The Night's Light

by Keeper of time RD

Rating: teen
Tags: Main 6, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Adventure, Dark
Length: 44336

Following the events of nightmare night Luna sets out to find her place in a world that's changes so much in her 1000 years away. Her efforts soon lead her to find that there are dark forces working to shape the future of Equestria.

Following the events of nightmare night Luna sets out to find her place in a world that's changes so much in her 1000 years away. Her efforts soon lead her to find that there are dark forces working to shape the future of Equestria.

Tag notice: teen and dark ratings are solely for the last chapter, the rest is more or less general audience.

Published 2014-10-10 17:20:07 UTC
Last updated 2014-10-10 17:20:07 UTC

Chapter 1: Luna’s Quest

The dark figure flew through the caves, rounding a bend and leaving the last traces of the moonlit night behind. Below the mare were the occasional stone marker, glowing with a soft silver light, marking the path. Not that she needed them, she had flow this path enough times now that the cave was becoming like a second home to her.

Further in and beyond yet another bend, the caves opened up into a truly vast cavern. The ceiling, the walls and even the parts of the floor far enough away from the glow-stone markers all sparkled like a sea of stars, giving the Starlight Caverns its name.

More or less in middle of the cavern was a small town perhaps big enough for a hundred or so ponies. The glowing stone markers scattered about made the town seem like an island of dimly lit gray stone floating in a field of stars. Strategically placed glow-stones in a stream, made the underground river going through the middle of the town shine with soft silver and blue light and, though dim by most ponies’ standards, it was the brightest feature in the underground town.

Beyond the town, by the back of the cavern, was Starlight Castle, built from the same glowing stone as the marker stones, causing it to glow with a soft silver light that made seem like a ghostly guardian watching over the town. The castle’s most noticeable feature was that one of its spires continued all the way to the cavern’s ceiling. Being the only part of the cavern’s ceiling illuminated by the silver light of the glowing stone, that disk of gray stone around the spire seemed like an artificial moon within the Starlight Caverns.

Descending into the town, and landing on the bridge basically in the middle of the village, the gleam of figure’s silver shoes reflected the soft light coming from the nearby stream. Pausing for a moment, the pony with midnight-blue fur looked over the edge of the bridge and stared into the glowing waters flowing below.

In the darkness the two local ponies crossing the bridge might have been mistaken for pegasi. At least until one took the time to notice the leathery wings and nocturnal eyes that marked them as bat ponies. Taking notice of the new arrival’s feathered wings, crescent moon cutie mark and ever flowing mane that sparkled like a vision of the night’s sky, both of the bat ponies gave a respectful bow as one of them greeted the mare, “Princess Luna.”

The alicorn princess of the night looked up from the flowing waters only long enough to give a nod and smile before returning her gaze to the calming dance of lights within the waters flow. As soothing as staring into the water’s glow was it wasn’t enough to conquer the troubles in the back of her mind. Breathing a heavy sigh Luna turned away from the stream and walked the main road of the underground town.

Halting her journey in the darkness halfway between the town and Starlight Castle, Luna beheld the place where the ground was dark enough for the star-like light of the minerals in the rock could be seen. The Starlight Caverns truly were a place of entrant night, and yet even it paled in comparison to the true beauty of the night. With that thought the princess of the night resumed her trek toward Starlight Castle.

The entry room of Starlight Castle was a grand hall with several lesser halls branching off to the sides and a grand staircase in back that branched off to the left and to the right. On the pillars along the sides of the grand hall and the walls between them hung tapestries, alternating between the lunar emblem and pictorial depictions of the story of Nightmare Moon. The largest of tapestries was the one hanging front and center on the wall above the grand staircase, which depicted the elements of harmony defeating Nightmare Moon and purifying Luna. Another noteworthy detail of the castle was that with the ceiling, walls and floor all glowing with the same soft silver light, not a single shadow could be found within the castle.

“Welcome back your highness,” said a lone saluting bat pony, dressed in the armor of the night guard, his extra-ornate helmet marking him as a captain.

Returning the salute, Luna responded, “At ease Captain Shadow Wing. I see the tapestries hath arrived.”

“The first shipment anyway. You’ll find the ones depicting the sprits of harmony and their elements individually also arrived and we put them up in the throne room, as ordered, princess,” Shadow Wing said, motioning to the left path of the grand staircase. Seeing that his princess seemed more interested in the decorations in this room than going to inspect the throne room, the captain added, “They are well done aren’t they? I am curious as to why you wanted these displayed here in the entrance hall though.”

“The mistakes of the past are easy to repeat if one allows themselves to forget them. I should also think that the lesson that ‘power is corruptible’ is a worthy one to display for any whom would learn from another’s mistakes.”

“I see, a wise decision, princess. I must say I like what you’ve done with the place. Before your return Starlight Castle always felt more like a shrine than a castle. It’s good to finally have the ruler it was built for walking these halls,” Shadow Wing said, offering a smile.

Shaking her head Luna responded, “Thou give me too much credit, captain. This place was build while I was in exile and hath been running itself just fine for over seven hundred years. It hardly seems to need my presence, that and all I did was get rid of some statues and started trying out some paintings and such, a slight change of decor at best.”

“Even little changes can make a big difference in how a place feels. Regardless, I have nothing else to report. How were your rounds, princess?”

Luna hung her head slightly as she answered, “The rounds were dreadfully boring. As always, the dream-walking provided the only excitement of the night, and I do believe we hath already agreed that sharing the contents of other ponies dreams without their permission would be improper.”

Nodding the captain asked, “That we have. Is there anything else I can do for you, your highness?”

Pondering the question for a moment, Luna’s gaze became unfocused before snapping back as she answered, “Indeed there is, tell the kitchen staff that I shall not be having dinner here tonight. There is something I wish to discuss with my sister, and I think I shall pick up something while I am in Canterlot instead.”

Giving a quick nod, the bat pony took wing and flew off with all due haste to fulfill his orders. Now alone, Luna retreated to her personal chambers.

Within Luna’s chambers were the things one might expect, a large soft bed, dresser, nightstand, shelf with ornate crowns she only had to ware once in a blue moon on special occasions, desk, and that sort of thing. One object that might have seemed out of the ordinary was a lone mannequin that wore not cloth, but silver-modeling clay currently shaped into the form of armor.

For a moment the princess of the night was tempted to take another stab at molding the clay. Nay, every time I endeavor to make something in my style it always looks too much like that cursed armor it is destined to replace. If only I could find the inspiration to design new armor that embodies my essence, yet resembles not the armor I wore as Nightmare Moon. Luna thought to herself, turning away from the mannequin.

Instead Princess Luna went to the door at the back of her chamber. Beyond that door was a tower-like room, with a spiral staircase along the outer wall. Forgoing the stairs Luna spread her wings and flew up the empty middle of the room. She ascended she passed small slit like windows that would have allowed one to look out and see the Starlight Caverns, although Luna didn’t need look through them to know she was ascending the inside of the spire that went all the way to the roof of the caverns.

Halfway up the spire there ceased to be windows as the spire continued upward, through the mountain. A brisk wind blew through the lone doorway at the top of the spire. Beyond that doorway Luna emerged into a room with only three walls, instead of a fourth wall there was a short balcony extending slightly beyond the reach of the ceiling. A small amount of snow clung to the balcony’s guardrail despite the session, for the balcony was simply above the mountain’s snowline.

Also carved into the side of the mountain were two small shelters, to either side of the balcony. The shelters were only large enough to house a single pony, and positioned in such a way as to give full sight of the balcony itself and the opposite shelter. Within each was a bat pony of the night guard sitting, warped in a heavy blanket. Both gave a respectful bow to their princess before returning their gaze outward, watching over the ‘back door’ to Starlight Castle.

Conjuring up a feather pen and parchment with her magic, Luna wrote down some instructions, then summoning an envelope, she placed the piece of paper inside and added a wax seal bearing the emblem of a crescent moon. Levitating the envelope over to the guard on the right, Luna said, “When thy shift is over pass these orders along to the captain.”

“Yes, your majesty,” the guard answered. Quickly taking the letter, his head disappeared into his blanket for a moment, as he slipped the envelope into his armor.

With the last of her affairs at her own castle complete, Luna spread her wings and took to the air for the short flight to Canterlot.

* * * * * * *

With the golden glow of her magic, Celestia raised the sun, beginning another day. “It’s nice of you to join me this morning, sister. So, what can I do for you?” asked the princess of the sun.

“Is it that obvious that I desire something of you?” Luna asked.

The white alicorn chuckled, “You’ve never been one to stay up late when you didn’t have something important to do during the day, sister.”

“Fair enough, and thou art correct. I hath a favor to ask of thee,” Luna conceded.

Leaving the balcony, Celestia led the way into her privet chamber. “Well?” was all she asked, in a soft voice.

“I wish for thee to once more guide the moon at night.”

Choking momentarily on her tea, Celestia sputtered and coughed for a few seconded before she could respond. “But that is your job sister. Why would want me to do it for you?”

“As thou knows, ever since nightmare night, I hath been trying to acclimate myself to this new, modern Equestria.”

“I thought you were finding things to your liking?” Celestia asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Do not get me wrong sister. That ponies have found a way to use electricity without magic, and used that knowledge to build cities that seldom sleep, is indeed comforting. However I hath found that the cities’ new ‘nightlife’, as they call it, has nothing to do with the night. Nay, with all the light from their street lamps I find the ponies of the cities seldom even see the stars of night, let alone appreciate the night’s sky. And you shall have to forgive me if I fail to see the difference between the drunken dancing and music, under the electric lights of new, from the drunken dancing and music, by the light of the tavern’s fire of old.”

“I think the music sounds better,” Celestia offered with a forced smile.

With a slow shake of her head, Luna continued, “Regardless, when I meet them at night they are but shells of themselves, only trying to unwind from the day. When I meet them in their dreams they are more themselves then even they know while they are awake. And when I stay awake late into your mornings and even day, and try to see the side of them I never get to see, they see only this crown and act differently anyway. No, if I am to ever earn their love and adoration, I must meet them on their terms, during the day, and not as their ruler. Thus I wish to suspend myself from service, that I can not clam rule over them while I learn from them. So sister, will thou permit me this reprieve from by duties?”

A frown appeared on Celestia’s face as she responded, “Before I answer I have two questions for you. First, what of your dream walking? For a thousand years our subjects have had to face their nightmares alone, for I was unable to perform that task in your stead.”

“Continuing that one aspect on my duties will not interfere with my plans.”

“Wouldn’t that prevent you from sleeping at night? Do you truly plan to be awake both all day and all night? You know that’s not healthy after a few days, even for us.”

Luna chuckled, unsure if her sister was leading her on or truly ignorant of the fact she then stated, “The waking trance I use to dream walk is for convenience, I can perform my duty as the guardian of dreams while I actually sleep. It will merely be harder to get my attention for the matters of the waking world. A moot point if thou are performing the remaining duties of the night.”

A smile crept on to Celestia’s face as she asked, “Alright then. My second question is, if I do this for you, will you return the favor and pull double shifts that I might take a vacation when you return to service?”

Removing her crown and placing in on a pedestal that previously held only a candlestick, Luna answered, “Thou took responsibility for both day and night for a thousand years, if anypony deserves a vacation it is you, sister. I shall indeed return the favor when I take up my crown once more.”

“I wish you the best of luck, Luna. Though I will miss your beautiful nights. Even in a thousand years I never did figure out how you make the stars shine so brightly,” said Celestia, as she gave her younger sister a bow.

Luna sighed and responded, “Indeed I noticed thou never bothered to clean up the stellar haze in my absence.”

“Stellar haze?”

“Forgive me sister, but I must retain some trade secrets of the night,” Luna answered with a mischievous smile.

The two laughed together for a moment, before Luna returned to the balcony, and spreading her wings took flight, leaving Canterlot behind.

Looking to the small black crown that had been left behind, Celestia pondered aloud, “I wonder if she knows that crowns aren’t really considered that important a symbol of rule as they use to be… Oh well, I’m sure she’ll figure that out soon enough.”

Author's Note

Like many of my stories this one was written in my head after session 1 and updated to accommodate what I could. However, the story you are about to read was originally written in my head as 5 stories, but long story short, while typing them I decided to merge them into one larger story. So what you are about to read is pretty much the entirety of my Luna story-line.

And one final warning, I don't consider this to my among my best stories so take it for what it's worth, and I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 2: To Soften the Heart

Luna sat on a low cloud, gazing at the small cottage on the hill right in front of her. Beautiful humming came from within the humble abode. The door swung open and a yellow pegasus practically danced out of the cottage, surrounded by birds and squirrels, then promptly froze in her tracks.

“P-P-Princess L-Luna? H-How long have you b-been there?” the pegasus asked so quietly that she was barely heard, as she curled up and hid herself as best she could in her pink mane and tail.

“Long enough to say that thou has a beautiful singing voice, dear Fluttershy.”

“Th-Thank you. But um… why are you waiting here outside my home? Is there something I can do for you princess?”

“Thou can start by not calling me ‘princess.’ The fact that the day is my sister’s time to rule aside, did thou not notice the absence of my crown? Nay, I did not come here as your ruler, I came as your equal, a mere pony seeking your aid.”

“I’m sorry prin- eep! Luna, I sorry Luna, I didn’t notice your crown was missing,” Fluttershy whispered, somehow lowering her head in shame even more despite already being curled up on the ground.

After a moment of silence, Luna grew tired of waiting for Fluttershy to stop cowering on her own, so she stepped down from the cloud she’d been waiting on. Gently placing her hoof on Fluttershy’s chin, Luna pulled the pegasus up, saying, “Rise child, I said that I came here as thy equal.” With a sigh she added, “Given that we shared a more casual meeting at Cadence’s wedding reception, I would have hoped that thou would be more comfortable in my presence.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just not the type of pony who warms up to new friends quickly. So, um, what was it you wanted my help with?” Fluttershy answered, and though rising to a standing position, was unable to look the princess of the night in the face.

“Ah yes, as thou likely suspects, a lot can change in a thousand years. Long story short, a thousand years ago was a much harsher time. I doubt I need to remind you that it was news to me that only soldiers are accustom to being spoken to with a ‘command presence’ voice these days.”

Fluttershy answered with a squeak and shacking her head ‘no’.

With a nod, Luna continued, “I have found that a thousand years of relative peace has changed ponykind, made them… softer. Thus I find my old ways are often seen as… rigid or harsh compared to the ways ponies prefer to interact these days. So I come to you, after all who better to learn a softer, kinder way of doing things from, then a pony who’s spirit causes the element of kindness to react to it?”

“I’m-I’m not sure I know how to teach kindness. I mean you just be nice to other ponies, that’s it. It’s not like teaching the songbirds a new song or anything. There aren’t fancy lessons or tricks I can tell you about being kind. Just be nice,” Fluttershy said, looking away.

A laugh escaped Luna’s lips before she responded, “Anything may be over simplified. And for the record I find even that advice is not true. On nightmare night I thought I was being nice by speaking to the citizens of Ponyville with the respect that comes from using the ‘Royal Canterlot Voice’, rather then disrespect them by speaking to them as if they were nothing more then a common servant in the castle. Yet we both saw that my idea of ‘nice’ was perceived as harsh yelling.”

“I… I hadn’t even thought about it that way. I’m sorry Luna, if anything this shows that I’m even less qualified to teach anypony what it means to be kind.”

Placing a silver-clad hoof to her chin, Luna pondered the situation for a moment before responding, “If thou can not teach me through lesson, then perhaps there is another way you can teach me. If I were to… how do ponies say it these days? ‘Hang out’ with thee. Then perhaps I might learn by simply watching how you act, and when your actions confuse me, I might ask why you do what you did, and thus learn the subtleties of what passes for ‘kindness’ these days, without a grand lecture.”

“Um… okay… you can stay. If it that’s what you want to do, that is. But you should probably know that the life of an animal caretaker isn’t exactly exciting to watch. Or so Rainbow Dash tells me, and I can’t blamer her, I mean if I didn’t love animals as much as I do, I’d probably think it was boring too,” Fluttershy muttered as if to apologize.

“Huzzah! Shall we begin? I do believe that I interrupted thy morning routine, feel free to continue!” Luna cheered, and consequently startling away all of the animals within approximately twenty yards.

“Umm… yes, I was going to feed all of the outside animals… perhaps you might like to help me?” Fluttershy asked in a low voice, verging on whispering.

“Indeed I shall. How hard can the care of small creatures be?” Luna answered cheerfully, though more quietly then her previous outburst.

* * * * * * *

Despite her best efforts, Luna ultimately had to settle for simply giving Fluttershy some space to go about her morning chores alone, as most of the critters refused to come near the alicorn, let alone accept food from her.

“I shall forever revere the circus animal trainers. I had never known that merely approaching the furry little pests was so difficult. How they train them to do tricks, no less, now eludes me,” Luna grumbled under her breath. Now in the market place, the chatter around her drowned out her complaint, just as she intended.

With a particular pep in her steps, Fluttershy returned from the merchant stalls she had been shopping at. “Now that was a wonderful example of kindness!” she said, practically beaming.

“To what does thou refer?” asked the alicorn.

“Oh, the carrot merchant gave me a discount today for no apparent reason. It was so nice of him. You see sometimes random little acts of kindness can really make a pony’s day.”

“I suppose I could see how that advice might be of use, if I ran a store…” Luna said, frowning.

Tilting her head to the side, Fluttershy asked, “What do you mean?”

Bowing her head, Luna explained, “As a princess I am part of government, and government is not a business. It has no money of its own and must collect it through taxes. Finally, given its compulsory nature, taxes are only removed from theft by the fact that subjects may expect the services of judge, general, and diplomat are to be provided in return.”

“Oh, um… I see. But couldn’t you, maybe, temporarily lower the taxes every now and then? Wouldn’t that be like giving a discount?” Fluttershy suggested, lowering herself slightly as she spoke.

“I suppose. However, Celestia has handled the royal budget for over a thousand years. And given how stressed she gets whenever she has to revise it, I’m inclined to let her keep that duty,” Luna answered, flatly at first, but shuttering at the memories of her sister’s anxieties.

As they walked along, Fluttershy raised an eyebrow and asked, “You don’t control any of the budget?”

“Technically I command the budget of the night guard and lunar court. However with nothing more then a change of flags, nothing has changed in the night guard since it was separated from the E.U.P. guard. And I can hazard to guess that thou can imagine how few ponies schedule their trials to be held in the middle of the night. Needless to say the lunar court’s budget need barely exist,” Luna answered, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, I hadn’t-” Flutter shy began.

“-Thought of that,” Luna interrupted and finished for the pegasus. “Yes, thou has made it quite clear that the art of rule is not among thy common contemplation.”

Fluttershy blushed slightly and the two continued on with the pegasus’ errands. Just as they were finishing up in the marketplace, the voice of Ponyville’s mayor called out, “Princess Luna! Forgive the lack of a proper welcome! Nopony told me you would be visiting our humble town today.”

With a heavy sigh Luna couldn’t take it anymore, “Thou too mayor? All through the market I have heard the whispers of the title ‘princess’. Does nopony notice the absence of my crown, signifying that I am not here on royal business? So long as my crown is not on my head there is no need for formality with me.”

“A thousand pardons prin… er… Luna. Although you should know that ponies these days are accustom to their local leaders not having any sort of crown. Like myself, as you can see mayors don’t have crowns or anything of the sort. And well… you are rather recognizable even without yours.”

Revelation flashed in Luna’s eyes as she responded, “Ah! So the mystery reveals itself! So the custom of outward symbols of rule is no longer observed. It seems it is I who owes thee an apology, yet another thing I shall have to remember has changed these past thousand years. Forgive my outburst mayor.”

“No, you don’t need to apologize Luna. It was just a simple misunderstanding. So what are you doing here anyway? Is there something I can do for you?”

Luna shook her head as she answered, “No, forgotten symbols aside, as I said, my reasons for being here are entirely my own. There is no need to trouble thyself or thy town over my presence.”

“Oh, okay then. Um, Then have a nice day,” the mayor said, not entirely sure what to make of having a princess in town that was basically asking to be ignored.

Leaving the mayor to her pondering, Luna and Fluttershy left the market.

* * * * * * *

With the day rapidly coming to an end, Fluttershy realized that the princess of the night had spent all day with her, and she had to ask of her guest, “Um, Luna, it’s getting late, shouldn’t you be heading back to Canterlot by now?”

After explaining that she had relieved herself from duty and wasn’t needed anywhere for the foreseeable future, Luna finished by saying, “-So I figured I would simply camp out on a cloud pegasus style wherever I happen to be while I seek understanding of this new age.”

“Y-You’re just going to park yourself right outside my door again? Like you were this morning?”

“That is the plan, yes,” Luna answered flatly.

A rare hint of sternness appeared in Fluttershy’s eyes as she responded, “I’m sorry Luna, but I can’t let you do that. If you’re going to stay on my property then I insist that you stay as my houseguest. You can use my bed, I’ll just stay on the couch.” Uncertainty returned to the pegasus’ eyes and voice as she added, “If that’s okay with you, that is.”

“With one amendment I shall take thee up on thy offer. I insist that thou retain thy bed, and that I shall make due with the couch.”

With a soft smile Fluttershy agreed to the condition and led the way out into the yard for her evening rounds, tending to the animals.

Once again, Luna found herself sitting in the grass, watching the expert animal caretaker work from afar. At first Luna found it odd to see the gentle pegasus handle meat and fish, as she fed the predatory creatures, but eventually conceded that it was the only way for her to tend to the creatures incapable of eating plants under her care. Shaking the thoughts from her mind, Luna reminded herself that she was here to learn the laws of kindness, not the logistics of animal caretaker.

“Looks like you have an admirer,” Fluttershy said, as she approached Luna.

Luna raised an eyebrow, and traced Fluttershy’s outstretched hoof to a pair of eyes shimmering in the evening moonlight. Gifted with nocturnal sight, even without nocturnal eyes, Luna could see that the eyes belonged to a fox, watching her from the edge of the forest.

Presenting the last fish in her basket, Fluttershy said, “Here, you should give this to him.”

“Hath we not already established animals do not like me?” Luna asked.

“Then just set it on that rock halfway between us and him, and then slowly back away. Giving the gift of food is usually considered a kind thing to do,” Fluttershy insisted.

“Very well,” Luna sighed. Taking the fish in her magic, she walked out to the rock Fluttershy had indicated. Placing the fish on the rock, Luna took note that the fox had already darted behind a tree. Convinced that the effort had already failed, Luna backed away slowly, only to be surprised by the fox peeking back out at the retreating alicorn. When Luna had sit back down beside Fluttershy, the fox ran out to the rock, took the fish and returned to the forest, pausing for a moment to look back at the two ponies sitting beside the cottage.

“See, that wasn’t so hard was it Luna?” Fluttershy said, practically beaming.

“A truly enthralling turn of events,” Luna said without the slightest hint of excitement in her voice.

* * * * * * *

The next few days went much like the first. Luna would watch Fluttershy tend her animals, then Fluttershy would find an excuse to go into town to provide examples of interacting with other ponies kindly, and then it was back to the cottage. And every evening the fox returned, and every evening it grew less wary of Princess Luna as Fluttershy had her give the fox the last fish of the night.

At the moment it was midday and Luna was sitting on the banks of the creek that ran through Fluttershy’s property, watching the pegasus tend to some birds in a nearby tree. As the birds devoured the worms that had been delivered to them, Fluttershy returned to her basket of food and proceeded to bring vegetables to a burrow near the creek.

At that moment a sky-blue pegasus shot by overhead, with a rainbow-colored blur coming off of her prismatic mane and tail. “Flashflood incoming!” Rainbow Dash shouted down, as she darted by. As quickly as she came, the ace weather pony blitzed off, following the creak and repeating the warning to anypony she saw further downstream.

Fluttershy started shooing the animals away from the creak up toward higher ground, like the hill her cottage was on. Luna simply turned her head and ears upstream and listened to the low roar of the inbound waters.

Landing by a small, creak-side hole next to a large tree root, Fluttershy called out for the bunnies inside to come out. But the increasingly monstrous roar of the inbound floodwaters only frightened the critters into backing even deeper into their home.

“No! You’ll drown if you stay in there! Please come out!” Flutteryshy pleaded. Turning to the cottage she called out, “Angel! Come talk some sense into your friends!”

A white rabbit came running, but stopped only a few feet from the cottage, eyes wide with terror. Following the rabbit’s gaze upstream, Fluttershy’s eyes became specks as she too beheld the sight before her. Now roaring like a passing train, a five-foot wall of water crashed around the bend.

Luna took the event as her queue to abandon her spot on the banks of the creak and opening her wings she took flight. Fluttershy’s gaze turned to the large tree root right in front of the burrow, throwing herself down on the rabbit hole, she wrapped her front legs around the root, and opened her wings as to make them like ramps for the incoming wall of water.

“Thou art kidding, right?” Luna said, despite her words being drowned out by the roar of the flashflood.

A blue glow formed around Luna’s horn as she charged it with magic, ready to grab Fluttershy as soon as the floodwaters pulled her away. Much to Luna’s surprise, the floodwaters failed to pry the yellow pegasus away from her anchor. Ramping off of Fluttershy’s wings, the water only forced her body down all the harder, sealing the rabbit hole all the tighter.

Tilting her head to the side, Luna watched the yellow and pink figure through the waters. Then shaking her thoughts from her mind, Luna tossed aside the role of observer. “Enough!” she shouted as she re-purposed the magics held in her horn. The soft blue light of Luna’s magic shot down into the water, pushing the water aside, and becoming a diamond shaped wall around Fluttershy.

Gratefully gasping for air, Fluttershy coughed and wheezed as she lay on the once more dry ground, until Luna landed beside her and lifted the pegasus into the air with her magic. With Fluttershy out of the way, Luna looked into the rabbit hole and proceeded to pull the bunnies out with her magic as well. With every other living thing in the sanctuary held in her magic, Luna returned to the air, carrying the others, and allowing the field of magic keeping the water at bay to collapse.

