Apocalypse Unbound

by Hustlin Tom

Epilogue - The Nightmare That Almost Was

Author's Note:

This is a story that I'd had published a while ago under my Anthology story collection. Since it has now been cancelled, and this story pertains very closely to the previous chapter, I've decided to leave it here.

This was my 50 Follower Milestone Story. The original idea was suggested on my blog by Cool_Story_Reader.

I`ve read The Sorrow and the Temptation and also Apocalypse Unbound. My favourite from these was The Sorrow and the Temptation. Maybe the milestone could be about the time Luna spent on the moon? Just her and Nightmare Moon, and her thoughts about the world, about Celestia, about how she regrets what she's done.

On the moon’s surface, just before the beginning of a thousand years of imprisonment, stood the semi-conscious but divided mind of Princess Luna and Nightmare Moon. Deceived by her darkest side, who was born in a moment of great madness and emotional pain, the once pure Princess of the Night had almost unwittingly brought ruin on the whole world at the goading and planning of Nightmare Moon. The black alicorn had spun her webs laced with a false tragedy of her own existence, using the Princess’ compassion and desire for vengeance on the ones who had vilified her name and who had taken her best friend from her to orchestrate the permanent possession of their body. Impulse had trumped reason, darkness had overwhelmed light, and Nightmare Moon had almost won her battle with Princess Celestia, had it not been for the intervention of the Elements of Creation.

“Coward!” Nightmare Moon said as she struck the Princess with her right hoof, “We would have won had it not been for your stupid empathy; your disgusting sentimentality! Celestia would have been dead at our hooves had it not been for you!”

Princess Luna fell to the grey dust and rocks beneath her, her consciousness still strong enough to simulate her perception of pain and balance. A bruise began to form on her cheek, but her mental avatar quickly removed it from her thoughts. She angrily looked up at her black colored doppelganger, “I desired vengeance, but not like that. Though she may have deserved to be embarrassed and ashamed, it needn’t have to come to murder. It was the devils who murdered Orpheus who deserved to die!”

“It doesn’t matter what you think anymore, you stupid cur,” Nightmare Moon spat through her serrated teeth, “I’m in charge now! I kill who I want, take what I want, when I want it. There’s no ‘we’ anymore, don’t you understand? I. Don’t. Need you.” The black alicorn turned to look back at the earth as the light of the sun slowly began to shine on it once again, “Look at it; such a beautiful, little ball of rage, and prejudice, and suffering. It deserves to end if anything ever did; it needs to end, here and now.”

Princess Luna got up from where she had fallen, and began to run at her usurper, “Give me back my mind, damned spirit!”

Nightmare Moon whirled her head around just in time for the Princess to tackle her in the side, tossing the two of them end over end into a deep crater. She began stomping on the black alicorn’s face, trying to do everything in her power to end the mare’s life, but she had forgotten that neither of them was actually physical, so her blows would almost instantly heal, as Nightmare Moon failed to acknowledge her opponent’s wounding strikes as real. Her doppelganger, however, had no problem with harming her mental avatar, as she gouged at the Princess’ chest with her horn, leaving scarring wounds. She bit into the Princess’ neck, causing her to roar in pain. Princess Luna slammed her hooves down on the monster’s shoulders, forcing her darker half to release her grip around her neck. Nightmare Moon backed a few steps away.

Princess Luna made to run her down, but the black alicorn pointed at her with her hoof, “Look.”

Glancing down at her body, the Princess saw that all the wounds Nightmare Moon had been making were healing, just like they would on her material form, but they left ugly black scars and bruises on her azure coat of fur.

“I can only hurt you as much as you let me,” Nightmare Moon chuckled, before she leaned into the Princess’ face, “Your cowardice is showing.”

“Not cowardice,” the Princess spat silvery residue, which quickly evaporated, “Remorse.”

The dark alicorn scoffed, “What, guilt? How idealistically naive. That quality needs to die if you want to get anywhere with me!” Nightmare Moon turned her back on the Princess, hit her with her back legs, and shattered Princess Luna’s lower jaw.

Screaming in muffled pain, the Princess writhed on the lunar floor as her consciousness patched her up, but her regretfulness and indecisiveness only hampered her mental healing, just as Nightmare Moon had predicted. The black alicorn once again looked up to the Earth from her place at the bottom of the crater, “Though she may have limited my power by splitting me from my body, dear, sweet Celestia forgot that the mind is my natural province of power.” She spread her wings and flew a little above the surface of the moon, slowly casting her forehooves upward, “If I can’t destroy them quickly with a cold, dead sun, I can make them sleep, experiencing the worst of agonies imaginable, and nightmares beyond their feeble comprehension, until they die a slow death by starvation!”

