Author's Note

And now, for the new year, here's something some may think I had to pull out of my ass in order to finish this three-parter. Look, I've been clogged by idea bunnies that all decided to unify into a nation and attack, okay? If I need to, I'll rewrite this three-parter in the future to flow better and better justify everything therein, but I can rest now that I've managed to dismantle the idea bunny nation.

Chapter LXXXXVI, Part III- Restoration of Order

With the arrow in her tongue-wrapped maw and icy claws sticking to the bark of the massive tree, Katie snorted and shook her head, wondering just what on Fantasia had happened to make Nightmares manifest into something this large. Something like this could not have possibly slipped past Lance's attention… could it? But then again, she recalled how he reacted to Pestilence's presence, how little everyone knew about the alicorns of yore, and shuddered. Were Nightmares really this covert these days?

She continued her climb after steeling her nerves. It would be a slow, precarious trek, that much she knew. How far up she had to go, she couldn't say, but she would need to muster her fastest pace if she were to reach Anna before the tree could close itself around her. This was gonna be one hell of a story to explain to Lance when all was said and done, but with Discord backing her up, she could very well find that a cakewalk compared to this.

She would take the insubordination charge any day after this mess was over and done with. The roots weren't a problem; she'd been at least able to slip past them undetected so far, and they could only go so high up even despite their immense size. The ivy would be another issue entirely, but she had the tools to deal with it if she had to. She took a moment to scan the perilous path above her.

Great, at least three Praetorians studded the surface, and that was what her meager sight could allow itself to see in this storm. There were probably others congregating around the closing hole. But while going around them seemed easy, for all she knew the tree could have knots surrounding them, making climbing and flying risky.

She kept going despite the obstacles. She'd have to. There simply was no other choice. As delicately as she could, she began to maneuver around the first one, its arms and head buried into the bark with fearsome knots that would be a nightmare for ordinary climbers to overcome. The knots were lined, writhing with ivy, without a hint of kudzu to be seen. The bark around it shuddered as it fired off another volley of lasers, splintering it with the effort as Katie began to crest its buried underside.

She halted for a bit to see if the barrels would relocate to her position. Nope, they didn't, and she breathed a sigh of relief through her nostrils before pressing forward, careful to keep to the bark. The ivy writhed, perhaps sensing her, and shifted to home in. She let go with her front legs and swiveled back, hinds rotating in their sockets to help her bend backwards. The volley of plants shot past her, grazing the tip of her snout before she snipped them with impunity. The tree swayed, trying to shake her off, but her icy grip held tight, and she used the swinging momentum to reorient her body and replanted her front hooves to better secure herself.

Time to keep going. Upward she heaved herself, scaling past the first knots in the trunk as the cut vines shrank away from her to relocate elsewhere. The tree still kept shaking, though, so she had to be careful with where she planted her icy claws if she had a chance of seeing this through.

Another scream cut through the storm, distorted with agony and ethereal echoes that could have only come from unnatural possession. Katie shuddered at the noise, her heart spiking with dread for the first time in a long while. She pressed on, cresting the knots as the tree stopped its shaking for the moment for just long enough she could set about securing a foothold in the more evenly flat parts of the trunk.

She wondered why a whole fleet of Nightmares would come after a single pony, before shaking the thought from her head and scaling higher. Such musings could come later, and she was sure the answers she would have conjured would not have been pleasant in the slightest. She had a ways to go before she could reach the second Praetorian, and all that was poking out of that one were its barrels, themselves intertwined with bark. At least that one wouldn't be moving anytime soon. Even better, there was hardly any ivy around that one, and less pronounced knots than the first.

In fact, it almost seemed too good to be true, so she did not send caution to the howling winds just yet. She approached it as fast as she could and then veered sharply to its left, scuttling hastily in a wide berth around it as it launched another volley of lasers into the storm. She heard musical twangs on her right and turned, shying away from a swath of ivy that was fixated around another monstrous harp and scores of ammunition to keep it occupied.

The third Praetorian was the farthest yet, at least a thousand feet up high, and its arms free to flail as they liked. It even had its sword in hand, just peachy. It seemed to want out of the humongous tree pretty badly, judging by its violent mannerisms and its haphazard slashing. That whole section alone was shaking with its struggles, and not even the ivy could hope to keep it still.

