"And then what happened?" Sunny asked.
"I went to the 'capital' of their county, used the soldiers to verify my claims, and then threaten to wipe out the entire lineage of that count if they didn't cease their actions," Moon explained casually.
"...I see."
"Then I was contacted by one of the changelings, telling me what had happened to you." The stallion shrank away under Moon's gaze, embarassed. "So that makes the base of my own territory protected, with the flank owned by the thestrals inaccessible." She frowned. "But I'm getting ahead of myself." She looked at Sunny's fading burn marks and grit her teeth. "Leaving things as they are behind is a bad idea. I'm going to check on the bird at the griffin city."
Sunny faltered in his steps. "What? Why?" he asked.
"I let the new magic of my sister fester in the bowels of her old castle, and you ended up going there in my place," she said. "I don't like that he was pulled by it, though," she thought to herself. "A fragment can call on magic of her descendants?" Her brow furrowed.
"So?"
"You already forgot the letter you read from the bird?"
The unicorn thought hard and then bounced. "Oh! What was her name...ca...cr...Calostell?"
"Yes. That was it. The bird creature." Moon became more stern in her disposition, worrying Sunny. "She had dormant chaos magic in her."
"What?!" the stallion stammered. "But...is that a good or bad thing?"
Moon rolled her eyes. "That's a bad thing, Sunny Dimples. Discord and Accord were gods of chaos and order respectively, and their power had a tendency to warp everything around them, neither for the betterment of any creature." She put a wing to the side of her head. "No pony knows how chaos magic works, and your stupid question means that even those magic types have been lost, and for the better."
"Why didn't you do anything about it before then?!" Sunny asked loudly. "You could have told her and the minotaur--"
"And what?" Moon interrupted. "As long as she was unaware of it, then it wouldn't have done anything much but make her..." The alicorn cleared her throat. "Quirky, so to speak. No. I'm going there now. It hasn't been that long yet, and without order magic to balance it out, she might destroy everything around her without being fully aware of it."
"I'm coming with," Sunny said firmly. "You'll need me in-case--"
"No. A mere fragment of my sister almost killed you just for trying to figure out her new magic." The mare stomped the ground. "This isn't mere pony magic. This is chaos magic. If this 'teacher' is who I think it is, then I need to know what he was doing this whole time and to keep you and anypony else behind." She snorted. "As much as chaos magic is dangerous, it is still magic, and the users always have a limit to what they can do, even those like Discord."
"But-!"
It was too late. Moon had rushed out of the dungeons, leaving a deflated Sunny behind. Normally, the alicorn would need Sunny's help to remember where she needed to go, but with the now-active chaos magic coming from the bird, Moon only needed to follow it. She raised a brow, noticing the discoloration of the sky as while closing in. It had turned pink, and the land around had started to turn into a fascimile of a nest. Trees grow sideways along the ground and were covered in leaves and pine bristles. The animals were...random. Their parts were assigned in the wrong spots, but they, evidently, weren't bothered. Nightmare Moon was naturally repulsed when one tried to get near her. It had an eye where a nostril should be, a swollen beak twisted to the side, and an eye inside said beak. She burned it away.
The city fared slightly better, but that was only by the standpoint of the constructs: They were wobbling like rubber. The griffins didn't even seem to notice the changes, but their faces had been...redrawn, like somepony with no true artistic talent sloppily drew happy faces on them with a pencil.
Annoyed and worried, Nightmare Moon quickly focused her magic for teleportation and found herself in the muddy undercity startling Calostell and her observers onto the floor when she materialized.
"Calostell," Moon called out.
"What the-?! What is the meaning of this?!" Bombastic demanded. The minotaur stomped forward from one of the shacks.
"I've come to see her 'teacher'," Moon stated.
"Teacher? Oh, you mean the pony." He pointed to a cloaked individual helping the bird up. "I agree with you that I'm still skeptical about him." Bombastic crossed his arms and retained his scowl. "But so far he hasn't done anything dangerous, and he hasn't heard our leader."
"He's been teaching me magic!" Calostell announced next to the alicorn somehow.
Moon looked around for the source of the bird's voice and flinched in disgust when she saw that Calostell's beak was floating in the air, connected to her through a swirling pink portal.
"Oops," Calostell blurted and pulled her beak back, covering it with her dextrous feathers. "Sorry. Still learning to use magic!" she giggled nervously.
