"And the bridge is out." Sunset stated, looking across the giant chasm at their destination, the Ancient Castle of the Two Sisters. "You know, at this point I'm not even surprised anymore. I'm not sure if my lack of surprise is a good thing because I'm learning, or a bad thing because now I expect everything to go wrong."
"Yeah looks like it's been cut." Masquerade confirmed, examining the posts on their side. Staring into the thick, billowing fog, she notes "But from what I can see the rest of the bridge is fine, we just need to reattach it on this end, though a few of the planks look rather worn do we'll need to be careful...why is everypony staring at me?"
"Nothing really dear. We're just impressed you can see it through all that fog at all, let alone well enough to judge its condition." Sweetie explained.
"Fog? Awww nuts, hold on a second." Mask said. She then started squinting one eye, then the other, then both, and then started throwing in head tilts. Just before somepony decided they needed to check for a concussion, she frowned. "Yep, there it is. We have illusory fog."
"Illusion?" Twilight asks, setting her horn aglow. "I...wow you're right, it's masterfully subtle. How did you know?"
"Twinkle eye. We see with magic, so illusions have a really hard time affecting us. Let me tell you, it makes working with non-practical effects a pain in the rear sometimes." Mask replied, assuming a more normal stance. "Anyway I found that I can kind of see illusions if I look at them funny. How did you think I dodged Nightmare Moon's first trap?"
"Huh. I never actually thought about that." Sunset admitted, before panicking slightly "And by that I mean that there was a lot going on and a failed to notice, not that you're not worth noticing, I mean I'm just thick not to think of that and get distracted by rhyming zebras well okay there was only one zebra but still there was a lot going on and it's really my fault for not noticing and" Any further rambling were cut off as RD stuck her hoof into Sunset's mouth.
"Oh no need for more drama. None of us noticed, on account of nearly dying and Zecora." the multi-chromatic pegasus assured her.
"Anyway, the problem as ah see it is that that there looks like another trap the varmint set fer us. Probably set ta snatch ya two if ya fly in." AJ reasoned, looking at their airborne members with concern. "And since ya'd be flyin, I doubt you'd like whatever hitcha midair."
"Which is why I'm dismantling this trap right now." Twilight said, horn glowing even brighter. "We do not have time to deal with any more of Nightmare Moon's shenanigans! Princess Celestia needs our help, and I am not waiting around!" Then suddenly her eyes shown with a brilliant darknes...
****************
Twilight looked around the swirly, foggy, featureless plain. "Augh! I triggered the trap? Well whatever, I can totally break the illusion."
"Oh, already? But I haven't even told you my mistress's offer." a Mini-Moon that had appeared from nowhere next to Twilight purred.
"Not interested." Twilight said. "And from what Rainbow said, all I have to do is beat you to wake up."
"Don't be so sure about that." a second Mini-Moon pronounced from where it reclined.
"She had...certain advantages in the dream realm. But lucid dreaming won't work here." a third one flying overhead noted. "This isn't a dream after all."
"She also decided to...reinforce this one." the fourth Mini-Moon stated, walking from out behind Twilight. "So it really is in your best interest to hear us out."
"I highly doubt that." Twilight protested. "You have nothing to offer me, unless it's surrender and freeing Princess Celestia."
"Now why would you want little old sun butt back when we can offer you something better?" MM 1 asked.
"Power." 2 replied.
3 chimed in from above. "Enough power to make you greater than even Starswirl the Bearded, enough to make him look like a foal's party entertainer."
"And all you have to do is renounce Celestia, who is not even around anymore, and swear allegiance to Nightmare Moon, who basically already rules the world." 4 summed up rather nicely.
Twilight just stared at them, jaw dropped, for a good long moment. Then she collapsed to the ground, rolling about in a fit of laughter.
"What's so funny?" 1 demanded, rage smoldering in its eyes.
"It's just, haha, oh my, ha, Rainbow was right. You guys are terrible at this. Probably comes from having to use your boss's point of view." Twilight explained as she finally calmed down from her laughing fit. Standing up she explained. "Listen up because I am only going to say this once. I have too much power already. What the bloody Tartarus makes you think I'd ever want more of the stuff?"
"What?" 3 asked, genuinely confused.
