The Nightmare Knights Become A Band

by SwordTune

Verse 28

The barrier would not hold for long, Svengallop could tell much as he rushed out to find Luna. It was on Smolder’s shoulders to find a place they could perform where all the shadows could hear them. But without Luna and their instruments, there’d be no performance.

“Woah!” Shining Armour stopped him. “The shadows are getting through Svengallop, you need to--”

“They don’t like music,” he told him. “I need to tell Luna.”

The prince’s eyes blinked at the news, but seeing the truth in Svengallop’s urgency, he opened a hole through the barrier for him. Tempest and Starlight were at each other’s backs, holding down the shadows with exhausted spells.

“Svengallop?” Starlight saw him running by. “Wait, where are you going?”

“Head inside and find Smolder,” he yelled as he passed, “she’ll explain!”

“Smolder? Wait, how is she in the city? Svengallop, don’t just run away--and he’s gone.”

Tempest gasped as she forced a shadow back into Starlight’s traps. “I’ve never seen him like that. Come on, he wouldn’t be serious if it wasn’t important.”

Above them, Lightning Dust danced a dangerous tango around the bites and thrashes of the flying shadows. She kept them at bay, only letting one through at a time for Luna to destroy. Svengallop followed her trail in the sky until he spotted the flaring light of Luna’s magic.

“Luna!” he yelled. “We need the equipment! Luna!”

His voice was deafened by the rip-roaring of Lightning’s wings. But on the ground were scattered pieces of crystal rubble. He lifted the biggest chunk he could carry and gave it a hearty earth-pony kick. Ponies were naturally strong kicks, so even for a pony of his size, it was easy to send a rock flying.

Plink.

Or it would have been if his lack of exercise such a disadvantage.

“Oh for the love of Celestia,” he grumbled. “Lightning Dust! I stole that CD you bought from the market!”

The pegasi whipped her head around. “You what?” The air cracked as she forced a sharp angle down to the ground. “Svengallop! Who said you could take my stuff? Wait, what are you doing here?”

“The creatures don’t like music,” he pointed up to Luna. “Tell her to teleport all our band equipment to the palace and come find me.”

“Music, huh?” Lightning raised a brow. “You sure know what you’re doing?”

“You know me,” he said, “when it comes to music, I don’t make mistakes.”

---

Cadence paced behind Svengallop and Smolder, watching them drag bundles of cables to the palace balcony. There, the band would have a clear view of any shadows approaching them, and the most open space to project their music.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “We can’t stop fighting these monsters. Shining’s shield won’t hold forever.”

“Trust me,” Svengallop dragged the power cords and plugged them into an array of speakers, “this is going to rock the shadows’ minds.”

Luna teleported back with the drum kit and their two guitars stacked on top. She quickly passed them over to Starlight and Tempest, then helped Lightning position the drums at the perfect position on the balcony.

“Recalled every pony just to play a song?” Cadence’s voice pitched higher. “Shining is risking himself right now!”

The Dragonlord staggered up the stairs from the infirmary, wobbling from exhaustion. Her scales were unscratched, but it was her duty to check in on the wounded dragons, and the mental toll of caring for each of them was clearly weighing on her.

“Please tell me this is some kind of pony super-weapon,” she leaned against the wall.

“It is,” Svengallop said with a smile, “in the library, one of those things got through, but yours truly had a brilliant idea and drove it off with a CD player and some music. If we play loud enough, I don’t see why the same thing won’t happen to all of them.”

“A shadow got in?” Cadence gasped. “When?”

Starlight winced. “Oooh, there might have been a few holes here and there in Shining’s barrier. We didn’t want to alarm anyone so I tried to fix it up as quickly as I could.”

Smolder jumped up in the middle of the adults. “Done! I just plugged in the last speaker.”

Svengallop turned to Cadence. “There’s not much time left. You have to get as many as you can outside behind the barrier. The audience is the most important part of a performance. We might not be loud enough, but if they start chanting along, there’s no way those shadows will be able to come close to us.”

“We just finished getting all of them in here!” Ember gave a sharp gasp. “Do you know what you’re asking for?”

Both leaders seemed to agree, it sounded like a bad idea.

Having set up the drums, Luna interjected. “I know, but I have learned to trust my Knights. Even if it doesn’t work, we’re out of options. Starlight and Tempest, they can’t keep fighting. And frankly, I don’t know if I can either. Fighting these shadows uses the dark powers I’ve buried for a long time. Being this close to the Crystal Heart, I can feel it rejecting me.”

Cadence opened her mouth to give an excuse, but there really wasn’t one. They were surrounded on all sides, and she could feel in her heart that Shining Armour was on his last legs. The barrier would not hold.

So what was there to lose?

“I’ll get who I can to follow me outside. Even if this doesn’t work, we will fight them together. The Heart’s magic isn’t the only power we get from acting united.”

“I’ll get the dragons, too,” Ember said. “The ones who can move still want to fight. Maybe it’ll show those CNP jerks what we bring to this city.”

