• Published 16th Nov 2012
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The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan - Rytex



Twilight Sparkle meets a pony by the name of Nova Shine who occupies a position as Princess Luna's Night Apprentice. While fighting a shadowy enemy that wants them both dead, they also have to deal with something much worse than that: each other.

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Nightfall

The Apprentice, the Student, and the Charlatan
Chapter 18 - Nightfall

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“So it wasn’t just her jealousy, coupled with the nightmares,” said Nova as he hurried through the castle’s halls toward the original meeting room, which had remained in the same place the last couple hundred years, despite everything else moving once or twice.

“Envy got to her,” explained Celestia. “It started with her taking control of one of Luna’s guards, one that she trusted dearly. By controlling him, Envy managed to inflame her against me with the old arguments. I’m sure you remember how insecure she was about her night back then, right?” Nova nodded. “Well, she brought it all back, and much worse than before.”

They passed many ponies, either civilians fleeing or guardsponies making their way to their assigned stations, but everyone was in full panic mode. According to Celestia, it was noon, and yet the full moon was high in the sky.

“When she brought it all back, the nightmare spirits on the moon started to sway her again, and in the end, they managed to take over. She’s calling herself Nightmare Moon now, and it appears my sister is gone, replaced by the nightmares in control.”

“They probably have her consciousness trapped inside her own mind,” said Nova as he sidestepped a frantic dark blue unicorn stallion running toward the infirmary. “If she were free to roam, she could add her power to yours and easily take her body back. But now, she’s completely isolated in her mind, and she needs to be freed.”

And she will be, but not for another thousand years.

“Why is everypony fleeing?” Nova wondered. One would think this an obvious question, but everypony had to know that Celestia was easily the most powerful being in Equestria. Surely they would know that they would be safe under her protection.

“I ordered all civilians to evacuate,” she said. “All military ponies will guard their exit, and then guard their migration to Canterlot or beyond. Oh, and in case you weren’t aware, Unicornia goes by--”

“Canterlot now, yes, I was raised there in my time.”

“I didn’t know if you knew that or not,” she responded, “but that’s beside the point. Cloudsdale, which was Pegasopolis, Neighton, which was Ponyville, and Everfree are all being evacuated, and possibly even Canterlot too. They’re all too close to Everfree for what has to happen.”

“You’re going to fight your own sister?” he asked, to which she nodded gravely.

“It has to be done. I will try to free her, but there will be collateral damage. Star Swirl’s Laws of Celestial Bodies dictate that when two titanic forces collide, there will be damage of such a nature. This holds true for even metaphorical titanic forces.”

They arrived in the meeting room, where several ponies were situated around a table with a map of the Everfree Forest spread across it, as well as several small pieces scattered around its boundaries.

“--evacuation is proceeding ahead of schedule, so to speak,” said a gruff grey pegasus stallion wearing very ornate armor. “Ponies are fleeing in all directions, and to be honest, I think the ones heading north have the right idea. The further south the others flee, the more likely they are to run into Queen Chrysalis’ hive, and ever since her father was slain in combat decades ago, she’s harbored anti-Equestrian sentiment.”

One of the other ponies, a unicorn mare, stood to make a counterpoint.

“But General Fury, most of those going north are heading directly for Neighton or northeast to Canterlot! It’s only a matter of time before we have to evacuate those cities as well--”

“You’ll forgive me for interrupting,” said Celestia, striding in briskly after listening for a few moments, “but the order has been given to evacuate Neighton and Cloudsdale. The ponies fleeing are now on their way to Brayton, Canterlot, or beyond.”

“Excuse me, Princess, but who is this?” asked the general pony, gesturing at Nova. “This is a private military meeting, and all civilians were to be evacuated.”

“This is Nova Shine, one of the most powerful unicorns I have ever had the privilege of meeting.. I told you about a source of help only to be used in extreme circumstances, and he is it.”

“This little runt is it?” asked the general, looking indignant. “Princess, if you had wanted a capable unicorn, why did you not request Comet? or Sunbeam? Or for that matter, Prime Magus Star Dancer or Night Master Sanguine?”

“Oy, I’ll have you know I am no runt,” growled Nova.

“General, I can vouch for his competence in magic,” said Celestia calmly, despite Nova’s consternation. “He has singlehoofedly cast Star Swirl’s Time Stasis spell, a feat long indicative of mastery. If anypony can help us, he can. I tasked the Night Master and the Prime Magus with aiding the military in defending the refugees and returning at once to my side. As for Sunbeam, she was wounded shortly after Nightmare Moon appeared, and Comet is currently tending to her.”

“Tch,” responded the general. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one, in this case. He should be helping us. He can worry about his marefriend later.”

“General,” responded one of the other military ponies in the room, “your daughter is out there. Would you not drop everything and rush to her aid if she were injured?”

The general had no retort. He glared at the one who made the outburst, but snarled and returned to studying the map on the table before them.

“What are your orders, princess?” asked the pony that had silenced the general. “What can we do? Nightmare Moon is unaccounted for, and her companion is also missing.”

“Wait,” said Nova. “Her companion?”

“Yes,” said the same pony. “She’s been operating with a green pony with a maroon mane and red eyes--”

“Princess Celestia, there’s something I left in Neighton that I need to get,” said Nova, before the pony could finish.

The Princess scrutinized him for a moment, but nodded and motioned with a hoof to go and get whatever it was. Without waiting for anypony else’s approval, he was off, running through the crowds of ponies yet again. He twisted and contorted to get around ponies, as time was of the essence, but the crowds were just so massive it was nearly impossible.

He made it outside to see that it was black as midnight outside, and the full moon shone high above him. He stared at it for a moment, but he was soon off and galloping on the path to Neighton.

Neighton was closer to the city limits of Everfree than he thought. This probably had to do with the ever-expanding borders of the cities, but even so, it took him several minutes of galloping to get there. Unlike when he had galloped down Canterlot Mountain in the past, he was now in shape, having made good on his promise to himself to go for a run every day. Now he was fit enough to gallop to the town in one go.

He slowed to a canter when he made it to the city, but the guards barred his way in. They looked scared, and Nova couldn’t blame them. A veritable deity was rampaging; what chance did they stand?

“By order of the Princess,” shouted one guard at him, “you are to evacuate this town and head for Canterlot or beyond, citizen! Now get going before that demon in the sky shows up!”

“It’s okay! Princess Celestia gave me permission to get an item from one of the buildings!”

“We have clear orders from the Princess herself that nopony is to enter the city! It’s far too dangerous!”

“I am Night Apprentice,” he said, his cloak appearing around him. He flashed the brooch to the guards, who both looked at each other for a moment before going back to him.

“We apologize, Night Apprentice Comet. We still cannot allow you past this point. Orders from Princess Celestia herself.”

“If you won’t let me by, I’ll fight you to get past. There’s something I need in here.”

One of them sighed heavily and gestured with a white wing into the city.

“Well, if you say so. It’s your funeral!”

“But our orders--” the second attempted protest, but the first cut him off.

“If he’s so intent on doing this, let him. Princess Celestia might be having him do something important.”

“But what could be so important about this backwater town?”

Nova smirked.

Oh, if only you knew...

They let him through, and he galloped to the Clock Tower as quickly as his hooves could carry him. Once there, he ascended the steps two at a time until he was behind the north glass face of the clock itself, where he climbed up to the XII position and opened his secret little compartment with his magic.

“Oh good, you’re all still here,” he muttered with a small smile, pulling out the small round amulet necklace he had crafted and putting it on, before shutting the compartment without removing any of his other items. Those would be for when he got back to his own time, should he arrive too early and need some money to live off of.

He galloped back to Everfree (much to the protestation of the guards of both cities) and got all the way back to the castle as quickly as he could. In contrast to when he had left, the castle was now almost empty. Only Princess Celestia was to be found, and she was waiting in the meeting room for him.

“Is that what you were going to get?” she asked, indicating his amulet.

“Yeah,” he said. “If it works like it should, it’ll force Envy to remain in her solid form long enough for me to get her trapped in a Soul Jar.”

“Why not use the opportunity to kill--”

“She has to survive, Princess,” said Nova. “She’s still around in my time, and so she has to survive. Believe me, I want her gone as much as you do-- possibly more so!-- but I have no choice but to stick her back into the Soul Jar.”

“What’s stopping you?” she asked, glaring at him angrily. “She’s a menace to Equestria! She’s been attempting murder for over two hundred fifty years now, and tonight, she finally succeeded!”

“She... what?”

Celestia’s head slowly bowed.

“Follow me, Nova,” she said in a small voice that haunted Nova to the core. He had never heard her sound like that before, and he was dreading what she was about to show him.

She led him into the infirmary they had passed earlier. In contrast to earlier, when there had been more than a few ponies inside, now there were only two. Both unicorns, one navy blue-coated, lighter-blue maned stallion which Nova recognized as one of the unicorns that had rushed past him earlier, and the other, a white-bodied, golden-maned mare. The stallion was lying over the mare, sobbing loudly, while the mare was lying on a medical table, eyes open and empty, staring blankly at the ceiling.

She was dead.

“She was my Faithful Student,” Celestia explained, and Nova heard the same shaking in her voice he had heard before Envy was cursed, “Sunbeam was a brilliant unicorn. Not as powerful as you or Clover, but very clever with her spell ideas. She was critically wounded by Envy when she first appeared with Nightmare Moon, and minutes ago, she finally--”

She bit off the end of her sentence. She cast Nova a hard gaze, one that caused him to bristle slightly.

“You’re making it sound like it’s my fault she died! What are you trying to say?” Nova asked.

“I’m trying to say, Nova Shine, that Sunbeam wouldn’t have died if you had told me Luna was going to become Nightmare Moon!”

The accusation pierced him like a knife, but he already had his retort.

“Princess, like I said, I couldn’t! King Metamorphosis and Lord Star Swirl were right about this! You can’t know about the future! Such knowledge would put you into a position to where you could influence the event in question--!”

I COULD HAVE SAVED HER LIFE!” Celestia screamed at him, bringing out the Royal Canterlot Voice in her anger, and Nova’s jaw dropped. She never dropped her mask, even in the most dire of circumstances. What’s more, Nova saw small beads of liquid start to appear in the corners of her eyes. “IF YOU CARED ABOUT EQUESTRIA, NOVA SHINE, YOU WOULD HAVE STOPPED AND THOUGHT ABOUT THE GREATER GOOD!

“Greater good!? GREATER GOOD!? DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT GREATER GOOD, CELESTIA!?”

Celestia faltered. Her anger was replaced by a spark of fear, and she instinctively took a step back. Nova himself was mildly taken aback that his own anger had subconsciously caused his magic to augment his voice to be even louder than her’s. If Nova had paid more attention, he would have noticed small blue sparks being emitted from his horn, and that too was causing Celestia to step back.

“IF TIME WERE ALTERED, IF HISTORY WERE CHANGED, I WOULD CEASE TO EXIST! EVERYTHING I DID IN THE PAST WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED!”

“But then Envy wouldn’t have been created--”

“NO, SHE WOULD NOT HAVE, BUT LORD SILVERBLOOD WOULD HAVE SPARKED A WAR BETWEEN PONYKIND AND THE CHANGELINGS, AND THEN KING SOMBRA WOULD HAVE CONQUERED BOTH AFTER THE CONFLICT! YOUR SISTER WOULD NOT HAVE GONE BAD, AND SUNBEAM MAY STILL BE ALIVE, BUT EQUESTRIA!!! WOULDN’T!!! EXIST!!!”

“HEY!”

A third voice had rung, and Nova immediately looked over to where the erstwhile-mourning unicorn had been, to see that he was snarling at Nova while his horn glimmered with dark-blue magic. Nova saw on his cutie mark a shooting star and instinctively summoned up his own magic to combat this unknown unicorn.

“How dare you speak to the Princess like that!?” he thundered, advancing on Nova, who stood his ground, even as the nameless pony grew closer.

Nova chose not to respond. He could sense that the unicorn was pretty powerful. Certainly not as powerful as he was, but around the level Captain Steelshod had been during that duel the night before he had left. He had no fears about what this unicorn might throw at him, but he took no chances and kept himself ready to strike.

“Comet, that’s enough,” said Princess Celestia in a small voice. “I called on him to help me with this crisis, and I’d rather not see another pony die today.”

“Like he could harm me,” Nova scoffed.

“I wasn’t talking about you, Nova. I was talking about Comet.”

Comet scowled at Princess Celestia while Nova looked askance at her.

“Really, you ought to know me better, Princess,” said Nova. “I wouldn’t kill him. It wouldn’t be worth the effort.”

“What makes you think you’re that powerful? You look pretty--”

But how he looked Nova never found out. Comet was surrounded in a blue aura and hoisted up off the ground, much to his anger. Nova, however, calmly silenced his continued shouts with a simple clamp of the muzzle, and attempted to continue his conversation with Celestia.

“If this is what Night Apprentices are these days, I’m very disappointed,” he said dryly.

“Put him down, Nova,” said Princess Celestia, annoyed. “You’d best be saving your energy for the actual threats.”

“Fine,” sighed Nova, and he put Comet down. Comet immediately attempted to go at him, but a wall of golden magic separated them.

“That’s enough, both of you!” Princess Celestia shouted, trapping them both in cubes of golden magic grown from the wall. “You’re both angry at each other, and I would ask that you direct your anger at Envy!”

They both stopped shouting at each other, glared at each other for a moment, and then turned to face her.

“Can I ask who he is?” asked Comet in a voice full of forced and resentful calmness.

Celestia gave an inquisitive look at Nova, who shrugged. It didn’t matter if he knew or not. There wasn’t much that would affect anypony at this moment anyways, what with Nightmare Moon on the loose.

“Comet, this is Nova Shine.”

“Alright, and why is he named after the old spellcaster?” Comet asked.

“No, you misunderstand Comet. This is Nova Shine. The first Night Apprentice.”

Comet’s eyebrow perked, and he turned to inspect Nova.

“Really? The first Night Apprentice? You? One would think you would be older, with the two hundred fifty years, and whatnot.”

Nova snorted.

“I’m from the future, mate, not the past.”

Comet’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks and his jaw dropped, but before he could comment, Nova was continuing.

“Yeah, so I came back in time because destiny told me to, and then I was like ‘I wonder who Envy is,’ so I stuck around to find out. Now I’m trying to get back to my own time, but Princess Celestia brought me out because of Nightmare Moon.”

“So you’re... you’re...” Comet tried to say, but he couldn’t get anything out.

“I’m... what?”

“You’re Clover the Clever’s son?”

Nova blinked.

“Sorry, repeat that one more time. I’m Clover’s what now?”

“Her son. Are you not the son of Clover the Clever and General Steelshod?”

No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than Nova had broken into a great grin.

So they did get married after all. Fancy that. And they named their foal after... wait.

