As Rainbow Dash sliced through the air towards the ruins of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, the Everfree Forest an emerald blur beneath her and the sky a starless void above, a blinding light flashed into her eyes. Squinting and gritting her teeth, Rainbow pushed on…even as her senses dulled, pulling her far away from the air around her, drawing her into the blinding shadow of a memory…
The cool breeze passed like a thick fluid over her midnight-blue wings as she pushed on through the silent night, breathing in its repulsively sweet tranquility. One faint cloud passed by her side, murmuring gentle nothings into her ear, whispering the secrets of the harsh-glowing moon, with a secret only shared by the night and its children. All of Equestria lay in slumber beneath her…uncaring, unknowing, and dead. The soft light of the moon draped a pale blanket over them, like a mother tucking her child to bed for the very last time.
Sweeping her gaze over the land beneath her, a silent chuckle escaped her mouth, rippling the serenity that was woven into the cool night atmosphere, naught but a wisp of a breeze. Not a single one of the houses below dared to look up upon her, no one dared to even spare a glance to see the truth…but soon they would know. Everyone would know. They would know by the glint of the frozen-blue helmet as she slid it over her head; they would know by the tar-black stain of her fur as she trotted out into their presence; they would know by the blinding pillars of fire that forked down through the air like the crack of a whip, shattering the quiet with a deafening blast of thunder. A storm was coming.
A tiny hint of a smile played across her face, lit black by the glow of the moon.
The throbbing of a painful ache in her wings awoke Rainbow Dash; the first sound she heard was a heavy moan as it painstakingly crawled from her lips. Forcing her eyes open, she blinked once, then twice, to see the silhouette of a dilapidated castle looming over her, washing her with the blackness of its shadow. A loud wind whirled down from the rumbling storm above, opening the doors to the castle with not even the faintest hint of a creak. Following the beckoning aura of Nightmare Moon into the obvious trap, Rainbow Dash calmly strode into through the ancient doorway.
A thundering BOOM blasted out behind Rainbow as the doors slammed shut behind her. Covering her ears and wincing, she saw only the faintest trace of indigo magic fade out from around the doors before complete darkness swallowed the musty hallways of the Castle.
Rainbow glared into the darkness, as if she was staring directly into the eyes of its master. She squeezed her eyes shut and concentrated, feeling the crimson fire that burned in her veins, igniting it and focusing it into the core of her chest, feeling it well up within her Element. Peeking through a crack in her eyelids, she saw to her relief that her Element was blasting light into the hallway, washing the ruins in an ominous yet useful red glow. Flickers of light and sparks of red fire spat out from her Element in every direction, whizzing through the air before the thick shadows swallowed them. Despite that her Element was glowing red-hot and pressed against her chest as if it did not wish to come off, Rainbow did not feel any pain; the Element did not hurt her.
Alone and trapped within the darkness of Nightmare Moon’s control, Rainbow smiled.
Her smile faltered only a smidgen as she saw a thick fog pouring in from the corridor ahead of her; Rainbow’s confident gait paused for a moment as the curtain of blinding grey enveloped her and ever-so-slowly drowned out her light. A nervous bead of sweat formed and then evaporated against her head as she heard an all-too-familiar voice whispering sweetly from the dark nothingness that lay ahead, bringing back memories of a night all-too-similar to this night, on the pathway to this very castle.
“Rain…bow…”
She frowned; her smooth forehead compressed into a worried complexion of ruffles and creases.
“Rain-bow.”
Her eyebrows folded into a glare. Shouting with a voice infused with fiery anger, Rainbow yelled “YOU again?! You’ve got to be kidding me.” Scanning the darkness for the familiar silhouettes of the three ponies—no, not ponies, shadows—Rainbow found nothing.
“Why did you reject us, Rainbow? Why did you betray us?”
The red light emanating from her chest faded from a dim glow to nothingness, consumed by the fog. Trotting through the darkness and the fog once again, Rainbow snorted in defiance. “Get out of my way.”
“We needed you to lead us. We needed you to help us…and you left us.”
“I said…get out of my way.”
“All that we wanted was to make all your dreams come true…and you left us.”
Rainbow let the silence compose her response, still glaring into the fog that swirled aimlessly about her, still looking for the voice who she longed nothing more than to silence.
“YOU LEFT US!!!!”
