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// Chapter 18: Darkness from the Depths of Souls 
// Story: Dreamwalker Dash 
// by Fluttercheer 
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A portal inside the dream realm opened and out stumbled Rainbow Dash, Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo. Rainbow and Hyper laughed at the top of their lungs while they entered back into the dream realm, both of them coated with cake batter. The former eventually draping a hoof over the younger and nudging her face with the other one. “You are a wack filly, Hyper Sonic!” the mare shouted.
Hyper Sonic laughed louder in response. “I had no choice!” she explained, without actually sounding like she was defending herself. “If I hadn't blown up the oven, the lobster would have smashed the ceiling in half and brought the house back to the Storm King's lair!”
Inside the portal, a yellow filly with an orange mane was sitting in a lush, green landscape and looked after them. She was waving her hoof with a happy, innocent smile on her face. Her body was entirely clean.
Behind the exhilarated mare and filly, Scootaloo followed slowly. Her head was low, a sad look was on her face and her ears dropped. Her eyes weren't on Hyper Sonic and Rainbow Dash, they were directed at the infinite expanses of the dream realm below her. Though, as sad as the other pegasus filly obviously was, her expression was none that could have matched Luna's.
The princess stepped out as the last one, the portal closing behind her, and she looked weary and tired. Dark circles lined the underside of her eyes, her face looked old, her mane wasn't the tidy one that everypony knew and behind the worn look in her eyes was a hint of shock and desperation.
At the top of the group, the opposite mood continued undisturbed, Hyper Sonic and Rainbow Dash still not being able to stop laughing. “It wasn't necessary, though!” Rainbow Dash countered. “I totally could have made that lobster flash out of existence! I know how to do that now!”
Hyper Sonic looked at her, fiercely. “Sure, after Princess Luna taught you how to do that only today! Your first attempts at making anything vanish with your dreamwalker magic failed, so I had to intervene!” Hyper Sonic laughed again.
Rainbow Dash frowned at the filly and exposed her teeth. “Yeah? I didn't need your help! Besides, I'm the dreamwalker here, isn't it? It was my job to deal with that nightmare!”
Hyper Sonic ceased her laughs. She turned around at Rainbow Dash. “I guess,” she said, brought back on the proverbial ground by the statement. “I just felt I needed to do something myself. I can only control my own dreams, not the dreams of other ponies. I couldn't resist contributing something.”
Rainbow Dash's face became one of pure surprise. Then a sly grin snuck on it. “Hey, you aren't jealous, are you?” She reached out with a hoof and poked Hyper Sonic's forehead.
Hyper Sonic frowned in return.
“Looks like I'm not the only one who's excited about dreamwalking!”
Luna lifted her head and looked at Rainbow Dash and Hyper Sonic. Something snapped in her eyes as she narrowed them.
Now Hyper Sonic blushed a little, caught in her feelings. “Yeah,” she confirmed. “It's exciting to see what happens in the dreams of other ponies. But when your dreamwalker training is over, I won't be able to see it anymore.” Hyper Sonic's ears lowered slightly and her eyes became wistful. “It would be great if I could enter other ponies' dreams myself. I wouldn't mind becoming a dreamwalker, too.”
Behind them, unnoticed, horror appeared on Luna's face. She began trembling all of a sudden.
“Who says you can't?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I sure could use a partner for all this! And I bet Luna wouldn't mind training another dreamwalker, especially not one who's as experienced with dreams as you are!”
Hyper Sonic's eyes glistened now. “Should I go and ask her if she wants to turn another pegasus into a dreamwalker?”
Luna's pupils shrunk. “No.....” she whispered, quiet enough so that only she could hear it. Not far away, Scootaloo noticed her changed expression. She raised an eyebrow and cocked her head.
“Totally!” Rainbow Dash answered Hyper Sonic's question. “I doubt she's going to say no to that! Go and ask her!” She flew around Hyper Sonic and nudged her into Luna's direction.
Hyper Sonic followed the prompt and stepped in front of Luna. There was a cold stare in Luna's eyes, but Hyper Sonic either didn't notice or her anticipation to ask the important question made her not care about it.
“Luna?” she addressed the princess. “I was thinking a lot about dreamwalking lately and I would like to learn it, too. Can you turn me into a dreamwalker and train me like Rainbow Dash?”
Luna's body began to tremble more. She looked down at Hyper Sonic, with her cold stare. In front of her, the filly changed. Hyper Sonic's goldenrod coat turned into a dark blue and her mane became a bright yellow. It changed form as well, the short tomcolt mane grew bigger and became voluminous. It extended far beyond her forehead as the transformation that Luna saw was finished; a long, curvy mane that took a sharp turn upwards near the tip of it. A lively and innocently happy pair of eyes looked up at her, one without eyelashes. There was a colt standing in front of her now, not a filly anymore. Only the wings stayed the same, erect from excitement.
