It had been about two and a half months since Gerhardt’s encounter with Nightmare Moon. He had already made quite a bit of progress in rebuilding. His current base of operations was in a rocky mountainous area to the east of the Everfree Forest. When he first got there he had found the skeletons of a few bipedal dog-like creatures and disposed of them before he started using magic to dig up and mine as many crystals and ores as he possibly could. This area was strangely rich in a wide variety of both crystals and metal ores for some reason. Not that he was complaining. It made his job a lot easier.

In the months that he had been here he had been working nonstop the entire time and it had already paid off. First he had managed to build himself some new tools and had used them to repair himself. Now he already had three light mining golems constantly gathering more materials for him. He even had a new lab built by a pair of construction golems he had made specifically for that purpose.

He didn’t want to cut down too many trees otherwise he ran the risk of being discovered. As such the lab was mostly made of stone with only the floor, roof, and door being made of wood. Other than that it was an extremely simple and utilitarian structure. It had no decorations, no windows, or anything else of the sort. There was a small factory attached to it where the mining golems would dump all the crystals and ores they collected.

The factory would then separate the crystals from the ores and would dump each type of crystal into yet another organization system that would store the crystals in metal crates based on their type and classification. The ores would be dumped into several separate smelteries designated for each individual type of ore. The smelteries would then refine them into metal and turn them into bars that Gerhardt could use. The bars would then be stored in a similar manner as the crystals. Other than that the factory didn’t really produce anything else quite yet since Gerhardt didn’t exactly have any need to mass produce anything at the moment. After all he was the only one who would ever benefit from his machines any more, much to his chagrin, so what would be the point of mass producing anything?

Currently the only thing he still lacked were clothes to replace his old uniform, but he supposed it was fine since he was currently living in isolation. After all there would be no one around to see him like this and even if someone did wander all the way out here it wasn’t exactly like he had anything to hide. So in the end what did it really matter? Sure it was a bit humiliating to him but he had been in far more humiliating situations than this before.

He had considered building up some defenses just in case but ultimately decided it simply wasn’t worth the effort or the materials. After all it had been two and a half months and there hadn’t been so much as a single soul having passed by, save for some lizards and other animals. So he was pretty sure “Nightmare Moon” either was never looking for him in the first place or she couldn’t find him and had given up looking for him. So why bother preparing for something that would never happen?

Currently he was in his new lab conducting a few experiments. After he had gotten set up enough to start conducting experiments again he had noticed that magic was acting a bit strangely for some reason. As such his experiments currently revolved around trying to find out why. He was starting to discover that the laws of magic worked a bit differently in this universe. Apparently so did the more basic laws of physics since it appeared that this world was trapped in a state of perpetual night and he hadn’t seen the moon move so much as an inch in the sky the entire time he had been here.

He would have assumed that the moon was just locked in a geosynchronous orbit, if it weren’t for the fact that stars seemed to appear, disappear, and even move positions completely at random leading him to believe something else was going on. There were a few stars that remained constant but about half of them appeared to exhibit anomalous behaviour. It was also strange that the stars that were consistent didn’t seem to move whatsoever just like the moon as if the planet itself was not undergoing any sort of rotation for some reason. He planned to investigate why that was later on after he figured out more about the differences between magic in this universe vs magic in his universe.

As he was working his sensors — which he had extended the range from 50 feet to 250 feet since there weren’t many animals or insects in the area around where he had made his base — detected about twenty of the local Equines of all three types he had seen in Nightmare Moon’s castle slowly approaching his lab. They were currently spreading out as if to surround it. Some were approaching a bit faster than the rest. He assumed those ones were pegasi and they were currently flying, thus the reason they were able to move so fast while trying to remain stealthy.

He frowned and set down the device he was currently using to conduct his most recent experiment. Apparently he had been mistaken. Nightmare Moon had not given up trying to find him in order to kill him. He assumed that this group she sent was not meant to kill him, but instead was meant to scout out his base and find out what sort of defenses he had set up and sabotage them if at all possible. Their large numbers were likely to ensure at least one of them could escape if they ended up being discovered and he started killing them. After that they would get back out just as quickly as they came and would report their findings back to Nightmare Moon. Then she would send a much larger force to either subdue or kill him. Well he was not about to just sit back and let that happen! If he was going to go down then he would go down fighting!

