//------------------------------// // You Owe Ponies // Story: Left Behind // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// "What is that?" Moon asked. "One of your changelings or another guest that you invited through that portal of yours?" Hepetia shook her head. "You are the only guest we have ever allowed into our hive, and we would have noticed an unwanted guest coming through the portal." The two jumped to the sides when a massive, obsidian stone came crashing down. Its surface smoked and began melting through the stones it had landed on until all that was left was a lava ring and a gaping hole in the middle. "You dare to damage my hive?!" the queen bellowed. She spread her wings, ready to fly up the tower, but the whole hive began shaking. the walls started twisting and bending and the floors began to break apart into separate platforms that were somehow growing bigger on their own. "What is this?!" the queen stammered. The changelings were startled at the magic being displayed and doing their best to avoid getting crashed or sliced by the moving parts. "This feels like the same magic at the library underneath Canterlot," Moon shouted. "You've been free long enough, Luna!" a voice yelled furiously. "Luna?" Moon repeated. "What?" Moon was tugged at her core and pulled into the tower that had become reshaped into a spinning cylinder. She was blinded by a flash of light and punched in her gut before being thrown far away. "What, can't see?" the voice asked quizzically. "Let me dissipate the curse around this place, then!" The blinding white light gradually died off, letting Moon see that she was in the bent and twisted tower with winding corridors going in every direction. She looked about and felt a chill go through her. It felt like she was in old Canterlot again. “Ah, oops, ha ha. I lied,” the voice continued. She saw a shape waddle through the shadows of the endless corridors illuminated faintly by glass windows that led out to nothing. “So, you prefer to hide in the darkness than actual reveal yourself,” the alicorn scoffed. “Charming, but predictable from such a small pony.” She saw the shadows somehow shake violently. “I am not small! We were always the bigger ones without you monstrosities always lording over us!” the creature spoke in a shrill voice. Clawed hands grew from the ground and reached for Moon, but with a flash of her horn, popped before they could get anywhere near her. The shadows in the corridors moved slowly forward, silent and hungry, like a solid mass. The alicorn felt like eyes were peering at her through the veil. “Is this all I have to contend with? Some foal with parlor tricks and a bit of magic to their name?” Moon asked without moving from her spot. “And is this all I have to contend with? An alicorn of ten thousand years whose strongest weapon are her words.” The voice scoffed. “Even your sister could put her power into practice, rather than boast about ill-gotten bravado obtained from a carnival game.” Several small circles of white light shone out of the shadows as they encroached upon Luna from the corridors. She was being pressured from the sides, above, and below. “Congratulations. You got a hoop across a horn.” A slow clap resonated through the vibrating shadows. “Clearly worthy of your title now.” Moon thrummed a spell through her horn to dispel the shadows around her, but the masses only moved back slight. Another spell, and another minor effect. “What is this?!” the alicorn shouted. “Is that panic I hear? From the mighty princess of the night, sister of the Solar Tyrant?” the voice continued. Nightmare Moon started to fire beams at the masses as they slowly approached her. Then cutting spells, explosives, implosives. Anything she could get off the top of her head, but the masses moved in ever closer to her without ever making a sound. The lights coming from them were the only thing they bothered to produce to show they were still there. The moment they came out of the corridors, their forms exploded wildly into strands and twists like angry, thorny plants eager to steal all the space they could and kill any other plant and living being that would dare to get in their way. The alicorn fled to the sky from reflex, but it was pointless. She was caught by the thorns that grew over her wings before quickly reaching over the rest of her body and consuming her in a dark mass while spell after spell was unleashed to try and free herself. Moon’s screams were quickly muffled by the dark mass. The clear blue sky dotted with a few clouds loomed over. Moon was standing on a large, circular platform that at least four airships could rest on and still have room for cargo to be laid near them. All of it was sitting atop a lumpy, rocky plain devoid of any plant life. The alicorn bounced around, shocked. She didn’t understand what just happened. The mountain and the castle were behind her, so she was still at the changeling hive. She never felt her heart race so much since her sister had banished her with the Elements of Harmony. “Had fun with my ‘parlor