Pinkie Pie: Dream Fighter

by Waxworks

Dreamer

Pinkie raised a hoof and whipped it at the glowing ball. Her hoof went through it and the yellow orb bounced up and down in amusement, seeming to laugh at her. She tightened her lips and furrowed her brow, then went in for another punch. The ball sped at her and her swing, with all her force behind it, passed through, doing absolutely nothing to it. It tinkled softly in the darkness and spun around her head, then turned an angry dark green. The room was awash in lime-colored wickedness as the smoke it was made of roiled and churned. Pinkie crouched and jumped, only for the green ball to speed right through her stomach and dive into Pumpkin Cake.

The poor foal started shifting back and forth in bed, and Pinkie picked her up, shaking her head with a heavy sigh. Soon after she started holding her, Pumpkin started crying. She yowled and screamed, and Pinkie kept cooing softly to her. She rocked her back and forth as Mr. and Mrs. Cake came rushing into the room. They always did, and Pinkie was always there waiting for them, holding the foal as she tried to rock her back to sleep.

“Goodness, Pinkie, I don’t know how you always know, but thank you,” said Mrs. Cake. She reached out and took Pumpkin Cake from her. Pound Cake joined in with his sister and Mr. Cake went to get him out of the crib. The two cried, but they were already getting quieter.

“It’s okay. I just have a sixth sense for these things. I just wish I could stop them from having bad dreams in the first place.”

“You think it’s just a bad dream?” Mr. Cake asked.

“Oh, yeah. They’re not messy or anything. Just bad dreams…” Pinkie said, wistfully.

“Well, you’re always here when they have them, so thank you, Pinkie.”

Pinkie’s mane drooped as she carried herself out of the room, up to her own bed. “You’re welcome,” she said. She walked upstairs, all the way to her room at the top of Sugarcube Corner and flopped into bed. She closed her eyes, willing sleep to come. It was instant.

The next night was the same again. A dream came through the chimney. Pinkie was waiting for it in the kitchen, prepared with a net. This one glowed a cool blue, but she wasn’t fooled. She could smell the nightmare nascent within it. I bubbled just under the surface like a pancake right before you flip. It floated gently around the room, searching for its victim, smelling like a burnt flapjack, sickly-sweet and crunchy with bitterness.

Pinkie followed it from the kitchen as it wandered around the dining area. She hid behind the counter, staring at it as it moved. It didn’t seem to sense her, more’s the pity. She would have liked to see the concern on its face(?) as it tried to determine what was stalking it. Instead, she wasted no time and leaped without a sound, net swinging down on the smoky orb.

The net passed through it, just like the rest. The dream immediately turned to look at her. Like all the others, it bounced in amusement once it was seen. It spun around Pinkie mockingly. She twirled and whipped the net at it again. It just sat there and let the thing pass through it. It didn’t care, and it knew it didn’t need to worry. She was just Pinkie. Just a pitiful pony that couldn’t touch it.

“I’m not gonna let you get to Pumpkin Cake, you salty cupcake!” Pinkie whispered angrily. The dream just bounced and spun. It didn’t matter to it what Pinkie said. It tinkled its tinny laughter in her face, then drove through her head.

Pinkie has brief visions of monstrous faces towering over her, cooing and making strange noises in her face. A glimpse of what Pumpkin Cake’s dreams were like? Poor little thing didn’t understand, yet.

Pinkie punched it with a hoof again. Whiff!

She tried to kick it. Whiff!

She brought her head down at it. Whiff, combined with more strange visions of monstrous faces. Nothing worked, and she couldn’t touch it.

The dream leisurely made its way upstairs with Pinkie Pie grunting and straining as she tried to beat it up. It floated past Mr. and Mrs. Cake’s room and on toward the nursery. It slipped inside the room despite Pinkie’s attempts to grapple it and descended toward the crib. Pinkie Pulled back, fuming as it made one last flourish before diving toward Pumpkin Cake’s head.

