//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: Agent // Story: Luna's Dreamscape Journey // by ugugg93 //------------------------------// As Luna flew through the night sky, her ethereal mane rippled behind her as the crisp air washed over her. While most of the air was parted by the alicorn's wings, small tendrils of wind blew between her large feathers. As a result, they brushed up against each other unpleasantly, and sent slight tickling sensations throughout her entire body. This feeling was a source of great annoyance to many pegasi, and would normally force them to land and start preening to fix the minute imperfections in their wings. However, Luna had too much on her mind to even notice the feeling of misaligned feathers. Instead, her thoughts were occupied by the love that both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash felt for each other. While Luna should have been happy that she had helped to get them together, she wasn't. Not entirely at least, for instead she simply felt curiosity mixed with confusion. It was silly how both appeared to harbor romantic feelings for the other, yet neither was willing to admit them. They were probably going through a great deal of pain staying apart, and would feel much better if they got together, so why not simply confess? Was it really so hard to tell somepony that you loved them? Luna frowned slightly. “Yes, Celestia. Is it that hard?” Almost immediately after she said the words, Luna found herself shaking her head. Not because she was trying to get the thoughts out of her mind, but because of just how unfair they actually were to her sister. While Celestia could be a lot of things—cold, fake, calculating, ignorant, and arrogant to name a few—she was not silent about her love for both her subjects and for Luna. Every time the pair were on the Eventide Balcony, her sister made sure to say “I love you,” at least once. Although whether Princess Celestia was being truthful or not was a completely different matter. Of all the ponies that Luna had ever encountered, it was her own sister that she could never read—at least when she put that thrice dammed mask of hers on. Celestia could be lying to her every night when she expressed her love, and Luna would never know. She might not love her and was merely waiting for Luna to slip up again. Then, as soon as Luna failed, it would be back to the moon for her, leaving Celestia to having the castle to herself once again. Luna didn't get angry at the thoughts this time. Instead, she softly muttered, “Though... she does say it all the time. Maybe... maybe she isn't lying, and she does care for me...” It was a scary thought, because if that was was the case, then it threw Luna's entire image of her sister on its head. If Celestia truly did love her—as a sister, of course—then all her fears of betrayal were completely unfounded. If there was love, then her sister would never try to get rid of her. Further, if there was love, then her sister didn't want to shut Luna away from the world. Mistakenly believing that the Lunar Court and everything Luna was currently responsible for was enough for her became just that—just a mistake. Not hate. Not scorn. Not shame. Just a simple, yet terrible misunderstanding. Again, Luna shook her head. This time though, it was to get the thoughts out of her mind. She didn't want to think about things as deep as relationship changing mindsets right now. The time for those sorts of complex thoughts was tomorrow night or something. Tonight, she only cared about looking into the dreams of ponies. So with that, she ignored any thoughts of the royal world, and dove into Ponyville once more. Almost immediately, her eyes fell upon the most curiously shaped building that she had ever seen. The entire building was shaped like one of the gingerbread houses that fillies and colts would make with their parents during the Hearth's Warming Holidays, except on a life-sized scale. Indeed, the roof was as brown as a gingerbread cracker, the trim of the house had what looked like white piped icing all over it, and the very peak of the building was topped with a massive cupcake-looking thing. That wasn't even talking about the image of the pony on the roof holding a candy cane. Luna squinted her eyes. “Are... are those wax candles at the top?” Before she could dwell on the logistics of trying to replace the candles whenever they burned out, Luna angled flight so she was heading towards the building. Deciding that this place was just as good as any other, she slowed her flight, and slightly dipped the leading edges of her wings so that she fell from the sky. As she fell, she spotted a window near the top of the structure that was slightly open. By now, the maneuver to shift into a mist and slip into the small crack in the window was almost second nature, and so with a simple flash of magic, she shifted, and allowed her momentum to carry her into the room. After making sure that she had enough space to reform, she shifted back into her