> 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.”

> The Shadowed Nightmare, pt. 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twilight Sparkle levitated Spike onto his bed, pulling the sheets over the dragon’s tiny body. It had been a big day, and the baby dragon needed his sleep. Although…strangely…Twilight couldn’t seem to remember anything that happened today. Not a single event. Maybe she was just too tired right now.
Laying her small worries aside, Twilight lay down in her bed, very weary from whatever it was she did earlier. She pulled the covers over herself with her horn, and closed her eyes for a long, comfortable sleep.
Knock-knock.
She heard somepony knocking at the door, and for some unexplainable reason, her heartbeat quickened at the sound. Twilight sighed irritably. “Who would want to check out a book at this hour?” She slid out of her bed and trotted over to the front door, annoyed that somepony had woken her up right as she was about to go to sleep. 
Knock-knock.
Whoever this pony was, they sure were impatient. The pony continued knocking, over and over, in a very strange pattern. They would knock twice, and then wait for a short time, then knock again. Almost like…a heartbeat…
“Who is it?” Twilight asked, not really sure what to expect.
The knocking stopped, but the pulse-like beat did not.
Bum-bum.
“Somepony whom you cannot escape.” came the reply. The voice was muffled, as if whoever said it was wearing some kind of mask. Its quality was very deep and growling, but had an echoey quality to it that reverberated in Twilight’s mind.
Bum-bum.
Suddenly a small note floated down from above Twilight. As she looked up at it, it fluttered down and landed on her nose. She levitated it in front of her face and began to read, curious as to where it could have come from.
Bum-bum.

Twilight Sparkle
Do not open your front door
You are currently inside of a nightmare and the Shadow is at your door 
He will attempt to scare you into waking up and being separated from your friends
so you are more vulnerable
Sneak out of the back window and find your friends as quickly as possible
Get to them before the Shadow does
-Night Shine

PS: Do you need proof you are in a nightmare? If so, answer this question: How did you get here?

Bum-bum.
Twilight’s heart beat faster. Her logical mind tried desperately to search for any other explanation. How did she get here? She couldn’t remember anything she had done before tucking Spike into bed. Was Spike even real? Was anything even real, or only a creation and figment of her mind?
Bum-bum.
Was it just her imagination…or was the tempo of the continual pulse-like noise getting faster and faster? Twilight looked around for something, anything she could do that did not involve opening the door to the pony outside, the…“Shadow”. Her gaze drifted to the window and a crazy idea formulated in her head. Then she stopped and really thought for a moment. Was she really going to jump out of her own house in the middle of the night? Would that really be a good idea?
Bum-bum.
Yes, she was, and yes, it would. Twilight made up her mind and, heart racing, thrust open the window with her magic and made a running leap out the window.
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum-
Twilight sailed through the air for a second, two, then came crashing down to earth in a large bush outside of her window. She sat up, dazed, almost not believing what she just did. Popping her head out of the bush, Twilight scanned the area for somewhere to run to get away from the nightmare pony, at least for now, to form a plan.
Spotting the closest building, she made a dash for it and ran for a safe spot where she could hide behind it, the wind whistling through her mane. She did not dare to look back until she arrived behind the building, panting and out of breath. Twilight Sparkle turned around to see the Shadow standing at her door. His bright red eyes, all that she remembered of him from the last time she had seen him, were staring directly at her. 
Watching. 
Waiting.
She stared back, and took in all that she saw. The mirrored chrome he appeared to be wearing on his back, face and legs glinted harshly in the moonlight. His left hoof was raised, leaning on the door, but then he slowly slid it out in front of his face as if he was holding something he wanted Twilight to see. Still glaring and not blinking, an audible click echoed across the space between them as the Shadow unsheathed four sharp narrow spikes from the inside of his hoof.
Bum-bum.
Twilight turned and pushed her back against the wall, trying to process the horror she just saw. Calm down, Twilight, she told herself. He is just trying to scare you. Are you going to let him?
To get her mind off of the subject, she forced herself to think of a plan of action, but before she could, something above her head caught her eye.
It was another note from Night Shine. The note fluttered down, and Twilight ripped it out of the air and shoved it in front of her face.

Twilight Sparkle
What do you fear most

My friends abandoning me, she filled in subconsciously.

The Shadow will attempt to use it to scare you into submission
Do not let him get to you, or any of your friends, through fear
You must find whatever you believe in the most, and use the power you believe it has to defeat him
-Night Shine

Okay. Find the Elements of Harmony, as usual, and use them to defeat the Shadow, but that could wait until she found all of her friends. So, if I were a pony trying to get to all of us through fear, who would I go for first? Twilight pondered. Somepony who is unusually susceptible to fear, who is overly shy around ponies she doesn’t know, and is “scared of her own shadow”…Fluttershy! The Shadow would definitely try to scare Fluttershy first.
Twilight Sparkle took a deep breath, and then took off running again for Fluttershy’s cottage. She must help her friend in beating the Shadow at his twisted fear-game. She just hoped she wouldn’t be too late…

