> Splashdown
>  by Cyanblackstone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Interlude 0
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Luna sat back as the call, to one Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, concluded with a click. Neil shook his head. “Well, that’s that. Welcome aboard the Eagle, Ma’am... Miss... What’s your title, anyway?”
Luna automatically began the word ‘Princess,’ but halted before her mouth began to move. She was no longer a princess... simply an outcast. Her titles had been stripped from her along with Nightmare Moon. “Miss would be the proper term,” she replied.
“Miss Luna, then,” Neil nodded. “It’ll be just over a three day trip—we’ll be rendezvousing with Columbia after we lift off from the moon.”
Looking over her new memories of the ‘English’ language, (It was funny, how they seemed to be simultaneously hers and not-hers; sometimes strong surges of emotion accompanied certain words or phrases) she recognized rendezvous, but Columbia—wasn’t that a city in a ‘North Carolina’ (whatever that was)?
“Columbia?” she asked in puzzlement.
Buzz replied, “The Columbia is the command module for the mission. She’s above us right now, and after takeoff we’ll meet up and transfer to her for the flight back to Earth.”
“I see,” Luna said thoughtfully. “I supposed that this craft was rather small for all of the necessities required for a trip to a place as distant as one’s satellite. Tell me, how does this craft work?”
“Work?” Neil seemed surprised. “Um, I couldn’t tell you the exact science, but it’s a combustion rocket.”
Combustion rocket? That meant... something catching on fire, along with a word for very fast. The only conclusion was that this vehicle worked by some method of fire to propel itself at incredible velocities. She wondered what kind of arcane wards had to be set on the craft and the—engine, yes, that was what it was called—to withstand the void and the stresses of being accelerated to such speeds as to cross the vast space between any planet and its moon in a matter of days.
Just from rough estimates in her head, the speed had to exceed by several orders of magnitude anything short of teleportation by an alicorn. Somewhere beyond 18,000 miles an hour, according to the English measurement. But what was this about... meters?
She shook her head in confusion. Every answer only seemed to pose more questions. “How long until we are ‘lifting off?’” she questioned.
Buzz bit his lip as he peered at the various instruments and meters on the control panel. “Um. I’d say about half an hour?” he offered. “We’ve already pressurized, so I’ll just start running the preflight checks now.”
Luna nodded in satisfaction. “So, Neil, tell me about this... United States of America. You are a citizen of this nation, correct?” Neil nodded. “Excellent,” the ex-Princess of the Night beamed. “I would like to know more about the country I will shortly visit.”

> Chapter 1-- Speeches and SIGs
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Charlie sat there, stunned for a few minutes, along with the rest of Mission Control, at Buzz’s momentous news. Not only was there an alien on the Moon, it was telepathic—Telepathic, for heaven’s sake! What was this, a comicbook?—and apparently now spoke English.
Finally, he broke the silence. “No one hears about this,” he said with finality, looking around at everyone. “Breathe not a word about this until someone higher up tells you that you can.”
Murmurs of assent and uncertain nods were the response, and Charlie smiled without humor. “This day just keeps getting crazier, doesn’t it?” he asked to nobody in particular.
The President’s phone line crackled. “I... can’t say I was expecting that,” he said honestly, “But with this new development... I want to talk to her.”
“Yes sir,” Charlie said, once again putting the President on the line. All at once, the tables around which engineers and technicians gathered were perfectly silent. It was so profound, the crackling static of the phone line was the loudest sound in the large room.
“Mr. Armstrong,” he said, “I would like to talk to Luna. Can you arrange that?”
“Yes, sir,” Neil said. “Just one second.” He began muttering, along with sounds of the mike being taken  off and adjusted, “If I turn up the volume on the headsets here, and the pickup on the mike all the way...” After a minute, he announced, “I think I have something that’ll work. Let’s try it.”
President Nixon cleared his throat. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Neil and Buzz answered.
“Can the alien hear me?” he asked.
“Most assuredly,” her voice replied, in perfect American English. This was the final straw for some of the less mentally-strong on the NASA team, and a few thuds sounded as various members passed out.
“This device is fascinating,” Luna said, “I am most interested in its workings. Tell me, are you really on the planet below?”
“Yes, ah, ma’am, I am,” President Nixon affirmed. “My name is Richard Nixon. I am the President of the United States of America, the nation to whom Neil, Buzz, and the Lunar Module belong. As the head of state of the most powerful nation on Earth, I can say with certainty: Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“A head of state!” Luna said with joy. “This is a most pleasing meeting indeed.”
“Ah, yes,” Nixon returned, unsure as to what the best course of action would be after those planned few introduction sentences. “May I enquire as to your intentions?”
“My intentions, President Richard Nixon, are rather... shall I say, undetermined at this point?” She paused for a moment, and then continued with a determined voice, “To be frank with thee, my habitation here was not entirely of mine own choice, and this moon is rather barren and empty. I would be pleased to be able to visit this United States of America and return to the company of others. If, ah,” her voice turned uncertain, “That is agreeable with you.”
The President was obviously fighting hard to contain the victorious tones in his voice. “We would be glad to have you visit the United States,” he said happily. “I’m sure the Lunar Module can accommodate you if you wish, though it will be rather tight.”
“Space is no complaint with me,” she responded. “I shall continue with Neil and Buzz, then.” Some muffled noises, probably the astronauts moving in the background, made her pause. “What?” she asked loudly, and a whisper, unintelligible through the speakers, was audible.
“I will take my leave of you, President Richard Nixon,” she said distractedly. “Neil is advising me to remain quiet while they concentrate on the... ‘ascent stage.’ We shall converse at a later time.”
“Of course,” the President said seriously.
The line cut off, and Nixon said, “I’ll be sending Mission Control a list of questions to ask her as soon as we get them from the xenologist community we’re beginning to tap. Mr. Duke, I believe now is an appropriate time for you to leave—the car should be arriving at any moment.”
“Yes, sir,” Charlie replied.
“I have to hang up—I’ll see you in Hawaii, Mr. Duke.” A dial tone replaced his voice.
Charlie began to pack up his stuff, handed off his headset to someone else (his mind blanked on the man’s name), and headed out the back door to avoid a certain media firestorm in the front. He felt sorry for the people running the front room.
Out back, there was a nondescript black car, with blacked-out windows and unmarked license plates. Two burly guards stood by it, both sporting holsters and sunglasses.
“Charlie Duke?” one asked.
“That’s correct,” Charlie said, a slight feeling of unease tweaking his stomach.
The other opened the car door and gestured inside. “Get in.”
“Can I see some kind of ID?” Charlie asked, that unease now fairly roiling in his guts. Something was wrong.
The first man, the thinner of the two, said, “If we don’t hurry, we’ll miss the flight.”
The second threw his hands up. “We don’t have time for this! Get in the car.”
“Not until I see some proof that you’re from the President,” Charlie said nervously.
The first man sighed and began to rummage in his pockets. The second man was not so patient.
“Get in the car,” he ordered flatly.
The first man sighed, “What are you doing? Just let me get out my ID—“
The second man cut him off. “We don’t have time for this.”
Charlie froze as the man pulled his pistol and leveled it at him. “Get in the car.”

> Interlude I
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“—and after the Battle of Yorktown, the British were powerless in America, and that was the last major battle. The United States of America soon became an independent nation,” Neil finished. “Any questions?” Luna had remained quiet the entire time, preferring to save her questions for after the lecture. Neil was obviously at least passingly knowledgeable about the subject, but he was certainly no scholar.
“Yes, I do have some questions,” she began, but Buzz interrupted, “Hold on a few minutes—we’re going to lift off and get on our way to Columbia now. It might be a bit rough for the first few seconds. Hold on to something.”
Neil was already in his seat, and so was Buzz. Luna wrapped her forelegs around the nearest protrusion and braced herself as best she could. The lander began to shake, and a dull roar sounded from beneath her hooves. ‘That must be the ‘combustion rocket,’ they spoke of,’ Luna thought. The roar intensified until she couldn’t hear anything else, the sound waves shaking her to her bones.
Then, as Buzz began to take the LM off the lunar surface, the vibration increased as the rocket went to full power and it fought against the sparse atmosphere of the Moon, the lunar gravity, and the lander’s mass to begin its trek upwards.
After it had gotten several dozen yards off the surface, the roar diminished, as did the vibration. “Right,” Buzz said in relief. “We’re clear of the Moon, Houston, and en route to Columbia.”
“Copy, Eagle. En route to Columbia. We’ll inform Collins of the recent developments in more depth as you go. Houston, out.”
“Eagle, out.”
Now able to hear her own thoughts (faster than any other mode of transportation it might have been, but it was certainly louder as well), Luna recollected them and then asked, “Why is it your country resorted to violence to free itself of the injustices you described? Surely there was another way.”
Neil shook his head. “I’m going to say this straight up, Miss Luna. Humans are not the most pacifistic species. Since the beginning, our species has had conflicts within it. And we tried, we really did. First, there was peaceful protest. Then, there were official complaints to the government of England. Lastly, there was not-so-peaceful protests. Still, the English government refused to even address the grievances we set forth. So, the only option after that was force.”
“I see,” Luna said thoughtfully, relaxing her hold on the lander. “And you said your government was a democracy?”
“Close. It’s a democratic republic,” Neil corrected. “But yes, it’s similar. We hold elections for our officials. What kind of government does your nation have?”
“’Tis a diarchy,” Luna said. “Two equal rulers, each with their own spheres of responsibility. Or rather, it was. One of the two rebelled against the other and attempted to usurp the kingdom. She was banished. Now the kingdom—“ She caught herself, managing not to say, ‘I suppose,’ or something to give away her own banishment, “is a monarchy. The leader hasn’t given power to anypony else yet—the rebellion was quite recent, as these things go.” Oh my, but thinking of Equestria in both the abstract and the present—without her—was hard.
Neil cocked his head in confusion. “Did you just say ‘anypony?’” he asked.
“Yes,” Luna said cautiously. “Is that not the proper term of addressment?”
“Well, no,” he replied, grinning slightly. “The correct term would be ‘anybody.’ As you can see,” he spread his arms and wiggled his fingers for emphasis, “We’re not ponies.”
“Ah, I see,” Luna said, filing that tidbit away. “Would the other terms of address then be ‘some...body,’ and ‘everybody’?”
“Got it in one,” Neil said with a smile, pointing one finger at her. Luna just stared at the finger. What was that supposed to mean?
Neil’s smile faltered, and he glanced between her nonunderstanding gaze and his finger. “Oh!” he said in sudden understanding. “It’s how humans point to others,” he explained. “It’s implying, I’m talking to or about you. Alternatively, it means, you have a point there.”
“I see,” Luna allowed. Those appendages would be so much more useful than hooves for manipulating objects, no matter how nimble the hoof.
“I would bid thee continue with thy country’s history,” she said formally. “’Tis most interesting, and filled with conflict.”

-----

“WHAT?” Luna’s bellow shook the LM almost as much as the engines had. “Thine country kept slaves and dared to call itself a land of freedom?” She huffed, “Such a nation deserves none such title.”
Neil sat down heavily. “Well, yes,” he admitted. “Our country was once a slave-holding country. Many of the Founding Fathers tried to abolish it, but the landowners in the South relied too much upon it for their livelihood, and so it remained.” He grimaced. “As you can see, it soon led to problems.”
“Another war,” Luna answered sadly. “Tell me, for such a ‘free’ nation, how many wars has your country fought?”
“Umm...” Neil glanced at his hands, mouthing words as he counted on his fingers. “Nine—one of which is going on right now.” He checked with Buzz, who confirmed his figures with a nod.
“And so many in... how many years?”
“About two hundred,” Neil said, wincing.
Luna’s mouth flopped open. “That’s.... that’s a war roughly every twenty of your years! How hast thine country survived?” Those numbers... simply boggling. Before she had—before, there had not been a war for over a century. And even that had been a small matter, quickly settled.
Buzz defended, “We’re far from the worst offenders. We’re actually pacifistic, when you consider that of those wars, all of them but the Civil War were provoked by outside action threatening our nation. If you look at Germany and France, they’ve been fighting nonstop for the past 70 years, almost, and it shows. Especially Germany.” The two humans shared a glance laden with meaning Luna couldn’t decipher.
“Whatever dost thou mean?” she demanded.
“Well, there were a lot of small conflicts between the two countries about a century ago, during Germany’s founding, but 55 years ago, a huge war—we call it World War One—erupted, mainly on the front between the two. France won, but humiliated Germany afterwards.
“Then, only 20 years later, Germany had been overtaken by an extremist faction led by a dictator named Hitler. He started another war and conquered France, but was eventually beaten. By the end, Germany was hardly functioning as a country. It was actually broken up into two countries—East and West Germany. The US and her allies run West Germany, and, well, others run the East.”
World War? Luna’s brain fixated on that thought. To think of a war large enough to embroil an entire planet—and the ‘One’ in the title. That meant there had been more than one. How had humans ever survived as a species if they were constantly killing one another?
“Whom are these others you speak of?” she asked.
Buzz and Neil once again shared a look, with even more hidden meaning this time.
“Well—“ Neil began.
Buzz glanced at the control panel. “Hold that thought, sorry, but we’re docking, and I need to concentrate.”
“We’ll tell you later, then,” Neil acquiesced gratefully. “We’ll introduce you to Mike Collins first. I’m sure he’ll love ya!”
A few minutes of inopportune silence ensued as Buzz began to dock with the Columbia. With a clunk, the two connected, and Buzz checked the seal manually, then swung up the hatch.
“Welcome to the Columbia!” he said, with a grand sweeping gesture.
In the hatch stood a third human, this one not dressed in the heavy white suits, but rather a blue undersuit. He stared for several seconds in shock. His first words were:
“Aw, hell. They really weren’t kidding.”
Neil, Buzz, and Luna all burst out laughing at the sheer bewilderment contained on his face.

