Rescuing Twilight

by Simon Joe

Death is Near

Luna was leading the others through the forest, tumbling and almost unable to keep her balance. Pain was still flowing through almost every inch of her body. The burning pain from the cut on her cheek was still present. The thoughts in her head told her if she had to face two more spirits like that, she would rather die.
Rainbow Dash took off her helmet and threw it on the ground, not wanting to worry about it anymore. The cold air felt nice on her sweaty face. Luna seemed to be breathing fine without it, so she figured she would be okay.
Luna stopped and stuck the scythe into the dirt. She struggled to keep herself standing up. “I… I can’t go on.”
“But princess, we have to,” Rainbow pleaded.
Luna did not say anything more. She had no more strength anywhere in her body as her legs gave up and all consciousness left.
At t that moment, the sound of hooves crushing down on leaves was heard in the distance. They all looked up, but only saw darkness. It sounded like a pony was slowly walking towards them.
The sound got closer, but through the trees they could still only see darkness. Sweetie Belle walked next to the princess.
“Princess, get up!” she nudged her a few times, but she did not respond in any way.
Rainbow held up her gun, ready to blast at whatever was coming, although knowing the spirit they just fought, she did not know if it would do much damage. At the same time, Sweetie pulled the scythe out of the ground.
Finally, something was coming into view. From the darkness they could see a glowing royal blue orb of light getting closer with each footstep. After a few seconds, a pony was visible. Most of the left side of his face was nothing more than a skull, the orb replacing his eye. The right side of his face was mostly still there, but had patches of rotting flesh.
He wore a black hood as well as a torn up, moldy, dirt filled robe that was being dragged behind him. Out of his hood, hanging over his right eye was a black mane with white streaks running through it.
He kept walking towards them. None of them knew what to do. They just stood there with a look of fear on their faces. It looked like his attention was turned to Luna, but they could be sure. Once he got no more than a few feet away, he stopped.
“W-Who are you? What do want from us?” Rainbow tried not to show it, but inside she was just as scared as the rest of them.
The torn up pony said nothing. He remained still, his head turned down to the princess.
“Hey! I asked you a question!”
“I,” he finally spoke up. His voice sounded like one pony whispering and another talking normally at the same time. “I believe you have something of mine.” He reached his hoof out to Sweetie, not even bothering to look up.
As soon as the hoof came up, Sweetie jumped back. “You…you mean this?” she immediately offered the scythe to him. Once it made contact with his hoof, the fingers holding it unlocked by themselves and the pony took possession of it.
As soon as she saw him and the scythe together, Rainbow realized who this he must have been. “Are...are you… the Grim Reaper?”
Finally, he looked up, but not at Rainbow Dash. “I prefer to go by Death.”
“So… Why are you here? Are you going to…take us?” Fluttershy’s voice became softer and filled more with worry with every word.
“Take you? You mean your souls?” Death laughed. “No. You cannot believe everything you here. Taking souls is not my job. I am merely the spirit of death, not your cause.” Death looked down at his scythe doing what appeared to be nothing more. “I see… some of the power has been restored.”
“What? What do you mean?” Rainbow asked.
“How many spirits have you encountered before me?” he asked.
“Umm, when we got here there was a spirit who talked to us, but we couldn’t see him and he didn’t tell us his name,” Sweetie answered.
“There was also a spirit named Anger that we fought,” Rainbow Dash added.
“Interesting… Anger and his brothers have been enemies of mine for millennia. In a recent battle with them, I lost, and they took my power. When you killed Anger, some of it was restored.”
“So, who was the spirit that talked to us when we arrived?” Sweetie couldn’t help wondering.
“So, you couldn’t see him and he didn’t tell you his name? Tell me, what else was there? What did you feel in his presence?”
“It was cold. And it sounded like there were clocks ticking.”
“Just as I thought,” Death smiled. “ I shall tell you who it was later. Right now, you guys look pretty beat up. Allow me to help you,” Death offered.
“Help us?”
“Yes. One of the powers you managed restored just happens to be my ability to heal.”
“Hang on,” Rainbow stopped him. “What do we have to give you?”
“What do you have to give me? Nothing. Why would I ask for anything in return?”
“Well… Um…” she did not know how to answer.
“Do not worry. I am a friend.” He turned his head down towards Luna. “A closer one then you think.”