***

Fluttershy was trapped, flying in open air, in a place she had only seen from afar, and never expected to be inside.
She was in the center of the Cloudsdale Coliseum.
She looked with horror at everypony in the crowd. There were hundreds of pegasi in the crowd, watching her expectantly. Fluttershy stared frantically around the crowd for her friends, for anypony she knew, but she did not recognize a single face in the crowd.
She curled up in a ball and squeezed her eyes shut, hovering in midair. Why were all of the ponies looking at her?! Why did they look like they were waiting for something? What did they want? Fluttershy opened her eye just a peek, but then immediately closed it. They were all watching her…she began to cry. It was all too much, just too much.
She tried to move her wings to get her out of there, to go anywhere else, but they were paralyzed in a rhythm she couldn’t control. Well, thought Fluttershy, if I’m going to get out of here I’m going to have to find a way out. She forced herself to open her eyes.
When she did, she discovered that she was staring at two bright red dots in the crowd, a pair of eyes belonging to a unicorn she recognized all too well.
Bum-bum.
What was he doing here? How was he even there in the audience? Was he there before? Fluttershy found herself breathing harder and harder, her heart beating faster and faster. Was he going to cause the entire stadium to go up in flames? Was he going to try and attack her like last time?
Bum-bum.
A chant was rising through the crowd; everypony was yelling something at Fluttershy:
“Fluttershy!
Fluttershy!
Fluttershy can hardly fly!”
Bum-bum. Bum-bum.
She was seized by an uncontrollable spasm as the true horror of what they were saying grasped her. The song which tormented her throughout her childhood took full control of her mind and Fluttershy began crying in earnest, flopping her head down and sniffling and sobbing so that even if she wanted to say something, she couldn’t.
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. 
Her body became paralyzed and her vision was blocked by tears. Her mind was made incapable of thinking about anything besides all of the hard and sad times in her life, all of the times she had embarrassed her friends, all of the times she had failed them.
Bum-bum. Bum-bum.
A voice echoed throughout the entire stadium, and although she couldn’t tell where it was coming from, she knew it was that red-eyed pony. The voice was deep and gravelly, and muffled—probably because the pony was speaking from behind a mask. It had a sleepy, monotonous quality to it, and yet it that somehow managed to make it even creepier.
“What’s wrong, Fluttershy? Miss your wake-up call?”
Bum-bum.
Wait…wake-up call? She was asleep? Was this a dream? Or…a nightmare?!…
Suddenly Fluttershy regained control of her wings, and realized that the red-eyed pony had been magically controlling them the entire time. But…why would he release me now?
Then…she understood.
Bum-bum. 
He expected her to fall. To simply stop flying and leave this nightmare behind!
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum-
And the worst part was...she wanted to. Fluttershy could imagine just falling and—
“FLUTTERSHY!”
At the sound of Twilight’s voice Fluttershy’s fear melted. Her heartbeat slowed and no longer pounded like a drum in her ears. She looked back at the crowd and saw her purple-coated friend burst through what seemed like thin air. Fluttershy looked back, nervous that the red-eyed pony might try to stop Twilight, but he had vanished.
The crowd of various stranger ponies was leaving, all of them turning their heads away and chatting as if the show they had come to watch at Cloudsdale Coliseum was over. After a minute or two of these ponies all leaving the coliseum calmly and collectively, only Twilight remained.
Fluttershy glided over to Twilight, hesitant, afraid. She was as tongue-tied as the moment that she met her friend.
Twilight stepped forward, and then embraced Fluttershy in a tight hug. Fluttershy began to cry again, softly this time, and she heard Twilight whisper into her ear, “Fluttershy? It’s time to go home now.”

***

The next thing she knew, Fluttershy lying on the rug in her cottage. It was the middle of the night, the fire was crackling cozily in the fireplace, and Twilight was standing over her, the look in her eyes one of concern. Fluttershy sat up.
“Um…Twilight?” Fluttershy began.
Twilight looked down at Fluttershy, still wondering what had just happened. There was a portal in the place where Fluttershy was now sitting, a portal leading to the Cloudsdale Coliseum, where Twilight had jumped in and seen Fluttershy in the center. Knowing how Fluttershy reacted to just the smallest amount of unwanted attention, she knew what Fluttershy must be feeling, and that she needed to help.
“Thanks.”
“No problem, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, “But now we need to go help the others.”
Twilight sat down and thought for a moment. Who would the Shadow go for next? If she didn’t guess correctly, she might not make it in time and whichever friend he went for might wake up. And if anypony woke up from this dream, they couldn’t use the Elements of Harmony on the Shadow, so he wouldn’t feel threatened enough to stop messing with all of their dreams. This entire misadventure could become in vain if she did not choose wisely.
Her choice was made much simpler by a note that popped out of thin air right above Twilight. She floated it with her horn, knowing what it would say. Written on the note was a single word before the customary signature:
RARITY
-Night Shine
Twilight called back to Fluttershy, whom she had stepped away from to read the note, “We need to help Rarity. Hurry!”
Fluttershy nodded and followed Twilight out the door, who was racing at a full gallop to Rarity’s boutique.

***

Rarity sewed on the finishing touch to the beautiful dress she was working on. “Aha! Perfect!” she exclaimed. And it really was perfect. Sweetie Belle was just going to love it! Not that she really had any need for it, being just a filly and all. But the dress was still a work of beauty, one that would look absolutely gorgeous on Sweetie Belle! Rarity had designed it specifically to work with her mane color; with intricate swirls of pink on a light purple background. Not only did it match her mane, but also she used some of her rare golden silk to embroider the Cutie Mark Crusader logo in the center of the dress, the deep blue shield with a golden pony rearing in the middle. The dress really was a piece of art.
Rarity paced back and forth in her room, waiting for Sweetie Belle to return. The gift sitting there on her shelf made her feel secretly both excited and nervous. It was Sweetie Belle’s birthday, after all, and Rarity was her big sister. She hoped that Sweetie would like her present…
Suddenly a noise was heard from downstairs. Rarity stopped and strained her ears, listening intensely. It was the sound of a pony walking in the front door of her boutique, and with the sound Rarity’s heart began to beat faster in anticipation.
Bum-bum.
The sound of somepony trotting up the stairs echoed through the hall as Rarity readied her gift to be presented. Rarity knew she should be excited for Sweetie to receive the present Rarity spent hours on…but…something just didn’t feel quite right.
Bum-bum.
Sweetie stepped into the room. Rarity took a deep breath and cried, “Happy birthday little sister! Come over here and open your present!” Rarity put on a big, cheesy grin.
Sweetie Belle completely ignored Rarity’s loud greeting and levitated the dress over to her, holding it in the air and examining it.
Wait a minute, Rarity thought. Sweetie Belle hasn’t mastered levitation magic yet.
Bum-bum.
Still deciding to act happy for her little sister, Rarity asked, “Well? Do you love it?”
Sweetie Belle let the dress drop and fall into a heap on the floor.
“No.”
Bum-bum.
“Excuse me, dear?” asked Rarity, her pulse quickening as her mind began to grasp what Sweetie just said to her.
Sweetie Belle turned around and looked Rarity in the eye. Her eyes were bright, glowing red, and seemed to be staring directly into Rarity’s soul.
“I said, no.”
Bum-bum.
Sweetie Belle did not move, nor blink, nor even shift her weight as she said, “I hate this. This is one of the worst creations you have ever made. Of course, that is assuming what you make even deserve to be called ‘creations’. Honestly they are more like different arrangements of garbage passed off as ‘art’.”
Bum-bum. Bum-bum.
“The dress is almost as ugly and misshapen as you are. The only reason that I would even dream of wearing this in public is to show the snobbish, pathetic ‘fashion’ ponies whose opinions you value so much exactly how terrible you are at creating dresses.”
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. 
Rarity tried to take in what her own sister was uttering, but could not even comprehend it. Sweetie Belle began to advance towards Rarity as she spoke, glaring her down harder than Fluttershy ever could. Rarity retreated nervously, wishing more than anything to know why her sister was acting like this.
“And what’s more, this dress is just another example of why I cannot stand to have you as a sister. You expect everypony to be at your beck and call, obeying your every command, and then somehow twist your mind to think you require gratitude for your filthy pieces of trash that you shove on me with the mislabel of a ‘present’.”
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum-
Tears began to swell in Rarity’s eyes. She had never heard Sweetie say anything like this before, not even when they had gotten in their worst fights. Why would her poor little sister do this to her?!
All of a sudden Rarity heard a crashing sound from outside the window. She turned away from her sister and looked out to see Twilight Sparkle ramming into a black magic shield surrounding her house. Twilight glanced up and saw Rarity looking back at her. She yelled something at Rarity, but Rarity couldn’t hear it. The shield around her house must also block out sound.
Sure now what she must do, Rarity whirled around and looked Sweetie Belle in the eye. She knew that Sweetie could not have possibly made that shield; it must be in an impostor. “YOU ARE NOT MY SISTER!” Rarity screamed and put all of her magic into one solid blast which she hurled at Sweetie Belle.
Sweetie did not react, but simply stood there. The magic washed over and peeled away the disguise of a dark blue pony with those same bright red eyes. He glared at her, then dissipated into black smoke and faded away.

