Nopony could remember a time when it had rained so hard, and Princess Luna was no exception. At the present moment she was wondering who had come up with the idea to have rain at all, because at that moment, she really would have liked to tell that pony a thing or two.

Flying above the trees of the Everfree Forest, she had been relishing the short break from her usual duties in Canterlot to enjoy the freedom of movement, the wind flowing through her hair and the endless night sky above her head. Suddenly, the giant dark clouds appeared from behind the mountains and in the blink of an eye created the greatest downpour she have ever seen. She had no chance to react before a wall of rain hit her and almost knocked her down into the treetops below.

Half-drowned and gasping for breath, she barely found enough strength to return to the castle and finally land on the sheltered balcony. A giant puddle surrounded her as she shook off the rain, and she stood like that for a long while, breathing heavily... until suddenly, she sneezed.

"Oh," she muttered, sneezing again. "Brilliant, just... brilliant."

She kept at it for a short while, sniffing afterwards.

"Wonderful... for the first time in... actually, for the first time in my life," she stopped to sneeze again, "I have a cold."

She sighed heavily, only to sneeze and sniff again. "Beautiful end to my little vacation, is it not?"

She turned around to take a look at the ongoing pandemonium of rain outside the balcony. Occasionally, she felt a raindrop or two hit her as she watched the sky completely covered with black clouds, dropping virtual waterfalls on the land in front of her, all while regularly sneezing as the water dripped from her coat.

While she watched the clouds, she felt a strange premonition take form. These clouds... there was something odd in them – something wrong. She could not exactly tell what she was feeling about them, but she knew that wherever these clouds were coming from, they were a herald of something ominous and foreboding.

Further observation made her even more certain about these feelings as a strange net of thunderbolt-like beams of energy slowly covered the surface of clouds. The clouds themselves, before in shades only of dark gray, now started shifting into shades of purple. The noise of the storm, previously near non-existent, quickly became impossible to miss. The clouds stopped flooding the land with the pelting of rain, but it was clear that their mission was not over yet.

And then, Luna felt something tingling at the back of her mind. She winced as this odd feeling spread throughout her entire body, numbing her senses in a matter of seconds. She felt panicked, wanting to cry for help, but an unseen force stopped her, compelling her to stay still. The tingle felt like a weird stream of energy that was both warming and chilling, creating this specific feeling of having sand in her limbs...

And again, she wanted to sneeze.

But she didn't just want to sneeze. She really, really wanted to sneeze – it was like having an entire world stuck in her nose and the only viable solution being a tremendous sneeze, hoping that whatever it is, it will leave her nose when enough force is used.

"Ah... ah..." she began, feeling the need to sneeze filling her body even harder than whatever mysterious force is keeping her in place. "Ah... ah...!" It was terrible. The tickling in her nose was so incredible that during that moment, she could believe that an entire city of miniaturized ponies had teleported right into her nose and were tickling it en masse with thousands of feathers. "Ah... AH... AHH..." No... not just a city. The whole of Equestria-- including the animals! And monsters. And trees, with magically created hands. And about a half of the stars from her night sky, with brand new hands too. Forget it... the WHOLE damned night sky! Why did she ever include so many stars up there?!

The entire universe held its breath, waiting for the inevitable.

"AHH... AHHHH... AAAAHHHHH-CHOOOOOOOOO!!!" she finally finished, sneezing loud and clear, loud enough to shout over even the noise of the mysterious storm.

As she sneezed, a huge beam of cyan energy shot from her nostrils straight into the clouds, leaving a horrible stinging in her nose. The beam immediately hit the clouds and then started moving on their surface, heading towards Ponyville.

Luna had not noticed the beam. When she sneezed, she had closed her eyes, and then her nose was stinging so awfully that she had just sat on the floor, right in the puddle from the rain, and kept the muzzle in her front hooves, uncertain: did she wants to see what just happened? Had she just lost her nose? Was it still in place, and if yes, then was it still intact?

But as soon as she cooled down, she realized that she was no longer held down by that mysterious force that had previously filled her entire body. It was then that she finally dared to slowly open her eyes. Her nose still had all of its parts in their correct places. However, she could clearly see the small clouds of smoke emanating from her nostrils. And when she saw it, her only wish was to immediately unsee it.

