//------------------------------// // Chapter 61: Her Nightmare // Story: Luna is a Harsh Mistress // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Magpie crouched low as they neared the extreme edge of the cavern, where long ago a ritual combat arena had marked the place for many creatures to fight and die. She had stood in those stands and watched as Nightmare’s champion died at the sword of a helpless old scholar. She’d seen a mountain of “rebel” ponies slaughtered at the order of the final Lord Commander. But in the years since, the arena had fallen into even greater disrepair. Gravity disc was less interesting to most creatures than rover-racing, and even those who played had the new dome arena. The arena was packed with pallets and boxes of raw materials, apparently meant to renovate the area. One section of the stands was already dismantled, with a motorized digger and several piles of work lights spread around it.  In the center of the arena was nothing at all related to gravity disc, however. There were far fewer bodies than the last time something terrible had happened here, though in a way this was still much worse. Maybe Nightmare had chosen this specific location for a reason. All that death, all in one place… A platform rose near the center of the arena, where it wouldn’t be visible to creatures passing in the gloom on either side. Magpie caught it only by the glow of the active spells around it, harsh green and blue against her eyes. A crowd gathered around the platform, composed of the very same sorts of creatures that Silver had once rallied. The downtrodden and the dispossessed—ponies with threadbare cloaks and makeshift weapons. At least there aren’t as many of them this time. We aren’t talking about two thirds of the city.  “I count fifty,” the princess whispered, crouching low behind the digging machine. “I don’t know which of those is the Voidseekers. But the compass points powerfully into this assembly.” Goldleaf hefted the rifle over his shoulder, pointing towards the stands. “If you give me a moment, Princess. There isn’t another constable with better aim than me. I’ll watch your back.” Luna fixed him with a furious glare, though her voice never grew any louder. “Very well, pony. But do not reveal us before I do, or I will leave you to their mercy.” He nodded grimly, then slung the rifle over his shoulder and vanished into the gloom. “Princess?” Solar Wind asked, confused. “What was he talking about?” “Later,” Magpie said. “This isn’t the time, Solar Wind, not if you want to walk away from any of this. Maybe just keep your nose down and try not to get killed.” “Already planning on it.” She retreated a step, camera still in one claw. “I’ll try to help you two if I can, but I’m way better with a pen.” “If you lend any assistance at all, it will be more than we expected.” Luna turned back to Magpie. “What about you, thief? Will you flee as well?” She answered by flicking the guard open on her holster, exposing the dagger within. “I’m not as good as any of them. But I’m better than nothing.” “That.” Luna nodded slightly. “And I suspect they will not be aware of the properties of your modified body. If we are lucky, Nightmare will act based on its assumptions long enough to give us the advantage.” “Or you’ll just kill them on your own,” Magpie said ruefully. “I thought only Penumbra was a better fighter than you.” The princess shrugged. “Better than I was. We’ll see how much of that ability I’ve retained.” She looked up, staring at the bleak stone ceiling. “You’ll never believe this, but I wish my sister were here. I suspect we might be fighting on the same side for once.” Then the shouting began again, startling Magpie back to reality. Sundown was coming—they were running out of time. “Good luck!” Solar Wind whispered, before ducking into the gloom in a different direction from where Goldleaf had gone. Hopefully not to get her throat cut by a Voidseeker. But with so many other creatures around, how could they possibly tell who was on their side? “Creatures of Moonrise!” boomed a voice, echoing with magical force through the cavern. They would probably hear it in the nearby skytowers too. “Gather and listen, for the time of your ascension is at hand!” Without a word, the two of them pulled up their cloaks, advancing towards the crowd. There were enough creatures still coming in from all sides that two more didn’t stand out, really. They passed a line of ponies wearing makeshift armor and carrying rifles—though their firearms were homemade with pipes and bits of metal, and looked like they might come apart with each shot. “Welcome, sister,” one said, muttering down to her. “The Nightmare beckons,” said another. Still alive, then—or else they would’ve recognized Magpie instantly. “I know what you’ve been promised sounds impossible!” shouted Silent Prayer. “You have every reason to be skeptical. We promise eternal life! We promise strength like nothing you’ve imagined! We promise