The Bridge: A Godzilla-MLP Crossover

by Tarbtano

Chapter 55: Hooves to Hearts (Special)

"And that's the sum of it. The second pack of Kaiju opted to remain where they were and Princess Twilight vouched for them. The new Bearers of the second batch of Elements will manage well with Sunset maintaining a line to Celestia should the need arise. The sirens chose to remain in the human realm, though they might visit eventually," Princess Luna said with her face increasingly becoming deadpanned, her brow lowered and ears drooping, "Looks like I might have to see Maui soon to set that up."

"You left out a few details, like what happened to me and a certain big help," The familiar voice of Celestia teased lightly as the second celestial alicorn paced up to her sister. In the twilight of the coming night, they were otherwise alone in the peaceful glade by the pond, "Or is that because you're just upset you didn't get to see me as a teenager again?"

"Oh I saw you as a teenager alright, I remember the mood swings! Though-" Luna jeered before grabbing her sibling's cheeks and smushing them lightly, "I do admit to wishing I could have seen you as the short one. You would’ve wooked so pwecious!"

Celestia, face smushed in with her cheeks pushing against her eyes, just went with it and continued on like nothing happened, “The tickets you were waiting for.”

She levitated up two relatively mundane looking, tear-off tickets that were floated over to be offered, “I ensured I got them through several trusted couriers so there is nothing for snooping paparazzi to trace back and find out you will be in attendance.”

Celestia winked through her rounded cheeks, “Neither of you two will have to focus on anypony else but each other.”

Princess Luna’s face started to feel a little bit warm and her ears flopped. She rolled her eyes up into the side and chuckled a few times, “Hahaeeh, sister you jest, and I haven’t the slightest idea wh-”

Celestia hadn’t noticed it. Frankly Luna wouldn’t have either had she not been paying attention and just happened to have it in line of sight when she raised her hooves up. Across her blue fur, a black splotch of hair was visible on the inside of her left forelimb. The alicorn’s pulse spiked as her fur bristled slightly. Luna quickly snatched the tickets away and whirled around, putting her back to her sibling.

“-at you are talking about!” She blurted out, needing a moment to remember what she was saying, “I-I gotta go see to Starlight for thenightplansbye!”

“Luna?! Are you o-“ Celestia’s concerned words were interrupted by a flash of blue magic, making the night alicorn vanish in a blip of teleportation. Off in the distance Celestia could see the same blip a few dozen meters over the castle, “-kay?”

Luna, now visible only as a speck of blue in the dimming sunlight, seemed to spaz and fly erratically for a moment. She looped down and seemed to swoop and catch something, likely having dropped the tickets in her panic and having to recapture them before flying into the castle. The fact she couldn’t manage to teleport inside the castle itself and was acting so erratic left a twinge of concern plucking at her sister’s heart strings.

“You don’t think I’m forcing this, do you?” Celestia muttered to the only other presence in the glade, “She’s not saying anything but something is clearly making her nervous. I’m not sure if that is the only thing.”

She sighed, taking a seat by the pond before gently patting the aged stone she herself placed down. Looking out onto the pond as the moon finally rose to take the Sun’s place, Princess Celestia shrugged her shoulders and cast her best wishes for luck. There was no counsel offered directly, but she at least could put her hopes in the feeling the twinkling of certain stars gave her from a constellation resembling a hatted unicorn. In the mind’s eye, it was a good reassurance.

She smiled at Starswirl's grave, “Yes, I suppose he would be the best company for her if she needed it for any particular reason.”

==========

“And if you come upon any doors?” Chibi Moon chirped as she trotted alongside her mentor.

A truly ancient looking book titled ‘Etiquette, 1^st edition, 10 After Founding” which was even bigger than she was, hovered before her with levitating magic.

“It’s an outdoor establishment Chibi, I doubt they have many doors. And you’re going overboard,” Godzilla Junior, not in his guard attire for a rare occasion, said as he walked with a somewhat slowed pace. After all it took all of one step for him for every six from her and she had insisted on not hitching a ride on his back or head so as to not muss up his hair.

“I fished out this musty old book, you gotta fish out an answer!” Chibi whined as they approached one of the side entrances for the castle grounds proper.

Junior gave his answer by opening the door for the filly.

“Oh thank yo-“ Chibi, who’d happily trotted in without realizing he just silently answered her question, stuck her ears up and narrowed her eyes slightly, “Very funny, Sensei.”

“That means he was paying attention,” A new voice joined in on the discussion with a swoosh of air accompanying it.

A dark furred, orange-maned alicorn unlike any in Equestria had ever seen before, landed next to her cohort. The latest jaunt into the human alternate realm had resulted in more than a few surprises. And, thankfully fewer in number, complications upon returning. Lea still came back out a changeling, still came back out in perfect health. But she still came back out a Battra instead of a Mothra, with all the adjustments to certain powers and abilities that came with that. Changeling magic, rudimentary as it was, still worked right especially after a meeting with Captain Frost regarding something that Lea still wasn’t quite sure about.

It was something she intended to find out more of tonight after obliging another request once she caught wind of what was planned.

“You sure about this? With what happened and all-“ Junior was shooshed by Lea putting her hoof to his muzzle.

“Ahpapap! This is your special night, you don’t get to worry about anybody except you and her,” Battra Lea huffed whilst tilting her muzzle up, “My magic being a bit fritzy just means I’m rediscovering it alongside Twilight and the Shobijin. What better time for this bright young star-“

“Moon!” Chibi chirped affirmatively, wagging her tail.

“-Moon, to further develop her craft than to learn some Terran magic alongside a fellow teacher-pupil?” Lea keened, “Besides, we were already going to be here as I wanted to inquire to the good Captain about some of these ‘wards’ she has. I wasn’t expecting a changeling expert when you described her to me.”

“Captain Frost took the changeling incident at her friends’, Prince Consort and Empress Cadenza’s wedding seriously,” Junior shrugged before pausing at Chibi and Lea both stifling a laugh.

“… What did I say?”

“Those-srk titles,” Lea snickered, “Twilight told me about Cadance’s reactions to them.”

Junior only shrugged, “And I last got word from my brother on the subject of a Princess ruling an Empire and that’s what he told me they were called now!.... Just promise me you’re not going to teach Chibi how to summon dead spirits or explode more things than she already does.”

“Hey!” A little voice whined.

Lea ruffled Chibi’s pigtails, “I promise no such thing, even if Battra magic is a bit more on the destructive side.”

Godzilla deadpanned as he started to walk into the castle alone, “Great…”

“Remember Sensei, if she bats her eyes at you twice in a row that’s a cue to kiss her hoof! Or if you’re bold, the cheek!” Chibi chirped after him, waving eagerly, “Worked for my folks!”

A twist of emotions writhed inside the monster king as his nerves tightened up. He turned to say something as the doors closed behind him, but whatever it was stopped in his throat. He wasn’t frowning when he was left alone in a hall, and there was plenty he was happy about. But he just wasn’t sure on how to think of some things.

=================

“And have you changed the lavender flowers to ensure all can rest peacefully-” Princess Luna promptly walked back over her own words with the tact of literally stomping on them, “Remember not to have too much or the night shift guards will get drowsy and-”

“I know I know,” A teal green-hued magic gently lifted and put the line of lavender flowers upon their hangers, lightly tugging on the line to ensure they were strung up good and well. A single petal fell loose from the assortment and fell upon the blue alicorn’s nose.

The teal colored telekinetic magic casually picked it up and nestled it back into the mass, Luna taking her focus off the flowers to look upon her company.

Starlight Glimmer lowered her ears a bit sheepishly as she put another assortment up, “Only keep these things up for about four hours before changing them for the mint to help keep the night staff awake. You drilled me on this three times tonight already, remember Princess?”

Three times tonight and who knew how many occasions prior. There had been plenty of growing pains along their venture so far and no doubt plenty more down the road, but Starlight and Luna had found their new roles as pupil and mentor reasonably naturally. Well, as natural as one could call deferring to Twilight Sparkle and Celestia almost every other day, but to call them both new at this would be a hilarious understatement…

======

“And remember, the mind is often its own most cunning opposition. Even a dream as peaceful as this might,” Princess Luna, standing in a dreamscape that looked like a completely innocuous field full of flowers surrounded by fluttering butterflies, paused as she glanced over at her pupil.

Starlight Glimmer, having only recently gotten used to being nocturnal, still had bags under her eyes even in the dream world on account of being just that level of bone-tired. She looked half her size, contently curled up under the mattress of butterflies that had flown underneath her and lifted her off the ground. The unicorn didn’t even question it and was out like a light, managing to sleep inside of a dream.

“-be a danger-WAKE UP!” Princess Luna accidentally let out the Royal Canterlot Voice a bit too close and proceeded to blast Starlight and the butterflies several meters away. Asleep in their bed, a very entomophobic stallion groaned and twitched in his rest, pawing at his ear like someone just shouted in it.

“Arwk what-the-huah?!” Starlight jarred awake with an intense ringing in her ears and spiraling end over end. She flailed and tried to figure out what was going on, but her glimpses of Princess Luna offered no sense of calm. Especially when said alicorn seemed to charge up her magic and rush in her direction, eyes white and horn blazing.

Just when Starlight was about to speculate if her teacher was about to kick her flank into next week, she came aware of two things. The first was she was still deafened by the sudden shout and couldn’t tell what Luna was frantically yelling at her about. The second was the mass of butterflies she’d been so pleasantly sleeping on had started collecting together into a single mass. The horde of once such cute looking, innocuous insects turned into a gaping maw that lunged for her as if to swallow the apprentice mage up.

Somewhere far, far away, the bug-fearing stallion reacted to what followed by launching himself out of bed so quickly he hit his own ceiling face-first, and promptly passed out before he fell back onto his bedsheets.

Future dream walking sessions were postponed unless a minimum of 4 hours rest interval was made prior.

====

That was about three weeks ago. Currently, Starlight was managing the dream walking with a power nap prior and it had only gone sideways twice!

“Besiiides, I got the flowers arranged very effectively before!” Starlight beamed with a wide grin.

Princess Luna lowered her brow slightly and tapped the unicorn’s horn with an outstretched wing, “And, dear student, if you meant your effectiveness breached into an overreach then you would be quite accurate. Do remember that the only spells you should be using on the lavender are basic levitation to get them in place for proper circulation.”

The alicorn leaned in closer with perked eyes, “Moderation was an important lesson we took pains to remember in our instruction, did we not?”

Starlight awkwardly chuckled as she rubbed the back of her head.

=======

Princess Luna used to rely on one of two ways to get herself up in the evening at the proper time, after nodding off for her afternoon rest following talks and breakfast with Celesta. Either her sister herself would come to greet her, or she would make use of one of her most favored modern inventions in the form of an alarm clock. Such a favorable upgrade from the classic sundials and unreliable spells! She’d half considered at one point asking if she and her sister could retroactively sanctify the inventor.

But that was before her current bodyguard employee came about. Entry into her chambers was reserved for only a few castle staff but she had come to enjoy one in particular summoning her from rest. The fact Junior was quite the insomniac certainly helped.

Which made her all the more confused when the clock clearly showed it was 8:30, her favorite pillow was missing after her head dropped onto an empty mattress, and her personal guard was nowhere to be found. She’d later find out Celestia had been bone tired after a particularly arduous day and had gone to sleep early in confidence that Luna would take over shortly. The night alicorn instead found the halls quiet despite the brightness, save for one frantic voice.

“UP UP UP! Oh no- nooo nonono- you gotta wake up!” If those words hadn’t been spoken with as much awkwardness in the frantic tone as there was, somepony might mistake it for a completely different context.

Instead, the context Princess Luna walked in on was piles and piles of bodies in the main hall with Starlight Glimmer as the only one left standing. Sleeping bodies. Often snoring bodies. Guards, waitstaff, scribes, a few visiting politicians or petitioners who didn’t mind the nocturnal hours; and one particularly large abnormal unicorn whom Starlight, wearing a filtering medical mask, was holding the face of as she tried to shake him awake.

The hanging rows of lavender directly above the apprentice mage were glimmering with an odd type of magic, one that carried even when they fell to the ground and were scattered about the whole floor. Even just catching a faint whiff of it was starting to make Luna drowsy again.

“What happened here? Is everypony okay?” A voice echoed from down the halls. Luna turned her head to spot one of her and Celestia’s aides, a dark-maned, pale-bodied unicorn named Raven Inkwell; trotting into the hall. She passed underneath one of the hanging masses of oddly glowing lavender and instantly started slowing down when a falling petal passed over her nose.

Starlight Glimmer’s ears shot up and she tried to call out fast enough to no avail, “NO NO NO! Don’t come in here!”

“I thought I heard something drop and every-..is...on… the…. groooouun-oooooof,” Her eyes rolled back and her lids closed, the mare losing all awareness and flopping towards the floor. She would have hit it had Starlight’s magic not caught her.

A pillow that looked like it came from one of the various staff room couches poofed into existence underneath her and soon the sleeping Raven was contently snuggling into it in a slumber. Starlight awkwardly laughed to herself, like she was suppressing a full on panic whilst refocusing on the sleeping face of Godzilla in her hooves.

“Ooooh wow I didn’t expect it to be that strong! Maybe you all need to catch back up on your sleep hours eheh-eheh-eeeeeh….” Starlight got no response, only the sleeping visage of Godzilla who sported a slight smile on his lips like he was recalling something pleasant. Starlight Glimmer’s flattened expression was visible even through her mask, “… WakeUpWakeUpWakeUpWakeUp!-“

She started shaking his head up and down before a shouting roar called out over the halls.

“STARLIGHT AURORA GLIMMER!”

Starlight’s eyes went wide as saucers and she dropped Godzilla’s face before a wave of magic pushed across the room, casting back and containing the potent enchantment placed upon lavender flowers of all things to bottle it up in a containment field. A vase was overturned, dumping its contents on the floor before the enchantment and the flowers were literally bottled up inside of it. Instantly almost everypony in the room started to groggily rise to awareness. The giant unicorn stallion next to Starlight mouthing at the air slightly like he was chewing on something before spitting out a large, chewed up wad of enchanted lavender.

“Bleck, sorry Starlight... flavor isn’t bad, but something is,” Junior paused from resuming the last conversation he remembered having, as he looked around the room to see way more ponies than he remembered being around when he remembered last, “… Did I black out? Why does it look like everyone decided to nest in here at once?”

“You did fall asleep actually, you took a really big bite out of-“ Starlight Glimmer was levitating up one of the strands of lavender petals, which had an almost comically large gap in them matching an oversized bite mark, when she paused and stilled when her tail and hair hung downwards. The unicorn was raised up by telekinesis before she was entirely encircled in a dim blue aura.

Magically lifted off her hooves and levitated over to her mentor, Starlight blinked. Luna was still groggy from the off-sleep hours and lavender, leaving her to flip her protégé over on accident but just rolled with it. Starlight scrunched her nose and chewed on her lips when she was turned upside down and held belly up.

“You enchanted the lavender to dramatically increase its relaxing effect, didn’t you?” Luna grumbled.

“In my defense,” Starlight held up a hoof whilst still looking like she was trying to retract her neck into her shoulders, “… I wasn’t expecting it to be that strong nor was I expecting him to eat it.”

“What.. happened? Ooooouh,” Mayor Mare of Ponyville moaned as she got up groggily, “I-I heard someone collapse and came running but then I…oh? Where’d this come from?”

She pulled out a pillow which had been sent underneath her chin. Starlight Glimmer waved sheepishly, only to catch a look from Luna.

