Steel Wall looked up at the full moon hanging high above the city of Canteralot, lighting it up in a haunting glow.
The night is glorious Thought Nightmare Moon. And soon’ it will be eternal.
It had been over two moons since her last talk with Twinstar in the library and she let slip the existence of the underground vaults, hidden deep under the castle. And oh my, had she been busy.
It had taken her time but she now believed she had found the entrance to the vaults. The location was a lone wooden door, halfway down one of the many corridors on the ground floor.
She would have paid the unmarked door no real attention if it were not for the sight of two of Luna’s night guards entering one evening.
After hanging about for few moments at a safe distance, she watched two other guards exit. These two were from the 1st company’ Celestia’s Own. It was clearly a change of guard, but for ponies from two companies of such prestige being used, there had to be something important behind that door.
Let's see what your hiding’ Celestia.
Steel wall continued on with his patrol, his headlamp shining brightly.
He had ‘Volunteered’ for night duty several days ago after one of Luna’s guards was given extended leave for his honeymoon.
Nightmare Moon was in her element, her kin’s magic was always at its strongest in the dark. She guided her host out of the courtyard from where she had been bathing in the moonlight and into the corridor on which her target door lay. Here, she was away from the prying eyes of the ponies stationed on the battlements.
Her host’s eyes darted from side to side covering each and every avenue, as she moved Steel Wall in front of the door.
The door had no lock, so Steel Wall slowly opened it. To her annoyance, it loudly creaked. Luckily for her, there were no guards directly behind the door. Instead was a spiral staircase that descended deep beneath the castle.
And what have we here? She giggled inside.
At the bottom of the spiral stairs was a short corridor, leading to gleaming metal door. Here, two of Luna’s guards stood sentry. One unicorn mare and one pegasus stallion, both in deep purple armour and brandishing spears. Both on alert when they heard the door high above them open. Hoof steps echoed down the staircase’ slowly yet methodically towards them.
The two donned a defence pose, their spears and headlamps pointing in the direction of the stairs.
“HALT! Who goes there, friend or foe?” The stallion bellowed.
“Friend,” came Steel Wall’s reply, his voice laced with pain.
The two guards glanced at each other.
“Advance and be recognised!” The mare ordered.
Steel Wall slowly hobbled into the light, continuously learning against the smooth stone wall with blood oozing from a gash from his right shoulder.
“Steel Wall!?!” The mare called out. “What happened?”
“We’re under attack…” He replied, breathing heavily.
The two darted over to Steel Wall. The unicorn mare knelt down beside him and began using her magic to heal his rounds, whilst the stallion covered them.
“Do you know who’s attacking us?” The stallion asked.
“Yes,” -Steel Wall’s voice changed between words- “Me.”
Before either of them could react, Steel Wall brought his right hoof up and slammed it into the back of the unicorn’s head, ramming the mare headfirst into the stone wall. With his partner taken out, the pegasus tried to bring his weapon to bear on Steel Wall but his attacker swung his right hoof back and swatted the spear down the corridor. Before the pegasus could do anything else, Steel Wall violently thrust his left into his gut, forcing the air from his lungs. Now winded, the stallion collapsed to his knees, trying to recover his breath. Steel Wall raised his right hoof and brought it slamming down into the side of the guards head, and he went down too.
“The Night Guards,” Nightmare Moon said openly, now that no-pony could hear her voice. “You pathetic fools deserve not this title.”
She had come to the conclusion that the spell that she used on the librarian, may not have worked on these trained guards, not in her current form, not in her current host.
“Now what have we here?”
She guided her host over to the vault and stood silently examining it. For a vault door, it was somewhat underwhelming. It was simply a large slab of metal, a rare kind that Nightmare Moon was not familiar with. It had no decorations, no handles, and strangely no locks. The only features to be seen on it were a couple of rows of rivets along its length and an addition strip of metal at its base.
Steel wall placed a hoof on the door and pushed against it. Even with the stallion’s strength, the vault door did not budge at all.
Nightmare Moon extended her presence into the door, expecting to be repelled instantly by a protective spell but was not. She expected to find a complicated magics keeping the vault shut but they were strangely absent.
She got Steel wall to push against the door again with the same result as before. Nightmare Moon for a moment was stumped.
She continued to stare at the door until she noticed the other thing absent from it, a door frame.
Nightmare Moon had Steel Wall feel the edges of the door, she could feel minor recesses in the stone wall. “Surely not.”
Steel Wall grasped the vault door as well as he was able to and then pushed again, this time towards the side and not straight back.
Slowly and with ear piercing scrapping noise,’ the vault door opened. Sliding sideways into a hidden recess behind the wall.
“After a miscreant manages to get their way down here, they would be expecting magical spells and seals to break down,” Nightmare smirked. “And then find themselves flummoxed by a door that slides open rather then swings, you cunning old fox Celestia.”
The door was now open just wide enough for the stallion host to squeeze through.
The inside of the vault was enormous. Multiple caverns lit by glowing crystals and separated by large marble pillars supporting the roof of smooth rock. Nightmare Moon’s eye shined through Steel Wall’s. The amount of knowledge contained here made the Princess Collection at the Canterlot Library, look insignificant. Rows upon rows of shelves containing hundreds of books, scrolls and manuscripts, along with multiple pedestals housing many unusual items.