Opening a portal to a position directly behind the intruders, he stepped through it. Immediately he saw that he was indeed correct. All of them were wearing armor that matched the armor the guards in the castle had been wearing. How unfortunate for them. If it had turned out that he was mistaken and they were just curious civilians that had somehow managed to stumble upon his lab, he would have let them live. He would have just erased their memories of this place before sending them on their way back to their homes. Now, however, he was going to kill them all. He would keep one of each breed alive for interrogation and study, but even the ones he kept alive would never be leaving this place.

Raising his hands, he pointed them at the group of equines and cast a non-lethal combat spell. Multiple arcs of electricity lanced forth from his hands and struck them one after the other. As soon as he cast the spell they were immediately alerted by the noise and noticed their comrades falling to the ground in twitching heaps. As such they reacted by trying to scatter in multiple directions, trying to get away to report back to Nightmare Moon. He wasn’t about to let them do that.

Having already stunned at least one of each breed he started using combat spells that were actually lethal. Bolts of copper colored arcane energy rapidly launched forth from his hands and slammed into the fleeing equines one after the other. The bolts exploded with the force of hand grenades on impact reducing them to little more than bloody chunks. Once the fleeing ones were all dead, he walked over to the bodies of the ones he stunned. There were a few extra so he picked up the extra ones and proceeded to snap their necks one after the other until there were only three left.

After that he picked up the three remaining equines with telekinesis and brought them into the factory portion of his lab. Setting them down he cast a sleeping spell on all three of them to ensure they wouldn’t wake up before he was ready to deal with them. Then he proceeded to start crafting some metal surgical chairs with built in restraints to keep the equines from being able to struggle. This process took a few hours. Once he was done, he removed each of the equines’ armor before shackling them into the metal surgical chairs. With that done, he slapped the pegasus awake.

“OW! Buck that hurts!” The pegasus exclaimed. Its voice sounded male. He had grey fur, a short dark grey mane, blue eyes, and a picture of a shield with wings on his rump.

“Silence.” Gerhardt ordered in an icy tone. “You are currently my prisoner and you shall be for the rest of your life. Now how long that life is and how difficult it is depends entirely on how cooperative you are and how useful you prove to be. I’m sure you know how this works. You will answer all of my questions and you will not lie to me. If you do then I will torture you until you decide to talk. Even if you bite off your tongue I will simply give you a new one and will remove your front teeth so you can’t bite it off again. If you still somehow manage to do so a second time, I will remove the rest of your teeth without anesthetics while you are still awake before giving you another new tongue. Now that you know all of the rules here is my first question. Let’s start off with a simple one. Were you sent here by Nightmare Moon?”

The pegasus snarled at him and shouted, “Buck you! I’m not telling you anything you bucking freak!”

Gerhardt sighed and said, “Wrong answer.” He then cast an intense pain curse on the pegasus.

The pegasus let out a tortured scream of agony and began struggling against his restraints. This continued on for about three minutes before the pegasus began begging him to stop. “PLEASE STOP! AHHHHH! I’LL TALK, JUST STOP!”

Gerhardt undid the curse and said, “Very well. I shall repeat my question in case the pain made you forget. Is Nightmare Moon the one who sent you here?”

“Yes...! She… She wanted us to scout the area… She wanted to make sure whether you were really here or not...“ The pegasus sobbed.

“I expected as much. Very well, how did she learn my location?” Gerhardt inquired.

“I don’t know! We’re just soldiers, she didn’t tell us anything! Please!” The pegasus pleaded.

“Judging by your heart rate and breathing, I suspect you’re telling the truth. How fortunate for you. Well since none of you will be reporting back to her, she will know that this is indeed where my base of operations is located. So do you know when she plans to attack me?” Gerhardt inquired.

