A new world, a new friend.
Excavation
what a beautiful night, Celestia said to herself.
Luna, as always, had outdone herself. The moon had shone brighter and brighter every night since her return, and it continued to grow brighter. The moon had been overjoyed at its mistresses return to grace, and therefor Luna did not need to ask it to shine brighter, if anything Luna had to keep it from blinding ponies in their sleep. Celestia looked out into the cool night sky, she could feel the overwhelming joy radiating from the moon and stars, it warmed her heart almost as much as Lunas return did. She was making her way to her sisters chambers to invite her on an excavation trip that Twilight had extended to them.
She had received the letter not minutes ago, the stewards encouraged her to go and to bring her sister with her. They assured her that any politics would be handled, they would keep an eye on Blueblood, and the only thing the sisters had to worry about was their charges. Celestia approached the double doors leading to her sisters room and opened them. What she saw stopped her dead in her tracks, Luna’s guards were on the floor bleeding while Luna herself was being held up on the wall by her throat. The one choking her was none other than Nightmare Moon, who didn’t seem to notice Celestia come in, she was too busy taunting the frightened princess before her. Normally Luna could have removed a would be assassin of their head without much trouble, but this was a demon that had successfully possessed her before and condemned her to a full millennium of solitary confinement on a frozen rock in space. Luna struggled against Nightmare with her ears against her head and tears coming from her eyes.
“Did you really think you could escape from me that easily,” Nighmare spat in Lunas face, “You forget that I own you. I will always be here, I will always control you.”
Luna continued to struggle.
“But now I dont need to. Now I have a body of my own thanks to those pesky little ponies. It took me five years to recover from that, and it hurt.”
“Put her down.” Celestia said lighting up her horn.
Nightmare finally noticed Celestia in the room, and lit her own horn up. “Oh look, here comes the sun princess. How are your precious subjects Celestia, basking in your glory as usual I assume.”
“I said, Put. Her. Down.” Celestia said threateningly.
“Now why would I do that,” Nighmare mused, “She is one of the main reasons I lost to those pathetic ponies five years ago. I want revenge Celestia, and your sister is the first to feel it.”
“How was she one of the reasons you were defeated, you had complete control.”
“Oh I had a lot of control over her body but not her mind. She had no bitter feelings toward you Celestia, she was just lonely, very lonely. That allowed me to take over her body by force, still her mind resisted. So you managed to best me because of it, same thing five years ago.”
Luna’s struggles were becoming more sluggish and her face was becoming bluer than normal, her mane stopped its waving, shortened and became a light blue. Celestia blasted Nightmare in an attempt to free Luna from her grasp, it worked. Nightmare remained unharmed and was only thrown back a ways, but Luna fell to the ground in a heap and gasped for air. Luna was tough and could take a lot, so she quickly got up and prepared to fight. They heard the pounding of running hooves coming down the hallway, likely guards called by the noise Celestias attack made. Luna was still coughing but was ready to fight.
Nightmare did not hesitate to fire right back at Celestia, who conjured a shield to protect herself and Luna. Guards rushed into the room and emmediately formed a wall between Nightmare and the princesses. Nightmare broke through Celestias shield and seized Luna with her magic and threw her into the wall opposite her. Before anyone could react Luna was then encircled by a sphere of black, which proceeded to launch into the night sky.
Celestia looked after her sisters prison as it flew to be amongst the now worried stars. She didn’t see the incapacitating spell Nightmare fired until it was too late.
Twilight was in the old library of the castle, she had been there for a few hours waiting for the princesses response.
‘Wait,’ she thought, ‘shouldn’t the sun be up by now.’
She looked up, the moon had not moved from its position for hours. ‘Something is wrong.’
She quickly teleported to ponyvill and got on a train to Canterlot.
*****
Luna felt cold, nothing else, just cold. She couldn’t see, smell or hear anything. She could only feel cold, unimaginably cold, deathly cold. She curled up tighter trying to protect herself from the cursed feeling, still cold. She remembered what had happened, but she didn’t know where she was. She remembered being trapped in a sphere of black energy, then nothing.
She felt herself moving very fast, but to where she could not know. She just wanted it to end, so she could get back and fight Nightmare.
Heat, all at once there was heat. It was high when it first appeared, and it only continued to get higher, until it stopped growing and she began to cool off. She was falling, she knew it, somehow. Not for long though, very soon the fall stopped, the sphere of darkness shattered and Luna was thrown to the ground of wherever she was. She got up and looked around, wherever she was, it looked like they had some serious problems. There were strange structures around, but they looked damaged beyond all repair and a lot of debris was piled everywhere. There were several oddly shaped metal frames rusted to oblivion, and it appeared that there weren’t many plants around.
‘Well this is just going to be a bundle of fun isn’t it.’ Luna thought bitterly.
