The Stormraven gunship sang it's song of war with pride and rage, the screams of it's engines piercing even it's own thick, armoured hull. The floor upon which Veteran Sergeant Adventios stood upon continuously gave a slight yet consistent tremor as the ship's engines grumbled and the atmosphere of the world around them washed over it's metal skin with great discomfort at the tremendous speed they had been travelling. A small shudder broke the rhythm of the humming vibrations coming from the hull as another pocket of air broke over the craft, and again, causing the only two non-astarte passengers to tense up, if but a little. The space marine took heart in how resolute the duo had been, especially considering the circumstances. Plucked from their lives, thrown into danger head first only to be entrapped within an alien ship by those who they had no idea whether to trust or not, then only to hurtle themselves into the fray once more. Adventios could only pray the rest of the population was as composed and purposeful, for no less would be required for the immense task at hand.

"Scans conclusive. Alien facility signatures detected within destination perimeter. Sixty seconds from arrival." The pilot announced through the on-board comm-channel.

A series of flexing arms and twisting wrists clunked, clacked and rattled around Adventios, adding to the noises of armour contact he himself made as he made final weapon and system checks. His heads-up display ammo counter blinked thrice as its systems triple checked their validity to find themselves sufficient before a translucent blueprint image of his armour's multiple segments flashed through a tall box to the top left of his vision. Several marines waved off a pair of serfs that had accompanied them on their trip as the ancient and slightly malfunctioning biomechanical creatures hobbled down the center of their two-by-two ranks. Again, Adventios washed his vision briefly over the Princess and her rainbow-haired accomplice, seeing them holding themselves together but failing to hide their extreme levels of discomfort and distress as they both clutched their flight harnesses with a death grip, eyes wide and brows tense. The sergeant drew his gaze back to look ahead into Brother Denethios' power pack, his armoured fingers gripping tightly to the grip points of his storm bolter, Shade snatcher.

"Thirty seconds out." The pilot said as the engines began to wind down steadily to approach their destination at a safer and more manageable speed.

Another temor rang through the ships hull, but this time it was far from the bounce delivered by a gentle pocket of air. Another, paired with a bassy thunderclap coming from outside the hull, shook Adventios and a couple other to readjust their footing slightly.

"Incoming fire, brace." The pilot sounded, his composure unshaken.

"In darkness!" Brother Chaplain Tyreth bellowed from the front of the Stormraven soon after he had unlocked the equestrian passengers from their harnesses and waved signaled for them to relocate behind the marine, at the passenger bay's rear.

"In darkness I shall be light!" Adventios called back along with all the other ten marines stood within the gunships deck.

"In doubt!" The chaplain barked again to all present.

"In times of doubt I shall keep faith!" All present, besides the natives, replied.

"In rage!" Tyreth called as he stood before his column of marines, his crozius giving a high pitched, electronic squeal as its ornate striking end burst into life with a bright pink power field shimmering around it.

"In throws of rage I shall hone my craft!" The squads replied as Adventios spied the princess and pegasus hurry past him.

"In vengeance!"

"In vengeance I shall have no mercy!" Marines replied as the front rank of both Tyreth and Sergeant Dathes braced their stance to prepare to initiate their assault.

"In battle!" The chaplain sung out the explosions thundered all around the gunship as it slowed, the crafts own weapons sounding with the shriek of missiles and hiss of laser beams.

"In the midst of battle I shall have no fear!"

"Ten seconds! Distance to enemy lines will be four meters!" The pilot barked over the vox channel.

"In death!" The chaplain roared, his amplified voice causing the natives behind Adventios to audibly slam their hands against their heads to shield their ears.

"In the face of death I shall have no remorse!" The marines hollered in response, bolters ready, Adventios letting his storm bolter fall to his side in his left hand as he unlocked his chainsword from his belt's mag-plate, brandishing the blade in his right.

