Chapter 14
"Twilight Sparkle," shouted Luna from across the Observatory's main chamber. "The time is now!"
"Just rest here, Rarity," said Twilight. She eased the white unicorn down on a padded bench off to the side of the telescope. "Don't move, okay? This will be over in just a few minutes. I hope."
Rarity's eyes were dull and unfocused. Twilight couldn't even tell if she understood what was going on.
"Twilight Sparkle!" shouted Luna again.
"Here I am, here I am!" said Twilight, scrambling into position. "Ready to begin the broadcast!"
Luna dipped her head, and her horn flared dark blue, mixed with the white of moonlight. A chime sounded, a delicate tone that hung in the air.
Twilight's horn pulsed with violet light, and an answering tone joined Luna's. Then a pulse of deeper purple, and the sonorous sound of a bell. Twilight's horn flared green, red, yellow, and each time a new chime echoed throughout the Observatory, creating a haunting melody of magic. Luna's echoing tones joined hers, and the two ponies wove together a song so ancient that it had serenaded the birth of the universe.
It was the Music of the Spheres.
* * *
"Your strength is waning, little filly," taunted the Nightmare.
Fluttershy drilled her eyes into the Nightmare's gaze. Spike had mentioned that while fighting the demon at the University, he had caught a glimpse of her soul, and realized that she had been born a pony. Now with the Stare, Fluttershy could see much the same thing, except that she could also judge the nature of that soul.
"Celestia teaches us forgiveness," said Fluttershy, the roar of swirling fire almost drowning her out. "You may be a dark goddess now, but you were just a foal back then, all alone in a plague-ravaged city. Your mother and father died and left you by yourself."
The Nightmare's eyes narrowed to hear her own past, but she said nothing.
"You were an orphan," said Fluttershy. "You were scared! But you don't have to be scared anymore. We can help you... you're not alone."
"We're all alone, you fool," laughed the Nightmare. "Even when we are shoulder-to-shoulder with a thousand others. Because nopony is ever truly out for anypony but themselves. Even the great saints did what they did in order to gain personal karma, and the favors of fate. Altruism is just hidden bargaining."
"The reason doesn't matter," said Fluttershy.
"Yes, it does!" said the Nightmare. "Yes! It! Does! You're as naive as a newborn if you think your Princess is any different. Celestia has turned your society into a flock of sheep even more obedient and blind than the barnyard animals you hold in thrall. You're nothing more than her pets. And I should just give this body back and retire to this 'peace??' You insult me."
"So instead, you devour souls," said Fluttershy. "You take from the helpless. You murder the innocent!"
"Oh, I've done worse that that," said the Nightmare. "The truth is that every pony has to decide what to sacrifice. If they decide that their arbitrary 'morals' prevent them from sacrificing what is necessary, if they decide that it's 'just not worth it,' then they die. I've made a different choice."
Fluttershy shook her head. "Thank grace that your mother isn't alive to see this. If she wasn't already dead, you would kill her with disappointment."
"What do I care about her??" cried the Nightmare, suddenly furious. "About any of them? They've been dust for three-thousand years!" Her blazing corona thundered and lashed, the light growing to almost blinding. Her voice reduced to a thin whisper. "But you're here right now, and I'm here right now. So scream, my little pony. Scream."
Fluttershy cried out in the intense heat, and blisters appeared on her forelegs, her neck. Still, she dared not turn her eyes away from the Nightmare. If she did, they would all be dead in a second.
"Wait for the Event!!" Hard Target was shouting to his troops. "Wait for the Event!"
And then they heard the music.
It was beautiful.
"Too late," said the Nightmare.
Fluttershy had reached her physical limit. Her eyes rolled up into her head as she collapsed to the ground.
The Nightmare formed a whip made of plasma-fire, flung it high into the morning light, and brought it down directly upon the yellow pegasus. There was a solar-flare explosion so fierce that it flash-boiled the ground under her, blasting the rock up into a lava font. But when the smoke and lava-spray cleared, it became apparent that the plasma-whip lay against the surface of an orange force-bubble. Inside, Shield Banner stood defiantly before the Nightmare, protecting the fallen Fluttershy.
Nightmare erupted with laughter. "Trying to redeem yourself now, tool? It's a little late for that!" Her whip flew into the sky and then exploded down against Shield Banner's force-field again. The ground under the former Guard Captain fractured like broken glass, and he grunted as blood ran from his nose and ears.
