Nightwatch: The Elements of Destruction

by SFaccountant

Prologue

A bleak wind howled as Celestia’s sun began its slow descent to the horizon.

Dozens of gleaming eyes watched the sunset with varying degrees of loathing, sheltering in the shadows of tree branches and dusty crags. Leathery wings rustled, hooves scraped against stone, and ears twitched back and forth in agitation. A thick tension seemed to hang in the air, slowly draining away as the sun sunk behind the mountaintops.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

A high-pitched screech pierced the air from above, and numerous heads turned to watch. Several others did not, content to let the noise itself illuminate the new arrivals. The sound bounced off the surrounding trees, branches, and rocks, and their minds sketched a near-perfect diagram of the approaching figures.

The shriek was soon followed by the beat of heavy, leathery wings against the air. A triangle formation of six bat ponies swooped down under the treetops, and then adjusted their approach to land. The ponies in the back dropped to the ground first, their ears swiveling back and forth like radar dishes searching for threats. Then the two ponies ahead of them dropped down, spears drawn and at the ready. Finally the pony at the front landed daintily on her hooves, staring at the witnesses with a calm smile.

“Right on time,” grunted a pony curled up under a stone crag.

“The Bloodborne are never late,” the mare at the front cooed, her voice thick and husky. She kept her wings unfolded as she approached the other equines, and her retinue rushed to follow in escort.

The thestrals that had just arrived were all mares, and all conspicuously armed and armored. They didn’t brandish their weapons as they approached, but neither did they sheathe or secure them. Their armor was made of hide leather and rough fur that covered their shins, knees, and chests. Their backsides were mostly exposed, showing off an array of colorful cutie marks: crimson slashes and rune markers made up most of them, although there was one escort with a fish on a line. Perhaps she was in the wrong line of work.

The sun finally sank completely behind the mountain, and many of the ponies looked up as the moon rose to prominence in the vast web of stars that stretched across the skies. A few of them started whispering among themselves, their earlier frustration giving way to excitement. One pony started weeping.

“I can’t believe it’s almost over,” that particular equine said, rubbing his eyes with the edge of his wing. “At last, she’ll… the… the Mistress will be…”

“Do stop your blubbering,” commanded the recently arrived mare, sticking her nose up and narrowing her eyes. “You should not believe it’s almost over, because it isn’t. IF things proceed according to plan, we are not at the cusp of the end, but a new beginning.”

One of the stallions staring at the moon reached a wing into a pouch on his leg. He withdrew an object from the pouch: a small glass sphere that seemed to contain a constantly swirling, dark purple gas.

“Do you have it, Norn?” he asked, holding up the sphere.

“Of course,” the mare said, stamping her hoof on the ground. One of the mares behind her quickly unslung her bag, withdrawing a similar object with a bright red gas inside. “One fresh Nightmare, ready for sacrifice. A fragment of darkness stolen from the nexus between this world and the next.” She looked over the stallion toward the others. “I presume you have yours as well? I hardly think you’d have the gall to show up otherwise.”

One by one, four other bat ponies reached into their satchels and withdrew glass orbs, each one filled with a strange, swirling gas. The stallion that had been weeping cringed as he held his up, and he stared at the dirt, unable to look at it.

“Our spirit oracle, she… she did not survive the trapping process,” he said, tears dribbling down his cheeks again.

“Ours went insane. She howls and thrashes constantly, and her eyes constantly glow with magic,” announced a mare with pale, glassy eyes that had no pupils. “If she has not calmed by the time we return, she will have to be put down.”

“Something else happened with our dreamwalker. She only seems half-conscious now. She may be braindead, but she keeps giggling and whispering to herself about nonsense,” grunted another mare with a pitch-black coat.

“Oh. How… unfortunate,” Norn said, her expression looking perfectly disinterested. “Ours was fine. She has a big new scar now, but she rather likes that sort of thing.”

A soft glow appeared in the distance, barely visible through the trees.

“They’re ready. It is time,” Norn announced. She turned toward the light, and her escort rushed to guard her as she set off at a trot.

The other thestrals moved to do the same with varying degrees of eagerness. A few of them had weapons, mostly on the order of dragon-tooth blades or sickles that could be easily wielded in the mouth, but only the Bloodborne seemed to possess a warrior escort. They did wear clothes, however, and it was easy to identify the separate pony groups by their dress.

