On Fridays, Ponyville Elementary only has a half day of school. This tradition was started by the previous schoolteacher, Lon Dis Tense, whose coltfriend lived in Canterlot. She always ended school at noon, so she could catch the 12:30 train to Canterlot and spend the weekend with him.
Cheerilee didn't have a special somepony in another city, but she certainly didn't object to having Friday afternoons off. So she continued Ms. Tense's tradition of half-day Fridays. This made Friday afternoon the ideal time for Twilight to schedule the mission into the Everfree Forest.
So it was that, when school was over that Friday, Cheerilee walked Spike and Scootaloo to the Golden Oaks Library. The teacher was slightly surprised to see Pinkie Pie and Rarity there, talking to Twilight.
"Scootaloo! Cheerilee! You made it!" Twilight said, smiling. "Great. I was worried you wouldn't get my message in time."
"Hello, Twilight," Cheerilee said. "What's this all about?"
"Yeah, your letter said you need our help with something important," Scootaloo said.
"I'll explain once Applejack gets here," Twilight said. "All five of you need to hear this."
Scootaloo and Cheerilee shared a glance, wondering what Twilight could be talking about. Spike, on the other hand, was more worried about the fact that the gorgeous Rarity was standing no less than ten feet away from him.
She's here! Spike thought. Okay, Spike, play it cool. He rubbed his hand through his spikes, then approached Rarity. "Hello," he said. "I'm Spike."
"Oh, hello," Rarity said. "Nice to meet you."
"I'm one of your daughter's best friends," Spike said.
"My...what?" Rarity asked, her left eye scrunching in confusion.
"Sweetie Belle," Spike said. "Your daughter."
"How old do you think I am?" Rarity gasped. "Sweetie Belle is my sister!"
Spike's jaw dropped. "She is?" he asked. "But I thought you—and her—and..." The small dragon began to sweat, while Rarity glared daggers at him. Trying to redeem himself, he pointed to the nearby Pinkie Pie and blurted out, "Pinkie said you two were related!"
"Huh? What—oh, yeah!" Pinkie Pie said. "Yeah, I totally did that! I was just being silly, though."
"Pinkie!" Rarity said, turning on her friend. "I know you like practical jokes, but that's going a bit too far!"
"I thought it'd be funny!" Pinkie said, shrugging. "Sorry!"
Rarity sighed and looked to the side. "In the future, try more sophisticated humor," she said in a dignified voice, before walking away with her head held high.
"So, um...what exactly did I just take the blame for?" Pinkie asked, when Rarity was out of earshot.
"It's...complicated," Spike said. He let out a sigh. "Thanks for the save, Pinkie. Rarity would have been really angry with me, if you hadn't stepped in."
"No problemo, Spikey Wikey!" Pinkie Pie said. In a more serious voice, she added, "Just don't make me do it again, okay? I don't like lying to my friends."
"I understand," Spike said. "And thanks, again. I owe you a major favor now."
"Hmmm..." Pinkie thought, wondering what favor she should call in. "Tell you what. I want you to promise me something."
"What?" Spike asked.
Pinkie Pie leaned closer to Spike. "If things don't work out between you and Rarity, look me up, okay?" She winked saucily at Spike, and gave him a small smile.
A humongous shiver immediately went down Spike's back. "That...that's a joke, too, right?" he asked.
Pinkie laughed loud and hard at that. Spike then decided it would be a good time for him to escape and hide in the kitchen.
Not long after, Applejack arrived. She apologized for her lateness—something about last-minute customers at the apple stand—and everypony gathered together around Twilight.
"What's this all about?" Applejack asked. "Your letter said there's some kind of emergency."
"There is," Twilight said. "Shining Armor, you can come out now!"
Shining Armor entered the room, from upstairs. He was dressed in shining silver armor, and he was carrying a series of posterboards ahead of him.
"Hello, everypony," Shining Armor said. "I'm Shining Armor. I'm a sub-captain of the Royal Guard in Canterlot. I'm also Twilight's incredibly good-looking older brother!"
"And how!" Rarity whispered to Pinkie Pie.
"Shining!" Twilight whined. "That's not part of the script!"
"Heh...right," Shining Armor said. He put the posterboards on a stand that Twilight had set up and turned towards the group. "I'm here to escort you on today's mission."
"Mission?" the ponies asked.
"Wait, are you a spy?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"No, he's a soldier," Twilight said. "Shining's specialty is defensive magic. He's here to protect us."
"Protect us from what?" Cheerilee asked.
