The Pegasus squads were returning from their areal patrols over the land near Canterlot when sound of a distant explosion echoed through the mountains. Their leader at the head of the V formation signaled to the others, and they slowed and took a hovering stance as they each scanned the horizon in the direction of the explosion.

“Look!” cried one of them. The others all saw it as well: a glint of reflected sunlight flying from the air, rising through the deepest and most overgrown parts of the forest below. At first, none of them fully understood what they were seeing; it was as though a narrow, thread-like object were rising slowly through the air. As it seemed to slow in its ascent, however, the leader of the squad realized that it was a projectile.

“Parabolic formation!” he ordered to his soldiers. They began to move, but it was already too late. A narrow object passed through the sky near them, soaring through the air like an ice arrow, but far faster, flowing in a delicate arc toward the white bubble that protected Canterlot.

When the needle struck the dome, deep in the castle, Celestia cried out in pain as though she herself had been struck. She instantly became aware of the presence of unauthorized cerorite in her domain.

“Don’t you dare,” she cried as her horn glowed with brilliant light, sending the confused secretaries around her cowering.

Outside, just as the cerorite spear was piercing the magical dome over Canterlot, it suddenly stopped, the shield around it rippling and condensing around it. Celestia knew that there was no existent magic that could stop cerorite. Instead of even trying, she had used her magic to condense a corona of solar plasma around it, sealing it in place with the physical contact of the superheated gas.

The damage was already done, though; the crystal had served its purpose. As the guards below looked up, a small portion of blue slime burst forth from the hollow crystal. The ponies below opened fire, but the creature that had emerged was too fast. It struck the stone below and instantly began to move toward them, dodging laserfire and bullets that pitted and melted the stone around it.

Suddenly, it jumped up, attaching itself to the earth pony’s armor.

“Get it off!” he cried, flailing around. It was no use, though; his legs were not able to bend far enough to reach the organisms that was rapidly climbing him, rising toward the massive energy weapon on his back.

As the other pony guards responded to his cries of panic, the weapon suddenly moved, focusing on the nearest of them. Her eyes widened, and her chest suddenly illuminated with energy as her armor was melted and torn away. As she fell, the weapon turned toward the next pony, and a flash of light on his armor indicated that he was hit. The infected bony began to start screaming as he realized what was happening, and as he was forced to watch his comrades and friends fall before him.

The air was quickly filled with smoke and the scent of burning flesh. The only guard who remained standing was a unicorn who advanced rapidly, deflecting the laser blasts with his magical shield.

As he laughed manically, he screamed something that was only intelligible to him, and fired a bolt of blue light that tore through his comrade.

The Choggoth had been partially injured, but it did not stop; instead, it formed a more solid form and leapt from the weapon. The unicorn once again raised his shield, but the blue material released a cloud of sparks and pierced through it, landing on his head.

He screamed out in rage and fear. Other guards were just beginning to arrive, but they froze at the sight of so many wounded, and creature attached to their comrade’s face.

“You can’t stop me I’ll never fail I am the eyes and the hands of the gods- -”

“I’m…sorry,” whispered the semi-fluid into his ears.

His laughter suddenly turned to screams, and the other guards were forced to step back. They had never heard a sound like it, one so filled with agony and fear. They were frozen, and each of them found himself or herself unable to act- -they simply did not know what to do.

“No no no NO!” screamed the unicorn as he reared and bucked.

In horror, the group watched as his horn was torn out of his head, the blood-covered root visible to them all, still attached to strips of nerve and ligament. The unicorns in the crowd suddenly found themselves screaming as well, because they understood that the removal of a horn was the most painful experience a unicorn could possibly withstand.

As the horn was removed, there was an inevitable magical feedback surge- -but as it issued forth, the ponies in the group that still had their wits about them saw a small flash of a blue sphere- -a teleportation spell.

Using a severed unicorn horn to project organic magic was possible, but difficult and dangerous. The spell produced was inevitably unstable, and the tightness of the dimensional flux variable. Living material within the projected sphere would inevitably suffer greatly. The element of D27 that had been attached to the horn had been destroyed in transit. That was expected, of course.

D27’s surrogate body scuttled rapidly through the halls of the castle. Due to his interference in the cities of Equestria, the military was spread thin, and there were few guards left in the castle. Those that remained were rushing as quickly as possible toward the comossion outside, or toward the final destination of the horn- -the Canterlot Auxiliary Armory and Magical Item Repository, at the other end of the city. Nopony bothered to even notice the small beetle-like creature moving through the darkest corners of the ceiling, watching them through a pair of triangles on its back.