trick’?” the taunting voice asked. Moon took several deep breaths to recover from the event, doing her best to hide her shock and horror, as brief and unwarranted as they may be. She faced her attacker, but found her comprehension lacking once more. Standing before her was an alicorn. At first she had thought it to be another fragment of her sister, but she had never seen this one before. Their body was unusually bulky and squarish. It was red with several curling streaks of green and yellow running along it. The alicorn's mane and tail followed the same pattern, but they were unkept and dirty with mud and dust. Its eyes were just as bizarrely colored as the rest of their fur, like its scelera exploded and leaked into the rest of its eyes. "Welcome to an old castle you should be...uhh...unfamiliar with," the alicorn noted in confusion. This was...a male alicorn?! Nightmare Moon couldn't believe it. Male alicorns weren't a thing. It was always the mares that had access to the power of alicornhood over stallions. "You speak my ancient dialect?" Moon asked him. The alicorn waddled about, taking in the surroundings before acknowledging with a nod. "Of course! I'm not as old as you but I'm pretty old," he said calmly. His behavior switched almost immediately. "Too old!" he bellowed angrily whilst digging into the ground with his hooves. "Too long have I walked the lands and too long have I safeguarded ponies..." He took a deep breath and straightened himself. "But then you came along. Everything was going great!" They slammed their face against the ground several times then stared at Nightmare Moon. "All that hard work is being ruined!" Moon snorted in amusement. "Then you're part of the group I have to blame for the history of Equestria being destroyed and all the ponies stagnating technologically and culturally for so long." "St-stagnating...?!" the alicorn stuttered. He stared at Moon with the same wide, white eyes as when he was first seen. The air started crackling around his horn before coalescing at the tip and letting loose a beam of magic that could have engulfed a house. Moon was quick to shield herself with a corner that split the beam into two. She clenched her teeth from the sheer force her assailant was hitting her with and felt her body scream from the effort. "There's no stagnating, alicorn!" he shouted from above. Moon narrowly dodged his hoof slam and responded in kind by spinning around and kicking him in the face, sending him flying. "Where are the others?!" Moon demanded. "Where are the others responsible for making everything disappear and for trying to erase my existence?" The stallion cracked his neck and glared at his opponent. "There are no others! I'm all that's left!" he stated giddily. "All alone and trapped away from everypony!" Moon had to teleport away from the two flat disks of magic summoned to smash her into paste. She responded in kind by having several chains erupt from the ground beneath the stallion, pierce his body, then pull him down onto the ground. "I'm supposed to believe that you did all of that on your own?!" The stallion struggled but eventually relented. "No. I mean yes. In the past we were many, then I was all that was left. The unwanted hero on the pedestal of light meant to carry him!" the alicorn cried. It smashed its head against the ground several times, breaking the stone and freeing it from the chains. Moon's front legs were caught by a giant, eyeless maw that rose from the ground. The stallion had forgotten to give it teeth, so, instead, the creation lifted Nightmare Moon up to smash her down several times in a row. With immense effort, she focused her magic through her forelegs and into the mouth of the creation, causing it to explode into a spray of mud. Moon gasped for air and let her protection spells help her recover slowly while the alicorn stallion continued to look at the area around them, seemingly oblivious to their confrontation. "What do you...in the past there were many?" she asked. "We were many. Many many so many!" the alicorn trailed off. He gripped his head with a hoof, allowing Moon to see that his features were...degrading? It looked like the color of his fur was tarnishing and he was starting to become thinner. Moon took the opportunity to make her own attacks, creating multiple balls of darkness from her horn to fly around her opponent and whip him with countless arms that chewed away at his body. In response, he produced an explosion that blew them away. The alicorn flew towards Moon and grabbed her, taking her high into the sky where they continued their fight. The stallion tried several times to compress Moon into a small ball, but he was never successful. Moon tried to slice him apart but found equal success in the matter. Their fighting was bleeding off into the surrounding areas, cutting everything apart and obliterating more into debris. Above, the sun watched them fight and burned away at the two alicorns at a whim. "We hated you alicorns!" the stallion cried. "We hated you so much! Every time we tried something new