The crown of the tree shifted, seed-spitting flowers turning inward towards the trunk as the wraithling reached the halfway point between Praetorians B and C. She had to suppress a shriek as the sound of sawing wood filled the air as the flowers thrust themselves into the bark and began jittering in and out of a third of the surface, with some deciding to go all the way and come clean through the other side of the tree. The instant she saw the flowers racing toward her, heralded by flying shreds of sawdust, she let go and dropped a hundred feet before replanting her shoes onto the tree to avoid the flowers altogether.

But those crazy tendrils decided they wanted to kick it up a notch. They spread out slowly, almost in a mesmerising dance, covering more and more of the tree as they threw splinters everywhere in their wake. Katie was forced to drop back down all the way to Praetorian B's underside and hide there, squeezing herself into a knot just big enough to accommodate her tiny form and the arrow to which she clung.

Good thing too, because after that the flowers missed her entirely. She could feel the vibrations in the wood, and hear the shuddering and sawing as though it happened right next to her ears as they passed her by. Whether they didn't want to cut up the Praetorian or what, she couldn't guess—and the flowers' concerns weren't hers anyway. After a moment to reposition herself, she clambered out of her temporary shelter and surveyed the situation.

The flowers were still hacksawing away at the tree, leaving thin cutlines jaggedly scoring that whole expanse of bark, but impressively they hadn't managed to actually knock the upper half over at all. Perhaps the wood was regenerating where it was most vital? Still, now she had a new obstacle to contend with, and Katie was half-tempted to stand on a mountain in the midst of a storm like this for the singular purpose of calling Godcat and Faust a pair of bastards. She didn't, and instead mared up, rolled her shoulders, and prepared to deal with this like any adult would.

She started to regain the ground she had lost to avoid the flowers. Flying would have been nice right about now, but these damnable things kept sawing too fast and haphazardly to make the risk worth it. On top of that, they were too clustered together. She paused as a flower-laden branch almost nicked her on the snout, and took another moment to see when the largest gap in the bunch of blighted bramble would show itself, if at all.

There! She snapped her wings open and seized her chance, letting go of the trunk and beating at the same time so she would have immediate lift. Some wind blew from below her as she achieved liftoff, and helped to propel her through the massive gap in flowers all the way to two hundred feet below the thrashing Praetorian C. Katie would have crowed if she were able; she replanted herself on the bark and closed her wings, scuttling faster to avoid the off-chance of any flowers grazing her tail.

And still Praetorian C thrashed in its meager bonds, trying to escape. Katie scanned as much of the bark away from it as she could, noting its struggling radius and any and all monstrous harps in the vicinity of that radius. Some harps were scattered around here and there, but none seemed particularly close to Praetorian C. Using this fact to her advantage, she simply scuttled as far around the magitek behemoth as she could, pausing twice to ensure the particularly violent tremors wouldn't launch her back off too soon.

She kept going, moving as far from the tremors as she could before surveying the situation again. Ahead lay more harps, with whole wreaths of ivy entangling the knots surrounding them and the ammunition. Only one Praetorian was nestled in this mass, fully immobile save for its exposed barrels, but harps and arrows dotted the circumference of its knots in a suspiciously perfect circle ready and waiting to fire off another hail of sharpness and agony.

The ivy entangling that whole thing had to at least be a solid mile long, too. Katie evaluated the mass of green and suffering that now stood in her way, and thought. Flying would be risky, were she to get caught in a maelstrom of projectiles at the wrong time—and even if that weren't the case, the ivy would probably try to swat her aside anyway just so it could have a clear shot at Discord and Luna.

She turned her head to see where they had gone. The tree began to creak and groan as it moved, lashing its flowers everywhere in an attempt to snag the pair that she couldn't find in the storm. She jolted along with the tree when another laser of white light sailed through the gloom to shear off a massive branch above her, pointing straight down and barely missing her as she jumped aside.

Katie watched with wide, startled orbs as the branch creaked, cracked, and was sent tumbling down with all its flowers flowing gracefully behind it, spitting a spray of smoking seeds as it somersaulted from the roots and was lost to the storm. Katie glanced up and squeaked as the Praetorian that was trapped, along with most of that ivy and the harps and ammunition, came barreling down a second later with less grace and more clunking. For a supposedly better-built model of a superweapon, it looked as though the light managed to completely flatten the barrels and its chest, making it spark fitfully as it went to join the lost branches.

She looked to where the Praetorian was. Well, that whole side of tree now had a long, angry scorch mark carved into its surface stretching from crown to roots, and it was still smoking. That ruled out that section entirely, Katie thought with no small amount of annoyance. The tree groaned and shook, that time accompanied by the distant scream of a mare whose high pitch and drawn-out keen made the wraithling guess was panic and pain. It dragged on for far longer than it should have, and it did not cut off abruptly.