> Chapter 2-- Driving and Deals
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Charlie’s mind blanked as he stared down the barrel of the gun pointed at his head. “Get in the car,” its wielder ordered.
The other man, eyes wide in surprise, screeched, “What are you doing?”
Charlie slowly moved towards the car. “Getting in the car,” he said shakily. Obviously, these guys weren’t official.
Then, screeching tires rounded the corner of the alley, and the thin man dropped, cursing, as a bullet tore through his thigh and pinged off the car. As the thin man crawled behind his car, Charlie dove to the ground and stayed there as chaos blossomed around him.
A second car, of the same make and model, screamed to a halt, and three men poured out of the open doors. One died instantly as the big man sent a slug through his head. However, the other two pulled their guns—strangely, the same weapons the first two men had—and riddled him with bullets. As he fell, a convulsive trigger pull shot a clean hole straight through a second man’s bicep.
He hissed and muttered something in a foreign language, wrapping a bandage produced from a pocket around it, as Charlie inched away from the firefight. His compatriot walked over to the cowering thug and calmly double-tapped him, the shots echoing off the alley’s walls, and then began dragging the bodies into the first car.
“Come with me if you want to live,” the other man said, pain lacing his voice as he finished tying the bandage off, red already beginning to seep through the white gauze.
Charlie didn’t think; he just followed his savior to the car. The other man drove off using the other, corpse-filled, car as the man gingerly entered the driver’s side. “Where’s he going?” Charlie asked stupidly, still reeling.
“To dispose of the bodies,” the man said calmly. “I’m terribly sorry about the inconvenience. As payment for this error, I am going to tell you something.” As he started the car, he turned around and fixed Charlie with a cold glare. “But you must tell absolutely no one about what I am about to say, or we’ll be forced to terminate you as well. And trust me; we’ll know if you say anything.”
Charlie gulped.
“I belong to an agency,” the man began, giving absolutely no doubt what agency he was speaking of. “You may call me Jan.” Giving Charlie no time to reply, he bulled on. “The attempted kidnapping you just were a victim of was an unfortunate misunderstanding. The second-in-command of our station was hasty and foolish. He has since been informed of the error of his ways.” Jan’s voice was cool and dry, belying the violence his words hinted at. “Unfortunately, this has caused a few more problems. He was a member of ‘the new guard,’ and ‘the old guard’ was rather more cautious. Relations are, let’s say, rather frosty between the two.” He smiled humorlessly. “And because of you, Mr. Duke, they’ve begun to heat up unpleasantly. There are already rumors of a schism forming.”
He pulled out into traffic, spot on the speed limit. “I am not an enemy, Mr. Duke, but I am certainly no friend. But those fools have probably exposed the entire office. I’m rather torn whether to appease them by killing you, like they would wish, or to spite them by letting you go. Convince me.”
Charlie blinked terrified sweat out of his eyes as Jan, who had just saved his life, contemplated ending it anyway. “Well... um...” he stammered. “I’m expected by the President and the Secret Service, I think. So if I go missing, they’ll investigate, right?” He swallowed convulsively. “And I’m sure that wouldn’t help... your agency’s cause. And I’ve already promised to tell no one, right? So—so if you let me go, and I say nothing of what you’ve told me, it’s probably safest for you,” he babbled.
Jan hummed. “Mr. Duke, you make a fair argument,” he said jovially. “Almost enough to persuade me not to kill you.” Charlie flinched.
“Let me offer you a deal,” Jan said, never taking his eyes off the road in front of him. “I will let you live—in fact, I’ll even drive you to the airport!—and let you go. But,” he said flatly, fixing Charlie in his seat, “If you renege on the deal, I’ll make sure you remember it. Tell me, how is Dottie doing? Or Charles and little Timmy?”
Charlie’s heart froze at that sentence, and he hurriedly agreed. “Right, deal, yes, sure, great,” Charlie gabbled. It was a terrible idea, agreeing to a deal with someone of Jan’s ilk—it might even be considered treason. But he couldn’t see any other options besides allowing his corpse—and Dottie’s— to be dumped in some ditch.
Jan grinned, this time with real feeling behind it. “Good, I thought so. Here is a number.” He handed Charlie a strip of paper with a telephone number penciled on it. “When you get to Hawaii and find out what ship you’ll be embarking on,” and he barked a laugh at Charlie’s flinch of surprise and fear at the information he really shouldn’t have known, “You’ll call this number. It will direct you to your mother, yes? Simply talk to her like you would normally, but tell her what ship you’ll be embarking on. We’ll do the rest.”
“Got it,” Charlie said quickly.
“I hope so, Mr. Duke.” He turned his attention back to the road. “Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“The old guard won’t be chasing you, Mr. Duke, but there are no such guarantees for the new. If this becomes a matter of prestige, of honor, they will hunt you to the ends of the earth, and spend every penny to find you. I would advise prudence. And we will make no further efforts to intervene on your part—we’ve risked enough already as it is.”
Charlie nodded slightly, but remained silent. “Good. We’ll arrive at the airport shortly.”
The rest of the drive was spent in tense silence, laden with unspoken threats and promises.
As they rolled to a smooth stop outside the airport terminal, Jan parted with, “I’m glad we could do business, Mr. Duke,” in a darkly humorous tone. “I’ll be seeing you.” The car pulled away, and as Charlie checked to see the license plate numbers, there were no plates on the car.
He swallowed, before walking into the airport doors. How was he ever going to explain this to the President—Sweet mercy, to the Secret Service—without arousing suspicion, slipping up, or making any mistake in his cover story?
It was essential that he be perfect on the details. Not one mistake could be made—not even the slightest error. Frantically, he began to make up a cover story, the most realistic and detailed one he could, within his mind as he slowed his steps towards the plane. Consciously, he wiped the sweat off his brow, stopped the frantic, fearful darting of his eyes, and slowed his breathing. ‘They had to believe nothing happened,’ Charlie told himself. ‘Nothing happened at all. I’m perfectly fine, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. They have to believe everything is fine.’
The lives of his family depended on it, after all.

> Interlude II
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Michael Collins shook off his surprise after a handful of seconds. “Anyway, ma’am, welcome aboard the Columbia, the command module for Apollo 11.” He floated back and allowed Luna to see the cramped interior. “As you can see, it’s going to be a bit tight with an extra body aboard, but we’ll make it work.”
As the three exited the LM and entered the CM, Luna gazed at the strange controls and fascinating equipment contained within.
Michael cleared his throat. “After you get situated, Mission Control has sent me a list of some questions they’d like you to answer. Is that fine?”
Luna nodded. “Of course! ‘Tis the least they could ask for allowing me aboard.” Carefully, she attempted to sit. While there was no gravity, her magically-imbued shoes allowed her to stick to the floor if she wished.
The astronauts watched her walk around with a little envy, she could tell; it didn’t seem like they had any such devices, so they simply floated around in the microgravity environment.
Once she had settled down on one of the few empty floor spaces, she looked up at the three floating humans and nodded, “You may ask any questions you wish, Mr. Collins, on one condition; I get to ask a question for every question you do.”
“That’s fine.” He cleared his throat, before referring to a small piece of paper with hasty scribbles scrawled on it. “One: What is your full name?”
Luna had to think for a moment—it had been so long since she had been referred to as anything but Luna or Princess Luna—she was either family or royalty to those she knew, neither of which lent itself to bandying last names around. It had been decades since her full name had been spoken.
“Luna Nightbringer,” she said after a second.
Michael scribbled something down, ostensibly her name. “Got it.”
“You call yourselves humans, but also homo sapiens. Why is that?” Luna asked.
Michael seemed surprised, but Neil squinted at her for a moment then said, “Mike, it’s just some mind trick she did—I’m fairly certain she knows everything I know about English, but not necessarily the context or reasoning behind it.”
Mike just sighed. “Mind trick. Why am I not surprised?” Returning to her question, he responded, “Human is the name we call ourselves, but in the classification of animals on our planet, we are genus Homo species sapiens. It’s a scientific name based off of similatities between organisms.” He paused. “Or at least, that’s what I got from high school science. For all I know, I’m totally wrong.”
Luna said thoughtfully, “A classification system like you said would be most helpful, I can see that.”
Mike smiled. “I never saw the logic behind it, but I’m not a biologist, so I’ll take your word for it. Right, next question...” he consulted the sheet again. “Do you know where your world is located from here?”
“No,” Luna sighed mournfully. “I’m afraid my being here was completely by accident. I was supposed to go to our own moon, but something interrupted the process and I ended up here. I have no inkling as to where my own planet may be.”
“Interrupted? How can that be—“
Luna tsked. “My turn!” she chided playfully. She thought for a moment, thinking of pertinent questions her newfound knowledge couldn’t answer. “Who is in charge of your planet’s weather?” she asked. “I know of many leaders of nations, but not of officials tasked with global concerns.”
“Weather?” Buzz said in surprise. “Nobody is in charge of weather. It just happens. We can predict it some of the time, but we couldn’t even start to control it.”
“Really?” Luna was surprised. To think they had made it to their moon... without first controlling their own world.
“Yep,” he affirmed.
Collins made a noise to get Buzz’s attention. “Roughly how long have you been on our moon?” he asked.
Luna had to think for a moment. She had spent the first few years figuring out times—years and days and other pertinent measurements of time. Now that she had a frame of reference to compare them... “Almost exactly twenty-four years, give or take a few days,” she said.
Mike nodded, but stopped dead. “Almost exactly—hm. Neil? What happened nearly exactly twenty-four years ago?”
“Well, there was the Japanese surrender,” Neil said.
“And before that?” Mike pressed.
“The bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—oh.” He, too, halted, deep in thought.
Hiroshima... Luna riffled back through her new information. Japanese city, destroyed just before the end of WWII by—that was bad. Very, very bad. Luna couldn’t even begin to describe how bad that was.
“YOU FOOLS!” she thundered. “DOST THOU KNOW WHAT THOU HAST DONE?”
The three humans flinched away. “Does this have to do with the bombs?” Neil asked.
“YES! THE SHEER FOALISHNESS OF PLAYING WITH SUCH FORCES—“ She took a deep breath and lowered her tone. “You humans are extremely lucky,” she said, “To still be alive. If that bomb had interacted with nearby magical fields in any way but the right one, you could have destroyed your entire planet!”
“Hold up, wait, stop,” Mike said, holding up a hand. “Magical fields? You’re joking, right?”
“JOKING? I AM NOT JESTING WITH THEE—No!” Luna replied angrily. “You must be jesting with me—there is no way thine species has made it to thine moon without a detailed knowledge of magic!”
“Ma’am, magic doesn’t exist,” Buzz said flatly. “I can only assume you’re talking about something we just don’t have a word for yet and that’s the nearest word we have. But ‘abracadabra,’ pull-a-rabbit-out-of-a-hat, saw-someone-in-half magic is just illusions and tricks. Magic doesn’t exist. It’s been proven. And as for ‘a detailed knowledge of magic,’ this is all 100% technology and American know-how. Not a single bit of magic involved.” He rapped the side of the ship.
“Wh—wh—wh—“ Luna stammered. No magic? No magic at all? How had they gotten this far, then? How? It was impossible...
“Luna?” Neil asked in concern. “Luna?” He waved a hand in front of her face as she continued sputtering and staring off into the middle distance.

