That night, the moon rose in short, forceful pulls in the darkening sky, catching a few curious glances at the satellite. The cause was non other than a struggling Princess of the night, whom wanted to get the nightfall dealt with before night court and found her dear moon protesting at her will. Like a stubborn foal refusing to obey their mother. Passing it as being too distraught with her newfound friend and having to deal with a night court, surprinsingly full of requests, she paid it no mind.

Also having to wait for the response she was supposed to receive from Twilight was slowly getting on her nerves. Maybe she was trying to figure out how to replicate the spell Luna used to make an hologram recording in a crystal. She found it in one of her old diaries she wrote on as a filly, it was brought from the forbidden libraries in the old castle a few months after her return. She kept it there as it held some of her most deepest thoughts on her desire for being as beloved as her sister and some of her experiments she did on her own time. That particular spell never got into public knowledge due to her being too reserved with the spells she developed long ago, this coupled with the fact that no one dared to even peek at her stuff during her imprisonment out of fear of being cursed or something as supersticious as that. She remembered it after watching Hunter showing her some of his 'insightful memories'.

As the hours rolled in to the night, it was in moments like this where she regretted being too eager to deal with her subject's problems and wished she was feared as she was right after her return from her vanishment, with nopony between her and her responsibility regarding the well-being of her subjects' minds. But alas, she might have to go to bed later than usual with the sudden increment in requests for audiences and, mostly, mere acts of presence to "validate this" or "validate that". Just as the bureocracy has dictated centuries ago, and probably will for another millenia or so.

"I hate it when they whine like young foals blaming each other." She muttered darkly as she witnessed another meaningless feud over some lands which belonged to neither of the bickering nobles before her. Pompous as non other and arrogant as only they can be, they were still her subjects and she had to follow the same protocols her parents taught her when she was a filly. Even if she just wanted to dismiss them and get the next potential slapfight started. It didn't help matters when the next one included her oh, so dear nephew, Blueblood.

Before she could tear her mane out in frustation at the babbling background noises flooding her train of thought, a thestral guard barged in through the throne room making the doors slam open with enough force to silence the nobles.

“Princess! Princess! We have word from Ponyville. The Princess of Friendship has an answer to your request” Said the young stallion, kneeling before her as her magical aura enveloped the letter held on the guard’s hoof.

As she read through the contents of the letter, she pondered if this was some kind of divine intervention coming to save her from the dreaded petty squabbles she was doomed to endure during the rest of the night. Those elated musings went down the drain when she reached the bottom of the message. If she wasn’t as good as her sister at making an unbreakable poker face, she would already have thrown the offending piece of parchment across the room.

’They haven’t decided yet.’ She thought. Then a small, clever smile developed in her muzzle. “Court is adjourned, everypony. I have been informed of some... Royal affairs I have to sort out.” She was very pleased at the sight of the ponies before her bow and leave without a hint of suspicion at her not so far-fetched lie. Happy with herself at her exagerated truth, she slumped on her seat and read the bottom of the letter once again.

“Until further notice, we are going to keep deliverating on the choices we have. I’m pretty sure we can reach an agreement by tomorrow...” Then she saw the P.D. “In regards of the new spell you showed us this morning, I’d like it very much if you were to teach me how to cast it.” She finished, just in time as her sister entered the room with the ‘I’m very dissapointed in your actions’ expression on her face.

“Um... Hi sister...” Started Luna weakly. She flipped the letter to show it to Celestia, “Look, it seems like your student needs more time to reach a resolution.”

“Luna, why are you skipping your duties?” She asked, ignoring the attempt at changing the subject.

"Sister, this letter is hundreds of times more important than the pointless squabbles this stallions were having." Luna pouted, allowing her sister to read the scroll. As she did so, she raised an eyebrow at some point only to flick her sight to Luna's direction and then return to her reading.

"I see this is important to you, Luna. But you just can't be this irresponsible to your duties as a Princess." She responded while giving a second reading to the letter. "And I get that the Dreamscape is something sacred to you, but you have to take priorities."

"Yes, that is exactly what I am doing. Hunter is helping me to get rid off nightmares without any kind of magic and I think he's keeping something from me." Luna replied, almost too quickly.

"Oh." Chimed Celestia with that mischievous little grin of hers, "So all of this is about certain-"

"Finish that sentence and I'll ban any kind of baked goods within the Equestrian borders."

"Secret, secret. I was going to say secret." Finished the Princess of the sun.

"Good. Now, the thing I'm talking about is this energy he gives off. It feels eerily familiar but I don't want to be certain on where have I felt that kind of energy before." After a quick glance at Celestia's growing frown, she said "I just don't want to be right on this."