“I… I can’t…” The pegasus stuttered in fear, clearly unwilling to tell him. “Please… I can’t…”

Gerhardt sighed again and said, “Why must you make this so hard on yourself? You know, I do not take pleasure in torturing you. Far from it. If I had it my way none of this would even be happening in the first place. You would be able to live your life in peace and I would be able to live my life in isolation. It is unfortunate that it has to be this way. However, it is even more unfortunate that you choose to force my hand.” He then cast a pain curse on the pegasus again.

“AHHHHHHHH! PLEASE! NO MORE! I CAN’T TELL YOU! SHE’LL HAVE MY FAMILY EXECUTED! I HAVE A WIFE AND FOALS! PLEEEEASE!” The pegasus screamed in agony.

“And she will try to kill me if you do not tell me. So I’m sorry but this isn’t going to stop until you talk. We can keep going for hours, days even, so please just make this easier on yourself. Besides, I have heard that excuse a million times. In my experience it is often not true and individuals just lie and claim that they do in a desperate attempt to gain sympathy. Unfortunately for you, you will gain no such sympathy from me.” Gerhardt said in a casual tone. This was nothing he hadn’t done before.

“A MONTH! SHE SAYS SHE PLANS TO ATTACK IN A MONTH!” The pegasus screamed.

Gerhardt undid the curse. He then let the pegasus rest a bit until his breathing and heart rate returned to normal. “Say that again. Does she really plan to attack in a month.” Gerhardt inquired skeptically.

“Y-yes… She says… She says she plans to attack in a month…” The pegasus sobbed, tears streamed heavily down his face.

Gerhardt frowned at him. “Judging by your heart rate and breathing, that was a lie. You know, I could just put a pain curse on you and leave you here screaming in agony for a few hours. I’m sure that will loosen your tongue a bit.”

The Pegasus’ eyes widened in terror. “NO! PLEASE! TWO WEEKS! THE ATTACK WILL BE IN TWO WEEKS!”

“Hm… I believe you. How unfortunate. That leaves me with very little time to prepare. Perhaps I should pack up what I can and run? I’ll have to think about this. In the meantime, I believe I have no further questions for you at the moment. I will be casting a spell to put you to sleep now and shall be interrogating your other two comrades to see if their answers match up with yours. Oh wait, before I do so what does your kind eat? I assume you are herbivores. I need you to tell me so I know what to feed you and your comrades. After all, you will be my prisoners and test subjects for quite some time and I do not want you starving to death. My methods may be a bit harsh but I am not unnecessarily cruel. I really would like to make your stay as comfortable as possible. It will be easier on all four of us.”

“Y-yes… We’re herbivores… We eat bread, hay, and flowers among other things…” The pegasus said fearfully.

“I see. Thank you for your cooperation. I shall keep that in mind. Now sleep.” Gerhardt said before casting another sleep spell on the pegasus. When the pegasus was asleep again, Gerhardt turned to the equine that lacked either a horn or wings. Since the pegasus was a male he assumed this one was female judging by the differences in bone and muscular structure. She had light blue fur, a darker blue mane, green eyes, and a picture of a shield with two spears crossed behind it. Gerhardt proceeded to slap her awake just like he had done to the pegasus.

“GAH! What the hay?!” The equine exclaimed as she was jolted awake.

“Silence.” Gerhardt ordered in an icy tone. “You are currently my prisoner and you shall be for the rest of your life. Now how long that life is and how difficult it is depends entirely on how cooperative you are and how useful you prove to be. I’m sure you know how this works. You will answer all of my questions and you will not lie to me. If you do then I will torture you until you decide to talk. Even if you bite off your tongue I will simply give you a new one and will remove your front teeth so you can’t bite it off again. If you still somehow manage to do so a second time, I will remove the rest of your teeth without anesthetics while you are still awake before giving you another new tongue. Now that you know all of the rules here is my first question. Let’s start off with a simple one. Were you sent here by Nightmare Moon?”

