1056 AD, January 13th

It took extreme circumstances to render Nightmare Moon unconscious.

She could push through any sort of pain through sheer willpower and her accelerated healing rendered most injuries null unless they were so catastrophic that she needed a moment’s respite to let her body deal with them; not even Celestia’s beam of scorching sunlight was enough to knock her out.

Whatever that human’s tool did, it burst her eye, drilled through her orbital bone, and displaced enough brain matter to fill a petri dish.

Suffice to say, once Nightmare Moon regained consciousness, she was very impressed, even with the debilitating haze of traumatic brain injury that impeded most of her higher thought processes.

‘Such a small device capable of felling something me at a distance, however brief; truly remarkable.’

She opened her eyes and was greeted by Vinyl’s terrified visage, her lips moving furiously as she shouted her name and- oh, she was shaking her, too.

‘Hm? What is she…?’

Suddenly, it all came rushing back.

Nightmare Moon shot up with a rare surge of panic and spun to face Natalia. “Where you are?! Pieces tear you- hurrk!”

She violently expelled the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

Bile, the slushy remains of lemon meringue pie from two days before, and some blood she must have swallowed at some point splattered grossly against the metal floor in a rust-brown puddle – lovely.

“Faust, Wolf, are you okay?!” Vinyl nudged her incessantly, her voice taking on an irritating high-pitched drone that may or may not have been in her head. “Yo, can you hear me?”

“Loudly, yes…” Nightmare Moon swiped away some remaining fluid that clung to her lips and looked around, squinting at the hot flashes of pain that pounded in her head. “Everyone…? Humans where are the?”

“They’ve left to sound the alarm.”

Nightmare Moon turned to face… Eiswhel, his face briefly forgotten to her. “Alarm?”

He nodded, looking at her with… concern? “You’ve… taken a bullet to the head. That would kill almost anything; are you… well?”

Truthfully, everything was sort of disorienting, but Nightmare Moon was damned if she was going to let some human get the better of her!

Ah, there was some comforting anger to help keep her head clear.

‘Take a second…’ She instructed herself while closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. ‘You’re in the human’s world, Caed is back in yours, you need to open a Fracture to get back there, and Eiswhel can do that.’

Firmly nodding, she released her breath and opened her eyes before fixing the human with a levelled glare. “Eiswhel, stay did you?”

Eiswhel blinked. “I…”

“Wolf?” Vinyl interjected with a note of worry. “You’re talking weirdly.”

Nightmare Moon turned to her. “What?”

“Your words are muddled up and crap.”

“Mean what you do…” Nightmare Moon trailed off and started over, listening carefully. “You what mean…”

‘Oh, that’s just peachy.’

Well, it wasn’t like she could dig the bullet out there and then; she’d just have to try harder to overcome whatever faults were thrown her way.

She tried speaking again, minding her tongue. “Eiswhel… the humans le… have left?”

“The second you fell Natalie told everyone to get out; I think she would have stayed, but you were already regenerating. I don’t think she wanted to push her luck; we all know what you’re capable of.”

“Lacked the guts to f… finish me off,” Nightmare Moon spat in spite, or perhaps at the sudden taste of copper. Was blood leaking into her mouth? “And why are… you still here?”

“I said I’d get you back to your world, didn’t I? With how strong you are, it’d be madness to just let you roam free in our facilities.”

“A surprising level of clear-headedness from you,” Nightmare Moon spat again, mostly to cover up that she had briefly forgotten how to pronounce the next word. “They’ve gone… to sound the alarm, you said?”

The blare of a siren filled the room as a few red lights on the ceiling started flashing; their spinning colours made her migraine even worse.

“I believe so.” Eiswhel said dryly.

Nightmare Moon was tempted to snatch up one of the bodies of the knights and throw it at the lights, but she resisted the urge; there was no time that could be spent on petty things like that.

“You told me you could operate this machine by yourself, didn’t you?”

“I can.”

Eiswhel walked over to a metal box covered in buttons and dials in front of the coffin-like machine; Nightmare Moon followed him to watch as his long fingers flew over the box’s face with assorted electronic noises. She began to hear a steady hum building underneath the din of the alarm like something big and important charging up.

“We avoid generating Fractures inside the facility,” Eiswhel said without looking up from his tampering. “As much as we try to stabilize, there’s always room for error, and Fractures have an unfortunate tendency to create bursts of electromagnetic waves that knock out electronic equipment. It’s rare, but it happens, so we ‘send’ the Fractures to other facilities so the equipment here isn’t damaged.”

“What, you just send them like a parcel?” Vinyl queried in disbelief. “Big ol’ anomaly of time and space and whatever, and you just tell it to go here and there?”

“It’s more complicated than that, but that’s the general idea. Honestly, if you know what you’re doing, there’s a long list of things you can do with the Fractures,” He paused and looked over his shoulder. “Of course, that’s provided you don’t attempt to go over how much mass can pass through it, or allow the constant threat of EMP pulses to affect your work.”

Nightmare Moon glowered. “And how l… likely is that scenario?”

“One in one thousand. With just me monitoring it? One in one hundred.”

Vinyl aimed a sarcastic smile in her direction. “Still beats flyin’ an airship, eh? The magazines say those are death traps if something goes wrong.”

“The worst that could happen is if part of you is through the Fracture and it suddenly closes,” Eiswhel said, turning back to the machine. “We’re still arguing over whether it’ll be like amputation, or if your arm will continue to exist in that dimension and float around in accordance to your movement and position.”

“You’re literally not making me feel better, dude.”

Nightmare Moon rolled her eyes. “Just get that Fracture back to Canterlot up and going. How long will it take?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Twenty…? We’re not going to be left alone for that long!”

“I said I can do it by myself; I never said I could do it fast.”

Nightmare Moon practically hissed at him. “Fine. Do what needs to be done. Now, you… also said you would tell me where you are holding the other unicorns.”

Eiswhel nodded slowly. “Yes,” He was quiet for a few seconds, concentrating on his hands, and then he moved away from the box over to the machine, speaking aloud on the way. “The unicorns are held on the floor above us in a secure room; it’s guarded, but whoever’s there would likely be responding towards the alarm, so you shouldn’t have any confrontation.”

“How will I find it?”

“It’s the only room with a door that could withstand a blast.”

Nightmare Moon nodded. “Got it. Do your work, and I will free the unicorns. Vinyl – you remain here and keep an eye on him.”

“Yeah, I can’t really turn to smoke and shit anyway,” Vinyl agreed. “Uh, but what about the door? I mean, I’d like to think I can take a knight in a fair fight, but if they’re going mob-style on me?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

With several long strides, Nightmare Moon was stood in front of the door, where she proceeded to take a deep breath and call on her magic.
Her head informed her that it didn’t much like that.

Ignoring the throb, Nightmare Moon pressed the tip of her horn to the door’s surface and started to layer it with thick spider-webs of frost that grew into even thicker chunks of clear blue ice; she dragged her horn across and along the doorframe, making sure every inch of it was covered.

She drew back with a wince to survey her handiwork.

With ice that thick, it would – should – take the knights a while to get through, during which she could find the unicorns and get them back here.

“I’m leaving… now,” She announced, moving over to the air vents. “Eiswhel – I swear to you… if there is one… one scratch on Vinyl when I get back, you will truly know what suffering is.”

Eiswhel gave a hollow laugh. “I fear that is something you cannot promise.”

Nightmare Moon ignored the remark and evaporated into purple mist.