they would dismiss it saying you alicorns would provide for us better than anything we could have ever created!" He slammed into a net Moon had created and started burrowing through its layers as best he could. "What...are you talking about?" Moon grunted. "We needed to get rid of you all, but we didn't know how! It took years to learn the magic, but we created the ritual that prolonged your time in the moon!" he shouted. He started pushing further against Moon as his body became more disheveled and a light started glowing from some of his joints and parts of his skin. "You were supposed to stay in there forever! Celestia was already bad. What was going to happen if a pure tyrant alicorn came back to subjugate the world? We had no defenses!" he squealed. He broke through, caught Moon in a headlock, and as he plunged down, his body separated from the mare, leaving a magic construct in his place. Nightmare managed to catch herself by deploying a net below, but the speed and force with which she hit the platform was still high, and she ended up shooting through the stone. She burst forth, seconds from it, and created a helix drill of stone from the debris and struck her opponent, sending him flying in howls of pain. "So it's your fault I couldn't exact revenge on my sister?!" Moon growled angrily. Her eyes and body started glowing a bright white. "It's your fault I've lost ten thousand years of my life?!" The sun flickered imperceptibly. "To be fair," the stallion grunted. "It was only nine thousand that we trapped you in your rightful prison." He stood back up, his body shaking. "You weren't supposed to come back," he whispered. Moon noticed that there were several spots of the stallion's now disheveled body that were leaking a large amount of magic as spouts, but the alicorn could only feel his magic staying the same or increasing at times. "Your body wasn't made to hold that much magic," she realized. The broken stallion eyed himself over and heaved a sigh. "No! I wasn't! And I didn't want to become what I hated! But they all chose for me!" His body trembled and he let out multiple domes of magic towards Moon who teleported away. The domes bulldozed through dozens of feet worth of stone like they were made of aluminum foil. "Because I was the one who got rid of the solar tyrant!" he declared whilst slamming his hooves into his chest. "When she learned that her sister had been trapped for longer than intended, your sister did everything to free you!" "Lies!" Nightmare bellowed. The alicorn of the night made a humanoid construct with the night sky as its flesh. It vaulted over the remains of the castle and stomped down onto the stallion, hurting him considerably, but several red spikes emerged from its foot that climbed along its body until it was frozen in place and popped like a balloon. "She tried for decades to free you, at which point she gave into her loneliness and eventually had two foals, but we left them alone." He smirked, revealing rotten fangs. "They weren't alicorns. We were avid believers that the children should have nothing to do with the parents." The sun flickered. The land warped around them again, destroying their arena. Several false towers erupted from the land that waved like an ocean. The chain followed them by wrapping around wailing faces growing on the surface of the stones. Said faces quickly jumped out of their imprisonment to charge at Moon, only to be casually whipped aside. Small stones turned into floating islands as they rose higher and higher into the air. Most were held in place by the aforementioned chains, but there was no rhyme or reason to it, leaving many to flip upside down or become lopsided. "And so she became angry because you did attack her children? You disposed of them as well?" The broken pony cackled to himself and rolled on the floor while bits and pieces of him became engulfed in a warm, orange light. "No! She eventually learned that somepony had messed with the spell and was furious. It's when one of our own told her directly that she exploded in fury. She only killed Bubble Pop but could never find the rest of us!" Moon felt herself pale. "What?" "When she learned that it was our rightful actions that kept you trapped in the moon and she couldn't dissolve the spell, she became the Solar Tyrant!" He laughed then started crying. "All those dead ponies and destroyed villages..." He pointed aggressively at Nightmare Moon with his wings. "All because alicorns had to control everything!" The sun flickered more angrily, and undulating arms started growing from it. The two began fighting hoof-to-hoof-to-magic, constantly countering and recountering each other with spells and acrobatics as the world around them warped and changed. "It sounds like you're blaming others for your own actions!" Moon accused. "I accept our actions! They're our fault! But the needs of the ponies came first! You alicorns were preventing us from progressing as a species because everypony thought you were the best at everything and solved all our problems or could solve them