“Pfft! You actually think I’m going to tell you? Yeah right! I’m calling your bluff. You’re not going to do anything to me even if I don’t tell you anything!” The equine stated confidently.

Gerhardt sighed and said, “Tell that to the pegasus over there. I just finished interrogating him. Well either way, I suppose you require a bit of proof. Very well.” He then raised a hand and cast a pain curse on her. Like the pegasus she began screaming in agony and struggling against her restraints. Surprisingly, the metal was actually starting to bend. She was surprisingly strong. He needed to do something otherwise there was a very serious risk that she may break out of her restraints. As such he cast a paralysis spell on her so she could no longer move anything below her neck. It wouldn’t last forever but it should last long enough for him to finish the interrogation.

She continued screaming for almost a full five minutes before finally breaking, which was longer than the pegasus had lasted. After that, Gerhardt’s interrogation of her proceeded in much the same way as his interrogation of the pegasus. She said pretty much the exact same things as the pegasus had. When he got everything he needed out of her, he put her to sleep again.

Finally he turned to the unicorn. This one also appeared to be female. She had reddish fur, a pinkish mane, grey eyes, and oddly enough instead of having a picture of a shield on her rump like the other two she had a picture of a paint brush. Gerhardt couldn’t help but wonder what the significance of these pictures were and why the unicorn’s was so different from the other two. Regardless he slapped her awake just like he had done to the last two.

As soon as she woke up and found herself restrained a reddish aura surrounded her horn indicating she was about to try to cast a spell. Gerhardt immediately proceeded to grab her by the horn and threatened to snap it off her head if she tried using any magic. After that she put up the least resistance of all of them making her interrogation go a bit quicker and smoother than the last two. When it was over he put her to sleep again as well.

With his interrogation concluded for the moment he proceeded back outside and gathered up all the remains and chunks of meat and gore with a telekinetic spell and set them all in one big pile. He then cast a spell to light the corpses on fire. With that done he walked back into his lab.

This wasn’t good. He only had two weeks until Nightmare Moon and her soldiers came to try and kill him. He had to prepare as fast as physically possible. She will have likely learned from their previous encounter and would have come up with some sort of strategy to subdue him. Well he was not going to just sit idly by and let this happen!

Gods above, why had he been so foolish as to believe she had actually given up on hunting him down?! Why hadn’t he prepared more?! Damn him! Well it didn’t matter now. He just had to adapt as best he could and learn from his mistakes.

Overclocking his brain and drastically speeding up his perception of time, he immediately got to work building himself a weapon. This time he wasn’t going to settle for some pathetic little teleportation pistol. Instead he built himself a powerful rifle with four barrels that could be swapped between with the press of a button. The first barrel fired powerful 1 in particle beams, the second barrel fired 1 in beams of concentrated coherent photons and could be calibrated to fire at any frequency ranging from microwaves all the way up to gamma rays, the third barrel was essentially just a larger, more powerful, and much longer ranged version of his old teleportation pistol, and the fourth and final barrel fired 1 in bolts of arcane energy that would explode like particularly powerful hand grenades on impact. He would have made the fourth barrel even more powerful than that but he simply didn’t have the time.

Once his rifle was finished he immediately rushed to start building automated turret emplacements. Combat golems were next on the list if he had enough time to work on them. His hands were moving so fast that to an outside viewer they would be little more than a blur of motion. The same could be said for the tools he was currently using with telekinesis.

It took him twelve hours but eventually he managed to complete two turrets and was half way through building a third. However, it was then his sensors detected a full four hundred equines rapidly converging on his position. He detected the presence of a demigod with them. Panic suddenly shot through him. What were they doing here?! They weren’t supposed to attack him for another two weeks! Had the soldiers he had captured lied to him?! No, they couldn’t have! Their heartbeats and breathing had been completely normal when they answered him! Had Nightmare Moon sped up her plans when none of her scouts had returned? That had to be it! It was the only thing that made any sense! Even worse was the fact that Nightmare Moon’s energy signature was significantly stronger than it had been during their first encounter, meaning she was already far more powerful than he was.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!” He cursed. Quickly opening a portal to the inside of his lab he grabbed his rifle and pulled it out before closing the portal behind it. It was currently set to fire particle beams. That would just have to do for the moment as he could already see the full battalion of equines approaching him. Raising the rifle, he aimed and began shooting the pegasi out of the sky. His turrets immediately followed suit, rapidly firing particle beams of their own. The unicorns among the battalion began returning fire and primitive combat spells began slamming into Gerhardt and his turrets.