“Thank you,” Fluttershy said, once she’d been set down beside her cottage.

“Explain thyself, thy actions confound me. What did thou hope to accomplish?” Luna asked, flatly.

“I was trying to save these bunnies,” Fluttershy answered, as her voice became uncertain.

Luna shook her head. “’Trying’ implies that there was a chance for success. Look for thyself, flashflood or not these floodwaters will take minutes to recede. There is no way that thou could have held thy breath for that long. And once thou passed out, thy would have been washed away leaving the bunnies as doomed as if thou hadn’t tried to throw thy life away.”

“I-I’m sorry, to have troubled you Luna. It-it just seemed like the right thing to do. Usually Rainbow Dash is around to protect me from myself when I let my kindness get the better of me like that,” answered Fluttershy, bowing her head to the ground.

Luna softened the stern gaze she’d had a moment ago. “Truly she was, she gave thou more then enough warning to clear the flood plane. It is not her fault, nor yours, that these spineless bunnies lacked the courage to save their own skins.”

Looking away, Fluttershy spoke so softly that her response couldn’t be heard above the nearby floodwaters. Although it looked enough like another apology that Luna didn’t bother to ask for it to be repeated.

* * * * * * *

As dusk settled in, neither Luna nor Fluttershy had spoken to each other since the flashflood. Luna sat quietly, staring into space, when she finally noticed the fox sitting beside her. “I am sorry little one, but Fluttershy has your fish.”

The fox looked the princess of the night in the eyes and nodded, giving a slight fox-like bark as if to say ‘I know’ before returning it’s gaze back to the stars.

“Looks like you’ve made a friend,” Fluttershy said, as she presented her feed basket to Luna.

Without bothering to raise a fuss, Luna levitated the last fish out of the basket and gave it to the fox. Taking the gift in its mouth, the fox raised one of its paws and placed it on its own chest, then the fox extended that paw out and pressed it softly on Luna’s side.

Looking to Fluttershy, Luna asked, “What, may I ask, did that gesture mean?”

“The literal translation would be, ‘I acknowledge you.’ But he’s basically asking to be your pet.”

“Is that so?” Luna asked, looking back down at the fox. The fox nodded. “Very well then,” Luna responded, standing up and beginning to walk away.

“Wait, aren’t you coming in for dinner?” Fluttershy asked.

“No, if this one thinks me kind enough to give me a chance at being his master, then I think I hath learned enough from you. And perhaps because I hath seen enough to understand that, though your ways are far kinder then mine, they are just as out of sync with the ways of the world as mine. Truly I think it is time I seek another point of view to learn from.”

The fox followed as Luna walked away, though Luna’s thoughts remained on the pegasus. An innocent heart such as yours would never have survived to adulthood a thousand years ago. I pray that the shadows of the world can be kept far enough from you that thou never has to learn why. Your kindness, dear child, is something I could never hope to mimic.

Chapter 3: Remembering Loyalty

Days had passed since Luna had left Fluttershy and now the princess of the night had found herself staying with the unicorn Twilight Sparkle, at Ponyville’s library.

Limping into the library in a minor state of magic fatigue, Luna complained, “Using unicorn style magic to conjure up rain clouds is horribly inefficient.”

The purple unicorn, with the darker purple mane, responded when an equal fatigue in her voice, “I know. But ever since that disaster in Cloudsdale caused that flashflood the other day, the pegasi have been saying that the Cloudsdale weather factory is offline and we’ll be having a drought for a few weeks while they try to replace all the water that was lost in the accident.”

“Do we even know what caused the incident?” Luna asked.

Twilight bowed her head slightly as she answered, “Officially they are saying that an equipment malfunction made one of the machines at the weather factory explode, and that the resulting blast tore apart one of the walls of the factory reservoir.”

“Thou does not sound so sure.”

“Personally I’d be content to accept what the ponies from the weather factory are saying.” After pausing to release a deep sigh, Twilight added, “But Rainbow Dash doesn’t seem to believe them. And as much as I hate to admit it, when Rainbow Dash says there’s something wrong she’s usually right, even if her own theory as to what’s wrong is completely off the mark.”

Having only met the pegasus in question sparingly, Luna simply nodded, unable to make her own judgment call on the matter.

Twilight continued, “Speaking of Rainbow, I’m worried about her. She’s been working herself too hard, flying the Las Pegasus run to bring rain clouds in from their weather factory several times a day.”

“Forgive my inquiry Twilight Sparkle, but what purpose is served by telling me these things? Should you not share thy concerns about Rainbow Dash with Rainbow Dash?”

Motioning to her sides, Twilight said, “For starters I don’t have wings. And even if I did cast the temporary wings spell, I seriously doubt that I’d be able to keep up with Rainbow long enough to make her hear me out.”

“Surely even she rests.”

Twilight’s gaze shifted inward, as she began to think out loud. “Hmm, the timing of her trips always puts her in Las Pegasus around lunch time… but. That’s actually a good idea! The weather team has been working overtime these past few days. So it shouldn’t be too hard to talk Pinkie Pie into throwing a thank you party for them at the end of the day. And that should get Rainbow Dash to stay still somewhere I can talk to her! Oh thank you Princess Luna!”

With a newfound energy, Twilight darted out the door as soon as she finished speaking.

“Happy to be of service,” Luna answered to the now empty room.

* * * * * * *

That evening, the party came and went, and Rainbow Dash had only stayed long enough to enjoy the free food. On top of that, from what Luna could tell, she had brushed off Twilight’s concerns when they had been voiced to her.

Now back at the library, Luna headed out to the balcony, to check on Twilight. With a raised eyebrow and her original question forgotten, Luna asked, “Your telescope is aimed a bit low for stargazing.”

“That’s because it’s aimed at Rainbow’s house,” Twilight answered, without flinching from the eyepiece.

“I may not fully understand the ways of today, but spying on one’s friends was considered rude even a thousand years ago.”

“And that’s still true today,” Twilight answered. “But when I spoke with Rainbow Dash the fatigue in her voice was even worse then I anticipated. However, that stubborn mule of a pegasus insists she’s fine when it’s clear as day she’s not! Since she insists of playing the part of the invincible-tough-pony she’s not giving me much of a choice but to figure it out behind her back! And… got ya!” she interrupted herself. After a second the smile on Twilight’s face turned into a frown, as she thought aloud, “Now where do you think you’re going in the middle of the night?”

With her own gift of night sight, Luna didn’t need a telescope to see the lone figure flying away from Ponyville and toward the north. “Looks as if she is headed to Cloudsdale,” Luna said.

With a groan, Twilight Sparkle said, “Of course, Celestia forbid she go someplace I can follow her easily. Look Princess-”

“-Luna”

“Right, no title. Luna, can you go see what Rainbow thinks is so important that she feels the need to run herself into the ground with sleep deprivation over?” Twilight asked. Bowing her head slightly the unicorn added, “I know you’re on vacation and wanted to see how ponies acted in the day and everything, but could do this as a favor for me?”

“Very well, at the rate things are going I shall have to spend time with each of you spirits of harmony anyway. Now is as good a time as any to try hanging out with loyalty I suppose,” Luna said, as she spread her wings and took off into the cool night air.

* * * * * * *

A smile crept onto Luna’s face as she soared under the light of the moon for the first time in days. Glancing away from the stars, she scanned the sky for her target. Seeing as most pegasi avoided flying at night, the lone pegasus approaching Cloudsdale was easy to find. Not so easy, was catching up to said pegasus.

When Rainbow Dash disappeared into Cloudsdale, Luna took advantage of her alicorn magic and teleported the remainder of the way to the floating city of clouds, rounding the corner just seconds after Dash had. Spotting the lone pegasus turning another corner at the far end of the street, Luna teleported once more to catch up. After that Dash’s path proved straight enough that Luna was able to follow without the help of magic.

Finally, Rainbow Dash came to rest on a lone cloud near the weather factory. As Luna approached, Dash didn’t turn her head away from the weather factory but said, “Hey, Luna.”

“Thou knew I was following you?” Luna asked.

“Heh, I hate to break it to you but clouds are awfully good reflectors. Even putting a building between us, I noticed the flashes of light behind me. I’m guessing Twilight asked you to follow me,” Rainbow Dash answered with a bit of a grin.

“Thou are dangerously perceptive Miss Dash. And thy guess is correct,” Luna said, tracing Rainbow’s gaze to the weather factory before them. After a moment it became clear that Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to answer the obvious question unasked, so Luna asked, “For what reason are you here in the middle of the night?”

Still refusing to break her gaze on the cloud building before them, Dash answered, “Do you see any guards?”

First taking a moment to look around, Luna answered, “At the weather factory? No.”

“And that’s why I have to guard it.”

“Guard it from what?”

“Whoever sabotaged it in the first place.”

That response raised an eyebrow from the princess of the night. “Sabotage? I was under the impression that an accident led to the drought conditions. That a piece of equipment ruptured the reservoir.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head slightly as she responded, “That’s just what the administrators here at the factory are telling everypony. But I was here on day one, before they fixed the damage to the buildings.” Stretching out her hoof Dash point to the factory before them and asked, “See that big rectangular building with the pipe coming out of it? That’s the reservoir building.”

Luna nodded.

Swinging her hoof across to the other side of the factory grounds, Rainbow continued, “That building on the other side of the pipe is the cloud assembly building.”

Tilting her head to the side Luna asked, “What are those two building between them?”

“The smaller one closer to us is ‘snowflake crafting’, and the farther one is ‘management headquarters’, where they plan the weather schedules.”

“Interesting, but I believe that we hath wandered off course, why does thou think there was sabotage here?”

“No we haven’t. Don’t you see? The high-pressure steam machines are all over there in ‘cloud assembly’, and there’s nothing in the reservoir building that even can blow up. On top of that, on the day of the ‘accident’ there were two holes, one in cloud assembly building and one in the reservoir, but those two building between them were completely untouched!” Returning her gaze to the weather factory Rainbow Dash wore a smirk that announced she knew she was right.

Luna’s eyes slowly became wider as the pieces fit together in her mind. “So there is no way that a blast from the cloud assembly building could even reach the reservoir without completely demolishing the two buildings between them!”

“Exactly.”

Bringing a hoof to her chin Luna pondered this for a moment, and then asked, “Thou makes a convincing argument, why have thee not brought this to the attention of the guards?”

Rainbow Dash shook her head slightly as she answered, “I did. But when they investigated, the ponies in management told them the same crap about an accident. And then the guard told me that as long as the officials from the weather factory insists that it was just an accident, they have no grounds to investigate further on ‘just my word’ and that I’d have to bring them some real proof that it was sabotage. So here I am, the only one willing to stand watch here.”

“No, the only two,” Luna responded with a smile.

Returning the smile Rainbow Dash asked, “Really? You’ll help?”

“Indeed I shall. Though I am on vacation and can not give orders to the guard, especially on thy testimony alone. However I have heard enough that I would like to see to this matter myself. Thou has my word Rainbow Dash, I shall remain by thy side while we investigate this, together.”

“Yes! I get a personal adventure with a princess! I am so going to have to trade stories with Twilight when this is over. I wonder what kinda adventures she’s had with Celestia,” Dash cheered and pondered. Shaking her head she added, “So where do we start?”

“Perhaps thou should start by telling me why you think the saboteur will even bother returning here,” Luna suggested.

Rainbow shrugged off the question, answering, “Oh that’s easy. Braking the reservoir once will only cause a short drought. Even now, with all the emergency work we weather pegasi have been doing, we’ve already refilled part of it. It won’t be long now before we have enough water in there to make do until they can find another place refill it properly and we’re back in normal operation. So maybe there’s a bad harvest or two here and there, but otherwise it’s no big deal. But if you can bust it a second time then you could make the drought last long enough to cause a famine.”

Raising an eyebrow, Luna commented, “Interesting, one would think there would be more interest in defending this place.” After taking a moment to think about the situation, Luna added, “Keep watch, I shall search for our culprit.”

A soft blue glow appeared around Luna’s horn, and silver light washed over her eyes.

“Whoa, that’s kinda cool. What are you doing?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Dream-walking, a guilty heart tends to reveal itself far more easily in the realm of dreams than in the waking world. So I am searching Cloudsdale for guilt laden dreams,” Luna answered.

Lowering her head slightly Dash said, “That’s… kinda creepy. So you know every mistake I’ve ever made or something don’t you?”

“No, I know only the errors thou has dreamed about, and only on the nights where thy dreams caught my interest above others. I believe Scootaloo has told thee of my usual dealings in the realm of dreams, has she not?”

Nodding her head Rainbow answered, “Right, normally you protect dreams from nightmares.”

“Indeed,” Luna answered, shifting her attention more fully to the field of windows she perceived in her mind, each one being the portal into a dream.

* * * * * * *

The night’s search had turned up nothing. True to her word however, Luna had remained with Rainbow Dash, and currently the two were pushing a large rain cloud away from Las Pegasus.

Glancing down at their shadows, Rainbow Dash said, “Come on slowpoke, we gotta fly faster if we’re going to make Cloudsdale by lunch time.”

Luna couldn’t help but chuckle before responding, “Thou are the first pony to truly honor my request to be treated like any other. Thank you”

“Heh, no problem Luna. Oh! If you can stand her crazy hyperactive antics, you might try hanging out with Pinkie Pie, she likes to treat everypony the same too,” Rainbow suggested.

A shiver ran down Luna’s spine. “I shall keep that in mind,” she replied quietly. Then Luna took notice of the terrain beneath them. “I think we are headed too far south,” she said, more then happy to change the subject.

Poking her head down, to see under the cloud, Rainbow Dash answered, “Naw, that’s Ponyville dead ahead.”

“Ponyville? Were we not headed to Cloudsdale?”

“Nope, sweet apple acres is due for rain today. So this rain cloud is headed there, to make a late morning storm. We’re going to have to set that up before we head to Cloudsdale,” Rainbow Dash explained.

Luna blinked. “Oh, now I see the reason for thy haste. I didn’t realize we had a detour between us and Cloudsdale,” she said, flapping her wings all the harder. Using her magic to further aid her flight Luna added, “Thou truly impresses me, even with only a few hours sleep you fly with great fervor.”

That made Rainbow Dash laugh, “Heh, what can I say? I’m just that awesome!”

* * * * * * *

Once they’d arrived at sweet apple acres, Rainbow Dash made quick work of cutting the large cloud into smaller ones and positioning them throughout the apple orchard. With that out of the way the two made a quick flight to Cloudsdale, where they had an early lunch. After which Rainbow Dash promptly passed out.

Now sitting in the lobby of the weather management headquarters building, Luna passed a glance to the bench that Rainbow Dash was now sleeping on.

“Princess Luna! Forgive me for keeping you waiting, you seem to have caught us on our lunch break. I’ve been told you wanted a tour of the weather factory, is the right?” a light-brown pegasus stallion, with a dark-brown mane, said as he entered the lobby. Spotting the sleeping mare on the bench he added, “Do forgive us, I promise you that most weather pegasi are more… professional.”

Shooting a glare at the stallion, Luna responded, “Actually Miss Dash is with me. Furthermore, given the work I have seen her do these past few days I am truly surprised that she made it all the way to Cloudsdale before passing out.”

“Yes, of course, she does have a bit of a reputation for… how shall we say? Working on her own schedule. Although I hear the quality of her work is exceptional when she does get around to doing it. I suppose the fact that Ponyville made her their weather team captain at least proves that they are satisfied with the quality of her work. It’s just that some of us feel it reflects poorly on weather ponies as a whole for her to be seen sleeping on the job,” the stallion said with a nervous laugh.

“Well thy need not concern thyself, she hath proven an excellent example, even if her methods don’t conform to most ponies norms. Regardless, as for the tour, I wish only to see the sights of the accident responsible for the drought conditions of late,” Luna said, as she charged her horn with magic and lifted the slumbering Rainbow Dash into the air in a similar soft-blue glow.

Bowing the stallion responded, “Of course, your majesty. The rain cloud machines are this way.”

Entering the cloud assembly building, they found the room devoid of other ponies. The hum of a dozen machines set to standby roused the sleeping Rainbow Dash. Blinking her eyes until she understood why everything had a slight blue haze, she said, “Heh, sorry my nap went long. Did I miss anything important?”

Once released from Luna’s magic, Dash took to hovering along side, as they continued to their destination.

Shaking her head Luna answered, “No, thou has missed nothing of importance.”

Walking to the back of the massive room, they passed several cylindrical machines, most attached to an array of pipes that came off of a larger central pipe along the ceiling. Coming to an empty spot where there was a raised base much like the ones under the other machines, the guide said, “This is where the malfunction happened.” Motioning to the pipe overhead he added, “As you can see we’ve capped off the pipe that use to feed into it. Since the site as already been cleaned up, I’m afraid there isn’t really much to see anymore.”

Taking notice of the wall Luna asked, “Why is part of the wall more white then the rest?”

“Ah yes, repairing cloud building may be quick, but heavily reinforced cloud takes time to make. It will likely take maintenance a few more passes of reinforcing these walls before they are as strong as they were before being rebuilt. Once that’s done they’ll regain their slight blue-ish color, like the rest of the walls here,” the stallion answered.

“Ah so this marks the exact hole the blast punched in the wall?”

“That’s right, the pressure unit that failed ruptured on that side and directed the bulk of the force of the blast out as a cone at that wall. And unfortunately the reservoir,” the guide said, nodding his head.

Glancing at the windows above the blast mark, Luna quickly counted off five windows from above one edge of the blast mark to the other. ‘I presume a similar mark is all there is to be seen at the reservoir?” she asked.

“Yes, did you want to see it?” the stallion offered.

“Indeed,” Luna said.

At the reservoir, Luna made a show of ‘inspecting’ the blast mark in the wall, while discreetly tossing glances down the alleyway leading back to the cloud manufacturing building.

As Luna made a mental note that the alley was only wide enough to see three windows on the cloud manufacturing building from here. Turning to their guide, she asked, “So my understanding is that if this were breached a second time, the drought would last long enough to impact agriculture, possibly cause crop failures, is that correct?”

“I’m sorry princess, I wouldn’t know that kind of thing, I work in public relations. Somepony in the weather planning and scheduling department would know more about the needs of farms then I do,” the stallion answered.

“I see, then I shall presume the previous advice stands. Please inform your superiors in management that starting tomorrow I shall have guards posted to watch over the reservoir until the drought conditions are past. Thank you for your time, you may go now.”

With the princess’ dismissal the stallion left, heading toward the management building.

Stepping forward Rainbow Dash asked, “Uh, Luna, I thought we were taking care of this ourselves?”

With a sly grin Luna said, “And we shall. Once my threat is made known, I will have forced our villain’s hoof. They shall know that they must strike tonight or not at all.”

Suddenly, Dash shared the grin. “And we’ll be waiting for them.”

* * * * * * *

As the stars sparkled overhead, the light of a half moon shown down on the now empty weather factory. Empty except for the two souls sitting on a high cloud watching over the reservoir anyway. Rainbow Dash fidgeted as she sat. “So how long does a stakeout take anyway?”

“Until the culprit shows up,” Luna answered with a quiet giggle.

Sitting up and folding her front legs, Dash complained, “Well they’d better hurry up and get here. I don’t have all night.”

Luna blinked. “Are thou not here because thou does have all night to stand guard?”

“Well technically, yes… It’s just that the afternoon nap was nice and all, but if I want to get Twilight off my case about pushing myself too hard tomorrow, I’m going to need some real sleep tonight.”

“Ah,” was all Luna said as she returned her attention to the weather factory.

The minutes of silence that followed were broken when Rainbow Dash bolted into the air saying, “Got ya!”

Looking ahead of the eager pegasus, Luna saw that the target of Dash’s pursuit was a shadowy figure that had just entered into to weather factory airspace. Opening her wings and leaping off the cloud Luna gave chase as well.

“Hold it right there!” Rainbow Dash called out.

Not even bothering to look to the source of the cry, the figure surged forward, towards the buildings of the weather factory. Although the darkness of night hid most of the figure’s features, Dash had gotten close enough to make out a few details. Most notably, that the shadowy figures was size and shape of a pegasus stallion, and that the stark contrast between his light, seemingly colorless, wings and his dark body strongly hinted that he had some kind of bodysuit on.

The shadowy pegasus spiraled around the main water pipe, flying at high speed in his attempt to shake the mare tailing him. Matching him move for move Rainbow Dash drew even closer, even getting close enough to see that the stallion’s mane and tail were dark blue in color.

Approaching the cloud manufacturing building, the stallion arched high, folded his wings and smashed through one of the windows, shattering the cloud-glass into water vapor. A second latter, Rainbow Dash darted through the hole, just in time to see a shadow disappear behind the high-pressure boilers.

Diving right at him, Rainbow gave the figure little choice but to take flight and the chase resumed once more, weaving through the rows of machines on the factory floor. As the two pegasi darted between the boilers, as if they were large and unforgiving pylons for a race, the shadowy stallion kicked a wheel-valve in the pipes just overhead, releasing a blade of hot steam from the emergency vent near by.

Lacking the room to fit between the burning-hot steam and the boilers, Rainbow Dash broke off her direct chase, pushed herself forward to the next gap between boilers, and shot out into the open, only slightly surprised that her target wasn’t in sight anymore.

The sound of shattering cloud-glass behind her, alerted Rainbow that her target had just escaped out of a window on the wall opposite the one they had come in. Performing a half loop Dash, turned herself around and shot out the newly empty window frame as quickly as she could.

Having explored the weather factory more then enough times to know the layout by heart, Rainbow Dash turned her head to the building nearest their makeshift exit, the rainbow factory. A smile graced Dash’s face as she sighted the shadowy figure making the final sprint for a column in the rainbow mixing pool area. The mixing pool area had no walls, and only sparse columns holding an extremely high overhead ceiling, and to top it all off, being the middle of the night even the mixing paddles were inside the formal rainbow factory building. In short, there was plenty of open airspace and nothing dangerous to crash into.

With no reason to hold back, Rainbow Dash surged forward. Even with only the light of a half moon to see by, the prismatic motion blur stood out clearly against the backdrop of the night’s sky.

Seeing that he’d been spotted the shadowy stallion bolted from his hiding spot, looking for somewhere else to lose the persistent mare. Uttering a curse when he realized that there was too much space between him and anything else, he braced himself for the inevitable, just before being tackled in to the clouds.

“You?!” Rainbow Dash said, as she was finally able to make out the details of the stallion’s black and purple flight suit, with the emblem of a winged skull on the flank. “But you’re… I thought… How can…?” Dash muttered, dread building in her voice with each unfinished phrase.

“Your first mistake is trusting anypony,” the stallion said quietly, with a wicked smile.

A spotlight from Luna’s magic further illuminated the two pegasi as the princess caught up. “Masterful work, Miss Dash!” she called out, although even Luna’s eyes shifted in surprise when she too saw the uniform of their opponent.

Looking back up, at the alicorn descending toward them, Dash practically yelled, “What the hey is going on here?!”

The moment Rainbow Dash turned her head away, the stallion lashed out with his front hooves, kicking the mare in the chest, knocking her off. As he took flight he said, “Your second mistake was turning your back on your enemy.”

Luna flapped her wings harder, giving chance to the fleeing stallion. Rubbing the pain from her chest, Rainbow took a second before getting back in the air, although her gaze was on the alicorn now.

The shadowy stallion headed back toward the reservoir, although Luna never gave him the chance to reach it. With several light blue blast of magic, the third bolt struck home, sending the stallion back down to the clouds.

“Explain thyself! Who art thou?!” Luna demanded as she landed. Rainbow Dash landing beside her a second latter.

Removing his hoof from his chest, the stallion surprised both mares, revealing the hole in his chest. Both Luna and Rainbow breathed a gasp as they saw all the way through to a matching hole in the stallion’s back, right where Luna’s magic had struck him. Even more disturbing was that the wound was expanding as his body was dissolving into shadowy bubbles.

Looking up at the princess of the night, the stallion said, “You may have won the battle for the sky, but we will meet again on the ground. There you’ll taste my power.”

When he had finished speaking the dark magic spreading over his body sped up and his form melted away into nothingness.

After a moment of silence Rainbow Dash spoke up. “What just happened? Did you just… kill him?”

Luna shook her head, “No, pegasi do not die like that. That… thing, was a shadow puppet, a mere conjuration controlled from afar. I dare say that our foe was never ‘here’ to begin with.”

“Just like the shadow bolts you, er Nightmare Moon sent to trick me?” Dash asked.

With a nod Luna answered, “Indeed, though if thou are suggesting that it was mine, thou are mistaken.”

“Then who’s was it?”

Putting a hoof to the base of her muzzle, Luna responded, “Yes, that does beg the question, what unicorn was controlling the puppet?”

“What makes you think it was a unicorn?” Rainbow Dash asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Hmm, well I suppose an alicorn can use that kind of magic as well, but I don’t see Princess Cadence or my sister having any more desire to sabotage Equestria then I do. Hence my assumption.”

Dash nodded. “Right. So how do we find out who made… that?” she asked motioning to the spot of clouds formerly occupied by the false stallion.

“You are right to be suspicious of me you know,” Luna said.

“What?” asked Dash, as a confused look crossed her face.

“There are two conditions to the magic we just witnessed. First a magic user with both the power and knowledge needed to create a shadow puppet. Second, they would need to know of that shadow bolt uniform, that I’m fairly certain I made up on the spot when I was Nightmare Moon. That doesn’t leave a lot of suspects.”

“Wait, you made that up?”

Nodding, Luna answered, “Forgive me if the details are fuzzy, I wasn’t entirely sane at the time, but I think I peered into thy dreams and found an image of the wonder bolts. Then I adapted that and played off of your desires to present something thoroughly tempting to you. So yes, prior to that moment there was no such thing as a shadow bolt uniform.”

