"Discord!" Luna called. Her voice and hoofbeats echoed in the empty halls. "Discord, where did you go?" Off in the distance, she heard the shouts of the guards as they clashed with Celestia. She increased her speed until her legs couldn't carry her any faster. But the smooth marble floor proved to be her undoing; she slipped when she tried to turn a corner and slid to the wall, colliding with a display table, sending its silver bowl and platter flying across the ground. She tried to scramble out of the rubble, but somepony hefted her out and set her on her hooves.
"I knew you'd come around," Disccord said, brushing her off. "What changed your mind?"
"Celestia," Luna panted. "She came into the dream with a warning. If I get hurt, it affects me in reality. So if I die...."
"Then you've been targeted from the beginning."
"Again, what if you die?"
"If the spell was so altered...it affects me, too."
"And Celestia?"
"If she entered the dream after the spell was altered, then she should be safe. We don't have much time." He took off down the hall, slithering through the air like a snake, or maybe an Eastern dragon. She had to fly to keep up with him, and he shouted directions as they went.
"Where are we going?" she asked. "Do you know where the exit is?"
"Not exactly, but I do know how to find it. Next hall, right." They turned together. "I have this down to a science. There are two separate elements in the map: switches and triggers. Switches are things that the dream changes, and triggers are things that I change. Each one leads to the next in a predictable path that leads to one of seven possible exits."
"Couldn't you just go to each exit and check?"
"Far too risky. Would you rather get past the Horsemen just to have to turn back? They will follow us to the exit and attack when we get too close."
"Then how do you get past them?"
"You're going to have to trust me. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. But to get to that bridge, we have to go through the map to find the right exit, because we'll get only one shot. Stop here." They came to a halt in front of the library, and Discord took her by the shoulders. "No matter what I have to do, you're getting out of here alive."
For a moment, she saw not the monster she remembered, but instead the Discord of her foalhood: a loving, caring draconequus who treated her like a sister. She was confused. Upset. But she knew that she couldn't take the time to sort this all out. "Where's the first piece of the map?"
"Follow me." He led her through the shelves. The Library was Celestia's realm, not Luna's; the dust often got to her, as well as the smell of moldy and decomposing books. She was glad there was no real dust in the dream; her allergies were calm as a sleeping foal.
"The first switch," he explained, "is a particular book hidden in the Starswirl the Bearded Wing. I'll stand guard; you check it." He stopped outside the door, and she went inside. "Aisle 5a, third shelf from the bottom, sixth book from the left. Tell me what its title is."
It took her several minutes to find the book, but when she did, she called, "It's a biography of Starswirl."
"Which one?"
"I can't read much more. It's written in ancient Ponese."
"Try again."
She looked at the book, and the writing changed to something she could read. "The subtitle is, 'Sire of modern magic.'"
"Good. Get back here; they'll be onto us soon enough."
"When I get out of here, I'm going to learn Ponese," she thought aloud. "Discord, where's the second piece?"
"I wish the book had been a treatise on magic rather than the biography; if that were the case, the next thing would be a switch in the middle of the labyrinth. Easy to reach if you can fly."
By now, she'd reached him. "But...?"
"But in this case, the next thing is a trigger. In the throne room. Yes, it's going to be heavily guarded, but that's not the reason I hate this trigger."
Luna understood. "She's still there."
"I hope Celestia entering the dream threw things off and replaced her body with her living avatar. But we'll see. We can't get sidetracked. We'll have less than five minutes to flip the trigger before the guards swarm the room."
"What exactly is the trigger?"
"Do you know what a Rubik's cube is?"
"Yes..."
"Do you know what a Professor Cube is?"
"You're pulling my wing."
"How fast can you solve one?"
"Twenty minutes for a three-by-three, if I'm lucky. A five-by-five? Maybe an hour. You solve it."
"I can't risk you standing guard. You'll have five minutes to solve the cube. I'll buy you as much time as I can. Let's go."
"It can't be solved in five minutes."
