Nightmare was abruptly awoken to the sudden lurch of the Helicarrier, the sounds of an explosion, and alarms beginning to blare throughout the Helicarrier. "No, I'm too late." She rasped as she tried to stand. A pounding headache was making it hard to think, and the alarms certainly weren't helping. She tried to climb to her hooves, but the Helicarrier lurched again, making her stumble and fall once more. Seeing that standing wasn't an option, she opened her wings and began to hover.
No longer affected by the shifting of the Helicarrier as it tried to right itself, she took stock of what she knew and what she could do in her current state. The Helicarrier was most likely falling from the sky, or was on its way to doing so since she hadn't felt weightless when she awoke. This meant there was still time to save the flying fortress. She gathered her magic, forcing it through her headache, and opened the door. Flying into the corridors, she headed straight for the bridge.
She was thankful the corridors were quite wide, though what they had in width they didn't have in height. If it was anypony who wasn't a trained professional, they would most definitely over-correct themselves and either fly into the ceiling or crash into the floor. While she wasn't as good a flier as her sister, she was still a cut above the rest. On her way however, she was stopped by a pair of agents pointing guns at her. "Out of my way, I must speak with Fury!" She commanded. The two looked at each other, before staring back at her and preparing to fire.
Nightmare had enough sense to erect a magic shield and just in time as the bullets began to ping off of it. However it didn't take much for it to begin to crack. Nightmare cursed her migraine and dispelled the shield as she shot two blasts of magic at the imposters. The magic made the two fly backwards and land on their backs. Their vests were smoking from where the magic had struck them. They got back onto their feet and tried to fire at her again. However Nightmare was already on them, having flown up to them. They barely caught a glimpse of metal shod hooves before they were both knocked out, one hoof to each head.
"You're good, but I'm better." She scoffed at their unconscious forms. She continued on her way to the bridge, but on her way she heard a loud roar that seemed to reverberate throughout the entire Helicarrier. "By my mother, what was that?" She whispered to herself. When she arrived at the bridge, it was in chaos. Smoke was everywhere, some agents were trying to take cover while other agents were taking potshots at the imposters. "Fury!" She called out, shooting out of the corridor and landing next to him.
Fury was a bit relieved that she wasn't harmed, but thought she was now in greater danger. "You need to get outta here, this area is hot."
"You don't think I know that?" She said as she spotted an imposter trying to come into the bridge from one of the corridors. Charging her horn, she sent a blast of magic at them. "You need me, so what's the situation?" Fury wasn't all that surprised the mare could fight, but seeing the guard fly back into the corridor from her magic blast did shock him a bit.
"Turbine three is down, Stark and Rogers are trying to fix it, Doctor Banner has turned into the Hulk, and Coulson is going to check on Loki." Nightmare nodded, then spotted something in one of the rafters and immediately recognized it.
"EVERYONE GET DOWN!" She shouted as she conjured a shield around them and the ship operators. An explosion nearly shattered the shield and Nightmare staggered. Seeing that he wasn't going to be able to puncture the shield, Barton left, not happy he wasn't able to do what he came to do. Nightmare struggled to keep the shield up but a few more sprays from the imposters made Nightmare recoil and cry out in pain, her wings and hooves shooting up to hold her head.
"Hill, watch her. Romanoff, Barton is here. He's most likely going to free Loki, stop him." Hill moved next to Nightmare, and tried her best to help the mentally-magically stressed alicorn.
Loki waited for his prison to unlock, but as the seconds ticked by he frowned. "Damn that mare, she is ruining everything." A minute later, a vent was kicked out, clattering to the steel walkway around his prison. A moment later Barton dropped down with a frown.
"Sorry for the delay, there were some complications." Barton said as he went about unlocking Loki's cell.
"Let me guess, black horse with a horn and wings?" Barton nodded.
"She is truly becoming a thorn in my side, deal with her." Barton nodded, and after a bit of climbing, was back inside the ventilation system. Loki stretched a bit, and flexed his magic, creating an illusion of himself that was about to exit the cell. "Any second now my dimwitted brother shall jump into the thing of his demise." Loki muttered to himself as he waited next to the control panel while cloaked in invisibility. He didn't have to wait long as he heard the thundering steps of his brother. No matter the material, no matter the echo, he knew his brother's steps.
