Dawn of The Ice King

“Nightmare Moon!” I roared out slamming my way through the doors to the throne room, completely splintering them. The monarch stood quickly, horns and hands glowing with magic ready to battle, her guards getting weapons ready. I landed and quickly flared out my magic freezing them in place.

“You, what are you doing destroying my Nightfall Fortress, attacking my guards?!” She screamed at me.

I looked at her, my dark magic spiking intensely to the point where even I noticed it, “You have NO right asking me what I’m doing, if your guards die by my hands it would be a much kinder fate than what you would put them through.” I spat back.

“C-Chris what are you talking about, you wouldn’t kill them would you?” Twilight asked, clearly scared of me.

I didn’t take my eyes of Nightmare Moon, to make sure she didn’t try anything, but I still responded to Twilight’s question, “If I can avoid it I won’t but if she can’t listen to reason I might as well to save them from her, or if anything I’ll take her out first.”

She looked at me incredulously, “What nonsense are you spouting? I have done nothing wrong. All I’ve done is bring ponykind to their glorious and rightful place as the sole rulers of this world!”

“SHUT UP! You’ve conquered sure, but you barely rule the world and if I can help it you won’t! Your scientists and soldiers haven’t told you because they’re too scared of what you’ll do to them, but you can’t kill me or torture me, you’re a corrupt power! if Luna was in control I wouldn’t stand a ghost of a chance but you? Ha, please you’re nothing. So I’m going to tell you, your ‘everlasting night’ is killing the planet.” I told her, steam slowly coming off of me, my anger slowly growing.

“Please the planet is fine, the forest is abundant in life and what proof do you have? Do you mean the state of everywhere else? Please, that’s just because of those fools resisting I have no choice but to raze their lands.” She explained coolly.

I growled, pure icy mist flowing from my mouth, “You fool! The only reason the Everfree is faring better is due to the Tree of Harmony, or at least that’s my theory. Equis’ magic could only hold out for so long supplementing the sun’s warmth and light. After 10 years of continuous nighttime it's at its limit and the planet is dying, the animals say so, the scientists say so, your planet says so.” I pointed to my uncovered dark eye, “This eye can see magic, it’s how I knew Luna was basically gone, I can see the magic of the planet, it's shrunk to something so small I can barely pick it out, it’s running on fumes at this point.”

“Blasphemy, you’re just trying to trick me!” She shouted out.

“A-Actually your highness… he’s right.” A new voice said behind me, I turned to see Prism accompanying a new pony that looked like Twilight but she had tan fur and her mane and tail colors were rearranged from what Twilight’s were.

“Moondancer?” Twilight and Spike called out.

Moondancer looked towards the two, being taken aback as she clearly recognized them, “You two… but how? You… but ....”

“You, Moondancer.” I called out to her, “Tell your monarch what's going on with the planet.”

“R-Right… Your nightship, the planet is… dying without the sun. The balance of magic from the sun and the moon are needed to keep Equis in balance... without one or the other, it takes up the role of what's missing, and maybe if it was the moon being held at bay it would last longer but only by another year or so, I… I think Celestia knew this and that's why she kept raising the moon as well as the sun despite the despair and pain it would bring her.” Moon Dancer explained.

Nightmare Moon looked at the scientist unicorn, her expression not changing before she laughed a hearty laugh, “So what? Who cares if the planet is dying, my plan after conquering this world was to kill everything on it regardless, so my plan just got sped up a little by an unprecedented outcome due to us being more powerful at night, oh well.” She paused, her demeanor changing to that of someone who just truly did not care. She raised a hand, a sphere of dark moon magic growing in her palm, she aimed it at Moondancer and fired.

I quickly ran over to the pony and threw up my wings to protect her, it exploded when it hit my scales, it stung a little but nothing I couldn’t handle. I looked down at the unicorn who had fallen down in shock and surprise, “You okay?” She nodded, “Good, now if you’ll excuse me… I have a princess I have to wake up.” I turned towards Nightmare Moon and growled loud and heavily enough to shake the room.

“Oh? You’re going to actually fight me? Fine let’s see how much bite you have to match that bark!” she shouted getting into a fighting stance, a sword of magic forming in her right hand.

“Rainbow get everyone out, this is going to get messy!” The pegasus nodded and quickly got the guards to help move everyone out the room, “Oh and unlock Twilight and Spike please, if I lose control they miiiiight be the only ones who can stop me!” I yelled out as they were leaving the throne room.

“Oho, lose control and why is that? And why should I be scared?” The Nightmare asked, only to quickly have me descend upon her, claws of ice clashing against a shadow sword that she was straining to push up against me.

