Shadows of the Night

           I awoke in a hospital bed, noticing first the blindingly bright sun streaming through the window next to my bed. Reaching out to draw the blinds I was pleased to see the sleeve of my cloak upon my arm. They let me keep my clothes on this time, that’s a plus. I like hospitals and all, the food is pretty decent too, always wondered how they did their gelatin, but since I didn’t mention it last time, hospitals are always cold. Though, I have to admit to a bias, anything below ninety degrees Fahrenheit is worthy of long pants and shirts.

         As shade began to descend upon the room, I noticed it wasn’t the same one I was in last time. While it had the same ‘hospital white’ wall color, it was considerably smaller, really only big enough for a patient on the bed and a nurse to come check up on the patient board at the foot of the bed every once in a while. My shield however was, ever so conveniently, placed leaning on the small reading desk next to me, sporting a few Daring Doo novels. I swung my feet over the side of the bed, feeling much better after my self-imposed nap, I was about to grab my shield when I noticed a small piece of paper taped to it. Gently tearing it off, so as to leave the note in one piece it read:

Heard that you saved some ponies from a life of slavery from some nasty diamond dogs, that was a very brave thing to do. I just wanted to leave this note because I have to go home once my night shift is over. Anyway hope you wake up well rested, as you clearly looked like you were in a healthy looking condition, if a bit exhausted, when you were brought in. The world could do with more brave creatures like you.

         Well Wishes,

         -Dove Scalpel-

         I have to admit, I was rather touched by the letter. I suppose I really did do something good, but wouldn’t anyone have done it if they were in my position? A stupid smile blossomed on my face as fantasies of evil villains sitting around a bar table in some generic seedy joint saying stuff like, “Rumor has it someone’s been puttin’ the squeeze on some our operations down south. Let’s ‘um off Scoot free, but no one’s been willin’ tuh talk, even after persuasion” this would then be followed by some dark chuckles at the euphemism of persuasion for torture.

         Noir-esque fantasies aside, it finally struck me, right there in the hospital bed, that Equestria wasn’t as kind and peaceful a place as I had been led to believe. Worse, I had been gifted powers beyond any normal human. I could blame what came next on having read too many spider-man comics, but I really knew it was coming dead center from my knight complex… I had to fix this place.

         I started pulling into myself, I had been gifted a chance to find happiness and, hopefully, friendship in a fantasy world brought to life, and here I was secluding myself further away from it in order to protect it from tragedies I hadn’t known existed till last night. It almost made me want to cry, but I quickly pushed that back down into the pit. I needed to think of something positive, can’t go back to always keeping my emotions down and never talking about it. I needed to replace some of it with more positive ones… that was harder than expected. Well, I had super powers. That was a plus, and I was also in a place where I might express some of my more negative tendencies on scum to render justice, yeah. That last one seemed a little shallow, but hey, I’m still a little new at trying to be spontaneously happy. The closest I normally got to this was dark humor where death and destruction followed. In fact, it was one of the reasons I found Joker to be as funny as he was… That last thought almost makes me sound like a psychopath… well, maybe I am, but at least I can control it well… enough.

         I was feeling a little better now, having gone through the mental exercise of trying to maintain a positive attitude. ‘Maybe it won’t be so hard after all.’ Though I still felt a small ache in my head, but that began to vanish as I pulled my hood up, blocking the residual sunlight in the room from reaching me. I even had my pack still on me, the diamond dogs had been too intent upon stringing me up they had left it unnoticed. Looking into it proved everything had remained intact, except for a few of the fruit bars, which were now crumbled in their packets, could be worse. I began to reach for my shield again, but went too fast and ended up knocking it over with a loud clatter. I hastily got out of bed and picked it up, leaving me feeling a bit sheepish of my clumsiness at having broken the silence in the hospital.

***

         Looking back on it now, it might not have been the best idea to leave the Hospital without having signed out, and having done so by crawling under the bed to teleport out back to the forest, but I still really wanted to go see the old castle which, had until a relatively short span of time ago, housed the slumbering forms of the Elements of Harmony.

         I was pleasantly surprised, even in the middle of the day, the thick foliage of the Everfree provided the ground with enough darkness that I could still shadow walk, even during this time of day with that celestial globe of fire still trying to get me. Why it now appeared to be so vengeful to me was troubling, but I suppose I could figure that out later. What was really bothering, or I at least thought it should, was my fascination with The Castle of the Ancient Pony Sisters. It had appeared only once in the show, and if I can recall right it hadn’t seemed all that remarkable, but once I came to Equestria, it felt like it or something in it was trying to pull me towards it.

         As much as having my mind manipulated would normally bother me, though I suppose not since I just REALLY wanted to get there, I was now practically afire with my desperate want to get there. I began zipping around the forest at an even faster rate just trying to find a sight of anything the mane six had crossed during the Rise of Nightmare Moon episode.

         Through the haze of quickly escalating emotions a point of clarity broke through, at which point I gave a truly magnificent facepalm, and I stopped under the boughs of the tree with the thickest foliage around me and willed myself under the arch of the giant red door of the castle, the noon-day sun would leave the ground directly beneath the arch in shadow.

         Once there my desperate need became an almost frantic. I could barely form a coherent thought past ‘must find, must find’ as I shoved the massive doors open with a groan, the rusted hinges squeaking in protest like nails on a chalkboard as I began to run into the open hall.

