I stared at the other me, my horn sparking and flaring as I drew power to it.
She started laughing. “A world where everypony is equal?” she mocked me. “Limbo? You should have waited for your princess friends, or better yet, that pitiful draconequus. What do you think you can do? I have the power of dozens of you and decades of experience.”
I smiled, keeping the power blazing bright as I saw a blot of darkness grow closer from beyond her.
“Me?” I asked innocently. “I’m not planning on doing a whole lot. I’m just keeping the gate open. She, on the other hoof, might want to have some words with you.”
Dark Starlight sneered. “That is such an old trick,” she snorted. “You really expect me to look…”
”FOOLS!” the voice of the Pony of Shadows roared as it approached. ”You have sealed your own doom and allowed me my way out of this torturous prison.”
It wasn’t the same as it had been on the fateful day that had started this odd confrontation. It now held a much more mareish shape and the obvious influence of Nightmare Moon was all over, stars flicking into being and dying out along the length of its mane and tail. But I saw on its back a pair of midnight wings, wholly physical and midnight in hue, weakly flapping as though to pull away from it.
My reflection stared at the being and took a few steps away in shock. “What have you done?”
I smiled sweetly and leaped onto her back, wrestling with her. My hoof touched the clasp of the amulet and it popped open for a second before I was wrenched away. But in that moment, I felt an invasive touch worm it’s way into my mind, and I understood some of how it worked.
She whirled to me, ignoring the still approaching Nightmare of Shadows. “You still think you can beat me?” she shouted, face furious. But her eyes had returned momentarily to their regular hue, and confusion crossed her face.
“Where am I?” she asked before the red seeped back in and her imperious look returned.
“The amulet is controlling you, Starlight,” I said. “You aren’t in control of your actions anymore. It’s making you commit these attacks. You are stronger than it is, fight it!”
The red seeped out again, and I saw a face like that of a frightened filly.
“Please,” she whispered in an equally soft and young voice. “Help me.”
But the Nightmare was upon us now, and the influence of the Alicorn Amulet surged back into being. “Fool!” she cried. “I’ve absorbed dozens of unicorn’s magic and I’ll take yours as well!”
The Nightmare paused before bursting out in laughter. “Pitiful little foal,” it hissed, towering over us. It grabbed us both in it’s magic and lifted us to eye level. From this vantage I could see the dim outline of Luna in its back. I started memorizing the position as my double started her egotistical - and predictable - demands.
“You have no idea of whom you are dealing with,” she snarled before spitting in the eye of the being that held us. “I am Starlight Glimmer, the eventual ruler of the land!”
“You are not in your land,” the Nightmare rumbled. “You are trapped, just as I am. But with your magic along with that of the princess, I can now escape.”
I readied my magic, eyes locked on the flittering wings. If I knew my old temper as well as I thought…
Dark Starlight blasted the Nightmare in the face with a large crimson beam, ripping part of its head off. As it’s magic grip weakened, I teleported forward to just by the wings and grabbed onto them, pulling with both hooves and magic, and slowly, Luna’s head emerged.
“Luna!” I called as her ears started to twitch. “You’ve got to fight it, we don’t have a lot of time!”
Her gaze was weary. “I shall try, but ware, for its durability is beyond what we thought.”
I glanced up and saw the head healing. Amazingly, the giant gouge that the other me had carved out of it was rapidly filling in, eyes, crest, and horn all that remained to regenerate. I redoubled my efforts, dragging Luna’s front hooves out and clearing the front half of her barrel.
“Simpleton!” The Nightmare howled as its horn started to coalesce. “I shall crush you for your impertinence!”
Another crimson beam shot up, tearing off an ear.
“Who is it that aids you, Starlight Glimmer?” Luna asked tiredly as we struggled to get the rest of her body out.
“Myself,” I said, tucking under her barrel and shoving up. “After a fashion.”