The blade on Death’s scythe began to glow white and he began moving in Twilight’s direction. “And who might this be?”
“This is Twilight Sparkle,” Sweetie responded.
Death noticed the three drills in her horn. “This was not the work of any spirit I know,” he said. “What happened?”
“Well, that is a long story,” Rainbow began. “But… she was captured by aliens who were using her magic to power their ships. You don’t have to believe me, but that’s the truth.”
“In the years I have been alive I have seen many unusual things. But, if that is not enough, I have seen the ships you speak of.”
“Well, can you still help her?”
“I can.”
He reached his hoof up to her horn. Nopony knew what he was doing. They were surprised to see that his hoof went right through, taking the three drills with. He threw the drills on the ground, and then stepped back. He held his glowing scythe up and made contact with Twilight’s head. After a few seconds, the holes in her horn closed up. She blinked her eyes a few times. Death pulled his scythe away and looked at her.
“Twilight,” he said. “Can you hear me?”
“W… What?” She looked around, confused at where she was.
“Twilight!” Fluttershy yelled and rushed toward her.
“You’re back!” Rainbow added.
“Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash! Where… Where am I?” She then turned her attention towards Death. The sight of the rotting pony gave her an uneasy feeling. “Who… Who are you?”
Death explained who he was, where they were, and what was happening. She did not know what to think.
Before anything else could happen, Death heard Luna get up behind him as leaves crunched.
“Princess!” Sweetie shouted. “You are awake!”
“What… What happened?” Still filled with pain all over her body, she slowly lifted her head up, only to be met with surprise. As soon as she saw Death, her eyes widened as she stepped back and gasped. “D-D… Death?”
“Hello, Luna. It has been a long time since we last met.”
Rainbow stood there in confusion. “Wait, what’s going on? You guys…know each other?”
“Y-Yeah,” Luna tried to pull herself together. “Yes.”
“Luna and I met last millennium. I went you visit your world when I noticed craters on the moon that weren’t there before. I went up there, and what I found was a weeping pony.”
“Death helped me get through the thousand year banishment,” Luna explained.
“Luna, now that you are awake, allow me to help you,” Death changed the subject, as if he was in a hurry for something. He held out his scythe. It greeted Luna’s forehead and began glowing again. Immediately, Luna felt the pain drain out of her and the cut on her cheek closed, leaving a scar. “That scar will be gone within a few days.”
The princess put her head down. “Thank you, Death.”
“Listen,” the spirit called out. “My time with you grows short. There is something I must say. I can help you get back home, but in order to do so, my power needs to be at its maximum. That means, you will have to battle Anger’s brothers.”
“Anger has brothers?” Sweetie wondered.
“He has two. His older brother is Nightmare, and his younger brother is Fear. However, now that you have killed Anger, his strength has been divided between the two, making them more powerful. I do not know which one you will battle first, but either way, beware. I would fight them off myself, but in my current condition, they would crush me.” Death looked down at his scythe, and then back up at Luna. “Luna at this moment, my scythe will serve you better then it will me. Take it with you.”
“A-Are you sure?”
“This scythe is the only thing that can completely kill Anger’s brothers.”
Luna accepted Death’s offer and took the scythe back.
“Goodbye, for now. Keep in mind, though, we shall meet again.”
With that, Death was gone quicker then he came.
“Come on, we have to keep moving if we want to find Fear and Nightmare.”
Luna turned around only to be stopped by a gigantic bird that towered in front of her. She jumped back and landed on the ground.
“Did I hear my name?” he said. He spoke in a growl, making him almost unable to understand.
“Who are you?” said Luna. She figured he must have either been Fear or Nightmare.
“I am Nightmare. I believe you are Luna, am I wrong? You are the one who killed my brother.”
“Yeah, that’s right!”
Nightmare flapped his wings, almost blowing them all back, and lifted himself into the air. “The time has come for me to feed.”
“What do you mean by feed?” Rainbow shouted.
Nightmare laughed at Rainbow. There was a fire in his eyes that she didn’t like. “I will see you on the other side. For now, close your eyes, and awaken into your nightmare.”
They all felt dizziness start to overcome them and started to lose balance. The feeling of complete tiredness and exhaust conquered them, and they fell down to the ground, one by one.
As soon as she hit the ground, Sweetie Belle woke up, but everything was different. There was darkness everywhere. Screams of terror were heard everywhere. She got up and started to look around. When she turned around, she could see a mountain that was not there before. On top of it was a silhouette of Nightmare with red eyes.
