Shattered Harmony

X

   It was the same time as yesterday that Twilight arrived at the courtyard. Today though, she was accompanied by her companion Spike and a group of ten royal guards who’d been acquisitioned to assist her in teaching the recruits. This time she prepared to teach them what they didn’t already know and not be sassed by Trixie, something Luna had heard about and made a point to scold Twilight about the night before.

   “So Twilight Sparkle, we heard there was some… insubordination, at today’s training exercises.” Luna had said, “If you are to be a princess, you must act like one. The next time one of your underlings steps out of line, reprimand them and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Luna had then given her a brief, and annoyed speech after that about how she needed to be in command at all times. Luna told her that now of all times was a time not be soft, now was the time to be rigid and strict, and that Twilight needed to have some backbone if she was going to do anything besides sit in the castle and read books until the end of days. Twilight took her own view on the tongue lashing Luna had given her however; she would try to stave off being as harsh as Luna could be when until the time absolutely called for it. Just because Luna was rigid and cold didn’t mean Twilight had to be, this was something Luna saw as weakness, but Twilight knew there was a difference between being tyrannical to one’s subordinates and being weak.

   Today she would start out teaching focused energy beams to those who didn't know since it would help later with other offensive magic. To start off, she figured it would be best to once again have them form a line and she’d just go down the way and have them fire a simple beam at a target, that target being Spike. Dragons were immune to all but the most advanced magic that even Twilight could barely perform, except of course for enveloping spells such as levitation. Anything that had to be focused into a small area like energy beams simply dissipates on the surface of their scales, a property that made them very valuable to armorers and alchemists. So even if they mustered a blast that could stop a pony’s heart, it would only just fizzle on the scales of Spike’s hide.

   Twilight had often used her friend for target practice; even if he seemed reluctant to do so he always admitted it was kind of fun. After a few times it became a game between the two of them, Spike would try and duck and dodge Twilight’s spells and she would be right behind him the whole way; tickling his scaly skin with blasts of magic that could cripple someone else. So upon hearing what was asked of him, he volunteered quite readily to assist his friend in her endeavor.

   “So, you ready to go Spike?” asked Twilight.

   “One second please.” Spike stretched out his arms, and rose to the tip of his toes with a great yawn. He then went back on his heels and pulled in his arms to scratch his stomach for a moment, “Alright then, I’m ready.”

   “Good to hear,” Twilight smiled at her sleepy companion, “now just walk about twenty steps that way and just keep pace with me as we go down the line, just be sure to look away so they don’t hit you in the eyes, it’s always unpleasant when that happens.”

   “You’re telling me.” Spike acknowledged Twilight’s request and shuffled over to be a little in bit away from where the front of the line would begin. Twilight then turned to the cadets in front of her.

   “Good morning everyone.” said Twilight.

   “Good morning Princess.” replied the recruits.

   “After yesterday’s… revelations, I’ve decided to change things up a bit. Today we’re going to get everyone up to speed on focused energy beams before we move further down the list of things to do. If you already know them, then try to improve upon what you know and hopefully by the end of the day you’ll all be masters of it. So to start out I want you all to form a line just like you did yesterday for the teleportation. Once you’re there, I ask that you focus a beam directed at my assistant Spike as we go down the line in front of you. And don’t worry about hurting him, there’s nothing you can do that will harm a dragon. Do not take this as an encouragement to try though, just cast a simple beam on him and we’ll move on. I will also be helping anyone who is having trouble as we go down the line, so if a lot of ponies are struggling then it may take a while for us to reach the end so just bear with us. We have a long day so I want to try and get everyone up to speed on an individual level so I know you’re ready. It just wouldn’t be right in my opinion to have everyone practice something you all need to know at the same time, this way I can make sure you’re ready by the time we’re done here.”

   Twilight then ordered the recruits to form the line she had requested and began making her way down to the end of the line. Before she arrived at the end, the recruits finished forming their line, just as straight and perfect as the last one, and were awaiting the order to go. Twilight turned and nodded to Spike, who gave her a thumb up with one hand while he covered his yawning mouth with another.

   “Alright then, you’re up first, uhm…” Twilight embarrassingly forgot the first cadet’s name.

