Nightmare Moon and I had come up with an idea to finally get warriors for her army. But she decided to test the idea first - on ME.
Bitch.
I awoke once again in the forelegs of my snuggle buddy.
"I am pleased that you chose to help me, though with all we have shared I expected no less."
What? Oh, she did NOT.
"You put me through the 'savior' dream without asking me?!"
"Aye. It was necessary to show you the dream, to verify it would hold true. Had we another subject here, I could have brought thee into the dream with me and we couldst watch the dream unfold together. As we had none but ourselves, you became the recipient of the dream. And I likest thy name for the dream, I shall call it the 'savior' dream from now on."
"Hmph. You could have warned me."
Nightmare Moon nuzzled the top of my head, then gave me her reasons.
"Preparing thou for the dream might have tainted it, as thou might have become aware that thee wert dreaming and thus disrupted the dream. As it were, thy experiences with me may have also done the same."
Thinking back on what I remembered of the dream, I could see she had a point.
"I knew that I knew you, but I didn't remember where from. But I had the same feeling with the whole dream, everything was familiar but I didn't recognize any of it."
"Then the dream was crafted perfectly. If thou didnst know me in the dream, then no other dreamers will."
I thought over the dream again, and remembered that this was the 'positive' dream. Then I wondered what would happen if she tried to put me through the 'negative' dream.
"Don't you DARE make me dream of getting eaten by that hydra!"
"Eh? Ah, be assured I had no intention of doing so. You had already chosen to help me in thy dream, I could not force you to do otherwise. However, had you chosen poorly I would have given thee the dream again and again until thou didst choose me."
"You are a cruel bitch, you know that?"
"Yes, I am well aware.
"It seems we now have a way to ensure that the shadow parasites can fully take root in their hosts. All that remains is paying a visit to a guard station from yesterday, and experimenting on a guard found therin."
"Which means, you have to let me go and we have to get out of this bed."
"Sadly, thou speakest the truth."
After a few moments of reluctance, the forelegs holding me in place relaxed and allowed me to leave their grasp. Both of us made our way out of bed, slipped on our armor and left our cave without any further delays. After we took to the air, I felt it necessary to review our plans with the dark mare.
"How much time did we spend in bed tonight, Mistress?"
"Several hours, my L -- my student. We shall not arrive at the guard station until just after the witching hour has passed."
So, some time after midnight.
"I presume we're heading to the first sheriff's station, where your new minion is?"
"You are correct. Now, enough talk. We must travel with all available speed if we are to make good use of our time tonight."
With that, the Moon Mistress rapidly accelerated off into the night. Had she been a car on a road, I would have expected to hear and smell burning rubber. The ebony mare allowed me to catch up to her, then sped up again. She repeated this frustrating process until I could fly no faster, then she slowed down to match my speed. The wind whistled loudly in our ears and the desert floor screamed by at an incredible pace as we raced to our destination. We successfully avoided the marine base this time, which I was immensely thankful for. That was trouble that we didn't want to mess with again.
Some hours into our flight, we overflew a nondescript two-lane road. Nightmare Moon immediately banked to her right and followed the road to the west. I didn't understand why, but I followed her anyway. The road eventually led us to the east end of Twentynine Palms. From there we easily made our way to the Morongo Basin sheriff's station. As the station was likely populated by officers not under our control, we avoided the building itself and alighted upon the same rooftop from the previous night.
As soon as we landed, I shot a question over to my dark Mistress.
"Alright, I gotta know. How did you avoid the Marine base so easily? We kept stumbling all over it last night!"
"As you may recall from the previous evening, I am able to sense the presence of my shadow parasites."
"How could I forget last night? To answer your question, 'yes'."
"If I cast that spell and narrow my focus, I can determine their direction even from this great distance. However, had we travelled directly towards my new minion we would have encountered the soldiers from this 'Marine base', as you call it. Thus, I needed a less direct way to find the guard station from last night.
"You may recall that there was a large roadway that passed through the hamlet. We searched this same roadway for a guard station, and eventually found the one that we assaulted last night."
"Yes, I'm following. And...?"
"While I was searching said roadway, I observed that the roadway travelled straight east from the hamlet for as far as I could see. I used this knowledge and my minion detection spell to find the roadway once again. I deliberately angled our travel so that I sensed my minions on my right side, between my head and my wing. As we passed over the roadway, I sensed that my minions were now in the same direction as the roadway travelled. I knew then that we were not only far enough south, but that we had found that same roadway. I merely followed the roadway to the hamlet."
"Alright, I guess that makes sense. But roads don't go straight forever, we could have missed the road completely."
