//------------------------------//
// Two Powers Fall... 1.5, at least 
// Story: Embracing the Night 
// by NightInk 
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	So, the really bad idea? I had to fight her face to face, but as a human. No magic, and I would tuck my wings away, too. Just fight her as myself.
“Everyone, get in the bathroom. NOW.” God, this had better work. Luckily it was a huge bathroom, almost as big as the bedroom. While the others ran to the bathroom, I levitated the good shield over to me and put it by my side. As Luna went by, she shot me a look that clearly said ‘Don’t get killed again’, but all I did was wink and throw another stupid grin to her. As they closed the door, I closed my eyes and began to focus. I felt the bones in my body all changing back into my human form. I was really starting to get tired of this. Everything cracked and remodeled, and everything hurt again. Soon I was a human again, and everything was back in its place. I picked up the shield and held it by some of the barrier that was still somewhat attached to the back of it. Damn it, I was trusting my second life to a rock on a stick and a pocket knife. I had it on my left side, but my right hand was dominant, so I figured I ought to use my right to use the blade. The shield was big and clunky on either side, but the blade changed when I held it in my bony hand. It grew into a decently sized sword, and it looked like the sword on the amulet, bone hilt and all.
Now that it wasn’t a little knife and I didn’t have a clue how to use it again, my heart sank. I was going to lose again, and this time I was going doubt myself enough that I wouldn’t be able to come back. I probably should have just stayed dead. It was nice and quiet, and I didn’t have a freakish dead arm. What the hell was I doing? My hand started to fall, the tip of the sword beginning to fall, and I was kind of waiting for Nightmare Moon to just take her shot. I guess she was just enjoying seeing the despair sink into me. I looked up to see if she was prepping or gloating or what, but she was just staring, waiting for me to do something. Obviously this was out of character, but I really didn't care.
“Well?” I asked. “You didn’t waste any time killing me last time, and I actually had some amount of power that time. Go ahead.”
Realizing I wasn’t really feeling the will to fight, she shrugged and prepped a blast. As she fired, though, everything stopped. The bolt was halfway out her horn; a lightning flash was half-way across the sky. The air of tension was gone, the magic crackling through the room, it all stopped.
Out of the darkness came a familiar voice. “Dude! What the hell is wrong with you? Seriously! I give you a second change, and you’re going to let yourself get toasted that easily?! What is your problem?!” Ben yelling at me was not the last living memory I wanted to have.
“Man, you know what? Just shut up! You know what it’s like here! This is ridiculous! I have no idea how to use a sword and shield, and even if I did she’s made of pure magic! I can’t touch her!”
“Yeah, and even if you didn't know how to use the sword, a shield is pretty damn easy to figure out! Especially one that reflects spells back at the casters?! Getting my drift?”	I was spinning around by now, trying to see him. “Yeah, gotcha, I can send her own spells back. She’s smart enough that I’m only going to be able to do that once! And even if that were to solidify her enough to make her vulnerable, that’s not going to last long!”
“All right, you know what, just tell the knife to shrink a bit, if that’s going to be easier for you. And as a tip, I’ll tell you that knife is made out of my bones! That I regenerated. Think for a second. A knife made out of death? Really, how many hits are you going to need?”
It finally hit me. “Oh. Wait, why are you telling me this? Isn’t this cheating?”
I could hear him sigh. “I’m not a big fan of these souls that are killed or prematurely dead. And if she takes over, that’s all I’m going to get. It’s like what you said; they all should live a long life before making it to me.”
“Makes sense. What about this amulet? I thought you said it was going to be useful?”
“Maybe I lied. I’m already dead, they can’t change my sentence. I’m gonna start time back up, I’d get in place if I were you.”
“Right. Well, thanks. See you later.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He obviously wasn’t happy, but things were slowly starting to move again. I got back to where I was standing before everything was normal again, and managed to deflect the bolt back at Nightmare Moon. Things didn’t go the way Ben seemed to think they would, though.
