Obscurum Descensus

Chapters

Chapter 1: Awake
Chapter 2: Contact
Chapter 3: Familiarity
Chapter 4: Elevator
Chapter 5: Descent
Intermission: History
Chapter 6: Insanity
Chapter 7: Phsychosis
Chapter 8: Loss
Chapter 9: Nightmare
Epilogue
Author's Note

Chapter 1: Awake

I do not lay claim to any characters portrayed in this story. All characters are owned by Hasbro and its specific affiliates.

Please do not sue me.

I need my college money :(

Obscurum Descensus

“Hm, if I shift Orion’s Belt zero point zero zero six eight nine eight two three light-years downward and rotate it so that it lays parallel with 51 Andromedae…”, a young alicorn muttered to herself as she looked across her desk at a seemingly living star chart that documented every star in the galaxy. She had been arranging the night sky for weeks for the upcoming wedding between her sister’s star protégé’s brother, also the captain of the royal guard if she remembered correctly, and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. The wedding was to be attended by ponies from both lands and she wanted to leave a great impression on the royalty from the other kingdom to hopefully repair some of her past mistakes.

She was making the last minor touch ups to her night sky when suddenly there came a knock on the door to her private quarters that startled her out of her seat and onto the floor.

“Princess! Are you alright in there?”

She recognized the voice. “Yes yes, I am quite alright thank you. You may enter Lieutenant Night Hawk”

The door was slowly nudged open allowing one of her personal Night Guards to enter her chambers. He stood nearly as tall as she was but far more intimidating with his dark grey coat, yellow serpent eyes, and large bat-like wings. He stood ready at attention with his eyes resting entirely on the princess that he had sworn to protect.

“Pardon Princess, your sister wishes to see you in the throne chambers immediately. She said the need is dire.”

The dark alicorn disliked the formality that all of her guards seemed to display around her. No matter how hard she tried to convince them otherwise, however, they still addressed her as Princess or Majesty instead of just Luna. “Dire? Did she say what this audience was about?”

“She did not, your majesty. She did, however, cancel the rest of today’s Day Court so the reason must be very important”

‘Tia cancelling Day Court? That is strange. I know she doesn’t particularly enjoy interacting with Canterlot royalty but to cancel a Day Court for her is a surprise. I must go see her at once. These last…

~~~

Princess Luna awoke with a start and let out a groan as there was a sudden rush of pain to her head. She stared up at the window in front of her, suddenly regretting her action as the light further increased the pain that was growing in her skull. She laid her head down against the cobblestone floor and covered her eyes, shielding herself from any further torment. Finally, after a few agonizing minutes, Luna was able to lift her head to look around the room.

A room she did not recognize.

“Where am I?” she wondered aloud as she slowly picked herself up from the floor to give a quick look around her surroundings. It looked like she was in a short hallway with a few windows allowing some feint light to enter. There was a door to her left.

As Luna slowly looked at her surroundings, a tidal wave of questions wracked her brain. Where am I? What am I doing here? Is there a way out near by? Is there anyone here? Am I welcome or unwanted?

Luna walked over to the window first, taking a look outside so that she might gain an understanding of where she was. It wasn’t much help though. Outside it seemed like there was a large forest filled with pine trees and covered with a very thick fog. The sky was overcast but it appeared to be day time as plenty of light was allowed to enter through the small windows that she peered out of. Next was the door.

The dark princess walked over to the door and nudged it open with her snout. As she walked inside she noticed the room was small and dark and only contained a pillow to sit on, a desk with a candle wick, and a bookshelf. Luna walked over to the desk and started looking through the draws and found a sulfur striker you would use to light the two matches that were in the desk as well. Luna wanted to test the sulfur striker to see if it worked to light up the room so she placed a match head against the striker and suddenly stopped.

“Wait, why is this room so dark? I am the princess of the night. I should be able to see in the dark.” Luna whispered to herself, a bit confused. Her horn lit up with a dark blue hue as she tried to use a detection spell to find the source that was shrouding her vision. She didn’t find anything.

“Well, that is… strange.” Luna muttered to herself as she struck the match against the sulfur striker, bringing the match to life. She lit the candle wick to give the room she was in a dull light so that she may search the bookcase for any clues as to where she might be.

Nothing. There was nothing on the bookshelf save for a few scraps of paper with illegible writing on them. With her search being fruitless, she exited the room and looked down the hall before proceeding onwards and around the corner. There was another door.

She took a step forward and felt something slick as she brought her hoof down against the cobblestone floor. She looked down at the darkly colored substance and gave it a sniff. It was blood, fresh blood.

“What in Equestria…” Luna looked around the floor to see if there was more of the iron-rich substance and noticed there was a trail of it going through the door that was in front of her. She quickly trotted to the door and opened it into another hallway that had two doors on her right side and a cabinet. The blood continued to go down the hall. As she took a few hoof-steps forward the second door at the end of the hallway blew open.

Luna gave a slight shiver but quickly collected herself. “Hello? Is there anypony there? Are you hurt?”

Silence.

The princess trotted over to the door that blew open and looked inside. There looked to be no pony in the room and no open windows that would account for the door being blown open. Luna stepped inside the room to investigate, walking to the center of the room and looking up at the chandelier that lit of the room with a warmth she greatly needed.

Suddenly the door she came in shut behind her and the candles on the chandelier blew out, sending the room into pitch black darkness. Luna jumped with a start and huddled herself against the wall, deathly quiet and listening intensely. Silence. Luna looked back up at the chandelier as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

“Oh stop being silly, Luna. There are open windows out in the hall that could have allowed for a breeze to slam the door and blow the candles out.” Luna consoled herself. After all, she was the princess of the night. Why should a typical breeze be frightening?

Luna walked back out of the room and decided to check the room she previously skipped over, opening the door and checking the room over only to find two more matches. She walked back into the hall and turned back down the hall, passing the second door and stopping at the cabinet.

What could a cabinet possibly have of value to me? Luna wondered but opened the cabinet anyway. It only confirmed her original question. There was nothing in the cabinet except for a broom that could be used to keep this section of the castle clean. She closed the cabinet and walked to the end of the hallway and opened the door.

A set of stairs was laid out in front of her. She climbed them to the top and started to follow the hallway as it snaked around.

Luna suddenly stopped dead in her tracks as she heard the sounds of hoofsteps in the distance. The steps sounded close and almost as if the pony was walking in place. She was about to gallop after them but stopped when she heard a scream in her head. The sound was agonizing and forced her to the floor as it felt like the whole castle was shaking. She looked up to the chandeliers above her as they blew out.

But when Luna felt like her head was going to split open the screams stopped. Luna looked up and around and felt a shiver down her spine.

“What was that?” The princess wondered aloud as she got to her feet. The hoofsteps where gone as well.

Chapter 2: Contact

Luna entered the next room hesitantly, peeking through a crack in the door. All was quiet as she nudged the door open. The room was large, like it was the foyer to the castle, and had fairly large windows that let in a substantial amount of light. The princess strolled to the middle of the foyer to get a look around for what she should do next. She looked to the set of stairs in front of her.

Two sets of stairs actually, Luna made a mental note. One of the stairs was crumbling and unsafe to walk up so the only set of stairs she could use was to the left of her. Between the stairs there was yet another set of stairs that led downward to a door, or what Luna thought was a door as it was covered behind a sickly black liquid that moved in, what she could tell, a predictable hexagonal pattern.

Luna walked down to the door and made a move to touch the black liquid but recoiled and yelped in pain when her hoof made contact. The liquid felt like it would burn through her hoof in a matter of seconds if she touched the liquid any longer. Giving one last look at the inaccessible door, she walked back up to the foyer and gave another look around. Her eyes went wide at what she spotted.

There were two large doors across the foyer that undoubtedly led to the outside, away from the castle. Luna quickly went into a full gallop, reaching the entrance in seconds, and went to shove the doors open. When her hoof touched the door, however, the same scream ripped into her head for only a second and she withdrew. When she looked up again she felt her heart drop. The exit out of the castle was covered in the same strange liquid as the door behind her.

“Now how am I supposed to leave?” Luna drooped her head and stomped her hoof on the cobblestone floor in defeat before she slowly started to walk back to the foyer to see if there was anything else she would be able to do. She looked to her right for a moment and saw several bookcases that she had might as well check. In her efforts she picked up another two matches and a letter that she could actually read.

“I have been studying the effects of this strange, black liquid for weeks now and have been able to come up with a conclusive report on its attributes. The liquid is viscous in nature but appears to move in any direction it wants. Yet, strangely enough, the pattern in which the liquid moves is predictable. The patterns usually involve hexagonal formations but can also construct itself to form…”

Luna grunted in frustration as the bottom half of the report appears to have been distorted and illegible from water damage. The dark alicorn started flipping through the report in hopes to find anything that described how to get rid of the black liquid. Finally something caught her eye.

“…the liquid seems to react to acids and I have found a particular formula that will dissolve the substance. The procedure is as follows:

1. Acquire 30mL each of the nectar from poison joke, of stomach acid, of dew from the parasprite flower, and of milk from the fangs of an Everfree Viper.

2. Heat the liquid from each to the temperatures listed in the Catalogue of Deadly Poisons and Acids located in the Laboratory.

3. Concentrate the gases in a long and thin tube, allowing for the gases to mix with each other

4. Cool the gases so that they return to liquid form and pour into a beaker.

5. Apply the acid to the black liquid

All materials should be located in the Laboratory and I have had a device created that completes steps 2-5 without the need to find some way to concentrate the gases. Supplies are limited so I must be wary how often I experiment on this liquid…”

Luna stored the note in the feathers of her wings and stepped back out into the foyer. She looked to her left where there was another hallway with a sign above it reading “Laboratory and Cellar”.

“So all I need to do is find these acids and create this concoction; then remove the liquid on the entrance to the castle and I should be free” Luna thought. “How hard could this be?”

Luna made her way over to the hallway to find it split off in two directions. To the left was the Cellar and to the right was the Laboratory. Luna made the easy decision of going to the Laboratory and descended down the stairs that led to the room.

The princess opened the door and looked inside, noting that the room was fairly dark but there was a torch to her right that was lit and shedding enough light for the relatively spacious room. She walked across the wooden platform that marks the entrance to the Laboratory and trotted down the stairs and started to make observations of her surroundings. To her left she could see a room that is lit but she cannot clearly make out what is inside. It seemed to her that was going to be the only interesting room, however, as all the other rooms have been caved-in.

Luna walked into the lit room and discovered that the source of light was coming from a lantern sitting on a desktop next to a contraption that matched the description of purpose from the report on the black liquid. Luna quickly walked over to the desktop and observed the device.

Suddenly she heard a splash from a grate behind her that was centered in the room. The princess slowly approached the grate and upon looking down she noticed that there was nothing peculiar except for sloshing water.

Then there was another splash and a low growl from the water. Luna jumped back when she thought she spotted a white form for a brief moment looking up at her.

Controlling her breathing, the dark alicorn carefully walked back over to the grate to inspect what she had just seen but found nothing. Whatever that thing was was now gone which, Luna was willing to admit, put her at a bit of ease.

With that out of the way, Luna began to search the room for any sign of the acids that were listed on the paper.She searched every bookcase and ripped out every drawer but found nothing. Feeling defeated again, Luna started to walk over to the table where the lantern was when she spotted a piece of paper on one of the bookshelves she must have over looked. She picked it up and read.

“I must apologize, Mr. Night Shimmer, but I have had all of your acids moved to the cellar due to the recent cave-in in one section of the Laboratory. The resulting damage cost us the use of the nursery for our herbal medicines and I wish to protect the rest of the ingredients from future cave-ins. This part of the castle is unstable anyways.

-Signed by the Headmaster/Baron Darkwing”

Luna stored the note in her feathers and also retrieved a key that was hiding under the note. “This must be for the cellar” She said as a way to make a mental note to herself. “ If I’m going to gather all of those acids I’m going to need some saddle bags”

Luna began looking around the room for some sort of bags she could use. Thankfully she wasn’t going to be unlucky this time around when she found a pair of saddle bags nestled neatly in a corner. She picked them up and stored the notes and matches and striker in them before walking over to the desk to retrieve the lantern.

“If the cellar is like any other part of the castle so far then it is probably going to be dark” Luna told herself as she picked the lantern up with her mouth. Now that Luna felt more prepared, she headed back the way she came, out the Laboratory and down towards the cellar, using the key she found to unlock the door.

When Luna stepped into the cellar, however, she blacked out…

~~~

“Good afternoon, dear sister. Please, come take your seat next to me.”

Luna stepped forward through the throne chamber, approaching her seat next to her sister, the Princess of the Sun. The throne chamber was long so it would take near a short while for Luna to reach her throne, giving her a few more seconds to ponder what it is her sister has called her for that is so urgent. Luna pondered to no avail though and reached her throne sooner that she would have liked. She took her seat next to her bigger sister.

“I apologize, Woona, if I have woken you. I know how much you enjoy your precious moments of sleep.” Princess Celestia apologized to Luna, her voice sincere and kind. Luna had always liked that about her sister, even when she used her pet name from when they were little fillies.

“It is quite alright ‘Tia. I have actually been perfecting my night for the upcoming wedding. It is going to be the most beautiful night anypony has seen for over a thousand years.”

“Oh Luna, I have no doubt that it will be a wonderful night. I greatly look forward to it! I do hope you get some sleep though.”

The dark blue alicorn gave her bright white alicorn sister a smile. “Oh sister, I am the Princess of the Night! I do not need to sleep so often.”

Princess Celestia leaned over to give her sister a nuzzle. “All right, all right, Luna. Just big sister intuition kicking in.”

Luna returned the nuzzle. “So what brings this audience, ‘Tia? I have received word that you canceled the rest of the Day Court for today. You haven’t done that since Discord was released and we needed the Elements of Harmony to return him to his stony prison.”

Celestia broke away from Luna and gave her a more serious look, taking a pause in what to say next. “Luna as you know I have been looking for a very powerful artifact for near a millennia now with no success. I have been close at times but this artifact seems to evade my grasp at every turn and I have not been able to find it since your… Um, Nightmare.”

Luna watched Celestia but did not interrupt, knowing full well what this artifact was that her sister was talking about. The younger princess nodded her head for Celestia to continue.

“Earlier today one of the guards came to me informing that there was a mare who said she had sensitive information that should be heard only by my ears. Being that I don’t necessarily… enjoy the company of the Day Court, I happily obliged to have an audience. I held up the court and allowed the mare entrance to the throne room so that she may speak to me in private.” Celestia paused.

Luna perked up her ears, and she looked her sister up and down as she spoke, “’Tia, what did she say? Who was she? How much did she know?”

Celestia looked down at her younger sister, and she gave a small, forced smile, “She knows a lot Woona, more than I had hoped.”

~~~

Luna awoke in the same position as when she blacked out, a familiar pain shooting back into her head.

“Ugh, what was that… A flashback?” Luna said as she staggered forward and lit a match for a torch mounted on the wall to brighten up the dark room she was in.

After giving herself some time to recover, Luna looked up to see what was around her, although that proved to be a bit difficult. Even with the light from the torch the room was still pretty dark beyond the wooden platform the dark alicorn was standing on. “Well, cellars are fairly dark regardless”

Luna started down the steps and saw that there was a door directly in front of her. She opened the door and peered into the room, shining the lantern so that she could see what was inside. Just a bunch of barrels. The princess walked into the room and started checking around the barrels for any sign of an acid that could be lying about. It wasn’t until she walked over to the desk in the corner of the room that she spotted a bottle that looked promising. She levitated it with her magic.

“Parasprite Flower Dew. Aha!” Luna said aloud and she put the bottle of acid into one of her saddle bags. “Okay, three more ingredients to go.”

Luna turned to go, picking up another match that was lying on the table and exited the room, closing the door behind her. She spotted another door that had been left slightly ajar off to her left. The alicorn walked over to the door timidly and nudged it open. The first thing that could be noticed is that there was light spilling in from a window in the back of the room onto a desk. Walking into the room carefully, Luna noticed another note on the desk.

“I am pleased to announce that we have the entire cellar to ourselves! Endless drinking, partying, happiness. Who could want more? The wine does have a strange taste to it however as it leaves a heavy feeling in our bellies but what does it matter? The head master has been very good to us and for that we all thank him. Cheers!”

Luna put the note with all of the other papers in her saddle bags and continued searching the room for the remaining acid bottles. There didn’t seem to be any bottles in this room so Luna moved onto the room next to the one she was currently in and found a bottle labeled “Everfree Viper Venom” sitting right on top of a chest. Luna took the bottle and placed it into her saddle bags before searching the chest, finding lantern oil and another match. “This should come in handy later. I don’t have an endless supply of lantern oil, do I?” Luna chuckled to herself. Her luck was running well so far, two more acids to go.

Luna quickly departed the room and trotted over to the other side of the cellar, spotting a door. She tried turning the handle but there was no budge. Frustrated, the princess tried to look through the key hole. She stopped suddenly when a door off to her left creaked slightly, jolting her to her feet and looking at the door left ajar. She walked over and pushed it open.

There was some light entering the room from a small window sitting above a bookshelf that had some interesting vials sitting on it. Luna walked over and read one of the vials. “Healing Potion. Well, it doesn’t hurt to take a few I guess” Luna muttered to herself, picking up the vials. Luna went to pick up the third vial but saw that it looked different to the rest. She read the label.

“Poison Joke Nectar. Yay! Just one more ingredient.” Luna placed the vial with the other acids and closed the saddle bag. As she turned to check out the rest of the room she heard hoofsteps.

Her lungs stopped dead. She couldn’t move.

At the end of the room she saw the silhouette of a pony turn the corner and look directly at her. She could hear its raspy breathing and judging by the rise and fall of the pony’s chest, Luna figured it was in pain. The Princess of the Night approached the figure.

Only to stop dead in her tracks.

The mare’s coat looked like it had been shaved off with a rusty tool, leaving scars across her body that looked to be infected judging by the green puss that leaked from the wounds. The creature’s mane was as brittle as the brush from a broomstick and she was missing a tail completely. Her eyes were gouged out leaving only gaping holes while the rest of her face looks to have been literally ripped off, leaving her jaw slack and dangling while fresh blood and infected puss dripped from her now gaping mouth.

It charged Luna.

Luna turned and ran, fear creeping into the depths of her brain as she leaped for the door only to find to suspiciously closed, her head colliding with the wood.

“Get up Luna, come on, get up!” Luna struggled to her hoofs, only to be knocked back down again and bucked in the stomach by the maimed pony. Luna smacked the pony with her hooves, pushing it aside, and allowing her time to get up and fumble with the door.

The pony let out a deep groan and a sickening growl.

Luna turned just in time as she got the door open to have her face smashed against the side of the door, cracking her horn. She cried out in pain but scrambled out the door, slamming it behind her.

SMASH. Luna was thrown to the ground by the impact. The pony was trying to get through the door.

I have to run, now. Luna quickly got to her hooves and rushed to the room that contained the barrels, quickly closing the door behind her. She huddled against the corner and dared not to breathe.

The door flew off of its hinges with one last buck from the maimed pony. She let out that sickening growl again as she started to patrol the area, looking for her now missing prey. Luna held herself completely still until she could not hear the mare’s breathing anymore as it clopped up the stairs. Even when it seemed the mare had left the cellar, she stayed still for some time longer.

Finally, when it felt as though Luna was about to suffocate herself, she let go of her breath and stood up, walking to the door. She slowly opened the door, peering out into the cellar with her lantern dimmed so as not to attract attention. The room was empty. Luna let out a sigh of relief and brightened the lantern so she could inspect herself.

The buck she got in her side wasn’t too bad and was just going to leave some bruises. Her face didn’t fare so well. Her cheek was bleeding from a large scrape she received from being slammed against the door along with her horn having a crack in it. She wasn’t even sure if she could perform magic for the time being. She tried to levitate a rock in front of her.

“Horseapples” Luna quietly muttered as the rock would barely even move from the blue hue that surrounded it. “This is going to take months to heal”

Luna quickly returned to the room where she was attacked and found no trace of the creature.

“Thank Equestria… Okay, I hope I can find some medical supplies and the last bottle of acid” Luna winced as she began walking down the hall and around the corner where the monster had appeared.

As luck would have it Luna did find the last bottle of acid, stomach acid, but did not find any medical supplies that could patch up her cheek. Feeling confident that she at least found all of the ingredients for this concoction, Luna returned back to the main room of the cellar and walked up to the wooden platform. leaving the cellar for good.

The slightly battered alicorn rushed back to the Laboratory in a somewhat painful trot but stopped at the door to the room, suspicious that the creature may have gone there in search of her. Luna slowly opened the door, peaking inside and saw that the torch was still lit and no monster in sight. She rushed into the Laboratory, closing the door behind her, and trotted over to the desk in the room.

Upon reaching the desk, Luna opened her saddle bags and took out all of the acids and began pouring them into beakers of 30mL each. Afterwards she placed the beakers on the burners under the contraption and fetched a jar that looked as though it could hold the acid concoction. She placed the jar at the end of the device and turned it on. Luna watched with interest as the machine heated the acids, condensed the gases, and then cooled the one new gas to be poured into the jar. She looked in the jar, disappointed.

There was not enough acid to dissolve the black liquid that blocked the main doors to the castle and she could not make any more as she used the last of the Everfree Viper Venom.

“I do, however, have enough to remove the liquid that is guarding that door between the two sets of stairs.” Luna thought aloud. “Perhaps there is another exit out of this castle.”

The princess quickly left the Laboratory and ran to the door between the two stairs that was covered in the black liquid. She took out the acid and gently poured it over the liquid, making sure not to get any on herself. The liquid made a horrible screeching sound as it dissolved away. Luna opened the door and stopped.

She glanced behind herself and she didn't see anything.

Chapter 3: Familiarity

“…I need you to recover the artifact”

Luna stared at her sister in utter surprise. She realized her jaw was a bit slack and so she closed it before proceeding.

“Y-you’re trusting me to retrieve the artifact? But ‘Tia, you know how dangerous that device is when it interferes with my magic! You saw what it did a thousand years ago! I cannot go, it is too dangerous”

“Luna, it is like the mare said. The only reason why I could not even find the artifact in the first place was because it disrupts my magic. It cloaks itself in order to hide from light and warmth and therefore even with the location now known to me I would not be able to find it. That is why you must go. It has demonstrated responding to your magic and I believe if I teach you the location spell I have been using you should be able to find it”

Luna looked away from her sister and looked out one of the tall, beautiful windows that filled the throne room with an abundance of light. She was not staring at anything in particular though and instead gave thought to the mission her older sister wished that she would accept.

Luna experienced firsthand what power could be unleashed from that tiny little ball of magic. It changed her for the worst and she nearly brought the entire land of Equestria to its knees by threatening to bring the Eternal Night. How could her sister expect her to find that object again?

“Sister I… I must think on this. If you don’t mind” Luna finally said, still staring out the magnificent castle window.

“Of course Woona, take all of the time you need. In the meantime, why don’t the two of us have lunch in the castle gardens?”

~~~

Princess Luna fell to her knees as the pain returned to her head. She let out a light groan, turning the lantern off so that she can conceal her eyes from the light. After a few more painful minutes, Luna finally opened her eyes and took a look at her surroundings.

“It would help if I turned the lantern on,” she muttered to herself as Luna turned the lantern back on and looked forward. She appeared to be in a rather wide hall with unlit lanterns lining the ceiling all the way down to the curve at the end of the hallway. There were a few barrels and boxes that lined the way but other than that there seemed to be nothing of interest. Luna got to her hooves and trudged forward.

Suddenly her lantern started to dim.

“Oh pony feathers, I should have known using the lantern so much would use up the oil” Luna said as she set the lantern down on the ground. She lit another match and used it to light the lantern hanging from the ceiling above her to give her some light as she reloaded the lantern with oil from the canteen. There seemed to be enough oil in the canteen to fully fill the lantern again.

Luna picked the lantern back up in her mouth and started to walk forward again until a piece of paper left on a lone barrel caught her eye. She cantered over and picked it up.

“Headmaster,

I am sorry to report that the tunnels leading to the elevator in the castle have collapsed due to recent earth quakes happening around the the surrounding area. The only other way to get to the elevator is through the trap door located in the top storage room at the end of the entrance hall. For now it will have to serve as the workers remove the debris from the tunnel.

Signed by Strong Hammer”

I wonder if the tunnel is still collapsed. Luna stored the note away in her saddle bags and walked forward, taking the hallway as it snaked its way through the castle. It was a bit of a long walk but finally Luna started to notice rather large boxes that seemed to be piled on top of pallets in what looks like an open room approaching. Luna slowed her approach and dimmed the lantern as she entered the storage room.

It was the same all around her. Piles of boxes lined the walls with a single row leading to two doors on either side of her. Luna decided to go right and opened the door that was in front of her.

The room was rather small compared to the spacious storage room she had just been in. There was a desk that looked to have piles of papers that were probably documents organizing the storage room. There was also a candle which Luna lit with another match, not wanting to waste too much lantern oil. Behind the desk there looked to be a bookcase. When the blue alicorn checked the bookcase, however, there was nothing of interest as it mostly contained shipping manifests of all items that came and went from storage over the past one hundred and thirty years.

Seeing nothing that was inherently important in the room, Luna walked to the door on the other side of the room and opened it, turning her lantern back on so she could see into the room.

It looked just like the room the dark princess was previously exploring. A desk containing piles of irrelevant papers, a bookcase containing nothing but manifests, and a candle for light. Luna decided to ignore the candle, instead trotting to the other side of the room and picking up another canteen of oil that she found lying on the floor next to a broken lantern.

“Hm, this should fill at least half the lantern next time it dies out” Luna said aloud as she stored the canteen in her bag.

Seeing as though Luna could trudge no further, she decided to back track back into the main storage room. After giving the boxes and crates another look, Luna trotted to the other side of Storage and placed a hoof on the door.

She heard the sound of a sickening growl behind her.