Trying to stay calm, she attempted to look at the sky. And then she realized that the clouds were gone, once again showing the beauty of her wonderful night sky... or maybe it was not so wonderful, considering the idea of all stars miniaturized and inserted into her nose, punishing her with the feathers for whatever reason. Actually, taking into account that she sneezed so hard and how terrible both the tickling in the nose and the sneeze itself were, she started to wonder... perhaps she really had just sneezed the whole of her night sky?

Looking at the sky, she noticed that the clouds were not actually gone – they were still visible, far away from Canterlot, and seemed to head somewhere in the direction... in the direction of Ponyville.

"Oh?..." she mumbled to herself and immediately regretted it, because the pain in her nose once again became too much. Whatever had just happened, the only thing she wanted to do now was to visit a doctor.

But before she could do anything, she also noticed one important thing... something that had been desperately trying to get her attention for a while now, but she had missed due to other things troubling her mind.

If one was to overlook the pain in the nose, she felt... better. Much, much better.

Something... strange, something like a stone lying on her heart, was gone now. She felt lighter, stronger than ever, with her mind clear like never before. She had lost some sort of a fog covering all of her senses, and now she was able to see farther, hear more and smell-- okay, she couldn't really tell anything about smells with her nose putting up all hell, but still - there had been some kind of terrible burden lying on her back all the time, to the point that she stopped noticing it, if she ever did... and then it was just gone!

Through the pain, Luna managed to crack a smile.

She only had to wonder why those dratted clouds had gone to Ponyville...

* * *

Twilight Sparkle was standing on the balcony in the library and looking through the telescope, studying the stars in the dark night sky. This night was particularly interesting for her, because it was already a few times when she was able to spot a red shooting star flying through the sky – usually an uncommon phenomenon, occurring maybe once every few months. Her feather, encased with the pinkish mist of magic, was gliding swiftly across the pages of her journal as she wrote down her observations.

The night sky... a wall of navy blue filled with thousands of stars...

Um, wait. Now it was white with a single, giant, black spot outlined with yellow.

She moved her head away from the telescope, confused.

"Derpy." Twilight muttered to herself, eyeing the gray pegasus staring through the other side of her telescope. She chuckled, watching Derpy Hooves' friendly face as the mailpony moved her head above the observation instrument and looked at Twilight... well, more or less.

"Muffin for moon," Derpy spoke in her usual gibberish, smiling happily and then starting to rummage her sack with letters.

Twilight knew that the mailpony wasn't actually talking in complete gibberish; it was just some sort of strange affliction that made her speak things differently than she actually wanted to. If one was to put enough consideration into what Derpy said, they could decode the real meaning of her words - that is, as long as Derpy was not nervous, panicked, or in any other way forced to speak quickly or without much of thinking, because these were the moments when her gibberish was reaching its heights.

In this case, "Muffin for moon" meant nothing more than "Letter for you".

"Thank you very much, Derpy" Twilight said, telekinetically taking the letter from the pegasus' mouth once mailmare recovered it from her sack. The unicorn held it in front of her, wanting to check for the sender. It took her a short moment to read it despite the lack of light, but eventually, she smiled widely. "From my parents! Excellent! I was wondering when they'll send a reply. Thanks again, Derpy!"

"No polling!" the ditzy mailpony replied before flying away, twisting in the air.

Twilight turned away and headed to her desk, wanting to read the letter in the candlelight. She looked over at Owlowiscious, her faithful owl performing the task of being her second assistant – the first one being obviously Spike, who, although very helpful in the day, simply couldn't stay awake long at night, and was currently taking his baby dragon sleep.

"Who?" Owlowiscious asked. It was the only thing he could say, which often caused confusion among ponies who did not knew him too well.

"It was Derpy; she brought a letter from my parents," Twilight replied habitually while opening the letter. As soon as she read the first sentence, something forced her to pause.

She heard a storm.

Unable to believe her own ears, she left the letter on the desk and headed back to the balcony. And when she saw the sky outside, her jaw dropped.

The entire sky was now completely covered with purple clouds surrounded by some odd net of thunderbolts. The way they appeared in that brief moment of Twilight's absence was so unbelievable that the unicorn rubbed her eyes, wondering if it had been just some extremely weird hallucination. But that was pointless – a hallucination, with her ears experiencing it too?

