> Total Eclipse
>  by Somedudeatemytaco
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Mare in the Moon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Love, it can come in many forms, relationship wise, attachment to an object, love for your country, you get my point. My love is my family. I love every single member of my family, my dad, mom, and my two sisters, one older and one smaller. But my little sister Mia though, we share a different bond altogether. 

Ever since she was born; she has only put smiles in my life, and I am so grateful for every day that I spend with her, she has changed my life for the better. Then, just when I thought we couldn't get any closer, she introduced me to My Little Pony. At first I was skeptical, but then I learned to love the show and our relationship soared even more. I watched all the episodes with her, laughed at all the jokes and references. Soon enough, I became her Shining Armor just as she became my Twilight. But enough about that, I'll get on with the story.

This all happened one day, or night to be particular. It was a special night, I thought as my family and I were driving home, for two reasons. One, it was a rare occasion that my dad had some time off from work, so he treated us for dinner. Two, the moon was acting weird, by that I don’t mean the tides were changing, I mean the physical appearance of the moon! The craters of the moon were moving, as if they were alive! Scientists were baffled by this, they had no idea what was going on with our lunar body, and a lot of theories were created to hopefully explain this to people. They said everything, from global warming to aliens, there were no limits, but I didn't believe any of them, but then again, why was this happening in the first place, I had no idea. At that moment, my thoughts were interrupted as the car parked into the driveway. As I opened the car door, I turned my head and saw Mia, she looked so happy; I couldn't help but smile myself. I said to her,

“Hey, my little booger, let’s get out of here, I have something to show you.”

Mia happily nodded and held out her arms as I grabbed her and put her outside the car. As I showed her the moon, she informed me of something I’m surprised that I didn't notice myself, “Hey Hector, that looks like the moon from My Little Pony!”At first I was going to tell Mia that that was nonsense, that that could not possibly exist, until I took a look at the moon myself.

It was dead on.

It was the Mare in the Moon in exact detail, for a six year old, my sister is pretty smart! Everything was precise, from the shape, the full moon, and the four stars looming closer to the moon. It was that detail that made me go uh-oh. No matter what logical explanation I thought, I couldn't stray from the one conclusion that was forming in my head. Something bad was about to happen, I just knew it. At that moment the four stars connected to the moon, and then the moon started pulsating. I had no idea what was about to happen, but we were going to be in for one heck of a show.

Suddenly, the moon stopped pulsing, I'm thinking, what is going on, when a huge blast comes from the moon, fast. When the blast hit us, it knocked us all to the ground, and power went out on all the houses that I could see. And that's when I heard it, the menacing laugh of Nightmare Moon, and some cracks of lightning for some dramatic effect. It felt like her voice was coming from everywhere when she said,

    "Greetings pitiful mortals, for too long have you been basking in your precious sun, taking advantage of it. But no more! From now on, there shall only be darkness, darkness ruled by Nightmare Moon!"

With another crack of thunder, Nightmare Moon continued,

   "But first, I'm going to require a few... resources from you all."  

Resources, I thought to myself, well what kind, oil, electricity?

"Hector!" I hear Mia scream. I turned to her, she was floating, and she was heading towards the moon.

"Mia! Don't worry, I'll get you!" I assured her as I started to climb up the car, as soon as I reach the top, I leapt at Mia, I couldn't lose her. Arms stretched, I attempted to grab my little sister. As her arm tried to reach mine, our fingertips touched, and then gravity took care of me.

I've never hated gravity more than I did at that moment

As I fell flat on the ground, I watched helplessly as Mia screamed and was taken away, going, going, gone. My sister was kidnapped by Nightmare Moon, and I had no idea what she had planned for her, and on top of that, I was the only one who tried to save her.

"Hey guys," I angrily say to my family, "how come I was the only one who-"

My family wasn't listening to me, as a matter of fact, they were all unconscious.



 ***

There was nothing that I could do, Not only did the blast put everyone to sleep in the city, the blast acted like an EMP, making any electronic device, lights, TV, even radio down. My cell phone was dead too, so I couldn't call anyone, besides, who would believe me if I said that an evil horse from a TV show kidnapped my sister. Also, since the blast made my family K.O'd, I had to lift (or drag) my whole family home. As I brought the last of my family members, my sister Maggie into the house, I contemplated what would Nightmare Moon want with my sister, and why am I the only one who isn't unconscious? I then realized, this is  my chance, I can save my sister, I don't know where she is, but I don't care, I am going to do whatever it takes to find her. I emptied my back pack and put a sleeping bag, a flashlight, and some snacks. (By that I mean basically whatever I could fit)

"Sorry dad." I tell my unconscious dad as I put his wallet in my pocket, I had no idea where I was going, but I was going to need some cash. The last thing I did was write this note to my family:

  Maggie, Mom, and Dad,

By the time you read this, I'll probably be long gone. As you probably know, Mia was kidnapped, and I'm making it my duty to find her and bring her back to us. Don't bother trying to find me, I need to do this alone, I was so close to saving her before, and I can't fail her again. I hope you understand this. I'll see you guys soon, with Mia.

-Hector

Writing the letter was hard enough, I was tempted not to leave at all, but in the end, I saw myself outside. I didn't tell them that I had no idea where I was going, that would give my parents heart attacks. Heck, my parents are hesitant even letting me walk to school! But now here I was, completely alone, the only beacon of hope I had was to follow the direction Nightmare Moon took my sister. So I put one foot forward, and started walking.

Walking, at least for me, is very peaceful, it lets you relax and gives you time to really think about stuff. And with all the lights off, I saw the night like I never had before, so many stars filled up the night sky it was almost unbelievable. As I was marveled by the night sky, something peculiar caught my eye. There were six comets, brighter than any of the other stars out in the sky. Each comet was a different color, purple, blue, orange, yellow, pink and white.  I noticed that the comets landed close to where I was, so the obvious thing for me to do was to check it out; I had nothing to lead on anyways. So with haste I make my way to where the six comets landed.

After all, they may be my only hope.

***

Seriously, of all the places for six meteors to fall, it had to be IN THE FOREST! I thought as  I trekked through the dark woodlands, if not for my flashlight I would have probably been screaming like a little girl by now, this place is giving me the heebie-jeebies, something that I don't  appreciate.  As I trample through the forest, my brain just so happened to remember that I was in a position very similar to that of a Slenderman game.  It's times like this that I hate my brain for being so stupid. 

At that moment I heard something, it was like a cough or something, I turned off my flashlight and listened in to what was happening.

"Is everypony alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine darling, but there is dirt and ick EVERYWHERE!"

"Oh quit it, y'all should be happy that we came here in one piece."

"Oh my, it’s so dark in here."

"It isn't that bad, if anything I think this place is kinda awesome!"

"Hey! Why don't you put a light so we can see better! Nopony likes a dark scary place!"

"Good idea."

Uh-oh, I thought to myself, I didn't want them to see me, yet.  As I started to make my escape, my foot was caught in a tree root, and down I went, I really hate tree roots. As I fell, I could hear some gasps and shrieks coming from the voices I heard earlier. As a light started to emit, I found myself face to face with Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash.

All I could say was, “…umm…hi?”

> Introductions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, as Twilight and everybody (or for the special readers, everypony,) saw me, I was trying my best not to fan girl out, for two reasons:

1.      By me doing so, I’d probably creep them all out.

2.      I had no idea whether they were in my side or not, for all I know, the six of them could be teaming up with Nightmare Moon to take over our world! But maybe that was my skeptical side of me talking because really, what are the odds of that happening?

As I was going through this awkward moment of silence, Rainbow Dash broke it by saying,

"You look funny."

The look on Twilight’s face was priceless.

As Twilight was about to give Dash a scolding, I intervened saying, "It's alright, I’m not offended, besides, I wouldn’t worry about me if I were you, it's not every day in here that this place has three-foot tall pastel ponies."

"What do you mean by that?" I hear Applejack question. I reply with, "I think we are going to have a lot to talk about."



***

After Twilight introduced me to everyone in the group, (which I already knew) I introduced myself, then Twilight asked of me something that I probably should have seen coming.

"Have you heard of Canterlot High?"

I had to think for a second, Twilight looked so hopeful, but I didn't want to let her down, nor lie to her. Believe it or not, I actually managed to come up with a pretty good response.

"I've never heard of the place, for all I know it could be here, but somewhere far away maybe. This, Canterlot High, seems like another dimension to me, who's to say that where we are right now could be an entirely different dimension altogether?" 

The answer seemed to please Twilight, while leaving the other five with confused faces.

"Enough about that though, “I say, "I want to know this. A while back, one of your, associates, by the name of Nightmare Moon, made my family unconscious and kidnapped my little sister.  I thought Nightmare Moon was good now!  Can someone please care to explain to me what happened?"

Now I’m not sure if Applejack intended to say this or not, but she replied, "Well, we're as much in the dark about this as you are sugarcube." Pinkie continued, "Yup!  One day Princess Luna was all fine and dandy, but now she's Nightmare Moon again!" 

Rarity gave me a puzzled look as she said, "Wait, how do you know about Nightmare Moon being good once darling?"

"Umm... just a hunch?"

When the girls looked at Pinkie, I knew I dodged that bullet. (Ha! So it turns out that watching Equestria Girls DID pay off in the end!) But I needed to be more careful of what I said, one wrong word, and I could really mess up.

Rainbow Dash started the conversation again by saying, "Okay, well, what Pinkie was trying to say is that we have no idea how or why Nightmare Moon is back. Look, I feel bad that you lost your sister, I really am, but you should leave it to us to find Nightmare Moon, we've already faced her before, we can easily do it again."

"Let me remind you all that you've never been here before, I've lived here all my life. Without me, you guys wouldn't last a day here." As brutal as I was, it was the honest truth. "Another point is, Nightmare Moon took my sister, do you know how close I was to saving her, and I can't live with myself knowing that I failed her. Don't any of you have any siblings, if you do, wouldn't you be just like me, trying my best to save them?" I already knew that four of the ponies had a sibling, or was a sisterly figure. I just wanted to play the sympathy card. "Face it girls, you're stuck with me."

With that, I put the group in checkmate.

Fluttershy finally spoke up by saying, "Well, we do need his help."

Twilight confirmed by responding, “Fine Hector, you can join us, but for now let's set up camp, we have a long day tomorrow.”

As much as I wanted to object, I stayed silent. I already won one argument, no need to get in another one.



***

As I was getting firewood for the campfire, I looked up at the moon, remembering the look on my sister's face as she was being taken away. It was so full of fear, and there was nothing that I could have done about it. It felt so awful to let her down. I quickly stop thinking about this, and I head back before I get any more memories.

Back at camp, we managed to get a small fire started, and we were all getting ready for sleep, well, everyone except Rarity. She was trotting all over the place, trying to find a "clean" place to sleep in. She was talking to herself; in between I heard words like uncouth and filthy. As amusing as it was to see Rarity freaking out in a forest, I didn't want her to be like this the whole night

As I unzipped my backpack, I called out to Rarity, and then asked if she would like to use my sleeping bag for the night.

“I simply couldn’t dear, seeing as you already packed that for yourself, but thank you for your offer.”

“It’s alright Rarity, I insist, how about you think of this as an offer of my friendship?”

“Well alright, thank you ever so much darling.”

Just from the look in her eyes, it simply showed that she couldn’t thank me enough, and that made it all worth it.



***

At this time, I'm the only one that's awake, while the girls were a small distance away from me, in whatever dreamland they imagined. I was alone with just my thoughts to keep me company, with everything that just happened today, it was hard to think that it started out just like any other day. I started thinking about my family, were they awake yet, how would they react to me basically running away? 

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard something. It sounded muffled, as if it didn't want to be heard. As I listened more intently, I realized that the sound I heard was somebody crying. Silently I stood up, and went closer to the sound. It was coming from one of the six, but I didn’t know who it was yet. As I approached where Twilight and everyone else slept, it became evidently clear who was crying, it was the pony that I least expected

The pony crying was Rainbow Dash.

> Dreams Can Suck
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the end, the best thing to do, I thought, is to just talk to Dash, see what's wrong. So I went up to Rainbow Dash and asked, "Hey, Rainbow Dash, are you alright?"

She seemed a bit startled when I spoke to her, she faced me and replied, "Oh, hi Hector, what are you doing up?

"Well, I don't usually sleep around this time. If I may, I'd like to ask you the same question."

"Umm, I was up to see if there were any monsters out here, you know, just in case."

"Come on Rainbow, I heard you, the truth please?"

"Alright, just promise not to tell?"

At this point it took all I had not to Pinkie promise. Instead, I just agreed.

"Well, here goes," Dash starts explaining, “You know how when the other guys were up, I show that I'm not scared, that this place looks awesome. I'm trying to show them that there's nothing to be afraid of. But really I'm scared, I'm scared because we don't know this place, it could be dangerous, and we don't have the slightest clue where we are. We don't even know where Nightmare Moon is! I can't stop thinking, what if we never go home? What happens if we fail?"

"Look, I totally understand you, Rainbow, even though I’ve been here my entire life; I've never actually done something to the magnitude of running away from my parents. I'm scared too, I'm scared of what will happen if I don't save Mia, my little sister, I'm terrified that I can't stop thinking about if I've made the right decision by doing this, I mean what if my parents never forgive me? What if I end up being gone too, how would they be? But despite all this, I keep a cool face on, just like you, we pretend we have no fear to inspire others, when in reality; we're just as scared as they are. When I first saw you guys, I didn't know what to think, at first, I thought you were with Nightmare Moon, if I'd had gone with that feeling, I would be doing this by myself."

