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.