1056 AD, January 13th

Well, seeing as he wasn’t going to start giving speeches…

Nightmare Moon threw him off with a blast of kinetic energy and rolled to her hooves, coughing at the tightness of her throat.

Hell of a grip he had.

“You seem upset,” She sneered, watching cautiously as Caed got into a crouched stance; the blast didn’t seem to have even rattled him. “Tell me – how many knights did you lose fighting my-”

He lunged forwards.

The tip of his glaive sliced a furrow in her cheek as she dodged to the side and countered with a left hook-

-that swiped through air as Caed stepped away from its trajectory and smashed his shoulder into her breast.

Her armor absorbed most of the damage, but the force made her stumble backwards. His movements became a red and black blur as he pursued with a flurry of glaive strikes, punches, and kicks.

Nightmare Moon had a few jeering remarks in mind, but she couldn’t find an opportunity to use them; she struggled to follow Caed’s movements and her body cried out as strikes found their way through her defence.

‘Well, I’ve always thought that a good defence is a good offense.’

She parried one of Caed’s kicks with her wings and swiftly let loose a tempest of frigid winds to freeze his legs in place.

He wasn’t in front of her.

She blinked in surprise before something crashed down on the back of her neck like a guillotine.

The ground was unforgiving as her jaw dislocated upon impact, but her body didn’t even have time to complain about it as the cold edge of a blade swiped across her back, bringing an acute, unfamiliar pain and a powerful gust that sent her on a path to collide with a lamp post that bent on impact.

O-kay, that was… embarrassing.

She got back up, dizzier than she expected and unbalanced.

Caed was strong and fast but still a human; she’d have a better advantage if she was in the air. He could still jump and use that gauntlet to teleport, but he didn’t have the mobility she had.

Focusing her attention on the Knight Enforcer glaring balefully at her from the other side of the road, she spread her wings and-

The sharp pain in her back sparked.

Nightmare Moon turned her head to the left and saw empty space where a wall of feathers should have been.

She looked back at Caed and saw a twitching mass gathering dust on the ground.

‘Oh.’

Ice spread from the bleeding nub on her back all throughout her body – the pain wasn’t crippling, even if her awareness made it ache that much more, but the realization that she had lost an entire appendage had her reeling.

Thankfully, instead of capitalizing on her shock, Caed saw fit to walk forwards slowly, the blade of his weapon sparking against the ground.

“The first thing I heard once that Fracture opened and our signals got through was that our cultivation tanks were offline,” He was breathing heavily, red eye flashing bright enough to be seen through his eyelid whenever he blinked. “Do you realize what you've done?! Four of my knights are dead, and they're never coming back!”

Nightmare Moon ignored her missing wing and folded the remaining one before clicking her jaw back into place to smirk at Caed. No use in crying over severed wings. “More than that, I assure you. There are plenty more dead humans back at your base of operations. I didn’t get the exact numbers.”

It was going take a while for her wing to grow back.

Perhaps she should try to grab the lost appendage and see if it would reattach to the nub? She’d never had the opportunity to see if alicorns could reattach lost body parts since dismemberment almost never happened.

The only other time she could think of was when Celestia hit her with that beam of sunlight, but her organs and limbs had been liquefied, so there wasn’t anything that could really be attached.

She prepared to teleport behind Caed.

“Although, I’m sure that it was over ten,” She continued with a chuckle. “There are several humans I’m not counting because… well, they were in the tanks you use to grow new bodies and didn’t put up much of a fight.”

Caed tensed up.

“Wolf!!”

Nightmare Moon’s dark glee went cold like the sensation in her nub as she saw Vinyl running over with some of the unicorns in tow. Were they insane?

“Vinyl, stay back! Get to safety!”

The DJ stumbled to a stop several yards away, face creasing in worry and indecision. Fortunately, Caed was more interested in Nightmare Moon; he didn’t even turn to look at Vinyl or the other unicorns.

But the two other Rouge Knights that emerged from around the corner of a burning bookstore did.

They looked, but they didn’t make a move to capture or attack. It was difficult to tell with their helms obscuring their faces, but they seemed to be more interested in the Fracture.

One of them, seemingly having issues with their left arm if the way it dangled was any indication, shouted. “Knight Enforcer! We have to go!”

"Go, then!" Caed shouted back. "Get to safety! I will make this scoundrel pay!"

"The tanks are dead!" The female pleaded, her voice high with desperation. "You can't...! There aren't any second chances for us!"

“You should listen to your soldier, Caed,” Nightmare Moon said. “I’ve rescued the unicorns you’ve held captive and destroyed a portion of your facility – I’ve already won this battle. Go and tend to what remains of your pathetic forces.”

“… Pathetic?”

Caed clenched his teeth together so hard they might have chipped. He looked almost demonic with such a murderous expression.

Nightmare Moon narrowed her eyes and prepared to teleport to her wing – his stance and tone just screamed that he was about to attack.

He moved in front of her so fast that it might as well have been a teleport; Nightmare Moon’s reflexes saved her from taking a glaive to the face as she cast her spell and relocated to where her wing was.

She swiftly snatched it up with magic and-

Caed blew her back with another charge.

Okay, to hell with the wing, then; she would just have to adjust to her uneven weight.

“I fought alongside these men and women against an enemy with weapons that could turn cities to ash. Who are you to call them pathetic?”