The distraction had worked as well as expected. D27 assessed that there was no greater than nineteen present fatality in the incident- -which meant that battle medics would need to be immediately summoned for the wounded, creating a far larger commotion than if he had simply reduced them to corpses. The unicorn alone would be nearly unapproachable for several minutes as his magic poured uncontrollably from his body. His survival chance was low, but the slow explosion he was causing was invaluable. Nopony had even noticed the second element that dropped from the cerorite needle and rapidly floated through an open window.

The signal changed course rapidly, and D27 changed direction. No doubt Celestia knew he was here; there was also a chance that she knew that he was coming for her. Not that it mattered whether she knew or not, of course.

The signal shifted into a lower part of the castle, and D27 followed it to an unlit basement. There, he found a dimly lit room with an open door, and knew instantly that Celestia was inside. His insect like form crossed the wall and scattered across the floor. He entered the room and deployed the mass stored in his sub-body. The beetle itself was close to thirty pounds in weight, holding as much density as possible; as he pulled his way across the wall, he expanded it to a low-density format, expanding his size greatly, becoming an amorphous, fungoid mass of hyphae that clung to the stone wall.

Lights suddenly illuminated, filling the room with blinding light. D27 realized that he had been led to a vaguely round, mostly empty room with rough stone walls. The only things that seemed to be stored in this particular room were old, broken, or unfinished statues. The majority of them were tall and thin and disgusting representations of the perversions of nature that alicorns truly were. All of them seemed to be staring, watching, and judging, waiting to see the outcome of this fight.

One of the statues appeared to move, and D27 knew that it was Celestia. She was dressed in armor made from some kind of luminescent, magically derived substance, and her horn and mane were glowing with a corona of powerful solar energy.

The door slammed shut, and D27 detected that the room had been sealed. Even if he had tried to escape through the cracks in the stones, there simply was no way to leave.

“Is this all you sent?” said Celestia, smirking. “I had prepared for an army, and you sent this?”

“I do not require an army to accomplish what I need to,” stated D27 flatly, his mold-like form speaking perfectly, staring into Celestia’s violet eyes with his own triangular ones.

“And that goal is what?”

“The destruction of target alicorns.”

“Destruction?” Celestia laughed, and D27 momentarily saw the tyrant that he had come to know that lurked below her controlled, motherly exterior. “You mean you intend to fight me with that? To kill me with that?”

“I do not need to fight,” said D27. “I have already won. I only came here to ask you a question, while you are still able to answer.”

“What kind of princess would I be if I were not polite? Ask, so that I can obliterate that ridiculous form you have taken.”

“Why did you do it?”

“That is hardly a question I can answer.” She raised her horn, and it started to glow.

“The Finality Core,” said D27, calmly. “I mean why did you activate it?”

The glow of Celestia’s horn flashed away instantly, as did the smile on her face. Her expression was replaced by one of anger and confusion- -and, D27 suspected, fear.

“How can you possibly know about that?” she demanded. “Nopony can know about that! Nopony can even get near the Core, not even you!”

“But I have been there. When your kind had barely even achieved speech. I witnessed its creation, and I was the one who brought it to the earth. I thought I had destroyed it- -but you repaired it. Why?”

“I have no obligation to tell you,” she spat.

“You’re like a child!” screamed D27 suddenly. “You have no idea what it is, do you? What it is capable of? What it is for?”

“I know more about it than any pony alive or deceased!”

“If you even knew the slightest about it, you never would have set hoof near it!” D27 tried to calm down, but his anger was difficult to cool. Here, before him, stood an abomination, speaking as though she had royal rights and privilege and maintaining an arrogant, condescending air when she had been the one who made all that sacrifice so long ago in vain. “You are like a foal given an atom bomb, and then believing herself a genius when she can get it to spark!”

“You call this a ‘spark’?” shouted Celestia, spreading her brilliant wings. “I became a goddess!”

“You bound the power of a celestial sphere to an organic form. Well, two spheres to two forms. You probably used your sister as the ballast to support- -”

“Luna was already dead when I started,” growled Celestia. “I resurrected the dead.”

“Resurrecting the dead is LITERALLY child’s play!” screeched D27. “You used a FINALITY CORE, the most devastating piece of hardware ever conceived, for THAT?!” His voice returned to its normal tone. “Or was it more? No…you didn’t want to just change her life. You wanted to changer her destiny…both your destiny’s.”

“So what if I did?” cried Celestia. “I had the power. I made the machine work. It was my right to save my sister!”

“But you did more than that. I can see it all. Through their eyes, through their bones. I slept while you rose, but they lived.”

