The Shadowed Nightmare

by Night_Shine

The Shadowed Nightmare, pt. 1

It was a beautiful day. The afternoon sun was shining high in the sky as Fluttershy glided through the meadow, her squeals of delight the only sound, besides the noise of the soft breeze caressing the brilliant gold sunflowers.
Fluttershy floated down next to a flower which was particularly beautiful, the all of the petals glistening in the light of day. As she stopped to smell the flower’s intoxicating aroma, she noticed Angel bounce up beside her and rub his little head on her shoulder. She smiled.

“Oh, this is such a nice little meadow. I should show this to everypony so they can see how pretty it is.” she said.
Fluttershy flew up and let the wind set her down softly on her back, the sunflowers tickling her. She closed her eyes. “Isn’t it pretty, Angel?”

Bum-bum.

There was no reply.

Bum-bum.

Suddenly realizing something was wrong, Fluttershy whirled around only to be staring directly into the eyes of one of scariest-looking ponies she had ever seen.

Bum-bum.

Its eyes were glowing bright red, with no pupils. Its body was a deep, dark blue, the color of midnight.

Bum-bum.

Its mouth was completely obscured by a metal mask shining harshly in the bright light of the afternoon. Its horn had been snapped off in the middle and repaired with the same shining metal, and its ears appeared to be the same. Ripped and substituted with deathly chrome.

Bum-bum.

Fluttershy stood up with a jerk, her eyes wide as she tried to digest the fact that this pony was standing right in front of her. As she took a closer look, she noticed that it had metal bands around its legs, and also had no mane or tail whatsoever.

Bum-bum.

“Who…..who are you?” Fluttershy summoned the courage to say after almost a minute of these two ponies staring at each other. It did not say a word, nor even blink, but just stared.

Bum-bum.

As if it was waiting for something to happen.

Bum-bum.

All of a sudden Fluttershy smelled smoke, turned around and saw to her utter horror that the meadow behind her was now on fire. The peaceful green-on-yellow which had been there only moments before was replaced by a roaring, all-consuming bright red and orange. The blue sky became a blackened gray.

Bum-bum.

She whipped back around to the silent pony. “Why would you do this to me?!”

Bum-bum.

It threw its head back and reared up into the air; from inside of its hoof deployed a set of four long, gleaming, narrow, sharpened metal spikes.
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum-
Fluttershy screamed as the pony pounced down on top of her and

With a start, Fluttershy awoke. She took notice of her surroundings—it was night; she was lying in her bed, in her cottage. The moon was high and bright outside and she could hear the night breeze murmuring outside.
She was safe.

“Oh, it was only a scary nightmare. I hope I can still get some sleep before helping out Rainbow Dash with her tricks tomorrow…”

Fluttershy gave a huge sigh, turned over, and tried to get back to sleep.

***

Twilight Sparkle levitated one of the last books back into the library shelf: Daring Do and the Griffin’s Goblet. Great novel; it had some of the best moments in the Daring Do series. Twilight smiled as she remembered the part where Daring was hanging by one hoof, and had to end up leaving the Goblet behind or risk falling into the bottomless chasm…

Anyway she fitted the book with care into its slot under D, with her new alphabetical sorting system. The one problem with this new system was that now, the series was all out of order, because of the titles. Oh well—she could always come up with a new organizational system. Maybe she should organize by…alphabetical by the title of the series? Hmm. Well, there would be time enough to think of that later. Right now Twilight had to fit in as many of the books as she could, then head on out into town. Apparently Rainbow Dash was going to practice some tricks today. Maybe she could watch that after lunch, if she didn’t already miss it.

Suddenly she frowned. One of her books was missing from the pile, a book she had not gotten around to reading yet. “Spike, have you seen Dream Magic for the Advanced Student?” she called. Spike, who was standing on top of the ladder on the other end of the room, simply shrugged. “If it’s not in there, it’ll turn up later. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Twilight continued, “But it was right here in this pile just last night! What could have happened to it since then? Maybe somepony stole it after I went to sleep!”

Spike rolled his eyes and snorted, causing a wisp of flame to fly out his nose and dissipate into the air. “Why would anypony want a dusty old book about dreams? And for that matter, who would go to the trouble and take it at night? It’s not like they couldn’t just come in during the day and ask you for it.”

