Concordia's First: Mingling Worlds

Chapters

Chapter II: The Other Side
Chapter III: Worlds Collide
Chapter V: Into the Neighing Dark
Chapter VI: Apples to Apples
Chapter VII: The Assistant and the Apprentice
Chapter I: She Who Rules the Night
Chapter IV: If You Want Something Done Right...

Chapter II: The Other Side

Sombra let out a ferocious roar of anger. His eyes glowed an emerald color, purple smoke curled off the corners of his eyelids. His horn began to glow in a similar manner as he wheeled around and let loose a blast of black energy, blowing a gaping hole in the wall of Sagittarius Tower. He stood at the edge of the burning hole, seething with relentless anger. Anger he decided to take out on a crow that had unwisely decided to fly past him at the moment. Sombra yelled again and struck the helpless crow with a bolt of lightning, piercing it right through the heart. He watched it begin its long fall to the world below, finding no joy in its death. He was still furious with what he had seen.

The unicorn turned to face his desk where a few pieces of paper were now being blown around by the wind. On top was a black crystal shard that occasionally released a small spark of left over magic. He levitated the crystal over and dropped it in front of his hooves where he proceeded to smash it repeatedly. He snarled and stomped on the stone until it was nothing but black powdered dust that was blown out the hole and into the night.

But Sombra was still angry.

It was a rarity. He hadn’t felt this level of fury in a long time. Normally he would have enjoyed the feeling of power that came with his anger, but right now he felt only… disturbed.

It had been over twelve years since Nightmare Moon had assigned Sombra to research the magic necessary to breach the veil dividing the worlds. Since he was the only unicorn on the research team, all of the practical experiments fell to him. He had made great strides in the last decade. He had perfected the world viewing spell which enabled him to cast his gaze upon what Nightmare Moon had dubbed ‘The Light World,’ though he could not always control what he viewed. More often than not it was something useless and trivial like a pony grocery shopping, or a warm sunny day at the beach, or fillies trying to earn their cutie mark.

The spell was best used when using a crystal as a conduit; however it also took a great deal of magic to perform. Breaking through the boundaries of reality was not an easy feat, thus Sombra had decided to only perform it once a week merely to see if he could gather anymore intelligence.

There were rare occasions where he would glean vital pieces of information, like the landscape of the other world, though there weren’t many notable differences. He had also learned that the ponies of the Light World had moved their capitol from the Everfree Forest to a more defensible mountainside location yet had kept to calling it by its old name, Canterlot. Apparently the original Canterlot now lay in the forest as nothing more than rock and ruins.

However, since Nightmare Moon had learned the viewing spell, Sombra had had little need to relay information to her. Her magic was vast and surpassed that of his own. She spent most of her night casting her gaze into the world of light, greedily eating up the information it would yield to her. Now Sombra only peered into the other side purely for curiosity sake. What he had seen tonight had only left him howling in fury.

He had powered up the crystal, allowing it to create the sphere of light overhead. Inside, the image slowly came out of the fog that always preceded it and presented to Sombra a very interesting sight.

His eyes beheld the Crystal Empire under siege by… himself. He had seen his shadowy figure begin to attack the city, spreading black crystal everywhere. The crystal ponies screamed and began fleeing for their lives as they ought to have. It was a glorious sight.

All ruined by the dragon and the alicorn.

Just as the Crystal Heart had been about to fall into his alternate self’s clutches, the pink princess had swooped in and rescued the dragon and the heart.

Then there was light. Accursed light!

Sombra had watched in anger and horror as the light of hope and love destroyed his other self, blasting him to oblivion. His own body shuddered violently, as if he could feel the pain that he had just bore witness to. He had cut the power after that, unable to continue looking.

Sombra glanced down at the spot of the floor where he had smashed the black crystal. There was still a smear of powder left. Having nothing left to take his anger out on, Sombra continued to smash his hoof against the now microscopic remains. How? He thought. How could I have been defeated not once, but twice? And the second time was not even by divine might, but by the power of ‘unity.’ The more he thought about it, the angrier he grew. Revenge. Oh how he craved revenge. Revenge on the dragon, revenge on the princesses, and revenge on the Bearers of Harmony for he was sure they had a hoof in his second downfall as well.

Yes he had seen the Bearers before. Both he and Nightmare Moon had borne witness to her alternate self’s own defeat a few years prior. He now understood the rage and frustration she had felt that night; being defeated in such a humiliating way. But at least her other half lived, his had been reduced to dust.

Sombra was stirred from his thoughts by a gentle knocking at his door. No doubt a guard coming to assess the damage he had created. Good, he needed somepony to take his anger out on. “Enter,” he growled.

The door opened slowly as a purple unicorn poked her head around the corner, cautioning her entrance. Sombra’s hopes for venting fell as he saw who was at the door. Twilight Sparkle: his diligent student in this world and leader of the Bearers of Harmony in the other.

“Sorry for disturbing you, Master Sombra, I just heard an explosion and was checking to see if you were alright. N-not that you couldn’t handle yourself or anything, I-I mean your magic is so powerful, I was j-just making sure… you know.” She stood fully in the doorway looking embarrassed of herself. Had she been anyone else, Sombra would have blasted her on sight. Instead he gestured for her to come inside.

Twilight stepped through the threshold, marveling at the sight of what was left of her teacher’s study. Besides the gaping hole in the wall across from her, the bookshelf next to it had toppled over from the blast, Papers were scattered all about the room, and the fire in the large chandelier that hung over head had been extinguished from the breeze.

Twilight made her way over to her teacher, shivering from the frigid gale all the while. Sombra stood in the remaining rubble, facing the clear night sky. Twilight stopped at his side, rubbing her front legs against each other in an attempt to generate warmth. Noticing this, Sombra took his red cape and draped it over her. She looked at him and mouthed a silent “thank you.”

He gave a curt nod and continued to stare out at the starry canvas. His face was stoic mask only broken when he would grind his teeth together.

They stood in silence for a few minutes before Twilight finally built up the courage to ask, “Master, um if I may, what’s the matter?” Twilight had hardly seen her mentor angry. He was usually calm and collected, often impassive and even emotionless. The only times she had seen him display emotion was when he would criticize or praise her magic.

Sombra shook his head. “It need not concern you Twilight.” He could not tell his pupil of the horrible death his parallel self had faced. It would sow an uneasy trust between them. Twilight would think him angry with her; it would create a new kind of fear in her that would blot out trust. And her trust was something he needed.

He thought back to the night Nightmare Moon had seen The Light World’s Twilight Sparkle defeat her, and how murderous she had been afterwards. The empress had every intention to kill Twilight that night, and would have had Sombra not intervened and reminded her what would be needed when Celestia’s magic ran out. He didn’t tell Twilight how close to death she had been that night.

Twilight had fallen silent at his response, respecting her master’s privacy. She traced circles in the dust with her hoof for a while before starting another conversation. “So… is Empress Nightmare Moon really going to attack this other dimension?”
Sombra nodded. “Yes, she plans to begin her campaign soon. The spell to breach the veil between our worlds is nearly ready.”

“Why? Why is she going through all this trouble to attack an alternate world?”

Sombra let out a snort of amusement. “She’s paranoid. She thinks that the Celestia of that world knows of her existence and is on a warpath of her own to end her Eternal Night.”

“Celestia,” Twilight whispered, thinking aloud. “That’s the pony from the fairy tales right? The one who tried to burn other ponies to death with her sun?”

Sombra looked down at her. “Didn’t I tell you not to believe those tales?”

Twilight blushed. “Oh. No I-I don’t I was just seeing if… if there was any relation… or not.”

Sombra gave her a scrutinizing stare before continuing. “The Celestia from the fairy tales does not exist Twilight.”

She tilted her head in confusion. “But wait, if there’s a Celestia in that world then how can there have never have been one here?”

“You misunderstand me. The Celestia from the fairy tales does not exist. There was a Celestia a long time ago however.”

“Really?” Twilight’s curiosity was piqued now. “What was she like?”

Sombra’s ears twitched as a cold whisper brushed past him. “Another time, Twilight.”

“Oh.” Twilight’s face quickly fell with the rejection of knowledge. She circled her hoof a few more times in the dust before asking, “So, you’ve been looking into the other world right; in your spare time?”

“Yes,” Sombra said slowly.

“So… have you seen me?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“Really? Ooh what was I like?”

Another pause. “You liked to read books.”

Twilight’s face fell again. “Really, that’s it, that’s all you saw?”

Sombra let out a small growl. “I cannot pick and choose what is shown to me, Twilight.”

“Oh, right… sorry.”

Sombra felt the chill whisper brush past him again and knew it was time for Twilight to leave. He cleared his throat and asked, “Should you not be in bed pupil?”

Twilight rubbed a hoof against the back of her head. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Sombra waved her away with a hoof. “Then be off with you.”

Twilight wiggled her way out from underneath her master’s cape and headed for the door. She stopped in the frame to turn back and say, “Good night, Master Sombra.”

Sombra turned his head towards her and managed a small smile. “Good night my student.” Even with the gentle tone he meant to use, Sombra’s voice always sounded menacing and dripping with malice. But Twilight had grown used to it over the years and knew the feeling behind the words. She smiled brightly before walking out the door and down the corridor.
Sombra was left alone only for a second before a miasma made its way through the hole and towards the center of the room. It shifted and formed into the tall and regal Nightmare Moon. Sombra turned to face her and bowed. “Good evening Your Majesty.”

Nightmare Moon looked around the room before addressing him. “You know, Sombra,” she began sourly, “I pay good bits into keeping my palace looking nice.”

It took all of the unicorn’s willpower not to roll his eyes. “Forgive me Your Majesty; I’ll fix it right away.”

“As you should,” she nodded. “Though I’m guessing you saw the same thing I saw in the crystal?”

Sombra chose not to answer.

Nightmare moon narrowed her eyes and sneered, “Not very fun is it?”

“You were not destroyed!” he snapped before remembering his place, “… Your Majesty.”

“True,” Nightmare Moon said, ignoring his tone of outrage. “But perhaps now you understand the magnitude of the situation. Imagine if they were to come here and strike first; how much damage they would be able to create! They could end my rule! They could end your life, Sombra!” Her mane snaked towards him and raised his chin so he was looking the alicorn in the eye. “This is why we must deliver the first blow before Celestia has a chance to mold her weapons against us!”

“I understand Your Majesty.”

“Good boy,” her mane patted the side of face before inching away. Sombra’s eyes flashed with indignant anger before returning to their expressionless state. “So,” she continued, “What were you discussing with young Twilight?”

“She was merely curious as to why I was angry.”

The empress raised an eyebrow. “Oh? And did you not tell her?”

Sombra grunted. “She doesn’t need to be bothered with such information.”

Nightmare Moon let a devilish smirk slide onto her lips. “Why Sombra, could it be you’re going soft after all these years?”
He let out a snort of annoyance. “Not everypony responds to fear Your Majesty. Twilight responds to compassion and we need her to trust us so compassion is what I will give to her.”

Nightmare Moon allowed herself a small laugh of amusement as she stepped passed Sombra and towards the breach in the wall. “Very well, Sombra, do as you see fit, it matters not to me in the end.” She spread her large black wings in preparation for flight. “The spell will be ready in a few months’ time. Continue to serve me well and perhaps I will grant you their Crystal Empire as a boon.” She lept from the ledge and soared off into night, laughing as she went.

Sombra continued to stand there, allowing himself a grin of his own. “Oh but Your Majesty, when this is over I will have that and more…”

******

Twilight walked down the black marble corridors of the Lunar Palace, yawning loudly as she went. It was indeed past her regular sleeping hours and the thought of her warm plushy bed was enough to make her drowsy.

The fire in all of the braziers had been extinguished forcing Twilight to create her own light with her horn. She hated walking through the palace when it was like this. Anything outside the pool of light that surrounded her was instantly eaten up by the shadows. She kept at a hurried pace, following the purple carpet back in the direction she had come from.

Not slowing down, she sharply turned a corner and plowed face first into something white. She almost jumped out of her skin before she saw who it was and scowled.

Shining Armor.

“Oh, sorry, Twilight; I didn’t see you there,” he said, rubbing his front where the smaller unicorn had run into him. “Here, let me help you up.” He offered a hoof down to help her off the floor, but she brushed it away.

“I’m fine,” she said coolly, standing up and brushing herself off. She stared up at him and gave him a clod glare. “What do you want?”

Shining scratched the back of his head, seemingly embarrassed by the question. “Well… I was just… coming to check on you. I thought I heard a loud noise and-“

Twilight let out an irritated sigh and said, “I told you, I don’t need you checking in on me; I’m not a baby. Just worry about yourself, it’s what you do most of the time anyway!” She pushed past him and continued her way back towards her room leaving the older sibling alone in the dark looking quite dejected.

The purple unicorn had left her mentor’s room in relatively good spirits; now after seeing the walking, selfish idiot she refused to call her brother, her mood had turned sour. He was always trying to check on her and see if she was doing alright. And she hated it with a passion. She didn’t care if he was trying to be a good brother, she would never forgive him for what he did, for what he was doing now.

She found her way back to her room and slammed the door behind her. With a flick of her horn, she lit the chandelier above the center of her circular room letting the light of the fire chase away the darkness. She let out a tense breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Being in the sanctuary that was her room left her feeling a little calmer than she had been previously. Half of the circular space was taken up by shelves upon shelves of books ranging from history, to math, to her favorite subject: magic. She had a small writing desk that sat underneath a window that gave her a view of… well not much of anything. From its lofty position in the sky, the Lunar Palace only gave a view of roaming clouds and the ever present moon.

She walked across the velvety, purple carpet that had her cutie mark embroidered into it, a purple star with smaller white stars around it, and jumped onto her large, cushiony bed. She laid there for a long time, staring up at the stone celling while she mulled over her anger with Shining Armor. She squeezed her eyes shut trying to stop the burning tears from escaping. Thinking about it only brought up the painful memories. He was the reason why they had lost their home; the reason why her parents were dead. It was his fault. It was all his fault and she would never forgive him! She turned over and buried her face into her pillow, unable to stop herself from crying.

She would never forgive him…

Never…

Chapter III: Worlds Collide

“Spike, do you ever have that feeling like your being watched?”

Twilight Sparkle had taken a brief pause from her reorganization of the Golden Oaks library to ask her young assistant what she knew was a pretty silly question. Yet every so often she couldn’t help but feel that someone or something was watching her.

Spike looked up from the pile of books he was trying to organize to fit Twilight’s new catalog system. “Uhh, you mean like when you stare at me in your sleep?”

Twilight reeled back and cried, “What!?”

“You sleep with your eyes open sometimes, it’s kinda creepy actually.”

Twilight’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly like a fish gasping for air. She finally shook her head and said, “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh,” Spike shrugged, “then I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Twilight sighed and waved a hoof dismissively. “Forget it, it’s not important.” She watched the baby dragon shrug again and return to his pile of books. Twilight continued to stand perfectly still for a few moments, ears and horn on alert, but the feeling had passed. Whatever was watching her was gone; if anything had been watching her at all.

She giggled nervously to herself, “Heh, I must be working too hard.”

“You’re working too hard?” Spike mumbled as he began shelving books. “I’m the one doing most of the work.”

“Hey, we split the work fifty-fifty,” Twilight countered.

“True, but some of us don’t have magic to do the work for us,” he said wiggling his claws at her.

The unicorn rolled her eyes. “Fine, why don’t you go make us some lunch while I finish up in here?”

Spike’s stomach rumbled in agreement with this deal. He gave her quick salute and marched off to the kitchen leaving Twilight alone with the mess of books.

Powering up her horn, Twilight began to organize her current disaster zone of a library. All of the books became wrapped in her purple aura and were lifted into the air. Filing them into an orderly line, Twilight levitated them past her, reading off the title and placing it on its respective shelf. She continued this process for the better half of an hour, watching as the airspace of the library become less and less crowded with books.

Twilight smiled with a sense of accomplishment as she shelved the last book. “All done,” she breathed as she powered down her horn and turned to examine the rest of the room marveling at its neatness. When she and Spike had first begun one could hardly see the floor under the sea of books. Now the floor seemed to gleam with tidiness.

Spike walked back in from the kitchen carrying a tray of food. He whistled, “See this is why we make a great team; you over complicate the Hoofy Decimal System and I make lunch.” He set the tray on the stump in the middle of the room before grinning at Twilight.

The unicorn playfully ignored him and trotted over to the makeshift table. Spike had prepared a cucumber and daisy salad and a pot of hearty vegetable soup. Twilight licked her lips as she inhaled the warm aroma wafting off the freshly prepared meal. “Wow Spike, it smells delicious!”

Spike beamed with pride as he ladled some of the soup into a bowl and handed it to her. “Just wait till you taste it. I think I might have outdone myself this time.”

The purple unicorn sat down and levitated the bowl from his grasp before grabbing a spoon as well and taking in a mouthful. The spices and flavors popped inside her mouth as she savored the rich texture and bite-sized vegetables pieces. She swallowed and said, “Wow Spike this is amazing!”

Spike couldn’t help but grin. “Glad you enjoy it.”

They sat in relative silence, enjoying the dragon’s newest masterpiece of a meal. Twilight had just finished her second bowl of soup when there was a knock at the door. “It’s open!” she called. The door swung open and in bounced Pinkie Pie wearing her famous smile on her face.

“Hi Twilight, hi Spike! Ooh it looks super neat in here!” she said, examining the tidiness of the library.

“Thanks,” Twilight answered, “I spent all morning reorganizing it.”

“Ahem.” Spike crossed his arms and began tapping his foot against the wooden floor.

Twilight reached over and gave him a gentle nudge. “I mean we reorganized the library,” she smiled.

Pinkie bobbed her head up and down. That’s nice. Sooo what are you gonna do now?”

Twilight rubbed a hoof against her chin in thought. Using her magic she levitated a checklist over from her desk and began to flip through it. “Hmm, well since we finished early I think now I can get started on cleaning-“ Hearing a tittering noise from Pinkie Pie, Twilight looked up to see her shaking her head in mock disappointment.

“Oh Twilight, that’s not how it’s supposed to go. See I say ‘what are you going to do now’ and you’re supposed to say ‘oh absolutely nothing Pinkie please save me from my boredom’ and then I say ‘great, that means you can come hang out with me and the girls’ and then you say ‘oh Pinkie that sounds fantastic! Spike do you want to come along?’ And then Spike says-“

“Absolutely!”

“See Spike gets it,” Pinkie smiled widely at her two friends.

Twilight burst into a fit of giggles, laughing at the pink pony’s antics. Spike and Pinkie Pie quickly joined in, the three of them giggling and snorting in joint amusement.

Twilight wiped a tear from her eye and said, “Of course I’d love to spend time with you girls.”

Pinkie began to bounce up and down on her hooves again. “Great! Rarity demanded a spa day so everypony is gonna meet up there.”

“Sounds great. Spike, could you put the food up so we can get going?”

“Sure thing, Twi.” Spike picked up the tray of food and walked off into the kitchen, leaving the two mares alone.
“So, anything new, Pinkie Pie?” Twilight asked in a conversational tone.

Pinkie tilted her head in thought for a moment before her face lit up. “Oh oh, I helped the Cakes make a wedding cake for a couple getting married in Las Pegasus, which is kinda weird cause I thought most couples who went to Las Pegasus were going to elope.”

“Well I don’t think every couple goes there to elope.”

“Well duh silly, otherwise we wouldn’t have to have made a cake.”

Spike walked back in from the kitchen. “All set.”

Pinkie Pie bounced towards the front door. “Then let’s go, you know Rarity hates waiting.”

The trio headed out of the library and into the warm afternoon sun. Twilight could already feel it was going to be a good day.

******

The Lunar Army stood in waiting on the northern outskirts of Maria Village. Clad in armors of blue and black, the earth ponies and pegasi were almost invisible against the backdrop of night. The battalions of earth ponies were lined up in perfect order, still as statues. All of them wore thick metal plating that covered the majority of their body. Their manes and tails had been trimmed short.

Above them floated the many squadron of pegasi, all who were arranged in V-formations. Unlike their earthbound counterparts, their armor was lighter and provided a little more air maneuverability. Yet on the front of every pony’s armor was the same insignia: a crescent moon against a black background; the cutie mark of their empress.

Another item the soldiers shared was the visors they wore. Nightmare Moon had enchanted all of them to shade their eyes from the harsh light of the sun. It was far easier to enchant metal then to enchant each individual pony.

They stood on the open plane waiting to begin their assault. Their empress had demanded that a new world be conquered. And because Her Majesty had wished it, it would be done. Nopony went against Empress Nightmare Moon, and those that did were dealt with swiftly and harshly. Though truth be told only half of the ponies standing in the dead field wanted to be there. The other half had been forced into joining the military either to put food on the table or because the draft had picked them.

Nightmare Moon stood at the front of her army eyeing them with a scrutinizing gaze. Despite the rows of perfect order, she could see some of them trembling with fear. She let out a huff of displeasure. I remember when soldiers were made of tougher stuff than this. The lack of war in recent years has made them soft, she thought to herself.

She looked over to see Sombra sitting at her side, eyeing the crowd with his usual impassive stare. Always calm, always unreadable. She hated that. She knew Sombra wasn’t stupid enough to raise a hoof against her, but she hated how well he could hide his thoughts.

The black alicorn turned about and faced the small sleepy village lying at the bottom of the slope. It was her village; a piece of her empire. But in another world it belonged to Celestia. A world that lay just beyond her sight, protected by the walls of reality. A wall she was about to tear through like tissue paper.

Her horn thrummed with magic, pulsing every second with massive stores of energy. She had been preparing this spell for months and knew it was finally time. Flaring her wings out, she took to the sky rising in a straight vertical line. She rose above her subjects, her sapphire armor shining in her glorious moonlight. She halted her ascent a few hundred yards above the ground. She could see all of Maria Village and the edge of the Everfree from her height.

Taking a deep breath, Nightmare Moon closed her eyes and began to concentrate. The once subtle glow of her horn became a bright shining ray of pure magic. Lowering her head, The Empress of the Night slowly pushed her horn forward meeting a surprising amount of resistance; though it came not from the wind. Nightmare pushed against what felt like at first, a brick wall. Sparks and streams of magic flew off of where she had made contact against the wall of reality, thought to everypony below her it simply looked as if she was putting on a light show.

Finally Nightmare Moon felt the resistance give way and her horn vanished from view. But she could still feel it; it was like she had stuck her horn into a cool pond of water. Grinning with triumph, Nightmare Moon brought down her horn bringing a loud tearing sound with her.

******

The Ponyville Spa was always a place of rest and relaxation. Soothing therapeutic aromas wafted through the building while calming meditation music was played on the record player. Any pony who walked in could feel their troubles melt away even before they received any of the treatment packages.

Six ponies and a dragon all sat in the bubbling hot tub at the back of the room giggling, sharing stories, and enjoying each other’s company. It had become a weekly occurrence for them by now. The ponies always spent time with one another when they could, but Rarity had demanded that one day out of the week should be devoted to a group spa time. Only Rainbow Dash had objected to using the spa as their weekly hangout but was vastly out voted. Still, even the brash athlete had to admit that relaxing in a hot pool with friends was a great way to spend an afternoon.

“… So this morning a young stallion walks into my boutique wearing a plaid shirt of all things,” Rarity told her story to her friends while making dramatic hoof gestures as if to emphasize the tragedy of it. “You should have seen it, it was absolutely ghastly. Anyway, he comes in asking for a suit to wear for a date he has tonight. I would venture to guess that he has a great personality because no mare would date somepony with a shirt like that,” she finished turning her nose up. The surrounding group had to hold their hooves to their mouths to stop themselves from laughing to loud.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and said, “Rarity, has anypony ever told you that you take fashion way too seriously?”

