Eternal Night [Open]

[revenancenpcs]

Characters: Whatever's been causing that really long night, the new bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and you.
Content: BOSS BATTLE
Location: Ponyville, just outside of town, towards the Everfree Forest. There's a certain clearing with a certain statue in it.
Time: Night. Because it's been night for days.
Warnings: It's a boss battle, guys. You know the drill by now.

Continual night is only supposed to be the default state for Traverse Town. When it happens anywhere else - say, Ponyville - it's worrying. That's exactly why you're here to check it out. Maybe you're now a bearer of an Element of Harmony and you feel a sense of responsibility. Maybe you want to take out whatever's causing it. Maybe you're just curious. Either way, you're still in Ponyville in time to see dark clouds swirl in the sky from seemingly nowhere and obscure the stars and moon.

Those clouds all rolled in from the same direction, though, and that's the direction you head in, towards the Everfree Forest. You stop in a clearing, empty except for everypony else who had the same idea as you and a rather creepy statue. You hesitate as a force field shimmers into view around the clearing and abruptly fades. For better or worse, you're stuck here for a while.

It's then that the clouds break long enough to shine a single beam of moonlight onto the statue. White-hot cracks begin to spiderweb over the statue until it shatters, exploding outwards. As the dust settles, you see something else standing where the statue was just moments ago: a pony matching the Princesses in stature, black as the unnaturally long night. The blue mists of her mane and tail swirl around her, failing to obscure the deep red of her gaze. Emblazoned across her flanks is the Nightmare symbol.

She pauses for a moment - either to regroup or for dramatic emphasis - before gathering searing teal magic at the tip of her horn and firing it at you.

[This is Nightmare!Nightmare Moon, and - surprise, surprise - she doesn't like you. This will play out in the same style as the other boss battles, with successes and failures being decided by D&D-style dice rolls (all taken care of by the mods). Please only tag in if you can keep up a pace of one tag per day; otherwise, your turn will be skipped. Additionally, this is a required event for anyone holding an Element of Harmony - if you can't tag in for any reason, please let a mod know. Ten characters total, meaning four non-Element characters can also tag in; no tag order; start a new subthread after every boss battle; have fun~]

Comments

[realmenknitplushies]

"Ah, crap!"

As he recovered his stride from his rush missing, the aura blasts ploughed into Kanji- and into the Meowjesty who'd followed him in, barely able to bounce out the way. Poor thing: its first fight, and it was getting hit like that?
He staggered back, scowled.

From the amount of luck the others were having, too? It looked like this was going to call for some serious measures...

"Alright, how about this-"

He reared up-

"Persona!"

With that, blue light and a sound like shattering glass sprung up, leaving a new figure in the clearing by Kanji's side - a black, somewhat mechanical-looking stallion with a tail like a lightning bolt and a skeleton pattern on its metal hide, standing at least as tall as the Princesses.

"...wait, you too?" Then again - if he'd been turned pony, why shouldn't his inner self...? "...ain't the point - Ziodyne!" And with that command, an explosion of blue-shimmering electricity shot towards Nightmare Moon. Hopefully, this'd work better...

[letteropener]

Celestia had no doubt that the final blow would come down to the Elements in the end. Her purpose here was to distract and weaken Nightmare Moon, and thereby give the bearers time to activate them.

The best way to do that was, in her opinion, to make herself the biggest threat. She cringed inwardly to see her sister present in this fight, not knowing if it was wise -- but glad, very glad, to see Luna fighting with all her strength against everything she had once become.

She swet aside the ring of energy with one massive wing, ignoring the smoke that curled up from the blackened feathers. No more energy attacks, then...

Lines of golden light spread like ice cracking through the plinth Nightmare Moon had stood on. The stone burst into several large chunks swathed in sunlight, a glow that began to spread around the clearing as Celestia poured more power into her magic. As light swelled in a corona around her horn, she summoned up the full strength of her telekinesis. The stone chunks flew at Nightmare Moon with punishing force, followed by branches and stone chunks on the ground, followed -- with a cracking and crashing as they shattered from the force or ripped free of the ground -- trees from nearby.

[sailorlaughter]

"Okie-dokie-lokie! Oooooh, jump rope!" Turning, she bounced off in another direction, going towards Nightmare Moon's front and bounding happily over the energy rings as she did so. "Hey, Black Snooty! Check it out!" Pinkie dragged up her party cannon, which had been deposited there by Lord Tubbington III. "I totally never got to throw you ANY kind of Welcome Party before - " She fired the cannon at the Nightmare's face, sending a large three-tier cake and assorted streamers flying at her. " - and that's just TOTALLY not fair, is it? Hey, Toothy, let's do the special thing we practiced!"