The gunship grumbled and whined to a stop that filled the deck with a heavy thunk as the landing gear struck the ground beneath it. All went quiet for a second, the only sounds being the muffled plinking noise of small arms fire skittering across the ships armour, the hum of power armour reactor packs, the sizzle of Tyreths crozius, the low growl of Dathes and Adventios' primed chainsword motors and the steady breathing of twelve marines alongside the rasping, stuttering breaths of two terrified equestrians. The assault ramp's hydraulics squealed as their quickly lowered the forward mounted door, letting in a scarlet shower of incoming enemy fire, yet letting out something far more deadly.

"CHARGE!" Roared the chaplain, his boots pounding him forward at incredible speed alongside his battle brothers who all barked and yelled their own battlecries.

A little over fourteen feet lay between the end of the gunship's ramp and the frontlines of the alien enemies the marines faced, the doors to the generator facility another thirty or so feet behind them. The initial fourteen feet was covered in barely a couple of seconds as marines rocketed forward, the strength of their power armour adding to their own to propel them forward like living missiles. Alien fire whizzed by the marines or bit insulting little shards from their armour plate, a couple managing to find more vulnerable portions of armour, cutting through lightly armoured joints and shredding flesh beneath, but all non-lethal thus far and all doing nothing measurable to slow the marine advance.

Adventios threw himself into a sharp left turn as he exited the gunship, grass and dirt thrown into the air as his heavy and violent steps chewed up the earth beneath him. He broke into a sprint that sent him out into the widest line in the attack's formation, heading towards the outer reaches of the enemy line. Swarms of dozens of federation footsoldiers frantically scurried about, most rallying to the epicenter of the marines shock assault were the astartes had first made contact in the form of Chaplain Tyreth throwing himself into the air mid-sprint, his obsidian form falling into the alien ranks like a meteor, sending aliens scattering about, some tumbling to the ground in one piece, others proving less fortunate. Crackling booms sounded out as the chaplain's crozius discharged, sending handfuls of alien flying through the air in shredded, bloody forms. Metallic shrieks heralded agonized screams as chainsword mangled flesh and shattered bone, arcs of gore being thrown over the armour of both astarte and fed alike. All the while bolter fire hammered out in single shots or short bursts, enemies caught in the weapon's sights soon blasting apart from within in a messy spectacle.

Adventios threw his chainsword out and them forward, signalling both marines who followed him to commence offensive measures as they reached the optimal angle of attack. Herathor slowed to a halt a second before readying his heavy bolter and raining down terrible degrees of fire down on the aliens, each burst of rapid fire shearing apart cluster of tightly packed infantry, filling the air with thick red mist. Denethios, who had just thrown his head back around from visually checking on the natives raised his bolter and took to a sprint besides the veteran sergeant, fire blasting from his weapon's muzzle to cut down those infantry that had left themselves out in the open near their target area. Adventios quickly close in on the angular slabs of metal armour that the aliens had deployed as cover barricades, seven of the federation's soldiers line up behind, kneeling down to bring their weapons rested atop the barricade's edge. They peppered the marine's with semi-automatic fire, besides one which wielded a squat firearm akin to a carbine or submachinegun which emptied dozens of rounds a second, practically drenching the marine in fire. Yet this weapon lacked the kick the more common rifle variant had, each round merely scratching at the paint of the marines armour, even the single round that clipped Adventios in the abdomen failed to penetrate the plasteel segments, delivering only a mildly painful blow that the marine's mind easily ignored.

