//------------------------------// // Chapter 27 - I don't know who thought it, but yes, it can get worse! // Story: A Bhaalspawn in Equestria // by Thadius0 //------------------------------// "So let me see if I understand you here." Whispered Secret fidgeted and readjusted his specialty sunglasses while the Princess of the Crystal Empire, also known as Cadence, reviewed the story he'd just told her. "You snuck into the city and watched the whole battle without intervening." "To be fair, I'm a thestral, I tend to sleep during the day, and this city is bright," he nitpicked. Cadence continued like he hadn't tried to defend himself. "Marketh says that there's something you two need to find and you follow without question." "Well yeah," Whispered interjected, "He only trained me." "And when you arrive at the cave which is leaking actual tendrils of shadows, his first instinct is to go in and deal with it because 'if I don't do it, it'll cause a headache for Equestria and me'." The thestral stallion shrugged at that. "He's very self-serving, true, but deny his claim, I dare you." "And when he comes out wrapped up in shadows and acting like a possessed being, only then is your first instinct to come and tell me. When it should have been that all along. That about right?" Whispered made a show of thinking it over before nodding twice. "Sums it up. So, any idea what he found? All he said when he came out was something about there being two left." The other ponies in the room shuffled around a bit. Shining stood next to his wife, and the Bearers were halfway between Whispered and the door. There were at least four guards that he recalled seeing, two to the door and two to the throne. There were probably more hidden just out of sight, waiting in case they were needed. Then there was a sound from behind him, and Whispered slowly turned to see the lavender unicorn with a hoof raised. Whispered raised an eyebrow before nodding at her. "Well," she said, "based on the trajectory and location, I think I know what it was that landed there. After all, I had a good view of it, trapped in the tower at the time as I was." The other ponies waited as she let out a sigh and finished her sentence. "Sombra's horn. I saw it survive the explosion and get blasted out of the city. If any fragment of Sombra could end up with any real power or link to him, it would be his horn. Marketh was right to after it, yes, but..." Every pony there mentally finished her sentence. Just what did he get involved with by doing so? ----- The Castle in the Everfree. Once home to the two sisters, once the seat of the Equine's power. Nowadays, it has fallen into ruin, for none have been there to maintain it for the past thousand years. The most action that's happened in it in the past while has been the rediscovery of the Elements of Harmony. Oh, and a biped and an alicorn checking out old records in the library. Still, not a whole lot going on, there. Until this day. Resting where she last existed in this world, the torn remnants of Nightmare Moon clung to her shattered and scattered armor. Black smoke curled up from each piece, each one seeming to let out a low, desolate moan. If only any piece had the power to find any other. Then it would return, the Nightmare, and bring fear and terror back to the world. No longer would it cower in the shadow of others. Alas, it was stuck, forgotten, alone. Once the armor rusted away forever, the spirit of Nightmare would have nothing left binding it to this world, and would be forced to move on to another. Too bad it was not going to get that chance. A series of low footfalls would have been heard in the castle, if anything else were around to hear them. The form of Marketh, trailing shadows behind him, approached the shattered armor, and carefully nudged it closer together. The wisps merged into one large, dark, smoky cloud, and a set of slitted cyan eyes opened on it. They cast their gaze around before they landed on the figure in the room, who thrust a hand into the cloud and somehow grabbed a hold of it. "Nightmare Moon. Mare of Envy, Jealousy, Greed, Pride. She who was one with Luna, true mistress of the Night, one half of Order. Destruction requires your essence and your memories so that it may be brought to bear on this realm." If clouds of smoke can panic, this one did and attempted to move back away from the figure before it. Heck, it would have taken dissolution and banishment from existence rather than the fate this creature had planned. However, what little struggle it could put up was in vain, as the figure drew its hand back, taking the smoke cloud with it, and inhaled it. The armor on the floor melted and twisted, then attached itself to Marketh's form in the form of greaves, bracers, and highly superfluous pauldrons, all of which gleamed silver. However, the body itself became more obscured by shadows. It was getting hard to distinguish anything about it until it opened its burning red, slitted cat eyes. And then it spoke again. "Hmm. Interesting...Tartarus is the most secure place you know of? You had plans to break in there and see what Celestia locked away while you were exiled?" The figure turned and looked towards the direction of the gates of Tartarus before speaking again. "Perhaps we will find the last one there..." ----- "Sister, we have most disturbing news." The sisters Celestial had been upset ever since the report a week back about Marketh finding the horn of Sombra and being possessed by whatever dark magics lay within it. Actually, strike that. They'd been upset ever since he'd vanished. To hear that he'd reappeared, only to