Caed lunged forwards while she was still getting up; she had to move on pure reaction to dodge a stab, but was hit with the follow-up – a left-to-right slash that split her throat open.

“You don’t know how hard they fought!”

Nightmare Moon backed off to avoid another slash before stomping her hooves against the ground and sending out a wave of frost that encased Caed’s feet in ice. She quickly formed a spear of ice and thrust it against his face, but he shattered it with one lightning-fast chop off his hand and then smashed the haft of his glaive against the ground, producing a dome of powerful winds that cleared the ice and pushed her back several feet.

“They deserved better!!”

Nightmare Moon would have countered by pointing out they were kidnapping ponies – some innocent – to serve as literal batteries, but it was all she could do to keep up with his assault; he was fighting harder than she had ever seen him.

The thought of him holding back during their previous matches made her blood boil – the nerve of someone else doing that to her!

She was pushed back several more feet by a flurry of slashes and kicks before a wide swing left her a big enough opening to bite down on his forearm and pull him to the ground with a violent tug.

Stomping one hoof down on his chest to keep him pinned, she opened her jaws wide and went for his throat.

“GLUK!!”

Her eyes widened as she pulled backwards, her hooves scrabbling against cobblestone as Caed clenched his fist within her throat.

“Not now…” Caed rose into a crouch, keeping her still as he aimed the tip of his glaive to her head, a hateful snarl on his face. “Not ever.”

“Hey, asshole!”

A piece of debris bounced off Caed’s head; it barely caused a flinch, but it did distract him for an extra second, allowing Nightmare Moon to finish charging her spell and then slam her hoof on the ground to conjure a massive spike of ice that struck Caed in the chest hard enough to get his arm out of her throat.

“GRAH!!”

Nightmare Moon teleported a few yards away and rubbed her neck, saliva slicking her lips and chin. “V-Vinyl! Stay away!”

To her dismay, Vinyl continued stomping forwards, scowling as she telekinetically chucked whatever she could scoop up off the street. “Friggin’ anime-villain reject – eat a dick!”

Caed deftly got back on his feet and walked towards Nightmare Moon, not even glancing in the DJ’s direction as rocks bounced off his body.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!”

“Vinyl, get back – you’ll distract me!” Nightmare Moon anchored her hooves in the dirt and watched Caed carefully; he was proving to be a more dangerous human than she expected. “Go somewhere safe!”

“I’m not letting you fight by yourself!” Vinyl shouted adamantly before turning to some of the other unicorns – why were they still there? “Come on – there’s more of us than there are them! You gonna let this idiot beat on the mare that saved your asses?!”

The unicorns looked nervously at Caed and the two knights, who had suddenly decided to abandon the idea of going through the Fracture to walk forward, drawing weapons to-

"No!!" Caed's head jerked in their direction, the force of his tone bringing them to a dead stop. "She is my opponent! The only life I will risk in a direct fight is mine! Stay your blades!"

The knights faltered, but reluctantly stayed back, although the female continued to appeal to Caed, trying to sway him.

It was all background noise – to Caed and to Nightmare Moon.

Nightmare Moon shook her head and cast an Iron Fur spell since Caed seemed to be taking his sweet time to glower and loom. “Vinyl, I have guards already on their way! Don’t be an idiot!”

Vinyl grimaced in concern. “But-”

Whatever she was about to say was drowned out as a voice chimed in Nightmare Moon's head.

“Empress, we’re here!” Ebony’s link was strong, close.

Though she’d never admit it, Nightmare Moon felt a surge of relief. “About time.”

“Got your ass from above, boss!” Fade added, and Nightmare Moon looked up to see him, Lightning Dust, Veil, and a few other pegasi flying overhead. “We killed their pet bug, so how’s about we do the same for these jerks, yeah?”

Caed stopped walking and glanced up, his frown deepening. “…”

“Why, are we having second thoughts, Caed?” Nightmare Moon chuckled with a vicious grin. “Perhaps it’s-”

“No.”

“-not too late for-”

He moved.

He moved in that way that obscured his form in a blur of motion too fast for her eyes to follow and suddenly he was in front of her.

His hand grabbed her horn, and the protective coating of magic from the Iron Fur spell recoiled at his touch before falling apart altogether as Caed twisted his hand and snapped it off.

Her roar of pain was silenced as the chunk of horn was pushed through her neck and the haft of a glaive smashed against her torso so hard that her bones rattled and she was flung into the air.

Her Praetorian Guard were Calling to her in alarm, but were swiftly cut off as audible shouts and cries slammed against her ears.

Nightmare Moon’s remaining wing flapped purely on reflex, even though she knew it wouldn’t help her. She pushed the pain aside and pawed at the stub of horn sticking from her throat. Pegasi flew over to help, but Caed materialized in mid-air from a portal and swung his glaive to create a cyclone that sent numerous pegasi spiralling in random directions – the only one unaffected was Lightning Dust, who rode the winds and maintained aerial control.

‘I forgot he has that gauntlet.’

She hit the ground at an awkward angle, but managed to remove the bone from her neck. She didn’t get a chance to try and see if it would set back in place because a shadow fell over her and she barely managed to dodge to the side to avoid Caed’s strike that cracked the road. A blinding flash of red-orange sparks kicked up as Caed swept his glaive through the stone to send a volley of rocks at her.

