Rarity was quickly getting tired of the way Spike was treating this mission.
The sub swam through the ocean at incredible speed, and they would hit the shoreline within another ten minutes. Despite the forty minutes of travel so far, Spike had not said a single thing to the ladies as they sat in their chair in a large, spherical chamber at the center of the sub.
Candy spun in her chair, turning happily as the others sat around a table, waiting. The only pony from the team that wasn’t sitting with them was Flashpoint. She stood next to Spike in the room ahead of them, the one that Rarity could just barely see through the open corridor. They had been talking for the past ten minutes now, and Rarity was beginning to wonder why.
Finally, Spike stood from his chair and walked back into the spherical room that the Runners sat in, waiting.
“Well, ladies,” Spike said, as he stepped into the room with a small wooden chest in his right hand. “You have done everything that I have asked, to the best of your abilities. You have met all my expectations and exceeded them. This job is the last, and after this is done, then I will fulfill my end of the bargain. You will be paid handsomely, as you asked.”
He stood still for a moment before holding up the box. “Now, I need to talk about this job. We don’t have much time for instruction, and the magic that we need to use means that we need you to be mostly unaware of several things, but I will share what I can.”
He opened the box and began to hand out the gems. Rarity received a deep purple amethyst, Candy a bright, cerulean gem, Steel the orange citrine, Web received the rose-colored jewel, and Wingmare's ruby, the one she stole not hours ago, was returned.
“These gems are of vital importance. Your lives will depend on them and the magic they hold. Keep the one you have on your person at all times, am I understood?”
The others nodded.
Spike nodded as well. “We have a straightforward mission, pacification of a very powerful entity. How many of you are familiar with Nightmare Moon?”
Rarity blinked. “The Spirit of Nightmare Night?” she asked.
“Same mare, yes.”
“She’s a ghost story,” Web said. “One that has no basis in any Astral fact. She’s made up.”
Spike shook his head. “Not made up, just trapped. She was sealed into the moon by Good Celestia herself, for a thousand years. Tonight, the seal weakens, and she returns.”
To her credit, Flashpoint looked like she was just as surprised by the news.
“You’re sure about this?” Steel asked.
“Celestia herself told me, she had me hire you,” he replied.
The Runners blinked and looked at each other. “You mean to say that Celestia hired us to deal with a threat like this?”
He nodded. “Good Celestia said she’d do it herself, but the Princess knows that the trick she used the first time won’t work now, and she’s also going to be the first one targeted. She won’t have a chance to raise a defense.”
“This...you know this sounds crazy, right?” Wingmare asked.
“All plans sound crazy when you’ve been working on them for a thousand years,” Spike replied.
“Better question,” Rarity said. “How are we supposed to fight her? I’m a decker; I don’t have enough pull in the astral to fight a creature that powerful.”
As if to answer, the sub slowed, and a pony’s voice cut in over the PA system. “Sir, we have pulled into Horseshoe Bay.”
“You’ll get that answer when we get outside,” Spike said.
Spike led them out of the sub and onto a dock that they had pulled up next to, and Rarity was surprised to see a rotorcraft and several large crates waiting for them.
“Hang on, is that—?” Steel asked as she glanced at one of the boxes.
Spike nodded. “Yes, Ember told me a few of you had a chance to try out some of the new toys.”
Steel blinked as she saw the minigun she used in the Saddle Krupp job. The gun had been fitted to a mobility platform, ready to move anywhere it needed, while being fed by billions of nubit’s worth of orichalcum bullets.
Next to the massive gun lay a box, filled with a figure that she recognized instantly. “The SK Duelist-Class Drone 37 MK IV! I never thought I’d see you again!”
The pony-shaped drone, armed now with an orichalcum blade, and the laser that Candy was familiar with, lay ready to be puppeted by Candy. She cooed at the new rapier and smiled before a third box opened. It revealed cases of gun magazines, each one pre-packaged with orichalcum bullets.
Rarity nearly had a heart attack at the sight of them.
Each one was perfectly customized for each of their weapons. Even Dash’s revolvers had speedloaders prepped with yet more bullets ready to go. Every one of them had ammunition prepared, meticulously, and carefully chosen and loaded.
“There is no room for error here, ladies,” Spike said, as he approached another pony who held a briefcase. “This threat needs to end tonight, no matter what cost has to be paid.” He opened the case with a flip of the latches and pulled a Neighsan Optimum Assault shotgun. He slid a magazine of orichalcum slugs into the bullpup stock and checked the sights with practiced ease. “Grab everything you can carry, and get into the Rotorcraft. Our deadline is approaching.”
