//------------------------------// // Chapter 9: Nightmares and Dreams // Story: Helljumpers // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// Smoke and fires surrounded her, Scootaloo coughed as she inhaled the fumes her eyes furiously prickling. She started to run in an attempt to get out of the smoke and asses her situation, she found a door and bucked it open immediately jumping outside to get some fresh air. Finally outside she looked back at the building that she just jumped out of, 'Sugarcube corner' She quickly looked around and saw every other building was also on fire, corpses of ponies lay scattered all over the street burn marks over their bodies or in some cases purple or grey bolts sticking out of them. "Lyra!" She saw the mint colored unicorn perched against a bench with a needler round in her stomach, a quick sprint later and she was sitting next to Lyra trying to quell the bleeding. "S-scootaloo?" She asked with a frail voice only to start violently coughing up blood, "I don't understand, they just started shooting these weird weapons at us while we only wanted to greet them." She continued. "I'm scared Scootaloo" her voice was losing volume quickly. "Stay with me Lyra!" Scootaloo pleaded still trying to quell the bleeding, "Lyra talk to me!" She didn't receive an answer "Lyra?" She looked at the unicorn who had slumped against the bench, eyes wide open. She checked for a pulse finding none, she respectfully closed the mare's eyes leaving a streak of blood to cover her face. Scootaloo looked down at her body she found that she had been covered in blood trying to stop the bleeding, the other thing she spotted was a black item perched against the bench. An SMG. She picked up the weapon and checked if there was ammo in it, a full clip. A glint of light drew the attention of the filly again holding the gun under her wing she walked over to the spot where the light had come from finding that there was a combat knife embedded in a wooden plank. She pulled it out of the wood and for the time being held it in her mouth since she had nothing on her to safely store the knife. That was the moment she heard plasma fire followed by someponies scream, she rushed over to the where the scream came from. along the way, more corpses lined the road some of which Scootaloo recognized before arriving at town hall where seven grunts where firing their plasma pistols at the building. Scootaloo could see ponies in the building desperately trying to barricade themselves in, letting out a growl she grabbed the SMG and opened fire on the grunts. The suppressed weapon only letting out soft sounds as the sub-sonic ammo left the magazine cutting down five of the grunts before the gun clicked signaling that it was empty, throwing the gun aside Scootaloo charged the remaining two grunts keeping the knife in her mouth until she was close enough to use it. The remaining two grunts started panicking at the sight of the charging pegasi, making them easy targets. the first one went down by a slice through the throat cutting off its methane supply. the second one didn't get far either as Scootaloo made another small dash and rammed the blade into the skull if the little alien. "Coast is clear everypony!" She shouted at the town hall while pulling the knife out of the grunt, the door to the building slowly opened revealing a group of ponies. Her heart seemed to stop at the sight of who had hidden in the building, the elements of harmony minus Twilight, the crusaders, Octavia and Vinyl. "Scootaloo?" Applebloom asked carefully, seeing that the filly before her was covered in blood and holding a particularly large blade. "A-Applebloom?" she stammered tears forming in her eyes. "MURDERER!" Applebloom shouted causing Scootaloo to flinch and drop the knife. "w-what?" "You're no sister of mine!" Rainbow dash followed. "NO I-" "We should have just left you at that orphanage!" Vinyl shouted while Octavia stood beside her Scootaloo started crying at that, "I was just trying to save you!" she sobbed. "You're not worthy of being a Crusader! We don't want a pony with a cutie mark for murder amongst us!" Sweetie Belle also shouted. "I-" Scootaloo started but stopped when she heard something behind her and reflexively grabbed the knife and got into a defensive stance, Standing in the smoke was one thing she never expected to see again, Discord. She got ready to charge but stopped when she looked at Discords face, no malicious smile on it like she had seen before. Sorrow, he looked genuinely sorrowful. before Scootaloo could ask him why he was there two light blue beams of plasma stuck out of her torso putting her in a state of agony, her vision began to blur as she felt the energy sword twisting in her back looking over at who stabbed her. Rainbow Dash. "Equestria is better off without you." she heard rainbow say before her vision faded to black, Scootaloo shot up from her bunk, covered in sweat and breathing heavily, looking around the room remembering that she was on board the Stalward Dawn. A glance at the datapad next to her bunk told her that she only had gotten about five hours of sleep, not in the mood to get some more sleep she got out of the bunk and grabbed her black bodysuit that now had the rank of private knitted