//------------------------------// // Part III: Nightfall // Story: I Am the Night // by Ezn //------------------------------// I AM THE NIGHT by Ezn PART III NIGHTFALL THE PRINCESS of the Night ran to edge of the stage, her wings already flapping for a swift takeoff. She leapt from the stage and towards the source of the terrible thudding noise. Ponies screamed and ran beneath her. “Stay calm, my faithful subjects!” she cried in vain. “We shall protect thee this night! Do not be afraid!” The screaming continued. To Luna’s ears, it seemed to grow louder. But not quite loud enough to drown out the THUD THUD THUD that continued to dominate the auditorium’s soundscape. Finally, Luna rose high enough to see the source of the noise. And as she did so, her blood ran cold. The creature looming over the stage was taller than any living thing she’d seen before. And yet she knew exactly what it was, and where it had come from. This was Ulrothar, exiled God-King Dragon of the times before even her reign. And, somehow, he had escaped his bondage deep in Tartarus. Somehow, even though she was hundreds of metres above the stage of the open-air auditorium, Luna heard the cackling laughter of Pinkie Pie and knew exactly who was to blame. The great crimson dragon roared to the heavens, his rows of enormous teeth glinting in the moonlight. And then his deafening roar was followed by a torrent of red, angry fire. Fire that was slowly lowering directly over Luna’s head. Luna swiftly banked to the side, feeling the intense heat of the column of fire as it just missed her. Smoke rose from the feathers on the edge of her closest wing. The column continued descend. It was heading right for the auditorium. “Run! Run my little ponies” Luna bellowed, using every muscle in her throat to project her voice further. The ponies on the ground were already in a sufficiently panicked state to already be running in two directions away from the column of fire, and so as it came into contact with the ground and turned the grass to ashes, Luna heard no screams of agony. Now that her ponies were out of immediate danger, Luna’s top priority was to dispatch the enormous dragon somehow. She looked up at the source of the fire, the enormous scaly head that now hung over the auditorium. Her bat cloak flapped uselessly across her back. Even she, Goddess of the Celestial Spheres, was powerless to stop so ancient and terrible a force as Ulrothar. “Not feeling so hot now, are we, bats?” asked a sneering voice from the ground. Pinkie Pie stood upside down, balanced on her front hooves, and then flipped around onto her back hooves. “Don’t worry, you’ll be feeling plenty hot in just a moment!” Pinkie collapsed into a giggling fit at this. “You foal!” shouted Luna. “Can’t you see you’ll also perish!” Pinkie stopped giggling. From her position lying on the floor, she looked up, directly into Princess Luna’s eyes. Any trace of malice or laughter was gone from her expression. Her eyes were empty. “That’s the difference between us, your Battyness. You care.” Pinkie hopped back onto her hindhooves, and then sprung into a cartwheel. “And I don’t. You took that from me.” The column of flame continued across the grass. Pinkie’s cartwheel tumbled jauntily on. The two came closer, and closer. Luna shot back up into the sky as Pinkie disappeared into the blaze. Her vision was blurred with tears. The fire stopped abruptly, and Ulrothar lifted his head. He growled at the tiny black speck flying in the air in front of him, using a claw to swipe at it, missing. He lifted his gigantic foot and took a step forward, flattening the auditorium’s stage. Luna fired a volley of offensive magic at Ulrothar, just to watch it glance off his hide. All of her most powerful spells she fired, and none was so much as acknowledged. Luna could see all too clearly what was coming. Ulrothar was ruthless and without compassion or feeling. He could not be talked to, could not be reasoned with. The legends of him spoke of cities, nations, continents that had been razed before he was stopped and locked in the depths of Tartarus. The legends did not say how this was accomplished. Luna knew that Equestria would be destroyed. She knew she could not stop Ulrothar. She knew there was no hope for Equestria or her ponies. But then a thought came into her head. A nasty, evil thought of the kind she had learnt to banish immediately on thinking. But in this case, she let the thought linger. Nothing