The Most Horrible Hearth's Warming EVER: A Candy Mare Tale

Magic flashed in the dark under the world like a strobe light. It made the already halting movements of the candy-coated skeletons all the more strange and herky-jerky as they were caught in disjointed motion. In an endless wave the ancient dead lunged for Princess Luna, their teeth snapping mere inches from her face, yet so far they had yet to reach her. Though she was not the best at defensive spells Luna had managed to erect a bubble of protection around herself. Already it was being sorely tested by the press of rotting bones so, rather than rely on her failing defense, the princess instead fired off a steady stream of blasts from her horn into the musty throng of unicorn ancestors. Each azure beam shattered the fierce but fragile undead into shards and pieces but, unfortunately for the cornered alicorn, as fast as she obliterated them they were replaced by even more cackling crypt creatures. It seemed as though the entirety of the catacombs was emptying into the cavern for just a chance to taste her flesh!

Despite their sheer numbers, the skeletons weren't that much of a threat. They didn't seem to be that smart and their multitudes actually worked against them as they kept getting in each others way. In truth they were more like a very angry wall than a force of opposition. However, their relentless nature kept her having to defend herself from attacks that came from every angle. Some of the skeletons even scrambled across the ceiling to drop on her magic bubble from above, cracking the shell even as they fractured their own bones. As it was, Luna could not use her wings or superior agility to escape, or to even gain ground. Indeed, she was steadily losing ground and soon enough there would be no more room between her and the wall at her back.

No, the real threat was that the deathless horde served as cover for the Candy Mare. Every now and then, out from between the cadaverous mob would spring the mare herself with her eyes blazing with hate, her shrieks of cruel laughter piercing Luna's ears. The Candy Mare would shift her shape and change in bizarre ways as she attacked; a flash of teeth would turn into a whirring saw blade, then shift into a spider limb to try and poke through a gap in her defenses, then change into an enormous hammer-like appendage that could temporarily crack her magic shield like an egg. This would be followed with a sweep of talons that would have decapitated a lesser pony, then Luna would desperately get her shield up at the last moment to stop an explosion of razor sharp whips of licorice from opening up her hide. Then, of course, when Luna was finally in a position to counter attack, the Candy Mare would melt giggling back into the skeletal legion as if she had never been there at all. The sugary spook was swift as she was deadly and the princess would have fallen dead a dozen times over were it not for Luna's powerful magic and quick thinking.

Sadly, even this seemed to feed into the Candy Mare's overall plan. As dangerous and frightening as the ravenous revenant's attacks were they were not meant to kill Luna, only to keep her distracted and from coming up with any real plan of action. This was the trap that Luna had so arrogantly walked into, thinking no matter how terrible it might be that she would find a way out of it. Even now, the alicorn's mind was whirring with possible actions she might take to free herself, but every time she tried to focus the Candy Mare would dart in to harry her. It was clear the monstrous mare didn't want Luna's end to be quick... She wanted her to suffer first. The Candy Mare wanted to hear Luna scream and to take her time savoring the sound.

Not that the Princess of the Night intended to give the fiend that satisfaction.

"Hold still you disgusting monstrosity!" cried Luna, fighting down the sense of desperation with rising animosity as she tried to blast the candy coated fiend.

"Takes one to know one~!" the Candy Mare mocked in a sing song voice, creating a candy claw that closed and snipped like scissors where Luna's hooves had been but moments ago. Luna deftly jumped backwards this time, but next time there would be nowhere left to go. "Ooh, watch out! Almost got you that time!"

"I promise I'll make your end swift!" cried Luna, opting to create a massive orb of magic to push back the wall of skeletons rather than blasting them apart. The move bought her some space, but not enough to make a difference.

"And I promise to make your end slow!" clapped back the Candy Mare with a grin so wide the top of her head nearly fell off. Yet the cannibal cadaver didn't press her attack, instead hanging back with her skeletal army for the space of a few heartbeats.

That was all the opening the Luna needed, as she focused all of her magic not on her enemies but on the cavern floor that they stood upon. With a huge concussive explosion, the rock gave way beneath both the skeletons and the Candy Mare! They fell, jaws still snapping and limbs flailing, but with no ground beneath them there was little that the ancient dead could do but surrender to gravity. As a cloud of dust filled the chamber, Luna fell into a coughing fit, before she was able to blow back a little of the cloud with her wings.

