//------------------------------//
// Nightmare Night 
// Story: Something Sweet to Bite Too 
// by Knackerman 
//------------------------------//

	Celestia's elite guard quickly took up defensive positions as the ruins began to rumble. Fluttershy hunkered down to the ground, trembling in fear. Captains and lieutenants could be heard barking commands up and down the lines, trying to maintain order.  Dark clouds boiled up in the heavens above as lightning spread across the sky like the branches of a dead tree. The shaking grew worse, the tremors becoming a full blown earthquake as the wind whistled and howled through the fallen castles stones. Rainbow Dash was still trying to blink away the after image of the explosion that had been burned into her retinas, but she could've sworn she saw something moving beneath the shattered pumpkin shells. "It's her! It's the Candy Mare! She's still alive!"

"But that's impossible!" cried Zecora, having to shout to be heard over the sudden storm. "We destroyed the source of her power! The souls of her victims should be free!" Lightning struck in front of them, causing a wave of silence as all those gathered were suddenly deafened. A scent of ozone flooded the ruins as what few towers that still stood in the distance began to crumble and fall. The first sound to come back to their ears was not the distant roar this caused, but rather laughter that pealed clear and brazen as the clap of a bell. Many of the younger soldiers dropped their spears and tried to flee, only to find their way blocked by the shifting stone that rose up to bar their path. A few fell into pits as great cracks opened in the ground, their wings useless as the earth itself seemed to rise to swallow them. Rainbow Dash panicked, forgetting her injuries and attempting to fly for safety herself. Before she could get far, Princess Celestia landed in front of her, wings spread wide.

"Citizens of Equestria! Do not fear! Stand you're ground! I will not allow this evil to harm you! Stand strong!" she commanded, the panicking guards instantly calming and moving to their monarchs side. "So long as I rule in Equestria, no spirit of the night shall haunt so boldly, for I have the power of the sun! And I will call upon it's light now to vanquish this foe once and for all!" With that, her horn erupted into a beautiful golden light. The storm clouds melted away under the unrelenting beams of a sudden new dawn. In an instant all was calm and tranquil, as if there had never been a storm at all, as if they had never heard any laughter. Distant bird song was the only sound on the wind as the sun slowly crept into the sky at the Princess's command. In the sudden stillness, Celestia spoke, "It will mean no small amount of chaos for Equestria to have to skip a night, but it is a small price to pay to at last be rid of this Candy Mare."

"Oh sweet sister," spoke a familiar voice in return. "If it were that simple, you would've never needed the Elements of Harmony to banish me so long ago!" 

A dark shadow passed over the sun, at first blocking, and then seeming to wholly extinguish its light. Once more the rumbling in the earth resumed. Storm clouds swirled around the suddenly red moon that hung in the sky where the sun had once shone, the bloody eye of a fearsome hurricane. Laughter echoed from every direction, and this time even Celestia seemed to cower. Her eyes widened as a shape coalesced from the darkness. Celestia whispered a heart breaking, "No!" for before her stood her worst nightmare. Lightning strobed across the night sky, revealing the looming shape off Nightmare Moon!

Yet this Nightmare Moon that stood before them, cackling through broken teeth, was not the same as the one Celestia had known before. Her body had been cooked black, her hide peeled away by the force of the explosion and burned to the bone by the intense flames. What parts of her that weren't exposed muscle or charred bone were drenched in a thick, black filth that dripped from her mouth and open wounds. Tendrils of the same abysmal hue squirmed inside the holes in her body, wet and foul. Her wings spread wide, far larger and wider than they had been in life. They were composed now of the same dark tendrils, liquorice, that dipped deep into the earth and rose high into the air, like a series of roots or a complex web. By these black stalks she loomed over those who were gathered before her. Unsettling as this was, the most striking change was perhaps the hair of her mane and tail. They no longer resembled a starlit sky, but rather a perfect void that sucked at the eyes and denied even the smallest trace of light. Wails and lamentations echoed from that hole in space, but even that wasn't as terrifying as Nightmare Moon's empty eye sockets. Red liquorice tendrils poked out from the empty holes like thick red worms. They wriggled like festering maggots. "What's the matter? No kiss for your sister after being so long apart?" sneered the monstrosity as a thick dark tongue passed over her rotten teeth and blackened gums.