Oh no, open the door, OPEN THE DOOR. Luna opened the door with haste and quickly shut it behind her, listening for the clop of the mutilated mare’s hoofsteps.

There they were. They were heading right for the door she just came through.

Luna backed away from the door and frantically searched the room she was in. There were a few bookcases, a small crate, a desk shoved into a corner, and another door. Nowhere to hide.

Wait, the door!

SLAM

The mare was going to try and buck open the door again. Luna scrambled to the other side of the room and opened the door, quickly getting in and closing it behind her. Unfortunately, the room she was in didn’t provide much help than the former. There was a long table covered with broken and old dishes with chairs thrown about everywhere. There were a couple more bookcases and another door to the left of her.

CRASH. The mare had gotten through the first door.

Luna made a dash for the door to her left and turned the handle, heaving her strength against the door. It wouldn’t budge.

SLAM

No. No no nonononono NO. The princess cried out in her head. She quickly scanned the room looking for anything she might be able to use to defend herself.

Her eyes fell onto grate low to the floor right next to the door she was trying to open. Luna got down to her knees and peered through the grate, noticing another room on the other side. She quickly got back onto her hooves upon hearing another slam against the door the mare was trying to get through. Luna used all of her strength to buck the grate open and heard a satisfying clang. She crawled through the small hole.

The door in the previous room flew off of its hinges and slammed into the table. Luna paused mid-crawl through the grate and waited, listening to the heavy breathing of the mare. The pause lasted for a few more seconds until the monster turned and left, leaving a startled Luna shivering in the grate.

Luna finished her crawl through the little tunnel and emerged into a light filled room, looking back at herself and taking note that she was going to need a serious royal bubble bath at the end of all of this. After giving a slight snort, she turned back to look at the room. It was fairly large, containing several book cases and desks that had candles on them already lit. As Luna walked forward and rounded a book case, she discovered what was blocking the door from opening: a rather large bookcase weighted down by crates that looked to contain some kind of heavy material. Luna turned her gaze back to the rest of the room.

Over in the corner on one of the desks the princess saw something glimmer. She trotted over to it and discovered it was a key, setting her lantern down and picking it up to place it in her saddle bags. I really need to find something to hang this lantern around my neck.

As if answering her calls, Luna saw thin string bundled up in the corner of a desk and set to work creating a necklace to tie around the lantern. Successful in her work, Luna put the new lantern-necklace around her neck. “Perfect”

Luna finished her inspection by spotting a door off in the far corner of the room. Giving the room one last sweep in case she missed anything, Luna walked over to the door and peaked around the corner, shining the lantern into the next room.

Which was entirely unnecessary as the next room was also fully lit. Smaller than the first room, this room only contained what looked like to be a trap door that was undoubtedly the door that led deeper into the castle and a desk with a rather large candle on it. Luna walked over to the trap door and saw that there was a padlock keeping the door closed. Luna used the key she had in her saddle bags.

It worked.

Luna opened the trap door with a groan and let it rest against the wall, looking down the hole. It wasn’t quite as dark down the hole as she expected. There seemed to be a light off in the distance that she couldn’t see so the princess jumped down through the hole to have a better look.

In front of her was a short hallway that curved to the left and was lit by a torch at the corner. Luna walked forward and turned the corner, entering a more spacious hallway that was littered by boxes, crates, barrels, and other storage devices. To her right was an open archway that led to a room with several bookshelves and boxes lying about. She walked into the room and spotted a lever on the far wall, higher than she could reach.

Perhaps I should explore more of the area before I decide to pull that lever. Maybe there are clues as to what its purpose is. Luna explored the rest of the room, finding two more matches in her search. She exited the room and continued back down the hall, turning a corner to her right where Luna spotted a door blocked by a couple of crates.

The dark princess trotted over to the door and removed the crates. She opened the door and peered inside, shining the lantern since the room was pretty dark. Luna noticed that there was a torch over on the far wall between some bookshelves so when she entered the room, she walked over and lit the torch with one of the matches. The room was relatively small, full of crates and empty bookshelves but there was one thing that caught her eye: another lever that seemed to be connected to some pipes.

I’m betting that those pipes are used to power something. Luna made a mental note to herself. She walked back of the room and looked to her right. There was a gated doorway blocking her way along with several crates and boxes piled up on the side. She walked over and inspected the gate, looking for some sort of pulley or lever that would lift the gate to no avail. She removed some of the boxes from the pile in hopes that perhaps there was a lever hiding behind them.

Nothing.

“Hm, maybe that first lever I found controls the gate. Strange that the constructers of this facility would place the lever for a door so far away.” Luna said to herself as she made her way back to the first lever. She piled a bunch of boxes and tried pulling the lever down but it wouldn’t budge. Something must have been blocking the lever or the lever needed power.

Luna inspected to lever and frowned.

“Oh! The second lever must control the power for this lever.”

Luna trotted her way back to the second lever and grabbed hold of it with both of her front hooves. She pushed down and with a slight groan the lever gave way to Luna’s weight and water started to pump through the pipes. Luna gave a victorious smile and turned to leave.

Suddenly she heard a crack and turned around, hoping that the sound wasn’t what she thought it was.

The left pipe closest to the lever burst, smacking Luna with a plume of water and smashing her against the wall next to the door with a tremendous amount of force. She blacked out…

…and awakened to a splash as the box she was laying on tipped over.

“Ugh, that’s cold.” Luna said to herself as she got to her hooves quickly. “Not the kind of royal bubble bath I had in mind.”

The Princess of the Night was standing in water that came up to her knees. She looked over to the burst piping, seeing that it was still pumping out water into the hallway but at a much slower rate than when the original burst happened. Luna waded over to inspect the other pipe.

It seemed to be still intact and was still pumping water. Luna hoped it would be enough to power the lever to lift the gate.

“Only one way to find out” Luna made her way back to the first lever.

The princess entered the room and was about to pull the lever when she heard a splash behind her. Her pupils shrank as she slowly rotated her body to look.

There, blocking the doorway, was another pony. This pony seemed to be unable to stand to its full height as it front legs were missing, submerging its head in the water. That didn’t seem to be a problem though as Luna noticed that there were giant gashes on the sides of the pony’s neck that resembled gills. Its eyes were covered by a thick bandage that were stained red where the eyes were, or perhaps should have been. Its mane and tail were soaked and drooping while one of its ears looked to be chewed off. The pony was ghost white.

Luna shifted her weight in the water as if to jump for a box. The monster charged her.

She pushed off of the water and landed on one of the floating boxes next to the lever as the pony shuffled forward and stopped at the base of the box. Luna stared down in horror at the creature but after giving it one long stare she realized that it wasn’t making a move to attack. The princess brought her eyes up and looked around the room for something, anything, that could distract the pony.

Upon seeing nothing, Luna looked over at the lever and pulled it. It slid down nicely and she heard the satisfying sound of a gate opening. Then she heard a ticking sound.

“Oh horse apples, there is a timer?” Luna complained out loud as she jumped over the creature and landed with a splash in the water. She heard a garbled growl behind and turned her head as she ran, seeing the gilled pony give chase after her. The water suddenly felt colder.

It was faster than her even when she was going at a full gallop.

Luna realized she need to find some sort of higher ground so she jumped to her left and landed on a box, the gilled pony stopping at the box beneath her, tilting it’s head up as if it was staring directly at her. Luna paused in her step, a chill going down her spine as she looked down at the frightening creature.

Her gaze broke when she heard another click from the timed door. She started hopping from box to box, the creature tailing her as it seemingly heard, or perhaps felt, each splash under Luna’s weight on top of the box. Finally she reached the gate.

Heart pounding in her throat, Luna made a frantic leap from the box she was on and ran for the gate, the creature following right behind her. She dashed through the gate as it made a sudden drop. The princess jumped onto one of the boxes floating in the next room and looked behind her. Her jaw dropped and she let out a terrified yelp.

There, looking up at her from the foot of the box, was the gilled pony.

Luna looked frantically to her left and right and spotted a box that was already weighted and touching the floor. The dark princess leaped onto the box and turned to face the pony. It didn’t move except for its face which seemed to have followed her.

Luna took a step back and slipped on something round. She fell flat on her stomach and groaned before looking back to see what she had stepped on. The alicorn couldn’t make out what the object was as the room was too dark. She got back onto her hooves and fumbled with the lantern, turning it on and peering down to see. Luna felt her stomach do a back flip.

The object was a limb from a mutilated pony, a front leg most likely, and it was accompanied by a torso and a back leg; probably all from the same pony. Luna kicked the front leg into the water.

Suddenly the gilled pony made a dash for the severed limb, tearing into the meat with a ferocity that could be heard by the garbled snarls and choking sounds as the blood around the pony turned a deep red. Luna emptied the contents of her stomach over the side of the box.

The princess sat down, looking away from the remaining body parts lying behind her. She closed her eyes.

Console yourself Luna, be at peace. Just give yourself time to think. Luna thought to herself. Look around the room, maybe you’ll see something. If only Celestia were here to help…

She looked up and over at the gilled pony, seeing that it had once again began to look at her with a tilt of its head that would have snapped any other pony’s neck. She then looked past the pony and saw another gate.

The… creature seems to respond to either sound or vibrations within the water. If I toss one of these boxes away from the path I need to take perhaps it will allow me enough time to open the gate?

It was worth a shot. Luna picked up the box she had originally jumped from and tossed the box into the far corner. The pony didn’t move.

Buck. Wait, it seems to register heat signatures since it seems to follow me with its head and was able to sense which boxes I stepped on. In combination with the splashes from the boxes under my weight it was able to track me through the hall. If I can find another object that also let’s off a heat signature I might be able to distract it. But what in this room can also give off heat?

Luna looked to her right at the body sharing the box with her. I really hope my magic will work for at least this.

A blue hue appeared around the torso of the mutilated pony but would not budge. “Horse apples”

The Princess of the Night eyed the torso of the pony warily before picking it up in her mouth. She almost retched a second time from the rotting flesh pressing on her tongue but she turned her body and threw the torso as hard as she could, watching as it came down into the water in a far corner away from the path to the gate.

The gilled pony ran after it.

Seeing her chance, Luna hopped off of the box and ran straight for the gate. She paused, noticing the use of a turn wheel was needed to open the gate. She looked behind her.

The water in the corner was filled with blood.

Luna frantically began turning the wheel, catching glimpses behind her to see if the pony had noticed her yet.

There was a splash.

Almost there. Luna looked behind her.

It was halfway across the room.

Open, open, openopenopenopenopenOPEN.

The gate was finally high enough to let the alicorn through. She passed and threw open the door just behind the gate.

Suddenly excruciating pain shot through her leg as she was ripped off of her hooves and plunged into the water. The gilled pony had grabbed hold of her back left hoof with its sharpened teeth and was pulling her back into the other room.

Luna lungs filled with water as she tried to gasp for breath and bucked the pony right in the head with her free hoof. The pony recoiled from the pain, ripping the muscle in her hoof as it didn’t let go. She bucked it again and finally the gilled pony relented, giving a garbled growl.

Luna rocketed out of the water with a flap from her wings, sending the pony back against the now-closed gate. The princess landed on all four hooves, pain immediately shooting up her leg and sending her back into the water with a loud splash.

Get up Luna, GET UP. She was too late however as the gilled pony rushed forward and sunk its teeth into her right shoulder. Luna let out a yelp and flew back, sending the pony crashing against the wall and releasing its grip. Luna rolled onto her side and quickly got up, turning to face the gilled pony as it was recovering.

It charged her again.

The dark princess bent her head down and plunged her horn deep into the gilled pony’s mouth, watching as the tip of the horn exited through the top of its skull. She threw her head to the side and watched as it flew off of her horn and smacked against a wall. It let out a deep growl but before it could recover Luna was on top of the creature.

She stomped on its head. And then stomped on it again. And again, and again, and again. She stomped on its head until blood filled the water around her and there was nothing left of the face. Luna stopped, panting.

The rage left her eyes. Luna turned her head away and retched again. She threw up until it felt like her stomach was going to come out of her throat.

The dark alicorn princess turned back to look at the slain gilled pony and let out a sob.

“I… I killed it. No… N-no I didn’t j-just kill it, I p-pulverized it! It w-was defenseless, hurt. A-and I came back in all of m-my senseless rage and turned its head into m-meat. Have I l-learned nothing?!” Luna said before she let tears spill down her face. “I-it may have been t-trying to k-k-kill me but… but…”

Luna sat down in the water and cried. She remembered the black liquid, the maimed pony, her inability to escape. She looked at the dead gilled pony. Even if they are trying to kill me, why should I kill them? I should have known better… I could almost feel the darkness like before, before it took me.

Finally, a rush of pain through her shoulder and her leg woke her from her crying stupor. Luna looked down and back at the damage, tears still streaming from her eyes. The wound on her leg might be irreversible unless she got to her sister in a few days’ time. Her shoulder fared better but she will still need to bandage it up to keep it from becoming infected.

Luna stood up carefully, looking down to observe the darkened water in the room. Then she noticed the lantern. Please don’t tell me the lantern or the matches are unusable now!

Lucky for her, both the lantern and the matches were working perfectly so Luna began to search the room for any signs of medical supplies. Fortunately there seemed to be some sort of first aid kit on the desk across the room. Luna walked over and searched through its contents, finding a bottle of disinfectant, two rolls of gauze, a splint, a towel, and a couple of Band-Aids.

Luna quickly set to work getting herself dried off on top of the desk and then disinfecting and wrapping both the shoulder and the left back leg in gauze. She also took note to remember the cut on her cheek and used the last of the disinfectant on that along with a few Band-Aids. When Luna went to store the rest of the Band-Aids and the splint in her bag she noticed the healing potions.

Oh! I’ve never used one of these before but I believe they are more like pain relievers than actual healing potions. Luna popped the cap off of one of the potions and drank, the bitterness leaving a bad after taste but the pain throbbing throughout her body eventually numbed.

Finally finished with her self-patching-up, Luna slightly limped to the door across from the gate and opened it, starting up the stairs in front of her and leaving the horrifying, flooded hall behind her.

Chapter 4: Elevator

The ascent up the flight of stairs was a long one but thanks to the healing potion that Luna drank earlier the climb was made more bearable. The alicorn princess tried to push the thoughts of the flooded hallway out of her mind as she walked, instead counting each step her hoof clopped on.

Eighty seven, eighty eight, eighty nine…

The stairs stopped and Luna looked up. She was in a spacious room with large fogged glass windows in front of her that blurred her ability to see out of the castle. However, the princess could tell by the amount of light being let in through the windows that it was the early evening. Luna gave a quiet sigh. She hoped that her sister would raise the moon for her tonight.

To her left and right were two magnificent fountains that spewed water from the tops of two stoic, carved pony heads. The water formed a dome that reached the very edges of the fountains. Luna felt relieved to see the serenity that came with the two fountains and walked over to the one on her left, dipping her head into the dome of water. She took a short moment to enjoy the water sprinkling onto the top of her head.

The princess lifted her head and looked around the rest of the room. In the corners of the room to her left and right there were two doors, the one on the right left completely open as if inviting Luna to go into that room first. Behind her and across from the fogged glass windows was an elevated stone platform that had two sets of curved staircases leading up to it with two doors at the top of the stairs.

Luna turned her attention over to the opened door and trotted over and peered inside. More fogged glass windows lined the side of the large room along with two arcades that directed Luna’s attention to the end of the room where there looked to be a set of metal double doors. Luna started to make her way over to the double doors when another door caught her eye as she was half way across the room.

The dark princess walked over the door first and tried the handle. It was locked. Luna turned her attention back to the metal double doors.

After reaching them, Luna nudged them open and stepped inside. It was relatively cramped in the compartment as Luna closed the doors behind her and pulled the lever that was off to her left. Nothing happened.

“This must be the elevator the note was talking about. It seems to be either broken or lacking power.” Luna said to herself as she stepped back out of the cramped elevator. “I guess I should go and explore the other rooms”

Luna closed the double doors and walked out of the room and back into the room with the two fountains. She noticed each of the rooms had signs above them. She turned around to read the sign above the elevator room.

Elevator Room. “Well that’s convenient” Luna said to herself. She walked across the room to check the other door.

Storage. More storage rooms? Luna sighed and made her way up the stairs to check out the last two doors.

Study and… Library. Well, if the elevator is out then there should be a book in the library that will tell me how to fix it. Luna told herself as she pushed open the door and shined her lantern in.

She was looking down a dark hallway with doors on either side. The princess slowly stepped into the hallway and let the door close behind her before she began to creep down the hallway to the first door. She read the sign next to the door.

“Fiction A-Z.” She whispered. She opened the door and looked inside.

Luna silently closed the door behind her and began scanning up and down the aisles for anything that could help her out. Something glimmered in the corner of her eye and she trotted over.

It was a large rusty key that must have seen many years of use. Luna picked it up and stored it in her saddle bags before proceeding to check the rest of the room. She did not find anything else, however, and left the fiction portion of the Library.

The alicorn made her way down the rest of the hallway, stopping at each door to read each of the signs.

Mythology... Mathematics Collections… Historical Text and Biographies… Ah ha! Non-fiction.

Luna opened the door to the non-fiction section of the library. The room was very dark but the princess could make out many candles all over the room. Not wanting to use her lantern any further, Luna struck a match and lit as many candles as she could with one match, bringing a plenty amount of light to the room.

The princess started to scan up and down the aisles of books looking for a section that might be related to the many contraptions located throughout the castle. Luckily, non-fiction seemed to be categorized by topic instead of author so Luna made a dash for aisle M.

Unfortunately she didn’t find anything related to elevators in that section. Luna ran over to E but there was nothing in that section either. R, C, P didn’t hold any successful results as well. Luna sat down, dejected, next to a desk that was pushed up against the corner of the room. She looked at the papers that were scattered across the desk and saw a note that caught her eye.

“Headmaster Darkwing,

The elevator is in much needed repair. All descent into the depths of the castle will have to be suspended until the elevator has been brought to a full and working condition. First, a few of the gears that power the elevator have mysteriously snapped in half and are needed to be replaced. Luckily, there are plenty lying around in the elevator maintenance room and should be no problem to fix. The air and water control cores, however, are in need of replacement too. I have to check manifests again since I think we have only one set of cores left in the storage. I’ll be sure to put in an order for more. Oh, and if elevator maintenance is locked again just check the hidden spot in the study, the key to the room should be there.

Signed by Strong Hammer”

“Okay, so I need to find the key, grab the set of cores from storage, and I should be able to fix up the elevator” Luna said to herself as if to reinforce the mental note. She quickly put the note into her saddle bags and walked to the door. It wouldn’t budge.

What? Who could have… Dread entered the back of Luna’s mind and she frantically twisted the door handle, hoping the door would open. She fetched out the key from her saddle bags but that wouldn’t work either.

Luna started panting as she spun around and went in search of something that might aid her. She ran up and down the aisles of non-fiction and finally stopped at the end of the last aisle, looking directly in front of her at a small hole in the wall.

The entire wall looked structurally unsound as the princess gave the wall a few taps with her front hooves. Dust shook from the loose places where the hole was and the wood gave a hollow thud. Luna bent her head to look through the hole.

“If I remember right this should be Historical Text and Biographies.” Luna whispered as she noticed that the room was most likely laid out in the same way that both fiction and non-fiction were laid out. She turned around and spotted a chair that was half way down the aisle. With Luna’s left back hoof damaged from the bite that the gilled pony gave her, she didn’t want to exert too much pressure on the wound other than walking. A slight limp seems more appropriate.

Luna picked the chair up and turned towards the hole, positioning herself so that the legs of the chair would ram directly into the center of the hole. Taking in a large breath, Luna charged the wall, landing the legs of the chair precisely in the middle of the hole, tearing the wall apart.

There was now a large enough hole for a pegasus flaring it’s wings could fit through. Luna dropped the chair and ducked her head so that she may at least squeeze herself through the wall.

After passing through the hole, the alicorn princess trotted up to the door that marked the exit of Historical Text and Biographies only to find it locked. What? But… Was this door locked before? She asked herself before rummaging through her saddle bags for the key.

The key worked and Luna nudged the door open and looked to her left.

There was now a grand piano blocking the entrance to the non-fiction section of the library. Luna cautiously approached it, checking underneath the piano to make sure there was nothing lurking to catch her unawares. Then she checked inside the piano, lifting the top and peeking inside and saw nothing. She set it back down. it back down. Well, I should probably leave the library now.

Turning her lantern off and closing the library door slowly behind her as she left, Luna fetched the note from non-fiction and read it over again to double check what she needed to do. After she finished looking the note over and stored it away back in her saddle bags, the princess turned to her right and headed for the door to the Study.

Luna only managed to nudge the door open half way however as she noticed something must be blocking it. The alicorn gave a few pushes against the door with her good shoulder, managing to force open the door a bit more so that she may be able to fit through. She turned on the lantern.

The Study was a mess with papers littered everywhere, chairs thrown about, and knickknacks either lying about disheveled or broken on desks, bookshelves, and mantels. The whole room she was in currently was rather small and the windows were covered by blinds, blocking the light out. Luna made her way over to one of the windows and noticed there was a quiet tapping sound against the window. She threw open the blinds and let out a yelp before falling back onto her right shoulder.

Outside the window, blowing in the breeze, was a lynched magenta pony. Her eyes were wide open and mouth gaping as her snout tapped the window in regular intervals. The tense muscles in her front legs showed she must have struggled for life even after her neck had been snapped.

Luna turned away and crawled into a corner, nursing the damaged shoulder she fell on and closed her eyes. Why… What happened here? Everypony seems to have mysteriously disappeared and have been replaced by either by this dead body or those… things that are trying to kill me. I need to find out what happened and maybe reverse it.

“This is a bad idea” Luna whispered to herself as she got to her hooves and closed the blinds. Right below the blinds where some desks that Luna checked. One of them contained another canteen of oil that she used to refill her lantern. After checking out the rest of the room and not finding a spot that could pose as a secret area where a key might be stashed, Luna decided to move into the next room and continue her search.

The next room was more like a bedroom connected to the study. The room was distraught like the study with papers and knickknacks littered everywhere. There was also a large bed that was unmade and a few closets with their contents spilled across the floor.

Luna took a step towards the bed and suddenly felt light headed, falling forward and blacking out…

~~~

Lunches with her sister in the castle gardens were always soothing for Luna. They had a favorite patch of grass they went to right beneath the two statues of their parents, Sol and Galactica. The spot seemed to emit a strong feeling of love and understanding, almost as if the two sister’s parents were standing right above them laughing and smiling at each other as they watched their two little fillies canter about the castle gardens. Their parents were so proud of them; the blue alicorn could remember seeing it in their eyes nearly two millennia ago.

Luna sighed and looked up, staring at her mother’s face and made the familiar observation that it was beautiful yet commanding in its own way. She was Luna’s role model. Loved by the people, smart, stunning, reserved. Her flowing mane moving in bright, circular patterns like a spiral galaxy as she gazed down at her subjects next to her handsome husband, speaking in a voice that felt like a wave of warm mountain spring water rushing over you.

“You look so much like Mother, Woona.” Princess Celestia suddenly said, lying down on the soft blanket underneath the two statues.

Princess Luna’s gaze drifted downward to the name adorned on a plaque at the base of the statue. Queen Galactica. Co-Ruler of Equestria, Guardian of the Galaxy, Beautiful Wife, Loving Mother. May you forever rest in peace. “I wish I could agree with you, ‘Tia.”

“Oh little sister…” Celestia gave a sad smile. “Come sit next to me.”

Luna walked over and sat down next to her sister, snuggling up to her side as they both gazed at the two statues before them.

“When you were born,” Celestia started, “I remember being called into the hospital room to meet my little sister for the very first time. I didn’t know what to expect for our first encounter. Would you be playful, would you be crying, would you want to chew on my hair? I bounded down the halls of the hospital in excitement while a poor nurse was following close to behind me.

“I met Father at the door. He stopped me shortly to tell me to be extra quiet when we entered the room, bringing his hoof up to his lips and shushing. After that he let me in, following close behind me. I remember seeing you in Mother’s arms, rocked back and forth at a slow pace.

“There was a great, big smile across her lips as she looked up at me and beckoned me over. I trotted up and hopped onto the bed with her. That’s when I saw you. You were such a cute blue ball of fur with your little, light blue mane and tail.” Celestia chuckled while Luna gave a faint smile. “That’s when I saw Mother’s eyes. They were so full of joy and happiness. I don’t think I had ever remembered a time before that moment where Mother had been that happy.”

“Mother was always there for us. When we were hungry she would fix us up our favorite treat. When we were tired she would sing us one of our favorite lullabies. When we were hurt she would bandage our wounds, whether they be physical or mental, and give us one of those hard candies you enjoy so much afterwards. Mother loved us so much.

“She brought me aside one day after the Day Court was over. She asked me to promise something for her. She looked the most serious I had ever seen her. She asked me to always look out for you and to always love you, no matter what happens. That you would forever be my little sister.”

Celestia looked up at Galactica, a small smile on her face. “I didn’t know why she was making me promise this at the time. I had always loved my little sister and I always would. But I think she knew. Even after Mother passed, she was looking out for us.”

Luna looked back up at her mother’s face and felt a tear creep down her face. She remembered that day. She remembered watching Celestia and her mother from afar, out of earshot. She remembered seeing her mother fight back tears that day. She also remembered that just one month later, her mother made the ultimate sacrifice for Equestria.

And for both of them.

“‘Tia, I’m going to go get that artifact.”

~~~

Luna awoke on the bed in the room attached to the study, a rush of pain coming to her head.

“Ugh, please… Why… What’s going on?” Slowly the headache went away and Luna was finally able to look up again, only to find that the room was pitch black.

“Oh, the lantern is off” Luna turned the lantern back on and looked about the room, trying to figure out how much time had passed. She walked back out of the bedroom and went over to the blinds that blocked the view of the lynched mare. The princess carefully lifted one side of the blinds, trying not to catch a glimpse of the appalling sight.

