Arc 7 – The Crystal Nightmare Chapter 2 – Daybreaker

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The higher one materialised in the sky, the more time they had to figure out how to deal with the gravity and the unpleasant consequences of following its influence to the end. Tumbling through the air along with Luna, Ash only had achieved her muscles cramping in blinding pain when she vainly tried to arrest the guaranteed to be fatal fall; she was lucky to end without snapped bones. Accepting her impotence, she focused on the mare who shared with her the future of becoming a pancake. Ash sharply understood that Nameless hadn’t warned her for no reason—there were three of them plummeting to the ground.

Whistling winds tore wisps from the dark mass which consumed feathers trailing behind Ash; that hardly appeased the cloud of black smoke—the vaporous tendrils reached for the other alicorn, clinging to her already charcoal coat like tar. Although Nightmare originated from Luna’s mane, its cloying flesh was yet to find lasting purchase on the skeletal limbs—the former Princess fervently repelled the inky onslaught. The elder mare’s tattered leathery wings flapped to no purpose other than to tackle the bituminous haze, thus sealing her fate.

Ash’s horn spluttered golden sparks as a miracle failed to happen—to no surprise, she hadn’t teleported out of the imminent crash. Shrugging off the blow against her faith, the white alicorn refused to resign to the gruesome ending of her story and flailed her limbs till, somehow, she had come closer to Luna—close enough to cling to the fight-consumed mare. Ash held back bile—she had to bite into Luna’s tail. Having no option but to stare at the black alicorn still clashing with her own mane, Ash could only sense the mercilessly hard surface rapidly approaching. She squeezed her eyes shut; tears had no chance to roll down her cheeks—the roaring gale whisked them away.

Pain flared through Ash’s body and air fled her lungs in a form of an involuntary shriek. However, her bones remained intact, for all she could tell; nor did the soft parts of her body become even softer. Before she had a chance to ponder why death spared her horrible agony, the alicorn sensed violent force still having a claim on her and her eyes shot open. A lash of Nightmare’s writhing mass wrapped itself around a pipe, saving its host; the metal bent, soaking in the deadly momentum and ultimately held. Luna’s long-suffering tail showed less resilience and Ash found herself being flung away, her mouth full of filthy hair. Crashing on the intertwinement of cables and pipes brought an excess of pain in Ash’s life and her consciousness decided to abandon her.

Now it hurt like every bone in Ash’s body had been broken and her flesh had been sundered. Clenching her jaws, she crawled from the shallow crater formed by her body; every movement embedded nails in her muscles, yet the lack of unbearable agony let her know—she wouldn’t be a cripple. Ignoring the chance of becoming a corpse still being high as she could have suffered internal trauma, the alicorn gently shook her spinning head in an attempt to counteract the whirling of reality. Albeit not without vehement reluctance, her vision regained its clarity—just in time to witness Nightmare carefully, almost gently, lowering Luna on the ‘floor’ of the cavernous industrial space. Whether it ended up overpowering the alicorn or the sudden halting of the fall, too, had knocked out the former Princess didn’t matter anymore as, strangely, the malignant force seemed to care about its victim.

Ash took a single step towards them—but no more; and not just because being no longer trapped in the sky allowed her to behold the otherworldly menace in all its utter malignity. When she first met Luna, the night did a huge favour to the ancient mare, hiding with its veil the hideous disfigurement bestowed upon her by Nightmare. The ashen alicorn watched the shadows weave a cocoon around Luna’s gaunt and sickly frame; in a display of blasphemous metamorphosis, a pair of wings unfurled from the shivering mist and a figure slowly rose to stare into the distance with eyes like holes into the starless night. As if Luna had strings attached to her limbs, and someone violently yanked them, she stumbled forward, stiffly and unnaturally, her chipped hooves barely touching the ground. Her disturbingly warped visage, uneven eerie gait and maddeningly alive shadow effortlessly shattered Ash’s notion of their shared celestial ‘job’ also coming with any sort of bond; the idea of sisterhood seemed as the most ridiculous thought to ever grace Ash’s mind, and the white alicorn had more than a fair share of not the smartest decisions with her name attached to them. Such silliness shouldn’t have survived the harsh and unsentimental reality of Canterlot—the revelation further drove Ash into shame. She backed from the swaying towering monstrosity, bitterly regretting risking her life and abandoning Nameless—one of her so very few friends—for a foalish wish.

