"C'mon now, y'all. She needs t' concentrate."
It just registered on the edge of her hearing: five sets of hooves moving across stone. She'd told them to stand back, and they were taking it seriously enough to evacuate the immediate area. It made sense, really. This was unknown magic, legendary magic, and... Twilight wasn't completely sure what she was doing. She'd thought that if she just projected her own strength towards the symbols sculpted into the stone spheres (because those symbols had to be there for a reason), whatever lurked within might recognize the presence of a pony caster and respond.
Or the legendary magic might treat her as an intruder and blast her into the walls. One more piece of wreckage among the ruins.
There was no way to tell, really, and so she was oddly glad to hear the other five departing. If she failed...
The last echo of hoofsteps faded. Alone. Alone again. Her default state.
She concentrated. The corona dancing around her horn intensified somewhat. Nothing else happened. None of the five spheres would respond.
The night will last forever. Unless I can make this work.
Motionless.
Maybe... maybe it wouldn't hurt to bring the white one... She was still having some trouble sorting out everypony's names. ...Rarity? Rarity. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to bring Rarity back in. I don't know what kind of magic she can do and she didn't feel that strong, but any extra help...
Inert.
...I can't find the key, but another perspective, another pony...
Useless.
...I can't make this work.
Because --
It was a guess. Purely a guess. But it made her heart beat a little faster...
(There was a moment when there seemed to be something brushing past her, something which was dark blue and faintly luminescent, nearly lost against the night which had leaked into the ruins. She never really acknowledged it. Her eyes were closed, her inner vision lost within the epiphany of her life.)
-- it's not supposed to be one pony making it all work, is it? There's more than one sphere. One might respond to me. Maybe there's a sphere for the blue pegasus, or that yellow one with the really full tail -- Fluttershy, she's Fluttershy -- and another for Pinkie, and --
-- they're not meant for one pony.
The legends say two had them the first time. Not one. What if you need a pony like Applejack and a pony like Rarity? What if it's even supposed to be one for each of us?
She was thinking about them now. The ponies who'd traveled with her, protected her, kept her safe. The ones without whom the desperate quest would have already failed. Memories danced through her mind, of actions, songs, virtues expressed through lives saved --
-- and the spheres began to vibrate. (She sensed the movement, began to open her eyes.)
Then they lifted, buoyed by a faintly luminescent dark blue mist.
She yelped, felt all four legs scrambling to get her into a galloping position, but she couldn't get back to her hooves in time, the five spheres were rotating, faster and faster, the mist was spreading and she could feel the magic gathering around them, around her as something forced itself to emerge into the world --
Twilight could hear ponies now, yelling her name. She saw a tornado made of darkness, and spheres spiraling towards the center.
The Elements!
Had she merely thought the words, or shouted them into the world? She didn't know. Either way, it was instinct which propelled her, pushed her into the jump as she hurled herself towards the heart of the magic --
-- the world inverted, turned inside-out, took her with it --
-- and then she was on stone again. Still in the ruins, but a different part. And there was a necklace floating in front of her, golden wings flaring from a blue ovoid jewel, one which looked oddly like a balloon.
She was about to shout. Triumph. Hope. A desperate rallying cry, hoping the others would hear and find her, for she knew she hadn't gone far. But then her gaze moved left --
-- and Twilight screamed.
It was the single loudest scream of her life. It took the moment when the Princess had personally denied access to the Forbidden Devices vault and made it slink off with its tail between its legs, head hung low in shame.
"WHAT IS THAT?"
And the laughter began.
"You foal!" came the voice of Nightmare, with the monster itself a mere thirty body lengths away. "How can you not know what that is? How can you not appreciate what all your work has rendered into the world?"
Twilight's vocal cords locked.
A trembling left foreleg came up. The hoof jerked towards the necklace.
"You're kidding," the Nightmare decided -- and then, with just a touch of open frustration, "You're kidding, right?"
Twilight slowly shook her head.
"That," the Nightmare said, now clearly miffed, "is the Element of Laughter."
The vibrating limb moved to the left, indicated the thing floating next to the necklace.
"And that," the Nightmare declared, "is very obviously an alternate skin."
Twilight stared at it.
The... 'skin' was slightly translucent: if Twilight squinted, she could see hints of the ruins just beyond it. It was a motionless, life-sized statue made of light, and that image portrayed Rarity. A Rarity whom Twilight had never seen and one which, if Twilight ever had spotted the mare, would have either been dragged off to a hospital while the porters tried to quarantine the area or, if there had been more mercy present than hope, simply put out of her misery on the spot.
"...there's..." Twilight swallowed. "...there's diamonds growing on her body."
