The black alicorn was lost in thought as she contemplated where she had gone wrong. She had made a mistake, and now she was paying the price.
As she continued her search through the old and abandoned library in the depths of The castle of two sisters. Her expression was one of determination and focus as she scanned the shelves for any clues that might help her in her quest.
She moved swiftly and with purpose, her eyes darting from book to book as she tried to find what she was looking for.
She flicked through the pages, her eyes scanning the text as she searched for any relevant information. After a few minutes, she shook her head in frustration and tossed the book aside.
"No, not this one" she muttered, disappointment evident in her voice.
Her plan had been simple enough if it can even be called that. She would beat the shit out of that white bitch, show her dominance, and then leave that thing in Ponyville with the Element of Harmony, leaving Equestria without its sole protector and more important matter than chasing after her into the forest of death.
In the short term anyway, but long enough for her to find what she needed, hopefully.
She will be long gone by the time Twilight is able to bond with the elements, if that is still possible at all. It was a perfect plan, or so she had thought.
But then Murphy has to come and screwed her up.
As she reached for another book, she muttered to herself in frustration. "No, not this one either" tossing the book aside.
She was running out of time; they can come at any moment. She had forgotten to leave the Element of Harmony in Ponyville, and now she was paying the price for her mistake.
She had somehow overlooked that critical step. Now, they have reason to come here, and her plan was in shambles, doomed from the start, her time here is limited.
Despite the urgency of her situation, Nightmare Moon managed to keep her cool to some level. The best course of action is to find a way to salvage this mess, to turn this situation to her advantage, but how?
She let out a heavy sigh, her mind racing as she tried to come up with a new plan. But everything was so uncertain, so unpredictable. It was almost as if fate was conspiring against her.
Suddenly, she heard a noise from outside the library, The clanking of metal against metal echoed throughout the castle making her heart skip a beat. She had to hurry.
She deployed her notice-me-not and invisibility spells, hoping that she would be hidden from whoever or whatever searching for her.
She began rapidly pulling books from the shelves, scanning them quickly before placing them aside in frustration, anything, just any clues.
The sound of armor keeps closer as a wave of unknown magic flows past her, an active scanning maybe? She could feel the clock ticking down, and it was driving her crazy.
Just when she thought she had found what she was looking for, Twilight appeared out of nowhere, wearing oversized armor and grinning from ear to ear.
The keyword is "thought ".
Nightmare Moon froze, unsure of what to do next. She wasn't supposed to be here.
"Princess Nightmare Moon, I know you're here!" Twilight called out looking directly at her eyes.
This is bullshit.
At least the purple bookhorse looked adorable in that getup.
Twilight Sparkle felt like a tin can as she walked down the hallway in Shining Armor's oversized armor.
Every time Twilight took a step, the armor made a loud clanging noise that echoed through the hallways, making her feel more conspicuous than ever. She couldn't help but feel a little ridiculous in the suit of armor that was designed for her much larger brother.
But that's his condition, not much she can do about it.
She took a deep breath, knowing that what she was about to do could be dangerous. Nightmare Moon is still mostly unpredictable, and Twilight knew that one wrong move could spell disaster for her. But she already came this far. She had to try.
Nightmare Moon is strong, possibly even stronger than Princess Celestia, her spell told her so. The night alicorn's magic shined like the violent column of wild, untamed air in the middle of a calm day, ready to brew into a great storm at any moment, a walking natural disaster in the shape of a pony.
And yet, just like anything else, such existence still has weaknesses, and she's going to exploit a couple of them today!
So, she relaxed her posture and stepped forward, her horn glowing with a soft lavender light, a spell that create a heat map of ambient magic distribution in the shape of a small sphere around the caster, and then imprinted the information directly into one's mind, a spell that can bypass thousand years old illusion spells completely and reveal the true reality!
And she found it! A small area of magic that seems to be darker even the absolute darkness and as powerful as the sun itself, a pony-shaped magic hotpot stood before Twilight.
