The Balance of Harmony

by The Rising Tide of Night

Chapter 13: From Night to Twilight

“Congratulations, little ones, you were able to get one of the elements. However, you will not live to be able to celebrate your victory.”

“N-n-n-nightmare Moon?” Pinkie Pie stammered, searching for the source of the voice.

Laughter echoed around the chamber, and the shadows around us seemed to deepen. “You remember me?” the voice replied. “I’m so pleased. And here I’d thought that no one would care to remember me after you banished me back to moon.” The shadows rippled in the corner of the room, and a tall, beautiful woman stepped out. Her skin was like ebony, and her eyes glittered like stars in the dark of night. Her long flowing hair was made of pure darkness that rippled as she walked, and she had on a long gown of the deepest midnight blue. She wore a crown made of a black metal, topped with sparkling diamonds and a large black opal in the center.

“Princess Luna?” I asked tentatively.

She smiled coyly at me. “Little Twilight Sparkle, I presume? The eye patch suits you well. It gives you more of a… rough, vicious look. Much like you used to be, when you banished me at the last.” She walked slowly towards me, much like a cat getting ready to pounce, her hair flickering and flowing behind her. I stepped backwards, raising my staff defensively, and she stopped, a petulant little frown on her face. “Twilight, Twilight. Must you be so formal? I merely wanted to give you a kiss in greeting.” Turning away in a huff, she glided away from me. “Very well, then. Since that is the way you wish to be, I can play that game as well.”

She turned back suddenly, and her hair lashed out at us, wrapping around our wrists and ankles. As we struggled, she lifted us into the air, dangling us by our wrists, and pulling our limbs spread-eagle. Nightmare Moon looked around at us, and frowned slightly. “Why, there are only four of you. Where are your other companions?”

Thinking fast, I replied, “They’re coming for us. They’ll be here any second to rescue us.”

She looked up at me, contemplatively, and shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t believe you. Twilight Armor said you were always a horrible liar.” Looking around at the four of us, her eyes landed on Applejack and lit up. “My, my, I’ve always wanted to have a little fun with you, dear Applejack. Let’s see what happened to your other friends, shall we?” She dragged Applejack down in front of her with her hair, and grabbed her face with surprising strength. I watched Applejack struggle in her grip, but Nightmare Moon was too strong. Darkness began to radiate from her hand, surrounding Applejack’s face, and Nightmare Moon stared into her eyes, searching.

Her expression grew frustrated as she continued to search. “When did your mind become so strong and adaptable?” she growled. “Very well then, enough of being nice. Let’s see how you handle this.” Her eyes disappeared, leaving behind blinding points of white light, and the darkness radiating from her hand suddenly increased, enveloping Applejack’s entire face. Applejack screamed, redoubling her efforts to escape Nightmare Moon’s grip, but all she succeeded in doing was causing Nightmare Moon’s nails to cut into her face, leaving bloody furrows down her cheeks.

Nightmare Moon suddenly released her, and she slumped in her bonds of hair, gasping and crying, tears intermingling with the blood running down her face. Laughing, Nightmare Moon looked up at me, her eyes back to normal. “Exquisite!” she cried. “Two of my enemies are no more! One buried in her own tomb, and the other taking her own life after being too weak to go on!” Looking down at Applejack, who continued to sob loudly, she gloated. “And perhaps another will join her, if she still has enough of a mind left to do much of anything.”

I heard a scream of fury nearby, and we all looked up at Pinkie Pie, whose eyes were blazing with hatred. “No one hurts Applejack on my watch!” she screamed, her body shaking against Nightmare Moon’s restraints. Nightmare Moon merely smiled up at her, an expression that turned to astonishment as Pinkie vanished from her bonds, reappearing behind her, gun at the ready. Without so much as a word, Pinkie Pie pulled the trigger, putting a bullet directly into Nightmare Moon’s head. Nightmare Moon slumped to the ground, and we fell to the floor as her hair released us, slithering away and covering her body.

We scrabbled over to Applejack as Pinkie Pie stood there, gun smoking, glaring down at Nightmare Moon. “No one hurts my friends while I’m around,” she snarled. “Pinkie Promise.”

Applejack was lying on the ground, staring sightlessly, tears still streaming and blood dripping from her face. “Applejack!” I cried, grabbing at her shoulders. I just missed, and snarled in frustration, adjusting my aim. Shaking her, trying to get her attention, I called to her again. “Applejack! Wake up!” She just lay there, unresponsive, sobbing quietly.

