Twilight felt a profound sense of relief when she saw a literal light at the end of the tunnel. She and the others had been walking for what felt like hours. Once they emerged onto the top of the plateau, Twilight took a long, deep breath. The air out here was hot and dry, but somehow it felt infinitely better than the stale, cramped air below. Twilight took a moment to admire the twin sunset before returning her attention to the ancient Jedi temple in the opposite direction.
“Look! We’re almost there!” She said jovially to her companions. It was true; the large stone bricks that composed the base of the temple were now within sight, and only a short walk away. Twilight picked up her pace and fell into a gallop in her eagerness to finally find what they were here for. So eager she was, in fact, that she almost didn’t see or hear the rumble of the impending meteorite until it was almost on top of her.
WHOOM!
A streak of movement flashed by, followed closely by an explosion of dust and pebbles that temporarily blinded Twilight. She squinted in the dirty mists, coughing once or twice to clear her lungs, until she could make out a vague shape rising from the crater before her.
It was roughly round, and floating in the air with the telltale hum of repulsorlift technology. Several arms dangled beneath it, sporting various sizes of metallic claws. As the dust cleared, Twilight began to make out several varying sizes of black orbs protruding from the thing’s surface, giving the appearance of insect-like eyes.
Just a moment before Twilight could positively identify the creature in front of her, it let out a blaring siren, locking it’s largest eye directly onto her face. An instant later, a blaster bolt shot from somewhere among its many arms, forcing Twilight and the others to scatter before it. As they did, the thing kept its lock on Twilight, turning to keep pace with her galloping stride. It unleashed four more blaster bolts, Twilight dodging each only by virtue of her Jedi reflexes. Before a fifth bolt was fired, the thing received a hefty buck from behind by Rainbow Dash, which crumpled it’s dark-colored chassis and sent it into a drunken death spiral before it crashed onto the ground, dormant.
“What in the hay was that?” Applejack said after a moment of silence.
“I… think it was some sort of scouting droid.” Twilight said hesitantly. “Darth Nightmare must know we’re here.”
A millisecond after she had said it, the devilish machine before them flickered with a pale blue light before projecting the holographic image of a Dark alicorn before it. Twilight froze, and the image turned slightly in order to eye her.
The image was slightly different from the one Twilight had seen in her dreams; mostly due to a single forehoof that was encased in a metallic sheath that whirred and twisted as she shifted her weight. Similarly, one of her wings was hanging from a prosthetic that reminded Twilight of the shape of a skeletal bat’s wing. The base of her horn was the same color as her coat, as expected, but soon the blackness was cut off in favor of a gleaming, razor-sharp metallic point.
“Ah! There you are.” A melodic yet terrifying voice said. “I was wondering where I might find you hiding.”
“Leave her alone, you jerk!” came Rainbow’s voice. She and the rest of the group surrounded Twilight and faced the image of their adversary, as if to protect her.
“Ah, just the ponies I wanted to talk to.” The Sith alicorn said without missing a beat. “I was hoping to have a short conversation with you all about… mutual interests.”
“We ain’t got nothin’ to say to you, Nightmare.” Applejack snapped back quickly.
“Oh ,but I have so much to say to all of you.” Nightmare said as she pouted mockingly. “So much to offer.”
“Pfft! I bet she doesn’t even have any cookies.” Pinkie pie said.
The Nightmare ignored Pinkie’s comment and continued, undeterred.
“For instance… I could offer you all the entirety of Mos pony… unharmed.”
That last word was spat out like a threat, which very quickly caught Applejack’s attention again. When the farm pony spoke, her voice was low and dangerous.
“What do you mean… unharmed?”
“Oh, it’s quite simple really.” The alicorn’s deep, melodic voice said nonchalantly. “All I require is that the Jedi Padawan is returned to me, and I’ll spare the ponies of your home town. I have no quarrel with them, after all.”
“And if we don’t?” Rarity asked, nopony, including her, really wanting to hear the answer.
“Then I will begin destroying houses, one by one, until your town is nothing but slag.”
Deafening silence fell over the group; all except for Spike, who charged toward the hologram with eyes full of fire and snout streaming black smoke.
“You no-good, evil little slug-infested-”
“SILENCE, whelp!” The image of Darth Nightmare spread her wings, and a small burst of force traveled through the air, forcing Spike onto his haunches. Twilight was immediately simultaneously terrified and impressed that the Nightmare could exert control over the Force, even at this great of a distance. After a small pause, the Nightmare continued speaking.
“In any case, it is not your decision to make, young saurian.” She then eyed the ponies behind him, giving only the slightest hint of a sadistic smile. “It is theirs whose homes are currently at risk.”
