//------------------------------// // Chapter X: The Nightmare // Story: A Purple Pony Princess's Problems on Planet Popstar // by ANerdWithASwitch //------------------------------// Twilight found herself in a field of ashes, a flat gray expanse extending from horizon to horizon. The landscape held naught but a single, very dead tree, around which eddies of dust swirled. The wind howled in her ears, carrying with it nothing but a profound emptiness. She had no way of explaining it, but she was sure this was all that remained of her homeland–Equestria had been destroyed in her absence. She forcefully coughed as the wind pushed some dust her way. “H-hello?” She called out into the void. “Is anypony there?” “Twilight?” a voice called from behind her. “Is it really you?” Twilight whirled around, ecstatic at hearing Fluttershy’s voice. Her face instantly fell upon seeing her friend. Fluttershy was scarily gaunt, appearing as no more than skin and patchy fur draped over a skeleton. Most of the mare’s feathers had fallen out, only a random assortment still attached to bony remnants of wings. Her mane–messier than Twilight had ever seen it–had bleached nearly white. Her eyes looked glazed over, and in lieu of any facial muscles, her mouth was stretched into a permanent grin. The Fluttershy-like thing stepped forward. Twilight stepped back. “I always knew you’d come back,” the zombie of a mare said with a deranged chuckle. “The others stopped believing after a while. But not me. Even when the world ended, I knew it was just a matter of time.” She said nothing else, simply continuing to advance with an unnatural smile plastered on her muzzle as Twilight hastily retreated. It didn’t last. Twilight let out a scream as her back hoof failed to connect with solid ground, instead meeting empty air and sending her careening backwards into darkness. She tumbled through the void, desperately trying to open her wings, which stubbornly refused to respond. In fact, Twilight realized to her growing horror, she couldn’t feel her wings at all. Trying to call upon her magic failed as well, as if all her ability had simply ceased to be. Soon, tumbling through this abyss, she lost track of which direction was up. As she fell, she could hear whispers of a voice that sounded eerily similar to her own. “You could have stopped it,” it claimed. “All they would have needed was your Element, but there you were, stuck in another world.” “N-no,” Twilight stammered, feebly attempting to reassure herself as she plummeted through the emptiness. “I believe in my friends! Even without me, they could save themselves!” “Could they? Really?” her own voice sneered back at her. “How soon will Applejack and Rainbow Dash come to blows without your mediating influence? How soon will Fluttershy take to isolating herself again? Face it, Twilight. Your friends will fall apart, Equestria is doomed, and it’s all. Your. FAULT!” With an “Oomph,” Twilight suddenly landed in a well-lit room. She recognized it immediately: the throne room of Canterlot Palace. It seemed longer than she remembered it, however, and Princess Celestia’s throne at the end was far more imposing, as was the mare herself. Twilight scrambled to her hooves in an attempt to bow, but all she could manage was repeatedly falling flat on her face. “I have no use for a failure, Miss Sparkle,” Celestia said, with far more bite in her voice than Twilight had ever heard. When she looked up at the Princess, the usually matronly Celestia had been replaced by a mare of fire, a force of untold destruction. “And you have failed in every way possible. Goodbye.” The room’s temperature spiked as pillars of flame shot up from the floor. The roof fell away, revealing the blisteringly-hot sun, forcing Twilight to collapse and igniting the very air around her. She woke up screaming. Twilight’s screams very quickly turned to deep breaths as she took stock of her situation. She was not on fire, nor was she anywhere near Canterlot. She let out a relieved sigh as she laid back down. That was the first nightmare she’d had in a long while, but she supposed she was due for one given the amount of stress she’d been under. Quiet murmuring from across the room caught her attention and prevented her from simply falling back asleep, though. Glancing at Spike’s bed, her heart fell as she saw the young drake tossing and turning in his sleep. Concerned, she got out of bed and approached his, close enough that she could hear him talking. “No,” he muttered, “don’t leave me here!” “Spike,” Twilight whispered, prodding him a bit, “it’s just a nightmare. Wake up.” Spike simply rolled over again, and now that he was facing