King of Kings

Nightmare Moon let out a roar of pain as a bolt of lightning struck her side, her body convulsing as the scent of fear and scorched flesh filled the air. “The almighty lunar tyrant, brought to her knees” a voice mocked her, followed by a boot slamming into her muzzle causing her vision to swim. “As a reward for being decent entertainment for all these years, I shall grant you the gift of death,” the owner of the voice sneered as they held out their hand, a dagger manifesting in it.

The curved blade was composed solely of bone, its serrated edge stained with dried blood and the telltale scent of toxin from what her nose had told her. “The first weapon I ever made,” the figure traced the edge of the dagger lovingly, unaware of the shift in the stars or the rotation of the moon. “Feel honored to be slain by such” they told the fallen alicorn before swinging at her neck, the bone blade slicing through her throat like a hot knife through butter.

At least that was what was supposed to happen. The attack was interrupted by burst of light and magic that temporarily blinded them and threw off their sensory spells. By the time they had recovered, Nightmare Moon was nowhere to be seen. With the quarry stolen from under their nose, the figure dispelled the dagger and let out a frustrated sigh before examining the spot where Nightmare Moon’s body used to be. The floor was stained with blood and singed fur, but what drew their attention was the scent of magic that lingered in the area.

Grabbing a handful of dirt, the figure brought it to their face and deeply inhaled, their body filtering the various magics and categorizing them. There were three unique signatures; theirs, Nightmare Moon’s and the one that reeked of positivity. Turning their head to the side in disgust, the creature let go of the dirt in hand and sneezed a few times to purge the scent from its nostrils. Turning its gaze back to the spot, the creature inhaled the scent once more. It could taste the magics that had taken its prey from them, that had undone the bonds that kept both it and Nightmare Moon bound to this desolate rock.

Honesty, loyalty, kindness, laughter, generosity, it could taste them all, the positive emotions contained in the spells causing its body to shudder in revulsion. The last one though, the last one reeked of pure magic, no positivity, just raw and undiluted, just the way it liked it. Picking nup a strand of Nightmare Moon’s hair, the creature put it into its mouth and inhaled sharply, enjoying the taste that flowed into its mouth. It wanted more, it wanted to feed on her fear as it had done for the past thousand years, to make her bleed as their bodies danced to the song of blades clashing against each other. For the briefest of moments, it wonders if they’re any more like Nightmare Moon. Creatures capable of alleviating its boredom. There was only one way to find out.

Turning its gaze to the trail of magics that had been left behind by Nightmare Moon, the creature pondered. “Shall we go?” it said aloud to the emptiness of space as its body burst to life with lightning that scorched the ground beneath its feet. The only response it received was the pulsating marks that decorated its body. “You’re right. I don’t need your permissions for anything” it replied before leaping off the moon, a crater forever scarring the moon’s surface as it made its way to where Nightmare Moon’s trail led him; the blue orb named Equus.

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Twilight struggled to pull herself out of the dent in the wall that Nightmare Moon had made with her body. Looking around the throne room of The Castle of Two Sisters, her eyes widening in terror as she looked around the room for her new friends. Rainbow Dash had been planted headfirst into a wall, her broken wings hanging limply by her side. Fluttershy was laying on her side nursing her broken ribs, Nightmare Moon’s hoofprint visible on her chest, the blood leaking from her mouth indicating that the ribs had punctured her lungs.

Applejack was whimpering in the corner trying her best not to look at the bones sticking out of her legs, the consequence of trying to buck Nightmare Moon in the face. Rarity and Pinkie were not faring any better; the white unicorn having being on the receiving end of a fire spell, courtesy of the lunar tyrant, her bodies littered with burns. Pinkie Pie was laying on the floor, her hooves pressed against her throat, trying to stem the blood flowing from the open wound.

“Foolish mortals!” Nightmare Moon screeched, drawing Twilight’s attention to the midnight black alicorn who was surrounded by the shattered remains of the elements of harmony. “Once I’m done with you six, I’ll drain the magic of your pathetic town and then devour the entire planet! I will not let that thing take my kingdom!” she roared, her horn glowing with magic. Inhaling sharply, she wrapped the ponies in her magic, raised them into the air and began to drain the magic of the six defeated ponies, the wounds she received from the creature on the moon closing up as she gorged herself on them. “More, I need more!” her consumption rate increased drastically. She needed more if she hoped to face that thing head on.