She swept her wing out to deflect them, but Caed had disappeared in the one moment her sight was blocked.

Nightmare Moon turned to her right and summoned a metre-thick wall of ice that spider-webbed with cracks as Caed’s glaive punched through and came a few centimetres away from gouging out an eye – it was pure luck she guessed the right direction.

Thinking fast, Nightmare Moon bit down on the glaive and yanked it through the freshly-made hole; there was some resistance, but it ended as there was an immensely satisfying thunk on the other side of the wall. Her first response was to break the weapon in half, but even her jaws weren’t tough enough for that; she quickly Called Lightning Dust before tossing the glaive high into the air.

“Lightning Dust – get this thing far away!”

Lightning Dust swooped down and caught it in mid-air as Caed dashed around the ice wall with a red mark on his forehead.

“That was a gift!”

Nightmare Moon sent a hail of icicles at him, but he covered his head with his forearms and ran through them. She went to knock him down with a charge, but he used her head as a springboard and leapt straight over her back. She dug her hooves in to stop and turn just in time to see Caed grab Lightning Dust by the tail and pull her to the ground.

The glaive fell from her grasp, and Nightmare Moon quickly spelled it within a block of ice before charging forwards to keep Caed from breaking it.

Instead of retreating, Caed swung his leg in a powerful roundhouse that sent her tumbling backwards. She recovered swiftly and ran forwards again, dodging his next attack, and then ramming him in the belly with her head before flipping him into the air. Her follow-up, a large spike of ice, failed to connect as he ripped open a portal that swallowed the projectile before closing.

Caed landed several yards behind her, infuriatingly unharmed.

Nightmare Moon panted, sore all over, but still grinning. Caed was more dangerous an opponent than she gave him credit for – he might have just been on par with Celestia.

It was exciting; she’d be feeling high for a while after beating him.

As she stared Caed down, a spear suddenly whistled towards him from the sky, which he avoided by slightly leaning to the side and letting the point spark against the stone.

The next pegasus to throw their spear screamed in pain the following second as it was thrown back to puncture their wing.

Nightmare Moon spared the effort to catch and put them on the ground in a safer manner before Calling.

“Where are the rest of you? I only see Fade, Lightning Dust, and Veil.”

“We’re coming up now; just behind Caed!”

Sure enough, Nightmare Moon spotted Ebony appear from around the corner of a building with Miasma and several other Eclipse guards in tow. As she said, they were behind Caed – a perfect opportunity to flank!

“I’ll keep him occupied, and you hit him when I give the or-”

Something must have shown in her expression because once Caed caught the next spear, he turned around and sent it hurtling through the air with an almost lazy flick of his wrist, one that caused the spear to pierce an unfortunate guard’s breastplate.

They were dead before they hit the ground.

The others – including Ebony and Miasma – stumbled and looked in shock, which proved to be a fatal mistake as Caed was upon them in an instant.

Nightmare Moon snarled in irritation and teleported over.

It was only a few seconds, but it was enough time to see enough to get an inkling on what it must have been like for an average pony to see her in a fight.

Without her strength and size, the guards might as well have been made of cardboard: Caed sent three flying with one kick, grabbed an earth pony by the tail and swung her into a pegasus, and caused a unicorn to stab another with their sword by just dodging at the right time.

Not even Ebony or Miasma stood a chance – Ebony was almost immediately on the ground with a broken leg, and Miasma was sprawled on her back after Caed caught her greataxe mid-swing and cracked her in the jaw with the flat side of the head – his larger size made it seem more like a regular axe.

Impressive, really, but those were her ponies he was attacking.

She tackled him from behind, and they rolled across the ground, punching and kicking, but Caed wrestled the advantage from her with a knee to the belly that winded her long enough to get kicked away. Caed flipped back onto his feet and dashed towards her.

Still breathless, Nightmare Moon clumsily dodged a roundhouse that blasted a hole in the brickwork of the building behind her. She tried moving in to counter, but Caed kept his momentum and transitioned into a spinning back kick that was just as painful and bone-rattling as that strike with the glaive. She staggered and received another kick to the jaw before a shoulder tackle to the chest sent her flying back a dozen feet.

“Unf!” Nightmare Moon grabbed her jaw and clicked it back into place as she stood. “Such strength…” She turned to give Caed a grim sneer. “You would have been a useful ally under different circumstances.”

“Perhaps…” Caed nodded, lifting his hand and squeezing it into a fist before sweeping it out to the side dramatically. “But the lives of my people weigh heavily on you, and I cannot forgive that.”

“And I suppose the lives of my subjects do not weigh on your shoulders?”

“I have taken the weight of my sins, and the sins my knights have committed,” Caed inhaled deeply and shifted his weight to one leg. “Whatever happens, the blame will lie with me.”

Nightmare Moon rolled her eyes. “Martyrdom falls flat when you’ve harvested the bodies of unicorns for magic to fuel your machines. No one except your fellow humans think you’re a hero, and there are at least two there who don’t even think that. Cease your ridiculous grandstanding and die quietly.”

Caed’s red eye shone balefully as he scowled.

“Not until I give my people a new home.”

She expected him to lunge at her, not towards his encased weapon.

Nightmare Moon teleported between him and the glaive and stood her ground, horn blazing with magic like blue fire.

“Knight Enforcer!”