her, Twilight could see that he was crying in his sleep. “I-I’m helpful!” he sobbed. “I promise!” Unable to take any more of seeing her little brother in this state, Twilight lit her horn and cast a wakefulness spell. “Spike!” she called, a bit louder this time. “Wake up!” Spike shot awake instantly. “I’msosorryIcanstillhelpyoupleasedon’tleaveme-” Wordlessly, Twilight interrupted his nightmare-induced plea by wrapping him in an embrace, wings and all. Spike returned it in full force, clutching her tightly and sobbing quietly into her chest. “I’m here, Spike,” she said, rubbing his back. “And I’ll never leave you, alright?” Spike hiccupped and separated from the hug so he could look her in the eye. “I know,” he said. “That just…felt so real.” He looked down at his sheets and frowned. “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to sleep anymore tonight.” Twilight reached over and gave him another hug. “Don’t worry. I don’t think I’m getting any more rest tonight either.” “You had a nightmare too?” Spike asked. Twilight nodded, though quickly frowned in concentration. “In fact, there might be a correlation! Remember how Dedede said the Fountain of Dreams wards off nightmares?” Spike gasped. “Something must have happened to it!” “Maybe,” Twilight allowed, “but we’ll need more evidence.” She levitated the yawning dragon onto her back and made for the door. “Time for some midnight-hour data collection!” Twilight telekinetically wrenched open the door, and the pair immediately realized that something was very, very wrong. The hall was strewn with confused and half-asleep residents of Castle Dedede, all of whom looked like they’d seen a ghost. Twilight glanced at Spike on her back and frowned. “Alright, something’s definitely up.” Near the end of the hallway, they could see Sunset exit her own room. Twilight quickly maneuvered around the rather dazed crowd to reach her, and their bleary eyes met. “Nightmare?” Sunset asked. “Yep,” Spike answered. “Looks like the whole castle had one.” “And if our hypothesis is right,” Twilight added, “it’s not just the castle that had one.” Sunset seemed confused for a moment as her sleep-addled brain tried to process the unnecessarily vague statement before recognition dawned on her face. “Oh, you think something’s up with the Fountain?” “That’s our guess,” Twilight confirmed. “Hey, uh, guys?” Spike asked. “Didn’t Meta Knight say something about a villain sealed inside the Fountain of Dreams?” Twilight and Sunset both blanched a bit. “Right. This might be big. Like really big,” Twilight said. Sunset sighed. “Y’know, I didn’t expect something like this so soon.” She steeled her expression. “But a deal’s a deal. Someone’s gotta step up to the plate and deal with this, right?” Twilight nodded. “Right.” She glanced around. “I guess the first step is finding Dedede.” “No need for that,” said a voice from behind them, and Twilight jumped a bit. Whirling around, she relaxed upon seeing Bandee. “Good to know you two are already up. The King’s in his chambers.” He gestured for them to follow, only to immediately run into a broom hatter, who wandered off without a word. Bandee grumbled something under his breath and sighed. “Outta the way, everyone!” he barked. “We have some important business to attend to!” The hallway-blocking crowd parted instantly, allowing the group unhindered passage. “I think that’s the angriest I’ve seen you so far,” Sunset noted as Bandee led them through the halls at a relatively fast clip. He slowed enough to place his hand on his face, giving the impression that he’d be pinching the bridge of his nose if he had one. “Sorry. I just woke up and I’m still a bit shaken up at the nightmare I just had.” “Hey man, don’t worry about it, I just thought it was odd, y’know?” Sunset reassured him. “We’re all a bit on edge right now.” She glanced back at Twilight. “Though I will say, you seem oddly chipper, Princess.” Twilight gave the best smile she could, given the circumstances. “I’m actively choosing to ignore the psychological ramifications of my nightmare until after the current crisis is resolved.” Sunset opened her mouth, closed it again, considered her response, and finally reopened her mouth. “Fair play.” Before Twilight could respond herself, Bandee opened a surprisingly nondescript set of doors and promptly prevented all further conversation on that topic. The group entered, getting a good look at Dedede’s room for the first time. For a king’s bedchamber, especially one of Dedede’s ego, it was far less opulent than Twilight had expected. Instead of a golden-studded four-poster bed, plush carpet, or intricate stonework in the walls, there