"Don't listen to her Princess! That's not Luna! Or at least, not anymore. The Candy Mare is controlling her!" shouted Rainbow Dash over the howling wind.

"The fiend must've taken refuge inside her body to avoid her destruction!" added Zecora, back on her feet and relighting the pilot light on her flame thrower despite the gale. "We have to burn her out like a fever! It's the only way!"

"Is there no way we can save my sister?" asked Celestia in despair.

"Yes sister, save me!" came Luna's voice. To Celestia's eyes, Luna stood before her no longer a corpse, but whole once more and in chains."Don't let them hurt me my sister. Haven't I suffered long enough?" 

Rainbow Dash waved a hoof in front of Celestia's face,"Hello~. Princess, you there?" while the monarch of all Equestria stared off into space. 

Celestia, half asleep mumbled, "Yes. I'm here. Don't hurt my sister. She's suffered enough. Soldiers of Equestria, go to Luna. Free her and secure her for transport to Canterlot. It's time that my sister was taken home." Her soldiers, for their part looked askance at their monarch. They had received a direct order, but how could they be expected to follow it?

"What!?" cried Rainbow Dash. "There's no way you can think that thing is still your sister! Just look at her! She's a candy stuffed corpse!"

"It's no use Rainbow Dash, she's dreaming with her eyes open. She's obviously so exhausted she's asleep standing up, and the Candy Mare is taking advantage of that fact," said Zecora through grit teeth. "It's up to us, we'll focus on the Candy Mare. Fluttershy!" she called to the yellow pegasus, where she still cowered, not far away. Fluttershy raised her head, though her eyes were still glazed with terror. "Try to wake Celestia. I fear we may need her aid to finish this. More, I don't think we'll be able to fight two Alicorns if it comes to that!" With that, Zecora shot a burst of flames into the faux Nightmare Moon. The creature gave a shrill shriek as some of its liquorice melted from the blast. Tendrils whipped around to swat the zebra but a second burst of flame, this one from Rainbow Dash, melted that candy away as well.

"Keep up the pressure Zecora, don't let up!" yelled Rainbow Dash, "You soldier boys can join in whenever you like, just watch yourselves. She's weak but she's still dangerous!"

The half melted corpse let out a mad guffaw, "Oh yes, please do join in! You may have cost me the souls of Ponyville Rainbow Dash, but I know where I can get more!" Red and black tentacles, covered in curved claws and teeth, burst from the earth beneath the guards hooves. The rumbling from before must've been the candy abomination forcing them through the earth, for they burst forth from every direction, sweeping like scythes through the soldiers. Had she been playing possum the entire time? Blood rained down from the air as pegasus guards were plucked from the sky and sawn into chunks by the rotating teeth of grasping tendrils and snipping claws. Nightmare Moon cackled, her long tongue darting out to catch the crimson droplets that hissed and steamed as they struck her burnt flesh. All around the pit, new jack-o-lanterns materialized into existence, the guards dying faces frozen in pain in the thick pumpkin rinds. 

Zecora tried to destroy these as they appeared with her flamethrower, but she was running low on fuel, and she couldn't be everywhere at once. "I'm afraid we're going to have company soon."

Rainbow Dash, for her part, had been bathing the Candy Mare in constant bursts of flame. The monsters tendrils had moved to defend her, creating a candy wall where ever the azure flyer tried to find an opening. Melting candy was only replaced with more flailing appendages. She did well just to dodge the grasping limbs. "I'm running out of fuel! We need to try something else!"

"Um, I think I might have an idea!" Fluttershy shouted as she launched herself at the Candy Mare. Her body had been engulfed in a hard candy carapace, thick bladed wings replacing her soft feathers. Rainbow Dash's mouth hung open as she watched her normally timid friend cut through the Candy Mare's tendrils with scythe-like forelimbs. Devouring part of the Changeling hive, along with intimate proximity to the Alicorn Amulet, had somehow altered Fluttershy's curse. There were two creatures who had fed on the living here now, and one of them was actually on their side! The tiny yellow pegasus wings buzzed as the thing that had been Luna lashed out, sending a wall of teeth and claws to smash her like the insect she resembled. Her new 'feathers' sliced the wall into twitching black confetti. An uncharacteristically blood thirsty grin spread between Fluttershy's mandibles as the insectile pony darted, faster than Rainbow Dash had ever seen her fly before, back and forth slicing through the long black stalks that the Candy Mare was using to support her living corpse shell.

