“You don't know her name,” Fluttershy repeated. She stepped back to look at the others, spreading her wings in a definitive manner. “She doesn't know her name! That filly, Scootaloo,” she emphasized, getting up in Rainbow Dash's face, “is a total fanfilly over her, and she doesn't even know she exists.”
“Wait. I have a fan?” Rainbow asked.
Fluttershy glared at her, and even the others frowned in disapproval at Dash's outburst. She backed down under their gaze.
“I mean, I totally know who she is,” Rainbow stammered. “I, uh, saw her at... uh... the thing...”
“The Hunters of Ponyville celebration, where you were awarded that hooded armor set you're wearing.” Fluttershy pushed forward, uncharacteristically confrontational, and jabbed Rainbow right in the chest. “She was there. She even got up in front of the crowd to cheer you on. You pawned off your old vest on her, as if it was some sort of grand gesture and not just getting rid of old trash you didn't need. I'll bet she keeps the thing enshrined in her closet back home. And you don't even remember her.”
“I'm sorry I ever made that outfit for you,” Rarity chimed in. “I see now that you were hardly deserving of it.”
Dash flinched, gritting her teeth, her ears flopping back atop her head. With a growl, she attempted to move around the blocking pegasus. “None of that matters now,” she said tersely. “Look, I'm sorry the creepy monster died, alright? We need to focus on finding Nightmare Moon, and getting everypony back safely.”
“And who said you're comin' with us?” Applejack asked.
Rainbow turned to the farmer in surprise. Applejack's expression was mirrored in the faces of the others – cold, unfeeling stares.
Dash let out a small laugh, although it seemed choked and hollow in the dark blue shadows of the forest. “Come on, guys. Are you really going to turn away an offer for help, just because you have a problem with somepony's attitude?”
“Perhaps,” Twilight said. “If it's you, then maybe.”
Pinkie snorted. “I didn't think it was a good idea to bring you along to begin with, but Twilight here thought you'd be worth something.” She pouted at the reclusive unicorn. “Nice character judgment, Twilight! Look what sort of pony you've got us traveling with.”
Twilight nodded. “I now deeply regret my hasty decision to invite her along solely on the merit of her combat abilities. Pinkie, you have my firm recommendation that Rainbow Dash be removed from the group, effective immediately.”
“Wha..?” Rainbow's head flicked back and forth as she tried to keep up with the conversation. “Now, just hold on a minute! I'm not gonna leave you-”
“Get out, Rainbow Dash,” Pinkie said.
The forest was completely devoid of outside noise. Rainbow could hear her own heart beat softly in her ears – her breath caught in her throat.
“Scram. Begone. Go away!”
Rainbow stared for a moment. Then she scowled.
“And what if I say no?”
As if in answer, a sudden weight smacked into the side of her neck, a dull, bruising pain rippling out from the point of impact. She stumbled, caught off guard, and turned to find Fluttershy scooping up another rock from the ground and poising to throw.
“Leave.”
It was Fluttershy's soft, gentle voice, her mouth moved with the sound, but the situation just didn't seem to compute in Rainbow's head. It was like the whole world had suddenly gone sideways.
A smaller rock skipped off the rim of her hood, this time coming from Applejack on the right. The others started to pick up rocks of their own, scooping them up in their hooves or, with Twilight, readying a floating ring of earthen debris in her magic. Rainbow Dash was rooted to the ground in shocked disbelief.
Then the rocks began to fly, and Rainbow fled.
As soon as she was out of sight of the clearing, the foliage provided some cover from the smaller projectiles, but a particularly large rock managed to crash its way through and strike her hindleg near the hock. Rainbow cursed as she crashed through the underbrush, keeping herself upright with a well-timed beat of her wings as she stumbled. She made a sharp turn to get out of the line of fire, scrambling to get lost amongst the tangled forest.
The others didn't follow her. Dash slowed down as she realized she was safe, for the moment, hovering close to the ground in an attempt to keep a low profile. The pain in her neck pulsed with each beat of her wings. Rocks kept crashing down harmlessly in the direction Rainbow had started from for a while, but then soon the sounds stopped altogether.
