//------------------------------//
// Chapter Six 
// Story: A Method in this Madness 
// by Xeroed_In 
//------------------------------//

Chapter VI:
And what a night he had returned on! The most fitting and fateful night of all the calender year in Equestria. Apple Bloom breathed in the light scent of honey-suckle and mulberries that floated up the mountain side to her, the last few remains of Carrot Top's outskirt orchid, and turned her mind back those 8 years, all the way back to what had become the scariest Nightmare Night of them all.

Nightmare Night. The very word transformed any regular night into one of spine tingling chills and fright. The air was arid and heavy for such a dark night, like a warm blanket hovering over Ponyville, ready to fall. Stars up in the lightly clouded sky danced a merry dance above the populous below them, flickering in and out of sight in moments. The town was festooned in surprisingly festive color, pumpkin orange and velvet purple ordaining every house ringing the crowded town center.

Attractions of all kind were spread out in the night, ponies of all shapes, sizes and colors laughing and having a generally good time trying their luck at spider-toss, pumpkin-launch, pin-the-tail-on-the-Shock, and other distractions such as the like. Younger ponies in fancy dress scurried from house to house in a blaze of sugar-filled excitement collecting candy from grinning mares and stallions, some feigning fright and theatric shrieks of surprise at the chorus of "Nightmare Night! What a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!"

Apple Bloom was currently straining her neck over a large tub of water, reaching, reaching, reaching for the largest, juiciest apple she could, which floated just out of reach in the middle of her sister Applejack's attraction, a bobbing for apples tub. Apple Bloom was dressed up tonight as a devil, her tiny red horns placed in front of the large bow that was always in her hair, her magically twitching horned tail trailing in the air above her. 
"Almost....there...."
She made another attempt to catch the apple as it floated around in a bobbing, mocking dance, almost envisioning it's shiny red skin laughing at her. "So....close...." Her teeth clacked together and she grunted in annoyance. Wriggling her flank she propped herself on the tub's rim and prepared for one last daring attempt at her prize. Stretch....

Something nudged her flank and sent her tumbling head over hooves into the tub with an almighty SPLOSH!
Spluttering and gasping for air, Apple Bloom burst from the tub in an explosion of freezing water and began furiously searching for her assailant, blinking water from her eyes at the same time. She didn't need to look far because her two best friends sat side by side in front of the tub, grinning madly and failing at doing their best to look innocent. Apple Bloom rested her forehooves on the rim of the tub and smirked at the two in front of her, Scootaloo dressed as a witch and Sweetie Belle as a rictus-grin skeleton. 

"Alright, which one of yah was it?"
Both of the misfits pointed at each other. Apple Bloom nodded sagely and then surged forward out of the tub, grabbing onto the tip of Scootaloo's purple mane with her teeth, letting off a low growl at the same time. Scootaloo reacted in panic and reached back to grab hold of Sweetie Belle, who likewise scrabbled at the air. Perfect. 

With a quick jerk of her head, Apple Bloom yanked and pulled the other two into the tub with her, sending a tidal wave of water spilling over the edge. The three surfaced in a fit of giggles, all of them splashing each other in the warm night air and caring for a single thing. Their laughter ceased as a darker than dark shadow fell across them, and they looked up in unison to the snarling face of the terror of the night, Nightmare Moon. 

Apple Bloom let out a squeak of terror, and the shadowy mare before them dissolved into a fit of laughter, her guise also dissolving. The armored and fanged form before them slipped away like oil, flowing down the pony beneath and then Luna spat out the fake fangs in her mouth and fixed the three with a mischievous grin. 
"Is everypony having fun?" she asked and the so-called Cutie Mark Crusaders nodded in earnest reply and Luna's eyes flashed wickedly. "So be it!" laughed and slipped once again into her Nightmare Moon guise, fixing the fangs into her mouth. She turned to leave but hesitated and instead placed something on top of Apple Bloom's head. It was the apple she had been endeavoring for, but with a bite taken out. Luna laughed through a mouthful of apple mush and trotted away. "Happy Nightmare Night to you all!"

Scootaloo broke the silence by splashing Sweetie Belle in the face, her squeals echoing through the night and then the water reached Apple Bloom and pretty soon the tub had become a war zone. 
"Alright, alright, everpony calm it down. Apple Bloom, you've cost me half a tub!" exclaimed Applejack in mock horror, ushering the three young girls out of the tub and onto the ground where they shook themselves vigorously to rid their coats of any water left. 
"Go on, I said git! Don't you ever ruin somepony else's attraction?" Applejack shooed them away and motioned for more water for the tub. 
"Don't yah ever change your costume?" retorted Apple Bloom over her shoulder, nodding at Applejack's annual appearance as a scarecrow, although she had to admit that the grinning stitch-mouth mask was a nice touch this year. They walked away snickering and telling jokes, bumping each other generally soaking up the atmosphere of the night. 

Heading on past the spider-toss attraction, run by Twilight Sparkle this year, they almost bumped in Mayor Mare who was trotting around the town center yelling, "Five minutes everypony! Five minutes!"
"What happens in five minutes?" asked Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo fixed her with a quizzical raised eyebrow, "Same thing that happens every Nightmare Night, you dummy. You remember, right?"
Sweetie Belle's huge gaze glazed over as her brain went into work. She stood stock still, looking of into the distance as her memory ticked over trying to remember the last Nightmare Night. Apple Bloom rolled her eyes at Scootaloo and lent over to Sweetie Belle's ear. "Midnight."

