Dark Iron Kingdom

Darkness surrounded me as I floated in a sea of nothingness. All seemed calm and quiet until a small voice called out from the void, "Blood Moon", it stated. The voice's sound rippled the darkness around me as if it was somehow effected by the words themselves. Then again the voice called out my name but only this time it grew louder than before.

In response the ripples grew more rapid and chaotic . Then without much delay the voice called out a third time only louder still. But in instead this time the darkness swirled in front of me until a bright white portal appeared.

Its soft glow was peaceful and inviting and I found myself unconsciously reaching for it. But just as my hoof was about to touch it, the voice in the darkness bellowed out my name one final time. And without the slightest delay the white portal warped into a swirl of fire and shadow. Burning chains immediately shot forth from it before they wrapped around me. And the only thing I had time enough to do was scream before the portal pulled me in.

My eyes snapped wide open and I shrieked while fumbling around in confusion. This however did not last long before the chair I was apparently sitting on broke under the onslaught of my frenzied panic. An echoing thump soon followed as I flopped onto the floor without even the slightest bit of grace.

"Easy there, Blood Moon," A voice spoke next to me before adding, "You truly need to stop being so on edge."

Though his words were calm it did little to assuage my panicked state before I blurted out, "Status report! Are we under attack?! Who is leading the counter offensive?!" and continued to fumble around on the ground.

The speaker merely laughed before stating in an amused tone, "Ahh quite. Time for the bucket again. I apologize in advance."

And for some reason my mind could not fathom what in Equestria they were alluding to until I felt a moderate glob of water slam into me. I In turn yelped in surprise, but the "bucket" had its apparent desired effect. I snapped back to reality and realized it was just my old friend "Oculus" standing next me.

His strange silver lit slitted eyes stared down at me in a slightly amused look before he placed the bucket he had in his forehooves on the ground. And to elaborate who he is, he is a unicorn that was unwittingly instrumental with the rise of the Rogue Solar Channelers that plagued the kingdom many moons ago. He is a masterful scholar on the field of optics as his name would suggest. However the grand irony is that he became a vampire sometime in the past and also regularly worked with sunlight specifically. A true surprise that he is not a pile of ash by now. The only other point of note of him was the hoof sized silver gemstone embedded in his chest. A relic from a darker time. It can store moonlight like a battery and he can in turn project it at will. But I digress from the matter at hoof.

"Was that truly necessary?" I groaned while I futility attempted to locate a towel.

"It was your idea in the first place," he retorted before adding, "Besides I was tasked with collecting the groom."

"By Tartarus, that is today? Is...is everything set for tonight?" I groaned further still attempting to find a way to dry myself off.

He just fixed his suit jacket and smirked before stating, "We have been ready for two week now. It has merely been you that has been plaguing the construction of this device the whole way through. You bring paranoia and obsession to a new level. Even for me as that is truly saying something. Now let us get this blasted pomp over with," After which he turned around shaking his head as he began to walk away from me.

Water dripped from my chin as I located a rag to dry my face off with. "So it is finally 'THE' day it seems," I whispered to the stale air around me before adding, "I certainly hope everything was worth it" as I glanced at the large device to my left. But this was all that I said before I let out a deep sigh and followed where Oculus had walked off to.

Eventually after a quick shower and a change into my...delightful...suit...I just stood at the altar waiting for the wedding festivities to go underway. Now as an aside I normally loathe such formalities and fancifulness but reluctantly I had to admit that everything around me did indeed look quite nice. The princesses had pulled all the stops as it were when they were setting up. Also, because this was Nightmare Night, Luna may have gone a tad overboard with some of the holiday themed decorations given how attuned she was with such things. At least Twilight and the others made her keep such things tasteful. No bleeding skulls or the such though it probably would have been amusing.

However, thinking upon such things did not ease my nerves in the slightest. For you see it was not so much the wedding itself that put a strain on my mind. After fifty years as a couple with Twilight such a thing had been put to bed as it were. Even the prospect of being a father did not seem to bother me at the moment. Or should I say if it did it was grandly overshadowed by two things.

