The apple bobbing competition lasted roughly one hour, the end of the contest being caused by the elements finally prying through Luna's spell and into the barn again.

They were more than shocked to find the princess and myself soaked, with most every apple in the barn bitten. Applejack was less than amused to find an entire day's harvest gone.

One visit to the royal bank later, Luna, Twilight, and myself are walking back toward Twilight's home, the tree library.

"I just don't understand how a piece of paper is equivalent to gold." I respond.

Twilight groans as we pass the bakery. Luna starts to say something, but I see Pinky's face melded into the glass window. At first, I could think the sight a strange painting of some kind. However, as we move past it, I see the eyes follow me, and the smile deepen. I suppress a shudder as I return my attention to Luna.

She stares at me for several moments, expecting an answer of some kind.

"What?"

Twilight groans again.

"Wrath this is not that hard a concept, a 'check' is treated like a sum of bits so you don't have to carry all your bits with you all the time." Twilight was getting impatient with me, I could hear it in her voice, I frowned.

"That is exactly what I did."

"Oh really?" Luna chimes in. "You must never have had very many bits then."

"At some points I carried tens of thousands, hundreds even!" The both groaned.

"Wrath, your strength is impressive, but even you could not carry around several tonnes as if it were nothing." Luna asserts. I grin wryly.

"It would be if I had to carry their weight, yes." The two stop their eye-rolling and look at me. "I carried them with me, but they weighed nothing."

The tree house comes into view.

"Did they use some extremely lightweight currency then?" Twilight asks.

"No." I answer immediately. "Our golden pieces were in fact, very similar to yours."

"Then, how?" Luna adds.

"I did not have one when I was imprisoned, but we had small sacks, enchanted to an area in planer space that-"

"A POCKET DIMENSION!" Twilight shouts wide eyed, realization dawning on her. I frown again.

"Well that is the shorthand version of it, but yes, a pocket dimension." Twilight begins to lightly drool as we finally reach our destination.

"Hmm, that could be very useful indeed." Luna states as we make our way inside.

Twilight quickly walks to a door that I had not noticed before, slams it open, and descends into an inky blackness. I look over at Luna who shrugs and walks over to the table and sits. I make my way into the kitchen, Twilight did have some rather tasty tea after all.

After returning with some fine cups of 'Zebrican Jasmine', Luna and myself sit in relative silence as distant machinery whirs to life below us. Luna takes one of the three glasses I had prepared and takes a dainty sip from it. She flicks her ear twice, before nodding to herself and downing most of the cup in one go. I enjoy my tea at a much more conservative pace. Twilight's experimentation begins to cause the floor to vibrate.

"What is she up to down there?" I ask

"We have not the slightest idea."

The 'silence' stretches on, with the machinery getting louder and a distinct 'pinging' noise being thrown into the mix.

"Think she needs help?" Luna asks.

"No, I think she has it under control."

We both sip our tea as some shouts of frustration sound from below. The abrasive noise ceases and the floor becomes still. We both let out a sigh of relief.

Before long, a very singed and still slightly smoking Twilight emerges from her cellar door. She joins us at the table and begins to sip the third cup of tea without saying a word. I am beginning to like this place. I think. I give both ponies a large smile as I rise to brew a second pot of tea.

The monster lay on cool, albeit mossy, stone. It had traveled northward after its battle with the three dragons, and sought somewhere to nurse its wounds. It had passed the largest pony city it had seen thus far, and had then entered a most confusing forest.

Now it lay immediately inside an even more confusing ruin. Its severe burns over its face and the majority of its chest still softly smoldered, a side effect of dragon's fire on the creature's carapace. The crackling sound of its still-burning face was a constant reminder of the failure it had endured and it emitted a feminine groan of frustration from its position splayed on the ground.

It had only gotten one of the three damnable drakes, the other two had gotten away. Infernal whelps! The beast seethed with rage. It had been ashamed after the failure to slay the entirety of that pony village, that and being faced with this new defeat has overwhelmed the creature. It was so furious it could hardly think, let alone plot an infiltration of a pony village to feed.

