//------------------------------//
// Chapter Three: Not Day 
// Story: Ducenti Septuaginta Septem 
// by Capacitor 
//------------------------------//



Part One: The Prophecy, The Princess and The Portal
 

Chapter Three: Not Day




"Il'Fnalthag wgah'thul | k'ngla-sroth | ph'nglu Ul'Nar fthal. 
Ngafhl asthko | il'Fnalthag Ul'nar y'thail | obr'thet k'ntum lhenja.
Asthka-Kh'lsty | Nthali-A'monordin uk'dh | etnoc'ktah fnie."
—Sand Song, 483 before Nightmare Moon



"The Nightmare will be defeated | by her sister's hooves | and banished into the Moon.
The stars will aid in her escape | as Nightmare Moon shall return | on the longest day of the thousandth year.
A star guided by the sun | will assemble the six | and end the night eternal."
—Sand Song, 483 before Nightmare Moon, translated by Goodwyrm, 7 after Nightmare Moon



[Equestria, Everfree Castle; 1st of Summer Solstice in the year 1000 after Nightmare Moon]



“Attention, please! Attention! This is an emergency!”

The magic voice echoed through the forsaken halls, waking up the old stallion sleeping in his cell. His eyes fluttered open, his eyes darted around in confusion.

“Attention! This is an emergency! This is a pre-recorded message!”

He groaned and sat up, shaking his head to get rid of the remaining sleepiness as the synthetic voice blared on.

“An anomaly has been detected. All facility associates are to remain calm and wait for instructions.”

A short but ear-splitting burst of static noise interrupted the announcement while the automated systems chose the next bit of their tedious message.

“Sunrise is one hour overdue according to schedule.”
-static-
“This event is occurring as scheduled by the schedule. There is no reason to panic.”
-static-
“This event is part of the scheduled return of Nightmare Moon.”
-static-
“Prediction correlation ratio is 98.1%.”
-static-
“Please receive instructions from the current communication executive. The current communication executive is encouraged to contact the chief schedule supervisor for direction. If there is currently no communication executive available, feel free to panic.”
-static-
“This has been a pre-recorded message. Thank you for your attention.”

He lost no time and got up, glanced at the note pinned to the wall, skimmed through the instructions for the spell that the Listeners had been using for centuries to commune with the Watcher. 
Recalling how to cast it, he closed his eyes and focused on the ancient magic that connected him to the voices. After a brief mental struggle, his horn flared with magic and slowly, the whispers began. They started off as a distant sound, then grew, faint echoes joining soundless utterances until they became the silent murmuring of an uneasy crowd. From amidst the mumbling masses, a small choir rose, solemnly overpowering the whispers with calm force. 

'Speak, mortal.' 

He shivered. “Nightmare Moon has returned as foretold.”

He hated this form of communication. He never knew what the other side actually received, but he was sure the other side knew perfectly well what he received. He silently suspected it to work as some kind of one-way window.

'What is the prediction correlation ratio?'

“About ninety-eight percent.”

'Good. Access the mandatory participant observation room. I will need you to take some readings.'

In silence, he hurried along the clean corridors until he finally reached the door he was looking for.
The room behind it was not particularly large or impressive. It was shaped like a regular decagon and bare apart from the walls, which were covered in steel and plastered with gauges, lamps, meters, counters, indicators and all sorts of displays for various kinds of variables. Every display was accompanied by a small label etched into the steel and featuring a unique identification code. 
One side of the room was occupied by the door, the remaining were all marked by a larger label and a red notification light. Most of the lights were dark.

'Check the notification lights. Are any of them burning?'

“E4 and L are on,” he informed the voices.

'What does E4-B-CA indicate?'

“E4-B-CA, E4-B-CA... ,” he muttered, scanning the labels until he found a rather strange indicator.
“Er—smiling face, crotchet, tree, blank, blank, blank,” he listed the pictograms.

'So it has already come to this. You do not have much time, so I will not repeat these orders. 
First, get to the relic storage and fetch the big sculpture labelled “Elements of Harmony (1-5)”. Carry it to the surface, drape some plant matter on it and place it in the middle of the entrance hall. Now head to the Lunar throne room, which is in the ruins of the northern tower, and hide. If you have done that I will give you a spell to cast. 
Go now.'

He wobbled through the facility as fast as his old legs would carry him. He was a little confused and scared, but, for the most part, excited. 

Back then, it had been a welcome change from the routine of boredom and he had embraced it as his own small adventure. How foolish he had been.

