Luna woke shortly after five in the morning. The sun was shining brightly and the sky was the most delicate shade of blue. Swifts sang gloriously from the trees in the palace gardens and all seemed well with the world. Luna breathed a deep, happy sigh and stepped down from her grand bed with the grace of a swan and made her way down to the Great Hall for some breakfast.
Celestia was waiting at the table when Luna arrived, her multi-coloured mane shimmering in the young sunlight, casting the most beautiful lightshows on the walls and ceilings of the Great Hall. Luna took her seat and the servants took their cue. They brought in delectable treats available in Canterlot: Sweet pastries, tempting cakes, delicious breads of many different kinds and a plethora of things that Luna had never even seen before. Ever since she had lost the evil of Nightmare Moon, Luna had been ravenously hungry almost constantly. She put it down to the fact that she had spent a millennium on the moon and after one thousand years it was understandable that she should be a little peckish.
“What be our duties this day fair sister?” Luna enquired. Celestia chuckled slightly at Luna’s over formal tone.
“Well Luna, I thought you might like to head into Ponyville later to visit Twilight and her friends. It has been too long since you went to see them.” Luna beamed at her sister with a smile that radiated all the light of the sun and moon combined. Ever since the wedding, Luna had been rushed off her hooves with her royal duties. She hardly had any time to herself anymore, never mind time to spend with friends. Celestia smiled back at Luna.
“I know that Pinkie Pie has something special planned, and it will take her all morning to get it from Sugar-Cube Corner to Twilight’s library, so once we finish our meeting with Fancy Pants and Fleur de Lis at noon we can head off.”
The dress fitting was abysmally boring for Luna. Luna felt that wearing lavish clothing when it seemed neither necessary or desirable was a grievous waste of her time. She much preferred martial arts and reading to modelling for her sister, but when push came to shove she really couldn’t fault the quality of the gowns. Everyone was tailor made especially for her, and the shades of blue, black and purple that sang out through each dress she tried on matched her pelt and mane perfectly. Nevertheless, Luna was glad when the whole ordeal was over. Celestia had a carriage waiting for them in the courtyard and Luna (not bothering with the social conventions of using the stairs) leapt off of the balcony where she had finished trying on dresses and flew down her sister. Four strong pegasi wearing the royal seal of Canterlot on their breastplates were harnessed to a huge golden chariot. Gorgeous engravings of the sun and moon adorned the sides of it, and the red velvet seats were softer than cloud. The pegasi took off smoothly and flew without impediment. Within the hour, both princesses were in Ponyville and heading towards Twilight’s house.
“Princess Luna!” Twilight galloped towards the Night Princess, smiling from ear to ear. Twilight skittered to a halt in front of Luna.
“Hello, Twilight Sparkle. We had not much time for reminiscing after the festivities of your brother’s wedding. I am glad of this chance we have now.” Twilight smiled so much that it looked like her face were about to be ripped in two. As Celestia stepped down from the carriage, Twilight humbly bowed her head.
“Please Twilight, this is an informal visit. No need for bowing or anything like that. I can’t have a student who always looks at the floor whenever I’m around, or else they will learn nothing of the world around them.” Luna giggled as Twilight sheepishly raised her head without actually taking her eyes off of the gravel at her feet. Suddenly, Pinkie Pie’s head appeared from the downstairs window of Twilight’s house.
“Come on everypony, lunch is getting colder as we speak!” Laughing at Pinkie’s hysterics, the three mares trotted into the library.
Inside the library, everyone was waiting for the princesses to arrive. Rarity and Fluttershy and laid out a lavish table arrangement of gold and silver cloth that shimmered in the sunlight and the food from both Sweet Apple Acres and Sugar-Cube Corner looked and smelled divine. Luna could barely stop herself from devouring everything in sight. As Celestia took her seat, Trixie entered from Twilight’s bedroom. She slid into the seat next to Twilight, looking increasingly uncomfortable as each pony’s gaze fell on her.
“Listen everypony,” Twilight said. “Trixie lost a lot of business after that Gabby Gums article and her caravan has been repossessed. She’s lost everything she owned in the world, even her hat and cape. So I told her she could stay with me for as long as she needed and so far she has been a big help around the place.” Everyone still seemed a little wary, but Luna broke the silence.