Dash found herself with trembling hooves and heavy breathing, familiar side effects from coming down off an adrenaline high. She ignored them, and they began to fade away as she knew they would. The pain in her leg and neck began to made itself more pronounced, but she ignored that too – the bruises weren't serious, and there was nothing she could do about them anyway.
What didn't fade was the anger. Rainbow noticed it all of a sudden, not as if it had just sprung up in a single moment, but more as if she had been furious since the first betrayal in the clearing and she had only just now happened to realize how she felt about it.
So, they think they can just ditch me like that? They think they can drive me off? Me? Rainbow Dash, the best hunter anypony has ever seen? Well, no dice, sister! They wouldn't last three minutes in there without me, not a one of them!
Without a sound, Rainbow circled back and headed towards the path, angling her direction of travel so that she would meet up with the open space some distance from where she had originally exited. Rainbow Dash was not so easily dissuaded. Already, she had something of a plan in mind.
I'll follow them to the castle, she thought, keeping just out of sight, yeah? And then, when they find Nightmare Moon and everything goes wrong, well maybe I'll take my sweet time deciding on whether or not to save them before I kick her fat flank!
It wouldn't take long, she was sure. They were only a short distance from where the castle should be now – the final confrontation would be soon.
When Rainbow got back in sight of the pathway, she was surprised not to find the others walking on ahead of her – she had estimated they would be moving more quickly than that. A glance at the ground told her that nopony had passed any time recently – she must have gotten ahead of them. Rainbow glanced backwards, thinking she might have overestimated their speed.
There was Nightmare Moon, surrounded by four still bodies, slowly choking Pinkie Pie into unconciousness.
Rainbow's eyes shot wide. Nightmare Moon dropped Pinkie down next to the others, already sprawled out on the floor, the fallen mare barely breathing in wheezing gasps through a bruised windpipe.
“Hey!” Without pausing to think, Dash was already half-way across the space and barreling towards Nightmare Moon, sword ripping from its holster. “Hooves off my friends!”
Dash struck with a speed that only a trained, seasoned and desperate hunter could manage, but somehow it wasn't enough. One moment cold steel was an inch from the alicorn's throat. The next, the sword was tumbling through the air into the forest beyond as Nightmare Moon ground Rainbow slowly into the dirt, her hoof digging into the side of the hunter's throat.
“So,” Nightmare said, “you showed up after all. I must admit I am surprised. What possessed you to hang around after your friends drove you off? Wait, don't tell me.” The Moon Princess smiled, the white of her teeth forming a sinister crescent. “I didn't interrupt your attempt at a little vengeance, did I? Just give me another moment here, and then you can feel free to finish them off. I've had my fun.”
“You sick- rrgh!” Rainbow struggled wildly, kicking off the ground with the wing that was trapped under her barrel and striking at Nightmare's leg with her hoof. “I'll end you, just see if I don't!”
Nightmare Moon arched an eyebrow. “Oh, really? And what do you think you can accomplish that the others couldn't?” That smiling face, devoid of any warmth, leaned in close enough that Rainbow Dash could feel the hot breath tickling the hair along the inside of her ear. “Are they even worth it, after what they did to you?”
Bending herself almost in two, Rainbow Dash pulled her hindlegs up until they nearly touched her forehead and struck out in a vicious blow. There was a moment of recoil as her hooves struck Nightmare's face with a resounding thwack.
Something shifted. For just a moment, an eyeblink's worth of time, the blue light faded out of the woods and Rainbow found herself stumbling to her hooves, unable to see in the comparative darkness.
Then the light came back on. Nightmare Moon was standing across from her, head bent to the side and a wing caressing her own cheek, but with cold, clear eyes locked on to Rainbow's own. Rainbow Dash glared back fiercely.
“You think you can distract me so easily?” Rainbow asked. “I don't care if I had a fight with them, you're still the one I'm here to beat. And they're still the ones I'm gonna protect.”
“Fool,” Nightmare snarled. “Imbecile. This wasn't some little fight you had with them. They turned on you, completely and utterly. Do you think they would have stopped short of killing you if you hadn't fled?”
“I have no idea why they did what they did,” Rainbow snapped back. “In fact, they've been acting so strange that it wouldn't surprise me if you had something to do with it. But even if you didn't, what they do has nothing to do with what I'm gonna do. I'm bringing them, the Princess, and the kids you took out of this forest alive, no matter who tries to stop me – them or you!”