The relic storage was not very big, but nonetheless gave off a hint of grandeur. If you passed the twenty ton stone door, you'd find yourself in a round domed chamber featuring racks and cases on the floor and shelves and niches in the walls. Everything was minutely labelled, even the things that were missing, as some empty spots attested. An empty mannequin resided alongside a heavy lead coffin engraved with runes of binding, a high shelf groaned under the weight of forbidden works that included ancient prophecies, dark rituals and colourful drawings.
At the centre of the room, right under the everlit chandelier that illuminated the room stood the most ancient of all relics, the mysterious Elements of Harmony, five stone orbs placed on a great stand of the same material. They contained a power that could level mountains, cause storm floods and earthquakes and then undo them in the blink of an eye. Sadly, they were inert ever since the day their former wielders had turned against each other and their mystical bond to the Elements had been severed and broken, turning the Elements to grey stone.

In this room stood the old Listener on his quest given him by voices he heard inside his head.
He sent a reproachful glance to the skull of a pony that had long been dead when Nightmare Moon first reared her head. Then he turned away, focusing on the task at hoof and enthusiastically wrapped his telekinetic grasp around the Elements of rock. Naturally, they were heavy like hell, which turned his attempts to gracefully carry them somewhere into a desperate struggle that involved the lopsided sculpture grinding across the floor, which in turn caused some ugly scratches in the latter.

It took him almost twenty minutes to finally reach the surface, where he quickly gathered some moss and vines to conceal the fact that the sculpture had been polished on a monthly basis.
The order, or rather what was left of it, was a secret after all and everything had to look like the most powerful artefact in Equestria had just been lying around somewhere in a forest without anypony bothering or searching for them. That would at least be the official story.

When he dragged the most improbably inconvenient item into the ruins of the main hall, where all Listeners had been initiated, he heard, not too far away, a mare shout “Rainbow!” 

That was strange, he had to admit. Why would anypony shout 'rainbow' in the middle of the night / sunless day / you name it?

'They are here. Hurry!' The voices returned with unyielding force. 

Frantic, desperate and sweating he pushed the Elements inside the concentric circles on the floor that marked – something important. It had happened long ago. It was the reason why all Listeners shouldered the burden of the voices right here, just as he had nearly eighty years ago. Whatever.
As he turned to head for the Lunar throne room, he heard hooves clattering up the front stairs, approaching the gate. He froze in dread. He would be seen, there was no time to get away!

The voices swelled to a tide, a chanting tide that uttered an incantation with unfathomable force. Instinctively, he joined the verse, washed away by the torrent of words. As he finished the spell, his own shadow rose up and swallowed him.
For a moment, all was darkness. Everything was gone, it what was all that was left. There was no where, there was no when, there was only darkness. It was in him and around him, it was eternal and absolute. At that time, he first welcomed the darkness as a friend, a friend that had saved him.

He released a quiet sigh of melancholy when he stepped out of the shadows behind the great seat in the  Hall of the Moon, which has served as a throne room for the Lunar Diarch in days gone by. For a second, he hesitated, his eyes searching the long hall. Then, he dodged behind one of the wide, plant-infested pillars.

“Er – O great and old Watcher, thy humble servant hath courtfully fulfilled thine request.”

'Shut your trap and cast this spell.'

The trick in question proved to be a quite tricky one. After he tried the spell for the second time, his left ear went deaf and his left eye went blind, both accompanied by a numb pounding and a weak, throbbing pain in the respective body parts. He wanted to panic, but the whispers didn't let him.

'That was supposed to happen. The spell worked as intended. You are not permanently crippled, at least not more than before. You merely lent me an ear. And an eye, obviously.'

A shriek echoed through the undefined time of day, followed by multiple ponies exclaiming “Twilight!” in spite of the moon hanging boldly in the middle of the dark sky.

'Calm now, we have to watch out that nothing goes wrong.'

With a burst of smoke and light in the centre of the room. Peeking around the column and through the dissipating swirls, the Listener saw that two ponies had teleported into the throne room.
One was a young purple unicorn sprawled out on all fours, the other was a great black alicorn clad in light armour, Nightmare Moon. The five useless rocks of Harmony floated around her in mid-air.
He frowned. For what little he knew of things to come, he knew that these very artefacts were to vanquish the Nightmare once again. So, what was she doing with them?

Nightmare Moon chuckled very evilly and lightning danced around her.
The unicorn, however, didn't seem very impressed by this inadequate use of high voltage. As soon as she got on her hooves again, she struck a menacing pose and lowered her horn, preparing to charge.
The Nightmare, however, didn't seem very fond of this display of bravery.
“You're kidding. You're kidding, right?”