“Then let’s get moving, everyone!” Svengallop clapped his hooves. “Chop-chop, Knights, we have a song to pick. Come on, pick up the pace, the show must go on!”

---

“That can’t be it, can it?”

The Knights looked at each other.

“Come on, Luna, the lyrics are almost perfect,” Starlight said.

“I mean, it is a huge coincidence, isn’t it?” she asked.

Lighting beat on her snare drum. “Who cares? As long as it’s music it’ll work, right?”

Luna scratched her head. “If I change ‘the Holy Pony Empire’ part of the lyrics, it’s pretty much perfect.”

Smolder stuck her head over the edge of the balcony. Below them, a few hundred ponies and yaks made their way up to Shining. He was crouched on his knees. Smolder couldn’t see the sweat beading down his forehead, or the bags of fatigue under his eyes, but the flickering light of his barrier was enough to show that he had given all he could give.

“It’s now or never, Luna,” Smolder warned.

“Alright, alright!” Luna threw her hooves up. “We’re singing Rise from the Dead. I just never imagined it’d be like this.”

She flapped her wings and pushed a gust of wind down to the audience. “Citizens of the Crystal Empire. I speak to you, not as a performer or a ruler. I speak now as your kin. This city has faced the greatest of hardships. Once lost to history, as I was, it returned and made its mark on Equestria. And today, we shall do so again. Who among you will stand for the Crystal Empire?”

The Dragonlord and her dragons raised their claws first and shouted. They were fast followed by the yaks and ponies, emboldened. Dozens flinched as the shadows struck Shining’s barrier, however. He bit his lip, stifling a groan as his magic drained. Another shadow struck, and for his barrier flickered away completely.

Gasps of fear started to pop up from the crowd, but before it could take hold and turn the morale, Luna boomed her royal Canterlot voice to the city.

“If you stand, then let hear you!” She raised her microphone. “Will you rise? Will you make up from this nightmare. Come on everyone: Say will you wake up and rise from the dead?”

---

Ride, defend the Kingdom Reborn

Arise for the conquest of ponies

Soared across, Equestria’s skies

We storm and strike before the fall

Gone ahead, this army went on

Arrived on the storm clouds of winter

Brave ‘till dawn, the fierce and the sworn

And one-by-one the righteous fall

-

So for the glory of Luna

Your fears all lying to rot

And underneath blood and iron

Lies the promise of Nightmare reborn

-

Say will you wake up and rise from the dead?

Will you fight like a monster, all covered in red?

Say will you wake up and rise from the dead?

Will you sanctify the dark?

-

Kill and pray, you’re fearless at heart

In shadow’s dark magic it started

Lost the way the land split apart

The Holy Crystal Empire

The Nightmare Knights prepared an attack

To honour the princess departed

On they fought with no turning back

The kingdom rise forevermore

-

So for the glory of Luna

Their bodies lying to rot

And underneath blood and iron

Lies the promise of Nightmare reborn

-

Fight off the darkness and rise from the dead

Give your life for the nightmares that you never had

One thousand years then she rose from the dead

Come to sanctify the dark

The palace, the creatures, everything in the Crystal Empire was exposed to the shadows. But, as the guitars beat out their chords to the beat of the drums, taking over in the instrumental, the shadows crawled further and further back.

Luna flew out and over the crowd, her projecting her voice not only to the shadows but for the whole city to listen and follow along. After the first line, every pony, yak, and dragon caught onto the rhythm.

Rise, rise from the dead

Rise from the dead

Rise for the nightmares we are

Rise, rise from the dead

Rise from the dead

Rise for the nightmares we are

Rise, rise from the dead

Rise from the dead

Rise for the nightmares we are

Rise, rise from the dead

Rise from the dead

Rise from the dead

-

One thousand years just to rise from the dead

Come a mighty dark princess, the princess of dread

Descend from heavens and rise from the dead

In remembrance of the dark

Say will you wake up and rise from the dead?

---

The shadows did not merely shrink as the song went on. By the apex of the chant, only the largest of the shadows could stand the power of the music. They hissed and spat guttural insults and threats. Some of them, Luna did not know how many, but some of them could speak full words. She spotted the pony shaped shadow at the head of the pack, muttering its words while being completely drowned out by the sounds of wonderful power metal.

This is power. She thought, mocking it from her own mind.

They were all gone by the last line. Not just the living shadows, but the black clouds and ashes of the ones Luna had destroyed. From the core of the palace, light and magic flared up once again. The Crystal Heart revived itself.

She felt its magic wash over the city. The dark magic she had dredged up through the long fight writhed and sizzled, nearly ripped apart by the power of the Heart if Luna did not suppress it immediately.

From scattered shadows, smoke rose up from the damaged buildings. The market, and dozens of other neighbourhoods, were tattered and broken. But the city still stood. Together.

Author's Note:

Rise from the Dead inspiration

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

Whoa that was so close man but thanks to Svengallop and smolder To figure out their weaknesses they finally defeated the shadows and the crystal Empire is safe Whoever thought the music can save the day yeah lol awesome Anyway I wonder what's gonna happen next Where the other creatures finally come in peace I guess we'll find out next time