"Have you asked Discord if he knows anything?" Chimed in Celestia, "I bet he probably knew the human was here and didn't want to tell us for a reason".

"I tried, trust me. But I can't find him anywhere."

"Have you tried looking up?" Said a voice from above Luna's head. The two alicorns directer their gazes to the source of the incorporeal voice of the mischievous trickster. Right on the dark tiara were two mismatched yellow eyes with red pupils waggling a floating pair of eyebrows, for each eye.

"Discord, how long have you been there?" Asked Luna, struggling to hold back the urge to throw the ornament impersonator to a swarm of parasprites.

"Not much time, really..." He paused as his lion paw appeared floating next to the eyes and started counting, "Uhh, how many weeks have been after the Great Galloping Gala?" He was suddenly efulged in a dark blue aura and was flung across the throne room to a conveniently placed trashcan.

"Rude." Reververated the trashcan.

As amusing as it may seem to the solar diarch, she had to step in before Discord dissapeared again. "Discord, as you are probable aware, we need information on-"

"Yeah, yeah, the monkey-ape-guy, right?" He interrupted as he showed up in front of the sisters in a cloud of cotton candy, which turned into a flock of geese.

"First off, it's a human. And second, yes, we need to know if you have something to do with this?" Said Luna, magicking her real tiara on her head.

"Well... The thing is... I'mnotallowedtosay..." He mumbled, fidgeting with a fallen feather, unable to look at the sisters in the eye.

Not wanting to play along with his nonsense, Luna pulled the head of Discord by his neck with her magic and demanded, sternly. "Discord. Tell. Us. Now."

"I'm not allowed to say! Ok?" He yelled. He teleported a few feet back and rubbed his sore neck. "Jeez, you're grouchy today."

"Why?" Asked Luna, "This is not one of your tricks, is it?" She finished flaring her aura around her horn, promising him that there would be consequences to not wanting to cooperate with her demands.

"No, no,no, no, no. It's just... Let's just say, I have a family reunion coming soon." He declared, sweating blueberry juice. Much to the chagring of whomever had to clean the carpet. Both alicorns had concerned expressions on their muzzles, laced with a hint of surprise. Discord, the only draconequus on the face of the world, had someone who shared their blood and flesh with him.

"That is certainly surprising." Mused Celestia, "But that still doesn't give us anything to work with. Why haven't you told us there were another draconeqii?" She inquired.

"Well... The thing is, Celly... It's because they're not draconequus." He squeezed the blueberry juice out of his goatee into a glass and drank it nerviously. "And they're not supposed to be here anymore."

"Explain." Demanded Luna, snapping out of her stupor.

"Well... We are family in terms of power. We share the same cosmic energy from the origin of time and space and the hobby of manipulaing others." As he said that, he morphed the glass in his paw into a monster with way too many tentacles to be anatomically functional attached to an impossibly frail spinal chord. Luna gasped at the strange figure, but Celestia didn't seem to aknowledge it "But that's where the simmilarities end, my dear. My kin shunned me because I'm too obvious with my intent, trying to do everything by myself without any kind of minions, being too soft with the mortals."

"Too soft? Discord, you plunged Equestria into madness in more than one occasion." Retorted Luna.

"Ahh, but how many of your precious ponies have died from my pranks? None. Of course, a few were injuried or traumatized for the rest of their lives. But I never messed with them to the point of killing them for my own amusement. Like they do." He growled.

Discord continued, "They are powerful. They are cunning. They can easily wait until both of you two die from old age before they enact their plans. But, like me, they like a challenge to entertain themselves, and as soon as they find someone who can face them head-on without breaking... That's all the knowledge I can share with you before you start getting too paranoid for your own good." He finished, panting from a mental exhaustion that seemed to come out of nowhere. At some point during his speech, the small glass figurine was crushed in a tight, bloody lion paw.

Luna and Celestia sat in silence. Both mulling over the disturbing revelation from their friend. This meant something big was coming, and maybe they were not prepared for it.

"Maybe you should head to your room and go to the Dreamscape whenever you're ready." Said Celestia, visibly shaken. Not a reaction many got out of her nowadays. Her sister silently nodded and went to the main door. Before reaching it, she turned back and saw that Discord was still in place, mumbling something she couldn't understand as Celestia rubbed a wing over his back.

"Discord!" She said from across the room,making him raise an ear in her direction. "I shall find a way to solve this. Remember that family sticks together, as they say." She assured him with a hint of a smile on her muzzle. Then, she went to her chambers.