"Let me start at the beginning," Twilight said, holding up a hoof. "This is going to take a while to explain, so I made up a series of posters to help."
She removed the cover sheet from the stand, to reveal the first poster, which was a large picture of Princess Luna. "This is Princess Celestia's sister," Twilight said, pointing at it with her wing.
"Right, Princess Luna," Applejack said. "What about her?"
Twilight was taken by surprise at this. "Wait, you know who she is?"
The five ponies all nodded. "Everypony knows about Princess Luna!" Pinkie Pie said. "She's the one who turned into Nightmare Moon! They tell the story every Nightmare Night!"
Twilight and her brother shared a confused glance with each other. "But...both my brother and I never heard of her before!" Twilight said.
"Oh, that's right," Rarity realized. "Nightmare Night is just a small celebration in Canterlot. Not like it is here."
"Nightmare Night is a big deal here?" Shining Armor asked.
"It's a huge holiday," Applejack said. "Everypony in town gets all dressed up for it, and there are carnival games and everything."
"There's even a statue of Nightmare Moon, near the forest," Cheerilee said. "It's on the path that leads to the Ancient Castle of the Pony Sisters."
"WHAAA?" Twilight shouted.
"Is that where the path leads?" Rarity asked. "I didn't know that. I try to stay away from the Everfree."
"Okay..." Twilight said, feeling flustered. "Maybe this presentation won't take as long as I thought." She threw aside her first few posters, then stopped on one of Nightmare Moon, standing next to a large hourglass. "Do you all know about Nightmare Moon's return, then?"
"Yep!" Pinkie Pie said. "After a thousand years, she's going to come back and gobble us up like candy!"
"Er, not quite," Twilight said. Picking up a somewhat old book, she read, "Here's what Star Skill the Astronomer said about it. 'Alas, Princess Celestia's banishing spell will not last forever. It will naturally dissipate, when next the moon is close to Earth for an adequate temporal event, viz., the summer solstice of the year before the next millennial.' "
Silence followed this statement.
"What?" everypony asked.
Twilight sighed and closed the book. "Unicorn astronomers say the spell is going to break during the Summer Sun Celebration, in the year 1999," Twilight said.
"But—that's little more than two weeks away!" Rarity gasped.
"Are you serious?" Cheerilee asked. "You think Nightmare Moon is going to return this year?"
"I'm absolutely certain of it," Twilight said. "And what's more, Princess Celestia told me this herself. That's why she put me in charge of the Summer Sun Celebration here. She wants us to be ready."
"Now just a second," Applejack said. "You're saying that Ponyville is going to be attacked by an all-powerful evil alicorn. How in the hay are we supposed to get ready for that?"
"She's not all-powerful," Twilight said. "She was defeated a thousand years ago, with the Elements of Harmony. With your help, we can defeat her again."
"Our help?" Scootaloo asked.
"Elements of huh?" Pinkie asked.
"The Elements of Harmony," Twilight said, pulling another poster off of stand. "There are six of them: loyalty, laughter, generosity, kindness and honesty. I think you five are the perfect ponies for them."
The poster on the stand had two columns. The left column had a picture of an element, along with its name. The right column had the picture of one of the ponies, along with her name.
Bearers of the Elements of Harmony
1. Element of Loyalty—Rarity
2. Element of Laughter—Pinkie Pie
3. Element of Generosity—Applejack
4. Element of Kindness—Cheerilee
5. Element of Honesty—Scootaloo
6. Unknown—?
Rarity sat down. "This is too much," she said. "This is far, far too much."
"I agree," Applejack said. "What are these elementals things?"
"They're some kind of ancient magical artifacts," Twilight said. "I haven't seen them, so I don't know the specifics of how they work."
Pinkie Pie cocked her head to the right, as she looked at the poster. "Um...I've always kinda wanted to be a national hero, but..." she said. "What's with the last one on the list? Why's it empty?"
"Nopony knows what that element is," Twilight said. "But Shining Armor looked up that symbol in The Cutie Mark Encyclopedia. It's a unicorn cutie mark that's a sign of great magical power."
"So it's the Element of Magic?" Pinkie asked. "Who's that gonna be? Somepony from Canterlot?"
"This seems too dangerous to me," Cheerilee said. "And besides, I don't think I can be the Element of Kindness. There are many more ponies in town who are kinder than I am."
"Look, let's not get sidetracked here," Shining Armor spoke up. "At this point, it doesn't matter who the Element Bearers are. The important thing we have to do is retrieve the elements and keep them safe. That's the mission that Princess Celestia has requested us to go on."