Just like sunlight banishes shadows, a surge of determination burnt away Ash’s indecision. Truly, her longing might have played a pivotal role in choosing her next move—momentarily; yet, ultimately, she wasn’t a lost filly in search of someone to aid her loneliness. Ash had a destiny beyond the solar sign on her body—her cutie mark granted her immeasurable power, elevating the young alicorn to the ranks of those able to change the world. For the first time, the responsibility failed to weigh her down; Ash’s aching hooves pulsed with energy, a drive to aid the pain-ridden realm—starting with the wretched mare right before her eyes.

“Luna!” she firmly called.

The former Princess unsteadily marched onwards, not even flicking her torn ears. Ash hurried to intercept the advancing alicorn, hoping that entering Luna’s line of sight might finally snap the elder mare out of her stupor. She abruptly slewed and had to resist the urge to turn back—the dark mist coiling around the plagued demi-goddess covered every surface it touched with hoarfrost and the air crepitated with the cold of the endless void. Breathing in the cosmos-tainted atmosphere brought haunting clarity to the suppressed memories of frostbite viciously searing Ash’s flesh when she had frantically sought warmth in the ever-freezing city of debilitating famine and unceasing dusk. Steeling herself against Luna’s chilling aura, the white alicorn once more tried to stand in the way of her celestial counterpart. Ash couldn’t tell if her body ached from the sheer cold of Nightmare’s proximity or remembering Canterlot’s freezing treatment; her mind had a hard time not only focusing on the present, but even struggling with the recent past as the memory most dear to her—of golden Sunlight—refused to come up and counteract the more distant, smothering past. Struggling with perceiving reality, Ash had to backpedal as Luna trotted inexorably, threatening to trample the somewhat smaller alicorn or maim her with her serrated hooves. Keenly sensing her consciousness—her entire self—being eclipsed, Ash dared to do something insane.

“Sister, don’t you recognise me?”

Luna’s hoof as if caught on an invisible root; when the alicorn regained balance a heartbeat later, her eyes, no longer windows into the abyss, transfixed on the white mare, even if still poisoned by the shivering darkness. The severe frost abated and the claws constricting on the throat of Ash’s sanity eased their grasp; their frigid and nauseating touch remained, reminding the shaking alicorn—lunacy and death loomed over her still.

The longer Luna stared at Ash, the more she regretted her attempt at heartless deception; if she didn’t have to resort to such a tactic, the pain churning in the older mare’s eyes solidified the ineptitude of her previous idea—to offer this grieving equine a foster family. Tears trickled down, leaving dark lines almost indistinguishable against the pitch-black fur and Luna’s knees failed her. The ancient frame all but rattled before Ash abruptly found herself looking down at the demigoddess. The silence’s reign went on undisputed; although Luna’s jaws moved, they produced no sound. Her eyes, however, bored into Ash with a pleading expression… till the already miserable embers in them died out and the former Princess turned away.

“I do not deserve your forgiveness, Tia,” Luna whispered, her voice as soft as nightfall. “Not for the second time.”

Ash had got no chance to respond—not that she had any idea how—as the alicorn met her gaze again; a sharp gasp escaped her mouth. The deathlike darkness steadily crept back, tainting the cerulean blue like blood would spread in water.

“It’s too late for forgiveness,” the black alicorn croaked, struggling with every word. She sharply pivoted, half-sobbing and half-growling, “Send me to the Moon again, I beg you!”

