Luna was already up by the time I woke up. She was eating some food on her bed, looking at me.
"Mornin', Luna. Feelin' alright?" I asked.
"I feel great." she said.
"Fantabulous."
"I think this ailment is finally going away."
"Wonderful! Celebrations are in order! Cheese! For everyone!"
"Cheese?"
"Wait, scratch that. Cheese for no one. I guess that's as much a celebration if you don't like cheese, true?"
"I... guess." She laughed. "Why do we scratch the cheese? I like cheese."
"I too enjoy cheese." I eyed her food. "You gonna share that with the class?"
She gave me a plate of pancakes.
"I had one made for you."
"That's awesome. Thanks Luna. Hey, ya remember what happened before ya conked out yesterday?"
"The last thing I recall was you talking about a man's hair. It's been a while since I've had such a strange conversation."
"Ya see your sister yet?"
"No, not yet. I think she left the castle. I couldn't find her."
"Huh... Well, ya wanna go find her or something?"
"Maybe later."
"Alrighty then. Man, this is some good food."
'Still there, Nightmare?' I asked her.
'What do you want?'
'I was just wondering.'
We finished our meals, then I said, "Sure you're alright?"
"I believe so."
"Good, 'cause you acted kinda weird yesterday."
"I was acting weird?"
"Kinda."
"How so?"
"Well, ya slept against me. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm not as comfy as your bed. You were asleep for like four hours or something."
"Oh. I'm... sorry."
"Well, I didn't say I didn't like it."
"What?"
"It's nice havin' a snuggle buddy." I said.
"I can't disagree."
"Well then... Wanna go for another walk?"
"Another?"
"Yeah, we walked around yesterday for a bit."
"Sorry. I can't remember that."
"Don't worry about it, I can't remember what I had for breakfast."
She looked at my plate. "You still have breakfast on your face."
"I always have breakfast on my face." I stood up and held my hand up to her. "How about it?"
"Sounds like fun."
"Lets go."
She grabbed it and stood next to me. "Where are we going?"
"Just for a walk." I said, "We'll hang out for a little."
"Alright. Lead on, then."
We walked out of the room. Luna looked healthy enough, but I wasn't entirely sure yet. Two guards joined us without a word. We aimlessly walked around the castle. Sometimes Luna spoke to me, sometimes I spoke to her.
I started talking to Nightmare while we walked. 'Hey, I gotta ask you something.'
'What?'
'What exactly is negative energy?'
'Negative energy is a special form of energy created with evil thoughts. Ponies have few evil thoughts, so they don't have a lot of negative energy.'
'Evil thoughts? Man, I suggested murdering these ponies last night. No wonder you're using a human.'
'That was an awful idea.'
'Does negative energy boost the power of dark magic?'
'Yes it does.'
'And the Elements... do you think I could, like, overload them with negative energy to make them break or something?'
'The Elements of Harmony are indestructible.'
'You broke them on your own before, remember?'
'Yes, but those weren't... Wait, how did you know that?'
I ignored her question. 'I'm an outside force with a huge amount of negative energy. If I could somehow pour my negative energy into the Elements, do you think I could break them?'
'I don't have a clue. You're thinking too far ahead. We need the Elements first before we can try anything. Idiot.'
"Luna, you still feeling ok?" I asked her.
"I feel fantastic." she said, "Spending time with my friends always makes me feel better."
"Awesome. Awesome to the max."
"Although..."
"Huh?"
"I think it's time I started to resume my duties. I've done very little work since I've been struck with this condition. My sister has done my work for me, but she deserves a rest."
"That sounds like it'll be boring."
"Unfortunately, it will be."
"You'll definitely need some company for that." I said.
"That's kind of you to offer. Thank you."
"Anytime. We should find Celestia first."
"Indeed." She turned to the guards. "Did my sister mention where she is to either of you?"
"No, ma'am."
Luna sighed. "Where is she? It isn't like her to disappear like this."
"She'll show up. Until then, we postpone doing anything official and do something fun."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Dunno. I'm not good with deciding what to do. I don't think we should leave the castle yet, though. You might need to do... something healthy... or something. You understand what I mean, right?"
"That was so infuriating. Each time I felt like I was getting better, I had to spend another day in that bed."
"Yeah, well... Quit being sick. Quit it. This is turning out to be less fun that I thought it would be. Got anything in mind for us to do?"
"Not particularly. We could go back to the library." she said, "If you want. We might find something useful in there."
'Not likely.'
"We could try." I said, "If we don't find anything important, maybe I could learn something else."
We headed over to the library.
'There a book in here that's gonna help us?' I asked Nightmare.
'I have something in mind, but we should take it later.'
'We'll come back tonight, then.'
I skimmed through some books. I don't think either of us really read any of them. Luna seemed to realize that it wouldn't work. Nonetheless, we filled up a nice part of the day with reading. We got a quick lunch about halfway through it.
I didn't get anything worthwhile, although I learned how to thoroughly clean my hair. Yeah, that's useful.
Celestia walked in the room. I stood up and said, "Where were you?"
"Why didn't you tell anypony where you went?" asked Luna.
"Sister, I need to speak to you in private." she said, "Come with me."
Luna looked back to me, then followed her sister out of the room.
'Nightmare.' I said.
'Look for a book called Magical Mysteries. It should be a shelf over, on the top.'
I got the book she wanted. Looked old, but then, so did everything else.
'Hide it on your person. We'll read it when everypony's asleep.'
I put it in my shirt. It stood out less than I thought it would. 'Why's this book so important?'