Of the Candy Mare there was no sign.

Had she really fallen with the rest? Or had she been blown to bits by the spell? Maybe she was buried beneath enough rock and bones now that she wouldn't be able to move. Luna couldn't be certain.

Tentatively, the princess peeked over the rim of the hole.

The air was still too thick with powdered bone and pulverized rock for her to make out anything below.

Should she need descend into the hole to finish off her enemy? Or should she take this opportunity to flee?

Before Luna could decide on her next action, a rumbling rose from the pit that shook the cavern floor.

Luna gasped as before her eyes as something enormous rose from the pit. She fired beam after beam of magic into the thing, but her spells were little more than pin pricks to the rising monstrosity! A pair of massive claws slammed down on either side of Luna as a truly titanic amalgamation of candy and bone hefted it's bulk over the rim of the hole.

At first Luna's mind had difficulty processing the exact shape of the thing that she was seeing, so colossal was it, but in due time the things form resolved into one that was all too familiar. Before the princess stretched the serpentine bulk of an enormous elder dragon wrought from candy and bone! The shattered bones of the unicorn skeletons had clearly gone into it's make up, as the horns of thousands of dead unicorns bristled across it's long neck, across it's shoulders, and down it's spine to the tip of a tail that thrashed away the last of the cloud of dust. This new threat that loomed menacingly over her filled the chamber from floor to ceiling, blocking any chance of escape!

This 'candy dragon' had rows of shark-like pointed teeth made from broken femurs and giant peppermint sticks. It possessed a mane of red and black licorice that whirled in a fiery nimbus around it's immense skull. The things eyes were gargantuan lollipops that swirled with malice in every color of the rainbow. Thousands of eyes and candy corn fanged mouths erupted all over the surface of the monstrosities body, long black and orange striped tongues wagging from the latter like writhing serpents while the former glowed with barely contained power. It was clear to see that the Candy Mare had absorbed the skeletons that Luna had destroyed and had added their tremendous bulk to her own. Her already nightmarish face had become an even more horribly distorted fever dream, now studded with laughing skulls that blazed with stolen magic!

With barely seconds to pour her reserves into re-enforcing her magic shield, Luna was sent skidding as a massive back hand from one bone-studded appendage sent her hurtling into the cavern wall.

The Candy Dragon's voice had deepened to a truly demonic growl as her size had grown, and in a voice like a thunderclap it roared, "I'm going to break each and every one of your bones!"

Then tiny voices of thousands of ancient dead joined in from all over it's body and began to speak in a babble, adding their own promises of pain to come:

"We'll break them starting with the tiniest, and leave that pretty skull of yours for last!"

"Put out your eyes!"

"Eat your tongue!"

"Pluck the feathers from the twisted remains of your broken wings!"

"Then we'll peel back your skin!"

"Take our time slowly stripping away the fat and meat!"

"Only after that will we pop your organs one by one between our teeth!"

The beast at last bellowed, "Sic Semper Tyrannis!" The Candy Mare's insanity subsumed by the fury of a thousand years of distilled resentment at last given vent. As if for emphasis, enormous skeletal wings erupted from the dragon's back, and filled the cavernous camber from end to end.

Luna's back was now literally against the wall. She had to stand on her hind legs against the mosaic behind her as the air pressure from the hurricane force of the Candy Dragon spreading it's cadaverous wings pressed her backwards. She could feel the cool tiles against her skin, and for a moment she drew comfort from them before she remembered they were made from the polished teeth of sacrifices embedded into the bedrock long ago.

"But never fear, when I finally let you die, that won't be the end," mocked the ghoulish kaiju, as something of the Candy Mare's original madness rose to the surface. "I'll fill you up with candy and puppet your pathetic corpse for your sisters amusement! Then I'll have you make your sibling suffer and scream just like you're about to! After that you can finally be equals - in death! Bwahahahahah!"

