//------------------------------// // Ch. 4: Regroup and Recover // Story: Nightmare Moon vs. OC // by TundraStanza //------------------------------// ---{Dilan Shier} A street in Ponyville... When I opened my eyes, it felt like I had been filled with espresso. Whatever had been drained in that conflict was back inside of me at full strength. One of my other entities had completed the task then. For some reason, I got the distinct feeling that I was being watched. When I turned my head to look, I caught a rather unhappy glare from our changeling friend. At least, that seemed to be the case until he closed his mouth with only his left fang poking out. "Explain that other presence," said Fifty-one, "the one that I sensed the desire to feed on hatred." "Er, well..." I hummed in uncertainty. "How much did you see?" "I heard it speak with a different voice despite that it was using your face." He approached with slow hoof steps. "Yeah... um..." I sighed, deciding that there wasn't much left to hide at this point. "When I get drained or enter a near-death experience, one of the other fragments that I've absorbed can temporarily assume control of my body until I regain consciousness. One of those minds is the demon that lives in my tail." "Can your tail possess your head whenever it wants?" The skin above his eye furrowed. "Only when he's the closest to the surface," I said, wishing there was a less vague way to explain it all. "Other times it usually starts with the fragment of Rainbow Dash's Nightmare form: Spectrum." He closed his eyes and sniffed the air a couple of times. "Your emotions seem genuine enough." He gave a nod and opened his eyes. "I'll trust you." "Thanks." I smiled. At that point, Spike and the Twilights walked over as well. I heard a groan to the side. The pony Twilight had called "Starlight" was apparently sleeping off the pain. "Think she'll be alright now?" I asked while rolling my hoof over. "I thought she was going to be fine after the last time we saw her," commented Princess Twilight. "Yet somehow, a bit of the Nightmare managed to nab her darker feelings. There's a chance that her hatred of other cutie marks hasn't completely dissipated." "You mean she'll still try to take some ponies' cutie marks away when she wakes up?" asked a worried, wingless Twilight. Starlight's chest rose and fell with a breath. While she slept, Fifty-one trotted over and stood just above to the side. He held his head back and made a weird cross between a hacking sound and a gargling noise. Next thing I knew, he had spat out a blob of green, gooey stuff all over Starlight's horn. The reactions from the rest of our group held differing degrees of disgust. "Dude, that is gross!" remarked Spike, holding up an arm in a defensive posture. "Yes, it is," acknowledged Fifty-one, "but at least now there is an inhibitor against her magic until we know for sure that she won't use that mark theft spell." "But... I burned something like that off of Princess Cadance's hooves just fine." "But... I burned something like that off of Princess Cadance's hooves just fine," said the Twilights in stereo. "Pony spells only work from the outside of that goop," explained the changeling, "not inside." "Ohhhh." Princess Twilight nodded. "So that's why Princess Celestia couldn't get out of that hanging goop cocoon," said the wingless Twilight thoughtfully. "That's an oddly specific property, don't you think?" I looked at him with a skeptical eyebrow raised. Fifty-one shrugged. "We were initially trained to capture victims. We usually don't have to worry about ponies breaking in and stealing anything due to our home being so far out of the way." Princess Twilight's eyes went wide. "How...How many ponies?" "None as of last month," assured the wingless Twilight. "Although, that's just in our world. I don't know about the changelings in this universe." "Neither do I," said Fifty-one. "I've yet to sense any members of the Hive anywhere near here." He hummed and smiled gently. "Maybe I could introduce this universe's Hive to alternate forms of nourishment that they can handle." "One step at a time," interrupted Spike. "Shouldn't we check on the third Twilight? She and that Tundra pony left for Canterlot quite a while ago and they haven't come back yet." "Oh my gosh!" exclaimed Princess Twilight. "In all the excitement, I completely forgot about them." She looked around at the rest of us. "Everyone stay close! Dill Anne, carry Starlight with you." Spike quickly ran over and hopped onto Princess Twilight's shoulders. I leaned over and used my mane's grip to lift Starlight onto my back. She was pretty heavy for a little