Lowering her head Dash sighed. “And I went and copied it for a nightmare night costume, so every unicorn in Ponyville could be our suspect.”

With a quick nod, Luna added, “Or anypony whom has heard an account of thy costume, or any tail of thy encounter on the night of Nightmare Moon’s defeat that included a description of the original costume.”

“So this isn’t over then is it?” Rainbow Dash asked with tired voice.

“For us, I suspect it is. Thou heard him, he spoke of challenging me again on the ground. Although I shall pass news of tonight’s events to my sister and I suspect she will make good on my threat to post guards here.”

Author's Note

End story 1/concept 1. The original idea was 'Luna spends time with each of the spirit's of harmony.' Although when typing it up I only focused on the ones that could be tied to the shadow puppet story line. And truthfully Applejack's was the only other chapter in that idea that I actually filled out into a story in my head.

Chapter 4: The Lunar Crusaders

The sun beat down on the schoolyard, most of fillies and colts laughed and played their recess away, but three particular fillies sat at their favorite picnic bench-table huddled together. One, Apple Bloom, was an earth pony with a yellow coat, red mane, and a big pink bow adorning her mane. Another was a unicorn with a white coat, and a mane that had both pink and purple in it, named Sweetie Belle. The third filly was, Scootaloo, a pegasus with an orange coat, and purple mane.

“Uh oh,” Sweetie Belle said when she spotted two certain earth pony fillies headed their way.

The one wearing glasses was Silver Spoon, a filly with a gray coat, silver mane, and a cutie mark that matched her name. The other, and arguably meaner of the two schoolyard bullies, was Diamond Tiara, a filly with a pink coat, faded purple mane, also with a cutie mark that not only matched her name but the tiara sitting on her head.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the fail mark crusaders,” Diamond taunted the three fillies at the bench the instant she was within earshot.

“Cutie mark crusaders,” Apple Bloom dryly corrected, even though she was sure the mistake was made on purpose.

“Oh really? Because it seems like the cutie mark crusaders are awfully short on cutie marks,” Diamond Tiara taunted. “A shame too, after all that ruckus you three made yesterday I’d have thought at least one of you would have earned a cutie mark for disturbing the peace.”

“Why you…” snarled Scootaloo as she started to get up, only for a white hoof to trap one of her own. With a sigh the pegasus settled back onto the bench, redirecting her glare at the wooden table instead.

Trying her best to not to sound angry Apple Bloom said, “Ya don’t usually come over just to call us names, so if ya got something you wanted to gloat about just spit it out and leave already.”

“Oh you’re in a bad mood I see. That almost makes me wish I’d seen how you three must have humiliated yourselves yesterday. Is it true that they had to call the fire department to get you three untangled?” Diamond asked, with a smirk.

“No! Rainbow Dash untangled us just fine, by herself,” Scootaloo defended, refusing to bring her gaze up from the table.

With a giggle Silver Spoon ran her hoof through Scootaloo’s tail. Taking note of the prismatic hairs mixed in with Scootaloo’s purple tail hair, Spoon said, “Oh I doubt that.”

After sharing a quick laugh with her friend, Diamond Tiara said, “Anyway I actually wanted to ask Sweetie Belle if her sister would be coming to the business society dinner in Canterlot this weekend. I remember seeing Rarity’s name in a decent fashion magazine lately, so I was wondering if her little dress shop was finally big enough to catch the attention of important ponies.”

“No. She hasn’t said anything about any dinner in Canterlot lately,” Sweetie answered softly, lowering her head slightly.

With sympathy so fake it was pathetic, Diamond said, “Aww, that’s too bad. My daddy is going to receive an award there, so he’s bringing me, and I’ll be bringing Silver Spoon. I was almost hoping you’d be there to see it. Don’t worry I’m sure I’ll be able to talk him into letting me bring it to show and tell someday, you know, so all you ‘not special’ ponies can see it.”

With that the two bullies walked away, laughing, leaving the crusaders glaring at the backs of their foes.

Once the bullies were out of earshot, Apple Bloom said, “Can y’all believe the nerve of her? Acting all high and mighty just because her daddy won some award?”

Folding her front hooves, Scootaloo nodded. “Yeah you’d think she won the award or something the way she was acting. Who cares what her dad did, it’s not like that makes her a better pony or anything.”

“Yeah, she’s still a stuck up brat,” Sweetie Belle agreed.

* * * * * * *

In the past two weeks Luna had spent some time with each of the spirits of harmony, and yet her mind kept drifting back to the time she’d spent with Rainbow Dash, and the shadow they’d encountered. The investigation had stalled due to a lack of clues, and with the weather back on schedule, life had returned to normal, even for the weather ponies.

The waking realm had given no more clues to work with, and dream walking at night had proven to be of no help. With a mighty yawn, Luna awoke from her early afternoon nap, and followed it with a sigh, signaling that the daytime dream walking hadn’t helped any either.

Then Luna took notice of her surroundings. “Did I not slumber at the edge of Ponyville?” Looking around she found the town in question to be well to the south. Glancing down at the cloud she’d fallen asleep on she added, “I do not recall thou being adrift when I started this nap.”

Standing up, Luna spread her wings and was about to take flight when a, peculiar buzzing noise stopped her. It sounded like one of the newfangled inventions of the last thousand years, a motor if she recalled the name of such devices.

Looking to the rolling hills below, Luna searched for the source of the noise. Her ears pointed her to three fillies. Two riding in a wagon, and the third was a particularly familiar pegasus filly towing the wagon from her scooter.

“Good day to you, Scootaloo!” Luna greeted, as she descended from the sky.

Flaring her wings hard, Scootaloo air-braked until the trio had come to a stop. As the filly’s wings came to a stop Luna noted that the motor-like buzzing vanished as well. “Princess Luna!” Scootaloo said, then bringing a hoof to her chin, she added, “What are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere? Wait, am I dreaming again?”

Taking the opportunity to teach, Luna said, “Do this.” She then used one of her front hooves to slap her other front leg.

Lifting one hoof from her scooter’s handlebars Scootaloo slapped her other front leg, and immediately grimaced in pain.

“Did it hurt?” Luna asked.

Rubbing the pain away, Scootaloo said, “Yeah,”

“Then thou are awake, for the part of the mind that perceives pain does not talk to the part of the mind that perceives dreams.”

“Oh,” Scootaloo said flatly, then a second latter her eyes lit up and she said, “Oh! So that’s why ponies slap themselves when they see something they think is impossible!”

“Indeed. As to why I am here, I took a nap and it would seem the cloud I fell asleep on drifted far and wide. However, I am curious as to why three fillies are in the middle of nowhere, and without an adult in sight to oversee them?” Luna asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Long story short, When Rainbow Dash was bringing me back from Cloudsdale I saw some cool places out here, so we’re going to explore them,” Scootaloo answered.

“With just the three of you?”

“Yep!” all three crusaders cheerfully answered together.

With a slight bow of her head, Luna said, “A thousand years of relative peace or not, the world is not a safe place. I am sorry, but I can not allow three fillies to wander the wilderness, without an adult-”

“Aww…” the three moaned softly.

“-So lead on,” Luna finished.

Three young faces spring back to life as the fillies glanced at each other and then back to the princess. “Really?” Apple Bloom asked.

Tapping a hoof on her chin as if considering a serious question, Luna answered, “I said I would not allow thee to continue without an adult. So let us see, I am the princess of the night, guardian of dreams, and being over a thousand years old, I suspect ‘adult’ in on my list of credentials somewhere. So yes, lead on. I shall follow you on thy adventure.”

The trio of fillies turned to each other with smiles that spoke volumes, then simultaneously they each raised a hoof in the air and called out, “Cool! Cutie mark crusaders princess adventurers!” With that Scootaloo’s wings came back to life and they sped forward, leaving Luna to scramble to catch up and take up a position in the sky, watching over them from above.

* * * * * * *

As they neared their destination, Luna took notice of the stones littering the otherwise grassy hills, and wondered if the three fillies below could even tell that they now roamed the ruins of a village. Memories of the buildings that had once been flashed in Luna’s mind with each set of stones, marking what remained of the foundations, they passed. Even now, Scootaloo’s wings pushed the crusaders’ preferred method of transportation down a grassy path, where Luna saw visions of a dirt road.

Scootaloo finally allowed the team to come rolling to a stop before a hill that had been partly carved out, and in the hollow was the only building still standing. Although in this case ‘still standing’ meant that the front wall was almost completely missing, and vines crawled up the remaining stonework walls. If there had ever been a roof there was no evidence of it now. The remaining walls were high enough to make it known that the building had once been two stories tall, but now the only evidence of that was the empty holes halfway up the stonework walls, where the support beams had once been. Added to that, stone pillars on the first floor now stood as idol witnesses, supported nothing.

While Scootaloo sat down to rest her wings, Sweetie Belle opened her saddlebags and passed out some snacks, consisting of apples and pastries, even offering some Luna.

As they enjoyed the snacks, Luna said, “I remember this place.”

“Really? What was it?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“It was a small town, mostly farmers. Not too unlike your Ponyvilly really.” Gesturing to the building before them, Luna added, “This building, they called it ‘sanctuary.’ Although, as I recall, it was just a house.”

“Why’d they call it that if it was just a house?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Because it was the only building to survive the age of chaos untouched. Most of my memories here were of helping them rebuild the town after Discord’s defeat.”

Sweetie Belle finished her cinnamon bun and asked, “Why did Discord leave this building alone?”

Luna shook her head. “That I do not know. Though knowing him, I imagine it was something as pointless and insane as he flipped a coin.”

Draining the last of her juice box, Apple Bloom asked, “If they rebuilt after Discord was defeated, what happened to make the town nothing but ruins now?”

Again Luna shook her head. “It was still standing a thousand years ago. Though it looks like it has been abandon for many hundreds of years, so whatever caused the ponies to leave must have been soon after my banishment.”

Crushing her own juice box flat, Scootaloo stood up and said, “Then come on crusaders! Let’s explore this place and find out what happened!”

Luna raised an eyebrow. ‘Crusaders’ now there is a term I have not heard in an age. Luna thought, as that was the second time in as many hours that she’d heard the word from the fillies. Although, not wanting to step on the fillies’ excitement, she didn’t ask for clarification on the matter, as the trio stuffed their garbage back into Sweetie Belle’s saddlebags and hurried into the ruined building with a zeal that was oddly fitting for the word.

There really wasn’t much to see as they ventured into the ruined building. Pausing for a moment and looking down, Luna brushed a silver shoe on the grass. The ground floor had either been dirt to begin with or wood that had long since rotted away into nothing, as wild grass had become the new carpet for the ruin.

The three fillies darted from one room to the next, while Luna walked calmly down what would have been the hallway.

Pulling her head out of what was left of a fireplace, Apple Bloom sighed, “Aww… there’s nothing here.”

“I can not say that I am surprised, wood and iron do not stand the test of time as well as steel and plastic,” Luna answered.

“I wouldn’t say there’s nothing here. Take a look at this!” Scootaloo said from the back of the ruined building.

“Kinda a small room ain’t it?” Apple Bloom said, as she approached the place where Scootaloo was.

“Naw, it’s too small to be a room. Looks more like a walk in closet,” Sweetie Belle said.

With a hint of sarcasm in her voice Apple Bloom asked, “What kinda closet has a back door? And what’s with this narrow space? Ah can’t even turnaround in here.”

Sitting in the ‘back door’ Scootaloo just looked at her friends and blinked, the blank expression on her face practically screaming, ‘how can you not notice the cave back here?’ As the seconds ticked by a twitch formed in Scootaloo’s eye. Looking up to the only adult present, she found Luna holding a silver clad hoof over her smiling face, restraining herself from laughing at the other two fillies’ intense focus on the narrow space. When she’d had enough with waiting patiently, Scootaloo blurted out, “It’s a secret door! You’d push the cabinet back and slide it into that space to open the way to the secret passage!”

Backing out of the narrow hideaway, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked past Scootaloo into the darkness of the cave behind her. “Oh, yeah that makes since,” they said together.

Tiling her head to the side Sweetie Belle added, “But Scoot, why do you know so much about secret passages?”

“Because I’ve seen one before,” Scootaloo shrugged off the question.

“Oh yeah? When? You’ve drags us on every one of your hair-brained adventures and Ah’ve never seen any secret passages,” Apple Bloom challenged.

A flash of panic appeared in Scootaloo’s eyes, and they quickly found their way to the grass at her hooves. “Umm… It was before I met you guys.” When she finished speaking Scootaloo gave a small smile.

As her friends were deciding whether or not to believe Scootaloo, Luna said, “Considering that even I did not know there was a cave behind this place, It is indeed safe to say that this was a secret passage. Perhaps there was more to this simple house’s name then I gave credence to. What say thee, little ones, shall we explore this hidden cave?”

“Works for me!” Sweetie Belle squeaked, then adding, “Too bad we didn’t bring any flash lights. It looks too dark to see anything in there.”

A soft blue light shown from Luna’s horn lighting the way into the cave. “Lead on my little ponies, and I shall light the way.” With that three crusaders and a princess headed into the cave.

After some stairs leading downward and a short winding path the four ponies came to an open area that had clearly been enlarged from the natural cave. The three fillies immediately darted over to a flat portion of the wall that clearly had etchings on it. Luna’s eyes fell to a dark discoloration on the floor of the cave.

“What do you think it is?” one crusader asked.

“Well duh, it’s a map.”

“I know that, but where do you think it’s a map of?”

“Maybe it’s a treasure map!”

“Hey Luna, what do you think? Do you know what this map is?”

Hearing her name, Luna awoke from her on thoughts and she turned to the map carved in stone. “Let us see. If we presume that these mountains are the Canterlot Mountain range, then this line must be the river leading north, as it was in ancient times. Also of note is that the mapped part seems to narrow as it goes north, only to spread out again at the crystal mountains.”

Scootaloo reached up and ran her hoof along the line that Luna guessed to be a river, and said, “If this is north of our valley, then shouldn’t Cloudsdale be on this map?”

“Hmm, that is curious indeed. Although Pegasopulous was the original pegasus city of Equestria, after it was destroyed in the age of chaos, Cloudsdale was build in its image and likeness in more or less the same place. I find it hard to believe that this map would predate the founding of Equestria,” Luna answered.

Looking down Luna found her musing had fallen on deaf ears, as the trio of fillies had already lost interest in the map and resumed searching the room for anything else to capture their attention. A smile appeared on Luna’s face as she remembered her own youthful exuberance.

As a plan formed in Luna’s mind, she sent out a pulse of magic from her horn, searching the area for a place to create a new secret chamber and conjure up a moment for the fillies to ‘find’ something. She abruptly discarded the idea as the magical scan found a tunnel behind a thin layer of rock already existed. “Well, what have we here?” she said.

“Did you find something?”

Brightening the light from her horn to fully fill the room, Luna said, “Indeed I have. My magic tells me that there is a hidden passage beyond this wall. Search the room diligently little ones, surely there must be a way to open this path.”

Sweetie Belle returned to the map and started pressing her hooves against the various symbols on the map, hoping that one of them might be a button. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo darted around the room, examining every surface that had clearly been altered.

Few things in the room were within easy reach of the fillies, and the two crusaders quickly started looking elsewhere. “Wow, would you look at that!” Scootaloo said, as she spotted the ornate symbols above them, etched in a ring along the walls of the room.

While Scootaloo started doing wing-boosted jumps to inspect the symbols, Apple Bloom tried to climb up on a torch holder, carved into the wall, to get a better look at them. As the farm filly’s weight came on to the torch holder it shifted under her hoof, drawing a yelp of surprise.

A grinding click echoed through the room and the slab of stone before Luna suddenly slid down into the floor, revealing the passageway beyond.

“Way to go Apple Bloom!” the other crusaders cheered as they lined up before the secret passage within a secret cave.

As the four ponies traveled down the new pathway, the crusaders didn’t seem to notice, but Luna couldn’t help but take note of the dark stains marring the ground. On top of that, being more shielded from erosion, the marks were clear enough to see the hoof prints at the end of some of them. Blood stained hooves had once walked this path.

Taking a sniff of the air, Luna found it stale enough to know that there wasn’t much air flow in this part of the cave, but devoid of sent enough to prove that the hidden pathway wasn’t air tight.

A sudden darkness came into sight, revealing that the path was about to open up into a room. The three crusaders marched confidently into the room. As Luna entered the light from her horn filled the room, revealing three stone coffins, the two to either side were sealed, while the one at the back of the room still had its lid partway off.

A startled scream of frightened fillies filled the room as the crusaders found the skeleton of a pegasus mare lying on the ground at the base of still open coffin, and at the end of the trail of ancient dried blood. Aside from the bones, enough feathers and tail hairs had escaped erosion to tell that in life the mare’s coat had been yellow and her mane and tail had been green. The complete absence of the smell of death made it clear that the remains had been undisturbed for hundreds of years.

Approaching the remains, Luna reached out with her magic for a moment and then casually said, “I don’t think she’ll be getting up any time soon. Nor do I sense the enchantment of a necromancer’s magic.”

Scootaloo was the first to step out from behind the closed coffin the trio of fillies had taken cover by. “I wish you guys would stop doing that. When you scream like that, it frightens me into panicking too,” she said.

It was not clear if they believed their friend or not, but Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom giggled and played along. “Sorry, but you have to admit it was a little scary to just find a skeleton all of a sudden like that.”

With a slight giggle Scootaloo said, “Okay, maybe it was a little scary. I blame the hair and feathers, those make it look way more creepy than that model Cheeralee teaches with.”

As if to prove that she wasn’t as scared as hiding with her friends had implied, Scootaloo leapt up onto the lid of the still open coffin. After a quick glance inside she said, “Huh, it’s empty.” Turning her attention to the rim of the coffin, the pegasus filly noticed some wedge-like stone prongs. Putting her weight on one she said, “I think it’s a switch, but it’ll take something heavy to make it budge.” With a smile she added, “Like a stone lid.”

Looking down at the skeleton, Luna said, “That would make since, to grant the last guardian of this place her proper resting place. Come down from there Scootaloo.”

Once the filly had obeyed, Luna wrapped the long-dead pegasus’ remains in her magic and set them inside the coffin. With all three crusaders by her side, Luna stretched out a hoof toward the sarcophagus, enveloped the lid of the coffin in her magic, and said, “Here today, we lay to rest the remains of this noble pegasus. May thy spirit rest in peace knowing that thou has been honored.” Once she had finished speaking, Luna gently waved her outstretched hoof to the side and slid the coffin lid shut with a similar motion from her magic.

As soon as the coffin lid had been shut, the grinding sound of an ancient stonework latch being released was heard. Part of the floor, a flat curricular stone in the center of the room, suddenly fell about a foot and then slid to the side. In its place a small pedestal rose up, presenting a small bronze object, in the shape of a winged horseshoe with a lightning bolt in the middle.

“What do you suppose it is?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“It looks like a horseshoe,” Apple Bloom stated the obvious.

“I can see that! But it looks too fancy to actually be used as a shoe. Plus there’s only one, not a set.”

After a moment of examining the object, the trio of fillies all turned their heads to Princess Luna. The alicorn simply shook her head. “I hath seen many symbols in my time, but this is not among them. You shall have to seek the aid of somepony else on this matter.”

The crusaders all looked to each other and simultaneously all three nodded and said, “Twilight.”

* * * * * * *

Books littered the floor of the privet study within the Ponyville library, and an owl sat on his perch, intently watching as if waiting for the next living cyclone to rearrange the scattering of reading materials.

“Hmm. Yes, I think I have seen this symbol somewhere. Spike! Do you know where the book on ancient pegasus symbology went?” Twilight Sparkle called out.

The purple dragon whelp in question walked casually across the room to the third pile of books from the window loft. After examining the pile for a second he snatched one of the books so quickly that books on top of it fell down in place, preserving the integrity of the book tower. “Here it is!” he called.

As the purple glow of Twilight’s magic snatched up the book, she said, “Spike, have I ever told you that you are amazing?”

“You could stand to say it more often,” he said with a smile, and mimicking a butler’s bow.

“And incorrigible,” Twilight added.

“What’s that mean?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Not sure, but ponies call me that all the time. I always thought they were just saying encouragable funny,” Scootaloo volunteered.

“Encouragable isn’t a word. Incorrigible means unruly, hopeless, or otherwise unwilling to learn to be better or break bad habits,” Sweetie Belle explained.

“What are you, a dictionary? Why do you even know that? Did you read the dictionary from front to back or something?” Scootaloo responded.

A blush became visible through the fur on Sweetie Belle’s cheeks. “I was little! I got all they way to the definition of ‘dictionary’ before I realized why the story in that book was so boring! Okay?”

The other two crusaders burst into laughter at the unexpected answer from the unicorn of their group, and even Luna couldn’t help but smile.

Twilight Sparkle, however, placed her hoof on Sweetie Belle’s shoulder and said, “There is nothing wrong with reading a dictionary front to back. It helps build vocabulary, and helps you understand what ponies are saying.” Lowering her self to come face to face with the pegasus filly, Twilight continued, “Like with you Scootaloo, I bet when ponies called you incorrigible they always left you confused didn’t they?”

Lowering her gaze to the floor, Scootaloo answered, “Yeah… I never did understand why ponies would say I could be encouraged, usually right after I crashed my scooter. But now that I know what it means, I guess they were calling me hopeless.”

“Good, now that we have established the importance of learning, let’s see what we can learn about this artifact you found,” Twilight said, finally opening the book on pegasus symbology. After scanning through the book for a moment, Twilight set her hoof down on a page and said, “Ah here it is! Let’s see, according to this, the symbol of the winged horseshoe and lightning bolt is one of the oldest symbols of the pegasus tribe, and was only used in the early bronze age. After contact with the earth pony tribe the symbol was abandon to further distinguish themselves from the earth ponies, who used a horseshoe in many of their symbols, in favor for an increased focus on wings, clouds and lightning in pegasus symbols.”

Once she’d finished speaking, Twilight turned the book around and set it on the floor, allowing everypony to see the image on the page matched the artifact that Luna and the crusaders had found. As the others looked over the picture in the book, a look of concern found its way on to Twilight Sparkle’s face. “I’m sorry, Luna, where did you say you found this?”

“In the hills just north of town,” Luna answered with a stern yet knowing tone in her voice.

“That makes no since. If the dates in this book are right then the pegasus tribe stopped using this symbol thousands of years before the founding of Equestria. It shouldn’t even be possible for one of these to be found here.”

Luna nodded. “I agree, Twilight. And that is not all that was odd. It is my understanding that the pegasus tribe was not in the habit of burying the dead prior to the founding of Equestria. If memory serves, that was an earth pony tradition, let alone the use of fancy sarcophaguses, more akin to the traditions of unicorns, like the ones we found in the tomb.”

“So what do you think happened? How did this artifact get here of all places?” Twilight asked.

Luna shook her head. “I can not say for certain. However, judging from the evidence, it would seem that a particularly bold group of pegasi ventured forth from the ancient pegasus tribe, found this land ages before the founding of our nation, and chose to stay rather then return and make known what they had found. Finally choosing to prepare a unicorn style tomb for themselves rather then use pegasus traditions of dealing with the dead.”

Twilight brought a hoof to her chin as she considered the theory. “I guess that’s plausible. Especially once you consider the ease of movement pegasi enjoy, it would stand to reason that adventurous pegasi would have found many places long before they were recorded as being ‘discovered’ in the history books.” Looking back to Luna, Twilight Sparkle asked, “So what do you plan on doing with it? The artifact that is.”

“Me? Not a thing, these three are the reason it was found, it is theirs to do with as they please,” Luna answered, motioning to the three fillies in the room.

Twilight’s eyes went wide as she listened to the princess’ answer. “Umm, girls. Before you get too carried away, can I suggest you let me donate it to a museum, where it belongs?”

The three crusaders looked at each other, an unspoken conversation passed between them with nothing more the looks in their eyes and the smiles on their faces. When they had all nodded in agreement, Apple Bloom spoke for them, “Sure, you can do that. Once we’re done with it. But first, we are so bringing this to the next show and tell.”

With that the three crusaders cheered. Twilight hung her head in defeat, and muttered under her breath, “I just it survives that long in their care.”

Author's Note

End story 2/concept 2

Also, from here on out each chapter was originally dreamed up as a separate story.

Chapter 5: A Crusade through a Night of Nightmares

Having seen the three crusaders home from their day’s adventure, Luna found a cloud to recline on. The fading light glimmered off the top of the cloud as she settled down to watch the sunset. As the sun disappeared over the horizon shadows clamed the land. Only a moment later the moon rose, the sky became darker and the stars started coming out. Within minutes the last light of twilight faded, and the night’s sky could be seen for all its glory.

As the stars shown above, so did the light coming from the windows of the town below. With a sigh Luna looked over Ponyville from her cloudy perch, although she could see a dozen or so telescopes, none of them appeared to be manned tonight. The streets were empty and looking back to the light coming from the windows, Luna sighed, “They are creatures of the day.”

Luna watched as the night drew on, and one by one the lights of Ponyville went out. Speaking as if somepony was around to hear her, Luna said, “Very well, we shall sleep. Let us see what dreams you have tonight.”

Setting her head down and closing her eyes, Luna waited until she felt the waking world fade away. Replacing it, the darkness became a field of stars. With the wave of a hoof, Luna summoned a multitude of tiny windows around her, each a portal to the dream of a pony sleeping in the town below her, each emitting an aura of terror.

“W-What is this?” Luna muttered, as her dream self staggered back a step. “H-How can everypony in Ponyville be having a nightmare all at once?”

Through the windows, Luna glimpsed visions of ice, flame and shadow. Then the dream windows began shattering all around her, signaling that the dreamers were being startled awake. Pushing away the realm of dreams Luna opened her eyes.

