Bright sharp blue light emitted from the many torches on the countless columns along the endless castle hall. Moon and stars shone through the windows and the skylight, adding a certain softness to the artificial light. The perfection of the infinite hall under the night's sky was interrupted, however, by a creature of black and red; alerted and aware, he scanned the surroundings, puzzled by the sudden change of scenery.

By the majesty of the eternal night, a mare of black and blue appeared before the demon, ethereal darkness radiating from her as her starlit mane and tail danced and shimmered. Armor-clad, the Queen of Nightmares bore a triumphant grin of malice on her face, exposing her long and sharp fangs. A look between cold focus and magic-fueled madness was in her aqua eyes, her viper-pupils looking directly at the hell stallion before her.

"One cannot keep secrets from us," Nightmare Moon spoke in a booming, powerful voice that demanded obedience, "Thine is revealed, and thus thy judgement will come soon."

As soon as Andromalius began to open his maw, a lightning struck outside the hall, its deafening sound denying any speech.

"Silence!" the alicorn spoke, her voice loud and clear amidst the lightning strike, "My dear Luna will arrive shortly and judge thee in the waking world, but my judgement is complete in the dream realm. Thou shalt now suffer the consequences of thy secrecy, for no conspiracies shall be hidden from my gaze!"

The dream twisted and contorted, stretched and squeezed, turned into impossible shapes, and Andromalius was thrown around, flying in every direction possible, all the chaos around him quickly passing before his eyes, denying him concentration and focus; the face of Nightmare Moon was clear before him, however.

"The dream realm is my domain, thou hast no power here!" she gloated and laughed as she manipulated the surroundings; not a moment passed without something changing. The stone flowed, the flames rose and fell, the glass danced like fire, the floor opened and closed like a giant maw, hungry for the hell stallion. He remained unhurt, and yet he could do not a thing to stop it, losing all control.

The gravity changed and now he was free falling through the hall, torches passing quickly before his eyes, and he had nothing to hold on to. In a second, he was thrown into the ceiling, then at a window, then spun around like a ragdoll, and finally mercilessly slammed into the floor. He let out a small gasp as he felt a painful tingle across his whole body. Before he could stand up, the disorienting carousel paired with a twisted roller coaster continued, and once again the hall blurred before him; if it were real, he would've passed out, but this experience was worse. He couldn't fall unconscious despite feeling sick to the bone, and a crushing headache pulsated inside his mind.

It wasn't right. Wasn't he dreaming, and thus wouldn't it be his own dream? If it belonged to him, he had the power over it, he had to have it; and so, before the spell was complete, his mind focused on taming the dream and bringing it to an end.

The entire hall shook, forcing Nightmare Moon to abort her manipulations as she tried to balance on her hooves; Andromalius finally became still, lying on the floor. Cracks appeared on the previously smooth walls, bricks flying out of them and scattering in every direction. Laws of gravity did not define this dream reality, but they were now under the command of the hell stallion at least partially, and so many bricks floated in the air or spun around the curved columns. The hall turned and twisted in the impossible stretch real stone would never be able to do, and soon the entire dream was filled with a different kind of chaos, familiar and yet different from what the alicorn of the night conjured. With a yell and a thud, Nightmare Moon fell on the floor and slid around as the dream tried to end. Alas, it soon stopped, and now it was stable again.

Nightmare Moon grunted and stood up from the floor, a befuddled look on her face. A moment later it changed to a look of determination, and no more words came out of her maw as she cast a straitforward battle spell. A blinding white light grew on her horn, and the hell stallion couldn't do more than conjure up a shield in the mere moments before the spell broke out and a lightning struck forward; his shield shattered, and the tremendous force made him slide on the floor, almost falling. As he recomposed himself, Nightmare Moon took a step forward, light on her horn growing again.

Andromalius was unsure whether he could even hurt her in the dream realm, and he wasn't certain he even wanted to do it – after all, Luna could be connected to her in some way. However, he had to act, and act quickly if he hoped to escape.

This time, he decided to try deflecting her spell instead – he didn't conjure a flat shield but instead a half-sphere in front of him, hoping that the spells would listen to his wish; the dream might not follow the laws of reality, but it was his dream, and he believed he could dictate what laws applied to it.

Not one, not two, but a dozen bolts of magic erupted from her horn, flying straight at the shield – one impact, glanced off; two more impacts simultaneously, partially absorbed, but the shield was still holding; the rest followed, either absorbed or deflecting into nearby walls and columns, raising dust and shattering bricks. Nightmare Moon's eyes widened at the display, but her expression quickly cleared and was replaced by pure concentration.