“Well, I expected nothing less from one so kind as you Twilight Sparkle.” Slowly, everyone’s misgivings about the blue mare dissipated and she became more involved with the conversations going on between Twilight’s…no…HER friends.
All was going well and everyone was laughing at one of Rainbow Dash’s poorly executed jokes when a crash came from Twilight’s bedroom. The nine ponies leapt to their feet and Trixie and Luna edged towards the door. Luna was about to turn the handle when the door burst open, sending a cloud of billowing black smoke straight at the ponies. Luna and Trixie stumbled backwards, choking on the smoke as the foul cloud engulfed them all.
“Mh, ha ha ha! Hello there my little ponies.” The voice was vile, smooth yet strangely sickly. There was no doubt who it belonged to though.
“Discord!?” Celestia blurted.
“Oh my dear, sweet Celestia. You didn’t think that you could leave me trapped in that statue forever did you? I mean, we all know just how well that worked out the first time when you and your little flower of a sister tried it. Why would six unimportant and unremarkable regular ponies have any more success?” Twilight ran to the bookshelf nearest her and pulled out a copy of ‘Starswirl the Bearded: A biography in spells” and wrenched it open. There in the hollowed out pages lay the Elements of Harmony.
“Oh dear, the little unicorn has the Elements again whatever shall I do?” Discord’s voice reeked of sarcasm. Twilight just glared at him, but Luna was suspicious. “I can’t have you sealing me in that stone hell again, not today. So I think it’s about time you saw the power of a real chaos GOD!” And with that Discord threw out his lion paw and the smoke surrounding the nine ponies grew even denser, crushing the life out of Luna’s body. She felt a tingling sensation as she drifted out of consciousness.
Luna awoke several hours later in a small metal room, completely grey and dull, devoid of any grandeur. If not for her impressive ability to see in minimal light (thanks to her life as guardian of the night) nothing would be at all visible. Luna got to her feet, only to find that something about her was different. Her front legs now seemed much shorter than her hind legs, and there seemed to be bizarre appendages sprouting from her hooves. Luna was terrified; she reared back in a most undignified manner, only to find that she felt more comfortable standing only on her back legs. Letting this body begin to feel itself, Luna registered a peculiar joint where her shoulder was. Experimenting with this new body, Luna extended her front legs out in front of her and then out to the sides. Naturally she should never have been able to do this, but for some reason she now could. But what was even stranger was the slight shimmer she felt on her brow. She stretched up her now seemingly omnidirectional front leg and patted her forehead with her masticated hoof. Luna wailed for about ten seconds before recomposing herself. Her horn was gone. Checking that everything else was in full working order, Luna extended her wings. They were still there, thankfully, but due to the cramped nature of the room she was in her wings stopped after moving about six inches out to the sides.
Luna was terrified. Nothing made sense to her anymore: her body was not her own, this room was alien to her and she felt so very alone. Suddenly, a loud noise the likes of which Luna had never heard before broke through her stunned silence and brought her attention back inside the room. There were loud bangs and explosions not too far off. In the darkness, Luna could just make out the shape of a door vibrating as a particularly loud explosion erupted relatively close to her. There were shouts and bizarre metallic buzzes and whirrs but more than anything was the semi constant hammering noise, like carriage wheels traveling very quickly over cobbles. Ratatat, ratatat, ratatat. The noise was drawing closer every second and Luna backed as far into the corner behind her as she could go. She heard hoof-steps just beyond the door and a male’s voice, muted by the thickness of the door could be heard.
“Yootah! Can you give me a little fire power over here?”
A blinding flash of purple light was soon followed by a crash of metal striking metal. Light poured into the dingy cell where Luna had been kept and a shadow stood in the doorway. It was bipedal, quite tall with what seemed to be a very shaggy mane perched on the top of its head. It extended a hoof to Luna and she took it, wrapping the weird new limbs around this creature’s hoof. Using only her hind legs, Luna sprinted with the new creature out of the cell.
The corridor in which Luna found herself was also made out of a dark grey metal. Square panels of different sizes made up the walls and ceiling. Buzzing lights stretched out all along the ceiling, running right down the centre of the corridor. The new creature still held on to Luna’s hoof tightly as he turned to her.