In response he raised a shield in front of him to block the combat spells. Then he proceeded to press a button on the side of his rifle and switched it to fire beams of coherent photons. It was currently calibrated to fire microwaves which were invisible to the naked unaugmented eye but were still extremely deadly all the same. As he fired his weapon through his copper colored shield ponies began splitting open or outright exploding in gruesome showers of steaming blood and gore from the moisture inside their bodies being vaporized in an instant.

Suddenly a powerful beam of dark blue energy slammed into his shield, shattering it and sending him flying backwards several feet from the sheer concussive force behind the attack. Hitting the ground he rolled to a stop and immediately forced himself up. As soon as he was standing again, Nightmare Moon had landed directly in front of him and had a victorious smirk on her face. “My word, you do work fast don’t you? Hmph. Too bad.” She said before grabbing him with telekinesis and violently smashing him into the stone wall of his lab. “Did you think you could just get away with killing my soldiers and destroying my castle?!” She tossed him up into the air and fired a powerful beam of energy at him that left a horrible dent in his chest and sent him flying over the roof of his lab.

Hitting the ground he groaned as his pain receptors flared in agony. Shutting them down he forced himself back up again and quickly recalibrated his rifle to fire beams of blue visible light. When Nightmare Moon landed in front of him again, he demanded, “How the fuck did you find me?! More importantly your fucking soldiers said you wouldn’t be attacking for another two weeks! Why in the infernal realm are you here already?!”

Nightmare Moon just smirked and said, “I have my sources, and did you honestly believe I would give you any time to prepare?! HA! What a fool! Now DIE!” She then grabbed him with telekinesis again and began slowly crushing him like a tin can. She obviously wanted him to suffer as he died. Too bad for her, Gerhardt couldn't feel pain at the moment having already shut down his pain receptors. More importantly he had absolutely no intention of dying today.

Gerhardt pulled the trigger on his rifle and fired a lethal laser at the ground. Now for a laser to be used as a weapon it has to be extremely bright to the point it would instantly and permanently blind anyone with organic eyes who wasn’t wearing specially designed eye protection. And that’s exactly what happened with Nightmare Moon. She was instantaneously blinded by the laser, unfortunately given her nature as a demigod it wouldn’t be permanent but it didn’t need to be. Nightmare Moon screamed in pain as her retinas were instantly burned out. While she was distracted by the pain, Gerhardt cast a combat spell. A ball of copper energy formed in front of him before flying towards Nightmare Moon and hitting her before exploding like an artillery shell.

Immediately the telekinetic grip holding Gerhardt in the air vanished as Nightmare Moon was blasted backwards. Demigods were extremely resilient creatures so Gerhardt knew full well that she would survive that, but he didn’t care. Instead of risking continuing to attack her and having to fight the three hundred remaining soldiers she had brought with her, Gerhardt decided to abandon everything and flee again. Before that though, he cast a war spell on his laboratory itself. Suddenly numerous spheres of copper colored energy rained from the sky and began slamming into the lab, each one exploding like an artillery shell. The war spell quickly reduced the lab to rubble and destroyed everything inside including the three ponies that he had taken prisoner the previous “day”.