"Where in Equestria did that come from?" she asked herself, watching the storm in disbelief. Owlowiscious flew from inside the library and sat upon the balustrade, joining Twilight in observing the incredible phenomenon.

"Who?" the owl hooted, asking the world in general.

They were both staring at the clouds in silence, not counting the overwhelming noise of the storm, until Twilight finally saw it: a cyan beam of energy, wafting on the surface of clouds. Heading in her direction. And getting close to her very fast. Extremely fast!...

Before she could react, the beam shot from the clouds straight at her and hit her with brutal force.

That force threw Owlowiscious from the balcony, and before he could do anything, he hit the road, passing out immediately. The beam surrounded the unicorn in a bright, blinking aura of blue energy, flashing white light in her eyes and, most importantly, making her suffer the greatest amount of pain in her entire life.

She couldn't see a thing – everything was glaring white light. She couldn't hear anything aside from the thunderous pounding of the storm. She couldn't smell anything, aside from her own body being burned alive, and couldn't feel anything but the overwhelming pain. If there was anything she knew, anything she loved and remembered, any memories and feelings, they were all replaced now by this unbelievable pain.

And the only thing she could do at that moment was to scream. To scream so loud she could be heard from miles away.

* * *

Rainbow Dash loved that night's dream. She was wearing the Wonderbolts flight suit, performing her best and wildest tricks in front of all of Equestria. There were all of her friends in the bleachers, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, her entire family, and everypony possible to praise her abilities. She was getting ready to perform her best possible trick, the Sonic Rainboom...

...but it was no use, she was abruptly awaken by a bloodcurdling scream.

She instantly raised her head, horrified and disoriented. She hovered above her bed and canvassed her room, searching for a possible source of this scream. And as she was listening for it, the familiarity of the sound hit her like a brick wall.

"...Twilight?!" she gasped in horror. "TWILIGHT!!!"

Feathers ruffled in panic, she flew right through the cloud-made wall of her bedroom and out into the storm. She immediately saw the wall of purple clouds above the town, a bit below the level of Cloudsdale – and even though they were covering Ponyville completely, she was able to clearly see the bright circle of bluish light behind them. And her instinct told her that it MUST be Twilight.

"TWILIGHT!!!" she yelled again and then shot herself like a bolt of lightning in the supposed direction of her friend, flying as fast as possible. So fast, in fact, that without even thinking about it, she quickly started reaching the speed of sound.

In a matter of seconds, the Sonic Rainboom illuminated the night.

* * *

The same scenario repeated four more times for each of the remaining bearers of the Elements of Harmony: Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack and Pinkie Pie awoke totally frightened, and after realizing who's screaming, immediately left their houses and sped off to help the others.

Spike, sleeping on the floor below, was so terrified by the scream that he jumped several meters into air, painfully hitting the ceiling. After falling back, he tried to look around, totally disoriented. And once he joined the ranks of those who recognized the voice, he shouted Twilight's name and tried to reach the stairs leading to the floor above.

It took him several tries to finally stand in front of the door leading to Twilight's room, so horrified that he fell down several times on his way up, his own feet not listening to him. Eventually, he hit the door with full force, too frightened to open them normally. They opened instantly and made him falling onto the floor in Twilight's room.

And when he finally saw the purple unicorn levitating a few feet above the ground, encased with the bright blue aura, having her body partially covered with the black signs of burning and screaming louder than whatever Spike ever heard in his entire life, he just dropped his jaw and couldn't believe his own eyes. And he knew that this sight would be pursuing him in his nightmares for the years to come.

"TWILIGHT!!!" he shouted, and did the only thing that came to his mind: started running to reach the unicorn. And then, more or less in the same moment, he could hear the sound of a Sonic Rainboom being performed...

* * *

Leaving behind a trail of rainbows, Rainbow Dash concentrated herself on that single circle of blue light visible beyond the clouds. A few seconds after the Rainboom appeared, the clouds were thrown away by its force and evaporated entirely, just before Rainbow Dash could reach them.

Now she had a clear sight of that unbelievable thing that was happening to Twilight. And when Rainbow Dash saw it, all possible thoughts and plans left her mind, leaving only one strong decision – to reach the purple unicorn.

* * *

Everything else happened in a matter of seconds.

