Nightmare Moon groaned as she skidded across the ground, noting that she went very far despite not feeling too much of an impact. She didn't even want to think about where Discord had taken her to. Beyond the Gates of Tartarus, into the fabled realm of Erebus? To some ancient boneyard? No, something less cliché. Something that would truly confuse her, something that just might break whatever sanity she had left.
That's when she noticed something truly bizarre.
Her wounds were healing. Her magic was returning and even growing stronger. But that should be impossible. The only thing that could do that was...
Nightmare Moon's eyes shot open in horrified realization, taking in the barren and grey wasteland with the clear, black sky of stars above her. Slowly, shakily, she turned her gaze to one side and saw it: A small, blue and green orb in the distance.
She was on the moon, again.
Discord, the Spirit of Disharmony and Chaos, had thrown her through the Tree of Harmony to send her back to the moon.
"You know, I considered being funny about this," Discord said as he floated out of a shatter-shaped portal in a rock formation, which "repaired" itself as he exited it. Nightmare Moon just sat there, staring up in disbelief at the distant planet, "I could have sent you to another moon- I could have sent you to a world that doubled as a moon- but I am on a schedule, Moony," Discord explained casually, tapping an oversized sun-dial that was secured to his wrist like a watch. He raised an eyebrow and held it sideways, using it as a shield to block a blast from Nightmare Moon, "Did I hit a nerve?" He asked uncaringly.
"What schedule?" The Alicorn asked coldly, suppressing a tremble in her voice, "What reason could you have to bring me here, where I am strongest?! Are you that arrogant or do you just intend to repeat the punishment the Elements imposed upon me?!" She demanded, her armor healing as her body crackled with bits of blue lightning, the dust and rocks trembling around her.
"My, quite the ego," Discord commented casually, making her snarl, "I already told you: You're not getting off that easy. My finale for you won't mean as much if you pass out before your curtain call." He answered simply as he pulled the gnomon from the sun-dial, spinning it in the air before catching it to hold as if it were a weapon, "As for my schedule, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," Discord said with a chuckle.
"Tell me, Worm! Tell me now!" Nightmare yelled, her eyes unsteady with rage and madness.
"Very well. There's a little filly sleeping in Ponyville. I told her the sun would be up when she awoke," Discord answered with a small smirk.
"...What?" The Lunar royal asked with a narrowed gaze, "You mean to tell me that this is all for a young mare? Am I to believe this hogwash?" Nightmare Moon asked in disdain.
Discord hummed thoughtfully at that, "Hogwash. I like it," He said with a grin, swinging the pointer at her, "Engarde!"
Meanwhile
"Ow! Ow! Ow!"
At this point, Twilight wondered why she even bothered being confused by why Pinkie Pie was hitting herself with her own tail, "Is she...alright?" She asked to the others.
"I don't know, I've never heard of her Pinkie Sense doing this before," Rainbow Dash commented curiously while floating by Twilight, watching as Pinkie actually started to wrestle with her tail.
"Don't you get tired hovering there?" The unicorn asked with a raised eyebrow, "And what is a Pinkie Sense?"
"She, um, hovers a lot when she's on edge," Fluttershy supplied, almost too quiet to be heard. She privately wondered if she should feel sorry for the beating Pinkie and her tail were giving each other.
"It's a pegasus thing, dear," Rarity assured, "As for Pinkamena's other sense? It's a bit of a sixth sense that, so far, has never been wrong before."
Twilight stared for a moment "...How often-"
"About once a week at the least," Applejack answered, knowing where she was going.
"Then I'm filing that away for later," Twilight decided, noting that Pinkie Pie was panting with her tail waving a white flag, "So...what does your...Pinkie Sense, tell you, exactly?" She asked, obviously skeptical, but willing to believe most things for the moment.
"It's telling me everything!" Pinkie Pie answered loudly in frustration, "First it tells me to run away, then it tells me nothing is wrong, next it's telling me to take cover, then to save someone from falling things and now it's just cursing me for getting us into this mess..." She said in exasperation before putting on a grin, "Then we wrestled, I won, we made up, and I might have dislocated something! Unfortunately, we destroyed all my secret stashes of sweets, but my secret-secret stashes are safe...once I find them again," She explained with a sigh.