***

Twilight charged into the black shield one last time, but just like the other times, she bounced against the black magic and the shock was simply absorbed. She trotted in place, worked up and full of nervous energy. Rarity had seen her inside the house, but then turned back and there was a blue flash inside. What had happened to her? Did the Shadow manage to wake up Rarity with her fear, whatever it was?
The black shield suddenly evaporated into thin air and Twilight rushed through the front door, throwing herself up the stairs. She ran over to Rarity’s room, where she paused outside the door. She heard crying inside. Slowly Twilight opened the door with her hoof, which creaked as it slid open.
Rarity was inside, lying on the floor, crying just as Fluttershy was. Twilight walked over to her friend and lied down next to her, putting her hoof around her shoulder. Rarity turned to her and put her head in Twilight’s neck, still crying and sobbing. Fluttershy walked through the door but stayed in the frame, standing awkwardly, not wanting to say anything.
A note floated down from the ceiling, and Twilight gave it just a glance before standing up tall. “Come on everypony. We need to help Applejack.”

***

Applejack jerked upright suddenly. She was sitting in the middle of the Apple family orchard, watching the wind rustle the trees. It was the middle of the night and the sky was clear, but something about the brisk atmosphere seemed out of place. The breeze whistled ominously by Applejack as she tried to figure out what was wrong. She couldn’t quite remember how she got here, but that could be explained if she just thought about it for a minute or two—maybe she got hit by a falling apple or two. No, something else was wrong; something was missing.
Looking up at the sky, Applejack suddenly realized what was wrong. On a clear night like this, there should have been hundreds of stars dotted all across the sky, with the moon shining brightly across the orchard.
The sky was completely empty, devoid of all and any light.
Applejack pressed her eyes shut, trying harder than ever to remember how she got here. Was it Applebuck season?  No, she couldn’t even remember, but by glancing up she saw all of the apples still on their trees. Why wasn’t she asleep in her bed? What had she been doing out on the farm this late without anypony else with her? Why would the sky be empty if there was not even a wisp of a cloud? Nothing made sense.
But then Applejack heard a sound that made her forget everything she just thought about.
She heard the sound of her little sister screaming in terror.
Bum-bum.
Applejack’s eyes snapped wide open and awake. She whirled around to try and locate the source of the sound. It was coming from their farmhouse, which was just over the next ridge. She could see it standing there, obliviously still and silent, but there was no doubt in Applejack’s mind that it was where she heard the scream.
“APPLEJACK! HELP!” shrieked the voice of Apple Bloom, from their ignorantly peaceful home over the ridge.
Bum-bum.
Applejack reared up and raced as fast as she could toward the ridge. She could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears syncing with the pounding of her hooves on the dirt road. Beginning to sweat, her breaths were coming faster and faster, shallower and shallower. Applejack had never run this fast in her life, never been driven to this level of desperation and fear.
Bum-bum.	
The house stood ahead of her, mocking her with its silence, taunting her with its tranquility. As every second passed with agonizing sluggishness, the house seemed to be staring at Applejack, smirking at her, laughing at her pathetic attempt to reach it, to save her sister.
Bum-bum.
The apple trees flew by on either side of Applejack, but she barely noticed them. All of her concentration was on the house ahead, and her poor, scared sister inside. What happened to her? Did somepony break in? Did she get herself stuck in some of the apple pressing equipment?
Bum-bum.
Her heartbeat quickened as she pushed these thoughts from her head, trying to keep focused on something, anything else.
And then…she found something else to focus on.
The apple trees she had passed were the same ones she had been passing for the last two minutes.
Bum-bum. Bum-bum.
With horror, she stared down at her hooves to see that she was slowly sinking into the ground. They were moving, at the pace of a fast sprint, but they passed right through the ground as if it was an illusion. Applejack whipped her head back up and saw the trees flying by her, the same as before, but they were just an illusion. The road was an illusion, everything was an illusion; her life was an illusion.
“AAAPPLLEEJJAAACCKK!!!!”
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum.
The voice of Apple Bloom drove a nail into Applejack’s heart, shoved a hot iron into her soul. Her sister’s voice was in pain. In terrible, terrible pain. She just couldn’t take it, it was all too much. Applejack squeezed her eyes shut and stopped running. She dropped herself onto the ground, trying to ignore the dizzying illusions that surrounded her. She felt the desperation begin to crumble the solid rock of her mind as the Apple Bloom’s helpless, panicked voice reverberated in her head, again and again.
“You can’t save her.” uttered a voice behind Applejack. The voice was deep and grating, and spoke almost as if to try and calm down Applejack through sympathy.
The effect, however, was the complete opposite. Her pulse doubled and she made one desperate final attempt at the house.
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum-
	Her eyes were pushed tightly closed, her hooves pounding harder and harder against the hard nothingness beneath her, her heart beating faster and faster-
“Applejack! Applejack, are you all right?”
	Bum…bum. Bum…bum.
The concerned voice of Twilight Sparkle reached her ears, a soothing melody that calmed her out of her stupor. Applejack blinked, hard. The trees were still, the night breeze flowing through them. The stars were twinkling overhead in the sky, and the moon was shining over the night. 
She was standing right in front of the house that she had been attempting to reach all that time.
“Um…are you okay?” asked Fluttershy softly from behind her.
Applejack knew there was something she had to see before she greeted her friends. She walked over to the front door of the house and bucked open the door only to be met by an all-consuming darkness. The only thing visible in the darkness was a pair of bright red eyes. Twilight came up behind Applejack, and her horn began to glow as she readied a simple spell to light the room. 
All of a sudden the main room was flooded with light. Apple Bloom was nowhere to be seen, but standing still in the center of the room was a dark blue pony wearing some kind of mirrored coat that glared in the light from Twilight’s horn. Applejack blinked, and the pony was gone, faded away like a shadow in the afternoon sun.

