//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 - His Nightmare // Story: Your Faithful Student, Buggy Brush // by BUGFlower413 //------------------------------// Chapter 3: His Nightmare “It’s getting late. Maybe we should go home and keep looking for it tomorrow.” “No. I need to find it. I won’t be calm until I find it.” “I know, but we have been looking for hours. Are you sure it didn’t fall off inside the castle?” “I don’t even know anymore! And even so, there’s no way we could enter there again, they won’t let us pass.” “Bug-“ she walked closer to him to wipe a tear from his eye “-I promised you we would find it and we will, no matter where it may be, but the night is already falling and I can tell you are exhausted.” He looked up from the floor to meet her eyes. She was right, they have been searching for hours and it was indeed getting late. Late and cold. Maybe it was time to rest. “C’mon, let’s get back before it gets even darker.” “Can I sleep with you tonight? I don’t really want to go to my house.” “Sure” And with that, Darky Spell and Buggy Brush cease the searching to go get some sleep. Darky could have easily teleported them both back to her house, but she knew Buggy would still want to look for the necklace on the way back, and being honest, so did she. She knows how important it is for him. Once they arrived at her house, Darky went to the kitchen to get some tea while Buggy went straight to the bedroom to get some rest. Darky lives alone, but with how frequent they sleep in each other’s house, they both have 2 beds in their rooms. He laid in bed looking to the ceiling for some minutes, unable to sleep, when Darky arrived. She didn’t say anything, she just turned on the lamp and turned off the lights of the room to peacefully lay on her bed after such a long (and stressful) day. She then noticed her friend was still not able to sleep. “The first thing we are going to do tomorrow is look for it inside the castle.” “But how are we going to enter? Do you really think they will believe us if we tell the guards about the necklace when they never saw it?” “I don’t know, but I don’t care either. We are getting that necklace back, no matter where in Equestria it is.” The certainty in her voice made Buggy felt hope about finding it again. “Thanks, Darky.” “Don’t even mention it. Now try to sleep a little, ok?” “Ok. I love you Darks, good night.” “Love you too, Bug, good night.” It passed a few minutes and Darky was already snoring, and soon after, Buggy fell asleep too. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Winds. The only audible sound in the middle of nowhere was the one of the winds. There were long black trees in any direction you could see. It was completely dark and any possible light that could come from the moon was covered by those huge trees. He was alone in the dark in the middle of what seemed to be a forest. He felt scared, but it wasn’t the kind of fear you’d feel if you were in the Everfree forest, it was even worst. Buggy decided to light things up using his horn and after that he started running. He didn’t know why he was running; he only knew he needed to run. Suddenly he stopped, he heard something, he felt something. The ground was starting to shake and then he noticed that a giant purple smoke-looking creature was taking shape just behind him. Buggy’s magic was not trained to fight, since he had never been in a situation like that before (in real life at least), so he thought the best idea would be to flee. He started running again, even faster this time, as fast as his 4 legs allowed him to run, yet the creature only seemed to get closer and closer, so he thought maybe he could miss it by running between the tightest clumps of trees. He changed directions from right to left over and over, but it didn’t work, the creature still managed to follow his trail, until, without noticing, he ran into a dead end. “I think this is it,” he said to himself, and in that moment, he heard an echo, one that seemed to come from every single direction. “STAY AWAY FROM HIM.” Buggy recognized that voice. Suddenly, a hole opened between the tops of some of the trees, making the moon visible. It started to shine brighter and brighter until the blue alicorn princess popped out from there, flying towards them and finally landing between Buggy and the creature. She looked at it and, without a second thought, blasted it with a laser beam. It certainly was the biggest laser beam he had ever seen. He knew alicorns were powerful, but he was still really impressed. The creature dissolved into a bunch of purple smoke clouds that dissipated quickly, yet the relief didn’t last much before the ground started to shake again. Another, even bigger, smoke creature appeared from the ground, taking Luna with one of its extremities. Buggy was scared, he couldn’t do anything against the other creature, he could do even less against this one, but he could not just stand there doing nothing. “HEY, YOU, SMOKE BEAST!” he yelled at it, “I can accept you terrorizing me, but you can NOT treat a princess like that!!” -he started to charge his horn- “Even less Princess Luna!!!” He did his best efforts to shoot a laser beam to the creature. It wasn’t even a quarter of strong as Luna’s, but it was as strong as he was able to shoot. The huge creature didn’t seem to have a scratch from the attack, yet he “looked” at the unicorn, released Luna and dissipated into thin air. The forest seemed less dark now and the moon and stars were fully visible in the sky. Luna flied down landing close to Buggy, who was just realizing who was in front of him. With the whole situation, his brain didn’t have enough time to process Luna’s presence yet. “Thank you, Buggy Brush.” “No, thank you for saving me-“ he lowered his head “-and sorry for getting you into this.” “Buggy, it’s my job to get into pony’s nightmares, you don’t need to apologize.” He stopped for a second to think. Luna noticed he had a confused look on his face. “You know this is a dream, right?” “I… guess? I was suspecting it. I’m just confused about why did that monster leave when my laser beam didn’t seem to disturb it at all.” “The creature disappeared the moment you stood up for me, the moment you stopped feeling scared of it. It probably knew it could do nothing if