With that, the draconic abomination began to inhale, filling it's massive rotting lungs with the dusty air to the point that Luna had to hold on to a nearby stalagmite for dear life to avoid being swallowed up herself. The unicorn horns studding the length of the Candy Dragon's body began to glow, pulsing in waves of magic that started with a low hum and built to an ear piercing whine as the illumination steadily grew brighter, sweeping up the creatures long spine. As its jaws spread impossibly wide a point of blinding phosphorescence, bright as the flame of an acetylene torch, began to coalesce at the back of the creature's throat. The fiend stopped inhaling and, for a moment, all was silent save for the thrum of raw magic and then - BOOM! A massive column of super-heated candy and bone erupted from the monsters malformed maw, slamming into Luna's magic barrier with enough force to bend it backwards. Immediately the magical breath weapon ate into the alicorn's spell-craft; molten rock, candy, and bone sizzling against the cavern wall ad it ran around Luna's hooves in smoking rivulets.

"It doesn't need to end this way," whispered a dark voice that echoed strangely inside of Luna's head.

"Who... Is there?" cried out the princess through gritted teeth, all her might and attention focused on withstanding the onslaught that pinned her against the wall. "How?"

"I can offer you more power than you have ever dreamed of," replied the voice seductively. "Far more power than that of your sister. Much more even than the behemoth you now face. All you have to do is..."

"What?" Luna could barely spare the breath from her lungs to ask, so great was the force she struggled against. The alicorn could hear her heartbeat thundering in her ears and Luna's chest heaved as she panted out the words "What do... I have... To do!?"

"Embrace the darkness. Give in to despair," answered the voice, vibrating down into the core of Luna's being. "Let me in! Become the Pony of Shadows! Then you'll have nothing to fear anymore, little moon!"

Despite her predicament those last words touched something deep inside of the imperiled princess. A nerve that had been rubbed raw by being overlooked, misjudged, and ignored one too many times. Despite a lingering and horrible death looming before her, Luna's despondency and dismay were nothing compared to the rage and indignation she felt well up inside her.

"I am no one's little moon!" Luna roared, her aura exploding into a nimbus of burning black fire that shattered the mural behind her, stone and all, and even forced back the torrent of the Candy Dragon's breath weapon causing the colossus to flinch away and stop it's attack. "AND I! AM! NOT! AFRAID!"

The blaze of dark power grew into a towering conflagration, a flaming vortex that bore through the ceiling like a massive drill and pierced through to the surface high above. In one terrifying eruption a massive well opened through the concealing earth and the storm high in the sky alike to reveal the light of the full moon at the apex of the heavens. In that moment the orbs silvery light turned to blood as the face of the moon was cast into shadow. That ruddy illumination bled over the silhouette of a new terror that caused the very earth to tremble in her newly born presence.

She was an alicorn still, but she was much taller than Princess Luna had been, and her hide glistened black as the abyss against the scarlet light of the eclipse. Her mane and tail swirled about her like clouds of purple flame, shot through with a myriad of dying stars and spiralling galaxies. Unlike Luna, this darkling creature was sheathed in stunning armor emblazoned with the mark of the crescent moon. From an ornate helm, her horn jutted long and needle sharp, the magic radiating from it like a forest fire held barely in check. A predators slit cerulean eyes that no longer needed light to see in the dark opened wide above a mouth filled with a carnivores fangs; A mouth that spread into a murderous grin as the nightmare given flesh spoke in a soft voice filled with confidence;

"I am one with the night. I am what haunts your waking hours and plagues your dreams! I am Nightmare Moon!" the alicorn declared, spreading voluminous wings as black as midnight as her mane and tail exploded into a swirling sable inferno. "And even the dead will not escape my wrath!"

"Big deal," croaked the Candy Dragon, with a sardonic smile that looked awkward stretched across it's reptilian skull, "So you can transform! So can I. That's not very impressi-”

Whatever the beast was about to say was lost in a deafening explosion as a pillar of unlight tore through the dragon's face and dashed its mammoth head to flinders! In response the Candy Dragon's headless body turned into a tidal wave of candy and bone that threatened to crush the lone pony beneath an avalanche of death and decay! But the tsunami was forced back as the subterranean chamber shook violently from wave after wave of black flames that shot from Nightmare Moon in a relentless tide of might! The dark magic engulfed the cavern and stripped candy flesh from brittle bone, incinerating both in a nuclear holocaust that burned so hot it turned every surface of that darkling place to smooth black glass when it finally cooled hours later.

But by that time, every trace of the Candy Mare and of Nightmare Moon had long since gone from that place.