Discord was defeated at last, but our job was hardly over. The chaos spirit had played with the planet so much that, lacking his influence, it quickly threatened to destroy what was left. Only with the help of a great many other intelligent ponies and more magic than has been amassed since was it stabilized. It still took dozens of us—I and my sister included—years to fix the damage or invent workarounds where it could not be repaired. And in those years, I found, things had changed alarmingly from the time before our solitary work.
-----
“Turkmaneistan has ‘requested’ to join the Empire, sister,” Luna muttered, crumpling the missive in disgust. “And Sheikh Ilasamed has mysteriously vanished under unknown circumstances... just like King Yarrow and President Alamo.” The missive was flung into the corner to join a small pile of other reports.
“Something is certainly rotten in the Empire,” Celestia affirmed grimly. “That marks three in the last month.” Without realizing it, a hoof made its way to her mouth as she thought. “But what could prompt Somber Rays to change his attitude so dramatically? He was never a proponent of subjugation...” Her voice trailed off thoughtfully.
“Somber, for all his strengths, was never a mental mage, but it cannot be a coincidence that he visits a ruler ‘in peace and fellowship,’ and then shortly thereafter their nation ‘requests’ to join the Empire, and the sovereign disappears from sight. So either Somber became a mental master secretly,” Luna mused, “or...”
“It isn’t dear King Somber anymore,” Celestia completed her thought. “Which I find more likely... Ray would never fall so far after fighting Discord’s tyranny for so many years.”
“I agree,” Luna said with a nod. “It seems too devious of a scheme for Somber Rays to devise.” She grimaced, “Somber was never a genius.”
Celestia continued gravely, ignoring Luna’s bluntness. “If he has truly been replaced, as seems possible, whatever is masquerading as him is an adept at the art, however, as well as being a shapeshifter.”
Her sister remarked. “So what creatures could defeat him so quickly, other than Discord himself?”
“I can think of nothing that could,” Celestia replied. “And that worries me.” She lifted her crown off of certain petrified bird’s talon. “For Discord has surely not returned—everypony would know if he had.”
“Perhaps, in light of the Empire’s gestures towards peace and reconciliation, we should do the same,” Luna said mockingly. “What say you to seeing our good friend after the time we’ve spent secluded away?”
“I think it would be a delightful change of pace after so many years fixing things,” Celestia answered, a wicked grin spreading across her face. “And I’m sure he’d be happy to see his two closest and most powerful friends after such a long separation, yes?”
“Oh, indeed!” Luna’s grin, if anything, was even more predatory. “I think he—or whatever is pretending to be him—would be very happy indeed.”
-----
In hindsight, confronting a suspected imposter and possible monster in the very heart of his power was not the best idea. Had we been smarter or more circumspect, perhaps this whole ordeal might have been averted. But we were anxious to discover the problem and cut to the heart of it, as it were.
The dispute ended... poorly, to say the least.
-----
The vacant room, dusty from several days of disuse, flashed with light as the solar diarch teleported in with a pop. She swayed drunkenly, coat scorched and blackened, a swathe of her mane missing. It took her a few seconds to realize that her sister had not returned alongside her. “Luna!” she called frantically. “Luna?!”
Her sister appeared, but instead of the customary pop and flash of teleportation, the spell squelched as it vomited forth its battered occupant. The moment her hooves touched the floor, she groaned and fell, one leg wobbling and bending in far more spots than usual.
Celestia rushed, as best as she was able, to Luna’s side, and lit off a diagnostic spell. Its prognosis wasn’t good: there were multiple fractures throughout her leg. A normal pony’s bones might well have been disintegrated under the stress.
Though Luna would recover... eventually, it would be months before she would walk even with the best care Celestia could give. It would take years or even decades to recover her former agility. For all intents and purposes, she was now dead weight in the fight against the newly-revealed Nightmare Accord.
“You were only a second behind me!” she cried. “How did you get hurt so badly?”
Luna’s teeth were gritted shut so tightly that Celestia feared they might shatter. “The shield,” she growled. “Threw me into a wall at a few hundred miles an hour just as my spell took. Another half-second and the rest of me would have hit, too.”
“The Nightmare has corrupted even the Heart?” Celestia lamented. “Together, we could barely match it without the heart assisting. Now, the Heart is at its bidding, and you are unable to help!”
Luna protested, “I am still able to fight! I will be whole in no time!”
“No, sister, you won’t,” Celestia said sadly. “Your leg is broken in dozens of places—right now, it has about the consistency of gelatin. It would flop like a noodle if you tried to move.”
Luna’s eyes widened at the absurd, yet true, comparison. “It’s that bad?” Her only reply was a nod.
“To think that Somber had voluntarily given part of his soul to a Nightmare in the name of protection... I would have never thought it, and that surprise was very nearly our death.” Celestia said, slumping down to sit besides Luna. “Things do not look good. If we could not match him, what could? The Elements, perhaps, but... if we failed, and he discovered those...” she shuddered. “No, that is not an option. What such a monster could do with that kind of power I can only imagine.”