"There is no such thing as too much power. Ponies always crave more." 4 objected.
"Not so. On both accounts." Twilight countered, shaking her head. "See, here's the thing. I'm dangerous. Very, very dangerous. I probably would have wound up making a massive disaster years ago if Princess Celestia hadn't taken pity on me. When I got my cutie mark it was during an out of control magical outburst. My special talent, you see, is Magical Catastrophe, I'm a literal walking disaster. Afterwards Princess Celestia fixed everything and, instead of locking somepony as dangerous as me far far away, took me on as her student. She taught me discipline and how to control my magic. Without her guidance and care, I would probably go down in the history books as a horrendous natural disaster, a destroyer of cities, a monster. I owe Princess Celestia everything, and there is nothing you can offer, say, or do that will ever make me betray the mare I owe my life to!"
"Don't be so sure about that." Mega-Moon 1 said, as its fellow constructs also assumed their giant size. "I'm sure after a time under our "care" we can convince you otherwise."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that." Twilight's voice boomed, providing its own echo and reverb. Her eyes were blazing portals of white light, and an aurora of violet magic swirled around her. "See, here's the thing. You're not real, so I don't have to hold back. Since you seem to recall what Rainbow did, I'm sure this question will be very familiar. Want to see what I did to earn MY cutie mark?"
And then everything exploded.
****************
Twilight's eyes suddenly started pouring out a dark light. "Aw nuts, I think Twi got caught in the trap." Dash noted, facehoofing at the predicament.
"Right, I'll try and smack her out of it." Masquerade said, but as she was trotting over, Twilight's eyes suddenly flashed a brilliant white and she stood up tall. "Woah, um Twilight, you okay?"
"I feel great! That was very therapeutic. You're right Rainbow, those magic constructs really are bad at the whole temptation thing. Oh look, illusion's gone." Twilight then proceeded to levitate the bridge back into place. "Sunset I believe you have a rope fusing spell?"
"Right, on it." Sunset replied, splicing the ropes back together. "Also throwing in some basic reinforcement so it doesn't break while we cross. Man that nap really helped recharge the old mana reserve."
"Well, by my estimates it was a two hour deep sleep, so of course it restored a good bit." Twilight responded. "Though I will admit I wound up using a good chunk dismantling her trap."
"So, what did the idiot offer you?" Dash asked, honestly curious how the spell had failed this time.
"It offered me power in exchange for betraying Princess Celestia." Twilight stated matter of factly. "The bridge looks good, we can cross now everypony...Sunset why are you laughing so hard?"
"I'm sorry, but you, the Faithful Student, betray Celestia? It should have asked for something more viable. Like you eating your own head. And, and it wanted you to betray her, for power? You, one of the two most powerful unicorns on the planet?"
"Yes. I already pointed out how stupid the offer was before I opened the can of magical whoop-flank." Twilight replied, rolling her eyes. "Let's just go girls. We have an evil alicorn to stop."
****************
"Are you, umph, sure these rocks are the, urn, Elephants of Harmony?" Dash asked, placing the last of the five giant stones on the ground. "Cause if I almost got a hernia for nothing I'm going to be pissed."
"Elements, not Elephants. And yes I'm sure. They have magic I can detect in them, even if it's dormant. And they're powerful enough that Sparkle and I can't affect them with even a levitation spell." Susnet explained, examining the white granite orbs closely. "The book said that we need to activate them in order for the sixth element to appear. So now all we have to do is work out how. Twilight you're not that good at artifice, no offense, so can you help the others guard the area while I figure this out?"
"Of course." Twilight said. "Come on girls, let's set up what we can and keep an eye out for any trouble." Walking over toward the doorway and casting some alarm wards out into the forest, she was surprised when Applejack walked up to her. "Applejack, what's the matter? You look upset."
"Well it's just, how was that not offensive? Didn't she just call you dumb?" AJ asked, trying to understand why Twilight was so unphased.
Twilight shook her head, seeing how the misunderstanding could have occurred. "Oh no, not at all. I have almost no training yet in artifice...uh the study, use, and making of enchanted items. I've been focusing mostly on raw spellcasting in my studies, and she has several extra years of study on me even before you factor in her independant study from before she became one of Celestia's pupils. It's let me really close the gap on spellcasting compared to Shimmer, but when it comes to stuff like this she's the expert."