There were. It was as if the designer's cutie mark had spread out as a series of hideous mineral tumors.
"Of course there are!" the Nightmare beamed. "That's Glamour Glow Rarity!"
A brief pause.
"You're actually very lucky," the monster told Twilight. "Not only did you get the legendary pull with the Element, but that skin is classified as a rare." Vertical pupils briefly regarded the other three floating items -- and then the Nightmare sighed. "However, as with all startups which take place after a long time away, there do seem to be some bugs in the system. You shouldn't even have access to that one yet!"
Twilight involuntary looked at 'that one'. And then she immediately looked away, with a purple hoof shakily moving to point at something which looked like a pink sine wave, shifting and curving within the night air.
The Nightmare snorted with derision, trotted forward. Twilight didn't move as the dark foreleg touched the wave.
"Come on, everypony," the sine sung in Pinkie's voice. "Smile, smile!"
"Extra voice line," the Nightmare said. "Common, but nice enough if you like to equip that sort of thing. And of course, the skin next to it, which is wearing what appears to be an umbrella around its waist to go with the balloon animal on her head and --" another snort, this time of pure offense "-- sunglasses... well, it's not as if you foals will have any more need for those! -- would be the Fashion Style Pinkie Pie alternate skin. So you have two commons, plus a rare and as I already told you, the Element counts as a legendary and you only need five more to complete the set! But then we have... this." She looked at the that one again.
Twilight forced herself to keep her gaze on the black-and-white biped with the unnaturally slim limbs and hair growing in the approximate shape of an axe blade.
"...what is that?"
"That," the Nightmare frustratedly told her, "is an alternate other-species skin for a very important lesson about the importance of not judging by appearance and overcoming prejudice. Which you are not supposed to have access to yet, because you haven't met her at all."
"Oh," Twilight tried.
"Also," the Nightmare added, forehooves now pawing at the stone, "you haven't purchased the Very Important Lesson: Prejudice DLC." Clearly miffed, "Really, immediately after I finish consolidating my conquest, I will be calling Quest Support. Still... one Element. That's really quite good for your first sphere opening! And clearly this is the time to try for more, while your luck is hot!"
The large right forehoof came up, then stamped against the stone. A panel fell away, and a huge pair of empty saddlebags floated up from the darkness beyond, coming to a stop on Twilight's right. She was nearly lost in their shadow, as they were six times the size of her body.
"Simply deposit whatever amount of money you wish to spend into those," the Nightmare announced, "and we'll see about getting you some more sphere sets."
Twilight blinked.
"Better rates for bulk," the monster added.
There was a long moment of extremely uncomfortable silence.
"...I -- don't have money," Twilight finally said.
The Nightmare stared at her.
"You went on a quest," it stated. "And you didn't bring money."
"...we were just supposed to -- find the Elements and use them to defeat you," Twilight desperately tried. "That was supposed to be it!"
"Well," the Nightmare sniffed, "personally, I find direct, linear quests to be singularly unrewarding. I have taken an extensive survey of the quest field. Sending ponies out to defeat a few hazards to life and limb, leading to great insights into their own personalities added to a tiny glimpse of their world's true nature, while gathering all the things they need for final victory along the way?" This snort was of purest insult. "I suppose there are some old-school adventurers who falsely feel there's still some value in that sort of rubbish. But where's the profit? Honestly, do you really expect me to keep the night going forever on a single purchase? Destroying the world requires an economy."
"A survey," Twilight just barely managed to repeat.
"Yes," the Nightmare replied as it tossed its insubstantial mane. "I asked myself what I thought about the matter. Then I provided myself with my own opinion. And as I am always right, there was no need for further discussion." And with an instant change in tone, "So not only did you somehow fail to bring money along to aid you in your quest, when everypony knows that extra purchases are ludicrously more important than skill, dedication, and self-improvement... you didn't even get any money along the way?"
Twilight slowly shook her head.
"What kind of so-called adventuring party," the Nightmare disgustedly inquired, "fails to loot a sea serpent's dead body?"
The unicorn blinked.
"I will have you know," the Nightmare instructed her, "that I have sea serpents listed on Treasure Table H." With a little bit of a hiss, "And that's not exactly small potatoes, now is it? I thought I was being extremely generous with the in-quest currency."
"...we didn't kill it," Twilight finally said.
The Nightmare blinked.
"You -- what?"
"Rarity... gave it a replacement mustache. Using her own tail."
The Nightmare reared back, looking more offended than ever.
