Celestia stood her ground staring down Nazara with an intent to kill. It had been a long three hundred years since their last encounter and this time she wanted to make sure she'd kill him for good.

"Haha! Celestia! So glad you could make it to die with your pathetic guards." He snarled.

"It is you who will perish." She said.

A bolt of blue lightning struck Nazara from the side sending him against the wall cracking the heavy marble stone to where chucks had fallen down onto Nazara as he hit the floor. Princess Luna stood tall and proud of her ambush tactics her and her sister used. The Princess of the Night used her Royal Canterlot voice to speak to the abomination, "we shall vanquish ye' o' foul beast of blood and death!"

Princess Celestia approached her sister and they focused both their magical forces upon Nazara casting a gravity spell so dense it caused the vampire to collapse into nothingness but a infinitely small singularity. Feeling accomplished the sisters smiled at each other thinking they had defeated the vampire once and for all but before they could begin the celebrations Nazara's remains blasted across the room in all direction covering the alicorns head to hoof in blood and flesh pulverized to a fine mist.

The liquid that was now all that remained of Nazara formed once again into the undead vampire. A smug grin covered his face.

"Is that all you got?" He asked rhetorically sending out black fire that consumed both the mares. He chuckled to himself believing he was torching the alicorns in flames only to be shot down by that serendipitous thought with Celestia's white hot magic piercing through the flames with ease. The two stood now staring down each other, but something was off. Luna was gone.

Just as he realized this a translucent axe fell down cleaving his head off followed by several more slicing his body into thin pieces followed by a scorching flame erupting from Celestia's horn sending him severed head screaming in agony. His body morphed back into position again but before he could recover Luna bucked him in the side sending his crumpled body still reconstructing itself hurling across the floor leaving a stream of red liquid in it's path. Celestia took to the sky and angled in for a strike on the stallion's body shooting downward with a one hoof out preparing for a strike. She collided as predicted snapping the unicorn's horn straight from his head. She smashed her hooves into his face repeatedly over and over again until it was but a pulp. And once again the unicorn regenerated itself.

Before the princess' could land another strike Nazara teleported away unable to secure his soul gem but certain the princess' wouldn't find it or they would have destroyed it by now.

"Sister, what was that monster?" Luna asked.

"A vampire. A very powerful one." Celestia replied.

"Why would a vampire risk such a brazen and stupid assault on the palace? It brings us with questions of his motive." Luna asked.

"I'm not sure, Luna, but whatever brought him here. It can't be good." Celestia said in response, walking towards Shining Armor and checking his pulse. He was still breathing which caught her by surprise. She placed her horn onto his would and it illuminated with a radiant green glow as his wounds began to mend closed.

Shining Armor awoke from his blood loss and sat up quickly saluting the princess', "my deepest apologies Princess' I failed to kill the intruder and I lost four good stallions. I accept whatever fate you give me."

Celestia sighed, "Shining Armor, you did your best. There was no way you could have beaten him. Even we were unable to. Thank you for surviving though. At least one pony made it out alive." She looked up into the air trying to hold back the tears, "go secure the perimeter I don't want that thing back here." She said, "I'm going back to bed.

Luna could see it in her sister. She was distraught she just lost four ponies and nearly lost Shining Armor. She couldn't say anything in front of Shining Armor fearing her sister wouldn't speak to her about such matters truthfully. She hated seeing her sister in so much pain. Shining Armor left the room and began shouting to guards to do various tasks to secure the palace from intruders.

"'Tia?" Luna started, "is everything alright?"

"N-no, Luna, everything is going terribly. Nazara is back he's killed two fillies already and now four of my guards as well as severely injured Shining Armor. He needs to be stopped, now.

..........

The Inquisitors lead by Princess Twilight Sparkle now arrived at the Canterlot palace. It was usually heavily guarded tonight sending questions through everyponies minds as to what might have happened to cause this. Twilight Sparkle approached the main gate and was quickly and graciously let it followed by reluctancy for her guests yet they were just as quickly allowed entrance after displaying their armor indicating they held rank higher than the Royal Guards and not to obstruct them in any way.

They traveled through the long palace corridors until reaching the library. Twilight's mouth dropped agape as she entered seeing the mess around her and Princess Luna standing still until she noticed the other alicorn enter.

"What the hell happened here!" Twilight yelled looking at Luna.

"A vampire attacked and lost. He escape us however. Unfortunate it is but it is good that he left or your brother would have died." Luna said.

