//------------------------------// // Just Another Nightmare // Story: Luna in the Dream Diary // by BetaGravGear //------------------------------// It was a sunny day in Cloudsdale as the large crowd waited in front of the Wonderbolts training center waiting to hear who was able to make it into the prestigious group this time. In the small group of cadets that was standing next to the stage stood an overly confident looking cyan Pegasus who knew her name was going to be called. Rainbow Dash, easily identifiable by her namesake mane, performed much better than all the other cadets and knew that Captain Spitfire saw something in her. The crowd got silent as Spitfire got on stage and headed toward the podium. She reached it and took a moment to clear her throat before addressing the cadets and the waiting crowd. “Ladies and Gentlecolts,” she began in a loud but professional voice, “we are all gathered here today for a very special occasion. Standing before you are twenty talented cadets who have been training non-stop for a week to become part of the glorious Wonderbolts.” The crowd cheered before quieting down for Spitfire to continue. “Unfortunately, only three of these aces will be allowed to don the suit and become part of this elite family. I shall now call the three who have shown that they are above the rest in both terms of skill and awesomeness.” Another Wonderbolt flew in and landed next to Spitfire. On his back was a box that contained three pairs of the famous Wonderbolt Goggles. The Wonderbolt took the box into his wing and waited for the honorees to come up. Spitfire turned her attention towards the cadets as she started to speak off the list of the three who had made the cut. “First graduate and newest Wonderbolt is,” Spitfire paused for a moment for dramatic effect before continuing. “Wildfire!” The crowd roared as a tan mare with a burning tire cutie mark walked up on stage to accept her official goggles as Spitfire hushed the crowd to announce the next graduate. “Next,” Spitfire continued after the crowd finally got silent, “is a mare that has shown a real unique style. The second graduate is Derpy Hooves.” The crowd once again roared as a blonde, gray mare with yellow wall eyes clumsily flew on stage next to Wildfire to get her pair of goggles. The cheering died down once Spitfire started speaking again. “Last, but definitely not least,” Spitfire began with a voice that had more pride than before, “is a mare who really proved herself to be above all others in all manners of skill, awesomeness, and radicalness. The third and last newest Wonderbolt is none other than,” Spitfire paused as she watched everypony hold their breath in anticipation. After waiting ten seconds, she announced the finale graduate. “Twilight Sparkle” she yelled as the crowd went wild. Twilight flew on stage next to Derpy, her horn seeming to be missing and instead a pair of lavender wings at her side. Rainbow Dash looked astonished as she tried to voice her opinion. “How is that even possible?” Rainbow asked as everypony suddenly turned toward her, their eyes began to glow a dark shade of red as the sky started to take a more crimson hue. “Because,” They all said simultaneously, “you are a failure.” The cloud underneath Rainbow Dash disappeared causing her to start plummeting down towards the earth below. She tried to open her wings to get out of the fall, but to her horror her wings were missing. Rainbow started to scream as she continued to fall, the ground below getting closer and closer with each passing second. Rainbow waited for the inevitable impact with the ground, but it never came. She opened her eyes to see that Twilight had flown down to save her. Twilight carried Rainbow to the ground which Rainbow was, for once, glad to be on. Rainbow then noticed she now had a horn which caused her to start laughing…. Luna admired her handiwork from a distant cloud as Rainbow Dash trotted off with Twilight, a smile now on her face. Luna chuckled to herself as she left Rainbow Dash’s dream bubble to go back into the dream valley. Luna had come at just the right moment; Rainbows dream turned nightmare had really gotten out of control quickly. Luna continued to patrol the dream valley, looking for any indications of a nightmare in the works to fix. As she peered into different dream bubbles, she saw many different scenes; Twilight meeting Star Swirl the Bearded, Lyra walking on two legs with odd appendages on the end of her fore hooves, a young brownish stallion with gray stripes finding something in a cave with a white griffin, Derpy eating an endless supply of muffins, among other pleasant looking dreams. As Luna got deeper into the valley, she noticed a distorted looking bubble off in the distance. This one seemed much different. A very dark aura surrounded