After that he began sprinting away as fast as he possibly could, his maximum speed being 115 MPH. His body’s joints whirred and clicked in protest as they strained to keep up the rapid pace. Looking back as he ran he saw numerous pegasi rapidly catching up with him. In response he raised his rifle in one hand and fired. It was still set to fire blue lasers. As such the pegasi were blinded as he blasted them out of the sky. After the first few exploded from being shot by the laser the rest immediately stopped in their tracks and began backing off, likely not wanting to meet the same fate as their comrades. Though admittedly it was also just as likely that they had simply been blinded by the laser and just couldn’t see where he had gone and didn’t want to try chasing him while blind. Some of the ones that were further away might possibly be able to recover from the laser induced blindness — though they would likely have significant eye problems even after they recovered — while the ones that were closer to the beams were likely going to be blind permanently.

After that he simply continued running and did not plan to stop any time soon. He would need to try to find a completely new base of operations, preferably somewhere much better hidden than this place had been. Hopefully it would also be easier to defend than this place had been. It was really unfortunate. This place had been so rich in ores and crystals. It was such a shame that he had to leave it behind like this. But such was life. As long as he survived what did it matter?

He was currently running south and after a few hours he found himself in a desert. Seeing a small city off in the distance next to what appeared to be yet another forest he decided to change direction slightly to run south west in order to go around the city. He didn’t want to try taking his chances in a forest if he could possibly avoid it and he definitely didn’t want to risk going into a city where he knew he would be discovered almost immediately. So once he got around the city he kept running south until he ended up in what appeared to be a badlands of sorts. Hopefully this would work better as a hidden base of operations. This time he would try doing as the dwarves do and would make his next lab inside a cave. He just needed to find another source of ores and crystals. First though he needed to find a suitable cave then he could start looking for ore and crystals.

After a full twenty four hours he found a relatively hidden cave that his sensors didn’t detect any life inside. He decided that would be sufficient then immediately got to work looking for more ores and crystals. Unfortunately for him this area wasn’t nearly as rich in ores or crystals as the previous area. It had some but not much. Still he would just have to make do for now. He spent about a week working and setting up his next lab before it too was discovered just like the first one had been. Casting a spell he caused a cave in to destroy everything he had been working on before fleeing once again.

This time he tried running north west, avoiding yet another town, and finally discovering a large gorge. He considered making his next base inside this gorge but ultimately decided against it when he discovered the giant eel-like creatures that lived there. He deemed them too large of a threat to be worth risking establishing a base of operations in that gorge. As such he simply levitated himself across the gorge and kept on running. Eventually he found a mountain range and tried establishing a base of operations there, but once again he was discovered within a week.

He tried running north until he ended up in an icy tundra, he tried running south until he ended up near a massive waterfall, he tried running east again. Each and every time he finally found a place to establish a lab he was discovered. Every fucking time! It began wearing on him more and more until finally he just snapped. If this bitch wasn’t going to give him the time to build up defenses and create an army of combat golems with which to defend himself with then he simply had no choice but to build up an army of another sort, as much as he loathed himself for having to resort to this. But what other fucking choice did he have?! Nightmare Moon had proven that she was not going to stop until she finally managed to kill him and she wasn’t going to give him enough time to do anything else!

As such he went from forest to forest and started killing every animal he could possibly find before using necromancy to resurrect them as undead. Within days he had an army of ghosts, zombies, and even a mindless animalistic version of a shade enslaved to his will. If this bitch wanted a fight then he was going to give her a fucking war! Maybe then he could finally buy himself enough time to build some gods damned golems so he wouldn’t have to resort to such morally reprehensible methods as this ever again.

He despised using necromancy like this. It made him feel no better than Caedes which disgusted him to no end. But at this point he was at his wits end. What the fuck else was he supposed to do? He had no options! He could no longer fight Nightmare Moon on his own. Her power seemed to be constantly growing so he couldn’t keep escaping from her like this forever! One of these times she was eventually just going to be able to kill him through brute force alone! He needed backup and this was the only realistic option he had at the moment that he could think of to get the back up he so desperately needed.

So once he had a few thousand undead monstrosities following him, he went west again. There didn’t seem to be many towns or cities out that direction so that’s exactly where he planned to build up his base of operations, and these undead would ensure that he would finally be able to fight back when Nightmare Moon inevitably found him again.