All citizens of Ponyville were awoken by Twilight's scream – because truth be told, it was loud and horrifying enough to wake an entire city. And they all knew they had to reach the library as soon as they recognized the source of the scream. The events of that night were later a topic of long debates, especially for those who were quick enough to see Twilight on the balcony as well as the Sonic Rainboom.

Rainbow Dash came from the sky that was just cleared by the rainbow streak, flying directly in the direction of Twilight.

At the same time, Spike was running through purple unicorn's room in a desperate effort to reach his mentor.

All they wanted to do – everything that they could think about – was to reach her, no matter whatever consequences could arise.

Both Spike and Rainbow Dash found Twilight at exactly the same moment.

The citizens of Ponyville were later found describing the huge outburst of bright cyan energy that completely ruined the balcony, blasting the blue pegasus with so giant force that she literally fell through the roof of the adjacent building, creating a giant hole. Twilight herself was blasted with similar force inside the library, and everypony who was near could clearly hear the noise of somepony hitting the wall with full force. Nopony noticed Spike in that event, but as he later described himself, he met a similar fate like Twilight.

And then, the bloodcurdling silence fell over the entire city: a silence that felt even more terrifying than all the loud noises everypony heard so far... and a silence that could foreshadow only the worst...

* * *

A dark, pony-like form was kneeing on the purple floor with its eyes closed, surrounded by the vast nothingness. Its body seemed to be created from a dark mist, and its mane and tail, once made of a real night sky, were now nothing more than stripes of inky energy. It was a result of being an incorporeal force: a force that needs to overwhelm existing forms and take them as its own in order to be matter; a force that was once in the body of a royal figure, a kind of god, the ruler of night; a force that once spent a thousand of years imprisoned on the moon; a force that wanted to encase the world in eternal night; a force that was defeated by the bearers of the Elements of Harmony – a force defeated by the one whose body she just entered...

With the correct amount of drama, Nightmare Moon slowly opened her eyes.

"I made it," she said, and her words fell on her new home with the strength of iron weights.

* * *

"Nurse Redheart, will she live?" Spike asked, completely unnerved.

"That's very hard to say," Nurse Redheart replied, having a very hard time trying to figure out what happened to Twilight – and most importantly, how to make her feel better. "It's the first time I ever saw somepony being injured like that."

"EXCUSE ME, is that some kind of a show?!" Nurse Tenderheart shouted, trying to force the crowds of ponies out of the emergency care center. "If any of you are NOT the patient's closest family or friends, you're asked to leave the building right NOW!"

It wasn't surprising that literally everypony from Ponyville wanted to know what happened to Twilight and what is her current state. She was, after all, one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and the events from the night made everypony completely unable to sleep. Who could sleep peacefully after listening to the loudest, most horrifying scream in his life, and after observing somepony who seemed to be in the middle of being burned alive by a strange magical energy?

As far as anypony could tell, the way Twilight got covered with these bluish energies remained unknown for the moment. Many assumed that she attempted to cast some powerful spell that backfired for some reason. Others were pointing at the presence of weird clouds and the fact that nopony could bring them all in so short time, wondering if the purple unicorn was directly hit with a lightning that came from these mysterious clouds. Others came up with the theory that there was some dark force that wanted to kill her.

But all of these suggestions were only theories, and nopony could know anything for certain. It seemed that the only pony who could reveal the truth was Twilight herself, and for now, she was lying unconscious on the bed in the emergency care center.

Her mane, tail and fur were partially burned, and her body seemed to be completely paralyzed, frozen more or less in the same position everypony found her after the outburst that Rainbow Dash and Spike have caused. But what was most terrifying for almost everypony were her eyes: Twilight was found with her eyes opened wide, staring into space with unseeing gaze and very small pupils. She had never blinked since the time they found her, which caused everypony to think that she died until somepony calmed them down by confirming that she was still breathing. Thankfully, it wasn't necessary in this universe to blink to keep one's eyes healthy; thus, Twilight's eyes were left in that state, causing everypony to feel uneasy and perturbed each time they looked at her.