"Yeah, you’re right. Hey, I'm sorry that I called you weird a while ago, no hard feelings?" Said Rainbow as she raised her hoof for a hoofbump.

"Totally." I replied as I returned the hoofbump. (Check that off the list of things to do before I die!) "Besides, you get used to it after a while."

"What do you mean by that?"

Shoot. That was meant to be said in my thoughts.

"Well," I sigh, "In the years I've lived, I've come to know something: if you don't act in a particular way, it’s considered weird, and I'd rather be myself than be someone I'm not, thank you very much. So yeah I'm used to being called weird,"

"Hmm... sounds rough, well, I think you're awesome, if that helps"

Rainbow Dash just called me awesome; I don't need approval from ANYONE ELSE ANYMORE!!!!

"Yeah, it does, Rainbow.  Now I don't want to see you like this anymore alright?"

"Alright, but just one more thing I want to talk about, you talk about Mia all the time. You even ran away from your family to find her, but why?"

"The truth is, I already lost Mia, and I feel like that's my fault. If I brought my family with me, and if something happened to them, I just can't cope with it."

"That's cool, caring for them like that, well; I think it's time that you and I hit the hay."

"Sounds good to me," at that moment, I decided to get bold, "Hug?"

"Sure, why not! Just don't tell anypony about this or else!"

"Deal!"

It was complicated, seeing the fact that I was almost twice the height of Rainbow Dash, but eventually we figured it out. I got down to my knees, and we hugged. Oh my goodness, getting a hug, hoofbump, AND being called "awesome" by Rainbow Dash, if only I can get my sister, I can die a happy person. Afterward, I said goodnight to Dash and laid down on the ground. I had no idea how I was going to sleep, so I just closed my eyes, and hoped for the best.



***

It was surprising to find it was still night when I woke up, apparently the fire that we made was still going on. Something felt very wrong, I just felt it. Feeling nervous, I call out to the girls.

None of them responded.

I called them out again, but still no dice.

    “You should realize by now that they can not hear you,”

It was the last pony that I wanted to see.

"What do you mean they can't hear me? What did you do to them?"

 "Me? Do something? Why would you think that?" Nightmare Moon mocked faking an innocent tone. "Not this time, believe it or not, the fact is, you're dreaming. Do you not believe me, see for yourself."

And so I did, looking around the forest, at first I didn't notice anything, but what I did see blew my mind. I saw myself. I was sleeping, so Nightmare Moon was right, I was in my own dream!

"Okay, you win," I tell Nightmare Moon,  "so, why are you here."

 "I thought it would be obvious by now, but I guess I can tell you. You want your sister back, but yet, you do not even know where I have taken her! I am just here to hint you, and so here it is, where I have your sister is, the happiest place in the world."

    At first I thought that this villain was losing her marbles. But as she began leaving, she started humming, it sounded familiar. As I was trying to match the humming to a song that I knew, it hit me, she was humming It's A Small World

But why would Nightmare Moon take her there?

"Wait," I shouted at Nightmare Moon, "Why there?"

And then I realized something else.

"And how do you know I want my sister back?"

Nightmare Moon laughed,  "I am the night Hector,  I see everything."

That sent chills down my spine. First off, I never told Nightmare Moon my name or the fact that Mia was taken by her, what else does she know?

"Oh, and by the way," Nightmare Moon added, " I recommend you get there quickly, your sister's crying is getting very annoying."

"What did you say?" I threatened her. I'm fine with anybody picking on me, I can take that, but when you mess with my family, I'll make you swallow those words back up.

"Oh, getting angry now are we?" Nightmare Moon taunted.

"I'm fine with you invading my dream, honestly I don't get enough of them. But how DARE YOU mock Mia, especially when YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO HER!!!"

"And what are you going to do about it?"

That's it, this horse sickened me. Without even thinking, I just blindly charged at Nightmare Moon. She didn't even flinch; all she did was raise me up with her magic. It felt like floating, except without any gravity and no way to move, basically you’re frozen, oh, and did I mention that it makes you feel sick? The worst part was, no matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t escape, man, why do bad guys get all the cool stuff!

“Now now, did you honestly think that would work? Well that just proves that humans are more idiotic than I thought.”

“Well, that’s the thing about us humans, when we set our minds to something, we (most of the time) commit to it, in my case, getting my sister back from you. So what you call stupidity, I call determination!”

Using whatever strength I had left, I tried to move myself, even a finger would suffice. Eventually I did it, I broke Nightmare Moon’s spell, and I am glad that I did, otherwise that speech I gave would have been the corniest thing to ever come out, and I would have looked like an idiot. As I fell on the ground, I could tell by Nightmare Moon’s face that she didn’t expect that from me. 

“How do you like them apples?”

Nightmare Moon tried to recover by saying, “This does not mean that you have any advantage over me, this is the dream realm, and you just managed to manipulate your dream that is all, that is all.”

    As she turned to leave, I had one more thing to say, 

“Hey, Nightmare Moon, you said I can manipulate my dreams, right”

  “Yes, why do you need me to ack-DO NOT DARE PERFORM WHAT I THINK YOU ARE GOING TO DO!”

“You came in my dream your way, now you’ll leave my way”

    “I ASSURE YOU, YOU WILL REGRET THIS DECISION YOU INSOLENT-

In the video game Skyrim, they have this particular shout called “Fus Ro Dah". For those of you who don’t know what the heck that is, it basically launches you brutally, and that’s exactly what I did to Nightmare Moon 

As she was becoming harder to see, I started thinking., yeah, I probably am going to regret what I just did, but I'll be lying to myself if I said it wasn't worth it!  After that, I woke up.



***

Waking up sucks, especially when you know that in your dream, you could have done practically anything, but such is life. I woke up around the same time Twilight and the others did, which was pretty convenient. Then I remembered, I know where to go, I just needed to find out how to get there.

"Hey girls, I know you guys just woke up, but I need to do something really important right now, just give me a couple of minutes and I'll be back, I promise.  Here, I'll leave my backpack here so you know I'll come back."

And with that, I left without even letting the girls comprehend what I just said.



***

Once I got out of the forest, which felt like forever, I finally found a place with service! I was surprised that my phone still worked after what happened last night. So first, I see the news, so I can get a bigger picture on what was going on. Apparently I wasn't the only one who's sister has been taken by Nightmare Moon. Apparently, little boys and girls all over California were taken last night, and as far as I know, no one knows who Nightmare Moon is. Anyone who says she is from My Little Pony got dismissed. The government's "official" explanation is that Nightmare Moon is an alias for someone or something. It's amazing how stupid people can be sometimes. After checking on the news, I searched for directions for the happiest place on Earth, Disneyland. 

Coming back to camp, I see that everything is normal, the girls were all talking to each other, all except Fluttershy, whim I couldn't find.

"Ah! There you are Hector," I hear Applejack say, "hope you don't me askin' where ya scurried off to earlier thin mornin'."

"Well, you'll never believe this, but I know where Nightmare Moon is, and how to get there!"

"That's great news, but how did you find out?" Twilight asked"

"Simple," I said as I pulled out my phone, “I used this."

Now I'm not lying to you, believe me when I say that all of them ohhhed at the same time, it was just too awesome and funny.

After laughing for quite a while, I continue, "With this nifty thing, I can search up anything I want, from news, books, (Twilight seemed especially interested when I said books.) directions, just about anything. But it has to have a signal, so that's why I left, I had to get a signal to get the information.  Hey, speaking of things missing, where's Fluttershy?"

Rarity answered, "She is just over there." Following where Rarity pointed her hoof, I walked toward that part of the woods. The farther I walked, the more clearly I could hear Fluttershy,  "You all are so adorable, you want some more? Here" 

It was obvious that Fluttershy was with some animals, I knew that without a doubt, but what exactly was she  giving them that the animals wanted more of? As I caught sight of Fluttershy, I found out. The animals were taking all the food from my backpack! 

"Fluttershy!" I cried out as I quickly ran to her "What are you doing!"

As soon as I shouted, all the animals scurried across different directions, with my food. Well, at least I still have my backpack!

"Oh I'm so sorry Hector! They all looked at your backpack, and I just wanted to make them happy, I know I shouldn't have looked inside, I'm sorry."

At this point, Fluttershy was on the ground, her head tucked in between her two front legs so she couldn't see me.

As I was trying my best not to get a heart attack from cuteness overload, (I'm not sure if you can get an actual heart attack, but who cares, this is Fluttershy we're talking about.) I said, "It's alright Fluttershy, it isn't your fault. In your defense, I never did tell you couldn't look inside, and besides, the animals in my world are very mischievous."

"Are you sure it's alright? What about all the things inside?"

"I'm fine Fluttershy, honest. Let's look at the bright side of this, I have more space to put more stuff in."

"You're nice."

"Thanks Fluttershy, in all honesty, when you have a little sister, you need all the patience you can get!"

That seemed to make Fluttershy laugh, so I told her that we should be heading back to camp, and so off we went.

***

"Thank you ever so much for the sleeping bag Hector, it made it so much easier to sleep last night."

"Anytime Rarity" I say as I pack the sleeping bag into my backpack.  

The girls meanwhile, were having breakfast, at least they had they going for them, so I kept myself busy by reading over how to get to Disneyland, by car it would have been an hour, by foot however, you're talking about a full day.

Applejack must have noticed me and my lack of food, since she said, "You alright there partner? You sure you don't want anythin'?"

"I'm fine Applejack, thanks for asking though. "

"Not even an apple, you'll be missin' out!"

Now that tempted me, an apple from Sweet Apple Acres, that was something you were not offered every day

"Alright fine," I said, as Applejack tossed me an apple, I (attempted to) tease her by saying, “I’ve had many apples in my life, I don't see how this one will be any diff-"

I almost dropped the apple from deliciousness overload. I'm not even sure that deliciousness is even a real word, I don't care, our apples suck, this was amazing!

"Oh my goodness!" Was all that I could say. "This...this is the best apple I've ever had!"

Applejack replied with a smug face, "Yer darn right it is."

Twilight said from out of the blue, "Hector,  look at your apple!"

"Okay Twilight,  so what, it's just an apple."

But then I realized that was the point, it looked like an Earthly apple, when clearly, it was Equestrian! 

"Whoa! How'd that happen!" Suddenly, I had an idea. "Here, Rainbow Dash, catch! " I said as I threw my apple up in the air. Rainbow Dash immediately flew up in the air, and caught the apple, just as planned. When Dash came back to the ground,  she said, "Was that supposed to be hard, because that was WAY too easy!"

"Just look at the apple, Rainbow."

"So what, it's just an apple, why do you want me to-WHOA!"

The apple was back to looking cartoonish

"Interesting, " Twilight said, picking up the apple using her magic, "It seems that physical objects such as this apple, change their appearance whenever either you or one of us makes direct contact with it."

It seemed like only Twilight understood what she said, sine everyone just look flat out confused, Twilight sighed, saying, "If we touch things, it changes,. If he touches something,(Twilight was pointing at me) it'll change too!"

"Look Twilight," I said taking the apple from her, "this seems interesting and all, but I'm starving!" With that I took another bite of appley goodness, reverting it back to its Earthly form. "Moving on, we do have a long way to go if we want to get to Nightmare Moon, if we start right now, we can make it there two days tops.”

“Umm Hector,” Twilight said with a concerned look on her face, “you might want to hang on those words.”

“Why, what’s going on?”

“Our Elements of Harmony are gone!"

> The Quest Begins
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

  “You've gotta be kidding me! The only way to defeat Nightmare Moon, gone!”

This was bad, really bad, if we didn’t find the Elements of Harmony, it wouldn't matter if we made it to Disneyland or not, we would have no way to defeat Nightmare Moon!

“Maybe you didn’t look hard enough Twilight.” Pinkie said trying to encourage us all.

“No Pinkie, we all had our Elements of Harmony in our bags when we came here, and now they’re gone, somepony must have taken them while we were sleeping, and I might have an idea who.”

“It had to be Nightmare Moon,” Rainbow Dash added in, “who else could have, besides Hector, we haven’t seen anyone else here.”

“I have no idea Rainbow.”

“I should have known that Nightmare Moon would have done something like this, what I don’t get though, is how exactly we did it.” Twilight said.

I said, “Well, in order to defeat Nightmare Moon, we have to find those Elements, the problem is, we have no idea where they are.”

And that’s when I started hearing voices in my head.

Look in your backpack.

The voice wasn’t Nightmare Moon’s, but yet it sounded familiar. Nightmare Moon's voice was harsh and well, evil. This voice sounded more sad than anything else. Thinking I had nothing else to loose, I open my backpack, and find something that I never saw until that moment, it was a wooden box. “Well well,” I say, taking out the mystery item, “It looks like someone else left something behind for us.”

When I opened the box, I found a parchment of paper, rolled up.

Pinkie nearly scared the living daylights out of me when she practically hollered, “Oooh, what is it what is it! This is so exciting!”

“Well, whatever it is, we shall find out Pinkie.” Rarity chimed in.

As I unrolled the parchment, I couldn’t believe our luck. “Guys, it’s a map, a map that shows the locations of all the Elements!”