[Meanwhile in Canterlot]

“What do you mean it’s too dangerous to go after him again?! I nearly had him last time! I know for a fact I can kill him this time!” Nightmare Moon roared at Silvanus furiously. “I want my bucking revenge and I am going to get it one way or another!”

“You don’t understand you fool! We made a mistake and have finally pushed him too far over the edge! I want him dead just as much as you do, in fact I want him dead more than you do, but the bastard has finally snapped! He has a legion of undead abominations following him now! If you try to attack him again you will lose!” Silvanus’ disembodied voice roared back at her inside her head.

“If we give him time to prepare then there will be an even higher chance that I will lose! Tell me where his next base is this instant or you can consider our allegiance over!” Nightmare Moon hissed at the nature god.

“Grrr… Fine! Perhaps once you see it for yourself you will learn to listen when I tell you it’s too dangerous! He’s here in the area you call the “Undiscovered West”.” Silvanus growled, before forcefully shoving the image of a map with a red marker on it into her mind. “Whatever you do, do not bring any soldiers! If you do then they will just die and will only serve to bolster his forces further, only with truly sapient undead! Trust me when I say, you do not want that to happen!”

Nightmare Moon rolled her eyes and said, “Fine, whatever. We can continue this conversation later, I have a metal ape to destroy.” She then proceeded to teleport herself to the city known as Tall Tale since it was the closest place to the metal freak’s newest base that she was familiar with.

“Be extremely careful little demigod. This is going to be one of the single most dangerous situations you have ever been in.” Silvanus’ voice said before his presence disappeared from Nightmare Moon’s mind.

Nightmare Moon just scoffed. How bad could it possibly be? She was a demigod! What could a mere mortal like this metal ape do that could be even remotely dangerous to a higher being like her. Nothing he had done up until this point had come anywhere near killing or even permanently injuring her, and she was already vastly stronger than she had ever been in her entire life! Nothing would be able to stop her now!

Completely confident in her abilities to kill Gerhardt, she spread her wings and began flying towards his newest base. It only took her about two hours of flight to get there. Immediately she was hit with the scent of death. Even this high in the air it was so thick it made her want to gag. She then saw exactly what Silvanus had meant. She could see thousands of reanimated corpses, glowing specters, and a single giant pitch black ethereal monstrosity with glowing green eyes surrounding a large wooden building. Gerhardt was standing in front of the building with his rifle in hand, staring up into the sky. He was clearly waiting for her. She landed a ways away from him and his monstrosities.

“Ah, Nightmare Moon. I have been expecting you. Well, I believe it's only fair I give you one last warning. Leave me the fuck alone and let me conduct my research in peace otherwise I will no longer be content to remain on the defensive as I have been up until this point. Continue pursuing this petty grudge of yours and I will be forced to escalate this conflict between us into a full scale war. And I guarantee it is a war that you will not win.” Gerhardt shouted at her so she would be able to hear him from their current distance.

“Ha! A war? Oh please… As if I am afraid of a few walking corpses.” Nightmare Moon scoffed. She then shot a powerful beam of energy at him.

He immediately jumped out of the way and the beam slammed into the ground directly behind where he had once been standing causing a relatively large explosion. “So be it. Kill her!” Gerhardt ordered his army. Then almost as one the horde of animal corpses, ghosts, and the inky black monster began charging towards Nightmare Moon while Gerhardt just stood where he was and watched.

Nightmare Moon reacted by unleashing even more powerful blasts in an attempt to eradicate the horde of undead abominations. It worked extremely well on the ones that were little more than walking corpses, however it had little to no effect on the ghosts or the monster whatsoever. The ghost of what appeared to have been a manticore reached her before any of the other spectral monsters. It immediately lashed out at her with its ethereal scorpion tail as if trying to impale her with it. She tried to raise her wings to block the strike but the scorpion tail simply passed straight through the feathers doing absolutely no damage and continued on until it passed through her face. Once again the tail did no physical damage but somehow pain erupted through her face as if she really had just been stabbed in the eye.