She stepped back, looking left and right trying to find the others. They were nowhere to be found. On the ground, shadows started to appear. They looked like hands running across the floor to meet Sweetie.
She backed away from them as they got closer.
“Stay back!” she screamed.
The hands ignored the command and continued to inch closer to her. She turned around and darted away from them. She did not care what she might find on the way, just as long as the hands were gone.
She had her head down, not looking where she was going. She was running as fast as she could only to smash into what felt like another pony. After both of them tumbled over, Sweetie opened her eyes to see who it was. What she saw was what looked like Fluttershy, except, it could not have been. Her eyes were completely black with blood running down from them. Her mane and tail were full of blood, and there were cuts all over her. Inside her mouth were razor sharp teeth covered in blood.
“F-FLUTTERSHY?” Sweetie shrieked.
The yellow pony looked at her and opened her mouth. Only, when her voice came out, there was an unusual pulse that seemed occur in the air, making Fluttershy look normal. “Sweetie, is that you?” she sounded petrified. Once she stopped speaking, the pulse came back and she went back to looking like the most terrifying thing she had ever seen before.
“Fluttershy! What’s going on?”
“I don’t know, but we must find the others!”
The two of them stayed with each other, looking around for anypony else, or at least of a sign of them. They looked everywhere, but it was a lot harder than they thought it was going to be. Every time they moved out of the way from one tree, another seemed to appear out of no were.
“Hello? Is anypony there?” they heard a voice that sounded like Luna’s in the distance.
“Luna?” Sweetie responded to the voice. “Can you hear me?”
“Sweetie Belle! Is there anypony else with you?”
“Only Fluttershy.”
“Try to find me, okay?”
“Okay!”
The two of them nodded at each other, and then continued towards where the voice was coming from. As they went on, though, the trees began whispering to them. It was not like before when the whispers were coming through the air. This time, it was actually the trees.
“Join us,” they said. That seemed to be it. They were just repeating the same thing over and over again.
They kept running on, trying to ignore them, but they seemed to be casting as spell over them. Soon, they began to slow down and take in the words that were being released. Fluttershy stopped and turned to face one of the trees. The way the branches were spread out was telling her to come forth. She slowly started to walk to it, extending her arm out to make contact.
“Join us,” the tree whispered again.
She was not two inches away from it when Rainbow Dash swooped down, grabbing both her and Sweetie Belle. She flew around until she saw an open area that was free of trees to land.
“Rainbow!” Fluttershy gasped. “What… What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Where are Twilight and the princess?”
“We heard Luna not too long ago. We were just looking for her, or at least trying to,” said Sweetie.
They all looked around through the darkness, trying to find a way they could go to search for Twilight and Luna. When they were not paying attention, shadows began to creep up from behind them. They came up off of the ground, forming what would look like black sheet ghosts with glowing red eyes.
Fluttershy turned around to see them. The amount of fear that she was experiencing almost made her faint. The shadows were walking closer to her as she slowly backed away.
“Stay away from them!” Fluttershy looked over and saw Luna and Twilight standing together. Luna grabbed one of them using her unicorn magic and ripped it apart. Luna and Twilight finished off the rest of the shadows and then rushed over to the others.
“Princess, what is going on?” Sweetie cried.
“I do not know. But I have a feeling that in order to make it stop, we have to fight Nightmare.”
She looked up at the mountain in the distance. Although far away, they could still see Nightmare at the top sitting on his throne. “Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, I need you guys to come with me.”
“Where?” Fluttershy responded.
“To Nightmare.”
Luna took off to the sky in the direction of the mountain. Rainbow Dash looked at Fluttershy. “Come on, Fluttershy! We have to help her.”
Rainbow took off with Luna, and after squealing, Fluttershy joined her.
“Um… Princess, we are not going to actually, fight him, are we?” Fluttershy mumbled.
“We have to. I think it is the only way we can get out of this.”
“But what if it’s not? What if there is another way?”
“We will not know that unless we try.”
The air around them got colder and colder as they climbed higher into the air, inching their way to Nightmare. It soon felt as if they were outside in Ponyville on a snowy day, and they still had at least another mile to go.
“It’s getting really cold,” Rainbow announced.
“We have to keep going. We are almost there,” Luna encouraged.