"In truth, I was not completely certain I could find the same roadway again. However, I felt it was a reasonable assumption and it was successful."
"I guess I can't argue with that."
My curiosity now sated, Nightmare Moon sent out a magical call out to Officer Eskridge. We hoped that she was on duty this evening, and we were not disappointed. She answered the dark mare's mental call and readily agreed to meet us on the rooftop of the sheriff's station. To guarantee that we would not be seen, the Night Mare and I again approached the rooftop hidden from view. Once Officer Eskridge opened the doorway for us, we could see the familiar landing with a single flight of stairs leading downwards. We dropped our illusions and entered the doorway to discuss our plans with Eskridge.
"How can I help you, Mistress?"
"We believe we have a method to allow my shadow parasites to ingrain themselves deeper into their hosts. We wish to imbue into them the same servitude that thou hast given to us."
"Sounds good, Mistress! What do you need me to do?"
"We need thee to lure another officer to us, so that--"
As if on cue, the door at the other end creaked open slightly and the sliver of a face became visible. I quickly reached out with my magic and threw the door wide open. Behind the door was a male officer in uniform. He appeared to be Caucasian, nearly bald on his head and wore a bushy mustache. And he looked really surprised to see a black horse and a large black cat in the stairwell.
Yanking him towards us with a burst of magic, I then fought the door closer to close the door quickly yet quietly. The officer was unable to make any sounds before the Night Mare placed him unconscious with a simple spell. Holding the officer in her magic, she allowed his unconscious body to gently come to rest on the floor.
"It seems that fortune has smiled upon us, for we now have a subject to experiment on."
The dark mare closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again.
"It seems this officer does not yet have a shadow parasite. Was he absent when we arrived last night?"
The dark mare turned to Officer Eskridge, expecting an immediate answer.
"Yes Mistress, yesterday was his day off. He's been pestering me all shift, trying to get me to tell him everything that happened last night.
"I think he has a crush on me or something."
Nightmare Moon turned to me.
"A 'crush'?"
"A romantic interest, Mistress."
"Ah. I do not object to fraternization between my minions, as long as it does not affect their duties. Though if this one's affections are unwanted, they should not be continued."
A moment's concentration, and a purple shadow parasite came into existence at the end of the Night Mare's horn. The magical parasite floated down to the sleeping officer and seeped quickly into his skull. The Night Incarnate lit her horn and brought the glowing appendage to the forehead of the newly-implanted officer. After a moment, the glow around her horn ceased but the dark mare did not raise her head.
"There, the 'savior' dream has been inserted into his dreamscape. I must monitor the dream to verify it runs true, do not disturb me."
Officer Eskridge had been about to ask a question, so I decided to speak instead.
"May I speak with your minion, Mistress?"
"You may converse. But do not speak loudly nor address me directly."
I caught Officer Eskridge's attention, and beckoned her to follow me. We quietly walked down the stairs to stand in front of the other door. While we weren't very far from Nightmare Moon, I hoped it was far enough so that we wouldn't disturb her while she worked.
I spoke in a low voice to Officer Eskridge, and asked her what was on her mind.
"What were you about to ask the Mistress?"
In a similarly quiet voice, Officer Eskrige answered.
"I was going to ask what the 'savior' dream was."
Nodding to show I understood, I filled her in on the details of our plan.
"The 'savior' dream is an actual dream that our Mistress is running him through. In the dream, he will get a choice between saving our Mistress and allowing her to die. If he chooses to save her, the shadow parasite ingrains itself deeper into his psyche. If he does not save her, the dream becomes a nightmare. Then the dream starts over again until he chooses to save her."
"Do I need to have one of these dreams?"
"No, you're already enslaved perfectly. The purpose of the dream is to help the other minions get to your level."
"Oh, good. You mean I won't have to hide who I am anymore?"
"Nope. The plan is to fully enslave all the officers here before we leave tonight. You'll all be able to work together for the Mistress."
"Yes! Oops!"
Officer Eskridge's shout of jubilation had attracted the attention of Nightmare Moon, who narrowed her eyes at the officer in displeasure. Whispering a simple "sorry" to her Mistress, Eskridge looked down at her feet and began to fidget.
I recognized the sign of a conflict between Officer Eskridge and her shadow parasite. So I decided to soften the silent rebuke she had received.
"It's all right, Eskridge. Well, not completely; you did disobey the Mistress. But it was a minor infraction, one she won't hold against you as long as you don't do it again."
She let out a shuddering sigh, but her fidgeting slowed and eventually stopped.
"Okay. I'll do better next time."