pony body, and began to look around. Considering how sickly sweet the outside of the building looked, the room she was now in actually seemed fairly normal. The walls were painted a dull yellow hue, which still didn't really go well with the red wooden ceiling—at least according to Luna. Of course, while Luna did feel that the room was normal, the strange outlines of what looked like dozens of bears were on the ceiling trim. Around her, the standard amenities ranging from a small couch to a bedside table were around her, filling the space in the circular room. A loud snore brought to Luna's attention that there was a sleeping pony in the room. However, a sleepy murmuring confused her, and brought the alicorn's eyes over to the bed against the left wall. Sleeping peacefully—if a bit loudly—under the covers was a pink pony familiar to Luna in more ways than one. “Pinkie Pie, one of the Elements of Harmony,” Luna murmured to herself as she looked on. A hardened scowl formed on the mare's face as she continued. “As well as the pony that almost single hoofedly ruined Nightmare Night forever for everypony.” Luna's eyes flashed red with anger over the mare's antics that night, but the anger faded just as quickly. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she slowly began to make her way over to the bed. The entire time Luna crossed the distance, Pinkie continued to make the strange snoring noises. With every intake of air, the mare would let out a loud noise from the back of her throat, and with every exhalation, she would slightly murmur random sounds to herself. She had to admit, even if this pony was evil, she was a little bit adorable. Just as Luna got to the side of Pinkie's bed, the mare coherently murmured, “You are lying... you filth...” “Lying? Filth?” Luna asked she cocked her head to the right slightly. “Just what in Equestria are you thinking, my little subject?” Lighting her horn, Luna bent down to touch the very tip of the glowing appendage to Pinkie's forehead. Just as Luna was about to make her connection, Pinkie shifted her body slightly, and revealed that there was a bright green creature hanging onto her mane with its mouth. However, it was too late for Luna to pull her head back in time, so instead of making a connection with Pinkie Pie, she tapped the forehead of whatever creature was hanging onto the mare, and was instead sucked into its dream. In every dream before this one, when Luna first entered, she almost had to force her way in. This was always the case when she first entered each with her modified Memory Extractor spell, for each time, all she saw and heard was static. Caused by the vastly different patterns of their thoughts, Luna would have to shift her own thought's frequency to match up with the subject's. The closer she got, the clearer the picture—the farther, the worse. Finally, if she lined up the frequencies of her thoughts just right, she would have a picture more crystal clear than the physical world itself. It was a simple concept that shared a lot of similarities with the actual Memory Extractor spell. When she used to use that one, the subject's mind was constantly changing frequencies. It was seen—at least in unicorn circles—as a sort of “mental defense” that the caster had to be constantly merged with the entire time—a moving target if you will. However, apparently when they were asleep, the subject's frequency remained the same through the entire spell, making the entire ordeal that much easier to deal with. That wasn't saying that it was really easy, for even after an entire night's so far of practice, she still had to spend a good amount of time forcing her way though the “mental defenses” that were present in each and every mind tonight. This dream was different, for there weren't any mental defenses at all. Instead, Luna was instantly “in tune” with the subject's mind, and had a clear picture of what was going on inside the dream. In fact, instead of pushing her way in as normal, she was sucked into the dream like she would be a tornado. Which was probably why her vision was spinning rapidly as she fell to earth. As best as Luna could, she tried to counter her death-spin by twisting herself in the opposite direction. Further, she attempted to pull herself out of her fall by simply floating her amorphous body straight up. Both were moderately successful, for while her descent began to slow and the world became a little less of a blur, it was not nearly enough to stop herself in time. Still spinning and falling from the sky, she slammed into the grassy ground far below. Sure it was painless, but still very unpleasant to experience. Her vision in a slight daze from the tumbling fall, she attempted to get herself back onto her hooves. Of course, it was only after trying and failing half a dozen times that she finally remembered that she didn't have hooves, and was still only a shapeless blob. Sighing to herself over her lapse of intelligence, she lifted higher into the sky, so that she could properly