Three months, it’s been three months since I heard I was condemned for death. Either the gallows were in a massive state of disrepair, or there were more ahead of me. I haven’t moved much, only to roll over every few hours. The doors of the dungeon creek open and I hear light, elegant hoof steps come gradually closer. A smooth, feminine voice echoes in the empty room.

“Lunarus?”

I roll over and look up to see Princess Luna standing behind the bars.

“Make it a habit to visit the condemned, Princess?”

“There must be some mistake. Thou hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Tell that to your sister.”

She looks me over once with a confused look in her eyes.

“Does thou feel well?”

“Other then feeling my own life slowly coming to an end, I’m fine.”

“Thou doesn’t seem fine.”

The darkness started to seep into my mind again, I suddenly snap at her and get to my hoofs. “What do you care! You forced me to become a pariah! What have you done for me but make my life a nightmare!?”

She looks me over one last time, this time looking deep into my eyes. She lowers her head as she speaks. “Thou may have spoken the truth, but you are not Lunarus Nexus. I apologize.”

With that, she turns and leaves the dungeon, closing the door behind her. I pound my hoof against the wall in anger as the dark voice creeps into my mind. ‘We are right. What has she done for us? She has brought us only pain an suffering. But death isn’t an answer that will benefit us. Escape, we can take Canterlot for ourselves and rule Equestria!’

“I don’t care anymore. I have nothing. I will never have anything. I am nothing.” I cringe as those last words pass my lips.

I lay back down on the cold floor and shut my eyes for another restless few hours. I don’t know how long I’ve been “sleeping”, but it hasn’t been long. The door opens once more and this time the steps are heavy.

“Changeling.”

I look up and see a guard standing at the cell door with the keys in his teeth.

“It’s time.”

I nod as he opens the door and escorts me to a long corridor where other fall in. my legs are still in chains and, only allowing me to walk in short strides. Once there are about six guards in formation around me, we stop at a wooden leading into the open air.

“Company, ten-hut!” Out of reflex I stood at attention. I don’t care what happens after this, if this is my last moment on this earth, then I’m going out with dignity.

“Forward, march!” we begin walking out through the royal gardens. I look around for a moment and realize that somepony is missing.

“Where’s Captain Armor?” I ask.

“Busy getting married. Now shut up!” the guard next to me shouts.

I do as I’m told and continue to walk. I look at the towers of the castle and I see Luna watching from her room in the north west tower. I was about to look down when I saw thousands of black spots getting close to the city. Just as we were getting close to a door on the other side of the garden, the ground shook beneath our hoofs. I look back up and see what looks like a light pink film disintegrating high above Canterlot. The dots quickly flew through the hole that was being created and bright green streaks came from them, raining upon Canterlot.

“We’re under attack! Sound the alarm!”

Four of the guards broke off and I looked back up towards Luna on her balcony high above us. My mind went into autopilot and I quickly broke formation and began using my hind legs like pogo sticks. There were several window sills along the tower and I started using those to climb the tower. I wasn’t sure why I was doing it. Something inside of me was forcing me to climb the tower and help her. It wasn’t long before I realized why. One of those black dots began getting very close to the tower. I start jumping harder and faster as I reach the balcony. Just as I pass the rim the dot came into perfect view, it was a Changeling. It fired a green ball of magic directly at the princess and I did the only thing I could think of.

I pushed off the handrail of the balcony, in front of the green orb. I was a little too slow. The bolt would have hit me right in the head if I was earlier, it instead made contact with the chain of my shackles. The chain broke instantly and deflected the orb to the left a few inches, enough to miss Luna completely. I stop myself on the other handrail and steady my hoofs on the ground.

“Lunarus!? What is thou doing?” Luna asked me.

“Saving your ass.” I use my free fore hoof to break the other chain. “Get to the door and wait there.”

I turn back to the Changeling just as he slams into me and tries digging its fangs in my neck. Unlike the first time, my legs don’t suffer from fatigue. I try to summon my lightning spell, but I don’t feel the static-like charge. With nothing else to do, I land a solid punch to the Changeling’s jaw and turn it around so it was facing the sky. Before it can fly off, I pull it down to my chest with my right foreleg around its neck. It stars squirming in my grip, trying to free itself as I put more and more pressure on its neck.

