The first week felt like it had practically flown by.

Having all of Alexander’s friends with her had proven surprisingly comforting; almost allowing her to forget about work at the mechanics shop for a bit. Having to text that she was still sick was not going to work forever. Eventually, she was going to have to quit.

Her friends had said they could all pitch in to cover her costs for her. So at least she could afford to, but she did not like having to use her friend’s money to sustain herself. Alexander actually liked her job as well. As strange as it sounds she felt her new body would make fiddling around with machines more fun.

Magic practice had been a good distraction from these kinds of worries. Alexander was a bit amazed at how quickly her levitation skills had improved over a few days of practice. What started as barely being able to lift a pen had turned into managing to lift a wooden chair with some effort.

She spent a lot of her downtime dealing with her throbbing horn and fatigue. Even using a little Panadol the first time she tried moving a chair. These symptoms had lessened over time the more she practiced.

Alexander did not think she could pull off anything crazy. But practice had proved she could now comfortably lift objects she could of normally with human hands. She had even tried moving more than one object at once.

The best she had gotten was lifting two different objects separately provided their combined weight was not too much to handle. Weight and size were very much a factor for how well she could lift something.

Alexander had found through experimentation that a few small objects like coins could be carried together in one group similar to one larger object. They had to be kept together to work but it allowed her to pick up a small pile of stones or a cup's worth of water.

Despite this, dealing with work still crept towards her. Not only that, any other thing that required leaving the house would need to be addressed at some point. How her family would react was also another thing to consider. She doubted she could ovoid them forever.

Sometimes Alexander just wanted to avoid having to deal with it in the first place.

/---\

It was almost midnight. The moon was almost at its apex.

As luck would have it the ritual would be blessed with a blue moon, allowing the ritual to be empowered further without extra effort on their part.

All they needed to do was take advantage of the opportunity given.

“We are truly blessed for such a fortuities event to occur upon the night we plan to summon our new mistress.” Rime Rose thought while smiling, looking up at the full blue moon high above.

It was a perfect night to summon the divine.

The rest of the town was asleep by now. It was almost midnight, no one would be awake to realise what was happening, let alone try to stop the ritual.

As Rime entered the two-story mansion, followed in by her fellow members. The largest structure in the village by far, the inside lit by stray candles. Only enough to allow them to see where they were going; only enough to light the path to their destination.

As they reached the basement each took a robe from the racks along the walls. Many were already inside waiting for them. Anyone not participating in the ritual, which was only family too young, old, or inexperienced to contribute, sat in quiet anticipation off to the side in adjacent chambers.

Rime took her designated Robe, slipping it on before entering the ritual chamber. She felt a bit nervous but more than that she was filled with eager anticipation for what was about to occur. They would be starting any moment now as they waited for the last of their number to take their positions.

“Is this the last of us Speaker?” a voice spoke up. A member of the inner circles that had an important role in casting. He also was the town’s resident noble and owner of the residence they were using as well as the surrounding village. He was largely covered by his robe, but his beige snout poked into the candlelight enough to be seen.

“Yes, Mister Dare. Once everyone is in position we will begin.” Rime said with a nod.

The ritual circle had five circles of intricate runes and lines surrounding a larger sixth in the center. Smaller circles filled in the gaps between each larger one, in these circles, important items were placed; shimmering bluish crystals that had fallen from the heavens themselves.

The five larger circles were for Rime herself and the others capable of the more complex casting to stand in. to her right was where Mister Dare stood, while to her left was Night Ray. The two final members of the inner circle were opposite her.

Around them, anyone capable of contributing to the ritual was forming a circle with linked arms. They would be adding greater stability and magic power for what was to come. They all stood inside the largest circle that filled the entire room. The entire underground complex also had another line of runes surrounding it so they would all be excluded as sacrifices.

Many lit candles on the edges of the room provided sufficient light for them to see. More light was provided by what filled the central circle. Like a pile of treasure, soft glowing spherical objects bathed them in multi-coloured light. They were a large variety of different colours, each individual piece sticking to one colour. They were like sparkling bits of stars; which was why they were commonly called star bits.

The only thing that was not one of these star bits was the dream viewer orb situated in the very center of the circle. The blue starry orb stood out as it was at least three times the size of the surrounding star bits.

Rime rose levitated her spellbook in front of her, flipping open to the relevant pages. Much of her personal book had been dedicated to creating this ritual, and now it was finally going to be used in the summoning itself.

