Dark Night paced around the black room. It felt good putting a light physical exercise to your body while your brain was having a tougher one. My budget is 30 bits... What could I possibly buy with 30 bits? Is there even anything useful to buy in this village where mental disability is perceived as a quirk? Stealing is out of question. It would be far too easy to recognize my appearance, and then Twilight would obviously understand what's going on. Unless I don't leave a witness, but it's not worth it. The risk of murdering anyone is not worth a hypothetical help in searching artifact tartarus knows where.

Now that I think of it, 30 bits in question are not my only recourses. Guest rooms are equipped with basic necessities. This toothbrush is probably not where they end. Night turned on her horn in a brighter light than previous time and started going around the room, checking everything. Wardrobe, shelves, drawer, bed, everything under the objects in question and even the ceiling carried nothing that could help her. "Oh well," she said, levitating the bits up and teleporting outside.

It still wasn't completely dark, but sun was setting down. Not the best time for shopping. Mean Twilight made her way through ponyville, passing the closed shops. At the edge of it, she found a lot of tents with small lights everywhere. Some kind of a moving bazaar, perhaps. Good, that way nobody will even be able to trace what I bought when they go away. She calmly walked up to the tents, examining everything from shadows at a distance. Some were closed, some had owners sleeping, one in particular had a stallion engaged with a mare in a heated discussion about bits.

Mean Twilight was passing the tents, looking for what they offered and going to the next one upon noticing nothing useful. She stopped at fifth, which had a "sale -50-90%" sign. Not that it affected her decision in any way. Most of such "sales" presumed cutting the half of a quadripled price. She approached the tent, coughing twice to bring the attention of a mare there and asked: "How much for that coat?"

Mare was both surprised and terrified when a pony appeared seemingly out of nowhere, still half-hidden by shadows. After composing herself, she looked at the coat in question. It was a simple black duffel coat, one you could see on assassin inside any movie that involved them. "200 bits," she said with a happy face.

"10 and I'll take it," said Dark Night. 10 was obviously too little, but charging 200 for this was ridiculous. Good for her, she knew how everything worked. Trading, negotiations, all the same. Two sides start off with ridiculous proposals which 1 side would never agree too. Then slowly they lowered them to the point it was unpleasant for both and agreed there.

"100"

"20"

"75"

"25"

"50"

"30 and you give me that empty bottle on top of it, final offer."

"Alright," said the mare and moved the objects in question forward. Dark Night put the bits on the table. Mare counted the bits and turned up. "Thank you for your...purchase?" Neither the items, nor the buyer were there at this point.

Dark Night retreated into shadows and went to the river to fill up the bottle. Why did she need a bottle? Presumably because drinking snow wasn't a great idea, compared to the river water here. And she could just use a heating spell with this bottle as a way to contain water after snow vaporizes. Bottle itself was fairly small. Night approximated about a liter of volume. Once she was done filling up water, she closed the bottle and used grass as a towel to clean any water droplets on it. Coat had an inner pocket as she noticed, so she put the bottle there and zipped it. Now was the time to try out coat itself

Coat suited her well. With the hood on, she saw a dark figure in the water's mirror. She grinned, and it reflected. She pulled back the hood, letting her view herself this way. Hell, if villains looked as good as I do, maybe more ponies would support them. Suddenly, mean Twilight had an idea. While she didn't know complex magic, this was an application of a rather simple lighting spell. She pulled her hood on and mentally imagined where the light would be, then cast it at a low power. Before her eyes appeared two dots and as she stared into the water, the reflection looked great. Two burning eyes and a burning zigzag smile(something like ⟍⟋⟍⟋⟍⟋⟍⟋), all purple. She turned the spell off. Could be a useful tool to terrify the unsuspecting. But I'd have to close my eyes. At normal power, it would definitely hurt to look through.

Suddenly, heard a few fireworks going off and turned to the sound, seeing a mediocre blue magician called Trixie. An evil smirk appeared on Night's face as she made her way behind an unsuspecting mare, barely visible in the darkness. When she was right behind Trixie, she purposefully started breathing a bit louder.