The hell stallion cast a single lightning, making it travel around his shield before darting straight at the alicorn. To his surprise, she caught the bolt of electricity with her magic and led it around her, redirecting it and sending it back to him, empowering it with her own magic and making it into a ball. He stepped to the side, moving the shield along with him, and the lightning barely nicked the shield, making a crack appear on its surface, and a few tendrils of electricity made tiny holes around the crack. The lightning shattered a column behind him once it passed.

With his eyes focused on Nightmare Moon, he failed to notice the bricks gathering beind him and then being hurled at him with tremendous force. His legs, back, neck, and head were heavily impacted, forcing him to drop the shield and almost fall to the ground in pain.

Seizing the opportunity, te alicorn conjured a number of sharp icicles and shot them at the hell stallion; in disorientation, he barely managed to dodge them, and one of them managed to scratch his exoskeleton.

Andromalius huffed, stumbling into a more stable position, his mind scrambling for a way out. The alicorn of the night held dominance over his dream despite his attempts to shake it off, her power amplified by lack of any restraints seen in reality. However, he was not completely powerless, and perhaps he would be able to kick her out of his head and, hopefully, wake up.

A barrage of stone spikes rained from the ceiling, and he had to conjure a shield as well as dodge, feeling every impact the heavy spikes did on the shield. Removing a part of his shield, he shot at Nightmare Moon with another lightning, hoping to hit her quickly this time. His attack forced her to drop her spell, but her reaction was quick, and the lightning was redirected back at him again, empowered. He begun closing the opening in his shield but the lightning managed to get through at the last second, hitting him square in the chest. He grunted in pain, his magic uncontrolled for a second as he focused on not falling to the ground, his muscles spasming.

In but a mere moment, a tornado swept through the hall, effortlessly picking Andromalius up and slamming him against columns, walls, floor and ceiling; the deafening sound of the wind breaking his concentration and focus. On instinct, he launched a lightning, but it only electrified the tornado, and many lightnings struck back at him, stinging his body time and time again. His limbs hopelessly flailed around, and his mind was lost among the turbulent winds.

Without a thought or any conscious command, fire erupted from his body, pushing in every direction; the tornado was soon gone, and Andromalius stood on wobbly legs in front of Nightmare Moon. She narrowed her eyes, still focused, and decided to fight fire with fire.

The torches brightened, and the blue flames flowed from them like a river, gathering into a blazing ball in front of Nightmare Moon; Andromalius summoned the strength to conjure the shield, reminding himself to learn more things to counter battle magic with. Once the ball grew to the size of hell stallion's body, the alicorn hurled it at him with tremendous force. Mostly recovered from the thrashing, he managed to complete the spell and now braced for impact. Suddenly, a large lightning bolt pierced the flame and struck his shield, breaking it apart, and a moment later the fire engulfed him.

His eyes were closed as the blue fire roared and screamed around him, the flames licking at his body with infernal hunger. It was different from the regular fire in how it sounded and felt, and yet... no pain came. The heat surrounding him was comforting, bringing no harm. Fueling his power and resolve, the flames were absorbed by him, and he finally opened his eyes. The blue fire danced along his spine and tip of his tail, his hooves were ablaze, and blue glow emitted from his eyes. Soon, the fire of the nightly alicorn was under his absolute control.

Nightmare Moon stared at him in surprise, her eyes open wide at the sight; she took a step back, attempting no spell.

Using this moment, Andromalius concentrated on the fire, commanding it forth towards the alicorn. As the flames were about to touch her, the whole scenery suddenly changed to a starlit sky – no, simply replaced by the all-surrounding cosmos. The hell stallion felt light, and now he couldn't inhale – there was nothing to breathe in. Deafening silence surrounded him, and he felt nothing but the alarming sensation of something wrong happening.

For a moment, his flames faltered, diminishing, and he simply drifted in space, limbs dangling helplessly as he tried to find a ground to stand on. Panic rose inside him as his body simply couldn't get any air in, and whatever he had left inside his lungs was escaping. He tried to inhale, but it did nothing but slightly slow down his forced exhalation. The fear rose swiftly.

He had to force himself to stop and think – it was simply a dream. He wasn't floating in the vacuum of space, he was sleeping and having a dream Nightmare Moon conjured. In a dream, he didn't need to breathe. It was all an illusion cast by the alicorn, something to make him struggle and suffer.

As the air completely escaped his lungs, he felt nothing unusual. No pain, no darkening of vision, nothing that would signify real suffocation. He reached out with his mind, stabilizing his body. All it took were few moments of control to make him stand on nothing as if it were solid floor. When his hooves touched the imaginary surface, ripples of energy appeared around them.