was a simple mahogany king-sized bed, the same stonework as the rest of the castle, and a writing desk. Besides the king himself sitting at said desk, who was poring over a map and muttering to himself, a chess set sat on the end of it, and his hammer was leaned up against the side. The walls seemed to take the most of Dedede’s egomania, decorated with numerous pictures of himself. Bandee cleared his throat. “King Dedede?” The penguin started a bit and turned to face them. Twilight could see that he’d been hit pretty hard by the nightmares as well; he had bags under his eyes and seemed just as shaken as everyone else in the castle. “Ah, you all are here, great!” He held up the map to them, revealing a crudely-drawn path. “The Fountain’s right up here,” he pointed to a completely wrong area on the map, given that he wasn’t looking at it, “and if we hurry we could get there in five hours or so.” “That’s not quick enough,” Bandana noted. “Whatever busted up the Fountain messed it up bad, so we’ll need a faster option to get up there as soon as possible.” Sunset glanced at Twilight. “Could you fly us there? Levitating the three of us shouldn’t be too difficult for an alicorn.” Twilight took a look at the map, noting the actual location of the Fountain of Dreams and considering the distance between them. She glanced at the clock. 5:23. Nodding, she spoke. “I could probably get us there by sunup, but I’d need a few minutes to recharge before I tried anything excessively magical.” Bandee sighed. “We’ll take it, I guess.” “Alright, that’s a plan!” Spike enthusiastically said. “I’m coming too, right?” Everyone present raised an eyebrow at him, which was rather impressive given how much Twilight had to twist her neck in order to do so. “No.” Spike pouted. The Sun was just barely peeking over the horizon when the quartet landed in Rainbow Resort. Twilight panted hard for a few moments before she managed to gather up enough of her breath to speak. “That,” she gasped out, “took far more out of me than I thought it would.” She not-so-subtly glared at Dedede. “You’re a lot heavier than you look.” Dedede grinned. “And it’s all muscle!” Sunset snickered. “Now that’s a bit hard to believe. If you eat much more junk you’ll wind up rounder than Kirby!” “Now listen here, Missy,” Dedede started, “I’ve got some tricks up my sleeves ‘cause of my roundness.” “I could believe it,” said a new voice from above them, “On Popstar, it would appear that one’s sphericalness directly correlates to power.” Everyone immediately turned towards the newcomer, though their exact reaction varied. Twilight fell back a bit, not willing to get herself into a fight just yet. Sunset flared her horn and readied three different environmental spells. Bandee pointed his spear at the voice, while Dedede took a fighting stance with his hammer. Meta Knight’s eyes shined from the tree he was perched on. “So you came prepared. Good.” He grabbed his sword, flared his wings, and glided down to the group. “I suspect you came to the same conclusion I did?” Dedede pointed his hammer down the path to the Fountain. “Somethin’s up with the Fountain of Dreams.” “It would appear the Nightmare’s seal was weakening far faster than I predicted,” Meta Knight warned. “We must act quickly to prevent galactic consequences.” Dedede rolled his shoulders. “Well then, let’s go beat up some bad dreams.” The group continued down the path in tense silence, no one quite sure what to expect. Twilight, though, could almost feel an air of foreboding as they approached the Fountain’s clearing. As they broke the trees and came within visual range of the Fountain, both Twilight and Sunset cringed at the sudden wrongness of the magic around them. The magical field felt warped and twisted, as if trying to prey on every fear and insecurity it could. Twilight shivered–it felt far more like Sombra’s magic than she would’ve liked to remember. The Fountain’s physical state wasn’t much better. The water it spewed looked more like oil than water, blacker than the darkest of nights. Black bolts of lightning-like magic periodically shot from the Fountain to Rainbow Resort’s ice spikes, the usually-serene setting distorted into an ugly facsimile of itself. Even the Fountain’s base looked cracked and its star-shaped emblems were dimmed to be nearly invisible. The Star Rod, though, glowed brighter than ever. Meta Knight took a sharp breath. “Shit,” he swore under his breath. “We’re too late to reinforce the seal.” A low, smooth laugh echoed from everywhere and nowhere as a sudden breeze passed through the clearing. Rapidly, the wind amplified to the point that the group was hardly able to keep