The white unicorn gave her an even look. “Well somepony in this town has to, I mean, is it so wrong to try and spread a bit of glamour here and there? Just look at this town, hardly any sense of fashion at all!”

“That be because hardly anypony in Ponyville wears clothes in the first place Rare,” Applejack commented.

“A complete travesty if you ask me,” Rarity lamented holding a hoof to her forehead. “I mean come now would it kill any of you to consider wearing some casual daywear? Like you, Applejack for instance, I could see you in a nice beige dress that would go well with your hat. Oh, and, Twilight you could wear a nice- oh, Pinkie would you please stop splashing me?”

Pinkie had begun jittering and twitching excessively causing the bubbling water to splash about, most of it getting on Rarity who sat closet to the pink pony.

“I c-can’t,” she stammered, her whole body starting to shake wildly, “I think I’m g-getting a D-D-Doozy!” With another violent twitch, Pinkie stumbled out of the large tub and on to floor where she began to bounce rapidly up and down the way one might shake a can of soda.

The remaining mares and dragon all gasped and flinched recalling the last time Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense had sensed a Doozy. It had ended with a chase from a hydra, a near-death experience, and Twilight changing her world view.

Fluttershy leaned over the tub and looked at her twitching friend. “I-Is it a dangerous Doozy? Should we hide?” She crouched low in the water, prepared to hold her breath at a moment’s notice.

“I d-don’t k-k-know, this one feeeeels different from the l-last one!”

“Different? Different how? Twilight inquired.

“It feels… eerie. A-and it feels like it’s c-coming from the f-field j-just north of Ponyville!”

“Huh, what could possibly happen there?” Twilight rubbed a hoof across her chin. “Still we should probably check it out; it could mean trouble for the rest of the town if we don’t do something.”

Four heads nodded in agreement before leaping out of the water and proceeding to dry off. Rarity however continued to sit in the pool, mouth agape. “What? Now? But we haven’t even finished our appointment! What about my seaweed wrap or my hooficure?”

“Rarity this is important!” Applejack cried while running a towel through her mane.

Rarity sighed, “Oh fine then, but one of you owes me a full spa package tomorrow. In fact, Lotus darling pencil me in for tomorrow around noon please!”

A blue, pink mane pony at the reception counter smiled brightly at her before jotting Rarity’s name down. She was their best customer after all.

******

The late summer sun gave a mild warmth across Ponyville. Autumn would be upon them in a few short weeks and some ponies could already be seen training for the Running of the Leaves Race. Though not in training, six ponies and a dragon dashed through the streets making their way to the town’s northern outskirts. It was a large rolling field devoid of most trees giving a clear view to Canterlot sitting atop its proud mountain perch. However, upon arriving there the group noticed something was definitely out of place.

“A floating piece of string?” Rainbow Dash hovered above the rest of the group scratching her head in confusion. She got no immediate response; looking down she found similar looks of befuddlement on her friend’s faces.

Pinkie’s sense was going absolutely haywire at that point. Her body continued to spasm and twitch rapidly and the mare had lost all amusement form it. “Yep that’s it!” She gave another violent twitch which caused her hoof to smack Spike in the face before she began to shiver and shake. “Make it stop, make it stop! Dear Celestia make it stop!” she whined.
“Seriously,” Spike affirmed rubbing his snout.

Twilight took a step closer to the ‘floating piece of string’ and began to examine it. It was long thin black line that stretch from the ground in front of her hoof and up into the sky. She could feel cold wind breathing through it causing an unnatural chill to run down her spine.

“Well, Twi, what do ya reckon?” Applejack stood at her shoulder peering at the black line in front of them.

“I… I honestly don’t know.” Twilight was at a complete loss as to identify what ‘it’ was. Even by magic standards this was weird. Twilight walked around it only to find that the line was two-dimensional; a cold chill escaped from the back side as well. She walked back over to Applejack and shrugged, “I don’t know, it’s like somepony just drew a line in midair.” They all turned to Pinkie Pie who was now being sat on by a bored looking Rainbow Dash.

Still shivering, Pinkie managed to stammer out, “D-don’t l-look at-t me; I d-d-d-didn’t do it!”

Twilight’s ears drooped. She was kind of hoping it was just one of her friend’s unexplainable antics.

Spike stepped forward up to the vertical mystery, a random spur of the moment idea hitting him. Very slowly he reached a claw out towards the line, feeling the temperature steadily dropping around it. Continuously wary, he pressed his claw against the line and to his surprise; it slid right in as if it were just a crevice in the side of a rock. “Whoa, girls check this out!”

Twilight whirled around and gasped, “Spike don’t do that it could be dangerous!” She yanked Spike away much to his annoyance.

“Relax, Twi I’m fine. There’s nothing on the other side anyways, just cold air.”

Twilight continued to look him over, fussing like a mother hen. “You don’t know that for sure, there could monsters or demons inside there for all we know!”

“D-demons?” Fluttershy squeaked hiding her face in her mane and beginning to back away from the group. “What do we do Twilight?”

Done fussing over Spike, The purple unicorn addressed the rest of the group. “Well the only logical solution right now is to contact the princesses. We’ll need to get back to the library so I can write a letter… does anypony else feel that?”

It was as if a sudden pressure had descended upon them causing all of their ears to pop. The cold wind began to intensify from a gentle breeze to a howling gale chilling their fur. The six friends all began to retreat from the phenomena while keeping their fronts towards it. Fluttershy was now taking refuge behind a rock some ways back.

Then just as suddenly as it started, the wind and the pressure vanished, leaving an empty silence in its place. They all stood still for a moment before Rarity spoke, “What just happened?”

Before anyone could answer her, a loud tearing noise echoed across the hill side. The gale returned in full force slamming into the mares and the dragon like a punch to the gut. They all flew back across the field and past Fluttershy’s hiding spot now putting her closet to the commotion. Lifting her head over the rock, the yellow pegasus watched wide-eyed as the line began to expand wider and wider from its base, stretching up until both sides converged at a single point forming a triangle like shape.

Fluttershy found herself staring at the oddest sight she had ever seen. Through the newly formed portal she could see a short swirling tunnel that looked comprised purely of magic. But what bewildered her even more was the sight beyond the tunnel. On the other side was a field that was perfectly identical to the one being obscured by the portal in front of her. She looked to the left and right, both sides matching up with the continuity of the scene perfectly. The only difference was that it was daytime here and night on the other side.

Only then did Fluttershy notice the menacing army of armored ponies marching out of the tunnel.

Fluttershy let out a screech of terror before zipping back towards her friends who were still picking themselves off the ground. Landing next to Twilight, she began to shake the unicorn with urgency all while hyperventilating, “Bad… portal… ponies… armor… mean… RUN!”

Fluttershy stopped shaking Twilight who rattled on her own for brief second before shaking the rest of the dizziness off. She blinked at her pegasus friend. “Ok, run that by me again Fluttershy.” Instead of repeating herself, Fluttershy grabbed Twilight’s head and pointed in the direction of the encroaching army. Her eyes dilated to pinpricks as she shouted, “EVERYPONY BACK TO THE LIBRARY!!!”

The ponies fled back to Ponyville just as they began to feel the rumble of marching hooves trampling the grass. They wasted no time in hurrying through the stone streets as Twilight led them down every shortcut she could remember to get them to the library as fast as possible. They reached the large tree housing the library just as the towns warning system began to blare all around them.

“I’m guessing everypony else just noticed the giant army heading towards us,” said Dash.

Twilight swung the door open and ushered them all inside, slamming it shut behind her. She took a few deep breaths trying to calm herself while saying, “Okay, let’s try not to panic here.”

“Twi, the town is under attack. I think we have a legitimate reason to panic!” Spike exclaimed, hopping off of the unicorns back.

Twilight walked past him towards the back of the room. “No it’s not, because we have the Elements of Harmony!” she said confidently. She removed the glass container from the pedestal and used her magic to distribute the necklaces to their rightful owners.

Rainbow Dash clasped hers on and asked, “Do you really think this’ll work?”

Twilight looked up at her with a confident look in her eye and said, “I don’t know!”

The pegasus nearly fell out of the air. “Seriously; you don’t know?”

Twilight’s confident grin turned into a sheepish smile. “Well, I don’t think anything like this has ever happened before; at least not in any book I’ve ever read. But I’m sure the elements can stop it!” The purple mare tired her best to sound confident, but on the inside she was just as unsure as the rest of her friends. She needed a backup plan.

She turned to her baby dragon and instructed, “Spike, you stay here where it’s safe and write a letter to the princesses telling them what’s going on.”

Spike recoiled and gaped, “What; how come I have to stay here?”

“Because it’s dangerous outside and we have to make our way past those soldiers and back to that portal thing. I want you to stay here, in the library where it’s relatively safer.”

Spike crossed his arms and was prepared to argue against her, but she began to look at him with those big pleading eyes, filled to the brim with concern. Spike sighed knowing he wasn’t going to win the battle. “Alright, I guess when you’ve seen one rainbow blast, you’ve seen them all.”

Twilight enveloped him in a hug and nuzzled him affectionately. “Don’t worry; we’ll be back real soon.” She released him and wheeled around to face the rest of her friends. “Come on girls, we’ve got a job to do!”

The five ponies nodded, swallowing some of their fear and followed Twilight out of the sanctity of the library and into the unfolding chaos outside leaving Spike alone at the writing desk. He grabbed a quill and dipped it into the inkwell, prepared to draft an emergency letter to the princesses when he heard a flutter of wings above him. He looked up to see a familiar brown owl.

“Hey, Owlowiscious, want to keep me company?”

The owl landed on a small perch over the desk and hooted, “Whoo.”

“You.”

“Whoo.”

Spike gave the bird an annoyed expression. “You know what; I’m not playing this game right now.”

******

Sombra marched down the main road towards the tall building he assumed to be the town hall. Three armored soldiers flanked him though he doubted he would need them; these ponies weren’t foolish enough to attack him. He gave a victorious sneer as he watched the panicking citizens throw themselves out of his way as he paraded down the streets. They fled into their houses, or dove underneath their carts; anything to avoid the imposing unicorn.

Overhead, the skies were now teeming with armored pegasi who were keeping a lookout for runaways and uninvited guests. They filled the air and lurked on rooftops crouched and ready to strike at a moment’s notice.

Sombra arrived at the steps of town hall and proceeded towards the small podium at the center where a trembling tan pony stood fiddling with her grey tail. The closer he got to her the more she shook with fear. Finally when he stood towering over her, she spoke in a tiny voice.

“S-sir,” she quavered, “Y-you have no right to be here in P-Ponyville, I d-demand that you and your b-brutes leave at once… please?”

Sombra made a throaty noise that could have been interpreted as a laugh. He leaned into the mare’s face, so close that she could feel his hot breath on her face. “You’d be wise to run along while I’m still in a good mood,” he growled.
The Mayor didn’t need to be told twice.

Turning on her hooves, she galloped away down one of the adjoining streets and out of sight. The dark unicorn made another throaty growl as she watched her flee. He turned towards the podium and, with a flick of his magic, tossed it aside. He cleared his throat and with an amplified voice yelled, “Citizens of…” he rolled his eyes and spat, “Ponyville! You are now an occupied territory under the Lunar Empire and her Imperial Majesty, Empress Nightmare Moon! Any attempts at resistance or rebellion will me met with swift and severe punishment!” He let out a sadistic grin. “So by all means try to resist.”

All the ponies closest to the town square began uttering murmurs of fear and confusion.

“Nightmare Moon?!”

“But I though Luna was good again?”

“Where’s Princess Celestia?”

“What’s going to happen to all of us?”

The cries of panic grew louder with each passing second until it was a cacophony of noise and terror.

His job complete, Sombra walked off stage motioning to his guards to leave him be. There was one other thing he had to attend to alone.

******

Spike sat on top of Twilight’s bed occasionally glancing out of the window to check the progress of the town. Although the armored ponies didn’t appear to be hurting anyone, all of the townsfolk were in a frenzied panic. He pulled himself away from the window and rolled on to his back wondering how Twilight and the others were doing. He had sent off a letter to Princess Celestia, but she hadn’t responded to him yet. In a situation like this, Spike was wondering if the princess would show up in person.

He let out a sigh of discontent. He was used to being left behind by the others, but that didn’t mean he liked it. He had saved the Crystal Empire, but everyone still treated him like a little kid. So what if it was dangerous outside, he could handle himself!

Big ponies wearing heavy armor, a small voice in the back of his head told him. Alright, maybe not in this situation; but still, being told to stay home wounded his pride a little.

And he was bored out of his mind.

He sat up and looked at Owlowiscious who was sitting on the headboard preening himself and groaned out of boredom. He hopped off the bed and was at the bedroom door, prepared to go make himself a snack when he heard something slam open downstairs followed by a series of very heavy footsteps. He slowly backed away from the door, panic and terror beginning to settle into his stomach. He looked up at his owl companion who was staring wide-eyed at the door as well.

Spike swallowed and said, “That doesn’t sound like Twilight does it?”

“Whoo.”

“You know who I mean,” Spike snapped, trying to keep his voice low. “Come on, we gotta hide somewhere.” At first he glanced out the window wondering if he could survive the three-story drop. Actually, he probably could, seeing as he had once jumped from a much higher cliff into a pool of molten lava. But then there were the guards outside he had to worry about, and he felt a lot less safe without his pony friends with him.

Taking his chances, the baby dragon dove underneath the bed, scotching as far back as he could and gestured for Owlowiscious to follow him. The owl descended and settled next to him and gave the dragon a concerned hoot.
“I don’t know, just be quiet and pray that they don’t come up here,” he whispered before pulling the sheets lower to hide them from view.

It was then he heard it: a loud thumping growing closer and closer with every step. He grabbed Owlowiscious and pulled him closer protectively, praying to Celestia that the intruder would go away. He breathed slowly and quietly as not to give their position away.

It remained quiet for several long minutes. The only noise being the muffled chaos outside and the synchronized breathing of Owlowiscious and Spike. The dragon was just about to believe that the intruders were gone when the door violently busted apart sending pieces of wood scattering everywhere. Spike threw a hand up in front of his mouth to stop himself from yelling in surprise. He pressed himself against the back wall trying to make himself seem as tiny as possible.

The sound of armored hooves filled the room, slowly pacing about. From the amount of clinking, Spike could make out that there was only one of them. Maybe I can take ‘em. He shook his head loose of that idea. There was no way he could fight a huge burly pony who was no doubt trained in combat. He had once had a wrestling match with Shining Armor. Needless to say, Shining had flattened him. No, he was better off hiding and praying to Celestia that the intruder would just walk away.

There was a pause in the intruder’s movement. From the thin space between the floor and the bedding Spike could see the tips of silver metal boots standing idle. Give up, Spike pleaded, come on, give up! For a moment, Spike thought his prayers had been answered. The hooves moved away from his narrow field of vision and back towards the door. Just as he was about to take a sigh of relief, Spike felt an invisible force take hold of his body and yank forward from his hiding place. Owlowiscious fell from his grip and tumbled onto the floor as Spike was lifted up to find himself face-to-face with the intruder.

“King Sombra!” he yelled.

The unicorn grinned devilishly. “King Sombra, no one has called me King in a while.”

Spike couldn’t believe his eyes. Standing before him, holding him in a magical stranglehold was the very dark presence he and his friends had defeated not so long ago. It was like looking at a ghost. “But, but you’re supposed to be…”

“Dead?” Sombra finished for him. “Yes, maybe in your world. Yet here I am very much alive. But I haven’t forgotten who had a hand in defeating me in the first place!” Spike swallowed a lump in his throat. “Yes little dragon, I know it was you and your meddling that caused my downfall. You killed me, so it’s only right that I should return the favor.

Spike’s eyes widened in horror at Sombra’s words. His heart pounded in his chest and his breath became labored as the realization took hold. He twisted and squirmed in Sombra’s magic, trying desperately to get free, to escape death. Yet it was useless, the more he seemed to struggle, the tighter the magic around him seemed to get until he was sure it wasn’t just his nerves that were inhibiting his breathing.

Sombra let out dark chuckle as he watched the squirming drake when something soft flew into the side of his face. He turned to see a brown ball of feathers hooting madly at him. Sombra gave it a bored expression before lazily smacking it with his hoof. The owl sailed across the room and crashed into the wall leaving a shallow crater.

“OWLOWISCIOUS!” Spike screamed while Sombra’s chuckle grew into a roar of laughter.

“You’re worried about that thing? I’d be more concerned with myself if I were you.”

Spike turned his attention back to his captor, his eyes filling with tears. “P-please don’t kill me.” He knew begging was pointless but at this point in time it was his only option. He was now severely regretting not jumping out the window.

Sombra sneered at him, “Oh I won’t kill you just yet, but by the time I’m done with you, you’ll beg me to kill you.” With that his eyes took on an emerald color with black fire streaming from the sides. A black swirling vortex opened up underneath Spike and he was slowly lowered in.

“TWILIGHT, TWILIGHT HELP! ANYONE PLEASE HELP ME!” Spike screamed as the tide of darkness began to pull him in. But no one came to his rescue. The last thing he heard was Sombra’s deep booming laugh before the entire world went dark.

Chapter V: Into the Neighing Dark

The grim silence that suffocated the inside of the library was broken only by Twilight’s muffled sobs. Princess Celestia held her close, tenderly stroking her mane with a wing while the poor mare cried into her chest. Horrible thoughts ran through Twilight’s head as she cried her heart out over her missing dragon. Was Spike okay? What if he was hurt, or worse… dead? Worst of all, she continued to berate herself for leaving the baby dragon behind. He would have been safer with her; she could have protected him. It was all her fault.

Who would want to kidnap Spike in the first place? He had no enemies. That thought was voiced seconds later by a puffy eyed Rarity. “I just don’t understand who would come in here and snatch little Spike away.” She dabbed at her eyes with a wet handkerchief.

Applejack nodded in solemn agreement. “Little fella never hurt anyone.”

The ponies were gathered around in a tight circle around the center table in the library’s main room. The bust had been set aside as not to obstruct their vision from one another. Other than the missing dragon, the entire library had been left relatively untouched. No books were out of place, no damage had been done. Clearly, the phantom had known what it was looking for and where it would find it. Taking Spike had been a deliberate and solitary action.

Owlowiscious sat upon a high shelf fast asleep. Fluttershy had tended to some of the wounds he had received in whatever struggle had taken place. Luckily the little owl had taken only minor bruises and would be fine in no time.

They all sat in an uneasy silence, each of them left to their own thoughts. Each of the friends had taken a turn to comfort Twilight after her initial breakdown, but now they knew there wasn’t much they could do except let her cry, however heartbreaking it was to watch.

Celestia took a slow steady breath, her mind clustered with thoughts of her own. Clearly this enemy knows who we are and where we would be. Have they been observing us? How much do they know? It was a rare experience for Celestia, not being in the know. She always had some idea of what she was up against, of who her enemy was and a weakness she could exploit. She was used to having a plan. Well, I have a plan, she thought, but to be frank it has more holes in it than Queen Chrysalis’ legs. She looked down at the ponies gathered in front of her knowing that once again, the fate of her kingdom rested on their shoulders. She cursed herself for having to throw six of her beloved subjects, ponies whom she regarded as close friends, into danger time and time again. But perhaps this is their fate, being the Bearers of Harmony.

Twilight gave a loud hiccup snapping Celestia from her thoughts. She looked down at her faithful student who was wiping her eyes with her hoof. “Feeling any better?” she asked with a sad smile.

Twilight shook her head. “No, but if I cry any longer I think I’m going to be sick,” she said miserably.

Celestia gave her a tight hug and said, “I promise you, Twilight, everything will turn out fine. We’ll find Spike and bring him home.”

Twilight looked up at her mentor. “Do you think he’s ok?” She still had a river of tears running down her face.

Celestia hesitated. Truthfully, she had no idea as to whether or not Spike was ok. She looked down into Twilight’s pleading face. Could she lie to her? Lie to the pony who was almost like a daughter to her? Celestia knew that there was a great possibility that Spike was in mortal peril… if he was still on the mortal plane. But Twilight didn’t need to hear that. She needed hope right now, even if it was a false one. “I’m sure he’s fine right now Twilight,” she said, praying she was right. If she wasn’t, Twilight would hold it against her for the rest of her days.

Twilight finally pulled away and began trying to clean her face up. Celestia levitated a box of tissues over which the purple mare gratefully took. She dried her eyes which were now quite puffy and red before turning to her friends. “Thank you girls for trying to comfort me,” she smiled.

She suddenly found herself assaulted by five other ponies who pulled her into a tight group hug. ”Of course Twilight, you’d do the same thing for us,” Fluttershy beamed.

“And don’t worry Twilight, we’ll find the ruffians who took Spike and give them what for,” Rarity added.

“Yeah, no one takes one of our friends and gets away with it!” Rainbow cheered.

Twilight smiled and pressed herself into her friends embrace. It was a strenuous effort for her not to start crying all over again, even if they were tears of joy. She couldn’t have asked for better friends.

Pinkie Pie shot up from the group hug and exclaimed, “Well c’mon girls, we’ve got a baby dragon to find and a world to save! Follow me to victory!”

She began marching towards the front door when Applejack called out to her, “Pinkie, Ya don’t even know where yer goin’.”

Pinkie stopped and proceeded to backpedal towards the group again. “Right, Princess Celestia where are we going?”
All eyes were on her now as the ponies turned to their princess for direction. Celestia closed he eyes and gathered her thoughts before speaking, “Starswirl the Bearded once theorized that beyond the boundaries of our reality were other possible universes; the ‘what if’ questions we ask ourselves to be more clear. He also theorized that between these universes was an impossibly large space that kept two possibilities from coming in contact with each other, a place he called the Interdimensional Rift.” Celestia paused and began to pace the floor of the library. “The idea of alternate universes seemed like a stretch of an idea at the time, though I didn’t dismiss it as impossible. That, my little ponies, is what is happening today; something has found a way to cross through the rift and push into our world.”

There was a moment before Rainbow Dash let out a low whistle. “Wow, Twilight, I guess you were right. That was some parallel Ponyville we were staring at back there.”

“I know I said it, but honestly, I’m still having a hard time believing it,” Twilight said in awe. “So, does that mean that through that portal there’s a whole other Equestria with other versions of us?”

“Indeed,” Celestia nodded. “Though, from the way they’ve presented themselves to us, I don’t think their Equestria is as friendly as ours.”

“Seriously,” Pinkie started. “I mean what kind of alternate universe neighbor just comes over and starts a war? I mean, if it were me, I’d go over and bring them a cake and say ‘hi alternate universe neighbor, you seemed lonely so I made you a cake and-‘” Rainbow shoved a hoof into Pinkie’s mouth, cutting her off.

“Ok, so there’s another world who wants to fight us, what do we do about it?

“Well, from what you’ve told me it appears that the Elements of Harmony are currently ineffective in closing the portal. And from what I’ve seen, it has nothing to do with a lack of harmony amongst you six,” Celestia smiled briefly at them before returning to a serious frown. “This leads me to believe that there may be an outside force whose magic is powerful enough to negate any attempts in stopping this invasion.”

Rainbow rubbed her hooves together. “So you want us to find this guy and put the hurt on him, right?”

With a shake of her head, Celestia gave a simple, “No.” Rainbow looked visibly disappointed. “No, Rainbow Dash, that task will fall to Luna and I. What I need you to do is to go and find yourselves.”