Then it burst into sparkling shards. Pinkie covered her face from the flash of light. The foals were still sleeping soundly. Pumpkin Cake wasn’t tossing and turning in her crib. There was no angry crying or terrified screeching. She was calm, sleeping soundly, and happy. Pinkie leaned on the edge of the crib and looked down at her. She even gurgled happily. Pinkie hadn’t seen a dream come inside, but if she had one, that was just a bonus.

Pinkie waited to see if another one would come in or if it would rebuild itself, but nothing was happening. She was happy with that and returned to her room upstairs. If Pumpkin Cake slept through the night, that was good enough. She just wondered why that happened. That was a puzzle for another night.

There were no nightmares for the next few nights, but after three more days Pinkie heard the telltale tinkling of another dream or nightmare entering the building. Her eyes flew open and she threw back the covers. She grabbed her net—this time dipped in sugar for sweetness—and crept out of her room. She followed the high-pitched noise through the halls and down the stairs to the restaurant. It wasn’t in the lobby, so she tip-hoofed into the kitchen, where she saw it floating over the sacks of flour.

This one was blue. It had tiny tendrils reaching out, grasping at things nearby. It couldn’t touch them, but it was just touching them, running its tentacles over them and changing color every time it absorbed the memory of such a thing.

It was going to scare Pumpkin Cake with thoughts of cooking! Pinkie thought. It was going to scare her with things like louse-ridden flour! Burnt sugar! Moldy cakes! Unrisen dough, and dead yeast! Unacceptable! With a whispered shout of defiance, Pinkie charged forward!

“Gaaaaaaah…” she whispered as she swung her sugary net. It passed through the dream and slapped into the sack of flour. A puff of white floated up from the impact, and the dream touched it, absorbing the idea of clouds of flour.

The dream just tinkled at her and spun in a circle. The net did nothing, but Pinkie wasn’t deterred. She bucked at it, but still there was no impact. She couldn’t touch them. She whipped hoof after hoof, even going so far as to hurl the net at it, but nothing changed. It was impervious to her touch, and floated gingerly up the stairs, moving slowly and mockingly to the nursery.

Pinkie growled low in her throat and bit it as it neared the nursery. Thoughts of all the things she’d worried about filled her head: Unrisen dough, rotten confections, and pest-ridden ingredients. The thought scared her and made her sad at the same time, but somehow, she had stopped the dream!

It was trapped in her teeth, and a dream was playing out: She was Pumpkin Cake and Mrs. Cake was standing over her. She said something unintelligible, then disappeared from view. A puff of white came soon after, and a ghostly mockery of Mr. Cake appeared. His eyes were too wide and his jaw jutted out. Fangs rose from his mouth climbing toward the ceiling above. The features grew more exaggerated as more unintelligible sounds filled the dream.

A cupcake covered in branches flew overhead. A cockroach the size of a pony jumped over her. Smoke filled the air and the noises got louder and louder. Finally she turned her head to see Pound Cake, who looked normal. She focused on him and slowly the noises died down to a dull roar in the distance. She kept focusing until everything had calmed down. Then Pinkie awoke.

“Pinkie Pie, are you all right?” Mrs. Cake asked. Pinkie was lying in the hallway just outside the twins’ room. She had been drooling in her sleep, and a puddle of saliva was making her cheek wet. Mr. Cake passed her a cloth and she wiped her mouth, looking around the room.

“Oh, I’m fine, I think. I was just making sure the twins slept well. No nightmares tonight!” she said proudly.

“Well, thank you, Pinkie. But you really shouldn’t sacrifice your own sleep to help the twins. You’re not their mother, after all.”

“No problem at all, Mrs. Cake! I’m their super-duper handy-helpful godmother, and I won’t let any dream make their sleep suffer!” Pinkie Pie saluted.

“Okay, but if I see your work suffering, I’ll tell you again.”

“Okey-dokey-lokey! I’m gonna go make some flapjacks, I had a dream about bad food, and I think I need to make something good to compensate!”