Hissing in pain Nightmare Moon spread her wings and used them to launch herself backwards away from the ghost. Since all of her attacks seemed to pass through the ghosts and the inky black monster harmlessly, she tried grabbing a couple of them with telekinesis. It didn’t work. She tried creating shields to smash them. This also failed. One thing after another she tried and failed to attack and even so much as injure the ghosts or the monster. Nothing she tried came even close to working.

Eventually the twenty foot tall mostly formless inky black monster managed to get within fifteen feet of her and pain coursed through her body as she felt her flesh starting to rot away at a rapid pace like it had during her first fight with Gerhardt. Then she noticed that her armor was starting to corrode and crumble to dust. Finally she realized that everything within a fifteen foot radius of the monster was withering, dying, corroding, and crumbling to dust around it. Trying to get out of its radius, she launched herself into the air and started trying to fly above the ethereal creatures. Unfortunately for her this did not stop them either as they all simply began floating up into the air after her. She tried getting as far away from them as she possibly could without actually resorting to turning and running away but they were rapidly gaining on her and she eventually found herself being swarmed by the ghosts and the monster.

Agony and rapidly growing fear coursed through her as the ghosts and the monster began tearing into her. No matter what she tried she couldn’t injure them, she couldn’t force them away from her, she couldn’t do anything to them! For perhaps the first time in her life she felt well and truly powerless and she absolutely hated it! She had no idea how they were hurting her despite leaving no physical damage but she could feel herself slowly dying and it terrified her! She didn’t want to let a pathetic mortal like this metal ape and his undead abominations force her to run away but if she didn’t get out of here as soon as possible she knew she was going to die! So she was forced to swallow her pride and teleport herself all the way back to Canterlot, where she had been staying ever since her castle in the Everfree Forest had been completely destroyed by Gerhardt.

“Silvanus!” She demanded as soon as she was back, knowing full well that the god of nature could hear her. “I need answers! What the buck were those things?! More importantly why couldn’t I hurt them?!”

“I already told you. They are undead. The disembodied souls of the dead forcefully bound to the physical realm and enslaved to his will. Those ones were only made from animals he had killed. It could have been much worse. You could have had to contend with sapient shades, wights, phantoms, banshees, liches, or even wraiths if you were particularly unfortunate.” Silvanus’ disembodied voice responded, sounding somewhat smug. “Now do you understand why I said it was too dangerous?”

“Yes…” Nightmare Moon growled reluctantly. “What am I supposed to do against those things if I can’t even so much as touch them?! How do I fight them?!”

“Hm… I have a few ideas but before any of that you need to let your soul recover. It sustained quite a bit of damage in that fight. If you try attacking him like this again while in that condition you will die. Unfortunately damage to the soul takes quite a while to heal. You will be out of commission for a month. In the meantime, we have some work to do. You will need to make some specialized weapons and armor for your soldiers.” Silvanus informed her.

Author's Note

And that's the second chapter done in record time for me. Now, to be perfectly honest I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter. It works but eh... Please feel free to tell me what you guys think. I am completely willing to go back and rewrite this chapter if you guys feel like I should. Though if you do, I would very much appreciate it if you would let me know what you think I did wrong so I can try to fix it. The same can be said with any chapters in any of my stories. If you feel like I did something wrong in them please let me know what so I can try to figure out how to go back and fix it. After all, I can't do anything about it if I don't know what I did wrong.

Also, unfortunately this story does not take precedence over the original. I'll try my best to update it as frequently as possible but the main story is my priority. I just wanted to get a second chapter out for this version ASAP since the previous chapter was a few thousand words too short for my tastes and I wanted to give you guys a bit more to read until the next chapter.

Fun Fact: Shades have a few similarities with Wraiths but usually can't use magic, are a lot more formless, and are usually completely and irrevocably insane.

Anyways, as always, constructive criticism is more than welcome. Please, tell me what you guys thought of this chapter and how you think I could improve if at all. I hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter as much if not more than I enjoyed writing it!

Stay safe out there everyone!