   “Fire Ball.” replied the orange stallion in front of her.

   “Fire Ball! Sorry, I have a lot of names to keep track of.” She smiled and her face flushed with a hint of red. Fire Ball looked to Spike who stood there waiting the first of many magical blasts he’d be receiving for the day. Closing his eyes for a moment with a look of determination, the tip of his horn began to glow a bright red and a moment later he opened his eyes and with a nod of his head a bright red beam shot out from his horn and flew into Spike where it dissipated rapidly into a smoky cloud that vaporized in seconds.

   “Very good, Fire Ball.” Twilight then stepped forward to the next mare in line, she repeated Fire Ball’s actions and sending a blue beam straight at Spike who took it without so much as a flinch as it smacked into him with a sparkling puff of magical smoke. This continued on for the next ten recruits before Twilight came to one who couldn’t successfully form a beam. The mare’s name was Shining Star, a name that briefly reminded her of Luna’s former captain.

   “Okay then,” began Twilight, “nothing wrong with not knowing, that’s why we’re here. So to form a beam you first need to focus your magic into your horn, our entire body gathers latent magic from all around us, and we as unicorns are able to use this magic because our horns act as foci.” Twilight stopped for a moment, “Apologies if you’ve heard this before, but this is the way I was taught so bear with me. Through concentration we can bring forth the magic within our bodies to the tips of our horns, with other spells such as levitation, projection, and teleportation, we are merely channeling our magic around physical objects or ourselves and moving them with our magic. With energy beams, we are collecting and focusing this magic onto a small point and then unleashing it all at once at another. So to begin, call forth your magic to the tip of your horn.”

   Shining Star did was she was instructed, and the tip of her blue horn began to glow a bright white as she closed her eyes, “Now that you have your magic built up, you need to pick a point to unleash it at. Remember, aim small, miss small. If you just look at Spike as a whole, you’re more likely to miss, concentrate on one specific scale while holding the spell for a moment, you may release when I say.” Shining Star opened her eyes and strained slightly as she held the spell on her horn. Her eyes went straight to Spike and Twilight could see small movements as they searched for a target, after a few seconds of searching they settled on a target and ceased their movements. Twilight took this as a sign she’d found a target. “You may now fire when ready.” No sooner did Twilight finish did Shining Star loose a bean straight past Spike and into the wall behind him where it scorched a small mark into the white brick of the courtyard stone.

   “Well done Shining Star, now you just have to work on that aim and you’ll be just fine. I’m sure by the end of the day you’ll be shooting straight.” Twilight smiled genuinely to the small mare, who obviously wasn’t expecting this kind of response, her eyes were wide with fear and for a moment she held a hoof up to her mouth to stifle a gasp. After a brief moment she processed she wasn’t going to be reprimanded for scorching the bricks, and she calmed down as Twilight nodded to her before moving on. The next stallion was the same way, and he received the same attention that Shining Star had. His shot at Spike flew true however, and blasted into him with the same cloud of magical smoke that accompanied each successful hit on his scales.

   Down the line they went, Spike sleepily trudging along and getting shot at without so much as a wince and Twilight happily instructing the recruits who couldn’t accomplish the task at hand until they were able to form a proper beam before moving down the line. All in all about three quarters of them could successfully form and fire an energy beam without assistance, and it had already been an hour by the time Twilight made her way down to the end of the line to ask the one pony she’d been dreading to see since yesterday if she could do an energy beam.

   Arriving at the end of the line Twilight had to hold back the giggle she so badly wanted to let out in Trixie’s face. Upon Trixie’s face was a muzzle that kept her mouth firmly shut; something that obviously annoyed her to no end. When Twilight looked at her, Trixie could see that she wanted to laugh aloud in her face and she gave Twilight an angry glare through squinted eyes. She didn’t even wait for Twilight to speak before blasting Spike with a beam that smacked him right between the eyes causing him to sneeze at the puff of smoke in his face.

   “Well done Trixie, good to see you’ve improved since the last time we met.” Twilight took guilty pleasure in her ‘complimenting’ Trixie like she was a foal; she knew full well that it ate at her to no end that she couldn’t respond. Trixie being the last one in the line Twilight walked out to the middle of the line to address everyone.