“She will not wake up,” intoned a different voice. I turned in shock to see my brother materialize from another corner of the chamber, shadow magic surrounding him. “When the Queen uses her full power on someone, they are gone for good. Your friend is nothing more than an empty shell.” He glared down at me, drawing a sword, leaving his gun shouldered. “You, however, are an affront to nature. You should not be here, dead thing.”

“Shining Armor!” I cried. “Please, can’t you see it’s me? What’s happened to you that you’re here, and working for King Sombra?”

“My name is Twilight Armor,” he growled. “And you want to know what’s happened to me? You, of all the people you could claim to be? You happened!” he screamed. “You died! That’s what happened!”

“But what about Cadence?” I asked, afraid for the answer.

His face fell, but only briefly as another flash of shadow surrounded his eyes. “She’s… gone. King Sombra killed her when Discord brought him back.” His stern countenance returned, and he glared down at me. “If you hadn’t been gone, she would be alive!”

I stared up at him in astonishment. “But, Shining Armor, why would you work for the man who killed your wife?”

“Because he said he can bring her back, but only for a faithful servant,” he stated. “He’s the one who gave me the powers of shadow that have served me well all this time.”

“But he’s a monster!” cried Fluttershy, staring up at Shining Armor with horror. “He treats his subjects like slaves! He traps people on those discs and forces them to use magic against their will!”

Shining Armor gave her an arrogant look. “Silly girl, I’m the one who devised that design. If it hadn’t been for Sweetie Belle, I never would have thought of it at all.”

Pinkie glared at him. “What did you do to Sweetie Belle?’ she demanded.

“If you must know, she was the first successful test subject. I caught her following me on my way here to enlist with King Sombra. I think she had some silly idea of convincing me to come back and help the resistance, but it didn’t matter. I neutralized her without too much trouble – she never was very good at using her magic.”

He paused, thinking back. “I thought about killing her, but then another plan flashed into my head. Crystals could be worn almost any way, but they had to be touching their owners in order to work. Well, what if instead of a necklace or staff, the crystals were implanted directly into the magic user’s body? Since I was close enough to the Crystal Empire, I dragged her unconscious form the rest of the way, and after I got myself situated here, I proceeded to experiment. Eventually, I settled for implanting the crystal directly into her forehead, giving it the best possible access to her brain, and finally allowing her to use her magic properly.” He smiled slightly, flickers of shadow magic playing across his face lending his expression an air of madness. “Implanting the crystal in that fashion had an unforeseen side effect. She now had almost no will of her own, much like that of a mage’s staff or crystal necklace. Nor did any other test subject we used. Fortunately, the Crystal Empire has always had a surplus of magic users, so there was never a shortage of subjects.”

We stared at him as he finished his story, horrified. I felt tears sliding down my cheek as I looked at the monster who used to be my loving, caring brother. “Oh, Shining Armor, I’m so sorry,” I apologized. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you in your time of need. If I had been, maybe…”

He sneered down at me, pointing his sword at my face. “Save it,” he snarled. “I don’t know why you’re here now, and I don’t particularly care. But since you’re here, I might as well kill you now.” He raised his sword, bringing it down at my head with sudden speed. With a speed born of frustration and pain, I raised my staff, coating it with energy, and blocked his attack. He pressed his sword down towards me, and I grimaced as his strength and leverage worked against me.

“You want to know why I’m here?” I grunted, sliding my staff away so that he lost his balance and his sword struck the ground with a clang. I brought my staff up quickly, as Shining Armor swiftly recovered and swung again. “I’m here to save this world from people like King Sombra and Discord,” I continued, speaking quickly as we fought. “I was brought here with my friends from another world to save this one.” I found myself quickly getting short of breath. I was in pretty good shape from all of the traveling and running we had been doing, but this was a much different exertion, one that I wasn’t used to.

Shining Armor paused in his assault, staring at me in disbelief. “Another world?” he demanded.

I nodded. “Yes. I’m not the Twily you know, but I can still love you like a sister. The Shining Armor I knew would never have stooped this low, no matter what.”

He paused, lowering his blade for a moment. He just stared at me, and I could tell he was struggling with something internally. He lowered his eyes, staring at the floor, his blade dropping even further.

I paused, then slowly approached him. “Shining Armor?” I asked, hesitantly.

As I got closer, a flash of shadow magic surrounded him, and his head flew up, hatred on his face. I staggered back as he brought his sword up, swinging it at me. It scraped across my armored outfit, slicing through a lock of my hair. He advanced on me, and I saw a flash of pink behind him. At the same time, I saw a flash of shadow magic, and he turned with a speed I had never thought possible to block Pinkie Pie’s surprise attack, sword catching her gun just as she was pulling the trigger. The bullet soared over his head, ricocheting on the ceiling, bringing down shards of crystal.

