Celestia, her brothers, and her sisters arrived at the source of the magical pillar, just in time to witness the magic suddenly dissipate completely. At first they saw nothing, no familiar form of the pony they expected to be in the park and no ponies in fear of whatever they had seen. They were expecting to find their brother Midnight struggling to regain himself after being out of his body for so long, that way they could defeat him quickly.
What they found was a open hole in the center of the park where the fountain had been standing, chunks of stone laying scattered around the place.
"I don't understand," Luna said, studying a chunk of stone while the others looked around the area for clues, "The first thing we should be seeing is our brother amongst the wreckage of the fountain, yet there is nothing that suggests he could have escaped. The destruction of the fountain is evidence that Midnight has been freed from his prison, but where is he?"
"None of this makes any sense," Discord replied, tossing a rock into the air while he spoke his mind, "Midnight played us for fools, making us send the Elements of Harmony, the very keys to his prison, into his domain after he had originally broken it. With each Element brought to bare against the seals that kept him locked away his magic would have returned in full strength and so would have the knowledge on how to use said magic.
But now that all the seals have been broken he should be standing before us, gloating that he managed to trick us into releasing him on accident. Yet, even with all of his planning he seems to have over thought the fact that he might have been trapped someplace else entirely. So I say that it is safe to assume that we have nothing to fear from our fallen brother and should just live life without worrying about him anymore."
That was before something collided with him, knocking him to the ground while whatever had hit him rolled on the ground for a few seconds before stopping. Discord growled and turned to look, only to find that the area around what had hit him was on fire and the object in question was another pony. Or more like Midnight himself, which meant that he had actually succeeded in escaping the Dreamscape at long last.
"What the buck did I hit?" Midnight cursed, straightening his back as he turned and noticed Discord planted in the ground, "Wait, if Discord is here, then that means..."
Midnight looked around him, taking in the cobblestone streets, the brightly lit buildings, the music that was coming from several other buildings, and the ponies that were gathering around him. He realized that he was now standing amidst the destruction of what might have been a parks fountain, not that he actually cared what he might have destroyed. He looked to his brothers and sisters, all of whom he had not seen in over two thousand years, and noticed that they were equally surprised to see him.
"Midnight, it is good to see you again," Celestia said, secretly hoping that their brother had calmed down and no longer wished to fight them anymore, "How do you feel?"
"How do I feel? I feel fantastic," Midnight honestly answered with a grin, "I spent the last two thousand years trying to overcome the seals that you all placed on me while I was in the Dreamscape. I spent every waking hour trying to figure out how to lure each of you my new domain so I could convince you to break the chains you put on me. Imagine my surprise when I learned that my last words had come true, that you all fought against each other and only dear Celestia was left.
I had to wait another thousand years for the Elements to receive new bearers, ones that didn't know I would be lurking in their dreams until I could release myself. My magic, my beautiful magic, began to fade before my very eyes as I waited for the Elements to come to me once again and soon I became an old stallion. My majestic wings became nothing more than a memory and even my memories faded away, leaving me to question who I truly was.
Even when my memories began to return to me I still questioned myself, questioned the fact that I went out of my way to break that which we were assigned to protect. By all rights I should have stayed in the Dreamscape, stayed where my magic couldn't hurt others and built a kingdom worthy of my name. Instead I decided to allow myself to fall into my old patterns, thinking only of breaking what I had sought to break in the beginning."
"Midnight," Luna said, draping a wing over her brother, "What are you going to do now?"
That was the ultimate question. Was Midnight going to resume his two thousand year old mission or had he turned over a new leaf and forsaken all notion of ending the world? If he resumed the mission he would be at war with his family yet again and maybe this time he could win a battle between them all. If he abandoned it then he might very well be welcomed back as Prince Midnight and be forced to endure all the new teachings of the new legal systems.
"I'm sorry Lulu," Midnight said, rather softly so almost nopony would hear him, "I'm sorry."
Before annypony could make a move he blasted Luna right in her side with a stun spell and kicked up a wind spell that blinded them for a few seconds. He used those precious seconds to launch himself into the air and charted a path to the fields below Canterlot. where he would attempt the Breaking yet again.
"I can't believe he did that," Luna said, shaking off the effects of such a low powered stun spell with ease, "and I can't believe that after two thousand years he's still dead set on trying to break the world."
"Some things will never change Luna," Celestia remarked, casting an eye towards their brother, "but we had best go after him and make sure we stop him this...time?"
The ground was already starting to shake violently, as if Midnight had done something to the Dreamscape before his departure into the real world. Giant balls of fire, eerie similar to the ones that had rained down during Midnight's first attempt at the Breaking, rained down everywhere. Celestia's eyes widened as she realized what was happening before them all; it was the Breaking when they had interrupted Midnight the first time.
