//------------------------------// // Dreams and Devastation // Story: Revisions of Past Mistakes // by SC_Orion //------------------------------// Nightfall stood atop a cliff, looking out across the badlands. Her dark mane billowed freely with the cool night air. Her form cast a shadow out across the badlands, her form standing against the moon, silhouetting her to anypony who would be looking at her. Her eyes were drawn to a single point in the distance. The darkness hid the pair of changeling guards well, seeing them would be impossible unless one knew where to look, and had a vast array of magic at their disposal. She did. She took a step forwards, her shadow moved forwards with her, becoming unnaturally long, aided by magic, and fell upon the changeling guards. She watched with her magically amplified eyes as the guards realized something was wrong. She flared her wings out, the changelings looked at each other. They showed no fear, nor did they have any concern, after all, what was the worst a lone alicorn could do to them? The changelings were very aware that, despite their unsuccessful invasion of Canterlot, the ponies were not an actual threat. They weren't violent, they sought 'friendship' with everything, even their worst enemies. The changelings, on the other hoof... They fed on love, and were violent and dangerous. Each changeling had the magic capacity of roughly a royal guard unicorn. Almost every changeling was the same in respect to their magical strength. Nightfall smiled. The ten thousand or so strong hive down there wouldn't stand a chance, especially since they were starving. She would have to play it safe, however. 'Step one...' She took a step forwards, and fell off of the cliff. She fell faster and faster through the air, wind gusting by as the ground started shooting up to meet her. Mere seconds before she impacted the ground, she pulled her wings in, and cast several spells. The first spell absorbed the kinetic energy of her fall, and magnified it several times over, and stored the energy in the form of magic. The second spell teleported her between the two changeling guards. The third spell took the magnified energy of her fall, and exploded it outwards from her body as she landed on the ground, spreading her wings. The powerful shock wave spread out, impacting the two changelings, and crushing them. Their deaths were immediate. She smiled and giggled, "Hahaha..." Her laugh was quiet and cold, almost a more calculated version of Nightmare Moon's insane laughter. She looked to her right, at the dead changeling, then to her left. She thought for a moment, them spoke to herself, "Stupid bugs can't even defend their hive right." She shook her head. "Let's see... The rest of those pests should be-" her voice was cut off by the rapid chattering of a swarm of changelings as they started flying out of the cave before her. The changelings rapidly formed a circle around her, and blocked off all of her escape routes, including the air. The changelings knew it would be suicide for her to try anything, she would have to surrender at being this outnumbered. The changelings were also not the brightest bunch. A malicious smile began to grow upon her face, eventually her lips parted, revealing her teeth. 'Now we get down to business.' She lit her horn, and a magic barrier immediately formed around her and the changelings present. "Oh, don't worry. I intended it to be that big." She chirped as the changelings looked at each other in confusion. She lowered her head, and spoke in a much, much darker tone, "How else was I going to trap you in a small enough space for me to efficiently eliminate you all?" Immediately the changelings began to swarm her, one by one, she struck out at them with her magic. Not just any spell, either. One by one, she ripped the life force and magic from each changeling that assaulted her, one by one the changelings fell to the ground, lifeless, and powerless. One of the changelings landed on her back, wrapping it's legs around her barrel and holding on as tight as it could. Her head swung around as the changeling bit into her neck. She cast a teleportation spell, shifting her location in space to being above that of her previous position. The changeling below her soon found itself falling towards the ground, it's wings began beating rapidly, arresting it's fall. And then she crashed into it, and snapped it's neck with her hooves. She looked up from the now dead changeling towards the next nearest changeling, smiling, "Don't fight the inevitable... Everything will die." Her face contorted into one of rage, and she jumped towards the changeling. Meanwhile... Eclipse's eyes shot open, and she shot up from bed, "NO!" she frantically shouted. Her heart was racing, she lifted a hoof to her chest, and looked around the dark room of the castle. As her eyes looked about the room, her other hoof subconsciously went up to the back of her neck, moving away some of her mane, and falling upon a scar she had not thought about in years. She lowered her head back onto the pillow, and starred at the ceiling for several minutes. "Hello, Luna." The tall, dark alicorn slowly stepped out from the shadows, she wore a perplexed expression upon her face, "How did you-" "You tried to