//------------------------------// // Start of Darkness (Fixing Edit Count: 2) // Story: RWBY: Darkness and Harmony // by The P Co //------------------------------// The Sin, beings of darkness, embodiments of negativity and evil of the hearts and souls of ponies, they are powerful, ruthless, bent on eliminating their creators, wiping them from the face of Equus, the planet on which our story takes place. Countless millions of ponies, as well as griffons, donkeys, zebras, and even a few dragons were slaughtered, given only enough time to make peace with the keepers of the afterlife. Faced with a cruel and merciless enemy, the likes of which that cannot be reasoned with, the once peaceful species known as ponies was forced to take up arms against their opponents, but they were weak. Magic failed, speed and strength were useless, and all hope seemed lost... Until they remembered a very important lesson. Princess Luna, who had been avidly living by Twilight Sparkle and her friend's letters of wisdom in the studies of friendship ever since she had returned, realized the way out. They needed help. <> "Perhaps victory is in something that has been taken for granted, something that is valued by a desperate, but sensible soul." the goddess of the night, her majesty Princess Luna, stood on a balcony, listening to the sounds of the crowds below, working out how to stave off the next attack. By her side was her trusted weapon, the Lunar Zanbato, she read the kanji that lined the blade "Luna, goddess of the night, a mare of beauty and magical power.", then read the kanji on the handle "Eternal death before Dishonor" The last time she had used the Lunar Zanbato was when she was Nightmare Moon, a monster that she now had control of. "Sister, if you have any ideas on how to stop this madness, please, speak up." Celestia assured, as now was not the time to withhold information or tactics. Her weapon was the Solar Zweihoofer, it was her own, day based sword. The last time she had used the Solar Zweihoofer was against Luna as Nightmare Moon "Do you remember one of young Twilight Sparkle's lessons long ago, within a few weeks of her permanent relocation to Ponyville?" Luna asked, choosing to go at it from a more subtle, yet logical standpoint. "Um, I have the scrolls, if that's what you're asking." the older sister replied, unsure of where this was going. "No, I am not asking for the scrolls, I am saying that I might know the way out of this, a way that could save us and our subjects." Luna had been improving her speech patterns, and digging up information. "Well, okay, tell me." the solar goddess insisted, now she really wanted to know. "Applejack, the farmer mare, she had learned a lesson early on about being able to let others help you, and I think her epiphany runs deeper in these troubled times." the blue alicorn continued, finally turning to face her sister. "Sister, we need help, divided we fall, but united we will stand. We have to call for help." it was a logical idea at the least, a surprisingly simple solution to a complex problem at best. "Define 'call'." Celestia countered. "Remember the spell, the one you tried to use when I was still the beast, one that ended up summoning a monkey holding a stick?" Luna recalled the rather humorous event, even in the context of NMM bearing down on old Canterlot castle like a ton of bricks and Celestia being desperate. "Yes, I was very disappointed with that, it was far from expected." the alabaster alicorn recalled the event with a few laughs and a sigh. "Well, I found the scroll you wrote the spell on, and I restored it, the runes and equations read out 'A warrior to fight the darkness', I changed it to 'Warriors(s) to fight the creatures of darkness'. If we focus, we could summon help from another world, perhaps one with a more thriving dominant species in a less forgiving world. These beings could assist in ending the Sins attacks." the blue alicorn looked solemn, unsure of herself and her goal with this idea. "We will need more power, sister, you may not have noticed at the time, since you were busy laughing your flanks off, but it took nearly all of my tolerable expending of magic to summon just ONE creature. That is why I couldn't take advantage of your distraction and why your distraction prevented my easily causable death. We will need more power to summon not ONE, but MULTIPLE creatures, if this is your goal." the solar goddess countered again, she had doubts of this plan. "*ahem* Wow, if only we knew TWO powerful unicorns who could assist us in the casting of this highly advanced magical spell. Perhaps even with TWO powerful pegasi and TWO powerful earth ponies to offer help with their own innate magics. If only we knew these 6 ponies that we need, as well as where to find them and how to negotiate with them, it help even more if they also had some sort of set of POWERFUL MAGICAL RELICS at their disposal. Oh wait, I think we DO know some ponies like that, sister. It's also logical to need help in