It was completely dark outside. “Oh no, I must have been out for a couple of hours”

Luna hurried back into the room and started looking through the drawers and closets for anything that might resemble a place to hide a key. She looked under the mattress, behind paintings, up the fireplace that was in the room. Under the bed she did find a rather large chest but when she opened it she saw that there was nothing inside. Luna looked up at the ceiling in frustration.

That’s when she saw a glimmer attached to the underside of the ceiling lantern. The blue alicorn pushed off with her wings and took the key from its hiding spot and examined it.

It was an old key but no doubt it was the key that went to the elevator maintenance room. She put it in her saddle bag.

Suddenly there was a loud crash as the door to the study flew open. She heard a low metallic growl.

Luna’s heart stopped. Oh no. She dropped down and closed the door to the bedroom as quietly as she could.

There was a clop and then clang with each step the new creature took as it started to approach the bedroom door. Luna backed away from the door slowly.

Suddenly she heard the creature charge the door, smashing a horn through the wood before retreating, no doubt readying itself to try again. Luna looked around desperately.

She spotted the chest. It looked to be large enough to hide her. Luna quickly got inside the chest and closed it down on top of her.

With one more charge the door flew off of its hinges, smashing into the bed and then falling with a crash onto the chest Luna was in. The creature clopped and clanged into the bedroom.

Luna could hear strained, metallic breathing as it stopped right in front of the chest she was in. She held her breath, not making a move.

The creature turned to leave, clopping and clanging out the door. Against her conscience, Luna peeked out of the chest to try and catch a glimpse of what the creature looked like. She only saw a brittle black tail as it eventually left the study.

The princess stayed in the chest for a little longer, taking shallow breaths in case the creature had decided to stay back and futher look around the study. After what seemed like half an hour of hearing nothing except silence, Luna finally opened the chest and got out. She looked into the study and saw that the entrance to the study was swung wide open.

The blue alicorn crept to the open door slowly and quietly, afraid the new creature may be patrolling in the main room with the fountains. When she looked out of the door, however, she saw that there was no sign of the creature anywhere. She closed the door behind her before starting back down the stairs.

Once Luna reached the bottom of the stairs she looked over to her right and up at the sign hanging over the door she needed to proceed through next.

Storage.

Chapter 5: Descent

The door was open.

The princess broke out into a cold sweat, knowing that the door was not open before she entered the Study. Luna sat down on her haunches and took in a deep breath, trying to calm herself from the uncontrollable shaking her body started to develop. She closed her eyes and started to hum an old lullaby her mother used to sing to her when she was just a new born filly.

“Sleep my child and peace attend thee,

All through the night

Guardian angels Mother will send thee

All through the night

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping

Hill and vale in slumber sleeping

I my loving vigil keeping

All through the night”

While the moon her watch is keeping

All through the night

While the weary world is sleeping

All through the night

O'er they spirit gently stealing

Visions of delight revealing

Breathes a pure and holy feeling

All through the night.

Love, to thee my thoughts are turning

All through the night

All for thee my heart is yearning,

All through the night.

Though sad fate our lives may sever

Parting will not last forever,

There's a hope that leaves me never,

All through the night.”

After a few minutes, Luna had regained her composure.

She took a step forward into the dark corridor, turning her lantern down so that just in case she is spotted it will be much harder to see her. She could not help but notice that Storage looked darker than any other room she had been in before.

But Storage wasn’t just one room. As Luna walked deeper into this section of the castle she could barely make out the doors on both sides of her and the stairway that lead even deeper than she had come. She walked forward and lit all of the candles that were laid out before her on a long table, bringing a bit of light into the room she was in so she would not have to use her lantern.

Turning her lantern off, Luna searched the room she was currently in, finding another match on a desk next to more candles. Luna lit those candles too with that match and then walked over to the door that was to the left of her when she entered Storage.

The princess opened the door and had to turn her lantern back on again before proceeding down the hall. As she walked down the hall, though, Luna noticed that there were torch sconces lining the walls and lit three of the sconces before she hit a wall of rubble. Luna frowned, looking for a way to get passed the rubble only to find nothing. Shaking her head and turning around, she noticed that there was a sign hanging above one of the rafters supporting the ceiling.

She trotted over and turned around to read the sign. Storage.

“Okay. Looks like I need to find some way to get through that pile of rubble.” Luna said to herself, turning back around and walking back to the main room containing the candles the princess had previously lit. She crossed the room to the door on the other side and paused to read the sign placed next to the door.

“Office?” the princess asked aloud before opening the door and peering inside, trying to get a gist of what exactly this room was supposed to be. Inside there was a desk centered in the middle of the room with what looked like a pile of papers stacked on top of the desk. There were bookshelves lining behind the desk and two long tables on either side, all stacked with papers, folders, and books probably having to deal with more manifests about shipping in this section of the castle. Luna walked inside and lit one of the candles on the center desk, bringing enough light to the room that she could turn her lantern off.

“Five more matches left and I haven’t seen or heard from that…” Luna trailed off as she spotted something on the center desk.

“Iron Wrench,

Above ground storage section two will be receiving a new shipment of alcohol in the form of four large barrels. I warn you to be careful; the alcohol is highly explosive and can be triggered to explode if the concentration of the substance is enough through the use of heated materials. So keep those damn candles you love so much away from those barrels.

Signed by Strong Hammer”

The princess snatched up the paper and stored it way in her saddle bags. “This letter is dated for last year. Oh, I hope they still have those barrels.”

Luna trotted back out of the room that was considered to be an office and made her way over to the staircase that led down further into the castle. She looked up at the sign that hung above it.

Wine Cellar.

She turned the lantern around her neck back on but before she started her descent into another cellar, Luna paused, eyes slowly drifting down to look at her lantern.

“The door to the cellar was left wide open and I did not find that… metal clad pony either by the rubble or in the Office. He must have…” Luna trailed off again as she completely turned her lantern off and started to make a quiet descent down into the darkened cellar.

The steps ended at a dirt floor as the alicorn princess slowly came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. She gave her eyes some time to adjust to the extreme darkness.

Luna was able to make out the silhouettes of very large casks that were propped up on their sides in the corners of the room along three doors that occupied a spot on each of the three walls. It was deathly quiet.

Luna shuttered as she made her way over to one of the casks, the dirt floor suppressing the clops that her hooves generally seemed to emit no matter how quiet she tried to be. She searched the cask for some kind of spout that would allow her to fill a jar with the explosive alcohol. Good thing I kept the jar for when I dissolved that black liquid.

After finding the spout, Luna placed the jar onto the floor and tried twisting the nozzle. It didn’t turn. It was rusted shut.

Picking the jar back up, she crept across the room to the other remaining cask only to find that it too had been rusted shut. Luna sat down in frustration. Perhaps one of the rooms has something I could use to open one of the casks.

The princess picked herself back up and walked to the door nearest to her and directly across from the stairs she walked down. Giving the handle a slow and quiet twist, the door unlatched and slowly opened, giving a creak that made Luna’s spine tingle. No further noise was made.

Luna entered the room and searched for anything that could be used to help her. Instead, she only found a match, some crates lying around, and a large rope. She picked the match up and stored it with the others before exiting the room.

She crept her way across the storage room to the door that was to the right of the stairs. And, like the room before, upon turning the handle and opening the door, no noise was made other than the thumping heart beats emanating from Luna’s chest.

She entered the room and searched again for anything that might be able to help her in prying one of the casks open. Unfortunately there wasn’t much in the room besides piles of coal and an empty table and chair located in the far right corner of the room. The hairs on the princess’s back stood on end.

There is only one room left to check and I have not found that creature yet… Luna turned her head back to gaze across the room, her eyes now well adjusted to the dark so that she could see the door across the way. She swallowed hard and picked herself up. She walked slowly to the door, eyes trained on the handle. Each step felt heavier than the last.

The door stood in front of her now. Luna placed a hoof on the handle and twisted. The door gave way to her push and groaned open. The Princess of the Night held her breath.

Nothing.

The room she was currently looking into was empty. Princess Luna exhaled and gave a slight cough, quickly shooting her gaze behind her but she didn’t see anything. She looked forward again.

“I… What?” Her breathing quickened as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

Suddenly the princess could hear something scratching on the walls, the sound coming from every direction. She backed into a corner and lay down, resting her chin on the floor as she looked around her with a terrified expression on her face. Something hissed as she could have sworn she saw a bunch of cockroaches crawl underneath a bookcase standing next to her. She fumbled with her lantern.

The familiar return of light calmed Luna’s senses as all the sounds that were terrifying her just a moment ago vanished. She sat up and took a deep breath. I’m losing my sanity. The darkness from this place is terrifying.

Getting back onto her hooves, Luna made a few observations about the room. There seemed to be shelves stacked throughout the entire room that contained all sorts of items. From repair parts to exotic and intricate tools, Luna was sure she would find something that could help her open the caskets.

After what seemed like twenty minutes of searching through the numerous shelves of items, Luna finally found an adjustable wrench to use on turning the nozzles. She carried the wrench in her mouth back out to the nearest cask and fit it onto the nozzle.

After taking in a deep breath, Luna pulled with all of her strength on the wrench, freeing it from the rust and allowing the contents of the cask empty into the jar beneath the spot. Once the jar looked to be about full, Luna turned the nozzle and shut off the spout. She picked up the jar and eyed it.

I need to find some way to explode the alcohol without catching myself in the blast. Perhaps there is another bucket in the room that I could use.

Luna set the jar down and walked back into the room where she had acquired the adjustable wrench. She was able to quickly find a large bucket and brought it back out to the cask and filled it too with the explosive alcohol.

“Okay, now to go and get rid of that pile of rubble” Luna said to herself in assurance, balancing the bucket on her back while carrying the jar in her mouth. The alcohol tasted good on Luna’s lips and suddenly she realized she had not drank or eaten anything ever since first waking up in this mysterious castle. Her stomach ached for food.

I can worry about this later. Right now I need to remove that pile of rubble.

The princess trotted back up the stairs and down the hallway where the rubble was blocking her path. She set the jar down on the floor. After positioning the jar centered in front of the rubble, Luna took the bucket and tilted it slightly, allowing a steady stream of alcohol pour onto the floor and create a trail all the way back into the main room lit by the candles.

Once the bucket was empty, Luna set it down next to her and lit a match, eying it carefully. She let it drop.

The alcohol ignited, shooting across the trail drizzled across the floor at rapid speeds straight for the jar. Upon contact, the jar exploded with a loud roar and a blinding flash of light, forcing Luna to advert her gaze. When she turned back, there was a giant hole in the rubble that would allow her to pass.

Princess Luna gave a small, successful smile.

“I may have attracted unwelcome attention with that blast. I need to find those valves fast.” Luna said to herself as she stepped through the opening in the rubble wall. A set of damaged stairs led down from the opening and into a short hallway that took a sharp corner at the end. She jumped over the stairs, landing gracefully on her front hooves first, and continued to walk down the hallway and around the corner.

Luna entered a room that was brightened by two skylights lining the ceiling above her. There was a long counter in the center of the room that seemed to have all sorts of food laid across it from bread, to lettuce and tomatoes, to sliced meat. There were also cupboards and chests full of ice that no doubt contained even more food lining the walls to the left of her. To her right were even more chests and a door. And finally in front of Luna there looked to be another hallway that was unnaturally dark.

The princess approached the long counter, inspecting the food to see if there was anything worth eating. Upon finding a stale loaf of bread that was the only sort of food that did not have mold on it, Luna decided to turn her attention to the chests full of ice. There were all sorts of vegetables stashed in the chests full of ice so Luna took a few carrots and apples along with a canteen of water and ate hungrily.

Once her belly was satisfied, Luna packed some more food into her saddle bags along with another canteen of water and set off to the door. As Luna approached the door, however, the hairs on her fur started to stand on end and she felt a heavy lump weighing down each foot.

“Perhaps I should open that door later” Luna said aloud, taking a step back and then turned to look at the hallway across from the storage room, its darkness blocking her vision from seeing anything further than the corners that opened into the room she was currently in. It almost looked as if a mist of darkness was trying to creep into the room. She approached the hallway and crept into the dark.

It was impossible to see a hoof in front of ones face in the darkness that filled the hallway. It almost felt as if there was a weight in the room tugging the princess down but not in a way that hindered her progress. She was being directed across the room.

Suddenly Luna bumped into a chain and stopped as the metal links rattled and dangled in front of her. It felt sticky against her cheek and unnaturally cold. She sniffed the chain and found that the scent had iron based properties. Blood.

The princess closed her eyes and backed away from the chain, letting out a small whimper as some more metal clinked behind her when her flank touched another dangling chain. I need to get out of here. She opened her eyes and turned on her lantern.

Chains crusted in blood dangled from the ceiling with enormous hooks at the ends of them. There were wooden boxes scattered throughout the room; some stained red while others were smashed or shattered. Even the dirt ground had streaks of blood, all of them pointing to the only other way out of the room except back.

Luna stared forward and walked quickly, exiting the room and bumping into some more chains along the way. Once the unnatural darkness started to clear, she was about to let go of her breath when another sight in front of her gave her pause. A dead pony was lying in front of her with his or her neck twisted in a grotesque manner.

The blue alicorn carefully walked past the pony, she was a mare, keeping her eyes trained on her until she came upon a door at the end of the hallway. Turning to look behind her and seeing that the mare had not moved, Luna opened the door and stepped inside.

It was rather small and cramped with shelves and tables lining the walls. There were also two short rows that were filled with parts for what looked like all sorts of machines. Luna remembered that she needed to find an air control valve and a water control valve and started her search along the two rows.

After about ten minutes of searching through the piles of machine parts the princess finally found the two control valves located and labeled on a desk in the corner of the room. She inspected both items first to make sure they looked to be in working condition before placing them into her saddle bags and turning to exit the room.

A metallic groan escaped from beyond the door.

Luna stopped, frozen in fear as she could hear the clop and clang of its hoof steps echoing outside of the room she was in. If the metal clad pony wanted to gain entrance into the room there was nowhere that the princess could hide.

Suddenly there was a nauseating slicing sound from outside the door followed by what sounded like leather being dragged across the floor. Was that thing taking the mare’s body? Luna waited a few seconds until all was quiet before opening the door out of the machine parts storage room.

Sure enough, the mare’s body was now gone with a thick trail of blood indicating where it had gone. Luna shuttered and slowly set out to follow the trail being that she did not have any other choice. The trail went through the room full of chains and then into the storage room that was full of food and stopped at the unchecked door.

She paused, staring at the door. The only sound her ears could pick up was her increasingly rapid heartbeat. The blue alicorn started to make her way across room, staying on the other side of the long counter to be as far away from the door as she could possibly be.

There was another low, metallic groan.

Luna ducked behind the counter just in time as the door across the room suddenly swung open. She heard the clops and clangs of the pony as it was making its way towards the exit where Luna needed to go. The princess stayed behind the counter and held her breath.

The metal clad pony walked into full view for Luna. One of its hooves looked to have been amputated and replaced with a metal rod while all the other legs looked to have metal bandages covering up wounds. It was wearing a rusted muzzle that wrapped tightly around the pony’s head, digging into its skin. Its coat was a dark grey except for the splotches of red and shiny metal while its brittle main and tail were black.

Luna shielded her eyes, utter fear striking her as the pony continued to move down the hall back where she was supposed to go. When the metallic clops were finally out of ear shot, the night princess got to her hooves and looked over to the open door to see the dead mare lying in the middle of the room. She walked over and peeked inside.

The room was quite small with only a few barrels tucked into the corner and a desk pushed up against the wall. There were three more matches lying on the desk that Luna picked up.

Going back into the main room, she looked to where the metal clad pony had gone and took a deep breath. “There is only one way I can go. I can’t wait here forever.”

Luna left the main storage room and walked over towards the hole in the rubble very carefully, her hooves not making a sound on the dirt floor. When she came to the broken stairs, she used her wings to lift her up gracefully and land with no more than a clink on the wooden floor from her shoes.

She made her way into the candle lit room without so much as a trace of the metal pony. Luna made for the stairs that led to the fountain room, leaving the storage section from this part of the castle. She stopped half way up the stairs.

There was a metallic wheezing coming from behind her.

Luna turned her head.

There, standing at the base of there stairs, was the metal clad pony. It was staring directly at her.

It took a step up the stairs.

Luna’s pupils shrank but her body refused to move.

The metal pony took another step up the stairs.

Finally, when the pony had covered half the distance between the bottom of the stairs and the princess, Luna turned and ran towards the door out of the storage rooms.

Heavy hoof beats clopped and clanged on the wooden steps after her as she struggled to open the door into the fountain room.

When she managed to get the door open, she scrambled through and closed it behind her as fast as she could. She heard its metallic groan from behind the door.

The sound of wood crunching was the only thing the princess heard when the horn from the pony crashed through the door centimeters away from her face. She let out a quiet whimper and turned, rocketing herself across the fountain room with a flap of her wings. She reached the door to the elevator in seconds and rushed inside.

She could hear other frightening groan from the metal pony as the storage room door flew off of its hinges. Luna ran over to the door that led into the elevator maintenance room and took out the key, unlocking the door and getting inside as quickly as possible.

The dark blue alicorn pressed her ear up to the door but all she could hear were pants as she gasped for breath and the heavy thumping of her heart. She held her breath.

One… Two… Three…

Luna counted. There was nothing. Not one sound.

She released her breath.

It must have gone away. Or it wasn’t going to enter the elevator room. Either way, Luna was greatly relieved that she was able to escape the metal pony without a scratch on her for a change. She turned around and started to look for the air and water control room.

The hallway was very narrow with pipes, pulleys, cogs, and vents snaking throughout. It wasn’t long until Luna spotted a door to her left, however, and opened it into a dimly lit room containing some more pipes, and a few vents. There looked to be some sort of control box over on the far wall.

She approached the box and read the words engraved on the side. Air control.

Luna opened the box and spotted where the missing valve should go almost immediately. She took the air control valve out of her saddle bags and fit it snuggly into the empty slot and closed the box.

“Hm, there doesn’t look to be any handle or lever that will turn air control on. Perhaps I’ll find one later.” Luna said as she searched around the control box or some sort of switch.

She turned and left the room, heading back down the corridor in search of where the water control room was. During her walk, the princess noticed and made a mental map of places where cogs and gears were laying about incase she did need to fix the main engine for the elevator. She noted four gears before coming across another door. Luna walked inside.

This room was very similar to the air control room. There were pipes lining the walls with a few vents and what looked like pumps lined up in a long row on the far wall. Luna walked over to the pumps and inspected each one carefully, wondering which pump needed a replacement valve.

She noticed that the pumps stretched from floor to ceiling and each had a pressure gauge to the right of each pump. There were six pumps and each gauge displayed the following:

Pump1: ACF

Pump2: BEC

Pump3: CCA

Pump4: DFB

Pump5: ECA

Pump6: FBC

“Hm, strange way to measure pressure readings. Perhaps there was a pattern somewhere?” Luna asked herself as she began to look over each of the pressure gauges. She noticed that the first of each letter sequence was displayed in alphabetical order meaning that they must be the pump names. She looked at the other two letters of each gauge and did not find any particular pattern however.

“Wait a second…” Pump 4 was the only pump that did not display a C in either the second or third slot of the sequence. Luna decided to test her luck as she opened the box at the base of the pump. No water shot out of the pipe and she saw where the missing control valve was supposed to go. She replaced the valve and closed the box back up.

Princess Luna left the water control room and walked down a flight of stairs into what she could tell was the engine room. The room was large but was taken up mostly by an enormous engine that no doubt powered the elevator up and down. She noticed that there were in fact a few cogs missing.

Luna inspected the rest of the room, noticing another open room attached to the engine room that was full of coal for powering the elevator.

“Such primitive methods for fuel” Luna muttered to herself. She took a shovel from the corner of the room and began shoveling coal into the coal boiler attached to the engine. Once there looked to be a satisfying amount of coal in the boiler, Luna put the shovel back and left the room with black splotches staining her coat.

She returned to the maintenance corridor and started dragging cogs individually to the engine room. Once she collected all of the cogs she remembered seeing in the corridor, the princess started to replace the missing cogs on the engine until all seemed to be fitting into place perfectly.

There was a pull cable in the center of the engine and Luna walked her. Gripping the cable handle in her mouth, she gave a few tugs and the engine roared to life. The princess looked at the engine and gave a content snort.

Luna turned and left the engine room and walked back through the corridor. She paused at the door that exited maintenance. After putting her ear up to the door for a few solid minutes, she finally opened the door and started to walk to the elevator. She paused at the double doors and looked back.

There was nothing behind her. Luna stepped into the elevator and shut the doors behind her. She pulled the lever.

The elevator started it’s descent into the lower depths of the castle.

The princess gave a relieved sigh and sat on her haunches.

Suddenly the scream split into Luna’s head and she slumped against the side of the elevator in pain. Bubbles of black liquid appeared on the outside of the elevator.

Having fun Luna?

The elevator jolted to a halt, causing Luna to tip forward and hit her head against the front doors of the elevator.

I know I am.