The bolt hit her, true enough. But she didn’t slow down at all. Instead she got angry and began to fire at random in my general direction. A few ricocheted off the shield but only one more hit her. That time she was stunned, giving me enough time to run forward and swing the blade in an upward arc. It struck and sliced through her now tangible chest plate, but she didn’t die. In fact, she grew taller, and as she grew taller she grew louder. Out of desperation, I swung the sword in vicious arcs, but every blow struck just made her stronger.
“Hahaha!” she laughed more loudly than ever. “You foal!! That idiot Ben stopped time while I was shooting at you, didn’t he?! That man doesn’t know the first thing about the magic he commands! I cannot be killed by your blade of death because I am not alive in such a sense! Magical consciousness cannot simply be put down, and by existing within it, I can absorb this magic, you have allowed me to become more powerful than ever!!! With a great flare of her wings and a burst of magical energy, she summoned the winds of a hurricane within the room, successfully blowing most of the roof of the wing off. Luckily, Luna’s room was the top floor.

After avoiding a few pieces of falling rubble, I backed up a bit so that I could see Nightmare Moon better. She was twice as tall as I was now, and immeasurably more powerful. She didn’t even have to really try anymore, and she knew it. As she stood above me shooting missile after missile, I could do nothing but keep my shield held up and try to find some cover while I came up with something new. I was beginning to feel that doubt creep into me again, but really after his outburst I didn’t want to give Ben the satisfaction of calling me a loser again.
Nightmare Moon was treating this as a game. She still shot normal missiles, but here and there she would shoot a ball of deadly magic in a high, lazy ark that came down and blew up as it landed. Glowing spots of melted stone lined the walls and dotted the floor where the more intense shots had struck, and there was no piece of furniture in the room left undamaged or even in one piece. The bed Caught fire due to an errant blast bouncing off my shield, and I still couldn’t figure out what my next move was.
Suddenly the bathroom door burst open again and Luna came racing out, a magical shield raised in front of her and expression that was a cross between anger and fear. “Look out!” she screamed, even though I would have been fine if I hadn’t been wondering what the hell was going on in the bathroom.
When she plowed into me to “save” me from a missile that would have hit my shield anyways, I got a little bit pissed off. “Damn it, Luna! I had everything covered!” I lied angrily. “You need to get back under cover until I can figure out how to win this battle!”
She shook her head firmly. “No. I can’t just let you face her like this. You need someone by your side. Not ten minutes ago we really said ‘I love you’ for the first time. I will not let you die again without me by your side. So drop it. Dear,” she finished off with a sarcastic smile. Wow. Our first argument and I already lost. If I live, I’m in trouble.
Nightmare Moon must have gotten tired of lazily wrecking the room, because she turned her focus back onto active trying to kill me. Well, it was us now, but either way it was a bad thing. She turned back into a cloud of magic and began to just fly in circles around the room. At first I didn’t see the strategy behind it, but it soon became clear. We couldn’t tell where the majority of her was. It was just one huge circle of evil magic, and it was slowly descending to our level. As it got closer, though, it began to spark with electricity and it sped up in its decent. Once it got to us, there would be no way to dodge it. All we could do was position a shield in either direction and hope for the best.
Nightmare Moon hit my shield once she got to us, but this wasn’t like blocking a spell. This was trying to stop a galloping mare who ran with a purpose. I only stood for a second before falling underneath the tremendous force. Unfortunately, Luna was now in the way of the swirling mare of darkness. With a scream of terror and pain, she crumpled to the floor.
Watching Luna fall I knew a greater terror than I felt even watching the bolt that killed me fly at my chest. That terror sparked something in me very similar to the spark within Twilight that night when she heard her friends coming to help her. After hitting Luna, Nightmare Moon stopped and stood on the other side of the room, smaller now just for the sake of easy fighting. I turned to her and she gave a small start, like something about me had changed. I was so scared and so angry, though, at that point if she had attacked I wouldn’t have had the mental capability to stop her. All I could do was yell, “ENOUGH!!” in a voice that rivaled even Luna’s Royal Canterlot voice. “You will not be responsible for the harm or the death of another person or pony if there is ANYTHING I can do about it!!”
