Chapter 1: Wrong Place, Right Time

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This is a tale of three realms never meant to meet having a chance intersection. Two of the realms are the worlds of Equestria and their respective accompanying parallel worlds, those across mirrors and populated by humans. One is the Equestria many would know, but the other is an Equestria that went down a similar; but distinct path. This was a grimmer world of ponies, still full of joy and happiness but without the constant peace. Enemies from the 1,000 years past continued to threaten ponykind to this day, despite the similar actions taken to defeat them.

Perhaps the change was caused by an insignificant factor, perhaps it was caused by the even greater darkness that swelled into Princess Luna’s heart than in the other Equestria, leading her to launch a second dark age even after Princess Celestia managed to defeat her.

That dark age’s aftershocks were responsible for the various cultists and dark magic users that periodically stirred trouble for the population at large. Centuries later and whatever change responsible for the divergence a thousand years earlier continued to split the path in the present. This time Princess Celestia, wanting a family ever since the loss of her sister, adopted a promising young filly named Sunset Shimmer. Years later and Sunset, not Twilight Sparkle, proved to be a magical prodigy and hatched the egg of a baby earth drake. It was Sunset Shimmer who found herself sent to Ponyville by her mother and teacher, and it was Sunset who coincidentally found herself a bearer of the long lost Elements of Harmony alongside six of the locals.

Nightmare Moon and her cultist army of power-crazed ponies and demonic monstrosities were largely beaten down after a great battle across the Everfree and nearby Ponyville. Nightmare Moon was physically reverted to Princess Luna, but in this time and place, the change was just a loss of power and not psyche. Luna was still driven to monstrousness, still harboring a hatred for her big sister and those who defeated her army, forcing her to be confined to Canterlot while Celestia worked to try and reconnect with her sibling. But even as her life seemed to calm back down, aside from a sadly eventful reunion with a magic school rival turned criminal, Sunset Shimmer was restless. The Everfree was as unwelcoming as it had been on a nice day, but lately it seemed like something was even worse with it. Exactly what remained elusive, but the nagging feeling of dread was too strong for the headstrong princess to ignore. And while she had softened to a degree since her arrival, she still wasn’t quite at the point of including others with her ploys, both to keep them running smoothly and to keep others out of danger. Thusly, she set off alone before sunrise, leaving none to know where she’d gone.

And that is what has happened so far in this Equestria many know not. As for the third realm involved? Well, let’s just say as different as the two Equestrias are from one another; neither would have any context for what they’d soon encounter from the world beyond. There were giants upon the earth those days, and those days had come again.

Princess Sunset Shimmer quietly counted her hoofsteps as she tread through the fringes of the Everfree forest. Life hadn’t been the best for a lot of ponies, much less the adoptive daughter of the monarch, and the damage to Ponyville showed it. Repairs were still underway from the dragon attack accidentally spurred by the Element bearer’s old school rival and there was even some damage leftover from the Nightmare Army’s invasion during Nightmare Moon’s return.But, life was going back to normal… Or at least it was until she started hearing rumors of strange travelers going into the Everfree. When she found a knife one of them had dropped, she discovered it not only had a hidden lunar symbol on the pommel, but also had traces of dark magic sixty times the norm. Her worst fears were coming to fruition.

She’d suspected one of Nightmare Moon’s generals went back into hiding and thus wasn’t slain or captured in the final battle, either as some sort of contingency plan to fall back into obscurity like they had 1,000 years ago; or due to having just been away from the main fight at the time. And as far as she was concerned now, she’d found evidence just a hair away from confirmation.

In truth, Princess Celestia probably would have taken Sunset’s word for it on the matter even without absolute proof; but her daughter was anything but so simple. She was stubborn, on a bit of an edge since the dragon fiasco; and determined to get evidence too strong to oppose before she made her case.

And that was why she was following faint hoofprints into the most dangerous forest in Equestria near sundown, alone to try and avoid any detection. In hindsight, not her best plan. But, still a plan that bore some success. Keeping out of sight, Sunset Shimmer soon found to herself looking at exactly what she’d been looking for and dreading it at the same time. Dozens of dark magic mutated ponies, shadow knights in thick armor and robe clad warlocks, walking amongst an ungodly amount of heinous creations from the nether realms summoned by the latter party. Hovering over head were several flights of similarly mutated, armored shadowbolts and bat winged nocturne ponies. There were hauntings of shadow wraiths, spectral masses of dark magic that bore a skin crawling gaze forth from their glowing eyes. Amidst them and pony alike were entire packs of monstrous lupines, dire wolves, and these ones seemed to be magically mutated and enhanced judging from the spectral mist surrounding them. The glint of hellish blades betrayed the location of at least two ‘Blades of Nightmare’, serpentine monstrosities literally composed of dark magic strand bound blades and all but impossible to fight with anything short of powerful magic. And looming over many were the hulking forms of a half dozen behemoths, oath sworn ponies who’d mutated beyond recognition into towering, five meter tall reptilian goliaths to act as both shocktroopers and living siege weapons. This wasn’t just a simple cultist band or fragmentary force, this was an entire reserve army.

And they were on the move. A dark chill flew over Sunset Shimmer, indicating someone unseen at the front of the force was packing away the most dark magic she’d ever encountered save for Nightmare Moon herself. Orders were being called out to the army, but from her safe distance Sunset couldn’t quite make out what they were saying exactly. The intent seemed clear enough however, as a vast majority of the troops got up from where they stood and started to march on ahead deeper into the dark forest. Only a single warlock and a few wraiths stayed behind, moving off into a secluded portion of the glade.

While her first instinct was to run and alert Princess Celestia as soon as possible, the separation of the smaller force caught her attention. An attention that was only increased when she noticed that small group literally vanish right before her eyes. Keeping mind to stay in cover and behind some shrubs, Sunset approached where they had left and felt a familiar tingle in the air going across her muzzle. It was a sign magic was afoot, confirmation coming when she stepped forward more and the tingling washed over her like a bubble, the group instantly becoming visible directly in front of her. Restraining a gasp Sunset Shimmer lurched her head back and instantly lost sight of them despite their position just ahead.

Blinking her eyes for a moment to think it through, she poked her head forward again and instantly gained sight of the group after the tingling feeling went past her eyes. Thankfully, the group's backs were turned to the sunlit mare.

-Cloaking magic. It must have a filter to keep anything outside from looking at the beings within it. From the outside it looks like an empty forest.-

She thought, glancing around and seeing a very mild distortion in the visible space going in a circle around the group.

-That’s how they’ve been keeping their camps hidden in the Everfree from fly-overs.-

She glared at the group, content she was still hidden as she watched on.

-But what is this group up to?-

The warlock, a lean unicorn, or at least former unicorn given how monstrous her own nightmare magic had tainted her appearance with near black fur and a sickly gray mane, barked orders to the wraiths on hoof as she faced a peculiar looking obsidian pedestal with a glowing, green-white sphere atop it.

“Keep me covered just in case, and I shall grant the reinforcements asked!”

She hissed, the shapeless specters obeying and forming a semicircle around her. The warlock's eyes lit up as her horn ignited, the mare muttering some sort of hexed utterance to the sphere in a vile sounding tongue. The sphere pulsed in unison with her and flashed. After the flash a shadowy substance gushed out of the sphere and formed into the approximation of a large earth pony; devoid of any features save for its glowing eyes not unlike one of the wraiths. It was a Shadow, albeit an oddly green tinted one, a stock troop staple of Nightmare Moon’s forces. Sunset Shimmer raised a small eyebrow.

-Never seen that kind of pedestal before...and it seems potent. Why hand something like that away to just make a few Shadows? They’re usually pretty easy to make in a batch of four or five for a single warlock without any outside help.-

Sunset got her answer when the Shadow marched off as the warlock cast the spell again. This time the flash spurred the creation of two Shadows. Then another flash spurred four. Then another spurred eight. Then sixteen. Soon an entire new army, a sea of Shadows was marching off in the direction of the last army with no sign of diminishing in number. Sunset Shimmer felt her face whiten a bit.

-If I let them keep at it, no telling what the limit might be. Can’t go back to alert mom yet, I have to stop this army generator!-

Sunset Shimmer regarded the cloaking field. These things were perfect for concealment because they could mask both light and sound. There was a ten second interval between the last Shadow wave crossing through the cloak and the next one being created. Shadows weren’t very bright, but they aren’t oblivious. If she attacked with any of them being able to see or hear her it could mean trouble between their mass numbers, limited space, the wraiths, and the warlock herself. That meant she had ten seconds to try and fight through the wraiths, interrupt the summoning spells, and hopefully stop the warlock from casting it again.

Timing herself just right, Sunset rushed out before the next wave of shadows could be created with her horn glowing brightly. The ensuing volley of burning waves and fireballs struck the wraiths before they could even react. The wraith directly between the herd and the warlock was evaporated almost instantly, allowing the flood of the fiery magic to fly through where it had been. The burning energy grazed the side of the warlock's cloak, searing off the lunar emblem as they dodged out of the way the best they could. The remaining magic hit the pedestal, causing it to spark and crackle with hexes as its targeting portal was thrown off focus. Drifting away from the opening to the nightmarish realm that it was tearing the shadows free of, it began to run wild as it tried to center itself again on a new focus point. The black and pale blue motif across the pedestal and sphere began to fade away, charred gray, orange, and red replacing it as those colors leeched across the surface. The summoning started to enact again, this time with a portal opening above the structure and unleashing a magma-covered hand. The warlock, not oblivious to the intense convection heat given off by the newcomer's arrival, barked orders to the wraiths to keep the unicorn mare busy as she worked to reorganize the portal.

Sunset Shimmer dodged to and fro, kicking off the ground with her back legs to avoid lunging wraiths. The glimmer of magic caught her attention, the unicorn blasting away a wraith just in time to see the warlock getting the portal back under control. Stomping her hoof and igniting the air around her with a shout, she threw out a wave of energy that burnt the remaining wraiths to a crisp as they charged her. Now free of obstruction, Sunset Shimmer wasted no time in firing a continuous beam of pyro-magic at the warlock. Seeing the onslaught coming both from the blinding light and burning heat, the cultist was forced to wrestle herself away from trying to control the pedestal and devoting her magic to putting up a shield.

Sunset Shimmer and the warlock's magic willed against one another, struggling to and fro with irradiating energy causing the pedestal controlling the portal to go completely haywire. But instead of deactivating, the overcharged artifact erratically pulsed as it locked on to something else from a distant domain! Just as Sunset Shimmer was beginning to overpower the warlock, the cracking and sparking pedestal exploded in a blast wave of energy like a bomb had just gone off. Shockwaves ripped through the air and practically blew out the eardrums of anyone around who was close enough to hear it and not the echoes. Sunset Shimmer was thrown back against a tree trunk with the nightmare cultist being caught in the brunt of the blast.

It took at least ten seconds before Sunset's vision returned and her ears stopped ringing loud enough to be deafening. By the time her senses resettled, she didn't know what it was exactly she was looking at. The pedestal was completely gone, nothing but a scorch mark with shattered fragments of broken stone and crystal that lay about the immediate area. The portal above it however was still open and something was coming through it. The exact visage of the beast was hard to distinguish, its features largely masked by the inky covering it bore that was so black it looked more like a hole in space than a shadow. It wasn't enormous however, least not in what appeared to be body size. In that regard it was in the upper end for a larger stallion as it stepped down onto the ground with four limbs. When the wings on its back made their presence known however, it looked easily four times the size it did before; having a wingspan to rival Princess Celestia's herself. The only distinguishable part of its body, its glowing eyes, were quick to lock onto the nearest source of sound.

The warlock had survived the explosion, barely, but was mortally wounded from internal damage. The hellish magic that had been holding her body together was giving out in that respect and now starting to consume her. Bit by bit, the unicorn mare's form started to dry and crack like old clay, before fragmenting away in the manner of ash to become little more than shadow-hued dust. But even as she faded away into nothingness, she bore a demented grin across her black-bloodied maw; spitting a bit of inky ichors in Sunset's direction.

"You're too late. The night mare shall return and the day... will... die... Heheahaha!"

The cultist's manic laughter, one with a fanged grin and smile far beyond what was seemingly possible, was all that remained of her as a breeze blew by and whisked her corpse away. The shadow beast and Sunset Shimmer looked to the place the warlock once was, the latter trying to figure out just what happened. She'd seen plenty of dead cultists before, but that spectacle wasn't normal. Nor was the ungodly chill blowing through the breeze that carried her ashes and seemed to blow through her as much as it did blow past her. It stunk of malice and dark magic so badly that she unconsciously wrinkled her nose through her panting. Her mind snapped back out of analysis mode and back to pressing matter, shifting focus to the shadow beast. The one that was looking at and now walking right up to her. Whatever sharp protrusion of a mouth it seemed to have flexed up and down, almost like it was trying to speak or click its maw but was unable to do either.

It crouched slightly, moving its wings and reaching out with a blotted out set of black talons as if seizing a prey. Sunset figured it must have thought she was worn out after the fight and wished to take its sweet time mauling her, a fact she was eager to correct.

Jumping back, Sunset Shimmer's eyes and horn ignited with a charge and she soon sent a volley of three fireballs at the monster. They hit it square in the chest, blotting out its void of a form briefly with smokescreen. However any sort of hope for a dire hit was soon squashed when it came walking out of the smog completely unfazed. Sunset's mind was sent into a whirlwind. Her fire magic was a specialty and it had unfailingly managed to harm in some capacity any shadow force it had gone up against. Most odd however was the fact this shadow beast was rapidly losing the former part of its title. As if it were a coating of paint burned off by the flames still dancing across its form, patches of the creature's darker-than-night form was going away and revealing hues of dull red-brown on the limbs, flanks, and wings; and a sandy tan across the throat and chest. The creature itself seemed to notice this, pausing its march and looking at its now half revealed paw in a curious manner.

It looked back up to the sound of Sunset calling out and got an almost comically large flamethrower spell hitting it in the face. The magical flames swallowed up its form entirely and Sunset Shimmer didn't stop the jet of magically born napalm until a pair of featherless wings ripped out from the sides of the stream. In a shouting gust they beat the air and sent their owner flying up into the air space above and free of the flames. Sunset Shimmer cut the flamethrower off and looked to the newcomer.

She could tell right away it definitely wasn't a shadow beast, but just what it was exactly was also elusive. It looked like a gryphon, but there wasn't a single feather on it. Instead the epidermis beyond the furry hindquarters was covered in a very fine mesh of skin and scales across the body and a line of scutes on the chest, stomach, and throat. And she couldn't quite recall ever seeing any gryphon with a pair of red horns on its head. The explanation as to why this was so completely out of her field of guesswork, so one couldn't blame her for being confused upon her first encounter with a converted kaiju.

Though in truth, Rodan was just as confused as she was; not knowing where in the realms he was or how he got here covered in black stuff. Confusion was mixed with annoyance. While her fireworks had failed to seriously harm him past some small singes on account of the magic, intent behind the attack had been clear and he was all too observant of the glow on Sunset Shimmer's horn indicating she was about to try again. Rodan rolled his eyes and shook his head, snorting embers out of his beak's nostrils as a glow built up across his horns, eyes, and throat.

"Oye, lady you really don't know how to hurt me do you?

He quipped, earning an annoyed growl from Sunset as she loosed another flamethrower.

"Return to sender!"

Rodan shouted before throwing his glowing jaws open and firing a quarter charged plasma beam that ripped through the flamethrower like a wedge through split wood. It struck Sunset Shimmer on her flank and knocked the unicorn backwards and into a thicket of shrubs.

Rodan cut the beam off, lowered back down to hover just a meter off the ground and quickly headed for the shrubs to check on his assailant. Having remembered what happened when Godzilla Junior crashed into Canterlot, his motive wasn't to start a brawl until he could figure out what was going on. Information was priority number one both before and after he saw that dark pony somehow turn to ash. He wasn't trying to seriously hurt or kill the unicorn, just knock her down long enough for her to stop attacking him. If she could pull off a fire display like that he wasn't wanting to chance her having some sort of attack that could hurt him. He approached the thicket.

"Hey, if you've still got wind in your lungs and can be level-headed enough to stop lobbing fire at me, I'll fly you to a hospital if you need it."

The shrub leaves began to shift, not from movement within but from heat. They withered and turned brown as the water evaporated out of them, before finally igniting. Rodan felt a surge of power emanating out from the now burning cover and an illuminated outline become visible through the flames. A powerful, echoing voice ripped across the air once the outline got close enough that the equine form became visible.

"You dare?!"

-Uh oh…-

Rodan shot into the air quick enough to kick up a shockwave, fortunately just barely fast enough to avoid getting hit by the three meter wide beam of fiery magic shooting past him. Taking enough time to glance back to see the affects of the fire blast, Rodan was left wide eyed upon seeing it had managed to cleanly burn through several trees and a boulder in a perfect, circular cut before being cut off. Rodan looked back at the shrubs and didn’t even need to think before his eyes focused in on the source of the blast.

Sunset Shimmer didn’t know what exactly this monster of a gryphon had hit her with, dark magic can cause all manner of unpredictable and dangerous mutations seeing as Nightmare Moon wanted only the best for her army. But, in the milliseconds between the beam being close enough for her to feel the heat coming off it and actually being hit by it, she’d fortunately realized what it’s chief component was. It was rare for one of the shadow beasts or cultists to use fire magic, but that was either what this monster was using or at least it was something very similar. Similar enough for her to use those blood enchantments Celestia had helped her get. Blood magic was a dangerous deal and could easily be a double edged sword. But once one had their specialty, it was more than easy to exploit it. In her case, it turned her into a fire magic sponge. Nothing less one would expect from the adoptive daughter of a sun goddess and sibling to a dragon.

Rodan had just shot her with a power-up.

The unicorn princess stepped into the clearing again, her hooves burning small bits of flame into the dirt and grass beneath her. A thin red and orange aura slithered across her outline; emanating from the bright glow that had consumed her cutiemark. With every pulse from her heartbeat, bits of light coursed through her veins and arteries in a way that was visible through her skin. The charge up had also added an echoing distortion to her voice.

“Do you know what burnt gryphon smells like?”

Those were the last words Rodan heard before he saw another stream of fire magic, easily twice the size of the last one, shooting towards him. Acting on instinct, he fired up his mana streams and tore open his jaws into an air splitting shriek that was chased by his own fiery beam.

Almost like some bizarre parody of a snowball fight, Rodan and Sunset Shimmer hit each other again and again with one flaming attack after another. Each successive barrage becoming more and more powerful. Every time the struggles were about to cease, either by Rodan trying to dive down and tackle the unicorn or Sunset attempting to use some other magic on the gryphon, it would fail due to Rodan being too fast to lock onto by spell but the fast charging pyro-spells and Sunset’s teleporting keeping her constantly out of range. And with enough airspace for Rodan to fly around with and the constant power boosts she was getting negating any stamina problems; neither one of them was running out of steam any time soon.

Rocks melted, ground was charred, and trees burned by convection heat alone frying them. Another struggle of mana charged plasma and magic fueled fire resulted in another stalemate. At this point Sunset Shimmer’s aura glow was bright and large enough that it was beginning to give her an alicorn-like outline, and Rodan’s glyphs and runes were beginning to swell with light themselves from the power increase.

Rodan looked at the determined unicorn, at himself, and the burned scenery around him in that order.

-Alright, I’m fighting a cute little fire-spewing unicorn, I have no idea where I am, Lea’s gonna chew my ear out for getting into a random scrap; and somehow I haven’t turned back into a kaiju yet. This day can stop being weird now!-

Sunset Shimmer, braced for another heat beam or lunge, was ready and raring to fight despite this gryphon’s odd immunity to her flames. She hadn’t heard of a gryphon with blood affinity magic before, but with Nightmare Moon’s mutations she wasn’t going to write anything off as impossible. While the situation was more than dire, she couldn’t lie and say she wasn’t enjoying this to a degree. The beast’s heat blasts tasted funny, like they contained some sort of trace magic not yet known to her, but the power rush she was getting off it was beyond exhilarating. Dragon fire had nothing on this!

That known, she was both surprised and a bit disappointed when the gryphon instead put his arms up in a T-shape and lowered himself to a hover at ground level without any sign of attacking.

“Alright, this ain’t working. Timeout, timeout!”

Sunset Shimmer paused.

-Okay, nothing is impossible with these monsters…. but that’s weird. Not even Shade ever tried to call off a fight when he worked for them. And mutations are fanatical to the end, but this thing hasn’t said a single word about his devotion. This. Doesn’t… make any.. Huh?!-

She tried to articulate herself at the baffled looking gryphon. But as her aura glowed and burned to a degree equal to Rodan’s runes, the only thing the living fireball could mutter was-

“What?”

Rodan, still looking like some super charged creature of legend, held a paw up in a “stop” motion.

“Okay, I’m in Equestria right? I kinda could guess by the cutesy pony look but I’m trying to be sure.”

“Um… Y-Yes, you are…. Are, you part of the Nightmare army?”

Sunset Shimmer muttered as she blinked her now brightly glowing eyes. Wayward leaves blowing in the wind past the two were catching fire without even touching them, but both of them looked so thoroughly confused they didn’t even notice. Rodan lowered and tilted his head.

“The who!?”

That answered Sunset Shimmer’s question well enough. That was the thing about mentally deranged fanatics, they were good about being sly, scheming, and sociopathic. Lying however, let alone without time to think and after a lot of excitement, was not one of them.

“You were summoned by them to the Everfree Forest.”

Rodan grunted, trying to think back to what happened right before he recalled showing up here. His mind was a pretty big blur when it came to details, not helped by the fact he couldn’t recall doing anything worth remembering right before this fiasco happened. He could have been laying on a cloud Rainbow Dash showed him to sleep on for all he knew before getting yanked over here by some “Nightmare Army”. He grumbled lightly under his breath. Second time getting thrown somewhere random and bumping into a fiery pony, and it wasn’t any less unpleasant.

The only fortunate thing was that he was still in Equestria and the name “Everfree” meant he was in the place Lea fought a bunch of gyaos in. So at the very least he was somewhere he knew.

“Okay good then, sorry for the random fight. Do you know which way to Canterlot? I don’t know what’s going on, but since it’s day time I can talk to Princess Celestia right?”

Sunset Shimmer’s head shot up a bit to attention, speaking in a tone that seemed to mask surprise with slight indignation. How could this stranger be so casual about seeking the holy sun’s avatar?! A mix of mild annoyance and surprise however caused her to slip up and not refer to Celestia as such.

“What business do you have with my mother?!”

A pause settled over Rodan as he just stood still and looked at Sunset Shimmer. His runes dimmed and he dropped down to the ground back in his normal state with his head craned sideways like a curious bird. Her having a kid didn’t seem like something Celestia would skip over on the overview she and Luna gave the kaiju, or something every single pony he’d talked to who’d mention the princesses would just forget to mention.

“... Your what?”

Sunset Shimmer scowled, dropping her own super charged state. As indignant as she was, she could tell she wasn’t dealing with any threat. Just a confused idiot. She put her hoof to her chest while holding her head high and her eyes closed.

“I am Princess Sunset Shimmer! Daughter of her highest, Celestia! What business you have with my mother, you can have with me.”

There was a good number of ways ponies and beyond reacted to knowing who adopted and raised her. Fear, respect, admiration, happiness, and sometimes jealousy. Patting her on the head and going “Awwwww!” was not one of them and her eyes snapped open. Rodan was snickering while cracking the goofiest expression he could with a beak.

“Awwww! You’re a pretty girl pony who wants to be showy and says she’s a princess! That is just adorable! You’re like a little human toy!”

Sunset Shimmer’s face scrunched up and she fumed visibly while blushing bright red.

“I am NOT a liar, you cretin!”

Rodan stifled a laugh, the insult falling short entirely. It was one perk of being in magical-ponyland. Unlike on Terra, where the inhabitants getting ticked off looked anywhere from weird to terrifying, magical-ponyland-ers just looked like a puffed up ball of cuteness. Truly adorable even when pissed off.

“Oh I know, I know. You’re in the “Princess” phase Lea told me some human girls go through. It’s alright to dream but you shouldn’t set yourself on just one goal. Heck, you got some real impressive fireworks!”

“NrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRR!”

Sunset Shimmer vibrated while steam practically shot out her ears. Rodan, completely ignored it. He turned and took a few paces away from the unicorn while waving one of his paws, in unison with one of his wings due to muscle memory, in an offhanded gesture.