She received a unanimous group of confused stares and Applejack asked, “Err, beg pardon yer Highness?”

“Allow me to explain.” Celestia cleared her throat, “As you inquired before, Twilight, inside the other Equestria are six ponies wielding the traits that represent the Elements of Harmony. You girls must find them and the elements themselves and bring them together.”

“Well, that does clarify things,” said Applejack. “But why would we need two sets of the Elements of Harmony?”

Celestia walked over to the wall dividing the main room of the library from the kitchen. “The best way I can explain it is like this. Say I were to break a whole though this wall to the other side of it so you could see the kitchen.” The group nodded, following along so far with Celestia’s example. “Well to fix it, you’d have to mend the hole on both sides correct? The hole in this room and the hole in the kitchen.” She walked back towards the table and sat down. “If the elements had worked they would have only closed the portal from this side, not both.”

“And how would that be so bad?” Rainbow cut in. “I mean we fixed our world, now it’s their own problem, right?”

The princess looked at the brash pegasus, not with an angry or offended look, but with gaze that showed all of her years of experience and knowing, an ancient and powerful look that made Dash squirm uncomfortably. “Because Rainbow Dash,” Celestia began in a calm but deathly serious tone. “There are things in the Interdimensional Rift. Horrible eldritch creatures that predate Luna and I by eons. They are living and unloving being that no world, no matter what kind of world, should ever have to face. The longer the portal stays open, the higher the chance is that one will escape.”

Just listening to the alicorn’s description was enough to send a cold shiver down each of the ponies’ spines. Rainbow rubbed the side of her face and said, “Yeah, that sounds… pretty bad. So, you want us to find the other Elements of Harmony so they can close their side of the portal before something bad gets lose?”

Celestia nodded. “Yes; and because I believe that the portal can only be closed simultaneously; both sets of elements must work together repair what has been damaged.”

“Gosh, this seems like a lot of work,” Rarity said with concern. “How will we even find the other bearers?”

Celestia closed her eyes and said, “If we are lucky then some things will be universal constants. But if anyone can spread the light of friendship it’s the six of you.” She opened her eyes and smiled warmly at them.

Twilight nodded, vouching for all of them when she said, “Don’t worry princess, we won’t let you down! We’ll find the other Elements of Harmony and save Spike and both Equestrias!”

“Even though one’s trying to kill us,” Rainbow muttered in to Applejack’s ear. She quickly elbowed the pegasus to shut her up.

“I have no doubt that you will my little ponies,” the princess spoke sincerely.

“Umm, princess, how are we supposed to get there with all of those soldiers outside?” Fluttershy asked.

Her horn starting to glow with a golden light, the alicorn stood up and said, “I believe I have a solution for that. Gather round everypony.” The six friends moved in closer to their princess and in a golden flash of light, all of them vanished leaving a sleeping owl alone in the library.

******

The skies above the sunless Equestria were frigid. Luna was used to the cold of the night but this was ridiculous! It was colder than the arctic north up here.

She flew onwards, steadfast under the cover of perpetual night, flying further and further away from the world of light and deeper into the world of darkness. Yet here, the moon seemed brighter than her own back home, and the stars radiated an immense beauty the like of which even she had to admire. Luna knew that the night sky held some of the truest beauty a pony could behold. She spent every night trying to craft the stars into wondrous works of art, but even she had to admit, Nightmare Moon’s night was a masterpiece.

She dismissed these thoughts and focused on her task at hoof, flying onwards to her destination. When Luna had first entered this world she was unsure of where she would find the shadowy snake that was Nightmare Moon. Her concerns were quickly dispelled when she saw the massive floating black castle in the distance, illuminated by the full moon. She scoffed at Nightmare Moon’s egotistical nature but flew towards it, determined to put an end to her.

As she soared closer to ominous fortress something below her caught her eye. Lying in the shadow of the castle was a large city that reminded Luna of the one that had once resided in the Everfree Forest. She stopped and stared at it, finding more and more similarities the longer she beheld it. She looked at the surrounding area, taking in the landscape for the first time since she had arrived and saw that the encompassing forest was the Everfree. That meant the city before her was indeed Old Canterlot.

She took a deep breath trying to fight off the nostalgia washing over her. Memories both good and bad of her time in the city floated back to her. Luna could remember how she and Celestia had taken frequent trips into the marketplace. The sight of all of their ponies living in peace and harmony always brought a smile to her face. And the aroma of the baking sweets and confections! The pastries of old could have given Sugarcube Corner a run for their bits.

Luna felt a tear drop from her face as she looked down upon it. She felt like she was gazing into the past, a specter watching events of old. That city had been perfect, its denizens completely innocent of any crime other than enjoying the fruits of their labor. Yet Luna had blamed them for shunning her and ignoring her night, and saw fit to single-hoofedly lay siege to the city. Celestia had tried to intervene, tried to make her see reason, but Luna did not care. The battle between the two sisters had left the city in ruins.

Yet here it was, sleeping in front of the Princess of the Night; innocent, just as it had been one thousand years ago. Looking at filled Luna with a great sadness that quickly shifted to anger. Did the universe see it fitting that she should be reminded of her sins at every possible moment? Did fate laugh at her pain? Was a thousand years of solitude not enough of a punishment? Apparently not, as her past was determined to haunt her for the remainder of her days.

Luna gritted her teeth, anger bubbling up inside her like an active volcano. No more! She was tired of being haunted by her actions! She cast her gaze back to floating castle in front of her. If Nightmare Moon wanted a fight, then it was a fight Luna was ready to give. She would overcome her shadow and finally be rid of it in mind, soul and body.

She took off once more, aiming for the palace; its features now more prominent than before. Thirteen towers clawed their way higher into the sky with smaller walkways and turrets extending about. The entire building was shaped into C like design upon the island which it sat. Luna flew through the opening in the palace structure and landed in a massive courtyard with dazzling silver pathways that gleamed under the light of the moon. Dividing up the courtyard were dozens of gardens containing a myriad of flowers. As Luna looked about, she could spot at least one different type of every flower know to ponydom. Her faced scrunched up as she noticed something else: in the center of each garden was a statue of Nightmare Moon in various regal or intimidating poses. Luna was finding it hard to believe she had once been this vein.

She made her way to the center of the courtyard, a circular space that housed the largest statue of Nightmare Moon in the entire garden. It was sculpted much like the one in the Everfree Forest back home, with Nightmare Moon on her back legs rearing up and looking as mighty as possible. Feeling a surge of annoyance, Luna powered up her horn and with one blast reduced the statue to a pile of rubble. She turned her head skyward and screamed, “NIGHTMARE MOON, COME OUT AND SHOW THYSELF!”

Luna stood there, alone in silence with only the steady rhythm of her heartbeat to keep her company. Her ears twitched as she caught the sound of rushing shadows converging behind her. She whirled around to face the mare that had caused her so much grief. She stood in front of Luna, at least a head taller and wearing her traditional sapphire armor.

Nightmare Moon gave smaller princess a sinister smile and said, “Little Luna, so nice of you to join me. I was afraid you might cower behind Tia and let her do everything for you.”

Luna snorted in anger. “I’m my own mare and I can handle you by myself!” she said, flaring her wings and leaning low to the ground ready to charge.

“Ah, so there still is a fire that burns inside your heart.”

“Yes, and it is ready to turn you to ashes!”

Nightmare Moon continued to smile coldly at her. “Wouldn’t you rather turn that fire against the world that wronged you Luna; the world that shunned you and wrongly imprisoned you?”

“ENOUGH!” Luna screamed as she leaped into the air. Her eyes burned with white hot fury as the wind whipped about her in a mad frenzy. “THOU SHALL NOT TURN US AGAISNT OUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY! WE SHALL SMITE THEE WITH RIGHTOUS FURY AND PUT AN END TO THY SIEGE!” The light of the moon quickly vanished as storm clouds moved in and obscured the pale floating orb.

Nightmare Moon let out a bout of laughter before rising into the air herself and saying, “Very well Luna, let’s see if you can entertain me!” Her eyes glowed with a white fury of their own as the rubble from the destroyed statue lifted up and remolded itself into several long spears of stone. They pointed themselves towards Luna before shooting towards her, determined to impale her.

Horn glowing bright, Luna released a wave of bright magic that vaporized the oncoming projectiles before calling forth more beams of light that arched their way towards the black alicorn. Nightmare Moon winked out of existence just as the threads of light converged upon the point she had once floated. She reappeared behind Luna and fired a black ball of energy, but Luna was quick on the uptake. She turned around and smacked it down towards the marble floor where it exploded and left a sizeable crater. She followed up by summoning a bolt of lightning down upon her foe, but Nightmare Moon just smiled and absorbed it with her horn like a lightning rod. Her horn crackled with electricity as she fired a volley of lighting back to Luna.

Faster than her eye could follow, the bolt electricity rushed forward and struck her sending a horrible sense of pain through her body. She collapsed to the ground, twitching from the leftover current coursing through her nerves. She felt something land on top of her and begin to crush her chest. She opened her eyes to see Nightmare Moon looking down at her with triumph.

“Had enough, Luna?” she sneered.

Grinding her teeth together, Luna gathered some of her strength and fired a burst of magic directly into the black alicorn’s face. She reeled back in pain allowing Luna to roll over and push herself back onto her hooves. Her body was still trembling slightly from the electrical blast she had received. It then dawned on Luna that she had not properly fought in over a thousand years. She cursed herself for being away during the changeling invasion.

Luna turned to face the dark empress once more and found her holding the side of her face that had been hit by the magical blast. “Impudent brat; you shall pay for that!” she seethed. Rising up on her hind legs, she slammed her hooves against the ground and called up several large boulders which she then hurled at Luna.

Luna quickly melted into the floor as the boulders impacted against it creating sizable cracks where Luna had been moments before.

Nightmare Moon was about to chase after her when the ground began to quiver. From behind her, a large geyser of water gushed forth from the ground and was directed towards the dark alicorn. She took the full force of the pressurized stream of water and was blasted back against the wall. The water continued to pound against her, drowning her in an endless deluge. Finally the pressure let up and Nightmare Moon slid down the wall coughing up puddles of water. Enraged, she looked up to see Luna floating in a large liquid sphere. The sphere began to freeze over and form large needles of ice on the surface. It then exploded outward sending needles and shrapnel of ice raining down on Nightmare Moon. She raised a purple shield to defend herself against the hailstorm while simultaneously generating mass amounts of heat inside her confined space.

Luna continued to use the water she had taken from the palace pipelines to create more ice and rain it down upon the dark empress. She was determined to break past her shield and impale her with a thousand ice shards. It was then that Nightmare Moon’s force field fell, but not due to the impact of the falling ice. Instead a scarlet inferno roared up from her position against the wall melting every shard of ice and rushing to meet Luna.

The alicorn raised her horn and used her magic to split the raging tide of fire in half, sending it around her and towards the other side of the courtyard. Out of the wall of fire came Nightmare Moon, as she plowed into Luna, slamming her hooves into the princess’ chest and knocking her to the ground. She then redirected the fire to come back around and rain down on her.

Tapping her hoof against the ground, Luna used her magic to break another pipe and forced the gushing water to burst through the marble floor and meet the oncoming blaze. The two opposites met and created a thick screen of mist that billowed outwards and fell over the entire courtyard. Luna quickly got up so she wouldn’t be caught off guard. She could hear the hiss of the steam being created behind her as she slowly made her way forward into the world of mist.

Both the fire and water quickly died out leaving the courtyard in an eerie silence. Luna was on high alert waiting for the slightest sound of movement. Her vision was heavily obscured by the dense fog. She thought about getting rid of it, but the thought of having the element of surprise over Nightmare Moon held her back. Obviously, the darker mare was thinking along the same lines.

Luna held her breath. She stood completely still in the mist, ears up, eyes sharp and magic ready. The sound of the hissing steam had faded leaving only the sound of the moaning wind blowing around her. Luna tuned it out with her focus, leaving the courtyard in absolute silence. Seconds passed, then minutes, but neither alicorn moved a muscle.

Luna picked up a spike in energy so quick she barely had time to register it as a lance of black energy shot down from right above her. She leapt to the side just as it speared the ground, slicing through it like a knife through butter. Luna was just about to clear the mist when the spear of dark energy detonated behind her like a stick of dynamite. She flew forward, breaking through the walls of the palace and tumbling into one of the hallways as debris fell around her. She lay on her side, not willing to move due to the amount of pain her back was feeling. It had taken most of the blow and as a result, was stripped bare of most of the fur and skin. Luna opened her eyes to find her vision swimming in and out of focus. She thought she saw Twilight Sparkle running down the hall away from her, but dismissed it as some of the head trauma she received when she crashed through the wall.

Squeezing her eyes shut and ignoring the pounding ache in her skull, Luna used her magic to begin healing her body. Ribbons of light made their way around her and began to close and heal the wounds she had received. The magic was warm and comforting like Celestia’s wings. She didn’t fully heal them, just enough so that the wounds were bearable; she would need her magic for the fight. Once her back had been knitted up, Luna stood up and stepped out into the courtyard once more.

“Alright Nightmare Moon,” she whispered. “You want to use detonation magic? Well two can play this game!” Luna’s horn began to glow with a silver light as several bright translucent orbs appeared around her, shining like the full moon. They circled her in a ring, staying just outside the full extent of her wingspan.

With a mighty flap of her wings, Luna cleared the fog off the battlefield just in time to see Nightmare Moon send another lance of black pulsing energy in her direction. Luna sprang into the air as the lance passed underneath her; embedding itself into the hallway before detonating and completely collapsing the hall.

From her place in the air, Luna fired one of her silver spheres down upon Nightmare Moon who raised her hoof to block it just as Luna had hoped she would. Instead of deflecting it, contact with small orb caused it to explode sending the empress flying back across the yard, crashing into one of her many statues which collapsed on top of her. She quickly threw it off and glared up at Luna with rage filled eyes. Widening her stance, she began to charge a massive amount of energy to her horn which converged on the tip in the shape of a black sphere. With a snarl she released the built up energy, firing a ray of dark magic.

Luna did the same; charging her horn with a silver light she released a beam of her own. The two energies met in midair and began pushing against each other. Light and darkness clashed in the courtyard, a beam of brilliant silver radiance against a ray of all-consuming shadows. Both mares poured their magic into their attack, desperate to gain an edge over the other.

The darkness began to push ahead, slowly drowning out the light as Nightmare Moon grinned in premature triumph.
But Luna was not one to be underestimated.

Shifting her concentration away from her energy ray, she focused on one of the orbs still circling her and hurled it at Nightmare Moon.

The dark alicorn’s eyes widened as she saw the corner that she had been placed in. She quickly cut power to her beam and threw up a magic shield allowing Luna’s ray to finish its course along with her exploding spheres of magic. Both hit the barrier and created enough force to shatter it and toss Nightmare Moon back again. She landed in a flower bed, kicking up a cloud of dust as she tumbled before landing in a heap. She climbed back to a standing position just as another bomb dropped next to her.

Luna was hurling spheres of energy down to her foe, refusing to let up. She fired volley after volley of energy spells and Mana Bombs in a final attempt to end her nightmare. The cloud of dust and smoke quickly turned into a large column that rose into the night sky. Yet Luna still continued her relentless assault, letting out her anger with every spell she threw. She finally stopped; panting and gasping for breath, she stared at the wall of dust, waiting for it to clear and show her Nightmare Moon’s broken body.

When the dust finally settled, Luna saw her body lying still in the deep crater she had created. She slowly descended from the sky, landing softly on the edge of the hole and leaned in to get a better look. Nightmare Moon’s body was mangled mass of broken limbs and burnt flesh. Her wings were devoid of all feathers and the bones had been either destroyed of seared black. Her eyes had been left open; cold fear and surprise filled them, but they held no life.

Luna stared down into the crater, unsure how to feel about what she had just done. She took deep lungful’s of air trying to calm her speeding heart. All of the energy she had just exerted made her feel like she had just flown around the entire world at top speed. Emotionally, she felt… empty. She thought she would feel overjoyed when she at last conquered her dark half, but instead she felt empty. Luna gave a small shake of her head. She would have time to sort out her feelings later; right now there were more pressing issues to deal with.

Luna spread her wings in preparation for flight when she suddenly felt an intense pressure wrap around her neck and a voice hissed in her ear, “Oh, Luna, you of all ponies should know the power of illusion magic.” She gasped as right before her eyes; the body of Nightmare Moon turned into mere stardust and blew away in the wind. Luna had been tricked. Gone was the empty feeling she had had towards the black alicorn, instead her rage and hatred had returned.

Caught in the grip of Nightmare Moon’s mane, the Moon Princess struggled to release herself but to no avail. The grip around her neck tightened, cutting off her breathing. Her dark other proceeded to toss her around, slamming her into the floor and several statues repeatedly before violently throwing her across the courtyard. Bruised and battered, Luna began to cough and wheeze as she tried to fill her lungs with oxygen. She tasted something metallic in the back of her throat and was fairly sure it was blood. She staggered to her hooves as Nightmare Moon closed the distance between them. “Give up, Luna; you can’t win against me! I can feel your magic depleting!”

Luna spat out a glob of blood, and wiped her mouth with her foreleg. Nightmare Moon was right, the onslaught Luna had thought she dealt to Night Empress had drained her of a good amount of her magic. She needed time for it to regenerate.

Alright Nightmare Moon, let’s see how well you are at swordplay, Luna thought as a long silver sword materialized from thin air. It had a blue hilt with diamonds encrusted into it and her cutie mark engraved into the pommel. She took a fighting stance and pointed her sword at the mare before her.

Nightmare Moon flashed a cocky grin before following suit. Her sword was all black with silver runes carved into the hilt and seemed to suck the natural light around it away. “En guard,” she called before rushing towards Luna. Their swords met with a resounding clash. Both blades pressed against each other with their owners fighting for dominance. They finally broke apart when Luna leaped backwards and caused Nightmare Moon to stumble forward. Luna brought her sword down in a wide arc but the black alicorn used her metal horseshoes to block the attack. She then swung forward, aiming for Luna’s chest. The smaller pony jumped backwards again giving Nightmare Moon the opportunity to pounce at her, bringing her sword down with fervor. Luna parried the blow and jabbed forward intending to impale her other, but Nightmare Moon caught the blade from underneath and threw it up before swiping at Luna’s midsection. It was Luna’s turn to block with her horseshoe, as she deflected a fatal blow before bringing her sword back down.

The two alicorns continued their dance across the ravaged courtyard; swiping and parrying, jabbing and blocking; neither one able to inflict any sort of wound on the other. Their fight had turned form a barbaric display of magic, to an elegant and graceful tango of black and silver swords.

Luna gave a diagonal slash that Nightmare Moon blocked with ease before she retaliated by making a thrust at Luna’s chest. She sidestepped and made a swipe at dark mare’s face who deftly avoided it while making another low swipe at Luna’s midsection. Luna jumped back but did not leap far enough as the blade swept forward and left a shallow cut against her skin.

Instantly, Luna felt an explosion of depressing thoughts and feelings take hold of her mind. She collapsed to the ground as a sense of hopelessness came over her. She suddenly felt trapped, unable to breath, like she was back inside the moon.

“Do you like it?” a distant voice said. It sounded muffled and unfocused, like Luna was listening through a wall. “That is the power of Phantasma; it sucks away hope and leaves you with all those wonderful feelings of sadness and despair.” Nightmare Moon lifted the blade and struck again, leaving a deeper cut in Luna’s chest. Luna could literally feel her confidence drain out of her. She felt miserable, not just the pain in her body, but the pain that was coming from her heart too. She felt like she had prior to becoming Nightmare Moon in her world: useless, unloved, ignored, and helpless.

Her blade dropped to the ground next to her, she couldn’t focus on her magic anymore, not with the dark thoughts that crowded her mind. Nightmare Moon struck again, this time stabbing her in the shoulder. Luna let out a cry of agony from the amount of pain being inflicted on her. The sword was forcefully wrenched out of her shoulder allowing the wound to bleed freely. Luna was shaking now, trembling in her own pool of blood. Her mind had become wasteland of dark thoughts and sadness. All she could think about was her time on the moon, how she had betrayed her sister who had done nothing but love her; how she had heartlessly maimed and killed hundreds of ponies because she had become so wrapped up in pathetic jealousy.

She was worthless, she didn’t deserve to be a princess… she didn’t deserve to live.

Nightmare Moon watched as Luna’s hopelessness took hold of her. She was nothing more than a blue mass shivering on the ground before her. Nightmare Moon used her magic to grab Luna by the mane and forced her to make eye contact. “Tell me Luna, how does it feel to be so pathetic and helpless?”

Luna could only whimper in pain but inside she knew Nightmare Moon was right. She was helpless and weak; she still needed Celestia to do everything for her. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she realized that she would probably never see her sister again.

Nightmare Moon gave Luna her devilish grin. “You know, I was going to use young Twilight Sparkle as my next source of magic; she has magic levels that rival even Starswirl the Bearded. But why settle for unicorn magic when I can have alicorn magic to fuel me for the next millennium!” Laughing manically, she lowered her horn to Luna’s, a black glow encasing it. Luna’s eyes widened in horror; she knew what was about to happen.

The blackest of all magics. The Mana Siphon.

The two horns touched and Luna let out a bloodcurdling scream as her magic was forcefully torn from her body and transferred to Nightmare Moon. It was as if part of her very life-force was being ripped away from her, leaving her feeling hollow and empty, like a mere husk that had at some point in time long ago, been filled with life.

Nightmare Moon finished with her and dropped her head to the floor. The Empress of the Night licked her lips like she had just had a great meal and said, “Oh Luna, you don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve tasted magic like this. You and I are going to get along very well in the next one thousand years. We might even be… friends.” Nightmare Moon threw her head back and let out her mad cackle of glee before wrapping Luna in her magic and dragging her back inside the palace.

******

The six ponies had never seen a war before, and now they never wanted to see another one ever again.

Princess Celestia had teleported all of them back to the cluster of trees just before the field where the portal sat. All around them, the forces of both armies clashed against each other in acts of pure violence. Ponies were stabbed by swords and shot down by arrows, falling into puddles of blood, never to move again.

Currently it was only Light Equestria’s pegasi against the bulk of Dark Equestria’s ground and air units; and although Celestia’s soldiers had more skill, the invading army had sheer numbers on their side.

Rainbow Dash covered Fluttershy’s eyes just as another pegasus was stabbed violently in the throat before falling to the ground. She swallowed down the bile that had been building in her throat and shuddered. This made the Changeling invasion seem like a fight on the playground between two foals.

“Horrible isn’t it?” Celestia said grimly. She wore a sad and forlorn face as she watched the senseless carnage unfold before her. No matter how many times she sent her ponies to war, it killed her a little on the inside. “I’m sorry you had to see this, this is something no pony should ever have to bear witness to.” She looked down at the faces of revulsion and horror written on each of the smaller ponies faces.

Applejack took a slow shaky breath before tearing her eyes away from the battlefield and saying, “Umm, princess, how are we gonna get passed all of that,” she gestured with her hoof. “If we just walk on out there they’ll kill us!”

“Which is why I’m preparing an invisibility spell to hide you until you get to the other side,” Celestia said patiently.

“Oh, yeah that would help a lot.”

“But first…” Celestia’s horn glowed a majestic gold as a saddlebag with the cutie marks of her and Luna appeared from thin air and landed on Twilight Sparkle’s back. “This bag can only be opened by the Bearers of Harmony. I would think it wise if you kept the Elements inside until you have need of them.”

The group nodded and placed their respective Elements inside Twilight’s new bag before Celestia addressed them again. “I cannot say that your journey will be an easy one; this may be the most difficult thing I’ve asked you to do. But I have the upmost confidence that you can do it!”