> Chapter 3: Chaos and Crashes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	With a start, Charlie woke from his uneasy sleep as the airplane began to descend. They were nearing Los Angeles, and he felt his ears pop as he yawned. Casually, he glanced at the impassive Secret Service agent in the seat next to him (and the two behind him, and the two in front of him) and then out the window.
What he saw shocked him. On the outskirts of LA, the suburbs, everything was normal. The same applied for the affluent business section as well.
But the slums, the lower-class areas, were smoking. From this distance, he couldn’t tell more than that, but at the least a serious fire was occurring.
“Look at that!” he said, nudging the agent and pointing out the window. The agent grunted, looked for a few moments, and then returned to his previous pose without changing expressions.
Something had gone wrong in the hours between Houston and Los Angeles, as the fires looked to be spreading rapidly. But the pilot hadn’t said a word, and if the agents knew something, they weren’t telling. Anxious, Charlie’s mind ran through the possibilities. Fires, bombs, riots, gas leaks... the list was short.
And then, with a jolt and the screech of tires, they were on the ground, taxiing to a stop, and then they were at a standstill.
Hastily, the ground crew ran up a moveable staircase to the door, and it opened as a second staircase was wheeled up to the back door. As a block, the agents stood and escorted Charlie down the steps and onto the tarmac.
A car was waiting for them, and he was ushered in, the agents waiting outside. Inside the car were two other agents. The driver put the car in gear and began to drive to another flight, on the far side of the airport. “Your plane to Honolulu takes off in one hour,” he informed Charlie.
“Thanks,” he responded, “But what’s going on out there? I saw parts of LA in flames!”
The first agent only grunted, but the second said tersely, “You were right. There are riots in most cities—except in the Mormon Belt, strangely enough. In most places, however, all the conspiracists and crazies are coming out now that all that their conspiracy theories were ‘right’—No matter how wrong they actually are, and are protesting for ‘the truth,’ or something along those lines. Most of the poor and the criminal are joining them for various reasons, too. Looting’s rampant.” He fell silent, having summed up the situation nicely.
“What cities, exactly?” Charlie ventured.
“D.C’s fine because all the government people are keeping it down,” he replied. “Salt Lake, Boise, Denver, and Pheonix are mostly fine for now, but just about every other city is flaring up. Detroit’s in really bad condition—there were already enough tensions there before this whole mess, and entire blocks are up in flames. The South is going to worsen, too, as blacks and whites start using the riots as cover to kill each other, and it’s not going to be long before the black moderates and the white moderates can’t hold back their respective sides.”
Charlie blew out a breath. “That bad?”
The agent nodded in confirmation. “Once the news gets past censors to the Warsaw Pact, it’s going to be much worse there. America’s going to get off lightly if the Reds can’t keep a lid on it—and they’re never able to for long.”
The driver broke in, “It’ll die down in a few days, just like every other riot. You’ve got nothing to worry about—they aren’t anywhere close to the airport, and won’t be much closer before your flight takes off.”
Charlie nodded, knowing it didn’t affect him personally—but, still! Nationwide riots, predictions that it was only going to get worse... and they said it would be light compared to what was going to happen behind the Iron Curtain. What really could be worse than nationwide rioting?
He tried not to think about it, fixing his gaze on the plane drawing nearer.
“Wait a second,” the driver said. “What are those cars doing on the tarmac?” He pointed out three cars, in a line with the third significantly behind the first two, coming across the runway at dangerous speeds.
The other cursed. “Perimeter security was supposed to secure the area!” He motioned to the third car. “Idiots obviously didn’t react fast enough and are behind the people who shouldn’t be in here if they had been halfway competent!”
Their angle made it clear they were making for the airplane, and the driver jammed the accelerator. The car leapt forwards, but as soon as they hit full speed and were committed on their course, going much too fast to turn more than slightly, it became clear that it had been a mistake.
The two unknown cars only had to make a slight course correction to come into an intercept. There was no time to react, and Charlie had just enough time to put his head down and brace himself before the car was hit side-on.
The world spun crazily, knocking Charlie about. Pieces of the spinning maelstrom hit him, sending his body careening in the backseat. One particularly nasty hit cracked at least one bone in his arm, but it hadn’t begun to hurt before the car skidded to a stop, upside down.
Charlie groaned and reached for the car door, surprisingly, largely unharmed. The same could not be said for the agents. The driver was in a pile on the ceiling—or rather, the floor, now—with what looked like a broken neck.
The other agent was a mess. His left leg was bending the wrong way at the knee, and a nasty gash over one eye sleeted blood as he shakily tried to escape.
Then Charlie was out, crawling onto the asphalt. The car was a wreck and would never drive again. Its opposing car hadn’t fared much better—instead of flipping around the long axis of the car, it had gone hood-over-trunk and landed with much greater force on its roof. The metal sheeting was completely crushed, and the oil leaking from the block held a suspiciously reddish tinge.
The other two cars hadn’t collided, though, and the first screeched to a halt. The front window shattered, and a bullet zipped past Charlie’s arm. He was being shot at—again!
Diving to the ground unthinkingly, he landed on his broken arm and couldn’t suppress a scream as his vision turned red. In the seconds it took him to recover, a bullet pinged off the asphalt in front of his head.
A second was closer—it tore a strip of skin off the back of his shoulder, burning like fire.
Knowing that the next bullet would likely be a solid hit, Charlie desperately leveraged himself upright with his good arm as the third car finally arrived on scene, agents within already spitting lead towards their opponents.
Soon, another shootout (his second in less than twenty-four hours) ensued as agents on the other plane sprinted towards the battle. The agents within the car looked to be having the best of the exchange, but the shooting was prolonged until the other four agents began taking potshots from the other side. Flanked, the bullets from the offending car soon ceased, and more blood spattered the windows of the car.
The six agents now nearby, having disposed of the immediate threat, now dashed to Charlie. One said, “Sir, we must get to the plane!” and took him by the broken arm.
Once again, Charlie’s vision redded out, and his legs gave out. When he could see and feel again, he was being carried, gingerly, by two agents as they trotted to the plane.
Carefully, they set him down at the bottom of the steps, and one grabbed a first aid kit from the airplane. As he tended to the furrow in his back and prepared to splint his arm, he nodded to the two other agents. “Just in time. Where were you assigned?”
“Perimeter security,” one said. “There were three other cars—peeled off in different directions and lured away the others. Then the other two showed up, and we were the only ones at the post.” He sighed. “Good thing, too. One more car, and our assignment would be dead.”
Charlie nodded, “Thank you for the assistance, sir—“ and then blacked out as his arm was set in an explosion of pain.

> Interlude III
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Luna blew out a deep breath and tried to collect herself. The startling revelation that humans somehow didn’t use magic (and still made it to their moon) had shattered her worldview. Tentatively, she reached out to find the ever-present magical fields—only to realize that they were nearly nonexistent here!
They had always been weaker in places where there was no life, but never had she felt such an anorexic and underused magical field, even in the void near her own planet. It had obviously been centuries, if not millennia, since anyone on the planet below had used a significant amount of magic. She would be hard pressed to do much other than the most basic of spells with so little to draw on.
Finally, she turned to Neil. “I understand why your species believes magic is a fiction,” she said slowly. “It is my belief that for some reason, the use of magic died out many hundreds of years ago, and the fields which accommodate magical energies have atrophied so far as to be rendered unusable to any but those with the strongest magical talent. Even then, it would be parlor tricks and small happenings, nothing like what an exercised field would be capable of.”
“Exercised?” Neil asked. “I get the whole ‘No-one’s-used-magic-in-forever’ thing, and why that causes problems, but how can a field be exercised?”
Luna thought deeply for a moment. How do you explain magic to someone with no prior knowledge of it? “The first thing is,” she began, “magic is not sleight-of-hand or mirrors and smoke, nor is it the use of believed divine power or miracles or anything of that ilk. Rather, it is a documented use of simply using a form of energy which can’t be used any other way to do things which normally don’t apply. This magical energy is present everywhere, though it’s stronger around life.” She waved her hooves around. “Anyone with the proper training and inclination can use this energy, though it is easier for certain individuals and species.
“Take, for example, this horn.” She tapped the object in question. “Several species on my world have developed hornlike organs which allow for the more effective channeling, storing, and direction of said energy.”
Neil and Buzz both looked fascinated, leaning forwards unconsciously and listening intently. Collins, however, was furiously penciling down her words verbatim.
“This magical field, however, is not inert. In fact, it’s almost... alive,” she said. “The more of this field you draw upon for a certain task, the more it seems to anticipate what you’re attempting and streamlines the process itself, almost like gathering enough of the energy together creates an intelligent mind.” She paused for a second. “Do you have another piece of paper and pencil?”
Wordlessly, Buzz handed her one of each, and carefully she gripped the awkwardly-small writing utensil in hoof and hastily sketched the two axes of a graph, followed by a familiar curve she had known since her foalhood.

Then, she slowly made each character of the unfamiliar English script, so blocky compared to her own language. Hers were blockier than most, she noted with dissatisfaction. Was there not a way to make them more appealing to the eye?
After finishing, she showed the two astronauts her graph, pointing to each piece as she explained it. “Here is a graph of the magical energy one should use from internal stores—oh, yes, creatures can store this energy and use it later or, in extreme circumstances, use their own life force as energy—from these stores for a task or spell, x, and the energy actually used, y.”
She let them look at the graph for several seconds. “As you can see, there are two distinct curves where the energy use tapers down below a 1:1 ratio like you would expect. These curves are where it’s believed this force reaches certain levels of intelligence.”
Neil shook his head. “That’s a bit hard to stomach—a universal force that, when used, can think intelligently?” He smiled good-naturedly. “But, when you consider that today, I’ve walked on the moon, seen an alien—who’s a unicorn, no less!—and then talked to an alien. So sure, there’s a universal force that’s intelligent.”
Buzz barked a short burst of laughter. “Just when you think it couldn’t get any stranger, it jumps to a whole new level of weird, doesn’t it?”
Neil nodded. “I’m not sure what else could surprise me at this point—but,” he continued, directing his smile to Luna, “I’m sure I’ll find out before too long.”
Luna chuckled. “The day has been no less strange for me,” she admitted, “But there have been stranger days—not many, but a few.”
Collins whistled, heretofore squiet as he took a double whammy—he’d had no time to acclimate to Luna on the ride here, so he was obviously still reeling. “I’d hate to see those days, then,” he said.
“Indeed, they weren’t pleasant days,” Luna said, for a moment returning back to memories of fire and void, moon and sun, and a world turned upside down.
Shaking herself out of her momentary lapse in concentration, she continued, “Anyway, because this field can be intelligent, it also exhibits some characteristics of creatures. Most prominent is its strength. If not used, it will atrophy and weaken, just like a muscle, and if used often or with great power, it will strengthen for a time. As such, the field around your world has not seen serious usage for so long, it’s nearly powerless.” She thought of a similar analogy. “Say, someone was hurt badly and had to wear casts on their legs for many months. They can’t walk afterwards, because their muscles are so weak that they cannot support any weight, and must be carefully nursed back to health.”
“Right,” Neil agreed. “That makes sense.”
Buzz asked, “So, you said some species have evolved horns—how many species, exactly? Are they intelligent?”
Luna smiled, preparing to delve into her element—unadulterated factoids, statistics, and information. Her grin was predatory enough that Buzz instantly regretted what he suspected was akin to opening a floodgate.