It made sense now! They didn’t know who Clover’s son was in the future but they knew he was named Nova Shine, the name Nova Shine vanished for a few years and then showed up again, everything fell into place! Loose ends he thought would remain loose ends turned out to be all a part of history after all.

So it turned out Nova was not the same pony as Nova Shine I. Or would he be Nova Shine II?

Heh, I’m named after a stallion who’s named after me, he thought with some amusement. Looks like I did manage to create a stable time loop, after all.

“I’m going to go ahead and guess you’re not him, based on that look on your face” remarked Comet.

“Nope, I’m not,” agreed Nova. “He’s named after me, see?”

Now it was Comet’s turn to blink, but he shook his head immediately after.

“No, that can’t be right. You’re Nova Shine. You and Star Swirl made up all the spells we still use today. You have to be her son.”

Nova laughed. It wasn’t one of humor, but nor was it of sadness. It simply was.

“No, I’m not the same one. Perhaps I should explain the whole story. I went back in time because destiny said I was going to. Along the way, I fell in love with Clover, despite the fact that we’re from different times.”

“You know,” said Celestia casually, “I think he’s taking all of this rather well. When I showed your namesake, well, you, he had a sort of reclusion. He literally spent all day in his little house, your house might I add, and refused to talk to anypony. Not even to Lucia Lulamoon, his marefriend and later, his wife.”

Wait...

“But, hang on, aren’t the Lulamoons and Novuses separate families?”

“They are separate,” concurred Comet, whose animosity seemed to have been outshone by his shock and fascination with Nova. “The Lulamoon name has been passed down through the male line mostly, with a few exceptions. Same for the Novuses, actually. It’s actually common betting faire on whether or not the stallions in one family marry the mares in the other, and vice versa. Why? Is it not like that in your time?”

“I...” Nova started, but he trailed off. It did have a pretty huge impact on Celestia’s future. “I can’t say. Sorry. Future stuff that could affect Princess Celestia.”

The mood in the room sobered instantly. The reason they had been yelling at each other and the body of the unicorn on the table all returned to their minds.

“Comet,” said Nova, “if I may ask, what happened?”

Comet sighed heavily, and the tears started falling before he even started to speak. Celestia gave him a pitying look and gestured for Nova to follow her.

“Comet, don’t answer,” she said gently. “I’ll tell him. Nova, if you’ll come with me.”

She led him back to the Throne Room, where she sat on her golden seat with him before her. Before, she had lounged upon it, a sign of the peace that Equestria was in, but now, she sat on its edge, prepared to go to battle, for she knew it would happen soon.

“The second iteration of Night Apprentice and Faithful Student allowed us to implement a few changes,” she explained. “One of them was that, before they would graduate from their studies, they would study under the other princess for a brief spell, just to make sure they were ready to take their new titles. Sunbeam was with Luna last night, about a month into her last bit of training. We don’t know what happened inside, ‘we’ being Comet and I, but Comet said he saw Nightmare Moon burst from the Throne Room and announce that an era of eternal night had arrived.”

She sniffled, which only intensified Nova’s pity. Celestia and Luna were immortal beings, and Celestia was now forced to do battle against the one pony she could count on to keep her company through the long years. And her sister, no less. It couldn’t be an easy experience.

“Comet told me that all he saw was that Envy was carrying a bloodstained knife, and that there was a stab wound in Sunbeam’s back.”

Something finally clicked in Nova’s mind. He had heard the name Sunbeam before, but he didn’t know where, and during the silences that ensued every so often in the last few minutes, he had been trying to figure out why the name was familiar. And now he had it figured out.

“Princess Celestia, what is Comet’s family’s name?” he asked.

“Well, he’s the youngest member of the Novus clan--”

“No way!”

Unlike normal reactions when something amazing happens, Nova was horrified. Comet and Sunbeam were his ancestors! And one of them was dead before she had given birth to a descendent.

“She’s...” Nova said, but he trailed off as he realized the implications. Out of reflex, he looked towards his hooves, wondering if he would simply vanish at any minute.

“Nova, what’s wrong?”

“Envy’s killed one of my ancestors! She’s gone and altered the course of history!”

Celestia’s brow furrowed.

“What do you mean, ‘altered the course of history?’”

“Look, Princess,” explained Nova in a resigned sort of voice, “the Night Apprentice, Comet, he’s my ancestor. You probably already know that. but according to my family tree, if I remember correctly, Comet and Sunbeam will have one of my great-great-to the nth degree-grandfathers. They’re still young, and they’re not married yet, so they can’t have! With Sunbeam dead, I shouldn’t exist right now!”

Celestia shook her head ruefully.

“I’ll have to take your word for it, Nova. As good a friend as I was to Star Swirl, I never understood most his talk of time. However, regardless of how the future has been altered, what matters now is now, with Envy and Nightmare Moon on the loose.”

Nova opened his mouth to say something, but he paused. Something was wrong. Something felt off about the area they were in.

“What?” asked Princess Celestia.

Then he felt it.

“MOVE!”

She didn’t need telling twice. She launched herself in his direction just as a brilliant beam of blue energy vaporized the area she had been sitting at just moments ago. The loose bricks of the roof crumbled into the crater, which gave Nova a better view of what was outside.

A black alicorn mare, wearing blue battle armor, with an ethereal blue mane and tail and icy-blue eyes was flying above them and sneering down at where they recovered from the blast. Next to her floated a shadow with bright red eyes that stared malevolently down at them as well.

“Envy!” shouted Nova.

“Luna!” shouted Princess Celestia.

Hello, sister,” said Nightmare Moon in a cold, murderous voice as she floated down to land in the smoking crater of charred earth, followed by Envy, who shifted into her physical form next to her.

A quarter of a century had done nothing to change Summer Blossom. She was still wearing the glimmering ruby necklace she had worn at the time of her cursing, her mane and coat were still exactly the same, and really, the only difference seemed to be that instead of staring at Nova with some affection, she was glaring at him with a look of confusion.

“We have been waiting for you to bring the fight to us,” said Nightmare Moon with an evil grin, “but you seemed content to let your subjects flee, while you hid away in the castle. I wouldn’t dream of harming my subjects, so I let them go. Now, however, it is just you and this pathetic--”

She locked eyes with Nova, but Nova saw no sign of recognition. The nightmares must have taken full control and warped her memories. They had probably made her forget that he had been the stallion to have comforted her about ponies not enjoying the night.

“--colt. Pfeh, he is just a child, Celestia, and you brought him with you to fight? How disappointing. Maybe I’ll make him the royal consort when I have taken the throne. He is quite a handsome stallion--”

A raw-throated yell sounded behind Nova. He and Celestia turned to look just in time to see Comet launch himself at Envy, who merely reverted back to shadow and floated just out of his reach.

“I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO HER!” he screamed up at Envy, who cackled from her vantage point.

“Really now, you’re going to make me pay?” she sang at him. “How can you do that when you can’t even reach me up here, much less harm me?”

Nova ran to stand next to Comet, and at once, the power of Nova’s amulet forced Envy’s skin to recondense, and she fell to the ground, where Comet immediately started pummeling her. Before Comet could get anything more than a couple of punches in, however, a blast from Nightmare Moon launched both of them back by Celestia.

“Princess Celestia, engage your sister and hold her off until we can reseal Envy,” muttered Nova to Celestia as he got to his hooves. “Comet, I assume you want revenge?”

“Hell yeah, I do,” said Comet, glaring with hate at the green mare.

“Right, but know that you can’t kill her. All we can do is stick her back in a Soul Jar, because that’s how she is in my time.”

“I’ll take what satisfaction I can get,” Comet growled.

At this, Celestia shot forward, and she and Nightmare Moon were engulfed in a brilliant golden light. When it vanished, so did they, leaving Envy at the mercy of Nova and Comet. Before either of them could do much, however, she was already off, galloping past them and out of the castle.

They gave chase, but Envy stopped once she made it to the courtyard of the wrecked castle. Up in the sky, a great blast of light issued from two tiny specks silhouetted against the moon. Nova couldn’t help but be awed by the display of power from those two.

“Well, now we’re playing in a field more to my advantage,” said Envy, and she was grinning eagerly at both of them. “Good luck, you two. You’re gonna need it.”

Comet and Nova struck at the same time. A blue beam and a slightly darker blue beam both shot at her. She attempted to transform, but just as Nova had experimented, it didn’t work because she was still within that ring of space that prevented any kind of transformation. As a result, she got blasted backwards onto the drawbridge. Before she could get to her hooves, Nova and Comet were already bearing down on her.

She sent a blast of crackling red magic at Comet, who sidestepped and continued galloping, and sent a small spark of magic to trip Nova. Nova stumbled, but the distractions were all she needed to get back to her hooves. With them both off balance, she turned around and continued galloping into the city.

She was not an easy opponent. She shot spells back at them if they got too close, forcing Comet at least to keep his distance. Nova, however, could sense them coming and dodge them, but his foresight wasn’t perfect. Twice he got caught when Envy correctly predicted the direction he was going to dodge.

After a couple of minutes of this chase, they were exiting the city limits in the direction of Neighton, where trees had been leveled to clear for future construction. Logs were lying around and stumps were everywhere, with some having been pulled up.

Envy’s magic sparked, and she leapt upon a hovering red platform of energy, which rose into the air, where she started raining spell after spell on them. Nova used his cloak to block some, or he just dodged. Comet had to shield himself with magic, but his spell was rather weak. After four hits, it shattered, prompting Nova to conjure a much stronger one around him.

“I can’t get a good enough aim at her from down here,” said Nova. “Not with all these spells coming at us.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Comet responded.

Nova’s eyes fell on a pile of logs.

“How many objects can you levitate at once?” he asked, already thinking of an idea.

“Depending on size, around eight. Why? What do you need me to levitate?”

“How many of those logs can you levitate at once?”

Comet considered it for a moment while Nova’s spell and cloak continued to block incoming magic.

“At most eight, most likely just seven.”

“Good,” said Nova. “I need you to pick up seven logs and give me a pathway to Envy with them.”

Comet scrutinized the logs for a moment, thinking of some way he could do this, and after a moment, his eyes lit up.

“I have an idea. You’ll see what I’ve got in a moment. When you start running, keep going and I’ll give you a path forward.”

“Got it,” said Nova. He probably had thought of the same thing.

Another spell hit the cloak and dissipated. Nova was very thankful that magic didn’t work on it very well. If he kept taking shots like this, though, he’d have to repair the spellshield put into it.

“Ready?” asked Comet, his horn already flaring.

“Go!” shouted Nova, dropping the shield around Comet and dashing in front of him to cover him until he could get everything in place.

Seven large logs were pulled over and arranged themselves into a makeshift staircase, which Nova immediately dashed up, firing a spell at Envy to draw her fire off. He started to gallop up the logs, while five orbs of blue magic appeared around him and started to orbit him, as they had at his duel with Steelshod. As he neared the end of the staircase, another log flew from behind him and set itself on the end, creating another step. Nova looked back to see that the bottom log had been moved to create the extra step for him.

Clever idea, he thought.

Without another thought, he galloped forward. Without fail, as he continued forward, the logs behind him fell out, flew forward, and positioned themselves for him to run over it. Nova continued shooting spells at Envy to keep her from firing at Comet, and it was working. Comet continued to take him closer and closer, until finally, Nova was within striking distance.

Nova tripped her with a spell, sending her falling off her platform, just as she launched a spell at him, which hit him and blasted him off the logs. He didn’t fall far, though his impact with a strump still hurt.

He jumped to his hooves and sprinted at Envy, just as she got up. Comet was coming in from Nova’s right as Nova approached her at a breakneck pace.

Envy fired a powerful beam of red energy at him. He responded with a blue beam of his own, and his was joined by a darker blue beam. All three met in midair with a bright flash, and the contest of magical strength began.

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

Celestia and Nightmare Moon appeared in the sky, following Celestia’s teleportation. Before Nightmare Moon could do more than look wildly around at her surroundings, Celestia was on the offensive, firing beams at her as fast as she could.

Nightmare Moon flew back over the inky forest below, putting distance between her and Celestia in order to buy herself some time to react and to catch her bearings. Below, a greenish speck was running out of where the ruined castle was located, followed closely by a white speck and a darker little smudge that were giving chase.

Nightmare Moon looked up in time to see a golden beam fly right at her, and she responded with a beam of her own. Where the beams made contact, a great light shone in the sky, all the power of their magic being blasted collaterally.

“You are powerful, dear sister,” taunted Nightmare Moon, “but you must know Luna was much more powerful at magic than you ever were. Now I’m in control of her magic, and more!”

“Do you want to know something, Nightmare Moon?” asked Princess Celestia calmly. “About that colt you saw, the one with the white coat. When I first met him, he wasn’t terribly powerful either. Despite that, he was able to use his cleverness and what power he did have to outsmart and defeat more powerful opponents. It’s not how much power you have, Nightmare Moon. It’s how smart you are with what power you have.”

Nightmare Moon guffawed derisively.

“When one has absolute power,” she roared, punctuating her statement with a great burst of magic, which Celestia dodged, “you can be as smart as Star Swirl the Bearded and as clever as a cat, and you would never be able to lay a hoof upon me!”

A pencil-thin beam of golden energy shot at Nightmare Moon as fast as lightning and sliced her cheek, causing Nightmare Moon to yelp and clap a forehoof to her face. Celestia smiled teasingly at her fallen younger sister.

“Oh Nightmare Moon, you may have a new face and you may be in control, but deep down, you are still vulnerable to the same tricks that Lu-Lu is.”

Nightmare Moon snarled at her.

“You’ll pay for that!” she hissed, before blasting bolts of energy at Celestia. Celestia wormed her way through the gaps in the bolts, remembering how Nova had done the same when battling Captain Steelshod at the Castle Completion Celebration all those years ago. The spells were even identical; Luna must have been paying close attention to the captain’s spell.

Which fits, given her position as the bearer of the Element of Magic.

However, Nightmare Moon was smarter than Celestia originally gave her credit for. Just after she had wormed her way around the first barrage, the bolts all suddenly detonated, exploding and knocking her around from the magnitude of the explosions.

Celestia managed to avoid expending too much energy shielding herself, but even so, those explosions took a toll. She was disoriented and was looking around wildly, hoping to catch sight of her corrupted sister.

Suddenly, a thin line of pain shot through her cheek. She winced and almost fell out of the sky in her shock, but she managed to right herself. A small amount of blood trickled down from her hoof, but it was negligible. She located Nightmare Moon again, flying above her and looking quite smug about the payback.

“Dear sister, I have been told by my friend that revenge is a dish best served cold,” she mused. “And I must say, I think it’s quite cold on the moon.”

A conical blast of blue magic shot from Nightmare Moon’s horn that Celestia only just dodged. She grimaced. As much as she didn’t want to, it seemed Nightmare Moon was going to force her to do harm to her sister, directly or not.