see the scene around her. The immediate area around her was fairly mundane, though the further she got from herself, the more detailed things were. Unlike many of the other dreams, identifying where she was was not an issue, for it was easy to tell that she was in a grassy field just outside of the building that her real-world body was in. On either side of to what must have been the back door—considering the main road was nowhere to be seen—there were two small gardens filled with flowers of various colors and shapes. Behind her, several buildings were standing on all sides, though none were nearly as notable as the gingerbread-shaped building in front of her. In fact, the house itself appeared to be an exact replica of the real-world one. The walls were exactly where they needed to be. The piping was a white and fluffy as it needed to be. Even the wax candles on the roof were the perfect height. In other dreams, the fine details sometimes blurred together, or were entirely absent. This dream, on the other hoof, had absolutely no detail spared. All things considered, Luna was impressed. In the grassy field in front of her, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were playing catch with a red, white, and green striped inflatable ball. Instead of the exciting and intense game of catch that Luna would expect from the pair—especially considering how athletic and excitable the two were—it was a simple game of each bumping the ball with their noses, bouncing it up into the air, only to have it bounced back by the other. It was simple, it was relaxed, and it must have been boring. The entire time, a green hued alligator the size of a cat stood in the garden, bumping his nose against a tulip. So that is the vile thing that I was forced inside of... The sound of Rainbow Dash's voice broke Luna out of her scowl. “Pinkie, I’m bored. Let's do something.” Allowing the ball to finally fall to the grass, Pinkie sat herself down, and brought a forehoof to her chin. “Hmm... we could play Ponyhunt!” “Nah. That's only fun with a big group of ponies.” “Umm... we could go pranking again!” “I'm still on probation for kidnapping Mayor Mare last week.” “Oh right, and any more points against you and you lose your flying license.” “Pretty much.” “Hmm... well... I guess we could make a giant laser to carve our names in the moon.” Carve your names in my what? To that, Rainbow paused for a second. However, after that very short second, her voice returned with a little bit of hesitation. “Is... is that even possible?” Pinkie hopped up to her pegasus friend, and after slinging a foreleg around Rainbow's neck, excitedly said, “No idea, but that's the fun part!” Rainbow smiled back. “Let's do this!” “Yes!” Pinkie turned towards the green alligator that was still bumping the flower in front of him. “Now Gummy, you be a good alligator and stay in the garden while Rainbow and I play mad scientist!” Together, the two ran into the building next to them. With a quick gust of wind, the door slammed shut, blocking Luna's vision of the... curious pair that had just galloped away. Luna scowled again at the two, for the thought of ponies—even if they were the legendary Elements of Harmony—marring her moon was something that she would never stand for. In fact, if this wasn't a dream, she would've stormed into that building, found the two, and taught them a few things about what should and should not have lasers shot at them. Besides, the sun was a much more suitable target. It was only then that Luna remembered that neither of the two ponies that ran off were the creator of the dream. Looking back towards the flower garden, she intended to see just how long an alligator bopping his head against a flower could entertain her. Probably longer than counting bricks during Lunar Court could at least, but probably by just a few minutes. Turning around towards the flower garden, she gasped. He was gone. Frantic at losing the dreamer, she quickly scoured the area for any sign of the reptile. He was not in either of the gardens. He wasn't in the grassy field. She was certain that he didn't follow the two ponies as they galloped inside to build their evil laser. The only other possibility was that he had turned the corner around the house. Darting around said corner, she was relieved to find out that her prediction was correct, for she could now see Gummy hastily making a beeline towards a trash can near the wall. Luna followed as close as she could, making sure that she would not lose him again. While in a normal dream if she lost the dreamer she was pretty sure that she could just leave the dream as normal, she wasn't entirely sure what would happen if she lost the dreamer now, especially considering it was an animal. Of course, if she was smart, she would leave right now, but the amazing detail the otherwise simple creature was providing to the dream was curious enough to warrant further investigating. All of a sudden, Gummy jumped up onto his rear legs, and now stood as a bipedal