"I've never had a princess ask me to do something before..." Rarity said.
"What do you mean, 'retrieve the elements'?" Applejack asked. "Where are they?"
"They're inside the Ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters," Twilight said. "In the Everfree Forest."
After some debate, all the ponies agreed to go on the mission to get the Elements of Harmony. "There's safety in numbers," Applejack had said.
The trip through the Everfree Forest was rather uneventful. Twilight's original plan called for them to take a rather dangerous route through manticore territory, following a path that went over cliffs and serpent-infested rivers. But it turned out that the path Cheerilee had suggested—the one by the statue of Nightmare Moon—was a lot safer.
It helped that Shining Armor was there the whole time, casting a defensive bubble around the entire group. Rarity stayed very close to him, claiming it was for her protection.
Eventually, the path ended at a bridge, which connected two cliffs. The far end of the bridge had some untied ropes, which made it impossible for anyone to walk across. Even though it was 1:00 PM, there was a large amount of dark fog on the other side of the chasm. An ominous castle stood in the distance.
"I'll fly over and secure the bridge," Twilight volunteered.
"No, me!" Scootaloo said. "I can do it! I've been practicing my takeoffs!"
Scootaloo jumped up and flapped her wings, but she soon landed back on the ground. She tried again, flapping her wings harder, with the same result.
"Never mind," Scootaloo said sadly. "I can't do it."
"It's okay, Scootaloo," Twilight said reassuringly. "Learning how to take off can be tricky. Besides, you've only had two flying lessons."
"I guess..." Scootaloo said.
"Here, this is how you do it," Twilight said. She jumped up and forward, using her momentum as a starting point to launch herself into the air. Gracefully flapping her wings forward, Twilight flew over the chasm and landed on the far cliff.
As Twilight landed, a shadowy figure stepped out of the dense fog. It was a tall, black pony, with wings, a horn, and blue armor.
"Twilight Sparkle," the dark alicorn said. "We meet at last."
"Nightmare Moon!" Twilight gasped.
"I've heard a lot about you," Nightmare said. "You're the pony who has been chosen to destroy me."
Twilight bent down, ready to fly at a moment's notice. "So you came here to destroy me first, is that right?"
"Peace, Twilight," Nightmare Moon said, holding up a hoof in a defensive gesture. "I did not come here to fight. I came to talk."
"Talk about what?" Twilight asked.
Nightmare Moon sat down and removed her blue helmet. "You, mostly," she said. "I don't understand why you're here. You're not a unicorn."
Twilight's face dropped. Seriously? The unicorn thing again? She felt like facehoofing. Even ancient alicorns thought she should be a unicorn.
"What's wrong with me being a pegasus?" Twilight asked defensively.
"Nothing, except for the fact that only a unicorn can wield the Element of Magic," Nightmare Moon said. "So why would Celestia decide to put you in charge of the Elements of Harmony?"
"She trusts me," Twilight said. "I'm her friend."
"No," Nightmare said. "You're not a friend; you're a charity case. Celestia doesn't trust you; she just feels sorry for you."
"That's not true!" Twilight said. "The Princess love—she likes me."
"That's what I thought, too," Nightmare Moon said. "Then she banished me to the moon for a thousand years. If she could do that to her sister, who she's known for hundreds of years, imagine what she could do to you."
"I...you're trying to trick me!" Twilight said. "You want to turn me against Princess Celestia!"
Nightmare Moon smiled sadly. "I'm just telling you the truth," she said. "In time, you'll see that I am right."
Twilight took a step backwards and flared her wings. Somehow, this calm version of Nightmare Moon scared her much more than the laughing egomaniac from the storybooks.
"...I could do it, you know," Nightmare Moon said.
"Do what?" Twilight asked.
"Turn you into a unicorn," Nightmare Moon said. "Would you like that?"
"You—how?"
"I am the Princess of the Night," Nightmare Moon said simply. "My special talent is making dreams come true."
Twilight looked suspiciously at Nightmare Moon, whose teal eyes looked surprisingly sincere. "What do you want in return?" she asked.
"Nothing," Nightmare Moon said. She shrugged innocently. "To be perfectly honest, I can't make you a unicorn until a few weeks. After all, I'm still on the moon right now. I have barely enough magic to talk to you in this fog form."
On the other side of the cliff, the ponies were getting scared. They could see Twilight talking to some sort of dark, shadowy creature.
"TWILIGHT!" Shining Armor shouted. "TWILIGHT!"
"She can't hear you," Rarity said. "Why isn't your spell doing anything?"
