//------------------------------// // The Elements of Darkness // Story: Pony Art Online // by Kaliann25 //------------------------------// “Is something on your mind, Nightmare?” asked Kayaba looking at Nightmare Moon, who seemed to be in an internal debate. “Is about the pony I chose to be the Carrier or the Element of Dark Magic. At first I chose Trixie Lulamon because she was easy to manipulate; but now, thanks to the Black Swordsman, I have to use King Sombra, who is a complete different matter. He’ll betray me at the first chance” “I warned you about Kirito and his friends. Before I met them, I used to underestimate the human will” Nightmare grumped, but she knew he was right. She was starting to think to lock those four warriors in Equestria was a big mistake but it was too late to regret. After all she still had her recently acquired GM abilities; so, if the warriors usually become a true threat against her, she just had to destroy them with it. “Kayaba” said Nightmare after a while, “I need you to send a distraction to the Crystal Empire, one of your most powerful creatures. Okay?” He nodded. “Send me a private message when you finish. In the meantime, I’ll be into Flim and Flam brothers’ dream” “As you wish” said the indifferent Kayaba. … In Canterlot Castle, the silence remained after the warriors’ revelations. The situation was horrible; for the first time in the whole history, the Princesses had to wait for the enemy’s next move. The warriors already used to that, but they understood how the ponies felt. Then, a letter materialized just in front of Celestia. “NO!” she screamed. “What happened?” asked the rest of them. “She made her move. A very powerful monster just arrived to the Crystal Empire and Candace and Shining Armor need our help. They don’t know how long can they retain the beast, so we need to hurry” “Alright” said Twilight. “Girls, I’m going to teleport all of us to the Crystal Empire; so get closer” Kirito stopped her. “You’ll waste too much energy, let it to us. We’ll take us there with the Transportation Crystals” Fluttershy flew to her alicorn friend. “Twilight, you won’t let them come, don’t you?” Twilight exchanged a look with her mentor and nodded. “I’ll Fluttershy, because they’re nice persons and, after all, just children. If we really want to stop Nightmare Moon, we’ll need their help” “But darling, you just said it, they’re just children” said Rarity. “We can’t let them risk their lives just like that, besides we already defeated Nightmare Moon; and remember what Discord said. If they die in here, they’ll die in their world too” Trixie shook her head annoyed “You defeated Nightmare Moon once, I give you that; but they fought Kayaba and defeated him in his own death trap called Sword Art Online. Isn’t that right, Kirito?” He nodded. “Yeah, we already did. But we cannot waste time talking about past victories; we have to move. We’re wasting precious time! He was right; so they all gathered in the center of the hall and the four gamers took some kind of crystal from their inventory. “JUMP, CRYSTAL EMPIRE” A magical aura appeared and made them disappear. … The monster was nothing like anypony has seeing before. It seemed like a Minotaur, but this one was at least six times bigger with kid horns instead of bull. Armed with a gigantic sword, a long and powerful reptilian tail and devastating fire breath the monster was finishing Crystal Empire’s Royal Guard without any effort. It was a desperate situation, if Candace and Shining Armor didn’t act soon, their beloved kingdom would be destroyed by the monster. “Listen!” announced Shinig Armor to his army. “I need you to evacuate all the civilians; Candace and I will buy you all the time we can, but you need to hurry!” “But sir…” “Do as we say Flash Sentry. The first duty of all governors is to protect their people” said Candace. The young guard sighed and ran to follow his orders. But when he finish, he was going to help his governors; that was his duty. In the meantime, Shining Armor tried to delay the monster using a force field to maintain in one place while the civilians were evacuated. Helped by Candace, the both of them contained the creature but it won’t last. “Candace! Shining!” called a voice. Candace and Shining Armor turned. Twilight was flying to them along with her friends, a little filly, two dragons and five strange ponies. “Thank you for coming” said Shining still maintaining the force field. “Please help us, this thing came from nowhere and we don’t know what to do to calm it. The best we can do is delay it, but…” The monster started to use the fire breath to break the force field. In a matter of seconds, he was going to be free. “Twily, go back and call reinforcements. He destroyed a fourth part of our guard in the first ten minutes. Please Twily…” said Shining sweating by the effort. Twilight was going to say something, but Kirito interrupted her. “Damn it, not that thing!” “You know it?” asked Applejack. Asuna and Kirito nodded. “Is one of the Dungeon Final Bosses we fought in Sword Art Online… and we almost died that day. What we should do?” Yui saw at her parents. “It’s okay, mama, papa, miss Fluttershy… that thing is not real. Is just an NPC” The warriors nodded and then, Kirito summoned his inventory looking for his swords. Asuna, Leafa and Silica did the same thing ready to follow the Black Swordsman against the Glim Eyes. “Very well, last time I defeated that thing combining my dual sword ability with Elucidator and Dark Repulser” said the Black Swordsman. “But I’ll need help. Now we can fly, so that’s something on our favor. Leafa, you and I are going to attack the monster from the air. Silica, Asuna please protect us. Maintain the tail away from us, okay?” The girls nodded. Then, Kirito turned to Trixie. “Do you know any healing spells?” The blue unicorn nodded. “That’s the most basic magic; nothing than the Great and Powerful Trixie can’t handle” There was nothing else to say, the four of them ran to the monster who received them with a powerful roar. At his sister sign, Shining Armor freed the monster letting the four warriors attack it. The Gleam eyes attacked Kirito with his gigantic sword, but the warrior easily evaded it with his wings. The monster roared and was about to use his fire breath, when Leafa attacked it from behind making appear the five bars of HP. The Gleam Eyes changed his objective attacking Leafa with his