Daring Do shivered, her feathers quivering on end as she reached out delicately with her right wing and, with painstaking precision born of long practice, dipped her wing in a jar on her saddlebags. With finesse and a speed that was impossible for any other living pony to match, she carefully traced a pattern engraved into the wall. It glowed with a golden light, an eight-pointed star within a dodecahedron surrounded by writing in ancient Alicornian, then vanished. She sighed, then grimaced in annoyance as her teeth chattered. She shivered again, the hair on the back of her neck standing up in fear.
It wasn't because of the fact that she'd just almost triggered yet another set of defensive runes. She'd already disabled over four dozen nasty spells that would have killed intruders, including flame traps, impaling spikes, and a bizarre one that would have released exploding donkey heads. Besides, she'd been in far tighter spots before and survived. Ahuizotl could be fiendishly clever when he set traps for her.
No, it was because of the fact that, though it should have been high noon, it was dark. And the temperature was dropping rapidly as the day - or should she call it night? - rolled on, into its second day of darkness.
Daring was VERY concerned. Whoever was stopping the sun from rising, they were implementing the opposite of Ahuizotl's long-held dream of unrelenting heat. She considered the possibility that Celestia was behind this yet again, and - yet again - discarded the notion. It didn't match her psychological profile.
But if Celestia wasn't the one doing it, who was? The only option left was Nightmare Moon, an old mare's tale told to children late at night, to scare them out of their wits. She wasn't prepared to dismiss it out of hoof, as she knew that there was often a bit of truth in legends.
The question continued to gnaw at her as she stepped forward and carefully redipped her wingtip in mana gel, then with equal care started tracing the highly intricate pattern of runes on the door that was the last obstacle between her and whatever was resonating in her bones.
Daring finished, and with a rising sense of impatience, pushed the doors open. She quickly scanned the room for more traps, and only then, satisfied that she wasn't about to be immolated or suffer another gruesome fate, did she step into the room. Then, as it began to truly register, she involuntarily released a small gasp of surprise.
On a raised platform were a set of spheres that she recognized. Very few others would have recognized them, but she had a knowledge of ancient relics that was unmatched in Equestria.
She walked slowly, reverently up to the ancient contraption that held the spheres. The sense of resonation was nearly unbearable now, uncontrollable quivers racking her frame. She stretched out a hoof, and touched a sphere.
The resonation instantly vanished, as the sphere declared, in a way that Daring didn't recognize, that it was the Element of Loyalty.
She suddenly heard voices, snapping her out of her temporary rapport with the Elements of Harmony. She mentally cursed, and flew up into a dark corner, slowing her breathing down to the point of near inaudibility.
The Elements of Harmony whined, the magic levitating Twilight and her friends. They hummed, as the firing sequence was initiated...
The Elements failed. A massive feedback loop was initiated. In another time and another place, the resultant overload killed the Element Bearers, blowing them into their constituent atoms. But the results this time were dramatically different.
The Harmonic Prism on the Dark Side of the plane shuddered in agony, glowing to an intolerable brightness. The magical turmoil surged through the Machine Layer, the materials of which it was constructed amplifying the wave as it raced outwards.
This, predictably enough, resulted in catastrophe.
Daring Do was at her desk, having fallen asleep while trying to write the latest Daring Do novel. She snored lightly, a look of do-I-look-like-I-care engraved on her features.
The shockwave rumbled through, jolting her out of her slumber. She scrambled frantically out of the chair and got to her feet, the building seeming to sway around her. Then she realized that she hadn't imagined it, as the building slowly settled back to normal.
What in Tartarus just happened?
Whitemane was in the middle of dictating a letter to the Darkstinians when she felt it. Her head snapped up and her eyes widened as she registered the fact that the wave was getting stronger as it approached.
She did not waste time with words. She simply leapt to her hooves and immediately energised the largest shield that she could make, anchoring everything within it.
Then it hit.
The wreckage of a battlefield shuddered, then convulsed. The troops on both sides ducked as the world went mad around them. Trenches collapsed, with ponies trapped inside. The land slumped, pouring into a chasm that glowed with a ruby flame. Screams filled the air, prayers and curses alike drowned out as the land itself screeched in protest.
A village collapsed, the wooden structures falling like matchsticks.
An ocean rippled, then began to boil. A massive column of hot air began to rise, and a spiraling motion began in the air. A Tropical storm began to form, the wind speed picking up rapidly. An aerial structure was battered on the outskirts of the storm, rain lashing against the ancient buildings.
A mountain range groaned audibly, buckling in a weak zone. The mountains there crumbled, a landslide of epic proportions roaring down into the ancient cauldra. Pegasi looked up and took to the air, their eyes filled with terror as the avalanche of destruction hurtled by down beneath them. An even greater landslide came smashing in from the opposite direction, and as the two fronts met, a massive wave of stone and dirt buried everything that they had held dear.
Out in Val Roa, the land rippled like it was an ocean. Ancient structures imploded, and everything that stood further than one moose height tall fell to the ground.
