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]

Oh. Singing. Luna really wasn't sure how she felt about singing at the present time.

Taking in the three doppelgangers, she teleported over to the Nightmare targeting Chell and lashed out at it with both forehooves. Enough flinging magic around here; she could determine which were illusion and which were real quickly enough with her own hooves.

[yabigfurball]

Konohana didn't need mastergod to tell her twice, and flittered back out to heal some of the Spirits and people that had been injured. Ammy listened through Rarity's speech...so, they had to activate these necklaces somehow? She tried to focus on the feelings of when they'd found it...her thoughts of wanting to help those hurt. She tried to think of the many people she'd met here, and all their Spirits, and how they had all had such difficult lives deserving of more kindness.

She didn't join in the singing herself, since, well, she couldn't sing. She definitely caught the energy of the song, though.

There was still some immediate fighting to do, though! Ammy elected to throw in another failsafe herself. She paused time, tried to angle her canvas just right, and painted a power slash across the teal energy beams. Trying to deflect multiple projectiles at once was tricky business, but hopefully at least one of those would get knocked back.

Chu was not so burdened by having a special necklace, though. As soon as the three Nightmares arose, he reared up and charged the nearest one, horns down. If it wasn't the real one, then oh well, another distraction eliminated.

[juniorganymedian]

Jeeves felt his mood lighten considerably at the bracing music. He was almost tempted to- No. It had been mortifying enough to start singing and prancing with Pinkie Pie once. Whatever magic the pink pony had and the power to incite musical acumen in him and the others she seemed to possess, it was most disturbing.

The valet couldn't help humming along to the various songs racing around the clearing, but he managed to hold off on actually singing out. Instead, he lifted Kant with his magic and aimed the Sudo Neku at the Nightmare Moon attacking Aqua. Hopefully, facilitating his aim and being able to yank him out of harms way would let him land a few hits.

Meanwhile, Descartes sent a sonic attack at the the Nightmare Moon attacking Chell. It had worked once. If this was the real one, perhaps it would work again.

[statisticallyterrible]

As one who had only just gotten used to the concept of speaking in front of others, singing was a long ways off for Chell. Figuring out what on earth she was supposed to do with her Element was enough trouble already, without half the battlefield yelling and rhyming about its importance.

For a long time, Chell had figured her positive qualities numbered few, and none of them interpersonal. It had suited her fine; she counted on no one, and no one counted on her. If nothing else, it made things simple. Now, everything was complicated, and counting on her trusting in a number of people she barely knew, and them putting a faith in her she honestly was lacking in herself. She knew how to look out for herself, no others.

Setsuna called for the others to protect her and the other elements. A bat appeared in front of her--not hers, who was screaming bloody murder at the mean nasty thing attacking its person--and Chell had just about enough. She wasn't about to have strangers put themselves or their companions on the line for someone like her. It was a plain waste of everyone's time.

"This Elements stuff is stupid." You wanted her to be honest? Fine, she would be honest. "A necklace doesn't make me more important than the rest of you."

She dove--hopefully out of the way of the blast, but more focused on divebombing the Nightmare Moon focused on Aqua.

[revenancenpcs]

The idea of shields is a good one. Unfortunately, it doesn't work entirely quite as planned - not one of Celestia's shields holds against Nightmare Moon's attacks. Fortunately, Setsuna's own attempt works better, as Garnet Ball manages to protect both Kanji and Hero from the brunt of the attack. Amaterasu, meanwhile, has better luck with her power slash, but only just; while she does manage to deflect the beam that had been heading for Aqua, the other two remain on course. Left to take the only beam that is not either deflected or blocked, Dizzy takes a heavy blow and is only spared being left very nearly going to pieces by the beam having passed through Celestia's shield first.

The various attacks on the Nightmare Moons, on the other hand, meet with a little bit more success. Chu's charge is successful, revealing the Nightmare Moon attacking Kanji as one of the illusions. It fades away just in time for Tubbington's tackle to miss; Tubbington ends up landing more or less on his face as a result. Chell's dive at the Nightmare Moon attacking Aqua is also successful and while it doesn't do particularly much damage, it reveals that Nightmare Moon as being another of the illusions. Unfortunately, this leaves Kant at something of a loss for what to do; his attack misses partially as a result of that and partially as a result of the intended target not being there anymore.

Descartes and Luna, meanwhile, find themselves attacking the real Nightmare Moon. Descartes' attack doesn't do terribly much in the long run but it does hit; Luna's also does so and does a good bit more the long run.

Better still is the fact that a few of the Elements are reacting to the wills of their bearers. Amaterasu's, Kanji's, and Pinkie's are glowing, although in the midst of all the chaos it might be a little hard to spot.

Nightmare Moon doesn't make any it easier either, as she takes that exact moment to fade into the ground once again. This time, however, she doesn't summon up bats again. Instead, she plays with the very earth itself - anyone expecting the battlefield to remain stable throughout will be in for a nasty surprise as the earth shifts and heaves as if it's very nearly alive, with parts of it suddenly jutting out, or just as suddenly falling away.