their balance, swirling around the Fountain faster and faster. Strangely, the wind seemed to discriminate between random debris and its target: the Fountain’s water. Defying all sense of gravitation, the black substance was drawn upwards into a distinct shape. It first formed a long, flowing cloak decorated with patterns of stars directly above the Fountain itself, filling it with a swirling–almost tornadic–mass of some substance. A disembodied pair of claw-like hands formed soon after, before finally the creature’s grinning head emerged. “Oh, how good it is to be back!” the Nightmare laughed. Reaching over, he plucked the Star Rod from its position at the Fountain of Dream’s apex, its glow reaching a maximum. “Your pitiful little planet could never hope to keep me contained for long.” He smiled a sick smile, looking at the assemblage. “But I’m afraid this system belongs to me, now.” “My ancestor sealed you for over four hundred years,” Meta Knight growled, shifting his sword back and flaring his wings, “and I shall complete her work. While I still draw breath, this planet will not fall.” “Ah, so you are descended from that annoying little Astral,” Nightmare frowned. He gestured with his empty hand, summoning a shining, star-shaped projectile. “I suppose I’m killing you first, then.” Nightmare launched the projectile, and everyone exploded into action. Meta Knight, the swiftest of the five, nimbly dodged the attack by launching himself into the air. Quick as a bullet, he was upon the Nightmare, slashing away with his sword. To his dismay, however, Nightmare was perhaps even faster, shrinking back into his cloak and blocking every attempted strike. Meta Knight’s eyes widened as Nightmare let out a low chuckle, and the knight had to drop to the ground to dodge a point-blank shot from the Star Rod itself. Swearing under his breath, Meta Knight quickly fell back to a far less disadvantageous position. The others had not been idle while Meta Knight made his attack, however. As soon as the knight was out of the way, a pillar of flame erupted from Sunset’s horn, engulfing the Nightmare just as Dedede made a swing. His hammer, however, failed to connect with anything concrete, instead passing straight through where Nightmare should have been. Twilight felt her hair rise on the back of her neck and instinctually cast a modification she had developed of her brother’s signature shield spell. She’d never had the same talent he did for defensive magicks, so she compensated for a relatively weak shield by casting multiple at once. In an instant, a triplet of nearly opaque violet spheres formed around her, and just in time to defend from Nightmare’s attack after he teleported behind her. The shot from the Star Rod smashed straight through the first two of Twilight’s shields and was just barely stopped by the third. Wincing a bit at the feedback, Twilight turned to look at the Nightmare and grimaced. Before he could attempt another attack, though, he was interrupted by a shout from Bandee. The small Waddle Dee had sprinted forward and jumped extraordinarily high for someone of his stature. Using Twilight’s final shield as a springboard, he brought down his spear in an attempt to attack Nightmare’s head. Nightmare, of course, simply dragged his cloak up enough to block the hit, letting the spear glance off and Bandee slide to the ground, though he was saved from a rough landing by a quick burst of telekinesis from Twilight. “That thing’s gotta be impenetrable!” Bandee exclaimed as Nightmare teleported again–this time behind Dedede. “Indeed,” Meta Knight agreed in a low voice. He narrowed his eyes at the dueling Nightmare and Dedede. The king deftly dodged around one of Nightmare’s larger projectiles using his hammer to block a smaller shot. Meta pointed at the engagement. “But look, he must reveal himself to attack.” “So bait out an attack and hit him hard, got it,” Sunset whispered back. “That’s not exactly what I meant, but-” “HEY DUMBASS!” Sunset shouted. The fight between Dedede and Nightmare momentarily stalled as both combatants turned to look at her. “Who’d you get to design your outfit, a washed-up rapper whose best piece was a one-hit wonder?” she taunted. “No one’s gonna take you seriously if you’ve got a blinged-out necklace and a crown that looks like it’s got uncooked spaghetti for horns!” “Alright, change of plans,” Nightmare growled, “you first.” Sunset grinned. Nightmare floated out of Dedede’s reach and spent an abnormally long time charging his next attack. Sunset very quickly stopped grinning. “Uh, Twilight? Some shields would be pretty neat right about now. I don’t think I can block whatever