“What are you talking about?”

“So many bones in the Gloame. So many whose last memory was a blinding white light…”

Celestia sighed. “Yes. I killed them. I admit to it, and it is my burden to bear.”

“But even before that. You killed so many. You drove the burrowing Pegasi and woolen earth ponies to extinction- -to the point of chasing the last survivors into the Gloame.”

“It was necessary. They were dissidents. Unnecessary elements. I did what I had to in order to ensure peace.”

“And you murdered mares and fillies along with the soldiers toward that end.”

“I did what I had to. At least I created something with the sins that will haunt me for all eternity. What have you done but destroy what I have created?”

“You still do not understand. Perhaps you can’t. The instant you activated the Finality Core, this world was already doomed. You have created nothing that you will not yourself have destroyed.” D27 sighed. “But I suppose it is my fault. That I failed in my own time. Now I need to correct those mistakes.”

“By conquering Equestria for yourself?”

“I have no interest in Equestria. It is insignificant to me. What I care about is you.”

“How sweet,” said Celestia, sarcastically. She lowered her head, and her horn started to glow. “I have given you more than enough of my words. Now is the time to end this.”

“I suppose it is.”

Celestia’s eyes suddenly widened. The glow from her horn vanished, and she coughed. D27 watched as she became aware of the pain, and as she clutched her body through her armor. Beads of cold sweat began to pour down her face, and she released a single, sad moan of surprise and pain.

“What have- -what have you done?” she demanded as she started to collapse to the floor, her legs weakening from the pain.

“Poison,” said D27 curtly. “You have been poisoned.”

“But…” she shuddered, and suddenly vomited blood onto herself, staining her pure white armor. “I’m an alicorn. No toxin can…” She suddenly cried out and fell to her side.

“No,” said D27. “No toxin can affect you. I know. I didn’t use a poison. I used me.”

“But…but…”

“You may be a god, but you are still flesh. Your body is organic. I cannot hurt you from outside, but from within, I shall devour you.”

“How dare you…how did you even- -” she screamed as the Choggoth element within her began to devour more of her organs.

“An intersesting fact about ahuizotls,” said D27. “Their bodies have virtually no eosinophils. They are the first species I have ever encountered that I can possess without reducing them to a skeleton first. I used her as a shell to bypass your shield. Then it was you who ate me. In the form of a cupcake.”

Celestia only stared back at him, her eyes beginning to gloss over but still not yet unseeing. D27 actually felt somewhat ashamed for what he was doing to her; the situation in her body was devastating. Any mortal creature would have long-since died. He had already eaten through most of her, leaving only some organs intact, his slug-like form battling heavily against her rapidly weakening immune system. Then he remembered what she had done: how many of the soldiers who he now contained had watched their villages destroyed from above by solar flame, their societies torn apart, their ideals and freedom taken by a god-in-flesh, an abomination using stolen power to meet her own perverse ends.

“I am afraid,” said D27, “that I must prologue your pain. I cannot kill you immediately. The asymmetry resulting in the Spheres would shatter the planet. I have to kill Luna at the exact same time as you. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to find her. She is not presently inside this castle.” That phenomenon itself was strange; he should have been able to at least get a general idea of her location by following her lunar energy signature, but somehow, she had managed to find a location in Equestria where he could not manage to sense her, a feat that was theoretically impossible.

“Lu…na,” whispered Celestia, and for the first time, tears ran from her eyes. Even through all the pain and the realization of her imminent death, she had not once cried- -until she knew that Luna was next.

“She is my greatest regret,” said D27. “You were a tyrant, but she never was. While you burned away the ‘impurities’ of Equestria, she painted the night sky. She was a pure and innocent soul- -that you cursed with this terrible fate. You should have let her die instead of giving her…this. You used your own sister as a pawn, playing her for your own power even as she languished under the burden of eternity. You sicken me, Celestia.”

It was unclear how much Celestia had actually managed to hear. She had lapsed into unconsciousness, perhaps permenantly. She was no longer breathing- -a difficult task when one had no remaining lungs- -but the piece of D27 inside her indicated that she was still alive. It would keep her alive until the time came.

D27 looked down at her body and her white, limp wings. He felt tremendously relieved that the poison had worked, and even more relieved that she had lapsed into a coma. As D27 dissolved his extraneous body, however, he realized that even though he knew what she was and everything she had done, back in the Gloame, he was weeping.