“I paid attention during the tour. There are four Equestrian Princesses and you’re not one of them. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Cadance, and Princess Twilight. And last I checked, you’re lacking in both the name and wing department to be any of them. So just tell me which way to Canterlot so I can find Celestia, because I’ve just had some weird stuff happen and this fight was just a waste of time.”

Between her anger and bewilderment, Sunset Shimmer lost almost all of her calculative demeanor and stuttered.

“I-Wha-Princes- Princess Twi-WHO?! Shining Armor’s baby sister?! She’s not royalty nor is she an alicorn!”

Rodan stood still for a moment, his face flattening.

“... Buuut, she’s one of the Element of Harmony bearers right?”

“NO! I AM!”

Sunset Shimmer snapped back.

“... So do you think I'm stupid or a liar?”

“And are you daring to call me the same?!”

“........”

“.........”

The pause between them lasted a good minute as Rodan thought everything through and Sunset Shimmer simmered down. As he thought through more and more possibilities to the point his head started hurting, Rodan’s face grew more and more deadpanned. He finally tossed the second to last possibility, “time warp”, out the window and turned around towards Sunset Shimmer with a creak in his limbs.

“.... Yooou’re serious about not pulling my wing, aren't you?”

He grunted, earning a half glare and a shaking head from Sunset Shimmer.

“I never jest.”

She muttered, a tad snippy. Rodan sucked in his breath, looked his eyes up to the sky, and groaned loudly while praying to Tanaka he never had to go through this crap an additional time to see if “third time” really was the charm. Restraining himself for a moment, he lurched forward and fired a sudden heat beam over the treeline to his right and off into the horizon; with such suddenness it caused Sunset Shimmer to jump back.

He continued firing for several long moments, practically roaring into the beam before cutting it off. Looking back to Sunset Shimmer as the smoke from his nostrils veiled his face before he snorted it away, Rodan took back in his breath.

“Oooookay, in this situation again. Name’s Rodan. Fastest kaiju in the skies, Guardian Beast Omega, recent entry into the Wonderbolts competition; aaaaaaand I am pretty much positive based off your memo and the weird magic I’m not where I’m supposed to be….”

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At the front of the nightmarish horde was a large, wide tent being carried by a pair of behemoths and flanked by several packs of dire wolves and a set of four warlocks. Slit-pupiled eyes peeked out from the tent warily. Small rays of sunlight slipped through the seam of the tent, giving its primary occupant mild discomfort and a sense of the weakness of mortality. A sliver of light crossed her eye and the equine hissed through a fanged maw and closed the curtain. The pony was a very large mare, one of noticeable height if she were standing up instead of reclined. The color across her short, glistening fur was a lighter gray-blue contrasting with an ebony black mane. Between the eerie colors, pointy ears, and predatory eyes she had both a haunting beauty and an uncanny sense of danger to her appearance. She flicked her wrist, manipulating and stretching the shadows on the tent floor to dig into a chest and bring forth a crystalline glass and bottle forth; pouring herself a drink. Sanguine red stained her lips and fanged maw for a moment before the ancient vampire licked herself spotless. Countess Mircalla of the Crooked Peaks had to keep up appearances after all; being a youthful 1,020 years strong and now leading the largest remaining force of the Nightmare faction demanded such.

And yet, it wasn’t the company of murderers, cultists, shadow monsters, and mutations that had the countess stressed. Rather it was the unworldy mass sitting across from her. She didn’t have much of a pulse anymore and her mountain citadel was surrounded by perpetual blizzards, having a chill was something she hadn’t felt in a millennia; and yet somehow she could still feel cold being near this thing. It was, unnerving.

It kept to a shape resembling something of a blackness approximating some sort of aquatic form or beast, light streaming from the pulse of glowing, azure runes across its body and from a jewel-like protrusion on its forehead. It called itself Mizu and she didn’t know where it came from or what sort of monstrosity it was. That mattered little compared to what it had done when it managed to appear in the middle of their camp without even the dire wolves sensing it coming. What did count for something was the hexes and tools it had supplied her army like the summoning pedestals, strange magicks the millennia old vampire lord hadn't ever seen before; and the fact it was talking to her again. Not through words, for its mouth either didn’t move in sync with its voice or didn’t budge at all when it spoke. Instead the dry tones that compiled together to make words rang across her numbed mind.

Mircalla nodded and replied by word.

“Yes, we still have it…… You want to see it?”

Mizu stayed still as a statue as it gave Mircalla its response.

“Alright.”

The countess reached back into the chest with her tendrils of bent shadow. The item in question was a piece of blue starlight metal armor. Just bringing it forth seemed to cause the surrounding light to dampen and fill the ambience with a dark magic. The armor was emblazoned with a slightly dented crescent moon on its sternum guard and clearly built for a larger pony; one who nearly brought Equestria to her whim. All of the army knew its visage well, for it was one they swore fealty to. Nightmare Moon’s breastplate.

And it still had a lot of dark magic in it, more than a mere trace of the night mistress’s power. Some of that essence, some of that strength that bolstered Princess Luna remained. Countess Mircalla held it up and looked to the eyeless entity before it.

“You want to know what we plan for it?”

……

Countess Mircalla restrained herself from an uneasy breath.

“This armor, it contains part of Nightmare Moon’s visage, her power. We’ll reunite it with her diminutive state that she's currently in, the state that Solar tyrant forced her into. With it, and the dark magicks between us and those you’ve helped supply us; our ruler will be restored…”

The countess muttered, looking over the armor. To any in her army still intelligent enough for coherent thought, they’d be reveling and praising the artifacts for their mere association. For Mircalla however, age had given her time to think of other matters. Ones she was quick to push aside after a momentary wince.

-Not of your concern. You are the last of the Night Generals, and you will fulfill your duty.-

The vampiress looked to the aspect with a stern glare.

“What do you want to know of it?”

Mizu’s glyphs pulsed with a light. It outstretched a claw-like tendril and ran it across the floor of the tent, tracing a pattern that soon ignited into a glowing rune that seemed to suck all the heat out of the tent. It silently addressed Mircalla.

“You, want to do what with them? In exchange for what, besides the payments already called for?”

The node on Mizu’s head, or what Mircalla presumed was its head, pulsed with a light. The chestplate and the rest of Nightmare Moon’s surviving armor hovered up and out of their container; floating above the glowing rune. A pedestal of obsidian, identical to the one Sunset Shimmer had destroyed earlier, emerged from the floor rune. The armor shifted slightly, wisps of energy floating up from the pedestal and into the armor. Dents were pushed out, cuts filled; and burns regenerated as the armor was put back into prime condition. It then floated towards Mircalla, not in a manner of to hand itself over; but in a manner to be worn. The vampire countess narrowed her eyes, speaking in a monotone that begot neither surprise nor lack of it.

“Celestia, you want Nightmare Moon to hand over Celestia… And you suggest I take on our ruler’s visage, for?”

Nightmare Moon’s helmet floated before her face, turning around and positioning itself so it could easily be slid on. Mircalla could see Mizu through the eye gaps.

“Assurance huh? Comforting to know safe keeping is a term familiar to even where you come from.”

Mizu’s response left the countess closing her eyes and shrugging as the helmet was fitted onto it. Her fur began to darken and her body shifted, growing in size and form to fill in the armor. This thing, this “Mizu”, had her pegged good for her own desires, ones not ever spoken aloud. If it had the power to do all these things however, Mircalla was left wondering how wise it was to deal with this unknown. Nightmare Moon was known for overconfidence after all. Mircalla was just wondering if she’d just traded bargaining with one demon for another, or if she could even care at this point.

After all, she had a duty to perform.
......
............
................

The tent marched on for a time, before a call to stop was made. With the afternoon sun streaming through the trees, the side of the tent opened itself up. Many of the army gasped and were at a loss for words at the being who stepped out, both from the massive amount of dark magic they could sense emanating from her and the figure's resemblance and yet distinctiveness from their sovereign. Fur cast in a navy blue as dark as midnight, ebony hair with a white streak flowing and rolling as if underwater, lined with a glimmerance that shown through her starlight armor. Countess Mircalla took in a breath, looking to the first sunset she’d seen full on in a thousand years. In the distance, peeking above the trees in some patches, was Canterlot mountain.

She cracked a fanged grin, chuckling lowly.

It was Nightmare Mircalla's first time seeing the sun in a thousand years, and once they’d achieved their goals, Nightmare Moon would make sure it'd be the last.

Chapter 2: Memory

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“So, you claim to come from another world, this “Terra”; and your natural form is a whale-sized scaley bird?”

Princess Sunset Shimmer grumbled with an incredulous look; earning an eyeroll from Rodan.

“I said my wings were each the size of a whale and I’m going to ignore that bird comment. But yes, I was that and then got ejected into Equestria; at least that is how Princess Twilight and Lea explained it. And given the Equestria I got tossed into seemed to have a lot of the same cast members as this place, but not the same roles; it’s not the same Equestria as this one. Stuff like Princess Luna fully reforming, Twilight becoming a princess, and obviously the kaiju’s arrival; never happened here.”

He shrugged, trying not to think too hard about this multi-dimensional case of hot potato. Sunset Shimmer studied him for a moment, maintaining her poise when Rodan so casually mentioned the traitor alicorn’s name so plainly. There were so many things wrong with this situation she’d lost count at this point.

“Hold still. I’m going to scan with you my magic.”

Rodan did as requested, snorting and rolling his eyes. Sunset Shimmer’s horn glimmered and a curtain of red magic opened before her. Like a draping shawl, it laid down and cast itself upon Rodan; going through his form like a sheet of smoke. As it did so, specks of black and dark blue glows became visible, dotting his form. Rodan cocked a brow and looked at a set of blots layering his forelimbs, trying to wipe them off to no avail. Sunset Shimmer puzzled, turning her head and casting the same spell on the spot some of the Shadows were being summoned through, their portal being the same as Rodan's. A worrying thought returned to her mind when she saw the sheer enormity of the traces left behind by the Shadow army she’d seen form right in front of her.

-Nightmare Moon herself could summon a lot, but that many from a single warlock so quickly? Never seen that artifact she was using before either. And if this buzzard is right it could pull things from beyond just whatever dark magic nether the Nightmare forces tied themselves to. Just where did they get that and why hadn’t they used it before?-

She mentally shrugged, looking back at Rodan and seeing the trace markings on him.

-One problem at a time Sunset.-

With her magic-enhancing vision like a magnifying glass, she could see the traces were shrinking; albeit at such a slow rate she had to magnify to almost cellular level to see it moving.

“Your story is ridiculous, but possible. I’ve had some experience with portal magic before, I once swapped places with another version of me for a short time. And there’s a gradually diminishing magic stuck on you.”

She muttered with a stiff tone. Rodan incredulously looked at his forelimb’s black coating as the spell vanished and both the trace magic and Sunset’s own were lost from sight.

“So that’s what this stuff is. Must have been laid on thick before you burned a lot of it off. And you said it’s shrinking?”

“It’s definitely the enchantment that brought you here and is keeping you locked to this world. I don’t know what tool she was using but that warlock was using a gate to the nether realms to draw up those Shadows that came out after you. When I fought her, the runaway magic must have made the portal “lock” onto a random energy source and it picked you. But, no worry needed. Maybe because of our bout or the fact you’re not a dark magic monstrosity, the magic is dying away slowly. Once it’s evaporated off, you’ll go back to the same place you came from.”

To her hidden surprise, the gryphon took it in stride. In truth he’d had two weeks to have the whole technicolor ponies, pony magic, and portal shenanigans to not surprise him much anymore. And with Sunset’s assessment, nothing to worry with so why bother?

“Huh, convenient. How much longer will it last?”

Sunset rolled her eyes before looking off and to the side with thought, running at least a dozen calculations in her mind given what she’d seen so far.

“Given the amount lost in the past five minutes, roughly twenty four hours.”

She grunted, before the realization of what she was doing dawned on her and caused her to sneer.

“Five minutes of which I have wasted not dealing with this Nightmare crisis. Go, leave here. You can survive my fire blasts and fly so Everfree won’t hold you back. I have work to do.”

To her mix of surprise and annoyance, flaps of wing-blown wind and a placid voice chased her down and came over her.

“Not alone you don’t.”

Sunset Shimmer leered at the gryphon hovering upside down above her, blowing her bangs out of her face.

“This isn’t your world and this isn’t your quarrel. You have no need to endanger yourself needlessly. I can handle myself.”

Rodan, still upside down, tilted his head to the right to Sunset’s left. He raised his brow and held his beak in a way Sunset could tell he was giving a miffed expression.

“No can do. Princess Celestia was nice enough to help us out back in the Equestria I was in. I get to be in an airshow the day after tomorrow. So, I might as well make myself useful and pay her back and I see no reason to sit on my wings in this case. Besides what am I supposed to do? Fly around like a blind gyaos until I get back to my roost away from my actual roost?”

Sunset Shimmer regarded the gryphon with a bit of resigned fury. True, she didn’t demand others bow down before her, only treat her as her position suggested and not get in her way. This kaiju was managing to do both and it was pushing all her buttons. She knew it wouldn’t do anything when she puffed a short range fireball into Rodan’s face, but did keep her deadpan expression from showing her frustration. Rodan, face not a bit darker than before, just blinked at her a few times like a confused bird.

“Feeling better?”

“I’m not getting you off my back, am I?”

“... You’re one of those “Shut up, don’t speak to me peasants!” kind of royalty aren’t you? Well, I answer your question prissy?”

Sunset’s eyes narrowed and she glared through her flat expression.

“Why do you insist on intrusion? If your worlds are different then the Nightmare army is a force unlike any you have encountered before. I’m not forcing you to face them.”

Rodan just nodded his head nonchalantly.

“I’ve fought things from other worlds before. You shoulda see the mess Final Wars was. Same world or not, I’m on Princess Celestia’s team and I’ve seen her miffed before. Wouldn’t wish any world the fate of seeing her angry and I’m pretty sure her daughter getting herself killed would count for that.”

“Urg, nevermind!”

Sunset groaned, marching forward in the direction the Shadows went.

“Just keep quiet and don’t slow me down.”

Rodan, with his arms crossed in front of him, flew backwards in a manner that looked almost like a disgruntled parody of a backstroke.

“Don’t know if you figured it out yet or not, but I’m pretty bad at being slow.”

It didn’t take them too long to track down the Nightmare Army, or rather which way they were going by following the route that the army of Shadow troopers took. The duo could only guess that because they were far out of the way of civilization and the loss of the warlock and wraiths hadn’t been anticipated, covering the Shadow’s trail wasn’t a priority and would have been left to those who summoned them. As they moved through thickets and ridges, they finally spotted them in a gorge beneath them. Concealed by the shadow of the trees and with the wind not blowing their scent to the army below, they were free to watch the mobile sea beneath them.

“So, this is them huh?”

Rodan whispered, counting up the multitudes of those assembled below before having lost count at the fifth dozen. Sunset whispered with a slight stupor in her voice, eyes wide.

“Didn’t get a good look at them all before. There shouldn’t be this many! In the battle of Ponyville, Nightmare Moon threw everything she had at us and we beat them down. There should only be a few scattered cultist remnants out there; not a whole army.”

“Well it is an army. And an army has to have leadership. Nightmare Moon was beaten down and you know she’s imprisoned for sure, right?”

“Positive. My mother checks on her frequently. So someone else is in command, these monsters are as fanatical as they are murderous.”

“You hardly make them sound like ponies.”

Sunset Shimmer paused for a moment, looking down at the horde below before muttering lowly with spiteful venom dripping from her words.

“These demons stopped being ponies a long time ago. They're fanatics and sociopaths warped by dark magicks. They were already monsters before, now that’s all they are. They won't stop until they're killed and that is the only way to stop them in many circumstances; there is no reasoning with them. And because of how maddened they usually are, that means somepony must be leading here in her absence; maybe a general whom was missed in the clean up.”

Rodan opted to try and ignore the sudden shift in tone coming from the princess, not to any real success though. He could still remember when Sunset killed the warlock, despite his obstructed view of being covered in that blackness coming out of the portal. He was no stranger to use of lethal force, but the idea of it being used on an Equestrian just seemed… wrong.

The memories of Mrs. Thalia came back to him as he looked upon the army below. The kindly Appleloosa barmare had housed him during his stay in the town, once sitting him down and telling him some of the country’s history. She told him of the conflict with Nightmare Moon and the ensuing Nights Rebellion that sprung up in her name shortly afterwards. Right now, the kaiju was seeing dejavu brought to life. The exact thing Thalia had told him their Equestria had worked past was before him, an armed civil war in the name of the nightmare. And it wasn’t stopped in this timeline. How exactly he wasn’t sure, could have been for a myriad of reasons. But he now had a better understanding of the goings-on in the history of the Equestria he’d gotten into. Honestly he wanted to see one of these Chuckle-Lot performances Princess Celestia put on even more now, if only to see how something so seemingly mundane of all things might have contributed to this divergence of paths and kept this series of events from happening in the Equestria he knew.

And he knew full well what sort of reaction Sunset Shimmer had to the Nightmare forces judging from the tone in her voice. She sounded a lot like the Chief, Godzilla Junior, when he talked about Xenilla.

-I’m going to have to keep a leash on her, least until I figure out more of what’s happening. No more dead ponies until then.-

With that in mind, Rodan shifted mental gears and scanned the army encampment as they began to move out again; spotting a large tent in the center mounted on supports that showed it could be carried.

"My bet is, whoever's calling the shots around here is in there.”

He muttered, pointing with a claw. Sunset Shimmer did nod to him, but it was clear her attention was elsewhere, somehow. She kept looking to and fro between the army and the treeline surrounding the gorge, almost like she was expecting something.

“What is it?”

She didn’t look to him when she addressed him, focusing on trying to visually spot what she sought.

“The Everfree Forest is off-limits for most everypony for a reason. It’s usually far too dangerous to move through. Yet, this army barely has any on guard to watch the perimeter to deflect any attackers. With a group this big they should have attracted every manticore pride in the region hours ago.”

“That bad huh? Seems worse than in the other Equestria then for you to fret over it. Maybe something is scaring the animals away?”

Princess Sunset Shimmer looked about the army while she puzzled.

“Possible, probable. But we’d have seen the spell casts by now to freshen the hex. It’s not something they’re actively maintaining, so it must be something they’re moving with.”

“Maybe another dark magic carry-on like the do-dad that brought me here?”

Sunset Shimmer found herself reluctantly nodding, mind still racing as she took in the size of the nightmare army’s scale again.

“This army is prepared well enough to hide themselves from the outside and survive in the Everfree; all while being less than thirty kilometers away from the most heavily defended city in Equestria. It’s both cunning and lacking sense, but it’s all out war.”

Rodan rubbed at his beak with the blunt curve atop his claws.

Honestly though, the idea that these adorable ponies were at war with each other still had problems computing in his head. It wasn’t from a pacifistic protest; after all he wasn’t averse to conflict in the slightest when things needed to be put to blows, but the thought of any of these Equestrians killing or getting killed left him uneasy.

-Maybe if we got the Celestia of this world we could get her to sort things out without it being a massacre?-

“If they’re doing what they’re doing they're either pretty stupid or plenty confident in themselves. We should call in someone.”

“Which would be?”

“Your mom.”

Sunset Shimmer, mistaking the statement for a childish insult, shot Rodan a disgruntled look and almost shot a fireball at him.

“Why you!-”

Rodan put his paws up defensively, eyes wide and shaking his head as he realized his error.

“No no! I meant literally.”

“... Oh.”

Sunset Shimmer blinked and shook off her stupor.

“Uh, yes. That is a satisfactory solution given the gravity of the situation. I shall summon her with a spell I know.”

She announced, holding her head high to appear more proper and astute. Usually she liked handling this sort of thing herself, but she wasn’t as bullheaded as she once was after the Ponyville incidents.

“Which is?”

“A long distance fire display. She’ll certainly be able to see it from Canterlot and know it is me and that I wouldn’t use it unless it was an emergency.”

“Wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Rodan deadpanned to Sunset, earning him his fifth annoyed scowl of the day.

“And why not?”

She groaned, spurring Rodan to put a paw atop her head and point it to the horde of fanatics and monsters below.

“Because there is a good hundred something crazies a couple dozen meters away who’d see it first and get here first.”

He let go of her head and spread his wings out, eyeing the opening in the treeline above them.

“Leave this to me. I can bolt over to Canterlot easy without even making a sonic boom. You just keep safe.”

Sunset Shimmer shrugged, covering her brow with her hoof as Rodan started to ascend upwards.

“As mediocre as this plan sounds, I’ll agree to it. Just be quick or the Shadowbolts will catch you if you get yourself spotted.”

She groaned, earning a shook paw and rolled eyes from Rodan.

“Eh, let ‘em try.”

With one big wing flap he shot up into the air and cleared the first few layers of dense trees. With skillful maneuvering and stronger beats, he soon broke free of the canopy without hitting a single branch on the way up. Taking mind to memorize their location relative to a rock formation visible through the canopy, as not to lose track of Princess Sunset Shimmer; the Guardian Beast ripped through the air to ascend and accelerate. With the visage of Canterlot Mountain visible in the distance, he only had time to register an odd distortion in the image before Rodan found himself stopped. Having gone just below the speed of sound to avoid a boom, Rodan had no time to slow down when a cold feeling chilled him to the bone and he felt himself hit something. Where he didn’t hit it, it was like looking into a smooth glass window. Everything looked about right on the other side, but one could still see a very subtle distortion in the airspace. Where he did hit it however, blue and black lines criss crossed the air in a vein-like mesh and only gave way slightly as they stretched into his impact. And then, like an elastic band, it snapped back to smoothness and sent Rodan hurtling back like a ricocheted pinball. Knocked half silly, he couldn’t avert his tumble through several tree branches and then crash into the ground.

Saved by a broken fall and some of his kaiju durability carrying on into his gryphon form, Rodan’s form wobbled up to his feet through the dust cloud he’d kicked up on impact. Coughing as the sediment haze cleared, Rodan was still shaking and knocked silly by the time the orange-red blobs of Sunset Shimmer; all six of her, trotted over to him.

“Nice work.”

The Sunset Shimmer and a small herd of identical twin sisters grunted in unison, helping the delirious Rodan steady and dust himself off. Shaking his head to clear his vision of excessive mares, Rodan shot an angry glare at the skyline above.

“What in the minds of Daiei was that?!”

Sunset Shimmer puzzled, glancing over to test a theory. She got it when she found a baseball sized stone, magically levitated it up, and hurled it straight up as hard as she could. The rock sailed upwards before abruptly smacking into something, giving the same sort of mesh-like, temporary impact sight before rebounding off it in the manner of a bouncy ball.

“It’s a dome. They must have it set up all across their route through the Everfree.”

“Why would they need that?”

“I’m working on some theories. My best guess is the barrier is a side effect of one huge glamor spell to mask the view of the army from anyone flying overhead, be it carnivores or pegasi. The warlock that summoned the Shadows and then you had a smaller version to mask her location. From the outside, looked like normal forest. The forcefield might be a bonus to the spell cast on a grander scale.”

“If that’s true then that means this dome has to be huge for us to still be in it even before we caught up to them. Possibly size of the whole forest. How strong of one could you make?”

It was only the realization behind the implications behind the dome being this enormous that caused Sunset Shimmer to not feel some dejection at her confession.

“Size of a city block if I concentrated. And I’m a magic prodigy.”

Rodan let that bit of information run through his head, before coming to the same realization Sunset Shimmer had while the princess continued on.

“And this dome has to be at least six times that size… How strong is whoever is keeping that spell up?..... Oh no.”

Sunset Shimmer muttered, thinking the kaiju was trying to fathom what she was as she ran down the list of sources that could possibly be that powerful; thought he was dreading what she was thinking.

“There are probably less than five beings strong enough to hold up a glamour this huge other than my mother-”

“Sunset, I’m going to grab you. Do not kick me.”

Rodan grumbled. The princess snapped out of her stupor, too confused at what the gryphon just said to hear the faint buzzing in the air.

“Huh, what?”

“Remember those Shadowbolts you told me about? I think I know what they look like.”

Rodan muttered, looking off in a seemingly random direction.

“Wh-Why is that a problem?”

“Because one isAimingForTheBackOfYourHead! HANG ON!”

