//------------------------------//
// In Shambles 
// Story: You Can't Just Vanquish Evil 
// by Toon 
//------------------------------//

The timberwolves on my right and left lunged at me but due to their timing, they both clashed at each other, soon growling and butting heads. They were both in front of me so I took this moment to stomp my hooves at their heads to bury them into the ground. 

If I had more strength than those damn elements took away I would've smashed their heads. But I didn't get much of a moment to breathe however when the third timber wolf came to attack, avoiding the swipe of his claws by jumping back I took the moment to gain some distance.

The rush on my hooves, the power of my attacks, it felt so good to be back in a fight. I kind of enjoyed it, I grinned at the prospect of getting some anger out with the power of my hooves.

I cackled at the disadvantage the timber wolf was at, I grinned sadistically. "Tonight is going to be Tartarus for you,"

The two timber wolves stuck in the ground were still trying to get their heads out, but due to their discoordination, they just kept trying to move when the other did and kept their ongoing trap.

The third timber wolf, however, was dead set on trying to kill me and snarled at me, I didn't care, however.

"Come at me, cretin"

It rushed forward towards me and I did the same, when we were centimeters away from each other I stopped my momentum, stood firm, lowered my neck down, and thrust up my horn to pierce the timber wolf's neck. It worked like a charm, it's whimpering vibrating through my magical conduit.

I lifted my horn and whipped my head to throw the wooden body to a tree.

Crack

When it gained its grounding I saw a scar of sorts to the wood shell and it just ran away like a coward.

Leaving the other two timber wolves stuck in the hole I put them in, they were still in the endless cycle of growling and fighting each other for dominance of who gets the first move.

I laughed, it was pathetic, the legendary once feared timber wolves that roamed the ever-free forest reduced to pathetic dumb dogs barking away for supremacy.

I saw their plight however and as a gracious soon-to-be queen of eternal darkness, I offered to help.

I raised my front hooves to crush away whatever little brain functions they had within those thick dense wooden heads.

Before I struck them I took out some frustration and yelled out my anger.

"THIS IS FOR LOCKING ME AWAY FOR A MILLENNIA!"

Smash

I reared up my hooves again.

"AND THIS IS FOR MAKING ME GO NEARLY INSANE!"

Crack

"AND THIS IS FOR LETTING ME BECOME NIGHTMARE MOON!"

I let out one final stomp of my hooves, the most powerful and painful of them all. I was exhausted and lost strength in my hooves.

I was tired, I sat at my haunches and slouched, my body sagging amid the battlefield, wasn't even a battle more like a one-sided massacre, I liked that and also hated it.

Tonight went nothing like I wanted it to go, and I wanted to ball up and cry. I wanted nothing more than just to have some comfort from all these horrible feelings and bitterness.

But I was given no breaks and like the cold wasteland of the moon, the forest was nowhere to cry and let myself sink to be a weakling I was before.

The bushes rustled all around me, and soon the same-looking wood mutts came to me in a pack, surrounding me. I recognized one though, the one I impaled its throat and threw away like garbage.

It called for help, and I was so careless I made so much noise with the power of my hooves and voice.

I was not going to win this battle easily, I was drained of magic and strength and while I was recovering a bit of my magic it wasn't enough to take down a pack of timber wolves so effortlessly.

I was 'screwed' as the foals called it.

I prepared a stance and prepared my body for the worse, I have lots of battle experience so taking down timberwolves isn't impossible but it'll be very much hard and I'll be lying if I say I will leave this place without damage.

I'm tired, slow, scared, and beaten in a lot of ways, but a voice crept from the back of my mind, like a coming fog seeking to suppress the sky.

"You are Nightmare moon, destroyer of dreams, creater of nightmares, THE QUEEN OF EVERLASTING NIGHT, THE ONLY ONE THAT HAS THE POWER TO BECOME THE BEST PRINCESS AND COME FORTH TO BREAK DAWN"

The voice declared loudly in my head, the voice that spoke to me so for longer than my banishment. The one that has accompanied me for so long in that dreadful wasteland of a moon where I was left to rot for so long.

The same voice that kept me focused on taking down that solar-powered princess, the one that call me her sister but left me to die.

The same voice that is what kept me going to become Nightmare moon, the same voice that is still driving me to this day.

...the only voice, that isn't my own, the one that is the only one I can listen to, that doesn't make me feel alone...

I grit my teeth ready to take on this pack of timber wolves.

"Tonight, I WILL MAKE YOUR NIGHTMARES COME TRUE!"

One of them tried to take me from my right but I smashed their face with my left hoof, another came from my left so I stomped on the ground to make them lose balance and I used my front hooves as leverage for my weight then use my back hooves to hit it square in the face.

I believe from last I remember it was called 'bucking'

But I wasn't done, another came to try to attack me while I was done bucking, I swiftly used whatever force that came back to me from the buck and moved both my front hooves in the same timing I carried my hind legs.

I used my positioning by moving my front hooves and body to add extra momentum to my back legs to come like a train to hit its target. 

In concise language I used my front hooves to move myself for my back hooves to come from my side like a train coming from the cave, and moving from the momentum I've created by my position.

The timber wolf being that target; Its face along with its body went down with a noticeable thud, as I was letting the momentum carry itself to the ground to recover I felt a searing pain one with force and ferocity.

I screamed, it was like daggers being driven into my skin all around a bite-sized portion.

I looked back to see the same wolf I impaled had dug in its teeth into my flank, I used some of my remaining bits of recovered magic to blast the creature but in my want of it being gone, I failed to realize its teeth merely trailed before being gone.

With the trail of blood trickling from my right leg I held my tongue and screamed in my mouth over the pain, I was bleeding profusely.

And then I felt another bite, one for the neck.

I was in shock and pain but I couldn't scream due to the location of the bite, I looked to the timber wolf that took the opportunity and felt another bite and another.

I looked back at my body to see a timber wolf biting my left hind leg and another biting the midsection of my body. I could see others about to join in as well.

I mustered any left remaining magic to cause a push back all around me, like an explosion guarding away from the attackers.

They all were pushed away to hit the ground, trees, or to the further ends of the forest-covered with darkness.

I was bleeding, a lot from the wounds, I might die.

I was tired, aching from the force I was putting out, I was bleeding out and to top it all off the wolves seemed like they still needed to get the job done.

I just wanted to shut it all out, get back up, and fight but I was getting weaker by the second, strength slipping by and slowly dying out.

I fell to the ground, my energy reaching its limit while I slowly got closer to death. For some reason, my attention was on a broken mirror slouching next to a tree. What I saw was an alicorn, her coat cornflower blue, drained away from what her nightmare counterpart was, blood running down the sides of the neck with marks showing where the teeth were. 

The light in her eyes slowly fading, her body slumped onto the ground with little resistance to the oncoming pack with little to care about. The armor she once wore as a nightmare was gone and shattered once the elements got rid of her magic- her freedom.

The timberwolves slowly inching forward as I was drained, exhaustion was taking over, and slowly I was closing my eyes. Before I gave in to my fatigue I saw another figure, one that wasn't timber wolf-shaped, pony more like, but I was already falling out of the world of the living.




...I guess this is where I will die.