Chapter 3: Great and Powerful

Nightmares

———

Chapter 3: Great and Powerful

———

It was no secret that Twilight Sparkle adored few things in the world more than research. To crack open a book and begin the process of absorbing the knowledge of all those ponies who came before her, wise and foolish and everything in between, and wrote down what they knew for posterity, was simply bliss. Following one chain of reasoning to its end, tracing the footsteps of illustrious thinkers before her, standing on the shoulders of giants, almost feeling a sense of camaraderie with the great minds of the past...it was a heady tonic.

It was also, however, no secret that nobody else in Ponyville shared anything even resembling Twilight Sparkle's love of research—which was why Twilight had only a bored-looking Spike for company in the vast, familiar halls of Canterlot's Royal Library.

It was probably for the best, though, because it wasn't as though her friends would have been any help anyway. Rainbow Dash had taken to flying progressively more complicated geometric patterns under the vaulted ceiling; Pinkie Pie had been so bored her whole body had actually started oscillating; Rarity had quickly wandered off to the section about historical fashion trends; Fluttershy had disappeared somewhere in the animal biology shelves; and Applejack, well, she had just plain fallen asleep. And so, lest Pinkie try to light something on fire with her mind or whatever, Twilight had released them to go play in the city, with a Pinkie Pie Promise that Pinkie would not perform a repeat of yesterday's cake mishap or anything at all similar thereto. It was alright. This was Twilight's turf.

Spike, on the other hoof, would have to stay. "Number one assistant" was an unglamorous job, after all.

Twilight trotted back towards the main study room with a rolling shelf of books dutifully following her under magical propulsion. Princess Celestia had taken her down to a well-guarded vault where she could find information on, among other things, the Nightmares. Twilight would have easily spent the rest of the day down there, looking over all those musty tomes and scrolls, but Celestia had been strangely urgent in collecting just what Twilight would need to deal with a Nightmare and then ushering her back out. These were books that were, in fact, dangerous, she'd explained; books that contained spells simply too powerful to entrust to just any old pony. It was heady tonic, knowing that the princess put that much faith and trust in her.

And so, Twilight plopped herself down at her old table with a stack of dusty books, jarring Spike out of his nap.

"Hundreds of years old, Spike!" she exclaimed. "That's how old these books are! Can you believe it? There's stuff in here I've never dreamed of! Spells I never knew were even possible! History I've never read before! It's incredible—"

Spike promptly whirled around and sneezed, sending a green jet of flame blazing out in front of him. Twilight grimaced and decided that maybe he should stay far away from some of the research materials, lest they accidentally get magically launched at Princess Celestia's head or something somewhere else in the castle. "Great," he sniffled, "how about I just go sit over there?" And with that he scooted away.

Twilight shrugged and got to work. Nobody understood how fun this stuff was.

———

Rainbow Dash gratefully did a couple of loops in midair as she and Pinkie made their way down the streets. The Canterlot library was a total bust. Didn't even have one of the Daring Do books. All just boring egghead stuff, which was of course why Twilight insisted on hanging out there all day. And while Rainbow Dash might have discovered the secret joys of reading, there was a very big difference between Daring Do and the Griffin's Goblet and, say, Unabridged Journal of Endocrinology, 26th Edition.

Pinkie bounced along like an eternally bouncy spring. They would have to find something to do, since Pinkie was Pinkie Pie Promise-forbidden from entering "a bakery, or a museum, or a general store, or pretty much anyplace else where she could acquire anything that could conceivably be put to some accidentally destructive purpose," as Twilight had put it. Which was okay with Rainbow Dash, really, because cleaning up all that frosting had also been majorly boring. But it also meant that Pinkie was lucky she hadn't just been thrown in the dungeon for the day for everyone's safety.

It was even worse in the library, though, because while flying around inside the library she'd been forced to actually think about feelings and things like that, which was totally lame. Feelings like how she was going to have to try to be friends with that jerk Trixie. That jerk Trixie who tried to kill Twilight. Making her look like a fool in front of Ponyville was one thing—a big thing, sure, a thing Rainbow Dash was not about to just get over—but, well, she would survive. Her coolness would recover. And it had! Obviously it had, if she was cool enough to whip all the other pegasi into shape so they could send Ponyville's reservoir water to Cloudsdale. But threatening her friends, well, that just crossed a line. And trying to be friends with someone who would do something that awful...well, that just made her skin crawl.

Even if the alternative also made her skin crawl.

"So whaddya wanna do, Dashie!" Pinkie squeaked. Rainbow straightened herself out from another loop and shrugged.

"Nothing that involves sitting around in a library again, that's for sure," she grumbled.

They both came to a stop as they rounded a corner, where they found a knot of ponies gathered around a shop—a shop with broken windows. Two Royal Guards stood at the door to keep the spectators out, while a few more rooted around inside—and inside, the store looked like a tornado had been through.