   “Okay then, now that every pony has done at least one beam, we’re going to put that knowledge to the test, and to help me, I’ve brought along these gentlecolts here.” Twilight pointed to the ten royal guards who had been off to the side during Twilight’s session with the recruits to avoid being hit by a stray beam. “With their help, we’ll be conjuring familiars that will rush at you all, the familiars will also be infused with a simple paralyze spell so if they touch you will be frozen in place. It’s nothing dangerous or painful, but it is very inconveniencing.” Twilight laughed. “We’re going to have a bit of a game with this, you’ll be defending yourselves from wave after wave of familiars, you won’t be able to attack them until we say so, and they won’t attack until we give the order. So when I yell go, the familiars will attack you, and you have to dispel them with an energy beam, they’ll just poof into a little ball of smoke the rest will keep coming until you defeat them all. After each round we’ll conjure a few more and when we’re ready we’ll signal the next round to begin, everyone ready?” The recruits nodded, this time Twilight could see a little bit of enthusiasm in their faces.

   “Alright then,” Twilight turned to the guards “gentlecolts, if you would please join me up on the wall.” Each of them teleported atop the wall with Twilight and began conjuring familiars in the courtyard below as Twilight lifted Spike to her side from the courtyard below. Each familiar was a translucent pink pony with a cartoonish face that bore a resemblance to a nightmare night mask made by a foal with angry eyes and triangular teeth visible from a ridiculously proportioned mouth. It was obvious the magic constructs were training dummies. Once summoned they stumbled around and bumped into each other as more and more joined them in the courtyard until a total of fifty had been summoned. They walked around and fought as they bungled into one another by bashing their heads into each other and flopping hooves in the air wildly.

   For the few moments before the rest summoned it was quite comical to watch them with their idiotic movements and clumsy brawls, but when the last ones were summoned Twilight yelled out over them, “Go!” and each of them took off at unexpected speed toward a specific pony in the line, each going for someone different. It took a moment for most of the recruits to react and they’d almost reached a few of them before beams started flying across the courtyard, creating an impressive display of light as the beams crossed over one another and slammed into the familiars evaporating them into clouds of pink smoke. Numerous beams whizzed straight past the intended target or flew through the spaces now occupied by magical pink smoke to fly into the walls and make a little scorch mark in the bricks. Twilight figured she wouldn’t be too popular with the groundskeepers for a few days after this.

   When the first wave of familiars was wiped out and the pink smoke dissipated into the air they began making more. This time there were to be seventy-five conjured. Same as before the familiars acted like idiots as their numbers swelled, each of them flopping around and bumping into one another with little care. But this time the recruits weren’t losing concentration on them, sure a few of them giggle and laughed at the spectacle before them, but they weren’t looking away. When the last of them entered into the world Twilight once again gave the signal for them to begin. This time they were eliminated with incredible speed as a barrage of magic cut them down before half of them could move.

   “Good job every pony, much better that time.” Twilight called out to the recruits with a wave, a few of them even waved back to her as she went back to creating the next wave with the rest of the guards with her. This wave of one-hundred met much the same fate as the last one, most were wiped out a moment after Twilight said go and the rest lasted only a second longer. It was like this for five more waves until the full number of familiars summoned was two-hundred and fifty of the bungling target dummies.

   “I wonder how many they’ll be able to take.” said Spike.

   “Who knows, if they can keep up like that they should have no problems defeating well over a few hundred.” No sooner did she finish replying to Spike did they summon the last group bit of the needed familiars. When Twilight yelled for it to start the initial blast by the recruits took out the frontal line just like the wave before, the ones behind them burst out of the pink cloud and dashed toward the line in all directions, the blur of pink made them difficult to target as they kept firing at them. The cloud of smoke quickly grew towards the firing line as more of them were taken out in rapid succession as they drew closer and closer, but this time they didn’t have enough in them to stop all of them and four ponies were struck by familiars that exploded on them and froze them in place while simultaneously shading them an obnoxious pink. The ones who’d been paralyzed stood in place looking about with rapidly moving eyes, in panicky fashion as they assessed their situation. Spike was giggling at the ridiculous display as Twilight addressed the ponies below.

