In a way, a millennium of total isolation had done the Castle of the Two Sisters more good than harm. A bastion built to outlast the ages certainly looked nice on a postcard, but surviving wasn’t the same as living, nor a fortress the same as a home. You couldn’t live someplace without leaving your mark on it, and it was those marks—not impenetrable walls or vaulted ceilings—which gave that place life. Time had worn away all but a skeleton of this one, but in those bones the marks of ages past remained: cracks in the walls from a monarch’s misfired spells, a hole in the ceiling from a sibling’s drastic final act.
Swathed in the shadows of nighttime eternal, a mortal pony entered the Castle for the first time in ten centuries, her breath misting under her nose as she took in her otherworldy surroundings. The night air hung thick with anticipation, the ruin’s mystical past defying its mundane present. The last time two ponies had walked into this room, only one of them had walked out—a fact the Nightmare haunting it now knew all too well. As the stars had aided in her escape from the moon, so too would they grant her strength enough to rectify her greatest failure, and vanquish this little interloper who saw fit to stand in her way. If ghosts could be conquered, the young unicorn must’ve thought, then so could gods.
As Sunset Shimmer would soon discover, though, gods tended to look a lot less conquerable when you were standing right in front of one.
In their first moments together, neither pony moved—although calling the creature at the hall’s far end a “pony” bordered on insulting. Nightmare Moon resembled a mare in technical name only, standing twice Sunset’s height with an alicorn’s horn and wings, an ephemeral starry void in place of a mane, and razor-sharp fangs glistening in her maw. Beneath her jet-black torso, five rough-hewn stones orbited her armored hooves, each an ancient vessel for one of the mythical Elements of Harmony. When Sunset’s eyes flicked towards them, the Nightmare's face split into a vicious grin.
“Looking for these?” she crooned, the opening notes of a cackle dripping from her words. Sunset met her gaze and held it, her brow rising as she sank into a fighter’s crouch.
“Looks like I found them,” the young mare replied.
Now Nightmare Moon laughed, throwing her head back with a manic gleam in her eye. “You little foal… thinking you could defeat me?”
Sunset smirked, nursing a knowing glint of her own. “You know what they say: there’s a second time for everything.”
A twisted scowl bent onto Nightmare Moon’s face, making her look even more monstrous than ever. “Your impudence will be your doom! What madness makes you think you could face me alone?”
“She’s not alone!”
From the archway Sunset Shimmer had entered through, a second young unicorn emerged. Physically, Twilight Sparkle stood in stark contrast to her companion: thin where Sunset had curves, lavender in color instead of dusty amber, and with a close-cropped blue-violet mane that looked rather plain next to Sunset’s flowing crimson and gold locks. Standing together now, though, the two mortals could scarcely be told apart. Their eyes burned with the same tenacious spark, nothing in either mare’s stance suggesting a hint of insincerity.
“And we will defeat you,” Twilight said, pawing her hoof against the floor as she too readied herself for battle. Faced with the prospect of fighting two mortal mares instead of one, the Immortal Queen of the Night couldn’t even work up the effort to act impressed.
“You’re kidding,” she assured them. “You’re kidding, right?”
Evidently, they weren’t. Cued by a nod from Twilight, Sunset charged a spell into her horn and released it—not towards Nightmare Moon, but down into her own upturned hoof. Her magic flickered as it spread from her sole up to the base of her knee, then ignited into a seamless sheath of flames with a sound like hammered steel. Beside her, Twilight summoned a translucent shield the same fuchsia shade as her horn’s aura, holding it in midair as an ad hoc shield. Nightmare Moon rolled her eyes, then took a languid step forward, positioning herself between the Elements of Harmony and the two upstarts so desperate to die for them. For a single electric second, the night and its children all held their breath.
Sunset struck first, swinging her hoof in a wide arc and flinging a melon-sized ball of flame towards Nightmare Moon. By the time the fire reached her, only a pair of glowering eyes remained, the rest of her body dissolving into a midnight-blue cloud that parted around the flaming wad with ease. Sunset’s second attempt missed its mark as well, splattering harmlessly against the chamber’s far wall, but the Nightmare’s counter fared no better. Before a tendril of her essence could squeeze around Sunset’s throat, Twilight heaved her shield into its path and drove it back, joining the assault with sizzling beams of her own magic.