“By what power?” Nightmare asked, furling her wing and rearing her head up to her full and terrible height. “You are but an insect. Even with your companions, you could not hope to best me. You would strike at me, without a prayer of succeeding?”
“Funny,” Rainbow said, crouching down to spring. “I do hope!” She leapt out again with lightning speed, arching a twisty path through the air with her wings meant to circumvent a block of a simple charge. Instead of impacting Nightmare as she expected, Rainbow Dash sailed on through as the figure of the Night Princess dissolved into a shadowy mist, the alicorn reappearing several paces away with an ever darkening expression. “And if you're wrong about that,” Rainbow finished, “I wonder what else you're wrong about.”
“I am the embodiment of terror itself,” Nightmare Moon growled. “My very name means fear! Do you not hear the rattling echoes of your own demise, gathering in the trees around us?”
Rainbow did hear a sound. She did not stop to listen to it, or to hear what it said. With a scream, not of terror but of rage, she struck out again against her shadowy opponent. Just as her hoof collided with Nightmare's skin, the light blinked off again.
Rainbow's hoof met no resistance, and she bounced off the rough bark of a tree. She blinked rapidly, trying to adjust her eyes as the blue light lit up the forest once more. A hoof snaked around her neck and pulled back, choking her, lifting her off of her hooves.
“You fight for those you have never met,” Nightmare droned. “Those who have wronged you. A filly you never even bothered to get to know. Do you honestly think that the strength to beat me can be drawn from motivations such as these?”
“I...” Rainbow choked out, twisting at the leg gripping her neck with her hooves. “I'm rescuing... a bunch of kids. And my Princess. And a group of treacherous slimeballs I only met this morning. Or what... was supposed to be this morning.” She glanced up at Nightmare Moon out of the corner of her eye. “You don't get better motivations than that!”
And she slammed an elbow as hard as she could into Nightmare Moon's side.
There was a ripping sound – or perhaps not a sound, but only the impression of one – as the world went completely dark for half a second. Rainbow's sense of hearing snapped in her head, as a sudden ringing in her ears overtook all the other noises around her. The hold on her neck was gone, and she fell to the dirt floor of the pathway in an ungraceful sprawl as she landed painfully tail-first. She rolled to her hooves, tensed to re-enter the fight.
The light didn't come back.
Neither did Nightmare Moon.
Rainbow glanced around, not believing that her opponent would just leave like that. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, but before they did, her hearing began to come back in the form of voices.
Familiar voices.
“I swear! I swear, I swear! Please, just help meheeheeee...”
“Fluttershy?”
Rainbow blinked, eyes and ears both homing in on the source of the voice. Even in all the years she had known Fluttershy, she had only heard her voice that desperate and alone a single time. She'd vowed, there and then, never to let that tone enter her friend's voice ever again.
“BwaaAAHHHaahhahannnaah!!!”
Rainbow's head jerked left, as she saw a familiar pink mare bawling her eyes out as only she could do.
“P... Pinkie Pie?”
The others were there as well, scattered along the path, alive and uninjured. Rainbow's heart was torn between elation at the ones she had called her friends being well again, and trepidation as she remembered what had only just transpired between them – that sudden betrayal that a large part of her still refused to understand.
But these conflicting feeling faded away to be replaced by confusion, as the true state of the others worked its way into Rainbow's mind.
Pinkie and Rarity were collapsed on the dirt of the road, each sobbing uncontrollably. Rarity was babbling on about something – “I can't do it, I'm sorry, I'm just not enough –” and over in another corner, Fluttershy was cowering into the tightest ball of fur and feathers she could manage, flinching away from unseen impulses. Applejack was walking mindlessly into a bush, the thorns and brambles of which barred her progress completely, and on the other side of the path Rainbow saw a place where the undergrowth had been pushed aside by somepony's passage.
“Hey!” Rainbow said, lifting into the air. “What's going on?”
Not getting an answer, she hurried over to Fluttershy's side and grabbed her shoulder with a hoof. She shook her friend roughly. “Hey, Fluttershy! Snap out of it! What's wrong with you?”
At first, it didn't seem to be doing anything. Fluttershy only flinched away even harder at the initial contact. Then, as Rainbow increased the force she was using to shake her, Fluttershy snapped her head up. She stopped screaming, blinked and looked around, almost as if she was waking up from a bad dream.