"Twilight, get everypony to safety," Celestia called out, taking to the skies with the rest of her family in tow, "We'll deal with Midnight for real this time."
"I do hope you have a plan sister," Chrysalis commented, eying the destruction that was already happening, "otherwise we might be in a bind. Midnight might not have much of his magic back already, but seeing what he is already doing means that he's got to have some amount of power left."
"We fight like we did last time," Celestia answered, drawing the power of the sun while they landed some distance behind Midnight, "but this time we make sure that we hit him hard and we hit him fast. We don't want him to get any further then he got the last time he attempted this. And if necessary I could always call on our mother to help us, but that's if we can't stop Midnight."
Magic spun around Midnight and struck out at her, causing the group to disperse as it struck the ground and exploded in a fury of stone and dirt. Luna responded by summoning and throwing a magical spear at Midnight, in the hopes of bypassing his defenses and stalling his vile magic. Celestia had thought the same thing, having thrown a summoned spear at her fallen brother from the opposite direction.
They knew that they had a shot at getting past the barrier spell, mostly because they knew you could only face one direction and defend in said direction. Midnight was going to have to suffer a direct hit from whichever direction he chose to ignore, the question was did he want to suffer sun or lunar damage? Before their eyes Midnight spun around and somehow redirected both of the spears, sending the lunar charged on at Celestia and the sun charged one at Luna. The two sisters barely had time to move as the spears streaked by them, cutting up the ground as they went.
Midnight stared at his sisters, watching them in the air as he sent streams of pitch black magic chasing after the two of them, only to have them blocked by more darkness. Midnight growled and noticed his brother Sombra hanging around in the shadowy mess, saving both of his sisters from the attack. He spotted Discord sitting on a cloud, conjuring what looked like more lightning bolts, while Chrysalis was sulking around them all somewhere.
"Is this the best you can do?" Midnight challenged loudly, his magic cracking the ground around him, "Two thousand years ago, when the world was still new, you all went all out against me, creating the land that we now stand on. Where did those ancient warriors go? Where did the warriors that gave me a run for my coins go? Show me you can still put up a good fight or I will end the entire world right now!"
That was before something crashed into him and tossed him aside, stalling the earthquakes and the fiery balls that were falling from the sky. He flipped around and slammed a hoof into whatever had hit him, revealing a mass of darkness that had to have come from Sombra. He tried to toss the darkness away and found that it was attached to his hoof, allowing him to understand that Chrysalis had snuck her goo into the globe. He grinned, they were starting to treat him like somepony who was actually going to do exactly what he said he was going to do.
And then the entire area exploded in a fury of light as Discord lit the entire place ablaze with the lightning he had been crafting.
"This is too easy," Chrysalis complained, scratching behind her ear while she waited for the dust to clear, "Couldn't we have waited until he was at a higher level of magic so we could have a more fair fight?"
Just as she finished speaking a shockwave of light green lightning came screeching out of the dust cloud, making her eyes widen in fear. The lightning crashed into her body, cutting into her nerves and causing her to convulse before hitting the ground with a dull thud. Her eyes rested on the dust cloud, where Midnight was waiting for the rest of his family no doubt.
"Chrissy!" Luna shouted, her anger going to a whole new level as her sister fell, "Damn you Midnight. How can you do this to your own sister?"
"He doesn't care about us anymore," Celestia answered, blasting away the dust to reveal a magically shielded Midnight staring at them, "He just cares about making sure we can't stop him and breaking the world. I doubt he feels anything for Chrysalis anymore, otherwise he would not have damaged her so much."
Midnight wasted no time bursting into the air, soaring right up to the cloud that Discord was sitting on and barely giving him time to raise a weapon in defense. He slammed Discord out of the sky and right into the ground, breaking the stone apart and burying the draconequus in the ground. Discord coughed as darkness swept over him, Sombra attempting to catch Midnight as the evil alicorn moved like the wind.
Celestia managed to clip his right wing, somehow passing through the barrier and forcing him to lower himself just a bit, but still she was unhappy. Luna smirked and crashed a firebomb right into Midnight's chest, blasting open the armor he had been wearing into a hundred little fragments. Lightning coursed across the skyline and crashed into Midnight, lightly searing his wings as he regained his focus. The immediate reaction was intense and destructive.
Midnight's magic took a firm hold of them and crushed them all into the ground, causing several broken leg bones and shattering the very ground. He turned back towards the circle he had summoned up before, allowing the ground to resume violently shaking and the fiery rain continued. He was not a pony who cared so much about the little things, like the fact that he had not driven his family into immediate defeat and was only allowing them to witness the end of everything.
"Celestia," Discord groaned, lifting his head up to look at Midnight, "Be a dear and summon our mother."
"I was thinking the same thing," Celestia sighed, her horn glowing as she prepared to utter the single word that would help them save the world, "I just hope she's still listening and willing to come back here.
MOM!"