Well, there’s no putting it off, she thought miserably. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.

With that in mind, the Princess tapped into magic deep within her, magic Star Swirl had taught her about. Magic that would empower her beyond anything any possessor could hope to match.

Pure Sun magic.

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Envy grinned at them, her face glowing red from her magic.

Comet snarled at her, his face glowing a dark blue.

Nova was also staring at Envy, but with a blank sort of sadness, which the bright blue illuminating his face helped to emphasize.

Nova’s and Comet’s beams together were able to slowly push Envy’s back, little by little, but Nova had the distinct impression she wasn’t putting too much work in it.

The moment he realized this, it was far too late.

Envy ducked under their beams, fired a beam right at Comet which caught him in the chest and blasted him into a tree, where he fell and didn’t move, and then bucked Nova with her hind legs, sending him flying and spinning when his flanks clipped a stump.

The lights in the sky spun nauseatingly and then suddenly, with a massive pain in his head, they ceased.

He was pulled up with magic and held still for several moments, during which he attempted to clear his head, but he failed. He heard hooves clopping, and he sensed Envy’s energy circling him slowly, but he couldn’t do anything about it in his current state.

“It’s you,” she exclaimed suddenly, excitedly. “It’s actually you! I thought you were just that stick in the mud Star Dancer like last time, but no, it’s really you!”

She gave a giddy laugh and dropped him to the ground, where he slumped and groaned as his head ignited and his gut stung. Instantly, she was at his side, easing him against a stump, despite his clumsy swings at her.

She sat opposite him as he tried to move away from his current positioning, but it hurt too much and she watched him, not bothering to hide the broad smile on her face as she looked him over. Her red magic flickered back to its old brown for a moment as an aura covered his chest. Nova, despite the fact that his own enemy was casting magic on him, couldn’t help but feel grateful for her healing.

When her brown aura vanished, he sighed and relaxed against the stump.

“Thanks,” he grunted.

She giggled.

“It’s just like the old days,” she said, walking over and sitting next to him on the stump. “Back before... that night. Back when all we would do is sit in that little grove, forget about everything and just talk.”

“Yeah,” he said dully, glancing over at Comet, who was feebly stirring. “It’s exactly like those times. Minus the whole ‘you being a murderer’ thing.’ And there’s you being a living shadow, and the fact that you tried to kill--”

She hissed angrily at him, her horn sparkling red for a moment. As much as Nova wanted to antagonize her and get her to stop fussing over him, despite being mortal enemies (But does she know that yet?), he couldn’t move yet. He needed to delay long enough for his inner ear to fix enough to the point where he could stand without falling flat on his side. And considering he could barely sit up without that happening, it was going to be a few moments.

“You know,” he said conversationally, “I don’t understand you, Summer.”

“My name is Envy, now,” she said with a hint of an annoyed growl. “And what do you mean you don’t understand me?”

Nova scoffed.

“I just don’t get you,” he said. “You have attempted to kill ponies just because they occupy what was Clover’s position? Seriously? And what for? To get some kind of revenge for Clover’s goodbye to me?”

She said nothing, which only made him shake his head in derision.

“So you have done all of this, all of the attempted murder, all of the cloak-and-dagger, just because she beat you? Is that it?” How petty,” Nova spat. “No, I restate. How pathetic. Have you not heard the phrase ‘All’s fair in love and war?’”

She hissed again, and he was lifted up and brought to hover in front of her. She was standing again, and she looked none too pleased with how he was talking to her.

“So I was wrong that you weren’t actually leaving. But she still used the Seduction Scent. She told me she had learned it, and the only explanation that made sense as to why she would have gone through the trouble was--”

“Was to counter Shimmer, just as I had done,” interrupted Nova. “She had a nasty habit of interrupting our sparring sessions, and once she almost did catch me, but Clover was smart enough to figure out the magical filter I kept on my muzzle.”

“Of course you would say that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Clearly you’re still affected. By the look of things, you left shortly after the Elements did this to me, so it would still affect you. Just wait, Nova. In a few days, you’ll be back to your normal self, and you’ll see exactly what Clover’s gone and caused.”

“Oh Summer,” responded Nova, shaking his head sadly, “do you really think the Princesses would have let her use Seduction Scent on me? Princess Luna would have keyed in on it a mile away and undone it. And anyway, even if I were under its effects, how exactly does that justify murder?”

She snarled.

“When you want to destroy an infestation of parasites and insects, you have to kill their descendents too. She was nothing but a harlot and a witch, and both she and her spawn deserve nothing but death.”

Nova scoffed again.

“Well, if both she and her descendents all deserve to die, then go ahead. Take your best shot.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and furrowed her brow confusedly.

“What are you talking about?”

“You say you want to kill all of Clover’s descendents? Well I’m right here. Fire away.”

“How can you be one of Clover’s descendents?” she asked, sounding somewhat bemused by this. “You were around when she... when... she...”

She trailed off as her eyes bulged, and she dropped him onto the ground below. He tasted blood for a moment, probably the remnants of his damaged insides, before spitting it out and looking back up at her.

“Th-that crater! In Unicornia!” she exclaimed. Nova sat up and nodded.

“Keep going,” he added encouragingly.

“You, traveling forward in time-- you’re from the future!”

“Bingo!” he said, clapping his hooves. “You got it, and now you have to decide if you want to either kill all of Clover’s descendents, including me, or if you want to let me live out of some twisted showing of affection, and know that some part of Clover still survives in this world.”

It was then that Nova noticed that he didn’t seem to be falling over. His inner ear must have started working again, which meant...

“But before you make a decision, I have something more important to attend to.”

Before she could react, his beam of energy hit her in the chest and blasted her back while he scrambled over to where Comet was lying on the ground. Nova lifted his head up to meet his eyes and noticed that on of his pupils was substantially larger than the other.

“Oh damn, you’ve been concussed,” he muttered. Comet blinked stupidly and shook his head vigorously, no doubt attempting to return to clarity.

“No use, bud,” said Nova, reaching up a hoof and steadying his head. “You took a heavy knock to the noggin. You’re not much of a help in this state, so I’m gonna get you out of here. Wait for Princess Celestia to come and get you, alright? And whatever you do, do not fall asleep.”

"Why not?" asked Comet, head lolling.

"I keep hearing one way or the other about concussions and whether or not you should sleep, but you're dizzy, which means definitely stay awake until Princess Celestia can help."

Comet’s eyes slid into focus and then out again, but he gave a feeble nod. Nova’s horn shimmered, and with a flash of blue light, Comet had vanished, teleported into the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters’ infirmary to wait on the Princess to finish her business in the sky.

A sudden burst of energy caught Nova’s attention, and he leapt to the right just as red lightning incinerated the tree Comet had collided with. He whirled around in time to see Envy standing there, her horn glowing red and fury etched on every line in her face.

I take it you’ve made your choice?” he asked placidly.

“I have,” she said through clenched teeth. “I can see she’s done her job well. Looks like I’ve got no choice.”

Nova grinned as he felt his adrenaline start to rush through him.

“Well alrighty then,” he said, tilting his head both ways sharply to crack his neck, ”since you don’t seem to be holding back, I guess this means I don’t have to either.”

"For the record," Envy said, grinning at him as her horn's aura lit up, "I'm sorry it has to end this way, old friend."

"No you're not," Nova replied meeting her gaze with a pitying look of his own as his own horn began to glow.

For a few short seconds they just stared at each other, faces glowing the light of their magic.

You may not be, Nova thought bitterly, but I am sorry that it has to be this way, Summer.

As one, they both launched powerful blasts of magic at each other. Nova’s beam of energy was so strong, it reminded him of his encounter with Envy in the Vaults. Unlike that encounter, however, where his magic was raw and nothing more than energy released in all directions, here his magic was focused, powerful, and deadly.

Envy’s red magic was completely stopped and then reversed by the sheer power of his blast. He watched with satisfaction as she was lifted off her feet and completely tossed backwards into-- no, through-- a couple of trees, before skidding to a halt on the ground, leaving a trail in the dirt and grass.

Nova’s eyes widened and his eyes immediately flew up to the small white blurry object at the top of his vision. After a moment of awed admiration of his magical ability, he grinned and looked back at Envy in the dirt, who was struggling to get to her hooves. She, too, was completely awed by his display of magic, to the point where she even fell over but didn’t stop staring at him incredulously.

“Huh,” said Nova, still grinning broadly. “Never had to tap into my full magical power for the last year and six months, or so, ‘cept for Time Stasis. Well, I guess this is gonna be an interesting and one-sided battle.”

Envy clenched her eyes shut, but nothing happend. Nova figured she was trying to go into shadow form again, but she was still within the ring of power from the amulet around Nova’s neck that prevented her from transforming. When she had realized nothing had happened and saw him advancing on her, she scrambled to her hooves and started galloping into the city at top speed.

Nova smirked and pursued her. Oh, this was going to be nothing short of a full-on curb-stomp battle! He hadn’t bothered to test his limit in combat since he came back to the past. Not even against Lord Silverblood, where he only used Starfall to defeat him, and while it was taxing, it wasn’t anywhere near his full potential.

Now, however, he could cut loose and use the full extent of his power for the first time in a very long time.

He galloped after her, orbs of white light appearing around him and orbiting at a high speed, and making sure to create traps far in front of the two of them as they continued to run. Some of these were dodged, where Nova simply dissipated them and reconstituted them into his Source, while others were triggered, slowing Envy a great deal and allowing to gain ground.

Before they even reached the city limits, Nova had caught up to her. He grabbed her tail with magic and flung her sideways, almost into one of the outlying buildings, but she narrowly missed it. She was in full panic mode, now, and Nova was pressing his advantage for all it was worth. Before she was on her hooves again, he was already at her side, whipping out a Soul Jar he had stored in his Source to trap her in, but she hit it with a well-placed spell and sent it flying off into the darkness.

While he went after the jar, she got to her hooves and galloped off again. He quickly retrieved the container, stored it once again, and bolted after her, super thankful for making good on his promise to himself to run at least once a day. He could do this for hours if he needed to! Figuratively speaking, of course.

She continued trying to slow him, firing panicked spell after panicked spell behind her. He dodged nearly all of them easily, but her erratic casting was reducing many of the buildings around them to rubble, sometimes flinging large stone objects into the air for him to dodge.

He caught up with her again by where a tavern had been built in his later months in Everfree, and he launched a blast at her. It missed and struck the building, causing the wall it hit to explode inward quite violently. Nova continued to fire spell after spell, blasting buildings as he went and causing them to fall into the street from their weight. This proved to be a great advantage to him, because Envy dodging every building slowed her enough to catch up yet again.

This time, however, he was much harsher.

He focused his beam as thin as he could and shot it right at one of her legs, where it sliced her flesh impossibly easily, before burrowing several feet into the ground. She screamed in pain and reflexively threw some lightning his way, but he stayed out of its path and fired another focused beam at another leg. She managed to just drag it out of the way, however, and set to blasting the buildings in an attempt to draw his attention away.

It worked, and he had to move quickly to avoid a collapsing inn, and a store that was falling into the street as well. As the dust cleared and he extricated himself from the wrecked wood and stone, he looked around to make sure she hadn’t knocked other buildings down to follow up if the first two had failed.

When he was sure no more buildings were falling, and when he could see past the dust clouds that had sprung up with the destruction of the buildings, he looked around and noted that she had taken the opportunity to crawl off somewhere, though the blood trail made pursuit quite easy.

Nova followed the red streaks on the grass, not going quite as fast as before. He knew she was in no galloping shape, so he took his time to recover as he followed the splatters on the ground. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Well, she was. Just not very quickly.

When he found her, Envy was in pitiful condition. She was crawling along the ground as fast as she could, whimpering pathetically . Nova had hit her back left leg with his spell. While the front hooves could take quite a beating and the pony could still move somewhat easily, the back hooves were kind of necessary, as they were what most of the weight was put on.

When his shadow fell across her, she turned quickly to see who it was, and Nova saw the sheer panic on her face. She redoubled her effort and attempted to crawl even faster, but with no success. Nova was above her in seconds.

“You know,” he said, just following her as she attempted to flee, and dodging the occasional poorly-fired spell, “I have a feeling, if you were able to transform into shadow, you probably wouldn’t be hurt. You’d just go back to shadow form, and then reconstitute yourself completely whole once more.”

She fired another spell, which he effortlessly beat aside with one of his orbiting orbs.

“Now that I have you at my mercy, Summer, I suppose I should just kill you and save the future Night Apprentices and Faithful Students the trouble of doing it themselves.”

“Y-you wouldn’t.”

It was merely a contradiction. It was not of any fear, or of any spite. It was only an idle observation.

“I know you too well, N-Nova Shine,” she said, followed by a groan as she kept a hoof clamped over her wound to keep from bleeding out. “You wouldn’t d-do that. You’re not that kind of p-p-pony.”

“So you can do it all you want, but I can’t? I fail to see your logic here.”

She attempted to laugh derisively, but it sounded more like a groan of pain than anything.

“You d-didn’t kill me even though I tried to kill Clover that night,” she said, grimacing and pressing all the harder against her leg. “You let me get t-transformed into this. I may have committed murder today, and in your eyes I may deserve death, but you would never k-kill me.”

Nova stared down at her. She was right, but for the wrong reasons. He knew himself better than she did. If he knew he could stop others from suffering, he would kill her. He would hate the decision, but he would do it. But if he killed her now, everything he had said in his argument with Princess Celestia would happen. He wouldn’t have a reason in the future to go back in time, meaning Sombra would have won, completely altering Equestria itself.

The Soul Jar appeared between them in a flash of blue light.

“I was right. You can’t do it,” she spat. “Well, then I’ll just have to keep on trying then, won’t I? This won’t hold me for long, and you know it.”

“You’d be surprised,” said Nova. “This thing can keep you trapped a pretty long time. Particularly after I’ve messed with it. Not those past unicorns, with their lesser power.”

“In the long run, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to get out. And when I do, I won’t rest until all of Clover’s descendents are gone.”

Nova narrowed his eyes at her.

“I dunno. My family’s a pretty powerful bunch. Good luck with your endeavour, but I highly doubt you’ll succeed.”

Before she could retort, he had opened the Soul Jar. Rather than attempt to fight, like she had in the past, Envy let herself be dragged in. Her flesh and blood form simply disintegrated into shadow, which was sucked into the magical confines of the prison. When the last speck of shadow vanished into its depths, he sealed the jar, now glowing orange, and added several protective enchantments on it, just in case.

As he started to make his way back to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, a bright flash of golden light illuminated the sky, and Nova instinctively looked up.

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Nightmare Moon had been fleeing before the terrifying power of the Princess of the Sun. As powerful as she was, the moon was the lesser light. While Luna may have been the more proficient of the two in natural magic, this was not natural magic. This was pure Sun magic.