to bring you in harmony with the moon, so that its surface cannot harm you! Imagine what Moonrise could have accomplished in all these years if your ancestors had accepted this power when it was first offered!” A round of booing and shouting echoed through the crowd, focused on nopony in particular. “Can they really do that?” Magpie whispered up into Luna’s ears. With so much noise all around them, it probably wouldn’t be easy for the princess to hear. But at least nopony else would be overhearing her. “The Nightpact can’t be made here,” Luna replied, just as quietly. “But there’s an active spell on that stage, one I can’t identify. It isn’t just for show, there’s real power here.” “When we are done here tonight, those who have been chosen will march together and claim Moonrise for ourselves!” Silent continued. “Not all who hear me will walk this path together. Those who are impure in their devotion, those who doubt Nightmare’s power should not walk with us. You may leave to return to your homes—and die with the rest of Moonrise when your brothers and sisters here are finished.” A ripple passed through the crowd around them, as creatures glanced from one to another. Probably all wondering the same thing. What are you playing at, Nightmare? We both know you can’t make more Voidseekers. But you don’t even know Luna is here. This isn’t for her benefit. “Those who are true in their devotion to Nightmare’s cause, step forward! The bravest and most faithful, come and hear! Show the others that you will embrace the power the night offers you!” The crowd fell silent. They’d only made it about halfway through it to the stage, before the ponies became so thick that Magpie couldn’t get through without forcing her way past any of them. She probably looked like a foal to all of them—at least that meant she wouldn’t be worth a second look. She could barely even see the stage, but she squinted up anyway. If she spread her crystal wings to hover, the Voidseekers would recognize her instantly. Silent Prayer stood in the center of the stage, beside an archway made of black rock. It pulsed slightly with the same green glow that illuminated the edges of the stage, like the heartbeat of a cancer. A dozen creatures lined the back of the stage, each one wearing dark robes made of scraps. They all could’ve been Voidseekers, though so tightly covered it was impossible to guess which were the four they were missing. Finally the first brave pony stepped forward. A bat with ragged wings and obvious scars on his body. “I embrace Nightmare’s gift first,” he said. The way he said it, the words sounded rehearsed. But the mob didn’t seem to care.  “What is your name, pony?” Silent asked. “Razor Edge.” “If you want to live, you will all follow Razor’s example. See the power he is given, take it for yourselves.” Luna strained, stretching high enough to get a good view. Magpie had to lean up against her side to squint through the assembled masses, and even then she could only see a little slice of Razor Edge as he stepped through the hollow arch. Was this some portal to Equestria, and the artifact that made the Nightpact possible? Would she watch another sell their soul to the demon as she had done almost a thousand years ago? As he passed through the opening, bright green light pulsed briefly around him, wrapping his body and flashing away again as he emerged on the other side.  Princess Luna winced, and she wasn’t the only one. Several other creatures in the crowd felt something—but Magpie wasn’t a unicorn, so didn’t have the magical organ necessary to know what they’d felt. Razor Edge wobbled on his hooves as he took his first step, making his way to the edge of the stage. Then Magpie saw what had changed—his mane was twisted and dark, burning up his head in wisps of smoke. His eyes were silver pits, glowing like little red stars. “How do you feel, Razor?” Silent asked. “Strong,” Razor’s corpse said with Razor’s voice. But while the others in this crowd didn’t know how to recognize it, Magpie knew it well. She’d lived with that voice whispering in her mind for six centuries. “Invincible!” He spread his bat wings wide, stomping both hooves together. The metal platform bent and twisted under his grip, groaning and sparking inwards. Ponies gasped and cheered in response, but the demonstration wasn’t over yet. Silent lifted something into the air, a stolen constable’s rifle. The crowd hushed again. “Observe the weapon of your oppressors! The weapon of a coward. But when you swear tonight, you will be vulnerable to it no more!” She turned, aiming clumsily towards Razor. Magpie felt a little satisfaction as she saw Silent Prayer struggling to hold it straight. So maybe she had learned a few things about fighting her old colleagues hadn’t picked up out on the moon’s surface.  