Nightmare Moon's Tiny Adversary

by CommanderX5

The Elements of Harmony - Nightmare’s Little Guest

A chill breeze whistled through the empty windows high above Nightmare Moon’s head, causing the brilliant silver moonlight gleaming off the throne room’s stonework to waver as the remaining scraps of the tattered banners flapped and fluttered. Where the glorious chamber had once symbolized the opulence and majesty of their reign, the only royal guards present now lay bruised and unconscious along the walls, and the only supplicants present were the few starving mice rustling among the dusty ruins in their futile search for crumb or seed. The black alicorn sitting at the center of the room looked grimly at her shadows grovelling at her hooves, already expecting their next words.

“We apologize, mistress,” the shadows said, desiring only to please their summoner and twisting in anguish at her displeasure. “Punish us as we deserve. We have failed you.”

The dark alicorn stared dispassionately at the battered shades, their immaterial bodies torn and twisted nearly as bad as her own injured wings and bloodied dark coat. Her painful wounds still provided a harsh reminder of her ongoing battles against the Royal Guards and the effort she had put into holding back her blows. That restraint was getting more difficult with time, and the constant fights wore down both her body and her magic faster than the moon’s power could replenish them. Soon, her weakened reserves would fail, and she refused to think about what would happen then.

She turned her head to look upon the sleeping guards she shared the ancient dusty throne room with, trying to ignore the many broken swords that decorated the floor, some stained with her own blood. Nightmare Moon gritted her teeth in discomfort as she staggered to her hooves, drawing herself up to her full royal height as she regarded the prostrate shadows. “Have you injured those ponies in any fashion? Have you followed my instructions that they not be harmed?”

“We obeyed, mistress,” they hissed in unison, turning up to look at Nightmare Moon. “First we attempted to frighten them away, and when that failed, we destroyed the bridge. We even tried to draw one of their members away, but she was too strong to submit. Only when all else failed did we try to knock one of them unconscious, but we are far weaker than flesh and blood, and we had to retreat before we were overcome.”

With that, the shadows lowered their heads to the ground again and silently awaited their fate. “We await your judgement, our mistress.”

Nightmare Moon took a deep breath. "We see no fault in your actions," she said calmly and reassuringly, “for it is not your failure, my faithful servants, but mine. You have served me to the best of your abilities, and it is now time for you to return to the darkness and rest. We shall deal with the intruders personally.”

With a small burst of her remaining magic, Nightmare Moon created one last summoning ring in front of her and watched as the shadows flowed through it and back into their distant prison. Only when the last of them had gone and the ring faded from view did she allow herself a pained wince and a moment of honest contemplation of her situation. There were no doubt ponies in her Everfree sanctuary now, and the thought of another drawn-out encounter with the Royal Guard weighed heavily on her already exhausted body, never mind her nearly certain demise at the hooves of her arch-enemy if they were to do battle again. Even without Celestia, she was eventually going to be discovered by whoever wandered the ancient halls of the old castle.

With another deep breath, she once again drew upon her dwindling magic reserves. There was no point in delaying the inevitable, and she wasn’t going to back down from a few puny guards now because of her own weakness.

She spun the darkness around herself in a shroud of shadows and vanished from the throne room.

Even as the blurred motion of her teleportation spell faded, Nightmare Moon could tell something was terribly wrong. Though it appeared that the abandoned castle was just as hollow and lifeless as before, the empty room where she had last seen the Elements of Harmony had changed, with the stone orbs now resting on the ground instead of in their holders.

“Show thyself, coward!” she called out, lighting her horn and preparing for combat. “If thou art brave enough to enter our domain, come forth and face us!”

Nothing but the echoes of her own voice answered her, and she began scanning the room for any sign of the perpetrator. There were few places for a guard to hide, even with the decrepit state of the stonework and the scattered rubble, and it wasn’t long before Nightmare Moon stalked back to the center of the room with a scowl, her search coming up without result. She cast a cursory glance at the gaping hole above her, but since most of what she could see up on the roof was brightly lit by moonlight, she quickly dismissed it as a potential hiding spot.

Perhaps the intruders gave up and left once they discovered how useless the Elements of Harmony were to them. She snorted contemptuously. Fools. Only those blessed by their touch can unlock their power.