Flame after flame flew from Celestia’s horn and shot right at Nightmare Moon, who did her absolute best to dodge or extinguish them, and for the most part, she was succeeding.

“For the most part” being the key phrase.

While she had done well to dodge attacks at first, her fatigue and her complete inability to do anything more than avoid Celestia’s attacks were wearing her down. Still, every time one of Celestia’s attacks came anywhere near actually causing her harm, she resorted to using magic to negate it.

What Nightmare Moon didn’t know, however, was that Celestia was baiting her right into a trap. And sure enough before long, Nightmare Moon was directly over a clearing in the forest, where Celestia had lain binding spells earlier that evening, before Nova returned from his brief trip to Neighton.

Suddenly, a great golden light illuminated the sky, as Celestia fully thrust her entire being into the source of Sun magic. Her eyes glowed white, and her mane shone with white light as well. Instantly, Nightmare Moon’s wings burst into flame as the sky began to burn with the intensity of her sister’s element, causing her to spiral downward, screaming in pain and fear.

She landed right in the clearing heavily, but before she could react, Princess Celestia had flown down and landed before her, where she lay, whimpering and cowering. Celestia gave her no chance to do anything; she activated the traps, which caused pillars of golden light to erupt from the ground and imprison her in a seamless cage of magic.

Satisfied that Nightmare Moon was now captured, Celestia turned and took off, flying back to the Castle. She would need the Elements of Harmony to return her sister to her original condition, but she would need to find substitutes for Luna to bear her elements.

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Nova knew that Nightmare Moon must have been defeated, based on the white figure flying back toward what was the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, so he set out to return as well.

While he knew he and Envy had damaged the town in their duel, he did not see during the fighting how Celestia and Nightmare Moon had damaged it.

The sheer magnitude of the damage astounded him. How could he have missed all of this!? Particularly in the last few moments as he relaxed, rather than single-mindedly pursue his target! Everywhere he went, he saw wrecked buildings, destroyed property, crushed stone, and so on. It almost looked like a war between two entire legions, rather than two powerful alicorns and two less-powerful unicorns.

Everfree, he realized, was abandoned because of this battle. He had known that the Royal Migration, or so he called it, to Canterlot had been done after the battle, but he had always thought that the ponies of the city had already started to move out before then. Evidence had suggested that a larger number of ponies had made their permanent homes in Canterlot and Cloudsdale before the Nightfall.

He returned to the Castle in short order, to find Comet sitting on an infirmary bed. He refused to look toward the body of his marefriend, but when Nova came in, he did note tear tracks.

“Well?” asked Comet, and Nova was glad to hear greater clarity in his voice than when he had teleported him off.

“Done,” he said, proffering the Soul Jar at him.

Comet didn’t smile. He nodded and fell back on the bed, groaning somewhat, before casting a bright werelight.that hovered right above him.

“What’s that for?” asked Nova.

“Keep me from sleeping. I don’t know why I shouldn’t, but you’re from the future, so I figure I ought to just go ahead and follow orders. You probably know medical shit I have no clue about.”

“Yeah. Well, to put it simply, a concussion is when you hit your head so hard that your brain hits the inside of your skull and takes some damage. I’m nowhere near good enough to heal that, but Princess Celestia probably can. You’ll have to wait on her.”

“He won’t have to wait long,” came the voice of the Princess herself from the doorway.

The first thing Nova noticed was that her mane and tail were waving independently of any wind, and that they had become four-hued, as Nova remembered. She was still not as tall as he knew she would become, but she looked more like her future self than ever.

The second thing Nova noticed was that her eyes were shining brightly with golden light instead of their usual pink, which told Nova that she had come into contact with powerful magic, since it would leave an effect like that on the body.

She walked in briskly, and immediately approached Comet’s side.

“What happened?” she asked sharply.

“He’s fine,” said Nova immediately, because her eyes had narrowed and the golden light in her eyes had grown stronger. “He’s just concussed. He hit a tree pretty hard, so I teleported him back here. He’s been awake the entire time.”

Celestia nodded curtly, before tapping into her magic.

“This is going to take a while, Nova,” she said, looking back at him with the same scowl she had borne since she walked in. “Healing the brain is no fast process.”

“Is there anything I can do, exactly? We captured Envy, so definitely stick her in one of the vaults, but what else?”

“I don’t know,” said Celestia, shaking her head. “Nightmare Moon’s wings have been incinerated, and so she is confined to the ground. There is that, and there is the fact that I have trapped her in a magical prison. She won’t be going anywhere any time soon, and she’ll probably take the opportunity to nurse her injuries.”

“Wait,” said Nova, suddenly struck by somewhat of a morbid thought, but one he felt he needed to go attend to. “Princess Celestia, where are Clover’s and Steelshod’s graves?”

Princess Celestia froze, her magic flickering, though thankfully, she hadn’t yet set to work on Comet yet.

“Why would you want to go to a gravesite?” she asked, looking back at him with surprise. “If I recall correctly, you hated the graveyard to the point of finding routes around the city's graveyard when you were directed near it.”

“I did,” said Nova with a nod. “I just... I feel like I need to visit it.”

She stared at him for a long moment through those golden eyes, before sighing heavily.

“Very well. You remember your favorite grove by the river?”

“How can I forget it?”

“They are buried there. Take what time you need, Nova. Rest, because we still have my sister to deal with when you come back and Comet is fit.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Nova turned around and cantered out toward the vaults. As he passed by the Chapel Tower, he paused in his jog and glanced at the Elements of Harmony. All five of the present ones sat on their arms of stone, looking as though they hadn’t been disturbed in years. He smiled grimly, knowing that within hours, they were going to remove them from these pedestals and let Celestia use them on her sister. With that thought in mind, he continued his canter, quickly arriving back at the Vaults.

He navigated the familiar, if hazy, path to the vault belonging to the Night Apprentice and Faithful Student, stopping when he found the same sigil cut into the rock. Unlike before, when there had been some erosion, the symbols were cleanly cut and stood in sharp contrast. He fired a magical beam at the jewel above the door, prompting the round stone to roll open.

The glowstone in the ceiling was still shining brightly, which meant it had to have been a recent fixture in the vault, and the light created by it shone upon a room full of items. Several cloaks, both for the Night Apprentice and Faithful Student, were neatly folded in piles, several spellbooks were arranged, and in general, many supplies that the students and their teachers used were placed around the room.

With another grim smile, his horn flashed and it all vanished. He hadn’t done anything to the items; merely teleported them to a safe room in Canterlot Castle, where he knew some maid would already be panicking because of randomly-appearing apparel and other things.

He reached forward to set the jar on the little pedestal, when he noticed a familiar crack in the jar. Leaning forward, he inspected it closely, smiling to himself when he realized it was exactly the same one, and that it must have happened when Envy knocked it away from him in their fight.

After he had set it down, he cast a few extra spells on everything in the room, from the vault door the walls to prevent magical escape unless the door was open. Finally, when he was satisfied that he had set in motion everything that would lead up to him and Twilight finding the Soul Jar over a thousand years in the future, he turned around and left the vault, letting it slide shut behind him.

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Celestia’s aura vanished as she completed her work on Comet’s brain. It had only been a small contusion in the brain tissue, but it was still enough to affect poor Comet. Fortunately, it still not enough to evade her ability to heal, particularly in her current state.

She felt powerful. She felt almost omnipotent. Pure Sun magic was flowing through her body, waiting to be released, and she had only tapped into a fraction of her current power just to heal Comet. It would take some time to fully burn it up.

Or another titanic battle with her fallen sister.

She had seen the damage they had done to the city. It was uninhabitable now, with all the wanton destruction. It had taken a short time to build, but clearing all of this away and rebuilding would take years.

Ponies might not even want to return! They might just settle in their relocated homes and abandon Everfree entirely. Where, then, would she go? Cloudsdale? Build a castle in the sky? Or perhaps Canterlot? They already had a castle, built by Princess Platinum, and she had visited it several times. That, and it was in a central location. Perhaps Neighton? Or another neutral city like she and Luna had decided back when the Three Patriarchs had been ruling?

“Are you finished?” asked Comet tiredly from below her.

“Yes, I am,” she replied, holding out a hoof to help him up as he raised himself into a sitting position. “You’re lucky. The damage was very minor. Any more, and I would have had to use extra power, and frankly, we need all the magic we can use to face my fallen sister.”

Comet opened his eyes, looked up at her, then rubbed them again quite vigorously. When that didn’t dispel what he saw, he furrowed his brow.

“What happened to your mane? And your eyes?”

Princess Celestia smiled down at him.

“Just a little trick Star Swirl the Bearded taught me. I accessed pure Sun magic, and it changed my mane and tail to the way they are, and I don’t know how long they’ll stay. As for my eyes, I’m full of power that I need to spend, and until all that excess magic is spent somehow, they’ll keep glowing like this.”

“Oh,” Comet replied. He slid off of the infirmary bed, stumbling for a moment as he attempted to find his balance. He crashed into Princess Celestia, who stumbled a bit herself. He cast her an awkward glance, but started laughing a little.

“Sorry,” he said, as the smile slid off his face when his mirth had subsided. “Body control is still a little off.”

Celestia smiled down at him and enveloped him in one of her wings. She had noticed he had glanced over to the lifeless pony in the room right before he had stopped his brief spot of happiness, and now Comet looked as though he wanted nothing more than to go curl up somewhere and let himself go.

“Don’t be afraid, Comet,” she said softly down to him as he suddenly shivered. “I’m right here. If you need to let it out, you can use my shoulder.”

His bottom lip trembled, and within seconds, he was sobbing uncontrollably into her side. She drew him as close as she could, blinking back the tears that were threatening to fall as well. The dam was nearing breaking point, but she held it back for the sake of Comet. It would not do for the strongest figure in his eyes to lose it right in front of him.

He cried for several minutes, to the point where she could feel her wing start to sop with the amount of tears going into it. She didn’t care, though. She let him cry as long as he needed. After a long time had passed, his sobs became sniffles, and soon they disappeared as he fell silent. He could have been sleeping, if not for his constant shuffling.

“Mmprincess?” he mumbled from underneath her wing.

“Yes Comet?” she said, loosening her wing enough for him to crawl out on his knees a few inches.

“Who is he?”

Celestia didn’t answer immediately. She definitely knew who “he” was, but she didn’t have any idea where to begin. She had known Nova for only a short time before he had gone, after all. She knew nothing about his life before he came back, apart from some details she and Clover had worked out.

“I’ll be honest, Comet,” she said, “I don’t know too much about him before he came back in time. He just appeared out of nowhere, right in front of Unicornia-- sorry, Canterlot. I still call it by its old name from time to time. He just appeared there out of nowhere one day a little under two hundred sixty years ago.”

“He time traveled, right?”

Celestia smiled and nodded.

“He did, but of course, we didn’t know it at the time. He appeared just outside of Canterlot in a smoking crater, and we just assumed he had been teleported here from Dream Valley.”

“Dream Valley? That the Old Lands?”

“One and the same. I first met him the morning after he arrived, for it was Princess Luna who found him, sleeping in the grove where Lady Clover the Clever and General Steelshod are buried. It was that very morning, as a matter of fact, when Luna and I named him the first Night Apprentice.”

As Celestia delved into the story, she noticed that he seemed to grow more and more awed by what she told him of Nova. How he defeated a rogue unicorn lord who had kidnapped a changeling princess; how he had foiled the plots of Sombra and prevented a war that would have destroyed free ponykind; how over the time she had known him, his skill grew from extraordinary to absolutely prodigious thanks to Luna’s tutoring, his friendship with Clover, his rivalry with Steelshod, and his camaraderie with Star Swirl the Bearded; how he had fallen in love with Clover, despite the fact that he knew he shouldn’t; and how he had defended Clover during an attempt on her life.

“Indirectly, Comet, you owe Nova your life. If he had not stopped Envy from killing Clover, you wouldn’t exist,” she noted, with some amused satisfaction as his look of awe grew even more pronounced, if that was possible.

“He saved your sister, too,” Comet suddenly said.

Celestia blinked. What did he mean by that?

“Sorry?”

“All those years ago,” said Comet. “I asked her how she got the idea for the Night Apprentice, and she told me the story. She didn’t tell me who he was, but she told me that her first student had comforted her with an insight that she had chosen to overlook, if she were honest with herself, and that he provided her with the appreciation for the night that she had longed for.”

“And yet she still became Nightmare Moon,” pointed out Celestia.

“She did, but Envy forced it upon her with the help of the Nightmares. If he hadn’t met her that night, all those years ago, Luna would have become Nightmare Moon by choice before you were strong enough to defeat her. Before there were those who could take up the Elements of Harmony in her stead.”

Celestia’s eyes widened.

“Comet, what are you saying?”

Comet crawled out from under her wing to look her directly in the eyes.

“Princess Celestia, I need to tell you something Princess Luna told me.”

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

Nova stared at the two headstones in front of him. He didn’t know exactly how he was supposed to be feeling right now, honestly. According to the gravestones, which only contained a name and the dates of birth and death, they had died some thirty years after he had left. At first. he had been alarmed that they had died so early in their lives, but then he remembered that life expectancy back then was only around thirty to forty years. It was only after the advancement of medicinal magic among other things that led to the life expectancy being where it was in his time, around ninety to a hundred years. And even then, there were odd cases. For example, Granny Smith, at a hundred and eight.

In all of his awkward staring, he didn’t realize exactly how much time had passed. He had only been thinking of all their time together in the past as he sat there. Everything from the awkward first meeting to the heartfelt goodbye.

He didn’t say anything to the bodies below. He merely stood there and reflected. The river had carved itself a few feet further down, but thanks to the efforts of the weather pegasi, the river had been kept filled. Nova wondered how it would be without the weather pegasi in the future. Would he be able to find the graves? How would he know?

He smiled it himself, strode over to the tree he had lain under so many times, and branded a small clover into it with magic. At first, the tree bark did nothing, but after a few moments, it started glowing bright blue. Come to think of it, this might have been one of the inexplicable wonders of the Everfree Forest. A glowing blue clover on a tree.

He smiled to himself, and tapped into more magic. While he couldn’t do what earth ponies did completely, he could mimic their power with his own, in a far less potent way. His horn shimmered, and a bed of lavender-hued roses sprung up over Clover’s grave, along with a bed of silvery-grey roses over Steelshod’s.

“Consider my respects paid, though I doubt they’ll be my last,” he whispered, before standing and beginning to trot back to the castle.

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

Celestia was shocked by what Comet had to say. She had known Luna to be the more calculative, analytical one, but she had outdone herself!

“How do you know it’s true?” asked Celestia.

Comet shrugged.

“She tested the theory in one of our lessons. She wielded Magic and Loyalty, while I wielded Laughter and Generosity. We tried switching, and I could wield Loyalty, but I could never so much as touch the Consciousness of Magic without being rejected.”