Without a window to return fire, Nightmare Moon collected herself and fell back, her adversaries advancing two steps for each one she retreated. More so than she’d expected, Sunset and Twilight attacked with masterful precision, alternating offensive volleys as Twilight’s defensive spellwork kept them both safely out of harm’s reach. Their barrage did little damage to anything but the masonry, but that—the Nightmare soon realized—was no accident. This seemingly coordinated assault was nothing but stagecraft, a pyrokinetic light show meant to push her away from the mortal mares’ real goal: the Element Stones.
Within the compacted smog that comprised her body, Nightmare Moon scowled. If these infants thought she could be outwitted so easily, they would find themselves sorely mistaken. In the span of a momentary lull in their onslaught, the Nightmare left the Stones behind and shot up into the air, only to swoop down on the mares with a roar like an oncoming train.
As if two halves of the same mind, Twilight and Sunset split apart in perfect sync, each diving away from the other and already casting the moment they rolled upright. The former widened her shield around the Nightmare’s haze, forming a semicircular wall that corralled her into the latter’s sights. Instead of chaining separate blasts, Sunset unleashed every ounce of her magical strength at once, channeling immeasurable energy into a blistering torrent of white-hot flame.
The result was an arcane flytrap, Sunset’s firestorm buffeting Nightmare Moon from one side and Twilight’s shield reflecting it back at her from the other. No matter which way the Nightmare turned, Sunset followed, her every move balanced with Twilight’s to maintain the airtight cocoon in which they’d ensnared their foe. A clever move, and one clearly well-practiced. Nightmare Moon had underestimated these young mortal mares.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
It took several seconds for Sunset to realize Nightmare Moon was gone, long enough that Twilight had to shout to draw her attention to it. The two wasted precious time rooted in place, dripping sweat and squinting at the cherry-red circle their spells had melted into the floor, before Sunset snapped out of her reverie. With a jerk of her head, she led Twilight towards the Element Stones, the one thing they knew could defeat the Nightmare once and for all.
Which made them the perfect place for Nightmare Moon to strike, her essence seeping out from the Castle’s undercroft through gaps in the shattered floor. Her horn flashed as she rematerialized, and her throat burned with a searing screech.
“Enough!”
The mortals’ minds were fast, but their bodies not quite fast enough. The pitch-dark bolt hit Sunset square in the chest, blasting her back into Twilight hard enough to send them both sprawling. As they slid to a stop in a tangled, dazed heap, Nightmare Moon reclaimed the Elements of Harmony for her own, wrapping them in her magic to hold aloft above her head.
“How pathetic,” she sneered. “And all for naught. Now you will never see your Princess again, or your sun!” She raised the Elements high, all the better to smash them to pieces against the dais beneath her. “The night… will last… forever!”
“I… wouldn’t say that just yet.”
Framed by beautiful moonlight streaming through the broken roof, Twilight Sparkle pulled herself up onto wobbling hooves, supported by her partner’s equally shaky shoulder. The mare's pitiful retort stayed Nightmare Moon's hoof, but only for a moment. With how cocky the two mortals had been just minutes ago, she couldn’t resist savoring this moment of pointless rebellion against the inevitable.
“Oh, shouldn’t I?” she wondered aloud. Her magic looped under the mortals’ barrels, and with a simple flick upended them both. As they slammed onto their backs, Nightmare Moon spread her wings and swept over them, leering down from above as they squirmed and gasped for breath. “Tell me, foals, what could possibly give you any hope of stopping me? Your friendship? Your precious Elements of Harmony?”
Twilight’s eyes darted towards the ceiling, and the endless night sky beyond it. She might as well get used to seeing it, with what little time she had left. All of Equestria might as well too. Nothing would ever end it. Nopony would ever take her kingdom away from her again.
“Well, yes, primarily those,” Twilight said. “But also the mare supercharging an electrokinetic pulse spell into her forehooves and descending towards this location at three-hundred-forty-three meters per second.”