The beast rose from its prone form on the stone, the stone itself seemingly emanating calm.

It decides to take a good look around the ruins it is in. I need to clear my head.

It wandered down the hallway, which was the main foyer to the castle proper. The monster had collapsed immediately after entering the ruin, but it had entered through the front door.

Large, ruined decorations littered the castle walls. Insignias and motifs of the sun and moon hung or lay all about. The creature stepped over broken pillars and collapsed pieces of broken stone as it made its way to a large, double throne.

Perplexed, the monster began to wonder who could have ruled here. One side of the throne held a sun motif, another a moon motif. In a strange sort of cosmic irony, a break in the ceiling above caused a small shaft of light to fall directly on the lunar throne, but not upon the solar. The being admired the throne a little longer, seeing the cracks and breaks time had inflicted upon it. At least one thousand years this place has been abandoned.

What is that noise? The crackling sound of its burning face dissipates, but the creature does not notice. As a strange musical sound begins to reverberate through the castle. The melodious noise enchants the monster, who finds itself straining to find out which direction the sound is coming from, to no avail however, as the sound seems to be coming from all around it. The monster loses all sense of reality around it, as it begins to dumbly wander about, searching for the source of the noise. It stumbles down a pathway to the right of the throne, and comes to a rotted door. The monster feels compelled to open it, and roughly shoves one of its claws at the door, which is torn off its hinges and falls apart as it falls down the staircase beyond.

The noise ceases, and all becomes quiet. The creature's rational thought returns from the haze. What the..? The creature looks down the winding staircase, cracked and aged. It looks down the hallway behind it and sees the throne some distance away.

How did I get here? What just happened? The monster's wrath temporarily forgotten, It tilts its head in confusion before a realization hits it. My face is healed?! It raises its tail to its face and chest and feels around, the burning has stopped and is nearly healed, the resilience of its carapace returned.

It is then, with an unclouded mind, that the creature detects a strange presence surrounding the castle. It was similar to the presence it encountered when it was near unicorns, but far stronger, with a much larger area of influence. It can almost feel the energy flowing around it, like a fog. How did I not notice this before?

The creature turns back toward the staircase, clicking its tongue in confusion. Was I healed by a pony? If so, why? It takes a testing step onto the decrepit steps. Satisfied that they will hold its weight, it begins to descend into the depths of the Castle of the Two Sisters.

After reaching the bottom the creature looks down the dark hallway. It has no difficulty whatsoever in seeing through the darkness, but whatever force that mended his wounds sees fit to light torches lining the walls of the hallway, casting an eerie green glow. Suits of pony armor stand at attention on both sides of the hallway, strangely enough. The creature finds that the suits of armor are not decrepit like the rest of the castle, they are in seemingly good condition. The creature lowers itself and walks on all eight limbs, completely silent, as it navigates forward.

It passes by broken doors after withered stone columns and it turns left, then right, then left again, torches igniting as it comes and extinguishing as it goes. Eventually It stops tracking its path, as it walks the maze that is the castle bowels.

The monster soon comes to a large, ornate door, made of some kind of blackened wood. Like the suits of armor, it too seems unaffected by the test of time. Remaining on all eight limbs, the creature eases the door open by the handle with its tail. Revealing the room beyond.

The creature steps into the massive room. Blank stone walls on either side of the room leading to a distant, equally blank stone wall at the opposite end of the room. It would be completely barren, if not for the red carpet surrounding a hooded figure sitting at a piano, an instrument unknown to the monster. The figure begins to play a few notes, its back turned toward the monster, who turns sideways and begins to circle around.

The melody fails to enchant the monster as it did before, and as the monster circles the face of the hooded figure comes into view. It is a mare, with a horn unsurprising to the monster. She looks tired and, somewhat translucent. Her fur is as black as her cowl, and the bit of her mane that is visible is a sort of purplish-fog, clinging to her head. Once the monster reaches the opposite side of the room, where the mare is facing, she stops playing.