Rarity blinked as she saw the dragon walk into the Rotorcraft. “You’re coming with us?” she asked.
Spike smirked as he slipped on an old hat that another pony held ready for him. “I told you, no matter what cost.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow before she pulled everyone onto her PAN. She collected the devices of the rest of the team and quickly began to slip them under her protection, though she wondered if it mattered.
As the team quickly piled into the craft, they took their seats as the rotors spun on. Rarity got comfortable and was about to collect the dragon onto her PAN as well before she realized that he was already there. She blinked as she saw his smart-gun, his comm, and his hat, which held a small electrode net to connect him to his rifle. They all sat under her protection, placed in her care.
She shot him a quick look, but the dragon gave no sign that he noticed.
“We’re heading for the Everfree Forest,” Spike told them, which earned instant reactions from everyone in the passenger hold.
They all knew the stories of the Everfree Forest, the frontier of nature in the world of tech. No matter what magic of technology came against the forest, it refused to be conquered. No matter what company tired, they could not tame the wilderness. Between weather that thundered with actual mana storms or trees that overgrew the construction teams sent to clear out land, the forest spat in the face of civilization.
Only Web, the shaman, didn’t immediately look horrified at the news. Rarity could swear she almost looked excited by the news.
“Nightmare Moon should appear in Good Celestia’s old castle, at the center of the forest. That’s our landing zone.”
“Oh good,” Steel said. “Nothing like jumping straight into the river.”
“I didn’t pick you out as the one that was afraid to get your hooves wet,” Spike said with a smirk.
Steel raised an eyebrow.
“Attention passengers,” the PA said. “We’re about to engage the jet engines. We will be reaching Mach 2, with an ETA of thirty minutes. To prevent injury, please fasten your seatbelts.”
The Runners obeyed, clicking their seatbelts just in time for the entire cabin to shift. The rotorcraft's engines roared, nearly throwing everyone into the back of the vehicle.
The trip lasted the full twenty minutes at this speed; they rocketed over the city beneath them, no doubt waking neighborhoods with the sonic boom that trailed behind them, a boom they didn’t hear until they dropped back to a more manageable speed.
The rotorcraft pulled to a stop over the canopy of dense, dark trees, whose leaves barely rustled in the wind of the spinning blades. “Alright, ponies,” Spike said with a smirk. “Our target’s north! Let’s go!”
“And why aren’t we flying there?” Wingmare asked.
Spike pointed to the horizon. “Because of that.”
They followed his pointing finger to a cloud bank that began to grow before their eyes. It hovered over the trees, and the spires of a hidden ruin peeking over the canopy.
“The forest doesn’t like things flying above it anymore, and I don’t want to chance that any more than we already have. Luckily it’s not far from here.”
He leaped to the ground, smashing through the tree branches to the forest floor below.
The others glanced between each other before Rarity sighed and took the rappel down. She dropped down to the ground, through the hole that Spike tore through the trees. The others followed after her, landing softly beside her as Spike knelt, ready to go.
Once they all landed, Spike stood. “Alright, follow me.”
They moved as quickly and carefully through the forest, the dragon leading with his assault shotgun, terrifying anything that crossed their path. The team followed after him, Candy following with her new drone, and Steel’s movement platform hovering just over the root-ridden floor of the woods.
As they moved, many of the Runners regarded the dragon with curious, if suspicious eyes. Rarity glared the hardest, staring up at Spike’s back as he slithered through the trees. She was staring so hard; she almost didn’t notice Flashpoint walk up beside her.
“What are you thinking about?” She asked.
Rarity started for a second. “Oh, Darling, you surprised me.”
“Sorry, you just looked lost in thought.”
She sighed. “Honestly, I don’t like this,” she said eventually. “The fact that a corporate CEO is leading us on a Run doesn’t fill me with a lot of confidence. I’m not sure why, though. If he’s telling the truth and this will either end in saving the world or death, then he’s putting himself in a very vulnerable position. However, despite that, he hasn’t told us much.”
“What do you mean?”
Rarity held up her deep purple amethyst. “He hasn’t told us how to use these, much less what they are, but he expects us to use them somehow to take on an incredibly powerful moon spirit or somesuch.”
“He told me what they are,” Flashpoint said. “They’re something called the Elements of Harmony, but…”
“But what?”
