Living Under The Moon Final Chapter

You sat outside on the landing port of the mansion that morning.

Sleep had came in and out, it was a weird kind of sleep  where you knew you were sleeping, but were just conscious enough to not feel as though you had actually been asleep.  So now you restlessly sat, watching the sun slowly begin its ascent.

“This seat taken?”

“I won’t stop you from having it” You tell Ivory as she sits next to you, the shifting orange glow slowly beginning to illuminate her face.

“So….big day ahead” You see her look down to the mountain side below out of the corner of your eye. “Nervous?”

You chuckle a little “You have no idea.”

She scoots over a bit, closing the distance between you both. “I have faith in you, you know?”

“Ivory, you’ve always had faith in me” You say turning your head and shoulders to look at her “I don’t have the first clue why.”

“I’ve already told you,” she scoots a little closer, your flanks just barely touching “ you saved me”

“You’re forgetting, that Luna, Trixie and Twilight did most of the magic”

“If you hadn’t kissed me, it wouldn’t have worked.” You have a flash of the kiss that had brought her allegiance to your side.

“I slipped” You tell her as flatly as you can

“Anon, we both know that’s not true” She states plainly while Turning and looking upward at you “I don’t claim to know why you did it, or what brought you to the conclusion, but that kiss was no accident.”

“As it is, you’re still giving me too much credit”

“Not enough.” She leans up and presses her lips on yours for just a moment “You’re the reason I’m alive, “Another pause and another kiss “And the reason I;m in this guard,” another punctuating kiss.

Each kiss sends a light buzz through your lips, through your spine, along the tips of your wings,  and down into your hooves.

“Anon…Midnight Sentry…” she pushes herself against you and hugs you close “ what ever you want to be called at this point I lo-“

You cut her off, pressing a hoof against her lips “No.”  She pulls back, confused, looking hurt…that look  sends pain into your very soul “I know what you want to say…” you gulp “but you can’t say it now….”

“But why?” she pulls back,

“Because, when we’re out their today….we’re going to be fighting for our lives.” You tell her “and…I don’t want to make any promise that I don’t know if I can keep.” You admit “no matter how much I want to hear it. Which is why  as your captain I’m ordering you not to say those three words  until we make it out of all this. ”

You both look to each other for what feels like eternity. “I understand” she replies hugging you again “But if you die, you can be sure I’ll come chasing after you” her tone is determined “I’m not letting you get away from me”  If she weren’t on your side, you would almost be creeped out by that. The very next moment you see a flash , followed by your cheek stinging in pain “And that’s for telling me what  I can’t do, even as the captain. ”

You rub your cheek and nod “I suppose you owed me for that time in the interrogation cell”
“oh no, when I pay you back for that  we’re both going to enjoy it” she then turns and walks off, a rather suggestive sway in the motion of her flanks.   Your both terrified, and a little turned on at the implications of her statement, but that’s not something to worry about for the moment.


You continue to watch the sun slowly rise up over the small town of ponyville in the distance. You can’t see many of the finer details, but town square, the library, and Carousel boutique seem to be the most prominent features you can discern from this distance.
Then just a little bit south of ponyville (or you think south, you’re not a paragon of knowledge when it comes to direction.) You can see the hundreds and hundreds of meticulously organized rows of apple trees all speckled in bits of red down at sweet apple acres.

Then, up above; Cloudsdale.  You’d never been granted the opportunity to go there, most of your friends couldn’t visit with out some sort of special enchantment to at least let them stand on clouds....Come to think of that, you haven’t even interacted with a cloud directly either, you’d have to try after this was all over.

Cloudsdale, Canterlot, and ponyville.   The immediate places you would be fighting to defend today, and though it was quiet, you could swear you could hear it. Buzzing, the uncountable mass of hundreds of changelings all swarming to this area.

And you, a handful of guards,  Shining armour, and his group of guardsponies were expected to fight to hold them back until Twilight and  her friends could be brought in to potentially rainbow nuke them all away.