"What the hay happened here...?" Rainbow started, and landed with a clack of hooves on pavement.

"Oh my gosh, the Changelings!" Pinkie exclaimed. "They've come for our bodily fluids! I told you this would happen!"

Rainbow glanced up at the store's sign. "This is a jeweler's."

"Oh."

"I wonder what happened..." She edged closer to take a look. "Was there a robbery or something?"

"In Canterlot?" Pinkie asked. "Who would be crazy enough to steal things in Canterlot? There's, like, guards all over the place."

The crowd hushed as one of the guards helped a frazzled pink unicorn out past the shattered windows. "It's dreadful, simply dreadful!" the old mare wailed. "Fifty years we've been doing business in this town and never once were we robbed!"

Rainbow glanced over at Pinkie with a smirk. "First time for everything."

"We're on the case, ma'am," one of the guards said, "but can you describe the pony that did this?"

"It was this pegasus," the old mare went on, "a pegasus with a spiky blue mane, and she came in looking at the jewels under the counter, and when I asked her if she needed help," she paused to choke back another sob, "she just put a hoof through the glass and swept all the jewels into a bag and, and took off like a shot straight through the window!"

The guard at her side glanced grimly at the two by the door. "And you didn't see where she was going?"

"Heavens, no! She was much too fast!"

Rainbow glanced back at her wings and quickly tucked them back against her body before anyone started looking at her. If worst came to worst she had an alibi, but getting questioned by the Royal Guard all day would be even less cool than the library.

"No other features?" the guard asked. "Cutie mark? Voice? Anything?"

"Oh, goodness, no, it was all over in seconds," the old mare moaned, "and then she took off and blew over everything in the shop! It's terrible! Terrible!"

While the shopkeeper broke down into incoherent sobs in front of three rather uncomfortable guards, Rainbow and Pinkie shared a confused look. "Somepony who would rob a store in broad daylight and take off too fast for anyone to see?" Rainbow asked.

"That's crazy-talk!" Pinkie cried. "Somepony must've seen her! You can't go flying around with a big bag of jewels without anyone noticing!" She paused. "Right?"

The crowd began to break up as the guards ordered them to disperse, so Rainbow and Pinkie backed away to avoid a bunch of gossiping ponies. "Simply outrageous!" snorted one well-dressed unicorn. "A whole string of robberies this month alone! I tell you, crime in Canterlot is simply out of control!"

At his side, a nonplussed earth pony dressed like a butler rolled his eyes. "Never been to Manehattan, sir?"

"I don't pay you for lip, Reginald. Come along!"

Rainbow frowned as she watched the butler and snooty rich pony trot away. "I wonder..." She turned around—and came face to face with Pinkie, detective hat perched on her head and pipe already blowing a stream of bubbles. "No. Bad Pinkie. We're not doing that again."

"But it's a mystery!" Pinkie protested. "We solved the one on the train, remember?"

"Twilight solved the one on the train," Rainbow said as she rolled her eyes herself. "Come on. I'm hungry. And no, we're not going to a bakery."

———

It was a terrible place to read.

A pudgy green unicorn with a red mane and a book for a cutie mark squinted in the flickering light of a candle, a book wide open before him. It was all so incredible. Who knew that water had the power to remember substances immersed in it? And the more water you added, the stronger it got, because the memory of the water you added combined with the water already present and you could even create entirely new substances with just water, as long as you knew what to change, whatever that was. It was genius.

And all this grimy darkness was making it hard to drink in this revolutionary new idea.

Down here in the disused canals and catacombs of Canterlot, only tiny slivers of actual sunlight managed to provide some dim illumination. Everything else was provided by torches and candles. As hideouts went, it was pretty ingenious—especially since to get down here, one had to navigate a series of treacherous and tortuous caves and passages. Easily enough for him to go through, by now, but some unlucky lonesome wanderer or nosy Royal Guard...well, that was a different story.

"I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!"

The sound went bouncing off the walls and through the darkness, followed moments later by the blurry blue form of a speeding pegasus with a big brown bag slung over her shoulder. She darted around through the air like a balloon with the air let out and then came crashing down to the floor, sending up a billowing cloud of black dust. The green unicorn threw a hoof in front of his candle before the blow could snuff it out.

"I'm trying to read, y'know!" he wailed.

"Sorry Castor!" she chirped. "I was at a jewelry store, see, and there were all these pretty jewels there and there was this necklace with a diamond in it, see, a great big diamond, and it was so big so I just kinda grabbed it, see," the pegasus tipped over her bag and spilled out an armful of glittering necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and some things the green unicorn couldn't even identify, "and then I had to get out quickquickquick or someone would catch me but I went through the alleys and stuff like I always do and nobody even got a good look at me! Isn't that great?!"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Castor muttered, and went back to his book.

