The world dissolved around her. Hayden felt the ground lifting up and away from her hooves. The ponies all around her dissolved into the nothing, and all the world was unmade. The great keep of Icefalls cracked and came up into the air in tiny pieces, followed by little chunks of stone that were the buildings. What her terrible storm hadn’t destroyed to keep the griffons at bay for a few minutes more, now crumbled away
It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream.
Then she saw something stable. Princess Luna appeared beside her, neither standing nor floating. There was no ground anymore, no planet, nothing but an endless void.
“Is this the end of the world?” Hayden asked. Her voice stretched and fractured near the end, splitting in two. There was her own sound, the one she was used to. Then there was a lower, more masculine voice. The person she’d been before. There was no sun here, but even so she could see her shadow splitting in two. No. I’ve seen this before.
“Not yet.” Princess Luna pointed past her, up into the air with one hoof. Hayden followed her leg, and saw that what she’d thought was a sky was the massive, spectral pony. It seemed to be getting smaller now, but not weaker. It was compacting itself, the darkness spiraling deeper and deeper into oblivion. It reminded her a little of Luna’s mane, except the place this creature led to wasn’t one Hayden wanted to see.
Hayden reacted on instinct, the same way she had the last time. She brought Achelois into her hands. Hands… she was standing on two legs. She’d been in this strange amalgamated body before, only this time she was even more pony. Her feet ended in stumps, she wasn’t taller than Luna, and her fingers felt stiff. Her wings and tail were still there, and she was naked. She couldn’t tell whether she was male or female, and didn’t really want to look.
“I think your sword can kill it,” Hayden said, holding it out to the princess. “Last time, when I was… I called the sword to me, and used it to kill the demon. I bet you could do it even easier.”
“Okay.” Luna shivered, taking the sword in her magic. Despite Hayden’s strange body, she found the princess looked even less confident. The demonic figure was approaching pony size now, its darkness so compact that it almost seemed solid. Except that instead of one shadow, it had thousands, each one of them a vague pony outline that bent a different way. Every one of them looked to be in agony.
Then it spoke. Its voice was so much larger than the one Hayden had heard from inside her own soul. “Equestria has been waiting for me. I have arrived at last.”
“You are not welcome here.” Princess Luna strode forward towards the monster, and with her will a full suit of armor appeared around her. It looked strange, a silvery metal that reminded Hayden a little of the sword. Whatever that is, I want it.
Then she had it, a paper-thin silver chain with light plates over her most vulnerable parts. And it came with clothes, which didn’t go unwanted. Can I just… She conjured herself her own sword, shaped exactly like Achelois. But she felt none of the heft in her hand when she moved it, none of the same weight. She heard no whispers in her mind promising to end suffering. It’s just a prop. It’s pretend.
Her hands still felt better gripped around it. She only hoped she could swing as well with them. Unicorn fighting styles had quick movements that never would’ve worked if the sword was in an arm.
“Equus has rejected what you offer,” Luna said, a little more confidently. “Return to the abyss that birthed you. We have no argument with you.”
The pony stalked around them, perhaps ten feet tall. It spread its batlike wings, bore its dark fangs, and Hayden saw only oblivion in its eyes. “That is not true, Princess. You may lie to those you call friends. You may lie to your family, and your teachers, and your servants. But you cannot lie to me. I’m the one you called here. It was your voice that brought me to Equestria. It was in your image that I was created.”
“No.” Luna wilted, the sword sinking a little in her magical grip. She backed away from the creature, glancing about her like a cornered animal. “You’re lying. That’s not true. I didn’t want you!”
“Why would I lie to you?” the voice asked. “The truth is so much more powerful. You didn’t think your subjects loved you. You didn’t think your sister cared. You wanted someone who could change you, isn’t that true?”
“And I got Hayden!” Luna practically shouted. “She was the one I called, not you!”
“You did,” Hayden said, resting her empty hand on Luna’s shoulder. She was just barely tall enough to reach. “I’m the one she was looking for. I’m the one who came for her. Not a monster like you.”
“A monster like her,” argued the voice, as neutral as it had been before. “You know the truth, Princess. You know that the ritual Star Swirl gave you was the second one you used to call for help. We both know where your daemon got my touch. From you.”
Princess Luna practically melted. The sword sunk in her magical grip, its blade falling so low it would’ve scraped against the ground if there was any.
“You’re lying! Princess, she’s lying! It’s obvious what she’s doing to you, stop listening! We can kill her, together!”
The pony stopped, feet away from Hayden. Its body looked even more disturbing close up, a roiling sea of molten tar. “You cannot kill what never lived, human. Sleep is only permitted to the spirit, and I am far more than that. I am an eternal truth, an endless star. I am the order to the chaos of organic life. I am the darkness between the stars, I am the gradient beyond which no energy can be exchanged. Others like me may lie, but I do not. I only speak the truths you do not want to hear.”
