Chapter III: Dreams
"Rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep or REMS) is a unique phase of sleep in mammals (including humans) and birds, characterized by random rapid movement of the eyes, accompanied by low muscle tone throughout the body, and the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly."
-Wikipedia, "Rapid eye movement sleep"
Princess Luna of Equestria was a mare of many talents. As one of the princess regnants of Equestria she was well-versed in politics, though she was still adjusting to modern customs. She was a skilled combatant, having led Equestria’s armies along with her sister during the War of the North, and to this day she remained a feared figure in Griffonstone for when she single-hoofedly repelled an attempted invasion a millennium prior. And according to her cutie mark, her main talent was moving the Moon, a talent she had discovered during her and her older sister’s simultaneous Ascension.
If one asked Luna, however, she would say that her truest passion was the study of magic, particularly oneiroturgy, a field that she had spearheaded herself. In her youth, before she Ascended and had the responsibilities of a princess regnant thrust upon her, she had spent long hours studying under Star Swirl the Bearded himself. Where her sister was most interested in direct, tangible magical effects, Luna was always far more fascinated by how magic could affect the subconscious. The subtle nudges in a pony’s psychology, for good or for ill, was a magic frowned upon even then, but as fourth in line for the throne little Luna had been afforded certain privileges.
Especially after she began focusing on how to affect dreams.
Later on, after she had settled into her new alicorn form and the War of the North had come and gone, Luna had thrown herself into protecting her little ponies from threats both physical and mental. She took what she had learned about dreams in her youth and pioneered an entirely new field of magic out of it: oneiroturgy. In the modern day she still took to her nightly duty with gusto, delving into her subjects’ psyches to alleviate their fears.
Tonight was no different, and Luna, her horn lit and her eyes closed, was exploring the land of dreams. Her physical body was still in her chambers, of course, with several proximity spells in place to ensure that her mind would be returned there if she was interrupted, but in her mind’s eye, she was in a space she referred to as the Collective Subconscious. It was, in a sense, a dreamscape created from the minds of every dreaming soul on the planet, though Luna could only access those within a certain range. It was an impressive range, for sure—nearly two thousand kilometers was nothing to sneeze at—but it did leave much of the world out of her purview. Regardless, it meant she could at least access the minds of any dreamer in Equestria.
The exact visual would appear different for any pony accessing the Collective Subconscious, but for Luna it manifested itself as a nearly endless hallway of doors with no discernable floor. There was a carpet of stars beneath her hooves, twinkling with every step she took, but she knew that it was just a manifestation of her own thought process. The distinct dreamlike nature of the place also meant that, really, any door could lead to any dreamer’s subconscious.
She, of course, prioritized those suffering from nightmares. She could search for a specific pony and contact them (and had done so to speak to her sister on occasion, especially soon after her return from the Moon), but her most important duty every night was to help reduce fear and suffering.
Most nightmares were easy enough to dispel and Luna could get away with simply swapping the dream for a more pleasant one. She didn’t even have to enter the pony’s mind to do so. Other nightmares, however, were strongly rooted in a pony’s fears and anxieties. Those took more doing to help the dreamer through, and meant that Luna would have to get directly involved. She could, at least, tell how bad a nightmare was before even entering the dream, with a sense almost akin to smell.
The door before her, then, positively reeked. Whatever nightmare the dreamer beyond was having would be horrid, and ordinarily Luna would have wasted no time jumping through to help.
The only thing that stopped her was the uniqueness of the door itself.
Uniqueness, in and of itself, wasn’t entirely unusual. Every dreamer’s door was different. But this was by far the strangest door Luna had ever seen, or least its design was as such. In the center of the door was an image of a hand—similar to but not quite the same as a minotaur’s—grasping a lit torch. Surrounding the image were eight other hands reaching for (or handing off?) the torch, all discernibly different from each other due to different scar patterns or gloves.
Another oddity was the lock; almost all dreamers had a single lock on their door, which remained unlocked to Luna unless the dreamer was also skilled in oneiroturgy and focused on keeping her out. This door had nine locks, though all of them were unlocked.
Shaking her head, Luna shrugged off the oddities and yanked the door open, intent on ending whatever nightmare this dreamer was having. Immediately on entry, she slowed time in the dream to a standstill to take stock of the situation. The dream was taking place at night, on a cliff’s edge above a burning forest. The acrid smell of smoke filled the air, and blue flames danced on the trees below. But what Luna most focused on were the creatures on the cliff.