"The Equestria Record is fifty-one seconds. We must hurry."
Luna took off running after him. "I may be trusting you, but I find it hard to believe that anypony can solve a puzzle cube that fast. You could prove it to me."
"You are the only one that can solve the puzzle!" he snapped. "I've already checked every possible trigger and switch, and I can't see any of them. If I ever hope to get out of here, you're the one that will have to do the work!"
Luna dug her hind hooves into the slick marble, and it turned to soft earth. She skidded to a stop and demanded, "Discord, did we hear thee correctly? Didst thou plan to use us for thine escape?"
"Road apples," he cursed under his breath, turning around and joining her. "All right, fine. My original intent was to try and elicit your help to find the exit. But now that I know what danger you're in, I need to help you get out of here. My getting out will be a plus, but getting you out is more important."
"We aren't-- I am not so sure you should be getting out."
"If one of us gets out, both of us do. The dream will continue until it ends, either by us finding the exit or by my death."
"Maybe I should save Equestria some headaches and kill you right now," she growled. She lowered her head, pointing her horn, and pawed at the ground.
He put his hand out and stopped her from moving. "You honestly have no idea what the ramifications would be. There's a reason Celestia encased me in stone rather than doing away with me, which I know for a fact that she wanted to do. If you were to kill me, you wouldn't last a week before the Four Horses would come after you. They'd throttle you in your sleep, and they'd dethrone your sister, plunging Equestria into ultimate chaos." He chuckled. "Not that ultimate chaos would be a bad thing."
Deep down, she knew he was telling the truth, and she hated it. She had no choice but to trust him. And she was certain that Celestia had put measures in place to prevent Discord from escaping again. She wrinkled her nose and grumbled, "You leave me no choice, Discord. Yet again."
"Then let us go to the throne room."
Several minutes later, they were at the large double doors that led to the throne room. Some hours beforehand, she'd pushed through them only to find the most horrible sight she'd ever seen. Now, she was about to do it all over again alongside one of her worst enemies. "Aren't you going to open the doors?" she asked.
"I...I can't bring myself to."
"Do you want to get out or don't you?" He still didn't budge. She took matters into her own hooves, gripping the doors with magic and forcing them open.
The scene was just as she'd left it when she'd run from the guards. Her sister's body still lay on the cold marble in a pool of crimson, a look of terror on her face. Luna walked over and knelt down, brushing a wing over her sister's eyes and closing them. "Sleep, sister," she whispered. "I will see you again."
"The cube, Luna!" Discord called. "I can hear the guards."
She jumped over Celestia's body and retrieved the puzzle from beside the cushioned dais. She looked it over quickly and began to solve it, using the method Celestia had taught her. She was able to solve the six center sections quickly, and as she began matching up edge pieces, she called, "How much time is left?"
"You've only gone two minutes. We have all the time in the world!"
She smiled and continued. For her, everything was intuitive up until she had to solve the top layer, the final step in solving the puzzle. She had a minute and a half left when she reached it, and she thought that it would mean a new personal best time for her. That is, until she botched an algorithm and erased most of her progress. Her heart skipped a beat, and she fumbled with the puzzle, trying to think of what had gone wrong. She started moving pieces around again in a desperate bid for redemption.
"Fifteen seconds!" she heard Discord shout. Not enough time. She kept working through the algorithms in her head, and Discord began shouting at her to go faster.
"I'm trying!" she retorted as the last piece fell into place. A string of numbers hovered in the air: 5:04.29. It was fast, but not fast enough. "It's solved," she called.
"Finally!" Discord leaped at her, arms outstretched. He took the cube out of the air, and it began to glow. "This will take us to the next piece!" He grabbed the tip of her wing, and she began to feel a tingling flow through her body. By now, the guards had reached them, and they let fly their lances. Luna shut her eyes and braced for the impact, but none came.