With a sharp tink, the small, metal cylinder that was in her head dropped to the floor, and Nightmare Moon revelled as the cobwebs were dusted from her mind. Now, the wound would heal properly.

With that small bit of good news, she slipped back into the ventilation shaft. She moved quickly, slithering through the vents like the air it carried until she came across an opening that went straight up, presumably to the second floor.

She could still hear the alarm as she went up and up until she could ascend no further and took the vent on her right.

She passed by a grate and the sound of footsteps alerted her; she peered out to see three knights running by, two with shields that were left in the metaphorical dust by the lithe figure that darted ahead of them, a large sword glinting in the artificial lighting on their back. One of the slower knights whined at the speedy human to slow down because they just ate.

Nightmare Moon proceeded ahead.

She moved at the same pace as an average pony’s trot while in her mist-form, but she couldn’t traverse the vents fast enough; with each grate she passed by and didn’t spot the reinforced door in question, she grew more and more impatient as her mind drifted back to Vinyl.

‘I shouldn’t have left her with the human. I should have prepared more defences. I should have done more to make sure that she’s-’

The thoughts were distracting her; she violently cast them aside to focus on what she was doing, what needed to be done. There was no use dwelling on ‘if’s’ and ‘maybe’s’ in the present.

Nightmare Moon paused at the ninth grate for a second longer before pressing through the gaps.

She had found it.

A heavy, thick door that – as Eiswhel said – looked like it could withstand several explosions at point-blank range was left unguarded at the end of a corridor. The intimidating bolted frame and charcoal-grey metal surface spoke of terrific durability, but that didn’t deter Nightmare Moon.

She merely slipped beneath it.

Before she even reformed, she surveyed the chamber, taking in its plain metal walls, floor, and the many cells housing the kidnapped unicorns. To her surprise, they were in relatively good condition, aside from the expected dishevelled look and expressions of misery.

So much misery, in fact, that it took Nightmare Moon reforming her physical body and clearing her throat for any of them to take notice.
They looked at her in surprise and cautious optimism.

“Hey, it’s Nightmare Moon!”

“Are we saved, or even more doomed?”

“Shit, dude, I’ll take Sombra at this point.”

There were more than a dozen unicorns of varying ages – the youngest was around nine or ten; the small filly stared at Nightmare Moon through the bars with curiosity and awe.

“I’ll have you all out soon,” Nightmare Moon strode over to the nearest cell and gestured at the two prisoners. “Move back.”

“W-wait – there’s a… there’s a thing on the wall by the door,” One of the mares said as Nightmare Moon went to bite down on the bars. “I’ve seen the knights push the buttons and make the cells open.”

Nightmare Moon looked over to the door and spotted the ‘thing’ in question – another electronic device like the one Eiswhel had operated. It looked different, though.

“I think the buttons are coded for each cell,” The mare continued as Nightmare Moon walked over to the device. “They push one button and it makes the door open and close.”

There were nine buttons arranged in rows, all of them marked by a number. Easy enough. Her hooves were too large, so she had to use her horn to push the first button.

She grinned victoriously as the first cell on the left side of the room rattled open and proceeded to open the rest to the sound of cheers and relieved laughter.

Once she had pressed all the buttons and opened the last of the cells, she turned to face the ponies spilling out, happy to be free but still wary to go near her; they congregated together for safety in numbers.

Nightmare Moon frowned as she counted. “Is everypony out? I assumed two for each cell, but only see sixteen.”

“Uh, that’s us!”

A bedraggled stallion – more of a colt, really – leaned out from the backmost right cell and awkwardly waved. He was wearing the uniform of a doorstallion, albeit stained and unkempt, and his accent designated him as a Manehattanite.

Nightmare Moon moved between the crowd as they parted for her. “Are they injured?”

“No, but… she’s been like this since they brought her in.”

The inside of the cell is much more sparse and clean than the dungeons in the castle; aside from a sink on the far wall and two bedrolls laid out on the floor, there wasn’t much to see. The lack of facilities caused her to wonder what happened when they were needed for all about three seconds.

She instead focused on the mare in the corner of the room, who appeared to be whispering something.

“Are you injured? Can you walk?”

The mare, lying down on her belly with her head bowed, started and turned just enough to see Nightmare Moon. “… Y-you came…”

“I didn’t expect to play ‘rescuer’ today either, but here we are. Now, if you’re not hurt, then get up and-”

“Ah, Divine Daughter – bless you!”

Nightmare Moon would have thought that making sudden moves around her, towards her especially, was universally considered a bad idea; a consensus shared by anypony who knew her or even looked upon her for the first time. She had that sort of presence.

The mare’s bright blue eyes clearly worked, so she had no excuse; she was lucky that Nightmare Moon could process that she was harmless before her instinct acted instead and reduced the mare to a smear on the wall.

But then the mare had to push it by pressing up against Nightmare Moon in a hug.

“Get off me.” She pushed her off with a growl.

The young mare was undaunted. “I… I prayed to Mother Faust that we would all be saved, and she has provided us with one of her Divine Daughters,” She was hyperventilating; there was an aura that surrounded her and gave off ‘feel-good’ vibes that complimented her mane and coat of sunshine yellow and mellow tangerine. “Bless you, Empress, for hearing my plea.”

‘Oh, wonderful – there’s a devout Alicasist amongst them.’

Her kind tended to pluck Nightmare Moon’s nerves, but she wasn’t knocking on her door with a bundle of pamphlets or trying to cleanse her with religious psalms; she seemed genuinely grateful, in fact, so she didn’t have much reason to complain. For now.

“Yes, yes…” Nightmare Moon waved her off and turned to walk back towards the door. “Faust is telling me to tell you to hurry up, so you better get to it.”

She heard the mare usher the colt along as if she hadn’t been the one holding them all up and turned to face the room once she was at the door.

“I assume you are wondering how I got here, amongst other things; truth be told, I’m curious as to what sort of experience you’ve had here as well. However, we have no time to play Twenty Questions. There is a way we can all go home, but you need to do exactly as I say, when I say. Understood?”

They all nod carefully, save for one enthusiastic affirmation from a pair of starry eyes that pushed their way to the front.

“Good. Now, a few rules before we go: first one is shut up unless you’re calling out something that could potentially kill us. Secondly, I don’t expect any of you to fight given the lack of magic in this world and your imprisonment, but if there’s something pointy next to you and the chance comes up, do not be afraid to stab any of the knights,” She turned to open the door, but looked back at the crowd again. “Also, try not to die.”

Watching Eiswhel work the machines was fun for a little while before Vinyl was getting flashbacks to science class and she quickly lost interest; she moved over to a chair and sat down with some difficulty.

It wasn’t made for pony physiology, but it had wheels.

“So… what’s that other machine for?” She asked, rolling by Eiswhel while turning clockwise. “The one those jerkasses were trying to stuff me in?”

Eiswhel looked over as she came to a stop near the machine and made a face like someone had farted. “That’s… how we gain the magic needed to power the Spectrum Shifter.”

“I thought magic didn’t work for you guys.”

“It’s more accurate to say that anything from our universe is just very, very…” He paused. “Very resilient towards magic. The level of resilience is based on physicality and the formation of molecules.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to dumb that down for me; I dropped out of school to mix music.”

He gave her a weird look – Faust, what hell was this where they didn’t know about mixing music? – before nodding. “Put simply… the more ‘solid’ something is, the less magic can affect it. I assume you already know that humans are largely unaffected by magic? Well, we’re still affected, but it would take a tremendous amount of magical energy to do anything to directly harm us. However, something like water or gas, would be more susceptible. Less than if the substance was from your universe, but still more susceptible than flesh or metal.”