The music from the Observatory grew louder and louder, echoing out across the valley. The whole castle began to shake, sonic waves resonating from deep within its stone core. The sky took on a faintly red tint.
For the first time, a look of worry passed over the Nightmare's face. "Bah!" she said, dismissing the former Guard Captain. She leaped into the air, aiming to arc over Shield Banner and fly into the Observatory through the open dome. But just as she cleared the outer-wall and caught sight of Twilight and Luna inside the main chamber, an orange tractor-beam snagged her rear hoof and stretched like rubber as she soared upwards. It stretched further and further, refusing to break, until at last, the reverse-pull of the beam outpaced her weakened flight-aura. She sling-shotted backwards, away from the Observatory and crashed down against the hard flagstones in a cloud of dust.
"I'm not finished with you, yet," said Shield Banner through gritted, bloody teeth. He lowered his horn and charged her.
The sky's red tint deepened. A shadow was falling across the land of Equestria.
The Nightmare turned back towards Shield Banner, screaming in rage, her lava whips slicing the ground to ribbons. Shield Banner dodged to the side as chips of stone exploded all around him. The moment the Nightmare's attack had passed, Shield Banner was up on his hooves again, teeth gritted, nostrils flaring, leaping directly at his foe.
They traded blows. She fired a purple sunbolt just as Shield Banner's horn skidded along her right elbow. There was a ferocious flash of orange light and the Nightmare recoiled into the air, blood spraying from the stump where Shield Banner had teleported her foreleg off. But Shield Banner felt a brilliant spike of magic stab through his soul and let out a scream of agony as they both fell.
I can't teleport now... thought Shield Banner through a haze of red But I have to continue the attack until one of us is dead! The point of military training, Shield Banner had learned early on, was not just to learn to fight. It was to learn to fight automatically, so that in circumstances where death was seconds away, where the soldier was riding the edge of physical and mental exhaustion, he would still kill the enemy.
Shield Banner landed on all four-hooves, watching the Nightmare spin away in midair, timing his next attack to lead the target with perfect geometry. His heart pounded with agony and fear, but he knew his aim would be true.
A fan of orange arrows leaped from his horn, arcing to points fifteen-feet behind the Nightmare, and sure enough, she flew right into them. The conjured projectiles thunked all up-and-down the alicorn's body, piercing her wings, chest, and neck. Her back spasmed as she lost control of her flight-aura and fell from the air, bouncing several times across the stone, tumbling down a grassy hill, splashing out in a massive reflecting-pool. For the moment, she lay still.
"Fluttershy!" said Shield Banner, rushing over to the dazed pegasus. "Can you stand?"
"I... I think so," she said. She clearly had first and second-degree burns all across her chest and legs. "Dizzy..."
"Put your foreleg around my neck. We've got to get you out of here--"
They were interrupted by the thunderous roar of flames. Shield Banner turned to see the Nightmare explode from the reflecting pool down below, flash-vaporizing the water into steam. Her stump-foreleg was beginning to regrow already.
"Get ready to hold your breath," ordered Shield Banner, and Fluttershy squeezed her eyes shut and clung tightly to him.
The Nightmare tore through the air on a plasma-contrail and came screaming down upon them, lava-whips whirling and slashing like roto-copter blades. At the last second, Shield Banner's horn flared orange and he and Fluttershy sunk down into the stone at their feet. The lava-whips carved glowing lines in the ground, but none of them struck flesh.
"Clever," chuckled the Nightmare, her pupils turning red as she peered down into the stone. Of course, they can't stay too deep for too long. Her wings opened and she took off into the air, scanning the ground, tracking the two ponies as they melded through the rock. Instead of moving directly back to the Observatory, Shield Banner was apparently headed toward a lone tower hanging out over the cliff. It was a safe place to leave the pegasus, or rather, it would have been, except that now the Nightmare had a quick plan to kill them both.
Just as they reemerged from the stone, both gasping for air, the Nightmare used her plasma-lash to slice through the entire rock-outcropping. The tower and its staircase detached from Canterlot Mountain, falling backwards as Shield Banner and Fluttershy ran for their lives over the crumbling ground. They leaped into space as they neared the edge, but Fluttershy's wing was injured and she shrieked and pitched downwards. The Nightmare watched Shield Banner turn in midair, trying to catch the pegasus with a magic tether. Then they both fell out of sight.