pony. I was kind of surprised, considering the fact that I once held onto two bat-ponies with just my tail before. But that's a whole other story. For this one, I was busy watching Princess Twilight's magenta spell whisk us all away. ---{Tundra Stanza} Several minutes later in the Canterlot throne room... We gathered here soon after the ponies from this world and that one other world teleported in. I was pretty impressed that a Twilight from any universe could use her spell to carry that many ponies in a single trip. I guessed that was a side effect of gaining the powers of a princess. I asked her about it. Soon, everyone that was in that room was exchanging tales of what they'd been through and how certain variations came to be. While the world with a brand new castle and the world that was forcibly shunted into Earth were both interesting, that didn't really answer the bigger questions. Why were we all getting pulled into this one? What was that strange force that had inflicted red-eyed madness in my world's Rainbow Dash and this Starlight pony? Why couldn't we detect the energies' locations normally? Twilight Sparkle Cubed took it upon themselves to pace and theorize out loud. Well, the two floor-bound Twilights did. The one with wings seemed to be flying up, down, in zigzags, and even into one of the walls as all of her talked it out. I didn't quite catch all of the terms that were probably important. No matter which universe she came from, Twilight Sparkle insisted on using magi-science babble that few students of her field could possibly understand. Still, I kind of understood the little 'Eureka' moment they had near the end. "That... might be it!" exclaimed our Twilight while swinging a quivered Seele Schneider. "I don't know why I didn't think of it before," said the Earth-verse Twilight. "A simultaneous destruction of differing enemies..." Princess Twilight fluttered down a little. "The precision would be ludicrous to pull off," admitted Earth-verse Twilight. "But after removing the other impossible alternatives, that must be the answer," said our Twilight with a nod. "You're a genius!" "You're a genius!" "You're a genius!" They all cheered with each other. "Uh, mind sharing with the rest of the class what you're so excited about?" wondered Rainbow with a skeptical eye and her hooves crossed. It was amazing how fast she recovered. Well, one eye was still blocked from sight by gauze. But still, she was flying at her usual height above the floor. "Preferably in English," I commented. "Or Equestrian," added Dill Anne while shrugging her wings. "I could go either way at this point." "Wait a minute," said our Twilight. "That was in Equestrian. How could you not understand what was so obvious?" Earth-verse Twilight patted our Twilight's shoulder. "It's okay, me. Just because she hasn't had the same educational system, that doesn't make her dumb. She's simply rude." Princess Twilight clapped one hoof against the other exactly once and audibly. "I've got it." She flew across the throne room's length with several cards, starting exactly from in front of this world's Celestia's seat. Princess Twilight was back within seconds. "Okay, take a slow, casual flight through the room." "Is that really an effective method of information presentation?" wondered Earth-verse Twilight. "No, no, no, shush!" insisted Princess Twilight before smiling at Rainbow. "Fine." Dash rolled her eyes before following that Twilight's instruction. Fifty-one tilted his head. "What exactly will this accomplish?" "You'll see," answered Princess Twilight mischievously. I didn't really see anything unusual about the way Rainbow Dash was flying. Unlike the time she broke her wing, she could still fly as easily as if both of her eyes were open. Pretty soon, she came flying back looking no better or worse for the small trip. "So tell me, Rainbow," requested Princess Twilight. "What do you remember about that flight?" "There wasn't much to remember," said Dash with a shrug. "I mean, the triangular correlation of the supposedly wiped out remains of our world's Discord, the Earth-verse's Forty-three, and a fragment of the Nightmare in this world may have created a super entity that pretty much created a singularity. But, I don't know what that has to..." Her visible eye slowly opened wider. "... do... with... this." "Ha ha!" Princess Twilight reared up and moved her front limbs up and down in glee. "I knew there was some similarity with you and our Rainbow Dash. Both of you memorize information best through multitasking." "And even translation into plain speak," muttered Dill Anne in wonder. "Color me impressed." "How