   “Ooh, looks like they got a few that time,” Twilight laughed to the recruits below, “better shoot faster next time or you’ll all be frozen up before too long.” The next was consisted of two-hundred and seventy-five familiars and Twilight wasn’t sure how much longer they’d have to keep going before they had to go down and free up a line of pink statues. She was pleasantly surprised to find out the recruits still had some fight in them when the next wave was ready to go. As the signal was given the wall of light that covered the courtyard once again crashed into the front row of familiars as the rest bolted through, the moment they came into sight on the other side of the cloud they were met by a steady stream of incoming beams that picked them apart and managed to stop them just before they reached the line.

   “Great job everyone! Keep up the good work!” Twilight once again offered words of encouragement before going back to summoning familiars. “Glad these are easy to do at least, it would be exhausting if the spell required any effort.” said Twilight to the guards helping her who nodded in reply. The next wave claimed a few more ponies however, seven in all were turned into pink reminders of what happened when you don’t aim or shoot quickly enough. The next wave took sixteen more and the wave after that twenty-five were taken by the familiar charge. It only took two more waves for the firing line to be defeated. All in all they had survived eleven waves bringing the total number of defeated familiars summoned on the last wave to four-hundred needed to completely finish off the line. Lasting so long against unnaturally fast opponent in such a small arena was quite impressive in Twilight’s book, she would let them know it as they went to de-petrify the recruits. Lifting Spike onto her back she jumped off the wall and flew down to the end of the line to begin countering the petrifaction spell as the guards teleported down to do the same.

   “Very well done every pony, you stood all the way up to two to one odds while severely under strength and I’m fully confident that had you all been free to move you could have gone even farther. Before we move on to the next round we’re going to do like we did when we started except this time I’m going to fly above you as Spike runs in front of you, simply fire when I pass overhead. I want to see how everyone has improved.” When Twilight had done her section of the recruits she walked to the end of the line where she started before. Picking herself up into the air she began to fly as fast as Spike could run on his short stubby legs as he closed his left eye to keep it from being hit and ran in a straight line to the end. As he went along he was constantly assailed by the slight annoyance of magical energies being launched against his side. Twilight saw there was an improvement in accuracy amongst those who’d previously missed, but a few of them still sent a beam straight into the bricks on the opposite side of the courtyard. After completing her flight across the courtyard she assessed that another round was in order to help everyone further improve on their skills. Picking up Spike as she passed over him she flew back up on top of the wall and was shortly followed by the guards.

   “Okay everyone, we’ll go through another round and see where we’re at after this.” Twilight called to the recruits as the guards once again began summoning familiars. It was after two waves that they received an unexpected visit.

   “Good afternoon Twilight Sparkle.” began a familiar voice behind Twilight. Turning around she saw Princess Luna landing on the wall behind her. “We were told that we could find you here, we came to see how the training was going.” The black glass orb that replaced her old eye, despite not having any form of iris upon it seemed to peer straight into Twilight as Luna approached.

   ‘It’s going rather well actually, the recruits went up all the way to a wave of three-hundred seventy-five paralyzing familiars until being defeated by a wave of four-hundred. I also saw in improvement in their individual accuracy when I ran them through a test afterward, I feel they’ve got some real potential down there.”

   “This is good to hear Twilight Sparkle; we have come to observe for a little while.” Princess Luna took a place at Twilight’s side as they began summoning more of the familiars for the next wave of one-hundred twenty-five. As the horde of magical pink constructs began to form at the base of the wall they were standing atop Luna’s expression was that of disappointment. When they began bumbling around and comically fighting amongst one another she seemed to be growing angry at the display before her, and Twilight began to take notice that Luna was not happy with what she was seeing with her remaining eye. She looked down to her dragon companion to see him excitedly awaiting the next display of magical force, gleefully unaware of the growing discontent in the princess behind him.

   After all of them were conjured Twilight gave the signal with a hint of nervousness in her voice. Much like the times before the familiars were cut down by a barrage of fire from the recruits in the line and clouds of pink smoke filled the courtyard once more. The ponies below hit their hooves together and laughed with their success. Luna’s displeasure at some unknown factor was visible as she turned to Twilight with annoyed expression.

   “You do realize that these ponies are going to war, Twilight Sparkle?” Luna questioned her.