The air was now almost too much to bear. They might as well have been frozen in a block of ice. As they were just about to reach the top of the mountain, the unexpected happened. All of their wings suddenly burst into flames. Out of shock and pain they stopped flying. They smashed against the side of the mountain several times on the way down.
When they landed on the ground, all of the pain quickly went away. No longer did they feel their wings burning and it did not even feel like they hit boulders and giant rocks on the way down.
“W-What was that?” Rainbow groaned.
Fluttershy struggled to get off the ground and the opened her eyes to find the others. When she looked at Rainbow she was horrified. All of the flesh on her wings was gone, leaving behind burned bones. She looked over at Luna and it was the same. She attempted to move her wings but could not. She could not even feel them. Looking over her shoulder, she took a glance at her own burnt, fatherless, boney wings.
“That was weird… Come on! We have to try again!” Luna tried to fly back up to the sky, but found she could not move her wings as well. That is when she took the time to notice Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. “What? What is this?” she began breathing heavily, not sure about what she should think.
Rainbow noticed that she could not feel her wings too. She looked over her shoulder and saw the same thing that the others saw. At this, she felt sick. It was almost as if she was about to pass out.
“Do not worry, my friends,” came a voice from above. It sounded like the same voice that spoke with them when they first arrived. “What you are seeing is not real. You are in Nightmare’s Dream.”
“We are in Nightmare’s Dream? Well, is there a way out?” Luna responded.
“The only way out… is to die.”
“Die? We can’t die!” Rainbow yelled.
“Wait, this all makes sense!” Luna decided.
“It does?”
“Yes! Nightmare’s Dream is just that, a dream. Or, I guess it is really more of a nightmare. But that is not important. A way to wake up from a dream is to die. T-That must be why hitting the mountainside didn’t hurt for that long. Nightmare does not want us to get out!”
“Luna, you’re right! We have to tell the others!” Rainbow shouted.
“No, they are too far away. Plus, if they are not out of here by the time we are, we can probably still help them.”
“So… how do we get out?” Fluttershy asked in her soft, quiet voice.
Luna looked around. There were trees everywhere. She looked at one branch in particular and pulled on it using her magic. At first, the branch was not moving at all. Then, it finally gave in and snapped off.
“Who’s first?” she asked.
Nopony said anything. They wanted to get out, but they wanted to do it as painless as possible.
“What are you going to do?” Rainbow wondered.
“Make it as quick as possible.”
“I… I guess I’ll go first.” Rainbow closed her eyes and waited for it to happen. Luna slowly brought the branch over to her. She turned it so that the side of it that was connected to the tree was facing her. She waited for a few seconds, trying to bring herself to do it. Then, she finally stabbed Rainbow through the back. She pulled it out and then looked at Fluttershy.
“Just… Just do it. Get it over with!”
Luna nodded her head. Taking a brief moment, she stabbed Fluttershy. She pulled the branch out and tossed it aside, trying to avoid looking at the two ponies she had just killed. She looked around for something heavy, like a boulder that she could use to kill herself. Stabbing herself with a branch would not exactly work too well.
She spied a loose rock next to the mountain. With her magic, she picked it up. It floated over to her and stopped above her head. Luna took a deep breath, thinking about the decision she was about to make. She closed her eyes and bent her three remaining legs and sat down. After that, her magic stopped and the boulder fell.
The boulder fell, but it did not crush her. It got to the point where she should have been dead, but was not. She opened her eyes, and sure enough she was back with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. None of them had really died, just as they thought. To make things better, all three of them had their wings back and Luna had her right leg.
“It worked!” she shouted.
“Yeah, but look,” Rainbow pointed behind Luna. There was Sweetie Belle and Twilight, both on the ground unconscious.
“What do we do?” Fluttershy came in.
“We have to help them. I mean, they are just dreaming, right?”
“How do you wake someone up from a dream?” Luna thought for a second and then walked over to Twilight. First, she nudged her with her hoof. It did not seem to affect her. Then she tried shaking her more. Still, nothing happened. “Okay,” she started. “I have an idea.”
“What is it?” Rainbow asked.
“Rainbow Dash, be ready to catch.”
“What? What do you mean? What are you doing?”
The princess ignored the questions and picked up Twilight with her hooves. She flapped her wings and ascended up into the sky. As she got higher, Rainbow realized what she was doing, and she did not like it. She was going to drop her.