The Sentinels favored headdresses and caps that hung over their foreheads and hid their nearly useless eyes. The Shad had long scarves wrapped around their necks that whipped about whenever the wind picked up. The Eisenwing wore little other than jewelry, their coats black as the void. The Dark Heart tribe favored overcoats, some of which looked like they came from “civilized” lands that had modern textile crafters. The Haunt were the stark opposite, wearing hides and bone ornaments to look like cruel savages.

None of them had cutie marks, unlike Norn and her retinue. Many of the bat ponies snuck frequent glances at the mares’ hips, furtively studying the marks. Some of the stallions stared for different reasons; the Bloodborne warriors were very healthy and their coats and manes were rich and well-groomed, which was not always the case amongst the ponies of the other tribes.

The stallion that had first addressed Norn trotted at an even pace with her, his eyes fixed firmly on the light. Norn’s attention, however, soon wandered to the other bat pony. She smiled, showing off her thick, curved fangs.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it Cutlass? Why, I don’t think we saw each other since four winters ago.”

Cutlass nodded, not turning toward the mare. “Yes. That was the last occasion on which we needed to cooperate. Our hunting grounds have remained secure and the pegasi no longer harass our hunters, thanks to your aid.”

“Ah! Nostalgia!” Norn chirped, grinning happily. “Blades flashing in the moonlight! Feathers flying among the bloodspray! The cries for help and the pleas for mercy! Good times!”

“I don’t consider the period in which the Shad were being slowly exterminated ‘good times,’ Lady Norn. Although I am of course deeply grateful for your assistance, I’m thankful that there hasn’t been need for further cooperation among the tribes until this occasion.”

She looked slightly disappointed to hear that, but then her expression brightened again. “How did your mystic handle capturing the Nightmare? That, uh… what do you call them in Shad… er…”

“Nightweavers,” Cutlass answered. “Kris is… alive. She’ll survive. It’s too early to tell much else, but her injuries weren’t… mortal, at least.”

“Oh. I’m glad to hear that.” Norn looked away, coughing lightly. “Were you two close?”

“No,” the stallion responded with a dreary sigh.

“Mmm, I see. You remember my offer to you back from our days of martial cooperation, don’t you?” Norn asked, smirking. “It still stands, Cutlass.”

The stallion’s wings rustled irritably. “I do remember. My feelings have not changed. The offer to be chained up in your pits as a pleasure slave for the rest of my life, generous as it is, is declined. Thank you, though. It’s very flattering.”

“Pleasure slave! Bah!” Norn sniffed. “You all act like the concept of studding is so barbaric.”

“The way you do it IS barbaric,” interjected a mare from Eisenwing. “You raise your stallions to be dumb slaves, make them compete with each other, and then exile the losers. The winners get the privilege of spending their entire lives trapped in a pit, constantly rutting until they’re too old for you to enjoy. Then they’re granted the same fate as the rejects.”

“It’s not always exile,” retorted one of the Bloodborne warriors. “Sometimes it’s… worse.” She shrugged. “But the studs don’t complain.”

“Of course they don’t complain. They’re SLAVES,” grunted a Dark Heart stallion.

“Just ONCE I would like to meet in a tribal conclave without it turning into a denunciation of our breeding practices,” Norn complained, her mood ruined.

“You’re the one who brought it up,” Cutlass grumbled through clenched teeth.

“Silence. We’re here,” announced another stallion with a grim snort.

A path of heavy, intertwined roots formed a ramp upward to a wooden hut surrounded by magic torches that held strange blue flames. The roof was composed of still-living branches from the surrounding trees that had grown together and intertwined in a way that probably had something to do with druid magic. At the top of the ramp awaited an old unicorn mare. She had an overgrown mane of white hair and wore a dress and veil of silks that were ripped and dirtied from wear. Her cutie mark was a field of four-point stars against her light blue coat, with a single large star rising above the others. Silver earrings and an amulet completed the image of faded, tarnished opulence, each of them in the shape of a crescent moon.

“Greetings, friends and comrades in darkness,” the horned pony said, her voice like cloying honey. “I am pleased to see my summons reached you all. Our time is nigh.”