A half kilometer behind her, a captain looked through his guns scope. What a strange quadruped. But still, it was not of the fallen, so it was his enemy.
Stranger and Stranger
Luna heard a loud bellow from behind her, she turned but saw nothing but the ruins of what she assumed was once a civilization. She decided to follow the noise to investigate, she had to leap over the strange rusted frames and rocks to get there, then wished she hadn’t. There looking right at her and pointing a strange device in her direction was a biped with four arms, two of which held the device. It’s body was actually obscured by some kind of armor so Luna couldn’t tell what it really looked like.
Before she could decide weather or not to approach it, it let loos four yellow marbles of energy from the front of its device. Luna dove out of the way and the shots exploded on the rock behind where she was just standing. The creature however seemed used to this maneuver and followed with its weapon and fired again. Luna dodged and began running, the beast followed her. Luna ran through the strange landscape but soon found herself cornered. She turned and saw the creature take aim, then a thundering boom raked the air and the beast staggered foreword. It turned and Luna saw another biped, however this one was not as large, only had two arms, its armor still covered everything but it was much cleaner. The creature wore a hooded cloak over its armored shoulders and helmet, in its hands was a device of similar shape to that of what the beast carried only it was white with some grey spots. The biped braced the gun against its shoulder and triggered the automatic fire.
The beast that chased her took it this time and fired back, the other biped began to move around to avoid its fire. The bipeds weapon stopped firing so it pulled out a compartment in the bottom of the device and replaced it with an identical one and continued firing. The beast was soon on its back, and the biped approached Luna, only for the creature to shoot it in the back. The creature died, but so did her savior, Luna ran over to the biped now lying on the ground and breathing hard. The biped looked at her through its helmet, it handed her its weapon. Luna took it and set it aside and began to try and treat the bipeds wounds.
“You cant help him now.” Said a robotic voice.
Luna turned to see a small floating device hovering next to her.
“Take my gear,” The biped told her, “You have more use of it now than I do.”
Luna looked at the armored figure below her, just before it stopped breathing.
“Do it,” the device told her, “I can modify it to fit you so that you can use it.”
So the device used a light from the front of it to take the armor off the creature which turned out to be mechanical. The armors shape and size changed to fit her, and then she allowed the device to put her in it. The device then changed not one but three weapons so that she could access and pull the triggers with her hooves, one was the white and grey automatic weapon the biped used before, the second was a much longer one with what looked like a small telescope on top, the third was as long as the second but lacked a scope. It had a fat cylinder on the bottom with a chain of pointy brass canisters going into the side. The device then somehow got into her mind and gave her full knowledge of their use and how to deal with the enemies around them. So Luna was prepared to fight, and knew how.
Luna put the assault rifle, the sniper rifle, and the heavy machine gun away until they were needed, right now she needed to find a way home. Her mind full of new knowledge she called her saviors sparrow, no her sparrow, and sped across the landscape old Russia her new cloak billowing in the wind behind her.
*****
Twilight was seized by the guards the minute she got off the train and taken to the prison. She didn’t know what to expect there, but she certainly didn’t expect Princess Celestia to be there.
“Princess Celestia,” Twilight exclaimed.
“Hello twilight.” She said distractedly.
“What happened?”
“Nightmare Moon came back, but not in Luna’s body this time. She has her own body now.”
“Well no wonder the moon has been up for so long. But why aren’t your guards fighting her?”
“She threatened their families, I could see that they were torn so told them to do as she says. I was under an incapacitation spell so I could not fight her, and Luna...” She choked on the last sentence and tears welled in her eyes.
Twilight went up to her mentor whom she was now sharing a cell with and hugged her trying to calm her down. Celestia seemed to calm down a little but tears still fell.
“She was thrown, I dont know where. She was just launched into the sky.” She finished.
Twilight couldn’t believe what she heard, she thought that Luna was Nightmare Moon.
“On an even more depressing note, Luna never willingly became Nighmare Moon, she always resisted her. Nightmare said that Luna harbored no bitter feelings towards me, she was just lonely.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Yes, Luna showed no signs of hatred or anger, only sadness. If only I had seen sooner.” Celestia said tears welling up in her eyes again.
Twilight could only be there for silent support, she had known Celestia to be infallible, but to see her like this only improved her opinion of her, it made her a mare.
*****
Luna zipped across the landscape on a silent sparrow vehicle to get to her destination. Her destination was the center for intergalactic travel, It was abandoned since the collapse. She now knew the history of this world thanks to the device which she now knew as a ghost. Luna’s ghost was stored Faust knows where but still managed to tell her how to get to the CIT, which could possibly be her only way home. She came over a rise, and there was a massive building in front of her, it looked to be a few hundred stories tall and several city blocks wide. It would take forever but she still had to try and find her way home, and destroy any fallen or hive that get in her way.
Author's Note
Please leave commentary, I like criticism be it positive or negative. It helps me learn how to better write.
