Dusk Shine, the greatest magician of the age. Princess Luna, the goddess of the moon. Both were in the forbidden section of Canterlots' library. On one hoof, Dusk was wide awake and looking at a tomb of great power. On the other, Princess Luna was... chained up in the middle of a circle of magic. Around three hours earlier, Dusk had given Princess Luna a rather strong concoction of sedatives and pain killers. Half a second later, Luna dropped like a sack of rocks. Apparently Alicorns aren't resistant to drugs. After drugging his "wife", Dusk had teleported them to the library section where he knew Twilight would pop in every now and then to sneak into the rest of the library. The problem was waiting for her to get there.
It had taken him roughly thirty minutes to draw the necessary Runes and line them up in accordance to what he was going to attempt to do. After that, all he had to do was heft the Lunar Princess into the circle and chain her down. The only down side to this sort of Circle was that it had to be performed like brain surgery. Only while the patient was awake and coherent. But such was life, and why he needed Twilight here.
The need to have someone here with a sense of empathy was critical to getting her to comply with the operation. The only problem was waking her up without causing her to destroy the Lab. As soon as Twilight wou-
"Hi Dusk! Guess wh-"
He whirled around to find Twilight standing in the doorway, astonishment painted across her muzzle. "Now, you will tell me why in the name of Tartarus you have an Alicorn tied down in that Circle or I will get Solaris down here and have him ream you about what you are about to do again."
After blinking a few times, Dusk cleared his throat and turned around to face her. "Well, Twilight, I would like to introduce you to Princess Luna... But she is currently in a drug induced sleep. She has a soul in her that has fragmented off of her psyche and had nearly caused the world to suffer from severe cold, sunlight deprivation and a few years of tyranny before we either killed her or died due to starvation. That soul fragment, much like how you did, became sentient and subverted her into granting her complete control. That fragment calls herself-"
"Nightmare Moon from the foals story, got a lady-boner from being near you and gave you a bit of a thump-thump problem in your chest cavity, and now you're trying to extract her from Princess Luna and give her a body made of Bio-simulcratic tissue and hide her away from everyone that would have you kill her." She cantered closer. "And now you need me to convince Luna not to kill us so you can do the operation and wipe her mind of this happening so you can call off the marriage and survive to tell your little buggy children that you have another day for them to talk to you." She shook her head. "Chryssie is not going to like this..."
Dusk nodded and turned back to the Circle, channeling magic through his horn before shooting Lunas sleeping form, causing her to jolt awake. After a few seconds, she began to fret and try to break the chains, pained grunts following after from the feed back from the Tartarus ring around her horn, sucking away the magic she tried to cast.
"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!? DUSK, THOU SHALT TELL US WHERE WE ART ELSE THOU SHALL BE-" Twilight swiftly smacked her with a hoof, surprising her enough to silence her.
"If you say the wrong thing, he will have to kill both of us!" the fake fear in her eyes nearly believable to Dusk, which meant that she had Luna in the cradle of her hoof. "The only reason why he has me here is to convince you to submit to the operation that he will be conducting in order to take the Nighmare out of you.”
Lunas eyes widened as she realized what had been said to her, fear roiling off her like water in a boiling pot. "W-what art thou saying? The Nightmare hath been defeated! We are free of her foul trickery! We felt her powers leave Us!"
Dusk trotted into the candlelight, his "Nightmare" form bleeding over his coat. "You mean this power?" Lunas heart nearly stopped beneath Twilights hoof, then promptly spiked as she began thrashing on the chains in earnest. Dusk shook his head, letting the magic wash away. "You don't have to fear me, I have had full control over myself ever since I had found that I had one when I had become your brot-sisters protege."
Luna was still panicky but was more confused that afraid. "H-how hath thou done that? Thou should be in Tartarus for using such magic!" She was shaking now, her fear winning but freezing her to the spot.
Dusk shook his head. "I have no heart to let the Darkness sway, both literally and metaphorically. Back in my school days, I was known as the Heartless. It's a familial curse."
Twilight sat down right next to Luna, making her flinch lightly. "If you go through with this, you will never have to fear becoming Nightmare Moon again."
She looked back to Dusk, hesitation clear across her muzzle. Just as she lifted her hoof towards him, the wall next to the door bust open, revealing the form of a griffin.
"I hope you don't mind me, I'm just here for the Heart." as the dust settled, they could see that the assailant was a skeletal Ghule, balefire burning in place of his eyes, the silvery glint of his claws flash in the light of the mage-light above. The griffin was faster than anything they had seen, seeming to blink in and out of existence and reappear with ease.
He slammed his knee into Dusks face, knocking out a few teeth along with knocking him out. after doing so he gave Twilight a swift crack on her head, rendering her unconscious as well. "Well well well, princess... you seem to be a bit, tied up!"
"Tamyriss! O-or Felix... I told you not to hurt them, you don't listen to me." a little blue filly Pegasus made her way into the room through the door, nervously trying to hide behind her cloak. "We just need to find the artifact that they stole from you and we can leave, and I remember telling you not to hurt any-pony!" she stomped her tiny little hoovsies, the only one flinching was Felix.
"I'm sorry, we really did need them to not be here though. And I know that I can't kill either of them without the other dying, and neither of them could die unless they both have a heart at the same time." He waved towards the rest of the room. "And they were going to hurt the princess anyway, and from what I can tell, they were planning to cut away part of her soul and erase the memory. Need I remind you how much it hurts to have part of your soul cut away?"
"Uh-uh, you just need to stop being so mean!" the tiny little 'dorable cute Pegasus filly made her way over to him in a little huff, her wings floofed out in her trying to be aggressive in her way. In her attempt to be more threatening she just made herself more adorable. After a few steps though, she bumped her little snoot on a book shelf, a cute little oof coming from her. "Feliiiix! I told you to tell me if I was going to bump into anything!" she began to tear up a little bit, rubbing her snoot, ready to begin crying. A few cracks forming on Felix's skull.
He winced and let go of Princess Luna, walking over to Night Shade and picked her up. "I'm sorry, I should have paid more attention to you. Do you want to hang in my rib cage again?"
"WHAT THE BUCK IS GOING ON HERE?!?" Princess Luna was obviously distressed from having woken up and not understanding her predicament, leading to the explosive response to the situation. she began to thrash her chains in earnest, the floor and chains groaning in response.
Felix gently placed Nigh Shade on the floor, slowly he closed the distance between himself and the princess. As he stood in front of her, Luna stopped thrashing and just began trying to get as far from him as her restraints allowed. "No nonono, Please leave me alone! GET AWAY FROM ME YOU MONSTER!"
Felix looked back at Night Shade, the little filly listening intently. "Nightshade, close your ears. I don't want you to hear this." as she fearfully complied, Felix looked back to the chained Alicorn. "You had Broken Note and his girlfriend rip part of my soul out to fuel your dream of taking over Equestria. I need that back now."
With a quick jab, he forced his claws into her ribcage and with an audible snap, brought out what appeared to be a shard of metal in the vague shape of a heart. Out of the hole in her chest poured a black liquid that quickly pooled into a drain that had been in the center of the room. in the corner of the room, the filly winced as the Princesses cries of agony bled through her feeble attempt to block out the sound.