacles, each one tipped with a clawed human hand, out and hardened them into reality and stretched them out into the sunlight, which held, but my legs were beginning to lose some feeling, and had two of them hold up my now empty plate while the last one rapidly extended its claws leaving four pencil thick holes in it, and then placed it back down and banished the dark. The room had gotten awfully quiet, but I was too focused on Sprocket’s reaction, she just sat there, with a raised eyebrow, “Okay, I’m impressed. I don’t think you’ll have much trouble getting the job.”

“Thank you” I said as the room volume began to return as I sat back down into my seat.

“Well, you seem like a pretty decent guy, you should totally come and see my lab once you get settled in. You want to hang out later? The ride goes one for another day.”

“That sounds pretty good. But I had hoped to see the engine room. You think they let passengers in there?”

“I don’t know, but why go there anyway, it’s just a basic steam set up.”

“True but this is pretty much my first time on a train, and I thought it would be interesting.”

“Heh, sounds like a plan.”