Lunar Cycle

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// Story: Lunar Cycle
// Chapter: Chapter 1
// Author: RainbowSnow
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Quick note: Luna is pretty much my favorite character and this story
reflects on her badly, Despite the fact that I am writing this I don't see
her as a bad pony and well you get my point on with the story! Also I made
blood multicolored (everypony has a different color) for some
reason.....don't know why.

Dusk approached fast as Twilight Sparkle reached her library home.
It had been a long day, she had been at a party at Pinkie's. It was fun,
she got to see all of her friends, and as usual with Pinkie's parties,
there was never a dull moment. Now it was time for sleep. Twilight opens
the door to see an interesting suprise.

"Princess Luna, what are you doing here? I mean what brings you
here?" Twilight asks. Princess Luna looks up form her cup of tea, Spike
looks over from his place across from her at the table.

"I hope I am not intruding" Luna says, her cup floating down to the
table.

"She came by and we started talking, and I made tea." Spike begins.

"I mearly came by to see how thou were doing. Once again, pardon me
if I am intruding." Luna says.

"Oh no, your not intruding, it's perfectly alright" Twilight says
as she sits at the table. Spike put his cup down as he finished his tea. He
stood up to get himself and Twilight some more.

"Allow me," says Luna as she used her magic to retrieve another cup
from the cabinet, pour the two cups of tea, and pour in some sugar as
well.

"Uh, Thank you" says Spike as he sits back down and his cup floated
down in front of him.

"Thank you Princess" Twilight says as hers lands in front of her.

"You're more than welcome, I added some special sugar from
Canterlot to make it taste even better" Luna says happily. Twilight looks
out the window at the full moon rising as she drank her tea, thinking what
a powerful and kind pony. When all of a sudden Spike fell of his chair,
hitting the floor with a decent thump.

"Omygosh Spike! Are you okay?" Twilight said as she stood up,"Wow
why am I so light-headed?" As she stands up, she looks over at luna who
then began to shift into Nightmare Moon.

"Wha...why?" Twilight asks, slipping further into unconciousness.

"Why? Simple, Celestia gets everypony caring for her, they all love
her because she raises the sun! I do just as much work, and what do I get?
Everypony is afraid of the dark, afraid of ME." Nightmare Moon says, "Why
do they care for HER so much? Hell you even write her practicaly every
week. NO ONE CAREs FOR ME! Well I'm going to change that, just you wait, I
know how to fix this issue, and you have just begun your part!" as Twilight
fell over backwards staring up through the window at the beautiful full
moon, and then it all went black.

Twilight Awoke in darkness, she could see nothing. She could hear
faint sounds from somewhere in the dark. Then the lights came on. She looks
around, the walls are 15ft high with a barbed wire roof. The walls are a
grey cement with multicolor stains, which on closer inspection turn out to
be blood stains!

"What is going on here?" Twilight screams. What happened, she
thinks, oh right the princess, she drugged me!

"Nice to see thou art awake Twilight" Nightmare Moon's voice says
from above, Twilight looks up to see Nightmare Moon, on a floating platform
above the horrid wire.

"And now it begins" Nightmare says as she fades into the darkness
around her. Twilight looks as one of the four walls lowers into the ground
beyond it is a hallway, just as bloodstained, just as foreboding. Twilight
looks around hopefully, for some hope this is a nightmare. She sees no sign
of hope, no dancing dragons or any other weird things to indicate this is a
dream.

After seeing no hope that this is a dream and hearing noises from
somewhere past the hall, she began to move. She reached the end of the hall
to find it split like a T. She now had to choose left or right. Then a
scream came from what sounded like the left, she turn tword it and ran.
Maybe someone needs help, Twilight thinks. She ran down the hall noticing
there were fewer blood stains on the walls and more on the floor. She
looked up just in time to hit something in her path, she flies back onto
her flank. Ow that hurts, Twilight thinks. She looks up to see a colt,
suspened in the middle of the path by chains with hooks digging into his
yellow stained royal blue coat. His entrails had spilled on to the floor
staining the area around them yellow with his blood. His eyes stuck wide
open in fear and pain, did not make anything any better.

"Who could do this? This is..is...horrible. Why would anypony do
this?" Twilight says pulling herself back up.

"Who, That would be me. Why, for our Princess." says a gray coated
male pegasus, who steps out around a corner. His mane is short and mainly
white except for a blue streak in it, his tail is long and whit with blue
in it as well. His souless yellow eyes match the blood stains in his coat
and mane.

"Why? How does this help your princess at all?" Twilight asks, as
the pegasus began to circle her ducking under the chains.

"hmmmm questions, that's new" the pegasus sarcasticaly.

"Who are you? Why would you help somepony do this?" Twilight says
as she slowly moves in the direction the pegasus had come from, ducking
under the chains holding the poor colt.

"Why? Why all the whys?! There doesn't have to be a reason for
everything. Despite that,in this case there is a reason" he starts angrily,
then gets calm in a heartbeat." You know what I'll tell you why. Step One:
on the full moon abduct ponies who do not love our princess as much as they
should. Step Two: untill the new moon tourture them to break their spirit,
if they die, they'll have to wait like our friend here. Funny he didn't
even make it a day." he says, putting his arm around the back of the
chained pony's neck, as if they were good friends," Step Three: We..."

"What dost thou think thou art doing Lunar Eclipse?" yells
Nightmare Moon from above, Twilight looks up and sure enough there she is,
looking as menacing as ever.

"Thoust art not to explain the process to the subjects" She yells
down angrily.

"Y..Yes Mam, less talk more cut and break" he says as he bows.
Twilight sees this and takes the oportuniy to escape. She gallops as fast
as she can around the corner. She reaches a four-way intersection and turns
left without a second glance. These hallways all look the same anyway.She
heard Lunar Eclipse reach the intersection as she rounded another corner.