getting MORE help. I apologize for my sarcasm, but I'm 7 days without sleep, so I think you can understand." the blue alicorn ranted in her best sarcastic voice, her simple solution to a complex problem. "Okay, I get it, please stop, we will travel to Ponyville to get assistance from the Element Bearers, we can go know, if you'd like." the white alicorn offered, she was honestly surprised that she didn't think of this idea herself. "Alright, post-haste, we can get their easier and faster if we run. I know it would make more sense to teleport or even fly, but I said it before, I'm 7 days without sleep, I can't do much flying or magic in such an exhausted state, and I know that you've been just as long awake as I have, so I doubt your own abilities with the same. I'm sorry but also, bringing a chariot and a group of guards will only make us a bigger target." the moon goddess placed a hoof on her chin as she planned the trip. "Ugh, you're right, this isn't going to be easy. We should leave now, you have the scroll, and we have our swords, so we're ready to go, now." Celestia noted, "Well, we can start the journey by flight, if nothing else, we would avoid our subjects seeing us like this, and it would help with the whole 'city on a mountainside' type problem we would face." Luna nodded in understanding, and the pair spread their wings and took off. Flying through the sky, a bit slow and quite a bit shaky, the fatigued sisters made their way to the outskirts of Canterlot. They glided from the mountain-side city as far as they could to Ponyville. Canterlot was half a mile up, and Ponyville was 5 miles away, even at their best, they could only reach 4.5 miles by gliding. Landing a bit roughly and folding up their already tired wings, the duo continued the trek on hoof. The landscape around them seemed to regain a bit of green color, but it was all mostly gray. The depressing discoloration was a byproduct of the Sins' influence, power, and presence. Eventually, without this help, the whole world would be covered in grayness and darkness. They heard a howl, some of the Sins were approaching, and quickly. Several Sin timber-wolves, with a Sin alpha, an Ebony-wolf, were charging straight at the alicorn sisters. It was time for a fight. <> Faced with unavoidable conflict, Luna looked to the sky desperately. Luckily, one of the great ponies up there must have seen her desperation, as an angel choir began singing an inspiring tune. Luna levitated out her titanic katana, sniffing the blade. It was coated in a layer of magical polish, a mixture of mint oil and hydrogen peroxide, this was to keep it from being damaged. The blade reached out far, far enough to easily span across her entire forwards and peripheral vision when held out horizontally. She jumped over the first wolf, slashing the second and dodging the third. She turned in time to receive a wide slash at her face, which she guarded with her foreleg, earning a large gash in her usually pristine midnight blue coat, right on the backside of her foreleg. Looking at the pale red blood, whitened with holy power, reddened by mortality, she felt enraged at the marring of her usually incorruptible beauty. She knew that the wound would leave scars, scars that would stay there forever. Bashing the head of the Sin-empowered timberwolf to splinters with the pommel of her katana, she gave the whole body a few hearty chops to keep it down. Celestia was fairing only slightly better, while Luna's style was adaptation, her style was defense=offense, blocking another failed attack, she chopped off another piece of wooden leg. Her adrenaline was pumping fast. She suddenly had a cold flash, her body relaxing almost completely in the span of 2 seconds. This brief period of weakness was long enough for the large beasts that fought her to land their strikes. One claw-group induced wound on the right flank, another on the left wing, she started shedding blood too. Spinning the Solar Zweihoofer rapidly, the glittering golden blade sending multiple blinding flashes of light into the eyes of her targets, the slightly wavy blade catching more light than a normal blade. The small hook on the end stuck first, then the whole wolf was forced against the ground, then swung over and down in an overhead slam, followed by a stabbing, a shaking, and a slash to kill it. With her half of the enemy finished off, she picked off pieces of wood that had gotten caught on her sword. There were smushed splinters all along the wavy edge and even some caught in the sun shaped crossbar, the sword had been designed so that the blade was essentially a 'solar flare' coming from the crossbar. Luna had sustained another wound, a single cut across the left cheek, when the sisters had split off, Celestia had receive four normal Sin wolves, where as Luna had gotten three normal Sin wolves, and the Ebony Alpha. The Alpha was much larger than the normal wolves, the normal wolves were about five feet long, one foot wide, and two feet tall, the