“My fellow brothers and sisters!” Rime rose called out, loud enough for everyone in the complex to hear. “For generations, we have prepared and waited for this day! Toiled and worked under the threat of death by those too afraid of the dark! Worshipers of false idols, only using them as excuses to oppress and seize more power for themselves.”

She took a moment to breathe. “We still have much work to be done before we can be free of their tyranny. But today marks a new chapter in the history books! One where instead of hiding we will fight back! We will make our stand under the leadership of our new mistress of the dark, and pave the way to a better future for us all!”

Cheering erupted around the chamber and for a second Rime worried someone might hear the sound echoing. It was very unlikely and irrelevant at this point.

Without any more fanfare, she gave the signal to begin. All their horns lit up in various coloured aura, all pushing their magic into the ritual circle. The circles glowed red with sparkles of blue sprinkled throughout.

Rime Rose began chanting, quickly joined by everyone else. She could feel the hum of magic fill the air, the veil between their realm and others beyond beginning to open.

It was only a matter of time now.

/---\

“UNO”

“Are you sure you’re not cheating somehow?” Nicole asked, raising an eyebrow towards the dark Alicorn. She was tempted to throw her cards down at this rate.

“Are you really accusing our goddess of cheating?” Niles said. He still had the most cards. Considering he was sitting next to Alexander that was probably a deliberate choice.

“She can’t have just won seven out of ten games of UNO through dumb luck!” Nicole replied, getting a little frustrated.

“Better than a one hundred percent win rate at snap…” Isaac muttered. He set his cards down and leaned back in his chair.

Nicole sighed and looked towards Alexander. She watched the dark Alicorn smile sheepishly, her ears drooping a little as she rubbed the back of her neck.

She honestly felt a little sorry for her at times. Many would love to have the power she obviously now possessed. But it was obvious to Nicole that the more she figured out her new capabilities and practiced them, the more beyond anyone else’s she would be.

It was going to be a lonely path in the end, she was sure of it. The best she could do now was give her friend good memories to look back on in the future once life inevitably became more hectic. Especially when the rest of them were gone for one reason or another.

She felt like everyone had avoided thinking about those possibilities for the most part. A few brief mentions. She could not blame them; death was a scary thing after all.

Nicole knew she would have to eventually pull the trigger on someone herself in the future. Something she had a gut feeling would happen sooner than later. A product of her line of work.

Half-eaten packets of chips and soda cans littered the table around the pile of cards in the center.

“Your just jealous of her divine powers~” Niles teased as he gathered the cards to shuffle them for a new game.

Nicole did not pay much attention to him, however.

She just watched Alexander quietly as she leaned back in her chair. Becoming Nightmare Moon…

Did Alexander somehow relate to her? She could not imagine it. This seemed like something that would have been more appropriate to happen to Niles.

Personally, Nicole related more to Shining Armour than any of the others from the show; probably because of her profession. His willingness to be the shield for his friends and family was an appealing quality.

Nicole had to admit however she would be more willing to go on the offensive if needed. She did not think her friends truly realised what horrors reside in the world.

Nothing mystical or alien, just the normal mundane horrors the human race came up with on its own on a daily basis. She was not going to let that harm any of them if she had anything to say about it.

As she was lost in thought a new round of cards was dealt out. She watched Alexander get up, levitating some of the rubbish with her to dispose of.

Nicole had to admit she had got quite good at that very quickly. She wondered how much could be pick up at once. Would levitation allow for her to wield multiple large guns? Even if that was not so, it would be a very useful skill regardless in combat, and just in general.

Not to mention she also had personal flight; a dream that man had dreamt about for as long as they had been on planet earth. There was a good chance she was not going to be using them any time soon, however.

Nicole wondered how feasible it was to move Alexander to a new and remote location where she would have more freedom. She had not been able to leave the house so far for an entire week.

Suddenly the floor began to glow.

Everyone looked towards Alexander in surprise as the floor beneath her began to glow a solid ethereal blue.

Alexander looked just as surprised as everyone else. Especially when her body started dissolving for lack of a better term; turning fully into the starry misty substance that her mane and tail consisted of.

Everything was then pulled down into the glowing floor before winking out like a light switch.

It happened so fast that everyone just sat there in shock. Slowly looking at each other as the realisation of what just happened slowly sank in.

“We are going to at least try and get her back right?” Isaac asked.

“Hell yeah, we are getting her back!” Niles almost yelled. He almost seemed angry for the first Nicole could remember.

“I honestly should have expected this.” Nicole thought with a frown as everyone started arguing about what to do.

/---\

The ritual was reaching the height of its activity.