> Chapter 4: Helicopters and the Hornet
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Charlie sighed as he stepped out onto Hawaiian soil. His arm throbbed with every footfall, and his body was a catalog of aches and pains. Now, taking no chances, agents boxed him in, protecting him on all sides.
Ahead was his next transport—not a car, but a helicopter, a large cargo copter that had been fitted with seats. The agents ushered him in, and then sat in the back. Casting around for somewhere to sit that wasn’t between two black-suited men, Charlie noticed another man in the front, watching the procession of Secret Service with unashamed fascination.
As the rotors of the helicopter began to spin, and the doors closed, Charlie sat and offered his hand. “Hello,” he said.
“Hi,” the man returned, shaking his hand heartily. “Name’s Fitz. Nice bodyguard,” he noted. “You must be some bigwig scientist or something, out to advise the President on his not-so-secret classified ship? With the alien or something?” He looked hopefully at Charlie, hoping for some tidbit of information.
“Not exactly,” Charlie returned, shaking his head slightly. “I’m Charlie. Been called out here by the President.”
“Charlie... Charlie...” Fitz repeated. “That name’s familiar.”
He stiffened. “Wait, Charlie? You’re that Charlie?”
“That Charlie?”
“Charlie Duke? You’re Charlie Duke?”
Taken aback, Charlie nodded. Fitz beamed. “Wow, awesome! Wait’ll my friends hear I met Charlie!” He fished out a pen and paper. “Can I get your autograph?”
Dumbstruck, Charlie gaped at Fitz. “You want my autograph?”
“Yes!” Fitz said. “You’re famous now! Everyone knows your name once some librarian dug up the Mission Control roster. I mean, you were talking to Neil—and the whole alien thing—that was incredible!”
Charlie smiled weakly. “It was, wasn’t it?” He took the offered pen and tentatively signed his name.
Fitz grinned, folded up the paper, and stuffed it in his jacket. “Thanks!” he said.
The chopper lifted off, and for a few minutes, an awkward lack of speech (not silence; the rotor blades were loud enough that shouting was the normal level of speech) infused the air. The agents were silent and professional, and Fitz seemed a bit starstruck.
Charlie was just uncomfortable. He knew that being an astronaut would mean he’d get to leave Earth at some point, and then he’d become well-known, but he was the backup astronaut! He wasn’t in space, and wouldn’t be for a while. He’d just been the guy on the ground, making sure nothing went wrong, because he knew Neil and the craft the best. Now people were asking for his autograph, and his name had apparently become a household term in the space of a day and a half, a meteoric rise in fame if there ever was one.
“So...” he finally ventured. “Why are you here?”
“Nothing close as fancy as yours,” Fitz said. “With the president here, they wanted an extra chopper, so they called up another pilot and copilot to go with it. I wasn’t originally chosen, but when the first copilot got hit by a car on the way, they called me up.” He shrugged humorously, “So I’m the third-in-line backup man, and it was just the luck of the draw I got to come. Though,” he said with a smile, “I suppose it wasn’t lucky for that chap who got hit.”
Charlie nodded, and Fitz fished, “So, did anything else happen when they turned the live feed off?”
Charlie automatically responded, “I can’t tell you that; it’s classified.”
Fitz tapped his nose and winked. “Right, classified. Got it.”
Once again, conversation stopped, and Charlie looked out the window, back at the rapidly-receding island behind. Thin wisps of smoke hung above Honolulu, attesting to the violence prevalent in the streets throughout the country, but it was certainly not as bad as the curtain of black which had shrouded much of Los Angeles.
And, he reflected happily, no one had shot at him or tried to kill him on the tarmac, either. Things were looking up.
Soon, land had disappeared from view, and the vast Pacific blue replaced it. It hadn’t been long (not more than half an hour, interspersed with small talk), before the two had both exhausted all the options for small talk.
“Wanna see something cool?” Fitz asked abruptly, taking the plunge. “I can guarantee you haven’t seen anything like it.”
“Sure,” Charlie shrugged.
Searching his luggage, Fitz found a pack of cards, and he turned his back to Charlie for a moment. The noises of shuffling and moving cards were lost in the rotor noise, but it was undoubtedly happening.
Fitz turned back around, cards nowhere to be seen. “Alright, pick a number between one and five,” he said.
“Three,” Charlie chose randomly.
Fitz put his hand by Charlie’s ear, and when he pulled it back, three cards were held in his fingers. “Pick again,” he invited at Charlie’s surprised blink.
“Two?”
This time, he reached his other hand behind his calf, and produced another two cards. “Again!”
“Five.”
Theatrically, Fitz yawned and stretched, putting his hands behind his head. When he brought them back, he held five cards—in each hand!
“How do you do that?” Charlie questioned.
“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Fitz said smugly. Charlie threw a pointed glance to his signature, though, and Fitz fidgeted, before giving in. “Alright, I’ll tell you—but only because I owe you! I’m not gonna give away any of my other tricks. Deal?” Charlie agreed with a nod.
He raised his hands once more. “Look carefully,” he instructed. His hands made a motion of some sort—so fast it was only a blur. When he stopped moving, his hands held cards. “See?”
“No,” Charlie confessed. “All I saw was a blur.”
“That’s the idea,” Fitz confided. “It doesn’t work if I do it slower, but I’ll explain it.” He rolled up his sleeves, and a shower of cards fell out. “So, I’ve got the deck lined up in my sleeves, which are just loose enough to let them fall down without giving themselves away or falling over.”
He demonstrated as he spoke. “When you say a number of cards, I tense my arms ad spread my fingers as I push back,” His hand went back into his sleeve and expanded it. “Which makes the cards slide down, and then I transfer them to my palm, and then my fingers.” He slid a card down to the bottom of his palm and his wrist. His thumb slid in, knocking the card down and to the right, where he snagged it in between his pointer and middle fingers. “It’s really hard—took me months to master once I had the idea. I’ve never been able to teach anyone else.”
Charlie was impressed. “It’s certainly unique,” he said, “And complicated. How many people have you shown that to?”
“Not too many,” Fitz returned. “Just family, friends; I did a few tricks on the base for the annual talent show, but it’s not like I’m a television magician or anything.”
Charlie nodded, but the conversation was interrupted by the pilot. “We’re coming in close to the carrier,” he said over his shoulder. “You’ll be able to see it in just a moment as we come in for a landing.”
Eagerly, Charlie moved to the window, with Fitz trailing behind. Below, the ocean gave way to the USS Hornet—a city-sized, quarter-mile long ship which hosted its own air wing.
No matter how many times he had seen such ships before, the sheer size and complexity of an aircraft carrier never ceased to be incredible. He followed the unhurried men on the deck below, strolling to their business, as well as the frantic men in charge of their landing.
Slowly, the helicopter touched down and shut off the rotors, the buzzing replaced with the shouts of men and the sounds of the ocean. Charlie was surprised to learn that even this far out from land, the carrier hardly rocked at all; it was barely noticeable even if one was looking for it.
“Welcome,” the pilot said grandly, “to the USS Hornet.”
“Home away from home,” Fitz murmured cheerfully as they stepped off the copter and onto the deck.
> Chapter 5: Liaison
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As Charlie and Fitz left the windswept flight deck of the Hornet and entered the ship, President Nixon was there to meet them. “Mr. Duke!” he said happily. “Glad to see you could make it. I’m sorry for the trouble you ran into on the way here.”
He noticed Fitz, who was spectating off to one side with dropped mouth and trembling limbs. “Who’s this?”
“Specialist Second Class Parson, sir!” Fitz said, snapping so straight it seemed his spine might break and saluting crisply.
“Ah yes, the backup copilot,” Nixon said, smiling. “Specialist, you’ll find quarters have been prepared for you in the officer’s section—there will be a nameplate by the door, I believe. Why don’t you go find your room?”
“Yessir!” Fitz blurted, and he was off like a shot, moving as quickly as he could while maintaining composure. The moment he turned the corner, however, his footsteps quickened greatly, accompanied by a rapidly-fading noise which sounded a bit like “Squee!”
“Now that we’re alone,” Nixon said, “We can talk more classified information. Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Aldrin, and Mr. Collins have done exemplary jobs under the circumstances—they’ve learned quite a bit about Luna, her homeworld, and culture. They’ve only been able to send a few tidbits down, to keep security tight, but what they’ve already given us could keep the analysts busy for years. I want to brief you quickly so you know the basics.
“Luna’s species name apparently means ‘The People’—as do most names—but in English it translates to a rough analogue of ‘Ponies.’ I’m sure you can see why.
“Her species has four distinct races, very different from one another—like dogs or cats, it seems. One race is quite similar to our own four-legged herbivores. Another, the ‘pegasi,’ can fly. The third, the ‘unicorns,’” He paused for a moment. “It’s remarkable that mythology has such close analogues to these creatures. An interesting coincidence. But I digress—this race can apparently manipulate some kind of energy field which translates roughly as ‘magic.’ Obviously, it’s not—Luna seems to be quite well versed in the mechanics of the field, and it’s ostensibly measureable, according to her.
“Luna’s race is called the ‘alicorns,’ and they are mixtures of all three other races, possessing the strengths of all three. They’re quite rare according to Luna.
“Now, that’s all we’ve been able to transmit—others may have gotten snippets of it even as the situation stands. We’ll be getting a full briefing from the three, and hopefully more from the alien, during and after the quarantine process.”
Charlie nodded.
Nixon continued, “The reason I’m telling you all this is because, while Neil and the others are doing admirably, I want someone official on the job. You’ve demonstrated that you work well with the three, and because their job descriptions are going to be changing to “Liaisons” most likely, I want you as the official head of the team.”
He looked the stunned Charlie straight in the eye, and asked solemnly, “Would you be willing to accept the post? In all likelihood, you’d be giving up the chance to go to the Moon yourself.”
Charlie didn’t hesitate. “Of course, sir, I’ll accept. Being a diplomat with aliens—aliens, sir!—is more than a satisfactory replacement.”
The president’s face wrinkled in warmth. “I knew you’d take the post,” he said, offering his hand. “The pencil-pushers haven’t come up with a properly long and formal title for the job, but I’m sure they will soon. For the moment, you’re Head of the Extraterrestrial Liaison Team. As if that term wasn’t already weighty enough.”
He dropped Charlie’s hand. “In other words, the mathematicians have been working on flight solutions for the mission overtime, and so the landing won’t be in three days from takeoff as originally planned. They cut as much time off as they could calculate in the time given, which means the total time was cut to two and a half days.” He checked his watch.
“In other words, in about two hours. I’d recommend you get your room as you like it, and then join me up on the bridge. Your quarters are also in the officer’s block, with a nametag near the door.” He turned and walked away.
A broad grin on his face, Charlie made his way to his room, and that grin only widened as he found Fitz’s room only a few doors down from his. He knocked, and Fitz instantly opened the door. “Come in!” he urged.
The moment the door closed, Charlie was bombarded with Fitz’s excited dialogue. “We met the president! He spoke to me!” he squealed. “That’s so incredible! You think you could get me his autograph? Or maybe you could get it on your sling!” he continued, gently rapping Charlie’s broken arm, mindful of the break.
Charlie grinned. “I’m sure I could convince him to eventually give you an autograph,” he said. “But I’m here to give you a piece of news and a proposition.
“First, it turns out that the Columbia has sped up—it’ll be landing in just a few hours. If you get on the flight deck, you might even catch a glimpse of the alien,” he hinted.
Fitz’s eyes grew huge. “Thanks for the tip!” he said enthusiastically. “What’s the news?”
“I’ve just been offered the job of—“ he paused for a second, trying to remember the name. “—Head of the Extraterrestrial Liaison Team, and I’ve accepted. I have no idea what the job entails or what privileges the office is going to get, but I’d bet it’ll need a transportation department.” He watched with amusement as Fitz hung on every word, still not realizing what he was saying.
Charlie smirked as he dropped the bombshell, his smile widening with every word. “Know any backup helicopter copilots that might want to be Head Pilot for the Extraterrestrial Liaison Team?”
The pilot’s breath caught in his throat. He tried to speak, but all that came out was choked noises, which Charlie had expected. Then, he fainted, which Charlie hadn’t been expecting. Charlie wasn’t fast enough to catch him, and his head clunked nastily against the wall when he fell.
Charlie sat him up. “Fitz, are you alright?” he asked, prodding his shoulder.
Groggily, the pilot’s eyes blinked open. “You jerk,” he mumbled. “That’s not how you extend a job offer.”
“Good, you’re alright.” Charlie helped him stand as Fitz rubbed his head.
“Of course!”
“What?” Charlie asked. “Yes, you’re alright?”
“I mean to the job offer,” Fitz said, beaming widely, but faltering as the action made his head twinge. “You think I’m going to turn down something that awesome? Being a helicopter pilot for astronauts—AND an alien? Did you even have to ask?”
“Yeah,” Charlie laughed. “I wanted to see how’d you react!”
Fitz waved him off, grumbling, “Get outta here,” but his heart wasn’t in it. He was too delighted to stay upset for more than a handful of seconds. “So, you said the Columbia’s going to land in a couple hours?” he asked. At Charlie’s affirmation, he said, “Then I’d better get going—If I want a spot close enough to the hanger downstairs, I’d better claim it now.” He opened the door, already bouncing on his toes in impatience. “See you later!” he called as he jogged down to monopolize the front-row seats.
Shaking his head, Charlie shut the door behind him and began to make his way to the bridge.

> Chapter 6: Splashdown
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A dull thud echoes through a hallway.
A sheaf of papers fall to the floor.
----
Neil turned and smiled at Luna, poking the snoozing alicorn to wake her up. “Hey, hey, we’re about to hit reentry,” he told her as she blinked herself awake. “It’s going to be a bit bumpy—you’ll want to hold on to something. And pray.” He smiled weakly. “Reentry can be dangerous, and we won’t know if anything is wrong until it’s too late. But, hey, it’s been done before, and so far nothing’s gone wrong up here. Let’s hope that streak goes unbroken.”
Luna was not reassured by his words. “This reentry is so dangerous? Why so?”
Neil grimaced. “In space, there’s no air, right?” At Luna’s nod, he continued. “Reentry is where we have to get back into the atmosphere to land back on Earth. The only problem is, we’re going really fast. More than...” he thought it over in his head. “20 or 30 times the speed of sound. Really fast, like I said. So, if we hit the atmosphere at too shallow of an angle, we could skip off of it like a stone on a pond and go flying into deep space.
“If we hit too steeply, we’ll just burn up from the friction. It’s a very finicky angle. The mathematicians have calculated it very precisely, but if someone on either end screws up, we won’t be living through it.”
He patted her shoulder. “But no one has gotten it wrong yet, so I think we have a handle on it.”
Luna sighed. “I am not enthused at the thought.”
Buzz laughed. “Neither are we. This, frankly, scares me.” He sobered. “Scares me a lot.”
Michael added, “We can’t contact Earth during the process either, so neither side knows what’s happening until it’s over. It’s always terrifying, on the ground or not.”
“On that note,” Buzz returned, “We’ll be hitting the exosphere any second now. Better hold on tight! We don’t have anywhere convenient for you to sit, and it gets really bumpy.”
Quickly, she began actively funneling more magic into her boots. At the same time, she grabbed her helmet, floating off in one corner of the module and refastened it on her head.
-----
So, too, does a body.
The papers are taken; the body, left.
-----
Charlie walked out on the flight deck to see the President, along with his two security agents and the two which had come with Charlie onboard, staring out into the sky. Nearby, Fitz bounced on his toes, unable to hide his excitement as he got as close to the edge of the ship as was allowed. A bright orange flotation device, obviously foisted on him by some nervous crewman, was half-fastened to his body—apparently, he’d forgotten about it midway through putting it on.
As he joined the strange group, the President greeted him warmly, and then turned back to the sea. “The reentry should be starting any moment now. Radio blackout with the crew was just confirmed. We should be able to see some of the reentry from here.”
Unobtrusively, a pair of seamen set up a radio nearby, and one stayed with the equipment when the setup was complete, ready to relay any messages from the bridge, Mission Control, or the reentry module once it had landed.
One of the agents stiffened. “There it is!” he called, breaking professionalism for a moment to point upwards.
Everyone followed his finger, gasping in amazement at the thin line of flame, almost like a shooting star, high above them. It streaked across the sky, from the far east westwards. Suddenly, the trail disappeared.
“What happened?” asked Fitz. “Did it just burn up?”
“We don’t know yet,” the President responded. “Either they burned up, or the reentry module has slowed down and is beginning its final descent. We won’t know until we get radio contact—or find what’s left of the module.”
Glancing sidelong at the President, Charlie could see his anxiousness. He was hiding it well, but he slowly shifted from foot to foot.
-----
He watches.
His breath grows short.
-----
The module shuddered constantly now, getting ever more violent with every second. The temperature began to rise, quickly enough it was noticeable to the four inside.
“I don’t think it should be this hot already,” Neil shouted. “Something’s wrong!”
Collins cursed. “They must have miscalculated something!”
“Doesn’t that mean we’re going to die?” Buzz asked frantically.
“Maybe—if the calculations were close enough, and we’re lucky, we might make it!” They all reached for their restraints and tightened them even further, hands whitened with the struggle.
Collins began praying under his breath.
Luna was taking the brunt of the juddering module—she had nowhere to strap in, and every shake banged her upper body into something in the crowded space.
Then, a mighty jerk dislodged one of her hooves and threw her off-balance. A second quickly followed.
The temperature was reaching a staggering high— Luna felt as if she was in an oven. Her vision began to blur, and her fur began to burn her skin, the heat being funneled into her dark coat.
The shaking stopped for a few seconds, and Luna relaxed marginally. It was over; they’d made it alive!
Then, with an almighty crash, the parachutes deployed, and an unprepared alicorn lost all footing, her grasp of the magic holding her to the floor shattering along with her concentration.
The last jerk as they caught flung her to the right—right into the three astronauts, who were so tightly strapped in they could barely raise their hands in a vain attempt to block the hurtling mass.
-----
There is fire in the sky.
The time is close at hand.
-----
It had been several minutes, and even the agents were apprehensive now; they tapped idly on their holsters and adjusted their suits constantly. Fitz was pacing along the deck, the most obvious of the group, but even President Nixon was not immune. He clenched at his pant legs, his fingers white with the strength of his grip. He was chewing on his lower lip.
Suddenly, the radio crackled. “Hornet, This is Search Team One. We have visual on parachute. Moving now.”
The tension only thickened. The module had survived—but had the fragile flesh within? It would be a terrible blow to find the four inside dead from the heat of reentry in an intact module.
The President edged closer and closer to the radio with every moment, until finally he was practically looming over the terrified seaman manning it. Sweating, he asked, “Would you like the radio, sir?”
Nixon nodded jerkily, and the seaman hastily handed him the microphone and fled from his presence.
“Hornet, Search One. We’re over the module; have been for a minute. There are no signs of life. The door isn’t open, and there have been no radio transmissions.” The pilot sounded devastated over the small speakers.
Everyone took an involuntary step back, and Nixon groaned, putting a hand to his chest and reeling back.
“Wait, wait—the door just opened! The door just opened!” Nixon bent over the radio, pressing the headphones to his ear. Everyone rushed to the speakers, crowding as close as they could, even the agents jostling for position.
Forgetting all radio protocol, the pilot screamed through the radio. “One of the astronauts just crawled out—two!”
Someone—Charlie wasn’t sure who—muttered a prayer under their breath.
“They’re giving the thumbs up! There’s the third—and the alien! They’re all alive—they’re all alive!” The pilot was nearly blowing out the speakers with the force of his voice. (Charlie was pretty sure he wouldn’t have much of one tomorrow.) “Thank God, they’re all alive.” He was nearly sobbing now.
The President felt for the table and collapsed heavily to the deck, and mopped at his forehead with one shaking hand. “Thank God.”

