The World of Dreams manifested as an infinite space full with hundreds of doors appearing and disappearing randomly all over the place. Nopony, with the exception of Luna, had seen it before; so she leaded the group to guide them.
“Each door represent a little pony’s dream” explained Luna. “When the little pony wakes up, the door is gone; as simple as that”
They keep advancing silently. It was when Trixie noticed than some doors irradiated some kind of sinister red light. She was about to say something, but Luna smiled at her calmly.
“Allow me to explain” said Luna guessing the magician’s question. “The red glow indicates a nightmare; the most terrifying the dream is the most the door glows. When the glow is too much, is time for me to interfere; but recently, I’ve only interfering in the children’s dreams. If only I’d interfered in the adult’s dreams too, we probably could stop Nightmare before she selected the bearers of her Elements of Darkness.
“We already stopped one of them” tranquilized her Celestia. “But, where are you taking us sister?”
Luna sighed.
“You have your Palace, I have mine. Deep into this world, I built it centuries ago. I haven’t used it since I turned into Nightmare Moon. The perfect hiding place for her”
“And there’s something we need to know?” asked Leafa. “Any hidden dangers?”
“Probably, but not from me. If is true she turned that place into her operation base, probably we had more than one surprise waiting for us”
“Specially is she’s working side by side with Kayaba” grumped Kirito.
They kept advancing, but only for a while. There they were, Luna’s old Palace. And just as they feared, Nightmare did several modifications all over the place; surrounding the Palace with some kind of winter landscape with gigantic mountains made of some sort of crystal. Kirito prepared his black sword.
“This is Kayaba’s work. In this mountains lives a giant white dragon who feeds from crystals and breaths some kind of cold fire; that can freeze you in a matter of seconds” warned the warrior.
“What did you get for killing that innocent creature?” asked Fluttershy bitterly.
“I didn’t kill it, I just borrowed his excrement” smiled him. “Because he feeds of crystals, he produces an special metal called Crystaline; the most durable metal in all Aincrad. Thanks to that metal, my friend Lizbeth forged me the Dark Repulser”
They stared for a while to the blue sword and kept walking. In the middle of the way, Spike had the brilliant idea to take a piece of crystal and taste it. After licking his lips on delight, he offered another to Pina; who tasted it too with a warm smile. At the end, the two lovebirds walked eating their delicious treat. Suddenly the group stopped when they heard the breathing of a large beast.
“Damn it” mumbled Asuna.
The dragon felt their presence and roared while breathing the cold fire all over them. Alicorns and unicorns joined forces to create a wall of fire to protect the group and themselves from the imminent freezing. The flames froze immediately, but successfully protected the entire group.
Kirito flew to the beast with his two swords prepared already. The dragon only thought in get rid of that annoyance breathing the cold flames; but Kirito dodged it with grace in the air. Rainbow Dash joined him in the air as a distraction forcing the dragon to divide its attention to two different targets; three when Leafa joined. Fluttershy stayed on the ground, knowing her famous Stare wouldn’t work in a virtual monster.
After flying in circle for a while, Kirito started to change his target and dashed to reach the dragon’s head.
“Keep his attention away from me! I only have one chance!!” commanded the Black Swordsman.
The other two pegasus nodded and speeded up their maneuvers around the dragon infuriating the beast more and more. Finally Kirito reached the head and stuck his two swords on it. The beast roared in anger and started to fly in circles hoping to make fall the annoyance and eat it; but the Black Swordsman had other plans. He pushed his swords to the right forcing the dragon to move in that direction; then he tried left with the same result. The dragon kept fighting, but Kirito already had the situation under control and started to make bigger circles approaching more to his friends every time.
“Everypony listen to me: when I came back to this side, I want you to jump on the dragon!!” shouted Kirito suddenly.
There was no need to repeat it; when the beast came closer, all the ponies jumped on it. Twilight helped Rarity and Pinkie Pie with her magic; Luna helped Applejack and Trixie and finally Celestia helped Silica, Pina and Spike. Fluttersy grabbed to one wing the best she could while Asuna grabbed to her hoof.
“Isn’t this the same thing you did with Liz when you fought this dragon in Aincrad?” yelled Asuna.
Kirito grinned and made the beast to advance closer to Nightmare’s castle.
“Get off the dragon at the count of three. One, two, THREE!!
Once again, they did as he said. And once the dragon felt free from Kirito’s swords, he flew back where he came from. At the end, Kirito was again in front of the group ready to stop the Nightmare. Fluttershy stayed a while looking at the poor dragon, but quickly joined to her friends. After all, that monster wasn’t real.