Twilight looked up at her mentor with fierce determination. “Don’t worry princess, we won’t let you down!”

Celestia beamed at them before lighting her horn once more. She watched as a thin transparent bubble descended upon them quickly erasing them from view. She could no longer see them, but the six ponies inside could see themselves just fine. “This shield will keep you hidden for approximately ten minutes. That should be enough time to get you across the rift and to a safe place on the other side. But remember, just because you’re invisible doesn’t mean you’re intangible.”

Twilight nodded before realizing she couldn’t be seen. “Got it; come on girls, let’s move.” Sticking together, the ponies made their way from out of their hiding place amongst the trees and towards the dark maw of the other world.

“Good luck,” Celestia whispered before heading out herself. She took to the sky heading off in the direction of the Everfree forest. There was one more creature she needed assistance from.

******

The invisibility bubble was not like most shield bubbles in that it didn’t retain body heat, something the six ponies were grateful for. It was like clear soap bubble that slightly distorted the imagery outside it, making some things look closer or further than they actually were.

They stepped carefully across the field, trying to avoid the bodies of fallen ponies or the scrimmages between living ones.
They hurried through at a quick but somber pace, trying to take in as little of the battle as possible. “This is so wrong,” Pinkie whispered. “Ponies should never fight like this; ever.”

Fluttershy nodded, unable to stop the tears falling down her face. “It’s so horrible, who would even want to start something like this?”

Twilight answered, “I don’t know, but I’m sure Princess Celestia and Princess Luna can handle it. Our job is to rescue Spike and get this portal closed.” She kept her eyes forward, desperate not to see any of the bloodshed. It only made her think of whether or not Spike was alive.

They reached the entrance to the rift; a cold air blew from the other world through the magical corridor. Here the grass of the field ended and a road of swirling grey magic began. Twilight put an apprehensive hoof into the doorway, testing if the path would hold up or just vanish beneath her. It seemed solid and sturdy so she put both her front hooves forward and cautiously waded into the unknown with her friends’ right behind her.

Around them, the black walls of the corridor continued to swirl about with magic. It was like someone was constantly drawing and erasing random shapes and symbols on a blackboard. Twilight hazard a guess that the actual Interdimensional Rift was just beyond these magical walls and she warned her friends not to touch in case something pulled them in.

They drew closer to the exit, the alternate Ponyville becoming more and more detailed with every step. Much of the town looked the same. Twilight could make out familiar buildings like town hall or the clock tower. Well, if the town is the same then hopefully all of the residents should be there, including other us. Twilight was startled from her thoughts when a group of enemy pegasi flew overhead in the opposite direction. She thanked Celestia they still had their invisibility on.

From the mouth of the portal, six friends stepped into the foreign world, dead grass crunching beneath their hooves. They quickly huddled together, all of them wishing they had brought some warm clothing. It was cold enough to be winter here. “C-come on g-girls, we g-gotta keep m-moving; we’re st-still in enemy t-t-territory,” Twilight chattered. It was cold enough to where she could see her breath.

The group began to move down towards the foreign Ponyville hoping to find some warmth, but Rarity quickly stopped them by pointing out the patrols of guards marching through the village. Dismayed, the group sat there in the cold trying to come up with an idea.

Pinkie Pie put her hoof up and pointed, “Lookie, what’s that bright light over there?” The rest of them followed her gaze over yonder to see a large glow a small distance away. “It looks like it’s coming from Sweet Apple Acres.”

Applejack smiled. “Well, Ah guess my farm is as good a place as any to start this mission.”

Shivering in agreement, the ponies picked themselves up and proceeded towards the farm, taking the long way around the town; their ten minutes of invisibility were probably almost up. The closer they got to Sweet Apple Acres the brighter and warmer it got; the temperature seemed to return from frigid winter nights back to pleasant spring evenings. They soon found themselves on the edge of the orchard with a large ball of energy floating overhead, the source of the light and heat. It looked and felt like a miniature sun.

“Twilight what is that?” Rarity asked.

“Umm, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s some new farming technique so ponies can grow crops in winter?”

Applejack grinned. “Shoot, Ah wouldn’t mind havin’ that back on mah farm. Would be mighty useful this winter.”

The cow pony suddenly felt a gentle tugging on her tail and looked over to see Fluttershy pointing a cautious hoof towards the orchard. “Girls, I think somepony is watching us.”

Sure enough, the shadow of a pony could be seen peering out from behind one of the trees. Twilight waved a hoof and said, “They can’t see us, we still have time left on the invisibility shield.” She squinted her eyes trying to see the distortions that the shield should have been making. “Err, I think.”

“If they can’t see us, why are they coming this way?” Rainbow Dash said a little too smartly.

The figure stepped into the light revealing herself to the group. She wore a white Sunday dress with red frills around the hooves and a white bonnet with a wide trim. She looked exactly like Applejack only her hair was done up in golden curly ringlets that fell around her face and she was wearing a faint layer of makeup. Her eyes were locked on to Twilight and Rarity and she had an expression like she was looking at a fantasy that had just come to life.

“Oh my stars,” the Applejack lookalike gasped, pointing at Twilight’s horn. “A living unicorn!"

Author's Note

There were a ton of different names for this chapter. Hopefully most of you get the play on words, if not then I feel very silly.
Important blog post [url=here]http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/132737/concordia-story-updates
I'm bad with links.

Chapter VI: Apples to Apples

The mare who looked like Applejack continued to stare; eyes darting back and forth between Twilight and Rarity like she had never seen such a sight before.

The two unicorns turned and gave each other confused looks. Rarity gave a shrug while Twilight turned back to question the pony only to find her standing inches away from her face. Twilight jumped back with a, “GAH,” as the blond pony lifted a hoof like she wanted to touch Twilight’s horn. She swatted the hoof down and asked rather coolly, “Can I help you with something?”

The mare blinked a few times then gasped like she had just snapped out of a trance and blushed. “Oh my, I am ever so terribly sorry. I just ain’t never seen a unicorn before.” Twilight raised an eyebrow, not just at her bizarre comment but at how she talked as well. The girl sounded like she was a southern belle from straight out of one of Rarity’s romance novels she would occasionally recite to her friends. Rarity apparently noticed this too because she was trying her hardest not to laugh. Her eyes continuously darted from Applejack to the doppelganger before them, tearing up from the laughter she was suppressing.

Clearing her throat, Twilight tried to get back to the matter at hoof. “What do you mean you’ve never seen a unicorn before?”

“Well, just as it sounds. I thought unicorns were pretty much extinct; ‘cept for the two that work for Empress Nightmare Moon.”

“WHAT!?” Six voices shouted in unison.

The mare cocked her head to one side. “Uhh, Empress Nightmare Moon; our great sovereign, Her Imperial Majesty?”
They all stared at her, still reeling in shock.

She scratched the side of her face saying, “Y’all ain’t from around here are you?”

Pinkie Pie jumped to the front of the group and said, “Nope. We’re your other dimension neighbors and we-“

She was cut off by Rainbow Dash who tackled her to the floor and covered the pink pony’s mouth with her hooves. “What she means is we’re from uhh, very, very far away,” Rainbow lied trying to give her most convincing smile.

But the stranger wasn’t so fooled. “Y’all came outta that big tear in the sky?”

They all shook their heads and lied, “No.”

The mare narrowed her eyes and scowled. “Ya know, it ain’t polite to lie to someone ya just met.”

There was a tense moment between the two parties; both of them standing firm on their convictions. The southern pony stood with an unyielding stare that would have made Fluttershy proud if she hadn’t been hiding behind Rarity.

The standoff continued for a full minute before Twilight let out a defeated sigh. If this mare really was this world’s version of Applejack, that would make her the Element of Honesty; hopefully. They would have to tell her the truth sooner or later if they wanted her help. Twilight opted to tell the truth now rather than keep up with the palpable lie she and her friends were trying to push.

“Alright, the truth is, yes, we came from the tear in the sky. We’re from another version of Equestria that exists on the other side of that rift,” she said diplomatically.

“I knew it!” the mare said a little too smugly for Twilight’s taste. “Y’all don’t look like the rest of the village ponies; your coats are much nicer lookin’.” She gave an excited smile as she looked over the foreign ponies. “I can’t believe it, ponies from another world in my orchard.” Her smile faltered before turning into a concerned frown. “Oh wait, the guards said to turn in anypony who comes from that there rift thingy. I guess y’all are tresspasin’. “

Rainbow leapt off of Pinkie and flew into the mare’s face. “What! We’re trespassing? Your guards are the ones invading our world and killing ponies!” She put her hooves on her hips and said in a mock southern accent, “Ya know, it ain’t polite ta arrest someone ya just met.”

She ignored the pegasus’ poor impersonation and gave a guilty shrug. “Well I’m awfully sorry, I really am, but that’s what the guards said and I would hate to get in trouble for bein’ dishonest.”

Rainbow puckered her face and let out a snort of frustration. Before she could yell some more she felt a tug on her tail and turned around to see Applejack who had been relatively silent since her look alike showed up.

“Let me handle this, RD.” She sounded confident but she had a nervous look in her eye. Rainbow hesitated for a moment before backing down and allowing Applejack to stand face-to-face with her other.

There was a heavy silence as the two mares locked eyes with one another. Applejack kept a steady, powerful gaze, like she was trying to tell the blond pony something that couldn’t be put into proper words.

Her reflection’s eyes widened in revelation and she took a large step back. Her mouth moved but no sound came out. Finally she stammered, “Y-you. You’re me? I-I can’t believe it.”

Applejack nodded and stuck her hoof out. “Ah’m Applejack. Mah family owns the Sweet Apple Acres of our world.”
The other mare stared at the outstretched hoof. “A-Applejack… that wouldn’t happen to be a nickname for Jackelyn would it?”

Applejack blushed and stared at the dirt. “Uhh, yeah, that’s mah actual name. But I prefer Applejack.”

Jackelyn slowly lifted a hoof and tentatively bumped it against Applejacks; like she was testing to make sure it wasn’t some type of illusion. “Well, Applejack,” she said slowly, “I guess it’s nice to meet… me.” She let out a nervous giggle that Applejack echoed. “Well, I reckon I can’t turn myself into the authorities now can I?”

Applejack smiled. “Thanks… Jackelyn.”

“Of course… Applejack.”

Before things could get awkward, Twilight stepped around Applejack and addressed Jackelyn. “Umm, App… Jackelyn, you mentioned something about Nightmare Moon earlier. Err, what exactly did you mean when you called her ‘Empress,’” Twilight asked nervously, fearing the probable answer.

“I meant exactly what I said darling. Her Imperial Majesty rules over everything in Eternal Night.”

Twilight thought she sounded almost too cheerful about it but pushed that to the back of her mind. The front of her mind was trying to digest this new information. While it was definitely shocking, it did explain certain things; namely the guard’s visors and why they acted like they did when the helmets came off. If it was truly everlasting night in this world then they wouldn’t be able to handle unfiltered sunlight. Still, this opened up a whole new jar of questions that Twilight needed answers to.

As if reading Twilight’s mind, Jackelyn asked, “How about y’all come with me back to the manor and I’ll answer any questions y’all have. Then you can tell me about your world. Sound fair?”

Twilight nodded. “It’s a deal.”

Jackelyn turned and started making her way down the orchard path. “Then follow me. My house ain’t but a hill over.”

The ponies began to follow their new friend, Pinkie bounced after asking, “Ooh, ooh, will there be snack?”

Jackelyn laughed, “Sure, I bet Ma and Pa can cook something up. They just love entertainin’ guests.”

Applejack’s blood suddenly turned cold as her heart seemed to constrict to the point where she could barely breathe. Her ears were ringing with Jackelyn’s last sentence. Her Ma and Pa were here?

They were alive?

She slowed down considerably, falling to the back of the pack. Her whole entire body suddenly felt heavy, bogged down by the weight of memories and grief.

Fluttershy noticed and quickly fell back, putting a hoof on AJ’s shoulder causing her head to snap up in surprise. She looked at Fluttershy who wore a concerned expression. “Applejack, are you going to be alright?”

Applejack turned her gaze forward, unable to look the pegasus in the eye. She swallowed a large lump in her throat and lied, “Y-yeah, Fluttershy, I’ll be fine. Just fine.”

******

The sun was casting a brilliant orange glow across the world when Celestia found Discord napping on a cloud over the Everfree Forest. He lay on his back, mismatched arms tucked behind his head and his favorite pair of sunglasses resting over his eyes. He continued to snore loudly as the princess drew close to him. With every breath he released, a different animal noise came out.

Celestia hovered in front of him and called out, “Discord!”

The draconequus gave a particularly loud snore and exhaled the cry of an elephant.

Celestia could already feel her patience waning. “DISCORD!” she yelled.

He gave a couple of snorts before fully waking up. “Ugh! Can’t a draconequus get some sleep around here?” He stretched out his long snakelike body by twisting himself into a corkscrew and spinning like a propeller. Finished, he looked over his glasses and frowned, “Oh, it’s you Celestia.” He fluffed up his cloud before curling up again and dropping his head onto his hands. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

“I know you didn’t do it, that’s why I need your help.”

Discord perked his head up. “Oh, so this isn’t about Las Pegasus?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Discord snapped his eagle talons and the cloud reshaped into a sofa for him to lounge upon. “So, Celestia my dear, you come to me asking for my help? What’s the matter, your Twilight Sparkle stuck up a tree?”

Celestia rolled her eyes. She knew dealing with the Spirit of Chaos would prove to be a challenge. Discord rarely took anything seriously. She could only hope with the situation she was about to present him with would be enough for him to drop his nonchalant attitude for at least a short moment. “This is serious Discord. Equestria is under attack.”

Discord let a loud obnoxious yawn as he stretched out his hand and pulled a bottle of hot sauce from thin air. He used his elongated fang to snap it open and said, “Sorry, Tia, but that sounds like a you problem. You know I abhor violence.” He began to take a long draught from his hot sauce bottle.

“The intruders come from another world Discord,” she continued, trying to ignore his shenanigans. “They crossed through the Interdimensional Rift.”

Discord spit out a stream of raspberry ice tea that splattered across the alicorn’s face. Discord grinned sheepishly as Celestia glared daggers at him, ice tea dripping off her face. With a snap of his fingers, Celestia instantly dried off much to her relief. “I’m sorry; did you say they came through the rift?”

Celestia took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes; there is a tunnel linking our two worlds together. I’ve sent the Bearers of Harmony on a mission to close the portal, but we need time Discord and that’s something I don’t think we have an abundance of.”

Discord tossed the bottle into the air where it turned into a flock of butterflies and flew off. He sat up straight and gave Celestia his full attention. Crossing through the rift was stupid and dangerous. It was something that not even he, himself would try, provided he could even produce the magic required for such a trip. Whoever had torn a hole through the fabric of reality was both incredibly powerful, and incredibly moronic.

“Alright, Celestia, I’ll bite. What exactly do you want me to do?” he asked although he already had a sinking suspicion of what it might be.

Celestia eyed the draconequus and said, “You know of the creatures in there better than most, Discord and thus, have the best chance at keeping them at bay. I need you to guard the portal until Twilight and her friends are able to close it.”

Discord brought his tail up to his chin and began to stroke his beard in thought. “Celestia, need I remind you that the void is practically infinite. You probably have a higher chance of getting struck by lightning five times in a row and getting mauled by polar bear than a monster finding its way out of there.” He popped a calculator into his hands and ran his talons across it before showing Celestia a smiley face on the answer screen. “See? Numbers don’t lie.”

She brushed his hand away and glared at him, her patience drawing thin. “The power radiating from that portal could act as a potential magnet for those monsters. It could draw them right to us!”

Discord’s face dropped into a frown. “Didn’t think about that.” He sighed and got up from his cloud sofa, wiping it out of existence with a flick of his tail. “Fine, Celestia, I’ll play watchdog for you.”

Celestia let out a breath of relief and was about to thank Discord when he suddenly put his paw over her muzzle. “No, no, no. Don’t say it. I’m not doing this for you; I’m doing this for me. You ponies are my toys to play with and I don’t feel like sharing with anyone or anything. So you better do your part too and not lose Celestia.” He lowered his hand and snapped his fingers so that he was now wearing a police uniform complete with a baton. He gave her a mock salute and said, “Cheerio,” before vanishing in a burst of light.

Celestia felt a smile tug at her lips. She would have to thank Fluttershy again for her work on reforming the mischievous spirit. He cared, even if he didn’t want to admit it; in some way he cared.

The white alicorn turned back in the direction of Ponyville and took off towards the fight, ready to do her part as well. She had not even flown a mile when she heard somepony cry her name. She stopped and whirled about to see a messenger pegasus flying towards her. By the speed at which she was flying, Celestia could tell it was urgent.

The pegasus stopped in front of Celestia and gave a quick bow. Panting heavily, she held up a scroll and breathed out, “A… message Your Highness… from your sister… Her Royal Highness… Princess Luna.” The poor mare looked like she was about to collapse on the spot. Celestia conjured up a cloud and asked her to take a rest which the mare did so gratefully.

Curious to know why Luna would send her a letter, Celestia took the parchment addressed to her and read it through once, twice, three times before the message fully sunk in. A sea of emotions rolled through her ranging between understanding, fear, concern and anger. She was having a hard time deciding on which one to focus on.

She settled on anger.

Nightmare Moon, the bane of her existence, had found a new way to attack everything she held dear. The black-hearted phantom had invaded her home and attacked her ponies so that she could rule over two worlds trapped in eternal night. Just thinking about it made Celestia’s blood boil. She thought she had been done with this, but instead, Nightmare Moon had found a new way to haunt Equestria.

And Luna! Her proud, stubborn, brash sister had, according to the letter she sent, decided to chase after her with the ridiculous idea that Nightmare Moon was her enemy to face alone.

Celestia grit her teeth in frustration. Luna, why couldn’t you just listen to me and stay put? She wanted to separate us! She wanted you to you to go after her! Celestia had left Canterlot thinking that she was the one walking into a potential trap when in reality; she had left Luna to walk into one instead.

She was angry. Angry at Luna, angry at Nightmare Moon, angry at herself…

Her anger quickly died out as fear and concern took over. Luna had chased after Nightmare Moon. Would Luna be alright, could she handle herself? That monster wouldn’t have shown her face if she didn’t think she could handle Luna. Celestia wanted nothing more than to chase after her sister to make sure she was alright; but that would mean leaving her kingdom without a leader. And for all she knew, going after Luna might be part of Nightmare Moon’s plan.

The Princess of the Sun wanted to scream in frustration. She had sworn that she would never be caught off-guard again after the events of the royal wedding; yet here she was being made a fool of once more and having to send in other ponies to help fix her folly. A steely resolve filled her eyes as a warm aura surrounded her body. No! she decided. I will not stand idly by nor will I be struck down! I will defend my kingdom till my dying breath! If Nightmare Moon wants me, she will have to come here and fight on MY terms!

The warm aura turned into a golden light which coalesced into a thin layer of bright polished armor that snapped onto her body. She turned back towards Ponyville and sped off to aid her ponies in battle.

The forgotten messenger mare who had sat on the cloud the entire time watching her princess’ expressions constantly change in the last five minutes stood up in confusion and called out, “Wait, princess where are you going?”

Without looking back, she said in a strong voice that was carried on the winds across Equestria, “To war.”

******

Seven figures moved through the extensive orchard that was filled to the brim with ripening fruit. Hanging overhead was the bright ball light imitating the sun. Unable to resist her curiosity, Twilight increased her pace to catch up to Jackelyn who was leading the group. She had worried expression that instantly disappeared when she saw Twilight out of the corner of her eye.

“Apple- uhh, Jackelyn,” Twilight corrected herself, “I have to ask, what is that thing exactly?”

Jackelyn followed her gaze upwards and smiled. “Right, y’all ain’t never seen a sol before.” She stopped and turned to face the rest of the group. “That thing up there is what we call a sol. It does what the sun did a long time ago and helps us grow crops. It knows what group of trees needs light the most and shines it on them for a couple of hours before moving to another spot on the farm. Only farmers are allowed to have them.”

Twilight nodded her head, deeply fascinated by this kind of magic. “Amazing, how do they work, I mean, what keeps its magic going and how does it know when to move?”

Jackelyn’s smile left her face. “Uhh, gee I rightly don’t know. It just sorta happens.”

It was Twilight’s turn to frown. “You mean you’ve never tried to research them?”

She shook her head, “Nope. They’re gifts from Her Majesty, and you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when it’s from the empress.” She turned around and began leading them further through the sea of trees and up a large hill.

Twilight sighed and followed along. If they weren’t on a mission with lives at stake, she would have stopped right there to study the sols. Shaking her head of her desires for science, Twilight asked the next question on her mind, although she wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear the answer. “So, what did you mean when you said Unicorns were… extinct?”

Jackelyn continued walking, trying not to make eye contact with the unicorn. “Well ya see… about a hundred years ago, the Lunar Empire had a rebellion. My granny tells the story better than I do, but, the unicorns did something that made Empress Nightmare Moon angry somethin’ fierce. So… she had them all killed. Every last one. Again, my granny tells the story better, y’all can ask her about it.”

Six mouths hung open in abject horror. Jackelyn kept on walking while the rest of them stared on after her. An entire race had been killed off, just like that? Twilight ran up to Jackelyn and in a panicked voice asked, “B-but they can’t all be dead right? You even said two of them worked for Nightmare Moon didn’t you?”

The orange mare halted and sighed, “Well, yes, but General Sombra has been working for Her Majesty for as long as anypony can remember and I’ve never actually seen-“

“Did you say General Sombra?” Twilight squeaked.

Jackelyn nodded. “Yeah, why?”

Twilight suddenly flashed her a very forced smile and said, “Oh, nothing! Everything is absolutely fine. Please, lead the way.” Jackelyn shrugged and continued to lead on while Twilight fell back to the rest of her friends. “I’m getting a really, really bad feeling about all this,” she whispered.

“Join the club,” Applejack said moodily.

They crested the tall hill and Jackelyn gestured to the valley below them. “Here we are,” she said cheerfully. The others gasped loudly at what was laid out below them.

Back in their world, Applejack had a modest farmhouse with a barn and a grain silo. Here however, a large, white, two-story mansion stood in place of the farm house. It had a wrap-around porch and an awning held up by marble white pillars. The front yard was a beautifully manicured field of grass with a stone walkway cutting through it leading up to the house. On both sides were large water fountains in the shape of griffons standing on their hind legs with water flowing from their beaks. To the mansion’s left side was a large red barn surrounded by a cluster of apple trees.

Jackelyn laughed at their stunned faces. “Yep, it sure is pretty ain’t it? Welcome to Sweet Apple Manor.” She smiled proudly at her estate while Applejack looked off into the distance and scrunched her face in disgust.

Jackelyn tapped her chin in thought and looked over the group of foreign ponies. “Hmm, now how am I gonna explain y’all to my folks? I’d really hate to lie to them, but I’m not sure how they’d take visitors from another world.”

“Well, just say that we’re travelers from really far away,” Rainbow offered. “You’re technically not lying.”

Jackelyn mulled it over, “I guess you’re right,” she said before pointing to Rarity and Twilight. “But how will I explain them?”
Rainbow sat in the air, stumped by their new predicament. How did you explain two creatures that were supposed to be extinct?

“Oooh, oooh,” Pinkie Pie bounced. “I’ve got an idea!” She ran over to Jackelyn and snatched her bonnet from her head fully exposing her long, curly, golden locks and placed that hat on Rarity’s head before doing the same thing to Applejack and putting the old Stetson on Twilight. “Ta da! Hats can make anything better!”

