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// Dread Empress of Nightmares 
// Story: Game of Worlds 
// by DualThrone 
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“To the knowledge of any living thing, whether the gods, the angels, the daemons, or the beasts of the Great Void, there has always been a Void. It is the ocean that all the worlds drift in, the space between the delicate spheres where the Light and the Dark hold sway and go about the eternal process of creating where there was nothing before. Following the making of the various worlds, the Void itself came to be populated as the first Reaper divided the spirits immersed in creative Darkness from those immersed in destructive Darkness. To this day, the line between the two Darknesses can be very blurry and this is reflected in the respective tongues: the tongue of the Void is voyspak which is a distant dialect of the tongue of the Helles, dayrspak.

“I am so ancient that I literally do not know how ancient I am; hundreds of thousands of years have flowed past me like a torrent for such a span of time that I’m not sure when it all started. What I know for certain is that I can be as ancient as I am because some tidbit of my mortal existence, whatever that existence was, led me to be very patient and always remember the most important rule of all: a vessel unscarred is a nightmare hidden.

“You see, the primary difference between void dragons and nightmares is that a void dragon has an innate sense of what their form is: when they go to a mortal realm, they can gather the material of the Void and shape it into a semblance of their individual form. Nightmares have no concept of a form of their own, functioning like water in that we take the shape of the vessel we pour ourselves into. The typical way this is done is that a nightmare will attach themselves to a mortal vessel in a very subtle and harmless way and probe at their defenses until a chink is found, and then exploit that weakness to overshadow the will of the vessel and seize full control of the form.”

“Isn’t that pretty… noticeable?” Dawn asked.

“You’d be surprised how very little mortals notice sometimes.” Nightmare smirked a little. “But yes, that’s well-spotted Dawn: the battle of wills can be very violent and destructive. Young nightmares will usually be so forceful that they destroy the other mind entirely and are left in a warm shell about which they know nothing; from there, it’s merely a matter of time before they’re driven out by a magi or the vessel is slain.

“Even when a nightmare forcibly overshadows and suppresses the original will, even the most broken and weakened mortal will throw themselves against their bindings as terror drives them into a blind panic. If the nightmare does not destroy the enemy will, then they’ll be slowly shredded by the effort of trying to crush their vessel without hollowing them out. Expulsion or destruction is always a matter of time.”

“But you were still a part of Luna a thousand years later,” Twilight said. “Enough that when the exile ended, we met you and not her.”

“You actually met the both of us but I’ll get to that. It transpires that there’s actually an alternative to the ordinary way that nightmares gain a vessel, although one that is so rarely used that only a few ngihtmares are even aware of the method, and all of them are quite old. A nightmare can gain a vessel by force--or by persuasion. I attempted the method of force exactly one time.” Nightmare shuddered visibly. “Most nightmares quickly grow accustomed to the feeling of occupying a vessel that feels like it’s been scoured of life, every thing that made it real blasted away. Cold, clammy, insects crawling along your bones, biting and gnawing deep inside you, the constant feeling of razors dancing over the stolen flesh in tiny pricks of phantom pain… there’s just no words for it.

“The price of consent is different. It’s difficult, requiring both incredible skill and a willingness to make an equitable exchange, and to actually deliver on each and every promise you make, and everything you offer. It requires painstaking intellectual work and a willingness to walk away from the table, rhetorically speaking. The occupation needs to be a partnership, a symbiosis rather than parasitic. Few nightmares bother, happy to live a brief life of high risk and sadistic pleasure instead of taking the long view.” This time, the black alicorn smiled nostalgically. “You might say that I succeeded once and was hooked. The bargain was very simple and the partnership was fairly short but I felt alive, and that is invaluable to someone who has no life of her own.

“And that is the real secret to my longevity and power among my own: I persuade, cajole, and strike bargains but never lay a claw on the vessel. I can’t begin to number the mortals who’ve cheated me, taken what I offer and then reneged, and sneered when I simply left instead of punishing them. My pride has never been worth endangering myself and let us just say that the ones who renege don’t tend to be the…” Nightmare paused thoughtfully “crispest crackers in the box. So they swiftly get their just deserts without the helpful input of the pleasant voice in their head.”