“Where...”
“Fluttershy, you okay?” Rainbow asked, leaning in close to look her friend in the eyes. Fluttershy just stared back, terrified, watery eyes staring back into Rainbow's own.
With a sigh, Dash stepped back and glanced away. “Just wait here for a moment, alright? I'm gonna check on the others!” She leapt into the air, and headed over to grab Applejack next.
Rainbow had to move carefully to wrap her forelegs around Applejack's withers without getting herself caught in the same bush the farmer was in, but she managed. Shaking had seemed to work with Fluttershy, so Dash tried repeating the procedure, and was only just able to dodge a whistling left hook as Applejack snapped to her senses and took a swing at her.
“You!” Applejack cried. “What, it wasn't enough for yah, setting up traps to get me killed? Now you gotta do it yourself?!?”
“What the hay are you talking about, Applejack?” Rainbow asked, floating out of reach of the farmer's hooves. “You know what? Forget it. It doesn't matter, just- just wait here while I go check on the rest of the guys, huh? Cool.”
Rainbow turned back towards the others. Fluttershy still had a haunted look about her, but now she had moved over to Pinkie and was rubbing her back, murmuring soothingly in one ear. Rarity was still in the same shape as before, muttering to herself and wringing every last tear out of her eyes, but as Rainbow's eyes fell on the place where the plants had been pushed away again, she suddenly realized who was missing, and who it must have made that blind trail.
“Twilight!” she cried out, following down the path as quickly as she could. “Wait up!”
She flew low to the ground. It wasn't exactly easy, keeping above the bushes and below the branches, but it was the thing of every day in the Everfree. It was only a few moments before the fleeing purple mare came into sight, and Rainbow tackled her to a stop just before Twilight was about to step off of a particularly steep incline, apparently heedless of the considerable danger involved in such an act.
Twilight's eyes seemed to clear at the impact, as she looked up to find Rainbow holding her in a firm bear hug, but the tears in them didn't lessen. Twilight struggled fiercely to break free, although it was completely hopeless that she would overpower the much fitter pegasus who was holding her.
“Let me go!” Twilight said. “Let me go, Rainbow, I don't deserve to be here! I failed you!”
“Calm down!” Rainbow said sharply. “You need to calm down. I think Nightmare Moon did something to us – we're all behaving weird – but if you just calm down, and come back to the others with me, we can get the sorted out. Okay? Calm down.”
Twilight struggled, but Rainbow held on, and eventually she gave it up and collapsed in a heap, shaking and sobbing between her hooves.
It was several minutes before Twilight had calmed down enough that Rainbow was willing to let her up. Together, they made their way back to the spot on the path where the others were waiting. Everypony seemed to be looking at each other out of the corners of their eyes, flinching whenever they noticed that somepony else was looking in their direction and hurriedly looking away.
Rainbow Dash glanced between them.
“What was that?” Rarity asked, voice sounding shaken. She was actually trembling herself, although she was doing a good job of trying to hide it. “I was just- I saw things, and then suddenly I'm back here in the woods...”
“Ah think...” Applejack said slowly. She had doffed her hat, and was wringing it in between her hooves in front of her chest. “Ah think Nightmare must have done something to us. Ah saw... Ah saw you all laughing at me, as I fell into trap after trap that you all had set yourselves. And then... Ah saw Apple Bloom in this castle, and Ah...”
“It was all fake!” Pinkie beamed, the only one in the clearing who looked cheerful. She was grinning from ear to ear, a complete reversal of the heavy tears which were still evident on her face from where she had been crying. “I wasn't wrong! If it was all just an illusion, then that means we're all still friends. Look!” She held up the tiny reptile she had been carrying with her since they had found it. “Even Gummy's still here!”
“I betrayed you,” Fluttershy said. Her voice was quiet, but it was somehow stronger than Rainbow could ever remember it being – the emotion packed inside the words cut through silence like steel. “Nightmare Moon offered to rescue me from her own monsters if I swore to serve her. And I did...”
“Hey!” Rainbow barked, the hairs along the back of her neck bristling with discontent. “It was all just another one of Nightmare's tricks, you know? Doesn't count! You'd never do that to us if it was real.”
