Tis but a nightmare before midnight.

by BlindedShark

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna, Adventure, Princess Celestia
Length: 1540

Nightmare moon is her own soul.

In a desperate bid to escape her punishment and imprisonment Nightmare Moon swaps herself with that of a different creature, a human from an alternate world leaving that human's soul in her place. The new nightmare moon must live on in her stead with knowledge gained from their world and knowledge left behind by the old Moon.

Published 2024-06-07 01:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-06-07 01:20:00 UTC

One

“You will do nicely,” a weird voice said in my dream..? I was wak-

“What?” I blinked, looking down at the gray ground and then up at the sky, “Why am I on the moon?” My voice somehow carried in the vacuum across the landscape as I looked up at Earth.

…

Apparently I became a space pony judging from what I could see of myself and the moon, though wings and floating star hair were new for a pony. Wait a moment. Black Coat, Wings, tingly appendage on my head, cyan armor, starry mane and tail… And lastly moon landscape? I am calm… “No! No! No! No! No! NO!” I screamed out at the world, “I DON’T WANNA BE NIGHTMARE MOOOOON!!!!”

One Panic Attack Later I refuse to go into detail about, like seriously, you can not give me the world for details on that panic attack. No one heard me scream… I am on the moon, idiot. Okay okay, now that is done I have no idea how long I will be up here so might as well figure out how to work this body…

…

172 years later…

I watched as a stone slowly floated back down to the ground. Apparently, there was a bunch of stuff I knew that I wasn’t aware of until I started trying to use magic and it flooded back to me. Talk about sensory overload. Anyways, this is boring as hell. I am thinking, maybe I should see if I can fly.

…

28 years later…

Yeah, I am not proud of how long it took me to learn all this stuff. How long has it been? 100 years? 200? I am still trying to determine, but oh well, I will get out eventually. The magical bindings keeping me tethered here keep crashing me if I go too high sadly.

…

400 years later…

“I don’t know how Show Nightmare Moon did it, this is so booooooring!” I monologued on for several days about how boring everything was… not that my audience of statues I carved out could complain.

…

200 years later…

“Onwards my noble warriors! Defeat the others in glorious combat!” I pitted several golems against each other, having set up a stone fort full of defending golems and attacking it with my army of golems.

…

196 years later…

“Hmm… wait… is that Twilight Sparkler?” I sat up, from my nice stone bed in my nice carved out stone house. The dreamscape was vast and after all these years I finally found Sparkle but that means… “So my release is soon,” I whispered upwards, my gaze falling in the direction of Equestria. I nodded sagely, giggling to myself as I marked her so I could watch her.

…

3 years later…

Ahh, The stars are almost here, it is almost time. I could feel power crickle into me, the stars feeding me power. Sparkle seemed to have caught on and her dreams were uneasy… I put that the rest, she was precious and what I am about to do will allow her to save the world and me from so many troubles.

…

1 year later…

“Ahh… Free at last… O Celestia, now dawn’s thy reckoning, and thy ass shall redden before the temples of hoof!” I chuckled, still remembering some Minos Prime’s speech somehow… I may have written the speech into the ground hundreds of years ago because I found it funny but that is beside the point.

I grinned, feeling the stars finally arrive to my aid and the invisible bindings shatter. I laughed manically and jumped. I blinked, suddenly on solid grass. “That was… very anticlimactic,” I muttered. Standing up I look around noticing the grassy fields, “Oh, Grass…”

I dove face first into the grass, “Earth!” kissing and kissing and kissing the ground some more, my body shaking with delight as I rolled around singing praises. Then I had an awful idea… If Celestia is the cake princess, what better way to start her revenge for all that time on the moon? Oh yes, it would be a punishment fit for the stars but first, I have to check on a few things.

…

The elements apparently had fallen and rolled away, the holders they were set on had crumbled away. I fixed that using my magic to fix it. I hummed, staring at it carefully. Yes, this would do. I pranced away and over to the room the six would defeat me in and I started to carve a teleportation rune and a super secret rune that would separate a chunk of me from my mass for Luna. I giggled, yeah, Luna will get pounded in my steed I cackled at that thought.

I set the runes into a semi-active state awaiting for me to activate it and then I put a masking spell on it and covered it with a thin sheet of stone from a fallen pillar. “Mmmm,” I hummed, hopefully this would work. Now that is done it's time to visit a certain Sun Alicorn. I grinned evilly and turned into a mist cloud, zipping off to Canterlot.

…

I slipped inside the castle, searching everywhere for my target, and snagged a few pies and cakes along the way for noble causes… totally.

…

“Sister, you’ve returned,” Celestia started as I slid into the room.

“So I have Celestia,” I spat. Celestia just looked at me with a sad and depressed expression.

“After all this time, you still hold so much anger to me, sister?” Celestia lowered her head.

“You locked me on my moon for a thousand years,” I hissed.

Celestia tiredly sighed, “Luna, I am sorry, I miss you. I do not know what to do without you. My little ponies need y-”

“SHUT UP” I scream, slamming my hooves against the ground shattering it. I hesitated, seeing Celestia’s depressing display but found my voice, I spoke in a softer tone to her, “Sister, you know what I must do, what I have to do and you will not stop me.”

Celestia looked down, closing her eyes, “I won't fight you, not again.”

I growled, raising my horn, it sparking with magic. I then let it loose and Celestia vanished in a flash of light. I sighed, hopefully she would like her very temporary banishment to her room with cake and a few pies to the face with a nice little note about the fun being doubled.

…

I sighed, though it was more of an ethereal one as I was in mist form. I will do the whole show shtick now I guess. This will be long I sighed again and then flooded into the room at the gasping of the ponies at Celestia’s absence.

“Nightmare moon,” A certain purple pony said from down below and a little lizard fainted and fell off her.

“Oh, my beloved subjects,” I started…

…

Yadda yadda yadda, I went through the whole ordeal and trails through the Everfree, generally, I have no desire to recount except maybe the shadow bolt because being multiple different ponies was kind of cool.

…

I stood there, watching as the rainbow beam of death and ga- lesbian power rushed down towards me. I rubbed my face with my hoof. I silently prayed that my telepor- BAMF! I blinked, one moment a rainbow death beam bearing down on me, and the next moment the dark of the basement. I could feel the part I had torn off of me disappear, taking the brunt instead.

It had felt good, the elements seemed to recognize me somehow and gently shaped the part and gave it autonomy from me forming a body for… Oh, I have to see this! I turned to mist and then phased through the ground back to the room. I saw the Six were discussing with each other, but most importantly I saw Luna lying around discarded copies of my armor the Elements oh so conveniently provided me for some reason.

The party broke up when the sun started to shine and Celestia spoke, “Indeed you do.” The sun conveniently started shining as she decided to make in my honest opinion the cheesiest and most over-exaggerated entrance possible.

Purple Pon- I mean, Twilight Sparkler exclaimed, “Princess Celestia!”

“Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student,” She started and I toned out the rest of it. Yes, yap yap you demons. I played with a random piece of debris, shaping it into a little stick figure and having it walk around from my vantage point above them.

I tuned in when I heard a new voice, Luna, apologizing to Celestia. Hah! If it wasn’t her who did all of the Nightmare Moon stuff. I slinked down and prowled over to them while they were hugging and hugged them from the side.

“Thank you, my little ponies but please let me hug my sister,” Celestia calmly said, a small smile on her face.
“P-Princess Celestia, no one is hugging you…” Celestia’s eyes flew open and then contracted upon seeing me.

“NIGHTMARE MOON!” I Grinned.

Author's Note

The moon cheese is not edible. I also don't know when I will post next but next chapter eventually!