Chapter 7
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Preparation on both ends
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Twilight & Celestia
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Far off in Canterlot Twilight and Celestia arrived and began on their jobs. “Ok, nightmares… Nightmares… Now where would I find that” Twilight wondered while browsing the shelves. “Ah, here it is” she pulled out several books on dark equestrian lore as well as a lot of scrolls which all had spells she thought would be useful. “Now then, to reading” she declared. Over on Celestias end she had collected the elements and ran to her younger sister’s room.
“Luna!” She shouted bursting in.
“What is it sister? You seem paranoid” Luna asked noticing her sisters panicked look. She proceeded to tell Luna what happened.
“That’s awful” She exclaimed gasping, “but I was Nightmare Moon, does that mean that I too am-“,
“NO” Celestia interrupted, “you are not a nightmare Luna, we all have our desires and they sometimes twist us, but that does not mean that we’re monsters.”
“I see” Luna replied, “How can I help?” Celestia was slightly surprised to see her younger sister so eager to get involved.
“Well” she thought, “could you put the guards on full alert?”
“Consider them alerted, anything else?” Luna replied.
“After you have alerted them we must wait for Twilight to finish researching the nightmares and spells she believes will work against them, afterwards we will join her and head for everfrees entrance where we will meet up with her friends. We will discuss further plans then” Celestia answered.
“Then come sister, we will wait for Twilight at the entrance of the castle” Luna suggested as they walked off.
Back in the archives Twilight had just found what she was looking for. “Ok, let’s see” she said as she began to read.
The story of the nightmares: 2 thousand years ago, during the early stages of the Celestial and Lunar princesses reign, there existed a race of alicorns who were called “Nightmares” due to their incredible bower and dark appearance. They resented all of ponykind, why did they? It was because ponykind had light, and nightmares can’t live in light. Over time this resentment grew, till eventually one nightmare grew sick of the dark and spoke his opinion to all of the nightmares. That did it; it was war for 5 years afterward. Many ponies died in the desperate struggle to protect equestria and the princesses had to enter the battlefield. They had to combine their strength to use a spell called Celestial array, this spell was what it took, all the nightmares, except for one, were eliminated. The princesses proceeded to seal the last remaining nightmare inside a stone alicorn body and they halved its power to ensure no further uprisings. This stone alicorn has not been seen since.
Twilight finally pieced it together, finished with her research she went to meet with the princesses and head out to everfree.
Nightmare & Crimson
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“Come Crimson” Nightmare called.
“Yes my lord?” he answered as he hurried to Nightmares side.
“We must prepare for their arrival” Nightmare replied,
“Who?” asked Crimson. Nightmare shot him a glare which made crimson stumble backwards,
“ah, yes. The purple unicorn and whoever she brings with her” Crimson remembered, but felt sheepish for not remembering her.
“Yes, indeed” muttered Nightmare, “anyways, I want you to check to ensure that the other three aren't slacking off. After which you will arm all the wall cannons with a come to life spell and a loyalty spell”,
“as you wish my liege” Crimson replied before hurrying off to check on Tracer, Flare, and Strafe.
After Crimson left Nightmare walked to his quarters and sat down in front of his mirror, “it finally is happening, we will no longer be dismissed” he tried to cheer himself up, but instead heard a voice in his head, it was Saber’s voice.
“Not happy? No wonder” he taunted Nightmare,
“what, who’s there” Nightmare growled,
“gee, I’m hurt that you don’t remember the unicorn who’s mind sheltered your mangy carcass” Saber continued to mock him,
“Saber, So you still exist within my head” Nightmare shot back,
“for the record, it’s my head. And I might as well say that I still have some control” Saber pointed out,
“true, you do have some control, but it won’t matter when I finish your puny friends”,
“I wouldn't be so sure, if they win you will be destroyed and I’ll finally have a mortal body”,
“but if they lose, I will kill them and all who stand in my way”. Saber’s voice left Nightmare after that, “foolish unicorn, he refuses the truth, but yet he still stinks of it”