No, it petered out upon reaching its crescendo, fading into a lingering echo that managed to persist even in the howling winds around them. The resulting silence born of that scream caused Katie to look around to see if she could spot any wayward Nightmares lingering about, but she found nothing, not so much as a peep of ill intent. She shuddered, wondering if she were already too late to act. Just how long was she climbing this tree for the Nightmares to suddenly up and vanish like this?

She turned her head to the far side of the scorch mark upon hearing the quite unexpected sound of a door opening. She found an oaken door swaying in the wind at her side, through which Fluttershy came through with Pinkie Pie and an armed, grim-faced NoLegs on her back. Oddly, the Mythonias were both wearing their Elements of Harmony necklaces, and Katie wondered where the rest of the full set was. They raced to her immediately, and opted not to dally with the explanation. "Discord and Luna told us what happened!" Pinkie called, alarm shining in her eyes and an unusually firm frown decorating her hardened expression. "We're here to help!"

Katie's orbs twinkled, and she gave a chirp of delight at this. She could have used this help when she was first teleported to the roots! She looked to Fluttershy, who wore a similar expression on her face. "Here," Fluttershy said, flying over to pick up the wraithling with her forehooves. Katie dislodged herself from the bark and let herself be carried up the rest of the way to the closing hole in the trunk. They were alarmed when they found that the whole thing was closed even more, just barely big enough for an adult pony to fit through if that, and had to form a small cue line to squeeze inside.

Katie went first of course, being the smallest and most fragile. NoLegs went in after with a mew, sword drawn. Fluttershy followed, and Pinkie brought up the rear, having a bit of trouble before pushing through without much of a fight from the tree. They were then wreathed in darkness as the holes perforating the bark cage closed in haste, with a dim red glow in the center being subsumed in shadow. Therein, something sinister was forming as the shadows were sucked into the crimson glow, and viridian tendrils laced with blood red energy seeped throughout the inside of the cage, providing a wicked light that contrasted with both itself and the wood of the cage.

With the shadows dispelled, the group found a tall, statuesque form standing in the center of the room. The tan-beige of her coat had blackened to a sooty obsidian, and the wood adorning legs and false wings and tail blackened to an unnatural, purpleish char. The leaves were shriveled and desiccated and an ugly brown and so were the vines. The mane rippled in a corporeal, sickly energy of glowing green reminiscent of venom, sprinkled with wisteria branches sprouting from her scalp and flowing with that mane. Burning, hellish eyes regarded the four, pupils slit like a cat's and every bit as predatory. Burnt armor framed the face, two ram's horns curling at the sides before jutting up at their ends to frame a long unicorn horn rivaling that of Celestia's.

Pinkie's pupils shrank at the sight. "Oh no, she's gone Nightmare! Looks like we'll really have to give it our all!" she shrieked, before reaching into her mane and pulling out an entire cannon, wheels and all, and plopping it at her side.

Oddly, the Nightmarified Anna hadn't opted to say anything yet. She merely regarded the group for a little longer and smirked, showing jagged fangs that were white and pale, further backed up by row after row of wooden and bloodstained mini-stakes that hadn't skewered her tongue. Her mouth looked more like two beds of nails hinged together in an unsightly display that hurt just to look at. Maybe having that many teeth would have made speaking a bit difficult, Katie reflected, but even so she found her continued silence unsettling.

NoLegs bristled and summoned a small shield, just big enough to cover him as his fur crawled. Fluttershy, meanwhile, steeled herself, expression firm and unwavering as her wings flapped once. The silence held, even as Pinkie climbed on top of her cannon to aim. She fired first, sending out not a cannonball as Katie had expected, but rather some odd type of ammunition that struck the barky armor and exploded into confetti and glitter and painful shrapnel that would have given most sentient creatures pause.

But the Nightmarified Anna hadn't so much as flinched. She simply stood there and took the attack as though it hadn't hurt her at all. Why, even the armor hadn't crumbled in the slightest. The retaliation was swift and brutal: vines erupted from the cage with the stomping of one barky hoof, which seized Pinkie's cannon and tightened around it with enough strength to crush it. Pinkie flinched as the cannon was reduced to scrap with extreme impunity, but she reached into her mane and fiddled around for a bit before pulling out another cannon and plopping it on the floor as if to challenge the notion that she had come unprepared.