Spike had been found lying on the floor near Twilight, next to a Spike-shaped hole on the wall. He hadn't felt much pain after awakening, except for a bit of headache. When they had finally managed to wake him, Nurse Redheart had been already in place. Twilight had also been found lying on the floor, with her head and shoulders leaning on the remains of ruined shelves and books. As for Rainbow Dash, she had been found in the attic of the house she fell into; they had had to go through tons of old objects and furniture stored in there before being able to reach her. At the present moment, she was the second patient in the care of the emergency care center, since she had lost her consciousness during the accident and still hadn't recovered from that state.

Fluttershy was one of the few ponies staying at home instead of trying to run the nurses ragged, because she was the one to have found unconscious Owlowiscious, and she had decided to take care of him during the Twilight's absence.

Rarity, Applejack, Spike and Pinkie Pie encircled Twilight, although leaving enough space for nurses to let them work. Now they could only wait and hope...

* * *

Nightmare Moon traveled through Twilight's mind in the form of a dark mist, searching for something – something that will give her an idea of how to use this little, promising mind. She wanted to once again return to Equestria and encase it in eternal night, this time forever. She wanted to take over the world as the only legitimate ruler, getting rid of both Celestia and Luna.

Princess Luna was a lost cause. After being defeated by these accursed bearers of the Elements of Harmony, Nightmare Moon had been locked deep in the depths of Luna's mind. She hadn't been dead, but she had also been unable to reignite the flames of bitterness that once gave her life, or do anything else, for that matter. She had known that in order to regain her old power and return to the Equestria, she would have had to leave Luna's mind and find somepony else – somepony powerful enough. And she couldn't count on Celestia – she was probably aware that the Nightmare Moon might have attempted attacking her mind, and even if she wasn't, her mind was most likely too strong for the Mare in the Moon to take over.

No, she needed somepony else – somepony who's not an alicorn, but still possesses great power. And who, of all possible choices, was better than the pony who bears the Element of Magic, the leader of the Elements of Harmony?

It was so brilliant, and so ironic at the same time. Previously a nuisance, now the only means of her possible return. That "Twilight" will regret defeating her. Oh, she really will...

As Nightmare Moon kept traveling through Twilight's mind, she suddenly stopped, realizing that she had just come across something interesting.

Dreams.

That little, mysterious creation of a sleeping mind. A door to the another world, unbound by any possible logic. A world of possibilities.

Nightmare Moon took a closer look on that world. And as she was watching it, she understood that she was basically looking on another Equestria – just different, and much more unpredictable. Dreamworlds aren't usually that real, but in this case, the power of the Element of Magic enhanced things to a certain degree.

Nightmare Moon would have smiled if she was able to so in her form of mist. Actually, who needs to return to Equestria? If they loved the days so much, they could rub their faces all over them.

She had the Dreamworld.

And she was going to become its ruler.

First, however, she needed to find some existing form from there and use it to become material. Or at least as much "material" as she could be, still remaining within the depths of Twilight's mind. In terms of that, she had basically the same choice: Celestia and Luna, and somepony from the bearers of Elements of Harmony. The difference was, she could immediately take such form over, without any additional messing with the mind.

As she thought about that, it lead her to wonder: if she attempted to take over the form of Twilight, would she find another Dreamworld in her mind, and another in the mind of another Twilight, and another...?

Oh... so much possibilities in just one place!

The choice seemed simple. She HAD to choose Twilight. Celestia and Luna, even in the Dreamworld, did not seem to be the safest choice, and the purple unicorn still was the most powerful pony after them. This meant that Nightmare Moon needed to rise to her power slowly, though. Oh well. She could iron out the details later.

Just before she attempted to take over the body of dream-born Twilight, she realized one important thing: she had enough power to take over TWO bodies, dividing herself into two without any notable loss of power. Two bodies! That was going to make some things a lot easier.

But who she was going to choose, aside of Twilight? No other pony had as much power as that little unicorn.

Nightmare Moon searched through the memories of Twilight, wondering if there is possibly a pony with a power comparable or close enough to the one used by the bearer of the Element of Magic. At first, she thought that the searching is pointless... but then, she came across somepony exactly matching these conditions.

The Element of Laughter... that little earth pony... what was she called?

Ah. Pinkie Pie - so... unique, with so many abilities that completely defy the logic, even in the "real" world.

She will be perfect.

With that thought, Nightmare Moon started encasing the forms of purple unicorn and pink earth pony. They were currently frozen in time, paralyzed by the events of her arrival; just like the real Twilight at the moment.

