//------------------------------// // Ch. Extra The 3rd: Trial of the Shattered Mirror // Story: The Moon Shall Rise From Hell's Ashes // by TundraStanza //------------------------------// ---{Dilan Shier} "I can't help but think that you care about me a little too much." My piercing sword struck forth. It broke my opponent's parry with a hundred rapid-fire swings. But something wasn't quite right. She seemed emotionally distant, not like her usually confident self. She didn't even seem to notice when her sword went flying off to her left after my last hit. I inched my point closer, but she didn't react. "What are you talking about Spectrum?" I asked her in confusion. "When you lose the reigns, I'm the first one you choose to pick them up. Just the other week, you sent Rainbow Dash, my other, a basket full of chocolates, fruits, and a bottle of rosette. Even here in your dreams, you trust me to keep the rest of our fragments out of trouble. I'm not a child to be pampered. I'm just..." I trotted right up to her. "You're just what?" She sighed. "I'm just another mistake you had to correct." "Hey, don't beat yourself up." I pat her back with my hoof. "It was your strength that helped us fend off the thorny clouds. It was through your ability that I could save Spirit Sword from Posh while she was still rogue. It was your power that helped keep Tirek busy and allowed those changelings to regroup." "Human... why are you... being so nice to me?" She looked at me with earnest, magenta, slit-iris eyes. She was biting her lower lip. Her hooves were trembling. Her feathers were shaking. A ghost of a tear dripped down her cheek. I looked at her seriously. "No matter what circumstance brought us together, I trust you now and I will do everything I can to make sure you can stick around." She closed her eyes, and chuckled lightly. "Shier... don't you have anything better to do?" I shrugged my wings. "I'm open to suggestions." --- "I despise weakness." My tail became a red, whirling whip. It whistled like a bird as it sped through the air. After I launched it forward at the target, my opponent's tail cracked the same pocket of air that mine whipped against. Our respective demons of the extended spine kept swishing around from all directions. But his true, red-eyed gaze never strayed from me. "If you really hated weakness, you probably could have destroyed me back when we first met," I pointed out. "But, you didn't." "I tolerate you for tactical purposes," he growled. "In all other cases, it is a sin." A jagged ramp made from his dark crystal lifted him up and closer. Behind me, my tail went to work whipping a single spot in rapid-succession. Just when it looked like his fangs were about to bite my face off, I felt a crystal tower rocket me up from underneath. He ended up doing a face-plant against the side of the tower. Before the tower rose another inch, I hopped off. I slammed all four of my hooves against his back, pressing him against the floor. I wrapped my tail around his neck and slowly held him over to look me in the eye. He strained to chuckle. "Hurry up and finish me. It's what I deserve." Instead of granting his request, I promptly dropped him on his tush. He coughed a bit before breathing normally. He stared at me in disappointment. I ran a hoof through my slightly material mane. "Considering you're one of the only two ways I can recover the Nightmare's missing fragments, it'd be really stupid to get rid of you now. You've proven useful, regardless of your inevitable alignment." He raised a brow. "Two ways?" "Well, I tried using my tail without you, but that forced me into a deep sleep while Reflect Sun took charge." I waved my tail dismissively. "I'd rather not try my luck with that way again. The second way is to keep relying on you, since you seem to know how to filter the fragments properly." He raised his head and laughed deeply. "At least you are a smart weakling." --- The darkness was meant to be an opposition to light. Naturally, it would make sense if it had similar shapes to the well-lit world but with a different color. Yet while I was hiding in the shadows, sprinting from shade to shade, the biggest thing on my mind was how un-pony-like that Posh looked right now. With all of the tendrils threatening to reach for my throat every time I risked returning to a corporeal form, I could have easily mistaken her for an octopus. "You use me... yet you understand so little." In the second dimension, I darted from shadow to shadow. I had to make a physical strike somewhere. I couldn't do so by staying in my Shadowride and Shadow Sprint alone. But those tendrils of hers were making it very difficult to find an opening. "You cannot run from shadows. They are everywhere." Her heavy breathing between her sentences wasn't making concentration any easier. How was I supposed to overcome an enemy with no blind spots yet was still able to strike me? What was her weakness in this place? ... I