I spent the rest of our time asking Officer Eskridge about her normal job. It was not long until our dark Mistress broke her silence.
"Unfortunate. Not only did he choose not to save me, he chose to run away in terror. I shall give him a terrifying nightmare as punishment, then restart the dream."
"Looks like we'll be here a while, Eskridge. Do you have a deck of cards handy?"
She nodded, then left through the door to the station proper. She returned a minute or so later with a deck of standard playing cards in her hand. The cards were held together by a rubber band and looked very worn. But instead of sitting down, Eskridge stood there and waited for me to speak.
I sat down on the floor on the second-floor landing, then gestured to a spot in front of me. Officer Eskridge took the obvious hint and sat on the floor.
"Ever play Crazy Eights?"
"Nope. Everyone here usually plays some version of poker."
"Okay then. The rules are simple..."
Time passed as Nightmare Moon re-wove and refined her 'savior' dream spell. Even after the new officer finally chose to save the dark mare, the parasite was unable to take full control of its host. So, the Moon Mistress replayed the dream until she was satisfied that the shadow parasite had ingrained itself deep enough into the officer's psyche.
At that point, she declared him ready. Eskridge and I walked back up the stairs while our Mistress woke her new minion up from his magically-induced slumber.
His new Mistress informed him of the plan and his role in it. He was also ordered to stop bothering Officer Eskridge, to which he reluctantly agreed. Eskridge recommended that we stay here in the stairwell until the few officers on the second floor of the building were enslaved, or we would risk being seen. Both she and the new officer would instead lure others into the stairwell for us to capture. Nightmare Moon agreed, so Eskridge and the new officer left the stairwell to betray their colleagues for their Dark Mistress.
We did not have long to wait. The lower door leading to the second floor opened, with Eskridge holding the door open.
"C'mon, just a quick smoke."
A new voice came from beyond the doorway.
"I didn't know you smoked, Eskridge."
"Just started. Get your butt moving, lazy ass."
"Alright, alright. No need to nag."
An officer we had not seen before entered the stairwell, and before he could react I snagged him in my magic. He was able to sputter out "what the--" before Nightmare Moon silenced him and dropped him into the 'savior' dream. The newly-subjugated officer walked in afterwards and Eskridge closed the door behind them both.
I decided to ask our Mistress what we should do next.
"Mistress?"
Occupied by monitoring the dreaming officer, she absentmindedly grunted in reply.
"Should we wait until you finish subjugating this officer, or should we get more?"
"Hmm.
"I am certain that I can monitor more than one dream at once."
She turned to Officer Eskridge.
"How many more are there?"
"Maybe three or four on the second floor, Mistress. They all have parasites, like this one does. There are more than a dozen on the first floor, and all but two have parasites. I do not know how many are on patrol outside the station."
"Very well. Continue bringing the officers to me from the second floor. I will tell thee if thou needs to stop."
"Understood. Let's go, Calloway."
Officers Eskridge and Calloway left to round up more officers.
It turned out that the Night Mare was able to manage six officers at once: the one officer that was still dreaming, the additional four found on the second floor, and one more that wandered up from the first floor. All of them had shadow parasites, and they were in various stages of enslaving their hosts to Nightmare Moon's will. These officers only needed one or two passes through the 'savior' dream to be fully enslaved, so in a short time our army had tripled in size.
The new minions swept the second floor to make sure no one had been missed, then they found a rarely-used storeroom on the first floor for the Mistress and me to use. Our minions then escorted the two of us downstairs and made sure we made the trip unseen.
The subjugation of the rest of the station went smoothly, right up until the end. The last remaining officer did not have a parasite, and was completely unaware that his fellow colleagues were now serving a new Mistress. He resisted all calls to go to the storeroom, so it was decided to bring his enslavement to him.
He was grabbed by two officers and forced from his cubicle to the ground. Two more officers joined the struggle, and together they were able to flip the officer onto his back and held him down. Struggling wildly, he cursed at his fellow officers until he got his first glance at Nightmare Moon.
"What the FUCK is that?!"
A subjugated officer cuffed him upside his head.
"Do not address the Mistress like that!"
"'Mistress'? What the hell are you talking about, Collazo?"
"He is referring to me. All of your colleagues have become my loyal minions, and you shall be joining them shortly."
The officer got to watch as Nightmare Moon summoned a single shadow parasite. His struggles increased dramatically as the purple translucent parasite floated downward to his face, and he screamed as the parasite seeped into his forehead to take root in his brain. The screaming cut off suddenly, the officer's face simply going blank. At the Moon Mistress's instruction, the officer was carried to a nearby office so he could receive his 'savior' dream in private.