“Okay – I’m with you so far.”

“Your species can convert magic into other types of energy – incredible stuff, by the way-”

“Cheers.”

“-such as heat, light, and kinetic, and that can affect us. Although, it’s not quite as powerful as the natural forms of it.”

“They told us that in elementary. Can’t filter out all the magic in the spell, or… or something like that.”

“But magic is still very useful to us, even if we can’t manipulate it by hand,” Eiswhel continued. He moved over to the Spectrum Shifter and looked at the same panel that Natalia bitch examined. “Using that machine – yes, the one you’re next to – we can take magic and convert it into power for everyone.”

Vinyl turned to stare at the machine. “This thing powers everything?”

“Not exactly. It’s connected to a reactor we have in the lowest level of the facility; this is what we use to extract magic from unicorns and convert it into energy the reactor can use.”

Vinyl nodded. “Huh.” She didn’t even want to imagine how the hell they managed to do all that conversion… whatever stuff.

Unfortunately, Eiswhel took her grunt as an invitation to elaborate.

“The machine you see was built with parts from a subterranean network initially connected to the reactor that converted thermal energy into power.”

“… There’s thermal crap beneath us?”

He went on, seeming to have not heard her, which wasn’t comforting in the slightest.

“The Spectrum Shifter… what I’m working on right now… it is able to transport matter from one location to another instantaneously by creating a tear in the fabric of space, visible as a white ‘crack’ that emits an unusual noise, as well as forming an invisible worm hole that folds space in a linear line going from the point of origin to the desired destination.”

“So… it teleports?”

“Precisely.”

Vinyl let out a small chuckle, immensely pleased that she had gotten that.

Eiswhel stood from fiddling with whatever ‘over-her-head’ mechanisms were behind that panel and closed it before walking over to one of the metal boxes covered in dials and buttons and glass screens.

Vinyl rolled herself over to watch him work. This stuff went way over her head, but it was slightly more interesting than looking at the big-ass block of ice covering the door; the pale blue mist curling off it just made swirls and wisps that not even the most overdramatic and angsty of artists could imagine pictures out of.

Not that imagining shit was doing much good for her; she kept worrying up new and ‘out-there’ scenarios that Wolf could have gotten herself into.

Crazy, considering Wolf was a scary and bad motherfucker that didn’t afraid of anything, but if you could make something bleed, then you could kill it. And she definitely bled.

‘What if something with a lot of kick got to her? What if that metal thing scrambled her brain worse than it looked? Can alicorns heal from that sort of crap no problem? I dunno…’

She needed to take her mind off it.

“So, if this thing can teleport, then why don’t you teleport someplace that doesn’t suck? No offense.”

“None taken. We would teleport…” Eiswhel grimaced.

“I hear a ‘but’ coming.”

“The entire planet has been affected by war; there is no place we can grow crops or vegetation. Not only that… during the war, the Spectrum Shifter was damaged. We managed to repair it, but whenever we activated it, it seemed to do nothing. We discovered that wasn’t true later, but it was a demoralizing blow to know we could not teleport off this planet to another one.”

Vinyl’s eyes widened. “Whoa, you guys can go into space? Shit, I always wanted to go there when I was a kid. One time, I tried to pay a pegasus my lunch money to fly us as high as she could go. She didn’t take it.”

And now that pegasus was the captain of the Wonderbolts. Funny how life works out.

“A lot of records and documents were destroyed during a war that our forebears started; it’s how we know of another world out there that can sustain us – our true home, the one we originally came from. Earth.”

“Are there ponies there?”

“I… believe so, but they are not as intelligent as your kind. I think,” He shook his head. “As I said, a lot of our history and culture has been lost to us. Where the Spectrum Shifter once had a connection with Earth, it is now without one.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Thank you.”

Vinyl licked her lips and rolled over to watch Eiswhel better. She felt oddly relaxed around him; he didn’t give off that ‘antsy, peeved to all hell’ air that surrounded most of the humans she came across.

Plus, his fingers were creepy-awesome to look at.

“We tried to fix it, to restore the connection, but to no avail. Eventually, we decided to try and make the most of our situation, try to survive on a planet torn apart by war,” Again, Eiswhel shook his head, frowning. “It was difficult with the poor composition of our soil, but hope bloomed when we finally manufactured our first greenhouses.”

“I heard about that when we were walkin’…” Vinyl bit her lower lip. She might not have played a part in what happened, but you’d have to be cold to not feel the slightest bit guilty. “I… I’m not sure what to say. Sorry?”

Eiswhel’s hands slowed their flow across the buttons and dials as the low hum that was present throughout their talk turned into a low, ear-tingling drone; it was just on the cusp of Vinyl’s hearing range. She tried to ignore it and focus on Eiswhel, whose eyes were dull and tired behind his glasses.

“I hated your kind for what happened. I wanted to hurt all of you as much as you hurt all of us. Even when Caed informed us that it was an accident, that you weren’t aware of our presence or how closing the Fracture as you did would affect us, I still wanted vengeance. The fact that we could use your kind to power the Spectrum Shifter was just a bonus.

“You see, it-”

Vinyl jerked upright at the sound of something banging against the door.

The ice didn’t so much as shudder with the strikes, but it didn’t ease the anxiety that came with the fact that there were angry knights knocking on the door in the universal language of ‘I can only knock for so long before resorting to smashing through and repeating it on your face’.

Vinyl reckoned that if she was close enough, she could hear voices through the metal and ice. Not a happy thought.

“The ice seems to be holding,” Eiswhel observed, briefly looking, and then continued tapping away at the buttons. “Although, any Guardian could beat it down with enough time.”

“Guardian? Usually that’s a name for good guys, but I’m guessing it actually isn’t.”

“Well, not good for you, certainly.”

Vinyl winced as a particularly meaty thud caused a few ice shavings to cover the floor. “Goody. So, back to the whole teleporting thing… how did you even get into another universe if the thing couldn’t even take you five feet in one direction?”

“Well, for starters, it’s easier.”

“… How?” Vinyl frowned. “Like, I’ve watched a lot of science fiction movies, and those guys make a bigger deal about teleporting to another dimension than to, like… another city or something.”

Eiswhel looked at her weirdly – poor bastard never seen a movie? – before replying. “Because your universe and ours occupies the same space, just not on a frequency where we are able to interact with one another. Earth, our Earth, is light years away, so we have to deal with space and distance.”

Vinyl blinked and put on her best ‘I don’t understand what just came out of your mouth’, hoping Eiswhel would pick up on it. He did.

“Imagine…” Eiswhel made a sound of frustration and bit his bottom lip. “The Spectrum Shifter once had a connection to Earth, so that means there was something there it was connected to, most likely a relay or even another device that functioned similarly to it. Without that connection, the Fractures it creates are just pockets of distorted space that lead nowhere. Useful for dark areas, but still useless. We couldn’t even control where the Fractures would end up, not at first; the machine’s sole purpose was to create Fractures and it was ‘lost’ in a sense, without the Earth connection.

“We had originally given up on it, but one day, Natalia – the woman who shot Nightmare Moon – activated it again on a lark, and by sheer luck, the Fracture it created ended up in a place where we were able to see and monitor it. Once we could isolate and study it, we discerned that all the times we used the machine and it seemed to do nothing, it was creating portals in random locations across the planet.”

