• Published 3rd Sep 2018
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Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon Team up to Save Everyone - Codex Ex Equus



Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon team up to save everyone

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Chapter Nine - Swamp Things

"Of course it would be in a swamp."

The Hayseed Swamps weren't the most hospitable place in Equestria, but they were at least somewhat livable. There was one settlement Celestia knew of, which had been here for some time, and no doubt there were others as well. Compared to a place like the Everfree Forest, it was practically paradise.

Assuming, of course, that your idea of paradise included slumped trees that dripped with slime, foul-smelling fog that filled the air, various types of insect and animal life that seemed absurdly dangerous and bizarre even by the high standards Equestria set, plants that were undoubtedly poisonous, occasionally carnivorous, and, Celestia thought privately, maybe even secretly mobile… and mud. Lots and lots of mud.

"This. Is. Disgusting," moaned Nightmare Moon, nearly losing one of her hoofcuffs as she pulled her leg up with a long shhhlluuuurp. "The first thing I'm doing when this kingdom is rightfully mine once more is coming here and burning this place into a desert. Admittedly, that's not much of an improvement over a swamp, but at least it's dry."

With an effort, she managed to leap out of the mud and take to her wings. Celestia looked up just in time to see the dark alicorn drawing her legs up in preparation.

"Don't you dare," she snarled up at Nightmare.

Nightmare Moon glared back at her for a moment, but then slowly lowered her legs again rather than shaking them and sending mud flying in all directions. Instead, she dissolved into a cloud of mist, letting the mud fall back to the swamp. Celestia got her wing up just in time to block the splash—which, of course, left her with a mud-covered wing.

"Still better than what she wanted to do," Celestia muttered, shaking her wing to clear off as much of the muck as possible. She watched as the black mist flitted off further into the swamp, then turned to her other two companions.

Shining Armor didn't seem to be having any issues. Then again, he was a stocky stallion, and one who had been in the guard most of his life. Just off the top of her head, Celestia had been able remember the Royal Guard heading off to train in the Badlands, the Frozen North, and the Smokey Mountains—not to mention the one time they'd tried the Everfree Forest and she'd had to get personally involved. It had turned out that these swamps were also on the list of places he'd visited, so it was unsurprising he'd be taking everything in stride.

Ka-klack, on the other hoof, did not seem to be having such a good time. The holes in his hooves had sucked up extra mud like buckets, so he'd removed them with a simple transformation, but he was still struggling with every step. On top of that, he wasn't watching where he was going, instead constantly looking around, apparently trying to keep a 360-degree view of his surroundings at all times. So along with fighting just to move, he was stumbling over every obstacle in his path.

"You don't have to keep walking in the mud, you know," she said, dropping back to walk alongside the changeling. "Feel free to fly. Shining Armor won't mind."

"Are you kidding?!" Ka-klack yelped, then immediately clamped his mouth shut and glanced around fearfully. "Why would I want to be in the air where I'd be the perfect target for a giant frog?! And I'm pretty sure I saw some venus changelingtraps growing on one of those trees back there. What if I just flew right into one?!"

"Aren't they called venus flytraps?" corrected Celestia gently.

"Nothing that big eats insects as small as flies," he replied with a shudder. "This whole swamp is just full of plants and animals and probably even other insects just waiting for a big juicy meal like me to fly into their mouths or tongues or webs or… or something even worse. So I'll stay on the ground, thank you. Or, well, in the mud. At least here all I have to worry about coming at me from below is mud snakes."

"Mud snakes?"

"Like water snakes, but they live in mud."

"I, um, I'm not sure that's a real animal."

"Well, of course not, you don't have any reason to learn about everything in swamps that can eat you. You're an alicorn, the top of the food chain! Nothing eats you! I'm just a crunchy snack walking around in a chitin wrapper."

Ka-klack stopped his constant scanning, hunching down and looking so miserable that Celestia couldn't help moving closer and draping a wing over his shoulder.

"It's okay, you don't have to be afraid," she said soothingly. "Remember, we're here for you. Anything that wants to get to you will have to go through us first."

"You'd… really do that for me?" he asked, glancing up at her with nervous eyes.

"That's what friends do, Ka-klack," she replied, nodding, then cocked her head to the side as a thought struck her. "Wouldn't you just come back anyway if anything did happen? Through the hivemind?"