A loud growl sounded in the air. Glancing down and realizing it was her stomach, Twilight said “I don’t know why somepony would do that, but can you finish up the D section while I go into town? I need to go buy lunch; you can help yourself to the fridge for yours.” Spike’s eyes lit up and he didn’t say another word for fear of Twilight re-thinking her words.

Twilight Sparkle trotted over to the door, only to have it slammed in her face by a pony bursting through rather impatiently.

Her vision went fuzzy, and standing back up, she saw a double image of Rainbow Dash standing above her, trying to contain her laughter. “Oh, I'm sorry Twilight. I was just, um, wondering if I could check out the next Daring Do book for later…”
“Sure, go ahead,” said Twilight, rubbing her face where the door had hit it. “By the way, you didn’t take a book about dream magic last night, did you?”

Rainbow kept laughing as she strode over to the shelf. “Why would I want some old book about dreams?”

“Well I don’t know, but I can’t find it.” Twilight said defensively.

“Speaking of missing though, have you seen Fluttershy?” Rainbow asked. “She was supposed to meet me in town earlier so I could practice some tricks and she could practice some cheering. Pinkie Pie was also supposed to be there, but she was looking for something else. Pinkie and I haven’t seen Fluttershy since yesterday.”

Twilight replied, “I haven’t been out yet today, but I’ll keep an eye out for her. I’ll see you later Rainbow; I have to go get some lunch…”
“Okay, see you Twilight. Let me know if you run into Fluttershy, okay?”
***

After eating lunch, Twilight decided to go and check in on Fluttershy at her cottage. She’d never known Fluttershy as one who was late to a lot of things, especially not when it came to helping out a friend. What kind of reason could have kept Fluttershy from helping out Rainbow? Maybe she overslept, but Fluttershy usually woke up bright and early with the roosters…

Too busy with her thoughts, Twilight didn’t notice Rarity trying to get her attention until she was literally right in front of her. “TWILIGHT!” Rarity yelled. Twilight jerked her head up, startled. “Oh thank goodness. Do you know what possibly could have happened to the third Mare Do Well costume I made?”

Twilight stopped, now completely confused. “You still have those costumes? The last time any of us actually used those was ages ago…”

Rarity huffed. “Well of course I kept them, they were simply too fabulous to throw away! But anyway, last night one of them went missing from my closet. Have you seen it?”

“No, I haven’t, but I think something strange is going on. Fluttershy is missing, and one of my books was taken last night. Maybe we should stay up tonight and see what’s going on.”

“STAY UP ALL NIGHT?! Twilight Sparkle, some ponies need their beauty sleep!” Rarity exclaimed.

“Ooh! Stay up all night? Are we having a party?” Rarity and Twilight had both failed to notice Pinkie Pie bounce up behind them. “Because if we are, I might need some help. I couldn’t find our hot-air balloon earlier, see, so I should probably find that first before getting all of the party stuff ready! Not that it would take that long to get everything ready. So what kind of party is this? Who is it for? Who all is going? Why didn’t-”

Twilight frowned. “Wait, stop, Pinkie. You said the hot-air balloon was missing? Was the last time you saw it? Was it last night?”

“Wow, Twilight! Do you have a Pinkie sense too?! Because that’s exactly when I think I lost, er, misplaced, er, couldn’t find the balloon. Oh! Maybe we could call it a Twiley sense! Can I call it a Twiley sense? Does this mean you finally accepted the idea that the Pinkie sense is-”

“Pinkie…” Twilight sighed. “No, I do not have a ‘Twiley sense’, but last night a book about dreams and one of Rarity’s Mare Do Well costumes went missing. Also nopony’s seen Fluttershy since then. I was thinking that we could stay up and try and catch whoever is doing all of this weird stuff.”

Applejack burst into the circle of ponies that had formed in the square, clearly out of breath. “Twilight!” she wheezed. “Flutter…shy…” she panted and stopped to catch her breath as everypony stared at her expectantly. Applejack cleared her throat. “Fluttershy isn’t at her cottage! Where do y’all think she could have gone?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out,” Twilight replied, determined.