"...That makes no sense, but I think the weirdness of the day actually made that sound coherent in comparison," Twilight muttered blankly, frowning as she looked around, "Discord is taking a while...," She mused.
"Well, it IS a castle, Dear," Rarity pointed out offhandedly, "I imagine there must be a lot of hiding places."
"I don't know, something doesn't feel right," Twilight commented idly.
"That fella didn't look right," Applejack commented, "Seriously, Twilight, I'm not one to judge, but...what was he?"
"A draconequus," Twilight answered bluntly.
"...Wait, so that's a dragon-pony hybrid?" Rainbow asked in surprise.
"Nopony really knows. He's one of the great mystery of the ancient world, a creature that defies all known laws of magic and logic," Twilight answered with a shrug, "Up until now, I thought he might have been a myth..."
"...Dang, seems like all the legends are coming out to brawl," Rainbow commented with wide eyes.
"Thankfully, he seems to be on our side," Twilight mused with a frown.
"...Okay, now I know what's wrong," Applejack commented in realization and suspicion, "I don't hear nothing."
Pinkie Pie let out a gasp at that, "Jackie! You're deaf? But who will sing apple songs with me!" Pinkie declared in despair.
"Not like that, Pink," Applejack said with an eye roll, looking to Twilight, "Funny looking or not, that fella didn't seem like the quiet type."
Twilight furrowed her brow at that, "You're right. I would have expected some ominous call out echoing through the entire castle by now or something to that effect. And if he found her, we would definitely hear it," She mused, stroking her chin.
"Ummm, g-g-girls?" Fluttershy called nervously from a window, "Y-you might want to see this," She suggested as they raced over to her.
Their jaws hit the floor.
Nearly half of the moon was covered in a rather disgusting shade of brown that just seemed to ooze across its surface.
"...Please, please tell me that isn't what I think it is," Rarity said, looking like she wanted to vomit.
"Nah, nah, that's...mud, maybe?" Rainbow suggested.
"Huh...almost looks like Pig swill," Applejack commented with a head tilt, blinking as she saw a little flash of something on the moon, "Y'all see that?"
"Well, I guess we know where they went," Twilight said numbly as they saw several more sparks flashing across the moon's surface, trying to wrap her brain around this.
Meanwhile
Discord grinned as his draconic foot caught the charging Nightmare Moon, the tip of her energy covered horn trying to cut his scales, but the force of their clashing magics kept the lance-like appendage from reaching its mark. The meeting of the two powers sent waves of hogwash scattering away from them as Nightmare desperately tried to overtake the wickedly grinning Discord.
The thunderclap of their clash finally came to an end as Discord sliced at her with his gnomon-sword. Nightmare growled as she was forced to jump back, only to be promptly hit with the dial-shield. She gritted her sharp teeth, the blow having such force that she had to dig hooves into the grey soil beneath her, cracking it upwards around her as stopped her momentum.
"Getting serious?!" Nightmare called to the now-distant Discord, twirling his odd weapon merrily.
"Never!" He answered in mock-indignation as he threw the dial like a disk, hurtling towards her head.
Nightmare looked horridly unimpressed, ducking under the object with ease. She smirked, only to sigh as she saw Discord was gone, "I...really should have seen that coming," She realized just before finding herself grasped by the head, Discord slamming her face-first to the ground and putting more than his full weight on her as the lunar soil cracked beneath them. With a growl of defiance, she strained her head back, seeing that he was mockingly holding her in place with just his draconic foot. In fact, he looked like he was balancing on her with one limb.
A blast from her horn as she struggled to get loose impacted with his sun-dial-turned-shield, obliterating the top third off, "Well, there goes your share! And look, you took out 4:30 to 9:10, some of my favorite times!" He scolded with an indignant scowl as he slammed her head against the wet and brown-strained ground again. In the same motion, he slammed the sun-pointer down, embedding the end at either side of the Alicorn's neck and pinning her under it.
He chuckled in wicked amusement as she tried and failed to teleport out or turn into mist. His foot still grasping her head and his cloven hoof standing on her rump, he casually held his damaged shield sideways...and pulled it open down the sides, revealing a pizza inside, or two-thirds of one at least, "Shame, I was saving this for our reunion with Celly," He mused casually as he pulled out a pink cheese slice with strawberry glass and broccoli shaped like monkey brains, not at all bothered by her struggling beneath him, "Mmm, a bit tough on the crust, but still good. Suppose I could give the rest to those mares back at the castle."