"I don't know!" Shining Armor said. "My defensive magic should have blasted that shadow creature by now!"
The truth was that Shining's defensive magic was working just fine. Nightmare Moon wasn't being affected by Shining's magic, because she wasn't attacking Twilight. Not physically, at any rate.
Scootaloo was jumping up and down, trying desperately to start flying. Eventually, she gave up and pouted. "I wish I could fly, not just glide," she said.
"Wait," Shining Armor said. "How far can you glide?"
"Um...a hundred feet?" Scootaloo guessed. "Maybe more. I didn't have a ruler."
"Good enough for me," Shining Armor said. He picked up Scootaloo, held her above his head, and threw her into the sky with all his might.
"You don't have to decide right away," Nightmare Moon said. "You still have plenty of time left before the Summer Sun Celebration."
"I..." Twilight said. "I don't want to go against my friends. Especially Princess Celestia."
"That is understandable," Nightmare Moon said, nodding. "Your friends are good ponies. But Celestia has been manipulating you from the beginning. Do you really want to stand with her?"
"I—" Twilight said.
"Twiliiiight!" Scootaloo shouted, as she glided across the chasm. "What's taking you so long?"
"Scootaloo!" Twilight said, as the small filly landed next to her.
"Hello, Scootaloo," Nightmare Moon said. "I didn't expect to see you here at my castle."
"N-nightmare Moon!" Scootaloo gasped. "What are you doing here?"
"I offered to help Twilight," Nightmare Moon said. "I could help you, too, you know. I can find your parents for you."
Scootaloo's eyes widened. "Really?" she asked.
"Your father has forgotten about you, I'm afraid," Nightmare Moon said. "But your mother...ah, yes. She still dreams about you sometimes."
Instead of weakening Twilight Sparkle's resolve, Nightmare Moon's words had the opposite effect. Twilight's face took on an angry shade, as she stepped forward to put herself in between Scootaloo and Nightmare Moon.
"Don't try to use my friends against me," Twilight said seriously.
"You misunderstand," Nightmare Moon said. "I'm not trying to manipulate you or Scootaloo."
"Go away," Twilight said. "I don't have time to talk to nightmares."
Nightmare Moon's eyes flashed a bright green for a second. "Do not make the wrong choice, Twilight Sparkle," she warned, her voice growing deeper. "The consequences will be deadly, for you and everypony else."
Scootaloo looked between the two older mares, then stepped close to Twilight's side. "Yeah!" she said. "We're not gonna listen to a mean liar like you! Right, Twilight?"
"R-right," Twilight said.
Nightmare Moon put her helmet back on and stepped away. She cast a glance back at Twilight. "My offer still stands," she said. "You have two weeks to decide. Two weeks."
The fog making up Nightmare Moon's ethereal body blew away, leaving nothing but shadows behind.
The rest of the adventure was without incident. Once Twilight fixed the bridge, the ponies were easily able to enter the castle. The first major room of the castle had a large circular pedestal in the middle. Sticking out of the sides, like panhandles, were five dishes, each containing a dull gray sphere.
"This is it," Twilight said. "I think these spheres are the Elements of Harmony."
"They don't look like they can destroy Nightmare Moon," Applejack said. "What do we do with them?"
"I don't know," Twilight said. "Claim them? We should probably start by picking them up."
Rarity went first. She used her magic to lift a sphere and bring it to her. It started glowing white, and lines appeared on the surface.
"Shining, save me!" Rarity cried, jumping into Shining Armor's hooves.
"I've got you, Rarity," Shining Armor promised, as Rarity hugged him tightly.
Meanwhile, the lines on the sphere formed into the shape of a diamond, which looked just like Rarity's cutie mark. The sphere opened up, revealing a golden necklace inside. The front of the necklace was the diamond-shaped cutie mark.
"Oooo!" Rarity said. "That must be my Element of Harmony! It's not an artifact; it's jewelry!"
The other girls stepped forward, and each one grabbed a sphere. Pinkie Pie got a necklace which was shaped like a blue balloon, while Applejack got an apple-shaped necklace.
"Mine doesn't seem to be working," Cheerilee said.
Twilight walked up and tapped the sphere with her hoof. It shivered in response and lines flew all over the surface, but they didn't form into any particular shape.
"Huh," Twilight said. "With everypony else, the element turned into their cutie mark."
"Um...Twilight?" Scootaloo said. "It's not working for me, either."
"What? Why not?" Twilight asked.
Scootaloo turned sideways and pointed at her blank flank. "I don't have a cutie mark," she said.