The Nightmarified Anna barked out a hollow, mirthless, deeper laugh at this, even as her eyes narrowed and her sneer widened to show off the impromptu bed of nails her mouth had become. Her elongated horn flashed in viridian-crimson, and an echoing, demonic voice comparable to a contralto filled into the heads of her challengers.

"Is that all you've got?"

Pinkie's eyes narrowed, flashing with conviction. "Not at all, silly filly," she said in a low voice. At that moment, a beam of white light tore through the cage, revealing the open stormbound skies once more. Discord and Luna teleported into the cage, both frowning grimly as they drew their weapons once again.

Discord patted Fluttershy's head with his paw. "I guess I have your permission to percussively persuade her," he said, giving a slight grin. Fluttershy nodded and smiled at him, before turning back to the Nightmarified pony before them. Hellen jabbered, arms flailing as it did its best to glare at their adversary.

Katie snapped her wings open and made to hover in the air, her chitin crawling at that unnerving expression still plastered on their adversary's face. Lance was going to be reading someone the riot act later, she knew, and hopefully she wouldn't bear the brunt of it. She watched as NoLegs yowled and lept, sword gleaming as he reached the apex of his jump.

He didn't get the chance to strike. Anna whipped her head once, and her mane-branches swung with her, seizing the cat and sending him hurtling face-first into a wall. NoLegs got back up, however, and summoned his cornucopia to rattle the cage with its low drone. The Nightmare-possesed mare stumbled with a shriek, front claws racing to cover her ears as her vines lashed out every which-way they could go.

Discord seized his chance; he rushed over and swung Hellen at Anna's chest at point-blank range. She went up into the air, and hit the ceiling wings-first with a sickening crack. Luna charged up another beam and fired before she had the chance to descend, striking her full force with blinding white-hot light. When the beam disintegrated, the Nightmarified pony fell down, the wood and vines charred off and her body smouldering in places. Even then, she got up after a moment and shook her head, the wood reforming with another flash of her horn.

"What might do you possess against the immortal Agonizing Ailment?!" the fiend telepathically roared, regenerated false wings spread as wide as they could go. The light of the cage brightened, and vines sprung forth from it with thorns and poison ready and bared. Luna shook her head and waved her horn, conjuring white flames to burn away the fresh undergrowth with impunity.

NoLegs and Discord rushed in together, forming a pincer attack on both sides of Agonizing Ailment in the hopes they could cut her down where she stood. However, she snapped her wings out to the sides and swatted them both away, sending sharpened brown leaves with them that cut into their flesh as they hit the burning walls. Pinkie and Luna charged at the same time, sword and cannon poised to strike, but massive tendrils of wood backhanded them just the same as it had done before.

Pinkie skid to a landing on her hooves, however, and her cannon rolled to her side before flopping on one of its wheels. Her Element of Harmony glowed, healing the cuts and bruises already forming from the counterattack. "I know she's in there somewhere…" she muttered through grit teeth, eyes unblinkingly focused on Agonizing Ailment, who turned to regard her as the other three got back to their feet.

Agonizing Ailment still smirked infuriatingly smugly, as though basking in some sort of superiority complex. "When I depart for the waking world… all of Fantasia will know my might. What hope do any of you have to stop me?" she telepathically challenged, chuckling mirthlessly.

Pinkie's eyes narrowed. "I know I can help keep you here," she said bluntly. She readied the cannon once again, but instead of firing more odd ammunition she climbed into it after setting it upright and lighting the fuse. She fired herself out, front hooves poised to strike.

Agonizing Ailment made to move, only to blink and falter when Pinkie zipped out of sight. She turned about, wondering where she had gone, only to feel hooves grasping her elongated horn and tying something to it. With a whinny and a cry of startlement, she reared up and tried to buck at nothing in particular, prancing about as she realized Pinkie managed to skitter on top of her.

But Pinkie held tight, even as sharpened, thorny vines raced to cut into her legs in an attempt to coax her off. She tied several large, almost bursting balloons to that horn with streamers and confetti, making sure to stuff them into as many grooves of that horn as she could. Some had tiny, almost indecipherable runes facing outward, pulsing with pink energy that waited to be sprung.

With that done, Pinkie turned to the false wings and seized both in her forelegs at the base, even as they flapped in an ungraceful attempt to dislodge her. She pulled with all her might, channeling all of her earth pony strength into the act with fire in her eyes. Agonizing Ailment bucked a few more times before managing to throw her off with a violent rearing up, only to scream as the false wings went with her opponent in the process.