If speaking had already demanded a huge amount of effort from Luna, then fleeing from Ash posed an impossible task for the possessed mare. Yet, still, she dragged herself forwards, fighting the unseen chains pulling her back. Massive wings flapped, but to no avail—a body with its hooves as if glued to the ground had no hope of becoming airborne. Brought to a grinding halt, Luna once again engaged in battling her mane, which swelled with ice-breathing rot of mind and flesh. Nightmare’s return rapidly envenomed the air and Ash reeled, but refused to surrender a single step to the waxing cold and dread; not after she had achieved progress, no matter how minuscule and temporary. But Celestia’s successor sorely lacked enough knowledge about the legendary sisters to repeat and cement her victory.

“Please, let me help!” Ash besought, hoping Luna would hear her through the struggle with her own shadow. When her plea fell on deaf ears, she forced herself to take a step closer to the writhing alicorn and, with her teeth chattering, tried again, “You… You can’t do it alone. It has led you… all of us…. where we are all now.”

Although Luna’s head snapped to the white alicorn almost instantly, it took a few moments for darkness and feral rage to thin enough for Ash to meet the eyes of a sane pony.

“There is nothing to be done but to stall,” the demi-goddess lamented, her voice suddenly more clear than Ash had ever heard her speak. “Everything is hazy to the extreme, only two memories have survived. The revelation of Nightmare will persist till the very end and the other… it is becoming eroded. I remembered her differently—my sister’s eyes weren’t red and her mane was pink, not white.”

Luna’s words struck Ash like a blow of a cannibal’s hoof, but the alicorn’s shadow-blighted gaze carried no judgement. Before ink flooded the eyes of the former Princess, Ash glimpsed gratitude—as if some part of Luna knew it had been Ash all along and appreciated her attempt to somehow help.

“It was never your fault,” the alicorn whispered and wings, part flesh and part shadow, spread to launch her into the opening in the intertwined pipes, cables and girders.

“I can…”

Ash’s words trailed into nothing as she realised—she couldn’t do anything.

The ashen alicorn stood perfectly still, a monument to her failure; she stared at the sky, watching as the black as death equine continued to resist the malignant will that persistently wanted her to get somewhere. In mere moments, Luna’s erratic movements dissolved her in the sky, which had turned into a battlefield whilst Ash was unconscious. Dismayingly observing that valiant and futile fight, Ash couldn’t help but see herself reflected in the condemned demi-goddess. Ever so inexcusably foalish, she had imagined becoming better, growing in power since the moment a cutie mark manifested on her flank and she met Discord mere days later. She remained the same dreg of ponykind washed up from the waste below the dead city. Ash dreamt of saving Canterlot and aiding the Machine Goddess’ grand plan—be it true or not. Yet she couldn’t help a single pony, even though she was the only one who had any chance, to begin with.

Rage welled in her heart till Ash’s vision darkened or, rather, the air around her shimmered with a heat haze and suffocating smoke. The walls and floor around her came alive with countless strange machines hurrying to where Ash stood… with her hooves in a puddle of bubbling metal and plastic. They seemed to care only about undoing the damage she inflicted upon the Crystal Empire without even noticing, but then her shoulder bloomed with pain and the incandescent steel beneath her hissed angrily, dewed with warm crimson.

She whirled around to catch a flash of a sharp blade—the hard wing of a metal bird pirouetting to repeat bloodletting; it wouldn’t return alone—at least two more raven bodies glinted in the dusk of the factory-city. Panic tightened Ash’s chest now hollow with desperation—her long journey might end here, after all, and prove her as ultimately useless and pathetic as she had evaluated herself. In the face of death, the suppressed fire demanded release more insistently than ever, but Ash clenched her jaws, both refusing to give in to its demand and preparing for the worst.

As her thundering heartbeats measured possibly the last moments of her life, she couldn’t help but ask herself—maybe it was what Discord meant, instructing her to become stronger?

What did she have left to lose?

Author's Note

English isn't my native language; though I try my best and use various tools to aid myself, I'm aware that a result is far from perfect. That said, if you notice anything that you think should be fixed—please let me know.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this story so far.
Stay awesome.