Luna blacked out…

~~~

The great princess of the night stared out of the tallest spire of Canterlot Castle across the land of Equestria enveloped in the quiet darkness of her beautiful night. There was a sense of calm and peace about her as the stars above her shimmered and danced in their own exotic manner.

Today she would have to set out on her quest to find the recently discovered artifact that led to her downfall a thousand years ago. The blue alicorn thought that the relic was lost forever, hidden away by her evil counter part in a location that could not be found by any normal pony. Apparently she did not do a good job.

Luna gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. She knew that that was not the correct answer. There was something strange about this mare. She shows up to Canterlot a few weeks before the wedding between Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Shinning Armor and announces to Celestia that the object the sun princess had been looking for for a thousand years has now been discovered in some castle located in the Tramplevanian Alps between Equestria and the Ib’Xian Empire.

How did she even know that Celestia was looking for it? What was she doing in the Alps in the first place? The mountains were sacred to the Alpaca race and you needed a special permit or royal authority to tread on that land. There were too many questions and not enough time.

There was a knock on the door.

“You may enter”

Luna turned and saw Lieutenant Nighthawk enter the room. He stood at attention and cleared his throat.

“My princess, all the preparations have been made for the journey. Shadow and Dime will be accompanying you as you requested. Your chari…”

“I will not be needing my chariot Lieutenant. I would prefer to fly to the Tramplevanian Alps.”

“As you wish” Lieutenant Nighthawk said before giving a bow to his night princess and left the room.

Luna turned and looked out of the spire again, giving a sigh. There was another knock on the door.

“You may enter”

“Ah, my favorite princess! How are you doing this fine evening?” Came the cheery voice of Dime as he came trotting into the room followed by his quieter female counterpart Shadow.

“Just fine, thank you Anvil” The princess said with a slight smile. The three of them have been through a lot together and Luna was always happy to call Shadow and Dime her two closest friends.

“You don’t look alright, Luna. Is there something amiss?” came the timid voice of Shadow. She was the smallest of the Night Guards and had an even smaller voice. She always had a knack for sensing when her princess was troubled.

“Well…” Luna paused and looked at her two guards. Only her sister knew of the connection Luna had with her mother. This journey the three of them were going to go on together no doubt would resurface some past emotions that the princess had managed to suppress since her return from the Nightmare. There was no point in hiding her past.

“You two may want to take a seat. There is a lot we must discuss before we depart.”

Intermission: History

"I was much smaller than my sister when I was born in one of the beds in Everfree Castle’s medical wing. My mother held me in her arms and showed me off to my father and little Celestia with a warm smile on her face, never taking her eyes off of me. She kissed me and soothed me and then passed me off to Celestia. Then to Father. I was the newest edition to the only Alicorns in the known world.

"Growing up in Everfree was wonderful. The forest was tamed, beautiful, sprawling with life and colors and animals. Magnificent birds flew through the air in graceful flocks while large fish swam through the clear rivers and sparkling lakes. The city that surrounded the castle was small but it was always teeming with life with the bustle of the market place and several taverns. Ponies came and went on a daily bases, bringing in news from the surrounding villages and cities that made up the small nation of Equestria.

"Celestia and I would often play in the castle gardens, pulling pranks on the various guards that were told to watch over us. I remember the one time when we tricked the Captain of the Royal Guard. Statues dotted the entire garden and Celestia was hopping from one statue to the next with unmatched grace, ignoring the protests from the captain. Eventually, her hoof slipped and she felt straight to the ground with an exaggerated scream next to a puddle of mud. The captain came rushing over and started fretting over Celestia and asking if she was okay. My sister asked him to go get her mother but when the captain turned around he fell flat on his face in the mud from a trip wire I had sneakily placed behind him. We both ran away laughing like the little fillies we were.

"I wasn’t exactly a… normal filly, however. Sure, I am an alicorn but I had attributes that were strange for even our race to display. I had fits of horrible nightmares that had me wake up screaming most nights. Many ponies may receive Night Terrors when they are young but the severity of my case caused the medical staff to think there was something else causing these nightmares.

"I was given stress remedies, diets, sleep medicine. Nothing worked and eventually I was brought before the High Unicorn Council by my parents so that it may be determined what was to be done about my nightmares. The council consisted of the most powerful unicorns in Equestria, more powerful than any unicorns today including the Element of Magic Twilight Sparkle, and helped my mother and father govern Equestria along side the Pegasus Hierarchy and Association of Earth Ponies.

"In order for the unicorns to help me they had to dive into my mind and find the source of what was causing the horrific and recurring nightmares. The spell had never been performed on an Alicorn before and the High Unicorn Council was unsure if they should proceed even with the reassurances from the King and Queen. An Alicorn’s mind is more powerful and intricate than any mortal pony’s and no doubt consisted of powerful wards that would block any mental attack.

"Finally the High Unicorn Council agreed to try to enter my mind. Being that I was still a young filly the unicorns thought that perhaps my mental defenses were not entirely in place yet. I was brought into a large room in a section of the castle I had never been before. The most powerful of the unicorns, Star Swirl the Bearded, offered to be the pony to attempt to read an Alicorn’s mind for the first time. He began the spell by muttering some incantations.

"Not long after Star Swirl had started did I start to feel something penetrating into my skull. It felt like a drill and I was afraid my head was going to be split open. I tried to lash back but suddenly a tidal wave of serenity washed over me as I felt my mother grasping my shoulders. I relented and my outer defenses into the interior of my mind fell, allowing the unicorn to delve deeper.

"For what seemed like an hour Star Swirl continued to poke and prod at my mind, defusing defenses while looking for the source of where my nightmares were located. Nothing was safe from his investigation of my mind. I watched the powerful unicorn.

"Suddenly his facial expressions darkened and his eyes shot open. His pupils shrank and his body started to shake. The other members of the council started to rush forward to help Star Swirl when suddenly something inside of me triggered. I exploded into a fit of rage and threw all of my mental defenses back up, locking his inner conscience inside of mine.

"My wings shot open and my eyes flared white as I shot Star Swirl’s inner conscience out of my mind, killing him. He slumped to the floor as blood trickled out of his mouth, eyes, ears, and wherever else blood could escape without a wound on your body. My horn lit up with a blue hue as energy started to build up around me.

"And then just as suddenly as it started it stopped. The energy dissipated and I slumped to the floor as my anger subsided.

"He had touched the Nightmare.

"The rest of the High Unicorn Council had visible looks of fear on their faces as they all stared at me. Celestia was absent, thankfully, but my mother and father had watched the whole ordeal of me killing Star Swirl the Bearded, the most powerful unicorn in Equestria. My mother took me from the room as quickly as she could.

"I cried, realizing what I had just done.

"The news of the death of Star Swirl the Bearded and his killer were spread across Equestria and the lands beyond. From then on I was either feared or mocked. I no longer could walk the streets of Everfree without ponies shying away from me or pointing at me with a smile on their face. The guards took to talking behind my back about how much of a troubled child I was or how afraid they were when it was their turn to watch over Celestia and I. I even remember them asking why I still existed.

"Mother started to keep me more sheltered from the public. She wasn’t afraid of showing me off, she loved me with every ounce of love she could give but she was afraid for my safety. Mobs of ponies started to form in the cities of Equestria that protested against my life. Hundreds of thousands of ponies wanted me dead in return for the loss of Star Swirl.

"The riots were short lived, however, when smoke began to rise from the entire nation of Eternal Valley, the home of the Flutterponies. The distant sky was tinted red for all of Equestria to see. Reports started to come from the distant towns in Equestria talking of a strange creature wreaking havoc and chaos upon the peaceful Flutterponies home. Not long after the reports there was a letter from Queen Cocoon herself requesting help from their pony allies immediately. My father decided to lead the Royal Pegasus Army there himself.

"Weeks passed and we never heard from Father again nor did we get another letter from the Queen of the Flutterponies. All was silent as we assumed the worst. I remember crying for days with my sister when the news was finally broken to us that Father wasn’t returning home.

"Two months after my father had left Everfree to go and assist the Flutterponies in Eternal Valley, a lone and battered Pegasus Lieutenant came to the Everfree Castle gates. He came to my mother baring horrible news. The Flutterpony kingdom had fallen to some creature that was made up of the head of a pony with antelope and reindeer antlers, arms of a lion and bird, the body and tail of a snake, and legs of a dragon and a donkey. He called himself Discord.

"Discord had ravaged the Royal Pegasus Army with an army of his own and mounted the skin of my father atop the now crumbling Flutterpony castle. The lieutenant managed to escape only because his company had been told to rout and retreat back to Equestria with the news. Discord planned to move onto Equestria next.

"My mother had a nervous break down. She would not hold court or leave her quarters so it was up to my sister to take control of the Day Court while the Night Courts were closed and I was to try and bring our mother back to her royal duties. Nothing I did seemed to work.

"Shortly thereafter there were more reports coming in that Discord had finally started his attack on Equestria, plunging our borders into chaos with his magic. With our armies gone, Equestria melted to Discords conquest for total chaos over the known world and it wasn’t long until he was literally knocking on the gates of Everfree Castle.

"My mother met Discord at the base of Everfree Castle and they fought. For hours the battle raged on between the two most powerful beings in Equestria that devastated the city of Everfree along with the castle in its center. Celestia and I hid up at the tallest spire of our tower and watched as the battle trudged on.

"That’s when Discord noticed us. Realizing that he could not defeat Galactica he teleported to our tower and proceeded to try and ransom us for Galatica’s surrender.

"My mother realized she could not surrender. Not to Discord. She exposed her defenses and used a long distance teleportation spell on us to save us. 'Find the Elements' were her last words to us. We never saw Mother again.

"I was… never the same after that day. I felt angry and lost.

"Our search for the Elements was fruitless for several months. There was nothing on these mysterious artifacts and nopony knew what we were talking about when asked. It wasn’t until we arrived at the unicorn town of Canterlot where a few of the High Unicorn Council fled to did we find some answers.

"We were searching for the Elements of Harmony and the Element of Chaos. Only together could the artifacts stop Discord and reverse the effects of his chaos on Equestria. They were located at the peak of the mountain Canterlot was built into.

"Celestia and I made the ascent to the peak to retrieve the Elements.

"Each Element reacted differently to our magic.

"The Element of Chaos reacted to my magic.

"Imagine power; unlimited power that was just out of reach of your hooves. You felt like you could do anything, be anyone, control whatever you wanted. You felt weighted down and only through action of your hopes and dreams could you achieve the goal of ultimate power that was just out of reach. By doing what you wanted your hoof would grow long enough to reach that power.

"That is what the Element of Chaos felt like. I wanted power. I wanted revenge.

"We returned to Discord and his seat of power at the shattered city of Everfree. Using the combined powers of the Elements, Celestia and I turned Discord to stone and returned the parts of Equestria that were thrown into chaos back to harmony.

"We tried to rule together and rebuild Equestria together but the anger and the Nightmare had already consumed me. I rose up against my sister and formed the New Lunar Republic while she formed the Solar Empire. This I’m sure you know the tale of if you took basic Equestrian history.

"I wanted Father back. He was the only colt in my life who made me laugh at his terrible jokes. He taught me how to fly from one spire to the next with incredible speeds and how to steal candy from the kitchen without getting caught by Mother. We would go on nature hikes through the Everfree forest and watch the birds or little bunnies as they traversed through the undergrowth. Now his coat was decorating a fallen castle in a fallen land.

"I wanted Mother back. She was the one who taught me how to use magic and style my hair into beautiful swirls. She led me through the Everfree market on our weekly shopping trips and introduced me to my very first Equestrian Carnival. She protected me from the ponies who wanted me dead. She took to my defense even if it was unpopular. I couldn’t do the same.

"I was distraught. I was dangerous. I was broken.

"And then I was banished."

Chapter 6: Insanity

Obscurum Decensus Chp6

“Uhhhh. Ugh.” Princess Luna groaned as she crawled from the wreckage of the fallen elevator into a dimly lit and cold room. There was a torch shining very lightly in the corner. The floor was littered with rocks and broken debris from the elevator as it had made its very rapid descent into the depths of the castle.

Luna closed her eyes and let out another groan from the pain that shot through her ragged body, rolling onto her side to fetch the other health potion in her saddle bags. She popped the cap off and drank greedily, wanting the pain to go away. She got her wish.

Finally able to get to her hooves, Luna let out a soft sigh and looked over at the elevator. It was lying in a disheveled heap in the elevator shaft with small particles of dust flying here and there. The sound of loose rock crumbling down the shaft was heard and the princess turned her gaze back around to look ahead of her. There was a door left open across the room.

Limping across the room Luna noticed that there was a giant hole in the door as if a rock smashed right through. She stepped through the doorway carefully and looked down the hall to her right. It was relatively dark.

The princess trudged forward, turning her lantern on and bowing her head. She noticed a sign swaying above her gently and stopped to read it over.

Dungeons.

A cold shiver ran down the entire length of Luna’s spine as she bowed her head once more. She pressed on and started to head up a long flight of stairs. A quiet dripping of water could be heard at the top of the stairs along with a lit torch being visible. Reaching the top of the stairs, she saw that there were three different directions she could go: further up, right, or left. Luna chose right.

She walked down a narrow hallway with metal bar doors lining either side, the dark cells giving an eerie feeling as she passed them by with her lantern. Each cell seemed to be empty except for a bench and latrine in the corner with perhaps a bucket or gravel as well. A few loose rock falls could be heard in the cells occasionally.

Finally Luna reached the end of the hall and saw that there was an open cell door. Walking into the cell she could immediately see that there was a key sitting on the bench shoved up into the corner of the room. She picked it up and stored it into her saddle bags. She also noticed that there were two more health potions, two gauze rolls, a blow torch, and a few rags. She put them into her saddle bags as well. Her medical supplies were now fully stocked it seemed.

I hope I don’t have to use them. Luna thought to herself as she exited the cell and looked at the cell door across her. It was not a cell at all she discovered and the metal bar door was actually blocking what looked like a heavy door into another part of the castle. She looked down at the handle of the cell door and noticed there was a heavy padlock locking the door. She tried the key from the cell but it didn’t work so she returned back to the torch at the top of the stairs she previously walked up.

Luna looked up the stairs with a grimace. Her back left leg was still in pain even though she had drank the health potion and climbing more stairs was going to be a difficulty. She decided to leave the stairs alone for the time being and walked down the other hallway. It was similar to the other hallway and was lined on each side by dark cells with nearly nothing in them.

Suddenly Luna heard a scraping sound as if hooves were being dragged across the floor.

“No, please!”

The princess whirled around to face the mare’s voice. There was nothing. All was silent save for the forced shallow breaths coming from the alicorn. She took a step back.

“What was that?” Luna whispered to herself as she slowly turned back around, glancing behind her, and continued down the hallway. She came to a stop at a cell door that was slightly open. Looking to her left and right to make sure the coast was clear, Luna entered the cell.

There was a wooden bed frame lying on its side propped up against the wall and an over turned table with papers and dried ink littered everywhere. There looked to be drag marks in the ink as if somepony was dragged along the floor. Luna went to get a closer look.

From the looks of it, the pony was dragged along the floor towards the cell door. A chill crept down her spine. Shaking her head and looking around the rest of the room, she spotted a note out of the corner of her eye.

They’re coming for me. I’m next in the long line of unfortunate prisoners that Baron Darkwing likes to use as his personal experiments. I have no idea what kind of tortures await me as I start to hear the hoof steps of the two mangled-looking stallion guards march down the hallway. Fear is starting to enter my mind and the only way I can think to subdue it is to write all of my thoughts on this piece of paper. Silly how something so simple can actually work.

I can hear the screams sometimes from the prisoners. Their moans and pleas echo throughout the castle dungeons. They are pulled from their cells, pleading for Celestia’s mercy as their hooves scrape noisily across the floor down the narrow hallway. Sometimes I can even catch glimpses of their expressions. Utter fear is usually worn with tears streaming down their soiled and beaten faces.

Occasionally some resist. I have gotten used to the sounds of hooves colliding with leather and the sickening cracks of somepony’s legs. It’s hard, however, to look at a pony when the legs being dragged are bouncing around in ways that should not be possible.

I can hear the door to my cell unlocking. I don’t have much time. I hope my daughter escaped safely. Please. Please oh please… not my da…

The note stopped as the last few marks where dragged down to the bottom of the page. The dungeon felt colder all of a sudden as Luna put the note into her saddle bags and began shifting her legs around to generate some body heat. I hope I am not headed in that general direction.

She left the cell and continued on down the hall until there was an abrupt stop with the hall splitting off in two different directions. Luna went right and looked up, spotting a sign that read “Kitchens.” She wasn’t sure what she could find there that was useful but it was worth exploring regardless. There could be some instrument or key that would unlock the padlock.

The princess came to a small flight of stairs and flew up them, wanting to not exert more pressure on her back hoof than she had to. She pushed open the door to the kitchens and noticed that the room was already lit with a roaring fire in the pits below the ovens and cauldrons used to cook the food for the prisoners of the castle. She turned the lantern off and shut the door behind her.

As Luna entered further into the room she could hear a faint and terrified squealing coming from what would most likely be some pigs. Was there somepony friendly alive in this castle? She walked to the back of the kitchen towards where she thought the noise was coming from. When she turned the corner she froze and her eyes locked on what was in front of her.

Pigs dangled from chains anchored to their legs and swung very lightly back and forth as if there was a breeze in the room. The squealing stopped as Luna stared at the lifeless pigs in front of her. She turned her head to look at the ovens.

What were these prisoners fed…?

Luna shook her head, trying to remove the mental image from her mind. The princess felt horrified. She let out quiet cough and walked over to the ovens to inspect them for anything she could use. Finally, lying on a shelf next to one of the ovens, Luna found another key and placed it into her saddle bags. Content that her search of the kitchens was complete, she exited to the room and turned on her lantern.

Audible clops from a galloping pony could be heard from the other corridor and Luna froze in place, perking her ears up. The clops stopped.

Dimming her lantern significantly, the princess limped forward to the fork in the hallway and stopped, looking down to where she heard the hoofsteps. Nothing could be seen. Luna carefully turned the corner and crept slowly down the corridor to inspect the source of the noise. The sound of her hoofs clopping on the cobblestone floor ever so slightly was the only noise that could be heard.

She came to a large iron door. It was locked.

Luna pulled the key she found in the cell across from the blocked heavy door and placed it into the key hole. It turned easily. She shoved the door open with a deafening creak.

A sickening scream rippled across the dungeon and Luna’s eyes widened to become as large as saucers. There, in the center of the room, sat a giant guillotine. Dried blood soaked the floor under the contraption and was smeared all the way towards a chute in the wall that was where bodies were undoubtedly tossed down. A ripped tapestry, no a flag, drooped the wall. The insignia on the flag sent a frigid shiver through her entire body.

“The National Socialist Pony Worker’s Party.” Luna whispered aloud as she stared up at the rotated swastika. The princess started to recognize bits of the castle. She knew where she was.

Before Discord had attacked the Eternal Valley there had been an uprising in Equestria from a group of ponies who wanted to break a section of land off from the rest of the nation to call their own. United by a mysterious pony, the ponies declared war on Equestria when denied their request and started attacking villages and cities without warning. They called themselves the National Socialist Pony Worker’s Party, Nazi for short, and had based themselves in a castle in the Tramplevanian Alps.

Luna closed her eyes and shut the door slowly. She turned around.

The stories of what the Nazi Pony Party had done to fellow ponies were mortifying but where speculative at best. Nopony had truly found the castle even after the war was over. Her father and mother knew that the castle was in the Alps because reports frequently came back to them about ponies going missing at the edge of the mountain range. There was no search party they could send, however, as the bulk of their forces was cut thin to deal with the new threat amounting in the Eternal Valley.

The princess walked forward slowly, staying directly in-between the two rows of cells until she came to the lit torch again. She looked up the flight of stairs to her left. Her wings flapped once and launched her to the very top of the stairs in an instant. There was a sign above her.

Center of Operations.

Luna looked forward again and spotted a door at the end of the hallway. She walked towards it and tried to push it open. It was locked.

She fetched the key she had found in the kitchen out of her saddle bags and fit it into the hole, turning the key and then pulling the door open with a quiet creak.

There was a desk in the middle of the room with a large candle lit on the very edge. The wax was dripping along the side with light trickles as the flame from the wick flickered from the change of pressure as the door was opened. There were bookshelves full of books and folders. Lastly, behind the desk, there was a wall full of levers below a square safe built into the wall. On the desk there was a note.

I have stored the key away in the safe that is behind my desk to ensure that nopony will be able to get to it without the secret code. We don’t want another incident like last month when one of the younger prisoners escaped and nearly rescued her mother against Darkwing’s wishes.

Anyways, the code is fairly simple for anypony who has even the slightest bit of mathematical skills. The levers below the safe are labeled one through nine and can either be shifted up or down depending on which way you want the number to be placed. You are to make the fraction one third using the levers along the wall. Pushing a lever down will place the number in the denominator and pushing a number up will place the number in the numerator.

Don’t worry about resetting all of the levers when you place the key back into the safe. Once the door to the safe is closed the levers will reset automatically.

~Warden Scalpel

Luna walked over to the levers and inspected each one. She realized that numbers were not in numerical order and instead were ordered 1, 5, 7, 4, 8, 9, 3, 2, and 6. The princess went back to the desk and flipped the note over so that she may write on the back using the quill and ink that was placed next to the candle.

She scribbled furiously, having to ditch the piece of paper and start writing on the desk when it was full. After getting frustrated, Luna did a short combination calculation and found that there were twenty four thousand three hundred and ten ways to arrange the levers. Luna groaned out in frustration and laid her head on the desk, covering her head with her hooves.

After a moment, the princess got up from the desk and looked at the levers. She pulled the first one down. It was stuck.

“What?” Luna pulled the lever labeled with five down but it rose back up. When she pushed it up, however, the lever was stuck. “Hm…”

Lever seven pushed down, lever four pushed down, lever eight pushed up, lever nine pushed down, levers three and two pushed up, and lever six pushed down. The number was 5832/17496. I reduced down to 1/3. There was a click and the safe swung open, revealing the key. She snorted.

After banging her head against the wall in frustration and whimpering in pain when her horn also made contact with the wall, Luna picked the key up and limped out of the room and down the stairs towards the torch.

Except the torch wasn’t lit anymore. It sat there barren. Luna lit her lantern and looked around her.

There was a maniacal laugh behind her. The princess turned around.

Nothing.

“Let’s play a game, little pony. HeheheHA”

One of the cell doors down the hall to the kitchens smashed open with a loud clang and then fell off of its hinges. A low growl could be heard coming down the hallway. Luna turned and ran down the other hall away from whatever had just crawled out of the cell. She reached the blocked door and quickly took the key out, unlocking the iron bar door, taking the padlock, and then locking the door again once she was through. She could hear something galloping down the hallway.

Not wanting to stick around and find out what that thing was, Luna turned and exited out the huge and heavy metal doors, passing through as quickly as she could and then shutting them behind her.

The princess took in a huge gulp of air and put her ear up to the door. She heard nothing. Content that she was safe for the time being, Luna sat down on her haunches and looked directly in front of her. She was in a rather spacious room with double doors to her right and left. There looked to be some sort of reception desk between the two doors with benches and… cages lining the walls. There was a sign dangling above the reception desk.

Medical Facilities. Well then.

Luna got back to her hooves and limped forward to the reception desk. The desk was a mess of paperwork, writing utensils, stamps, and prescription pills and it was going to take some time if the princess wanted to find anything useful. Instead, Luna walked over to the set of double doors that was on her left and pushed them open. There was a light switch next to her and she switched it on, illuminating the hall.

The hallway she was looking down was very strange. In fact, the reception room was very strange looking too. It was almost as if Luna had walked into a modern hospital of sorts. The walls and floor were tiled white, albeit they were a bit dirty, and had a couple of paintings lining the walls. The paintings were strange themselves as they all depicted one dark gray pony in various poses.

Luna started to walk down the hall as the double doors swung shut behind her. She came to a door that was on her left and tried to open it. It was locked. She tried every door that was down the hallway but they all were either looked or would not budge open. Finally Luna reached the end of the hallway and the final doorway before the stairwell and turned the doorknob. It opened.

She entered the room and closed the door behind her. Luna thought she could hear the faint beeping of a heart monitor but when she turned to look at the contraption that happened to be in the room the sound stopped. She took a step into the room.

Suddenly Luna felt as if somepony had just smashed her head with a cinderblock as a massive amount of pain ripped through her. The princess collapsed onto the floor and covered her head. She could have sworn she felt something wet dribbling down the side of her head before she blacked out.

~~~

The trek to the Tramplevanian Alps was a five day journey by hoof and a three day journey by flight from Canterlot. Being that they were short on time, the Princess of the Night and her two most trusted guards decided to go to the mountain range by flight and take as few rest stops as they could afford. The wedding was only a week and a half away and Luna needed to be present on the night to show off her beautiful night sky for all of Equestria to see.

The three ponies decided to travel during the night so as to keep their expedition secret away from the rest of the nation. No doubt ponies would find it odd that Princess Luna would be flying to the Tramplevanian Alps on such short notice and so close to the Royal Wedding. They didn’t want a huge mob waiting at the city of Tramplevania.

The flight to their first stop, Stalliongrad, was largely uneventful. The skies were clear and cool, excellent conditions for flying. The moon illuminated their way all the way to the first city.

Stalliongrad was a delightful and beautiful city. Luna loved to visit St. Basilhoof’s Cathedral. The building was truly wonderful with its towering spires and the colorful domes dominating the skyline. The cathedral was much taller than any of the skyscrapers surrounding it and rivaled the beauty of Canterlot Castle. Sometimes Luna wondered if she should bring up moving the capital to Stalliongrad if only to live in the cathedral.

They arrived at the city as the sun was just beginning to rise and booked two rooms in one of the luxurious hotels that filled the city. Luna couldn’t sleep that day however and instead stayed awake and stared out her window towards the domes of St. Basil’s that could be seen off in the distance.

“Oh sister, you’re mornings are so beautiful.” Luna commented to herself, watching as the sun was about to clear the highest spire of the cathedral. She sighed. “And so are you. Father would be proud to see you now. You were always his favorite.”

The princess sat down on her haunches and her eyes drifted to the streets below her. Ponies trotted to and fro in all directions going about their daily business. Some wore elegant hats, some carried saddle bags full of groceries and supplies, and some were walking with their foals to the park or a friend’s house. She gave a brief smile before there was a knock on the door.

“You may enter” Luna said without turning around.

The door opened and shut quietly behind her as she heard the soft patter of hoofsteps walk up behind her. All was quiet as Shadow took a seat next to her princess.

“I can see you could not sleep either.” Luna said to Shadow. Shadow simply shook her head and looked off towards the cathedral spires. The two dark ponies sat in silence for a while, staring out of the window of Luna’s room. Finally Shadow spoke.

“Luna…?”

“Yes, my friend?” Luna turned to look at the mare with bat wings next to her.

“Could you… Tell me what your mother was like?”

Luna knew the reason for this question. Shadow had never known her parents. Both of her parents had died in a house fire in their home town of Gallopfrey. The little filly had barely escaped with the help of one of the neighbors who later took her in for adoption and moved to Canterlot.

Luna gave a soft sigh and turned to look back out of the window. “My mother, Queen Galactica, was beautiful beyond comparison of any other pony. Her coat was the color of sweet crème while the color of her hooves bled into a soft orange like the setting sun. Her mane and tail shimmered in the sunlight, swirling and flowing with ripples similar to that of our spiral galaxy. Her eyes were an even softer orange, able to release the tension built inside you or show affection when somepony needs it.

“Mother loved everypony unconditionally. She frequently visited cities and towns of Equestria if only to make an appearance and say hello. She donated to charities often and visited elementary schools to give speeches and play with the foals. Day court was never cancelled and she listened to what everypony had to say no matter how small.

“The most magnificent attribute of Mother, however, was the way she spoke to anypony. It was like waking up after a refreshing sleep or slipping into a hot mountain spring after a long day’s work. You felt safe and comfortable with her. Her words were like music that you could listen to for hours. At rallies and events, everypony was silent to hear her speak.

“My mother loved both of her children and her husband very much. She always took time out of her day to play with Celestia and I. We went to the castle gardens or took a stroll along the streets of Everfree often. We would always stop at this candy store and all get giant lollipops. She even took us to our first amusement park. We spent the whole day there and rode every ride we could.

“My father once told me that when I was born it was the happiest he had ever seen her. The smile on her face was bright and beautiful, bringing light to the hospital room she was staying in. She couldn’t take her eyes off me and would not let the nurses take me away from her to where the infants were kept.”

Luna paused. The smile that had gradually crept onto her face now faded. She looked down at her hooves.

“I loved Mother. I loved her with every ounce of love I could give. I imagined that one day I would grow up to be just like her. I would love like she did, smile like she did, and protect like she did. I wanted to protect her.” A warm tear crept down Luna’s cheek as she continued to stare at the ground.

Shadow looked over at her princess. Luna blamed herself for her mother’s death. The Night Guard scooted up next to her princess and laid her head on Luna’s shoulder.

Thankful for the sudden contact, Princess Luna rested her head on top of Shadow’s head and stared out towards the distant cathedral.