"No!" another voice screamed. "Not great! Anti-great! Jeez, Whiplash, you'll screw up everything!"

Both ponies turned at the sight of another unicorn, this one all red—all too fitting, even, judging by the look of outrage on his face—and a few stars on his flank.

"You know we're supposed to be lying low!" the red unicorn shouted, and advanced with a growl towards a confused Whiplash. "No stealing things! No taking stupid risks! What's wrong with you?! Are you an idiot or something?!"

"Hey, shove off, Pollux!" Whiplash snapped. "You and Castor filched like two hundred bits from a crowd the other day with your stupid new age philosophy routine!"

"It's not stupid!" Castor cried suddenly. "You're just not taking the theory seriously! The sea ponies never took the artists seriously and their culture declined and—"

"No one cares, Castor!" Pollux interrupted.

"That's what they all say!" Castor wailed. "You'll see! You'll all see! You think your decadent science and its cold academic arbitrary values can solve everything, but you'll all see! You'll never solve the infinite mysteries of—"

"You're just a stupid moron!" Pollux screamed back. "All that stupid philosophy keeps going to your head and you actually believe it and—"

"Well maybe if you read it once in a while—"

"I don't need to read it to know that it's—"

"Shut your face—"

"No you—"

"You little—"

Two rocks came streaking out of the darkness and slammed into Castor and Pollux's heads with a satisfying smack that knocked the both of them straight out. Whiplash looked down at the two now-unconscious unicorns in surprise, and then back up where the rocks had come from—where she found a gray earth pony with sunglasses, a silver, mohawk-styled mane, and a pair of dice for a cutie mark lighting up a torch at the other end of the chamber.

"Don't act like you didn't want to do that," he said with a chuckle.

"Oh, come on, Razor Edge," whined Whiplash, "they're funny when they get like that."

"No, they're not." Another rumbling voice pierced the darkness, this one sounding like gravel, and from the shadows emerged yet another pony—this one a hulking brown earth pony, a mass of muscle crisscrossed with scars and a horseshoe cutie mark. And at his side was an elegant pink and purple pegasus looking over everything with an expression of utter disdain, a shooting star cutie mark on her flank. "I only keep them around because that stupid new age philosophy routine of theirs actually works."

"Well, Pollux is the best pickpocket this side of Fillydelphia," added Razor Edge, wielding another torch.

"And Castor is...um...Castor," Whiplash attempted to add.

"Barbell, sweetie, please," groaned the pink pegasus, glancing over at the enormous earth pony, "we all know we could find a better pickpocketing team than these two. Or at least one that doesn't spend every waking minute arguing over existential despair or whatever."

"And where do you propose I find such a team, Comet?" Barbell snarled back. "One gets up and gives his little sermons on weight loss shakes made out of hemp or whatever, the other goes through and relieves all those fools of their hard-earned bits. If you know anyone who's better," he took a step closer and snorted, "feel free to share."

"Besides, they're funny!" chirped Whiplash. "Remember the other day when they were fighting over those beetle drinks or whatever that Castor said could cure the flu? It was awesome! They were fighting for like four hours!"

"Drove us all out of the lair, too," Razor Edge groaned.

"Which is exactly why we need to get rid of them!" Comet finished with a stamp of hooves.

"I make the decisions here!" roared Barbell, as he whirled around on Comet with another furious snort.

"No," said yet another voice, "you don't."

The flames snuffed out and the chamber went dark. All eyes darted around blindly, frantically—and then a moment later, every single torch lit up in a simultaneous burst of fire. All eyes turned towards an opening near the chamber floor, where the unicorn mare that sent chills down their spines stood. Dark blue hide, wavy red mane, long, shimmering horn—and irritated, glittering green eyes.

"Whiplash," she said, and the blue pegasus snapped to attention as the elegant unicorn with the swirling star cutie mark slowly strode towards them. "We told you not to take unnecessary risks. We cannot afford to be discovered down here. So," she gestured to the pile of jewelry, "what is this?"

"I'm sorry, Lazuli!" Whiplash wailed. "It's just, it was so pretty and I wanted it and I couldn't help myself and I got away and nobody saw me, promise, and—"

A red flare of magic snapped her jaws shut, and the blue unicorn silenced her further with a glare. "Will it happen again?" Whiplash emphatically shook her head. "See that it doesn't." She released her hold on Whiplash and whirled around towards the rest of the group. "The same goes for all of you. The master has promised you riches beyond your wildest dreams in exchange for your cooperation...and for your discipline. All of Canterlot—and all of its wealth—will be laid bare before you, as long as you hold up your end of our bargain." She fixed Barbell with a pointed stare. "Is that clear?"