The Mare in the Moon knew that this whole show with the clouds and everything was a bit exaggerated, but then again, she was an evil force that once possessed the body of a goddess, and now she made her first steps into taking over the world once again. Things like that require a little bit of flash and style. To do this, she was gathering all the power she could get while being imprisoned in Luna's mind, and she used it in the most promising moment to escape.

How did she manage to do that despite her imprisonment? She did not know. But she believed that it must have been a destiny. Destiny is always involved into things like that.

Her divided form of mist slowly sunk into the paralyzed bodies of Pinkie and Twilight. In case of purple unicorn, the results were visible immediately: her fur turned black, her eyes became dragon-like, and her mane and tail lost their strips of colour and started behaving just like they did in Nightmare Moon's original form. A dark stain have appeared under her cutie mark, making it resemble a night sky, with Twilight's cutie mark being the stars.

Oh yes. Nightmare Moon could already feel the power lying in these unassuming hooves. The dream version of Twilight held her own Element of Magic, which meant that if the Mare in the Moon wanted, she could literally start dwelling the infinite depths of Dreamworlds hidden in another Dreamworlds, possess any of the Twilights from there, remove them from their Dreamworlds into previous Dreamworlds, and keep doing that until she could bring thousands, THOUSANDS of Twilights into real world and gather unlimited power...

The thought of such unbelievable possibility made her shed a tear and smile, and since she already possessed the body of Twilight, she did this with purple unicorn's face. Oh yes... she was going to love this new world. No reasons for coming back to the real one anymore... everything she wanted and needed, and much, much more, was already here.

She was going to make use of all of this. And keep doing that...

"...FOREVER!!!"

Nightmare Moon blinked. What was that?

A quick search revealed the source of this shout: it was Pinkie Pie, possessed by her and apparently still giving signs of her Pinkie self being active.

That worried Nightmare Moon. Does it mean that she did not possess her at all? No... she could clearly feel the part of herself inside that little, crazy pony. She could also see the night sky-like stain under her cutie mark. And yet she felt that she had no control over that body. Pinkie Pie was still Pinkie Pie.

But why?

* * *

"Are you girls really sure that it's a good idea?" Nurse Redheart asked, looking askance at Zecora who was currently standing next to Twilight with pensive face.

"Whateva hit Twilight, it was some magical thingamajig," Applejack replied. "And if somepony 'round here knows anythin' about curing things like that, it must be Zecora."

"Yeah, especially after that whole Poison Joke thing!" Spike added.

"Oh, don't even try to remind me of THAT incident..." Rarity commented with disgust on her face.

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie shouted. "Do you even remember how RIDICULOUS I sounded?! It was like 'blglghrghlrgh' and I couldn't say a word and that was horrible! Thank Celestia Zecora wasn't that evil enchantress from my song and she actually helped us instead of gobbling us up in the stew! Oh, and speaking of that song, it was actually quite a bit of time since I last sang it..."

"Pinkie..." Applejack warned. But it was no use, Pinkie Pie was already taking a deep breath.

"She's an evil enchantress,

And she does evil dances..."

"Pinkie Pie!" Rarity shouted with a grim expression. Even nurses commented the whole situation with loud "Shhhh!"

"...And if you look deep in her eyes

She will put you in trances

Then what would she do?"

"Pinkie, QUIT IT!" Applejack yelled, standing on her hind legs and looking at the pink earth pony with anger.

"She'll mix up an evil brew

Then she'll gobble you up

In a big tasty stew

So watch ompfhff!" Pinkie Pie ended with a little trip at the end, caused by Applejack's hoof inserted so deep into her mouth that it was touching her uvula.

"Ah told ya to quit it, didn't I?" she pointed angrily.

"Hmm. I forgot how actually catchy it was," Spike commented, only to meet a forbidding gaze from Rarity. "What?"

"There's no question that the pony here is sick, but I know something that may do the trick," Zecora finally said, apparently ignoring Pinkie Pie's lack of subtlety.

"...Oh," Applejack replied surprised a little, removing the hoof from Pinkie's mouth. "See? She knows how to deal with this kinda stuff," she pointed triumphantly to the nurses.

The zebra opened her bag with various natural cures and remedies. Using her mouth, she took a little sack from there and put it on the bed next to Twilight.