you are no longer afraid of it.” “Do you think that?” “Of course! Is this the first time you see that thing in your nightmare?” Buggy tried to remember if he saw it before, and he noticed an interesting pattern. “No, it’s not the first time. Thinking about it, I think that creature appears in my nightmares every time I’m stressed, or anxious-“ he lowered his voice “-or upset.” “Which one of those 3 do you think made it appear this time?” “I don’t know,” he said looking away. “Would it make sense if I say maybe the 3 of them?” “The 3 of them? Would you like to talk about it?” Luna’s job is to help ponies with their struggles inside of their dreams, so understanding said struggles better helps her to help them, yet Buggy wasn’t sure if he really wanted to talk about that kind of things with her. He met her for the first time just some hours ago and he “messed it up”, he was a little scared about making a fool of himself a second time. “I’m not really sure. Sorry” “It is fine. I won’t force you if you don’t want to.” Luna looked back to where the monster was. Some of the smoke was still there. Her face had a look of confusion as she was remembering the appearance of the purple smoke monsters. “There’s something weird about that thing.” “What do you mean?” “It seemed a little… familiar.” Now Buggy was confused too. “Have you seen it in another dream before?” “I guess I have.” Luna was sure she saw something like that before, yet it couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be that, right? There was no way it could have gotten into his dreams. She got rid of that creature a long time ago, but the similarities between that and these creatures were hard to ignore. It seems like the monsters they just fought were some sort of Tantabus. “It reminds a lot of something I had to face a long time ago. A creature of pure nightmares and hatred.” -She got a little closer to him- “Is that monster usually that big?” “I may be wrong, but I think it isn’t.” The Tantabus used to get bigger and stronger whenever Luna felt worse about herself, when she hated herself the most, and if this situation is similar to hers, then it can’t mean anything good. “How did I never notice your nightmares before?” she asked with a little of sadness in her voice, that made the unicorn worry. She wasn’t sure if the question was for him or for herself. “I don’t have them so often, and most of the times I have one, they’re short because I usually wake up in fear.” “Do you remember the very first time you saw it?” “Not really. It must have been years ago. All I know is sometimes it seems to be bigger than other times, or more hostile, never as big and hostile as this time anyways.” “I was afraid of that.” “Why? I mean, it just happens when I have nightmares, so I don’t thing it is something really important… right?” said Buggy with a mix of worry and confusion. “It is important. That creature seems an awful lot to the Tantabus. A nightmare beast that used to torment me in my dreams and got more powerful when I felt more guilt and… self-hate.” Buggy didn’t know how to respond to that, he just looked at her in shock. He always admired her because of how much she passed through her life, but he didn’t know about this. He could assume why she would feel guilt, but the idea of her hating herself was painful, so he felt a little glad knowing it was a thing of the past. At this point, he knew Luna realized what was wrong here. “Buggy Brush, can I ask you something? Are you… mad at yourself right now?” He didn’t really want to answer that question, but he had no other option. “Yes, a little.” “Why?” He took a deep breath. “I… I was really looking forward to the tour yesterday, I was really excited about meeting you, so excited that I ruined everything, as always, making things awkward for everypony. I just felt awfully bad for that, and even worse knowing I made my best friend feel bad too. I know she felt guilty for what happened, and I didn’t want her to feel like that, she doesn’t have to take care of me and yet she does. She doesn’t deserve to feel bad. And, if it was not enough, I lost my necklace, the most valuable and important possession I have ever had. I’ll hate myself forever if I don’t find it. And… and-“ he tried to continue, but he was slowly starting to tear up while talking, and he didn’t want to end up crying in front of Luna. She was trying to process everything he was saying. She didn’t know he wanted to meet specifically her, she had no idea of his admiration towards her. Some of the things he said, “ruining everything, as always”, “making things awkward for everypony”, made her feel bad since she knows those feelings, but when he said those words, “hate myself”, she couldn’t hold it any longer and a tear fell from her eye. She got closer to him and hugged him with her wing to comfort him. He didn’t notice her tearing up, since he was looking to the ground to avoid her eyes. “I’m really, really sorry, princess. I didn’t want any of this to happen. I’m sorry.” “I am the one who is sorry for not realizing about any of this sooner.” Buggy’s feelings were conflicting. On one hoof, he has not felt this vulnerable before in front of somepony other than Darky, and he didn’t want to drag Luna into all of this, while on the other hoof he felt nice, her hug was making him feel better somehow. He never thought before he would be in a situation like that with her. “You don’t have to apologize,” said Buggy once he finally managed to speak once he stopped crying. “Thank you, I really needed that.” “No problem, Buggy.” Suddenly she remembered something, she has seen his necklace hours ago in the castle. “Do you think that you can come see me at the castle tomorrow? I guess I found the necklace you mentioned in one of the hallways.” “Really?? Oh Goodness, I’m glad it’s there!! I had no idea in what other place could it be. I’ll be there tomorrow as soon as I can.” “Alright then. I’ll be waiting for you tomorrow.” Luna started flying when she said that. Buggy’s dream was not the only one she needed to visit that night. “Farewell, Buggy Brush.” “Goodbye, your highness.” The next day, Buggy was not only going to get his necklace back, something else was going to happen, something he never even thought about that was going to change his life forever.