One was what she could only describe as a monster, wrapped in—Luna performed a double take—was that skinless muscle fiber? It was bipedal, with a shock of blond hair on its head and what looked like a mechanical eye. Whatever it was, it wasn’t any species she recognized. Had a new sapient species emerged over her millennium on the Moon that Celestia hadn’t introduced her to yet?
She assumed that they were sapient, at least. The sheer aggression and, disturbingly, glee in the monster’s biological eye seemed to indicate it. It was attacking a smaller figure, clad in garments befitting their size and wearing a large red hat. They were cowering and attempting to move backwards, but Luna could tell that the monster would reach them long before they could hope to do anything.
For a moment, she assumed that this smaller being was the dreamer, but a quick check dismissed the idea; this was another creation of the dream. Looking around, she found who she was looking for: a third creature of the same species wrapped in green lightning, shooting through the trees towards them. Even with time at a standstill, Luna could tell where the nightmare was going from the dreamer’s mind, and cringed. She dearly hoped that this was not a scene the dreamer had witnessed in reality, and that it was a construction of some fear of failure.
Because within the nightmare, the dreamer would not reach them in time and the small figure—a child, Luna realized—would die a gruesome death. Not wanting to witness that either, Luna lit her horn and prepared to smite the monster as soon as she resumed time, but before she could the nightmare abruptly ended.
For the briefest of moments, Luna thought she saw an image of eight thrones—seven of which were occupied by the same species as the creatures on the cliff—but she had not the time to properly analyze that, nor the time to determine why the dream had suddenly changed. Before she knew it, seven voices echoed through her mind as one.
GET THE HELL OUT OF NINTH’S HEAD!
She was forcibly ejected from the dreamscape, landing back in the Collective Subconscious as the door slammed behind her and seven locks clicked into place.
Luna picked herself up off the carpet of stars and brushed off some nonexistent dust. Glowering, she narrowed her eyes at the door. That had never happened before.
What in the world was going on?
Princess Twilight Sparkle dreamed often. This was nothing out of the ordinary—most ponies dreamed every night. She did not, however, often dream lucidly, so when Twilight found herself abruptly realizing that she was dreaming she knew something was off.
Equestria’s newest princess extricated herself from the pile of books she was laying in (unfortunately, due to the nature of dreams, they were all illegible), and looked around for the source of her sudden lucidity. Her dream had been taking place in a mental recreation of the Royal Archives in Canterlot, though parts of it were slightly off from how Twilight knew the Archives were actually laid out.
The Archives also didn’t usually have Princess Luna frowning at the central hourglass, either, and Twilight guessed that her presence was why she was currently lucid.
“The fact that your mind can recreate this room so faithfully is impressive,” Princess Luna stated as Twilight approached. “Though the exact designs on the hourglass are wrong.”
“Well, I did spend multiple hours a day down here when I attended CSGU,” Twilight said, dropping into a bow as Princess Luna turned her way. “Good evening, Your Majesty.”
“You have no need to prostrate yourself before me, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Luna said with what sounded like a hint of exasperation. “My sister and I may be Princess Regnants, but you are nominally of equal rank to us.”
Twilight glanced at her wings as she rose. “Sorry,” she apologized, “force of habit.”
“‘Tis no issue,” Princess Luna said. “Regardless, I did not come to your mind tonight for a simple social call. I would like to ask you a question and a favor.”
Twilight blinked, a bit confused, but her eyes widened as she came to a conclusion as to what the favor might be. “Is something still wrong with the Tree of Harmony?” she asked. “I thought returning the Elements to it would fix the issue! Or is this about the box it gave us? Because I was already planning on looking into that so-”
“Insofar as I can tell, the Tree is still quite hale,” Princess Luna cut her off before she could ramble too much. “My question regards a nightmare I attempted to dispel earlier this evening.”
“Oh, okay.” Twilight performed a double take. “Wait, attempted?”
Princess Luna nodded. “A few minutes ago, I encountered a dreamer of a species I had never seen before. Before I could dispel their nightmare and speak to them directly, however, I was removed from their mind by some sort of mental defense.”
Twilight’s eyes lit up. A new creature, sapient enough to dream and potentially with some inborn psychoturgy? This would be positively fascinating! After a moment of thought, though, she frowned. “Wouldn’t it be best to consult Princess Celestia on this? She’d know more about the world’s creatures than I would.”