Both Adventios and Denethios vaulted the four foot high barrier together, each delivering punishing fire onto the nearest enemy they passed by at point blank range, each alien's body falling to the floor in a shredded heap. As the sergeant turned to ready himself to attack one more he threw out a burst of undiciplined fire to keep the soldier's heads down, the storm bolters fire scything an arm of one and sending top top of another skull showering behind him along with broken shards of helmet. most of the troops hit the dirt in an attempt to find shelter, two throwing their guns away and their hands skywards as their trembled on their knees. Adventios swept his bolter over them, his finger wrapped around the trigger, but held his fire against the seemingly surrendering infantry. However a small shower of bolts did soon disintegrate another trooper who had plucked up a rifle of a fallen comrade and duel wielded the rifles, screaming as he blasted the marines with fire from both barrels, each round delivered from each unbalanced, madly swaying rifle flying wide of the astartes, missing with embarrassingly poor accuracy. As the admittedly gutsy alien's broken body pieces slumped to the floor in a pile Adventios felt something blunt strike him in the hip. The marine's head snapped around to see the soldier with the squat gun, likely some kind of junior officer of sorts, had used the stock of his geometrically designed firearm to strike a melee blow to the sergeant, yet the alien's strength doing little else but send a harmless tremor through the marine's belt. The sergeant threw his chainsword arm wide, catching the alien's gun with the back of his fist and sending the creature reeling back minus one gun which tumbled to the dirt several feet away. The alien quickly drew a combat blade of diminutive size when considering those used by imperial troops, the blade itself no longer than six inches or so.

"Come on!" The alien barked through the mechanical components of his helmet, red lenses staring up into pink ones for a moment.

"I pray you choose to die as bravely as you boast." Adventios said through his own helmet's amplifier as he locked his storm bolter to the back of his belt.

"I don't need fucking prayer to kill you, degenerate!" The alien blurted as his hand snapped around behind him and returned to reveal a drawn and loaded pistol which took immediate fire into the marine's face.

Each round was much like that from his earlier weapon, chipping white paint from ceramite but little else as Adventios took a single large step forward, clutching the officer's shoulder in his vice of a grip and knocking away the pistol with a sharp blow with his elbow. The creature squealed as the sergeant felt what her assumed to be two collar bones and the upper part of an alien humerus break under his grasp. With a swift swing that carried the momentum of a speeding vehicle Adventios drove a roaring chainsword blade into the diaphragm of the alien soldier, gore, guts and shards of bone spattering from the wound as the whirling teeth of the weapon quickly chewed clean through the soldier's torso, leaving behind a limp and gutless corpse impaled upon his weapon. The astarte lowered his blade and raised a boot to kick off the alien remains, the body falling apart into two mangled halves onto the ground.

"It seems you were wrong." Adventios growled as he spared a moment to look down on the body of his victim before turning about and taking to a jog towards the facility.

A little over a minute had passed since the first astarte bot hit the ground to the final bolt being fire, and those aliens that had not surrendered were most certainly dead. Crimson was spattered in all directions, over grass, corpse, weapon, dirt and barrier as if the blood had fallen from the skies. Alien soldiers shook in their boots, hands on the back of heads, all staring at the ground directly beneath them as they knelt, many falling into some form of panic attack as their breathing became harsh and laboured. Celestia and Dash had both been kept close to battle brother Revitheon who now was headed to join the rest of the marines near the facility gates, both natives in tow and trying their best not to observe the macabre carnage that was littered all around them, and failing in doing so.

"You will order them to stand down!" Barked Tyreth through his skull shaped death mask at a federation officer who knelt before him.

"Yeah, I don't think so." The officer replied, seemingly humored by the notion.

"They will all die as these troops have died just now! Order them to submit and none others shall be harmed" The astartes voice bellowed with the help of his helmet's amplifier systems.

"Then they'll die in service to the Federation." The alien shrugged.

Tyreth booted the officer over backward to have the alien flop over clumsily to his side, a blow meant to dismiss rather than maim or kill, though perhaps delivered with a touch extra frustration judging by the chaplain's currently heated condition.

"Gethov, see if there's a simple way through these doors. Tachiar, return to the gunship and ready a melta charge in case he proves unsucessful." Tyreth ordered with seamless fluidity, seeing both marine nod a salute and head out to their respective tasks.

"More are, ugh, more will be on their way soon." Celestia added, cringing as her hoof slipped in a small pile of spilt alien entrails.

"It will be fine, Princess. Having the Federation preoccupied away from the research facility is part of the plan after all, and this location cannot be exempt from such a ploy." The chaplain replied as he turned to look to the alicorn.

