--- Alone In The Dark, finale chapter, what happens in ponyville---
It was a nice afternoon in ponyville. Everyone was minding their business with the sun shining in the horizon, setting the sky ablaze. The temperature was nice and cool like spring for everyone to have a nice and relaxing walk outside. In short, everyone was having a nice time with their friends and family.
On the outskirts of ponyville approached a tall and slender unicorn mare. She was taller than most ponies and was covered head to hoof with dull white bandages, wrapped around her body like a mummy, only leaving holes for her eyes to look through. She wore a white collared shirt with a black vest that smelled like burnt clothing, her eyes being turquoise in color and the flesh that can been seen between said eyes having scars on jet black fur. Her cutie mark looked like it was sloppily drawn on her bandaged flank by a foal. It was a crescent moon.
The mare looked around and approached the town, slowly looking all around her surroundings. As if by magic, all of a sudden everyone stopped, and looked at the mare, currently at the entrance of the town. The mare could swear she heard a pin drop from a distance since the town was staring at her, but nopony spoke a single word…
The mare sighed as stepped forward a bit, and said in an unfamiliar tone “I am not sure why you all are staring at me, but I can assure you that I am not here to cause trouble. I am just here to rest, and I won’t be too long in town,” the mare said. She slowly walked towards the local inn with a big sign that read “RUN-INN” and stepped inside. Even with what she had said, everypony was still staring at her, eyeing her down in what the mare hoped was just curiosity.
Inside the inn was better for the mare.she got less stares from the ponies due to their drunkenness. The best way to describe the inn’s interior was homely and cozy, the floor was made of a kind of wood that can only be found in the everfree and the furniture was designed to make it feel like one was having guests instead of going into an inn.
At the back of the building, the mare saw a bar table. A row of chairs with little to nopony sitting on them in front of it. The only one there was a griffin bartender on the other side cleaning the cups with his towel with a bored expression on his face; so the mare approached said bar and chose a random chair on the side and sat down.
Surprisingly, the bartender approached the bandaged mare with little to no expression and just said “May I get your order miss?” in a bored tone while still cleaning the clear glass cup. The one he had been cleaning when the mare had first entered the building, was practically glimmering with how clean it was.
“Do you have any wild pegasus left in stock?” the mare asked the griffin with a tired tone and tired eyes. The griffin responded with him putting the cup down and grab a bottle from under the bar table and hand it to the bandaged mare.
“That would be four bits, or twenty three bottle caps if you have them,” the griffin said with a less bored tone than before, as he returned back to what he has been doing for the past few minutes. The mare in turn tilted her head in confusion.
“In what form of currency would you expect for me to give? Care to show me?” the mare asked the griffin, which he in turn raised an eyebrow and handed her an equestrian bit from his tip box to the mare. The mare took it by levitating it close to her and tried to inspect the golden coin.
And with a small flick of her bandaged horn and a flash, five bits appear from nowhere held by the mare’s magic. The coins then stacked neatly in a tower in front of the griffin and with a raised eyebrow again, the griffin took a bit and inspects it closely.
After finding nothing wrong with the bits, he shrugged and took one and put it back into his tip box, as he swept the remaining four of the inspected coins into a drawer. The mare took the bottle that had been handed to her, removed the cap and offer it to the bartender.
“You sure? you can trade more drinks if you have enough of them,” the griffin said to the mare. The mare in turn levitated the cap to the griffin and shaked her head. She starts to slip away the bandages that was covering her mouth and took a sip; revealing a set of what used to be sharp teeth for the griffin to see.
“Wouldn’t be too long in town,” the mare said in a much clearer voice. Not that it was better, but the voice was noticeably different with the bandages off.
The griffin nods and puts the bottle cap away to continued with his cup cleaning, grabbing out another clear glass cup from… somewhere.
“Don't have many folks that have sharp teeth... The name’s Chalk,” the griffin said conventionally to the mare in front of him. The mare in question lowers her head, takes a sip from the bottle and closes her eyes. Enjoying the soft burn in her throat.
She then raised her head again and said to the griffin “I was born with them.” with the same tired tone as before, only with a little hollowness added into the mix. The griffin nods then returned to what he has been doing again, while the mare lowers her head and takes a sip out of the still kind-of-full bottle and closes her eyes.
A few minutes passed, when suddenly a bunch of caps and bits had been sprayed onto the bar table by somepony. The mare turned her head to look at the pony who was currently looking at the bar saloon with the same tired smile. The pony was a gray stallion with a lighter shade of gray and white main, and a pair of tired cyan eyes.