Rodan shouted, flicking his limbs out and grabbing Sunset Shimmer before rocketing straight up into the air. The princess yelped in surprise, managing to avoid the instinct of kicking Rodan in the stomach or blasting him with magic in time to see a gray, black, and blue blur bury a lance into the tree they’d been standing in front of. The Shadowbolt wasn’t alone, turning and calling out in an ungodly wail to summon up his flight partner who nearly collided with the kaiju and unicorn had Rodan not air dodged out of the way. The patrol, scouts for the greater army, had heard the gryphon’s crash landing and were showing intent to bring back only bodies to their dark lady. And like wolves locked onto a deer, they homed in on the flying form of Rodan even after Sunset Shimmer teleported out of his grasp.

“Hey! I’m trying to-”

The princess gave him a glare, revving up her magic as the resulting glow encircled her.

“Shut up and fight, you handle one and I’ll get the other!”

She shouted, levitating up a tree branch to bash the stallion Shadowbolt out of the air as he tried to head Rodan off while the kaiju dodged his partner.

“Attack to kill and don’t die!”

Rodan had objections, but opted not to voice them.

-Not if I have something to say about it. Just a mare with a pointy stick, I can disable her.-

He swerved in his flight, opening up his wings to put on the air brakes and let the Shadowbolt still on his tail overshoot and fly past him.

-Not here though. Princess Priss can handle herself for a moment, it’ll be quick.-

“Keep alive yourself!”

He barked before taking off over a game trail with the Shadowbolt mare in hot pursuit. Sunset Shimmer, oblivious to the kaiju’s ploy, only looked back at the recovering stallion with a glare that could pierce stone. Hatred was a strong word in her mental space, something only a select few type of beings got. And one of them, the wrathful demon that would see her home destroyed and family put atop pikes, was right in front of her.

She charged up a fire spell as the Shadowbolt leered at her through his mask. Dark magic tainting his veins was visible on his lips and gums when the fanged maw smiled in Sunset Shimmer’s direction; his goggles masking the fact he was looking past her and not directly at her.

“The night shall endure forever and the day will drown in its own blood!”

The Shadowbolt hissed with a haunting echo in its voice that would chill all but the experienced to the bone. It grinned the opposite of a smile before hovering up into the air and shooting off after the direction Rodan and its wingmate had gone. Sunset Shimmer raised an eyebrow at the sudden retreat, but before she could rush off to help Rodan the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. It was the only warning she got to duck before a tail made of swirling sword blades swung over her and sliced a sapling in two.

A metallic clicking and rattle shot out of the shrubs behind her as Sunset Shimmer hit the ground rolling and turned herself about. As much slicing as it was emerging from the brushline was a malefic form unlike any beast or being living. Dark purple and blue were the sinew that strung whirling sword blades together into some bastardized visage of a serpent that seemed to be constantly deconstructing and reconstructing itself to move around. The Blades of Nightmare, as this sort of demon was called, made no vocalization; only the scraping and clacking of its swords against each other in an unnerving warcry. The set of blades that created the approximation of jaws spread wide while the neck craned back.

Sunset Shimmer’s mind raced, throwing out a teleportation spell to move out of the way and avoid the snapping strike that shredded a tree trunk behind her.

-Alright think Sunset. Blades are impervious to physical damage and composed of dark magic. I need to hamstring it with a magic blast to disable it!-

Horn blazing, she attempted to rake the Blades of Nightmare across it’s back, for lack of better descriptors, with a flamethrower. However the demon was far too agile, cutting through the air to weave around the blast and forcing Sunset Shimmer to teleport out of the way as its spinning swords tunneled through the oak tree trunk behind her. Warping back a dozen meters away, Sunset Shimmer found to her panic that she’d lost sight of the Blades of Nightmare. The hole it had bored through the tree was still there, but there wasn’t a sign of the ten-meter malefic. Immediately she trained her eyes skyward. Blades of Nightmare weren’t typically beings of strategy, but she knew well enough that their agility was partially due to their ability to get airborne. She scanned the sky with a firespell prepped, looking to any tree or branch that might give away the surprisingly stealthy creature’s approach.

Her eyes grew wide with horror upon feeling the ground beneath her shake. She braced and vanished in a flash of light while the Blades of Nightmare exploded out of the earth beneath her like a geyser of swords and magic. Sunset Shimmer fumbled and rolled across the ground, a shower of dirt and wood chips from the Blades stuck in her mane.

-Okay, that’s new…-

She coughed, a bit of red coming up as she put a hoof on her reddened stomach.

-Damn, didn’t move fast enough!-

She grit her teeth, letting a curtain of magic sail down her body from her horn. The seams of the cut across her stomach moved together, the internal damage mending from the magic as the outside seared itself shut. It wasn’t superb medical magic, but it would keep her together. She glared at the Blades of Nightmare, eyes literally burning with as much determination and indignation as they with flames. Eyes darting to the side briefly, she thought and acted quickly even as she manually dodged to the side to avoid another strike. Her magic gripped and strangled a boulder, tearing off a jagged chunk of rock. Rolling under a tail swipe that bisected a thicket of brush behind her, Sunset focused her magic into heating up and fracturing the rock in a very particular manner; forcing stress cracks in exactly the right way as the stone began to glow white hot with heat.

The Blades of Nightmare turned to face the unicorn princess, seeing a deadeyed Sunset Shimmer burning with fire magic that crackled and roared like a phoenix while magically holding up two blazing swords made of burning stone. The demon screeched by scraping the swords that made up its mouthparts and lunged, Sunset Shimmer yelling out as she swung one of her blazing weapons at it.
About a quarter of a kilometer away, a red blur shot through the forest with a purple jet stream in hot pursuit. Rodan glanced back with an impressed expression.

-Huh, she is keeping up. Only pegasus I’ve seen get near that level is Rainbow Dash, and she’s told me she was exceptional. Princess Prissy was actually onto something!-

He was about to look at the Shadowbolt to try and enact part two of his plan when a faint hissing tore his attention away. The Omega Guardian Beast reacted completely off instinct, shooting straight upwards at a near ninety degree angle to avoid a second blur that would have t-boned him in the flank sword-first. He stalled in midair and looked down. The stallion Shadowbolt had caught up to them through a shortcut. He grinned at the kaiju above with a demented smile before joining his partner in rocketing up to him. Rodan used gravity to quickly point himself downwards and dove straight at them, turning off at the last minute. Time seemed to slow down as the trio nearly collided, Rodan’s thin wing nimbly shooting between their weapons and catching the Shadowbolts in his jet stream after he shot past them. The momentary pause their disorientation granted them gave Rodan a second’s lapse to think.

-Okay, now both of them are on me. He didn’t have any blood on him so Sunset shouldn’t be hurt; but why’d they leave her alone if she’s Celestia’s daughter? She’d be priority, not me.-

The gryphon shot through the trees with the pegasi now back into pursuit.

-Going to need to speed things up, but I gotta split them.-

Eying a pond up ahead, an idea dawned upon his head and a smirk upon his maw. Horns alight, Rodan redirected the heat from his flight’s air friction into power and fired several quick bursts of plasma fireballs aimed at the water. The flowing spheres shot away and exploded into the pond, instantly evaporating a large portion of it into a blisteringly hot cloud of steam and vapors. Not worried at all about the heat, Rodan only took a moment to slow down enough to egg the Shadowbolts on before he flew through it. Either too bloodthristy to notice or going too fast to pull off, the stallion Shadowbolt dove into the cloud directly behind Rodan and soon found out how bad an idea that was. Wings dampened and misting, the Shadowbolt lost control and barreled into the ground. He rolled into the earth, still steaming; before calling out in a very unequine screeching as he writhed in pain. The damage wasn’t bad, especially given he was wearing a flight suit, but on the exposed portions like his wings and maw it was more than disabling.

It was the shrieking he was calling out in that caused Rodan to pause. Had he not turned around to see it was indeed coming from the pegasus, he would have never guessed it. The pain was obvious, but the call was so unworldly it didn’t sound anything like a voice or any call an animal should be able to make. Involuntarily it gave him a moment of stupor and confusion, enough for the mare Shadowbolt to dive over the steam cloud and tackle him.

Brought free of his lapse in mind, Rodan’s focus turned to his attacker as they tumbled through a thicket of shrubs and rolled into a clearing. She hissed and batted at him with her hooves while trying to bring up her lance, but he wasn’t having any of it. Hissing into his beak, Rodan grabbed her lance with a paw and snatched it away from her, tossing it to the side. As the crazen pony bashed and swatted at him, he managed to fight through it and get on top of the struggle; using his weight and digit bearing limbs to grab and pin her. But even with all her limbs pinned down by a gryphon easily twice her mass, she still struggled and fought back. At first with curses of word and then by swinging her skull at Rodan like a bludgeon to try and head butt him.

“Hey if you could stop-”

“Nightmare Moon’s avatar has come to us!”

“-trying to kill me, I just want to-”

“Canterlot and the Solar Tyrant will crumble from their basin!”

“Listen if you don’t stop, that Sunset Princess is probably going to kill you-”

“I will walk upon your bones and present your beak as a trophy to!-”

“Ah forget it!”

Rodan groaned before craning his head back and slamming his forehead into her as she lunged at him again. The Shadowbolt’s head wobbled before falling back limp, knocked unconscious as it seemed. Rodan looked at her and shrugged. He purposefully dialed back his force to make sure he hadn’t used anything lethal. Despite what Sunset Shimmer asserted earlier, he had his own assertions to make. While not a deep thinker by his own admission, he knew what he knew and made his judgements based off them. He knew there had been a conflict brewing between the Celestia loyalists and Nightmare Moon loyalists for centuries, and he knew based off his own experience that conflicts tended to work in cycles. The Princess Celestia of the Equestria he knew had stopped such a civil war without any lethal force, something he’d come to admire a lot.

-Sunset might have said you’re not worth life anymore, but until I see proof of it I’m not killing any ponies.-

He glanced at the Shadowbolt while climbing off her.

“You’re welcome.”

He grumbled, starting to turn and hover up into the air to go and check on Sunset Shimmer herself. With the stallion Shadowbolt having a go at him earlier, it probably meant something had come up with the unicorn and Rodan intended to find out why.

Or at least that was his priority before the shrieking behind him forewarned the seemingly unconscious Shadowbolt head revived and pounced onto him. Rodan sneered, trying to reach back with his paw to try and grab at her after being forced to land.

“Hey get off!”

“YOUR SOUL WILL EMPOWER US!”

“What are you-”

And that’s when she did something Rodan never expected a equine to do. She chomped down on his neck in a predatory manner. Rodan flinched, shocked at the fact he could tell she drew blood and the fact a pegasus had just tried to tear his throat out with her teeth. His neck armor spared him that fate, meaning she only hit muscle. But where she did hit, the gryphon could already feel a blistering, almost frostbite-like cold settling in. He was beginning to feel weak, drained.

Unfortunately for the Shadowbolt, a slightly weakened kaiju convert was still far from a normal Equestria. Rodan grabbed hold of her head in one paw and jaw in the other, prying her off and throwing the mare over his shoulder. The Shadowbolt rolled over the ground but quickly got her hooves beneath her and slid backwards while standing up. Her mask had been torn off by the throw, causing Rodan to mentally backpedal when he saw her… its face. Sunset Shimmer’s word echoed through his mind.

-”These monsters stopped being ponies a long time ago…”-

The Shadowbolt’s face was barely recognizable as an equine. Inky veins shown through paled skin and short fur. The eyes were near completely comprised of enlarged pupils, and were noticeably sunken into their sockets with a ring of wrinkled skin surrounding them. In many places the skull’s shape was visible through lost soft tissue, and the cheeks had decayed holes in them. The Shadowbolt never looked away from Rodan. She no longer spoke, only hissing through green bloodied jaws while stalking towards the gryphon; lusting for more of the life force she’d tasted. But as she lunged forward, she only got something else as the gryphon dove to the side with his paw swinging out towards her.

Rodan’s talons striking her across the throat, cutting fabric, flesh, and bone. The Shadowbolt’s body crumbled to the ground in two pieces, decapitated.

Rodan, expressed turned to stone, turned away from the body. He was starting to try and flick the blood off his paw when he noticed the aforementioned fluid was anything but normal. He looked upon it with a disgusted sneer, seeing the black liquid churning and writhing like it had a mind of it’s own and stunk of dark magic. There was movement behind him, and not to be taken by surprise twice Rodan turned to face it.

-You gotta be fucking kidding me…-

The Shadowbolt wasn’t limp anymore. Tendrils of dark purple magic flexed and churned dark liquid. The unholy abomination struggled and surged, the tendrils starting to stitch the body as those same dark energies became visible through the veins. The wretched, living corpse limped back to her hooves and picked up her lance; living shadows being the only thing forcing her body back together. A broken grin stretched over her muzzle and the Shadowbolt began to chuckle in a craven manner as she took aim.

Rodan closed his eyes solemnly as the manic laughter erupted from her blacked maw.

-Princess was right...-

Eyes alight with glee, the cursed mare pounced forward and trained her lance at Rodan. She didn’t get one centimeter off the ground before a massive beam of plasma shot down her throat. Mana fires and dark magic reacted with each other and engulfed her form in a massive explosion, literally vaporizing the mutate in the span of a second. The broken, singed lance clacked against the earth, ash slowly raining down on the scorch mark on the ground as smoke lifted to the sky.

-I’m not killing any ponies after all.-

Rodan stopped the beam assault and looked upon the lance, at the lunar symbol carved into the base. He stomped on and crushed the brittle remains, smoke streamed from his nostrils. Without looking back, he took to the air and zoomed off to find Princess Sunset; eyes and gut still burning with anger.

-Whoever in charge of this army that just made me do that is getting worse…-

Back at the outlook, Sunset Shimmer was having her own mental crisis. Namely how to stay out of the way of one of the most dangerous monstrosities Nightmare Moon ever devised. The swirling serpent of Blades tirelessly came at her again, forcing the unicorn to cross her burning rock in front of her to try and parry. With a tilted angle and an upwards shove, she managed to force the demon up and over her, slamming it into the ground behind her. But it came at the cost of one of her tools, shattered slag raining down behind her. To anyone but herself, it probably would have meant death by their own weapon. But instead it only served to invigorate her. She took no glory in battle, but the princess of flames couldn’t deny how alive she felt even as she was rapidly dodging to avoid getting chopped in half.

-Alright, think Sunset. It’s like a snake so it relies on swinging its top or bottom around like a flail and using that to cut or stab.-

The unicorn blinked out of existence to avoid a downwards slam by the Blade’s tail following by parrying a stab from its head when she remerged several meters away.

-No limbs so I need to pin part of it’s body to hit it with magic burst. What’s good at trapping a blade?-

Her eye cast itself to an enormous treetrunk, one felled earlier when the Blades of Nightmare shoved it over with its bulk.

-Perfect!-

Sunset Shimmer teleported herself in front of the log. Flicking up her remaining stony weapon, she trained it upon the Blades like a magically held javelin as she pumped so much heat into the shape it turned white hot and threatened to melt. Seeing the unicorn finally standing still, the demon wasted no time in surging forward at near blinding speed. When it got within five meters of her, Sunset Shimmer smirked. A small explosion went off behind the stone, sending the burning projectile rocketing into the Blades of Nightmare and exploding against its metallic surface in a shower of molten rock. Temporarily blinded, the Blades of Nightmare couldn’t slow down before it crashed into the tree trunk and bowled over it. With its forward most blades bitten into and now stuck in the wood, it dragged down by the rolling log’s weight into the forest floor.

The Blades of Nightmare wasn’t able to free itself when a glowing Sunset Shimmer teleported atop the log and threw her head down towards it. A firestorm of heat and light erupted from her horn and engulfed the serpentine demon, rapid scraping and clacking being its death cries. The fire magic broiled the metallic components and cut through the dark magic sinew like cut ropes, first at the head and the to the lower body. So focused she was however at burning the demon alive, that Sunset didn’t see something as unexpected as the previous burrowing habits. Part of the Blades of Nightmare were dead, but part of it wasn’t just yet.

The remaining body contorted under the flames, flexing upwards into a C shape and swinging the tail up and around even as the upper body fell to nothing more than molten metal and ashes. Sunset Shimmer’s eyes widened as she tried to train her aim up to counter it, but she wasn’t fast enough.

What was quick enough was the searing beam of purple-red plasma sailing over her head and hitting the tail end of the Blades, mana-born magic burning through the metal and causing the dark magic holding its form together to go slack as it was energized. With the tail pushed back, Sunset Shimmer was able to adjust her aim and engulf it in her own flamethrower. The twin beams swallowed up the remaining blades, causing them to explode outwards.

========================================
Nightmare Army Camp, Several minutes earlier
========================================

Mircalla, formerly Countess and now Nightmare, felt a squirming feeling within her shriveled stomach when she walked through the camp. To many, seeing her walking about in a form akin to and bearing the armor of the Dark Lady was a sign of providence. Some of the more fanatical warlocks practically threw themselves before her, thinking their beloved alicorn had returned early. When she informed them this wasn’t the case, it did nothing to dial down their crazed enthusiasm. Surely tonight, they said, was the night they’d been lusting after for a millennia. The night Nightmare Moon returned to strike down all who opposed her and reward those loyal to her. The “Avatar of the Nightmare” they’d call her.

Publicly, she embraced the title and all it stood for as she kept up the march forward to Canterlot.

Privately, she hated every second of it. If Apostle, the arch member of the Warlocks, had been in her hooves he’d be leading the troops with pride and gusto in every hoofstep. It was almost a cruel irony, that the last of the Night Generals was the one who’d been the most disenfranchised after one thousand years of waiting. There were only three reasons she was keeping this activity up with no intent to stop it despite wishing for it, and none of them were by choice. One was out of duty to her alicorn, in return for a gift given in centuries past. Another was because of the contract behind said gift. And the last was the knowledge how desperate and psychotic most of the beings around her where. If they thought her a traitor, she wouldn’t live to see the next night.

The fact that… thing… Mizu was in support of the Nightmare Army to attain Princess Celestia, for who knows what end, wasn’t helping.

She was in a deadlock and had no way out, so Mircalla swallowed her pride and self pity to carry on as she’d done for centuries. After tonight, she wouldn’t have any more worries to be concerned with.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the faint sound of an explosion. Nightmare Mircalla turned her head to the cliffs high above, detecting the faintest amount of smoke in the air with her enhanced vision and knowing what it meant.

They had company.

“Keep moving forward, I need see to an intrusion.”

She barked, spreading her wings to take off. Several warlocks flocked to her, horns already blazing.

“An intruder! Avatar of the Dark Alicorn, let us fill our soul wells with their essen-”

“NO!”

Mircalla snapped at the mare, eyes glowing and teeth snapping shut centimeters from their face.

“I. Will see to this. Alone. Keep. The convoy. Moving.”

The vampire hissed, stomping on the warlock’s words and cowing them back before her. She was joyful that it worked, but obviously didn’t show it. After the defeat at Ponyville and imprisonment of Luna, the remaining forces she’d found herself leading had grown both bolder and more crazed by the day. The only way to control such a powderkeg was to force every command given. And it was only going to get worse from here the closer they got to Canterlot.

At this point stopping to deal with some pest at the perimeter was a reprieve.

Bits of vaporizing dark magic and scrap metal rained down on the immediate area. Sunset Shimmer closed her eyes and breathed in the heat, trying to stop her heart from pounding between her ears.

After some seconds passed, princess and kaiju turned to each other and stared. Rodan saw the ruined battlefield where Sunset had fought the Blades of Nightmare and Sunset saw the bite mark on Rodan’s collar. They didn’t need to ask what happened to the other.

And when they heard a flapping noise off to their side, both turned towards it with fire spell and heat beam at the ready. They expected it to be the stallion Shadowbolt from earlier, but instead the dark mass coming free of the foliage wasn’t singular. Rather than one set of wings flapping, it was a symphony of them. Hundreds of bats came pouring out of the treeline, flying in unison like they were a singular mass. They arched over the confused Sunset Shimmer and Rodan, their mass clustering a six meters away from the duo. The individual bats folded up their wings and fell down together, their forms remolding and condensing into a single solid mass.

Sunset Shimmer recognized the dark-colored fur, large stature, and flowing mane as Nightmare Moon and fired her magic out of reflex with Rodan following suit. The newcomer was devoured by the dual blasts of fire and heat that set the forest aflame behind her. Burning lights shot forth from the pair in torrents for a good six seconds before cutting off to inspect any success. A pair of bat-like wings unfolded before the figure, having been used as a shield and only being slightly singed with bits of smoke coming off from them; but their host was virtually unscathed. Nightmare Mircalla held her head high, the vampiress’ fanged maw looking almost disappointed.

“Impressive, but useless.”

Rodan was prepared for round two, spreading his wings and charging up another blast.

“Princess, who is this?”

He muttered, expecting Sunset to give him some snide remark of ignorance before telling him just who they were up against as it obviously wasn’t a friendly with that coloring and Sunset’s initial reaction. But all her got was stunned silence as Mircalla and Sunset locked eyes. Sunset Shimmer saw her opponent and realized this wasn’t Nightmare Moon. Though she had no name to ascribe to the vampiress, she knew who she was.

The setting shifted in her mindspace. Away from the Everfree, away from the present day. It took back to cloudy memories of two decades past to a dark night in the streets of Canterlot’s lower quarter. All she could recall where a few still images and the sensation of movement, of being carried. There were voices exchanged, ones that echoed through her mind now that the familiar sight of Mircalla’s red eyes jogged the repressed and traumatic back to memory. A feminine one, pleading for itself and another, and Mircalla answering back. The ghost of a mare's death screaming returned to haunt her mind over and over again.

Princess Sunset Shimmer hit her dreaded eureka moment and was frozen stiff, trembling lightly all over as fearful tears wet her eyes. Mircalla looked upon this and frowned, starting to slowly approach forward.

Rodan shot his eyes between the approaching mare and the one to his right, speaking with increasing desperation and urgency.

“Sunset! SUNSET SHIMMER! Snap out of it!

He barked, grabbing Sunset Shimmer by her shoulders and shaking her to try and jostle her to awareness. With no luck and Nightmare Mircalla being only two meters away, he had to react fast. Revving up a quick energy charge, he fired multiple volleys of fireballs at Mircalla’s hooves and surrounding brush. While the attack did no damage, it did ignite the ground substantially and veiled the kaiju and unicorn in a smokescreen. He then grabbed Sunset Shimmer and flew away as fast as he could.

Nightmare Mircalla stood idly by as the strange gryphon yanked the unicorn away and out of sight, making no attempt to pursue as the name of the latter as spoken by the former playing through her head. She hadn’t heard it spoken aloud in almost twenty years.

“Sunset Shimmer…”

Several kilometers of flight and a full hour passed before Princess Sunset Shimmer finally snapped out of her shock. Rodan had landed with the setting sun behind them, only stopping once he was sure the isolated glade was free of any dangers. Sunset Shimmer was stressfully weeping in his grasp, but beginning to thrash about. She struggled out of the gryphon’s grasp, stumbling forward while breathing heavily. Sizzling water fell from her eyes while she held her head low. Choked crying became audible to the kaiju, causing Rodan to reflexively take a step towards the unicorn and extend a paw towards her shoulder.

“... Princess? You recognized her, who is she?”

He whispered, causing Sunset’s crying to take a brief pause. With a snap of motion she threw her head skywards. An explosion of fire and light, so hot it incinerated the nearby grass through convection alone, shot skyward from Sunset Shimmer’s horn. The beam of heat and flames, several meters thick and so long it raked across the glamor dome high above, roared and crackled with untold power. Rodan closed his jaw and watched on as Sunset screamed with fury and agony into the burning blast, it only growing stronger as the seconds ticked by.

Kilometers away, the Nightmare Army looked to the blinding light coming from the opposite direction as the setting sun. Back with her forces, Mircalla looked to the enormous pillar of fire with a stoic expression. She ignored her forces' confused and erratic muttering and sighed. She could practically feel the heat coming from it across her face, watching the distant, roaring fires and knowing full well what it meant. Revenge.

Sunset Shimmer carried on her wail and firestorm for a full ten seconds before cutting it off. She cut the spell off and dropped her head, coarse breath stinging her lungs and chest. The unicorn’s horn glowed with a searing heat, smoking at the tip. Steeling himself, Rodan reached up and put a paw on Sunset’s shoulder; causing the shaking unicorn to wince momentarily and fall still.