Nightmare Moon blinked, shook her head slightly, then blinked again.
“Which in our defense,” Sunset added, “was entirely her idea.”
The two mares stared up at Nightmare Moon, not a trace of irony in their expressions. Mouth agape, Nightmare Moon stared back.
“The… what?”
She never got a chance to ask again. Twilight brought up another shield—a dome this time, big enough to cover her and Sunset both—then shut her eyes and braced herself. Nightmare Moon felt the hairs on her neck rise, then the stones underhoof tremble, then the whole castle vibrate all around her. The air sizzled in her nose—crackled with electricity—gleamed in the light of something brighter than the moon.
The Nightmare turned around just in time to watch what remained of the great hall’s ceiling implode. She saw a smear of pink and purple, a great blue flash, and then...
It wasn’t a pony, like Twilight had said. It couldn’t possibly be. Nothing alive could have impacted the earth with such titanic force, detonated like a meteorite with a hurricane trapped inside. Thunder pealed and lightning flashed, air turned to fire and stone to ash—and over the chaos, a voice emerged, loud and wild and a little bit hoarse.
“Yeeeeeeah, baby! How’s that Second Law of Motion taste?”
===
Nightmare Moon drew herself back together at an agonizing pace, seconds dragging into minutes as she collected bits of her essence from what felt like miles away. When her body finally became whole again, head pounding and throat burning with the metallic scent of ozone, she cracked her eyes open to a smoking, debris-choked warzone where once her castle had stood.
The great hall had been obliterated, simply wiped away as if there had never been anything there but a glassy crater ten feet deep and forty across. What the blast hadn’t incinerated, it had razed to the ground, shin-high skeletons all that remained of the barbican and bailey’s once towering walls. Only by the grace of good fortune did the far wall of the throne room still stand, charred black with soot and supported solely by the cropped foundations of the Twin Sisters’ Spires.
It was all gone: her castle, her grip on the night… the Element Stones. They’d been the last thing she’d seen before she blacked out. She’d lost them in the explosion—felt them crack apart with the last of her magical senses.
And neither Sunset nor Twilight—now joined by a third unicorn mare as they clambered out from the crater together—appeared at all concerned about it. In fact, even as she heaved for breath with smoke still rising from her static-frizzed mane, the newest member of their crew looked more satisfied than any of them.
“Not to ruin the moment or anything,” Starlight Glimmer said, her head swiveling from Sunset to Twilight and back again, “but you guys have got to try that sometime.”
The Nightmare fell to her knees, her strength at its end and her resolve not far behind. Who were these little rats? How in Equestria could they be so powerful?
“The… the Stones…” she rasped, shuddering with the effort of swallowing back a cough. “You…”
“Blew ‘em up.” The third mare finished the sentence for her, rocking on her grimy hooves as she failed to suppress a giddy grin. “And before you ask: yes, it was totally worth it.”
For several seconds, shock stuck Nightmare Moon’s tongue to the roof of her mouth. Discounting a sigh from Twilight, the mares still seemed utterly nonplussed. “But the Elements… t-they’re gone. You won’t be able to…”
“Use them anymore?” This time Sunset cut her off, flanked by both her friends as she stepped forward. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong. The Elements of Harmony aren’t something you can see or touch, and the spark that activates them isn’t just some spell you can read about in a book. You were so obsessed with using them against us that you never saw what was right in front of your nose.”
Where Sunset left off, Twilight jumped in with barely a moment’s pause. “Even if you had understood what the Elements really were, you never could’ve wielded them. Their power isn’t meant for tyrants or princesses, or even most regular ponies. It takes a special bond, one so deep that nothing, good or evil, could ever break it.”
“The kind of bond,” Starlight interjected, “that we just so happen to have.”
The Nightmare tried to stand, but still her legs wouldn’t obey. In the meantime, Twilight took over again. “You thought we wanted the Elements so we could destroy you, Nightmare Moon, but more than anything, Harmony isn’t a weapon of war. It’s a construct, a connection between the Elements and the ponies who bear them stronger than any other magic known to ponykind. The Stones, while of not-insignificant historical interest,”—she shot a pointed glance at Starlight, who responded by sticking out her tongue—“aren’t the real Elements of Harmony. The real Elements… are right here.”