When you say it like that, it’s almost terrifying to think about it.  A few months ago you were barely anybody at all…a universally displaced human, given the body of a bat pony.  And now here you were, guard captain, expected to not only lead the charge into the battle of the century, but to win as well.

“Anon, would you come here? “ you can hear the voice of Luna, you were so focused, you never saw her land on the ground near by .

You stand up and move to greet her “I suspect everything went okay?”

“It was. You and I shall have to take the time to venture to lift it after this is over”

“If we live to see that” You say, with more than a hint of weariness.

“We will…”She inhales “however….we need spend one more hour resting before we go to Canterlot. I want you to get the girls, and then meet me in my room”

“I’m fairly sure I’m rested”

She turns to you a moment, leaning in to the point your snouts nearly touch “physically rested is only half of it.” She steps back “the four of us will be resting long enough that we should be able to make it to Canterlot in time.”

So the two of you went inside, getting the company of both Ivory and Trixie with the term “family bonding” being the jokingly coined excuse, a phrase that got a couple of raised eyebrows but was taken none the less, Ivory whom had taken to shining a small metal watch and Trixie who had been trying to master cutting herself in half without an assistant were now in your company.

Soon you were all soon in a circular room, book shelves hugging the concaved walling. The Ceiling was a splattering mural of the instantly recognizable constellations that mingled in the sky the center being a full moon, a cleverly tinted and painted skylight window.

“This.” Luna starts “is the meditation room. “she walks along before sitting beneath the moon window  “You  are the first ponies to have seen it.” She tells you, her voice reverberates slightly off of what little exposed walling there is.

The three of you look around quietly , the small room was perfectly sized. Big enough to allow moving around comfortably, but small enough to keep everything cozy.  “we will be meditating in here for an hour.” She stretches before pulling her hooves under herself and closing her eye, “Then to Canterlot we’ll go.”

You hesitantly sit down in a spot that seems right, facing to the right of her, soon the others sit next to you, the three  of you forming a circle around the princess in the center of the room.

Meditating….what were you supposed to meditate on?!

Seconds passed….they felt like minutes, in that comparison you felt like each minute took an hour….you were supposed to be in here for an hour, but there wasn’t a clock in the room.  How are you going to even know if an hours passed?

So you sat there

Thinking

Waiting

Meditating

You want to peek. But you shouldn’t, but your eyes felt itchy! You inhale deeply and open your eyes to find a vast stretching of desert ; hot, dry, and infinite.

That’s…. definitely new.

You stand up on the sand that shifts beneath you, looking around amongst the bright blue sky.

“Hello?” You call out to the miles and miles of unoccupied land. No response.

Welp.

You begin walking forward, hoping you might find something for what felt like hours.

Then you start trotting.

Miles and miles and miles, sand with no end,  You keep calling out to the emptiness as you try to go faster, the feeling of nervousness that you might die here, alone.  Panic hits, you set your head down to try to pick up speed, an attempt at outrunning these sudden morbid thoughts from nowhe-

WHAM!

You hit a wall.

Well, a window, a wall of glass, you look up and fly up slightly to see that it extends up infinitely. But  seeming to travel around in a circle, the circle of glass is small, a few more passes around and you land to see what is inside of it.

You lean back  in  surprise….It’s Discord, the statue.  Your suddenly wracked with the impulse and lift your hoofs and begin to strike the glass, hitting as hard as you can. Each hit, though ineffectual, seems to trigger a chain reaction, almost taking on a slight slideshow quality
 ponies begin filling the glass.
Each one removes their hoods revealing a multicolor tableau of ponies,
moving to make a path, the leaders,
 the three unicorns,
and the body of Lance Jousting,  Q.

You’re screaming, but the screaming is nearly drowned out by the ringinig of terror in your ears, your hooves nearly bleeding from the repeated banging into the glass, the slideshow carrying on.

Q rmoves his robe.