all with time!" He was struck in the ribs and rolled away by Nightmare Moon. "We...we confronted the solar Tyrant and took her...down," he wheezed. Moon flinched from the pain. She hadn't used so much magic in quite a while, and the false alicorn's strikes were breaking her body. He had far too much magic. "...You're the hero of the thestral stories." The broken pony looked at Moon with wide eyes. "The what? The thestrals had stories?!" "They said that there was a hero who struck down the solar tyrant after she had killed everyone else," she recounted. The stallion blinked a few times then laughed. "That's a really old story we made up!" His joyful expression became somber as he stood up. "It's true that I was the one to deliver the final blow, but we had all taken her down. They just chose me as the scapegoat because I delievered the final blow." He groaned and looked at his trembling hooves. "Because ponies were still into alicorns, we made the lie that I was chosen by the 'magic trapped in the tyrant' and made into an alicorn," he mocked. Another maw came from beneath Nightmare Moon who held its jaw open with her magic, allowing her to escape it. "They pooled all the magic into me! They got rid of the other immortals causing issues by dispersing their own magic!" "What?!" Moon shouted. "Then Discord and Accord?" "The truest opponent of chaos and order is neutrality!" The stallion coughed multiple times. "We immersed them in neutrality and watched them dissipate on their own! No more destroyting and warping Equestria! No more tyrant dictating how we should live!" "But you impeded its progress!" Moon protested. "Foals that you are. Equestria has stagnated for thousands of years! I still see things used today that were used during my time! You've ruined the future of ponies under my rule!" "No we didn't!" the broken pony whined. "We improved their lives! If a few had to be sacrificed to let them live and prosper then that was a consensus! We had to do it or we would have all died out!" "You don't know that!" Moon bellowed. She stomped the floating island the two alicorns had landed on fissuring it. "You only used that as an excuse to get what you want, because you couldn't accept the fact that...not everypony..." She felt the wind blown out of her lungs and stared silently at the fracturing pony standing before her. "I never wanted this!" the stallion bellowed. "I wanted a good life! I wanted foals of my own and to see my creations improve ponykind!" The spouts of loose magic started coalescing towards his horn as he readied yet another spell. Despite feeling horrible, Nightmare Moon answered in kind with multiple spells of her own. The ensuing collision of magic caused the skies to turn red and the ground free-roaming magic hit to instantly melt into molten slag. The insane amount of magic the two alicorns were employing was causing untold amounts of destruction and was hard for even them to control. The weather was changing from rainy to cloudy to sunny and their magic was detaching from or simply pulling their spells away from each other to fly off towards nowhere or hit landmasses all around them. "You're blaming all your problems on me when you did this to yourself!" Moon shouted over the screaming magic. "You should have left well enough alone!" "Easy for you to say, alicorn!" the broken stallion spat in disgust. "I had all of this responsibility thrust upon me without my consent and turned into an alicorn, then I had to watch as everypony died around me and I swelled with magic! Magic I didn't want! I'm trapped between two conflicting desires, and there's nothing left to do about it." Moon was being pushed back but forced herself forward as best as she could whilst gritting her teeth. "So you...you stifled the growth of ponies and destroyed its history to prevent them from learning of the past and not repeating its mistakes?" She forced out a laugh that enraged the already crumbling stallion. "You didn't even decide for yourself. How pathetic," she mused. The stallion stopped his spell and dove under Nightmare Moon's, creating multiple spirals around the mare that spun and crackled angrily. They pulled at the mare and the fabric of reality in eleven different directions, and the alicorn couldn't think of a way to free herself. The image of the immense moon came to the alicorn's mind. Shadowy tendrils slowly wrapped around the spirals and pulled them in, imploding them. Startled, the stallion jumped away from his opponent onto another island and started buffeting the mare's island with small light orbs from space. They punctured through the landmass with ease, like it wasn't there. The shadowy figures ignored the effects and moved towards his island, their twisted forms incomprehensible even to him. "What is this?" he shouted. With a crackle of his body, lances of bright light punctured through even the shadowy figures and disappeared into the island he was standing on. He laughed heartily until Moon crushed him and the island to the ground, almost instantaneously. She had seen a third