“Because lady, you pissed me off!” I roared as I swung my leg out, kicking her through her throne and sending her crashing into the stone wall behind it.

The wall crumbled on top of her to which she pulled herself out of, using her sword as a way to pull herself up, “Okay, that hurt….. THAT HURT!” She yelled out, her magic flaring enough to make me stagger, though I just smiled, “How dare you hurt me?!”

I formed my own sword, “Oh I fucking dare, you wanna get booped in the snoot next? Or was the boot to the head enough?”

“I feel like you’re referencing something and the fact I don’t know what it is is irritating!” She rushed at me with a shadow blade poised to strike down on me. Luckily I used my wings to block the strike, however she followed it with more slashed across my wings. I was holding her back but these rapid blows were starting to stack and hurt quite a bit.

I took a second to think, I looked at the sword in my right hand and smiled before forming a smaller sword in my left, “Hey Nightmare? You wanna know what's better than one sword going really fast?”

“What?!”

I flared out my wings, breaking her combo leaving her wide open, a wicked grin on my face, “TWO! ICE DRAGON’S MAD DANCE!” I landed slash after slash on her armor, each strike freezing it over until it fell away after 100 blows of my swords to which I threw away and opted to punch her square in the chest. It was comical to say the least, it’s like she was rubber for a second and I could’ve sworn I saw my fist show through her back before she flew off and through the castle roof.

I whistled, “Now that's some distance, I didn’t even hit Sombra that hard.” I opened my wings, wincing from the pain I was still feeling in them, and took off after her.
“You know Nightmare, you aren’t a very generous or kind ruler, especially to your own subjects. Nor are you loyal or honest to them, if you were you would’ve let them know that they needed to start working on a way to fix this or show them not to be afraid to come to you with a problem if one should arise. Hell I don’t even know why I’m wasting my breath on you, you laughed at the plight you put this world in. That's not something to laugh about, you’ve ruined this magical world and i will not let that stand!”

SHe managed to right herself from her flipping flight I sent her on, “What do you know about anything?! I am millenia older than you! The lesser beings of this world wouldn’t have truly appreciated what this world is if given by how they treated this one due to her being simply nocturnal.”

I snorted, “Please, I read the history there were plenty of ponies who enjoyed the night back then, there's even an entire race that dedicated themselves to Luna, you just twisted things to tell her that it was out of fear not love or respect. And then it became true for thousands of years because of you!”

She sent a beam of magic at me which I avoided and sent a blast of ice right back to her that hit her in the arm, “Argh! Just me? I don’t think so. Her precious sister ignored her too, no one ever came to her court when it was held!”

I rolled my eyes, “No offense to Luna but who WOULD come to court in the middle of the night, besides if it was bothering her that much she should have made the effort to appear during the day more often and announce that there was a court at night so any petition that wasn’t heard during the day could be heard at night and you could’ve pushed the hours back to say around 8 or 9? No one is asleep then other than the elderly and foals. But a Midnight Night court, I get the symbology of it but its utter idiocy. Did you ever even think about that Luna?!” I called out to her on complete accident.

The Nightmare’s eyes widened, thought crossing it, “N-No I didn’t…” Surprise showed on both our faces before she shook her head, “Shut up! That still doesn’t excuse Celestia’s behavior!”

I smiled, “Oh but didn’t you never made many appearances during the day, you never managed to take the burden off her shoulders, she had to deal with the majority of the populace every day and you got nights off save for making the night sky and dream walking, which I know is hard job, I’ve done it. But still you didn’t have to deal with everyone, just the nightmares. I'm sure Celestia was just exhausted, sure it doesn’t excuse her ignoring you but did you ever go to her, ask for her to take time for you one day so you could talk?” The look she gave me told me everything I needed to know, “I thought not, so you blamed the world and fell into your hatred and jealousy when the first thing came along telling you it was justified?!”

“You don’t know anything about that or how it's like to go through all of that!”

I flew up to her and looked her dead in the eyes, “Yes, I do. You felt alone, empty, like no one loved you. Especially the one person you wanted so desperately to show it. So you blamed them, all of them but you were hoping they’d prove you wrong. Unfortunately they didn’t so you fell deeper and deeper into despair until you did the one thing that would make you feel justified, you gave in and tossed aside everything you ever cared for. But unlike you I found people, ponies, good ones to help me. I’m sure you could’ve too if you tried.” I held out a hand, “I’ll be that friend if you want.”

She looked at me and then my hand, I saw the darkness of her fur flicker for a moment before she took my hand, “Thank you…”

I smiled and led us back down to the castle, the darkness in my eye lessening enough to where it was only slightly smoking, “Of course.”