Twilight swallowed. “Luna… volunteered to…?”

“Consented,” Nightmare corrected her. “For a specific purpose, as part of a very strictly-defined agreement. I told you before that it is not and has never been within my power to overwhelm Luna in a contest of wills; to that I add, there was never a need, and I never wanted to. All that said, my motives weren’t altruistic and in fact, my motivations were really quite petty. It was a very long while ago, near the beginning of this world’s creation. A black minister called Rejnu had determined that such a young and Light-bathed world would be a desirable prize, but she was certain that the guardian couldn’t be defeated fairly. So she twisted a spirit of order, counterpart to another god-like spirit called ‘Discord’, into a puppet that she sardonically called ‘the Guardian’. Using this puppet and keeping his strings hidden, she used him as a mouthpiece to invite the strongest nightmares in the Void, promising many things. Excluding the Dread Empress would have been unthinkable, but she expected I’d treat the request as beneath me.

“Rejnu was a fool that assumed that her limited viewpoint was shared by everyone. I understood her object and understood that it was her speaking through the Guardian, and determined to spoil her plans out of sheer petty malice. Accepting her invitation rocked her back on her heels but I’d called her bluff and she had no way to retract her offer, and befitting my station, I was permitted to choose which of the vessels Rejnu I’d work with. In the still very young Luna, I saw precisely the sort of vessel I like best: a driven, intelligent, powerful being who was both able to play the part of an ally and had the will to require such equivalence from me. The youngest nightmares seized and broke the Seasons one by one and one by one, the vessels then bound such that the nightmare was made the ascendent personality and the original was always the slave. As befitting the plan, each vessel was killed by those that hadn’t been seized yet and restoring the bodies to life allowed Rejnu to make the binding unbreakable and with that, she had four hidden cards to play when the Game began in earnest.

“Rejnu planned that Luna would be the fifth taken and broken and made into a pawn, but I’m a nightmare with an overabundance of time and I chose to spoil her scheme by using as much of it as I wanted. She was enraged with me but by that time, I had made examples of many powerful Void spawn that had tried to harm or hinder me, so she could only seethe as I watched and waited and learned. Finally, after a very long time, a crisis was precipitated by the changeling Matris Queen Malyss and the three other queens in the then-septarchy that agreed with her. I suspected and still suspect that Malyss was acting as an extension of Rejnu’s will because of all the innumerable defenses that Equestria had against her designs, the changelings were one of the strongest. An entire race of loyal shapeshifters with a very long military tradition and a royalty with alicorn-like power could not be permitted, and I suspect that the deeply racist Malyss was Rejnu’s tool.

“With my disposition to watch and learn, I gained a sense of the direction things were moving very early, and I saw that the coming tragedy would be my best chance to offer a bargain to Luna. Even introducing myself to her was a very serious risk, for she was at the apex of her power and combat ability as the field general of Equestria, but I made certain to approach her in her dream-realm by duplicating her appearance and altering it somewhat. She recognized me for what I was and was suspicious, so I struck a bargain with her: I would be permitted to shadow her as I wished, and would in turn do no harm and obey her commands promptly. Thus when the news of the building troubles reached her, I was there to offer sympathy and advice. When Celestia began to speak of solving the ‘problem’ with an exile, I was there to offer support. And when the true Matris Queen, Malyss’ older sister Amaryss, confronted Celestia over her exile decision, I was there.to make the offer I’d been waiting millenia for: I would be her ally and advisor if she chose to challenge her sister for the throne. The choice was always hers, and I had no part in her deciding that the only way to make things right was to be the one who made all the decisions.