"Yeah, well, you ever been chewed up? I'd like to avoid it."

Ka-klack continued to glance around as they marched, but his stride had more confidence, and when he caught her eye again he smiled. She smiled back, then turned to Shining Armor, who'd slowed his pace as well and was now at her side.

"Any thoughts?"

"About what?" he asked dryly, letting out a sigh. "About wandering around in a swamp with no more direction than you and Nightmare Moon saying 'it's probably over there somewhere'? Or about doing it with a bunch of untrained civilians? Two of whom are immortal, yes," he continued as Celestia opened her mouth, then he sighed again as Ka-klack opened his. "And yes, the other is technically a soldier as well."

"Pretty sure we beat your precious guard," muttered Ka-klack, then his expression froze as Shining Armor turned to glare at him. "Um, oh no! Queen Chrysalis! Stop taking control of what I say like that!"

Eyes narrowed, Shining Armor let out a snort, but faced forward again. As he did, Celestia's ear twitched.

"But isn't that what you would've said?" she heard Ka-klack murmur, so softly nopony but an alicorn could have heard it.

"In any case…" Shining Armor began trudging forward again. "There aren't many landmarks here, so we're just going to have to hope the element is at one of them. We can probably avoid the main settlement; there aren't many ponies there, and I think it's unlikely they'd have a magical artifact just sitting around. Plus, it's a little bit off the direction you two have been pointing in.

"So, that only leaves a few options: the ruined lighthouse, the Forbidden Caves—mostly forbidden because going below ground in a swamp is a really bad idea—the old mage laboratory, the strip club, the—"

"Wait, mage laboratory?" Celestia gave Shining Armor a glance. "Why was that not first on the list?"

"Well, it was pretty much completely destroyed a long time ago." He shrugged. "You know, magical experiments and all that. The local legends say that a great evil was released there, all who go there are doomed, going anywhere near will curse you for life, et cetera, et cetera."

"And that's exactly the kind of thing that might happen if someone experimented on the element!" declared Celestia enthusiastically. "You heard what the changelings said happened when they tried to put magic into it. That was probably the first thing those mages tried."

"And the rumors about a great evil occupying the remains of the lab?"

"Just that: rumors. Superstitions." She waved a hoof nonchalantly. "And if there is something evil there…"

There was a crash from ahead of them as one of the enormous swamp trees slowly toppled over amid a beam of turquoise magic and a gout of fire. Triumphant, spiteful laughter rang out, followed by the buzzing of angry insects, the crackling of electricity, and finally the flapping of panicked wings.

"Well, we've got something worse," finished Celestia, a rueful grin on her face. "We'll just throw the Nightmare at it."


"But they're sooooo adorable!" cooed Nightmare Moon, cradling an unfathomable horror in one foreleg. Celestia and Shining Armor flinched back as a second one crawled up her neck and across her face to disappear into her mane, but Ka-klack sat unmoved.

Under normal circumstances, stumbling upon an open portal between Equestria and the Nightmare Realm would be… unpleasant, at best. The bones scattered around the shattered ruins of the old laboratory, which Celestia had purposely decided not to examine too closely in case some of them turned out to be pony bones, held testament to that.

But under normal circumstances, the literal Queen of Nightmares wouldn't have been there with them. Ignoring the other ponies, the nightmare creatures had flocked to Nightmare Moon like puppies and, adding horror on top of horror, she had proceeded to cuddle them.

The creatures were identical, if you were able to focus on them long enough to realize that without your eyes starting to water from their sheer unreality. They resembled beetles crossed with crabs; a low, flat shell with six spindly legs and a large pair of claws jutting from the front of their carapace. Each one was roughly the size of a crab as well, but scurried about like a beetle, which included the ability to climb vertical surfaces. While that was somewhat unsettling a thing to see in a creature of their size, that wasn't what made them so disturbing.

It was the eyes, Celestia decided. Of course, it wasn't a hard decision, considering the hoof-sized eye each bore on its back. Even that wouldn't be so bad if the eye wasn't rolling constantly, jerking to point in different directions at random. The eye also had an unnerving habit of just suddenly deciding not to exist, apparently their form of blinking. Except when they did that, multiple smaller eyes sprung up on their bodies, sometimes bulging out of a leg, sometimes merging together into one abominable siamese-twin of an eyeball. Just to drive the point home, the eyes were identical to Nightmare Moon's eyes.

