//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: The Other Royal Cult // Story: The Royal Cult // by Banjo64 //------------------------------// Nightmare Moon landed with unequal grace and power. She then lifted her head to the sky and began laughing. Free! After a thousand years, she was finally free! At last, vengeance would be hers, and the land would finally give her the adoration she so rightfully deserved! “Hail to the Mistress of the Night! Hail to the Ruler of the Stars! Hail to the Lady of the Moon!” Nightmare Moon blinked, then looked back down in shock. There was a sizable crowd of ponies around her landing site. All of them wore dark robes bearing her cutie mark, and were bowing to her. Nightmare Moon couldn’t believe her eyes. “Who… who are you?” she asked. The crowd stopped their chanting to look up at her. One pony stepped forward. “Oh great Lady of Shadow, we are the Dark Legion. We are but your humble servants. Since your banishment a millennium ago, we have existed in secret, long awaiting your prophesied return. And now that the glorious night is upon us, we come forward to offer our eternal devotion to you, oh great Mistress of the Night!” she exclaimed. This was almost enough to break the Nightmare’s hold on Luna right then and there. Almost. Her burning resentment against her sister was just barely enough to keep the darkness bound to her. Nightmare Moon laughed once more in sheer delight. “Excellent! Your loyalty shall be rewarded once the crown is rightfully mine!” she declared. The gathered ponies let out cries of near unfathomable joy. “Hail to the Champion of the Tides! Hail to the Mistress of Nightmares! Hail to the rightful ruler of Equestria!” chanted the crowd. Nightmare Moon grinned. Yes… this was exactly what she sought. “Come then, my loyal subjects. We march to defeat my sister!” she declared. “Yes! We shall hunt down the false Princess and destroy her, along with all who dare to obey her!” cried the head pony. Wait… what? Nightmare Moon watched in disbelief as the gathered ponies all drew weapons out of their robes. “We shall punish the guilty! None shall be spared the night’s wrath!” cried the head pony. The rest of the crowd cheered and started chanting.  “Punish! Punish! Punish!” they cried. Nightmare Moon shook her head to clear it. “What madness do you speak of? Do you intend to slaughter the populace?” she asked in disbelief. “But of course! All who fail to recognize your eternal glory can not be allowed to live!” replied the leader. Nightmare Moon’s jaw dropped. “But… but I wish for ponies to adore me! How can they do so if they are dead?” asked Nightmare Moon. That gave the gathered ponies pause. “While I am grateful for your devotion, I do not want you to go and slaughter my future worshipers,” said Nightmare Moon. “But Lady of the Night, justice demands…” started the leader. “I am justice! I shall decide who deserves forgiveness and who doesn’t. You need only follow behind me, and carry out my will. And my will is that there shall be no bloodshed,” declared Nightmare Moon. The gathered crowd seemed somewhat disappointed, but they obediently put their weapons away. Nightmare Moon sighed in relief. Clearly, these ponies were devoted, but rather overzealous. They could prove useful to her, but she was going to have to be careful to utilize them properly. “Thank you. Now, where is my sister?” she asked. Nightmare Moon sighed as the crowd of ponies followed her towards the town her sister was hiding in. Their unending praise was enjoyable, but after twenty minutes she was starting to get tired of them repeating her many titles over and over again. And some of them she was fairly certain were made up. “Hail to the Mistress of Spiders! Hail to the Inventor of Moon Pies! Hail to the Eternal Witness of Affection!” cried the crowd. Nightmare Moon stopped walking and turned back towards her followers. “Eternal Witness of Affection?” she asked. “Yes. For who else watches us as we perform our nightly rituals of passion and love?” replied the lead pony. Nightmare Moon quickly realized what the pony was referring to. Her mind nearly snapped as her face turned red. “N-no! I do not! I would never intrude upon such personal affairs!” she declared. “You need not fear, oh great Leader of the Stars. We have embraced your ways of pleasure, and have even prepared a few of our numbers for your harem!” declared the leader. “My what?!” cried Nightmare Moon. “Your harem. See?” said the leader as she pointed to a group of stallions wearing highly revealing clothing. Nightmare Moon gasped at the sight, blushed furiously, and then facehooved. “Can you please not? Even in my time, such things were greatly frowned upon, and I do not wish to be recognized as a deviant,” said Nightmare Moon. “Of course not! That’s