'There's a potion recipe in there that we can use. It should very useful in dealing with the ponies.'
'Sounds cool. What does it do?'
'You'll see.'
I grabbed another book and looked through it. Boring, as usual. Got pretty late before Luna came back in.
"Sorry about that." said Luna, "It was very important. I couldn't avoid it."
"Whatever. I have a, uh... a serious question. Do you believe that evil can triumph over good?"
"What brought that up?"
"Answer the question."
"Well, if evil can..."
"Yes or no." I said.
"No. Good will not lose against evil."
I smiled and nodded. "Good." I yawned. "Alright, I'm gonna head to bed. If you're the same tomorrow, we'll do whatever the hell you want, alright?"
"Alright."
I put some of the books I got out back on the shelves, then held one in front of Magical Mysteries and said, "Taking this."
"Go ahead."
And back to my room I went. I tossed Magical Mysteries under the bed, then I read the other for an hour.
'Anypony outside?'
'Two guards, like normal.'
'And Luna?'
'Asleep. As well as her sister.'
'Good, lets try this out.' I said.
I grabbed the book and flipped to the potion she mentioned.
"Ultimate potion of power. Significantly increases the power of a unicorn's magic."
'How is this useful?' I asked, 'You're the one with the magic, and you can't even use your own powers anymore.'
'How do you know that?'
'Half the time I guess, then you confirm my theories. You're not perfect at hiding your emotions. That kinda gives it away. So the potion?'
'It says that it works on unicorns, but it works on anything.'
'Even humans?' I asked.
'I'm not entirely sure, but I believe so. We need the ability to channel your energy in our favor if we want to succeed. I'll be able to use spells to their fullest extent. It's really rare to see this potion made correctly, but it should be simple.'
'Beautiful.'
I looked at the recipe. Half of it was ground-up gemstones. Nightmare told me that those would be the easiest to get. I told her that she was insane. The rest were crazy. Essences of magic, love, and happiness. Alicorn blood. Powdered scales of an adult dragon. Death root. Gryphon claws.
I stared at the book. 'I have a few questions!' I said.
'I imagined you would.'
'First of all, alicorn blood? Is this shit serious?!'
'It's completely serious.'
'I know how I could get that stuff, but I seriously don't want to.'
'You know how?'
'Yeah. I'd lure them out into the forest and get them to scratch themselves or something. Easy. It's kinda messed up, but it's easy. And the part about the dragon scale. I don't have a death wish. Not yet, at least.'
'I will aid you with that one. It may prove dangerous, even if we sneak into a cave.'
'How are you going to... Whatever. The gryphon claw one should be kinda easy. Death root, what's that?'
'It's the root of a tree found deep within the Everfree Forest.'
'I could've guessed that. What's so death-ey about it?'
'It's poisonous. Very poisonous.'
'Alright, the essences. What are those, exactly? Are they like potions themselves? Am I going to have to extract them from somepony? Or myself?'
'They're a type of potion. They can be accessed with a spell or a special device from somepony who has a specialty in them.'
'Alright. I have my targets, but I have a question. Does it take them away permanently? Like, if I take the essence of happiness from somepony, they won't be depressed for the rest of their life, will they?'
'No, they'll recover from it, in time.'
'In time?'
'It may take up to a month, but no longer.'
'Good. Alright, we'll take the magic from Twilight, and the happiness from Pinkie. The love... Queen Chrysalis.'
'What?'
'Were you thinking Luna?'
'I was.'
'That might affect you, and that could affect me. We could also take the magic from Celestia, now that I think about it. Wait a minute...'
'What?'
'If I take the magic from Celestia, Cadence, Shining Armor, and Twilight Sparkle, will that increase the power of the potion?'
'I think it would, but getting at it would be incredibly hard.'
'I'll try it. If I deem it impossible, I'll give up.'
I looked at the recipe again.
'Is something the matter?'
'I have other problems. We can't hide these things in here. I think the guards are going through my room.'
'They are.'
'And finding the ingredients. If we disappear for no reason, they'll get suspicious. We can't make excuses for everything. If they find out about this, I'll get taken down before I even start. We can't do this for a while. Can I take the essences without them knowing?'
'Yes, but if they know what you're doing, you'll run into trouble.'
'Ok.'
I started thinking about how I could do this. I really got into it, planning out many steps in advance, realizing my own mistakes, asking Nightmare for advice.
'You're putting out a lot of negative energy right now.'
I ran into a problem. Discord. I couldn't think of a way around him, no matter how hard I thought. I told Nightmare.
'We can't do this until he's gone. He's predictably unpredictable. I can't tell what he could do. He might even be reading my mind right now. He might even know about you already. They all trust him, so they won't turn him back into stone, and I can't trick him into doing something they'd hate either. Neither of us can, he's too smart. If it comes down to it, we might have to fight him. And I don't think we can do that, even at your best. Unless...'
'Unless?'
'I'll take his magic essence. Oh man, that's it! I love you, brain! That's how we'll do this. We don't even need the pony's magic essence. We'll destroy these ponies.'
'And if you can't take it?'
'I have a back up plan. If that doesn't work... well, I hope you enjoy prison.'
'There's more negative energy flowing from you than I expected. I'm impressed.'
'Fantastic.' I closed the book and stared at it. 'What am I gonna do with this? Put it back, I guess. They didn't see me come in with it, but it's dark. Hey, I appreciate the cooperation.'
'It's my pleasure.'
I grabbed the other book and brought the books back to the library, then put them back on their shelves. After that, I headed back to bed, still thinking about the potion.