But suddenly, a black fog surrounded the beast and started to hurt it with red lightings that lowered the HP bar more and more. The ponies screamed in horror when a last and devastating attack finished the whole HP and made the dragon disappear in blue fragments of light.
“Useless beast” said a cold and evil voice. “You supposed to keep them away, not bringing them here”
“King Sombra!” yelled Twilight when her Element started to react at Sombra’s.
A dark magic beam reached her, throwing her to a wall while the black fog crowed around to finally form a gray unicorn with dark mane and red and green eyes.
“You know?” said the dark unicorn. “She thought you wouldn’t find us so easily; but I’m glad she was wrong. Wait as an idiot is not my style. I wanted for you to come and have the stupid idea to confront us. Thank you for give me what I wanted so badly”
Applejack and Rainbow Dash attacked at once to Sombra, but another powerful attack threw them away. Applejack raised her head to see who attacked them. She couldn’t believe it.
“Flim and Flam… I thought I got rid of you forever”
“Well surprise, surprise; you didn’t” said one of the twins. “Here we are now, as Bearers of the Elements of Fraud…”
“…And Betrayal”
“And we see an opportunity; an opportunity to have our revenge from that one who humiliated us in that community”
“Come on Applejack” groaned Rainbow Dash offering her friend a hoof. “Let’s show that pair who we really are”
Applejack accepted her friend’s hoof and both of them attacked their opponents. Rainbow made several acrobatics in the air periodically charging against Betrayal; while Applejack was using her rope to immobilize Fraud. Fraud was dodging the cowgirl’s attacks throwing rocks against her using his magic; but Applejack was a complete expert and using her powerful forelegs she launched herself just a couple of meters in front of Fraud and caught his horn. The movement was so unexpected than the other brother fell from a tackle from the cyan pegasus.
Betrayal wasn’t going to let the things like that, he concentrated his magic on his horn but Rainbow Dash started to punching merciless in the abdomen. Applejack was less violent and just tied the unicorn and knocked him out with a single tackle.
Applejack grinned. “A fun fact about unicorns is than they depend too much of their magic. If you are able to prevent them to use magic, they’re yours”
In the meantime, Sombra was evaluating his opponents in the air. He was fighting against Twilight, Rarity, Trixie and Asuna; who prepared horns and sword ready to take whatever Sombra had for them. Sombra laughed hysterically and created a wall of innumerable crystals around the unicorns; special crystals that only grow bigger when they were hit directly with a magical attack.
“COME ON, CHILDS!! At the ends, the only thing that matters in duels is the experience. Do you think you can handle THE HIGHEST LEVEL UNICORN?”
Trixie smirked. “That’s something you should ask to yourself because, TRIXIE IS THE HIGHEST LEVEL UNICORN!!” Then she turned to Pina and Spike. “Ey dragon kids, are you hungry?”
They shook their heads; in fact, they ate too much crystal but that problem was nothing that Trixie couldn’t handle. She casted an spell in the dragons (avoiding contact with the crystals) making them really hungry; more hungry than ever. Controlled by that strange hunger, they started to eat the crystal cage freeing the unicorns in just five seconds. At the end, the dragons burped a little while Sombra raised an eyebrow.
“Wow, I never saw that one coming. Still…”
Sombra created sharp crystals and started to launch them against the girls. Asuna jumped in front of them and started destroying the crystals with her sword showing why she was called ‘The Flash’. Celestia and Luna arrived and started to shoot magic beams against the dark unicorn forcing him to stay on defensive. Asuna saw her chance and teleported behind Sombra; then she started to attack him with her sword. Sombra, didn’t know what to do; they were too many objectives and he was only one. Grinding his teeth, he attacked Asuna with a sharp crystal. The crystal forced Asuna to move back while the rest of the team were taking care of Sombra. At the end she finished the crystal with a quick move.
Everypony noticed than instead of her HP bar, she showed several cuttings. The girl moaned; this really hurts.
Trixie healed her. “Try to be more careful, this is your real body now”
When the Flash fully recovered, she noticed Sombra was on the same position where she left him. With a warrior’s scream, she attacked Sombra again who didn’t had the chance to react. He was concentrating his attention on Asuna when Silica appeared and started cutting him with her dagger. An HP bar appeared above Sombra and started to diminish.
The dark monarch roared in anger; but there was nothing he could do. When his HP bar reached the yellow, Fluttershy came and took away his Element of Darkness. The dark unicorn fainted, he was finally defeated.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack approached with the other two Elements of Darkness ready to receive more instructions. Kirito stayed calm with his two swords ready; just as Luna and Celestia who prepared their horns.