“It’s not your fault, Luna.” Was all Shadow whispered to her princess.

~~~

The light bulb lighting the room flickered while the dark blue alicorn’s eyes fluttered open as she slowly awoke from her previously unconscious state. A roaring headache split through her skull more from the physical pain coming from the side of her head rather than any sort of mental fatigue from the memories that were slowly coming back to her. Luna got up and walked over to the mirror that was hanging over the desk in the corner of the hospital room.

There was a giant gash on the side of her head right behind her ear complete with some tried trickles of blood down along the side of her face. Luna groaned and fetched out one of the gauze rolls, being careful to only use half of the roll to bandage up her head wound.

When the gauze was securely pressed on the wound and wrapped around her ear, Luna turned back around and spotted a fallen piece of pipe that was probably the perpetrator behind her most recent injury. She gave a rather large frown and looked up at the hole in the ceiling where the pipe must have fallen from.

“Well, at least it wasn’t by one of those… ponies this time”

The light bulb above flickered again as Luna made her way over to the door out of the hospital room. She paused for a second, suddenly feeling very wary of going outside of the room. Steeling herself, she took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

The hall outside of the room was dark but not impossible to see. The tiles lining the walls appeared to be falling off while there were chunks of ceiling missing or littered along the floor. Bits of wire and metal bar poked out of a couple of the holes in the ceiling. A stretcher sat in the middle of the hall abandoned. Luna shivered as she turned on the lantern.

The alicorn princess walked down the hallway back to the double doors. She was curious to see what had happened to the reception room. As she passed by the stretcher she noticed that the sheet covering was soaked with blood, fresh blood, and the straps that held ponies down were torn off or ripped in half.

Luna refocused her attention to ahead of her. When she reached the double doors, however, she noticed that they were locked and decided to turn back around and head down the stairwell at the other end of the hall.

She suddenly stopped after opening the door. Something was watching her. She broke out into a cold sweat as she slowly turned her head to look behind her.

There, at the end of the hallway, with the biggest and whitest smile she had ever seen, was the silhouette of a pony.

“I seeeeeeee you, little pony” it whispered inside of her head.

Luna bolted into the stairwell, shutting the door behind her and running down the flights of stairs to the next level. She quickly came to the next door and opened it, slipping into the next floor.

Shutting the door behind her as quietly as she could, Luna looked ahead of her. Lights flickered mysteriously as if they were about to give out while the state of the hallway before looked a lot like the floor above it. The only difference is that there was a burst pipe and a small trickle of water was flowing across the floor, making it slick to walk on.

Luna tread carefully on the wet floor and came to the first door on her left. She decided to keep her lantern on incase one of the light bulbs went out. The door opened and she started to quickly search the room for anything that could help her with the new pony that was more than likely hunting her.

In her search she found a needle and some tubing that she picked up on some impulse that she may need it later. Finding nothing else in the room, Luna exited back into the hall and glanced over at the stair well door. She saw nothing through the thin window.

Wary that the pony could still come through the door at any moment, Luna quickly ran to the next room to search its contents as well. There was nothing of interest, however, as the room was mostly empty besides a bed and an empty counter next to it.

The princess continued to search each room down along the corridor only to find that most rooms were empty and contained nothing of importance that she could use. Finally reaching the double doors at the end of the hall, Luna pushed them open and walked into what looked like a dimly lit waiting room.

Every light in the waiting room and the hallway flickered off. Luna jumped and ran across the room and then over to the other set of double doors that were attached to the room. She could hear wet hoofsteps.

“Hehehehe, hide and seek oh what a wonderful game.”

She pushed the door open and ran down the hall and opened the first door on her right. She held her breath as the door clicked behind her and ran to sit in the corner of the room. She heard the double doors push open to the hallway she was in. The clops steps sounded off beat, as if it were difficult for the pony to walk.

“Do I frighten you? Oh, I’m so sorry. HehehehahaHA!”

The crazed laugh of the pony sent chills down Luna’s spine and she closed her eyes, hoping for the pony to go away. The clops stopped at the door to the room she was in. There was no way she could escape of the pony suddenly decided it wanted to gain entrance.

There were three short knocks on the door.

“Knock knock. Anypony home? No?”

The clop steps left the door and trotted over to the door across the hall. There were again three short knocks.

“Knocky knock knock. Are you there my pretty pony? I brought some flowers. Hehehe.”

The voice of the delusional pony was nerve-racking. It was shrill in nature with a twisted echo behind it, sending chills down Luna’s spine every time it uttered a word. The amount of fear Luna felt from the creature, it was unparalleled to any kind of fear she felt before. She could practically feel the insanity dripping off of the creature as its hoofsteps started to continue on down the corridor.

Luna got to her hooves and slowly crept over to the door, careful to not make a sound as she began to look through window to hopefully catch a glimpse of the pony that was looking for her. Her eyes met the yellow iris and bloodshot eye of said pony.

“Bonjour!”

Please no.

The pony bucked the door off of its hinges and smashed it into Luna, sending her flying across the room. Dazed for only a second, she got her hooves and managed to dodge a charge from the insane pony. She caught a glimpse of the colt.

There were various screws in the pony’s skin, most likely twisted in with a manual screw driver, that looked to be infected or freshly bleeding. Its coat was blood soaked. The pony’s back left leg was also gored, the skin and muscle looking to have been ripped off of the leg revealing the bone tissue beneath it. The most horrifying thing about the pony, however, was its face. Its mouth looked to have been cut at the ends and then sewn into a permanent smile that horribly fit its current state of mind.

It laughed as it turned to face her.

Luna tried to run from the room but quickly found that her back hoof was in worse shape than she previously thought. Excruciating pain shot through her leg and Luna collapsed halfway out of the door.

“Come here, little pony. I want you. Heheheha.”

Luna started to try to get to her hooves but the insane pony was already on her, smashing its hoof down on top of her damaged one. Luna let out a shriek of pain as the pony started to twist its hoof back and forth with agonizing slowness. Forcing herself to concentrate, Luna kicked back her good hoof into the ponies face, causing it to shriek in pain and giving the princess enough time to get to her hooves.

As she extended her wings to fly down the corridor, the pony suddenly bit down on the radius bone of her wing structure.

SNAP.

Luna let out another shriek of pain as the pony cracked and broke her wing. She pulled free and gave the pony a buck to the face again. Taking the chance to run, while the pony was reeling in pain, the princess took off down the hall and used her intact wing to help propel her forward and keep off of severely injured hoof.

“Hehehe, tag, I’m it!”

Luna looked behind her to see that the pony had recovered and was now galloping towards her down the hall. She reached the stairwell in time and quickly shut the door behind her and barred it with a sturdy pipe through the handle that happened to be lying next to the stairs. There was a loud slam as the pony ran head first into the door.

“Open up, little pony. Come and play with me!”

The princess turned and looked down the stairwell. She saw that this stairwell seemed to go down many flights of stairs and the bottom was not clearly visible from the darkness that over took it. There was another slam as the insane pony was trying to get through the doors.

Think Luna, think! Luna was screaming in her head. If she started down the stairs there was no doubt that the pony could catch up with her in no time once it got through the door. If Luna decided that she should take the faster way and dove down the stairwell then she might come to a painful end if she couldn’t manage to at least use both wings as a parachute.

Perhaps she could defeat the pony in combat if she turned and fought. She had size and a horn on her side after all. She did risk further injury, though. The pony was ruthless and relentless. Injury made no difference in the persistence of the pony wanting Luna dead.

She looked down the stairwell again. Her right wing was severely damaged and needed to be tended to immediately. There was no telling what may happen if Luna used her wings as a parachute to float the last stretch of the stairwell. She could permanently lose all function in that wing even with her sister’s healing magic.

There was another slam and then a crack as the door began to split. Luna made her decision.

“Hehehehehahaha! Smash smash. I can almost see you!”

She closed her eyes and jumped.

Chapter 7: Phsychosis

The pain was excruciating when Luna unfurled her wings at the last forty feet drop of the stairwell, throwing her off balance and sending her crashing through a door at the bottom of the stairs. Dust settled and rocks crumbled as the princess let out an agonizing groan.

All she felt was pain. Her hoof screamed. Her wing cried. Her entire body ached. It was almost unbearable as Luna crawled to the nearest door and closed it behind her. She threw off her saddle bags and started pull out all of the medical supplies she had.

Downing the first health potion that she pulled out, Luna set to work on fixing her wing. She did her best to lay the wing as flat as she could on the dirtied tile floor of the hospital room and then lay the splint that she kept in her bag along the wing. Using a full roll of gauze, being that it was the only thing Luna had at the moment, she wrapped the wing to the splint in four separate places and then tied it tightly and as straight as she could against her body. Next, Luna focused on her back hoof and slowly unwrapped the blood-soaked gauze. She was horrified to see that the wound was even more exposed now and she could see the muscle and cartilage twisted in ways that it should not be. There is no way that she would be able to run anymore.

Calming herself with a few deep breaths, Luna used whatever was left of the gauze and rewrapped her back hoof. Drinking the last health potion, she got to her hooves and took a few careful hoofsteps towards the door and peered out towards the stairwell. The coast looked to be clear and Luna stepped out into the hallway.

The hallway looked very similar to every other hallway she has been in in this cursed hospital. The only difference is that there looked to be a couple to wheel chairs loosely placed along the length of the hall. The princess started to walk down the hall, peering into room windows and trying doors in hopes that one of the rooms would yield something that could help her. Finally one of the doors opened and Luna stepped through.

There was a horrible smell emanating from the room. The princess would have left had it not been for the sudden compulsion to explore the room for something useful. Taking in small breaths and holding them for as long as she could, Luna started searching through the drawers and the desk in the corner of the room for anything she could use.

She found another roll of gauze and a scalpel that she decided to keep. Putting both into her bag she turned around and saw that there was a curtain pull across where typically a hospital bed would be. Luna took a few steps forward and noticed that the intensity of the putrid smell grew as she got closer to the bed.

Oh my… Oh no.

She reached the curtain, nearly gagging from the smell and gripped the edge of the curtain with her teeth. She closed her eyes and steeled herself for what she was about to see. Luna slid the curtain across the rack.

The princess wretched up the contents of her stomach that had very much wanted to be free ever since she had entered the room. On the bed was a pony that was strapped down and cut open along the entire length of her body. Intestines, lungs, and other body organs lay pulled out but still attached to the inside of the pony and her eyes looked to be gouged out. It also looked as if her skin was getting rearranged in different areas as well. Luna hobbled out of the room as quickly as she could.

“Oh my… Pray tell, what horrific section of the hospital am I in?” Luna asked herself as she looked up at the sign above her.

Surgical Ward.

Luna felt sick again and started heading for the double doors at the end of the hall. She did not want to stay in this section of the hospital much longer, fearing that there were similar instances of what she had just witnessed in each of the rooms to her left and right. She finally reached the double doors and went to push them open.

They didn’t budge.

The princess suddenly heard the soft clop of hoofsteps above her. They were steady and slow and therefore could not be the insane pony that she had only just escaped. They sounded as if they were walking down the corridor above her and towards the stairwell.

I need to find a key or another way out of here. Oh no, I have to search these rooms…

Luna let out a quiet sigh and headed over to the door that was the nearest to her. She pushed it open and a familiar smell entered her nostrils. She held her breath and stepped into the room, noting that there was a rather thick trail of blood leading to the concealed bed at the far end of the room. She searched through all of the drawers and cabinets to find anything that looked like a key. The only thing she found, however, was another bottle of healing potion.

When Luna walked back out into the hall she noticed that the hoofsteps were now reaching the door at the end of the hallway above her. She quickly jumped into the next room.

The first thing Luna noticed was that the room was devoid of the rancid smell of rotting flesh and so took the chance to take in a few gulps of the still old and musty air. Feeling a bit refreshed from the cleaner air, the princess looked over all of the drawers and cabinets in the room only to find nothing other than another healing potion.

Luna didn’t feel dejected when she found healing potions though. She knew she would need them later when the previous wore off. She just hoped that she would find some kind of key soon before she was discovered by whatever was walking down the stairwell now.

The alicorn quickly made as fast a dash as she could muster to the next room to check and closed the door behind her just in time as the door to the stairwell on her level opened. Luna decided to just wait in this room until whatever was walking down the corridor now left her alone to search the rooms some more.

Unfortunately for her, the room had that rancid rotting flesh smell again so she tried to best to shallow and control her breathing to keep herself from throwing up any more than she had. She heard clop steps nearing the half of the hallway she was hiding in.

The hoofsteps stopped in front of the door and Luna could hear the faint noise of a pony’s breath. It sounded hoarse and forced. The hoofsteps continued on down the hallway and stopped at the locked double doors.

Luna felt like she was going to be sick. The stench emanating from behind the curtains was overwhelming. The princess shoved a hoof up to her mouth to keep herself calm.

There was a ticking sound as a door unlocked and the hoofsteps continued on down past the formally locked double doors. Luna got her hooves and walked to the door of her room, cracking it open and peeking her head out. She caught a glimpse of the long slick and red tail of the pony as it turned the corner further past the double doors.

The princess crept out of the room quietly, taking in the fresher air as much as she dared and then set off after the mysterious pony. She was cautious to make as little noise as she possibly could and when she approached the corner that the pony went around she hugged the wall and peered around.

She spotted the pony as it crossed under the light of a flickering light bulb. It looked to be a female pegasus nurse with a pale white coat with red splattered across it. She had a slick and red mane and tail. Her eyes were hidden behind a blindfold as it looked like thick tears of blood stained her cheeks. Her nurse uniform was ripped to shreds for the most part. Her wings dragged along the ground. Luna wasn’t even sure if they were usable.

The pegasus nurse stopped for a moment as she was about to clear the flickering light source above her. She slowly turned her head to look behind her and Luna ducked back around the corner, hoping the mare did not know she was there. All was silent for a few moments.

Luna peered back around the corner and ended up staring directly at the nurse’s face.

“The Nightmare” the nurse whispered, almost as if it was inside Luna’s head. Luna fell back and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again the nurse was completely gone. Both corridors were devoid of life besides herself. The princess was gasping for breath and shaking uncontrollably.

There came a very low groan at the end of the hallway she had just come from. Luna turned her head and paled significantly at what she saw.

At the very end of the hallway, staring directly at her, was the silhouette of a very tall and lanky alicorn with a jet black coat and an ethereal mane and tail decorated with stars similar to her own. It was smiling an unnaturally large smile.

Before Luna could get to her hooves and run down the hall where she encountered the nurse the alicorn vanished. The princess watched as the remaining shadows that had made up The Nightmare just a few seconds ago slithered away and left her alone in the corridor intersection.

The princess got up and gave a huge sigh. What did I get myself into?

Luna started down the hall where the nurse used to be and noticed that there were no doors on either side of her. She reached the double doors at the end of the hall without further interruptions and pushed the doors open with a low creak.

The room was very wide and was split in half by a wall of small windows and counters that ponies could talk to each other through. It was impossible to see past the windows as the room beyond the windows was very dark. Luna walked up to one of the windows to try and see beyond.

She could not see more than a few feet beyond the window. It was strange that the light, though dim it may be, could not reach far beyond the windows. She also took note that the windows were incredibly thick, enough to stop a hard working earth pony from bucking the them open. Where was she?

The princess didn’t have to search long to find out. She was in the psychiatric ward of the hospital.

There was the light tapping of a window behind her. Luna froze and slowly turned around, bracing herself for what she might see.

There was nothing there.

Luna stayed frozen in place, searching each window she had visibility over repeatedly to try and find the source of the noise. For several minutes nothing happened and she finally let go of her breath. She proceeded to the end of the room to the two sets of doors separated by a black box.

As the princess was walking she could hear whispers coming from behind the windows and nervously looked over. It was fruitless as it was so dark beyond the windows but still the whispering persisted. Luna wasn’t sure whether or not the whispers were so quiet she just couldn’t make out the words or if they were in an entirely different language.

When Luna reached the two doors she noticed that there were eerie markings on one of the doors, eventually being recognized as words.

Take the door to your right.

She tried to marked door anyways and found that it was locked and let out a huff. She turned and opened the door that was to her right and stepped into the hallway. The door closed and locked shut behind her.

The princess trudged forward toward the single flickering light bulb that lit the entire hallway. Tiles crumbled under her hoofsteps while small dust particles floated down from the ceiling. Everything was quiet. She bowed her head as she passed under the source of light.

Luna rounded the corner at the end of the hall and noticed that there were two evenly spaced doors on either side. The doors were very large and made of full metal with metal bars at the top as a sort of communicator or window for whatever lay inside. Luna found the door unlocked and pushed it open.

The room was completely dark and Luna had to turn her lantern on once again, surprised that it even functioned with everything she had been through since she last used it. The padded floors of the room were ripped to shreds, showing the old tile floors underneath. There looked to be multiple chains dangling from the ceiling while the padded walls were also torn to shreds. There was an intercom in the corner of the room giving off a quiet and steady stream of static.

Luna quietly closed the door behind her and walked further into the room. After a quick search of the ground she finally looked up and spotted a key dangling from the highest chain attached to the ceiling.

“If only I still had use of my wing…” Luna moped and she started to look around for anything that could help her reach the key. It was too high to jump for it so eventually Luna gave up and decided to check the other rooms to see if there was anything that could be of use to her to get the key.

She crossed the room and opened the door. The room was larger than the previous one with the padded walls and floor still intact. There looked to be a few pony straight jackets lying in the corner while the intercom in the far corner of the room was silent. The room was fairly empty so Luna decided to go and check if there was anything under the jackets.

The jackets were piled in a mound and Luna was removing the jackets off one by one. Finally, when she reached the bottom of the pile, there was a lever that she picked up and put into her saddle bags. She left the room, not noticing that static started to sound from the intercom.

Luna walked further down the hall and came to the next set of doors. She entered the door on her right. The padded walls and floor in this room were intact as well and there looked to be a large quantity of boxes piled in the center of the room.

“Perfect. I can use these boxes to reach the key in the other room.” Luna whispered to herself as she trotted over to the boxes and picked the first one up. She started carrying the boxes one by one into the next room, stacking them carefully so that they would not topple over under her weight. When Luna went to grab the last box that she needed she noticed that the intercom in the room started to emit static. A little wary, Luna left the room and carried the last box.

She was able to reach the key when the last box was placed on top of the pile. She stepped off of the mountain of boxes and suddenly stopped, noticing that the static coming from the intercom stopped and was replaced by the sounds of whispering she heard earlier. She exited the room.

As the princess was slowly making her way down the hallway, the sounds of the whispers from the intercoms echoing off of the walls, she stopped at the door she had not yet opened. She had this unexplainable feeling that she should not open the door but the curiosity in her hoof was betraying her mental conscience. She opened the door.

Inside, sitting in the corner of the room, was a pony lying in a blood splattered straight jacket. A huge smile filled its cheeks while its eyes were dilated to the size of peas. Its thin mane and tail were jet black and greasy enough to stick to the pony’s body. It was whispering itself.

The pony turned its head to look at Luna. “Well, if you told me you were drowning…”

Luna took a step back. “I would not lend a hand…”

The pony’s smile grew larger. “I’ve seen your face before my friend…”

The princess slowly closed to the door, unable to block the song the pony was singing from her hearing. “But I don’t know if you know who I am…”

Luna slowly made her way down the hallway, its familiar song filling the hall from the intercoms. “Well, I was there and saw what you did…”

She reached the end of the hallway and saw a door with a place for a key to go to the right of the door. She placed the key in the hole and turned, causing the tiles above the key hole to spin around and produce a button. “I saw it with my own two eyes…”

She pressed the button and on the other side of the door a set of tiles fell from the wall. In their place was a hole that looked to hold a lever. Luna fetched the lever out of her bags. “So you can wipe off that grin, I know where you’ve been…”

Breaking out in a cold sweat, Luna shoved the lever into the hole and pulled down. The door started to lift from the ground. “It’s all been a pack of lies.”

The voice sounded as if it were directly behind her. Luna gulped and dared to turn her head towards the source. There, free of its straight jacket and staring directly at her, was the pony. The bulb that had lit the hall way went out. Its smile was unnaturally wide. “And I can feel it, coming in the air tonight. Oh Lord…”

The sound of its maniacal laugh sent colder chills down her spine than the insane pony she encountered earlier. It took a step forward, eyes full of hunger. Luna didn’t notice before but the pony’s teeth appeared to be razor sharp. There was no way she could out run the pony.

The princess backed up past the door and noticed the lever on the other side. She reached over and pulled down, watching as the door slowly slid down to separate her from the pony. As Luna turned back to look at the pony one last time her heart caught in her throat.

The pony’s facial features appeared to be melting, black tears running down its face while the tiny, dilated eyes turned a deep crimson. Its smile grew wider still and she could hear the pony’s breathing become more labored. It snarled.

“Run for your life, little pony.” It said in a cracked demonic voice. The laughter that followed frightened Luna to her very core. She turned and ran.

The princess galloped as fast as she could, using her good wing to help propel her wounded hoof forward with each step she took. She ran past doors and around corners, trying to put as much distance between the pony and herself. She wasn’t sure if it was even going to come through the door but she didn’t want to take the risk of it catching up with her if it did decide to come through.

Her hoof started to pain her significantly so Luna finally decided to stop and rushed through a door to her left. She let out a sigh and shut the door behind her. She wasn’t even sure what section of the hospital she was in anymore. The princess flipped a light switch.

Luna let out a horrified gasp as the light bulb flickered to life. Before her were various disheveled little beds on wheels. Blankets were thrown here and there on the floor, stained with blood in the forms of streaks that lead to out the door she had just came in.

She let out a sob. “I… I must be in the hospital nursery.” Luna started to slowly walk between the aisles of beds, taking a look at each one. Tears came to her eyes as she looked at each bed, mortified by what she wished she couldn’t imagine happened here.

Foals were the essence of innocence and happiness. A little filly or colt was not born into this world already aware of the kind of person he or she was going to be. Instead they had a chance to make themselves into whatever the saw fit. They had entire lives to build their personality and attributes and would be future citizens of Equestria, or whichever nation they came from. To see an entire room dedicated to the protection of a foal’s earliest moments in life left in this state wounded Luna.

Luna reached the end of the aisle and stopped in front of a box. Her name was on it. The princess hesitated a moment before opening the box…

~~~

The trio left Stalliongrad late that evening to avoid being spotted by any stragglers heading home after a long day’s work. The air was cool and there was a gentle wind pushing them towards Windsoar, which would hopefully be their next stop before reaching the Tramplevanian Alps. The city was a pegasus city similar to that of Cloudsdale although much larger and more industrialized.

Windsoar was like the Manehatten of the sky. It’s brilliant, white skyscrapers dominated the skyline and shone as bright as the moon in the dead of night. The city was like a beacon to all ponies, leading them in the direction of the city if somepony was lost. There was a much smaller town underneath Windsoar for the Earth and Unicorn ponies.

Luna, Shadow, and Dime barely said a word on their long flight towards the massive pegasi city. The princess was still wrapped up in her thoughts and memories of her mother while Shadow felt guilty for bringing the sensitive subject up with her princess. Her curiosity got the best of her sometimes.

Luna had told Shadow not to worry about her after the two had sat in Luna’s room staring out across Stalliongrad for several hours. The night pegasus couldn’t help herself, though. Her princess was still grieving over something that was not even remotely her fault. Luna felt her friend’s turmoil and turned to look at her and gave her a weak smile.

The trio took their first and only rest on the outskirts of Derbyshire to get some much needed supplies. Shadow volunteered to go and left Luna and Dime along for nearly an hour. Once Shadow returned to the group, the three took off and flew the last stretch to Windsoar in record time. It wasn’t even sunrise yet when the three booked separate rooms at one of the lavish hotels near the amphitheater.

That day Luna slept and dreamt. She dreamt she was in the Everfree Castle gardens again with her mother and sister playing a fun game of tag. Their mother was "it", of course, and the two sisters were trying their hardest to escape their mother’s long legs. Hearing her children laughing brought laughter to Galatica herself. Luna smiled in her sleep.

Sudden the sky darkened. There was a terrible earthquake and Luna watched as the tallest spire of Everfree came crashing down. Dust and debris filled the air and little Luna began to cough horribly as the tiny sharp particles entered her lungs. “Mother? Celestia? Mother?!” She cried out.

The smoke started to settle. Luna was surrounded by darkness and the rubble of the castle. Her mother and sister were nowhere to be found. She let out a little whimper.

“I know you’re coming.” An too familiar voice whispered behind her. The seduction and nonchalance that flowed with the mare’s words were all too recognizable. The filly alicorn turned around to face her Nightmare.

“And I’m ready to regain what I have lost.” The Nightmare chuckled as it smiled demonically at her other self. The floor beneath the filly collapsed and she was plunged into darkness, screaming.

She managed to scream herself awake, eliciting a pair of galloping hoofsteps to come rushing to her door. In seconds both Dime and Shadow were in Princess Luna’s room with their spears drawn and ready to defend their princess with their lives.

Instead they came face to face with a rather embarrassed Luna. “It is quite alright you two, it was just a nightmare.”

The two night guards let out a sigh and placed their weapons up against the wall.

“Pardon, Luna, but as a friend I must ask what has been troubling you for the past several weeks? Ever since the mention of the location of the Element of Chaos you have been getting terrible nightmares every night.” Dime said as he looked at his princess with a bit of worry covering his usual cheery face.

The princess looked away from the two night guards and arose from her bed to look out across the city. She sighed. “I can feel my connection of the Element of Chaos reestablishing itself. That means that the Nightmare hidden inside me is growing in power with the sudden surge of dark magic passing through my body. It is attacking me and trying to weaken my resolve and the easiest way is to enter my dreams. If my defenses fall Nightmare Moon will return. It is of the utmost importance that we retrieve the artifact and dispose of it quickly.” Luna turned back to look at her two friends and sat down.

Shadow was the first to move as she walked over to her princess, followed closely by Dime as the two night guards sat down next to their princess and friend.