> Chapter 7: Splashed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

They see the seven crucial figures.
Fingers reach for switches.
------

It was stiflingly hot. Someone groaned. He couldn’t breathe— his arms were over his face, and something heavy lay on top of them, pinning him down. With shaky muscles, he shoved with everything he could give. The obstruction rolled away and thumped to the ground, painfully landing on his feet, and he took a gasping breath as he looked around.
The module was a mess. Papers and pencils were strewn around, and several fixtures were dented or broken. The radio panel was spitting sparks into the air. They were bobbing slowly in the water, which was a good sign—they’d made it down more or less in one piece. Neil felt his face with one hand. He felt... fuzzy was the only way to put it. Like he’d taken a hit to the head. His vision was alright, though, so he thought it wasn’t a concussion. Or at least not a bad one.
Mike was groaning in pain, teeth clenched and eyes shut, to his right. Blood dripped from his nose, which looked squashed. “Mike?”
“Neil? You’re alright?”
“My arms are killing me, and my face hurts, but nothing I can’t handle. You?”
Mike grimaced. “I think I broke my right collarbone. And my nose.” With his good hand, he fumbled for his harness and began to unlock it. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”
Neil checked to his left. Buzz was unconscious, blood dripping from his temple. Neil inhaled sharply, reaching for his harness. “Buzz is out. Looks like a head injury.”
Collins nodded. “Radio’s busted,” he observed.
“Yeah.” Neil unlocked the final belt on his restraints and stood as best he could, realizing that his feet were trapped as he fell over, unable to take a step.
He landed awkwardly, half on the floor and half on the awkward furry lump. Then, he remembered. ‘Probably a concussion if I couldn’t remember the alien here with us until I tripped over her,’ he noted as he extricated himself from Luna’s prone, unresponsive form.
Which was a bad thing. Being unresponsive, that was, not being prone. Being prone was quite nice for things like sleeping or taking cover. For that matter, sleeping sounded good right now—
Definitely a concussion.
Hastily, he checked the alicorn over as thoroughly as he could, being an entirely different species unfamiliar with her biology. One wing was bent in what Neil was fairly certain was not a healthy direction, her helmet had a new dent (not a good sign, that), and a couple of her boots were missing, but she didn’t seem to be bleeding out, she was breathing, and on a further check, the wing did not appear to have any broken bones.
All in all, an acceptable prognosis except that she was out cold. Neil really hoped she woke up; it would be a disaster to have a living, breathing alien, one whom had already proven to be a treasure trove of knowledge, in a coma with doctors unable to treat her for fear of operating on the wrong organ or using some material that killed her species or any number of terrible things that could happen in a situation like this.
He was going off on mental monologues, Neil realized. While there were much more serious things to be done. He’d need a checkup after they got out of the module.
Michael, meanwhile, had taken two aspirins, and had just roused Buzz. “Muh?” the astronaut asked muzzily.
“Buzz, you’ve taken a pretty good hit to the head. I need you to stay awake, alright?”
“K,” Aldrin mumbled, blinking rapidly and trying to unharness himself without much success. His assistant wasn’t much use with only one arm, so he just stood back awkwardly, waiting for Buzz to free himself.
Neil wasn’t having any success rousing Luna, however. “Shoot,” he muttered, rocking back on his knees. “Come on, Luna, wake up!” he urged desperately, shaking her shoulder, to no response. “Come on!”
He rested one hand on the wall, thinking for a moment. What did you do when someone was unconscious and not responding? He knew he knew some possible answers, but it took precious seconds to come to his mind.
He unstrapped her helmet and set it to one side, before taking two fingers and prying open her eyelid. An unnatural cat’s pupil unseeingly met his, contracting in the light, and he recoiled in surprise, eye remaining open. “Gah!”
As if it had been a signal, Luna gasped, her slitted pupil shrinking to a pinpoint and quickly growing back to normal size, this time her normal blue pupil. “What?” she sputtered intelligently.
“Are you OK?” Neil asked her. “You took a big blow to the head, and your eyes were really wonky for a second there.”
She rubbed her head with a hoof and stood. “Wonky?” she questioned, horn lighting briefly and sputtering before blazing into light. It flashed and disappeared, and she shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“Well, they looked different, like cat’s eyes,” Neil elaborated.
She frowned and fell silent.
As Buzz finally succeeded in unharnessing himself, Neil turned to the hatch. “We should probably get out and let our ride know we survived,” he said to himself. “Since the radio’s broke.”
But as he took a step, his foot flared with pain and he fell to one knee, groaning “That’s not good.”
Luna grabbed her helmet, replacing it on her head, the new dent making it an uncomfortable-looking feet. “Do you require assistance?”
“That would be nice, yes,” he replied, hopping upright on his good foot. “It’s going to be hard opening the hatch on one leg, and Mike and Buzz are in no shape to open it either.”
He hopped over to the hatch and waved Luna over. Grasping the wheel with both hands, he leaned heavily on the alicorn as he twisted the wheel a few turns and shoved the hatch outwards. Falling forwards into the gap he opened, he crawled out onto the small edge around the module and scooted over as best he could.
Collins flopped through the gap awkwardly, with only one arm to help his progress, followed by Buzz slowly navigating the exit, obviously still suffering from his hit to the head. Luna was the last in the progression of battered individuals.
Neil looked up wearily, for the first time noticing the whumps of helicopter blades. Not more than a hundred yards away hovered a United States helicopter. He waved at it and gave it a thumbs up as it tilted towards them.
He smiled when he saw Luna’s expression, a mixture between incredulity and sheer delight. They’d told her about things like airplanes and helicopters, but now he could see the obvious difference between being told something or knowing something in your head—and seeing for the first time.
As the ropes came down along with the rescue personnel, he wondered how long that had been the expression on his face the past few days.
-----
The President seemed unable to find the strength to stand as the pilot relayed that the quartet had all been injured in some way but were non-critical and responsive. The medical team onboard would be able to handle most of the damage, and a few weeks in the quarantine unit with the doctor would deal with the head injuries it seemed most of them had sustained.
Charlie suddenly realized something. If they were going to be in quarantine immediately, shouldn’t the group be meeting by the quarantine unit to exchange greetings?
He mentioned this, and Nixon nodded. “That was the plan, yes, but with the unexpected addition to the crew, I figured I would take my chances of catching an alien space bug and greet her in person.” He smiled. “It’s the least I can do for such a valuable opportunity for the country.”
The helicopter steadily reported the distance growing closer, and within minutes it was visible as it came flying into a hover above the deck. Hurriedly, the President picked himself up off the ground and dusted his suit as the helicopter settled onto the carrier and the rotors ceased their spinning.
The door slid open, and Michael Collins was the first to exit, arm wrapped in a sling similar to Charlie’s and holding an icepack to his nose with his other hand. “Sir,” he said, saluting briefly before returning the pack to his face. “Nice to see you.”
“Mr. Collins!” Nixon exclaimed, nearly leaping forwards. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am you weren’t injured worse.”
Collins  chuckled. “So am I, sir.” He moved forwards and to the side, allowing a medic to help Buzz out of the copter.
Buzz smiled. “Sorry, President, but I’m not feeling great,” he said, leaning heavily on the medic, his bandaged head wobbling. His gaze was still a bit unfocused. “I took a good hit at the end there.”
“Mr. Aldrin, I’m happy to see you in one piece, and I hope for your speedy recovery,” the President said warmly, shaking his hand briefly as he took his place to the left of Collins.
Neil was the last human out of the helicopter, semi-hopping on one leg and with an icepack held to his forehead. “Mr. President,” he said, saluting the sharpest of the three, but his stance broke as his balance wavered and he began to tip.
The medics reached out to grab him, but their efforts were preempted by a shimmering blue aura gently shoving him back upright. The agents stiffened, reaching for their guns, but relaxed marginally as the field did nothing further.
Luna blew out a breath as she released the magic, limping out of the helicopter. “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said, dipping her head.
Nixon was beaming. “Miss Luna!” he exclaimed, extending a hand. “President Nixon. This is an auspicious occasion.” He pretended not to notice the enterprising crewmen snapping pictures from the tower, making lackluster efforts to stay out of view.
Luna shook his hand firmly, but startled him by releasing his hand and sweeping into a deep bow, flourishing her wings elaborately. “It is an honor to meet you, President Nixon,” she said formally, holding the pose. The agents, this time, didn’t relax, tensed and wary.
Bemused, the President waited a few moments. After a few more, he coughed. “You can stop that now, Miss.”
She returned to her upright stance, but couldn’t hide a wince as her wings folded back to her body. “I thank thee for the hospitality thou hast offered me,” she said.
“I couldn’t have dreamed of a different response,” he said, completely honestly. “And please, you don’t have to be so formal. I’m just Mr. President or President Nixon—not a king. There’s no need for bowing.” He grinned. “Americans never made a habit of bowing. Almost no one does it anymore.”
Surprised, Luna nodded. “As you wish, Mr. President,” she responded, nearly bowing again before catching herself. “May I formally introduce myself?”
“Sure,” he said. “After that, I’m going to have to have you follow the medics to the quarantine trailer, where you and your three companions will be spending the next two weeks.” He held up his hands in apology. “We can’t afford to have an alien superbug, no matter how unlikely, starting an epidemic.”
She agreed, and drew herself up straight. “Presenting Miss Luna Nightbringer of Equestria,” she announced loudly, her voice knocking the President back a step. “May I have leave, as a non-citizen of the United States of America, to reside here?”
-----
They’re clustered together, like sheep to a slaughter.
Two hands come up.
-----

“Yes?” The President’s answer sounded like a question, unprepared for Luna’s archaic-seeming actions. “I give you leave.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” she said, beaming, as he began to lead the party, medics, agents, and all, towards the waiting deck elevator, something changed. The President’s guards dove at him, tackling him to the ground.
They were a second too late, as Charlie’s guards pulled their weapons and fired without hesitance.
Each fired two bullets. Two hit James Abernathy, the President’s lefthand guard, center-of-mass, dropping him instantly. One had been aimed center-of-mass but hit Brian Miller, the righthand guard, in between the leftmost edge of the two lowermost ribs as he dove and took President Nixon to the ground. The round passed through him, as it had been a glancing blow at best, and it tore a strip of cloth off of his suit and Richard Nixon’s.
The fourth, meant for Miller, missed, and went flying through the group behind Nixon, who hadn’t had time to even widen their eyes, luckily missing all of them.
Unfortunately, the stray round didn’t miss Fitzergald Parson, who’d been standing behind the group unobtrusively while still getting a great view of them, and who had already begun to blur into motion, precious milliseconds slow with his reaction time. A shout had already begun to emerge from his throat—for anyone, up to and including even elite military men, he’d been incredibly—insanely—fast.
Just not fast enough.
The bullet took him in the throat, snapping him backwards and diagonally with a garish spray of crimson backlighted by the sun as the pistol-wielding guards snapped, “Nobody move!”
-----
All to plan.