moon. This one was slightly bigger than her own, but it had a green glow to it, and false eyes. Every spell the stallion tried to use was pulled down by the sheer force the green moon exerted upon him and his surroundings. "Just because...you're pulling new powers out of...nowhere doesn't mean...you'll win..." the stallion grunted. He forced himself up as best he could with his legs digging deep into the ground. "I've been awake...for almost ten thousand years...I have...more experience!" Nightmare Moon gave way and fell down. Her whole body ached like crazy. She was suffering immensely. The green moon seemingly ripped her bones and muscles apart with its use, but she still had a lot of magic left within her and parried the stallion's spear of magic. Their impending clash was stopped by a wave of intense heat that washed over them and everything around them. The wave pulled away their magic like water washing away mud. The heat was almost unbearable like the two were in a furnace. The chaotic weather was changed to a red sky, and tendrils of yellow light reached the corner of their eyes. Looking up, the source was the sun. It had spread through the whole sky like it was standing right in front of the world. Hundreds of arms grew and receded from its body as it grew even closer. "No!" the stallion screamed. "Her rage wasn't supposed to be a curse!" The sun wouldn't let him escape. Every magic spell he tried to conjure was melted away by the sun's hatred. Moon was blinded by the sun's fury. She only barely heard the stallion's screams through the howling of the sun's focused heat. Almost a minute later, the sun had receded and the world was cooling. The alicorn of the night had been projected back into the castle, much to her surprise. She struggled to get back up and limped up the damaged stairs leading to what were certainly just the 'remains' of a platform. Everything had been carbonized. Just black ash everywhere. Even the stone had been superheated so much and so quickly that they didn't have time to melt. The sun had created a sea of ash, and, to Nightmare Moon's surprise, it didn't seem as angry as before. It was now a small circle of white light, although she could still see a tendril or two coming out of it on occasion. She was going to leave when she heard a cough. "Ash...everywhere..." a weak voice wheezed. Moon moved to the source, sliding down the deep crater the sun had produced. She tumbled the last few feet and landed near the broken pony. His body was disentegrating, alleviating Moon's fears that he was going to stand up again. He glanced at Moon before resting again. "Now look...at what you've done..." "I did nothing. This is your fault." He wheezed and looked at her again. "I was just...doing what I needed...to keep ponies happy...and flourishing." He took another breath and seemed to snuggle himself into the ash. "We did battle here. Do you even know what place this is?" Moon said nothing. "It is the second castle your sister made as the Solar Tyrant..." The alicorn of the night stomped on his chest, eliciting a pained groan. "Of course you would choose such a place, but that isn't important. I want to know why you killed my vassal?" She was met with a tired look of confusion. "The mayor of my soon-to-be capital city." The dying pony frowned. "He's dead?" He chuckled. "My only target was you. That he was trying to promote your existence just provided me with...with some entertainment and somepony to play against." "But that's impossible. You're the only pony that would have wanted him to die!" Moon bellowed. She flinched from the pain the force inflicted to her ribs. She received pained laughing. "You have more enemies already than I could have ever expected. His adoration of you was...the curse brought by alicorns, again. Your...fault." Moon bared her fangs. "You still expect me to believe you when you say you and your dead friends are the reason for everything that has happened to Equestria?" "Do you even know why we tried to manage alicorns? The magic you wield is incredible!" He readjusted himself briefly. "And you alone showed that just a little emotional disturbance could turn you into walking natural disasters. Your sister just added to it." Moon stomped on his disintegrating body once more, causing his belly to crack. "And so you hunted and killed every other alicorn." He laughed. "I don't know why I'm even telling you all this. I-ghrk!" Moon twisted her hoof into his wounded body. "Because they made me into a false alicorn we were forced to watch the new ones that came along, but then the magic within them became too much and they started warping everything around them or wanting too much power or whatever! They just became a threat to everypony." "That doesn't explain how they apparently transformed Equestria's landscape to such an extent." "Most of it was us!" the stallion grunted. "We wanted to hide everything they did, but they tried fighting back. Just like with your sister I was usually the only one left during confrontations and lauded as a hero!" The alicorn