Long ago, it had been a beautiful castle. Luna now sat in the same thrown she had once occupied one thousand years ago, beside her beloved sister. The splendor of the Castle of the Two sisters had long since vanished, though. What had once been a shining, gleaming tribute to their royal power, a home where they could retire to and feel secure within, had collapsed into decaying shambles. All around, where there had once been light, there were now shadows and wreckage. It was a place that Luna knew well.

This was the one place where she could be alone- -or as alone as she possibly could be. Deep in the Everfree Forest, she could no longer hear the thoughts of other ponies. They were all too distant. In a way, it had been intended that way- -to keep Celestia and Luna isolated and mysterious.

This was the place she had chosen to come to think. She did not know why, exactly, but she felt drawn to it. Perhaps it was homesickness- -she wanted to remember how things had once been, when she was happy, before her jealousy and rage had destroyed it all.

“I remember this place,” said Nightmare Moon, materializing from the darkness. Luna looked up at her, and her mind swam. She could not lay the blame of the destruction of the castle on her, entirely, but could not blame it on herself either.

What she did notice, though, was that Nightmare Moon was almost certainly growing stronger. Her body no longer consisted of shadows. Although Luna knew it was just a hallucination, Nightmare Moon looked as solid as any pony. At the same time, she was increasingly looking less like the images of Nightmare Moon that haunted Luna.

The current Nightmare Moon was fundamentally the same in body, but not in ornamentation. She had no armor, and no main or tail of blue smoke. Most importantly, she had no cutie mark, just an empty black flank. Her whole body was pure darkness, and her eyes seemed somehow more piercing and hungry than Luna had imagined. They were surely not the eyes of any sort of pony.

“I do to,” said Luna. It was the first time she had actually spoken to her hallucination as though it were truly there, without fearing or hating what was inside her. It felt strange, and unpleasant. “I remember it fondly…It was our castle in the middle era. After the turmoil of assuming leadership and the…the terrible things we did. We built this place to retire while Equestria continued. We were to depart, and allow the kingdom to self-rule, to serve as protectors. We never intended to be rulers…until you came.”

“I have the same memories,” said Nightmare Moon. “I was always there, always watching. I saw that your sister tolerated her life as a goddess well, but that you did not. You craved the life of a mortal.”

“I craved love,” sighed Luna, her eyes turning toward the floor. “I wanted them to love me, like they did her. To accept me. To smile and play and dance as she did. But I let my jealousy consume me.” She looked up at Nightmare Moon. “Why are you not that? I need you to be that! Hate me! Hate my sister! Why can’t you just be evil!”

“So that you could feel justified in suicide?” said Nightmare moon, her eyes shifting toward the silvery gun shoved in one corner of the room. Luna had brought it with her in case she changed her mind- -but already knew that she could never bring herself to do it. “I’m afraid it is not that simple. The jealousy and rage was not mine. I only fed on the darkness within you.”

“But you’re Nightmare Moon!”

“No. And yes. I was what you called Nightmare Moon, but only because you made me as such. It was you’re foolish desire for love, or for power. What use do I have for either? What I sought in life, I have already found.”

“What?”

“Eternity.” She stared at Luna with her nearly unblinking, reptilian eyes. “And in that, I found you.”

“An immortal body.”

“I have no real need for an immortal body. The body is only a shell. It is born, and feels and smiles and weeps, and then dies. And I continue.”

“Then why me?”

“Because you are not only immortal. You are the ideal match for me. You are what I am not, and I am what you are not, and yet we are very nearly the same. Perhaps when my original body was shattered and my soul stretched across the eons, I saw you, and somehow selected the path toward you. My dear daughter…”

“You are not my mother!”

“No. But I inhabited her as I inhabited you. I knew her better than you…and I am the only one of the two of us that remembers her.”

“Our mother…”

“Your mother. Not mine.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died. It is best you do not know how.”

“Tell me. Please, Nightmare Moon. At least this…”

Nightmare Moon sighed. “The Pegasi turned on her. They declared her a witch. They came for her, but she stood her ground long enough for you to escape. They beat her, tore off her wings, and dropped her to her death.”

Luna stared at Nightmare Moon in shock. The creature before her had stated her mother’s fate so bluntly, without a hint of emotion. “That…that’s terrible…”

“If it is any consolation, she felt no pain, and no fear.”

“How can you know?”

“Because I was there. I took control of her body. I took the pain, so she did not have to.”

“And you couldn’t save her? Even with all your power? Or did you just want me?”

“A question: as a Pegasus, what could I have done? In her body, I had no magic. Aside from my own, which only allows for sight. I had no power. However, I must apologize.”

“For what? It sounds as though nothing could be done, not even by you.”

“Not for that. Because when your time came, I could not help you.”

