Twilight growled as she held the rifle’s barrel between the beast’s teeth as it tried to gnaw at her. Luna was still in the process of picking herself up back up onto her hooves.
“Let me gnaw at you Twilight! And let me gnaw on Hecate as she is recovering.” The hound screeched as it yanked the rifle out of her telekinetic grip and slammed the butt of the rifle into her head. This caused Twilight to be knocked back. The hound quickly approached Twilight wailing an unearthly screech as it unhinged its jaw toward her. Twilight grabbed its mouth with her telekinetic grip and magical grasp as it was mere inches away from her horn. With a yell of pure rage, she flung the fiend across the room by its head causing the neck to snap two times as its body slammed against the bookshelf like a ragdoll. The element of magic panted with a face full of rage as she picked the rifle back up and aimed it steadily at the hound with the Cheshire smile.
She waited a bit and held the rifle for a couple more minutes. The dog picked itself back up. It twisted its head towards her with a demented glare.
“So tell me, you hound creature, why you call Luna whatever that name was?” Twilight’s tone clearly indicated she was pissed off with this entity. She still had the bolt action focused on it while the crosshairs occasionally swayed.
“It’s only a nickname I give her. Like you Twilight, isn’t your cutie mark on your flank stylized after Venus in the night sky? The morning star. So tell me Morning Star, what will you do when you uncover the answer to our existence? What will you do with said truth? Will you curl up into a ball, muzzle near your rear? Or would you do something unexpecting? All I’m asking is why would you trust Amaterasu or Tsukuyomi? You Amaterasu can turn into Lucifer and you know Tsukuyomi can turn into Hecate.” The smiling dog taunted with a chuckling-like sound of ticks and chitters.
Twilight still held her rifle firm but her stern frown turned into a wary one. She knew that from the transpired days with Luna that he had constantly hinted that there was a secret history. Even before this current moment, in the back of her mind, she questioned the two diarchs’ transparency. She was now seeing their honesty as glossy at best.
“Before you ask, my little pony, I am not related to the thing nicknamed Discord or as I’ve named it Mathmet, for I am the smiling dog a hound with a silent coup for the name Cerberus. Now let me feast!” The hound started to gallop again and Twilight started to fire again with the top of her hoof on the hoof-compatible trigger. Each shot was either a flimsy miss on trying to focus on the rapidly approaching fiend or Twilight’s missed reaction time as it continued to charge. Even though the bullets pierced through it like gelatin, it still moved and Twilight dodged as it lunged at her. She gave the gun a couple more taps of the trigger into the dog. Twilghts reloading was quick due to how her arcane grasp moved objects more swiftly. The hound continued to charge at her but she did rapid jumps backwards to keep her distance from the creature.
Then something dark blue pierced through the hound's chest cavity which lifted it up into the air. Luna, the divine princess of the moon, Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto of the night, roared with pure divine fury as her eyes glowed like the brightness of the moon as she held the canine on top of her horn. Magic from the deep tides of the moon poured into her horn like a twister of sheer metaphysical energy all of which poured into the dying hound. Its flesh suddenly contorted and shifted as it tried to fight for its life but to no avail. Its twisting flesh faded out into dust particles and its bones dissipated into nothing as its form died in front of the alicorn and the apprentice of the sun princess.
The alicorn reopened the front door and sauntered out limply with tears rushing down her eyes before collapsing on the dirt road with the hairs on her elegant starry mane began to shag out, curling and wrinkling from the pulsing metaphysical static coming out of her horn.
After watching Luna fall asleep, Twilight turned her head back to her friends as they swiftly trotted to the scene. “Well partner, is Luna ok?” the farm filly asked with concern as she stared at her friend and at the exhausted diarch.
“She’s ok, just not in a good place energy-wise.” She said looking over at the heaving Luna as she lay on the ground panting vigorously. Twilight never seen the alicorn so exhausted before, she was even astonished at how much the Silent Queen had affected her magickly. She knew the moon's spiritual properties were powerful, allowing spells of the subconscious to even work in the first place. The moon itself represented the obscure and as well to the unveiling of the obscure. This was why Luna was so good at traveling through ponies dreams and her masterful intuition.
Throax slowly walked up to her and placed his hoof on her head and moved her mane away and looked at her reassuringly, almost like he was keeping his oath to her.
"She is exhausted right now, she needs to be somewhere else than here." Throax grimaced as he turned back to Twilight's library, remembering that the bodies of Luna's guards still lay there without a proper burial or even having their mess being cleaned up.
"But ain't leaving twilights house with those bodies a bad idea? Some random pony might as well wonder near that accursed scene and smell the foul of those souls left behind?"Aj pointed out which every pony seemed to agree upon.
Fluttershy let out a small cough and stepped forward. "But then where should we go? Your house is clearly a danger Twilight and The Tallmare could head back here looking for you."
Twilight groaned and then started prancing around the group in circles. She knew she had to clean up the bodies or else she would look like some serial killer that hated thestrals and killed them out of bigotry. She also had to carry Luna to whoever would be the most trustworthy pony that wouldn't question what they were doing.
after a bit more trotting in frustration Twilight stopped and smiled and looked back at her friends. The changling and the 2 mares looked at her waiting for a response and to see where they would go from here.
"I know a mare we could head to." Twilight finally said with a proud hoof flick of her mane.
After digging a hole for the bodies and mopping up the blood and meat, their group carried the heavy alicorn through town as they headed towards their new safe spot. The night was still young with the moon being in its waning form with barely any stars in the sky with the only light being the the tiny street lamps throughout the town
All 4 of the friends carried the unconscious alicorn on their backs as they got closer inch by inch to the front door of the small fashion shop. Twilight lowered the alicorn down by a large decorative flower pot and knocked the door enough to wake up her other friend.
after a couple of minutes, a drowsy face of a white unicorn slowly peaked her head out of the door and opened it.
"Oh my goodness who is deciding to wake me up this- Oh! Twilight what could I-...Question..Is Her highness Luna ok?"