“A tall glass of Ever Clear vodka please,” the stallion said to Chalk as the griffin counted the caps on the table. He sat next to the mare, without even giving the newcomer a glance.
“Ah, Mr. Tech, how is your wife?” Chalk asked as he swept the caps and bits into a drawer under the desk, and took out a bottle of clear liquid with five warning symbols on it. He pours some… No, a lot of it into a special metal cup instead of the standard glass cup.
The mare swore she heard sizzling somewhere.
Tech took the metal ’glass’, and replied with an honest smile: “Beautiful, as always...” he replied to Chalk, and set the glass in front of himself and looked towards the bandaged mare who was drinking the bottle of wild pegasus now three quarters full.
“So, you’re the mare everyone was talking about outside, huh?” The stallion looked at the mare with those cyan eyes.
The mare didn’t reply, instead, she chose to ignore the stallion next to her and took another sip from the bottle.
The stallion turned away from her with yet another smile and spun around to look at the bar, and the majority of ponies in the building and leaned back on the bar table. He then said: “I’m sure you know how bad it feels to be ignored, am I right? Nightmare Moon?” the stallion asked, looking at her with a tired smirk.
That got the bandaged mare’s full attention as she quickly spun her head to face Mr. Tech’s smile with wide eyes. “How did you know my name? And what do you want? I’ve been hidden inside the everfree for years, then came out looking completely different! so how did you know...”
The stallion chuckled and turned around to face his metal cup on the table again, and said “I want to know you, the other side of our princess Luna that got separated, and the mare that got baptised twice.” Nightmare Moon snorted once she realized that she would not be hunted down by this Mr. Tech fellow. Chalk had sensed the direction of the conversation and wisely chose to walk away to clean his cups elsewhere.
“I’ve been baptized twice. Once in darkness, and once in rainbows which burned me into thin air with nothing left but my destroyed armor. It would have been my last, but the fire in me burns far brighter than the “rainbow”. After a while, I was able to pull myself together and form a body of my own, but the marks it left still scar me to this day.” She used her left hoof to rub her side, so deeply burned she could feel the muscle stretch charred flesh.
“it feels like i’m being lit on fire when I change my bandages everyday. Inside the medical bay at my old castle, there’s barely anything left, but better clean than comfort...”
Nightmare Moon muttered darkly to Tech as he nodded understandingly, without that smile on his face for the first time she had seen him. He then shifted around and asked Nightmare Moon with a neutral expression: “Tell me, what if I give you a chance to begin again, be loved by millions by saving them from corrupted governments. Even to be called Luna again?”
Nightmare Moon chuckled darkly and turned. She took a long swig of the bottle downing, almost ten percent of the bottle in the process. She turned to face Tech with a smile to which the stallion wore a dead serious expression on his face.
“That is something that is simply too good to be true, so tell me,” her smile grew wider, “what’s the catch?” Nightmare Moon asked Tech, while he closed his eyes and sighed. He lowers his head, then lifts up his head again, and looks at Nightmare Moon.
“By agreeing, you would be healed and deployed there in your own body. Plus a few enhancements instead of controlling a standard T-XI from afar like the rest of us. You would also have people looking through your eyes, and hearing through your ears. Finally, should anyone of us send help signals, you would have to go and help if possible. If not, broadcast the signal elsewhere and the other way around, and that's about it.” Mr.Tech cocluded.
He then somehow teleports a device right in front of Nightmare Moon: “Click the green button if you agree, and if you don't, click the red button. If you pick the red, please throw it away as far as you can before it self destructs,” he said.
Just then, a mare walks into the saloon with the same appearance as Tech and gave him a mask of sorts.
He turns around and grabs his metal ‘glass’ with a hoof and chugs it down as if it were water.
She just sat there, at a bit of a loss for words.“Why are you being so nice to me? Offering me this? After knowing who I am, and what I’ve done?” Nightmare Moon asked Tech.
Mr.Tech then turns around and says with his mask on in a slightly muffeled voice: “Despite what others think, you’re not evil. You’ve just lost your way.” He, with his female clone in toe, ran out of the door and jumped straight into a cyan portal outside of the saloon door, disappearing into the night…
Nightmare Moon huffed, finishing off her wild pegasus to cover up her mouth again. With a sigh she picked up the device and walked outside and clicked on the green button. The same cyan portal opened in front of the bandaged mare. From it stepped out Tech without a mask again, but he ignores her and walks back in the saloon. With a bright flash appeared and disappeared just as quickly.
He then walks out with a smile when he greets her, and said “Welcome to the incorporation, Nightmare Moon. Or should I say Luna?”
--- The Lunars, starts here ---