And, on top of all that, the creatures were pitch black, with barely visible features. Almost more holes in existence than actual physical beings. A constant black smoke wafted from them, sometimes so thin it was barely visible, sometimes almost obscuring them in a dark cloud.

"Oh, yes, they're, um, cute," replied Celestia, centuries of experience allowing her to hold a strained, cracking smile on her face, "but they don't belong here, do they? I'm sure they'd be happier in their home."

"They're bottom feeders over there, you know," said Nightmare Moon, pausing to scratch one under its… chin? Mandible? "Strip a pony to the bones in seconds here, but they have to live on scraps in the Nightmare Realm."

Unbidden, Celestia's eyes sought the bones upon the ground before she was able to jerk her gaze upwards.

"Yes, Nightmare, but, well…" Celestia took a deep breath. Every fiber of her being wanted to be sick at what she was about to do, but she had no choice.

"But they don't belong here," she said, forcing herself to take a step forward. "They have a place where they do belong, but it's not here. It's better for everypony if they go back to the Nightmare Realm. And… as the Princess of Nightmares and Dreams, it's your duty to ensure that they stay there. Keeping the balance and protecting Equestria is part of your royal duties."

The Nightmare stared back at her, the fury in her narrowed eyes almost a physical force.

"I can taste the lie in your voice when you call me a Princess," she finally hissed after an interminable pause. "You would rather cut off your own hoof than admit me into your precious little club. Everything you just said was to trick me into sending these darling little creatures away because they offend your sense of what should live in Equestria. Only light here; nothing of the dark is allowed."

She turned her back, head drooping down to the crowd of creatures who waved their claws at her in joy. "But… you are right. They don't belong here. They may eat better, but they are lesser here than they are, even as bottom feeders, in the Nightmare Realm. It hurts them just to exist here. And you are correct that if they stay they may harm any of our subjects unlucky enough to get close. I shall send them home… just give me a few moments to say farewell."

Celestia let out a sigh of relief, that turned into a shudder as Nightmare lay down upon the ground and let the nightmare creatures swarm over her.

"I told you having her here would help," she said to Shining Armor, who only nodded mutely, unable to take his eyes off the skittering horrors.

"You seem remarkably unaffected by those things," she said, turning to Ka-klack so she could focus on anything besides Nightmare Moon and the creatures.

"It was a long time ago, but I grew up with hundreds of love-sucking, shapeshifting insects as my family—and we don't get good at the shapeshifting thing for a few years," he replied dryly. "Have you ever seen a changeling nursery full of grubs that can only halfway transform into ponies? This is nothing."

Celestia turned back to Nightmare Moon, who by this time had gotten to her hooves. That seemed a better option that letting her traitorous imagination try to picture a changeling nursery.

"Come on, little ones, it's time to go," the Nightmare said sweetly, ushering the beetle-crabs back through the swirling shadows that led to the Nightmare Realm. Once they had all entered, she sealed it shut with a gentle beam of light from her horn.

"I think you were right," she said, a grateful smile on her face as she turned back to Celestia. "They will be happier in their true home."

Celestia blinked a few times, but managed to get a real smile on her own face as well. "I'm glad." Then her face fell and she sighed. "But we aren't any closer to finding the Element now that we were before, except that we've eliminated our most promising lead."

"Oh, it's at the old lighthouse," said Nightmare Moon with a shrug, gesturing over her shoulder.

"What?! How do you know that?"

"They told me," Nightmare responded with another backwards gesture, this time at the spot where the portal had previously stood. Then she grinned widely. "The shadows know all."

"Oh. Well… thank you." Celestia had to blink a few more times to give a sincere thanks to Nightmare Moon, but she managed. Of course, Nightmare immediately ruined the effort with a smug smile.

"Shining Armor? Lead the way," announced Celestia with a sweep of her hoof, and they headed off once again, Shining Armor in the lead, Celestia and Ka-klack walking side-by-side, and Nightmare Moon trailing behind.

"Skree?" chittered a voice questioningly, poking a pure black head covered in too many eyes out of Nightmare's mane.

"Hush, James," she replied quietly, pushing the nightmare creature back out of sight. "They haven't even gotten used to my being around yet. It will take even more time for you to be accepted."


