Chapter 21 - A Walk in the Forest
In the deep of the Everfree Forest, an injured alicorn wandered around the ruin of a great castle. One of her hind legs was broken. The pain pulsed through her body with every step, and so do her broken, tattered wings that hung from her barrel and swayed and felt like they are going to fall out of her body.
But despite her injuries, she pressed on, determined to reach her goal.
The forest seemed to whisper with an eerie silence as she surveyed her surroundings, broken only by the faint echoing sound of Nightmare Moon's magic. Her horn flickered and lit up sporadically as she cast her searching spell, attempt after attempt of spells to find what she sought.
*Whirrs *Whirrs *Whirrs
Each burst of magic served as a marker, guiding her through the dense foliage. an upside-down smile etched across her features. "Two right... " She voiced out as she corrected her course.
*Whirrs *Whirrs *Whirrs
"Two middle... " Receiving another direction, Nightmare Moon pressed onward and continued her arduous journey. She knew she is getting closer, and that somewhere within this tangled maze of trees, her goal awaited her.
In her humble opinion, in both the efficiency and accuracy department, It might be the world's shittiest tracking spell.
Nightmare Moon had lazily repurposed its original function with minimal modification, as she didn't include any other kind of proper specialized circuitry needed for this specific application when she designed the system.
Unlike normal, elegant, and simple spells made by any sane, normal ponies, that all utilized the very nature of the magic itself, the ambient magic field, as the medium of transportation.
Her spell is different, overly complicatedly different, as none of its wireless functionality relied on magic at all!
Yes! Her spell used the more roundabout yet superior method, that has been used by humanity for hundreds of years. A medium of high-speed information exchange, the indispensable spectrum of electromagnetic frequency that human civilization of the information age had come to rely on!
Radio Wave.
From ordering a still not-sapient robot to clean a room to sending an order for a deadly drone strike from half a planet away, radio wave got you covered.
And now, radio wave was the transmission medium that she choose for her 2-parts teleportation spell, the horn-casted spell and the location marker, to communicate with each other.
"I frickin' hate this place," Nightmare Moon grumbled to herself, her frustration evident in her voice. "It's like being trapped in the Bermuda Triangle, only with less water." She muttered quietly, and cautiously maneuvered through the forest, making sure to avoid obstacles and potential dangers.
She then gritted her teeth in anger and frustration, as she thought back about her time on the moon, dragging her ass to finish this hellish of a project, test after test on the barren and desolate surface of space rock, trying to design a reliable radio system from the ground up without any reference materials.
Again and again, every new prototype must be tested by building a real test unit— complex circuitry pathways painstakingly chiseled into a moon rock without any tools, each failure only served to slowly drive her to insanity.
At that time, she had hoped her suffering would be paid off in the form of a spell that was able to avoid most of the magic-based jamming, including the wild and untamed magic of the Everfree Forest.
However, she failed to account for the fact that the forest's unruly magic was capable of messing with the radio signal too, causing it to sometimes return wrong results, showing information from different directions, and hindering her every step. It twisted the radio wave's direction, leading her astray by reflecting off signals.
The spell's relatively high amount of magic consumption didn't help either.
"Who thought this was a good idea?" Nightmare Moon grumbled, her frustration evident as she pressed on through the dense undergrowth, trying to avoid any further injuries.
It was akin to trying to find a buried treasure using just a simple metal detector that can only beep, or locate radioactive isotope with a beeping sound from a Geiger meter alone, this is a difficult and imprecise endeavor even for a small area like a backyard garden.
Now imagine, extending the search area to a whole acre of a forest.
This abysmal level of accuracy means she has to spam out this spell out again and again, multiple times in a row, like a trigger-happy psycho overdose on a drug.
"Oh, yeah, it's my furry ass who thought it's good enough" Nightmare complained, her voice tinged with a little self-deprecation. as she came to a realization that, trying to locate anything solely based on a single, one-dimensional data that only say "This is how close you are." and nothing else, is a flawed and impractical method.
Normally, such a task like this would be effortless for her, as this is nothing for the magic pool of this body, but currently, her alicorn body is repairing itself rapidly, draining her magic faster than Forex ever did to her savings, leaving her with a limited amount of magic to work with.
Using these spells was truly horrible for her current condition.
*Whirrs *Whirrs *Whirrs
The spell would occasionally receive a return ping in one direction, only for the subsequent ping to shift 180 degrees in the opposite direction moments later. The forest seemed to revel in thwarting her every effort, slowly dwindling her sanity with occasional animal noise.
"Left... Right... " That's why she needed to use it in at least three bursts each, a rather inefficient method at best, as it wasted her limited magic reserved that was currently still currently fueling her body's healing, draining it down even further.
"And, backward...? fuck you, trees." It work most of the time, and sometimes she still received false positives.
Nightmare Moon couldn't help but want to find a hole somewhere and commit seppuku.
But it's definitely taken her somewhere, and that's all that truly matters. Tangent line until the destination is reached was her gaming motto, beating will continue until the morale is improved is the way.
If it worked in the magical land of Skyrim, then it should work in Equestria too.
"At least this is a forest, and not a desert, if worst comes to worse I can dig a rat hole or something.” She muttered to herself, a little mixture of relief and morbid amusement overcame her as she realized that she could be somewhere worst, like the Badland.
Nightmare Moon mused, she contemplated the idea of camping in the Castle of Everfree, as the forest air was refreshingly cool, neither too hot nor too cold, with a good amount of moisture too.