Luna held a trembling hoof at her mouth, covering it. “Y-You.....” she stammered. “I-It's you..... H-Heat Iron.....” Tears rose into her eyes and a sob escaped her throat.
“Luna?” the colt in front of her asked in a scratchy voice, not unlike Hyper Sonic's own voice, but deeper than hers. He tilted his head, looking at Luna from big eyes that gave her a questioning look. “Can you turn me into a dreamwalker?” The colt's voice gave of an eerie echo as he spoke the words.
Luna's face distorted with despair. She gritted her teeth. As she opened her mouth, everything happened very quickly. “NOOOOOO!” Luna screamed out, her Royal Canterlot Voice filled with the same despair that was visible in her face. She lashed out with both of her forehooves, pushed them against the colt's chest and shoved him away with force.
Hyper Sonic found herself sliding a couple steps, then she toppled over by the impact.
“STAY AWAY FROM THIS FOUL WITCHCRAFT THAT I BROUGHT UPON YOU AND DOOMED YOU WITH!” Luna continued to scream.
“What's gotten into you?” Rainbow, who had witnessed Luna's sudden attack, took flight and landed before Luna, where she instinctively took up a protective position in front of her dreamwalking assistant.
Hyper Sonic lay on the floor, fallen to the side and dizzy. She shook her head, then slowly rose back onto her hooves. “Luna?” she asked, confused. The pegasus filly held a hoof at her chest. It was hurting, but not as bad that it could force her to sit down.
Luna stood there, eyes on Hyper Sonic, and stared with a shocked face from which all blood seemed to have become drained, eyes bulging. Her lips were pressed tightly shut, nothing but a thin line at the bottom of her face anymore. “I cannot make you a dreamwalker,” she spoke firmly, then collapsed. Luna sobbed, covered her eyes and began to cry and wail at an eardrum-piercing volume. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” it came from her mouth in-between her sobs and cries.
“Luna? What's wrong?” Rainbow Dash stared at the scene in front of her, incredulously. Hyper Sonic staggered closer, still holding her chest and scrunching her face in pain. Scootaloo approached the crying night princess, as well. She placed a hoof on her foreleg and looked at her with deep concern in her eyes.
“I did it..... I made him become who he is, it is my fault, it is all my fault.....” the voice of the night princess rang out quietly, almost stiffled by the tears.
“What? Your fault? Who are you talking about?” Rainbow Dash asked in confusion, helplessly trying to make sense of the words.
Luna did not respond. She was broken, too broken to talk any more. Only sobs left her throat. Rainbow Dash and Hyper Sonic looked at each other, cluelessly, neither of them knowing what to do, while Scootaloo's eyes kept resting on Luna. Overchallenged and helpless as they were, the three other ponies decided to wait it out, until Luna would explain the sudden change in her behavior.
That moment didn't come for a long while. Rainbow Dash, Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo already thought about forsaking their hopes, as Luna suddenly stirred and sat up. She eyed the dream realm under her, breathing heavily, and her eyes were red. “It is my fault.....” she repeated her last words from earlier that she spoke before breaking down completely. “My fault, Rainbow Dash..... All my fault. And now I did it again. I made the same mistake.”
“What mistake? And what's your fault?” Rainbow Dash asked, using another chance to finally shed light on what had just transpired.
Luna gulped. “I..... I knew somepony like you once.” She hesitated to speak for a moment. “No, more a pony like Hyper Sonic.” She looked at the filly, regret in her eyes. “He was hopeful for the future and all too eager to explore.” There she stopped again, further catching her breath.
“Who?” Rainbow Dash asked. She waited for the answer.
“A dreamwalker like you,” Luna continued eventually. “He joined me in dreams just like you do now.”
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash nodded. “You told me about it. You needed help with dreamwalking when you were sick, so you transferred your magic to another pony like you did with me.”
“No.....” Luna shook her head slowly, eyes closed. More regret appeared in her face. “I was lying, Rainbow Dash. There had never been a pony who helped me with my dreamwalking duties..... It was all fun, foolish fun, not work.”
“Fun? Foolish?” Rainbow Dash's confusion deepened and it showed on her face. Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo looked the same, but they let Rainbow Dash do the talking.
“I was not always as responsible with my dreamwalking powers as I am today. Once, I was a filly myself, a foolish filly who thought that everyone could be a dreamwalker. I was mistaken.”
“What happened?” Rainbow Dash asked, hooked and intrigued now.
“More than a thousand years ago.....” Luna began to explain, obliging with the demand to hear the full story. “A thousand years ago, I had a friend. He knew that I was able to walk the dreams of ponies. We used to play together a lot, we played every day, between the lessons that Starswirl taught me and Celestia. We were always together and did nothing alone. This was at a time when my sister didn't have much regards for me, when she cared more about bullying and teasing me because Starswirl's magic lessons didn't stuck as well with me as they did with her..... I had plenty of time for my friend.” Luna smiled, but then her eyes became milky and she turned them down.