The Nightmare let out a victorious laugh, but her elation was short lived, as a stabbing pain suddenly cut through her heart. "Arggh!" she cried out, her flames sputtering for a microsecond before bursting back to life. Her gaze turned up to the darkening sky. She had to get into the Observatory. She had to stop whatever they were doing.
Before she could act, however, a different type of shadow fell over her. The Nightmare flared her wings instinctively, dodging backwards, but not fast enough. Spike was already in midair, having leaped from the apex of the Observatory's roof. When he slammed down upon her, the flagstones beneath them shattered in a spider's-web pattern twenty feet wide.
* * *
"It's working!" said Twilight. "It's working!"
"Redouble your efforts, Twilight!" ordered Luna. "For the kingdom, for your friends, leave nothing untapped!"
Twilight squeezed her eyes shut and channeled everything she had into her horn and its celestial harmony. The Music of the Spheres soared with pure divinity, penetrating stone and air and earth and flesh. Every living thing in Equestria could hear the music now. Canterlot Castle-- the oldest cosmic transmitter known to ponykind-- sang to the heavens and the heavens sang back.
And then she heard Luna scream: "Twilight Sparkle, look out!"
Twilight's legs were suddenly assaulted by a feeling of intense cold, and she dropped clumsily to her knees. She was wading in a pool of liquid-black smoke.
Cinnamon.
The smoke sucked out her body heat with terrifying rapidity, and she gasped at the sudden, freezing cold. Twilight had no choice, she had to stop casting or she was dead.
"Gahh!" Twilight cried as she torqued her body around and detached from the spell structure. Her horn flashed purple as she summoned a localized whirlwind that stripped the clinging smoke from her skin. But the liquid cloud doubled-back on her as she scrambled to her hooves, trying to leap away. "Okay, how about a taste of your own medicine?" Twilight said, and her horn ignited with the golden light of the sun.
She raked the surface of the liquid-smoke cloud with the beam, causing it to dissolve and retreat. At last, the cloud coalesced into the solid form of Cinnamon Oatmeal, who shrieked like a banshee and leaped away more than forty-feet into the rafters. The red-gloom of the eclipse deepened, and the corrupted Night Guard disappeared into the shadows.
Where the hay did he go? thought Twilight desperately, scanning the underside of the Observatory's dome with the sunbeam from her horn.
"Twilight Sparkle!" she heard Luna call. The wounded Princess's voice was shaking. "My horn... I am not strong enough to hold the Failsafe closed by myself!!" Luna grunted in pain as the crystalline surface of her horn cracked along a line of neon-white. Still, the night-sky alicorn played on.
A flash of movement from overhead drew Twilight's eyes and her sunbeam fired in reflex, but the descending dark pegasus exploded again into a cloud of smoke and Twilight's beam shot through a doughnut-hole in the middle. And then an ice-cold body crashed down upon her and his fangs were on her throat, in her throat.
Twilight tried to cast, but the cold, negative magic of the Night Guard disrupted her positive charge, causing it to falter and fade. More than one way to skin a tomato, she thought, and she struck him in the face with the edge of her hoof-- the way Rainbow Dash had shown her. This caught him by surprise, and Cinnamon recoiled for a moment. She took that chance to scramble out from under him, turn on her front-hooves and coil her haunches in midair-- just how Applejack had taught her to do it.
"Apple-BUCK!" screamed Twilight, giving him a double-shot to the head.
Cinnamon's jaw shattered into pieces, and he stumbled back, tripping over his own hooves. He almost fell. But then the Night Guard righted himself and glared at her, golden eyes narrowing. His jaw hung off like a broken step.
"Oh..." said Twilight. "Rats."
Cinnamon's mouth dropped open wider than was possible for a pony, like his neck was being unzipped from the top-down. Inside was a horrible maw of yellow needle-teeth, and a fat, forked tongue that slithered out to wrap around Twilight's hind leg, yanking her to the floor. His fangs grew to horrific proportions, and his tongue snapped taught, dragging the purple unicorn's leg towards his throat.
Twilight's horn flared as she fired a hail of telekinetic javelins at his face, but again, the positive magic spiraled down into his vast maw, absorbed by the negative magic at his core. The Nightmare's presence always intensified the abilities of those she possessed, as Twilight had known, but she hadn't realized just how much this made Cinnamon a counter to... herself!
What do I do? What do I do? she thought frantically as the tongue dragged her closer and closer to the rows of yellow teeth.