Luna frowned but pulled a back hoof out and we began to work on her other leg, when the Nightmare spun its head around and stared at us.
“She cannot escape me as easily as you believe,” it said, horn starting to glow with it’s magic and I realized the error I had made. It would feel as its host began to break free and would have no compunctions blasting an interloped from its body. What was a minor wound to a being of magic?
Black tendrils started to snake up Luna’s legs as a deep throated chuckle seeped out of its mouth. “Maybe I should envelop you as well,” it mused. “You seem to hold a lot of power yourself.”
That was the point when another crimson shot tore through its neck.
“I’m not done with you,” I heard my double shout. “Don’t ignore me as though I’m nothing!”
Luna tore free from the tendrils as they dissipated. She rose to her full height and we both leapt from its back. I was amazed at the look of the Alicorn, her body no longer the taught specimen she had been in my memories. She looked as though she had been suffering from a wasting disease, her muscles lax and her skin loose. That she could even fly was a miracle.
“I hope you brought more help than a single filly, Starlight Glimmer,” Luna said tiredly, watching as the slowly shrinking Nightmare charged after a teleporting copy of me. “For even my power wasn’t enough to dispel the evil intelligence contained within that otherworldly mind.”
“I’m not planning to take it on,” I said, horn starting to power up again. “I’m planning on using it.” I turned to her. “Your sister is waiting for you. You should go see her.”
“What about you?”
“I have to have a little talk with myself,” I said. “And I’m not sure how it’s going to go. But she’s made a mess of the world on the other side of the rift. I can’t let her escape.”
Luna looked at me. “You intend to trap her in Limbo and battle her unto the end?”
I shook my head. “No.” I looked at her as my magic began to shape the spells I needed. A third Starlight slid out of my body as the Similo Duplexis spell ignited. “I intend to end this by any means necessary,” I said with both voices, the strange sense of the other me in the background of my mind. “I know how to get through to her, I hope.”
Luna nodded. “As you wish, Starlight,” she said. Her horn lit and she removed her chain of office, the only piece of regalia she still wore and lowered it over my head. “I know not if that shall aid you, but I wish you luck.”
I began to weave Accelaro into the network of spells I already had going and oriented my thoughts on the battling duo as Luna limped her way towards the opening that was beginning to squeeze closed as my attention from keeping a thread of mana flowing out of it faltered slightly from having so many things going on at once.
I looked at my simulacrum. While she worked off my subconscious, she was just as much a clone of me as a golem. She looked back at me and brushed a hoof along her nose.
“Let’s do it,” she agreed, turning back and scraping a hoof along the strangely invisible but tactile ground in Limbo.
“Last one there has to reorganize Twilight’s library,” I said. “No magic.”
She grinned. “You’re on.”
And we sped towards the battle, Accelaro helping me cross the distance in mere moments. I skidded to a stop and started blasting the Nightmare as well, flickering back and forth thanks to my speed spell to avoid being hit by wild shots from my evil twin or stomped upon by our nemesis.
I wound up standing next to Dark Starlight for a moment when we both hit it in the same spot, shearing a deep gouge through its barrel.
“I assume you freed your precious Princess Luna?” my counterpart sneered as we kept an eye on the Nightmare’s regeneration. It was already moving slower than the initial hurts it had taken, and it was smaller. It still towered over us, but less so now.
“She’s out, yes,” I said, horn still glowing as it kept Accelaro going and a battle spell on a hair’s trigger. I sensed my duplicate coming up on us.
The Nightmare roared, and we both unleashed spells on it. The giant of shadows and malice stumbled backwards, struggling to regenerate again. As an arrogant chuckle slipped from the throat of my evil self, my duplicate leapt forward. I body checked Dark Starlight, distracting her and wincing from the tender rib I jostled.
She turned at me, horn blazing again, an angry glare on her face.
And my duplicate slammed into her, hooves hitting the catch of the amulet and pulling it off.