A sword – much too large to belong to a pony – was thrown from the side and was deftly caught by Caed, who transitioned into a flurry of slashes and thrusts that turned the blade into a silver blur. Nightmare Moon swiped and snapped her teeth at him, weathering the blows that sent spurts of blood into the air like satin ribbons, but it was like trying to bite an apple in a bucket of water, one that sliced at your face off every time you tried.

There was chaos all around her as Eclipse guards came in to help, but their efforts were futile - Caed had clairvoyance-level reflexes and spatial awareness; no matter what he was doing to preoccupy her, he always managed to dodge a blow or lash out and cull whoever was attacking him. She saw him smack away a sword with the flat of his free hand while simultaneously kicking backwards to twist the neck of an unfortunate mare who got in too close.

Miasma jumped in from the side with a swipe of her axe, but Caed stepped back, stabbed Nightmare Moon when she tried to charge, and dashed low to grab Miasma by the neck and throw her into a pegasus struggling to aim their spear.

Nightmare Moon stumbled back, the thrust having ruptured her eye; she was more than just ‘miffed’ that despite her best efforts, she didn’t land a single hit.

With her sight effectively cut in half, she didn’t properly see what happened next, only that Ebony telepathically told her that she was coming to help, and Caed suddenly angled his sword over his shoulder to deflect something with a metallic chime before lunging forwards and-

-sliding between her legs.

“Oh, no you don’t!”

She turned and reared up on her hind hooves while Caed was still on the ground and threw her body weight into a vicious stomp-

-that missed as Caed rolled out of the way and instead broke her own ice block that held the glaive.

Her functioning eye blinked.

‘You’re kidding. You’re kidding, right?’

Caed launched her back with a powerful kick.

She hit something soft behind her and heard a familiar cry.

“Nngh! He’s really beginning to annoy me!” Nightmare Moon stood back up and used magic to peel Ebony from off the ground. “Shake it off!”

Ebony shook her head and wiped away a smear of blood trickling from her nose. “S-sorry, I tried to attack from behind, but he just-”

Her eyes widened as she looked past Nightmare Moon and swung her sword.

Nightmare Moon looked to the side, barely fazed by the two knights that had finally decided that helping their leader was better than trying to persuade him; it was the female knight with the limp arm that had tried to blindside her, all-too ready to fight on with a bloodied morning star despite her disability. The other knight was helping Caed with the Eclipse that continued fighting him by drawing some of their attention and leading them away.

Not that Caed appeared to need the help - he had his glaive back and was batting ponies aside like bowling pins.

"I told you to stay back!" He cried.

"When have we ever listened when you say that?!" The knight replied, voice and pitch designating it as male.

With a snarl, Nightmare Moon kicked the female knight back. “Deal with her, Ebony,” She walked forwards, glowering and forcing her ravaged eyelids to open and expose the freshly-grown organ to air. “With any luck, she’ll stay alive long enough to watch her leader die.”

This had stopped being fun.

Celestia and Luna were fun, the regular knights were fun – to feel their hits fall upon her and then strike back with equally powerful blows, to feel the molten threads of rage and excitement going through her body, to know that her strength was making them cry out and bleed gave her a warm feeling in her belly.

Caed was not fun – he was too fast to land a proper hit, and worse than that, he was embarrassing her in front of her subjects by tossing them around like rag dolls, like they were barely a challenge.

Nightmare Moon would not accept that she wasn’t a challenge for him.

“I will save my people, even if I must give all that I am to do it!” Caed spun his glaive over his head and gave a full clockwise spin that sent out a corona of air that knocked her guards back. He still has the sword in his off-hand, but had flipped it around to hold it by the blade. “I will do what must be done.”

“Oh, would you just shut up?!”

She uprooted a nearby lamp post with magic and threw it at Caed, who easily sidestepped and rushed her, thrusting the sword’s hilt at her face like a spear. She ducked to the side and exhaled a freezing cloud of mist that Caed dashed away from. Nightmare Moon channelled magic into the stub of her horn and used the mist to form a salvo of icicles that she propelled towards him before charging, sending out a much larger spike of ice as she did.

Caed deflected the needle-thin icicles with a blast of wind from his glaive and shattered the larger spike with swing of the sword. He didn’t dodge away from her charge, but she quickly discovered it was not because of a slow reaction – Caed planted his feet in the ground and braced against the resulting impact; it was like trying to push a stone wall, and Nightmare Moon only managed to force him back a few feet before stopping, her neck and back muscles straining.

She lit her horn and discharged a burst of electricity that she knew hurt from hearing Caed’s cry, but he powered through the pain and brought his knee into her jaw, crushing it into the top of her mouth with such force that several teeth were pulverized against each other. She pulled back, but Caed’s grip was like iron, and he slammed his knee into her face once more before letting go, spinning to gain momentum, and swinging a wind-strengthened glaive into her side with enough power to send her flying off to impact against the side of a building.

“D-damn it…!” Bits of rubble rained on her skull as she slid out of the crater she had formed and dropped to the ground. She thought electricity would have more of an impact on him, but-

Caed blurred forwards and sent her through the weakened wall with a shoulder tackle.

A thick cloud of dust obscured her vision as she rolled through the furniture of somepony’s home and ended up sprawled on the kitchen floor.