Alpha, which also had the option of bipedalism, was twelve feet long, four feet thick, and six feet tall. Standing on two legs, as it did now, it was closer to fifteen feet tall, the long limbs of its limbs suspending it high into the air. Luna merely stabbed it in the magical center, disrupting the magic that kept it together, which caused it to fall. But the Sin empowerment brought the center into focus much faster than normal. The energy collected the twigs, sticks, logs, and all other sorts of wooden pieces together again. Luna delivered more slashes, but they did less and less, until finally it seemed as though the goddess of the moon was swinging at air for all the good it did. Celestia drew back her sister, grabbing her with her magic and pulling her over. "We need to work together on this, do you think you can keep up if we do the Sky's Wrath?" she asked quickly, watching the Alpha wolf pull itself together quicker and quicker. "Of course, but it will take a lot of power, if I wasn't hyped up on adrenaline, I'd probably pass out." Luna informed, turning to the Alpha wolf again. White and blue, blue and white, together they had more power than almost every other pony alive. Even if all ponies alive were all combined into one. The sky darkened slightly as the deity level magic was cast. The stars appeared and shone with the intensity of the sun, the sun turned blue with climbing temperature. The moon came up, shining gray with dark magic, the sun was fully blue. The two beings of terrible power, of corruption beaten into submission and used as a puppet, proper devilish beings. Nightmare Moon Supernova Sun Nightmare Moon wore white armor with cyan accents, crafted of the forged white stone of the moon she fought for and the cyan salt of the oceans that she moved, both under her command. Her blacker-than-black coat and starry cloud of a mane were hauntingly beautiful. Supernova Sun wore pink armor with black accents, crafted of the iron from her enemies' boiled blood and the charcoal of plants that thrived and died by her power, both under her command. Her orangey-white coat and orange fire of a mane were stunningly beautiful. The sun and the moon, light and dark, fire and water, day and night. They were opposites and yet they were equals. The sun was blood red with hellfire, the moon was dark gray and black with the void. The Alpha wolf's soul was banished from existence, the body burned to ashes, and then the ashes burnt to nothingness It was a little excessive, but they were desperate and currently lacked some of their higher thinking skills, the unholy power coexisting with their holy forms faded, leaving them normal. The sun returned to its cheery yellow, shining normally as though it wasn't just used in a holy smiting spell. The moon slid back to its assigned position in the sky, which was over some other part of the world. Walking slowly, they were more tired than before, but determined to not fall asleep. Their subjects, all the ponies, griffons, zebras, dragons, and whatever else, they needed them. And they would not give up. <> Twilight Sparkle, once the Student Archmage of the Canterlot Academy School for Gifted Unicorns, now appointed the First Archmage Guardian of Ponyville, it was her job to make sure that the town was well protected and the citizens were ready in case of an attack. Luckily, all of the Elements Bearers had been promoted to an officially recognized position of power with a very wide scope of authority. Rarity was the Second Archmage Guardian of Ponyville, because she lacked power in her magic that Twilight had, though she did have a finesse that Twilight lacked. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy were appointed Valkyrie Messengers of Warning, if Border Patrol spotted something that was getting through, it was their job to inform the masses to preparation. Of course RD was the First and Fluttershy was the Second, but ponies knew that if they called for attention, it was important. Fluttershy had even mastered speaking at a normal volume from the job, though she was unhappy about leaving her animals at her cottage. However it was too far away from town and too close to the Everfree Forest to include in the borders, but she could sleep at night knowing that her animals weren't harmed by the Sin. Sin creatures only went after sentient species. Applejack and Pinkie Pie were appointed First and Second Master Border Guards of Ponyville, with Applejack as the First, it was their duty to make sure no Sin creatures got into the town, magical posts had been placed at twenty five foot intervals, marking the 'borders' of the town with what could be considered magical electric fences, though they were weakened by the distance. The two earth ponies patrolled three hours a day, three times a day, every day, watching out for dangers that might attempt to break in. Other ponies also joined the patrol, it was easy, seeing as how the main two requisites were the abilities of fast galloping and loud