Fluttershy flinched and glanced away.
“I saw you all die,” Twilight said softly. Rainbow glared at her, willing her to shut up, but the purple mare wasn't looking at Dash – she was staring off into the middle-distance, remembering something only she had experienced. “Except for Pinkie. Nightmare took her. I should have helped her, but when I saw the others lying there I just... broke. I ran away instead...”
“Oh yeah,” Pinkie said, and for a moment her tone grew genuinely remorseful. It was an odd and disturbing contrast from her normal, exaggerated demeanor, and in that moment Rainbow wished very much never to hear it again. “I didn't go to help you, even when I heard you calling out for me...
And then the moment was over. “Oh well! You learn something new about yourself every day.” Pinkie smiled as she looked Rainbow straight in the eye. “What about you, Rainbow? You didn't betray everyone like the rest of us, did you?”
A chill ran down Rainbow's spine and she found that she couldn't look away from Pinkie Pie's gaze. She could hear Applejack talking in the background – “well, Ah think 'betray' might be a little harsh a term for it...” – but she only heard it like you might see something a distance off through a fog.
“I don't,” Fluttershy said, close to tears once again. “I think it's exactly as harsh as it needs to be.”
At her voice, Rainbow snapped out of her trance. “It doesn't matter what I saw,” she said smoothly. “It wasn't real, and even if it was, we'd just have to suck it up and pull ourselves together. That Nightmare is still out there, and if we want a chance at taking her down, we're just going to have to forgive whatever imaginary crimes we committed and work with each other.”
Twilight nodded, rubbing at her eyes with a hoof. “She's right,” she said. “Princess Celestia and those fillies are counting on us too much for us to give up now. Even if we aren't perfect.”
“Oh, are they?”
Everypony jumped. The voice seemed to be coming from all around them. It was a voice they all recognized – the voice of Nightmare Moon.
“I wouldn't be so sure about that.” A patch of moonlight that filtered through the trees slowly congealed, taking on form and color, resolving into the image of a pony the group was only too familiar with.
“Nightmare Moon!” Rainbow cried. Her hoof went instantly to where her sword should have been hanging, but she found nothing but air. Around her, the other ponies also tensed up or crouched, ready for action, although there was a note of pain in some of their eyes that was absent in hers. Fluttershy turned the palest yellow she had ever been as she stood stock-still and stared wide-eyed at the dark Princess.
“So,” Nightmare commented, her tone entirely unimpressed with the cold reception, “I see even my deepest nightmares are not inescapable if I leave them to their own devices rather than watching over them myself. I must thank you for breaking free, however you managed it. I was going to let you go anyway, but you've saved me the trouble.”
As the patterns of light shifted subtly through the tree branches of the thick woods, Rainbow caught a glimpse of her sword hidden in the bushes on the side of the path, where she must have dropped it while she was still under Nightmare's spell. She glanced over at where Twilight had gathered a very impressive aura of magic around her horn for a librarian and tried to catch her eye to signal her, but was dismayed when Twilight quit channelling the spell and stood up straight to glare Nightmare in the eye.
“Give us back your hostages and surrender,” Twilight demanded. “You will be given a fair trial, and any grievances you may have will be given due consideration.”
“Hostages?” Nightmare looked down with half-lidded eyes, a smile on her face. “Maybe you haven't heard enough about me from the last time I was here. I don't take hostages. So I don't have any to give you.”
Pinkie snorted, but Twilight let out a small gasp of horror. Rainbow knew it was a bad idea to look away from the enemy, but she couldn't help letting her eyes glance over just briefly at Twilight's outburst. Twilight's eyes were wide, a hoof covering her mouth. It took a moment for Rainbow to process what such a reaction implied for the fillies Nightmare had taken.
Then her vision went red.
Without meaning to, without thinking, Rainbow bolted straight for her sword and snatched it off the ground. The instant she grabbed hold of it, she pulled off a turn so sharp she could feel the flesh and muscle yanking against her tendons as the g-forces she was experiencing skyrocketed. Throwing away any idea of a coordinated attack and relying only on the suddenness and ferocity of her lunge, she barreled straight at Nightmare's side, a roar in her throat, sword aimed for a killing blow.
She passed right through, the image of Nightmare shimmering and tearing as the illusion was disrupted by Rainbow's passage.