"If you say so." AJ conceded. "Wait a cotton pickin' minute, you're saying when it comes to castin' spells you're almost as good as her?"
"Um, yes." Twilight admitted, blushing a little. "Like I said, I was very focused. The price I paid was that Sunset's more skilled than me in other areas of magic than just casting spells. I'm sort of a 'one trick pony', even if that one trick has a lot of uses."
Meanwhile, unaware of the conversation taking place twenty feet away, Sunset was muttering to herself out loud as she examined the mystical relics after her first attempt to activate them. "Hmmm, doesn't seem to be an electrical charge, so 'spark' wasn't literal. It seems to work on a frequency resonate feedback loop that they broadcast to each other and is received by...none of them? That doesn't make any sense, they'd just build up energy with no way to release it, and I don't care how powerful something is: anything that generates infinite power five times over with no way to use it would destroy itself. So what uses the...energy...of course!" Sunset shouted, jumping to her hooves in her excitement. "The sixth element is the one that uses the power the others generate! If I get them to resonate with enough energy, the sixth element is bound to appear!"
"Great, stop talking about it and do it!" Rainbow shouted, turning around and glaring at the unicorn in impatience. "Hurry up before-" She was interrupted, however, when a cloud of dark mist blasted past her, sending her tumbling through the air for a few seconds. She could still though, as that same black cloud surrounded Shimmer and the elements in a swirling vortex of darkness before they vanished. "Before Nightmare Moon attacks us again."
"Everypony, I saw a flash of light in the tower over there!" Sweetie shouted, pointing at the eastern tower that was still standing. "Let's hurry! Sunset needs our help!"
****************
Sunset looked about wherever she was in a panic, unsure what was going on. And then she got slammed across the room by a back hoof. Getting back on her hooves, she looked up and saw her opponent. "Oh great, you're here in person. Wonderful. Simply bucking wonderful. Could today get any worse?"
"Not for you little mage. Your defiance shall cost you your life." Nightmare Moon bellowed, though thankfully not at the earth shaking levels from before. "We have so decreed it to be thine fate. And what we hav so decreed shall be, for we are power supreme!" Lightning swirled around her mane, as she flashed wickedly sharp teeth. Sunset's response was to lower her head and scrape her front hoof across the floor in challenge. "Surely you jest?"
"I do not. If I'm going to die, let it be with at least some honor." And then Sunset charged. Nightmare Moon accepted the challenge, lowering her own head for her counter charge.
Jousting was an ancient method of dueling used by unicorns who were unsuited for a duel of a more mystical sort. It was only ever practiced by those with little skill in the magical arts. In the time of Nightmare Moon, no spellcaster would ever be caught engaging in the barbaric sport, and as such she figured the unicorn before her lacked the magic needed to put up a decent fight, as evidenced by the perfection of her technique. This Shimmer had clearly had to defend her honor many times without aid of spell. To bad for the little foal that she had total advantage this combat.
All of That would have been true if jousting was still as Nightmare Moon remembered it. Nopony dueled to the death these days; such a thing had been illegal for centuries. Instead, thanks to modern safety equipment, jousting was now a sport. One Sunset used to be prety serious about in her youth. Serious enough to have studied the sports history and know what the Nightmare would think of her jousting skills. As such she could easily imagine the mad Alicorn's shock when, in a moment of masterful spellcasting, she teleported instantly past Nightmare Moon and, without losing momentum, reached the Elements. "But if it let's me live screw honor! Sixth Element, comming up!" And then she started pouring all the magic she could into them.
Nightmare Moon stared in horror as the stones began to glow brighter and brighter, hovering in the air. "No! We won't be defeated again!" Suddenly...the glowing stopped, and the stones fell back to the ground. Seeing the unicorns shock, Nightmare Moon laughed. "Hahahahaha! We were foals to be scared of you, a mere mortal!" Taking a great leap into the midst of the Elements, the force of her landing sent the upstart unicorn flying. "Even wielding Magic, the Sixth Element, thou couldst not wield the artifacts! They are proven to strong for any mortal!"
"Wait? The sixth one is Magic?" Sunset asked, confused. "Wait, that doesn't match with the others. Something's not right here..."
