//------------------------------// // Nightmares // Story: When Darkness Falls... // by XTech309 //------------------------------// Sunset sat up from where she'd been knocked, just in time to hear something behind her. She turned her head just in time to see a large rectangular portal appear behind her. She looked into it and saw nothing but static as far as she could see. She looked down, where she was greeted by a very different sight. Islands floating in the abyss, each containing parts of what she assumed to be a small town, each partially covered with a mysterious black substance similar to the static that surrounded them. She could almost swear she saw figures among them, wandering aimlessly. It was real. Her gaze went back in the opposite direction as she heard Rob walking up to her, remote in hand. His face was deadpan, almost completely devoid of emotion as he stood in front of her. "I thought you were different." He said, a hint of sadness in his voice. He slowly raised the remote, preparing to send Sunset into the void. "Too bad." He pressed the button and before Sunset could react, she was thrown into the Void. She had failed. Contrary to what she'd expected, the landing, when it finally came, wasn't nearly as painful as she'd thought it would be, the Void's zero-gravity effect kicking in at the last second. With a painful groan, she quickly scrambled to her feet. "Where am I?!" She asked, but got no answer. She desperately looked around her for a way out, but saw nothing but floating islands and an endless amount of static in all directions. "No, no, no, this can't be happening!" She exclaimed. "I have to find a way back!" She thought. "My friends!-" Her thoughts were interrupted by a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. A small puddle of a strange, glitchy substance she hadn't noticed when she first started looking around. Not letting her curiosity get the better of her, she ran and jumped off the island she was on, afraid of the substance. Not used to the weightlessness here, she tumbled aimlessly through the air before finally landing on another island. This one was quite large, containing a considerable portion of what she assumed was a suburban district. She saw much more substance here, almost completely covering all the houses and most of the street before her. She was on the verge of making a run for it again, but hesitated when she realized that there were no other islands around she could see. Still hoping that she might be able to find a way out, she made her way down the corrupted road, being careful not to get too close to any of the puddles. A short while later, she spotted something, a figure croutched around one of the corners of the house. Gumball. Against her better judgment, and increasingly desperate for a way out, Sunset approached. "Hello?" She called. As she got closer, she heard the sound of crying. It was muffled, but still there. "Hello?" She said again. "I-" She started, but was cut off. The crying sounded...strange. It, along with Gumball's body as a whole, became more and more distorted, pixelated, and glitchy. Soon the crying turned to laughing, cruel, demented, pained laughing. Sunset froze. She saw the figure turn to face her. Its arms were now lowered. Instead of tears, tendrils of darkness spilled from its eyes. It had a forced, distored smile on it's face, that now matter how hard it tried to convince her, represented only pain and suffering. The figure began to laugh again, and Sunset took a step back. It got louder and louder, but Sunset didn't cover her ears. With one last wail, the figure attacked, closing the distance between itself and Sunset in the blink of an eye. She had no time to react before it pounced, and everything faded into incomprehensible static. Sunset woke up in a flourish, shooting up into a seating position in bed and letting out a small scream. She quickly recognized the familiar surroundings of her bedroom, taking the opportunity to compose herself and take a deep breath. She looked to her left and met the gaze of her gecko Ray, who had been awakened by her outburst and was staring at her from his position on a decorative log. "Bad dream, SunShim?" A voice called. "Yeah, I-" She started to answer, but stopped. "W-who-" "Do not be alarmed, Sunset, it's just me, your friendly neighborhood Lord of Chaos." The voice replied. "D-discord?" Sunset stammered. "Is that you?" She looked around the room for the source of the voice, but saw nothing. Just then, a part of her wall started to move, slowly shifting itself into the visage of the Lord of Chaos. Sunset panicked and crawled backwards in bed until her head hit the wall behind her, causing her to flinch. "Off to a shaky start, but this'll still work." Discord said, seemingly to himself. "Surely Twilight's already told you everything you need to know about me?" Sunset blinked away the pain from hitting her head before asking: "W-what are you doing here? [Why are you here?" "Ah, the million dollar question!" He replied. "Simply put, I recently heard through the grapevine about the events