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The first thing that reached his recently materialized ears was the muffled knocks on his door. He rose an eyebrow at that, normally people didn't want to go where the weird ape lived in. He looked down at himself to make sure he wasn't dripping any blood on the floor from his earlier fight and then glanced at the clock hanging on one of the walls, it read 10:27. "Shit! I'm late!" He hurried to answer the door, already dreading the rest of his day.

"Hunter! I know you're there!" The knocks were getting louder by each footstep as he tried to identify his unexpected guest. He opened the door and looked up to see a pair of steel grey eyes glaring down at him. A puff of angry steam erupted from the crooked bovine nose as a brass ring dangled closely to the mouth. Two large horns pointed upward proudly, a crack running along the right one. No distinguishable mane to speak of in between the horns. The rest of the body was what one could expect from a minotaur, muscled arms attached to a muscled chest, which in turn was attached to a pair of fairly normal hooved legs. But the thing that distinguished the behemoth in front of the human was the crest in the middle of the armored uniform.

Captain Head Ripper. Leader of the Public Protection Forces of Ashen Nest.

'Goodness, I still don't have any idea of why someone would call their offspring something like that' Hunter thought. He squashed the thought remembering he was very late and in front of his very angry boss, who could very easily live up to his name right now. He forced himself to stay still and try not to say something overly stupid that could possibly get him fired.

"Good morning Captain, I was just heading to work." Something like that.

The captain took a few deep breaths and replied. "Hunter. What in the name of Tartarus did you do?!"

"I'm going to work?" He said in a small voice. Not knowing what he was talking about.

"You see this?" Said Ripper pointing at one of his thumbs.

"Um... Yes?" He asked, unsure.

"Do you think I suck it like I was born yesterday?" Seeing the human about to open his mouth, he added. "Don't answer. It was a rethorical question." Pulling Hunter forward from his head, he continued. "One of our citizens dissapeared last night and the only lead we have are a track of human footprints and one of your freaky bottles of blood in the scene of crime."

Hunter widened his eyes at the accusation. "I didn't do it, Captain. You have to trust me!" He cried out, instinctively struggling to get free from the giant hand threatening to dislodge his head from his spine. While he could have easily free himself, he didn't want to hurt his boss or disrespect the only person who would want to hire him.

"Explain. Now. Human." Head Ripper demanded.

"Ok, ok. Remember that time when you found me chasing away some weird animals last week?" He asked. "Well, I found the nest yesterday evening and decided I could destroy it last night. It was deep in the woods and I have may dropped something on my way ther-Ghack!!" He stopped as he was dropped on his doorstep. Rubbing his sore scalp, he looked up to see the Captain with an unreadable expression on his face. Silently hoping to see if he bought the lie.

"Last warning, Hunter. Tell me where you've been or I'll make sure your species become extinct. You know I won't tolerate any treachery among our forces."

"Ok, fine. I was in the Dreamscape up until a few minutes ago. I've got evidence." He said, reluctantly. He didn't like to talk about his second occupation to his boss, not ever since he had to report to him about every single time he had to fight something dangerous inside the head of one of his citizens. He silently reached in to his bag with both hands and pulled out the piece of the arm left by the Amygdala.

"By the Gods... What is that?" Whispered the Captain, astonished by the unnatural chill running down his spine at the sight of the mangled piece of extremity.

"This, Captian, is something that shouldn't be here." He stored the thing in back in his bag and continued as he rummaged for something else. "This is a sign that something big is going to happen and I'm afraid that it could happen sooner rather than later." He pulled out a bottle and held it to for the Captain to grab. "Here. Take one, it helps."

Head Ripper opened the bottled and took a small, white pill. It reeked of naphtalene and chlorine, making him pull back in disgust. He forced himself to ignore the stench and swallowed the pill. He never liked medicine after all. The effect was instantaneous, the ice in his bones melted away and memory of the offending piece of flesh didn't seem to bother him anymore. He frowned at it, wondering why did he even got that reaction anyway.

"I hate those sedatives of yours."

"I know, but that's the only way you have to see that thing without it driving you crazy. It comes from a creature that should only be seen by those with enough knowledge to give it a mental baseline to even understand how it looks like. And even if you were one of those people, you could easily lose your mind."

"Fine, I believe you. I apologize for the accusation, but I still need to know if you know anything about the dissapearance." Huffed the Captain.

"I..." Hunter tried to come up with anything based on the evidence. It was possible that somemone might have gotten their hooves, or claws, on one of his vials, but it was too unlikely to happen, he was very careful no to drop them. The footprints were too hard to recreate, mostly because no one knew how to make the kind of boots he wore on a daily basis.

'But if an Amygdala appeared last night, who knows what else might have come to Equis?' He thought. "I don't know, Captain. But I don't think I'm going to like the answer."