“It’s really happening, then? The ritual is ready? I can scarcely believe it!”

The unicorn tilted her head to one side. “It has been most difficult for you, my brothers and sisters. We exist at the periphery of this world: hunted, shunned, defeated. But that trial-“

“All right, all right, let’s cut the monologue and get a move on, Starsong,” Norn interrupted, looking annoyed.

Starsong Ebony pouted, tilting her head the other way. “You really have no sense of drama, Lady Norn. But fine. You have the materials?”

Six of the bat ponies stepped forward, each one clutching a glass sphere in their wing tip.

“A fragment of pure Nightmare. Six shards of darkness, screaming to be free and hungering for the minds of the innocent,” Starsong said, her voice taking on an almost lusty tone.

“Yes, that’s our contribution,” Norn said, lowering her orb. “And yours? Did that silly idea with the tree actually work?”

“Follow me,” Starsong said, turning around with a malicious smile crossing her face.

Inside the hut, the thestrals arranged themselves into a ring along the wall, with each tribe grouped together. In the middle of the building, standing within a beam of moonlight that fed through a hole in the roof and forest canopy, was a sapling. It was a small, withered thing, barely more than five feet tall. It sat in a large pot of strange, dusty soil, and it had barely any leaves on its twisted branches. Strips of dark rot ran through its bark like ugly scars, and a single knot in the trunk yawned open like a hungering mouth. There were flowers, but their petals were gray and sickly, looking like they were on the verge of falling off.

“This is it? Really?” Norn asked, looking exasperated.

“Well it’s not THAT bad for just twenty years’ growth… right?” a stallion protested.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” a jet-black stallion sniffed. “Will it do what we need?”

Starsong Ebony walked up in front of the sapling and then cleared her throat meaningfully. “Welcome, lords and ladies of the night! It has been twenty long years since that day. Our humiliation. Our loss. Our-“

“Can you PLEASE just get on with it?” Norn groaned, hanging her head. “We all know what happened and why we’re here! How long this is going to take?”

“I spent all yesterday rehearsing this monologue and I’m not letting it go to waste because you brats are BORED,” Starsong hissed, her eyes flashing briefly. “Now shush! Where was I…”

Norn bristled at being scolded, but she and the other Bloodborne didn’t interrupt again as the unicorn jumped back into her speech.

“Twenty years! Twenty years since that self-righteous cow banished our lady and stole the moon for herself!” Starsong growled, turning her gaze up at the sky through the hole in the roof. “For a thousand years she thought to imprison Nightmare Moon! For a thousand years she thought to bury our revolution! For a thousand years she hoped to keep the darkness at bay!”

Starsong Ebony lowered her head, magic sparks dancing around her horn and a sickly light coming from her pupils. “But twenty years is quite enough, is it not?”

“Aye.”

“Yes!”

“Too long!”

Starsong stepped to one side, finally gesturing to the tree in the room. “Behold, the mechanism of our ascension: the Tree of Turmoil!”

“Eesh,” Norn rolled her eyes at the name, but otherwise didn’t interrupt.

“Twenty years ago a root was cut from the Tree of Harmony and smuggled away to us. A dozen ponies perished between the denizens of the Everfree Forest and the guardians of Equestria proper, but this root was successfully planted here in the poisoned soil of the Fallen Glade! For two decades we Moon Mages have cultivated it, feeding it with dark magic and experimenting on it, and at last we are ready to harvest its power!”

Then she paused. “But more is needed, lord and ladies of the night! A final fuel to spark the magic hidden deep within its roots! Nightmares given form! Monstrous souls captured from the black rifts!” She grinned, her expression looking distinctly unhinged. “With these, we will create the Elements of Destruction! A glorious weapon of sheer bedlam that will tear open space and time, reaching all the way to the moon itself! NIGHTMARE MOON WILL BE FREE!!” she howled, pausing to catch her breath. “And then… And then at last… our revolution will be resurrected in glorious shadow. And the night WILL last forever!”

A series of cheers and shrieks erupted from the gathered thestrals, and many of them started stamping their hooves on the floor or flapping their wings excitedly. Only the Bloodborne seemed reserved in their celebrations, releasing cursory squeals and calm taps against the floor as if they were performing a formality to be polite.