was so terrible as the destruction of Equestria. Nothing. You know that I have the power, her thoughts whispered. You know I’m your only chance. /^oo^\ Time seemed to slow down around Luna as she closed her eyes and retreated into her mind. She hung, suspended in midair, the great dragon Ulrathor a frozen, open-mouthed statue before her. To save Equestria from Ulrathor’s fire, I shall need to use every resource in my power. This is not surrender. She has been vanquished once before - her grip is not unbreakable. I will save Equestria, first from the dragon, and then from myself. A bolt of lightning shot down from the sky, originating from no cloud. The bolt hit Princess Luna, electrifying her mane and coat. White cords of electricity snaked and cracked around her. The moon shook in the sky, and even Ulrathor had to pause to look up at the sky. Princess Luna had gone into her meditation by closing her eyes. Now Nightmare Moon opened them. /^oo^\ “Yes, Ulrathor, it is I, the Nightmare!” said Nightmare Moon, newly restored and hovering in front of the great dragon’s eyes, standing atop a cloud of magical energy. “You are an ancient and terrible beast, but I have haunted you since you were a mere hatchling. The Nightmare has ruled the land since before your kind was a twinkling in the creator’s eye.” Ulrathor’s entire body was shaking with fear, and his whimpers could be heard across Canterlot. Ponies who had not already gotten up to watch the spectacle atop on their balconies and in the streets were arriving now to witness the change of circumstances. “And now, Ulrathor, I will take my Equestria from you.” Nightmare Moon’s horn shone, and a whirlwind of magic spread around Ulrathor, growing faster and tighter, until no scale or tooth could be seen beneath the whirlwind of dark magic. And then, with very little ceremony, the whirlwind lifted off the ground and shot up into the air, a glistening dark comet heading with great speed and little noise towards the gates of Tartarus. Some ponies began to clap and cheer, but the applause died when the Nightmare Moon hovered into the townsponies’ sight, staring down at them with contempt. Even the ponies who had been convinced that no difference existed between Nightmare Moon and Princess Luna found themselves noticing something strange and new in their Princess’s appearance and demeanor. “Bow before me, ponies, for I am Nightmare Moon,” she boomed. “Under my rule, all ponies shall love and obey me, and the night shall last forever!” A terrified gasp rose from the assembly. Nightmare Moon narrowed her cruel eyes at her new subjects. “Who dares to raise their voices against me, Supreme Ruler of all Equestria?! A queen is to be adored, not shrieked at like a freak!” Nightmare Moon’s starry mane crackled with electricity as she grew angrier, and the crowd stifled a second gasp. She growled at them and dug her hoof into the roof she stood on. A roofing tile cracked. Startled at this, Nightmare Moon tottered, drawing up the hoof that now hung in empty space. But she brought the hoof up too violently, overcompensated, and tottered wildly before losing her balance. The electricity in her mane flared briliantly and then shorted out like a dead lightbulb. She fell from the roof. Moments later, a series of THUDs were heard. The crowd rushed around to the side of the building where Nightmare Moon had fallen. Their collective gaze moved from a dented dumpster lid to a tangled heap of blue limbs. The inky black coat of Nightmare Moon was nowhere to be seen - in its place lay a dishevelled and disorientated Princess Luna, her cloak tangled up in her legs and her crown lying in the dirt. The crowd was still. Nopony moved to assist or to assault the Princess. Slowly, shakily, Luna raised herself up. Wearily, she looked upon her subjects, who stared at her with mixed feelings of fear, suspicion and confusion. She opened her mouth, but could not find the energy to speak with her usual boisterous Royal Canterlot bellow, and so croaked out, “W-we have triumphed over the Nightmare. Be not afraid, my little ponies.” Just as she had finished uttering those words, she felt a sharp pain in her head. Blackness overtook her vision and she felt her limbs lengthen once more. A deep cackle sounded in her head, and she felt the touch of cool metal upon her scalp. “A Nightmare,” she felt herself saying, “is not so easily vanquished.” But then the darkness cleared, and her limbs withered once