Just then, Twilight heard a terse thwip in the air overhead and Cinnamon's head snapped back with a hiss. White smoke poured from a hole in his cheek. He began to claw at his face with his hooves.
Another thwip and suddenly there was a hole in his chest as well, also pouring white smoke. Something was firing tiny projectiles into the corrupted Night Guard. The holes in his body burned with an inner light, sizzling and searing inside, and Cinnamon's tongue unwound from Twilight's leg and reeled back into his mouth, leaving a coating of green mucus. Twilight looked over her shoulder for the source of the missiles.
Rarity stood by the door, heaving for breath, horn burning baby-blue. She looked delirious, utterly drained, but somehow she was still on her hooves.
All across the Observatory, tiny bits of metal began to detach themselves and fly over towards Rarity. The corners of a decorative coat-of-arms. An ornamental spearhead from the top of a painting. A fork and knife from a crumb-covered plate. Various pieces of a candelabra. Within seconds, there was a miniature asteroid-belt of metal scraps in orbit around the white unicorn.
Silver, thought Twilight. She's using her treasure-sense to find silver.
The corrupted Cinnamon snarled and leaped at Rarity. There was a flash of baby-blue magic and the adjoining space between them was suddenly filled with a half-pound of impromptu silver projectiles. Cinnamon shrieked and doubled over in midair as the metal thudded into every part of his body, but his momentum was too great. He barreled right into Rarity, and the two ponies went crashing through the swinging doors into the Observatory's parlor.
Twilight set to gallop after them, to help her friend. But from across the room, she heard Luna gasp in pain again. Blood was sprouting in the bandages on the Night Princess's forehead. Twilight was torn between rejoining the Music of the Spheres and going to save Rarity.
The choice was made for her, however, when Pinkie Pie suddenly cantered in and headed towards the Observatory parlor. She had a sharp, wooden stake in her mouth, and a mallet stuck out of a saddlebag stenciled with the words: EMERGENCY MONSTER-SLAYING KIT. There was a wreath of garlic around her neck. "Got this!" she said cheerfully.
"Twilight Sparkle!!" thundered Luna in desperation.
"Yes, Princess!" Twilight's horn glowed purple as she stepped up to the telescope. Within seconds, her tones had woven back into Luna's composition, and together, they held the heavens still.
* * *
Spike held the struggling Nightmare down with one hand, raising the other to the sky behind him. Nightmare's horn flared with sunlight, but too late. "This is for Rarity!" he screamed. Spike brought his diamond-hard fist down on the Nightmare's face like he was pounding a post into the ground.
He struck her again and again with the full-weight of his rock-and-metal skeleton, feeling the Nightmare's skull buckle, crack, split. Every blow landed with the force of a bomb going off, the ground shuddering, sending up a dust shock-ring around them each time. "This is for Luna!" he cried. Boom. "This is for all the ponies you've murdered!!" Boom, boom. Meat and hair stuck to his fist, teeth flew over his shoulder.
I have to keep hitting her, he thought desperately, keep hitting her and never stop! Because if I do...
At that moment, the Nightmare managed to sneak one of her rear-hooves between them, bashing Spike in the midsection with a battering-ram kick. Spike gasped in pain as one of his floating ribs cracked, but he hung on. His jaw opened wide and the spark of atomic flame ignited.
Let's see you get away from this! he thought as the reaction built in his throat and his claws dug in.
At that moment, the alicorn let loose an attack of her own. An incredibly bright beam of light, less than a hair's width, leaped from her horn and cut a perfectly round hole in Spike's chest.
"Guhh..." he wheezed, feeling his left-lung melting, deflating. Instead of green flame, a thick gout of blood poured from his mouth. The Nightmare's horn charged up another bolt, which she fired blindly as his claws continued to rake her face. There was a telekinetic explosion, catching Spike in the chest, blasting him away, sending him cartwheeling against a nearby tree so hard that he shattered the trunk into toothpicks. He struggled to get up on the other side. Blood sprayed from his mouth again as he collapsed.
The Nightmare hissed in agony of her own, trying to crawl away. Half of the alicorn's face was hanging off. She dragged herself along, hoof over hoof, her skull struggling to knit itself back together, crushed and liquified flesh sealing, regrowing. She just had to get away for a minute. Just a minute, and then she would tear every pony in this castle into strip-steak.