+Chris, I’m pretty sure she’s about to blast us.+

I know, I’ve got this don’t worry.

Much to Ixis’ displeasure she was proven right as as soon as we landed I felt a massive build up of magic, stronger than anything that’s happened before, “Ah well color me unsurpr-” I was cut off as she clenched my hand and let loose a full blast of nightmare moon magic.

She cackled madly and loudly as my hand went limp in hers, “You thought I’d give up that easily? Please Luna is dead, those little lapses where all staged every single one of them, all to get you to drop your guard! And now that you have you’re dead, not a single bit of you is left, well I guess except for this hand.” The beam was still going and she tried to throw my hand away to free her hands from this mess, but the moment she started to move my hand gripped hers even tighter, enough so to break all the bones.

Deep within the darkness of her magic an even darker, inkier, black spot showed up, “Oh Nightmare Moon, you absolute fool, you thought I wasn’t expecting this. Who do you think I am, some hero hoping for the best in everyone?”

Even though her hand was broken I could feel her trembling through it, “I-I, you have to be, you have the air of a goody goody like Celestia, she’d never kill anyone, she didn’t even kill me, or Tirek, or any villain! You can’t kill me, it goes against everything about being an Equestrian!” She pushed more magic into the blast.

Slowly I walked forward until my face was sticking out of the magic, my expression stoic, “That was your first mistake, assuming that since I’m a Prince of Equestria that I hold the same values as them. I’ll admit I haven’t killed anyone I’ve fought before but that was due to my family being around, I didn’t want them to be disappointed in me. But make no mistake, I am not a hero.”

Her eyes were wide, feeling the power I truly held compared to her, knowing that everything I’ve been saying was true, she stood no chance against me, “W-What are you? WHAT ARE YOU???!!!!?!!!?!”

“I am a dragon.” I said calmly before opening my mouth, “Hyōryū no Hōkō.” Slowly she froze over, she wasn’t dead but she probably wished she was. I needed to find Twilight, I sniffed around picking up on her and Spike’s scent. While I was following it I found my eyepatch and put it back on, then I found that they were holed up with a lot of ponies including Dash and Shy in the den that the war mounts were held.

“Is it over?” Twilight asked.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.” I told her, “She isn’t dead don’t worry.”

“What do we do now?” This world’s Fluttershy asked me.

“Now?” I turned to the massive doors that were opened in the den, “Now we watch the sun rise.”

They all turned and looked on in awe as for the first time in years the sun began to arch above the horizon and as it did, in the Sun’s light, an all too familiar pony, matching me in height walked through the doors.

“It’s been too long my little ponies.” A warm voice said. Everyone was too stunned to say anything so she looked around her eyes ending on Twilight, “A new princess? Are you the one who stopped the nightmare?” Twilight shook her head, “Then new wielders for the elements were found?” She asked.

“Not quite.” I said, causing her to look at me, a look of confusion washing over her.

“Ixis? No… No you’ve inherited her powers haven't you? So that’s what happened I see. You were the one to stop the Nightmare?”

I nodded, “Yeah pretty much.”

“Is she?”

“Dead? No, just frozen in Ice that only you or I could melt, hopefully you don’t do that until you find the new bearers.” I told her.

“I do not plan on it, you must be exceptionally powerful to defeat the Nightmare.”

I shook my head, “Nah, if it was Luna she would’ve wiped the floor with me, just like you’ll wipe the floor with me. In the future do your subjects a favor, stop holding back and stop getting caught off guard.”

She blinked before chuckling, “I will take that advice to heart, now we have a lot of work to do, will you help me?”

“Unfortunately I can’t, we have business to take care of, would you believe a unicorn is stopping a little rainbow filly from flying in a competition and that caused all of this?”

Rainbow looked surprised but said nothing, instead choosing to think on that.

“It wouldn’t surprise me one bit, I’m guessing you’re trying to fix this?”

“Yep, so we need to go, Twilight, get the spell ready.” I told my sister.

“I got it ready to go whenever you’re ready.” She said, her horn glowing white.

“Indeed, Fluttershy… I know you don’t really know me but-” She walked up to me and put a finger to my lips.

“Say no more, I may not know you but something in my heart is telling me that I should love you, that you mean the world to me.” She said, her eyes kind and gentle.

I smiled in response and nodded, taking her finger off my lips and holding her hand, “If I show up again, help him, he won’t be who I am now, he’ll be a broken person, help him become better.”

“I will. I love you.”

“I love you too Shy, and I know he will too. Goodbye. Goodbye to you too Rainbow!” I called out to her, stepping back to join Twilight and Spike and in a flash of light we were gone.