   “Yes Princess Luna.” Twilight nervously replied and tried to think of a way to respond that wouldn’t come across as insulting, she was cut off before anything came to mind.

   “Then why are they preparing for it by fighting silly pink constructs?” Luna scolded Twilight, “They must be prepared for what they are about to face and they will not be fighting something that resembles a child’s toy.”

   “Then what would you suggest?” Twilight was in panic mode, with more of the kingdom’s operations having been suddenly thrown onto Luna’s shoulders she had grown very stressed and very short tempered. And with Luna in front of her voicing her obvious displeasure at her methods of teaching it became very difficult to think of what to say in return for fear of angering Luna further, something that had become a theme with all denizens of Canterlot castle over the past month.

   “We’ll Twilight Sparkle, when our father trained the armies of old for the conquests of what we now know as Equestria he used to use the nightmare energies of the void to acclimate his soldiers to fear and teach them that in failure came their worst nightmares. We will show you how to do this at a later time but for now we shall be assisting in the training of these recruits.” Luna beckoned Twilight to follow her as she leapt from the wall and glided down in front of the recruits.

   “Loyal soldiers of Equestria, for the rest of the day we shall be assisting in your training to better prepare you for your coming endeavors.” spoke Luna to the recruits with absolute authority. Many of them seemed so excited to be joined by yet another of their princesses, possibly thinking that Luna would teach them some fearsome and powerful magic, they were unfortunately mistaken, “Upon the battlefield you shall be assailed by the worst enemy we have to face… fear.” The air in the courtyard seemed to chill by a few degrees. “Today you will be meeting this foe head on, to conquer it here and now so that you are immune to its grasp upon the field. You shall be trained in the ways our father trained the greatest fighting force that Equestria has ever seen, the Equestrian Old Guard. They were successful in the great war of unification because of the way they feared nothing. No enemy could shake their resolve, and it was because of the way our father prepared them for it, the way we shall prepare you all for it starting today.” While some of the recruits seemed unsure of what to think, many of them were actually excited for what was coming next, “if only they’d known” Twilight would later think.

   “To begin this training, we request lieutenant-” Luna turned to Twilight, “Which one was it that was showing you such disrespect yesterday?”

   “Lulamoon.” Twilight felt like she was tattling on an old classmate and the shame in her voice reflected her displeasure at damning Trixie to whatever Luna had in mind.

   “Lieutenant Lulamoon, your presence is required.” From all the way at the end of the line came a faint pop as Trixie appeared in front of Luna with her hoof held up to her forehead in salute, the muzzle still firmly in place on her face. “Ah yes, you.” said Luna with a hint of malice in her voice.

   “Your training exercise will not differ much from what you had been prior to our arrival, only one aspect shall change.” Luna closed her eyes for a moment and a black swirling cloud of magic formed around her horn. To her immediate right a pool of what looked like quill ink began to grow on the ground as black smoke began to rise from it. As she continued casting it began to grow into what appeared to be a giant spider that skittered in place with quick and unpredictable movements of its eight chittering legs as it continued to form. Each time it would pick up one of its limbs from the ground a small black spot would be visible for a moment before evaporating away into a cloud of ashen magic. As soon as Luna was done fully creating the spider, which stood the height of a normal pony with eight constantly shifting white eyes, she spoke once again.

   “Before you is what is called an animate nightmare.”  The spider took off at speed to the end of the line where it ran down the length of it to the other end before skittering upon the wall behind them and jumping over the line to return to Luna’s side. “This is a construct of energies from the void, and it is nothing but your worst fears incarnate.” Luna looked to each of the ponies in the line and then down to Trixie, who was glancing at the giant, inky spider next to Luna with unsettling anxiety. “Now, they are dispersed just like your old targets, and will move in much the same way, but there are a few key differences. Lieutenant Lulamoon, if you would disperse the nightmare in front of you.” Luna directed the crowd’s attention to Trixie, who doing as she was told, fired a beam at the spider.