why we were going to wait until after you rightfully rule the world so you can finally make it acceptable to have one!” said the leader with a smile. Nightmare Moon was tempted by the idea, but only for a moment. Luna’s traditional stance was too deeply integrated for her to really consider it. She also had a flashback to when ponies offered the same thing to Celestia so long ago. She suddenly couldn’t understand what in Equestra she had been jealous of. Were ponies truly this obsessive? Nightmare Moon sneered down at Celestia’s beaten form. Did she really think hiding in some measly peasant town would protect her? And her dear sister had been unable to lift a hoof to fight her. Clearly the last thousand years alone had withered her resolve. “At last, my vengeance shall be complete,” Nightmare Moon declared. She noticed that Celestia had an open bottle of wine on the nearby table. Feeling quite pleased with herself, and more than a little smug, Nightmare Moon poured herself a glass. “Luna,” gasped Celestia from the floor. “Oh? Begging for mercy are we?” asked Nightmare Moon with a smirk. “Don’t drink the wine. It’s poisoned,” said Celesia. Nightmare Moon paused. “Come again?” she asked. “One of my guards noticed somepony slipping something into the bottle. I don’t know what’s in it, but I suspect it was intended for me,” finished Celestia. Luna looked down at her glass of wine in disgust. Her followers had tried to poison her sister? To deny her the vengeance she so craved?! Clearly, they would have to be banished to the dungeons so that they would learn how to properly serve their ruler. “Look, Luna, whatever you plan to do to me, could you please get it over with? The cult hasn’t tried to poison me in almost two hundred years. If they tried it again, it means either there’s some newly formed cult branch, or another internal coup happened. Regardless of which, I’d rather not have to deal with it until this whole matter is resolved,” said Celestia. Nightmare Moon started at her sister, who was apparently not as badly injured as she appeared to be if she was capable of giving such a long-winded speech. “Your worshippers… tried to poison you in the past?” asked Nightmare Moon in disbelief. “Yes. Something about proving my divine nature to the masses or some nonsense like that. Honestly, I’m kind of hoping that you defeating me here tonight will help get them to calm down,” said Celestia with a shake of her head. Forget the dungeons. If my worshippers are anything like hers, then those… fanatics are being sent straight to an asylum as soon as my reign is secured, thought Nightmare Moon. Nightmare Moon looked down at the small band of ponies who dared to venture towards her old home: a tailor, a baker, a farmer, a weather mare, a veterinarian, and a scholar. This was the best force her sister could prepare to stop her? Only one of them posed even a remote threat, and what could a single scholar do to challenge her? In fact, Nightmare Moon suspected she didn’t even need to do anything. She’d just leave them to her followers so she could focus on… “Oh Lady of Spiders, may I be consumed with anguish that you may know of my love for you!” cried a pony behind her. Nightmare Moon turned to see the pony pour a bucket of spiders over himself. Judging from the screams of agony he then let out despite the harmless species covering his body, he seemed to suffer from arachnophobia. On second thought, I’d best take care of this myself. They’d probably just end up hurting themselves, or worse, lead these ponies right to the Elements… thought Nightmare Moon as she turned herself into stardust. Nightmare Moon cursed as she watched the ponies enter her old castle. She’d underestimated those peasants. It was apparent that they would not be deterred by simple tricks or minor dangers. Though in hindsight, some of her methods of stopping them could have been a little better thought out. Clearly, she was rusty from her time spent on the moon, and rather stressed from dealing with the sheer insanity of her followers. But no more. It was time to stop hiding behind illusions and beasts. She would… Nightmare Moon paused and turned around. She could feel something very wrong from where her followers were. Fearing that she let herself be distracted away from Celestia's main force, she quickly rushed back to them. An army of enemy soldiers would have been preferable to what she found. “Oh great Mistress of the Night, accept this humble token of our devotion to you!” cried the head pony. Nightmare Moon gasped in horror. The ropes, the shrine, the arcane circle, and the pony tied down: it could only mean some sort of sacrificial ritual! One of them had even lifted a blade over the sacrifice! “STOP!” she cried. The gathered ponies turned towards her in surprise. “Is