Pinkie landed on her hind hooves that time, holding the false wings triumphantly as Agonizing Ailment turned to regard her. "You little cretin! I'll flay you alive for that!" she telepathically screamed, charging at Pinkie in a full gallop with her horn lowered at her opponent's stomach.

Pinkie jumped aside, batting the horn away with the false wings without popping the balloons she had tied to it. The reformed wooden horns managed to graze her, drawing a thin line of crimson across her belly, but that barely registered compared to the wooden claws that moved to seize her.

Agonizing Ailment didn't pay heed to Luna, Discord, or NoLegs as they moved simultaneously, weapons drawn and poised for the exposed backside. She screamed as two swords impaled her hinds, while a house-hammer came crashing down on her side, knocking her over before she could attempt to rip Pinkie limb from limb.

The four backed off as Agonizing Ailment made to stand on shaky legs, hinds bleeding black shadows profusely as two swords withdrew from her possessed flesh. The shadows slowed to a suspiciously fast trickle, and then closed up in seconds. She huffed and puffed, new wings regrowing with another flash of her horn. Unfortunately, this triggered the streamer-laden booby trap Pinkie had placed, causing her magic to spark and race to the balloons as the grooves suddenly realized they'd been stuffed to capacity.

The balloons popped with an almighty bang, confetti and ear-shattering sound being tossed about in the opened cage. Another deafening shriek followed it, and once everyone lowered their hooves from their ears, they realized that Agonizing Ailment had been stunned, eyes spinning in their sockets as she swayed from side to side.

But she wasn't stunned for long; soon enough, she shook it off and scoffed. She lifted a claw to remove the remnants of the trap with a scowl on her face, before rearing up and stomping both fronts to channel her might and magic into the wood around them. Leaves sprouted from the tendrils of power, just barely unnoticed by the flames burning the vines, absorbing the viridian-crimson of every nook and cranny they sprouted in.

When the last of the glowing tendrils were absorbed, the leaves coiled onto themselves before morphing into bamboo shoots that grew instantaneously, their direction haphazard and their ends wicked-sharp. Most of the group flew or levitated up; Pinkie opted to simply duck below the shoots closest to her, leaving her prone as they skewered her second cannon and turned it to scrap. Agonizing Ailment lit her horn and waved it in a circle, conjuring runes along the way until it completed itself.

Those same runes lit up around the prone Pinkie, forming orbs of yellow light that sent lines between each other in two overlapping squares that gave the impression of an incomplete spell. Lightning sparked between the mass, and Pinkie made an eep! before standing up to jump on the bamboo skewers to get out of the way. More of those incomplete circles formed behind her, forcing her to climb higher to escape them.

Fluttershy held her hooves to her face. "Pinkie!" she yelled, noticing a larger circle encompassing the top of the open cage that she and the others hovered out of the reach of. Pinkie, however, didn't notice; she kept scrambling between and on top of skewers in an effort to stay out of the reach of Agonizing Ailment's befouled magic.

Fluttershy couldn't watch. She dove in herself, not caring what the larger spell circle would do to her. She screamed as she came right into its center, and the lightning from the spell's eight points shot her simultaneously, sending jolts through her body that immobilized her wings and made her legs stiff. When the lightning stopped arcing around her, she plummeted, causing Pinkie to notice with a scream that wrenched itself from her throat. She turned to her falling friend and jumped after her, pupils shrinking as she realized that some of the bamboo angled themselves with magical aid to impale them both.

She reached Fluttershy and grabbed her with her front legs, angling her hinds to land precariously on the tip of one of the bamboo poles. She shifted afterwards for balance, moving Fluttershy to her back and looking below as Agonizing Ailment sneered up at them once again. Unfortunately, this quickly turned out to be not that beneficial for her, as Discord roared and charged with Hellen swinging away, breaking bamboo with his strength as he went right for the crazed Nightmare-possessed chimera.

He smacked her right in the chest again, knocking her down. Before she could get up, he threw her into a wall, shattering bamboo skewers with the impact. Then he grasped her by a hind and swung her around, his tail extending so he could make her revisit every inch of the cage, bamboo clattering with each hit. All the while, more wounds formed, bleeding black energies that raced to close themselves with suspicious haste. Pinkie jumped and landed on the floor with her hinds, jolting when she felt Fluttershy stirring in her forelegs.

Pinkie looked at her friend, and her friend looked back with a pained but sheepish smile. "I-I'm alright," Fluttershy muttered.

