Once Ness and Moondancer managed to calm down, the group began trying to make a plan. "I need to get into Moonside," Moondancer explained calmly. "Apparently, the 'Little Muffin' is somewhere over there, and the 'Muffin Mare' won't go with me to open the path we need to follow unless we find her 'Little Muffin'. I don't suppose you saw anything like that over there?"
"No...but we didn't look everywhere..." Ness admitted, looking a little ashamed.
"Moonside's been affecting Ness rather strongly," Jeff explained worriedly. "He's had moments where he'll just lash out in rage that he didn't even feel, points where he can barely speak...times when he can't stop talking..."
"These nightmares are designed with you two in mind," Buzz Buzz pointed out to Ness and Moondancer. "It's not surprising Ness is having a hard time with Moonside...though it does leave a question of why Nightmare seems to only be frustrating Moondancer..."
"Either her training in controlling her emotions is protecting her, or she doesn't have the same emotional connection to the Nightmare that Ness is experiencing with Moonside," Jeff suggested thoughtfully. "Based on what I've glimpsed of Nightmare while wandering Moonside, I believe it may be a distorted version of a part of her home world, much how Moonside is a distorted version of Fourside, a part of Earth."
"I don't have a home world," Moondancer pointed out flatly. "I grew up on father's spaceship."
"And how did you get there?" Jeff asked pointedly.
Moondancer blinked in confusion. "I...I don't know. I just...appeared."
"And that's why Nightmare doesn't affect you the same way it does Ness," Buzz Buzz explained calmly. "Your memories of whatever it's supposed to represent are locked away so deep you can't feel it."
"Then it sounds like we should go back through together to find the Little Muffin," Ness deduced thoughtfully. "I think...having all of you with me will...help."
"And it's not like we were able to find the man whose eyebrows were connected and has a gold tooth on our side," Jeff murmured dryly.
"A pink pony dressed up as him back at my end," Moondancer pointed out thoughtfully. "Go fetch 'him', and then we can look wherever you didn't for the 'Little Muffin'."
"Alright," Ness agreed, turning to follow the Path Between Nightmares over to the Nightmare side. He returned shortly. "'He' said we wouldn't see 'him', but 'he' would be following us," he explained thoughtfully. "...then 'he' gave me a cupcake. I...have no idea what to do with it, or if it's even real."
"Put it in Jeff's bag," Moondancer suggested readily. "After we're out of here, we'll check if it's still there."
Nodding, Ness did as instructed. "So...how are we going to find the 'Little Muffin'? Or..." He paused as they stepped out in Moonside, in a warehouse with no people and no exit but the Path Between Nightmares. "...or even get out of here?"
Moondancer glanced around carefully, looking for something Ness might have missed. "Hmm...I don't see any way out...but I think I might have an idea." She turned to the group. "Do you think you could all follow the warpers back here?"
"Easily," Ness confirmed. "I know where the first one in the chain is."
"Do you know one of the buildings that you haven't looked in?" she pressed.
"The museum," Ness stated firmly. "It's the only one we can get into that we didn't go into."
"Can you visualize the entrance clearly?"
Ness nodded, closing his eyes as he called it up in his mind.
"In that case...Hello, and Goodbye." She flared her PSI, and the world warped.
Moondancer, Jeff, and Buzz Buzz found themselves outside the Moonside museum. Moondancer blinked in shock. "That wasn't supposed to happen!" she insisted worriedly. "The last thing I wanted was to have Ness end up alone...and I'm not in position to get back into Nightmare to keep it from bleeding into Moonside."
"Then we'd best hurry," Jeff stated firmly. "I know the warper pattern, so let's find that muffin."
Turning, the group headed into the museum. At first, it seemed like an ordinary museum, despite the Moonside distortion. However, when they reached the exhibit hall, the distorted skeleton in the background flew off its posts to try and attack them, forcing them to do their best to defend themselves. As they struggled, a loud shriek caught their attention.
A tiny unicorn filly dashed by, running from a painting that pursued her as she screamed, "I want my mommy!"
Moondancer quickly blasted the painting. "Are you the 'Little Muffin'?" she asked in surprise.
"That's what Mommy calls me," the little filly said nervously. "Do you know Mommy?"
"Okay, we found her!" Buzz Buzz barked out. "Lets get back to the Muffin Mare before-"
The museum tore open as one of the houses from Nightmare erupted into it, bursting open to spill a swarm of wolves made of dead wood and voracious creatures that resembled the shape Buzz Buzz had taken.
"Get close to me!" Moondancer called out as she closed her eyes and focused. "Here's hoping this works," she muttered as she felt Buzz Buzz, Jeff, and the 'Little Muffin' grab hold of her. Focusing her PSI Teleport on Ness, she whispered, "Hello...and Goodbye."
The world warped.
Ness, Jeff, Moondancer, and Buzz Buzz landed just outside the crystal tree Moondancer had seen in Nightmare...only to see it now fused with what looked like the Monotoli building from Moonside. Elsewhere, bits and pieces of Nightmare and Moonside could be seen interspersed or fused as the edges of the dark world crumbled inward, buildings actually vanishing. A pained groan echoed over everything as the stallion who'd been blocking the path ushered the Muffin Mare and 'the Little Muffin' into a blue box that folded in on itself and vanished. "...I think I broke it..." Moondancer muttered worriedly.