The officers not involved with capturing the last officer merely stood in place and stared as one at the departing group.
Once the minions exited the private room to leave the lone officer alone with his new Mistress, the rest of her minions turned as one and resumed their normal tasks. It was as if nothing had ever happened, and they had no knowledge of a magical talking ebony alicorn working her magic on one of their own.
At last, the deed was done. Nightmare Moon's new minion left the office, followed closely by the dark mare. The minion went back to his cubicle, picked up his overturned chair and went back to work without uttering a word.
Man, it's creepy how well those shadow parasites work.
I stood there, overlooking the officers in their cubicle farm working diligently away. It was a surreal sight, as this was the same room where these same officers had fought Nightmare Moon and myself a single night earlier. Impressively enough, the station had cleaned the room and rebuilt the cubicle farm during the day. They even painted the walls. It looked like nothing out of the ordinary had happened here.
She of the Night walked over to my side and joined me in watching her new minions.
"Looks like we finally won a battle, Mistress."
"I am glad to hear it, my student.
"In truth, this victory is not mine but yours."
"What do you mean? You did all the hard work, all I did was coordinate with your new minions."
"Nay. I refer to thine idea on using the shadow parasites, and to the creation of the 'savior' dream. Without these, there would be no victory this evening."
Where did this defeatist attitude come from?
"As I recall Mistress, it was your idea to use the shadow parasites. I had no idea they existed until you told me about them. And we worked out the 'savior' dream together. Or have you forgotten how our evening started tonight?"
The Moon Mistress smiled warmly as she recalled our snuggling from earlier.
"Nay, I have not forgotten."
I returned her warm smile but kept trying to prove to her that this victory was really ours. It was only right.
"It was pure luck that we got one officer completely subverted. If we hadn't talked to her and figured out how her parasite worked so fast, we'd probably still be in bed trying to figure out what to do next. This was a team effort, Mistress. Neither you nor I could have done this on our own."
"Perhaps."
I guess she needs more convincing.
"Look. Why did you recruit me in the first place?"
"Because thou art a good kisser?"
"HA! Using my humor against me, are you?"
My Mistress grinned widely, showing off an impressive array of sharp and pointed teeth. Surprisingly sexy teeth, at that. But I digress.
"You're right Mistress, but that's not the only reason. You recruited me as an ADVISER. You needed someone to teach you about this world, and advise you on how to best conquer it. And that's what I've been doing. I've been giving you advice on how to best use your magic and your skills to accomplish your goals. When you take my advice, you succeed."
"And when I do not take thy advice, thou implies that I shalt fail?"
Oops! I'll have to treat that subject delicately.
"Well, that's true so far. But the more you learn about this world, the less advice you'll need from me. We've figured out how to make the shadow parasites work for us, and we can probably just tweak the idea if they stop working."
"Mayhaps this is the right choice. But methinks most of the victory this evening is still thine."
"And I still disagree. At best, we share this victory."
I suddenly had an idea that might get her to see things my way.
"So, if we share this victory does that mean that half of these minions are mine as well?"
"Never! These minions are mine, I control them all! Thou shall only rule them in my stead!"
Perfect, that's what I expected her to say.
"And that's the way it should be, Mistress. My nature is to solve problems, so I'm more than happy to advise you and let you make all the decisions. I don't want power, I just like to fix things."
"Art thou saying that I am broken and in need of fixing?"
A glance at her revealed her mane was waving faster than usual.
"That's not what I meant, Mistress, and you know that. But if you want to say anything was broken, I'd say it was your plan to conquer this world. You made that plan based on the ponies of Equestria and how they think. This world is too different for that plan to work here."
My ebony Mistress relaxed noticeably, and her mane slowed down to its usual slow wave.
"I believe I see now. I insisted on using a flawed plan, and that is why I continued to fail.
"It seems that you have become the teacher as of late, and I the student."
There's that awkward feeling again.
"Yeah, well...that's kinda part of being an adviser."
"True. But I should not call you 'my student' if we are to teach each other. It does not feel right. Perhaps I should simply use thy name instead."
"Maybe, but 'Nightmare Claw' is quite a mouthful. What, are you going to start calling me 'Claw'? If you do, I'm going to start calling you 'Moony'."
Nightmare Moon flinched as if struck by a hoof.
"Thou shalt not be calling me 'Moony'!"
"Sure. Just don't call me 'Claw' and we'll be good."
"As you wish. But what shall I call you? And I do not wish thee to call me Mistress any more. Thou art not my servant, nor my minion. Thou art second-in-command of my army, and should be treated as such."
I thought upon her words for a moment.