Shaking her head and standing, Nightmare Moon snarled hatefully and tore all the cupboards and drawers off in a burst of telekinesis and brought every piece of cutlery to float above her head. Once Caed stepped through the hole, she sent them all slicing through the air – forks, knifes, and spoons.

Caed pirouetted, letting the cutlery bounce harmlessly of his back, and slammed his glaive against the floor to send out a crescent wave of air that sheared the carpet and ripped the faucets of the sink clean off as Nightmare Moon dodged out of the way.

Caed kicked a coffee table at her, flung the sword in his off-hand, and even flipped over a seafoam green sofa as he closed distance, using everything to his advantage to stop her from casting.

Nightmare Moon ignored the table, dodged the sword, and bucked the sofa back, the force breaking it into two halves that sailed over Caed’s head as he ducked and dashed forwards. She summoned another wall of ice, but he was fast enough to get by before it was fully up and send her reeling with a roundhouse before blurring to her side, digging his blade between her ribs, and pushing her to the floor with leverage and incredible strength.

With a rare surge of panic, Nightmare Moon lifted her head to cast a spell, but Caed interrupted it by stomping his boot against her neck. She felt the glaive slide out of her flesh and heard it cut through air as Caed twirled it, aimed the tip at her head, and-

-pierce her neck as a rock collided with his temple and stunned him; it was all she needed to let off another electrical discharge – made more potent by the water spraying from the sink and leaking all over the floor – and shake him off long enough to teleport to the other side of the room.

“Hey, we got your back, boss!” Fade stood in the archway of the destroyed wall, another rock in his hoof as he flexed the blades on his wings. “For real this time, yeah?!”

Nightmare Moon spat a mouthful of blood, barely hearing him over the rush of blood in her ears. Her vision was tinted red with rage – it wasn’t that she needed help to kill Caed in the first place, it was more than that.

It was…

“Incoming!”

Veil flew in through the hole, grim-faced, and tossed out three grenades.

Two were dodged and one was sent hurtling back with a well-timed glaive swipe.

Nightmare Moon erected an arcane barrier as the grenade struck Veil with a crack and bloomed into a fiery explosion that sent her rolling back onto the streets with patches of charred fur and blazing feathers.

Her mental connection didn’t cut out, so she wasn’t dead at least.

Fade caught a lash of the flames that left him unprepared to deal with a blindingly fast charge by Caed that had the human grab him by the throat and viciously toss him against the ceiling hard enough to send him straight to the upper floor.

Two of her Praetorian Guard dealt with so easily, but it shouldn’t have mattered because…!

“Die!” Nightmare Moon dropped her barrier and swung at him, using her hooves, teeth, and remaining wing to force him on the defensive. “Would you just die alre-”

Another wind-powered strike she couldn’t react to, couldn’t stand her ground against.

She slid against the ground, skin breaking and bleeding against cobblestone as she was knocked back outside; her breathing came in harsh pants as she forced herself back up and let loose a flurry of ice and electrical spells.

“Why! Can’t I! Hurt you?!”

The sight of Caed dodging her spells, weathering her blows, taking everything she had when she was trying her damndest to kill him and only receiving the most superficial of injuries wasn’t annoying – it was maddening!

Celestia and Luna could heal, but at least with them, Nightmare Moon knew she could hurt them badly, beat them even! She was strong enough to go up against any one of them in a fair fight and do some serious damage.

She didn’t…

She didn’t feel like that with Caed.

She didn’t feel strong.

She felt like she was struggling.

Even now, Caed was dodging her spells with barely a hint of strain on his face, and she felt… helpless before him.

Her Praetorian Guard were brushed aside before they could even cooperate.

And if Nightmare Moon couldn’t synch up with them, then-

Caed flipped between two twinkling orbs of frost and blurred forwards, crushing her airway with a flash of his knuckles before knocking her onto her side with a spinning kick. She found herself pinned beneath his boot and saw his glaive pull back and come screaming down.

She twisted her head enough so that his glaive scraped against and slid off the curved shape of her helm so that only a portion of her ear was sheared off; the glaive continued sliding off her helm until it was embedded in the ground, and she charged her horn to let off a burst of frigid wind that knocked Caed back enough for her to thrash and shove his foot off her neck.

Caed suddenly clutched at his chest with a pained grimace, allowing her enough time to stand up before he swung his weapon and launched another gust of hurricane-force wind that was too fast for her to dodge; it knocked her flat, and she was really getting sick of being floored!

Also, what was with that pause? It almost seemed like he was experiencing-

“Arggh!!”

Nightmare Moon rolled back onto her hooves, glancing over at Caed’s shout and-

“Vinyl! Get away from here, you fool!” She cried as Caed twisted about, reaching for the white unicorn clinging to his back and holding onto a shard of glass that was dug halfway where his shoulder met neck.

Panic turned her insides to ice as she ran forwards, lighting her horn and reaching out with telekinesis; Caed was turning erratically, making it difficult for Nightmare Moon to grab Vinyl as she held on tight and struggled to work the shard in deeper before-

“Get off me!”

Vinyl yelped as she was grabbed, pulled off, and thrown aside.

The thud of her head hitting the road was impossibly loud.

‘V… Vinyl…’

“You…”

Nightmare Moon stumbled, paused; her breathing turned ragged as she clenched her teeth and trembled with a surge of white-hot emotion that was both unadulterated rage and crushing despair.