creature. His front feet now looked more like hands than feet, and his toes suddenly looked much more like fingers than claws as well. Gummy took a few looks in every direction before both of his hands reached behind his back, and out of seemingly nowhere, pulled out two items. The first was a large remote with a single red button on it. The second was a Fedora, which he placed on his head. What in the name of... what? Gummy pressed the button, opening a doorway leading to a small closet-like room no larger than the alligator himself. Gummy quickly stepped inside of the room, and with another press of the button, the door quickly began to seal him inside. Oh shoot! As fast as she could, Luna darted to get inside of the doorway. Time seemed to slow as she moved as fast as she could in her mist form, yet the door in front of her still moved faster than her. Less than a meter away, she forced out just a little more speed, and barely slid in between the the wooden walls of the door and the frame. However, she didn't quite make it through the door, the trailing end of her incorporeal self getting slammed slightly in the door. Thankfully, while such a sudden slam would've been painful in the real world, she was perfectly fine here in the dream. She didn't have any time to ponder over what might have happened in the real world if part of her mist was torn from her, for the floor of the small room she was in began to fall. All around Luna, she saw nothing but the gray steel plating of what must have been some kind of underground bunker. However, in a way similar to Lyra's dream, the tube they were in was made of glass, separating the walls from their bodies. When the steel walls finally gave way to a large room, Luna gasped. Similar to Lyra's dream, the tube opened up to a massive complex with an incredible amount of technologically amazing devices inside. The gray steel walls around the tube spread out to become the ceiling, which then curved down to seamlessly become the walls of the chamber. To Luna's right, there were a series of costumes, though none of them appeared to even come close to fitting Gummy in any way. Also to her right was a lounging chair that had some sort of scanning device on top of it, most likely to probe one's brain or something. For a second, Luna considered using it on herself. To Luna's left, she was able to see several vats filled with what looked like various sea creatures, though she had no idea what any of them were. If she had to guess, it would be exotic animals from far off lands that she somehow didn't know about. Either that, or the animals inside were not actually animals of any natural sort, and were instead mutated monsters that were created in a lab that were destined to destroy everything that the entire world held dear. Hopefully, it was the former. Finally, in front of Luna, there appeared to be a massive glass-screened device that again was much like the one from Lyra's dream. In fact, there were very few differences between the two devices. They both had the massive glass window-thing, they both had a lot of buttons to do a lot of somethings, and both had a chair that was obviously meant to sit in. However, the one major difference was that while the screen from before was black with darkness, this one was lit up by a yellow glow, with bright red text on the screen. It was this device that Gummy ran towards, and with a quick hop, he jumped into the bright orange chair. As Luna left the tube and began to approach him, he swiftly pulled a small lever and pressed a single button on the console. The glass screen flashed to a different picture—this one with a white envelope next to a dull yellow arrow. Princess Luna watched as the arrow on the glass pressed against the envelope, and with a high pitched squeal, the image of what must have been a high ranking royal guard—considering the absurd number of medals adorning his armor—appeared on the screen. Luna was startled when the stallion's voice sounded through somewhere near the glass of the device. “Morning, Agent G. It appears that recently, nearly every single mirror in all of Equestria has been stolen. We suspect that Doctor Hufenschmertz is behind it. However, as of now, we have no idea why.” Perhaps he needs to apply makeup? “I want you to find Hufenschmertz, find out why he is stealing the mirrors, and put a stop to whatever nefarious plans he has.” With a crisp salute, Gummy jumped out of the chair, and with the glass window still showing the image of the royal guard, the alligator ran over to the rear of his command center. Luna followed Gummy as he quickly made his way to the wall, and after pressing a series of buttons, another closet-like room appeared. Making sure to quickly get into the tube this time, Luna waited for Gummy to jump inside the tube himself, and sealed the two inside. A few more presses of a few more buttons later, and together the two zipped up and off. It was only a few seconds before the two appeared inside a bathroom somewhere—most