Vinyl blinked and nodded. “You know… back before all of this, we were having trouble with weird animals appearing all over Equestria. A bunch of pegasi called the Wonderbolts found out where they were coming from, and the princesses came out and told everypony about the Fractures.”

“I assume they wandered through the portals when they opened up outside the city. Anyway, that’s when we looked through the anomaly and realized…”

He suddenly stopped his tapping and analysing to fully face her.

“There was another world out there.”

In a surprising bit of fortune, the second floor seemed to be entirely evacuated. No humans rounded the corners or walked through doors; it appeared that they had all gone to the ground floor in response to the alarm.

That made things easier for the time being, but considerably harder when she arrived at the sealed door later. She’d deal with it when the time came; for now, she had to make sure nopony else died on the way back.

Not an easy task considering how squishy unicorns were, but the lot she had rescued had the smarts to keep behind her and keep their eyes peeled. The majority were fit and able-bodied save for one filly that was worryingly quiet throughout everything and one ageing mare with a cough that admirably insisted she was fine, that she hadn’t lived in Manehattan for fifty years just to die to a few monkeys.

“Divine Daughter?”

Nightmare Moon fought back a grimace. “Do you see something that could kill us?”

“No.”

“Then why are you talking?”

“Forgive me, Divine Daughter, but I only wished to tell you that if you are injured… or, or if anypony else is injured, then I can help,” The mare smiled with a sort of cautious confidence. “I am… I’m quite good with healing spells.”

“If you can help, then do so; there’s no need to ask for my permission.”

“Of course, Divine Daughter,” The mare said, keeping in step with her and smiling so widely it took up most of her face. “I… My name is Vitae.”

“Good to know.” Nightmare Moon grumbled, looking up ahead at a slightly ajar door; must have been left open when the humans inside ran out.

“I… I was afraid at first when you took over Canterlot. Y-you were one of the Divine Daughters, but you were… you were different…”

As she passed, Nightmare Moon looked in through the gap.

“I didn’t know what to make of you, but now I’m certain that-”

“Vitae?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up for a second.”

“Okay.”

Something pulled at Nightmare Moon as she reached out to push the door open; it wasn’t just curiosity, she felt a familiar tingle that could only be concentrated magic. But how could that be? Humans couldn’t generate magic on their own and they were effectively immune to it.

As she walked in, her sense of smell was bombarded with ambient magic, antiseptic, and other assorted chemicals.

The room was crowded with stainless steel tables covered in scientific tools, apparatuses, and crystals imbued with magic, some shattered and some whole. It eerily resembled the time Twilight and Sunset ordered all those crates of crystals and turned the lab into some pointy, funhouse mirror-esque lab.

Fortunately, there weren’t as many crystal shards for Nightmare Moon to stand on as she ventured further into the room. Her muscles quivered as the ambient magic was drawn into her body, replenishing her reserves and quieting down the migraine that had been persisting for some time.

“What is this room for?” She questioned aloud.

The others filtered in, too nervous to remain out in the hallway, though one of them mustered up the courage to stand by the door and keep an eye and ear out. Nightmare Moon was all too aware of the risks of dawdling, but something niggled at her…

She blinked down at a pair of dissected crystals before turning her head and noticing the blackboard with wheels attached to its frame.

“Hm…”

Numbers, words, and diagrams became clearer as she approached. A lot of the scrawls involved equations she had never seen before, but what she did understand…

Living cells from inhabitants of (Be)Universe contain naturally replenishing magic; self-generating – renewable resource? Negative

Look, guys – if you’re confused, look at the diagram ->

Is that a pony or a dog? Who gave Johnson the chalk?

‘They were using crystals for charging? Or…’

There was a clipboard sitting on the ledge where the chalk usually went; Nightmare Moon picked it up and skimmed a few of the pages, her frown deepening as she read.

“Approximately forty-seven… twenty used… might need an extra unicorn or two depending on how heavily we use the Sp.Shifter…” She flipped to the last page, but it was covered in equations she didn’t understand; both from how complicated they were and the presence of several symbols that weren’t in the Equestrian language. “Use the unicorns to… power the machine perhaps?” She licked her lips and placed the board down. “That could explain why they’re taking them, but how do they-”

“Uhhh… E-Empress?”

The urgency and tremor in the stallion’s tone was enough to her on edge. Nightmare Moon turned to the source and saw one of the unicorns standing beside a slightly ajar door at the far wall of the door they went through.

He was ashen-faced, shaking, and looked one droplet of blood away from vomiting.

She quickly trotted over. “What is it?”

“You… There’s something in this r-room you might… want to see…”

He didn’t want to tell her directly? That was never a good sign.

She used the edge of her wing to nudge him aside before opening the door with the same appendage and stepping inside.

Frigid air washed over her as she took in the sight of a dead unicorn laid out on a steel table.

She had been young – mid-twenties – and quite a looker, but any lively lustre was gone and replaced by a vacant expression and uncanny grey-tinted eyes. She had been positioned to be prone on her back, forever facing the metal ceiling.

Nightmare Moon barely paid her a second thought as she turned her gaze to three other body bags on separate tables beyond the mare.

So, this was what happened to the kidnapped unicorns.

It wasn’t surprising, really; she had a strong feeling that this was the outcome. It would have shocked her more if something like this didn’t happen.

Without a word, Nightmare Moon walked further in, drawn by yet another clipboard hanging from a hook on the wall.

She heard the others crowd around the doorway, curious, only to recoil and gasp.

“Oh Faust, they are killing us.” Somepony whimpered.

“I… I hoped that she…” Another one said before trailing off with a choke. “That could have been us if…”

Nightmare Moon took the clipboard off the hook.

Nightmare Moon let the board clack against the floor and moved over to the body bags.

She unzipped the first.

A stallion, young with an almost invisible puncture mark on his neck, likely from a needle.

She unzipped the second.

An elderly mare – puncture mark.

She unzipped the third.

A colt – puncture mark.

These wounds were the signs of a cold and deliberate kill that would cause no unnecessary complications or mutilation; it certainly wasn’t done with any sort of emotion behind it.

The clean precision of the mark – bordering on surgical – and lack of bruises or abrasions made her guess that they weren’t restrained; they might have been knocked out with a chemical or gas first, or perhaps the cause of death was so efficient and unremarkable that they didn’t know they were dying until it was too late.

… Well, there was nothing else in the room aside from that notice and the bodies, so Nightmare Moon could only leave.

One of the unicorns looked up at her as she approached the door. “Should we… do something?”

“They’re dead,” She retorted with a shake of her head. “They will feel no gratitude if we carry their corpses back home.”

She walked out, knowing that she should return to Vinyl soon, but then her attention was caught by a thick manila folder nestled in an alcove beneath the table nearest to her. A closer inspection revealed that it wasn’t just a table like the rest, but a desk – a pencil holder painted in bright colours and errant papers were spread out over the surface.

But what really made her stop and snatch up the folder was the name ‘Scribe Eiswhel, T.’ printed on it.

She flipped it open and read through the important documents that had been so conveniently coloured orange.

The more she read, the more a wriggling black ball in her chest festered and grew.

“Hm, I would have never guessed…”

Vitae walked by her side and craned her neck to see. “Divine-”

She closed the folder and tossed it at the mare without looking. “Hold onto this.”

She was feeling… enraged but also excited.

Enraged because she had found several more reasons to hate the humans, but excited because right now, she had so many ways to make them suffer, all thanks to that lovely folder.