“Now, plunge your captured Nightmares within the tree!” Starsong called, her horn flaring brilliantly. “Sturm, of the Eisenwing!”

A large black bat pony walked up to the tree and placed his sphere into the knot. The sphere quivered, and then, after a moment, it shattered. Sturm recoiled slightly, but then watched in fascination as the essence within the orb drained away into the gap in the trunk. The glass shards slowly disintegrated, the magic within vaporizing the remnants.

“Drakk, of the Dark Hearts!” Starsong called.

Another stallion wearing a fine fur overcoat came up to the tree. He stared at the orb for a moment, wiping away a tear from his eye with the tip of his wing. Then he silently placed it into the tree.

“Rattle, of the Haunt!”

A mare wearing a wolf’s skull on her head and torso armor of a beast’s ribs approached and inserted her orb without commentary or ceremony.

“Bleak Attica, of the Sightless Guardians!”

Another mare wearing an elaborate headdress decorated with garish and hideously mismatched colored feathers walked up to the tree.

“We’re actually called the ‘Sentinels’ now. Marketing thinks it’s more trendy and accessible this way,” Bleak Attica explained, pausing before the tree. “They didn’t like how the old clan name defined us by our disability.”

“Oh, for the love of-“ Starsong took a calming breath, and then shrugged her shoulders. “All right, fine. That’s fine. Do you want me to introduce you again?”

“No! No, that’s not necessary, thank you! Just wanted you to know!” Bleak said, shoving her orb in the knot and then trotting away.

Starsong Ebony cleared her throat again. “Now, then. Cutlass, of the Shad!”

Cutlass stalked forward, the sphere clutched in the tip of his wing. There were seams of bright red spreading through the tree now, originating from the knot. They spread haphazardly in small surges, crimson light pulsing from the sundered bark. It wasn’t clear to him what was happening, but it seemed obviously traumatic for the tree; the wood creaked and the bark fell apart as the strange affliction spread.

He placed the sphere within the knot, watching carefully as the casing collapsed. The gas within – the strange dark spirit they knew as a Nightmare – seemed to surge toward him briefly in the air after the orb shattered, as if it knew what was happening and was reaching out for help. But in an eye blink it was sucked up into the hollow beneath the knot, and the red cracks grew further.

“And last, but certainly not least, Queen Norn, of the Bloodborne!”

“Finally,” the mare grumbled, walking up past Cutlass and depositing her own sphere in the knot. Her eyes lingered a moment on the bright red seams when they started to glow even brighter, and then she quickly stepped back. “Mage, may I presume it’s supposed to be doing that?”

“Yes! YES! Witness the power of darkness! Nightmares manifest! Chaos ascendant!”

Starsong’s horn practically exploded with light, and a wheel of magic glyphs appeared on the ground and started to spin. The Tree of Turmoil quivered, more of its bark cracking and falling off. The red veins reached the dying blossoms, and those pitiful flowers suddenly awoke with new life, growing lush and full before the conclave’s very eyes.

“Behold!” Starsong shouted, directing her magic to one such flower. “The Element of Pain!”

The blossom quivered and then started to swell, its petals falling off. Within seconds a mustard-yellow pod had grown to the size of a baseball, and the branch it was attached to trembled to hold it up.

“The Element of Malice!” Starsong shouted, nurturing another blossom and growing another pod. This one was a dark brown, with blue stripes.

“The Element of Terror! The Element of Deceit! The Element of Shadow!”

One by one the blossoms turned into rich, lush-looking fruits. With every Element the tree withered further, its trunk splitting open and bleeding dark, oily sap. Its branches curled and dried, creaking noisily. A wisp of foul smoke spewed from the knot, like a diseased cough.

“The tree! It’s dying!” Cutlass warned.

“Yesssss,” Starsong said, her voice almost gleeful as she moved to the last flower. “It is young, and our ministrations have not been gentle. It will not survive this service. Unfortunate, but necessary.” Her horn’s magic pulsed. “Now, finally… the Element of Carnage!”

The final flower ballooned into a dark red seed pod, and then the branch it was on snapped. The fruit fell, but it was caught in a swirl of pale silvery light and carried into the air. The crimson veins running through the tree drained of color, and then the Tree of Turmoil shriveled to a crooked gray skeleton of dried wood.

