Spotlight

Friday, July 2, 1108

The jackals from a week and a half earlier had only been the beginning. More and more creatures could be spotted roaming the countryside during the nighttime hours, forcing Starlight to improvise traps and startle mechanisms to keep them at bay while she slept.

Double Diamond’s skiing mark had compelled him to roam the snowy wastes of the north, seeking the ultimate hill. He had had to fend for himself back then, so he was very good at dealing with wild animals and monsters. In his earliest days with Starlight, before she removed his mark, he was the monster wrangler for the pair, keeping Starlight safe while they built The Village, while they were fleeing from angry mobs who rejected her doctrine, and while they slowly recruited those first few Followers. He had done such a good job that after Starlight had removed his mark, and his ability to protect the village, there was very little that Starlight had to do to keep The Village safe. So little that she could do it late at night under the Mare in the Moon, with her Followers completely unaware of the magic that she wielded to keep them safe. But all of those protections had become undone.

On Tuesday she had discovered a half-dozen giant lizards living in one of the cottages that she had to chase out. She had been cornered by eight giant spitting cobras on Wednesday. And only just managed to deal with a cockatrice on Thursday.

Nightmare Moon had put her head out in the sky a few more times, but it was never to address the actual problems the ponies were facing under her. She told the ponies an obvious fable about being Celestia’s best friend a thousand years ago, and being “betrayed for friendship”—whatever that meant—to be banished to the Moon. She would be visiting more cities after Manehattan, “to solve their problems”. And she would not tolerate anypony harming her “creatures of the night”.

Equestria under Empress Nightmare Moon was going to pot. And it wasn’t just the creatures. On Thursday evening’s trip to Trottingham, Starlight caught up on the news out of Manehattan: the city had managed to become just as insanely anti-Celestia as Canterlot had become the week before.

Starlight had never heard stories about the former princess like she was hearing now. Stories of corruption and betrayal on an unimaginable scale: the fall of Hollow Shades was now being laid squarely at her hooves.

Starlight had never been unreservedly enthusiastic about Celestia’s rule. She saw her as being a part of an entire system that kept ponies from thinking there was an alternative to cutie marks.

Well…that was back when cutie marks mattered. Starlight had still not completely decided who she was now that she knew the truth about her own mark. So, she had even less reason to think badly of the ex-princess.

Starlight’s Communion call with Double Diamond was quick. She determined that his situation was unchanged, and she disconnected when Smiling Sonny started prodding him to ask her more and more revealing questions.

This was followed a couple of hours later with the Friday night call with the rest of the Followers. Only they weren’t all there.

“Where are Amethyst Gleam and Coral Shine?” Starlight asked.

“I tried to meet up with them for a lunch date today,” said Dane Tee Dove, “but I saw the Night Guard searching their place, so I got out of there before I was spotted.” Dane Tee looked worried—a rare state for her.

“You haven’t received your paging stone yet?” Starlight asked.

“No,” said Dane Tee.

“Paging stone? What’s that?” asked Berry Preppy. “Was that in last week’s meeting?”

“Starlight’s found a way for us to magically tell her that we want her to Commune with us,” explained Lyrica Lilac. “She sent them as fake souvenirs from the Manehattan Maneway, so nopony will suspect anything. Each stone is magically attuned to our cutie mark in the vault. That’s how they work.”

“Oh, that thing?” Berry asked. “It felt funny when I picked it up, so I threw it away. Let me go dig it out of the trash.” And then her head started moving around in disorienting directions, so Starlight disconnected her.

“Has anypony else gotten their stone yet?” Starlight asked.

Nopony else had. Eventually Berry used her stone to get re-connected again, thereby proving that they worked.

“With that settled, I’m going to try to contact Amethyst and Coral again,” Starlight said cautiously. She focused all of her magical energy into the spell…

“Starlight!”

It was Coral. She looked awful, with mascara running down her face and her coat matted with sweat.