Twilight felt a chill, despite the heat of the day. Nightmare’s gaze flicked to each of the ponies faces, noting with satisfaction their horror, until the Sith’s expression changed suddenly as it fell onto one last pony.
Twilight, confused at the Sith’s confusion, followed her gaze to the face of Rainbow dash, who, rather than a look of defeat, sported an angry look of defiance.
“Rainbow…?” Twilight said softly. “It’s okay… you can-”
“No.” Rainbow said. “It’s not okay. No, Nightmare; It’s no deal.”
Applejack, Pinkie and Rarity snapped their eyes over to Rainbow.
“WHAT!?” Applejack shouted. “You can’t just... speak for all of us!”
Rainbow rounded on Applejack angrily. “Oh yeah? Well maybe I can’t; but I can tell you one thing; anyone who wants to give Twilight to this jerk is gonna have to go through me first.”
“B-” Rarity began to speak, but Rainbow’s glare shut her down.
“But what?” Rainbow said. “Are you saying I have less to lose than you? I’ve got friends in Mos poni, too, but I, for one, am not going to give in to a big bully just because she can blow stuff up!”
“Rainbow Dash! It ain’t that simple. We can’t just-”
“Then let me simplify things for you!” Rainbow interrupted. She flew closer to the remains of the droid, blocking out the Sith’s view of anypony else. She stood resolute and said; “Maybe you’re telling the truth, and maybe you’re not. As much as I hate to think it, Maybe you’ve already done what you’re threatening to do; but one thing is for sure; If you want Twilight, you can come and get her!”
Nightmare was able to give off a disapproving scowl before Rainbow smashed her back hooves into the droid’s eyes. The first buck caused the alicorn’s enraged image to flicker out, but Rainbow wasn’t done. She proceeded to fly a short distance into the air and then pound what remained of the metallic object repeatedly, reducing it into tiny, unrecognizable pieces.
Applejack, Rarity and Pinkie were perhaps even more horrified now than they had been a second before; Fluttershy was looking down at the ground with some variety of shame, and Twilight was just incredulous.
“Rainbow! You just- what did you just do?” Twilight said “Now she’s gonna-” The words caught in Twilight’s throat before she could force them out.
“And maybe we can find the Elements of Harmony and fix everything before she gets a chance.” Rainbow said. “Come on; we’ve got no time to waste.” And with that, she took off towards the temple doors at blazing speeds.
Twilight and the others lingered for a few more moments.
“I’m sorry.” Twilight said, the gesture feeling wholly inadequate for what her quest might have just cost these ponies.
Applejack took a deep breath. “S’alright, Twilight. It’s just buildings. Our families can get away and then… we’ll figure something out.”
Applejack quickly fell into a gallop, chasing Rainbow Dash into the temple, followed closely by Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rarity.
For the first time in her life, Twilight realized that, for the first time, she wanted one thing more than becoming a true Jedi: wanting to make sure that these ponies’ homes and families were safe. If she had known how, she might have flown back to Everfree III then and there, but they were currently stranded, and Rainbow Dash had just destroyed what was potentially their only way of contacting the Sith before she enacted her threat. Everypony’s best bet, therefore, was to find the Elements and hope that they were powerful enough to solve all of their problems.
Twilight entered the ancient Jedi Temple behind everypony else; marvelling at the vast, darkened ceilings above and the walls and pillars that stretched seemingly into infinity. After a few moments, she lit her saber, lighting up a large circle around herself, but her blade’s green aura still felt small in the sea of blackness.
“Whoa.” Pinkie said, her voice echoing between the pillars in endless reverberations. Hearing this effect, she quickly shouted into the empty halls;
“Echo! Echo!”
It almost seemed like the ghosts of long-dead Jedi were repeating Pinkies’ words to their fellows, just beyond sight.
“So… where do we find these Elements of Harmony?” Applejack asked quietly, as if she didn’t want to disturb the ghosts any more than they had already been.
Twilight gave a look to Fluttershy, who shook her head in anticipation of Twilight’s question.
“No, sorry. I don’t know.”
Twilight took another look into the darkness before saying “Well, assuming this place isn’t much bigger than it looks, we should be able to search most of it quickly if we split up to cover more ground. Sound good?”
The others nodded, Fluttershy being a bit more hesitant than the others, eventually agreeing just the same.
“We’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes, then.” Twilight said. “Shout if you find anything!”
Each pony disappeared into the darkness, their locations revealed only by the beams of their respective lights, which grew dimmer as they became farther away and more obstructed. Twilight herself chose to move straight forward into the massive hall, using her lightsaber to search the surrounding area slowly and methodically.