“From the beginning, we agreed that the affair needed to be stage-managed to give Celestia every reason to think that her poor, innocent, hero-worshipping little sister had indulged just a little too much in her grief and resentment, and had fallen to some dark power or another. We even decided to use a more familiar version of my given name as the title of this pretend power. The stage-management came off perfectly, and the story of the wicked Nightmare Moon trying to bring about Eternal Night was born. As much as it’s reduced to a single temper tantrum by a sister who just didn’t get enough love, it was a very long struggle, chiefly because we’d magically imprisoned Luna’s half of the Elements in the Void where Celestia couldn’t touch them. While it’s generally thought that Celestia is vastly greater in power than Luna, Luna wielded her power like a surgeon in every confrontation between the Sisters and more than held her own. But two goddesses trying to break one another tends to shatter cities and before it got to that point, they agreed that direct confrontation was no longer acceptable lest innocent ponies be killed. From there on, it was a battle of proxies and I think Celestia was honestly floored by how many ponies flocked to Luna’s banner.

“As long as I’ve lived, I have rarely directly experienced war because my vessels didn’t tend to be soldiers or generals. Nor have they been passionately engaged in some cause or the other because zeal tends to get in the way of a good agreement. Placing Luna on the throne of Equestria was both a war and a cause, and I found myself actually believing in it. It was not long before my connection to Luna wasn’t a contract as much as it was a partnership of equals… and by the end, almost of sisters. I did much more for the cause than I had agreed to, and was happy to do it. I had an eternity of debts I could collect and the most significant debt I was owed was by a being called Vorka, although he tended to prefer the nickname ‘Moreau’ for some reason. Chillingly sanguine about committing any number of atrocities in pursuit of his obsessions, but he had an utterly unique gift for using the inherently destructive energies of the Void to create, and I had him devise a means to sew ordinary ponies with scraps of Luna’s own affinity for the night.

“Luna was already a great general; Vorka’s work provided her with a great army. But for all of the warring, there was very little death because there was no appetite for it. Fighting for Luna is one thing; killing for Luna is another thing entirely. Those who loved her and supported her didn’t do it out of hatred for others, but a conviction that she would be a more just and good ruler than the princess that had expelled an entire race of ponies into what was thought a desolate wasteland. This required deadly violence, especially towards the end as it dawned on Celestia that Luna was aiming for a monarchy instead of primacy in the diarchy, but Luna preferred a more gentle revolution and I supported her fully. Not that was didn’t have some glorious arguments--I fondly recall one that ended with her challenging me to a duel using bananas, because dreams aren’t supposed to make sense--but I existed to be her ally, her advisor, her confidante, her assistant, and…” Nightmare chewed her lip uncomfortably “I think she started to see me as the big sister she wished she had.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “So Luna… won?”

“That would have been the eventual result, I believe,” Nightmare said. “But we ran out of time. You recall what I said, that a nightmare suppressing a vessel damaged them? The damage goes in both directions although it’s very subtle and can be recovered from on the part of the vessel. I had never spent more than a couple of months in a partnership so I had no idea that the mere presence of a nightmare in a vessel was harmful, even if there was complete accord. After well over a year, it was clear that the damage was considerable, far more than even an immortal demigoddess could recover from without some sort of aid. It was a very… bad day when I had to tell Luna that I had discovered this and that it could well mean that all of our work was for naught. As you can well imagine, she was furious with me; fortunately for me, she reigned in her temper and listened to my explanation--and believed me. But a solution was needed, and the only one we could think of was the Elements of Harmony, so another bit of theater would be needed.”

“Ya mean Luna can visit her moon on her own?” Pinkie asked.

“Well, she can, but it would have been a very great…”

“So why fight Celestia for the throne?” The pink party pony interrupted, her mane gone flat to indicate that she was being as earnest and serious as she could; based on how Nightmare straightened visibly, Twilight knew she wasn’t the only one grasping the significance. “She had ponies that loved her right? Ponies that wanted her to have a throne and a crown, right? And if she can just stand upon it without harm, she can extend this to others, right?

“You want to know why she fought instead of just leaving.”

Pinkamena bowed her head. “I do, if you’d be willing,”

“I’m why,” Nightmare said. “One of the many, many gifts and powers I’ve acquired over millennia has been anticipating the future through patterns in the past and present. It’s a form of prophetic prediction, although it’d probably be more fair to say that it’s highly advanced pattern recognition and anticipation. In our planning for the revolution, Luna leaned very hard towards the idea of leaving her sister to do whatever suited her, and making a kingdom for herself and those who supported her elsewhere. In the first place, this would have displaced my own plans beyond the possibility of repair but far more importantly, I foresaw tragedy coming of it and told Luna so. I gave her such specific detail of what I saw happening that it turned her from her desire to leave and made her determine to be victorious so that my prediction couldn’t come to pass.”