Remember that Ben had told me that I had kind of created Life in its elemental form as we consider it? Well, using an element isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get me wrong, it was great at first. I felt a sensation come over me very similar to the general feel of being dead. I felt myself become lighter than the air around me and a warmth flowed through my body. I tried to control whatever was happening, but it was too powerful. Even while the feeling of death came over me, I felt an incredible amount of life welling up from within me. The exhaustion and pain I had felt from the fight was entirely gone, and the moon and sword amulet still miraculously around my neck began to glow with a white light.
Exhilarated by the feeling of such power, I continued to lecture Nightmare Moon. “You’ve done this far too often! Even the first time was too often. You come down to Equestria and try to make the night last forever, despite the defiance of the ponies here! This time you’ve really gone too far, though! Actually becoming desperate enough to kill?! I get wanting the beauty of the night to last forever, but you can’t come here and tell me that me and mine have to lay down and die for what you believe and we don‘t! There is NO cause so great that people against it need to die for it too! In this world or any other!”
It was after my rant that I began to feel less than stellar. The power began to flow out of me in a burning arc. Had it been multi-colored and twirling, it would have been just like the other Elements of Harmony when they were active. The energy burned as it left me, using the amulet as an escape point and reminding me of when I was hit by the Elements the last time, but not hurting as badly. It was really more the feeling that my heart and soul were being put into this single shot, and every good intention that I ever had was trying to give a new life to my target, who was screaming in fear of the light somewhere I couldn’t pinpoint anymore.
When the light faded, I realized that’s exactly what had happened. I don’t know the details of how, but the Element of Life had given Nightmare Moon a new body, a new life, and therefore new Earthly--err, ‘Equestrianly’ limitations. She wasn’t able to absorb unlimited deathly energy, she wasn’t able to survive my sword slashes, and she wasn’t able to turn into a giant version of herself and shoot oversized bombs at me. We were playing an even game again.
Except that using the Element was incredibly draining. Every fiber of my being was exhausted from giving a brand new life to Nightmare Moon, as if I had given up part of mine. And the way all this life-and-death magic was working, I didn’t doubt that I had. But this was the home stretch. Barely keeping myself from collapsing, I wrapped my dead hand around my sword one more time. Running forward, I swung the blade in an upward arc, clashing with her horn. She must have known that this would be the deciding round too.
We traded blows for several minutes, sparks of magic repelling magic and power clashing with power. Each blow was utterly painful, and sweat ran down my face. She was becoming winded as well. Each block was coming slower than the last, but then each of my strikes was coming slower too. It was the girls who came to the rescue again.
“Come on, girls!” Twilight’s voice cried from the far side of the room. “We have to help our friend!” I couldn’t afford a turn to look at them; I could only try to listen for when the power of the Elements was unleashed. As soon as I heard the big booming noise, I jumped out of the way. The light struck Nightmare Moon and she could be heard protesting through the roar of magic. As the light faded, I could see that she was still there, just on her knees in agony. This was my only chance. I couldn’t bring myself to stand, and could only use the last of my power to throw the sword of the dead over my body at the evil mare. By a miracle and probably the very last of my luck, the blade hit its mark, not causing a usually fatal would, but enough of one that death’s power could seep into her body. Waxing a bit morbid now, she didn’t make much noise as she died, just a heavy sigh like she had known she would lose the fight for a while.
I let my head fall back onto the floor below me. It was over. Finally. We could rest now. Luna came rushing over again. I swear, that mare is always in a hurry and is always worried.
“Dear? Dear, are you ok?” She asked, panic in her voice.