screaming. Applejack was on patrol at the moment, pondering the several fancy inventions that were recently made in times of war. Gunpowder was improved upon, less smoke and more force, which was surprisingly not mutually exclusive. Improved metals and other physical materials with better hardness and wear resistance. It was all mainly improvements to previous things. With the new gunpowder, cannons could be made smaller, and with that, came the idea of a hoof-held cannon. Several months had passed, feeling like centuries, and now Applejack possessed a weapon made by one of the many manufacturers that sprang to life with the new demand for weapons on the market. Horce Smith and Stallien Wesson, the company known as Smith & Wesson, she had a model Twenty Nine, if six shots of the concrete tearing Forty Four magnum cartridges didn't kill it, then it was a problem worth reporting. She had considered a 'Samuel Boy model 1911', which fired Forty Five Automatic Boy Pistol, but the Boy Pistol cartridge lacked the power the Forty Four magnum had. She peered out into the grayed landscape, looking for dark splotches or other types of discrepancies. The orange farmer mare saw two figures, blue and white, slowly trudging towards the town's borders. They looked medium sized for Sin creatures, but Sin creatures were rarely white and almost never blue. The only account of a blue Sin was a report from the dragons on a Sin-empowered Ursa Minor attack on Vulcan Complex, the only thing that dragons had that resembled a civilization settlement. Even dragons could be overpowered by many numbers of larger Sin, and Applejack gulped at the possibility of a Sin Ursa Minor that was within seeing distance of the town. A flash of silver and gold, a signal meaning other non-Sin traveling to a sanctum of light. As the pair got closer, Applejack recognized them immediately. Luna and Celestia, they were walking slowly towards the borders and looked hurt. Sprinting out to them, the apple family pony met them halfway. "Yer highnesses, welcome to Ponyville again, if ya don't mind me askin', why are ya walkin'?" AJ asked as she began to walk backwards in front of the regal siblings. She saw why after taking a closer look, her face must have given the assurance that there was no explanation needed. Both sisters were bleeding lightly, wounds mostly sealed but still leaking small amounts of pale red blood and clear plasma. They looked fatigued, disheveled, they seemed to have not slept for several days, and their less-than-pleasant smell hinted that they might not have bathed for a similar time period. The trio of ponies made their way to the border, Applejack calling for a chariot for them all, taking courtesy for the tired royals. A few minutes passed on the slow ride As they were being pulled through the city streets, a random pony jumped onto the chariot, cackling madly and attempting to batter the royals and Master Border Guard, the mare's face looked gray, she was stricken with Sin infection. *BANG* A loud splatter of blood, bone, and brain matter hit the road, the practically detonated head of the corrupted mare was gone, and the body shoved off of the chariot, which had stopped the second a disturbance was felt. "Somepony get this corrupted pony out of town, and clean up the mess, we can't have their Highnesses getting infected." Solemn and morbid faces met hers, nopony could believe that the main two beacons of hope for survival were almost choked, left to suffocate and die. Applejack was a bit sad, the blasting of her revolver was like a reflex, something she never would have thought of doing. She tossed her revolver to another member of Border Patrol, she didn't care who it was, she just recognized the face from the roster. A bit horrified at how easily she had committed the act of killing, she looked down, seeing the exhausted alicorn sisters sitting down, inviting her to do the same. "I'm sorry for what just happened." all three of them said at the same time. *blink blink* "Ah didn't even think 'bout doin' it, ah juss did, and ah feel awful for lettin' that become reflex." the farmer mare apologized. "I'm sorry that things like that happen, that mare probably had a family or something of the sort. It was a shame that such a thing happened to cause an innocent life to end." Celestia stated, too tired to manage different tones. "I am sorry that you have to see us in such a state, a state in which we cannot fight off a single attacker. We had not long before you found us defeated a pack of Sin-empowered timber-wolves, with an Ebony Alpha. We're both a week without sleep, and the royal bath has evaded us for some time as well. We are wounded as well, take us to Twilight Sparkle, we have an idea that might save our land." Luna explained. She didn't notice that by the time she finished her explanation, the Books & Branches Library was already in front of them. Looking all the way up, the two sisters fainted at feeling small compared to the behemoth product of arboriculture. Both