The cannon fired again, this time loaded with a writhing, fire-spewing Hebby Rep. Lord Tubbington, meanwhile, hovered near his mistress in hopes of protecting her from any immediate danger.

[raisethemoon]

Luna snorted as her charge skimmed off Nightmare Moon's side, and her hooves kicked up dirt and grass as she skidded to a stop and pivoted.

"How DARE thee?" Ah, yes, there was the shouting. Luna reared, spreading her wings. The energy rings left stripes of blackened, smoking fur along her chest and underside, but she paid little attention. "This fight is ours, thou impudent mockery! How DARE thee draw others here?"

Her eyes and horn were burning brightly with white and blue light, respectively, as she slammed her hooves into the ground again. As much as a physical attack would bring her satisfaction, she recognized now that the Nightmare was the target of too many magical assaults to make that entirely wise. The dirt crumbled slightly under her force, and there was another ripping sound as she too tore a tree from the forest behind her. Unlike her sister, however, Luna didn't throw it; the upper branches remained swathed in blue as she swung the tree over her head towards the Nightmare like an overlarge bat.

[sailorgenerous]

"Go to pieces, I would imagine." It was a Nightmare, after all, and Rarity very much doubted they'd want it around in preserved form. She didn't have much else to say, as the magic split and hit the shield. That was a close call - entirely too close. "Thank you," she told Setsuna, hurrying towards the edge of the clearing. She wouldn't be much use in this fight as it was, she didn't think - she wasn't fool enough to get in the way of everypony's magical attacks in order to try to kick the Nightmare in the face. No, she needed to figure out how they could use the Elements with four new bearers.

She knew what it felt like to use hers - calm, peaceful, aware of and assured by her friends around her. When they'd first found the Elements, Twilight had been the only new pony in their circle; could four new ponies share that same bond with two who already knew it?

Well, Pinkie was her oldest friend from Ponyville here; Kanji had been by the boutique more than once; she'd earned her element by helping Amaterasu, and she knew that Pinkie was friends with the wolf as well; Chell was a close friend; she wished she knew Aqua a little better-

She gasped and threw herself to the ground as the Nightmare's latest attack approached her. Hopefully she'd be quick enough.

[wavesinherheart]

For all that Aqua has been to enough of these to know that things don't always go quite as intended, it's more than a little irritating to not have managed to get any of her attack to hit the Nightmare. There isn't really much she can do about the concentric rings of force that the Nightmare sends out though. Her shield is pretty good for blocking but she still needs a moment to bring it up. And if she did that as many times as she needed she wouldn't be very effective at attacking. Certainly not enough so to help take down something like this.

So she simply does her best to weather the attack as she very carefully lines her horn up to point directly at the Nightmare and concentrates. She might have been most used to having a Keyblade when she did attacks like these, but there was nothing saying that she couldn't also do so now. Especially with her horn being a decent enough replacement.

A brief moment later, a veritable barrage of poison-based projectiles shoot off in the Nightmare's direction. Whether or not the Shotlock actually will inflict poison is another guess entirely, but she's done the best she can, at the very least.

[revenancenpcs]

The Chronos Typhoon isn't strong enough to dissipate Nightmare Moon's attack entirely, and the rings cut through it. Fortunately, it's strong enough to mitigate the effects, and the rings are only glancing blows against Setsuna and Phoebe.

Descartes' and Cube's sonic attacks hit home, staggering the Nightmare long enough for Amaterasu's ice beam to hit home, completely freezing Nightmare Moon in a chunk of ice. This leaves her vulnerable to the slew of attacks coming her way. Kanji's Persona's lightning bolt hits home for some solid damage; Pinkie's cake slides off the ice, but Toothy's fireballs hit home; Aqua's shotlocks chip at the ice, though the poison doesn't transfer.

Unfortunately, dragging a multitude of debris into the literal center of a battle doesn't necessarily bode well for everyone. Stones and branches, hurled at Nightmare Moon with Celestia's magic, ricochet off the ice at high speeds and scatter. Kant is knocked over by a flying rock; Chu is hit with a branch and veers off-course, missing his target entirely; Jeeves is lucky enough to dodge. Luna's tree is what finally shatters the ice around Nightmare Moon; unfortunately, it also hits Rarity, slamming her even further into the ground.

It's obvious Nightmare Moon has taken damage, but that's not stopping her. She raises her horn to the clouds, and a swarm of Nightmare Komory Bats comes swooping down in answer to her summons, shrieking at combatants, firing sonic attacks and drain spells with wild abandon. In the confusion, Nightmare Moon transforms into mist and slips into the ground.

[A note: Mod rolls will determine whether any attack lands, both from characters and from Nightmare Moon. Also, these are normal Nightmare Bats.]