//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13. What are you doing here? 
// Story: The Last of the Dark Ponies 
// by Askre 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 13

Princess Cadance descended from her flight as she came closer to Ponyville. Following her were a few pegasi guards which she soon dispatched to look for anyone who had escaped the curse, but had not been found by previous search parties.

She approached the huge energy shield that enveloped most of the town. Inside - every house, every street, from lamppost to carriage were encased in dark crystals. Cadance observed sadly the crystallized forms of the towns ponies that hadn’t escaped and were caught as they had fled.

“Luna?” she called. She saw no sign of the princess, but since the shield was still up, it was safe to assume she was still active.

“What are you doing here?” Luna appeared from behind Twilight’s castle, her eyes still glowing with power and still keeping herself afloat, careful not to touch the crystallized ground. The Lunar Princess flew over to where her niece was at the edge of her barrier.

“I came to see if I could help. My love and light magic has been effective against Sombra’s magic before,” Cadance explained and landed on the ground, frowning in worry as she observed Luna. The midnight blue alicorn was looking weary.

“Has Starlight gone to seek our enemy?” Luna asked.

“Yes, she’s headed north with four others. They should be arriving in the Crystal Empire in a few hours,” Cadance confirmed and for a moment glanced at the ground. She arched her brow, something didn’t match the description given to her by Starlight and the pegasi sister. There were no shadowy tendrils anymore trying to break through.

“Good. With my sister and the others trapped inside the castle and the curse on Ponyville, we are not in a good position… what are you looking at?” Luna had started talking but then noticed that the younger princess was scrutinizing the ground she was floating over.

“Based on what Starlight told me, I was expecting to see Sombra’s curse still trying to break free of your barrier, but there is nothing,” Cadance pointed towards the crystals.

Luna looked down for a moment, then turned so she could gaze over what she could see off the town. The princess glanced back at her niece, then much to Cadance’s shock, allowed herself to drop down to the crystal ground.

Cadance gasped and half expected her aunt to be immediately engulfed in crystal. She activated her magic and was prepared to immediately try anything to help her. Nothing happened, the two alicorns looked at each other with the same confused expression.

“I-I don’t understand.” Luna tapped on the ground. Then with a frown she turned off her horn and the energy shield slowly disappeared. Cadance was once again ready to immediately ready to use her own magic, this time to put up her own shield.

“The curse has stopped spreading. I was so busy maintaining the shield, I didn’t notice,” the Lunar Princess walked over to Cadance and turned, staring at the crystal-encased town, unsure.

“Let me try something,” Cadance said and for a brief moment looked around. Seeing a crystal encased pony, she changed the spell in her horn and sent a wave of love and light magic at it.

The crystals shattered and a mare emerged, gasping for air as she crumbled to the ground. Luna and Cadance immediately rushed over to assist her. The pony had a pink and dark blue mane and a cream-colored coat. On her flank were three pieces of wrapped candy.

“It’s alright, you are okay. Just breathe,” Cadance instructed the mare gently as the pony recovered from her imprisonment.

“What happened? Everything was turning to crystals…” the mare said, trembling like a leaf. Then she noticed who she was currently surrounded by. “Uh… your highnesses…”

“No need for formalities right now. You are safe. Princess Cadance has freed you from the spreading curse,” Luna told her, being as gentle in her tone as her niece was. Then she frowned a little. The mare looked familiar. “Wait a minute...Special Agent Sweetie Drops? Is that you?”

“Um…” Sweetie Drops fell silent, not quite expecting to be addressed by the title she had to abandon so long ago. “It’s kind of Bon-Bon now.”

“Oh right, my apologies. A lot has been going on. I just wasn’t expecting to see you here. However it is fortuitous that we have you here. Cadance has just demonstrated that the ponies can be freed from their cursed entrapment. We need a pony who does well under pressure to gather those that are freed into one place,” Luna explained and once again took in the whole of crystal Ponyville. “It might take a while.”

