Left Behind

by The Psychopath


Revealing Dreams

"So it would seem," Nightmare Moon replied. "Is this appearance meant to elicit some form of horror or sympathy from me?" She chuckled softly. "You'll have to try better than that, 'sister'," she berated.

The doppleganger stared her sister in the face, giving her only regret. "Ah, so even now you still despise me." She shook her head and walked around. "Oh, but you were always so sensitive, Luna, and look at you now: Some sort of monstrous beast, worse than you were before."

Luna. This thing seemed intent on making Moon lose her temper. Using her old name and trying to attack her pride. Moon could only laugh slyly at the remark. Whatever this thing was, Moon wanted to poke and prod at it a little more and see just how far she could push it and to what extent it would go.

The alicorn chuckled softly. "Ah, yes. Is this the best you can do? Insult my pride?" She eyed Celestia up and down. "And what is this appearance? Are you going to blame me for it in the end, or maybe you want to scare me by saying that I'll be haunted by the memory of what I caused to you forever?" she mocked.

The doppelganger twitched at the mockery and the background distorted for less than a second, but it was enough for someone like Nightmare Moon to notice it clearly.

Celestia shared the joviality of her 'sister' and kept a warm, soft smile as she spoke. "Always quick to judge based on the small things you see." She gestured around herself. "So you think that isn't to your very extravagant and demanding tastes, and now you try to devalue me to feel better about your own shortcomings," she stated calmly.

"Ugh. Really? You're trying to incite guilt?" The black alicorn turned her back and started walking away. "This is the worst nightmare I could possibly have. How tiring."

The dreamscape jittered about and glitched, and Celestia blinked into existence in front of Moon.

"Just because you don't want to listen to the truth means that I am a bore to you?" Celestia asked. Moon noted a twinge of anger bubbling up in her voice.

"Yes, that's it. The truth. You are so right, 'sister'." She walked up to the white alicorn and pushed her face into her sister's. "There are no truths from the mouth of a fictitious lie, and you are not my sister."

The doppelganger was shocked. "Not your sister? After everything I have done for you?" She started to stutter. "That-that-that I fed you, kept you safe within the castle walls, took care of you when you were sick, and this is the thanks I get?"

"And I sent you to school, and your father and I did everything to keep you happy!" Moon mocked with a high-pitched tone. "What a fantastic statement. Ah, did you take that out of a poem?" The alicorn smiled smugly at her sister. Celestia's form glitched, and a distorted, rage-filled face bled through one of the ribbons that appeared momentarily. "I see you now," the alicorn thought.

Celestia was starting to cry flames. Each tear singed her coat black, but the fur immediately returned to its prior whiteness. "Everything I say is just a source of mockery for you, isn't it? I'm trying to reconnect with you, Luna!"

"And you're doing a t-just a fantastic job at that."

"Don't you want to get away from all of this? All I want is to reconnect with my sister and separate from all of this," Celestia pleaded. "The comfort of our own selves, in a secluded location where no pony can find us." She snuck underneath her sister's muzzle, catching her gaze with her own hopeful one. "Wouldn't you want that? To finally be far away from everything else and just live a life of comfort and relaxation after all that has transpired?"

Moon pondered the idea momentarily. It was true that she felt herself growing wearier and wearier of her life. Without her sister, everything seemed so...but no. There was work to be had. "Oh yes. Comfort would be fantastic, and I'm certain that Queen Majesty has much to offer me." Moon watched Celestia going through a plethora of confused thoughts.

"What does the current queen of Equestria have to do with our situation?" the white alicorn asked.

This was the breaking point, and Moon laughed heartily. "Ha ha, of course you wouldn't know. That was the name my sister was called during the initial years of our reign." The doppelganger was taken aback. "I thank you, just a tad, for letting me see her again, but this isn't the way you're going to torture me psychologically." She leaned in closer to Celestia. "But do your research next time."

"Wh-wha--"

"You clearly know who I am and who my sister was." Moon looked at the doppelganger with disdain. "Though I don't know what you are, in truth."

Celestia's soft face warped into a sharp-eyed alicorn. Her pupils had turned into pinpricks and the sides of her muzzle were pulled back into something akin to that of a snarling canine.

"Fine. Since you're too stubborn and lucid in this landscape, then there's no point in resuming this charade," she declared. "Should have known this wouldn't work, but it's always good to try the easy options first."

There was finally a solid floor beneath Moon's hooves, a floor that the doppelganger spared no expense to walk on in order to pace around the black alicorn.

Nightmare Moon would have been pleased that she correctly assessed that her dreamscape had been invaded by an outsider. Instead, another question crossed her mind.

"Who are you and how did you manage to use dream magic?" she asked the doppelganger.

The creature sat down and looked at its charred hooves. "Oh, the questions we always ask. With enough time, anything is possible, even something as horribly difficult as dream magic."

Moon snorted and sat as well. "That wasn't an answer."

"It's what you deserve, alicorn," the creature spat.

With every word leaving its mouth, Moon could feel the vitriol. There was a deep-seated hatred within every sound it produced, as if it hoped that its words were a venom that would kill the recipient as quickly as possible so it would no longer need to speak to them and suffer their existence. Nightmare Moon knew this hatred well.

"So, what are you? Yet another assassin sent after me? So soon?" She looked around, nodding. "I have to say, your technique is quite impressive. So, how are you going to attempt to kill me? I know of many, many means."

Nightmare Moon's smug grimace gradually deflated as 'Celestia' only glared at her with silent anger. Pure disgust filled her eyes.