Norn gave a slight nod to her retinue.

“At last! AT LAST!! The labor is complete! Our efforts have come to fruition!” Starsong Ebony shouted, almost weeping with pride and relief.

“Speaking of, uh, fruit,” mumbled Drakk, “are the Elements of Destruction supposed to be… what are those, melons? I was expecting jewelry, like the Elements of Harmony.”

Starsong giggled, plucking the other Elements of Destruction from the branches with her magic. “Harmony is a thing of form and order. It is easy to hammer into gems and metals. Darkness is more… organic. It is small resentments and jealousies buried deep within to fester. Hatreds born of an insult centuries past, fed with blood from generation to generation. Small embers that explode into horrific violence. Darkness is not forged; it is seeded.”

The unicorn turned her head toward an exit in the rear of the hut. “The Elements of Destruction will make a fine feast for the Mistress of the Night, and finally grant her power beyond that which her accursed sister wields! Victory will be ours! But first, they have another role.” The Elements of Destruction slowly started to orbit Starsong’s head. “The other Moon Mages have constructed a portal that we will use to reach the moon and grant our fell lady her freedom. They are waiting for us now, needing only the power source that we-“ a wing claw tapped her on the back, and Starsong’s eyebrow twitched. “Lady Norn I know these explanations bore you but I’m almost done!” she snapped, turning to face the Queen of the Bloodborne.

Norn’s hoof struck like lightning, punching a spring-loaded blade into the unicorn’s chest. Starsong’s eyes widened. Shrieks of surprise and horror erupted from the other tribes of bat ponies.

“You… but…” Starsong Ebony gasped, blood welling up in her throat.

The magic holding up the Elements of Destruction faltered, and the magical fruits dropped out of the air. Norn caught the Element of Carnage with her wing, but the others she let fall to the ground with meaty thumps.

“NORN!! YOU TREACHEROUS JACKAL!!” Cutlass snarled, drawing a blade fastened to his rear leg.

“Oh, I’m sorry about that,” the mare said coyly, raising her free wing before her mouth. “Just a little ember that exploded into horrific violence. You know how it is.” Norn shoved Starsong away, and the unicorn fell onto the wooden floor lifelessly.

With a scream of fury the other bat ponies surged forward to attack. The Bloodborne escorts responded, rushing to the defense of their queen, and the first charge was battered aside with wing shields and spears. The Bloodborne had brought six ponies while the other tribes had arrived with two or three members each. Although the other tribes ultimately had numbers, the Bloodborne warriors were well prepared and their attackers lacked conviction, striking out in panic and desperation (and in many cases without weapons). After a few frenzied stabs and shield bashes most of the attackers backed off, surrounding the ring of bodyguards and snarling threateningly.

Cutlass struck aside a spear with his sword, and then spun into one of the escorts with a kick. She staggered, lashing out with a wing, and a leather buckler punched the stallion in the nose. He recoiled, and then a quick flap of his wings pulled him out of the way of a spear tip slicing in toward his flank.

Cutlass landed and the enemy mares stepped back into formation, presenting an arc of steel spikes to the ponies surrounding them. He looked back. Rattle was dragging Starsong free of the battle zone, but the unicorn’s body was quite limp and trailing an obscene amount of blood. His eyes darted back to Queen Norn just in time to see her take a big bite of the Element of Carnage.

Her muzzle scrunched up at the taste. “Oof. Don’t like that,” Norn grumbled around her mouthful. Bright red juice, seething with magic power, oozed from the corner of her mouth and seemed to sink into her flesh. “Doesn’t quite taste like blood, but the aftertaste is there. And the TEXTURE. Bleagh. You’d probably love it, Drakk.”

“Do… Do you have ANY IDEA what you’ve done?!” Drakk replied, steam puffing angrily from his nostrils as a tear dribbled down his cheek.

“I took the Element of Carnage for myself. By doing so I have prevented the rescue of that big bald failure trapped on the moon and denied her the full power of the artifacts that were prepared for her. And I’ve murdered the only pony with the knowledge to potentially make another attempt at this sad little affair.” She stuffed the remnant of the Element of Carnage into her mouth, and then gulped it down with a grimace. “Does that cover it?”

