(Jaylen's POV)
Nightmare stayed there crying in my arms, she fell asleep shortly afterwords, I laid her down and went out of the room. From the garbled words I could make out she remembered the night her old self took control of Luna, but the elements gave her not just the body of a filly, but the mind of one, which made it so that the memory was traumatizing her. I growled to myself once I got into my room, Harmony didn't give her full mercy, she would have to live with those memories for the rest of her life.
I tried to calm myself down, but the inferno of rage I felt at Harmony wouldn't be quelled that easily, a child shouldn't have to experience that ever in any life. I turned my anger towards what was the source and shadow walked out of the underground into the castle above, I conjured my armor and walked down towards the Tree of Harmony, and I almost got to it before I found a band of ponies led by her.
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(3rd pony POV)
As the small band of ponies got closer to the castle they felt the shadows itching at their fur, causing chills to ricochet up their spines. Celestia used her magic to scan the area, before a terrible pain suddenly gripped her and she screamed out in pain, holding her hooves to her head as the other ponies rushed towards her. They heard the clanking of armor getting close to them, they turned their heads to source and saw the creature in its armor "You better leave now." It hissed out "I'm in a foul mood, I'd rather not have to deal with your insolence."
Celestia pushed out the pain and stood on wobbly hooves "You should never have been released." She said weakly, the creature smiled to itself, clearly enjoying the fact that Celestia could barely stand.
"You can't do anything to me." It said in a clearly confident voice "Even those you serve unknowingly had a very hard time containing me, and your precious elements are useless against me, they are just mere tools that don't obey." Celestia snarled at that answer.
"We will see about that." Celestia said before yelling towards the elements "TWILIGHT, use the elements with your friends." Twilight nodded as the element all charged together as their eyes went white, the creature just stood there motionlessly. When the rainbow came out of the elements it went directly for the being that just raised its hand, and a shield of shadows erupted out of the ground, that was all Celestia saw before the light became to bright to look at.
When the light cleared and Celestia lowered her hooves she looked and saw that nothing had happened to the creature "No." She said in disbelief taking a step backwards "You should have been DESTROYED!" Celestia roared towards it, her eyes become pure white, and her mane and tail become flames that licked the ground below her. As the elements bearers all started to gain their bearings they immediately saw that their princess had changed and backed up in horror, then they saw that the creature was still standing and nothing had changed about it.
The creature chuckled "The Light of Destruction has corrupted you so much that you fail to see the damage you have done, to Luna, and to many, many others. It has corrupted you so much you even forgot one of the most predetermined values of the universe, with Light there must always be Darkness, with good there must always be evil." It said, the other six ponies where confused while Celestia just snarled and looked ready to kill.
"W-What? H-How can L-Light be destructive?" Twilight asked, confused on what the creature was talking about.
It chuckled, an empty hollow laugh "Ah the naive." It said "The Light of Destruction is the enemy of the Gentle Darkness, what I am the incarnation of, while Celestia here has allowed a very large of the Light into her. And on your question of how Light can be destructive, it believe that it is allowed to destroy everything because it tries to own everything, that includes you and your race that sold itself to the Light long ago." As if confirm her words Celestia hissed in sadistic glee as a light appeared around her, but not comforting, no it was cold, colder than a winter storm.
"You will not stop ussss." "Celestia's" voice hissed out "Jussst like we can not dessstroy you, you can not dessstroy usss." The ponies back up the rest of the way as the icy touch of the Light inched closer towards them "But sssoon you will sssee the LIGHT!" "Celestia" with a final hiss as she charged towards the the creature, intent on doing something to it, a wall of thorns blocked the way before she could reach it.
"Tut, tut, tut." A child like voice chided "You shouldn't hurt those who are close to me, you should know better." The voice exited the darkness which revealed Yubel, but she looked slightly more annoyed and was frowning "Or has the Light gotten to you that easily?" "Celestia" hissed at her before trying to charge "I'll take that as option number 2, for your sake you better hope that's true." Yubel said before throwing "Celestia" at a tree knocking her out.
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(Jaylen's POV)
I smiled under my faceplate when Yubel came out of the shadows, we had talked a little bit before I had encountered the ponies, mentally though. Rainbow Dash, even though seeing their ruler acting that way charged towards Yubel and yelled "NO ONE HURTS THE PRINCESS!" Yubel startled by the sound turned around, but she didn't have to time to stop the Skyborn, but I was able too.
I rushed in front of Yubel and just as Rainbow Dash was about to hit me I grabbed her by her neck, this enraged the other five as the two Magis started throwing spells my way. The orange Terra rushed towards me, I threw Rainbow at her knocking her of balance then raised a shield of shadows to block the spells being thrown at me. Yubel was enraged by their actions and shouted out "NO ONE HURTS MY QUEEN!" Before rushing forward and slamming the Skyborn who had just got up and was about to charge at me into the ground, before proceeding to nullify both of the Magis' magic.