“If we cannot match him, we will have to summon something that could.” Luna looked pointedly towards the statue in the corner. “A being not unlike him.”
“And have it simply take over? That is a terrible idea, sister!” Celestia exclaimed.
“What if,” Luna said slowly, “It could be controlled? Like... say... with a voluntary contract?”
Her sister froze, staring at her with wide eyes. “You cannot be serious.”
“What other option do we have?” Luna demanded. “Somber controlled it for decades, and he was not a master of the mental arts. Surely I could do better than he!”
“Perhaps,” Celestia retorted, “Or maybe you would simply turn into a worse tyrant! Pride goeth before a fall, sister. Do not think that you could contain a spirit so powerful as Accord. Somber may not have been a mental master, but his will was iron.”
Luna smiled tiredly. “But we do not need a Nightmare so powerful as Accord, do we? The Heart turned the tide. We were holding ourselves—barely, yes, but holding. If we had just a little more power—and the element of surprise, we might just pull it off.”
She chuckled blackly. “If we win, we can worry about the other later. If we lose... well, it won’t be a problem, will it?”
Celestia sighed. “This is bound to end poorly, Luna. You know this.”
“Maybe, but this puts off the problem at the least,” she replied. “And I can handle it. Truly.”
Celestia groaned. “You’re set on this, aren’t you?”
“Do you have any ideas?” Luna asked acerbically. When her sister opened her mouth, she cut her off. “Besides war?”
Celestia shut her mouth.
“Then, yes, I am. If you could kindly get the circle ready?”
-----
With the aid of the spirit of vengeance, (that would be me, you ungrateful filly!) we defeated Nightmare Accord—at the cost of the capital city, vanished into the abyss.
I did last longer than Somber Rays, in the end—several centuries, in fact. But slowly I weakened, and...
Well...
Eventually, I was close to losing control entirely and I knew it. I was sent away as a... precautionary measure, you might say. There was a chance that Nightmare Moon—(me!)—hush!—would be destroyed or evicted completely, but that obviously didn’t happen.
Also, I was sent to the wrong moon. For being "prepared," my sister was obviously not prepared.
-----
Luna coughed. “Is there water in this structure?” Wordlessly, Neil handed her a glass, and she gulped it thankfully.
“That sounds so ridiculous and improbable... it might be true.” Michael shook his head. “Was your life a storybook?”
“Actually, there were a few made of our adventures,” Luna said, preening just the smallest bit.
“Of course there were.”
The heavy door thudded, and a face peeked through the porthole, one none of them recognized. He placed a piece of paper on the door.
It read, ’15 hours ‘til ‘Lulu. Wish you could come, but quarantine is still in effect.’
“Lu...lu?” Luna squinted at the piece of paper, taped to the outside. “What...”
“Honolulu,” Buzz said. “City in Hawaii, one of our states. It’s a big island, lots of ships.” He sighed. “Too bad we can’t leave this thing for a week.”
“That is one thing which confuses me,” Luna confessed. “Why are we all under quarantine? No one is sick.”
“Precautionary measure, in case you have some kind of bug that kills humans rapidly. Don’t want to spread space influenza across the States.” The doctor nodded in agreement.
He cleared his throat and spoke for the first time, having remained silent all these hours. “I’m actually supposed to take cheek swabs of all of you and culture them in different petri dishes. Just in case.” His voice was soft and breathy, an odd combination for a male.
“None of that is necessary,” Luna declared. “I can simply cast a sanitizing spell.” Without asking for permission, she lit her horn, a glowing field sweeping across the small space. Everyone, alicorn included, suppressed a shiver at the tingling.
The soldier woke from his sleep in the corner, waving his weapon vaguely in the direction of the ceiling. “Bwhuh? Wazzat?”
“There. All sickness-causing creatures have been killed,” Luna said smugly. “Can’t do that with technology, can you?”
The doctor shrugged. “Not yet. Now, I’m sure that your... spell... worked just the way you intended, but I’m going to have to insist on a cheek swab. If nothing grows in 12 hours, maybe, just maybe, I can get us let out.”
He smiled, also a first. “Which would be a great change from being stuck here in a week, no matter how interesting the conversation.”
Neil sat back. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have our first appearance in Hawaii?” He threw a smirk at Luna. “All the adoring crowds—and the alien hunters?”
“Hunters?” Her ears flattened. “Why would your government allow those with weapons into the crowd?”
Prod at her introversion taken far too literally, Neil placed palm on face. “Never mind. Lots of people wanting to see you, meet you, take your picture—take pieces of your hair, even... that’s what I meant.”
Her eyes shrunk to pinpricks. “How many?” she whispered.
Buzz said blithely, “An awful lot. The whole city, plus anyone who can make it there, will be as close as possible. Plus news crews. Make it a few tens of thousands of people in person, and millions on the television."
Luna swallowed thickly. “Joy.”
End Splashdown. The story will continue (After National Novel Writing Month) in Accommodation.