Sweetie Belle almost shot a full meter of the ground, her little legs blurry in a flurry, "Ooh, ooh,ooh, I remember!" she trilled excitedly. To be fair, everypony should have remembered that midnight was the hour at which Princess Celestia came to visit her subjects, but then again Sweetie Belle wasn't the brightest of all fillies.

The three trotted towards the slowly growing crowd at the town center, the low murmur of conversation beginning to float above their heads, punctuated every now and then by a sharp outburst of laughter as a joke was told, or a cheer as someone got a winning prize at an attraction. They stepped to the side to avoid a a pony striding along on stilts far above their heads, he smiled down at them as he walked past like a huge harvestman spider.
"Maybe, walking on stilts is our cutie mark?" whispered Scootaloo to Apple Bloom.
Apple Bloom shook her head in disagreement. How ridiculous.

The crowd's murmur began to swell as the dark clouds above them began to glow with an unearthly yellowish light and then began to swirl, the wind picking up into a light breeze in the warm air. The clouds split apart to become a circular portal in the air, exposing the very towering marble tips of Canterlot Castle's highest towers, towers from which an object suddenly launched itself from and came rocketing towards the assembled crowd. The crowd burst into ecstatic cheering and applause as their ruler ascended into the sky above them, casting a dark silhouette over the moon. A few mares and stallions laughed, every year was a show, a theatric made to awe the younger ponies of the town. 

And it was working. The Cutie Mark Crusaders stood rooted to the spot, star-struck, staring with wide, glistening eyes as their Princess Celestia descended towards the hole in the sky, wreathed in glimmering light and looking for all the world like an angel coming to earth. The crowd oohed and aahed as the light knotting in and out of the clouds changed to become crimson in an instant, to reflect the macabre nature of tonight. No pony suspected anything, too caught up in the moment as their princess came through the halo of blood-red cloud to close the final few hundred metres to the ground, falling gracefully like a feather.

Falling. 

More like a stone.

Apple Bloom could see that something was wrong with the princess's descent, her panicked gasp drawing the attention of the nearby ponies. Celestia's wings weren't beating and her body looked....limp as it tumbled through the clouds towards the cold unforgiving cobblestone. Someone in the crowd shrieked and pretty soon frightful gasps were jolting through the crowd like wildfire as they stared fixated at the tumbling figure. 

Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna launched into action and sprang forward to surround Celestia in a corona of magenta and deep blue magic, slowing her fall and lowering her twitching form to the ground slowly and carefully like a damaged bird.
Everypony in the center skittered backwards with gasps of horror, to give the princesses room and Apple Bloom heard Twilight Sparkle yell, "Medic! We need a medic! Nurse Redheart!" in hoarse tones that held underlying tones of panic.

A lull descended over the crowd, a silence in which Apple Bloom nudged and jostled her way through a jungle of legs to the fore so she could see what was going on. Pushing her way through the last wall of nervously trotting legs, "Sorry....excuse me" she stepped forward to gaze upon Twilight Sparkle hurriedly directing Nurse Redheart and using magic to assist, Princess Luna sitting nervously to the side chewing on a lock of mane as she watched with worried eyes, the attention given 
to....

Oh my God.
Whatever had gotten at Celestia did not want her ever looking the same. 
Her usually pristine and gleaming white coat was a mass of burns and scrapes, several large gashes gushing crimson down her flank, a red tide wiping out her cutie mark. Her hooves were charred and her tail was cut, no wait, torn short. Her face was now a mass of bruises, one eyes swollen shut, and blood was steadily leaking from her mouth. 
The worst part? Her horn was gone, snapped off a hoof-width from the base of her head, the jagged remains burnt and blackened by soot. Similar mutilation had been subjected to her wings, the feathers crisped and her left seemed to be broken along the main bone junction, hanging limp at a grotesque angle. 

Apple Bloom felt queasy, her little stomach tightening with sick helplessness at the sight of this brutality, as the princess stirred, letting out a low moan of agony as the ragged tip of her horn brushed the ground. She coughed and a wave of spasms wracked her body, fresh blood spurting from her mouth to join the growing puddle around her head.
She groaned, "Sister...."

Twilight smoothed the rest of her mane away from the princesses grimacing face, "Sssshhh, my Princess, you need to save your strength." she motioned to Nurse Redheart, who began to hurriedly slaver Celestia's burns with salve, who in turn motioned to her assistants to administer attention to the gashes marring Celestia's back and flank.
Celestia coughed again and reached out her sister with a trembling hoof, "Sister...." she repeated in a whisper that was only barely heard by Apple Bloom. Luna sobbed and took her sister's hoof in her own, her tears dripping onto her white coat.
"Sister....you need to rest....keep awake." she cried.

Choosing to ignore her sister, Celestia carried on talking, dragging herself closer to Luna who crouched lower hear her.
"Sister....It's....it's too late...." Celestia's hoarse voice barely carried to where Apple Bloom was standing, but what she heard was still enough to chill her to the core.
"It's too late....he's back."
Luna visibly froze and her eyes widened, the dark pupils becoming pits of dread. "Who is?" she asked in a voice that was made of steel.

Celestia jerked as more blood burst out of her mouth and her face screwed up in pain as she forced her last words out loud enough for everypony to hear, before a death rattle sounded in her throat and the great Princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria for over a thousand years, breathed her last in the arms of her sister and died.

Luna sobbed.
Twilight Sparkle and Nurse Redheart bowed their heads in solemn respect, tears dripping down their cheeks. 
Silence reigned over the crowd, everypony frozen in place with terror as Celestia's last word swept over the crowd, trailing panic and fear like waves in a great calm sea.
. . . . .
"Discord."