//------------------------------// // Enter the Dreamers // Story: Nightmares in Ponyville // by Tower of 0 //------------------------------// Luna's eyes shot open and she quickly looks around her. All that surrounds her is total darkness. She can't see a thing. Not her friend and not her surroundings. Slowly, she pushed herself off of the ground of whatever this place is, continuing to scan the immediate area with her eyes. A sort of panic starting to set in. "Justin..?" She calls out to now answer. "Justin?!" Now full on panic is setting in as she's frantically looking around the darkness. "Justin!" "Luna?" The familiar voice calls back. Her ears twitch as she tries to pinpoint where he was. "Justin, where are you?!" "Luna, I'm right here." His voice sounded close, but coming from everywhere. "Where? I can not see you!" "Wait, I hope this works." Luna opens her mouth to ask what, but stops when the comforting feel of the human's touch appears on her shoulder. The surroundings gradually fade in to her view and she looks over to the human. Justin is looking at her with concern, at her eye-level too. She's quick to wrap her forelegs around his neck and hugs him close. He doesn't hesitate to return the embrace, ever always the hugger. "It's okay now, Luna." Justin says as he pats her back. "You're okay." Luna gives him a short nod before releasing her embrace from his and looking around. "Is this-?" "My house? Yeah." Justin stands at his full height now, looking at the surroundings as well. "Looks... off." As the two survey the room and its immediate area, they take note that it looks abandoned. There is no furniture, the windows seem to have been boarded up, and a thick layer of dust seems to coat the space. Luna took a step towards the fireplace to gaze at it while Justin starts making his way towards the door. Her ear twitches when the sound of the door opening breaks the silence. "Do you think I caused the portal to open again?" Luna asks, turning her attention towards the human. "Nah, I don't think my house would be here if you did. That much I do know of the other Equestria." Justin spoke out, gazing out the door. Luna makes her way over to the human to see what he is staring at. She lets out a small gasp in surprise. She sees a sight familiar to her yet not at the same time. It was Ponyville, but most of it looked industrialized, as if geared to produce for some kind of war. The large stacks aren't producing smoke. The other parts of the small town look like the normal for the both of them. All the colors are faded and the sky above is in a dark overcast. There remained something larger that confirms that this isn't real; five large twisters in a slow clockwise spin are scattered around the town. "It looks like whatever this is, it's a mix of our Ponyville and theirs." Justin states as he looks over the horizon. "Justin, do you know more than you are letting on?" Luna sees the human grimace a bit and his eyes meet hers. "Maybe a little bit. Twilight and I did spend a bit looking up the history of that other Equestria, and we didn't like what we found." Luna continues her gaze in his direction. "A human appeared there long ago due to some magical surge. For a time, they lived peacefully amongst the ponies, until one day he just turned on them. Beat Discord in a wager, Your sister, You, all with some kind of magic." "Humans are not able to use magic, can they?" Justin looks back out towards the horizon. "Atleast not naturally is what I thought. I have no idea if they found an artifact of some kind that allowed them to use magic." "Would that work?" Luna asks while stepping closer. "Dunno, never really tested that theory. Maybe I should with Twi sometime." Luna silently nods, keeping next to the human as look upon the dreary horizon. The air of this place oppressive at best and dark at worst. They sit in silent contemplation. Justin is tempted to throw out that they investigate the town, but then another kind of thought creeped into his head, almost like a beacon of sorts. He snaps his fingers as the metaphorical lightbulb went off in his head. "What if Twi's library has something to lend into what's going on?" Justin asks as he turns his attention to the alicorn next to him. Luna raised a brow at him, almost unsure if he was serious. "What do you mean?" "Well, think about it this way: If we did enter a dream, the books would be blank, right? If the books have writing in them, then wherever we are must be real, right?" The gears in Luna's head start to turning. "Are you sure about that?" Justin just gives a sort of smile. "Unless we think searching an empty house will give us anything." The two have left the house far behind as they walk the empty streets of Ponyville. The air remains an uneasy still and quiet unheard of by either of them. Every house, stall, and landmark they pass is dark or emprty with no signs of life anywhere. This sent a chill up both of their spines with the human visibly shaking cause of it. Luna turns to him after his spine tingle with some worry. "Are you all right, dear Justin?" "Yeah, yeah... I'll be fine." Justin responds with a wave of his hand. "The library shouldn't be much farther, was never too far from it." His words instilled her with some confidence to keep pressing on through these empty streets. One might describe the utter lifelessness of the town as eerie, almost straight up unnerving. Luna looks to human to try and discern his face but fails to tell anything. That's when he suddenly stops right in his tracks, staring with his mouth slightly open. "The hell?" Are the only words he can muster. Luna follows his gaze and almost gasps at the sight before them. The library looked like it's in the middle of exploding with large chunks of the house tree suspended in flight. Justin's the first to make his mad dash towards the library and Twilight's home, only skidding to a halt once he's there. Luna simply floated over to