• Story: The New Dawn of the Old Night (Update Part 5!)

    [Grimdark][Adventure]

    Author: MiloSaysRelax
    Description: Celestia has been keeping a close eye on here once wayward sister Luna, but that hasn't stopped Luna from plotting her demise (and the demise of the Elements of Harmony) in absolute secrecy. After three-years under house arrest in the castle, the first steps in her plan to overthrow Princess Celestia have been set in motion, on the night of a full moon, as she schemes to take the throne and bring the lands of Equestria to everlasting night once again, and killing all who stand in her way.
    The New Dawn of the Old Night
    The New Dawn of the Old Night Part 2
    The New Dawn of the Old Night Part 3
    The New Dawn of the Old Night Part 4
    The New Dawn of the Old Night Part 5 (New!)

    Fanfiction.net (All Links)


    Additional Tags: Long, Battles, Forbidden Magic, Violence, Sibling Rivalry

    52 comments:

    1. Have to say this one is kinda creepin' me out. I'll give it a read, but I'm getting shivers from that description.

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    2. I'm... a little worried about this one.

      But hey. Have pony, will read. Besides, it has Zecora as a tag, as well as Wonderbolts and The G'n'PT.

      I haven't read much Nightmare Moon anyway.

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    3. Zecora, the Wonderbolts and GnPT don't appear in this chapter, I'm afraid, but they will appear later on. :D

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    4. SLANDER AND MALICIOUS PROPAGANDA! ALL HAIL THE GLORIOUS LUNAR REPUBLIC, ONWARD TO A BETTER FUTURE AND FREE EQUESTRIA!

      (story looks awesome, reading now)

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    5. not many Evil!Luna stuff out there, and I gotta love me some Nightmare Moon action! Will read ;)

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    6. Hey hey, pretty fabulous so far.

      I find it easier to visualise Nightmare Moon instead of Luna though. What with the nefariousness and all. A small Nightmare Moon, actually, the same size as Luna.

      Damnit, that looks adorable in my head. >.<

      inb4 Nightmare Moon is declared Best Pony.

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    7. One tiny, itsy bitsy flaw in this whole concept.

      Why would Luna wait only three years? She's immortal and stuff -- she could have waited 500 years and made sure the bearers of the Elements of Harmony are buried and forgotten, as well as making Celestia much less suspicious of her.

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    8. AWW YEAH evil Luna and GaPT tag in one story!

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    9. @Anonymous no. 2

      The reason for Luna perhaps jumping the gun a bit will be touched upon in later chapters, so I won't spoil it too much, but I'll just say that, while revenge is a dish best served cold, leaving the dish to cool for 500 years was a bit more time than Luna wished to wait. :D

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    10. Good start. I'll add it to my list. I can deal with vindictive Luna and angry Luna, but for some reason Evil Luna freaks me right the hell out.



      Oh well. I'll simply have to put up with it.
      *favorites*

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    11. Please make Luna turn back into Nightmare Moon.
      She truly is the best pony of them all. :)

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    12. Hrmm well I've got a few thoughts here.

      [SPOILERS You dun been warned}






      So why in world is this taking half the story to light some soot powder. Why are the main cast acting in such an odd way? It's like two different styles are in play here. An interesting scheme set about by Luna and this comedy insane soot (Gunpowder amirite?) thing. I don't feel engaged with the mane cast by the way they are acting.

      It has promise, but most stories do so early. You're taking characters like Luna in the right direction as there personalities are not really defined in the show so much. Yet on the other hoof you've got the mane cast acting IMHO really OOC.

      Oh well, for now I'll leave it as a tentative 4/5 for promise and encouragement. Just please try to use less CAPS in your SENTENCES it's a bit ANNOYING to some READERS.

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    13. @Anonymous

      I'll keep that in mind, thank you :D The only main character I was really worried about in this chapter was Rainbow Dash (watching the sunset? Probably not) but I'd thought I'd got everyone else down at least reasonably well. And yeah, the caps thing could've gone either way, but Pinkie Pie does shout a lot :P

      Having said all that, I'd like to thank you (and everyone else) for their feedback so far, this is my first attempt at any fanfiction of any type, so I didn't expect to get it 100% right the first time, and it's only you guys who can tell me how to get it 100% right :D

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    14. I find it a little difficult to read. I don't know if it's just Googledocs or something, but a little reformatting could go a long way to making this story a 5-star.

