They had found them; defying any obstacle in their path, they finally reached them. The Legendary Elements of harmony sat before them, waiting as they had been for a thousand years. This was a triumph! They had bested the monster Nightmare Moon, and now they had the means to destroy her once and for all. And yet...
Something was terribly wrong. The Elements were stone! The book never mentioned them being made of stone!
Twilight looked down at the balls of stone arranged in a circle around her. She was glad the others allowed her some alone time; she needed to think through everything she had learned about magic and see if there was a solution to this.
She closed her eyes and focused. Maybe... Maybe all they needed was magic? Her horn flared up with magic, and she reached out to the Elements. A spark could be all that was needed to get them going.
Just a spark...
“Twi’, look out behind you!” Twilight’s concentration broke, and she looked over to see Applejack pointing at something behind her. She turned her head to see a black cloud drifting into the room, heading straight for her. She jumped out of the circle, and started to back towards her friends.
The cloud landed in the center of the circle, and quickly formed into Nightmare Moon. “Foals!”, she shouted, “Did you honestly think I would allow you to use these against me?” She looked down at the group of ponies, who had huddled together while she had been speaking.
“Well, yeah, that’s kinda what we were hoping for.” Pinkie Pie said. Everypony turned to her, and she gave a small shrug and said, “What? It’s true, you know.”
Rainbow Dash sighed and said, “Pinkie-”
Nightmare Moon interrupted before she could get any further. “Enough! You have wasted enough of my time. Now, I am going to dispose of these...” She trailed off, levitating up the five elements before continuing, “And then I shall return to deal with you.” As soon as she finished, a black tornado began to surround her, swirling the elements around with it.
“No! I can’t let her get away with the elements!” Twilight thought to herself. Without a moments hesitation, she charged towards the alicorn. She heard somepony shout her name behind her, but she didn’t pay attention. The only thing she was thinking of was getting to Nightmare before she got away with the elements.
By the time Twilight was close enough, the tornado had intensified to the point where Nightmare was barely visible through it. She quickly jumped into it, hoping to stop or at least distract the alicorn, but before she could do anything, she felt herself quickly pulled into the current of it. She was nearly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of magic circling around her.
“This sure is a lot of magic for a teleportation spell... Where could she possibly-” Any further thought was cut off as the magic around her discharged, and she was surrounded with the familiar nothingness of teleportation. Reality quickly snapped back, and she was sent skittering to the side as the tornado of magic dissipated.
She raised a hoof hold her head, which was still spinning from her time in the tornado, when she saw that it was coated with dirt. Looking around, she saw that the entire landscape looked bleak; the only noticeable milestone was the dark alicorn before her.
Nightmare stood there with the Elements still hovering around her. Once more, the Elements began to swirl around her, but this time the dense tornado didn’t form around her. Twilight crawled forward a bit and managed to groan “No...” before slumping back to the ground in exhaustion.
The elements continued to accelerate and Nightmare began to lift them above her head. A soft thrum started up as the elements gained velocity. This continued for a minute, until there was a flash of light and the elements were sent shooting off into the distance. Twilight could only watch hopelessly as the last thing that could save everypony winked out of view.
Nightmare turned and faced Twilight. “My, my, what a brave little one you are. That spell could have taken you anywhere, and yet you still jumped in anyway. Tell me, what compelled you to do such a foalish thing?” Twilight remained silent, not wanting to talk to Nightmare for any reason. “Now, we can’t be having that! On your hooves now, and answer the question.”
Twilight immediately felt magic surge around her, and she was soon lifted up onto her hooves. A few tears began to streak down her face as she answered, “I.. I couldn’t let you get away... I had to.. had to bring back Celestia...” She began to sob uncontrollably as the gravity of the situation caught up with her.
“Touching.” Nightmare said. “Look where that devotion got you: trapped on the moon, with the very pony you were just trying to destroy! Either you aren’t very bright, or you’re new to the whole ‘save the world’ thing.”
“The moon? But...” With a panicked expression, Twilight looked at her hoof again. It wasn’t dirt, it was dust! Moondust! If she looked into the distance, she could see craters just before the horizon. How could she have overlooked these! How many nights had she spent, staring at and studying the satellite she was now standing on?
Her panic turned to confusion and mania as she cried out, “No... No! Why? Why did you come here? You were trapped here for a thousand years, why would you want to come back?” Nightmare smiled and said, “You didn’t think I’d leave the tools of my own destruction where anypony could get to them, did you? No, I had to dispose of them quickly, before any other ponies decided to get bright ideas.”
Stepping back, Nightmare’s horn lit up with magic as she said, “Speaking of which, there’s another group I need to deal with. Don’t think I won’t leave you without something to remember me by, though.” Once again, the magic aura surrounded Twilight, and after a moment, she felt something stirring within her. “I hope you become as familiar with this place as I did during my stay, little one. Perhaps I shall see you again sometime soon. Think about what I said...”
Twilight felt the familiar surge of magic as Nightmare charged up her teleportation spell again. She broke into a frantic gallop to get to the alicorn before she could disappear, but was tripped by a tendril of magic before she could make it halfway. Despair filled her as she watched her only hope of escape vanish in a puff of magical smoke.
Author’s Note: Well, I finally did it: I made the jump from short stories to chapters! I hope everyone is liking this so far, I’ve got a bunch lined up for the future. I want to go ahead and thank my wonderful editor, Prince Of Hyrule, for nudging me in the right direction and just helping me to work out the little stuff.
And now, without further adieu, here he is!
Editor’s Note: “I’m making a note here....” Hello there! This is my first time editing something, so let me know if I missed anything! I’m rather well known as a Grammar Nazi elsewhere on the interwebs, so I will be mortified if I missed anything. I’d be even worse off if no one told me about the mistakes though!
Not much else to say other than that Rebel needs to STOP PROCRASTINATING AND ACTUALLY WRITE.