"Thou art much stronger than I anticipated," Nightmare Moon spoke, a mix of surprise and anger in her voice, "Defying me in my own realm... Thine ability for dreamwalking is another secret I shall learn, in time. I shall allow thee to awake, for there is no escape now."

His eyes opened to greet the room he fell asleep in, and a sinking feeling in his stomach told him the near future wouldn't be kind to him.

Luna was wide awake, pacing in her room, sleepiness completely gone from her body. Indecisiveness shackled her mind, and each second, each small moment passed painfully, and the dream she had just seen did not fade like dreams should. Sweat dampened her fur, her heartbeat deafened her, denying concentration and focus. Her steps were rigid, methodical – a way to calm down.

She stopped and took a few deep breaths. Counting in her head, she repeated it a couple times and recomposed herself. She arranged her thoughts and began to filter them in, one by one. First question was simple – whom should she trust, Nightmare Moon or Andromalius? She had barely any trust for her dark side, but she had plenty of reasons to trust the hell stallion. He had saved a life, he seemed honest, and nothing showed a hidden agenda; and yet, she remembered the voice she heard inside his head, and this voice belonged to the succubus she had just seen in the dream Nightmare Moon summoned.

However, it could very well be something the dark side made up from her fears and imaginations. That voice she supposedly heard could be just a figment of her tired imagination, and dreams could easily create impossible situations, especially if they're conjured for such a purpose. What Nightmare Moon would be able to gain from this was unknown, but Luna knew she had to be careful lest she repeated her millennium old mistake. She was warned about tampering with dark forces that tempt, and yet she listened not to the warnings but to the promises or power and justice.

She exhaled slowly and sat down to help her shivering legs relax. Her horn glowed for a moment as she wiped the sweat from her forehead before it could trickle down to her eyes. She had to think rationally and act accordingly. Even if Andromalius kept the succubus secret from Luna, it didn't imply maliciousness. But if he was indeed from a different world – and there was little doubt about it – then how did he come into contact with the succubus? Or were they together since the beginning, was she a friend or a lover he didn't mention?

What Luna knew was the fact that Andromalius was a demon who claimed he wasn't one prior to his appearance in Equestria; a sense of mystery surrounded him, and he knew – or at least he claimed to know – many things which were too precise to be simple imaginations and yet too vague and generalized to be something he specialized at. Logically, a regular pony would know a similar amount of things if one were to appear in some distant land or unknown dimension.

However, she could very well be wrong about him in a number of ways. After all, it seemed suspicious of him to know the Common language despite his claim of it being identical to his language of English. Such coincidences seemed completely impossible.

There was only one thing she could do – confront Andromalius directly and not back down until she got the answers. While he did seem innocent for the most part, she had to check, for even the tiniest possibility of wrongdoing should be investigated. Perhaps it was a paranoid thing to do, but she had experienced her fair share of warnings ignored in favor of comfort.

Luna walked to a cupboard nearby and opened it, revealing a couple shelves filled with various useful potions: some were colorful, others looked like simple water; some glowed, others absorbed the light. After a moment of thinking, she reached with her magic for the blue sparkling liquid. It would help her stay awake and be at her best, although she preferred not to think of the headache it would bring her the next day. She opened the container and drank it in one go, then placed it back into the cupboard, making a mental note to replace it later.

A sensation of power grew inside her body, the sleepy mist around her mind disappearing almost instantly, and her body was restored in strength and endurance. Whatever awaited her at the Summer Palace, she was ready for it. However, bringing in some help wouldn't be bad either. She was almost certain she was more powerful than Andromalius and would be able to subdue him if necessary, but 'almost certain' was never 'perfectly certain', and ignoring such seemingly small things could very well be her downfall, for small details have destroyed many throughout thousands of year.

Just in case, she looked into one of the drawers and found a small sword-shaped necklace. She locked it around her neck, knowing how useful a simple sharp blade could be even in a battle of magic. She tapped her royal regalia twice and headed to the balcony of her quarters. She opened the door and slipped out of her room, four thestrals already waiting for her.

A minute later, Canterlot was growing smaller and smaller, and wind whipped at her face as she flew through the air, her eyes aimed directly at the hidden ruins of the Summer Palace. Perhaps she could teleport there straight away, but it would likely result in an ambush. Approaching from a distance seemed like a more reasonable choice despite giving Andromalius more time to prepare.

Luna hoped her worries and fears wouldn't realize.

In the Summer Palace, unseen darkness assembled, seeping into every crack, and yet it was hiding. One would get the feeling of wrongress if they approached the ancient ruins; turning away and leaving would be the wisest choice. A trap was set, the plan was in motion, and all it required to complete was time.

And time... time goes on forever without stopping.

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the kind-of-cliffhanger here, but the chapter was growing big. I'll see if I can release the next one quicker.