***

Several miles away, Rainbow Dash was more excited than she had ever been in her life. The time had finally come for her to audition for the Wonderbolts! She could barely keep her hooves still as she waited in the long, single-file line of ponies inside the Cloudsdale Coliseum lobby. All of the pegasi were being sent out one at a time to perform a test in front of all the Wonderbolts, who would be judging the candidates to see if they had what it takes. Talk about nerve-wracking. Rainbow’s heartbeat sped up just thinking about it.
What would she do? Obviously another Sonic Rainboom would be the best bet to win them over, but she wasn’t sure if she could muster up the speed to do it. She had accomplished one at the Canterlot wedding six months ago, but that was after days of rigorous practice and training. Rainbow couldn’t remember how long she had trained for this audition, but she was sure it wasn’t enough.
She looked up. Only two ponies were ahead of her in line. “NEXT!” called a voice from outside. The pegasus at the front of the line gulped, and flew outside. That made Rainbow second in line to perform in front of the Wonderbolts!
Then Rainbow noticed something odd. The pony in front of her in line, a dark blue colt with some weird shiny outfit on, didn’t have wings. He was a unicorn.
Rainbow stifled a laugh. How did this pony think they could try out for the Wonderbolts if they couldn’t even fly? “Um, excuse me?” she asked the pony, barely suppressing the laughter in her voice. “How can you try out for the Wonderbolts if you don’t have wings?”
The pony whipped around and glared at her with his bright red, glowing eyes, his mouth hidden behind a shining metal mask. Rainbow shrunk back as the pony stared at her with a malicious gleam in his eyes, not blinking once. She stopped laughing. 
The unicorn’s face remained stoic behind his metal mask as he said, “Because I stole yours.”
Bum-bum.
Rainbow was confused for a second. “Um…what? How could you steal my wings? They’re right…” she trailed off as she looked back over her shoulder to make sure her wings were still there.
They were not.
Bum-bum.
“Missing these?” asked the grating voice of the unicorn. She gasped. What she had previously thought to be a part of his weird chrome outfit was actually a sheet of cloth covering…her wings, her beautiful wings, which were now somehow attached to the unicorn’s back. Rainbow began to feel cold fear crawling up her spine like a cluster of spiders and into her mind.
Bum-bum.
“NEXT!” shouts the voice from outside, jolting her out of her panicked stupor. The unicorn remained standing and staring at her for one final moment, and said, “Hate to leave you, but I have an appointment with the Wonderbolts. Good luck on your audition.” The dark pony shot out the door, managing an expert takeoff on his stolen wings.
Good luck on your audition…
Bum-bum.
Rainbow Dash sat down, trying to contain the terror that was rampaging throughout her mind. How could she audition for the Wonderbolts without wings?! The mare outside would call her name, and she would come out and see all of the Wonderbolts laughing at her. They wouldn’t remember her. They would only see her bare back and burst into laughing, remembering her forever as the earth pony who tried to join the best fliers in Equestria.
Bum-bum.
She would never get her wings back. That unicorn—no, alicorn now—pony she saw would leave here and never return. He would just take her wings and go. Plus, even if he stayed, how could she possibly prove that those were her wings?! Not even Rainbow’s friends would believe her. Her friends, who had loved her for the awesome pegasus who can do the sweet aerial tricks, would abandon her in disgust upon seeing her wings and talent gone.
Bum-bum.
Rainbow Dash looked up, trying to come up with a plan. Twilight always had a plan. She needed to get out, quickly, before anypony saw her wings gone. Had anypony behind her seen her without wings? When did she lose them? How did that red-eyed pony take her wings? Could she ever get them back?!
“NEXT!”
Bum-bum. 
At the sound of the mare’s voice, Rainbow Dash jolted. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for some way, any way to escape. They eventually settled on the open window in the corner of the room. She knew what she had to do if she was to avoid ruining her entire life’s hard-earned reputation in front of all of her heroes.
But…she hesitated. Was it really necessary to jump out the window just to avoid embarrassment?
“Next contestant, are you coming?” asked the mare’s voice outside.
Bum-bum. 
Rainbow made up her mind. She ran to the window, her legs pumping at a full gallop, her heart beating faster and faster as everypony in the room stared at her. Two feet from the window, Rainbow slammed her back legs against the floor and stretched her shoulders as high and flat as she could. Squeezing her eyes shut, she braced for the inevitable impact with the wall.
The impact didn’t come, and an unnerving lurch seized Rainbow’s stomach as she soared through the air out of the open window. Sighing with relief, she went to extend her wings and then calmly fly back to her home on the other side of Cloudsdale to recover from the stressful events of the day.
But there was one minor problem with that.
Her wings had been stolen.
Bum-bum. Bum-bum.
Rainbow, expecting to slow down to a controlled glide, was shocked by the sudden increase in her speed. She opened her eyes to take in dozens of clouds flying past her at dizzying speeds, shooting diagonally across her field of vision. Feeling sick and lightheaded, she watched with horror the landscape below her growing at an alarming rate.
Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum. Bum-bum.
Finally the reality of what was happening hit Rainbow full in the face. She shrieked like a young filly, screaming for help as she descended more and more rapidly towards her impending death. The spiky trees below grew from dots to circles to small cones as she closed the distance toward her doom.
Bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum. bum-bum-
Her pulse speeding up faster and faster, the clouds flying by faster and faster, she squeezed her eyes shut as hard as she could, knowing her death would be painless, not having the courage to face death when it hit her full on in the
OOF
With a loud grunt caused by the air being forced from her lungs, Rainbow Dash crashed safely into Fluttershy’s waiting hooves. They began to fall again, but not for long before both were caught in Twilight Sparkle’s levitation spell and lowered safely, lowered gently to the ground.
Bum…bum. Bum…bum.
Her heartbeat slowed to normal as Rainbow looked around at the worried faces of her friends. It was okay now. Her friends were here, they had saved her life, and they just needed to know that she was okay. “Um…hey guys. Thanks for saving me.”
Fluttershy ran up and smothered Rainbow Dash in a hug, joined promptly by all of her other friends.
Suddenly Rainbow noticed something wrong. “Where’s Pinkie Pie?”