Pinkie shook her head. "Silly filly, you just got the shocker of your life! Are you sure you can do this?" she asked.

Fluttershy nodded, and wrenched herself free with a few stiff jerks of her legs in order to stand shakily on her own four hooves. She nuzzled Pinkie reassuringly. "I'm sure," she replied, turning to watch the destruction Discord was bringing to the bamboo skewers. Pinkie nodded back and turned to watch as well.

When Discord was done flinging her around, she moved to stand on wobbly legs, the bamboo having clattered all around her at that point. She stood there, eyes spinning again and head swaying back and forth as though she were seeing invisible duckies. Fluttershy turned to her and flapped a few times to dispel the last of the jolts from her wings, and started to hover a little awkwardly.

NoLegs rushed in with a mew, and cast a spell that had bound his tail in black and red energies, eyes flashing the same color as that aura wreathed him. With a mew that transitioned to a long, angry, leonine roar he sent the energies everywhere, dripping off of the bamboo and the ceiling in a manner that rippled like blood. These blackish-red energies coalesced in the center of the room, and from the shadowy pit that formed from its mass rose a tall, spiked equine skull with jagged teeth and rotting reddish-brown tentacles ending in sharp blades pooling from its mouth. Within that mouth, Discord gasped as he could see a black as pitch feline with red eyes and a crimson aura, the only thing highlighting its legged silhouette.

"I will not tolerate Nightmares possessing my Children for their foul intent!" the feline telepathically roared in a deep contralto, lifting and waving a paw forward. The tentacles surged in that direction, shearing off pieces of Agonizing Ailment's body to reveal more glowing shadows in the wounds, each lash sending the possessed mare further and further back until her tail grazed the farthest wall.

Then the skull made a motion similar to an exhale, and with the wave of a paw crimson energies gathered before the mouth, twisting into a beam of hellish light that fired off smaller volleys to pelt Agonizing Ailment on her body and the wall behind her. Awareness snapped back in her eyes briefly, right as the volley ended, and for a moment viridian flashed in her pools as she realized what was happening. The others gasped as the skull came forward to chomp down on the prone mare, right as her eyes reverted back to red.

The skull backed off with a massive chomp, having sheared more flesh without tearing the host mare in two. The bite marks oozed in darkness, thick and corporeal like blood, even as the Nightmares therein screamed and tried to patch the wounds up, hoping their host would make a counter attack. But she hadn't attacked, not taken so much as one hoofstep towards the glowing cat, and the glowing feline hissed and waved her paw again.

"By divine decree, the entities who proclaim themselves Nightmares shalt have their very essence stolen from them, their forms erased from existence, the despair and hatred they sow with their actions rendered null and void, their power added to that of the Envoy of Cocytus! They shalt be treated as they have done unto others—as pitiless things who deserve no mercy, no existence, no sentience! Go now, little wraithling, and feast!" she roared before the skull roared and with its tentacles sank back into the shadows from which they had been summoned, the shadows themselves dissipating after her departure.

Katie flew back in, turning to Fluttershy, both stunned at what NoLegs had just done. Both nodded to each other, and turned back to see if the daze would hold their quarry a little longer. Fortunately, it did, and once Fluttershy felt safe with her own legs, she moved in. She wasted no time flying to the prone Nightmare-possessed Anna and grasping her face with her hooves. She stared intently, waiting for the moment that the urge to strike would flood back into those hellish pools before triggering her innate magic in her own eyes.

"What do you want to do to Fantasia if you got out?" Fluttershy hissed, her grip unyielding as Agonizing Ailment steadied herself and tried to shake her head.

Agonizing Ailment paused for a moment, being forced to look into those unyielding pools of blue before telepathically answering, "Take over and turn everyone on that wretched world into cursed trees."

Fluttershy drilled into her with her glare, causing Agonizing Ailment to flinch. The Nightmares worked to seal the glowing wounds faster, but it was of little use. "That's not a very good use of your powers, and you know that, Anna," she chastised, frowning in disapproval.

"There is no—" Agonizing Ailment began, trying to shake her head to get Fluttershy off of her. However, the smaller pegasus wasn't so forgiving or forthcoming with her desires.

"I know you're in there, and you can hear me perfectly fine," Fluttershy continued, her glare withering and as steadfast as any mountain fortress. "What would Lance think about this? Matt? Natalie? Would they approve of this… this… monster you've turned into? Would Maria or Sarah like that? I don't think they would be okay with this either."