access my sleeping mind. Well, you've succeeded I should say." She slid out of her bed and approached Luna, her face one of annoyance. "You shouldn't be able to do this. I'm blocking you out with my magic." "And yet here I am." "Yes... You're here... In my dream. One which I control." Eclipse shook her head with frustration, then took a deep breath. "What did you see?" "I saw nothing, save for a void until you became aware of my presence." As Luna replied, Eclipse started pacing. Eclipse eventually stopped and looked at Luna, "You know I could expel you from my mind, right now? Or I could counter invade your mind, and rip it apart." Luna took a step back. Eclipse sighed. "What do you want, anyway?" "I was hoping to learn more about you by observing your dreams..." Eclipse thought for a few moments before shaking her head sideways, "Then observe." The dreamscape immediately shifted from a darkened room to a vast, empty black void, dotted with stars. The ground had taken a dull grey appearance, and a blue-green orb was rising over the horizon. Luna took a step back in shock, her eyes widening, "What... How... This... This is the Moon?" Eclipse remained silent, sitting on her haunches as the life sustaining orb slowly rose into the sky. Eclipse lifted a grey rock in her hoof, and tossed it up. It flew upwards, and slowly reduced in speed until it started to slowly fall back downwards. "How do... This... Looks exactly like the Moon did when..." Luna eyed the grey surface of the Moon, confused and scared. Eclipse stood, and looked up into the sky, at the magnificent orb that was Equis. "You never actually killed anypony as Nightmare Moon, Luna." Eclipse's statement cought her off guard, "I... No, I did not. I still regret it all the same, however." Eclipse sighed and turned around, and looked Luna in the eye. "I know you don't trust me. I know you don't even like me. But you shouldn't be torturing yourself over something as... Minor... As what you did..." Luna looked shocked, then angry, "Minor!? You call nearly plunging Equestria into eternal night minor!?" "Luna, we, that is to say in my timeline, were enemies most of my life... I regret it. We both paid for our mistakes. We're both still alive to change the world for the better. You? Well, you were imprisoned on the moon for a thousand years, and then redeemed by the power of the Elements." Eclipse shook her head. "You can't torture yourself every night for that, Luna." There was silence for several moments before Luna spoke, "The Tantibus..." "Take my advice Luna, you need to destroy it now and come to terms with what you did before it harms anypony else..." "But I-" Luna was cut off by Eclipse. "Didn't kill anypony." Luna opened her mouth, then closed it. There was silence for what seemed like several minutes. Luna starred at the ground, looking at a specific rock. The longer she starred at it, the more she looked deep in thought. She lifted the rock in her magic, and let it drop, watching as it slowly fell back towards the ground. "How do you know so much about the Moon?" "I... Uh... Er... It's... Um... Not... Important." Eclipse's stuttering slowed towards the end at her magnificent speech. 'Well played, Twilight. I'm sure she completely missed that. Not going to suspect a thing! Nope, not one bit!' She thought with sarcasm. Luna frowned, "Very... Well..." Nightfall lashed out with her magic once more, taking all the magic and life from the nearby changelings surrounding her as she held them in her magic aura. Their magic flooded into her body, and was rapidly assimilated, increasing her strength. The changelings just kept coming... And coming... All things considered, she was barely getting more magic than she was expending from this. She had not expected so little net gain from the massive amounts of magic she had to use to fight them. It was an annoyance to her. Another wave of changelings poured out of the cave, and she felt the ground rumbling. She turned her head to the right just in time to see a hole explode outwards from the ground, debris varying in size from small pebbles to chunks of rock the size of a pony flew into the air, seconds later impacting the ground. Nightfall channeled magic into her horn, and released a blast towards the hole. Changelings began flooding out of the hole right as the spell impacted, releasing a massive explosion, sending more dust and debris into the air. She momentarily glanced back towards the changelings coming from the cave, they were being kept out by her barrier. She returned her attention towards the now-filled-in-hole from which changelings were previously pouring out, and smiled. 