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

[timeywimeyorb]

The soldier of time winces when the rings cut through her, but thankfully the damage is lessened and it looks like Phoebe only suffers minor pain as well as the Pricklemane stumbles back, but manages to stay up right. Setsuna steps forward to help the Dream Eater return to balance, but her eyes widen in shock when the Nightmare pony manages to inflict more damage than she takes. What will it take to get rid of this power? The Princesses especially seem to have quite a bit of power behind them, but even it seems to be limited. Is it the Elements everyone keeps mentioning? Setsuna's eyes flick to the ponies that are wearing the special jewelry and she quickly deduces that must be what everyone is referring to.

Everyone does seem to be focusing their attention on some of these bearers of the Elements since as soon as Rarity is hit everyone throws various tpes of healing magic at her. Setsuna loses sight of Nightmare Moon, but it would seem there are other enemies to worry about: Komory Bats.

Phoebe hops up onto Setsuna's back, swiping at any bats with her spikey tail. Meanwhile, Setsuna uses her unicorn telekinesis to swing and twirl the Garnet Rod at any of the bats swooping over them. She especially focuses on keeping the bats away from Rarity until the healing magic the others used takes effect and the white unicorn can get back on her hooves.

[sailorlaughter]

"WOO! GO TOO - " Pinkie's words were cut off, as Lord Tubbington moved over top of her and abruptly lay down as the shrapnel began to fly. "GO TOOTHY!" She continued, muffled by the Meowjesty's weight. Pinned, she missed most of what was happening with the others - but on the bright side, that's one Element safe?

Toothy, meanwhile, dropped to the ground near Nightmare Moon and snapped a bit at the fading mist, to absolutely no avail. Oh well. Looking around for something ELSE he could bite, he spotted the Komory Bats instead and launced himself into the air after one of them.

[raisethemoon]

Luna snorted in rage and tossed the tree back over her shoulder as her foe dissolved. A second later, she turned into a starry mist herself, only slightly different from how Nightmare Moon had done it. She wasn't fast enough to get into the ground after her before Celestia's shield spread over the grass, though - and, to be fair, she wasn't exactly sure what'd she'd expected to do if she did find her like that. Mist was fine for travel and occasional object manipulation, but she wasn't going to be dragging the Nightmare back to corporeality like that.

Reforming, she merely bristled at Chell's words; she'd been so focused on the Nightmare that she hadn't even noticed what happened to the others. Rage tended to give her a bit of tunnel vision.

"Thou hast no idea." Really? You're going to lecture her about being disharmonious when she's fighting against Nightmare Moon this time? When she tried to drag the sun up on her own, to end her own night? What more does she have to do? The blast of magic she sent towards the Komory Bat swarm might have had rather more force than was usually necessary to destroy such creatures.

[sailorgenerous]

Spike went absolutely ballistic when Rarity went down, shrieking at Luna, at the Nightmares, at anything even close to his fallen person, and even went so far as to snarl and snap at those who dared to get close to her. He wasn't going to hurt anyone, but he did not want anyone hurting his person anymore either.

Luckily, with the attention - and more importantly, the cure spells - being directed her way, it was only a few moments more before Rarity stirred, making unhappy noises. Trees were not good for her coiffure. Her hair was a mess - she just knew it! But it wasn't a priority - at least, not right now.

She got her hooves beneath her and stood, and was very nearly knocked over again by a very enthusiastic and very relieved Spike. "I'm alright, Spike. Thank you, Jeeves, Kri-Kri." She snagged one of the Nightmare bats out of the air with her magic and hurled it at another, meaning to knock them away from Jeeves and possibly into pieces. She didn't see Nightmare Moon, but that didn't mean the Nightmare was gone - Rarity couldn't believe it would run from something like this. No, they needed to use the Elements to end this once it reappeared.

"I need to get to Pinkie Pie," she told Spike. The Pricklemane squeaked and started bouncing towards Lord Tubbington, with Rarity moving quickly behind him, doing her best to dodge the bats.

[revenancenpcs]

The bats prove to be quick little opponents, darting in and out of range and around one another, doing everything they can to dish out damage without actually being hit. Some of them are able to do just that. Jeeves' aim is off, and the bats that don't collide with one another hit him with a punishing screech; Kanji's Meowjesty takes up a lot of space but can't move quickly enough to hit the smaller airborne targets without fear of hitting its person, so the bats hit it with a drain attack; Plum isn't having too much success either and receives a sonic attack to the face for its trouble; and Aqua's Komory Bat is ganged up on by several of its Nightmare counterparts and receives several drain attacks, dropping it to the ground.

Fortunately, not all the bats are agile enough to get out of the way. Toothy clamps his jaws on one Nightmare's wings, which results in a Hebby Repp being dragged around the battle by a panicking Nightmare Komory Bat; Rarity's hit is dead on, and one of the bats shatters while the other one flies in dazed circles; Dizzy blasts his opponent out of the sky and into pieces; Hero's galloping knocks half a dozen bats off-course; Setsuna knocks several bats out of the sky with the Garnet Rod; and Amaterasu's beads strike three bats in quick succession, shattering each of them. Additionally, Chell is able to get through the swarm of bats unharmed.

Aqua's magnet spell is a huge success, gathering most of the bats in the battle into a large clump near the center of the clearing (and unfortunately causing Kanji and Phoebe to miss their last few hits as the Nightmares they were targeting are pulled out of range). Aqua's Pricklemane launches itself straight at the clump, taking out half a dozen bats in one go; Luna's magic blast is perfectly targeted and blasts a dozen Nightmares into pieces.

The bats on the outer rim of the spell begin to escape its clutches and return to attacking people along with those that were never gathered by the spell in the first place. Celestia's magic ground shield is still in place, but Nightmare Moon is nowhere to be seen and there are still plenty of bats to contend with.