The Dance of darkness

Half an hour before the summer sun celebration began, Deca was fuming. "I still don't see why the hell we need to go! I mean, we all know that she's a tyrant, so why watch her do the only thing that would have even the SLIGHTEST CHANCE to change our minds? It's fucking bullshit!"

"Yeah, sure, why not." Darastrix said, clearly not paying attention. He promptly got struck by a dark magic bolt, flinging him across the room. "Ow! You crazy bitch!" They started dueling, him sending fire balls and putting up shields, while Deca was going all out offense, sending Dark magic bolts and arcs of lightning at him.

"Do they usually do this?" Angel signed to Arcaniss, who simply shrugged. "Because it seems like they know exactly what to do when the other fires."

"Yeah, they do this a lot. Don't worry, I'll pay for whatever they break."

"You're a good mare, Magic." Angel said, turning to hop away, "Probably the best there ever was."

She looked down, "I'm not the mare that you knew, Angel bunny. I've grown dark in my time spent with them. But," She said, thinking about all that they have ever done for their imprisoned goddess, "If I could go back and do it over again, I wouldn't change a thing."

"Well anyway, Flutters won't be home until after the celebration, so why don't we throw a party?"

She thought about this, but shook her head, "We need to be at this celebration. Plus, I don't think Deca would like the idea of seeing that pink... I don't even know what to call her." She looked to Angel, who simply shrugged and hopped into the other room. Arcaniss turned back to the two unicorns, who stopped fighting shortly before their conversation ended. "We going?"

"Like hell we are!" Deca said, clearly still angry that they need to go. "I just don't see the big fucking deal about WHY this one is just so important!"

"Well," Darastrix started, sitting down, "According to the records, the Elements of Harmony banished her to the moon for a thousand years, and on the thousandth year, then the stars will aid in her escape. Now, this is where we will come in, she will show up near the most powerful magical being under the moonlight when she materializes, due to her need for power after her banishment, which, unless a full grown Amethyst Dragon is in Equestria, would be Celestia. So we need to kidnap her, and, as soon as Princess Luna returns, cut off her magic supply and imprison her on the sun using THIS spell." He finished, pointing to the open spell book on the hat rack, "Any questions?"

Arcaniss raised her hoof sarcastically. He called on her, and she asked, "so, how, exactly, the fuck are we going to get close enough to Celestia to make sure that this goes off without a hitch?"

"Oh, THAT?" He said, an evil grin working its way up his muzzle, "Don't worry about that, I've got it covered."

"How?" Deca said, clearly doubting his skill and resources.

"Oh, you'll see when we get there, Deca, you'll see..." And with that, he stormed off in a seemingly random direction, leaving the two other ponies to contemplate what he just said.

"... I'm assuming that I'm the one that will be cleaning this up?" She looked at Deca, who immediately nodded and walked out of the room, leaving her to fume in peace. "It's always me that needs to clean up their fights..."

9 MINUTES BEFORE THE CELEBRATION...

The celebration was in full swing. The birds were getting ready to sing, Rarity was done with her final revisions, and the rest of the ponies were simply standing around, eating or socializing. Princess Celestia was in the back room with a regiment of her guards, preparing to show the town her special talent. "Oh, I always hated this part," She said, pacing back and forth, repeatedly checking her necklace to make sure that it's strait.

"Your highness?"

"Before the show, I always get nervous and think about what could go wrong." She stopped the guard from speaking again, "I don't exactly know when it started, but for a few hundred years, I've been doing this. I know that nothing will go wrong, because you six are here," She smiled at them, and they saluted. "And I know that nothing can get past my personal guard, so I-"

At that moment, Deca, Arcaniss, and Darastrix jumped through the window, landing on three of the guards. "That's where you're mistaken, Celestia."

She stared, shocked, then looked to her remaining guards, "Well, what are you three waiting for? Get them!"

"Big mistake on your end, but I like a challenge." Darastrix said, "You two get her, I'll take care of the guards." They surrounded the three unicorns, until the two mares teleported out of there, surprising the guards and allowing Darastrix to get a preemptive strike. He froze one of them in a large ice spike and shattered it, leaving him in pieces. The other two charged their horns, but he already fired his magic needles. One of them got scraped, but otherwise deflected the other ones. The other guard got struck twice in the throat, leaving him gasping for air. "Well, looks like he got the POINT of this!"

The last guard just shook his head, saying, "Wow, that was terrible."

He got impaled onto a large metal spike as soon as Deca and Arcaniss returned with an oddly glowing crystal. "Ooh, nice death spike!" He let that sink in, but got smacked in the head by Deca.

"Who are you three, and what do you want with me?" Celestia said, charging her horn, "My guards might have fallen at your hooves, but I can defend myself just fine!"

"Not while I have this, you don't." She showed the crystal to Celestia, making her gasp.

"But how? How could you get a hold of such an artifact?"

"That's not important." Deca said, trotting closer to Celestia, "Now, you will do our every command, or I will use this against you, and what I do with it will NOT be pretty."

Celestia, thought about this for a while, then sighed with defeat. "Very well. If you answer one question."