"Ponies on a quest," it haughtily declared, "who fail to act by what should be the obvious rules and in doing so, subvert my intent, are hardly my fault." The ghostly tail flicked with annoyance. "Well, there's no help for it. You need six Elements. You have successfully, and rather luckily if I do say so myself, pulled one. So that means you have two choices. You can either go back to your supposed village and start raising some actual funds, because nothing shows you actually care enough to save your world like spending every coin in it. Or..."
It hesitated, and its voice dropped to a whisper.
"...if you're really strapped for cash," it told her, "and your heart is so dark and cold as to somehow not give over everything you have to me, a poor innocent Nightmare just trying to get financially reestablished in the world after so long away because really, have you ever seen the balance sheet on eternal darkness --"
Twilight waited.
"-- you could," the Nightmare reluctantly admitted, "grind."
"Grind," Twilight tonelessly said.
"Well, the sea serpent's still there, isn't it?" the monster pointed out. "You could go kill it now. And then you could go out and kill some more things. In fact, if you really wanted to, you could do the entire circuit about twelve more times. That should be enough to earn yourself a sphere or two, because of course I have to offer diminishing returns for non-profitable effort, otherwise ponies would be less inclined to spend their way to possible victory. I'm sure no more than twenty percent of the local population will die while you're doing that. And that's not even considering those on the other side of the planet -- remember them? The ones who just might start roasting? Grinding is clearly the route of the soulless, not to mention, when it comes to my well-being, the truly inconsiderate. But if you care so little about your world that you're determined to work for it..."
The Nightmare shook its head in exasperation, then looked down at Twilight and waited.
"We need six Elements," Twilight stated.
The monster nodded.
"You're telling me -- to go out and get money -- or... 'grind...' so we can defeat you? You're going to give us the things we need to beat you?"
"Well, no. I'm selling them. And it's for the chance to defeat me," the Nightmare generously clarified. "I may, of course, being a monster who desires the end of all things, do something evil at the end. But surely such brave heroes will think of something before that happens!"
"And the money goes towards...?"
The Nightmare made a very visible point of looking around, then went back to looming over her.
"Redecorating, for starters," it said. "Have you seen this place? Also, some recognition for the effort I make in designing alternate skins would be welcome. And I may need some legal defense costs for when I attempt to repeat my conquest in Belgian, because they have some rather odd anti-gambling laws which clearly shouldn't apply to me. And in the meantime? You can roam the world wearing those charming alternate skins, spouting off additional voice lines to each other at every possible opportunity, and I have been thinking of doing some very daring things with sprays -- which, under my rule, don't legally count as graffiti. Because cosmetic effects are much more important than progress, or skill, or pretty much everything else except money, which can be used to gain access to more cosmetics. So. Is it going to be the grind of those without true emotional investment in their world, or the willing financial expenditure of those who care?"
Twilight took the deepest breath of her life.
"Did you do this to the Princess? When she beat you?"
The Nightmare's face instantly surged into rage, looked more offended than she'd ever seen anything look -- and then it shouted. "Of course not!"
The first bit of relief began to seep into Twilight's heart.
"She," the monster screamed, "demanded a cut of the licensing!"
It took some time for the echoes to stop moving across Twilight's frozen body and towards the absolute end of it, she heard hoofsteps pounding towards her.
"Twilight!" the farmer gasped, the words arriving ahead of the pony. "Sing out if y'can hear --" and then the group reached the room, saw what was happening "-- everypony, attack, everything you've got -- !"
"...stop."
Five ponies reacted to the order from the weary voice by skidding, twisting and, in one cyan case, crashing into a wall.
"Twilight?" Rarity asked. "What has happened? Does it have you in its grasp? What can we --" and then her voice was lost in horror.
"-- we're leaving," Twilight softly said. "We can't save the world. Not just yet. There's things we have to -- do first."
She turned, began to trot away, taking the lone necklace with her. And the monster laughed.
The little unicorn rejoined the others -- then passed them. Oddly-tired legs forced themselves towards the exit. Seconds later, four very confused (and one slightly concussed) ponies joined her.
"What's wrong?" Rainbow directly demanded.
"Everything."
Rarity shuddered. "Did you see..."
"Yes."
"...so we can't save the world?" Fluttershy softly asked. "We really can't?"
"Not as a single-purchase option."
"Come on, everypony! Smile, smile! Come on, everypony! Smile, smile! Come on, everypony! Smile, smile! Come on, everypony! Smile, smile! Come on, everypony! Smile, smile! Come on, everypony! Smile, smile!"
They went back into the darkness, with Pinkie spamming all the way. And behind them, the monster laughed and laughed.
"The night," it boomed, "shall last forever! Or at least until the Nightmare Night exclusive content pack!"