The map also had a message written on it:

 To find the Elements you need, a great journey you must trek. Six locations, each with a hidden element for you to find. But be warned,, the farther you get, the more challenging it becomes. When the last element is found, you will see yourself at your journey's end.

Great, just what we need, a cryptic message to go along with a cryptic map that appeared from out of nowhere.,

"It seems like we have no choice," Applejack said, "we're just going to have to follow this map whether we like it or not."

I agreed with what Applejack said, but I just don't like the fact that we have to trust something that we can't be sure if it is a trap or not, but it's our only lead

Looking at the map, I noticed that an element, honesty, wasn't that far away from where we were

"Well, I guess that's where we're starting off. Twilight said.

I didn't tell any of the girls this, but deep down I was terrified if them going out into our world. With all the bad people out there, I'm scared to think what would happen them.

With those thoughts in my head, I hesitantly led the way out of the forest and into the city.

***

"Don't look at anybody, don’t talk to anybody, don't touch anything, don't look at anything..." I rambled as we were going on through the town.

It appeared that everyone who got hit with the blast last night was alright, as the city was it its usual state: a lot of people. There were also a lot of missing children posters as well.This dosen’t seem too bad, I though as the six and I were walking towards the first spot on the map. So far, no one stared, or said anything

"All right, so far so good." I say to myself checking behind me every once in a while, just to see if everyone was alright.

"Boy, it sure seems like there's a mighty amount of rules round here." Applejack commented.

"I'm sorry guys, it's just that a lot can happen here, and people here are, unpredictable,  more or less. I just want to make sure something dosen't go wrong:"

"Oh, Hector," Twilight said, "I forgot to tell you, on our way here, I cast a spell on myself and the others, making it that only you can see us. Well technically you, since the spell makes us visible to only those that know us, but that shouldn't be a problem!”

Hopefully it wouldn't be, I thought to myself, considering that there were a lot of people that knew Twilight and everyone else, especially a certain group of individuals.

Ahem.

"Well, good thinking Twilight," I said, "if it weren't for you than I would probably look like a total psyco-"

At that moment, I realized that people wouldn't be staring at the girls, they would be staring at me. As I looked up to see everybody in the city, I was right, everybody was staring at me. Probably because I was talking to miniature ponies that nobody else could see but myself.

"Uhhh..Oh! I can feel those pills kicking in!" I shouted to everyone. I'm not sure if that worked, or made me look more like a psyco, I walked too fast to find out. Pinkie was about to say something, probably why I said what I said, but I just told them not to ask.

***

"Well guys, we're here." 

From where we were, we could see Applejack's  element, problem was, it wasn't going to be easy to get. Apparently someone else found it and now using it to his advantage.  You know those games that people set up near airports, they lure you in because it looks simple, just follow the queen of hearts or whatever card they use. Soon you're all in, putting money into the game because it's so easy. And then, right at that moment, you loose, the guy gets away with your money, and you have nothing to do about it. I've been told that the secret to this was at the last game, the guy somehow switches the cards, making none of them the queen of hearts, ensuring the player looses. 

And now we were going to be forced to play this game, which was impossible to win.

Let me get something clear first, the guy who set up the game never told us his name, so for the sake of the story and comedic irony, I'm going to call the guy Guy.

As we approached Guy, he was in a game with a little girl, poor thing, she probably wanted Applejack's element

"Alright sweetie, if you win this one, the necklace is yours!"

And so he began mixing the cards. I already knew the poor girls fate, and as she picked a card, she lost. The guy didn't even had a chance to tell her that she lost because she just ran off, poor thing had tears in her eyes.

"Anyone else up for the challenge?" Guy said rather loudly. He faced me then said, "Well how about you there, the orange horse with the hat?"

Even I was taken aback by this, I didn't expect Guy to see Applejack and the others! I didn't even have to look at Twilight to tell she did not expect this.

Pointing a hoof to herself, the only thing Applejack could say was, "M-me?"

Guy responded, "Yes, you darling, get over here!"

Following Applejack, I put a dollar on Guy's table, for the bet money. Guy gave me an, are you kidding me? look. So I gave him a Well, I know what you do, so you know that I'm going to give you the minimum bet, deal with it face. But knowing my luck, the face I gave him probably made it look like I was constipated or something

After the money was placed, Guy explained the rules to Applejack, pick the right card and move on. And so he began, Applejack got the right card, and so Guy moved on.

"Why do you seem so worried dear," Rarity asked me, "this game looks to be fairly easy, Applejack should get the element in no time!"

"That's the thing Rarity, what usually seems easy in my world, isn't."

As I expected, Applejack got the right card attempt after attempt.

"I beg your pardon Guy," Applejack said while keeping her eyes on the cards, "but when am I gonna get that necklace?"

"Hmmm, seems important to you."

"Erm, well I'm no rush to get it, just askin'. I think that it'll look mighty fine on me."

I silently applauded Applejack for her quick thinking.

"Well, funny you should mention that, this here's the last round darling, just remember, keep your eyes on the card."

And so he began shuffling. Now I was sweating, I knew there was no way Applejack was going to win this, so it was going to have to require some quick thinking from me to get the element.  Then I noticed that Guy was shuffling the cards even faster than normally, hopefully Applejack had a good eye. When guy finished,  he let Applejack choose. Applejack took her time, contemplating each card.

"Well, I think I made my mind, I'm choosin' this one." Pointing her hoof in the card in the middle, Applejack made her decision. 

"Well then, lets see." As to further intensify the situation, Guy lifted the card ever so slowly. And as Guy lifted the card so everybody could see it, I couldn't believe it.

Applejack got the ace.

"Whew doggy! I'd knew I'd get it!" Applejack hollered with joy. Apparently Guy was just ad shocked as I was. While Applejack and the other girls were celebrating, Guy just kept on looking at the ace, as if he were expecting for it to change or something.

"I'll be takin that thank you very much!" Applejack said as she took her Element of Harmony. 

As we were walking away, I just couldn't help but occasionally look back at Guy, every time I did, he still had that dumbfounded look on his face. It was hilarious.

While walking, Rarity came to me and said, "See darling, I told you Applejack could do it." 

At this point, I was questioning the intelligence of Guy, then, I took a look at Twilight, out of all them, she seemed the happiest, and her trot was a little bouncier than usual. Suddenly, a thought hit my head, at first I dismissed it, but as time passed by, it became more plausible. I asked Twilight, "Hey Twilight, I don't suppose you had a hand in Applejack's victory today, did you?"

"Well, I-"

"Twilight Sparkle!" I said in the most ridiculous parental voice I could, “I did not expect this from you! It seems like there is another side to this pony!”

“Well, you know just as much as I do that we needed to get that element, I just put a spell to ensure that Applejack got the right card. But can we keep this between us, I want Applejack to enjoy this moment”

So I agreed. One element down, five more to go!



 ◆◇◆

> A New Perspective
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Mia was having a pretty bad day. First, she had been taken by what appeared to be Nightmare Moon. Floating in the air was fun at first, but then it became boring, especially when it just wouldn’t end. In fact, the only reason why she stopped flying was because she fell asleep! When she woke up, she found herself among other children; maybe her age or a little older. Apparently she hadn’t been the only person that was taken. A few kids asked her if she had seen their mommy or daddy, all she could say was she had no idea. As this was happening, a voice boomed in from out of nowhere.

    “Good morning children, I’ve seen you all have had the time to introduce yourselves to one another?”

Yep, she had been right, it defiantly was Nightmare Moon.

Mia could hear the shrieks of several kids, maybe even her own, she wasn’t sure. After several of the kids calmed down, Nightmare Moon spoke again

    “Now, now dears, there should be no reason to fear me, especially for what I have done for you.”

As Nightmare Moon said this, a small light formed, eventually growing bigger and bigger until the light revealed where Nightmare Moon had taken Mia and the countless other children.

It was Disneyland.

"See, this place all yours , no limitations and no adults! You are free to be about and to have as much fun as you can! Now, are you just going to stay there?"

A lot of the kids shouted in delight and immediately ran to where they wanted to go. All except Mia. Mia knew that she should be happy that she was here, she’s hardly ever been here, and she only has very faint memories of this place, and now she had this place all to herself. Mia thought that was it, she was all by herself, it left her rather scared, especially after what happened yesterday. This would be a lot more fun if Hector was here, thought Mia, as she started glumly walking across the happiest place on Earth.  

◆◇◆

Quite frankly, Nightmare Moon was getting sick of Hector and anything related to the human. First, he encountered Twilight Sparkle and the others and has seemed to gain their trust. A minor setback, for Nightmare Moon had seen this coming, and as him and the others frantically searched for their precious elements, they would be wasting their time. Secondly, the human had seemed to discover how to manipulate the dream realm to his will. Nightmare Moon had not expected him to learn that so quickly, but that was nothing to distress over, after all, they were just dreams, his manipulation would only just make things a tad more complicated to achieve. Nightmare Moon had planned this for too long for this to fail now, she must succeed, the night would be eternal. There was just one more problem Nightmare Moon had to deal with. If it wasn’t the human that Nightmare Moon had to deal with, it was his sister. For this to work, she needed all the energy she could get, and the child was too busy thinking about her brother, where he was, and when he would come back.

It absolutely sickened Nightmare Moon.

Nightmare Moon sighed as she summoned up a shadow.

"You know what to do." Nightmare Moon commanded, the shadow, and off it flew.

Now that Nightmare Moon had a visual, she could now see if her little, "investment was worth it.

◇◆◇

Mia was starting to question why she couldn't have any fun just by herself, after all, this place was supposed to make you happy

Maybe its just the the way I was brought here, maybe that's what made me sad, thought Mia as she walked across Tomorrow land. It was sort of ironic that Mia was in this particular place, since it was Hector's favorite spot on the park, he liked all things spacey and stuff. The thought of it only saddened Mia even more. Then she heard something that she thought was impossible only a minute ago.

"Hey little lady, what are you doing around here?"

It was her brother!

As fast as her little legs could go, Mia ran to Hector and gave him a biggest hug she could give him!

"Oh! I missed you so much Hector!  What happened to your glasses?"

Then Hector spoke in a tone she didn't expect from him

"For your information, I lost them here on the way to be here with you, geez, you could at least give me a  little respect!"

"I'm sorry"

"You should be, now what are we waiting here for? We have this entire place to ourselves, and everyone else is coming soon, so why waste this perfect brother sister bonding time?"

Mia agreed, and as Mia and Hector were going about, she started to get a feeling that something bad was going on here.

◆◇◆

> Laughter Hurts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I checked the map to find our next element, I noticed something peculiar, the spot that located Applejack’s element was crossed out, and the next element popped up on the map, the element of laughter. So yeah, it was obvious that this thing came from someone who had experience with magic. Oddly enough, our next element, laughter, was all the way in a retirement home. I had no idea why, but I'm not doubting it. On our way there, Twilight was concerned that her spell didn't work; she kept questioning herself, to see if she messed something up. In the end, I told her that maybe her magic didn't work as well as it would back on Ponyville. That seemed to comfort her, if only a little. When we arrived at the retirement house, the map wrote out to look for Ms. Austerus; just by the name I could tell that this was going to be fun.

"Excuse me; do you know where Ms. Austerus is?"

"Well, yes, but I'm surprised that you would want to see her. Almost no one here has."

"Might I ask why?"

"She never laughs"

See! I told you!

***

As we entered Ms. Austerus' room, we saw her, and boy, did she look stern. Her dress was plain grey, her hair ties into a tight bun; the only color she had at all was her red glasses. I found Pinkie's element hanging by a nail in a wall. Alright, I thought to myself, let the games begin.

"So, I've come to understand that you came to see me?" Ms. Austerus started.

"Yes I have, and might I add that you look lovely today." 

"Well thank you, but don't use flattery on me boy, now, why are you here?"

Geez, talk about getting straight to the point.

"Well, it seems that you have in your possession something that I need." I was trying to get to the point while at the same time not revealing everything, because who would belive me?

Ms. Austerus must have seen me looking at Pinkie's element, because she had asked me if that was what I wanted. I said yes, this is what she said.

"Ah, the necklace, it’s colorful and full of joy. I absolutely hate it! How's about this, I'll give you the necklace, under one condition."

I asked what it was, she said to make her laugh first

I am good at a lot of things, but let me say this, comedy is NOT my forte, especially in front of an elderly old lady who doesn't laugh at anything. So while you read this part of the story, I'll be banging my head in the closest corner I can find.

"Make you laugh..." I say to myself. "Okay, this shouldn't be too hard. How about this: Why did the bird go to the doctor?"

Silence

"To get a tweetment!"

Behind me I could hear the groans of the six, telling them they weren't helping, I questioned myself,  are my jokes really that bad?

Onward to my next failure: "Why did the math teacher confiscate a student's rubber band pistol? Because it was a weapon of math destruction! "

Now I began to learn how Fozzie Bear felt whenever he told jokes, he thought they were funny, while everyone else knew they were just atrocious. 

The last joke that I told Ms. Austerus was probably the worst, "What did the newspapers say about the fire at the circus? It was pretty in tents!"

At this point, Pinkie Pie went up to me and tried to help me out by whispering a few jokes to me. That was until Ms. Austerus screamed no help from the pink pony. It was so sudden that I felll to the ground, flat on her face. And that's when I saw it, the faintest of smiles.