Letting out a content sigh, Nightmare Moon dropped the bodies of the now drained ponies and cracked her neck. “Are you going to come out, or do I need to skin your little ponies one by one?” she said aloud, turning her gaze to the hole in the roof. She was rewarded with only silence, her taunt gone unanswered. “Suit yourself” she grinned, showing off her fangs as she placed her horn to Twilight’s neck and slowly dragged it across, letting out a trickle of blood from her neck.

“Halt!” she heard her intended target call out, followed by the flapping of wings as Celestia descended into the throne room. “Foul demon, unhand my little ponies and surrender, Nightmare Moon” she demanded, her horn glowing as she took a defensive stance.

“Here’s a counter offer Celestia. Surrender your magic to me, walk away with your new pawns, and when I rule this land, I’ll let you have a piece of it for yourself,” Nightmare Moon offered in return, her horn still resting on Twilight’s neck.

“And let you plunge the world into eternal night? I think not villain” Celestia hissed as she desperately thought of a way to get her adversary away from Twilight.

“In my imprisonment I learnt that there are things worse than eternal night Celestia. If you knew what was coming, you’d be begging me to take your magic” Nightmare Moon snarled, the fear that briefly overcame her vanishing under a wave of anger and false confidence.

“Your lies won’t work on me,” Celestia’s horn flooded the room with a powerful blast of light that blinded everyone in the room, giving her the opportunity to teleport everyone away from the throne room, leaving a blind and angry Nightmare Moon. Letting out a screech of rage, the evil alicorn swung her head in an arc, releasing a powerful laser from her horn that cut through the entire castle, bringing down the palace around her. So absorbed was she in her rage that she failed to notice the lightning streaking across the night sky, heading towards the planet. “Fine then!” she snorted as her vision finally cleared up. Spreading her wings, she took to the skies, her destination; Canterlot.

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Celestia’s horn stopped glowing as her healing spell finally came to an end. Pulling her horn away from Pinkie Pie’s neck, she let out a tired sigh, she dropped to her knees, sadness written over her face as she looked at her little ponies who were checking their bodies and in the cases of Applejack and Rainbow Dash, stretching their legs and wings to test them out. “I’m so sorry my little ponies,” she sobbed, “I thought the elements would help you stop her,” tears ran down her face, her head hung down in shame. She couldn’t wrap her head around it; Nightmare Moon wasn’t supposed to be this strong, she’d just been released from the moon and should have been weak enough for the elements to purify her in a single go. But the skill and savagery she had seen from Nightmare Moon was beyond her expectation.

“Princess Celestia, I don’t understand,” she heard Twilight say, the purple pony sitting on her haunches. “The elements didn’t work. I had all five of them in front of me, I poured my magic into them. I poured the spark of magic like I was supposed to do and nothing happened,” she hung her head down, the weight of her failure weighing on her. Before Celestia could comfort her, a magical laser beam cut through the castle, lighting up the night sky as it cut through everything in the region.

“Fine then!” they heard Nightmare Moon’s voice boom from the castle. Turning their gaze to the castle, they saw a figure in the air and with a flap of its wings, took off towards Canterlot. With fear in their eyes, they all turned their attention to Celestia who had a terror filled expression on her face.

“Princess, what do we do?” Twilight asked her, all six of them looking to Celestia for guidance. The princess got up from the floor, her horn glowing with raw power, her sadness and fear giving way to determination. Pawing the ground with her front hoof, Celestia raised her head to the sky and spread her wings.

“I will handle Nightmare Moon, you six get to safety,” she ordered firmly, preparing to go after the villain herself, the mood of the ponies being raised, hope returning to them as their princess prepared to face off against the villain that had just handed their asses to them.

“But what about the elements?” Rainbow Dash asked, “They were shattered and those were our only shot at beating her,” the polychromatic pegasus pointed out, her statement bringing down the mood as reality set in.

