//------------------------------// // 65536: 3 // Story: They're EVERYWHERE! // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// Even Luna must admit that she has significantly less control over the dream realm than anypony would expect from an alicorn whose aspect dreams are. What they fail to understand is that other alicorns are only specialized in certain aspects of the real world while she has an entire reality, or a mix of realities, to oversee. If the full extent of Luna’s powers could transfer into the real world, she would easily be able to achieve things far beyond the capabilities of any reality warper throughout history. What, however, is true is that she possesses the greatest understanding of the dreamscape and all the chaos within. Tonight, though, the dreamscape is almost still, stable and solid as a rock as the collective dreams of Canterlot ponies are locked on one and only one thing. Collective nightmares, to be accurate. “That’s not your beloved!” Luna calls out, her voice muffled as a stallion kisses a changeling before collapsing, green mist coming off of him and feeding the creature.  Before she can stabilize the situation, it shifts, revealing the stallion awake and screaming inside a cocoon hanging from a Canterlot street lamp. There are hundreds of thousands more hanging everywhere, lying in the streets, or glued to the walls of dark buildings. Luna was expecting this when she finally delved back into the dream realm, the second night after the invasion. Canterlot ponies survived a trauma beyond anything they encountered before and it was bound to leave mental scars. What she wasn’t expecting was how powerful and raw everything would be when put together. Changelings are swarming everywhere, hunting down screaming survivors and aided by mind-controlled ponies now addicted to changeling venom or… other ministrations. “Yep… some of the captured ponies got rather interesting fantasies implanted in them,” Luna, hovering above the city, winces, “Oh my, that looks like their queen, judging by the size of her… everything. Is that an edible thong made of cake- SISTER?!” “YOUSAWNOTHING!” Somewhere in the real castle, Celestia bolts upright in her bed, sweat dripping from her forehead. “I’ll never hear the end of this...” she sighs with absolute certainty. Luna shakes her head but can’t help smirking as that particular vision vanishes. It’s not as if her sister is the only one with a dream like that right now. She should probably leave these fantasies alone for now and focus on the ones with claws and teeth… all hundreds of thousands of them. Her horn lights up and she starts blasting her way through the twisting and shifting version of Canterlot swarming with variations of changelings from the imagination of all the terrified ponies. *** 65536 yawns, its headache mostly gone, leaving behind only dull throbbing and some new words and concepts. Well, not exactly new, more like refreshed and recalled. The sleepy rectangle is a bed, the smaller head rectangle is a pillow, and the warm cover it’s tightly wrapped in is called a blanket. Blue- no, Luna is sleeping next to it, sometimes twitching, kicking, and gasping. After a rather powerful, full-body spasm, 65536 sits up, untangles itself from the blanket, shuffles over the treacherously soft bed to Luna’s neck, and nuzzles it. “Don’t wake her up,” a new voice says something it can’t understand. Upon examination, it belongs to a grey pony with purple mane, yellow eyes, and wings that look like they belong to those creatures back in the hive that roost on the ceiling. 65536 can’t recall names or anything but some colors seem to be back. The headache grows worse again so the drone stops trying to focus on things that aren’t obvious. 65536 nudges Luna again and follows it by licking her cheek. The pony stands up, quietly and carefully walks around the bed, unceremoniously scoops the drone with one foreleg, and carries it away back to the armchair he’s been sitting in. “Do you understand me?” he says. 65536 stares, fascinated by his fangs. Something keeps telling it that ponies shouldn’t have those, so it reaches out to touch the pony’s muzzle. The pony pushes its foreleg down, leaving 65536 with only one option - try the other foreleg. Same result. 65536 bares its fangs to show the strange pony who frowns and narrows his eyes. The emotions surrounding him shift from wary curiosity to something much colder which makes the drone close its mouth lower its head. That way it might not get eaten or sent into the crusher. It grunts, more spikes of pain boring through its head as memories surface. This time, thankfully, they’re related to the workings of the hive so they don’t completely knock 65536 out. In fact, the pain stops rather quickly after the initial shock. Why? It finds itself curled up against the pony’s chest, his forelegs wrapped tightly around it. There’s no explicit love to feed on, ambient or otherwise, but the contact is helping anyway. So warm… As the drone nuzzles the pony’s neck, darkness envelops it. It quickly looks around, only for its muzzle to bump into something leathery. It pushes its head through the less dark hole above and twists its neck… ...to see that it’s wrapped in the pony’s wings, the material of which still needs identifying the drone way. *** Sharp Biscuit squints at the changeling currently nibbling on his wing. It’s not biting down per-se, always stopping once the leathery skin gives in even a little. He bites his lip to fight the tickling sensation. “Last time this happened to me, a friend’s foal was teething,” he mutters to himself. The changeling looks at him and after a second of absence of any punishment it returns to its chewing, “Is it possible that you are something like a changeling version of a foal? The witnesses I talked to earlier did say the changelings they fought were bigger and aggressive. Though the corpses in the streets… most of them looked like you. Exactly like you, to be frank. Hmmm… ouch!” his wing twitches as this time the changeling’s bite must have pierced the skin around the wingbone. The changeling gasps and immediately starts licking the bleeding spot, leaving behind a green, quickly-hardening film which, after a moment, starts feeling cool and numb.  