The world suddenly smelled different. She heard different sounds. No more guards, no more echoing of shod hooves on cold marble. Now, everything was muted except the foreign bird songs, which echoed irregularly in the chilly, humid air. Slowly, she opened her eyes. She was still in a castle, but it was not in Canterlot. It was the Schloss im Herzensgrund, the millennia-old ruin deep in the heart of the Everfree Forest. She remembered it well; this had been the place where Twilight Sparkle and her five companions had freed her from her own Nightmare. She decided to pay Ponyville a visit as soon as she got out of this one.
"Where is the next item?" she asked with a sigh.
"I don't know."
She shot him a glare. "What do you mean?"
"I've never been taken here. Chrysalis must have modified the dream to a much greater extent than I originally thought."
"We don't have time to search this entire ruin for the next piece of the map. We have to get out of here!"
"Is that the Royal We, or--"
"NO!" she bellowed. "By 'we' I mean both I and the brainless, heartless draconequus who's dragged me on this wild-goose chase!"
Discord grew much more agitated. "Well, it's not my fault that you got stuck in this hell. In fact, in a way, all blame goes to your sister! If she hadn't seen fit to torture me night after night, then none of us would be in this mess!"
"Well, I think it's a great idea, especially after you ripped her heart out and ground it into the dirt before her eyes! Why does this torture you, anyway?"
"Because I still love her!"
Everything was suddenly silent. The birds stopped chirping. Rivers stopped running. Even Luna's heart ceased its elevated rhythm. "What did you say?"
"Luna, you are the blindest pony I've ever met." He paced back and forth on the stone floor. "I thought you'd have seen it by now. Everypony else here knows it. I never got over her, over what I did to her. And I never will. She may move on, she may get over me, but as long as I live, she will never be out of my mind." He knelt down and put his hand behind her head. "That is why I want to get you out of here so badly. Because I really care about the both of you. If we could coexist, believe me, we would. But...." He shook his head and turned and walked off. "Forget it. Just forget everything I said. Just help me find this stupid switch."
"How do you go about finding them?"
"Trial and error." He went up to a wall and began tapping on various stones. "You forget, I've had fifteen hundred years to figure these things out. I've been subject to this torture literally half a million times. Some nights, I make myself useful, trying to find and reach the exit and the peace that comes with it. Other nights, I just give up. I kneel weeping by Celestia's body until the guards lance me and I wake up, only to wait the long hours until the night forces me once again to sleep, to this nightmare."
"Discord, I'm sorry."
"Don't be. I'd rather see her nightly in death than never again." He was now leaning against the wall, and he'd stopped tapping stones. "What's the use? Chrysalis is brilliant. She would know about the map, about the exit. She probably set this up to stymie us." He balled his fist and pounded the wall. A stone broke loose and fell to the ground. It began to glow, and a sun emblem appeared on the floor around it.
"It wasn't Chrysalis," Luna said softly. "Celestia must have given us this respite. Look!" She walked over and nudged the stone with her nose, and an apparition of Celestia appeared in the center of the room.
"Luna, I'm so sorry this happened. You must understand that I never intended for anypony to be able to enter this dream, and I built the map and the exit system as a failsafe. It looks like Chrysalis has been actively meddling, changing things to suit her as she went along. She discovered the map and somehow altered the spell to destroy it. I replaced the cube puzzle that she destroyed with one that would take you to safety. I also added a spell to it that would show you the pieces' locations as you went along so that you could solve it quickly.
"Now, because the map is gone, you won't be able to find the rest of the pieces. But you will be able to get to the exit; that is a structural part of the spell that she couldn't change. But since the Four Horses are a part of the exit, I couldn't remove them, and you'll have to find your way past them.
"I was able to catch a glimpse of the map's elements before they were destroyed, so I can tell you where it is this time. I wish I could give you better news, but you're going to have to make it to the gates of Tartarus. Don't worry; Cerberus isn't there, but getting past the Horses will be a feat worthy of recognition, especially considering...the very real danger you will be in.
"Also...remember to protect Discord. He is the only thing keeping this spell--and the two of you--alive. I want to see you wake up again, Luna, so please...stay safe. I...." The apparition swallowed and sighed, then faded away.