“… What?! After Godzilla was down, folks came running and started dropping as soon as the lavender fumes or petals hit them!” Starlight glanced aside at the random menagerie of pillows that had been scattered around to cushion everyone who had passed out.

The pillows seemed to be from every kind of room imaginable, from the ornate, to those one would expect on the couch, one Luna recognized as her own and solving that mystery, to frilly pink-laced cushions that look like they came out of a child’s room. The latter was picked up by Junior after Mayor Mare had offered it.

“I think this is Chibi’s…” He gave Starlight a side-eye, “What is it doing here?”

Starlight held her forelimbs up, or rather down given she was upside down whilst being suspended in the air, “I had to get pillows quick as everypony just kept running in here like a pack of lemmings and I didn’t have any time to stop it! Soooo I just ran a teleportation spell through a search-for-items scrying enchantment to grab as many pillows as fast as I could!...”

Luna’s forehead was acquainted with the bottom of her own hoof, “You… Ran two top level spells together, to pilfer pillows… Because you accidentally turned the main hall into a slumber party.”

“Hey they kept running in, I kept telling them to stop!”

“…………..”

“………..” Starlight’s ears flopped down, or rather hung straight up in comparison to her head, “… I uh.. I can use a different spell to-“

She was going to offer a way to mass transport all the pillows back to where they belonged, or at least try, given there was a decent chance of things getting mixed up, in an honest bid to fix her mistakes. Virtually every single occupant in the room shouted out “NO!” Too fast for her to get the full sentence out.

The lesson that night was spent learning the streets and layout of the capital city as she went about returning every single pillow by hoof before burning all of the hexed lavender in a safe area. Hearsay still persisted that seemingly everypony that night slept very soundly for some reason they didn’t know.

Needless to say, remarking that there had been some teething problems involved in Luna taking a teaching for the first time and Starlight having an actually-present-and-upstanding mentor for a change. The protégé of the night-diarch certainly always meant well and did learn from past mistakes, requiring little to no prompting from Luna to fix her errors and that is both good of her merit. It was just the stubborn knee-jerk reaction to jump to spells that often-entailed way more than she should remotely consider in the situations called for that needed some ironing out.

Which was why Starlight was, by her own volition, wearing a suppressor ring that restricted her to just telekinesis for the moment. Luna frankly didn’t like it, but with how her mentor was in the lead up to this night Starlight had wanted to take the action as a sign of good faith and hopefully peace of mind. She already promised its disposal the moment she stepped out of the castle grounds to attend to other duties later in the night.

And speaking of her mentor however, Starlight was well privy to the subtle tremors going up and down her wings.

“Still nervous?” The unicorn said with a perked brow.

“No,” Luna grunted before a brief moment of silence passed and her eyes briefly darted aside before looking out the window and addressing the pupil who had become one of her closer friends these past months, “… Yes… I am.. uncertain this will be enjoyable.”

“Well I know it’s been a long time since you were young,” Starlight didn’t notice the mildly pointed look on Luna’s reflection and the accompanying quiet grunt that came from the alicorn being all but directly called ‘old’, “But these sort of events are meant to be kind of like what you grew up with. So do you think you’re not going to have a good time?”

The unspoken ‘event’ in question was on the brain and Luna recalled those simple, fondly remembered times. Running amongst stands with Celestia, playfully hiding from Hurricane and Starswirl whilst Smart Cookie pretended not to notice them whilst slipping confectioneries under the booth they were hiding in, and partaking in all manner of childish pursuits amongst the premises. Even centuries later it made her chest warm and wings wiggle from nostalgia.

“That is-“

“-Definitely not in question,” A third voice joined the discussion as Captain Blueberry Frost paced upwards, her voice mildly muffled by the filtered medical mask before eying the lavender, “Not that ah' wouldn’t mind to shut-eye, but ye' sure ye' got those things handled?”

“Yep! Just plain old flowers,” Starlight chirped, tapping at her horn ring, “As promised.”

“Good thing, now…” The comparatively short Captain of the Guard stood up before Princess Luna with her lance at her side, "Ah' believe ah' was to see ye' off with these?”

Opening a satchel attached to her armor, Captain Frost allowed Luna to retrieve two small bands of metal. Starlight Glimmer perked up and leaned in closer to have a look, noticing how the metalworking looked similar to some of the pieces of the captain’s lance, which actually seemed to be missing the exact parts.

“What are those for?” She said, ears tilting up and about.

Captain Frost glanced at Luna before sniggering, “Consider it a ’final exam question.”

“Exam?” Starlight’s eyes widened, “There’s an exam? I knew there were tests involved, but I thought we were talking in the metaphorical sense when I became Princess Luna’s pupil! If there’s an exam involved, I gotta study up right? I-I gotta focus! I gotta prepare and-“

Captain Frost partially shoved her hoof against Starlight’s muzzle to shoosh her, brow lowered and a deadpan in her tone, “Stop razzling ye’self kid, Ah’ was pulling your tail.”

“Starlight, you have done commendably so far tonight and I have full faith that you will continue to do so. Relax,” Princess Luna rolled her eyes and smiled, “I’ll show you what these are for by morning.”

Starlight Glimmer felt her pulse slow back down and she managed a deep breath to control it further. With how many errors she had made in the past and was trying to hold herself accountable to, there was very much a lingering fear of being cut off from what she saw as a path to redemption. And, if her past blunders during her tutelage as Luna’s protégé had shown, she was prone to some overreactions still.

“Well then, I shall leave you to it as you leave other duties to me!" Starlight chirped as she bowed to her mentor, “You can count on me Princess!”

With a brief pause as she remained in place, eyes closed, Luna caught a glance by Captain Frost nodding towards the unicorn. The earth pony mouthed a word and reemphasized her nodding to help Luna catch on.

“Oh… It was never in doubt, faithful student,” Luna parroted Celestia’s example and patted Starlight’s shoulder with a wing, signaling the unicorn to rise and depart after giving the captain of the guard respectful nod as well.

After she left the room, Luna allowed her posture to slump slightly as she sighed in relief and continued to shiver.

“What if this doesn’t work?” She whined quietly, chewing her lip.

Captain Frost snorted and nudged her shoulder with a hoof, “Lulu, I can most definitely assure you that the enchantments work just fine.”

Starlight Glimmer blinked as she exited the room, half wondering if she heard that right.

-Lulu? Who is… Nevermind, must have misheard-

Princess Luna took in a deep breath and slipped the band across her horn. In an instant, the blue alicorn’s form flickered with specks of green magic like tiny embers. She changed in color, in figure, and in size. What appeared in her place was a normal pegasus pony mare, average in height, build, and with a completely usual color scheme of purple fur and yellow hair done up in a bun. Just an average madam who could have easily fit into any business employee listing or school teacher yearbook. Not a floaty magical strand of hair, atypical body patterning, or stature to suggest otherwise.

“Sure nobody will recognize this look?” ‘Luna’ said, briefly pausing upon hearing her own voice and realizing that had also changed, “... It has been a long while since we did this last.”

“Golden Quill, your disguised visage, was a dutiful teacher, but nondescript. I can’t make you a new disguise wholesale,” Frost gave it another once over lookabout to confirm it was holding out as expected, “But this won’t be somepony anypony will notice. Anypony who knew her is gone, I made sure of that.”

‘Luna’ lowered her brow and deadpanned in her tone, “Did you have to say it like that?”

“Yes,” Captain Frost remained stoic and firm-jawed, before snorting and laughing as she was unable to keep up the facade, “Pffftahahaaaaaaaa that sounded much worse than I meant it to be.”

“I just felt like asking because he asked me about a name I didn’t recognize earlier and it sounded familiar.”

“Oh? Which one.”

“Apparently he bumped into the descendant of the human world’s Blueberry Frost, an aged woman named Sugar. He might be catching on,” Luna noted as she continued to check herself over, pausing upon spotting a blemish in her fur near the back. Without wings to cover it anymore, it was all the more obvious.

“My scar?” Luna puzzled, looking at the old wound she’d gotten from Tirek’s horn all those centuries ago still visible along her upper mid-back as a crease between the hairs and raised line of tissue on her skin, “Are the anti-disguising spell wards you set up for changelings dampening the effect of the band?”

“Your band and horn are still invisible, so no. I did that by design,” Frost smiled and put a hoof to the disguised alicorn’s shoulder as she offered her the other band, “A tweak if it were, to keep some of you both shining through. This is your effort tonight for him. Wouldn’t land quite right if you both didn’t have some reminders to help memories tell you who it is before you.”

Luna frowned, less out of regret or sadness of having her blemish so visible and more out of the unassuredness she felt brewing in her gut about so many matters she didn’t know where to start. She patted the scar assuringly and perked up Luna’s dipped chin.

Luna bit her lip and glanced about slightly awkwardly, something she’d never show to all but maybe two souls alive. Three maybe, hopefully, by the end of the night; but being assured on that or not was what was causing her anxiety in the first place.

“You think I should even consider some things? I mean can I even have a normal life, let alone a normal night-” she started, only to be shushed by a hoof to the lip.

“I know you’ll both be happier by the end of this, no matter what the decision is. Trust me, dancing around it only makes it worse,” Captain Frost rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner, “I had to lose a home before realizing what I had. Courting all over again was worth it, but I’d rather you skip that.”

“... Us, both?” Luna perked up an ear.

Captain Blueberry Frost smirked and lowered her eyelids in a cheeky manner, “I keep a very close watch on all of my Guard in more ways than one. This isn’t going to be a revelation, just an icebreaker… now get! Those bands don’t run out of magic at midnight or anything, but that’s no reason to waste time!”

Sensing not a soul nearby, the earth pony mare was scooped up off her hooves by the disguised alicorn in a tight hug; Luna still having her enhanced strength regardless of the disguise. Blueberry Frost blinked twice as a whisper crossed her ears.

“I’ve always had the best fairy godmother.”

The comparatively very short earth mare sighed contentedly and patted her companion’s back, “Have fun at your ball tonight, Lulu.”

==================

A few hours later, Starlight Glimmer was still busily managing the affairs left to her duty with commendable efficiency. Retrieving Luna’s list from her saddlebag, the apprentice mage didn’t fight the small smile of satisfaction she got upon seeing how far she had gotten through the list in only a few hours.

“Lavender scent, mint readied, seal on Starswirl’s lab rechecked, dream walked through the first batch all steadied and did not result in giant butterfly monsters again,” Starlight half muttered to herself before also checking off the small note her mentor had left underneath that part.

“And I did not fall asleep in the dream or use any unnecessary enchantments… check… Up next,” She perked her brow up slightly and chuckled, “Royal mandated tea and snack break to ensure mental efficiency…”

When she first started studying under Luna, it was grueling. Starlight had never had actual formal instruction before and didn’t even realize it at first, thinking it was some kind of atonement or punishment for past misdeeds or that this was simply what teaching would actually be like. The night princess however had gotten some tips from her sister and had been nothing short of doting when time allowed for it. That and making sure mental and physical fitness was maintained helped avoid falling asleep inside a dream and having to fight nightmarish insects again. Twice was bad enough!

Knowing exactly where it would be, the unicorn started trotting out to the gardens and heading for the usual spot. She could already see the tea and snacks, magically sealed to ensure optimal temperature, set out on the table under a night blooming flowery tree. Starlight sighed contently as she approached, admiring the sight.

She was new to instruction and Luna was new to instructing, but she was already appreciating some latent talent for scenery the night diarch had.

It was, however, some of that instruction that caused hairs on the back of her neck to so reflexively rise just as she got to the table.

She could perceive the magic in the air, a method of sensing that the alicorn had been keen to catch her up to speed on for use in dream walking, also had applications in the waking world. It was a kind of nuanced magic she hadn’t gotten out of the brute force dark magic book she’d initially used, but an extremely useful ability, nonetheless. It was almost like a tactile sense now, like how one could pick up changes in temperature or air pressure.

The concerning part however was not at what she was detecting exactly, but rather the lack of detail. It was just… something. Granted she didn’t know everything’s signature even if Luna had run her through quite a lot of scenarios thanks to dream magic, but even then it wasn’t even like she didn’t recognize what she was perceiving. It was like she was sensing something was not right, but couldn’t tell what the outlier element was.

It was just her, some of the latent magic around the castle, one of Captain Frost’s wards she admittedly did not know much about a few dozen meters away, and Luna’s enchantment on the break table behind her. Logically that meant there was nothing wrong and she was just being paranoid.

Starlight wasn’t always everypony’s definition of logical however.

Quickly turning around to look about, the unicorn threw up a force field bubble of magic just as a precaution. She expanded it outwards and grew the barrier by several meters, the force of the magic bending back blades of grass and even pushing humidity in the air away to condense as water droplets across the shield. Privy to her surroundings, she opened up a small gap in the shield to engulf the table and not risk spoiling her mentor’s gift on the chance it was just her being a bit jumpy.

The dome of magic stopped stretching after a few more meters in all directions, Starlight even having the foresight to put the barrier underneath herself as a flat plane to ensure no surprises from underground. At least three experiences with dream walking entailed attacks from that very direction and she had been suitably Pavlov trained into readiness.

Now with an ample defense up, she multitasked and focused more heavily on the detection spell. The spirals of her horn were trailed with a second hue of color, indigo. A thin ray of magic emitted from the top of her horn and trailing down the spiral, creating a revolving curtain of magic that spun around a full 360° several times. Closing her eyes and focusing on the magic, Starlight Glimmer worked to filter out everything perceptible that was expected.

Her own magic. The castle’s various enchantments. The magic of a few night blooming lilies off to the left. Luna’s magic on the tea set. Some traces of a guard or three that had passed within range recently. Captain Frost’s…

-Huh, on closer look what kind of magic is that?-

Starlight Glimmer looked to the small ward she’d been told was a perimeter defense measure, something Frost had designed and crafted. They were disguised differently and the few she had seen looked completely innocuous, just random stones, a lantern or two, a brick set into a wall. Half the time they were completely out of sight and buried, which made sense given making something innocuous often meant making it indistinct and thus nopony would think twice about it being there. One tended not to think too much about what was seemingly supposed to be there.

Still this magic was… odd, now that she was inspecting it closer.

Peeking out a raised eyelid, Starlight began to approach Frost’s creation. In almost any situation, that is what would’ve been causing the straying magic she had been detecting earlier. Against almost any possible threat it would’ve been something that stuck out which was the problem.

This was one of the exceptions.

The tea kettle was full of exactly what one would expect when Princess Luna had left it, it wasn’t after the coast was clear. Something which had been watching and waiting was using it for cover. Something which came spewing out of the fine ceramic and surged forwards towards Starlight Glimmer whilst she was distracted. Starlight tried to reflexively teleport away, but she was just a fraction of a moment too slow because the detection sense she’d so faithfully employed had one weakness. A trait ironically briefly lamented about when she was thinking of Frost’s curiosities.

One tended not to think much about what seemed like it was supposed to be there.

Like the magic of Princess Luna, in the form of a dark and shadowy mass which had used the snack table for cover, swallowing her up.

=================

"Glynn Crownwatch” couldn’t fight her laughter no matter how much she tried to stuff her wrist into her mouth in a desperate attempt to muffle herself. The fairgrounds were exactly as they advertised. Plenty of booths and activities, several aisles worth of stands, some petting zoos and play areas for the children, and a wide variety of shows scheduled. It was all set within a mockup castle courtyard surrounded by quickly assembled walls of stone façade on wooden structure that did a decent job looking the part. Essentially a medieval or Renaissance fair meant to emulate at least some semblance of a picture of life centuries, if not a full millennia, back.