"Absolutely, Lapis Lazuli," Barbell mumbled.

"Glad to hear it." Lapis Lazuli turned around with a flourish, and nodded to the two unconscious unicorns. "When those two awake, send them down to the Everfree Forest. My supply of snapdragon has run low. Tell them to bring the armor we liberated from those Royal Guards. They'll need it."

Razor Edge frowned. "Armor? I thought snapdragon was a flower."

Lapis Lazuli cracked a wicked smirk as she strode back into the darkness. "Not in Everfree, it's not."

———

Twilight Sparkle cringed as she reached the end of another winding report on a pony who had drank too deeply from the dark powers afforded by their most sinister emotions. Compared to this, the unabridged volumes of the bloody history of the Griffin Empire and their endless wars with the dragons was cheerful light reading.

Equestria's history, as it turned out, was riddled with Nightmares, even after Princess Luna had been banished to the Moon and Princess Celestia had taken over all the duties of the monarchy herself. Most were minor and easily dispatched by the Princess; some were a bit more complicated. There was the celebrated case of a unicorn who became a dreaded creature named Nightmare Cascade, a unicorn who had lived out in what would later become Los Pegasus. She waited for years for her beloved to return from a long voyage over the sea—but when he did, he had no interest left in her. The pain of betrayal turned into the comforting cocoon of anger, and from it sprung forth a creature that would terrorize the western coast for months, including wreaking frightening revenge on her unfaithful beloved.

And yet that story had a happy ending, sort of. Nightmare Cascade eventually encountered Princess Celestia, who talked her down from the height of her fury and sent her into a more or less mutually agreed upon exile. Not so happy was the tale of a different shade, an earth pony swindled out of a major business venture by his ostentatious unicorn partner. Having lost everything to the con, he surrendered himself to his rage—a cool, calculating sort of rage that gave him the name of Nightmare Blizzard. And by the time his reign of terror was done, he had destroyed his old partner's mighty business empire—to say nothing of his old partner—and brought forth chaos of which Discord might be proud in old Manehattan. The anger that served his vengeance soon became its own end, which sustained him even after his revenge had been complete, and by the time it was all over, the princess had been forced to annihilate him herself. Even the dry academic report sent shivers down Twilight's spine.

But then there was the one story that had caught her attention and refused to let go. This one was a pegasus from Cloudsdale, proud for having clawed her way up from nothing to a high station, then laid low by her own arrogance and misjudgment. Unable to cope, she embraced the darkness within her and thus was born the scourge of the skies, Nightmare Nebula. Her rage knew no bounds, and so she stalked the cloud cities and kept dozens of ponies prisoner in a mysterious mountain fortress, where she could repel even the most powerful of the Royal Guard's assaults with a conjured army of terrifying specters. It sounded like all the other Nightmare stories she'd read—until she got to the resolution. It wasn't the princess who destroyed Nightmare Nebula, as it turned out; it had been a little pegasus named Flicker, one of Nebula's captives, who had eventually befriended her captor and soothed the anger until it faded away—and so vanished the scourge of the skies, Nightmare Nebula.

It was a rush of vindication. A pony with a similar story had succeeded here once before; surely she could save Trixie too. This method had worked once before, and Flicker had been all on her own in Nebula's icy citadel, dependent only on her own wits and compassion. With all her friends and the wisdom of two princesses behind her, how could Twilight fail?

So that was encouraging. Also encouraging was the sheaf of copied pages Celestia had dug up for her from the Codex Monstrum, an enormous tome that dealt with every magical menace in Equestrian history, from Discord to the parasprites. More than just a repository of history, it had spells for use against such dangerous creatures—and Celestia had found for her a special, ancient spell, developed to subdue the influence of a Nightmare for a time. It was complicated and required a great deal of focused study and deft manipulation of the magical currents—but Twilight Sparkle was no stranger to that. And certainly it made her feel a little better to know she wouldn't be going into this project completely unarmed.

But like Applejack said, they would have to catch her first. The pages from the Codex Monstrum claimed that a Nightmare's magical capacity depended on the health and strength of the pony to which it was attached. And as Twilight recalled, Trixie's actual magical abilities had been less than impressive—they certainly were to the Ursa Minor, at any rate—so perhaps with all five of her friends to help, this Nightmare would be a bit easier to capture. And once it was, she could use the spell.

And then the really hard part would begin. Twilight cringed as she glanced over at the other stack of papers and books she had yet to work through. That had been work of an entirely different sort.

Twilight sighed and thumped her head against the table. Making friends in Ponyville the first time she went there hadn't even been on her agenda; it just sort of, well, happened, and when she looked up, she had friends and she wasn't sure how it happened. It wasn't the most pressing of her research questions, but perhaps it should have been, because now she had to purposefully set out to make a friend. And not just any friend; she had to make a friend out of someone so angry with her that her anger had called forth from the dark well of arcane power a spirit that made her exponentially stronger.