He stands on his back hooves,

Forehooves thrown to the side in a cross formation

Head thrown back

The laughing breaks the ringing in your ears as you watch yellow light shine from his eyes,  his body going limp as it is lift in the air, a glowing yellow aura covering his body as  a long thick tendril of magic is pulled from his mouth, snaking along  in the air before soon-

The laughter echoes as light hits your eyes.

“my little pony, my little pony, ha ha ha haaa” the laughter fills your ears  before

-“Anon?”

Your eyes snap open and you’re in the meditation room again. “holy crap” you breath comes  out heavy

“You were screaming”

“ I saw something… There was  a dessert and glass!”

Luna cuts you off “no more; you had a vision….something important is going to happen, and you mustn’t say.”

You soon stand up, a slight wobble in your step “why can’t I say it?”

“It is your vision.  It is your duty to find out what it means.” She tells you, her voice as serious as the grave.

You think heavily on what she says “I understand”

She turns to face the girls “we should head to Canterlot. I will meet the three of  you there” and with that and a blinking white, she was gone.




The streets of the high class town of Canterlot were devoid of life.  A few grey clouds hung across the sky  as Word of the impending attack having gotten around fairly quickly, Shiner had informed you of the mass line of carts that had clogged the streets of the town hours earlier.

“Probably the most stupid and wisest decision to be made collectively by a community of ponies”  He told you, taking a second to rub his oil stained brow  as he talked.

Neither guard team was holding back. The Dawn Guard stood roughly one hundred and fifty strong, and your guard team a meager 60 including the most recent recruits from the week prior all stood, side by side, Regal shining gold standing by muted  dark blue; if they were enlisted to the protection of Equestria, they were here.

“210 ponies against a whole barrel load of changelings and Discorded ponies.” You mumble quietly as the  small army walks in unison through the abandoned town.

You , Trixie, and Ivory  walked along, leading the side of the  formation that consisted of lunar guard. On the other side; Shining Armor, and three Crystal Ponies, which had thrown you for a loop since you missed anything about that before being pulled from earth.  The sparkling ponies had volunteered their serviced since Cadance had taken charge there, though to your knowledge the empire had yet to completely restore their own defensive forces, hence the very divided and small numbers you were working with.

You had reached the outskirts of Canterlot now, the long stretch of road leading down the mountain side to ponyville meeting you where the road into the capital city started.


You all stopped, standing there in silence staring into the sky. Your ears twitched slightly, you could hear it already.  Buzzing, the buzzing of countless wings speeding toward the town in unison, you turned to the side, no one seemed to notice yet.

You suddenly turn to the large group “okay, listen up, we’re running out of time so I’m going to try to keep this slow and to the point; Everyone keep close attention to the pony standing next to you, Changelings are going to try to use their numbers to confuse you and catch you by surprise. “You inhaled quickly looking over your shoulder, the droning sound suddenly much more noticeable  “This isn’t training or infiltration missions, this is not the time for friendship and hugging this war, and we have to be willing to do anything in order to come out of this alive.” You see a pony suddenly gasp and then spin around on your hooves and slam your hoof face first into a dive bombing changeling, your metallic boot smashing into its muzzle, the thing falling limply to the ground at the shock.

War.

“NOW!”  You hear from somewhere above as they all start diving en masse at the group, you brace your self as you lock eyes with a changeling coming down directly at you, the icy glare unflinching as he rapidly closes the gap, a game of chicken. You sling head at the last second, turning to buck him in the face, the body being sent careening through the air, You immediately jump at it and kick it hard in the face, standing on the unconscious form as you look around quickly, changelinigs vs ponies in various

You turn and buck a random changeling as you run through the mob. Jump up,  use a random individual as a boost to tackle a far away Changeling.

Running,  lending a hand..hoof where you can as you peruse the area,…lots of fighting.

“Keep going we got them!”  Your voice rings out over the madness.

Except you didn’t say that.  You’re ears swivel quickly and you swing around to see yourself in the midst barking orders to presumably your own, or perhaps to the changelings, maybe both.