Slowly, Princess Sunset Shimmer turned her face towards him; still wet with steaming tears with her expression a contorted mishmash of fury and grief.

“... She killed my mother…”

Chapter 3: The Fall

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Panicked breath and trembling hooves charged down a beaten path, echoing into the stinging cold of the dead night. The mare had been running for so long, ever since she found herself too exhausted to teleport. But despite the immense span of ground she’d covered, the resolve of her pursuer had not wavered. Then again, neither had her own. And neither had the pursued. The snap of a branch spurred the unicorn to whirl around, sparkling embers erupting from her horn like a lit fuse. Begotten from the charge was a flare of light along with shrieking flames and sparks, almost like a massive roman candle, which rocketed through the air and ignited a sapling she’d run past.

Hot air and wayward embers rolled across her panting muzzle, frightful eyes quickly crisscrossing the immediate area; both hoping and dreading to identify something. Unfortunately, it was that same something whose eye shine was glinting in the flickering fire light. Stoically walking past the flames, an obscured figure calmly approached the now fleeing unicorn. The voice of Countess Mircalla practically within her ears told the mare that the vampiress was easily keeping pace with her panicked sprint towards Canterlot.

“Give me the child.”

The vampire hissed in a low, cold tone largely devoid of emotion. The mare clutched the bundle nested within the sling around her neck close to her, firing another flare of magic at the flock of bats following her.

“No! What do you want with her?! Somepony help!”

The mother screamed as she ran through Canterlot’s back gates. But Mircalla, in the form of dozens of bats to equal her body mass, easily dodged around the magic burst that scorched the earth behind her. She flapped her chorus of wings, closing in on the mother mare while the latter was clearly tiring herself out screaming for help and firing increasingly weaker magic blasts.

“I do not, but others do. I’m just following orders.”

Mircalla grumbled through magical speech across the horde of bats. After dodging another blast that was little more than a spark show, the bats clustered back together and reformed into the vampire’s body mid-flight. Mircalla fell sideways, landing upon a wall and standing up straight while sticking to the stonework. She wasn’t in any particular rush to get this done,the market district they were in was going to be empty until morning, and the celebration across town meant there was nopony around to hear anything.

The unicorn wheezed, stumbling through a jumble of boxes and crates to push herself from one section of the marketplace and into another. It took all magic she had left to used one last magic blast to bust the gate to the main street open. Her body was beyond expended, shaking with every motion from strained muscles and the overuse of magic had left her with a migraine and a searing, cracked horn. At this point, most anyone would have collapsed from the pain and been immobilized by an expended body. But a desperate parent isn’t “most anyone”. She forced her way through the gate, one of her legs giving out beneath her and causing her to half drag her way into the street. She looked back and saw the glowing eyes of Mircalla looking back at her through the shadows of the building the vampire was walking across.

“Give. Me. The Child. Last time I ask.”

The vampire hissed with narrowed orbits. The unicorn however just desperately clawed her way down the road.

-Have to get to Celestia, I’ve come this far and she can protect her. I have to get to Celestia!-

The celebrations' happy music was distant but audible, the pinpricks of far lights crossing the dark street. The mother’s hope was shattered even as she threw herself at the long stretch of road she’d have to go down to find someone.

-I won’t make it….-

She winced in her stumbling run, tears streaming down from her eyes as her baby started to cry. A desperation beyond destitution stung in her voice, a plea to an attacker she knew she couldn’t outrun here in the end.

“Ple-Please she’s just a baby!”

The mother held her daughter close, the sound of many flapping wings ringing out all around her. The swarm of bats flew through the gate and circled the unicorn as she tried to shush and rock her sobbing, terrified infant. Mircalla reformed from half of the swarm, glaring at the mare who she’d been chasing for dozens of kilometers.

“Others would show none of the restraint I have.”

The rest of the bats fell into place, forming the vampire’s hindquarters and back. Mircalla maintained a stoic glare, looking down at the crying bundle clung around her mother’s throat.

“And you and I both know she’s no ordinary infant.”

Mircalla put a hoof around the bundle, the mother feebly trying to force it away. Not discouraged, Mircalla looked into the unicorn’s eyes and hissed. She grabbed the mare and held her close, locking gazes. A red flash crossed the vampire’s vision and the unicorn found herself frozen in place, her body willed against her to be like a statute. Grunting, Mircalla undid the sling and took the crying infant into her own grasp. She beheld the infant's yellow-furred face capped with a fiery-hued mane, like the rays of burning sunshine she hadn’t been able to behold in centuries.

She sighed lowly, looking down at the frozen, crying face of the mother unicorn with a complicated, but unreadable expression. Her face cringing and not wanting to make eye contact anymore. She looked back at the infant and the baby opened her beady eyes to quiveringly stare back. Countess Mircalla repeated a familiar mantra dryly.

“For my master… To bring about the last shimmer of sunset.”

Back in the present day, Nightmare Mircalla let the reflection of the burning pillar of magic flicker across her eyes. It was kilometers away, no doubt thanks to how fast that weird gryphon was, but she knew who was the source of the flames was the moment she saw searing lights rake across her barrier dome. The words the gryphon had spoken muttered through her mindscape in cohesion to what she’d said herself decades ago.

-”last shimmer of sunset-” “Sunset Shimmer!”-

-Sunset… Shimmer… Choice of name is almost ironic.-

She steeled herself, the empowered vampire turning and standing above the army flanking her. Seeing the avatar of their goddess standing and looking to them instantly caused the masses to take notice of her and silence their murmuring.

“Keep moving ahead, the issue has been dealt with.”

Stillness crept across the menagerie of warlocks, mutations, and demons; many looking back at her and the direct the flames had been with questioning; almost challenging expressions. Nightmare Mircalla grimaced, her eyes glowing whilst she stomped her hoof. And uproar of dark magic in the shape of a bat swarm roared out with her voice.

“KEEP MOVING AS COMMANDED.”

The roar got the forces obeying. Mircalla cut off her display and hissed through her fangs, heading into her tent carriage. The vampire was not in a good mood, at all. They were getting ever closer to the goal, the last pony she ever wanted to see had somehow found her way right to them, and it now seemed some of the army’s bloodlust was even stronger than their loyalty to her. Denying them a kill had just weakened her hold. In hindsight, denying she was Nightmare Moon reincarnated and saying she was just her avatar might not have been the best of plans when it came to trying to keep a mob of psychotic fanatics. Amongst other problems, she needed a drink.

Mircalla let herself hiss a quiet sigh after digging into one of her chests and retrieving a wine bottle full of preserved, very dark red fluid. Wasn’t fresh as the color showed, but the anticoagulant and spree of freezing kept the blood from turning into a brick over the years. Not bothering with refinement, she just bit the top of the bottle off and flicked the cork off her fang before chugging it down.

The vampire would have let out a satisfied shrug had she not caught her reflection in the bottle. Mircalla looked at Nightmare Moon’s helmet staring back at her with a wince. The image of the crying Sunset Shimmer flashed before it, switching spaces on and off with both her younger self and her mother from decades past. The visages morphed to a myriad of stallions and mares surrounded by snow-capped mountains, then to Princess Luna on those same mountains. With each one, Mircalla’s winces of anger grew into a flare up.

With a grunt followed by a hiss, she banished the thoughts and put a hoof to her head to lift the helmet off. She wasn’t having any outbursts, but she didn’t want to look at that reflection.

But try and she may, both by hoof and by magic, the helmet refused to be dislodged. Tethers of dark magic held it fast for her body, not just by her skin but her tissue, muscles, and skull.With every tug, Mircalla could feel her entire head being pulled up. Still, she kept trying to take her helmet; her prison, off until an unworldly speech chimed into her mind.

Mircalla sneered.

“What do you mean it won’t work? And where are you?”

How exactly she could understand it was still beyond her, for every time Mizu spoke to her it seemed so different from a voice it was impossible to call the telepathy words or a language of any sort. It quite possibly is what unnerved her the most about this thing.

That and it was looking right at her from her own reflection. Mizu’s form still obscured and virtually indescribable, slithered across the bottle and shot an ungodly cold into Mircalla’s arm that numbed to the bone. The cold traveled to her chest, the vampire glimpsing the dark form swimming across the smooth, shiny breastplate before traveling to the metallic rims to one of her storage boxes. Mizu moved from reflection to reflection across the room. Outside Mircalla could hear the dire wolves whining and whimpering in fear, no doubt trying to move away from the leader’s dwelling. Mizu moved to a set of armor, taking up residence on the reflective surface of a broad shield. Then, like it was breaching the surface of a still pond; the Primordial Aspect of Water slithered out into the world beyond.

Mizu could appear and disappear out of reflective surfaces. Suddenly the being’s ability to get right into the middle of the army and leave completely unseen made a lot more sense. This time, she could both make out some more of the Aspect’s details and was having a frustratingly hard time doing so. The darkness of its form, more like a hole in space than actual blackness; meant one could only discern details from its vaguely glowing outline. It might have been in the form of some type of Equestrian species, or rather some bizarre twist of one, or it may have been something else entirely. Its features looked of a chimera made of a variety of marine life. There was what vaguely looked like a shark tail fin mounted on a segmented, almost crustacean-like tail. Long and possibly flipper-like limbs were obscured by a mass of cephalopod tentacles, but she couldn’t be sure. Really the only thing she could be sure of that she was looking at was its long, defined neck with a glowing patch where the forehead would be. The glowing lines trailing across its body seemed to have their epicenter from that patch, which dimly glowed everything it “not-talked” to her mind.

Which, judging from the noise coursing through her mind which could best be compared to a reverberating rumble, was right now.

“Essence of Nightmare? So the power in the armor, her remnant power, is directly tied to my body-”

Mizu corrected her, spurring an eye roll and grumble from the vampire.

“-my soul. So only she can remove it?”

Mizu gave its answer stoically, something that left Mircalla wondering if the thing was upset at her for wanting to take the armor off or not; or if she’d prefer to know so. The vampire shrugged, taking another shot of fermented blood from her bottle.

“Well that narrows down my options for the next day. Appears I should get more comfortable until then, still hours of march to reach Canterlot.”

Mizu looked outwards into the wall facing the direction they were going, pivoting its head in a way that made it look like it was peering at something. There was a wall and thick canopy in the way, but at this point, Mircalla wasn’t doubting that it was looking at Canterlot. She put up her guard and shrugged off its question.

“Exposure? Who said we’re traveling to Canterlot through the forest the whole way. You shall see what I mean once we arrive.”

Electing to just ignore the eldritch being sitting a meter away from her, Nightmare Mircalla plopped herself down on a mattress of cushions, looking at her bottle with a bored expression while swirling the contents within. Lacking other options to kill time, her veil of magic grasped at a very humble looking, plain metal box no bigger than an alarm clock and brought it before her. Undoing the latch, she drew up the contents within. The age of the object was clearly ancient, despite the metallic structure. It was dozens of thin metal plates the size of a pocket book bound by several thick metal rings. While it may look mystical to many, Mircalla knew it by a humble basis. After all, when you’re as old as she was it paid to make your journal out of something not so easily damaged by frost or water.

With a gleaming, clearly enchanted metal pin, she started scribbling onto a leaflet page. Words were etched into the metal as easily as an inked pen across paper. She’d gotten a paragraph and a small illustration of a unicorn mare with a curly mane down when Mizu’s chime called out against and broke her concentration.

“You wish to know why so many of the army don’t appear to be living? Didn’t know that was an ability of yours.”

Nightmare Mircalla mumbled, attempting to keep focus on the metallic journal to cut the conversation off. However, Mizu wasn’t passive in its insistence. The cold radiating off it faded from her flank and back and reappeared at her face and hooves. The visage of Mizu’s “eye” trailed across the reflecting pages of her journal as well as her chest plate. If she didn’t know any better she’d say it was glaring at her.

Nightmare Mircalla shrugged, feigning annoyance to avoid any startlement.

“Wonder why I even bother... “

In a mild show of resistance, she snapped the book’s current page shut and turned it back many more pages. This wasn’t a daily journal, more an archive of the important. She let the clack of metal ring many times, turning back months to a page dated to a year ago.

“It regards an associate of mine. One whom, shall we say, was closer to our Goddess than myself...”

==============================================
One Year Ago, Somewhere in the far Northern Mountains
==============================================

It was dark and pure white at the same time in this flurry of a blizzard. Amongst the snowstorm, a single figure struggled to move forward. The hiker had been lost for hours, trying to map this uncharted terrain. And despite their thick wrappings, the lameness and numbness of their limbs showed clear signs of frostbite. They were blind, cold, and freezing to death. And someone else could see them just fine.

Peering out through another visualized plane, a sort of sonar gave a steady beep. It was steady, slowing down, but all too clear. Through another’s vision, the lost hiker was as obvious as a flare with every heartbeat. Their stalker soared above, able to see every pump of bloody pulse through numbing veins and nerves. By the time Mircalla landed next to them, the hiker had collapsed. The vampire stoically narrowed her eyes, lowering herself to their throat to better see their pulse. It was extremely slow now, enough to possibly keep them alive for a few more conscious minutes in the cold before giving out. It would take hours to get off the mountains, but this poor soul didn’t need worry about that. Barely lucid, they found themselves in a quiet embrace before their life left them in an instant.

The quick, clean kill done; Mircalla picked up the corpse and concentrated. She thought back to centuries ago where she was in the same situation as the hiker had been; before the change. She thought to where she’d been changed, at the mouth of a massive cave. It was a skill of hers to recall not just her memories of that spot, but also herself. The Vampire Count seemed to warp out of existence and was instantly back at that spot with the corpse in hoof. She was back at her castle now.

The fortress was half castle and half cavern, built into a sheltered side of one mountain. From any angle other than directly facing it, it was all but invisible thanks to high snow banks and towering slopes functioning as walls. Shielded from the storm, Countess Mircalla was clearly seen upon her approach by those inside and the cold stone front gate opened up before her. Not smiling upon stepping inside was impossible for the Countess. After all, this was home.

Welcomed by the skeleton crew of bitten vampires with cheery smiles and greetings, Mircalla gave them a smile and nod as she walked passed and to the needed stations. For the vampires of these Jagged Peaks, this was how they went about things. Souls get lost in these mountains all the time without any effort on their part. If they were still capable of surviving the trek when discovered, they’d be sedated and dropped off outside them where applicable. If they went too far into the peaks and were about to meet a prolonged end, they’d be granted a swift one and be utilized. Sometimes the change would occur to alter them into a new vampire, most times it didn’t. In all her years up here, it only happened twenty nine times for Mircalla. For those that did, they’d be allowed to stay here and the cycle continued. It was a cruel system, but worked. Taking only those over the event horizon of death helped keep their numbers low, avoided mass search parties; and helped ease the conscience for many of the newer arrivals.

Plus it was easier.

Going about this the same way she had hundreds of times, Mircalla stripped the body and pumped it full of anticoagulant to avoid livor mortis. Slashing the aorta with a knife for maximum effectiveness, she slumped the body at an angle to collect the blood in the abdomen. After some short time of waiting and chatting with the maid, the deed was done and after some pumping; over five liters of blood was collected into a dish and handed off to the distiller for storage. The body was methodically sewn back together, dressed again, and taken to the crypt. Nodding to the carpenter, Mircalla placed the body into an open coffin and watched them nail it shut after arranging the shriveled body into a sleeping position. The lower vampire gave the form a respectful nod before placing it up against a wall in a slot.

All and all, the process took less than half an hour.

Countess Mircalla sighed as she left her eyes to drift off the coffin and across the entirety of the crypt. Rows upon rows of coffins lined it. Mircalla had long made peace with her fate, as had her underlings. But seeing this still left her conflicting feelings.

Then a small voice squeaked out from behind her. It was Spotless, the maid again. In her former life, she was a dark green earth pony mare with a blue mane. Now she was a very pale coloration with a greenish tint and an unearthly, snow white mane; eyes shifted from yellow to red. Still, with her typically perky demeanor, she was quite adorable if in a slightly uncanny way. Right now though she just looked mostly nervous.

“My lady, there’s a warlock outside the gate summoning for you.”

Mircalla knew who it was the moment she heard the word “warlock”, frowning and power walking past Spotless to get back to the main hall. Giving a nod to the hidden guards manning the gate winch, she stood firm and raised high. The cold stonework creaked and rumbles vibrated the main hall’s carpeting, walls, and knocked some dust free from the ceiling. A group of ponies stepped up through the doors that closed behind them as more of Mircalla’s vampire underlings fell in line alongside her, either by walking to her flanks or flying up in bat form before changing back. Their counterparts in the visiting force, several shadowbolts, a novice warlock; and two heavily mutated knights, stood across from them as their leader did the same to Countess Mircalla. He was a dark blue unicorn with a black mane. Over his form was a black cloak that held Nightmare Moon’s insignia over it. His left eye bore scars from battles past. One of the most powerful warlocks or spell casters in general of all time, Apostle.

Mircalla’s lack of an excited reaction showed just how mundane it was to be being visited by one of Nightmare Moon’s generals so close to her, one that he was often regarded as her right-hoof-stallion. This was pretty much a normal visit by someone she considered the closest thing she had to an acquaintance outside of her mountains. There wasn’t any real affection between the two of them, Apostle’s often fanatical devotion to Nightmare Moon put Mircalla off and the vampire’s cold and eerie demeanor along with her uncanny appearance gave Apostle margin to worry. Still, they were respected colleagues in each other’s book, which showed in their professional tones.

“Apostle.”

“Mircalla.”

Apostle shrugged his shoulders, shaking some snow off his cloak before hoofing it off to Spotless.

“It’s been awhile. Twenty years since you left your mountains?”

“Roughly. The staff sometimes make trips outside for supply or get some new books for the library. What’s the cause for the visit, you usually take another five years to come and make a move on our chessboard.”

Mircalla muttered in response to Apostle’s approach.

“We’re both going on a trip.”

"Where?"

Mircalla raised an eyebrow, expecting some elaboration. Except Apostle didn’t give one nor did he walk up to her, but rather trotted past the vampire with his envoys in tow. He was already through the doorway to the crypt when he finally spoke again.

“Canterlot of course.”

The warlock quipped in a startlingly nonchalant tone. Countess Mircalla’s eyes dilated in shock and she completely lost her poise.

“... WHAT?!”

Apostle heard the shout chase him down, along with some rapid hoofsteps, but made no effort to give pause as he trotted down the winding stairwell and entered the crypt.

“Canterlot?! You're insane as one of those Chaos loons!”

“Not with the forces I and the others have been amassing. As you know our Goddess of the Night is returning soon. She expects an army, so one will be provided that it is strong enough to take Canterlot.”

“And yet you come here for forces? Apostle most of my vampires aren’t combat trained. Those that are may be powerful yes, but few in number.”

Apostle shrugged, turning around to face Mircalla with closed eyes. Taking in a clearly frustrated breath, the warlock looked Mircalla in the eye and waved a hoof in the direction of the aisles of coffins.

“I came for this. Step back.”

Mircalla watched in confusion as two of Apostle’s subordinates took a coffin from its slot and placed it on the floor between them. With the greater warlock taking point in a triangle with the three, they collected themselves for a moment before hoisting their horns high while alight with dark magic. The fel energy bounced between the three like arcing lightning before jumping onto the coffin. Wood was seared and metal warped with each raking bolt. Soon as it started, however, it ceased and the three warlocks stepped back. All was silent for a moment.

And then a flurry of motion came from the coffin. Dry hooves bucked outwards with such force they shattered the wood.

A decrepit, frostbitten corpse, the doomed hiker Mircalla had drained not half an hour ago, pulled themselves free of the coffin. Dark magic wisped and sparked across the physical revenant‘s form, partially re-inflating their husk. They, it, wheezed before opening its eyes. Dark magic had filled its orbits to the point they were largely sunken, black pits. Sneering with blackened teeth, it croaked out a raspy, unnatural voice.

“Praises be to the True Goddess!”

The attendant warlocks stepped forward fearlessly, beginning to clothe the revenant in a Shadowbolt uniform. Countess Mircalla felt her vampiric pulse chill as she watched on with shocked eyes.

“What have you done…”

Apostle sighed, not sharing his colleague’s horrified expression even if he didn’t seem especially happy about it.

“Bolstered our army. Each revived is completely loyal and imprinted with the experience of one of our past soldiers. This is to make up for your failure two decades ago, best we use every asset we can call upon.”

The other warlocks filled down the crypt and repeated the spell, this time arcing the dark magic across whole swaths of the chamber. Within seconds, dozens of revenants were rising, filling the chamber with their hisses, shrieks, and praises. Countess Mircalla fought hard not to instinctively lurch forward and go on the attack. What she saw transpiring was nothing short of horrifying, enraging; and an encroachment on every principle she’d had for hundreds of years. This was a rape of her sanctum and idols, and the thought of rushing our and personally tearing the offender’s throats open with her teeth was an agonizingly tempting decision. It was only through sheer force of will, respect to the warlock standing next to her who was helping fuel the incantations; and fear of what the other generals might do to her that kept her from acting.

Spotless was terrified, causing her to hide behind Mircalla to an extent as the countess’ guards seemed to try and force their way down the steps and act; only to be blocked by Apostle’s knights and shadowbolts.

The only thing Mircalla could do to the closest thing she had to a friend outside of her castle walls was whisper.

“The dead should stay dead, Apostle.”

Apostle took a long breath and shrugged. On some level it seemed like even he was showing some reluctance, maybe from the graphic display or maybe some degree of consideration to Mircalla; but it wasn’t enough to stop him.

“And the loyal have to remain loyal. This is your contribution after the loss of the foal. Loyalty to show the other generals you haven’t wavered. These revenants know nothing but loyalty and the night should have no room for traitors. I haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

He muttered as both he and Mircalla looked on to the cornucopia of dark forces now inhabiting the crypt after the last coffin was open. Revenants, automatons made of flesh held together by dark magic, loudly declaring their motives as they were clothed, armored, and armed by the warlocks.

“They all passed quickly, peacefully. This is desecration.”

Mircalla whispered, struggling not to show a fluctuating writhe of anger and grief. Apostle cast a small frown, turning to start back up the stairs and throwing his words behind him.

“I am, sorry. But I won’t let our queen wait for a thousand years to fail, Countess.”

============================================

“And so I found myself leading an army of deceased as a reserve force while the main contingent attacked Ponyville to lead into Canterlot after Nightmare Moon returned. After that attack failed the survivors rendezvoused with myself. You arrived while I was speaking with the survivors and the revenant force was hidden in the forest.”

Mircalla said with a sigh, downing another shot of fermented blood. The vampire let her eyes wander to Mizu again. Its form was still baffling to look at, but based off the bits she could make out in terms of body language it seemed to be looking outwards from the wall at where some of the revenant no doubt were. And if she didn’t know any better, she'd think it was actually showing a genuine emotion for once.

Outrage.

Mizu, or more accurately though Nightmare Mircalla knew not, Bagan speaking through Mizu; not-spoke to her again. Based off the way the not-speech jolted through her head like a cymbal crash, maybe her guess at outrage wasn’t too far off the money.

“Abominations? Chalk that for something I’ll agree with you on. Contrary to belief of myself and my spawn, I’m not undead. Undeath is an abomination. Once the body ceases and the soul leaves, it should stay that way.”

She took in a deep breath, shooting the exhale her nostrils with an expression that was a clear ringer for frustrated anger.

“Apostle meant well but he knew how I’d think of it. He was, still is, dedicated, though.”

Mizu seemed to look at Mircalla again as it replied and that unnerving nature the vampire almost had time to forget about came right back with a vengeance, spurring a small repulse.

“Apostle? He’s currently in Canterlot next to Lun-... Princess Luna’s cell.”

It communicated again about the previous topic, one Apostle had mentioned in passing when he came to raise the crypt. Instantly Nightmare Mircalla stood up, dropping her bottle and getting enough nerve to glare at Mizu.

“The girl is of no-!”

She cut off her bark, realizing what she was starting to say after Mizu asked about the pillar of fire. The vampire stood there with broiling blood and a panting chest for a few moments before winding back down. Collecting herself, Mircalla headed for the side doorway.

“I am going to lead from the front line. Get the troops’ focus back on me in a good way for morale. For those that need it anyways. Remain here.”