The creature leaned closer to her, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Hayden never lived. He was only a dream—a dream Luna conjured from her soul in the memory of a great man. A better man than you could ever hope to be, because he existed and you never did.”
Hayden flinched, her hands digging tighter into the sword. She didn’t move, didn’t look away from the monster. Tried not to think about its words.
“How easily did you adapt to life here, Evening Star? How quickly did you forget you had ever been male? Princess Luna doesn’t know how a male would really feel, so it was only the discomfort she gave you. How quickly did you learn to walk, to fly? How easily did you share her abilities? And yet you still clung to the artifacts she conjured, as though those proved you were real. She made a body for you, so why not objects from the world of man?”
The demon laughed again, surrounding them. The glow had paled to a distant flicker, and there was none of it left for them. “A real human would have won this war. Real humans don’t give up. They don’t permit failures. Real humans kill with impunity and destroy all that they touch. The order it took ten thousand years to bring to Equestria will come to their world in a decade. But you will not ever see it, because you never have.”
Liar. It’s all lies. I know I’m real, I’ve always been real. Hayden thought back, but digging so far into her memories was hard. His family had been dead before he got here, only child of two parents who had passed away while he was still in high school. She’d worked as a contractor, served in the military, gone to school. She’d become an architect, found herself a place in a good firm… her memories were there. However faded, however hard to reach after her time in Equestria. Some things had remained.
“You can’t lie to me,” she said, more confidently than Luna had. “You can’t lie to us. Princess, use the sword! Kill it, and we can save Icefalls… or the ponies, anyway. We’ll save them!”
Princess Luna’s expression had gone dark. Her coat looked like it had lost most of the color, and her mane had faded to simple blue. She was muttering something to herself, but Hayden couldn’t hear it. Achelois looked like it was rusting along its surface, a thin spiderweb of red that spread gradually from that central point.
“Celestia came back for us!”
That did it. Princess Luna blinked, opened her eyes, and lifted the sword back into the air. The layer of rust crumbled away to ash, and the sword looked brighter than ever.
The demon-pony attacked. Its body didn’t remain together, but exploded into a thousand dark tendrils. Princess Luna lowered her horn and light shone from all around them.
The figure vanished in a flash, shot out into the dark sky around a ruined Icefalls.
Princess Luna dropped to one knee, staring up after it. Her horn smoked, and Achelois glowed faintly blue in her magic.
“That’s it?”
“No.” Luna extended one wing, touching Hayden briefly on the shoulder. “It’s so powerful, Hayden. I can feel it… I can feel it clawing into my mind. And if it doesn’t… if we win, all we do is set it loose on Equestria.”
“And we kill it in Equestria!” Hayden could see the darkness growing above them. A moon of blackness appeared in the featureless sky, sinking rapidly towards them. The scale seemed to defy her understanding, impossible to take in with just her eyes. “Celestia will be there, I’ll be there! Avalon, everypony else. We’ll win!”
“Not like this we won’t.” Princess Luna lowered her voice to a whisper. “But I think I know how you could.”
Hayden shook her head, feeling tears streaming away from her eyes. No, not now. Not after everything. We’re so close.
It seemed like the princess could hear her thoughts. “She could never give up an Alicorn. I’m what she really wants, a host. Outsiders… they want one thing more than all others—stability. Nothing’s more secure than an Alicorn. If I accept her… then she’ll be in one place. You can kill me, trap me, whatever it takes.”
Hayden raised her sword again. “No! Fight with me, Luna! There are some things you just can’t do! It doesn’t matter the cost, we can’t let her win!”
Luna pushed the sword away, pulling Hayden into a hug with her wing. She squeezed her against her fur, just once. “You showed me a better way, Hayden. If it wasn’t for you… I think she might’ve had me. I would really be the monster she wants. Thank you.”
“No!” Hayden screamed louder, shoving the princess away with both hands. Her sword was gone, her armor was gone, and yet she didn’t care. “Luna, don’t! We’ll find another way! Celestia, Star Swirl… somepony will know what to do! Or… at least let me do it! I’m the one who doesn’t matter. You’re the one who belongs here.”
The princess only shook her head, taking off into the air. “Your power wouldn’t tempt her. You’re a spell, a traveler without her own connection to this world. But I’m not.”
Princess Luna rose into the air, turning to a blur as she accelerated towards the dark creature. “I accept your offer, Outsider! Give me the power to take what I deserve!” She didn’t sound like she meant it. But the demon didn’t seem to care. It swelled all around her like the tide, and all of Hayden's world was consumed.
Princess Luna was swallowed in its power.