“Oh like hell you will!” you shout at the doppelganger as you charge straight forward ramming into his side your head drops down under the barrel of his chest as you pull upward, flinging the changeling through the air, the body slumps along the floor shimmering in green revealing the original identity; Queen Chrysalis.  “Well aren’t you just stereotypical with your stealing the identities of people with high powered positions”

“You’re surprised a queen is reluctant to pretend to be anything less than a queen?” she asks smiling, beginning to get off the-You jump and tackle her, pinning her down, an angered ‘oof’ followed by a “get off me!”

“Why are you working with Q?!”

She cackles throwing her head back as far as the soft ground would allow for it. “Isn’t it obvious?  Once Discord is free again he’ll allow us to take and feed on whatever ponies we want~” she smiles so sickeningly sweet, “hmmm such an angry little pony” she leans up a little “might be worth a nice snack or two when we win

You’re hoof strike her across the muzzle and then swings back reflexively, striking her a second time “here’s the deal, bitch” you look right into her eyes “Only one mare gets to flirt with me and it sure as hell isn’t you” you suddenly slam your hoof into her forehead, her body going limp under you allowing you to now climb off her without worry of her trying to pull any funny business.

“I think we’re fending them off” Ivory and Trixie trot up beside you.

“And I just ko’d their leader…don’t know how they function but at least there’s that. “

“Should give us a strategical advantage”  Trixie lift the limp changeling up into the air, a groan emitted from her throat as she’s ensnared in light purple magic “this spell should keep her from causing trouble until we get a handle on things

“So now we just need to hold them off, and keep an eye out for The Sons”  you turn to keep an eye out for- “speak of the devil”

Off in the distance you saw them, a series of pegasi carrying a large statue, “There!” you point with your hoof, down to the area in ponyville.

The three of you trotted to a Cliffside to get a better view “Shit, we were wrong”you hiss a bit “Estimated distance?”

“way to far to run or fly to that point and get there in time” Trixie  leans, her face a bit skewed with panic

Your heads immediately thinking faster than you can actually keep track of, your ears twitch a moment at the feeling of a breeze

“Throw me!”

“What?” The both of them turn to you, confused by your statement

“use your magic, throw me,” you point “you’ll need to aim…that way to account for the wind” you say pointing in an east ward direction.

“There’s no way” Trixie shakes her head, “We can teleport in”

“No no no” you  spread your legs taking a ready stance “They’ll have some sort of counter to that set up by now, throw me, I can stall them until you get their by foot”

“No way!”

“Trust me this is going to work” You turn to the both of them, keeping your most assuring face.

Ivory steps up to you “how can you be sure?”

“Because it’s badass, this kind of stuff always works, trust me”

“You’re insane”

“Says the mare that tries to make out with her murder victims”  You grin before cutting the distance between the two of you and press your lips to hers firmly before pulling away and looking back to the area where you saw them land  “That’s for good luck”

She stares wide eyes, clearly having not expected that, she then inhales deeply and sighs “If you get yourself killed, by Luna’s moon,  I am coming after you, you got that”

“I’ll hold you to it, now lets do it”  You spread out your legs and fan out your wings, keeping them held out straight to maintain a gliding position “And really throw me.” You add “This isn’t lawn darts here”

You hear Trixie sigh and take a stance beside you, “You and Trixie are going to have to have a long chat when this is all over about how you express yourself to a mare you know.” She states firmly as you feel her magic shimmer around you.

Ivory takes her side opposite to her , wordlessly doing the same as you slowly lift into the air. You almost get a sense of tunnel vision zeroing in on the flight path you’d need to keep as you did it.  “Trixie, you make sure Ivory doesn’t do anything stupid”

“Are you really going to say that after that?”  you hear ivory huff “Serious!?”

“It’s for dramatics!” you say, you really wanted this moment to be awe- You apparently missed the two of them rolling their eyes and then flinging you, with great force.