She commanded coldly before exiting to get away from the Aspect, sealing her journal in its container and taking it with her for extra assurance by slipping it under her chest plate. She couldn’t be sure of the almost soulless reply she got from the eldritch was assuring of confirmation or not, but she took no chances.

As soon as she stepped out, her attention quickly tracked onto a scared dire wolf. The almost horse-sized beast was clearly agitated and instinctively fearful of what was inside where Mircalla had stepped out from. Mircalla could quickly guess as to why this was so. The knight next to the wolf, one of the remnants of Apostle’s army, had been trying to settle the beast when he noticed Nightmare Mircalla’s presence.

“Avatar of the Goddess! Is something the matter?”

He barked, quickly saluting. Mircalla shrugged, petting the dire wolf on the head and helping calm it down to a degree while nodding to the knight to acknowledge the salute.

“At ease. Do me a favor. Don’t let anything leave my transport. And if the wolves stop acting anxious around it, alert me immediately.”

With that, Mircalla broke up into a swarm of bats and made her way to the front spearhead of the army, leading them through the Everfree.

Mizu stayed in stillness for a time, but not for long. It had asked for the nature to the failure Apostle was mentioned speaking of and Mircalla had just blabbed all about it even if she tried to stop herself. And with her now at the front of the army, it acted. Gliding over to the broad surface of the shield, Mizu drew down close to it and distorted the surface as if it were a puddle of water before slipping its front half through it.

In the back of the army, where the ratio of raised dead to living troops drastically increased, a risen unicorn-turned-warlock trudged along and stepped into a puddle. Had it the ability to feel temperature, it would have suddenly felt the ambient air turn to an unworldly cold. Instead, an uproar of noise and words without speech ripped through it and dozens of other revenants’ simple minds. The small party stopped and turned their attention to a nearby stream they had been passing by and the dark tendrils and glowing lamps of light that slithered out of them. A language unknown inquired without word.

“Serve Nightmare Moon? What else is there to be? What command does her avatar hoof down from her to us?”

The lights increased in intensity and the tendrils warped, bringing forth a myriad of shapes that started piecing together something. Bagan hadn’t just consumed the Electro-Orb and Alicorn Amulet, it had absorbed their essence. And what had been taken in could be copied to a degree. Ancient magic born of Terra had created the emulation of the Electro-Orb the Nightmare Army had used to power a summoning portal to give them their Shadows, Mizu simply did what it had done before but on an increased scale. It created a grayed simulation of the alicorn amulet and presented it to the warlock. The revenant warlock instantly took it and beheld it the best way a machine of dead flesh fastened by dark magic could. After all the original alicorn amulet was a creation of Nightmare Moon herself, and this approximation felt little different. They placed it around their neck, it locking itself down onto their throat though they felt no pain from the action. Like an injection into a vein, the warlock’s body felt the energies of the amulet course through them; amplifying and exaggerating what was already there. It knew how powerful it was now, and knew exactly whom to serve with this power.

As did the other revenants when they were given their copies of the amulet by the demon in the river who appeared to be a benefactor to their cause gave them “Mircalla’s” command.

They spoke in low unison-

“We shall serve our Night Queen!”

-before marching off into the direction of where the fire pillar had been. Search and destroy or seek and capture, they’d serve Mizu’s presence well as the Aspect slipped back into the reflection to return to where it had promised it be.

Rodan and Sunset meanwhile had been standing in silence upon the same clearing the former had landed them in. Itching at his wings and unable to take it anymore, Rodan finally spoke; albeit with a cautious tone to try and avoid another fiery outburst from the unicorn Princess like the flame pillar had gotten. He just hoped she’d gotten it out of her system.

“So, you never remembered this detail of your past before?”

Princess Sunset Shimmer stood with her back to him, still looking the direction she had been. The haughty royal looked much less regal now, shaking in her breath and speech.

“Never so clearly… I’d recall shapes and sounds before, but not the context. Seeing that thing… it jogged and cleared the memories.”

“Who is she exactly?”

“I don’t know her name, just her face. Nightmare Moon had multiple generals and lieutenants who hidden over the centuries.”

“So, are you certain she’s the one then?”

Sunset Shimmer lowered her head in contemplation yet again. It didn’t take long to let her thoughts become affirmed as images decades and seconds old overlaid each other. Some features had changed, but she recognized the vampire in Canterlot that fateful night and the demon in this forest less than an hour ago as one in the same. Her eyes snapped open and she glared at the distant horizon, somehow sure of which direction Mircalla was.

“Yes, no mistaking it. The voice, the posture, the look…”

Her voice dropped noticeably. Even standing a meter away, Rodan could feel the hot temperatures convecting off the unicorn as Sunset sneered in an angered tone.

“She’s the one who did it…”

Sunset Shimmer began to storm off. She got only about two meters closer to the distant army when Rodan got even closer to them; jumping up in front of her.

“And where are you going off to?!”

He barked in exasperation, putting a paw before Sunset’s muzzle in a stopping motion. Sunset Shimmer narrowed her brow, her horn glimmering for a moment to charge her magic.

“Ending this, for however long it takes.”

She teleported several dozen meters ahead, an admirable feat given how much energy she must have burned with her pillar of enraged flame. However, Rodan had wised up by now and had grabbed onto her by her shoulders, getting dragged along with her. When she realized Sunset Shimmer growled, trying to throw the gryphon off, but Rodan wasn’t having any of it.

“Hey! Don’t know if you remember, but we both hit her at the same time and didn’t leave so much as a smolder!”

“I’ll just have to try longer then! Let me through, idiot!”

She managed to push Rodan off her and kicked into a furious run. However, she didn’t get far before Rodan tackled her. They wrestled across the ground, Sunset hissing, kicking, and bucking hard; but Rodan endured the hit and managed to pin her against a tree trunk with his clawed paws stabbing into the wood on either side of her hooves. Unfazed, Sunset Shimmer glared and charged up her magic, light spiraling up her horn’s lines.

To her credit, though, she did intend to give a verbal warning instead of literally starting to open fire right off the bat. Though before she could attempt such action, the sea of anger and hatred ripping through Sunset’s mind was suddenly shouted out by the gales of a hurricane.

“NO! SUNSET!”

Rodan roared, getting right in the unicorn’s grill and locking eyes with her. Sunset Shimmer winced and flinched, quickly returning her wit to a degree. Her focus was too distraught for magic, but she still struggled physically.

“We are NOT going through this again! I command you to GETOFFOFME!”

She swung her leg out to try and kick the gryphon off. But Rodan saw it coming and meandered to the side to avoid it, before rearranging his grip. A tetrapod, he made use of the second set of hands he had on his wings; grabbing Sunset by the legs with his paws and pinning her arms against the tree with his wings. Had this been a less serious moment, he’d be commending himself for finally having gotten used to six limbs. But there was a time and a place for everything. And the time now was for an exasperated, annoyed false-laugh.

“Ooohohohohooo oooh yes we are doing this again, Princess! You’re running headlong into a mess you couldn’t handle all over again. Before it was just to investigate an army of psychos, now you’re going at it for a personal reason! I’ve seen how destructive personal revenge can be and what it can do to folks, and it won’t help us here.”

Sunset Shimmer’s lips quivered momentarily before grimacing, snapping her neck as far forward as it would go.

“It takes a storm to put out a wildfire! Hold me back and you’re letting her get away!”

Rodan’s eye twitched at the back talk, hoping in the back of his mind he wasn’t ever this rowdy because if he ever were to remember himself being so he was about ready to bash himself over the skull. He keyed in on the accentuated word of choice the unicorn had spat out.

“So focused just on her now? What about all the other monsters we saw down there dead set on doing Tanaka knows what to your other mother?”

Rodan grumbled. At this point, though, Sunset Shimmer was too worked up on her own fury to be cowed.

“And you’re going to let her lead them right to their goal! And thanks to you getting us away, we have even further to track her down!”

She snapped, but instantly lost her demeanor when Rodan dropped her in an instant. Confusion snapped her out of her anger induced stupor, quickly rising and brushing herself off before looking up at the gryphon. At first, she glared, but it instantly changed to baffled curiosity with she saw the look Rodan was giving her as he loomed close. He wasn’t angry or peaceful, but more like some of the latter masquerading behind the former. He wasn’t one to linger on dark thoughts or stress. Every storm cloud blew over eventually. But something working through the gears inside his head caused a stark realization.

Back at the plateau where they first encountered the leader of the Nightmare Army, she arrived in an instant and withstood everything they had thrown at her. Something like that wouldn’t have been fooled by the quick diversion and escape Rodan pulled, at least not for long. And even when he started flying away, he sensed no pursuit. If there was she’d surely have found them by now.

The kaiju muttered in a quiet tone, mild shock evident in his eyes as this world just made even less sense than before.

“I didn’t get us away, she let us go…”

Chapter 4: Facade

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“Rodan, those things are monsters! You saw it for yourself and it goes double for their leaders! Especially for her!”

Princess Sunset Shimmer roared, hot tears stinging at her eyes even as she glared at Rodan. She was already in emotional freefall and shock after seeing Mircalla again, as well as stress from the last twelve hours not helping, but having her companion vouch for the vampiress in any regard was risking setting her off to combustion again. Steeling his breath, Rodan put his forepaws up and kept his tone low as he put them on Sunset’s shoulders.

“Princess, we couldn’t even scratch her. And given her strength, she’s probably that magic source you talked about earlier that’s holding that big dome on top of us up. If she’s that powerful, we couldn’t have gotten away even if we tried. She stopped when you recognized her, and I haven’t seen her come running after your fire display. You need to calm… down.”

He muttered, trying to keep them away from any flashpoint. Sunset Shimmer quivered and trembled, her mind still a firestorm of stress and fears.

“With so much at risk and so much loose in the word, who are you to say anything?! Why would someone like you know anything?!”

Rodan’s eyes twitched and his pupils dilated. After a few moments of shaking he sucked in a deep breath and avoided a possible issue. Instead he burst into a fit of laughter….one devoid of smile and joy.

“Aahahhhaaa! Laaady, you have. No. I-. -Dea!...”

He squawked, throwing his wings up into the air like they were his arms. For a moment he shot Sunset a ferocious glare that gave the princess pause. Rodan rolled his eyes off her and looked over in a way that hid his expression behind a wing he folded in front of himself.

“I was created as a one-of-a-kind creature in a time that’s long dead by now because an angry god decided it didn’t like the idea of living things. I close my eyes and wake up only to find dozens of thousands of years have gone by and I'm head-deep in a whole new conflict! And there still is the pressing matter of a rampaging deity stuck under an island going to be unstuck someday, which will be my problem eventually because I and others were literally born to stop an omnicidal god who’s going to rise again and put a cease to everything, and it’s up to idiots like me to stop it and that’s-!...”

Rodan shrugged, letting his limbs fall down and go slack, his demeanor drooping down into a sag. For the first time his typical optimism and confidence wavered.

“-terrifying actually. So go right on ahead Princess, insult me, berate me, call me any slur under your Ma's sun. Because Tanaka knows, I don't know what pressure feels like!....”

The gryphon snapped, his body briefly lighting up with sparks under his huffing breath that gradually wound down. Sunset Shimmer sniffled her nose, raising her hoof and gently brushing Rodan’s wing aside some to try and get a look at him. Rodan gripped her hoof and waited a moment, letting his breathing settle and growl-like clicking to die down. When the moment was up, the gryphon shrugged his shoulders and shook off his sag to pick himself up. He pulled his wing away and looked Princess Sunset Shimmer head-on.

“But... if you let yourself lose your head over such things; you’re gonna be chasing your own gales until you crash.”

Sunset Shimmer chewed her lip and tightened her chest. Her mind was still racing, but the usual veil of haughtiness had been fractured; both by recent events and some realizations about her new cohort.

-Okay… Maybe you’re not a total imbecile.-

Standing herself up, she wiped at her face to clear it and flicked her bangs back into place. Now looking like she had some level of proper appearance returned, she felt like she could sacrifice some pride.

“I, apologize for how I’ve acted… But, I will have my revenge, that much doesn’t change. There is still an army of monsters marching to who knows where about to put my world through what yours dealt with. Someone has to try and stop them.”

Rodan shrugged, nodding slowly while patting Sunset on the shoulder. On one claw he was glad to finally get some decency out of her, on the other claw they were back to this grim situation.

“I’m not letting this world go through what Terra did, or repeat its own past. I’ll do it.”

Rodan muttered, an air of determination and seriousness that had previously been foreign in his speech patterns had now covered it. Sunset Shimmer perked up her ears, raising an eyebrow. She looked at the tooth marks Rodan still bore on his collar, wounds from the Shadowbolt he’d fought.

“You hesitated to end one of them. What makes you think you can end an army?”

She muttered. Rodan snorted through his nostrils.

“Well, both so you don’t need to worry about it...and because I’d make it quick.”

“Don’t trust me, gryphon?”

“Even if you could hurt Mircalla, you tell me if I should trust you with that or not right now with your your mental state is.”

Sunset Shimmer ground her teeth some, taking in a deep breath to avoid going right back into shouting.

“And how... would you plan to be able to do it?”

“Told you before, this isn’t my normal body. My true form is hundreds of feet tall and probably that many times more powerful. I can change back, give them a standard kaiju treatment, and wipe them out.”

“You can’t destroy her like she is now by stepping on her! She was wearing Nightmare Moon’s armor and her magic felt the same, so she’s probably taken on Nightmare Moon’s traits.”

Sunset Shimmer scoffed. Rodan leaned in closer with a deadpan expression, seeing the Sunset Shimmer he’d known longer creeping back.

“Which meeeeans?”

“She can only be hurt by certain magic. Period.”

“Well unless you can say the same for her army or that said army somehow gets stronger by a hurricane walking over them, plan will still work at flattening a good number of the threat. Plus I can’t imagine it’d be too pleasant for her if she is still kicking after the heat rays and gale forces. Take out the threat, then Mircalla. If the dome comes down after all the mayhem, we can get to your mother and have her sort this out…. Deal?”

Sunset Shimmer puzzled before quietly closing her eyes and nodding her head.

“Okay. How do we do it?”

Rodan looked like he was about to say something, but both his thought and any sense of seriousness he’d had in his tone prior went out like the passing breeze.

“... Uuuuuuuh uuuuuuum.”

Sunset Shimmer’s brow lowered and her jaw flattened.

“Well?”

“Hang on, I’m trying to remember this. Not exactly done this before.”

Rodan mumbled, waving a paw as he put his other on his chin. Sunset Shimmer was more than a little exasperated.

“You’ve never done this before?!”

“Hey it’s only happened in my Equestria three times so far, give me a break!”

Rodan groaned. Sunset Shimmer’s twitched and she growled, about to charge up her magic when the proverbial lightbulb went off in Rodan’s head.

“Oh yeah, Princess Twilight and Lea went over it. Magic. You gotta hit me with a lot of magic, enough it’ll overclock the form I’m in now and allow it to go back to its true form. According to them, a lot of alicorn or unicorn magic can do it as well as an Element of Harmony. You got both and all you gotta do is hit me with magic!”

Sunset Shimmer narrowed her eyes, sparks of fire beginning to appear on her horn.

“With pleasure…”

She muttered lowly, causing Rodan to jolt up and honk her snout with his paw as he grasped it.

“No no no! Not like before or else I would have transformed! It’s gotta be good magic, happy magic. Like friendship, love, your element, and stuff like that!”

He barked. Sunset Shimmer sighed, canceling out the charging fire blast.

“So, spells born from positive emotions and thoughts?”

“Uh, yeah. Sounds about right.”

“... Fine. I’ll try, not exactly in the best mood right now.”

Sunset shrugged as her posture drooped from the plague upon her mind, earning a pat on the shoulder by Rodan. He flashed her a small smile, tilting her chin up with his wing.

“Hey, it’ll be okay. Just let me back up some.”

With that, Rodan turned and flapped his wings multiple times to try and clear enough space between himself and Sunset; lest his growing size and his true form slam into her. He saw Sunset collecting herself and her magic, steeling himself for what was to come. In truth he was still unwilling to try and kill Mircalla because he sensed something amiss with her. The other nightmare forces had attacked on sight and seemed almost non-sentient in terms of their homicidal natures. He saw how powerful she was and yet she let them go, which was more conscious choice than the Shadowbolts could say; those entities definitely did seem too dangerous to be left alive. His actual plan he hadn’t told Sunset of was to fly over and rain some beams and gale forces onto the army. Those who were crazy enough to attack him would be destroyed and those who had two braincells to rub together would probably be rooted at the sight of the over twenty five story flying death swooping down onto them.

As for Mircalla, he’d try to just disable her and have Celestia sort this thing out. The alicorn he’d known had influenced him more than he thought she may realize. Not in a million years would he have given Xenilla or Destroyah a chance when they arrived in Equestria, but she forced them to be given time. And time had surprised him in ways he couldn’t have dreamed. Rodan called himself an optimist, he was willing to give a chance for change and follow Princess Celestia’s example if he could.

Reason he didn’t feel like greeting Princess Sunset Shimmer with this information was simple. She was on way too much of a hair trigger to agree to this if she knew. Now backed up a good fifty meters away, he gave Sunset the nod to signal her that he was ready.

Sunset Shimmer sighed, praying she was making the right decision. This Rodan character had been more than an annoyance thus far, but he was competent. And if there was a chance to end this conflict now with the wrath of a giant, she was taking it. She embraced the happiest memories she had. The day she was adopted by her mother, the day Spike hatched, and her adventures in ponyville. But as if hit by a stray shot, her mind wandered to Rodan’s plan. While Sunset hoped dearly he could go through with the destruction of the monsters, somewhere in the back of her mind was the thought of Rodan killing Mircalla. Unbeknownst to either of them, she and Rodan wanted the same thing and Sunset didn’t want Mircalla to die at Rodan’s claws. Unlike the Guardian Beast however, Sunset Shimmer was dwelling on the thought with less than pleasant motives.

For years she’d had a plague upon her mind. The visage of a monster that haunted her nightmares and was the genesis of the fears she fought so hard to hide. Mircalla had caused her to break down, to humiliate herself in front of an ally, and she’d killed a mother Sunset never got to know. No, Sunset Shimmer didn’t want Rodan to kill her. She wanted to do it herself, to end the fears and move on.

Unfortunately for Sunset Shimmer, dark thoughts were viral. The moment she’d focused on Mircalla was the moment she flung into a downward spiral. Her mind was shrouded in darkness, filled with nothing but anger at the trial she’d found herself in, hatred for the nightmare army and all those represented, fear for the calamity such a group could cause in a populated area. Any good memories were bastardized or shoved aside. The growing magic bolt on her horn changed from fiery red to a macabre, sparking mass of black and green. Sunset Shimmer quivered and shook as the sphere of hateful, dark magic swelled and seemed to push back against her. Gales of sickening cold wind shot out in every direction from her and parts of Sunset Shimmer’s blood magic runes began to light up with the coloration of lights taking on dark magic tones.

Sunset Shimmer felt like she was being suffocated by the nightmare.

-No. No, it’s not real. I… I need to stop. I will stop. I just need to burn that witch and make it stop. She deserves it, but I have to think of something happy first… Her boiling carcass would do. No, stop being an idiot Shimmer. This is a nightmare. Wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP YOU BUCKING MORON OR THE SCALY CHICKEN’S GOING TO HAVE TO SAVE YOUR ASS! How are you going to live with yourself with that on your mind?... That’s not helping. Okay, think of butterflies… wait, I hate butterflies… Think of Spike… Okay, I really have to stop throwing him out of windows. DARN IT! WHY IS THIS SO HARD!-

Coherent thought started to become more and more muddled as her mind was consumed by hate and fire. Each second brought on more suffocation, drowning out any sort of resistance she might have had.

Rodan was wise to the fact something was very wrong, kicking off the ground and rushing to Sunset Shimmer while privy to the fact he was probably going to need to dodge any oncoming magic bolts as what he was seeing sure as Daiei didn’t look like good kinds of magic. Sunset Shimmer yelped before gritting her teeth and clenching up. After a time the dark magic’s wrath began to simmer down. In a monumental effort of self control, she constricted the sphere of hateful, negative magic and compressed it until there seemed to be nothing left. Her runes died down and her body sparked with energy, arcs of green and black jumping across her form before gradually dying down.

Rodan was almost to Sunset Shimmer when he saw her lifting her head up and stare, not at him but through him and into empty space. She was staring but she wasn’t looking at anything. Her eyes twitched and her jaw fidgeted into a curl, frustration, fear, and rage drowning her features as she fought hard against herself to not show any of it. The more she fought, the more the negative visions assaulted her and the more embarrassed she was at having a near breakdown in front of somepony.

“I- c-n’t!”

She croaked, gritting her teeth as salt stung her eyes. The sparks of dark magic crisscrossed her body once again, causing her to halfway gag on her own breath and convulse slightly from the shocks. Rodan’s eyes widened and though his first instinct was to get clear and away from the pony who was rapidly losing control, for reasons beyond him he found himself sprinting in the opposite direction of a retreat. Sunset Shimmer was still frozen in place, fighting tears as her body seemed to lock up against her will.

“C-n’t move!”

She gagged, wincing in pain from her own out of control powers as visions of Mircalla surrounded her. Rodan had gotten within ten meters of her when a sideways glint in the forest caught his hawk eyes. It was the same eerie black, green, and purple Sunset bore but the sphere of magic rocketing towards him wasn’t coming from the paralyzed mare. Time seemed to slow down around him as his perception sharpened. He saw several more magic blasts shooting towards him now, a good dozen in the first volley.

“OOooohh fuuu-”

Rodan kicked off the ground and flapped his wings in a manner to perform an airborne roll, weaving between the blasts. Time returned back to the norm, Rodan hitting the ground and rolling up to his feet, dragging his claws across the ground to anchor and turn himself around to face the attackers. They came out of the forest in a mob. A dozen revenant corpses brought to life by Apostle’s magic and enhanced by the duplicate Alicorn Amulets they each bore on their necks. The three species present all had been empowered in exaggerations of their normal racial prowess. Some were unicorns with overflowing amounts of magic that showed itself as light seeping out through their grayed skin and fur like cracks in a glass. Others were pegasi who managed to stay airborne on wings of dark magic that crackled like storm clouds, the air around them bustling with weather effects ranging from searing heat waves to killing frost. And the last group in their party were a quartet of earth ponies, some with unnatural muscle that seemed to burst from their frame and others causing the plant life beneath their hooves to twist, shrivel, or grow out of control with each step.

The one in the front, whom was an earth pony mare from the last group with a dead white mane and sickly gray bodycoat, pointed and shrieked at Rodan and Sunset Shimmer. Apparently the leader, she barked the orders.

“Take the unicorn hybrid, kill the gryphon! For the True Goddess!”

Rodan felt his face drain some, shooting up into the air. Like a plane flying through a warzone, he was quickly having to weave, roll, change direction, anything to dodge the unholy barrage of magic blasts shooting up past or exploding all around him. The unicorns who had died in the north mountains may or may not have been magically trained in life, but their bodies were possessed by the likes of rigorously drilled cultists and mages; amplified beyond normal measure by the alicorn amulets. Just one of them might have been a match for Sunset Shimmer herself in terms of raw power and Rodan was doing everything he could just to not get blasted out of the air as the explosions caused his ears to ring. It was the pegasi joining the fray that caused him to falter. Revived and controlled by fallen Shadowbolts, their enhancements completely removed the need for clouds to exude weather magic. One shot up behind Rodan and bucked him with his back hooves, impacting with a literal thunderbolt that caused the gryphon to yelp in pain. Knocked silly by the shocking impact, Rodan was unable to dodge the galeforce divebombs, an ice-covered tackle, or ripping howl of a blizzard that rendered his wings numb. Every time he threw or blasted one attacker off, another would rush in and hit him from another angle.

Rodan grabbed hold of one pegasus about to body slam him, grabbing at his jaws and firing a hasty plasma beam down their throat. The dark magic and high energy combusted upon each other when the beam struck his alicorn amulet, light shooting out of the walking corpses’ eyes and wounds before they violently exploded right in Rodan’s face. The world was sent spiraling, the kaiju having been knocked dizzy enough he couldn’t dodge a growth of vines spurred by the earth pony leader from snaring his leg and tail. At the moment he felt himself grabbed, all four of the unicorns fired upon him at once. The spheres of dark magic detonated against his hide, Rodan cried out in pain while being engulfed in smoke. The vines yanked the battered, smoking gryphon to the ground and soon they were all upon him at once.

