Reaper materialized behind a cracked and weathered statue of Nightmare Moon on the edge of Appleloosa. He glanced around, looking for Luna, and noticed a distinct lack of ponies anywhere nearby.
Reaper materialized behind a cracked and weathered statue of Nightmare Moon on the edge of Appleloosa. He glanced around, looking for Luna, and noticed a distinct lack of ponies anywhere nearby.
He furrowed his brow, and began walking toward what would typically be the center of town. However, he soon discovered that the dreamscape’s rendering of Appleloosa this time was badly off-kilter, as the road he was on kept returning him to the statue, regardless of what direction he turned.
Reaper sucked air through his teeth, and sat down on the edge of the statue’s base: “What are you up to, Luna?”
After a few minutes he heard distant shouting, and saw what appeared to be flashes of lightning, toward the center of town. He stood back up, took a deep breath, and focused intently on the bursts of light and sound. He began to slowly walk away from the statue.
After several minutes of deliberate walking, and double-checking his bearings, Reaper finally reached a cluster of buildings marking Appleloosa’s main street. Several shops were burning, with eerie greenish flames flickering out of their windows, and dark smoke not dissipating, but swirling and twisting in the sky above.
A pony ran out of one of the shops, mane ablaze with blue-green fire, a look of terror in her eyes. Reaper stepped in her path: “What’s happening here? Where is Princess Luna?”
The pony slowed for a moment to answer, then saw Reaper’s dark form, back-lit by a row of burning buildings, the light glinting in his eyes.
She screamed, “Nooo! I don’t wanna die! Get away! Oh, please help me, Celestia!”
Reaper started to speak, but the pony collapsed in the dust, and faded away as she awoke from her part in the nightmare.
Reaper rolled his eyes: “Great. I don’t why I thought that would work this time!”
He faded out as far as he could, and began to trot along the edges of buildings, sticking to the dense shadows. He heard shouting around a corner, and moved in to investigate.
Luna was hovering mid-air, framed by a burning clock tower, and a pillar of impenetrable blackness: “I am supreme in this place, murderer! We know who you are, and how you orient yourself in my realm! Never again will you prey on my subjects!”
Grey Thorn was shrouded in darkness at the base of the Void, nearly invisible save for the glow of his horn.
“Leaving you free to prey on them once again, I take it, Princess,” he shouted, firing a blast of gold-tinged magic at her.
She reared back and deflected his bolt, returning her own deep-blue fire: “Slander! I feel nothing but concern and love for these ponies now, and you cannot turn me back to the darkness!”
Grey Thorn shielded himself as Luna’s magic engulfed him, blasting away part of the town’s meeting hall, scattering several ponies sheltering there.
“Turn you back?” he taunted, “You never left it! Look at yourself now, Nightmare-that-was! You’re almost as dark as you ever were! Look at the havoc you’ve wrought in your effort to fell me. It’s just as well this isn’t the real world, or your friend would be busy tidying up the spirits of the departed as we speak!”
Luna cried out in rage, and dove toward Grey Thorn, horn blazing with dark energy: “I will end you now, monster, and make you pay for your crimes! I will tear you apart with my own teeth!”
Reaper’s eyes widened as he realized Luna’s fatal error.
“Princess, STOP!” he shouted, breaking cover and dashing toward Grey Thorn and his Void as fast as he could, sword drawn, horn aglow.
He leaped between Luna and the Void at the last moment, phasing fully-solid in order to take the full force of her body blow. They crashed awkwardly through a fruit vendor’s stall, and came to rest at the base of a scarred, blackened tree.
Grey Thorn laughed in delight: “Saved from death by death! How ironic!”
He took the opportunity to rush forward toward a group of ponies huddled against the wall of the ruined meeting hall. The Void was hard on his heels, tendrils and streamers of blackness stretching forward, flowing over and around Grey Thorn like dark wings.
A young, pale orange filly gasped in horror as the dark ribbons reached out for her, Grey Thorn wrapped in their midst, his eyes wide, his horn glowing with a piercing golden light.
“NO!!” Luna screamed, her cry shattering the tree, throwing Reaper several feet to the side.
She leaned forward, eyes ablaze, teeth clenched, and unleashed a blast of dark magic, erasing most of the meeting hall’s ruins, as well as a dozen ponies and a building beyond, leaving a deep, wide trench, above which Grey Thorn and the Void now hovered.
Reaper’s ears drooped flat against the sides of his head: “Shit! I hope you didn’t just kill those ponies in their sleep, Luna!”
She snapped her head around and looked at Reaper, blank eyes glowing an unearthly blue-white. Her voice boomed: “Better that thou takest them, Harbinger, than this grotesque monster damn them to an unimaginable fate!”
Grey Thorn threw his head back and laughed again: “Even more ironies--kill the ponies to save them! You two make quite a team!”
Reaper turned to confront Grey Thorn: “You, too! You realize, of course, that that thing has at least as much control over you as you have over it, by now.”
“You know nothing, Entropy’s slave,” Grey Thorn sniffed. “I am master of this thing, as you call it, just as surely as your friend over there is of her own magic!”