 “HELL YEAAAAAAAAAH!” The  message screams across the sky, throwing your hoofs forward, straightening out, feeling the air lick and sting across your fur, the skin along your leather wings cutting through the air as you curve ball past clouds.


And then you saw, almost in slow motion.  Q turned and looked up, his eyes widening and an  almost scream being emited from his mouth as suddenly with zero loss of force you collide, forehooves first with his face.
He looses his footing and slides backward as you start careening punches down onto him, a panicked cries coming from the surrounding cultists, you keep raining blows as you think you hear a crack befor-

“That is enough!” You suddenly feel your body lift  from him, glowing in a bright amber aura. Shit. You’re turnedaround to face one of the lieutenants of the cult, the blue unicorn named Wish Charmer.  Her eyes full of hate.

You see out of the corner of your eyes Q getting to his hooves, sitting back on his haunches as his turns his neck a sharp 90 degrees to the side, an unpleasant crunch noise being emmited as he did so.

“Are you alright lord?” Wish asked as she turned looking to him

“This body has seen worse. “ he says as a hoof fiddles with his jaw slightly, another slight grinding sound being heard as he does so “please do take care of him though, Ihave a ritual to begin”

“oh with pleasure” she raises you up in the air as you dangle around helplessly “hmmm, how should I end your life, my dear Anon?” she looks at you with amber eyes “I could just snap your neck…that would be too quick….castration could be fun” she ticks off things aloud on her hoof a moment, you feel your legs being pulled out in all directions suddenly, a grunt of discomfort being drawn out of you.  “I could just start tugging in different directions and see what part of you  rips off fir-“and then her head turned around a full one hundered and eighty degrees, your body dropping to the ground as you flip and land on your hooves around the same time the now lifeless cultist slump to the ground.

“The first one was a better suggestion” you hear Ivory say near by.

Just about everyone, including you are so completely shocked by the sudden feat, it took you a couple seconds to register how her horn was glowing as though she had been using….oh.

“Fuck.”   You say aloud as you register what Ivory had just done.

“Get her!” you hear a cry as cultists suddenly start runningfor her, jumping her only to be just as quickly thrown from in the opposite direction by her magic “Go!” she calls at you pointing her hoof, your head following suit as you see Q moving quickly, the discord statue floating above him as he starts to lay it down on the ground.

You start running for him, hooves moving you as fast as they can as you jump, right as the statue touches the groun and-

A blast exploded from the ground, knocking you back onto your back.  Out of the corner of your eyes you see her, Death. The grey  pony in black armor standing off in the distance.

The sky grows  sickly yellow.

You hear mad cackling as Q stands on his hind legs, forehooves extended outward, his back arched in an unnatural his eyes glowing bright yellow as a long thick tendril of gaseous magic start pouring from his mouth, the cackling growing louder as you watch it move through the air and travels to the statue, cracks growing along the  stone until.

The second blast was deaening, you swore you heard somepony cry out, you, ivory in the distance…the long forgotten Lance Jousting, You heard something.

And then You saw him, Discord. Alive and well. “aaaaah yess” he groaned as he bent his back forward and back, several pops and cricks being heard, each sound ushering the creation of another manipulaton of chaos. A nearby tree attained a very pretzel like appearance as nearby clouds took on a pink appearance.  He bagans floating to the ground,  the earth beneath him shifting into a white and black checker board pattern as if his very presence was enough to cause the world around him to warp and break.


“hmmmm, I do love it when a plan comes together” he steps forward humming as he looks around, then looking down at the body that had been the occupant of his avatar spirit “pity” he said “such a shame” snapping his finger, in that instances the body instantaneously transforms into a goat, barking a dogs bark before runningoff.

You suddenly feel anger “you monster!”

His head turns you, his fingers pointing, you suddenly feel yourself lift up, being pulled uncomfortably close “Ah…yes,” he suddenly gives a sniff “now that explains why you seem so familiar”  he smiles a sick and disgusting smile as you fight to keep from attempting to swipe at him, feeling so violently opposed to even the sight of him.

