Light and Shadow

by oop

Chapter 22: Night's Lumen

“I was expecting you Chrysalis,” said Luna, already aglow with blue light, ready for if the changeling queen were to make a violent move “Your actions haven’t gone unnoticed to us, you’re performing a very foolish plan.”

Chrysalis was holding an equally serious expression, jagged horn readying a more sinister form of the same magic “You won’t be saying things like that once you’re cowering before the spirit of Nightmare Moon,” she hissed “I’ve already obtained all the pieces but the helm, you don’t stand a chance against me as I am now.”

It was true, Chrysalis was resplendent in blue armor that fit well on her slender frame. Iron horseshoes of the same color were equipped to her hooves and an oddly familiar pendant gleamed at her neck. Shadow gasped with realization, wondering how in Equestria Chrysalis had obtained that amulet. It confused him further to note that if she had that necklace it must be connected in some way to Nightmare Moon’s armor. They could’ve stopped her before any of this had happened if they had just kept watch of that necklace…

“Why didn’t we show the necklace to Luna?” Lightning groaned, her train of thought apparently on the same track “Twilight just thought it was a really fancy manna battery…”

Well there was no point in worrying about it now, the damage seemed to have been done. “You should be familiar with these pieces,” said the queen “The barding of darkness, grants the defensive powers of Nightmare Moon. The tramplers of twilight grant the powers of her speed. The amulet of dusk grants the power of her magic. Even you, princess, could not stand a chance against me like this.”

“You underestimate our power since the defeat of my sister,” said Luna, eyes aglow “I assure you there will be no second occurrence…”

At least one of them was stalling, and Shadow had a feeling he knew why. The scene wasn’t complete yet, just like Abby had said, the helm still wasn’t there. Both Luna and Chrysalis had sent their foals down to retrieve it and the race was in the return. What neither of them seemed to have noticed yet was that one party had already made it back up, but they had returned empty hoofed.

“What do we do?” Lightning whispered as they backed toward the cave again “They’re going to start fighting and that other changeling is still down there with the helmet…”

“Well yeah…” said Shadow, wondering if she hadn’t been crushed by the falling blocks “Maybe we can get behind Chrysalis and attack her while she isn’t looking…”

“That’s a stupid idea,” said Lightning, “Remember what she said about the armor? I don’t think hitting her is going to be all that effective…”

“Ugh…” Shadow groaned “Why couldn’t one of us be a unicorn? I bet she could get hit by magic…”

‘Leave it to Luna…” said Lightning “We can’t do anything now, we need to just let what happens happen, if anyone can beat her up it’s her…”

Shadow gave Lightning a quizzical look “Come on Light,” he said “Normally you’d be all ready to go kick some sorry changeling tail! Are you being replaced again or are you just chicken?”

“It’s changelings,” Lightning snapped at him “I’m not going to challenge a changeling…”

“You are a chicken,” Shadow said, the words tumbling out of his mouth before they had a chance to connect with his brain. If he had stopped to consider the innumerable times Lightning had shied away to the thought of changelings, or told him not to talk about changelings, or to just not mention changelings, he might have seen the punch coming.

As it was the next thing he recognized was hard ground under his back and the copper tang of blood in his mouth. Lightning had struck him, hard. Knowing her power he felt lucky to still be awake. Lights exploded in his head as he brought himself up to a sitting position, scared to see all eyes turned on him.

“You little crap stain!” Lightning shrieked, not moving from her standing position, left hoof held gingerly off the ground “Just who do you think you are?”

If the punch hadn’t alerted the two monarchs to their presence, the shout did. Chrysalis’ green eyes flashed with triumph as Luna looked on, mortified.

Shadow brought himself shakily to his hooves, looking from face to face as cold terror began to dawn on him. “So it seems as if your precious son has failed to retrieve the helm,” said Chrysalis, loud enough this time so all could hear quite clearly “So Abby managed not only to scatter you but to send you running all the way back to the surface… good girl…”

“No…” Luna whispered.

“No!” Shadow said defiantly, coughing as he wiped the blood from his lip “We buried her in the rubble on the way out, no pony gets the helmet!”

Lightning’s eyes widened in shock, and she wasn’t the only one. Chrysalis looked decimated, jaw wide enough to show the entirety of her fangs. Luna managed an expression of pained relief, glad at least that he had found some solution. It was unlike anything they had been expecting.