"I guess I can oblige," Deca said, while Arcaniss and Darastrix went to secure a perimeter, "what's your question?"

"How did you get a hold of a fallen star? There's only been one pony in Equestria that is able to even HOLD one of those, and she-"

"Got banished to the moon." Deca advanced on Celestia, pushing her against the wall, "I remember that night, when you unleashed the powers of those stones onto our mistress and sent her to the moon. I lived through that, and I will not, I repeat, WILL NOT, BE DENIED MY REVENGE!" She struck the goddess, careful not to touch her with the star yet.

She reeled back for another strike, but at that moment, a blinding blue light filled the room, causing her to back up and cackle like a maniac. "Here she comes, Celestia. It appears that our time together has come to a stand still." When she finished, the light faded, revealing a pitch black Alicorn mare, with a mane that seems to be alive, and dark blue armor that shines in the moonlight. Deca bowed immediately, and said, "My mistress of the night. We have waited a thousand years for this moment."

She looked at Deca with curiosity, for being gone for a thousand years clouds one's memory, but recognition showed on her face after a couple of seconds. "Why, if it isn't my star pupil, Deca Vaeri. We should catch up when this is all over." She motioned for her to rise, then looked to her sister. "Well well well, if it isn't the very pony who put me in that prison in the first place."

"Sister," she said, taking a step toward Nightmare Moon, "You know that I had no choice. I had to do it to save Eque-" Before she could finish, Deca touched the fallen star to Celestia's horn, and the effects were instant. Celestia screamed in agony, as her entire magic supply was cut off instantly, making her fatigued and close to unconsciousness, but Deca put a spell on her to make sure that she would stay awake for what they had planned. Then, it cut off the use of her limbs, causing her to fall over and her wings to flop down onto the ground. She was being tortured beyond her breaking point, something that the most talented interrogators in Equestria could do, but Celestia still managed to croak out, "W-w-why..."

"Why? WHY? WHY?" Nightmare was inches away from attacking her sister, but they overheard the mayor starting Celestia's introduction, so Deca teleported out of the building, while Nightmare glided into the shadows. Rarity walked in, looked around for a bit, then went back out, saying, "She's gone!" 'And, there's my queue.' Nightmare stepped out of the shadows onto the little balcony. "Well, my beloved subjects! It's been so long since I've seen you..."

ELSEWHERE IN THE EVERFREE FOREST...

Deca Vaeri, Whedab Arcaniss, and Darastrix Sventlin sat around a small campfire that Darastrix set up, contemplating what to do now that Luna has returned. "We still serve our mistress of the night, so we must assist her in acting revenge upon those who doubted her abilities," Deca started, putting images into the flames, "We have killed, stolen, plundered, and - on occasion - raped many ponies, gryphons, and dragons through our travels," The flames spewed up, showing images of bodies of all three races, covered in magical scars ranging from ice, to fire, to darkness. The images switched to those of broken windows, burned down buildings, and stacks of bits being taken by hooded figures. "We have proven ourselves to be the most powerful unicorns in the land, and yet... It just feels like we forgot something... something important, like we were asked to do it a long time ago but forgot." The images flickered for a few minutes, as if deciding what to show next.

"Wait a minute," Darastrix said, stomping his hoof on the ground, "what about our quest? The reason that Princess Luna gave us our immortality in the first place!"

Whedab looked at him, seemingly astonished that he had a functioning idea for once in his life. "Quest... AHA! The Elements of Harmony! We need to get to them before the wielders get a hold of them!"

"Well, that would be easy, if we knew who the fucking wielders were!"

"Well, I can tell you one thing," Whedab smirked while saying this, "One is the pony that we're quartered with, one is the pink pony that we ran into in town, another is the purple unicorn that was talking with the yellow Pegasus, and the fourth is that snobby white unicorn that was at the summer sun celebration. We either need to kill one of th-"

"That would be the easier route," Deca said, charging her horn, "Where do we start?"

Whedab sighed, "The bearers of the elements of harmony are incapable of being killed until they wield the elements in battle at least once. So no, that won't be the easy way out." Deca looked confused at first, but eventually decided to let it go. After all, it WAS magic. "Anyway, we can't kill them, so we need to either steal or destroy the elements of harmony. And, since the latter is impossible for any of us, then I suggest that we take them."

"Wait," Deca asked, "how come we can't destroy them? Surely it can't be that hard, right?"

Arcaniss just sighed, hating explaining things to her companions, "There are only two beings in the universe who can destroy the elements of harmony, and those are Discord, and Chaos."

"Fine. Let's get to the castle of the royal pony sisters, then. That's where their last known location is." They all nodded in agreement. "Then get this place cleaned up; I want no traces of anypony EVER being here, got it?"

"Got it." Darastrix said, putting out the fire. After the cleanup was done, they set off deeper into the forest. They passed many creatures along the way, and none of them survived. They ended up with some crude but effective weapons because of it: Manticore horns, shards of Timber wolf hide, a cocatrice head, and many more. They heard a loud crash coming from somewhere not so far ahead of them, and rushed to check it out. They burst through the foliage, to find six ponies standing in the middle of some rocks.