onto it. After making her bed to perfection, something she would have never done in Equestria, she made her way to the showers. The nightmare had not been a singular event, every time she had gone to sleep ever since she had gotten back to the dawn her dreams had been haunted by sights of dead ponies and her friends yelling at her. Although the appearance of Discord had been a major anomaly from the other nightmares. In any case, it was safe to say that the three days she had been on the Dawn hadn't left her particularly rested. Arriving at the showers she found them empty, which was peculiar since spaceships don't have a day and night cycle so finding any room unoccupied was a rare sight. She got into one of the shower booths and cleaned herself from the sweat, after finishing the shower she put on the bodysuit and made her way to the mess hall. The sight of the pony walking through the hallways wasn't too disturbing for most of the crew of the Dawn, it had been the ship that had picked the ponies up in the first place so the entire crew had already heard about them at some point. The reputation boost from their action in New Alexandria admittedly also helped. Finally arriving at the mess hall she made her way to the coffee machine, not because we particularly liked the substance but the caffeine was a good way to start a 'day'. She also grabbed a few packets of food from a dispenser, real food was available on the ship for some occasions but the packages were simply a more cost-effective way to store the food. After finishing her breakfast she made her way to the gym to get some exercises done. The gym was occupied by a squad of 5 marines that were practicing hand to hand combat, Scootaloo ignored them for the moment and started lifting some weights. For the next ten minutes, she could see the marines glancing in her direction so every now and then, to the point that she was getting really annoyed with the soldiers. "You know I can talk, right?" She said when she caught another one glancing in her direction. The marines were caught off guard, they had expected to just be ignored by the pony like she had been doing since she had entered the room. "You're one of the aliens the crew has been talking about aren't you?" One of them asked. "Yea, so?" Scootaloo responded while continuing with her exercises. "We just thought the crew was pulling a prank on the new guys." "You thought the entire crew had banded together just to prank you? Seriously?" "Uhm, maybe?" The marine scratching his neck. Scootaloo resisted the urge to facehoof, "you guys seen any action yet?" "Nope, we got transferred to this ship right out of boot camp. Apparently, they needed to replace a team they lost." The marine replied, "My name is Nick Zuyev by the way." Holding out his hand. "Scootaloo." She said, shaking the hand with her hoof, "You boys mind if I train with you for a bit, the rest of my squad's still sleeping." Nick shrugged, "I'm fine with it. You guys ok with her training along?" The other four marines grunted their approval, "If you're going to train with us then I want a sparring match with you." One of them said. "Really Hopper, how are you even going to spar with her different body structure?" "You'd be surprised." Scootaloo said with a grin as she stood up on her hind legs, surprising everyone with how easy she presumably found it to stand on her hind legs. "Well, that makes things more interesting. Hopper said with a grin, "you have specialized sparring gear?" Scootaloo nodded and dropped back on all four of her hooves, no need to give him a chance to study the way she moved on two legs. Walking up to a locker that had Tyler's Shadowbolt logo on it, he had immediately claimed the locker after getting onto the Dawn and made it theirs. Grabbing padding for her lower legs, wings, and two gloves. The last thing she grabbed was the plastic mouth guard, her teeth already had a few chips missing she didn't need to lose more parts of them because she got hit in the face while training. Strapping all the protection on she stepped into the ring, Hopper was already standing at the ready in the corner of his side of the ring. "Ready to get beaten chicken?" He said, Scootaloo's heart rate went up but the look on the marines face told her all she needed to know, he was trying to rile her up so that she attacked him in rage. Calmed down a bit Scootaloo went into the familiar trance she had whenever she was training hand to hoof combat, the state of mind gave her improved reaction times and simply allowed her more time to analyze her opponent. Maria 062 had compared it to an inferior version of Spartan time, which was still better than that of regular humans by quite a margin. The side effect of getting that focused was that her face remained completely neutral, which really unnerved the watching marines. "Hey, Dawn to Scoo-" The moment Hopper spoke he left a small gap in his defence prompting Scootaloo into a charge, with a mighty flap of her wings she closed the distance between herself and her opponent and threw a few quick punches before quickly retreating to a safe distance so he couldn't retaliate. "Damn that was fast." Nick said astonished as the speed of the attack. Scootaloo slipping from trance allowed a grin to form