And then a sound like a gong echoed across the valley. Canterlot castle vibrated under their hooves with a sonorous echo. The music from the Observatory had swelled to a crescendo, and every pony in Equestria looked up to the sky. The sun was gone now-- there was only a boiling red circle. The moon lay directly between the kingdom and its star.
"Arghh!" cried the Nightmare, pain seizing her heart once again.
"The Event!" thundered Hard Target, thrashing the Equestrian battle-standard in the air over his head. "All units prepare to attack!"
In the unnatural red light of the false-dusk, two dark shapes appeared over Hard Target's shoulders. Chyornyj Slon and Slim-to-None, the last two Night Guards, bared their white fangs, golden eyes flashing. They were ready.
"EQUESTRIA-A-A-A-A-A!!!" The battle-cry reverberated through the lines, and the rag-tag remnants of the Equestrian Guard fell upon the weakened Nightmare in a tide of steel.
* * *
Fluttershy hung by a hoof, struggling to lift herself onto the narrow ledge they'd landed upon. After much thrashing about, she suddenly remembered that she had one wing left in working order, and started using it to help herself. Fluttershy's control of her flight aura had always been laughably bad, but all she needed was a little boost. She lost a few feathers, then made it up onto the flat surface where she lay on her back, gasping for air.
Shield Banner, she thought suddenly. He saved me... slowed me down so I could roll instead of crash... There was no time to rest. She had to find him.
Fluttershy struggled to her hooves. An intense wave of pain took her by surprise as her adrenalin high ebbed for a moment. She was burned and beaten down, her mind drained from maintaining the Stare. But still, she pressed on.
Shield Banner lay nearby in a twisted heap. There was a bright halo of blood around his head, where it had struck hard on the rocky ground. A piece of masonry, easily a pony-length across, had pinned most of his lower-half to the ground. He wasn't going anywhere unless they could lift or teleport this chunk of flagstone off of him first.
Fluttershy took a few, painful foal-steps over to him, and half-collapsed, half-laid-down beside him.
"Shield," she said. Even without further examination, she could tell that he was gravely injured. His back was bent in three places, and his abdomen was already distending from internal bleeding. She ran her hooves gently over his body and he cried out in pain. He felt like a sack of broken glass.
"Fuh... funny thing is..." he said, "if this ledge hadn't been here... we might have... been fine."
Fluttershy stared up at the edge of the cliff. It had only been about a sixty-foot fall. Shield Banner was right, if they had fallen the true altitude of the mountain, one of the ponies in his pegasus squads or Rainbow Dash might have caught them. Or he could have conjured a safety-net, or a parachute, or summoned a giant bird... Any number of options.
"But there wasn't enough time..." said Fluttershy. Then her eyes refocused and she went to work. She unbuckled his armored barding, releasing the straps so that the plates of steel fell away one by one. She pulled his Captain's cloak off, held the fabric down with her hoof and started tearing strips away with her teeth. Without a medkit, she couldn't do much, but if she could just keep him alive until they could get a medical evacuation...
A rush of air sounded behind her, and Fluttershy turned, startled. It was just Dash, pulling up from a dive and skidding to a halt right next to them.
"I'm so sorry you guys," said Dash. "I'm so sorry, it happened so fast, and I was looking at the Nightmare--"
"Dash," said Fluttershy, grabbing her foreleg with a hoof. "It's okay. We need to evacuate him to the hospital, right away. Get a pegasus team down here, and a unicorn."
"Don't... don't waste the medevac..." said Shield Banner, "never make it..."
"The hay you won't!" shouted Dash. "Fluttershy, I'll get your medkit and a stretcher, and find somepony to lift this rock off of him. Hang on!" She was away in a streak of colors.
Above them on the cliff, the sounds of savage battle rang out-- magic explosions, the clang of steel, the shouts and screams of soldier-ponies. The Failsafe was in full-effect, and the Royal Guards were on the attack. Down here, though, it was just the two of them, the wind, the clouds, and the eerie red sky.
"I... should be up there... with my stallions..."
"Don't worry about them," said Fluttershy, mopping the sweat from his brow. "Hard Target is with them, leading them. Worry about yourself. Worry about staying alive! After everything you put us through last night, you don't get to go out a hero."
"Just this once..." he said. His hoof found hers and he held it tightly to his chest. "The truth is... I'm scared... to die." He smiled wistfully. "Better this way... though." His eyes closed. "Tell Rarity... sorry..."
"Oh, no, you don't! Shield! Stay awake! What's... what's your favorite ice-cream?"