***

Pinkie Pie awoke to find herself in a very familiar place.
The grass was sickly green, the hedges were tall and surrounded her on all sides, and hundreds of colorful balloons were tied by string to pink tables all around her.
Discord’s balloon garden.
“Ooh, cool, I remember this place. That table next to the wall is hiding the exit. That greenish balloon had Discord’s head in it. And that mud puddle was where I tripped and fell on my face!” Pinkie laughed a bit at the memory.
She looked around to see absolutely nothing happening. The balloons were still, the sun was motionless in the afternoon sky, and there wasn’t even a breeze to be heard. It was as if the moment was frozen in time.
Pinkie bounced past a few of the tables, looking for any other pony that might be here. “Hm, I wonder how I got here. Is the same thing happening as last time? It doesn’t feel the same. Is Discord back? Oh, cool, is there going to be chocolate rain again?”
“No.”
Bum-bum.
A deep, scary voice echoed through the balloon garden. Locating the source of the single word, Pinkie whirled around to be staring into the face of one of the weirdest ponies she had ever seen. His eyes were a shiny red, and he was wearing some kind of sparkly metal costume.
“Oh hi! I didn’t see you there. My name is Pinkie Pie. What’s yours?”
The pony continued staring for a moment before responding, “I am the Shadow that lurks in your mind.”
That’s a cool costume you’re wearing. Why are you wearing a costume? Are you some kind of superhero?! I was a superhero once. It was really fun…”
The Shadow just stood there and absorbed Pinkie’s babbling; he was puzzled and confused. Why wasn’t she afraid? How could she not recoil at his grotesque appearance? Did she not fear him?
“…and by the way, how did you make that really loud heartbeat drum sound? I don’t see a drum. Can you use magic to make a fake drum beat? That’s so cool!...”
Pinkie suddenly stopped. Her tail began twitching like mad, and she grabbed it with her hooves, vibrating up and down on the ground. She looked up into the blinding sun to see loads of dark shapes falling toward her at an alarming rate.
One fell right next to her and burst with an ear-splitting SNAP.  It was a huge boulder. An avalanche of huge boulders were falling from the sky.
Pinkie fell over and cracked up into laughter, rolling this way and that on the ground. She did look up occasionally to see that she wouldn’t get smushed by a big mean rock, but even that was a challenge when there were falling rockscoming out of the sky. How in Equestria does that even happen? Does that even work somehow? Maybe Twilight would have an explanation. Speaking of which…
“Hey Shadow, have you seen my friend Twilight anywhere around here? She’s a purple unicorn mare who’s really good at magic, I don’t know if you know her…”
The rocks stopped falling. 
Again, the Shadow stood and stared at the specimen before her. It dared laugh at her? It dared LAUGH at her? Of all the mockery, of all the torture, it LAUGHS at his powers?! He shall show this Pinkie Pie that the Shadow cannot be laughed off, that The Shadow is a force to be reckoned with, that HE is in control.
All of a sudden Pinkie Pie’s field of vision began to spin at nauseating speeds and she tried to find her balance by couldn’t. The world was spinning; she couldn’t see anything besides flashes of green and pink, little by little turning into shades of pitch black and milky gray.
Pinkie stood up and looked around. The grass had changed from a vibrant green to a pale, sickly yellow. Gray slabs were jutting out of the ground at freaky angles. She looked up to try and get her bearings, find out where she was and if it was near Ponyville. 
Nopony was near her, but she couldn’t even tell if they were—the fog was so thick here that Pinkie couldn’t see past her own hooves. “Geez. Why is it so foggy here? How did I even get here?” Pinkie Pie looked in the distance, where she thought she saw something peculiar. It was two bright red dots shining through the fog. She suddenly realized that it was a pair of eyes.
“Oh hi, Mr. Shadow! Did you bring me here? Why did you bring me here? Do you have something really cool to show me?”
He trotted closer to her, and then all she could see was his dark figure and those glowing red eyes staring at her. The Shadow stopped and stood still for a moment. Those shining eyes seemed to look right past her face and stare into her soul…
The atmosphere seems not to affect this one. But, I must be patient. Perhaps if I proceed directly to the spoken form of corruption I can twist her happy dream into a nightmare and wake her up, dooming the Elements’ happiness to die here and now…
“Pinkie Pie. Does it scare you to know that you are completely beyond the help of your friends?”
Bum-bum.
Pinkie stopped, and thought for a moment. Beyond the help of her friends?...Why would her friends not be there for her? And yet as she looked around, she couldn’t see them anywhere. Pinkie and the Shadow were alone in this creepy dead field of fog.
The brisk air penetrated Pinkie’s coat and, for the first time that night, she shivered. She had not really noticed the cold up until now, but standing here in one place and waiting for Mr. Shadow to do something, she felt the chill of the night soak her bones.
Bum-bum.
She nearly felt…frightened.
“Does it make you afraid to know that I have broken your friends beyond recognition?”
Bum-bum.
Broken them? How could he ‘break’ them? It’s not like they are piñatas or anything that can be easily broken. And yet…maybe he meant a different kind of broken. The kind that had happened when Discord had broken their friendship.
Had the Shadow done the same to all of her friends?
Bum-bum.
The Shadow advanced slowly again toward Pinkie, step by step, placing each hoof with purpose and decision onto the ground. As he stepped closer and closer, she began to feel a sensation she had not felt for so long.
Fear.
Bum-bum.
And yet something in Pinkie kept her from the terrifying panic and loss of control brought by the Shadow’s aura. Though the outside of her mind may have fallen to fear, her inner Element of Laughter forced her to open her eyes and stare the Shadow right back in the face.
Pinkie smiled. Because she knew, if she did not smile now, she would not smile ever again, for the rest of her life. The Shadow would not let her if she gave him the upper hoof.
Then something happened that changed everything.
The brisk night breeze fluttered by Pinkie and the Shadow alike, bringing a quiet whistling sound that only made the silence more deafening. The breeze made Pinkie cold, but she didn’t mind. However she saw something that rekindled her laughing spirit.
As the breeze passed, the Shadow’s leg trembled.
Just a tiny bit.
Enough to know that, for some reason, he was on full alert-mode, reacting to the slightest of triggers.

He was
afraid 
of her.

Pinkie suddenly burst out into laughing, falling onto her back and rolling on the dead grass which tickled her back. The Shadow physically winced and took a step back, not understanding what had led to this outburst.
The Shadow was afraid of Pinkie. The Shadow was afraid of Pinkie?! That was the funniest thing she had ever heard. Pinkie Pie didn’t want anypony to be afraid of her; in fact she wanted the complete opposite. She just wanted to be everypony’s friend. Why and how could such a scary pony as this be afraid of her?! It didn’t make sense.
The Shadow stood still, a look of fear flashing through his eyes. His cheeks tinged red as it dawned on him that Pinkie realized that only he was afraid of her. How could this have happened?! Why would she do this to him?! As he watched the pony roll around on the ground, GIGGLING and LAUGHING at his suffering, his heart hardened again. The Shadow’s newfound fear was quickly replaced by anger, and he knew that he could not stand the sight of this sick, twisted freak pony for one second longer. He pulled the ground out from under her, dropping her back from whence she came. That was one pony he could stand to never see again.
And yet the image of her laughing was burned into his mind, jeering at his suffering, guffawing at his misery and depression. The Shadow swore to himself, then and there, “I will find her again. And I will make her pay. I will show her that this kind of cruelty cannot be tolerated in my presence. She will remember the name SHADOW.
And she will never smile again.”