tail; but Asuna immobilized it with her unicorn magic and started to attack too. The monster then turned to Asuna, when Silica attacked the legs. There was too many objectives attacking at the time; but if it wasn’t for the fact Leafa and Kirito had wings, probably they would die. Then, the Gleam Eyes reached Kirito making his HP bar lower to yellow at once. Pina and Spike ran to assist him recovering his lost HP and he flew again to the monster, who received him with fire breath that Kirito couldn’t completely evade; making the HP descend again. “STOP BEING SO RECKLESS!!” yelled a very worried Twilight. “This isn’t Sword Art Online. Remember what Discord said: you can truly die in here” “Sparkle” said Trixie. “They haven’t told you, but this is not the first time they face death into a computer game. When all this end, ask them what truly happened in SAO” Twilight looked at Trixie without understand, but she nodded and continued watching the battle. Candace and Shining Armor didn’t understand what’s going on but they trusted the famous Black Swordsman and the Flash can handle the creature. There was only one HP bar left, and as always, the monster became much more aggressive and improved his attack abilities. But he still was being attacked from all angles and in open field; after all he was a Dungeon Monster. At the end Leafa did the final blow making the monster disappear in that strange fragments of blue light with the message of: CONGRATULATIONS The four of them sat relieved. Thanks for their team work; destroying that monster wasn’t that difficult. “Interesting and all, but can you explain what just happened?” asked Shining Armor. “We will told you all we know, brother, but right now let them rest” said Twilight. “ Luckily this ended well..” but suddenly she turned to the castle and screamed in fear. “What the heck? No way, I thought we already defeated him” The Mane 6 along with Candace and Shining Armor shacked. They all could felt it, King Sombra’s presence. “No way… we were busy fighting that thing that we didn’t noticed…” “Whoever called the monster fooled us but we still have to go!” said Rainbow Dash flying to the castle. The rest of them followed her. Sombra; why Nightmare Moon wanted him? And yes, it was obvious she was the one behind that circus. But what did she want? At the end, they arrived to the Castle. “Show yourselves!” ordered Twilight. “We know you’re in here even if you hide from us” “Hiding from you, you said?” asked a cruel and cold voice behind all of them. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sparkle. We’re not hiding from you, we’re just got bored waiting for you to show” There they were the former tyrant of Crystal Empire and the other self of Princess Luna. Nightmare Moon was exactly as they remembered her: wearing that weird blue armor looking at them with disgusting; so as Sombra, with his old king cape and all; but this time there was something different about him. He was wearing a strange crown with a strange aura. Sombra grinned to them. Candace shacked. “What’s with that crown? I can feel a huge power inside it… just like Twilight’s” Nightmare Moon laughed with madness. “This, my dear, is an Element of Darkness: the Dark Magic. The one Trixie Lulamon should be wearing but thanks the Black Swordsman and friends; that’s not possible anymore. Anyway, a miscalculation but nothing that couldn’t be fix” “Element of Darkness?” asked Applejack. Nightmare Moon’s eyes glowed with triumph. “Yes, my dear, an Element of Darknes. Since my sister found the Elements of Harmony, she has always being in an advantaged position in all battles; but that’s over. Thanks to Mr. Kayaba’s science, I could study the Elements of Harmony and create my own” “Copies” mumbled Fluttershy scared. “Worst: counterparts” said afraid Twilight. They all gasped in fear; so that’s why she took the Elements and returned later, that’s why the warriors were trapped in Equestria. They were too busy looking for the warriors and helping them to find their way home; than they didn’t pay attention to the signature of Dark Magic and its movements. Sombra was in silence waiting for Nightmare to stop talking. The dark Alicorn stared to the warriors. “Now, my greatest mistake was to underestimate your actions. Who’ll say you’ll become Lulamon’s best friends and save her from me? Or than you’ll save that fillies from that cursed place becoming Sparkle’s allies? Well, I still need you in this world so I’ll let you go with a warning: I don’t care if you don’t join me, but don’t ever try to stop me. I’ll keep you all in here until I won, but to make sure you don’t try to fight me… I’ll use my GM powers” The warrior gasped when the alicorn extended her wings and staring at them she shouted: “SYSTEM COMMAND, DELETE THE LOG-OUT OPTION FOR PLAYERS 001, 002, 003 AND 004” Before the four of them, the player option menu appeared showing they were trapped in that strange world from now on. Kirito grumped, but he was already waiting for something like this happened; still, he needed a plan. Then, Leafa fainted in front of them but Nightmare Moon didn’t care. “And just like that time you played Sword Art Online, if someone try to disconnect the NerveGear, you’ll die instantly, also it’ll happen if you get killed in this world. Remember I’m a GM and I’ll kill you without effort if I have to. Said that, the Dark Alicorn disappeared along with her new ally. The ponies looked at the warriors. “Is there anything we can do for you?” asked Twilight. Kirito shook his head. “I don’t think so. Right now, we have to tell Celestia what happened in here and about the Elements of Darkness” “Kirito is right, perhaps we can’t fight her directly, but still we can help you with little things like that” added Asuna. “But what about her?” asked Rarity pointing the fainted Leafa. Kirito sighed. “Sugu uses a different virtual reality equipment: the AtmuSphere. The AtmuSphere is equipped with a security system that prevents her to be trapped in a game; created since the incident with SAO. It’s a good thing because now Sugu can be our contact between the two worlds” The ponies nodded, but they were still worried about the young warriors. Trixie didn’t say anything, but she was the most worried of all knowing what happened to them into the infamous SAO. But there was not time to think about what happened in the past, right now they had a new and powerful enemy to defeat.