The other tribes looked stunned at the admission, but one of the Bloodborne mares coughed lightly.

“My Lady, she’s not BALD, it’s just-“

“Yes, yes, I know the star field is supposed to be the mane but the helmet makes it look like she’s bald! Hah!” Norn’s wings were starting to quiver, and a glow was building in her eyes even as she spoke.

“We won’t let you take the Elements for yourself!” snarled Sturm of the Eisenwing, quickly taking the Element of Malice off the floor with his wing.

“Sure, that’s fine. I just wanted this one,” Norn admitted. Her body was shaking now, and it was proving harder to keep casual concentration as it started to grow.

“You… what?” The other Elements lay on the floor, apparently undamaged by the short fall and the scuffle that had followed. The heads of the other tribes darted forward and snatched them up, each one looking surprised when the Bloodborne made no move to stop them.

“You can have the others. I don’t care. I’ve already accomplished what I meant to do here.” Norn’s breath got heavier as her jaws and teeth started to grow noticeably. The mares guarding her held their formation, but each one took a few steps away and gave their Queen a concerned glance, at the least.

“You probably imagine that I’m here to seize ultimate power, massacre the heads of the bat pony tribes and take control of all thestrals, or perhaps slay the Moon Cult as a hidden agent of Equestria, or maybe become the new Nightmare Queen or something. But, no.”

Norn suddenly grunted and spread her wings as they started to swell and quiver. “Hrrrg! GRAAH!!” Great talons erupted from her wings’ peaks, and blade-like spines grew out of the bones. “Ah! That stings! Ugh… Now where was I?”

“WHY, Norn?!” Cutlass demanded, dragging his blade against the ground menacingly. “If you didn’t do this for conquest or revenge or something like that then WHY would you make a move against us?”

“Oh, Cutlass… for you, I’m sorry.” the tribal elder was almost twice the size of her guards by now, with shaggy hair and teeth like knives. She gave the stallion a pout, her eyes gleaming with crimson. “Don’t take this personally. This isn’t about you. This is about… HER.”

One wing was thrust upward toward the hole in the roof. The other bat ponies glanced upward, toward the full moon barely visible through the criss-crossing branches.

“Nightmare Moon,” Norn said, her expression getting visibly agitated. “The insipid little Princess who thought to cast the world into darkness because she was JEALOUS. The inept monster who whipped our people into a frenzy of revolution, LOST, and then got us cast out of Equestria. The useless sow who CONTINUES to dominate our lives two decades out from her defeat and a million miles away!” she snarled. “But no more. This moon the Bloodborne tribe renounces the Nightmare once and for all. We have had enough bowing and scraping to the soul who brought us to ruin.”

The other tribes recoiled with each insult, their mouths agape.

“I… I had no idea you felt this way,” Bleak Attica said, cringing.

“Yes, well, it was fairly important to keep close confidence what with the whole twenty-year plot to spring her from moon jail and make her more powerful than ever,” Norn sneered. “I say the Nightmare has earned her punishment. Let her wait.”

“And what about US, Norn?! What of the thestrals?!” Cutlass shouted. “Twenty years of hardship! Lives lost! Futures dashed! Resources spent! For what?! To keep scraping by in the pits for the next thousand years?!”

“You’ve doomed us all with your petulance,” Rattle proclaimed, the bone charms on her tail bouncing against each other.

“We could have ruled Equestria!” Sturm hissed. “Now we have lost that chance, and lost the high magister and the lore and magic she possessed! All thanks to YOUR petty resentment!”

“You didn’t just take away Nightmare Moon’s chance at freedom, Lady Norn!” Drakk continued, fresh tears soaking his cheeks. “You took away our future! Our hope!”

Norn rolled her eyes. “I have already apologized to Prince Cutlass. I care nothing for the rest of this moaning.” Then she quivered, and a line of spikes grew along her spine. “Ooh… that one felt kind of nice…” she looked back at the other bat ponies, looming over her retinue. “Are we done here? If none of you are actually going to do anything then I’m going to go smash the lunar portal and then go home.”

“RAAAAAAUGH!!” Cutlass reared up and then took to the air, leaping into position for an aerial attack.