Celestia broke into a grin. A sad one, given that Luna had set all of this up purely for this event, but still a smile regardless. Of course Comet wouldn’t be able to wield Magic. He was strong, there was no denying that, but he wasn’t nearly as good of making friends as he should have been to wield it.

Case in point, Nova Shine.

And speaking of, the stallion of the hour trotted in, humming something best known to himself.

Somepony’s in a good mood,” noted Comet.

“Indeed,” chirped Nova.

“Where were you just now?”

Nova smiled broadly as he strode over to sit next to Princess Celestia on her other side.

“I was off visiting an old flame,” he said cheerfully.

“Did you get laid?”

Nova’s smile was replaced by a comical expression of disgust.

“Ugh,” he said, cringing after a moment. “No, Comet. Just... no.”

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

Twilight looked just as taken aback and slightly disgusted as Nova remembered feeling.

“He actually said that?” she asked, sounding very shocked.

Nova nodded. For a moment, Twilight could do nothing but stare at him with that same look, but she suddenly put a hoof to her muzzle in an attempt to cover up a smile that was starting to work its way onto her face.

“What?” asked Nova.

“Now I know where you got your humor from,” she said.

“Oh, hush,” said Nova. “Besides, you got your brand of humor from him, too.”

“I... what?”

“Yeah,” said Nova, smiling at her. “Comet had three foals of his own a few years after Nightfall. Obviously the first was my ancestor, but the Sparkle line comes from his youngest, his daughter Starlight Sparkle.”

Her familiar slack-jawed expression, which had shown up several times over the last few hours, was back. Nova inwardly sighed. For such a booksmart mare, Twilight sometimes really needed to do actual research. There were many clans that were very integrated into Equestrian society. The Kickers and Dos of the pegasi, the Hooves and the Apples and their relatives among the earth ponies, and the Novuses and Lulamoons among the unicorns, not to mention the Hooves family, which had members of all four races (yes, even crystal ponies). Surely she had to know that at some point, her family tree would cross with his.

And even if it didn’t, he had a niggling suspicion that they would cross permanently some time in the next few years. After all, he was an only child and the only member of his generation to carry the family name.

“Please tell me you knew we were distantly related,” he said after a few seconds.

She shook herself out of her little trance. That had become such a familiar place for her today...

“Oh, I knew we had to be related,” she said, which dispelled any of Nova’s previous disappointments with his marefriend, “but I didn’t know that I’m descended from one of the ponies that fought Nightmare Moon.”

She suddenly grinned.

“Kinda makes the whole ‘me fighting Nightmare Moon’ pretty fitting, doesn’t it?”

Nova nodded. Never mind the fact that she was also dating one of the ponies who fought her...

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

They rested for a few hours. Nova, having been feeling the adrenaline during his duel with Envy, didn’t feel fatigued at all after he sealed her away, not even when visiting Steelshod and Clover. After he had taken the time to relax for a moment, he felt his muscles begin to ache from all the running, and he felt the familiar mental exhaustion that came as a byproduct of having a near-depleted Source. His concentration was slipping, he started hearing a slight muffle when noise was made, and in general, he was completely depleted, both physically and mentally, to the point where it was a wonder he hadn’t fallen over yet. In the future, he needed to be more careful when tapping into the fullest reserves of magic he had, lest he accidentally use too much.

Princess Celestia, once again demonstrating her magical prowess, placed Nova into a deep sleep in a space of magic that worked almost the opposite of Time Stasis. It accelerated time for the duration of the spell until the magic wore off. She weaved the spell to where it would dissipate when he woke and left the space, allowing him, Comet, and herself to rest and restore their depleted reserves of magic.

To them it seemed like nearly a full day, but they were asleep for most of that time, and the spell accelerated the time in their space. When they awoke, they felt completely refreshed, barring hunger, and ready to confront Nightmare Moon. In reality, they only slept for a few hours at most.

A few minutes after they woke up, Celestia and Comet took the time to fill Nova in on what they had been discussing before he returned from his visit to Clover and Steelshod. Nova was the one who originally brought it up, though inadvertently.

“Princess Celestia, do you have a plan on how we’re going to defeat Nightmare Moon?” he asked.

She responded with, “How do I defeat her in your future, Nova? I know we shouldn’t bring up the future, but this is the fate of Equestria.”

“No, no worries,” said Nova waving a hoof. “I think we’re close enough to where it wouldn’t matter. Well, the way you’re said to have defeated her is with the Elements of Harmony, but I don’t see how one pony can wield all six. Last time I saw you use them, you and Luna had to split them.”

“That is true,” concurred Celestia. “However, Comet and I were discussing our same problem. We agree that the Elements would be the most effective way to defeat Luna, but as you said, we do not have all of the bearers present, so to speak.”

“Except that we do,” said Comet.

“I don’t follow,” said Nova.

“One question for you, Nova,” continued Comet. He seemed to have expected that nopony else would know what he did, and he seemed quite eager to prove he knew something this powerful, mysterious prodigy didn’t. “When you accepted the mantle of Night Apprentice in your time, did you feel a sort of itch in your mind? And when you tried to focus on it, it was gone?”

Nova opened his mouth and raised an expository hoof, but suddenly froze in mid-attempt-to-talk.

“I would be honored to accept the position of your Night Apprentice, Princess Luna.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt a strange little itch in his mind. For one maddening second, he flinched and brought a hoof to scrub at his mane, but as quickly as it had come, the sensation was gone.

He nodded slowly, unsure of what it meant.

“Yes,” he added in the middle of his slow nod, “she did.”

Comet smiled at him.

“Princess Luna put a portion of her magic within your Source.”

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

Twilight stared at him.

“I’m not kidding,” said Nova. His horn flashed, and rather than the usual brilliant blue, there came a whiter, almost sky-colored aura of magic. “Doesn’t really do much, since I’m not Princess Luna and since it only obeys her, but it’s there if I ever feel like channeling her magic.”

At the sight of it, once again, Twilight’s jaw nearly hit the floor. But after a moment, she screwed up her eyes in concentration, trying, Nova assumed, to channel Princess Celestia’s magic, like he had with Luna’s.

“I doubt you’ll get it anytime soon,” he commented.

“What makes you say that?” she snapped.

Now it was Nova’s turn to be rather surprised. Where did that come from?

“What was that for?”

“What was what for?” she asked, now clenching her eyes shut and gritting her teeth.

“The snapping. What was it for? I just said you channeling Princess Celestia’s magic probably won’t happen for a while.”

“Why... not?” she grunted, clenching her eyes even tighter.

“It took me seven months to learn how to tap into it.”

She stopped and stared at him.

“Seven months? But wasn’t this, like, last night for you?”

“Not quite. Wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey and all that. Got back seven months ago, which is seven months early, and really convenient for me, because today marks the second anniversary of me going back.”

She didn’t seem to have heard. Yet again, her eyes slid out of focus and she stared straight ahead, frozen in an expression of shock.

“Oh dear, I think I broke her this time,” Nova muttered to himself with a small smile.

After a few moments including countless eye-twitches from the still-mentally-overwhelmed Twilight, Nova taking the time to briefly catch up with Spike, who had been eavesdropping on the story, and Nova going and getting himself one of the bottles of hard liquor that he kept locked in the chest in his basement room, Twilight finally snapped out of her little trance as Nova had taken his first draught from a medium-sized shot glass.

“Oh hey, you’re back,” he said dryly. “Did you see the card soldiers while you were off in wonderland?”

“Oh shut up,” she said. “You should wear it as a badge of pride that you managed to overload my mind.”

“New life achievement,” said Nova without missing a beat.

“So, something about you being back seven months early?” she asked.

“I’ll get to that later. Probably tomorrow, given how late it’s getting,” Nova replied, gesturing out the window, where a bright full moon shone high in the sky and there were hardly any lights on in Ponyville anymore, save for the small glow of his magic illuminating Ponyville Park.

Twilight glanced at the clock on the wall.

“But it’s only nine-thirty!” she protested, but Nova already had his counter-arguments lined up.

“And we have a baby dragon that lives here. Plus, I kinda did get into a fight today, remember?” he said, turning and showing off the white bandage that almost blended perfectly with his coat.

Twilight had completely forgotten that was there, despite her being the one that wrapped it. She opened her mouth, but closed it when she knew she would just lose this little argument.

“How much more is there?”

Nova glanced up at the ceiling for a moment.

“Still a bit. Not too much. Well, unless you count the other time I came back early.”

She blinked.

Other time?”

Nova smiled.

“Oh yeah. About 400 years ago. Got to meet Queen Elizabeak I of the Griffons.”

“You met Queen Elizabeak!?” gaped Twilight.

“Yep,” said Nova proudly. “Just one small historical discrepancy, though. We still call her by that particular nickname, even after that one night in OW! I WAS KIDDING TWILIGHT!”

Twilight had actually reached over and smacked him for that particular one, but she did appreciate the historical in-joke. Just not when her dear coltfriend was both the butt and teller.of it.

“I didn’t actually come back that early, geez!” whined Nova, as he rubbed the small lump on his head. “You know I love you too much to go and do something stupid like that!”

“Clover the Clever,” Twilight responded in deadpan snark.

Nova stopped for a moment as he thought of the best way to phrase his response without resulting in him getting smacked by Twilight.

“She’s you in all-but-cutie mark,” he finally said after a moment. “Can you blame me?”

“Yes,” was Twilight’s also-deadpan response.

"We didn't even get together," Nova protested. "Well, except for that last night, but I told you we didn't do anything."

Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Whatever. So, Princess Luna put a portion of her magic in your Source three years ago... well, to you it would be five years ago, but you know what I mean. What happened back then?”

Nova smiled. He had really been waiting to get into this. He had a feeling this was going to floor her.

“Well...”

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

“Okay, so you’ve convinced me, she put a bit of her magic in my Source. Now what exactly does that have to do with this current situation?” Nova asked, feeling slightly annoyed when there was still a rogue alicorn to deal with, and they were here exchanging cool facts about their Sources.

Comet and Princess Celestia both glanced at each other. Comet smiled somewhat unsurely, before turning back to Nova.

“Well, we’re going to temporarily take her place as Bearers of the Elements of Harmony.”

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

THUD!

“Damn it,” cursed Nova, as he picked up Twilight’s eye-twitching, overloaded form from the floor. “Took all of three minutes earlier. How long this time?”

After a few more moments spent retrieving smelling salts, he knelt down, held them by her muzzle, and forced her out of her second overload of the evening. After taking a moment to let her comprehend the information, she spent another minute or so sputtering incoherently as she tried to process that.

“B-but how!?” she asked. “The Elements choose their Bearers! How could you wield them!?”

“It’s a sort of fail-safe that Princess Luna came up with. Now, let me explain.”

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

“Princess Luna knew this would happen, see?” said Comet, making sure Nova was following along, even as Princess Celestia bowed out of the room to retrieve the Elements. “She noticed that every time Envy failed, she would try to get at the Clover’s descendents some other way, but the Night Apprentice and Faithful Student kept stopping her. Of course, given that our positions have been occupied by her descendents more than any other family, and given that we kept stopping her, I guess it’s only natural for her to start coming after us before anypony else. Well, the last few times, she came after the two students directly, but now, I think she tried to get at us through our mentors.”

“What do you mean, ‘think?’” Nova asked.

Comet glared at him for a moment, but otherwise acted as though he hadn’t been interrupted.

“Princess Luna thought it was only a matter of time before she became the primary target. As powerful as she is, she has a reputation of being the lesser sister, simply because she is the Princess of the Night. Obviously, we both know the truth is the opposite in regards to magical power, but would Envy know that?”

“In other words, would a former peasant know that?”

Comet nodded.

“She wouldn’t, right? Princess Luna figured that out, and she set into motion this little contingency plan, just in case she ever did end up being compromised. After all, maybe it’s not known to the common peasantry, but she always was insecure about the subjects not liking her night, and the Nightmares have been trying to worm their way into her mind for years. It was only a matter of time before they succeeded, and even then, they needed help.”

“You know,” interrupted Nova, “you seem awfully chipper for a guy who just lost his marefriend.”

Comet’s eyes and teeth clenched, a few tendons in his neck bulged, and immediately, his pleasantness vanished. Unexpectedly, he let it go after only a few seconds. That didn’t stop the slight note of despair that entered his voice, however.

“Princess Celestia tells me that, for the time being, I should act like nothing has happened.”

“There will be time--” started Nova.

“--to mourn later, exactly,” finished Comet morosely. “I told her what happened to me in the fight with Envy, why I got teleported back early, when you ran off to visit Clover the Clever’s grave and she told me that I had let my emotions get in the way of how I had been taught to duel. So she told me to put aside everything until everything settles down.”

“That makes us opposites,” remarked Nova. “I get better when I’m emotional.”

“Really?” asked Comet, arching an eyebrow at him. “Do tell. Name one incident where, without a doubt, your emotions helped you.”

“My first trip to the Everfree Vaults,” said Nova.

“Explain.”

“Well, this doesn’t happen for a little over a thousand years. Envy gets released again while the Faithful Student and a younger me explore the Vaults, looking for a cure for a bunch of nightmares we’ve been having. We find Envy’s Soul Jar, but she’d escaped some time ago and possessed a friend of ours. She has us cornered, so she attacks, looking to kill both of us quickly.”

“Sounds like her.”

“Her method was to swallow us with darkness. Trap us in her shadows until we died. Well, Twilight and I start running at each other, even though we can’t see where the other is, but Envy tries to smother us even faster. This is when I just… I don’t know,” Nova searched for the best way to describe what happened, “I just sort of refused to let Envy hurt Twilight. She would not be harmed while I drew breath. So I tapped into my Source to depths then-unreached and repelled her with the basest, rawest, most unfocused form of magic ever, that I just instinctively called out. She fled, and I’m here before you today.”

Comet stared at Nova for a moment, thinking about Nova’s account, or so Nova thought. He was probably just looking for some way to contradict him in some way.

“You were wrong,” Comet finally said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You were wrong,” Comet said again. “You said emotion helped make you stronger. You were wrong.”

“How so?” asked Nova.

“You didn’t desire to protect this Twilight out of any anger, rage,, et cetera. You didn’t leap to defend her because you were happy or sad. You leapt to her defense because you loved her.”

“Present-tense. Not past-tense. Plus, you just agreed with me.”

“No I didn’t,” said Comet, shaking his head. “Tell me, do you love this Twilight?”

“More than anything else in the world,” Nova replied instantly.

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

Twilight leaned over and gave him a lingering kiss on the cheek as soon as he finished saying that part. Nova smiled tenderly to himself, touching that place with a hoof for a moment, before shaking his head.

“Please don’t interrupt me anymore. At this rate, we won’t get done till tomorrow morning.”

“But it’s just one little kiss,” protested Twilight, but Nova shook his head again.

“We’ll have time to catch up on that in a couple of hours.” He paused for a moment as he thought of something. “We are still sharing the bed, right?”

