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

[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.