***

Later that evening, everypony was sitting on the roof of Twilight’s house. The nervous looks on their faces and the anxious questions in their minds clashed with the tranquil atmosphere of the night and the silent twinkling of the beautiful stars overhead. All of them had only one question, and yet no idea how to possibly answer it.

The anxious yet peaceful silence was shattered by the impatient voice of Rainbow Dash. “So what are we waiting for? Fluttershy to fly up and yell, ‘Here I am!’ from the middle of town?”

Twilight glanced at her irritably. “No, we are waiting for-” She broke off, and then stared out toward the Everfree Forest. As if on cue, the missing hot-air balloon was rising out of a spot deep in the forest, right by the ruins where Night Mare Moon had once made her final stand against the Elements of Harmony. The balloon rose silently into the air, everypony’s eyes tracking it inch by inch, and then mysteriously and swiftly shot off toward Canterlot Mountain.

Now Rainbow was satisfied. “So we need to follow that balloon. What’s the plan, Twilight?”

Twilight took a moment to think, all of them staring at her with high expectations. It would take too long to ride the train to Canterlot—we all have to fly there. But the only group air transport was just taken and, by the looks of it, is being pulled by a group of pegasi faster than anypony here could run.

Suddenly an idea struck her. “Rainbow, can you go fetch a pretty big cloud that we all could fit on?” Rainbow shot off in search of such a cloud, as the night was relatively clear for the season. Twilight ran downstairs into the library and pulled out a book of magic, flipping to the page she remembered from the Best Young Flier Competition just recently. There it was…the spell that let anypony walk on clouds.

“So, sugarcube, what exactly are we doing?” Applejack spoke up behind her.

Twilight slammed the book closed, now confident in her plan. “Rainbow can tug us all on a cloud to Canterlot, where we’ll see just what this night pony is up to. If you all could please stand still so I could use the spell that lets us walk on clouds…”
Everypony stood quietly while Twilight powered up to perform her spell, and a WHOOSH was heard overhead as Rainbow returned outside with their new ride.

“Okay everypony; now let’s find out what the hey is going on.”

***

By the time they got going, the hijacked hot-air balloon was already too far away to intercept before it got to Canterlot. The best they could do is to follow it to the top of one of the Canterlot royal palace buildings, where it descended onto the rooftop. It landed on the Canterlot Library. When they all caught up, the balloon was empty and the only sign anypony was using it was the rope dangling off of the side down the front of the building.

The makeshift cloud-car jerked to a stop right outside the front of the library as Rainbow Dash fell to the ground, out of breath from flying so far so fast. Twilight jumped out, followed by Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity. “Okay everypony, whoever is responsible for all this weird stuff is in the library. Pinkie and Rarity, you check the main hall and do a systematic search of the wings.” They nodded, and ran past the guards at the front door, who were staring at Twilight, confused. “Applejack, you and I will start with the Star Swirl the Bearded wing and move on from there. Rainbow, you stay outside and make sure nopony gets out.” Rainbow Dash nodded and collapsed onto the front lawn of the library, not quite taking her job seriously.

***

Rarity was starting to wonder when in the world this crazy misadventure was going to make sense. First one of her Mare Do Well costumes is taken, then Twilight is missing a book, then Fluttershy is missing, the hot air balloon is stolen, and now somepony is using it to break into the library at night? Why would anypony even go to the trouble of breaking into a library at night? This was simply not making sense.

And, now that she had Pinkie Pie to keep her company, that wasn’t very likely to change.

“Hey Rarity! Isn’t this exciting? We’re on a secret mission together to find a secret agent pony! It’s just like the time Twilight and Spike and I-”

Pinkie’s cheerful bouncing was keeping rhythm with her rapid-fire talking. Where did that pony get so much energy? It’s so late. Rarity was tired and Pinkie wanted to make up things about ‘secret agent ponies’.

“Pinkie, dear, I don’t think that whoever we are after is a ‘secret agent’. They are probably just…well…” That comment made Rarity think. What could they be after? A costume, a book about dreams, Fluttershy, a hot air balloon, a library…Rarity’s head hurt just thinking about it. Maybe if Twilight had simply taken everypony else and let me get my beauty sleep…

Pinkie was talking at her again. “So, what should we look for first? Where should we look? Should we try and find clues? I remember when Twilight and I were solving a mystery on the train, and she said the first thing we should do is look for clues.”