She cocked her head at him.

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“I dunno. I thought after that whole business with Clover, you might banish me to my room down below, or something.”

She leaned over and nuzzled him right in the crook of his neck and shoulders, a place she knew he just loved it when she nuzzled there.

“After two years of you not sleeping next to me, I figure your need is better than my irritation.”

Nova leaned his head down onto hers, paying extra attention to when their horns briefly brushed against each other and a small tingle ran through them as their auras interacted.

“And besides, you get the basement for the rest of the week. That’s what you get for Clover.”

Nova smiled again and nuzzling her some more before continuing.

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

“Then tell me, Nova,” said Comet, looking at him with a sort of smug smile on his face, “how do you know?”

Nova blinked.

“What do you mean, ‘how do I know?’”

Comet’s smug grin widened.

“How do you know you love Twilight?”

“I--” Nova immediately started to say, but he abruptly fell silent. Comet’s grin should be made illegal, from just how much he was enjoying this.

“You don’t know, do you,” Comet said. “That’s good.”

“Good?” asked Nova, feeling slightly distraught. “How exactly is that good? I don’t know why I love her.”

“But you do, don’t you?” continued Comet. “You know you love her because you can just feel it, deep inside you. You know you aren’t wrong; on the contrary, that you love her is the rightest feeling in the world, isn’t it?”

Nova thought back to when he had first said the words “I love her” out loud, screaming them at his father in The Cloak and Dagger, a year and five months ago on his timeline. He thought about the feeling that had washed over him as soon as he had uttered those words, which had changed his life. At first, he had been full of anger at his father for forcing him to make that revelation, and then after, it just felt like the truest thing in the world, and that it had finally been made known.

“Yeah,” he said, remembering that feeling as he cracked a small smile.

“Then you understand, love is so much more than a simple emotion,” said Comet. “Your love for a pony, your desire to protect them, that isn’t emotion; it’s so much more than that. Emotion is a rush of hormones in the body, affecting your mood based on your experiences. Love is… well, an extension of that.”

Nova snorted.

“Oh hush,” said Comet. “It’s that, but it’s more than that at the same time. It’s…” he trailed off and rubbed his chin as he tried to think of the right word, “...a bond. A true bond; a reliance of sorts. And it doesn’t get in the way. It never will.”

As he finished those words, Princess Celestia herself strode into the room, bringing with her five stone balls, with a different symbol cut into each one.

“As you know,” she explained, noting Nova’s inquisitive glance, “the sixth will only reveal itself when the other five Bearers are accounted for.”

Nova nodded. He had wondered about that. How would they wield the last Element if it would only be present when the other five were there?

“First,” said Celestia, setting the Elements down with magic, “I will take my place as the Bearer of the Elements of Kindness and Honesty.”

She approached two of the balls of stone, and at once, they flashed a brilliant golden light. To Nova, it appeared as if they transformed into shapeless blobs of golden energy and simply were absorbed into Celestia.

“Now, the other four are a strange case,” she said. “Luna was undoubtedly the Bearer of the Element of Generosity and the Element of Magic, but as for the Elements of Loyalty and Laughter, we shared the position as Bearer. However, I think I already have an idea on who will wield what.”

She turned to Comet and gestured at two of them. As Nova was so used to the cutie marks of his friends in his own time, he didn’t know which they were. But given that there were only three elements left and Comet accounted for two of them, Nova was going to be the one who would bear the Element of Magic.

“But Princess!” protested Comet. “You’ve picked me for Laughter. How can I wield that right now? Why not him? I mean, I can see Generosity, but Laughter?”

"Because, my little pony,” said Celestia, kneeling down to meet him at eye level, “being the Bearer of Laughter is more than simply being happy all of the time.”

Bullshit. I know Pinkie Pie.

“Laughter is being able to see the good in a situation, even in the midst of a dark time. There will never be a pony who was never sad, Comet. There will always be sorrow. What makes you the Bearer of Laughter is that you will find a way through the situation by seeing the good in it. Now, extend your magic, and touch the Elements.”

Comet did as he was told. Just as it had done with Celestia, the two Elements transformed into shapeless blobs of golden energy and were absorbed into him.

“Which leaves the Element of Loyalty for Nova, here,” said Celestia, “and hopefully, the Element of Magic.”

“Uhh, hopefully?” asked Nova, raising an eyebrow at the Princess.

Comet smiled sheepishly.

“The Element of Magic is a strange case. As it is only wield-able by a chosen Bearer, so I could never stand for it. Princess Celestia, however, thinks that if anyone here can, it's you.”

Princess Celestia nodded and continued, “I already speak for two of them, and between you and Comet, you are by far the more powerful. It seems more natural for the Element of Magic to be taken up by you for this brief time. Now do as Comet did.”

Nova complied. He tapped into his Source, extended that tendril of magic used in telepathic spells, and touched the swirling vortex of energy he knew to be the Element of Loyalty. At once, it turned gold and flew into him. Nova felt no different when it did, which let him down. He had been expecting some sort of warm and tingly--

“Celestia.”

Celestia and Comet’s heads both snapped back to Nova. Comet had been looking outside, watching the moon as it shone in the sky while he waited for Nova to unite with his Element. They had heard an alien voice, but it had come from Nova’s mouth! Nova normally had a moderately average stallion’s voice. The voice that had issued from his mouth was gentle and melodic, and undoubtedly feminine.

As for Nova, he hadn’t consciously said anything. As a matter of fact, he had lost control of his body. He could still see, he could still feel, but he could not control his mouth, or his movement. Something had taken hold of him. Something that radiated pure power.

“Do not fear, Nova Shine,” said his mouth again in that same alien voice. “We will release you when We have finished speaking with Celestia. For now, listen. Listen, and know.”

“Do I have the honor of addressing the Consciousness of Magic?” asked Celestia, sounding very surprised and… dare Nova think it, humbled?

“You do, Child of the Sun.”

Celestia instantly bowed all the way to her knees, a gesture Nova was stunned at. When Celestia was acknowledging courtesy, it was not uncommon for her to incline her head, or to even bow to a pony without bending knee. Here, however, she made herself even lower before the being that was controlling him! Celestia was the most powerful being he knew of! And she was bowing before whatever was in his mind?

“You may rise,” the Consciousness of Magic said, and Celestia did. “Your suspicions have proven correct. We have chosen Nova Shine to house Our power in place of Princess Luna, but not because he is the most powerful in Magic. We see in him Ourself, originating from another. Nevertheless, know that as the only true Bearer of the Elements of Harmony, you shall be the one to house the Elements’ combined power and cast it upon your sister.”

“I understand,” replied Celestia gravely.

“Know this, Child of the Sun: After this day, your connection to the Elements of Harmony will be forever severed,” Celestia stiffened, “such is the price that must be paid for allowing unworthy ponies to wield Us, even in desperate times.”

After a moment of silence, Celestia bowed again.

“I understand. Sacrifices must be made.”

“Then you appreciate and wield the burden of the crown with the responsibility and wisdom expected of you.”

Nova’s head turned in Comet’s direction. Comet looked even more stunned than he felt. His jaw was hanging limply from his muzzle, and his eyes were as wide as dinner plates.

“Comet Novus, We know your pain.”

Comet seemed even more surprised to be addressed directly. He started, and began shifting his gaze from place to place around the infirmary, as though afraid to meet Nova’s eyes.

“Fear not, child. We mean you no harm; only healing. Despite what Celestia has told you, she has not experienced loss like you have. She has lost loved ones, but none as close as Sunbeam was to you. However, she will soon experience what you feel. Fear not, Celestia, for it is only temporary. But in order to aid you in your imminent battle, We seek to make right what went wrong.”

Nova felt a rush of power well up in his Source, greater than anything he had ever imagined. Before he could even react, his vision turned white and he felt all of that magic escape him from his horn. For a moment, he panicked. He fought and tried to move, but he could not. After merely a moment, however, his vision returned an he calmed down.

And over on the infirmary bed, the body of Sunbeam was glowing a soft light. She gave a soft groan, and suddenly, her chest started rising and falling slowly.

“Let your mind be at ease,” the Consciousness said, even as Comet gave a cry of surprise, bolted over to where Sunbeam was lying and started hugging her form, already sobbing in joy. “She is asleep, and she will remain so until Nightmare Moon is dealt with.”

So she was always meant to die, thought Nova. And then be raised by whatever this Consciousness of Magic is.

“Now I speak to you, Pony Out of Time. Know that your actions today and in both the past and future will affect many more than yourself. There will come a time when you must be prepared to answer for everything you have done. Regardless, I leave you with one final message.”

Nova felt himself start to regain control over his body as the powerful consciousness began to leave.

“Prepare for unforeseen consequences.”

The consciousness vanished, and Nova, unprepared to regain control over his limbs, fell over. Even as he staggered to his hooves, the phrase rang in his mind.

Unforeseen consequences? he thought. Is this all supposed to lead toward Sombra’s little predictions?

Having far from forgotten his encounter with Sombra, both the King’s warnings about the future and now the Consciousness of Magic’s warning had him concerned. Not afraid, for he knew that he and all of his friends could likely deal with anything down the road, but still concerned. In the end, everything would lead to Sombra’s return.

Well, Twilight had beaten him once before, and knowing her, she could do it again, this time with help from another pony that could control powerful magic.

Yep, Princess Celestia was gonna help this time.

Nova smiled to himself for a moment, partly at his own little joke, but partly because he knew that what would come would come, and they would be ready to meet it when it did.

“Princess Celestia,” he asked, looking up at her to see that both Comet and the Princess were watching him closely, “what was that?”

“A good question, Nova,” replied Princess Celestia, still scrutinizing him, “but as I do not know much myself beyond that it is the voice that speaks for the Elements of Harmony, and the consciousness that selects their Bearers, I cannot answer that. However, it is a great honor to be used as a vessel by it. To date, you are the fourth pony, and the third I have known, to be used.”

“The third you have known?” asked Comet. “Who were the other two?”

“The first was Princess Luna and the second was Clover the Clever.”

Nova felt another smile creep onto his face at the mention that he and Clover had now both been used by a mysterious and powerful force. Their parallels kept piling up.

“Something funny?” asked Comet.

“Bit of an inside joke,” explained Nova. “And by ‘inside,’ it’s pretty much limited to me, Clover the Clever, Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna.”

Comet rolled his eyes as Princess Celestia gave a small chuckle and covered her mouth with a hoof. She met Nova’s eye and immediately looked away, which told Nova she definitely understood.

Princess Luna…

“Princess,” said Nova, “I want to go speak to Nightmare Moon before we fight.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be much of a battle, Nova,” said Princess Celestia. “She was injured severely in her fight against me--”

“She’s still going to fight like a hurt dog, though. Have you ever tried to pet a dog with an injury?”

Celestia shook her head.

“They usually snap more and bite harder,” he said, turning around and beginning to trot out to what was the town. He figured he should just follow the source of the strong source of magic not emanating from Celestia and it would lead him right to her.

“Nova, stop.”

Nova complied with Princess Celestia’s order and turned around. She was eyeing him with concern, as though she believed he would be hurt by a corrupted alicorn imprisoned with her magic.

“What are you hoping to accomplish?” she asked.

Nova opened his mouth to reply, but he stopped as he thought. What was he hoping to accomplish? He didn’t know himself, only that he wanted to speak to her before her banishment. Come to think of it, he didn’t even know what he wanted to say. He supposed he would just let the conversation carry him where it went.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I just have this gut feeling, like I need to. Anyway, are you ready?”

“No,” said the princess.

“Take the time you need. But when I fire up a magical signal ino the sky, be ready to teleport to my aid.”

With a nod, she retreated back into the castle just as Nova turned and started to follow the source of power he was feeling. The trip was rather short, taking him just beyond the limits of what was left of Everfree City towards modern-day Ponyville. Nova couldn’t help but feel oddly nostalgic of the city, even recognizing some of the destroyed buildings as he went, including what was his house.

And Clover’s.

With a pang in his gut, he turned away from the ruins of her house and cantered a few paces away before he slowed back to a trot. He didn’t want to be reminded of fresh-yet-painful memories.

Finally, he turned a corner around a wrecked tavern-looking building to see an intricate cage of golden magic surrounding a black figure inside. Knowing he had found whom he was looking for, he galloped forward until he stood before the sleeping form of Nightmare Moon.

For a few moments, he simply watched her as she slept, oblivious to the stallion who would speak to her. Nova even vaguely wondered why it was still nighttime when she could do nothing to stop Celestia from lowering the moon and raising the sun. Then he remembered that Celestia had yet to take on the control of the moon, and that she had no power over it until Luna was banished.

An icy-blue eye opened on the black alicorn’s form, peering at him through the gap in her helmet. Having never seen them up close before, Nova shivered when he noticed her eyes had vertical slits for pupils. No sooner had the shiver left him than her eye narrowed and she swung her head to glare at him..

“You,” she said in a soft voice.

“Me,” replied Nova simply.

“You’re the stallion who was with my sister,” she continued.

“I am,” concurred Nova.

“You’re the pony that Mother fought.”

Nova blinked.

“Mother?” he asked. “You mean Envy?”

She nodded slowly, still glaring at him. If looks could kill…

“She’s your parent?”

“She helped create us,” explained the Nightmare. “Unless parenting has changed in the last few hours, that makes her our mother. And you stuck her back in the Soul Jar again,” she added, snarling at him.

Nova nodded, causing Nightmare Moon to let out a growl.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked. “You don’t have total access to Luna’s memories, do you?”

As expected, she slowly shook her head. Twilight had told Nova of their encounter with the Nightmares on the moon, and how they corrupted Rarity. While they mimicked a darker personality of their host, and while they had some access to their memories, things like Spike’s Fire Ruby they couldn’t recognize, even when it was something the host held dear. These memories were good and pure, the very antitheses of everything the Nightmares sought to bring out in their host, and so the Nightmares would cover those memories up.

Nova couldn’t help but feel touched that Princess Luna thought him of so highly, even when they hadn’t interacted in two and a half centuries.

“Perhaps you will recognize my name and title,” he said. “I am Nova Shine, the first Night Apprentice.”

Her eyes narrowed even more, but Nova saw a flash of recognition in them.

“You…” she said. “You’re the one who defended her mind!”

Nova shook his head.

“You might be thinking of my ex-marefriend’s kid, who’s named after me.”

“No, no it was you,” Nightmare Moon persisted. “Her perception of her comforter. Her mental image of the pony that provided her with the insight and companionship she longed for. The pony who provided her with what she needed to prevent her jealousy of her sister from taking root. It was you.”

Nova faltered, now feeling a great rush of affection for his teacher. She saw him so highly that a mental perception of him was the force that stood against the Nightmares?

“I suppose we have you to thank,” Nightmare Moon said, smiling at him. “We turned her defenses into our offenses.”

“I don’t follow,” said Nova.