Nightmare Moon furrowed her brow. Twilight hadn’t pulled anything out into view, nor cast a spell to reveal them. “What?”
At first Twilight refrained from explaining herself, but as she fell silent the earth seemed to speak for her. A sudden gust ruffled through her mane, and somewhere nearby a low vibration began to thrum, growing louder with each passing second. “It’s like we said,” she finally murmured. “They’re right in front of your nose. Loyalty and laughter…”
The sound coalesced into a colossal pulse. As the ground shook, Starlight Glimmer rose an inch above it—her body wrapped in magic, her eyes glowing like the moon.
“Honesty and generosity…”
Another pulse, and Sunset rose too, weightless and shimmering with ethereal light.
“Kindness… and magic.”
Now Twilight herself lifted off, spreading her forelegs as the same unknowable power coursed through her slender frame. When she looked down on Nightmare Moon, it was with the eyes of something not quite just mortal anymore. “The six Elements of Harmony. The six tenets of true friendship. Born as a covenant between the ponies of old, used by Celestia to banish her corrupted sister, hidden away for a thousand years… and unearthed, extracted, and reactivated four and a half months ago, by three best friends with a little too much time on their hooves.”
Nightmare Moon raised a hoof to her slackened mouth, grasping for words and finding none. “You… h-how…?”
“Serendipity, mostly,” said Sunset, her voice echoing from the influence of her Elements. “I mean, once three of the greatest magical minds in thirty generations ended up in the same dorm room, it was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“Not that we’re bragging or anything,” Starlight added in the same resonant tone. “Knowing Celestia, she probably planned it that way all along.”
Nightmare Moon slid backwards on her rump, scrabbling away from the crater in a last-ditch effort to flee. “W-Wait, this isn’t… y-you can’t…”
A final pulse, the most powerful yet, knocked her flat on her back. Winded and powerless, she watched the three mares float higher into the air, and then heard them speak one last time.
“Oh, we can.”
“And we’re going to.”
“... really, really hard.”
The three Bearers convulsed as their Elements flowed through them, their heads forced back by the age-old magic’s unbridled might. Golden ringlets of energy formed around their forehooves, orbiting at blinding speed until they shrunk into bracers adorned with singular gemstones—red and orange for Sunset, turquoise and violet for Starlight, and lavender and pink for Twilight Sparkle.
As the Elements manifested, a rumbling white aura enveloped their Bearers, building louder and brighter until it exploded into an unstoppable crescendo. Twin beams of light laced with every color of the rainbow twisted together in midair, then merged into a single keening ray that arced back down to earth at an unavoidable pace.
“Nooo!” the Nightmare screeched. “Noooo!”
That lone, desolate word was her last. The full force of the Elements swarmed over her, and the rest was darkness eternal.
===
For only their second time ever using the Elements of Harmony, though, this whole encounter went a lot better than Sunset Shimmer expected.
She woke up to the same full-body exhaustion she remembered from trial number one, the kind that felt like her veins had filled with extra-crunchy peanut butter. Her groaning, cursing friends weren’t feeling too hot either, it seemed, but in spite of that she doubted any Bearer of the three really felt like complaining. At least this time they hadn’t demolished their own home in the name of magical friendship. Compared to convincing their insurance rep that an Omega-class Harmony discharge technically counted as an “act of Nature”, a few scrapes and bruises were hardly worth mentioning.
A thick cloud of smoke still lingered as Sunset pulled herself upright, filling what had recently been a room inside what had recently been a castle. As she peered into the off-white fog—another hallmark of the Elements, it seemed—Twilight and Starlight picked their way through the rubble to stand with her, the latter still shaking blue sparks out of her fetlocks. For a while they stood together in passive silence, each of them absorbed in their own private thoughts. As Sunset actually was expecting, Starlight was the first to share hers out loud.