Twilight's heart sank, "M-my brother. Where is he? Is he alright. I swear to Tartarus I'll boil Nazara in acid if he-" Twilight was cut short of her rant as Shining Armor came in covered from snout to hoof in blood. A long scar brandished itself across his chest. Twilight grabbed onto her brother crying heavily to see him alive and well.

"Hey Twinkle good to see you again." He said with a smile roughing up her mane with his foreleg.

She wiped her eyes and punched him in the chest playfully, "don't call me that in front of my guests." She said blushing in embarrassment.

"What happened to your chest?" She asked touching it gently as if he would be in pain.

"Ah, just got stabbed through and through. Nothing too bad. Princess Celestia saved me though. I was lucky for that." He said nonchalantly.

"You sure know how to break the ice about getting nearly killed pretty easily." Said Diamond Star approaching the two alicorns and the stallion unicorn.

"Hehe, yeah, well, I don't think there's any way to sugar coat it so I just had to tell Twily what happened. Good to see you again Diamond Star." Shining Armor said nodding his head in respect to the mare.

"So what happened here anyway?" She asked.

"Well, after making our usual patrol we found the first casualty the librarian and investigated. Upon finding the restricted sign down we further investigated finding a unicorn stallion searching for something. We attempted to detain him but he-" Shining Armor gulped down some tears remembering what happened to his squad, "killed everyone but me thanks to my shield and reaction time. We attempted to duel and when I thought I killed him by piercing him with my horn and using a demolition charge spell to obliterate his body he regenerated and stabbed me. I went unconscious and when I woke up he was gone and the Princesses were standing over me." He said in one long winded breath. It would have given Pinkie Pie a run for her bits with how long that speech was.

"I see." Diamond Star said, "thank you for the intel."

"No problem," Shining Armor said heading for the door, "I got some more business to do I just had to come and see my sister after hearing you were in the palace. Seeya Twinkle!" He shouted before running back down the hallway.

Twilight blushed a little more still a bit angry with her brother for purposefully calling her that.

"Twinkie!" Trixie shouted aloud, "haha! That's hilarious!"

"I have had about enough of your shit Trixie!" Twilight roared sending blast of magic that send Trixie colliding with the marble wall.

She rose to her hooves, "so, you wanna go Twinkle?" she said spitting out a bit of blood.

Twilight teleported in front of Trixie bucking her in the mouth. Trixie recoiled grabbing the mare's legs and throwing her against the wall. Twilight slid down hitting her head. With a pop of magic she stood on her hooves again bracing the ground and preparing for a charge.

"Trix! Stand down that's an order!" Roared Diamond Star at the insubordinate pony.

"Fuck you Diamond! She picked this fight and I'm going to end it!" Trixie yelled back.

Twilight charged forward and so did Trixie. Just as they were about to collide Twilight popped behind her turning around before Trixie could recoil and blasted her with a pulse of inky blackness. Trixie fell down screaming in agony and clutching her skull.

"Make it stop! Make it fucking stop! Ah! The voices! So many voices!" Cried Trixie rolling in agony. Luna saw what Twilight did and approached with with haste.

"This must stop at once Ms. Sparkle. We do not approve of this method!" Luna roared in her canterlot voice.

Twilight looked up at her in anger and back down to Trixie. She approached the mare and tapped her skull with her horn alleviating the agonizing pain she was in instantly.

She glared down at Trixie, "let this be a lesson, next time I won't listen to Princess Luna and you will suffer for as long as I deem necessary."

"What did she just do?" Ask Rapier looking at Diamond Star.

"T-that was Soul Swallower's master hallucination spell, Voices of the Dead. It's forbidden magic." Replied Silver Streak.

Diamond Star approached Trixie and looked upon her with disgust before hitting her on top of the head, "and that's for insubordination!"

Twilight looked up the long shelf of books and took to flight to find the one she was looking for. Soul Swallower's dissertation on Soul-Splitting. She glided back down to the ground placing it on an undamaged table and opened up the front cover. She drew her foreleg over the page unable to find a bump in the paper. Hoping this was the right book she flipped over to the back cover and felt down the page and to her dismay she found nothing. She closed the book looking defeated until a thought crossed her mind. The spine she thought to herself. It was rather clique, but altogether clever that Nazara would put the Soul Gem with his Fear into the spine of a book indicating in a metaphorical sense he liberated himself from his own spinelessness.