likely in the gingerbread building considering they only went straight up. It was a fairly standard bathroom—the walls were blue, the tile flooring was blue, with the only the countertops and the grout being anything but blue. Other than that, the room was fairly mundane, with a toilet, a tub, and the various other amenities that a bathroom should have. Though the open air ceiling leading to a massive mechanical claw seemed to be a recent addition. Through said newly made skylight, the claw reached down from a large hovering machine and with a powerful yank, pulled the bathroom's mirror off of the wall. Gummy instantly sprang into action, and with a leap, he jumped onto the metal claw, and rode the thing as it retracted back into the hovering machine. Taking this as her cue to follow, Luna began to fly up towards the ship as fast as she could. However, just as Luna was getting close, Gummy and the mirror were both pulled into an open hatch on the bottom of the ship, and only a second later, the bay doors closed, and the machine began to rocket off into the distance. With no other choice in the matter, Luna readied a teleportation spell, and after a quick prayer to herself, winked out of existence, reappearing inside of the machine. Success! Not able to take too long to celebrate her minor victory, Luna looked around the room that she had teleported herself into. It was incredibly similar thematically to Gummy's secret lair, for there were a lot of technological devices coated in a light blue color. Near the rear of the machine, a large hole was in the floor, with the arm of the metal claw extending to the ceiling—the hole most likely where Gummy would appear from. To Luna's left, there were more of the glass-window devices that appeared to be popular with secret lairs in dreams. To her right, she saw various drawings of some sort of device, but not even the alicorn could make heads or tails of what they were supposed to depict. In front of Luna, there was a stallion standing at the controls to the machine—dozens of levers and pull cords sure signs of that. The earth pony was curiously unique in his complexion, for while the vast majority of his coat was white, his chest and rear legs were jet black in color. Meanwhile, his mane and tail were a darker shade of orange, to the point that the hair was nearly brown. Add in a cutie mark depicting what looked like an erlenmeyer flask with an evil frowny face on it, and it was something that... well... was definitely unique. There was a loud bang from behind the two—back towards where the open floor was. Luna turned around, and looked just in time to see Gummy jumping out of the hole and landing on the blue-steeled tile floor—his Fedora still firmly on his head. Realizing that things were about to get interesting, Luna pulled back towards the left side so that she could see what both parties were doing at the same time. Just as she was getting into position, Doctor Hufenschmertz looked right into Gummy's eyes. “Ah, Gummy the Gator. What a surprise to see you... and by surprise, I mean not surprising at all!” With a pull of a lever, a massive ball of pink goo fell on top of Gummy, trapping him in its confines. At first, he tried to get his way out by struggling in any way possible, but all of his efforts seemed to be for naught. After only a little bit, he finally gave up on trying to escape the sticky trap, and instead looked at Hufenschmertz with narrowed eyes. Smug over his apparent quick and easy victory, Hufenschmertz let out a maniacal laugh. “Ha! I got you now in my Gummy Gum! Get it? I caught Gummy in Gummy Gum? Guess you can't get out of such a terribly sticky situation! Now, I’m sure you are wondering what I am doing with every single mirror in Equestria, aren't you?” Yes. Please enlighten us. I am certain it is a wondrous tale. “I, Doctor Heineken Hufenschmerz, have stolen every single mirror in Equestria, and put them together in a spherical shape to create a giant ball of reflective surfaces. Soon, I will launch the ball into the sky, which will catch the sun's rays, and reflect them off of the surfaces, and back down to the planet, creating a second sun! Then, after I create half of the sunlight that is being used on the planet, I will force all of the creatures to pay my 'sunlight fee'!” Mumbling to himself for a second, he continued with a much lower voice. “Now, I’m not entirely certain how I will issue the fee, or how to deal with the many different amounts of currencies, but I’m sure that will come to me when it needs to.” That sounds like the dumbest plan since... actually... no... that is the dumbest plan I have ever heard. As Gummy continued to look on with an angry glare, Doctor Hufenschmerz pulled a lever, opening the window in front of them. Luna gasped at what she saw, for outside of the machine in what must have been near the Ghastly Gorge, a truly colossal shining sphere sat inside of a massive hole beside the natural wonder. If Luna had to guess how large the thing was, she would