“Well, I suppose I know who wasn't the one responsible for your escape,” Nightmare said, looking down on Rainbow with one eye. “Striking at someone who isn't physically present will accomplish nothing.”
Rainbow Dash growled in frustration. Applejack took a step forward, a glare hidden under the shadows of her hat and her jaw moving slowly against strained muscles.
“What have you done to my sister?” she asked, voice low and cold.
“Nothing, as of yet,” Nightmare smiled down, “but I have big plans for her. For all of them. The foals will serve my purpose, and my sister will pay.” Her eyes gleamed darkly. “They aren't hostages, because I'm not even pretending I'm going to give them back to you.”
“Aw, come on!” Everypony turned to look at Pinkie Pie, who had clapped a hoof against her forehead. “Don't explain the joke, Luna! That kills it.”
Nightmare's smile dropped instantly into a murderous frown. “Do not presume to call me by that name, churl! That is the name I bore when I was but the sniveling younger sister of the Sun, maligned and suppressed. I am Nightmare Moon, your rightful Princess of the Night! And I care not what my sister has told you, your feeble understanding does not come anywhere near close enough to take such a familiar tone with me. I desire even your love, pony, but I demand your respect!”
Pinkie snorted again, a short, breathy thing which was the result of trying to hold in laughter. “'Familiar!' Oh, Moon, you're such a crack-up! How can it be familiar when I've never talked to you before?”
“Pinkie!” Rarity cried, finally managing to regain her composure. She and the others looked at Pinkie with incredulity written on their faces. “What are you doing?”
Pinkie paid no attention to the others, beaming a great big smile up into Nightmare's glower, which had only gotten darker at Pinkie's response. “Did you make this guy?” Pinkie asked, pulling Gummy up to present to the Princess. “Thanks bunches! I named him Gummy, and I love him ever so much.” Pinkie gasped and hugged Gummy to her chest. “You aren't going to ask for him back, are you?”
Nightmare Moon just stared, and as she did, her expression seemed to cool into one of pure condescension.
“Would you perhaps like to know the origins of that creature?” Nightmare asked. “It is somewhat related to why I've deigned to speak to you. I'd like you all to give up on this well-intentioned, but futile, quest.”
“Never!”
To everypony's surprise, it was Fluttershy who had spoken. “Never again!” she said, legs trembling, but with eyes that were clear and sharp.
Nightmare met Fluttershy's gaze impassively.
“We're not givin' up on our sisters, no matter what you say!” Applejack said, nodding in agreement. “Or the Princess, neither.”
Nightmare smiled. “Not even if your sisters have differing opinions on the matter?”
The air beside her began to twist again as images of three smaller figures came into focus. Figures that were quite familiar to the ponies gathered there. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle appeared from the ether on either side of Nightmare Moon.
“Sweetie!” Rarity gasped, as at the same time Applejack called out to her own sister. Neither of the two fillies responded.
Instead, they glared up at them with looks their elder sisters had never seen before in their eyes. Looks that they would have been very happy to have never seen at all, much less from somepony they loved. Rainbow frowned as Scootaloo gave her a similar look.
Nightmare Moon spread her wings, pulling the fillies closer to her. They did not resist her touch.
“Now then, children,” Nightmare said. “Here are your sisters, come to take you back home. Would you like to go with them?”
“No!”
The ponies from Pinkie's Party started at the fillies' sharp response. Apple Bloom didn't step forward, but her glare grew tighter.
“Ah'm not going anywhere with a pony who'd just abandon everypony who's counting on her when things got hard!”
“W-what?” Applejack gulped. Something about the look in Apple Bloom's eyes had set her into a cold sweat. “Apple Bloom, what are you talking about?”
“You think I'm going to go back home just to sit in your shadow again, Rarity?” Sweetie Belle asked. “Well I'm not! I'm not going back home, ever!”
“They're just illusions,” Rainbow said quickly, seeing the look of agony on Rarity's face. “We can't believe anything Nightmare shows us.”
“Aren't you upset at all?” Scootaloo asked. She lurched upward from where she was seated, pointing a hoof accusingly at Rainbow Dash. “How can you feel nothing at a time like this? I thought you cared about me.”
Nightmare gave a long, slow chuckle.