Jokes weren’t going to make Ms. Austerus laugh. It was going to take physical pain.

Getting up from the ground, I said to Ms. Austerus, "Of course the pink pony isn't cheating, she is merely asking if she can assist me in what I am about to do".

"I was?" Pinkie asked. I just told her to go along with it. I asked Ms. Austerus for a moment, so I whispered to Pinkie Pie,

"You have your party cannon with you, right?"

"Of course I do, I never leave home without it!"

"Good, okay, now what I want you to do is aim it in front of the window"

With her trademark, Okie dokie Loki, Pinkie, from nowhere, got her pary cannon out. Even though i saw it in person, I still have no idea how exactly she got it out.While she was positioning the cannon, I told Ms. Austerus, "Behold, a simple cannon! Instead of firing, you know the usual stuff, this cannon fires joy and happiness! You know what to do Pinkie!"

"Alrighty!" Pinkie responded, and with that, she fired the cannon.

As soon as she fired the cannon, I dived into the blast radius. Now, I know that cannons are meant to be powerful, and maybe I thought that since this was Pinkie we were talking about, the cannon wouldn’t be that powerful, but let me tell you, There’s a reason why she used it against the changelings! As I became caught in the blast of confetti, I suddenly found myself flying out the window! This better be worth it, I thought to myself I crashed to the ground. I heard Pinkie and the other girls asking if I was alright. I also heard Ms. Austerus laugh, like a hyena.

Gosh, this woman was sick.

“It’s alright, I’m fine!” I say to the girls, as I shake myself off and stand up. I poke my head through the window and say, “Alright, I made you laugh, now can I have that necklace please?”

***

“I don’t see why you had to do that, you just hurt yourself!” Pinkie said as we made our way out of the retirement home.

“Look, Pinkie, we got the element, that’s all that matters, let’s just leave that behind.”

“But  you got hurt! That wasn’t very funny at all.”

“Well, welcome to my world, where things like that get people laughing, that’s why I don’t want you guys to be here any longer than you have to be. This place is full of mean people, and I just want you guys to get home safe and not deal with any of this.”

“I’m getting worried too Hector,” Twilight said, “ It seems like  my spell hasn't worked all! It seems that everyone can see us!"

"Maybe that's just part of what we're doing, maybe these people have to see you guys."

I opened the map again , it did its own usual thing, cross out the element and  point out to a new one, the next element was Loyalty,  

"Alright Rainbow Dash," I said as I glances at the map, " your element is next!"

If before I thought that the elements were received by random people, I was totally wrong. Now I know without a doubt that all of this is staged. I mean come on, loyalty, Rainbow Dash's element of harmony, is a prize for a remote control airplane contest!

"Flying contest," Rainbow Dash said enthusiastically, "we got this element in the bag!"

> Pony vs. Machine
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Just hold on a minute," I told the group, "this is an airplane contest,  and from what I know, you're not an airplane Dash. I mean, unless Twilight has a spell that can turn you into an airplane, I have no idea how we-"

Then an idea struck my head. An idea so intricate,  so deceiving, and most importantly,  so stupid, that it might actually work.

"So you're meaning to tell me that this is an airplane?" The judge said.

"Yep, 100% airplane, hi-tech airplane that is." I said as I plopped Rainbow Dash onto the table. I have to give credit to Rainbow Dash, standing complacently still like a mannequin for the whole time while I walked up to the judge,  well,  up until the most crucial moment as I put Rainbow down, she let out an, "Ouch!" And turned her head to face me.

"It can talk?" The judge said.

"Umm, of course it does, it has artificial intelligence! Wasn't kidding when I said hi-tech"

"What do you mean, "artificial"! I bet I'm as smart as you are!" Rainbow Dash rebutted  Maybe I should have told her about the plan a little more in-depth.

"Hmm, it has a sense if humor," the judge added, "does it have a name?"

""Of course I do! Rainbow Dash said rather proudly. "It's R-"

I butted in with, "Of course she does! Its, umm..."

I didn't want to give away Dash's real name, you know, just on case something happens, but then again, my mind was blank, so I said the first thing that came into my mind.

" She is...ummm  the R-Dash 5,000!"

Did I really just say that, I thought to my self. Even worse was that Rainbow Dash  was giving me an "are you kidding me" look. Luckily, Dash decided to play along.

"Yeah, I was going to say R-Dash 5,000."

"Well then," the judge said, "you're in. Just stand and wait over there."

As we walked away, Rainbow Dash said, "Really? Of all the names you could think of, the R-Dash 5,000?"

"It was the only name I could think of!"

***

Since we were waiting for the competition to start, I had no choice but to listen to ALL SIX PONIES go on about how, and I quote "confusin', absurd, a little out of place, highly illogical, silly, and just flat out not cool" calling Rainbow Dash R-Dash 5,000. I'll leave it to you to figure out who said what. While that was going on, I heard someone else coming, it seemed like this guy was arguing with a bunch of people too.

"How many times did we tell you, you can't leave all this to the last minute again!"

"Hey calm down, what's so important about this anyways? It's just a stupid necklace."

Ugh. It was that kind of guy. The guy who always thinks just because he's good he's superior to everyone else. The guy that wears sunglasses all the time and becomes a total drama queen when things don't go his way, it sickened me.

"Might we remind you that you came this close to loosing the last match, the only reason why you won was because-"

"ALRIGHT, I know what happened, but let's not put that out in the open air, what's done is done."

As much as I hated to admit it, Sunglasses had a point, those guys were taking this way to seriously. I, on the other hand  had a perfect reason. I had to vanquish an evil alicorn of darkness from another dimension. As these thoughts were going through my head, Sunglasses came my way and started laughing.

"May I help you?" I asked.

"You really think you can win with that?"

"Hey," Dash stepped in, since she was the only one Sunglasses could see, (come on, you didn't think Twilight took the spell off of everyone now did you?) "what do you mean think? Hector knows I can win!

"Oh, looks like someone's got an attitude, how about I come over there and take it out personally!"

"You're not going to do anything!" I said as I stood face to face with him. Luckily, we were of equal height, otherwise I don't think that my threat would have succeeded as much as I hoped I would. "I've seen guys like you by the hundreds, going about so full of themselves, just because they think they're superior to everyone else because of one small little detail. Well, I've got a newsflash for you, you're just a snob who has nothing better to do with thier meaningless lives than to put other people down just for their own enjoyment, in reality,  all you are is a huge d-"

Then I remembered, there were six ponies right behind me, and I didn't want to be the guy that ruined their innocence here. Besides, saying things like that would only lower myself to his levels, something I wasn't so keen on.

"D-do no gooder!" I finish. It may have not have had the raunchiness that I wanted to give him, but it still got to the point.

"Huh, you've got quite some nerve to say something like that," Sunglasses rebutted, especially for someone of your...type. Oh, and one last thing, the name's Amicus, Neques Amicus, just wanted you to know my name when I win.

"Neques... a snobbish name for a snobbish boy. And you shouldn't be worried about me remembering your name, you should be worried about mine: Hector Torres."

With that, me and everyone else walked away, making me feel like a boss.

"Rainbow Dash."

"Yeah Hector?"

"I want you to destroy that guy on the competition."

***

Finally, the time of the race had come. After explaining (more along the lines of making up things as events unfolded,) that how I controlled the R-Dash 5,000 was by a program that I downloaded, making it so that I can't control her using my glasses, which are connected to my brain through...well I can see that I'm boring you, so I'll just get along to the good stuff.

As the racers lined up, I found myself right next to Neque.

Trying to imply a sense of sportsmanship I said to him, "Hey, may the best man win."

"I intend to."

Figures, well I tried! Looking at Neques' craft, and then at his remote, there was no way he could control a complex plane with just two joysticks. That's when I noticed what was behind him. Five guys, each with their own remotes, once again, figures.

The shrill sound of the air horn goes off, Rainbow Dash, Neques' plane, and a few others zoomed off. It was actually kind of sad to see that some planes were still on their launch sequence. In the background, I could hear Applejack and the others cheering for Rainbow Dash. At this point, all I could do was hope.

◆◇◆

This should be a piece of cake, Rainbow Dash thought to herself as she zoomed by the skies This wasn't too far away from training back in Ponyville, so she saw no reason why she could loose. Honestly, she was a bit surprised that a few of the planes actually managed to slightly keep up with her, slightly. The race was easy enough, just fly by a couple of trees, dodge some clouds, turn back and repeat. While doing so, Rainbow Dash thought, as soon as we get my element back, what next, she knew they were going to the next element, but why could everybody (Hector insisted that she use that word when addressing humans, although for what reason Rainbow Dash didn't have a clue,) practically see through Twilight's spell of invisibility.  It worried Rainbow Dash, Twilight's magic didn't work here, how could they so sure that the Elements of Harmony would have the same effect here as in Equestria?  Quickly dismissing the thought, Rainbow Dash told herself to refocus on the race. She was around the halfway point, and she was winning! Even better, that jerk, Necro's, (or whatever his name was, quite frankly Rainbow Dash could care less,) plane was in last. As Rainbow Dash turned to start the next leg of the race, she counted all the poor things she was leaving in the dust, planes, ir whatever they were called. It was weird, at first she swore there were five airplanes, but now there were four! The other one probably must have crashed into something, Rainbow thought as she continued. Later on, Rainbow looked back again, and there were only three. Weird, they weren't in the part of the race with trees yet, so how did it disappear? Then she heard something, it was loud and boomish. She took a look around. Only two planes behind her, Rainbow was starting to think that something was going on, looking back again she was shocked to find there was only one plane left.

It was Nero's plane.

◆◇◆

Something was wrong, I felt it. Around me, several competitors were shaking their remotes, or saying they've lost contact of their planes. It was too far away, but it looked like all of the planes were dropping like flies. 

All except Neques' and my R-Dash 5,000.

Very faintly I could hear Rainbow Dash yelling something, I couldn't make it out, but I didn't have to hear it to finally understand what was going on. As I wad about to confront Neques,  I found out he was having his own problem too."

"Don't you see what you're doing! You didn't even wait fir the right time!" One of Neques' assistants said.

"Shut up! Neques venomously spat out " I don't care about timing, what matters is winning, an I'm going to win, WITH OR WITHOUT YOUR HELP!" with that, Neques grabbed the assistant's remote, and just started mashing buttons. Neques' plane started firing all sorts of things at Dash, from electric bolts to a potato, (don't ask me how that got in there!)  but Rainbow Dash dodged them all. 

That's when I snapped, I wanted to arrange a personal meeting with Neques and my fist, even though with my luck, I'd only end up hurting myself. Just as I was going to tackle the living daylight out of the guy, someone beat me to the punch! It turned out to be the same guy that Neques took the remote from

"Agh! Get off of me you stupid idiot!" Neques shouted.

That gave Dash enough time to cross first in the finish line and win. 

I didn't even wait to see Neques react, me along with the girls went up and cheered wildly for Rainbow Dash.

"Oh come on guys, you're acting like you were expecting me to loose!"

"We'd knew you win Rainbow," Applejack said, "we're just glad to see you here in one piece!"

"Yeah! The way you dodged everything was super-duper amazing!" Pinkie added.

After that, we got our element, and left without even taking a second look at Neques, he wasn't worth it

***

I wanted to look for more elements, but night was quickly approaching us. We had to find a place to camp out. Luckily we found a park nearby with a lot of big trees, so we decided to head there. On the way there, the girls were talking nonstop about everything that happened today. Although about an hour into it, all of them eventually fell fast asleep. I stayed up for a little while longer just to make sure that everything was fine. Normally I wouldn't consider 8:30  sleeping time, but after all that happened today, I was beat. Laying on the ground, (I let Rarity use my sleeping bag again,) I was about to check my phone to see how fat we were from Disneyland,  then I noticed I received a message,  and a lot of missed calls. If you guessed that they were from my parents,  you are correct! Go get yourself a cookie! I didn't read it, call me childish,  but I was really afraid of what my parents would say to me, whether or not they were sad or mad at me, it didn't matter, I put down my phone and decided to rest, in the morning I'd decide whether or not to read it.

I should have read the message.

> Dreams Can Suck...Even More
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 For a guy that hasn't a single dream in a long time, you would think he would be joyous to have at least one dream, or even two consecutive dreams in a row. That'd where you'd be wrong. As I found my self literally standing on nothing, total nothingness everywhere, I instantly regretted closing my eyes.

"For a creature of magic, you really lack creativity when haunting people's dreams." I say to the dark void, knowing who would respond.

"I am not the one responsible for this, I just so happened to come in when your mind imagined this."

"Speaking of minds and imaginations, you know what I'm capable of, so why do you step foot, er... hoof in my dream again? In fact, give me one good reason why I shouldn't blast you again in the next ten seconds!"

"Wait!  Do you want your sister back?!"

That caught me off guard, "Alright, continue."

"I've noticed that you and the six ponies have been going about, collecting the Elements of Harmony, and I must say, you are making terribly excellent progress." 

"Was that supposed to be a compliment?"

"Let me continue, if I may. The point is, the Elements of Harmony is the only way to defeat me, and with you collecting them, I feel threatened. That's why I am here. I want to establish a compromise. 

"What makes you think I would make any deal of sorts with you?"

"Simple, you give me the elements, and I'll give you your sister back."

"Or I could keep the elements, let Twilight and everyone else use them on you AND get my sister back."