examine the structure with the human. The interior is much of the same exploding look. The stairs are in chunks and there are books flying off the shelves. None of it moving like before either. Their gaze follow the destruction and see Twilight suspended in some kind of bubble. "Twi!" Justin almost yells as he dashes in to the library. "Friend, wait!" Luna calls out but lands on deaf ears. Justin was quick, hopping over the debris and climbed his way to the orb that contained his friend. He examined the bubble for a quick minute, listening to some faint sounds coming from it. He cocks his head a little in confusion and presses his ear against the field. He can hear.... crying? Twilight's crying out but he can't make out a word that she is saying. Luna soon joins him on the platform. "I can hear her crying in there." He says, turning to the princess. "Then we must free her." Luna replies as he charges up in a brilliant pale glow. Nothing happens. "That wasn't supposed to happen..." Justin says as Luna strikes the orb with another magic blast. "It appears not. My magic has no affect on it." "This is heckin' great." Justin threw his hands up either out of frustration or anger. "Fret not, we will find a way to get Twilight Sparkle out if there." Justin turns and look out to the rest of Ponyville, well whatever this version of the town is. His frustration stagnated a little bit as he continue to lose himself in his thoughts. Luna continues to stare at the orb containing the other princess, seeing a face of anguish inside. She bring a hoof to rub her chin in thought. The human, however, starts to subconsciously lean against the bubble. Justin starts to lose his footing as he starts to sink into the field. "Luna!" He calls out, reaching a hand out. Luna is quick to react and wrap a hoof around the human's hand in an attempt to keep him from being eaten by the orb. Justin attempts to keep his fingers wrapped around the hoof but his grip is quickly slipping as this force keeps pulling on him. He lets out a yell when he finally slips and is consumed by the orb. Luna rushes forward to catch a foot at least but ends up smashing against the orb herself. The human grunts after being dropped on his ass in some sort of void. Justin sits up on his hands to look around but can't make anything out currently. Slowly, he gets to his own two feet and continues to scan the small area he seems to be in, unsure which direction to start walking in. He takes a moment to flatten out his clothes and breathes. "Luna?" He calls out. No answer. "Twilight?" Still nothing. I hope like hell that Luna finds a way in here. Justin starts to make a slow and steady pace in a random direction. This place was vast, but just where is he? That's the question the human wants an answer to. As he continues his trek in wherever he's going, sobbing can be heard in the distance. He recognizes the voice and wastes not another minute breaking into a full sprint. Determination filled his mind as he tops off his speed. Then, it seems that all at once his body came to a complete halt as it collided with an invisible wall. He let out a groan of agony as he slowly slid down the wall. Justin quickly scrambles back to his feet and presses the palms of his hands against the magical wall. Looking it up and down like he can actually see. "The hell?" The sobbing appears again, louder and closer than when he first heard it. His eyes peered past the wall to see a familiar lavender shape just beyond the barrier. He balled up a fist and pounded against the force keeping him from reaching his target. With the slightest of smiles, he started to take some steps back. "Oohhh, no no no! No magical bullshit is going to keep me away from my friends!" He braces himself for a full on charge, readying his shoulder. This is gonna hurt. Justin mentally steeled his nerves and takes off in a full on charge, shoulder at the ready. He focuses only on the one thing that matters as he gains speed: Twilight. Giving it his all, his sprint reaches the wall and his shoulder collides with the magical barrier. The sound of shattering glass fills his ears and soon a kind of screeching invades his mind. None of that matters as he stumbles his way to Twilight. "Twilight?" He calls out while reaching a hand to her. Her mane is in a bit of a mess and she's more or less mumbling to herself. Twilight trembles when the human's hand touches her shoulder. Twilight seizes as soon as is full hand clasps down on her shoulder. She slowly turns her head as the void around them lights up. There's tears streaming down her face and her eyes begin to widen. Nary a word is exchanged when she hops up and takes the human in a tight embrace. "I'm so sorry!" She cries right into his shoulder. He's about to ask what for until he sees it. Her nightmare before his eyes as he just holds her in his arms. Stuck inside her own head as she fights all of her friends off, Spike and him included, and winning with sheer magical might on her side. Everyone he sees through her eyes are battered and exhausted, but never faltering as they hope she's somewhere still in her own head. Little to their knowledge that Twilight is screaming to herself to stop. "It is time to stop this, Twilight Sparkle" A familiar voice rings out. Justin gives a knowing smirk at the scene about to unfold. "It's about damn time." "L-Luna?" Twilight sniffles, now turning her attention back to the situation at hand. Luna smashes into the ground before Twilight, effectively cutting herself off from her friends. The Twilight releases a snarl and charges up her magic to smite the Moon Princess. The princess is quick to counter once it fires off and meets the beam with one of her own, this one a lot stronger than the younger Princess' power. Knocking this Twilight to the ground, burning her horn. "You will release the Princess at once." Luna demands, stomping a hoof on the ground. Twilight and Justin watched on as the