the sacrifice not to your liking, Mistress of the Stars?” asked the lead pony. “Not to my liking?! Why the buck would I want ponies to be sacrificed to me?! Cease this barbaric action and release that poor soul immediately!” commanded Nightmare Moon. The ponies gingerly undid the ropes. The pony sacrifice seemed disappointed, to Nightmare Moon’s disgust and disbelief. “I realize I’ve been trapped on the moon for a very long time, but how in Equestria could you have possibly reached the conclusion that I would ever demand pony sacrifices?!” demanded Nightmare Moon. “Oh, it was one of the first things we realized when we started to worship you. The whole ‘gobbles candy’ story was clearly a metaphor for you devouring the souls of ponies. And there are plenty among our ranks who are more than willing to offer ourselves as...” said the head pony. Nightmare Moon leaned her head back and let loose a cry of agony. “You know what? Buck you! Buck you all! You’re clearly nothing but a bunch of madponies using my name and titles to justify your horrid actions! Your so called praise is hollow and meaningless!” she cried. The cult ponies looked horrified at this. “No! No, that’s not it at all, oh Lady…” started the leader. “Hold your tongue, worthless scum! For this crime you will…” said Nightmare Moon. She stopped as she remembered that six ponies were currently entering her old home, and could possibly discover the one weapon that could threaten her. “... well, I have a more pressing matter that I must address. But once I am finished, you will all pay for this transgression!” declared Nightmare Moon before she flew off. It was all Luna could do to take one step forward after the other, following after her sister as she was led toward her new chambers. She couldn’t believe that this wasn’t a dream, but every trick she knew to wake up wasn’t working. She had been freed from the nightmare. She had been welcomed back into Equestria. Her sister had promised to let her reclaim her crown without a fuss. She could already feel the moon’s gentle touch as it once again willfully opened itself up to her. This was undoubtedly the most profound day of her life. Nothing could possibly ruin it. “Excuse me, your highness? I mean, your highnesses?” said a soldier as he ran up to them. “Yes?” asked Celestia. “There appears to be a bit of riot happening in front of the castle gates,” said the soldier. Celestia and Luna quickly dashed to a nearby balcony. Once they saw the crowd, Celestia facehooved while Luna’s jaw dropped. “Hail to Lady of the Sun!” “No! Hail to the Lady of the Moon!” “Treacherous Swine!” “Small-minded Shrew!” A large crowd of ponies wearing white robes were arguing with an equally large crowd of ponies wearing black robes. More than a few fights had broken out, and it looked like the situation was rapidly escalating further. “A cult forms to worship Luna less than twenty four hours after her return. I can not decide if I should be intimidated or just disgusted,” said Celestia. “Actually, they claimed to have been around for almost as long as your cult, Princess Celestia. Apparently, they’ve come to Canterlot to ‘prove that their praise is not hollow.’ Unfortunately, they chose to approach the castle at the exact same time a crowd of Solar Witnesses were about to throw another unauthorized celebration,” explained the guard. Celestia let out a sigh. “Is it too much to hope that they’ll just fight each other, and eventually start holding the other back so that there’s ultimately less destruction?” she asked. BOOM! “Behold, our love for the rightful ruler far surpasses your own!” BOOM! “Fools! Our love is still greater!” Celestia let out a resigned sigh. “And now they’re blowing up buildings in the name of praising us. I don’t know why I bothered to hope otherwise,” said Celestia with a shake of her head. “We’ll send our forces down to contain them right away, your highnesses,” said the guard as he quickly departed. Luna, meanwhile, finally managed to regain her senses, and she felt like crying. This was what she had been jealous of her sister for?  “Wha… but… why… but…” she stuttered. Celestia put a comforting wing over her sister. “I’m afraid that the last thousand years have done little to dissuade such behavior among our ponies,” she said sadly. “But… but they cause untold destruction upon our city! Surely there must be some way to contain them!” cried Luna. Celestia leaned down and looked Luna straight in her eyes. Luna saw in her sister’s gaze a depth of hopelessness far greater than she thought possible for a pony to bear. “If you can find such a way, dear sister, please tell me at once so that I can utilize it myself,” said Celestia. Once again, Luna felt the cold touch of despair. At least this time she had company with her misery...