I grunt and pull on it as hard as I can. There’s a mild snapping noise as it goes limp. Kicking the carcass from the balcony, I take a moment to catch my breath. Now on my hoofs, I run through the room and see Luna at the door waiting for me.

“We need to get you out of here Luna.” I say as I open the door.

It only opens a hair before another Changeling barges through, throwing me to the back of the room. I slam into a mirror pool, nearly knocking the sliver plate inside from its place. I grab the changeling by the neck as it comes up to try and bite me. (never understood why they always try and bite you, but it doesn’t really matter at this point.)
I use its momentum against it and plunge its head into the pool. I may not be able to summon the lightning bolt but I can still make a charge.

I send the electric charge into the water and watch the creature convulse before finally going limp. Looking back, I see Luna blast two others trying to get in through the window with pure energy. I run past her into the bridge connecting the tower with the rest of the castle.

“Let’s go Luna!”

She doesn’t hesitate to follow me across the bridge. I don’t have time to be scared. With Luna right next to me, I feel a new strength pulsate through me, stronger then the shadow. As we get close to the end of the bridge, I turn and find a hoard of changelings approaching. My heart skips a beat as the familiar charge passes through me and out my horn. The lightning bolt lands in the center of the hoard. Most were vaporized on sight and the rest of them were mildly stunned by the massive electrical shock.

A light blue, magic aura envelopes the remaining changelings. They were quickly propelled to the right side of the bridge and out the glass windows. I look back to see Luna’s horn stop glowing. Nice to know somepony is still on my side.

“We need to keep moving.” I say leading her to the end of the bridge.

We battle our way down the main hall until a wall of fire stopped us. The flames cleared and Brand Fire stepped into the hall. There was an open door to our right and I didn’t hesitate to shove Luna into the room. Brand Fire came in right behind us and shut the door.

“Sergeant Firebrand, I need you to-”

A second later the doors broke open and six changelings stormed the room.

“Hold!” Brand Fire shouted.

They instantly stopped in their tracks and looked at Brand Fire blankly. “Leave.”

Again, they don’t hesitate to follow Brand Fire’s orders.

“Sergeant, what is the meaning of-”

“You just don’t die do you, you little bastard?!” he shouts at me.

“What are you talking about?”

“I try to send you into the lions den four years ago, then miss goody-two-hoofs over there pulls out of her highness’ castle, then you escape the gallows! Chrysalis is going to have my head for this!”

“Wait, what? You‘re working for the Changelings?” I ask confused, ready to zap him to oblivion.

I feel my body go weightless as I’m thrown back against the wall with Luna.

“First, I’m gonna gut you, then I’ll convert the princess here.”

“What are you?”

He grins widely as a green aura surrounds he hoofs and slowly travels up his legs. Below the aura, his coat had turned black, holes and circular chunks were revealed in his legs. His tail turns into something similar to a long fish tail. Two, insect-like wings appear on his back. His eyes turned solid blue and his blonde mane turned to a tall fish-like fin.

“You’ve been a Changeling the whole time?” I ask.

“And I knew just as well as the Princess what your potential was.”

“My what?”

“And I want to be the one to see what that potential is.”

I’m let off of the wall while Luna is left hanging. He hisses as he bares his fangs at me waiting to tear them into my neck. If I had my wings, I would have a slight advantage. But I’m weak right now. The lightning spell takes a lot of energy to use at will.Brand Fire jumps first, trying to tackle me. I duck and slide under him. He’s fast. I stand and just in time to take a right hook to the jaw. I’m spun around and then bucked against the opposite wall. Thanks to the metal plate on my chest, I am physically incapable of having the wind knocked out of me. I see Brand Fire lunge at me from the corner of my eye. My hydraulic hind legs launch me over Firebrand and behind him. I land on my hind legs and prepare for hard hoof-to-hoof combat. Brand Fire turned and tried landing another punch. I put my right foreleg to block. His hoof dented the armor plating. I give him a powerful uppercut to the jaw. I felt the exoskeleton crack. I quickly turn and buck Brand Fire into the same wall he had done to me. I stay on my hind legs as Brand Fire recuperates. He quickly blasts me with a magic shock that knocks me on my ass.

Brand Fire jumps on top of me and starts trying to tear into my neck. As I hold him back he takes a punch at my right shoulder joint. His hoof snaps the joints from one another. The leg stays connected by a three wires but the connections themselves were severed. It sends a shock up my spine and causes me to use the lightning spell again. The bolt hits him in-between his eyes but it doesn’t seem to affect him too much. He shouts in pain and rolls off holding his face.