Agonizing Ailment screamed, shaking her head violently in an attempt to send Fluttershy away. Her head went this way and that, and before long she was bucking and rearing and flapping once again. Unfortunately for her, Fluttershy matched her move for move, ensuring that no matter what, she was staring into those hellish pools that promised so much agony on an untold number of creatures.

Katie seized her chance as Agonizing Ailment reared and grasped Fluttershy with her front claws with her elongated horn charging up another spell. She flew in and stabbed the arrow into her foreleg, and then into the chest with her broken horn, unleashing her unstable magic with impunity. The effect was immediate: the wood fell off of her body, withering away into desiccated husks without a moment of reprieve.

The Nightmare pony's eyes, wounds, horn and mouth glowed white-hot as the entities possessing her flew out, blasting Fluttershy away with the force of a runaway tornado. Discord raced to Fluttershy's side as she fell into a pile of bamboo, digging her out to check if she were alright. Fluttershy nodded and pulled herself out, and both watched what followed with interest.

What a sight it was, that chilled them to their bones even as awe and befuddlement held them.

The Nightmares screamed as they tried to fly away, only for the out-of-control magic to suck the whole lot of them into that waiting maw. The wraithling channeled all her might into draining them out, never stopping even as they were forced into that torn grin by the unforgiving power she wielded. They went in clusters that almost subsumed her in shadow, but she held swift and true, the arrow stabbed into their prey rendering their own magic useless against her.

The number of Nightmares swelled, the body of their prey shrinking back down to her original, pre-possession form with the sanded claws and whatnot as they departed. The screaming didn't stop even as the number kept climbing higher and higher, until Luna and Discord lost count. For a long moment, perhaps stretching to eternity, this continued until the number trickled down and down to the last possessor getting devoured.

When that last went into the gullet, something else happened: a pink, sickly glow came from Anna, and without harming her anymore, went into Katie's gullet, and then settled in her surprisingly bloated-beyond-belief stomach. The same glow came from the bamboo, which disintegrated the moment the pink aura left them, first withering before crumbling to dust. As soon as the pink energy finished moving to its new home, she let go. Both fell to the floor, one with her broken horn still aglow and the other with awareness flooding back into her wide and confused eyes.

Luna dared not heave a sigh of relief just yet. She landed and trotted over, magically wrenching the two apart gently as she went. Before long she was sending her blade back to the ether as she wrapped a wing around the smaller, back-to-herself mare. "Tell me… how much do you know about the Nightmares?" she asked softly.

Anna was silent for a moment, before shoving Luna's wing away with a sanded claw. "N-nothing worthwhile," she said, her voice shaky and riddled with pain. "I… I just heard… a lot of voices, a-and…"

Luna wrapped her wing around her again, this time holding a primary to her lips to shush her. Anna shut her claptrap and didn't bat her away a second time, instead holding as still as her shaky body would allow. "The same happened to me when I was possessed, and I was aware of it the entire time," she said, voice still gentle. "They keep themselves secretive, until they find a suitable host to carry out their wicked schemes."

"H-how… why…" Anna muttered, ears pinning back against her head. Before she could say anymore, Luna's feather brushed against her lips to silence her.

"That, I have no idea… but I've heard whispers before I was possessed. Some said they were the alicorns Godcat had slain, and perhaps they had since lingered without their equinity. Others said they were demons seeking creatures in their moment of weakness, and I honestly know not which is the truth," Luna replied, tightening her wing-hold a bit. "Those voices you heard… what did they say?"

"They… they wanted… the Greenwood Blight to…" Anna gestured to herself erratically. "All over Fantasia… to erase the past…"

Luna's brow furrowed. "To erase the past?" she echoed.

Anna shakily nodded. "Did it with… with other alicorns…" she muttered. "Tried hiding… didn't want to be a-associated with alicorns…"

Luna glanced at Discord, and he glanced back. Both had the same question on their minds, though neither elected to speak it aloud. Instead they turned back to their shaken charge, who seemed to want the tree to swallow her up again. "And why not?" Luna asked.

"Alicorns… on Fantasia… wicked… no remorse… no soul… just m-malice…" Anna replied, eyes turning distant and misty. Luna wrapped her other wing around her and held tight.

"It's alright now… tell us what you know…" Luna muttered softly, face grim but trying not to harden into anger.

"Even if I-I…"

"You weren't in your right mind. The Nightmares had taken hold long before the barrier broke. I saw the warning signs in your dreams," Luna said, lifting a hoof to rub Anna's withers in an effort to console her. "How long they held you in their clutches, I can only guess… just tell us everything you can, and we'll do our best to act."