For most of the tourists and townsfolk, it fit the role splendidly and a good time was had by all in earnest. For one however, a seemingly innocuous purple-furred unicorn mare, a good time was still had with the festivities though also for an additional reason. She thought it looked absolutely ridiculous in the most hilarious way possible.

Two shadow puppets that gave the impression of a pegasus colt in armor and an earth pony filly with a wide hat bounced up and down across a stage made to look like a river cutting through the Everfree Forest.

“Foreth thoueth raneth toeth theeth stream my lord my lady! Foreth thouth foundeth Cookie and Hurricane!” The storyteller might have taken some issue with the random mare in the background laughing at their tale and pronunciation, had they not had more than a few bits pushed into their offered hat by the mare and her company.

Taking the good-natured fun as it was, they continued enthralling a completely captivated audience of fillies and colts. Completely butchering the old tongue as they did. Glynn almost wheezed and had to hold in her breath to avoid doubling over in laughter. Her company, a large-bodied but not gigantic earth stallion, patted at her back with a bemused roll of his eyes as if he was trying to coax her to actually remember to breathe.

It took several minutes for her to finally stop busting a gut laughing, and by then they were seated at the edge of the faux courtyard enjoying a split drink.

“Really never gone to one of these before, haven’t you?” Coal Marks, the stallion, hummed whilst letting his compatriot finish refreshing herself and stopping her diaphragm from spasming after all the laughter.

“Not-snrk-Not in a long, long while. Quite literally ages,” Glynn beamed as she adjusted glasses she really didn’t need, “Cel-em, Sunshine and I used to be quite the mischief makers back at the first fairground I can vividly remember.”

She leaned back, nostalgia glazing over her eyes as she took in the sights and sounds. So much of what she was seeing was off in one way or another. The food stands were using wooden planks and barrels to cover up modern appliances they were using instead of having to cook the old-fashioned way, the walls were clearly not actual cobblestone and mortar; and some of the patrons and vendors really getting into the role-play were using absolutely hilariously exaggerated accents and speech patterns to try and get into the role. But, if she squinted, she could just as easily make out Smart Cookie operating the confectionery booth, Commander Hurricane hosting the feats competitions; and a younger version of herself and Celestia getting into all kinds of jests and mischief running around in between and underneath the stalls just like many children were now.

“I suppose the storyteller abridging the history slightly so that Cookie and Hurricane were foalhood friends who got lost in the woods made for a better showing,” The disguised Princess Luna shrugged before perking her ears upwards like she was remembering something, quickly darting her head over to look at her compatriot.

“Y-You’re enjoying the night as well right? This isn’t too intrusive or public? Is your disguise comfortable? We worked on it as hard as we could, but I know that being around the public like this isn’t exactly normal for you and-“ Her increasingly frantic aside was cut off by a candy apple retrieved from a pouch being put into her mouth.

Luna, "Glynn", blinked a few times before looking past the confectionery fruit to see the source of quiet chuckling. Even with the disguise on, a few subtle details still bled through. Body language, tone of voice, the way someone carries themselves. It made Coal recognizable to her as Junior all the same. That nopony so far tonight had recognized them at all despite that they could see each other was subconsciously recognized by both of them.

In public, the citizens saw their night diarch stand tall, punctuate her voice, keep her chest out and wings tight, horn held high, and her eyes always partially closed like she was focusing intently upon something. Only very few had ever seen her slouch, giggle to the point of snorting; or drop the royal decreeing voice. One of the few who had, seated next to her right now, liked that.

“Lulu-… Gly-…” He just dropped the somewhat confusing grasp of disguise names and knee-jerk reactions on what to call someone, and just got to the point, a bit awkwardly shrugging his shoulders whilst tilting his head with a smile on his lips, “… I am very much enjoying myself.”

The stealth alicorn bit into the candy apple a bit more and sheepishly looked him in the eye, feeling her face getting a bit hot and her wings shiver slightly.

"... Thanks, I just... wanted to get us a slice of normality. You know?... Be like them all for a bit without anything to worry about," She muttered before perking up and shivering slightly, "Not that I'm fretting!"

Junior smiled sweetly before leaning back into the seat and enjoying the view of the fairgrounds, lightly patting at the not so small assortment of souvenirs and snacks they had acquired during the first go around. Everything from flags to confectioneries of every sort imaginable which Luna had convinced them to pick up under the logic that what they didn’t eat would be delightful for Celestia, Starlight, and Chibi.

Junior didn’t verbalize the joking dread he had wondering what kind of sugar high his protégé was getting into after just a few of these.

“I only ever got to go to one festival and I don’t remember it very vividly.”

“Oh?” Luna hummed as she leaned in a bit closer and, masked as it was by the disguise spell, Junior could feel her invisible horn glimmering with a bit of excitement-born magic, “And how, pray tell, did that manage to happen? Even when you were small I’d imagine you turned a few heads.”

His altered face smiled with his lips curled in a slightly abnormal manner to make room for fangs that were not visible anymore. His company had long gotten used to it and didn’t mind.

“I had help. It was a childhood friend of mine and one of the security bodyguards assigned to us’ idea,” He looked upwards slightly as he combed through early memories, “Back at the institute, some fall holiday came around with a few similarities to Nightmare Night. You’d have liked it.”

Luna deadpanned and smirked as she lifted her face up to get level with his and shot him a cheeky side-eye, “… They put you in a costume didn’t they?”

Junior returned the sideways glance, “Was the guard, Mr. Gabriel’s idea. Something from a series I don’t know of. Io was dressed in blue overalls with a red cap, and they went through several casings of face paint to make me bright green. I think any humans we passed by assumed I was some elaborate costume and they kept calling me ‘Yoshi’.”

Princess Luna, disguised and unrecognizable to most as she was but Princess Luna all the same, snorted from laughing as hard as she did. The reference was lost on her as well, but the surreal image painted for her mind’s eye was hilarious enough in and of itself. Her laughter proved infectious and soon they were part of the pleasant scenery itself, voices joining the jovial festivities. Any sense of awkwardness or apprehension that Junior knew Luna had taking him somewhere like this was consciously put to rest when they hopped off the respite to go driving back into the fairgrounds.

Junior picked the next event to try out, amidst a stack of large barrels set atop a suitably huge cart a team of pullers was typically needed for.

“Sssstepeth forward to chanceth thy-“ The announcer, whom Junior thought looked a bit familiar with even with his pale coat and red mane not ringing a particular bell, paused briefly to stretch out his tongue after having kept this up for hours at this point.

Luna leaned closer to Junior and whispered into his ear after tracking his line of sight to the announcer, “Does he look familiar to you?”

“I think- is that Fancy Pants?” Junior muttered with a cocked eyebrow, “I think his mane is dyed but I can’t be sure unless I- It’s bad manners to sniff each other amongst your kind, right?”

“Yes it normally is,” Luna whispered back, ignoring a mildly confused glance from a passerby who overheard part of the conversation. She herself wasn’t even phased by the inquiry, “He does look around the right height, but I only met him once at a gala. I would be a bit surprised to see him out here though. I know he had ventures beyond, but he was very much part of the posh Canterlot crowd nowadays.”

“I met him only twice and one of those I was distracted pretty early on by Moonbeam Glimmer showing up,” He paused briefly upon seeing his companion stiffen at the name of that incident causer, “She says hello again and a few dozen thank yous for taking in Starlight.”

Luna snorted, “Fiiine fiine… Your brow is twitching, so you got more to say. It always does that when you think.”

“What, after the subject got brought up I’m invested,” Junior whispered as he squinted and tried to look closer, “He did tend to favor his right legs a bit more when I saw him at a train station, old wound I think.”

She puzzled briefly as the crowd watched the event continue before them, “Hair looks around the same length but he doesn’t have it done up, if that is him.”

'Coal' just shrugged, “I’d be able to tell if I could smell him clearer, I remember what he smelled like.”

“You can’t be sure if he is somepony you know by sight but you remember what he smells like?,” Luna deadpanned with a lowered brow, “I’m both bemused and impressed. But you can’t go up and start sniffing him.”

“Well, that confirmation is out the window then… He looks so different without his monocle and hair done differently if that is him or not,” Junior hummed quietly before perking an eye at Luna, “Do you want me to get a closer look to check?”

The announcer who may or may not have been Fancy Pants, changed his speech pattern to take an acceptable break of character whilst still trying to keep the same tone, “Test your strength lifting these fully loaded, andfullyalcoholfree, ale barrels! Lift a barrel, win a prize! Lift three and win four! Come, earn a favor from your lady love-”

A hoof with bits was slapped down on the table before the stand, a purple furred pegasus mare of an unremarkable build grinning widely.

“I’m in!” A disguised Luna keened as Junior blinked in mild surprise behind her.

"Well now! Step forth to this barrel and let some of my associates be on the ready just in case-" Possibly Pants had been indicating towards one of the smaller barrels where three brawny associates, likely safety personnel, had been on standby.

Had it been a normal pegasus mare, a fit one probably could lift the barrel with only some effort but the disguise she was wearing made Luna look more like a librarian or school teacher than anything else. So when she not only lifted it but proceeded to throw it a good three meters into the air before catching it with one hoof, the announcer was momentarily verbally flummoxed.

The stealth alicorn beamed at the applause before eying a larger barrel. In all sensibilities she probably should be making more of an effort to hide, especially with all of the eyes on her. But it was just one pair of eyes fixed on her with a humored chuckle she cared for. And that gave her a surge through the nerves which brought a grin to her face.

"May I try my luck twice with something more substantial?" "Glynn" said with a smirk at Debatable Pants.

The crowd were in agreement and, after a glance or two at some of the safety personnel just to be certain they would be ready in case luck didn't hold, Ambiguous Pants agreed. Luna put the first barrel down and instantly trotted past the next sized one to go for the second to largest. The audience loved it, steadily growing.

Junior was humored the whole time. He listened in on conversations that ranged from wondering when the spree would stop; to debate on if the barrels were nearly as heavy as they looked and if they have been swapped out for light props ones. Betting pools for both were growing by the second and he couldn’t help but let out a humored sigh.

-Even in disguise, you love bringing others up; even just by amusing them.-

The way she and her sister managed themselves to the public was always something he frankly admired and had spurred long talks with both. Power and uniqueness were often synonyms for fear and isolation back on Terra when they accompanied certain groups. Outside of a close circle in the Defender faction, he intimidated even other kaiju often at the best of times. And that went without saying to the humans.

Plenty were good, in fact he often liked to think most were. But the very fact they were even here was testament to either those who let fear get the best of them or were not as beneficent and trusting as the current Godzilla had given them credit for.

He had power, more than enough to wipe out a city in a few minutes if he really wished it. And the fact he never would didn’t dawn on some, no matter how many old aching scars he got proving otherwise. And the fully realized alicorns weren’t all that much different.

Sure, a team of elites might be able to stop one with proper set up. Starlight even had a spell which might get the drop on a young one like Twilight. But in a real attack and against those like the sisters? He’d felt Luna going all out and highly doubted most had any idea what that was like. Nightmare Moon would have been unstoppable had Celestia not stepped forward, and very few had to remind Junior of how it often took one to stop one. Luna even had such potential for a rampage in her history and now look at her.

Adored by the public the continent over, holidays and festivities in her honor. But those honors weren’t what stuck out to him most. It was the sense of safety in the public. That they could just walk through a crowd, right into a city center they could easily demolish in a few spells; and folks were content and felt so secure knowing they were there. He couldn’t even hope to count all those who dreamed peacefully knowing their protector guarded them even from the night terrors within the mind as much as it did beyond.

Contrast that with every time he put his back to a city with a kaiju in front of him, never knowing for sure if all of the arms of humanity were ever fully trained off his back and not at their actual foe… It was bittersweet, but more so the latter the more he watched.

It was nice to know what he truly wanted was possible. Achievable. And that is why he admired her so much.

Even through their disguise, Luna keyed in on ‘Coal’s’ gaze and felt her nerves heat up. Her plan, her set-up, her choice of location. It was all working! No baggage of leadership. No attention to set him apart from the atmosphere. No standing apart because he stood so tall! Yes this was risky, using some of her enhanced physicality like this without a likeness to match it; but she couldn’t get enough of this thrill. Oh sure she’d been in festivities before, even without Frost’s disguise kits; but this was all set out for the express purpose of making this night as perfect as possible.

Leave all those druthers about being distinct, being larger than life figuratively or literally; and just being themselves at the end of the night with no a soul to care otherwise. And, she was being herself.

Luna, as so few knew her, was not always prim. She was not always resolute. She wasn’t always dignified. That was something she put on to help others feel safer.

She loved to make others laugh. Give them amusement. Show off her skills to bring wonder or fun.

It was like how she first beseeched that first Nightmare Night she had returned for. Delight is what she yearned for from the ponies and beings around her. Because when they were happy in her midst, they were happy she was in their midst.

She was happy he was in her midst.

Luna eagerly took up the largest barrel the group could offer and, after a moment of thought, intentionally cried out and careened backwards like she was losing her footing and had taken on too much. Instantly some of the crowd gasped and the staff ponies plus Ambiguously Pants surged forward to help her.

Only for the stealth alicorn to giggle and heft the barrel above her head without issue, one forelimb hoof on her hip to show lack of effort. Tapping her feet in a rhythmic pattern to an olden beat, she winked at the crowd that all but said ‘Tadaaaa!’ to the assembled. Her eye however, after briefly cherishing every smile, caught onto the disguised visage of her companion.

The crowd had indeed eaten up the performance, gathering closer and clapping at the show. But in doing so, it had grown as well; and somepony was at a loss because of it. It was so very innocuous. Just an accidental surge of ponies, a few horses, and gryphons coming forward to watch and blocking the view of a small band who’d been watching the event prior. Tiny voices over the crowd, something typically imperceptible to all but some like Luna herself.

Two older ponies, likely parents, were trying to push forward and find the kids; but couldn’t see through the tide of watchers with so many eyes on her instead of noticing them. All, save one.

A head dipped down and raised up. Managing to use himself to push through the crowd gently, the disguised Junior rose back up with a filly and colt atop his back. His attention wasn’t on Luna anymore, instead focusing on keying in on the parents to shoot them a wave. The children, unpulsed by the kind stranger, were eager to climb up his neck and watch the show continue, oohing and awing at the miraculously mighty mare. So much so that aside from a brief moment of confusion, the filly ignored what was in all likelihood an invisible horn she’d bumped into briefly before brushing it off.

Junior’s line of sight was on the parents, communicating what was going on through the shouting. He judged about approaching, until the children continued to clap at the show. Their parents' assuring smiles and nods spoke enough and Junior remained where he was; mostly focused on ensuring the children didn’t fall over watching the stage.

He wasn’t watching her as intently. His focus, even on a special night and with who he was, was on two random kids neither of them ever met. It was perhaps the very same reason Luna felt her pulse quicken after that fateful battle with the Gyaos and each time he recollected a battle on Terra with a threat before him and the protected behind him.

One of the first major qualities she truly learned about him, and one she admired so much.

That and being good with kids.

She couldn’t help it. Her wings popped out. They weren’t Alicorn wings visually, not under the disguise. But that didn’t matter when they bashed into the barrel from going stiff. The multi-hundred kilogram barrel got launched into the air as her face went red even through the disguise spell. All she heard was white noise and her pounding heart rate for a time even as she subconsciously caught the barrel.