“Then we have no time to waste. We should get to the Tramplevanian Alps as fast as we can starting tonight.” Dime said quietly.

~~~

Reality refocused around the princess as she staggered from the splitting headache that returned. Closing her eyes and shaking it off, Luna looked down into the box. Tears started to well up in her eyes from what she saw.

At the bottom of the toy box there was a stuffed Ursa Minor. A tear slid down her cheek as she remembered it was the first ever toy that was given to her by her mother. Luna remembered how her mom had worked diligently for hours stitching together the bear herself and then wrapped it up in a big box for her first birthday. How happy she had been when she saw the stuffed toy. She carried the bear everywhere she went for the longest time and slept with the bear for even longer.

Luna sat down on her haunches and picked the stuffed Ursa Minor up gingerly and was about to place it in her saddle bags when something caught her attention. What was her toy doing in this castle? She remembered that she lost it when she turned into Nightmare Moon but she didn’t expect the toy would end up here of all places. She put the bear in her bags.

The princess continued to look at her toy box sadly, so deep in thought and memories that she almost didn’t notice the sound of leather hitting tile behind her. Luna’s ears perked up immediately and she whirled around. She couldn’t spot anything at first but after scanning the room a second time she noticed that there was a shape lying on the floor at the other end of the aisle.

The alicorn carefully picked herself up and crept up towards the shape that was lying on the floor. She couldn’t remember seeing anything in the beds of the nursery when she entered. As Luna approached the shape, she noticed that it had a curly and dirty blue mane and tail. Its coat was a dirty white and spattered with blood. The pony was the size of a filly. Luna stopped in her tracks.

The filly stirred and turned over to look at Luna, sitting up on her haunches. One of her eyes was hollowed out while the other was completely white. Her cheeks looked to have been sliced open repeatedly so that the scabs would make a permanent smile. One of her ears was missing and her entire undercoat was stained in blood. The filly let out an ear piercing scream.

Luna staged and fell back onto her side, landing on her broken wing. She let out a yelp and tried to get back up as the filly charged her, mouth open wide showing a set of alternating sharp and dull teeth. Her wing failed and the filly sunk its teeth into Luna’s already injured shoulder. The alicorn cried and pulled the filly from her grip, creating a giant gash on her shoulder that was bleeding profusely. She threw the filly across the room, watching as it smashed into the wall and rolled down on top of various surgical instruments.

The filly started to get back up, moaning and growling as several scalpels and pliers stood sticking out of its body. A warm trickle flowing down her front leg, Luna ran for the door, beating the filly to it and closing it behind her. She felt a thump and heard a crack as the princess realized the door wouldn’t close all the way. She looked down.

The filly’s head was smashed in between the door and the door frame. Luna stepped back and whimpered, watching as the filly’s head lay slack on the ground and blocking the door from fully closing. Ignoring her wound, the princess approached the filly and knelt down beside her. She closed her eyes as a tear slide down her cheek and onto the little filly’s head.

“Why did it have to be a foal?” Luna started, talking to the now deceased filly. “Are even the most innocent of ponies susceptible to this fate? I have seen mutilation, amputation, experimentation, insanity, disfigurement, and corruption. Ponies were taken from their homes to be thrown here for horrible and unnatural research. Many cannot even remember who they were before and just do the bidding of whatever is controlling them. The Element of Chaos. Nothing is safe in this castle. I… I have seen everything I can handle.”

“Ah, but you haven’t seen me yet.” A seductive and nonchalant chuckle came from behind her. Luna’s head twisted around and she got to her hooves as fast as she could. The Nightmare was standing directly in front of her.

Suddenly her eyes burst into red and her jaw extended twice its normal length while shadows started to shroud the area around the Nightmare. “I feel like a monster.” Came a high pitched cackle.

Then she was gone and Luna was standing alone, visibly shaken, next to the filly just outside of the nursery. There was a ding that made Luna jump and she looked over to the source of the noise. An elevator door opened with an arrow above it pointing down. The princess sighed and walked towards the door and let them close behind her.

Suddenly she felt excruciating pain coming from her shoulder and quickly fetched the gauze roll out of her saddle bags and rewrapped her shoulder. The princess decided to drink one of the health potions to numb the pain that was starting to resurface because of her battle with the filly.

The elevator slowly came to a stop and the doors opened.

She was in another reception room. The doors leading to outside of the hospital looked to be crunched and broken open. Glass littered the floor along with an entire section of the ceiling which looked to have caved in in the corner. The reception desk looked to be split in half.

The princess walked across the room carefully, her hooves noisily crunching on the glass with each step. She bowed her head and slunk through the exit of the hospital back into the gloomy cobblestone floors and torch lit walls of the castle. She wasn’t sure to be glad or dejected at the sudden return of scenery.

Chapter 8: Loss

Obscurum Decensus Chapter 8

Clip clop clip clop…

Luna’s heavy hoofsteps echoed throughout the hall she was walking down. Even with the health potions she had drank, the princess still felt battered and broken with only her will to escape this place pushing her on. She was in a nightmare turned reality and the punishment for failing to escape was more than likely death. She may have the ability to live for an eternity but she did not have the ability to feign becoming mortally wounded.

But Luna could not escape. Not until she retrieved the Element of Chaos. Her connection to the artifact was drawing out the Nightmare the longer it remained established. It needed to be destroyed, not hidden away. It was up to her to be the one to bring it back and to be the one that removed the artifact permanently from the world.

The torches that lined the walls gave a dull and eerie glow to the hall as the princess trudged forward to the doorway that was at the end. The door was small and did not flatter the length of the hallway Luna had been walking down. It was also made with a heavy metal with an iron bar at the top to be used as a window to see into either the hall or in the room beyond the door. She stopped and peered through the barred window.

It was hard to make anything out in the next room as there was a green light that seemed to be coming from the ceiling. Luna opened the door and looked up to see that the source of light was coming from green fires that were lit from hanging chandeliers.

“That’s odd… I don’t see any tubes that could be used to fuel copper(II) sulfate or boric acid to the flames. Perhaps they are held in this state by magic. Oh, I wish my horn wasn’t cracked…” Luna said as she started to look around. She shuttered.

Dangling from the ceiling and suspended by thick chains were large metal cages that swung very loosely in the still air. A wide set of steep stairs were to Luna’s right while to her left were three heavy, metal doors that looked the same as the one she had just come in from. In front of her was another door made of wood and larger than the others.

The princess walked forward, deciding to explore whatever was beyond the friendliest looking of doors. She looked up to her right up the long and steep staircase. There was a thick trail of blood leading all the way up to the top of the steps where a giant alter sat looking dark and menacing. The faint sound of chanting and leather bouncing on cobblestone could be heard and Luna quickly turned her head back to look ahead of her. She was hoping her suspicions about what the alter was used for would not be confirmed in one of these rooms.

When Luna reached the wooden door she found that it was locked so she turned around to walk towards one of the metal doors that lined the wall now to her right. Her hoofsteps were the only sounds that filled entire room. The eerie quiet unnerved the princess. Not even the sound of clinking chains or groans of metal from the cages could be heard. Her short walk seemed to last an hour instead of a minute.

The alicorn reached the door and pushed it open with a deafening creak that could probably be heard through the whole room. She cringed and stepped through the door, closing it behind her. When the door made the final click behind her, Luna suddenly heard crying coming from down the hall along with the sound of running water. She started to make her way across the hall to the door at the other end.

The closer Luna got to the door the louder the crying was. She could hear splashes and gurgles and choking as if the pony in the next room was being drowned. There were some muffled screams.

“No! Nooo, please no more! I don’t know…” The pleas died into another round of choking and gagging as the sound of water was heard dripping onto the floor. The princess had reached the door.

She pushed it open.

The screams stopped. The sound of running water died. The room was empty and Luna was staring at a table with straps that could be used to hold somepony down. There were a couple of buckets of water and wet rags littered on the floor. The entire room smelled of bile. She stepped into the room and let the door close behind her.

“Waterboarding…” Luna whispered to herself. The use of this form of torture had been outlawed by her mother and father over a thousand years ago. The effects of waterboarding were horrifying that included lung damage, brain damage, and could cause psychological damage that can last for years. Luna could just imagine seeing a pony lying on their back, strapped in by the harnesses with a strip of cloth held over their mouth and nose. A pony would then come up and proceed to dump water over the cloth causing the gag reflex to react and creating an almost immediate sensation of drowning.

The princess closed her eyes as she thought she could hear the faint sound of somepony crying and gagging again. The sound was gone almost immediately but she suddenly felt very cold and wished to only leave. She needed to find a key for the wooden door, however, and quickly began her search, keeping the thoughts of what ponies endured in here out of her mind.

She searched high and low for anything that looked like a key. Through cabinets filled with cloth rags and buckets. Through drawers that had medical tools like scalpels and syringes and various types of sedatives. There was a note on one of the desks next to the victim’s table that outlined the procedure on how to apply the waterboarding torture to the most recent victim but Luna did not find anything that resembled a key. She was about to give up and walk out of the room when she noticed something shimmer in the corner of her eye.

Luna was looking under the table where the victim lay at a grate underneath it. Something glimmered again and the princess walked over, feeling more and more uneasy with each step. When she reached the edge of the table she bent her head and looked down the grate. Sure enough, there was a key underneath the metal bars in the backed up drain full of water and bile from ponies. With her horn broken there was only one way to retrieve the key.

Looking at the grate with disgust for a few seconds, Luna kneeled down and opened the grate with her mouth, shivering at the bitter taste of the metal and pony fluids that coated it. After looking down the grate one last time, the princess closed her eyes and stuck her head into the grate and grabbed the key amongst the rest of the bile and filthy water. No matter how fast Luna could move there was no possible way that she could have pulled the key out quickly enough. She let it drop to the floor and ran over to the corner, vomiting heavily for a few minutes.

“Oh… My…” Luna felt exhausted. Her muscles ached, her stomach hurt, she had a roaring headache, and her vision was getting blurry. She just wanted to sleep…

“No! I can’t sleep. Not here. I must get out of the castle first. Then I can rest.” The princess said to herself. She unsteadily got to her feet and limped over to retrieve the key. After a few tries of trying to grab the key with her teeth she finally managed to get the thing into her bags. She wobbled out of the torture chamber and made her way over to the wooden door.

Wait, when were there two wooden doors? Her vision was blurring further and Luna barely made it over to the door, slouching against it for a second before grabbing the key and unlocking it. The door creaked open and she practically fell into the room, collapsing in the middle of the rug and laying her head down. She could see a desk in front of her piled high with papers. The room was warm and inviting with a large chandelier bringing plenty of light and bookshelves lined with colorful books.

“Perhaps I can just…”

~~~

They departed Windsoar as Celestia’s sun just sunk down over the horizon and Luna brought out the moon. Although it was not the most practical time to leave a massive cloud city as there were still many pegasus out and about, Luna, Dime, and Shadow did not run into any problems and left the city without causing too much suspicion.

The trio agreed upon flying straight to the Tramplevanian Alps instead of making their last stop in the town of Tramplevania and continuing their journey the following night. If they reached the Alps by morning then they would have all day to search for the location of the Element of Chaos. They could only hope for the wind to be behind them to help with a speedy flight to the base of the mountains.

Fortunately the wind was behind them as they reached a high enough altitude to avoid being easily spotted on the ground. The travel from the floating city to the base of the mountains was relatively uneventful again as nopony wanted to have to raise their voice above the roar of the wind as they flew. And also partly because Luna was deep in thought.

Why did the Element of Chaos suddenly decide to try a reawaken the Nightmare that is festering inside of her? It had ample opportunities ever since the Elements of Harmony were used on her. And why was the artifact hidden away in some castle hidden in the Tramplevanian Alps? Who was the mysterious mare that discovered where the artifact was hidden? There were too many questions and Luna had no idea how to answer any of them. Her only hope was that when she finally reached the Element of Chaos there would be an explanation.

The three dark ponies reached the foot of the mountains just outside of Tramplevania as the sun was starting to make its first appearance over in the East. Dime was the first to talk.

“So, how are we going to find some castle that is hidden away in the largest mountain range bordering Equestria?”

“My sister taught me the spell she has been using to locate the Element of Chaos for a thousand years now. I just have to conjure it up and it works like a typical gem finding spell.”

“Ah, understood. Lead the way then, Luna.”

Luna’s horn glowed a dark blue as she activated her sister’s spell. Almost instantly she could feel a tug on her horn and then leaped into the air, taking off in the direction her horn felt as if it were being tugged.

The search lasted for the greater part of the day as the trio had to fly low and slow to keep an eye out for anything that resembled a castle in the distance. They flew over entire mountains and brushed their hooves atop the tips of evergreen pine trees. Finally, as the sun started to descend lower into the sky, the three night ponies finally saw a dark and gothic castle come into view.

The castle was enormous and was built into the side of a mountain similar to that of Canterlot. However, the castle looked as if it were made of black stone and had spires that extended high into the air but stayed lower than the tips of the mountain peaks. Gargoyles and jagged spikes jutted out all over its walls and towers to give it an evil and menacing look.

“What a fitting place to hide the Element of Chaos” Dime mused.

The three made their descent and landed a ways off from the castle, not wanting to attract attention in case there were any new residents living in the castle now. They set up camp near a stream hidden behind some tall bushes and Luna conjured up some wards that could keep an eye out if there were some kind of creature that strayed too close to the camp.

Once the camp was fully set up, Luna turned to her two companions. “I am going to need you two to keep watch over the castle and make sure no pony enters or leaves. I will be entering the castle alone to look for the Element of Chaos. If I do not emerge from the castle by midday tomorrow, please fly with all haste back to Canterlot and retrieve my sister.”

The two Night Guards held stoic faces in front of their princess as they realized that this was an order and not a friendly suggestion. Luna could feel that both of her friends were hesitant to comply with her order. There was a pause.

“We understand, Luna.” The two Night Guards said in unison.

“Good. I am grateful that you two trust…”

~~~

The princess awoke with a start as she felt that there was some pony gently shaking her awake. Wait, somepony is shaking me awake…

Through her pained headache and aching body she managed to kick whoever it was straight in the jaw and rolled away, over her bad wing, and got to her hooves with a gasp of pain. She immediately collapsed as she felt even more pain come to her body and quickly fetched the last bottle of health potion out of her saddle bags. She paused before she downed the bottle.

Standing before her was the rugged figure of Dime. His wings appeared to have been ripped from his body and he had an eye patch over one eye. He had various cuts and bruises all over his body and his left ear appeared to be nearly chewed off. He groaned.

“Oh my stars, Dime! Are you alright? I am so sorry!” Luna cried in apology. She tried to get up to go and help her friend but was soon reminded of the pain shooting through her body. She opened the bottle of health potion and started to drink, reminding herself to save some for her injured friend.

“It’s quite alright, Luna. I’ve… been… through worse.” Dime groaned as he slowly got back up into a sitting position and slowly stroked his jaw. “I think I can handle another bruise.”

When he glanced over at Luna he grimaced. “Oh my, Luna, what happened?”

The princess finished her portion of the last bottle of health potion and handed it over to Dime. “There is no time to discuss this now. We must get the Element of Chaos. Where is Shadow? Why are you not outside?”

“As you said we do not have the time for me to go into full details. However, Shadow and I were attacked by the horrifying creatures that walk these halls. Shadow managed to escape and is more than likely on her way back with your sister.”

Luna let out a sigh and closed her eyes. “We cannot wait for her.”

“Luna, you are in no condition to walk, let alone search for the Element.”

“Neither are you but you’re going to help me, are you not?”

“I… yes. Alright.”

The two ponies got to their hooves as soon as Dime finished the last of the health potion and tossed it away. The princess finally allowed the sight of how extensive his injuries were to enter her mind and let out a quiet gasp when he winced after walking to a part of the room.

“Dime… Y-your wings…”

“Oh. My… wings. I guess that means that I might need to be… carried home, right? But hey, I see that one of yours didn’t fare much better.”

Luna looked back. That is one thing that she had always loved about Dime. He could always make light of any situation no matter how bad. This had to be the worst one yet and he was still positive, if only slight. The princess sighed.

“Hey, I found a note.”

The princess trotted over at the announcement and read it over with Dime.

Attention High Priest Blackheart,

I have instructed for a new magical lock to be created for the door into the Chancel where the orb is held. The lock requires a set of three keys and a replica orb that I have made sure to scatter into various pieces that are hidden safe in the Sacrificial Chambers located just beyond the Torture Chambers. I have attached a map showing the location of all of the orb pieces. There should be three.

Baron Darkwing

The two ponies searched high and low all over the desk for the map mentioned in the note but instead of finding the map they found a rather heavy key. It was half the length of Dime’s leg and was crawling with orange glowing symbols that shifted and melded in with the key as if there were shadows shifting light across it. The princess picked it up and examined it carefully.

“This must be one of the three keys that unlocks the door into the Chancel.” She said as she put the key into her saddle bags.

Dime nodded and the duo returned to searching around the room. Luna was amazed at the collection of books the owner of this room had. There were very well preserved historical texts and literature that nopony would be able to find even in the Royal Canterlot Library. She would have to make a note to herself to come back later for them.

After finding nothing of further interest in the room, the two dark ponies left and returned back into the main hall of the Torture Chambers. It seemed darker than before and Luna ended up switching her lantern on to guide her and Dime towards the two other metal doors across from the steep staircase. She gave another glance up the looming structure and could have sworn she heard chanting again.

“Luna, are you alright?” Luna shook herself out of her stupor at the sound of Dime’s voice.

“Y-yes. I’m fine.”

“Well, in that case I guess I’ll take the room furthest away while you take the center door?”

“It sounds like a good plan.”

The two separated and Luna entered through the center door, pushing it open with another loud creak and allowing it to close behind her. All was quiet. There was absolutely no sound that could be heard anywhere. She took a step forward.

Suddenly there was the sound of a lever being turned at the end of the hall. The slow turning of wooden cranks was heard along with the creaking of some sort of wooden wheel. Luna though she could hear whispering and… whimpering?

She reached the door and all of the noises stopped. She paused, hesitant at what could lay beyond this door. What if somepony was really inside? She pushed the door open.

There was a deafening scream and Luna’s vision focused solely on the large wooden wheel in the center of the room. Straps were attached to the wheel opposite of each other that would cause the limbs of somepony to look like an X. Blood covered the wheel and soaked the floor, backing the drain up and giving them whole room a very rusty and decaying smell. Tables lined the walls with various instruments of torture while chains dangled lightly from the ceiling. The sudden change in pressure from Luna opening the door caused a few to clink above her.

Her heart was thumping in her throat. Death by a thousand cuts.

Thump thump… Thump thump… She could hear her heart race the longer she stared at the torture contraption. Ponies would be strapped to the wheel in the X cross-like fashion, sometimes breaking their limbs to make the ponies fit. Next, the torturer would bear a flay knife and start the process of making anything from small incisions to large gashes along every part of the victims body. First to go would be the eyes so as to increase the sensation of pain. If the intensity of the pain didn’t kill the pony first, then the sheer amount of blood loss would. Tears welled up in Luna’s eyes and she finally looked away.

“Why do things like this still exist? Equestria was made into a peaceful nation after my banishment through the Treaty of Versaddle. All torture devices were outlawed by ‘Tia herself. Violent acts are a rarity with only one or two being committed per year.” Luna said to herself quietly. She limped into the room and looked up at the wheel, cringing when she could hear the sound of it turning and the cries of some pony as he or she was being bled to death.

She looked away again and began searching through the various cabinets and desks that were in the room. Many were filled with all sorts of knives and drugs to be used during interrogation or execution. She was about to just leave the room because of the weight she felt from staying the room until she opened up one more cabinet and saw a large key dangling from a hook. The princess fetched it off of the hook and looked it over, noting that like before the key had strange markings over it. She placed it into her saddle bags and quickly trotted out of the room.

When she entered back into the main room, Dime was already waiting for her with a grim expression set upon his face. Luna closed her eyes and sighed, neither pony speaking a word as Dime gave his princess the large and similar key. Taking time for a moment of silence, the two ponies looked down at their hooves first before turning back to look up at the massive flight of stars before them. Dime was the first to walk forward and start the ascent.

The ascent was slow going and Luna mostly focused on looking down at her hooves and making sure she didn’t slip at any point along the stairs. She could feel that each stair step was slippery and made sure to take extra care with each step she took. She looked up at Dime for a moment and saw that he was doing the same thing she was.

Eventually the duo reached the top of the stairs and took a moment to allow Luna to rest and relax her hoof. It was in a great deal of pain from the ascent up the stairs and she didn’t want to put any more strain on it than she had to. As the princess sat down on the cobblestone floor, Dime decided to take the chance to go and investigate the alter that was set in the middle of the floor.

The princess watched as her Night Guard walked over to the alter and eyed the large, dark object inquisitively. He walked around the alter to the other side and slowly looked up, his eyes dark yet expressionless. He then turned his head to look back down the long staircase.

“Dime, what is it that you see?”

“A sacrifice to protect the inhabitants of this castle. I have no idea what they need protection from.”

Luna looked away from the alter and down the long corridor that stretched to the Sacrificial Chambers. She looked past the door and through what was held in the Chambers to the massive door that blocked their way. She got to her hooves. “We should continue on.”

The two ponies left the alter and started their walk down the corridor. The princess felt uneasy and bowed her head a little lower to match the height of Dime’s head. The only sound that could be heard was the clops of their uneven hoofsteps on the rough cobblestone floor. They soon reached the end of the corridor and Dime pushed the door open, allowing them to gain entrance to a very gloomy room.

Feint light shone from the chandeliers suspended high above the floor next to the numerous dangling metal cages and empty chains that filled the room. A few of the cages housed skeletal remains of imprisoned ponies while others were simply empty and left to swing freely. Two colonnades divided the room into the thirds and lead the gaze of Luna and Dime to the massive door on the other side of the Sacrificial Chambers. A massive, upside down pentagram was carved into the door and then painted red with many markings similar to what was on the keys decorating the sides. There were also two doors on either side of the colonnades. A few pebbles wedged loose and crumbled onto the floor.

“I think that maybe we should stay together, Princess.”

“So do I.”

Luna and Dime walked over to the first door to their left, keeping careful watch above their heads should one of the cages come loose from the chains that held it. Dime opened the door and ushered Luna in quickly before closing it as quietly as he could behind them. The two were in a much smaller room that was brightly lit by candles lining the walls and the floor. A massive stone table lay in the middle of the room with a side table filled with various intricate instruments that were no doubt used to perform sacrificial rituals on a pony.

Luna walked over and brought her hoof to touch one of the instruments.

“A murderer lies before me. His hooves have been soiled by the murder of his neighbor’s two foals. You don’t deserve to live, whelp.”

There was a moan from the pony on the table, his head covered by some sort of bag to muffle his attempt to speak coherently. The pony standing over him merely smiled at his futile attempt to show him reason. To try to explain either why he killed the two foals or that he didn’t even try to do it in the first place. Or was he confessing? Trying to apologize? “Oh, that would be pleasant to hear once his insides start to be mutilated by my knife.”

There was a loud wail as the pony plunged the knife into the victim’s stomach and pulled up…

Luna stumbled back and let out a loud gasp, nearly knocking over Dime. She could still hear the sounds of leather and muscle being ripped apart as they slowly faded away. She collapsed onto her knees and panted heavily, looking at the ground.

“Luna! Luna, are you okay?” Dime nearly shouted as he kneeled in front of his princess.

“I’m… fine Dime… Thank you… For your concern.” Luna panted as she got back to her hooves ever so slowly. Dime gave her a brief look of concern but then turned around and trotted to the other side of the room and looked up. She looked up too and saw a piece of the replica orb was suspended from the ceiling above them.

“Do you think you can hop onto this table and then make the leap to grab the orb?” Luna asked while she was still eying the replica piece above Dime.

Dime turned back and nodded. “Yes, it should not be a problem.”

Dime trotted over to the sacrificial table and hopped onto it deftly before turning back and judging the jump from the table to the piece carefully. After making the appropriate calculations in his head, Dime jumped high, right for the orb piece. He grabbed it with his teeth and angled himself back to the floor and landed with a roll.

“Fantastic Dime!” Luna congratulated as the Night Guard gave her the orb piece to place into her saddle bags.

“Thanks Luna. Perhaps when we get out of here I could still be your personal jester?”

“Nonsense! I could never allow one of my friends become that.”

“Well, I will need to find some other work now.”

“You will be retired and compensated for your loyal service of being a Night Guard and friend, Dime. Don’t you worry.”

Dime stared hard at his princess and gave a faint smile. “I thank you, oh fair lady of mine.”

The two left the room and wandered back out into the main hall. They could hear the groaning of metal cages and the clinking of chains as they made the short trip to the next door on the left side of the main hall. They hurried through the door again and Dime let it shut quietly behind them.

The room was similar to the one before it. Candles lined the walls and floor while there were two tables in the center of the room, one big and one small and covered with various instruments, that were used for sacrificing ponies. Luna approached the table again and steeled herself for what she was about to see.

“…there are just some things around here that must be done. I wish I could save you from this horrible fate, I really do, but sometimes even the most humble and caring of ponies must be selfish. I am sorry but…”

The pony masked by the bag and stretched on the table gave a whimper and the pony holding the sacrificial knife sighed in acknowledgement before bringing the knife up.

“I love you and… I hope you forgive me. I don’t want to die…”

Luna closed her eyes and let the sounds of the knife plunging deeper into the victims flesh slowly die away. She gave a sigh before opening her eyes to see the empty table before her along with the bloodied set of sacrificial tools laid about on the smaller desk next to her.

Dime was already on the other side of the room and was looking for the second orb piece. It appeared to not be in the same spot as the other room so she began looking too. The room was relatively empty so the orb couldn’t have been hidden that well.

The two ponies double checked and then triple checked the entire room they were in only to find no trace of any orb. It wasn’t under or around either sacrificial table nor was it hiding behind any candles. It was not suspended in the air nor buried into one of the bricks in the walls. Dime sat down on his haunches, calling it quits for a bit but Luna was determined. She made another round around the room.

She suddenly took a wrong step and came crashing down onto the floor with a pained gasp. Dime rushed over but stopped short when he saw one of the cobblestone bricks was over turned on the floor from where Luna stepped. Noticing it too, the princess momentarily forgot her pain and got back to her hooves to remove the brick. Underneath it was the orb piece.

“Looks like the orb pieces are hidden fairly well in these rooms. Now we know to look at the floor too in the next room.” Dime said as Luna picked the orb piece up and stored it away in her saddle bags. She nodded and both ponies left the room.

Letting the door close behind them as they entered back into the main hall, there was a sudden crash. One of the chains holding a cage snapped and allowed the cage to crash onto the floor. Echoes filled the main hall as the two ponies made a dash to hide behind the nearest pillar. There came a low groan and then a couple of clinks as if metal was tapping against stone. Both Luna and Dime peered around the pillar.

From the wreckage of the cage there was a very dark colored pony with a very long and unkempt dark green mane and tail. One of its legs was replaced with a long metal spike and the rest of its body was covered with long bloody gashes. One of the metal bars from the cage stuck out of its shoulder but the pony looked to be unfazed. It was tapping at the ground with its metal spike.

Slowly the pony turned its head, surveying the room it was in, tapping its spike on the ground and making low growling noises until its head stopped to look at the massive door. Luna could make out its facial features. Half of the pony’s face looked to be made of metal and showed a row of sharp metal teeth. The eye she could see was dark green and seemed to glow in the dimly lit main hall.

The pony started to walk to the massive and decorated door to the Chancel. Seeing as their chance to move, both Luna and Dime jumped from column to column in the opposite direction of the pony, hopping across the room when they reached the end of the colonnade, and then jumped back up to the first door. They slipped in without any raising any suspicion from the formally caged pony.

“What the buck is that?” Dime finally let out in a hushed and paranoid whisper.

“Shhh, we cannot alert the pony to our presence here.” Luna whispered back.

“We’ll have to deal with it eventually.”

Luna remained silent but looked at Dime for a long time. She could see the fear that was in his eyes. And also… determination? Was Dime feeling desperate? For what reason?

“Luna, look.”

She snapped out of her gaze and followed the direction that Dime’s hoof was pointing. She could see a shimmer against the bright lighting of all the candles littered throughout the room just like the last two previous rooms. The shimmer was connected to a large spike that looked as if it could be lowered or raised by using the wheel at the other end of the room. There was an orb embedded in the arm that lowered or raised the spike.

She lowered her head and looked on either side of the room for anything to get the orb fragment. She noticed a stack of three boxes all pilled on each other in an order of biggest to smallest. She trotted over and dragged the boxes across the room until they were up against the sacrificial table. She didn’t even notice that there was no vision of a torturer and their victim this time as she turned to look at Dime.

“Do you think you could jump on these boxes and then reach the orb fragment with another hop onto the arm above, Dime?”

“Sure, princess, but how will I get down? I have no doubt that my landing will more than likely cause a rather loud disturbance.”

Luna looked up to the orb fragment again and got an idea.

“I believe I can channel enough magic through my horn to catch you before you impact the ground for no more than a second.”

Dime hesitated a bit before getting onto the boxes, looking at Luna with those same eyes of fear and determination. He made a quick hop onto the top box with no sound other than a faint clip of hooves on wood and then made a quick and agile leap onto the arm, wrapping his legs around it with the false orb fragment within reach of his mouth. He lodged his teeth around the orb and pulled it free with little difficulty. He turned and looked at Luna.

The princess moved under Dime and looked up with her mouth open. Dime let go of the orb piece, aiming directly for Luna’s mouth. With a little difficulty, she managed to catch it in her teeth and stored it into her saddle bags. She then backed away and looked firmly at Dime.

He jumped from his hold on the arm and fell to floor. Luna watched with anticipation as the milliseconds flew by and Dime neared the floor. Just as he was about to hit the floor a blue aura surrounded Dime for just a second and then released him and he fell with a soft thud on the cobblestone floor.

Luna winced and scrunched her eyes shut as a wave of pain washed over the front of her head. She was panting by the time Dime had reached his princess.

“Hey, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m… fine.”

“Nice save there, princess.”

She smiled and opened her eyes again. Both ponies looked at each other and nodded before trotting over to the door. Luna looked out of the little barred window at the top of the door to make sure the formally caged pony was nowhere in sight. When the coast was clear both Dime and Luna crept out of the room and scrambled over to the next room. Luna managed to glance over at the massive door to the Chancel and noticed that the pony was not standing guard at the door as she would have guessed.

The two dark ponies reached the next room and quietly closed the door behind them. They noticed they were in a much different room than the previous three rooms before them. There was a pedestal in the center of the room that was made to hold some kind of perfectly round object. Candles were laid around the pedestal in a perfect circle while more candles lined the walls and were attached to sconces that were placed in the corners of the room. On either side of the room there were pentagrams drawn out in blood on the dirt floor and directly across from the two ponies there was some sort of sink,

The princess walked over to the sink while Dime walked over to inspect one of the pentagrams on the floor.

This room is meant to fuse the pieces of the false orb together without the use of unicorn magic. That much is clear. This is strange though. How would ponies go about fusing the orb together without any source of magic. I can’t image that black witch craft or…

Her eyes widened as Luna turned to look at the pentagram on the floor that Dime was inspecting and then over to the pedestal in the center of the room. She then looked back at the sink before her.

“This is dark magic.” She whispered almost inaudibly”

“Hm?” Dime turned to look up at her.

“Dime, can you come here please?”

Dime trotted over and looked at the sink that was now between him and the princess. “Okay, Dime, we’re going to need to slice our skin and let our blood drip into this sink here. Next we will need to go and stand on the pentagrams on either side of the pedestal. If I have figured this out correctly, that should fuse the false orb fragments together so we can open the door to the Chancel.”

Dime didn’t look at her but instead stared at the intricate knife that looked to have been lazily tossed in the sink. Luna thought he was about to protest at doing something so sacrilegious to Equestrian custom until he grabbed the knife with his teeth and made a cut on his leg, letting a large dribble of blood drip into the sink. He gave the knife to Luna who in turn slit her own leg and let a large dribble of her own blood drip into the sink.

Next, Luna walked over to the pedestal while Dime stood next to one of the pentagrams. She dropped the orb fragments into the pedestal and then began arranging them so they all fit snuggly together. Content that the pieces won’t fall apart, she walked over to the other pentagram and looked across at Dime.

“Three… Two… One…”

The two stepped onto the pentagram. Luna immediately felt a wave of fear wash over her as the room started to expand and her vision turned a dark red. The whole room was melting and there was a massive stab of pain shooting through her. Before she could let out a scream of absolute terror from the whispering scream entering her mind she threw herself from the pentagram and laid on the ground panting slightly.

She could hear Dime doing just about the same thing across the room behind the pedestal. Luna looked up and saw that where there were originally cracks separating the orb fragments there was now a smooth and glowing texture. She slowly got to her hooves and approached the orb.

It looked exactly like the Element of Chaos. The orb was a perfect sphere with dark green clouds swirling about as if the orb was a snow globe. There was a dim and eerie light emanating from it as well. However, as much as the orb looked like the Element of Chaos, Luna could feel that the orb was not tugging on her magic like the Element did. She picked it up and stored it into her saddle bags.

She noticed that Dime was already on his hooves and limped over to make sure he was okay.

“Don’t worry, Luna. I’m fine. Just a little…”

The princess shushed him by placing a hoof to his lips and closed her eyes. He nodded and turned to look at the door.

“What was that? I thought I saw…” Dime said as he walked over to the door. He lifted onto his hind legs and looked out the window.

His dark, yellow eyes were met by dark, green eyes.

Dime pushed off of the door and managed to dodge the incoming buck of the formally caged pony as it kicked the door wide open and gave a deep snarl.

“Luna! You need to get to the door and open it with the keys and that orb. I’ll act as a distraction.”

He charged the pony and swiftly dodged a lunge of the pony’s spiked hoof. Luna neared the two as the Dime was trying to lead the pony out of the room.

“Dime! Let me take care of this monster! You are in no shape to fight. I can manage…”

“I am still your Night Guard! Let me do my job for feathers sake!”

Luna was about to argue again when suddenly the pony turned on her and made a jab with its spiked hoof. She barely managed to dodge the attack and leapt back out of range. The pony was about to make another leap for her when Dime charged straight into the pony’s side, sending both the Night Guard and the monster sliding across the floor.

Seeing her chance, Luna made a dash for the main room and for the door. Before she could reach it, however, she was knocked to the ground by a charge from the pony. She rolled over onto her back and saw that it was rearing onto its hind legs to plunge its spike into her chest. She kicked out with her hooves, knocking the pony onto its side. As both she and the pony were getting up, Dime charged into the pony’s side again. Luna scrambled away and dumped the keys and the orb onto the floor as she reached the door. She could hear a struggle behind her as Dime and the pony were fighting each other.

There were bucks and jabs and swings and Luna could hear it all as she was frantically putting each of the keys into the key holes and then fitting the orb gently into the circular spot between the two doors. With that finally in place, there was a deafening click as the massive doors unlocked and groaned as they started to open. Luna turned back to look.

She saw Dime make a kick on the pony, sending his hoof across its face and knocking it over. He was going in for a leap to plant is hooves on the pony’s stomach but it rolled away and quickly got onto its hooves, looking expressionless at Dime. Dime charged straight for the pony and deftly dodged another of its stabs with its spike. What he did not expect, however, is that when he went in for a kick to the side, the pony brought its spike over and smacked Dime right in the side, sending him sprawling across the floor.

“Dime!” Luna made to go help Dime but stopped when she saw him give her a look she never thought she would see from him. He wanted her to go and close the massive doors behind her. He didn’t intend to escape. She shook her head.

Dime quickly got back to his hooves and dodged another lunge from the pony’s spike. Luna took a few steps back and watched as Dime made a kick at one of the pony’s legs, making contact and forcing the pony to collapse. Dime went to buck the pony’s head but was met with a stab through his back left hoof. The pony took Dime and removed the spike from his hoof by flinging him into one of the pillars. Dime let out a groan as he struggled to get back to his hooves.

He didn’t give up however. Dime made another charge at the pony, barely dodging a stab intended for his chest and bucking the metal rod sticking out of the pony, sending an inpony roar through the entire main hall. Dime turned to look at the pony with a smile on his face. He charged the pony one last time.

He was met with a stab from the pony’s spike right through his neck. The pony thrust the spike deeper and deeper until the spike was half way through Dime’s neck and protruding from the other side. Luna sat down on her haunches, tears streaming down her face as a black aura surrounded the doors and shut them.

The last thing she would ever see of one of her closest friends was a pony pulling its spiked leg out of his neck on the dirty, dusty cobblestone floor of an old, and forgotten castle.

“I hope you enjoyed the show” came a slimy and nonchalant chuckle.

Chapter 9: Nightmare