other Twilight starts to get up, readying for another strike. Luna, on the other hoof, isn't having another second of it and elects to cast a different kind of spell, freezing the renegade alicorn in place while she has her horn lit. Luna soon presses her horn to the Renegade's head and everything went white. Justin is the first to rouse awake. His eyes flutter open before he starts to look around. There's a small weight on his chest that doesn't seem to bother him. He spots Luna on the ground with him, starting to awaken also. He lays a hand on the lavender alicorn currently occupying his chest and smiles a little. We did it. The weight on his chest starts to shift, signaling a return to conscious in the subconscious yet again. Justin wrapped an arms around the lavender princess as she starts to cling to his body. He reaches out with his other arm and starts to prod the lunar princess with his fingers. Slow is the waking of the bark blue alicorn as she opens her eyes to look at the human. Twilight lets out a small whimper as she just clings to the man. "Think the others are here?" Justin asks the princess of the night, nodding his head at the young princess on his chest. Luna just kind of shrugs at him as the lavender alicorn fully wakes. "Princes Luna?" She groggily asks, rubbing an eye with a hoof. "Yes, it is I, Princess Twilight Sparkle." Luna gives her a soft smile. "I have also brought our human friend here." Twilight blinks a couple of times before looking down at her bedding, then following the body up to the human's face. Twilight lets out a high pitched squeal of delight while wrapping her front legs around his neck and hugging him. He just chuckles a bit and hugs the princess back. The happy cuddling is quick to come to an end as they listen to something happening around them. The three are quick to scramble to their hooves and feet, scanning the immediate area. At first, they don't see much of anything, it isn't until after a few minutes that they realize the library is putting itself back together and rather quickly at that. Ten minutes pass by and the building is almost back in full. A bright light starts to engulf the library, and shines at a blinding degree that all three have to close their eyes. Once they are able to open them again, the house tree is in one piece and lit up, finding themselves standing in Twilight's bedroom. "Strange." Justin is the first to break the silence. "I feel some of my influence over this dream returning." "Wait, dream?" Twilight shoots them both an incredulous look. "We're not awake?" Justin shakes his head, looking down to the lavender pony. "Nah, this kinda proves it." "I think we are on a layer of a dream-like state." Luna looks at both of them. It isn't long until the trio are out on the balcony of the dream library. Luna is across from Justin and Twilight has herself against his chest, between his knees. The young princess and lightly pawing at the ground with her hoof as they both are listening to Luna explain what might be going on. Twilight seeming more idle then actually listening. "All righty then, if I understand this." Justin says, placing a hand out flat in front of him. "Let's say this right here is our layer. The first layer. Where we entered." "That is correct." Justin nods. "So then where we went to get Twily was a second layer of the dream." Luna nods at him. She watches a the human uses his over hand to bring it over the first and spread his digits out as if he were breaching the first layer. "That means her friends are all experiencing their own second layer of hell?" "I would believe so, yes." Luna nods a bit more solemnly this time. "We will have to find them first. Princess Twilight?" "Hm?" Twilight looks up from her idle hoof and at Luna. "Don't think she was paying attention." A quick wing slams itself against the human's chest in retaliation. "Any ideas how we may find the rest of your friends?" Luna inquires. "No." Twilight looks down, both unsure if it's disappointment in herself. "Not really." Justin rests his hands on her shoulders and gently rubs them. "It's okay, we'll figure something out." Both the night princess and the human start to look about the place. A large portion of the area around the library seems to resemble their Ponyville at least. The overcast above gave way to a night sky with a full moon over head. Justin started to count the strange twisters locked in a slow spin. There isn't an air current to carry them, but there are five of them in specific areas. Luna turns her head to look at the human, seeing his gears turning in his head by the expression on his face. "Friend Justin, are you all right?" "Hold on. I think I got something..." He simply replies as he stands up, much to the dismay of a certain alicorn. He makes his way towards the telescope on the balcony and starts to gaze through it, scanning each twister and seeing where they all are. Two are in Ponyville while the remaining three are outside of the limits. Justin pulls away from the device with a grin. Turning to Twilight and Luna with a grin, approaching the two and kneeling down. "If we wanna find the girls, we go to the storms." Luna kind of stares at him, wide eye'd. "You cannot be serious." Twilight has the same look. "Luna, you can't just sit there and tell me you haven't seen weirder shit in these dreams." Twilight's gaze now shifted to Luna. "He does sort of have a point there." "That is not the point!" Luna shouts. "What if we can not disperse those storms? There is not a guarantee we will wake up if we enter them otherwise!" Justin just smiles and sits next to Twilight. "We have two alicorns, and as far as I'm concerned, you two can still use your magic." Luna's mouth opens then closes several times, seemingly lost in the logic this absurd being just put forth. "There is no way this is going to work, dear Justin." His smile morphs to a grin and looks at Twilight. "So, who do we go after first?"