Trixie turned around, only to be met with the result of Dark Night's spell. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA," she screamed, misstepping and falling down on the ground. When she raised her head, nothing was there. "W-where are you? I'm-m-m not afraid at all!" No response was heard. "Phew, the great and powerful Trixie was just... preparing her vocal cords." That was a convenient excuse, mostly to herself. As she turned back to the firework, the story repeated. This time the scream was even louder and she fell to the ground, closing her eyes and putting her hooves over her head, her whole body shaking.

Dark Night turned off the spell and retreated into shadows, deciding to disengage. Okay, as fun as it is, somebody might actually come the second time. I should be on my way, not torturing spineless amateurs. I could always come back and do it a second time. With these thoughts, she headed to the train station. There was a direct train path to Crystal Empire via Canterlot which, while longer, was easier to navigate.

At the train station sat an old stallion, counting something in the cash register. Who even buys tickets at night? Dark Night passed him and looked at the sign. Left pointing one said Canterlot. Well that's convenient. But there's still a problem. Coat will warm me when I'm there, but it will also prevent me from flying. Dark Night got an idea and just put the coat at a different angle, more on her right side. It prevented her from walking, but not flying, as she took off into the air, into the direction of Canterlot. The thought of teleportation crossed her mind, but she decided against it as per she never was in Canterlot. Risky teleporting blindly, especially with such distances.

It was already deep night, and barely anything could be seen. Railroad was the only thing keeping the mare true to her path. She was flying on an average pace. She could muster up more, but it was about endurance, not speed. After some time, she got there and landed, huffing. It was like... An hour, maybe an hour and thirty minutes. God, how am I going to make it to that snowy shithole? It's like 5 times the path. She flipped her coat back to a normal position and took out a bottle of water, opening it with magic and taking a few big sips. When she was done, she closed the bottle and put it back, zipping the pocket. She sighed and started to walk towards the north, at the left of the railroad.

Meanwhile

"Calm down, Trixie. Slowly explain what it was, I'm sure you're safe here with me" said Starlight, taking a sip of tea and immediately regretting it due to the temperature. She was somewhat tired and definitely did not expect to see her best friend at 11 of night with a terrified look. This just had "Friendship problem" written all over it.

"Of course the great and powerful Trixie is safe. Her magic knows no equals!" Trixie lied to both herself and Starlight. On the inside, she was still somewhat scared at what happened earlier.

Since the moment that magic was used on her, she started seeing creepy figures in the darkness. Then, she decided to come to Starlight, a friend who she can trust and rely upon. "So, the great and powerful Trixie was preparing a magnificent show when this terrifying face appeared behind me, made out of purple flames. Not that it was scary or anything! And then when it disappeared, it happened again when I turned around."

"Purple flames? That's strange. But you know, it's really late and I really want to sleep, can it wait until tomorrow?"

Twilight made her appearance out of the corner. "Starlight? Trixie? I've heard screams from across the entire castle, what happened?"

"Trixie saw a face made out of purple flame of some sorts," answered Starlight.

"And, and, it had a really creepy smile. You know, the one which monsters have in films! Not that brave and fearless Trixie was afraid." Two faces looked at her in complete disbelief. "Fear not, for the great and powerful Trixie has made a perfect work of art to portrait it," said Trixie and pulled out a simplistic drawing of two dots and a zigzag smile.

The rest 2 mares looked at the drawing, and Twilight cast some spell on the floor. "Like this?" It showed Trixie exactly the thing she saw, minus the fact eyes were more round and the general thing looked smoother.

"Yes, yes, exactly that! That unholy magic is what the great and powerful Trixie had to face!"

Starlight looked at the thing. "Isn't that just applied lighting spell?"

"Yes," answered Twilight, as her and Starlight looked at each other, quite easily coming to a conclusion of who exactly has purple colored magic and is in this village.