But then she fired. A spent shell ejected from the side of the rifle, and blood splattered from Razor’s side. She fired again and again—a few rounds went wild, vanishing into the darkness. But at least half found their marks. Razor Edge stood still, as if frozen. Finally he turned, prancing in a slow circle that showed off the terrible wounds. Except that though the flesh of his torso was torn and bloody, he seemed completely unharmed.  Well, almost unharmed. The crowd didn’t notice, but Magpie saw his mouth was moving, but only trickles of blood and wheezes echoed from within. Just because you’re undead doesn’t mean you don’t need air to talk, stupid.  Even with the best doctors to stitch him back together, Razor might never talk again. Though she suspected that would be the least of his worries. Luna flopped onto her haunches beside Magpie as the crowd thronged forward towards the doorway. She wasn’t even listening to Silent’s promises anymore. “What are they doing?” she asked. She didn’t even bother to whisper. “That can’t be a Voidseeker. We never got the…” She fluffed her mane with a hoof. “Whatever that is.” “The least of all undead,” Luna muttered. “That doorway is killing them, using the power of their own death to grant them strength. Mindless, soulless slaves. Many won’t be strong enough for their bodies to survive, but they won’t have to. Tranquility doesn’t have anything to stop them.” There was another flash of green light, and another monster appeared on the stage. If they waited much longer, there would be an army. “I can’t fight so many,” Luna muttered, defeated. “There are a hundred ponies here. Even my sister would be overwhelmed.” Magpie scanned the crowd, desperate for anything she could use to disperse the unwittingly suicidal ponies. She found what she was looking for, and she rested one leg on Luna’s shoulder. “What if I can scare them off? Can you fight the Voidseekers?” The princess met her eyes, expression skeptical. “How will you manage that?” “Just stay low and get ready.” Magpie turned, crouching low to run past the crowd. She didn’t wait for the princess’s acknowledgement, just took off and glided along the waiting ponies. There weren’t even any soldiers patrolling the edges of the crowd anymore. They were all lined up for the same death that so many other ponies welcomed. Magpie reached the side door to the excavator a few seconds later, hammering on it with one hoof. It was locked, but a little pressure to the knob and a twist solved that problem. She swung it open, and had to clamber over the interior steps like a child. Magpie didn’t expect it to be unlocked on the inside either, but that didn’t matter. She ripped the lower panel open as another flash of green shone through the front window. The security on these motorcars was all the same. She ripped a little plastic off the wall, then used it in her teeth to cut away the insulation on several wires. Another pony died before she could cross the one she was looking for. The dash clicked, a sign the battery was charged and waiting for her. Magpie twisted, and the engine turned over, groaning and spluttering louder than even the magically enhanced voices on the stage. She yanked a toolbox off the passenger seat, wedging it up against the accelerator pedal.  She rolled out the cabin a moment later, even as the five-meter digger knocked over pallets of metal benches, then came roaring towards the platform. It didn’t matter how enticed by dark magic these ponies were—they scattered, screaming in shock and surprise as the digger smashed into the stage. The dark stone arch exploded as the digger smacked into it, sending shards of rock splintering away in all directions. The digger itself was blasted back by the force, its massive metal frame ripping deep into the arena sand. The digger arm glowed brilliant green, then steel sloughed away like butter, raining down on the engine compartment. Then it exploded. Magpie dodged behind the stands as a fireball rose from the digger. She caught the unmistakable scream of a Voidseeker aflame—that single terrible moment when they were unmade by the flames. That was only one pony, though. There are still four of them. Maybe I got Silent Prayer. Flames settled a moment later, a funeral pyre to the dead machine. Magpie poked her head out from the stands, surveying the damage. Most of the gathered ponies had fled into the darkness, though a decent number still waited near the far end of the stands, watching.  Robed cultists poked out from the sides of the stage one at a time. A few looked scorched, their robes still smoking from the fuel explosion. That probably eliminated them as possible Voidseekers, then. Something moved near the center of the field, motion so fast Magpie barely caught it. Something lunged for the lone unicorn, one of the few who hadn’t fled the digger with the others. Luna’s sword came free in a blur of bright blue, catching the attacker faster than Magpie could blink. It was one of the new undead, mane flickering black and body seeming to absorb the light of the nearby fire rather than reflect it. Luna swept their attacks aside with contempt, then cut their head free in two strokes.  