How can a pony, overshadowed by a dark past, taunted by her own self-conflict and doubt, ever hope to be able to shed the burden of being Nightmare Moon?

Nyx isn't sleeping well. For weeks, her dreams have been visited by a strange specter that haunts her, each dream growing more horrible than the last, her fears gaining a greater hold on her. As time passes the phantom draws closer, forcing Nyx to face the realm of the supernatural. Soon, the filly will be thrust into a world of wonder and imagination, where light and shadow are made into one, and everyone, and everything, deserves a second glance.

Author's Notes:

This story was proof-read and edited by EverfreePony, Scaramouch, and Salty Alty.

Test read by Blackyoshi and Lucondrix.

Nyx belongs to Pen Stroke, and I take no credit in the creation of her character.

Cover art drawn by Folklore17 and colored by 0ndshok.

This story is an unofficial but spiritual sequel to Past Sins and Scarred Hearts. Reading them is recommended, but not necessarily required.

On a rainy night, a particularly pink pony reads a seemingly cursed book and ends up evoking the wrath of a morbidly fat owl. There's also the other talking animals, questions about logic and suns but of course her involvement will change the course of the plot to something a little weirder.

(Something stupid I wrote when I watched Rockadoodle and a Pinkie Pie compilation back to back. Pure stupidery inside)

After a chance encounter with a bat species she's never seen before, Fluttershy gets bitten, and strange things start to happen. All normal food tastes foul to her, and instead, she thirsts for blood. As she slowly becomes more animalistic, her instincts heighten, and suddenly the feelings towards Rainbow Dash she'd been suppressing slowly begin to manifest. After a failed attempt to seduce her in order to feed, Rainbow Dash becomes committed to helping Fluttershy get well again while keeping her friend's dark affliction a secret.

Sunset Shimmer fled from Equestria in search of the destiny that Celestia sought to deny to her. She dreamed of finding great glory and power in a strange new world. But she emerged on the other side of the mirror in a harsh cruel world beset by demons and troubled by division, conflict and racial animus: the world of Remnant.

Now, years later, Sunset has completed her studies at Canterlot Combat School and is ready to attend Beacon Academy. She hopes that in the more progressive Kingdom of Vale her appearance as a pony faunus will not be held against her the way it was in Atlas, and she can rise as high as her talents permit and seize with both hands the destiny she still yearns for.

Sunset finds herself assigned to lead three fellow freshman at the Huntsman Academy: Jaune Arc, who dreams of becoming a hero elevated above all others; Pyrrha Nikos, a peerless warrior who has everything that Sunset wants and hates everything about it; and Ruby Rose, a simpler and more honest soul who simply wants to save as many people as she can, and who might just light the way to their salvation.

Together they are Team SAPR, and together they are plunged into a world of mysteries, magic, allies and enemies, robot girls and Atlasian black ops experiments. It won't be easy, but if they can work together, teach Jaune how to fight and maybe learn to get along as friends along the way, then they might just save the world.

Original Cover Art by Mix-Up
Current Cover Art by MRK50
Now with a TV Tropes page

Also with a Discord Server