         I had no idea where I was going as I felt whatever was pulling my thoughts guide me through corridors and down stairs. Had I been in the right frame of mind I would have been astounded at just how much splendor the castle still gave off in its dilapidated state, the sections of wall that hadn’t collapsed were carved of what was a nearly iron shade grey of marble with veins of white and black running through it. Eventually I came down to what I thought was the empty bottom floor level, but the pull was stronger than ever. I ran around the hall, which circled around back to the stairs. The pull remained constant, I was practically mad with desire, whatever I was looking for, it was here, and the only logical conclusion I could make was that it was behind the inner wall of the corridor. I slid my shield off and hastily set it on my right arm and went up the top of the staircase. Once atop I hurtled down like a meteor, gaining more speed the more I went down till I was practically pushing off the vertical slats of the steps to maintain my growing speed. As I neared the offending wall a small, still sane, part of my brain bemoaned, ‘I can’t believe this guy is going to ram into a stone wall’, and had I still been a human, I would have agreed. But with the darkness that filled this lower basement, to which I now took almost completely for granted the fact I could see perfectly in any darkness, magical or mundane, both of which only served to empower me as I crashed through the lichen encrusted wall.

         Laying there on the ground, my developing bruises just as quickly being mended due to my, I suppose the right description would be, “healing factor”, I waited for the pain to leave my body.

         My mind was finally clear, as made evident by a more OCD part of my personality making me push most of the offending stone work I had just scattered to both sides of the opening I’d made. Once done I began to look around in the room, which had, until just recently, pulled me towards with such singular intent. All in all it was pretty simple, as I looked around the room, checking the corners, it was just dark. Perimeter secured I finally made look to the center of the room which housed an entirely generic looking black mask. It had no features, save the two eye holes, the rest simply acted to cover the wearers face. It should have sent off some warning bells in my head that it was shaped to be easily worn by a human and not a pony, but a suffused sense of rightness just seemed to emanate from it as I unconsciously moved forward.

         Shadow stuff began leaking from my pores at a prodigious rate. Had anyone been watching me before, they surely would not have been able to now with my own self made darkness mingling with the room’s, turning the air space into a pitch of not black, but an entire absence of light. My own vision remained perfectly fine, and still focused upon the mask.

         Walking up to the pedestal I thought I would put the mask on, but once I was at the base, the mask coming up to my chest laying atop it, the thought seemingly felt wrong. The mask didn’t want to be worn, I thought, all it wanted was some sign of contact. Reaching out my hand I placed my palm in the direct center of the mask’s forehead as an immense sense of joy radiated from the inanimate object as the darkness in the room converged together, lifting the mask off the pedestal and formed a crude body beneath. The apparition, once complete, stood, looming over me, the whole body slightly curved down, giving me the impression of a vulture looking down upon a dead animal.

‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I think I may have just unleashed a monster.’

“If I am a monster, it is only due to your own wishes” a voice of multiple timbres and pitches calmly replied.

         My eyes bulged, some… thing had breached the sanctity of my mind and had combed through my own thoughts. Thoughts of burning retribution, and lots of it, filled my mind, and all of it directed to the apparition before me.

         “My apologies, but it is not something I do to offend. We are linked, the bond was created when you came and answered the summons, it may not be severed except through your death.” the voices replied.

         Too many questions were swashing in my mind. So I simply said, “Would you please explain?”

         The thing nodded and began its tale, “It is well known that there are four basic types of Elements. There is air, earth, water, and fire, these govern the laws of nature of this world, as well as the combinations thereof, like how water and earth may work together to create plant life, or how water and fire may work in arms against each other, making the heat differences to create weather like rain or snow or fog.  And at each Element there is a sovereign there to help maintain the balance of his, her, or its Element, as well as providing a system of checks and balances over others.

         But there are two Elements that are often forgotten, the two primordial Elements of Light and Dark. They were at the beginning of the multiverse, and they will be after. This is where you come in Master. The Element of Darkness has been without a sovereign for a great number of years. In fact, the last sovereign became corrupted, the dark was thought to be the blame and the sovereign was stripped the ties to darkness and was transformed. I was placed with in this room in order to help prevent a new sovereign from becoming.”

         I couldn’t help but in here, well I could’ve but I didn’t want to, “What makes you so important that to be locked away would prevent a new leader from arising?” A funny feeling was rising in my chest, I didn't quite like how I thought this conversation was going.

         “Please be patient, sir, I was just getting to that. This castle has been forgotten, and many of its secrets as well. Due to recent changes in power, and the use thereof, the wards upon this room lessened. Only one with a connection to darkness could have heard my calls as well as set myself back into animation, as such, you are now the sovereign of the dark, and will be bestowed upon the powers to help you maintain its balance.”

         Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Oh, I'm sorry, but I'm not stupid enough to set myself as the leader of something. Besides, I had already condemned myself to spending time trying to stop slavers, and now I was going to be the rulers of darkness? ME think’est not!

         “That sounds like quite an honor, but I don’t believe I would be the right candidate for the office.” I said as I slowly got up and began to edge away from the room. The Mask, suspended in darkness, made no move, but it felt like it gave off a smile of sorts from it's otherwise featureless surface.

         “This is not a matter of discussion. The Elements will learn their place, Darkness will again become respected and feared, and I will wait no longer for another to emerge.” I would have shadow ported out of there, but the darkness wouldn’t respond to me. In fact, it had somehow solidified and was physically rooting me in place. “And first things first, you are still weak, and you must be trained.” A great double door of black pushed out of the ground beneath me, pushing me up a little. “We will now enter the training gate.” And with that the trap doors swung open and I fell through the air with a certainty that I was going to feel a great deal of pain upon finding the ground while the resounding thought of ‘why me’ repeated itself.