   While only being a few steps away the spider reacted immediately and threw itself to the side to dodge the beam that was directed at it. Its eyes also changed from white to a blood red and it screamed with blood-curdling pitch while lunging at Trixie, whose eyes widened as she quickly jumped backwards and fired at it once more. This time she hit one of its legs, the leg simply sheared of below where it had been hit and the severed section struck the ground and turned to ashen smoke. The spider was momentarily hampered by the sudden amputation and fell to the ground when it would have normally stepped on its recently lost leg, but quickly recovered and made another jump at Trixie who was unable to dodge it this time. The nightmare spider wrapped itself around Trixie’s face and sunk it’s fangs into Trixie before turning into an inky liquid that absorbed into Trixie’s skin.

  Trixie who up unto now had remained somewhat calm despite her arachnid assailant began to react very violently to nightmare as Luna began to explain, “You will no longer be simply frozen if a nightmare gets a hold of you.” Trixie’s eyes began to open very wide as they darted around in all directions, “You will be subjected to your worst fears for a short period should you fail to stop them in time.” Trixie began looking around in front of her and backing up, staring at something that wasn’t there. She shook her head back and forth, turned around and began running before turning sharply and falling over. Rolling onto her back she started kicking her legs wildly and screaming through the muzzle on her face. Twilight and the rest of the recruits watched in horror as Trixie began rolling around on the ground, kicking and screaming against some unseen attacker as tears formed in her eyes and she began crying hysterically.

   After a moment of kicking on the ground she managed to get to her feet and start running toward to opposite end of the line where she had stood before. She only made it a few steps past Luna before she fell over once again, this time she planted her face firmly in the tiles and bloodied her nose as she once again began fighting against something that wasn’t there with tears in her eyes and muffled, terrified screams from beneath her muzzle. And then, as soon as it had started Trixie closed her eyes and opened them once more with the realization that her nightmare was over. Though tears still formed in her eyes, she had stopped her screaming after seeing that it was completed and she looked around before rising to her feet and wiping her eyes. She just stood there for a moment, humiliated and scared in front of her peers as she collected her thoughts as to how to proceed when Luna began once again.

  “As you can see, the animate nightmares are something that are not to be trifled with. This training will be effective in one of two ways.” The crowd before her stood absolutely silent, too horrified about what they were getting into to reply. “Either you shall destroy your enemy before it is able to harm you… or you will become immune to the fear of it trying.” Luna paused for a moment, leaving the courtyard silent as the grave. “Now then, take up your positions and prepare for the beginning. We shall not stop summoning the nightmares until you have all succumbed or we have deemed your training sufficient for the day.” The line shifted nervously as Luna and Twilight once again flew atop the wall, “You may fire when they start to move, try not to strike any that are in the process of being made manifest or you will be instantly afflicted by it.” She called out to the recruits as she began summoning several nightmares at a time.

  Twilight at Luna’s right who was looking down below them at the line of recruits who now shuffled nervously in place awaiting the nightmare’s movement as a signal. She once again called into question the actions of her senior princess. Granted Luna had been a leader of Equestria much longer than Twilight could fathom, but she was unsure that this type of treatment was necessary. Ever since Celestia’s death Luna had grown exceedingly cold and harsh. She was extremely short with the castle staff and shouted each time they were in her way, even if she had nothing pressing and was just strolling the grounds. She caught herself just in time a few days ago and stopped herself from lobbing a poor maid through a second story window when did not leave a room as quickly as Luna had wanted her to. The only time nowadays she wasn’t violently lashing out at some pony was when she was in her quarters, presumably seeing to Falling Star, who Twilight had not heard anything from since their meeting after the execution. Luna’s actions caused Twilight increasing more stress, and these past weeks she’d strived not to do anything to anger her, even if it meant not voicing her opinions on Luna’s troubling actions. She and Spike exchanged a worried look as they looked to one another as if either one had something to say about their current predicament, neither spoke.

  As the first few nightmares began to finish their formations they began to move about on the courtyard and the first of the beams began to fly out to them. As before they let out a horrifying scream and dodged the beams as they quickly skittered towards the line. The first four were destroyed in a blaze of light and magic, being completely eviscerated by the beams. Some of the more unfortunate unicorns who’d cast at the moving spiders were unlucky enough to have their magic sail straight through the ash clouds left behind and slam straight into a forming nightmare. When their magic hit the coalescing magic it was absorbed into the spiraling ink of the void before them. The inky blots quickly pulled into a ball that spared no time turning into an incredibly fast spear of nightmare energies that cut the air and slammed into the caster of the beam that interrupted the nightmare’s conjuration.

