//------------------------------// // Chapter 36: Part One of Luna's Plan to Save Equestria // Story: The Last Human // by Blackdragn18 //------------------------------// Luna sat outside Celestia’s study. When Sean had gotten home he had gone straight for Celestia’s study. He gave a report and then went to bed, Luna had waited until her sister left her study to go in. She was going to find out what was making them act so strangely. She spent hours searching the study, as she was about to give up something caught her eye. She saw something gold sticking out from under the pillow near the fireplace. She levitated it with her magic and looked at it. It was a book with gold corners. Luna read the title Black Magic: Curses, Enchantments, and Mind control. Luna then opened it and saw a note sticking out. Dear Celestia, I’m glad to see you reading this book. By now you likely have been hit by the dark aura that was released when you opened this book. Soon you will become much crueler and aggressive, eventually you will destroy yourself and Equestria. The note then just stopped. There was no name or title on the note. She knew something was wrong with her sister; she had been cursed by this book. She flipped through the pages looking for some sort of reverse until she came across a bookmark. It was on a page talking about something known as the fear curse. Fear: Fear is an emotion induced by a perceived threat which causes entities to quickly pull away from it and usually hide. The Fear Curse gives the enchanted the ability to inflict a beings darkest fears onto them. With constant use one will be able to manipulate the nightmare to their will. WARNING! If the enchantment is left on a being for too long they will mentally begin to decay until the spell causes them to experience its affects. This must be what she had put on Sean to give him that power he used on the griffin. Luckily there was a cure on the bottom of the page. Apparently if she was not the initial caster of the spell all she had to do was defeat him in the dream world and the spell would drain from him. She had to hurry, from what she had seen in his encounter with the griffin he was clearly beginning to fall apart. Luna opened the door to Sean’s room, he was asleep; his hydra was nowhere to be seen. Luna walked up to him and touched her horn to his head. Suddenly Luna was standing on a slab of stone in a desert. All around her it looked like a destroyed city, there were destroyed buildings, crumbling columns, and all of these things were buried in the sand. She saw some buildings that were almost completely submerged. Luna looked up to the sky and saw that the sky was mostly normal except some parts were cracked and some places were missing chunks of sky and she could see what looked like a black hole. Then Luna heard a terrible laugh that she thought she would never hear again, she turned to see Nightmare Moon standing on the other side of the small stone island they were on. “Oh look who it is! It’s Princess Luna. You were a fool to come here; this world will be your tomb!” Before Luna could respond Nightmare Moon shot a black beam of magic at her. Luna jumped to the side to dodge it, as she recovered Nightmare Moon rammed into her; Luna went flying and flew through a column and landed on the roof of another building. As she got up she heard that horrible laugh, and Nightmare landed in front of her. “You are pathetic; you never should have let the elements return you to this weak form of yours!” “Don’t underestimate me.” Luna then used her magic to break off part of a column and smash Nightmare with it. Nightmare screamed in pain as she was smashed through several columns and a building until she finally landed onto their original island. As Nightmare tried to recover Luna flew up to her and blasted her with a beam of magic, Nightmare let out a cry of agony. She then tried to get up but one of her legs was broken. Luna walked up to her. “You know I’m not afraid of you anymore, I have beaten you and now I am free of you.” Suddenly Nightmare faded away. Then Luna heard clapping behind her. She turned to see Sean walking up to her. She noticed that his eyes were blood red. “Well done Luna. You managed to beat a sorry excuse for a villain.” He walked right up to her, “Now let’s see you beat a real opponent” he then kneed her in the chest and sent her flying. Luna landed in the sand and began to sink. She managed to teleport out and land behind Sean. Luna was right, Sean was definitely not right in the head, more so than usual. Maybe she could take him like this. Luna then rammed into him, her horn stabbed through his spine. He growled then turned and punched her. His hits were definitely stronger; however, they were much sloppier. She got up and blasted him with a beam of magic, it went right into his chest and he flew into a column, he didn’t smash through, he just left a human shaped dent in it. He jumped off the column and flew at her, she easily dodged and kicked him in the chest, and she heard a few cracks as he fell to the ground. He lay there not getting up, Luna walked up to him to investigate. When she got a few inches from him his arm shot out and grabbed her by the throat. Sean let out a laugh that made Nightmare Moon’s laugh sound like a friendly chuckle. “Fool! I am going to kill you painfully!” he then began to absorb her magic. Luna cried out in pain. Her sister had told her when he drained her power it just slowly made her feel weaker, but this felt like someone was ripping her organs out of her body. Maybe he was able to control what it felt like when he drained magic. She took her legs and kicked him in the chest, this made him drop her and step back. He was very close to the edge. Then Luna saw a chance, she mustered all of her strength and charged at him. She hit him right in the stomach and knocked him into the sand. She watched as he clawed at the sand trying to get out as he slowly sank. All the moving only sped up the process. When he was finally fully submerged Luna sat down to recover her strength before she left. Just as she was about to leave the sand storm began to pick up. She squinted her eyes and used one of her wings to cover her face. Then the ground began to shake, suddenly a dragon burst from the sand, its scales were mix between gold and olive, it had piercing red eyes. Its wings spread open and its taloned hands were slightly stretched out. She recognized it as Sean’s dragon form. The dragon let out a chuckle. “Did you really think it would be that easy?” then a massive hand came down and grabbed Luna. Luna tried to break free but his grip was too tight and she was too weak to teleport away. It looked hopeless for Luna and she hung her head in defeat. Then she remembered something her sister had told her. The gem between his horns was a weak spot for him. If she destroyed it with enough magic she may be able to beat him. Luna charged her horn with all the magic she could. Sean laughed. “Do you really think magic will be able to hurt me?” he tightened his grip. “Yes. I. do!” she then shot a blast of magic at the gem. Sean let out a roar of pain and dropped her. Luna saw the gem crack and break. Then Sean began to fall apart, his left arm fell in front of her and began to disintegrate. One of his wings fell into the sand and his head fell onto the edge of the island the eyes were nothing but sockets. Finally the rest of his body fell back and began to sink into the sand. Luna looked in surprise. Then the mouth of his head opened and a human shape began to crawl out but it fell over and began to disintegrate, then another human shape burst from its mouth Luna cringed at the sight of its skull practically bursting and it died and finally a final one broke free from it. This one was different because it had actual details as opposed to being just a shape. It began to crawl toward her as it developed more and more features until it was Sean. He crawled towards her moaning he reached out and tried to grab her but then fell over just barely out of reach of her. She noticed that he had not developed his legs. Suddenly he began to talk “How? How could I be bested by a pony? I’m the most powerful being alive; I can’t lose to a pathetic little pony. Especially not what is essentially a teenager!” he gasped for breath. “How!? It makes no sense!” he looked up and scowled up at Luna. She saw that he had begun to disintegrate. After a few seconds he was just a head. “How?” he whispered, then he was gone. Luna sighed in relief, after a minute to recover she looked to see that the sky was beginning to fill again. She figured that means it worked she then used her magic and teleported to the real world.