“No…” Chrysalis said, backing away with an expression of total disbelief “There’s not a chance Abby would’ve fallen to you!”

“Shadow…” said Lightning “No… you didn’t… did you?”

As the voices faded into similar expressions of disbelief, disgust, and horror, it occurred to him just how quiet the moon was. Without the sound of their conversation he could hear his own heart beating. The pace was sluggish considering the sudden weight of everything on his shoulders, the numbness of the whole event coming into starker light.

Lightning saw something flash behind Shadow’s eyes, the need for expression that couldn’t quite push to the surface. He was terrified, but holding back any physical reaction to it. Unlike her though, he wasn’t afraid of being face to face with the monster that possessed her countless nightmares. The fear was deeper somehow, closer to the soul…

Shadow was afraid of himself.

“Mom!” the single syllable shattered the blackening awe inspired by those gathered as a very battered looking changeling crawled on one limp leg from the mouth of the cave. Abdomen had not been crushed, and worse, she was clutching the helm.

Lightning was the first to react, diving toward Abby in an attempted disarmament. The helmet was quickly enveloped in a sickly green glow, the princess falling on her side, task completed. Chrysalis cackled maniacally, a sound that paralyzed the hooves of Shadow, already shocked into silence and now paralysis.

“Well, well, well,” Chrysalis cooed, the navy blue covering the carapace of her cranium “I seem to have managed a victory after all. You pathetic pony folk were never much for a fight anyway…” her smile widened as her eyes deepened from pale navy to a full black, devouring the whites of her eyes.

“No…” said Shadow, backing to where Lightning was prodding Abby’s unconscious form “She can’t have… we can’t… no…” he cast desperately every which way for the escape clause he was so used to finding.

“Oh I can feel it!” Chrysalis roared, her voice dropping the insectile echo and flowing into a form more akin to Luna’s majesty, though horribly distorted, even deranged “The final piece, the Helm of Umbra, the clarity of thought afforded to the goddess is now my own!”

Lightning and Shadow both looked desperately back to Luna, who had taken several paces backwards. The eyes of the two foals seemed to plead with her, praying the lunar goddess to pull forward and triumph against the spectacular unfavorable odds. Then, to their unaquitted horror, she turned back to them, and Shadow saw for the first time ever, genuine fear in her eyes.

“Shadow,” she said softly, some magic carrying her voice through the din of Chrysalis’ victory jeers “Take Lightning, go back to the stairs. Get yourselves down to Equestria safely…” she turned back to Chrysalis “If I don’t come back with you, tell my sister…” her eyes narrowed, “Tell her I’m sorry…”

Time stood still for the young colt, the impact of her words settling upon him like a ton of bricks. Shock and unadulterated terror swept him as he realized just what Luna had conveyed in her quiet speech. Lightning, managing to hold herself together, shoved him forward until his hooves took on the instinctive motion of galloping.

“Mom!” he called back, not keeping pace with Lightning as they dashed across the dusty track “Mom…”

One final phrase reached him as his mother faded into a blue glow in the distance “I love you Shadow…”

The princess of the night allowed her defensive magics to fall as the two foals grew to specks on the horizon. She cast her attention once more to the queen of deception, who had narrowed her mutilated eyes.

“I suppose you think you’re brave do you?” she said, “Sacrificing yourself to protect the young?” she called forth jagged green lightning from her crooked horn, which was repelled by Luna, though not without strain, “You know it matters not to me. I will track down the prince of Canterlot and end his life as well, no matter how much longer it takes. In this form the world is mine to command.” She snarled as two more beams of her sinister magic were deflected “I will ensure your final sacrifice was in vain!”

“No,” said Luna, a disquieting calm coming over her now “The world is not yours in that armor, Chrysalis, and neither is the armor itself,” she closed her eyes, the pale blue of her horn deepening to a navy hue, and then finally to void colored blackness “The spirit within the armor was never yours to control.”

Chrysalis’ eyes shifted to their usual green all at once, though she seemed totally oblivious. The blue glow around the armor faded, seeming to unpossess it as it became simple iron. The queen fired another acidic enchantment forward, but with no defensive measures of Luna itself it still broke as water on rock. She recoiled, confused by the black magic.

