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The most dangerous place in Equestria, capable of controlling its own weather, every animal fends for themselves, and once home to the two royal pony sisters. Twilight had many theories as to why it turned out like this, seeing Celestia's garden the variety of creatures loose in the Everfree Forest is likely her fault, as well the weather may have been a spell of hers that she lost control of.

One thing Twilight didn't expect is the mountainous terrain, she found herself on the edge of a cliff in no time. A slight wind blows past as she scans for a faster way down, the easy path would take far too long. However, the cliff decides her path for her as the edge crumbles under her weight.

"Wha-!?" Twilight tries to grab anything she can as she tumbles down, just as a stray root passes her eye she reacts and bites down on it. With a quick assessment she realizes the cliff is too steep to climb back up but she should be able to safely slide down. She lets go and rolls over to she where she's headed, keeping a grip on the ground to slow her descent. Her eyes go wide as she looks down, noticing that she's sliding towards a sheer drop. She scrambles to grab at something again but it's too late, as her lower body drops she desperately clings to the edge securing herself for only a moment. With just a glance she finds a platform she can land on safely, with what's left of her grip she swings towards it.

Not able to get enough swing she reaches for it only to realize she's falling too fast as planting her fore-hooves does nothing, her head meets the platform.

'Well, you usually practice your magic around this time... Hey, don't worry, I'll show you some things the Royal Guards practice.'

Twilight shakes her head and stands up, wondering why her brother's voice rang out in her head. Still against the cliff face she looks around to find she landed on another platform and that there are in fact a series of such that can be easily descended. She makes her way down.

At the bottom she looks to the stars to assess her direction, with a keen eye a pony can find stars that Celestia puts in each cardinal direction. By the looks of it Nightmare Moon has only succeeded in delaying the day and has done nothing to the night sky thus far. A roar breaks Twilight's focus. A manticore stands before her, blood-lust in its eyes.

"Hey there, -" Twilight leaps back to avoid a sudden swipe of the manticore's claw. "- I don't think you want to fight me." It makes a lunge leading with its other claw, Twilight sidesteps it, whirls around and bucks it in the nose. The manticore reels back, giving Twilight the opportunity to spot a handicap, a limp in his right foreleg. "Good thing for you, -" It leaps at Twilight, she darts forward through the space under it, a shiver runs through her and she jumps to her left as the manticore's tail slams the spot she was in. "I'm in a hurry." She goes into a full gallop, planning her path of escape where the tree are thickest.

She could hear the manticore's paws strike the ground as it ran, it was easily avoiding anywhere it might get trapped between the trees whilst keeping up with Twilight. Twilight looks around frantically, she has to lose it. Whenever she has to choose a direction through she goes right to give the beast trouble, but it wasn't enough. around a large tree she came upon a gaping maw with sharp teeth ready to snap down. She leaps back, "A tree!?" She refocuses and can no longer hear the manticore coming towards her. Then the branches above her collapse in mass, revealing the manticore had flown above and planned to land on her. She jumps into the tree as it lands, then the moment it finds her she leaps back out onto its head then to its right, it staggers in its attempt to chase her as she makes her way through even more trees sporting the same threatening looks.

Twilight makes little progress in losing the manticore, but with her sense of direction she knows she's on the path to the castle. A river comes into view and a sea serpent seems to be minding its own business just lounging in the river. Twilight approaches to ask for assistance but a cloud of purple smoke wisps by and tears a side of the serpents beautiful orange mustache clean off. The serpent is easily defeated and with a dramatic groan it slumps over. Twilight is too focused on the cloud to be concerned, she jumps on the serpent and runs across its body which extended to the other side of the river. "Oh, what a world!" It cries as Twilight touches land. She turns around to see it thrashing about, making the waters too dangerous for the manticore to follow.

She takes a breath, "One last stretch." She finds a path weaving through the trees, likely one of many roads to the castle. Following it she comes across a large ravine with a rickety bridge leading across.

Rainbow Dash is just above with Spike asleep on her back, "Took you long enough, your buddy's been drooling on me!"

"Nightmare Moon's been trying to stop me, we still have plenty of time!" Twilight dashes across the bridge and towards the castle ruins.

"Wait, really?" Rainbow keeps up beside Twilight.