Shining Armor glared at Pinkie Pie, and she glared back, flustered. All of a sudden, Shining Armor vanished in a pool of shadows, and reappeared behind Pinkie Pie. She spun, swirling her cloak in an effort to distract him. It worked, as his strike missed her completely, getting caught on her cloak. She vanished, and reappeared behind him having drawn her wicked-looking daggers. She struck quickly, but he spun as well, catching her in the shoulder with the butt of the gun strapped to his back. Then they both vanished from sight.

Fluttershy and I just stared at the battle going on in front of us that we could barely see. There would be a flash of pink, followed by a flash of blue as Shining Armor reappeared as well, and the two would disappear again after trying to strike at the other. We heard the sound of metal striking metal as the two would collide, blades at the ready, each one catching the other’s attacks with deadly precision. The only way either of them would successfully strike the other was if one of them made a mistake.

Unfortunately, Pinkie Pie was the one to finally make the mistake. As she reappeared in the center of the room, she stepped on one of the crystal shards that had fallen earlier, and slipped slightly. The mistake was so slight, but it was just enough for Shining Armor to appear behind her, and before she could react, he drove his sword into her back, slipping between her armored shirt and pants with deadly precision. His blade emerged from her stomach, coated in her blood, and she opened her mouth in a soundless scream.

He withdrew his blade, and she slumped to the ground, hands pressed against her stomach. “Pinkie!” I screamed, rushing over to her.

She hugged herself, blood pouring out from between her fingers, looking up at me with a shaky smile. “S-sorry, Twilight,” she stammered. “I guess I broke my Pinkie Promise.”

“No, Pinkie, no, you haven’t,” I replied, pulling some bandages out of my bag. “You’re fine, don’t worry,” I said as I started wrapping bandages around her, pushing her hands out of the way. “We’ll get you fixed up.”

I heard laughing, and glared up at Shining Armor, who was casually wiping his blade clean. “You idiot!” I screamed. “Why did you do that?”

“Why does it matter?” he replied. “You don’t even belong here. You said it yourself.”

“It does matter!” I cried. “She is my friend!”

“You mean ‘was’,” he pointed out callously. “Just look at her. She’s not long for this world.”

Dreading what I was about to see, I looked at Pinkie’s face. She was growing pale, and was starting to look woozy. I kept up my bandaging efforts, pulling them as tightly around her as I dared. She winced as I yanked on the last bandage. “Lay down, Pinkie,” I murmured, gently pushing her down. She complied without any struggles, which made me worry. Pinkie had never been this still in her entire life.

“Don’t worry, ‘Twilight’,” he sneered, shadow magic playing around his eyes. “You’ll join her soon enough.” He raised his sword, intending to bring it down on me. I reached for my staff, but I wasn’t fast enough as the sword came down, whistling as it passed through the air.

Suddenly a gunshot sounded, and the sword clattered to the ground. Shining Armor grabbed at his sword arm as blood blossomed from his upper arm, searching for the source of the bullet. I spun my head around, doing the same. We noticed the shooter at the same time, letting out a gasp.

Applejack had raised herself up on one arm, wincing, and was holding a smoking gun in the other. “Ah’m sorry, Twi,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Ah wasn’t fast enough to save Pinkie. But Ah could at least save you.”

“But how?” Shining Armor demanded. “How did you survive the Queen’s attack?”

“Ah don’t really know,” Applejack replied, keeping her gun trained on him. “All Ah know is that Ah did mah best to avoid her mind getting in mine, but Ah just couldn’t. So Ah made sure to keep mah real self in the back of mah own mind while giving her what she wanted.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t easy, Ah’ll tell you that.”

Shining Armor looked furious, shadow magic playing around his eyes. “Fools. You’ll never get out of here alive anyway.”

Applejack slowly got to her feet, gun trained on him. “Maybe. But maybe we will. And we’ll take you down with us.”

He smirked at her. “You wouldn’t dare, not with her here.” He jerked his head in my direction.

“Ah think she’ll understand,” Applejack said grimly, and pulled the trigger.

Shining Armor just continued smiling. Applejack glared at him, and shot at him until the clip was empty. Suddenly, the shadows coalesced around Shining Armor, and the bullets that Applejack had just fired dropped to the floor. The shadows detached themselves from him, and joined together in the form of Nightmare Moon, who smiled up at us as she leaned against my brother. “Isn’t he such a nice boy?’ she asked coyly. “I’ve always enjoyed my little toys.”

“But – but, Pinkie Pie shot you!” Fluttershy cried.