As Nightmare Moon prepared to abandon her search and return to the throne room, a sudden sound like a rolling stone caught her attention. The black alicorn stopped and turned towards the dull orbs laying on the ground, eyeing them suspiciously. She could have sworn one of them moved a bit from its original location, and she approached it curiously.

They might be useless, but just because an intruder wasn’t able to use the Elements didn’t mean that nopony would be able to use them. There was always the tiniest fraction of a chance that she might be wrong, and only a fool would leave behind a former instrument of their banishment, even if it was broken.

She lit her horn, weaving another blanket of shadows around both her and the Elements of Harmony scattered around her. When the veil finally receded, the room was left completely empty, save for the lonely central statue.

The fifth inert stone sphere that Twilight levitated down from the strange structure showed no more life or magic to it than the other four, and she tried to suppress the feeling of panic that was threatening to overcome her. There had to be something she was missing about the Elements of Harmony, some code or key that would release their power instead of just having them sit there like five inert lumps of stone. She tried focusing her magic on them, pouring more power into a single stone than it could possibly hold, but it just sat there in response, silent.

“Please,” she pleaded, trying not to shiver as her voice echoed around the empty room. “I know that you’re self-aware. Starswirl the Bearded said so in his notes. You remember Starswirl, right? Come on! Please! I need your help to save Nightmare Moon and reunite her with her sister!”

Her ears detected the smallest of noises along with a prickle of magic, but any hopes she had were soon dashed by the appearance of a tornado of dark energy in the middle of the room. She promptly dove behind the closest Element just as the sound of hoofsteps echoed through the room.

“Show thyself, coward! If thou art brave enough to enter our domain, come forth and face us!” The voice was terrifyingly familiar, and it sent a chill down Twilight’s back as it echoed around the room.

Oh, no, no, no! Nightmare Moon tracked me down and the Elements of Harmony are still refusing to cooperate! Princess Celestia was right. I shouldn’t be here after all. I’m just going to mess things up.

Twilight could hear as the giant no longer armored hooves of Nightmare Moon struck against the old dusty stone, becoming louder and louder. Her heart beat faster and faster, loud in her ears as she cowered behind the stone and nearly escaping her chest when a giant black foreleg slammed into the rock right next to her. Gathering as much courage as she could, Twilight peeked around the edge of her rock, only to notice that Nightmare Moon’s head was looking everywhere but down at her. Not wanting to be detected, the little mare quietly darted behind another Element, hidden again from the alicorn.

Luckily, it appeared that Nightmare Moon’s search was coming to an end quickly, and that was reason enough for Twilight’s heartbeat to slow from its panic-stricken hammering.

It wasn’t long before Twilight picked up the sound of another spell being charged up, most likely Nightmare Moon preparing to teleport away, and she let out a relieved sigh, leaning against one of the Elements as she wiped away the sweat on her brow. However, her heart skipped a beat when the orb gave way, and the little mare fell flat to the floor as her hiding spot rolled to the side. Twilight’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks, and her entire body stiffened when Nightmare Moon stopped her spell and began to turn around. In a flash of teleportation, the tiny mare reappeared behind another Element.

Twilight’s body trembled with each of Nightmare Moon’s steps, the soft clop of her hooves growing louder and louder. Within seconds, she was directly under the belly of the alicorn, whose four giant legs towered on all sides around her. The tiny unicorn looked up fearfully, half expecting to find two furious draconic eyes staring right at her, but her fear turned into pity when she noticed the numerous wounds slashed across the alicorn’s legs and belly, a few of which hadn’t fully closed yet.

It’s worse than I thought. At this rate, she won’t survive another fight with my mentor.

Twilight’s examination of Nightmare Moon’s injuries, however, was interrupted by a sudden wind, and they were soon surrounded by a tornado of swirling dark magic. The little mare hung desperately to the Element closest to her, pressing herself against it and shutting her eyes tightly. She felt a sense of vertigo as the stone was picked up off the ground, now circling rapidly around the black alicorn as the spell neared its completion.

It stopped very suddenly, and the Elements tumbled heavily to the ground. Twilight barely managed to suppress a small squeak as the Element she clung to fell down the wrong direction, flattening her against the stone floor like the massive boulder it seemed to be.