“She’s after me! The Empress herself is leading all of these really scary ponies, looking for Amethyst and me. We had to split up—they might have gotten her, I don’t know. What do I do, Starlight? What do I do?”

“Dane Tee!” Starlight exclaimed. “Are you still in Manehattan?”

“Yeah,” said Dane Tee. She was shaken, like all of the others, at seeing what their friend had been reduced to. “But I’m no hero.”

The other Followers were meanwhile trying to calm the hysterical Coral Shine in low voices.

“I can’t possibly get to her in time,” Starlight told Dane Tee. “It will have to be you. Coral, tell us where the nearest Maneway station is.”

“Bridleway,” Coral said, already considerably calmed at seeing Starlight take control of the situation.

“OK. Dane Tee, when do the shows on Bridleway typically end?”

“Around 8?”

“Great.” Starlight smiled reassuringly. “Coral, you’ll be able to blend into the crowds entering the station. Dane Tee, you’ll be waiting for her at the entrance, and then—”

Coral suddenly screamed, looking behind her. The sound became distorted, and then the stucco wall behind her became visible, and she was shoved out of frame.

Which should be impossible, because the Commune spell was centered on the subject, not any one point in space.

And into that space strode Empress Nightmare Moon.

The Followers screamed in unison. Several of them tried to terminate the call but were horrified to discover that they could not.

(A rather nasty surprise.)

“Ah, Starlight Glimmer,” Nightmare Moon said with a victorious purr. “We meet at last. You don’t look as good as your picture.” She floated into view a small portrait of Starlight, one that Starlight knew that several of her followers kept on their nightstands, to her mild disapproval.

Starlight’s eyes sparked with barely suppressed outrage. “Your Excellency,” she said, bowing as required by protocol. “It is an honor to be in your presence. May I ask what you have done with my friends Amethyst Gleam and Coral Shine?”

“Oh, they’re fine! See?” She used her magic around Coral’s mane to yank her violently into view. “I just wanted to befriend them, and they ran from me for no reason. Isn’t that right?!” She roared the question into Coral’s face.

Coral, now being held floating by Nightmare Moon’s magic, sometimes in view, sometimes not, was too frozen with fear to respond.

Nightmare then used her magic to nod Coral’s head for her.

“See?” the Nightmare asked with false cheer. “Just a misunderstanding. I wanted to discuss cutie marks with her. That’s how ponies introduce each other in the Twelfth Century, yes? By comparing cutie mark stories?” She hovered Coral’s flank into view, pointedly tapping on her cutie mark a few times with a hoof.

Coral raised her head back into frame, begging Starlight with her eyes not to tell her the truth.

Starlight sighed, considering it useless to lie at this point. “I gave her that mark,” she said.

“Did you?” the Nightmare asked. It was clear from her demeanor that she did indeed already know that Coral’s mark was artificial. “How interesting! You used a spell, yes?”

Starlight tried desperately to figure out a way she could sell the lie of using an artifact, but with Coral right there in front of her, there was no way that the Empress wouldn’t be able to rip that information right out of her head. “…Yes, it’s a spell of mine. The Equalization Spell.”

The Nightmare nodded agreeably. “Well, you see, there’s only one problem—that spell belongs to me.” Her mood soured on that last phrase. “It’s my ‘personal treatment’ spell. It was developed a thousand years ago for my personal use. Not yours. Mine.

“Now according to what Amethyst told me you haven’t even been using that spell to its full potential. You do know what ‘Equalization’ is actually for, don’t you?” The Nightmare turned and looked around at all of the other Followers. “Do any of you in the class know? Hmm?”

The other Followers looked back and forth at each other in confusion, then over at Starlight, who stared impassively at the Empress.

“None of you? It’s meant for mind control. I mean, it should be glaringly obvious: Cutie marks are engines of destiny. Change a cutie mark, and you change a pony’s destiny. Become a happy Follower of Miss Starlight Glimmer. Or become a part of my slave army. It really doesn’t make any difference. Whatever the caster wants, that’s what she gets. And making them your slaves is ever so much easier to maintain. It’s the lowest common denominator command, after all. Now are you sure that she’s never taken over your minds? Even once?”