The voices of all those gathered had slowly risen as they chanted.

Rime Rose was too busy reading out the more important parts of the ritual to pay much attention to anything around her. However, in her peripheral vision, she could see all the spell components melting into liquid light before melding into the ground and flowing into the ritual circle itself.

The star bits in the center on the other hand slowly lifted off the ground and swirled around the dream viewer, which was slowly floating into the air. It stopped a meter off the ground, hovering in place.

The swirling mass began to speed up significantly, making it look like a rainbow tornado filled the central circle. Slowly it all started to blur together into a prismatic wall of starlight.

Rime could feel the Nightmares whispering in her mind, imploring her forward, encouraging her.

She knew there was an otherworldly audience watching from beyond the veil. Many were too weak for their purposes, others uninterested in passing through onto their plane. Some were too twisted even for her tastes. It would not do to get slaughtered to the last mare after everything they had achieved so far.

Among their number a rare few were too strong to pull through despite everything they had achieved.

She was then whispered a name from one of the greater nightmares present. It was suggesting another instead of itself. Someone that it believed would work for their purposes and achieve great things in the future with proper guidance. Someone with a physical form they could already call upon to enter their plane more easily.

Rime Rose smiled. “I call upon the divine nightmare, Nightmare Moon! Come forth into our realm so we may do your bidding!” she raised her hands high into the air.

As she spoke the name of their new mistress the souls of the surrounding town’s folk rushed into the room from all sides. Orbs of cold glowing light all rushing towards the dream viewer like moths to a flame.

Once the last of the souls were in the orb the surrounding star bits joined them in the melting pot. Light and darkness flashed from the orb, forming and twisting into a new shape.

Rime Rose watched in amazement at the new form manifesting in front of her; the form of her new mistress. She heard cackling laughter radiate from the forming mass as Nightmare Moon was pulled into their reality. A buzz of excitement filled her, no doubt shared by everyone else in the room.

The laughter died down as the divine entity finished forming in the middle of the room, dark sparkling wings outstretched.

Rime was amazed by her beauty and the power she could feel radiating from her. She knew the divine would be awe-inspiring, but she never realised just how much. A goddess of midnight fur, dark glittering wings, with a mane and tail of stars filling an ethereal cloud, and a long horn emerging from her forehead.

She wore some sort of short blue pants made of an unknown fabric. Her top had short sleeves and was a white colour with what looked like a depiction of blue explosions of light, which seemed to somehow look like a painting that had been fused into the fabric.

Her piercing eyes watched them with emotions Rime could not place. But that did not matter. They had succeeded without issue in summoning their new mistress, and Rime Rose had every intention of serving her to the best of her ability; everything that Nightmare Moon would want of them, and hopefully she would be able to help them with their goals in return.

/---\

Alexander had little time to process what was happening. It had been like her entire body was melting without pain, and then pulled into a vacuum cleaner.

She was then pulled to somewhere. It was not hard to guess at this point what had happened. “How am I still even conscious?” she could not perceive anything but a humming sound and shifting blue colour, which could be either her own form or everything around her.

The humming was then joined by chanting. Alexander had no idea what they were chanting exactly, though she supposed that did not matter.

As she felt like she was slowing down a strange feeling flooded her form, or at least what there was of it.

It was like being tickled and filled with the best food she had ever had. It was so much. So much raw energy filling her, adding to her already existing stores of magic and stamina. She felt so much stronger overall.

Alexander could not stop herself from laughing at the incredible feeling. Was this what drugs were like? She barely registered that her body was reforming at first. But as the light around her faded along with the incredible feeling that had filled her she was able to get a look around the room.

Her forced high settled down, but it also numbed any negative emotions she would be feeling. Sure there was still a bit of anger and frustration at being ripped away from everything she knew but it was being largely suppressed for now.

“So this is Equestria then?” Alexander was surrounded by unicorns as far as she could tell. All of them wore robes that largely hid their features, except for the horns sticking out of their heads. If she had to guess they were all between fifteen and twenty centimetres long.

They then all bowed before her. “Greetings glorious Nightmare Moon, we welcome you to our realm with open arms.” The unicorn that looked to be the leader said.

Alexander looked down at the unicorn as she pulled down her hood. She had ice blue fur, while her long hair was white with blue stripes. She looked up at Alexander with wonder in her sapphire eyes.
She noticed that this unicorns robe was the most elaborate out of all of them, so most likely she was their leader. “Greetings?”