The crowd. From the staffers in assortments of time accurate and less than accurate garbs, from the fairgoers ranging single patrons, to a batpony and green unicorn on a date, to a whole crop of extended Apple family went wild with claps and cheers. And even at the sight of many things she liked or wanted, Luna was still frozen stiff.

“Ma’am! Ma’am that was spectacular!” Possibly Pants gasped as he ran up to her and all four brawny assistants very carefully hauled the barrel off the still-still stealth alicorn, “You won the grand prize- what’s wrong with your eyes?”

“My... eyes?” "Glynn" muttered as she turned her head.

Ambiguous Pants looked her up and down and nodded, jaw slightly dropped in befuddlement.

Luna’s heart was still pounding all the while as she realized her horn, disguised and invisible as it was, was sparking from an emotional magic surge. And with it invisible, the residual glow was coming out of her eyes. She glanced over at the crowd, at her.. saying as it was, date.

The glow intensified and she felt a surge of anxiousness.

Grabbing the giant teddy bear, clearly the most fitting kind of gift for a medieval festival, she rapidly yelped out a- “THANKETH THOUETH FORETH THETH COMPETITION!” in butchered Old Equestrian. The flustered alicorn flew off stage in her pegasus disguise and soared past Junior.

“I-UH-HAVETH-ER- INDISPOSED!” She yelped before passing the squealing children the giant bear and bolting for the very modern mares’ room amidst the booths.

‘Coal’ just no-selled the children now literally dancing on his head as the bear blocked his vision.

“... Huh, guess that candy apple went through fast.”

==========

Luna shook and shivered inside the privacy of an empty tent that the owner had apparently vacated after taking an hourly break. Hidden behind the fabric walls and shelves, she was seated with her back to the wall and holding herself. Her entire body was twitching, fur bristled and feathers ruffled. She’d removed her disguise once she got inside the stall, feeling like she had trouble breathing and having anything on her was suffocating. The alicorn felt her mind going in five places at once and every time she tried to pick one to follow, another five distracting thoughts cropped up to steer her away.

Her chest was still huffing. Her pulse was still racing. Her nerves were sparking. And it was causing visible effects with her magic, with her horn flickering and crackling briefly as her
wings shook and just the act of bracing her shaking hooves on the wood had split the timbers from out of control strength. Her emotions were on the fritz and any semblance of control, be it physical or magical, was beginning to go out the proverbial window.

It took a monumental effort for her to work through the anxiety, more than she thought she had, and consider the source of all of this. All of her interactions with and observations of Junior tonight only seemed to throw gas on the fire for how heavy her breath was becoming and how rapid her pulse was getting. With so many stimuli flying around, there was only really one conclusion to have. One that was more than a little bit surreal considering what she had been steering this night towards.

It was all to give him the best event he could get, especially with all that happened in the past and recently. And he was having a great time! He effectively said so himself and there was nothing to suggest otherwise. Even with that disguise on she could read his expressions like a book and they all told her that-

She shivered, eyes widened in mild realization.

She could read his expressions like a book. Had gone out of her way to try and ensure things to his benefit. Was nervous about him having a good time to the point of giving herself a mild anxiety attack. And was now blushing and shivering like a schoolfilly around a crush.

She could perceive a bridge needing to be crossed between them, and yet for all of her power there was an intense nervousness about crossing it.

And nervousness, as her eyes spied whilst the alicorn held her face with her forelimbs, for more than one reason. Marring the blue fur spanning her left leg, just above her elbow, was a darkened patch. Instantly the alicorn’s heart, pounding as it was, sunk and cold went through the veins. She grit her teeth and made sure nopony was looking her way.

It almost looked like the hair had been stained, and she absentmindedly wiped at it to ensure it wasn’t something she picked up. When the inky black spots, identical in color to the patches around her hips and thighs, refused to be wiped off, Luna grimaced and did all she could. She bit the fur and resisted the twinge of pain as she yanked the fur out in a small bit. Spitting the marred hairs out, she did her best to wipe the fur around it down and cover up the bare patch.

If more of those came, she’d really need to find ways to change what was happening. Stop it fully.

Her pulse still quivering, Princess Luna held herself and tried to draw in a steadying breath.

-Just calm down. Just finish the night for him and keep calm. Keep calm and maybe… possibly.. say something. Maybe before things progress too much?... But then what about the future? What about this? What about Terra? What of?! I-I might have to slow this down.. S-Stop it maybe I-!!!-

The alicorn grit her teeth and let out an exasperated groan that startled some fair-goers outside, causing them to eye the tent warily before pacing away quickly while whistling inconspicuously. Luna just deadpanned, eyes narrowed, and lips pursed into a frown from her predicament. Magic spurred on by conflicting emotions within spurred a slight glimmer to trail up her still invisible horn and spark across the length.

Luna looked up and between her eyes at the offending horn, “Oh don’t you start now…”

A ways away and a few minutes later, the still-disguised Junior passively waited where he’d been left. The kids had happily accepted their prize and were off with their family to enjoy the festivities. Truthfully he knew Luna would have no issue with him killing time by enjoying himself as well, but he didn’t want to leave. If he went somewhere else; she would have a harder time finding him and that would mean a few moments separated whereas they could otherwise be together.

He just let himself drink in the sight of the fun fairgrounds whilst waiting for the inevitable. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been enjoying himself here, this kind of festivity had been very entertaining and there are still many more he wanted to do that had been spotted earlier! It was just that… with company, it was like a force multiplier on the entertainment factor.

Knowing the one responsible for this fun was cheering and delighting alongside him.

Seeing her goofy smile he knew so well shine through even her pegasus disguise.

Watching her eagerly throw herself into competitions and add to their prize pool, one neither of them needed but were fun moments because they were given to each other all the same.

Seeing the crowds unwittingly cheer and thrill at her exploits even if they knew not it was one of the very revered protectors they had in their midst, the eyes and adoration of so many earnestly given.

He-

Junior’s eyes widened briefly and he wobbled.

He felt he really needed to sit still when his pulse started to quicken and hit him in the head so hard it dizzied him. Soon leaning against a post with his mind racing at so many swirling topics, his eyes drifted to take in the festival.

-She was right. Never could see something like this on Terra again.-

Godzilla paused his breath and let his gaze move upwards to the stars. Her stars, part of his mind passively registered.

-I spent almost two decades telling myself I was a monster, and if I didn’t ‘shackle myself’ to using what I had to devote almost everything to protecting the weaker, I’d wind up just like my father and grandfather…-

Memories and sights came back to mind as he thought of them. A showdown against Destroyah at the port. His advance on the Millennian in Kyoto. Leading the charge during the humans’ Final War. How many times had entire countries, humanity as a whole, or even the planet as it was recognizable exist because he kept throwing himself into the fray?

Terra needed him. And they could wind up going home tomorrow for all he knew. If he let himself get tied down, it would only be harder to leave. Taking on an apprentice was the first major step but this felt like crossing a gulf that dwarfed that span. The temptations were strong, so strong it took a lot of resilience to resist them.

He liked it here, loved it here and really liked the people here. But, Terra needed him. Part of his mind, a conflicting storm, protested that he shouldn’t even try what he was being drawn to do. That he liked who he liked but he couldn’t remain with her forever.

That self-defeating duty-mindedness of his roared that he needed to call this off. Distance himself if needed. He had his duties and he couldn’t push against them by-... by…

The memory of him sitting by a pond with a very nondescript earth pony mare returned to his mind, pushing the stubborn self-hatred he grappled with for years aside. Azusa hadn’t come alone that night.

“... What am I even thinking?” He breathlessly whispered to himself between the tightened nerves.

The engulfing nightmare. The town he destroyed. All that self-loathing, toxic endeavors towards duty, and wrath at his cruel fate brought to the surface. When he saw himself as a horrible mistake of a monster deep down, that’s what the Nightmare brought to the surface even if it was too much for it to control. And he himself flew out of control. Xenilla enacting his father’s burning state for the first time, a powerful magus like Starlight, and several more volunteer heroes couldn’t do a thing to stop him.

Only a little filly had when she got him to stop what he’d done to himself.

It was the first big change he took for himself living here, trying to impart something good on an apprentice; that saved his life and the lives of others.

-Maybe, another big change would be for the better too?-

The words of someone he trusted most of all, more than himself, echoed again in his mind.

-“Since you're in a whole new world, maybe take the opportunity to make some friends here? You’ve been carrying Terra on your shoulders for a long time, maybe your first time off Terra is a sign you need a break? These Equestrians seem nice enough.”-

He slowly let go of his head, just now realizing he’d grabbed it in his moments of mental spiraling. He could wind up in Terra tomorrow. He could die tomorrow here too. After that confrontation with Eurus and the rest of his ilk, it was a strong reminder Equestria wasn’t a land without danger. And if tomorrow took him, either from the mortal coil with the life he led or from Equestria, how would he feel about not seizing the night and chance he had now? The memory of Azusa continued her wisdom as he thought of exactly whom came to mind when she talked, most of all.

-”Relax, let them hear you out and you may be surprised at the responses you get. You’ve already gotten some of them to care.”-

“Luna…”

He gazed at her moon and sighed, a tiny relieved smile crossing his lips.

He could wind up in Terra tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Next year. He would defend it at a moment’s notice, but he stifled that part of his mind, that deep seated self hatred that demanded he not seek what others had.

He wanted happiness. He wanted companionship. He wanted a life. And millions of folks on Terra, kaiju and humans alike; would want it for him.

There was no going back right now, so they’d cross that bridge when he got there; as the manner of speech he learned told. For now.. He’d live. If this didn’t work out, he could at least live on knowing they gave it a try!

Gathering himself up and finally slowing his rapid pulse, he couldn’t keep himself from grinning giddily. Now if only he could find Luna, this disguise’s constant magic flow made detection difficult.

His eye tracked to a bit of an uproar in the crowd and his head stood up slightly.

Gawking children and momentarily confused families parted ways down one of the aisles after a most unexpected arrival paced through the back entrance to the fairgrounds and made their way through them. Their tall frame made them stand literally heads and shoulders above the crowd, ethereal hair waving in the slow breeze as a carpet of stars. A gleaming blue helmet reflected torch lights and lanterns. Had they not been present in large quantities so as not to break the ambience of a time before such inventions, there would no doubt be a barrage of camera flashes as Nightmare Moon; exactly like out of the history or storybooks, walked amongst the crowds.

Several event organizers, including Theoretical Pants, busily flipped through schedules to see if this was something on the event list that they had somehow overlooked. Nightmare Moon paid them no attention, almost robotically pacing down the aisles with her head slowly turning side to side as if she was scanning for something. Her eyes, almost jewel-like, seemed to glimmer with an iridescent glow as she surveyed the gawking onlookers. From her perspective, the aura that appeared around each of the assembled fairgoers looked exactly like they did. Random assortments of completely average looking passersby just lit up with glowing outlines of various colors. Many of them were waving or calling out, thinking this was some kind of show as part of the festivities or perhaps even a visit from one of their beloved princesses’ dressing up for such a spectacle like a certain autumn holiday.

Nightmare Moon tuned out the mundane, blackening out any traces of magic born from a unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony. Additional fine tuning filtered out the various gryphons, zebra, and diamond dogs in the audience as well. All that remained were faint whispers of unusual magic. But the unusual, to her confusion, were two in number.

One was traces of magic like her own, the very type she was spun-off from with Luna’s specific traces. Nightmare Moon abruptly turned in the crowd, ignoring a call out from Presumptively Pants trying to find some clarity for the situation. She instead made a beeline for a seemingly random tent across the courtyard, one with a “Back after Dinner!” sign hanging from the front, one that the traces of alicorn magic led to. One that, with her approach, made the demonic alicorn’s skin seem to writhe like billowing tapestry of animate shadow and her horn flicker with growing illumination in a charging sequence.

Inside the tent, Luna froze from the midst of her anxiety attack; her heaving breaths not slowing down prior to her abruptly stopping. Completely quiet and silent, she slowly turned her head to look directly at the wall separating her from the outside. Even with no permeability, she knew exactly what was beyond. The spirals of her horn were lighting up in a very particular sequence.

-H-HOW?! WHY?!-

Why here? Why didn’t she sense it coming? Why was she unable to move? Why was she still having a panic attack over this? She tried to summon up strength, wit, a spell; but her emotions were in a quagmire, and nothing was focusing! Why-

“Excuse me!” A voice called out.

Luna flinched, her eyelid twitching as Nightmare Moon’s did the same.

Still with their aura vision active, the image of Nightmare Moon found herself directly confronted with the second unusual magic signature. It was almost amorphous, like raw clay that had been molded into a shape but only haphazardly. Green hues almost like flickering bits of sparking fire, covering up something equally atypical.

Letting the glow dissipate from their eyes, the night terror looked down at the gray hued earth pony stallion standing between her and the tent their quarry was in.

Junior was just about to try and whisper something to the extent of ‘What are you doing?’ to whom he initially took to be Luna pulling some unplanned stunt for the festival, which would be very confusing considering all the set-up they’d been through with Frost’s disguises. That was for a grand total of three seconds. Three seconds of cultivated skill for quick analysis he’d had to develop on Terra. It was necessary when whatever was coming at him at a moment’s notice could be identified as an ancient demonic oni, a shapeshifting alien, a supersonic mutant dragonfly; or all three.

Three seconds he needed to figure out from the stiff posture, tightness of her wings, and the spiteful look in the eyes that not even Luna bore in their initial battle; that this wasn’t Luna.

And there was little reason to think this was part of some show when their magic burst to life with a kinetic blast quickly charged to fire.

Anchoring his hooves into the ground, Junior managed to call out louder and with more roar in his tone than most equines were capable of when he screamed, “EVERYONE GET BACK!”

There were too many of them close by. If he fired back and knocked the imposter back or over he might hit someone in the crossfire. If he dodged, they might well blast someone who’d been behind him as well. His best and first response was to put stock in being tougher than most and tank the hit, bracing and being still as to all but ensuring there wouldn’t be a miss or deflected hit that followed.

He’d been braced for impact, and someone in the tent knew it. Even if she couldn't see it, she knew it. And Nightmare Moon never saw her coming. Her magic was focused now thanks to him.

The tent behind the still disguised Junior burst with light as a high speed, blue blur smashed through the "Back after Dinner!" sign and rocketed at the larger alicorn. He caught a glimpse of Luna, disguise bursting off due to her overloading magic, flying over his head before she grabbed onto her dark echo, the two disappearing in a flash of blue magic.

-Luna?! Okay focus Junior. When she impulse teleports she tends to veer to the left and-

Having rapidly combed through memories of their own battle and their training sessions, he looked upwards and to the left at around the 8:00 position. His hope was well founded as sure enough, off in the distance, he did perceive a brief dot of blue hued magic light appearing up on the crest of a ridge leading into Whitetail Woods proper.

Shooting a brief glance towards Potentially Pants, who seemed to be at a loss for words, Junior's grimace and body language spoke up even through his disguise. Suspected Pants flailed about and grabbed a hollow horn that actually contained a definitely true-to-the-time-period megaphone.

"Fasteneth thou- ah urg, quiteth the show our princess hath decided to partake in surprising us with tonight, was it noteth?" Indeterminate Pants clearly strained on a few syllables as his stupefied tongue wasn't quite catching up with his butchered dictionary.

But, it did have the intended effect two fold. It kept a confused panic from breaking out amongst the crowd, part of whom started conversing amongst themselves and wild speculation about what show was going on. And it kept the other part of the crowd distracted looking at the source of the loud noise via megaphone for "Coal Marks" to sprint out of the fairgrounds, jump over the fence and turn around.