Her horn burned with blue light as her eyes turned a solid white; blue sparks of energy danced along her bristled fur as the image of Vinyl being thrown played over and over in her mind’s eye.

“You bastard!!”

She may not have had both wings, but with how fast she charged towards Caed, she might as well have been flying.

Her horn let off a contrail of blue light as she slammed her hooves on the ground to send out cracks that released sub-zero vapours of mist and small, razor-sharp flakes of ice that surrounded Caed, keeping him trapped as she formed a solid blade of ice from her horn and jumped, her head swinging to the side as Caed took a step back, surprise and shock showing on his face.

And then he stepped forward, dodged her blade, and drove his glaive through her belly and out her back.

Nightmare Moon gasped in pain, her eyes and horn dimming as she flopped, boneless, against Caed.

“Wh…?”

He lifted her over his head, as if she weighed nothing, and tossed her off his blade through her own cage of vapour and flakes; they were harmless to her, but she didn’t even register a tingle.

‘But…’

She stared up at the sky, dumbstruck.

‘That’s not how it was supposed to go. Vinyl… I saw her get hurt. I felt this… surge of rage and power that… that should have been enough to kill him.’

She rolled over, the gap in her stomach spilling red across the ground; the pitter-patter of the droplets was awfully loud.

She looked up, blinking as Caed dashed around her spell and strode forwards.

Undaunted.

Unharmed.

‘How am I not a challenge to him? At the very least he should be tired, but…’

Nightmare Moon struggled to her hooves, her rage and hate turning from a boil to a simmer that eventually calmed into… nothing.

‘I… I can’t beat him.’

She watched numbly as Caed batted aside Lightning Dust.

‘I’m just an inconvenience to him.’

The ground shook as a building-sized timber wolf bounded over some rooftops and charged at Caed. Shadow Strike’s jaws closed on empty air and he looked around in confusion before collapsing into a pile of wood and foliage as one savage strike from above took his head off.

‘He’s beyond me. He’s beyond any of the alicorns sisters. I… I can’t protect Vinyl…’

Nightmare Moon heard a whimper and realized it was coming from her.

‘I can’t even protect myself.’

Caed took another step forwards, and Nightmare Moon took one back, uncertainty and fear seizing her heart.

“What? Why are you backing away?” Caed asked, loud enough that Nightmare Moon could hear a faint rasp in his voice. “You want to kill me, don’t you? Then fight,” He sneered viciously, striking his glaive against the ground. “Fight! This is what you wanted, isn’t it?! I’m your hated enemy, aren’t I?!”

Nightmare Moon continued retreating, realizing that she really didn’t want to fight him; she didn’t want to fight something she could barely hurt. That wasn’t challenging, that wasn’t fun; what use was there in fighting a battle she had no chance of winning?

She didn’t want to lose like this, not in front of everypony.

Caed stopped walking and curled his lip in disgust. “You boast, but now you stand there and quiver? Facing death with dignity is not reserved for humans; if one believes that they are the leader of a community, then they must face any threat with utmost conviction. The safety and wellbeing of the people they lead is priority. Are you really going to cower when your people fight on? Will you hide behind them? You should know that I have a particular hatred for foes like that.”

Nightmare Moon’s seldom-used flight instinct screamed at her to run, justifying it with claims that it was foolish to waste her life for others, that her pride wasn’t worth her life; she could live to fight another day.

She just needed to run.

Nightmare Moon’s right forehoof scraped against concrete as she went to turn. She inhaled shakily, swallowed…

'But... if I run now, I'll lose everything. Nopony here besides me is even close to a match for Caed.'

Yet she was still going to lose.

'Everything I've strived for... power, dominance, a kingdom... it's all right here. This city belongs to me. Everypony knows of me as the first to successfully overthrow the princesses, the one that created the means to close the Fractures. I can't just risk all of that by being seen running from a battle.

She didn't want to die.

'I've been at risk of dying since the moment I came to existence; nothing I've wanted or tried has come with zero risk. But I had to do it - to achieve my dreams and ambitions. Furthermore...'

Nightmare Moon turned her head and saw a white unicorn lying on the ground, visibly shivering as she struggled to stand.

'I didn't go through all that trouble just to abandon her. What was the point of it, then?'

She didn't want to die.

But maybe... some things were worth that.

Caed growled and bellowed, "Nightmare Moon! What say you?!"

“N... no... no!! I won’t run!”

She wished she experienced a surge of confidence by shouting it, much like the ‘heroes’ of Equestria did, but the fear persisted like a terrible plague.

“I've worked too hard to just abandon everything! I refuse to give everything I've worked for up without a fight! If I die here, then fine, but no one - no one - will say that Empress Nightmare Moon was too cowardly to protect what is rightfully hers!”

She stomped her hoof, cracking the road.

“You miserable waste of skin – face me with everything you have! You will pay for threatening that which belongs to me!!”

Caed cocked his head, though his expression didn’t soften. “Very well.”

Two things happened:

Nightmare Moon failed to react to another charge that split her side apart.

The wound didn’t fester for very long because a gentle, sunshine glow sealed it up almost instantly.

She blinked in surprise and earned another slash across her throat for her lack of attentiveness, but even that sealed up before the spurt of blood even splashed across the ground.

‘What is…?’