Experimentally, Sharp spreads his wing and folds it again on his back while the changeling watches. “You’re an enigma...” “Enema...” mumbles the changeling. Sharp’s eyes go wide. “Few of the ponies said you could talk...” “Yu-ku-tok?” Sharp shakes his head. The changeling lets out what even he can identify as a disappointed sigh. In response, he scratches it behind the ear. The tip of its tongue plops out of its mouth. Sharp can’t help poking it. The second he does it, the changeling’s eyes light up and it boops his nose with a chitter.  “A breakthrough,” he mutters. “Abrfroo-” the changeling tries to imitate him and after spitting all over itself it paws at its mouth. Sharp smiles. The changeling does so too and, like before, it reaches for the side of his muzzle. This time he lets the creature touch him, namely his fang. It bares its own fangs again.  “So this is what you wanted to do...” says Sharp, “We both have fangs, yes,” he nods, touching the side of the changeling’s muzzle in response. It smiles from ear to ear, “Though I must admit you have a lot more teeth than we do.” “Denweedo...” mouths the changeling. “I’ve got an idea. Might keep us occupied for tonight,” Sharp smirks, points at himself, and says clearly, “Sharp.” “Shaaa,” replies the changeling. “Sharp.” “Shaaap?” “Close, but no. Sharp.” “Shargh?” the changeling scrunches its muzzle at its own attempt, “Sharp?” The batpony nods with a smile and pats its head. “Let’s try something advanced,” he points at the princess. Before he can say anything, though, the changeling chirps happily: “Lu-na!” “Heh, chalk it up to Luna to try this first,” he smirks, petting the changeling again. A violent spasm turns Luna around and before Sharp can get a grip on the changeling, it slips from his grasp and bolts towards her. It jumps on the bed and bounces off so hard it lands on the floor on the other side. Before it can scramble to all fours, Sharp catches up and grabs it tight with one foreleg. “Look, if you wake her up, you’ll do more harm than good. The nightmare needs to run its course as Luna steers it to a good end so that it doesn’t repeat and get worse over time,” he hisses at the changeling whose head keeps turning from him to Luna in confusion, “Trust me, this isn’t the first time something like this hap-” Luna screams. Her eyes shoot wide open and roll back as foam starts coming from her mouth. A black rift opens above her, somehow still clearly visible in the already unlit room to both the nocturnal batpony and the underground-dwelling changeling. Something like the leg and a sharp blade of a praying mantis reaches out of it and- Sharp Biscuit drops the changeling, tackling grabbing the bedsheet with its mouth and pouncing across the bed which rolls Luna off of it just as the blade stabs down. When Sharp looks up again, he sees the changeling hanging down from the limb coming from the rift by its teeth. Its foreleg flashes green and smacks against the blade which comes clean off. Another swing and the limb itself is cut off and the changeling drops on the bed with the limb still in its teeth. The remains of the protruding limb retread back into the rift. Unceremoniously, Sharp Biscuit shoves Lune under the bed and looks at the door. The guards on the other side should already be trying to break it down. Why aren’t they? He runs over. There’s no handle. He slams his hoof against it but it makes no noise. It’s like being in a nightmare… ...but awake. With nothing to lose, he flips the light switch next to the door. The beautiful chandelier flares up… ...then its light fades into dim glow… ...and even that starts flickering.  A light brown stallion steps out of the black rift, his eyes pitch black holes into another universe, its mouth cracked open literally from ear to ear. It looks at the small changeling in front of it and buzzes like an insect crossed with a buzzsaw. Something bulges under its skin like a maggot creeping under a sheet of paper, and more and more unseen things join in immediately, all crawling towards the “pony’s” mouth which opens wide, revealing yet another inky black hole just like its eyes. The changeling doesn’t even try to stand up and begins scrambling and pushing itself away, its legs suddenly sinking into the soft bed as if it was quicksand. It keeps looking around, chittering loudly as it’s being swallowed into a depth which by all means shouldn’t exist. Sharp grits his teeth, for some reason moving as if through knee-high tar. A nightmare. A nightmare in the real world.  He passes by the changeling now up to its neck inside the bed and tackles the nightmarish pony back into the rift. Seeing that, 65536 opens its mouth: “Shaaaaaaaaaa!” With a jolt of its whole body, 65536 twitches and finds itself on the bed, completely un-swallowed, as if just waking up. However, the rift still hangs there and Sharp is nowhere to be found. It quickly peeks under the bed to find still twitching Luna, grabs the not-Luna plushie from the floor, takes a deep breath… ...and jumps with it right into the rift.