“Good idea. You start looking for clues over by the shelves over there, and I’ll look over by that couch in the front hall.” Rarity suggested.

“Great idea, Rarity! I wonder what kind of clues we can find. I don’t think there’s anything on these shelves out of place. Oh hey look, the hot air balloon moved outside. Do you think that maybe…”

Rarity had just sat down on the couch, closed her eyes and was starting to tune Pinkie out when she suddenly jerked to complete attention. “Wait, what?!” she asked as she ran to Pinkie and slammed into her side to see what was going on.

Pinkie was standing next to a window, where they could see the hot-air balloon on the back lawn clear as day. Inside, they saw a dark cloaked figure catching what looked like books which were being thrown from an upper window. “Pinkie, don’t you think we should do something about that?”

“Why, is it important?” Pinkie asked, oblivious.

Sighing, Rarity thought for a moment. Rainbow Dash could handle the cloaked pony outside, but everypony had split up inside the library and Twilight may not have even reached whoever was throwing the books upstairs. “Come on Pinkie; let’s go find who is doing all this.” So I can get back to Ponyville and sleep.

***

By the time Twilight announced their plan, the guards had recovered enough from their shock to attempt to make sense of the situation. “Twilight? Did you come out through one of the windows? And where did your friends come from?”

Now she was confused, but she had a job to do. She ignored the puzzled guards and dashed into the building, followed closely by Applejack.

Running through the halls and up the stairs, Twilight Sparkle felt a peculiar sensation. Everything was so familiar, but without the sunlight streaming through the tall windows and all the ponies casually sitting around reading or chatting in hushed whispers, it was almost like a completely different place. The silence was deafening.

Finally, the doors to the Star Swirl the Bearded wing loomed directly ahead of them. Applejack ran ahead, turned around and burst the doors open. Twilight ran in then looked around. Her eyes darted to the window. It was open to the night, and standing right next to it with a pile of books, tossing them quickly out the window to an unseen recipient, was none other than…Twilight.

Time stopped for just a second to let Twilight Sparkle think. How in Equestria was there another of her here? Had the Changelings returned? Why did nopony know about this? Nothing made sense.

The impostor took one look at the door and panicked. It shoved the last of the books out the window, and then jumped before the real Twilight could make sense of what was going on. “Oh no you don’t!” yelled Applejack, her rope at the ready to lasso the impostor. With a grunt and a swing of her head, she tossed it out the window, only to have it bounce right back off of a barrier of sparkling indigo magic outside.

They ran to the window to see a pony in the Mare Do Well costume hurriedly stuffing the stolen books into the stolen balloon. The impostor Twilight was nowhere to be found, but all of a sudden a green burst of light flashed from inside of the balloon. Fluttershy jumped out of the balloon and grabbed onto a rope attached to it. The Mare Do Well climbed inside, and then looked up at the window where Twilight and Applejack were standing.

The pony seemed to already know that they were there. She (or he) saluted to Twilight right before Fluttershy jerked on the rope and the balloon went flying (at speeds which seemed way too fast for Fluttershy) back towards Ponyville and the Everfree Forest.

***

Today was not going well for Rainbow Dash. First, she had planned on practicing some of her newest tricks, only to have that cancelled because neither Fluttershy nor Pinkie Pie could show up to be her audience. Next, Twilight accuses her of stealing a book about dream magic. Seriously? And finally, of course, instead of having a nice night of sleep she has to tug a cloud with everypony on it all the way to Canterlot.

Rainbow sprawled out on the grass, closing her eyes, not caring about the guards looking at her with amused expressions. She hoped Twilight didn’t seriously expect her to circle the building, watching every window and back door for some kind of ‘book robbers’. Who would even want to steal a book about dreams? What would be the point?

“RAINBOW!” Her ears perked up as she heard Twilight yelling from the far side of the building. Rainbow Dash sat up, looked over and saw the hot-air balloon rising off of the grass, where it had apparently taken off of the roof and landed again without her noticing. Uh-oh.