"…and the thirty-seventh way a hydra can kill you is simply by trampling you. Now, thirty-eight through forty-six all involve a hydra's venom, but there are differences—"

Ka-klack stopped talking at Celestia's not-quite-stifled-enough groan. He looked at her, expression hurt, and she gave him a sheepish, apologetic smile.

"I'm sorry, Ka-klack. It's just… well, I don't mean to disparage your knowledge of hydra physiology, but I find some of what you've said hard to believe. A hydra is larger than a house! Half of your ways they kill were just variations on crushing. What possible use could a ten-ton lizard have for venom?"

"That's how they get you," replied Ka-klack, nodding knowingly. "You're focused on their size, then bam! Venom in your bloodstream, and you're done. They're surprisingly subtle creatures."

"Uh-huh… that would explain your description of them as ambush predators. Ambush predators who shake the ground with each step and tower over trees."

"They're masters of stealth! That's all part of what makes them apex predators."

"I don't… that's not what…" She looked to the others for help. Shining Armor just shrugged, and Nightmare Moon was laughing at her, so with a sigh she gave up. "Well, okay, Ka-klack. I'll just take your word for it. At least we don't have to worry about one sneaking up on us here, though."

The ruined lighthouse, to the relief of all, sat in the middle of a large clearing, on top of a rocky hill that thrust out from the swamp. That relief had immediately been mixed with dismay when they realized that still meant it was surrounded by a vast field of mud. And without trees around to provide a stable system of roots, the mud was deep and thick. The lack of trees did mean a hydra would have trouble sneaking up on them, though. Something which Celestia thought of as a mixed blessing at best.

Sighs of relief went around as they reached the outcropping the lighthouse stood upon. By unspoken consensus, they stopped for a well-deserved rest after that painful slog through the mud.

The ruined lighthouse sat in front of them like a… well, like a ruined lighthouse, Celestia thought with a snort of amusement. Really, it was just a pile of stones covered in moss. Any semblance of form it might have kept after collapsing had been worn away by time and the swampy environment. It was nothing but rubble now.

"You're sure this is the place?" asked Shining Armor, looking over at the two alicorns.

"Definitely," Celestia replied, nodding. "I feel the Element's presence, like… like…"

"Like an itch," said Nightmare, a small grimace on her face. "All over your body, that you can't scratch."

"I was going to say like the warm glow of the sun," said Celestia smugly.

"Yeah, that's what I said."

Leaving Shining Armor and Ka-klack at the edge of the island to rest, Celestia and Nightmare Moon flew up to the collapsed lighthouse and began searching. This mostly consisted of poking around the various piles of rubble; so close to the Element, any ability they had to sense its location was drowned out by its proximity.

"Look, I found it!" cried Nightmare Moon excitedly after several minutes, holding an object in her outstretched hoof.

"That's a rock," snarled Celestia, lips drawing back from her teeth in a grimace. "It was a rock the first time you did this, it was a rock the last time you did this, and when you do it again in the next few minutes? It will still. Be. A rock."

"But look, it shines with all the colors of friendship and harmony," said Nightmare in a voice hushed with awe, holding the dusty piece of rubble up to her face. Then she pouted as the rock was vaporized in a flash of golden light. "Aww. Well, looks like you just destroyed harmony. Just like you did a thousand years ago when you helped create me. You really need to stop making a habit of this."

"Okay, that's it." Celestia stomped over, slamming a hoof into the chest plate of the innocent-looking black alicorn, who gasped in feigned shock. "What are you doing here? What is the point of all this? You're barely helping, but you aren't actively trying to stop us either. So just what is your endgame in all of this?"

"Oh, I can't help my sisters out in their time of need? You know how much I love my family."

Celestia let out a humorless laugh. "The only love you'd ever have for us would be posthumous. So again: what are you doing?"

"Um, Princess Celestia?"

"Not now, Ka-klack. We're having this out once and for all, right now." She spared a glance at the little changeling, standing with Shining Armor in the shade of a tree, then turned back to Nightmare. "Well?"

"You still think I act from my own selfish desires." Nightmare Moon shook her head sadly, rolling her eyes up to the sky. "Oh, what did I ever do to put such an impression into your head?"

