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

[juniorganymedian]

Jeeves staggered as the screech hit him, ears going flat as he simply tried to endure it. His concentration broke and his magic dissipated. Descartes was right there, though, healing both Jeeves and Kant. The valet was refreshed, but still incredibly dizzy, and he was having trouble hearing. The sound of the battle was muffled.

That mattered little as the enemy was still there and attacking. He didn't have the luxury of falling back to some measure of safety with the invisible barrier trapping them in the clearing. Once it was clear their person wasn't going to topple over, Kant and Descartes went on the offensive. The Sudo Neku took up the same strategy as before, this time trying to watch out for any flying debris as he shot fire at any Komory Bats that came into range. Descartes tangled with his Nightmare counterparts, going for direct attacks. Jeeves against tried to grab for one of the bats with his magic and use it as a weapon against its fellows.

[realmenknitplushies]

Once more, Kanji swears - not so much from his missing the attack, but from seeing his Dream Eater duo getting hit. They fall back, seeming a bit dazed, but Plum's still trying to go after the breakaways. Just as stubborn as its person, it seems.

The fact that so many of the bats have been pulled together, though, makes it seem worth the risk: "Come on, Take-Mikazuchi!" he yells, his Persona flickering into existence again. "Maziodyne!" Another thunder attack strikes, but this one's a wider-radius one, a cluster of lightning blasts that target the bats individually. He's not the best at magic, compared to his friends, but out of everything he's done so far it's worked the best... he needs to try.

[statisticallyterrible]

"Nope." Chell had no idea, and more importantly didn't care to. Whatever Luna's history, it was getting in the way right now, in the only timeframe that mattered.

"They're trying to get to you. Don't let them." Just like the copy agent on the Mother of Invention, it was all cheap imitations to throw people off their game. Luna and her sister were the obvious heavy hitters of the group, and it would be better for her to use that power smart than angry.

Kri-Kri bleated back at Spike--those manning the defense lines are the least recognized and the greatest necessity. With Rarity back up again, however, he set avout firing lighting spells into the mass of nightmares. A pawn is a fearsome piece when placed effectively, usually on the opposite side of the board but other times too.

[timeywimeyorb]

Phoebe squeaks in protest as she misses her targets, landing back on Setsuna's back. The magical girl pony looks over her shoulder as Rarity gets back to her hooves and is shown to be okay. It is a relief, but Setsuna knows the battle has only just begun. There may be more causalities if this keeps up.

Setsuna narrows her eyes up at the bats remaining and causing more chaos. Energy gathers around the Garnet Rod as she pulls it back, a wind starting to pick up around her. "Dead Scream." She releases another energy blast attack, this one taking on the shape of a planet as it races towards the bats in the air. Setsuna wishes she wasn't so new and could think of some way to rally these ponies into battle.

"Please tell me we have more of a plan than this," she calls out to someone who will listen.

[wavesinherheart]

"Do we have time to be making one?" Aqua answered. In theory there were the Elements, but even with all her research, she had no real idea of how they were meant to use them, and it would probably be easier to manage if their enemy were properly physical - and without Terra's affinity for the earth based spells she can't even try to force the Nightmare out into the open with an earthquake.

(Probably just as well too, now that Luna has followed their enemy down into the ground.)

Instead, she leaves her Spirits to continue hassling the Komory Bats - the Pricklemane sticks with the group still caught by the Magnet spell, while her Komory Bat turns its attentions to the ones that have started to break free from the spell. Aqua, meanwhile, sends a blast of lightning into the mess of bats still contained by the spell - it's her best spell for hitting one thing and a bunch of things around it and with any luck it'll do its work here as well.

[sailorlaughter]

Toothy flails his legs and tail about, trying to drag his prey back to the ground, or at least kick a few more bats on his way through the air. Whatever happens, no way is he going to let go.

"Lord Tubbingtonnnnnnnn!" Pinkie's whining continued as she decided that she was no longer okay with missing out on all the action, but the Meowjesty stayed exactly where he was until he had decided that there wasn't any more insanely dangerous magic flying aimlessly around the battlefield. With a harrumph, he rolled to his feet again, allowing Pinkie to scoot out. Getting back on her hooves, her mane instantly sprang back into its usual shape. "Right! Let's DO this!"