"Oh," was all Trixie could say.

After some more minutes, Trixie went to her wagon, while Starlight and Twilight began their discussion.

"It was Dark Night, wasn't it?" Starlight was sure of it.

"Probably. Or maybe we're wrong. What if there's something we don't know?" Twilight was unsure. She was about 90% positive it was indeed Dark Night. But the risk of those 10 percent outweighted all benefits of confronting her with the remaining 90. It didn't really matter if she did some silly prank in the end. Rainbow does them all the time!

"Twilight, you're being paranoid. I'll say what, we ask her if she did it, and if she tells us "no", it will be the end of it. Agreed?"

Minutes later, they stood at Dark Night's door.

"Maybe she's asleep?" That was a reasonable suggestion coming from Twilight.

Starlight took a peek into the keyhole and saw nothing. She then slightly opened the door and saw the bed empty, fully opening it.

"She's not there," said the light purple mare, stating the obvious.

Sometime later

Dark Night was there at the snow border. It was morning. Strangely, feeling of exhaustion was gone. Last few hours were spent in medium paced flight. Our villain acknowledged it was strange, but did not bother. Trusting your body is a good idea in most cases. She warmed up the bottle a bit and drank some hot water. It was a good idea to let the insides feel warmth while the outside freezes. She fixed the coat, putting all toggles in their places and the hood on.

She would probably not cross the railroad line, meaning I'm going left forward right now. Maybe I should've spent more time planning, but then I would also be exposed for more time. No use now. She started galloping around the snow.

For hours, it felt like she was going nowhere. A blizzard has taken place and seeing anything past a few meters was very hard. Suddenly, she felt like the wind was weaker and pressed on forward, meeting up with a big stone formation. In the middle of it was the cave, exactly as she remembered. This is one hell of a coincidence. She walked in, turning on the basic lighting spell and proceeding forward.

The deeper she got, the less she saw. At some point, the spell simply stopped working, and she stopped with it. Dark Night turned her head around and saw that entrance was just a few meters away, which made no sense. Neither by the fact she walked at least for two minutes nor that the light would fill the cave so close to the entrance. Turning back to the cave's depth, she used the lighting spell again. This time, it light up but what was before her made no sense. Complete darkness, despite a light source directly before it.

"Put your actions in destiny and deny reason. Only the fated can proceed," said a strange voice. It definitely wasn't a pony, and it didn't even have a direction. Like it came from everywhere at once. That's when Night felt fear. Everything beforehoof could be explained, manipulated. This caught her off-guard. She was forced to respond, not be the one with an initiative. Instead of letting fear paralyze her, she prepared to teleport. Quick teleportation sequence is a great tool against superior opponents.

"Who are you?" The phrase was said mostly to distract whatever was talking to her, as she listened to sounds around her. Nothing.

"I have many names, none are true. A guardian of this place is what I am." The voice was dead neutral. Clearly whoever this was, was no pushover

"What do you want?"

"It is you who came seeking power. I can only guide. Follow the wind and face your challenge. Or leave and bury your desire." After that phrase, Night felt a light breeze pushing her forward.

She glanced over the entrance and then the cave. If this being is capable of doing something like this, then they could kill me earlier. She turned off her horn and followed the air flow.

"Choice is taken." Moments later, she walked onto a more lighted area. A giant door, made of a black metal was among the cave's wall. Before it stood a being she recognized as the speaker. A huge tornado-like being, with no solid form to be seen. "Many questions fill your mind. But I will answer only one."

Dark Night took some time to think. Asking who is it is presumably useless. I doubt it knows the exact actions I need to take to win. It mentioned a challenge. It's reasonable to know what it is, before I face it. "The challenge you mentioned. What are the specifics of it?" Dark Night made sure to phrase the question this way.

"Your mind will be tested. Success or failure are two radicals which will never be the result. You will be granted the reward, but no one knows it beforehand." With that, everything became darker again, and the creature disappeared.