"But here is what you do not seem to comprehend, you already know for a fact that Equestrian magic is not as effective here."

"Now that didn't stop you now did it?"

"My case is different, I am an alicorn with otherworldly powers."

"Twilight's an alicorn too."

"You are testing my patience human, something I strongly advise you not to do. The point is, I have your sister, and if you do not give me the elements, I will make sure she will suffer in every way imaginable!"

"YOU BETTER NOT LAY A SINGLE FINGER ON HER, OR-"

"Or what? I'm here, you're there, you cannot do anything, besides, I have hooves not hands. Just consider my offer, it seems like you do not have a choice now anymore.

With that, Nightmare Moon left, leaving me to wonder, what should I do? Was her threat serious?



***

It was morning when I awoke, or at least it should have been. I checked my watch to see what time it was: 7:30. But instead of the sun, I was seeing the moon maybe a few more minutes before the stages of sunrise would begin. By all means this was horrible news, Nightmare Moon's plan was getting closer to completion,  who knows what would happen if her plan was completed?  Seeing as the ponies were still sleeping, and I was dead tired, I decided to head over to a Starbucks I saw on our way here from last night, I needed a caffeine boost if we were going to get through this day.



***

Heading back, I felt a little better from the coffee. It only took about three sips, since I got the drink with the most caffeine  Not wanting to leave the girls empty handed, I decided to get them those cake pop things that Starbucks sold. I'm pretty sure that the register was a little taken back by the fact that a teenager filled with dirt ordered six birthday cake pops!

"There you are Hector, we were starting to get worried!" Applejack said as  I came into their view.

"Sorry about that guys, when I woke up I went to get some things, probably should have left a note."

Setting down my coffee, I unzip my backpack, after shuffling through it's contents, (including all the elements we had,) I took out the bags that had the cake pops, "Don't think I left you guys empty-handed!"

"Empty-hooved"  Twilight corrected me.

"Whatever! You know what I mean!"

After explaining the basic premise of the cake pop, Fluttershy made a point that I can't believe I forgot about, "Well, it's nice and all that you gave us these, but how are we supposed to hold them?"

I just went total poker face on everyone. Luckily though, I made a realization.  I bought six cake pops, but I only counted five ponies, where was Pinkie? I asked the girls, and Rarity said that she was behind me. As I turned around, an, "oh no" came out. I found Pinkie, but she was as still as a statue. Next to her was an empty Starbucks cup

"What's wrong?" Fluttershy asked.

"She drank my drink!"

"What's wrong with that?"

"IT WAS COFFEE! Pure caffeine!"

As soon as I said that, the girls had the same felling I had.

To be honest, I was both terrified and intrigued on how Pinkie would react. If she was already acting like she was full if caffeine, what would happen is she were actually given caffeine? Running to Pinkie Pie, I asked if she was alright, I got nothing from her, so I tried poking her.  That's when the show started. Pinkie started vibrating like crazy!  She was practically zooming by the trees, like in the old cartoons. Pinkie shouted, “Ooh! This feels great! So much energy!  I feel like doing...doing" At mid-sentence Pinkie just stopped, and just like that, she started snoozing!  It was just so random, so out of the blue, that I just ended up laughing. After a while, everyone else joined in.



***

After Pinkie’s episode, we decided to get started on finding the next element. After a couple of minutes, Pinkie was back to being her traditional, well, excited self. Looking at the map we discovered the next target was the element of generosity. And what better way to retrieve it than to win a fashion competition! And the winner gets the element!

“Ah, this is absolutely perfect,” Rarity joyfully said, a smile beaming from her face, “I already have some brilliant ideas for a gown! "

"Well, even though you have some designs already, I don't think that'll work. People here can't see us, and even if they could, it wouldn't be much better." Twilight said pointing to the bottom of a poster. The text said that the competition was males only. Of course there had to be a catch! All six of the girl's heads turned to mine.

"Me!? Nonnononononono! Sorry to disappoint you all, but I'm not a fashonista! If I go on there, I'll have no idea what I'll be doing! I have as much creativity as a rock! We might as well forfeit! "

"Well," Twilight spoke up, " I do have an idea, but I'm afraid that it might be too risky"

"Just try it, anything is better than just sending me in there!"

"Alright fine, but both you and Rarity will have to agree on this, like I said, this is going to be very risky."

"Seeing as this may be our only option," Rarity chimed in, "I agree to partake in this Twilight!"

"Good, but just a fair warning, I've never tried this spell before, so I have no idea what's going to happen!"

"Wait, WHAT!?!?" Rarity and I said in unison.

But it was too late, Twilight had her eyes closed, concentrating, a small light appeared from the tip of her horn, quickly enlarging by the second. After a while, tendrils sprouted from the ball of light, quickly wrapping around both Rarity and I. When we were completely wrapped, a blinding light emerged, and then I lost consciousness.

> I Become Absoulutly Fabulous
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ugh," I say as I find myself on the ground, ,"wha happened?”

"Is everypony alright?" I hear Twilight call out but very faintly though. 

I tried to get up, but I could only manage to get on my knees, I hear Rarity respond first, "I'm fine darling, just a little unbalanced that's all." Strange, Rarity sounded, well different. I say, "I'm fine too Twilight." And then I realize, I sound different. Turning myself to face Rarity, I instead am greeted by the last person I expected to see.

That person was myself!

Then I realized, I could only stand to my knees because that was my height. The reason why my voice was different was because it wasn't mine.  The cold hard truth hit me: I was Rarity and Rarity was me! Apparently Rarity realized this about the same time I did, because both of us screamed at the same time.

"Twilight! WHAT DID YOU DO!!" Rarity shouted. Now I realized why her voice sounded different  since she was in my body, she had my voice, but she still kept her accent, so therefore if I spoke, I would have Rarity's voice, but not her accent. To test this out, I said, "Yes, what exactly is going on here!" Turns out I was right! The whole thing was just flat out weird! At least I now knew what I would sound like in a British accent! 

"Well I told you guys that this is risky, but the important thing is that the both of you are alright." Twilight informed.

"Wait so let me get this straight," Applejack said.

"Rarity is in Hector's body," Fluttershy filled in.

"And Hector is in Rarity's!" Pinkie finished.

Rainbow Dash bursted out laughing. Now's not the best time Rainbow, I thought to myself.

"I have to agree, your behaving rather rudely Rainbow Dash." Rarity said.

"Wait, how did you know that?"

"Know what darling?"

"What I just thought!"

"Why its simple, you did say it aloud."

"No I didn't."

"Oh no," Twilight said, looking rather concerned, "this can't be good. Apparently the spell didn't work exactly as planned. My guess is that you two share the same conscious,  making you two able to read each others thoughts!"

Well that can't be good. I thought to myself, 

Can he really hear what I think?  Rarity thought

Yes, yes I can Rarity

The look on Rarity's face was priceless

"Your right Twilight, lets just be grateful that this was the worst that came out of this." I said

"Easy for you to say," Rarity said in frustration,  "you're not the one who can't stand on her own two feet!"

Rainbow Dash chimed in, "well you're going to have learn fast, it says here that registration ends in an hour!

That poster has been giving us nothing but trouble!

Tell me about it darling!

This is going to be a looong day!



***

Normally, it wouldn't have taken us too long to reach the registration area, but due to the fact that Rarity was in my body, it took a while for her to become accustomed to walking on two legs. While on the way there, Rarity and I laid out some ground rules, "Okay, from this moment on, you are a dude, got it? That means no calling people "darling", no random emotional outbursts  and if you can, try to loose the accent, it just sounds weird."

"I'll try my best!" Rarity said, attempting to use a masculine tone

It took all I had to not laugh.

Oh please, I know you're enjoying this! Anyways, my only rule is to PLEASE WATCH THE MANE!!!

As you wish



◆◇◆

Rarity was having pretty bad day, for starters, she wasn't even herself anymore! As if that wasn't bad enough, she had to learn how to move on two legs only! But worst of all, her beautiful mane was gone!

Alright Rarity, left foot first, she heard Hector say in her head; oh and there was also the fact that him and Rarity shared the same consciousness.

I think I already know what to do by now Hector, its not like I haven't done this before!

You haven't 

Touché

As Rarity stumbled across the city, she noticed several humans staring at her, she was grateful that this wasn't actually her they were staring at, in fact, it was , Hector, but.. ugh, this was starting to become very complicated, Rarity thought to herself.

Ain't that the truth, I have to see myself tripping every five seconds!

Quiet you.



***

After what seemed like an eternity, they all finally made it to the registration! 

Okay, just go up to the guy and say exactly what we rehearsed Rarity.

Please darling, you are making it seem as if I cannot do anything by myself! 

As Rarity strode to the "guy," she couldn't believe that Hector had such little faith in her! Well, she'd show him!

Hearing Hector think, Well, I'm waiting, nearly surprised her! She was going to have to get used to that.

Suddenly, thoughts were interrupted when the man said, "Excuse me sir, may I help you?" It was too late, Rarity let out a small "Eeep!" before coming up with, "Oh, everything's fine darling, I'm just here to sign up for the fashion competition! " Smiling as best as she could to the man, she knew that she basically threw out every rule that Hector had given her, this was going to be a lot more harder than expected. 

"Umm...sure thing, I just need your name."

"It's Rar-"

Ahem...

"I mean Hector! Yes! Totally a manly name!"

Don't be surprised when you come back if your mane gets slightly messy!

YOU WOULD'NT DARE!



***

This was going to be a tad more complex than Rarity hoped. Oh, who was she kidding, this was near impossible! For instance,  she didn't have any magic to help her, instead, she had, "hands" something she did NOT ask for. Making a dress was a very delicate process, fashion is more than just tossing fabrics around, mind you, it is an art!  The worst of it all is that she only had an HOUR! But she must win! For her friends, the element, in the name of fashion and fabulosity! 

Yeah, yeah, now are you going to make something or what?

Maybe I would if I  had some practice first! I can't even sketch my ideas out because I can't hold the pencil right!

We can't have everything we want in life Rarity! 

Ugh.

With or without practice, Rarity had to win this, for her friends, for the element, in the name of fashion, Rarity would prevail! A little while into the competition however, she found less and less  motivation. At this point, Rarity decided to look at her surroundings. On one hand, her competition were, as the judges said, "widely renowned", but most importantly, they were all making things better than her! Rarity didn't even Know what she was making, but tried to reflect on all the positive things. For starters, there were only about ten other competitors,  so that took some stress off her mind. As the hour ended, Rarity had a bad feeling about how this was going to turn out

Hey, you made a toga! A loooong time ago, this was a fashion statement! 

Yes dear, that's the point, a long time ago.

Seeing everypony else's clothing just made Rarity more assured if her defeat, all of them had detailed and intricate designs, all she had was white fabric tossed around everywhere!

As the contestants gave their speeches about their creations, everyone was eyeing Rarity and her toga. She knew she was going to be the laughingstock of the whole competition, but she wouldn't let them humiliate her. If she was going down, she would go down with honor, dignity, and-oh who was she kidding, the toga was atrocious! 

Calm down drama queen! I might have a way to win this!

How is that! It's impossible!

When the judges ask you to give them your speech, just say everything I tell you, okay?

Well I have no other choice anyways!

The anxiety was eating Rarity up. The closer the judges came, the more nervous she became. At last, the judges came up to Rarity and asked, "Please present us your creation."

Rarity hoped Hector knew what he was doing.

"I am here today to bring you the latest innovation in fashion. Might I ask you what wad the most powerful reign, who conquered the most land, who had the world in the palm of their hands? Any guesses?"

"The Roman empire?"

"umm..Yes! The Roman empire! As we look forward, we cannot forget about our past, the reason why I created...this, was to pay homage to the great Romans,  who wore this with pride,. This toga here symbolizes so much, with just so little. Thank you all, I am finished."

The judges just nodded and continued on to the next person. Rarity had no idea what would happen next



***

"After much thought and consideration, we have finally selected a winner,but to all of you, we would like to thank you for participating. Some of your designs were amazing, and some were...quite interesting, but in the end, only one design took our breath away. And the winner is..."

Rarity knew it wouldn't be her, she was ready to accept defeat, when the judges said, "Hector Torres!" Rarity didn't even realize that she won until Hector pointed it out to her!

As Rarity made her way up to the stage, she had a few things to say, "Oh my goodness, I don't know what to say, thank you thank you thank you! It is such an honor to know that even though I thought I had no chance of winning, I did!"

Rarity are you crying?

Why of course.not darling, there is just so much dust in here!

Whatever.

Rarity could feel her mane getting messy already!

"Your simplistic design gave so much to us, the tribute to history was perfection!  How on Earth did you think of this?"

"Well, let's just say it came to me."



***      ◆◇◆

First off let me get myself clear, no matter HOW MUCH Rarity made me girly, I did not lay a single hoof on that mane! I swear! Now that that's over with we can continue. 

After Rarity won the element, Twilight changed us back to our normal bodies, which I think both Rarity and I were glad about. Do you know how hard it was to walk on four legs! I nearly fell so many times! And with Rarity's mane, I knew if something happened to it she would kill me! So yeah, I'm glad I got my old body back. The best part was that there were no side effects this time, except for the brief period of time when I called everyone darling, but that wore off...eventually. As we were in our way to find the next element, something very peculiar happened. I was using my phone to see how far we were from Disneyland, then all of a sudden, the screen went blank! I tried pressing the power button, but nothing worked. About five seconds later, Nightmare Moon's face takes up my entire screen. And I'm not going to lie to you, it scared me so much that I nearly chucked my phone across the city.