“Is anyone else hungry?” she asked. “‘Cause I’m kinda starving right now.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” Twilight replied, her tone bordering on terse. “Vaporizing priceless Pre-Banishment artifacts must work up quite an appetite."
Starlight cocked an eyebrow, matching the angle of her slanted smirk. “Well, isn’t someone salty she didn’t get to make the plan this time. And also forgetting the whole weekend I spent helping her catalogue the priceless archives and survey the Pre-Banishment grounds.”
“Well, you still didn’t have to knock down the entire castle!” Twilight grumbled. “It could’ve had… I don’t know, sentimental value!”
“Yeah, and now it has tourist value.” Starlight brandished a hoof at the smoldering wreckage, a salesmare’s glint in her eye. “Ten bits a head to see the wet spot where Nightmare Moon got her big fat face kicked in.”
Sunset went without commenting on the matter, but with good reason. Her eyes narrowed as the mist dissipated, and something dark and lumpy within it sharpened into view. Twilight froze as well, her next snippy response sticking in the space between her lips, and Starlight followed suit as the shape started to move.
“Or not…” Starlight muttered, charging a spell into her horn with a crackling snap. Next to her, Twilight did the same, her own softer magical timbre layered over by Sunset’s bassy growl. The three mares waited and watched the smoke fade, familiar eager tension purring between their shoulders. Between Sunset and Twilight’s warmup and Starlight’s finishing blow, the Elements of Harmony should’ve wrapped things up with energy to spare—but if the Nightmare still had some fight left in her, Sunset was more than willing to return the favor.
Except when the fog finally lifted, it wasn’t Nightmare Moon they found themselves facing. Instead, a waifish cerulean alicorn lay before them, wide-eyed beneath her matte-blue mane and shaking in her spangled hoofshoes.
“W-Wait…” she stammered, cowering even lower as Sunset took a tentative step forward. “W-W-Wait, please, don’t do it again! I’m not her anymore, I’m not! I… I-I’m…”
Recognition snuffed out the flame in Sunset’s horn. She knew this mare, from fairy tales hidden in history books and legends so old even their authors were lost to time. “Luna,” she whispered, Twilight’s sudden gasp all she needed to know she’d guessed right. Between them, Starlight’s blank look progressed into outright gaping, her eyes darting between Sunset and the poor creature cringing in front of her.
“Wait, Luna?” she said. “Like… the Luna?”
“The Elements of Harmony… they must’ve purged the Nightmare,” Twilight said to herself. She’d heard the same stories Sunset had, stayed up until dawn combing through the same moth-eaten manuscripts. As a giddy smile grew on Sunset’s face, the same expression twitched onto Twilight’s. “It’s her. It’s really her.”
Luna agreed with a frantic nod, straightening back up as relief welled up in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she gushed. “The Nightmare, it… I-I couldn’t control it. Celestia didn’t have a… oh, stars above, what have I done?”
Step by timid step, Twilight made her way over to Luna’s side, laying a gentle hoof on her shuddering shoulder. “Don’t worry, Princess Luna,” she said, smiling as Sunset came to stand opposite her. “You’re safe now.”
“We’re not going to do anything to hurt you,” Sunset added.
As Luna ducked her head, both her consolers looked back towards Starlight, who up to that point still hadn’t quite gotten with the program. With a few coughs and a pointed look or two, the message eventually went through.
“Sorry I nuked your castle from orbit,” she mumbled. Twilight pursed her lips, but Sunset just smiled and sighed. For Starlight, that was more or less close enough.
“Hey, Twilight?” she said next, stepping away from Luna so she could meet her friend’s eyes. “You still have that parchment Spike prepped for you?”
Although Starlight remained charmingly immune to subtlety, Twilight was starting to get a handle on it. “Yep,” she replied, pulling the charmed scroll out from voidspace and unfurling it with a practiced flick of her magic. “Think Celestia might like to hear about this?”
Sunset popped a feather quill into being and passed it Twilight’s way, aided by a ray of dappled pink light. Off on the horizon, the sun was rising.
“Yeah,” she said with a wink towards Luna. “I think she might.”