“She used you to counter our whispers that ponies willingly ignored her night. So we used you to counter her belief that she had what she wanted. We fed her lies, that you were the only stallion who thought that way, that maybe this was how things were back then but not now. In short, we turned your defenses on their head and used you to our benefit.”

Her smile widened.

“We suppose it also helps that we inflamed her against her own sister as well. Just think. What was the point of the Summer Sun Celebration, with no proposed night opposite, if it was not an attempt to overshadow her lesser sibling?”

She stopped smiling when she noticed that her responses hadn’t affected Nova in the slightest. Her eyes narrowed even more, until they were almost completely shut.

“You do not seem angered or even surprised.”

“Because I’m not,” responded Nova, inclining his head.

“Explain. We demand you explain yourself!”

Nova smirked at her before responding, “I don’t think you’re in any position to demand anything of me, but I’ll humor you.”

He started to pace around the magical prison.

“Think, Nightmare. How do you explain me not surprised by anything you have done?”

“You’re depraved and insane,” she deadpanned.

Nova raised a hoof and opened his mouth, but closed it and gave a short chuckle.

“Jury’s out on ‘insane,’ but not depraved.”

He blinked.

“Actually, I retract me not being depraved, too. I have a few hidden fetishes involving me and Twi--”

Get to the point,” Nightmare Moon growled at him.

“Party pooper, no cake for you,” Nova said, giving her an annoyed look. “Well, since you so desperately want to know, it’s because I’m from the far future.”

Nightmare Moon’s reaction, while not unexpected, did disappoint him. All she did was glare at him. He had been expecting her to be just as surprised by everypony else.

“Lie,” spat the Nightmare. “We order you to tell us the truth!”

Nova shook his head with a small smile plastered on his face.

“I’ve just told you the truth. I’m from the far future. I know what you’ve done already. I know how all of this ends. I even know personally the one who utterly defeats you, Nightmare Moon.”

Nightmare Moon stared at him for several seconds while he waited for her to react again. But to his astonishment, she started to guffaw.

“Us, utterly defeated? HAH! We guess you will make a fine entertainer. Or perhaps you could be useful for… other things,” she said, giving him a look that made him very uncomfortable.

“I’m telling the truth,” said Nova. “You are defeated tonight by Princess Celestia--”

“No kidding, what gave that away?” asked Nightmare Moon, glaring at him. “Did our incinerated wings do it, or the fact that we’re trapped in a cage of our sister’s design let you know?”

Nova blinked.

“But you just said--”

“Little colt, if you think our sister can defeat us once and for all, you are sadly mistaken,” said the Nightmare dismissively. “I simply have yet to grow accustomed to this host and all of its power. However, today, we have no choice but to allow ourself to be imprisoned while we recover. We know our sister would never destroy us, and she has not the power to free Luna’s mind of us.”

Her eyes seemed to glimmer as she snarled at him.

“But if you think we will go quietly, if you thought you could negotiate a surrender from us, then you are a fool, and you will pay the price. Princess Celestia will know that when we return, we intend to take what is ours for ourself. We are Nightmare Moon, the most powerful of alicorns, and our beautiful night will never end!”

Her eyes began to glow white with magical power. At once, Nova tapped into his Source and launched the blue beam of magic into the sky.

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

“Something’s eating you, Princess,” said Comet, approaching Princess Celestia on her ruined throne.

“Hmm?” asked Princess Celestia, looking up. She had been lost in thought about the recent developments, and even some not recent. The parallels between Nova Shine and Clover were astounding, and they could not have been mere coincidences. “Oh, it’s just you, Comet.”

“You were expecting somepony else?”

“I suppose I both was and was not,” replied Celestia. “If you must know, I have just received the shock of my life, and it has little to do with the fact that my sister has fallen. And,” added Celestia with a small smile, “I believe I now know the identity of the pony who will bring about Nightmare Moon’s true defeat. The pony who will return Luna to me.”

“Oh? Do tell,” said Comet.

Celestia cast him a cautious glare.

“To demand thoughts from a being higher than you courts nothing but trouble, Comet Novus. You would do well to remember that.”

Comet cringed and bowed in a contrite fashion.

“I apologize for my forwardness, Princess. It will not happen again,” he replied almost mechanically.

Princess Celestia sighed and motioned for him to approach her.

“There was no need to apologize, Comet,” she said morosely. “This whole business with my fallen sister has impacted me, but now I know beyond the shadow of a doubt just what I am about to go through, and it terrifies me.”

Comet cautiously approached the throne, close enough to place a comforting hoof on his princess’ shoulders as she buried her face in her hooves.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Princess Celestia laughed humorlessly.

“Unless you can alter time, I don’t believe you can. All I can do is wait until Nova calls the two of us. After we defeat my sister and use the Elements of Harmony on her, I will have to wait even longer to have her back.”

“How do you know?” asked Comet, fearing another snapping reaction.

“I know because I know Nova Shine,” she said. “It all started with Clover, all those years ago. When she and Nova first met, Clover tells me he accidentally called her ‘Twilight--’”

“Like his special one from his time,” interrupted Comet, to which Princess Celestia nodded.

“One and the same,” she concurred. “From a combination of Nova’s diary and my interactions with Clover, she and Twilight were exactly the same, except for the natural difference in their cutie marks. And Comet, when I say ‘exactly the same,’ I mean including everything from personality to the same streak of magenta in their hair.”

“Wait,” interrupted Comet again, “you mean to tell me that you can read his diary?”

“I can,” the princess said. “It took me some time, and some help from Clover, who managed to figure it out, smart as she is. She even added her own little message to him in the back, which would only reveal itself after the date he recorded he went back in time on. He describes in detail exactly how conflicted he was, exactly how similar they are, and generally his thoughts and feelings. There’s not too much you or the other Night Apprentices could gain from that book, so I never bothered to translate it and have the Lulamoons lend it to you.”

She leaned back and her eyes gained a faraway, wistful look.

“Some years after I last saw Nova Shine, and shortly after Clover and Steelshod were married, Princess Luna attempted to contact the Consciousness of Magic. As she was the Bearer of the Element of Magic, she could not speak with the Consciousness, as she was supposed to speak for it. This being said, she and Clover attempted to tap into the magic at the core of the Element’s being, which resulted in Clover being used as its vessel.”

Her lips curved into a small smile.

“I theorized, after this incident, that the Element of Magic had to recognize some part of itself inside Clover in order to use her. So far, I have yet to be proven wrong,” she added, stopping Comet from asking a question and holding up a hoof as if to say “later.” “At first, I thought it was because Clover was so close to us that a portion of Luna’s magic was part of her Source, and it recognized that bit. Now, however I think I might have been mistaken.”

“Why?” asked Comet. “And how could a portion of Luna’s magic be put in her Source if she never went through the same ordeal Nova and I did?”

“She had Princess Luna’s magic within her Source because of how close the two were,” explained Princess Celestia. “When two ponies are close to one another, be it in a romantic or platonic way and particularly if they are unicorns or alicorns, their magic subconsciously bonds with the magic of the other and, depending on how receptive the other pony is, which essentially is based on how the other pony feels as well, the other pony may subconsciously accept this bonding or reject it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You and Sunbeam,” Princess Celestia said. “When you first met her, what was your impression?”

“That she was a grouchy bitch who always had to do everything the hard way.”

“That’s… blunt, but accurate,” conceded Celestia. “Indeed, she was so consumed with being better than you, and proving that ponies who had to fend for themselves were stronger in magic than those like you who led rather pampered lives, that she insisted on doing tedious, pointless tasks via magic just because you didn’t.”

Comet snorted.

“I still remember the trip to Hollow Shades, Princess.”

Princess Celestia gave a tinkling laugh, the first in hours and a very soothing balm against what she knew was about to happen. What she knew she would soon do to her sister..

“Oh yes, I remember as well,” she said. “We left you two alone to fend for yourselves for a month, hoping it would strengthen the relationship between you.”

“Well, strengthen might be the wrong word,” remarked Comet, who smirked. “We bickered for a couple of weeks, argued over whether or not the tent tarp would make a better blanket or possible rain cover on a cloudy night, constantly dueled over the tiniest things, and… fell in love.”

“Like so many iterations of the cycle before you,” Celestia mused. “Nova Shine and Clover the Clever, the second Nova Shine and Lucia Lulamoon two iterations later, even your predecessors Sanguine and Star Dancer… we should just change the name of this whole spiel to ‘Princess Celestia’s Meet-Your-Special-Somepony Training.’”

“All this aside,” said Comet, smiling but returning Celestia to the topic at hoof, “how does mine and Sunbeam’s relationship mean we have each other’s magic in each other’s Sources?”

“I would guess that, at this moment, the two of you have not progressed that far,” Celestia said. “Nova loved Clover greatly, and his love was returned with just as much gusto, and so their magic was exchanged. As for you and Sunbeam, when you first met each other, you two disliked each other.”

“Putting it mildly,” snarked Comet.

“Even so, your Sources repelled the subconscious exchange of magic because it came from a hostile body. Nova and Clover, however, hit it off from the moment they met, so the process was sped up that much.

“Now, as for Princess Luna and Clover,” continued Celestia, “after Nova left, Clover went into a sort of withdrawal. Nopony, not even I could coax her out of it. It took the work of two ponies to bring her back into the public. As I’m sure you guessed, one of them was Princess Luna, and the other was Clover’s childhood friend, Captain Steelshod.”

“I thought he was a general.”

“He was, but only a decade or so after that, but that’s beside the point. Steelshod and Luna together managed to bring Clover back out of her shell. As a result, she began to grow close to both my sister and the Captain. Luna and Clover almost continued the friendship they both had with Nova right then, while Captain Steelshod, after much patience and much consoling, succeeded in courting her and married her.”

“Good for him,” said Comet. “If he didn’t, I don’t suppose I’d be here.”

Princess Celestia smiled, but continued.

“Not too long after they were married, the Consciousness of Magic spoke through Clover to Luna, which is what gave me the thought that it was Princess Luna’s fragment in Clover’s Source. Now that I have witnessed Nova doing it as well, I conclude that it is either Luna’s Source in both of them, or this mysterious mare from the future, Twilight Sparkle.”

“I’m assuming you think it’s Twilight,” said Comet. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have brought it up.”

Celestia’s eyes twinkled and she smiled even wider down at Comet.

“Very good, Comet. Yes, I don’t think it’s Luna’s fragment anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because of what I just explained to you, Comet. While it’s true that I said ponies bonded either platonically or romantically, it is also true, and it has been proven numerous times, that ponies romantically involved are closer to each other than any others will ever be to them.”

“I think I know where you’re going with this,” said Comet. “You think that because Nova Shine and this Twilight Sparkle from the future are lovers, their Sources are intertwined, right?”

“More or less,” concurred Celestia.

“You think that when Clover and Nova bonded, this same sort of bond developed between them, linking Clover’s Source to Twilight’s fragment.”

“Correct.”

“So you think that Clover was used as the Consciousness’ vessel because of that small fragment of Twilight Sparkle inside of her, despite them never even having met?”

Princess Celestia tilted her head and gazed out the window, looking for the telltale signal that Nova would fire when he was ready to cast the Elements of Harmony on Luna.

“In a manner of speaking, yes and no,” she said after a few seconds, in which no such signal appeared. “I think it was a combination of the two now, after witnessing Nova being used as the vessel.”

“And speaking of Nova, what’s taking him so long?” asked Comet somewhat impatiently, gazing out of the window like she was.

“He will call for us when he is ready,” said Celestia. “But allow me to continue while we wait. This brings up something important. Why would the Consciousness of Magic choose a normal pony to be its vessel?”

“Wait, so you’re not the first Bearers?” asked Comet. “Because I don’t think you’ve ever had it speak through you before.”

Celestia chuckled, but shook her head.

“No, we are the first. We removed then from the Tree of Harmony, deep below this castle, a tree which we will not allow just anypony to see with their own eyes.”

“Oh,” said Comet, looking down at the ground. “So, you think that this Twilight Sparkle is a future Bearer of an Element of Harmony, then?”

Celestia’s eye twinkled and she gave Comet a knowing look.

“Beyond that,” she said. “I believe this mare from the future is destined to be the Element of Magic.”

Comet’s eyebrows rose, but beyond that, he didn’t show any surprise.

“What gives you that idea?” he asked.

“The Consciousness of Magic chose a pony in the past that had a connection to one with the Element of Magic, and one who served as a link to a future Element of Magic. It recognized part of itself inside Clover, and thus it spoke through her. I assume it’s the same with Nova. It’s all I have going right now, so if it’s not true, then so be it.”

They fell silent for awhile, content to stare outside and wait for Nova to fire the Beacon spell.

“He is taking his time,” remarked Celestia. “Not that I blame him.”

“I just want to get this over with,” said Comet. “You basically already won by capturing her. All we have to do now is use the Elements, right?”

“You don’t know my sister,” said Celestia, with a bit of a dark edge to her voice and turning away from Comet. “When Luna and I were young, she would often get herself into trouble. When I was the one called to bring her before our mother, I literally had to drag her, kicking and screaming. Nightmare Moon will not go down without a fight. Like Nova said, she’s wounded, which means she’ll fight all the harder. We’d better be prepared, because we are going to have to fight.”

As if on cue, a bright blue beam appeared in the sky.

“It’s time,” said Celestia, her golden magic shimmering around her horn. “Stand close to me, Comet.”

Comet nodded and sidled up to Princess Celestia’s side. With a bright golden flash of light, the two ponies vanished from the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters.

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

Nova heard the sound of teleportation behind him, and he felt the energy as the Princess and the Night Apprentice appeared. At once, he took up his place beside Princess Celestia, with Comet on her other side.

Nightmare Moon observed all of them and snarled.

“Be prepared for the fight of your life, sister,” she spat, her icy-blue magic already swirling around her horn.

“Prepare yourselves,” warned Princess Celestia. “I’m about to release the sealing spell.

Her horn flared with magic, and the golden prison around Nightmare Moon vanished. At once, the black alicorn fired a salvo of spells at the three of them. Nova whirled his cloak around himself to deflect any of the beams sent his way, and he felt the slight punches in the fabric as it did its job.

He conjured a dome-shaped shield around himself, which allowed him to get a look at what was happening. Nightmare Moon was slowly backing away as she continued to fire spell after spell at all of them, while Princess Celestia and Comet deflected and countered with their own spells.

A rumbling got Nova’s attention, and he immediately leapt sideways as a fissure opened benath where he had been standing just a moment ago. The break in concentration was enough to cause his shield to falter, and Nightmare Moon pressed her advantage before Nova could react. A blue beam shot right at him and caught him right on the front of his chest, launching him backwards.

Nova landed heavily a couple of yards away. He tried to get to his hooves, but the world was spinning around him, so he shut his eyes. He felt energy bolt up from the ground toward him, and he rolled instinctively out of the way just as a blast of Nightmare Moon’s magic erupted from the ground where he had been lying.