Celestia started to growl, a spark of anger flaring in her eyes, but Nightmare suddenly darted forward until their muzzles were nearly touching.

"I want only what is best for Equestria," she said softly. "Destabilizing everything by having four Princesses disappear followed by my murdering you does not serve that goal. Rest assured, I am helping you. If I wasn't, you wouldn't be around to notice."

"You're kidding me. You actually expect me to believe that you want to bring back four alicorns who will want nothing more than to be rid of you as much as I do—possibly more?"

"Do they?" asked Nightmare Moon, a slow, wicked grin spreading across her face.

"Of course they—no. You can't tell me you honestly expect Queen Chrysalis to abandon Luna and join you?"

"Princess Celestia, you need—"

"Not now, Ka-klack!"

"Maybe." The infuriating grin still on her face, Nightmare Moon began to saunter back and forth in front of Celestia. "Or maybe I want to rejoin with Luna, merging her power and mine to regain my former glory. Or maybe I want to convince little Twilight Sparkle that I'm her friend and woo her to my side. Or maybe I expect Cadance to see the true love for Equestria that I hold in my heart, and that will convince her to join my quest for the throne. So many possibilities…"

"You're even more insane than I thought you were if you believe any of that is actually realistic," growled Celestia.

"And what about you?" Nightmare cocked a smug eyebrow upwards at Celestia. "What are your plans for me? You don't think I'm foolish enough to expect this all ends with a warm hug and a heartfelt 'thank you' from you, do you?"

She slid closer. "How will you do it? Head on, like when we fought Tirek all those years ago? Or a stab in the back, a shot while I'm distracted like with that fool Discord? Or… are you planning on turning the Elements against me once again when we have this new set united? A rather silly plan, considering they seem to at least be tolerating me at the moment…"

Celestia's lips tightened as she glared at the shadowy mockery of her sister leering at her. Enough. That was the only thought echoing in her mind as she gathered herself to attack—

"Princess Celestia, this is really quite important."

Ka-klack's calm, urgent voice finally got her attention, but not in a good way, and she spun around, seething.

"What?" she snapped.

Ka-klack didn't respond, standing next to an equally frozen Shining Armor. Instead, his eyes constantly flicked upwards and back, as though he were trying to point at something above him with just his eyeballs.

Celestia gathered her anger, preparing to tear a verbal strip off the changeling. He'd done nothing but sit in the cool shade of a tree while she'd had to dig through piles of rubble, dealing with the infuriating antics of the pony she hated most, all so she could—

There weren't any trees in this part of the swamp.

Her eyes shifted focus to look past the changeling.

And trees didn't have scales.

Her eyes moved upwards.

And they definitely didn't have four heads that were trying to decide which snack to eat first.

"They really are very stealthy," Ka-klack said quietly.

Afterwards, Celestia could only recall the next few moments as a blur. She remembered dashing forward as Ka-klack and Shining Armor began to flee in different directions. And she remembered seeing the hydra finally make its decision and spin around, its tail arcing through the air like a scythe—way to kill number sixteen—as she tried to put herself between it and Shining Armor and Ka-klack.

Then suddenly she was on her back, staring up at the sky with an enormous pain in her head.

Sitting up woozily, she found she was back in the pile of rubble that had once been a lighthouse. A hoof to the back of her head that came away bloody, along with the splash on a rock behind her and the ache in her ribs, told her all she needed to know about who had taken the blow from the hydra's tail.

She stood up, wobbling on her feet, her vision blurry. She didn't taste purple violin music like she normally did after brain damage, so it was unlikely she'd actually fractured her skull. She definitely had a concussion though, because, looking down at hydra, she swore it almost looked like Nightmare Moon had just swooped in and deflected a blow that had nearly crushed Ka-klack. Had to be some kind of brain injury at the least.

With a shake of her head her body finished healing, and the scene before her came into focus. Nightmare Moon was nowhere to be seen, but Ka-klack was off to her left, scrambling up into the rubble. The hydra began to move forward, so with a flap of her wings she soared through the air, landing on the edge of the little island near where Shining Armor was standing.

"Well, this shouldn't be too much trouble for the two of us," she said with a grin, eyeing the hydra. "After all, we—"

"Gah!" With a cry, Shining Armor fell over into the mud and began to thrash about.

"What…?"