“There. You see? You are not wanted here.” Her ethereal mane gave a flick all of its own, pointing back along the path towards Ponyville. “Go home.”
“What have you done to them?” Twilight asked, truly angry now for the first time any of the others had seen. “What have you done to these foals?”
“Only talked to them a little,” Nightmare said. “Mind to mind. It turns out we each have much in common. Your sisters are free to leave, once they've helped me out a little, though I doubt they'll care to see you again.” Her horn lit up, and from somewhere off in the darkness the image of a bracelet floated into sight. “Do you know what this is?”
Twilight frowned. Something about that bracelet looked familiar, somehow – etched with markings that she recognized from years of study on magical theory, runes of fusion and transformation. Pinkie's gasped, her eyes snapping wide as she shot ramrod-straight.
“Guys!” Pinkie shouted. “We need to go, we need to go now!”
“It has been a most useful tool to me, over the years,” Nightmare said. “I used it to populate much of the Everfree Forest. Manticores, Octospiders, Riversnakes – oh, and countless others. Monster creation is something of a hobby of mine.”
Pinkie bolted off down the path. Nightmare Moon did not seem to take any notice of Pinkie's departure, and the others hesitated for a moment to follow as Nightmare continued. “The best part about it is that, unlike the Elements of Harmony, anypony at all can make use of it. Why, even these little fillies were able to make that small alligator thing you insist on carrying around.”
“Ah!” Twilight blinked. “I remember what that bracelet is. But why would she... and Pinkie... ...oh, no!”
She also took off at a run. “Pinkie! Wait up!”
“Where are you all going?” Rainbow asked, already trailing along behind. The others also began hurrying along the path.
The image did not move with them, but they had only just passed it when they saw it again, unchanged, off to one side of the path ahead. Nightmare Moon kept talking, not seeming to care that the ponies she was talking to were constantly barreling past her and the three fillies.
“You might have heard me explain what I want to do earlier, on the stage,” Nightmare said. “I intend to use the Elements of Harmony on my sister and imprison her, just as she imprisoned me. Only, without my sister's mysterious technique, I need more than one pony to be able to use the elements. I need a partner, somepony of considerable power and potential.
“The bracelet itself suffices to alter a body alone,” Nightmare said, lowering the bracelet as she talked and slipping it around Scootaloo's forehoof. The metal willingly altered itself, shrinking and compressing to fit snugly against the filly's coat. “To alter a creature's magic, though – that is a more difficult problem.” Nightmare grinned toothily. “Did you know that the only creatures to successfully use the Elements have been my sister and myself, together? Two alicorns.”
“I mean, I get that we don't really need to stick around and listen to Nightmare babble on,” Rainbow said, catching up to Twilight and returning to her own line of conversation, “but what's got you two so worked up? What makes things suddenly so urgent?”
“I don't know how my sister was able to use them on her own,” Nightmare continued. The image of her horn began to glow with a minor spell, and the color was reflected in the eyes of the fillies sitting next to her; they got up silently and moved to stand in a circle.
“Whatever secret about the Elements she discovered is still unknown to me. If I aim to use the Elements in spite of this, then I need to... find... somepony to help me out.”
Twilight was running full out to catch up with Pinkie. She didn't have much breath to spare, but she tried to answer Rainbow's question the best she could.
“The bracelet-” she panted, dodging around a low-hanging branch. “I recognize it- now. It's a relic- lost to time - known as -” She panted, running out of breath completely, and then shook her head in defeat, reluctantly compromising full intellectual disclosure in favor of just getting the important idea across. “The bracelet has two functions – alter and combine. She can't- get what she wants, through altering, so she- she must be planning on- on-”
The fillies blinked in unison. When their eyes opened, they were clear and familiar again – but their determined, angry looks did nothing to assuage their sister's fears.
Scootaloo held out the hoof which held the bracelet, and the others tapped their hooves to its bronzed surface. At the touch, the bracelet seemed almost to steam, emitting – or absorbing – a glowing mist from all three little ponies. The fillies nodded to each other, one by one.
Nightmare Moon had been watching the fillies rather than the group of heroes, but now her head and eyes suddenly turned to follow the ponies in their flight – each of them could feel her gaze on them as almost a tangible substance, thick like oil and suffocating.