“And will not be easy. I already could feel it took a lot of magic just to free her and the curse looks much more concentrated the closer it comes to Twilight’s castle,” the Love Princess said while helping Bon-Bon to stand up.

Luna shifted her gaze towards the castle and already could feel that the dark magic was, as Cadance had said, much more potent and concentrated there. She sighed, having seen her niece free the pony, she had almost on instinct wanted to start at the castle.

“Easy or no, what I don’t understand is how it’s possible at all. Sombra knows of your love and light magic. Why would he make it possible to free them at all? Why has the curse stopped spreading?” Luna shook her head, then returned her attention to Bon-Bon, who was glancing nervously around. Then her eyes opened wide in realization. “Starlight won’t be able to get Sombra to stop any curse because there is no curse to stop!”

“She is also going there to free those Sombra captured. I also instructed her to try and send a magic message once they find his location before confronting him, just in case. We need to get to work,” Cadance reached to gently place a hoof on the older pony’s back.

“Yes… of course. The sooner we free everyone, the sooner we will have proper backup for Starlight and the others,” Luna nodded and took to the air along with her niece. “Agent… I mean Bon-Bon, be ready, we’ll start here at the edges and work our way inwards towards the castle.”

“What was I supposed to do again?” Bon-Bon called, looking very unsure and not quite certain that she was ready for anything.

“Gather those we free so they are not in the way and are safe in one location. If anything were to happen, we will be in a better position to protect them.” Luna shouted before she targeted the closest building with her magic.

The two alicorns set to work, blasting at the crystals with their magic. Bon-Bon ran around gathering any pony that was freed in the process. She chose to guide them just outside the town where the crystals had stopped spreading, figuring that was the safest place. The earth mare’s job did get easier with each one freed, as she could recruit help from those ponies who felt they could assist once they recovered from their crystal prison.

However, the work didn’t get easier for the princesses. As Cadance had feared, it took a lot of magic for every building and every pony they freed. As they inched closer towards the castle, it took even more and was that much harder. After doing this for roughly an hour, the alicorns dropped down to the ground, exhausted.

“Ponyville is bigger than I thought,” Cadance wheezed and glanced around.

“We will do this - even if we have to work all night at it,” Luna said with determination.

“You don’t think he did this just to delay us, do you?” the Love Princess looked at her aunt, frowning a bit. Luna gave her an uncertain look.

“He did say what he was doing had nothing to do with Equestria, according to Twilight that is,” the Lunar Princess mused thoughtfully. She turned to see where all the freed ponies were gathered. “So far, nopony looks injured, just shaken and afraid but, so far none has died.”

“But, nevertheless, he did strike at us and that cannot go unanswered,” she then said and slowly began flying again. “Come, the break is over.”

The princesses resumed their work. There was no sign of the curse restarting, so Luna allowed ponies to take shelter in houses that had been freed at the edges for the approaching night. Organizing that got easier once Mayor Mare was freed from her crystal prison and she immediately took over organizing the freed ponies, but with Bon-Bon as her right-hoof mare.

At one point Luna did have to take a long break, with Celestia trapped inside the castle, it was up to the Lunar Princess to both lower the sun and raise the moon to make way for nightfall. This took considerable effort, especially after spending hours removing the crystal curse and Luna was so exhausted after it that Cadance sent her to the newly freed town hall to rest bit.  They still hadn’t reached any of the hotels and other living areas were by now full of ponies whose houses hadn’t been freed yet.

Cadance finally had to stop herself when it was close to midnight - she was absolutely beat. The pegasi guards had long since returned from their search and they escorted the princess to the town hall to rest.

This is taking forever, we’ve haven’t even removed a quarter of this blasted curse, she thought and took one last tired glance over Ponyville before entering town hall.





Luna stoically walked across the floor in what looked like the throne room at Canterlot Castle. The princess knew she wasn’t in the castle, she apparently was in someone else’s dream. When she had gone to town hall, the alicorn had gotten the idea to more easily communicate with the ponies still trapped inside the castle, so she did what she usually did during the night -  dream walk.