Nobody was looking off towards the high ridge when a body propelled by a backwards-fired stream of atomic breath sent its user rocketing into the air in a controlled recoil.

===================

A ways away above the ridge, Princess Luna literally grappled with her own image as the two came tumbling down from the sky and crashed through several tree branches on the way down. Landing hard across the forest floor with enough force to carve a small trench into the ground as they slid down the slope, Luna did her best to hold her tongue and grit her teeth. She had a good hold of her own personal demon, hooves braced against either side of Nightmare Moon’s throat and pushing in. The first problem was the nightmare was doing the exact same maneuver to her, and at all points of contact the dark fur covering their bodies seemed to become animate. Like a living tar, it started trying to cling to anything it could, and in several spots it was beginning to grow across Luna’s body. Much to her distress, more patches of dark hues began appearing across her fur.

“No,” Luna gasped as she braced her hind hooves against Nightmare Moon’s belly as she did the exact same, kicking off with tremendous force to get free but being kicked backwards in the same motion that was perfectly copied.

Both night alicorns abruptly went shooting off in separate directions, with Nightmare Moon flying back further and faster despite her larger size. Sailing backwards, Luna aimed and quickly fired a sphere of magic that expanded into a seconds-long torrent of dark magic. Nightmare Moon, despite having been sent back harder, perfectly copied the maneuver, and unleashed a black hued salvo of equal strength. Both blasts struck home and sent either alicorn smashing through a tree trunk.

The two towering aspen trunks exploded into shrapnel as both went flying through them and causing the aged timbers to groan and slump over, looking like they were traveling in slow-motion due to their extreme height of several dozen meters apiece. The ancient aspens began to fall to terra firma in the background of two bursts of magic heralding Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon’s arrival in each other’s midst with magic at the ready.

Spirals of light worked up their horns before rapid fire salvos of concussive bursts erupted forth like a minigun. Most of the shots intercepted each other, dissipating or knocking the other’s aim off course; with others careening off into the forest and mulching the fallen aspens behind them.

“WHY ARE YOU HERE?! WHY YOU OF ALL THINGS?!” Luna roared, eyes going white with enchantment-fueled fury as she grabbed Nightmare Moon with a wave of telekinesis to smash her into the rocky ground; only to get the exact same treatment.

The true night alicorn’s mind was in a spiral as she tried to both figure out the situation and fight through the mental fog that stress and sheer outrage were causing. Anything she said was just as much a question as it was her thinking through the options.

“CHRYSALIS?!” Luna bellowed, as she threw up a shield to smash into Nightmare, with like magic meeting like. Though when the two shields made contact, the dark magic laden across Nightmare’s cracked.

Luna quickly took the opportunity to quick-fire a simplified version of the aura scanning spell she and her sister knew. Not enough to get a complete reading but enough to take advantage of the close quarters for the few seconds before that writhing from Nightmare’s body happened again. She did not want to make any more contact with that.

The aura she detected was definitely not a changeling’s, she comparatively had more on it from the remnants of her disguise that she had accidentally burned off. The magic was.. very familiar.

-No…-

Luna’s internal voice was but a whisper compared to her screaming outrage externally.

“WHO ARE YOU?! WHY DID YOU BOND WITH THE NIGHTMARE?!”

Every single time this literal waking nightmare happened again, the end result was always a little different. A few times Luna, in moments of dread but also worry, considered what others might look like if the same affliction that happened to her and Rarity came upon them. It caused no small amount of cold pain in her gut remembering that very thing happened to one she’d been very close to confessing to tonight before getting cold hooves.

Bitter, chilling pain came back once again; regret for what happened at Our Town and enduring the Nightmare she had let loose on the world. It would’ve been so comparatively easy had this curse actually been some outside force that had come to influence her, but this was one of her own making. And that guilt caused fissures on the heart that it tried to fill.

Luna’s eyes widened in horror as the deep thought was disrupted with a snap. The dark mass of the Nightmare had gone right through the shield, climbing up her legs.

She didn’t verbalize with articulation. She didn’t curse. She didn’t damn. She didn’t speak necessarily at all. All she did was scream.

Nightmare Moon was violently kicked backwards into the forest as Luna went shooting up into the sky as fast as her wings could carry her in just three beats. She hovered before her moon, a full thirty meters in the air. All the while her mind still raced.

There was one reason why the Nightmare would look like Nightmare Moon and not whoever else it had bonded to. If it had. The very same reason it was fixated on her to begin with.

1000 years after a mistake, and it was still coming back to haunt her. She didn’t deserve anything until something was removed from the equation. Several more darkened spots started to show up on her coat at the base of her hooves…

Nightmare Moon actually seemed frozen in place for a moment, before taking several steps back at an increasing pace towards Luna like she was chasing her. She sprinted and jumped, and for a moment Luna thought she was about to take to the air. And she did. But not on enlarged pegasi wings. Instead, she wrapped herself in an aura of magic to speed up her approach.

Wet teardrops fell upon her blue hued helmet, falling from above as Luna’s own eyes whited out with charged magic. Enraged and pained tears continued streaming down from her eyes as her wingspan grew to its fullest extent, moonbeams radiating through the seams of her feathers.

The same evil banishment and containment spell she taught Rarity was charged in her own namesake, and Luna wasn’t entirely sure; with the pits forming in her stomach, what to think of Nightmare Moon clearly about to copy her again and hit her with the exact same spell. This would at least spare whatever poor soul it had bonded with…

An azure heat ray scythed the air in front of the villainess and cut off Nightmare’s advance, before slicing upwards into the air.

Glowing blue eyes stomped through the forest as the disguise Captain Frost had made, unable to take the extremes any longer, broke apart and billowed away like burned embers.

“Remember me?” Godzilla Junior growled, azure mist smoking from the corners of his mouth to wreathe his face.

At last a reaction from Nightmare Moon. Eyes widened and lips curled in both threat as well as surprise. Yes, it was safe to say the dark magic mass did remember that time their assimilation attempt backfired spectacularly. Her entire mass writhed and spasmed.

It wasn’t the only one that had their attention broken by the new arrival. Luna’s eyes dimmed as she gazed down at her companion for a moment, before directing back to Nightmare Moon. They were about to fire the spell, but Luna thought she’d noticed something about their magic she hadn’t quite before. A subtle detail missed in the fog of stress and emotional overload.

There were sparks of turquoise in Nightmare Moon’s magic aura.

She grimaced and quickly redirected her magical charge to something simpler. A concussive burst to blast the distracted Nightmare Moon back and dodge out of the way of their misfired spell. Luna promptly teleported down to terra firma beside and in front of Godzilla, her eyes bloodshot and still surrounded by red.

“It has a victim,” Luna blurted out as she extended a wing to ensure he didn’t go ahead of her, “… Part of me wants to say this is my fight.”

“And plenty of me knows you can handle yourself,” Junior grunted before turning an eye towards her as Nightmare Moon landed in the forest ahead of them, still curiously not using her wings, “What does most of you want to say though?”

“That there is nothing I could do to stop you from trying to help.”

He snorted, “Correct… Now why does it look exactly like Nightmare Moon if it’s possessing somepony or someone? If inner desires are a factor, nothing nobody could hope for specifically would result in this.”

“To gander a hypothesis?...” She glanced at him and sighed, relaxing her expression slightly and attempting a modicum of a smile, “After the fiasco with you and Rarity seizing control, it’s put everything it’s got into having total control with no subconscious input. It’s using somepony as the battery.”

Junior passively canceled out the charge on his heat ray he’d been keeping at the ready, just in case it was overkill and hit the victim.

“Say the word and I’ll do it,” Junior whispered as Nightmare Moon leered at them, trying to circle to the left to get closer towards Luna and gauge their next move.

“It?” Luna muttered with a quirked eyebrow.

“Your right-wing quivers slightly when you get an idea,” Junior grunted before smirking, glancing at the wing before him briefly, “And it just happened again, something new on your mind?”

“If you’re trying to get my mind off of the copious amounts of rage and spite I have facing down my own literal personal demon,” She sighed and glanced at him again, blinking in what looked like a slight wink, “It worked some… Try and hold her still, don’t use anything too explosive.”

He huffed with what sounded almost like a chuckle before charging in, Luna hovering into the air and flying close to ground to rush in beside him.

Nightmare Moon, despite being physically larger than the two, actually shrank backwards. Instead of meeting them head on, she actually disappeared in a burst of teleportation magic. Reappearing behind both and tagging them with a concussive burst, they whirled around only for her to vanish again and reappear from the right front at Junior’s 2 o’clock a few moments later.

Godzilla growled at the blast which lightly burned and bruised his shoulder, but the villainess vanished again before Luna could shoot back. Blocking his side to help speed up the healing, the momentary scan for their energy spurred some memories to unlock in the milliseconds that followed. Misdirect from the front, then a blast from 6 o’clock, then from 2 o’clock; and then..

“Waxing Crescent into Third Quarter!” Luna cried out as she grabbed onto Junior’s forehooves.

His eyes lit up in recognition of a maneuver she herself had performed countless times in practice and sparring. Both with him, and instruction to their pupils. Misdirect from the front, hit from behind, then the right front; and then from the left rear. Celestia cheerfully pointed out, when Luna came up with this as a filly, that the misdirection and diagonals were based on a moon phases graph set in a circle.

She had admittedly been staring at that graph for a while.

Junior however understood her entirely. Letting her swing him around by kicking off the ground, he was lifted and thrown just as Nightmare Moon reappeared behind into the right of where Luna had been. She had entered her writhing state again, limbs spread wide like a spider about to seize prey. She’d been intending to grab onto Luna and never cease. Instead, she got an angry alien thrown into her.

Godzilla grabbed onto Nightmare Moon, partially splashing himself with the dark mass she was composed of, as he cracked a toothy grin. In an instant, parts of his skin lit up with a whitened glow and his temperature spiked.

“Hi,” The now partially-burning Godzilla chortled, getting Nightmare’s full panicked attention on him as a blue blur shot upwards into the sky above.

Nightmare’s tarry mass latched onto Godzilla but refused to fully bind. It had worked with Starlight only by sheer force of will and had just barely worked, to do so twice was an impassable limit. Had this been months back there would’ve been a lot of bottled-up strain and spite to work off of. And to say there was none left would be untrue. But to say that there hadn’t been some big changes and a healthier mindset as of late would also be decidedly untrue. And that was toxic to a nightmare as much as the heat might be to just about anything else.

Nightmare Moon shrieked and teleported away from him to reappear a dozen meters away, writhing and patting at themselves as if trying to get a taint off of them. She glared at Godzilla only to notice he wasn’t even bothering to look at her. His gaze was upwards, in awe.

Taking the opening he had granted her, Luna had made use of her wings like she hadn’t in years. She arced upwards, breaking through the clouds barriers high above as she continued accelerating; before arcing upside down and around to come rocketing down even faster. She spun around in a tight spiral, blue magic swirling around her as she cloaked herself in a field of her own aura. A cone of energy not dissimilar from a Sonic Rainboom started to build up across her quickening frame, flickering as it was due to not quite reaching the same acceleration in such a short time as one with a talent for it. Still, she came down like a blue comet draped in a tapestry of stars.

Luna narrowly averted her dive for a head-on collision and let the magic burst. Nightmare Moon threw up a shield, then a shield on top of the shield, and then even more. She would have attempted copying the magic, using the augmented version of her host’s abilities to at least approach the same level as a distressed and emotionally unstudied alicorn like she had earlier. But this was not a type she could use, not with this body. And Godzilla’s distraction gave her no time to try and figure out a way around it.

A transparent wave of magic went across the sky in a dazzling display after exploding out from the epicenter of the half formed ‘Nightboom’. If there is any doubt in the confused festivalgoers’ minds that this was some kind of elaborate show they just had been made privy to, it was put aside pretty quickly when a full tapestry of brilliant stars and constellations briefly rolled across the sky in the immediate area. If one looked very close they could actually see flickers of a story in the alignments of those stars. One of sisters, protectors, friends in and of ponies, changelings, gargoyles, kaiju. And a story about monsters, and those who became them.

It carried a potent payload of cleansing magic and completely shattered Nightmare Moon’s barriers to strike home.

The wave of magic washed over the wriggling nightmarish mass approximating Nightmare Moon’s form. Like a near invisible pane of glass pushing back water sharply, the magic opened up a vacuum along her body. Much of Nightmare Moon’s volume was seemingly empty, composed of dark magic in and of itself. But there was something solid deep underneath.

Starlight Glimmer’s unconscious body groaned, black tendrils stubbornly hanging onto her horn and igniting it fully. The unicorn’s magic, overclocked to a sufficient degree, was enough to push back the investigative spell by Luna.

-That explains the lack of flight and why she doesn’t seem physically stronger than I would expect…-

Junior mentally noted as he canceled out his burning form, running up beside Luna as she hovered nearby with her eyes affixed on what was now her captive student. Her fur was bristling as she glared absolute daggers at Nightmare Moon.

“Hey, we can get her out,” Godzilla grunted to his companion, “Maybe without a willing bond she’s not as strong as she could be. But even so there’s two of us and one of her. So-.. Luna?”

His head tilted somewhat at the sight of her legs, noticing something amiss. The darkened marks around her flanks had grown down to encompass much of her thighs almost to the knees in uneven blotches with only some blue between them. The coloration was nearly identical to Nightmare Moon’s own hues.

“Did some of her get on you?..”

Well-intended worry twisted a knot in her gut.

Luna heard the concern in his voice and her lip quivered into a frown bitterly. Another tear ran down her face, teeth starting to grit together. She cast a quick spell to check something before Nightmare could fully pull itself back together and envelop Starlight. A read of her student’s aura and health.

Diminished in one regard, perfect in another.

Luna looked at her own hoof, feeling at the magic conducting in her body. In unicorns magic tended to pool around the horn, in pegasus around the wings. But in the earthbound, it could be just about anywhere or all over. And if she could conduct a spell that hurt Nightmare through pegasus magic, she could through her earth pony portion.

Her hoof quivered before she set it down, splitting a large tree limb she stepped on without issue for effort; as she just walked right up to Nightmare Moon.

“What are you doing, Luna?” Junior huffed as he approached to keep beside her, only for a line of magic to briefly spew from her horn to rake across the ground in front of it. It absolutely wouldn’t have done anything if he had accidentally walked into it, save for maybe a mild tingle, but the gesture made it clear for him to stay back.

He only did so with great reluctance, one that would break if his concern for her or Starlight overrode trust in a plan she had.

Nightmare Moon, fully reconstituted, looked at Luna with wide eyes and an uncanny gaze. Like an owl spying a mouse walking right up to it. It was easy to see why so many were scared of that kind of figure.

-Your entire look is uncanny… Barely even a pony.-

Princess Luna paced right up to the taller alicorn and gazed up at her, tears dried and face darkened. She looked right into those jewel-like eyes and glared as Nightmare stared back. Like clockwork, its body mass began to wriggle like a colony of worms, and they leaned forward as if to envelop and seize.

A deep crack echoed across the glade and Nightmare Moon doubled over. Their helmet, split and dented, rolled across the ground before disintegrating into nothing but stray magic. After a few moments, Nightmare staggered to her hooves and looked at Luna with surprise, gazing at the alicorn’s hoof where the punch had been thrown with a mildly stupefied reaction. But confusion could last only so long. Their eyes remained wide and her back started to arch like a cat about to pounce.

Without the helmet on, the resemblance to Luna as she was now was markedly stronger.