" WHERE ARE YOU?! IF I DON'T MESS YOU UP SOMEPONY ELSE WILL!! IT
WILL BE BETTER THIS WAY, COME BACK AND I'LL ONLY TORTURE YOU A LITTLE, THEN
KILL YOU QUICK!" Eclipse yells as he looks around and moves on down a
different hall way, his voice fading.

"What was wrong with him? How can anypony end up so messed up in
the head? This entire situation is crazy!" Twilight thinks aloud.

As Twilight continues through the maze, seeing nopony, well no
living pony. As she begins to turn a corner on a four way junction. she
hears a voice, a familiar voice.

"...I can't believe that soo many died on the first night, must not
be as tough as the others in my group. Dissapointing isn't it, huh AJ?"
says the bubbly voice. Twilight looks around the corner to see Pinkie Pie
standing over Applejack's unmoving body. Pinkie looks over through her
straightened and stained hair to see Twilight peeking around the corner.

"Twilight how good to see you! Although I wanted you to make it
longer, and meet up with you later. Hmm well there is no rule against me
leavng somepony alone for a little bit.... Oh I know, I'll set up a little
party and we can all have some fun ok? I'll see you later Twilight, I have
some work to do!" Pinkie says happily as she bounces away humming, off into
the shadows.

"Applejack! are you okay?" Twilight gasps as she runs up to her.
Applejack lies motionless on the ground, bleeding from multiple areas, cuts
and gouges. She has gotten a horrible gash over her left eye, bleeding
profusly. her eyes opened, her left having a faraway look in it, as though
it sees nothing.

"Twilight is that really you? Yer not gonna hurt me are ya? Yer not
like...like her are ya?" Applejack says looking at Twilight fearfully.
Twilight sees all the fear and horror in her good eye, she must have just
been through hell.

"Of course I'm not going to hurt you, now come on, let's get you on
your hooves and find a way out of here." Twilight says, "let me try to heal
you." She tries to use her magic to heal Applejack, but to no avail.

"Somethings wrong. I can't use my magic" Twilight says, "Well we
have to get going, come on get up" as she Helps Applejack up. Applejack
stands up with great effort, her legs can barely support her after what
has happened. Helping her along, Twilight is determined to keep them
moving, despite the fact almost everything looks the same while hope is
nowhere in sight. After some time Applejack begins to speak softly, with
tears mixing with her own blood.

"Why...why is this happening? Ya must've found a reason. Figured
somethin' out. Do...do ya have any clue how to get out of here?" she says
in a quite voice as they walk up to a T junction. Just as a white coated
unicorn with a black and grey medium length mane walks up from the left
passage. Her red eyes look sad and innocent, yet sinister all at once. The
stained red bow behind her ears looks as though it had been pink at one
time.

"Oh,hello , I am Snow Moon. I hope you are doing okay, and doing
your best to survive. But it seems as though I will have to end all of that
here." she says soft and gently, if not nervously.

"End it? Oh, no your like those other ones aren't you? Twilight
panics, she couldn't see a way out of this like last time, the unicorn had
blocked thier path, and she couldn't use magic.She needs to get Applejack
out of here, then worry about stopping all of this, what ever this is.

"Like them. Oh, no no no. I kill those I find quickly, the tourture
breaks the spirit, yes, but is not neccesary. There is a much easier way to
do this, but no one listens to little Snow Moon." She rants quietly, "in
fact I am more of a clean up crew. I bring the doctors the bodies, and
clean them up as much as possible. I rarely kill, I'm not complaining about
that really...."

"AJ can you walk on your own?" Twilight whispers.

"Ah rekon so" She answers quietly as she tests her legs, "but Ah
can't leave ya here, we may not find each other again."

"Just go we WILL meet up later" Twilight orders.

"But.....Alrighty" As She starts moving as fast as she could past
Snow Moon.

"Hey get back..." Snow Moon starts.

"Oh no you don't as Twilight gets her attention. Snow Moon looks
from Twilight to the fleeing Applejack franticaly, as though they are a
threat to her. Seeing this Twilight be gan to advance on the unicorn, when
all of a sudden she hears a slightly familiar voice.

"I FOUND YOU!" Lunar Eclipse runs yelling from behind her, "huh,
Snow Moon? What? NO SHE IS MINE TO KILL!" Snow Moon sees Eclipse and her
demeanor immediately changes drasticaly. Her confidant posture becomes
nervous, and she backs away a few steps.

"I...I..." Snow Moon looks defenseless. Twilight thinking fast spun
around and hit the still galloping Eclipse into the wall using his momentum
against him.

"I...ow...gonna.."he groggily says as he falls to the ground.

"Ha" Twilight lets out triumphantly.

"Why....why would you hurt him?" Snow Moon says looking up at
Twilight, standing up from where she crouched nervously. The evil look came
flooding back into her eyes, "I'm going to KILL YOU!" As she begins to
chase Twilight who turned tail and ran the second she started flipping out.
Twilight ran in the direction Applejack had ran, only to find that the hall
forked in two different directions. She runs left where she finds a T
junction, and runs right. Seconds later she finds herself at a dead end,
these walls were covered in so many colors she couldn't see the original
grey wall.

"Crap," She says turning around to see Snow Moon, and a more
familiar face, one she was hoping not to run into again, Pinkie Pie.

"Oh, hello again Twilight, I still haven't finished setting up that
party but that's ok most of the guests are there, and waiting just for
you!" She says happily, "So if you could help me out Snow Moon?"

"Of course Pinkie," Snow moon says quietly.

Nightmare Moon looks down at the maze, it seems one might get away, she thinks, oh well, nothing can stop her now. As a scream flows up from the maze.

End Chapter 1.