The minotaur was silent, inwardly thinking on how much trouble it would cause if word got out that beings from another world were suddenly appearing all over the place. "Hunter. From now on, you're relieved of your duty as a guard." At seeing the human's shocked expression, he added. "Don't worry. You're not fired, yet. It's because I'm apointing you to investigate the dissapearance of Ms. Crystal Ball. Alone. No one must know that you're doing this, otherwise they could get too curious as to why you're investigating and they might start nosing around your assignment."

"Wait, did you say Crystal Ball?"

"Yes, is that a problem?"

"Um... No, it's just that she was getting robbed the other day. She owns a trinket shop, a tourist trap if you will, but the thieves were stopped before the got anything of value. Captain, do you think it had anything to do with her dissapearance?"

"That's your job to figure out, Hunter. But I wouldn't dscard that possibility just yet." Ripper crossed his arms and said, "If that's all, I'm leaving. Fail this task and I'll make sure no one can ever find you without digging a hole. Got it?" He threatened.

"Yes, Captain." Said Hunter. This could get him in deep trouble if he messed up. Head Ripper was known to be ruthless and, in most cases, unforgiving with his subordinates, but the few times when he got to this point of living up to his name were when he was truly worried for the safety of the citizens of Ashen Nest.

The minotaur left the house. The human stood in the doorstep, thinking about who, or what, could be the one responsible of this problem. A scratching sound coming from a piece of furniture broke his train of thought, as he blinked and went back inside his home. "Navi! I know you're hungry, but please leave the sofa alone."

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After feeding the cat and making sure his furniture would be safe for the rest of the morning until his pet got hungry again, Hunter got to, what he assumed, was the house of Crystal Ball. Yellow tape criss-crossed the door, forbidding the entrance to any civilian. He went under the tape and started searching for any clues.

The living room was a mess, whoever kidnapped Crystal Ball didn't go unnoticed by the victim. The furniture was in dissarray, some stools near the kitchen had broken legs and broken glass was scattered all over the floor, courtesy from some picture frames that fell during the scuffle. Some pieces of evidence were signalled by some plastic markers with numbers on them. He went to the first one.

Muddy footprints, very alike to the ones a human would leave. By the lenght and shape of the smudges on the floorboards, it was clear the assailant was running to catch the mare. In some parts, there were hoofprints over some of the footprints, meaning the chase took a while. But then other kind of stains on the floor catched his attention. Blood stains.

Out of all of them, one had a different shape than the rest. This one in particular followed a splatter pattern like it was from a paint filled balloon, a small one. Not like the one someone would expect from a wound. Another oddity was the small cluster of glass shards around it. He knelt down near it and grabbed a small metallic thing from the mess. A needle, a hypodermical needle. His eyes widened at it, quickly understanding why this blood stain was different. It was a blood vial.

"Ok... Now, why is this thing here then?" He kept looking around and found that the broken stool had a few strands of, what he assumed it was, mane in it. The blood around them caught his eye. "She defended herself and threw the stool at the kidnapper during the chase, then the assaliant tried to use a vial but was interrupted. How?" He muttered, running various scenarios in his head. He turned his head to the wall nearest to him and saw a fallen grandfather clock, behind it was a moderate sized hole on the wall. "Crystall Ball is an earth pony." He remembered, "Probably she rammmed the kidnapper into the wall." It was roughly the size of his torso, around the same height too. There was not doubting it now, the culprit was a human. A hunter, considering the vial.

"How is this possible? This shouldn't be happening." He muttered to himself. Then he remembered the thing he fought last night. If two things from his world were here, what could stop the stronger Old Ones from getting here? That is, if they weren't here already.

Dread filled his psyche and he started shaking. The walls seemed to close up on him, the roof was falling apart to reveal a dark, starless night with nothing more than a blood red moon glaring down at him, and only him, to light the asphixiating atmosphere choking him. He stumbled and flailed to find the door and fumbled with the doorknob once he found it, then he got out.

He fell to the front yard in a heap of tangled yellow tape and limbs. From somewhere in the darkness consuming the edges of his vision, he could hear the faint laughter of a female he couldn't recognize and the words he wished to never hear during the rest of his lifetime. "The Hunt is coming."

His brain couldn't take the strain anymore as he fell into unconsciousness, catching the attention of everyone near him. His last thought being, 'So many discoveries with so few clues.'

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Luna kept a brisk pace while she roamed around dreams, only stopping for a quick glance at some minor bad dreams. She had one mission in mind. Find the messengers.