“How was his name?” Rainbow Dash asked to advance the conversation, noticing Luna becoming absent.
“Heat Iron.” Luna didn't make eye contact again. “He had realized his special talent early on in life. Heat Iron was a masterful blacksmith. He already had his cutie mark when I first met him, a glowing metal frame with a forging hammer on top. It was a talent that was never of much use for him, it couldn't.....” A new series of sobs shook Luna. Once again, Rainbow Dash, Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo had to wait before the princess continued.
“Heat Iron and I spent every free minute together, except for the nights, when we were both sleeping and I was clumsily exploring the dreamscape and other ponies' dreams, without realizing what responsibility dreamwalking came with. Every day, I described him my adventures and discoveries from the previous night..... It didn't take long until Heat Iron wanted to do the same.”
Luna looked to the side, her face suddenly distorting with grief. “It was foolish, he should have never asked me..... But I was the more foolish one..... I taught him something he should have never known about.....”
“Dreamwalking.....” Rainbow Dash whispered. Her eyes became wide as the implications of Luna's words dawned on her and she could guess what happened next.
“After I..... After I injected my magic into Heat Iron's body, with the same technique I used on you, Rainbow Dash, he had to stay in the hospital for three days..... The doctors were fighting for his life and they barely succeeded with saving it. My magic went up his spine that day, the fastest way to his brain and the most dangerous one..... After he left hospital, the doctors said he might be c-crippled for the rest of his l-life. He had to stay in bed for another week and it was but a miracle that his legs and wings could move again after it. But this was by far not the worst that my decision caused to him.....” Luna averted her gaze further.
“Starswirl took my diary away from me right after and hid it, so I could never turn another pony into a dreamwalker ever again. And he forbad me to lead Heat Iron into dreams, but I ignored his command and did not listen.....”
Luna looked up again now and straight at Hyper Sonic. “He was younger than you, barely seven years old, when the dreamwalking began to change him. Not everypony is fit to be a dreamwalker, to see all the gruesome things that can be encountered in the minds of other ponies, and he wasn't.....” Luna looked down again. She smashed her forehooves onto the thin, invisible fabric of the dream realm and her face transformed with anger. Around her, the dream realm flickered slightly, as if it responded to her reaction. “Neither of you has seen the worst that can be encountered in a dream..... and I beg the stars that you never have to witness what the minds of some ponies can create when they are alone, when nopony watches them.....”
Luna remained propped up on her forelegs as she continued, her teeth gritted. “Heat Iron and I went into many dreams, with no consent from the ponies whose minds we invaded. And solely for our own benefits, not to help ponies with nightmares, just for the fun we had from it. But not everything was fun..... We saw happy dreams and dangerous dreams, sad dreams and crazy dreams and we escaped everything unscathed. Until one night, we found ourselves in a dream that showed us something we could not even imagine before that night.....”
Here, Luna started trembling again and her retelling of the past events became chopped.
“T-The mare on the table.... The leather straps that held her on it..... A stallion lying on top of her, the fear in her eyes. Sometimes, I can still see those eyes in my own nightmares..... And I know he can still see them, too.....And hear her screams when.....” Luna sobbed again. “When..... The mare we saw hadn't agreed to any of this. How could she? The force, the violence, no way to escape..... Then sharp weapons and then only blood anymore..... When everything was over, the mare on the table couldn't be identified as one anymore..... Only the stallion had been smiling the entire time.  A wicked smile..... from nightmares..... He didn't see us, or else.....”
By this point, the faces of Rainbow Dash, Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo were filled with horror. But Luna continued.
“We saw more dreams like that, similar ones, and each of them was just as horrible and disgusting as the first one..... Mares, even fillies, forced to acts they hadn't agreed to, violence, torture and mutilations, murder, ponies of a different race or other creatures being slaughtered or burned alive on gigantic stakes while crowds were cheering about it, power phantasies of the worst kind born from the minds of dreamers we invaded.....
Luna sobbed. “Neither of us knew or would have guessed that there were some ponies who indulged in such phantasies. What we saw in those dreams shocked us, but at the same time, it was intriguing. We found out secrets about ponies who we saw in the streets each day, about ponies who worked in the shops of Canterlot or who were among the castle staff. Learning secrets about them that would have embarrassed them if mentioned or that might have even caused them a loss of their good reputation if word had gone round about their depravity, it fascinated us. Eventually, we sought out such dreams on purpose and revisited ponies who we knew dreamt about phantasies like those.” Luna had to retch before she continued.