~~~

Warning: The following chapter contains scenes gore and mild language. I bet you don't really care, though, if you made it this far. This is my darkest chapter. Fair warning to you all.

To increase the effect of this chapter, imagine this song playing through the whole thing.

~~~

Princess Luna sat and stared at the two massive doors in front of her with tears streaming down her face. She didn’t make a sound. She didn’t move a muscle. She didn’t even try to think coherently. All that could come to her mind was the look of Dime’s rigid body and the malicious sneer plastered on the pony that defeated her Night Guard and her friend.

There are consequences for every action that is made. The smallest movement, the slightest whisper, can send ripples through reality and command the very fate of the future. A gust of wind can topple a tree while a wrong step can crack a twig and alert a predator to the location of its prey. The results are permanent, irreversible, and must be accepted rather than dwelled upon for the nature of life to go on.

Luna made the decision to leave Dime at his request. He wished for her to go as he knew duty to a greater whole must be put forth before the value of a small and insignificant relationship between two ponies. An action resulting in Luna assisting Dime could have consequences that would be positive in the short run but detrimental in the long run. Luna understood why Dime made his choice but she could not accept that he was gone. She couldn’t accept that what she had done was permanent, irreversible.

There was another seductive chuckle from behind the midnight blue alicorn but she didn’t turn to look and instead continued to stare at the doors in front of her. She just wanted some peace and quiet and time to remember Dime and for everything he had done for her.

When Luna had returned from the moon her old Night Guards were wary and even hostile towards her for the pain and suffering she had caused for their ancient ancestors. Their once strong nation the dark and strange ponies came from had been drained of citizens to fuel the great Lunar war machine to the brink of extinction. It was bad enough that she was receiving hostile glares from the Canterlot citizens but when she started seeing those same glares from within her own guard, Luna broke down and cried in her room.

It just so happened that a new recruit to the Royal Guard by the name of Dime had come to deliver a message from her sister that the Night Court was ready to begin. When he was allowed entrance, he saw his red eyed and shaking princess and immediately told one of the guards outside of Luna’s room to cancel the Court tonight. Instead of leaving the princess to her royal duties, this new recruit saw that one of the most powerful ponies in all of Equestria was in a very vulnerable state and chose to comfort her instead.

When the sun had just started to rise over the hills, Dime had managed to get his princess of the night to laugh a grand total of twenty three times. Dime thought past the history and malice that came with his princess and instead saw that she had changed. She was no longer the evil Nightmare Moon that had threatened to throw the entire world into an Eternal Night. Instead, she was a young princess who didn’t have a friend in the world. That sunrise he was her first actual friend since her banishment to the moon.

From that moment on he introduced and acquainted her many members of the Night Guard, traveled with her on various expeditions across the land, and advised her on multiple occasions on anything from diplomacy to a few changes in her precious night sky. He rose through the ranks to become one of the Lieutenants of the Night Guard rather quickly but was soon reassigned to be Luna’s own personal advisor.

“I see that you were fond of him. Was he your first friend?” Came the same seductive voice behind her.

Luna slowly turned around and faced her Nightmare. She recognized her form but she was… different. Her face was stretched into an enormous and eerie smile while her eyes looked to be hollow with red, dilated irises instead of blue ones. Her wings were three times their normal size and looked more like a crow’s wings rather than a pegasus’s. Her mane and tail were also distorted and seemed to flow irregularly in a very slow and circular pattern.

“Not what you were expecting? Oh, I should have guessed.” The Nightmare hopped down from pedestal that held the Element of Chaos and took a few steps towards Luna. “I draw most of my power from the fear and anger that festers inside of you, ‘Princess Luna’. Common emotions that are not all too powerful in most ponies. But you are an alicorn. Practically a goddess! Your emotions carry more weight with them than all of pony kind combined.”

Luna shrank back at the sight of Nightmare Moon’s approach. With every step she took towards the Night Princess clouds of shadows and darkness flowed off of her hooves and left hoofprints on the cobblestone floor. The Chancel felt unnaturally cold. The candles on the chandeliers that lit the room flickered for a second.

“You look so afraid. Frightened. Terrified. You have seen things, felt things, that no pony should ever have to experience. You are forever mentally scarred. Am I right?” Nightmare Moon continued to walk slowly towards Luna, closing the distance between them to a mere legs reach. Darkness rose from her skin like steam and her eyes flashed. She lowered her head until it was even with Luna’s.

“Of course I’m right.” The black alicorn snarled, her face threatening to break that giant smile she continued to wear. She quickly turned away from Luna and walked over to another part of the Chancel. She remained silent for a time while Luna simply watched her as her wings slowly unfolded and dragged along the ground. She stopped in front of an old and enormous tapestry that had a castle sewn into it.

“Heheh, Everfree Castle. It was such a beautiful place. Massive weeping willows filled its gardens while gorgeous obelisks and ornately decorated fountains were scattered throughout the castle grounds. The castle itself practically shone white in the sunlight and was like a beacon to all traveling creatures. Ponies, zebras, gazelle, and even griffons came from all over to visit the pride of Equestria. You remember that don’t you?”

Luna stared at The Nightmare with a sense of confusion. “How do you know of Everfree? There is no possi…”

“…possible way for me to have seen Everfree Castle at the very height of its power? That I could not have known that its halls were filled with creatures large and small all seeking an audience with the King and Queen? That Queen Galactica made her last stand against the Lord of Chaos to defend two young, sniveling, helpless little fillies in the Tower to the Stars? My my, you are quite ignorant.”

“I… What do you mean?”

“Have you ever wondered how something like me can manifest itself inside one of the most powerful beings in all of Equestria?”

“I can’t say I ever wished to remember you.”

“Ah, but you remember me every day. I can feel your thoughts about me tug your inner conscience. You feel you are to blame for what happened a thousand years ago. It’s as if you think you were in control during your little experiments on the Element of Chaos.”

Luna just stared at Nightmare Moon with a sour expression on her face. The Nightmare flared her wings and turned to face Luna, that giant smile still on her face.

“Let me tell you a story. I was never created out of any of your petty spells you used on the Element of Chaos in hopes to learn how to use its power to try to get ponies to like you again. A year after you were born, your mother and father started to work on a project that would allow them to harvest the energy that radiated from the sun and the energy that radiated from the moon. They set to work on gathering energy from the sun first, enlisting the aid of the High Unicorn Council to help them. In no time your parents were able to confine the energy from the sun and begin testing it.

“Your parents ran into a problem though. No matter what type of magic they tried they could not seem to manipulate the sun’s energy. To their luck, however, they found that Celestia had reacted to the sun’s energy and could freely manipulate it at her will one day during one of her daily magic training sessions. Upon this discovery, your mother and father would bring Celestia each day with them to experiment on the sun’s energy and hopefully manipulate it to be compatible with their magic.

“Finally they were successful in their months of testing and work and were able to convert the sun’s energy into magic. The magic wasn’t normal magic that all ponies can use, however. The magic drew upon the essence that makes up a pony and converts it into Harmony, or what makes up one of the forces that keeps the universe in balance.

“Harmony was then divided into six separate elements in order to channel its power effectively. They were Honesty, Generosity, Kindness, Laughter, Loyalty, and then Magic itself. Your parents hid these elements away once they had been divided successfully and kept the entire thing secret from your sister. Oh, how frustrated she was.

“Galactica and Sol then set to work to harvest the energy from the moon. When they reached with their magic to the moon, however, they found that their access was barred by something like a protection spell. They spent days and months in vain trying to figure out what was protecting the moon from their access. Finally, late one evening, your parents came into your room while you were fast asleep and carried you to their study. They looked at you with sorrow and guilt but never the less they charged up their horns.

“Your parents ignited the power of your magic early. They used their combined powers to draw out the essence that is built inside of you, still festering and developing, so that it may reach out and touch the moon. They wanted you to have a direct connection to the moon so that they may use your powers to draw the moon’s energy to them. They were successful. When they had finished their spell the essence inside of you started to attract the magic of the moon.”

Luna stared at Nightmare Moon in disbelief but the black alicorn continued on, walking towards the midnight blue alicorn.

-She lies.-

“Your parents then took the moon’s power and tested it and manipulated it. They spent years upon years performing little experiments trying to harness and control the power that was at their disposal. They couldn’t believe the power the moon had. Its energy was five times the power of the sun yet it was completely and utterly random. No matter how hard they tried to focus energy to do a simple task it seemed as if the energy would want to do something else entirely unrelated.”

The Nightmare stopped when she was inches from Luna and lowered her head. The smile she had been wearing had finally left her face and was turned into an intimidating snarl. She stared directly into the princess’s eyes.

“There are dark and mysterious entities that exist in this world that not even the essence of the moon knows about. They hunger. They vie for power. And they will do anything they can to get it, little princess. When the Element of Chaos was created, ripples of power echoed continuously like a beacon, beckoning any creature with enough power to come get it.”

She then turned and took flight with a powerful flap of her wings, bringing her easily to land next to the pedestal containing the Element of Chaos. It stood like a miniature column with spikes that came out from the capital, giving a sense a demonic claw was protecting the Element from being taken away from its home. Luna got to her hooves and slowly and unsteadily made her way to the orb.

“Discord was at the forefront of this hunger, his magic being naturally connected to what you ponies would call Chaos. When he felt the echoes emanating from the Element of Chaos he could not resist this hunger and started to make a dramatic path for himself straight to the Element. Nothing could stop him as he flipped the world everypony knew upside down, some of the effects we know that have been irreversible.”

-Do not believe a word she says.- Luna blinked but continued forward to the pedestal.

“When Discord reached Everfree Castle your mother had already sent the Elements far away, masking their presence with a spell that only broke when the essence of the bearers of the Elements vanished. Your mother and father were not connected to the Elements even though they created them. The ponies whose magic was connected to the sun and the moon were the bearers.”

Nightmare Moon paused and turned to look at Luna. The princess had stopped five feet from the pedestal holding the Element of Chaos, standing at the foot of the stairs.

Suddenly The Nightmare’s voice twisted into a demonic echo. “There is a twist with the Element of Chaos however. Your parents never removed the source of the protection spell from the moon. The spell that kept them from siphoning its energy for their own whims.”

The Nightmare started to walk down the steps to Luna, dark clouds of shadow and rage drifting off of her coat. The princess felt a sudden change in emotion of the Nightmare. She knew something that Luna didn’t. She wanted something and Luna was going to give it to her. She started to creep away from Nightmare Moon as the black alicorn advanced on her.

“When you took the energy from the moon you took me along with you! You bound me to this Element and its power! You bound me to you! You draw upon the power of the moon and you draw upon the power of me!”

She stomped her hoof angrily as Luna was backed into a wall. Suddenly the Nightmare’s voice became very quiet.

“But I know how to free myself from this prison inside of that orb. I just need a vessel. One that wields the power of the moon and can effectively use the dark magic you call Chaos Magic.” That eerie grin started to creep up along her face again as she spoke. “Heheh, I’m going to do things a little differently this time. Instead of luring your mind out of its conscious and trapping it with your subconscious I’m going to kill you and reanimate your body with my essence. Sound fun?”

Luna’s turquoise eyes widened as Nightmare Moon’s red eyes dilated to the size of peas. She was in no condition to defend herself, let alone fight her own Nightmare which also happened to be a part of the essence of the moon. An idea came to mind.

“You’re a liar” Luna accused. “What you told me about my parents is not true. And what you told me about my connection to the moon is false.”

Nightmare Moon was taken aback. She faltered and took a few steps back. “What makes you say that, hm? Please, do explain yourself.”

Luna edged herself from between the wall and Nightmare Moon and walked a circle around the Nightmare until her back was to the Element of Chaos. “Inside everypony there is an essence, a soul, that is connected to the magic that flows throughout Equestria. The essence is what gives individuality and a sense of acceptance. We like to call it our special talent but it is entirely random. Ponies are not predetermined to find out what they will be contributing to the land of Equestria until their mind and body make a connection with their essence whether it be through emotional attachment or through a psychologically powerful event.”

The Princess of the Night started to back up towards the Element of Chaos as Nightmare Moon approached her. “There is one exception to this, however. Alicorns are predetermined to what our “special talent” is. We are born with cutie marks already bearing what it is we are intended to do. I was never forced to submit my essence to the moon, my essence is from the moon. It is the only possible explanation as to why I have always been able to manipulate the moon’s energy.”

When she bumped her back hoof against the stairs she stopped and glared at her Nightmare. “As for my parents, they could always manipulate the moon’s and the sun’s energies. Their essence lives on with the solar system and stars around us. They created what we have today. When Celestia and I were born, they transferred their power over the sun and the moon to us. Celestia and I do not control the power and magics of the Sun and the Moon, we can only manipulate it. Instead, we use Elements, the raw energy of the sun and the moon, to project their power.”

The Nightmare’s smile faded again and she gave a deep and demonic snarl. “So perhaps you –run- have seen through my little façade but what is it that you have accomplished? You bought –run Luna- yourself some time in hopes that I may rethink my plan? No, no no no no. You do not understand. I am going to kill –get the Element- you and… What are you doing?”

Luna had jumped up the stairs next to the Element of Chaos. She looked at the orb as the green and mystical energies inside of the crystal-like ball swirled and formed magnificent clouds. She could hear the unfurling of wings at the bottom of the stairs but instead of turning to see what Nightmare Moon was doing, she grabbed the orb with her teeth.

“Don’t you dare…”

Suddenly there was a tingling feeling going throughout the princess’s entire body. She looked down as she was enveloped in magical green energies. The Nightmare’s charge fell short as she smacked against a wall. A brilliant glow emit from Luna’s eyes and the room was blinded in a white light, igniting an explosion and throwing Nightmare Moon back to the huge double doors.

~~~

“Luna, are you positive that this spell will work?”

“Yes, sister. The orb itself is tied to the moon through the small essence that is trapped inside. If I can just sever that connection and then destroy the orb, the Element of Chaos should be no more.”