> Chapter 8: Darkened
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a single, anticipatory second of shocked silence. One agent motioned with his free hand. “Get together.” Shuffling feet broke the silence, and the moment noise reentered the scene, the panicked cameramen on the superstructure ran for help.
All of the group complied, but as she backpedaled Luna followed the choking noises backwards to the thrashing man, already drenched in his own blood and suffocating in it. His cries for help were lost in his ruined throat and mangled into garbles and sickening bubbles of blood forming and popping. His eyes were wide in terror and anguish as he looked for someone—anyone—to save him.
One of the men behind her stiffened and spun around. “Fitz!” he cried at the noises, rushing towards him.
“Don’t move,” one guard repeated, training his weapon on the man and putting a bullet at his feet.
The traitors didn’t even seem to care that they’d hit someone behind their target and dealt him a terrible wound. In fact, they hadn’t spared the attention to even notice until someone else moved.
And that, most of all, infuriated her beyond reason. To fight was one thing. To betray was worse. But to kill innocent bystanders and not even notice? To refuse a man to even try to save a life? The callousness, the sheer disregard for innocents, boggled the mind. Such barbarity could not be allowed to stand.
Something in her mind clicked. A lock Luna didn’t know existed unlocked, and a door she thought destroyed began to open, and traces of it began to squeeze out. Her eyes widened as she tried to slam the door shut, but she couldn’t muster up the will—she was still angry, and there wasn’t enough magic around to use any spells that could help.
It wanted out—and it was stronger than she was. She could slow it, but her anger had broken its bonds and it was only a matter of time.
“Neil,” she choked, her tone already shifting, “When it happens, get everyone away. Don’t anger it. Don’t do anything extra to make it notice you.”
“It?” Neil asked frantically, trying to stay upright and move backwards, panic dripping from his tones. “What’s it?”
“You’ll... know it when you... see it,” she gurgled, strength spent. “It’s coming.” With a cry, she slumped to the deck, everyone’s attention diverted to her for a moment.
With a mental cackle, her consciousness was shoved into the same door she had tried to close. This time, it slammed closed easily despite all of Luna’s resistance, and she was nearly helpless within her own body.
A moment later, cat’s pupils greeted the light as her eyes snapped open, no longer under her control. “That’s better,” her body laughed, voice sinisterly changed. “I thought I’d have to stay trapped in there for centuries.” She adjusted her helmet slightly. “Now, I have some of her business to take care of before I can get to mine.” Fangs sprouted from her mouth.
She sighed. “Such a pain, but contracts do have their conditions.” She turned her gaze towards the traitorous Secret Service agents. “And her subconscious made the conditions for this little outing quite clear."
Nightmare Moon was back.
-----
Neil definitely knew when it happened.
Luna had collapsed after gasping a few sentences, and when she had gotten back up, she’d changed.
Her voice was different, her mannerisms completely changed, and those eyes from the landing were back. She didn’t even seem the same person—or pony, rather.
And this new Luna scared him, on an instinctive, bone-deep level he felt in the most primal level of his body. The main urge he was getting was ‘Run, as fast as you possibly can, and don’t look back.’
Quickly, he ushered everyone back several yards, the agents too focused on the alicorn to notice them moving.
“Did you even take a fraction of a second to notice,” she hissed, voice dripping with malice, “That you’ve doomed a man to a slow, terrible death?” She took a step forwards. "Now, I'm no stranger to violence-- far from it-- but, honestly, killing those not in the way lacks style. It's terribly wasteful and annoying, so I probably would've done this even had I not had to." She smirked. "This is fun, anyway."
“Don’t move!” Luna’s glare darkened even further, as did her coat, and she took another, growing step forwards.
Neil watched in detached horror at the debacle playing out in front of him, unable to take his eyes away as his voice urged, “Don’t attract her attention!”
“I said don’t move!” The other guard was much less confident, a note of apprehension in his voice, but his weapon didn’t falter as he aimed in between her slitted eyes.
“No.” Her rebuttal was so blunt and matter-of-fact that the guard was momentarily at a loss, grasping for something to say to that unexpected answer. Luna—no, it wasn’t Luna, or the one Neil knew, anyway— smiled toothily, fangs glinting.
“I’m going to move,” she said conversationally, “and do you know what else is going to happen?”
The first guard had prioritized her as a threat now; he was aiming at her as well. Charlie broke from the group, Neil grabbing uselessly at him, and fell to the man’s—Fitz, he had screamed—side.
Her wings spread to their fullest extent, and an unnaturally large and black shadow fell across the deck. “I’m going to kill you.”
There was a sudden darkness—the sun veiled across the entire deck, blinding everyone on the carrier, and frost formed on every surface as sinister laughter rung from every direction.
When the black mist dispersed, the sun was no lower in the sky and no cloud had drifted across its expanse, but the sky had darkened as if it was covered entirely with looming thunderheads.
The guard who had before been so calm stiffened, for the first time showing a hint of concern, while the second broke, making a screaming run to the other end of the carrier, as far as he could get from the new Luna’s full glory.
He was snatched by a dark telekinetic grasp and brought, struggling frantically, eye to eye with Luna as she regarded him with dark humor. He wrenched at the trigger, sending the entire magazine at her, but most ricocheted off of her black armor. Only one found a gap, and where it struck, it shattered, leaving only a tiny mark.
One small drop of ichor, blacker than night, fell to the deck.
Her amusement showed. “You did better than most of Sister’s—or rather, Celestia’s—guards did. I applaud you.” Two hooves stomped slowly, mockingly, ringing ominously on the deck. The guard shrank, still struggling, but no longer with any kind of purpose—the thrashings of prey rather than a trapped opponent. His mouth fell open, and he gibbered with mindless terror.
“Don’t be such a foal,” she chided him, as more bullets from the second guard sparked off of her armor. Idly, she removed the pitiful threat from the second by teleporting away his weapon—and, incidentally, the hand holding it, the guard biting back a scream as he was thrown to the deck by a temporary gravity field, hand spurting blood. 
Returning her attention to her helpless enemy, she finished, “After all, I’m going to kill you quickly.” He didn’t even have time to take in a breath as she ripped each of his ribs in separate directions. As blood and bits of flesh flicked everywhere, she giggled, the girlish noise only adding to the terrifying sight, and flicked his mangled remains over the edge. “That was the most fun I’ve had in decades!”
She licked one drop of blood off of her helmet.
Neil retched, along with most of the others.
Finally, the first’s composure broke. “Oh God, please don’t kill me,” he begged desperately. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know—just please, God, don’t kill me like that.”
“Deal.” Leaving him on the deck for the moment, she regaled the Neil and the other frozen Americans, huddled together instinctively. As her eyes swept the group, they involuntarily shrunk back several steps—except President Nixon. He paled and swayed, but held his ground and even managed to bring his eyes up to meet hers. Neil pulled him back, hysterically whispering in his ear, “Don’t draw attention to yourself! Do you want her to notice you?”
The president swallowed and backpedaled quickly.
She nodded slightly, almost admiringly, and flashed Nixon a wink that made him blanch and shudder. “I like you. Such spirit!” 
Lastly, her eyes turned to Fitz as Charlie, shaking and unable to stand, still tried with fumbling hands to help as he trembled. Neil bit his lip so hard he began to bleed.
The two had definitely drawn her attention.
“Cease your incompetent aid, you lackwit,” she snapped, backhanding him magically a few feet, sprawling, and bringing Fitz to her hooves. “You’re not helping at all.”
He didn’t hear as his breaths began to slow and the blood faltered from a spurt to a steady flow. He had seconds to live.
“Humans are so—so—weak,” she complained as she darkened her horn once again. “One of my guards could have shrugged off such a hit and kept fighting until they dropped dead. But I suppose it wasn’t this one’s fault evolution snubbed him or that cowards killed him.” She bit her lip, slicing it open, black blood oozing out. Bringing one booted hoof to her mouth, she gathered a drop of blood and, with a flick, dropped it into the wound as she cast her spell. With a return of momentary darkness, she tossed him, limp but throat no longer rent open, over to the other humans. “I hope you’re grateful I saved the man. He’ll make a good servant when he's healed.”
She clapped her hooves, the harsh clanging screwing into Neil’s ears. “Now, only one more item of business.” She lifted the lone traitor up by the throat. “Who sent you?”
Choking, he began to gurgle out a word, but she tsked. “Too slow! It’s time to do this the fun way!”
A stream of darkness flew from her horn to the man’s forehead, and both stiffened.
The man began to scream.

> Chapter 9: Attacked
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The man’s mental defenses were laughably weak; Nightmare Moon battered them down in a handful of milliseconds.
But her quest for information stopped before it had even begun.
Something else had already been using mental magic on this man. Tendrils of influence and suggestion threaded throughout his psyche; there was no overt control, no thralldom, but this man had long ago lost most of his free will. They pulsed with an energy that was neither normal magic nor her own.
She did not recognize the magic, but she felt her host scrutinizing it.
So, someone had likely caused this man’s betrayal and behavior—an interesting note. He was less than a pawn—a cat’s paw with no choices of his own. Which meant that her job wasn’t done, and she couldn’t consider the contract fulfilled.
How bothersome.
Angrily, she returned to her search, tearing through the man’s mind viciously.
She was rewarded with a small nugget: the words ‘Project Proteus,’ and an image of a large, strange-looking cargo ship.
But as she grasped the words and tore them away, the magic, against everything that governed magic, noticed.
A wave of force beat at her own mind, trying to force entry, and nearly succeeded, tearing through her millennia of discipline and focus as if it was wet paper, and brushing aside her (and her host’s) magical wards like flies.
Only barely did she manage to stop the intrusion, but in the process, she had lost her foothold on the man’s memories.
When the attack receded, the man’s mind was gone. It was not wiped empty, and he was not dead—rather, her assailant had torn his memories and instincts into shreds. Pieces of his life mixed and melded, and tore and broke in a never-ending scene of utter chaos and destruction.
This man, at his luckiest, would never do anything more than drool and spout gibberish the rest of his life. He was now worthless, and it was a waste of effort to kill him now that he posed no threat or opportunity.
Not when there was something else out there that matched her powers.
She released his mind with distaste and he fell to the floor. “Something has interfered,” she declared to the huddled humans, just as more began to file out of the superstructure. “But it has removed itself.”
“I’m afraid you’re wrong on that point,” a voice chuckled, and she could feel her host’s mental gasp, along with a feeling of disbelief.
She spun, only to see the man was, impossibly, standing and speaking. “I’m very much here, you know. Color me impressed—I haven’t seen one of your kind here in millennia! Tell me, how did you ever get loose and infiltrate here so easily? I’m always looking for tips.”
That slip of the tongue made her wary as she prepared her next assault. Any beings with lifespans similar to hers were not to be trifled with.
She did not miss the way one of the humans behind her recognized the voice.
“I did not ‘get loose,’ interferer,” she smirked. “I was invited.”
The man took a step back. “Whoops!” he said, a trace of nervousness entering his voice.
“Which means I have my full power at my disposal, fool!” she trumpeted, throwing everything she had in a mental assault, expecting to hit a wall and for a quick siege to take place.
Instead, she hit a wave. It was unlike any mental defense she’d ever envisioned—instead of purpose, emotion, and focus forming the base and instead of a figurative wall or fortress surrounding this being's mind, there simply wasn’t anything for her spells to latch onto. A mass of incredibly quickly shifting thoughts and concepts flicked away her spells, taking with them only a drop instead of the chunks which should have gone missing from a normal defense.
Her attack would have broken the mind of any creature she had heretofore met several times over.
It just amused this one, she saw, and she shrunk back, desperately preparing one of her fallback spells.
“How far the mighty have fallen,” he sighed. “Now, before we get down to the whole epic-mental-duel business, let me just say something. Charlie, you never called.” He bared his teeth. “You naughty boy. Now I have to influence things directly, and I hate doing things myself.”
Then he attacked, and her reinforced defenses shattered before him.
It slowed almost to a stop, however, as she cast her spell.
This was not a time-stopping or even a time-slowing spell—she couldn’t afford to expend that much energy; she would be even more helpless than she was now.
No, this simply sped up her mind for a few seconds, in what appeared to be about forty minutes. Gave her some time to think and strategize against this vastly superior foe.
Unfortunately, half a subjective hour of thinking later, she’d only come up with one, highly unpalatable, suggestion to beat back the unstoppable flood of magic about to destroy her mind just like it had the first’s. This creature's magic was too unfamiliar and too powerful to beat back; if she tried, it would only delay the inevitable defeat. Slightly.
Mentally, she knocked on her former prison. “I have a proposition.”
Five subjective minutes left.