She turned her eyes back towards the other stack of things to go through and felt a bolt of determination rush through her. The Great and Powerful Trixie was a mystery all on her own, but not for long. Mysteries were things you didn't know—yet.

———

A single bright blue bulb of that noxious weed of the Everfree Forest, the poison joke, floated in midair amid a flickering red glow—and then the glow vanished and it went plummeting down, into the gaping maw of a vast cast-iron cauldron. Flames licked up the sides and a green, glowing liquid began to roil. Standing over it all, Lapis Lazuli cracked a smile. It had failed so many times before, but such was the art of potions and cauldron magic—a constant dance of trial and error.

"Just a touch of light this time," she murmured, and bent her head low over the bubbling substance, horn sparking to life. A single glittering point fluttered down into the liquid; Lazuli stepped back as the cauldron began to bubble, and then a vast cloud of green smoke burst up and began to spread. A soft green glow rippled up from the smoke and bathed the chamber in eerie light.

Lapis Lazuli tilted her head up to point her horn into the heart of the cloud and sent another pulse of magic into the concoction. The cloud flashed again—and then it settled on a bright green shine, a light that filled the cavern...and beyond. She looked down and smiled triumphantly at the foggy sight beneath her—at the ground made transparent, at all the catacombs and caverns, at all their twists and turns laid bare before her. They extended down for what looked like miles, down through the abandoned quarries, down through the catacombs, through winding tunnels and gaping chasms...and then it stopped.

The light began to fade. Lazuli's smile did likewise. It just stopped—down there, a pit of blackness, a void, where there should have been something. There was no way the magma could have just disappeared; no one had magic that powerful. If it was gone here, that meant it would have had to be sent somewhere else—but that made no sense. There weren't that many volcanoes in Equestria. Even if the magma was gone, the chamber would still be there. It could not have been changed that dramatically.

At last, the light disappeared, and the chamber was dark once more, save for an ethereal glow from the last bubbling remnants of the concoction in the cauldron. Suddenly the torches around the room lit up, and the air echoed with a stallion's voice chuckling knowingly, and the sound of hooves on rock.

"Still trying that transparency spell, are you?"

Lazuli looked up as a black stallion, with wings and horn and a mane and tail made of undulating fire, stepped into the room from a craggy tunnel. "I'm sorry, master," she said, and looked back down shamefully at what was left of the potion. "I thought this time I could make it work."

"And that's what I like about you, Laz," laughed the stallion, and he sidled up next to the blue unicorn and threw a wing around her, ignoring her squeak of surprise. "I tell you that Princess Celestia has enchanted this whole mountain with power no ordinary pony could match, and you go and try to subvert her spells anyways. It's persistence, it's confidence, and it's madness, all rolled into one."

Lazuli glanced away bitterly. "I thought it was just madness."

"Oh, don't be so hard on yourself, Lazzie," he crooned. He tugged her close and grinned at the blushing unicorn. "If it was that easy I would've done this myself years ago." He stepped away in a whirl of flames, leaving behind him a flustered Lazuli. "Anyway! I hear you've been busy cracking skulls in my absence? Metaphorically speaking, of course."

Lazuli blinked for a moment and recollected her wits. "J-Just the usual foolishness," she sputtered.

"From the brothers, I'm sure," sighed the stallion. "The health drinks one and the angry twitchy guy?"

"I don't know why you keep them around, master. There are better criminals in Equestria to serve you. More dangerous, more effective, and more tolerable."

"Oh, perhaps," he mused. "Then again, they do have their uses. After all," he shot a sidelong glance towards Lazuli, "I can't go sending you out to do all my errands. Attract too much attention, you would." Lazuli blushed bright red again as the stallion turned around again with a smirk. "Anyways! You keep trying with that spell, if that's what makes you feel better, and try not to get Barbell's gang killed with your infinite disdain for them. And don't worry about a thing. The plan is right on track."

———

The sky had turned to the color of flame when Twilight sat back with a heavy sigh. Research into the mysteries of eldritch creatures was one thing; research into a living pony with an actual history, well, that was something else. And the blue unicorn mare named Trixie was something of a test for a reader more familiar with ancient tomes than with town records, school reports, and newspaper clippings.

"So," Spike sighed, as he idly played with a pencil, "what've we got?"

Twilight frowned at the pages before her. "Not much." She turned one of them over and felt a sting in her heart. "This says she was an entered into an orphanage in Baltimare."

Spike peered over the paper. "Her parents...?"