The orange Terra didn't relent though and tried to buck me, I roundhouse kicked her into a tree, lodging her inside of it. Twilight rushed towards Yubel, hoping to stop her from nullifying the Magis' own magic reserves so that she would be able to help her friend, lets just say she didn't succeed. Yubel used her powers to summon a vine and then proceeded to throw Twilight into a tree, not enough to hurt her but enough to daze her. The last one left was Pinkie Pie and she was near impossible to grab at, that was before I used my own powers to cut off her reality bending powers and knocked her out.
It was a very, very, short battle for one reason, those six were all but useless without the elements working. I looked over to where Celestia was supposed to be, she was gone, I growled "Looks like the Celestia woke up mid battle and left." I said towards Yubel who just sighed in exasperation.
"What should we do with these six?" She asked waving her non-draconic arm towards the unconscious ponies.
"Put them somewhere where they can't get out of and watch over them until I return." I told her, she nodded before using her shadow magic to collect their unconscious bodies before shadow walking away. I looked around to be sure no-one else would stop me, before I continued my trek towards the Tree of Harmony.
The tree wasn't that far away, it was just under the castle so I only had to walk for about five minutes before I was in front of the Tree of Harmony, Harmony's source of power. I put my hand to the base of the tree, my would went white when I did, when my vision cleared up Harmony stood before me on a life-filled planes field "Hello Supreme Queen." She said passively as if she was expecting me, though she most likely was from the way that she always acted.
"Harmony." I said angrily, she had just made somebody suffer excessively for mistakes that she couldn't prevent "You had no right to do that to her!" I yelled out at her.
Harmony winced "I'm sorry but it was the only way for me to get my point across, unless I wanted to be like it. She needed to be punished." She stated while I growled, I thrust my hand out and grabbed her by the "neck".
"You listen here." I growled out "She has done NOTHING to deserve this! You are going way to far!" I knew what Harmony meant, Nightmare Moon needed to be punished but not that way, giving her a entirely fresh start would have been just as acceptable. I threw her outwards, she bled a few drops of white ichor from her neck, the blood of the Light of Destruction, guess I gripped her neck a bit to hard.
She coughed up a bit more of the white blood, she looked up at me I could see the look of regret in her eyes, regret at angering me most likely. She picked herself up before saying "I could have gone across that situation better, but there is nothing I can do now." I growled 'I've been doing that a lot while I was here' I realized but shrugged it off, I knew nothing more could be done, and we couldn't change the past.
"I'm going to put a seal on her memories." I told Harmony as calmly as I could "That way she won't have to suffer for your insolence." Harmony looked down in shame, before I used my power to cut the connection I made to her.
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Once I was out of Harmony's realm I shadow walked to where Nightmare was, she was sleeping peacefully, it almost pained me to do this but Harmony had given me no choice. I placed my hand just under her horn on her head and focused my magic, memories were just shadows inside a person, waiting to reappear at a moments noticed. I guided those shadows of memories, all of them, and locked them away under a seal of my power only breakable by someone with equal or more power. Which considering I am literally Darkness Incarnate so not many beings would match my power let alone be stronger.
I got up from the bedside and walked out of the room, I shadow walked over to where I could sense Yubel was. She was inside of what seemed to be a dungeon, it had a bunch of holes in the ground for those who lived in solitary and many cells, Yubel was placing the ponies in one each. Yubel had just set down the last while placing a nullifying charm over the area when she noticed me "Jaylen, wasn't expecting you return so early." She said surprised that I got back so quickly.
I rolled my eyes, Yubel finished what she was doing before walking over to me and hugging me, I was surprised at first before I melted into the hug and hugged her back. She sighed in contentment, but like all good things it came to an end as we parted I cleared my throat "So, do you have any idea of what we're going to do with them?" I asked her, she rolled her eyes at me.
"You didn't plan ahead? Well I personally think that you should give them some Darkness, just to show them that their ruler isn't in control and that they have been slave for their entire life." She stated, it was a good idea, but consequences would be was that they would be able to sense Nightmare's Darkness, she and I had the most concentrated amount of the Gentle Darkness in us. Me having more because I am the Gentle Darkness, Nightmare just had a lot of me in her strangely, I think Harmony meant something by that to which I internally frowned.
"I think that might be a good idea." I told Yubel, I had decided I would listen to her idea, most of the times Yubel's choices led to good outcomes. I walked through the bars, the entire room was dark so I wasn't fully tangible, into the closest cell, the cell Twilight was put inside. I knelled over her unconscious body and placed my hand over where her heart would be, I used my powers to inject a bit of my Darkness into her, she moved a little and groaned but remain unconscious. I went over to the other cells and repeated the action on all of the ponies, until they all had the drop of Darkness in them, that would help us explain to them what is going on.
'I hope they don't jump the gun when I tell them about Nightmare though.' I thought before realizing what I was thinking, did I have feelings for Nightmare, did I really care that much about her?