he’s charging.” “I’m working on it!” Twilight shouted back, her horn aglow and her mind churning through magical equations at a staggering pace. Nightmare’s cloak shot open as he released a wave of star-shaped projectiles, and Meta Knight immediately took off to get close. Bandee edged closer to the ponies. “Work faster!” he urged. “Got it!” Twilight finally exclaimed, and a web of magical shields appeared in front of them. Most were simple planar shields, designed to protect against wide attacks. The innermost two were spherical, and held a somewhat counterintuitive property: they would fail in the face of a sweeping attack that approached from all directions at once, but against a single point attack, the shield would only grow stronger proportionally to the force exerted on the point. To an external observer, all together the shield complex formed a shape akin to Twilight’s own cutie mark. Twilight knew that Shining Armor definitely could have cast the same spell using half as many shields for the same relative strength, but her own spell did its job well enough. It stopped Nightmare’s attack in its tracks, granting the three beings inside a clear view of Meta Knight swinging his sword at the dark mage’s tornadic body. And a clear view of said sword doing absolutely nothing. Nightmare cackled and prepared another attack as Meta Knight rapidly flew backwards. “You fools! Your paltry weapons can do me no harm!” “He’s invulnerable to physical attacks,” Meta Knight reported as he landed. “We saw,” Twilight deadpanned. Sunset narrowed her eyes. “I might have an idea. I’ll need a clear shot on him, though.” Meta Knight shifted his sword again. “That’s easy enough.” Twilight cringed a bit as she saw Dedede fruitlessly charge at Nightmare once again. “Bandee, you might want to clue Dedede in on the plan.” “Noted,” Bandee replied, far more focused on the storm of incoming projectiles. “And also, SCATTER!” The four took off in different directions. Bandee sprinted for his king, Sunset moved a bit closer to Nightmare, Meta Knight took off right for him, and Twilight fell back. Nightmare raised an eyebrow at Meta’s approach, but sent an attack his way anyway. The moment his core was revealed, however, a burst of pure aquamarine magic seared directly through it. Sunset grinned as Meta Knight retreated again, confident in their success. Nightmare, though, didn’t seem all that perturbed by the hole in his body. His reasoning quickly became apparent as he clutched the Star Rod harder and its glow intensified even further. Nearly instantly, his wound closed, and something in Twilight’s mind clicked. “He’s drawing power from the Star Rod!” she shouted in realization. “We need to get it away from him!” Nightmare’s grin finally dropped. “We’ll have to keep him vulnerable long enough to relieve him of it,” Meta Knight noted. He looked at Dedede and Bandee. “I can take care of that. When you see an opening, do not let up.” Sunset grinned viciously. “Oh, I have just the spell for that.” Meta Knight nodded and took off to speak to the other two. At the very least, Twilight thought, with them having called out Nightmare’s weakness, he was unwilling to reveal his core, which meant they had a bit of reprieve from attacks. At least physical ones. “You all still cannot hope to defeat me!” he taunted. “I can wait as long as is necessary to–what are you doing?” Twilight glanced over at the native Dreamlanders confusedly as well. Dedede had picked Bandana Dee up and was winding up like he prepared to pitch the poor spearman. She blinked. Or that could be exactly what they planned to do. The king shot for the skies in his launch of the Dee, tossing him in a parabolic arc that would bring him down spearhead-first onto Nightmare. Nightmare, in response, simply pulled his cloak a bit further upward to block Bandee, much in the same manner as he had earlier in the fight. This, however, left a small flap of his cloak free at its bottom, a fact that Meta Knight heavily exploited. Launching forward just as Nightmare moved to block, the knight grabbed hold of the exposed flap and wrenched the entire cloak open, leaving Nightmare’s core completely vulnerable to attack. Sunset took the first opportunity she could to cast Naught Bell’s Explosion, and Twilight dumped some of her own power into it for good measure. Nightmare realized the plot just too late to prevent the resultant explosion from incinerating a good half of his core and nearly forcing him to drop the Star Rod. Meta Knight forced the matter the rest of the way, swiftly flying up to Nightmare’s now-exposed hand and prying it open with his sword, freeing the Star Rod from