Equestria's new Moon

--???: After Midnight--
-Point of focus:???-

A young bull wakes up, it takes his mind a while to register what is happening. A horn is sounding, there is screaming and fighting outside. He quickly gets up and puts on the nearest clothes he finds, getting them over his newly growing antlers is not the easiest thing, causing tearing of his shirt. His parents would understand he thought to himself.

Getting to the window and looking outside, the color fades from his face. The dead are attacking his village. All he sees are walking corpses. Massive wounds still visible on their body, and black steel plates surgically grafted into their flesh. He pinches his body, wanting to wake up from the nightmare. When that doesn't work, he prays to the sky lights.... and spots a black moon that was not there before.

--Ponyville: Aidan's cottage--
-Point of Focus: Rainbow Dash-

Rainbow is awoken by the sound of screaming. She quickly sits up and looks around. Fluttershy is awake and hiding against her, obviously woken in fright by the sound. Across the room Rainbow spots Aidan, grasping at his chest and with a blue-purple light coming off the moon symbol on his collar bone.

"Aidan! What's going on? Do you need help?" Rainbow exclaims, some worry showing on her face.

Unable to answer and in too much pain, Aidan instead begins drawing sigils in the air. The light that is normally left by his fingers are dimmer and tinged with blackness. As the last line is formed, a doorway opens in the air and Aidan jumps through, followed by Cale.

"Fluttershy, go get Twilight and the others. I'm going after him!" Not even waiting for an affirmative from her friend, she dives right through the gateway.

--???--

Rainbow Dash finds herself someplace she's never been before. The ground is half frozen and covered in snow. She is surrounded by battle. Some pony-like people with large antlers, but is unlike deer or caribou as the antlers are more broad and look more like an open hand. These antlered ponies are fighting against more of themselves, but badly wounded and looking like the walking dead.

Spotting Aidan, Rainbow flies to join him. He looks less in pain and more angry now, launching blast of magics at the moving corpses. Cale is flying about and deflecting blows meant to kill any living pony, countering when opportunity presents itself. But the walking corpses keep coming, they march forward with relentless purpose and unknown numbers.

Not being one to turn away from helping friends, Rainbow dives in to help. She flies in and starts punching and kicking at a walking corpse chasing a young colt with a torn shirt. Her blows halt it, but does not seem to do much more than gain it's attention. "That's it ugly, pick on someone closer to your size." she yells at the creature.

It turns to her and brings a clawed hand to attack her. She tries to pull back out of the way, but has trouble turning her momentum. The claw is inches away from her, she brings up an arm to at least minimize the damage. She closes her eyes and braces for the pain.

The pain never comes. She opens her eyes, and notices her arms covered in metal vambraces and hands wearing gauntlets. Her mane and tail are longer like when she channels the element of harmony. Yet this feels different to her, she has a feeling of serenity deep down, as well as a burning rage for these walking dead. Her cutie mark glows and is visible through her pants on her hips, and it is surrounded by Aidan's moon mark.

Her mind races, but rather than try and make sense of things, Rainbow has some undead to fight. She lashes out with new gauntlet, this time causing damage to the beast and ripping off it's jaw. Pulling back her fist and jabbing with the left, she ends it by knocking the head off. "This is so AWESOME! Also, ewww."

Her target defeated, and the young colt safe, Rainbow flies off to continue helping in the battle however she can. She does not see the young colt with awe in his eyes watch her fly away and back into the fray.

-Point of Focus: Aidan-

Aidan casts spells against the undead, taking them down as quickly as he can. Aiming spells with precision, taking out the head when possible and removing limbs when he can't take them out completely. His shield has been widened to protect as many as he can. The energy field forming momentarily to deflect blows away from these antlered beings, before fading and appearing elsewhere. Cale has been directed to defend as priority, thinning undead numbers as secondary. He had no worry there. What did worry him is that Rainbow Dash followed him through the gate, and he was too busy to call to her. Mind focused on his shield and attack spells, battling hundreds of foes at once leaves little time to focus on one pony.

The one thought he was able to spare towards her was to that which brought him here. ~Tsukiyomi, goddess of the black moon that resides in me. If you have led my friend to death, I shall find a way to purge you from existence.~

--Ponyville--
-Point of Focus: Fluttershy-

Fluttershy runs at top speed away from Aidan's stone cottage. She moves with determination and fear, aiming straight for Twilight's castle. She bursts through the door and yells out in un-Fluttershy volume. "Twilight! Spike! Help!"

Within moments, there is a flash of purple light and Twilight appears next to her. She is still in her nightgown and says "Fluttershy!? What's wrong?"

"Aidan, screaming pain. Door in air... Rainbow Dash, help. COME!" She says, panicking and out of breath.

Twilight has trouble making sense of it, but can tell that it's urgent. "Lead the way!" She says, starting to follow Fluttershy out.

Spike enters the entry hall at that point, still half asleep. "What's going on?"

Twilight yells to him. "Something's wrong. Get the girls and come find us. I'll put a light in the air when we get to where Fluttershy needs us." Not even waiting to see if the young dragon-kin understood her, and racing off after Fluttershy.