"Greetings humans." Nightmare Moon started out, apparently everyone could see this too, since I saw several other people with the exact same thing happening to them. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Nightmare Moon, and yes, despite what your "government" says, I am real, and I have your children."

I could hear gasps coming from everywhere.

"Come on girls, let's get outta here!" I said, trying to find the most secluded place nearby, whatever Nightmare Moon was going to say wasn't going to be good, and I didn't want to stick around to see what would happen next.

"The reason why I am speaking to you, whether it be from your television,  computer,  whatever. I am here to make a proposition. Do you see this boy?" 

Now there was a picture of me, I have no idea how she got a hold of it, but a bad feeling was starting to arise in my gut.

"This boy is Hector Torres,  I need this boy. Sadly, I cannot find him, that's where you come in. I need you to find this boy and bring him to me. And what is your payoff, some of you may be asking? That is it. Anything your puny hearts desires, will be yours. Fame, wealth, the dream girl, your child back, it'll be yours,  just give me Hector Torres,  and you will have everything you want in life! Now what are you waiting for, the million dollar boy is out there, go find him."

With that, the screen went dark, then it started to work normal again.

"What just happened?” Rainbow Dash said

"Nightmare Moon just raised the stakes.

> The Gift of Family
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Look Twilight, I know you're trying to help, and don't get me wrong, this is awesome, but how is this going to work?" I ask, pointing at the mustache Twilight put on my face. The worst part of it all was that the mustache kept it's cartoony look, making it look even more.ridiculous, and yes, everybody was laughing. 

"Well,(giggle) I'm sorry, but that's the best I can do. We're going to have to find another way to disguise you."

"Simple." I say as I pull my hoodie over my head, thank goodness I decided to bring it with me! "Ta-da! It might not be the best method, but it's all we got!"

"Or we could just do that! Anyways Hector, where is the next element!

"It's at...some girls party. Pretty weird for the element of kindness, you would think that would be for Pinkie!"

"Ohh! Did I hear party!" Pinkie said enthusiastically

"Yes, but we're not there for the party. We just get in, get the element, and get out, especially now that I have a huge bounty on my head."

"Okay, let's do this!"

***

At first I thought that this was going to be easy, it was a little girls party after all. And of course that's when I get proven wrong. The "little girl" was celebrating her 16th birthday, and of course her fabulously rich parents are giving her an outside party! Just perfect At least entering was easier than I thought it would be, the doors were wide open. Apparently this party was an open invitation!

"Oh my, this place is...it's huge." I hear Fluttershy say to herself.

"Just what I was afraid of," Twilight responded, "it's only going to make it harder to find the element."

Ironically enough, as soon as Twilight finished saying that, I found Fluttershy's element!  It was resting on top of a pillow by a table nearby. I would have rushed out to grab it, but there were so many people that by the tine I reached it, a guy, probably working for the party, took it and put it inside a box, then walked off

"Dang it! I can't see him! Where did he take it!" I say as I get quite frustrated. 

"Well, you could just ask." Fluttershy said very inaudibly.

Barely managing to hear Fluttershy, I realized that that actually wasn't a bad idea. Thanking Fluttershy, I try to find  something that connected the guy and everyone else here, and I found it, they were all wearing the same uniform, so I asked. I found out that the, "necklace" was going to be the big surprise gift for Crassa, the birthday girl. Seriously, these names were getting weirder and weirder! Before I could ask where it was, the guy went off to do something else. 

Wandering through the masses of people wasn't easy, especially when you have six ponies to attend to who nobody else but you can see. So of course I bumped into some people. It just so happened that I bumped into Crassa.

"OMG! WHY DID YOU BUMP INTO ME! Do you not, like, have anything else better to do than crash my party with your ugly face, just leave me alone!" 

As to further emphasize her new-found hatred for me, she shoved me out of her way, and stomped my foot, talk about being a party monster!

"I already don't like this girl." Rainbow Dash stated

"You and me both Dash."

I figured, since the element was a "present" for the all-obnoxious Crassa, we find where the presents are, we find the element. I guessed that the presents would be somewhere inside, so that's the first place I looked. Problem was, the place was a mansion! Along with almost everyone in the city being here, this was going to be a long search  let's just hope that we wouldn't cross paths with Crassa again.

***

Things went surprisingly smooth well, after getting Pinkie Pie away from the chocolate. By pretending that I had a gift for Crassa, I was lead into the present room, and where one problem ended, another arose."

"You've got to be kidding me! How are we going to get the element with all these boxes!!!" Rainbow Dash said. 

They called it the, "present room" for a reason. This girl had A TON if presents! My best guess would probably be over 30 plus presents!

"Well, there's only one way to find it," I say, rolling up my sleeves, "lets open them all!"

Madness ensued.

Honestly, I thought Rainbow Dash was having wayyyyy too much fun for her sake. She was destroying the boxes rather than just unwrapping them. When I asked if something was upsetting her, she just replied, "Nopony is mean to my friends." And she continued to decimate every box she could lay her hooves on.

Now that  I think about it, there was a lot of dust in that room, because my eyes welled up right at that moment, It wasn't my fault! 

We were making excellent progress, we were down to the last five presents. As we were about to dig in, I heard In I swear the loudest I have ever heard someone shout,

"OMG! LIKE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY GIFTS!!!"

I really wanted my fist to meet her face, unfortunately for me though, (but luckily for her,) I had the ponies right behind me, so that meeting would have to wait.

As I turned around slowly, Crassa's face went from horrified to disgusted. As she started monolouging, she came closer to me, clearly intending on pulling my hood off, not good.

"Oh my gosh, it makes perfect sense now! You're the lame loser who bumped into me! What is WRONG WITH YOU!  Just because you're a no-life nerd who has nothing to do with his life dosen't mean you can ruin mine! Like OMG! You know what you are? You're a sicko,you're a loser, you're a scumbag, you're a-"

"Hey you bully, you better leave my friend alone!"

As Fluttershy said that, me and the other five had our mouths open in awe! Never in a million years would I have thought that Fluttershy would do something like this. Especially since she was under Twilight's spell, she must have somehow broken it when she confronted Crassa.

Using her wings to lift her self to see eye to eye with Crassa, Fluttershy continued, 

"My friend here is one of the nicest people I know, so you have no right to judge him, especially since it was you who treated him wrongly in the first place! My element of harmony represents kindness, something you clearly lack. You are undeserving to even look at my element!  Not until you learn how to be nice!"

For a while that seemed to shut Crassa up, but then she had to open her mouth.

"Oh my god! That thing is so adorable, I WANT IT!!!"

I motioned my head to give Fluttershy and the others the message to just get the boxes and go, and it seemed like they got it, for Crassa screeched, "Hey! Like, where are you going with my gifts!!! THEY'RE MINE!!!" 

Pushing me to the ground, Crassa was in pursuit if the girls and her gifts. Picking my self of the ground, I start chasing Crassa.

Now I'm not sure if it was fate, destiny, or pure dumb luck, but when I managed to catch up to Crassa, she was in front of a large single sheet cake.

In my family, whenever it's someone's birthday, after they blow out their candles on the cake, we like to perform on birthday boy/girl a little something I like to call a mordida. For those of you who don't know what a mordida is, its just basically smashing their head on the cake. I thought to myself, what better gift to give to Crassa than the gift of family. I honestly think I wasn't that forceful with it. But then again, I did take a running start, leap into the air, and using both hands, slammed Crassa's face into 5 inches of cake, forcing her head all the way down. I still think it was a little weak.

After the mordida, I ran after the girls, laughing like a madman, and as I walked past the doors to the exit, Crassa's screams filled my heart to the brim with joy. (Now that I wrote that, I realize how creepy that sounded)

"Whoa, it sure seems like a riot in there. What happened?" Fluttershy questioned.

"Oh, lets just say that I gave Crassa my birthday present. And I recommend we run!

> The Final Element
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Seeing as we kept the four presents from the party, excluding Fluttershy's element, we decided to open the rest up. We had lotion, shoes, a dress, and a whole box full of lipstick. While none of it was any good for me, I know my big sister would love this kind of stuff.

"Hey girls, good news, we're down to the last element, after this, we're off to Nightmare Moon!"

"And getting your sister back!" Twilight said. "You should probably check the map to see where my element is."

Rarity said, "There's no need to darling, I already found it!" 

Rarity pointed her hoof to a poster of The Amazing Ludere. It wasn't until we saw on top of his head that we started laughing.  Instead of a normal magician's top hat, he wore, you guesses it, Twilight's element of magic. Conveniently,  the address for the show was under the poster, so I just tore the poster from the wall wall and followed the directions.

***

As soon as we found the darn place we had several problems. The lines were HUGE, tickets were way too expensive, and thanks to me being the million dollar boy, there was going to be absolutely no chance of me getting through the front doors without being recognized. 

"Twilight,  can you teleport us to the show, we need to get the element!"

"I'm not sure I can take everypony maybe if I take off the invisibility spell, then it might work I caould take one besides myself."

"Then I'll go with you Twilight, I have a feeling that it's going to get pretty chaotic in there. Meanwhile, the rest of you guys stay out here, just in case we need any help."

"And how will we know that?" Pinkie asked.

"You'll probably hear a lot of screams."

With that, I held Twilight's hoof and went inside the theater. 

Inside, Twilight and I made a game plan  she would fly to the catwalk, and after the show, both of us would confront Ludere. But as I sat in the audience with my hood on, a single thought entered my head, why am I waiting? I can get the element, and save my sister right now! Forget waiting!

I stand up and shout, "You, Ludere, you're a fake!"

The entire audience gasped.

"Oh, am I?" Ludere rebutted. "Well then, come over here and prove it."

As I got to the stage, I said, "All the evidence I need is about to drop on, Twilight!"

Nada.

"Once again, Twilight!"

Still nothing.

"Look kid, I don't have time for this, if you could-"

At that moment, Twilight came to the stage, and by came, I meant fell to the ground. It seemed like Twilight wasn't having the best time with flight.

"Ohmygosh! Twilight!  Are you okay!"

"I'm...I'm fine, just had a rough landing. Anyways, what happened to the plan!" 

"I got bored! Besides I don't think that this is really the right time to talk about this!"

Ludere seemed shocked, though he quickly asked, "Is that a unicorn?"

"Alicorn!" Twilight and I say at the same time. 

"Well no matter, since the great and powerful Ludere is still better than you!" 

As soon as I heard, great and powerful, I immediately looked at Twilight, and by her face I could tell she was reminded of a certain Great and Powerful pony back in Equestria.

Ludere was now levitating across the stage, "The amazing Ludere can do anything he pleases!" The theater became darker. storm clouds came in from nowhere, the audience was pleased with this but I sure wasn't! As Ludere started levitating, he challenged me, "With Ludere's powers, you shall-" 

"Twilight." I say anxiously.

"On it!"

And just like that, Twilight took her crown off Ludere's head using a simple spell. I felt bad for the guy, because as soon as Twilight took her element from him, the poor Ludere fell to the ground, hard.

Groggily, Ludere said, "Congratulations,  you have bested me, but now, I must see the face of the man who defeated me !"

"Wait! No no no!"

Before I could react, Ludere pulled down my hood. I knew there was no way he wasn't going to recognize me, so with nothing else to do, I slowly wave to him.

"It's him! It's the million dollar boy!"

"Twilight, we've gotta go, the audience is starting to climb the stage!"

And I wasn't lying when I said they were, the whole audience was rushing to grab me and claim the prize for their own, they were kind of like the zombies from World War Z, and I didn't want to find out what happened if they got me. So Twilight  and I teleported to where the rest of the girls were.

"What in tarnation is goin on in there?!?" Applejack shouted as Twilight and I ran towards them.

"See! I told you! Just start running!"  I shouted. No sooner than I said that did the doors of the theater open and the crowd started chasing us.  

The chase was on!

"Who are they?" Applejack asked as we ran through the streets.

"They want me because of the bounty on my head!"

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, another mob joined in, they all looked familiar somehow, then I remembered!

"Who are those people!" Twilight asked.

"They want Rarity! Somehow they found us and now they want her to make more designs!"

"Oh my, I'm so flattered!"

"Remember though, they're looking for me because I was in the competition!" 

"Drat!"

As we ran through the city, we were blocked off by some protesters holding up signs. Their signs read:

Join the Lunar Republic!

Nightmare Moon will reign supreme! 

The Night shall last forever!

To my horror I realized that those people weren't protesters, their signs said much differently.

"You gotta be kidding me." I groan to myself.

It was the bronies. Shoot, i was hoping i wasn't going to pass through them.

"Who are they!" Rainbow Dash asked. The bronies all gasped.

"Ummm...let's just say that these people know of your existence and really want to meet you guys."

"Should we run to the left?"

"I'd strongly advise it." I whisper, then speaking aloud i shouted, "Hey! look behind you! Umm... Nightmare Moon!"

Believe it or not, they believed me, as they turned, i motioned to the girls to start running, so that gave us an advantage. So now we had bounty hunters, fashonistas, and bronies all in hot pursuit of us. But none of them even came close to the next group that we ran into. Even though there were only three people in the group, they all terrified me.