“The magic is dangerous. If you’re not careful you could be permanently confined to a vegetative state. Let me co…”

“No… ‘Tia, please just trust me on this”

~~~

Princess Luna slowly opened her eyes and groaned. The Element of Chaos was rolling across the ground in front of her, sucking back in the green tendrils that had shot out of it earlier. She heard a smash as some more stone from the ceiling came tumbling down after the explosion that had rocked the room. She got to her hooves and flapped both of her wings.

Wait, both of my wings?

The princess looked back and noticed that her broken wing had been healed. Unfortunately all of the other injuries she had sustained through her time in this castle had not been healed such as her shoulder or her back hoof. She could fly once again and gracefully used a flap of her wings to fly next to the orb. Upon landing next to it, she instinctually used to magic to levitate the orb in front of her. Her broken horn was fixed too! She gave a faint sigh of relief.

Luna’s moment of relief was short lived when she heard a growl from the corner of the Chancel and suddenly had to dodge a blast of red energy. Luna stumbled over when she landed a little too hard on her back hoof and barely managed to dodge a second shot of the red energy. The dust settled and a battered Nightmare Moon glared at Luna, her massive wings fully flared in fury.

“You insignificant little foal. Your stalling has gone on long enough. Prepare to become another one of my personal science experiments.” The Nightmare threatened angrily as she charged up her horn for another blast.

Luna quickly shot off a light blast of energy at the Nightmare to disrupt her magic and jumped behind a fallen pillar. She scooted along to the other side and peered around the corner only to duck again when a blast of red energy collided with the ground just in front of her. She kneeled down and looked around her, an idea coming to mind.

She turned around and cut half of the pillar with a simple cutting spell. She then took a deep breath and in a matter of a second charged up enough energy to send the fallen pillar flying across the room. As it reached its high point Luna shot a burst of turquoise energy and then a harsh gust of wind right at the cut in the pillar, causing the pillar to crack in half and slightly rotate. The Nightmare saw this and quickly shot off a burst of her magic at one of the halves, breaking it apart and shattering around her while she side stepped the other.

There was an enormous crash but Luna wasted no time to hesitation. She flapped her powerful wings and soared straight at the Nightmare with tremendous speeds, smashing herself straight into the black alicorn. The two went flailing directly into one of the stone walls, leaving a large impact crater in the side before collapsing to the floor. Luna let out a groan and quickly lit her horn and teleported away back to the pedestal, still slumped on the floor.

“What’s the matter, tired already?” The Nightmare sneered as she got to her hooves and charged up her horn.

Luna barely had any time to react and teleport away as a massive ball of red energy was shot towards her, ripping apart the pedestal and sending the Element of Chaos to smash into the base of a giant statue dedicated to Baron Darkwing. She quickly got to her hooves and took flight to hide behind one of the intact pillars.

Everything fell quiet. All that could be heard was the crumbling of loose stone as it fell from various forms of debris now littered throughout the Chancel. Luna took the chance and started to slowly peer around the pillar towards the spot the Nightmare was last standing. She wasn’t there.

The princess quickly brought her head back around the pillar and started to look in every direction she knew she could be seen. Where is she? I should not have lost sight of her. If I can get to the Element of Chaos…

Luna paused her thought process has she heard an unusual sound come over from her left. When she turned back to look around the pillar she spotted the Element of Chaos as it had rolled off of the elevated floor where the giant Darkwing statue sat onto the floor and was now wedged up against some debris. She took in a deep breath, looked around the Chancel in case the Nightmare had come back out into the open, and then made a leap for another piece of cover not too far from the pillar she was behind. She started to hop and creep from cover to cover, trying her best to remain as inconspicuous as possible as she drew closer to the green orb.

Finally, after many leaps and a throbbing hoof later, Luna had reached the Element of Chaos. She looked down at a second before bringing her head down to pick up the orb. She stopped, however, as a dark and quiet chuckle came from behind her. She spun around only to be hit by a metal hoof to the face as the Nightmare stood over her, smiling that large smile and giving another sinister snicker.

“Oh don’t be so naïve, foal. Come on, get up. GET UP!” The Nightmare snarled before that large grin spread across her face again as Luna finally got to her hooves, her cheek throbbing with pain. She stared at the Nightmare with contempt, making sure to stand over the Element.

Why is she playing with me now. Not even five minutes ago she wanted me dead so quickly. Luna wondered to herself as she set herself into a defensive fighting stance, sticking one hoof in front of the rest of her body and lowering her head. Another plan had come to Luna’s mind and she had only one chance to make this work. She was hoping her opponent was aggressive enough to attack first.

The two stood staring at each other, one with a look of determination while the other with a look of malicious amusement. Nightmare Moon finally broke the eerie silence. “I would have thought that the Princess of the Night, one of the rulers of Equestria, could have put up more of a fight than this. You’ve done nothing more than gave me a few scratches and rustled my feathers. Watching your mother die was more amusing than this.”

Luna flinched but recovered from the insult. Unfortunately, her body language did not go unrecognized by Nightmare Moon. “I do have to say I enjoyed watching that cunt’s head spontaneously combust and become a personal fountain for Discord’s chocolate milk. He sure had a knack for having creative ways for disposing of ponies. I would have much rather been bound to him than to a pathetic whelp such as yourself.”

The princess growled as tears started to form in her eyes. Her horn started to charge up a spell. The Nightmare continued. “Sure, your father’s coat was used as Discord’s new banner when the Equestrian Pegasus Army was brutally slaughtered by those mutated flutterponies. That was a brilliant idea. But that could never top the Galactica Fountain. ‘Prrriceless’ as Discord would say. He sure was proud of it. You know, I won…”

Nightmare Moon was stopped short as a powerful burst of magic shot from Luna’s horn. She barely managed to dodge it and gave a successful wink at her attacker. The princess’s wings were fully flared and she took to the air as her eyes glowed a brilliant white. “I will kill –stop Luna- you”

Her horn lit up again and she started to let out volley after volley of turquoise colored magic at Nightmare Moon, ripping apart the cobblestone floor and sending dust and debris everywhere. The Nightmare gracefully dodged her attacks and then bounced off of a pillar, straight at Luna, and shot a beam of energy into Luna’s chest and sending the midnight blue alicorn across the room into the statue of Darkwing.

Nightmare Moon landed in front of the decapitated statue and was about to fire another beam of energy into the dust where Luna had landed when suddenly a massive, blue wave of energy shot out and blasted the Nightmare back into the middle of the Chancel. Luna shot out from the dust of the statue, a faint scorch mark left on her chest, and dived right into the Nightmare before she had a chance to recover onto her hooves. The impact dug into the ground and left a giant rut in the cobblestone.

Luna was about to send a powerful beam of energy straight into the Nightmare’s face when her opponent teleported out from under Luna, causing her to thud against the ground. Without any time to recover a pair of hooves were brought down upon Luna’s back, sending massive ripples of pain throughout the princess’s entire body. She screamed in agony, watching as the Nightmare hopped off of her back and landed in front of her.

“A futile attempt but congratulations, you caught me off guard.” Nightmare Moon chortled and started to charge up her horn for an attack.

Luna was quicker, though, -Luna, stop please- and sent a light blast of magic straight into her enemy’s horn, causing the Nightmare to yelp and jump back in retreat. The dark blue alicorn winced in pain as she got to her hooves and charged her horn. Waves of light shot from Luna’s horn as she charged up a massive ball of blue energy and shot it directly at the Nightmare.

Even if she had tried to escape, Nightmare Moon would have still been hit by the blast of the massive impact as the ball made contact with the far wall of the Chancel, completely obliterating everything in the vicinity. The black alicorn was set flying across the room and she slammed straight through one of the pillars, causing the section of ceiling it was support to completely collapse. Dust and debris filled the entire Chancel.

“Feel the awesome power of a –She is not mortal- star” Luna said to herself quietly as the dust began to settle. Her jaw dropped.

Standing at the other end of the Chancel, ragged and seething with rage, was Nightmare Moon. Black clouds of fury drifted off of her ruffled coat while her wings were singed and smoking from the blast. Her armor was badly beaten and the crescent moon on her chest plate was not even visible anymore. A red aura shone around her horn and her smile had turned into a vicious snarl.

“You. Will. Die.”

-Get the Element-

She made a dive straight to where the Element of Chaos was, dodging an attack from the Nightmare as she turned herself into a supersonic missile of magic and slammed into the far wall of the Chancel with a deafening explosion of stone and mortar. Luna landed on the stone next to the orb with a heavy thud and quickly started to look around for any kind of sharp object she could use. She spotted a dagger next to the statue of Darkwing and, picking up the orb, she galloped over.

Suddenly there was another explosion and a bright red light from behind her. Luna turned to see that the Nightmare had recovered from the impact was headed straight towards her again, horn lit in a red aura and a face filled with malice. She took up a defensive stance and powered her horn, charging it until the black alicorn was 20 feet from her. Luna threw up a field of magic around her, using it as a shield. Nightmare Moon made contact with the shield, cracking it and sending a massive shockwave in all directions, ripping up the floor to the right and left of her.

Luna faltered under the impact but quickly recovered and then pushed more magic into the shield, repelling the Nightmare and sending her head first into the side of a fallen column. Not wasting a moment to watch her handy work, Luna turned back and levitated the dagger to her front leg. She bit her lower lip, took a deep breath, and made a deep cut into her skin.

The princess kneeled down and made a circle around the orb in her blood. As she was just closing the circle, there was the sound of rocks crumbling and a whoosh of air as something large took flight. Luna turned and managed to grab a huge section of column in her magic as it headed straight for her. Grabbing the massive column left her open for attack, however, and in a second Nightmare Moon had taken flight and scooped Luna up into her hooves, flying straight towards one of the remaining columns that was still supporting the ceiling. She struggled to break free from the Moon tyrants grip only to get her wish when she was forcibly thrown through the column, causing it to collapse and send a huge section of the ceiling down on top of it.

Luckily the column wasn’t able to stop the force behind Luna’s free fall so she was able to escape most of the debris that fell from the ceiling and instead landed on her side in one of the far corners. When she tried to get to her hooves, her head was slammed back into the ground by a powerful hoof.

“You’re not getting up, little pony. Just lie down and scream in agony as I tear the skin from your body with my teeth.” The Nightmare started to chuckle maniacally as Luna groaned from the further pressure exerted on her face.

Taking in a deep breath and gathering her magic, Luna started to create a condensed ball of energy below Nightmare Moon’s body just out of sight. However, as the condensed ball started to grow larger the light that shone from it could be avoided and the Nightmare looked beneath her, her eyes growing wide just before Luna released the ball.

A terrible explosion rocked the corner of the Chancel, flinging the Nightmare across the entire room yet again and smashing her into the far wall, sending a shockwave that created ripples in a large radius around her impact site. The entire section where the explosion was in the Chancel collapsed, filling it with dirt and debris.

Luna had managed to escape the chaos with a quick teleport to where her unfinished ritual was laying. She staggered slightly from the amount of energy she had been releasing against the Nightmare. Her power still wasn’t fully restored since her return from the moon so her abilities were not quite up to par from a thousand years ago. She nearly collapsed to her hooves in front of the Element of Chaos.

She levitated a sharp stone from the debris that surrounded her and started drawing various arcane symbols equidistant from one another around the circle of blood. She had to press the stone hard into the ground in order for the symbols to faintly show up. When each symbol was finished, Luna gave power to it causing it to glow with a bright turquoise light.

She was just about to finish the last symbol when there was a flash of red light and the Nightmare was now standing near the massive doors for the Chancel. The skin from the entire right side of her body was brutally burned, totally ripped off in various places with blood dripping from the now exposed flesh and bones. Her wings were still intact, if only barely, and half of her face was twisted into a smile from her exposed skull while the other half was scowling in contempt. Raw power was now radiating from her form.

“I am done playing games you foal.” She said flatly as she started to advance towards Luna. With each step she took an imprint of her hoofprint was left behind. Luna quickly returned her focus back to the ritual, charging up her horn and feeding power into the Element of Chaos.

“I am going to show you a magnitude of power that nopony here in Equestria could hope to match. You are going to know eternal agony, you are going to know pain, you are go… Wha-what are you doing?”

A magical aura started to encase Luna and the ritual she was performing, a faint but noticeable glow of turquoise energy becoming visible. The Nightmare stared at the sight for a bit before charging her horn and sending a blast straight at the princess. The blast was stopped short, however, by a magical shield that was put up around the growing vortex of energy. She sent a few more volleys of magic at the shield only to be met with the same result.

“No! No no no! Stop this at once! You do not know what you are doing!” Nightmare Moon cried out, charging straight for the massive tornado of energy that encircled the pedestal where the Element of Chaos had once been. When she made contact with the shield she was violently forced back across the room, skidding to a halt at the base of the massive doors. Her eyes were wide with terror.

The Nightmare of the Moon’s skin started to dissolve, rays of light shining from the patches that were left behind. She was screaming in torment as more of the rays started to pierce through her flesh, bringing a magnificent amount of light to the room. With one last demonic shriek she exploded, the blast surrounding the cyclone that protected Luna.

The princess watched as the light started to encase the swirling mass of magical energy she was in. She could feel the ground start shaking as the light started to rapidly expand outward. She looked down at her hooves at the Element of Chaos and saw that it had started to dematerialize, the orb slowly fading away to dust while the green energy inside floated up through the middle of the cyclone and through the ceiling.

The shaking started to intensify and the alicorn princess started to feel the fatigue from the battle against her Nightmare take its toll on her. She collapsed onto the ground and was panting heavily, trying to keep her eyes open to see the shape that was taking form in front of her. The slender legs of a very tall pony appeared in front of her while an ethereal tail was swirling like that of a galaxy behind the pony. Intricate, purple, metal shoes started to form on the pony’s orange hooves. The mare lowered her head to reveal her beautiful orange eyes.

-I am so proud of you Luna-

~~~

I would like to apologize for the speed at which this chapter was put out. I have been wrapped up in the Bronies vs. Benders competition over on Reddit and preparing for school so I have had little time to write. I did, however, have a few brain blasts while writing this and was able to cough up 3,000 words one night.

I hope you all have enjoyed Obscurum Decensus so far. The epilogue is all that is left. I plan on writing a story based off of Celestia's and Luna's childhood but I'll save the details for that for the author's note at the end of the story.

Epilogue

Obscurum Decensus Epilogue

Rain started to sprinkle from the sky. It came down like a soft massage to faintly wet the grass and the trees that surrounded the gathered groups of ponies. A slight wind picked up the leaves that had fallen lazily onto the earth and created a beautiful display of reddish spirals and loops. A single cough could be heard from the back of the audience, the mourners, that broke the uneasy silence. All was quiet as a dark blue alicorn slowly walked up to the podium with only the amount of grace and authority that was appropriate for such an occasion.

Princess Luna turned to face the audience of Night Guard ponies that had gathered in the central square of Gallopfrey. The city was dedicated to the outlandish pony race and reflected their styles and tastes in both architecture and layout. Beautiful and eerie gothic buildings and fences filled the city which a magnificent cathedral at its center. The cathedral spires extended hundreds of feet into the air and dwarfed all other buildings in the vicinity. The central square was built in front of the cathedral across the wide street that Night Guards usually traversed during every hour of a normal day.

This day, however, was not normal. Princess Luna, one of the royal princesses of Equestria and the pony that nearly drove their race to extinction, was visiting the city on an important errand. She stood at the head of the two rows of Night Guards with her head held high but her face full of sorrow. The streets all around the cathedral had been cleared for the event that was about to begin. Luna cleared her throat and looked down at her notes.

She just stared and stared at what she had written before her. The seconds dragged on to minutes and the princess heard another pony give a cough in the back row again. She sighed and looked up across all of the ponies that had decided to attend. With a burst of her magic she burned the speech she had spent all night creating.

Luna’s voice was a mere whisper to the point where the ponies in the back had to strain to hear her. “There are consequences for every action made, for every decision carried out. It could be something as small as forgetting to take out the garbage and then your kitchen smells putrid the next day. It could be as large as fueling a nation’s war machine to the point of exhaustion. Consequences do not have to be bad, they do not have to be good, but they must always be present to ensure stability and harmony within the world.

“I have made many decisions I am not proud of. There is nothing truer or more pure of a sign of somepony’s mortality than making a mistake. I am of no exception. I stole a cookie from the royal kitchens and was scolded by my mother. I betrayed my sister for power and glory. I watched as my best friend was murdered before my eyes.”

She paused and looked down, a tear creeping along her eyes and slowly falling down her face. She spoke louder and with more enthusiasm. “His death did not go in vain, however. He had known the consequences of his actions ahead of time. He had made his decision and decided to make a commitment. Not only had Dime bought me the necessary time I needed to open the door to the Element of Chaos but he had protected the princess he had served with his very life. He upheld the oaths he swore down to the very letter and with the upmost amount of chivalry.

“That is not the reason Dime sacrificed his life for me, though. When I first returned from my banishment to the moon and separation from the Nightmare I had a very hard time fitting in. I could see the many ponies that still looked on at me with fear and contempt. I became an emotional wreck and had decided that I just wanted to stay cooped up in my room. I would not hold court and I would not make any more public appearances for anypony. There was one pony who walked into my chambers that day, however, that changed my mind. He stayed with me into the early morning hours comforting me and making me laugh the heartiest laughs I have expressed since my return.

“The reason why he sacrificed himself for me is because I was his closest friend.”

Princess Luna turned towards the empty casket that lay before her, tears now streaming freely down her face. “And Dime was my closest friend. I’ll miss you.” She said quietly to herself. She levitated a bouquet of flowers over from the table that was set up next to the casket and stared at the beautiful assortment of red tulips and white daisies.

With one last sigh she dropped the flowers into the casket and left the podium at a slow trot.

The Princess of the Night sat underneath the largest weeping willow in Gallopfrey’s central park. Her wings hung limp against the ground and she stared at the dirt at her hooves. All she could think about was the day that she had been found by her sister in the Tramplevanian Alps.

She had woken up to shouts coming from a distance. Her eyes had fluttered open slowly and she groaned from the pain that started to course through her body. There were more and more shouts and when she looked up to see the source of the noise she saw that there were a couple of pure white pegasi above her adorned in sparkling golden armor. One of them flew towards her, no doubt noticing she was awake…

~~~

“Princess Luna! Princess, are you alright?”

Luna only sobbed however. She burst into tears while an extraordinary amount of pain racked every part of her body. She felt sore, tired, maimed, and most of all she felt broken. Here she was, Princess Luna, getting rescued by one of the Royal Canterlot Guards while her friend, Dime, had been slain back inside the castle.

“Don’t worry princess, your sister is on her way. She should be here shortly.” The guard said in a gentle tone as he looked around. “We need to get you under some cover and out of the snow. C’mon, there is a tree close by.”

With that being said, the guard lifted Luna as gently as he could onto his back and carried her over to the tree. She winced at each step he took but she did not voice her complaints and instead continued to allow tears to stream down her face. Soon there was another guard that flew down to assist getting Luna to the tree and together they managed to get under cover in under a minute.

The princess was laid down on her sides and was being inspected by the new guard that had recently arrived. He appeared to be a medic as he was carrying saddlebags full of medical supplies. He started to tend to the wounds Luna had sustained while she continued to bury her face in her hooves and the dirt, completely oblivious to the steady stream of guards that started to arrive and set up a perimeter around the princess.

“Is she going to be alright?” Came a gentle and soothing voice above Luna.

“Well, she has sustained many injuries throughout her entire body as well as some fractures to her ribs and back left hoof. Her hoof needs to see medical attention immediately and even then I’m not sure it will ever fully heal again. She also seems to have experienced some emotional trauma.” A gruff voice replied.

“Please see to her hoof. If you guards wouldn’t mind, would you please give my sister and I some space?”

There was some shuffling in the light snow and soon Luna felt something warm and soft brush up against her side. She slowly looked up and saw that her sister was lying down next to her and staring off into the distance. She had a softness in her eyes that reminded Luna of their mother. She turned to look at what Celestia was looking at.

Across a valley sat the remnants of the Nazi Pony castle. It looked to be lying in ruins with its spires crumbling and its walls and towers either collapsed or missing all together. The whole castle was a total wreck from when Luna first entered. She sighed and looked back up to her sister.

“’Tia, I’m so sorry I…”

“There is no need to apologize, Luna. I know you have been through a lot. Just relax while Feather Spell tends to your injuries.” Celestia looked down at her sister with a sorrowful smile. Her eyes showed the pain she felt to see her sister left in the state she was in.

Luna turned her head back to look towards the castle and laid it down on top of her crossed hooves. She sniffled a little and mentally kicked herself for acting like such a foal in front of all of the guards and her sister. She spoke very softly. “Dime is dead, ‘Tia.”

A large and comforting wing spread over Luna’s body and embraced her with a gentle hug. The dark blue alicorn looked up at her bigger sister and brought her face up to nuzzle the base of Celestia’s neck. Her sister brought her head down to nuzzle her cheek on Luna’s. Celestia spoke just as softly. “I’m sure Dime made you proud, Woona. Never forget what he did for you.”

A few more tears escaped Luna’s eyes as she listened to her sister’s words. Her wings started to sag a little but she tried to hold onto her emotions. She couldn’t break down in front of her sister and the guards again. Soon, both princesses looked up as several hoofsteps started to draw near them.

“Greetings, Luna. I just wanted to see if you were alright.” Said Shadow in her usual soft and timid voice.

Luna gave her a slight and sad smile and beckoned her over. “I know I can’t hide anything from you. Please come sit next to me.”

Shadow complied and slowly lay down next to her princess. The Night Guard could only stare ahead at the grotesque looking castle. “Dime is really gone, isn’t he?”

Princess Luna only sighed and stared ahead with her friend.

~~~

There was the soft clop of hooves on grass that awoke Luna from her very recent memories. She slowly looked up and saw that Shadow was approaching her. The rain had really started to fall now and most of the Night Guards that had attended the funeral were now rushing home out of the storm. Shadow’s mane and coat were soaked. She stopped in front of Luna.

“We should probably start to head back to Canterlot, Luna. It would not be right of us to put off anymore of the wedding. And besides, you look absolutely soaked.”

Suddenly the princess felt the wetness that clung to her body. She visibly shivered and got to her hooves, standing now a head taller than her Night Guard. “Yes, you are right. Let us be off then”

The two ponies cleared the willow and took flight, speedily making their exit from the city of Gallopfrey and started their long trek north towards Canterlot. If they made good time with the wind behind their backs they should make it to the Royal Wedding before the late hours of the evening. Luna could not miss her own niece’s wedding.

As the two ponies reached just the very edges of the island that Gallopfrey was built upon the intensity of the storm started to grow. Rain was falling more heavily now, soaking both Shadow’s and Luna’s coats, while the wind was billowing in every direction. Luna flew closer to Shadow and had to shout above the roar of the winds.

“We should get above the clouds!”

Shadow nodded her head in agreement and the two ponies started their ascent above the clouds. In no later than five minutes their heads finally poked above the top of the dark clouds and they were washed over by the rays of the sun. Shadow and Luna leveled off so their hooves just brushed the very tips of the puffy clouds and both remained relatively silent for a long while.

Finally, as the storm clouds started to clear beneath their hooves and the first signs of the Equestrian coast was spotted off in the distance, Shadow finally broke the silence. “Luna?”

“Yes, Shadow?”

Shadow visibly hesitated as Luna looked over at her. “Do… Do you think you could tell me how Dime died?”

The princess looked back ahead of her and then down, watching as the Southern Beaches passed below them. “Yes. Yes, I guess you do deserve to know. Dime was as much a friend to me as he was to you. If you could please give me a moment.”

The two flew on a bit longer in silence, watching as rolling plains of grass flew under them. Luna did not speak again until the city of Fillydelphia came into view. “There are things I saw in that castle that I never wish to see again. Memories, visions, creatures. They were all horrifying and grotesque beyond imagination. Yet I lived through it. Dime didn’t live through it.

“He made his final stand against one of the creatures that threatened our lives. He pleaded for me to let him do his job, to follow his oaths, while I unlocked the door for both of us. When I finally succeeded, I turned around to see that it was too late. Dime’s previous injuries were already wearing him down while the creature seemed to be immune to pain no matter how many times Dime managed to get the upper hand on it. It managed to catch Dime off guard, stabbing a spike that replaced one of its legs through one of Dime’s hooves. It then tossed Dime like a rag doll across the room and finished him with a stab through the throat.”

The princess fell silent and stared at the city that passed underneath the two darkly colored ponies. Shadow looked over at Luna. “He died any way a Night Guard would wish to perish: in the midst of battle defending what he loves the most. He loved you just like a loved Equestria. There is no higher moral or greater act of chivalry than what Dime displayed that day. I am proud of what he did.

“And I know you are proud of what he did as well, Luna. You knew his motives. You knew he wasn’t trying to be a hero. You knew that he was protecting you and everything we love. He pushed aside all of the fears and the doubts that that occupied his mind and replaced them with you, with me, and with his home. He could have made no greater sacrifice.

“And so I say to you, Princess of the Night and Co-Ruler of Equestria, there is no need to wallow in self-pity and remorse over something that you could not have predicted or changed. Instead you should take pride and give respect to the feats that Dime has done over the course of his time as a Royal Night Guard, as a friend, and as a hero.”

Luna looked up and over to Shadow, a small smile forming on her face. “Both you and Dime always have sound advice in the times when I need some. A princess is not always wise and it was a real asset to have both you and Dime as my advisors to make up for that. I thank you, Shadow, for all that you have done for me.”

Shadow just blushed at the compliment from her princess and then flew on ahead a bit, looking back when she was still within shouting distance. “So, do you want to be late to your niece’s wedding or what?”

The princess grinned, accepting the challenge. “I’ll race you there”

“I don’t see how that’s fair being you’re a princess.”

“Okay, fine, I won’t use my magic.”

Author's Note

Obscurum Decensus Author’s Note

Alright, so first thing I want to mention is the reason why I even wrote this fan faction in the first place. Since I am entering my first year of college I figured that I should get some practice in in writing papers and essays so I decided that I should give writing MLP fan fiction a go. I know, writing a fanfic is not the same as writing a college level research paper essay but hey, I need the practice for writing in general. The second reason why I wrote this was because I enjoy writing as a hobby though I never get around to sticking to any one story. This was the first story I have ever completed. Although I do not exactly feel exceedingly proud of my work, especially with the epilogue, I do know I have the potential to write well enough to interest an audience. I plan on writing more stories in the future (I promise they will not be so dark) which I will actually be talking about in just a little bit.

Now, to address why this fan fiction is so dark in the first place. As most of you have probably guessed, this story was a crossover with the game Amnesia: The Dark Descent with some Justine DLC features in it. When I first played the game about a year and a half ago I thoroughly enjoyed it and have managed to convince many other people to play the game as well. I enjoy a good scare and man, did Amnesia scare me. If any of you guys have played the game you will know that the game is dark. Well, I wanted to incorporate those features into my story. The mutilated monsters, the messed up torture scenes, the sacrifices, and the darkness that presided over the characters in the castle all was what gave me most of my inspiration.

There is another reason why the fan fiction is dark, however. During certain times of the year I can feel these mood swings that darken and recline my composure. I feel the need to listen to creepy music, play creepy games, watch scary movies, and look for scary pictures or creepypasta. It was at the very beginning of this mood swing that I started writing Obscurum Decensus. The concepts for the monsters, aside from the first one, were all imagined.

Now, I feel as though I need to address the epilogue. I realize it is not a very strong ending and leaves many plot holes (haha very funny) to the story. Well, all I can say is use your imagination. Seriously, I got nothing else. :3

Anyways, some of you may find this story strange as if you required some previous information to understand some elements. While though that is not technically true it would probably help if I had expanded on some spots. I did not however because I intend to expand on everything mentioned about Luna and Celestia’s past in a whole new story(ies). I plan on making the entire story significantly longer than Obscurum Decensus as there is a lot I must cover:

Who were Luna’s and Celestia’s parents?

Luna’s nightmares.

Star Swirl the Bearded

The Nazi Ponies

The creation of the Elements of Harmony and the Element of Chaos

Discord

The Flutterponies

The destruction of Everfree and the mutation of its forest

The birth of Canterlot

Nightmare Moon

The Eternal Night

The Night Guard origins

Luna’s banishment

So ya, that is a lot. With school starting up I don’t know how much time I’ll have. It’ll be probably enough to get the first book out in eight months if I work my butt off. It’s titled “The Gift of Life” to any who are interested. I promise it will not be nearly as dark as Obscurum Decensus.

Anyways, thanks for reading Obscurum Decensus. Leave a thumbs up or a comment if you enjoyed the story or have any questions, comments, or criticisms. All constructive feedback is appreciated.