And now for something random.

What can I say? I’m a video game geek and this kind of just popped into my head as I was brainstorming for skills. This is more of a snippet of a sample scene, although I’m not sure how far I could actually take a concept like this without things getting weirder than they are.

Nightmare Redux

Twilight’s eyes went wide as the mighty hooves of Nightmare Moon came crashing down upon Applejack. Such an occurrence had not been uncommon during the fight, but all the previous times, the orange pony had managed to avoid a direct hit to the face. However, her luck seemed to have run out and Applejack was left a crushed heap on the floor.

“Gah, Rainbow!” Twilight yelled.

“Sorry, Twilight. Don’t worry, I’ve got this!” Dash answered, giving Nightmare Moon a hard buck.

The alicorn turned and countered with a strike of her own, followed by a blast of electricity.

“Agh, no good…” Rainbow cried out.

“Rainbow! Hang on!” Twilight’s horn glowed and a small barrier appeared in front of the pegasus, deflecting the follow up strike. “Fluttershy! Rarity! Help!”

“I’m trying, dear…”

“Ohmygoodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodness…”

“No way… how is she this fast?” Rainbow gasped out, ducking and weaving as best she could, but ultimately unable to keep up. She was growing visibly tired.

Twilight unleashed a torrent of elemental magic, but Nightmare Moon seemed to be hardly affected. She tried again and again, but her power just was not enough. And without Applejack, using the Elements was not an option.

A particularly vicious strike sent Rainbow flying backward into the wall and as she hit the ground, she slumped over lifelessly.

“No…. Pinkie! Back me up! I’m going in!” Twilight said with a gulp. She raised a magic barrier around herself, hoping she could somehow go hoof to hoof with Nightmare Moon.

But she was too late, a powerful spell of biting mist struck out in a nova. Twilight’s shield protected her, but her friends were not so lucky.

“Oh… oh dear…”

“I’m sorry, girls…”

“That’s no fun…”

“No…” Twilight gasped. She was all alone now. Desperately, she put up another barrier, eyes flaring white as she began channeling her strongest spell.

Nightmare Moon unleashed another nova of magic, nullifying Twilight’s shield before charging straight at the unicorn. However, as she reached about halfway, the purple pony unleashed her attack. A blindingly white ball of destruction formed in front of the alicorn, at first contracting upon itself, then exploding outward, consuming the middle of the room.

As the light cleared, the form of Nightmare Moon came barreling out of ground zero and struck Twilight hard. The unicorn was thrown several feet through the air before she landed on the stone floor with a crack. Her vision faded away.

Suddenly she was back in the library, standing beside the enchanted stone box. There was a hole at the top, the inside hollowed out. Within the box was a miniature arena in the shape of the princesses’ old castle, its dark stones housing tiny copies of one Nightmare Moon and one each of Twilight and her friends.

“Come on girls, what was that?” the purple pony asked, glaring over the box at her friends. “We’ve beaten Nightmare Moon in real life, how are we losing this?”

“In real life she didn’t have twenty billion phases or whatever it is you call them,” Dash replied.

“It’s only five! Besides, we should have had that! You need to stop getting impatient and pulling aggro! You know Fluttershy gets flustered if she has to swap healing targets!”

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy cut in unnecessarily.

“It’s okay, Sugarcube, you tried your best,” Applejack smiled.

“And Pinkie, come pay attention! You need to time those songs better! Applejack shouldn’t even be taking crits like that!”

“Yes, my mana simply cannot hold up to that kind of damage,” Rarity added.

“Oh, sorry. I’ll do better this time, don’t worry!”

“All right, looks like she reset. I think Rainbow should be reachable without pulling, so go ahead and use your self-res,” Twilight said.

“Oh… okay, here goes.”

“Okay, everypony start buffing. I’ll go over the strategy one more time…”