For once, the Listener couldn't help but agree. No mortal had any hopes of taking on Nightmare Moon horn to horn. This was madness!

The brave mare charged with a grunt of determination, magical energy building up at the tip of her horn. Nightmare Moon started moving as well, though with a very bored expression.
The former and the latter approached each other in full gallop, horns directed at each other, the two of them heading towards a crash that would undoubtedly result in a dead unicorn and an alicorn complaining about blood stains on her coat.
The crash of course never came. In the last moment, the purple filly blinked out of existence.
The Listener's searching eye quickly found her at the other side of the room, next to the throne, amidst the cold stone spheres that laid on the ground.

'Ha! Outfooled.' The rumbling sea of whispers sounded almost like applause. 

“Just one spark!” The unicorn stooped down to the inert artefacts, her horn again shining with magic.
“Come on, come on...”

'What the hay does she think she is doing?'

The stone orbs began to glow as well.

'Simple resonance effect. I already know that you are an Element, girl, so get the other Elements and activate them together. Pity she cannot hear me.'

Nightmare Moon landed in front of the unicorn, who was sent flying across the room. Whatever had happened had been to fast for him to make out. The Elements still crackled with residue oscillations, which somehow made the Nightmare totally lose it.

“No. No!” She wildly eyed the stones down at her hooves.

When the magic dissipated, however, she started laughing with relief. 

The other mare seemed less happy. “But – where's the Sixth Element?”

With a mad roar of laughter, Nightmare Moon reared up and shattered the five orbs to pieces.

'The megalomania complex, again. They both just do not get it, do they?'

The Listener swallowed. For a moment, he'd thought the Nightmare breaking the Elements would've been the end of the order's plans, but the calmness of the voices told him otherwise.

“You little foal! Thinking you could defeat me? Now, you will never see your princess or your sun. The night will last forever!” the corrupted alicorn gloated, then broke into a loud, echoing and quite crazed laugh.

'Oh dear. If she weren't due for a blast with the Elements, she should really get a psychiatrist.'

While Nightmare Moon continued to have a madness-induced fit, the Listener could hear several pony voices approaching.

'There. She finally sorted it out.'

The unicorn was sitting upright and gasping for air, her eyes widened.
“You think you can destroy the Elements of Harmony just like that?” she interrupted Nightmare Moon's excessive horselaugh with a smug grin. “Well, you're wrong. Because the spirits of the Elements of Harmony are right here!” While she had spoken, her friends, two earth ponies, two pegasi and another unicorn, had arrived at her side.

When the shards of the fractured spheres shook and rose into the air, Nightmare Moon quite intelligently remarked “What?”

The purple unicorn answered this thoroughly witty question by resuming what was becoming a lecture on harmony.
“Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of Honesty.”

'That is one name. Finally some useful information.'

“Fluttershy, who tamed a manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of Kindness.”

'That makes two.'

“Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of Laughter.”

'Three. Nice to be reassured.'

“Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift, represents the spirit of Generosity.”

'Four.'

“And Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own heart's desire, represents the spirit of Loyalty.” 

'Five.'

As she spoke, the shards flew to their respective bearers, orbiting them while glowing with magic.

“The spirits of these five ponies got us through every challenge you threw at us.”

“You still don't have the Sixth Element. The spark didn't work.” Nightmare Moon grasped a last straw of hope, her tone betraying the edge of despair.

“But it did. A different kind of spark.” The young mare turned to her five companions. “I felt it the very moment I realised how happy I was to hear you, to see you, how much I care about you. The spark ignited inside me when I realised that you all are my friends!”

With a shining light, a sixth stone sphere materialised a few metres above her head, causing everypony to look up in awe and wonder. It slowly descended to an altitude at about twice its bearer's height of head, illuminating the hall with a blinding light that made the Listener's eyes burn and the alicorn turn away and shield her eyes with a wing.

“You see Nightmare Moon, when those Elements are ignited by the – the spark that resides in the heart of us all, it creates the Sixth Element, the Element of Magic!”

When these words were spoken, the Elements of Harmony fully re-entered their active state and bonded with their bearers. The shards lit up in brilliant, vivid colours and fused into ornamented golden necklaces around the ponies' necks. As the Sixth Element manifested as a regal tiara, the six ponies were lifted into the air. They emanated white light as godly powers channelled through them to create a massive rainbow arc of harmonious magic.
Fortunately, Nightmare Moon had by now regained enough composure to quote many a villain's last words. “No! Nooo...”

Then the rainbow hit the ground at her hooves, swirled up in a tornado of colour and flooded the world with harmony. Only a small, crumbled blue heap of an alicorn remained of her, a lighter shadow of her former self.