"Tartarus, then?" Luna asked.
Discord was still leaning against the wall. "Where did you get that?"
"You didn't see the message?"
"What message?"
"From Celestia. The one that we just saw."
He chuckled wryly. "She doesn't even care about me enough to keep me in the loop. I'm assuming she has something to do with this."
Luna recounted the elder princess's message, and repeated their destination. Discord didn't look at all pleased. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"The gates of Tartarus are the most dangerous of the five possible exits. There is almost nowhere to hide, and distraction works for only a few moments. It's possible, I suppose, but I've never made it through this one."
"Then we'll just have to try." She walked up to him and held up her hoof. He took it in his hands, staring blankly. Moments later, he nodded.
"Let's get you home."
Luna gazed down from her cloud at the gates of Tartarus. Where the three-headed hellhound, Cerberus, would usually be stood four alicorn horses taller than Celestia and much more imposing. "How are we going to get past?" she whispered.
"It won't be easy," Discord replied. "The first, white horse, Katagonistes, is the most astute of the four. But he will be the easiest to get past. All you have to do is stand your ground when he charges you. But if you step aside one millimeter, if you submit to him at all, he will win, and you will die.
"The second, red horse, Polemos, is the second-hardest to evade. But as long as you can get through his army, you should be fine.
"The third, black horse, Sitodeia, is very hard to get past. She will starve you senseless. Usually, you would die, but with both of us, we should be able to withstand what she throws at us.
"The fourth, Ker.... I still don't know how to get past her."
"One the ancient Pegasellic goddesses of death, the sister of Thanatos," Luna recalled. "Chrysalis must have planned this well."
"You're getting out of here alive. No matter what, understand?"
"I--"
"Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"I learned it from a friend. It's a solemn oath that, if broken, would spell certain doom for me."
"Thank you for helping me," she sighed. "I never thought I'd be saying that."
"It's my pleasure."
They left the cloud and dove for the ground. Shooting straight for the gates was suicide, so they would have to get past each of the Horses individually. Discord had explained that, were this any of the other exits, it would be easy to sneak through trees, around columns, or to swim under the Horses. But this was out in the open.
Luna landed with force in front of the army of Katagonistes, whose name meant "conqueror" in ancient Pegasellic. Her impact sent waves through the ground, knocking the troops aside. She locked eyes with their leader and shouted, "Elthe deuro, o Katagonistes! Boulomai se prokaleisthai!"
"Unlike the real Horses, these doesn't speak ancient Pegasellic," Discord remarked.
Luna sighed and translated, "Come forth, o Katagonistes! I wish to challenge you!"
Before her materialized the tall, white horse. He towered over her, sneering. He wore heavy plate armor, and his long, sharp horn extended from his helmet, gleaming in the sunlight. "You wish to challenge me?" he laughed. "I could crush you underhoof, foal! Surrender and you will live."
"Don't," Discord whispered.
"I wish to challenge you, not to surrender."
"Then you and your companion will die." He vanished, then reappeared fifty yards away, snorting and pawing. He reared and took off at full gallop, which seemed nearly twice as fast as anypony she knew.
As he lowered his head and pointed his horn, Luna turned to Discord and ordered, "Get close to me!"
"Are you insane? I'll die!"
"We'll both die if we stay put. I have a feeling that Chrysalis has made a few more changes." As soon as he was at her side, she unleashed the flow of magic, creating a shield in front of them. Her confidence in the spell dwindled as the horse approached, and she almost stepped aside, but Discord placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. She planted her hooves firmly and put her weight forward, and when the horse collided with the barrier, he shattered into a million pieces and turned to dust.
"Did it work?" Discord asked. She cancelled the spell and looked up at him and saw that his eyes were shut tight.
"Yes, it did," she said, nudging him. "You can open your eyes now."
"He's gone," Discord marveled. "It actually worked!"
"Doesn't it always?"