Filtering out the most animals' sounds with magic, the gentle rustling of leaves, and the melodic chirping created a symphony of nature, letting her have a great sleep experience the last time she slept here with a warm, living purple side pillow… that’s locking herself in her room currently.
"Nope, don't think about it, She’s in good hands now." The alicorn shook her head lightly, as she stepped on a specially sharp rock that would be able to puncture her frog clean, had she not worn hoof guards.
*Whirrs *Whirrs *Whirrs
“No worries about, dehydration, heat stroke, and sand.... that goes everywhere." Nightmare Moon chuckled to herself, trying to maintain a semblance of humor in the face of such a situation.
"I hate sand.... and sand had those Dune worms. Fuck that sex toy-looking thing." She shook her head, amused by her own train of thought.
“Of course, a toy with that shape would be really painful, but it's a man's job to do it.” Nightmare muttered to herself, then a frame of imagination lit up in her head, as an idea came to her head as her voice slowly got louder. "Even if every hole in the universe are our enemy!"
A very idiotic and wasteful, but an awesome idea popped into her mind.
“Step by step, little by little, the drill will widen that hole in the universe! And that hole will be a path for those behind us!” The night alicorn’s horn began to light up, pulsating with an aura of magic, imposing her will on the surrounding magic for her larping session.
Her horn glow in brilliant dark light, and the shapeless magic twisted into the solid shape of a spiral. “The dreams of poor souls who have fallen... The hopes of those who wish of first humped! Weave together into twisted sausages, drilling a path towards tomorrow!” She lunged forward, firing off her spinning magic directly at a poor, innocent tree, making a giant, and burning a hole in it.
Despite the absurdity of her joke, she found some comfort in laughing at her own wit. "My drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens!" shouted out, twisting an innocent line of dialogue made by the little brother of the manliness man of all men, the greatest virgin who ever existed, to suit her own vision. and laughing at her stupid reference.
And the stationary eukaryote lifeform was no more, as it was sacrificed to the whimsical of the night goddess of horse people, forgotten in the sea of eternity like the rest of its kin.
"He who never gets laid until his very last breath, like a true chad of a wizard he was." The alicorn speaks out loud, putting her joke to the test of real tongue, to see if it's still as amusing as when it was in her brain.
Nightmare Moon knows that she should not waste her energy likely this, but she cannot help it. The temptation was too strong to resist.
The silver lining was that the offensive spell she had just used consumed as much magic power as two pings of her tracking spell, a grin spread across her face as she let out a mischievous chuckle at her own humor.
Nightmare Moon's posture relaxed a little bit, feeling the weight of her situation momentarily lift. It was important to her to find joy in the little things in life. Who knows when or if she will get to have another chance like this next time?
Not content with just one, she conjured another spell, summoning a blade made of pure magic energy, another illusion spell lay over it, masking her signature dark magic aura to the brilliant golden color.
Gripping it firmly with a hoof, her voice filled with determination. "Excalibur!" the night alicorn declared, she swung it sideway with finesse, slicing through the air with a satisfying whoosh. The energy blade cleaved through a few poor trees in its path effortlessly, leaving behind a glowing holy-looking arc in its wake.
Nightmare Moon then fired off another spell, with 5 times the energy of a ping of her tracking spell, her horn glowing with a brilliant dark light. "Unibeam!" she exclaimed, her horn emanating as a burst concentrated beam of magical energy shot forth, and blasted towards in front of her.
Colliding with a nearby target. The energy beam carved out a line in the forest, leaving behind a trail of sparking residue energy and burning tree trunks.
As the echoes of her magical display subsided, the alicorn took a moment to catch her breath. A content smile graced her face as she surveyed the playful chaos she had created.
"Being a horned horse is the best." Nightmare Moon gushed out happily as she pranced around, as much as her broken leg would let her she felt a surge of exhilaration and contentment. This was her destiny, this is what she mean to live for.
But that's another mistake she will be making today.
In her unfocused state, she didn't notice a root that suddenly protruded from the ground, not dodging it, causing her to trip and tumble. Her muzzle let out a surprised yelp before it met the dirt floor.
Nightmare Moon found herself sprawled on the ground with her muzzle plucked under the top substrate. She can feel a mix of annoyance and frustration threatening to bubble up inside her.
The alicorn quickly regained her composure, shaking off any lingering discomfort as she spat out a decaying dead leaf.
"Just my luck," Nightmare Moon complained, rubbing her sore muzzle, the lingering taste of dead matter still on her tongue.
Despite the setbacks and the pain throbbing through her body, Nightmare Moon pressed on. Her determination and resilience refused to waver, as she continue her search in this overgrown green hell of a forest
"EXTERMINATED!" With a good time, of course.
When this fandom was at its height, there are so many high quality animations...
Like, there are two different version of this same scene made by two different animators for whatever reason.
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Sooooo…. What is Luna going to do with that jar?
11697755
She is going to ferment them.
11697755
Why didn't she use Fus Ro Dah when she faced Celestia earlier? Royal Canterlot Voice should be able to amplify its effect several times over.
11698236
Royal Canterlot is something Celestia known of, and possibly have a countermeasure in place.
I love those animations in the author's notes, because I love Gurren Lagann.
It's really hard to invent Doppler, even if you know the principles behind it. Gonna need several more simultaneous ping measurements from many points across a few cycles of time. And even then, with this apparently heavy interference.... Tough task ahead.
Is this Nightmare Moon suicidal? Going bleeding and broken bones into a deadly Forest? Every predator will smell her blood
Nightmare Moon sanity sure is straining.