Dark Night saw herself. Then another one. Images started flicking before her mind. Thousands of variations of her death, and not a single of her success. Alone or with an army, it did not matter. Each version of her fell, different in circumstances. Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Discord. Often, with some heroes dead. But that didn't make anything different at all. Dark Night saw her death as defeat. It doesn't matter how close it was to victory.

As the visions faded, she saw herself right before her, offering a hoof and opening her mouth. "Do you truly think it's worth it? Remain on the path you are, and your death will come to you quickly, but it will be anything but swift. Do you not see the other way?" Behind her appeared happy faces of Twilight and her friends, then more and more ponies and other beings. "You believe yourself to be smart, but you fail to see the flaw in your logic. Your goal in no way contradicts friendship. Your-"

Dark Night stopped her mid sentence by tearing her head off with magic. "There's indeed a difference between us. I exist." The body of her copy disappeared, as did the projections of others. That's a relatively easy test. Did he truly expect to break me with that?

A new illusion appeared before her, a big staircase leading into the unknown. She stepped on it, moving forward, getting higher with each move. As she looked down, she noticed the material it's made out of are skulls, but shifted back, ignoring it. She stopped when she saw a figure at the top. Another herself.

"Come to me. You were right for discarding the weakness of emotions. Only magic gives true power. Look at what I became with it. A god." Celestia's skull raised with purple magic near the throne her copy sat on. Dark Night pressed on. "Join me and be my loyal servant, or perish like the rest."

Dark Night moved up the stairs until they were at the same level. "One question," she said.

"Yes?"

Instead of an answer, Dark Night decided to repeat her trick, but this time unleashing an overwhelming energetical blast. She stared into her copy's face and saw a smirk, and a horn glowing with dark magic, overwhelming hers. Moments later, she felt her front and back becoming two separate pieces, as she now laid on the floor, blood everywhere.

"Don't be sad. You've lost the moment you saw me and stepped up." All Dark Night could hear is slow mocking laughter as her consciousness faded.

She opened her eyes, standing before the same door and the guardian.

"Success. Failure. All is a matter of perspective"

"What do I get?" Night quickly got herself composed after an illusionary death.

"What the fate gives. A lesson to learn from the greatest teacher"

Dark Night thought about it. Why have I failed? What could I do? She overpowered me even with my ambush advantage. "Elaborate." She said, in a demanding tone.

"Few have risen to power you dream of alone. None in question sustained it for long. What you seek and what you need are different. Your resolve is strong, far stronger than most, and it didn't crumble. Resolve alone does not bring victory, however."

"I take it you will not concede the alicorn amulet?"

"There is a way. You may prove your worthiness in battle. Shall you slay me, all the treasures behind the eternal gates will be yours. My duty will finally be done. Do you wish to challenge me as a warrior?"

"Do I stand a chance at winning?" It was a rather rhetorical question. With what this being could do, she could imagine the fight would be nothing short of a suicide.

"No. Not now, at the very least," said the creature.

Expectable answer

"Do you see the future?" Dark Night asked out of curiosity.

"It is not as simple as you portrait it. Imagine an island that is current. Everywhere around is an endless ocean. Future is very much like that. The further time flows, the further you swim, and the more area there is for possible variations. To see the future is to see an infinite ocean. To see the path to it is to look upon all the trail's events."

Dodging questions like that must take a lot of effort. "And who is that... Ally you expect me to find, if I understood the lesson correct?"

"That is up to you to discover. Your time grows short. Leave now or you might be gone forever." It was really hard to determine whether that was advise, threat, or something in-between, but Dark Night decided to not push her luck.

She turned around and found herself at entrance, the guardian and the door gone back to darkness. "This is so fucked." She stepped out of the cave. She felt the same feeling as before. Lightness, but even more of it. Like her body was overpowered by something. Like she was chained before, and now her body broke free.