Nightmare Moon wetted her lips and pulled them into a toothy rictus; she was feeling strong and unstoppable from having absorbed some of the crystals’ magic and learned new information about her enemy’s weaknesses.

The thought of Vinyl waiting for her gave her some pause, but she argued that this was the opportunity to strike a major blow against the humans or… perhaps even turn the tides of war altogether.

She could not pass this up.

“We’re leaving,” She said to the others over her shoulder. Vitae was insisting she could carry the folder, apparently seeing it as some task given by Mother Faust herself to fulfil. “There’s a place we’re going to make a stop at. These humans will rue the day they crossed me…”

“The multiverse theory, that is to say, the idea that there exists an infinite number of universes with their own discrepancies and similarities, has been tossed around between the Scribes, but we didn’t get any solid evidence of its existence until we discovered your world. It caused… quite a stir.”

Vinyl chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, totally. When I heard that the animals appearing all over Equestria were from another universe, I was like… ‘hot shit, that’s pretty crazy!’”

“Caed was a firm believer of the multiverse theory; he was like a kid when he found about it,” Eiswhel’s fond smile suddenly curled into a frown. “Although, I think that was because he wanted to fight a dragon.”

“Heh – hey, who doesn’t, right?”

Eiswhel snickered amusedly.

For the fifth time, he went over to one of the work stations to check something before coming back to the one Vinyl was seated next to and resume staring at rows and rows of little neon green numbers that zipped by on a screen.

She didn’t even pretend to understand what all that crap was about.

The Spectrum thing was still making that charging noise, but Eiswhel had stopped darting around to push and flick stuff, so Vinyl guessed that’s exactly what it was doing – charging.

She had to say, she wasn’t too comfortable waiting around with nothing to focus on when there were a bunch of angry humans making angry human noises behind the only exit.

The ice was holding still, even against the wall-shaking thumping that had been going on earlier; Vinyl asked what that was, and Eiswhel merely replied that a Knight Guardian must have finally arrived.

So, yeah… not looking forward to that introduction.

“I’m sorry for what we’ve done.”

“Hn?” Vinyl turned from the door, almost fell out of her chair from doing so, and narrowly saved face to stare at Eiswhel. “Come again?”

“I’m sorry for what we’ve done,” He repeated with a sigh. “The kidnapping… the fighting… all of it.”

Vinyl blinked and scratched her head. “O… kay?”

“Our world was torn apart by death and destruction wrought by our forefathers’ hands; we shouldn’t be inflicting the same thing on anyone else,” He sighed again, leaning heavily against the station. “No matter our need.”

“Okay…”

Vinyl felt like this was something that should be reserved for somepony who knew about diplomacy and interspecies interaction. Wolf immediately crossed her mind, but went away just as quickly when she realized Wolf’s brand of diplomacy with the humans would probably involve a clean-up crew.

She had no idea how to converse with someone they were supposed to be at war with aside from casual inquiries and small talk that she picked up from attending soirees with Octavia.

She just wanted to go home to kiss and hug her wife and tell her how much she loved her.

Eiswhel went on to stare at the screen, leaving Vinyl to awkwardly turn back and forth in her seat, struggling to come up with something poignant to say.

She couldn’t and went with whatever was on the tip of her tongue.

“Look, dude…” She shrugged. “If there’s one thing movies have taught me, it’s that it’s never too late to just stop, ya know? You and the other humans don’t have to keep doing this. The hole’s already halfway to the other side of the planet, so don’t keep digging, right?”

Eiswhel snorted bitterly. “If only that were true.”

“Yeah, and that’s another thing that happens in the movies: the bad guys always go, ‘oh, it’s too late for us, so we shouldn’t try’, and I think that’s bullshit; there’s no reason you shouldn’t try if you really feel bad about it.”

He turned to look at her, seemingly surprised. Vinyl randomly wondered if humans understood the concept of ‘telling it like it is’ because he really seemed shocked by her words, if only for a few moments.

Then he turned away.

“There are others like myself that are tired of this, but we are in the minority. Besides… it’s not quite as simple as just ‘stopping’.”

“Why not?” Vinyl furrowed her brow and wheeled closer.

“If someone close to you…” Eiswhel began with looking at her. “Really, very close to you… was killed due to the actions of another person… do you think you could just ‘stop?’”

“… Shit, when you put it like that…”

“God, I want to stop…” Eiswhel groaned and ran a shaky hand through his hair. Now more than ever, he looked old. “When Caed brought the first unicorns in, I was so ready to do what had to be done. I felt justified in it. But once it was all over… I didn’t feel any better. The one I cherished most in life was still gone, and nothing I do can bring them back.”

Vinyl grimaced sadly.

She had an inkling of what Eiswhel meant by ‘doing what had to be done’. She felt bad for the unicorns that had passed on and guilty because… well, she didn’t know anypony who had been taken, so she had no strong emotions to wrestle with.

Maybe if she did, then she wouldn’t be feeling sorry for this human.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Eiswhel beat her to it.

“The Knight Enforcer… Caed… he wasn’t always like this. If Sybil were still alive today, I don’t think we would be having this conversation.”

“Sybil? Who’s that?”

“His surrogate little sister – quick as a whip and always managing to bring a smile to everyone’s faces. She was the whole world to him and… one day, she got sick. It wasn’t anything we could cure; her immune system just got weaker and weaker until finally…”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, removing his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.

“Oh dear… Caed just… he changed for the worst. Only a few of us noticed. Caed prides himself as being a fearless and capable leader to keep hope alive in the city, so he pushed his grief aside and insisted he was fine. He wasn’t. There were days when he would shut himself away and just go over the Old Tales for hours. We had to bring his food to him.”

“Old Tales?”

“Literature containing stories about people who took up knighthood to become paragons and protectors; they tell of us how our ancestors used to be before we lost our way. They’re the very foundation of our city, metaphorically speaking; without them, none of what you see would be here. It was Caed and Sybil that found them, brought us all together, created something instead of more chaos, so… so now you may have a better understanding about why he is so respected and why so many of us follow him.”

“… What about you?”

Eiswhel’s lips turned up in a pale imitation of a smile. “He is my Knight Enforcer, and I will gladly lay my life down for him. But I fear he is losing himself. At this point, he’s becoming less like himself and more like what he thinks he must be. But I…”

He shrugged.

“There’s nothing for me outside this city, but I don’t like what my friends and my Knight Enforcer are becoming. At this point… I’m running on routine because it’s the only thing I can think of.”

“That’s a crappy way to live.”

“I don’t see any other way.”

“Then why shake up the routine? I’m no good at reading my own kind let alone a human, but I got a real solid feeling my gut that you’re not just helping because Wolf’s threatening to kill some of your dudes.”

Eiswhel opened and closed his mouth like a fish, clearly shaken. “Because… I see every unicorn that we capture and all I can think is… how much you resemble us. You’re not human beings, but you’re so similar. And then I remember… a long time ago… how Caed promised humanity would never fight amongst themselves ever again.”

He blinked down as the screen suddenly let out a chime and flashed green.

“‘Humanity’ is a broader term than I originally thought…”

Once again, Nightmare Moon and the others traversed the corridors without incident.

When Nightmare Moon finally saw the door she had been searching for come into view at the far end of a hallway, her rictus grew wider and bloodier.

She dug her hooves into the floor for a second before sprinting forwards fast enough to turn a hundred metre dash into a casual stroll.
She reached the door within seconds and threw her body weight into a shoulder tackle.

Fortunately, the door wasn’t quite a sturdy as the one she had barricaded; the only damage she received was a dislocated shoulder and some bruising.