A heavy body crashed into Rainbow from behind, shoving her into the ground with an unexpectedly powerful force, knocking the wind from her lungs. Rainbow rolled to the side, wheezing, her Element flickering and shooting off sparks into the fog that immediately disappeared. Through the fog Rainbow could see the dark form of a familiar pale-coated mare, her eyes glaring through the black-and-gold mask. A blur and a swish were the only warning before the shadow’s hoof collided with her face, knocking her back and sending her tumbling against the ground, bouncing several times before flipping over and landing on her hooves. Rainbow rose up on her hind legs and pounced into the black shadow of her aggressor, who immediately dissolved into the mist and swirled out of her reach. Glaring up into the fog, Rainbow followed the path of the shadow as it swirled out of her reach and re-formed further down the corridor. Two other shadows solidified next to it, in the same black-and-purple uniform of the Shadowbolts.
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed as the three hovered in the air in front of her, taunting her, waiting, calculating a plan of attack. Not giving them a chance to confer, she shoved her hooves against the ground and pushed with all of her might into the air; her wings were a blur of motion as she sped down the hall like a bullet of crimson energy. Taken by surprise, the three quickly scattered and dodged to the side—but not quickly enough. She felt the satisfying blunt force of one of the Shadowbolts’ bodies crashing into her at extremely high velocity; with the wind knocked out of him, the dark form tumbled onto the ground, coughing up puffs of blue smoke. Before he had time to dissolve into the fog, Rainbow burst to his side and smashed his face in with her hoof. Wounded, the body retreated backwards, fading into the fog, flying back to his master before any more damage could be done.
Before she had a chance even to smile with satisfaction, Rainbow was forced against the wall, pinned down by the two remaining Shadowbolts. She could see them clearly now, the very same forms that had offered her everything she had ever wanted not two years ago, at the price of her friends. She struggled and squirmed, pushing against the wall with all of her might, but her attackers held firm, staring down at her and grinning. Staring up into their golden eyes, Rainbow could see all of her friends staring at her from across that chasm so long ago, expectant, dependent, trusting…
CRACK!
A bolt of blinding red flashed through the hall, scorching away the fog and vaporizing the two remaining Shadowbolts. The image of their mouths wide open in noiseless screams of terror was seared into Rainbow’s vision as she watched them disappear into the fog; as she watched the gray wisps of their essence dissipate into the black hallway behind them, she took a deep breath to steady her nerves. They weren’t real ponies. They were illusions, just like last time.
Nightmare Moon sat still within the throne room of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, silent and calm. The shimmering aura of her mane swirled about her tar-black body like an indigo fog, enveloping her in a cloud of magical energy. Her thick eyelids fell over her glowing dragon-eyes; while any external observer might consider her wholly blind, her vision had transcended her physical form to weave itself into the body of its former home, the great Castle whose halls flowed with air like blood, whose every window stared out into the night, whose walls stared unblinking at every fraction of a movement to occur within the body of the Castle. Her focus was not in the single body that sat motionless in the center of the ancient room, rather, it was in the wisps of wind that flew down the dark corridors; it was in the fog that poured endlessly from her presence out into the abandoned halls.
Thin bolts of electricity flickered out from the black pendant around the Night Mare’s neck, flashing with brilliant light, crashing with silent thunder. Their light shot out into the darkness, splitting the black with dazzling blue, only to peter out in less than a second, giving in to the darkness with ease.
The entire room was eerily quiet; no breeze dared to break the all-consuming silence of the ancient halls. Yet…another noise did.
BLAM!
The deafening crash of an explosion burst through Nightmare Moon’s hearing as a wall of dust consumed the room. Shards of stone leapt from the floor and scattered every direction, pelting her coat with tiny projectiles. Shielding her body with her wing, Nightmare Moon stared in incredulous anger as the fog that had poured from her essence disappeared with the dust, seared by the crimson inferno of light radiating from the body of Rainbow Dash. Tongues of flame spilled across the floor beneath her hooves, making the dead ground glow red-hot.
Glaring down into the ferocious eyes of her antithesis, Nightmare Moon rose into the air on a throne of black cloud, which rumbled eagerly as it hungered for its prey. Twin bolts of cyan light burst from the cloud, spiraling through the room and striking right at Rainbow’s hooves. Her body soared across the room and spun straight towards the wall, but the mare whirled around faster than the Nightmare would have thought possible, landing with her hooves on the wall and leaping back towards the thundercloud. A javelin of red lightning hurdled from her neck, piercing the heart of the cloud. Immediately it exploded into a crimson fireball; Nightmare Moon had to fly up towards the high ceiling to avoid it.