“I do not wish to bother my sister over a potentially trivial matter,” Princess Luna explained, “especially not with how busy our schedules are with the Summer Sun Celebration only a day away.”
“That makes sense,” Twilight agreed. “What did these creatures look like?”
“They were bipedal,” Princess Luna said, and Twilight’s eyebrows rose. The only bipedal sapient creatures on Equus she could think of off the top of her head were minotaurs, yetis, and abyssinians. Well, she supposed that Discord was technically bipedal as well, but Twilight was fairly certain that Luna knew what draconequi looked like. Discord was rather…noticeable.
“They were also furless, aside from a mane atop their heads,” Princess Luna continued, “and they were structured rather similarly to apes—perhaps they’re related?”
Twilight would have choked on her own spit if this wasn’t a dream. “That…that sounds like you encountered a human,” she said, shocked. “But that shouldn’t be possible! The mirror portal closed weeks ago, and won’t be open again for another twenty-nine moons! At least!”
Princess Luna blinked. “You believe these to be the creatures you encountered beyond Star Swirl’s Mirror?”
Twilight nodded. “They match the description, at least. But that means that there’s either a natural portal between Equestria and Earth—without the transformation enchantment, at that—or…” Her expression became more concerned. “Something managed to open a portal, and we don’t know when, where, or from which side.”
Princess Luna frowned as well. “Hmm, that is rather concerning.”
“And you said you got kicked out of the dream, right?” Twilight asked. “The humans on the other side of the mirror didn’t have access to magic except for what Sunset, the Element of Magic, and I brought over. They shouldn’t be able to do psychoturgy at all, let alone at the level that would be needed to keep you of all ponies out.”
“Oneiroturgy,” Princess Luna idly corrected, her own face screwed up in thought. “Perhaps it would be best for you to keep an eye out for any sightings of these humans, and look into what parts of oneiroturgy they could be tapping into.” After another moment of consideration, she continued. “A great deal of my own writings on the field should still be under preservation charms at the old castle in the Everfree; I do not recall the Nightmare having gone out of its way to destroy them.”
Twilight grinned, almost salivating at the idea of going through supremely old books. “Oh, maybe I can find information on the chest that the Tree gave us while I’m there!” she realized. “I’ll see if Spike and I can check out the castle’s library as soon as we’re back in Ponyville after the Celebration.”
Princess Luna nodded. “Thank you, Twilight Sparkle. I suppose I shall see you in Canterlot later for the Celebration?”
Twilight nodded. “Yep! Spike and I were planning on leaving tomorrow morning. Or later today. I’m not sure what time it is outside.”
Princess Luna chuckled. “It is actually nearing daybreak, so I will leave you to prepare for the trip. Fare thee well, Twilight Sparkle.”
In life, Shimura Nana had seen a lot of strange quirks over her thirty-two years, most of which were during the fourteen she spent as a pro hero. Strange quirks came with the job. Plus, she’d spent eight of those years wielding [One For All] and being actively engaged in a shadow war with a century-old supervillain, with another three years spent continuing the war after she passed the quirk on to Toshinori. Honestly, she was just glad that he was able to graduate from UA before All For One killed her.
Even after her death, reduced to a vestige within [One For All], she had continued to see a myriad of strange quirks. Spending thirty-seven years in Toshi’s mind, with him being the Number One Hero for the past thirty-two, contributed to it, yes, but most recently Izuku’s obsession with odd and fascinating quirks had done most of the legwork for the Weird Quirk Count.
But never before had she seen something quite like what had just happened.
She opened her mouth to speak on it, but Daigoro beat her to the punch. “The hell kind of mental quirk shoves a blue horse in someone’s mind?”
The rest of the vestiges’ incredulous attention snapped to him.
“What?” the fifth wielder of [One For All] asked. “It’s way too similar to whatever the brainwashing kid did at the Sports Festival for it to not be a mental quirk.”
Hikage frowned and hummed in thought. “We have to assume that Ninth has been captured by the League. All For One knows that he cannot steal [One For All] easily, so I can only imagine that this is some kind of intrusion designed to make him let his guard down.”
“That might not be true,” Nana said. “Izuku passed out too quickly after the portal for us to see all that much, but I didn’t see the League there.”
En shook his head. “We should still assume the worst case scenario here, just in case.” His mood turned even more somber, somehow. “Unfortunately, that means that All For One may have hostages he can use against Midoriya to force him to give up [One For All]. Especially since those hostages would include Bakugo, Ida, and Uraraka.”