“It’s over Nightmare” shouted Luna. “Your bearers are down; and one of them even betrayed you. What else you can do now?”
A dark aura surrounded the Elements of Darkness and those floated to Nightmare Moon, who was approaching slowly but threaten.
“Very impressive, I give you that. But there’s nothing you can do against me. Use your little Elements? Sorry but I can easily protect myself with the counterparts. Besides, here I’m like a Goddess. Don’t you see it? I shall win!!”
“Keep dreaming, the World of Dreams is UNDER MY COMMAND” shouted Luna.
Nightmare Moon laughed evilly and floated above them.
“THIS ISN’T THE WORLD OF DREAMS, YOU FOOL!! THIS IS THE VIRTUAL WORLD; AN SMALL PORTION OF YOUR BELOVED DREAM TURNED INTO MY PERSONAL PLAYGROUND. AND NOW IS TIME FOR YOU TO TASTE MY REAL POWER. SYSTEM COMMAND: ACTIVATE ALL THE SECRET DOORS”
As she said, all doors opened clearing the way for all kind of monsters; from Equestria and Aincrad. All the minor enemies once they fought but in incredible numbers. This was just as the final boss in Alfheim Online; an unbeatable swarm.
Kirito and Asuna looked each other and nodded.
“Leafa” said the Black Swordsman, “we’ll do the same strategy we used in ALO. I need all of you to clear the way and Asuna and I will take her down. This ends here and now”
“But Kazuto Kirigaya…” tried to say Celestia, but Luna gently put her hoof in her mouth.
“We’ll do as you say, Kirito the Black Swordsman, Asuna the Flash. You better hurry”
The two warriors charged against Nightmare Moon while the rest of them made a circle to keep the monsters busy. Spike and Pina stayed on the center of that circle, ready to heal anypony who needs it. The real battle was going to begin.
Nightmare Moon just laughed ironically.
“You’re kidding, righ?”
No, they weren’t. The two of them started to attack her without mercy. She created a force field to keep them away but Asuna used her magic to make a breach and then Kirito could attack freely. When Nightmare felt the two blows over her body she screamed in anger and started to send magical attacks to the warriors who quickly split up to dodge them better.
Nightmare sighed and conjured a floating platform over the chaos.
“Fine, if you want to fight me, so be it. Say your prayers because this is the end”
Asuna and Kirito ran to Nightmare Moon with their swords on hoof. She rolled her eyes and said bored:
“System Command; diminish the HP of players #001 and #002 to zero”
Nothing happened except than the two warriors plunged their swords on her. She screamed in surprise and raised in the air to avoid more attacks; but Kirito threw her the Dark Repulser that stuck deeply on her. She froze by the surprise; giving Kirito the chance to fly to her and recover his fight to keep attacking. Asuna launched several magic beams against her that impact fully on the dark alicorn.
Nightmare Moon groaned.
“This is not possible! How are you still alive if I already commanded you to die?”
“That doesn’t work on real ponies” explained Kirito. “And that’s just what we are. Using the same spell you used to turn our daughter to real we became real in this world too”
Nightmare Moon and everypony on the first floor gasped in horror. “That means…”
“Kazuto Kirigaya and Asuna Yuuki are dead now” said Asuna “Now we are just Kirito the Black Swordsman and Asuna the Flash”
Nightmare Moon’s expression turned from surprise to laughter.
“Oh give me a break” she said laughing loud. “This is just too rich; I don’t know is the bravest or the dumbest thing I ever heard, hahahahahaha!! Very well, if that’s what you want, here I am. Nopony has ever defeated me before without the help of the Elements of Harmony. What can you do, little children?”
They reassumed their battle; but Nightmare Moon was too powerful for them. Her automatic regeneration was too high and nothing than the warriors did caused a real damage to her. It was a matter of time than the warriors get tired and she could easily get rid of them.
In the lower level, the battle ended a moments ago and all they could do was watch what was happened up there. Celestia couldn’t restrain her tears; the kids sacrificed too much for the safety for a world that wasn’t their own. Even Fluttershy started to think they weren’t bad at all; no, they were great warriors who gave all just to save Equestria. She felt so ashamed to be so mean to them.
At the end the yellow pegasus concentrated all her energy on the Element.
“Fluttershy, what are you doing?” asked Twilight.