"I knew it," Nightmare Moon hissed. "Chaos magic."
"Oh, you know what it is?" Calostell crossed her arms and her feathers puffed up. "My teacher wouldn't even tell me."
"Nightmare Moon?" the figure noted in surprise. "I thought you were gone from here."
"Well, yeah. She left the city a while ago," Calostell said. She turned to Moon with a nervous smile. "What brings you here?"
The alicorn raised a brow at the bird. "What did you do to her?" she asked the hooded pony.
The figure shrugged and shook their head. "I don't know what you're talking about. She just became nervous when I came to teach her."
"And you knew about her magic how?" Moon took a step forward. "No pony should be able to sense what she had within her, and some no name equine comes out of nowhere to teach her it? I don't buy your story," Moon accused.
"What do you expect me to say? I am big spooky pony who want destroy world?" the figure mocked.
Moon pointed at him. "Where were you, Discord? You vanished from the world along with your magic. Why would some of it attach itself to this creature and not stay with you? What did you do?!"
"I can speak for myself..." Calostell muttered nervously.
"Discord?" The figure paused. "Ah right. The draconequus." It chuckled. "No, I'm not him. I'm just here to teach her to handle her powers."
Bombastic pulled the bird back, and the observers slowly backed away as well. The two figures were starting to gradually release their magic, but the hooded pony's was...warping the land around it.
"What are you doing?" Calostell protested. "I can handle myself."
Bombastic held onto the bird's wings. "No you can't. The giant pony is right," the minotaur said. "You've been acting strange since that pony came by. It's like you're numb when he comes by, and then you become so..." He stuck out his tongue in disgust. "Fragile."
The bird started panicking, and her eyes darted about. "N-no. I'm...I'm still the same!"
Everyone was momentarily blinded by Moon unleashing a spell against the figure, unveiling Calostell's 'teacher'. Even she was somewhat shocked.
"Aw, now you went and ruined the surprise," the unveiled pony complained.
Moon focused her magic in front of her. A pony made of multiple layers of random types bones that shifted around with every movement stood before her, and the magic it held wasn't any normal kind of chaos magic. Well, as normal as such magic could be. Just looking at this entity was straining her senses. He was the same size as a regular adult stallion, but it felt like something immense was backing him. An immense thing that would squash the world if it wanted to.
"A surprise? You wanted to spread chaos around the world using her, I imagine."
The stallion's demeanor turned somber. "Oh. It was that obvious?" He huffed. "I didn't realize that the one Calostell was sending a message to was Nightmare Moon, of all ponies." He snorted. "But, I suppose you go by another name as well, hm?" It twitched in delight.
Moon stood up and laughed heartily. "Such a predictable fellow, like most things chaos."
The stallion 'frowned'. "Chaos? Predictable." He grumbled. "You sound just like them." He started pacing back and forth slowly. "No. This place is devoid of chaos and order. I wanted chaos to take over and become a driving force of this world and everything in it. The power that could be exerted just from her using what little she possesses." The stallion flexes and took in a deep breath. "The marvels that would become of it."
"So you just wanted to complete your own powers of chaos that you inherited by using her and many others, I imagine." Moon grinned. "Couldn't just kill her to take that power?" she scoffed.
"Do what?" The stallion laughed heartily. Little bones fell from the black circles that served as his eye sockets. Glowing red dots finally revealed themselves from behind the shifting bones. "I don't have chaos magic, Nightmare-in-the-moon." The mare scowled further. "I mean, I had no idea that the shift in magic was due to your return, but thanks to that, there's likely going to be another chaos god returning to this world." The bones on his body formed an arm and presented Calostell. "And why not have it be her instead of yet another pony?"
"Because chaos magic is inherently opposing to the nature of ponies," Moon said.
The stallion shook his head. "That's just what you told yourselves long ago. Magic is magic." A hand came out of his shoulder and shook a finger at Moon. "There's no defining the true nature of something without digging deep to find the reality within."
"You were just using me?" Calostell shouted. "I was so excited to learn magic and you use that against me?" She frowned then smiled and laughed. "Well played! I would have done the same!"
The stallion clicked his tongue. "Her nature is going back to normal," he complained. "Well, at any rate, I'm staying here to teach her and make her into the next chaos lord of the world."
