//------------------------------// // 70 Death by Kean // Story: Full Moon Fever: A MoonLight Prompt Collab // by TheLastBrunnenG //------------------------------// Death by Kean Part two of the 'Broken' series. Sequel to 'Dark'. WARNING: gore and dark imagery ahead. ”You know, when I heard you had returned and were in Canterlot, I was worried. When Celestia sent word that you were coming here to speak to me, I was afraid. Even after you told me of your… interest in me, I didn’t let my guard down. I thought you were just trying to find an easy way to get your revenge and stab me in the back.” Twilight smiled up at Nightmare her kind, innocent eyes shimmering in the day’s dying light. -------------------------------------------------------- Nightmare heard Twilight let out a frustrated growl. Twilight’s ex-captor-turned-captive had passed out from the pain being inflicted upon him. Again. The first time he’d lost consciousness, Twilight had searched what was left of the lab for any of the drugs they’d used on her to keep her awake, but Nightmare had been thorough in the destruction of the room and left little standing or usable other than the table Twilight had been on. It was upon that table that the Griffin lay, forelegs outstretched and pinned to it, punctured by jagged pieces of metal torn from the machines once used to study and monitor the Alicorn now sitting on him, straddling his chest. Twilight had taken to shocking him out of unconsciousness – literally. Twilight’s collar glowed and a deep purple aura surrounded her horn. “Twilight, wait,” Nightmare said before she could release the spell. With a snarl, Twilight turned her cold, almost lifeless eye to her. After a slight shudder, Nightmare continued. “We cannot stay here, Twilight.” Twilight stared for a few moments longer before her eye softened in recognition. “Then go,” she muttered, waving her away with a hoof. “I think I’ll stay here for a week, or a month, or two.” She shrugged. “However long I can make his body hold out.” “You don’t understand, Twilight. We can not stay here. Your brother-“ “Shining is here?” “- along with Celestia and Luna, yes. They have surrounded this town – this facility in a shield. They gave me three days to find you before they collapse it in on itself, crushing everything inside of it. It was made to teleport you to them upon touching your magical signature, but… ” Nightmare gestured toward the supports on the ceiling. “If possible, I didn’t want to risk you being harmed more than you may have been.” “How long did it take you to find me here?” Twilight asked calmly. “Find you?” Nightmare blinked at Twilight’s sudden shift in tone. “After I arrived, not long. Perhaps an hour. To do that?” Nightmare gestured to the hole above them. “Judging by the sunlight’s angle, about half the day has passed.” Twilight smiled faintly but remained silent, inspecting a shackle on the wrist of her foreleg. -------------------------------------------------------- ”Well,” Nightmare chuckled. “You were right to fear me.” “I wasn’t afraid of you. Well, not exactly.” She turned away and scuffed a hoof against the crystal balcony they were sitting on. Looking out over Ponyville, she continued, “I was more afraid of the consequences of a fight between us. Not who would win or lose – I believe, if necessary, I could bring an end to the fight.” “Your confidence is quite an endearing trait, but do not presume you would so easily win-“ “I didn’t say either of us would win or lose, just that, if I had no other choice, I could bring it to an end. But they – “Twilight gestured to the town below them. “ – What could any of them do if we fought here? I could only do so much to protect them while defending myself.” She sighed. “I don’t want anyone to be dragged into something they have no stake in.” -------------------------------------------------------- “What about the rest of the Griffins? How will they react?” Twilight asked, breaking the long silence. Nightmare sighed and visibly sagged. “This is an independent facility. It is not even part of the Griffin territories. They receive no funding from their crown, only what is acquired by their workers. From what we understand, they were trying to degrade our already deteriorating relations with the Kingdoms and instigate a war between us.” “Clever. Should they ever be found out, they’re able to shift the blame.” Twilight laughed and turned her attention back to her captor. “Of course, that also means they won’t be able to retaliate to anything done here without admitting having knowledge of what was happening...” She released the spell she’d been holding, sending electricity surging through the Griffin’s body. When his muscles finally stopped their spasms, she hung her head, looking directly into his eyes. “I’m not sure if you could hear us while you were out, but it seems our time is going to have to be cut short.” She chuckled as he began to struggle, succeeding in only making the gashes in his forelegs wider and longer. She lit her horn and the collar lit up along with it, the shackles on each foreleg becoming enveloped in a deep purple