“We’ll be down in a bit, Pinkie.”

“Alrighty!”

Pinkie’s thoughts were about the dream all day. How she had stopped it? She couldn’t touch them, but if she could dream them, she wasted their energy and they didn’t get where they were going. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than letting a foal have a dream they didn’t understand.

But the images in her head weren’t the way they should be. Why would a foal dream about something so strange? They knew their parents, and Mr. Cake wasn’t a monster, though he did have a strange face. Pumpkin Cake shouldn’t be thinking of him like a monster. He was her father! Not to mention the strange dreams she could now see.

It had started only a few weeks ago. Pinkie could see the dreams ponies were going to be having as they floated about. The night sky was filled with them, and sometimes she saw one during the day. They came in all colors and all shapes, though spheres were the most common.

They flitted about, picking up things pertaining to the pony they were going to be dreamed by before zipping to their head and dropping on in. They’d then expend all their dreamy magic and make them have the dream, then; poof! They’d be gone. They didn’t leave any residue behind, so she couldn’t talk to Twilight about it, but maybe if she could contact Princess Luna she might learn something.

But, Pinkie was distractable, and every time she thought she should make the trip, she got sidetracked. Be it by the sight of a friend, the smell of a confection, or the sound of that curious tinkling given off by the dreams. She was continuously distracted, and only reminded when night came and the twins needed her help.

Such was her fate tonight when she caught wind of the tinkling sound inside the house again. Pinkie’s eyes flew open and she crept out of her room. It wasn’t downstairs; this one was in the hall.

It was a deep blue, speckled with lights. It pulsed, crowding the hallway one moment, then taking up a small space the next. It lacked the tentacles the one from before had, and wasn’t going anywhere or doing anything but floating.

As stealthy as could be, Pinkie snuck up on the orb and reached out to touch it. It didn’t draw back, but extended a reaching tentacle to her hoof, touching it.

Much to Pinkie’s surprise, nothing happened. She didn’t get any visions, there was no sense of a dreamscape or lucid terror. Merely a strange calm, like she was dreaming a placid dream.

Pinkie took her hoof away and the dream did otherwise. She wandered around it, staring at its sides, wondering if it was looking at her in the same way. It didn’t turn or appear to turn, it just floated. The tinkling softened as Pinkie wandered around it. The gentle creak of the floorboards under her hooves was the only other sound besides Mr. Cake snoring in the other room.

Pinkie’s curiosity finally got the better of her and she sidled up next to the thing. Her snout was just outside the murky bubble, trying to see inside. It was impermeable; thick and opaque.

“What are you, hmmm?” She turned her head sideways and glared at it with a wide eye, but the tinkling orb gave no answer. “Hmmm… I’ll just have to see, won’t I? I can’t have you waking up the twins!” She took a deep breath, then shoved her head into it.

Black was everywhere. The murky blue of the orb gave way to darkness so thick she couldn’t see her hoof when she waved it in front of her face. She heard nothing, not even the tinkling of the orb before she had pierced it. There were no voices, no breathing, no floorboards; nothing. It was as if she had been transported, but she knew she was still inside Sugarcube Corner. She took a careful step, but although she moved, she felt as if there was nothing beneath her hooves. She had to remind herself this was not a place, but a dream. A very strange dream.

The lack of presence or visions in the dream was confusing. All the others had been active, and the one she’d eaten had been something. This was nothing. “Hellooooo? Mr. Dreamy-dream? Are you here?” she called.

Nothing answered.

Pinkie looked around, feeling her head swing though nothing appeared to move in front of her eyes. She took another step, and another, feeling some sort of movement though she couldn’t see it. She picked up speed, eventually bounding through the darkness.

Black gave way to Ponyville. The town smeared across her eyes, making her blink and rub her face. She stopped bounding and swayed in place, uncomfortable with the sense of motion. When it stopped, she was standing in Ponyville, near the door to Sugarcube Corner, on a sunny day, with an empty town.