"I'd hope not." Twilight scanned a bit further down the page. "They left her there as a foal, and then a year later the orphanage shut down, so she got sent to another one. And," Twilight turned to another page, "a couple years later she was sent to another one in Manehattan," another page, "and then another one in Fillydelphia." She found the last file, from a magic school; an average student, with average abilities, it looked like the bombastic Trixie would have led an average existence, if not for a chance meeting with a traveling showmare. "I wonder if this is why she turned out to be a, well, you know—"

"'Jerk,' Twilight," Spike said. "The word you're looking for is 'jerk.'"

"Spike!"

"What? It's true!"

Twilight huffed and glanced through the files again, and her indignant expression fell. "It looks like she didn't really have any friends." She glanced back up at Spike. "That remind you of any 'jerks' you know?"

Too late, she realized her mistake. Spike grinned back. "You don't want me to answer that, do you?"

"No." She pushed the pages aside. "I dunno, it makes sense. All on her own, no friends, getting shuttled around from orphanage to orphanage..." She shuddered. "Jeez, makes you wonder if I would've turned out to be a snob if I hadn't gone to Ponyville."

Spike snickered and Twilight glared at him until he stopped. "Well anyways," he started, "uh, so does that mean you feel sorry for her or something?"

"Of course I do! We're trying to befriend her, so it would help if we assume that she's actually a good pony underneath all the bluster and bravado. Okay?"

"Okay, okay. But that's just gonna make it harder, y'know."

Twilight's ears went flat. Of course it would make things harder. Arrogance did not beget trust in others. But she knew how it felt to be without friends. Only her brother had been around, and for a while, that had seemed like it was enough; then he went away to train for the Royal Guard and the loneliness set in. Loneliness begat her workaholic ways as she studied her way into the School for Gifted Unicorns, but all that ever did was cover it up until she forgot it was there. Then there was Spike, but their relationship wasn't quite the same.

And then there was that spark of joy and togetherness, the rush that went through her when she heard her friends coming to help her as she stood alone against Nightmare Moon, seemingly bereft of the one weapon that could bring her down. That was something that deserved to be shared, with anypony who was willing to accept it. And there was no way Trixie, even in this Nightmare state, was so evil that she couldn't be reached that way.

While Twilight ruminated, Spike sat up and started rifling through the pages. "Y'know," he began, "now that you bring it up, I wonder why she was dropped off in an orphanage in the first place."

Twilight sighed. "The files didn't say. But it's strange. I don't get why her parents would have just dumped her off there instead of trying to raise her themselves."

Spike peered over one of the pages for a moment. "Maybe jerkness runs in the family."

"Spike!"

"What?"

Twilight glared. "Jerkness isn't genetic. It's a behavior and an attitude picked up from environment, upbringing, and all sorts of other stuff."

"Oh, fine." He tossed one page aside and took up another. "But still, dumping your foal off in an orphanage is a pretty jerky thing to do."

"Maybe they were poor or something and couldn't afford to raise her." She yanked Spike up by the tail with a tendril of magic. "We are trying to be optimistic here, remember?"

"You can be optimistic," grumped Spike. "I'll be the pessimist, a.k.a. the one who understands what's really going on."

Twilight glared and tossed him over her shoulder, and then set herself back to work on those ancient pages from the Codex Monstrum. All these ruminations about Trixie and her past and how to befriend her would be moot if she was still a snarling beast—and so Twilight dove back into the Codex, determined to figure out how to catch a Nightmare.

———

It was another two hours of studying and a third hour of wrangling her friends and finding something to eat, but, armed with cookies and coffee, it didn't take too much work to corral the other five ponies back into the library. It took a lot more cookies to get Pinkie Pie to sit still long enough to pay attention, and it took still more coffee to keep Applejack awake, but eventually Twilight managed to summarize the findings of her research—in "non-egghead form," at Rainbow Dash's insistence.

"So," Twilight said, and brought her empty coffee mug down on the table with a clack, "ideas! How are we going to catch this Nightmare?"

Silence reigned for a moment before Pinkie sat up. "I know!" she exclaimed. "A—"

"No parties," Twilight interrupted.

Pinkie scowled for a moment before her smile surged back up with full force. "Okay! What if we baked a giant cake and all of us hide inside it, and we use it to lure her to us, and—"

"I am not baking myself into a cake," Rarity spoke up.

"'sides, we'd probably lure over somethin' else instead," sighed Applejack. "Somethin' that probably wouldn't mind eatin' a pony anymore than a cake."

"W-We could try talking to her," Fluttershy added. "I vote for talking."

Twilight and Applejack shared a look. "Um, I tried that," Twilight said. "Nightmare Storm wasn't very interested in talking."

"Yeah, we need action!" Rainbow Dash cried, and thumped a hoof on the table. "I say we go right out there and hunt her down and knock her out with our bare hooves!"