The Followers looked uncomfortably around themselves.

“I…I never!” Starlight protested.

“Well, you do like forcing Berry to shut up after she’s been going on for too long,” Lyrica said with reluctance.

“Actually, she’s done that to all of us,” Dane Tee added. “She really likes shutting ponies up.”

Starlight was left speechless.

The Nightmare opened her mouth to say something smug, but at that moment there was a great crash behind her, crumbling the wall she was standing against.

A pony that Starlight recognized as Prince Blueblood rose to his hooves in the rubble, a couple of half-conscious pegasi falling off of his back as he stood. “Don’t worry, everypony,” she said in a jovial voice. “I am unharmed!”

The Nightmare stared coldly at him. The levitating Coral in contrast was dumbfounded.

“…What?” Blueblood asked. “Are you busy?” He looked around. “You appear to be standing in a room talking to…ghost heads! You’re being haunted by ghost heads! I’ll save you, Aunty!” And then he proceeded to leap through the illusory heads, bumping Coral several times in the process.

“Ow! Ow! Quit that!” Coral cried.

The Nightmare rolled her eyes. “Nephew. Nephew. NEPHEW!”

“Yes, Aunty?”

“I have the matter well in hoof, Nephew,” she said quietly. “Please see to the wellbeing of your carriers.”

“Who?” He then looked down at the two pegasi. “Oh. Them.” He lifted them up with his magic and began carrying them out of the room, smacking Coral one last time in the process. “I’ve almost got landing down, Aunty,” his voice could be heard fading into the distance. “Three or four more tries, and I’m sure I’ll have it.”

The Nightmare waited, her face completely impassive. First she stared back through the hole in the wall, until the guards who were loitering back there caught wind of her and stepped out of view. And then at Starlight and her Followers (including Coral), who were all stifling their laughter. “Are we finished?” she asked them coldly.

“Yes. Yes,” said Starlight finally. “Now, where were we?”

“Where we were was me being the only adult in the room. Starlight Glimmer, you are tampering with very dangerous magic. Magic that I cannot just entrust to anypony.

“Therefore, I will be coming out to your ‘hippy commune’ to perform a personal inspection. All of your Followers are required to attend. I’ll be out there…” She looked back in the direction of a back room, where a distant crash could be heard. “Another skylight,” she remarked to herself. “Let’s make it in two or three days—As you can see, I have other priorities to attend to.”

The Empress looked back at Starlight. “Now, you could decide to run.” She put on a most-wicked smile. “I honestly hope you do. I haven’t had a good hunt in ages.” She bared her fangs for a moment. “And the best part will be this: when I come for you, the hounds that will be baying for your blood will be your own Followers.”

The Nightmare glanced at Coral’s levitating flank, and a cloud of blue magic briefly covered it. When the cloud cleared, the former gray equals sign had been replaced with a gray crescent moon.

“Who is it?” Coral asked eagerly, swirls in her eyes. “Who do you want me to hunt?”

The other Followers screamed again.

The Nightmare restored the former equals mark.

“Wh…what was that?” Coral asked in a shaking voice. “What were those thoughts you put in my head?”

“See?” the Nightmare asked with a disappointed shake of her head. “This spell of yours can definitely be used for bad things in the wrong hooves.” She looked Starlight in the eye as Coral was dropped out of frame with a crash and an “ow…”. “Three days. Three days before I evaluate how you’re running your little group. Three days before I start checking for criminal records. And after that, I’ll decide if you can keep running your Village, or if I will rip that spell out of your brain…along with most of your memories and personality.” She tossed off that last part like she was describing a meal that had disappointed her. And then she was back to being cheerful. “See you then!”

And that was that.

Several of the Followers began crying.

“Mares!” Starlight addressed them.

