Spike ran. It was what he was best at, if he was being honest with himself.

They’d be counting on him to try and make a break for it. They’d have covered every possible escape route, he knew that, they knew he knew that.

But Spike had spent most of his young life now in one perilous situation after another. He had outrun unicorns of pure shadow, changeling armies, and just about every manner of vehicular specter you could think of. Once you got good at dodging a ghost train, one learned how to move very fast.

And one especially learned that a bitey, scratchy dragon was VERY hard to keep a hold of.

With Nyx on his back like a screaming, distressed alicorn backpack, he barreled through the thinnest part of the crowd he could spot, grasping hoofs met with gnashing teeth and snarling sharp claws. Freedom came at the cost of a few bleeding ponies, hopefully when the brainwashing was reversed, they’d understand.

A shadow overhead moved to intercept, and as Dash lunged to block his way forward, Spike responded with claws extended, aiming low as he swiped her as hard he could.

“Ow! Spike, what the hay?!” screamed Dash as she fell over, clutching her foreleg in pain as Spike sped past her.

“Sorry, I’ll make it up to you!” he mentally chided himself. Right now, all his friends were evil. Why was he apologizing?

Come to think of it, chasing him or not Rainbow Dash had acted… remarkably Dash-like. What was going on?

A tug on his back brought him back to reality. He knew nothing was going to make sense tonight, the only thing that mattered now was getting Nyx home.

Home. His lungs burned and his legs were sore, even after all the adventures Spike didn’t think he’d ever run this hard in his life. He could hear the stampede of the cultists behind him, sounding like the rumble of thunder from Tartarus itself, Nyx’s whimpers keeping him sharp and on task. He could see the familiar glow of the library, he could see the door opening, and Twilight stepping out and-

And suddenly, he realized that the rest of the horde behind him had started to slow down. Not like they were giving chase.

But more like they were herding.

“Momma!” seeing the lavender alicorn heading towards them in the distance, Nyx hopped off his back and galloped towards the threshold of supposed safety, only to be held back by the teenage dragon.

“Spike, we’re almost there, what are you doing?!”

“Nyx, it’s not- She’s not-” He struggled to articulate it, not wanting to believe it himself. Twilight was an alicorn, how could the Children of the Nightmare even touch her?

“It’s Momma! She won’t be scary like everyone else, she’ll keep us safe!”

She looked up, her grin fading as she noticed Twilight’s eyes. They weren’t the caring purple eyes she knew and loved, but the same blank burning turquoise she had seen on everypony else in town.

Scrambling, she tried to gallop the distance back to her brother, but an aura of pink magic suddenly surrounded the filly, lifting her high in the air and over to Twilight.

“No! Momma, stop!”

She whimpered, whirling around, trying to break free of the other alicorn’s hold, edging closer and closer as Spike could only watch.

“STOP! PUT ME DOWN!”

Twilight blinked and her magic sputtered, causing Nyx to drop like a stone. She rushed back to Spike, hugging him.

“Everyone is being scary, Spike! What happened to Momma, is she a vampire? Is everyone in town a vampire?”

“They’re not—”

Again magic surged around them, Nyx lifting into the air back over the blank-expressioned Twilight, Spike holding onto her as hard as he could, determined to keep his grip on her.

“NOOOOO! DON’T SUCK MY BLOOD!” Nyx shouted, sobbing as the crowd closed in closer.

Everything stopped once more. Twilight had a confused look on her face as if she was trying to process something. Or trying to figure out how to obey an order? The strangeness of it all made Spike’s already stressed mind go into overdrive.

They were listening to Nyx. They wanted Nyx, because Nyx was Nightmare Moon. If the cult served Nightmare Moon, maybe something in the spell made them obey Nightmare Moon. Or maybe Nyx had some sort of control over them?

“Nyx, you have to try saying something else.”

“I can’t—” he took Nyx’s face in his hands, trying to look calm.

“Whatever magic has gotten to them, it’s responding to you! You’ve got to try.”

The mass of turned ponies stepped closer and closer, moving like they were one entity, filling the air with whispered demands.

“Give her to us.”

“Come with us.”

“She is ours.”

“She belongs to us.”

Spike tried to find a way out, but even the sky was filled with glowing-eyed pegasi. More ponies, more stares, more terror. They were reaching for her. For Nyx.

“NO! STOP IT! EVERYONE, STOP IT!” she screamed at the crowd.

A sea of blank faces stared back at her, most of them freezing in place. But some merely hesitated, still creeping closer, Twilight at the head of them all.

