Dream after dream blend into one for Luna. She was expecting the situation but underestimated its magnitude. Changelings here, changeling there, swarms of them everywhere. Other than the hordes of chitinous monsters, the dreams have one more thing in common - Canterlot is ruined and burning in places. The princesses have failed, the ponies so used to peace are on their own.
Nopony is coming to save them, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, no hope.
Roughly a million ponies combined live in lower and upper Canterlot and the vast majority dream only about one thing tonight, and Luna finds herself overwhelmed. Even she, the protector of dreams, has to retreat.
Her form disappears from the sky above Canterlot and the ball of changelings surrounding her descends on the city again.
When she opens her eyes, she finds herself among the crowd of a filled high school auditorium, listening to the stuttering of a colt who is for some reason wearing white boxers.
“Ahhh,” she breathes out, “The classic.”
She just needs to take a breath, that’s all, and then she’ll go right back.
***
Sharp Biscuit finds himself in some underground hallway similar to the maintenance tunnels of Canterlot sewers. A quick check reveals he’s wearing his light armor as well as the standard Nightguard combat horseshoes.
*Tap tap tap*
The pipes?
He touches the pipes lining the wall next to him. No, they seem solid, nothing is shaking under the pressure of steam.
*Tap tap*
He puts his ear to the warm pipe.
His batpony hearing catches the faintest scratch of something on the floor behind him.
Metal blades slide out of his horseshoes as he turns around to face a pony with scarred and twisted face wearing a brimmed hat and a sweater. Metal claws protrude from his hooves, which he raises and gives Sharp an evil grin.
A grin which suddenly gets significantly wider as the commander of the Nightguard swipes his foreleg at him.
“I never like that movie, Krumare,” Sharp smirks, “Too many plot holes. Also, you’re a stallion,” he lowers his head to look between Krumare’s hind legs, “Or are you?”
The nightmarish pony lunges at him with a growl, flailing his bladed forelegs furiously. Of course, bull rushing a soldier trained in close combat works about as well as expected, and Krumare finds himself on the floor, his fetlock hacked off by Sharp’s combat blades as the batpony dodges his lunge with a quick pirouette.
Sharp steps on Krumare’s back and casually flicks his hat off before ramming his horseshoe blades directly down, severing Krumare’s spine. The pony melts like liquid, vanishing into the floor.
“Now, if I recall correctly, this shouldn’t be the end of it,” Sharp mutters to himself, heading forward through the familiar hallway, “So, either the Nightmare movie was based on a true story, which means all the ponies in it suffered serious concussion beforehoof, or… or the rift somehow connected the real world to the dreamscape.”
“RAAARGH- oh buck!” Krumare’s raspy voice gets cut off along with his foreleg reaching through the wall to stab Sharp.
“Do you mind? I’m trying to think here,” the batpony replies in an annoyed tone, “Seriously, you as a nightmare only work when ponies don’t think, have zero combat training, aren’t armed, and can’t control themselves in a dream.”
Krumare materializes behind Sharp, charges at him again, and promptly finds himself tripped and body-slammed into the floor head first with a loud snap.
“Speaking of which, why can I behave like in the real world?” Sharp Biscuit steps over the nightmare pony with his neck snapped in a ninety-degree angle before kicking him with his hind leg for good measure, “Could it be because of Luna being around? Maybe the connection to the real world might have something to do with it.”
His hopes come true as he finds a metal ladder leading to a hatch at a spot corresponding for the real Canterlot castle. With utmost care, he opens it and peeks into the familiar white and gold hallway as screams of horror and battle trickle in.
“Alrighty,” he climbs out, darts towards the nearest window, and immediately hides under the sil as he sees a mass of black bodies push against a line of Royal Guards, teeth gnashing and claws swiping, “I don’t recall it being this bad,” he mutters to himself, “And after seeing Luna’s little changeling in action I’m pretty sure we saw them as much more terrifying than they really were.”
He blinks in realization.
“This is their exaggeration, their nightmare,” the corner of his mouth curls up, “Up yours, Shining Armor. I knew my Nightguards were much better trained than your Royals.”