She laughed brightly. “Little fool, do you truly think just a bullet could kill me? I am powered by the stuff of Nightmares. There’s nothing that can kill me.”

Applejack limped over to me. “Twilight, Ah hate to say it, but Ah think we need to get outta here. Pinkie needs help, and if we don’t get going, we’re gonna lose her.”

I felt torn. On the one hand, we had gotten one of the elements. On the other hand, there was still one more, hanging just feet away from us. However, both Shining Armor and Nightmare Moon were standing between us and the element. There was no way that we would be able to get around them fast enough. Glancing back at Applejack’s serious face, I nodded. “Grab Fluttershy,” I ordered. Applejack nodded back, and turned quickly, grabbing her hand. I grabbed ahold of Pinkie Pie’s limp hand, and Applejack grabbed my shoulder. I raised my staff, and started pouring my magic into the teleportation spell, staff glowing.

“Ah, ah, ah,” chided Nightmare Moon. “No one said it was time to leave yet.” Her hair slid around, grabbing my staff and ripping it out of my hand before I could complete my spell. I grabbed at it as it was pulled away, but she spun it away from my grasp and clipped my forehead with it. Seeing stars, I dropped Pinkie’s hand as Nightmare Moon brought my staff back to her own hands.

I heard Applejack’s tense voice in my ear as I shook my head, trying to clear it. “Twilight, the stairs.”

I nodded, glaring at Nightmare Moon, speaking out of the side of my mouth. “Grab Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy, hand me Pinkie’s gun. We’ll provide the cover for Applejack to get Pinkie to the stairs.” I reached my hand back, and as soon as I felt the weight of the gun in my hand, brought it around, standing up and aiming at Shining Armor and Nightmare Moon. I heard Fluttershy stand beside me, and Applejack hoisting Pinkie Pie as I focused on my targets.

My targets seemed unconcerned. Nightmare Moon waggled my staff at me, mocking me as I backed away. “You already know you can’t kill me that way. And I won’t let you kill my pet either.”

“Oh, I’ll kill you,” I snarled. “It just might not be right now.” I pulled the trigger, firing at them rapidly, as did Fluttershy, and we both backed away quickly towards the staircase. Shining Armor saw our plan, and started forward, moving through Nightmare Moon’s hair just as one of my bullets passed, clipping him on the leg. He limped backwards, and Nightmare Moon placed a hand on his arm with a small smile, keeping him from coming after us. The last sight I had of them before I turned and bolted down the stairs was Shining Armor’s shadow-tinged glare and Nightmare Moon’s smile.

We bounded down the stairs as quickly and carefully as we could, Applejack in the lead. Below the floor of the chamber at the top of the Palace, the area was gently illuminated with some sort of white light, and the circular stairs seemed to be endless. We hurried down them until after a few flights, Applejack stepped wrong and slipped on a stair, falling and dropping Pinkie Pie, who rolled down a handful of stairs and stopped. Applejack scrambled to her feet as Fluttershy and I hurried up. “Applejack, are you ok?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah, Ah’m fine,” she brushed me off, scrambling towards Pinkie. Fluttershy and I followed quickly, and we knelt down next to her, inspecting her. I saw that her blood had completely soaked through the bandages, and more was slowly seeping out. She looked dangerously pale as I grabbed her hand, which was limp and cold.

“Pinkie! Pinkie!” I called, trying to get her attention. Flutteshy was looking anxious, alternating between feeling Pinkie’s forehead and checking her bandages.

Pinkie’s eyes fluttered open, and she smiled up at us vaguely. “Hey guys, how’s things?” she asked, her words slurring. “Is the party over? I didn’t go too crazy again, did I?”

I shook my head, tears in my eye. “No, Pinkie, you were your normal silly self. Don’t worry about it.”

“Hey Twilight, did anyone tell you that you look like a pirate? A sleepy pirate, with a really weird haircut?”

I smiled as best I could. “Yeah, Pinkie, I think you’ve told me that before.” Fluttershy was crying, and Applejack, tears welling in her eyes, was looking grim.

“Oh, good,” she said, her voice fading as she spoke. “I would hate to let that one go by.” Her head slid to the side, and her eyes grew unfocused. She let out one last breath, and went still.

“Pinkie! PINKIE!” I screamed. We sat there, the three of us, crying over the body of our good friend. It wasn’t until we heard the sound of boots approaching did any of us look up, and even then it was only to see that we were surrounded by King Sombra’s soldiers, all of whom were pointing their guns at us. We were hoisted up, hands tied, and hauled down the rest of the stairs, where we were roughly stripped and thrown into the jail cells below the palace.

Comments

[DX-1118 C]

NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!