Focus now’ Nightmare She told herself. You don’t have long until the guards wake up.
She moved her host to the nearest rows in the first cavern, which contained many law documents and treaties with foreign lands. She moved on quickly to the second cavern which contained more of the same, so did the third and fourth.
It was in the sixth cavern that Nightmare Moon finally found what she sought. Sitting under a glass case, the Alicorn Amulet sat proudly on its own pedestal.
“Here you are,” She purred.
Steel wall lifted the glass screen back enough for the amulet to be taken, before lowering the glass case. Now in her host’s hooves, she studied the amulet with a keen eye, examining ever detail. It looks real enough She thought. Only one way to know for sure.
After taking a seat on the cold stone floor, Steel Wall fitted the amulet on himself, around the base of his neck.
Immediately, Nightmare Moon could feel a vast increase of magic, and of the dark kind. One that could easily corrupt the minds of a lesser mortal but not her. For she was a Nightmare, a creature of darkness.
“Oh, how I have missed this power,” Nightmare giggled in her own voice. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
She had her host stand up and examined his reflection it the glass he had just handled. The amulet was just visible above his armour, where it connected at the front. The uniform partly hid the amulet and the part that was visible could easily be mistaken for the armour.
Satisfied, she now had him making his way back to the vaults door, it was time to leave.
Squeezing himself back through the door, Nightmare Moon suddenly became aware of a new pony in the corridor where she had left the two knocked out guards. A magenta unicorn was waiting patiently for her.
“Dr Twinstar,” Nightmare said, continuing to use her voice. “Sorry. Former’ Dr Twinstar.”
Twinstar glared daggers at the grinning stallion. The rumours Nightmare Moon has conveyed to her in the library with true, she did not last the week before she was stripped of the title and position in Canterlot’s research department, by Celestia herself. It was humiliating enough, without this condescending demon.
“Do not mock me, Nightmare Moon. You do not have the luxury of time.”
“Oh come now, Twinstar. Don’t be such sour mare.”
She turned Steel Wall to the task of sliding the vault door closed again. The stallion barely had it in his grasp, when Twinstar’s magic enveloped the door and slammed it shut so vigorously, that Nightmare was convinced that it had woken up all of Canterlot, as the noise reverberated off all surfaces.
For a moment neither of them did anything, both of them expected the castle guards to come rushing down to them but the only one who appeared to hear it was the unicorn mare, slowly coming to on the floor.
“Why are you here, Twinstar?” Nightmare Moon asked, mildly annoyed. “Surely you didn’t come here alone to stop me?”
She looked past Twinstar, double checking that she was alone.
“What hit me?” The unicorn guard groaned’ her senses returning.
She was ignored, the other two more interested in each other.
“I’m not here to stop you,” Twinstar answered calmly. “I’m here to help you.”
“Help me?” -Nightmare Moon raised an eyebrow- “Why would you help me?”
“I have faithful served Celestia for over twenty years, every major project, every time they needed a pony to do something that no other pony wanted to do. I was there,” -She locked eyes with Nightmare’s- “Ever time she needed a pony to do a body count, every time there was a pandemic. I was always first to volunteer.”
She stomped her hoof down at the end of her sentence, drawing the attention of the guard on the ground. The unicorn guard had sat upright between them, rubbing her head whilst groaning.
“But after all does years, I got almost no recognition for my service, watching her appoint others over me continually. And whenever I take the initiative, she and those over shortsighted fools come down on me like a tonne of bricks. Hence, where I am now.”
“D..Dr. Twinstar?” The guard stuttered’ head still spinning. “What are you doing here?”
“There is only one thing I truly care about in this world, Equestria. And while yes Celestia has brought prosperity to the land, there are now so many threats to it and from so many angles, that I no longer believe she can protect it but I believe you however, can,” -She bent down on one knee- “I pledge my loyalty’ and my service to you, Nightmare Moon.”
The guard's ears perked up upon the mentioning of Nightmare Moon’s name. Wide-eyed, she spun her head around to face Steel Wall, who stood over her. Bearing the terrible indigo eyes of legend.
She immediately threw herself at the nearest spear, lying on the floor beside her, but it was already too late. Twinstar had wrenched both of them out of her reach with her magic. The mare then panicked and tried desperately to wake her comrade.
“Why should I accept you into my service, Twinstar,” Nightmare asked’ bemused by her impertinence.
“Cause you need me,” She replied, taking her eyes off the guard. “If you were ready to take over then you would have done so by now. If all you needed was the amulet, you would have swatted me aside and attacked the princesses, yet you have not. Your not ready and I can help.”
Nightmare Moon kept her her face natural, quietly delighting the guard's anguish.
How should I handle this Nightmare pondered. It is true that it is still not the time to seize control, many things still had to be done. However, this could be advantageous.
She allowed a grin to form on her host’s face.
“I welcome you into my service, Twinstar,” -She then turned his gaze to the guards on the floor- “Now then, what do I do these two?”
The unicorn guard had just got her stallion counterpart to wake up. Both looked up to see Steel Wall tower over them, both locked eyes with his terrible eyes, as they started pulsing indigo rings into theirs. Soon, their lives would belong to Nightmare Moon.