"Break the law on my watch, will ya? I'll be confiscating your stolen goods. Oh, and no gold to pay your fine? It's off to the lockup then!" Said the inept royal guard, threatening the creature of nightmares with a spear.
"Your not serious are you?" Line of Sight tried jabbing with his weapon, the attack was easily dodged by a back step. "Oh you are serious, i would laugh but this is too pathetic to dignify with laughter." said Nightmare Moon burring her face in her hooves.
"You should have paid the fine!" The overconfident Pegasus put all his weight into a downward strike aimed at the villains forehead. Before the attack could connect the mare moved like lightning, a flying tackle sent Line of Sight crashing into the wall embedding him in the plaster. The other guard decided it would be wiser not to attack her directly, instead he placed himself between the crowd and Nightmare Moon, after all he did have a duty to protect Celestia's subjects.
With the minor distraction taken care of, Nightmare Moon turned her attention to the crowd. "Now where was I? Ah yes i was looking for a bit of devotion from my new servants," said Nightmare Moon.
A defiant Rainbow Dash shouted, "Oh yeah! What gives you the right? We're all loyal to our princess."
"Am i not royal enough for you peasants, does this crown mean nothing?" Nightmare Moon rhetorically asked.
"Um, your not wearing a crown, you have a weird metal bald cap on," said Derpy Hooves pointing out the obvious.
The remark upset the godlike being. "I rather think i shall make an example of you insolent foal!" The Nightmare's eyes flashed with rage, her horn lit up as she was charging a destructive spell.
The ponies around her moved away, the very frightened Derpy Hooves was quickly running out of space to back up. She ran out when her posterior bumped into a decorative pillar with a shaky foundation. As the pillar wobbled further back and forth Nightmare moon finished charging whatever dark magic she had in mind. Derpy was desperately looking for a way out, but her wings were clamped shut from fear, her legs turned to jelly beneath her.
"Die!" Screamed the monstrous being, a sickening ray of dark magic shot forth from her horn aimed strait for the defenseless mare.
Before the deadly energy could connect with Derpy, Twilight leaped across the room pushing herself and her friend to safety. With nopony for the magic to kill it instead collided with the pillar, that magic was the last budge it needed to fall over completely. Fall over right onto Nightmare Moon crushing her, only her splayed out legs stuck out from beneath.
The crowd of ponies gathered around the gruesome sight, "Wow she is like super dead." "I got dibs on her shoes!" "What a way to go." Were some of the sounds coming from the crowd.
Away from the gawking crowd the two friends caught their breath, their hearts pounding wildly from the adrenaline rush of almost dying and almost loosing your first friend. "*Huff* Twilight, I-I don't know what to say. You saved my life, thank you!" Derpy came in close and gave Twilight a spine cracking hug, she was surprisingly strong for a Pegasus her size.
"It was nothing, *CRACK* really," said Twilight.
By this time a group of three familiar faces were converging on the site of this act of affection. Lyra Heartstrings, Lotus Blossom and Cloudchaser all gathered around the two.
"Wow Derpy that was amazing!" said Lyra.
"Yeah you saved us all!" said Cloudchaser.
"Ya, you are a hero to us all!" said Lotus.
Derpy was getting flustered by this attention. "I really didn't do anything special, i just bumped into a pillar."
"From all the books i read about her i was expecting Nightmare Moon to be at least a bit more of a threat, i mean there was a whole prophecy about her bringing about an eternal night. I wasn't expecting all we had to stop her was drop a pillar on her." Twilight mused.
"Do you really think she's ... dead? I-i didn't mean to hurt anypony." Said Derpy who was looking at the unmoving set of legs under the heavy stone decoration.
"Oh yeah she's dead for sure! No way any pony could survive that. Hey you think they'll make a statue of you in town?" Said Lyra not quite grasping that Derpy was upset at the thought that she had hurt somepony.
Twilight shot an icy glare at Lyra, she put a supportive hoof on Derpy's shoulder. "I know it might not help much but, i don't think Nightmare Moon would have stopped on her own. What you did saved a lot of lives tonight."
Before Derpy could reply terrified screams ripped the group's attention away from each other. In the center of the room, what everypony had assumed was a corpse dissolved into a mist and reformed into the hateful creature once more.