“F-Fluttershy! Help me!” Rainbow, reacting quickly, took off to the sky. When Luna saw that they were below her, she released Twilight. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash struggled to see where she was going to be landing. When she was near, they reached their arms out. Twilight fell between them and woke up gasping for air. She looked down and saw how high they were.
“What are you doing? What is going on?!” she jumped up and squeezed Rainbow violently.
“Twilight, calm down!”
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy carefully brought Twilight to the ground and gently set her down. “What was that?” Twilight repeated.
“It was the only way I could think of to wake you up,” they looked up and saw Luna coming down from the sky. “Well, what did you see?”
“After you guys left Sweetie Belle and I, we heard a voice that told us the only way to get out of Nightmare’s Dream was to die, so we looked for a way. That is when I found a cliff. I jumped off first, and well, when I got to the bottom I woke up in Fluttershy and Rainbow’s arms.”
“So, the things that we do out here DO control the things that you do,” Luna observed.
She walked over to Sweetie Belle and picked her up like she did with Twilight. She brought her up as high as Twilight was, and then without warning, dropped her. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash rushed to their positions to catch her, and she landed in their arms, gasping for air. At first she had no idea what was going on, but then realized how high they were off the ground. After struggling to calm her down, they brought her to the ground and explained everything.
“So, now all we have left to do is find Nightmare,” Luna noted.
“Yea, about that,” Twilight began. “Who IS Nightmare? And where are we?”
“It is a long story. Now is not the time or the place. I will explain later.”
“You have escaped my dream. Well done, but that was nothing more than simple fun,” Nightmare’s growling voice spoke.
They turned around and saw Nightmare with his red eyes and bloody beak.
“Fun? What do you mean by that?” Sweetie’s voice had a tint of anger.
“Some spirits, like Discord, whom I know you have defeated, take delight in playing with their victims. My brothers and I take delight in watching them suffer.”
“This ends now!” Luna exclaimed.
Nightmare chuckled, “Do not think that just because you have the scythe of Death means you will take victory. First, I will skin you alive. Then, I will cook your flesh to perfection. It will be the best I have tasted yet!”
Luna ran at Nightmare with Death’s scythe, but then stopped half way there. She found that Nightmare was quite a bit bigger than Anger. He was also stronger. It would take more than charging to defeat him.
Rainbow Dash flew into the air and took aim at Nightmare. She fired a glowing cyan beam at him, but just before it hit, he disappeared, leaving everypony puzzled. Rainbow looked everywhere, breathing heavily. Nightmare could be anywhere now, and she had no way of telling where.
She turned around to see him floating behind her. In a flash, he wrapped his talon firmly around her arm, nearly crushing it. They both lifted into the air until they were high enough where a drop would kill her. However, knowing fully well that Rainbow could fly, he had another idea. Using his massive wings, he flapped them backwards, sending them like a bullet towards the ground.
Rainbow closed her eyes tightly. ‘This is it,’ she thought. With the others having no way to save her, she truly thought this would be the day she met her doom. Instead, Nightmare dug his talons deep into the ground, nearly shattering her arm.
Nightmare let out a bone chilling laugh as he disappeared again into the air. Rainbow simply laid there, trying to wrap her mind around the event that had just happened. She looked over at her crippled arm. The sight of it brought even more pain. How it was bending in ways she never thought were possible, and how pieces of blood-covered bone were visible.
“Rainbow!” Twilight shrieked as she rushed over with the others.
Nightmare’s laugh was still echoing throughout the air. They looked around, but he was still nowhere to be found. Luna readied her scythe for wherever Nightmare might show up again.
The silence around them was almost too much to bear. The only thing they could hear now was Nightmare’s laughter and the faint sound of wind. Every emotion in her body was now replaced with fear as she had no idea where Nightmare was.
With one quick swoop, Nightmare came down and swept Luna right off her feet. Before she knew it, Nightmare had a grip on the scythe. Still holding on, she was now speeding through the air. She looked up, and it appeared as if Nightmare was oblivious that she was there.
She decided to take advantage of it and pull herself up. She wrapped her right arm around his leg and unlocked the fingers on her left hoof to free it. At this point, Nightmare stopped and tried to shake Luna off. She gladly let go and kept herself up with her wings.
“Nightmare, end this now!”
“The only thing that I will end is your life.”