"Come out little ones, I wish to speak with you!" She repeated to the void in between dreams. She kept looking around near the thing that would be the floor in her desperate attempt to find them. After a few minutes of search, a bubbling sound made her left ear perk up and she swivelled her head in that direction. A portion of the ground broke and from it the messengers emmerged in the same odd way as they did the last time.

'You called, Princess?' They said, eager to serve.

"I did. I must know if you know anything about something new coming to this world, besides you and Hunter, that is." She sat on her haunches as she asked.

'Of course, Princess. A stray being was here a few hours ago and it wasn't friendly. Master hunted it down already.' They informed her, still shaky from the recent encounter. They hoped that she wouldn't pick up on that.

"Is that so?" She questioned, noticing the trembling. Something was up. "And what could that unfriendly visit be?"

'It was an Amygdala, Princess.' An inquiring look from the mare told them to specify. 'They are lesser beings from the depths of the cosmos. Powerful enough to end any mortal, but they tend to ignore them as if they were mere ants.'

"If that is true, then tell me why was it inside a dream, or the Dreamscape for that matter?"

'We don't know, Princess. They don't do anything unless they ordered to do something. Something verily similar to our duty with the hunters' They affirmed.

"And who do they serve?" Luna asked, already dreading the answer. She didn't like where this conversation was going.

'The Old Ones, Princess. They are almost as old as the universe itself, sometimes we think they even made it in a whim. They can be anywhere they want, whenever they want. But they don't like to stay somewhere without entertainment or personal gain, not for long.'

Luna then thought of Discord's words. Old beings from the cosmos, as powerful as him, even more. This wasn't something she was prepared for, or anyone else for that matter. Maybe the Elements of Harmony wouldn't be effective against them. Maybe they are coming over here to satisfy their wants. There were many things she wasn't sure of, but maybe Hunter knew something and could shed some light on the situation.

"Is there a way to know if they are here? Anything?"

'We aren't sure, Princess. They only comunicate in soundless languages, languages that only precious few can percieve, let alone understand. And they only appear to those who mastered their knowledge, even those who can face them in battle. Master is one of the latter.'

This fact caused Luna to raise an eyebrow in interest and, in some measure, hope. This could be the information that Hunter didn't mention her. This meant she had to talk with her new friend later tonight.

"Is he really able to see these beings?"

'Indeed he does, Princess. In fact, that is the reason he is in this world. He lost his first, and last, encounter with the one from the moon.' They finished, eagerly giving this information away as they only lived to serve those who needed them. But the alicorn's shocked expression and flaring horn stopped them from saying something else.

Through gritted teeth and tense jaw, she asked. "How long ago did this happen?"

'Twenty seven moons and two weeks, Princess.' The messengers uttered, shaking before the alicorn. They had very good reason to their reaction as Luna sent a blast of unfocused magic to the air, it was almost powerful enough to jolt her awake if she didn't waste some energy screaming to the endless sky above in the same volume as the Royal Canterlot Voice. They couldn't place the emotion behind her action, as anger, pain and fear were somehow present during her realization that, in some manner, Hunter was related to her return from the moon. She curled up into a ball and kept screaming, not wanting to believe it.

Almost inmediatly, the whole ground began to quake and bits of it were starting to chip apart. Acting quickly and, for the first time in a long time, taking the innitiative, the messengers pleaded. 'Princess, calm down. You must calm your temper, otherwise the Dreamscape may become unstable.' But she ignored them. Unable to do anything else but plead, they continued trying to get her to calm down repeating themselves like a mantra.

She kept screaming at the sky, wordless. In some part of her mind she knew she was being irrational, maybe she made up that connection between the human and Nightmare, but right now she wasn't sure. Not when beings from other planes were emmerging in her domain, the Dreamscape, her safe haven, her responsibility. She mentally froze at the implication. She couldn't afford to act like a foal in a temper tantrum, like the despised attendants in her court. Right now, she had to act like the Princess she is and resolve this problem, meaning that she had to calm herself before she ended up destroying the very place she swore to protect.

After the loud screaming died down, she uncurled herself and took calming breaths. Her composure returning to her as soon as it left her. With a sore throat and nothing else to do but wait for the morning, she turned to the messengers and said. "I thank you for your cooperation, friends. If you see Hunter, tell him I want to talk to him about the Old Ones and how can I probably solve this problem. If things go my way, I may be able to send help."

'Don't worry, Princess. We're always glad to be of help to our hunters.' The messengers replied as the Princess dissapeared in a flash of magic.

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From the depths of the space made from the nothing between dreams, Nightmare Moon smirked at her former host. "The Hunt is coming."

Author's Note

Mental breakdowns for everybody!!!
As always, any kind of feedback is appreciated.