The other ponies drew crowd around her even Princess Luna interested in what she was doing. She unbound the book tugging at the sinew string that bound the pages together until the pages were just in a neat stack held together by no means now. Twilight opened up the book moved the pages from the cover and spine and low and behold she was right in her intuition. Embedded with the spine was a Soul Gem. She prepared herself for what was next. If she touched it she would most likely be knocked out once again talking to another emotion separated from Nazara. And with a the brush of her foreleg she felt the world growing black around her. Frantic voices sounded low pitched until she blissfully fell asleep.

........

"Who are you? What are you doing here? Who sent you? Did HE send you?" Said a voice awaking the alicorn. She rose to her hooves shaking off the headache that she gained from each touch of the gems.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, I'm here to talk to you. I sent myself." She said, "does that answer your questions?"

"Y-no-maybe. I don't know." Said the frantic voice.

"Why don't you turn around. There's no need to be afraid. I'm not him" She said in a cooing voice.

"Are you sure? I mean, he might come back and when he does I know he'll make me fear again." Said the figure slowly turning around.

"He won't be coming back anytime soon. I'm here to stop him actually." She said.

"S-stop him? No pony can stop him. He's unstoppable. I'm unstoppable and it's scary so terrifyingly scary to know what I can do." Said Nazara. He looked positively paranoid. Shaking and flinching at everything and nothing.

"You're Fear aren't you? Fear the Spineless. I met Sadness the Longing as well. I must say Nazara, or should I say you are very melodramatic and overly clever when it comes to concealment. I mean going to such lengths to preserve one's self is impressive if you're a demented necromancer.

"Shhh!" He said, "don't say his name. He could come back."

"Why are you so scared that he might come back? What are you scared of that he'll do if he does?" She asked.

"Because I'm scared of myself. What I've done and what I'm going to do is the stuff of nightmares and legends. Things that should not be. I'm petrified with fear that it will all come true and I will be left with nothing around me. Nothing but death. Please, you have to stop me from scaring myself. I beg of you Twilight. Stop Fear, stop Nazara." He said pleadingly.

"I will, don't worry I can relate I'm just as scared as you are." She said.

"Y-you are?" He asked.

"Yes, I know that when all is said and done I'll be dead and so will Nazara. I destroyed Sadness. I have to end you too. And when I finish Love. He will die and that will be my end." She said in a shaking voice.

"Y-you'd sacrifice yourself just to save me from my own fear? W-why?" He asked.

"Because I want to save so many other people. And first I have to save you." She said touching Nazara on the shoulder. Her warm touch calmed him down a bit so he wasn't as jittery.

Fear grabbed Twilight in a loving embrace hugging her tightly, "thank you Twilight. You've shown me not to fear myself anymore."

"You're welcome." She replied opening her eyes and realizing she was hugging the air and nothing else.

She lied back down on the ground closing her eyes, "it's just Love now and this will all be over." She said aloud crying quietly to herself.

........

Twilight awoke gasping for air and shot upwards. She was surrounded by the Inquisitors still and Princess Luna looked particularly worried. She stood up on her hooves with her legs feeling like jello wobbling back and forth. She aimed her horn once again at the Soul Gem blasting it with a precise bolt of electricity that shattered it instantly.

The same surge of excruciating pain rocked her head for what seemed a millennia but soon subsided once again leaving the ponies around her very worried about her condition.

"Twilight are you okay?" Asked Diamond Star.

"Never better." She said. She noticed something different about herself. She could barely see out of her left eye anymore. and her limbs on her left side felt numb and lifeless.

"You sure? I mean, it looks like you just got cataracts a lot faster than possible." She said, "and what did you just destroy?"

"A Soul Gem. I destroyed two of them so far. One more to go and Nazara is dead for." She said.

"But what about your eye? Is that a symptom of destroying the soul gems? We need to get that checked out." She said sternly.

"No, we need to finish this. We need to-" Twilight collapsed onto the ground completely unconscious. Her mind began to wander to the dream land once again this time not influenced by the dark forces of a soul gem.

Twilight awoke halfway blinking in and out of consciousness as she stared at pear white ceilings drifting by faster than she could count each tile. She could hear her friends in the distance call her name. Ponies in white masks look at her from time to time call her name but try as she might she couldn't call out back to them.

She found herself in a white room with ponies standing over her. Some shouting numbers other calling out names of medical terms. A mask was placed over her face despite her best efforts to lift her hooves and defend herself from this unknown assailant and his unclear motives. She breathed in heavily tasting a slightly sweet flavor she couldn't quite place on what to call. In seconds she returned to the dream world ready for her imagination to take a hold of.

Author's Note

Next chapter! Twilight has sex with herself.