Rarity admired the hat and said, “Well, it is lovely, even if it does mess up my mane a tad.” She grimaced at Twilight. “However, I feel that’s a rather poor fashion choice for you dear.”

Jackelyn stood by the white unicorn and nodded. “I agree, that hat just doesn’t match your coat at all.”

Applejack stomped her hoof on the ground and snapped, “None of y’all should be caring about fashion right now in the first place! Can we please just focus and get this over with!?”

Jackelyn looked taken aback for a moment but shrugged it off and led them down the hill towards the manor. Twilight fell behind to match Applejack’s pace and asked, “Are you o-“

“Ah’m fine Twilight,” she said roughly. The unicorn knew that she wasn’t but decided not to press on it at the moment.

The seven mares walked across the grass lawn and up to the wooden porch. Jackelyn knocked once before opening the door and calling out, “Hey y’all, I’m back and I brought some new friends.” She led them into a large entrance hall that was floored with a ruby red carpet. In the center was a large Red Delicious Apple with the letters S, A, A inscribed around it. Two staircases curved out in front of them and led up to the second floor with a long hallway to the back of the manor dividing them.

From down the steps came a small school-aged filly with a red mane tied back with a pink bow. She ran up and hugged Jackelyn’s front leg. “Hiya sis, I thought you said you were goin’ for a walk? You weren’t gone very long.”

“I know, but I made some new friends and thought I’d invite them to supper. Why don’t you introduce yourself?” She stepped out of the way so the six other ponies could see her.

“Hi, I’m Bloom, nice to meet y’all!”

They all gave a weak smile and waved back at the exact replica of Apple Bloom. She looked each of them up and down before stopping on Applejack and saying, “Wow, you look a lot like my sister.” Like Jackelyn, Bloom had a more sophisticated southern accent to her.

Applejack stumbled on her words. Like her doppelganger, she hated lying and she was never very good at it. “Uhh, r-really? Ah hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh, and your cutie mark is the same as hers too! Wow, you girls could almost be twins!”

Laughing nervously, Jackelyn scooted her little sister away from a now sweating Applejack. “Why don’t you go find Macintosh and meet us in the dining room for supper, alright?”

“Okay, sis!” Bloom chirped before running off.

Just as the young filly left, a new voice called from down the hallway, “Jackelyn, did I hear you say something about guests?”

Applejack’s heart nearly stopped as a new pony made her way into the room. She was a tall, slender, orange beauty with an emerald green mane tied back into a neat bun. Like Applejack, she had three freckles on both of her cheeks. Her cutie mark was an orange blossom flower. She looked at them with a kind and welcoming expression. “Goodness me, that’s a few more mouths to feed. Oh well, it’s always nice to have company come over.” She gave a little curtsy in the apron she was wearing. “My name is Blossom; it’s lovely to meet you all! Well, I better go get supper ready.” She smiled and returned to the kitchen humming, what was to Applejack, a familiar lullaby.

She watched as her mother walked away. She was just as Applejack remembered. Yes, the accent was a little different, but everything else was so hauntingly familiar it hurt. She felt a hoof on her shoulder and turned to see Fluttershy giving her an encouraging smile. Applejack tried to return it but it didn’t reach her eyes.

Not noticing Applejack’s discomfort, Jackelyn ushered them out of the entrance hall and into the dining room that was across from the kitchen. It was a spacious room with a view some of the orchard behind the house. The table was a long rectangle and already set with fine linen with a massive chandelier above it fully lit. The foreign ponies all found a seat on one side of the table while their host sat across from them making herself comfortable for dinner.

There was an awkward silence amongst them as time slowly whittled away. None of the guests were quite sure of what to do at the present moment and found themselves fidgeting uncomfortably; Applejack especially. She continuously leaned over to stare at the dining room door, biting her lip in anticipation of who would no doubt walk through it.

Jackelyn broke the silence with a polite cough and asked to nopony specifically, “So, tell me what it’s like in your world. How different is it from ours?”

“Well for starters, unicorns aren’t extinct,” Rarity said with a trace of indignation lining her voice.

Jackelyn coughed nervously again and allowed her gaze to wander around the room in an attempt to look anywhere but at the unicorn. “Ahem, well, is there anything else?”

Twilight spoke next, “Well we have an equal portion of day and night instead of just night.”

“Fascinating! Doesn’t the sun burn your eyes though?”

“Well, since we’re used to seeing it every day, not really.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie added, “it only hurts if you stare right at it! I did that once! Me and Gummy- he’s my pet alligator- had a contest to see who could stare at it the longest. I won, but then Mrs. Cake had to take me to the eye doctor ‘cause I was seeing really funny black spots everywhere and I accidently used salt instead of sugar when I was baking cupcakes, boy, did those taste funny and not the ‘ha-ha’ funny, it was more like the ‘blegh’ funny ‘cause they didn’t taste too good. Anyway, I got some eye drops and a lollipop from the doctor and promised to never look directly into the sun ever again. Except I did a week later when I told Derpy- she’s our mailmare- about what happened and she told me that she could stare at the sun longer and she was right, she beat me by a good three minutes!”

Jackelyn blinked at the rambling pony. “Err, right…” She turned towards Applejack and asked, “So what’s it like usin’ the sun to farm?”

Applejack snapped out of the daze she had been in and responded, “Well, uh, Ah don’t think it’s too different from the way ya do it here. Ya see we-“

Just then the door swung open and a male voice drawled, “Whooweee, nuthin’ like a night of hard work to fix up an appetite.”

Applejack’s entire mouth felt like sandpaper as the stallion came into view. This was the moment she had both been dreading and waiting for. She wanted to get up and run at him, to throw herself into his arms and cry how much she missed him, how much he meant to her. Instead she sat glued to her chair unable to do anything but look from afar, savoring the image of the stallion in front of her.

He was tall and muscular with hardly an ounce of flab on him. His coat was a deep auburn color that was complimented by his orange mane and tail. His rugged sideburns ran the length of his face and on top of his head was a familiar looking Stetson.

“Evenin’ Pa,” Jackelyn bubbled as he swooped down and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

“Evenin’ mah little Appleseed.”

Appleseed. That was what Applejack’s father had called her too. Seeing them together filled her with the worst sense of longing she had ever felt. It was as if her heart was trying to beat out of her chest. She ran a hoof across her eyes trying to get rid of some tears and played it off like she was scratching her face.

The masculine stallion looked over at the ponies sitting on the opposite side of the table and smiled, “Blossom told me we were havin’ company fer dinner.” He walked over and began shaking each of their hooves. “Mah name’s Cortland Apple, pleasure makin’ y’all’s acquaintance.” He paused at Applejack and gave her a curious look. “Say, you look a lot like Jackelyn, are you an Apple ah don’t know about?” he asked playfully.

Sweating and shaking, Applejack managed to stammer out,” Uhh, Ah might be. Umm, distant though, really distant, like, sixth cousin distant.” She gave him her lying smile.

Cortland gave a hearty laugh and said, “Well, family is still family.” He took her hoof and shook it vigorously. “Nice to meet ya…?”

“Applejack,” she whispered in a hoarse voice as she held onto his hoof not wanting to let go.

“Applejack huh? That woulda been a good nickname fer you Jackelyn,” he said as released AJ’s grip and moved on to Fluttershy.

Jackelyn laughed nervously and gave Applejack an odd look which she did not return.

Cortland finished greeting everyone and took his seat next to his daughter. “So, where are y’all from?”

“Away,” Twilight answered almost too quickly. “Very far away. We were just passing through when we saw your nice orchard and met Jackelyn.”

He gave a proud nod. “Yep, ponies come from all around to see mah orchard, and sometimes they come just to see my daughter. Prettiest thing in Maria Village.”

“Daddy, stop it, you’re embarrassin’ me,” Jackelyn blushed.

Twilight turned to Rainbow Dash and mouthed, “Maria Village?” The pegasus could only shrug in response.

“Umm, Mr. Apple,” Rarity spoke up.

“Please, Mr. Apple is my father. Just call me Cortland.”

Rarity nodded and continued, “Right then, Cortland, umm, not that farming isn’t a lucrative business, but how did you afford such a tasteful home?”

Cortland threw back his head and let out another hearty laugh. “Sweetie, ain’t you ever heard of Sweet Apple Acres? I don’t just own this here farm; I own almost every orchard and plantation from here to the Crystal Province. All branches of the mighty tree that is Sweet Apple Acres!”

They all stared at him with open mouths and Applejack squeaked out, “Really?”

“Eeyup. Thanks to a wise move by mah grandpappy, The Apple Family is the major provider of all fruit for the Lunar Empire.”

The room door swung open again and in walked Blossom, Big Macintosh, Bloom, and Granny Smith, each with a dish of food on their back.

“Oh, hush now Cortland,” Blossom smiled at her husband as she set the food on the table. “These young’uns don’t want to hear you go on about your business.”

What, can’t a stallion be proud of his work and family?” He leaned over and planted a kiss on Blossom’s cheek which caused her to burst into a fit of giggles.

Applejack could take no more.

She quickly got up from her seat and kept her head down. “’Scuse me, Ah- Ah think Ah left somethin’ outside.” With that she quickly galloped from the room before anyone could see her break into tears.

“Oh my,” Fluttershy got up from her place at the table and said “Umm, I better go help make sure she finds… it,” before she dashed from the room. Pinkie Pie motioned to get up as well, but Rarity laid a hoof on her shoulder and gave her a slight shake of her head. The earth pony sat back down and gave a worried look towards the door her friends had just run out of.

******

Fluttershy found Applejack back outside on the porch crying softly against one of the marble pillars. She approached the earth pony and laid a hoof on her back. Applejack jumped, startled by the pegasus’ presence. She had really hoped no one would follow her.

“Fl- Fluttershy, go back inside, please. Ah’m fine,” she lied.

Fluttershy shook her head. “Applejack I know you aren’t so there’s no use trying to lie. I can see it on your face; you’re hurt and I know why.”

Applejack stood still for a moment facing away from her friend, not making a sound. Fluttershy begged, “Please Applejack, you don’t have to keep it bottled up; you can talk to me.”

Applejack wanted to tell Fluttershy to leave, to let her stand out here alone with her thoughts and feelings. But despite her stubborn pride, she knew her heart needed an outlet or the grief and anger would choke her to death. She spun around and threw herself onto Fluttershy and sobbed on her shoulder. “It’s not fair! It’s just not fair ‘Shy! Why does she get to keep them and Ah don’t? This world is horrible! Eternal night ruled by Nightmare Moon, unicorns are dead, but she gets to have her parents!? Why, Fluttershy, why? Did Ah do something wrong, does the Maker hate mah family? She gets to live in luxury and my family has to work year after year to keep our house over our head! Why?”

Fluttershy held the crying mare and stroked her mane. “I don’t know, Applejack, I don’t know.” She had tears coming out of her own eyes now. She hated seeing her friends in pain.

“You don’t know what it’s like having to sit in there and look at them,” Applejack grieved. “They act just like them, Fluttershy. Ah want to hug them, tell them ah love them and miss them. Ah want to have mah family together again but Ah know Ah can’t do any of that. It’s like Ah can see them but they can’t see me. They’re not mine… they’ll never be mine again. It’s like the universe is making fun of me, laughing at mah pain.”

The pegasus squeezed her tighter and began to rock her. “Applejack, that’s not true, you know that’s not true. You’ll see your parents again someday, I promise.”

Applejack shook her head at her friend’s words. Even if they were true, that day was a long way off.

“It’s going to be okay, AJ, you’ll see. And besides, you have something she doesn’t have.”

The earth pony looked up at Fluttershy through blurry red eyes. “What’s that?”

Fluttershy gave her the most serene smile. “You have five friends that love you unconditionally and who would do anything for you.”

Applejack smiled. That was true; they were all honorary members of The Apple Family. And although they could never replace her parents, they filled a hole in her heart. She buried her head into Fluttershy’s soft coat and whispered, “Please, promise me you girls will never leave me.”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Fluttershy solemnly promised.

Applejack felt reassured by her friend’s promise but continued to hold on to her. She wasn’t ready to go back inside yet. She wasn’t ready to look at them again; to look at her again.

Fluttershy understood. She stood there and held Applejack in her arms, gently rocking her back and forth as she hummed a sweet lullaby.

Author's Note

Accents, Accents everywhere!

Chapter VII: The Assistant and the Apprentice

“Get up.”

He stirred, but only just. His head felt heavy and full of a fog that muddled his thoughts together, none of them fully coherent. He barely registered the voice that had spoken to him. He was still tired. He wanted to keep sleeping, to ignore the voice and just dream of nothing. He was hard worker; he deserved at least that, right?

“Get up!” the voice commanded with irritation.

He shifted again. He knew he should probably listen to the voice, it sounded familiar but it was hard to tell through the fog. Like his head, the rest of his body felt heavy and unresponsive. He was simply exhausted. He didn’t understand why; he hadn’t done anything straining recently had he? Through the haze he couldn’t remember any of his recent actions. Maybe he was sick? Twilight would understand that and let him sleep in if it were true. He opened his mouth to vocalize his thoughts when he felt a hoof kick him in the side and sent him spiraling out of his basket.

“Lazy, good-for-nothing dragon, I told you to get up twice already!” a harsh voice screeched at him.

Spike landed on the wooden floor of the library bedroom with a thud. On the bright side, he could feel his limbs again. The downside, however was that he now had a dull pain in his side from where he had been kicked, and another pain in his back from where he landed. He blinked a few times to adjust his eyes to the light and noticed that the library seemed… darker in a way. The shadows casted from the light seemed thicker. Even the small amount of sunlight coming through the bedroom window seemed distorted.

After pushing himself to his hands and knees, Spike dusted himself off and gave Twilight a reproachful look. “Twi, what in Equestria was that for?”

The purple unicorn gave him a look of pure apathy. “For being a lazy freeloader, what else? Now get downstairs and clean the library, it’s a mess!” With that, she stalked out of the room with her nose in the air, making sure to slap Spike with her tail on her way out.

Spike stared at her retreating form, utterly confused with what just transpired. Twilight had kicked him, snapped at him, and slapped him with her tail; three things Twilight Sparkle would never do, at least not consciously. Something was definitely wrong here.

Without the fog clouding his brain, Spike tried to remember what had happened before he had gone to sleep. Maybe he had done something to offend Twilight? However, the last thing he could remember was making soup for her, and she said she had loved it. Maybe she’s just having a really bad day, Spike thought. Still, even on her worst days, Twilight had never physically abused Spike, she had never even spanked him before.

The baby dragon tried to think of what happened after he had made soup, but the more he tried to think, the more fog pressed against his mind. It was almost like—

"If you don't get your scaly butt down here, I'm going to blast it back to Canterlot!”

Spike jumped and ran downstairs before Twilight could get angrier. Maybe if he just sat down and talked with her, they could work things out. When he arrived downstairs, his expression switched from a look of concern, to a look of confusion. Twilight had said that the library was a mess, but as Spike stepped onto the main floor, he saw a spotless, well-organized room.

Twilight met him at the bottom of the stairs, piercing him with an irate glare Spike couldn’t help but flinch under. With all the trouble he gotten into over the years, Twilight had never looked at him with that much disdain before.

He swallowed a lump in his throat and stammered, “B-but, Twilight, I-I don’t see anything wrong with the library, it’s fine.”

Without taking her eyes off him, her horn glowed with a magenta light and behind her, a miniature twister appeared and began running amok across the room, sucking in and tossing around anything that got in a radius of it. Spike watched in open-mouthed horror as the room was torn apart by the artificial wind storm.

Smiling at his distress, Twilight cut the power to the twister and it quickly petered out. She handed the dragon a broom and said, “Clean it,” before stalking towards the kitchen.

A number of obscenities came to Spike’s mind that he wanted to shout at the unicorn, but he had been raised better than that. He took a deep shaky breath and asked, “Twilight is everything okay?”

Twilight stopped and looked over her shoulder. “No, everything is not okay. For starters, I have to take care of dumb dragon that still doesn’t know what the word ‘clean’ means. Could you be any more incompetent?” She sighed. “Good servants are so hard to find these days.”

“Alright, that does it,” Spike threw the broom on the ground and pointed a claw at Twilight. “First of all, I’m not your servant, I’m your assistant. More importantly, we’re friends Twilight, and whatever is going on is no excuse for you to treat me like this!” Spike could, and had, put up with a lot of things in his short life, but there were lines that could not be crossed. Being called a ‘servant’ the way Twilight had used it, like he was nothing more than trash to be discarded, was one of those lines.

Twilight fully turned around and started to advance upon Spike. The baby dragon’s confidence melted at the sight of her. He had just raised his voice at the most powerful unicorn in Equestria. And now she was angry. Twilight towered over him, glaring daggers so sharp, they were cutting through his scales.

“First of all,” she said in a deadly whisper, “you are my servant, given to me by Princess Celestia because she, like everypony else, didn’t want you, so I can treat you any way I please. Second, we are not friends. I don’t love you, I don’t even like you! You’re a worthless piece of existence that I keep around for Celestia knows what reason! Maybe it’s because I almost feel bad about the fact that you have no real family to go running back to. They got smart and ditched you as an egg; lucky them. Now, unless you want another beating, I suggest that you start cleaning up this mess you made.” The broom floated up and knocked Spike on the head several times before dropping into his claws. With a satisfied smirk, Twilight turned and walked into the kitchen leaving Spike alone and in tears.

He held the broom tight, leaning on it for support. Each of Twilight’s scathing words had cut in to him like a knife, tearing his heart away. He never heard cruel words like that before. Not from Twilight, not from anypony. The worst part was Twilight had looked him dead in the eye when she had said them, and she meant every single word.

She didn’t love him.

Spike bit his lip, trying to cry as quietly as possible, lest Twilight came back to hurl more insults at him. What had he done to tear Twilight’s love for him away like that? Everything had seemed fine yesterday. But now, she hated him, she didn’t even want him here. Spike had never felt such a crushing sadness before. All he wanted to do now was curl up and sob the rest of his heart out. But if Twilight caught him doing that, who knows what she would do to him.

He looked up at the ravaged room through teary eyes and let out a weighted sigh. He shuffled his feet and began to sweep some of the dust away, working at a snail’s pace. Maybe… maybe she’ll come back and apologize. Maybe she didn’t really mean it. Spike knew it was a false hope. The emotion Twilight had put behind her words was too much for her not to mean it.

Spike put down the broom and proceeded to pick up the books that had fallen on the ground and place them back on the shelves. Surprisingly, the twister hadn’t done any real damage to the books other than toss them around.

Behind him, the library door swung open and he heard someone say, “My, it’s quite the mess in here.”

Spike wheeled around and smiled at the five ponies stepping their way through the clutter of books. His friends! Maybe they could help him find out what was wrong with Twilight.

“Girls, I’m glad you’re here,” he dropped the books and ran over to them. “Twilight’s been acting really, really mean today! She… she actually hit me,” he said, unable to hide the hurt in his voice.

“Well Ah can see why,” Applejack snorted. Spike looked up at her dark expression, his eyes wide. “This place looks terrible. Ah’d hit you too if Ah were her.”

Spike took a few steps back only to bump into something soft. He didn’t have to guess to know what it was. Something grabbed his tail and hoisted him upside down in the air. He locked eyes with Twilight and felt a chill run down his spine.

“Apparently, I wasn’t clear,” Twilight said darkly, “you don’t have any friends. No one likes you! Not the princess, not me, not my friends, no one!” She released her magic and let Spike drop to the floor. “I’m sorry about the mess, girls,” she said addressing the five other ponies. “This thing has been acting lazy all day.”

Spike got up and looked at the ponies he had called friends. Each of them was giving him a menacing look, like he was the scum of the earth. “Bu- but, I don’t understand, I thought we were friends…”

All of them laughed at his assumption and Applejack sneered, “Why would we be friends with something like you?”

“Ugghh,” Rarity bemoaned, holding a hoof to her forehead, “to think that you have a crush on me is absolutely revolting!”

Spike clutched at his chest, he could almost feel his heart shattering into pieces. Could this really be happening? Had all of his friends turned on him overnight? He turned to Fluttershy, the last pony who could ever truly hate anyone. “Fluttershy, you’re still my friend right?”

Fluttershy gave him a look of pure disgust. “I hate dragons. Why would I want to be friends with you?”

“Seriously, Twi, why do you still have him?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I mean, he’s pretty useless and he just takes up space. You should get rid of him.”

“Yeah, then we can throw a ‘good riddance to Spike’ party!” Pinkie Pie cheered.

Spike felt his stomach plummet into oblivion. He dropped to his knees and grabbed on to Twilight’s leg, tears starting to stream from his eyes. “No, no please, don’t get rid of me Twilight! I’m sorry, whatever I did I’m sorry! I’ll work twice as hard, just please don’t throw me out!”

Twilight ignored his pleas and said, “you’re right girls, I mean, even the princess doesn’t want him. She won’t mind if I throw him away. I’ll just use magic to send all my letters to her.” She pried Spike off of her leg with magic and tossed him towards the door. “You’re fired, you overgrown lizard, get out!”

Spike was fully crying now, unable to hold back the shock and pain running through him. He clasped his hands together and begged, “Please, please don’t do this Twilight, I don’t have anywhere else to go! I’m sorry for not working as hard as I should, I’ll do better, just please let me stay!”

Twilight rolled her eyes in an exasperated fashion and opened the front door, tossing the baby dragon out while all of her friends cheered her on.

Spike landed on the doorstep and watched as the door slammed in his face. He began pounding on it with his small fists sobbing for Twilight to let him back inside. But the ponies ignored him; laughing and celebrating at his misfortune.

He rested against the doorway; face pressed into the wood and cried, “Please… please Twilight… I’m sorry….”

Something roughly grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around before pinning him up against the door. Spike’s eyes widened as he recognized the figure before him. “Garble!” he exclaimed.

The red, adolescent dragon smiled wickedly at him. His overgrown teeth seemed sharper than before. Behind him, two of his cronies stood cracking their knuckles in a threatening manner. “Hey there, Spike. You know, we never got to finish our lessons on being a real dragon, why don’t we pick up where we left off?” He pulled back a fist. “Next lesson, you have to know how to take a punch.”

Spike closed his eyes as the red, scaly fist flew towards his face.

******

Twilight Sparkle wasn’t happy.

It had been an odd and frustrating night for her. First, she had almost been crushed when one of the hallways had been collapsed by some random pony that had looked a lot like Nightmare Moon. Twilight hadn’t stuck around to get a better look; she was too busy fearing for her life. To make things worse, when she had tried to take a shower to get some of the dust off of her, she discovered that all of the water in the castle was gone. Apparently, some idiot had broken the pipes.

Twilight stomped down the hall having just come back from dinner which, to add to her bad mood, had been painfully bland. She grumbled at the incompetency of the chef’s ability to make a decent daisy sandwich as she navigated her way back to her room. The Lunar Palace was divided into thirteen different sections, each named after one of the Zodiac signs. Her room was in Capricorn Tower which, unfortunately, was quite a walk from the kitchens. Her current place was in the Sagittarius Wing where Sombra’s room and study were located.

The palace was looking as dim and dreary as ever, and now without the commotion that had been going on outside, it seemed quieter than usual. Twilight tread down the purple carpet, passing a few roaming guards as she went. There were fewer of them around the palace, as Nightmare Moon had pulled some of them away to assist in her invasion plan on the Light World. She was pretty confident nopony could breach the Lunar Palace in the first place. Twilight knew Nightmare Moon’s confidence was founded. The palace was over a mile high, and anyone could see an intruder coming from a mile away. Then there was the empress’ pet dragon, Draco to worry about.