“Sister,” she addressed the white alicorn standing and observing one of the many decorative windows in the throne room. This one in particular was the one depicting the victory over King Sombra when the Crystal Empire had returned from its own curse.

“Luna,” Celestia turned her head and smiled. “I had a feeling you would try and reach me this way.”

“How are you and the others doing?” the smaller princess asked, frowning in concern. Her sister sighed as she turned to face her.

“I managed to convince them to just go to sleep for now. We are trapped, but otherwise alright, surprisingly enough. The map room has been basically converted into a large crystal cavern with no escape. Once the concussion spell Sombra blasted us with wore off, we did try and do something, but the crystals just kept regenerating, too quickly for Twilight and me to make any proper escape route,” Celestia explained. “How are things on the outside?”

“The curse spread across Ponyville, but I managed to contain it before it spread further. However, it appears the curse has ceased and Cadance and I have started removing it. It is slow work - the closer to the castle we go, the harder it is to remove the crystals,” Luna told her. “I also sent Starlight to go search for Sombra. Cadance confirmed she has company with her.”

Celestia rubbed her muzzle as she thought this information over. This certainly was strange. It was almost like Sombra had no intention to harm them, this was starting to look more and more like a delay.

“If the curse has stopped spreading…” the Sun Princess dropped her hoof down and looked at Luna. “You and Cadance continue to free Ponyville. When Twilight and I wake up, I’ll see about making another go at freeing the castle from the inside.”

“What about Discord? Is he not also trapped with you?” Luna asked when remembering the chaos spirit.

“He actually can’t risk using his chaos powers surrounded as he is by dark magic, least he causes an explosion that will take out the castle and all of Ponyville with it. He will not risk harm to Fluttershy or a lesser extent, us,” Celestia explained, but then smiled a little. “But he and Pinkie Pie are doing an admirable job of keeping the morale up.”

Luna nodded. At least this confirmed that her sister and those in the castle were not in any immediate danger. That did put her mind at ease. Her worry over Celestia and the others had been affecting her focus and right now she needed all of it to more properly channel her magic to remove the curse.

“Before you go, could you locate Twilight’s dream? I am a little worried about her and though she’s assured me she is fine in the waking world, I am not very convinced. I believe she is more affected by this attack than she likes to admit,” Celestia then said.

“That was actually my intended next stop, I just wished to see you first,” Luna said and began to ascend into the air. The sisters smiled at each other. “A duty or not, you can’t blame your little sister for putting you first on the checklist.”

“I suppose I can’t. Now go.” The Solar Princess nodded and watched as her sister vanished from her dream. The window in the meantime had changed form. It now showed Sombra’s grinning head leering over all four princesses.

“You are not going to win,” Celestia said without even glancing at it.





The first thing Luna heard was a cruel echoing laughter, then as she materialized, the alicorn found herself at the top of the crystal tower in the Crystal Empire as it was slowly being corrupted by dark crystals. Outside the sky was a dark, sickly yellow and in the distance she could see dark clouds slowly approaching. In the center of the tower, big black crystal slabs surrounded the center. From within it she heard softs sobs.

Luna approached the slabs and looked inbetween the spaces. Sitting in the middle was Twilight, but the young princess didn’t have wings, she was a unicorn again.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Luna addressed her. Twilight looked up quickly and gasped when seeing her.  Tears were streaming down her purple cheeks.

“Princess Luna…” she whispered, then her eyes opened wide in shock when the Lunar Princess simply walked straight through the slabs as if they weren’t even there. “No wait. Don’t come in here, you’ll be trapped!”

“This is only a dream, Twilight,” Luna assured her, then she raised her head and her horn began to glow. A blast of magic issued from it, blinding Twilight for a moment. When she could see again, all the dark crystals were gone and the tower looked normal again. “But an apt one. Recent events are weighing heavily on you, are they not?”

Twilight looked down, her tears were still trickling down to the floor. Luna walked closer and gently reached with her hoof to lift the purple mare’s head so she would look at the princess.

