Moon's Blade and the Crystals of Chaos

Chapter 8:
Morgana

There I stood. In a dark, yet familiar room. In front of me was a huge crystal surrounded by magic runes.

It has been a while since I had this dream. I knew that the crystal in front of me was the chaos crystal. The crystal that currently did not exist. The chaos crystal had the colours of each of its separate parts. Green, red, yellow, blue... All of them, mixed together. It looked like a friendly object, with the colours of the rainbow. But the truth was hard. This thing could potentially destroy Equestria.

I knew this dream. This nightmare. I did not grab my sword. I knew that 'it' would appear and that 'it' would not harm me. A black figure appeared in the crystal, and as usual I turned around. I stood face to face with the creature.

"What do you want?" I asked, "What are you going to do?"

It looked back at me, but did not do anything.

"I know what you're going to do..." I said, and not long after that the beast tried to eat me. Again.

A blinding light appeared from behind it, six familiar symbols appeared and drove it back into the crystal. Even nowadays I did not know what those symbols were, nor what they represented.

Everything blurred away.

A while later I opened my eyes. I were inside a wooden house, the windows were open and a blinding light fell through it. It was too bright to see what was outside. I were lying in a bed.

"Am I still dreaming?" I asked myself, as if I could answer that question.

I recognized the house as my own. Was all that happened just a dream? My entire adventure at Ponyville was just a terrible nightmare? I should be relieved, but it felt odd. The events that had happened were too realistic and too long to be just a terrible dream.

I walked out of my bed and opened the door. It was foggy outside, but the sun did shine.

Usually people were walking, talking and working outside, but this time there wasn't even a single soul outside.

I walked to the shrine. The door was still sealed. I tried to grab my sword, but it wasn't there. I decided to go to Wise Knowledge's house.

Wise was standing in front of his house.

"How are ye?" He asked me.

"I'm fine," I said, "but something is suspicious..."

Wise looked at me confused. "What do ye mean? It's an ordinary day, isn't it?"

For a second I thought he had gone senile. But it couldn't be. I wanted to turn around and walk back to the shrine, but someone else was standing behind me. It was a grey pegasus, a mare. She carried a bow on her back. I recognized her as an old friend, Silver Arrow.

"Is there something wrong?" She asked.

Something felt wrong. She looked and sounded exactly like Silver, but I had the odd feeling she was not.

"No," I answered, "Nothing is wrong." I did not know what to say.

"I'm feeling a bit ill, that's all." I said.

"You're feeling a bit ill?" Silver said, "Wise surely has a potion for that, don't you?"

"Yes, I happen to have it with me," Wise replied to that. "Here, take this," he said as he handed me over a weird brew, "You should drink it all in a single gulp."

I looked at the brew. It was oddly green and had a terrible smell. I recognized it as a poison. I looked at Wise angrily.

"You're not Wise, are you?" I asked.

"Of course I am!" 'Wise' lied.

I jumped onto him and tried to strangle him, but as I did I felt an arrow in my back.

"Maybe you should've drunk the poison," Silver said, "It might have saved you from a lot of pain..."

Her voice fainted, as did my vision.

I opened my eyes yet again. I were standing on the marketplace in Ponyville. But instead of being busy it was dark and empty. The lights of the houses were off and there was no moon nor a single star in the sky. I still didn't had my sword.

I walked around town for a couple of minutes, when I arrived at Morgana's shack.

"Look who we've got there," a familiar, unpleasing voice said. I turned around and saw Morgana standing in front of me.

"What do you want from me? What happened to Ponyville?" I asked.

"I told you to stay out of my business," Morgana said, "Now, look what you've done."

The fog cleared and in the sky was a huge crystal visible. It was the crystal from my dreams. The chaos crystal.

"You're the one responsible for this," Morgana continued, "I'm using a time spell to move you forward into time, to explain to you what happened, to make sure this won't happen. The destruction of ponykind."

I were alarmed by her words. I took a better look around me. Everything lay in ruins. There were corpses everywhere. Blood and rubble lay everywhere. Did I do this? Did I destroy Ponyville?

"That faithful day, ten years ago," Morgana started to explain, "You collected all crystals but two. The ones I had."

She looked sad. "You walked into my house, knocked me down and tried to kill me," she continued, "But I escaped quickly. I spied on you from a distance. I saw you steal the crystals. After that, you went to Twilight Sparkle's library."

I were drawn into the story. "I did not see what you did inside that library, but after a while a weird glow came out of that place, and before I knew it..."

She took a breathe, looked away and then continued, "And before I knew it that giant crystal appeared out of nowhere. All kinds of monsters came out and killed the ponies and destroyed the buildings. I quickly made my way out, and I hid myself for these ten years." She looked back at me. "Now it's time to do what I should have done, on that faithful day ten years ago."

She summoned five swords. All five swords were floating in the air by her magic. She slowly neared me, pointing the swords at me, when suddenly a black mare pushed her away. I could not see who it was, but everything started to blur. Maybe it was a dream after all?

I woke up in the middle of a forest. I recognized it as the Everfree forest. I could feel my sword on my back.

Not far from me lay Morgana. She stood up, groaning from pain. She summoned the same five swords as she did in my dream.

"Bah, I thought it would work," she said, "If only she hadn't interrupted me. The power of the crystals are almost fully drained. I need to make a sacrifice, and you'll be that sacrifice."

I did not hesitate and grabbed my sword. Morgana slowly neared me, and with every step towards me, I took a step backward.

Eventually she rushed toward me, pointing all the swords at me. I quickly stepped aside, and slashed my sword. Blood flew from her body as my sword went through her skin, leaving a small cut behind.

She groaned, pointed the swords at me and tried to stab me. I quickly backed off. I readied myself to strike again, but she outsmarted me and slashed my sword away. I fell over.

She slowly neared me again. It was over. She could easily pierce through me now. She readied her swords and was about to strike me when she suddenly fell down. Her swords disappeared and she gasped for air.

I stood up and ran toward my sword. I picked it up and ran towards Morgana. I could finish her. I jumped and readied my sword, but as I were about to hit her, she warped away. I saw her running away in the distance. I wondered why she gave up so easily.

"Moon!" A familiar voice shouted. "Are you alright?" Twilight asked, who was breathing heavily, "What happened?"

I explained to her about the dream and the fight with Morgana.

"She must've used the nightmare crystal," Twilight explained, "Not only does it allow you to turn someone's dream into a nightmare, you can also step into it or even view the victim's memories."

It worried me. "I've got bad news, too!" she said, while she looked disappointed. "About the crystals..."

I already knew what she was going to say.

"Morgana took them with her. She didn't leave a single one behind..."

I fell down and tears came up. All the work for nothing! All we did, all the suffering we had when collecting the crystals, just for them to be stolen.

I were tired. Twilight and I went back home. Not a single word was spoken again that night.