Twilight stopped and rubbed a hoof across her chin, interested on how the intruder that Nightmare Moon had been fighting had gotten past the lookouts without raising any alarms. “Maybe Nightmare Moon wanted them to come,” Twilight said aloud. The empress hardly ever did any of fighting of her own, so for her to take on an opponent was a pretty big deal. Either the other pony was very crafty, or it was all part of Nightmare Moon’s plan. “They looked like an alicorn... maybe they were from the other word.” Amidst the dust and rubble, Twilight had been sure she had seen wings and a horn.

Twilight sighed, pushing the thoughts to the back of her mind. It was none of her concern anyway. She didn’t care if Nightmare Moon won or lost her war. From what Sombra had told her, those other ponies didn’t look like the conquering type, so if Nightmare Moon did lose, Twilight’s own life was not likely to change. Something she was pretty grateful for. She got to live in a palace and learn magic, while most of the ponies down below had to struggle for their existence.

Most of Twilight’s life had been spent up in the Lunar Palace. She could hardly remember the world below. Nightmare Moon had forbid her from ever going down, even though Shining Armor got to make frequent trips. “Too many unicorns would give them hope,” Nightmare Moon had said.

Twilight stopped and looked out a nearby window, seeing the same dark sky she always saw. As much as she hated her brother, part of her envied him. Shining Armor got to go places and see things being a lieutenant in Nightmare Moon’s army. And while Twilight got to learn magic from the most powerful unicorn in the world, her life was contained inside the walls of a floating prison.

She continued walking, already tired of the view outside. She had almost reached the end of the hall, when an odd sound brushed against her ears. It almost sounded like crying. She paused, perking her ears up and trying to hone in on the source of the noise. She followed it over to a door, and looked up to see a black ‘S’ carved over it. Sombra’s study.

Twilight pressed an ear against the door and could faintly hear someone sobbing on the other side. She was immediately curious. It couldn’t be her master could it? She didn’t think Sombra was capable of crying. “Wait, it can’t be him, he’s in the other world,” Twilight said to herself.

She stared at the door, trying to decide what to do. She knew she shouldn’t be breaking in to Sombra’s study. But she had a powerful urge to find out who was crying and why. For curiosity, not compassion, she reminded herself. She didn’t care about anyone other than herself and Master Sombra.

The sobbing intensified, along with Twilight’s... curiosity. She just needed to know who and why, that was it. She tried to handle, finding it locked, though she couldn’t say she was honestly surprised. A lavender glow enveloped her horn, and then the handle, as she tried to pick the lock. She fumbled with it for several minutes before deciding that it had been enchanted with superior magic. Twilight grinned. “A challenge? Alright then.” Using her memory of the inside of Sombra’s room, Twilight charged up her horn again preparing to teleport.

As she released her magic and felt herself vanish, something began to shock her, before violently shooting her backwards. She slammed into the back wall and slid down, dazed and disoriented, her body occasionally twitching from the leftover magic. She sat there for awhile, gathering herself before standing up. She looked left and right, making sure that no guard had seen her, though it wasn’t like they could do much to her.

Twilight marched up to the door again, glaring at it. “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way.” Sombra hadn’t yet taught her dark magic, saying she wasn’t quite ready for it. But she had seem him use plenty of times before to get an inkling of how it worked. She closed her eyes and reached down into the darkness behind her soul. She could feel it, a tiny presence unlike anything she had felt before. Twilight reached for it, but it sank down further, out of her reach. She began to grow frustrated, which seemed to spur the magic to toward her. Negative energy, of course!

Doubling her concentration, she used the hatred she felt for her brother to call up the dark magic. It greedily ate it up, allowing her to tap into it’s power. Her horn bubbled with a dark ooze, and black smoke began to cloud around her eyes. Twilight willed herself to teleport beyond the door, and this time felt no resistance.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself in Sombra’s study. The last time she had been inside had been a few months ago. Then, there had been a gaping hole in the wall letting in a cold draft. Now, the wall had been fixed, a shelf a books standing in front of it; though it was still rather cold inside. It was an eerie chill though, one that shook Twilight to her core.

Other than the fixed wall, not much had changed. The room was made of black granite, adding to the eerie feeling it radiated. The fireplace was unlit, as was the chandelier. A desk on one side of the room next to another bookcase. And curled up in the corner, with a black gem floating in front of it, was a sobbing baby dragon.

Twilight stared at it with open mouthed wonder. “A dragon... a living baby dragon. I can’t believe it. But, why is it here?” She began to walk towards it, eager to get a better look... and still curios to know why it was crying.

It shook and shivered on the floor. Muttering something in between sobs. Twilight felt something pull at her heart before she brushed it away. “It’s a dragon. They don’t actually have feelings... right?” She poked its side, trying to get a reaction from it. It twitched slightly, then went back to moaning in despair.

“Please... don’t leave me... Twilight... I’m sorry....”

Twilight jumped back. She hadn’t expected it to be able to talk, or know her name. “How does it know my name anyway?” Twilight was very curious now, and she wanted answers. She looked at the black stone hovering in front of the dragon. No doubt, it was comprised of dark magic. Twilight reached down into her own dark magic, finding it a little easier to reach than before. She shot a black beam of light at the gemstone and watched it shatter into pieces.

The dragon stopped his sobbing, lying on the floor for a few minutes before climbing to his feet. He rubbed his eyes and looked up at Twilight. His expression jumped to pure joy, and he threw himself onto her front legs. “Twilight, it’s you! Oh, I had the worst dream ever! You were abusing me, and you said you didn’t love me, then you kicked me out of the library, and, and...” He looked up with at Twilight with a worried expression, probably wondering why she wasn’t hugging and comforting him. “T-Twilight... it, it is you... isn’t it?”

Twilight looked at him, utterly confused. “Yes, I’m Twilight, but... how do you even know my name? We’ve never met before.”

The dragon backed away from her, his expression becoming fearful. “No. No, I must still be dreaming. I need to wake up!” He looked around frantically before his eyes stopped on the bookshelf. He grabbed a particularly thick tome and smashed it against his head.

Twilight made a noise of surprise, and ripped the book out of his grasp. “Stop it, you aren’t dreaming! All of this is real!” She put the book back on the shelf before asking, “Who are you and how do you know my name?”

There was a moment of silence, the baby dragon stood with his head in his claws, trying to gather his thoughts. “How can you not know me, Twilight?” He looked at her, tears pouring down his face again. “It’s me Spike. Don’t you remember?”

She felt a pang of guilt hit her. Staring into the dragon’s... into Spike’s eyes, she saw a desperate want for love and comfort. Twilight was starting to second guess herself. Had they met before? Could they possibly be... friends?

“I-I’m sorry, Twilight said softly. It actually made her sad to see Spike’s hope for recognition crumble. “i’m sorry, but... I’m pretty sure we’ve never met.”

Spike fell back and dropped his face into his claws again. Twilight bit her lip, feeling uncomfortable next to the sad dragon. She opened her mouth, hoping to give him some words of comfort, when his head sprung up, a look of revelation on his face. “The tear! I-I must be in that other world!”

Twilight gasped. “You’re from the Light World?”

Spike clapped his hands together and jumped to his feet. Other than his red eyes, there was little evidence that he had been depressed a second ago “Yes! That explains everything! That hole in the sky must have led to another world, just like in Daring Do and the Magic Mirror.” He pointed at Twilight. “You aren’t my Twilight Sparkle, you just look like her. Wow, you must be her alternate twin!”

Twilight listened to him ramble on, slightly impressed that he had been able to piece things together so quickly. Though she was thoroughly interested in hearing about this Other Twilight Sparkle.

Spike held a claw to his chin. “But, how did I get here? More importantly, where exactly am I?”

“You’re in Nightmare Moon’s Lunar Palace,” Twilight said.

Spike’s eyes widened. “Did you say Nightmare Moon!”

Twilight nodded. “Yeah, she’s the ruler here.”

“What! What happened to Celestia? Where are the Elements of Harmony?”

Twilight tilted her head at the mention of the Elements of Harmony. She had never heard of such a thing before. “Well, um... Celestia died a thousand years ago, during her fight against Nightmare Moon. But, what are these ‘elements’ you’re talking about?”

Twilight was pretty sure if Spike’s eyes widened any more, they’d pop out of his head. “You’ve never heard of the Elements of Harmony?” he asked incredulously. “Wait a sec, what are you doing here anyway? You said this was Nightmare Moon’s palace.”

“It is.” Twilight nodded. “But I live here too. I’m master Sombra’s apprentice. You see, he’s—”

“Sombra! Did you Sombra?” He clutched the fins on his head. “Oh man, now I remember! King Sombra is attacking Ponyville! And he kidnapped me!” He started backing away from Twilight. “And you’re his apprentice? Oh geez, I’ve gotta get out of here!”

He rushed to the door and started fumbling with the handle, when Twilight said, “You can’t leave.”

“Oh yeah?” Spike glared at her. “Watch me.”

“No, I mean you can’t leave. The Lunar Palace is a mile above ground. Unless you can sneak into the chariot hangar—which I doubt—and steal a chariot, you’re stuck here.”

Spike let go of the door handle and stepped back. “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t panic... don’t panic. I’ll just... I’ll just send a letter to the princess, then she can tell Twilight where I am!”

He rushed over to the desk and pulled out a piece of paper and a quill, and began to scribble furiously. Twilight raised an eyebrow. “How are you going to send a letter from here?”

Spike rolled the letter up and smirked at her. “Like this.” He took a deep breath and blew a jet of green fire at the scroll. It turned into a ball of green smoke and floated in the air before reappearing and dropping to the floor. “That’s not supposed to happen,” Spike said worriedly.

“And what exactly was supposed to happen?” Twilight asked.

“It was supposed to teleport to Princess Celestia.” He picked it up and blew on it again, only for the same thing to occur. “Great, no trans-dimensional mailing magic.” He whirled around and faced Twilight, trying to look as frightening as possible. “Listen you, I don’t care if you do work for Sombra, you touch one scale on me, and you’ll be in a world of hurt when my Twilight gets here. If I don’t handle you first,” he bluffed.

Twilight rolled her eyes. She was pretty sure she could handle an overgrown lizard, although she had no intention of doing so. “I’m not going to do anything to you, alright? And if Sombra had wanted to kill you, he would have done it by now.”

“Oh yeah, that’s reassuring.”

They looked at each other for a tense moment before Twilight softened and asked, “Well, what are you going to do now?”

Spike sighed. He picked up the rejected scroll and looked at it longingly. “I don’t know. I guess I’m stuck here until Twilight and my friends come and get me.”

“How do you know they’ll come?”

Spike smiled. “Cause they’re my friends. We always look out for each other. They’ll come.”

Twilight regarded him curiously. The way he had said it... Spike believed with all his heart that his friends were coming to rescue him. Twilight couldn’t help but wonder why? What made him believe in the conviction that his friends were on their way?

Spike looked at her. “Oh yeah... I guess I should say thanks.”

Twilight snapped out of her thoughts. “For what?”

“You woke me up from that nightmare.” He shuddered. “It was bad, like, really, really bad. And I guess... if you were really evil, you would have just left me there. So, thanks.”

“Um, you’re welcome.” Twilight felt herself blush. The silence returned, though it was a lot lighter than before. Curiosity ran through Twilight’s brain. There was a dragon standing in front of her... from the Light World! She had so many question to ask; so many things she wanted to know. She cleared her throat. “So, umm... since you’ll be here for a while, why don’t you tell me about your world?”

Spike rubbed the back of his head. “Well, I don’t see why not. But, first, tell me one thing: if Nightmare Moon really rules this world, then is it night time forever here?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, it’s always night here. The only time ponies have seen the sun in the last one thousand years was briefly, during the Dawn Revolution.”

Spike had stepped over to the window on the far wall, looking out over vast, dark sky. “The Dawn Revolution? What was that?”

“It happened about a hundred years ago,” Twilight explained. “The ponies started rebelling against Nightmare Moon’s rule. Towards the end of it, a group of unicorns got together and used old magic to raise the sun for a few hours."

Spike looked away from the window. “Wow, that sounds incredible.”

“It probably was, until Nightmare Moon got angry. After that, she started killing every unicorn her soldiers could find.” Twilight bowed her head, fighting the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “I’m one of the last unicorns left.”

“Wait, what? You mean... all the unicorns are... dead?”

“Yes, almost all of them. My brother, Sombra, and I are the only ones left that I know of.”

Spike held a claw over his mouth. “That’s horrible. I knew Nightmare Moon was evil, but that’s... that’s just wrong.”

Twilight saw him wipe a few of his own tears away. Why is he crying? It’s not his problem; this isn’t his world.

After he finished wiping his tears, Spike said, “But, at least you have your brother.”

Twilight practically hissed. “I don’t want him! It’s his fault mom and dad are dead in the first place! I hope he doesn’t come back from that other world!”

“Oh. Wow... that’s pretty harsh.” Twilight didn’t respond, she just stood there glaring at the floor. Spike continued, “In my world, Twilight and Shining Armor love each other... Um, sorry, I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“...Does your Twilight Sparkle have parents?”

“Oh yeah, Twilight Velvet and Night Light. They’re pretty cool... sorry.”

Twilight shook her head. “No... no, it’s fine. It’s just... it’s hard for me to believe there’s a place where unicorns are alive and live peacefully.

“Yeah, Equestria has it pretty good,” Spike said thoughtfully.

“Equestria....” Twilight felt the word on her lips, tasting the sweetness of it. “Most of the time we just call this place the Lunar Empire. Not many ponies use the name Equestria anymore.” She looked up at Spike, her heart filled with a sadness not just for herself, but for him as well. “Spike, Nightmare Moon is powerful. Very Powerful, and she hates unicorns. She wants to take over your world, which means she’ll probably kill all of them there too. How can you be so sure your friends will make it to you? They’ll have to find they’re way up here, sneak past all the guards and possibly fight Nightmare Moon herself! How do you know they’ll take that chance for you?”

Spike looked at her for a long time, his expression unreadable. He pressed his face against the window, staring up at the bright moon. “They’re my friends. They’ll come. You’ll see, Twilight always comes back for me.”

Twilight looked away from him. I hope you’re right, Spike. I’d like to meet this Other Twilight.

Author's Note

God, I missed this story, I really did. I deeply apologize for making you guys wait so long for a new chapter.

Now this is the part where I promise you guys consistency on story updates. But I've done that twice and failed both times. I will promise you this however: this story will NOT die. Not unless I do. I finish everything I start...unless I absolutely hate it, but I love this story and I'm so excited to be working on it again! So the show will continue!

I also tweaked the title a little. A wise author said Latin titles make it harder to attract new readers.

Chapter I: She Who Rules the Night

Mingling Worlds

Chapter I: She Who Rules the Night

Nightmare Moon slammed Celestia against the rough stone walls of her prison cell, a tempest of fury and anger in her draconic eyes. Celestia slid down the wall and came to a rest at her tormentor’s armored hooves, her dull pink hair falling in dirty clumps on and around her face. The greying alicorn who had previously been asleep before the assault weakly opened an eye and looked up at the glowering beast before her.

“Good morning Luna,” she smiled loosely, her voice a rasp whisper. “Or is it afternoon? It’s so hard to tell nowadays.”

Nightmare Moon stomped her hooves and snorted in angry protest. She had very little patience tonight and she was in no mood for Celestia’s petty attempts at sisterly love. The miasma of stars and clouds that was her mane reached down and circled around the alicorns neck just above the inhibitor collar that disabled her use of magic. It tightened its grip and raised Celestia so she was at eye level with the black alicorn. “Do not play games Celestia! I am on to you! I saw a vision, a prophecy! I saw the sun!” Her voice and anger rose as she continued to speak. Her magical grip tightened around Celestia’s neck, yet the prisoner’s face remained insensible. “I don’t know how you did it but I know it was you! You were hiding those wretched little rats! And I bet it was you who showed them how to do that horrible magic of yours during their pathetic revolution!" Nightmare Moon’s breaths came out in slow seething gasps as if she had just flown a great distance.

Celestia merely stared at her, or rather through her. Her eyes were locked onto her sister’s, yet they were unfocused and vacant. “Oh, Luna, you used to be so pretty,” she said dreamily. Her front hoof rose to stroke Nightmare Moon’s face, but the chains holding her to the wall snapped tight before she made it even a quarter of the way.

Nightmare Moon hissed and slammed her against the wall multiple times before holding her up to face level again. Celestia for her part had not made a sound. She was used to the physical violence inflicted by her sister; she had endured it for the better half of a millennium. In all honesty Nightmare Moon was being rather lenient today. Celestia met the black alicorn’s harsh glare with her usual distant look, as if she were daydreaming. “Why are we fighting Luna? We can still talk this out; it’s not too late for you…”

The end of her proverbial rope reached, Nightmare Moon flung Celestia onto the ground with an enraged shriek and lowered her horn. It glowed with a sinister shade of blue, so dark it was almost black, and let loose a bolt of lightning into her captive’s body. Celestia screamed in agony for a few seconds before merely twitching and convulsing violently on the cold stone floor. Nightmare Moon kept up the onslaught for a few more seconds before cutting the flow of magic. She let Celestia twitch helplessly on the ground for a moment before grabbing the alicorn up in her mane. Celestia’s head went limp in the magical choke hold. She leaned to one side, a pained smile on her face.

Nightmare Moon shook her violently to drag her out of her stupor. “Are you willing to talk now sister?”

Celestia slowly raised her head once more. Her pupils were wide and moving erratically. After a moment they returned to their original size and distant expressions. “Good morning Luna. Or is it afternoon? It’s so hard to tell nowadays.”

Nightmare Moon let out a snort of frustration and threw Celestia against the wall. “Worthless,” she spat. Before turning and existing the prison cell.

The empress of the night slammed the door shut behind her and stood in the pitch black corridor. She took a deep breath and began to organize her thoughts. The last hour had been a whirlwind of emotions, most of them anger and frustration. But there had been a brief instance of fear as well. Nightmare Moon closed her eyes and replayed the day’s earlier events in her head trying to understand what she had just seen.

******
Earlier…
******

The throne room was silent save for the patient tapping of a hoof against the velvety purple carpet that ran from the door and up to the ebony throne. The room was sculpted entirely from polished silver which gleamed bright in spite of the dim lighting given by the blue fire in the braziers lining the wall.

Nightmare moon sat calmly on her throne, her hoof tapping in a steady rhythm; eyes locked on the ornamental door across from her. She was expecting good news to come through that door. News of death and destruction. News that her enemies had finally fallen and nothing could challenge her rule again. The very thought sent a wave of emotions through her.

The empress closed her eyes and took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself; but she could not ignore the feelings of anger and annoyance rising in her chest. How had they managed to elude her for an entire century? How could they hide an entire village? She slowly shook her head, her billowing mane waving in contrast to her movements. She opened her eyes and allowed herself a smile revealing her sharp fangs. It did not matter anymore, they had finally slipped up. All it had taken was one unwise foal to wander off into the hooves of her soldiers; now she had them all cornered.

Yes, soon the unicorns would be nothing but a fairy tale.

Nightmare Moon’s smile grew wide across her face splitting from ear to ear in triumph. This was the inevitable outcome of all those who would stand against her. She would deliver death, as much death as needed to teach the intended lesson, and for the unicorns that amount was extinction. The lesson being, never try to raise the sun. The empress shuddered at the very thought. Had these ponies not learned during her rule? The night was absolute, no pony could change that!
The alicorn’s thoughts were disturbed by a loud knocking against the throne room doors. She stood up, excitement pumping through her causing her heart to race. She looked down from her dais to the two guards standing by the door. With a curt nod the earth ponies grabbed the handles and pulled the large door open.

A lone unicorn emerged from the cluster of shadows just beyond the door. He kept a slow even pace as he crossed the room, his steps heavy from the thick steel armor he wore, his head bowed the entire way. He stopped in the pool of light provided by the full moon from the skylight above and dropped to his knees in a bow. “Your Majesty,” he rumbled.

Nightmare Moon nodded. “Rise and speak Sombra.”

Her archmage, Sombra, was one of the few exceptions to the merciless onslaught she had given the unicorns. He had served her very faithfully over the last one thousand years, ever since she had freed him from his icy prison.

The dark unicorn rose, his red eyes locked on to the imposing regal creature before him. He cleared his throat before speaking, “Forgive me Your Grace, but they managed to catch wind of our assault before we arrived. Most had fled by the time we got there; however, we did manage to catch three.”

Silence. An all-consuming silence filled the hall causing the guards to drop to the ground in fear of their master’s wrath. Nightmare Moon pierced Sombra with a stare that would have given any normal pony nightmare so horrid and vivid, they would have begged for death. Sombra however, did not flinch under the mental assault and if he had any fear he did not show it.

Finally, after what seemed like a grueling eternity, Nightmare Moon spoke in a deadly whisper. “Three, Sombra?”

Sombra dropped to the floor in a low bow once more, his nose almost touching the ground. “Please forgive me Your Eminence. I-” His sentence was cut short by Nightmare Moon’s mane coiling around his neck and flinging him against the wall leaving a remarkably sized dent in the silver.

“YOU IDIOT!” Nightmare Moon roared. “HOW COULD YOU ONLY CAPTURE THREE UNICORNS!?” Her body evaporated into a cloud of stars and reformed in front of a staggering Sombra. She raised her hoof and pinned him to the wall by his throat. “You’re the second most powerful mage in the world and you let them slip through your hooves… how?”

Sombra’s face remained impassive. “The same way we were not able to track them for the last century?” he growled in a monotone voice.

Nightmare Moon’s eyes began to glow in white hot fury. Sombra felt his body rise into the air, no longer supported by the alicorn’s hoof. Trapped in her magic, Sombra’s body slammed against the tiles; once, twice, three times. With each impact Nightmare Moon screamed, “Insolent. Little. Foal!” She released him on the fourth drop at which another dent was created in the floor. Sombra quickly stood up and faced his empress who was gritting her teeth in frustration. “There will be punishment, Sombra!”

“Understood… Your Majesty.”

Nightmare Moon took a deep breath before continuing, “Very well, tell me then how you managed to capture these three in particular.”

Sombra cleared his throat again. “Two of them were too busy trying to make sure everyone escaped in time to save their own flanks. The last one came to us actually in a, ahem, noble attempt to save ‘mommy and daddy.’ The effort might have been touching if it hadn’t been so ridiculous.”

“I take it that you captured them alive?”

“For interrogation, yes.”

“Very good, bring them in.” Nightmare Moon made her way across the throne room and stood In front of the dais awaiting her new prisoners.

Sombra raised an iron clad hoof and stomped on the silver floor twice. The sound echoed throughout the chamber and out through the open door.

Three pegasi in midnight blue armor came through the door in a delta formation. Between them were two adult unicorns and a filly, all looking terrified. The pegasi brought them into the circle of moonlight and forced them to kneel; a back hoof in-between their shoulders and a spear at their necks just above the inhibitor collars that had been placed on them.

Nightmare Moon sized them up before speaking. “So, you thought you’d play the ‘valiant heroes’ and save everypony else from my wrath? Well, all you’ve done is bought them precious little time,” she sneered.

The stallion spoke first, inching his head up just a few centimeters to better see his empress. He was a blue unicorn with a cutie mark of a large crescent moon with a smaller one inside it. “Please Your Majesty; we just wanted to live a normal life.”
“Hah,” Nightmare Moon scoffed. “If that were true you could have simply-“

“Where’s our son?” the mare interrupted. The black alicorn eyed the offending pony before her. She had a silver coat and her mane and tail were striped purple and white. There was a fire burning in her eyes, the fire of a protective mother.