Alexander looked around again. Were they all waiting for something from her? In the room, there were about two dozen other unicorns, but Alexander could see some heads poking in to look from the sides. Most of these ones looked like children or the elderly, less in total than who was currently in the main room.

“…why have you summoned me?” Alexander asked, looking back to the assumed leader.

She smiled before bowing deeper for a second and standing straight. “We have brought you here in the hope you would lead us into a new age of glory, and strike down the tyrants of our world.”

Alexander looked at the unicorn as she thought. “So some sort of cult that wants to overthrow the world order. Are they going to ask me to take down Celestia? I don’t want to fight anyone.” “What is your name?”

The unicorn gave another short bow before responding. “I am Nightmare Speaker Rime Rose, leader of our branch of our organisation. To my right is our resident noble Mister Dare, with the rank of Nightwalker. To my left is our town guards captain Night Ray, with the rank Shadow Walker.”

The other two unicorns pulled down their hoods as well, both looked male. Mister Dare had beige fur with blond hair combed back on his head and orange eyes. He smiled and bowed again, “It is a pleasure to finally meet you mistress. We have long awaited your arrival.”

The one identified as Night Ray was a dark blue with short silver hair. He stayed silent, looking at Alexander with purple eyes. He was staying professional in a way that reminded Alexander a little of Nicole.

“I’m never going to see them again aren’t I? Or what little family I have for that matter.” Sorrow began to fill Alexander as the feeling that had filled her upon arrival faded. She thought she had avoided this trope. If she had just been sent straight away she might have found it easier to accept since that’s normally what happens.

But no, she had to be stolen away from everything she knew when her guard was down by a bunch of random cultists. They must have noticed her frowning or something because they flinched back with nervous fear.

She could suddenly smell something tantalising, cold and sweet.

“D-did we do something to displease you Mistress?” Rime asked a little nervously.

Alexander sighed and took a deep breath in and out to calm herself; ignoring the pleasant smell. It would not get her anywhere to lash out here. She could cry about it later. “Just… being ripped away from your home is not a pleasant experience.”

“Oh. Um, I’m sorry we were not able to make the transition more pleasant.” Rime said, not looking sure what she should be saying exactly.

“Not what I meant but whatever.” Alexander looked around the room at all the other ponies present. She was curious about what was going on, but she just did not want to deal with it at the moment. “I’m sorry if you were expecting more from me, but if you don’t mind I would just like someplace to lie down.”

Rime bowed. “Of course mistress, follow me and I will lead you to someplace you can rest.” She then walked around Alexander towards the door on the opposite side of the room. The sweet smell that had appeared a few seconds ago faded away.

Alexander followed, the crowd parting for them, whispering among themselves curiously as they watched them leave the room.

Night Ray also followed them out of the room behind them, still staying silent the entire time.

Rime led Alexander through a changing room and up a set of stairs. They exited into a hallway that had occasional paths branching off. She was lead through the house and up a set of stairs. The building proving to be decently large, lit occasionally by a small number of candles. That small number was more than enough for her improved eyesight.

It was stocked with a lot of old-fashioned but well-made furniture and paintings. Random items decorated as much space as could be filled, but at times it almost felt a little sparse to Alexander.

Eventually, Alexander was lead to a large bedroom with a double bed and dresser to one side. The wooden floor was covered with a carpet that sat in front of the bed. An unlit fireplace sat to one side of the room while a wardrobe sat to the other. A few mostly spent candles lit the room in dim light.

“I hope this is satisfactory to your liking Mistress,” Rime said. She stayed in the doorway.

“It will do…”

Alexander looked back to watch the unicorn bow. Night Ray stood outside the room and to the side watching. “If you need anything Mistress Nightmare please feel free to call us. I will now leave you to your rest.” She then closed the door, leaving Alexander on her own.

Alexander slowly walked over to the bed and sat down. It was decently soft, but she could tell they were still quite behind the comfort of modern beds. She blew out the candles and lay down, staring up at the wooden ceiling.

Her eyes began to feel a bit wet, so she started to rub them as she closed them. “I barely flinch when turned into a mythical creature, but start crying when sucked away to a different world? I suppose one is easier to deal with than the other, but still…”

Alexander took a few deep breaths in and out to calm herself. She did her best to just fall asleep then and there, trying to put everything out of her mind. Eventually managing to drift off to sleep late into the night.

Author's Note

Bit of a question, should star bits and star crystal be capitalised? I don’t feel like they should since it’s like saying gold and silver as a material, but just wondering if anyone thought differently.

I was also thinking about the same thing with the names of magic items, more importantly, should they be put in Italics?