"Who are you?" She asks, looking up from the piano keys. The monster recoils as if struck. It had been asked what is was before, but never who.

"I do not know," The monster's girlish voice replies. "No one has ever asked me that before...." The creature approaches the front of the piano, once there, it rises from eight legs to a sort of seated position, kneeling on its rear two legs and supporting its upper half with its six claws. "Why do you ask?"

The mare takes a long while to respond, her hooves trailing idly along the keys of the piano, but not playing any notes. She sighs.

"The truth is, whoever you are, that I am very lonely, I have longed to talk to something aside from these barren walls." This confuses the creature, who clicks its tongue.

"Why do you not leave?"

"I am trapped here," The creature pauses, clicks some more.

"Why?" it asks. The mare slowly pulls off her cowl. Revealing her to be, to the monster, a pony with both wings and a horn. Her purple-fog of a mane flowing slowly in an invisible wind. Draconic eyes and and a sad smile on her face.

"Do you understand now?" she asks.

"I do not," The mare looks taken aback.

"You do not know of me?!"

The creature shakes its head. It wonders who this crazy pony is, and more importantly, why it healed it.

"Why did you heal me?" The creature asks. At this, the mare recomposes herself before continuing.

"I, Nightmare Moon, request your aid..............oh what is your name? Don't you have one?"

The creature clicks its tongue.

"How would you know your name? And why would you need one?" it asks. The mare is quick to respond.

"Your name is what others call you usually, and you need one for others to know you by," The creature clicks its tongue. "...for example, unless I know your name , you are just some large, predatory creature that found its way into my castle."

"Then I suppose I have no need for a name, I do not need others to know me. What do you need aid with?" She does not press the matter further.

"I need help reclaiming my body." Nightmare Moon demonstrates her point by raising her hooves, and clapping them together, but instead of a collision followed by a noise, they pass right through each other.

"What you see now is not a body, but rather, my magical power condensing to retain my soul, this form was my last ditch effort to save my life when my body was stolen. I narrowly escaped oblivion by forming it. However because of the method I used, I am bound to remain within a certain distance from the spot where my real body was stolen, else this form will dissipate and I will die."

The monster rises to its two feet. And slowly pushes a claw toward Nightmare Moon, who gives the monster a blank stare as its claw reaches her chest, and passes through.

"Interesting." The monster remarks. "But how could I help you? And if I could, why would I?"

Nightmare Moon sits back down at the piano, and begins to play a dull melody.

"As for the how, you would have to bring my body back here. Right now it is being used by Princess Luna. It looks similar to my current form, but her fur is a deep blue, her mane a slightly lighter shade, and her eyes are typical pony eyes." The monster tilts its head to the side.

"As for the why, I could give you most anything. What do you desire, uh....are you sure you don't need a name?"

The creature looks up, then slowly back down.

"I suppose I could use one, but how do I pick?" The monster raises all six of its claws into the air.

Nightmare Moon thinks for a moment.

"Ahah! I have just the spell that could help." She begins to channel some energy from her horn. It zips around the monster briefly before returning to her horn. She closes her eyes and some white light erupts from her horn. She opens them and begins to mouth a word.

"Shendu." She says, slipping some over the word. "My truth spell tells me that your true name is Shendu."

"Hmm.." It thinks for a moment, its many arms and tail swaying in some invisible breeze. "I have no better ideas, so Shendu it shall be. So Nightmare Moon, why should I serve you?"

"Well," she starts. "What do you want, Shendu?" Shendu thinks back to its fight with the dragons, it grits its teeth briefly.

"The capability to kill dragons."

Nightmare Moon looks Shendu up and down, then grins.

"You would look good with wings." The lunar usurper then began to thoroughly examine Shendu. It could feel her gaze travel across its tri-taloned feet, over its long spiked tail, up its thin frame and to its six claws, then finally to its visage itself. A large ovular head, spiked with small, slitted eyes, two slits for a nose, and a fierce maw that, when closed, makes it seem there is no mouth there at all.