“The elements aren’t the stones,” Celestia told them, flapping her wings softly, taking to the sky, “The elements are within you all.” This wasn’t what she wanted, she wanted them to grow on their own, to see in them what she saw, to find the elements in themselves. She knew that they were destined for greatness even though they couldn’t see it in themselves. With that she took to the sky, chasing after Nightmare Moon, a trail of sunlight left in her wake as she chased after the villainess. In the sky above, the streak of lightning changed its course and began to head towards Canterlot, chasing after Nightmare Moon.

“What did she mean by that?” Rainbow Dash asked, watching Celestia grow smaller and smaller until she was gone from sight. She then turned to Twilight who looked like she was thinking about something. After a few minutes, realization dawned on the purple unicorn’s face.

“Girls we have to hoof it! I finally get it!” she yelled, her horn glowing brightly as she began to build up her magic, pouring everything she had into this one spell. With a yell of determination and a flash of magic, she teleported all of them out of the everfree forest and to Canterlot.

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“You should have just listened to me,” Nightmare Moon hissed, staring down Celestia with venom in her eyes, the citizens of Canterlot looking out their windows with a mixture of fear and hope in their eyes. “You have no idea how much good I’m trying to do here” she told Celestia, desperately trying to get her to see reason.

“The only good you could ever do is for yourself,” Celestia countered as her horn lit up, summoning her personal sword from the depths of the royal treasury, the sword lighting up the night sky with its appearance. The sword was massive, easily seven feet long from pommel to tip and four feet wide, the flat of the blade decorated with runes that caused it to give off a soft glow. The edges of the sword were dull, but that didn’t deceive Nightmare Moon. The aching burn scar over her eye reminding her that the heat of the sun was contained within the blade.

“It’s been a long time Helios,” Celestia raised the sword to her lips, the heat of the sword comforting her as she kissed the flat of the blade. Taking a stance, she swung the sword at Nightmare Moon’s shoulder, the heat of the sword restrained to the bare minimum, aiming to break her shoulder and hopefully incapacitate her with a single stroke. However, that was just a pipe dream as her sword was blocked by the blade of Nightmare Moon’s sword, her customary scythe ditched due to her experience on the moon.

“Slow,” Nightmare Moon taunted her as she performed a horizontal slash, followed by an overhead slash and then a thrust to Celestia’s muzzle from a second sword that was constructed from pure magic. “You’ve gotten soft Celestia,” she laughed as she watched the solar monarch try to block her attacks with Helios and fail miserably, the swords littering her body with paper thin cuts, a testament to Nightmare Moon’s skill with a blade.

Dissipating the magically constructed blade, Nightmare Moon licked the drop of blood that now stained her sword, her body shuddering in ecstasy as she savored the taste of Celestia’s blood. “You taste wonderful,” she smirked before resuming her assault on the solar monarch, the sword parting the air with ease, each swing growing faster than the last until the sword was nothing more than a blur, Celestia’s eyes widening as she was slowly overwhelmed by the assault, more and more wounds appearing on her body causing it to rain blood.

Celestia couldn’t remember the last time she had gone through this level of punishment and her body was screaming for her to take a break. She told herself for the umpteenth time that this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Twilight and the others were meant to purify Nightmare Moon and return her sister to her, her dear Luna. She had endured a thousand years of guilt, a thousand years of solitude, a thousand years of replaying that incident over and over in her head, trying to see if she could have done anything different, a thousand years of planning on how she could get her sister back, and now it would all be for naught.

A punch to the face in her moment of distraction sent her careening towards the earth, her body creating a crater in the earth as the air left her body, Helios falling tip first into the earth and sinking as it melted the earthen sheath. “You should have listened to me,” Nightmare Moon’s voice came from above, the dark alicorn crashing down on Celestia hoof first, sinking her deeper into the ground. “You could have walked away with your ponies, but now,” Celestia gasped for air as magic wrapped itself around her throat, crushing her windpipe and depriving her of air, “Now I’m going to make it hurt,” and with that, Celestia croaked in pain as her magic was forcibly ripped from her body, her mane slowly losing its luster as Nightmare Moon fed