vanish again while under dark influences... They'd seen the darkness in his mind. They didn't want to think about what he could do when a thing like Sombra had him in his thrall. And that curious statement about there being two left chilled them. "More disturbing than our bipedal acquaintance being possessed by a millennia-old shade of one of our greater foes, Luna?" Luna nodded. "Indeed. Near our old castle, there had been a slight...disturbance in the Dreamscape. Those closer to it suffered more frequently from nightmares. I did ponder why this could be for some time, then came to the only conclusion that could be, and sought to find out the truth of the matter myself." Celestia's breath hitched for a moment. She'd known ever since Luna had been returned, of course, that fragments of Nightmare would linger for some time. She'd taken effort to make sure that every piece of the armor was scattered far enough from another that they would not accidentally come too close and begin to restore its power. "What did you find, sister dear?" Luna strode to a window and replied while looking out it. "Fragments of Nightmare. And while the memory of our time as one being sickened me...I did decide that letting it linger, suffer, wither, and being forced to move on a fitting punishment for the pain it had brought us and was bringing our subjects. I merely had to place a ward around the pieces to prevent their influence from the Dreamscape, so they could not draw from the fear of our subjects." Celestia nodded, and Luna turned to look at her. "But that ward had nothing to do last night. And when I looked, the fragments were gone. The room still reeked strongly of magic, but Nightmare's essence was gone. The echoes of its presence, however, were not as weak as they would have been had it simply faded away, nor was there any scrap metal on the floor. I fear...somepony has absconded with the spirit of Nightmare." Suddenly, something clicked in Celestia's mind. Two remained? He'd been talking about great, dark threats. Chrysalis had already been dealt with. Sombra had been dealt with. Now Nightmare had been dealt with. The only one left was- "Tirek," she whispered. Luna cocked her head at Celestia. "That was that centaur from your memories, correct? What of him?" Celestia began to walk briskly to the entrance of the room. "He's in Tartarus, and if I'm right, Marketh is going to pay him a visit!" She called for her guards, and together, they began to plan, hoping that somehow, some way, they could catch Marketh off-guard before he got in those gates... ----- In front of the gates to Tartarus, a three-headed dog snoozed, dreaming idle dreams. It had one duty, make sure the gates never opened, and except for that one instance where it wandered off, it had fulfilled that duty to the letter. While it was now snoozing, it was snoozing in front of the doors themselves, and they opened outwards. If anything from inside tried to get out, the dog would know. And then there was a smell. The snouts sniffed once, twice, and then one of the heads sneezed before blinking and looking around. Finding nothing of interest, it moved back to lie asleep and yawned. When it looked dead ahead, that's when the head saw it and barked, waking up its fellow heads. The other two were cranky for a minute, and then they saw what the third head had. Standing in front of them was a bipedal being that just oozed dark magic and shadows and evil. It was exactly like something the dog's master would have him stand guard over. Did this thing come from inside?! And then it spoke, and despite the creature being smaller than the dog, the voice inspired terror. "Cerberus. Guard Dog of Tartarus, holding cell for that which Celestia deems too dangerous to live, yet cannot bring herself to kill. You. Will. MOVE." The dog growled at that, and the being chuckled. "We merely wish to see if our suspicions are true, if there is a creature in there. We can do this the boring way or the fun way. But one way or another, we are getting in there." The dog kept growling, and the creature sighed. "Sit. Stay. Roll over. PLAY DEAD!" There was a sudden sound, and all the birds that had dared perch near the gate took off at once... ----- Within the mind, it was chaos. The gestalt entity that Destruction had been had pulled apart at the seams when the Nightmare was introduced. Now, three separate voices guided the will of the being. Sombra and Nightmare both sought ways to bring the Slayer down while trying not to lose to each other. The Slayer had been reduced in recent days, and while he could take one of them on easily, with two, it was difficult. He couldn't stand before them both. It was a holding pattern. He merely hoped Tirek would be easy to sway to his side...and then easy to dispose of. There was only room for one voice in the entity they would become! Denied the chance to become Murder Incarnate, it would go another route! It WOULD be divine again! Meanwhile, below the brawl taking place, a young boy looked at the three tattered books before him before staring up at the storm of paper above. He closed his eyes, raised his hands, and fought tooth and nail. He wanted to remember again. He knew the risks, knew the stakes. If, whenever this thing was whole, he couldn't stand up to the survivors, then he would never be in control again. A small section of paper drifted down from above and affixed themselves to the books as he began reciting five words to himself, over and over again, relishing in their taste and sound. "My name is Christopher Wetherby....my name is Christopher Wetherby...MY NAME is CHRISTOPHER WETHERBY..."