Luna focused, gasping as her form steadily began to change, accepting again the spirit she had only once overcome. “What you failed to realize…” she gasped out, eyes coming up to meet those of the black insect “Is that Nightmare Moon… is a part of me…”

The two monarchs cried out, one in pain and one in fear as wild blue flames engulfed the princess of the night. The calming cerulean of her coat was shed in favor of a deep noir, wings shrinking, a trade of majesty for grace. The stars twinkling in her mane faded to a solid cloud of black, blotting out all space behind it. The armor on Chrysalis went alpha, fading away only to be replaced on the other’s shoulders.

Luna smiled, showing glinting, pointed incisors, fangs that looked only more dangerous in the vast moonlight. She reared backwards, bolts from the blue striking down around her as she whinnied, demonstrating the awe inspired from the form of Nightmare incarnate.

The changeling could only back away slowly, inspired to terror at once. In all of a moment the entirety of her plan had fallen, even more sudden and desperately than it had on the day of the wedding. She coated herself quickly in a magical sphere, casting her eyes to Abby, and quickly shielding her equally. Even if she were to fall here she could pray her daughter would escape unharmed…

With the sound of fracturing glass the dome around Chrysalis fell to a single quick spell of Luna’s making. Inside the mind of the princess of the night two forces were raging a wild war, one which her own mind was for now winning, channeling the powers of the nightmare against the queen. She was aware of the helpless changeling behind her, and the spirit vying for control of her mind willed her to destroy her quickly then move on to the mother who would then be distraught. Luna’s mercy was difficult in holding back the surge of violence, diverting the flow to the destructive magic around Chrysalis.

It was over in less than a second, the changeling queen was wrapped in an ebony nimbus and was at once wrought unconscious, falling into the white stone with a silent puff of dust. The magic failed to abate as Luna attempted to reign herself in, the insectile form writhing on the ground in the grip of violent nightmares. Somewhere in her mind Luna knew, despite her best effort to the contrary, that the demon already had her in the grip of control, and anyone nearby with life she would soon end…

Yards away, still sprinting past the indented lunar landscape, two foals heard the wild crackle of lightning. Shadow was the one to slow, his red coated companion caught up in the sight of the staircase ahead, the ticket home. It wasn’t that she didn’t care what was happening behind them, but fear was her companion now, driving her as far from her age old fright as she could go.

She only slowed as Shadow drew to a complete stop behind her, desperately calling after him “Shadow come on, we’re almost there!”

Shadow didn’t answer at once, looking slowly between his companion and the wild flashes of blue and black light which signified his mother’s ongoing struggle. He was not torn, not indecisive of the development. The colt knew with the skill of a savant his next own actions.

“I’m going back!” he called ahead to Lightning the words feeling as if they didn’t carry anything like the necessary weight.

“Like hay you are!” Lightning called back “You’re going to get yourself killed, are you not seeing that?”

Shadow turned his attention once again to the distant magical maelstrom a doubt clouding over then fading in the space of a shattered second. “Well… it wouldn’t be the first time!”

Lightning’s shoulders heaved, her cheeks puffing out in rage as she stamped back to where Shadow stood “You know it’s probably for good this time,” she said “Are you still sure you want to go back there?”

Shadow merely nodded, afraid of his words to betray him. Lightning released the trapped air in a final, pent-up exhale. “In that case,” she said “Just like every other time, you’re not going alone…”

Author's Note:

Welcome back to the fanfiction everyone, as im sure you know its been far too long since i last updated, some seven or eight months even? I kind of doubt its actually been that long, but its what it feels like, and if it has been that insanely long of a time i apologize. I believed at one point that i had completely abandoned this project, but closure feels so nice to finally have. The entire fanfiction has been finished, and is progressively being typed up, and should be entirely uploaded by the end of spring break. So if you're making it here after just starting recently, congrats, you've come a long way. If you're making it here after reading for as long as i fear some of you might have been waiting, you are gods among men (or women, or something else, i love all you people).
So all in all, its almost over, i said before that i was in the home stretch but it turns out the home stretch has taken even longer than the production itself, so i guess ill see you all later. Live long and prosper.
(Also to one certain prolific commenter who mentioned nightmare moon a number of times, you're very welcome)
-CC