The Ponyville below was a stark contrast to the peaceful town settling in for the night of only a moment ago. Lights were being turned on all over the town, usually accompanied by screaming. Sometimes smoke could be seen coming from one of the homes or patches of magic ice forming on a building here or there.

Luna descended toward one such smoking home, and just as flames started licking their way through the thatch roof the front door burst open and a family of unicorns rushed out into the street.

The mare of the family came to a sudden halt as she beheld the chaos and panic taking hold across all of Ponyville. “They-They’re everywhere!” she shouted, pulling her colt close to her side.

The stallion of the family tossed a quick glance around as he backed out of their now burning home, but quickly brought his attention to the flaming pony marching forward, making sure to keep himself between the flaming monstrosity and his family.

Glowing purple orbs hovered were eyes should have been on the flaming creature and a sinister smile could be seen on it’s face as it prepared to leap at the family. A beam of blue light came down on the flaming nightmare, flashing brightly and leaving only a scorch mark on the ground where it had stood.

A second later Luna landed on the vary spot. “Is there anypony still inside?” she asked.

The family shook there heads, and the father answered, “No, we’re all here.”

A shattering noise drew everypony’s attention across the street, to see a skeleton being bucked out a window by an earth pony stallion. “And stay away from my daughter!” he shouted, only to pause as his eyes went wide at the revelation that there were screams and nightmarish creatures emerging from all over town.

The unicorn mare bowed to the alicorn who had just saver her family and said, “Thank you, Princess Luna. But what should we do?”

Looking back to the family before her Luna said, “It is my understanding that thy town hall is the default rally point for emergencies, is it not? Take shelter there! Those who can fight should form a defensive line protecting it!”

The two parents gave a quick nod, then the stallion asked, “What about you?”

Luna fired another beam of magic, destroying a frankenstallion, and freeing another pony from her nightmarish pursuer. “I mean to put an end to these nightmares given form!”

* * * * * * *

Less then an hour had passed since the siege of nightmares had begun and Luna found herself escorting another group of ponies toward the town hall. As they entered into the town’s central plaza a headless horse tried to cut them off, only to vanish in a blue flash from Luna’s magic.

As they neared the town hall Luna slowed, allowing the citizens to pass her as they made their dash for safety. Above several pegasi fought to keep the nightmares that could fly away from the town hall building, although, in the case of the flaming-winged-demon-pony nightmares they had little choice but to try and lure them into range of a unicorn with combat magic. Unfortunately, with as few ponies that knew combat magic as there were in Ponyville, that usually meant luring the nightmares to either Twilight Sparkle or Luna.

The earth ponies and unicorns standing guard on the porch parted, allowing the new arrivals to enter. Luna stopped short at the base of the steps and turned to face back out, toward the rest of the town. As a since of déjà vu came over Luna, she muttered, “The headless horse seems to have been a common nightmare tonight.”

“Don’t forget the zombies. I swear I’ve taken down a dozen of em,” said a young pegasus stallion hovering overhead. Turning his head to a balcony behind him, he added, “Of course, somepony just had to pick tonight to sneak a zombie apocalypse comic from my room. Didn’t he, Rumble?”

“I said I’m sorry!” cried the school-age colt in question.

The elder brother just glared at his younger sibling. “Sorry doesn’t change the fact that your nightmares summoned an army of undead into your bedroom! Now get back inside before mom realized you’re not with her and panics again!”

“Aww… but I want to see you fight!” Rumble complained, but headed back into the town hall.

A shadowy mass of tentacles entering the plaza caught Luna’s eye, but just as she charged her horn with magic, a blast of purple magic came down and vaporized the monstrosity. Looking up to the source of the blast Luna spotted Twilight. “You look tired, go ahead and take a break! I can handle it out here for now!” Twilight Sparkle called down from her place on the balcony.

Although she said nothing, Luna nodded in agreement and headed inside.

The inside of the town hall was crowded well beyond the intended capacity of the building, even though the pegasi were making use of the high overhead to hover or rest on clouds to free up floor space for the ground-bound ponies. In a corner to the left, Luna saw that Cheerilee was holding an impromptu class in an effort to keep the foals awake and distracted.

Looking to the right Luna found the improvised medical station tucked away in another corner. More importantly she saw one of the few pegasi on the ground was Rainbow Dash, who was currently getting bandages applied to the burns she’d apparently acquired defending this place.

The moment Rainbow looked up, she noticed Luna’s presence and her eyes shifted from the annoyance of waiting for the nurse to finish treating her burns, to a knowing look of concern aimed at the princess of the night.

With a firm nod, Luna silently confirmed that the shadow magics giving the nightmares form were too familiar to be anyone other then the same one who had made the shadow puppet they’d faced in Cloudsdale.

Rainbow Dash nodded back at Luna as if to say ‘I thought so,’ and then returned her gaze to the bandages being wrapped around her midsection, ending the unspoken conversation between them.

Just as Luna was about to find a place to rest the front doors swung open forcefully enough to draw everypony’s attention. A tan earth pony mare, wearing a cowboy hat, burst into the room and was followed by her red coated elder brother, who happened to be carrying their green coated grandma.

Applejack’s panicked eyes quickly searched the room and locked onto the first friendly face she found who happened to be a white unicorn with a purple mane. Dashing over to the mare Applejack said, “Rarity! Ah can’t find Apple Bloom anywhere! Please tell me Ah plum forgot when that sleepover was happening and she’s with you and Sweetie.”

“Darling, I’m sorry, but that sleepover isn’t until the weekend. Besides Sweetie Belle wasn’t even staying at my place tonight. She was at our parent’s house tonight,” Rarity answered, shaking her head. Turning the another unicorn she added, “Isn’t that right mother?”

Suddenly wide-eyed, Rarity’s mother said, “I thought she was staying at your place tonight.”

Simultaneously the entire family of unicorns looked over the Miss Cheerilee, eyes slowly growing wide with horror as they realized that Sweetie Belle wasn’t among the fillies gather by their teacher.

Clinging to one last hope, Applejack raised her voice and yelled over the chatter of the crowded room, “Has anypony seen Apple Bloom or Sweetie Belle!?”

The yelled question brought a hush over the room and made the head of a certain sky blue pegasus bolt upright. The low murmurs of the room were quickly interrupted as Rainbow Dash took to the air, performed a quick loop around the room and then shot up the stairwell for the upper floors of the town hall. The whole time, the loose half of the bandages partly wrapped around Dash were waving like a make shift banner.

All of ten second passed before Rainbow Dash returned, shooting in through the front doors. Coming to a hover just above her earth pony and unicorn friends, Dash breathlessly said, “I can’t find Scoots! Or any of the crusaders! They’re not here or with the ponies holding out at the guard station!”

“I can not say that I’m surprised,” Luna said as she stepped through the open front door.

“What?” the elder sisters, and honorary sister all said together, as they joined Luna on the town hall’s porch.

“The first wave of nightmares was spawned by most everypony in town. Yet, the night has drawn on and no matter how many of the nightmares we destroy the siege continues. As the battle has continued, I found an increasing since of familiarity with the remaining nightmares that I couldn’t quite put my hoof on. And yet…” rather then speak the answer, she motioned to a trio of nightmare creatures emerging into the town’s central plaza from an alleyway.

The twisted wolf like forms advanced toward the town hall, their bodies made of a dark wood, a purple glow filled the place where eyes should have been. A volley of purple magic came down and destroyed the nightmarish timberwolves.

“Wow!” Applejack said. “Those things remind me of the nightmares Ah use to get from Granny Smith’s stories when I was little.”

“Indeed, and I imagine that we can both guess who else has heard those tales,” Luna said, looking at the farm pony. Then looking back out at the moon lit town, she added, “Though I must admit that I didn’t put the pieces together until Scootaloo’s absence was mentioned.”

Tilting her head to the side Rainbow Dash said, “What about Scoots?”

Bowing her head slightly, Luna answered, “When most fillies and colts dream up the myth of the headless horse, they envision him with a jack-o-lantern in place of his head. Not so with Scootaloo.”

Nodding her head Dash added, “Right, she’s only heard that story from me. And since it wasn’t nightmare night when we went camping I skipped over that part of the story.”

“Exactly. I hath fought at least twelve headless horses tonight, and of them, seven were truly headless. In hindsight, it stand to reason that whomever is responsible for this would spirit away some ponies to remain trapped in the realm of nightmares, that they may continue to give those nightmares form,” Luna finished her line of reasoning.

“So how do we get our sisters back?” the three ponies gathered around Luna asked.

A smile graced Luna’s face. “The crusaders’ dreams shall led me to them.”

Luna closed her eyes and when she opened them again a silver light covered them. To Luna, the waking wold faded, replaced by the field of stars that always welcomed her to the realm of dreams. After a wave of her hoof, Luna frowned, as nothing appeared before her. Holding her front right hoof out before her Luna focused her efforts on a single dreamer. “I know that thou dreams, Scootaloo. Where art thou?”

Although she could feel the shadow magic hiding the dreams away from her, Luna smiled as a small star appeared at the end of her hoof. “Thou are good, but not good enough,” she whispered as took note of the thin tether of light coming off of the star.

Returning to the waking world, Luna and found three ponies waiting expectedly. “Well?” they asked.

“It would seem that I must play a game of Marko Pinto.”

“That game where one pony is blind folded and must guess where the others are based on the sound of their voices? Forgive me princess but how would that help us find our sisters?” Rarity asked.

“It would seem that dark magic hides their dreams from me, preventing me from pinpointing the crusaders. However, I can still since the general direction of the dreamers. I shall repeat the process elsewhere until I find the source.”

“So where are they now?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Somewhere to the southeast.”

“The Everfree Forest.”

“That indeed seems the most likely case.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go get our sisters,” Applejack said, stepping forward.

“Hold, noble Applejack,” Luna said raising a hoof to bar the earth pony’s way. “Forgive my inquiry, but what good would you hope to accomplish rushing blindly in to face the perils of the forest in addition to the nightmares?”

The question gave Rarity pause, but the determined looks refused to fade from Applejack and Rainbow Dash. “All due respect princess, but these are our sisters we’re talking about. We’d do anything and face any danger to protect them,” Applejack said. Dash nodded in agreement.

“That is well and good. However, your services would be better applied holding the fort here,” Luna said. Seeing that the three ponies didn’t consider this good enough, Luna added, “Plus the search this mission entitles would be best carried out from the air, and two of you would only slow me down in that regard.” Looking squarely at Rainbow Dash, Luna also added, “And one of you is not fit to fight.”

“Oh come on! It’s just a burn, so what if my hind left kick will be a little weak, the rest of me still works fine!” Dash complained.

With a stern stare, Luna answered, “Yet given what I expect to be finding, I suspect that thou would only get in my way. Please Rainbow Dash, let the master dream-walker deal with the source of an army of nightmares.”

Applejack placed a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “Luna has a point, Rainbow. If us being around would just muck things up, we should stay out of her way.”

“Fine,” the pegasus conceded, hanging her head in defeat.

“Thank you, I shall return with thy sisters as soon as I can,” Luna said, and with that the princess of the night disappeared in a flash of teleportation magic.

“So how long are we waiting before we go after her?” Dash asked.

“Seeing as she teleported away, Ah’d say now is good,” Applejack answered.

* * * * * * *

From high above the middle of the Everfree Forest, the silver light faded from Luna’s eyes and she turned her gaze in a new direction. “Southwest now is it?” she said to the wind.

Two more dream-scans pointing in the same direction latter and Luna was nearing the edge of the Everfree forest. Once more checking the realm of dreams, she finally found the dream was more below her than any other direction.

Yet before she could dive down into the thinning forest, Luna noticed distant movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head to investigate, she couldn’t help but sigh and laugh at the same time when she saw Rainbow Dash flying along, slowly enough that it was clear she was leading others on the ground.

“I suppose I can not blame them,” Luna said. Turning her attention downward she spotted a cave in more or less the direction of the crusader’s dreams. Only a hundred yards worth of trees separated cave from the edge of the Everfree forest and, ironically enough, the northern end of Ghastly Gorge as well.

Landing as quietly as she could above the mouth of the cave Luna felt the magic in the area. The dark magic coming from inside the cave left no reason to bother checking the realm of dreams. The sounds of hooves and claws made Luna lower herself and watch quietly as a pack of twisted nightmare timberwolves and zombie unicorns exited the cave, marching off to the northwest, to Ponyville.

Luna waited a moment longer as the sounds of the nightmares given form faded. Once the silence had lasted long enough that she was sure nothing more would be coming out, Luna opened her wings and flew as silently as she could into the cave.

Around one corner Luna set herself down silently, for around the next bend in the cave the flickering light of a campfire could be seen dancing on the wall. Steeling herself to face whomever the crusaders’ captor was, she charged her horn with magic and darted around the corner.

In the middle of the room a small campfire flickered as expected. Along the right side of the room was a metal cage, where the three crusaders slept. Between the frequent fidgeting and the dark glow around their bodies it was clear that magic kept them trapped within their nightmares and unable to wake.

However, the sight that drew a gasp from Luna was the figure standing on the opposite side of the campfire. An alicorn slightly larger then herself, with a coat as black as the darkest of nights, her mane and tail shimmered like a vision of a starry night’s sky and clad in silver combat armor that gave the dark figure it’s only contrast. “Nightmare Moon,” Luna whispered as she looked at the pony across from her.

“Surprised to see me?”

With a prolonged blink Luna recomposed herself, abandoning her combat stance for a more casual one she walked forward. Turning her gaze to the three fillies in the cage she said, “I expected more. Tell me, imposter, why just these three?”

“You have the nerve to call me imposter and yet you have to ask me that?” Nightmare Moon sneered. “I would think it obvious, just look at them. Still blank flanks at their age, the anxiety pent up in their hearts primes them for nightmares.” Motioning to Scootaloo, Nightmare Moon added, “Especially this one, so much pain in her heart, so little solace. Her nightmares have been especially potent.”

The dark aura around Scootaloo pulsed, the filly moaned and fidgeted as black tendrils came off of her head like dark steam. The dark magic wafted through the bars of the cage, consolidating just outside it, becoming a hellishly black coated demon-pony with wings made of black fire and crimson lightning arching all over its body.

Nightmare Moon grinned. “I rest my case.”

As the nightmare demon-pony opened its glowing purple eyes it swung its wings forward, launching a black fireball sheathed in crimson lightning.

Luna released the magic in her horn and the resulting beam of blue light cut through the incoming attack, and blasted the nightmare into nothingness. The remnants of the nightmare’s attack licked at Luna’s sides, forcing a pained cry from her.

Yet as she righted her stance, Luna was smiling. “I have seen her nightmares, but I also know the light that resides in her heart! Come, imposter, see the true power of her dreams!” Then Luna’s horn flared to life and the dark glow around the crusaders was joined by a soft blue glow. At the same time a silver light covered Luna’s eyes and the waking world vanished.

* * * * * * *

This time there were no stars to welcome Luna when she appeared in darkness. The only other things that filled the void around her were the three dreams standing alone like islands in a sea of infinite darkness.

In one direction Apple Bloom was running through a dark forest, being chased by nightmarish timberwolves and crying out for her big sister to come help her.

In another direction Sweetie Belle was running through a twisted vision of Carousel Boutique, being chased by a unicorn zombie and begging her undead elder sister to leave her alone.

In yet another direction Scootaloo could be seen running through what looked like an active volcano of all things, leaping from one stone platform to the next as she crossed a river of lava. Although what the filly was running from couldn’t be seen, the fear reflecting in Scootaloo’s eyes could, and Luna’s heart couldn’t help but ache for the filly when she noticed the deafening silence in which the young pegasus ran.

“You choose to challenge me within the realm of nightmares?” Nightmare Moon’s voice said from above. “You realize that if you fail to break them free of their nightmares you’ll be trapped here as well, don’t you?”

A quick glance at the three fillies showed that they were too deeply trapped with in their nightmares to notice the conversation occurring in the darkness between the dreams. Pulling her gaze up from Scootaloo and toward Nightmare Moon, Luna gave a smirk and said, “Who said that I would be braking them free of their nightmares?”

Rising up on her hind legs and spreading her wings, Luna held her front legs out to the sides. Bringing her front hooves together in a resounding clap, the three dreams rushed toward each other. The three dreams collided below Luna, shattering and becoming a large circular stone platform. As the fillies fell to this new floor, glowing pools of dark magic appeared around each of them and black chains shot out of the pools, shackling each of fillies’ legs.

The three fillies were all facing away from each other as they jolted upward, as if waking from a dream. Sweetie Belle breathed a sigh of relief and was the first to speak. “Good, not the boutique…” Then noticing the chains shackling her legs she added, “Oh come on!”

“Sweetie Belle? Oh thank goodness… Oh applesauce Ah’m stuck!” Spurred by the voice of her friend Apple Bloom tried to turn around only to notice the chains binding her legs had only enough slack to allow her to stand normally but not turn around. Settling for turning her head instead Apple Bloom found her found her friends in similar situations, but asked anyway, “Scootaloo?”

Having pulled herself into a pained sitting position, pulling all of her chains to their limits, Scootaloo was focusing on trying to pull her front right hoof free of its shackles. With one final grunt the young pegasus finally relented. “Sorry crusaders, these shackles are too tight. I’m stuck too,” she admitted, hanging her head slightly.

In the space between the three crusaders Luna landed hard, forced down by a torrent of black and purple magic. “Don’t think I’m going to make this easy for you!” Nightmare Moon shouted from the other end of the beam of magic.

A powerful blue light erupted from Luna’s horn, pushing back the dark magic and allowing the princess of the night to stand up properly.

“Luna!” the three fillies called out.

“Are you alright?” Sweetie Belle added.

“Wait, does this mean Ah’m dreaming?” Apple Bloom asked.

“What took you so long?” Scootaloo asked, although the soft smile, welcoming eyes and relief in her voice took the bite out of her choice of words.

Luna gave a small laugh as she answered, “My apologies little ones. Dark magic hid thy dreams from me. I had to gain line of sight of thee to break into thy nightmares.”

“Ah can see you’re busy and all, but Ah don’t suppose ya could get us out of here could ya?” Apple Bloom asked.

With a slight shake of her head Luna answered, “No. The three of you are under the power of a nightmare spell. Those chains represent the magic keeping you bound here, in the realm of nightmares. I can only keep the nightmares at bay, it is you who must free thyselves.”

“Okay, how do we do that?” Scootaloo asked.

While the torrent of magic flowing from the tip of Luna’s horn kept back the shadow magics of Nightmare Moon three small sparks of blue light scattered off the base of Luna’s horn, each coming to rest right in front the crusaders. “Take my light, use thy hopes and dreams to make it thy own! Then show this nightmare the true strength in thy hearts!”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle tossed nervous glances at each other.

Scootaloo lifted her hoof up, touched the spark of light before her and closed her eyes. Pulses of light came off of the spark as it grew into a sphere and changed to an orange color. Even prismatic light appeared, coming off of the sphere like ribbons of steam.

When the sphere was almost the size of Scootaloo it shattered. Some of the fragments of light came back together in the space just beyond Scootaloo’s outstretched hoof, becoming a silhouette of light in the shape of a sword. The remaining fragments of light wrapped around Scootaloo’s body, mostly taking the shape of an armored vest and sheathing her wings in light.

As the light faded the silhouette gave way to reveal a silver sword, perfectly sized to be a filly’s broadsword. Its blade was simple and straight, right up to the end, where it came to a point. The guard was shaped like pegasus wings spread in flight. Etched into the middle of the guard, between the two wings, was an insignia of a shield with a crescent moon in it. The handle grip was the only part of the sword that wasn’t silver, as it was wrapped in light blue cloth, before ending in a silver pommel.

As the light around Scootaloo’s body faded, it became a silver chain-mail vest. Around her hooves the light became armored boots with tiny silver lightning bolts coming off of the backs like stylized wings. The light over her actual wings became countless segmented silver plates, protecting her wings like an extra layer of silver feathers.

Silver knight Scootaloo made two quick swings of her hoof and the sword hovering just beyond it matched the motion, shattering the chains attached to her front legs. With two more swings the chains binding her hind legs were also sundered and the remaining fragments of the dark magic evaporated into nothingness. Finally free Scootaloo turned around to face Luna and her friends and gave them a confident grin, while her sword hovered to her side just beyond the reach of her wings.

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle looked from their newly knighted friend to each other, sporting similar smiles before closing their eyes and reaching out to touch the sparks of light before them.

As Sweetie Belle touched her spark it became a light green color and grew slightly larger then her hoof before shattering. The fragments of Sweetie’s light wrapped around her horn. A transparent bubble of light formed around the young unicorn like a shield spell cast by a master unicorn mage and shattering the chains that bound her as it closed around her.

The blue spark at Apple Bloom’s hoof shifted to a golden yellow color and grew to almost double the size of her hoof before shattering. Bloom’s light wrapped around her becoming a silhouette of thick heavy armor. As the light wrapped around her legs like knee-high plated boots the dark shackles shattered to make way for the golden light. Taking a moment to gaze into the radiant armor forged of light, a flash of curiosity appeared on Apple Bloom’s face before she looked up and smiled back at her friends.

The three crusaders gathered together, lining up beside Luna. “Are we ready crusaders?” Apple Bloom practically cheered the question.

“Ready!”

With a nod from Apple Bloom, Scootaloo raised her hoof and her sword took its position just beyond it. When Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle each placed a hoof on the sword’s guard three beams of light erupted from the fillies, one yellow, one green, one orange, and spiraled their way down the length of the sword’s blade. At the tip of the blade the beams merged and the tri-colored beam shot out toward Nightmare Moon.

As the crusaders’ tri-colored beam joined with Luna’s magic, the dark magic aligned against it buckled and the world of dreams shattered.

* * * * * * *

The light covering the eyes of the two alicorns vanished and both shot a glance to the three fillies in the cage. The dark auras around the crusaders evaporated. Their eyes slowly pealed open as they awoke.

“Seriously?” Apple Bloom said, as she glared at the iron bars of their cage.

“So you’ve cut off my source of nightmares to conjure into the world,” Nightmare Moon scoffed. “Not that it matters, I can recast the nightmare spell on them later. And we both know how easily you can handle nightmares, so surely you didn’t expect me to relay on them to face you, did you?”

“Considering thy habit of hiding behind puppets and nightmares, I would not have been surprised if thou didn’t plan on facing me at all,” Luna answered. Then the light of Luna’s magic flared to life around her horn. A light blue glow appeared beside the alicorn and quickly took shape.

The three fillies in the cage smiled as they recognized the blade, despite being made only of transparent blue light. “Is that Scootaloo’s sword?” Sweetie Belle half asked, half cheered.

“It seemed appropriate,” Luna answered with a smile.

“If that is your choice so be it,” Nightmare Moon scoffed, as a dark aura formed around her horn and her shadowy magics took the form a scythe.

The two alicorns stood ready, each with wary eyes watching the other. Nightmare Moon made the first move by lunging at Luna and the flurry blades began. The magical blades flashed, striking out and parrying each other in rapid succession, never allowing the other to gain more then a minor cut on the ponies wielding them.

The flurry of blades ended when the blades locked and Nightmare Moon tried to step back only to find she had no more ground to give. With her rump against the cave wall Nightmare couldn’t dodge anymore and if she abandon her parry Luna’s blade would land a serious blow on her chest.

As the blades pressed against each other cracks formed in the scythe. Luna stepped forward saying, “What’s the matter, imposter? Can your nightmare scythe not withstand the light of a dream sword born of a mere filly’s dreams?”

The scythe shattered and Luna’s sword cleaved deep into Nightmare Moon’s chest, drawing horrified gasps from the three fillies watching from their cage. The gasps were quickly replaced with questioning ‘Huh?’s as they realized it wasn’t blood coming from the wound . Instead Nightmare Moon’s body was into dissolving sparks of dark magic.

As she collapse to the ground Nightmare Moon gave a sinister smile and said, “It would seem that you were right. I am the imposter… and you are the true queen of nightmares.” With that Nightmare Moon’s form shattered into a sea of dark sparks that quickly flickered out of existence.

A Shadow puppet that powerful can only mean that the caster is nearby, yet I can not abandon the crusaders to search for the true villain lest I risk leaving them open to a reprisal born of spite. A perfect escape plan it would seem. The thoughts made Luna frown as she stared at the blank cave wall.

The sounds of the three fillies cheering her apparent victory brought Luna out of her thoughts. Turning around she gave them a weak smile and said, “Let us get thee out of there. Stand back.”

Once the crusaders had backed up as far as the cage would allow, Luna made two quick swings with her sword. Several of the heavy iron bars fell to the ground with a resounding clang as Luna finally dismissed the magic blade.

After the crusaders showered Luna with their thanks and praise, Apple Bloom asked, “Luna, can Ah ask you something.”

“Of course, child, what is it you wish to know?”

“Back when we were dreaming, Ah tried to make my dreams become a suit or armor like Scootaloo did, how come it didn’t fully form like hers did?”

“Yeah I was wondering about that too, I tried to make a mage’s outfit too but all I got was the magic,” Sweetie Belle added.

Lowering herself down to eye level with the fillies, Luna asked, “Well, what dreams did you use to make the sparks of light your own?”

“Well, getting my cutie mark has always been important to me, so Ah focused on the dream where Ah got my mark,” Apple Bloom answered.

With a nod Luna turned to Sweetie Belle and asked, “And you?”

Blushing slightly, Sweetie answered, “Well, someday I want to be a designer like my sister. So I thought about a dream I have from time to time where I make a dress and Rarity actually thinks it’s good.” After a short pause Sweetie Belle asked, “What about you Scoot? What dream did you use?”

Scootaloo’s gaze quickly found the floor. “Do I have to?” she asked weakly.

“All of them,” Luna answered on the filly’s behalf.

“What?” the two fillies not in the know, responded.