"I'm sorry I lied. I usually wind up run through."
"Did you lie about the others?"
"No. I usually get overpowered by Polemos's army, I usually starve to death when I face Sitodeia, and Ker...well, I usually just try to sneak around her. Not possible here."
"Let's try to get through Polemos. I can handle being hungry." She started flying toward the cave that housed the gates of Tartarus, and thick, black clouds began forming in the sky, which quickly turned a dark red.
"Luna, wait!" Discord called, slithering through the air in pursuit. "When he materializes, his army will be thick. You'll have to plan your path carefully so that you don't get ca--"
He was interrupted when a black, seventeen-hand draft horse materialized in his path. Luna doubled back, conjuring a shield that would deflect any projectiles hurled at her, including lances, horns and hooves. She ducked under the horse's neck and whisked the unconscious draconequus up with a burst of magic only moments before his head was crushed under the horse's colossal hoof.
She turned and ran toward the cave, dodging and weaving through the army. She tried flying, but she found an unbreakable magic ceiling above her, though she couldn't tell whether it was Celestia's or Chrysalis's design.
As soon as Discord regained consciousness, he got back on his feet. "What happened?" he asked over the roar of the ensuing battle.
"You didn't watch where you were going," she replied. She extended her spell to him, and they dashed side by side through the tumult. "What happens when we get to Polemos?"
"We're going to have to kill him somehow. C'est la guerre."
Luna sighed. Even in this nightmare world, she knew she couldn't be a killer. Even Nightmare Moon wouldn't hurt a fly. "Not we, Discord. You."
"Let's not forget," he said, "how I haven't been able to interact with anything important thus far. It could very well be that you will have to face Polemos. Think of it this way: if you were facing a life or death situation and the only way out was to kill your attacker, would you be able to do it?"
"Yes," she replied defeatedly.
"Here's your chance." He pointed casually, and she looked up just in time to see a lance flying at her head. She ducked, but the point nicked her on the neck. She gritted her teeth in pain and rejuvenated her protection spell, adding variation to the specific magic so that Chrysalis wouldn't be able to adapt the nightmare to pierce her wards.
A deep bellow shook the ground, and the army immediately stopped their infighting. They parted and assembled in lines, forming an aisle of sorts, the black horses on one side and the red on the other. Down the aisle marched a colossal horse of nearly eighteen hands by Luna's estimate. His sorrel coat had two hues. The first was a bright red like tongues of fire. The second was a dark, ruddy color that looked like blood. His eyes burned with a perpetual rage, and his visage was chiseled into a perpetual scowl. "I hear that you have conquered the conqueror," he said, his abnormally deep bass voice rumbling in his barrel chest. "But that whelp Katagonistes was a sweet dream of love compared to the might that is me, Polemos, god of war!" His army cheered, deafening Luna. "Do you seek to challenge me as you did my brother?"
"I do," she replied feebly.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear that.
She thought of Celestia, of Chrysalis, and of how there would be only one winner if they were to duel. Chrysalis had defeated Celestia once before, with very little effort. Luna knew it would be much the same again. But together, and with Luna's advance knowledge, it was possible to survive. She steeled herself with an extra layer of protection and her most imposing form. With great reluctance, she became Nightmare Moon once again, hopefully for the last time ever, and bellowed, "We seek to challenge thee for passage to the gates of Tartarus!"
"The traditional Royal Canterlot Voice? I'm quaking in my shoes!" He spread his wings and retrieved the lance, hurling it at her with nigh inconceivable speed. She dodged it, whipping it around her with a quick spell, giving it extra speed. Polemos didn't have a chance to act before it buried itself in his heart. After the initial shock wore off, he growled, "It will take a lot more than that to kill me!"
"I know," Nightmare Moon said with a chuckle. She turned on one hoof and kicked the lance with all her might, burying it even deeper. Polemos bellowed in pain and slowly turned to dust along with his army.