"You fool, what do you think this will accomplish?" Nightmare asked with an almost desperate smirk, "Even if you beat me, even if you win, so what?! What do you think will happen? Celestia has probably crafted twenty different spells to seal you away over the centuries and she would see you in stone again before she'd consider letting you stay out to use ponies as your playthings once more!" Nightmare Moon roared.
"My, what a mouth you have. I guess some things never change," Discord mused absently, munching loudly on his pizza slice, "Tell me, Prommare? What is the point of this, really?" He asked in idle curiosity.
"What?" She asked in annoyance.
"The point of it, my dear. I know I normally don't have one, but you ponies love to have them. I mean, really, I never got that about you," Discord said, taking the Thinker position. He would have floated up, but he didn't want to get off her just yet, "Sure, you weren't everypony's favorite princess, but you still had command over the kingdom. Celestia might not approve of everything, but she truly wouldn't have opposed her little sister's wishes as long as they didn't harm any of your subjects."
"I don't expect you to understand, Monster," Nightmare said coldly.
"Ahh, the reply of those that have none," Discord said with a self-satisfied chuckle, "Here's a riddle for you, Lulu: Does the Nightmare wear the Moon or the Moon the Nightmare?"
"What?" Nightmare asked with a seething tone.
"Oh, nothing important," Discord answered dismissively as he closed the stone pizza box before tossing it out into space like a Frisbee. They stayed like that for a moment, Nightmare Moon glaring up at him while he just floated smugly, "Anital atcid is aroitrof atcid ainmo," He commented offclawedly, smirking at her.
Nightmare Moon blinked in confusion. A foalish mistake.
"Have you even bothered to look at yourself?" Discord asked with a smirk, the hairs of his tails extending and tangling around her, "Your wounds are healed, your armor restored, your magic surging and your power restoring as fast as you use it," He informed, smirking as she turned into a mist to escape him, his tail hairs shrinking back with the sound of a kazoo orchestra.
She reformed behind him, firing a high powered beam at him. The beam hit straight through him, making a small, fifty foot deep hole in the ground, "What's your point?" She asked with a glare, not at all bothered that the top and bottom halves of Discord were floating with a good chunk missing between them.
Discord spit into his paw and claw, rubbing them together before rubbing over the missing section of his body, which reappeared as his hands moved over the vacant air, "My point? Weren't you listening? I'm Discord, I don't need a point that isn't my tooth. But my point regardless is that your break is over," Discord explained casually as he snapped his claws, the noise echoing in the vastness surrounding them.
Nightmare tensed, waiting for something to happen or appear...and waited...and waited. Eventually, she raised an eyebrow as Discord looked at the nonexistent clock on his arm, "Well?" Nightmare asked with an edge to her voice.
"Could you take about three steps to your left?" Discord requested politely with a head tilt.
Nightmare, giving him a blank stare, took three steps to her right and two back to be safe...
BOOOOOOOM!
Discord, now wearing sunglasses, licked a lollipop in his mouth as he watched the wave of purple-grey magic expand in all directions from the point the Night Alicorn had been standing. He chuckled as he approached the epicenter, the swill dissolving everywhere he walked, and found exactly what he was expecting: A giant safe with a bottom back corner embedded in the ground. He whistled around the lollipop as he turned the lock dial, his wrist turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees.
With a pop, the lock opened and revealed the contents; crammed inside was an upside down and very disoriented Nightmare Moon, groaning with unfocused and comically spinning eyeballs, "Next stop, Ponyville," Discord commented as he jammed the lollipop in her muzzle and slammed the door shut. He raised his fist up and brought it down towards the safe...stopping just short of hitting it before knocking ever so gently.
The impact made the ground groan as it gave out, the safe falling into an empty blackness beneath the surface, the hole quickly piecing itself back together as an Alicorn's scream rang through the void.
The God of Chaos laughed to himself as he stood on the now Black Moon, looking up towards his handiwork: The night sky was now pure green with stars of pink and purple. The Pig Swill, meanwhile, had evaporated into a near solid mist around the moon, giving it a pink halo that reflected a faint orange light. The clouds back on the planet were now sky-blue, just for a bit of reversal fun.
"Hmm, not bad for only half-trying," Discord mused proudly.