With a supportive smile Luna clarified, “Scootaloo truly heeded my words, she used all of her hopes and dreams. She held back nothing, thus the light of her dreams fully manifested.”

“Ohhhh!” the two crusaders said. Unseen by her friends, at the same time Scootaloo silently mouthed the words ‘Thank you’ to Luna.

Standing up again, Luna smiled and said, “Come my lunar crusaders, let us take our leave of this place.”

They had barely emerged from the cave when Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity emerged into the clearing before the cave. Judging from their newly acquired cuts, bruises, and Dash’s increasingly shredded bandages they had already dealt with the last wave of nightmares.

Each crusader ran to their elder sister, or honorary sister in the case of the pegasi, and embraced them. After accompanying the crusaders and the three spirits of harmony back to town, Luna took her leave of Ponyville.

* * * * * * *

Landing on her balcony Luna saw the small, newly added ramp and judging form the fox’s paw prints in the snow the guards had grown accustom to allowing Luna’s pet to come and go as he pleased. Pausing for a moment Luna’s eyes found their way to the guards stationed beside her balcony, warped in heavy blankets.

A soft breeze carried the chill of the high mountain’s night air. If she chose to linger much longer Luna might have even thought the air cold. The thought of being stationed outdoors, at a post above the snowline made Luna asked, “Soldier, are thou cold?”

The soldier jerked his head to look at his princess, clearly surprised that he’d been spoken to at all. Quickly regaining the composure on his face he answered, “No, your majesty. The blankets work fine.”

Between the visible breath and the slight hint of discomfort in the soldier’s voice, Luna doubted his words. Searching her mind for an excuse to help her guards anyway Luna found one. “Hmm, I shall have to have these guard posts enchanted to keep you warm. Shedding those blankets would slow thy response time, if thou had to take sudden action.”

Once Luna had entered into Starlight Castle, the two guards broke their stoic gaze for just a moment as they each gave a slight smile.

Once she had tracked down an attendant to pass along her request regarding the guard posts by her balcony, Luna retreated to her chambers and found everything was as she had left it. Turning her attention to the mannequin with the molding clay her horn came to life. She had work to do.

* * * * * * *

The sun beat down on the small Ponyville schoolhouse and birds chirped, seemingly taunting the young ponies stuck at their desks. “…And that is why they say to stop, drop, and roll. The point being to smother the flame between the skin and ground, forcing them to go out,” Cheerilee finished her lecture, reminding her young charges of fire safety.

The safety lessons had been a direct result of nightmare invasion and most of it was sufficiently redundant as to bore the fillies and colts to sleep. Much to the delight of the students, an unexpected knock prevented the teacher from moving on to the next lecture.

“I wonder who that could be?” Cheerilee thought out loud as she approached the door. Opening the door the teacher’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Princess Luna? What brings you here?”

“Forgive the interruption, however I wish to speak with some of thy charges,” the princess of the night answered.

“Oh yes, come in. We were just doing a refresher on some safety tips. Perhaps you could give some tips on handling nightmares?”

“I think that I shall take you up on the offer. However, first allow me the indulgence of the reason I came here, as it is a bit more ceremonial,” Luna said, drawing attention to the large saddlebags she wore. “Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, would thou come here a moment?”

The three fillies were more than happy to answer Luna’s summons and abandoned their desks to join her at the front of the class. Opening her saddlebags with her magic and speaking in an official tone of voice, Luna said, “I come bearing gifts of thanks for thy services during the recent nightmare incursion!”

From her saddlebags, Luna produced a silver circlet, with an attached crest meant to fit around the base of a unicorn’s horn and right where the circlet would cover the forehead it had the symbol of a shield with a crescent moon in it. Then turning to Sweetie and said, “To you, Sweetie Belle, I wish to present this circlet, custom crafted for you. Its enchantments will aid thee in the learning of magic. Though once learned I would urge you to practice your spell work without its help.”

The next object that came out of Luna’s saddlebag was a heavy, silver, armored saddle, complete with armored plates to protect the front and back as well, much like the armor of the royal guard. The chest plate also had the crest of a shield with a crescent moon etched into it. “Apple Bloom, I present thee with armor befitting for thy adventures, may it protect you, and through you, thy friends.”

The final object to come from Luna’s saddlebags was a silver armored vest with wing sleeves made of segmented silver plates. The shoulder-pads of the vest had the same shield and crescent moon crest as the other gifts. “Scootaloo, I offer you the armor of the pegasi. Though I wish that I could give you something to aid you in flight, I am afraid this will only encumber your ability to fly. You may think of them as training weights of sorts. Finally being designed to be light weight this armor will offer less protection than that of Apple Bloom’s, but it gives as much protection as possible for the knight who values speed over raw strength.”

Holding all three items in the air before the fillies, Luna looked at the trio with great seriousness and said, “Now before I give these to you, I have one question first. Do the three of you accept the post of my lunar crusaders? A position with absolutely no authority what-so-ever, but also the heavy burden of trying thy very best each and every day to be model citizens, upholding the virtues of truth, justice, wisdom and righteousness?”

The trio wasted no time bowing low to Luna, each giving an affirmative response. (While Cheerilee, among other, did their best not to snicker at the idea of their infamous crusaders being model citizens, or wise for that matter.)

“Then rise, my youthful champions! I hereby dub thee, Lunar Crusaders!” Luna said, as she used her magic to help the trio put on the gifts.

The crusaders stood up and turned around to face the class, as their teacher and most of their classmates cheered.

“There now that the ceremony is done, you three may return to thy seats,” Luna said. As the crusaders did what was asked of them, Luna turned to the class and added, “I do believe I promised a lesson as recompense for the interruption. Forgive me that I did not come prepared for such… where should I begin?”

Immediately a pink hoof shot up.

“Yes… forgive me, what is thy name, and question?”

“Diamond Tiara, and I wanted to know what those three actually did for you? Because the way I heard it, all they did was get foulnapped and rescued.”

“Not entirely inaccurate, although that version seems to skip over the part where they helped me break the nightmare spell. Thus ending the flow of nightmares besieging thy town,” Luna answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Those three actually did something right for once? I don’t believe this! I must be dreaming!” Diamond Tiara growled just loud enough to be heard, drawing a gasp from some of the other students. Tiara quickly sank into her seat, mortified at the realization that her thoughts had escaped her lips.

With a raised eyebrow Luna said, “That presents an excellent idea for my first lesson, let us test that theory shall we? Miss Diamond Tiara, take thy hoof and do this.” Luna then struck her other front leg hard enough to make herself flinch.

She hesitated at first, but even Tiara didn’t dare refuse an order from a princess and so she followed Luna’s example. “Oww! That hurt, what was the point of making me do that?”

“Simple, the part of the mind that…”

* * * * * * *

Luna had finished her lessons regarding dreams by lunchtime and had left the schoolhouse to tend to one last matter that had her heading to Canterlot.

Luna found Celestia in her chambers with her face buried deep in a pile of papers. “Oh thank goodness! A welcome excuse to take a break from this dreadful paperwork,” Celestia said once she’d noticed who her company was.

Finding her crown exactly where she’d left it Luna picked it up with her magic and said, “I hath come to reclaim my crown and once more return to service as princess of the night. However, I do have one question first. Does Equestria still officially make use of crusaders?”

Celestia gave a slight laugh. “No, sister, ever since the E.U.P. guard was formed individuals righteous enough to take on the burden of maintaining law, order and justice onto themselves typically just join the guard these days.” After pausing and bringing a hoof to her chin for a moment, she added, “Although I suppose individuals like Twilight’s friends and Miss Daring Do would qualify, but I don’t think any of them have bothered to clam that ancient title. It probably doesn’t help that acts of heroism are acknowledged more as individual events these days.”

Luna nodded. “I see, I suppose that makes since. With greater organization of civilization such burdens would not have to be shouldered by independent individuals.” Placing her crown on her head she added, “A promise is a promise, I do believe that I owe you upwards of a month’s worth of vacation time. Though I do ask you give me a day or two to get back into the flow of things before you take your leave.”

With a wide smile Celestia said, “Oh don’t worry, little sister. I shall take my time planning the perfect vacation.”

Chapter 6: The Night’s Trial

Over a week had passed since Luna had resumed her duties and Celestia had yet to call in her owed favor. Of course the sudden rash of criminal activity in Canterlot was no doubt influencing Luna’s sister in staying on the job.

With a sigh Luna looked at the ransacked shop around her. The seemingly erratic assortment of items made it nearly impossible to guess the nature of the store as the ransacking had left everything from bones to potions to metallic knickknacks scattered about. To her right was a unicorn stallion clad in the golden armor of the Canterlot guard, speaking with another stallion, who appeared to be the storeowner. To the left was a unicorn mare, also wearing Canterlot guard armor, sifting carefully through the store looking for clues.

When the stallions had finished talking the guard approached Princess Luna. “What was stolen?” she asked.

“Giving the sate of his store he wasn’t entirely sure, but he did mention that two of his channeling rods were missing.”

Looking over the a knocked over barrel Luna took notice of several rods, mostly made from copper, silver and even a few gold ones, with elaborate etchings around their surfaces. “Channeling rods, the easiest of magical artifacts to craft. Did he bother to say why type of needle in a haystack we are searching for?”

The guard shook his head. “When I tried to press the matter her became… forgetful. He promised to pass along a full list of missing items in the morning, once he’s had time to do a proper inventory.”

“So they were ebony steal then?” Luna half asked, half laughed.

The guard nodded. “Most likely. I can’t think of any other type of channeling rod that anypony would be shamed to admit owning, or selling.”

“And thou said two went missing? That is most troubling. Come sunrise be sure that my sister is informed of this.”

“Of course, your majesty. But if you don’t mind my asking, what’s so special about two channeling rods going missing?”

“Between this and the robberies over the past week, that brings the number of conveniently unspecified channeling rods stolen up to six. A number favored by the dark magic rituals that ebony rods are infamous for.”

A grim frown appeared on the guard’s face as he gave one last nod and returned his attention to investigating the crime scene.

With one last look around Luna concluded that there nothing more for her to learn here and took her leave of the store.

* * * * * * *

Luna lowered the moon and the rising sun quickly removed the resulting twilight. After returning to her camber, Luna had just settled into her bed for the day when a knock sounded from the door. Getting back to her hooves Luna said, “Enter!”

The princess of the night raised an eyebrow when two pegasi of the Canterlot guard entered her chamber, and relaxed it slightly when her sister followed behind them. Judging from the grim looks on all their faces Luna made her guess as to the reason for the visit. “Has there been a break in the case of the Canterlot crime wave?”

“You could say that. Are you aware of the enchantments placed on guards helmets these days?” Celestia answered, with a slight nod.

The question drew Luna’s attention to the fact that one of the royal guards had a helmet wrapped in one of his front legs despite the fact that he was still wearing one. Bringing a hoof to her muzzle, Luna answered, “I believe Captain Shadow Wing mentioned something about that upon my taking command of the night guard. Something about the helmets record what the guard has seen and heard in the last day or so, is that what you speak of?”

“Indeed. Now if you could be so kind, could you please explain this?” Celestia said, charging her horn with magic and touching it to the extra helmet being held by the guard.

The golden glow of Celestia’s magic flowed around the helmet for a moment and then a beam of white light shot out of it, becoming an illusion a few feet in front of the helmet.

At first Luna wasn’t sure what she was looking at, as the spell seemed to be showing a massive blur, but after a few seconds she realized that the bulk of the image was a wall and that the guard must have been leaning slowly out from behind cover. As the image shifted the scene became that of a Canterlot alleyway the illusion presented an image of Luna standing before a closed door.

“This is what the helmet recorded last night. Not long after you left the investigation at the magic relics store,” Celestia answered her sister’s raised eyebrow.

As the illusion continued the Luna within it closed her eyes and summoned magic around her horn. The blue glow of the illusion Luna’s magic became black as her body grew and her coat turned dark, silver armor appeared as she became a perfect likeness to Nightmare Moon. With a pulse from Nightmare’s magic the lock on the door before her shattered and she entered into the building.

The illusion’s point of view shifted as the pony wearing the helmet moved up to the now open doorway. Inside Nightmare Moon seemed to be ransacking a bakery of all things. “Halt! What are you doing?” a stallion’s voice came from the illusion.

“That, dear Private, is none of your business!” Nightmare Moon said in response, quickly firing a blast of magic at the illusion’s viewpoint.

The guard wearing the helmet dodged the first attack and a short brawl followed, although the illusion was shifting back and forth too much to make out what was really happening until the final image showed the viewpoint being thrown to the floor and the illusion went black.

With another pulse of Celestia’s magic the illusion vanished entirely as she said, “At that point the guard blacked out so obviously he didn’t see or hear anything more for the spell to record.”

“Is he alright?” Luna asked.

“Minor injuries aside he’s fine. But that brings us back to my first question. Would you care to explain why he saw what he did?”

“The obvious answer is illusion magic. Combined with recent events I am inclined to suspect it was a shadow puppet.”

Celestia nodded. “Agreed. However, there is a problem. Based on this evidence, both the storeowner and guard have chosen to press charges against you. Can you provide an alibi? Somepony to who can confirm you were somewhere else when this happened?”

Luna shook her head. “No. I returned here alone, and leisurely enough that I doubt the guards testimony as to the time of my return would vindicate me.”

“I see, then I have no choice but to place you under arrest until the formal investigation is complete and a trial can be held.”

With a raised eyebrow Luna asked, “Sister, do you truly mean to drag me into court on such petty evidence at that?”

“I would hope you will walk into the court, being dragged in would be very un-regal. Kidding aside, the laws have changed in the last thousand years. The will of a princess isn’t as absolute as it use to be. And as I said, the guard and storeowner made the choice. The citizens have the right to press charges against us freely these days. Don’t worry about it, sister, I get dragged into court at least fifty times a year on frivolous lawsuits. But we still need to go through the motions and hear out the case.”

After a short sigh Celestia continued, “However, seeing as these are criminal charges and you can’t provide an alibi up front, you will have to wait in a cell until the trial. Don’t worry I’ve already arranged from you to have access to the law books, so you can catch up on the changes all you like. Also, I asked for Twilight Sparkle to serve as your council. Trust me she’s memorized everything she’s ever seen in book form.”

“No.”

Celestia tilted her head to the side at the unexpected response. “No?”

“Forgive me if I do not wish to have Twilight Sparkle’s aid. Judging from the time I spent with her, I doubt that she is involved in the shadow puppet matter. However, logic condemns her at every step, so forgive me if I forgo her aid on the off chance that I am mistaken about her innocence. If I am to be confined I shall need Captain Shadow Wing to serve as my emissary while I prepare for this trial.”

“Logic condemns Twilight?”

“Unless you mean to say you are the guilty party, yes. Aside from you and I, only the ponies of Ponyville have seen Nightmare Moon as more then just a depiction. Only the ponies of Ponyville have seen the shadow bolt uniform. And unless I am mistaken, Twilight Sparkle is the only unicorn of Ponyville with both the magical power and skill needed to even attempt creating a shadow puppet.”

Suddenly Celestia found herself staring blankly into space. “Why didn’t you tell me these details before today?” she said barely loud enough to be heard.

“Thou didn’t ask. Now, seeing as Starlight Castle does not have a dungeon, I presume we are headed to Canterlot. Guards, feel free to lead the way,” Luna said, effectively ordering her own arrest.

* * * * * * *

When the day of the trial came, Celestia entered the dungeon, making her way to her sister’s cell. Finally approaching the cell, the princess of the sun didn’t find things quite as she had expected. “Sister, are you mad at me?” she asked in a sorrowful tone.

Looking up from the book she had been reading Luna tilted her head to the side. “Not at all. What gave thou that impression?”

“I didn’t think you the type to prefer hardwood to cushions.”

The comment made Luna look down at the hardwood bench, supported by two chains, that she was currently reclined on and then to the plush couch in the middle of the cell, that currently had a pile of books stacked on it. “Ah yes, that. I figured if we were going to put on a show of being like the commoners that I should enjoy the default accommodations of the dungeon. Besides, compared to a thousand years banished to the moon, three days in a jail cell is a walk in the park.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose it would be. Regardless, the preparations are complete, let’s get this trial over with. Come, sister,” Celestia said as she opened the cell door.

Four unicorn guards took up position around Luna as they walked. After a short moment of walking in silence Celestia asked, “Have you had any luck in finding the true culprit?”

Luna shook her head. “No. It hardly seemed appropriate to be giving orders from a jail cell. Needless to say this has stalled my investigation and I only had one other I trust enough to aid me in the matter. I hope to hear from him after this trial is dealt with.”

* * * * * * *

Meanwhile, at the courthouse a royal guard was speaking to a gathering of ponies in the halls. “…and Twilight Sparkle.”

“Here.”

“Good, if those who’s names were call will please fallow me,” the armored stallion said, turning to lead the way further down the hallway.

Among those following the guard were Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Scootaloo. As they walked, the pegasus filly looked up to her honorary sister and said, “Rainbow Dash, I’m nervous. I’ve never been a witness before.”

Dash wrapped a wing around the younger pegasus. “Don’t worry about it squirt, all they do is make you sit in a chair next to the judge and ask you questions. It’s not like a school quiz or anything, so there are no right or wrong answers. All you have to do is tell them what you can and if you don’t know anything about what they ask you, just say so.”

The unicorn in the guard armor came to a stop in front of a wooden door that looked just like every other door in the hallway. “Okay kid, you can wait in here. We’ll come get you when it’s your turn to testify. If you need to use the bathroom just knock of that door on the other side of the room and a guard will escort you to the restrooms,” the guard said with practiced ease that proved he’d given the speech more times then he’d like to remember.

The room was well furnished with a couch, snack table, water fountain, potted plants, pictures and the like. Scootaloo gave a soft whistle as she beheld the high-class waiting room.

“Hey what gives?” Dash complained as the guard’s hoof shot up to prevent her from following.

“This room is for her, we have another for you,” the guard said with a sigh.

Rainbow Dash glared back at the guard. “Where Scoots goes, I go.”

The guard rolled his eyes and sighed. However, Twilight Sparkle answered on his behalf. “Rainbow, didn’t you read the summons letter we got? We are here as witnesses. That means we have to wait separately so we can’t talk to each other and ‘get our stories straight’ as they say. To make it easy for them to tell if any of us try to lie on the stand. But once we’ve testified we can join our friends to watch the rest of the trial.”

“Meh, fine. See you in a couple hours, Scoots,” Dash conceded.

Twilight looked at the blue pegasus indignantly. “You really didn’t read the summons letter, did you?”

“Of course I read it! I’m here aren’t I?”

“Well I don’t know about you, but my notice clearly stated that I was call to testify by the defense, that means Luna. And since the prosecution goes first, that means we’ll likely be waiting longer then just a couple of hours,” Twilight explained.

“Okay then, see you in a few hours, Scoots,” Dash corrected. Then turning to Twilight, she rolled her eyes, adding, “Happy?”

“Very,” Twilight Sparkle said, practically beaming.

Content that the matter was resolved the guard closed and locked the door, and then led the remaining witnesses to their own virtually identical waiting rooms.

* * * * * * *

“I can’t believe you didn’t want a proper defense attorney to represent you,” Celestia whispered to her sister as they entered the courtroom.

“The lunar court may not be busy, but it’s not dead, sister. I’ve presided over enough cases cleaning up your backlog to know how this goes these days. Even with the differences described in the books you gave me for this type of trial, I am more then capable of presenting my own defense, thank you. And besides, it’s not like I am without council.”

Taking her seat at the defendant’s table, Luna turned to the dark blue pegasus, with a yellow mane, wearing a cloth suit, and said, “Lieutenant Night Sky, I trust you will catch me if I say something incorrect.”

The lieutenant gave a weak smile. “I’ve defended the actions of the night guard more times then I care to count. Although, I’m more accustom to presenting the case myself, I will do my best to serve as your council. And from what you’ve shared, I’d say your planed defense should do fine.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Luna said as she took the time to look around the courtroom. Breathing a sad sigh at the realization that it had not changed since she’d last seen this place.

The general layout was the same as the lunar court, with polished wood dominating the furniture scene. The color scheme of the non-wood parts of the room differed greatly however. Where the Lunar court had blue carpet and silver, the solar court had a white carpet and gold ornaments.

By now Luna even noticed that the guards in the golden Canterlot armor, that escorted her to the courtroom, had not come in. Instead, the guards inside the court wore armor made of a green metal. While otherwise of the same design as the armor of the royal guard it didn’t have the emblem of the royal guard. Instead the green armor had the image of a blindfolded earth pony mare, holding a scale in her mouth and a book with one of her front legs.

Luna’s eyebrow rose slightly, as she’d never really noticed this detail before. While it was true that Mare Justice was commonly depicted as any of the three major breads of pony, Luna had grown so accustom to the pegasus version used in the lunar court that she’d never really taken the time to notice that Canterlot used the earth pony version.

Glancing over to the prosecutor’s table, Luna saw two stallions, one was a unicorn and one was a pegasus, and a unicorn mare. Judging from the suit, Luna guessed the unicorn stallion with the light green coat and yellow mane was the lawyer. From his white coat and blue mane it wasn’t hard to guess that the pegasus was the guard who’s been attacked. That left the unicorn mare with the pink coat and blue mane as the storeowner.

A hush fell on the room as Celestia ascended to the judge’s position. Once in place, the princess of the sun looked over the room and with an emotionless voice she said, “We are here today for the case of ‘citizens vs. Princess Luna.’ Given the circumstances, I refuse to pass judgement on my sister and hereby recuse myself.” Looking to a unicorn stallion standing to the side, Celestia added, “Judge Noble Spirit, I trust you will hear the case justly, and deliver a fair verdict, whatever it may be.”

The brown-coated stallion in the judge’s robe with a graying mane stepped forward and said, “I will weigh the evidence presented to me and judge the case according to its merit.”

“That is all I ask of you.”

With that Celestia stepped down and walked over to the audience area where she sat down next to Twilight’s friends, as a mere spectator.

Taking the judge’s seat, the soft green glow of Noble Spirit’s magic lifted the gavel and with one strike of the hammer he said, “Court is now in session. Our first matter of business, will the attorneys please state their names and the names of your clients for the record.”

The unicorn in the lawyer’s suit stood up and said, “My name is Thgilon, my clients are Private Stratos Hoof, and Miss Peppermint Stride.”

When the judge’s gaze moved over to the defense’s table Luna stood up. “I, Princess Luna shall present my own defense, Lieutenant Night Sky shall serve as my council.”

With a nod the Noble Spirit said, “Let the record so reflect. Moving on, the charges against Princess Luna are assault and vandalism, Princess how do you pled?”

“No guilty.”

“So noted, prosecution you may present your case now.”

In the hours that followed the prosecution called several witnesses, mostly neighbors of the bakery, who testified to hearing noises that sounded like a brawl and seeing Nightmare Moon or Luna fleeing the scene afterwards.

During her cross-examinations, Luna simply asked to confirm that saw these things with their eyes. Of the witnesses who happened to be unicorns she also asked if they had bothered to use a magic sight spell to see the magic of the pony fleeing the scene or otherwise check for illusion spells. Unsurprisingly, they had all said ‘no’ in one way or another.

Miss Peppermint Stride had finally finished attesting to the damage to her shop and finding Nightmare Moon standing over a beaten guard only for the alicorn to flee when she came down stairs to see what the commotion was.

“Thank you, Your Honor, I’m done with this witness,” Thgilon said, returning to his seat.

With little more then a nod from the judge, Luna got up and approached the storeowner. “Having the luxury of being among my accusers surly you know my opening questions. So let us not waste time confirming what you saw with your eyes and skip to the important part, did you use a magic sight spell to see what magics were in play?”

Looking down slightly the unicorn answered, “No.”

“So you have no clue if an illusion spell was in play or whom might have been hiding behind the vision of a thousand year old villain of legend?”

“Well, no. But everypony knows that you were Nightmare Moon.”

“‘Were’ being the operative word. Past tense.”

“Well if you didn’t wreck my shop who did?”

“I had been working on that since I ran across a ‘Nightmare Moon’ in Ponyville, baring the break I had to take as a result of this trial that is. Details aside I do have another question for you. Do you have any combat training?”

“What?” Miss Stride said with eyes wide in confusion.

“Do you have any combat training, do you know how to fight?”

“No! I’m a baker, I’d never hurt anypony on purpose.”

Luna smiled. “I see, than don’t you find it odd that Nightmare Moon would be willing to fight a royal guard but not you to get whatever she was after in your shop?”

“I… yes that is odd.”

Looking to the judge, Luna said, “Thank you Your Honor, I too am done with this witness.”

Noble Spirit nodded. “Prosecution, I believe you have one more witness to call. And to be honest I am growing rather curious as to why you think Princess Luna is even tied to this case.”

With an overly dramatic flare Thgilon said, “Yes, the crux of the case comes from my final witness, I’d like to call to the stand Private Stratos Hoof!”

Once the pegasus had been sworn in, Thgilon said, “Why don’t you set the stage for us, sir. What led you to your encounter with Nightmare Moon that fateful night?”

“Well, as a member of the royal guard charged with protecting Canterlot, I was flying patrol that night when I saw something odd, Princess Luna descending into an alleyway,” Stratos began.

Raising a hoof, Thgilon interrupted, “One moment. Why would you consider seeing the princess of the night, at night, odd?”

“By itself I wouldn’t, but the thing is I thought I’d seen Princess Luna flying away from Canterlot a minute or two earlier. I thought it was odd that she came back so suddenly like that, So I decided to go see what made her do that, and went down after her.”

The prosecutor raised his hoof once more. “And this bring us to our most important piece of evidence. Your Honor I would like to enter into evidence Sir Stratos’ helmet. Now if we could have a demonstration area set up, so that it may play back its recording despite the courthouse’s dampening field, I would like to show you what Sir Stratos observed.”