Calling upon her magic, Nightmare Moon blasted down another devastating volley of lightning bolts, a quick succession of blinding spears that whistled through the air as their gleaming points approached the tender flesh of Rainbow’s body. The mare was a red blur as she leapt from spot to spot, soaring higher and higher into the air, flitting like an angry wasp as she approached the Nightmare with righteous fury blazing in her eyes. Nightmare Moon stared down as Rainbow sped towards her…
…and passed right through her body as it dissolved into a cloud of violet smoke. Rainbow smashed into the ceiling at full force, sending a spiderweb of cracks along the ancient structure. Her eyes closed, her wings unresponsive, the mare crashed to the ground with a bloodcurdling CRUNCH. The ceiling above her, the ruins that had stood proud and mighty for so many thousand years, crumbled above her, burying her body in a casket of stone.
Rainbow.
The single word jolted her to consciousness; her mind immediately rose up from the dark void which it had fallen into, the heartless pit of death that festered beneath the blackest depths of every mind and soul. Her mind was clouded and fuzzy; two thoughts tried and failed to connect in her conscious mind. She could not see. She could not hear. She was, to the world around her, wholly dead.
Straining her aching body, Rainbow Dash lifted herself from the ground. Her hoof automatically shot to her eyes as she squinted past the blinding white of the room around her. A frown crossed her face, and her eyebrows sunk down in thought and confusion.
Rays of sunlight streamed down, and as her vision adapted to the blinding sunlight she looked around for the speaker. Her eyes darted from point to point in the ocean of white, but no pony was around. Only…a blue crown of thorns lying dormant on the ground.
Is that it? Is that all you’ve got? C’mon, Dash, you can do better than that.
Rainbow sighed and rolled her eyes as her mind processed the situation, and the identity of the entity that had woken her up. Of course it had to be Pride…
You can’t leave all of your friends behind and give up now. Without you, they could never make it; they could never defeat Nightmare Moon without your strength of will.
A cold shiver ran down Rainbow’s spine. She glanced back at the speaker…but the crown was deep crimson red. A blink, and it turned back to the vibrant blue of the sky, the dominant and protective shade of her own coat.
Another blink, and it was gone. Another blink, and all was darkness.
Nightmare Moon glared down at the heap of rubble in triumph, taking a moment to breathe as she stood over the tomb of her rival. Her Element spitting lightning from her chest, her voice exploded with a thunderous laugh, a laugh that echoed out from the ruins, across the fields of dying emerald-gray and out into the silence of the night.
Something, however, gave her pause. A faint red glow, no more than the flickering of a candle, was trickling out of the rock-pile. She ceased her gloating and returned to the rubble, staring down in disbelief.
“I don’t believe it," she said, her voice softer than a cool night breeze, rising immediately to a thunderous shout: “I DON’T BELIEVE IT! There is no possible way that you could have survived. You didn’t even have the 'magic of friendship' to save you this time!” she yelled down at the pile of dead rocks, watching in livid incredulity as the fiery glow only grew brighter. One eyebrow rose on her face as she waited a minute, then two, and heard no reply. And then, all of a sudden, a muffled voice spoke out against her from within the glowing depths of stone:
“Yeah, that’s true. But, then again, it’s a lot easier to get back up when you have something worth fighting for.”
Suddenly the glow rose up, roaring in an inferno of light. Wisps of smoke began to rise from the cracks between the boulders, now glowing red-hot with power. The Nightmare backed up one step, suddenly unsure, before the pile exploded in her face, and a wave of raw power blasted her backwards, sending her majestic body tumbling through the air, with her shiny protective armor scattered into the wind. Without even a moment to think, Nightmare Moon passed out.
With a sickening THUD, the great and the powerful Nightmare Moon, Terror of the Skies, Bringer of Eternal Nightmares, collided with the stone walls of her ruined palace, spreading a spiderweb of cracks through the grayed and rotten stone. The smooth ocean of black across her coat, its surface normally unbroken and silent, was thrashed and dissonant, scarred with ruthlessly powerful crimson fire. That fire was reflected in the eyes of her enemy, who stood triumphant over her, a glare carved across her smooth cyan face. Waves of red magic poured out from the aura surrounding Rainbow Dash, burning away the gray fog of the room and casting an ominous blood-red glow against the long-ruined walls of the room.
The Night Mare’s mane, so normally regal and powerful, flowing up above her to smite her enemies with bolts of white vengeance, had sputtered out and now flowed out behind her like a gentle stream against the stone, its star-speckled surface now murmuring in pain and defeat. The armor that had adorned her hooves, her face, her chest, and the crown of her head lay splayed across the floor, unceremoniously thrown on the very same ground on which they had been presented to her, on a night filled with secrets not unlike this one so many years ago. The ice-blue surface of these adornments that had once glared at its foes with harsh brilliance now lay dull and stained on the ground, marred beyond repair.