Now possessing the scythe, Nightmare put it into one talon and swung at Luna. She reacted quickly and dodged the attack while she pulled out her sword. Nightmare made another attack, but this time Luna blocked it. Frustrated, Nightmare grabbed her by the neck and threw her back. Luna looked up at Nightmare. He spread out his wings as covered them.
“You shall now see my true power!” By now his whole body was cloaked in flames, including his eyes.
Luna reached her arm out to fire a beam, only to find that it was empty. She could not refill it now, though. Before she had time to even think about it, Nightmare spat out a ball of fire. She was able to avoid easily, barely having to do anything. Avoiding attacks was the easy part. Making them was something entirely different.
She knew that the only way to effectively strike him was to get around to his back. Watching Nightmare, there was going to be no easy way to do that. She looked down. The only thing she could was trees. ‘Maybe that is just what I need,’ she thought.
There was a fallen branch nearby that she picked up. She held it up in front of Nightmare.
“Ha! You puny pony!”
He inhaled a great amount of air, and let out an even larger amount of fire at the branch. Luna could feel the heat and wind blowing her mane back. After the flame went down, the branch was thinner and glowing red. Ignoring it, she used it to smack Nightmare across the face with her maximum strength. She managed to buy herself some time, and used it to get around him.
Once at his back, she used her magic and the flames dissipated. Her right hoof was set upon his back as her left was in air charging up her strength. In one swift blow, she inserted her sword deep into Nightmare’s back. As he was caught up making an ear-bleeding cry of pain, she removed the sword, flew around to his front side, and sliced off half of his wing.
Nightmare was now squirming around in the air. The sight of blood gushing from his wing almost made her puke.
“You, damned pony!” he screamed and spat several fireballs at her, all of them missing. “This I’ll make sure you BURN!”
Luna immediately flew away from Nightmare as he attempted to chase her. As she was flying, she noticed more fireballs being coming at her that seemed to be getting increasingly hotter. She turned around and watched as Nightmare flew at her, tumbling over the air.
His beak began glowing orange. She knew that she only had a short amount of time before Nightmare fired again. She could just dodge it again, but this time she wanted to do something else. She took the few seconds she had left to cast another spell upon her sword that she learned a few years back.
With navy blue glittering flames now covering her sword, she waited for the attack to come. Soon, the roaring sound of fire entered her ears as the ball of fire came flying. She first used her magic to slow it down, then, with all of her strength, she reflected it back at him. Nightmare simply put his one good wing in front of him to protect him and the flaming ball broke apart.
She looked up at his face and how fire was coming out of his eyes. She could not fight him for much longer. The only thing she was doing was making him angrier. If she wanted to defeat him, she would need the scythe. That is when she looked down and noticed the others.
Luna began flying down towards them. If she got to them, they could help get it back. She flew as fast as she could, forgetting for a split second that Nightmare was there. But that was all the time he needed. Soon, she found a great, burning pain in her left wing. She looked over to see that it was completely blanketed in fire. At that moment, she stopped flying. She did not know what to do.
She kept trying to put it out, but it was doing nothing. Distracted by her burning wing, she missed that fact that she was quickly approaching the earth. Flapping her wings probably harder than she ever had before, she tried to keep herself up. However, with her blazing wing, she quickly glided towards the ground, hitting it like a meteor.
“Princess!” Twilight rushed over to Luna as fast as she could. “Your wing!”
Twilight Sparkle did the quickest thing she could think of to put the fire out. She lifted up pieces of mud from the ground and spread it across her wing.
“Th-Thank you, Twilight.” Luna lifted her head up and looked behind her. Nightmare was attempting to come after her, but he could not stay up with only half a wing. Soon, he crashed into the ground even harder than she did. Twilight gazed at him, only to be stopped by the scythe falling from the sky as the blade dug into the ground beside her. “Twilight,” Luna used all the air she had left in her. Twilight looked at her, more worried than ever before. “Take him out.” Luna’s head dropped back down.
Twilight looked at Nightmare, slowly recovering from his fall, and then back at the princess. She still had almost no idea what was going on, or where they were. All she knew was that Nightmare had to be stopped.
“It must be done.” She lifted the scythe out of the dirt and ran at Nightmare. Once she was no more than ten feet away from him, she spun it around and dug it deep into his chest.
Nightmare released one more scream. This time, it was a scream of death. Finally, the last bit of life slipped from his grip and he collapsed.