He turned to look at Luna, standing in the midst of a smoking crater, glittering sparks still raining down around her, cold fire emanating from her blank eyes.
Grey Thorn grinned maliciously: “Bad example.”
Luna’s wings suddenly fanned out as she took off in a rush, bearing down on Grey Thorn at nearly supersonic speed: “SILENCE!”
Grey Thorn smirked as he and the Void dissolved away, leaving behind a column of dark smoke: “Welcome back, Nightmare-that-is-again…”
Luna shot through the smoke dispersing it, landing with a crash of stones and sparks, shoulders heaving as she dropped to her knees, sobbing: “What have I done?!”
Reaper tentatively picked his way through the smoldering rubble, investigating the various scattered bodies lying about. One by one they began to fade away, save for two who sat up unsteadily, blinking and shaking their heads.
Reaper dimmed as far as he could, and worked his way around the few conscious ponies who remained in the area.
He walked up quietly to Luna, and folded his legs underneath his body as he settled down next to her.
“I don’t think anypony’s dead,” he said, “but I can’t be too sure about the one who was right in front of Grey Thorn. Between his magic and yours and the Void, I’m not sure what her fate was.”
Luna wept, her body wracked, tears dripping into the blackened dust: “I destroyed her! Her name was Dandelion, and I erased her just as surely as Grey Thorn! I’m no better than he!”
Reaper furrowed his brow, and closed his eyes for a few moments: “You don’t have that kind of power, Princess. And as for killing, I know when a pony has died--it’s kind of my job!”
“However,” he continued, “I’m still not entirely sure what happened to her. I should head to the real Appleloosa and determine her fate.”
Luna looked up, distraught, tears still rolling down her cheeks: “No--don’t leave me here! Don’t leave me with this smoke and wreckage and fear and that hateful, damnable statue!”
Reaper chewed his lip: “Then let’s go together. Let’s get you out of here for just a bit. But we can’t be gone long. Grey Thorn’s desperate, and there’s no telling what he’ll do next.”
Luna’s eyebrows jumped, and she replied caustically, “Desperate?! He’s more powerful than ever! How is he desperate?”
Reaper rubbed his muzzle and took a deep breath: “He was right about one thing: in many ways I am Entropy’s slave. As a result, I know an out-of-balance system when I see one. He’s losing control of that Void.”
Luna tipped her head and rubbed the back of her hoof across her nose: “Is it overtaking him?”
“I can’t tell,” Reaper replied, “I don’t know if he’s trying to merge with it, or trying not to merge with it, or just what the dynamic is. All I know is, it’s clearly hungering for more energy. You saw it wrap itself around Grey Thorn as it lunged for Dandelion.”
Luna shuddered and stifled a sob: “Yes--that’s why I...acted.”
“Yes,” Reaper said. “And you likely spared her becoming its next victim. It’s clear when you ceased being Nightmare Moon he lost his easy cover. You would now no longer turn a blind eye to his extra darkness, and the terror it inspired here in the dreamscape. He hasn’t been able to feed that thing, possibly in years, until Dew Drop.”
Reaper stood and helped Luna to her feet.
“Ironically,” he continued, “I think the Void became too powerful during your years as Nightmare Moon. Grey Thorn could simply lurk here, absorbing old, dying ponies’ essences without any repercussions. But when you left that role, he lost his easy prey.”
“Can he not “feed” outside of this space?” Luna asked, wiping away the last of her tears, using her magic to quell the surrounding fires.
Reaper shook his head: “I don’t think so. Once, long ago, he probably could have. But that Void’s been too powerful for too many centuries, now. If he tried to hunt with it, as it were, in the real world, I would likely detect it, and I’m pretty sure Celestia would as well.”
He walked toward the crumbling, scorched wall where the battle had climaxed: “And I think that finally answers the question, ‘why Dew Drop?’ For the same reason he wanted Dandelion: she’s young and vital, full of life essence. He can’t rely on “low-hanging fruit” anymore.”
Luna turned toward Reaper: “Not now that he is the hunted. I understand. But what does he plan?”
Reaper shrugged: “I don’t know. Was his plan to gain enough power that he could openly challenge you or Celestia in the open? Did he not really have a plan, and is now forced to make one? That’s actually my belief. I think he was perfectly happy to inhabit the dreamscape like a parasite. But that’s no longer possible.”
Luna gritted her teeth: “No. Never again will I allow him to poison this place with his obscene feeding!”
Reaper raised an eyebrow: “Just make sure you don’t get poisoned in the process! You’re getting a little too liberal with the dark magic.”
Luna bowed her head and sighed: “I appreciate your concern. I, too, fear the power that courses through me when I unleash the darkness. Grey Thorn was not entirely wrong about me, either.”
Reaper nodded: “Let’s head back and put this Dandelion situation to rest, one way or another. I’ve had to reap my share of young spirits over the millennia, and I can tell you they do not go gently…”
“Like Dew Drop,” Luna quietly interjected.
“Precisely. I suspect Dandelion made it out OK, but there’s only one way to know for sure.”
Luna raised her head, and peered into the distance: “Then let us go now, and see if Grey Thorn’s list of crimes has grown.”