A sharp cough split the air and the silence, and with all of the strength she could muster the Night Mare glared up at her attacker…or so she thought. Her eyes, those dragon-like orbs of turquoise fire, had faded with her strength, seized back by the true master of the night whose soul lied imprisoned within her body.
Rainbow Dash approached the deathly figure, determination in her eyes and a field of red lightning crackling around her neck, casting a faint red glow onto the dark stone floor beneath her hooves.
The pure-black mare lay unconscious on the ground, her armor shattered and her coat burned, fallen from grace. Several blue sparks shot out from the Element attached to her chest, flying out into the air and then fading into the night. Where the red lightning of the battle had struck Nightmare Moon’s pitch-black coat, it had seared the black off completely, revealing a deep midnight blue underneath.
Nightmare Moon awoke, barely able to move in her weakness. Glaring at Rainbow, she tried to stand up…but the pain from her wounds was too much. She let out a soft cry as she once again fell onto the cold, hard ground. The quiet voice which echoed through the chamber, however, was not that of the furious Nightmare, but…it was Princess Luna’s.
Rainbow stopped. She knew that she had to do something to the Mare in the Moon, one of the deadliest threats to Equestria in history, to stop the Nightmare’s cruel anger from ruining the lives of all of her friends, but…she had almost completely forgotten that this mutinous shadow of death was also the pure and just Ruler of the Night, Princess Luna, before she had been corrupted.
She trotted up to the Mare in the Moon, glaring down into those furious, glowing turquoise eyes. Nightmare Moon’s glower returned Rainbow’s hatred in full, but could not move nor retaliate at all. This villain was truly defeated.
And yet Rainbow still was possessed by the flaming desire to destroy this mare, to call upon her Element’s crimson lightning and end this threat once and for all. It would be so easy to simply put this enemy out of her misery, and prove her loyalty to the Kingdom of Equestria…
And yet, that choice would be so easy. So simple.
A cold shiver ran down Rainbow’s spine, as she remembered exactly where she had felt this before. The impulse to end the Nightmare was not something she was compelled to do out of devotion to the safekeeping of the kingdom. It was not a choice she felt obliged to carry out because of her Loyalty to her friends…
No. The feeling which overcame her was the desire for satisfaction of knowing that a threat to Equestria was defeated at the hooves of Rainbow Dash.
She may have defeated Pride once, but…the worst parts of anypony in existence will never truly die. They can only be fought, a fight which will last all of anypony’s lives. Success is measured not in their defeat, but in the ideals one can hold dear to their hearts that become the downfall of their own nightmares.
Glancing down at her necklace, Rainbow noticed that the cloud of lightning she would have used to strike down the dark mare had faded away at the very thought of such a cruel act. A voice began to speak softly into her mind, seemingly out of nowhere, filling her thoughts…
“The Elements of Harmony are not mutually exclusive. Just as they all fill their users with magical energy even though Magic is only one among six, they are not separate entities. Rather, they are at their most powerful when they are combined together…coexisting in perfect harmony. Generosity should not be dishonest, Laughter must never be greedy…”
Rainbow Dash took one last look at Nightmare Moon. The once-powerful alicorn lay helpless at Rainbow’s hooves, shuddering with her eyes squeezed shut, as if trying to keep something within her contained.
“And Loyalty must never become unkind.”
Unwillingly, the bearer of Loyalty sighed. She glanced down at the black mare, whose form now shimmered in the pale moonlight. “Hey, you don’t look so good. Are you alright?” Compassion flooded the scratchy voice of Rainbow Dash.
The voice which spoke back, from deep within the injured body of the cruel Night Mare, was soft-spoken and flowed over Rainbow’s soul like a whispered melody: “You…aren’t going to…kill me?”
“I would never give up on a friend…on anypony. No matter what.” Rainbow replied, forcing a smile to the broken soul who lay below at her mercy. The harsh glow of the Element of Betrayal on the black mare’s neck died, and Nightm…Luna did not resist as Rainbow craned her head down, looking at the corruptive pendant with concern. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
Luna looked up behind Rainbow, staring at something the young mare could not see. Her gaze, so filled with sorrow, hardening; her eyes flashed bright cyan blue, returning to dragon-like orbs of turquoise. Suddenly Rainbow was forced back by Betrayal’s aura, and the midnight-blue patches in Nightmare Moon’s coat sealed, leaving her body to once again become the shade of a black thundercloud that rumbled against the skies. Enveloped by a shroud of blue lightning, she stood up, still glaring at a figure outside of Rainbow’s vision.