aura. “I had planned on saving this for last – I had so many plans, “ she huffed. “Guess we’ll have to see how many we can get through before you give out, then.” Twilight sat back and watched with a grin as long, thin strands of magic began to form, connected to the shackles. The magic formed and hardened into five long, jagged talons, a cruel mockery of what had been used on her so many times. “I had originally planned to use the keratin from my hooves for these,” Twilight said off-handedly, waving her forehoof. “But then I realized there wouldn’t be much mobility with them.” To demonstrate, she curled each talon one-by-one down around the hoof. “And this way, I can control each of them separately. “Now,” Twilight said all too calmly. Leaning down to look in the Griffin’s eyes, she stroked a talon down his cheek. Even from across the room, Nightmare could smell the burning flesh as the magic easily burned through his skin. “I hope you can appreciate the irony of-“ The Griffin’s head darted forward, embedding his beak into Twilight’s neck. Nightmare’s magic flared, but a dark chuckle from Twilight stopped her casting. “Alright,” Twilight growled and dug her talons into each side of his face. She slammed his head back onto the table, ripping his beak from her neck. Her magic flared and the hole began to sew itself closed. “Enough pretense.” She began to rend down his face, easily searing through his flesh and, incidentally, severing the gag. With his screams no longer being muffled, a vicious grin split Twilight’s muzzle. “I’m going to enjoy this so much more than I should.” -------------------------------------------------------- “Eviscerated” was the word Nightmare decided she’d use if ever she had to tell anyone what happened to the Griffin scientist in the following eight hours. Normally meticulous and careful in all she did, Twilight set to her task with fervent fury, tearing at flesh wherever she could dig the magic talons in and shattering bones whenever they got in her way. All before reforming the bones and stitching the wounds back up to the point where he wouldn’t bleed out. All so she could do it again. The second time she had ground the bones in his hind legs to dust, he passed out again. Twilight only growled and dug the talons into each side of his chest before channeling electricity through them. When the moon reached its apex in the sky, hovering just above the tunnel Nightmare had made, the Griffin’s body finally gave out. Striking him didn’t work, shocking him didn’t work, and tearing a bone from his foreleg didn’t work. Twilight even tore his chest open and used the talons to attempt to manually restart his heart, searing and crushing it in the process. She seemed more upset that she couldn’t revive him than that he needed to be revived. With a huff, she climbed off of what was now essentially a biology class dissection project, onto the floor, and shook what blood hadn’t dried from her coat and wings. “I was able to deal with this for how long? A year? And he doesn’t even have the decency to last a day?” Twilight groused. She turned to Nightmare, who had taken to lying on her belly in an area cleared of debris, watching the whole thing impassively. “So seeing that doesn’t bother you?” “Not so much, no.” Twilight laughed, the distress in her voice barely contained. “I guess the stories they used to tell about you weren’t entirely false.” “Twilight,” Nightmare sighed, a small smile forming. “I have been alive for a very long time – possibly longer than Discord. Though it’d be better if he didn’t know that. Knowing him, he’d attempt to find out and, if it were true, possibly attempt to change it.” Nightmare chuckled, but her smile faded. “I have seen many things, Twilight. I saw the dragons rend and tear each other apart for impeding on one another’s territory, over a few baubles, over mates, or even just because they could. I saw their might and bodies shape the land until they had no choice but to come together, lest they became extinct. “I watched the Centauran tribes constantly fight and die until they did die out, all to prove whose magic was stronger, whose artifacts held more power. I saw countless villages of various races drained of emotion by the Changelings until all that remained were their baser instincts, leaving them but empty husks; cruel mockeries of what they once were.” Nightmare looked into Twilight’s eye, her gaze turning hard. “Before Celestia and Luna, I witnessed the three pony tribes fight, kidnap, torture, and kill each other to learn the other race’s secrets. And I assisted in an attempt to bring about an eternal night, which would have resulted in the deaths of countless souls. “So no, Twilight Sparkle, death does not affect me in the ways it might others.” Nightmare’s visage softened. “But,” she continued, her voice subdued. “It does affect me – I wouldn’t be able to call myself a pony if it didn’t. And I quite like being a pony. It does not bother me that you ended his life. It doesn’t bother me how you went about it, either. “It is what led you to feel the need to set yourself to the task with such