If Nyx had some of Nightmare Moon’s power, it wasn’t enough.

Nothing was enough.

There was only one thing he could do.

“Nyx, look at me,” he said, holding her tight. “Do you trust me? Do you trust your big brother?”

Tears streaming out of her eyes, Nyx nodded.

“Then I need you to take a deep breath. Hold it for as long as you can and remember: You won’t get hurt.”

“W-what?”

Spike didn’t give her time to think. He gulped down as much oxygen as he could handle, and blew out.

Emerald flames enveloped Nyx, who let out a cry before realizing what was happening, and quickly held her breath. It swirled around her, lighting up the street as it spun, sputtered, and then flew away.

Nyx was gone.

Turning to Twilight, staring at her dead, changed eyes. Spike swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry.”

He took another breath, aimed his head down, and coated himself in green fire.

Luna hadn’t quite adjusted to this new Equestria. Not entirely. Her days of speaking in antiquated linguistics had largely come and gone (minus the occasional slip-up when she’d call random ponies “peasants”), but there were times when she found herself overwhelmed at how different the world had become.

Yet still, each day in this wonderful new future brought such new things, such sights! Trains, airships, vaccinations, government request forms, next day delivery! Luna didn’t know how Celestia got bored of it all and was happy to take over such duties that her sister had often forced herself to do. It was one of the few times they had agreed over the past few years, an amiable transfer of implicit power from one co-regent to another. If only the rest of their interactions could be as civil as that whole affair had been. There had been so many fights lately, even over the smallest things.

All the same, Luna’s Night Court had become THE hotspot for one of Luna’s newest and greatest fascinations: intellectual property law. Having come from a time when literacy was seen more as a disease and the printing press regarded as unicorn witchcraft the idea that ponies saw ideas as something to protect was fascinating to her. Even more so was the sheer amount of effort and vitriol they put into the whole endeavor.

Once upon a time, she thought empires would have risen and fallen over grandiose ideological differences. Now she was convinced the great wars of the future would start over disagreements as to which pony was allowed to make bits off a picture of a smiling banana.

She sat there, fully absorbed in the courtly melodrama between two arcane publishing houses, each side claiming to own three paragraphs in a tome about proper pentagram etiquette that the other side also claimed was theirs by some obscure justification or another.

The entire entertaining affair was unfortunately spoiled by the swirling of smokey green fire, which flowed in front of her, blazing and glowing. With a magical pop, it deposited a small black alicorn filly into her lap, who lept at her with an anguished cry.

“Auntie Lunaaaaa!”

Luna sat there ignoring the shocked looks of the crowd and waving away a few nearby courtiers, trying to make sense of the filly’s tale of woe. Her poor niece was evidently terrified out of her wits, but the sobs and sniffles and adrenaline reduced any real explanation to babble at best.

“Dear, please—”

“And-and-and then… then they all had eyes like mine and, and m-momma had my eyes, and-”

“Nyx, I need you to calm—”

“And I w-was got set on… I got set on fire by Spike, and now I’m here!” She threw her tiny forelegs around the princess again, letting loose another round of fear-fueled sobbing as Luna looked around helplessly.

Gently patting the tinier alicorn, any thoughts she had been stringing together went flying off again as yet another blaze of green dragonfire coalesced into the form of a teenage dragon, who stumbled out of the air and rushed over to Luna, panic in his eyes.

“Luna! The cult infected Ponyville! They got Rarity, they got everyone! They got Twilight!”

Luna froze. Spike’s words echoing in her head, Nyx’s statements gaining a sudden burst of contextual coherency. The spectators began to murmur, the trial party members looking about in what looked to be the start of a widespread panic. She sat up, flaring her wings and summoning forth her best royal voice. Whatever happened next, the important thing was to stay calm and project an aura of confidence.

“The court is adjourned for tonight. We apologize for this… disturbance,” she looked down impassively at the two youths near her. “But certain and more pressing matters have made themselves known. Thank you.”

More murmurs. The crowd was beginning to look around as several royal guardponies filtered out of various alcoves.

“If everyone would please remain calm, the guards shall escort you out. We assure you, there is no cause for alarm.”

But the guards remained still and silent, merely looking out over the murmuring crowd.

“Guards? Captain? I gave you an order.”

Spike began to step back, that familiar sense of dread creeping in. He didn’t need years of experience to realize that something else was very, very wrong.

Every single pony that had come in was a member of Celestia’s day guard.