on her face, "What's wrong? Chicken too fast for you?" Hopper by this point had recovered from her quick attack and charged her trying to hit her with a right hook, forgetting that Scootaloo had more than just her forelegs to hit him. Scootaloo ducked under the punch and extended her right wing, turning her body and moving the wing so that it slammed into the marines stomach. Getting hit by the wing caused Hopper to grasp his stomach giving Scootaloo the opening to throw a devastating blow with her left hoof to the back of the head of the marine. Hopper dropped onto the ground of the ring letting out a loud grunt, "I think I'm done." Scootaloo wasn't completely surprised, if it wasn't for the padding, getting hit by the bone in a pegasi's wing would feel like getting hit by a steel bat. "Good lord laddy, ya sure know how to fight don't ya." One of the watching marines said. "Learned from the best, it also helps that my reaction speed is closer to that of a Spartan than a regular human." Scootaloo said, falling back on all fours and closing her wings "Really, how can you be sure of that?" Hopper asked while massaging his stomach. "Because I got beaten into submission by one on a regular basis while practicing CQB in training and she noticed that I was able to block several of her strikes that with a normal reaction time would have hit." She explained, "We later tested my reaction time further and found that it was actually nearly as fast as her own." "Damn, you got to meet a Spartan?! Could you teach us some of her tricks?" Hopper asked excitedly. Scootaloo chuckled, "I might be able to give you guys some pointers" The marines and Scootaloo spend the next two hours improving their hand to hand and some knife fighting. In the end, the marines and Scootaloo shared their sleeping roster so they would get another opportunity for some training together. Rainbow Dash was on her way to Canterlot, for over a week she had been trying to decide if she would take Princess Luna up on her offer to join the lunar guard. The majority of the week she had spend visiting the girls instead of spending all day flying in an attempt to find the missing ponies. Starting with Fluttershy she had helped her feed the animals and managed to get her into the spa with rarity, without herself that was. To get Pinkie in a better mood she and Dash had gone on a small pranking spree which did wonders for Pinkie, who at the end of that day had a fully inflated mane again. AJ had declined the offer for a competition of some sort so Dash decided to help her with her chores, which inevitably turned into the competition Dash had proposed. All of which led to Dash's decision, the ability to search for Twilight and Scootaloo while simultaneously being able to spend time with the girls and all that without giving up her chance to join the Wonderbolts. Getting close to Canterlot Dash entered one of the flying lanes that would lead her close to the castle, at the closest point she broke off from the lane and glided the last part of the journey to the castle. Coming to a stop at the main gate of the walled-off section leading to the castle she spotted two dayguards. 'No change of the guard yet, must have flown a bit too fast if they haven't rotated yet.' Rainbow surmised. "Halt, who goes there?" One of the guards said, he probably knew already seeing that she was one of the elements of harmony but was just following protocol. "Rainbow Dash, element of loyalty. I seek an audience with Princess Luna." Dash responded to the guard. The guard nodded, "Please step forward." The guard shot a spell at Dash that dissipated on contact. "Sorry for that ma'am, the castle security got tighter after the changeling incident. Proceed to the main entrance of the caste, the guards there can help you further." Dash nodded and made her way to the main keep where she got directed to a, surprisingly, empty waiting room considering that night court would be starting soon. "Miss?" An assistant asked, gaining Rainbow's attention, "The princess is ready for you if you would follow me." Getting led into the throne room she found Luna sitting on the throne looking positively bored, "Your majesty, you there is a citizen requesting an audience." Luna's head shot up looking for who had come to her night court, "Rainbow Dash! please come forward. I hope this is about my proposal?" "Yes, princess. I've made my decision." Dash started, "If what Rarity said is true and I can get transferred to the Bolts after we find Twilight and Scootaloo than I accept your offer." Luna shot up from her throne, "Excellent! Azure Moon night court is closed for today, miss dash and us have a lot to do tonight!" Luna walked up to Rainbow and lit her horn up, "Are you familiar with long-range teleportation?" "Uhm I think Twilight once di-" Rainbow got cut off as Luna's horn started shining brightly and a moment later she dropped onto a grassy field suddenly very nauseous. "This is as close as we can get to our destination." Luna stated, "Mis-" "Just call me Dash or Rainbow, Princess, calling me miss just makes me feel old." Rainbow said resisting the urge to vomit, "What's our destination anyway?" "Our old castle, Canterlot is a beautiful city but it doesn't have the facilities for either the