Sunset Shimmer watched on helplessly as her ally was swarmed. She tried to move, she tried to fire some magic, she tried to call out; but she could do nothing. Reality and memory kept interfering with each other. The visage of Rodan trying to fight and then being turned into a pinball by the mob of monstrosities kept mixing with the outline of a vampiress’ face cloaked in moonlight, a fallen mare lying on the ground behind her. As a youngling, Mircalla looked like a giant when she killed Sunset’s mother. As an adult, seeing that same face wearing the armor and having the stature of a literal nightmare that had caused this world so much dread and horror brought back all that terror and multiplied it. She was both terrified and felt more murderous than she ever had before about the vampire, set on stopping her and her army. And that was all she could think of whether she wanted to or not.

It was the sound of Rodan screaming that cut through the fog that had choked her mind. Her eyes dilated and finally saw in full what was happening in front of her. He was still fighting all he could, but each time he slew one of the monsters they exploded in his face and left him wide open for the others. Shot out of the air, pummeled into the ground, bashed through a tree; he was taking a beating.

-They’re killing him….-

The thought echoed through Sunset Shimmer’s mind like a ripple of water in a still pool.

-They’re killing him a-and it’ll be my fault. He tried to help me and.. He’ll die because of it.-

She tried to force her legs to move to no avail. The crushing weight of dark magic had collapsed in on her body, its chains tying her down with the arcing sparks that crisscrossed her form. A heat beam shot out of the crowd, swinging around wildly. Several of the ponies shrieked muffled screams Sunset couldn’t hear in her diluted mental state, before hungrily diving back in to try and trample their prey to death. Princess Sunset Shimmer tried to lurch herself forward, this time managing to make a shaking step.

-No.-

She managed another step towards the crowd, the swirling visions that catapulted her fear and wrath constantly threatened to overwhelm her but she kept fighting them back with every force of will she had.

-No. No. No. NO. NO! BUCK NO!-

Sunset Shimmer loosed a primal roar, the blood magic runes across her body igniting with jets of dark flame. She charged forward, the ground beneath her hooves combusting and melting into trails of magma. She cast a single spell, teleporting herself directly on top of Rodan to shield him before she let it all out and opened the floodgates.

The resulting explosion of fire and dark magic was loud enough to shake the forest. A curtain of sparking magic, black energy, and flames of red and ebony expanded out in a condensed bubble with a preceding shockwave. The alicorn amulets on each of the bearers cracked, their magic beginning to fly free and flood their system like the first one Rodan had re-killed. With no actual lifeforce there was only a limited amount of magic for the amulet to draw in and amplify. The very same magic that was holding the corpses together, conscious, and keeping them mobile. They would have ground themselves to dust eventually, having a total lifespan of over twelve hours when they had put the amulets on. Mizu intended it that way, twelve hours to remove some mistakes.

Sunset Shimmer, in both her mass discharge of magic point blank as well as aggravating the strain Rodan had brought upon them, ended those mistakes in twelve seconds. The horde of revenants roared and shrieked into the evening sky, light erupting and engulfing their forms amongst the firestorm. Sunset Shimmer grabbed hold of Rodan and teleported them as far as she could take them, a quick glance in a random direction into the forest, and disappeared with him in a flash of light as both her own power and the eruptions of the amulet’s detonated.

Rodan’s consciousness was muddied, so he didn’t know how much time had passed from the point he saw that flash of light and now. Every time he opened a bruised eye the world kept spinning and he’d catch a glimpse of yellow and red.

Sunset Shimmer felt her chest crush in on itself when she saw how badly mangled the former kaiju had been. His enhanced durability was probably the one reason he wasn't killed outright yet, but that wasn't to say he wasn't on his way. She lifted up his bent forearm to check for a pulse and nearly recoiled when she saw a stain of red with the dull glow of mana cross her hooves. Swallowing the rock in her throat, she went back in and checked, spouting out angry demands for assurance as she tried to find consciousness.

He thought he heard a voice, but between his ringing ears and dizzied mind, he couldn’t tell what it was saying. It sounded like they were crying.

“D-n’t you bucking dare die -n me! I couldn’t move I-! I’m sorry I’m me, pl-e-ease get up!”

Rodan couldn’t hear her anymore, his eyes were beginning to close.

“No-no no no! Lo-ok at me! Look at me!”

Sunset Shimmer, eyes drowning with tears as she held his face up. She focused herself the best she could in this emotional rollercoaster. She formed a ball of light on her horn, praying she’d be quicker than his closing eyes.

He saw a spark of light through his half closed eyelid.

And then he was set on fire.

Sunset Shimmer cut the jet of flames off after a good five minutes of hosing the gryphon down. She’d swore, she’d cursed, she’d begged and prayed it work. When Rodan’s form was revealed beneath the flames, his body was lined with the same runes he’d become cloaked in during the fight he had with the unicorn princess. They gradually modulated their glow, steady like a heartbeat’s pulse. His wounds began to close and seal, the flesh growing back like paper burning away in reverse while the limbs snapped back into place. After a moment the glow died and Rodan’s eyes shot open. He lurched up, gasping for breath while Sunset Shimmer stood back. The two looked at each other.

Rodan still looked very fouled up, riddled with dry, black crusts of coagulated blood. Sunset Shimmer wasn’t much better. Her horn’s spiral was glowing like hot metal, even seemingly smoking in some spaces, she was panting hard and covered in sweat. Any air of regality, pride, or smugness she had before was gone, squashed under a sobbing face and quivering eyes. Rodan’s face curled slightly into an aching smile, chuckling lowly.

“Hehe, quite some magic. You sure you’re a normal pony?”

In response she lunged forward, burying her face into Rodan’s collar and clinging to his front. Through her muffled cries he could hear her saying “I’m sorry”, or something close to that, over and over again. Still sore all over and aching to move, Rodan took several moments to process what just happened and was happening, before gently wrapping his free arm and wings around her and resting his head atop of her’s.

“It’s okay Sunset.”

================
A Few Hours Later
================

Sunset Shimmer, no longer caring that Rodan dropped the “Princess” title, and Rodan were both beyond exhausted after the encounter with the revenants. While their time was limited, they both needed the rest, and electing to try and hide from any other patrols or forces whom may come after them, they’d climbed their way up into a heavily covered tree with wide limbs. Sunset didn’t even complain when, unable to levitate or teleport, she had to hang onto the gryphon as the latter clawed their way up the tree trunk. Half curled up in a hollowed out part and half across the neighboring thick tree branch, it didn’t take long for them to drift off.

After some rest however, something caused the sharper senses of Rodan to wake him up. Sometimes being made out of avian and pterosaur genes had its perks. He slowly raised his head and neck up, scanning the landscape around him. They were surrounded by a lot of foliage so he couldn’t see anything too well, but hearing and smell instantly put him on edge. He could just barely smell something, but its scent was incredibly faint and clashed with the heaviness of what he thought was something moving through the foliage below. It was slowly getting closer, circling the tree. Rodan felt his wings begin to raise up, his claws at the ready. He wasn’t back at one hundred percent, but he was making ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. That moment might have been fast approaching as he took notice of a dissonance in the sensory information. Not only was whatever it was too big to have such a tiny scent, but there was a slight echo to its sound; almost it had been suppressed for several seconds by the time he heard it.

Whatever it was out there, it was closer than he thought it was. Just as his eyes opened in realization, Rodan heard something directly beneath him and caught a faint; dead odor. He looked down at what had snuck up on them, finding himself looking back into a pair of eye shine. Heavily shrouded by an unnatural darkness, he could only see the outline of the figure past it’s reflective red, slitted pupil eyes; the jagged horn and hints of wings reminding him of Mothra’s equestrian form, a royal changeling if memory served right. And he saw what it had been in the process of doing before it was surprised by him noticing it. It had a hoof on Sunset Shimmer’s back leg and was going to pull her out of the tree. The changeling had frozen upon Rodan locking eyes with it, possibly even more so when the Guardian Beast of Air refused to be cowed and snarled at it. He puffed his chest up, dug one of his taloned hands into the tree while clutching the other around the still sleeping unicorn; and spread his wings to increase his apparent size. While he was fearful of making any noises for risk of attracting any nightmare forces whom may be in the area, and while this creature had a striking eeriness to it, his low hiss and glow emanating from his maw was a primal signal to the intruder.

Back off.

The changeling blinked her eyes a few times but didn’t take them off the pair otherwise. She then let go of Sunset’s leg, backing up into the shroud of the Everfree. With one last look at the pair, her eyes reflecting in the moonlight, the warden of the Everfree once called Fluttershy slipped off into her forest. Rodan stayed at attention for several long moments before relaxing, pulling Sunset Shimmer’s leg off the edge for good measure. He didn’t know what that thing was or why it was trying to pull Sunset out of the tree, but something told him he didn’t want to know.

-So much for the cute ponyland being all cutesy…-

He shifted, now not wanting to take any chances of getting snuck up on. Moving slowly and quietly as not to wake Sunset Shimmer up, he scooted them both inside the hollowed portion of the tree. It was a good deal more cramped and now they were right up against each other, but it would do.

Sunset Shimmer shifted in her sleep, and at first Rodan expected her to wake up and nag at him about their current positioning. True, she dropped the princess pompousness earlier but he was half wondering how long it’d stay that way. But if she did briefly become conscious again, she didn’t complain. Quite the contrary. Though Rodan couldn’t see it because of how they were oriented inside the hollow, Sunset Shimmer peaked out one of her eyes and saw their diminished space. Normally she’d rant about the dankness of the rotting wood, someone daring get right up next to her; or get stressed out over the nightmare crisis. Instead, the princess who normally hated getting touched pushed up against Rodan’s flank and torso, snuggling her head up against him while putting one of her forelimbs across his middle. Unorthodox yes, but the scales and heat reminded her of Spike and Celestia; and right now she just wanted the comfort. He was still a dolt, but he was a comfortable one.

Rodan tilted his head a bit in surprise, questioning if this was intentional or a case of accidental tossing and turning while sleeping. Eventually, he just shrugged and resigned himself to not caring. Putting his wings around the both of them as bit of extra protection, he let himself slump down and rest his neck and chin across her middle. For a world class priss, she had saved his life and seemed a lot nicer to him afterwards. Maybe he’d get to know the real Princess Sunset Shimmer after a night of using her as a soft pillow?

Chapter 5: Two Worlds' Finest

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Nightmare, formerly Countess, Mircalla was afraid. True, on some level the fear gnawing from the inside of her chest was for herself; but the vampiress had centuries to learn the limits of selfishness. Life grew boring when one only considered themselves after the first fifteen decades. Instead, she was fearing for those around her. Not a shred of care was cast for the fanatical unliving that made a majority of her forces. She’d loathed their very existence since Apostle desecrated their bodies and stuffed the souls of his lackeys into them. Instead, she was reminded of whom she fought for with every heartbeat her vampiric senses, heightened by the Nightmare force, could detect. The dire wolves who’d served her kind, a small contingent of vampires both from her own castle and others beyond, and a handful of sorcerers or soldiers who had fled the failed battle at Ponyville to join the other remnants. Some swore loyalty to her especially, others likely barely knew the last of the Nightmare Generals, but Mircalla had them all on the mind because of how scared she was for them. The hour of the plan for Canterlot was drawing close and she was on a train approaching the station with no brakes. Every second that ticked by as they closed in on the mountain felt like the weight of Nightmare Moon’s helmet compounded unto itself. She was a leader, as undesirable as that position was right now, and she was leading them all to uncertainty.

-If we succeed, Nightmare Moon is restored, thousands of Celestia-aligned dead in a matter of hours, Canterlot razed; and Princess Celestia out of the picture. And that means all of them, all the living around me, are now under the rule of Nightmare Moon; whom would be low on forces. Who else would she use as her new hoof soldiers? Probably raise and desecrate more dead as well…. Honor to her or not, all whom I reigned over as Countess would suffer under the mad alicorn.-

She winced, closing her eyes to try and force her mind to contemplate under the crushing weight of the starry blue metal helmet she bore.

-And if we fail, they all have their lives to be damned. Celestia’s loyalists would never forgive such an attack, they’d be hunted to the last soul regardless of Celestia’s wishes or not. Many of them, my subjects from the north, they don’t even want to be here. But if they leave, the fanatics and the raised dead would turn upon them like a horde of locusts. Then there is the matter of young Miss Shimmer and her companion…-

The enhanced vampiress let her mind puzzle and contemplate for hours. By the time she even reacted to the world around her, it was from her army coming to a stop. A mare poked her head into Mircalla’s tent.

“My lad- I mean, Nightmare’s Avatar. We have come to the cave.”

Mircalla stood up and studied her features. She knew this vampiress from the castle. She was the maid, Spotless. It took much nerve for Mircalla to not frown at how nervous and ill-suited the poor girl looked when clad in layers of dark plate armor. Nightmare Mircalla stood up and stepped out, walking past her aid and advanced to the front of the army. Her forces were pulled to the sides before a massive cave entrance, looking to and either bowing or cheering for their leader as she took the point at the cave mouth and turned around.

“Soldiers of the night, the precipice of our long march has come. Behold!-”

Mircalla, begging a small moment of levity for herself to play up some dramatics, partially turned and waved a hoof towards the cavern behind her. But even as she gave a rousing speech to the Nightmare Horde, her mind was plagued with the exact same implications played to the worst value.

“-The Canterlot Caverns! A dried cave system that stretches out from the Everfree and leads directly to the bottom of Canterlot mountain. This is its only entryway, an exit will be made at the climax of our plan.”

-A climax that will kill thousands and forever mar us. No chance at forgiveness.-

“Due to the entrance’s presence in the Everfree, none in the city or beyond it know of its existence.”

-They can’t hope to see us coming. It will be inevitable.-

“And once we reach below the base of the mountain, we will unleash this!”

She motioned to the large cart being hauled by teams of dire wolves, nodding to the warlocks attending it to rip the cover off. Exposed to sight, many in the horde whooped, roared, and screamed cheers once they saw the massive lunar insignia upon the large hunk of obsidian.

“A mana bomb, generously donated to our cause by our supplier. It contains enough compressed energy that upon activation, it will blast upwards with the force of a thousand tons of dynamite. More than enough to tear the mountain asunder, and with it-”

-And with it, any hope at a Nightmare Moon-free world.-

“-Canterlot!”

Mircalla grimaced at her own damnation, the roar of applause by hundreds of revenants and monstrosities. She couldn’t feel Mizu’s eyes or eye, she still wasn’t sure which, upon her; but if it was watching she was sure it’d be casting some equivalent to a grin.

“Forward! Those risen from the grave take point and advance, clear any Everfree beasts that might be hiding in the caverns. Search and destroy, search and destroy! I will join the efforts shortly, vampires and the un-risen, defend the mouth of the cave!”

Mircalla echoed a hollow vow as the risen parroted a hallowed one, the vampiress feeling weak just hearing it.

“For the True Goddess.”

The crowd of fanatical monsters raised their weapons and followed their command with unholy fervor, charging forth with a sickening declaration.

“FOR THE TRUE GODDESS!”

They rushed past her in the final leg of their crusade, blood thirsty and starving. Nightmare Mircalla stood by stoically as the hordes of revenants and shadows filed past her, thundering the ground. Her eyes only broke their forward gaze briefly to trail the carted mana bomb going past her. After a minute, the charge rumbled behind her and Mircalla looked upon those that remained. Her army looked so much smaller now. A dozen dire wolves, having been removed from their cart hitches by the shadows who replaced them. A pair of living warlocks, looking to their leader in confusion while some tried to take up points nearby as sentries to hold the cave entrance. There was triple the number of vampires, many of which were from Mircalla’s castle. She recognized those familiar to her. Spotless, the maid who nervously tested her helmet that barely fit her. Backsword, one of the few military-trained Mircalla had successfully turned trying to get between the others and any dangers in the Everfree that may attack from the flanks. Bismuth, a smith in normal life whom still looked awkward holding a war hammer and not his forging one. Many of her flight looked at Mircalla with expressions that read as easily as single-word signs.

They didn’t want to be here. They wanted to go home.

Nightmare Mircalla looked to her forces without motion before shrugging.

“Warlocks, step forward.”

The duo did as commanded, black robes with lunar symbols coming before the vampress. One warlock pulled off his hood. He was a younger stallion, Mircalla would gauge him at his early twenties and already showing signs of mutation from dark magic. His coat was diluting in color with dark blotches beginning to grow over it. One eye was stilted like Nightmare Moon’s and the other was caught at the halfway point. Nightmare Mircalla could almost pity the poor soul. The unicorn stallion glanced around briefly before daring to speak up.

“Avatar of the Night, why aren’t we guarding the cave or advancing with the troops? Should we not aid in bringing about the forever night?”

Mircalla’s horn lit up and a circle of magic appeared on the ground between the warlocks and herself. The symbols that lined the circle lit up and a swirling mass like a whirlpool of water appeared between them; making the circle resemble a spiraling mirror. For all the downsides, Mircalla did mentally add massively boosted magical power to the perks of putting on this accursed armor she couldn’t remove.

“Step forth. Your mission is of a particular one.”

The warlocks did as commanded and as soon as they did, there was a flash of light like a crack of lightning. In an instant the duo had vanished entirely, leaving a shocked and baffled pack of vampires and whining dire wolves in their wake.

====================

Rodan and Princess Sunset Shimmer thankfully slept into the morning free of incident after the former’s frightening run-in with Fluttershy. Refreshed from the rest they were quick to resume trailing the hoofprints and beaten paths the nightmarish army had taken as they had before. One thing that had changed from before however was the unicorn mare’s demeanor. Previously Rodan would have pegged her behavior of him somewhere between barely tolerating and perpetually angry. Truth be told had he been a kaiju of lesser patience or didn’t respect Princess Celestia enough to want to help her daughter, he wouldn’t have put up with it. Some other Guardian Beasts like Anguirus or Varan likely wouldn’t have. But that had changed since she rescued him from the enhanced revenants.

He expected her to wake up, see how close they’d gotten in their sleep, and shove the gryphon away with a haughty remark about personal space invasion; maybe peppered with an insult. Instead he woke up to a pressure around his middle, a hug, and her quietly asking,-

“Are you okay? Anything hurt?”

In the present, Sunset looked to Rodan when they reached a particularly large gap whose bridge had fallen down; likely demolished by the army to slow any tracking them down. The unicorn nodded to her companion and reached up, letting Rodan gently grab her around the middle and airlift the two of them across the gap without a word of protest. She even gave him a small smile after he landed and put her back down. Rodan beamed back, walking alongside the princess.

“Well, you seem… nicer.”

Sunset Shimmer sighed, lips puzzled briefly as her ears lowered.

“My earlier behavior nearly got the both of us killed. To be honest I’m surprised you stuck around.”

Rodan just shrugged his wings and waved a paw offhandedly.

“You had your reasons, stress most of all; and I had my reasons. Still, definitely enjoying this new you more. Can see the familial resemblance to your mother now, assuming she’s like the Celestia of the Equestria I ended up at.”

“Is she wise, strong, and treats everyone like she loves them?”

“When she’s not slamming them into a wall to get them to stop fighting, sounds about right. If this is the cut of a pony you really are, I could get used to it.”

Sunset Shimmer let herself sport a smile, face reddening slightly from both embarrassment and the compliment. The recollection of Rodan’s words however caused a stir in his companion.

-”Mother.” “Mother.” “Mother”.... “She killed my mother.”-

The unicorn’s drooped demeanor from her deep thought, as unusual for her as her previous signs of affection, wasn’t something that skipped her companion’s attention for long.

“Hey, Sunset.”

He grunted while gently nudging the unicorn with his wing. Sunset Shimmer snapped back to the present, shaking her head for a moment and looking back at the gryphon.

“Huh!?”

“You zoned out. What’s the thought you got cooking behind your horn?”

“... That vampiress.”

Rodan paused for a moment, the air of seriousness choking the conversation for a time before he dared resume it. With how Sunset was right now and the situation they were in, setting her off again was last thing he’d want on an agenda list.

“Oh… What about her?”

“Well, she killed my mother… So.”

“Soooo?”

Sunset Shimmer blinked a few times as she pursed and puzzled her lips, ears flopping up and down.

“... How did I get to the orphanage?”

“No one brought you there?”

Rodan chirped with a tilted head, causing Sunset to shake her own head in response.

“No. Tender Care, my caretaker until I was adopted, said I was dropped off. Knocks on the door, but nopony around.”

“Maybe some good samaritan found you and put you there?”

“Yes but, that means they’d have to have fought off Mircalla too.”

“Any chance Mircalla could have overlooked you? Were you even the target?”

“No, I don’t think she could have. I don’t remember words really, just noises of her and my mother talking. The only thing I recall clearly was her face… that face just- staring at me in the eyes. She'd targeted my mother for me.”

Rodan extended a wing and put it around the unicorn, earning a sigh and a gentle nudge in thanks.

“Well-”

The gryphon muttered, shrugging.

“-always could ask her once we find a way to beat her. If we take a big enough chunk out of her army we could buy time to get Princess Celestia’s attention. If we can’t beat Mircalla down to give her a talking to, she could.”

Sunset Shimmer went silent to think. On one side of her mind, the idea of filling in the biggest question mark in her life was beyond tantalizing; gnawing at the inside of her skull. She was content in life, with her family, her friends, her homes. But the question of why had lingered over her head like a dark cloud for over a decade. This part of Sunset Shimmer, the one that previously led to her mentally shutting down in fear; pestered for the truth.

Running contrary was the ravenous, enraged demon that sweltered inside her conscious. When she saw Nightmare Mircalla, she didn’t just see the current face of the dire threat at hand. What she was looking at now in her mind’s eye was literally the embodiment of everything Sunset Shimmer saw as wrong with the world, evil both old and new condensed to a singular form. This part of Sunset Shimmer was a roaring fire that flared up briefly, making demands.

How dare she even contemplate a scenario where Mircalla lived for a second more? It would be a sin to the world to permit that vampire bat, that unnatural beast any moment of life! Such was a stain to her birth mother’s memory and a threat to her actual mother’s existence. This part of Sunset Shimmer, the one that previously led to outbursts of rage, demanded revenge.

Princess Sunset Shimmer pulled Rodan’s wing off her after a long span of silent thought, struggling with herself. The stubborn gryphon’s presence in this whole ordeal turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Had she endured a mental civil war like this without an accomplice to help her stay anchored she’d probably have been bursting at the seams. Instead, Sunset Shimmer looked ahead with a stoic, if slightly troubled expression.

“I shall cross that road when we reach it. For now we need to deal with the army.”

“Well fortunately I have a plan for that.”

They kept walking for a time, keeping mind to watch their flanks to avoid ambushes, when they were stopped by a barrage of muffled, distant sounds. What exactly it was as they ducked into some shrubs for cover remained unknown until the barking and squeaking drew closer. In a sudden instant, a large flock of bats and multiple canines the size of large horses, dire wolves, sprinted down the trail the army had taken in the opposite direction before diverting off another fork in the road. Sunset Shimmer and Rodan didn’t emerge from the shrubs until the sounds of the beasts were but a memory. Glancing to one another to steel their nerves, they both cautiously paced back down the trail with magic and mana beams at the ready. They continued on for several minutes until they reached the point that darkness and the massive collage of hoofprints met. Rodan and Sunset stood before the mouth of the cave, stopping short of the curtain of darkness the cave mouth emitted. They checked their surroundings, making sure they were indeed alone. Aside from some shredded leather that looked like it had once been reins and a burned circle etched into the ground, there wasn’t a single sign the army had been through this spot aside from all the prints. Rodan hovered up above the cave mouth and took a whiff of the air to ensure there weren’t any hidden sentries, before powering down.

“Looks like it’s all clear. Those pooches look familiar to you?”

“Dire wolves-”

Sunset Shimmer muttered as she held up some of the torn leather, matching it from memory to the reigns the dire wolves had been wearing while they pulled some of the army’s equipment.

“-the same ones we saw earlier. And if I had to guess, those bats were probably vampires too.”

“The big one?”

Sunset Shimmer glanced at the hoofprints, seeing one particularly large track set in the middle. She put her own hoof in such a track, gauging how much larger the maker had to have been in comparison to herself. She shook her head as Rodan landed next to her.