of the past month. I came to check out this place, and you in particular. It seems that I have chosen just the right time to show up." "Yes, and in a totally non-creepy way." Sunset remarked. "Point taken." Discord replied. "My plan was to reveal myself to you in the morning, in human form, so as not to scare you too much. But as you can see, that didn't quite work out. I am sorry that the circumstances of our first meeting could not have been better. Excuse me if I'm wrong, but it looks to me like you had a nightmare." "Yeah, I did." She replied, shifting in her sweat-soaked sheets. "Would you like to tell me what it was about?" Sunset raised an eyebrow. "Oh." He said. "Would you like to talk about it?" "I guess. How much do you know about what happened?" "Enough, thanks to having this very conversation with Twilight and Starlight not too long ago. For example, I know that you had a particularly personal experience with our little invader because of your unique power. The details, however, I don't know, which is why I decided to pay you a visit." "Yeah, I don't like to think about it too much. My friends and I have fought all sorts of villains and rogue magic, but we've never had one of those things actually try to kill any of us. It was a bit of an eye-opener to finally find myself in real danger that day. " Discord nodded thoughtfully. "And my guess is that was what your nightmare was about?" "Yeah, let's just say it wasn't exactly a happy ending." "Would you like to explain it to me? He asked. "Sure." Sunset said before launching into a monologue about her experience. She couldn't use the spell she had used with Starlight because she lacked her unicorn abilities, but she still gave detailed descriptions. "Hm." He said thoughtfully after Sunset had finished describing how she and her friends had defeated the intruder. "That was a bit darker than I expected. Do you have any questions about it?" "Not really?" She answered. "There's not much I haven't already sorted out with Starlight. Sure, there are still some unknowns, but I'm not going to burden myself with trying to answer them. Actually, knowing that there's more out there than just this world and Equestria feels euphoric to me. Knowing that there are technically infinite possibilities. Sure, it wasn't exactly a nice experience, but I refuse to believe that all realities, dimensions, whatever, are bad. "And you would be correct in that assumption." Discord replied. "While some worlds are... questionable, to me the vast majority of those I have seen, while different, could not be called 'bad,' because different does not necessarily mean so." He paused, waiting for Sunset to take in his words. He raised an eyebrow when she showed little reaction. "What? Aren't you shocked to learn that I can travel the multiverse? Twilight and Starlight were." "To be honest, not really." She started. "I've been here much longer than either of them. When I first heard about the ancient myths of dragons and things like the Loch Ness Monster, it raised my eyebrow. But it was only when Fluttershy told me about a stuffed animal at a carnival that looked suspiciously similar to what Celestia had described to me when I was her student that it finally made sense. Couldn't help yourself, huh?" "Clever!" He exclaimed. "Guilty as charged. Do take note though that my involvement in this world never went beyond the point of reinforcing already existing myths. I always loved the faces these people made when I took these forms for laughs." "Since you seem to know so much about the 'multiverse' or whatever it's called, how does Equestria fit into things?" "I'm glad you asked!" He replied, manifesting the same ocean and islands he had for Twilight and Starlight. From there, he gave her the same overview, up to the point where he mentioned that interfering with other worlds had the potential to drastically alter timelines and events. "Hang on." Sunset said. "Do you think I could be guilty of that? I mean, doesn't my jumping through the portal from Equestria to here count as a 'disruption'?" "It's a bit more complicated than that. Technically, Celestia, Luna and Star Swirl are guilty of that, since they made the thing in the first place. Why is something beyond even me, but..." He shrugged. "It could be argued that the disruption, if there was one, started with them, not you. Then there's the counterpart issue: Haven't you ever wondered where your counterpart is in this world? That raises a whole new set of questions which unfortunately lack answers. If we assume that the disruption starting with Celestia and Luna wasn't something that was supposed to happen, then it could be argued that it caused your counterpart to either end up somewhere different, or not exist at all." Sunset became visibly distressed. "But!" He followed quickly. "You could also say that all of this was always meant to happen, and your counterpart either never existed or lives somewhere else because you were always meant to come here and fill that role. To spread the magic of friendship beyond the borders of Equestria! It's quite