With a nod from the judge, two unicorns wearing the armor of the courthouse guard came to the center of the room. When their horns started to glow a ring of light appeared on the floor between them. A third guard brought out the helmet in question and a small table, placing both in the center of the ring of light. He then charged his horn with magic and touched it to the helmet, causing it to play back the same images Luna had seen before.

When the playback had finished Thgilon turned to the pegasus on the stand and said, “Now, seeing as Princess Luna has raised the possibility of illusion magic, forgive my observation but that brawl looked rather real to me. Care to share your insight on the matter sir?”

“Yes, as you saw, during the course of the brawl I managed to get my hooves on my opposite and I can assure you that the pony I fought was in fact that size. So unless you’re saying it was Princess Celestia who brawled with me there was no illusion magic in play.”

“Well seeing as Princess Luna is actually of a slightly small build then both Celestia and Nightmare Moon how would you explain what we just saw?”

Stratos gave a dismissive shrug and said, “Simple, what you saw was what happened. It wasn’t illusion magic. It was a transformation spell. And even though I’m no unicorn, I work with enough of them to know that a spell like that requires a relatively powerful unicorn to cast, or better yet an alicorn.”

Turning to the judge, the prosecutor gave a confident smile and said, “There you have it Your Honor. That is why we have every reason to suspect that Luna was in fact the one hiding behind the disguise of Nightmare Moon! The privet here saw Luna herself cast the transformation spell just before braking into the bakery that night!” After a moments pause he added, “I am finished with this witness, Your Honor.”

As the prosecutor returned to his seat Luna stood up and approached the witness stand. “I will not contest that you saw what you saw, and felt what you felt. However I would like to know, considering that we have already established that transformation magic was at play, why it is you think that it was me you fought that night? After all shifting a transformation spell isn’t that much harder the casting one to begin with. So is it not possible that whomever thou fought was already using a transformation or similar spell when you first say them as Luna?”

After a short pause the pegasus answered, “I’m no magic expert, but doesn’t that give us the same problem as the illusion theory? Aren’t you one of the few ponies in Canterlot even capable of that level of magic?”

“True, but just because I’m capable of doing so doesn’t mean I did it. One more question for you. What could I, Luna, princess of the night, possibly want by braking into a bakery in the middle of the night? Do I not have access to both Canterlot and Starlight castles? Could I not just get baked goods from either of the royal kitchens?”

“I don’t know, I guess so. How am I supposed to know what my attacker wanted from a bakery? I’m not the one that broke in.”

Luna gave a slight nod. “Fair enough. Although there is one more flaw in thy theory that I am at fault that I would like to point out. As you may know the E.U.P. guard was formed after my banishment one thousand years ago. I have hardly had the time to figure out the armor of the night guard. And as much as I hate to admit it, I have yet to figure out where the armor of Celestia’s guard hides the marking that denotes the difference between lieutenants and privets. Yet I couldn’t help but notice that Nightmare Moon called you by rank without hesitation. Forgive me if that tells me that whomever thou fought is more familiar with the royal guard then I.”

Stepping back Luna added, “I am done with this witness.”

Judge Noble Spirit gave a slight nod. “Prosecutor, did you have anything more to add?”

“No, I will address motive in my closing arguments, the prosecution rests, Your Honor.”

Looking up to a wall clock the judge said, “Very well then. Considering the time, now seems an appropriate time to break for lunch. We’ll adjourn and meet back here in one hour to hear the defense’s arguments.” With that he sounded the gavel to dismiss the court session.

* * * * * * *

With everypony back in the courtroom the judge gave the gavel several whacks. “Court is now back in session. Princess Luna, I believe that you were about to present your defense.”

“Yes, Your Honor. Seeing as the prosecution was kind enough to bring up the nature of the magic clearly observed by Private Stratos Hoof, the first witness I wish to call to the stand is an expert on magic, Miss Twilight Sparkle.”

Once the unicorn was sworn in Luna asked, “During the formality questions you stated your occupation was a ‘student of magic under Celestia,’ is that correct?”

“Yes, I am also the one who wields the element of magic of the elements of harmony if that helps.”

“Certainly doesn’t hurt, as it is that expertise in magic that I wish you to share with the court.” Turning to the judge Luna added, “Your Honor, if we could play back the recording on Private Stratos’ helmet, I’d like Twilight to see what we are seeking to understand.”

“Fair enough,” the judge said, and the images were showed again.

As the last of the illusion played Twilight muttered, “Oh my. That doesn’t look good.”

“Yes,” Luna agreed. “But looks are all they are, as I can personally assure you that I was not there. And that begs the question, what magics could be used for an imposter to present that show you just witnessed?”

Twilight Sparkle brought a hoof to her chin for a moment. “Hmm, given the clearly physical nature of what the camerapony fought, the obvious first guess would be a transformation spell… But it would have to be a pretty high level magic user to go right from one transformation to another, if your saying that the Luna in that recording was also a transformation.”

“While I personally doubt it, let’s humor the idea for one moment and tell me how many magic users do you think could pull off a stunt like that?”

“Well I wasn’t exactly a social pony before I moved to Ponyville, and Ponyville isn’t exactly a high population center for powerful unicorns. Although, from my time in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, I would say maybe about… 22.5% of my classmates had the potential to pull off a spell like that.”

With a raised eyebrow Luna gave a slight nod. “I see. However I wish to present you another theory, Miss Sparkle. Are you familiar with the shadow puppet spell?”

“I read about it once, when Celestia gave me access to the restricted section of the Canterlot archives, but that was a long time ago. I’m sorry, I didn’t think to brush up on dark magic when I got the summons asking me to testify. Sorry!” Twilight apologized with an increasingly high pitched tone of voice near the end.

“That’s quite alright. All I need is your opinion, from what thou knows of the shadow puppet spell, could one have been used to create the effect seen in the recording?”

Visibly relaxing Twilight answered, “Oh yeah, easily. Summoning a shadow puppet at all is such a high level spell that shifting it from one form to another would be easy by comparison. Unfortunately the recording was taken without the use of magic sight so it’s impossible to tell exactly what magics were in play in the recording.”

Motioning to the pegasus at the prosecutor’s table Luna said, “Twilight Sparkle, meet Private Stratos Hoof, the camerapony of that recording you saw. As you can see, being a pegasus it is a bit much for us to ask for him to have used a magic sight spell during the incident. I do however have one more question for you, Twilight. From what you know of the shadow puppet spell what would happen if the pony casting it stopped channeling magic?”

“From what I remember of the diagrams the shadow puppet spell requires continuous channeling. So if the caster stopped the puppet would evaporate.”

“Thank you.” Turning to the judge, Luna added, “Your Honor, I am done with this witness.”

“Cross examination may begin,” Judge Noble Spirit declared.

The prosecutor walked up to Twilight. “Miss Sparkle, I have just one additional question for you. How many ponies do you suppose could cast a shadow puppet spell?”

“I’ve never even tried a spell like that myself, so I can’t say for sure where the exact skill level needed is.”

Thgilon rolled his eyes. “I’ll settle for your best guess.”

“Well it’s a safe bet that Princesses Celestia and Luna could do it. Princess Cadence should have the raw power for it, but I’ve never known her to branch out into other schools of magic like that. Truthfully I’d probably have better odds of pulling off a shadow puppet spell then she would. Hmm considering that I’d also say maybe 4.5% of my classmates at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns would have both the power and general skill level needed to attempt a spell like that.”

“Thank you, I’m done with this witness,” the prosecutor said as he returned to his seat.

Standing up Luna said, “For my next witness I wish to call Rainbow Dash.”

A moment later a court guard returned with a drowsy looking cyan pegasus, even as she took the witness stand Dash shook the sleep from her eyes. Once she’s been sworn in Luna asked her first question. “Enjoy your nap?”

Rainbow Dash gave a sheepish smile. “Heh, yeah. Sorry but those waiting rooms are way too small to practice flying in, and nopony told me to bring a book to read. So yeah… the only other way I know how to sit still that long is to take a nap.”

Smiling back Luna said, “Yes, pleasantries aside, do you recall the night we stood guard outside the Cloudsdale weather factory?”

“Objection!”

All eyes turned to the prosecutor’s table, were the cry had come from.

“Approach,” the judge commanded. Both Luna and Thgilon walked up to the judge and he addressed them in a whisper, “What is the objection? Miss Dash hasn’t even begun to testify yet?”

“That’s just it, Your Honor, what possible relevance could an event in Cloudsdale have to a crime in Canterlot?” Thgilon whispered back.

Noble Spirit nodded slightly. “He has a point. Where are you going with this Princess?”

“Seeing as I believe the same pony is behind both events I suspect you will see the same connection I do by the end of Miss Dash’s testimony.”

“Very well I will allow it.” Speaking loud enough for everypony to hear, the judge turned to Rainbow Dash and said, “Miss Dash you may answer the question.”

“Of course I remember that night! We totally nabbed that bad guy trying to sabotage the reservoir. Well as much as we could anyway. So there we were, talking to pass the time when I saw movement toward the factory. So I flew off to intercept him, but when I yelled at him to stop, he just bolted for the factory so I zoomed of after him. He was trying to ditch me by doing a corkscrew around the big pipes, but I was too fast, so naturally I was keeping up with him when-”

“Miss Dash!” Judge Noble Spirit yelled.

“Huh?” Rainbow said, surprised by the harsh tone in the judge’s voice.

“Will you please remain seated while testifying?”

Only then did Rainbow Dash realize that she was now hovering several feet above the witness’ stand. Zipping back into her seat in the blink of an eye she said, “Sorry.”

While silently giggling at the exuberant performance, Luna raised a hoof to stop Dash from continuing. “Rainbow Dash, perhaps thou should skip to the part where you pinned our culprit down and got a good look at him.”

“Sure thing. So, short version. After an awesome and heroic chase I pinned the guy down and got quite the shock when I recognized the jumpsuit he was wearing. It turned out he had a shadow bolt uniform on! It startled me enough that I lowered my guard and he kicked me off of him once-”

“Miss Dash?” Judge Noble Spirit interrupted with a much softer tone then the first time.

“Yeah?” Rainbow Dash responded nervously and quickly checking to make sure she was still on her seat.

“What is a shadow bolt uniform?”

After breathing a sigh of relief that she wasn’t in trouble, Dash explained the origins of the illusions she knew as the shadow bolts and their connection to Nightmare Moon.

“I see, continue.”

“Okay so he kicked me off of him and tried to make a break for it, when blam! Luna blasts him back to floor. Then instead of being stunned or whatever Luna meant to do him he starts dissolving into this glowy black magicy stuff. And well I guess that’s it,” Dash finished her story.

“Not quite, after that, thou asked me what that thing we fought was. Do you recall my answer?” Luna asked.

Looking down slightly and staring off into space Dash thought for a moment. “Umm… I think you said it was a shadow puppet or dark puppet or something. Whatever it was, you basically said it was some fancy spell that looked like a pony.”

“Indeed, Thank you Rainbow Dash.” Turning to the judge, Luna added, “Your Honor, I am done with this witness.”

“Did you wish to cross examine?” Noble Spirit asked, taking notice of the prosecutor’s look of disinterest in Rainbow Dash.

Thgilon shook his head. “I merely wish to renew my objection to Rainbow Dash’s testimony. The fact that somepony used a shadow puppet spell in Cloudsdale hardly seems relevant to a break-in in Canterlot.”

The judge rolled his eyes before saying, “Your objection is noted for the record and overruled. Considering Luna’s theory, establishing that somepony is using shadow puppets to cause mischief seems a relevant enough point to me. Miss Dash, you may step down from the stand. Princess Luna, you may proceed with your defense.”

With that Rainbow Dash gave a nod and flow quietly across to room to join her friends in the audience area. Standing up once more, Luna said, “As Rainbow Dash’s testimony proved that somepony has brought shadow puppets into play of late, my next witness will testify that said somepony can make shadow puppets in the image and likeness of Nightmare Moon. I wish to call to the stand one of three whom could tell the same tale, Scootaloo.”

A couple minutes later a court guard returned with the orange pegasus filly, who walked with her eyes looking downcast as if she were the one on trial. “I said I’m sorry and I’ll fix it,” Scootaloo muttered low enough that only the guard and judge heard.

After quickly fetching a booster to add to the witness stand the guard looked the filly in the eyes and whispered back, “A pity you’re needed out here, now if you’ll excuse me I have a pillow fort to unmake.”

With the booster seat in place Scootaloo’s head was at about the same height as any of the adults who had preceded her.

“Don’t worry about him. Fillies your age usually get a little antsy waiting in those rooms as long as you did. Why the last one broke a vase if I recall, so building a pillow fort is no big deal,” the judge said to try to cheer up the filly.

“So what do I need to do now?” Scootaloo asked while still looking downward.

“Well first we need you to swear in a witness.”

Scootaloo frowned as she responded, “Dad said I’m grounded for a month if he catches me swearing.”

“This is a different kind of swearing. Your dad is talking about swearing as in saying bad words. We are talking about swearing as in making a serious promise.”

“Okay, sir. What am I promising?”

“Well you look old enough to have been in school for a while, have you seen those fill in the blank questions before?” Judge Noble Spirit asked. Scootaloo nodded, so he continued his explanation, “See that little plaque on the rim in front of you? I need you to hold your right hoof up and read it out loud, but instead of reading the part in the brackets fill that in with whatever that is to you.”

Scootaloo’s eyes found the bracketed section and finding it to be she made an ‘uh’ sound as she tried to think of something appropriate and not embarrassing to say in the middle of a crowded room.

“Most ponies say things like ‘with Celestia as my witness’ or ‘by my honor as a member of the royal guard’ at that part,” the judge suggested. Although he couldn’t help but smile slightly in anticipation of the typically amusing choices of ‘sacred’ things young ponies gave during the oath.

After giving a quick nod Scootaloo lifted her hoof up and said, “I swear, by my honor as a cutie mark crusader, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so Heaven help me.”

Nobel Spirit smiled softly and said, “Very good, now for the last part of the technicalities I need you to state your name and occupation for the record.”

The filly tilted her head to the side. “What’s an occupation?”

“It’s a job. What adults do to earn money-” Judge Noble Spirit began, but was cut off when the filly responded far more quickly then he’d expected.

“I don’t think I can do that,” Scootaloo said, lowering her head slightly, as sweat became visible on her forehead.

With a laugh the judge finished his explanation. “That’s okay, at your age nopony expects you to have a paying job, so you can just say you’re a student and name the school you go to.”

Perking right back up Scootaloo said, “Oh okay! My name is Scootaloo and I’m a student at the Ponyville Schoolhouse.”

“Very good Scootaloo, you are now sworn in. Princess Luna you may proceed.”

Approaching the witness stand Luna greeted the filly, “Hello again, Scootaloo. Thou should relax a little, I’m the one on trial here, not you.”

“Heh, yeah, sorry. We really should try to meet someday when one of us isn’t in trouble.”

That drew a soft laugh from Luna. “Agreed, our current record is dismal isn’t it? However ever it is one such time I need you to recount for the court. Do you recall the night the nightmares invaded Ponyville?”

“Sure, I guess, but you know I got hit by a nightmare spell that made me sleep through most of it. I don’t really remember much of what happened in my nightmares. Just that you came and helped us break free of the nightmare world, then we woke up in a cage in that cave. After that you kicked Nightmare Moon’s flank and busted us out!” By the end of her story Scootaloo was taking swings at the air with her hooves.

Luna nodded but asked, “I’m going to need you to clarify some things. First let us start with who the ‘we’ and ‘us’ you mentioned are.”

“Oh right, my friends Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were in the cage with me too.”

“Next, could you please be a bit more detailed about what you saw when you first awoke, Scootaloo?”

Tapping her hoof on her chin Scootaloo responded, “Okay, let’s see… We were in a cage. It was off to the side of the room. There was a campfire in the middle of the room. You were to one side of the fire, and Nightmare Moon was on the other side.”

“And when you first awoke, was I using magic?”

After a moment’s pause Scootaloo shook her head. “Magic? No your horn didn’t start glowing until you summoned that sword I made in the dream world.”

Luna nodded. “Thank you. Lastly, when I ‘kicked Nightmare Moon’s flank’ as you said, can you tell the court what happened to her?”

“After you beat Nightmare Moon she kinda dissolved into glowing, dark magicy bits or something. It was really weird.”

A smile graced Luna’s face as she said, “Hmm, that sounds familiar, thank you. Your Honor I am done with this witness.”

With a nod the judge asked, “Prosecution?”

The prosecutor stood up lazily, not even bothering to look at the filly as he approached the stand. “Scootaloo was it?” he asked, finally looking at the witness. The filly nodded. “Alright then. First off, when you woke up in that cave, are you absolutely one hundred percent certain that Luna’s horn didn’t even have the slightest glow to it?”

Scootaloo looked upward for a moment before answering. “Yeah I’m sure. The cave was pretty dark, so even the sparks from Sweetie Belle’s horn looked like flares. So yeah, I’m sure there wasn’t any glow on Luna’s horn when I first woke up.”

With a raised eyebrow Thgilon asked, “Who’s Sweetie Belle and why did she have sparks coming from her horn?”

“Sweetie Belle is one of my friends. That’s her right over there,” Scootaloo said, pointing to the unicorn filly in the audience area, who promptly waved back. “Some times sparks come of her horn when she gets excited. In the cave I guess it was because we were all cheering for Luna when she was fighting Nightmare Moon.”

“I see. Forgive my curiosity, but seeing as Luna had the choice of several witness in the cave, do you know why she chose you, and not, say, Sweetie Belle to testify on her behalf?”

Scootaloo Blinked for a moment. “I don’t know. Luna’s right there, why don’t you ask her?”

“Mainly because at the moment you’re the one sworn to testify. So go ahead I’ll settle for a guess,” Thgilon said, leaning in uncomfortably close to Scootaloo.

The filly pulled her head back slightly, reclaiming what personal space she could while remaining in her seat. The beads of sweat returned to her forehead as she mentally scrambled, trying to guess the motives of a princess.

“Objection!” the shout drew all eyes to the defense’s table, where Lieutenant Night Sky was standing as the clear speaker. “Your Honor, he’s badgering the witness! Knowing that her friends are present, if he doubts the truth of her words he can call one of them as a rebuttal witness. Likewise he can call on Luna to answer this question, there is absolutely no reason to press further with this line of questioning!”

“Question withdrawn,” Thgilon said the instant Luna’s council had finished speaking. Turning away from Scootaloo, he added, “I have no further questions for this witness.”

Back at the defense’s table, the lieutenant whispered, “Sorry for speaking out of turn princess, but I gave you a full two seconds to speak up yourself.”

“I did not see the harm in allowing Scootaloo to guess.”

“That’s not the point. He was clearly just trying to get her to say something foolish, so the judge wouldn’t take her testimony as seriously.”

“I see, in that case thank you lieutenant,” Luna finished the whispered conversation.

Back on the stand, Scootaloo looked up at the judge and asked, “Can I go now?”

“Yes, little filly. You can go,” Noble Spirit said.

In and instant Scootaloo vanished in an orange and purple blur as she darted across the room. Even Rainbow Dash barely had time to react and catch the incoming filly missile. As Dash set Scootaloo in the empty seat next to her she whispered, “You did good squirt.”

Looking to Princess Luna, the judge said, “Defense, that was the last witness on your pre-trial list. Is there anything more you wish to add?”

“Yes, Your Honor, there is,” Luna said as she got up and took two pieces of paper over to the judge. “These are the written reports of the official investigation into the break-in at Miss Peppermint Stride’s bakery. One from the original investigation team, and another from the magical crimes investigation team at my request.”

Pointing to portions of the reports with her hoof, Luna continued, “Please take note that both failed to find any evidence that I have ever been in the bakery. Not so much as a fur, mane, or tail hair of mine was found, not even a feather. It is also worth notice that all of these were found in relative abundance from Private Stratos Hoof. In fact the physical evidence suggests that the private engaged in the brawl alone, further enforcing my theory that he fought with a shadow puppet is more likely the case.”

After a moment of reading Noble Spirit looked up and said, “Prosecution this is pretty damaging to your case, did you have any further evidence that can place Luna at the scene of the crime?”

Thgilon grinned, drawing a few raised eyebrows. “No, I don’t think I need to.”

“Very well then. Defense did you have anything more to add?”

“No Your Honor.”

“Then you may make your closing arguments. Prosecution, proceed.”

With that Thgilon got up and walked into the middle of the room. “Through the course of this trial Princess Luna brought up a rather intriguing point. What could she gain by braking into a bakery? Furthermore, given the evidence I do not doubt that the creature Private Stratos Hoof fought with was indeed a magical construct. But that poses an even better question, What could any high level magic user hope to gain by braking into a mere bakery?”

Pausing for a moment the prosecutor sneered at Luna. “I would think the answer is obvious, Only Princess Luna had anything to gain by such a pointless crime! Thanks to Luna’s own witnesses we have heard the tale of how she heroically saved Cloudsdale from a shadow puppet. And then the how a shadow puppet tormented the town of Ponyville only for their dear Princess of the night to save the day again. And now you ask me to take it as mere coincidence that the very moment Luna returns to service as our princess of the night that a shadow puppet starts causing trouble in Canterlot? Causing a crime wave that’s crimes always takes place at night mind you, so who is it that comes to play hero for the citizens but Luna?”

“No, it seems obvious to me, that by playing both sides of the law, only Luna had anything to gain! I dare to wonder just how much longer this crime spree would have continued before Luna came back with yet another tale of facing down a shadow puppet and ending the troubles in Canterlot, and earning the same adoration and praise she found in Cloudsdale and Ponyville!” Thgilon’s closing words oozed with sarcasm as he ended his speech.

Once the prosecutor had returned to his chair, Luna took the floor. “It would seem that our friend has already forgotten Scootaloo’s testimony. She clearly stated that I was not using magic when she saw both myself and the shadow puppet in the likeness of Nightmare Moon. Considering that Twilight Sparkle was quite correct in noting that the shadow puppet spell is in fact a channeled spell, that makes it rather impossible for me to have been the one casting the spell that Scootaloo and her friends saw me fight.”

Looking to the prosecutor, Luna continued, “Thou clams that I seek fame for my deeds?” Luna returned her gaze to the court in general. “Funny, to the best of my knowledge there were only four ponies that even heard around the events in Cloudsdale. My sister, Myself, Rainbow Dash, and whomever cast the shadow puppet!”

“The clam that I am behind the crime wave in Canterlot is outright preposterous! Perhaps a reminder is in order that I am in fact the princess of the night! And perhaps I was merely doing my job? After all I hath been seeking the caster of the shadow puppets ever since Rainbow Dash and I encountered the one in Cloudsdale. So naturally, once the evidence suggested that the crimes in Canterlot were connected to dark magic, I took a personal interest in the situation. And so I propose a counter theory, perhaps I was getting too close to finding the true culprit, and what better way to stall my investigation, then frame me for the crime? As you can see I am not only one with a potential motive for this pointless crime. So from what I see, there is no evidence that I committed the crime of which I am being accused, and many reasons to doubt that I am the culprit of this crime. Need I say more?”

With that Luna returned to her seat. Looking over the courtroom Judge Noble Spirit said, “I see no reason for prolonged deliberation on this matter. As the prosecution has failed to connect Princess Luna to the crime in any meaningful way, I find many reasonable doubts as to Luna’s guilt, not least of which is the fact that the events in Ponyville prove that somepony else is using shadow puppets to illicit ends. As such I have no choice but to declare that, on the charges of assault and vandalism regarding Private Stratos Hoof and Miss Peppermint Stride’s bakery, I find Princess Luna not guilty!”

With a bang of the gavel most of the room erupted in applause. Turning to the prosecutor Luna said, “I trust there are no hard feeling?”

“Why would I be upset? You fell for my trick perfectly.” The instant Thgilon finished speaking his body began to dissolve into specks of dark magic that flickered out of existence.

As if on queue the doors to the courtroom flung open with a resounding crash and a unicorn of the royal guard came running in. “Princess Celestia! Come quick somepony has broken into the arcane artifacts vault!”

Chapter 7: The Balance of Night

“What Happened?” Celestia asked, as a duo of princesses and an entourage of ponies from Ponyville ran down the halls of the courthouse, following the guard who had summoned the princess of day.

The guard shook his head and continued to lead the way. “I don’t know, your highness. It was time to changed posts so my partner and I went down to the arcane artifacts vault. But when we got there we found the guards stationed there had been knocked out, the vault door open and all the defensive spells had been removed! Naturally we agreed that one of us should come and fetch you right away, so I’m not sure what my partner may have found investigating the vault. Oh we should probably grab a medic on the way back while we’re at it.”

Nodding to the guard, Celestia said, “Yes, take care of that, sir. We will tend to the vault. And please find Captain Ruby Spear as well.”

“Yes your highness!” After a rushed salute, the guard pealed off from the group and darted down a different hall as they left the courthouse wing of Canterlot Castle behind.

“I can’t believe I fell for that,” Celestia muttered as they continued toward the vault.

“What do you mean princess?” Twilight Sparkle asked of her mentor.

Celestia shook her head slightly. “The dampening field in the courtroom that prevents high level spell casting also kept me from noticing all of my defensive spells on the vault were being undone. I should have left the courtroom as soon as I handed the trial off to the judge.”

“Ah wouldn’t mind knowing how that shadow puppet even got in the courtroom. Didn’t those other unicorns have to do some fancy magic mumbo-jumbo just to let that magic helmet work?” Applejack asked.

“Unfortunately that type of dampening field is only meant to prevent high level magic from being cast within it, so that unicorns don’t have to go without their levitation spells. And as you saw those maintaining the dampening field can create bubbles that are outright exempt from the magic dampening. While a shadow puppet couldn’t be cast within the field, technically, there’s nothing stopping somepony from casting one outside of the field and walking it in. Granted the puppet wouldn’t be able to cast any high level magic while in the field but that’s about it,” Twilight Sparkle explained.