> Chapter 10: Agreed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What?” her host’s voice echoed through the door. “Does it have to do with our imminent demise?”
“Yes, it does,” Nightmare Moon said. “You’ve faced something like this before, haven’t you?”
“I have,” Luna replied. “And you don’t stand a chance.” She sounded smug.
“Then you will die with me,” Nightmare Moon sighed. “Are you really going to be that stupid? The only chance either of us has is to fight it together.”
Luna harrumphed. “At least I’d be free of you.”
“And then what would happen to your human friends?” Nightmare Moon examined a mental hoof nonchalantly, despite the fact she didn’t actually have a mental hoof and even if she did, Luna couldn’t have seen it. It was a matter of bearing, and bearing affected voice. Everypony knew that.
Luna’s scrunched muzzle could be heard (again, despite the fact that she didn’t actually breathe; the mental realm was a strange construct at times) as she drew in a heavy breath and let it out. “Fine. How are we going to work this?”
“It’s already attacking my mind,” Nightmare Moon said. “I can hold it off for a little longer; while it’s preoccupied, burn its vessel. Then it will have to break off or reveal itself.”
Luna stiffened. “Kill the human?”
“There’s nothing left of his mind, Luna. He died when our assaulter used him as a stepping stone to us.”
“How crude,” Luna said distastefully. “But again, I suppose he always did lack magical tact. I agree to your plan so far, but there’s only one problem.”
“And what’s that?” Nightmare Moon asked, one hoof poised to open the lock.
“What happens afterwards? There’s two of us in this body, and there’s only room for one.”
Nightmare Moon felt her spell beginning to unravel. “No time to fuss over the details!” she urged.
“Details? That’s more than a detail,” Luna protested.
“Again, we don’t have time for this, even if it was so important as you insist it is.” Nightmare Moon rebutted, throwing the door open. “The spell is ending! We can talk about this later.”
“Oh, and we will,” Luna promised darkly as she stepped forwards.
“I’m looking forwards to it, dear Luna,” Nightmare Moon laughed as the spell failed. “I find our “discussions” so much fun. But for now, go!”
And with that, Luna cast her first barrage of spells just as the second-last defenses shattered.
Several spells hit a shimmering golden barrier, absorbing into the field, but under the well-put-together attack, it shattered, allowing one, final hex through. The spell hit, reducing the man’s—puppet’s—head to a fine ash and removing his brain as a staging point. As a side-effect, his jacket burst into flame and began to burn hungrily.
The assault slackened, and then dropped off. “I see you’ve gotten your act together, Nightmare,” the attacker chuckled. “Well done. I’ll be seeing you later.
“I’m afraid you’re outmatched, though; this little fight was really just to get you to destroy the puppet—nothing but a skirmish, if you will. If you’re fast enough, you might get a little tidbit. Level the playing field, perhaps a titch. I do love games—but not fair ones!” He laughed crazily. “Have fun, dear little cousin!”
He left with one further statement: “Let the games begin.”
Nightmare Moon quickly slapped a blanket freezing spell onto the burning body, quenching the flames, but as she did so, the magical fields stretched, finally bent beyond their limits. The magical duel had completely drained the nearby fields, and their inflexibility caused some serious backlash.
For any other beings, the field would have been unusable long ago. Desperation and millennia of experience, along with decades of practice, allowed one to draw on a field far beyond the usual. But using magic with a field of that sort could cause some very serious problems, as it literally siphoned the field away and weakened it.
It had never happened before, on Equestria. The field had been drained, and occasionally even depleted for years at a time. Even Equestria’s greatest mages, however, had never seen such an event. In fact, they’d never even theorized it.
The magical fields broke.
There was an almost-noise like a rubber band snapping, but a hundred—a thousand—times louder, and everyone on board winced as it bypassed their ears and stabbed into their brains, scouring away what little magic was held within and leaving everyone with varying degrees of headaches.
However, it was much worse for Nightmare Moon and Luna, for they were at the center of the tear and their minds were infused throughout with magic. She only had enough time to see Luna get hit—the poor mare had been blindsided, unaware of Nightmare Moon’s spell— and realize what was coming before it was upon her.
With a flare of purple sparks, the magic tore at her—Luna’s—their—horn and the mind beyond as it retreated and took with itself every vestige of magic from every last inch of the USS Hornet. As armed naval personnel and Marines began to pour out onto the deck, leveling their guns at everyone and everything except the President, the alicorn fell to the ground, smoke curling from her horn and ears, eyes wide open and glassy.

> Chapter 11: Quarantined
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Luna woke to a door hissing shut in her face. It was a thick door, like the airlocks in the Eagle. It sealed with a final clunk, and she glanced around, taking in her surroundings.
She was in a small metal room, with some basic comforts and a few beds.
Oh, and there were several armed soldiers pointing guns at her. Why would they be doing that, again?
Then, something in her mind stirred groggily and awoke, and Luna remembered. The sudden and unexpected betrayal by the two men. The shooting of the third.
And then Nightmare Moon and the strange entity.
One of the soldiers noticed her eyes move, and the gun clacked ominously. “Don’t move!” he ordered, muzzle aimed steadily at her temple. “Stay down!”
She complied, but asked, “Where’s Neil?”
“I’m over here,” Neil’s voice came from behind her, where she couldn’t see. She rolled an eye back, trying to spot him, but couldn’t. When she tried to move her head, the soldier jabbed his weapon threateningly, and she subsided back to her old position.
The Nightmare asked her, as it mentally stretched, “When did you wake up?”
“Just now,” she replied, moving to lock the mental gate—only there was no gate, anymore.
In fact, there wasn’t even a doorway. The prison to which Nightmare Moon had been banished for twenty-four years—and Luna for five minutes—was gone, with not even a trace remaining.
Which was impossible. There was always a trace of mental magic, even if it was benign. One could always tell if anyone else had had mental magic worked upon them—and usually, what it was. It was one of the great flaws of the art, that it was impossible to hide.
But the proof was undeniably there, and it meant she could not hold the Nightmare back—and it would not be able to corral her, either.
If they were to fight once more over her own body, like in times past, instead of one remaining in control for long periods, it would rapidly seesaw back and forth, back and forth, in a never-ending battle at the speed of thought. At least, until the strain tore her mind asunder.
She shuddered.
“I’m impressed at how fast you recovered,” the Nightmare complimented, still moving a bit sluggishly. “You didn’t even see it coming.”
“See what coming?”
“The breaking of the magic fields! ‘Twas incredible—I never thought something like that might happen. Of course, it was quite painful when it ripped the magic out of my skull.”
“Your skull? It’s my head, thank you very much,” Luna snapped. “And what do you mean, the magic fields broke?”
“Just that. They broke like a string pulled too tight. Painful discovery, it was.” Nightmare Moon smirked slightly. “It hit you like a linebacker in hoofball. Out like a light!”
The soldier motioned. “On your feet!” he said crisply, but stumbled, “Or...um... hooves.”
Luna rose gracefully, looking behind her to see Neil sitting wearily back on a couch, foot propped up and a bandage wrapped around his head. A man was working on his foot, white box open beside him and a variety of medical equipment within. Collins and Buzz sat further back, similarly battered and waiting to be tended to. It looked like Collins had fallen asleep.
The soldier warily retreated to the far corner of the small room, gun pointed at her all the while, before saying, “You can have your injuries tended to, ma’am. But don’t try any funny business.”
“Funny... business?” When was business ever funny? Unless one ran a comedy shop... but... this language didn’t make any sense. There were far too many nonsensical phrases for her liking.
“That’s right, funny business.” He pointed at her horn. “None of the glowy stuff.”
Ah. So he meant no magic.
“As you wish.” She turned and moved over to Neil. He smiled unconvincingly, and she noticed him flinch. It was well-concealed, but it was there.
And, she found, it hurt. She’d only known the man for a few days, but in their forced proximity, she considered him—and the others—to be friends. It was clear, though, that he wasn’t sure about what he thought.
“Luna,” he asked, a plaintive note in his voice, “What just happened out there?” He gestured wildly. “The gunfire—and the bat wings—and the blackness... the screaming and the snap, and then you were unconscious...” He pleaded, “I have no idea what was going on—it was so fast. Can you explain it any better?” He passed a hand over his eyes. “Sorry if I sound like I’m whining—the doc tells me I’ve got a decent concussion, so I’m just a little out of it. I caught even less of the action than anyone else, and no one got anything much.”
Collins interjected, “What was the deal with the whole scary act, and why’d you tear that man into pieces? I mean, I get that he was an enemy and a danger, but did you really have to be so vicious?” He shuddered. “You weren’t acting at all like yourself, Luna. What gives?”
Luna looked down. “That’s because it wasn’t me.”
“What?” both questioned simultaneously. Neil followed it up with a second “What?”
She nodded and forced herself to meet their confused eyes. “It’s a long story.”
Collins snorted. “We’ve got several days in here, at the least. Probably longer, seeing as how it’s not just a formality.” He tried to reach for the walls, but stopped as his sling shifted. “We’re in quarantine ‘until further notice.’ So tell us the story while we wait. I know the President and just about everyone with more than one star is going to grill you for it anyway as soon as we get out.”
Neil said, “They’ll take little things like the betrayal of Secret Service agents and an alien then killing them pretty seriously, and they’ll want everything they can get. Wouldn’t you?”
The doctor was doing an admirable job of pretending he wasn’t hearing any of this, Luna noticed. The only sign was a slight tightening of the shoulders—or maybe that was just him working on Neil’s foot. He really was composed.
“I suppose this is not something that can be hidden, anymore,” Luna said, slowly. She sat back on her haunches heavily. “The story starts... a long time ago. About four centuries ago—has it really been that long?—I don’t remember exactly.” She shook her head. “I’m getting old.”
She cleared her throat. “It was—“ she coughed, once, then twice. There was a sudden coughing fit, and when she straightened, she found that she was no longer in control of her own vocal cords.
“To be exact, it was three hundred ninety-four years, two hundred thirty-nine days, sixteen hours, seventeen minutes, and eight seconds ago,” Nightmare Moon said. “I remember it quite clearly.”
Neil jerked violently, foot falling off its pedestal and smacking the doctor in the face. “The hell?”
> Chapter 11: Revealed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The Nightmare snorted in amusement as Neil nearly fell over, the soldier in the corner stiffened, and everyone else flinched away. “Ha haaa!” it cackled mentally. “Look at their faces! Their fear is so tantalizing! Killing things is so fleeting compared to this; I could do this over and over...” Several disturbing mental images intruded on Luna’s mind, and she got the distinct impression of drooling. The alicorn shuddered, furiously wiping away the images and berating, “Don’t take over in the middle of a sentence!” She had no response for the other half of the thought. Those images—she shuddered. Nope. Wasn’t even going to think of a reply to those.
Unfortunately, the Nightmare could read her train of thought just as well as she could, and its schadenfreudian amusement doubled (at least) at her consternation.
“Why not?” it replied. “It was about me, and you had the facts wrong, anyway.”
“You just killed two men—gleefully—in front of these people. And the soldier in the corner doesn’t seem the most composed. We don’t want to be shot, do we?”
“Pah. Like those could do anything!”
“Rrgh!” Luna growled. “Even if that’s true—“
“Which it is.” It was taking positive glee from her anger, and Luna took a deep breath to calm herself.
“—We don’t want to aggravate their entire country, though! Not to mention we are on a ship, in the ocean, with no idea where we are or how to get to land. Do you want to go haring off in a random direction, hoping we find land?”
“...Fine,” it grumbled. “I’ll play nice. But only because flying over the ocean until you die of exhaustion is boring.”
“You’re surprisingly immature,” Luna sighed, “for an evil, sadistic, and scheming immortal spirit that’s been alive for thousands of years.”
“Being mature is boring. And it means I can’t kill things.”
“I...” Luna was at a loss for a reply—again. How did you ever reply to that kind of statement?
Returning her attention to the room, she noticed belatedly that their entire conversation had been out loud, and that everyone else in the room was staring at her in shock. Even the Nightmare sputtered to a halt, in something like embarrassment, once it had finished laughing (luckily, Luna had clamped her mouth shut over that especially-maniacal sound) at her.
“...I can explain?” she offered weakly.
Michael spoke slowly. “I really hope you can. I’m about one second away from recommending you get put somewhere that never sees the sun again. No, actually. Less than that. Unless you have a real convincing reason to explain this, that’s what the recommendation is.” He shook his head. “Did something—something serious—come loose when we landed? Because you sure didn’t seem like a psychopathic murderer on the way back to Earth.”
Buzz pointed out, “She did say she was on the Moon... not exactly by choice. Maybe she’s just a sneaky murderer. For all we know, her planet uses their moon as a jail!”
Neil was remarkably composed as he said flatly, “Talk.”
Even the Nightmare was (a little) cowed; for guessing based on what little they knew, they’d gotten remarkably close.
“It’s a long story,” she put off.
“We’re in here until we hit land. A week, at minimum. Talk.” Any sympathy was gone from their expressions; she saw no sign of the friends she’d talked to for three days.
“Very well. Perhaps I should start my story earlier than I was planning to... not 400 years ago,” she forced the Nightmare’s correction down her throat, “but more like seven hundred years ago, at the beginning of my world’s known history.”
She heard a click, but ignored it as she adjusted her seat.
“My world is an ancient one—empires have risen and fallen for longer than recorded history. But we know nearly nothing about our history before my birth, due to a being known as Discord.”
“From what little was gathered from the ruins of dozens of cities, many times, great nations had arisen, and every time, as far as we can tell, they were annihilated—by the very same creature, time upon time.
“His name was Discord, a patchwork monster of many different creatures. He was ancient, cunning, and held mastery of the very fabric of magic and universe itself. Natural or artificial, god or mortal, nopony could tell. He certainly held the power of a god, and the title which reoccurred, in every surviving account of the calamities befalling countries, was the God of Chaos. Every few centuries, he would appear, throw the world into bloody anarchy, linger for a few years, and depart. I do not know how long this cycle repeated; from what I have been able to collect, it had been for many thousands of years at least.
“For some reason, this occasion was different. Rather than simply destroying nations and reveling in the misery and chaos which followed, then disappearing for several centuries more, he stayed.
“From his eldritch throne, he ruled over the world, destroying resistance with ridiculous ease and twisting reality into a form that drove ponies mad from the sight. There is no reliable measurement for how long he ruled; the very years and seasons meant nothing when he could change the rotation of the entire world on a whim or make the sun and moon spin in the sky like tops.
“This was the sad state of affairs when a young colt, in one of the small villages in the frozen North (for they were the farthest location from Discord’s lair, and thus the least affected by his magic), found an ancient artifact in the snow.”