“What did you tell her that was so convincing?” Pinkamena asked. “Luna doesn’t seem like the sort of pony who’d prefer bloodshed to walking away from the conflict.”

“I told her that I foresaw her drawing upon her military mindset and ability in creating her new government,” Nightmare said. “I felt that she’d gather the best ponies she could and place them in charge of things with her pursuing the big picture. I saw that she’d give special emphasis to the sciences and mathematics, such that her imperius respublica would be a shining beacon of technological progress. I saw a prosperous and great empire under the benevolent moon princess teeming with creativity and industry.”

“Sounds mighty…”

“I also told her that I saw her reverting to drumhead justice out of necessity, and because that’s what she knows best,” Nightmare continued, cutting across Applejack. “Regimentation and summary justice are the hallmarks of a military existence and would be what a field general knew best, but create a grisly and terrible civilian government. An imperial republic, ruled by a good princess with the instincts of a field general, regimenting the entirety for efficiency and effectiveness, justice fair but brutal and utterly amoral--that is what I saw in the distant future of a government built from scratch by Luna, instead of an established one being ruled by her. Luna is a very self-aware pony, and she recognized enough of my prediction in the mirror that she took it very seriously and dismissed any further notion of leaving Equestria.”

“So ya shaded it ta make it more convincing.”

Nightmare frowned but nodded, slightly reluctantly. “I… suppose I did. But my take on my predictions only slightly influenced her; it was the content that made the decision. I am gifted in manipulation but especially with highly intelligent allies, I can’t invent truth or half-truth or I lose any trust they might have had in me.”

“Eeyup.” Applejack agreed. “So y’all realized that ya needed ta get Luna to the moon with the Elements…”

“Yes. So we retrieved the missing three Elements and ensured that Celestia would discover them. A confrontation was arranged between a ‘maddened’ Luna wearing the shape I used to represent myself in the dreamscape and Celestia, and the results were precisely as the story said: Celestia focused the Elements on her sister and activated them. With the near-sapience that extremely magical artifacts acquire over time, the Elements determined what the damage was and that only Luna’s connection with the moon would be sufficient to repair her. Because the Elements are not sapient, they are a very crude instrument and made no distinction between the spirit they were trying to help, and the spirit connected to her by her consent.”

“So you were sent to the moon along with her.” Twilight’s eyes widened slightly. “The massive protective rune?”

“Yes,” Nightmare smiled. “Once we were deposited there, we pooled our resources to set up a massive runic construct to focus the moon’s inherent magic on Luna and put four stars in place on a predictable decay so that they’d act as a sort of… alarm clock for when I calculated that Luna would be fully restored and the focused power would be enough to break the Elemental hold. On the moon, in direct contact with her place of maximum power, my presence did Luna no harm and so over a thousand years, Luna existed in her own waking dream and I with her.”

“Bet that was hard,” Pinkie said. “No one to talk to, no parties, just a bunch of rocks and stuff.”

Nightmare laughed. “Oh, Pinkie, do you really think that we spent more than a moment on that dull rock tapping our hooves together? We couldn’t leave the moon, but Luna experienced the sojourn as a long dream and I was a being so old as to be practically ageless, with all the accumulated memories and experiences to go with it.”

“So… massive vacay?”