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    15. Am I the only brony who likes to get kind of wasted and then read these?

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    16. I like it! For some reason evil!Luna seems really appealing to me. It would make sense to be bitter after a 1000 year punishment. Have you ever read a fic on ponychan called... Lunas moon journal I think? Anyway, it does a great job describing just what it was like up there and NMM's motivations. Anyway, you're doing great and please continue to update!

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    17. 1 question: is the boompowder going to somehow be the key to NMMs defeat? Kinda anticlimatic to go through all that planning just to get blown up by magic TNT

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    18. YES! YES! YES! This is exactly how I wanted the story to progress.
      ALL HAIL MY KILLER QUEEN OF THE NIGHT!

      Nightmare )

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    19. Also, for those looking for Trixie/Zecorah, they'll both be making appearances in the next chapter.

      Also, the Diamond Dogs, for any fans of them :D

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    20. This is the first chapter for any story in a good while where there were times that I was afraid to keep reading it.


      Take that as a compliment, because that is the intent.

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    21. I couldn't really bring myself to care about the gunpowder antics. It wasn't that the mane 6 were so out of character (although Rarity was a bit meaner than usual). The whole thing just isn't relevant to Luna's plans at this time, making it all seem kind of pointless. Might be more effective to pay less attention to Twi and her friends in future chapters, I mean it's not like they need the extra characterization, right?

      As for Luna's coup, I have to say I'm a little disappointed in the intelligence of both sisters. Keeping Luna locked up for three years kind of made her eventual revenge attempt into a self-fulfilling prophecy. What else was Luna going to do for all that time besides boil with rage? Celly also had the power to control which information her sister had access to, meaning everything Luna read about the null-magic gem might have been entirely made up. Missed an opportunity there, Trollestia.

      Luna's plan was great until she fell into the same trap every cartoon villain falls for: the monologue. It didn't hurt her this time, but I bet one of the mane 6 is going to sneak a bag full of gunpowder into her back pocket while she's pontificating.

      Either way, I for one welcome our new Nightmarish overlord.

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    22. Twilight and the girls are gonna get a bit less in the next chapter. I clearly suck at keeping them in character :P Well, at least I have an excuse to watch the series again, I clearly need to do more research :D

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    23. "Luna, what are you doing?!"

      "Succeeding you."

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    24. @Anonymous

      "...sister!"

      haha wow... a WC3 reference and it fits

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    25. I liked this, it's very dark. However, my main gripe is that didn't Celestia realise that by leaving her sister under house arrest would breed resentment? I liked the writing style, and the descriptions of what happened to Celestia are, in parts, harrowing. A great job.

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    26. Oh crap, well now I feel very ashamed that I missed such an obvious opportunity to make a WC3 reference. :D

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    27. Great-looking story so far. I'll tell ya what I liked, and what I didn't like.

      There are some slight spelling/grammar errors in some places, but that's not too big a deal. If you want something more in-depth, I'd be happy to go back through and point them out.

      Also, something about the way the main cast acted didn't seem quite in character for most of them. I dunno, it just didn't really feel like them (Rarity, especially, seemed a bit too concerned for her looks, and not enough about her friends).

      However, the Luna parts were brilliant! I really like this portrayal of the night princess: still full of resentment, secretly planning to overthrow her sister. Part of me hopes she's actually like this in the show (yeah, I'm evil like that). The scene where she takes over is just plain awesome.

      Tl;dr I'm really liking how things are shaping up. Just work a bit more on your characterization for the main 6. I can't wait to see what happens next!

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    28. Jesus Christ.


      The author of this story is going to kill me. My heart was in my throat, beating at an almost-certainly unsafe BPM throughout almost the whole thing.



      And it finally clicked with Chapter 3 exactly why everything that happens in this story is bothering me so much, and that realization just makes it worse.