“They need to attune to wielders that embody certain, noble traits, and well…” she hesitated a second more before continuing. “We’re Runners. We’re not known for being virtuous.”
Rarity sighed. “That’s, unfortunately, a very astute observation.”
Flashpoint sighed. “Well, I trust Spike to lead us through this. He’s been good to me so far, letting us die now seems like a waste.”
Rarity nodded. “And that’s the only reason I’m still moving forward.”
They kept pushing forward into the depths of the forest until Spike whispered over the comm. “We’re here.”
The castle ruins loomed over them, towering like a giant on a hill. The trees that stood next to the old fortress were almost equally as tall, matching the height of the wall, standing only shorter than the handful of towers that they saw from rotorcraft.
Spike checked his mission clock. “Alright, we have another ten minutes to reach the throne room before Midnight, that’s when the stars should weaken the seal and release her. Are we ready to move?”
The Runners nodded.
Spike nodded .“Let’s—”
A pillar of dark-blue light shot down from the sky, tearing through the ruins with the roar of cracking stone, and throwing up a wind that roared in their ears. The team of Runners was forced to cover, and Steel’s minigun was slowly pushed back by the wind.
Spike cursed as he clawed at the ground to steady himself. “She broke through early. Okay, we need to move now, and we need to move—”
A smoke, or was it an amorphous light, began to spread out from the ruins at incredible speeds, reaching out like long fingers. They curled and grasped at anything they could reach before they finally found the Runners.
Rarity watched as the smoke wrapped around them, surrounding the group like a security team.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The thought chilled her. “Maybe not, but it’s what I was hired to do.”
“Money is not reason enough.”
Rarity blinked. That thought certainly wasn’t her own. She glanced at Web, who was likewise frowning. “Web, is anypony casting a spell at us?”
She shook her head. “Just the smoke.”
Rarity nodded. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“You don’t need to fight for the Princess. She can face her punishment alone.”
Rarity glanced down at the mist, confused. “What did the Princess have to do with it?”
The mist undulated angrily before it shot forward. The Runners moved to dodge, none of them daring to chance what the smoke could do to them if it touched them. Still, they couldn’t stop it. It rushed them, snaking through the line of ponies until it swallowed Flashpoint.
She barely got off half-of-a-scream before she disappeared.
Spike stood, color draining from his face. “We need to go! Double time! Move it! We need to get to the throne room!”
<><><|><><>
Twilight hit the floor, oxygen filling her lungs. She gasped, trying to catch her breath, before looking up at the room she now found herself in—a long hallway, whose vaulted roof had long ago fallen away. A pedestal stood in the middle of the room, though the five arms that poked out from its center were obviously empty.
The trees of the Everfree forest were still visible through the blown-out windows of the hall and through the open ceiling. That was enough to let her know she was somewhere in the castle, though she had no idea where exactly, or why she was here.
“Hello, Child,” a voice said, and Twilight turned to see the smoke from before, gathered in a strange, tall, pony-shape.
Twilight glanced up at the smoke, who simply watched her from the other side of the hall. A long second passed before Twilight spoke up. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Because you’re the only one who knows how truly hopeless your situation is, Child,” the smoke said. “You know what power you carry with you. You know what you need, and you know you don’t have it.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked.
“The Elements, Child,” the smoke said, growing darker. “The Elements of Harmony. Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Loyalty, and Magic. Their only tool of your defense against me and the dragon has told you exactly what you need to use them. You know the truth, and you know you don’t have the ponies that you can’t use them. They’re all thieves and criminals, after all.”
Twilight swallowed.
“I don’t want to hurt my new subjects,” the smoke said, becoming even more substantial. Twilight could see her now, a coat as black as the void, with a mane that sparkled with cold, uncaring stars. “I would rather rule the living than the dead, but I would rule nonetheless.”
Twilight stared up at the mare that loomed over her, wings fluttering and horn shining.
“The only one who needs to suffer is Celestia. She’s the one who earned my wrath. You and the rest of your friends can live and leave. Hopefully, you’ll be the one who sees reason. The only one who realizes how truly hopeless this defense is against me.”
Twilight stood, feeling her knees wobble beneath her as she tried to get the ground back underneath her. “I…” she began. “I…”
Maybe it was the pure power rolling off of her. Perhaps it was the shakes of suddenly being pulled through a teleport that felt like the embrace of the void. It could have even been the fact that she was suddenly alone, but Twilight found it hard to answer Nightmare Moon. “I…”
“She has to be up here!” A voice called behind her.