'I need to reach the queen, then I can strip her of her power and use it to destroy this hive.' Nightfall noted. Her horn grew brighter, and she disappeared in a flash of dark purple light. The barrier collapsed and the changeling looked around confused, unsure as to what had happened momentarily. Then their eyes filled with fear, and they quickly started running back inside the cave, towards the hive. Queen Chrysalis's senses told her something was immediately wrong as soon as the changeling guards reported that the alicorn had disappeared. The flash of dark purple light also helped tell her something was wrong. The queen jumped back, using her wings to propel herself further back in order to avoid a blast of magic that hit the space she previously occupied. "What!? How did you get in here!?" she hissed. Nightfall replied with another blast of magic, it impacted a green barrier that the Changeling Queen had thrown up. The queen smirked, "My guards will be here within moments, you will not escape my grasp, whoever you are. You have made a grave mistake attacking my hive." her voice echoed through the chamber, resonating and gaining a eerie echo. Nightfall grabbed the queen in her magic, bypassing the barrier. The queen's smile disappeared, replaced by an expression of shock. Luna sat beside Eclipse, both watching the dream unfold. It was a simple dream, a construct of Eclipse's mind, of a time before everything went so wrong. A simple picnic, her and her friends. Somehow, Eclipse was managing to shape the dream so that she was conscious of it, yet her sleeping mind was the one interacting with her friends. Pinkie bounced around with her usual vigor, talking about something neither of them could quite make out. Rainbow was laying on her back, wings spread out across the picnic cloth, wearing sunglasses, letting the midday sun warm her body. Meanwhile, Rarity was talking with Applejack, the conversation was inaudible, as were all of them. Fluttershy and Twilight were talking, Eclipse regarded the scene with a solemn smile. "I miss these times." Eclipse stated. Luna furrowed her brow, "Did not you make new friends, after they passed?" "I... No. I didn't try, I was too blinded by grief..." Eclipse sighed and shook her head, then turned to Luna, "I'm not even sure if I could have made new friends..." Luna raised an eyebrow. "It's... You know what it's like. Being an alicorn, outliving everypony that you know... Or who knew you before you became an alicorn, in my case. They look at you differently... It's like they don't see the pony, because all they can see is the horn, wings, and crown..." Luna thought for a moment, "It is difficult to accept that as an alicorn, you will outlive everypony you know... I am lucky enough to have my sister who will stand beside me for my entire lifespan." "I can't imagine how many sacrifices you two have made in your lives... It was only after I... After Celestia died that I realized just how much she did to maintain peace and harmony, and how much she must have sacrificed." Eclipse shook her head. "The world wasn't the same after that. You took over controlling the sun in her absence, and you tried, you really tried to keep things held together... I think it was just too much for you. You did the best you could have done under the circumstances." Luna looked to Eclipse, "I thought you did not like me?" "No. We simply had a falling out in my timeline, I don't hate you or anything like that. I don't even blame you for not trusting me, I wouldn't trust myself..." she shook her head. "I've had quite a bit of time to think, since I came here. I've been doing quite a bit of introspection." "And what conclusions have you arrived at?" "I made mistakes, but that's in the past. Not seeing the results of those mistakes with my own eyes every waking moment of my life helps with that... I regret what happened, what I did... What happened between us... How blind I was..." Eclipse shoot her head. "I'm not going to let it happen again." "So you keep saying. Pray tell, how will you prevent it?" "I couldn't convince either of you to let me do it the first time, so I'm not going to even try this time." Luna's expression subtly shifted, "Is that-" Eclipse's eyes widened, her head rapidly turned to face Luna, "No! No. I'm not threatening you." "Did you not threaten me earlier?" Luna sternly gazed at Eclipse. "Can we talk about something else?" There was a break in the conversation for what felt like a few minutes, during which time the dreamscape shifted once more, returning to Eclipse's room in the castle. Luna finally broke the silence, "What do you plan to do after you 'fix' everything?" "I've not given that much thought... My goal here will be complete... I won't be needed anymore..." Eclipse paused, and spoke to herself, almost inaudibly, "I probably won't survive it anyway..." Luna furrowed her brow, then opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again. Both Eclipse and Luna felt a powerful burst of magic, Luna's face took one of confusion while Eclipse's took one of fear. "What... Was that?" Luna's words broke Eclipse from her shock, she opened and closed her mouth rapidly, unable to find her words. In anger she threw a hoof downwards, striking the crystalline floor with enough force to crack it. She lit her horn, and the room became flooded in a purple glow, seconds later Eclipse bolted awake. Luna staggered back from the sudden shock of the spell, it took her a moment to remember that she was in her room in the Canterlot Castle. Eclipse rushed out of bed, nearly falling out of it as she got up. She ran over to the balcony, stealing a glance at the clock as she did so. 'One in the morning...' She forcefully threw open the balcony doors just in time to catch the fading light being emitted from a pillar of dark purple magic coming from the badlands. Eclipse felt her heart sink, "No..."