Princess Luna's horn glimmered briefly as she kept her eyes closed. From her perspective, using a variation of her dream walking magic to touch upon an unconscious mind, she could 'see' the out-cold Starlight Glimmer within the dark alicorn.

-She was unaffected by that blow, it only harmed Nightmare. I had thrown it where her head wouldn’t be just to be sure, but not even the radiating magic or kinetic force hurt her. Good... A dark magic containment spell like what I taught Rarity could unbind them now promptly...-

Her horn continued to glow as she opened her eyes and Nightmare Moon braced for the spell blast to strike at her. The dark alicorn, drawing from Starlight's magical knowledge, readied for what she thought was the oncoming concussive blast or containment spell and fired.

Only, the spell never came. Princess Luna didn't fire anything. Instead she ducked down and sprang forward, avoiding the spell bolt that flew over her shoulder to rip some feathers out of her wing. She paid the pain no heed and instead lurched forward. Nightmare Moon didn't truthfully have a real body, but her existence as a magical construct did approximate one around Starlight faithfully. Including a voiding of her lungs in a gasp when Luna rammed her hoof into the chest hard enough to dent-in the dark blue armor and launch the alicorn back several paces.

Nightmare Moon crumpled down and retched, actually giving a full bodily reaction resembling pain. She felt herself scanned by Luna once again, and once again a spell confirmed Starlight Glimmer was unharmed.

Hoof steps approached and soon a shadow loomed over her, Luna growling the words, "Get up."

Nightmare Moon heard the words and knew the voice. On reactive instinct she lunged at the shadow she saw. Part of her body became almost liquid-like, reaching out to latch onto the alicorn before her. To assume her body, fully rebind to her origin, become whole-

Luna swatted the dark alicorn back down like she was backhanding them. In a split second, Nightmare Moon, back in a solid form, was sent sprawling.

"Get up."

The thousand-year-old nightmare glimpsed the hoofsteps closing in on her and sneered. A magical salvo rushed up her horn and flew free. A sharp uppercut to the jaw would have shattered a weaker body and made the magical beam fly wide into the night sky, missing its target entirely and scraping the horizon. A follow-up stomp with her forehooves and swat later and Luna sent the dark echo of herself flopping across the forest floor.

The Night Diarch’s mind was full of bitter thoughts as she closed in.

-Nearly killed my own sister.-

"Get up."

Nightmare Moon was grabbed off her attempt to rise and lunge, bashed into the ground and thrown back down so hard she bounced off the gravel.

-Enslaved Rarity to my grudge.-

"Get up!"

The larger alicorn attempted to retaliate, but her magical shockwave was dodged. Wings beat as Luna bit down on her horn and flew forward, dragging Nightmare across the gravel and tossing her into a tree trunk. The dark form crumpled to the ground despite trying to break her fall.

-Consumed my student and came after me again!-

A blue blur tackled Nightmare Moon and landed multiple blows across her midsection, cracking the tree each time.

-And right when I'm happy, right when I'm moving forward again, I come back to drag myself back!-

The tree trunk split across its middle and Nightmare Moon flopped backwards, eyes wide and voided as her jaw hung limply; bent over backwards across the fallen trunk. Bits of dark magic wisped off her constituted form, wriggling weakly and smoking off.

-You’re just magic from a bad memory, I AM NIGHTMARE MOON!-

Princess Luna kept her eyes shadowed by her brow and bangs in the low light, face obscured in shadow as teardrops fell down onto a drawn-back hoof, cocked back to punch or stomp once again.

"Get. UP!" A sobbing Luna snarled, parts of her body which had darkened on full display in the moonlight.

-And I don’t get a night of being normal…-

Nightmare, contrary to her namesake, looked upon what was before her and shrank away in fear.

A few moments passed before a figure, who'd seen a very similar sight from the exact point of view Luna had, approached. Nightmare Moon's quivering eye looked upon a dimly glowing yellow orb surrounded by red.

"If you have anything resembling a conscience or a life, I recommend you release Miss Glimmer unharmed... and just leave," Junior said quietly.

"Get... Up," Luna hissed between her tears, still clenching her teeth shut as she remained poised to strike at something she practically begged to rise and face her again.

The gold-and-red eyes of Godzilla Junior glanced over at Luna even as he addressed her dark fragment, "Get out of our sight. And don't ever do this again..."

A shadow of fear fled into the forest, terrified. Princess Luna's eyes glimmered with hateful tears as she remained poised to strike, before she finally glimpsed an unconscious and thankfully unharmed Starlight Glimmer was left behind on the broken tree trunk before her. She at last lowered her hoof and tilted her head downwards, before her knees gave out with no more of her semi-divine strength she'd summoned before. A scarred hide caught her and helped to ease the darkened alicorn down.

==========

“Are you sure you are alright?” Junior noted as he continued inspecting Starlight Glimmer up and down, “Your sister would kill me if something happened to you.”

“Haheeh, wouldn’t that be an effort?” Starlight Glimmer tried to chuckle as she stood, still more than a little wobbly on her hooves and with some bags under her eyes; but otherwise seemingly in perfect health and spirits.

“I.. Can’t remember much of anything actually…” She muttered, pursing her lips and looking aside.

Junior wasn’t fully convinced and evidently neither was her mentor as Starlight was gently gripped with a telekinetic aura and drawn closer. Luna looked like she was about to tightly embrace her student like a worried mother bear would her cub. Only to stop short.

Starlight wasn’t actually about to complain at all really. She even had her forelimbs out ready to embrace the alicorn back for something she saw they both needed and was left hanging. Figuratively and literally, suspended in midair. Luna had her eyes closed still and wasn’t expressing much, but one could perceive the twitches of tense muscle and even tenser nerves across her body. She tightly wrapped her forelimbs back around herself and turned around, hiding what had been cruel bludgeons just a few minutes ago and the dark stains across them from sight.

Starlight Glimmer was gently let back down onto the ground and on her first instinct she instantly started moving forward with words on her tongue and a hoof outstretched. Only for a larger one to gently catch her.

“… I know we all have a lot to talk about,” Junior whispered to the unicorn in the same kind of voice he used on Chibi and the Rainbooms, “..Later… There’s a really good festival just a few minutes up that road.. Want me to walk you to it?”

“Hehe,” Starlight Glimmer felt exhausted, spent, worn down, and running on fumes.

And looking at her saddened mentor’s back and reading the room, she mustered up strength she typically didn’t think she had. Magic was fueled by emotions after all, and the positive ones tended to be very strong about those you cared about. Even if you can’t help them at the moment, you can at least help others to help them.

She winked and saluted before vanishing in a burst of magic, reappearing far down the road not far from the festival grounds in a poof of light.

Junior watched on and nodded both approvingly and very impressively. She was going to be something great, with the right teacher… Now he just had to remind someone of the quality of that instruction…

===========

Luna still hadn't opened her eyes, sitting in the glade of the battered forest. It was a full minute since Starlight Glimmer, with many assurances she was unharmed and in the right mind, had left to go back to town and make sure all was right.

She knew he was sitting right there in front of her. None of her senses said so, but she knew all the same. She still had not opened her eyes the whole time despite so many niggling thoughts at first asking, then pleading, and finally begging her to look at him. It was a very surreal sort of sensation she was finally realizing the source of was none other than the being in front of her.

Happiness, embarrassment, bliss, comfort, shame, panic; he was a force-multiplier to all of them and more. That was why she had to excuse herself earlier when her magic was acting up.

That was why even with her having long confronted and overcome remorse for her past mistakes for herself, this entire fiasco was still affecting her so strongly: because he had been involved.

He who was once subject to her greatest mistake. He who’d been on the receiving end when that mistake doggedly returned and endangered her student, her citizens, and he himself. And he who’d seen possibly what she thought was the most damning of all.

“Luna… what is-” He started before she hitched in her crying.

“My face! It’s always been and always will be my face!” Luna cried out, still keeping her eyes jammed shut as she motioned to her flank. At the large patch of near-black fur which encircled her cutie mark.

“I.. I didn’t have this originally. I used to be pure blue. But after Twilight and her friends brought me back the stains just never went away!” She stammered, fighting her own pulse that was trying to make her clench up again just to get the words out, “Nightmare Moon… was what a stupid.. ignorant.. jealous little mind wanted to be! I dreamed of it so much I made it real!... Some of these dark patches are newer, don’t you-”

The tears ran freely, and she shivered, clenching her jaw and desperately hoping he would pick up the train of logic, so she didn’t have to say it.

“… You’re mature but you’re still catching up to your sister. Nightmare Moon is a corrupted, fully grown version of you,” His voice was barely a whisper, whether it be by realization or him intentionally trying to keep the mood as calm as possible, she couldn’t tell, “You’ll resemble her one day… Is, that it?”

“I-…”

“Are you still afraid of being like that?”

“I was-…”

Junior paused, still trying to just fish for answers rather than press, “You.. weren’t so afraid of this before. Was it because she came after us looking like a corrupted you, not even bothering to try and bond to Starlight-”

“I’M AFRAID BECAUSE I’M BECOMING HER!” Her hooves smashed into the ground and split it. Luna was trembling all over, writhing in her own skin whilst trying to remain still like she was having a full-on panic attack. The constriction around her heart made every breath feel like it was loaded full of lead.

“… Once I realized… I wouldn’t hurt Starlight I.. I could have just removed it. I could have just expunged it from her with a simple spell! You saw she wasn’t on our level, I could have-!… But I wanted to,” Luna gagged as she held up her shaking hooves, “I wanted to beat what hurt me so much to a pulp! Just like I did 1,000 years ago…! And you saw me do it…”

Her heart felt like it was about to explode. She wilted and almost fell over, had something not immediately snatched her up and tightly held her in an embrace. After a time, she was gently rocked, letting her forehead rest against the crook of a shoulder.

-Why don’t you let me go.. just find something better…-

The quiet humming wasn’t a tune she particularly recognized, beyond dim recollections of one Azusa using the same melody once. He just held her for a time, occasionally tightening his hold whenever she trembled thinking he was about to let go and just let her drop like part of Luna’s mind wanted to be.

-I caused this…-

Junior passively considered, as he patted her back.

-I hope I know how to fix this..-

After a few minutes more, he pulled away just enough to whisper in her ear when she stopped the trembling.

“… What I say right now, I want you to know. If you don’t want to do it, you never have to talk to me again,” His voice wavered slightly, an often hidden weakness coming back up when she detected him trembling now.

“… I want you to turn into her.”

The ‘her’ in question was not a question in itself as to who it was. Even if she did not have the Nightmare on hoof, taking on at least just the physical form was a simple spell based on magic not of pony origin she had learned a long time ago. The only question in the back of her mind was whether this second look she sported of the night was really the second disguise or not.

Letting herself back up some, the still sightless Luna wrapped herself in her own spell work just like she had on Nightmare Nights before. She grew in size, the dark patch across her back growing over her whole body to swallow up the blue, with her starry mane brightening with intensity. The only difference was that whether by magical burnout exhausting her to a degree or something changing in her mind, the visage of Nightmare Moon presented was missing her armor.

Luna waited for his response, his reason for requesting this.

“… Nightmare Moon, is not a look. It was an identity… I wasn’t there, 1,000 years ago. But I know that if I, as I am now, can change so much in my time here, then I know you’ve changed magnitudes more. And now you have your sister, Twilight and her friends, Starlight, Frost, Cadance, Chibi-”

“And you?” Luna whimpered slightly, not realizing it came out in a mild gasp that sounded like a plea and trying to shush herself. She looked away, almost ashamed on the edge of something worse.

He didn’t approach further, he did not inspect, nor did he run away.

She only felt the touch several moments after it was made. There was one other big difference between how she was now and how the Nightmare Moon of history, legend, and dark magic presented herself. One that barely a soul might notice because barely a soul had ever seen it on Luna herself.

Junior’s hoof gently caressed and traced the edge of an old scar on her side, just below the wing.

Memories of the first time he’d ever done so, the first night they ever saw each other as anything but a threat and got the earliest hint of a kindred spirit; all came flooding back. Her eyes snapped open and saw the tears running from his eyes. Rolling over cheeks to his calmly smiling face.

“Was that ever in doubt?” Junior whispered just loud enough for her to hear clearly, “I still see you, Lulu.”

Luna felt the surge go through her body again, and now that she had her eyes open she could clearly see he was trembling as well. This was new for both of them, an urge to react in a way neither were very familiar with.

Unable to focus on her magic, Luna dropped the visage and let the question of if it was her future or past be left to the ages. As the recognizable Princess of the Night, she pushed forward towards the Monster King and almost tackled him. Passions put their lips together and they embraced, rolling across the hill under the starry night together. It was messy, they got covered in leaf litter, dirt, wood fibers, and burnt grass. And they were in pure bliss.

Link!

After rolling to a stop, the alicorn playfully pinned the former kaiju, their horns still touching and eyes still tearing up all the while. Swallowing a breath and sniffling, she reactivated the spell and let the change happen gradually. More and more dark patches appeared across her fur, almost like gradual loss of pigment seen in vitiligo reversed. Junior held back a comment on how cute she looked with what looked like a face full of freckles even as said freckles grew and combined into a seamless hue of extremely dark, near black blue or purple.

The end result did still resemble Nightmare Moon to a degree, but even less so directly than last time. The pointed wings and jewel-like eyes were present, but the face, the visage, the hair, and most importantly the manner were still very recognizable as Luna. Even if she was noticeably taller than him right now.

His breath left him for a hot moment.

“S-S-erhm!” Luna cleared her throat and took in a steadying breath, “So… Are you sure you’re not put off?”

Junior just looked up at her with a bemused expression on his tear stained face, “Lulu, normal stuff is fun but we'll never be normal by most folks' standards. I'm not even sure I know what normal is for me!... But I like this. I like you."

He glanced her up and down and shrugged with a snigger, "I know more than most how intimidating higher heights can be. I’m not put off by taller females if this is what the future brings.”

Luna lowered her brows and leaned in a bit closer with a teasing pucker, “Since when did you become such a charmer?”

His expression flattened to a deadpan,“Chibi shared her stash of manga with me. She’s into romance…. I think she was conspiring in hindsight.”

“Yes she had been nudging things along now that I think of it.... She, my sister, Starlight, Captain Frost… And several more now that I think on it.”

A silence passed between them as the thoughts slowly registered how many times he’d been put specifically on her guard detail, alone. And the remarks her sister made. And Lea encouraging him to learn from her. And Chibi or Starlight conveniently having training during moments they’d be alone together.

And the looks Azusa kept giving Luna when the alicorn escorted her to her son.

It was like a ticking countdown clock finally started ringing between their ears. This moment had been building for a long time, and a lot of folks had seen it coming before they had.

“WE ARE SO STUPID!”

The laughter that broke out with those words made it all worth it, as Luna rolled off him and flopped onto the grass beside him. The two looked up into the starry sky, Luna putting a wing around her significant as he laid a hoof across hers.

“Hopefully next time, we don’t need a demon attack, a heart break, and you pouring yours out to get us to finally fess up,” Luna sighed.

“You kidding? With what basket cases we are and how we stumbled into this; any further steps might happen with King Ghidorah clawing his way back from the grave at the same time the changelings attack,” Godzilla deadpanned.

“Basket case, huh? You’ve been picking up a lot of word play since arriving here… So how about we make a sealed deal now?”

“Being?”

Luna’s gaze met his as she beamed, a few happy tears still coming, “We look out for each other as we stumble forward together.”

Another kiss was met, with their horns sliding over one another as they felt so safe in each other’s presence.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Author's Note:

Art by Faith-Wolff!
Proofreading by Lance Omikron and Faith-Wolff!
Story ideas by EvoWizard!