“My time?” said Luna, and a sharp pain suddenly went through her head. She saw a light, and felt cold. There was pain, terrible pain, and she heard screaming- -and realized it was hers. In the Castle of the Two Sisters, she cried out. “What…what was that?”

“When your time came, they did things to you. They increased my power within you, but at the same time, it became impossible for me to take your body. I did what I could, but I could not take your pain.”

“I remember,” said Luna. The memories were fragmented and dim, but they were things she knew she did not want to know. Horrible things, the thing Celestia had always kept from her. “You…you were in the shadows. I remember you.”

“I could only watch. Although you could still hear me.”

“You kept telling me keep going,” she said. “To not allow myself to die, to withstand the pain. You told me that Celestia would come back one day.”

“And she did. But she was too late.”

“Too late? But…I am fine now.”

“Because she brought you back. More than that, she linked you to the moon, and to herself. You do not know it, but that path she chose has brought her so much pain.”

“Celestia…” sighed Luna. “Does she…does she know about our mother?”

“You two are not blood relatives.”

“What? No. We are sisters.”

“That may be,” said Nightmare Moon, still expressionless. “But those I inhabit produce only one daughter. Celestia’s mother was a conscript-prostitute. She died when Celestia was very young. Your mother cared for her, even though assisting a unicorn contributed to her fate. I have inhabited countless thousands of your kind, across the entire spectrum of cruelty and kindness. Your mother was the kindness of all my hosts, Luna.” Nightmare Moon drifted slowly across the room, her hoofsteps perfectly silent.

“I only wish I could remember her…”

“Perhaps someday you will. Given time. When we become closer, I can give you some of mine.”

“No,” said Luna, her eyes narrowing. “No…you cannot have my body.”

“I need it, Luna. And you need me to have it. Please.”

“Why?” said Luna. She was beginning to wonder if Nightmare Moon had been lying to her the whole time, trying to trick her, to gain her trust- -and, simultaneously, she wondered if there really was a Nightmare Moon. “If you do not wish to rule Equestria, what is your desire?”

“A convergence is approaching.”

“I do not understand.”

“It is a point where many paths cross- -a great many paths. A point that is fixed, and due to occur regardless of our actions.”

“What will happen in this ‘convergence’?”

“I do not know. I am able to see the future, but not to remember what I saw. I think if I did, even I might go mad. I only know some. Only that four shall return from our last failure. I am one of them. Choggoth Oblivion is another.”

“The Choggoth…that was the creature that attempted to murder me?”

“Yes.”

“But…he resurrected Cavern Melody instead…”

“Choggoth Oblivion is dangerously unstable,” said Nightmare Moon, her eyes narrowing. “His actions cannot be judged as good or evil. The Choggoths have no natural volition. They are simply weapons.”

“Weapons wielded by whom?”

Nightmare Moon ignored her question. “I fear for Celestia,” she said.

“My sister? Why?”

“Because eventually Oblivion will realize what she has done. He will come for her, and you, and, in all likelihood, Twilight Sparkle and Mi’Amore Cadenza as well.”

“Why?” asked Luna, standing. “Tell me, why. I am Princess of this land, and I rule it with my beloved sister! I can right the- -” Luna felt the world suddenly seem to shake and wobble, and then felt herself falling. She impacted with the stone floor below with enough force to momentarally render herself even more disoriented, and when she felt reality start to return, she realized looked up and saw that the sun- -which had formerly been a white, pure sphere that had bathed the world in warmth and light had darkened. It had become deep, red, filling the world with a dim, unnatural glow that dyed everything the color of blood. It churned and drifted, its form widening, seeming to produce slow-moving flames that drifted outward into the sky before dissipating.

“No,” whispered Luna, somehow realizing what had happened. “No! Sister!”

“I believe,” said Nightmare Moon, her body black as night even in the burning red light. “That we have just become the sole ruler of this land.”

All across Equestria, the same sight was seen. The sun collapsed into dim, cold fire, and the world was plunged into the strange and horrible glow of the dying sphere. In Ponyville, Scootaloo, Applebloom, and Sweetie Belle suddenly saw the inside of their clubhouse darken, and the horrible light pour through the windows. Just outside Ponyville, a brown-coated creature barely clinging to life in a blood-soaked cave saw the sun change, and wept that he had lost the only two things in his life that had meaning. In the distant and dark halls, Crimsonflame watched through Lord Goldmist’s mad eye as the world was plunged into near darkness.

“So it has started,” she said to the skull perched on small stand beside her.

All of Equestria saw the sign, and all somehow knew what it meant. The Princess had fallen.