Rainbow could only stand and watch as a different pony descended into the room, an alicorn with a pure-white coat which so contrasted the Night Mare’s own. Suddenly, Rainbow recognized the voice that had spoken into her mind, so wise and yet so scared, trying to save the life…of her sister.
Princess Celestia.
Celestia cautiously approached the two ponies, Rainbow Dash and Nightmare Moon, Loyalty and Betrayal. They both stared at her, Rainbow with confusion and her sister shooting back daggers that pierced her heart.
But then…something unexpected happened.
Rainbow shouted, “WAIT!”
The sun goddess stopped, watching in shock as Rainbow pulled Nightmare Moon aside and stared straight into her eyes. A red glow began to shine from the cyan mare’s neck as she spoke, a soft aura that flowed onto her sister’s chest, not a scalding inferno but the warm glow of a hearth: “Now, I don’t care if you hate me…we barely even know each other. But this is your older sister, the mare who ruled alongside you, comforted you when you were weak, cared for you every day when you were young, and never stopped loving you…even when her position forced her into the meanest things that I’m sure she still regrets to this day. Just…try and give her a second chance, okay?”
In the absolute silence that followed, the only noise that could be heard over the dull thrumming of the rain against the crumbled rooftop…was the drip of a single tear as it burst against the floor beneath Nightmare Moon’s blackened hooves.
Taken aback, Celestia could only watch as her sister shuddered in pain. Her black coat began to flicker in the soft moonlight, and she turned her head to look at Celestia.
Her face was that of Nightmare Moon’s, but her eyes…she had Luna’s eyes.
Celestia let forth an audible gasp. She had almost forgotten what it was like to see her sister’s eyes corrupted into the dragon-like spheres of complete turquoise…and then to watch them change back, into the most beautiful sight in the world. So filled with sorrow and pain, and yet so vulnerable…Princess Celestia used all of her strength to force herself to stay standing, and not to rush to her sister’s side; to take her under her wing and nuzzle her and tell her that everything would be all right.
And yet it was not to be.
The Element on Luna’s neck suddenly blasted out a harsh blue light which engulfed the black mare, and she fell to the ground, writhing in pain as lightning consumed her body…
No. Not again. Not ever again.
Celestia called upon the most powerful magic she could muster, from within the depths of her soul, and used it to tug on the Element of Betrayal with all of her might. The black pendant had attached itself to her sister’s skin, seeping poison along her coat and into her heart. It refused to budge.
As she opened her eyes, Celestia noticed the warm, familiar figure of another pony standing by her side. Rainbow Dash gave her a smile, and then turned also to the lightning-infested form of Nightmare Moon.
Magic, a crimson wind of pure magic, began to blow from the Element of Loyalty. It united with the golden beam of magical energy pouring out from Celestia’s horn, and the two beams united as one, together, in perfect unison. Together they latched onto the Element of Betrayal and tugged forth with all of the powers of Harmony.
The storm pendant at first would not move from its position above the heart of the night. Slowly but surely, however, it began to fall to the steady pull of pure crimson and gold magic…dragging the torn black coat of Nightmare Moon with it.
Luna let forth one final scream as the Nightmare in her mind, her scourge and the bane of her existence, was torn away from her. The Nightmare was ripped from her pure midnight-blue coat, tearing away from her soul with an earth-shattering RRRRRRRRRRIP.
A blissful silence descended over the chamber in the moments that followed, broken by a small clang as the Element of Betrayal rattled against the ground. The black corruptive pendant’s aura of raw power had gone, leaving an all-too-innocent looking necklace sitting motionless and dead on the ground, surrounded by pitch black shreds of essence that shimmered on the ground. Slowly they flowed into the Element’s crystal, the lightning gem absorbing all that was left of Nightmare Moon.
Celestia and Rainbow walked towards the figure of Luna, lying on the ground. She had returned to her younger state, her tiny body shivering as tears brought forth by pain and sorrow flowed freely from between her scrunched eyelids. Celestia trotted up besides her, lying down and letting her wing rest over Luna’s body, which was curled up in a tight ball on the cold stone floor.
Luna’s eye shot open, afraid for a moment, before she let the comforting touch of her sister’s wing console her. She glanced up at her caring sister, whose kind smile was a warm embrace to her tortured soul.
A tiny smile lit up Princess Luna’s weary face. Her sister was there for her. Everything would be okay.