"Cookie dough," he said.
"Mine's mocha almond-fudge," she said. "What's your favorite song? Come on, Shield. Answer me! You have to stay awake until the medevac arrives."
"Glad...," he said, his voice barely a whisper, "that you're... here... now."
"Shield," said Fluttershy, tears pouring down her face.
"You are..." he said, "so kind... so beautiful... My life for yours... I can live with that."
Then Shield Banner released a long, slow breath, and did not draw another.
* * *
No matter which way the Nightmare turned, she met a wall of spears or a hail of arrows and fireballs. And there, on the tip of the offense, were the Night Guard, fighting evasively, driving her mad with their hit-and-run attacks. She fell back and fell back again, moving down the mountainside. They weren't letting her anywhere near that Observatory, and by now, it was becoming apparent that she was too weak to force her way through.
A line of spearponies charged in from the right, and the Nightmare blasted them apart like bowling pins.
Alright, she thought, gasping for breath, well if I can't stop them, maybe I can just move the sun! I'll break the eclipse by using their own tricks against them.
She turned and fled full-speed down the mountainside. The Observatory was the most powerful nexus of Canterlot Castle, but there was another. The Throne Room. She turned on the speed as she reached the castle proper, zooming through hallways and plazas. The soldiers were in pursuit, but she had outpaced them for now.
At last, she reached the double-doors of the Throne Room. With her lava-lashes, she cut a perfectly square hole in the doors, kicked it out, and stepped through into the massive hall of arched ceilings and stained-glass windows.
She cantered down the long, red carpet, her hooves echoing on the marble underneath. There was the strange whiff of something-- chemical. But it was gone almost immediately. The Nightmare peered around suspiciously. She appeared to be totally alone.
I don't have time for this, she thought angrily. I have to move the sun before the Royal Guard arrives.
She reached the throne.
This ought to do it.
The Nightmare began to emit music from her horn, the beautiful chords and tones weaving into the composition of the other two players using Canterlot as their amplifier. She began to draw the sun away from the moon, and more than that, give it a push and a spin, so that she would have time to defeat the enemy.
She became aware of the sound of dripping water. It was close by, loud and steady. It made her nervous.
Reluctantly, she broke off her efforts to join the Music of the Spheres, instead casting about for the source of the dripping. Of course, it could just be a leak, she thought. But she was having the strangest feeling it was something sinister.
At last, she determined the direction of the noise. It was coming from the antechamber behind the throne, hidden by a thick curtain. The Nightmare sliced the curtain down with her lash and stepped across the boundary, igniting her horn to illuminate the dark chamber.
As it turned out, the sound she was hearing wasn't water dripping. It was the ticking of a clock. A clock attached to sixteen tons of dynamite.
The Nightmare leaped into the air, firing every last ounce of energy she had left into magic propulsion, trying to escape the building. But instead she crashed into what felt like a lead wall. Her spine compressed, folding like an accordion. The Nightmare fell to the ground.
An enormous Night Guard pony slammed down, shattering the marble. He placed his giant hoof on her chest and shook his head.
"Get off of me!" she screamed, boring into him with a sunbolt. But the Night Guard did nothing to dodge it, just leaned on her with his incredible bulk as the beam carved through his flesh. She chopped off part of his snout, his ear. Sliced through his neck. A huge gout of black blood came gushing out and the giant Night Guard faltered, but did not fall. She blasted him with explosion after explosion, but he soaked up the damage, skin flaying off in ashen flakes, muscle burning through to bone. Just a few more strikes, she thought, and he'll be a charred skeleton. Then I'll brush him aside.
A crossbow bolt suddenly pierced the Nightmare's head from temple-to-temple. Her horn sputtered, and she was barely aware of a second pony leaping down from the ceiling. He was a charcoal gray earth-pony with a white mane and spectacles.
"Stop that," he told her, reloading his crossbow.
"What are you doing??" she screamed at them. "You're going to die too!"
"Fair trade," said the agent.
"Как посеешь, так и пожнешь," said the Night Guard. "Tovarisch."
* * *
The detonation eviscerated the castle. The fireball alone was several hundred feet in diameter, and it left a monstrous mushroom cloud hanging off of Canterlot Mountain. A thick rain of debris and stone-chips came down across the entire area.
On a facing hill, a team of ponies crouched in a hastily-dug ditch. Most were wearing yellow hard-hats, except for one with a cowpony hat on instead.