There seemed to be a lot less to be done, though. Where was Nightmare Moon at? "Oh! Hey, Rarity!" Pinkie called as she noticed her friend approaching, somewhat harried by bats. Grabbing the party cannon again, she pivoted it around and aimed a few confetti blasts into the air at them; it wasn't very precise, but the confetti did scatter, and maybe the noise would scare them?

[raisethemoon]

Luna snorted, appearing to completely ignore Chell as she took to the air again, flying after the bats around the edges of the circle. The words, however, were noted; if nothing else, she certainly seems much calmer now that Nightmare Moon isn't immediately attacking.

She'd learned her lesson about using large-scale lightning clouds in such a crowded environment a while ago (though apparently the same lesson did not apply to using trees as melee weapons). Instead, she tries to use a little more precision, either blasting the bats as she catches up with them or tossing them towards Aqua's bat-mass with telekinesis. If that magnet spell is still active, it would be far easier to destroy them all in one great group.

[yabigfurball]

Konohana floated back to her side. Everyone looked to be back in decent shape, and the Wheeflower was ready should the need arise again. Chu continued to stomp at the ground, wanting the Nightmare Moon to show itself, the coward!

Wow, that was a whole lot of lightning up in the air. Ammy knew that while it was a powerful weapon, it could also be quick and unwieldly. And if Luna was flying about in the air, there was a chance it could hit her, or one of the friendly Spirits.

Because of that, Ammy paused time to bring up her canvas, but kept it paused for awhile, studying the battle scene from every angle that her divine sight allowed. Once she felt she could be safe about it, she painted from the lightning sources to the enemy Komory Bats one after the other. It wouldn't stop any friendly fire completely, but her redirecting it from the source would help lessen any hurt to friends, and ensure that their enemies would be hit. It was a lot of careful painting, but eventually she put her canvas away and resumed time.

[sailorgenerous]

Rarity ducked and dodged the spare bats that came her way, being careful to stay away from both them and from Spike's leaps. He was determined to protect his person this time!

It wasn't long before she made it to Pinkie, ducking again as confetti exploded over her head. "Pinkie! Can you keep that up? I have an idea!" If Pinkie and Spike could just keep the bats from her long enough for her to talk...

Rarity raised her voice, loud as she could. It wasn't the Royal Canterlot Voice by any stretch of the imagination, but she did know how to make herself heard when she needed to. "Everypony with an Element of Harmony, listen! Remember how you earned your Element! It's yours for a reason! Focus on that, and on your friendships here!" It was the best she could do with what she knew - Twilight hadn't explained too much about how she'd activated the Elements the first time around, after all, and Rarity hadn't dug too deeply. She rather wished she had, now.

[revenancenpcs]

Evidently holding the ground shield is taking a bit more of Celestia's concentration than her aim is, as her blasts either brush against the Nightmares or zing by them entirely. A few are having similar luck - the stray Nightmares are moving a bit too quickly and flying a bit too high for Plum to reach or for Aqua's Pricklemane to catch up, and they manage to evade Kant's fireballs and Kri-Kri's lightning spells as well. The sneakiest of them approach Setsuna from behind and hit her with a crippling Screech attack, disrupting the Dead Scream before it can get off the ground. The worst off by far is Aqua's bat, who gets too close to the large group of Nightmares and is subsequently ganged up on and hit with several powerful drain attacks in quick succession, dropping it straight to the ground. It will need help soon to prevent it from going to pieces.

The rest of the group, however, is having better luck. Dizzy and Hero manage to take out a handful of bats each, Descartes shatters a few stragglers into pieces, and Jeeves' aim is good enough to knock several bats into Luna's line of fire, at which point she obliterates them entirely, along with half a dozen other bats. Pinkie's confetti isn't quite enough to take anything out, but it does confuse a pair of Nightmares long enough for Toothy's ride to swing by and for him to kick them in the face. They hover, stunned, until they too fall to Luna's barrage.

It's Amaterasu's brushwork that causes the most damage. Kanji's and Aqua's lightning spells were powerful enough already; it's Amaterasu's painting that gives them deadly individualized aim, enough to take out the remaining Nightmares.

The moment the last Nightmare falls to pieces, a blue-black mist seeps from three of the holes in Celestia's shield, forming into three separate Nightmare Moons. Obviously only one is the real one, but that doesn't make either identical copy any less deadly. As one, they each fire off a teal beam of energy from their horns. One is aimed at Aqua; the second, Kanji; the third, Chell. Obviously Nightmare Moon has priorities.