"It...it hurts..." Ness groaned as he clutched at his head, struggling as the odd world they were in continued to dissolve. "Make...make it stop..."
"Let's get to the source and stop this, quick," Jeff insisted. Nodding, Moondancer raced around the edge of the building.
"Nope!" a man insisted as he blocked the path. "You can't get by unless you're-"
"Not today!" the invisible 'man' insisted as the man blocking the path was dragged off towards the pub. "Good luck, kiddos!"
"Make it...stop..." Ness groaned, silencing any urge to comment on the oddity.
Rushing around the building, the group saw an image of Monotoli vanish to reveal the Mani Mani Statue that Mr. Carpainter had been using in Happy Happy Village, now glowing with power and seeming to be breathing.
And then the statue flickered, and Giegue stood there, his body twisted and warped, half-dissolved as he struggled to hold himself together. "It hurts!" he screamed out, and Ness echoed the scream. "Make it stop! Make it stooop!"
"Dad!" Moondancer screamed out in fear, lunging forward...only for Ness to grab her by her turtleneck's collar and hold her back. "But-"
"Don't come...not near!" Giegue and Ness cried out together as the red swirls of Giygas surrounded the warped figure. "Not hurt...you too..."
"What's causing this?" Jeff demanded urgently, hoping to get some answers while Giegue appeared to have some sense of awareness beyond Giygas.
"Devil Machine...break body...mind stronger..." Giegue and Ness said together, only to scream as more of Nightmare Moonside dissolved, collapsing inward towards the group. "It hurts! It hurts...so good...no...help me..."
"I want to help you!" Moondancer screamed out. "How do I help?"
"END IT!" Giegue screamed as Giygas roared, the brief connection between Giegue and Ness that let him speak breaking as the red swirls took shape and the Mani Mani Statue reappeared, pumping the world full of the energies of madness.
"No!" Moondancer cried out despairingly. "No, that can't be the way! I...I won't accept it! I won't give up on you!" She felt Ness' hand on her shoulder. "N-Ness?"
Ness' eyes were hard as he tensed up, struggling to hold the red swirls back from his body. "He's...he's not gone yet...but his strength...it's running out. The Mani Mani...it connects to him in his present state...right now, if we act, we can help him. But we'll have...to reach through the Mani Mani to do it, and...expose ourselves completely to the Madness..."
Moondancer stared from Ness to the Mani Mani Statue to the red swirls...and steeled her nerves. "Then that's just what we'll do," she stated firmly, marching forward. The red swirls struck out at her, and she lifted the Borange Ray, thinking it somehow might ward them off or absorb them. Instead, the Ray cracked, splintered, and exploded, releasing a charge of Madness that caused a brief breach in the waves from the statue. Lunging forward, Moondancer pressed her horn to the statue and opened her mind and heart.
The pain, the Madness...it swamped over her as she felt the agony Giegue was going through in the linked moment as the Devil Machine tore his body apart to turn him into Giygas. She could pull back now and protect herself...but if she did, Giegue would become Giygas, and never return from it. She could not do that. She could not turn her back on Love.
She felt a power welling up in her...
When Ness saw the explosion on Moondancer's foreleg, he lunged forward. The Madness plunged into him, and he felt it tearing at his mind and heart. In the redness, he saw Paula being attacked by the Chimera Mook. He saw Monotoli doing...horrible things to her. He saw...he saw himself, consumed by Madness, treating her like a plaything. His Mom, his sister, Jeff, Moondancer, Buzz Buzz...he saw them dying and worse than dying...despair and fury welled up inside him...
No! It wouldn't be like that! He wouldn't let it be like that! He would make things better! He would save everyone! He just had to hold onto Hope, and believe that things would be better. Pushing through the Madness, he placed his hands against the Mani Mani...and he felt Giegue's despair. The pain was so great, and he felt the weight of the wrongs he'd done when split from himself. His strength was almost gone. He was going to give up...but Ness wouldn't let him. He would help him remember what it was to Hope.
He felt a power welling up in him...
Jeff and Buzz Buzz stared in awe as Moondancer and Ness blazed with a blue and gold light that pushed back the darkness of Nightmare Moonside, erasing it as the back room they'd been wandering around in all along became slowly visible again. The red waves of Madness faded away...and Ness and Moondancer screamed.
"PSI HEALING EPSILON!" The scream tore its way out of Moondancer's throat as the blue light surged into the Mani Mani Statue.
"PSI LIFEUP KAPPA!" The words seemed to leap from Ness' throat without bothering to consult mouth or brain as the golden light surged forth.
The Mani Mani shook, glowed, blazed...and shattered.
The world came to a halt in the moment between the Statue breaking and its link to Giegue severing. The voice that spoke was pained, tormented, and raspy...but there was strength in it. "...thank...you..."
The shockwave sent all four of them out the side of the building, rolling to a halt at a blanket Ness' Mom had laid out with a little picnic for the group. "Well, I was wondering what was taking you all," she offered jovially.