There was a crackling sound from behind and below, and suddenly the monstrous alicorn felt a blade edge tap against her neck. Nightmare Moon smirked as she turned to see in full her brighter half’s futile attempt to stop her, except that she was not nearby; looking back down into the crater, Nightmare Moon’s eyes widened in shock and fear, as she saw that Princess Luna had her long, dark blue blade at her own neck. “What are you doing,” she asked quietly.

The Princess was still shuddering and hyperventilating from her imaginary wound, but her face was set like granite, and was as cold as death. The sword bit into her neck, drawing silvery energy from the wound. Nightmare Moon grunted as she realized that her own neck was oozing silver as well.

“Do you feel that, monster?” Princess Luna grunted, “You lied to me, just as you have for countless years. Our life force is one; I die, and then you join me.”

“You’re bluffing,” the shady alicorn replied harshly, as she gracefully landed back down in the crater center, “You won’t do it. Even if you foolishly decided to end your life, I have the power to live on.”

The Princess blinked, relaxing her grip slightly, before reasserting it firmly, “Perhaps, or you end up like an instinctual animal, unable to reason or further your own goals. Worse, you could become a vegetable, all but dead, imprisoned in an immortal body with no means of release. We cannot live apart from each other. Id cannot be rid of Ego, and Ego of Id.”

She edged her sword ever further to her neck, causing Nightmare Moon to gasp again.

“Submit,” she declared coldly, “Or we both die.”

The moon began its final approach back to its original station in the cosmos, and the celestial alignment that had provided the two avatars of the night an increase in power was ending.

Nightmare Moon’s form began to shimmer and fade, but her hateful gaze on the Princess was unbridled, “Very well. I yield; for now. When we awaken once again, I will find a way to circumvent this status quo, and I will hide you down in the darkest recesses of your own mind, so that you can never get out of the maze I make for you.”

“Try it, and I’ll slit our throats,” Princess Luna hissed to the disappearing shade.

Nightmare Moon’s eyes were the last thing to fade into oblivion: her sentence of one thousand years was begun.

Princess Luna sighed in relief, and she dissipated the sword at her neck; the threat to Equestria and the lands beyond was over. As she caught her breath, she looked back to the little blue planet that she had called home for all of her life. She wondered where Orpheus’ body had been laid to rest as she looked to the continent Equestria called home, and she visibly wilted; she may never be able to pay any form of last respects to her youngest but dearest of friends, to the bat pony she had loved as both a curious child, and as a handsome stallion.

There was one last thing she had to do, since it seemed she was granted some small allowance of freedom before her doom was complete. Her horn glowed, influencing the atmosphere back on the earth to make some of the stars appear especially bright for that night. Her power was fading fast; she did not notice her form begin to shrink, or her vaporous mane begin to lose its luster and hang limp. As her eyes became dark, the spell was completed. Sister. Tia, she thought to herself, if you can find it in your heart, please forgive me for what I’ve done, even if I don’t deserve it. Forgive me, and prepare for my demon’s return.

---

Princess Celestia, now Sol Invicta, watched over the first of her many followers and worshipers as they slept next to the lake that would one day lie below Canterlot. She was pleased to see that there was not a single pony that was having trouble sleeping that night. There were no tears, there was no panic, only dreams. From where she sat in vigil, she saw an unusual brightness coming from the night skies above. Turning her gaze heavenward, she saw that the stars appeared to be arranged in a pattern that created two words: Forgive me.

Luna, she thought to herself. Her eyes began to slowly fill with tears, she is not consumed by that foul Nightmare after all. She wept quietly, for fear that she would wake her herd.

Oh mother, she silently prayed, Thank you for this blessing; my sister is not gone, only lost. Help me to make things right; to see her dream of equality and harmony accomplished.

She looked back to the stars, whose message was already fading from the sky, and she smiled through her tears, and help the both of us to be reunited once again, as sisters first, instead of just Princesses.

Comments

[Hustlin Tom]

5256115
Thanks! If you're looking for inspiration on fight scenes, what's helped me was watching a few comic book adapted animations and movies ( Justice League or virtually anything else in the DC Animated Universe, Sam Riami's Spider-Man ). For a good sword fight there's no better place to look than Star Wars, for sure!

[LoneUnicornWriter]

Both chapters of this story were written great. I loved the read very much. :) Wonderful story.