alicorns unconscious, Applejack jumped out of the cart and opened the door to the library. Twilight was inside, her sarma, an old method of making a magical staff, made by magically growing a tree branch lengthen and expand, twisting its way to hold onto a large gemstone. The nature essence of the wood offset the input-output ratio, the gemstone acting as a catalyst, easing the burden of casting magic and increasing the efficiency. The result was less input for more output. The magical staff lay across the center table, where the lavender unicorn was also reading a book. It amplified her already mammoth skill and capabilities of magic, since she used a silver-wood, a rare and very magical wood, and a large diamond, the hardest and most magically capable of all gemstones. "Hey Twi, ah gotcha an early Hearth's Warming Eve present." Applejack joked, the few pleasantries and formalities she and the princesses shared eased her nerves greatly, but she still made futile attempts at lightening the grave mood. "Ooh, what is it?" Twilight asked, turning her attention from her bland (even for her) book to her friend. "Not just one, but two princesses, horns, wings, crowns and regalia included." the orange farmer revealed, bringing in the sleeping sisters on her back, despite her joking words, she was actually doing a headcount of everything the princesses had, making sure that they still had their fancy shoes or, more importantly, their wings and horns. "Oh my, this seems serious." Twilight stated cautiously, looking intensely at the princesses. She was trying to keep calm, but the floodgates opened and she began to bombard her farmer friend with questions. <> "Okay, this is serious." Luna stated cautiously, looking intensely at the 6 mares in front of her. After the duo was laid on a spare bed, slept, awoken, bathed, and fed, all of the Element Bearers were gathered at the library for the important meeting. "I have an idea on how to stop the Sin, this is what we will do. Since Twilight made a sarma staff, it will be easier. My sister and I will channel our magic through it, and through all of you. Since all ponies have innate magic, even though the methods of its use vary, we can use the power of each of you to bring to us, 'Warrior(s) to fight the creatures of darkness'. We may even be able to bring multiple beings through at a time, the idea is to bring in help from another world, a world in which hopefully the warriors in question have more experience, more skill, more power, more weapons, and just overall more ability to fight this evil. Will you help us in the acquisition of more help?" the goddess of the night debriefed, looking at each of the ponies before her. A few moments for the words and implications to sink in were had, then the myriad of agreements. "Yeah, we need it anyway." Rainbow Dash said, landing and looking determined. "Oh my, it seems dangerous, but we'll definitely die if we don't do it, so I'll go with the lesser evil here, I agree." Fluttershy considered her options before siding with the plan. "Mighty simple solution, but it might not work, but like Shy said, we'll definitely die if we don't do it, so I'm all for it." Applejack piped up, agreeing wholeheartedly "Ooh, this seems so exciting, but scary, but exciting too, oh, I'm saying YES!" Pinkie bounced up and down while she spoke, the words came quickly and loudly, followed by a silent grin and shaking hooves, though she had stopped bouncing. "Darling, in a decision between chance of life and definite death, I'll choose life every time, thank you very much." Rarity gave her eloquent approval. "I'm willing to do anything to stop this cruel, impious, lurid madness, I'll do it." Twilight thought hard, she really wanted her peaceful life back. "Very well, everyone gather around." Celestia instructed, placing her sword crossed with Luna's against the sarma as it stood upright on the floor. Magic, lots of magic, like, several fuck-tons of magic, I can't even provide proper narration because of how much magic their is. It's like, enough to blind someone, a myriad of colors, the sarma shining like a star, the library could catch fire like this if it wasn't magically fireproofed. When the light faded, everypony was more than a little tired. Their efforts were not in vain though, something had come from the spell. A lot of somethings, actually. Red, White, Black, Yellow Yellow again with some black and red, Maroon (kind of) and Gold (kind of), Green and a bit of pink, Pink and a bit of black. Green with some blue, Ocean blue with some white and some gray, Gold with lots of white and some gray, Darkness black with some sparkles and some gray. Green, a lot of it, Black/White/Purple, and some Black and Red yet again. Luna and Twilight counted fifteen figures, each with a different scheme of colors and all seemed dangerous. Wait, one of them is standing up now. "Ugh, where am I... huh? What the....*LE EPIC GASP* PONIES!" the girl shouted, her silver eyes full of mirth and joy.