Rainbow flicked her flashlight from stone to stone, rapidly skimming each room she found before passing into the next. She figured that any set of Artifacts as important as The Elements were supposed to be would be someplace big and important; therefore any rooms as ordinary as these couldn’t possibly contain what they were looking for. Plus, digging through rubble was time consuming-work, not to mention boring; and it would save everypony time if they just found the elements out in the open. So far, though, she wasn’t having much luck.
“Come on, how many bedrooms does one Temple even need?” She asked nopony in particular. She skipped a whole row of similar-looking doors in favor of what might at one time have been an elevator shaft; at the moment though, it was empty, and Rainbow was able to ascend through it into a large gymnasium-type room, which was open to the elements from one side. Parked off to one side was a small, curved ship that was covered in inches of dust, pointing vaguely towards the open air.
“Oooooh…” Rainbow allowed herself to exclaim. “This… might be useful.”
The blue pegasus approached the ship from behind, finding a small panel on the underside that was probably supposed to open the boarding ramp. Rainbow soon confirmed it’s function and the fact that it still worked by activating it, causing a formerly flush section of the ship’s belly to slide downward, forming a sleek path into the interior.
Rainbow couldn’t help but whistle at the smooth white walls of the ship’s insides; which were in fairly pristine condition despite the apparent age of the dusty outward hull. When she finally reached the cockpit, she gave the controls a quick tap to see if they still worked; amazingly, they flickered on, showing a few warning messages Rainbow quickly diagnosed and began to work through in her head.
“Oh, yeah. I think I could work with this.”
Twilight inspected the ornate walls of temple as she passed, seeing depictions of long ago battles and vistas of far-off planets. Lit only by her lightsaber, Twilight climbed into the uper levels of the temple on spiral staircases, looking into each room as she passed it on her way up. She recognized meditation areas, training grounds, and libraries, each strikingly similar to that of the temple back on Canterscaunt. It was odd to see something so familiar, yet so decrepit and unused; Twilight felt like she may have somehow jumped forward through time and found some sort of post-apocalypse version of her own home.
As Twilight continued her trek upward, she found that she needed her saber’s light less and less, as sunlight could be seen pouring in through a doorway at the top of the stairs. As Twilight approached, she chose to stow her saber back among her robes before continuing forward.
The well-lit room was round, and contained a set of carven stone thrones that were spread about it’s circumference. The aforementioned sunlight was pouring in through a domed skylight that comprised the entirety of the ceiling above. Most of the glass was tinted dark by ages of dust, but cracks in the structure let starburst-shaped shafts of sunlight onto the marbled floor, almost perfectly framing a peculiar pedestal, which held aloft five stone spheres at varied heights, almost like it was a map of a star system. As Twilight took a closer look, though, a label inscribed upon the base soon quashed that theory.
The Elements of Harmony; it read; and under each of the five spheres was another inscription: Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter, and Loyalty respectively.
These are the Elements? Twilight thought to herself. They don’t seem all that… powerful-looking; and their names don’t sound much like weapons to me.
Nevertheless, Twilight could say for absolute certain that she had found what she was looking for.
“Hey! Spike! Girls! I found it!” Twilight shouted back in the direction she had come. For a few seconds the only answer was silence which Twilight had partially suspected; the odds of one of her travelling companions being within earshot decreased with every passing second; she’d just have to let them know once she could find them. What Twilight didn’t expect, however, was a deep, Melodic voice piping up a few seconds later.
“Oh, excellent work, young padawan. Well done, indeed.”
Twilight felt an instant chill down her spine as she turned her attention to the source of the voice. A shadow covered that corner of the room, but soon Twilight was able to see dim light glinting off of a metallic, pointed horn at over twice the height of Twilight’s own. Beneath that, she soon spotted another gleam of silver that curved, suggesting the rough shape of an equine head. Soon, the pitch-black figure emerged from the shade, revealing a mechanical hoof, a drooping, skeletal wing, and a pair of lightning-blue. sadistically gleaming eyes.
“N-Nightmare!” Twilight stammered. She took a step back before she was able to rexert control over herself and draw her lightsaber. It’s blad sprung to life, and Twilight pointed it directly at the Sith Empress.
Nightmare seemed momentarily taken aback by the gesture of hostility, but soon let out a long, cackling peal of laughter.
“Oh, that’s adorable.” Nightmare said, circling Twilight slowly in order to block off the door. “You think you can beat me. You’re kidding, right?”
Nightmare’s assumption was, in fact, only half true. Twilight had no illusions about her strength relative that that of a Sith alicorn, but she didn’t see that she had any other choice at the moment; Maybe she could attempt to escape, but that would only leave the Sith alone with ample opportunity to destroy the Artifacts that she and her companions had spent so so much time and effort trying to find. The best she could hope for at the moment was for the others to come looking for her; but even then, the odds didn’t look good.