She separated herself from the weathered orb as soon as it came to a stop, getting up onto her shaky legs before carefully massaging her aching back. It wasn’t the worst she’d ever felt after being accidentally crushed every so often, but it was definitely on par with getting stepped on by the princess herself. With the Royal Horseshoe. After the Royal Brunch.

Twilight quickly shook her head to clear her thoughts before darting behind the Element that had only moments ago committed vile acts against her well being, hiding opposite of where she had heard Nightmare Moon’s hoofsteps.

It didn’t sound like the alicorn had noticed her yet, so she let out a relieved sigh before she began examining her new surroundings.

It was clear that she was in the throne room of the castle. Two massive seats sat prominently at the end of the room, each atop its own raised dias. One was a faded golden color, covered in dust and missing parts of its back. On the charred banner above it and in a faint inscription in the wall beside it, Twilight could see the symbol of the sun that designated it as Celestia’s. The other was dark blue, similarly weathered by the passage of time, marked with a banner of a crescent moon.

The crumbling walls were in far worse condition. Numerous cracks extended from a multitude of massive holes, one of which featured prominently between the two banners above the thrones. Windows had been reduced to mere glass shards where they sat, and a majority of the roof was missing, allowing the bright light of the full moon to shine in. Rubble lay scattered across the broken flagstones of the floor, leaving only a few places where the threadbare surface of the carpet could be exposed to the eye.

However, what drew Twilight’s eye the most were the considerable number of motionless guards across the floor, broken weapons lying shattered at their side or against the wall. She shivered and tried to suppress the growing discomfort in her stomach, feeling as if she had wandered alone into an eerie tomb of some sort.

Twilight peeked out from behind the stone orb at Nightmare Moon, who was trudging towards the two thrones away from her, and once again noticed the lacerations that covered the alicorn’s body. No wonder she’s hurt so badly. Even after the battle with my mentor, she’s been fighting restlessly against guards when she should be recovering.

She looked sympathetically at Nightmare Moon, but soon set that thought aside for a more immediate concern. After Twilight was sure that the alicorn was far enough away, she sprinted out towards the closest guard, trying to make her hoofsteps light and fleeting as she raced across the accumulated grit and grime covering the floor, her horn lit as she approached the fallen pony.

“Please don’t be dead,” Twilight murmured to herself as she ran a scanning spell over the guard’s body. Her eyes widened. There’s still magic inside him. Without wasting a second, she hopped up onto the guard’s exposed neck, checking for pulse and breathing. To her relief, the pegasus was still very much alive, and his breathing was neither labored nor faint. He was, by any other account, simply sleeping.

Twilight let out a thankful breath, but her brief moment of relief quickly turned into panic when the sleeping guard shifted, tipping her off to the side with a yelp. She fell heavily onto the flat of a fallen sword, causing the metal blade to bounce off the stone floor with an echoing clang, loud in the empty chamber.

The little mare’s face turned to panic as she tried to roll back upright, twisting to look towards Nightmare Moon, and her stomach dropped when she found the mighty alicorn returning her stare evenly, albeit with a bit more surprise than the fear she was feeling.

Nightmare Moon quickly shrugged off her momentary shock, her mouth curling up into a predatory, fanged grin. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise.”

Twilight immediately bolted in the opposite direction, her eyes darting back and forth for someplace, any place, to hide in.

Oh no, nonononono, this is bad. She may’ve shown her good nature back in the town hall where she had the advantage, but I’m still the student of her enemy. There’s no telling what she’ll do to me now that she’s wounded and cornered.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden feeling of heaviness, and every step she took became harder to take than the last. Her hooves became heavier as the pressure of magic pulled her towards the floor, severely retarding her escape and making her every move exhausting and laborious.

Twilight finally looked down, her eyes tracing out the large rune inscribed onto the stonework. It wasn’t an unfamiliar pattern, and she stifled a frustrated groan as she realized what was going on. A gravity spell? Are you serious!?

Her limbs trembled with every step she made, her body easily weighing thirty times more. Despite having supported multiple massive weights and pressures over most of her life, her best effort barely got her to crawling speed, and the slow hoofsteps of Nightmare Moon that had haunted her last few minutes once again made a comeback, matching her step for step, marching ever so closer.