Comments

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Nothing like some well needed catharsis by laying the beatdown on a certain Nightmare.

Here's to 10 years of the Bridge!

[KingXanaduu]

10 years in the making, 10 years in the waiting.......

It was WORTH IT!!!

[Moongaze14]

This chapter was amazing. A wonderful way to commemorate the ten year anniversary of the Bridge with plenty of humor, romance, emotional thrills, and an action scene. The first part of the chapter with Luna getting prepared for the date with assistance of Frost and Celestia while Chibi and Lea helped Junior is hilarious due to how much everybody ships them together. Starlight accidentally causing accidents at the beginning with the sleeping flowers and the butterfly nightmare made for some good humor only to get a bit darker when she ends up being possessed by the Nightmare.

The date scene was adorable and funny with Luna using a RWBY-based pseudonym, her admiring and being turned on by Junior being good with kids, Junior and Luna being suspicious of a Fancy Pants lookalike and constantly change his name, and Junior admiring Luna made me smile so much. Junior and Luna overcoming their insecurities to tag them on Nightmare Moon to save Starlight really shows that their bond has strengthened.

My favorite part, however, was the kiss with Luna literally growing up and giving Junior a passionate first kiss for accepting her the way she is. Faith outdid herself with the pic, especially her starry mane, the tears on her eyes, the aura wrapping her body as she switches from Nightmare Moon to Luna, and the tackle with pink bishie sparkles. One of my favorite chapters yet.

[redandready45]

This was a great way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Bridge.

Kudos to you!

[THE_NERD]

Unable to focus on her magic, Luna dropped the visage and let the question of if it was her future or past be left to the ages. As the recognizable Princess of the Night, she pushed forward towards the Monster King and almost tackled him. Passions put their lips together and they embraced, rolling across the hill under the starry night together. It was messy, they got covered in leaf litter, dirt, wood fibers, and burnt grass. And they were in pure bliss.

YEEEESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!! YES!! THEY FINALLY EFFING DID IT!!!!! YEAAHH!!!!!

[KnightOfZaku]

As the recognizable Princess of the Night, she pushed forward towards the Monster King and almost tackled him. Passions put their lips together and they embraced, rolling across the hill under the starry night together. It was messy, they got covered in leaf litter, dirt, wood fibers, and burnt grass. And they were in pure bliss.

Thanks for 10 years of awesomeness!

[Bronyshot2020]

... pls tell me this is Canon to the story

[Temnizziv]

Just finished. Here are my overall thoughts.

I liked the character interactions on the chapter. Humor was amusing, the minor moments such as Junior helping a few kids & Luna having fun with the barrels were great. Starlight as Luna's student is going along well for the narrative. The date was wholesome, and I liked the little moment of Luna having a bout of anxiety.

The Nightmare fight scene was an improvement being written a lot more efficiently than previous battles from the WW Arc, and had some fun emotional intensity going for it. I liked Luna snapping at Nightmare & beating the shit out of her, great catharsis for the scene with how much shit Nightmare put Luna through. Luna's breakdown afterwards was my favorite moment of the chapter from a character perspective. And the two admitting their feelings with a kiss was a good moment to cap the chapter off. Solid breather from the WW Arc & I can't wait to see what you write next.

[Vman-0]

It's nice to see that Nightmare get forcibly exiled into the Everfree

[Dragon-from-down-under]

Oh my, things are getting interesting 😏

[Ri2]

Happy anniversary! Too bad so much of this story's runtime was wasted on Winter War.

They probably shouldn't have let Nightmare go.

[Thebobkiller]

Oh, would you look at that. The perfect romance does exist.

Still, probably should have captured the Nightmare. But, then she/it wouldn't be where she needs to be in the future. Though it wouldn't kill her to at least warn Luna about Bagan.

[Jmunoz13]

Finally they're together and when Bridge turns 10, what a great way to celebrate 10 years of the Bridge!

[Tarbtano]

11656925
Winter War arc complaints got tiresome years ago, and I largely let it slide because I didn't want to impose on people out of common courtesy. Please give me the same by refraining from continuing to rant about it like you have for years. I don't mind people not liking something I wrote. Feedback can be important. But nothing about this is helpful.

[FandomSam]

I always loved this pairing. It's my favorite from the Bridge. This makes me wish that the Kaiju will never return to Earth. Earth has plenty of defending Kaiju. They can do well enough with a missing handful.

Man. 10 years since this beautiful work was started and 10 years that I've been reading.

Man, I'm starting to feel old.

[Tarbtano]

11656640
Operation Ship Sailed is go

[Tarbtano]

11656593
After everything goes to went through so far, they've more than earned it ;)

11656609
Glad to give you a smile friend, what was your favorite part?

[diverseinterests47]

This was a chapter that was a long time coming. While Junior and Luna have been popular with fans for pretty much the entire story's run, they rarely got the chance to shine together. This chapter pretty much gives them everything they could possibly need. The two of them are just so darn cute together. Luna showing off, Junior helping kids, the two of them getting cute little feelsy moments, it's all wonderful. And then along came Nightmare. Which kind of ties in to a fear Luna's been showing off in this chapter. She's scared that one day, she'll look like NMM. And it only seems to grow since she's starting to discover black splotches in her fur. And for the first time in a long time, we actually see Luna lose her composure and brutalize the Nightmare. It's honestly some good pathos for her, but ultimately, Junior has to rein her back in. I do question the decision to let Nightmare go, but maybe you have more plans for it in the future. I'll say I'm not the biggest fan of the "Luna will look more like NMM in the future" thing, but that's mostly because I honestly think Luna's post-season one design is better than NMM's. I've also been over disagreeing on how you view the Nightmare forms in the past, so I won't repeat it here. That said, I am a fan of Junior basically saying that no matter what she looks like in the future, she'll still be Luna to him. And it culminates in something that really needed to happen; Junior and Luna's first kiss.

Despite a few minor hiccups, this is a very cute chapter that puts the spotlight back where it needed to be and allowed us to breathe a lot more. I'm glad that things seem to be going well for those crazy kids and I can't wait to see more.

[Escalator]

After rolling to a stop, the alicorn playfully pinned the former kaiju, their horns still touching and eyes still tearing up all the while. Swallowing a breath and sniffling, she reactivated the spell and let the change happen gradually. More and more dark patches appeared across her fur, almost like gradual loss of pigment seen in vitiligo reversed. Junior held back a comment on how cute she looked with what looked like a face full of freckles even as said freckles grew and combined into a seamless hue of extremely dark, near black blue or purple.

THEY DID IT! THEY KISSED!

WHOOOOOOO!

TOOK YEARS BUT FINALLY THEY FUCKING DID IT!

[Tarbtano]

11656730

Yes I was trying to follow some advice from a few friends, such as yourself and Evowizard, whilst reading some of Evo’s book. It gave me a gauge on making the pacing a bit tighter when the time calls for it. I also think that greatly reducing the number of characters involved in a confrontation tended to also have this kind of result. One thing that certainly did make me adjust the pacing of this fight versus a lot of the confrontations in the finale for the WW arc was that ultimately this wasn’t really a fight the heroes had a chance of losing.

Not without some massive blunders and outside interference at least. Nightmare was able to pull off a few exaggerated unicorn magic spells, but a alicorn is not just a unicorn with wings slapped on and especially in this continuity there is something a lot of extra. Besides the nightmare wasn’t even at full control as it was just using Starlight as a battery instead of a proper host that was bonded to like what happened with Rarity. Lessened emotional input means less magic.

So going hyper fixated on the details of the fight was much less important than simply focusing on what was going to the character’s heads before and after. That breakdown moment was probably some of my favorite work I’ve made in a while. So, I am glad that it as an emotional punch as well as the more wholesome elements persisted. This was a fun breather episode and establishment for some of the new status quo.

Keep an eye on someone in this chapter…

[THE_NERD]

11657252
Full steam ahead!

[cheetored20]

AAAAAAA IT HAPPENED IT HAPPENED! EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!
I love that whole what I want to be aspect, was quite clever.

[The Voice in the Water]

What's better than one dork in love? Two dorks in love!

[Jam5022]

If these two have kids will they be able to turn into kaiju?

[Dragon-from-down-under]

11658464
I want to say the outcome might be similar, for example Saiyan and a human.

[hydra30]

Good. This has been a long time coming. Maybe they all should just stay

[Rookie109]

There’s definitely made my day, my absolute favorite ship of all

[Tarbtano]

11658464
11658552

That is correct. Whilst in equestrian or human form, a Kaiju is completely compatible with the likewise species. If they had a child together, regardless of which combination of male or female it went, the resulting child would be born in whatever species their parents are in the form of but also be capable of assuming a form extremely similar to their Kaiju parent. There would be no dilution or mix in the resulting Kaiju form.

So if Junior and Luna had a child for instance, they would be born and have a default stage in Equestria of an equestrian, what would be capable of turning into a kaiju that would be another member of the Godzilla species with a near identical mutation to their father.

[Tarbtano]

11658279
Dorks in love is hilariously adorable to write.

[Tarbtano]

11657398
Good review is good! I'm glad the parts that I was investing in the most, namely the setup and the fairgrounds shenanigans alongside Luna having a bit of a breakdown, landed the best. I think the breakdown sequence was one I was actually very fond of especially and you might notice a slight similarity to a certain infamous Kuuga beat down! Fun fact, that was actually one of the very first scenes I ever wrote for this chapter because the idea of just completely wailing on a villain and it being no contest between them and the hero stuck with me after it suddenly came to my head.

I do much like Luna's current design so she's going to still look like that for a good long time. Maybe with the addition of a cute freckle or two XD
To help clarify, the speculation is that when she reaches her final form and fully catches up to Celestia in size, she's not going to look like Nightmare Moon. As Nightmare Moon is a corruption of that possibility. It's more she's going to get taller and potentially her fur is going to darken some more, so it'll still be different.

[Jam5022]

11659760
So cool. I hope we see that in a future story or spin off

[CrystalMaster76]

A nice done in one after the big arc is welcome.
I really like this format of character focused done in ones, hope we get a lot of these going forward.
My favorite parts of the chapter were the comedy bits early on. Luna fretting over her disguise, Frost’s teasing, and especially Starlight’s overdoing it with the night flowers.
I said it about the preview, but this is a better handling of Starlight’s tendency to overdo things than the show ever managed. Both because it’s genuinely funny and she has to actually suffer the consequences.
I’m a little confused as to why the Nightmare showed up, I get that Luna’s spiraling a bit, but marching right into Canterlot where both Junior and Celestia are seems like a rather bad move. I’m also not a fan of them letting it go at the end, that’s just asking for someone else to suffer.
The real meat of the chapter is Luna and Junior finally being official after he helps her out of an emotional spiral. This isn’t my favorite ship but it is nice to finally see it happen. I do like how Junior being blunt and Frank cuts through Luna’s self doubt.
My only real issue is conceptually. It’s well written, but doing another round of Luna being defined by Nightmare Moon feel a bit been there done that. I guess it’s gets it out of the way in one shot so that’s a plus.
A pretty nice chapter and a good start to the next phase of the Bridge.

[Supersonic]

Top Gear style recap 55 (from Goji's POV):

Tonight, Luna tosses a barrel, Chibi shares her manga collection, and I get something I never thought I'd ever get.

[mjadino8823]

This is a nice heart warmer. Cheers to this story's ten year anniversary!

[Charedfirescale]

Can you feel the love to night?

[SuperSaiyanGodzilla]

We're all definitely feeling the love tonight.

The Ship has finally sailed after ten years and I f***ing love it.

[CalvinZilla]

“Captain Frost took the changeling incident at her friends’, Prince Consort and Empress Cadenza’s wedding seriously,” Junior shrugged before pausing at Chibi and Lea both stifling a laugh.

Did you forget to add Shining's name?

[CalvinZilla]

He wanted happiness. He wanted companionship. He wanted a life. And millions of folks on Terra, kaiju and humans alike; would want it for him.

That is just... perfect. I cannot stop myself from grinning as I read this line.

[Chaos Bringer]

I absolutely loved this chapter because finally these two have realised there love for each other!! Also I just have to ask did anyone else read this chapter and when Nightmare jumped Starlight think of the Spongebob “How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man” meme?

[NavratofWenter]

11661512
So Tirek might be the next big bad. If he can take the powers of the Kaiju he might be bigger problem than in canon.

[POLE7645]

Beautiful.

[Dragon-from-down-under]

11661713
50/50 really.
I mean, Tirek got took out by Cesare a thousand years ago, though there was that brief period where he and Luna fought, but after that we don't really know where he is.
Hell, both Chrysalis and sombra admit that even they don't know where Tirek is, and Bagan admitted that it would be both take time and be troublesome.
only one that would even have a clue where he would be is discord.
Tirek really hasn't shown himself since his fight with Luna, if he does return then the kaiju become one hell of the boon for him. even then it's too risky to even attempt it, both princess are just a death wish, jr is just overkill.
I don't mean for this to sound rude, if you do take offence, then sorry.

Also from what I'm picking up I see the changelings being the problem for this coming arc.

[Arcane Howitzer]

A shadow of fear fled into the forest, terrified.

Might end up regretting letting it go. Assuming it gets over the yandere-esque obsession with Luna that it displayed at a few points in this chapter, and instead seeks out a host better suited for its apatite for spite and jealousy... I almost don't want to see what Nightmare Chrysalis would look like.
Almost.

His expression flattened to a deadpan, “Chibi shared her stash of manga with me. She’s into romance…. I think she was conspiring in hindsight.”

The speech here is Chibi Pink. Something probably got confused over the first word in the sentence being another character's name.

[Evowizard25]

It's honestly nice to have a small arc again in the main story. The romance was cute and I love that you used the fair idea. It was interesting that you brought Nightmare back. I think you used her well in setting up the kiss, finally pushing the two together officially. Overall, it was a nice little story. Can't wait for more, bud.

[KaijuFan2023]

I came back here after 2 years and...

The ship finally happened

[KaijuFan2023]

Also damn, after 10 years you are still not stopping 👏

[Seraphem]

Jut when I think I'm out... you pull me back in! YAY! Time for what is sure to be a sweet, fun little bit of goodness following that epic arc and for a wonderful anniversary!

"And that's the sum of it. The second pack of Kaiju opted to remain where they were and Princess Twilight vouched for them

Okay, we are fully back and just catching the end of the group trying to explain all of this to the ones who missed it. Fun times!

"Or is that because you're just upset you didn't get to see me as a teenager again?"

Of course she is..... they hadn't invented cameras last time Celestia went through her awkward phase!

“Neither of you two will have to focus on anypony else but each other.”

Oh? Big sis helping Luna to get a nice date going?

Hahaeeh, sister you jest, and I haven’t the slightest idea wh-”

Luna....... you hide it about as well as your standard anime love interest hides her crush. Which works out since Junior is about as dense as an anime protag regarding such things.

Across her blue fur, a black splotch of hair was visible on the inside of her left forelimb.

....... Stress making you go reverse grey?

The fact she couldn’t manage to teleport inside the castle itself and was acting so erratic left a twinge of concern plucking at her sister’s heart strings.

Okay Luna.... what's going on?

‘Etiquette, 1^st edition, 10 After Founding”

........ Twiliiiight...... I know you love vintage books...... but there have got to be more up to date etiquette guides! If nothing else, I'm sure Rarity has some!

But she still came back out a Battra instead of a Mothra, with all the adjustments to certain powers and abilities that came with that.