He got to his hooves and charged back into the fray, where Comet and Princess Celestia were combining their power in a three-way beam lock, much like how Nova, Comet, and Envy had done. Despite that, Nightmare Moon was ever so slowly pushing their beams back. Nova ran up alongside the Princess, but fired his beams low, toward Nightmare Moon’s hooves.

The Nightmare broke off the attack and dodged Nova’s offense, countering by sending her magic into the surrounding flora. The trees started to swing their branches at them, the grass elongated and attempted to hold them down, and the leaves sharpened and flew at them to slice them in a whirlwind.

Nova conjured his dome shield again and expanded it as widely as he could before he encountered Nightmare Moon’s magic in the ground. The grass under him remained normal, even as the grass around him grew and tried to pierce the shield. The trees slammed their branches into it and the leaves continued to glance off of it, but his shield stood firm.

Celestia released a wave of golden magic that cancelled out any of Nightmare Moon’s spells, but also had the unfortunate-side effect of causing Nova’s shield to fail.

As soon as the wave passed through Nova, who’d had ample opportunity to witness the spell’s effects, he let loose a blast of magical fire from his horn. Nightmare Moon hissed and sent back the expected hose of water. Comet, having seen what Nova was doing, responded by freezing the water in the air, catching Nightmare Moon’s horn in the ice.

Nova immediately leapt on top of their makeshift bridge and charged right at Nightmare Moon, who struggled to free herself. Right before Nova jumped over her, she freed herself, but Nova hald already conjured a web of binding enchantments around her, in an attempt to hold her down so they could use the Elements on her.

Nova had her secured, but then she suddenly dissolved into a mist of blue.

“Oh, no fair,” whined Nova. “We were doing so well...”

The mist split into three parts, one heading for each pony. Nova fired a beam at the rapidly advancing cloud, but it sank into the ground. Nova searched for Nightmare Moon’s energy inhe ground, but he couldn’t sense her.

He suddenly felt energy welling up behind him and he whirled around, a spell on his horn--

--and he found himself looking on Clover, causing him to stumble back and fall over.

No, it can’t be! he thought, but it was all there. The streak in the hair, the cutie mark, even the same energy!

He was vaguely aware of somepony shouting at him, but he was rooted to his spot on the ground as Clover knelt down before him, took his face in her hooves, and drew their faces closer--

BAM!

Nova coughed out blood as the back of his head collided with something hard. A blue cloud flew away from his body at top speed, even as Princess Celestia hurried toward him.

“Wha-- what happened?” asked Nova, as he watched Comet fend off Nightmare Moon with an impressive display of his own magic being used to counter every offensive attempt.

“She took control of you right after you turned around,” explained the Princess as she used her magic to heal his pounding head. “It’s been a couple of minutes. Did she make you see anything?”

Nova’s gut wrenched. He really didn’t want to say, but the look on his face must have clued Princess Celestia in.

“You saw her, didn’t you?” she asked gently. “Clover?”

Nova nodded, feeling his eyes start to sting a little, but he wiped his tears away and got back to his hooves.

“Let’s end this,” he growled.

He charged to Comet’s side an began to help him counter every attack from the fallen alicorn, but Nova added his own personal touch to his defenses. Every time a spell was deflected, Nova placed a trap spell in the ground, meant to bind a pony in place. As soon as Nightmare Moon was in place, he would activate the spells, but first, he needed to get her there.

He charged out to the side, cutting off the Nightmare as she ran around to their left to flank them, which caused her to backpedal and run the other way. Nova chased her, even as Comet started to back away as well. Nightmare Moon suspected nothing, and continued to work her way away from Nova, eventually finding her way into the space.

Nova grinned and activated the magic. Blue pillars erupted from the ground, trapping the black alicorn inside. Nova let out a triumphant shout.

A blue cloud issued from the trap cluster, which caused Nova to let out a cry in dismay.

What the hell can we do if she just makes herself impervious to all of our magic!?

The cloud solidified back into the form of Nightmare Moon, who cackled at them.

“What can you do to defeat me, when I can shapeshift my way out of your traps, hmm?”

It was then that Nova noticed one glaring detail that he had quite forgotten: her wings were still burnt and featherless. Nightmare Moon couldn’t fly, except in that magic-immune form.

Before he could act on this notion, Nightmare Moon’s tail suddenly shot at him and wrapped around his throat. Before he could do anything about it, he was lifted off the ground, sputtering and choking while he desperately attempted to inhale.

“Hmmm… perhaps I should choke the life out of you before your Princess’ eyes,” she mused. “Both of them, might I add. Yes, Luna can see everything happening here today.”

Nova struggled to gain some kind of leverage with his hooves to force the vicegrip around his neck to loosen any at all, but it was in vain. His vision flickered for a moment and spots swam before his eyes--

Nova gasped for breath on the ground, feeling his raw throat with every gulp of wonderfully, beautifully cold air. He looked up in time to see Comet standing between him and Nightmare Moon with his horn brimming with magic. The fragment of Nightmare Moon’s tail that had attempted to strangle him dissolved into the air.

His hooves gave out beneath him and he slumped to the ground, too weak to hold himself up. A bubble of golden energy appeared around him, and Princess Celestia’s voice rang in his head.

Gather what strength you need, but guard yourself better.

Nova spent several seconds lying there, steadying himself and getting his strength back. When he pushed himself to his hooves, the bubble of magic around him vanished. In that half-minute, Princess Celestia and Comet had started to drive the Nightmare back with a furious combination of spellwork.

Nova had to admire the creativity they were putting into it. Celestia fired off stars like Captain Steelshod had, which Comet would use to chain fire and lightning spells in Nightmare Moon’s direction. Other times, Comet would create a shield, and Princess Celestia would deflect a spell off of it in an attempt to throw off Nightmare Moon.

Nova took a deep breath and plunged his being into his Source. At once, five balls of blue light sprung up around him. Nova took another deep breath, and he charged forward.

At a mere thought, the blue balls of magic flew out to different positions around the clearing they were in. With another thought, they all began firing energy beams at Nightmare Moon. Nightmare Moon did not expect this new flurry of attacks and conjured a blue bubble around herself that stopped any magic that tried to get through.

Nova took another deep breath.

“You need to brush up on your pegasi and earth pony magicks, Night Apprentice.”

Lord Silverblood’s words had been taken to heart. Instead of allowing the flow of magic to go to his horn, Nova redirected it toward his legs.

To say it felt strange would be an understatement. It felt like ice-cold water was being poured inside his skin, and when it hit his hooves, it felt like it was bleeding out of him. But in the end, he was rewarded. Blue spikes of magic blasted upward inside Nightmare Moon’s bubble and hit her right in the barrel, causing her to shriek in surprise and drop her shield. As soon as the shield was down, the energy beams from his orbs of magic pummelled her, since they had continued firing the entire time.

He couldn’t help but give a sympathetic wince as Nightmare Moon was blasted from all directions with no chance of getting a spell off, but he knew it was time to deal the coup de grâce. He placed the traps beneath her, stopped the beam spamming, and then activated his traps.

Nightmare Moon slumped down on the ground, completely exhausted and definitely wounded from the ferocity of the attack. Nova saw several places where she had been burned or pierced with bolts. Beside him, Comet and Celestia both had places where they had been injured as well. Nova still had a lump on his head from his fight with Envy, and it had only compounded when he had been thrown into the tree by Celestia to get the Nightmare out of his head.

“Ready?” he asked Princess Celestia, who nodded gravely, the tears already starting to form.

Celestia’s horn glowed, but instead of golden magic, this time white magic shone. Nova felt two very different kinds of energy well up inside him, and his horn burst forth a stream of both blue and purple magic. On Celestia’s other side, Comet let loose streams of red and green. All four streams of magic shot upward above Celestia, who added streams of orange and yellow magic to it, forming a beam of rainbow magic.

"Goodbye, sister," Nova heard Celestia mutter, quivering with emotion.

This beam flew at Nightmare Moon, who did nothing to resist it. It struck at her hooves, swirled around her, contracted, and then flew toward the bright full moon in the sky. A few moments later, the unblemished surface of the moon was altered as dark circular patches appeared on it. The dark patches formed a shape Nova had seen up until just after he first moved to Neighton, the shape of a unicorn’s head.

The two streams of magic vanished from within Nova, and a large ball of stone appeared before him, before dropping to the ground with a thud. Two balls of stone had appeared before Comet and Celestia, dropping as well, and Nova took this to mean that the Elements’ presence had completely left the three of them, now that their job was complete.

For a moment, all three of them stared at the moon, content to watch and say nothing. Nova looked down at Celestia to see a small atream of tears trickle down her cheek, but otherwise, she showed no emotion. Finally, she turned her gaze to the ground.

“It’s time to return,” she said softly, picking up the two elements she had wielded with magic. “Please, help me return these to the pedestal before the Chapel Tower.”

Nova nodded, picking up the Element of Loyalty and following after her as she started to make her way back to the Castle.

Comet dashed ahead of them, which Nova knew must be in his eagerness to go and see Sunbeam, who even now must be awakening from her sleep, but Nova called after him to stop. He had just remembered something important.

Comet stopped and turned back, raising an eyebrow.

“After this, I’m going back to my Vault and I am not coming out until I’m back in my own time,” Nova said. “That being said, because we’re going to see Envy in the future, I need you to look after something for me.”

“What do you want me to do with it?” Comet asked. “Anything in particular?”

“I dunno,” said Nova, untying his little amulet from around his neck. “Just pass it down from generation to generation or something. Just keep an eye on this amulet for me, will you?”

Comet took the amulet from him, inspected it for a moment, and then tied it around his neck.

“You can count on me,” he said. He then bowed, which much like it had when Star Swirl had done, made Nova feel rather embarrassed. “It’s been an honor to fight with you.”

“And you,” Nova said, returning the bow.

Comet dashed ahead and out of sight, leaving Nova alone with Princess Celestia, who was slowly following him, her head drooped low and her eyes looking very wet.

“How long?” she asked.

“How long will she be imprisoned there?” Nova asked, and Princess Celestia nodded. “Well, I don’t think I’m supposed to answer that, but--” and here he raised his voice slightly because she had attempted to interrupt, “let me tell you a story from when I was a foal.”

He leaned his head back as he recalled the story his mother once told him, a story she had once just waved off as being an old pony’s tale. While he didn’t remember all the words, he did the best he could.

“Once upon a time, in the olden times of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together, and created harmony for all the land.”

He smiled somewhat, remembering his time in the past. Harmony had been exactly the right word to use.

“To do this,” he continued, “the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies.”

He knew Celestia was listening to his every word, and he continued telling her the story.

“But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night. One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon.”

Celestia gave a little shudder and another set of tears dropped from her muzzle.

“She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night. Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom: the Elements of Harmony. Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her in the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon, and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since. But one day, the longest day of the thousandth year, she will return and bring with her nighttime eternal.”

Upon uttering this last line, Celestia nodded to herself.

“A thousand years,” she said softly. “Must it be so long? It was I who faulted her, yet it is her who bears the punishment.”

Nova shook his head sadly.

“I wish I could say it wouldn’t, but it must. And you only did so little. It was Envy who turned her insecurities into her prison, not you.”

Celestia’s head drooped even lower, but only for a moment. After, her head rose, and she smiled.

“I’ll just wait patiently for her return, then,” she said. “It’ll be a long time, but I will still see my sister again.”

“I got one-up on you, Princess,” Nova replied with a smirk. “I’ve been waiting two hundred fifty years for my special somepony, and i have a thousand years to go.”

“But you’re going to be in time stasis,” she pointed out. “That doesn’t count.”

Nova chuckled.

“I suppose it doesn’t.”

They made it back to the Castle, where Nova put his Element back in its place, just as Princess Celestia did. Nova noticed her eyes had returned to their usual look.

“Looks like you burned out all that excess sun magic. Your eyes are back to normal.”

“Are they?" she asked, before crossing her eyes to glance at her stil-waving mane. "But my hair isn’t.”

Nova smiled at her.

“I think it’s a good look for you,” he replied honestly.

“Is it, now?” she replied, giving him a sultry look and a suggestive wink. Nova smiled back at her, knowing what she was trying to do. After a moment, she laughed.

“Even after two hundred fifty years, you still aren’t one to be defeated by the mere implications of illicit activities.”

Nova shrugged.

“What can I say? I’ve had to put up with you and your sister for most of my Night Apprenticeship. I guess I got good at my poker face.”

She trotted over and hugged him suddenly. He started, but he returned the hug after a moment.

“Thank-you,” she said softly. “I don’t think we would have defeated Luna without your help.”

“Sure you would have,” Nova replied. “I just made it easier.”

“I’m going to miss you, too,” she said, letting go and looking him in the eyes. “I’ve missed you ever since you went into time stasis, and now you have to do it again.”

“I don’t have to, but I very much want to,” he said.

“So, see you in a millennium?” she asked.

“Looks like it,” he said.

“See you in a thousand years, Nova,” Celestia said, giving him another hug, which he returned immediately.

“You too, Princess.”

Nova turned around and immediately set off for the Vaults, and once there, immediately went to his. He saw the shimmering tile on the ground and knew that with one step, he would return to his own time.

“Wait for me, Twilight,” he whispered out loud as he stepped forward and the spell began to flow around him, “I’m coming home.”

{T} {A} {T} {S} {A} {T} {C}

“And that will do it for tonight,” said Nova, right before he gave huge yawn.

“But what about after you got back!?” protested Twilight. “What did you do for seven months!?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow on the train to Canterlot,” Nova said, “but it’s too late tonight.”

“Wait, the train to Canterlot?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The Princesses want to see us tomorrow. I’ll explain on the train, like I said. But we really need to get some sleep tonight. It’s almost eleven, and Spike’s been listening in this entire time.”

“Wha-- Spike!” Twilight yelled at the hole in the above floor where Nova had sensed the baby dragon listening in. He heard the scuttling of feet and knew Spike had to be quickly running back to his bed before Twilight got up there.

“Besides,” said Nova, getting up and stretching, “I’m tired and I need my beauty sleep.”

“You sound like Rarity.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nova lied as he trotted back up to the loft. “Come on, time for bed.”

Twilight smiled as he walked up the stairs, putting out the lights, closing all the windows, and following him up. He was already curled up under the covers, so she climbed in after him. With one last blow to put out the bedside candle, she climbed in after. Within moments, she was sleeping peacefully.

I’m home, thought Nova, even as he wrapped his hooves around Twilight and held her close. He felt his eyes start to well up, and he rested his head close to her’s.

I’m finally home.

Author's Note:

After two months, I did it. 25,000 words. I stand amazed at myself for this. This is the longest chapter I have ever written in my life (and I seriously hope it's the longest i ever write).

Thank-you all for your patience. What did you think of this doorstopper of a chapter?