ferocity, such anger, that bothers me. I may not have been with you long before…” she gestured around the room with a hoof. “This, but I am worried that there is not much, if any, of that mare left.” Silence reigned for a long while, with Twilight staring off to the side, her mouth moving unconsciously as she thought and Nightmare silently watching her. “So what happens now?” Twilight blinked at her own soft spoken question, as if she hadn’t meant for it to actually come out. Nightmare raised an eyebrow. “Now we leave and get you some rest and see to your recovery.” “No, I mean, what happens – wait, leave?! As in leave the entire… facility, as you called it?” “Yes, removing oneself from a location is generally how one leaves it.” “No,” Twilight growled, her hackles rising. “There were more than who was down here; I’m not just going to leave.” She turned, aiming for a better angle on the entrance Nightmare had made. As she stepped, though, her leg went limp along with the rest of her body. Nightmare enveloped her in her magic, preventing her from hitting the floor. She set Twilight upright, but even after she regained her footing, Nightmare held her. “Your magic has healed most of your wounds, Twilight, but your body is still weak. You must rest.” Twilight’s talons dug into the ground and Nightmare mentally braced herself. Twilight’s collar flared with her horn, feeding her with whatever magic she commanded it in attempt to teleport out of, negate, dispel, reverse, or overpower Nightmare’s magic. Nightmare matched her easily, watching impassively as she struggled. “Nightmare, I have to do this. I need to-“ “To what?” Nightmare snapped, rising to her hooves.” Leaving here in your state, and in a blind rage, would simply lead to you being captured again – or worse! Your magic is strong, yes, but your body is not yet recovered. You are immortal, yes, but you are not invincible.” Twilight stared back at her, defiance clear in her eye. Nightmare sighed. “Let us leave, Twilight, your brother – the shield – will do what is-“ “They don’t deserve that!” Twilight cried out. A flash of light erupted from her horn, as blinding as the sun on a clear day in the desert. Nightmare lost her concentration for a moment as she turned to shield her eyes, only to find herself on her back with Twilight standing over her, straddling her. Looking up at her, Nightmare could only equate what she saw on Twilight’s face and in her eye to a feral beast, its claws searing through the ground on either side of her head. It took only a moment for Twilight’s eye to widen in realization and tears to well up in it. The talons fractured and dissipated into the air as she stopped channeling their spell and her collar and horn lost their glow. She hung her head and spoke, her voice wavering. “Shiny doesn’t deserve that. He came here to save me – to protect me. “If he sees what they did to me – if he even suspects it – he’ll collapse that shield for the same reason I tortured that griffin. I don’t want him to feel that, Nightmare. I don’t want him to get pulled into this anymore than he already has. I can do it – I want to do it.” Nightmare smiled softly and brushed a hoof through Twilight’s mane before running it along her cheek to wipe the tears. “Very well. You will stay here, with me, for the entirety of tomorrow and rest. Day and night. I will do what I can to aid in your recovery.” She chuckled as Twilight collapsed on top of her, wrapped her hooves around her neck and buried her muzzle in it. “Promise me that you’re not just going to wait until I fall asleep and drag me out,” said Twilight’s muffled voice. Nightmare gently lifted her in her magic and rolled on to her belly, setting Twilight next to her. “I swear, I will do no more than watch over you.” Twilight pressed herself close to the larger alicorn and the moment her head rested against Nightmare, she was out. -------------------------------------------------------- Twilight chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. “But that’s not why I asked you here. Sorry, I got a little off track.” She’d turned away to hide her blush, but the twitching of her wings betrayed her. “I’ve enjoyed talking with you these past few weeks and, if the offer of… courtship, was it? If it’s still open, I would love to take you up on it.” Twilight looked back at her with a soft and hopeful, if a bit apologetic smile. -------------------------------------------------------- Twilight stirred against her side, whimpering and shaking. Nightmare draped a wing over her and pulled her close, causing Twilight to curl tighter against her. She then laid her tail over the young alicorn’s flanks and curled her neck around Twilight as best she could. I cannot safeguard your dreams; it is not my realm. I cannot safeguard your body; there is no longer a need. I cannot safeguard your mind; you do not want me to share your pain. Nightmare gently brushed away more tears with the tip of her wing. “Then, should you allow me,” she whispered. “I shall safeguard your heart. Even for all you have been through, it has remained strong. I will not allow you to lose that."