The warrior mares moved in an instant to protect Norn, but she suddenly threw her wings forward and then spread them, parting her escorts and shoving them aside. Her eyes gleamed happily, and drool oozed from between her teeth. Cutlass darted forward, his body a dark blur and his blade a silvery arc leading it.

The attack was aimed for her eye; a brutal strike made to incapacitate as quickly as possible. Norn’s wing swung at him to intercept and Cutlass had to adjust his angle, slicing across the mare’s forehead and up through her ear. He flew higher as her other wing lashed out, talons extended, and he barely dodged out of the way.

“Bold! I’ve always liked that about you, Cutlass!” Norn crowed, spreading her wings again but remaining grounded. “But I’m sure you know how this ends.”

Cutlass darted in again, blade slicing into Norn’s neck. Norn took the full brunt of the attack and slammed a hoof down on the stallion as soon as his momentum was spent. Cutlass buckled instantly, growling in pain as he was pinned to the floor.

“I think you might have had a chance if you ate your own fruit,” Norn said as she used her wing to pull the short sword out of her neck. Blood seeped freely from her wounds but the cuts knit rapidly, sealing closed even as the others watched. “Would the rest of you care to join in? You can take a minute to digest the power of your Elements, if you need it. No?”

The others looked at their Elements doubtfully, and then back at the monstrous thestral slowly crushing a stallion under her hoof. Cutlass had the Element of Shadows in his leg pouch, although he was currently in no position to use it.

“We eat the Elements of Destruction, and then what? Turn into pony monsters and fight you?” Rattle asked. “Have a big battle royale between all of us, maybe? To see who gets the honor of facing down a united Equestria and getting added to Celestia’s statue garden?”

Bleak Attica shook her head. “The damage is done. We cannot win now, and this infighting only weakens us further, threatening our survival. Canterlot stands triumphant yet again, and without having lifted a hoof.”

“And it’s YOUR FAULT, Norn! You did this!” snarled Cutlass, squirming under her hoof.

Norn stared at the surrounding bat ponies with contempt. “You really are nothing without that bald embarrassment of a Princess, aren’t you? Pathetic.” She took her hoof off Cutlass and then kicked him aside, eliciting a shout of pain from the stallion. “You don’t deserve victory.”

“What?!” Sturm snarled. “After you-“

“You don’t deserve supremacy,” Norn interrupted, her eyes flashing crimson.

“B-But we-“ Drakk stuttered.

“You don’t deserve hope,” Norn spat, spreading her wings again. “I am done with you pit vermin. BLOODBORNE!”

“Yes, Queen!” the other five mares barked in unison.

“To the skies! Our work here is done.” The other mares of her tribe launched into the air, zipping out of the hut via the hole in the roof. Norn took flight a moment later, her massive wings moving so much air that she nearly knocked over the closest ponies watching her departure.

“Maybe, just maybe, in a thousand years my descendants will regret this decision!” Norn said, having to bellow over the wind she was making with her ascent, “Enjoy the wait! HAH HA HA HA HAAAA!!”

With a cackle that chilled the blood, the Queen of the Bloodborne surged upward through the air, smashing through the branches overhead and rising into the moonlit night.

---

Ferrous Dominus – sector 20
Nightwatch – Lieutenant Dusk Blade’s quarters

Dusk Blade woke up with a jolt.

It wasn’t quite the shock to consciousness that he usually experienced when waking up from a nightmare. His heart rate wasn’t elevated and he didn’t feel any sense of panic. If anything, he felt cold and sluggish. The images from his dream kept replaying in his mind as he blinked repeatedly, crowding out his waking thoughts as if his brain was desperately trying to keep the memory from fading away like most dreams did.

It wasn’t necessary. This wasn’t the first time he had dreamt of that mysterious glade and that peculiar night, and he remembered every moment of it. Every character. Every sound and smell. The names of the ponies that he had seen but no one had addressed. All of it was lodged in his memory like a nail.

Dusk stood up on his bed and stretched his wings, trying to push out the strange thoughts. The chronometer on the counter blinked 14:00. A dark curtain up over the room’s only window – tastefully decorated with a stitching of Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark – blocked the sunlight from the room, but it was obvious at a glance that it was the middle of the day.

Dusk groaned and stepped down off his bed. It was way too early for him to be awake, but he knew he wasn’t going to get back to sleep. He trotted over to his dresser and hooked the peak of his wing on the handle, pulling it open.