Activating the illusion and opening the door, he made the illusion look like it was just stepping out of the cell as the door opened. "No!" He heard his brother shout before he bolted into the room, and right through his illusion. Loki immediately shut the door with a smirk. "Are you ever not going to fall for that?" He asked as he stepped away from the cell door console.
"Bridge is clear and secured." An agent said as he locked the bulletproof doors to the Helicarrier's bridge.
"Good, Hill, what's the condition of Ms. Moon?"
"She says that her headache is making it difficult to cast magic. Seeing as her horn is her magic foci of sorts, pushing magic through her horn hurts her even more. She needs something to soothe her headache and some light painkillers. After that, she should be good." Fury nodded, and told her to look through the emergency medkits stored under each of the rows of consoles. Hill nodded and left to do as she was instructed. Fury walked up to the mare, and placed a hand on her neck.
"How ya doing?" Nightmare cracked open an eye to stare at him.
"I've been better. I wanted to warn you, but it appears I awoke too late. The spell was a lot stronger than I anticipated, and when it detected my presence, it violently threw me out." Fury grimaced while he nodded.
"Explains why you shouted like that. Gotta say, you have quite the pair of lungs on you. Any louder and we'd have to fix a few windows and screens." Nightmare winced, feeling guilty about that.
"My apologies, it appears my 'Royal Canterlot Voice' had slipped out then." Fury blinked, confused.
"Royal Canterlot Voice'?"
"It is the voice we use when speaking to our subjects. It shows them that we demand full attention and respect. Though my sister used it a lot more sparingly than I did. More than once we had to replace a window due to her Voice." Fury couldn't hold back a chuckle as Hill returned with a medkit and a water bottle. A white, plastic, container with a green plus on it. Setting it down besides Nightmare, she gave the water bottle to Fury and went about searching for the proper things she needed. Fury took off the top of the water bottle and moved the bottle to let Nightmare drink from it.
Though reluctant to accept help, Nightmare allowed Fury to hold the bottle for her as she drank heavily of the clear liquid. She could tell it was heavily filtered from the texture and taste of the water. It was about halfway empty when Fury took it away. Hill finished searching and held up a pill bottle. She retrieved a pill and gave it to Fury. She put the pill bottle back into the medkit and left with it. Nightmare gladly accepted the pill, and washed it down with the water Fury offered.
"You know you probably saved a lot of lives from stopping Barton." Fury commented, as he looked around. "I believe Barton is still in there, and he wouldn't have tried to kill anyone here. But who knows what he would have tried had you not stepped in. Good eye by the way." Nightmare nodded, but still felt uneasy.
"None of this would have happened if I was just a bit faster. Stronger. I could have prevented all this."
"Don't, don't do that to yourself. You did what you could, and you can't change the past. So far there hasn't been any reported fatalities, much less casualties. So far, this is still a win in my book." It was then that his radio crackled to life.
"Sir, Loki has escaped, and has tricked Thor into the cell. I have to stop him before he escapes." Fury immediately answered back.
"Coulson, no, wait for backup. Loki is too much of an unknown." He got no reply.
"We need to help him." Nightmare said as she forced herself to stand. Fury wanted to protest but she cut him off. "Your agents don't know how to deal with magic, I do. Sending anyone there to help Coulson would be sending them into the unknown. I know magic, and you know the Helicarrier. We're his best shot." Fury struggled to find a way to argue but cursed when he knew she was right.
"Alright, let's go."
Celestia paced back and forth in the throne room, many emotions flowing through her. The moon no longer had the visage of her sister, yet she was nowhere to be found. She didn't even feel the magical presence she would exude. She… she didn't kill her sister, did she? Had the moon simply spat out a corpse she had yet to find? She stopped at that thought, and tears threatened to spill from her eyes. What had she done? She hadn't sent her sister to cool off, she sent her to her demise. 'You can bring her back, you just have to be strong enough.' A voice tickled the back of her mind.
Celestia ignored it, but the voice gradually wormed its way into her, slowly making it seem like a viable idea. She would get her sister back, one way or another. With that last thought, her beautiful magenta eyes turned orange and her pupils became draconic.