“NO!” she screamed, reaching for it as I grabbed it with my magic, speeding away as I let the duplicate spell go.
And the Nightmare hit her with a blast that flung her across the dark landscape of Limbo.
I looked at the Alicorn Amulet, breathing hard. I could feel the temptation to slip it on and use it to destroy both my twin and the Pony of Shadows, to step out and take my place at the side of Twilight and Sunset.
I forced it down, and merely held the amulet in my magic as I sped back and behind the Pony of Shadows. All signs of Nightmare Moon were gone, and it only vaguely resembled a pony now. As it loomed before me, now merely twice as tall as Celestia, Twilight, and Sunset now stood. I teleported into the air, my flight spell activating as I wove together a spell similar to the one I used once upon a time to bottle my anger.
The amulet was the container, and the malevolent being below me was the anger.
I saw a weakened mint green blast stagger it, and I used that moment to attach the siphon spell to the amulet.
With a horrid screech that made my ears pin against the sides of my head, the Pony of Shadows started to distort, being pulled towards the hovering amulet. It elongated, looking like a balloon-artist inflating the first balloon. The screaming died as the head was fully pulled into the amulet.
I landed on the ground, my horn starting to ache from the constant pull of mana. I watched as the amulet hovered in my grasp, the last bits of the Pony of Shadows being pulled into it.
I pulled the amulet down as the siphon ended, and felt it just barely land on my hoof when a blast of magic hit me broadsides, sending me sliding across the ground. I struggled to my hooves, feeling the whipping winds of the rift fluttering my mane again.
My duplicate stared at me, hatred and malevolence evident on her face.
“Give that to me,” she gritted. There were red spots along her coat from where the fight had caused grazes from the Nightmare.
I gripped it in my hoof and looked at her with a confident smile.
“You want it?” I asked. “Come and claim it.”
I dropped it on the ground and covered it with a shield crystal spell. I knew now that while she might be a little stronger, she was still a one trick pony. I, on the other hand, had months of practice and training and sparring with Twilight that had expanded my repertoire. It evened out the playing field, but all she had to do was score a solid hit on me to end it, and I felt my magic starting to sputter as I focused on keeping the rift open from the inside, lock down the amulet, and trade blasts with my dark self.
“You know you can’t win,” she panted as we stared at each other.
“I don’t have to,” I panted back. “I just have to keep you at a stalemate.”
“So, an eternity of conflict, then?”
I shook my head, but I felt a warmth in my chest, like my mana was suddenly flooding back into me. I saw my twin take a step back, her horn dimming for a moment.
“What…”
I looked down, and Luna’s chain of office had started to glow, runes appearing on its circumference. I felt the warmth start to turn into a blinding heat, and light suddenly spread across Limbo, driving some of the darkness back.
I stalked forward, suddenly emboldened. I grabbed Dark Starlight in my magic and pulled her forward while I rushed forward, hoof connecting with her jaw. She slumped and in her eyes, I saw a reflection of my image.
A nimbus of light had blossomed around me, and it had taken the form of an Alicorn.
I grabbed her again, and flung her through the rift. I took up the amulet and looked at it for a moment before flinging it as hard as I could away from the rift.
I returned to the land of Equestria, and shut the rift. Dark Starlight was staggering back to her hooves, a look of incredulity on her face.
“How?” she grunted.
“You got me,” I said. “But right now, you and I have a promise to keep.”
I started pulling all the mana in the pendant, opening a rift in time.
“You wanted to see time magic,” I said as I scanned my timeline. I locked on the point in time I wanted.
As we were hauled into the time vortex, I smiled grimly at her.
“And I promised to show you a world where ponies were equal.”
We fell out of the vortex, and dust puffed up as we landed. I looked around as the time rift closed, bits of pain filtering through my mind.
The Wastelands from the alternate future caused by my tampering with the Rainboom looked just as horrid and frightening as it had the first time I had seen it.