“And nopony thought to check if there were any shadow puppets coming in?” Applejack asked with a scolding look in her eyes.

Celestia bowed her head slightly. “I thought that I had made arrangements to have those attending the trial scanned for dark magic. I guess the guards didn’t think to check the prosecutor.”

Looking up at her mentor, Twilight asked, “I have another question. Who is Ruby Spear? The name sounds familiar but I can’t seem to place it.”

“Ah yes, I don’t know if you ever met him but he served under your brother. Once Shining Armor became the prince of the crystal empire, I needed a new captain of the royal guard. Having led several scouting missions into the badlands, Ruby Spear was one of the few who had actual combat experience before the changeling invasion incident, so he came highly recommended to fill your brother’s post.”

Hearing Celestia’s word brought a frown to Luna’s face, but rather then voice her thoughts on the matter the princess of the night took advantage of the fact that they had rounded the last corner between them and the arcane artifacts vault. “I believe we have more pressing matters, sister.”

“Halt!” a voice called out from inside the vault. A second later a royal guard stepped into the doorway to the vault and on seeing two princesses approaching lowered his spear. “Oh good it’s you.” Nervously eyeing those with the royal sisters, he held up a hoof and added, “Princesses only, beyond this point.”

“It’s all right, Twilight and her friends may enter,” Celestia assured the guard.

The guard raised an eyebrow and asked, “Even the fillies?”

Twilight Sparkle nodded. “He has a point princess. There are a lot of dangerous artifacts in there. Pinkie Pie and the Crusaders should stay out here, everypony else, don’t touch anything!”

A collective ‘Aww’ came from the four excluded ponies, as the rest went into the vault.

“Do we know what was taken?” Luna asked, taking note of the otherwise pristine condition of the vault.

“No princess, I haven’t dared venture far from the entrance given the lack of backup. All I can say for sure is that there is nopony else here now.”

“Let’s see here… if I remember correctly…” Twilight mused. “Ah ha!” she exclaimed grabbing a clipboard in her magic. With a flash of magic she had copied the pages of the clipboard and levitated a page to each of her friends. “Here’s a copy of the inventory sheets. Each pony take an aisle, and checkmark all the items that are still here then we’ll know what they took.”

Rainbow Dash looked down at her sheet and then at the extraordinary length of the aisles. “Inventory… great… Is it too late to wait outside with Pinkie Pie and the crusaders?”

“Yes Rainbow, get to work. And remember touch nothing!”

* * * * * * *

With everypony gathered in the Canterlot Castle throne room Twilight Sparkle gave her report. “From what we can tell, the only thing missing is a pyre stone.”

“A pyre stone? The crystallized magic of a fire demon of the badlands?” Celestia asked.

Luna’s eyes went wide as she put the pieces together in her mind. “Shadow fire,” she muttered, although her utterance went unheard by the rest of the room.

Twilight Sparkle nodded as she answered, “That’s right, princess. According to the logs it was kept for research purposes as a ‘dangerous resource.’ I took the liberty of looking into the records to see who’s checked it out recently, but as far as I can tell there aren’t any suspicious names on that list.”

Closing her eyes, Celestia calmly said, “I see, so we need to figure out who took it, and where they might go with such a thing.”

“Ah!” Twilight Sparkle cried as she suddenly collapsed to the ground. Her friends rushed to her side uttering her name in equal surprise. “Ponyville,” Twilight gasped as she struggled to sand back up, ultimately settling for pulling herself up into a sitting position.

“What?”

“Ponyville, they went to Ponyville! I just felt somepony break the protection spells I had on the display case holding the elements of harmony,” Twilight explained.

“Then what are we sitting around here for? Let’s go!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

Twilight Sparkle shook her head. “It’s too far. I can’t teleport that far!”

“Perhaps so. Guards! See to it Miss Twilight and her friends are brought to Ponyville as quickly as possible,” Celestia said. Turning to Luna she added, “Sister?”

“Agreed,” Luna said with a nod, and almost immediately the two princesses disappeared in a flash of magic.

* * * * * * *

Appearing just outside the Ponyville library, Celestia’s horn flared with power once more and a wall of golden light surrounded the library, forming a bubble around the building.

With little more then a nod both Celestia and Luna charged their horns with magic and approached the front door. Finding the door unlocked a simple push opened it and revealed Spike curled up of the floor just inside, sleeping peacefully.

“Sleep spell?”

“Sleep spell,” Luna confirmed.

A glance across the room and the two found the display case for the elements of harmony was undamaged, but open. The golden tiara and most of necklaces each bearing a colored gemstone that were the elements were resting in their places. However, the element of honesty was missing from the set. Both sisters raised an eyebrow at the observation.

A pulse of magic came off of Luna’s horn, meant to disrupt invisibility spells, and filled the room. With nothing hidden in this room the royal pair looked to each other. “I’ll take upstairs, you take down?” Celestia suggested.

“Agreed.”

With that they searched the library room by room, and room by room they came up with nothing, ultimately meeting back in the main room. They were sharing the fruitlessness of their searches when a pounding noise drew their attention outside.

“Hey what gives!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she knocked on the force field baring her path, with Scootaloo sitting beside her.

“Sorry about that, we were hopping to catch the thief red hoofed. But it seems they left before we arrived,” Celestia said, as she dismissed the wall of golden light. Looking about but only finding the two pegasi she added, “Where are the others?”

Dash looked up to the sky and squinted as she answered, “I’d say you have about two more minutes before those slowpokes pulling the pegasus chariots catch up to me.” Giving a flutter of her wings she added, “Obviously I didn’t need a ride.”

“She gave me a ride,” Scootaloo volunteered.

“So they got away with the elements?” Rainbow Dash asked as they returned to the library.

Luna shook her head. “Not really. And it seems that they want to be found this time as they only took one.”

“Why only take one? And why does that mean they want to be found?”

“The elements of harmony are meant to be used as a set. With even one absent their power is useless. As for why that means the thief wants to be found, I suspect Twilight will be able to answer that for thee.”

With a pulse of magic from Luna’s horn, a similar glow surrounded Spike and a moment later he awoke. “What happened?” the youthful dragon asked through a rested yawn.

“We were hoping thou could tell us.”

“Whoa! Princess Luna, and Princess Celestia? What are you two doing here? Whatever’s going on I swear I had nothing to do with it!”

“Relax, nopony is accusing you of stealing the element of honesty,” Celestia said.

“Oh, that’s a relief… wait? Stealing the what?” Spikes words trailed off as he looked over to the open display case. “Oh man, Twilight is so going to kill me!”

Celestia wrapped a hoof around the young dragon and smiled softly. “I doubt that, though I suspect she’ll be happier if you could tell us something useful.”

“Oh, right! Umm… Let’s see, there’s not much to tell. Twilight went to the trial and left me in charge here, so I did my library assistant gig. There was a knock at the door. I went to open it and bam! Next thing I know you’re here.”

“So you didn’t even catch a glimpse of who was on the other side of the door?”

Spike hung his head and said, “No, sorry.”

The sound of chariot wheels outside announced the arrival of others returning from Canterlot and they soon filled into the library.

Once the new arrivals were up to speed on the situation Twilight walked over to display case. “I don’t understand. Why only take one? The elements are connected, given the time to set up a powerful enough tracking spell I could use the remaining elements to locate the missing one.”

“And no doubt walk right into a trap when you go to it,” Luna said.

“True, although it’s not much of a trap seeing as we’ll know that going in. Besides what choice do we have? We need the elements back together. Don’t we?” Twilight countered.

Celestia gazed out of a window for a moment and took a deep breath. “Luna, I believe we have work to do. Twilight make the preparations for the spell.” With a nod of her head she motioned for her sister to follow her outside.

Once outside Luna asked, “Of what do you speak?”

“It is time,” was all Celestia said as she pointed to a nearby clock tower.

“Oh,” Luna said, as the glow of her sister’s magic flared and the sun dipped below the horizon. With Luna’s own magic flaring to life, the moon quickly took its place in the night’s sky.

A look of concern flashed in Celestia’s eyes as she turned to face her sister. “Luna, please stay with Twilight. When she finishes finding the missing element of harmony she and her friends will go after it… and given your expertise I’d prefer you were by their side when they do.”

“And what of you? Thou doesn’t exactly sound like you intend to sit this out.”

“I intend to check on a hunch. If I am mistaken it will be a total waste of time. Hence my hesitance to share the thought with Twilight and her friends.”

“And if thou are correct?” Luna asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Then I will be able to disarm the trap well before we are expected to arrive.”

“Forgive me sister, but that sounds more like something I would do. Or have I been mistaken in noticing thy preference for allowing others to defend Equestria, often with little more aid from you then cryptic advice?”

With a sigh Celestia answered, “You are correct in noticing that I prefer to have others to do what they can for themselves. However, given the nature of the path he left for us to follow I expect his plan will account for Twilight and her friends, so I expect that they will not be able to retrieve the missing element in time to matter. And after the events of today, I’m convinced that it’s you that our foe wishes to face. I hope to surprise him.”

“Are thou certain that you do not wish my company, sister?”

“Yes, with the elements separated, those who wield them are vulnerable. I can’t be in two places at once, but we can.” Celestia didn’t wait for a response as she disappeared in a flash of magic.

“Why did you have to pick today of all the days to be erratic, impulsive and foolish? That’s my job…” Luna sighed, laughing slightly at her own ending joke as she returned to the library.

* * * * * * *

With the sunset Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash took the reminder of how late it was to take the crusaders home while they waited for Twilight to prepare her spell. Now the five ponies, a princess and a dragon whelp stood watch as Twilight made her final adjustments to the elaborate drawings she’d added to the center of the library floor.

A bang on the door startled everyone. “I got it!” Spike called as he rushed over to the door. Thinking out loud, he added, “I wonder who would come to the library this late at night?”

The answer turned out to be a pegasus stallion of the royal guard, looking dead tired and a little singed around the edges. “Oh thank goodness! Princess, there’s been a disaster in Hoofington!” he said as soon as he saw Luna.

“Then report. What kind of disaster?”

“That’s just it, we don’t know! It was some kind of magic spell. A giant black and purple fireball fell from the sky. Our unicorns of the local guard station tried to stop it, but it just punched through shield spells and counterattacks with ease.” A shiver ran through the guard’s body as he continued, “It was terrible, it landed in the middle of an empty street, but the blast still set half the town on fire… fire… everywhere…” the guards words trailed off as his eyes grew distant.

“What about the ponies?” Luna asked.

“I… I don’t know Your Highness. After the blast, I was the least injured of the pegasi, so my commanding officer sent me to Canterlot to report this to a princess. But there was too much fire as I flew away, I couldn’t tell if the building near the center of the blast were still standing or not. But I can’t imagine a blast like that would be without casualties. It look like… like an attack.” Taking a moment to force his body to stop shivering he added, “Who attacks a whole town? Why? What should we do?”

“Return to Canterlot, by my orders send two squads of pegasi and one squad of unicorns to Hoofington to help put out the fires and engage in search and rescue. Also send flyers to every town to warn the local guard stations to be on full alert. Finally, be sure to check into the infirmary as soon as you can.”

“Yes Your Highness. Umm, what’s going on back there?” he asked, pointing to the wild light show coming from Twilight Sparkle’s magic.

Luna smiled. “A very good chance that we are about to find out where the attack came from.”

The five remaining elements of harmony shimmered from their places in Twilight’s magic array and light covered the unicorn’s eyes. Waves of magic tore through the room like gusts of wind, scattering any lose papers to the edges. When the magic died down and Twilight Sparkle’s eyes came back into focus on the world around her she said, “It’s in the Everfree Forest. More precisely the ruins of the castle of the royal pony sisters.”

With a raised eyebrow Luna said, “With a tracking spell of that magnitude I’d have expected a more precise location then that.”

“So would I. But I felt a ton a magical interference coming from there as well. I’m guessing that’s why the tracking spell wouldn’t zero in anymore then the castle,” Twilight said, with a nod. Taking the golden tiara with a purple gem that was the element of magic, Twilight passed out the remaining elements, each to the pony who’s cutie mark shared the shape of the gemstone on their respective necklace.

Then looking to her friends Twilight said, “Alright girls, here’s the plan. We get to the castle of the royal pony sisters, find the element of honesty, and put an end to all this trouble whoever we’re dealing with has been causing. And if needed, Princess Luna can distract the villain while we get the element.”

Luna smiled. “You presume that I will not have dealt with the scoundrel myself by the time you have found the missing element. Regardless, I approve of this plan.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she darted out the door.

With that the ponies charged out into the night. “Right… I guess I’ll just stay here and clean up this mess then,” Spike groaned and grabbed his trusty broom, scowling at the ransacked room around him.

* * * * * * *

The traveling party walked surrounded by an almost complete darkness. Only the purple and blue glow of Twilight, Rarity’s and Luna’s horns allowed them to see where they were stepping, save Rainbow Dash who flew slowly, just overhead of her companions.

Rarity looked up through a rare part in trees and caught a glimpse of the dark gray overcast clouds. Little of the moon’s light pierced the clouds so that they were almost indistinguishable from the darkness of the forest canopy. “Why does it have to be overcast? It’s dark enough with all these trees blocking out the moon’s light,” she complained.

“Hey don’t look at me,” Rainbow Dash said in response. “I’m already told you that Everfree weather does whatever it wants, all by itself.”

Taking advantage of the small talk, Applejack asked, “Hey, Luna?”

“Yes?”

“Ah was wondering, why do ya think they took the element of honesty?”

“Considering that the element they took is bait for a trap I doubt that they cared which one they took. But if I had to guess, I’d imagine it is because those who walk the path of darkness tend to consider honesty to be the most difficult to corrupt and thus the most troublesome of the elements of harmony.”

“Honesty is the most difficult to corrupt?” Applejack asked with a slight smile on her face.

“Perception and reality aren’t always one and the same. Those new to the path of darkness may ‘think’ that honesty is the most difficult to corrupt because it is too simple a concept, but that doesn’t mean they are correct.”

Tilting her head to the side Applejack gave a bit of a glare to the princess of the night. “What do ya mean ‘Too simple?’”

“I mean just that. Even with the simplest of understandings of honesty, something is either true or it is not. The ways of darkness however rely heavily on deception, lies, and half-truths, and honesty clearly opposes such things. However, if thy run in with Discord is any indication thou already knows that even an honest heart can be manipulated.”

Bowing her head slightly and allowing her trusty cowboy hat to slide forward just a bit, Applejack said, “Yeah, I guess that means kindness would be the hardest to corrupt then huh?”

“Quite to the contrary, actually. While Fluttershy may certainly hold her head high that she never lowered her mental guard, allowing Discord’s mind control spell in unnoticed, kindness, even in its purest form can quite easily be led astray.”

“So, princess, what element is the most incorruptible in its purest form?” Twilight Sparkle’s question drew surprised looks from her friends. “What? I can’t be curious?”

Luna gave a small laugh and then answered, “No one element can claim that title, for in their purest form three of them are truly incorruptible, honesty, loyalty, and magic. Honesty, as stated before, seeks the truth, something truly incompatible with the ways of the wicked. As I’m sure Rainbow Dash can tell you, true loyalty first requires loyalty to what is right and just, then to any whom will join you in pursuing what is right. But to know what is right requires that same unrelenting pursuit of the truth as honesty. By now I would suspect that you, Twilight, already know the truth of the element of magic. It has no virtue of its own, but instead seeks to hold the other five elements in balance, and thus in its purest form would also be anchored to the truth through honesty and loyalty.”

“But what of the other elements? Surly they can be resilient as well,” Rarity asked.

With a nod Luna answered, “Any virtue worth holding can be resistant in the face of darkness. However ones such as kindness, generosity and laughter by themselves do not seek the truth, as they bend more to the whims of the heart than any hard truths. Both kindness and generosity can inspire completely opposite actions and yet remain true to themselves, based solely on the heart of the one wielding them.” Shaking her head she added, “And you need only look to the age of chaos to see the misery that Discord’s pursuit of laughter brought to everypony.”

The traveling party walked in silence for a moment as they took in Luna’s words. Rainbow Dash was the next to speak, although not on anything quite so philosophical. “Uh, heads up, we got company!”

Looking to the darkness beyond the light of their magic users’ creation, they saw that Dash was pointing at a multitude of eyes looking back at them. One set of eyes lunged forward and somepony shouted, “Timberwolves!”

* * * * * * *

Emerging from the trees seven ponies found themselves standing at the ravine that separated the castle of the royal pony sisters from the rest of the Everfree Forest. Their manes and tails were ruffled and they all had minor bruises and cuts.

“Ah swear, sometimes that forest is as gentle as Fluttershy, and sometimes it’s as rough as a rodeo! How in tarnation did it pick tonight of all nights to ambush us five times!” Applejack grumbled as they started to make their way across the old rope bridge to the other side of the ravine.

Looking to the castle ahead Luna responded, “Of that I can not say. However, on the up side all of the creatures we fought were native to the forest. With no shadow puppets among them we may yet have the element of surprise on our side.”

“Then we move ahead quietly from here on out,” Twilight Sparkle said.

Everypony nodded in agreement and began creeping slowly toward what was left of the castle’s front gate. A haunting sense of familiarity struck Luna as the ages had done little to change the layout of the castle. Though vines now climbed many of the outer walls, and the roof had collapsed in many places, even setting hoof in the main courtyard caused a memory to flash in Luna’s mind, showing how it had been when it was new.

Going into the entrance hall several sets of eyes fell on the stone array where Twilight and her friends had first found the elements of harmony. Luna’s eyes found their way to the gapping hole in the roof that force yet another memory to flash in her mind, reminding her how it had formed in the first place. Shaking the thoughts from her mind, Luna took note that erosion had made the hole larger over the years.

“Hey, would ya look at that!” Applejack called out in a whispered tone, looking through what remained of a window.

As everypony gathered around to see what had the farm-pony’s interest they saw a deep purple glow coming from what remained of a tower off to one side of the castle.

“Isn’t that where we fought Nightmare Moon the first time?” Fluttershy asked, ducking down so she couldn’t see the tower in question anymore.

With a nod Luna answered, “And no doubt where the trap awaits us.”

After passing glances among themselves, Twilight asked, “Princess, should we search the rest of the castle for the element?”

“You are welcome to try, but considering that the element of honesty is the bait for that trap I suspect such an effort would be pointless. Last I checked one places the bait in the trap, or hath that tradition changed over the centuries I was away?”

“No, the bait definitely still goes in the trap. Well, at least when you’re pranking it does,” Pinkie Pie said slightly too loud for the whispered conversation that had preceded it. “What?” she asked after noticing the glares coming her way. “Oh right, quiet,” she added in a whisper that would have made Fluttershy proud.

As they neared the tower Luna extinguished the light form her horn. Twilight and Rarity quickly followed suit. Rainbow Dash gave a slight groan as she realized that the plan to go up the stairs in complete darkness would force her to land and feel her way up like everypony else, but she still followed her friends without further complaint.

A faint light appeared as they neared the top of the stairs. Luna came to a halt for a second, before creeping ever so slowly around the last bend. One by one pony’s heads appeared, peaking into the remains of the room at the top of the stairs.

From the narrow point of view afforded them, they were able to see a pyre of black and purple flames at the back of the room. Six obsidian rods marked the edges of the ring of fire on the ground, and yet the dark flames were being drawn up into a large fireball hovering just above the magical pyre. Sitting in front of the dark magic flames was Nightmare Moon, who currently seemed to have a deck of cards that was laid out before her in a formation that hinted at a game of solitaire.

Luna surprised most everypony, as she announced her presence by firing a beam of magic right at Nightmare Moon’s chest. Most everypony, a black aura surrounded Nightmare Moon’s horn and a small shield of dark magic appeared just in time to block the shot. “What took you so long?” Nightmare half asked, half sneered.

Luna answered by walking forward. Twilight and the others also came forward but remained a step behind the princess of the night. Now fully in the room they were able to see one last detail of significance, the white alicorn laying on the floor, scared by the burn marks of a magical battle.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight shouted as she started to charge forward. A blast of dark magic striking the floor right in front of her stopped the unicorn in her tracks.

At the sound of her name the solar princess groaned and opened her eyes slightly. The sign that her mentor was still alive was enough for Twilight to obey the threatening look coming form Nightmare Moon and back away.

Nightmare Moon gave a slight cackle and said, “Oh don’t worry, I want her to live long enough to see her kingdom burn.”

“Enough!” Luna shouted, slamming a hoof to the ground. “I sense too much power before me for you to be a mere puppet and yet you still hide behind a false skin. If you intended to incite my wrath by threatening my sister and my kingdom, thou should at least have the gall to face me with your own face!”

Pausing for a moment, Nightmare Moon looked into the cold anger in Luna’s eyes, and truthfully saw that there was more impassioned anger burning in the eyes of Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash and Applejack. “Very well,” Nightmare conceded. “I will give you the face you can truly direct your hatred toward.”

With those words the nightmare alicorn became shrouded in darkness, the flowing starlight mane and tail shrank and became more corporeal, her body shrank and the wings shriveled away into nothingness. The alicorn’s form became that of a unicorn stallion. An unnatural shimmer made it reasonable to guess that his coat and mane might not normally be the shade of black they were now and a slight red glow made it unclear if his actual eyes were red or purple.

Taking a step toward the stallion, Applejack said, “Good, now that we’re being honest, how about ya tell me what ya did with the element of honesty?”

The stallion gave a cynical smile and answered, “Oh don’t worry, with the magics at play here, you’ll never find it so long as I live.”

At the stallion’s words, Celestia’s eyes suddenly opened fully and she muttered something too quietly to be heard. Noticing her sister’s reaction Luna frowned, as whatever her elder sister perceived eluded her.

Looking away from Luna, the stallion sighed and said, “I was hoping your friends would realize that they would be useless without their precious elements, but since they came I suppose I should give them somepony to play with.”

With those words a dark aura surrounded his horn and six shadows appeared, taking the form of the six spirits of harmony, only differing from them in appearance by having black coats.

The stallion and his shadows charged forward. Luna and her companions charged forward and battle filled the remnants of the ruined tower’s top room. (Save for Fluttershy’s case as she chose to lead her shadow on an odd dance-like chain of motions, where the shadow endlessly attacked her and she endlessly dodged away.)

As ponies and shadows fought around them, Luna and the stallion circled each other while trading beams of magic. Both were proving too accurate with their shots and were forcing the other to block the incoming beams with magical shield spells rather than dodge.

With the battle dragging on beyond mere seconds, Luna accepted that her opponent had proven himself to be her equal in a shooting fight and that it was time for a change in tactics. Seeing as she was blocking his magic blasts anyway, Luna opted to charge her opponent.

She had only closed half the distance to her target when he vanished in a flash of teleportation magic. On instinct Luna checked her natural blind spot and sure enough a blast of dark magic was coming at her from behind. The dark magic sailed through empty air as Luna also vanished in the flash of a teleportation spell.

Appearing beside her target, Luna immediately fired a powerful blast of her own magic. Luna’s blast also found only empty air, as her target vanished with another teleportation spell and leaving her attack to slam into the wall beyond. The resulting explosion sent even more stones of the already crumbling wall falling into the darkness beyond the tower.

With another missile of dark magic headed right at her, Luna once more teleported across the room. This time she didn’t bother to attack the moment she reappeared, nor was she surprised by the flash of teleportation magic that greeted her as her target once more teleported away. Rather than give chase again, Luna blocked the stallion’s counterattack and simply glared back at him. He responded by giving a smirk as if to say ‘what are you going to do about it?’

Why does he insist on remaining in a ranged fight? Luna thought to herself. As if to answer, a vision played in the back of her mind, showing a sword and a shattering scythe. Ah, so he wasn’t holding back in the cave. So he knows I am his superior at close quarters combat. So I just need a way to-

Luna’s thoughts were interrupted as one of the many gasps and squeaks coming from Fluttershy became a pained cry. Looking to the source of the sound, Luna saw Fluttershy falling backwards as if she’d taken a punch to the side of her face, and Rainbow Dash looking as if she’d just come out of a dive, now fighting both shadowy pegasi. Four of Fluttershy’s friends called her name as she hit the floor back first.

In a radiant flash of purple light all six bearers of the elements vanished, reappearing together by the stairs. As the shadows turned to face their opponents once more Twilight summoned a dome-like shield around herself and her friends.

Inside the shield Rarity and Pinkie Pie rushed to check on Fluttershy, while Rainbow Dash and Applejack took defensive positions at the edges of the shield. On the outside the six shadows gathered around and began pounding and kicking at the shield, causing cracks to form in the protective spell.

“ENOUGH!” Luna yelled with the ‘royal Canterlot voice’ so loud that somewhere in the Everfree Forest a zebra decided that she was mistaken in thinking her brew needed more of the ingredient she was about to add.

Back in the castle ruins, a light blue light radiated from Luna’s horn. High above, the overcast clouds parted and the moon filled the hole in the cloud cover. Within seconds the once half-moon became a full moon and silver light poured through the hole in the clouds, bathing the tower ruin in soft silver light.

The shadows attacked the shield again, Twilight’s shield spell shattered, and then everyone froze. The silver light filling the ruined tower suddenly intensified, causing every pony and shadow to stop and look up, just in time to see a massive beam of silver light coming down from the moon.

Had there been an observer watching from the edge of the ruined castle they would have lost sight of the tower for a few seconds as it disappeared behind the veil of silver moonlight.

Within the tower, the six shadows evaporated in the intense moonlight, the stallion cowered under a small square shield of shadow magic that was crumbling at the edges, and Pinkie Pie’s voice was heard saying, “Wow that tingles!”

As the beam of light faded the five wielders of the elements gathered around their injured friend. “She’ll be alright,” Rarity said.

Luna stood, glaring at the stallion. In response he gave a laugh and said, “Impressive, but your rage isn’t strong enough to beat me. Not yet anyway. I will admit that I was a little caught off guard by that stunt, saw it coming a mile away with Celestia, but I didn’t expect that much light magic from the spirit of night.”