“Massive vacay,” Nightmare confirmed. “Being a tourist in my own memories was distinctly odd, but reliving all the best times with Luna made the thousand years fly by at unbelievable speed. We’d often touch back on the real world and to our delight, the night-touched ponies that were part of Luna’s forces had departed Equestria under Celestia’s protection and found their way to the nascent Scarabi. The changelings had found this mountain and were a prospering nation-state in their own right, and the septarchy had been consolidated down to a single queen descending from the great and noble Amaryss.” She gave Rarity an apologetic look. “I regret to admit that an order of assassins forming in my name was… not quite so pleasant to me. I always appreciated the sentiment, and with Luna’s permission gave the assassins limited conditional support, but I’ve never been comfortable with bloodshed. I accept it as a cost of attaining certain goals and I’m hardly uncomfortable with it, but ponies killing in my name was an unpleasant development, especially since not a single assassin knew who I was or anything about me. The assassins venerated a fiction, and ascribed things to that fiction that were… creative but false.”

“So all those times I prayed to the Nightmare Moon for success…?”

“...you received no aid,” Nightmare nodded. “As demonstrated by the fact that you were successful, you didn’t need it in the first place, but while I was somehow aware of being prayed to--and believe you me, it’s very strange to hear voices in your head asking for your help to kill someone--I rarely did anything. For the most part, I couldn’t, but I also had no inclination because my primary charge was the well-being of my sister.”

“So you stuck around because you liked her, not because you had no choice?” Dawn asked.

“That is correct.” Nightmare shrugged. “The Elements are immensely powerful but forcing any being of the Void to remain in a mortal place is a complex magical task. Forcing us out is quite simple, and there are so many effective ways to accomplish it that I couldn’t even begin to describe them all, but forcibly anchoring us here is something that the Elements could only do if specifically directed--and Celestia didn’t realize that I was an individual until after the defeat of the Guardian. Nor could any of you have known and I’m not sure what you could have done if you had, seeing as how you had no comprehension of what I was.”

“What of the gauntlet you forced them to run upon your return?” All of them, including Nightmare, turned as Chrysalis spoke for the first time since Nightmare had begun her story. “I understand that you forced them to endure physical danger and other trials. If you meant no harm, why do that? Why attack six ponies who did nothing to you and weren’t even aware of what the Elements would do?”

“More theater,” Nightmare replied. “Long before the four stars sent Luna back, I’d determined that Celestia was a very changed mare and I convinced Luna that while she had not won the rebellion, the Equestria we were going back to would be the more just place she’d fought for. The problem was that Celestia remained convinced that she was in the grip of dark powers that were making a monster of the sister she loved, and Luna couldn’t resume her place until she had been saved from the wicked Nightmare. Celestia was looking for her sister’s salvation, so we gave her Luna’s salvation. With my vast experience and Luna’s intimate understanding of the Elements, we knew where they were and roughly what they’d do. We actually planned for Celestia to be the one who showed up to the fight; neither of us ever imagined that a young magi, a gifted assassin, and four other extraordinary mares would venture into the Everfree after the Elements.”

“So ya didn’t see us comin’.” Applejack eyed her. “Yet ya seemed to have it all laid out right from the get-go.”

“Luna is a frontline field general; I’m the most ancient of all nightmares and rely entirely on my ability to form complex plans on the fly to gain my vessels. Between us, we improvised very well.” Nightmare grinned. “At the risk of sounding like a braggart, it was one of the more complicated situations I’ve ever encountered. The obstacles had to be dangerous, but not so much that they’d kill or maim. The Bearers each had to overcome an obstacle that would require them to manifest their individual virtue, without that obstacle being too obvious. Finally, we had to ensure that you succeeded, without in any tipping our hand, all the while standing by to intervene if anything went amiss. The one thing we didn’t anticipate was that the Elements wouldn’t separate me from Luna, but instead trap me in an isolated corner of her spirit in a dormant state. My theory, purely a theory, is that the Elements were tightly-focused enough to make a distinction but treated me as a mental disorder to be suppressed and bound rather than a parasite to be excised. So I remained until Rejnu arranged for Luna to be smothered in Void energy, reversing the work of the Elements and making me akin to the vessel’s owner and Luna akin to a nightmare feeding off of me, although she was made dormant the way I had been.”

“And from there, you plotted Rejnu’s downfall.” Rarity smiled. “I’m afraid you’ve gone quite native, darling.”