“Nightmare Moon is right, the only way to defeat her is with the Elements of Harmony” declared Fluttershy firmly. “We have to help them no matter what. Twilight, there’s a way we could concentrate the power of the Elements on them?”
The purple alicorn nodded. “Yes there is. Girls, Fluttershy is right. We have to help them or this isn’t going to end well. LET’S DO THIS!”
The Mane 6 formed their circle of friendship and floated to the battle; where they concentrated the rainbow shot to the fighting warriors.
Asuna and Kirito felt how the power was now into them; making them much more stronger than ever.
“NO… NOOOO!!” screamed Nightmare Moon when she noticed her HP lowering more and more. “THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING, NO!!”
“I’m really sorry about this” said Kirito. “We know we promised not to hurt any other living being in Equestria, but some ponies never learn”
They kept fighting against a now powerless Nightmare Moon. Protected by the Elements of Harmony, none of the attacks could do nothing to the warriors.
They were destroying her, the HP bar already was in red. Asuna smirked.
“Kirito finished the Ursa Major; Silica finished Ruby and Leafa destroyed Gleam Eyes. This final boss is MINE!!” screamed Asuna making the final blow.
Nightmare Moon vanished into sparks of blue light screaming in agony. It was the end; she was finally defeated. And this time once for all.
They sighed really tired; they really completed this game. When the platform vanished just as her creator, the rest of the ponies approached to the winners slowly.
Kirito saw his wounds.
“Well, I guess I have to get use to it; this body can be hurt too”
Asuna hugged him. “Perhaps but at least we won”
Princess Celestia approached them with a serious face. “Do you know what you done? You quit everything you had; and just to save a world that wasn’t yours. Now I want to know why. Why did you do such thing?”
Kirito sighed smiling.
“The decision was taken in the moment I realized everything was real and Yui had to stay forever in this world. The only thing I knew was I wanted to stay with my daughter, and that was the only way”
Asuna kissed him.
“And I had the same idea. If we wanted to stay as a family, we had to do this. But if we were going to stay forever in Equestria; the least we could do was save it from danger”
The Princess started crying and hugged them.
“You’ve done a great service to Equestria and I’m really thankful for that. I can’t give you back the life you left behind but at least I can make your life in here whatever you wish for. Is the least I can do”
“No sister, I’ll do it” said Luna approaching. “Nightmare Moon was part of me and I was the one who freed her allowing her to do all this. The service they just did was for me and I should be the one who thank them for that”
Celestia nodded and allowed her sister to continue. Luna cleared her throat and smiled to the warriors.
“From now on, I, ruler of the night, decree than the warriors known as Kirito the Black Swordsman and Asuna the Flash will have an honor position in my personal guard. They’re still too young but still the position will be waiting for them, but that’s if they want it”
Asuna and Kirito bowed to Luna and hugged her playfully; who hugged them back.
“Thank you… thank you for accepting” said Luna. “And I’m sorry for all the trouble I caused you”
They were too tired to speak but warmly smiled to Luna; there was no hard feelings.
“Bravo” said the calmed voice of Akihiko Kayaba, who was walking to them. “A very interesting demonstration of skill and human will; or should I say pony will? Well, it doesn’t’ matter. The important thing here is than you two get over this difficult test as a family and I’m proud of you”
Twilight frowned. “You must be Kayaba”
The programmer nodded. “I’ve being watching all this time and as I said, I’m really surprised”
“Can you help them to have their lives back?” asked Luna.
He shook his head. “They were beyond my help in the same moment they became real. I’m sorry”
“You’re a despicable being” grumped Yui.
“I don’t deny it, YUI-MHCP001, but I don’t care neither. I already have the data I needed to continue my investigation of the reach of the NerveGear. But still, I think you deserve a prize for defeating me one more time. System Command, make a restitution of the Log-Out option for players 003 and 004”
The white screen appeared to Silica and Leafa with the deleted option back in the right place.
“What about the Elements of Darkness?” asked Celestia angrily. “I can’t tolerate the existence of such things, so please can you take it away from my kingdom?”
“Sorry but I can’t” said Kayaba. “The Elements of Darkness are her to stay; Nightmare Moon made sure of it. But at least I can give it to you so you can decide what to do with them. Object ID; Elements of Darkness!”
A box that contained the Six Elements of Darkness appeared in front of Celestia.
“All yours” said Kayaba, before starting disappearing.
“What are you going to do now, Kayaba?” asked Kirito.
“My conscience is still floating on the internet; so I guess whatever I want. We’ll met again, Kirito. Probably.
And the man disappeared. Definitely it was the end.