“He enjoyed watching those private moments and learning such secrets about ponies more than I did. After we had seen a few of those disturbing phantasies, I suggested to leave such dreams immediately if we should find more of them. But he refused. He insisted to watch more dreams like those and I gave in. I was merely disgusted by those dreams we saw, my mind could otherwise deal with them, but it was different for him.....”
Luna closed her eyes. “Heat Iron was changing slowly, first he enjoyed those dreams more and more, then he began to express the same sentiments, until..... nopony in Canterlot was safe anymore. Heat Iron began to dreamwalk without me. Starswirl found out what he was doing, how he abused his powers, what he subjected ponies to when he visited their dreams. Nopony was safe from him, not old ones, not young ones..... When Starswirl came to intervene, Heat Iron was gone..... We never heard from him again, despite Starswirl's investigations, and we assumed him either dead or that his twisted mind somehow found peace again..... But we have both been wrong.” Finished with the tale from her past, Luna rose onto her hooves again.
The eyes of Rainbow Dash, Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo followed her. “What happened then?” Rainbow Dash asked. “What did you find out?”
“Heat Iron is still alive.....” Luna answered in the most simple way. Her breath was going strong now, she looked stressed, but something seemed to give her new energy, enough to stand, at the same time.
Luna looked up, her eyes getting lost in the depths of the dream realm. She bit her lips. “He now lives in a land that's far away, hidden between the desert sands, and has crowned himself the king of it.....” A tear left her eyes. “He owns everything there, made everything his own. Nopony there is safe. He tortures them in their dreams and.....” Luna's tears started to flow stronger. “And he..... he..... he has taken all the fillies from his kingdom, stole them from their parents, and made them his own, too, hidden deep inside his palace to serve as his personal t-toys.....” Once more, Luna's body started to shake, but she managed to keep standing.
Rainbow Dash, Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo looked at each other, shock and sadness over what they had just learned in their faces. 	“That's..... horrifying!” it blurted out of Rainbow Dash. “Is he doing to those fillies what I think he's doing?!”
Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo said nothing, only gulped, then looked at each other with nervous faces. Hyper Sonic was grinding her teeth, while Scootaloo had started shaking.
Luna avoided to look at Rainbow Dash and she avoided a clear answer. “The most horrible deeds are his doing..... and, yet, it is not his blame alone. The evil did not begin inside of him. Most ponies of Equestria are proper, civilized people. But in some of them, one can still find darkness that reaches deep into their souls..... They infect others with it and Heat Iron's mind was not strong enough to resist what he saw..... The darkness of those ponies corrupted him and drove him insane.”
Luna lifted her head higher, sniffing. “A-And now he is back..... I cannot tell what his plans are, but he has returned to Equestria and is not far away..... Before he left Canterlot more than a thousand years ago, he acquired dark magic from a forbidden source and it gave him the ability to change his appearance in the waking world.....”
“The skinwalker?” Hyper Sonic drew the obvious conclusion.
Luna nodded, without looking at her, tears still flowing. “I suspect it is him. It was Rainbow Harmony who told me about her 'master' when I began to investigate her nightmare and asked questions. She did not tell me his name and I could not find out why she was in Ponyville or how she could escape his clutches. It was difficult getting through the spell he had put on her and she did not tell me everything, but I have found out enough to know without a doubt that his mind could not find rest and that this dark activities continue elsewhere from here.....”
Luna turned at the three pegasi. “I must stop him. I must find out if he truly is hiding behind the tale of the skinwalker and I must free his kingdom and the fillies he is holding captive. He was a good pony once, with no dark thoughts, and he became like this because of my foolishness that made him see things his mind could not endure, so I am the one who has to end it all.”
“But not alone,” Rainbow Dash said. “Now that I know all this, I'm going to help you find out if he is the skinwalker and fight him with you!”
To the left and right of her, Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo nodded their agreement.
“I'll help you, too!” Scootaloo shouted. “I don't want that these fillies suffer any longer.”
“I have a little sister and I hate the idea that young fillies like her are slaves like that.....” Hyper Sonic voiced her thoughts, as well. “And if he is really here in Ponyville, then he might go after Gooseberry and I'll do everything to protect her. I join you, Luna!”
Luna's face was stern. “Thank you. But I cannot ask for something that would lead to more ponies getting affected by his activities. He, the ponies he tortured in the past and the fillies he enslaves shall remain the only victims of my foolishness.”
And Luna let actions follow her words. Rainbow Dash, Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo awoke in their beds before either of them could voice their disagreement. For a moment, each of them stared at the ceiling, before realizing that Luna had sent them away.
It was Rainbow Dash who gave way to her disagreement as the first one. While Hyper Sonic and Scootaloo still lay in their beds, processing what they've heard, she left her own and flew through the window of her bedroom out into the cool night.
“Not without me,” Rainbow Dash spoke, eyes directed at Ponyville.
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