She clicked her shoulder back into place with a grunt and smirked darkly as she looked around the room.

“Perfect.”

The phrase ‘peas in a pod’, or more appropriately, ‘fish in a barrel’ came to mind as she examined the cylindrical metal containers, each large enough to fit her, and the slumbering figures lying within, viewable through a see-through glass face. There were ten pods in total, five on each side of the wall in a slanted position; a mess of tubes and wires curled out from the pods and into a box just on their side that helpfully bore yellow stickers announcing the care needed when dealing with the machinery.

Nightmare Moon was going to raze this room and enjoy every second of it.

“You run so fast!” Vitae panted as she ran through the buckled doorway, her tone holding awe and reverence. “I… W-what is this room?”

“As it turns out, there’s a reason the humans can afford to attack so aggressively,” Nightmare Moon replied, turning to her as the other unicorns stumbled in, similarly out of breath. “It appears that they have manufactured machines that can transmit their consciousness into bodies grown in these pods. Synth-gel, they call it – it’s all in that folder I gave to you.”

She prowled across to the closest pod and peered inside, looking past her faded and distorted reflection into the face of a sleeping human – female, if those bumps on its chest and flat pelvis were any indication.

They were suspended in some clear fluid that seemed to be breathable since there was no apparatus on their face, or perhaps it was like how a foal developed in the mother’s womb.

… Oh well.

Nightmare Moon walked to the side of the pod, bit down on a tube, and tore it free of its socket with a spray of the strange liquid that smelt of cinnamon.

There was an alarmed bleep from the pod that grew higher in pitch as she ripped another tube out.

“This will go faster if you all help!”

Some looked uneasy, but a few quickly ran over to the other pods to begin destroying them in any way they could. Without Nightmare Moon’s strength and magic, it was slower, but at least they were trying.

A chorus of bleeps soon began filling the room along with flashing red lights from within the pods.

“Ah! Is this retribution for what the humans have done to us, Divine Daughter?” Vitae quipped, trembling with rebellious anticipation.

“What? Sure, whatever – just hurry up and break something.”

Vitae proceeded to do so.

It took Nightmare Moon half a minute before the pod she was dismantling finally stopped beeping and flashing. A splattering and dripping noise started up as the liquid within the pod started leaking out through gaps and around the sockets where she had pulled the tubes and wires from.

A monitor inside the pod, just above the human’s head, showed a flat line in the last seconds before power stopped flowing to the machine altogether and it winked out.

A dark feeling of satisfaction filled Nightmare Moon as she went on to the next pod.

Some of the humans appeared strange; they had underdeveloped limbs, skin pressed too tightly against their bones, or seemed to lack entire muscle groups. Nightmare Moon assumed they were still in the process of regeneration.

Unfortunately for them, they would never get the chance to complete.

The floor was covered in the cinnamon-scented fluid by the time Nightmare Moon started on the second to last pod; the dismantlement was greatly sped up now that the other unicorns were focusing their efforts – the pod barely had the time to blare all its annoying sounds and lights as wires and tubes were yanked, panels were bucked, and the-

The human inside opened their eyes.

Nightmare Moon was the only one to notice as she had already been in the act of rising on her hind legs to stomp down on the pod’s door.
She met their gaze for a second before deciding to flash a mocking smile and grant them an extra second to process what was happening before she threw her weight into her hooves.

The strange liquid was at least useful in washing away the blood on her hooves as she planted them back onto the floor, shaking each foreleg as the gashes faded away.

The last pod was dealt with just as swiftly.

“Well done, everypony,” Nightmare Moon commended as the unicorns nodded and smiled at one another in cautious optimism and a strong sense of justice. Vitae was practically bursting with pride. “Even if this isn’t the only set of pods, we’ve struck a critical blow nonetheless. Now, what say we finally get back to Equestria?”

Vinyl winced as another blow made the ice crack and splinter, shavings flicking into the air.

“Stallion, I hope Wolf didn’t come across a room full of pie…”

“What?”

“Never mind.” She shook her head and swivelled in her chair, grateful that she had her shades on.

A Fracture hung in the space in front of the Spectrum Shifter, just having blinked into existence a few minutes earlier.

It was a disappointing show, too; she had expected something with a bit more ‘oomph’. She expected the world to distort and lose colour as time and space was torn apart with psychedelic waves of light, but it was more like ‘boom, here I am’ and that was that.

Still awesome to look at though, even with the migraine it caused.

She didn’t know how Eiswhel managed to stand being near it; he was right next to the Spectrum Shifter looking at some panels and didn’t seem the slightest bit irritated.

Must have been a human thing.

As she watched him work, a random thought came to mind.

“Hey, maybe you should come with.”

He started, stood rigid for a few seconds, then looked over at her in bewilderment. “What?”

“Yeah, come with us back to Equestria. I mean… I don’t think your buddies will be too happy that you’ve helped us, ya know?”

“True, but I am in no danger from them. I will come to no harm.”

“Okay, but you can still come with. I’m sure our world is better than staying here.”

Eiswhel made a face like he ate something off. “I… That’s not a good idea, Vinyl. I have committed many crimes against your kind; I would not be welcome there…”

“Like I said, you can always try to redeem-”

“And I could not go with you while my people stay here and suffer.”

“So why don’t they come along, too?” Vinyl questioned, frowning. “You know, I always figured… instead of revenge, why don’t you guys just ask us to give you a piece of land or something? Yeah, I don’t really see Wolf negotiating something like that either, but I heard you saying to that knight earlier – Ren, I think? – that you guys are going to try and move to our world in secret? Why don’t you ask the unicorns you get to charge the machine and promise to let them go?”

“That would be a sensible alternative,” Eiswhel nodded. “But emotion has a funny way of blinding you to alternatives: I’m certain many others feel like this war isn’t worth it, but we’re outnumbered – Caed and his knights and most of the scribes want vengeance.”

Vinyl sighed in frustration. “Shit.”

“And there’s another problem…” Eiswhel continued. “Fractures are unstable from the moment they are created and they only become more unstable the more mass that goes through it. The one you see before you is enough to transport you, Nightmare Moon, and the rest of the unicorns without difficulty, but anything more and there’s a chance it will close altogether.

“It requires a vast amount of energy to create Fractures, even more to make one capable of transporting every man, woman, and child within this city to your world. Caed wants no one left behind.”

“Damn.” Vinyl scowled.

She really wanted to find a solution that would help settle things between both sides, but she was coming up with nothing. If this was a movie, then she’d probably get at the climax or something, and that was no good.

“If having unicorns consciously charging the machine would do the trick, then this would be simple, but they cannot put out enough energy to be sufficient, even in groups and with breaks in between. It’s just too slow, and we’re on borrowed time; our food reserves will only last for so long.”

“And you can’t accept food from us because you’d run out of energy to make a Fracture?”

“You could have provided seeds, but we have no other soil to grow them in. The part of the city that was destroyed when you closed that large Fracture was the only location with adequate growing properties within miles. The wildlife is slowly dying out, too, so… that source of food isn’t going to last for long either.”

“Faust…”

Eiswhel smiled apologetically. “Thank you for trying to help. But I don’t see an alternative.”

Another heavy blow made the ice shudder.

In hindsight, she really should have thought of a way to get back to the Spectrum Shifter sooner.

She also should have acknowledged that their luck would run out at the most inopportune time.

The humans, having been absent and thus leaving her and the unicorns free to search and destroy, were now present and grouped together in front of the door she had barricaded, and were attempting to break through.