She also noticed it was morning, around maybe 8 or 9 hours. Time perception inside that cave was clearly fucked. I spent nearly a day inside, but it felt like minutes. Putting her coat at her side, she let her wings free and flied with the most speed she could muster. This time, she didn't stick to the railroad. She felt so free, she could just fly to Ponyville directly. Some unexplainable thing was leading her. It didn't make sense to her before, but now it did. Her mind was more clearer than ever. She felt like the reality itself was just within the grasp. Magic, past, future. All the answers. So close yet so distant.

Finally, the right thoughts formed themselves. This is strange. Too strange. I shouldn't be able to do all this, for no reason. Maybe it's something from the cave? Mind control with a physical enhancement? But how can I be sure I'm not under mind control? There probably exists a spell to check that. I should get my hooves on that when I get back.

Allies, though. That's a clever idea. It'd be great to have someone. Even the brainrotten bug managed to beat Celestia when she had a hive of soldiers. But loyalty is earned, not forced. I'm hitting the same issue. If I want a powerful and loyal ally, I need time. Presumably even the purple combo back in the castle would stand at my side, given enough desperation and panic. And other than them? Ah, if only powerful unicorns rained from the sky, asking to be your friend. Princess sisters out of question, too much willpower. Cadance, on the condition she's with Shining Armor? Risky, but could work.

Or maybe I'm thinking a completely wrong way. Maybe I do need an army of weaklings, rather than a small group of powerful ponies. Would Sombra lose had he used live shields? Probably, because he's an idiot, but not because the strategy itself is bad. Moral qualities will disallow most to use their spells. Maybe Starlight would be cold-minded enough to, but I doubt it. Tempest? Too irrelevant to matter, hornless garbage.

There's one issue. Discord. How am I ever going to beat him? He's a god of chaos. Granted, elements could beat him, but there is no way I'm convincing them to fire upon him. Twisting their morals would render elements useless too. Tirek? I doubt he would beat Discord in an actual fight. Especially now that Discord knows... It's so hopeless. Destroying all sentient life in Equestria is presumably an easier task than killing him. Perhaps killing is the wrong option then. He wants Fluttershy, and it she can't really do much on her own. I'll just let her live and enjoy life on condition Discord doesn't interfere.

No use thinking about that now. I'll probably think a lot in the future when I'll be executing it all. Gathering allies is more important. Twilight has them as friends, and her weakness is perceiving them as such. I just need a one-way friendship. Perhaps I could trick Twilight into thinking I'm actually getting friends. Two birds with one stone. Who to befriend? Presumably someone powerful. On a secondary position, someone with a suitable personality. It'll be really annoying carrying out my plan with allies I despise to the core. Plus, killing them afterwards would cause issues. Actually, now that I think of it, it's an even better priority than power, in the long term. I wonder if I gathered 6 genuine friends with corresponding elements, could I use magic of harmony by manipulating them..?

I could also abuse the queen of leftovers, promising her everything while sending her into a suicidal charge. Could probably do the same with Tirek. Dark Night looked at the surroundings. She flied past Cloudsdale an hour ago and was above some small forest. I'm close. Onto the pressing issues, how do I explain everything? Twilight cannot be so dumb as to not notice. I need to come up with something, something she cannot check and something that will not bite me back in the future. Such thoughts were not arriving. Every idea fell into either "she can check" or "will bite me back". Dark Night decided she'll improvise by dismissing it or dodging the question.

Seeing the castle, she teleported inside her room, not even focusing on it that much. The room was still dark, just as it was when she left. Adrenaline from the flight still boiled in her, so first thing she did was calming down. She took her coat off and deposited it inside the wardrobe. Next, she noticed the books she left near the door last time she was there. They also went inside the wardrobe. Wouldn't want Twilight figuring out who "readjusted" her library. Something was missing, though. Of course, bottle. It wasn't inside the coat. Probably flied out somewhere on the way. Not a big loss.

Having finished with everything, Dark Night decided to head out of the room, with no reason in particular.