"Army, huh? Maybe call me by my rank? What's the military rank of a second-in-command?"
"Thy rank would depend on who thee was 'second-in-command' to. I shall be a Queen of my land, and art the General of my army. Mayhaps 'Lieutenant General'?"
"Nah, that's as unwieldy as 'Nightmare Claw'."
My thoughts drifted momentarily to the My Little Pony show.
Huh, I wonder how high Shining Armor's rank of 'Captain of the Guard' was?
"What about the guards around your castle, Mistress? What were their ranks?"
"I have never possessed a castle, I merely resided in my sister's castle. I believe the head of the Solar and Lunar guards were 'Low Captains', with one 'High Captain' above them."
"I'd be fine with being a 'High Captain', or just 'Captain'."
"Then from now on I shall address thee as 'Captain', Captain."
Nightmare Moon smiled slightly at her little joke. I returned her smile with a warm one of my own.
"Sounds good. Now what do you I call you, if not 'Mistress'? We're kind of in a weird spot; when we're out at war, I still serve you. But when we're alone, we seem to treat each other as equals.
"Or like an old married couple."
The ebony mare softly chuckled at the shared memory.
"True, our...relations are most unusual."
"I don't really have a problem calling you 'Mistress', it's only a word. We know how we relate to each other. But if you want to change it, how about 'Queen' or 'my Queen'?"
"I am uncertain that the title is an improvement."
"Well, I think it'll work. Especially if our 'relations' continue as well as they have, I may eventually become your King. Or maybe your Consort."
The Night Sky given flesh blushed slightly.
"Thou art not my Consort yet."
"'Yet'?"
The dark mare was confused for a moment or two, then she realized what she just said and a deep blush flushed all over her muzzle.
"I...no longer wish to continue this conversation."
But I do. Teasing you is so much fun.
"Awww...but what should I call you? We never did decide."
Indecision flowed across her features, as her blush deepened further under my gaze. After several moments, she finally found her voice.
"Queen. You may call me Queen. But thou are not my Consort."
I admit it, I was amused when the dark mare refused to make eye contact. I knew then that she had mentally added 'yet' to her words.
However, I felt I had teased my dark Queen enough and decided to drop the subject. Instead, I called out loudly to all within earshot.
"Officer Eskridge! Attend us!"
Within moments, footsteps could be heard running down the nearby stairwell to the second floor. Officer Eskridge walked briskly through a nearby doorway and breathlessly stopped in front of my Queen and me.
"Yes, Master?"
"I am placing you in charge of this station. This means you will make sure that this station properly carries out the commands of your Mistress. However, when it comes to your normal duties that do not concern your Mistress, you shall follow the normal chain of command. Do you understand?"
"I think so. Everything works as normal, the Captain of the station is in charge as always. Unless we get commands from the Mistress, then I'm in charge."
"Correct."
"I won't fail you, Master! What should we do about the other shifts?"
"What. Other. Shifts?"
"Well, you've conquered the Night Shift. What about the Day Shift and the Swing Shift?"
What?
Oh.
Crap, we're in trouble. How am I going to explain...
"Captain? What dost she refer to?"
...it to Nightmare Moon? This won't go over well.
"A police station must be active all hours of the day and night, my Queen. And the officers you see do not live here, they have homes and families to go to. So, this means that the station is staffed in shifts, each lasting about eight to ten hours. We just conquered the Night Shift, so..."
The dark mare facehoofed, and began muttering under her breath.
"...we've only conquered about a third of the station. There's still twice this number left."
Officer Eskridge chose that moment to speak up.
"A little more than twice Master, the Night Shift is usually a bit short-staffed compared to the other shifts."
I sighed and covered my face with a hand.
"You're not helping, Eskridge."
"Sorry, Master."
Groaning inwardly, I tried to figure out what to do next.
"Okay, we haven't lost anything. We just have to enslave more officers before we're done here."
"And how shall we do so, Captain? We cannot work freely during the day! They cannot be ignored, for they can always be called from their beds to oppose us!"
I turned to the dark mare to see her incensed, her mane and tail lashing madly behind her.
"Relax, we're not defeated yet. We just go after them at night. It might even be easier because some of them will already be asleep."
"And how shalt we find these slumbering officers? I know of no way to trace them from here!"
"Easy. Eskridge?"
"Oh! Um, I can pull up the addresses of all the officers stationed here, no problem. I can even show you where they are on a map if you need me to."
"See, my Queen? We can find them at night, and we know the shadow parasite plan will work. We can do this."
The dark mare sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time tonight.
"So I see. However, it seems that we have much work ahead of us."
"That we do."