"This image right here is giving me mixed feelings at best." Rainbow Dash expressed, looking incredibly tense as she rubbed her arms as if physically cold.

"The enemy seemed rather convicted to the defense of this location. Ultimately their loss was orchestrated by them not expecting our arrival, I had guessed the fight would be a bloody, yet sorely short lived one." Tyreth expressed, his tone almost hinting at a shred of sorrow beneath the metallic growl of his amplifier.

"It's strange...the place we found you, now here...for all they've done to us I still feel sorry for these creatures dying like this. It's kind of...a shame." Celestia said softly, her ears folding back as she spoke.

"It is. I doubt many of them were absent of family and a home, but it would seem their cause made this choice for them. A shame, indeed, but necessary." The astarte replied, his voice burdened with the weight of wisdom and purpose, the princess seemingly affected by the infectious nature of a chaplain's council as she appeared to regain a shred of heart for herself.

A buzzing crackle shot into the air, the digital noise coming from below the astartes. Almost all marines in the immediate area turned to look down on the fallen alien officer who writhed on the ground in an attempt to right himself upwards once again. An icon in the officers wrist mounted data pad flickered as it seemed some form of transmission was being sent to him, and it may have been some deception of the senses or mind, or a trick of the sound of the wind blowing by, but Adventios could have sworn he had heard screaming amidst the static.

"And what might that be?" Tyreth growled at the alien as he loomed over his comparatively tiny form.

"Yeah, I get it, you freaks are attacking Canterlot too. Fuck you, you barbarian." The officer spat back.

A pause rang through air, cut only by the continued chatter from the alien's radio and the breeze of the wind for a few heartbeats as marines looked at each other, perplexed.

"Sir, no forces were deployed to Canterlot." Sergeant Dathes said, breaking the silence.

"No, there weren't." The chaplain replied, his head slowly turning to bring his skull helm to stare at Princess Celestia who looked back in a worried, slightly frightened manner before her expression grew slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

"Luna." She practically whispered, her head snapping to the side to look straight at Rainbow Dash.

"Go, I'll be fine." Dash said, nodding rapidly.

"Wai-!" Tyreth started as he began to reach a hand out before Celestia vast wingspan exploded outward and sent her airbourne in less than a heartbeat, leaving the marines and Dash staring up to the skies, all eyes having completely lost sight of the princess in the dense clouds above.

"Very well." Sighed the chaplain.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The Federation Immortal augmented soldier fell to the marble floor with a metallic thunk that was accompanied by a wet slapping sound as it's mangled and bloodied portion of it's body hit the stone beneath it. It's stomach, one of the portions of it's body that was far less well armoured as the rest of it's body, had been entirely eviscerated, entrails draped over the floor nearby it's corpse and gore drenching it's once pristine white and bright blue and yellow armour plate. To ad insult to injury, the alien had also lost it's right arm in daring to defy the Princess of the Night, the limb, even though being reinforced and empowered by electrofiber bundles and reacta-gel layers the limb had been torn almost clean off by the immense strength of the rampaging alicorn, who now sought out her next victim with eyes aglow with the joy of battle.

Another round fired from an alien magna-rifle struck a previously invisible barrier of sorts that surrounded Nightmare Moon, the air around the small cataclysm resonating with a glassy echoing sound and sending out neon blue ripples of energy before dissipating once again. The princess returned the hostile gesture by raising a blood-soaked, clawed hand towards the benefactor and releasing a small portion of her magical potential. Pale blue lightning erupted from all around her hand and forearm, wrapping around her dark fur light veins of pure energy and going on to soar forth from her palm and straight to her adversary in bright, flashing archs. The magical lightning struck the target and delivered a seemingly non-measurable kinetic blow to send the soldier slamming backwards into a marble illar that made up a portion of one of the two entrances into Canterlot Palace. The soldier was not so fortunate to simply suffer a shattered spinal column however, as the magical discharge he had received had caused hundreds of biological micro-detonations, shredding the grey battle uniform, twisting and torturing the alien's armour as if it were paper, shattering bones, blasting flesh clean off of the creature's body and tearing alien body tissue apart in a terrible spectacle of immense trauma. The ravaged corpse simply slapped against the pale marble like a plastic bag full of jello and syrup, splitting apart and spattering the area with a foul mess.