mentally gulped as I started putting together a small plan of actions. It seemed too cruel, and it would hurt me a lot more than it hurt her. I sighed as I leaped out of the shadow. "Haaaugh!" I slammed a lightning punch against the nearest tendril. It shook and contorted before sinking down limply. I flapped my wings furiously, going for her yellow eyes. That's when I felt six other tendrils wrap around my torso all at once. The seventh held my throat in a choke hold. I felt my neck snap as my mane flowed against the tendrils. "What? Aaaaaaaah!" After taking a second to figure out the new synapses, I pushed the old consciousness into the broken pony in my tendrils' grasp. Then, I slowly willed the dark limbs to gather into my center of gravity. It took a while, but I managed to re-shape myself into the pony I was supposed to look like. Posh's yellow eyes blinked in her snapped neck as she closed her mouth. "How did you...?" "Overshadow." I cracked the solidifying bones in my body into place. "I don't use it much anymore, so it took me a while to remember that I had it." "Then... your lightning punch was...?" I chuckled while I flapped the feeling of pins and needles out of my wings. "What can I say? Spectrum makes a pretty good distraction." Despite that her face was upside-down, I could still see a faint smile. "Perhaps you understand more than I thought... Master." --- A path ahead was marked with a pattern of stones. Each stone was a hexagon that led to the next. I decided to walk along the path and get some air. It was kind of surreal. Heck, the sun shining above was mostly covered by a black circle. After trotting for a few minutes, a figure came into view. She stood in the middle of a fork in the hexagonal path. Her orange, slit eyes opened up and stared at me. I stopped moving just a few steps away from the split. "Do I need to combat your powers too?" I hazarded a guess. "No." Reflect Sun shook her head. "I just have something to ask you." "Really? That's kind of a nice change of pace." I folded my wings. "What's on your mind?" "How is Faith Shield doing?" I raised my brow at that. I had half-expected her to ask some deep philosophical question like the meaning of life, existence, and the universe. The sly remark of forty-two was besides the point. Why did she want to know about that pony's name in particular? "Last I checked, he was doing fine," I answered honestly. "Did you notice something happen to him that I didn't see?" Reflect closed her eyes. "He has had a crush on you ever since the vacation to Manehattan." I tilted my head. "Are you for real?" She opened her eyes and stared directly at me. "Do I look like I'm joking?" I sighed. "Well, I'm flattered that he'd think that way, but I can't accept it." "Oh? And why is that?" "I don't feel that way about him." I gently wave a hoof off to the side. "He's a nice guy, but I'm just not interested in romance." ... "Hmph. I suppose I should've expected your straightforwardness. I did read a good portion of your mind while I was in charge that one time. These words you've spoken are exactly the same as what I recall." I scratched the back of my neck. "I gotta say, I wasn't expecting a left-field question from you of all people, er... ponies." "Then maybe this will be a more suitable question: What do you expect to find at the end of your fragment-gathering adventure?" I lowered my hoof. "What do you mean?" "It's true that leaving loose pieces of the Nightmare to roam free can cause severe damage. But, who is to say that gathering all of the Nightmare into yourself is the best solution? What if you become too powerful for your own good?" I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled. I needed a moment to gather my thoughts together and say this properly. There was no guarantee that I would be right or wrong. It was just satisficing, deciding with limited facts rather than all of the knowledge. "Well then, I'll be counting on Equestria to send forth heroes that can properly deal with me." Reflect Sun's visible form started to fade. "If only everypony else could think as simply as you do..." I blinked several times. I felt the various Nightmare after-images as my various parts. Reflect Sun was in my right eye. Posh was in my mane. The tail demon was in my... tail. Spectrum was in my right hoof. The rest sat contentedly in my subconscious mind. I looked down, and another path of hexagons separated itself from the left and right paths. I shook my head. "Nah. If everyone thought like me, it would be a pretty boring world." ---{Third-Person Narrator} Shier the Nightmare Moon, with her orange and turquoise eyes; black mane; red tail; and green, purple, and orange front-right horseshoe, trotted down the middle road. Her midnight blue chest plate and orange-white helmet glistened in the dream's eclipsed light. The blue metal tips on her feathers chimed against each other as a distant wind blew from ever so far ahead. ---