“Congratulations, Rarity, Applejack,” Nightmare Moon said, her voice actually sounding cheerful. “Your sisters, and their little friend, are about to become an alicorn.”
And then the image disappeared, leaving Pinkie's Party alone in the woods.
“Together,” Scootaloo intoned.
“Strong,” came Sweetie Belle.
“As one!” said Apple Bloom, not a one of them hesitating in their determination.
“I'll make her notice me,” Scootaloo said confidently as the bracelet began to hum with power, glowing so bright that it hurt to look at.
“I'll be better than she ever was,” said Sweetie Belle, glaring into the light as a tugging sensation began to run up from her fetlock.
By now, the distance between the three had noticeably shortened, and the transformation was only picking up speed. Apple Bloom couldn't feel the end of her leg now, but it didn't matter. The sensation didn't stop her one bit.
“If Ah can't trust her, Ah'll go it on my own!”
The light grew so bright now that Scootaloo was forced to look away. It didn't help. Even through closed lids, even looking in the other direction, the light was overwhelming.
Sweetie Belle was pulled forward towards the bracelet. She couldn't see anything anymore, and the humming was growing into a high-pitched whine just short of deafening, but she felt it when the side of her neck was pressed up against those of the others. There was a strange tugging, and then she was pulled through.
This is really happening. She felt bigger now. Stronger, healthier than she had even been before in her life, although at some point along the way she had lost any idea of the actual shape of her body. I'll bet I'm so strong, I can fly for real!
Wait. Who thought that?
The noise, the light, the aura of magic – all of it burst as the bracelet completed its work.
As the light died down and the noise faded away, a single, solitary figure was left crouching there on the floor. A broad wing twitched as the pony shifted, rolling their head and shoulders and gathering their hooves beneath them. Nightmare Moon smiled as the new alicorn drew herself to her full height.
“Well then,” Nightmare asked. “Are you ready to make Equestria ours, and settle things with all of our sisters?”
The other pony stared at her with widened eyes. She glanced at her new, peach-colored hoof. Her purple mane – long and “flowing” in the normal sense, but still made of hair and not animated like those of the Princess, or Celestia– slipped down around one side of her face and she jumped at the contact, reaching up to touch her cheek. Her mouth opened slowly. Then she looked at Nightmare again, and those warm brown eyes seemed to harden.
“Yes,” she said. “We'll show them. We'll show them all.”
Her voice was not that of a foal's anymore – it was the voice of a grown mare. Her height, too, was just a little taller than that of the average adult pony. Something stirred in the depths of Nightmare's heart at the alicorn's expression – this was a pony after her own heart, one she could truly respect.
Nightmare nodded off to the side. “The 'rescue party' will be here shortly. You heard me try to convince them, but now it's out of my hooves. They are very near the castle now. I need only a short time to prepare things here. Would you be a dear and stall them for a few moments while I get things set up?”
The conglomerate pony's face twitched, a tugging at the side of her mouth as she couldn't decide whether to smile or snarl – neither face was particularly friendly, and neither was the resulting mish-mash.
“Sure thing,” she said. She stumbled as she turned towards the door, but her wings flared out and caught her weight before she fell more than a few inches – her face lit up for a moment before being drowned with hatred again. “We'll go... deal with them, or something.”
She staggered out of the room, not looking like she was in any condition to be dealing with anything, but rapidly growing more and more sure of hoof. Nightmare turned away, smile spreading across the whole of her face.
She was alone now. With confident purpose, she strode forwards to a certain spot on the castle floor. As she neared it, her horn glowed with a simple telemancy spell, pushing a seemingly innocuous stone down into the ground. With the grating noise of stone on stone, a circle opened up in the floor as a grand structure rose up in a cloud of dust, holding aloft those powerful stones for all the world to see – the Elements of Harmony.
There was a laugh building up in Nightmare's throat, and she saw no reason to keep it concealed as she lifted the stones from their pedestal. One by one they began to orbit around her, Kindness, Honesty, Friendship, Loyalty, Generosity, and-
She paused.
Nightmare Moon looked again at the Elements she was carrying. She counted them. Then she counted again, just to make sure that she hadn't, she couldn't have, made a mistake in her calculations –
Nightmare howled.
“Where's the sixth element?!?”