More rounds were fire from the entrance of the palace as the troops hastily slammed the tall doors to the castle's interior shut and activating some form of heavy duty locking mechanism built into the original architecture as a resounding clunking sound would lead the princess to believe. But this did little to concern the obsidian demigod as she casually strolled over to the doors, her royal battle garb now stained half red with alien blood. The alicorn's horn glowed as she raised a hand and lazily swiped her clawed fingers off to the side as if dismissing an unwanted visitor, the doors before her disintegrating into a shower of splintered wood and twisted metal that blasted back five alien that had barely seconds to retreat away from the doorway they had seemingly sealed. Red lances of magna fire danced through the air before Nightmare Moon, a couple striking her magical defenses, but most flying wide as the shock of her entry disorganized their fire. As she strode in she spied eight more troops besides the five she'd just disoriented or killed, the latter confirmed as she passed one trooper who had two shards of wood from the devastated door impaled into it's chest. With a slight fiercening of her already venomous expression and the clench of her fists the alicorn emitted a psychic shockwave that blasted outwards from her very body with a dull boom, taking all the aliens within the palace off their feet, slamming them into marble walls, pillars and mechanical equipment they had installed into the building.

Alien's cried out in pain and panic, some fleeing for their lives, some taking cover and others squirming in pain on the floor after receiving some form of grievous injury. Although many of the technicians and officers who inhabited the interior of the palace fled either out the nearest door or window available to them, some remained at their posts, warily stood behind computer consoles and holographic tables, all eyes fixed on the giant of a mare who had just broken through into their usurped domain. Nightmare Moon marched down the long hallway of Canterlot Palace, those aliens that dared obstructed or fire upon her being mangled by an invisible force or blasted apart by ethereal lightning. The princess soon came to a junction and turned a corner to come to face the doorway into the castle's throne room, and as far as she was concerned, her room. She reached out her magic to test the large set of doors to, predictably, find them tightly locked.

Are these things dead set on seeing that I destroy half my own castle if I am to retake it from them?! The alicorn thought as her mind boiled with frustration.

As she marched forward the alicorn used her own defenses to smash through the doors to the throne room. As she struck the obstacle her shields intensified to the point that she almost effortlessly pushing the material of the doors outwards around her in a circular shape, stone shattering and metal bending outwards sharply. Within the princess was shocked to find the throne room had been transformed into some form of alien command center, machinery and strange electrical equipment scattered all over the place like a dark grey, angular fungus that emitted various forms of red light. Nightmare's rage built to a magnificent climax, and although she did not growl or roar, her very aura bristled with a terrible energy. The dark alicorn pressed forward, sweeping her magic outwards and flooding the room with it like a tidal wave, consoles crumpling as they were torn from their foundations, holo-tables shattered and flipped end-over-end, alien technicians and operatives tossed through the air by the invisible force, some even being crushed and mangled into gory blobs of shattered skeleton and bubbling gore. Soon the whole room had been thoroughly 'cleansed', all alien presence broken apart and destroyed, save for one.

"You are in my chair." Nightmare Moon growled through clenched, predatory jaws at the robed alien that sat nonchalantly in the royal throne of Equestria.

"I don't care." The alien replied, his tone flat as he raised a hairless eyebrow.

A small pause left the room silent, the collosal alicorn staring down at the frail alien with fire in her teal eyes.

"Do you know who I am?" Nightmare Moon said in a steady tone.

"Do you know who I am?" The alien replied in a condescending manner.

"Actually, I do. I really, really do." The alicorn said with a chuckled, her sharp set of brilliantly white teeth bared in a wry grin as she learned forward, placing an immensely powerful arm against the back of the throne to brace herself as she brought her face level with the fed.