"Hoo-wee!" said Applejack. "That was loud!"
"I hope that was enough explosive," said Apple Bloom, pushing back her hard-hat so that she could lift her binoculars up over the lip of the ditch. "That was all we had in the Royal Surveyors stash. If I'd 'a had proper warnin', me and the rest of the Corps coulda' blown her up twice that big!"
"But did we get 'er?" said Applejack, squinting. "I don't reckon I can tell." Slowly, she crawled out of the ditch and stood up on the grassy hillside. The mushroom cloud was still expanding into the air. Applejack started trotting towards the huge crater where the Throne Room had stood only moments before.
"Big sis!" shouted Apple Bloom. "Be careful! She might not be down for tha' count!"
The sound of a gong echoed throughout the castle, up and down the mountain, and the moon began moving again, passing out of the way of the sun.
"She had better be," said Applejack to herself, "cause we ain't got the eclipse to save us now."
* * *
Luna collapsed, blood running down her forehead.
Oh, no! thought Twilight, and all of the strain of the Failsafe fell to her. That's it, I've got to bring this thing to a close before I lose control of it. Slowly, she wound down the song, slower and slower, easing out until it was just a lullaby.
The gong noise sounded throughout the Observatory. The Failsafe was complete.
"Princess!" she said, running over.
"I'm okay," said Luna, struggling to stand. "Go, go! Finish off the Nightmare."
Twilight dashed into the parlor to find Cinnamon in a heap on the ground with a stake through his heart. Around his neck was the chain of garlic.
Pinkie was off to one side, trying to comfort Rarity, who looked like she'd been crying.
"Rarity!" said Twilight. "Are you okay??"
Rarity looked up at her in a daze. "I don't... I mean, I don't remember..."
Twilight frowned. There's probably going to be some permanent damage, she thought. Then she looked over at Cinnamon. "Darn it. Is he...?"
"No, silly," said Pinkie. "That just puts them into torpor."
"Torpor? You mean... hibernation?"
"Don't you know anything!?" said Pinkie. "I thought you read books."
Twilight just looked at her. "Come on, then," she said, "you heard the explosion. We have to find the Nightmare's body before the sunlight is able to rejuvenate her. I just hope the dynamite was powerful enough to knock her out completely."
"Rarity," said Pinkie, gently helping her friend up. "Just a little further. We can do it." Pinkie Pie looked exhausted. They all did.
"Just a little further," Twilight said to herself.
They pressed out into the morning sun.
* * *
It didn't take long to find the Nightmare. She lay on her side in a charred, glowing crater, a wisp of smoke curling from her body.
"Careful, everypony," warned Twilight as they approached.
They were still several hundred feet away when the Nightmare woke up. Her eyes flared red in the sunlight, and her mane-of-fire sputtered back to life. But before she could struggle to her hooves, everypony became aware of a whistling noise descending from the sky above.
"Hit the deck!" screamed Twilight, and all the ponies fell to the ground in a duck-and-cover.
Rainbow Dash arced from the heavens and landed on the Nightmare with a devastating rainbow nuke. For the second time in as many minutes, the Nightmare found herself at the epicenter of a bone-melting explosion. The flare of rainbow light was blinding.
"That's all we got planned, right?" said Applejack, straightening her hat as the last of the debris rained down on them. All of their ears were ringing. "Don't want to walk into no third bomb."
"Just the coup de grace," said Twilight. "Get equipped, girls."
Necklace. Necklace. Necklace. Necklace. Big crown thingie. Dash crawled out of the crater and limped over to them. Necklace.
"Charge 'em up," commanded Twilight. Each of the Elements took up their place in the firing-line. Their gemstones revved and seared with energy, each producing a unique chord that melded with the others to shake the mountainside. The gemstones of the Elements of Harmony were some of the most powerful artifacts ever created-- so powerful in fact that each one had a mind of its own.
I don't know why you found us worthy, thought Twilight to the ever-present consciousness of the Element of Magic. She squeezed her eyes shut. But help us end this now. Please. Say this is enough.
The Nightmare struggled back up to her hooves, broken and bloody, destroyed and defeated. But even still, her wounds were scraping themselves closed, her muscles desperately working to repair the damage. After everything that they had done to it, Celestia's body refused to die.
"That was..." she rasped, "the best try yet." Her voice began to gather strength. "But as you can see," she grinned as her mouth compiled itself back together, "you have still los--"
Twilight's eyes suddenly shot open. The flaring beams of light emanating from them were whiter-than-white. The purity of the divine.