"Who ar-"

"IT'S MY FAMILY!!! RUN IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!!!!"

They said something, but the huge mob blocked off anything I could hear from them. As fast as we were, we found ourselves in a dead end, no way out. I thought for sure we were goners, the mob closing in on us, but right at the last second, a portal opened up, it was our only way out, we had no choice, so with hesitation, we jumped into the portal.

Nightmare Moon wasn't done with us. Not yet.

> Confrontations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Where are we," Pinkie asked, sounding a bit frightened,  "it's so dark!"

I didn't even have to take a second glance to know where we were. "We're in the happiest place on Earth, well, was the happiest place on Earth. Now this is a place of nightmares."

"Congratulations, all of you actually managed to find all the Elements of Harmony!" Nightmare Moon's voice was booming from everywhere

"This ends now Nightmare Moon," Twilight Sparkle said with an authoritative tone, "reveal yourself!"

"I'd rather not, how about you come here yourself!"

"And where would here be?"

"Simple, all rulers have a castle."

"I know where she is," I say, "she's at the castle! It's the dead center of the park!"

Well, I was right about this not being the happiest place on Earth anymore. The sky was pure black, with huge gray clouds casting a gloomy atmosphere on us. As we were walking down main street, it looked so lifeless, it was sad.

Then I saw Sleeping Beauty's castle. 

The castle now belonged to Nightmare Moon. The castle became a twisted version of itself,  with pointed coulombs  a new color palette of black and blue, bit worst of all, Nightmare Moon replaced Walt Disney's family crest with her cutie mark! As we walked toward the bridge, the bridge lowered by itself, and now instead of showing Fantasyland, inside the castle was pitch black, like if it were leading towards a tunnel. I look at the girls and the girls look at each other, and we each understand what we were saying without words.

This was the grand finale.

I would come out of here a brother again, or I'd come out as nothing.

***

Inside, the castle was huge, not at all what I remembered from my last visit here. Nightmare Moon must have put a spell on the castle to make it larger than it appeared, how she did it though, was beyond me.

With torchlight being our only guide, we navigate ourselves through the corridors  when we find ourselves in the main throne room, face to face with Nightmare Moon. 

."Honestly, its about time that all of you showed up, it was getting awfully boring here."

"Enough with the games Nightmare Moon!" I say, with a bit of venom, "why are you here, and what did you do to the children!"

"Oh, you're a feisty one aren't you, fine, I shall tell you all. I came here because I knew that if I I tried doing this back in Equestria, these, fine ladies, would have stopped me immediately.  As for the children, I needed them to give me power. As you already know, magic here isn't the best. So, I thought what better way to compensate for that small defect than to amplify my magic!"

    I look around and notice a huge gem floating, and I bet myself that that was giving Nightmare Moon all her power; she was ripping a page from the Crystal Empire!

"I've had enough of you, alright girls, element time" I say as I unzip my backpack.  The plan was as I unzipped my backpack, I'd toss it on the air, and then Twilight would use her magic to put the elements on everypony. Come on, you didn’t think we would come in here without a game plan!

But before I could toss my backpack, Nightmare Moon said creepily calmly, "Now I strongly advise you against doing this Hector, you know what I told you in your dream still stands."

The girls give me puzzled looks, shoot, I completely forgot about that, so what was I going to do.

"Tick-tock Hector, we don't have all day."

"What did she tell you Hector! Don't do what I think you're going to do!" Rainbow Dash cried out.

I couldn't believe I was going to do this, but then again, was there any other way, with a sigh I say, "Throughout this whole time, Twilight and every one of you guys have shown me unwavering trust in me and my decisions, even if the decisions I made were just plain out stupid as a matter of fact, all of my ideas were stupid! So I think that it's about time that I gave them a little trust in return! With or without your guarantee,  I'm getting my sister back!"

With that, I'm fully ready to blast this mare into the next century! But then I hear,

"Hector!"

I know that voice, and as I turn back to Nightmare Moon, I am horrified by what I see.

Nightmare Moon had my sister, she was hanging upside down, and she looked terrified. 

"Not...one...more...move, or she gets it! Now, Hector, have you reconsidered? "

My heart was beating as loudly as I ever heard it; I look back at the girls, then back to my sister. Nightmare Moon had me in checkmate, I couldn't do anything. 

I hear Mia say, "Please." And my minds made up. I say to the girls, "I am so sorry." Then averting their eyes, I drop my backpack next to Nightmare Moon. She quickly grabbed it using her magic, and in turn, she let go of Mia.

I heard a couple of gasps and no's coming from the girls, bit that didn't matter now, I had my sister back. I ran up to her and gave her a hug, "Mia! I've missed you so much! Are you okay...Mia?

Mia was hissing at me.

"Geez I know I smell, but I didn't think it was that bad!"  Grabbing Mia, I see her eye to eye. She hissed at me again, and this time her eyes turned green.

"It's a changeling!" I hear Twilight from afar. "It’s not really your sister!"

I already knew that though. I glare at Nightmare Moon and scream, "No! This isn't what you promised! That's the only reason why I did it! What about our deal!"

"Poor dear, I would have thought you knew this already: people lie to get what they want."

With that, Nightmare Moon opened a portal and pushed me through it, and after that, I got knocked out.

***

I wake up to find myself in a small room, much like a prison cell, I don't even try to find a way out, what was the point, I lost my new-found friends, I lost my sister, everything I held dear to me was gone instantly, as if my heart was just vaporized.

I curl myself up into a ball, putting my head to rest on top of my knees. I only cry when I'm in extreme pain, whether it be emotional or physical, and I can tell you, I've never felt the need to cry more than at that time

"Do not feel bad about yourself, Hector, anyone can make these mistakes."

"Haven't you already had enough with me," I say more sad than angry, "why mock me any further, I have nothing else you can take from here."

"Quite the contrary, I think you're mistaking me for somepony else, I want to help you."

Confused, I look up, expecting to see Nightmare Moon, but who I found instead was way different.

It was Princess Luna.

> Magic Is Awesome!!!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wait, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be Nightmare Moon?"

"That's what it wants you to think."

"It, what do you mean, it?"

Luna went on to explain that Nightmare Moon was just the Nightmare Forces, masquerading as Luna, so all the blame would be put on her. But to do what they say they are they needed all the power they could get, which would explain the abduction of all the children

"Why haven't you done anything about it then?"

"Other than besides the fact that I am chained in here, I would have little use. With the Nightmare Forces, my magic would have little effect. I feel that this whole thing is my fault, my mistakes continue to haunt me."

"Well, mistakes are what teaches us lessons. Maybe the reason why your mistakes won't leave you alone is because you still need to learn something. I've had my own share of big mistakes too, right now i made a huge one." I relpy.

"Perhaps it is, but you need to get back and give Twilight and her friends the Elements of Harmony. "

"How am I supposed to do that!" Shaking my arms, I continue, "I'm not sure if my friends will ever trust me again, and I don't blame them. Also, there's the fact that I'm chained up here too! Also not to mention the fact that I have nothing, and Nightmare Moon can just throw me around like a rag doll!"

Luna laughed, "I am positive that you can think of something, besides you have something that Nightmare Moon can never hope to achieve."

"Really! What is it!" Geez, I sounded a little too enthusiastic, like a kid in a candy store!

"Determination."

Of course it's determination, after Luna said that, she broke my chains using her magic.

"Hey, I thought you said that you couldn't use magic!"

"Not to the scale of defeating Nightmare Moon, that task is yours. Now before you leave, I still need to give you something." 

"You're not coming with me?"

"I cannot, besides, it shall let the girls believe that I can still be redeemed, it will give them something to believe in. Now come closer."

I did as the princess ordered. Luna closed her eyes, then her horn shimmered for a moment.

"Alright, it is done." Princess Luna said as she finished.

"That was it, could you tell me what you did?"

"You shall understand in time. Hopefully you'll never have the need to use this, now, off with you Hector! You have a sister to save, do you not?"

"Yeah Luna, you're right! Thank you!" 

As I ran out the corridor, I realized, I never told Luna my name, or that I was after my sister, how did she know?

***

Why does Nightmare Moon's castle have so many corridors, I mean seriously! She is the only one in this place, what possible use could she have for them? After what seemed like forever, I found my way back to the throne room. Nightmare Moon was monologuing, something about how this was the final stage of her plan, I didn't care. I had to look for something that would give me an advantage over Nightmare Moon. I grabbed a torch from the wall, putting it out I take a look around, I saw a huge crystal, the crystal that fueled Nightmare Moon's magic, perfect.

My tactic: make Nightmare Moon believe that everything that she did had no effect on me, how, by doing the one thing that I knew best, being stupid and making a fool of myself.

"You know, for one horse, this a pretty huge castle, I mean, do you really need that much room!"

"YOU! But how did yo- that is of no matter, I shall just-"

"You will do squat! For I have a stick!" I said, shaking the torch for added emphasis. "And if you use as much as one ounce of magic on me, this stick will break your precious crystal! Now I don't think you would want that, would you? Now I require two things 1) let the girls go; being suspended in magic gets you sick in the stomach, I know from personal experience! 2) Give me my sister, my real sister, no tricks no gimmicks, got it?”

“Fine”

The girls dropped down to the floor, which was unfortunate for Pinkie, Rarity and Applejack, they had no wings!

“Now my sister.”

A door opened up and I could barely hear little footsteps. As Mia appeared from the doorway, and she smiled at me, “Hector!” she cried out as she started to run to me. Yep, this was the real Mia. Suddenly, I hear another voice roar, “Stop right there Mia!”

It was…me?

“I did not come all this way to see you in the arms of an imposter!”

I turn to my doppelganger, “Excuse me, but if you’re going to just waltz right in here and pretend to be me, the least you can do is have your glasses on!

“If you would shut up and listen, you would find out that I lost them on the here, isn’t that right Mia?”

She agreed, this wasn’t good.

“Unlike you,” Fake Hector continued, “I actually found Mia and spent the whole day with her, so I know that without a doubt she knows that I am the real one!”

“Well, unlike you, I’m not a brute who gets offended by every measly thing that gets thrown at him! I have patience! Isn’t that right Mia?”

She also agreed.

We continued arguing until Rainbow Dash blurted, “OH FOR GOODNESS SAKE! The real Hector is…”

“Silence! Let the girl decide. Are you ready?”

“Yes. Wait, was that Rainbow Dash?”

I close my eyes, I’m scared of the thought that Mia might not choose me, I wait for the longest time, until I feel something crash into me, I open my eyes, and I see my little sister’s arms wrapped around mine. I cry with joy, then lift Mia up into the air. As I put her down, I grab the torch, give it a twirl, and give the crystal a good smack, effectively splitting the crystal in two.

"How did you know it was me Mia?" I ask her. Her response was simple, "Easy, you had you're glasses on!" And here I thought she chose me because she saw through the changeling's disguise!

Imposter me snarled, then reverted back into a changeling and flew away.

“No! What happened? I released your friends and gave you your sister back, why do you break your vow!”

“I said no tricks Nightmare Moon, and besides, wasn't it yourself that said that people lie to get what they want?

“Enough with this insolence,” Nightmare Moon roared as she lifted me up with magic, “No more of this nonsense. I WILL EMERGE VICTORIOUS!”

After saying that, Nightmare Moon rather forcefully threw me rather forcefully across a brick wall. If that wasn't painful enough, I still had to deal with the fall!

As I lay on the ground, the only thing I could do was groan in pain and watch, no matter how much I wanted to get up, my body refused my commands. Nightmare Moon trapped the girls again with her magic, and that’s where she turned to Mia.

“YOU! You’re the one who has given me all this trouble. Your brother had to come and rescue you, and of course he comes and foils my plans! I SHALL NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! I will take away your brother’s one true motivation, his, “determination”! And that my dear IS YOU!”

Nightmare Moon’s horn started to glow, readying for the decimation of my sister.

No, I can’t let this happen…Not after I've come so far…I won't let it end like this!

As Nightmare Moon fired the laser-like projectile at Mia, I suddenly found myself on my feet, I rush to my little sister and everything goes white.

As I regain my vision, I find myself embracing Mia with both arms, which could only mean one of two things:

·         We were dead

·         Somehow we survived the blast and we were alive

I hear, “Impossible! How are they still there? That blast was enough to destroy anything!”

Yep, we were alive, and I felt stronger than ever. I let go of Mia and say, “ Do you know what kept me going through all of this?”

“Determination?”

“No evil madam! It was not determination, it is family! Something you clearly forgot about! Ever since this little girl here was born my life was filled with joy, she gave me the ambition to do things I would have never done, and she has changed my life for the better. And did you honestly think that I was going to sit by and let you destroy the single thing that made me the person I am today?”

At this point I began levitating, a blue aura surrounding me. If I wasn't lecturing Nightmare Moon at that time I would have totally geeked out over how awesome I was, continuing. 

“I don’t need the Elements of Harmony to defeat you Nightmare Moon, I already have. When I was young, I was taught that as long as I have my family, we can conquer all, and I have my family right here.”

Twilight and the other girls float up with me, along with Mia.

“Even though I've known these girls for only two days, they're just as much a part of my family as everyone else! And so what if my entire family isn't with me right now, I know that they will always be with me, in my heart. Face it Nightmare Moon, this is your endgame!" I raise my right arm up, and my backpack zooms to me, it unzips, and the Elements of Harmony fly out and attach themselves to the six. I turn to face them and say, “Blast her girls!” And so at last, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow, Pinkie, Rarity, and Fluttershy used the Elements, and struck Nightmare Moon down with the mighty rainbow beam!