“Not unless she headed into the cave, then immediately turned around. Probably was lesser vampires that came along with her. Looks like they and the dire wolves broke off the main body of the army.”

Rodan puzzled, glancing over the cavern before puffing a small fireball that sailed forward a short distance, lighting up the first ten meters of the cavern up before dissipating. Despite it looking like there were several good places to lay in wait for an ambush for anyone whom might be pursuing the army inside, there weren’t any signs of life inside the mouth of the cave just as it seemed for the outside of it.

“No one standing guard in there either. Any chance the vamps got cold feet, grabbed the wolves and ran for it?”

“Unlikely. Vampires can’t disobey the will of whomever sired them and that thing leading the army is clearly an ancient one if she was one of Nightmare Moon’s generals. Vampires can command some types of animals, wolves included. So the dire wolves weren’t deserting either.”

“So, how do we explain them leaving?”

Sunset Shimmer looked to the forest in the direction the vampire bats and wolves had gone, not having any answers.

====================
Several Minutes Earlier
====================

Mircalla’s horn flashed and in an instant, the warlocks standing in the magical circle disappeared from sight.

“W-What, what did you do to them?!”

Spotless beckoned, eyes wide with shock and confusion. Nightmare Mircalla merely looked to the dire wolves and shredded their reigns with precise telekinesis, freeing them of any bonds.

“They were too fanatical to convince to leave so I put them in Whitetail Woods. Where exactly I don’t know nor care, my teleportation wasn’t ever precise.”

The vampiress turned to her coven, nodding her head back in the direction they’d come from.

“Leave. This mission no longer concerns you. Return to the peaks and the castle, release the dire wolves in the northern forests once you’re out of the Everfree.”

Backsword stammered forward, the lance strapped to the soldier’s side lowering slightly.

“This is mutiny, treason to the Night Goddess!”

He bellowed, obvious fear showing through not only for speaking up against his countess but also fear of reprisal over what said countess was asking him and the others to do. Nightmare Mircalla let her eyes pierce him after she turned around and towered over him, putting his lance right up against her chestplate without a hint of fear and the same command ever present in her tone.

“It was treason to lead this army. Bring forth your blade now and state your loyalty or stay it and do likewise.”

Backsword flinched, gritting his fangs as his mind and the minds of all the other vampires raced to try and decide what to do. They were loyal to and loved their countess, yes; but desertion from the Nightmare Army spelled a fate worse than death. A threat of which was still extremely strong even after Nightmare Moon herself had been turned back into Luna and a vast majority of said army’s forces had been removed. Mircalla pressed her chestplate into the tip of Backsword’s lance without hesitation, eying both him and the other vampires whom looked amongst themselves with a mix of terror and distressed befuddlement.

“... I’m. Waiting.”

Backsword sucked in his breath and closed his eyes, tilting his lance to pull it away from Nightmare Mircalla before bowing down to the elder vampire.

“My loyalty is to my countess.”

The others followed suit, some of the meeker vampires practically throwing themselves to the ground as if to plead for forgiveness over the hesitation. None such was asked for. Mircalla tapped Backsword’s chin with her hoof, indicating him and the others to get up.

“Lead the others back to safety. Take care of them.”

Mircalla muttered, pulling her hoof away and quietly stepping into the cave with saddened stares from the vampires and whimpers from the dire wolves chasing her inside. Backsword whirled around, reaching out to the slowly fleeing vampiress.

“W-Where will you meet us? With your great power now Countess, I can’t imagine you not catching up!”

He belted, earning a momentary pause from Mircalla. She didn’t so much as glance back at them as she continued on into the dark veil, not letting them see the expression clad across her face. Her mind was lodged on the image of a yellow and red unicorn foal, swaddled in a blanket juxtaposed over the recent memory of the grown mare, Princess Sunset Shimmer.

-She’s out there and she’ll want revenge.-

The vampiress’ mind briefly flashed to the eldritch entity that had helped her start this avalanche she was about to meddle with. Mizu was something she didn’t understand and that scared her. But at the same time such was a sensation she’d grown tired of.

-I’ve had centuries to be scared. No more.-

She disappeared behind a bend in the cave, advancing to a fate she knew would lead to at least one of two possible ends she wasn’t eager to meet, with only her voice to pursue the vampires and dire wolves that left upon hearing it.

“... I’m not.”

======================

Sunset Shimmer and Rodan timed their quiet footsteps in perfect sync, minimizing as much sound as possible to keep their hearing acute to what they knew was ahead. Plan in mind and flashlight-like beam emitting from Sunset Shimmer’s horn, the Celestial princess and last of the Guardian Beasts steeled all nerve to press on through the blackness.

They began to hear the disgusting sounds, multiplicities of hoofsteps, the groans of those raised from the dead’s deceased joints, and the all too familiar eerie hum that a Shadows’ magical aura gave off as it held the black mass of dark magic together to form a solid shape. With each step it grew louder and soon they saw it. That horrid mass of limbs, abominations, glimmering eye shines; and the ugliness that was the Nightmare Army. The army had noticed them and worked to turn around. While the cavern they were all in was quite spacious, the huddled, enormous mass of the monsters meant only the back-most rows had heard the pair coming and were able to turn and face them. The multitudes in the front and middle hissed and shrieked noises no equine should have been able to make, trying to turn themselves around or charging into one of the side tunnels to attempt to find or dig a way around.

Rodan and Sunset Shimmer however, stood firm in each other’s presence; shoulder to shoulder while they faced down those that would give Canterlot oblivion. The ploy the pair had was simple. Kill or re-kill as many as they could. Failing that would lead to Plan B, but now wasn’t the time for that.

Unicorn and gryphon looked to one another as their bodies became alight with fiery energies that collected in their horn and throat respectively.

Now was the time for Plan A.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv3yMELLffQ&t

Much like they had when they fought each other, Rodan and Sunset Shimmer hosed the other down with burning mana and magic respectively. The colliding energies swelled and combined, forming a virtually miniature sun clad in their mixing colors. The nightmarish horde roared and backpedalled from their charge, blinded and in some cases burning from the sheer convection heat that was blackening the limestone surrounding the sphere. Sunset Shimmer and Rodan’s outlines were all that were visible through the inferno, levitating up into the air as shockwaves and audible, burning power poured out of the sphere of fiery magic.

The sphere flared out in a tremendous growth before dissipating, unleashing the heroic pair as they both flew towards the monsters. Rodan’s body was alight in runes the same color as his heat beam; the symbols belonging to a long-extinct language. They layered his wing membrane like an illustrated tapestry with a stylized omega symbol burning on his chest. Sunset Shimmer’s body was cloaked in a blazing aura, much brighter than before when she fought Rodan. The fiery veil was organized, controlled, and formed a pair of flaming wings while lengthening her horn; giving her aura the appearance of an alicorn. The unicorn’s eyes were engulfed in a white flame, zigzagging cracks of light forming across her face and limbs like magma showing through rock.

From Equestria, Chosen of the Elements, Royal by Merit, Sunset Shimmer.
From Terra, Guardian Beast of Air, Omega by Creation, Rodan

Some of the Worlds’ Finest charged the army of monsters without pause, burning into their ranks like a knife through water.

Shadowbolts all launched into the cavern’s high ceiling airspace in pursuit of Rodan after the gryphon plowed through a row of Shadows and combusted a revenant knight with his heat beam. In his normal state the teams of pegasi, many containing the souls belonging to Nightmare Moon’s past soldiers and some even being elite flyers, probably could have overtaken him and dogpiled their foe to try and tear him apart. In this state boosted by Sunset Shimmer’s fires however, they just couldn’t keep up. Even as they tore the air apart in high speed maneuvers, they couldn’t bear down on them. Rodan whirled around, spinning around on a dime with a U-turn and flying into a particularly large Shadowbolt. Dark Thunder was one of Nightmare Moon’s elite, slain in an ancient battle after bringing down a half dozen Canterlot Guards. Placed into the body of a mountain climber Mircalla had put out of their misery, the blood hungry cannibal was all too eager to run amok in Canterlot’s streets.

His filed teeth nor his lance tasted a bit of blood when the speeding Rodan’s burning talons grabbed him by the torso. Claws searing through dead flesh and the dark magic bonds holding it together, Dark Thunder was clotheslined into the back wall. It would be hard to tell if it was the crushed chest, shattered back, or the fact the heat instantly combusted the recently re-deceased corpse ablaze that sent Dark Thunder’s soul back to the nether and freed the mountain climber’s. Many of the Shadowbolts were briefly shocked at how quickly their lead had been dispatched, but many quickly bore down on Rodan while he had his back to them. One Shadow Bolt put forward their bladed hoofguards to try and impale the kaiju through the back. Rodan’s head snapped to the side, his glowing eye flashing with light. He moved with so much speed he seemed to vanish just before contact was made, a sonic boom splitting the air and blowing the Shadowbolt back. Another sonic crash called out, a glowing blur flew past another Shadowbolt and instantly sent their burning remains falling to the ground in two pieces. They tried to visually track their attacker, but couldn’t get any lead on him before another thundering shatter of the sound barrier decreed another re-death.

A horrific realization dawned upon the flying fanatics. As bloodthirsty, armored, armed, and crazed as they were; the fact Rodan was pulling off multiple sonic booms in only a dozen meters of flight space showed one clear fact. Rodan seemed to vanish and reappear in front of another of their rank, the sonic crash chasing him being enough to smash them through the cave ceiling. Rodan’s glowing eyes and runes flashed and he effortlessly dodged a burst of dark magic.

-You can’t touch me.-

Sunset Shimmer smashed her fiery wings in the ground to emit a burning shockwave that knocked several knights back. At her steps the cave floor rumbled and smoked, cracking and melting to emit geysers of lava. Amongst the burning air and stone, Sunset Shimmer held her horned head aloft and focused a beam of magic across her horn. The fiery pillar condensed and sharpened to a point, forming a massive sword of fire and magic. With a thundering scream she swung her head about, cleaving through swaths of Shadows that dared charge her, carving through at least fifteen in one swing. Some of her opponents sought to try and flank her. Materializing out of the shadows, wisps of darkness with clawed forelimbs called wraiths screeched through the air as they swung around Sunset and dove for her back. But before their haze-coated talons could rend flesh or magic alike, the hellish creatures of aether were given a brutal reminder. Heat can be transferred through any matter, even bare air. Sunset Shimmer stomped her hoof and snarled, causing a brief upheaval in the lava surrounding her. While the molten rock itself never touched the wraith, the sheer heat convecting into the air was too much for it.

Shrieking echoed cries, the wraith frantically tried to pull away but was too slow to remove itself in time to avoid being flash-fried by the roaring flames consuming it. Numerous others of the army, be they simple of mind like the automatronic Shadows or too slow to slow down like the Knights, found themselves in a similar predicament. Whether by sword or by the fantastic heat bubble coming off her Sunset Shimmer was searing her way through the platoon’s ranks. Some of the more rational of the army beheld the sight in awe. Princess Celestia’s daughter by choice was standing amongst lava and had fire hugging every part of her body. Blood magic or not, she was no pony. At least, not an ordinary one. Sunset Shimmer roared, lava and flames erupting all around her, causing her yellow and red coloration to blend with the burning wrath.

-I’m made of fire.-

Several warlocks in the ranks at the front of the army had managed to circle around and promptly opened fire on the unicorn and gryphon. Explosive blasts of dark magic flying every which way and bouncing off the cave walls truly gave the already chaotic scene the drum rhythm of war. But between Rodan’s insane speed, his sonic booms being the only herald before he seemed to vanish and reappear dozens of meters away, and Sunset Shimmer’s presence as a virtually walking volcano of fire magic and heat that caused some warlocks to panic-fire; Nightmare Moon’s resurrected mages were only scoring glancing blows at best while shooting their own army at worst. Some frantic shots burst the ceiling of the already tested cavern, opening up holes that dropped dozens of kilograms worth of stalactites and rock down upon the battle which were chased by beams of sunlight.

=======================

Deeper down the dark caverns, a loud crash from the battle echoed through the darkness. Standing by at the end of the cave, directly below Canterlot Mountain’s foot, Nightmare Mircalla watched on as eight warlocks magically lifted and set the mana bomb into place against the backwall. Several had been preparing a magical barrier to dampen the block-back once the device was to be set off, directing all its force upwards to cause as big a landslide as possible on the mountain to shake the city free of it’s foundations and send it crashing to the ground. When the undeniable sounds of conflict hummed past the fanatics’ ears however, their bloodlust soared.

“I know that sound! Magic flares!”

“Perhaps a Canterlot patrol did find us after all?”

Nightmare Mircalla’s eyes narrowed at the revenants, who clearly were itching for a killing. She knew full well who was causing the havoc behind them, she’d been counting on those two.

“I shall tend to the bomb, go and deal with this interruption.”

“Yes, Avatar of the Moon!”

They barked with unsmiling grins. The warlocks, in unison, began to turn and approach the caves behind them. Each were all too eager to join in to get their pound of flesh. One of them snickered, eyes contracting already in excitement.

“Ooohoh, I hope it’s a mar-Agk!”

They didn’t get to finish their words before their head was removed from their body by a magical blast. Swarms of bats roared out from behind them, each firing bursts of magic that shredded multiple warlocks like a storm of enchanted flechettes. The swarm condensed and piled together, reforming into the state of a gleaming-eyed Mircalla that pounced upon the shocked warlocks. The vampiress countess’ ferocity, speed, and raw power both physically and magically blitzed through three warlocks before they could even react or possibly process what just happened. The remainder had to see another one of their ranks bitten on the throat and torn to shreds before they could see through her resemblance to their goddess enough to try and fight back. Mircalla remembered each body as she put it back to rest.

A lost soldier whom traveled north to pass in peace alone in the mountains three hundred years ago. She held him after his eyes closed to grant him the wish then. She freed his body by tearing it in two and vaporizing it now.

An explorer wanting to be the first to a blank spot on the map four hundred years ago. She’d given them a swifter end than the frostbite or broken leg would have then. Mircalla liberated her body by blowing it apart with a magic blast directed through a bite to the back of the neck.

The same mountaineer she’d given a swift end to not even a year prior. At the time she almost hoped they’d be one of the extreme rarity whom she successfully turned to join her coven, as it had been some years since they expanded the family. Now, the best she could do is hope their body and soul stay at peace while she smashed it through a cave wall until it was dust.

In under twenty seconds, an eternity in Mircalla’s mentalscape, she’d re-killed every warlock in the chamber with only a hole in the roof, dents in the cavern walls, and scattered rubble to show for it. The vampiress snorted, brushing some debris dust off herself before turning to the mana bomb. The sounds of Rodan and Sunset’s battle, the clashing of blades, screeches of confused revenants; and roar of flames echoed across the back of the cavern. Nightmare Mircalla stoically looked upon that fiendish mass of mana charged obsidian. The power, while foreign to her, was so very evident. It made her feel cold just looking at it.

-This is it.-

Mircalla sighed, closing her eyes to collect herself. Her thoughts lay upon the many, both those recently seen, such as her coven she hoped managed to keep heading north, those she’d never seen, such as the surely bustling streets of Canterlot whom went about their business blissfully unaware; and those not seen for years. Such was the memory of a unicorn mare she’d chased all the way to Canterlot’s streets; Sunset Shimmer’s mother. Her thoughts became poised and her body tensed. The vampire held her head high as her horn flashed and sparked. A beam of energy shot out several meters before halting, growing and condensing into a blackened blade of light with a constantly serrated, saw-like aura.

-Time to do something right for once. It’s over.-

Swallowing back the same fear of death that had been a plague upon her body for centuries, Mircalla swung her blade at the bomb to damage it enough to keep it from being activated.

Her blade was stopped cold despite the shriek of the aura saw, and a blizzard of chills flashed over Mircalla’s body. She opened her eyes and witnessed the last thing she wanted to see.

That thing. That eldritch unknown, it was back. Mizu stood before her, partially emerged out of a puddle of cave water reflecting the sunlight trickling through the hole in the ceiling. Several tendrils held her magical weapon in a deadlock, despite the showers of sparks coming off of it holding onto a live saw. It looked at her with the same unblinking eye or eyes, she still couldn’t discern which it was. It had looked upon the slain warlocks and witnessed Mircalla’s attack while halting it. Mizu snatched the empowered vampire forward before hurling her back. Nightmare Mircalla spread her wings and flapped twice to break her momentum, digging her sparking hoofguards into the cave floor as she slid back. Mizu crawled and slithered free of the reflection it had arrived through, guarding the mana bomb like a classical dragon would its treasure as it curled its sea-serpentine form around it.

It demanded to know what she had just done. Mircalla narrowed her eyes and hissed.

“Not enough!”

She barked before charging forward as a cloud of bats.

=============================

Rodan and Sunset Shimmer were tearing into the confused army’s ranks like tigers through sheep. But as voracious as they were in tearing through the hellish hordes surrounding them, it was like trying to carve a path through an ocean. Every swipe, stomp, searing beam, wing slash, and burst of flame was met with two more demons replacing each sent into the nether. While their defenses were holding thanks to Sunset Shimmer’s shields and heat along with Rodan’s extreme speed and agility, they were beginning to be surrounded.

Fire roared and stone cracked as Sunset Shimmer engulfed a warlock in a fireball that smashed through a stony pillar. The cave rumbled and groaned, cracks chasing up across the walls and ceiling. She was about to aim and fire at several Shadows charging her from the left flank, but was forced to extend a hoof and wall of heat to her right to block the crackling torrent of dark magic lightning coming out of two other abominations of ponies’ horns. Fire and electricity clashed, shoving one another back and forth with the latter gaining a few inches of ground when a half dozen Shadows charged and rammed into Sunset Shimmer’s left magic barrier. The intense heat fried two of them on impact, but the kinetic force transferred through. The unicorn mare grit her teeth and snarled, throwing her head and glowing horn to the left and sending out a shockwave illuminated by flame across the ground. The Shadows not flash-fried by the fire were soon marred by the gushes of magma burning up from the cracked and superheated ground. The distraction afforded the warlocks she was magically dueling a bit of leverage and they began to shove their magical lightning back into Sunset Shimmer, shoving back on her heat barrier. Feeling her hooves scrape and slide across the stony ground, relief greeted the pony princess when a purple and red blur shot out of a sonic boom from the ceiling and smashed into the warlocks.

When Rodan rose up from his ground-pound, the only thing left of the warlocks was a few seared cloths and a charge-coated, dusty crater. The cavern shook and rumbled with the charging of dozens of hooves, a living tidal wave of Shadows, Knights, Wraiths, and surviving Shadowbolts descended upon the illuminated duo. Perception of time slowed to milliseconds as Rodan and Sunset looked towards one another. They looked down at Sunset Shimmer’s hooves, seeing the lava broiling beneath her and destabilizing the cracking ground. They looked up to the rattling cave ceiling, chunks of rock already in mid-fall with their breaking away revealing sunbeams shining down from above. Finally their eyes trailed to the cracked stone pillar going between the cave roof and floor, before locking onto each other with a determined glare. As shadowbolts finally closed in on him, Rodan tensed his muscles and spread his wings with a bright glow encircling them and energy crackling along the omega symbol on his chest. While a whole herd of Shadows converged on Sunset Shimmer, the unicorn’s wings of fire slapped onto the ground and the magma built up under her hooves while she braced herself.

In the span of a single second, it all came into play.

Rodan burst forth from his position, going from stationary to top speed in a fleeting moment’s span. He snatched up Sunset Shimmer as little more than a blur of light just as the unicorn stomped her hooves and spread several glowing cracks in the ground up a nearby wall. They moved in unison, Rodan holding onto Sunset Shimmer and giving her all of his unmatched speed and momentum while Sunset Shimmer used the boost to magnify her field of burning magic that surrounded them. They zoomed across the room, jumping to each wall, each stony pillar, and leaving it a luminous, red hot mass with stress fractures tearing their way through them. Artificial lava oozed out of the tears in the walls and dripped down from the ceiling. Landing back in the center of the chamber, twin suns formed on the tips of Sunset Shimmer’s and Rodan’s wings, traveling up their bodies and into burning horns and beaks respectively. Rodan fired an enormous ray of plasma as Sunset Shimmer loosed a torrent of lava across the ground in a line directed by her horn. With the gryphon still holding onto the pony and beating his wings, they raked their blasts across the entire 360 degree span of the chamber before suddenly cutting off their attacks and Rodan shot them upwards and through a hole in the ceiling.

The cave walls groaned and cracked, rattling the army to their core as some tried to figure out what just happened. It was a folly of fanatics that unchecked devotion stifled creativity. Had they thought up a more complex strategy than sudden mob attack or attempted to stop the princess’ and kaiju’s gambit, their overwhelming numbers probably would have won in the end. But when the cave walls split open to rivers of lava and the ceiling came crashing down, all their numbers did was make it impossible for them to get out of the way. Not even the shadowbolts with all their speed or agility could avoid their fate, being smacked down by the tumbling roof and hurled into the same lava that instantly consumed their compatriots. The last call of the Nightmare Army was the shriek of a wraith, convection heat from the lava burning it to ashes that fell upon a lunar clad helmet just before the armor sunk into the molten rock with a bubble.

Sunset Shimmer and Rodan stayed in the air high above the collapsed cave, panting for breath as their glowing markings and power-up faded. Still, tired as they were, Rodan didn’t dare let go of the unicorn he held by her middle and Sunset Shimmer didn’t take her eyes off the collapsed cave. She kept an eye out for stragglers for several long minutes, until the smoke stopped billowing out from the rubble and the outer shell of the lava solidified to charred black stone.

“Well,”

Rodan mumbled, seeing a charred lance sticking out of the hardening lava reduced to little more than a heat bent husk with a charcoal handle.

“-that takes care of them.”

“No.”

Sunset Shimmer grunted, tapping Rodan’s paw before motioning downwards to tell him to land. They did so at the new mouth of the cave, the scattered darkness collecting at the one remaining deep tunnel that lead directly beneath the distant form of Canterlot Mountain. Standing before the shadows, they both could hear the distant sounds of movements and shakes; which either sounded like someone moving something heavy or the rings of battle. Sunset Shimmer briefly regarded the site of all the slain Nightmare Army, knowing full well whom she didn’t sense in their ranks. Despite her tiredness, conviction and vengeance seared through the unicorn’s mind and poured from her glaring eyes as she advanced stoically back into the cave to see it through to the end.

“She is still alive…”

Rodan dutifully followed along, but not without some apprehension clawing at the back of his skull.

====================

Flashes of magic and bursts of mana rang out with fantastic flashes, like a barrage of airburst rounds going off in an enclosed space. Rays of dark blue hexes tore the cave walls apart and blasted potholes into the stony floor, starved for the shadowy body of their prey. But while Mircalla’s already impressive power as a gift spellcaster and vampire countess had been multiplied by Nightmare Moon’s armor, all the magical force in the realms was naught for success if she couldn’t hit what she was aiming for. Landing a solid strike onto Mizu was harder than trying to slice the ocean apart with a sword. Mircalla’s magic blasts were like fists hitting an oncoming wave, Mizu would just curl, slither, and dodge around them. When she finally seemed to have forced the hellish thing to swim to a corner, it would merely swim into a reflective surface such as pools of water or the slick stone surface and reappear in a completely different place.

Mizu dodged another barrage, swimming into the rippling surface tension that flooded across a previously re-slain knight’s backplate. It reappeared behind and below Mircalla, the tell tale blizzard of cold numbing her legs and stomach being the only warning she got to jump away from the pool of black ichors that had spilled across the floor from a revenant’s corpse. Mizu came rushing out of the fluid in a high speed blur with the patch or eye upon it’s forehead glowing brightly. The Aspect of Water’s jaw seemed to open as it threw its leopard seal-like neck back in a silent shriek that dug into Mircalla’s mind and seemed to rattle the cave. Her vision blurred and swirled, only focusing enough out of sheer force of will to warn her about the starry gleam coming from Mizu’s forehead. But unexpectedly, the primordial force changed its course. Arching around, Mizu dove back into the reflection and disappeared from view.

Nightmare Mircalla spread her bat-like wings and slowly turned herself around, trying to both sense any temperature change or glimpse any movement around her in the reflections to get a clue where the creature would emerge from next.

“Show yourself!”