He snaps his finger and you feel your head swim, your body twists and burns a moment or two as you feel yourself grow longer, taller, wider, taking on a shape that you’d almost forgotten had been your natural form “human~ it’s been so long since I’ve seen one of your kind.” Discords voice drips around in your ears. Y

our breath coming out in sharp ragged pants from the strain of the sudden reshaping, eyes watering as you try to readjust, your near sightedness returning as his face blurs before you. All pretenses now dropped as your hands swipe at him,  the fingers feel alien as you scream in anger.


“Let him go!” you hear Ivory scream, the blurred sight of her jumping at Discord, you feel yourself drop to your knees.  You look up seeing her get grabbed. Everything is blurred. Fuck!


“NOOOOOO!” You hear yourself shriek, body suddenly propelling itself forward, your body connect with his as you keep moving forward. You don’t know how far you push him your feet trip, stumbling over him as you start beating your fists into him.

You had no fighting training as a human, this much is clear.

The ‘fight’ went on for sometime, mostly being you trying to get whatever advantage you could over the embodiment of chaos,  his laughter echoing in your head as you kept trying to take him out as fast as you could, your body growing more tired with every passing moment.

This hurt.

This hurt a  lot.

“Hmmm, this is more fun than I imagined it would be” he smiled “Now lets see…maybe I would love a nice statue for my new garden when I finish reshaping this place”

“That’s enough, Discord!” You hear a voice that makes you smile, albeit weakly.

“no…not you!” Discord suddenly panics hearing that voice, Twilight sparkles voice.

Oh sweet wonderful Tara Strong with you amazing ra-…and then you passed out.

Supposedly, dying is like sleeping.

“You’re not allowed to go yet. “ You see the grey pony look down at you, the bangs of her dark mane dangling down as you stare up at her.

“why were you at the bar?”  why? Why are you asking this to Death?

“Someone choked.” You see a slight smile creep across her face.

You ponder that “huh…we thought you were foreshadowing something there”

“not at all”

“well…okay”

“You should probably wake up now. “

Your eyes snap open as you suddenly bolt upright, a gasp of air as you look around, you’re home, in the mansion “oh thank god” you say holding up…”thank god” hooves.

You crawl out of the bed, legs and back  stiff as you slowly move toward the door. Opening it and moving out, your hooves clicking across the tiled floor. A gasp interrupts your thoughts “Thank celestia!” you’re suddenly grabbed atound the shoulders as Ivory grabs you kissing your cheek  “We thought you weren’t ever going to wake up. “

“How long was I out?”  You ask, your cheeks warming up from the kiss

“Long enough Trixie was threatening to practice a dream walking spell on you to pull you out”  She hugs you tighter, kissing you more “A week”

You grin a second before turning your head to catch one of her kisses with your lips “and here I was thinking you would be the kind of pony to do that”

Somewhere in the exchange of kisses you find your way back into your room, leaning on the bed.

“I’m more than patient enough to wait for you”  she smiles pressing another kiss to your lips “I’d wait till the world ends” she hums  “I love you”

“I love you too”  you smile “Glad we waited?”

“I think it would have been better if we’d done it before you went all nuts andfought discord on your own.  But I suppose nothing can be done for that now.  Oh by the way,” Ivory walks away a bit, soon  standing in the door frame “we’re  goin to be sending you to Saddle Arabia to investigate some reports involving goats.”

“Are they menacingly eating cans?”  you joke with a smile

She rolls her eyes “haha, funny. You’ll be doing some undercover work, and partnering with one of the princesses field agents” she opens her  saddle bag with a shimmer of magic “You’ll want to read up on her.”  She tells you as she tosses a book at you, your hooves catching it reflexively.

You look down at the cover” uh…this is a Daring Do book” the tone in your voice more questioning than anything now.

“Exactly.”  The door shuts as she walk out the door, as the most peculiar possible thought crosses your mind.

“Ivory!”

You’re name is Anon. And this is your life.