A window nearby shatters as changelings stream in, hissing and chittering. Dozens of unblinking teal eyes turn towards Sharp, and mouths filled with buzzsaw-like teeth open.
“That’s not how they really look-” Sharp stops himself, “That’s how they remember them. Crap,” he turns away and bolts, followed by angry buzzing suddenly drowning out all other noise.
“NIGHTGUAAAARDS!” he screams from the top of his lungs, hoping for some support from the properly trained ponies protecting the castle.
Nothing. No response. Only the changeling buzzing behind him.
Right… because we are just Luna’s ceremonial bodyguard and the invasion happened during the day. They got overwhelmed and didn’t see the few of us halt the advance of the horde through the upper floors. They don’t even think we were there.
Of course, Luna sleeping through the whole thing can’t have helped.
He kicks open the door of the throne room, revealing only more hallway and Krumare laughing at him. The laughter stops abruptly as Sharp grabs the pony, kicks his forelegs, and guides his fall into a stumble towards the following horde of changelings.
The real throne room door appears in front of him as Krumare’s panicked screaming ends up in a high-pitched screech of agony.
He enters just in time to see Luna blast a tall changeling mare with a jagged black horn with a beam of light, the changeling shattering like glass and disappearing. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to have any effect on princess Celestia hanging in a green cocoon from the ceiling, nor Shining Armor and Cadance staring blankly head, not even several other ponies scattered around the throne room, all glued to the floor with green goo.
“Sharp Biscuit!” Luna’s eyes stop on him, “We must escape! The nightmare is too powerful, We cannot wake up.”
We?
“There’s some kind of rift down in the maintenance tunnels,” he responds instinctively, “It let some weird horror pony through into your suite but the changeling and I stopped it.”
“You must lead Us there!” Luna trots over to him.
“Can’t you sense it?” Sharp furrows his brows, “Dreamscape is your-”
“Too many ponies are dreaming about the same thing, and are horrified by the same thing. We weren’t ready for this. We need help,” Luna grits her teeth, “Come ON!”
“There’s an infinite horde of changelings between us and the maintenance hatch I used.”
“We can deal with them, that much is still in Our power at least!” Luna rushes out of the throne room into a strangely empty hallway, “It seems that fortune is finally smiling on Us!”
As the battle outside rages on, the two trot through the halls until Sharp stops by a pillar behind which there’s the cleverly hidden hatch disguised as a big floor tile.
“This one, Luna,” he turns to face the princess…
...only to see a pair of slit, green eyes, the look into which makes him lose all control of his legs.
The changeling queen laughs as she kicks his limp body aside.
“You served me well, pathetic worm,” she says in a haughty tone undercut by changeling buzzing as the horde swarms around Sharp again, “For that, you will get to live, to see the nightmares given life until you break down like those other weak ponies outside.”
This is just a reflection, dream creatures don’t have a mind of their own, do they? Damn, I wish Luna shared more details about her job. And if this is a reflection and she pretended to be her… do some ponies think LUNA was behind the invasion?!
The changeling queen’s head transforms into Luna’s, although the sadistic grin clashes with Sharp’s view of the real princess.
“This beautiful nightmare will soon become reality,” she rips out the hatch and climbs inside, followed by the buzzing horde.
Buck… I knew Luna never used the royal We around me and I still lost my cool under pressure and didn’t think clearly.
***
Luna returns into the collective nightmare, appearing in the air above upper Canterlot. All ponies are gone by now, replaced by cocoons in which they open their mouths in silent screams for help.
That, in itself, wouldn’t be a problem, no matter how horrifying it sounds. Even the worst nightmares need time to affect individuals in a way threatening their mental health. The real problem is that by now she can feel the fabric of dreamscape unravel as something is trying to get into the waking world. Her magic should be making this impossible but the pressure the changeling invasion put on the peaceful ponies was simply too much for them to handle.
She begins blasting the swarm of changelings under her flowing like a black, shiny river towards the castle. No matter the losses, they pay her no mind. This isn’t her first rodeo, though.
Realizing she can’t stop the endless horde, she teleports down and begins blasting the cocoons. Ponies need relief, they need their dreams to end well even if the content is too much for her to control at the moment.