***

Twilight Sparkle was beginning to worry that they wouldn’t be able to find Pinkie Pie. After coming to Sugarcube Corner, they had spread out and searched almost the entire town, but to no avail. Where was she? Had the Shadow been able to wake Pinkie of all ponies from this nightmare? Twilight doubted it. She was just about to tell everypony that they needed to widen their search to include the Everfree Forest when something came crashing out of the sky.
A pink blob shot out of the blue, ripping holes through all of the clouds, and smacked straight into a returning Rainbow Dash, who immediately fell flat on her face. “PINKIE!” yelled Dash, frustrated. Twilight winced, remembering how sensitive each of them had been upon returning from being tormented by the Shadow. She readied herself to go console the pink pony, but then Pinkie did something totally unexpected and yet totally predictable. She giggled.
“Sorry Dashie. I was just meeting this funny new friend Mr. Shadow, and then he dropped me through a hole in the ground to here.”
Twilight’s jaw dropped. Pinkie Pie being able to resist the Shadow’s fear was one thing, but…this funny new friend?
“He said something about breaking all of you, but I really dunno what he meant by that. You all look fine to me! Anyway, now what do you all want to do? Since this is a dream, I think we should try and have a huge ridiculously unrealistic party with a giant party cannon and-”
“As fun as that sounds, Pinkie, we have a job to do. We need to find the Elements of Harmony so we can beat the Shadow and kick him out of our dream so he doesn’t try to make us afraid anymore. I think we should wait for the train for the next ride to Canterlot so we can get to Princess Celestia’s castle and try-“
Twilight stopped short as Pinkie’s bubbly voice cut her off. But…I had something to say…I was going to make a plan and….oh wait. So that’s how it feels.
“Oh, do you mean these Elements of Harmony?”
Her jaw hit the ground and her eyes became wide as dinner plates as she watched Pinkie Pie literally wave her hoof and the Elements just appeared, poof, like that behind her.
She zipped over to Pinkie’s side, bowling over Rainbow Dash in the process. “Pinkie, how did you do that?!”
Pinkie giggled and responded, “It’s a dream, remember? You can do anything that you believe you can do. Besides, if you’ve been paying attention, it’s not like any of the rules of science have been making sense this entire time. I just fell through the ground and out the sky, silly!”
Everypony stood up and walked over to Pinkie, taking their respective Elements. As they placed them on their bodies, a feeling of comfort and determination overtook them. The Shadow was in control before, but now the tables were turned.
Rainbow, who had been watching patiently until Twilight ran her over, slipped the Element of Loyalty over her neck. She needed to ask a question. After shooting Twilight an irritated glance, she said, “So are these the real, actual Elements of Harmony? Or did you just use some kind of illusion on us?”
“This is a dream, Dashie! Of course they’re not really real. But they will be real if you believe they are!” yelled Pinkie as she slipped the Element of Laughter over her head.
“Will they now?”
Bum-bum.
Another voice had entered the conversation, though from where, Twilight wasn’t sure. The voice of the Shadow had an echoey quality to it that made it near impossible to pinpoint.
His black fog was emerging from all sides, surrounding and enclosing the group where they stood. From within the mist strode out the Shadow, his armor gleaming, his eyes glowing with hatred. And yet they did not panic. Instead they returned the Shadow’s stare with one of their own, a stare of determination, a stare of refusal to give up, a stare composed of their sheer force of will.
The Shadow stopped in his tracks.
“Alright, girls. Let’s show this jerk what a friendship more powerful than fear can do.” Twilight said confidently, stepping into her position as the Elements began to glow.
Upon hearing those words, the Shadow burst into absolute panic. They had found the strength that lies in their minds, and now he was going to pay for the torment he had tried to use to twist them. He had lost. Hundreds of ideas bounced around his mind, whizzing by far too fast for him to grab hold of any single one. A desperate last resort came to his mind as he stared down the barrel of the metaphorical gun pointed directly at his face. He must push himself deeper into the mind of the leader, the purple mare he had not yet been able to truly torment, and understand  her deepest subconscious fears so that he could work from there and seize back control.
The Shadow’s horn all of a sudden flashed red and then turned solid black. It shot out a flat, solid black beam of magic that enveloped Twilight, interrupting the Elements and halting their power-up cycle. Twilight recoiled and tried to buck herself out of the newly forming bubble of black magic around her, but her efforts were futile. The Shadow himself, now appearing to have calmed down, evaporated into black smoke and it combined with the bubble around Twilight. All of her friends, panicking, tried to run to the magical shield holding Twilight captive, but it swiftly rose into the air above them all. Twilight had stopped struggling now and appeared to be asleep, twitching.
“TWILIGHT!” yelled Applejack, distressed.
A note fluttered out of the air, immediately snatched up and read aloud by Applejack:

You can’t help her now
She had so save herself, if she is where I think she is…
The Shadow took her to the final level of the dream
The subconscious of the mind