“I failed. I had Pinkie move the party to the castle… he still could get them… then he trapped me in my own home… I…” Twilight sobbed and closed her eyes tight. Luna silently reached with her wings to wipe the tears off the younger pony.

“This reminds you of when you almost lost last time, does it not?” the Lunar Princess asked gently and lowered her hoof. A small whimper escaped the Twilight’s lips before she nodded.

“If Spike hadn’t been there…if he hadn’t insisted on coming with me…I would not have been able to get the Crystal Heart to Cadance. He would have won!” she cried and resisted the urge to drop down to the floor and cover her face in her legs.

“Twilight, I know it is difficult to feel so weak and powerless,” Luna raised her hoof again to place it on her own chest. “It is not a pleasant feeling.”

“W-what do you mean?” Twilight whispered. She knew of Luna’s many regrets, but had a feeling that wasn’t what she was talking about.

“As you know, I was jealous of my sister… that jealousy was my own and it was unfounded, however, that was enough for Sombra. He… got into my head back when Celestia and I were still just trying to talk him into letting go of the Crystal Empire. With just the right words and casual small talk, he built on my jealousy, the feeling of being weaker and less powerful than my sister. He inflamed my jealousy even as Celestia and I finally just banished Sombra into ice, but by then the damage was done,” the Lunar Princess sighed and regarded their surroundings. They could see the Crystal Empire in its full glory, with the shining houses and streets.

“When the empire vanished before our very eyes, it strengthened my feelings of being weak, pathetic, not powerful enough to save it from Sombra’s curse,” Luna looked at Twilight again. “And though you and your friends saved me from my own jealousy, I’m afraid Sombra’s vile words still had some effects. I still felt weak and pathetic. When the empire returned, I just wanted to rush over there to help protect it.”

“I didn’t see it at the time, but Celestia in her wisdom sent you and your friends instead of allowing me to go. She knew I would not be an asset. I would only be going there to prove myself. I would have been so eager, so insistent on charging straight for Sombra that I would probably have risked the entire plan, which was to protect the Crystal Empire first and foremost,” she continued. “Celestia knew that Sombra still had a hold on my mind, that he could easily enter it again and just fuel my feelings and force me to take some rash action that would play into his game.”

“How did you get over it?” Twilight asked, having listened entranced to Luna’s explanation. Her tears had slowly vanished as she got more invested in it. The young princess tilted her head when Luna chuckled softly.

“Do you not remember? You and your friends - nay, the entirety of Ponyville - did not just help me get over my regrets for my actions as Nightmare Moon when I was punishing myself with the tantabus. You all made me realize that even if one feels weak and powerless, We have others to draw strength from,” Luna told her, offering her a hoof. Twilight took it and rose. “Sombra draws his strength by preying on your fears and hatreds. But you Twilight, you get your strength from a different, stronger source - your friendship. You helped me realize that’s where I needed to overcome my own feelings of weakness.”

“Thank you, Luna,” Twilight sighed a little, but was now smiling. “I guess in my anger at Sombra for attacking us so brutally and then trapping me and my friends in my own castle, I lost sight of that.”

“It is easy to lose sight of it when your very home is attacked, but let me now give some good news,” Luna nodded and then proceeded to tell her what she and Cadance had been doing and then about Starlight.

“Starlight escaped? Oh, you have no idea what a relief it is to hear that!” Twilight exclaimed and let out a breath of relief. Then she blinked. “But she is going after Sombra? I… wasn’t…”

“I have been assured she has good support with her. Believe in your pupil, just like Celestia believes in you,” Luna quickly told her when seeing that the younger princess seemed to be about to have panic attack. Thankfully, Twilight quickly calmed down.

“Yes, yes of course. She can do this. She was even worse off when facing Queen Chrysalis. Yes, she can do this,” Twilight nodded, then noticed that Luna was beginning to ascend. “You’re leaving?”

“I have other nightmares and bad dreams to take care of before I must return to the waking world and continue assisting Cadance. When you wake up, talk with Celestia, she worries about you,” the Lunar Princess told her before fully vanishing, leaving Twilight behind in her dream.

End chapter 13