Nana paled. “Shit, this exact sort of thing is why I gave Kotaro away.”
“In all honesty, Seventh, I still think that that decision was unwise,” Yoichi spoke up. “If my brother wanted to find your son, he would do so regardless of whether or not you were still actively looking after him or if Eighth had reconnected with him.” He shook his head, striding forward within the formless void they called home to join the other four conversing holders (Kudo and Bruce were still brooding in the corner). “Regardless, I do not think that this was my brother’s doing.”
Hikage looked at him in surprise. “You don’t?”
Yoichi chuckled, a small smile growing in his face. “No, Fourth, I don’t. I think we’ve been isekai’d.”
The others looked at him blankly. “Excuse me, what?” Daigoro asked.
Yoichi waved a hand in a so-so motion. “Eh, it’s not exactly your classic ‘die and God shoves you into another universe’ isekai; we didn’t get Truck-kun’d.”
“Yoichi, what the hell are you talking about?” Nana asked.
“I think we’ve been transported into a fictional universe,” Yoichi explained. “The show was before my time, but there was a resurgence of memes about it and its fandom in the early 2040s, so I do recognize the blue pony that popped in.”
En raised an eyebrow. “Enlighten us, then.”
“I do believe that that was Princess Luna from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” Yoichi said, ignoring Daigoro breaking down in laughter. “I never saw the show myself and it was canceled after its fourth season amid all the chaos of the Dawn of Quirks, but like I said, there were a lot of memes about it.”
Nana sighed, conjured a chair behind her, and sat down. “Great, so we’re stuck in what, Ponyland?”
“Equestria,” Yoichi corrected. “At least, I think that’s what the name was.”
“Fine, we’re stuck in Equestria,” Nana accepted. “Can we, I don’t know, at least somehow get information to Izuku about what’s going on?”
Yoichi shook his head. “Even if we had a reliable way to contact Ninth, like I said, the show was before my time. I remember some names, but I don’t know anything about the plot.”
En, apparently deciding to be cautiously optimistic, spoke up. “Perhaps one of Midoriya’s friends might have seen it?”
“The show is ancient,” Yoichi emphasized. “I highly doubt that a modern teen has seen it, especially since it was always much more popular in the West than in Japan.”
“It’s lost media, anyway.”
Everyone’s attention snapped to Bruce, surprised that the man had actually spoken.
“Finally done staring at a wall?” Daigoro asked sarcastically.
“I’m still not a fan of Ninth,” Bruce said. “But I’m willing to discuss what Second and I know in this situation. We can’t defeat All For One from another universe.”
“Alright, then, speak up,” Nana said, some tiredness leaking into her voice.
Bruce shrugged. “There’s not too much to say. Hasbro shut down in the late 2020s, so there weren’t many physical or downloaded copies of the show when the June Twelfth Cyberattack hit, so most of the show is lost media nowadays. There’s just about a zero percent chance that any of the kids stuck here have seen it.”
“June Twelfth Cyberattack?” Daigoro asked.
Bruce sighed. “Why am I not surprised that you of all people haven’t heard of the biggest cybercrime in human history?” Daigoro made an indignant noise, but Bruce started explaining before he could make a retort. “On June twelfth, two thousand forty-eight, some nutjob with a technopath quirk escaped from a lab in the US hopped up on an experimental early form of trigger. The lab he escaped from eventually tracked him down and killed him, but in the time it took them to do that he scrubbed about half of the internet clean.”
“Holy shit,” Daigoro breathed.
En raised an eyebrow at him. “This is taught as part of most middle schools’ history curricula. How have you not heard about it?”
Daigoro shrugged. “Eh, I’m pretty sure I slept through most of my middle school history classes.”
“Regardless of this…fascinating history lesson,” Hikage cut in, “I’m still not entirely convinced that we’re in another universe entirely. This could still be some ploy of All For One’s to make us let our guard down.”
Yoichi scoffed. “Please, my brother would never debase himself by watching what he perceived as beneath him. He was a theater kid obsessed with Star Wars, Captain Hero, Dumas’ works, and practically nothing else. Besides…” Yoichi gestured towards Toshi’s vestige, which hadn’t moved since Kurogiri had teleported them. It was still a half-formed, vaguely human-shaped ball of golden fire, but it had gone stock still and seemed to be flickering in and out of existence. “I think whatever is going on with Eighth is indicative of the alternate universe hypothesis.”