"Night?" sounded somewhere behind her, as she turned around. "Wasn't your coat a different color?" said Starlight~~, adjusting her gestapo uniform.~~

Night took a look at her hoof. It was no longer that dark purple. It was a very white shade of it, perhaps even light grey instead of actually purple. That is strange.

Something clicked in Starlight's head. "Oh, almost forgot, go to Twilight. She's in the library going from book to book on something related to you. You wouldn't know, but she tends to go a little overboard with her concerns." Dark Night decided to reply with a neutral expecting gaze. The unicorn thought for a bit. "Uhm. I'll be on my way," she said, disappearing behind the nearby corner.

Mean Twilight was slightly panicking. Did Twilight somehow figure out why I went where I went? No, that can't be. That's ridiculous. Obviously it's something completely unrelated...Right? One way to find out. If anything, I'll just deny it. She'll never find proof to her words, unless she cracks open my mind, which is fairly unlikely. With that, Night went to the library. She opened the door, seeing Twilight scribbling something on a paper list. "Hello?"

Twilight turned around with a slightly crazy look, calming down when she saw who it was. Then getting even more nervous from something. "Night, thank Celestia you came. Where have you been? I was so worried!"

That's stupid. Why would she worry over me? My death would be irrelevant. We barely know each other. "Ughh, well you see," began Dark Night, unsure herself of what exactly should Twilight see.

"Okay, that's for later. Now, I have some very important news. I wrote princess Celestia about you, and she sent me a book. Your condition is very fragile, and it shows." Dark Night just gave her a confused look. "Let me explain, your body is like...Like a, well it's hard to find an analogy, but the point is, you have two sides to your nature. One being physical manifestation, pony. Other being pure magic. The more you act like a pony, the more you lean towards the pony side. The less you act like a pony, the more you lean towards pure magic. And right now, I can clearly see your body is closer to the latter." Dark Night understood more, but clearly didn't look too much invested into conversation. "Do you know what happens when you become pure magic, Night? YOU DIE! This is not a joke, Night, I'm really scared for you!" Twilight's face showed it.

This explains a lot. She might be lying, but that's unlikely. If she didn't tell me, I'd probably be dead in a few days. That thought sent a shiver down the whole body. Dark Night hated this feeling. She hated the fact she failed. It was my mistake not taking more time to learn... No use regretting it now. I've got lucky this time. There won't be another. "What exactly do I need to do?"

Twilight's mood visibly improved. "It's not so simple, but in short, eat, sleep and interact with other ponies. So long as those three conditions are met, you'll not dissolve into magic. So right now, we're going to the kitchen, then you will sleep, and tomorrow, you'll meet some of my friends. Sounds good?"

Dark Night noticed those exact three steps on a list behind her. What was really concerning is that she saw the number "33" way down the list, and that was not even half of it. "Lead the way," said Night.

The time walking was spent in silence. Night contemplated what she just heard. Clearly she didn't tell me all the truth. Maybe she doesn't know herself. My abilities, both physical and magical, transcended way past natural limits. I'd need to test it sometime later on, but I think this is precisely because of this balance going in favor of pure magic.

As Twilight gave Night a sandwich with something, feelings kicked in. Tiredness, exhaustion and pain. Everything else was like in a fog to Dark Night, she ate something, Twilight said something. She got escorted to her room and fell onto the bed. It felt good, really good. Like someone ripped the wings off angels and stuffed their feathers into her pillow. Barely having enough strength, she pulled blanket on top of herself, feeling sudden cold. Must've been really cold, and my body haven't noticed. It works so funny. Her brain was not functioning clearly, she herself realized that, slowly drifting into unconsciousness.

Twilight saw the picture before her and finally let out a satisfied breath, closing the door and letting the room fall in full darkness.

Author's Note

Oof, this was a huge one.

Fixed a slight error in one of the chapters(i think new morning?), where Starlight was referred to as the teal mare. Strangely, I remembered her teal, but read some other fic where it stated she's pink. Upon checking, it turned out she's light purple. Who knew?

Also cleared up some of the description for the story.