the conundrum, isn't it?" "Yes, it is." She replied, shaking her head. "One more question: You explained the whole thing about Equestria being an island on an ocean, so to speak, but if the worlds are islands, what's the water supposed to be?" "The Void." He declared. "The Void?" "It's not a very original name, admittedly but it's the best way to describe it. I don't know much about it myself, just that it's the metaphorical 'water' between worlds, a place where... where..." He paused, thinking. "I can't even think of a way to describe it, which should tell you what you need to know. It's a void, that's all. Most don't know about it, and those who do don't care, because it's an optional destination for any being capable of cross-dimensional travel. If you can just jump from world to world, why stop in a literal void? I certainly wouldn't. To answer the question I know you're about to ask, yes, this Void and the one the intruder tried to banish you to are one and the same. The only unknowns to me now, are who exactly our intruder was, along with the 'corruption' and 'Gumball'. It doesn't make much sense to me how you understand so little about what your power showed you and yet are so afraid of it. "Because I saw it with my own eyes. I can only describe it to you, you don't understand how it felt to witness it with my geode power. That's where my nightmare came from, knowing so little and yet being so afraid of what I saw. It's just so... unfathomable to me that someone could be so heartless, not hesitate at all to inflict unimaginable suffering on another being. Makes me all the more glad that we defeated him." He nodded. "I wish I could be of more help, but to be honest, I'm at a loss for words myself. I hope this little conversation has helped you at least a little. The knowledge of the multiverse is not something most are equipped to handle, and I decided to visit you so I could be sure that nothing too negative has come of all this. Has it?" "No." Sunset answered. "While what I saw with my geode still scares me a bit, I'd say life here is mostly business as usual. Well, besides the uh, project, this world's Twilight has started." "Project?" He inquired. "What kind of project?" "After all was said and done, this world's Twilight started experimenting with magic again, even though her previous attempt at it led to Midnight Sparkle. She's combining this world's technology with the Equestrian magic in our geodes to enhance our abilities. Simply put, if this works, I'll be able to do everything I can do as a unicorn here. Like I said, this is the first time that any of my friends or I have ever been in real danger, and she's doing this so that it doesn't happen again, because she feels that we rely too much on our magic alone. It's really heartwarming to know that our friendship means so much to her that she would go to all this trouble for us. "That's quite the endeavor. Are you sure that such a thing is possible here? After all, magic isn't exactly native here, and who knows what the Princess Twilight would think." "I was wondering the same thing, but believe it or not, she already has a proof-of-concept prototype that allows her to teleport. She botched it a bit, but the point was that it can work, so I decided to help her. Don't worry, I'll tell Twilight eventually, I just want to see where this goes. After all, she has me to help her now, and well, I hadn't realized until now how much I missed my old magic." "Cheeky, I like it." He said with a smirk. "But yeah, that's about all you need to know about this little intrusion and how things turned out. If anything, I'd say this was good for us. I mean, I'll have my old magic back, and we'll be on par with what can be done back home, so taking care of any rogue magic, or in this case, extra-dimensional threats, will be much easier and safer." "Well, in that case, I believe my work here is done!" He exclaimed. "Until we meet again!" He snapped a finger, and a gust of wind somehow blew through the apartment as his form disintegrated into dust, leaving no trace. Sunset relaxed, exhaling, before in another flash, Discord appeared again. Sunset jumped again. "Forgive me ShimShim, but I almost forgot! Because I want to leave here on a more positive note: In my humble opinion, you were always fated to come here. Think about how much of an impact you and Princess Twilight have had on this world, and what would have become of this place had things like the Sirens and all those lost artifacts gone unchecked. Your efforts to protect this world and spread the message of friendship across dimensions have not gone unnoticed, especially in the wake of this unexpected crossover. I'm just saying, stay tuned, becuase Twilight may not be the only one with something big on the horizon." He winked before disappearing again in the same manner as before. Sunset looked down at her lap, noticing something that hadn’t been there before. Two plushies. One was of Discord, with a note attached that said "Something to remember me by." The other plush was of her pony form, with alicorn wings and a crown.