“Great.. just great! Thanks to her the plan was a failure! I knew it was a bad idea to work with her!” Cozy Glow yells with a very VERY furious tone. She was far less than pleased that all their efforts had been for nothing and now they couldn’t even talk to Midnight, they were out of plans, and Twilight could wake up at any minute. Speaking of the alicorn, she walks towards Twilight, planning to finally end this. “Let’s just kill her and be done with it!” She says before a hook-sword made of ice flys past her face just barely scratching her nose.
“You will do no such thing. Not yet anyway. Our new plan is about to start and we’ll need Twivine for it.” She says and everyone glares at her, Tirek and Chrysalis walking up to her with their magic ready.
“Says who?” Tirek asks, and just as he asks that, the entire mountain shakes and everyone struggles to keep their balance. Just as they get back up, they hear a familiar voice from the doorway behind them.
“Says me.” Midnight says as she walks into the room, everyone immediately realizing that their plan did work.
“Midnight.. y-you’re free.” Sonata says nervously as Midnight gets closer to the villains, prompting them to back up.
“Yes.. yes I am.” She says before glaring at Cozy, Tirek, and Chrysalis. “And I don’t appreciate your efforts to ignore. My. Orders. Not to mention kill my best asset!” She yells and Cozy Glow hides behind Tirek when she does. She turns to the masked pony. “But I appreciate your loyalty Frostbite.” She says, prompting her to nod. Then Cozy speaks up.
“Ummm.. n-no disrespect but your 'best asset' is the reason the plan almost failed.” Cozy Glow says and Midnight stays silent for a few seconds, causing her to become more tense until she sighs and speaks.
“I know, I know.. seems Twilight is stronger than I thought.. and harder to get rid of.. but no matter. After that, she won’t have any strength left to break free or mess up our plans anymore.” Midnight says as she walks to the aforementioned alicorn, kneels down in front of her, places her hand on her forehead and begins to work her magic. All it takes is a few seconds of this, a healing spell, aaaand..
“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash shouts as she jumps awake. That turns out to be a mistake as she feels a massive amount of pain surge through her body and she immediately falls back down. She groans in pain but opens her eyes to look around. She quickly realizes she’s in a hospital and she looks at herself, seeing bandages are covering most of her wounds but some of the bruises and burns are still visible. The memories of the fight from the other day come rushing back to her and she sighs when she remembers that Twilight was taken. “I’m sorry Twi..” Rainbow says with a guilty voice and a frown.
She sits up, wincing in pain the whole time but just as she does, Pinkie Pie bursts through the door and tackles her in a hug, squeezing her already damaged body. “Ow ow ow ow ow! Pinkie, ease up!” Rainbow says and Pinkie immediately realizes what she’s doing and lessens the force behind the hug and Rainbow sighs in relief as she doesn’t feel like she’s about to explode anymore. The rest of her friends walk in and she smiles.
“Wow.. You got pretty roughed up, huh?” Applejack asks and Rainbow Dash chuckles and fist bumps her before noticing her injuries and smirking.
“Doesn’t look like you did much better AJ.” She says and Rarity huffs, smirking at Applejack, causing her to roll her eyes.
“I told ya, I’m fine Rare.” Applejack says and Rarity crosses her arms, glaring at her and she sighs. “Ok ok, I was a bit on the rough side-“ she tries to admit but Rarity cuts her off, adding to what she was about to say.
“And you still are.” She says and Fluttershy giggles before wincing and holding her side. Pinkie notices and frowns.
“So all of us are hurt huh?” Rainbow says before noticing that Pinkie seems to be fine. “Well most of us.” She says and Fluttershy puts her hands on her hips and gives Pinkie a stern look. Pinkie giggles nervously.
“Actually all of us.” Pinkie says before walking around and they notice that she’s limping a little bit. Spike frowns.
“Wow.. how did we lose so badly?” He asks and Rainbow slowly stands up and sighs.
“It happened so fast.. we were caught off guard.” She says as she slowly recovers from the pain. “But now that we know what they’re trying to do, we can stop them now.. and I’ll be honest, I can’t wait to get my hands on Lightning Dust for the rematch.”
“I just can’t believe she’d team up with those monsters just to get back at you.” Rarity says and everypony agrees. Fluttershy then gets an idea.
“Maybe she doesn’t know that she’s helping to destroy the world?” She suggests, prompting Rainbow to mumble under her breath.
“Or care.” She mumbles and before Fluttershy can say anything in response, Starlight and Sunset walk in and they look conflicted. “Uhhh are you two ok?” Rainbow asks and they look at each other then back at the group.
“We have good news.. aaand bad news.” Starlight says and Sunset continues for her.
“Which one do you wanna hear first?” She asks and after thinking about it, they decide that they wanna hear the good news first. “So the good news is that there aren’t any signs of Midnight’s return yet as far as we can tell.” She says and they all look happy and celebrate for a bit before Starlight kills the mood by reminding them of the bad news.
