NaNo2014: Shadows of Friendship: Part 24b

((a second update cause I screwed up the time on the last attempt to post))

“I…I sealed you?” Twilight asked, shaking slightly as she picked herself up, pain shooting down her back as she moved, “But I’m not an alicorn, I couldn’t…” She trailed off, her eyes widening as a thought hit her.

“Now you’re beginning to understand, little Princess.” The darkness hissed at her, “You’re not an alicorn now, but you were and we thought you destroyed when you ripped your soul in two and gave your life to try and get rid of us. Turns out you’re as hard to eliminate as we are. Shame that won’t save you now.”

Twilight did not get a chance to respond before she was in the air again, tumbling across the ground and slamming into the base of the silver tree.

“You must have sealed your alicorn powers away with half of your soul when you locked us away. Left yourself with little more than a unicorn’s form and strength.” The darkness cackled, “But we had an ace in the hole, a Princess of our own, a mare from the lands that spawned us and she has worked tirelessly for all this time to free us. It’s a shame you won’t be around to meet her. She has a lot she wants to say to you.”

“Wh…who says, it ends here?” Twilight demanded as she got up, the puzzle glowing, its golden glow pulsing in time with Twilight’s normal purple magic which was wrapped around the Elements of Harmony, trying to activate them, even as she stumbled, barely able to get to her feet, “I might only be a…part time Princess, but I am not…letting it end here.”

“You do not know who you are dealing with,” Nightmare Moon snorted. “You may be my sister’s student, but I am the stronger sister and I will destroy you!” Nightmare Moon tried to use her magic again, but Twilight was ready, calling up a small brown fuzzball from her deck with green hands and feet and sharp claws that leapt at the possessed Princess and exploded on contact.

The explosion pushed Nightmare Moon back, giving Twilight a chance to push a little more of her magic into the Elements, desperately hoping that that was the spark she needed and that she could use them to protect her friends. It certainly did something as the unicorn saw the marble spheres start to change colour, taking on the shades that she had seen in the book.

“No!” The Shadows and the Princess both screamed as the Elements started glowing, “No! We will not allow this to be!”

“Wha…aah!” Twilight cried out as hooves connected with her side and she went skidding across the floor, her magic cutting out as the dark possessed Princess used her powers to slam the unicorn into a wall so hard that the real brick work, the crumbling, decrepit, ancient brickwork, cracked and tumbled down, burying the filly.

“Finally!” Nightmare Moon snarled as she stalked towards the glowing elements, pausing before she stamped her hoof and unleashed a wave of Shadows that sucked up every drop of energy within the glowing spheres. The five orbs started cracking as something behind Nightmare Moon started moving.

The alicorn turned to stare at the sound when she realised that it was the sound of the rubble shifting and falling, her eyes widening when she saw Twilight pick herself out of the fallen bits out castle, her wings twitching a little to dislodge the fragments of stone and her ruby red eyes narrowed and focused on Nightmare Moon. Her own Shadows were flaring up like black flames around her as she moved out of the pile of black rubbish and stood in front of the possessed alicorn. “Do not write me off yet.” She growled out before shaking herself off, getting rid of some of the dust lightening her coat to an almost lavender-white.

The stone spheres continued to crack as Nightmare Moon laughed, a high pitched, slightly hysterical, psychotic laugh as the Elements shattered into a million little fragments, “You could not defeat us before, when you were whole! You’ll never do it now, wounded and pathetic as you are. Especially not alone! Your strength comes from Unity, it always has! And now your backup, your precious Elements of Harmony are gone, destroyed, forever!”

“The spheres may be gone, but my friends are always with me,” Twilight snapped back, her wings half opening as she tried to spread them in a display of dominance, “I will defeat you!”

“You? Defeat me?!” The alicorn laughed, her shadow taking the form of a twisted dragonic creature and spreading up the wall. Its shape shifting and changing as it grew, revealing wings with holes in and three rows of sharp teeth, “I have had many forms over the Millennia,” The darkness crowed through Nightmare Moon as the shadow changed again, becoming a huge unicorn with a barbed horn. “Equigypt, your country, was just the first. This time, this time your entire world will pay and there’s nothing you can do to stop me! Because poor Princess Twilight was stupid enough to come all this way without managing to protect a single one of her friends!”