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    29. "The entire population of Ponyville went silent"

      I think you meant Canterlot there.

      That aside, I'm loving this fic. I also noticed a few grammar errors here and there, but those things are like forces of nature.

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    30. Ugh, there's potential here, but there so many problems riddling it that just need addressing that stop it from being an interesting piece of fan-fiction.

      Firstly, what's already been addressed before, is the whole gun powder antics in the beginning which seem to be completely irrelevant at this point in time and don't seem to have any relation to Luna and her plans.

      Unless they use the powder to help their escape or protect Ponyville, which already makes this seem obviously.

      We know you're either going to use it later or just abandon it. Either result being neither surprising or beneficial to the overall plot whatsoever. There is no clear Red Herring to distract or trick the reader from the items intended purpose in the plot.

      It's just not subtle, either the powder is going to be used later on or not. Most likely going to be used against Luna's attack on Ponyville is my guess, which I hope isn't the case due to the predictability of it.

      Secondly, there's Luna herself, while interesting and a wonderful fresh of breath air being evil, is the shallow sort of evil a lot of the times. Along with not being subtle about it, at all.

      Oh, she took control of that guards mind to punch the other guard to see if the mind control worked. Alright, that's sufficiently sickish of her and is actually kind of visually funny.

      ...

      Wait, now she's asking him to beat the guy to death. Alright, I get it, she's evil. Why not just have her drown a box of kittens next. Oh, then she says that anyone who has bad thoughts won't be punished by death, but their families will?

      Alright, I get it, she's evil. Can you be any more blunt with the characterization of this? What comes from a good villain is subtlety, appearance, intimidation through words and power, not outright aggression.

      Here, Luna seems to act like a complete psychopath while being witty the other half of the time.

      Thirdly, there's Trixie's attempt at murder which seem to come completely out of nowhere considering she just seemed like jerk in her debut episode and not a murderer.

      That and where do people keep getting this idea that Trixie is somehow just as powerful as Twilight, since the whole point of her debut episode was to show her as a con artist.

      She's honestly much more interesting as a character with lesser power than anything else to be quite honest and it disappoints me that no one seems to have written a piece of fan-fiction in which she isn't just a powerful as Twilight for some reason other than "just 'cause."

      Finally, the characterization of the mane cast seems to be a bit off as many have mentioned before, the more noticeably one being Rarity.

      Really, these are one of the rare piece of MLP:FiM fan-fiction that actually portrays Luna as evil, but it just has so many kinks in it I'm not sure how it's going to continue to be honest, it just hasn't pulled me in.

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    31. "Unless they use the powder to help their escape or protect Ponyville, which already makes this seem obviously."

      I got that vibe as well.


      "Here, Luna seems to act like a complete psychopath while being witty the other half of the time."

      That's what I like about this fic tho!

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    32. Yeah, gunpowder subplot(heh) seems to get a little too much focus as a Chekhov's gun, but other than that I think this fic has potential.

      On that note, why did I think Kanye West's "Power" go well with the scenes with Luna/Nightmare?

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    33. @TechniFreak5

      Unsurprisingly, that was the effect I was going for. :D

      @Anon with that really big comment

      Hmm. A lot of that rant was probably quite true. Although I'll make the point of saying that I never once tried to imply that Trixie was more powerful than Twilight, but I did try to imply that she had the POTENTIAL to be as powerful.

      I can see everyone's issue with the mane cast...yeah, I'm not great at that, I'll admit, and I am trying to work on that (with minimal success, it seems :D) but your issues seem to be more with the supporting casts actions. I just figured, since NM and Trixie only got about 10 minutes of airtime each, I could take a few liberties with their characters :D

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    34. "The rest of the walls now bear."

      The walls were bear....

      THE WALLS ARE BEAR OH JESUS CHRYSLER RUN

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    35. Woah, this NMM if freaking evil! And that's awesome! One question though, probably not your fault but, why is this under Celestia: Normal?

      Makes no sense, *pony shrug*

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    36. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    37. Unfortunate bear typos aside, I really enjoyed this new chapter.