“But the bad news is that we still don’t have a way to track them.. or Twilight.” Starlight says and they all stop cheering and frown. “Ummm.. but at least she did it. She saved us.” Starlight says and they smile a bit but not much. Starlight sighs and urges them all to follow her and they do. They needed to talk with Celestia and Luna to see if they could help. Hopefully they could but if not.. what would they do then..?
As Luna sat in front of the stained glass window that represented the cutie mark of a long lost friend.. she felt cold.. she felt lonely. Having nothing to do but sit in here with the joyful yet painful memories of a time long ago.. a time before she became Nightmare Moon. The young filly she had called her friend had been nothing but supportive of her.. she had been the first pony besides Celestia that she had formed a real bond with and one that could never be broken.. at least that’s what she thought.. a few days before her transformation, Luna had talked to her about what she was feeling towards Celestia, the resentment she had for her.
Flashback, a thousand years ago
“It’s not fair! I just.. I just don’t understand why she gets so much love and attention.. what. About. ME?!?!” Luna yells as she slams her fists down as hard as she can which collapses the table that she was sitting at. She takes a few seconds to breathe and calm down until her friend, now a teenager instead of a filly, places a gentle hand on her shoulder. It’s always amazed Luna how her friend could easily find her even though she was blind.. must’ve been her enraged breathing. Luna smiles and her friends smiles back. “I’m sorry that I’m rambling.. It’s just.. I’ve always wanted to be like my sister but lately.. I’ve wanted to be better. I can be better. I will. Be. Better.”
These words slightly scare her friend but she pulls Luna into a hug, causing her to freeze up.. before slowly returning it. “You’re trying too hard to be better than Celestia.. but she’s your sister, you two shouldn’t be competing.. you should work together.. Equestria needs both the sun and the moon. And there are ponies who stay up to enjoy the night in all it’s glory.. but it doesn’t mean they don’t love you Luna..” she says and Luna thinks about it before she continues. “You shouldn’t need ponies to love winter and the night for them to love you.. and even if they don’t..I always will.”
That hits Luna right in the heart and she frowns and starts to cry before hugging her friend as tightly as she could, getting a hug in return. They sit there for a bit before finally switching to talking about something less depressing.
Present day
Luna opens her eyes with a smile and a tear rolling down her cheek. That was a good memory.. but it also brought a lot of pain because of how dark a place Luna was in.. and because after that night.. she never saw her friend again. Her friend had gone missing the next day, even her mother hadn’t heard from her at all. After that.. Luna tried to hold out hope that nothing bad had happened to her.. but eventually.. she cracked. That realization that she was gone was enough for her to finally make the decision to try to overthrow Celestia.
After her return from the moon, and her defeat as Nightmare Moon, she had come to realize that since a thousand years had passed, her friend was surely long dead. Her biggest regret.. was that she never got to say goodbye.. but thanks to her friend and the words she had said to her, she had fixed her relationship with Celestia.. and herself.
“Thank you.. for everything..” Luna says as she places a hand on the stained glass window, struggling to control herself but when she says the name of her friend, she can’t help but break into a fit of tears. “..Snowdrop..”
It had been years since she’d heard or said the name.. too afraid of the pain that would come with it.. but it was actually kind of.. therapeutic for her. She wanted to remember Snowdrop, she wanted the world to remember her and what she had done for them. She had given them something unique to love about winter.. and she had given Luna something that not even her own sister could.. a friend.
Hours later, Somewhere in Equestria
As the storm raged outside the airship, the innocent ponies aboard were a little tense because of it as it had appeared out of nowhere. Something was different about this storm.. as if it was being caused by magic. As one of the little kids looked outside the window to count the lightning strikes, she saw something.. unexpected. “Mommy! Look! An alicorn!” She calls to her mother who comes over to the window a bit excitedly.
When she sees the alicorn, she can’t see her very well but she can see a flowing and glowing red mane and tail. She has red eyes and some of her feathers are red. “Huh.. that doesn’t look like one of the princesses.” She says before noticing the alicorn looking at them. This sets her on edge a bit more but when the alicorn's horn starts glowing red, the realization hits her like a train. “Sweetie, get back-!” She tries to yell and move her daughter but it’s too late. As the magic hits the airship, it kills them and a bunch of ponies by them before slicing it in half, causing it to go down. The alicorn stops and watches it crash with an evil smile on her face.
“Not bad Astelle.. but you’ve done better.” Midnight says from behind her and she turns to face her old friend. She chuckles and flys a bit closer.
“Nice to see you too Midnight. So.. what’s first on our list of things to destroy.. well besides what I just destroyed.” She asks and Midnight chuckles evilly before looking in the direction of Canterlot.
“I have a few ideas.. so let’s just say you’ll be seeing your little sisters again very soon.” Midnight says and Astelle smirks more as her eyes, horn, mane, and tail glow brighter.
“Good..” She says before they both fly back to the tomb. They would have their revenge very soon.. both on the princesses.. and the rest of Equestria.