Deciding now was a tense moment to make a bad joke, I looked at her and smiled weakly. “Mother? Is that you? I… I washed my hands… Do you think they have candy corn in heaven? I wasn’t there long last time…” When she started to hyperventilate, I knew that was a good time to stop. “Jeeze, relax. I’ll be fine,” I said with a chuckle. “Though, I would like to know, do I get a pet name to call you, because “Princess” is a common pet name on Earth, and that’s just wonderfully ironic.”
She couldn’t really say anything for a few minutes, just glare angrily and sputter. When she gathered herself, all she said was, “Just realize it wouldn’t be difficult for me to kill you right now.”
I coughed a little and spat some blood off to the side. “Nah, are you kidding? I feel invincible right now. Really, want to race? First one to the ‘lying on the floor’ position wins.” Luckily she began to smile again. “Hey, quick thought, where did Nightmare Moon hit you?”
Shaking her head like she was amazed I was still joking, she said, “She hit me in the side. I actually haven’t looked at it. Is it bad?” she asked, turning so I could see the huge bruise forming on her side, just behind her wind.
“Are you kidding?” I raised an eyebrow while I said it. “It’s beautiful. So many pretty colors, like black and blue and… Well, black and blue are nice colors. Night colors. Lucky she didn’t hit your wing.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she muttered. “Well, what do we do now?”
As if she had been outside waiting for the perfect time to show up, Celestia descended from the night sky, landing lightly on the floor. Looking around, she looked a little surprised that we had caused that much damage in such a short amount of time, but she wasn’t angry this time as far as I could tell. She walked over to us slowly, like she wasn’t sure if I was safe to be near.
“You have done a great thing here today,” she said in a barely audible whisper. “You have rid the world of a great evil today. Both worlds, really. Had she succeeded, Nightmare Moon would have undoubtedly become bored with Equestria and tried to take over other worlds. You have saved many lives.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the way we managed it,” I groaned, barely managing to sit up even with Luna’s help.
“What do you mean?” Celestia appeared confused. “There was no other way to stop her reign.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t like the fact that I killed her. Part of the reason I became or was blessed with the Element of Life was because I had a great reverence for life in all forms, even one like hers.” I nodded towards the corpse. “And then I turned around and used that reverence to kill, which makes people the opposite of alive, last I experienced.”
The confused look didn’t leave her face. “Experienced? What do you mean?” Either she hadn’t seen my skeletal arm (it was kind of hidden by Luna) or didn’t know how I got it.
“Check out the window. About the middle of the main courtyard. Big charred thing. At least it's probably charred.”
She looked out the window, found what I was describing, and gasped. “Oh, gods, what have you been through?”
“Yeah, everyone has already said that. Next.” She looked back at me like she was disappointed with the joke. “Oh, please don’t shoot me,” I grinned, trying to stand. I was probably pushing myself too hard, but I wanted to try and be presentable. Before I could really make any progress, though, I was engulfed by a soft, golden aura.
“Please, don’t push yourself any farther. You really must to rest.”
Allowing myself to be caressed by the magic, I relaxed again. “Yeah, you might be right about that. Sorry about torching your bedroom though,” I added, looking at Luna.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, coming close and nuzzling my face. “It needed to be redecorated anyways. I wasn’t particularly fond of the décor.” She smiled, letting me enjoy one of her jokes for a change. I lifted my dead arm and brushed her muzzle, noticing she didn’t shudder or anxiety at its touch for the first time.
I guess that was the first time Celestia noticed the arm, because she just said, “You are going to have to explain that, too.”
“Yeah, don’t worry; everyone is still looking for that story. But I’d like a little rest first. Oh, Rarity,” I threw in as an after-thought. “Can you grab my cloak if it’s still in four pieces or less? Shining Armor, grab the knife, but only with your magic and make sure you don’t touch the blade. Pinkie, since you did such a good job last time, will you keep hold of my shield?”

Shortly after that, I blacked out.