"I thought that no more alicorns were left over. I thought that they were all gone," Celestia lamented. "After all that time, after all that work! That hard, difficult work." She pointed accusingly at Moon. "And then you appear out of nowhere," she spat. "That wasn't what was supposed to happen!"

Nightmare Moon raised a brow. "So you know what happened to my sister and all the other alicorns I never made the unfortunate acquaintance of."

Celestia scoffed and walked away. "The princess of love. The princess of magic. The princess of cultivation. The princess of forests. The princess of flora and the princess of fauna. So many. Always a new one out of nowhere." She ground her teeth, creating a very unpleasant screeching.

"So you do know what happened to them!"

"Why would I tell you what we have been up to all this time?" She shot her hoof to her mouth, shocked by what she had just let loose.

"Ah ha! So there is a group responsible for everything! Who are you and what did you do to my sisters? How dare you take away my long-awaited rev...enge..."

The doppleganger slowly lowered her hoof, revealing a wide, toothless smile. "Ha ha, oops. What did I just blurt out?" She shrugged. "Darn it. Now you know just a smidgen of what is going on." She pursed her lips. "How clumsy of me."

"So you also play games." Nightmare Moon leaned back and let her strange, new magic engulf the dreamscape, destroying the black background and showing space enveloped by the many moons she was now linked to.

She wasn't aware of the vague, semi-transparent, blobby shapes that stood next to a few of them. The mare was only left with a strange sensation of being pulled by them, not that it mattered in this rather amusing situation.

"Wh-what is this? What's happening?!" Celestia asked in a panic. She spun around several times, trying to figure out what Moon was doing. "Impossible! The spell was complete! You were supposed to remain stuck here!"

Moon cackled. "You thought to entrap me in my mind through dream magic?!" She laughed once more. "The cheek!"

Celestia gradually tilted her head to the side and shrugged. "To be fair, the thought was to utilize irony against you; Defeating you with the one magic you're naturally gifted in." She raised her hooves up, acknowledging her defeat. "Honestly, expectations weren't really on this, but you won't be allowed to exist in this new world for much longer."

Immense magic came from the doppelganger, challenging Nightmare's in the dreamscape. Their powers clashed, distorting the landscape, allowing Celestia to slip into one of the cracks and slowly slip away while keeping her eyes locked onto the black alicorn's.


Nightmare Moon awoke with a start. She quickly assessed her surroundings then relaxed and yawned once she realized she was back at the castle and wasn't having to deal with the very annoying 'layered' dream.

"Ugh. So tired."

She wiped her eyes and got up, already prepared to go back to her power testing range when she heard the shuffling of leathery wings around, along with upset voices. Using her powers, the mare faded into the darkness and traveled through the shadows. Several thestrals had snuck in through the windows at either side of the throne room. The alicorn was bemused. It seemed that they were able to sneak past the guards using their natural, dark colors, although she was unsure as to what they were fighting about.

A few of them had collided into each other and caused everypony to fall down towards the ground below into a pile. Naturally, the tables and food were still present, and so it all flew everywhere and garnered the attention of the soldiers who rushed in and pointed their weaponry at the terrified intruders.

"Can't let them get imprisoned like the fool beneath. Oh. Right. I should free him," the alicorn realized.

She emerged from the shadows, scaring the soldiers. Nightmare Moon did her best to move slowly and gently to not cause any heart attacks. The soldiers were motioned to back up, which they did.

"What are you doing here, in my home," she asked them.

The thestrals looked at each other in confusion. One of them, bearing pink stripes in his mane, spoke first.

"Your ponyish doesn't seem that good," he noted.

One of the soldiers stepped forth. "That's because she speaks a very ancient dialect of ponyish and has been learning to speak our own with the help of a local student."

"I speak Canterlot Ponyish," Moon added.

The thestrals gasped. Canterlot? How could that be?

A thestral missing half of her left ear stepped forward. "Could...Could you teach us?"

"My servant can. I teaching him."

The first thestral spoke once more. "Who are you? We all came to you because we felt a strange connection."

"Nightmare Moon: Alicorn of the Night," Moon declared.

They continued to mumble. 'So it was true'. They were all astonished that such an alicorn truly existed. Many spoke about how they always wished that more regular ponies could see the night sky as they did, and here it was personified, standing before them. Standing proud, tall, and mighty.

Almost all at once, the thestrals bowed before the mare-in-the-moon, surprising both her and the soldiers for a change.

"We vow to forever serve you and make your stay in Equestria as comfortable as possible!" one of the thestrals declared firmly.

"You make vow of service, but all are young. How will I know...minds not change as age?" Moon asked.

She overheard a muffled snicker followed by a loud strike and a cry of pain.

"This goes beyond wanting to defy authority, or mocking our parents, or any other rebellious behavior," the pink-striped stallion explained

Another thestral stepped forward. His iris were a significantly brighter gold compared to the rest. "We want the alicorn of the night to help our people recover. They have become lethargic and depressed with no guidance. We wanted to find somepony who could aid us or something to help reinvigorate our lives, and then we find you! A literal alicorn of the night! The odds are astronomically high!"

"Should have played the lottery," one of them whined.

Nightmare Moon nodded. Things were, so far, going as she had planned. "I will aid you."

The thestrals cheered and danced about happily.

Yes, everything was mostly going as planned. Here was a tribe that would submit without any trouble. The start of a new Equestria engulfed in endless night. First, she needed to find Canterlot. Perhaps they would know something about its whereabouts. Any rumors would suffice, and that thing wanted her to go away enough to impersonate a sister everypony else had forgotten.

"We should introduce the Gan Ceann ponies to you. They would adore you just as much!" the gold-eyed thestral happily suggested.

Once more, Nightmare's face went completely blank. "The what?"