his grasp. Once it was freed, Meta knocked it even further away–right under Dedede’s waiting hammer. The self-proclaimed King of Dreamland grinned. “Lights out!” He brought down the hammer, and in an explosion of light, the Star Rod shattered into eight pieces. Nightmare looked genuinely panicked as an unseen force began dragging him back into the Fountain. “No!” he screamed. “I will not be denied my birthrig-” He vanished before he could finish his sentence, and silence reigned in Rainbow Resort. The distortion to the area’s natural beauty ceased, but the Fountain’s magic seemed to be gone entirely. The water wasn’t even flowing anymore, and was simply sitting in its bowl. The five heroes panted heavily. “That was…something,” Sunset said. Meta Knight frowned down at the broken Star Rod. “This is not a permanent solution,” he reminded Dedede. “We must eventually reassemble the Star Rod, though in a way that does not release the Nightmare–unless we can destroy him entirely.” Dedede scoffed and stretched. “Yeah, yeah. We can worry ‘bout all that later. Right now I’m down for a dip in the Fountain’s healing waters.” “I doubt that will work,” Meta warned as Dedede made for the Fountain. “Without the Star Rod, the Fountain shouldn’t maintain its magical qualities.” Bandee looked at Meta Knight. “You gonna try to stop him?” There was a splash as Dedede jumped in the water and started paddling around. “There’s not really any reason to. He probably sustained the least damage out of all of us.” Sunset frowned at the busted artifact. “Y’know, maybe we could help with figuring out how to kill him? Our magic seemed to do something, at least.” “Why did our magic hurt him, anyway?” Twilight pondered. “Is it because we’re extrauniversal?” “Perhaps,” Meta Knight replied. “I have my own theories, but I am not well-versed enough in the science of magic to test them.” A loud gasp from above them prevented any more speculation, much to Twilight’s chagrin. Looking up, the group saw a newcomer that really would’ve been most welcome five minutes prior. “Oh, so now he decides to show up?” Dedede exasperatedly asked as he got out of the Fountain, watching Kirby fly off on his Warp Star. Meta Knight frowned. Well, Twilight at least assumed he was frowning all this time, given his general attitude. “This is…unideal. Kirby likely thinks we broke the Star Rod out of some villainous intention.” “Did anyone actually think to tell him that we were forming a planetary defense league?” Sunset asked. The five all looked at each other in varying levels of embarrassment. “I told Bandee to do it!” Dedede claimed. “I’m terrified of him!” Bandana exclaimed. “I thought Sunset would take care of it!” “I don’t even know where he lives!” Sunset countered. “I would’ve thought Meta Knight’d tell him, if anyone.” “I doubt he would react well to my presence.” Everyone else looked at Meta Knight, to which he exuded the feeling of raising an eyebrow. “Is something on my mask?” “You’re not gonna shift the blame onto Twilight?” Sunset queried. “I mean, I thought we had a pattern going…” “That’s not the point of this,” Meta Knight retorted. “What we should be worrying about is that Kirby will likely try to fix the Star Rod before we can find a way to do it safely.” “Right,” Twilight agreed. “So we’ll want to get the pieces as far away as possible.” Dedede frowned down at them. “Okay then, I’ve got some ideas.” He separated two of the pieces. “Bandee, could you get these to Whispy and Paint Roller?” “Easily,” Bandana replied. “I know Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright spend a lot of time in Butter Building nowadays, and Kracko’s been hanging around in Grape Garden,” Dedede added, looking at Meta Knight. “That’s close enough to Orange Ocean. Could you get two pieces to them?” “I can do two better,” Meta said. “I can hold on to one myself, and I know Vul has been itching to try out a new Heavy Mole design. Yogurt Yard should be big enough for that.” “We can take one of the pieces back to your castle, as well,” Twilight offered. Dedede grinned. “Perfect. I’ll keep watch of the last piece here. Hopefully we can get Kirby to stop before he gets here, though.” “In that case,” Meta Knight said, pulling out a communicator of some sort and handing it off to Sunset, “for communication purposes, hold on to this. I only have the one on me right now, but it is faster for me to fly here than it is to fly to Castle Dedede.” He nodded at Dedede. “I’ll inform you of any updates to the plan in person.” “Alright then, we have our missions!” Bandee called all attention to him. “Operation Stop Kirby from Accidentally Ending the World is a-go!”