hummed to herself. "You didn't mention that part, but it would explain a lot. I don't believe your reasoning, however." "I think there was a piece of your sister in this castle. Those bugs must have freed it." He scoffed. "And you let out another piece at Canterlot." Moon stood proudly and bared her fangs in a smile. "I defeated that part of my sister. It is no longer a threat." Her opponent puffed. "Defeat is not the same as destroy. That fragment is still around." Moon's proud stance weakened and her heart started racing in panic. "Alicorns always thinking their villains are forever defeated just because they kicked them once. Hope that there aren't enough pieces to help her coalesce back into life." He heaved a sigh. "We knew of the one under Canterlot but had no idea she would persist." The broken pony grunted in pain. "Then I'll destroy her altogether and finally get the vengeance I so deserve," Nightmare Moon declared firmly. She was met with a telling look for her fallen opponent. A look that said 'I told you so'. The stallion gasped for air several times in quick succession afterwards. The disintegration had taken his right foreleg and was climbing to his chest. "I was left behind, keeping to myself in my small dimensional pocket, watching when alicorns would be born, but I...I kept them from coming back. Too dangerous. They became more powerful. Crazier with each...generation." Moon scowled. "Lies perpetrated by your misguided group of imbeciles," "Perhaps!" He gave Moon a large smile, showing that even his teeth were cracking apart. "You are the victor, so you can interpret my words however you like, but I know what is true and what isn't, and I have given you fair warning. Please, just take care of the ponies, and stop the new alicorns." His façade dissipated as soon as the disintegrating started to take away his lungs and began crying. Every other word was preceded by strangulation from his lungs dissipating. "Do you think I have penance to pay? Were my actions just or were they folley thrust upon me by my betters? A foal who never thought for himself...Do you think I will be allowed to come back? To have my own foals?" he snickered through his tears. "I hope there's not much to pay. I hate being...in debt..." His head dropped to the side before the rest of him dissipated. Moon looked at him in disgust. It took the greatest amount of willpower she could ever muster that kept her from spitting on the broken pony. She walked away and used the twin moons to heal herself as quickly as possible. A few seconds was enough for her. Her bones were mostly knitted together and contusions had shrunk, but she drained an immense amount of magic and felt weak. The presence of the other alicorns of the night seemed absent when she did so. Perhaps they were only able to come out during the night. It didn't matter in the end. Moon had changelings to ally with and information to ponder. This...malformed creature didn't kill her first vassal. There was only one pony she knew that would have done that and attack Sunny if the alicorn couldn't be reached. Things were starting to become more dangerous. The mare dared a glance over her shoulder to see the lifeless husk of the stallion fizzling away. In the moment the effect reached his eyes Moon jumped. They shot towards her then glazed over. "Mmmm..." Moon grumbled. "I have a feeling his ghost and those of his comrades are going to haunt me from now on... What did you fools do over the millennia?" Upon her return to the destroyed castle of her sister, Moon waved away the copious amounts of dust and debris erring about her nostrils. The hallways within had all but crumbled, leaving the true definition of a ruin behind. What hadn't outright fallen apart was just barely holding on by the skin of nonexistent teeth, and Moon could hear the stone straining while tiny bits and pieces of them fell from the cracks formed in the ceilings and walls. The lunar alicorn jumped down the tower that had somehow stood strong despite the fighting and the stress the false alicorn had put onto it and landed in a puddle of some unknown liquid. It was red. The mare spat in disgust and shook the substance off of her. Already she could hear the buzzing wings of diligent worker bugs cleaning up the mess she had caused. Limping around the corner, the mare was face-to-face with Queen Hepetia. To the mare's surprise, there was not a hint of anger on her face. Just the same bemused expression she sported when Moon had first arrived. Nightmare Moon looked at the cracked walls slowly folding outwards into the open halls only to be caught by several changelings spitting up a sticky green substance that held the stone in place. Others were pulling away pieces of stone and dragging them out of inconvenient places. "Seems you had quite a bit of fun at my hive's expense," Hepetia mused. "It wasn't...fun..." Moon wheezed. "You have a lot to make up for." The queen leaned closer to Moon. "I expect this shouldn't be a problem for a future queen?" Moon chuckled. "Let us speak...of reparations then."