As fast and deadly as Fluttershy was, once she came closer to the candy stuffed Nightmare Moon the cadaverous pony's jaw opened wide in a shriek that made all present have to cover their ears. Rainbow Dash felt herself on the verge of blacking out. The effect on Fluttershy seemed to be the worst, as she was the closest, causing her to fall to the blood soaked ground. Watching her friend drop like a stone, Rainbow Dash feared she was dead. Fluttershy might have been, what with the Candy Mare looming over her, except for a beam of bright light that slammed into the beasts maw just as she was about to gorge herself on the fallen pegasus. "No more! You will torture and murder my subjects no more monster!" Celestia rose up in all her radiant glory, at last free of the temporary dream that the Candy Mare had inflicted upon her. With all the rage of a wronged goddess, her wings flapping with a clap of thunder, she shot beam after beam from her horn. The bombardment cracked the sky and pummeled the faux Nightmare Moon, sending her reeling backwards. "Nor will you use the memory of my sister against me! I see now that Luna is dead and gone. As you soon will be too!"

That made the Candy Mare giggle afresh, despite the smoking holes in her carcass. It was no longer Luna, nor Nightmare Moon's voice that echoed from her shattered jaws. "Dead and gone? You'd like that wouldn't you? You just can't stand the idea that right now I'm closer to your little sister than you ever were!" Celestia flinched, though from guilt or merely from the venom in the ghouls words as it spoke through her sisters tattered visage was anypony's guess. "Luna's not dead, she's right here with me, right now! Do you want to speak to her so she can tell you how much what you're doing hurts? Or do you want her to tell you what it felt like as I forced pieces of myself down her throat daily, month after month? ACK!"

The last part was a high pitched scream as Rainbow Dash and Zecora both bathed the broken creature in a pool of liquid flames. They emptied the tanks of their makeshift flame throwers, Rainbow Dash actually throwing the empty tank into the pit of shattered pumpkin shells that the monster had fallen in. The Candy Mare writhed and screamed, the flames eating away at the corpse and melting the candy to a dark black crust. Without warning, the jack-o-lanterns that had formed around the cavern floor erupted with a brilliant white light from within. The pumpkins exploded, shattering and flying to pieces. What few guards had started to rise as candy abominations fell back to the ground, the candy dissolving from their mangled bodies.

As the brilliant white flames died down, Celestia came to stand with Rainbow Dash and Zecora. What was left of her army had mostly fled, but Fluttershy came to stand by her side. Each of the mares gazed at what had once been Luna. The sad, shattered corpse seemed to have collapsed into itself, now little more than a dark grinning skull and a few bones. Still, even this sad form seemed more peaceful compared to the defiled state she had been in before. "If Luna really was still alive...I think she would appreciate what we just did for her," said Rainbow Dash.

"I think anypony would thank you girls for freeing them from that terrible creature," said Celestia sadly. "This has been one of the most difficult trials, both physically and emotionally, I believe that the pony's of Equestria have ever had to endure. It has certainly been a truly dark day for me. I doubt things will ever really be the same for us, but I know with time, Equestria will recover. We will rebuild Ponyville, and leave this terrible chapter of our history buried here in the Everfree Forest. Let no pony set hoof upon these blighted ruins ever again. Let the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters be covered by the dust of eons and forgotten."

"Um...Princess," spoke Fluttershy in a harsh buzzing voice, like she was gargling broken glass. "What about me? Without the Candy Mare's influence, I don't think I will be a threat to other ponies anymore. But I'm still..." she gestured as if to draw attention to herself. Her body was still coated in a hard candy shell that had a vaguely insectoid look. Stilled for the first time since her transformation, the appendages on her back spread to reveal a pair of beautiful blue butterfly wings. A pair of antenna on her forehead twitched nervously. "I don't think I can exactly fit in anymore."

"Actually, I think your new form might not entirely be a hindrance to your re-introduction to pony society. I may know of something you could do to be of service to Equestria's most fragile citizens." said Celestia, wrapping a wing around Fluttershy, tenderly as she guided the timid mare away from the tragic scene and perhaps into the dawning of a new life. "Have you ever heard of the Breezies?"