"A mud snake's got me!" Under all the mud and flailing of Shining Armor's limbs, Celestia could indeed see a long, vaguely serpentine body.

"What?"

"Don't worry, I can handle this! You take care of the hydra!"

Celestia groaned, looking up at the hydra as it thundered closer. "Oh yes, 'take care' of it. That's so easy without anyone to back me up."

"Oh? Who said there wasn't anyone around to back you up?"

Celestia yelped and jumped back as her shadow grew and took on form, becoming Nightmare Moon.

"Don't do that!"

"Oh, stop being so dramatic."

"Stop being a nightmarish monster!"

"See? Dramatic." Nightmare Moon eyed the hydra, which eyed her back, having stopped its advance upon the appearance of a new pony. "Do you really need my help for something as piddly as this beast? Just do that thing where you call down a pillar of sunfire and burn all your enemies to ash."

"I did that once," huffed Celestia. "It's not like I've made a habit of it. And I'm trying to avoid killing this hydra. Apex predators are incredibly important for an ecosystem, and one as fragile as this swamp could be devastated if—"

Eyes half lidded, Nightmare Moon summoned a floating sword as black as the night and glowing with ethereal blue magic, and cut off the hydra's rightmost head.

"Look, we're a quarter of the way done," she said proudly, just before two heads sprouted from the one stump.

"Plus, hydras are incredibly hard to kill," snarled Celestia, body tensed up with fury. "Since, for example, they grow two more heads for each one they lose."

"Oh. Right."

The hydra stood its ground, shuffling in disorientation as the two new heads tried to get their bearing. A moment was spent as the old heads greeted their new brothers, letting them know they were welcome, laying down some ground rules for sharing this body of theirs, and discussing various topics important to hydras, such as where the best places to eat were. Determined to make this one of those places, the hydra refocused on the arguing alicorns before it.

"A tad rusty for someone who claims to have all of Luna's memories, aren't we?" Celestia giggled, putting a hoof to her mouth. "Why, we used to fight ten monsters like this before lunch each day."

"Says the pony who wants to coddle the overgrown lizard like some kind of pet," shot back Nightmare.

"Sorry for not wanting to destroy the biodiversity of an entire biome in my kingdom!"

"If this swamp so important to you why haven't you sent it to the moon yet? That's what you do with everything else you claim to love!"

"Oh, not happy with the moon?! Then you can just go to—"

Celestia stopped as Nightmare Moon disappeared into the maw of one of the hydra's heads, its jaws snapping shut with a sound like a guillotine.

"I was going to say you could go to Tartarus, but this works too."

Before the head even made it halfway upright, it began coughing and hacking. A thick black smoke poured from its mouth, reforming next to Celestia as a disgruntled Nightmare Moon.

"Well, that was unpleasant. Better than the swamp though."

Celestia let out a sigh. "Oh darn."

"'Oh darn?!'" Nightmare turned to Celestia, her expression furious. "Your sister nearly gets devoured by a hydra, managing a miraculous escape only due to her own power—with no help from you—and all you can say is 'OH DARN'?!?"

"You're not my sister!"

Nightmare Moon stared back at Celestia, eyes narrowed, mouth tight.

"Fine…" she growled, with a little tremble of her lips, and disappeared in burst of dark smoke.

"You've got to be…" Celestia trailed off, grinding her teeth in frustration. After all, she had no one to blame but herself. She'd asked for help, gotten it, and then had immediately driven it away out of spite and bitterness. For a moment—a moment of time so infinitesimally brief not even the greatest pony scientist could have measured it—she felt a tiny bit of guilt for how she had just treated Nightmare Moon.

Then it was gone. After all, she had a problem in front of her to deal with, and when your problem is a hydra, you have a lot of problem.

She charged up her horn, firing a stinging blast of magic into the hydra's hide. It roared in surprise, shocked to find this tiny meal could cause it even a bit of pain, and backed off a step.

Celestia grinned. That was it; she just needed to keep up the pressure on the beast, drive it back and convince it there were easier meals it could find.

The problem for Celestia was that to a hydra, all meals were equally easy, in that all could be rather easily flattened in one way or another. It whipped its tailed around like a scythe, but this time Celestia was ready. She deftly dodged the tail, spinning to give the scaly appendage a buck that sent it on its way faster than it had come.