It was a good thing they were loud enough to hear before she could turn the corner.

“What do we do now?” A unicorn stallion in a sharp – if rumpled – tuxedo whimpered.

Nightmare Moon carefully peeked around the corner to count the opposition.

‘Seven with swords and shields, two with greatsword, and two with greatshields.’

Alone, that would give her enough trouble, but from the snippets of talk audible between the heavy clangs of the heavy-shielded knights as they slammed against the door in tandem, there were more knights that had left to find equipment and tools more suitable for the job.
Nightmare Moon could clear the ice with a spell, but the hard part was getting there.

Clearly, she would have to kill the humans before reinforcements could arrive.

“You will all stay here and refrain from entering melee,” She ordered. “If any of you are familiar with spells from the Elemental school – preferably cryomancy – than feel free to bombard them from a distance while I keep them occupied.”

“You’re… going to fight them?” The stallion blinked in awe.

“I’m going to kill them. There’s a difference.”

“Divine Daughter…”

Nightmare Moon waved Vitae off. “I have a lot of pent-up aggression, so allow me to indulge in this. You don’t think these humans are truly a match for me, do you?”

Vitae shook her head emphatically. “N-no. Of course not!”

Truthfully, there was a chance Nightmare Moon could be slain by a lucky hit – several of them – but she wasn’t one to let death stand in her way.

She just had to work extra hard to make sure that chance was as miniscule as possible.

She stepped out into view without hesitation and started charging her horn with magic.

“Greetings!”

One of the larger knights slammed into the doors, so her shout was partially drowned out and noticed by the knights at the very back, but they were helpful enough to yell out a warning before scrambling into defensive stances.

They showed some intelligence by putting the greatshield knights in front with the others taking cover behind them – the corridor was narrow that shoulder-to-shoulder they could prevent almost anything from flanking them.

Nightmare Moon chuckled malevolently as she walked forwards, deliberately flashing a split-cheeked grin to unnerve them.

“What do we have here? A group of humans stumped by a door – how pitiful. And what’s this? You appear to have no other way of retreating; that’s never a good sign.”

None of them replied, but she could see their animosity and tension in the way they fidgeted and gripped their weapons.

“You know, I’m feeling generous today…” She stopped, continuing to charge her spell with a cracked tombstone grin. “I’m going to give you the opportunity to cast aside your weapons and let you leave. Doesn’t that sound splendid? No blood needs to be shed.”

One of the normal knights behind the greatshields raised a finger.

She recognized the gesture from griffon culture and laughed in response.

“Yes, I figured as much. Truth be told, I wasn’t planning to let you live anyway. It’s just that if you were unarmed my task easier would be easier. Quicker. That being said, I hope you provide with me a challenge.”

She let out a deranged laugh, just to see them flinch.

“I imagine killing defenceless unicorns have made you a little soft.”

“You’re outnumbered,” A female responded, her voice bouncing within her helm. “Talk shit all you want because you’re going to die.”

Nightmare Moon laughed again and shook her head.

“No. Now, I’m going to have fun…”

Start off strong.

Her spell fully charged, Nightmare Moon galloped forwards, jumped into the air, and became a swirling maelstrom of ice shards and freezing winds.

It took a lot of practise to figure out how to maintain spatial awareness whenever she did this, but it was worth the time and effort; she could ‘hear’ and ‘see’ where she was as she led the storm trailing behind her through the ranks of the humans before reforming her body behind them.

The knights at the front blocked almost all the glass-thin ice shards, but not the mist that billowed around their shields to blast each knight by creeping through the gaps in their armor and stealing the heat from their bodies. They crumpled with gasps and wet coughs, slapping at the parts of their armor where flash-frozen flesh screamed beneath.

While they were distracted with the pain, she snagged a human with a greatsword by their unprotected neck and crunched down with her teeth until the spine gave way with a noise like celery stick being broken. She tossed them forwards hard enough to knock over two normal knights before delivering a vicious stomp to the back of another’s knee and headbutting them when they fell onto it.

The next one she selected to kill managed to raise their shield in time to ward off a swipe of her foreleg, but the force sent them sprawled on their back anyway. Another knight got in front of them, thinking themselves a defender, and Nightmare Moon responded with a body-check that flung them against the wall.

The rest of the knights forced themselves through the pain of the cold and descended upon her, but as she suspected, the confined space of the hallway, their numbers, and the length of their limbs made it difficult to get any sort of momentum behind their swings or attack without the fear of hitting their comrades.

They were reduced to stabs and pommel strikes that hurt but barely faze Nightmare Moon as she used her size and strength to knock them down and crush them against the walls, all with a bloody grin on her face.

Her heart was thumping wildly with excitement.

One of the burly knights with the large shields pushed aside the remaining greatsword-wielder who was having trouble finding the space to swing his abnormally long weapon and tried to shove her towards the door, looking to make space.

Nightmare Moon rose onto her hind legs and braced her forelegs against the shield, stopping them dead in their tracks.

“Not again.”

Whether it was because this knight was weaker than the other one she had fought earlier or she had better leverage, they were gradually being forced to their knees. She could hear them grunting and panting in exertion, and if she had another few uninterrupted moments, she was certain she would have crushed them beneath their own shield.

But then the other hulking knight had to rush in and lend them support.

The other humans rushed behind them to attack from the sides of the shield; hardly effective since most lacked weapons with any real length, but one of them had a flail that kept striking her face and that was very annoying.

Before she could chomp down on the chain, the knight let out a choked howl as a spark of blue light struck them in the back during their wind-up; Nightmare Moon saw sparks spitting off their armor.

She looked over the heads of the humans to see the smartly-dressed stallion standing at the end of the corridor with a glowing horn and an expression of utmost horror and disbelief.

Clearly, he could not believe he had just done that.

She sent him a smile that he would preferably not take as terrifying.

Deciding that this back-and-forth had gone on long enough, Nightmare Moon spread her wings and leapt back with a powerful beat to help her clear some extra feet. The large knights, pushing with all their considerable strength, tripped forwards and fell on top of one another with the rest staggering and flailing their arms to keep balanced.

Nightmare Moon fixed that by diving forwards and knocking them down, placing the fallen knights between her and the dead end.

She flashed her teeth with a hearty laugh and bent over to grab the greatsword-wielder by the ankle with a bone-crushing bite.

Like she said, this was going to be fun…

“I think she’s back.”

Vinyl watched the door with baited breath; she could hear a hell of a ruckus going on behind it, like someone had taken a bunch of tin cans and was banging them together, interrupted by the occasional shout or scream.

“She’s really not good at subterfuge, is she?” Eiswhel said dryly.

“I dunno – she was right underneath Celestia and Luna’s nose for a few years, and they didn’t suspect a thing.”

He frowned, likely aiming to ask who Celestia and Luna were and how Nightmare Moon accomplished something like that before the sounds from beyond the door abruptly stopped, leaving the type of silence that’s deader than ‘silence’.

That always creeped Vinyl out, being a firm believer that there should be some sort of noise no matter where you are. It was also worrying.

She was about to go over there, but stopped when she saw that the ice was breaking away in a manner that could hardly be called a natural process.

‘Duh. It’s fucking Wolf, of course she’s alright.’

She climbed off her chair and trotted over in excitement.

Once most of the ice had been cleared, the doors slid open, and Wolf practically strutted through.

“I’m back with the unicorns.” She said, casually disregarding the pile of dead knights behind her.