Firstly, I maaaay have skipped out on once, twice…or nearly all of the meetings involving the setup of this wedding. As a direct result over the last half a dozen months Twilight had been growing increasingly cross with me. Obviously, I could not tell her what I was doing, and my skills at deceptions were abysmal at best, so she probably thinks I was not being serious with the sheer gravity of the situation we found ourselves in.

And of course, secondly, nearly all that I had done over the last half of a year rode on an untested massive device that currently rested underground waiting not but four hundred paces from me. A device whom dozens of ponies including the other princesses along with the spirit of Death and Paradise themselves had aided with. A device that would either get me off the hook from Twilight’s ire and become one of my greatest achievements…or become one of the most expensive and horrid blunders in the history of the world.

So there I stood...sweating in a fanciful suit that I had little desire to wear while scores upon scores of attendees located their seats. Not so out of ordinary I admit and I even had recognized a few familiar faces. There was Spike who had grown to be quite the impressive adolescent dragon by this point. Next to him was his beloved Rarity who normally would have been quite old by now if not that both her and Spike begged Twilight to turn her so that she may be with Spike a bit longer.

The next one that caught my eye was Applejack. Whom it appeared that Twilight managed to get her to creep out of whatever part of her family's apple orchard she skulked around. She had never quite got over the fact that lycanthropy was a permanent affliction. And also the fact that her dietary habits had been...altered...away from the desire for apples.

Eventually my old friend Oculus and his wife Night Fang began shuffling their way in the back. And as an aside Night Fang was still very much her Ex-Assassin self though she eventually began a career in teaching grade school children of all things. I...cannot say that I...envy...those unfortunate students. Though I hear she has little in the way of disciplinary issues at least...go figure hmm?

Soon then afterward Rainbow Dash and her wife Cloud Streak had made their appearances known with a few tricks from their Shadowbolts days. And again an aside Cloud Streak still remained under my command from my old days as Lieutenant General and Captain as usual though it still just remained "on paper". More or less they now mainly just remained with me and Twilight as our dual Captains of the Guard and train new Shadowbolts recruits on the side.

Lastly my two little partners in "crime" as it were, Sharp Fang and Silver Mane, had shown up nearly at the end of the seating and remained in the back. They never truly enjoyed being anywhere near the spotlight so it as normal for them. Though this time it was probably more likely that they desired to make the off color crude comment over the back of the crowd as a way of embarrassing me. The little fiends...

But minus the Princesses, Shining Armor, their Generals, and a few others that was all I could discern out of the crowd. Fluttershy had pasted a few years ago peacefully in her sleep though Discord truly never recovered and remained secluded in her old cottage. And finally Pinkie Pie had made one final tour of the world with her old flame Cheese Sandwich before old age caught up with the both of them. As for my Mother, my Father, my old Lieutenants, and Twilight's parents...well...they had perished many moons ago now.

The thought of so much loss put a frown on my face. Ironic I suppose as such events like ones own wedding were supposed to be a joyful time and here I was the groom brooding. Quite fitting one could guess for one such as me, but at the very least this time I had a small glimmer of hope. And it all hovered on a single object in my coat pocket. A small and yet extremely important item the spirit of Paradise had given me. The proverbial linchpin in my gift for Twilight.

I held it closer to me as I saw Twilight setting up at the back of the crowd. To say that she had looked beautiful would have been an understatement, though I admit I am a tad biased on such matters. But her wedding dress looked stunning and it even hid the fact that she become quite a bit larger due to her pregnancy. And while I could have also commented on how her purple again fur glistened with a greenish hue as Life's Advocate, what truly was a sight was the delightful glow...of random morning sickness...or random every time sickness actually.

I chuckled for a moment on that image until she shot me a sour look. "Indeed she is stiiiilll miffed with me," I uttered under my breath with a grin before adding, "and I sure hope what I am about to do shall also be excused as well."

For when just as everypony was all setup. The band was right about to play the traditional royal wedding song I assume. And right when Twilight was even holding on to Shining Armor's foreleg as he was about to lead her down the aisle I had cleared my throat and spoke loudly over the deafening silence.