She looked back at the archway behind her, where Wingmare appeared over the edge of the stairs. “She’s here!”
Wingmare landed next to Twilight, skidding on her hind legs as she raised her revolvers. “I’m not leaving you to take her on yourself!”
The others followed after, pulling up next to her with their weapons, ready to go. Steel’s minigun was already spinning, Web had an incantation on her lips, and Gem raised her submachine gun, prepared to give the monster everything she had.
Twilight looked at those around her, mouth agape that these ponies, this team of ruthless cutthroats, would stand with her.
“Alright, Miss Meany-pants Moon!” Candy laughed as her drone raised her orichalcum blade. “It’s time to party.”
Spike came up the rear, shouldering his assault shotgun. “We’re here to stop you,” he said, “no matter the cost. Steel, fire at will.”
Steel unleashed. The bullets tore across the open space, but they simply passed through a semi-incorporeal form. “They’re not working, Spike!” she cried over the sound of brass shells falling to the floor.
“They should! Keep firing!”
Twilight blinked, feeling sluggish as the others began to unleash everything they had against the monster. She dismissed Elementals, avoided bullets, and simply ate spells. She watched as they fought her, throwing everything they had before it all finally snapped together.
“We’re it…” she said.
Nightmare Moon laughed. “You ponies are fools. If you wish to die then, I will acquiesce. Prepare to meet your precious Celestia!”
“Steel is the most Honest pony I know!” Twilight yelled, barely heard over the battle.
“What?” Nightmare Moon laughed, reaching out with her magic and crushing the Minigun. “Honesty? Among killers and thieves?”
“She gave me a promise and fulfilled it, even when it would have been easier for her to leave me behind. She spoke with me about a hard, difficult truth when she could have lied. She may be a thief and killer, and I may not even know her real name, but I know nopony that is more honest!”
Steel blinked. “Well, Flashpoint, I’m flattered but—” and that was as far as she went before the gem in the pocket at her belt shot into the air before slamming back into her. Steel skid across the floor, before she stood tall, a necklace of gold hanging around her neck.
“What in the Sam Hill...?” Steel muttered.
Nightmare Moon went silent.
Twilight smiled.
“Web is the kindest pony I know!”
Web looked at her, surprised.
“She may be hard, but she’s always there to help us. She puts the needs and injuries of others before her own, but even beyond that, her kindness truly shines through when speaking to Elementals. No one else I know treats those who serve her so kindly, or with so much care.”
Web’s gem shot out and hit her, forming another necklace, almost precisely like Steel’s.
Twilight started again, not giving anyone else to have a chance to react. “If anyone can attune to the Element of Laughter, it’s Candy! Even facing the darkest situation, she not only finds the bright-side, but she also embodies it! She shines with her joy and her laughter!”
Candy’s gem transformed into a necklace.
“Gem embodies generosity! She’s a mare willing to sacrifice everything, even her own life, safety, and freedom for us. She’s given all of us the tools we need, all of which were hoof-crafted, without asking for a single nubit in return!”
Gem found herself decorated with her own necklace.
“Wingmare is loyal to a fault! I couldn’t keep that mare from coming back for me! She’s here, even now! She knows we’re never going to run together again, but she’s here to stand with us to the end.”
Wingmare had her necklace.
Nightmare Moon blinked, and Twilight smirked with satisfaction as she appeared baffled. “Well,” the creature said, “it seems I underestimated the dredges of this society. Of course, the fact stands that you’re still one Element short.”
Twilight’s smile wavered.
Nightmare moon smirked. “A very valiant try, though, I admit.”
“She didn’t forget anything,” Spike said. “She just hasn’t realized what the other gave her yet.”
The Nightmare locked eyes with the dragon, before slamming into him at a speed that made the sound of cracking thunder. “And I think that’s as far as it needs to go!”
Spike smirked, grasping onto the Nightmare’s hooves in his own claws. “She went from a corporate mage, a mare who would look to the bottom line to this. A mare who sees that the rules don’t matter as much as those who stand next—”
Nightmare Moon drove a hoof into Spike’s face, throwing the dragon to the ground.
He smiled. “If that’s not magic, I don’t know what is…”
The last gem shot forward and slammed into the final mare. Twilight felt power flood through her before it reached out and harmonized in unheard notes with the five other Runners.
And the world went white.