“Your son?” Nightmare Moon mused. “You mean that darling little colt belongs to you? Such irony; though I would be more worried about yourselves if I were you.”

The fire in the mare’s eyes intensified as she jumped to her hooves, stunning the guard with her sudden feat of strength, and screamed, “YOU TELL ME WHERE- GAH!”

The pegasus had guard quickly recovered from his shock and struck the butt of his spear into the side of the mother’s head eliciting cries of horror from her family. “No one talks to Her Imperial Majesty that way,” he growled. He moved his spear back to her neck, pressing the tip into her skin so it began to draw a trickle of blood.

Nightmare Moon stepped into the circle of light, her sapphire armor sparkling in the moon’s glow, and leaned down into the mare’s face, a look of vast superiority on her own. “Do not worry, he’s in good hooves. You might be able to join him if you just answer a few questions.”

The silver mare glowered at her. “We don’t know anything.”

“I highly doubt that,” Nightmare Moon continued in a calm even voice. “Now tell me, where did the others run off too?”
“I don’t know.”

Nightmare Moon quickly backhoofed her across the face causing the spear against her neck to jerk forward slightly and open a small cut across her neck. The purple filly next to her screamed, “Mommy!”

The mare turned her head and tried to give her a daughter a brave smile despite the blood trailing from her lower lip. “It’ll be alright, Twilight, I promise.”

Nightmare Moon snorted in mild amusement before continuing her interrogation. “Tell me what the unicorns are planning.”

“We don’t have a plan.”

SMACK

“Please Your Majesty,” the stallion cried, “we really don’t know anything, she’s telling the truth!”

The Empress of the Night raised her head up and smashed a hoof against the floor shouting, “Lies! If that’s true then how did you know my troops were coming!?”

“I- I can‘t really explain it. It was just like, a voice in all of our heads, telling us to run; that trouble was coming.”

Nightmare Moon raised an eyebrow and snorted again, “You expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth Your Majesty! Please just let us be!” he pleaded.

Nightmare Moon grinded her teeth, her patience wearing dangerously thin. She had been so close to victory only to have it snatched from her hooves by some mercy of fate. No, she decided; she would get answers one way or another!

She looked between the mother and father unicorns, a devious grin forming on her face. “Alright, perhaps you just need a little... persuasion to loosen your lips.” She gave a nod to the middle pegasus pinning down the filly named Twilight. He nodded back and raised the spear high over his head, the point aimed directly at the back of the foal’s skull.

“You have three seconds to tell me what you know or the adorable little filly meets an early death,” she said in a calm whisper.

Three sets of eyes widened in horror. Twilight’s breath began to quicken, her eyes darted back and forth between her parents. “M-mom, dad?” she quivered. Tears were already falling down her face.

“Shhh, don’t worry Twilight, mommy’s here, everything will be fine,” her mother soothed, reaching a hoof over to comfort her.

“Please don’t do this!” the stallion cried, his trembling voice becoming louder. “We don’t know anything; we were just trying to live our lives!”

“One,” Nightmare Moon began counting down.

“Mommy, I don’t wanna die!”

“It’s going to be alright sweetie. You’re going to be fine I promise.”

“Two.”

Mommy I’m scared!

“PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY, SHE’S JUST A CHILD!”

“Three, kill her.”

“NOOO!” both parents yelled.

Twilight screamed as the spear began to come down. Her horn lit up and emitted a bright light suddenly throwing the pegasus off of her. The inhibitor collar around her neck made several loud cracking noises before falling off to the floor. She floated into the air, her eyes completely white from the magic flowing through her; her horn glowing brighter with each passing second.

The two remaining pegasi guards retreated back towards the doorway where the other two earth stallions watched with rapt attention. Nightmare Moon even began to back away from the small unicorn. “What sorcery is this?” she cried just as a raging wind began to howl around Twilight.

Sombra, who had remained silent and impassive throughout the interrogation, pointed up to the air above the filly’s head. “I believe she’s creating something!” he yelled over the rising tempest.

All eyes locked on the space Sombra had pointed to where sure enough, a ball of bright light had formed and was continuing to build. Nightmare Moon squinted her eyes as the ball’s luminosity became increasingly unbearable. Shielding her face with a wing, the alicorn began to step forward, determined to stop the small foal before she could unleash her spell. She had only made it two steps before a loud tearing noise echoed throughout the throne room. There was a sudden pressure and the next thing Nightmare Moon knew she was on her back, yards away from the large sphere of energy which had begun to ripple like a disturbed pond.

An image formed, faint at first as if viewed through a foggy mirror, but it quickly came into focus followed by a cacophony of noise and sounds. Nightmare Moon stood up and gazed upon the odd visual display. Inside the sphere, hundreds, if not thousands of colorful ponies were gathered around a decorative stage. Banners and streamers of red and gold adorned it, and on the main banner just overhead the center of the stage was a design of an orange ball with eight curling spines that looked like the embers of a fire. Nightmare Moon narrowed her eyes at the familiar symbol as a thousand thoughts began to race through her head.

A well-dressed stallion proceeded to walk onto the stage and the crowd instantly fell silent. He began to speak, his voice resounding through the silver hall as if he were in there personally. “Ladies and gentlecolts, welcome to our 988th Summer Sun Celebration held this year in our lovely capital city of Canterlot!” There was a chorus of loud cheers and applauds before the noise settled down enough for the stallion to speak again. “Now without further ado, I give to you our benevolent ruler, our guiding light, bringer of the dawn, and protector of Equestria… Princess Celestia!”

The crowd erupted into noise once more as the stallion bowed off the stage making way for a tall, slender, white alicorn to take his place. Her mane flowed in a rainbow of colors and her smile was warm and inviting.

Sombra’s eyes widened with puzzlement and interest, while Nightmare Moon spat and hissed, “Celestia!? That’s impossible!”

The remaining guards and the two unicorns looked on with pure confusion, unable to make heads or tails of what they were seeing. Twilight continued to stay suspended in midair, her eyes still white with power and her horn thrumming with energy.

Inside the image, Celestia smiled and waved to the cheering crowd as a dull pink color began to fill the night sky behind her. She continued this for a few moments before standing up tall and spreading her wings. With a graceful leap, she took to the sky, lifting her hooves high above her head as a circle of bright light exploded behind her. As everyone in the audience cheered, the attendees in the throne room all cried out in pain and attempted to shield their eyes from the harsh light. It filled the entire room, every nook and cranny, covering it in a bright luminance.

The harsh light suddenly vanished as the image dissolved into nothingness, leaving the room in its comparably dim moonlight. Twilight fell to the floor with a small thud and groaned quietly before slipping into unconsciousness. Her parents rushed to her side, checking to make sure she was alright.

Nightmare Moon meanwhile was rubbing the spots out of her eyes while her mind reeled with incomplete and incoherent thoughts. What had she just seen? Was it a vision of the past? No, she would’ve remembered something like that; and how would have the unicorn known about as well? Was it a vision of the future? Would Celestia return to power and bring back the sun?

The empress stood up once more. She hid the fear building in her stomach with a mask of anger. “Stop your pathetic sniveling you foals!” she called to the guards gathered at the door, all of them moaning and rubbing their eyes. Upon hearing their empress’ voice they quickly snapped to attention though their eyes continued to blink at a rapid pace. “Take those two to the dungeon and have them executed,” she pointed to the adult unicorns. “And have that one fitted with a new inhibitor collar and throw her with her brother, I might need her later.”

The guards saluted and flew over to the unicorns who began crying and struggling to stay together. There were screams and cries of anguish, but eventually the unconscious foal was removed from her mother’s hooves and taken out of the room first followed by her sobbing parents.

The door swung shut behind them leaving Nightmare Moon and Sombra alone.

Sombra’s expression had become unreadable once more. He stood rooted in place as he watched the black alicorn pace back and forth with his fiery eyes.

Nightmare Moon murmured and mumbled to herself occasionally stopping to grit her teeth in frustration. She finally came to a halt and said, “Sombra, wait here. There is somepony I must see.” Not waiting for a reply, she stormed off towards a small door hidden behind the dais.

Behind her she heard Sombra mutter, “Of course Your Majesty,” unable to see his look of disdain.

******

Nightmare Moon left the holding cell angrier than she had entered it. She was convinced Celestia’s brain was too scrambled for her to be able to plot anything against her rule, let alone raise the sun. And if the unicorns had really wanted to raise it they would have done so by now, providing they had the power.

That only complicated things for the immortal ruler. The vision she had seen was too vivid and too… unsettling for it to not to have been some form of reality. The question was how did it affect her?

Nightmare Moon entered the throne room once more to find Sombra sitting at the foot of the dais, eyes closed in deep concentrations. She moved past him, as silent and as swift as the wind, coming to rest on her black throne. She cleared her throat to alert the unicorn of her presence.

Sombra opened his eyes then raised an eyebrow. “Well…?”

“Well what?” Nightmare Moon snapped.

“Your thoughts on the matter Your Majesty; I was merely curious to know what you might think of what we just witnessed. Even you have to admit it was… intriguing.”

She let out an irritated growl. “I am not sure what has just transpired, Sombra. I’ve seen Celestia and she is in no condition create an outcome like what we saw. Besides, she’s been producing magic at such a small rate I don’t even think I’ll be able to siphon it from her anymore. Her time is almost up.” She stomped a hoof against the tiles in frustration and cracked one of them in two. “So no, Sombra, I don’t have any ideas… but I’m guessing you and your brilliant mind have come up with something?”

Sombra gave her a toothy smile showing his own pair of sharp fangs. “Well, I do have one idea. Bear with me Your Majesty, but what if what we saw was not the past of the future, but the present?”

It was Nightmare Moon’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “The present?”

“Yes, not our present mind you, but the present of an alternate world.” Sombra leaned forward as he finished his sentence, his eyes wide with excitement. “Tell me My Lady, what year is this of your magnificent defeat of Celestia?”

“The 988th,” she said automatically.

“Exactly, and do you recall what year of the Summer Sun Celebration they were celebrating in that image?”

The alicorns eyes widened then narrowed again. She gave him a hard, scrutinizing look, “What are you getting at?”

Sombra turned and began to pace the floor in front of the dais. “Perhaps what we gazed upon was an alternate possibility of the outcome of yours and Celestia’s battle. Perhaps this is the timeline where you won and shrouded the world in your beautiful night, and the other was the one where… well, where you had a short coming.”

Nightmare Moon tapped an armored hoof against her chin as she mulled over his words. A world where Celestia had beaten her? No doubt though some sort of trickery. It was an interesting idea; however it brought a new question to mind.
“Sombra, if we can see them, is it possible for them to see us?”

He shrugged. “I suppose it is possible.”

Nightmare Moon jolted up from her seat as if she had just been electrified. “That’s it isn’t it!?” she shouted. “That’s who helped those unicorns escape! Not our Celestia, but the alternate one! She’s aware of our existence and no doubt plans to come to our world and end my Eternal Night!”

“So then what is your plan Your Grace?”

She looked down at him with a shrewd smile. “Congratulations, Sombra, you’re being reassigned. You will lead a research team and find a spell that will allow us to reach this other world. We will strike them before they can strike us!”

Sombra cleared his throat. “Not to object Your Majesty, but what about the unicorns?”

She waved a hoof dismissively. “Bah, they are like rats trying to hide now. My guard shall locate them all and exterminate them soon enough. No, we have more pressing issues to attend to, so get to it!”

He saluted. “Of course Your Majesty.”

He turned and marched out of the throne room, his metal shoes clinking every step of the way. The door closed behind him with a loud slam leaving the Night Empress alone.

She smiled contently to herself. Celestia thought herself clever, but now that she, Nightmare Moon, knew of the parallel dimension, she would once again prove herself superior. Soon she would rule an eternal night over not one, but two worlds! She threw her head back and let out a mad cackle of glee. The sound filled the air and reverberated throughout the whole Lunar Palace.

Chapter IV: If You Want Something Done Right...

Chapter IV: If You Want Something Done Right…

Canterlot Castle was in an uproar.

Guards scrambled to and fro preparing for battle while their superiors barked out order after order. Soldiers of all three races dawned their armor and weapons before falling into formation outside in the courtyard. The entire army worked with quick efficiency, their long hours of training finally paying off. After the Royal Wedding fiasco training drills and work outs had been doubled; nopony in the guard wanted to be embarrassed like that ever again.

Of course the ruckus of the castle did not go unnoticed by the citizens of Canterlot City. To the stuffy nobles and well-to-do ponies of the upper class, anything that could catch the attention of the princesses and set off the Equestrian Military was sure to be good gossip. From the city’s mountainside perch it wasn’t hard to discern what had set off their rulers. The city’s view gave anypony standing on the ramparts a clear show of what was happening to Ponyville and soon gossip turned to fearful whispers as the unsettling news washed over all of Canterlot.

Equestria was under siege. Again.

It had been a well over a year since the changelings had been dispelled from Equestrian borders, and now they had a new unknown enemy to deal with. Though the novelty of being attacked on a yearly basis hadn’t worn off, the ponies of Canterlot tried their best to keep cool heads about the situation. After all it wasn’t their city being attacked so there was no need to dissolve into hysterics just yet.

******

Princess Celestia stood on the highest balcony of the castle observing the dimensional tear that had appeared next to Ponyville. She had received the letter loyal dragon Spike had sent her and promptly responded, but that was before she had actually observed the phenomena. Now she was beginning to wonder if the Elements of Harmony could fix a situation like this. And even if they could mend the hole in the space-time continuum, what about the ponies that would be displaced here as a result?

She began to pace the checkered floors of the balcony trying to come up with a solution. But she knew she didn’t have a lot of time to plan. Every second, more of these mysterious invaders marched into her world and Celestia doubted they would leave if she politely asked them to. She abhorred war, but was not afraid to get her hooves dirty if it meant keeping her little ponies safe. She gave a disgruntled sigh and retreated back into the castle.

She descended the spiral staircase and exited into one of the various halls making up the castle proper. Her strides were long and quick as she hurried off towards her next destination. Halfway down the hall, her eyes saw the shadows at the base of the ivory pillars flicker before a cool wind picked up causing her ethereal mane to billow a little harder than usual.
The wind picked up the shadows off their places on the walls and swirled them around before producing Princess Luna who fell into step beside her sister as silent as the night she guarded. Celestia acknowledged her while continuing her gait, “Hello Luna, how are we doing so far?”

“Lieutenant Gale and her pegasi are ready to depart. Lieutenants Starburst and Grey Shield both say they’ll be ready within the next hour,” Luna reported.

Celestia nodded. Of course the pegasi would be the first to be ready for battle which was all the more convenient for her as they could traverse to Ponyville the quickest.

They continued to trot down the corridor at a hurried pace, both of them passively quiet. Guards and soldiers continued to scurry about taking care of any necessary preparations. The two sisters turned down an adjoining corridor and Luna spoke again, “I cannot believe this. An invasion, from another dimension! When you first read me young Spike’s letter I thought he and Twilight Sparkle might have gone mad until I saw it for myself.” She looked up at her older sister. “Not even Discord can create something of this magnitude. What creature is powerful enough to do such a thing?”

Celestia took a deep breath and sighed. “I cannot say for certain; though from our observations we can assume they did not come here with the best intentions.”

They reached the door to the southern courtyard wear the pegasi waited ready to fly. Facing each other Luna asked, “So, what is our plan? Even if the Elements of Harmony can close the portal they cannot repel an army.”

Celestia was silent for a moment; her purple eyes looked solemnly out into space. “Actually, Luna, I’m not even sure the Elements can close the portal. And even if they can who’s to say that whatever made the first one won’t just create another?” These thoughts had been bothering Celestia since she had left the balcony. She trusted her faithful student with every fiber of her being. She was smart, resilient, and in a situation like this she had definitely made a good call in trying to use the Elements. But if her theory about the dimensional tear was correct then the Elements would only half work if at all.

Luna gaped at her. The Elements of Harmony not work? How could they not work? Though Celestia may have had a point about more portals opening up, if the Elements could not close them then what could? With a shake of her head, Luna regained her composure. “Tia, assuming that what you say is true and the Elements don’t work, then what are we to do? Neither of us knows trans-dimensional magic; frankly I did not believe such a thing was possible until today.”

The white alicorn let out another sigh. “I have a plan, but I hope I will not have to resort to it. In the meantime I will go with the pegasi to Ponyville and help Twilight Sparkle.”

“Then I shall join you!” Luna declared.

Celestia shook her head and gave her younger sibling a sad look. “No Luna, not yet; someone needs to lead the unicorns and the earth ponies when they are fully prepared. Also, I need you to look though the archives and see if you can’t find anything on trans-dimensional magic; I know Starswirl had started some research on it but I’m not sure how far he got.”

“What?” Luna exclaimed, “You want me to stay here; to stay behind again?” The Night Princess couldn’t believe her ears. She was being told to sit and wait patiently again while everypony else went out to help save the world. She narrowed her eyes in cold disbelief towards her sister. “You’re kidding; you’re kidding right? Why must I stay behind and do research while you go and fight? I am not some delicate flower that cannot take care of herself! My magic almost rivals yours!” Luna could feel her temper rising at the indignity she was being shown. Her voice has grown steadily louder with each sentence, though she was still being mindful so that she did not slip into her Royal Canterlot Voice. Though part of her wanted to let Celestia have it.

Celestia stepped closer and draped a wing over Luna who was sorely tempted to throw it off yet instead allowed herself to be pulled in by the loving embrace. Celestia’s wings were always warm like the afternoon sun and, though she would never admit it, Luna liked the way Celestia’s feathers tickled her.

Celestia brought her in close and nuzzled her affectionately before looking into Luna’s teal eyes. “Luna, this has nothing to do with how strong you are. I know you are powerful; you’ve grown so much since you came home. And I know you hate to sit on the sidelines but I need you to wait here at least for now. We could be flying into a trap for all I know, and if something happens to me then you’re the only one who can take over ruling Equestria. You’ll have your chance soon sister, I promise; but for now please listen to me and stay here,” Celestia pleaded.

Luna looked down at her hooves. Her anger had been partly quelled, but she was still unhappy about the turn of events. Celestia was right, she hated being out on the sidelines, she hated waiting; she had been forced to wait a thousand years with nothing to do but watch and dream of the day she got to do something again. But her sister had a fair point. If all of this was just a trap, then they were playing right into enemy hooves. Somepony had to stay behind and be backup, and that somepony was her.

Luna sighed, “I understand Tia. I’ll stay here until you call for reinforcements. Just promise you’ll be careful down there.”
Celestia unwrapped her wings from around Luna and smiled at her. “I promise.” With that she opened the door and stepped out into the sunlight leaving Luna alone in the palace.

******

If there was one thing the ponies of Ponyville were good at it was panicking.

They fled throughout the town trying to find friends and loved ones and making futile attempts to escape the occupied territory. The armored earth pony guards however had the entire city surrounded while the pegasi patrolled the skies. While none of the soldiers were outright attacking any of the civilians, their menacing presence was enough to drive panic into the hearts of the populace. After realizing all of their exits were blocked, the townsfolk ran for their homes, trying to skirt around the soldiers whenever they could and locking the doors tight when they got inside.

For once Twilight Sparkle was grateful for the chaos Ponyville provided. It was making it easier for her group to move across the town without raising too much suspicion. The six ponies were forced to take a rather roundabout way to reach the field and avoid the bulk of the amassing army. They slipped through the crowds on the main streets and made their way through small alleyways with a hurried pace. It was more of a brisk gallop than a run, as running might alert somepony that they were up to something.

Of course sneaking around didn’t sit well with Rainbow Dash who was practically grounded thanks to the air patrols. She hovered just above her friends heads and was about to complain again when Twilight gave a signal with her hoof. Everypony quickly ducked down behind a large dumpster placed in the dark alley just as a platoon of soldiers marched past in the street in front of them.

“This is stupid!” Dash hissed into Applejack’s ear. “Why do we have to sneak around everywhere, why can’t we just fight our way back? We’ll take ‘em on just like we did with the changelings!” she pounded her hooves together with a devilish grin on her face.

Applejack raised an eyebrow at her. “You do remember how that part ended right? Besides, these ponies are armed and dangerous, and ah don’ think even you can handle this many ponies at once.”

Rainbow was about to counter when Twilight gave another hoof motion to continue moving. She gave an exaggerated huff and continued to float above her companions.

After checking that the coast was clear, Twilight led her friends up the road and towards the edge of town. She knew they were running out of time; with each passing minute they had fewer ponies to cover for them. Soon the town would be crawling with nothing but armored soldiers.

Twilight thought that they were in the clear, the town’s outskirts were just in front of her and just beyond it a cluster of trees and bushes they could use for cover until they got close enough to the portal. They were only a hundred yards away when a gruff voice behind them yelled, “Hey!”

They all swung around to see four armored guards marching towards them, two of them were carrying spears on their backs. Their expressions were hidden by their visors but something told Twilight that the guards weren’t happy to see them.

Starting to break into a nervous sweat, Twilight tried to come up with a logical excuse to give but her brain was coming up short. She felt a hoof rest on her shoulder and looked over to see Rarity giving her a sly smile. “Allow me, Twilight.” With a flip of her violet mane she strolled over to the guards looking quite confident with herself.

“Why hello good sirs, whatever could be the problem?” She gave them her best smile and fluttered her eyelashes.

“Whoa, I can’t believe it,” one of the back guards whispered, “an actual unicorn!”

“And she’s kinda hot too,” another one whispered.

“Focus!” the one who had originally addressed them snapped. He returned his attention back to Rarity and said, “No pony is allowed to leave the area that’s an order! You’d do well to return to your homes at once!”

Rarity feigned a gasp of surprise and raised a hoof to her mouth. “Oh my, I wasn’t aware that we weren’t allowed to leave the town. I’m terribly sorry if we’re causing any trouble, but it just so happens that our dear friend Fluttershy isn’t feeling to well and her house is just over yonder as it were,” she gestured to the field behind her. “We just wanted to make sure she got home alright.”

Fluttershy cocked her head to the side in confusion. “But, Rarity my house is-“Rainbow quickly elbowed her in the ribs. Whether from good acting or because the blue pegasus had elbowed her a little too hard, Fluttershy let out a few very convincing coughs. “I mean -cough- yes; I’m not feeling ¬-cough- the best right now.”

“See?” Rarity continued, “If you could just let us take her home I assure you we’ll come right back and lock ourselves in our homes and no one would be the wiser.” She flashed them another winning smile.

The guard eyed them for a moment before deciding. “Very well, but we better give you an escort, make sure you’re not up to any funny business.”

Rarity’s eyes widened a little. “Oh, well that’s very nice and all but I assure you-“ But the four guards had already began moving into position around them, two on the left and two on the right, boxing them in. Rarity frowned. “Oh… alright then,” she sighed and moved into position next to Rainbow and Fluttershy.

“Good going,” Rainbow whispered sarcastically as the group began to move forward.

“Quiet you,” the unicorn sniped, “at least I got us moving again.” She harrumphed and turned her nose upwards.
Fluttershy looked around at the four guards surrounding them then leaned over to Rainbow Dash and whispered, “What do we do now?”

Rainbow grinned and rubbed her hooves together. “Now we do this my way! Follow my lead.” She cleared her throat before saying in a loud voice, “Don’t worry ‘Shy, we’re almost there. Yep just through the trees,” she motioned at the cluster of close trees and shrubs.