"Yes, you shall make an excellent dragon killer, but before that I need my body. I need it alive, and as uninjured as possible. Preferably completely uninjured, do we have a deal?" the ghostly form walks through the piano to Shendu, then extends a hoof. A small glow surrounds her hoof as Shendu raises its tail to wrap around it. Shendu is surprised to find its tail gripping a tangible hoof, it shakes the hoof briefly before releasing it.

"You have a deal."

"Excellent!" Nightmare Moon laughs haughtily. Shendu observes her a moment longer before making its way out of the room. The lights in the hallway are now all lit, and even as it reaches the castle foyer minutes later, it can still hear the cackling of the dark alicorn below.

What a strange pony.

Shendu then makes its way out of the castle, but the second its talon touches the cool dirt of outside a booming voice stops it.

"WAIT!"

Shendu turns and the apparition of Nightmare Moon appears in front of it, looking frazzled.

"Before you go, you should know about the Princess." Shendu looks longingly toward the forest outside, just barely under the blanket of light that is the sun, then looks back at Nightmare Moon and sighs deeply.

"Yes?"

"She is not a pushover, Shendu. You may have physical strength and the 'fear' factor, so to speak, but Luna wields a terrifying amount of magic. You must ambush her or strike from the shadows if you hope to render her unconscious."

Shendu chuckles girlishly. Oh don't you worry ghost-pony. Striking from the shadows wont be a problem.

"Anything else?" Shendu asks.

"Yes, one last thing." Nightmare Moon looks worried as she speaks. "Her sister."

Shendu raises an eye ridge.

"Her sister is Princess Celestia, the only one to ever defeat me. You can not face her, for she wields the light itself, and all shadows flee the light."

" I have nothing to fear....." Shendu looks the apparition in the eye, and lets its body fade. "..... I do not use shadows; You will have your body, Nightmare Moon." With that Shendu falls to all eight limbs and silently makes its way into the forest. Leaving Nightmare Moon very confused.

"Shendu not only vanished from sight, but any magical signature vanished as well.... Just what in tartarus IS Shendu?" She wonders.

Shendu does not hear her, it is already making its way westward. The darkening forest seemingly welcoming its every step.

After a lengthy conversation regarding pocket dimensions, Wrath, Twilight, and Luna walk toward Sweet Apple Acres, for it is known to have the most commanding view of the surrounding area. The sun was setting and the time to move the moon was near, and Luna wanted to show Wrath a feat of power, be it simply a show of power, or to impress a friend only Luna knew. So the three traveled to the highest point of Sweet Apple Acres, Macintosh Hill.

The hill is rather impressive. It stands a proud twenty meters above the surrounding farmland and can see well across Ponyville. The farmhouse lay at its base, farmland to its west and north, and to its east lay the everfree forest, a fence separating the forest from the farm.

"Its almost time!" Luna declares. The fiery sunset is trailing the western sky, and darkness begins to seep over the Everfree Forest.

"I will admit moving the Moon or Sun on your own is impressive. I remember it taking a great many Alicorns." Wrath says.

"Really?" Twilight asks. Wrath nods.

"It was considered the highest honor to be involved in moving the sun or moon." Twilight seems satisfied, but mentally reminds herself to ask Wrath more about that in the future.

"I helped move the sun once." Wrath adds. The Princesses jaw drops and Twilight looks at him owlishly.

"Thou moved our sister's sun?" Luna raptly asks.

"Yes, I was one of ten. That is how it was done back then. But things have changed." Wrath strokes his beard.

"They have indeed." Luna takes a breath. "It is time."

Luna raises herself into the air, and magic thrums through her horn. A bluish glow centers itself in her, and disappears. She grins down at her two companions. The moon rises, and darkness falls.

Author's Note

Alright guys.

The next chapter!

Please let me know what you think.