"Ah yes, the others. Allow us to take care of that." And Nightmare Moon stomped her hooves, and the Elements of Harmony shattered.
"Oh no! We're too late!" a voice cried out. Turning around, Sunset saw all of her friends there, having rushed into the room a moment too late.
"My friends?" Sunset asked, turning it over in her head.
'No no, it can't be that simple. That's just stupid.
"Indeed, not one of thee have the power to defy us!"
'Wait, that prophecy, how did that end again?
"Yeah we'll, I ain't giving up!" Dash said, assuming a martial ready stance. "I've got a blackbelt in striking thunder, and I'm not afraid to use it. Whose with me?"
"I ain't got any fancy fightin', but I do have good old rasslin' and buckin'." AJ replied, determination on her features.
'Augh! Why can't the idiots who make prophesies make them easier to remember!''It was in rhyme! That's pretty easy to remember!'
Twilight noded, horn glowing. "My brother gave me a few lessons in combat training. Admittedly I wish he had given me more and I'd payed better attention, but it's the best I've got."
Sweetie just shook her head. "I'm afraid I've never been one for violence, but I'll do what I can to help. What about you Masquerade?"
"Relax, I've got this." Mask said, her smile only a bit forced. "I've been in hundreds of fake fights. We've already practically won."
'Won! The many shall become one! That's it!' "That's it! I've figured it out! How to use the Elements to beat Nightmare Moon!" Sunset declared triumphantly.
"Um, that's nice dear, but I think it's a little late for that." Sweetie said, patting Sunset's shoulder. "She kind of already destroyed them."
"No she hasn't! The Elements are right here! They're us!" Sunset declared, still feeling the euphoria of her epiphany.
Nightmare Moon rolled her eyes. "It seems thy friend has gone mad in the face of death. Pitiable, but understandable."
"Oh you wish. Applejack," Sunset quickly turned to the farm pony in question "when I was hanging on for dear life, you spoke the truth to me, even when I didn't want to hear it. You knew what had to be said, whether I liked it or not. You are the Element of Honesty!"
From the pile of rubble, several shards, now turned into bright orange crystal, started to circle around Applejack. "What in the?"
"I'm not done yet! Sweetie Drops! You showed understanding, compassion, and sympathy to a creature most would consider a monster. Your kind words and empathy helped those in need simply because they needed it! You are the Element of Kindness!"
As green crystals started to encircle the patisserie, she looked quite humble. "I'm not sure if I'm worthy, but I'll try to be."
"This is impossible! We destroyed the Elements!"
"Wrong! You destroyed a bunch of rocks! What the Elements ARE is virtues that can reside in anypony, like how Twilight Sparkle is probably the most dedicated and devoted being on the planet! The Element of Loyalty!" As red crystals floated around her fellow unicorn, she turned to the pegasi. "Masquerade. When I was at my lowest point, you cheered me up and made me feel like living once more. Defeating despair and bringing joy and hope, you are the Element of Laughter."
"Aww great, now I'll get typecast for comedies." Mask joked as blue crystals floated around her.
"Rainbow Dash. Willing to give up your own holidays so that others can enjoy theirs. Willing to give up on your dreams because others are counting on you. Always willing to give what you can to help your fellow pony, you are the Element of Generosity!"
"Aw nuts, I got the lame one." Dash complained as purple crystals spun around her. "Still we need the whole set, so glad to help!"
"It does not matter! You still lack Magic! I saw it myself earlier! Your own magic is too tainted to ever represent such a thing!"
"Sunset shook her head sadly. "And that's where you are wrong. The last Element isn't Magic. As I know, Magic is no virtue. It's a tool, and one that can be abused. Badly. No, the last Element is something different. Something that makes you want to be Kind to others, inspires ponies to be Loyal, be Generous, be Honest with, and make them joyous with Laughter. That special something that brings them all out in somepony. That makes us all one. The final Element...Friendship!" A brilliant white light enveloped the room, and Sunset could feel her friends with her. They were trusting her, as friends do, with an important task. Directing the energy they provided her. "I can see how you'd make that mistake though, thinking the final Element was Magic. It's a very easy mistake to make. Because Friendship is magical."
And then everything was rainbows.