Quick as a flash, she jumped up, flew over to the roof, and grabbed the rope attached to their cloud-cart with her mouth. By the time she tugged it over to the window where she heard Twilight’s voice, everypony was there, looking at her. “What? I’m supposed to be asleep right now; you can’t expect me to keep a perfect watch!”

Everypony jumped out through the window onto the cloud, and Rainbow pushed the guilt out of her mind so she could focus on pulling their cloud fast enough to keep up with the mysterious book thieves.

Rainbow wasn’t quite able to catch the balloon mid-flight—odd, since Fluttershy was apparently the only thing pulling the balloon (maybe it was the impostor?)—but she followed it right down to the old ruins, where the balloon landed and the two mystery ponies ran inside as fast as they could.

When they landed, everypony jumped off of the cloud and ran into the decrepit old building, craving some kind of answers for the wacky misadventure they had been through. Rainbow felt something in her gut that told her the real Fluttershy was inside the ruins.

And she was right.

Within a large bubble of indigo magic on top of one of the stone tables sat Fluttershy. She was sleeping, but her face was contorted as if in pain. With every rising and falling of her chest Fluttershy’s legs would have a tiny spasm, curling up into a ball and then uncurling. Next to the bubble were the Mare Do Well and the impostor Fluttershy, both watching the sleeping Fluttershy and apparently not noticing their new visitors.

Rainbow Dash had had enough of this, set off by seeing Fluttershy in pain trapped in the magic bubble. Fury filling her thoughts, she charged full speed into the shimmering magic bubble, not caring what happened to her. The Mare Do Well turned around, but was too late to stop what was happening. The pony shouted, “WAIT!” But Rainbow had already hit the bubble and it shattered.

As the fragments of indigo magic fell and dissipated on the floor, a black fog previously unseen wafted over to the group and to Rainbow.

All of a sudden she felt even more tired than she did before. Some kind of dark fog was floating past her. It smelled like a deep, heavy perfume, its intoxicating aroma making Rainbow drowsy. Oh, how she would love to sleep…but she had to save Fluttershy!

Time slowed down to a crawl for Rainbow as she tried to get up. Her legs were bars of lead, and her wings were useless flaps of skin and bone at her side. She tried to focus on the ponies in front of her, who were yelling incomprehensible commands at her, obviously panicked. Their scared expressions looked silly. She giggled and tried to form a reply, but her mouth was a sack of jelly. A powerful urge to just take a short nap overtook her, and she couldn’t find the strength to resist.

A black curtain descended over Rainbow Dash’s eyelids and she fell to sleep.

***

Bum-bum.

Twilight Sparkle was trapped.

She was in a cage. A shiny, gleaming metal cage, one with all sides made up of an unbreakable substance. The cage was cramped and small, with only Twilight in it.

Bum-bum.

Feeling a huge lurch, Twilight looked outside the cage and was immediately sick to her stomach. The cage she was in was being lowered past a bare, rocky cliff. She looked down and saw the deepest pit she had ever seen, pitch-black and bottomless, yawning beneath her as if to consume her.

Bum-bum.

Twilight craned her neck upwards and felt a shock run through her. All of her friends were sitting on top of the cliff, their hooves on a large, shining metal lever. They were casually talking and looked relieved, as if something they had been hiding was finally coming out.

Bum-bum.

“Applejack! Rainbow! What are you all doing?!” Twilight yelled up.

The cage stopped with a jerk. All of her friends stopped talking, and then scooted aside to make room for another pony who was walking up behind them. All Twilight could see of that pony was its glowing red eyes.

Bum-bum.

The pony placed a hoof on the lever.

Bum-bum.

“Fluttershy! Pinkie! Anypony, HELP ME!!!” Twilight screamed.

Bum-bum.

They simply laughed, and turned their backs and walked away. The red-eyed pony pulled the lever.
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum-

Twilight screamed as her cage went soaring down, faster and faster until

Twilight Sparkle all of a sudden felt a massive headache as her mind groggily awoke from its forced rest. She could barely remember what happened, and as she was waking up she kept her eyes closed. The nightmare was still present in her mind, even if she couldn’t quite remember some of the details.

Except for those eyes. Those glowing red eyes.