“How- how did you get here?” Twilight asked, hoping that stalling for time would be a valid tactic.
“Oh, please. I was already on my way here the moment you left Mos Poni. I couldn’t leave such important relics unguarded, now, could I? But enough chat...”
Nightmare pulled a saber from her belt, both her metallic horn and the blade itself glowing a brilliant crimson.
“Stand down, little pony. We both know that you’re not stupid enough to actually try to fight me.”
Twilight gritted her teeth. She lunged forward, giving her horn the range to strike at Nightmare’s healthy wing. The dark alicorn didn’t even look, however, as her own saber intercepted the blow and instantly followed up with a swipe at Twilight’s hooves, forcing her to jump and roll sideways out of the way. As soon as Twilight was right-side up again, she was forced to retract her saber back to herself in order to parry a blow directed towards her horn. As the sabers locked, Twilight could hear a sadist’s cackle over the hiss and pop of interlocking plasma.
“Well, my my. Color me surprised. Celestia led me to believe you were intelligent.”
Nightmare's saber spun suddenly, attempting to cut under Twilight’s guard. The green saber similarly flipped to intercept while Twilight backed away from the two blades fighting of their own accord. Nightmare was quick, however, and for every step Twilight took, the Sith was able to slip her crimson blade further towards Twilight’s chest. As a last-ditch effort, Twilight locked the blades together again, this time calling upon all of her strength, both magical and through the Force, in order to push the offending blade back towards its owner. The resulting forces sent a shockwave through the air and a pain shooting through Twilight’s horn that made it feel like it was about to burst into a million tiny pieces, but the red saber stood its ground as though built into a steel-plated wall.
Nightmare shook her head in disapproval and sighed.
“Ah, well. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected much more from a youngling with no true knowledge of the force.”
In a flash, the red saber whipped backward; but boefre Twilight could take advantage of the short reprieve, The red saber flicked through the air with deadly precision, chopping Twilight’s saber cleanly in two, fizzling it’s emerald blade and rendering the tool useless. Twilight had barely processed the action when an invisible force similar in power to a starship’s thrusters slammed her body against the wall, keeping her pinned several feet above the floor.
Twilight continued to struggle against her intangible bonds, causing Nightmare to comment;
“And yet, you still struggle. Why is that, little pony? Could it be that you still have hope?”
Nightmare gave Twilight a thoughtful look before sending a glance back toward the multifaceted pedestal where the Elements stood. When her muzzle pointed back towards Twilight, a wicked grin had sprouted across her face.
“No. NO!” Came Twilight’s voice, unbidden.
Nightmare raised her good hoof briefly before pounding it back into the ground. Shortly thereafter, the spheres upon the pedestals began to rise, trembling into the air of their own accord.
Twilight accessed a reserve of strength she didn’t know she had, desperately trying to free herself, but to no avail. Another stomp from the dark alicorn and the ancient artifacts cracked, then crumbled, then compressed themselves into dust.
A scream of despair tore itself from Twilight’s throat, clawing up her esophagus like reams of ballistic sandpaper. It didn’t stop until Twilight’s lungs ran dry, and soon afterward it was resurrected as a long, drawn-out wail. Only then was she released, allowing her limp form to collapse onto the floor below.
Tears streamed from Twilight’s eyes, but she couldn’t grieve for long before the Sith’s shadow fell over her, tinted red with the glow of the saber. Twilight gritted her teeth, summoning power into her horn in one last attempt to defend herself and blinking to clear her eyes so she could aim straight. Twilight stood to brace herself for impact.
“So you really intend on opposing me to the bitter end.” Nightmare observed. “Disappointing. I had hoped you’d be more pliable.”
A thousand thoughts ran through Twilight’s mind as she began to process the hopelessness of the entire situation. The Elements were gone, and her friends…
...yeah, they were her friends. As much as she had tried to keep them at a distance, it didn’t matter now; their names and faces had forever been engraved within her heart, and now they were all going to be killed, their homes destroyed.
Twilight didn’t know what Nightmare may have intended to do with her; but Twilight knew that as long as a part of her wanted Twilight alive, she had some sort of leverage; not enough to save herself, surely, but her friends…
“I… I’ll go with you. Willingly. On one condition.”
Nightmare circled Twilight slightly, an expression of confused interest on her face.
“Oh? What condition is that, pray tell?”
Twilight took a deep breath to steady herself. Everything about the mare before her felt wrong, but she’d endure anything to know her friends were safe.
“Spare the others who are with me; leave their homes and families intact, please. Do that, and… I’ll do whatever you want.”
Nightmare seemed to think on this for a few seconds before sprouting another wicked grin.
“Very well; I agree to these terms… my new apprentice.”