“Thou art a fool if it had not dawned on you that the moon’s light is mine to command,” Luna said, shaking her head slightly.

A sinister smile crept on to the stallion’s face. “Perhaps, but casting on that level must be taxing. I should know, Celestia only managed it once before she burnt herself out. My second shot got through, set Hoofington ablaze if I’m not mistaken. Let’s see if you can do it again, or if Ponyville will burn!”

As a dark aura surrounded his horn, he pointed a hoof at the black pyre at the back of the room and the dark fireball hovering over the blaze launched into the sky.

“No!” Luna yelled as her horn once more flared to life.

Another beam of silver light shot down from the moon, intercepting the fireball in the skies over the Everfree Forest. The two spells canceled each other out in an explosion, ending with the fiery embers evaporating in empty sky.

“Impressive, you’re still standing, clearly you have the endurance for battle.”

“What can I say? I was always the better fighter then my sister,” Luna responded.

Looking over to the shadow fire pyre, the stallion saw that the dark flames were still being drawn upward, forming a new dark fireball. “Clearly, that much is true. But I wonder if you can defeat me before the shadow fire has recharged? Will you have the strength left to stop another shot if you can’t?”

Luna flinched but stopped herself from fully taking a step backwards. Her eyes fell to her sister. Celestia was fully awake, but clearly too weak to stand. Deciding to try things her sister’s way, Luna answered, “Why are we even fighting at all? What do you hope to gain by causing all this misery?”

“It’s not so much what I hope to gain. It’s what I hope the master gains. As for me, I want to see Celestia’s tears as she realizes that she is the source of her kingdom’s weakness. I want to see your rage burn brighter then the cities as they burn down! That is what I want! To see Equestria burn!”

Luna closed her eyes. “You wish to see the depths of my rage? Very well, you shall have it!” Blue light once more shimmered around Luna’s horn. A dome of blue light appeared entrapping Twilight and her friends within a shield spell and three rings of light appeared on the floor, arranged in a triangle pattern around her.

“Luna, no!” Celestia whimpered.

“Princess!” Twilight and her friends called out.

However, after their initial reactions both Twilight and Celestia raised an eyebrow as they recognized the patterns of the light on the floor to be three summoning circles. The stallion also took notice of the magic array and briefly contemplated what the princess of the night could be summoning that she deemed necessary for her rage. Yet as the seconds ticked on the three more adept magic users realized their first assumptions were wrong, as summoning inanimate object didn’t take this long, only summoning other ponies did.

The stallion took a step back as he recalculated the risks and rewards of allowing Luna to finish her spell. On one hoof Luna had promised her rage, if she gave in to her rage then for all intensive purposes his mission was a success and all else was moot. On the other hoof he was already outnumbered seven to one, and while only two of his opponents were powerful magic users, if Luna was summoning three more powerful unicorns he wasn’t sure he’d be able to defeat them. His eyes fell to the shield holding back Twilight Sparkle and her friends. The fact that Luna was keeping her friends out of it as well was enough to make the allure of impending victory too much to resist, and so he stood back and waited.

* * * * * * *

A sound that could be likened to a high pitched crystal chime echoed through the bedroom, causing the filly sleeping in the bed to pull her blankets over her head. Much to the filly’s dismay she was now awake enough that her ears were able to find the source of the sound. The resulting realization that the sound wasn’t coming from outside her house but inside her very room made her pull her blankets off and sit upright.

Scootaloo’s eyes locked onto the dressed just beyond the end of her bed and the soft blue light coming from the top drawer.

“Wha-huh?” she muttered as she crept toward the dresser.

As annoying as the sound was to Scootaloo, something about both the light and sound coming from the drawer felt like it was calling out to her. The orange filly placed her hoof on the handle, and then she hesitated as she tried to think what was supposed to be in the drawer. But the problem was that Scootaloo wasn’t the type of pony to dress up on a regular basis and she’d used the top drawer even less frequently, so she’d forgotten what, if anything, she’d put in there.

Scootaloo swallowed hard as her instincts told her not to open the drawer, and yet the voiceless call of the light and sound tugged at her and somehow comforted her. Finally opening the drawer a smile appeared on her face. A silver vest with matching wing guards was glowing like crazy.

Quickly donning the vest, Scootaloo flexed her wings within their armored sheaths, and as soon and she had fastened the last strap of the armored vest a ring of light appeared on the floor beneath her. As the light washed over her, Scootaloo’s main and tail waved slightly as if a slight wind was coming up from below her. Even with nopony around to hear her, the filly said, “Luna, I’m ready.”

* * * * * * *

“What the hey?” Apple Bloom griped as she finally pulled her head out from under her pillow. Glaring angrily as she searched for the source of the noise that had awoken her in the middle of the night.

Her anger turned to confusion as her eyes fell on her closet and the ribbons of light pouring out through the cracks around the doors. Getting out of bed the farm filly marched across the room. “Don’t ya dare tell me that, after humiliating me for days, that glow in the dark potion finally started working.” Pausing for a moment she thought out loud, “Wait a minute, ah don’t keep my potion making supplies in there. What’d I do, spill something on my bow?”

In the back of her mind Apple Bloom knew that guess couldn’t be right either. Regardless, she opened the closet and began digging through the strangely large pile of pink bows, searching for the source of the light and noise. Pushing aside several more pink bows Bloom smiled. “Ya never said it glowed,” she said as she beheld the silver armored saddle.

Wasting little time Apple Bloom put on the armor. “Okay, what now?” she asked, despite being the only one in earshot. As if in response a ring of light appeared on the floor beneath her. “Oh, that works.”

* * * * * * *

Blue light danced through Sweetie Belle’s bedroom like a disco ball, unanswered as the filly slept soundly, oblivious to the light and noise filling her room. Suddenly jolting upright, she cried, “I’m up! I’m up!” The waking haze filled her mind and she looked out the window into the dead of night and added, “Wait, why am I up?”

Finally taking notice of the light and sound, Sweetie Belle’s first response was try to glare at the horn on her forehead and mutter, “Don’t tell me I fried my nightlight again.” Looking to the light in question she found it still glowing steadily.

By now Sweetie’s body had woken up enough that her ears told her the sound was coming from her dresser. Looking over she saw the silver circlet sitting on top of the dress was glowing, the mirror behind it only adding the disco-ball-like effect of the light coming off of it.

“Well that’s new,” Sweetie Belle whispered as she got out of bed and approached artifact.

Sitting up she took the circlet in her front hooves and bowing her head she lined up the hole in the circlet’s crest with her horn. The moment she had placed the circlet properly on her head a ring of light appeared on floor.

* * * * * * *

Luna had been channeling the summoning spell for almost a minute, and one by one the rings of light suddenly flared brighter, signaling that spell was ready on both ends. The delay didn’t really matter to Luna, as her opponent had had more then enough time to attempt to break the spell, but had chosen to stand by and watch with curiosity.

Finally the third ring of light flared up. Turning to the six ponies behind her, Luna said, “Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, forgive me.”

Before the three could figure out what the princess of the night meant by her words, Luna’s horn pulsed with magic and the three rings of light became columns of blue light so bright that nothing could be seen through them. As quickly as the columns of light had come, they faded, revealing the cutie mark crusaders standing where the summoning spells had been.

And yet, the end of the summoning spell was not the end of Luna’s spell work. The magic around her horn pulsed again, this time a small hole opened in the shield spell around Twilight and her friends, and the crusaders disappeared in a flash of teleportation magic, only to reappear within the shield spell. As quickly as it had formed the hole in the shield spell sealed back up, once more forbidding even magic from coming or going.

“Twilight, protect your friends, and guard these three. I shall need them shortly.” With the princess’s words Twilight Sparkle felt the flow of magic being pushed her way.

With a nod Twilight accepted the magic and poured her own magic into the flow. The shield spell changed from blue to purple as the unicorn took control of it and made it her own.

Turning to her adversary Luna said, “As for you, I believe you asked me to sign your death warrant.”

“Luna, don’t do this,” Celestia pleaded weakly.

Luna shook her head. “I am sorry sister, but he hath played us into a corner. The only way to stop him here and now is to best him at his own game.”

The stallion had been sitting dumbfounded, the look on his face practically screaming ‘who in their right mind summons children to a battlefield?’ The conversation between the two royal sisters snapped him out of his confused pondering and he restored his guarded stance.

Closing her eyes, magic once more wrapped itself around Luna’s horn, but instead of the soft blue light of before it was a dark aura like that of the stallion’s magic. In her mind Luna was doing more then just indulging in angry thoughts, she was feeding her magic into her anger, letting it take on a will of its own.

I knew you would need my power again someday.

Just shut up and kill that stallion already.

Ha! At least we can agree on that much.

The darkness surrounding Luna’s horn spread, causing her coat to darken as her body grew in size until she was the same size as Celestia. When she opened her eyes, the nocturnal eyes of Nightmare Moon gazed out and a wicked grin formed on her face.

As the dark magics of Luna’s transformation faded, the stallion saw the bloodlust in Nightmare Moon’s eyes and his own smile turned into a frown. ‘Game over, I win. Now I just need to figure out how to survive my victory,’ he thought to himself.

Magic flashed and the stallion disappeared with a teleportation spell, only to reappear in the same place, being violently thrown to the ground. Looking around he spotted a dark glow lining the edges of the room. With the force field protecting Twilight and her friends also blocking the stairwell the only way out was to physically jump out of the ruined tower. Given how quickly Nightmare Moon had set up the teleportation-blocking field, that idea didn’t appeal to the stallion very much either.

“What’s the matter? You practically begged to face me. Yet now that you look death in the eye you try to fee,” Nightmare Moon cackled.

The stallion knew better then to try to reason with the nightmare alicorn before him, for she was a creature of blind rage, an instrument of death and destruction and nothing more. But one fact remained, Nightmare Moon was Luna, and Luna had used a great deal of magic, so if he could just weaken Nightmare, perhaps she wouldn’t be able to maintain the spell preventing his escape.

The darkness returned to the stallion’s horn and a spear of dark magic formed and hovered for a second before being launched at his opponent at high speed. Nightmare Moon’s speed proved nightmarish as she sidestepped the attack with ease, letting it bounce off of Twilight’s shield spell. On the other hoof the stallion barely had time to raise a small shield spell to block Nightmare’s counterattack.

“Is that truly the best you can do?” Nightmare Moon taunted, as her target staggered back a few steps.

Nodding slightly he answered, “Yes, you do deserve my best don’t you?”

With that darkness once more flared from the stallion’s horn, quickly becoming a sphere that shielded him from view. The orb quickly melted away, revealing six of the stallion. The six dark stallions quickly spread out each summoning a dark spear of their own, threatening to attack from several sides at once.

“You’re plan is to use the darkness against me? You’re kidding right?” Nightmare Moon said, raising an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed.

“The darkness gives me strength just as it does you, let’s see who is the favored champion of darkness.”

Raising a hoof to her forehead Nightmare Moon sighed. “Why must I always be surrounded by foals?” Slamming her hoof to the ground, a building rage was heard in Nightmare’s voice as she added, “Do you not realize that darkness bows to light? That unlike my sister’s pathetic day, that blinds all with it’s endless light, the night is balance? You foal! The night is not balanced by the day because the night already is balance! It is already both darkness and light! And I am the night! The night’s darkness is MINE! The night’s light is MINE!”

With her enraged words the dark aura around Nightmare’s horn tripled in size. A shift in the light made everyone look upward to see the hole in the clouds exploding outward, clearing the skies over the whole of the Everfree Forest. Every star in the night sky twinkled brightly… too brightly.

“Oh my…” Celestia muttered, and drawing on what little strength she had left she wrapped herself in a layer of golden light.

As they realized what was about to happen Applejack and Rarity hugged their younger sisters in such a fashion as to force their faces into the fur of their elder sibling’s chests. Even Rainbow Dash wrapped her wing around Scootaloo in a hug that mostly obscured the filly’s view.

“Hey!” all three fillies complained.

“Y’all are too young to see this,” Applejack answered on behalf of the adults.

Rainbow Dash’s wing my have prevented her from seeing the room around them but it didn’t stop Scootaloo from looking up at the cosmic display unfolding overhead. The reason for the strangely bright twinkle of the stars finally became apparent as millions, if not billions, of tiny beams of silver light descending on the ruin. As some of the beams began slamming into the shield spell just over her head, Scootaloo willingly buried her face in the fur of Dash’s side.

The beams of light filled the room like a torrential downpour, and although the bulk of the shots were converging on the six shadowy stallions many of the shots were striking within the ruined tower seemingly at random.

Twilight’s knees buckled from the assault on the shield spell under her command. Cracks formed in the purple shield, and then a blue light mended the cracks. Turning her head Twilight smiled at Rarity as she felt her friend’s magic flow into her own, the blue light reinforcing the shield spell matching the blue glow of Rarity’s horn perfectly.

Of the six shadowy stallions, the five shadow puppets evaporated away under the under the starlight rain besieging the ruin after a couple of seconds. With the decoys gone the starlight beams focused all the more on the remaining target. Even with his magic no longer divided, cracks began to form in and spread through the dark shield spell protecting him.

The shield around the stallion finally shattered and the torrent of starlight beams thrust him to the floor, pummeling him relentlessly.

A full seven seconds after the first beam of starlight struck down the last volley of light magic landed and an unusual silence came over the ruined tower. Aside from the spots protected by shield spells, if there was a single stone left un-singed by the magical barrage Twilight couldn’t find it.

Feeling a fluctuation in the magic flowing around her Twilight looked over to Rarity. Seeing the fatigue in her friend Twilight Sparkle gave a nod, and Rarity withdrew her magic from the shield spell. The blue swirls in the shield faded and the spell returned to the pure purple of Twilight’s magic.

Nightmare Moon walked over to the crumpled mess of a stallion lying on the floor. Among the noteworthy observations of her target was that every single leg was bent in places that shouldn’t bend at all, and even the joints were bent in angles they shouldn’t go. Every inch of the stallion’s body was covered in cuts and bruises, his coat was stained with his own blood and even the weak rise and fall of his chest betrayed his broken ribs.

And yet he looked up at Nightmare Moon, his eyes burning with spite, and said, “Nightmare Moon is reborn… I… still… win.”

Are you really going to let him beat you when the means to fully humiliate him are mere yards behind you?

My dear Luna! With that much spite you’re starting to sound like me! I like it!

Leaning in close to the stallion, Nightmare Moon gave a spiteful smile and said, “No, you will die a total failure.”

Slowly she stood up fully and then Nightmare suddenly turned and fired a beam of magic that cut through Twilight’s shield with terrifying ease. “Crusaders! To me!” Nightmare Moon commanded.

Applejack and Rarity tightened their embrace on their younger sisters, preventing them from even considering obeying the command. Rainbow Dash didn’t appear to move, but Scootaloo felt the wing wrapped around her relax. Realizing she could push free in a heartbeat, Scootaloo hesitated for a moment, as she trusted Luna greatly, Nightmare Moon not so much. But ultimately she decided to trust that this was what Luna had meant when she said ‘she’d need the crusaders shortly’ and bolted forward.

As Scootaloo drew near to Nightmare Moon, the grin on Nightmare’s face turned into a frown as she realized what the order she’d given out of spite truly meant. “No! Wait! Stay back!”

In a last ditch attempt to save herself Nightmare Moon gathered magic into her horn trying to do the quickest thing possible, grab the orange filly in a levitation field. But it was too late, even as the dark aura appeared, silver light erupted from Scootaloo’s armor. The light wove itself into a chain and lashed out, and the instant the chain of silver light connected the two ponies the dark aura of Nightmare’s magic flickered out and she became paralyzed. Finally the chain of light seemed to sink into Nightmare Moon’s body and tendrils of darkness started leaking out, seeming as if they were being forcefully pulled out of her as the darkness was drawn down the surface of the silver light.

The moment she saw the silver light coming from Scootaloo’s armor, Applejack looked down at Apple Bloom and loosened her grip on her little sister. Quickly giving a thankful smile Apple Bloom ran toward her friend.

Looking up at her elder sister with pleading eyes, Sweetie Belle said, “They need me sis.”

With a sigh Rarity let her leg go slack, allowing Sweetie push free and run forward as well.

The tendrils darkness being pulled down the chain of silver light reached Scootaloo’s armor and she gave a pained cry that sounded born of surprise more than true pain.

As Apple Bloom came within range her armor also released a silver light that formed into a chain. As Bloom’s chain stuck to Nightmare Moon the darkness started to be pulled down her chain also, and receded halfway up Scootaloo’s chain. Nightmare began to squirm as best she could, given her paralyzed state.

When Sweetie Belle caught up to her friends silver light came from her circlet, completing the triangle formation of chains binding Nightmare Moon. The darkness receded up Scootaloo and Apple Bloom’s chains as it was pulled in yet another direction. Nightmare Moon gave a truly pained cry as cracks of silver light began appearing throughout her form.

With one final cry Nightmare Moon shattered like an eggshell. The fragments evaporating like some kind of dark steam as Luna collapsed to the ground.

With a little help from Twilight Sparkle, Celestia was able to stand up. Leaning on her prized student for support Celestia took a step forward and asked, “Luna, are you alright?”

“I have had better days.” Motioning to the three fillies around her Luna quickly added, “Though, seeing as my failsafe worked, I can not complain.”

As the crusaders approached their pegasus friend Sweetie Belle asked, “How about you Scoot? You okay?”

Ever since the silver light had retreated back into their Luna-gifted artifacts Scootaloo had been hanging her head downward, eyes closed and her body trembling. When her eyes shot open fire could practically be seen burning within them as she glared at her friends. Rage burned in her voice as she yelled, “No, I’m not okay! It hurt when that dark stuff touched me! What the heck took you so long! And why the heck am I so angry all of a sudden!”

Bowing her head low to the pegasus filly, Luna said, “Forgive me, Scootaloo. I believe that is my fault. I did not anticipate that you would challenge Nightmare Moon alone and I designed the artifacts to be used as a set, to literally tare my darkness apart. But by facing Nightmare alone for as many seconds as you did the darkness was only pulled in one direction, and so it was able to reach you.”

“Well, stop wasting my time telling me about it and fix it already!” Scootaloo snarled.

“Yes, I suppose the explanation should have waited until after the remedy,” Luna said with a slight chuckle, as a soft blue light surrounded her horn.

High overhead the moon brightened and a shaft of focused moonlight came down, encompassing both Luna and Scootaloo. Their manes and tails lifted upwards as if they were standing in an updraft. Sparks of dark magic began coming out of both of their bodies, evaporating like dark steam in the moonlight.

Scootaloo visibly relaxed and the anger-born tension in her body melted away in the soothing glow of Luna’s cleansing light as the magic pushed the unwanted anger out of her.

Turning to the other crusaders, Luna said, “Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, even though thou seem fine you should probably join us, just in case.”

The two fillies entered the focused moonlight, lined up beside their pegasus friend and joined her in closing their eyes and basking in the warmth of the magic flowing all around them. With the complete absence of any dark magic being purged from the two, it was clear the Luna’s precaution was unnecessary.

At that moment the ring of dark fire withered and died out, and at the same time the darkness of the stallion’s coat faded, causing his coat to become bright red and his main and tail became pink. His cutie mark became visible as a golden spear with a red gemstone imbedded in the spear-point.

With the attention of the adults drawn to the lifeless stallion on the floor, Celestia realized the true purpose of her sister’s distraction. Now that all three fillies had their backs turned to the corpse mere feet behind them, none of them noticed when Celestia used her magic the straighten out the broken legs, close the eyes and even push the blood on the floor back under the body. Although it still looked badly beaten, she hoped it would no longer be traumatizing when the young eyes inevitably scrutinized the scene around them.

Having channeled the purifying light spell far longer then needed, Luna finally released the spell and the shaft of moonlight around herself and the crusaders faded.

Celestia and Twilight wasted no time turning to the ring of arcane etchings carved into the floor where the shadow fire had been and quickly removed the obsidian channeling rods from the formation.

“Ya got to be kidding me,” Applejack muttered as she approached the spot where the shadow fire had been. With the dark artifacts removed, the only thing left in the center of the burnt out ring was a puddle of molten gold and an orange gemstone in the shape of an apple. “It was right here all along…”

An aura of orange light appeared around Applejack and the gemstone, growing brighter with every step the farmer took toward the gem. Finally in a radiant flash the gem and puddle of melted gold vanished, reappearing as a necklace on Applejack’s neck, fully restored to its former glory.

Looking at the artifact hanging from her neck she said, “There ya go. Ya just needed an honest heart nearby to fix yourself, didn’t ya?” Turning to Luna, Applejack asked, “Why did he try to hide it in there? Seems kind of dangerous to put it here if all I had to do was come over to this side of the room to fix the element.”

Luna shook her head. “Actually it makes perfect sense, with the shadow fire bound to his own life hiding the element both physically and magically, there was no way for us to retrieve it while he still lived. Well… assuming that he wasn’t going to just stand idly by to let us dismantle the shadow fire spell directly anyway.”

“Wait! Does that mean he’s… dead?” Sweetie’s voice squeaked, as the filly darted to her sister’s side, putting her big sister between herself and the dead stallion.

A round of grim nods answered the question as the adults begrudgingly admitted what the fillies were looking at was a dead body.

“He looks like he’s sleeping,” Apple Bloom said in a low voice.

“Yeah, except for the part where he’s not breathing,” Scootaloo said, leaning entirely too close to the stallion’s motionless body.

Both fillies gave a surprised yelp as Twilight suddenly wrapped them in her magic and lifted them away from the corpse. “Stay back girls, touching dead bodies isn’t good for your health.” Setting the two down with the rest of the group, Twilight turned to the princess of the night and said, “Luna, did it really have to end this way?”

Luna gave a grim nod. “The rules war are written by the evil. He forced us to defend our subjects, he set the conditions of the battle, he bound the shadow fire to his life. No, his actions ensured that he couldn’t lose, so long as he lived.” With a quick sigh she added, “And even then, he knew his survival was optional to his victory condition.”

Stepping up to her sister’s side, Celestia asked, “Speaking of that, how did you know his true intent was to restore you to being Nightmare Moon?”

“With the forms his shadow puppets took, he didn’t exactly make it hard to guess.”

“And yet, knowing that you still gave him what he wanted. Was it truly necessary to use dark magic against him?”

Bowing her head slightly Luna answered, “She’s stronger them me, because she is right about one thing. The true essence of the night is both light and darkness. But unlike me, she isn’t afraid to use the darkness. Perhaps someday I will figure out how to wield the full fury of the night without fury, but at the moment that wisdom eludes me.”

“I see, but why give your failsafe to them? They’re just fillies, children shouldn’t have to carry such burdens.”

“Sister, once again you let your precious light blind you. The darkness would give them no quarter just because they are young. Why should they be asked to just lay down and die without even the chance to fight and save themselves just because they are young? I have seen the light in their hearts, and it shines just as bright as the ones you choose to burden,” Luna answered, motioning to the six mares around them.

Turning to the crusaders, Luna added, “However my sister is right about one thing. It was wrong of me to give you this burden without fully telling you what I was asking of you. Now that you have seen the true purpose of the artifacts I gave you, I asked again. Will you be the chains the bind my darkness should I ever falter again? Will you be my lunar crusaders?”

This time the three did not answer right away, instead they huddled together and whispered among themselves. When they broke their huddle Scootaloo seemed to be the one nominated to speak for them. “We want to keep being your lunar crusaders even if it means we have to face scary stuff every now and then. But we have one condition, if this is going to be more then just fun and games, then you totally owe us a trip to the ice cream place or something.”

Glancing up at the starry night sky, Luna smiled and said, “Hmm, seems a little cheap for what I’m asking of you, not to mention that ice cream at this time of night would wreck havoc on your sleep cycles. So how about I add your names to the VIP guest list so you can come and go from Starlight Castle whenever you please. Also, after tonight I think I should modify the enchantments on your equipment to better protect you should one of you need to face Nightmare Moon alone again. So what if I treat you to ice cream some time latter in the week when I stop by to do that?”

Scootaloo looked back to her friends, each nodded. “You got a deal!”

Sitting down next to her sister, Applejack said, “Ya know, Luna made a really good point. It’s way past your bedtime. Come on y’all lets get these three back home and to bed.”

“Seriously? How can you expect us to be tired after all that!” Apple Bloom responded, and yet even the mere thought of the hour made her yawn sleepily.

With a bit of a sly grin Applejack said, “Oh, well Ah was going to carry ya, but if you ain’t tired Ah guess you could walk all the way back home yourself.”

“Actually AJ Ah am feeling a little tired,” Apple Bloom quickly admitted.

With that the six spirits of harmony and the three crusaders started to leave. Pausing at the stairwell Twilight Sparkle turned to ask, “Celestia, Luna, aren’t you two coming?”

With a nod Celestia answered, “I will catch up to you in a moment, there is something more that I wish to tend to with my sister first.”

Twilight gave a bow and took her leave of the ruined tower’s upper room.

Looking at her elder sister, Luna said, “Forgive me if I delay your topic, but might I first ask as to why this stallion looks familiar?”

“His name is… was Ruby Spear.”

“Your captain of the guard?”

“Yes, and that does explained how the security lapse at the trial happened.”

“Indeed,” Luna said with a nod. “So what was it you wanted to talk about?”

“Are you really alright?”

Looking over her sister’s scars, Luna smiled and said, “Compared to you I dare say I walked away without scratch. So yes, I am fine.”

With a devious smile Celestia turned and as she walked away she said, “Good, then I’ll let you clean up here. Oh and you remember that vacation you owe me? I’m leaving first thing in the morning. You’re first duty will be to find a temporary captain of the royal guard for me. I’ll worry about a permanent one once I get back.”

Author's Note

As always any honest critique is welcome.