//------------------------------// // Chapter Two: Millennium // Story: A Millennium of Eternal Night // by criticalmess //------------------------------// A Millennium of Eternal Night Chapter Two: Millennium "What the hay is that supposed to mean!?" Rainbow Dash called out, flapping up to Nightmare Moon. "We've got the Elements of Harmony now, which means you're dust." "Oh really?" Nightmare Moon cocked her head in an amused manner. "Then tell me, why have I not yet been sent back to the moon? Or stripped of my power? Or anything for that matter?" "Because..." Rainbow Dash stuttered, "Because... we... haven't done it yet. Yeah!" Nightmare Moon smirked. "Oh please, the reason why is because it's already been done. A thousand years ago, this very night, my sister used the Elements of Harmony to banish me to the moon, leaving her to rule over the land on her own." "Sister...?" Rarity looked to Twilight in confusion. "I read about this," Twilight whispered, "Legend has it that she used to be responsible for the night while Celestia was responsible for the day. At least, before she became Nightmare Moon. I think her name was Princess...." "The pony who bore that name is dead." Nightmare Moon cut off Twilight coldly, "I am Nightmare Moon, nothing less. Now that a thousand years are over, the Elements of Harmony have dictated that balance must come in the form of a Millennium under my control. And so, here we are." "But if the Elements are on your side," Applejack asked, "why'd you need us?" "The sixth element, my little pony." Nightmare Moon explained as though to a child. "One cannot have the magic of friendship without friends. And as you can imagine, I am not a friendly pony." "You don't have any friends!?" Pinkie Pie cried in horror. "That's terrible! Nopony should be without friends! We should throw a part-EUMPH" Applejack threw a hoof around Pinkie's mouth. "Pinkie, now is neither the time or place to be planning another party." The pink pony sighed and nodded sadly. "This is all a bunch of garbage!" Rainbow Dash shook her hoof at the dark alicorn. "If you're going to win anyway, why'd you kidnap the Princess?" "I do not know where Celestia is." Nightmare Moon shook her head, chuckling. "She knows as well as I that the Millennium of Night must come. If she hasn't been dulled by a thousand years of peaceful rule, she should be fleeing Equestria by now." "The Princess wouldn't...." Twilight shook her head. "So now that the Elements are awakened," Twilight approached Nightmare Moon hesitantly, "you're just going to take them and rule over Equestria?" Nightmare Moon smiled widely, causing Twilight Sparkle to quake in fear. "No little one." Nightmare Moon drawled, "I'm certain you've noticed the... attraction that's built between you and the Elements. Taking them from you would be impossible. Instead, you will be helping me." "WHAT?!" Rainbow Dash yelled, her hair standing on end. "Listen witch, I don't care what you or even what the Elements say, there's no way I'm turning my back on the Princess!" Nightmare Moon chuckled and strolled up to Rainbow Dash who, for her credit, shook very little as she looked into the eyes of the Princess of Night. "I'm your Princess now, whether you like it or not, and the Elements know that." "Like hay!" Rainbow Dash kept eye contact with the alicorn. "Who's your Princess?" Nightmare Moon asked with a twisted smirk on her face. "Nightma-" Rainbow Dash started but suddenly stopped herself, the color fading from her cheeks. Flying backwards, she slapped herself across the face. She angrily shook her head and continued, "CELESTIA! Princess Celestia! She's the Princess!" But her earlier answer had shaken all of the ponies to their core. Even Pinkie Pie looked less energetic than usual, her bright smile wiped from her face. Nightmare Moon examined the ponies before her. "Hmm, it appears that you are still resisting. No matter, the Elements will take care of that soon enough." Nightmare Moon turned around and strolled towards the entrance. "I will have full cooperation eventually." "We'll see about that!" Rainbow Dash shouted, the color still drained from her cheeks. "Eventually?" Fluttershy timidly asked. Nightmare Moon, flung open the doors of the ruined palace and turned back to face the six ponies. "The Elements of Harmony have the power to change reality itself, to pierce any magic, and to overcome any obstacle. I'm pretty sure your apprehensions about my rule will be dispelled in short order." Not even Rainbow Dash replied to this. All of the ponies were lost in their own thoughts, fearful of the changes Nightmare Moon had prophesized. The