Pinkie came over and patted Anna on the head, her Element of Harmony glowing and casting its light on her to dislodge Discord's arrow in her leg. "Silly filly, even if you had a mean bone in your body, I'd still be your friend. Those nasty Nightmares won't go near you again on my watch," she said, garnering a wide-eyed look of befuddlement from Anna.

Fluttershy came over, her Element of Harmony glowing to heal the wounds that had been inflicted. She wrapped her wings around the stunned Fantasian, garnering another look of confusion. "Even if you were possessed, I can't hate you for it. And Luna's right—you're not at fault," she said. "You're just a good mare who was forced down a dark path. I'm here to help you off of it."

"Even as chaotic as this whole thing has been, the Nightmares are something else. We can't let them do whatever it is they're plotting. And I would be remiss if they did something I wouldn't tolerate, and that covers a lot more than you'd think," Discord said, conjuring a cupcake blowing a party streamer with a mouth that honked. That managed a weary, mirthless laugh from Anna, who he then smiled at. "Oh come now, there can be a time for tears later. You're free from the Nightmares, aren't you?"

Katie and NoLegs watched with interest, both feeling satisfied with this turn of events. NoLegs mewed and hopped over to stand on Anna's head with a purr, making her laugh in exasperation. What she was watching made the Nightmares in Katie's gut start screaming all over again, and in her head she heard them loud and clear.

"Nooo! She's not supposed to embrace Laughter!"

"Our power… it's fading… what's happening?!"

"Ack! Friendship! We can't…"

Slowly, surely, as the others consoled Anna, and tried their best to make her crack even a small smile, Katie heard the protests of the Nightmares dwindling and dwindling along with the hatred and despair she had consumed, receding until there was a void where they should have been. Her stomach shrank back to its despairingly thin size the moment it realized it had digested its fill. Nothing remained of the Nightmares—not their intent, their emotions, not even their very presence. She trotted over and prodded Luna's withers to get her attention.

"The Nightmares are gone," she reported. "They were raising hell about friendship."

Luna smiled softly. "Ah, yes," she said simply. "It is anathema to Nightmares." Her smile turned enigmatic as she asked, "I presume that was Godcat?"

Katie nodded and said, "One half of Her, anyway. I met Her at some point after turning into a wraith." With that, she turned to Anna. "Fantasia has no friendship, right?" When Anna shook her head, she sighed. "Looks like we gotta spread friendship around then; maybe that's our big break to uncover what's happened."

Anna wilted a bit. "But how?" she asked.

Luna chuckled, causing everyone to turn to her. "You have the bearers of the Elements of Harmony on Fantasia at present, do you not?" At Anna's confused nod, Luna elaborated, "Perhaps they could teach you a thing or two about it. It'll be a long and difficult road, yes… but why not start with the remaining villagers of Greenwood?"

Anna thought long and hard, and frowned. "But… they…"

Luna shushed her with a primary. "Rest assured, I heard all the sordid details," she said. "They need not see that one dark path is the only way. They're mostly your age, yes?" At Anna's nod, Luna' smile widened. "Then we still have hope for them yet. Who better to guide them off that path, than somepony who already went down it?" She leaned down until she was eye level with the still-perplexed Fantasian and said, "Be their shining example. For the sake of not just yourself, but them as well."

Anna considered this, and then hesitantly nodded. "But first… we must get rid of this wretched tree," Luna said, letting go and standing up. "It is a remnant of the Nightmares' design; nothing can persist." She lit her horn and teleported the group out, and reappeared with everyone on a cloud overlooking the tree. The magma had cooled, and the storm had petered out; the full moon was shining on the scene. Discord snapped his digits and watched as the floating island with the tree on it went crashing down onto the land. The moment it toppled was the same moment Luna sent white fire after it to burn the remainder away.

Soon enough, only ashes remained of the tree, then less than ashes as the wind came to blow it away to parts unknown. Luna sat down and turned to Anna.

"Do you want to harbor the knowledge you have until a later time?" Luna asked.

Anna shook her head. "I… I think it's better for you guys to know now…" she muttered, sucking in a deep breath to compose herself. "It all started after the gryphons were repelled from Greenwood seven years ago…"

NoLegs mewed again, and hopped off of Anna's head to sit at her side. He waved his tail and telepathically asked, "Want me to tell Lance about this whole Nightmare thing?"

Anna shook her head. "No… I'll… I'll tell him myself…" she answered.