Comet Tail pouted.

“And Stallion!”

Comet Tail nodded in satisfaction.

“I know this is all horrible. But you don’t need to worry. I can break your mark plaques right now, and give you your cutie marks back.” She gestured at the Vault behind her. “Or I can destroy the marks within, making you blank flanks again. Either way, you will no longer be in danger.”

“But…but you will still be in danger, right?” asked Swan Song.

“I think it would look suspicious if you let us all go,” said Lyrica. “Make you look guilty.” She spent a moment steeling herself before she spoke again. “I’m going out there. The Empress already knows about me. If she wanted, she could hunt me down like she did Amethyst and Coral, with or without this equals mark. Prepare my cabin.”

“Y…yeah!” exclaimed Dane Tee. “I’m going too! I was really going to carry out that plan of yours to save Coral, so I’m absolutely going to head out there and save you!”

“Yeah!” exclaimed Comet. “I’m packing right now.”

“I’ll be on the train tonight!” said Swan Song. “Only my dad’s trains don’t run at night—they’re still not used to having no moon to see by yet. So…I’ll take the first train tomorrow evening!”

Berry sighed. “Fine…” she whined. “It looks like we have no choice. Starlight, could you make up my cabin, too? Um…and should I bring my rock?”

Once the Communion spell had ended, Starlight collapsed to the floor, and all of her emotions flooded through her.

How could I know it was a mind control spell? Was that what I wanted when I got my mark: to make ponies stop hurting me by forcing them to do what I want? What does that say about me?

…Wow, that was incredibly narcissistic. I just saw poor Coral being tortured, and who knows what the Empress did to Amethyst to learn everything she knew about me, and I’m focused on how all this reflects on my character?

I’ve got to get a hold of myself.

Now, what do I do? How do I possibly prepare for a confrontation with the being who overthrew Celestia and her hoof-chosen band of champions?

And then Starlight remembered Nightmare Moon’s words from that first speech: She said there was a survivor. As in “one”. What did she do to the rest of them?

Starlight walked out of the cave and surveyed The Village in the fading light. She realized that there really wasn’t anything she could do at that moment, except tell Double Diamond what was going on.

He has a criminal record. As much as he would hate it, I have to destroy his plaque. Tonight.

She went back into the cave and re-cast the Communion spell on his cutie mark plaque.

She couldn’t find him.

Her blood went cold. What had Nightmare Moon done to him?

She broke his plaque. The glass fractured, but the mark remained floating in the air. She tried to destroy the mark, but something was keeping it from being affected—something that had never happened before. Fearfully, she grabbed the mark with her magic and placed it inside another pane of glass.

What did that mean? He wasn’t dead. But what he actually was, Starlight didn’t know. Knowing Nightmare Moon, he was probably being tortured.

Starlight stumbled out of the cave in a daze. She realized that she had failed to protect three of her Followers tonight, including her oldest friend.

Was he her friend? He annoyed her a lot. He wasn’t very bright. But he had always been there for her. Right from the beginning. And right through to the end. And he certainly didn’t deserve whatever horror the Empress was subjecting him to at that very moment.

It seemed insane to think it, but she hoped that Smiling Sonny would avenge Double Diamond.

She sat down on the edge of the cliff. The moon had definitely set, leaving the landscape in pitch blackness. She was still illuminated, however, by the light emitted by the Vault behind her. After a few moments, she got back up. Instinctually, she pulled a lantern to her side and lit it. A few minutes later she had loaded her belongings onto the cart and prepared to pull everything back to her cabin.

That’s when she saw it, a lone light making its way towards The Village from the road leading into the countryside.

It was a pony, probably coming to have their cutie mark removed.

Starlight groaned in emotional agony. She no longer believed in her former mission. And Equalization under Nightmare Moon had just become worse than a death sentence. At all costs she had to convince this pony to turn around and return to civilization, before it was too late.

So, she picked up her lantern and—

(The entry abruptly terminates at this point.)