"I would like to please announce a small modification to this ceremony that needs to be corrected before this event can continue. And as such I would like to respectfully break orthodoxy to present the bride with my wedding gift before our vows," I bellowed out as I began walking down the aisle towards Twilight.

To say that her face had gone pale would have been an understatement. Again I had been admittedly been absent from much of the planning of this day and she probably had everything down to the toothpicks arranged in a certain manner. And here I was throwing a massive "monkey wrench" as it were into her entire plan.

What little emotion that seeped through as I made my way to her was mixture of bewilderment and seething anger. In fact most of the crowd had some sort of shocked looks on their faces. The only contrast to this however was the group of ponies in the crowd who had helped me and the royals minus Shining Armor.

Shining was the only one who could not seem to keep some of his emotions out of his crystalline eyes. Such a look not only gave away how he had lived this long, but also that he was hoping just as much as I was that my little plan would work out. In fact after I had collected the still quite miffed and bewildered Twilight I had heard him mutter under his breath, "Please let this work. Both of us had missed you two so much."

And so I began to lead Twilight to a clearing in the center of town that had guards protecting a reasonable area of what looked to be empty space. Twilight in turn could not keep silent on the matter anymore and had growled out in nearly a whisper, "What in Tartarus are you doing?! Everything was going right to..." before I interrupted her by putting a hoof to her lips.

Her greenish purple glowing slitted eyes leered at me with a renewed fury and it looked liked she was going to rip my foreleg out of its socket before I did my best at cooling the situation. "Twilight, I know this is an understatement in that you are quite irritated with me. Truth be told I can understand how you could be so cross...however...I did not fail to attend those wedding planning meetings for nothing," I said quietly.

Twilight dropped all attempts at whispering as she snarled out, "What could possibly be more important than our wedding?!"

I took a deep breath before stating, "I am not here to overshadow our wedding darling...I am here to correct something missing from it...with this," and I put my hoof on the ground and glided it across a few stone slabs before I located a small hidden seal. I then turned it a few times left and right before a soft click emanated from it.

The ground rumbled as the very clearing itself had opened up like a giant iris. In turn gears shifted and ground as they lifted the platform inside to reveal the quite heavy and complex device I had kept a secret from most. Well secret until now.

Nothing but silence emanated from the gathered crowd around us and such quiet ruled until Twilight spoke up again. "What...what is it? An archway of some kind? I'm not sure what I'm looking at," she said in genuine confusion, her fury only partially kept at bay.

I grinned and said "Not just an archway. A quite...special archway...one of a kind even," before adding, "And with this I can give you something on this equally special day", as I pulled a small item out of my pocket.

It would have looked unremarkable at a glance, but if one could look closer, it was not normal in the least. For the small white crystal partially phased in and out of the material plane at regular intervals. A gift one could say from the spirit of Paradise. Again the proverbial linchpin of this whole blasted project.

In turn I took a deep breath and held Twilight's forehoof. I then used my magic to place the small white crystal in the specialized indentation at the top of the archway. Afterwards I made everypony step back before I said but a single word..."Activate."

Without the slightest hesitation the archway sprang to life as glowing runes flared all over it until they reached the very bottom. This reaction caused four rings surrounding it to begin to spin counter-clockwise faster and faster.

Time slowed for me as they did this and I could have sworn my heart missed a beat a few times. But eventually the outer most ring stopped abruptly before a disembodied voice soon followed as it stated, "X axis locked."

Soon the next ring closer to the archway spun up yet faster before it too stopped abruptly. Again the disembodied voice spoke, "Y axis locked."

A perceived eternity passed right before the third inner ring ceased spinning. And yet again the disembodied voice spoke, "Z axis locked."

And so this was it. The last ring was the most important of the bunch. The others had been used before by Star Swirl the Bearded's creations. I merely copied their designs. But it was the last one that I had to create from scratch. For Nopony had been simultaneously foolish, insane enough, or even allowed to do so...before now.

Sweat poured down my face as I squeezed Twilight's hoof harder. The stress even caused me to sink my pointed fangs right into my lower lip. But in this moment of mental anguish I heard what I had been hoping for.