Twilight doesn't respond, instead she looks up at the Elements of Harmony, large stone orbs held high by their altar at the castle's entrance. Twilight looks to Rainbow to let her know what they are but a purple cloud flies between them and begins to circle them creating a wind that lifts them up. Twilight makes a leap for them, not knowing exactly how she could even save the Elements at this point. She's sucked into the whirlwind before a large flash blinds her.

Now in the throne room, realizing she's been teleported Twilight gets a sense of her surroundings, Nightmare Moon stands across the room, the Elements at her feet. Twilight lowers her head, taking up a charging posture. Nightmare Moon lifts and eyebrow, "You're kidding. You're kidding, right?"

Twilight charges at her and she charges back. Just before they clash Twilight dives between Nightmare's legs, stands up and bucks her hind legs. Nightmare crumbles to the ground and Twilight makes for the Elements. Standing in the middle of them she tries to find out how they work, moving them around, checking for marking other than the shapes upon them. A blast of lightning sends Twilight to the wall.

'C'mon Twilight, when you think you're at your limit that's only thirty percent of what you can really do.'

Twilight stands and looks up just in time to see Nightmare slamming her hooves at the center of the Elements, shattering them all. A maniacal laugh escapes her, "Did you really think you could defeat me?"

"I know I can." Twilight charges once again and throws herself head first at Nightmare, landing a direct headbutt onto her muzzle. Nightmare reels back and snarls. "I just didn't want to bust you up." A dark cloud forms above Twilight and lightning strikes her again and again, sending pain throughout her body and making her unable to move.

With another laugh Nightmare speaks, "You're quite the persistent one my little subject, unfortunately that sort of behavior will only bring you pain." Twilight stands tall, resisting the urge to fall and curl into the fetal position as lightning rains down on her. "Now the moment I let up, you're going to bow and apologize or else you're going to have a really bad time."

"Ee-yah!" Rainbow shouts as she dives in from above planting a hind-hoof into the back of Nightmare's head bringing it into the ground and breaking the stone floor below. Rainbow then grapples one of Nightmare's forelegs and bends into back, pinning her to the ground. Dazed from the blow Nightmare is unable to keep up her magic.

Once the cloud above Twilight dissipates an uncontrollable anger surges through her, she picks up a sharp piece of the broken Elements and walks toward Nightmare, holding it high. Rainbow looks on with fear, knowing what's about to come next, but unwilling to stop it. Twilight brings the stone shiv down towards Nightmare's eye.

"Stop!" A blinding flash fills the room and Twilight is thrown back, but she refuses to let go of the shiv, she lands on her hooves and nearly charges again before realizing who the voice belonged to.

A glowing yellow shield protects both Nightmare Moon and the alicorn who now stands above her, Princess Celestia. "What, why?" Twilight yells in frustration.

Celestia flinches, not fond of her student's rage. "This is my sister." She states solemnly, "I can't let you... do that, even if it means Equestira is trapped in eternal night, I just..." Celestia falls silent for a moment, "The Elements of Harmony are not gone, if you find the right ponies, befriend them, and bring them here they can be restored and we can finally free my sister from her nightmare. Please Twilight, I know you can do it."

"But, I can't, I don't know how to make friends!" Twilight shouts, a pit forming in her stomach, "Spike is my only friend! And I know that's not enough! I can't-"

"Please!" Celestia pleads, "I can hold her for a few days, you have plenty of time."

A weak laugh comes from Nightmare, "She won't be making any friends... much less leaving this place." Dark sentient clouds descend from the sky, bearing monstrous faces.

Twilight locks eyes with one, prepared for a fight, it zooms at her with unparalleled speed and her vision goes black.

"Huh, that's it then? You really did waste both our lives, how could you not have figured out the Elements of Harmony?" A unicorn stands before Twilight in a large white space, that unicorn being Twilight, the real one, the purple one that had been in all those family photos. Twilight looks over the the real one's flank, still blank like hers. "What you thought I'd at least have one? No. You stole that moment from me, just like everything else."

"I didn't have any control over that!"

"But you did have control over what happened after, do you think I would've spent my whole life cooped up in my room all alone, studying and building nonsense contraptions until I withered into an old mare!?"