As Celestia and Fluttershy walked away, Rainbow Dash found herself lingering by Zecora's side. The sky had calmed and, from her perspective down in the pit that had once been a castle, the stars shown bright and clear through the evaporating clouds. The moon still hung fat, but it was now vaguely orange rather than a brilliant scarlet. It seemed peace had settled like a warm blanket over the night at last. The azure flyer was having a hard time processing her feelings. So much had happened in such a short time, it was hard to know what to feel. She felt as cold and empty as the boundless sky. She didn't know what to do with herself. This had been one seriously messed up Nightmare Night. Her wing was feeling better though, for whatever that was worth.

"Hey," she said to Zecora. "So you gonna start rhyming now and get all cryptic on me again?"

"No," said Zecora, looking up into the sky at a shooting star. "I think that chapter of my life is closed. I don't believe I want to wake up beneath this foreign sky again. I think I would like to go home now, to my homeland and my own brothers and sisters. I've been on my own for a long time. I had grown so used to them over the last year, I don't think I can go back to my cottage without Big Mac and Fluttershy. Seeing this terrible creature reminds me of how loneliness can twist the heart of even the most innocent creature into a truly foul and pitiable thing. That's not something I want for myself, nor my family."

"So after all this you feel sorry for her? For the Candy Mare!? She murderer thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, and she showed every sign of enjoying it! Because of her, nearly all of our friends are dead! She killed Big Mac!" yelled Rainbow Dash, angrier than she'd ever felt in her life, though weirdly not at Zecora. She was just angry; at the peaceful sky, at the quiet earth, and at fate in general. She'd thought the fear and anger inside her would fade away with the Candy Mare's destruction, but if anything it was worse now that there was this cavernous emptiness inside her. How much had she lost? How much had been taken from her? Her friends, her life, her very soul?

"Yes, I feel sorry for her," said Zecora simply. "That fiend was once a little pony just like you. A pony who had parents who loved her, who'd tell her to wake up in the morning and read her stories before bed at night. A filly who looked forward to life's pleasures, and dreaded their pitfalls. It was not by her own hoof that she was made a monster. The Candy Mare was as much a victim in all of this as anypony else." Looking at Dash's stormy face, she quickly added, "But don't mistake my pity for regret. She was still a terrible monster that spread death and misery to everypony around her. She needed to be put down, there's no doubt about that. All I'm saying is that even the death of one so wretched as her is not a thing that should be celebrated. Your Princess Celestia is quite right that it is better for her to be buried and forgotten."

"Why? So little filly's and colt's can dress up like ghosts and goblins and beg for treats from house to house? So nopony has to worry about the very real, very terrible fact that monsters like the Candy Mare lurk in the dark? Are you really comfortable with every pony just going on with their lives like none of this ever happened!?" demanded Rainbow Dash, her eyes boring into Zecora's.

"Wake up Rainbow Dash! Do you really think the Candy Mare and Nightmare Moon were the only creatures in Equestria's history that ever brought pain to it's populace? Do you think they were the only beings who ever had their legacy changed, erased, or purposely forgotten?" The zebra asked, her own anger flaring now. "History is just a thin story draped over the oceans of blood and mountains of bone that truly account for what has gone on before we were born. If you try to dig into that past I assure you, you will never stop exposing the skulls of the damned and deranged. It is said that history is written by the victors, but in truth it's written by the propagandists to make it digestible for the public. If you think the life you've been living in is anything but a dream then you need to wake up!"

"You already said that." said Rainbow Dash, looking away. "I never thought I'd hear you say anything like this Zecora. I never knew you thought this way. I know I'm not the smartest pony, but the world as you describe it just seems so bleak. How do you manage to even go on living?"

"I wake up every morning Rainbow Dash, and I count my blessings." said Zecora "What do you do?"

"I don't know, I guess go to the little filly's room? Get a drink of water?" she couldn't help but laugh at her own bad joke. "Why do you keep saying that anyways?"

"Saying what?" asked the zebra, as she pulled her hood over her mohawk and began to walk away from the crater.

"Wake up," said Rainbow Dash simply.

"Oh...Oh no. Rainbow Dash you have to wake up! Wake up right now before it's too late!" screamed Zecora, her eyes flashing beneath her hood. Flames rose all around them, and the zebra's face melted away until it was nothing but a skull, her voice a horrid shriek, "Wake up right now Rainbow Dash!"