newly re-instated Princess smirked. "I suppose show of my benevolence is in order." She stretched her wings and a dark glow surrounded her horn. "As my first decree as Princess, you are free to return to your homes to gather your belongings and settle your affairs. But when three midnights have passed, I will come for you, and our work will begin!" "Well we're not going to go with you!" Rainbow Dash found her voice and shouted back. Nightmare Moon laughed triumphantly and cast her magic over the ponies. Darkness rose from the ground as the dark alicorn answered, "Haven't you figured it out already? You don't have a choice." The darkness enveloped the ponies and at once they vanished. Smiling triumphantly, Nightmare Moon took off into the night sky, reveling in the feeling of freedom. - - - - - After disappearing from the castle, the ponies immediately reappeared in Ponyville. The streets were quiet, yet lights were on in nearly every window. Nopony wished to be outside when not too long ago Nightmare Moon had revealed herself to Equestria. The shocked and horrified ponies stared mutely at the ground before them. It was a long time before Pinkie Pie opened her mouth and whined, "That wasn't very fun." Pinkie Pie's complaint set all of the ponies moving again. They scrambled in a panic, fighting with their necklaces. "Consarnit, I can't get this thing off!" "Eep!" "Come on, come on, get off, get off!" "I take back what I said about this horrid gem!" "I just can't get a hoof-hold on the thing!" "Um, necklace, would you please let go?" "Applejack, get me a crowbar!" "Besides, black simply isn't my color." "GIRLS!" The ponies stopped and looked at Twilight Sparkle. The lavender unicorn sighed and shook her head. "We're getting nowhere fast doing this. We all need to calm down and think thing through rationally. Panicking is going to get us nowhere." "What's wrong with panicking?" Twilight shot Pinkie Pie a glare, "Because it wastes time!" She sighed and turned around. "Come on, let's all go to the library. Maybe there's something in the Elements of Harmony guide that can help us figure this out." "You know more than we do about this." Applejack nodded and followed Twilight home. - - - - - Spike flew out of bed, shocked by the sound of the door opening. He spun around, trying to get his bearings. "Twi! What happened? Didja beat Nightmare Moon? Did-" He stopped as soon as he spied Twilight and company enter the room sadly, their new jewelry in tow. "Woah," Spike's eyes widened upon seeing the gems. "Are those...?" "Yes." Twilight replied sullenly. "Then... did you?" Twilight passed him and started looking through the shelves, starting with the 'E' section. "No." She replied flatly. "You mean, they don't work?" "Oh they work all right." Applejack approached Spike while tugging absentmindedly at her necklace. "It's just they don't work like we thought." "Spike!" Twilight called over her shoulder. "Where's..." But she stopped as a pink hoof shoved a familiar brown leather-bound book into her face. "Where did you...?" "You put it under H by mistake." Pinkie Pie giggled. Twilight merely shook her head and opened the book, levitating it in front of her. She flipped through the pages, scanning thick blocks of text rapidly. "I'm confused." Spike scratched his head. "Is anyone going to tell me what happened?" "Ooh! Ooh!" Pinkie Pie jumped up and down. "So we went into the forest. And it was really dark, I mean really. And we got to this cliff and it broke off. And we all went flying! It was so fun! But Twilight slipped and that's not fun, so Applejack-" "Can you shorten that please?" Spike said, clutching his head in his claws, "I think my brain's going to burst." "We found the Elements of Harmony." Applejack trotted up to Spike. "We also figured out that the sixth element is Friendship or Magic or whatever, so we unlocked their power. But then Nightmare Moon showed up and explained that the Elements are on her side now, rather than that-" Applejack blushed at what she was about to call the Princess and shook her head, "Princess Celestia's side. And apparently we don't have a say in it." "You mean...?" Twilight Sparkle spun around, still looking through the book, "We're going to be Nightmare Moon's mindless servants pretty soon unless this book gives us anything that can help us!" Groaning in frustration, she threw the book to the ground. "And it's got nothing!" "Nothing at all, Twilight?" Rarity approached and leafed through the book. "It's got everything about the last time they were used, everything about each individual element, but there's nothing about how they work!" Twilight paced