more to their natural length. The ponies before her now had only confusion in their eyes. The voice of the Nightmare in Luna’s head panicked, its tone warbling in and out of audibility. Spots of darkness grew and contracted over her coat, and her vision dimmed and brightened, first in one eye, and then the other. Luna at last came to terrible realisation. Taking one last look at the aghast faces of her subjects, she turned tail and galloped from their presence, lurching hideously on her uneven and ever-changing limbs. She left her crown forgotten in the dust. /^oo^\ Working late one night, Commissioner Applejack looked up from her papers to identify the source of a sudden breeze in her office. In the wake of the Princess’s disappearance, the aristocracy, already greatly weakened since the days of Princess Celestia, had been toppled from their position of power, and the government of Equestria was in a state of flux. This led to a massive upswing in crime. Applejack had dark rings under her eyes, and had to squint to see her papers, illuminated by candlelight, as Canterlot’s power supply had become intermittent. She was just then busy with the paperwork for the latest attempted robbery on the First Bank of Canterlot. It was a strange case, as the masked robber had held the bank up at gunpoint, traumatised its clients and workers, committed gratuitous damage to the premises, and then left without stealing any money. What made it even stranger was the arrival of an unmarked bag the day after, addressed to the bank’s management. The bag was filled with gold and treasures, amounting to many times the cost of the damage done to the bank’s property. Applejack looked up from these papers to see a dark shape in her shadowy office – one which hadn’t been there before. Its dark blue mane flapped in the wind from the open window. “P-Princess Luna?” Applejack stammered. “Where in tarnation have you been? Err... your Highness.” “We have been occupied,” said Luna, her voice lower and raspier than usual. “We trust that thou hast held up the iron hoof of the law in these past months.” “Yes, your Majesty,” Applejack replied. “I’ve been doin’ just the best that I can. But it’s not easy, what with your Highness’s abdication and all.” “It would be harder still,” the Princess rasped, “had I not abandoned the throne.” “Forgive me, Princess, but I’m afraid I don’t follow.” The office was silent for a moment, and then Applejack gasped as her Princess stepped into the flickering light of her candle. Before Applejack stood a lopsided creature, its right side higher than its left, and its coat a splotchy mess of blue and black. But what shocked Applejack most was the creature’s face. From the left ear to just past the left nostril, the face of Princess Luna held her gaze with that familiar stoic expression. But past the left nostril, a black rash covered the face, and the vicious turquoise eye of Nightmare Moon glared at her. “We are here,” Luna said, “to confess to a crime. It was us, under the influence of the Nightmare, who sabotaged the track of the Canterlot monorail, causing the destruction of the train.” Applejack gasped. She knew the case. “It was also us who saved the train’s passengers by teleporting them all out before the train hit the ground.” Luna thumped her own forehoof down on the Commissioner’s desk. “Arrest us now, that we might no longer continue this tormented game of destruction and mitigation.” Applejack produced her cuffs, looking mournfully at the Princess as she brought them to her forehoof. Then, suddenly, a sharp breath blew out the candle on the desk, and the office plunged into darkness. Once Applejack succeeded in relighting the candle, her office was empty, and she was sitting, cuff between her teeth, with nopony to arrest. Applejack shuddered, and continued on with her work. Perhaps the whole meeting had just been a waking nightmare, the symptom of too little sleep. But then she looked down at the papers which detailed her bank robbery case, with its unexpected happy ending. Applejack sighed. Once again, something powerful and dangerous was loose in Canterlot, and the ponies of the city could look only to Princess Luna for any hope of stopping it. And once again, that danger had been brought about by the Princess herself. Under the cover of night, awkward hooves galloped down the street, away from the police station, and away from Canterlot, but turning around again every few minutes. THE END ?