"Attendant Supreme Gak'Gov. Overseer of Canterlot and relay to all activity in Equestria. I remember you very well." Nightmare Moon said in a sickly sweet tone.

"Huh, I don't ever remember meeting you." The alien sneered, his head veering away to the side, the attendant evidently uncomfortable with being this close to such a large and intimidating creature.

"Well, I remember you. I remember the day you arrived to this castle to conduct a little 'foreign investigation'." The alicorn said, pressing her face forward, eyes half closed and nose mere inches from Gak'Gov.

"I remember when your commanders designated Canterlot a hub of unlawful activities and social injustices." The alicorn's brows tensed slightly as she spoke, her grip on the edge of the throne tightening.

"I remember when your commanders deemed me and...my sister to be unfit to rule over Equestria." The mare spoke again, her eyes closing, features tensing and jaw clenching as she recalled memories that seemed to draw up particularly turbulent emotions.

Meanwhile, the attendant began to feel immensely uncomfortable, and not just emotionally, but physically also. His neck felt sore, tense, as if his muscles were all cramping up at once. He flexed and twisted his head about in an attempt to relieve himself of the increasing pressure his throat felt.

"I...I remember when you...you issued the order for my assassination by the hands of that damnable traitor guardspony! And I remember the look in his eyes as I drove a blade through his chest!"

In a throw of rage Nightmare moon slammed her fist into the back of the throne, cracking the fine stonework of the framework. Below her, the alien began trying to cry out, but only squealed out smothered and choked murmurs and moans of pain as his mouth was locked shut until a sharp snap filled the air, the alien letting out a muffled scream of agony as his jaw had broken as if the weight of his own head had imploded his mandible inwards in a bizarre display.

"I remember being evicted from my own home under threat of death! I remember being framed for murdering an uncooperative subject in cold blood! I remember being hounded for weeks on end and having nowhere to run to!" Nightmare Moon now roared, her eyes flaring open, her expression twisted in a visage of pure hatred, mane writhing madly with turbulent energy and thick layers of muscle tightening in anger.

More snaps and cracks could be heard as the attendant's face broke apart, his neck and spine collapsing into itself in a series of sickening pops, shattered teeth and blood spattering from his mangled lips as his throat rumbled with a series of dying gurgling sounds, his arms flailing about madly, hands clawing at the throne's arms and the alicorn's face, neck and shoulders.

"My name is Nightmare Moon! And I remember...EVERYTHING!"

With that the alicorn grabbed the crippled alien by the ruined neck and shoulder before whirling around, arms tightening before throwing themselves wide open, tearing the shattered head of the alien clean off in a terrifying display, sending an arc of gore flying across the room. As she tore apart her victim the mare let out a deafening roar that was far more feral than that of a pony, sounding much like that of a fully grown dragon. Her hands clenched with titanic strength, the alien remains she held falling to the floor as the tissue she held popped apart into gory pulp. Her massive wings flared out as she continued her single, long roar of rage and victory, while magical lightning danced about the room, emanating from her dark form to display her as a truly mythological spectacle. Nightmare Moon finished with a rumbling growl, glowing eyes dimming down, features more pained than she would have ever admitted to anypony as she simply stared up at the ceiling for a moment, her breathing heavy and still holding a growling quality to it before she closed her eyes to recompose herself.

A smile slowly and steadily broke across Nightmare's face, her eyes lazily opening as her arms dropped to her side. Her wings folded in as her body relaxed, the mare taking a single deep breath before breaking into a casual walk back out the throne room and towards Canterlot's residential area.