Twilight lit her horn in an attempt to teleport away, but the spell fizzled as soon as she tried to cast it. This time, she did let out a frustrated cry. “Anti t-teleportation wards. C-can it can get any w-w-worse?” she asked herself.

The tiny mare felt something brush against her back, and she turned her head to find a small rock levitated just barely above her. The magical aura around the stone dissipated, and what should have weighed only a kilogram at best fell right on top of her like an anvil. Its greatly increased weight caused her to faceplant heavily into the worn stone, pinning her to the ground.

“I j-just h-had to a-ask.”

“Leaving so soon?” Nightmare Moon asked whimsically as she sat down in front of the magic rune that pinned the intrepid intruder to the floor. “You can’t escape now, Twilight Sparkle, so don’t even try.”

The little mare let out a grunt as she tried to crawl out of the rune, feeling heavier and heavier as she approached the edge. Twilight tried to use self-levitation to lighten her own weight, but she was simply pulled back to the middle by a midnight blue aura in response, feeling as if she was a toy for Nightmare Moon’s amusement.

And there was little doubt that the alicorn was amused, judging by her expression. “Very well. We shall make thine escape more difficult if thou shouldst continue in thine endeavors. Thou hast stated thyself that thou wishest to walk the thorny path, and we shall respect thy desire. We do enjoy watching thee push thyself anyways.”

Feeling a bit dizzy and more than a bit winded, Twilight let out a long sigh and fell limply to the floor. “I… I give up,” she grumbled.

Nightmare Moon knelt down near the edge of the rune, lifting her ear in an exaggerated motion. “Didst thou say something?” she asked in a singsong voice. “We cannot hear theeee!”

“I s-s-said… I… give… up!” Twilight managed to grate out through her gravitationally shut jaw. The moment she said those words, all the gravitational pressure disappeared, and her attempts to get back up only resulted in her stumbling around, feeling as light as a feather after her impromptu weight training session.

The tiny mare tipped the stone from her back easily before she turned towards Nightmare Moon, looking at her with an awkward smile. “H-hello,” she said hesitantly, waving a hoof at the mighty alicorn towering over her.

“Greetings, Twilight Sparkle, and welcome to our domain,” Nightmare Moon said calmly with a sweeping gesture. “Though we must apologize. We haven’t had a chance to tidy up after our thousand years of banishment, and we have no food to greet thee with. Please forgive our lack of hospitality.”

Twilight rubbed the back of her neck uncertainly, a sheepish smile on her face. “It’s uhh… quite alright. I understand.”

Nightmare Moon’s mouth curled up into a small smile. “Then make thyself at home. We believe thou hast had a long and harsh journey to get here?” she said politely. “Hast thou come alone and bested the monsters that lurk in this forest, or hast thou brought company?”

Twilight took a moment to look at Nightmare Moon’s eyes, relaxing slightly when she found that the alicorn’s pupils were round rather than draconic. She’s acting far calmer than before, even to the point of being kind and warm. Maybe I can try to convince her to abandon her revenge again. It won’t be easy, but it’s worth a shot if I can stop her from fighting. She stepped back from Nightmare Moon slightly, raising a forehoof in front of her. “Errr… May I?”

The alicorn looked slightly confused for a moment, but quickly realized what the tiny mare meant. “Ah, yes, though the last time we let thee sit on our hoof, we accidentally hurt thee in our anger. Allow us to provide an alternative,” Nightmare Moon said firmly as she lit her horn. A small flurry of tile fragments rose up around her, arranging themselves into a small staircase in front of her guest. Understanding the purpose of her gesture, Twilight hopped from stone to stone until she was directly in front of the alicorn’s face. “Forgive us for not finding a more comfortable object, but it is safer than our mighty hoof.”

Twilight let out a light chuckle. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Now, as for your question,” she said. “At first, I tried to get to this castle on my own. I thought I could pass by anything lurking in the Everfree Forest with a bit of quick thinking and stealth, but errr… that plan didn’t turn out nearly as well as I had hoped.”

Nightmare Moon looked at Twilight curiously and squinted, noticing a few small bite marks on the tiny unicorn that she hadn’t seen before. “Thou hast proven thyself very brave, but also very foolish,” she stated harshly, causing Twilight to flinch under her disapproving glare. “Thou hast recklessly thrown thyself to the whims of the Everfree Forest without restoring thyself to thine original size or even bringing thy guards. Trust us, this kind of overconfidence wilt one day be thy downfall, just as we suffer now for our own hubris.”