Nightmare Moon dodged and weathered Caed’s blows even as she looked around for the source of her accelerated regeneration. Eventually, she spotted a similar golden corona in the distance that was emanating from a unicorn.

The Alicasist – Vitae, was it? She was casting the healing spell. And with far greater proficiency and power than Nightmare Moon had ever seen; it was boosting her regenerative capabilities to a degree where she was healing the wounds as quickly as she was receiving them.

She didn’t dare risk looking back, but she could feel a familiar weight as her wing reformed, already sprouting midnight-black feathers on newly-grown flesh.

She couldn’t waste this chance.

With the power of a healer behind her, Nightmare Moon forced her fear down into her stomach and started fighting back, letting off jets of freezing air and bolts of electricity. She noticed that Caed was breathing a lot more heavily than before and his difficulty just inspired her to keep the pressure on.

She received a staggering amount of grievous injuries, but with Vitae keeping her intact, she could afford to ignore it.

Suddenly, a rock arced off from the side to hit Caed in the temple, eliciting an irritated grimace.

“Screw you, asshole!”

Another rock.

Several more rocks.

Nightmare Moon glanced to the sidelines to see a dozen ponies – regular civilians, including the ones she had saved from captivity – hurling debris at Caed, with even more suddenly appearing from nearby buildings to join the fray.

A heartwarming sight, some would say, but Nightmare Moon’s first thought was more along the lines of, ‘it would have been more helpful if they assisted from the very beginning.’

Well, better late than never – she wasn’t going to bemoan their help.

“Get him, Nightmare Moon!”

“Kick his ass!”

“Go back to your own universe, monkey!”

“You suck!”

And then, from above came a bolt of purple light that struck Caed in the back and pushed him forwards – a Kinetic Impact spell – which allowed Nightmare Moon to punch him in the jaw so hard he fell onto his back, though he was upright again with a push of his hands and an acrobatic flip.

She looked up and was surprised to see another alicorn hovering above them.

‘Twilight?’

“Apologies, Empress!” Haze’s voice chimed in her head, and she glanced to the side while Caed was distracted to see him running over, horn glowing with magic. “I released her to help with that behemoth bug, and she needed to recover before coming here. Now, let’s give this barbarian a beating he’ll never forget!”

She set her lips in a frown, nodded, and turned to engage Caed.

The ponies lobbing debris didn’t have the best aim, but it wasn’t as if the constant barrage of projectiles helped Caed.

Twilight initially stuck to the air and rained down purple bolts of magic, but when it became clear those weren’t doing much damage, her eyes brightened with a neon green glow and her horn was engulfed in sicky purple fire. She sent bursts of this magic down and whatever it touched, black crystals sprouted like moss.

‘Dark magic?’ Nightmare Moon watched as small patches of crystal appeared on the ground, growing long and thick like charred claws. ‘And to use it in public like that…’

Dark magic was still magic despite its more stranger properties, so direct hits did nothing to Caed, but the crystals clustering the ground made him stumble, severely limiting his mobility. He could still run circles around her, but for the most part, her eyes could keep up.

Haze knew very few offensive spells, so he supplemented her attack with random bursts of light in front of Caed’s face to blind him and telekinetically throwing debris with better aim and force.

But even with the advantages she had, it was still a struggle.

Caed was just so fast and strong – he took hits that would have felled his knights in one blow and just kept on going. His spatial awareness and reflexes were also incredible; there were over a dozen hazards he had to watch out for yet he managed it far better than anyone Nightmare Moon could think of – it was as if fighting several foes while dodging countless projectiles was the norm for him.

She couldn’t even imagine what sort of foes he had to go up against to get this sort of natural experience.

He weaved around her, dodging rocks while simultaneously striking her – he had become more defensive now; his swings didn’t carry as much momentum and he was relying more and more on the sharpness of his glaive to slice into the tendons on her legs, stunning her long enough to launch quick gusts of wind at the ponies tossing debris.

She refused to let that slow her down.

The nerves in her wing twitched, informing her it had grown back entirely, and she launched herself into the air, gathered magic, and sent it all surging forth in a blast of freezing air propelled from a powerful flap.

Caed swiped his gauntlet at the air, but the winds hit him before he could slip through the portal.

It must have been significant because he popped back out of a Fracture in almost the exact same place and on his knees, his form quivering as he coughed wetly, droplets of red flying from his mouth.

Sensing his vulnerability, Nightmare Moon dive-bombed towards him, but only ended up crushing concrete – he had rolled at the last second and got to his feet, but was swaying unsteadily, red staining his lips.

She prepared herself for an attack, but faltered when Caed’s eyes widened in horror.

He pulled his weapon back and swept it upwards, sending out a wave of air.

Nightmare Moon ducked to the side, but it sailed far past her – she wasn’t the target.

She couldn’t help but look over her shoulder, wondering what in the world could have frightened him so.

The answer was Ebony, who was standing over the female knight with her sword primed to stab down in one final plunge that was interrupted as the air punched her clean through the window of a clothes store.

Part of her wanted to go over and help, but she turned back instead, only to catch the dying flash of a Fracture closing. She instantly turned back around and flew over to the knight as a Fracture opened behind her.

When Caed bent to help his soldier, she lit her horn to cast a spell, but his foot swept out and kicked the knight’s discarded mace straight at her horn; freshly grown, it was broken anew, and the pain caused her to flinch and lose concentration.