forging or specific spellwork." Luna responded, helping the pegasus back on her hooves, "Come, the night is young but We would like to get this done quickly." "Old castle but that means.." Dash's eyes widened as she looked around the clearing, "We're in the Everfree forest, aren't we?" "Yes, but do not despair. No foul creatures will attack us as long as we're with you" Luna said, "Now let us go, the rest of the journey will have to be by hoof." The princess led Rainbow through the forest for about fifteen minutes, after that the duo reached the familiar chasm where Dash had met the illusions of the Shadowbolts and flew over it reaching the castle shortly after. Walking through the castle's main hall luna lit up her horn and a passage opened up on the lunar side of the hall to a room previously hidden. "Whoa, this room is awesome!" Dash said as the walked into a circular room with a glass dome giving a good view of the night sky, the floor had large arcane circles on them and the walls had murals of warriors of old drawn on them. " 'tis the room where every other guardian of dreams has given their oath." Luna said while taking in the room, not having been there for a long time, "It has been over a millennium that this room has been used. Dash, before you take the oath I have to warn you, This is not the oath the regular lunar and solar guards take. Theirs is one that verbally states their intent, this one will magically bind you to honor your commitment along with other... changes." "Umh, what kind of changes?" Dash nervously asked. "For one thine hearing and sight will be improved, there might also be some quirks with your speech." Luna explained, "We assure you nothing drastic will change." Dash relaxed a bit, "So what do I have to do?" "Stand in the center of the room, the rest shall be up to us. The spell will simply fail if your intentions aren't pure." Dash walked up to the center of the room waiting for Luna to do her part. Luna's horn lit up once again also causing the circles to glow in a dark blue hue. Tendrils of magic began swirling around attaching themselves to Dash and seemingly merging with her body, as soon as all the magic settled Rainbow got extremely nauseous as she was suddenly able to hear every little sound in the room from a fly buzzing around to Luna's heartbeat. Clutching her ears she dropped onto the floor waiting for the sensations to stop, which it did after what felt like an eternity. Opening her eyes again she looked around, the previously dark room seemed to be lit up as if in daylight. releasing her hold on her ears she could still hear as well as she did moments ago only it didn't feel like her head was about to explode because of it. Trying to get back on her feet Dash felt a hoof on her back, tensing up she looked over at the princess who was holding a hoof on her back. "My Sovereign, plea-" Dash quickly covered her mouth, "What was that?!" "That, my little pony, is one of the quirks I feared but do not despair thine can learn to resist the urge to call us sovereign over time." Luna said trying to comfort Dash, "Come there is one more thing we must do." The two ponies moved down into the underground of the castle where luna once again opened a hidden passage, this one leading to a large forge room that had armor stands lining the walls. The forge itself was also peculiar: blue, smokeless flames where heating it. "Uhm my Sove-. Princess, what is this place?" Dash asked looking around in wonder once again. " 'tis the Lunar Forge. If thine are wondering, the fires are magically powered by the power of the moon. Canterlot, although an impressive city, does not host a forge like this and it will be needed for the creation of an armor set appropriate for a guardian of dreams." "A what?" "A guardian of dreams, it's the title dreamwalkers got over a millennia ago. it is tradition that every guardian gets its own custom armor set made by myself." Luna explained while a grin started forming on Dash her face, "If thou have any requests now is the time" Luna added picking up a large plate of black metal. "Well..." Twilight Sparkle was angry, for the past few days she had regularly checked the external cameras of the ship to get a view of the surface of reach. The glances revealed that large portions of burned land in Covenant controlled sectors of the planet, having enough of the sight Twilight turned off the tablet trying to focus on finding a way to locate Equis which she had been failing at for over a month now. Not being able to focus she eventually just gave up and let her mind drift for a bit. Scootaloo had been having nightmares but had been trying to keep them a secret, not that it was hard to figure out with the way she was moving around in her bunk. Not that she herself didn't have any nightmares but those of Scootaloo seemed to be much worse than hers. But not everything was bad news, Woods had gotten very lucky at the spaceport and although he had lost his leg due to extensive damage from the shrapnel he wasn't dead, which was more than most humans could say. Returning to the tablet to look over Reach again she felt the spaceship lurch forward followed by alarms going off. "All crew Battlestations! This is not a drill, Prepare for possible enemy boarding attempts!"