***

Twilight Sparkle awoke slowly and painfully, as if from a trance. She had a massive headache, from what, she couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember…
She opened her eyes to see a room full of nothing. The floor seemed to be made of a cloud-like material that pulsed and rippled when she stepped on it.
Where am I? How did I get here? What is this weird place?
Looking down, she saw that a large question mark had appeared underneath her. It was spinning, and staring at it made her dizzy. The question mark turned a sickly shade of green. Beginning to feel queasy, Twilight lied down on the soft, fluffy floor and tried to concentrate on thinking about what this place could be. The question mark underneath her stopped spinning, vibrating at different intervals as if struggling with something.
She shut her eyes. The cloud seemed to respond to different emotions she felt. But what else was in the room? Twilight opened her eyes again and saw, to her amazement, the air in the room was suddenly filled with sights and smells, images and feelings. She was inside of her own memory.
Getting up off the ground, Twilight walked over to one of the odd clouds floating in the air. She put her face up to it, and then suddenly was consumed by embarrassment as her vision was filled with the faces she remembered of the judges for her entrance exam into Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. She snapped her head back, and her emotions reverted back to simple curiosity.
Fascinating.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked a deep voice Twilight knew well from behind her.
The cloud underneath her rippled violently at the new arrival and turned from white into a deep black. New memories began to pop up and appear around her, but these ones were fringed with shades of crimson and gray. She tried to approach one, but was repelled with such an aggressive force that she just stood there stupidly for a moment.
The Shadow approached Twilight, levitating a large group of memory clouds with his horn. The clouds were hers, but when the Shadow released them, they shot off like their chain had been broken and mobbed Twilight all at once. She felt herself closing her eyes, and suddenly the images behind her eyelids were flashing faster and faster.
Bum-bum.
Twilight felt panic. She saw herself running, this way and that, frantically trying to find somepony in the town who had some problem. Her mane and her mind were fraying at the edges, her thoughts consumed by dread at the idea and implications of what would happen to her if her letter to the Princess was tardy. She glanced frantically up at the sun to see two red eyes imprinted on its surface…
Bum-bum.
Twilight felt depressed. She could see herself, her coat and her heart turned gray, sitting on the ground, hopeless, useless, in despair. Her friends had abandoned her. The Princess had abandoned her. The town had abandoned her. Discord was beside her laughing triumphantly, and a single tear dropped from Twilight’s eye and splashed on the ground. The tear splashing made a design of a pair of glaring eyes…
Bum-bum.
Twilight felt ashamed. She watched herself, paranoid and afraid, shouting accusation after accusation at Zecora, blaming her for Apple Bloom disappearing, blaming her for her horn flopping uselessly on her forehead, blaming her for the pair of bright red eyes watching from outside of the window…
“Twilight!” a voice shouted. This voice was different than hers and the Shadow’s. Another memory floated toward her, but this one was…different.
Twilight felt strong. She saw her standing alongside all of her friends, the look on their faces one of determination and the will to do what is right. Around their necks hung the Elements of Harmony, amplifying their qualities, drawing out the true source of power in the group’s unbreakable friendship.
She opened her eyes to see the Shadow standing right in front of her. His horn was glowing pure black, his eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and several beads of sweat had appeared on his face. The spell swirling around his horn was sucking memory clouds to him, all of her memories tinged with the black of depression, the red of anger, among all of the other negative emotions.
Suddenly it dawned on Twilight that some of the Shadow’s memories were also being drawn in by the spell, but he was multi-tasking by filtering out all of his own memories in favor of hers. She could see into his mind and saw the filter: a simple switch.
Curious, she flipped the switch.
All of the memories now shot away from Twilight and mobbed the Shadow. His concentration broke and he tried to back away from them, but it was too late. The memories were opening up and displaying themselves in front of Twilight’s mind, and she leaned in for a closer look.
Twilight felt rage. She looked out of a window, a frozen window, to see the laughing figure of Discord. Her mind zoomed out to see that she was in a house that was frozen and floating upside down, and she saw a blue colt where she had been standing with his horn and ears still intact, but no mane nor tail hung from his body. There was evidence though that there used to be one...Twilight shuddered. She turned around and saw Discord, right up in her face, guffawing his head off. His face was shortly joined by Pinkie Pie’s, and they both laughed at her together…
Twilight felt frustrated and depressed. She saw the blue colt again, his ears partially ripped and his horn snapped jaggedly in two, but without his glowing eyes and glaring armor. The colt was standing in a foggy field of dead yellow grass, standing over a patch of field capped by two thick gray rocks. Levitating in the colt’s black magic was a bouquet of black flowers…
Twilight felt an evil sort of anticipation within her. She was using a scrying spell, and hundreds of images flashed past her vision, all of them images of her friends as they walked around town, doing their daily business. One imaged lingered for longer than the rest. They all were sitting around a table in the marketplace…laughing…
The last thing that Twilight saw before being forcefully ejected from the Shadow’s mind was a small shack on the crest of a hill. The hill overlooked the Everfree Forest, and from within the shack Twilight felt the presence of ancient magic. She peeked in the window to see six stone pedestals. All but one of the pedestals held a polished, shiny black necklace with a gemstone symbol hanging from the center. For some strange reason the necklaces seemed to be calling her name…
“Twilight…”
“Twilight…”
“Twilight! Are you okay?!” 
Twilight was snapped back to reality by the face of Applejack filling her vision. The face was filled with concern. An enormous feeling of relief washed over Twilight as she stepped back and placed the Element of Magic, which had fallen off as she fell to the ground, on top of her head. She smiled. “I’m fine.”
The Shadow was lying on the ground in front of the group, and appeared to be moaning for some reason. His eye opened up only to close again.
“Positions, everypony. It’s just about time we all woke up from this nightmare.”
The Elements began to glow bright white and Twilight saw the Shadow tense as the light overpowered everything that existed, all of the feelings, places, and memories in the dream realm the Shadow had created…

***

Twilight woke up to find herself sitting in the ruins of the Palace of the Royal Pony Sisters. All of her friends were laying next to her, asleep. Rainbow was curled up in a ball, her breathing steady. Pinkie was snoring loudly, but smiling in her sleep. Fluttershy was twitching slightly, but the look of pain on her face that Twilight remembered had gone.
She allowed herself a moment to just breathe. Gazing outside, the night sky was clear and the stars were twinkling in Luna’s beautiful night sky. The moon was setting on the horizon—after all of this, it was the dawn of a new day. The nightmare was over.
A thought entered her mind, and she remembered that Night Shine was supposed to be here, watching over their dream and helping however he could. But as Twilight looked around, she couldn’t see him anywhere. Where did he go?
Also the Shadow was still out there, and had those strange shining black necklaces. What were they, and why did he have them? Why did they have the aura of a “Want it, Need it” spell, even though she could tell they weren’t enchanted by anypony in the last thousand years? There were so many questions she wanted to ask that she was willing to bet Night Shine had an answer to.
Then the sound of her friends’ voices as they awoke pushed the small worries out of her mind. None of that mattered as long as they were safe. Fluttershy yawned, and opened her eyes. Confusion immediately crossed her face. “Twilight? All of you? What happened?”
Twilight Sparkle walked over to Fluttershy and looked in her eyes. “I can tell you later. For now…let’s just all go home.”

*****
*****
Ending Author’s Note
Thank you all for reading my first fanfiction. It means a lot to me if you are willing to put up with my ideas and zero writing experience to read the story up until here. I plan on making more (if you’re interested), and the Shadow will be a recurring character for sure. Please let me know if you liked the story and/or legitimately want more by commenting or messaging me.

Watch out for the next story that I’m planning to write, The Elements of Disharmony: Necessary Corruption, which I will post on FIMFiction when it’s complete (It will take at least a couple months from now to write, now being 9/20/12).