“You will not take her life, too,” Caed growled, his expression one of resigned rage. He lifted his glaive in a motion that told her of another impending wind strike. “Not while I continue to draw breath.”

The pain in Nightmare Moon’s head was quickly soothed by Vitae’s spell, so she was already prepared to strike before he finished speaking. But she paused. Unlike the rest of his attacks, this one was telegraphed and didn’t come out faster than she could blink – she didn’t know what he was doing, but she wasn’t about to charge in blindly.

Caed shifted his weight, the entirety of his body following the motion of his glaive as he swung it at the ground, hard. There was an explosion of wind that swept up dust particles in a thick miasma.

Nightmare Moon’s ears popped and a wave of nausea overcame her as the dust expanded to swallow her; it was like standing in the middle of a sandstorm, her eyes were pelted with not-so-small pieces of debris and she couldn’t hear anything other than a piercing ring.

‘Damn it!’

She lit her horn and erected a barrier around herself, deflecting the winds and debris long enough to clear her eyes and repair her ruptured eardrums. She cast a freezing ball of ice through her barrier to hit Caed, but when the dust and winds died down, she saw that he and the female were gone and the only thing she managed to freeze was a lamp post.

She’d probably be getting complaints about all of those.

Nightmare Moon searched the area and witnessed Caed lightly pushing the knight through the Fracture she and the captive unicorns came through – the other knight was there, helping the injured one through.

Caed met her gaze.

She knew there was no way she’d get over before he could go through and the idea of fighting him on his home turf didn’t appeal to her. Honestly, after everything they had gone through, she just wanted him gone – dead or not.

Caed was shaking with hate, but one glance at his two remaining knights softened his expression. With one final look and a reluctant scowl, he stepped through the Fracture.

Nightmare Moon released a breath of relief.

‘… Wait, Vinyl!’

“Vinyl!” She turned, ignoring everypony looking at her and the mental threads of her Praetorian Guards Calling to her so she could focus on the white body that hadn’t moved from where it had landed. She sucked in a breath and ran over, ice flowing through her veins. “No, no, no…”

The red was vibrant and shocking against Vinyl’s coat – Nightmare Moon carefully lifted her with magic and searched for the source. A vice seized her heart as she saw the split flesh near Vinyl’s broken horn, matting the fur around it with blood.

Her shades were broken and fell to the ground as Nightmare Moon lifted her.

“Vinyl? Vinyl, open your eyes.”

Vinyl didn’t, but her chest was expanding with breaths, so she was still alive.

Nightmare Moon placed the unconscious mare on her back and stood, her mind racing as she looked back and forth from Vinyl’s face, the Fracture, and the faces of the ponies crowding in around her.

Damn it! Didn’t they see she needed air?!

“Y-you! All of you!” Nightmare Moon pointed to Eclipse guards, who flinched in uncertainty. “Go and guard that Fracture! Make sure no humans come out! Fade, Lightning Dust – get them set up. Haze? Where are you, Haze?!”

“Right here, Em-”

“Get Veil checked and tell Ebony to take things from here. Have Shadow Strike guard the Fracture once he reforms!”

“Twilight! Remain here.”

Twilight blinked as she landed nearby, looking from her to Vinyl questioningly. “You’re…”

Nightmare Moon ignored her and shouted, “Vitae! Where are- Agh!”

She snarled in frustration and took to the air, ignoring the pegasi who squawked and flapped back to avoid collision, and flew over the heads of the crowd. Vitae was easy to pick out with her bright colours, and the mare gave a yelp as Nightmare Moon pulled her up with telekinesis and then set off for the nearest hospital.

“Fix her!” She cried, dumping Vitae on her back, too. “You healed me, so you can heal her!”

“O-of course, Divine Daughter!” Vitae's horn began to glow. "She... She doesn't have your incredible regeneration and brain damage isn't as easy to-"

"I don't care! Just do it!"

Canterlot’s ravaged buildings billowed smoke from below, and the massive carcass of the behemoth bug in the distance emitted a foul smell that carried on the wind, but Nightmare Moon didn’t pay attention to any of it.

Canterlot General Hospital was still standing, and her friend needed help.

Author's Notes:

Note 1: Gentle Embrace - poetically named by the creator, Purple Prose, this spell is tailored for healing and the results are as fruitful as the spell is complex.

By surrounding the injured party in magic, the caster tends to wounds by replicating parts of the injured, such as blood and tissue and even bone, and 'sewing' it onto the injury. Additionally, the receipient's healing factor is bolstered so that the formed mass can be grafted on faster. This spell is a concentrated effort, so the caster needs focus and drive to sustain it, especially in stressful situations.

As one of the rare healing spells that can literally convert energy into physical mass, unicorns that can cast this reliably are widely sought after, and they enjoy renown and fame for their ability.

Indeed, it would be odd for a unicorn to know this spell and not wish to seek profession in the medical field.

Note 2: Crystal Growth - a hex that solidifies one’s magic into crystals – a distant ‘cousin’ to a spell of similar making in the Alteration school.

Despite the similarities, this hex differs in that the crystals formed by it absorb ambient magic and feed it into the caster. Therefore, a hexer that has just completed this hex gains instead of losing.

Ingenuity can greatly expand upon the use of this hex.