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"Fluttershy! Do something!" called Twilight, knowing her friend's gift with animals would be useful.

Fluttershy shook her head quickly. "No..."

"Why not? You've done it with Manticores before!" replied Twilight as the beast tried to strike Rainbow Dash with it's paws.

"It's not an animal," replied Fluttershy in terror. "It's... It's something bad!"

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A cloud of dark blue energy swirled around Luna, a familar laugh filling the air. Celestia's eyes widened further and she thrashed, trying to do anything to get free or at least warn Luna. Behind Luna, the energy formed into Nightmare Moon. "Why hello, Luna," said Nightmare Moon, as she used her "mane" to pull Luna's face to look her in the eyes. "Surprised to see me again?"

OOC: Ruin is capable of copying Nightmare Moon perfectly since he'd fed off her for 1000 years. So I guess she's a part of him in a way.

The monster snarled at Applejack and tried to smash her with it's tail, but Twilight used telekinesis to pull her out of the way.

"What is this thing?" asked Twilight in suprise. "Spike, do you think this thing might be what Princess Celestia called us to fight?"

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Nightmare Moon smirked. "Aww, you didn't miss me? We've spent so much time together," mocked the Mare In The Moon. "You honestly thought 1000 years of hatred and bitterness would disappear just like that?" she asked, giving a chuckle. "So naive, little Luna," she stated, looking Luna in the eyes. "How's it feel to look into 1000 years of hatred?"

Twilight let out a scream as the manticore charged her, teleporting herself and Spike a short distence out of the way.

"Let's see if this does anything to stop it," said Rarity, concentraiting and causing nearby curtains from the broken castle windows to surround and tie up the monster. Rarity gave a smile before the Manticore turned intangible and phased through, charging right at her.

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Nightmare Moon merely chuckled. "Regardless of what you think of me, you're still the one responsable for all this," she stated, giving a smirk. "Afterall, if you hadn't fallen to evil 1000 years ago, I wouldn't exist and your precious sister wouldn't be a beaten, bloody wreck on the floor over there now would she?"

"She's ok," said Twilight, unable to hide a little worry. "She's done worse crashes to herself, I'm sure sh-"

"How dare you..."

Twilight blinked, looking over at Fluttershy, who now stood next to Rainbow Dash and looked pretty much like she had when the dragon had hit them all into that rock, absolutely furious. "I don't think that Manticore realizes what it just did..." she said, a little bit scared now.

"How DARE you!" yelled Fluttershy at the top of her lungs, already giving the manticore "the Stare" as she flew up in it's face. "I don't care if you're an animal or not, that doesn't give you the right to hurt my friend like that!" she yelled, actually seeming to scare it a bit. "You might be big and mean, but that doesn't give you any right to hurt someone!" she screamed, staring it right in the eyes, it actually seemed intimdated by the little Pegasus.

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Scootaloo threw a blanket off her and the other Cutie Mark Crusaders in the basket of Twilight's balloon. "See, I told you they wouldn't notice us."

"Are yah sure we should be doing this?" asked Applebloom. "My sister and her friends said to stay put."

"Oh, you want to miss them saving the world for a third time?" asked Scootaloo. The second time they'd all been stuck in Canterlot during Discord's reign. It'd gotten hit hard of course, but not as hard as Discord's "chaos capital of the world". "Plus maybe we can help and earn our Cutie Marks!"

Applebloom sighed. "Alright, but if we all get in trouble, you're taking the blame for it... But what kind of Cutie Mark would savin' the world get yah?""

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Celestia finally managed to pull the rope off her mouth. "Don't Luna! That's just what it wants!" she screamed.

But it was too late, Nightmare Moon's horn glowed red and she fired a beam of intense scarlet energy right at Luna point blank, having leapt right into her trap.

"Nah, I think Fluttershy's got it," said Applebloom, watching but quickly leading the trio to where they wouldn't be spotted.

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"Listen to me, young... Whatever you are, stop hurting my friends this instant!" yelled Fluttershy. She then grabbed it by the ear. To everyone's surprise, she ended up pulling out one of the pegasus shadows, one that, now that Twilight thought about it, looked an awful lot like Fluttershy.

Twilight watched the manticore backpeddle as the shadow Fluttershy had by the ear squirmed and tried to escape as she berated it. The manticore shrunk down by 1/6 it's size. "That's it, everypony, we've got to pull it apart!" she said, concentraiting and picking out one of the unicorn shadows' eyes in the beast, which were just barely visiable, then using her telekinesis to pull it out and throw it out of the monster, causing another 1/6th size reduction. She then concentraited to hold the one she was dealing with in place.

Rarity nodded, then leapt back out of the way of a paw swipe of the manticore. "Hurting Rainbow Dash like that was a big mistake! It is ON!" she said, charging and tackling one of the pairs of eyes, pinning one of the unicorn shadows to the ground on the other side, causing the Manticore to shrink again. She quickly used more curtains from the castle to help her bind the shadow she was dealing with, which for some reason couldn't escape her grasp.

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Nightmare Moon's horn glowed and she suddenly pulled Celestia's prone form in front of her as a ponyshield.

Nightmare Moon smirked and fadded into her shadow, surging underneath Luna and ramming her off her feet.

Celestia saw her sister get hurt and snarled. Despite her battered condition, she managed to get her magic to activate and untie herself. As Nightmare Moon reared up, Celestia slammed into her at high speed, knocking her off her feet. "Get you hooves off my sister!" yelled the princess of day, glaring daggers at this being who had dared harm her little sister.

Nightmare Moon chuckled. "Really now? Didn't you seal the poor girl in the moon for 1000 years? That hurt you know."

Celestia snarled. "You have no idea how much that hurt me to do. You'll never know how much it hurt me to seal my sister away for a thousand years or what it was like to see the Mare In The Moon every time I rose it to it's place in the sky and know it was my sister who I'd had no choice but to seal!" she yelled, for the third time in 1000 years getting truly furious. Her horn glowed and she surrounded herself in solar flames, charging forwards at Nightmare Moon.

Nightmare Moon smirked, as if she'd WANTED this to happen. Her horn glowed and she surrounded herself in red energy. She charged Celestia and the two collided, an explosion going off on impact.

As the smoke filled the room, Celestia staggered out of the smoke in Luna's line of sight and collapsed.

The attack hit home and Nightmare Moon vanished into smoke.

Celestia staggered to her feet. "Good job Luna... I think we won..." she said, letting out a groan and collapsing to a knee, clearly in great pain.

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"Everypony! Hurry! I don't think we can hold these guys very long!" called Twilight, sweating as she did everything she could to retrain the shadow, Rarity and Fluttershy struggling to hold theirs as well.

The Manticore, now half it's original size, roared and charged Applejack and the others.