//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: Darkened 
// Story: Splashdown 
// by Cyanblackstone 
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There was a single, anticipatory second of shocked silence. One agent motioned with his free hand. “Get together.” Shuffling feet broke the silence, and the moment noise reentered the scene, the panicked cameramen on the superstructure ran for help.
All of the group complied, but as she backpedaled Luna followed the choking noises backwards to the thrashing man, already drenched in his own blood and suffocating in it. His cries for help were lost in his ruined throat and mangled into garbles and sickening bubbles of blood forming and popping. His eyes were wide in terror and anguish as he looked for someone—anyone—to save him.
One of the men behind her stiffened and spun around. “Fitz!” he cried at the noises, rushing towards him.
“Don’t move,” one guard repeated, training his weapon on the man and putting a bullet at his feet.
The traitors didn’t even seem to care that they’d hit someone behind their target and dealt him a terrible wound. In fact, they hadn’t spared the attention to even notice until someone else moved.
And that, most of all, infuriated her beyond reason. To fight was one thing. To betray was worse. But to kill innocent bystanders and not even notice? To refuse a man to even try to save a life? The callousness, the sheer disregard for innocents, boggled the mind. Such barbarity could not be allowed to stand.
Something in her mind clicked. A lock Luna didn’t know existed unlocked, and a door she thought destroyed began to open, and traces of it began to squeeze out. Her eyes widened as she tried to slam the door shut, but she couldn’t muster up the will—she was still angry, and there wasn’t enough magic around to use any spells that could help.
It wanted out—and it was stronger than she was. She could slow it, but her anger had broken its bonds and it was only a matter of time.
“Neil,” she choked, her tone already shifting, “When it happens, get everyone away. Don’t anger it. Don’t do anything extra to make it notice you.”
“It?” Neil asked frantically, trying to stay upright and move backwards, panic dripping from his tones. “What’s it?”
“You’ll... know it when you... see it,” she gurgled, strength spent. “It’s coming.” With a cry, she slumped to the deck, everyone’s attention diverted to her for a moment.
With a mental cackle, her consciousness was shoved into the same door she had tried to close. This time, it slammed closed easily despite all of Luna’s resistance, and she was nearly helpless within her own body.
A moment later, cat’s pupils greeted the light as her eyes snapped open, no longer under her control. “That’s better,” her body laughed, voice sinisterly changed. “I thought I’d have to stay trapped in there for centuries.” She adjusted her helmet slightly. “Now, I have some of her business to take care of before I can get to mine.” Fangs sprouted from her mouth.
She sighed. “Such a pain, but contracts do have their conditions.” She turned her gaze towards the traitorous Secret Service agents. “And her subconscious made the conditions for this little outing quite clear."
Nightmare Moon was back.
-----
Neil definitely knew when it happened.
Luna had collapsed after gasping a few sentences, and when she had gotten back up, she’d changed.
Her voice was different, her mannerisms completely changed, and those eyes from the landing were back. She didn’t even seem the same person—or pony, rather.
And this new Luna scared him, on an instinctive, bone-deep level he felt in the most primal level of his body. The main urge he was getting was ‘Run, as fast as you possibly can, and don’t look back.’
Quickly, he ushered everyone back several yards, the agents too focused on the alicorn to notice them moving.
“Did you even take a fraction of a second to notice,” she hissed, voice dripping with malice, “That you’ve doomed a man to a slow, terrible death?” She took a step forwards. "Now, I'm no stranger to violence-- far from it-- but, honestly, killing those not in the way lacks style. It's terribly wasteful and annoying, so I probably would've done this even had I not had to." She smirked. "This is fun, anyway."
“Don’t move!” Luna’s glare darkened even further, as did her coat, and she took another, growing step forwards.
Neil watched in detached horror at the debacle playing out in front of him, unable to take his eyes away as his voice urged, “Don’t attract her attention!”
“I said don’t move!” The other guard was much less confident, a note of apprehension in his voice, but his weapon didn’t falter as he aimed in between her slitted eyes.
“No.” Her rebuttal was so blunt and matter-of-fact that the guard was momentarily at a loss, grasping for something to say to that unexpected answer. Luna—no, it wasn’t Luna, or the one Neil knew, anyway— smiled toothily, fangs glinting.
“I’m going to move,” she said conversationally, “and do you know what else is going to happen?”