She looked directly at the area around Nightmare Moon’s head, the place that is most likely her eyes then smiled and called out, "Princess Nightmare Moon, I know you're here!"
The invisible alicorn of the night looked back, her face twisted in a frown. Yet she still relented.
Uncomfortable silence reign in, as two mares stare at each other, the message is clear. And yet this status quo cannot last forever, something has to give in.
The disguised mare faded into existence "What do you want, Sparklebutt?" Nightmare Moon finally spoke up, her voice cold and distant.
Looking directly at the alicorn's sharp teethes and predator-looking eyes, Twilight stopped herself from flinching just in time, maintained the unperturbed facade and smiled. "Your plan is based on herd instinct, isn't it?" She said to the ruler of the night.
Nightmare Moon tilted her head, acting confused, but Twilight knew better. She decided to press on and started deconstructing Nightmare's plan.
"We ponies were herd animals before we gained sentient, and it influenced how the modern pony society operated. Taking advantage of that fact, you took down Princess Celestia because she was the leader, the 'alpha' of the 'herd' called Equestrian Government, and without her, the 'herd' will lose its direction and will be in shambles and unable to pursue you." Twilight continued, her tone calm and measured.
"Ah... yeah, let's go with that" Nightmare Moon replied. To be honest, she only half-understanding what Twilight was talking about.
But the keyword "unable to pursue you" is enough for her to understand what the unicorn is getting at.
She had expected Twilight to be angry or outraged after what happened, but the unicorn's calm demeanor was something else, further confirming her suspicion about this world being an alternate universe.
As she tried to ignore clunky metal plates that chafed against her furs in all the wrong places, she could see that her words had struck a nerve with the black alicorn.
"It must have taken a long time to come up with this whole thing, huh?" Twilight continued, trying to stroke Nightmare Moon's ego.
10 minutes is a long time for Zoomers indeed, attention span can go fuck itself… and there's more? Nightmare then hesitantly asked. "So, you understand my plan completely?"
"If I am guessing correctly when the conditions are right," she said, "the Elements of Harmony can act as perpetual energy generators by being conductors of ambient magic energy. You want to use the Element of Harmony to focus the local potential energy and release it in a controlled manner. With that, you can create a steady flow of magic energy and make it possible to harness its power, channeling it into practical applications."
Nightmare Moon looked confused, her facial expression contorted in a mix of disbelief and surprise. She had never heard of such an idea before. She doesn't know the rip-off infinity stones can be used as something akin to an RTG, and Twilight's gibberish-filled explanation only seemed to add to her confusion.
"By using the Element of Harmony," Twilight continued, wagging her hoof, making some kind of gesture. "You can sustain high energy consumption spells such as full-body illusion magic using ambient magic directly. This way, it is much less noticeable than a spell cast directly from a horn. This will allow you to disguise yourself and remain hidden away from any potential threats."
Nightmare Moon was completely stumped. She has planned to disguise herself with just a cloak, it seems to work well enough for Tirek. Maybe with the compliment of a cardboard box?
"Well, it's a clever plan, I'll give you that," Twilight said, her eyes gleaming with admiration. "But there are two problems with it."
Nightmare Moon's expression turned even more confused as she tried to understand what Twilight had just said. This seems better than what she came up with. Without any idea of what's the issue, she then gave up and motioned the unicorn to continue.
"The first one is that it relies on the principle of generating magic energy without a living creature, unpolarized magic without the unique signature of living creatures, which is still confined by the third laws of Arch-Mage Snicker Spell" Twilight explained. "It states that any unpolarized magic energy is subject to interference from other unpolarized magical sources, including any other magictech discharged in normal operation. This includes the anti-counterfeit spells in all Equestrian coins."
The alicorn raised her eyebrows, what kind of parents named their child 'Snicker'? Then she remembers this is Equestria.