"Her mind is fast asleep, you see," began Zecora, "and that's why you've come here to me. Take this magic powder here" - she gestured towards a bag of powder - "to save the one you hold most dear. Take care; it must be done quite slow for Twilight's consciousness to grow. You'll need one with the use of magic to save her from this fate most tragic."

After these words, everypony's gazes fell on Rarity: the only unicorn currently present in the emergency care center.

"Um... so... I am supposed to take the sack of... powder and make it... fall on the Twilight's eyes?" she asked uncertainly.

"That's correct," Zecora confirmed.

"Err... well... all right! Everything for Twilight..."

* * *

Having no other ideas left, Nightmare Moon attempted to move her consciousness into the body of Pinkie Pie.

And she couldn't. At least not entirely. There was some sort of barrier that prevented her from it. She was able to feel the body of the pink earth pony, she felt her mind as well, but she couldn't do anything with them. She was even unable to examine Pinkie Pie's mind, being only able to feel its basic self – a wall of cheerfulness and pointless happiness, with countless ideas for parties and craziest pranks, hundreds of recipes for various candies and... and...

No... NO! It just... it just CANNOT BE!

Pinkie Pie was like a giant ball of solid happiness, so strong in her personality that Nightmare Moon was completely unable to affect it. Worse still, she could feel as this happiness literally began to DEVOUR her: that entire part of herself that was supposed to have possessed Pinkie Pie was now stuck in the greatest prison she had ever seen, a prison of no return. Pinkie Pie has consumed the part of her and silenced it with the power of her personality! And she wasn't even a goddess! She was... she was just a pony with the Element of Laughter! She was just Pinkie Pie!

Completely panicked, Nightmare Moon ran away, back to Twilight's body, fearing that she may be devoured whole if her consciousness stayed for one second longer in close proximity to Pinkie's mind. Nightmare Moon looked at the pink earth pony's body with the eyes of Twilight; both she and this pony-shaped trap levitating loosely in the vast nothingness.

So... she just merrily allowed some surprisingly powerful pony to consume a part of herself, basically leaving her in only half of her original self. Yes, she still possessed more or less the same amount of power, even greater now that she had Twilight's body, but the damage was already done. Bearers of the Elements of Harmony have once again managed to strike a smashing blow to her, effectively imprisoning a half of herself. Even in the Dreamworld!

Wait... wait! What's happening now?!

She felt as though she was losing control over Twilight's body too, slowly descending into darkness...

* * *

Using her magic, Rarity held the sack of powder above Twilight's eyes, and was trying very carefully maintain the gradual descent of the mysterious cure onto the purple unicorn's eyes; the powder itself seemed to disappear soon after touching them. The nurses seemed to be concerned about this rather unusual way of healing, looking at the whole event with huge uncertainty.

Twilight suddenly blinked.

"W... where am I?" she groaned, narrowing her eyes and looking around unsteadily.

"TWILIGHT!!!" everypony shouted ecstatically, with Rarity immediately putting away the sack. Even nurses smiled widely, seeing that whatever that weird powder was, it actually worked, bringing the patient back among the conscious.

"Twilight, are you okay?!" Spike asked with excitation, but still concerned a bit.

"I... I don't know..." Twilight replied weakly. "W... what happened? Where am I?"

"Yer in the nurse house, Sugarcube" Applejack replied. "From what Ah heard, some kind of magical whatchamacallit happened to ya and ya were bein' burned alive!"

"I tried to reach you", Spike started explaining, "but when I did, BOOM! And I woke up later with a headache and you were like... dead, but... but still alive at the same time!"

"We found you lying on the floor without almost any signs of life," Rarity corrected. "You were completely paralyzed, and you were... you were staring into space without blinking even once. We... we were worried so much about you!"

"You just can't believe what I experienced when I saw you!" Pinkie Pie broke into the conversation. "I was like *GASP* and then I started running all over the place and screaming 'PLEASE HELP MY FRIEND IS LIKE DEAD AND NOT JUST DEAD LIKE, YOU KNOW, ONLY TEMPORARILY DEAD BUT DEAD FOREVER LIKE COMPLETELY FOREVER' and you were still on the on the floor and everypony tried to calm me down and I just couldn't calm down and I was completely out of my mind and somepony tried to call for Nurse Redheart and I suggested that I can go and--"

"Calm down, Sugarcube," Applejack tried to interfere the stream of words. "Twilight is again among us and that's what matters!"