“Luna… how many of your threstrals did you send to Ponyville?”

As one and all at once, the guards turned to face their princess. Luna’s eyes widened, and she whirled about, only to cry out as there was a flash of light, and she dropped to the ground screaming. The guards stepped forward, wings held out and horns glowing as Luna gingerly rose to her feet, only to be slapped down again as glowing magical chains surrounded her.

There was a dark blue clamp around her horn.

The crowd panicked, screams and shouts of protest mixed together as ponies bolted for the castle doors, only to find them slamming shut with a climactic clang. More magical chains wrapped themselves around the length of the doorway, then the windows, and every other apparent exit.

Canterlot Court was on complete lockdown.

“Silence!” A new voice rang out across the crowd, who were cowed into submission.

Again from the shadows, more ponies emerged. They wore robes, and at their center, one particularly familiar unicorn knelt in front of the struggling princess. Luna’s eyes narrowed, she snorted and struggled against the chains as she beheld the unicorn in front of her.

“You.” She hissed.

Spell Nexus smiled at her. “You know, princess, when you denied and ignored my repeated offers of assistance, a part of me panicked. The sheer coincidence of you figuring out our sacred order’s real name was something that left me sleepless. I’ve spent quite a few years now wondering if you suspected me in any way.”

He waltzed up to her, his grin getting wider as she cringed away from him. “Tonight has been a wonderful night, though. Tonight, I realized that none of that mattered. It doesn’t matter how paranoid of a nag you are, Luna. Because we’re everywhere now.”

“No!” came a voice, and Spell Nexus turned to find Spike almost upon him. He sailed through the air, claws, and teeth at the ready, but it was no use. Spike yelped as an aura of magic engulfed him, slamming him against the wall. Chains upon chains wrapped around his body, pinning him down.

“You, little dragon, are a persistent thorn for one so hard to catch. We’ll be having no more surprises from you tonight, hmm?” Spell Nexus sighed, finally turning his attention towards Nyx, horn lighting up once more as the filly desperately clung to the throne she had been hiding behind. But it was no use. She sailed through the air, coming to rest in front of Spell Nexus’ face. His expression was chillingly gentle.

“You have a destiny to fulfill, little one. There’s no use crying over it.”

She turned, cried, screaming, and finally bit as hard as she could onto the nearest available part of Nexus.

Fortunately for her, and unfortunately for Spell Nexus, unicorn horns were more sensitive the more magic that was being channeled through them, and Spell Nexus was the very nexus of many a spell at that moment.

He screamed as the filly fell to the ground, who rushed for his ankles and administered another furious chomp, which was met with another cry of pain as the older unicorn crumpled. Chains across the walls and doors shimmered, puffing out of existence as he struggled to maintain focus.

“Nyx!” cried Spike, “Run! Get help, find someone, find anyone!”

She looked over at him, eyes wide.

“I’ll be fine, go!”

Nodding through her tears, she sprinted through the crowd, wings buzzing as the various bewitched guards dove for the rushing filly, who broke through their cultic blockade. She was within reach of the castle doors, they were opening for her.

There was a unicorn on the other side, a familiar one with a white coat and cobalt mane. Help had arrived, she was going to be okay, she was—

Looking up, she scrambled back, hooves skittering across the marble floors as she found herself once again caught up in another magical aura.

“No! No! Not you! Not you, too!”

The unicorn looked down at her. Though blue his mane and white his fur, his piercing blue eyes now glowed turquoise, his pupils like that of a monster.

“Uncle Shiny…” choked Nyx.

“I had expected you sooner, Brother Armor. I sent out the call hours ago.”

“Sorry, boss, it’s not like there’s a lot of transportation options to Canterlot available at the last minute. Even for a prince,” the prince consort shrugged, stepping further into the hall as the guards around him relaxed.

“You will address me by my proper title, Brother Armor.”

“Sure, boss.”

“I take it you’ve secured the castle?”

“Most of the Lunar Guard are out in Ponyville, with my sister. Canterlot’s ours.”

“Then you’ve done very well, Brother Armor. In the new Equestria, perhaps there will be a place for you.”

“Why…”

Both of the unicorns looked to where the tiny noise had come from. Luna, head hung low, was shaking with rage. Spell Nexus trotted back to her, smirking.

“Why…” Luna said again. “Of all the ponies, why would you agree to this?”