The last innermost ring slammed to halt before the disembodied voice said its final statements, "Dimensional anchor locked. Gateway activated."

Then without warning the gateway completed one last task before opening. It cast an enchantment on everypony in its sphere of influence. The function of such was actually not created by me but by my friend Oculus. He dubbed it the "The Black Veil" and fitting for its intended purpose. To not go too far into technicalities its purpose was simply to act as an extra pair of sight and sound perception on anypony whom it was cast on. A important tool for what was going to happen next.

For after The Blank Veil had been cast a swirling white portal appeared in the center of the archway. And by the gasps of surprise and awe it was obvious that Oculus's enchantment was doing its job. But something soon became amiss. The portal did appear yes, but nothing else was happening. Namely it was not currently achieving its main purpose.

A few more drops of sweat dripped down the side of my face before I let out a nervous cough. 'Death can you please tell me what is happening on your end', I said in my mind trying to reach out to a certain robed skeleton.

'Your methods are both clumsy and brutish...however your link did indeed pierce the veil,' Death said in an amused tone.

I scrunched my face a bit as the seconds ticked by further. 'Delightful, I am glad to hear my painstakingly complex methods are horrid. However can you please inform me what is happening on the other end?' I said more urgently.

Death merely laughed to himself before chuckling out, 'They are unsure of which one should arrive first. You know customs and the such.' I could feel my face heat up with irritation but before I could growl out even a single syllable Death added, 'Oh wait...one decided to go ahead first.'

I was not certain what I could have expected on this night, but what happened next was surely not it. A deafening "WEEEEEEEEEEEEE" blared forth from the portal before a certain familiar spirit blasted their way through.

"Pinkie...Pie?" Twilight mumbled out as she stared wide-eyed at the now jumping around spirit of Pinkie Pie. Her youth renewed in her ghostly form.

I slapped my forehead with my left forehoof in response, before stating in my mind, 'Death please...please just tell the rest of them to just go through. Formalities it appears have been shot.'

'As you wish...however I do remember stating you could only let a tiny list of beings through. Your current group is larger than that,' Death replied back.

I in turn scrunched my face more until it probably resembled some sort of dried prune before growling out in my mind, 'Yes and you let me twist in the wind with this damnable anchor. Please...for my sanity...just...just let this slide...just for tonight...'

'I suppose...' Death said with still mild amusement.

The rest of the ponies I had planned for eventually made it to us. Twilight ended up heavily bawling when her parents finally came through. I had attempt to tell her how I got the idea for this little get together, but it was drowned out by her cries of happiness and her attempts at hugging her immaterial parents. I suppose it was fitting, I did wish her to be happy after all.

To note the others that came through were Life Mender and Silver Scythe my mother and biological father respectively along with my little brother and sister. Darkhoof and Pureblood my adoptive father and my colthood friend/first love. My lieutenants from the old days, Gray Mane, Shadow Dancer, and Tactics. And of course Fluttershy whom almost had to be pushed through the portal on the other end according to Death.

Everything was going quite nice after that. Twilight got to walk down the aisle with her father. Me and Twilight said our vows and the celebration afterwards was splendid. Even my friends and parents got into the spirit of things, pun intended, with a combination of when were the foals due and how in the world did we make it happen.

The only thing amiss that happened was when I had separated myself from the party to get another drink. It was only a brief moment but I saw some sort of strange figure look at me from several buildings away. And for some reason I could hear them laughing in delight before they disappeared down an alleyway. Now this was Nightmare Night after all and strange things do happen, but even then it still made me mildly uneasy for some reason.

'You felt that too I see,' Death spoke in my mind.

'Hmm yes, probably somepony just having too much Nightmare Night candy,' I replied sipping from my freshly filled goblet.

Death went silent for a few seconds before he said, 'I am not so sure...the future has become somewhat blurry to my foresight. It as if something had been set in motion. Be extra vigilant in the coming years Blood Moon.'

And that was all he stated before I could feel his presence fade from my mind. The previous uneasiness I felt before was renewed but in the end I could do little else but continue to sip from my goblet and hope that such an omen was overblown.