Fluttershy gave a weak cough to help keep up the charade while Twilight led the group towards the wooded area catching on to Rainbow’s plan. It was incredibly stupid in Twilight’s opinion, but the purple unicorn couldn’t come up with anything better to get rid of their followers.

One of the guards leaned over to Twilight and said, “You know, I have to ask, what’s with all the shiny jewelry you girls are wearing? They look pretty expensive to be wearing when you’re just going for a stroll.” Through the narrow opening in the helmet, Twilight could see the stallion’s eyes gazing up at her tiara.

“Umm, well you see…” Twilight was beginning to sweat again trying to come up with an excuse.

This time she was saved not by Rarity’s grace, but by Pinkie screaming, “THEY’RE ON TO US!” In a flash of pink, the guard closest to Twilight was knocked on to his stomach while Pinkie snatched the spear that had been strapped to his back with her mouth and began to bash it against his helmet making the guard’s ears ring painfully.

Rainbow Dash followed suit, slamming into the other leading soldier. He flew across the way and landed in the dirt with a thud but quickly got up to charge back at her. The pegasus was still recovering from the first impact which had left her bones rattling. It felt like she had slammed into the library tree a few consecutive times. Before she could fully shake her daze off, the earth pony was upon her swinging a hoof for her face. She jumped back causing the guard to stumble and lose his balance. Dash took the opportunity to lunge and deliver a solid punch to his helmet. The guard staggered backwards and began trying to correct his helmet which had twisted to the side and obscured his vision; while Dash held her hoof close to her chest and hopped up and down on her back legs.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow,” she chanted while she nursed her bruised hoof. So focused on her wound, she failed to notice the recovered guard charging at her once more until it was too late. Rainbow Dash saw a blur of blue and suddenly felt an explosion of pain in her left eye. She landed on her back and quickly threw a hoof over her eye to suppress the ache.

Applejack and Pinkie Pie were in the middle of dealing with the third guard when AJ saw Rainbow go down. “Hold on RD imma comin’. Pinkie, can you handle this blockhead?”

Pinkie danced in between the guard’s attacks, quickly agitating him. “Yep, no problemo!” she chirped. The guard lunged forward with his spear to make a stab at Pinkie who took a hop to the left and struck with the spear she had taken from the first guard, knocking the other weapon out of her opponent’s mouth. Stunned by the pink pony’s moves, the guard failed to defend himself when Pinkie came over and began rapping the metal end of the spear against the side of his helmet giving him a horrendous headache much like his partner. He finally collapsed to the ground, clutching his head and moaning while Pinkie Pie gave a small victory dance.

Applejack raced over to where Rainbow Dash was holding off her attacker who was bearing down on her, their hooves locked in a struggle. Getting into range, the orange earth pony turned on her hooves and struck her back legs out, delivering a powerful buck to the enemy’s helmet. The headgear went flying off and the stallion beneath it quickly covered his face and screamed, “MY EYES! THE LIGHT, IT BURNS AUGHHH!” With a lighter buck, Applejack proceeded to knock him in the head again and put him out of consciousness.

AJ helped Dash back to her hooves, “Thanks AJ, I owe ya,” Rainbow said, clutching her bad eye. With her good one she looked over at the unconscious pony beside them. “What was that all about?”

Applejack shrugged, “Not sure. Maybe where they come from the sun ain’t as bright.” She looked back over to Rainbow who was still covering her eye. She frowned and reached over to move the hoof out of the way but the proud pegasus swatted her off. “Rainbow let me see that,” she said sternly.

Rainbow Dash turned away. “It’s nothing, I’m fine!”

“Rainbow…”

She looked over her shoulder, “Shouldn’t you go help Twilight and Rarity?”

Applejack whirled around just in time to see the last guard drop to the floor. His helmet was removed and s dreamy smile was on his face. Standing over him were Twilight, Rarity, and Pinkie who was wearing his helmet. Applejack walked over to the trio and asked, “What did ya’ll do to him?”

“A simple sleeping spell after Pinkie took his helmet off,” Twilight explained. “It’s weird though, any direct magic spell I threw at him just bounced off. It’s like their armor is magic proof.”

“And did you hear the way he screamed like a banshee after Pinkie took his helmet off?” Rarity asked. “It’s like he’d never seen sunlight before,” she gestured up to the afternoon sky.

“Come on girls, hurry up,” Rainbow snapped at them. “Somepony else probably heard that commotion and could be here any second with backup.” She glared over at Pinkie who, unbeknownst to Rainbow, gave a wide smile from beneath her helmet. “You couldn’t have waited ‘till we got to the trees before attacking?” Rainbow Dash was never one to run from a fight, but even she knew when to time her battles and AJ had been right; there was no way she could fight against a squadron of these ponies.

“Sorry,” Pinkie apologized as she pulled off her helmet, her pink mane poofing out in every direction, “but they were about to blow our cover.”

“Besides, Ah thought you were all for fightin’ down these brutes?” Applejack said coyly.

“I was,” Dash began slowly, holding her bad hoof against her bad eye. “And then I hit one.” And then one hit me. Hard, she thought. “Anyways, where’s Fluttershy?”

Upon hearing her name, Fluttershy stuck her head out of a bush some distance away. Rainbow Dash would have facehoofed if she wasn’t already holding one to her face. “Over here. I umm, hid when the fighting started. Sorry.” She climbed out of the bush to rejoin her friends and let out a large gasp when her eyes fell on her fellow pegasus. “Rainbow Dash, what happened to your eye!?”

“Nothing!” she cried hastily, but Fluttershy was already on her, prying her hoof away to reveal a very swollen and puffy black eye.

Everyone gasped and Applejack let out a low whistle. “Whew, would ya look at that shiner.”

Rainbow Dash clamped a hoof back over it. “I-It’s not that bad… is it?”

Fluttershy pulled Dash’s hoof away again to examine it, her caretaker instincts kicking in. “We need to get you a bag of ice, stat!”

“Fluttershy, we don’t have time for that! We’ve got a job to do!” Twilight cried.

“Twilight’s right ‘Shy,” Rainbow concurred, throwing her hoof in front of her eye once more. “Let’s go fire our super rainbow beam and save everypony then you can fuss over me.”

Fluttershy bit het lower lip. She hated seeing her friends in pain, but they did have something very important to do. She turned around to see her friends giving nods of agreement. She sighed in defeat. “Alright, but the second this is over I’m going to treat your eye so don’t even think of flying off; understood young lady?” she finished in a kind but assertive tone.

The blue pegasus smiled and gave a mock salute. “Yes ma’am.”

With that settled, the six ponies ran off into the thicket making their way around a majority of the army setting up a small camp on the field within close proximity to the front of the portal. The group continued along their path until the brush came to end where they found themselves facing what one could consider the back of the portal. There was still a large amount of field between them and the tear in reality. They stepped out of the thicket, thankfully there seemed to be nopony else around.

Twilight stared into the portal, mesmerized by its very existence. Inside it looked to be a long, ethereal black hallway made of swirling shapes and shifting clouds that occasionally formed into strange faces and figures. But what entranced her most was what was at the end of the hallway for Twilight found herself staring at what appeared to be Ponyville. It was night and she could tell the buildings were laid out differently, but she was positive that she was staring at another Ponyville.

“Girls are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she whispered.

The other five ponies stared into the ethereal tunnel and beheld the same sight. Pinkie scratched her head in confusion. “But it’s daytime here, how can it be nighttime in there but daytime here? It’s the same Ponyville right?”

Twilight shook her head. “That’s just it Pinkie, I’m not sure if we’re looking at the exact same Ponyville.”

“What do you mean Twilight?” Rarity asked.

“I think,” Twilight started off slowly, a smile creeping onto her face, “that we may be looking at some alternate reality of Equestria!”

Rainbow Dash snorted. “An alternate reality, really Twi? That sounds like the plot to Daring Do and the Magic Mirror.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Well how else do you explain the other Ponyville then?” She tapped her hoof on the ground waiting for a response.

“Uh, well simple, see… um…” Dash rubbed the back of her head. “Ok I got nuthin’. But still an alternate dimension seems to be kind far-fetched doesn’t it?”

“Who cares what it is!” Applejack yelled impatiently. “Can we just blast it and stop these ponies before they hurt somepony?”

“Right!” Twilight and Rainbow said in unison. “Girls, formation!” Twilight ordered.

The ponies fell into formation behind Twilight with their respective necklaces adorned around their necks. Twilight took a deep breath to slow her rapidly beating heart. Mentally prepared she called, “Ready girls?”

“Ready!” five voices answered.

Twilight closed her eyes and began to channel magic into her Element Tiara. Not the magic from her horn however, the magic from her heart. She called up every happy memory she had had with her friends, every experience that had brought them closer together, and every lesson she had learned from them about friendship and about herself and brought them to the surface of her heart . A pale white light encased Twilight and all her friends lifting them into the air; their necklaces glowing bright as their hearts resonated with Twilight’s. They all felt the warmth of their friendship coursing through their body like a welcoming fire on Hearth’s Warming Eve. There was a low humming sound as the ball of light around them grew brighter and brighter until it was blinding. A rainbow of color flew out of the sphere of light and towards the rift. It hit the opening and seemed to cover it in multicolored lights giving it the impression of a stain glass window. The Elements of Harmony continued to fire the rainbow beam for a few more seconds before everything began to die down. The light faded away and the six ponies slowly descended to the ground.

The first thing Rainbow Dash noticed when she opened her eyes was that she could open both of them. She blinked a few times before feeling it with her hoof. There was no pain in her eye or her hoof. “Awesome! I think the Elements of Harmony must have healed me!” she called to her friends. “Look, my black eye’s gone!”

Fluttershy trotted over and inspected it. “What a relief,” she breathed. “You look as good as new.”

“Ah guess the Elements decided to give us a quick refresher,” Applejack stretched feeling pretty good herself.

The girls were about to congratulate themselves on a job well done when Twilight interrupted them, “Um girls, you might want to turn around and look at this…”

Their backs originally turned away from where the portal was, the five mares swung around to see that it was still there. They all stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed at it as the glossy rainbow coating over it seemed to get sucked into the black ether and dispersed among the swirling clouds. The rip remained like nothing had even happened.

There was a terse silence for a moment before Rainbow Dash jumped into the air and pointed an accusatory hoof at her friends. “Alright, which one of you wasn’t feeling the friendship?” They all looked at each other and shrugged.

“I don’t think it was a lack of friendship on our part,” Twilight interjected.

“Then what went wrong; if the Elements can take out Discord then why not this… thingy?” Rainbow flailed her hooves in the portal’s direction.

Twilight opened her mouth to give a response when somepony behind her screeched, “HALT!”

She wheeled back around to see an armada of soldiers running towards them. The group turned to run only to find their escape route blocked by swooping pegasi. The two sides closed in on them until the six were contained in a wide circle with spears pointing at them from all sides.

Twilight swallowed. This was not turning out to be such a good day.

******

Princess Luna sat alone at a large desk in the Starswirl the Bearded section of the Canterlot Royal Library. In front of her was the large hourglass in which beads of sand fell at a slow pace. The glass was enchanted so that the sands measured the length of an hour. When all the sand fell to the bottom the glass turned itself over and Luna would know that a new hour had begun. It was one of the few things that had survived the destruction of the castle in the Everfree Forest.

Across the desk lay scattered scrolls and tomes recently removed of dust. Just as her sister had ordered her to do, Luna had searched through whatever notes of interdimensional theory Starswirl had penned; which was to say, not many. And from the scrolls he did write, Luna found the knowledge to be something she already knew, or not helpful at all.

“…If we are to believe that a force such as Destiny does not truly exist and that we are indeed the masters of our own choices, then we must also consider the outcome every choice has on the overall universe. If one is given a series of option and he can only pick one, what happens to the other choices? Do they simply vanish and turn into ‘what if’s,’ or do they still exist in some other form? If an earth pony decides to take an extra job as a farm hand to earn some extra money a question of ‘what if he didn’t’ comes up. Again, if we assume that the universe is indeed infinite that would lead us to believe that somewhere out there, there could be anther Starswirl writing this paper. But what if the universe itself wanted to see a different outcome for a decision? That would lead us to the belief in alternate realities or other dimensions to be put simply…

"After collecting some more data, I’ve have added more to my hypothesis. If we are to believe in other realities a new question arises of where does ours end and something else’s begins? The law of teleportation only allows unicorns to teleport to places in their own realm, or at least that’s all that’s been tested. But whatever gave us the powers of teleportation would be fearful that we might warp ourselves into another dimension. Or at least that’s my thought. This leads me to believe that these dimensions, if they exist, are arranged in a home-like structure. There are several rooms, the rooms being the realities, closed off from one another. Yet nothing is ever fully closed off. It is my hypothesis that these realities are joined by a hallway if you will. A hall I have dubbed the Interdimensional Rift, the cushion between all possibilities.”

Luna set the paper down. She had already known of the existence of the Interdimensional Rift, and some of the horrors that lurked in its infinity, Starswirl had been correct about that. It was until today however, did she believe that anything lay beyond it. She thought it was just a pocket between their singular universe, and the realm of whatever came after this life.
The rest of Starswirl’s notes contained similar ramblings: more in-depth looks of how he reached his conclusions, and the very, very basic equation for interdimensional travel.

Luna had been correct; there was nothing here that would help remedy the situation in Ponyville. She stood up from the desk and stretched her back legs out before aimlessly wandering through the wing. Rows upon rows of some of the most interesting aspects of magic; and yet Luna was certain that reading through all of them would be a fruitless effort. Celestia seemed to believe that the Elements could not mend the tear. If the Elements couldn’t fix it then what in Equestria could? Luna was certain the answer was not in these dusty old books.

Luna had half a mind to join Celestia in Ponyville whether she wanted her help or not. It sure beat sitting around and reading, waiting to be needed.

She watched as the last beads of sand in the hourglass fell to the bottom before the entire thing flipped over and began its cycle anew. She then continued her restless pacing about the circular room, walking up and down rows of books and absentmindedly reading their titles.

“So this is what I spend my time doing in this world. How pathetic…”

Luna spun about, a blue aura surrounding her horn. That voice had not come out of her mouth but she knew it, she knew it like the back of her hoof because at one point in time it had been her voice. She slowly backed into the center of the room and began circling the hourglass, watching for any sign of movement.

“I must say, I look rather fetching in this world. It still doesn’t compare to my real beauty though.”

Luna clenched her teeth and seethed, “Where are you? Show yourself you phantom!”

There was a high cold cackle that filled the entire room and chilled Luna’s fur. She felt a rush of wind and suddenly found herself staring at the shadow of Nightmare Moon.

“Impossible,” Luna gaped. “You- you should not exist anymore. I have no more hatred for my sister; nor jealousy for the day that she rules. I cured my dark heart, why do you still haunt me?”

The shade laughed again. “Luna, you know it’s never good to lie, especially to yourself,” she spoke in a honeyed voice, the outlines of her mouth turned up in a devious smile. “Your hatred and jealousy for Celestia is as easy to see as the nose on your face, and while you say one thing, your heart says another.”

Luna gave a wild shake of her mane. “I will not be tempted again demon, I have learned my lesson!”

The shadow nodded, “Indeed you have. A thousand years in isolation, you’d be a fool not to take away some sort of lesson from that. But I’m surprised you don’t have any… resentment.”

Luna casted her gaze to the floor no longer wanting to make eye contact with her. “I- I deserved every second of that punishment. All of the ponies I hurt… the ones I killed… what I almost did to Tia…”

“You don’t think a thousand years was a little… excessive, harsh; a few days of eternal night for a thousand years in the moon?”

Her horn glowing brighter, Luna fired a burst of magic at the apparition who twisted her translucent body around it with ease. “I am not in the mood for mind games!” Luna hissed, “Return to the lonely corner of my mind where you belong!”

The spirit laughed again. “Oh, you think that I belong to you? Ha ha ha, forgive me and let me properly introduce myself, I am Empress Nightmare Moon, Keeper of the Blessed Moon and Ruler of Night Eternal. I am everything you failed to become one thousand years ago.”

It was then that everything clicked into place for Luna. The dimensional tear, the army, they were all Nightmare Moon’s; born from a reality where she had beaten Celestia. “So, this is all your doing then?” Nightmare Moon nodded. Luna snorted angrily, “Why, why attack us; aren’t you content with unbalancing your own world? And how in Mother’s name did you breach the Interdimensional Rift?”

“Don’t play dumb with me Luna! I know Celestia has been planning to invade my world and overthrow me for years now! I simply decided to make the first move.”

Luna raised an eyebrow at shadow. With great power comes great paranoia it seems, she thought, slightly amused. “We did not even know you existed until you came knocking today.”

“Determined to feign ignorance, hmm? Very well then deny your plan all you wish, it won’t change anything now. Soon Eternal Night will reign across two worlds!” She threw her head back and proceeded to cackle madly once more.
Now standing on the other side of things, Luna found everything about Nightmare Moon to be quite… disturbing. Had she really acted like that at one time; laughing maniacally while she planned to plunge the entire world into darkness? Yes, she had been that mare; she had given into her hatred and thrown everything away for dark powers and a chance to be better than her sister. Now that same mare was standing in front of her only more twisted and disturbed than she had been all those years ago. Luna found the circumstance felt almost like an out-of-body experience. She was staring at her darker half from a parallel dimension. Luna might have found it comical if it weren’t so serious.

“You are sadly mistaken if you think you can win against us,” Luna said. “Once Celestia finds out-“

“Awww, still running to Tia for all your problems?” Nightmare Moon babied. “What happened to that fiery temper you used to have Luna; or did that die with your Nightmare Moon?” Luna gritted her teeth together while the shadow continued to taunt her, “It truly saddens me to see you like this; left behind to do absolutely nothing while Celestia gets to go and hog all of the glory again. I can’t help but wonder if she even trusts you.”

With a scream of rage, Luna began firing volley after volley of magic projectiles at Nightmare Moon’s incorporeal form. The shade laughed while she weaved between the beams of magic which sailed onwards and smashed into bookcases, damaging several priceless books. “Coward,” Luna yelled, “stand and fight me!”

“If you think you can handle facing me on your own, then come after me,” Nightmare Moon invited as her shadow slipped into the wall and out of sight.

Luna stamped her hoof against the floor just as one of the castle guards came into the room. “Princess Luna, I heard a commotion… oh dear.” He gazed around at the damaged room; several bookcases were now toppled over and a few of the books were singed. “Wha- what happened in here?”

“It is none of your concern!” Luna snapped, brushing past the guard and out of the room taking a quill and two sheets of parchment with her. “Come,” she barked.

The guard quickly hurried after her and had to jog to keep with her quick pace. The Princess of the Night paid him little mind as she scribbled furiously on the pieces of paper. She finished and stopped so abruptly that the poor guard ran into her and stumbled back onto his haunches. Paying it no mind, Luna turned and dropped the two sealed scrolls into his lap. “Make sure those letters arrive to their intended recipients, and tell Lieutenants Starburst and Grey Shield to send a third of their troops to Ponyville.” She turned and strode away leaving the guard with a perplexed look on his face.

Luna knew it was probably a trap. Nightmare Moon had been egging her on the entire time, goading Luna into going after her. But Luna didn’t care; Nightmare Moon was her problem, her responsibility… her demon.

Luna grinned to herself, if it really was trap then at least Celestia would be here in case something happened, she thought remembering their conversation from earlier. Somepony had to be backup, and it wasn’t going to be Luna.

******

Spear after spear pounded against Twilight’s purple force field. Outside of the small protection zone was a sea of blue armored ponies desperate to get at Twilight and her friends who were all huddled close inside the unicorn’s proctective bubble. Twilight was starting to strain under the pressure the forces outside were putting on her. Unfortunately for her, there was nothing her friends could do to help her with her magic. She was on her own.

The guards relentlessly attacked the barrier which began to flicker faintly. Twilight wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold it, and she shuddered to think what would happen to her and her friends when it fell.

The inside of the shield was becoming rapidly uncomfortable thanks to their combined body temperature heating up the small space. It was starting to give them all a sense of claustrophobia.

“Twi, can’t ya teleport us to safety or somethin’?” Applejack pleaded. She was sitting in a cramped position between Rarity and Pinkie.

Twilight shook her head, “If I wanted to teleport I’d have to drop the force field first, besides I’m not even sure if I can teleport six ponies at one time.”

“Great, so this is how it ends, trapped like sardines!” Rarity lamented. “Ugh, and I’m starting to sweat too! I’m going to die sweaty and gross!” she sobbed.

Just when Twilight thought it couldn’t get any worse she heard Dash groan, “Great, more pegasi are on their way.” They already had a hoof full of pegasi stabbing away at the top of the shield, why send for more?

“Wait, isn’t that the Royal Guard?” Pinkie asked.

Twilight looked up at the purple tinted sky and saw that it was indeed true. Sporting their golden colors, wave after wave of pegasi swooped in to take on one of the enemy soldiers. Twilight was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when a bright light engulfed the six ponies. When she opened her eyes again she was stunned to see the inside of the Golden Oaks Library.

“Wait a minute; I thought you said you couldn’t teleport six of us at once?” Dash inquired.

“I can’t, I don’t know what happened.”

“That would be my doing,” a melodic voice chimed. In another flash of light Princess Celestia appeared before them. The little ponies gave a quick bow to their princess, relived that their shining monarch had come to their rescue.

Twilight quickly jumped up and began to explain to her mentor everything that had transpired with them: their witnessing of the portal opening, their handling of the guards, and their shortcoming with the Elements of Harmony. The princess listened with a solemn expression before nodding and saying, “I feared as much.”

“Wait, you Knew this was going to happen?” Applejack raised a wary eyebrow.

“After I received Spike’s letter explaining what you had gone to do, I began to hypothesize that they alone might not be enough to undo what has been done. I had hoped that I was wrong, but after listening to your story I’m sad to say my hypothesis was proven true.”

“So then how do we stop all this craziness?”

Princess Celestia sighed, “I have a few ideas, but they are risky, and dangerous at the least.”

Rainbow Dash shrugged, “So, that’s like a normal day for us. If it means saving Equestria then we’ll do it!”

There was a cheer of agreement and Celestia smiled down at all of them. “I hate having to send you girls into harm’s way time and again, but if anyone can do this, it’s you.”

Twilight beamed up at her mentor before letting out a small gasp and looking around. “Have you girls seen Spike yet?”
Her friends shook their heads causing Twilight to smile faintly. “I bet he’s upstairs sleeping. Let me go check on him real quick.”

Twilight turned and headed up the stairs towards her bedroom. Upon entering it, the unicorn could already feel something was horribly wrong. There was leftover dark magic floating in the air. “Spike…” she called uneasily. Inspecting her room closer, she found rows of claw marks that looked like something had been dragged out from underneath her bed. “S- Spike…” she called again, a lump starting to form in her throat. She then heard a miserable sound hoot sound off to her right. She turned and saw Owlowiscious lying on the ground half conscious. She gasped and ran over to scoop him up in her hooves. “Owlowiscious are you alright, what happened, where’s Spike?”

The owl let out a few pitiful hoots before motioning his head to a dark spot in the wood. Setting the him on her back, Twilight walked over and examined it. It looked like a type of burn mark left behind when a unicorn teleported.

“Owlowiscious, did somepony come in here and t- take Spike away?”

He gave a sad hoot.

In an instant, Twilight’s whole world melted away. She couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything. She didn’t notice when her friends came up to see why she was taking so long. She was only aware of the same thought repeating in her head over and over again: somepony had taken Spike.

Spike was gone…

Author's Note

Finally got around to writing this chapter which was more frustrating than I thought. But I think it came out pretty good. I think I'll be able to start posting more consistently from here on in. Hope everyone is having a great new year!