Tears welled up in Twilight's eyes, "I... I- no, but..." Twilight couldn't breathe, she had no excuses.

"No we're dead and Equestria is doomed to eternal night! All you had to do was make a friend!"

"Wait..." A spark ignites in Twilight's head, "I did make a friend! You're wrong!"

"What?" The real Twilight steps back.

"This isn't real, I'm not dead!"

"Oh, you're in denial -"

"Out of my way!" Twilight punches the image of the real Twilight and it bursts into a dark cloud. The white space fades back into the throne room, the monster stunned before her, she lunges at it and bites down on its tail.

"Yeow!" It tries to shakes her off, "Stop that!" It flails furiously to escape Twilight's teeth, but in doing so Twilight is able to dig in deeper. "Please, I give up!" Twilight lets go and the creature flees into the sky.

Twilight looks past Celestia to find Rainbow lying on the ground mumbling, "Can't fly... but they... need me..." A cloud monster hangs above her with a malicious grin across its face and its eyes locked to hers. Twilight charges it, leaping and body slamming it down from the air, knocking it unconscious. However, this didn't seem to help Rainbow as she paddles her legs like she's trying to swim.

Twilight walks over to her, "Rainbow, spread your wings."

"But-"

"Just do it!" Rainbows wings spread out. "Now flap!" She does so, bringing her off the ground. "Feel the air beneath you?"

Rainbow shakes her head and opens her eyes, "Woah! Thanks!"

"That's it!"

"Huh?" Rainbow looks confused as Twilight heads over to Celestia.

"The tale of the two sisters, Nightmare Moon, she was afraid of living in your shadow."

Celestia looks down, "I know, I didn't realize it in time and I couldn't save her." A tear falls from her eye, she turns her head away to hide her anguish.

"Save her now." Twilight states, "I'm sure she's in there, she can hear you, you just have to tell her how you feel and what you can do to help."

Celestia looked down to her student, amazed, tears still flowing from her eyes as she closes them, "I didn't mean to leave you in the dark, all the ponies of Equestria kept me so busy I couldn't see that you were always, always alone as they slept. I let them all adore me while they ignored you. I couldn't even save you from these nightmares when you needed me most. I'm so sorry Luna!"

"None of that is going to work, your sister is mine!" Nightmare shouts, she begins to stand but Celestia holds her down.

"I can change this! We can have a parade in your honor the moment this is over! We'll sit side by side at every royal summit! I'll introduce you to all my friends! I'll show everypony how wonderful you are!" Luna's pupils begin to round up, her coat lightens in color. Celestia takes a deep breath, releases Nightmare and brings her into a hug, "There's a holiday in your honor you know... I established it shortly after I banished you... I'm so sorry, all those years alone must have been so hard... can you forgive me?"

"You're not... going to... get rid of me!" Nightmare shouts, dark clouds burst from her and encase Celestia.

Celestia releases a young looking alicorn from her grasp and tries to shake away the dark cloud, "No! You can't do this!" Celestia falls onto her rear, "What did I do wrong? Why is this..." Twilight grabs the cloud with her teeth and yanks it away, as the monster takes form and turns to Twilight, Rainbow flies into it, smashing it into a nearby wall.

Twilight grabs Celestia's head she couldn't tell what her mentors fears were but she spoke anyway, "Hey! You didn't do anything wrong! Everything's fine, nopony is doing anything bad! Celestia!"

Celestia's eyes open and look to Twilight, "Everything isn't fine Twilight." Celestia looks over to Luna and smiles, "It's perfect." Celestia throws her forelegs around Twilight. Twilight somewhat grudgingly accepts Celestia's hug, knowing the she herself needs one too.

"Sister?" Twilight looks back to see Luna standing up, seemingly intimidated by Celestia.

Celestia puts Twilight down and walks over to Luna. "It's been a thousand years Luna, will you still be my friend?"

"Of course!" Luna exclaims, they embrace in a heartfelt hug.

Rainbow scratches the back of her head with a hoof and flies over to Twilight's side, "Looks like we saved the day."

"Literally." Twilight turns toward the exit, "Let's go get Ponyville ready for a parade." Twilight looks around. "Where's Spike?"

"I left him at the entrance, didn't want to drag to little guy into a fight."