A dozen pictures of Twilight Sparkle were on in the inside wall of the dresser cabinet, plastered haphazardly over a poster that had “DO IT FOR HER” in large, bold font. One of them were high-fidelity pict-captures that featured the young Princess in her armor, but most were an assortment of less modern photographs and paintings of highly varying quality. There was even one from when Twilight was still a unicorn, gathered together with the rest of the Elements of Harmony. The other mares in that particular photo were mostly obscured by other Twilight pictures pinned on top of it so that only she was visible.

Dusk turned on the dresser lumen and stared at his collection. Normally he felt his heart swell just at the sight of the brave purple mare, and he would then race off to his next assignment – or that evening’s shady plot – with renewed determination and vigor.

Today he felt nothing. The images just seemed to blur into a mess of silver, gold, and lavender mush before his eyes. The laughter of Lady Norn repeated in his ears, casting false images across the room through his confused echolocation. He plucked his armor vest from the peg on the cabinet door and started putting it on.

When he took his respirator mask from its hook, Dusk exposed another couple of pict-captures attached to the dresser interior. One featured him in a barracks, next to three other bat ponies. The other ponies were covered up by the other pict, this one featuring a certain earth pony cyborg in a charcoal black hood and cloak. Gear Works was standing atop a rampart, his servo arm reaching into an ammo hopper behind a jammed-up quad-barreled autocannon.

“……” Dusk Blade paused while putting on his mask, staring at the picture. He remembered when the picture was taken, during an Ork air raid on the fortress. He remembered the explosions and the klaxons and even a few moments from when he had helped chase down a pilot that had survived being shot down.

He should have remembered more. The pict was less than a month old. But the memory was invaded and obscured by imagery of the Fallen Glade. Ponies he had never met screeching in voices he had never heard loomed in his thoughts.

Cutlass.
The Element of Shadows.
The Nightmare.

Dusk blinked, suddenly jolting out of his distraction. He glanced over at the chronometer. 14:20. He hadn’t even strapped on his gunnery brace yet.

With a frustrated growl, the Lunar Lieutenant picked up his weapon. Patrol. He had to get to his patrol.

Author's Note:

I know nobody asked for a Dusk Blade/batpony story, but I kind of bought a bunch of bat pony adopts and then a story kind of fell out onto the page. Oh well!

Comments

[PonyList]

DO IT FOR HER

[SFaccountant]

11583793
derpicdn.net/img/view/2021/7/27/2665357.png

[Bugsydor]

An interesting start. I forget whether Queen Norn is still around. Is it necessary to unite all six fruits to unlock their full power? Are the nightmares demons, and was Norn's transformation a daemonic possession?

[SFaccountant]

11585197
No, probably but that's spoilers, yes, and no

[Arzoo]

I did wonder if Dusk's rather harsh opinion of Luna was more widely held or had some origin. She does come off as a bit of a fool but we've seen she's at least a pretty good warrior to the point the Iron Warriors consider her a valuable military asset.

[SFaccountant]

11585831
Dusk's opinion of Luna is very much a personal one; most other bat ponies would have decked him for saying such disgraceful things about the Princess of the Night.
Not because there's a deep philosophical or religious conviction among bat ponies to obey and respect Luna, granted. It's more because she's the only pony with any real power who will treat them well.
The Bloodborne have their own distinct cultural view of her of course, mostly because they've had a matriarch bash them over the head with her opinions for centuries on end.

[Hey its that Pony]

Ah cool. I guess this might explain why that one Batpony Queen (Empyra?) that we haven't read anything about in some time was so much bigger than her subjects. I haven't gone back to find the chapter yet, but I think that was probably the Bloodborne tribe and she was Lady Norn's descendant.

Good start to a cool concept.

Also, fun little reference to Horus there with Norn clearly being our Abaddon stand in.

[Telos4]

May not have asked for this but at the same time dusk is one of my favorites of this series of stories so I am glad either way

[SFaccountant]

11587024
That was Empyra, and that was the Bloodborne. You're right!

11587175
Genuinely surprised there are any Dusk Blade fans! I hope I don't disappoint you, then!

[BurningSkies]

I wonder how Quuen Norn would react to Tyranid Norn Queens...