“Do your wings work?”
Luna was slightly shaken by the creature. There could be no doubt that this was the same voice that she had heard through the cell door, but she had expected some kind of stallion. The look of pure confusion on Luna’s face prompted the creature to ask a second time.
“Can you fly.”
Still not fully in control of her faculties, Luna nodded ascent. She spread her wings to their full length and took off. Her body pitched forward and she began to fly ahead of the new creature with her belly facing the ground. She heard the creatures hoof beats stop and soon he was in the air next to her, flying unaided by wings. Then, out of nowhere a second one appeared flying backwards and launching beams of purple light into the corridor behind Luna and her flying companion. From a turn-off up ahead Luna heard the crackling of lightning, followed by more of the strange rattling noise (ratatat ratatat ratatat). A third creature stepped backwards into the corridor and lightning flew from his hands as it did from a storm cloud. The creature that was flying behind Luna began to shout at the creature flying beside her.
“Caterwaul, you go on ahead. We found another eight people here, but it doesn’t look like there are anymore. The other eight hostages are in the QuickSilver. We’ll finish up here, you get them out.”
The creature flying with Luna (was he Caterwaul?) grunted and flew faster, almost dragging Luna with him. After a few turns, Luna and Caterwaul were in a huge metal box. The room was perfectly cube shaped except for three large objects in the centre. One was black and red, with bizarre metal protrusions all over it. Another was blue and white, smaller than the first but equally as peculiar. But the one towards which Caterwaul was heading was green and sliver. It looked somewhat more majestic than its sisters and it had an air of grace about it. One of the walls on the green object slid down so that it lay in the floor and Caterwaul pulled Luna inside. The wall shifted back up into position as Caterwaul let go of Luna’s hoof.
Around Luna sat a strange array of creatures. All of them looked highly similar, except the colours of their manes were different. One had white, another had purple, another pink, another rainbow, another had a mix of purple and pink, another was blonde, and the final one had a long flowing mane made of many different pastel colours. It reminded Luna of her sister’s mane. The one with Celestia’s mane smiled broadly and hobbled towards Luna.
“Oh, my dear Luna. I’m so glad that you’re safe!”
Luna took a step back. The voice was familiar, more than familiar, but there was no way that this monstrosity before her could be Celestia. It wasn’t possible! And yet…Luna glanced down at her own body. It was out of proportion, with strange curves near her breast and plot that were totally foreign to her. Her legs were completely misshapen and she resembled one of the creatures that had rescued her.
“Ce..Celestia?”
Her sister wrapped her front legs around Luna and hugged her tightly. Luna copied her sister and the two stood in silence for a few seconds before the ground began to shake.
All nine ponies were knocked to the ground by the sheer force of the earthquake. They were screaming and holding each other, just waiting for it to end. A crackly metallic voice filled the chamber in which the ponies now lay. It was Caterwaul.
“Sorry ladies. I should have warned you to buckle up before take-off. This is not going to be a smooth ride, so please, grab onto something.”
With incredible G-force the vessel in which the ponies lay shot forward out of the place made of metal and into the night sky. Without slowing, the vessel turned to the left and a strange buzzing noise came periodically. Then, without warning the vessel began to rock as though a bull were ramming the side repeatedly. Luna looked out through a window and saw the two other vessels that had been stationary moments ago flying towards them. Caterwauls voice came into the room again.
“Ladies, time for the fireworks display.”
A small asteroid behind them began to twinkle slightly. Luna stared long and hard at it before realising that mere moments ago, she had been trapped in a cell on that asteroid. Suddenly, the twinkling became brighter and brighter, until the entire asteroid was covered by a huge ball of flame. The asteroid had been engulfed in fire and there was no doubt that all that would remain would be a small cloud of ash floating in space. A different voice came into the room: Metallic like Caterwauls, and male still, but with a different tone and accent.
“See you in Hell Discord, you bastard!”
Luna stared at the raging inferno behind them. Everything began to slide into place. Discord had captured them, brought them to that asteroid and locked them away. And now that asteroid had been destroyed it could only mean one thing.
Discord was dead.