After a while, whatever magical power I gained seemed to wear off, as we were gently put to the ground. As soon as I made contact with the ground however, all my pain came back, but everybody was so happy that I didn't want to ruin it.

“Yee-haw! We did it!”

“That was totally awesome!”

“That was a very heartfelt speech Hector! Did you really mean all of that”

I responded, “ Are you kidding me? If spending two days with you on our journey here doesn't make us a family by now, I don't know what will. Geez, that was the cheesiest thing I’ve ever said in my life!” But in my heart I knew that all I said was true.

We all burst into laughter after that. It wasn't until Fluttershy noticed that Luna wasn't there that I snapped back into reality. Nightmare Moon was defeated, shouldn't Disneyland be reverting back to it’s normal self? Where were all the children?

I look back to the spot where Nightmare Moon once was, and I was taken aback

It should have ended, it had to, but it didn't. Nightmare Moon was still standing.

“Perfect…absolutely perfect. Everything…according…to plan.”

After that, Nightmare Moon fell, and turned to shadow, but not just any shadow.

It was the Nightmare Forces

“Yessssssssss, you were all foolisssssh enough to fall for our trap.”

“What do you mean trap!” Rarity asked

“Do not worry dear, we need a new vessel, but not you. We need HIM!”

The Nightmare Forces leapt from where they were to me, and as they were, I realized that all this time, if I truly wanted to keep Mia safe, I should have stayed as far away from her as possible, I should have stayed away from everyone. Because I was the vessel, and the Nightmare Forces found me.

> Total Eclipse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

  You know that black stuff from Spider-Man, the symbiote? Well that’s exactly what the Nightmare Force felt like, except I didn’t have any control, I couldn’t struggle, and I quickly found myself losing the battle, eventually, I was consumed.

◆◇◆

Twilight was confounded, how could this be? If Princess Luna wasn't Nightmare Moon, then where was she? Twilight would have thought about I more, but they had more pressing issues on their hooves. The Nightmare Forces took over Hector!

When the transformation was complete, he had an entirely new wardrobe, if anything, it made Hector look more regal. He had a cape that had an ever changing pattern of stars, like Nightmare Moon’s mane. He had armor on, the outlines glowing with a blue tint, and Nightmare Moon’s cutie mark adorned on his chest. And on top of his head, a black crown with dark blue gems placed in a neat line around the crown.

"I know this is a rather inappropriate time, but I must say that outfit is simply marvelous! And the crown, those gems!" Rarity whispered to Twilight. 

“Ah, much better ,although the two legs we’re going to have to get used to.”

“Well, that’s one thing, but how about my name!”

That was Hector, somehow, he was fighting back!

“Silence you fool!”

“Well, since technically we’re one you’re just calling yourself an idiot!.”

“Ugh, we’ll deal with him later. But the human does make an interesting point, what shall we name ourselves?”

“Please, anything but Nightmare Hector! It's just plain stupid!”

It was funny how Hector was fighting back, he was angering the Nightmare Forces, Twilight had to admit, but Hector’s victory was short lived, for the Nightmare Forces said, “Well we hope you were all enjoying that, since that won’t happen again! As of now, Hector is now gone, and in his place is Total Eclipse!”

“How…original.”

Total Eclipse sighed, “Alright...now Hector is gone forever!”

Twilight looked to see if Hector’s sister Mia was alright, she was, but she looked terrified. Twilight tried to comfort her by saying, “Don’t worry Mia, we’ll get your brother back, I promise!” That seemed to assert Mia, if only a little.

“You might want to hold back on that promise Twilight Sparkle, can you guarantee her you will succeed? Because we can say this, we know how to keep Hector trapped here, and we’re about to seal his fate!” 

Before Twilight or anypony else had time to react, Total Eclipse raised his arm, and Mia came to him. Using his other hand, Total Eclipse suspended in the air Twilight and her friends. Twilight was learning to hate this spell.

“The secret is you little darling,” Total Eclipse said, rubbing her face with his finger, “When we destroy you, all of Hector’s hope will diminish, making him ours forever!”

“You can’t have him! Hector's gonna keep on fighting you until he wins!” The girl rebutted.

“Oh, we have another feisty one! I bet you got that from your brother! Brave words, but empty of purpose. Now, onwards to your destruction! Do you know what the best part of this will be? We’re going to make you hurt, and your brother, what can he do but watch in horror!”

Total Eclipse was about to strike Mia, however, he stopped short, from the looks of it, even he looked surprised.

“Hmm…it seems like even now it seems as if  your brother is still resisting, but it is still futile, all he’s doing is prolonging your suffering.”

Twilight couldn't believe it! “Come on Hector! Keep on fighting back!”

◆◇◆

“So, you had the whole thing staged, from the very beginning?” I was face to face with Total Eclipse, the entity that stole that body.

"It wasn't until you searched for the first element that my influence shaped your adventures. You might not realize, but everything you did was according to our plan.”

When he said that, six pillars of smoke appeared beside Total Eclipse, Out of those six pillars came out Guy, Ms. Austerus, Neques, a judge from the fashion show, Crassa, and the amazing Ludere, this time, wearing a magician’s hat. They all gave me the same glare. A glare that said, "you idiot, how could you have fallen for this!"

“Since there were no monsters that we could find to challenge you, we decided to use the real monsters that roam this world… humans. Based on your dreams, we formed the worst people we could create. We must give credit to you Hector, we couldn't have done this without you.” The six creations of Nightmare Moon dissolve once more, leaving only the two of us.

"So what, you think that just because you imprisoned me, I won’t fight back? Let me tell you something, for every day you keep me here, I will fight! Even if it takes me a hundred years! I promise that you won’t win!"

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep Hector.”

A cloud formed in my black void of a prison, and what I saw truly terrified me.

Total Chaos, about to strike my sister.

No

It was me, my hands, my body, my decision.

“No! Please! Don’t do this to her, she is only a little girl!”

“Exactly, your biggest fear has come to light, you are afraid of hurting the ones you hold dear to your heart. Don’t worry, as soon as we’re done with your little sister, the rest of your family is next!”

Fine then, I tried diplomacy, let’s try brute force instead.

I tackled Total Eclipse to the ground and roared, “No! I won’t let you do this!”

Total Eclipse lust laughed and coolly replied, “Why even bother, you know as well as we do that in the end all light dies in the eternal darkness!.”

At that moment, I felt another presence, it wasn't hostile, it wanted to help me. I recognized it, it was Luna, and already she had helped me so much, because now I realized something

I was dreaming.

◆◇◆

Hector was putting a mighty good fight, but Applejack wasn't sure how much longer he could last. Slowly, Total Eclipse’s hands were getting closer to Mia, Applejack knew that the inevitable was coming, no matter how much she hoped, there was nothing that would save that  poor girl. Applejack got chills when she thought of Applebloom, she can only imagine all the suffering that Hector was goin' through. Now that she thought of that, if she closely looked at Total Eclipse’s face, Applejack could see a tear rolling down on his face and she would bet Sweet Apple Acres that it wasn't coming from the Nightmare Forces. 

Right when it seemed that Hector was going to lose his fight, Applejack closed her eyes, awaiting the inevitable. But instead, there was a voice:

“Enough, I will not let my past mistakes hurt anyone else! No more!”

Applejack quickly opened her eyes to find…Princess Luna? But how was she here? Wasn’t she supposed to be Nightmare Moon?

“What in tarnation is goin' on?!”  Applejack questioned out loud.

Princess Luna calmly responded, “Patience Applejack, all your questions will be answered soon, now, give me the child Total Eclipse!”

“As you wish, Princess.” With that, Total Eclipse let go of Mia, she ran to Princess Luna. The princess asked, “Are you alright child?”

“Yes, I’m okay”

“We must admit, we are surprised to see you here, even more so because you still retain your full form. But it is of no importance to us. We have as much energy as we need to defeat you.”

“Well than, let us see if what you say is true!”
With that, Total Eclipse and  Princess Luna flew up, breaking the ceiling, you've gotta admit, that took a lot of power! Suddenly, the suspension spell wore off, making Applejack fall, again.

◆◇◆

Since I was dreaming, I could do anything, maybe even defeat Total Eclipse. Right now, I just want a weapon, anything to get this sucker down. Pop! Out comes a sword in my hand. I was hoping for something a little less medieval, but I guessed it would suffice.

“Do you honestly think that you can defeat us, when we are thousands of years old, what possible advantage do you think you can have with us.” With that, Total Eclipse drew out a sword of his own, as we clash blades, I say, “You’re in my dream.”

◆◇◆

As Luna flew into the sky, she heard Total Eclipse taunt, “Face it Luna, you've battled me twice, what do you think will change the outcome of this battle?”

Luna replied, “Simple, I'm not alone this time.” With that she began her assault.

◆◇◆

In case you’re not getting it, both Luna and I battled Total Eclipse, mentally and physically, what we said was pretty similar.

“Go ahead, try to destroy us, no matter what you do, we shall always rise again.”

“That may be true, but now is of the matter! You’ve taken over me, made me regret my mistakes, but none of that anymore! I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I won’t let them hurt anyone else anymore!”

“Have you no fear? Do you not remember the torments we put you through?”

“Of course I do, you’ve separated me from my family for far too long, and posses (possessed in Luna’s case) my body. I’m going to give you your punishment! You’ve attempted to ruin everything that I hold dear, and I will not let you do this to anypony else! ”

“As valiant as you want to be, I still dominate you in one area, I know what you fear!”

“Yes, but with my friends and family, I am fearless, and that is your grave mistake. I honestly believe that if you fought me just by myself, I’m pretty sure that you would win, but my family is here you’ve put it all on the line, so now I don’t have to win, I need to win.”

As we finish, I disarm Total Eclipse and slice him in the chest, at the same time, Luna’s blast connected to Total Eclipse, and sent him hurtling to the ground. Using the royal Canterlot accent, Luna shouted, “Use the elements!”

Twilight and her friends get the message clearly. As the blast from the Elements of Harmony reached Total Eclipse, he took one last look at the moon, savoring the last seconds of it. Then, it was done.
The eclipse was over.
> Farewell and Greetings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I woke up, everything hurt! I grunt, then say, “Geez Luna, could you have hit me any harder ?”

That seemed to make everyone laugh.

As I get up, I look for Mia, but she beat me to the punch by hugging me first. She said, “Fluttershy told me everything, did you really do that, all for me?”

“Of course I did! I would do it again a thousand times! Now come on, I know you want to spend some time with the ponies!”

Mia thanked me and ran off to join Twilight and the others. I purposefully sent her there, there was some things that I needed to talk about Luna.

“Luna?”

“Yes Hector?”

“I just wanted to thank you, if it weren’t for you, I’d still be Total Eclipse and…and who knows what could have happened?”

“To be honest, I have to thank you!”

“Me? May I ask why?”

“If it weren’t for you, I would have never even considered battling the Nightmare Forces, the thing about determination is, it’s contagious.”

“Why thank you Luna, I just have one more question, you know when we first used the Elements of Harmony against Nightmare Moon, the magic, was it…”

“Yes, it was my magic.”

“Dang it!”

***

“Goodbye you two! We’ll keep in touch…somehow!” Twilight said.

Seeing the girls leave was bittersweet, on one hand, I was glad that they were going to be gone from the wretched place I call my world and back into Equestria, on the other hand, it was like seeing a beloved family member leave. As each of the girls went into the portal, they each said their farewells

“It was a pleasure meeting you two sugarcubes!”

“Stay awesome you two!”

“Just continue being the gentlemen you are and you’ll be fine darling!”

“You two are so nice, please don’t change!”

“We should totally do this again real soon! But we’ll have a PARTY!  We can have balloons, cake…”  Pinkie kept on rambling even when going through the portal. I just stopped when I couldn’t hear her anymore!”

Lastly, as Luna was about to enter the portal, I decided to give her a farewell.

“Hey Luna! I just wanted to say, I honestly prefer the night over day, there’s a certain beauty to the night that daytime can’t even compare to.”

Luna just smiled, and as she entered the portal, I held Mia’s hand as we went outside.

***

I’ll admit, I was nervous about what would happen when me and my parents reunited. I knew they were outside Disneyland, so the meet up would be inevitable. Oh, and let me clear some things up. All the children were found in Disneyland, and the Nightmare Forces weren't kidding when they said they had a huge supply of magic. It was so much in fact that Luna cast a spell, transporting all the children back to their parents. As for the changelings, it turns out they were all innocent! What happened was before the Nightmare Forces came to Earth, they found a few stray changelings, and using the little magic they had left, cast a mind control spell on them.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back on track. As we left the gates of Disneyland. I saw my dad, mom, and older sister. Instinctively Mia ran up to them , and of course they embraced her, but what would happen if they didn’t welcome me back? Sighing, I walk up to them, with a shaky voice I say, “Umm…hi guys.”

They didn’t even wait for me to finish, we all got together into a group hug, and it made me so full of joy.

That’s the reason why I did this whole thing in the first place, without a member of our family, we can’t be whole, we’re not complete. Our lives are intertwined with each other, and it’s only when we are together as a family that we could truly be happy.And as I looked at our family, all together again, that’s exactly what I felt.



Happiness