Until then, I guess I’ll see you around, or something.


> Epilogue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As usual, Twilight Sparkle was to be found in her library, reading. She was studying a very peculiar type of magic, one that was not assigned to her but she simply wanted to research out of curiosity.
Dream magic.
Ever since her encounter and nightmare with the Shadow and Night Shine one week ago, she couldn’t get out of her mind the curiosity as to how that red-eyed monster could have created those illusions, which were so scary, so powerful and yet so believable.
Twilight flipped the page. She was reading Dream Magic for the Advanced Student—the very same book Night Shine had “borrowed” from her earlier in his own investigation of the subject—and what it had to say was more confusing than enlightening. So many different complex interweaving spells were required for somepony to actually forcefully enter and control another pony’s dream that it made Twilight’s head spin.
For starters, the spell to actually enter the other pony’s dream was a combination of a mind-reading and illusion spell (to feel that you are in the dream), another different illusion spell (to make the other pony see you), and a modified teleport spell and mental link (to set the whole thing in motion if another pony is dreaming near you).
Plus the spell gets more difficult if you are controlling somepony’s dream from far away, and even more difficult if you are blending the dreams of six different ponies into one consistent reality. No wonder Night Shine couldn’t magic himself into the dream to fight the Shadow with them…
An urgent hooting from the window snapped Twilight into reality. Owlowiscious was pointing her wing at the window, hooting incessantly.
Twilight trotted over to the window and looked out, squinting her eyes to try and see what Owlowiscious was pointing at. She made out the dark silhouette of a pony sitting on the ground right outside of her house, looking up at the sky.
An involuntary shiver ran up Twilight’s spine as she remembered the last time somepony had stopped by her house at night. She closed her eyes and forced herself to shove the fear out of her mind. No, Twilight. That was a dream. The Shadow is too scared to try anything like THAT again on you.
She walked to her front door and opened it slowly with her hoof. The door creaked loudly as it opened, and light from inside flooded her lawn. The pony turned around and raised a hoof to his eyes, shielding them from the bright light. Twilight saw his green coat, gray mane, and deep gold eyes, and quickly gave a sigh of relief, shutting the door behind her.
“Oh hi, Night Shine. What are you doing here? I haven’t heard from you for a couple days. What have you been up to?” Twilight started conversationally.
Night Shine sighed and his eyes darted around as they always did when he had something to say that made him nervous. “Well…it’s…it’s about the Shadow. I was trying to track him down over the last couple days, and while I couldn’t find the shed on the hill that you described, I did find this letter addressed to him lying on the ground. It’s…well…just…read it.”
Curious, Twilight took the crumpled letter from him and first noticed the odd quality of the paper it was written on. Even though the scroll was crumpled and in a terrible condition, she could see that it was made of Canterlot’s finest paper quality, the likes of which she had only seen on the scrolls given to her by Celestia. Whoever had sent the Shadow this letter had to have some kind of high position in the government.
As she began to read she noticed the peculiar handwriting style. It was very fancy and loopy, reminding her of some of the higher-ups in Canterlot, but it was surprisingly dark, which made it easier to read on the crumpled scroll. It seems whoever wrote the letter pushed down their quill with some force, though Twilight doubted this was intentional.
The scroll contained the following message:

“Dearest brother Shady,
It has been a long time since we last corresponded. Have you been well? I know of your of attitude and self-imposed ‘purpose’ ever since the tragic accident with our parents, but little brother, we must eventually find ways to cope and move on with our lives.
I wish I could say I was writing because I was concerned about your state of affairs, but really I will only be in town on matters of business. Well...I say business, but what I really mean is the special game I do love to play when the Canterlot socio-political scene becomes too much to bear. Call it a game of chess, if you will. This time you will be not my opponent, but my most powerful piece in a game against a local that I met the other night. He was an overly moralistic young colt and self-taught student of deeper magics by the name of Night Shine. Though his attitude was quite frankly very young and naïve (as expected from a colt his age), I was surprised to find that he seemed intelligent and strategic enough to pose an intellectual challenge. I will be sending him a formal request for our game by the morning.
Anyways I require your assistance for you are, as always, my most powerful asset in the game—my Bishop, Rook, and Knight rolled into one, if you will. I did hear you recently made several failed attempts in your everlasting crusade against Laughter that were crushed by a group of friends led by one Twilight Sparkle, another young local. This intrigued me, and with that and the fact that the two aforementioned locals have been corresponding of late I could think of no better pony than this Twilight to play the role of my adversary's Queen.
Now surely you are thinking, "What shall I receive in return for my participation?" I assume you remember the group of 6 mares who live in Ponyville that are all equal friends, including this local Twilight Sparkle. What you may not be aware of is that they are actually bearers of the Elements of Harmony! This would, I assume, crush any grand revenge schemes of yours. I am assuming you have some, of course, since your defeat at their hooves was, well, rather embarrassing. Not to worry though, your older brother has a solution.
Princess Celestia recently commissioned me, one of her most loyal professors of ancient relics, to study a group of five peculiar objects I have found to be as ancient as the Elements themselves, though I believe there is still one out there that has not yet been located. They are of the same approximate dimensions and magical capacity as the Elements as well, I have found upon further investigation. I need you to gather me a suitable team of a queen (maybe two), several knights, rooks, and the like for my chess game. In return, you shall be able to utilize the team in any way you so choose when I am not in need of it. While I have no desire to activate and seal myself to any of the elements personally, you should be able to study them further and use their power to its full potential. 
Also...a word of caution. While these objects appear to possess more power than anything I've studied--possibly more than Celestia herself—they have a peculiar sort of draw to them. When I was handling them, no matter what precautions I took, for some reason I had an irresistible urge to...place one around my neck. Luckily my strength of will prevented that. You should seek to use this to your advantage.
I will be expecting a suitable team of at least six, including yourself, assembled and ready by next week if you accept my proposal. 
And one last thing...try to let me know when your team is ready. Give me a sign that I will notice without seeking more secret correspondence. I went through enough as it is to get this letter across as it is, and now it would appear Celestia has commissioned some of the Royal Guard to watch me closely, making it harder than ever to keep in touch with you.
As it would be improper for you to write a response with the situation as it is, this will be farewell until you either succeed or fail with my proposal. Goodbye.

Your older brother and fellow player in this Game we call Life,


Puzzle Master
*****
*****

To be continued in

THE ELEMENTS OF DISHARMONY: NECESSARY CORRUPTION




UPDATE:

 The Elements of Disharmony: Necessary Corruption is now up here on FIMFiction! Check it out here: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/60957/The-Elements-of-Disharmony%3A-Necessary-Corruption