A shock-wave of the same white magic thundered from the other five gems, expanding, brighter and brighter. At its peak, a massive rainbow erupted from the crest, arced through the morning sky, and crashed down upon the Nightmare.
The rainbow swept through Celestia's body. A river of energy cascaded over the alicorn, through the alicorn. Every pore, ever cell was flooded with the intense, positive magic of the beam.
The Nightmare screamed and screamed.
At last, the searing white light exploding into billions of sparks, which floated down around all of them like luminescent leaves. The magic flowing through Twilight ceased. The reaction was complete. For a moment, she felt terribly empty, a loneliness from being detached from the magic of the gem. But she hung onto her emotions. She had been through this each time that she'd wielded the Element of Magic. After a few seconds, it passed.
On the ground before them, where there had been one pony, there were now two. Celestia lay on her side, bruised and scuffed, but whole. A dozen feet away lay a tan earth pony with a red mane.
Celestia stirred, trying to get up.
Twilight hesitated, looked back at her friends. Her face contorted in indecision. "Princess!" she called to the alicorn. "Is it... is it really you?"
Celestia was so weak, she could barely support the weight of her own head. But she turned slowly and looked into Twilight's eyes. "My faithful student," she whispered. Her eyes closed in exhaustion. "My faithful student..." Tears were running down her face. Twilight charged over and took the immortal, white alicorn in her forelegs, dissolving into an ocean of her own tears as she held Celestia close. The Princess was alive.
Pinkie pointed at the tan earth-pony on the ground. "Dash, or AJ, one of you tough ponies. See if that's her!"
"If that's who?" said Applejack. Then realization dawned on her. "Oh, my stars and garters..."
"Get up!" said Rainbow Dash, lifting the tan earth-pony to her hooves. "Who are you?"
The earth-pony looked around dazed for a moment, but then a look of shock and disgust crept onto her face. "What?" she said, staring at her own hooves, her own body. "What?? How is this...??" She tried to pull away from Dash, but Dash locked her in an iron grip.
"Who are you??" said Dash. "Answer me!"
The tan earth-pony headbutted Dash in the mouth. Dash fell back, blood streaming down her face, and the earth-pony leaped away and tried to make a break for it. But before the pony had run twenty feet, a beam of moonlight shot down from above and seized her in its glaring brilliance.
The earth-pony started laughing. It was the wild-eyed laughter of madness. "There's nothing beyond this!" she screamed. "You can kill me, but you're all doomed anyway!"
"Silence!" commanded Princess Luna. Her beam intensified and the earth-pony, who had once been called the Nightmare, let out a scream. She was petrifying into stone. It started at her hooves, then the transmutation crept up her body, over her flanks and her ankh cutie-mark, up her neck, until only the Nightmare's head was still flesh.
The Nightmare's pretty purple eyes bored into Luna with insane desperation. "We're going to the same place," she said, sweat coating her face. "And that place is nowhere. Even you and your sister. Death is just like before you were born. You'll be nothing some day."
"Perhaps," said Luna. "But you first."
The stone sealed up over the Nightmare's mouth, and then all that was left was a statue.
"Your weapon, Captain," said Luna.
Hard Target drew his mace.
Luna's horn flared as she lifted the weapon into the blue, Equestrian sky. The metal pulsed and glowed, becoming infused with every last bit of lunar-magic the Princess had left. Then she brought the weapon down again and again, until there was nothing left of the Nightmare but gravel.
Luna threw the mace away, collapsed to her haunches, onto her side. The green grass felt soft against her face. She closed her eyes. The remainder of the Guard swarmed around her, mixing with castle servants, and she felt herself lifted onto a stretcher and taken away. She was so tired. Just... just sleep now. Celestia was alive. They had won. They had won.
We won.
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Picture Credits:
http://twentypercentcooler.net/data/sample/da/d3/dad34cf456dee5bb06435598ba9ee00e.jpg?1337194769
http://pre09.deviantart.net/94f8/th/pre/i/2012/142/6/f/eclipse_by_a4size_ska-d2dvgyj.jpg
http://img12.deviantart.net/6852/i/2012/065/b/0/fluttershy_cutie_mark_fantasy_by_lugiadriel14-d4rz40v.jpg
http://img05.deviantart.net/4167/i/2012/179/c/2/luna_sleeping_by_raikoh_illust-d557gg8.png