The hydra wobbled, off balance, and she used that moment of opportunity to leap forward and strike its stomach with a pair of blows from her front hooves. That was a mistake, as the hydras massive gut absorbed her strikes like they were blows from a feather.

A head darted down, and Celestia gave a leap into the air just as it crashed down where she's been standing. She kicked out, bashing it on the nose and propelling herself out of its range again. With one head whimpering and trying to clear the mud from its face, the hydra retreated a few more steps.

That minor victory looked to be short-lived, however. The hydra shifted its bulk downwards, digging its claws into the mud. Clearly, it intended to charge her, bulldozing her under with its superior bulk and, no doubt, surprising speed.

Not wanting to lose the ground she'd gained in forcing it back, and out of options, Celestia did the thing she'd told Nightmare she didn't do anymore.

Calling down the power of her sun, she lit herself up in a flare of enormous power. The hydra reared back, roaring in surprise as it was nearly blinded by the intense light, and started to retreat.

However, after just a few steps it stopped, turning to face her once again. Once the shock of such a bright light had worn off, the hydra had clearly decided she wasn't much of a threat. Dismally, Celestia realized its thick scales were blunting the heat she was putting off, and she didn't dare increase the power out of fear of hurting the creature too badly.

She saw a few of its eyes flick past her, to the island where Shining Armor and Ka-klack still remained—not to mention the Element. Clearly deciding she was merely an obstacle, the hydra tried to lumber around her and go for easier prey.

Celestia quickly matched its movements, and it hissed in frustration as she once again blocked its path, the heat of her magic causing the mud around her to bubble and steam. The hydra glared at her in fury and frustration, yellow eyes narrowed, then seemingly turned to leave.

Except, Celestia realized, that wasn't what it was doing at all. With one head keeping an eye on her, the hydra lifted its tail, clearly intending to smash her down into the mud. It had apparently decided that if it could hit her hard enough and quick enough, and with a part of its body far away from its main bulk, then it could take her out despite the heat.

Desperately, Celestia turned her power up another notch, nearly obscuring herself in the rising steam. The hydra flinched, but its tail continued to rise, holding in place for a moment to steady its aim before crushing the Princess before it.

Before it could, another pillar of fire leapt out of the mud off to Celestia's right, this one burning with a cold blue flame.

Celestia gaped at Nightmare Moon, who smirked back, then moved forwards towards the hydra's front side. It roared in anger, retreating a few steps and turning to bring its tail down on the new threat.

But when it did, Celestia moved forward, bringing her power to bear on the vulnerable side that had been exposed when the hydra turned. When it retreated and focused on her again, Nightmare Moon repeated the advance on the hydra's other side.

Slowly, a few steps at a time, they forced the hydra back. When they had reached almost halfway to the edge of the mudflat, Nightmare and Celestia gave each other a look, nodded, and shut off their power.

As one they struck, two beams of energy blasting the outermost heads, and they roared in anger and dove towards the ponies who had attacked them. Taking to their wings, Nightmare Moon and Celestia flew at each other, passing within inches. The two heads that had focused on them tried to follow, colliding with a loud CLUNK! as they struck each other in the middle. With a howl of pain, the two heads pulled up, shaking.

Fully enraged, the two heads darted towards the ponies that had hurt them, only to be met with a set of hooves that bucked their snouts with the force of a cannon. Both heads flew back, colliding with the next set of heads, and sending those two straight into the middle head.

Howling with pain and anger, but mostly frustration, the hydra staggered away. It shook its aching heads, glaring at the ponies who stood defiantly before it, but finally turned and retreated back into the trees, its snarls of anger echoing long after it had vanished.

Celestia and Nightmare Moon cheered as it retreated. When it finally disappeared among the trees, they turned to each other, almost—for just a second—reaching out to bump hooves. But they caught each other's eye, just enough to cause a moment of hesitation, and that killed any sense of camaraderie.

Side by side, but several feet apart, they began walking through the mud back to the island, not looking at each other. And even that little bit of civility broke after a few seconds.

"You're welcome, by the way," muttered Nightmare.

"Oh, yes, for abandoning me to be killed by a hydra? Thank you so much," replied Celestia snidely.

"Why, I never would have let it kill you. That's my job. I just wanted to see it smack you down into the mud a few times."

"Wow. And you were honestly expecting praise for that?"

