Twilight stood across from Princess Celestia, her gaze had fallen to look at her lavender tail and the shuffling of her hooves as she watched her mentor's composure begin to collapse under the stress of recent events, as soon as spike had sent the letter informing of Luna's dissapearance Celestia had her guards turn the chariot around immediately and descended toward ponyville. It pained Twilight to see her mentor like this, but knew that Celestia needed somepony since she could not appear this emotional to her subjects, there was something strange about watching somepony that had a deity status among her subjects just... fall to pieces as a thousand years of life seemed to be crashing down on her at once... every plague, every monster attack, every war that had happened... it all seemed to be too much for her.

Twilight mustered up the courage to do something that she hoped would help Celestia, she swallowed her hesitation and trotted over to Celestia, she embraced the larger pony in a hug without a word. The initial touch had confused Celestia for a second as Twilight hugged around her mid-section, but after the intial shock subsided she embraced Twilight and tried not to let too much emotion flow from her so that she did not appear too stressed when she spoke with anypony else. The hug kept Celestia from feeling alone and gave her somepony whose shoulder she could release her emotions to, for once in the many years that she had been alive... she felt much better with this one simple hug.

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Lurker 4-1 was kneeling in front of Emperor Renko, the dark-blue pony was still unconscious in a nearby cage, the feeling of tension from the soldier was almost palpable until Renko issued his order.

"I want you to take a note to them... one telling them that their dear princess is in these ruins. Have no illusions that you are going there and back without trouble... there will certainly be others in your way on your way to the camp, and I want you to directly deliver this note to the other Renko... but if you should manage to get back here in one piece I will certainly reward your efforts... now go!" Renko finished with a dismissive wave, Lurker 4-1 nodded and quickly left. Emperor Renko walked over to the cage when he noticed the prisoner begin to wake up.

Luna's eyes barely focused as she began to look around the room she was in, something was familiar to her but she couldn't pinpoint what it was, it wasn't until her mind registered the throne in the room that she realized that she was in the ruins of her old castle. The next thing that came into focus was the cage she was being held in, she began to panic a little as she tried to figure out how she got in this situation.

"Ok... I heard screaming in ponyville... I got my guards aound... my guards were kill-" her mind paused mid-thought as she remembered her loyal guards, the guards who vowed to view her life before theirs, she began to feel an unnatural cold flow over her... threatening to break her mind.

"NO! Not this time you monster! I will not let you take control!" she thought as she tried to fight the familiar, yet foreign, influence trying to take over her mind. The presence answered as if it had a consciousness of its own.

"I will not be considered such, I am the proper ruler of the night... not some pathetic foal who can't stand to let her guards do their job." The voice was cold, it was evil and it was one that she knew all too well.

"Nightmare Moon! You are not the ruler of the night, you are a parasite that feeds only on anger and jealousy, you do not deserve to dwell within me... you deserve only destruction but the Elements only broke your hold over me, you should consider yourself lucky that I do not banish you to the depths of Tartarus." The threat seemed to silence the horror that resided within her, she felt at least a little better as the presence receeded to the back of her mind. A cold voice that she thought she recognized brought her back to the room that she was in.

"Well, you seem to be having a problem with E99 energy radiation... I could see it, but the thing that is quite interesting is how you managed to fight the change..." A look of surprised horror passed over her face as a rush of emotions began to flow through her, one of them being a massive rush of anger at the person she saw standing in front of her.

"Renko?! HOW DARE YOU!" If the volume of her Royal Canterlot Voice caught him off guard he did not show it, he only chuckled as he began to understand her confusion. She began to yell at him once again.

"HOW DARE YOU PONYNAP ME! YOU AGREED TO ABIDE BY OUR LAWS! THIS IS INEXCUSABLE, YOU WILL PAY DEARLY FOR THIS BETRAYAL!" The Renko she saw only smiled as she charged a spell to break out of the cage, he openly laughed as she tried to unleash the spell, the spell itself seemed to get absorbed by the cage itself and got redirected at her with the same charge from every bar. Her vision blurred as the spell left smoke radiating from her body. Renko only laughed as he walked away, he knew that everything was going to plan.

"Now I just need to throw obstacles in his way that require him to use the TMD" he thought evily.