She roared but earned no sight of her foe. What she did get was the cold deluge coursing into her mind. She sneered, eyes narrowed while she continued to turn around in circles and attempted to keep her back from being exposed to any reflective surfaces. The only sound in the cavern was the dripping of falling water, but the only thing Mircalla could hear was Mizu’s voice. She briefly glanced at the mana bomb in response, trying to craft her words in a manner that might betray her opponent’s presence.

“It’s too late. The warlocks are all gone, nopony can activate your bomb. Princess Celestia is out of your reach.”

She involuntarily peeked at her own reflection in response to what it said next, hardly recognizing herself with the new dark coloration, enlarged stature, and blue armor. Hushing a frown and her own reaction to the saddening sight, the vampiress instead flapped her wings with anticipation and resuming circling.

“I don’t care if I can’t remove the armor! I won’t live long enough to enjoy it being off. Your end will come on the fires of another.”

It was Mizu suddenly falling quiet that caused Mircalla’s eyes to widen. She finally glimpsed it, that horrid chimera of sea life that swam across a puddle’s surface leading back out of the cavern. The sounds of the battle beyond had died off several minutes prior and the lack of fanatics coming up to parade a corpse before her told her all she needed to know about who won. She even afforded herself a slight measure of amusement in the fact Sunset Shimmer and her companion were so powerful or cunning, saved her the trouble. If she were a betting mare like she was before the change, Mircalla had gambled that Sunset and the gryphon were on their way to them from the south tunnel.

The same tunnel Mizu was swimming down.

For the faintest moment, the ancient vampiress’ heart stung and she was forced to look back in her own reflection. If she, probably the most powerful being in the Everfree with enhanced senses in the dark still couldn’t hit Mizu, a battle weary pair of interlopers stuck in a dark cave hadn’t a chance either.

But something else welled up in Mircalla as she frantically stood frozen and staring off into the tunnel and her own reflection, something that stirred when she saw the pulsing glow of the mana bomb behind her reflection. She turned around, looking at the mass of obsidian and then at the beams of light streaming through the ceiling. The two entities were the sole source of light in the otherwise pitch black cave, all the reflections showed it.

Nightmare Mircalla narrowed her eyes and walked forward. She focused, channeling magic along her lengthened horn. Soon the spirals lit up across it’s length as they were flooded with dark light, condensing into a serrated aura that lengthened into a blade.

“Big mistake!”

She snapped as she took a swing. Having her eyes closed when she swung, a smirk grew over the vampiress’s fanged maw when she felt an ungodly cold numb her chest and some strong force stop her swing cold. She opened them and leered at the cause. Mizu had come racing back and was half emerged from her chestplate, wrapping several fins and tentacles around her magical sword to force it back. The Aspect of Water looked upon the empowered vampire unicorn in a manner she knew its alien face was glaring. The glowing patch on its forehead burned with light and fired a torrent of wrathful mana that Mircalla dodged by dividing up into a swarm of bats. Mizu, forced out of the now nonexistent reflection, slid across the floor and leered up at its puppet turned enemy as she reformed in the air above the cave floor.

“Now that I have your attention!”

Mircalla crossed her hooves before her and condensed her wings inwards. Throwing out all of her limbs, the vampire quickly became condensed with a dark shroud of mist that spewed out of her. Typically the mist generation, an ability few recalled the race having, was used to isolate a target and disorient them. But with Mircalla’s boosted power and centuries of experience, the countess was able to direct the mist flow to completely cloak the entirety of the chamber. The impenetrable fog choked out the light coming down through the hole in the ceiling and strangled the glow coming off the mana bomb. Not even the slight light coming off of Mizu itself was spared and to any soul whom lacked the ability to magically perceive things through the fog like Mircalla or possessed some variety of extra sensory perception like Mizu, the entirety of the cavern was now cloaked in a complete blackout.

However it wasn’t the darkness that Mircalla was hoping to use to gain an advantage over Mizu, as the fact it kept itself trained upon her made it clear it still could see exactly where she was. Rather it was the smothering of all light sources. No light meant no reflections, a fact showed by Mizu’s trying and failing at diving into a pool of water when the vampiress dive bombed and tackled the Aspect. Nightmare Mircalla and Mizu struggled, smashing through a small stalagmite in a shower of rubble. Mircalla grimaced through the wrestling, focusing her sight and magic beneath her. A runed circle, just like the one she’d opened at the mouth of the cave, appeared beneath the vampiress as Mizu coiled its body around her and ensnared her wings, limbs, and horn with its fins and tendrils. The magical circle lit up and the space inside it began to swirl, Mircalla’s hooves starting to sink into it. Mizu’s eyes widened and it released its stranglehold on the vampire, not knowing what she was doing but being savvy to the fact she must have had a plan. It tried to rush into a now illuminated and thus reflective pool of water before them, but Mircalla wasn’t having any of it.

Almost any other being who bit into and yanked the Aspect back probably would have died from the shock of magic and blistering cold Mizu gave off in retaliation. But empowered with the might of Nightmare Moon by this same entity, Mircalla wasn’t like most other beings. Nightmare Mircalla threw the Aspect backwards and downwards as she exploded into a swarm of bats that flew away. With no other soul standing in the teleportation circle, Mizu alone disappeared in a flash of light; flung hundreds of kilometers away. The bats condensed again and reformed into Mircalla, whom collapsed onto a knee and panted harsh breaths.

Exhausted, spent, and sore, the vampiress grimaced as she staggered to her hooves with one leg obviously broken. Mircalla swallowed her weakness and pain, looking to the still looming mana bomb as the mists around it began to dissipate. The saw-like sword of magic returned to her horn as she staggered up to it.

=============================

Rodan and Princess Sunset Shimmer stopped their sprint when they reached a dead-end chamber at the end of the cave, illuminated by a sunbeam coming through a hole in the ceiling. It took only a cursory glance for the two to tell that the chamber had seen plenty of conflict. Newly re-deceased warlocks lay scattered around the room, some dispatched in a rather graphic fashion. The cave walls and floor were littered with potholes and impact depressions. And at the end of the chamber stood a massive structure made of obsidian, one which stunk of dark power despite the enormous gash carved into the front that was causing it to leak away its energy. And sitting in the middle of the chamber, directly behind the sunbeam, sat the same black juggernaut they had encountered before. Only now, with her back to them, her head hanging slow in a slouching manner that diminished her otherwise great height; Nightmare Mircalla had no semblance of regality or power.

Sunset Shimmer’s eyes virtually ignited and she started to stammer forward, only for Rodan to put an arm out in front of her. She barked no retort, only looking at the gryphon with a confused glare. The kaiju glanced at the warlock corpses and defused mana bomb, Sunset Shimmer briefly following his focus before seeing him mouth the words, “Something’s not right,”.

Almost as if she could see the two’s actions despite having her back turned, Mircalla vindicated Rodan’s confusion. She spoke quietly, devoid of command or power..

“The Nightmare Army is gone, the bomb to wipe out Canterlot is beyond repair…. I didn’t want any of this… Not now, not when Apostle asked me to lead the attack, not twenty years ago in Canterlot.”

That last word caused Sunset Shimmer’s ears to flick up straight and snap her head around to face the vampiress, whom made no effort to move herself. She only continued.

“My name, is Mircalla. I became a vampire long ago… I was mountain climbing when I got caught in a snow storm. Luna found me and offered me life, and power. She didn’t look it then, but she had already become Nightmare Moon. I could practically smell the evil coming off her. I was… so, so arrogant back then. I accepted immediately…. I’ve had centuries to realize my mistake.”

Rodan snorted, keeping himself at the ready just in case. Curiosity and caution often went hand in hand.

“What happened. Twenty years ago you murdered her mother. What happened?”

Despite the gryphon being the one to address her, Mircalla spoke only to the mare glaring at her.

“Two decades ago, the other generals were questioning me; thought I wasn’t dedicated enough. Apostle found out about a magical prodigy born and he thought me getting her for rearing as a warlock would help smooth things out. He was the closest thing I had to friend amongst the other generals... I told your mother I wouldn’t hurt you, and I didn’t want to hurt her. I just needed to take you and I'd leave. But she kept fighting me so I had to restrain her. A vampire’s glare can lock many souls in place, stop them cold. It also affects memory so I intended to just take you without harm and cause her to forget.”

The vivid memories played before Mircalla’s eyes in such detail she could swear it was yesterday. She had the infant, now named Sunset Shimmer, in her hooves when she took her from her frozen mother. She’d begun to walk off, intending to fly away to safety with the child just in case any passersby came across them. But there came a fantastic, heart wrenching scream behind her. Like shattering glass, the glaring hex broke away from the frantic mother and she barreled forward before a shocked Mircalla could react; tackling the vampiress.

“She surprised me when she broke free to get you back. We struggled and fell. We saved you from the fall, but she didn’t break free without consequence…”

Twenty years ago Mircalla stood in a dark street in Canterlot, still stunned at what she’d seen. Her vertigo from the impact had settled, allowing her to see what lay before her. The mother unicorn was trembling, her lower half practically convulsing as she clutched her crying infant close to her. Her gasps for breath was raspy and rapidly growing weaker. Forgetting the conflict, Mircalla came upon her, rolling the mother onto her back and already feeling the mare’s body had grown slightly colder. Something was very wrong with her heartbeat. The mother looked up at the vampiress with trembling, crying eyes. The former’s mouth quivered to form words.

“The exhausting chase, the glare hex, and then the fright she got when I picked you up; it was too much for her heart to take. She looked at me and said, ‘You don’t need to,’...”

In the past Mircalla frantically worked to try and revive and rouse the mare. Nothing was working.

In the present a solitary droplet of liquid made an echo across the chamber, Rodan looking on solemnly as he knew who the tear came from. Sunset Shimmer trembled, her face unreadable as she slowly walked up behind the vampiress, stopping in the glow of the sunbeam behind Mircalla. The unicorn glanced to the side when she noticed a gleam beside her antagonist. An unsheathed, silver lined sabre. The most effective weapon at dispatching numerous unholy entities, including vampires. Mircalla had been keeping it in her lockchest for centuries.

Mircalla continued to whisper even as Sunset Shimmer’s magical aura gripped the sword.

“Sometimes, I wonder if she somehow knew I wasn’t doing it all willingly. I just wanted to protect my coven.”

Mircalla could remember the sight vividly. The death stare stenciled onto the mother’s face as the hoof a horrified Mircalla was holding fell away from her and flopped to the ground. Unable to sense a heartbeat any longer, the only noise left in the Canterlot street was the slow wind and the cries of an orphaned infant which it carried.

Back in the present, Rodan saw Sunset lift the sword as another realization dawned upon him. While he made no effort to rush forward and sway the unicorn’s blade, this was her ordeal and he had to trust her in the end, he knew what he said would stop the unicorn colder than anything he could do.

“Sunset, you say that someone dropped you off at the orphanage where Celestia eventually found you? If she could do all this without anyone noticing, then there’s no one else who could have done it…"

He motioned toward Mircalla.

"Because she's the one who did it.”

Sunset Shimmer froze in place, eyes wide and her mind burning. She started to tremble when she saw Mircalla slowly nod. The vampiress remembered it all vividly, gathering up the crying infant and making her way through the streets. Trying to and eventually getting her to the orphanage. Tender Care only heard her knocking at the door, she didn't think to look up to see the swarm of bats hanging off her roof keeping watch over Sunset Shimmer until she was in good hooves.

“Your mother wanted to take you near Celestia to keep you safe. Safe from monsters like me… I suppose, she got her wish in the end. I dropped you off, made sure somepony took you in.”

The entire chamber remained still for a full minute, Sunset Shimmer holding up the silver sword with the tip aimed at Mircalla’s back where the vampiress’ heart was. The only sound came from Mircalla’s cold tears and Sunset’s trembling. The vampiress finally moved, not away from the sword, but towards it. She pressed her back to the blade’s tip, which spurred a small stream of smoke on contact.

Despite being in agony, Mircalla’s voice remained quiet and somber.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me, I just wanted you to know how much your mother must have loved you… I did a terrible thing to you, one of many terrible things I’ve done and it’s the one I can’t make up for. I just want it to be the last…”

Sunset Shimmer closed her eyes and breathed in, stilling her trembling… Before she shouted out, swinging the sword down and burying it into the floor beside Mircalla. Just as the confused vampiress turned around, Sunset Shimmer’s body became alight with the same volcanic pattern that engulfed her earlier. An eruption of emotions controlling and fueling her power, Sunset Shimmer whipped her head backwards and then forwards to engulf the vampiress in a massive beam of light.

But it wasn’t a burning wrath like she had loosed upon the revenants, nor was it even the fiery concussive blasts she had fought Rodan with. Rather, it was a beam of pure white light that seared away dark magic and liberated bonds; one of the holiest spells Princess Celestia had ever taught her.

When the beam and Sunset’s powered-up state dissipated after ten seconds of firing, Nightmare Moon’s helmet flopped to the ground, followed by the breastplate and hoofguards. A panting Sunset Shimmer and now normalized vampiress stood apart from one another. An agasp Mircalla looked at her hooves, now finally seeing her own fur and body rather than a dark echo. She looked at the unicorn princess at a total loss for words.

Sunset Shimmer only caught her breath, surged forward, and wrapped her hooves around Mircalla’s middle while burying her head into the taller mare’s neck. Years of repressed hatred sloughed off like grime washed off by a downpour of rain.

“... I forgive you.”

The vampiress took a full minute to snap from her stupor, slowly looking down at Sunset Shimmer with a heartbroken expression stitched to her face. Rodan watched on as he slowly walked up closer, keeping a short distance to let them have some privacy. Selfless pride caused him to beam at Sunset Shimmer, the unicorn whom he previously had known as volcanically quick to the trigger. Now, he couldn’t see anything less than the daughter of two great mares before him.

Mircalla closed her eyes and quietly embraced Sunset Shimmer, letting her tears roll down the smaller mare’s mane. After a time the vampiress broke away into a swarm of bats and flew past Sunset and Rodan, having laid down her literal and metaphorical sword as the last general of Nightmare Moon. The war of the sun and the moon was at last, over; the ambitions of both the Dark Alicorn and the God of Extinction made folly by three lives and a single act of forgiveness. Rodan quietly walked up to Sunset Shimmer after Mircalla departed, a large smile on his face that Sunset didn't even need to see to know it was there.

"You didn't try to stop me..."

She whispered, peaking at him out of the corner of her eye.

"Figured this was something you had to do yourself."

Rodan placed a paw upon her shoulder and a wing across her back. He beamed at her and nodded.

“I think your mother… mothers, would be proud of you. I sure am”

Princess Sunset Shimmer wiped her face free of a tear before subtly smiling back and holding her friend as he flew them out through the skylight.

======================

At the mouth of the cavern, the swarm of bats condensed back to reform Countess Mircalla. The vampiress stoically looked ahead into the distant sun, ignoring the intense discomfort being out in direct sunlight was giving her. She held Nightmare Moon’s helmet under her hoof and remained where she was after sensing a sheer cold settle in from the area. In hindsight, she’d be impressed something could move all the way from Appleloosa to the foothills of Canterlot in such a short time. In the current time however she simply held firm and narrowed her eyes at the dark mass that crawled out of a pool of black ichors still draining from a fallen Shadowbolt.

Mizu and Mircalla stared each other down, the latter showing no intimidation even though it took a paltry guess that without Nightmare Moon’s powers she was no match for the Aspect of Water now. Instead she held her ground and glared at the eldritch entity that stood before the remains of the army she once so hated leading. For her, it was as if Mircalla was staring down everything she loathed in the world; an image completed when she dropped Nightmare Moon’s helmet. Devoid of its original starry glow, the armor had been stripped of its power by the spell Celestia taught Sunset Shimmer. Now it lay cracked and grayed at the Mircalla’s hooves.

“She’s out of your reach, her and Celestia. You said your time here was brief, so crawl back to whatever Tartarus you slithered out from. I’m not your puppet anymore.”

She sneered, kicking the useless armor over to Mizu. The Aspect of Water loomed closer to her for a short while, clearly contemplating her extinguishing. But the sight of a large, white object flying towards the cavern gave it other ideas. Still, it was fortunate for the countess that the being which sent Mizu to this realm, the monstrosity called Bagan; wasn’t a god of a quick temper or pettiness. This venture might have ended in failure, but it was far from the only plan. Instead Mizu merely turned around and slithered into a swirling portal to Zenith that opened up beside it, both disappearing entirely in the blink of an eye. Mircalla looked back to see the flying form of Celestia flapping down from Canterlot, no doubt having sensed the magic burst from Sunset Shimmer’s cleansing spell and soon to discover her daughter and her companion. Knowing the young unicorn was once again in good hooves, just like when she’d left her at the orphanage, Countess Mircalla smiled and broke away into flock of bats that flew north to rejoin her coven.

====================

Normally, when being presented with an unknown power source, Celestia would send in a team to investigate. She had a number of inquisitors that could handle whatever the Everfree Forest could throw at them. Not to mention that she could personally talk with Fluttershy. The spirit of the forest most likely would boot out or devour any intruder to her territory. So normally, she’d enjoy a good biscuit and apple juice as she read the latest spicy romance between a dragon and pony.

But when said unknown power source also held traces of her precious snuggly wuggly, a nickname that Sunset swears does not exist, well she’d have to visit personally… in full golden, draconic armor and sword. She’d almost lost her daughter twice in the last month to her sister and a dragon. A third wasn’t on the table. She kept herself calm as she flew over the forest. The last thing she wanted to do was start a forest fire.

Given her speed and power, it didn’t take her long to trace the magical presence to a cave. She hesitantly flew around the site. Her vision was exceptionally good as well as her natural magical defenses meant she didn’t have to worry about flying over it. That’s when she spotted her. Her Sunset. Walking next to a strange, male griffon.

She touched down not far from them. Without saying a word, she marched over and pulled her daughter into a hug. “Oh thank goodness you’re alright! I was so worried when I felt your magic in the Everfree Forest, I just had to come personally.” She pulled away and looked her over. “What happened? It looks like you just fought off a pack of manticores.”

“Oh nothing major,” Sunset returned the hug, sniffling into her mother’s white coat. “Just… a little ancient history.”

Celestia quirked an eyebrow before her eyes locked onto the tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Sunset… who made you cry?”

It was a simple question, but it had the underlying tones of a sun about to go supernova. Her wings unfolded as she hugged her daughter closer and wrapped her up in them.

“It’s a very long story, mom. I'm crying for a good reason.”, Sunset chuckled.

The Solar Alicorn’s eyes were soon to cast themselves upon the other figure standing with them in the clearing. Rodan meanwhile was tilting his head and looking over the princess, noticing enough similarities to recognize who it was based off the Princess Celestia he knew; but the full decor of golden armor and gleaming sword were a bit eyebrow-raising seeing them on someone who he knew for gentle benevolence. Then again, he also remembered his universe’s Celestia not particularly showing she needed such to put her hoof down so the idea of such an entity heavily armed and armored was further vindication to the idea any opposing her were just insane. As such, best the nervous gryphon could do was awkwardly wave and chuckle a bit.

“And you are?”, Princess Celestia muttered with a raised brow.

“Name’s Rodan, Princess Celestia. I’m not from around here but I’m a friend of your daughter.”

Sunset Shimmer rolled her eyes, managing to pry herself free of her mother’s grip and waltz over to Rodan. Just before the kaiju could wonder if her groan was going to result in a relapse into haughtiness, the unicorn smiled and put a hoof around her companion.

“He’s from another realm, got pulled into here on accident. But,-”

She beamed before rubbing her head up against her friend, who managed to snap out of his stupor and return the gesture after what she said next.

“-I wouldn’t be here without him.”

Princess Celestia loomed over gryphon, looking him over in a studious manner before dropping most pretenses of regality and snatching up the kaiju in a bear hug. Needless to say, out of both respect for his world’s Celestia as well as notice of the one now embracing him sporting all the intimidating armor and massive sword; took Rodan a few moments to process what was happening. After all they’d gone through, he was too tired to oppose it even if he wanted too. What he could do however was smirk and yank the poised Sunset Shimmer back into the bearhug with a snicker.

They stayed like that for a short time before the gryphon unexpectedly began to spark, causing them to separate suddenly. Rodan looked at his paws and wings, seeing trails of energy crisscross his form and the space behind each limb becoming visible briefly as parts of his body faded in and out of existence. With Sunset too tired to do it, Princess Celestia was the one to layer Rodan with a scanning wave of magic.

“The power linking you to this realm is fading!”

“Am I?!-”

“No no, you’ll be alright. Just returning to the same space and time you were taken from.”

The words “same space and time” previously meant nothing to Sunset Shimmer and Rodan, back when they were antagonistic allies dealing with a crisis. But now when the two looked upon each other as friends, it was only the knowledge Rodan wasn’t in any danger that kept their expressions from being mortified rather than horrified. Rodan’s brow dropped upon his sullen expression.

“Will I… Will I remember any of this if I go right back to how I was before?”

Princess Celestia was silent, causing the dumbstruck Rodan to look to Sunset Shimmer.

“I… Don’t think so…”

Sunset Shimmer muttered with a large frown crossing her face as Rodan faded in and out again in front of her. The gryphon sighed, forcing his lips to curl up as he lifted his brow with a subtly beaming expression. No use in trying to dwell on problems.

“Well, for what it’s worth. We made some team huh? This place is in good hands-er hooves!”

The gryphon’s possibly idiotic optimism was infectious, causing the unicorn to bitter-sweetly lift her expression some.

“You’re a memorable dolt, you scaly gryphon.”

“Compliment from you is a rare thing. Be sure to tell me that one if I ever come back-”

Sunset put a hoof to his beak and shushed him, shaking her head briefly.

“You’ll be back. I’ll be waiting.”

The two looked to one another’s eyes and shared a smile. When exactly such a reunion would occur wasn’t known and the look they gave easily spouted the fact they both knew it might take months or years to happen. But for the happiness they felt, that fact simply didn’t matter enough to ruin their mood. Rodan sighed contently, even as he started fading away in progressively quicker intervals.

“And I’ll remember anything I can. Even if it’s just a bit. Can’t make too many promises, you know? Big flock I’m getting these days.”

He was almost gone now. The gryphon straightened himself up and looked to both pony princesses’, the matron and maiden protectors of this realm he helped save. He smiled and held his wings close to himself, remembering a gesture he’d seen both some humans and guardponies do and placing a paw to his brow to do a salute. Princess Celestia was tickled, chuckling and nodding to the realm traveler. Princess Sunset Shimmer on the other hoof, did something brave on account on how warm her chest was feeling.

She walked up, pulled his arm away, and gave Rodan a pecking kiss on the cheek as she beamed at her companion. The last thing the Guardian Beast saw in the Shimmer’verse was her gentle, warm expression.

“Good luck, and thank you.”

The gryphon faded away in a spark of light, returning from whence he came from. Princess Celestia walked up beside her daughter and pulled her close by putting a wing around her. The alicorn beant her neck down to get closer to her child’s level as she wiggled her eyebrows.

“... Soo, am I getting grandkids next time he comes back?”

Sunset Shimmer’s yellow-red color scheme subsequently grew much more of the latter color.

“MOOOM!”

=======================

And so the heroes of the Battle of the Everfree Forest resumed their lives, shifted by what had transpired there by a matter of fate and a happy accident. Each returned to their following days altered by the events transpired. Countess Mircalla returned to her coven in the northern mountains, finally free of her enslavement to Nightmare Moon and her legacy while making peace with her last act as a force of evil. Princess Sunset Shimmer would have many more adventures in Ponyville, showing herself to have grown as both worthy Element Bearer and daughter to Princess Celestia with some more trauma put behind her and lessons learned in the Everfree. She was still haughty and would find issues, but soon enough the town would learn to love Sunset Shimmer first and the Princess part second. As for Rodan, his conscious mind might have forgotten what transpired but his unconscious retained it. With the moral of trust and teamwork vindicated, the Neighagra airshow he had with Rainbow Dash was a smash success despite some parts going awry. Sunsets would never fail to make the kaiju smile, for part of him remembered Sunset’s last smile and he was all too happy to return the gesture.

But these are all tales for other stories…

The End

The Bridge: A Shimmer in the Dark

by Tarbtano

Chapter 1: Wrong Place, Right Time

Chapter 2: Memory

Chapter 3: The Fall

Chapter 4: Facade

Chapter 5: Two Worlds' Finest