'That makes 8s establishing the link to the bearers and 17s defeating the Nightmare. Acceptable,' the whispers documented after the arcane fallout had dispersed.

“Can we go now?” the Last Listener begged, blinking furiously at the after-images of the bright flash. He had felt the amount of magic thrown around by the Elements and was confident that such a blast must have sent all of the machines to go haywire. He needed to check on them.

'Not yet. I am still missing one name. Besides, they would see you.'

“Oh, my head.” The pegasus, Rainbow Dash, came to her senses, proving that with great power comes great headache.

“Everypony okay?” asked a concerned Applejack.

“Oh, thank goodness.” Rarity had only eyes for her magically restored and elaborately styled tail.

“Why, Rarity, it's so lovely” Fluttershy complimented her friend on her new one-sixth-of-all-powerful fashion accessory.

“I know. I'll never part with it again.” Rarity, however, was obliviously admiring her own backside, so Fluttershy decided to be more direct.

“No, your necklace. It looks just like your cutie mark,” she pointed out the shape of necklace's centrepiece gem.

“What? Oh, so does yours.”

'Are all mortals that clueless?'

“Look at mine, look at mine!” Pinkie bounced through the room in her usual hyperactive demeanour.

“Aw yeah!” Rainbow approved of her necklace in which a lightning-shaped gemstone was embedded.

The Listener simply stared. These mares had just defeated the alicorn of the moon, saved Equestria from eternal night and now had no other concern than trivial, idle banter? He was positively shaken by the attitude theses ponies seemed to have.

“Gee, Twilight, I thought you were just spoutin' a lotta hooey, but I reckon we really do represent the elements of friendship.” Applejack seemed a bit shaky, but otherwise happy.

“Indeed you do.” As the sun rose over the horizon to end the not-day, Princess Celestia herself appeared in all her glory inside the ruins of Everfree Castle.

Now the Listener was really scared. The Eye in the Sky, the ever-watchful goddess, the Lady Sun, the Mistress of the Inferno, the pony he feared most of all had arrived. Shivering and shaking, he crept deeper into the shadows beneath the pillar.

“Princess Celestia!” While everypony but her and the grumpy old stallion behind a column bowed to the Princess of the Sun, the Element of Magic pranced over to the god empress.

“Twilight Sparkle, my faithful student.” – 'So that is her name. Thanks, little sunshine.' – “I knew you could do it.” Celestia proudly smiled down at her protégé. 

Twilight Sparkle somehow seemed to doubt that. “But you told me it was all an old pony tale.”

“I told you that you needed to make some friends, nothing more. I saw the signs of Nightmare Moon's return and I knew it was you who had the magic inside to defeat her. But you could not unleash it until you let true friendship into your heart.”

The Last Listener to The Watcher was flabbergasted.
“She knew what would happen. That means she must know the plan. But how can she know the plan? Does she know—”

'She knows what she needs to know to play her part. She thinks all of this is her plan which is why she expected this to happen. But she knows about neither you nor me.'

Meanwhile, Princess Celestia turned to the pitiful remainder of Nightmare Moon.
“Now if only another will as well. Princess Luna.”

The latter was lying on her abdomen, shrunk and weak, surrounded by the shattered remains of her armour, gasping in sudden fright as the great ruler of Equestria addressed her.

“It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this.”
Celestia slowly approached the quivering mess of a blue alicorn and sat down in front of her.
“Time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister.”

'Oh yes, you were. It was decided to be your destiny,' the voices commented grimly while everypony else gasped “Sister?” at the shocking revelation. The Listener only blinked in silent confusion.

“Will you accept my friendship?” Celestia rose to her hooves again and expectantly eyed Luna, who was still lying on the ground.

At first, Princess Luna hesitated, but then she threw herself at her sister, tears running down her cheeks. “I'm so sorry. I missed you so much, big sister.”

“I've missed you, too.”

'Good. Nothing of the Nightmare seems to remain in her. I am glad everything worked.'

Seconds later, the reunited diarchs and the Elements were sweeped away by an over-enthusiastic Pinkie screaming about 'party', leaving behind a grey old pony who mused about how he had lost his name and his tears to an incorporeal being that talked inside his head. Both must have died with his parents, even though a small part of him suspected there had never been a name for him. His predecessor had always said that he would be the Last, and that would be his destiny.

After he had pondered for some minutes while standing in the warm sunshine that entered the Lunar throne room through the grand windows, the whispers ordered him to take the broken bits of Nightmare's armour and put them into the designated display case.

He gladly returned to the darkness beneath his hooves.