The Nightmare Knights Become A Band

by SwordTune

Verse 25

“Ready?”

Luna tested the makeup on her face. The oil-based paint stuck like glue. Though, she suspected sweating the paint off wouldn’t be a problem. Even with the Crystal Heart, winter was still winter. The wild storms in the north pounded down hard, making the air inside the Heart’s magic chilly. She might actually welcome the warmth of the stage lights this time.

Svengallop finished the touch-ups on Starlight, the last of the Knights to show. She was helping grade final exams and nearly lost track of time.

“Just barely,” Svengallop said, looking Starlight up and down. “Wish I could do something about her mane, but she’s presentable.”

“Excuse me?” Starlight stuck her tongue out at him. “Rude.”

Lightning Dust came down from the street to the storage room where they waited. “Well, the fog’s starting to cover the pavilion, so we gotta head out soon.”

Luna nodded. “Come on, then.”

---

Together they stepped up into the market and walked the short stretch of street to the pavilion stage. More citizens crowded around the centre now. Some looked eager, some confused.

The night market itself was already an attraction. Luna was certain that their performance was news to those who just wanted to go shopping. It relieved her to see an array of creatures mingling together. Dragons and yaks could stand side by side, and neither seemed agitated.

Luna’s voice bounced with excitement. She leaned over and shook Starlight by the shoulder. “It’s already working! Ooh, I can’t wait.”

They each smiled and waved to the crowd, Lightning Dust taking a seat at the drums that had already been set up for the band before them. Svengallop carried his keyboard and plugged it into the speakers.

Luna turned her head and flashed him a smile. Thanks to him, they didn’t need to do any preparation while on stage. He had checked and double-checked, and all Tempest and Starlight needed to do was plug in their guitars.

“Alright, alright!” Luna shouted out to the crowd, testing her microphone. Her royal voice was plenty loud, but modern technology let her words be projected with a lot less effort. “Pretty cold night tonight, huh?”

She tightened up her own cloak and leather jacket to mime a chill. “Well, I hope you all have a friend, buddy, or a pal with you. I hear the market’s going to be up all night, so find someone to stick close to and stay warm.”

The crowd ruffled with chuckles as groups of friends followed the suggestion and huddled together.

“Honestly, I’m really glad to be here with you all tonight,” Luna continued. “Singing out here, on stage, I never thought I’d be able to do it. For most of my life, actually, I thought I’d never get out of the moon, hehe.”

Mostly the dragons laughed at that joke, but the crowd’s spirits were up nonetheless. Under hoods of their own, Luna spotted Cadence and the Dragonlord standing side by side, watching the performance. Both of them wanted the market festival to improve the city’s morale, and both of them were staking their hopes on a power metal band, of all things. A little surveillance was to be expected.

“But here I am, and the Equestria I once knew has become a place with even more friendships than I could have ever dreamed. So we’re going to start off with a little song celebrating what makes Equestria special.”

Luna signalled Lightning Dust and Starlight, kicking off the song with the strong beats and chords of their instruments, breaking abruptly for Luna’s voice to take control.

---

I have returned from my prison of darkness and evil

Divisions across the land that I once called my home

Locked in the moon by an ancient and powerful ruler

Now I must quest to take back the crystalline home

-

Legends speak of a land

Where peace and friendship still reign

-

Friends far away, welcomed by the Night and Day

From the mountain and to the beyond

Follow your dreams, let your friendship reign supreme

In the Land of Unicorns

-

Follow the path laid down by the forces of friendship

Travel the road, go up to the mountain of gold

Fight against fear and wrongful agents of chaos

Onwards I fly in search of the peace I desire

-

Returned, down from the moon

To teach the lessons unknown

-

Friends far away, welcomed by the Night and Day

From the mountain and to the beyond

Follow your dreams, let your friendship reign supreme

In the Land of Unicorns

-

The past is leaving now

I see this realm before my eyes

Gather now and sing with me, bring me back to my homeland

The Land of Unicorns

-

Friends far away, welcomed by the Night and Day

From the mountain and to the beyond

Follow your dreams, let your friendship reign supreme

In the Land of Unicorns

-

Friends far away, welcomed by the Night and Day

From the mountain and to the beyond

Follow your dreams, let your friendship reign supreme

In the Land of Unicorns

In the Land of Unicorns

---

They drew in a larger and larger crowd, playing more songs from their albums, and even adding their first song from their performance in Canterlot. Some citizens came and went, still more interested in the market than the music, but by their third song, the crowd had filled up the market centre, almost spreading to the streets leading in.

Yet even as full as the crowd was, the pavilion was just high enough to give Luna view of the audience. She saw them coming. More ponies added into the crowd, some armed with signs, others simply raising their hooves.

A herd of crystal ponies trotted through the night market and stopped just short of the centre. Tempest moved away from her microphone and whispered to Luna as she performed a choreographed swap with Starlight.

“That part of the plan?”

Luna gave Tempest a look that said everything she needed to know. They were not. Down in the audience, Cadence and Ember had their heads turned toward the coming crowd, along with many other yaks and dragons.

“Excuse me,” Luna pointed a hoof out to the pony in the front of the herd, “On behalf of the night market and everyone in it, I’d like to ask you not to start any trouble with the creatures here. We’re all here for a fun night, correct?”

One of the ponies gave their leader a long cone to speak through. “Don’t mind us, we have just as much right to be here as those dragons.”

“Except they don’t look like they’re having fun anymore,” Luna gestured to the ponies and yaks in the back of the audience who were being pushed further into the crowd to make room for the new herd.