Huh...... yeah that is going to take some getting used to..... now you just gotta learn how to shift that form on your own.

Changeling magic, rudimentary as it was, still worked right especially after a meeting with Captain Frost regarding something that Lea still wasn’t quite sure about.

Really..... you don't say.....

Prince Consort and Empress Cadenza’s wedding seriously,

Okay 1. I still hold someone needs to point out to Xen that Cadance's title is perfect for the actual political position she holds, it's calling The Crystal Empire and 'Empire' that is incorrect! 2. Also, at the time she wasn't in charge of it so it would still have been 'Princess" anyway!

promise me you’re not going to teach Chibi how to summon dead spirits or explode more things than she already does.”

I do not think you could actually teach her to be more explosive... without getting The Pink One and her emergency stash of heavy duty shaped charges she keeps stashed all over Equestria in case of construction emergency involved.

Somewhere far, far away, the bug-fearing stallion reacted to what followed by launching himself out of bed so quickly he hit his own ceiling face-first, and promptly passed out before he fell back onto his bedsheets.

or she would make use of one of her most favored modern inventions in the form of an alarm clock.

Well....when you stop to consider it...... compared to having no reliable way of waking up at a certain time short of trusting someone else to wake you up....... yeah that would be a huge boon.

Also a curse given you then kind of have to actually get up early.

Instead, the context Princess Luna walked in on was piles and piles of bodies in the main hall with Starlight Glimmer as the only one left standing. Sleeping bodies.

You know...... I can't actually say I'm surprised in the least.... Dangit Glim Glam!

“Bleck, sorry Starlight... flavor isn’t bad, but something is,”

...... Okay.... was him eating it her attempt to get rid of it? Or, did he just get a bit peckish?

“In my defense,”

"I'm kind of an idiot who does things that sound good in the moment, but that are incredibly stupid if you think about anything beyond the next five seconds."

And this is why Starlight and Trixie work so well together. Trixie is the one pony even more oblivious to the idea of consequences then Starlight, forcing Glimmy to actually be the adult for once.

“You… Ran two top level spells together, to pilfer pillows… Because you accidentally turned the main hall into a slumber party.”

Get used to this Luna. Using insanely high end magic in intricate and complex ways, often in combinations that get way more out of the spells then you'd ever think they could do on own...... to handle either basic tasks she could do easier with something much simpler, or to try and fix a mistake she made, often by using magic as her Plan A-G for all situations and the aforementioned lack of ability to consider more then five seconds ahead of time unless she's actively trying to keep Trixie from getting them both locked up, is kind of her 'thing'.

teething problems involved in Luna taking a teaching

It was just the stubborn knee-jerk reaction to jump to spells that often-entailed way more than she should remotely consider in the situations called for that needed some ironing out.

Ah, you've noticed that i see.

Which was why Starlight was, by her own volition, wearing a suppressor ring that restricted her to just telekinesis for the moment.

"My impulse control is so bad I need to be physically rendered unable to solve all of even my simplest problems with overly complex and powerful magic."

“But these sort of events are meant to be kind of like what you grew up with.

Waaaaaaaiiiit........ and Junior said it was all outdoors..... are they going to an Equestrian Renne Faire?

“Lulu, I can most definitely assure you that the enchantments work just fine.”

Oooookay....and what does this have to do with that black hair from earlier?

the blue alicorn’s form flickered with specks of green magic like tiny embers. She changed in color, in figure, and in size.

Okay not that, just something to disguise her.....which of course raises the question of why Blueberry would have a lance made of material that imparts some kind of disguise magic?

“... It has been a long while since we did this last.”

'we'? Just who are you including in that 'we' camp Luna? Since I'm guessing by 'a long time' you are talking long on the scale of ageless beings, not 'a few years ago'.

Anypony who knew her is gone, I made sure of that.”

‘Luna’ lowered her brow and deadpanned in her tone, “Did you have to say it like that?”

Apparently he bumped into the descendant of the human world’s Blueberry Frost, an aged woman named Sugar. He might be catching on,”

To be fair..... the time scale of relative ages between realms for counterparts is all over the place to begin with.

“I had to lose a home before realizing what I had.

Uh-huh........ Tell me, do you happen to know a guy named Hoid? Tends to be kind of pale, white hair, loves telling stories but is not quite as witty as he likes to think he is?

If yes, please tell me he had an adorably hilarious living fractal pattern with him! Design is just... The Best!

“I’ve always had the best fairy godmother.”

Someone test that lance...... I need to know if it contains zero anything that could be counted as 'cold iron'....

yes I'm not going to dismiss her being literal here.... have you SEEN the stuff in this world!? At least if true, she's very much more allied with the Summer Court.

or use any unnecessary enchantments

Luna..... there better be an * after that one linking to several pages of detail laying out exactly what counts as 'unnecessary' in this situation.

Logically that meant there was nothing wrong and she was just being paranoid.

Starlight wasn’t always everypony’s definition of logical however.

HEY! Everything she does at least seems logical to her at the time! That said.... in the words of fellow spell caster with a penchant for mass collateral damage is fond of putting it "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to try and eat your face."

Like the magic of Princess Luna, in the form of a dark and shadowy mass which had used the snack table for cover, swallowing her up

Oh for the love of.... you aren't dead yet!?

Essentially a medieval or Renaissance fair meant to emulate at least some semblance of a picture of life centuries, if not a full millennia, back.

Oh sweet harmony it is a Renne Faire! And by the sounds of it, every bit as authentic as ours our.

patrons and vendors really getting into the role-play were using absolutely hilariously exaggerated accents and speech patterns to try and get into the role.

She still wasn't sure what that one group of Ponies walking around in skin tight, red, yellow, or blue jumpsuits with the odd triangle on the breast looking like some bizarre group of tourists that had to gawk and prod at everything was up to.

Junior didn’t verbalize the joking dread he had wondering what kind of sugar high his protégé was getting into after just a few of these.

"Lulu...... we'll do this, but YOU are the one with wings... you get to be the one to get Chibi down from the top of the castle spires this time!"

I think any humans we passed by assumed I was some elaborate costume and they kept calling me ‘Yoshi’.”

OMG I need pictures of this NOW!!!!!

unless I- It’s bad manners to sniff each other amongst your kind, right?

Yes, though given Ponies would be more attuned to smell then humans, it really shouldn't be as huge an issue. Then again given the coloration, Equestrian Ponies might have just not developed their sense of smell as much in exchange for more work on eyesight.

a purple furred pegasus mare of an unremarkable build grinning widely.

Wait.... wasn't she a unicorn? She made this big thing about a scar that her wings usually covered still being there!

So when she not only lifted it but proceeded to throw it a good three meters into the air before catching it with one hoof, the announcer was momentarily verbally flummoxed.

Somewhere in the crowd there came a distant "YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

Betting pools for both were growing by the second and he couldn’t help but let out a humored sigh.

When did this slip into the Puppyverse? (No seriously, the Twilight Gets a Puppy series... most of Equestria seems to be gambling addicts with how there are betting pools for EVERYTHING.)

Starlight even had a spell which might get the drop on a young one like Twilight.

Which I still maintain, is less about Starlight just being more powerful then Twilight, and more about Twilight just really, really sucking at combat and leaving herself wide open for sucker punches while winding up for a magical haymaker.

That they could just walk through a crowd, right into a city center they could easily demolish in a few spells; and folks were content and felt so secure knowing they were there.

It helps when they all know that the Sisters could end all life on the planet simply by doing nothing and letting the sun and moon stop moving. Also having centuries to get used to the idea..... and that there are far, far more destructive things to worry about, from rampaging monsters, to foals trying to get their Cutie Mark.

Luna, as so few knew her, was not always prim. She was not always resolute. She wasn’t always dignified.

Nooooooo...... not Luna.... not at all......

She was happy he was in her midst.

I mean....not yet but...you play your cards right tonight.....

The children, unpulsed by the kind stranger, were eager to climb up his neck and watch the show continue,

D'aaaaaaawwwwwwwwwww... I want a Goji back ride!!!!!

She couldn’t help it. Her wings popped out.

“... Huh, guess that candy apple went through fast.”

Damnit Junior.........

And was now blushing and shivering like a schoolfilly around a crush.

Do we need to have Cadance smack you in the face with the obvious Luna?

She could perceive a bridge needing to be crossed between them, and yet for all of her power there was an intense nervousness about crossing it.

Okay, yeah...... Somepony get the Princess of Shipping down here STAT! She's got work to do! I don't care if she's busy secretly squeeing over Xen and Blade Dancer! This one needs the help way more!

If more of those came, she’d really need to find ways to change what was happening. Stop it fully.

So not worried about going grey..... but we saw The nightmare as a separate entity so... can't be her shifting back into it..... just a reaction to it being nearby and she's missing what it's trying to tell her?

But then what about the future? What about this? What about Terra?

Given that vision of Heartswarming Future we got..... guessing not as big an issue as you think.

and that would mean a few moments separated whereas they could otherwise be together.

D'AAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWW

it was like a force multiplier on the entertainment factor.

Come on story... we know you want to say it... give into the memeage!

Terra needed him.

I mean..... you've got buddies back home that are able to do a lot, plus most of the biggest threats aren't there anymore either.....

That self-defeating duty-mindedness of his roared that he needed to call this off. Distance himself if needed.

Okay, we seriously need Cadance.... and have her bring her BIG "no self doubting" bat to club into him to stop doing this!

maybe your first time off Terra is a sign you need a break? These Equestrians seem nice enough.”-

He wanted happiness. He wanted companionship. He wanted a life. And millions of folks on Terra, kaiju and humans alike; would want it for him.

I keep saying ti but I just don't know what else to say but..... D'AAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

ethereal hair waving in the slow breeze as a carpet of stars. A gleaming blue helmet reflected torch lights and lanterns.

Oh goodie, Nightmare Starlight..... I'm sure this won't have any negative effects on Best Princess' emotional state at all....... Damnit, this is why all the shippers who set this date up needed to bring Twilight in on this to plan for and be ready to counter ANYTHING that might mess up this date!

including Theoretical Pants

I do love this running gag.

“Excuse me!” A voice called out.

"you seem to be psychologically tormenting my potentially a date maybe not I'm still to thick headed to make up my mind about it by your very presence. Leave before I throw you halfway to Ponyville."

Junior managed to call out louder and with more roar in his tone than most equines were capable of when he screamed, “EVERYONE GET BACK!”

Hell yeah!

Her magic was focused now thanks to him.

"You are NOT messing him up tonight bitch! I plan on kissing that mouth and it'll just be awkward if he's healing a broken nose all night!"

When she impulse teleports she tends to veer to the left and-

Damn.. that is some Deku level rapid battle analysis!

Nobody was looking off towards the high ridge when a body propelled by a backwards-fired stream of atomic breath sent its user rocketing into the air in a controlled recoil.

Yes that has to look ridiculous..... but it's better then the other option for using something you emit as propulsion.... Granted be easier to see where you are going that way...

hooves braced against either side of Nightmare Moon’s throat and pushing in.

One advantage being over in EQG world has... hands are MUCH better for decent and satisfying throttling of someone.

began to fall to terra firma

I know that is technically correct, but feels like it should be 'Equa Firma'

definitely not a changeling’s, she comparatively had more on it from the remnants of her disguise that she had accidentally burned off

Oh really?

She hovered before her moon, a full thirty meters in the air. All the while her mind still raced.

If I didn't know Glim Glam was being used as a meat puppet by that thing, I'd say we are the 'Nuke the site from orbit" stage of conflict resolution.

And she did. But not on enlarged pegasi wings. Instead, she wrapped herself in an aura of magic to speed up her approach.

Damnit Glim Glam! Stop being OP!

And better at translating that OPness into usable tricks then Twilight is!

An azure heat ray scythed the air in front of the villainess and cut off Nightmare’s advance, before slicing upwards into the air.

Good luck mirror matching now! Good timing Goji!

“Remember me?” Godzilla Junior growled, azure mist smoking from the corners of his mouth to wreathe his face.

Ohhhhh epic!

It’s using somepony as the battery.”

Battery, meat puppet..... tomato, tomato. Still, makes sense, it's jsut going for raw, screw you I am using you force rather then seduction and trickery. Likely harder to do but at this point, it doesn't seem to really care.

“If you’re trying to get my mind off of the copious amounts of rage and spite I have facing down my own literal personal demon,” She sighed and glanced at him again, blinking in what looked like a slight wink, “It worked some…

D'aaaaawwww seriously you two are so adorable together!!!!

Instead, she got an angry alien thrown into her.

I am HERE for Luna beating someone up with Godzilla! I mea, can you think of a more durable club to use?

it was put aside pretty quickly when a full tapestry of brilliant stars and constellations briefly rolled across the sky in the immediate area.

Okay a night sky themed Sonic-Rainnuke, point blank on The Nightmare? Damn that is freaking awesome!

Nightmare staggered to her hooves and looked at Luna with surprise, gazing at the alicorn’s hoof where the punch had been thrown with a mildly stupefied reaction.

No one expects the magic user to throw a punch, even more so one that actually hurts. See also, a good reason why Wizards carry staffs that tend to be very thick, heavy, and sturdy chunks of wood.

...

Ohhhh damn and it is also useful for venting some repressed issues.... damn Luna....

"Get out of our sight. And don't ever do this again..."

Hopefully this time it learned it's lesson.... then again it seems REALLY yandere over Luna so...... give it time for the fear to fade and it might be back.

She tightly wrapped her forelimbs back around herself and turned around, hiding what had been cruel bludgeons just a few minutes ago and the dark stains across them from sight.

Awwwwwwww.... Junior.... hug her....NOW!

And looking at her saddened mentor’s back and reading the room,

Yes, Glimmy can do that..... she's not that good at it a lot of the time, but sometimes it's obvious even to her.

“I.. I didn’t have this originally. I used to be pure blue. But after Twilight and her friends brought me back the stains just never went away!”

Huh.... then again even the show can't keep straight just what that patch really is.

“… You’re mature but you’re still catching up to your sister. Nightmare Moon is a corrupted, fully grown version of you,”

.... huh..... so.. the joke about going grey was a bit more spot on then I thought..... I mean, she did get a lot darker coat just in the few months between her return and that first Nightmare Night so, it just being her coat getting darker as she fully comes into her power and maturity.... fair enough.

I could have just removed it. I could have just expunged it from her with a simple spell! You saw she wasn’t on our level, I could have-!… But I wanted to,”

Look, sometimes you just really, really need to vent some frustration on something that makes a really good punching bag.

-I caused this…-

Awwwww...... no you didn't but.... awwwwwwwwwwwww.....

“… I want you to turn into her.”

Well..... I mean...... seems Junior is a big fan of exposure immersion therapy......

she pushed forward towards the Monster King and almost tackled him. Passions put their lips together and they embraced, rolling across the hill under the starry night together.

WHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Lulu, normal stuff is fun but we'll never be normal by most folks' standards. I'm not even sure I know what normal is for me!... But I like this. I like you."

Normal is overrated and you two are adorable together so, just go have fun!

“WE ARE SO STUPID!”

any further steps might happen with King Ghidorah clawing his way back from the grave at the same time the changelings attack,

.......... damnit Junior! Do! Not! Tempt! Fate!

Just d'aaaawwww that was really sweet, and adorable, and just wholesome and SQUUUUEEEEEEEE!!!

Sorry this took so long IRL has been a pain in the ass lately.

[Escalator]

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Man has a goal

[KRMebius]

Luna and Junior ship away!

[bkam]

Happy 10th anniversary to a great story.