in circles, talking to nopony in particular. "There's no science, no analysis, not even any theories. Not to mention all of the information is second-hand. Who wrote this book?! It's the most unhelpful 'reference guide' I've read since..." "Somepony named Starswirl the Bearded." Rarity replied, looking at the inside cover. Twilight stopped pacing and looked at Rarity in shock. "Really?" She shook her head. "That's not important right now. What we have to do is to figure out for ourselves what to do." Twilight looked around for a moment before turning back to the shelves. "There has to be another book that can help!" "Maybe there's nothing we can do?" Everypony turned in shock at Fluttershy's suggestion. Now with the eyes of the room focused on her, Fluttershy blushed and looked to the side. Nervously, she picked at the ground with her hoof. "I'm sorry..." She muttered beneath her breath, "...I don't know what I'm saying...." The room was covered in a thick pallor of silence as everypony continued to stare at Fluttershy. Meekly, she crawled behind a stack of books and hid from their gaze. Sighing, Applejack turned to face Twilight with a sad expression. "Sugarcube..." she muttered, "...what if Fluttershy's right? Maybe we should just... accept it?" "OOOOOHHHH NO!" Rainbow Dash swooped down, furiously shaking her hooves. "No! No! No no no no no no no no NO! Nopony tells me what I can do, and definitely not Nightmare Moon. I'm not going to bow down to her no matter what she says. Next time I'll see that witch, I'm going to fly right up to her and punch her in the face!" She started twisting in the air, bucking and flailing every once in a while. "And I'll give her a little this, and a little that. And then I'll kick her out of that ridiculous armor she wears and send her all the way back to the moon." She stopped flying circles around the room and folded her legs across her chest. "And it'll be so awesome and cool after I saved the day, everypony will be cheering my name, and the Shadowbolts will have to let me join them. Heck, they'll probably make me their captain." There was another pause as the ponies below digested Rainbow Dash's rant. Finally Applejack spoke up. "Shadowbolts?" Rainbow Dash glared at Applejack. "Yeah, the Shadowbo-" She froze as she realized what she was saying. Overtaken by a sudden fear, she stammered, "The Shadow-... Shad-..." She flew across the room and slammed her head into one of the walls of the tree, sending books falling off shelves. "WONDERBOLTS!" Rainbow Dash cried out. "WONDERBOLTS! I'm going to join the SHA-..." She threw her hooves over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. "Rainbow Dash, please..." Twilight stepped forward, but Rainbow Dash cried out in agony and fury and sped out of the room, smashing open a window. She left a faint rainbow tail behind her that faded slowly into the night as she fled home. Twilight made for the door, but was stopped by a hoof on her shoulder. "Let her go, Twilight. In fact, we should all probably go. It's been a long, long time since we got some shut-eye, and if we're going to tackle this, we gotta be well rested." "She's right!" Pinkie said happily, trotting over to Twilight. "We can take care of everything in the morning!" Everypony stared at Pinkie Pie with more annoyance than usual. The pink pony looked between her friends for a few seconds before realizing her mistake. "Oh yeeeeaaaaahhh." She squeaked and backed out of the tree. "Well, see you next.... later. See you later everypony!" Without any fanfare, Fluttershy snuck outside right behind Pinkie Pie. Rarity turned to Twilight just as she was leaving and said, "Don't worry Twilight. One way or another, everything will turn out fine." "That's what I'm afraid of." Twilight muttered once Rarity turned back around. Only Applejack was left in the tree with her, the earth pony kicking the ground. "This has been one long night." She muttered, walking towards the door. "And it looks like it's going to last even longer." Alone in the tree with just Spike, Twilight Sparkle looked out the door and at her tired, depressed friends. With renewed focus, Twilight spun around and started searching through the books on the shelves. Spike opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it and went into the kitchen to fetch Twilight something to help her stay awake. - - - - - I... don't have much to say for this chapter. It's really just an explanation blurb. Sorry for the teensy-tiny delay, but you know how it is. Busy busy busy. The next should be more interesting... filler-ish character development... but still interesting. -The Author