“Is this really what princesses are doing now?” The leader laughed. “Giving space to dragons who can burn down our homes when ponies just want to walk around the market?”

Luna’s nostrils flared. “Hey! This is a--”

Her microphone cut out.

Tempest and Starlight tapped on their mics as well and strummed their guitars. The speakers were completely silent.

Svengallop whipped his head around to where their equipment was plugged in. “What are you doing? That pony’s pulling out the power cords!” He pointed to a stallion in a hood, yanking the last wire between the keyboard and the sound equipment.

“You need to get our microphones working again,” Luna told him quickly.

But there was not enough time to get it done before more words lashed out. Some yaks standing by the CNP crowd scuffled with a dragon, holding him back from getting too close to the leader.

“I’ve never burned anything down. I live here too!” His voice lost its power in the open space of the market, but even from the stage, Luna could make out his words. More dragons in the audience riled themselves up. They shouted for the CNP to get out and leave them alone.

And it was only the dragons.

The crystal ponies, and even some of the yaks, simply stood around awkwardly. Those who could, left, returning to their shopping and browsing.

“Alright, the sound should be back on!” Svengallop shouted, climbing back up on the pavilion. He rushed to his keyboard, but his face drooped when he saw how sparse their audience had become.

Dragons who were happily next to ponies looked back with sour faces at the ones leaving. A single-file wall formed in front of the CNP, some shouting at them to leave, others daring the ponies to try and enter the market centre.

“We will not be moved!” One dragon started yelling, and quickly the two dozen or so dragons who had united followed until a scant few words sounded like a powerful chant.

Cadence flew over to the stage. “I’ll get Shining. He can make them leave, but we’ll have to shut down the market for tonight.”

“What? No!” Luna pitched up in a whimper. “This was working, you saw how everyone was together.”

Ember huffed and stomped onto the pavilion. “You need to stop this now! Do you know how hard it was to get my people to give this festival a chance? Every dragon is here because I told them to trust it. If you let this go on, they’re going to question my power as Dragonlord!”

“I’m sorry, but we have to try!” Luna begged them.

“Luna,” Starlight placed a hoof on her shoulder, “I think they’re right. We lost the battle but we were close. That means next time we can make it work.”

Luna’s jaw tightened. She shook her head and forced herself to focus. She pointed to the chanting dragons. They stood firm against the CNP, yelling with every ounce of breath they had back at the ponies. But she noticed. Luna could not have missed such a detail, given what she saw when she came to the city.

“Look,” she told them.

Not a single spark, not even a puff of smoke. The dragons were standing for their right to remain in the Empire, but they were not using their fire. In their moment of darkness, the dragons chose to not use their light.

Luna stared at the market, where so many ponies had left that she could see the pavement again. The centre was half-empty, filled mostly with dragons. And the CNP, they were coming closer. Much closer.

“Hold on,” Luna squinted her eyes at something coming from beyond the market. While the front of the CNP herd traded words with the dragons, something further back seemed to be gathering a crowd. She twisted her head and looked down another street.

The same.

From the shops and stalls, ponies started breaking out of their lines. Vendors jumped out of their stalls.

“What is happening now?” She gestured to what she saw.

A tendril, frantic and black, whipped through the street. They could hear the screaming now as ponies hurried back down the street to the centre. Only, it wasn’t a simple audience this time. Every creature in the market fled in panic.

Shadows chased them, bounding on their hooves.

“Tempest!” Luna snapped, suddenly forgetting the clashing protest on the other side of the market centre. “Can you direct the crowd? I need the area cleared to fight them all.”

“You can count on it,” she said, and then turned to Starlight. “Lend a horn?”

Starlight nodded. “Didn’t even need to ask.” The two teleported away.

“We can help them two,” Cadence said. Both princess and Dragonlord spread their wings, soaring over the mass panic to try and direct every creature as far from the shadows as possible.

Lightning Dust was already in the air, too. “I can get to Shining Armour the quickest,” she said, barely waiting for a nod from Luna to give the go-ahead.

Luna levitated Svengallop up. “Sorry, you’ll have to get somewhere safe,” she told him. But he struggled out of her field of magic.

“The kids,” he huffed, “the kids are in the market!”

“What?”

“The, uh-- the weird ones. From Fillydelphia! Starlight’s nosy students, those kids! They're in the market, I saw them.”

Luna stiffened. “Oh shit!” She was so focused on the shadows that she completely forgot.

Fortunately, Svengallop was hot on his hooves. “I can’t fight or fly, but I’ll go with the crowd. I’ll make sure they’re safe.”

“Really?” Even in their current state, Luna’s brows tipped up in surprise that Svengallop could muster a selfless act. A burst of screams echoed down a street, the shadows thrashing shops and throwing blocks of pavement at the fleeing mob.

“No guarantees,” he gasped nervously. “Just end this quickly before I need to start worrying about myself.”

He galloped away from the nearest sounds, following the signals from Cadence as she led the fleeing citizens from the attack. The protesters had fled as well, subsumed by the chaos and madness.

It was a very small consolation, as Luna empowered her horn and stood her ground in wait for the coming shadows. At least she could tackle one problem at a time.

Author's Note:

Land of Unicorns reference

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

Well then Everything turned out pretty well until the end gosh darn it But what makes it worse is now the shadows are attacking the creatures of the crystal Empire and once again who ever thought Svengallop Actually cares about somebody instead of himself kind of but still thats awesome But the question how are they suppose to stop those shadows