The Nightmare face the group of five, "You thought something so trivial could stop me? I am a god compared to you insects! And you will fear me."
The doors burst open again, this time stood a teetering magenta earth pony being propped up by a tiny unicorn filly. In one hoof she had a brown bottle of unidentifiable liquid, in her other she held what looked like a some kind of weapon. It had a carved wooden stock, revolving metal chambers and a folding sight. The little filly spoke up, "Please somepony you have to help! My moms been drinking and she's got a weapon!"
"So another wishes to challenge me tonight? I shall show you the folly of such actions," said Nightmare Moon as she prepared to pounce on the inebriated mare.
Through the bottom of the now empty bottle Berry Punch could see the oncoming attack. "HAVE AT EM LASS!" She shouted, squeezing the trigger on her gun. A small rounded object left the barrel of her weapon, quickly followed by a second. The two pill shapes traveled across the room at an ark colliding with her adversary mid-flight. "*BOOM* *BOOM*" The volatile explosives detonated on Nightmare Moon sending chunks of her ethereal armor flying across the room.
"Hehe I bet they didn't see that one comin' *BRAAP*" slurred out Berry Punch, her daughter hid her face, somewhat ashamed of her mothers behavior.
Nightmare Moon lay collapsed on the tile floor, having a pillar dropped on her could do nothing to harm her in the least, only knock her out for a short time. But these modern implements of destruction posed a real threat to the nightmare, not the fire or shrapnel, those passed through her harmlessly. No what was a genuine threat way the wave of concussive force generated by the explosion. The wave rippled through her body, tearing at the bonds between the host body and parasite.
As the symbiote worked to repair those bonds and maintain it's hold on it's prisoner, the mare had something long lost returned, her thoughts being her's and her's alone. "Where am i? What is this place? I'm not at the castle, so how did i get here?" Asked Luna, but no reply came. She still had no control over her body so speech was impossible. "Why can't i remember? Sister and i were getting ready for the Celebration, and i was mad about something ... i yelled at her. Why would i yell at sister?" Luna struggled for some semblance of what had happened so long ago.
But just as soon as Luna's sense of self had been given back to her it was swiftly taken away. "There, the repairs have been made. So how are we doing Luna? Are you ready to go back to sleep now? whispered the parasite in her mind.
"No not again! I don't want to go into the darkness! I just want to go home, i want to go home i want to go home, i -ant to g- h-m-." The nightmare's mind again took dominance, suppressing the atrophied mind of the lunar princess. Yet her wish to return to a safe place echoed in the nightmare's subconscious.
The massive pony brought herself up and out the open doors, flying away her black fur blended in with the night sky. Twilight and the others looked on, "Girls we're going to have to face her again," said Twilight.
"Um how the hay do you expect us to do that, she can't be crushed and even Berry's bombs did little to hurt her," said Cloudchaser.
"I'm agreeing with that, we're just regular ponies, what chance do we stand against a monster like that?" asked Lotus.
"I know it may sound like a long shot, but the texts i found about Nightmare Moon also mention that she was defeated using an artifact called the Elements Of Harmony. I still don't know all that much about them but if we can find them we might stand a fighting chance." Twilight Said to the group.
"Well maybe the'll be something about it in the library in town, it's pretty extensive," said Derpy.
"Yeah, i even found a medical journal describing the anatomy of a hand, how cool is that!" Exclaimed Lyra.
"That sounds like a promising place to start, plus i really want to see what this place is like, libraries are kind of my natural habitat." Said Twilight.
"Well i'm taking my mommy home, she's had a bad day and now she needs some sleep." Said Berry's daughter. She slung her sloshed parent over her back and began the trek back to their two story home in town.
"Let's get a move on crew, Spike you'd better tag along as well, I'm gonna need my number one assistant if were looking through books. Spike where are you?" Asked Twilight, her question answered when she found the baby dragon curled up in a ball still out for the count.
"Aw poor little guy, but i'm sure he wouldn't object to me observing his hands firsthand now would he." Lyra said, positively giddy at the prospect of getting an up close look at his feelers.
"Ugh fine but you're carrying him, just try not to wake him. He barely get's enough sleep as it is," said Twilight.
The five ponies and sleeping dragon left the now abandoned town hall bound for the tall oak library near the edge of town.