In Vinyl’s humble opinion, that was a pretty badass entrance.

A bunch of unicorns entered right after Wolf, similarly dumbstruck and in awe. So, Wolf did manage to save the unicorns – fucking A.

One mare in particular looked like she was right on the verge of climax.

“Y-your strength is incredible, Divine Daughter! I never would have imagined to see somepony beat a human with another human!”

“Consider yourself enlightened. Now, give me that folder. The rest of you go wait by the Fracture. Try not to look directly at it.”

She obeyed, hoofing over a manila folder before going with the others to stand with the machine.

Wolf finally turned to Vinyl and, wow, it was a hell of a sight to her face relax into a genuine look of relief and carefully measured joy.

“You had no trouble?”

“Me? Pssh – naw,” Vinyl shrugged with a dismissive sniff. She couldn’t really reveal that she had begun to feel nervous during those last few minutes, could she? “Just wondering if I’d have to stretch and break out the old boxing hooves.”

Her lips twitched a little. “Of course,” She then looked up and her face settled back into its usual predatory glare. “Eiswhel.”

Vinyl frowned worriedly, but took a step back to watch as Eiswhel walked over, ignoring the confused and wary looks of the other unicorns.

“The Fracture is open, as you can see.”

Wolf gave a little nod. “Yes. Tell me – do you recognize this folder?”

She held said folder out.

Vinyl watched as Eiswhel’s lips parted in a quiet gasp before setting in a tight line. He swallowed – hand clenching into fists – before nodding.

“Yes. It’s mine.”

Wolf didn’t even blink. “Is everything in it true?”

Eiswhel nodded again. “Yes, it’s all tr-”

Wolf’s head darted forwards and drew back in the blink of an eye.

Clack

Vinyl blinked at the sudden noise that she recognized a moment later as Wolf’s teeth snapping together before picking up another noise – something like when she stepped on a loofah in the shower or when she squeezed a sponge when washing the dishes…

She turned to Eiswhel in time to see red blossom against his white coat and spray from his torn throat.

He stepped back, stumbled, and fell.

“Oh, fuck, Eiswhel!”

Nightmare Moon licked her bloodstained lips, watching with confusion as Vinyl scrambled to the human’s side and shouted his name in… concern?

Shock – it must have been shock.

The unicorns were also staring, but they appeared to be just confused.

“Wolf…” Vinyl stared at her, mouth agape; she looked back and forth between her and Eiswhel’s twitching body. “What did you do that for?”

“The humans harvest magic from our bodies to charge their machine; they want to colonize an island in our world,” Nightmare Moon held up the folder. “It’s all in here. Eiswhel was part of it. He was there when the first unicorn was killed.”

Eiswhel wasn’t quite dead, but he was fading quickly; he had six or eight seconds at the most.

Strangely, he had an odd look on his face… something like contentment? Relief?

It didn’t matter – he would soon be dead.

“B-but he…!” Vinyl spluttered, wincing like she was trying to argue something but couldn’t find the right words. “Yeah, I know, but… he helped us!”

“So he did something worthwhile before death,” Nightmare Moon shrugged. “Come on – we’re going home.”

She didn’t know why Vinyl was so upset about this – it seemed to be personal. They would have to speak about it later, when there was time and no threat of being attacked.

Eiswhel breathed his last as Nightmare Moon used her wing to nudge Vinyl along; the DJ was oddly upset about what happened, but she trotted towards the Fracture nevertheless.

The anomalous tear in space waited for them patiently.

It was a shame Nightmare Moon couldn’t smash anything in here for fear of prematurely closing the Fracture, but she’d settle for destroying something that was obviously of critical importance to the humans and taking back the unicorns they kidnapped.

Besides that, Canterlot was still being invaded.

She hoped Ebony and the others had gotten a hold of things.

“One at a time,” She told everypony when they were all ready. “Who wants to go first?”

Silence.

“Very well,” Nightmare Moon walked forwards, squinting as the intensity of the white light grew stronger. “I’ll go first.”

~

Never had she been so happy to be back in Equestria.

To be surrounded by ambient magic again was like being dipped into a hot sauna – Nightmare Moon’s body felt rejuvenated as she soaked in the magic and smoke-filled-

Oh, right.

She looked around and saw that they were back in Canterlot, the upper-class district it seemed.

Over the roofs of the buildings, she saw a few plumes of grey smoke rising high into the air, but could hear nothing like the sounds of chaos there had been when the behemoth bug was stumbling about; it was almost too quiet.

She wasn’t sure to be happy or cautious.

After looking over her shoulder to confirm that the unicorns were coming through the Fracture, Nightmare Moon closed her eyes and sent out her thoughts.

“Can anypony hear me? Are you close by?”

Fortuitously, she was answered.

“Empress, you’re back!” Ebony cried, elated. “Are you okay? Where did you go? Do you need help?”

“I’m fine-”

“Boss, I am so stoked to hear your voice again!” Fade chimed in.

Nightmare Moon grimaced as Lightning Dust, Haze, and Miasma’s thoughts filtered in, spilling over each other with their questions and concerns.

“Enough!! I am fine; I’ve rescued the unicorns that were being held by the humans when I went into their world through a Fracture.”

Five cries of, “Wait, what?!”

“I’ll explain later – where is the behemoth bug?”

“It’s dealt with, Empress…” Ebony replied.

Nightmare Moon nodded in satisfaction. “Good.”

“B-but there are still humans in the city. I… Some ran off, including the one I was fighting, and Veil’s having a hard time finding where they-”

Veil interjected, loud and panicked.

“Empress, they’re right on top of you!”

Nightmare Moon opened her eyes and shouted, “All of you get behind me!”

Vinyl and the unicorns swiftly obeyed after a moment of confusion, and Nightmare Moon spread out her wings and ignited her horn as she scanned the roads.

“Where?”

“West!”

She looked up for a second, spotting a speck in the sky that must have been Veil, before turning her body west.

Not two seconds later, an armored figure nimbly leapt off the roof of an antique store and landed on the road several yards from her position.

Nightmare Moon narrowed her eyes. “Caed…”

The Knight Enforcer stood. “You…”

“Forgive me earlier departure, but something came up,” She smirked, unable to resist the urge to tell him of the damage she caused to his facility and see what reaction she would elicit. She imagined it would be just as satisfying as getting it from Celestia. “Incidentally, I stumbled across one of the Fractures you used to-”

Her ribcage buckled beneath a colossal blow that sent her skidding across the cobblestone, leaving fur and blood in her wake.

She was still processing what happened when a red blur scooped her into the air with a swipe that split the flesh of her side, rose alongside her, and spiked her back to the earth with a vicious kick.

Several bones broke as she put a barrier to ward off further assault.

Her attacker bellowed and smashed her barrier to pieces with an aerial dive.

Her throat was suddenly crushed beneath an iron grip as a face loomed over her, shadowed with rage save for one red eye that shone like the sun.

“I’m going to kill you…”

Huh… she expected another long-winded speech.

Author's Notes:

Note 1: The Old Tales - A platoon of soldiers, disillusioned and lacking purpose, born into a war with forgotten origins, wandered the aftermath of a city that had been struck with a terrible weapon.

It was there that one man found two things: a girl and a cache of aged literature.

The girl read to him from the cache; she told him of warriors in shining armor sworn to serve the greater good, of men and women finding enlightenment in a world of fantastic creatures, of places where people grow, live, and die.

The man became enamoured with these ancient warriors, and with ambition burning within his heart, he shared these tales amongst others.