      It was interesting to see Luna crossing the moral event horizon when she ordered one of her guard zombie's to beat his comrade to death. Since the past two chapters actually had us rooting for her.

      I didn't think the whole 'dare to think poorly of me and I'll kill your family while you watch' speech was over the top at all. Deep down, all Luna wants is to be loved. If you can't give her that love, you're dead to her, literally. However, I think that you did go a little overboard with some of NMM's other threats. The letter in particular, I felt was being much too blunt. She wouldn't write "I'm going to torture you and it will be painful. Afterwards, you will die." NMM would be more poetic about it.

      Once again I wasn't really interested in the side stories (to the anon who made the Gunpowder Subplot pun up there: you're terrible). Spitfire and Soarin' need more characterization to be sympathetic.

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    38. As I said before, this is looking pretty interesting, but there were some errors that just drew me out of the story. Would you be interested in somepony like me proofreading?

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    39. Milo, Please dont listen to all of the negative critique and criticism that these parasitic, troglodyte, little simpletons are giving you. These stories, in my opinion, are the greatest series that I have read so far in MLP fanfiction. This whole storyline is so good, I have it saved in my favorites and everyday I check for a new chapter to emerge out of the shadows so it can bring joy to my dark and evil heart. I cannot wait for the next chapter so I can find out what deliciously evil plans NMM has in store for the ponies. Please, oh please dont you ever stop writing this. I might have to go on a killing spree if you do, and that wouldnt be pleasant, now would it? Just kidding. :) But in all regards, keep up the great work! Cant wait for the rest of the story to come into fruition!

      ~Your number one fan and reader, StardustThePony

      P.S. When I read Part 3, I was so happy that NMM chose her, that I found a picture that you might like, http://oat.nu/8yq-b

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    40. Part 4 link is broken

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    41. You put the wrong day for the post time on this one.

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    42. Link is broken :O

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    43. Damn this story does of good job of making me hate Luna. I still think the mane 6 end up using elements of harmony to defeat NMM/Luna unlike Celestia no single one of them are harnessing the full power of the elements.

      Story makes me very torn whether I want redemption for the villain as there were a few moments I could identify with her issues or if I'd prefer NMM/Luna to just go die in a fire/boom dust at the end.

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    44. Dunno what happened with the G-Doc link, guys, but there is a fanfiction.net link there too :D

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    45. Well, this is shaping up to be a very ambitious and interesting tale. I hope you don't think of me as a 'parasitic troglodyte' for criticizing you.

      The characterizing of the mane 6 has improved, I particularly like the dynamic between Dash and AJ.

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    46. Oh ho ho ho Luna... there's a personal hell for you, rest assured. A millenium on the moon? That'g going to be a nice vacation in comparison.

      I like this story, very much so. The dynamic between AJ and Rainbow is spot on I think.

      Just one thing I'd like to adress; It's not a problem in any way, more like something I found peculiar in many many fics:

      The others refer to Rainbow as "Dash", when in the show they will almost always either call her "Rainbow" or her full name. It's even more strange with Pinkie, as many writers have her say "Dashie" over and over again despite her using "Rainbow Dash" probably ten times as much or more, and she only said it as part of an alliterastion (" She's not a tree, Dashie!"). The only character I remember using "Dash" exclusively is Gilda.

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    47. I must say, it's quite humbling how many people are hassling me for updates. Not that it's a hassle, I love the fact that my writing is good enough for people to want more.

      Although how one guy found my YouTube page is beyond me :D

      But yes, IT'S BEEN UPDATED! I was actually unaware that updates only turn up in the story update post now, which...lessens the exposure, but it's there, guys!

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    48. PS, I would also say to subscribe to me on fanfiction.net, then you can get handy dandy e-mails about when my next chapter is up! I always submit to EqD before updating the FF page, so it'll give you some warning that the story is to be updated here!

      (Also, there's the beginning of a story that EqD rejected, which is on FF.net, and I'd love feedback on that :D)

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    49. This is still creeping me out as usual.

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    50. Twilight the mad bomber is all I'm getting from the end of that chapter... I'm afraid for the ponyfolk :P

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