Twilight shivered at those words, and her eyes were once again drawn to the numerous wounds covering the alicorn’s body. “I-I know. I was foolish. I thought that it was my responsibility to do everything by myself, because letting other ponies help me would put them in danger. It wasn’t exactly my best idea. I uhh… kinda got myself eaten by a manticore.”

The alicorn’s brow furrowed in concern, and Twilight quickly amended her statement. “Well, it’s not like I didn’t get out. Luckily, I was saved by a group of ponies that I had met in Ponyville, along with my guards and Spike, and they escorted me the rest of the way here.”

Nightmare Moon smiled. “Thou hast made friends with courageous ponies indeed if they have chosen to brave this forest to help thee. Thy strength lies not just in thy skills and power, which are formidable in and of themselves, but in thine allies as well.”

The alicorn’s eyes looked briefly towards the Elements lying motionlessly on the floor before returning back to Twilight, who was looking up at her patiently. “Still, why hast thou risked thy life to meet us? Hast thou come to join us? Or perhaps thou hast come to use the Elements of Harmony to banish us?”

Twilight’s cheerful expression faltered, and sweat formed on her brow as she tried to defuse the sudden tension without losing her chance to redeem Nightmare Moon. “N-no, I didn’t want to do anything like that,” she stated, and the alicorn simply raised her eyebrow in response. “I… I have a good idea of your situation, but no matter how much I sympathize with you, I can’t join you and betray my mentor and friends. I also don’t want to hurt you, let alone banish you to the moon for another millenium. I just want to help you before you end up getting yourself killed.”

Nightmare Moon scowled. “Then thou hast wasted thy time,” she declared. “We shall take over Equestria or die trying. We may have endured our cold prison and held on to our sanity, but our hatred towards our sister has only grown over our thousand years on the moon. We cannot extinguish the flames of our enmity now. This fight will last until one of us can fight no more.”

Twilight bit her lip, but kept pressing on. “But she’s your sister, and it’s all just a big misunderstanding,” she said, before dipping into a low bow. “Please, I beg of you. I will do everything you wish of me. Just please, forgive your sister. End this madness before somepony gets hurt!”

“Though we value thy words and wish for thee to accept us as thy prin—Queen, this is one wish we cannot grant,” Nightmare Moon said regretfully. Twilight plopped back into a sitting position, and the alicorn noticed the forlorn expression on the tiny mare’s face. “Do not take this the wrong way. Thou hast restored our faith in our subjects, and we wish to win thy respect and servitude.”

She gestured with a sweeping hoof at the guards lying scattered on the ground. “Dost thou see these ponies who dared to lay their swords upon us? Upon their queen? Even though they have sought to inflict harm upon their rightful ruler, we have shown them mercy. We have spared their lives and placed them into a blissful sleep when it would be easier to eliminate them, and we have paid dearly for it, all to prove to thee and our subjects that we are not the monster they believe us to be, but a ruler worthy of her throne, merciful and forgiving.”

Twilight momentarily looked at the unconscious guards, stunned, but soon turned back to Nightmare Moon, a wide grin on her face. “So you… you spared the lives of every guard…” she said, before pressing a hoof against her own chest, “for me?”

Nightmare Moon nodded tersely, and the tiny unicorn breathed out a sigh of relief. “T-thank you. I thank you from the depths of my heart for sparing the guards,” Twilight said sincerely, before stomping a firm hoof into the stone. “However, I cannot abandon my mentor, and I-I just can’t stand by and watch as she fights against her own sister.”

“I admire your loyalty, even if it is misplaced. Our… sister doesn’t deserve a student such as thee,” Nightmare Moon stated before lowering her head, her voice turning cold.

“Pity we are on opposite sides, but we respect your decision.”

The alicorn then rose up and strode away, much to the smaller mare’s confusion. She climbed up onto the ruins of what was once her shining throne and turned to face Twilight. “If thou hast decided to stand by our sister,” she proclaimed, her expression hard and determined, “then draw upon thy magical might and slay us!”