  The oily pitch absorbed into each of them and after a moment their screams of terror filled the courtyard as they, like Trixie before them, began attempting to flee their invisible attackers, or curled up into a ball and began sobbing uncontrollably. Their comrades simply held their place knowing that there was nowhere for them to go from here, and fearing what Luna would do to them, kept their position as their horrified friends fought against their worst fears.

  This cycle would continue for hours as Luna summoned more and more nightmares into the courtyard as Twilight watched in horror, too afraid to say anything. The recruits began holding their own against the steadily increasing onslaught of nightmares, and as time went on, despite more and more screaming arachnids scuttling across the courtyard, a steady decrease in recruits who were being taken by successful attempts by the nightmares could be seen. After a about two hours into Luna’s nightmare wave scarcely any recruits at all were being taken by the nightmares. They would still break down into complete collapse when taken though; it would take more than a few exposures to pure fear to dull their senses to it.

  But after accepting the fact that they were trapped they fought against the nightmares with increased skill and efficiency. Squads would focus in on groups together and multiple ponies would focus in on the same target to cover the areas where it might dodge to and instead be struck by focused magic. It was only after Twilight had seen that Luna’s training method, though terrifying, was greatly effective. The recruits were holding off against a sizable horde of nightmares that only grew with each passing moment. The entire courtyard save for a space of about twenty yards in front of the line was completely covered in magical black smoke and the inky legs of screaming nightmare spiders that created a deafening screech due to their numbers.

  At intermittent periods of time Luna would open her eyes to check to see if the recruits had all been taken by the nightmares yet, before promptly closing them again to resume casting. It was at one of these points Twilight made a startling discovery. As Luna stopped her magic and opened her eyes once more to check on the status of the stalwart recruits Twilight was struck by the black orb occupying where Luna’s right eye had once been. Twilight couldn’t see where Luna was looking with her one good eye, but a large reptilian pupil was staring straight into her soul from the black orb in Luna’s skull. Twilight’s blood ran cold as her mind raced. Her memory of Luna killing the assassin in the courtyard flashed before her. In the back of her mind an echoing sound became louder and louder until it could be heard above all else around her. The fearsome laughter of Nightmare Moon blared in her thoughts as her breathing became quickened and erratic. Much like the nightmare stricken cadets who’d been struck by the pitch black spiders below, Twilight was beginning succumb to pure fear.

  And then, as soon as it started, Luna closed her eyes once more and whatever energy had taken hold of her had lost its grasp as she began channeling her magic again. Twilight looked around for a moment to try and find something else to think of, she searched in all directions, looking everywhere... everywhere except at Luna. She then turned to face the courtyard once more as thoughts raced through her head, trying to rationalize what had just happened. She hoped what she was thinking wasn’t what was happening. Twilight’s fear having been awakened in earnest moments before would not be quieted by trying to simply rationalize it away. She couldn’t even think of a way to rationalize it. She turned to Spike at her side who was staring at her with worry in his eyes. She looked to him with confusion, completely unable to process what she’d just seen. Though she wanted to believe it was something else, everything in her mind screamed Nightmare Moon.

***

  “If I recall correctly, wasn’t it that day that Falling Star came to you for the first time?” asked Spike as he shifted his enormous head closer to the roaring fire in the hearth.

  Twilight sighed, “Yes… yes it was. I was incredibly frightened; I wasn’t sure what to think at first. She just kind of appeared, she looked so different too.” Twilight looked behind her toward the window to the frigid world outside. “She’d been sent by Luna, to ‘guard me’. Luna thought I wouldn’t have been able to defend myself if I was attacked. For being a skeleton not a month before, she sure recovered quickly.”

   “It was that curse, every single time she took any form of grievous wound or injury she was back up and running in no time. All she needed was blood, and whatever the hell it was about the curse just regenerated her.” said Spike.

   “It was one of the things that made it so desirable to ponies that thought it was a source of power and not an affliction. She’d come to accept her situation though, as long as she had her queen.” Twilight sighed, “She never would stop calling Luna her queen, up unto the day she died.”