“You’re wrong.” The alicorn Princess smirked, “My friends are safe. I figured out your game and protected myself from your dark mist. You can’t fight fair, you have to weaken us before we get to you, but guess what? I remember enough to remember that a Challenge always has to be fair. You might have weakened me, weakened my friends and destroyed the physical forms of the Elements, but I still have a chance.”

“What chance could you possibly have?” Nightmare Moon demanded, “What possible hope? You are nothing compared to me, nothing!”

“Twilight!” The purple Princess’s smirk turned to an honest, bright smile as her friends piled into the courtyard and stopped by the entrance, staring at the tableau before them.

“There’s my hope, my chance. My friends.” Twilight told the Night Goddess, feeling her strength grow and her magic increase exponentially, “They’re my strength and they’re so much more than that. Those Elements you destroyed? They’re just stone, Harmony is within everyone if you know where to look for it and I’ve found it within those five ponies that you see before you.”

“You cannot be serious? You honestly believe that you can defeat me with the power of friendship?” The alicorn cackled.

“There’s not just my friends, each of them embodies an Element.” Twilight informed her, “Pinkie Pie, who scared off the wolves that you sent after us by giggling at them, embodies the Element of Laughter!” As she spoke, the shards of the sphere of Laughter started glowing the same pink as Pinkie Pie’s coat and started swirling around her like glitter, shimmering in the moonlight.

“Oooh, pretty!” Pinkie Pie bounced on the spot, looking delighted.

“Wh…what?!” Nightmare Moon yelped, backing up in her confusion as she watched it happen.

“Rainbow Dash, who fought your summoned pegasi even when it could have cost her her life and refused to join up with them even when they flattered her, represents the Element of Loyalty!” The second sphere did the same, this time glowing with the same pale blue as Rainbow’s coat.

“Too cool!” Dash crowed.

“Oh no, no, no!” Nightmare Moon snarled, trying to blast the five by the door with a spell, only for Twilight to draw from her deck and set a trap that caused her attack to reflect back off of it and strike the alicorn, making her crash into the silver tree in the courtyard’s centre.

“Fluttershy,” Twilight continued as the possessed alicorn picked herself up, a look of vague panic on her features as she realised that she was in deep trouble, “Who protected Nightingale from me and helped her even after she fought against us, represents the Element of Kindness!”

“I was just doing what any pony would have done.” Fluttershy whispered as the shards of the corresponding element glowed a pale yellow colour and circled her.

“Applejack, who waylaid my fears about my transformation by telling me the truth, embodies the Element of Honesty!” The part-time Princess informed the possessed one, smirking as her theory was confirmed. The Element of Honesty swirled around Applejack like amber, glowing like a flame.

“You can’t do this, you can’t drive me back into the dark, I will not allow it!” Nightmare Moon snarled, launching herself at Twilight. The alicorn narrowly dodged, causing the Moon Goddess to go crashing to the floor behind her.

“And last but not least, Rarity, who tamed the dragon by selflessly offering her jewels, making her own work difficult in the process and promising to help him find his horde again, is the Element of Generosity!”

The last Element lit up and joined those already swirling around Twilight’s other friends. “I wonder if I could make something that shimmered like this for ponies to wear…” Rarity mused as she beheld the pretty lights.  

Twilight could not help the amused smile that crossed her face at the other unicorn’s comment even a Nightmare Moon snarled at her, “You still haven’t gotten the sixth Element and without your precious true name, the final key to the seal you used on me, you’ll never unlock your full potential and destroy me!”

“You’re wrong,” Twilight informed her, feeling smug that she knew something that the other Princess did not and trying to ignore the jab about her name, “The spark I felt when I realised that no matter how hard I try to push you away, you’ll always be my friends?” She asked her friends, looking at them with a smile, “That’s when I realised something. The final spark resides within the heart of all of us, and that spark is Magic!”

She let out a startled gasp as power erupted from the tree in the middle of the courtyard and formed a star like the one in the center of her cutie mark in the middle of the air.