it and it was impossible to see anything within it. Luna quickly galloped toward it, fearing that somepony was stuck in a very strong nightmare. When she arrived at it she saw that it was much darker than she thought, its aura matching Nightmare Moon in terms of darkness. Luna hesitated for a moment, unsure if it could even be one of her loyal subjects’ dreams. She knew that on very rare occurrences, a dream from another world would manage to make it into the valley. Luna also knew she could not take the risk, because if it was one of her loyal subjects in there then they were in the nightmare of a lifetime and could damage them for life. With that knowledge, Luna jumped into the bubble, unsure of what to expect on the other side of it. Luna emerged on the other side of the bubble to find herself in a weird looking room, its floor a series of black and two greenish circles and seemingly no kind of roof, just emptiness. On the outer green circle were thirteen doors, each having its own strange design. Luna felt chills go down her back as she noticed that there were no edges to this nightmare, just emptiness continuing beyond walkable distance. She felt as though there was a strange presence nearby, not one of the dreamer like she usually felt. This presence felt darker, but at the same time it was very faint. Luna just sighed and decided that the only way to find out exactly whose nightmare she had stumbled into was to go through one of the doors that surrounded her. Looking at the choices in front of her, Luna picked one that seemed to be the least threating which was the one with stacked purple rectangles of varying sizes. As she went through, Luna was enveloped by complete darkness for a moment before exiting through another door of the same design in a whole new area. As Luna started to look around at her new surroundings, she noticed that this part of the nightmare was rather strange. She seemed to be walking on some kind of invisible surface, the only thing that she could see below her a tribal image of a red creature, which looked kind of like a monkey with its hands up, slowly drifting to the right. Scattered around was what looked like weird bipedal creatures made up of a wide variety of colors, all of which had round, shield shaped heads and carried a shield their hands. As Luna walked towards one, she noted that it did not move a single muscle, almost as if they were some kind of statue. She got in front of the creature and tried to communicate with it. "Greetings...uhhh...being. May we ask as to what you might be, and...where we might be?" Luna asked the towering figure as nicely as she could. After waiting a few seconds and getting not even a twitch from the large figure, Luna just backed away from the strange figure and ventured on onto what seemed like an endless horizon of darkness. As she walked on, Luna saw varying formations of the weird, unmoving creatures. Each one that she saw gave her a very unsettling feeling, not like they were going to attack her, but rather that something was very wrong. Luna started to quicken her pace after seeing a rather large formation of the creatures, continuing this quickened pace until seeing a strange formation of black, oddly shaped black and purple pillars. Curious to this new object in front of her that seemed a little more inviting than the unmoving inhabitants of this nightmare, Luna walked up to the pillars and brought her hoof up to it. Instantly she saw a blinding white flash that blinded her for a second. When Luna opened her eyes, she saw she was now in a pitch black area with only a small white ladder in the distance. Starting to get a little more paranoid, Luna decided to try to go up the white ladder to hopefully end up in a much more bright and cheerful place. She took one step forward and suddenly her vision turned to static for a microsecond, causing her to jump and let out a small eep. After catching her breath for a moment, Luna braced herself and took another step with the same static entering her vision. This confused Luna greatly, but decided it must just be part of the nightmare. Luna continued to take cautionary steps toward the white ladder until she hit what could only be described as an invisible wall. Getting even more puzzled than before, Luna pushed her hoof against this unseen force blocking her from what could be her salvation from the very unnatural darkness that currently surrounded her. She thought for a moment about what to do when she suddenly remembered that she was able to teleport. Focusing her mind on the white ladder, Luna activated a teleportation spell which engulfed her in a muffled flash. When she opened her eyes, Luna saw that she was now in front of the ladder which when she went to grab it was once again blinded by a bright flash of light.