Twilight continued, "Without any modern filtration spells, your energy supply to your disguise can be easily disabled by interference from any other magical source, rendering your disguise useless. In other words, your disguise will fail the moment you touch a coin."
Silence reigned in the room as Nightmare Moon considered the implications of Twilight's warning. It has been fruitful. She knew that Twilight was right.
This is not the moon or ancient Equestria. There are many variables. Any idea that involved a "spell matrix" is to be scrapped for the foreseeable future.
"The second one is that, your spells are outdated by a thousand years. Different than offensive spells that you might be able to use the sheer power of alicorn magic to brute force, the spells used in espionage operations required the opposite. You might be able to trick some automate security system with that but any unicorn that cast a modern area of effect detection spell will notice your presence immediately"
Well, that sounds more like a normal huma-pony. "Thank you, Twilight, for pointing that out," Nightmare Moon coolly said with an unreadable face, hopefully unreadable. "I will have to come up with a new plan that takes into account the environments of modern Equestria. You can have the elements if you wish" She teleport in and levitate the elements to twilight.
Twilight ignited her horn and took hold of the legendary artifacts. "Thank you, Your highness, but that is not why I came here for."
Nightmare Moon tensed, waiting for Twilight's true motive. Another one that is not about those cursed rocks. It is not hard to deduce.
"Please come bac-"
"No"
"Equestria nee-"
"Nein!"
"But-"
"Enough of this talk," she said, her voice cold and final. "I have no interest in ruling over Equestria. I only wish to be left alone."
"But that would leave Equestria defenseless!" Twilight shouted back; the armor's helmet shut on her face from a quick movement.
"...huh?" Nightmare Moon responded, confused. another bombshell?
The unicorn lifts the helmet back up and continues "We understand that this is a difficult situation, but we believe it's for the greater good. As a leader, Princess Celestia has failed to make the right decisions for Equestria and has put the safety of her subjects in jeopardy. It's time for a change and we believe you are the best candidate to take her place."
The black mare's eyes bulged out, she didn't expect this.
Twilight continued, "In past years, her Highness passed many controversial policies and created political messes in Parliament. After her recent action, she has shown that she is willing to put her needs before the nation's, by putting both herself and ponies around her in danger."
Nightmare Moon didn't like where this was going. She thought to herself, "Oh...."
"That's why, after thorough analysis from a psychologist, we deemed it best for her to step down to recover. Currently, she is being transferred to the Baltimare Asylum, a medical institution, a kind of prison with the purpose to rehabilitate ponies with mental illness. We transferred her to that place so that she will get further psychological help she needed," Twilight said, trying to keep a straight face as she speaks it out.
The black alicorn was stunned at this revelation. She couldn't believe it.
"We also understand that this is a lot to take in, so please take your time to consider our proposal. We will be here to support you every step of the way."
What kind of bullshit is this? Is it a ruse? SHE knows that she can dream walking, right? It just took a single night to confirm the truth.
Twilight's expression softened, "I know that you've been hurt in the past, but you don't have to live in darkness forever. You can find a place here in Equestria, I know that there's a part of you that still cares about Equestria, that still wants to be a part of it. Don't give up on that part of yourself."
Is SHE willing to go this far just to get her....?
But knowing that bitch, the length SHE is willing to go... unsurprisingly plausible. Just like that time.
A long silence reign in, the only sound in the room is the noise of metal sliding against each other as Twilight shifts in her armor, trying to find the most comfortable posture.
Finally, The Mare of the Moon makes her decision, one that she might regret later.
The sun quickly darted across the sky as the moon take its place, and the sky turned into a canvas of stars, moonlight began to filter through the ruins of the castle.
The two mares stood together, looking out at the beauty of the world around them as the horn of the black alicorn dimmed down after it has finished its duty.
Nightmare Moon looked down at Twilight and spoke in defeat. "Very well," she said. "I'll hear you out. But don't think for a moment that I'm doing this because I care about HER."
Twilight beamed, relief flooding through her. "That's all I ask," she said. "Let's talk."