“Agree? That’s a funny way of looking at things,” sneered Spell Nexus. “I recall you described our blessing as an infection. As if the truth of Equestria’s royal family was somehow a disease to be spread, a sickness to be eradicated. But I’m not surprised that’s how you see the world. Ever in your sister’s shadow, ever following what she tells you to do.”

He lifted Luna’s head with his hoof, glaring down at her with a look that also seemed like pity.

“You could have been something great, Luna. Even separated from your better half, you could have had an opportunity to reunite with her and become the true queen this nation deserves. But even when the most blatant opportunity for power was sitting right in front of you, did you seize it? No, you foalsat it and let it call you auntie.”

He stepped up to the throne, his hooves sweeping across the terrified crowd in front of him.

“This is the real sickness, this is the real disease. All of you blinded by your loyalty to Celestia, your love for a queen too cowardly to even admit she’s one. But this?” He motioned to his eyes. “This is the blessing my mistress gives, Canterlot! These are eyes that see the truth. All that love, all that adoration, brought over to your rightful and true queen! Where once you cared for the Princess of the Sun, with us you will live for Equestria’s true queen.” He pointed down the court, down to the filly quietly crying in a weave of magic.

“Nightmare Moon!”

All eyes in court turned to look at Nyx. She wanted to hide. She wanted to shrink into a ball and hope that she’d compress herself so hard that nothing could touch her. She didn’t understand any of it. Nightmare Moon was a monster in a storybook, a bad part of Auntie Luna that Momma and her friends had defeated with the power of love and rainbow lasers. She wasn’t a monster, she wasn’t a bad pony.

But all these bad ponies had eyes like hers. Including…

She looked up at her uncle.

“Uncle Shiny… please.”

Her uncle looked down at her. Face expressionless, nothing there but the stoic look of a royal guard.

He winked at her.

“Hey, boss, I kind of see a big problem with that blessing of yours.”

Up on the throne, Nexus blinked. Sass from a member of his blessed flock was new, apparently.

“What? You question your queen’s vision, Brother Armor?”

“I guess. See, according to you, all this—” He waved his own hoof in front of his new eyes. “All this makes you love Nightmare Moon.”

“But I don’t need anything to love my niece. And I don’t need to love my niece to know when she’s in danger.”

The rest of the Children froze.

“What are you-”

“Everyone down!” And Shining Armor’s horn exploded with light.

Were the situation not borderline apocalyptic, Nyx would have no doubt happily jumped onto her uncle’s back and began her usual bombardment of questions, namely about shield spells. Possessed with an uncanny ability to be unusually patient with foals, Shining Armor would in turn explain that a shield spell, at its core, was simply magic hardened and shaped into a ball of varying size. The stronger the spell, the harder the material and the larger or more precisely shaped the shield could be.

If one was very good at shield spells, one could project it across an entire town. If one was even better at shield spells, they could be precise enough to shape it into tiny orbs and launch them, or single out and bubble an individual pony in a crowd of hundreds.

Shining Armor was not very good at shield spells. He was not very very good at shield spells. Shining Armor was quite possibly the greatest caster of shield spells that had ever lived, and would ever live. Sure, it wasn’t as impressive as an alicorn’s command of celestial bodies, but it had its moments.

A barrage of magical pink missiles sailed across the court, nailing several of the cult’s guards, barreling others over. Bubbles formed and bounced across the halls, encasing those they caught and sending them flying away. Even Spell Nexus found himself bottled up and tossed about like the last kernel in a popcorn bag. Tiny, barely visible marbles of force fireworked across the chains holding down Spike and Luna, annihilating them.

The entire throne room had become a pink bubbly cauldron of chaos, and Shining Armor was at the center.

Free from the chains, Luna bucked at the nearest remaining guard, sending him flying, she glared at Spell Nexus, but as her horn glowed the clamp around it responded, flashing red hot, and she yelped as the spell she had been concentrating on sputtered out.

“Princess Luna!” cried out Shining Armor as he scooped up the newly freed Spike in a forcefield. “This way!”

Some of the guards had managed to recover, a few of the unicorns popping his shields and moving to give chase. As the princess and captain crossed the threshold of the throne room, he turned back, slamming his hooves into the ground. A massive bubbly wave of pink force blasted through the room sending ponies flying back as Shining Armor slammed the entrance shut, sealing it with another round of hot pink.

As the twin doors closed with a clang, they could hear a voice echoing out across the hall. It was full of disbelief and fury, and it sounded nothing like the Spell Nexus that had been giving his grand speech just a few minutes before.

“Bring me that foal!”

Author's Note

Thanks to Toonwriter for the proofread.