“Of all the places to ‘go native’, this is one of the best.” Nightmare grimaced slightly. “But I wasn’t plotting her downfall; I knew perfectly well that there was no need. I was plotting the exposure and destruction of her largest pawn, trusting that Archangel Aon would take care of Rejnu. Einspithiana may have already informed you of this, but the fall of the Guardian was partly because Aon executed Rejnu for her deceptions. With the death of the black minister at the heart of the macinations and the destruction of the Guardian, any sort of magical meddling with I and Luna was dissolved and I decided that my sojourn in Equestria had lasted as long as I had any right to respect. I feared that to stay with Luna would mean that she would be fated to be confined to the moon again, and over my long time in her presence, I came to love her like a sister… and so I let her go.”

“And yet here you are.” Tettidora commented. “More work of this Vorka you spoke of?”

“Vorka creates his playthings by cutting, and stitching, and forming things that are already alive into the shapes he wishes; making something from nothing is beyond him.” Nightmare took in a breath. “Part of the agreement that comes with my having an actual flesh-and-blood form, a distinct manifestation of myself that’s unique to me, is that I do not speak of my benefactor. They wish to remain unseen in this contest, even by their allies, and required this small price from me. I am still as much a nightmare as I ever was, but I no longer need to deal for a vessel, for this one is and always will be mine. I don’t believe my benefactor would undo this if I broke my word but after so long honoring my agreements to the letter, I’m not sure I’m capable of it anymore.”

“So the fact that you strongly resemble Luna isn’t a coincidence.”

“No, it’s not.” Nightmare spread one of her wings and ran a hoof over her plumage with a smile. “Luna is really a very beautiful mare, although even more lovely within. I’ll freely admit that the chance to share a form I found so attractive was certainly one motivation for my choice. My benefactor seemed to have anticipated it and also had some notion of how I appeared in that dream-realm, because they had already created it in full by the time they sought me out and offered the gift with the condition I mentioned.”

“Do you know why?” Tetti asked.

“So I could spoil this Evil’s plan the way I spoiled Rejnu’s,” Nightmare grinned toothily. “I dare say that with the entirety of the Barrens united under the changelings, our five guests secured against any further wickedness on Tharalax’ part, and a watch put on the Evil’s works in Equestria proper, we are well on our way to being prepared for what’s coming.”

“What about the Griffin Provinces?” Twilight said.

Nightmare’s brow furrowed. “There’s an agent of the Evil there and Lashaal is on her way but to our knowledge, that agent has laid low and done nothing. We suspect…”

“The Provinces are completely bucked, Nightmare,” Dawn interrupted. “We got some sorta illusion-message from Luna attached to a star somehow and she said that they’ve arrived but Spite went off to put down this agent of the Evil. Can’t imagine she’d skip straight to ‘kill it’ unless it’s really bad up there. Luna said the Evil calls himself ‘Master’ and was keeping somethin’ called a ‘zambet’...”

“Vorka,” Nightmare snarled with a flare of her irises..

Dawn and Twilight looked at one another. “You got that just from what he calls himself?”

“And what he was keeping,” Nightmare worked her jaw. “Zambets are unfathomably few and incredibly dangerous even to other creatures of the Void. I’ll bet it was his payment, the rarest of all possible beasts to experiment on and use for his playthings.” She paused. “Wait, did you say he was keeping this zambet?”

“Lashaal let it out of its cage,” Pinkamena said quietly. “Luna said that it’s been conditioned to hunt Twilight specifically, and she’s trying to hunt and kill it before it escapes the Provinces.”

A dead silence greeted Pinkie’s announcement, Nightmare’s expression frozen between rage and horror, Tettidora frowning, and Chrysalis looking angry, her wings twitching in agitation.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Twilight said quietly.

“Zambets are like klesaes except sapient, sadistic, and vastly more deadly,” Nightmare said, just as quietly. “Their name means ‘smile’ because they appear in the fever-dreams they induce in their victim as a reflection in a mirror but with an impossibly large and sharp-toothed smile, and once they’ve latched on, they force the victim’s face into a matching smile, utterly mutilating it. They love to cackle and taunt with the victim’s own voice, and the fever-dreams they induce are unending nightmares designed to destroy all hope so they can feed on the despair and shred the soul. With a strong enough victim, they can spread the nightmare outside the body and pull others into it; zambet desolation typically spreads to swallow entire cities before a strong enough power intervenes and brings divine wrath upon the animal. By then, however, there are rarely more than a few survivors out of tens or even hundreds of thousands.”