When it was all over and the light cleared, Luna transformed back to her true self. She hated taking on the guise of her former self, except on Nightmare Night when it was all for fun. Even in the dream world where nopony had actually been hurt, she found it difficult to take another life. "I can't go on like this," she told Discord. "Not if it means killing again."
"Relax," he said, patting her on the back. "The next two are about survival and endurance. You needn't worry."
"The word sitodeia means, 'famine', doesn't it?" Luna asked. "How exactly does her trial work?"
"You will be subjected to three days' worth of starvation in just a few seconds. I think you can handle it."
"I haven't eaten in a day already."
"There's only one way to find out. If we don't go to her, she'll come to us."
"I could just conjure a muffin or two." She tried to spark the appropriate spell, but it just fizzled.
"I'm afraid that won't work," said a feeble voice. A shorter, black mare about Celestia's height materialized nearby. She appeared to be malnourished; her ribs were showing, and her head hung low. But the evil in her eyes was alive, burning like the fires of Hell itself. "Your magic will not be able to help you. But I am not like the others; I am forgiving. I will let you pass if you can survive. But survival is the hard part."
A sudden pang of hunger struck Luna like a kick to the gut. She dropped to her knees and gritted her teeth as the pain grew steadily worse. She tried to relieve it with a spell, but it didn't have any effect. When the pain stopped increasing, Sitodeia smiled and said, "You have done well. Ker will be pleased; she is just as hungry as you must be." The black mare faded away, and a hot, sandy wind started blowing across the landscape.
With a new and unwelcome weakness, Luna struggled to her hooves, cast a spell to keep the sand out of her eyes, and looked around for Discord. He lay motionless on the ground, half buried. "Get up," she commanded, trying to levitate him. She didn't need to check for vital signs; as long as he was alive, the dream would continue. When her magic failed to support both spells, she lifted him onto her back. "We have to get out of here," she shouted over the wind. "Don't give up on me!"
"I never did," he mumbled. "You were going to die, so I lent you my strength. You're getting out of here, no matter what happens."
"But you have to stay alive for that to happen! When will Ker show up?"
"Moments before you die."
The voice Luna heard was almost musical. It was sweet and soft, almost like how she remembered her mother's voice. From the blowing sands materialized a pale, gaunt horse whose eyes were white and empty. "Surrender to your fate, Princess." Ker's eyes began to glow, and Luna felt her heart skip a beat. It took her back to her knees, and she felt the life begin to drain out of her. "Don't worry; you'll find your peace. You'll wake up like none of this ever happened."
"No, you won't," Discord coughed. "Don't listen to her!"
Luna's heart continued to beat slower and slower. She could feel Discord trying to give her strength, but it didn't do much. Ker stretched out a wing and lifted Luna's chin. "Your essence is sweet, Princess," she said with a fanged smile. "It's a pity that you have to die."
"No," Discord said, rising to his feet. He stumbled forward and wrestled the gaunt horse to the ground, breaking her concentration and sending Luna's heart into arrhythmia.
"What are you doing?!" Luna yelled. "You're going to die!"
"It doesn't matter," he replied as he grappled with Ker. "Get to the exit!"
"I'm not leaving you!" she cried as her heart regained its normal rhythm. "I'll find a way to--"
"Only one of us was ever going to get out of here," he replied. "I would rather it be you. Now get to the exit!"
As she watched the life drain from his eyes, she could see only the caring, affectionate face that she had forgotten over the centuries. Those eyes urged her onward with no regard for self. Again she realized that this was not the villain that had trampled her sister's heart underfoot. "Thank you," she said, tears flowing from her eyes. "Thank you, Discord! Your sacrifice will be noted throughout Equestria and--"
"Just go, my darling! And tell Tia I said hi." He wrapped himself around Ker, constricting her. The color faded from his face, and the rest of the life drained from his eyes.
Luna turned and bolted for the gates, going as fast as her wings could carry her. The dream around her started to collapse, which she took to be a sign that Discord was either dead or very near to it. She lowered her horn and broke through the gates, and her world went black.