"No you aren't," Bombastic declared. The minotaur and many of the griffins in the underground city stood, threatening, against the chaos pony. "You will be leaving."
The stallion smirked and shrugged while shaking his head. "Now look at what you did, Luna. You ruined everything." Bones erupted from the ground and impaled every creature around them several times then pulled them into the walls of the shacks or the dirt elevations, trapping everyone. Much to Moon's and Calostell's shock, nobody was dead or bleeding out. It was as if the bones fused to their own skeletons.
"Cute," Moon said. "Unfortunately, I must admit that you were right." She looked back at the pony. "That isn't chaos magic. What is it?"
The bones covering the pony's body shifted, spasmed, twisted, and expanded. "It is chaos magic, just not chaos you're used to."
His eyes flashed several times as he stared, unmoving, at Nightmare Moon. The alicorn clenched her teeth and felt her innards start to twist, expand, and split, but her overwhelming new magic reverted the changing and threw the stallion away. He looked at Moon, shocked. The alicorn noticed that his magic had briefly become unnoticeable and he looked around nervously, spinning around and looked every which way.
"You...undid my power with your own magic by overwhelming it?" His hooves dug into the ground. "I thought he was protecting you, or the lessers were around somewhere."
"What in Equestria are you mumbling about, you insane fool?" Moon asked angrily.
"Insane?!" The pony laughed. "That is exactly right! I am a herald of the World of Insanity. My name is Bahua, and you ruined everything that had been prepared so carefully after coming to this world, so you better make it up to me!"
"From another world? Then I simply need to banish you!" Moon claimed.
Bahua didn't hold back and immediately created bone serpents from the ground that snapped at Nightmare Moon. To her horror, they were extremely sturdy. Only a shield spell covering her body saved her from being clipped into pieces by the uneven bits of calcium comprising them. She teleported out of their grasp and back onto the ground, allowing her to harness the inherent darkness of the underground. Tendrils of darkness flowed out of the many tunnels linking to the city and slowly engulfed the serpents. After a few seconds of thrashing, the darkness dissolved, taking the serpents with them.
"Hrm. A pony shouldn't be able to carry that much power without being backed by something," Bahua noted aloud. "You have quite a few tricks up your sleeves yourself," he told Moon. "You accused me of being Discord, but then you mention him being absent until I came. Where were you, then?"
"In the moon," Nightmare Moon replied simply.
Bahue looked away and fumbled with the bones comprising his chin. "That doesn't sound right," he muttered. "Seems like I need to get rid of you first and deal with that next." He was struck directly in the head by a lance of darkness, twisting his head at an unnatural angle and throwing bones everywhere. "Ow," the bones said flatly.
Bahua's neck readjusted itself by spinning and reshaping the rings comprising it. Moon was taken aback by the sight. A red light floated where his eye was meant to be, but now there was an immense gap where Moon had struck him. A strange current of white light flowed out of his body but did not disperse into the air. It was simply reabsorbed when it reached past his muzzle.
"What?" Moon said in shock.
"Headshots are too easy, Moon. You should know that, or have you been trapped in the moon for so long that you weren't able to learn anything from your past?" He shook his head, causing some bone fragments to fall off that gap's edges. "No need to worry about this. I always have some bones to fix it, but I have to admit...I don't like this," he stated in a deeper tone of voice. "I have only visited one other reality with alicorns strong enough to harm a herald at my level." He poked some of the bones on the floor and casually swiped away another lance. "You do know that chaos unchecked could ruin this world? They aren't here, and there is no more order magic." He looked at the minotaur Calostell was trying to pull free from the shack. "What are the odds that he has any?"
Moon frowned. He didn't, but this oddity didn't need to know that. "What if he does?" She shook her head. "Your incessant stalling for time is annoying! I'm getting rid of you right away!"
The alicorn enveloped herself in magic and charged at the stallion, intent on causing her spell to ripple through his body and tear him apart. Instead, she found her position in the air twisted about, making her crash face-first into the ground and drag along it back to her starting position.
Moon spat out mud and small stones from her mouth in disgust. "What?!" she spat.
"The World of Insanity might have limited my magic in this place, but it should be sufficient to deal with a pony overloaded on magic she can't handle!" Bahua declared.
Moon tensed her muscles. This was yet another strange fight in a strange world that she wasn't accustomed to.