Applejack arched an eyebrow. "Uh, we tried that too, sugarcube. An' unless you got more magic than Twilight here stuffed up inside that ego of yers—"

"What, you think I can't take her?" scoffed Rainbow. "Besides, there will be all six of us—" Fluttershy squeaked and tried to hide under the table— "err, five of us, so there's no way she'll last that long. And Twilight did beat her once before."

"And she did run away at the sound of the rest of you coming," Twilight mused.

"Of course," groaned Rarity, "leave it to Rainbow Dash to suggest the most barbaric thing possible."

"Hey!"

"I still think a party is a good idea," Pinkie declared. "Think about it! We got a party going, everypony's groovin', Nightmare Meanieface is having a good time, and then BAM, we throw a big net over her!" She paused pensively for a moment. "But that wouldn't be very partylike. Or very friendly..."

"Neither is trying to kill Twilight," Rainbow grumbled.

"I-I still vote for talking," Fluttershy mumbled.

"Yer all bein' crazy," Applejack said, and threw up her hooves in annoyance.

"Crazy? I'll show you crazy!"

Twilight Sparkle buried her face in her hooves—and at her side, Spike eagerly munched on a bag of popcorn. "So I see this is going great," he cackled.

"Well, I'll fix their wagons," Twilight growled—and with a flash of magic, every single coffee cup, every single cookie, and the coffee pot in the middle of the table disappeared. The fighting instantly stopped, the other five ponies looked on in surprise, and then Applejack slowly turned towards Twilight.

"Twi, gettin' between a mare an' her coffee is cruel."

"And you can have it back when we've focused," Twilight said. "But right now, I need all of you to help me think of a way to capture this Nightmare. And I can't do that if you guys are arguing!"

Everyone settled back down and, satisfied that she had lectured them into compliance, Twilight brought back the coffee and cookies with a spark. Pinkie immediately swept three of the cookies into her mouth.

"Well," she said around a mouthful of cookie and chocolate chips, "I do have another idea..."

"No parties."

"It's not a party!" She grabbed her coffee cup. "Okay, hear me out, pretend this is Nightmare Meaniepants..."

———

Twilight Sparkle hated it when Pinkie Pie made sense. It seemed like such a gross violation of the laws of nature for so many whirling, crazy thoughts to somehow arrange themselves into a coherent whole, like shaking a box full of loose watch parts and coming up with a watch in anything less than millions of years. On the other hoof, her plan actually did seem like it could work—maybe because it was so crazy that there was no way Nightmare Storm would see it coming. Anger the Nightmare enough to make her fighting sloppy, wear her down with harmless illusions and general annoyances, weaken her with a little bit of actual fighting, and then knock her out if they couldn't talk her down. And of course it had that particular Pinkie Pie flair that would probably make Nightmare Storm that much angrier once it happened.

And so, Twilight Sparkle wearily made her way back to her room in Canterlot's illustrious castle. What she thought would have been a day trip to Canterlot had turned into two, and they would be setting out tomorrow before dawn to get to Everfree before anyone else was awake, and throw their plan into action.

She perked up at the sound of hooves, and blinked in surprise at the sight of the sparking, wavy mane of Princess Celestia, as Equestria's ruler strode down the hall.

"Twilight," she said with a gentle smile, "good to see I caught you before you headed off to bed."

"Princess Celestia!" Twilight rushed over. "I didn't know you were still up!"

"Why?" Celestia quirked an eyebrow. "Is it past my bedtime?"

"Err, I—"

"Anyways," Celestia swept a wing over her flustered, most faithful student, "I wanted to tell you, Twilight, that I am very proud of you. The decision you made about this Nightmare is not an easy one, but it takes kindness and compassion to try to save the pony underneath the Nightmare from the anger that fuels it."

Twilight shuffled her hooves awkwardly. "Well, um, I mean," she cringed, "Trixie was mean to us when she came through Ponyville, and everypony else is probably right when they say she's going to be a jerk, but that's no reason to have to die..."

Celestia's smile faded. "Not to you, at least."

"Yes. Not to me."

The solar princess was pensively silent a moment before she nodded towards the door, and together princess and student headed down the marbled halls of the castle. "It's a noble decision you've made," she said, "but I don't want you to be under any illusions about what you're up against."

"I'm not," said Twilight, "and speaking of that, I really want to thank you for letting me read the Codex Monstrum. There was so much information there, I wish I had time to go through the whole thing. Living right next to Everfree I could do all sorts of field studies, and maybe update the records, because some of the entries on the manticore were out of date or at least they didn't mesh with my observations and—"

She fell silent as she looked up and saw Celestia's sad smile. "Another time, Twilight," she said, and led her student towards a quiet balcony. "In the meantime, I trust the Codex was helpful in figuring out what to do about the Nightmare?"

"Very! That suppression spell will be a lifesaver!"