The first guard had prioritized her as a threat now; he was aiming at her as well. Charlie broke from the group, Neil grabbing uselessly at him, and fell to the man’s—Fitz, he had screamed—side.
Her wings spread to their fullest extent, and an unnaturally large and black shadow fell across the deck. “I’m going to kill you.”
There was a sudden darkness—the sun veiled across the entire deck, blinding everyone on the carrier, and frost formed on every surface as sinister laughter rung from every direction.
When the black mist dispersed, the sun was no lower in the sky and no cloud had drifted across its expanse, but the sky had darkened as if it was covered entirely with looming thunderheads.
The guard who had before been so calm stiffened, for the first time showing a hint of concern, while the second broke, making a screaming run to the other end of the carrier, as far as he could get from the new Luna’s full glory.
He was snatched by a dark telekinetic grasp and brought, struggling frantically, eye to eye with Luna as she regarded him with dark humor. He wrenched at the trigger, sending the entire magazine at her, but most ricocheted off of her black armor. Only one found a gap, and where it struck, it shattered, leaving only a tiny mark.
One small drop of ichor, blacker than night, fell to the deck.
Her amusement showed. “You did better than most of Sister’s—or rather, Celestia’s—guards did. I applaud you.” Two hooves stomped slowly, mockingly, ringing ominously on the deck. The guard shrank, still struggling, but no longer with any kind of purpose—the thrashings of prey rather than a trapped opponent. His mouth fell open, and he gibbered with mindless terror.
“Don’t be such a foal,” she chided him, as more bullets from the second guard sparked off of her armor. Idly, she removed the pitiful threat from the second by teleporting away his weapon—and, incidentally, the hand holding it, the guard biting back a scream as he was thrown to the deck by a temporary gravity field, hand spurting blood. 
Returning her attention to her helpless enemy, she finished, “After all, I’m going to kill you quickly.” He didn’t even have time to take in a breath as she ripped each of his ribs in separate directions. As blood and bits of flesh flicked everywhere, she giggled, the girlish noise only adding to the terrifying sight, and flicked his mangled remains over the edge. “That was the most fun I’ve had in decades!”
She licked one drop of blood off of her helmet.
Neil retched, along with most of the others.
Finally, the first’s composure broke. “Oh God, please don’t kill me,” he begged desperately. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know—just please, God, don’t kill me like that.”
“Deal.” Leaving him on the deck for the moment, she regaled the Neil and the other frozen Americans, huddled together instinctively. As her eyes swept the group, they involuntarily shrunk back several steps—except President Nixon. He paled and swayed, but held his ground and even managed to bring his eyes up to meet hers. Neil pulled him back, hysterically whispering in his ear, “Don’t draw attention to yourself! Do you want her to notice you?”
The president swallowed and backpedaled quickly.
She nodded slightly, almost admiringly, and flashed Nixon a wink that made him blanch and shudder. “I like you. Such spirit!” 
Lastly, her eyes turned to Fitz as Charlie, shaking and unable to stand, still tried with fumbling hands to help as he trembled. Neil bit his lip so hard he began to bleed.
The two had definitely drawn her attention.
“Cease your incompetent aid, you lackwit,” she snapped, backhanding him magically a few feet, sprawling, and bringing Fitz to her hooves. “You’re not helping at all.”
He didn’t hear as his breaths began to slow and the blood faltered from a spurt to a steady flow. He had seconds to live.
“Humans are so—so—weak,” she complained as she darkened her horn once again. “One of my guards could have shrugged off such a hit and kept fighting until they dropped dead. But I suppose it wasn’t this one’s fault evolution snubbed him or that cowards killed him.” She bit her lip, slicing it open, black blood oozing out. Bringing one booted hoof to her mouth, she gathered a drop of blood and, with a flick, dropped it into the wound as she cast her spell. With a return of momentary darkness, she tossed him, limp but throat no longer rent open, over to the other humans. “I hope you’re grateful I saved the man. He’ll make a good servant when he's healed.”
She clapped her hooves, the harsh clanging screwing into Neil’s ears. “Now, only one more item of business.” She lifted the lone traitor up by the throat. “Who sent you?”
Choking, he began to gurgle out a word, but she tsked. “Too slow! It’s time to do this the fun way!”
A stream of darkness flew from her horn to the man’s forehead, and both stiffened.
The man began to scream.