did...? But that... Huh?" All I could do was open my jaw in bafflement. "You were able to figure that out just by scattering some flashcards around and telling her to fly over them?" Fifty-one held a skeptical frown. "Let's just say that our Rainbow Dash needed to find her own studying method to pass the Wonderbolt Reserves' history test," said Princess Twilight with a cheerful wink. "Oh... right... I still need to retake that one," admitted Dash sheepishly. "Think you could try that method to help me study for my history test?" I shook my head to recover from the stupor. "We're getting off topic." Dill Anne nodded. "So the cause of these random portals dragging ponies into this universe and the sinister energies composed of pure rage is a fusion of the Katana-verse's Discord, a Nightmare fragment from this world, and a rogue changeling from the Earth-verse?" "Simply put, yes," said Quincy Twilight with a nod. "But that leaves one last question." Earth-verse Twilight tapped her chin. "Where is this entity currently located?" ---{#51} "Normally something that full of rage would stand out to my sense of smell," I said while crossing my front hooves. "During that round I had with Dash earlier, my ability to sense reiatsu was being interfered by... something," mentioned Tundra. "And that portion of the Nightmare must be pretty well-hidden if I can't pinpoint it," added Dill Anne. "Maybe all of you just need a good night's sleep." A mixed scent of frustration and jealousy wafted into my nose. I slowly turned to look at the source of the extra voice. It appeared our little hitchhiker hadn't been as deeply asleep as we had thought. Her deadpanned eyes and snarling mouth did nothing to hide the emotions that I could already smell. "Starlight?" Princess Twilight blinked. "How long have you been listening?" "Ever since we arrived here," answered Starlight Glimmer. "But there wasn't much point in announcing it." Something popped underneath my layer of goop on her horn without so much as disturbing it. "What kind of suggestion was that anyway?" Rainbow flew right up in her face. "Are you going to be the kind of jerk that attacks ponies in their sleep?" "Not at all," said Starlight dismissively. "Sleep is an important part of everypony's physical health. It's a trait that all of us share. Besides, what kind of disruption could I possibly cause to a sleeping pony in my condition?" "You still have hooves," pointed out Rainbow. "Maybe you're planning on kicking us all night to drive us into insomnia." "Two problems with your theory, Ms. Dash." Starlight lifted her hoof. "One, expending my stamina to kick somepony all night would deprive me of the same amount of rest... and two, I'm physically no stronger than anypony else. Both of these points together would make such a plan a waste of my time." "Touché." Rainbow flew back a few inches, crossed her hooves, and closed her eye. "But that doesn't mean we have to listen to you." "Of course not," agreed Starlight. "You're always free to ignore friendly advice." "Since when are you our friend?" Rainbow perked her eye back open. "Well, I don't know about you," Spike piped up "but I think many of us are weary from the stuff we've faced today." Rainbow immediately turned around. "Wait, you're actually agreeing with the jerk that attacked two of the Twilights?" Spike crossed his arms. "What I can see are some injured friends and some that have been depleting their energy reserves. If we're going to face another big bad, we ought to do so with all the strength we can muster, not in the state of a drained battery." "I... that... ugh..." Rainbow sighed and let her hooves dangle. "You're right. Thanks, Spike." I could smell a hint of happiness emitting from Spike as he nodded. "Anytime, Rainbow." "All right, everypony!" announced Princess Twilight. "Go rest up. Me, myself, and I are going to try putting together a spell matrix that our three most sensitive group members can use to track down the fused entity." "I never thought I'd ever hear those pronouns used together so selflessly," commented Quincy Twilight. The Twilight I was familiar with giggled. "What's this abut a spell matrix?" wondered Dill Anne. "Since the combined entity has three parts," explained Earth-verse Twilight, "none of us will be able to track it down alone." "But if Dill Anne Shear, Tundra Stanza, and Fifty-one can all use their awareness powers in tandem over the same point, we stand a chance of locating it," added Quincy Twilight. "The perfect plan?" Tundra smirked. "Well, not quite, but it is a good starting point," insisted Princess Twilight. "True enough," I said with a shrug. ---