"Considering all the things you've done to me, I felt it was quite lenient. A simple thank you seems more than justified. Perhaps a medal or ribbon of some sort, even."

That got an angry snort out of Celestia, and she leapt into the air, a powerful flap of her wings spraying mud all over Nightmare Moon. The Nightmare glared after her, mud dripping off her snout, then simply dissolved into a shadowy mist before reforming on the island just as Celestia set down near Shining Armor.

"Shining Armor! Are you okay?" Celestia anxiously asked of the mud-covered pony.

"Hey, I told you, no problem." He gave a cocky grin, then gestured to the mud just off the shore of the island. The mud snake lay there, wriggling happily in the ooze. "You just gotta rub their belly a bit and they turn into puppies. The only problem is finding their belly under all that mud."

Celestia blinked a few times. "Um. Okay." A thought struck her. "Ka-klack! Where is he? Has anyone seen him?"

"Right here…" called out a hesitant voice. From small hole in the rubble of the lighthouse a black figure crawled, and the changeling stood upright.

"Ka-klack!" Celestia rushed over to give him a quick embrace. "Thank goodness you're alright."

"Oh, yeah, I, um, hid as soon as I could get away from the hydra." He looked up at her for a moment, then turned away, lowering his head. "Sorry about that."

"Sorry?" Celestia shook her head. "No, Ka-klack, you don't have anything to be sorry for."

"But I left you! You needed help, and I… I just hid."

"No one expected you to fight a hydra," Celestia said gently, placing a hoof on the changeling's shoulder. "Having you stay safe is more important than that."

"If you say so…" Ka-klack looked uncertain for a moment, then his ears perked up. "I did find this, though."

Diving back into the hole, he emerged a moment later, a clear crystal gem held in one foreleg.

"The Element!" cried Celestia thankfully. She rushed over, taking the gem as the changeling held it out to her. "Thank you, Ka-klack. See? You had an extremely important part to play in this too, even if you feel like it wasn't as important as you wanted it to be."

"I guess…" he muttered, head still down.

"How come he gets to hold the Element?" growled Nightmare Moon unhappily. "He actually helped conquer Equestria. All I ever did was lock Celestia away for a bit, and the Elements treat me like a lightning rod."

"And the part where you tried to kill me the first time you manifested?" asked Celestia dryly.

"A minor detail."

"Um, it did kind of tingle a bit," said Ka-klack helpfully, which only earned an angry snort from the black alicorn.

Celestia held the Element up, letting the gem refract the light of her sun into a rainbow pattern that shimmered across the island, and for a moment they all just stared at it. Even Nightmare Moon felt a bit of peace at the sight, though simply looking at the Element still sent a bit of a shiver down her spine.

"Well, onto the next," said Celestia, lowering the Element and breaking the spell. "Though I don't know what we're going to do after that. We still don't have a clue where the final Element is."

"If we gather the first five, we'll probably get some clue to its location," said Shining Armor with a shrug. "I mean, that's usually how these things work."

"The first three did show us where these were, but I wish we had something more concrete to go on than a hope." Celestia sighed. "In any case… we're this much closer to saving Twilight and the rest."

"And then you can finally tell Twilight how you feel!" said Ka-klack happily, as Shining Armor nodded in agreement. "The love from the two of you would be able to feed us for years—I mean, you'll be able to be with the pony you love."

"Right, right." Celestia nodded, careful not to let any of her doubts about the viability of being both a ruler and a marefriend show on her face. "But we need the rest of the Elements to do that, so let's get going—"

She raised her hoof to point back to town, which only serve to remind them all that they had several miles of muddy, parasite-swarming, predator-filled, murky swamp to trudge through before they reached their hotel.

"Oh. Right."

They all stared at their inevitable mud-filled future for a moment, and then Nightmare Moon dissolved into an inky-black puddle and began flowing into the shadows of the ruins.

"Have fun with that," she called out, before disappearing completely.

"HEY!"

Author's Note:

Fun fact:

Originally this took place in "Untitled Generic Swamp". However, before I came up with my own name, that episode with Fluttershy and Twilight aired, giving me an actual canon location I could use.

Also, James' name came from the fact that Luna's pet (in the comics) is an Opossum named Tiberius, and the first thing I think of when I hear that is, of course, James Tiberius Kirk.