Pinkie called out again. “Hellooooo! Is anypony out there? I know it’s a dream! I just want you to stop bothering Pumpkin Cake!” No wind blew, and nothing moved, not even grass. Silence met her call.

A thunderstorm crashed and rain fell. A single blink was all it took for the weather to change. Pinkie was wet instantly, feeling like she was suffocating as water covered her coat and matted down her mane. She gasped, choked, and grasped at her throat.

Thunder shook the air and struck houses in the distance. The rain intensified and fires burned around the city. Carrot Top’s house crumbled silently and disappeared into a black hole in the ground and still Pinkie gasped. She breathed in, feeling air catch in her throat, never giving her enough to satisfy her struggle.

Pinkie calmed herself. This was a dream. There was no rain, there was no thunder, and there were no fires. This was magic, strange and curious, and its purpose was to make her fear it. It was a dream. A nightmare. A charade. Pinkie liked charades.

Pinkie mimed out a stiff wind and swung her hooves to the side. She blew hard with what air she had left, then made a rainbow that swung wide and cheerful across the city. Much to her delight, the clouds were blown away and a rainbow appeared, arcing overhead.

“It’s a dream! I’ve had these before! I can eat however much I want, and I’ll never get fat! Like that time I ate the gingerbread pony out of house, home, and the entire city, but I couldn’t eat him. He was too fast.” Pinkie Pie looked around. The crumbled houses remained, but there were no more fires. The images she saw stuck in her mind, and she remembered them until they changed. It was weird.

Pinkie’s dream town stilled. The rainbow no longer sparkled, the wind halted, the grasses and trees that had wafted in the breeze paused in their gay dance mid-sway, and a gurgling rose from behind.

Water trickled under Pinkie’s hooves, seeping out of the soil. Cobbles clacked together as their foundations were ruined by rising water. It was dirty, dark liquid, carrying mud and filth that lay in the streets, hidden between the cracks until broken free by the rising tide. It was covering her hooves in an instant, then up to her ankles in another. She blinked and suddenly it was at her barrel. Another blink and it was overhead. Pinkie gasped.

It was only a moment, but she inhaled and calmed herself. This was a dream, she reminded herself. A dream forced upon her by some magical force that meant no good. She didn’t have to breathe, she had proven that. She could inhale this fake water and she would be fine. She giggled quietly, like Granny Pie always told her. Dreams were just the ghosties of your brain, come to haunt you in your sleep. They couldn’t hurt you.

Water filled her lungs and she still breathed, but now the houses in Ponyville were floating. They rose up off their foundations and bobbed in the dark, filthy lake, turning end over end. Twilight’s Crystal Castle floated, a dim beacon of partial light in the distance. Sugarcube Corner swung back and forth next to her, a confection house that leaked flour, sugar, and salts from the doors. From the other houses, dark shapes she took to be pony bodies rose from open windows and ruined doors. Some floated up, some sank, but some were stolen. They disappeared into the darkness, either by hoof or by dream logic.

Something swam around her. She could feel the motion in the water—a faint tickle against her fur. She searched, squinting into the darkness, but the murky black obscured her vision. She heard the rush of water and something brushed her fur! She kicked, swimming away, going up—or what she thought was up—to escape or put some distance between herself and this mystery assailant!

She saw it briefly as it swept around behind one of the houses. Another building spun away from some unseen impact, stone and straw flying outward in a starburst of material. The shape moved from building to building, Pinkie’s eyes barely keeping up with it. She turned as it went behind Carrot Top’s house, then it moved to Bon Bon and Lyra’s home, then it crept into Derpy’s. There was silence and stillness for just a moment more, then Derpy’s house exploded, shattering into pieces as the thing—a giant shark—rushed at her, mouth wide open!

Pinkie scrambled her hooves in the water. “It’s just a dream! Just a dream! It can’t get me, it can’t get me! It can’t—ahhhh!”