Doing so, however, makes the horde slow down and eventually turn around with furious buzzing. Refreshed from her retreat into dreams of those unaffected by the invasion, Luna braces herself for another round of battle, this time with a plan.
The ponies she releases disappear, waking up in cold sweat but with the knowledge that their princess is still holding a protecting hoof over them, and that knowledge fills Luna with determination and the power to keep going.
At that moment, though, she senses two intrusions into the dreamscape from the real world and panics.
“This shouldn’t be!” she blasts her way into the sky through the swarm. On the momentarily clear horizon, she sees the mouth of a towering equine creature made of stars and galaxies. She grits her teeth, “Tantabus...”
She loses the line of sight as the changelings swarm around her again, bashing against the magical barrier surrounding her.
Two real-world creatures are now in this nightmare with me and I can’t help them…
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
The deafening burst of laughter is accompanied by rumbling and a loud crash which makes the swarm stop and look as one towards the castle. She uses the moment to blast her way up again and freezes in the air once she gets a clear view.
“What…?” the princess of dreams’ jaw drops.
Back inside the castle, Sharp Biscuit shakes off the layer of dust and debris, staring in disbelief at a gargantuan wall of white in front of him which must have broken through the castle roof, all of its floors, and unless the fake Luna was made of some dreamscape unobtainium, through the maintenance level and her as well. For no believable reason it smells like… candy?
Luna simply hovers, not even flapping her wings, staring in confusion at what looks like a gigantic Celestia.
No… a skyscraper-sized plushie of Celestia, and inside a small crow’s nest akin to that of a ship just on the tip of the plush toy’s horn...
“HA HA HA HAAAAA! I AM RIDING THE MARSHMALLOW PRINCESS FULL OF WARM AND HAPPY! I WIN THE HIGH SCOOOOORE! SUCK IT, 11581!”
“...changeling…?”
“HAHAHAHAAAAA! NO HIGH RANK IS GONNA EAT ME NOW! NOT EVEN A NIBBLE!”
65536 takes a bite off of the marshmallow horn and points towards the swarm of changelings.
“IT’S REVENGE OF THE DRONES, YOU SMARMY INFILTRATORS! NOT-BLUE, FIREEEEEEEE!”
“FIRING MAIN CANNON!” replies giant Celestia in a rumbling voice as her eyes light up with emerald fire.
A wave of green light disintegrates the ball of changelings surrounding Luna while leaving her unharmed.
“BOOOOOOOM!” yells the changeling excitedly, “NICE SHOT, NOT-BLUE!” it turns around in its crow’s nest and spots the strange cracked face of Tantabus on the horizon, “OOOOH BIG BAD IN THE SKY, NOT-BLUE!”
“FIRING ALL CANNONS!” marshmallow Celestia opens her mouth, adding a third green beam to the eye lasers.
“WOOOOOOO! DIRECT HIT!”
Luna senses the city waking up from the sheer absurdity of their nightmare turning into… well, this.
She can still feel the tantabus creeping through the dreamscape but without the collective nightmare to draw its power from it is forced to retreat. As pony after pony leaves the dream and reaches for a glass of water or warm milk, Luna can finally take a breath of relief and, with a flash of her horn, the nightmare ends.
For tonight, of course. This battle is won but the war is far from over.
She blinks, tries to sit up, and curses when she hits her muzzle on something.
“Luna!” she hears Sharp Biscuit and grabs his foreleg reaching towards her.
“What was I doing under the bed?” she asks once the batpony helps the princess untangle herself from the blanket.
“A rift appeared and some monstrosity crawled out of it,” he keeps looking around for any sign of trouble. However, the chandelier isn’t blinking anymore and the foreign tension in the air is gone, “First, there was this weird claw which tried to stab you so I got you out of the way, the changeling punched it off, and then an equine-looking monster that I tackled back into the rift and-”
“And you landed in the dreamscape. I sensed two intrusions, though, so the changeling followed you… riding a giant marshmallow Celestia plushie that shot green magic beams.”
Sharp just stares at her until...
Until the changeling sleeping with a wide grin on its face and hugging the plushie’s back kicks its hind leg, and mumbles:
“...booom…!”