"Lucky you are that your friends came to me," added Zecora with a smile, "For I knew just what to do, you see!"

"Oh..." Twilight groaned again. "Magical whatcha..." She opened her eyes wider. "The storm..."

"The storm?" Spike repeated with a surprised face.

"You mean those weird clouds that were over Ponyville when that... thing happened?" Applejack asked in an uncertain fashion.

"I was hit with a blue thunderbolt," Twilight explained, trying to remind the events of that horrible night.

"Thunderbolt!" Both Pinkie Pie and Spike gasped in horror.

"So it wasn't any kind of a spell that just backfired, or anything like that?" Rarity tried to inquire.

"No... that storm came out from nowhere," Twilight explained. "I... I was observing the night sky, until Derpy came--"

"A-HA!" Spike shouted triumphantly. "I KNEW THAT THIS CRAZY PONY IS NOT AS GOOD AS SHE SEEMS TO BE!"

"Calm down Spike, she didn't do anything," Twilight tried to tranquilize the baby dragon, smiling for the first time since awakening. "She brought me a letter, I went to open it, and as soon as I did, I heard the noise of a storm... and the clouds were already in place."

"They came out so fast, out of nowhere?" Pinkie Pie asked and gasped afterwards. "That's NOT normal!"

"There must have been some dark force behind it!" Spike judged the situation quickly. "Are you pretty sure that it wasn't Derpy? She gives you a letter, you walk away for a second, and POOF! A giant storm comes out of nowhere!"

"Oh please Spike, I'm pretty sure Derpy couldn't do such a thing," Twilight once again tried to tranquilize the little dragon. "I already learned that it's not a good idea to presume that somepony is an evil enchantress of any kind."

"True words, my friend," Zecora agreed and gave a slightly displeased gaze to Pinkie, apparently listening previously to her song after all.

"But did you checked the letter? Who send it, huh?" Spike was still keeping his chin up.

"My parents, Spike."

"...Oh." Little dragon scratched his head. "Okay, but... if it wasn't her... then who? Or... or WHAT?"

Twilight blinked uncertainly.

"I would like to know," she admitted eventually. "I really would like to know..."

* * *

Nightmare Moon blinked... or at least did a corresponding type of mental activity, being unable to do it with her body. She felt it clearly, she was still possessing the body of dream-born Twilight, she was still alive, but she was also... stuck. Imprisoned in the depths of that body, which now felt like a shell covering endless void, not a living creature with a working mind. It was different than what happened in Pinkie Pie's body. She was imprisoned because... dream-born Twilight was imprisoned as well.

The Dreamworld... it happened to the whole Dreamworld too. It was frozen, it was... inactive. Not like it was previously. The whole mind of the real Twilight was like an opened book, forced to keep all of its secrets revealed due to their owner's special state; everything was inactive yet available. Now however, the mind was active again and thus returned to its normal schedule... meaning that the Dreamworld was now truly inactive because it wasn't needed at the moment.

So it seemed that these damned ponies finally managed to wake up Twilight. And since she was awaken, Dreamworld could not function. Because to let it function, Twilight had to sleep.

So... apparently Nightmare Moon could work only when the purple unicorn is asleep – meaning that even if she will manage to become a ruler of the Dreamworld, Twilight will keep endlessly interrupting her by waking up for her stupid sun-loving schedule, forcing Nightmare Moon to stay in this imprisoned form for long hours, every day of the year.

Oh no... she could not let it work that way. She wanted to be a ruler and remain free at all times, not only when somepony is asleep. So this meant that she had to turn back to her original plan: find a way to somehow return to Equestria, then strike down both Celestia and Luna, and once this is done, take their place and encase the world in eternal night.

But how?

She had no idea – at least, not at the moment. But she knew that the Dreamworld was still a land of endless possibilities. She could find a solution there. She would only need to search. A half of her being permanently trapped within Pinkie Pie's body was of course a very important problem, but she knew that she can handle it eventually.

Now however, she needed to wait... she couldn't work while Twilight was awaken. The only thing she could do at the moment was to stay in her new prison and wait. Plan and wait.

She would return to Equestria eventually. And when it happened, the heavens would tremble.