> Somber's Story: I
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“The colt’s name was Somber Rays. He kept a detailed journal and wrote several life accounts; they are the earliest whole records left.
“He remembered the day quite clearly.”
-----
The young unicorn colt looked up as the clouds parted for just a moment, and the flurries of snow calmed into a light dusting. Lord Discord was in a generous mood today—the sun was still yellow, it moved at a reasonable pace, and the snow was plain old frozen water.
He sent a quick prayer, thanking the King for such a benevolent gift to his subjects, and then returned to his task.
A few stubby trees grew just in front of him, their glowing leaves and bark giving the only contrast to the white wasteland all around. The whole surfaces of the trees glistened, dripping hissing orange drops of sap onto the bare, pitted ground circling the small grove.
With happiness, he noted how many new lavaleaves had grown since the last day; there would be enough for the village dinner for foal and filly alike. Even enough for the stallions! What a piece of good fortune. If the hunters came back with an ice worm or two, there would be a celebration tonight—an ever-rarer circumstance.
He shouldered his basket onto the ground and began to cautiously pick each leaf and lay it into the layer of snow on the bottom. As each drifted into the basket, they hissed, the snow cooling their superheated surfaces as it melted.
As he worked, horn glowing, he was careful to pay attention to the droplets falling from the tree. The smallest drop could burn a hole into one’s coat which took many weeks to grow over. He did not want an unsightly blemish on his sleek, black coat; how was he to impress Snow Flurry with a marred coat?
A drop hit the ground with a clink, and the colt paused. Clink? He’d never heard the lavaleaf sap make such a sound in all his years of harvesting. He set the basket well out of the way, settling it firmly in the snow, and then waited, ears pricked.
Only a hooffull of drips later, the same noise sounded, and he inspected the area around the noise.
A glint caught his eye, and they riveted on the hint of blue in one of the droplet pits. As he watched, a drip hit the object and clinked—and left nary a mark on it!
Excited, he began to scrape at the ground around it, still paying attention to the timing of the sap. If this didn’t scar at the lavaleaf’s sap, it would be a great boon to the foals learning to gather while they figured out the timing of their grove.
Soon he scraped the dirt covering the object away, and gazed upon a strangely-shaped crystal, the likes of which he’d never seen, far larger than any crystal anypony had ever before brought to the village. Surely he’d get a double—maybe even a triple!—portion for the next week for such a magnificent and useful gift.
He lit his horn and began to lift it, but grunted in surprise at its unexpected weight. It was far heavier than anything he’d ever lifted, and his legs trembled as he set it upon his back, murmuring gratitude for such an incredible gift.
Fastidiously, he ensured that his basket was full and made sure all the leaves were picked from the trees. Then, he levitated that before him and began to pick his way towards the mountains in the distance and his home.

> Somber's Story: End
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Discord was defeated at last, but our job was hardly over. The chaos spirit had played with the planet so much that, lacking his influence, it quickly threatened to destroy what was left. Only with the help of a great many other intelligent ponies and more magic than has been amassed since was it stabilized. It still took dozens of us—I and my sister included—years to fix the damage or invent workarounds where it could not be repaired. And in those years, I found, things had changed alarmingly from the time before our solitary work.

-----

“Turkmaneistan has ‘requested’ to join the Empire, sister,” Luna muttered, crumpling the missive in disgust. “And Sheikh Ilasamed has mysteriously vanished under unknown circumstances... just like King Yarrow and President Alamo.” The missive was flung into the corner to join a small pile of other reports.
“Something is certainly rotten in the Empire,” Celestia affirmed grimly. “That marks three in the last month.” Without realizing it, a hoof made its way to her mouth as she thought. “But what could prompt Somber Rays to change his attitude so dramatically? He was never a proponent of subjugation...” Her voice trailed off thoughtfully.
“Somber, for all his strengths, was never a mental mage, but it cannot be a coincidence that he visits a ruler ‘in peace and fellowship,’ and then shortly thereafter their nation ‘requests’ to join the Empire, and the sovereign disappears from sight. So either Somber became a mental master secretly,” Luna mused, “or...”
“It isn’t dear King Somber anymore,” Celestia completed her thought. “Which I find more likely... Ray would never fall so far after fighting Discord’s tyranny for so many years.”
“I agree,” Luna said with a nod. “It seems too devious of a scheme for Somber Rays to devise.” She grimaced, “Somber was never a genius.”
Celestia continued gravely, ignoring Luna’s bluntness. “If he has  truly been replaced, as seems possible, whatever is masquerading as him is an adept at the art, however, as well as being a shapeshifter.”
Her sister remarked. “So what creatures could defeat him so quickly, other than Discord himself?”
“I can think of nothing that could,” Celestia replied. “And that worries me.” She lifted her crown off of certain petrified bird’s talon. “For Discord has surely not returned—everypony would know if he had.”
“Perhaps, in light of the Empire’s gestures towards peace and reconciliation, we should do the same,” Luna said mockingly. “What say you to seeing our good friend after the time we’ve spent secluded away?”
“I think it would be a delightful change of pace after so many years fixing things,” Celestia answered, a wicked grin spreading across her face. “And I’m sure he’d be happy to see his two closest and most powerful friends after such a long separation, yes?”
“Oh, indeed!” Luna’s grin, if anything, was even more predatory. “I think he—or whatever is pretending to be him—would be very happy indeed.”

-----

	In hindsight, confronting a suspected imposter and possible monster in the very heart of his power was not the best idea. Had we been smarter or more circumspect, perhaps this whole ordeal might have been averted. But we were anxious to discover the problem and cut to the heart of it, as it were.
The dispute ended... poorly, to say the least.

-----

The vacant room, dusty from several days of disuse, flashed with light as the solar diarch teleported in with a pop. She swayed drunkenly, coat scorched and blackened, a swathe of her mane missing. It took her a few seconds to realize that her sister had not returned alongside her. “Luna!” she called frantically. “Luna?!”
Her sister appeared, but instead of the customary pop and flash of teleportation, the spell squelched as it vomited forth its battered occupant. The moment her hooves touched the floor, she groaned and fell, one leg wobbling and bending in far more spots than usual.
Celestia rushed, as best as she was able, to Luna’s side, and lit off a diagnostic spell. Its prognosis wasn’t good: there were multiple fractures throughout her leg. A normal pony’s bones might well have been disintegrated under the stress.
Though Luna would recover... eventually, it would be months before she would walk even with the best care Celestia could give. It would take years or even decades to recover her former agility. For all intents and purposes, she was now dead weight in the fight against the newly-revealed Nightmare Accord.
“You were only a second behind me!” she cried. “How did you get hurt so badly?”
Luna’s teeth were gritted shut so tightly that Celestia feared they might shatter. “The shield,” she growled. “Threw me into a wall at a few hundred miles an hour just as my spell took. Another half-second and the rest of me would have hit, too.”
“The Nightmare has corrupted even the Heart?” Celestia lamented. “Together, we could barely match it without the heart assisting. Now, the Heart is at its bidding, and you are unable to help!”
Luna protested, “I am still able to fight! I will be whole in no time!”
“No, sister, you won’t,” Celestia said sadly. “Your leg is broken in dozens of places—right now, it has about the consistency of gelatin. It would flop like a noodle if you tried to move.”
Luna’s eyes widened at the absurd, yet true, comparison. “It’s that bad?” Her only reply was a nod.
“To think that Somber had voluntarily given part of his soul to a Nightmare in the name of protection... I would have never thought it, and that surprise was very nearly our death.” Celestia said, slumping down to sit besides Luna. “Things do not look good. If we could not match him, what could? The Elements, perhaps, but... if we failed, and he discovered those...” she shuddered. “No, that is not an option. What such a monster could do with that kind of power I can only imagine.”
“If we cannot match him, we will have to summon something that could.” Luna looked pointedly towards the statue in the corner. “A being not unlike him.”
“And have it simply take over? That is a terrible idea, sister!” Celestia exclaimed.
“What if,” Luna said slowly, “It could be controlled? Like... say... with a voluntary contract?”
Her sister froze, staring at her with wide eyes. “You cannot be serious.”
“What other option do we have?” Luna demanded. “Somber controlled it for decades, and he was not a master of the mental arts. Surely I could do better than he!”
“Perhaps,” Celestia retorted, “Or maybe you would simply turn into a worse tyrant! Pride goeth before a fall, sister. Do not think that you could contain a spirit so powerful as Accord. Somber may not have been a mental master, but his will was iron.”
Luna smiled tiredly. “But we do not need a Nightmare so powerful as Accord, do we? The Heart turned the tide. We were holding ourselves—barely, yes, but holding. If we had just a little more power—and the element of surprise, we might just pull it off.”
She chuckled blackly. “If we win, we can worry about the other later. If we lose... well, it won’t be a problem, will it?”
Celestia sighed. “This is bound to end poorly, Luna. You know this.”
“Maybe, but this puts off the problem at the least,” she replied. “And I can handle it. Truly.”
Celestia groaned. “You’re set on this, aren’t you?”
“Do you have any ideas?” Luna asked acerbically. When her sister opened her mouth, she cut her off. “Besides war?”
Celestia shut her mouth.
“Then, yes, I am. If you could kindly get the circle ready?”

-----

	With the aid of the spirit of vengeance, (that would be me, you ungrateful filly!) we defeated Nightmare Accord—at the cost of the capital city, vanished into the abyss.
I did last longer than Somber Rays, in the end—several centuries, in fact. But slowly I weakened, and...
Well...
Eventually, I was close to losing control entirely and I knew it. I was sent away as a... precautionary measure, you might say. There was a chance that Nightmare Moon—(me!)—hush!—would be destroyed or evicted completely, but that obviously didn’t happen.
Also, I was sent to the wrong moon. For being "prepared," my sister was obviously not prepared.

-----

Luna coughed. “Is there water in this structure?” Wordlessly, Neil handed her a glass, and she gulped it thankfully.
“That sounds so ridiculous and improbable... it might be true.” Michael shook his head. “Was your life a storybook?”
“Actually, there were a few made of our adventures,” Luna said, preening just the smallest bit.
“Of course there were.”
The heavy door thudded, and a face peeked through the porthole, one none of them recognized. He placed a piece of paper on the door.
It read, ’15 hours ‘til ‘Lulu. Wish you could come, but quarantine is still in effect.’
“Lu...lu?” Luna squinted at the piece of paper, taped to the outside. “What...”
“Honolulu,” Buzz said. “City in Hawaii, one of our states. It’s a big island, lots of ships.” He sighed. “Too bad we can’t leave this thing for a week.”
“That is one thing which confuses me,” Luna confessed. “Why are we all under quarantine? No one is sick.”
“Precautionary measure, in case you have some kind of bug that kills humans rapidly. Don’t want to spread space influenza across the States.” The doctor nodded in agreement.
He cleared his throat and spoke for the first time, having remained silent all these hours. “I’m actually supposed to take cheek swabs of all of you and culture them in different petri dishes. Just in case.” His voice was soft and breathy, an odd combination for a male.
“None of that is necessary,” Luna declared. “I can simply cast a sanitizing spell.” Without asking for permission, she lit her horn, a glowing field sweeping across the small space. Everyone, alicorn included, suppressed a shiver at the tingling.
The soldier woke from his sleep in the corner, waving his weapon vaguely in the direction of the ceiling. “Bwhuh? Wazzat?”
“There. All sickness-causing creatures have been killed,” Luna said smugly. “Can’t do that with technology, can you?”
The doctor shrugged. “Not yet. Now, I’m sure that your... spell... worked just the way you intended, but I’m going to have to insist on a cheek swab. If nothing grows in 12 hours, maybe, just maybe, I can get us let out.”
He smiled, also a first. “Which would be a great change from being stuck here in a week, no matter how interesting the conversation.”
Neil sat back. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have our first appearance in Hawaii?” He threw a smirk at Luna. “All the adoring crowds—and the alien hunters?”
“Hunters?” Her ears flattened. “Why would your government allow those with weapons into the crowd?”
Prod at her introversion taken far too literally, Neil placed palm on face. “Never mind. Lots of people wanting to see you, meet you, take your picture—take pieces of your hair, even... that’s what I meant.”
Her eyes shrunk to pinpricks. “How many?” she whispered.
Buzz said blithely, “An awful lot. The whole city, plus anyone who can make it there, will be as close as possible. Plus news crews. Make it a few tens of thousands of people in person, and millions on the television."
Luna swallowed thickly. “Joy.”
End Splashdown. The story will continue (After National Novel Writing Month) in Accommodation.