There was a shaking sensation, and Nana quickly stood and dismissed her chair. “Izuku’s waking up,” she said, turning towards the area of the vestige space that they’d been using to see through Izuku’s eyes.
“Good,” Hikage said, “maybe we’ll get some definitive answers.”
Wakefulness returned to Uraraka Ochako slowly, the dream she’d been having slipping away from her memory as she opened her eyes. Said eyes immediately narrowed as she realized that the sun was up. Surely, Mister Aizawa would have woken them up early for training, so why was-
Ochako’s eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright as the memories of the night before returned to her. She regretted it instantly, a dizzy spell shooting through her along with a stabbing headache. Still, she looked around, confirming that their time spent off of Earth wasn’t some crazy dream that her space-obsessed mind had conjured up. They really were really far from home.
Shit.
“Good morning.”
Ochako’s gaze snapped another occupant of the room. Todoroki, who had wrapped himself in some sort of fabric that they must have found elsewhere in the castle, was leaning against the wall next to the door. They had cordoned off what was probably once a bedroom as a makeshift infirmary, though any furniture the room once held had likely long since decayed. Instead, they had slept on stone slabs (which was hell on Ochako’s back, but it’s not like they’d had any better options) with rolled up fabric that Ochako guessed was once a tapestry of some sort acting as pillows.
Looking down, she noted that the same fabric had been ripped up a bit and tied to her pinkies to prevent her from activating [Zero Gravity] in her sleep. Clearly this castle had a lot of well-preserved tapestries for them to be using them for practically everything—Todoroki was even wearing one like a toga!
It looked like Tsu was awake as well, since she was sitting up on her own slab and keeping an eye on all of them. Her left arm was still wrapped (in yet another piece of a tapestry; Ochako felt a bit bad about the history they were probably destroying but survival was survival) but she didn’t seem all too distraught about it. Still, Ochako hoped it was healing okay. Her memories of the previous night were mostly a blur after Kurogiri warped them, but she did remember that Tsu was hurt pretty badly. It wasn’t as bad as Deku’s wounds, but-
Ochako’s thought process aborted itself and she whipped her head around to look at the fourth of the infirmary’s occupants. Deku was still asleep, with both of his arms tied to thick pieces of wood that the others must have found outside. Immediately, Ochako tried to scramble upright and call out to him, but her throat was so dry that her cry of “Deku!” sounded more like a strangled gasp, and she barely made it off the stone slab before she tripped.
Todoroki caught her left arm before she could actually fall, and he sat her back down with a sigh.
“I feel like you should’ve expected that to happen as soon as she saw him, kero.” Tsu spoke up.
Todoroki ignored her, instead forming a cylinder of ice from his right hand and then carefully melting a hole in it with his left. A few moments later, he was left with a cup made of ice full of chilly water. He handed it off to Ochako. “Drink.”
Ochako vaguely remembered that drinking a lot of water in quick succession while dehydrated wasn’t a good idea, and she wasn’t so thirsty as to chug the whole thing down instinctively, so she took sips. After a few, she gave Todoroki a concerned look. “Won’t this just dehydrate you, too?”
He nodded. “Yes, but I can last until Bakugo and Ida find a proper source of fresh water. Asui-”
Tsu let out a somewhat threatening croak.
“Apologies. Tsu asked the same thing.”
Ochako looked around again, her gaze settling on Deku’s sleeping form. “Where are the others, then, and…” her voice dropped, “how’s Deku doing?”
“Shoji and Tokoyami are looking around the castle, kero,” Tsu provided. “But Midoriya…”
Todoroki sighed. “At some point in the night Midoriya transitioned from unconsciousness to actual sleep,” he started.
“That’s…that’s good, right?” Ochako said, but Tsu and Todoroki’s tones had seemed somewhat somber, which was massively concerning. She couldn’t help but worry.
“I’m worried about him, kero,” Tsu said from her slab. “He got the most hurt of any of us, and it was before we were even teleported.”
“Deku…Deku will make it through this,” Ochako said, though her voice did crack a bit. “I…I have to believe he will.”
Todoroki sighed again, and he looked Ochako in the eye. Somehow, the eye contact just made things worse, and she just knew that whatever came next would be bad news. “Uraraka…”
“He has a fever.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.014 seconds
Total duration
719 users online
839,912 hits today, 2,064,738 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
NOW THIS
THIS IS INCREDIBLE. THIS IS ART
I NEED MORE