The first one, an Alabaster unicorn, had three diamonds as a cutie mark and a purple mane and tail. She seemed very stuck up to the three unicorns. The next was an orange earth pony, with three apples as a cutie mark, and a brown stetson cap. The third one seemed very out of place here. She was a pegasus with a cyan blue coat, and a Rainbow mane and tail, and her cutie mark was that of a lightning cloud with a rainbow sticking out of it. 'If that doesn't scream "Gay pride," then I don't know what does.'

The fourth one was hard to make out, since she was cowering away from the new arrivals behind some rocks. 'She should be afraid of us,' Darastrix thought, 'She doesn't know what we're capable of...' The fifth one, who wasn't facing them, but instead was bouncing up and down in place, was a solid pink mare with three balloons as a cutie mark. The last one, who had stepped forward to greet them by now, was a purple unicorn, with a perfectly strait mane, with three different shades of purple in it. And her cutie mark just happened to be...

'The element of magic.' Deca thought, smirking, 'I've been waiting all my life for this moment.'

The purple one approached them and spoke, "Well, looks like we weren't the only ones that went after Nightmare Moon!" She said, smiling. "Hello, I'm Twilight Sparkle. And you are?"

They had prepared aliases for this exact moment many years ago. Darastrix refused, however, saying that if he couldn't use his name, then he 'Might as well not fight.' "Good evening to you, miss Sparkle. I am Dusk Shine. These are my companions, Dragon Slayer, and Mystic Orb."

The other unicorn stepped forward, and said, "Well, a fine evening to you, Dusk Shine. Twilight, care to introduce us?"

"Oh yeah. Dusk Shine, these are my friends Rarity," The white one waved, "Applejack," The orange one tipped her hat, "Rainbow dash," She practically swelled with pride when her name was called, "The one hiding behind the rock is Fluttershy," She peeked around, and smiled weakly, before darting back behind the rock. "And the one that's bouncing is Pinkie Pie." At the mention of her name, Pinkie turned and saw the trio, Gasped, then rammed Twilight out of the way, so she could talk to them.

"OH, I KNOW YOU! You three walked into Ponyville about the same time Twilight did, and I said that I would throw you a party, but I didn't have enough time to set one up for you and Twilight and I didn't know where you were staying so I didn't know how to get you to sugarcube corner in the first place so do you like cupcakes?"

'HOW COULD SHE DO THAT IN ONE BREATH??!?' She blinked, not quite sure what just happened, but quickly regained her stature. "Well, yes, you did see us. As for where we are staying, we answered an ad for roommate's wanted in the paper. I believe we are staying with Fluttershy, actually." At her name being mentioned, she came out from behind the rock. "Not to worry, Angel already showed us where to put our things. You need not worry."

She sighed with relief, "Oh thank goodness, I thought that Angel wasn't going to be there when you arrived."

After their little exchange, they started trotting in the direction of the castle. About 5 minutes into their journey, an ear-piercing roar echoed through the everfree, making whatever was watching the ponies run away in fear. The nine ponies looked around, hoping to find what made that noise. Another roar came, this one much louder and closer. They looked to the skies, and saw a beast that only Deca Vaeri had seen before.

It was easily 300 hooves long, and that measurement being used very loosely. It was about as wide as a full grown dragon, and had some draconic qualities. It had sickly green colored scales, that gleamed menacingly in the moonlight. It was flying high above them, but didn't have any wings. 'Must be able to use magic.' But the worst part was the HEAD of the beast. Teeth that were easily as big as Big Macintosh, dripping with some sort of corrosive liquid. But the EYES, they were the worst of all. A look at them made all but four of the ponies paralyze with fear, though the four were still frightened intensely.

"Dusk," Darastrix said, still using the alias, "Mind telling me what exactly we're looking at?" He looked over at her, but she was frozen in place, and noticeably more pale than usual. 'DECA is afraid of this thing? Wow, it must be one tough son of a bitch.'

The creature landed in front of them, snarling and drooling the corrosive saliva. It reared back, and roared into their faces. That snapped them out of their trance, and they all backed away from it. Twilight looked to Deca, and said, "Any idea what the hell this thing is?"

"Something that shouldn't be in this forest." Deca said.

"But... this forest is home to many creatures, and it seems like it can defend itself." It seemed to be waiting patiently for them to finish before doing whatever it had planned.

"It's not this thing that I'm worried about," Deca said, turning to Twilight, "It's the other creatures that we need to worry about."

Fluttershy looked out from behind Applejack and into the monster's eyes. She stepped forward. Her friends shouts were lost to her, because she only had one thought: Protect her friends. "Now, listen here, mister giant snake monster," It growled at her, "Just because you're bigger than us, doesn't mean that you can push us around!"

It smacked her into a tree. "FLUTTERSHY!" The rest of the elements said a once, racing over to her. The creature ignored them, and turned it's attention onto Deca and her party.

"Deca, just what is this thing?" Darastrix said, starting to get worried.

"Don't you see? We're doomed," She said, turning to him, "That's a Drakon."