I try to stand, but with three legs it was very difficult. As I hobbled I feel the shadow coming back. I quickly put up a shield spell as Brand Fire blasts a massive column of fire at me. The shield was small, only big enough to protect me. The flames hammer the shield and push me against the wall. I start to sweat, from both the heat and the exhaustion of having to keep the shield up against such a strong force of nature.

I shout in pain and push the shield out and push the fire back far enough to tuck and roll under the field and out of the line of fire. I’m panting as I try to stay standing on my three legs. I see Brand Fire recovering from using his most under used attack. I reach back and flip a panel on my dislocated and useless leg with my nose. Under the panel, a small pin popped up. The pin was connected to a small charge that would disconnect the leg from the joint and start a bomb timer.

I take the pin in my teeth and pull as hard as I can. The pin slipped from the shoulder joint with a click. There was a loud pop as the leg falls from my contact panel. I levitate the leg and throw it as hard as I can towards Brand Fire. I look towards Luna and put up one more shield, around her. The shield blocks Brand Fire’s field holding her to the wall. She falls to her hoofs and looks at me afraid just before the bomb detonates.

“Lunarus!”

I am now deft. The sound of the blast didn’t even reach me before I was deft. The shrapnel tears into the back of my neck and I black out for a moment. As I come to, my ears are ringing and my vision is blurred. I see a black mass standing up from the other end of the room. Unbelievable. He says I can’t die. My hearing comes back but very muffled. I feel my warm blood trickle down neck and back. The shield around Luna falls away as I start to stand.

“*hack* I’ll admit kid, you got a lot of tricks up your sleeve. But I’m a lot stronger then my brothers and sisters. You’re going to have to do a lot more then that to kill me. And from the look of things you don’t have anything left.”

He’s right. I’m bleeding badly. And that last spell took a lot out of me. My head was hanging low and I was getting fairly shaky on my hoofs. He was right. It pains me to say it but he was right, I didn’t have enough strength to fight much longer. May as well tell Luna to run and hope that having fangs sunk into my neck isn’t too painful. I give up.

“Perfect.”

I feel control of my body slip away. I feel the shadow taking over again, only this time it was in full control. I can’t feel anything anymore. Firebrand’s expression changed to worry. The only thing I could feel was power. It was incredible. A black aura surrounds him as he’s thrown to the ground. I hear Luna gasp, but I’m too enthralled by what I’m doing and the feeling of power to care what she thought.

“You want more?” I say with a growl. It doesn’t even sound like my voice anymore. “You got it Firebrand.”

He slides across the floor and head first into the wall. The aura vanished and I watched him stand up weakly. I can feel my lips curl with a smirk as he looks at me with what looks like fear. He tries flying out the window and is pulled back by the black aura. The aura vanishes again only this time, Brand Fire jumps trying to attack me. My hoof stops him short. The exoskeleton crunching and cracking. I chuckle with a sick, twisted smile as I shove him back to the floor. Standing over him, I put my hoof right on his forehead.

“Survive this.” I say.

With that, I reared up and brought down my full weight on his head. There was a satisfying crunch as his brain matter was splattered on the walls and floor. I chuckle deeply as I pull my hoof from his shattered skull and turn to Luna, standing with fear in her eyes.

“Lunarus?” she sais quietly,

“Not home. Try again after you’ve been put to the gallows.” I growl.

Something wasn’t right anymore. It wasn’t me talking anymore.

“Stop. This isn’t what I am.” I try to tell myself.

“Only in your mind. I am in control now. And it’s about time leadership changed around here.”

“No! You’re not doing this to me. This is my body and it does what I say!”

“Too bad. Lunarus is no longer in control. I’m you now.”

“Over our dead body!”

“Ah!” I fall to my side shouting in pain.

I am writhing in pain, control shifting between me and this shadow. This goes on for about three minutes before the castle is rocked by another earth quake. There were thousands of Changelings screaming as the rumbling got stronger and louder. A bright pink wall of light passed through the walls and through me. The pain suddenly intensifies and I let out a demonic shriek of pain. The pain was insufferable but I was feeling strangely at peace inside. As the wall of light passed I let out a breath and pass out.