The corpse twisted and hissed, then charred to bone at her hooves. Only ash flaked from her sword. More figures closed in around her, moving from all sides. Magpie took off again, gliding as fast as she could. She’d never make it in time. Something flashed in the distance, along with the faint echo of a silenced rifle. One robed figure’s head exploded, and they fell lifeless to the ground behind the princess. They were soon joined by another, and another. But it wasn’t just mortal cultists. Before they had stopped the ritual, at least a dozen undead must’ve been created. They swarmed around the princess, attacking all at once. Magpie caught a flash of magic, and someone screaming as the undead fell. Finally she reached the melee, and she drew her dagger in a single fluid motion.  An earth pony smashed its hooves towards her, shattering the stone under her feet to dust in a single terrible crack. Magpie caught herself with her wings, then stuck her dagger in the pony’s eye.  She had to roll to the side a second later as an undead unicorn blasted at her with magic, narrowly avoiding the line of molten lightning it left in the dirt. Magpie fought desperately, her robe tearing as she taunted and dodged. These undead didn’t fight like Nightmare was directly controlling them—its attention couldn’t be split so many ways at once. As quickly as they’d come, they scattered. Magpie landed with her bloody knife still clutched in one hoof, and suddenly all their enemies were gone. The princess appeared in the center of a bloody crater, her illusion vanished. She settled her wings against her sides. “These aren’t the creatures you came for, Nightmare! I’m the Oathbreaker. Don’t you want your justice?” “I wasn’t certain you would make a personal appearance so soon,” Silent Prayer called. Her voice wasn’t terribly loud, and probably wouldn’t have carried over the broken buildings and rubble.  But Magpie recognized the one behind it. Not the pony she was looking at, but something much older. A voice that had tormented Magpie for six centuries, a quiet whisper she could never ignore. Until Silver came into her life, and ripped her away. The princess looked like a child, but she advanced through the fallen dead as fearlessly as any soldier. Her sword glowed in her magical grip, held just beside her head in a high unicorn guard. “You couldn’t help yourself. You had to come back here and sow your corruption all over Moonrise.” “The Oathbreaker accuses me of corruption,” Silent said, lifting something from ahead of her. Magpie’s eyes couldn’t focus on it for a moment, and of course she knew instantly what it had to be. Every Voidseeker could conjure a weapon far better than common steel. “Reflect upon your own past for a moment, Luna. The single commonality in all the corruption you see is you.” There were over a dozen other ponies still creeping in the shadows around them. Magpie saw shadows dart between a heavy-lifting machine ahead of her, or heard the crunch of gravel under hooves from her other side. They were being surrounded.  Your aim better be as good as you say it is, she thought, glancing back in Goldleaf’s direction. She didn’t actually know where he was concealed in the darkness, but presumably he would be setting up in the window about now. Please don’t shoot me instead of them. There are still four more of them here, Magpie thought, dagger ready every moment. But if all of them descended on her at once, what could she do? She wasn’t an Alicorn. “That’s not true!” Luna screamed. Far from the confidence that Nightmare brought with its icy words, she sounded like she looked—a screaming kid. “My life was going great until I listened to you! I wasn’t the one who broke my oaths—you said we could bring peace to Equestria! You said I could free all the serfs and make the tribes equals! Look how that went!” Silent Prayer hopped down off the stage, and in a puff of dark smoke there were suddenly two bats on either side. Each armed, wrapped in whatever shreds of dark cloth they had left. “I swore to give you the power to make the change you imagined,” Nightmare whispered. “I kept my word. You had the power, but you misused it. When your sister’s life was in your hooves, you refused to take it. How did she reward you? Every moment of suffering you have ever endured, every bat who starved or froze up here all have you to thank.” The princess faltered, her sword sagging a little in the air. A few drops of black ichor fell from the edge, steaming as they hit the cavern floor. “You cannot erase the harm you’ve caused,” Nightmare said.  “It will haunt you until the moment you finally swear yourself to me. But I am more forgiving than you deserve. Return to my service. Accept my gifts as you once did. I will take away the memory of suffering, I will fill you with confidence and power. Together we will retake the planet below, and deliver death to every creature who opposed your rule.”