---------------------------------------------------

The dark alicorn strode down the long, wide set of marble stairs that connected Canterlot palace to it's urban domain through a massive archway. The arch had been draped with federation banners for over a year now, yet Nightmare had seen that reign had come o an end on her way into the palace, having set the banners alight with her flurries of lightning as she passed under them. At the bottom of the large stairway lay a fallen federation Dominator battle suit, the giant mech vehicle having suffered a devastating penetration wound through it's thorax which served as a cockpit for the robot's pilot, a six inch wide hole scarring both the vehicles armoured front and the engines at it's rear as the princess had cut it down with a magical beam of energy, both disabling the machine and killing the pilot instantaneously soon after having deflected a single round from the machines primary magna-cannon, having done so with considerable effort and concentration. Upon reaching the fallen mech, Nightmare strode atop it's face, coming to stop upon the highest point the machine corpse offered.

Canterlot's population now warily wandered outside their homes in response to the sudden absence of the commotion that had no doubt disturbed them moments ago. Many were simply talking amongst themselves in small groups, expressing worry and small degrees of panic at the situation before them, some marveled in fright and disgust upon seeing their streets littered with dead federation security, benefactors, defenders and immortals alongside trashed and ruined alien weapons and equipment. It would seem a select few hurried about, presumably belonging to some kind of resistance group, but all scurrying to collect as much functioning alien hardware as possible. The ponies nearest the fallen dominator, many observing the alien wreckage looked up in fright to see the mare of their nightmares, the fallen princess of Equestria and harbinger of darkness looming over them in a truly history book worthy envisionment. Her mane and tail flickered wildly with ethereal energies, the luminous hair almost like a liquid that swam in the air, bearing the dark of night and the shimmer of starlight in it's mass. Her obsidian fur made her appear as a living shadow that banished all light before her, save for the cyan glow of her draconic eyes. With her titanic frame, shining, blood stained armour and predatory visage, the princess appeared as a goddess of battle and nightmare both, seeing more and more ponies have their attention drawn to her and soon seeing them tremble before her presence. Nightmare Moon scanned her eyes across the hundreds that had gathered in the street and now cautiously backed away from their new matriarch, the alicorn grinning in amusement at the sight.

"Citizens of Equestria! Look upon your fallen alien oppressors and rejoice at their downfall! For I, Nightmare Moon, have seen to their demise, for the sake of the future of all Equestria! Now you shall rally behind me as my loyal subjects, and together we shall drive this menace from our lands and reclaim the Equestria they have robbed from us! For I am your new, one and only princess, and by my rule, and the glory of the night eternal, Equestria shall be rebuilt, far greater than it has ever been!" Nightmare hollered, her voice full of purpose and zeal, and although still deeply frightened by the alicorn's presence, the ponies below her couldn't help but be captured by her words.

"All I ask, is that you kneel before me and my rule." Nightmare said in a silky tone.

The ponies before her were evidently deeply conflicted. Many still held firm allegiance to the royal sisters, others having conformed at least partly to the federation's demands, and the rest too shocked by what had befallen to make any rational decision. Although the stall the crowd offered began to irritate the princess, she knew that this was a difficult time for them, and all they needed was a degree of encouragement.

"I said...KNEEL!" Nightmare Moon roared, neck muscles tense with rage, biceps plumping as her fists clenched, her voice delivering a deep echoing quality through an ancient and supernatural method of speech lost to time.

Ponies reeled back in shock, eyes wide, couples and families holding tightly to one another as fear swept over them like a tidal wave. Not a second passed and the first ponies dropped to their knees, more and more following by the second until all before her bowed to her might. The giant of a mare allowed herself to relax once more, a soft smile spreading across her face, her eyes growing as gentle as they could be considered.

"I understand these are troubling times for all of us, but there is no need to fear. Where your former princesses abandoned you to the torment of these miserable creatures, I swear to stand by your side always." Nightmare Moon announced in a surprisingly kind and gentle tone, but most surprisingly, a seemingly sincere one, raising a fair few brows amongst the crowd of kneeling equestrians.

"May I have a word?" An all too familiar voice said from behind Nightmare, the bearer of the voice seemingly emanating a bright white light that washed over the back of the dark alicorn and over the crowd of ponies before her, the princess slowly turning her head about to bear witness to the new arrival, their identity causing Nightmare to bear a predatory grin.