She slowly opened her eyes to see a bunch of fuzzy dark and light blobs. The blobs solidified and became ponies, but something wasn’t quite right. She took a look around and, to her utter horror, she was now inside the indigo magic bubble, with all of her friends. None of them were awake yet.

Twilight turned around and looked back at the ponies she didn’t know, and was startled to see them staring right back, with…concern. Upon looking, she noticed one of them was a Changeling.
She recoiled, and then saw the Mare Do Well impostor trot up to the outside of the bubble and extend a greeting. The pony cleared his throat—it was a he behind the mask, Twilight could tell by the voice.

“Um…hello there. My name is Night Shine, and this is my assistant, Dusk.” The Changeling waved a sinewy hoof.

“You have a Changeling for an assistant?” Twilight asked, frowning.

“Well correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t you have a dragon as yours?” he replied.

Twilight thought about responding, but decided it wasn’t worth it. She gestured for him to continue, eager to understand everything that had led up to this point.

“Anyway…your friend Fluttershy here was having nightmares and couldn’t stay awake for long, so I looked into it…and…well…” The pony fidgeted. “Somepony is controlling her dreams. Yours too, now that your friend Rainbow exposed everypony here to the contagious source magic in Fluttershy. I had tried to quarantine her here, in the Everfree Forest, to keep you all safe while I looked for a way to protect her mind from the nightmares. But now, it looks like we have an even bigger problem…”

Twilight nodded. Parts of the picture were beginning to make sense now, but she still had a couple of questions. “That makes sense, but why did you need the Mare Do Well costume? And the balloon? And the books?”

“Well the balloon I obviously needed to get to Canterlot, so I could find more specific books on dream magic. The books I needed to research how to cure Fluttershy using magic,” the mysterious pony began. “I needed the costume because, according to these books, a pony can only control your dreams if they can keep an image of you in their mind, among other things. This was the only way I could think of to hide my identity.”

Twilight Sparkle’s curiosity was sated, bringing them to the more important matter: “So how do you plan on healing us?”

Night Shine trotted over to his small pile of books, levitating Dream Magic for the Advanced Student up and setting it in front of them.

His magic is indigo, Twilight noted.

He walked back over and cleared his throat. “We bring everypony into your dream. It has to be you, as you have a very strong will and the strongest connection with all of the other ponies who will enter. I’m going to send all of your friends into your dream with this spell”—he pointed his hoof at one of the spells listed in the book—“And then you will take it from there. You will have to confront whoever was messing with the dreams in the first place. In order to do that, you must find the strongest thing that you believe in and use its power over your mind to cast the intruder out.”

Twilight suddenly felt nervous, realizing she would have to confront the red-eyed pony in her nightmare, apparently without this pony’s help. “So you can’t come with them and help me?” she asked.

“No. I don’t know enough to force my presence, and I don’t know you well enough to just enter. However, I will be able to send you messages, so pay attention for those.”

She frowned again. “If you can’t be there to help me, will I really need messages?”

Night Shine sighed. “Well, you see…” He thought for a moment, awkwardly shifting his weight. “Dreams feel real when we’re in them. Normally, it’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually wrong. You will need me to convince you that you’re dreaming.”

Twilight suddenly realized how important this pony could be to saving her from the nightmares. And, based off of all that he had told her earlier in the evening, he wasn’t going to be telling her everything until he thought she could handle it. “How do I know I can trust you to do that?” she blurted without thinking. It came out harsh, but…it needed to be said.

The pony shrank back as if struck, but then, he realized what he must do. Night Shine lifted his hoof and slipped off the Mare Do Well mask, revealing somewhat of a strange face underneath.

The features on his face revealed him to be a colt, younger than Twilight expected—just about her age, maybe a bit older. His eyes were a deep, golden yellow, with tired rings sagging underneath. His face and skin were green, and his grayish mane was short but messy and wild. His horn came up to a sharp point above his head. His mouth was not smiling, but pushed to the side, giving him a weary expression.

As Twilight looked into his eyes she saw concern there--concern that was brought on by seeing a friend in need, and wanting to help them out in sympathy. She closed her eyes, not having any more questions as to what needed to be done.

The last thing Twilight Sparkle heard before succumbing to the drawing pull of sleep was, “Um…Good luck, Twilight.”