"Good, good." They came to a stop at the balcony's railing, overlooking the still-bustling city of Canterlot, and the flickering city lights. "And the files on this Trixie?"

Twilight's face fell. "Yes...those were helpful too." She glanced up at Celestia's inquisitive face. "They were...pretty depressing, princess. Her parents put her in an orphanage when she was very young, and she got moved around from place to place until she was old enough to go out on her own. And I just don't understand. The files didn't say. Why would parents give up their child that easily?" She looked up sadly towards the princess.

Celestia looked back out towards the city for a moment. "Not everyone is fit to be a parent," she said somberly. "And fate doesn't always conspire to let parents keep their children. Perhaps they gave her up because they felt they could not afford to raise her properly."

"I hope so," Twilight murmured. "It doesn't look like she had any friends or anything, and I know what that's like. And, well, looking at it from her perspective, I can see why she turned out to be the way she is." She wrinkled her nose. "Or, the way she was, before she became this Nightmare."

Celestia eyed her student with a knowing smile. "Well," she said, "if nothing else, you must always remember to try to look at things from her perspective. Especially if she has such a difficult personality. It is an important lesson to remember, always." She closed her eyes. "And it is not easily learned."

Twilight frowned. "What do you mean...?"

"Do you know the story of Nightmare Moon, Twilight?"

"O-Of course I do, princess—"

"All of it?"

Twilight fell silent. "There's more to it? I mean, I thought..."

Celestia turned her eyes south, towards the dark, shadowy void of the Everfree Forest, and Twilight felt a chill rush down her spine. "Most of the details are lost to time," Celestia said, "and I would rather they stay that way. But they are not lost to my memory."

"It was worse than the storybooks said?"

The princess fixed her eyes on a spot deep in the forest, and Twilight strained to see it in the darkness. "When my sister transformed into Nightmare Moon, I could not immediately summon the Elements to stop her," she explained. "Instead, Nightmare Moon took over our old castle. I could not raise the sun or control the moon with her around. So my sister and I fought a civil war against each other, for ten years, while Equestria withered under endless night." Twilight went cold as she saw the suffering flash through her mentor's eyes. "Only by my power did our people avoid complete starvation, and even then, there was still famine and the war brought enormous suffering throughout the land. And only by some miracle was I able to avoid becoming the same thing Luna had become."

Twilight gasped. "You mean...you almost...?"

"Nightmare Moon's power and fury was so great that it warped the very land around her, and twisted its creatures into monstrous parodies of nature," Celestia went on. "And when we finally took the battle to our old castle, I made no effort to talk to my sister, or to direct the Elements' powers. I could not; she had brought too much suffering, and when I looked at Nightmare Moon, underneath it all I still saw my sister, the very pony who had brought this blight upon our kingdom. And so I banished her to the moon for a thousand years."

They both glanced up towards the sky, as the shimmering silver crescent of the moon climbed through the heavens. Twilight felt another chill run through her. The books had said little about the real nature of the conflict between Celestia and Luna—and nothing at all about what the solar princess herself had gone through.

"And for a thousand years," said Celestia, "I bore both our burdens and ruled this land alone. And once the damage was repaired and the lands had recovered, I began to feel regret. I had thought my sister was being a spoiled brat, and when she became Nightmare Moon, I thought she had become as evil as Discord. But once she was gone, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps I could have ended our conflict differently. Perhaps if I'd taken seriously what had motivated her to this madness, I could have ended it with much less suffering. If I'd tried to see things from her perspective—no matter how angry I was with her. But I didn't, and we both paid the price.

"And that," she finished, looking back at Twilight, "is why you must never make the mistake I made. Trixie is a Nightmare now, and a Nightmare will stop at nothing to satisfy its desire for revenge. You can prevent it from doing so—but Trixie will be no easier to deal with for it. And you must always remember that, if you're ever going to pull her away from these destructive forces."

Twilight bowed her head. "I understand, princess."

"I know, Twilight Sparkle." She bent her head down to give her faithful student a reassuring nuzzle. "You can do this. And you will succeed. I'm sure of it."

Twilight looked back up towards her smiling mentor and felt her doubts melt away, like ice under the summer sun. Of course she could do this. Princess Celestia would not let her try if she couldn't.

"I won't let you down, princess."

"I know. Now," she nodded towards the door, "you should get some rest. You have a difficult day ahead of you tomorrow."

Twilight trotted back to her room on her hooves, but her heart soared. The princess had faith in her. Her friends were with her. Trixie was as much a victim as anyone else. They had a foolproof plan. For the first time in the past two days, Twilight looked forward to this new project. A new friend, a pony with whom she could talk about magic, a vast new world of magic and friendship to explore...

Bring it on, Nightmare Storm. We're ready for you.

———