“So a weapon of mass destruction,” Chrysalis said. “Capture a zambet, turn it loose in a place, and it will wipe out your enemies by the legions.”

“Fortunately, the Void beings cunning enough to reach that conclusion are too arrogant to stoop to such crude methods, and the ones vicious enough aren’t that cunning,” Nightmare said. “More fortuitously, the zambet are the only remaining beasts of the Void with the power to murder millions for each one of their kind that falls. But that doesn’t change anything now… this one is here, and I know that Luna wouldn’t inform us of its target unless she knew it of a surety.”

“What’s needed to slay them?” Tetti asked.

“Considerable amounts of Light-infused magic,” Nightmare replied. “Certain artifacts scribed and infused for that express purpose. Clothed in flesh as I am, I can touch the creation side of Darkness and even if I can’t entirely destroy it, I can inflict grievous hemorrhaging wounds on it. But zambets are ambush predators, relying on never being seen before they strike so the problem to address isn’t so much slaying it as finding it.”

“So long as they are here, that won’t be an issue,” Chrysalis said. “Due to Nightmare’s runic barrier, I can extend my magical awareness of my center of power beyond the gates slightly, and Void beings have a very distinctive magical ‘scent’. Not as much you, Nightmare, but certainly Tharalax.”

“Tharalax is a void dragon; he couldn’t hide himself even if he wanted to, and few void dragons fear any mortal. The zambet will be immensely more subtle.” Nightmare smiled slightly. “Fortunately, a zambet has the same limitations on leaping through the Void as anything else: it must know where it wants to go and know it in very, very exact detail. I sincerely doubt that even as being as ingenious as Vorka could have devised a way for the zambet to know where Twilight is at all times, and in enough detail to step through the Void to attack her.”

“Still, I would like to assign a Throne Guard to each room. They cannot extend their sense as far but within the space they guard, they are specifically trained to build a web of the most subtle magic to act as tripwires for anything attempting to enter without their knowledge.” Chrysalis gave a curt nod in the direction of one of the doors, presumably to an Honor Guard, and turned her eyes back to the discussion. “Other measures can be devised if necessary.”

“I suppose it’s all we can do at this time,” Nightmare nodded. “I don’t doubt my sister for a moment, and I’m certain her hunt will bear fruit. However, I’ve long since given up on merely hoping for the best.”

“After the exile, I don’t think I or any of my predecessors have ever contented ourselves with mere hope.” Chrysalis stretched a little. “Now, if there’s nothing else of your story, my friend…?”

“There are always more details, but I’ve said what I wish to say for now.” Nightmare smiled warmly and gave Chrysalis a bow of her head.

“Good.” Chrysalis turned to the five of them. “I know that Lepinora alluded to a great plan we have for our reunion with Equestria, and I know that she would have promised you details as soon as you could get them directly from I and Tettidora. Given the circumstances, I think it’s best that we discuss a plan going forward for the defense of…”

“I’m afraid I need to interrupt any discussion on that topic, Mother,” Lepinora said from behind them. “Word has just come by relay from Ponyville about the situation with the suspected atermors.”

“A… atermors?” Twilight swallowed.

“Yes, I’ll explain in a moment.” Lepinora looked and sounded very grave. “The plague is completely out of control, exploding in every major Equestrian city almost simultaneously, and it’s an expertly-engineered plague, far outside what Nightmare led us to expect the atermors are capable of.”

“Vorka.” Nightmare sighed this time. “Of course the master of this entire affair would require much more of him than managing the affairs of the Provinces arm of the plan.”

“I can’t speak to that,” Lepi said. “But it’s already moving to its final infection stage within a day of the initial explosions. For reasons unknown, their efforts are centering in Ponyville and at last report, the town was under attack by the plague-spawn of the atermors.”