guess that the thing was at least a few kilometers in diameter—not even close to the size of either the sun or the moon, but still massive in scale. Considering how hard it was to look at in the shade inside the underground hole, Luna could only imagine how bright it would be once it got into the bright light of the clear blue sky. Letting out another evil laugh, Hufenschmerz put a hoof on one final lever—this one bigger and more flamboyantly colored than any of the other levers near him. His laughter subsiding a little bit, he yelled, “Now, feast your eyes on the power of my Disco-Ball 5000!!” Distructo what? Hufenschmerz pulled the lever. Instantly, Luna could hear a loud rumbling coming from the hole near the Ghastly Gorge. While she couldn't feel it—considering that she was not only in a machine that was flying, but she was floating inside the machine itself—she could see the effects that it was having on the landscape below. Massive chunks of the canyon walls broke off and fell to the bottom. Trees that lined the ground on either side of the canyon swayed under the strain of the artificial earthquake. Finally, just as Luna was sure that the trees would begin to shatter under the force of the shaking earth, the massive mirrored ball shot into the air. Rocketing into the sky by some mysterious means—there weren't any visible propellers or magical spells activating to keep it aloft—the massive ball of mirrors instantly lit up as bright as the sun itself. The device flew even higher into the sky, until it was the exact same size as the celestial orb. In fact, if Luna didn't watch the thing fly into the sky itself, she would have a hard time guessing which one of the two was the real sun and which was fake—the artificial sun mirroring the real one entirely. Heh... the mirror sun mirrored the... oh forget it. Almost instantly, the air inside of the ship began to steadily heat up in response to the extra sunlight that the artificial sun was now putting out. All the while, Doctor Hufenschmertz continued to laugh, though a sheen of sweat was beginning to make itself known on the stallion's coat. Luna herself was also beginning to feel the effects of the heat too, and if it wasn't for the fact that she didn't have any sweat glands right now, she was sure that she would've been sweating as well. The entire time this was happening, Gummy focused on the chewing gum that he was stuck in. Slowly, the pink gum heated up, and with time, became much more akin to a liquid than a solid. Noticing this, he once again began to struggle against the powerful bindings that held him in place. At first, his struggles appeared to be useless against the stickiness of the gum, but as the substance heated up more and more, Gummy's motions became wider and wider. Suddenly, with an audible “snap,” Gummy broke out of the trap, and with a flip through the air, he landed on the metal floor between the trap and Hufenschmertz. Hufenschmertz turned, and after seeing Gummy had escaped, stammered, “But... but how!?” Looking back at his trap, he noticed that the gum was becoming even more like a liquid, to the point that it was now flowing slightly, creating the beginnings of a puddle. Stunned at the way his trap failed, Hufenschmertz merely said, “Huh, so apparently making two suns makes it twice as hot, which melts gum. You think I would've thought of that.” Not taking any more time to listen to the stallion's idiocy, Gummy ran forward, and before Doctor Hufenschmertz could react, he punched the stallion in the face, knocking him to the floor. After that, Gummy ran up and took control of the ship. The air inside heating up now to the point of it barely becoming tolerable, he quickly scanned the area outside the ship for anything that he could use to either disable or destroy the second sun in the sky. Suddenly, a thin red beam shot out from the ground far off in the direction of Canterlot Mountain. Luna followed the red laser into the sky, all the way until she noticed that it was shooting— My moon! They are shooting my moon! They are so dead. However, while Luna's fury mounted over the vandalism of her most prized possession, Gummy apparently had other ideas. Flipping and pulling a few levers, he quickly veered the machine up and away from the laser, so that while they were flying slightly away from it, they were also flying almost straight up at the same time. While Luna was still floating calmly in the middle of it all, he was barely hanging onto a pair of levers so that he could stay at the helm. Hufenschmertz was too busy screaming and tumbling to hang onto anything. After a full minute of gaining altitude, Gummy lifted himself up, and pulled another lever. Their flight quickly leveled off, and with a series of pulls, twists, and pushes, he reoriented the ship to the right, so that it was now hovering far above the ground below. In front of them, the second sun nearly blinded Luna, though she was thankfully able to see through the terrifying glare. Behind the artificial sun—the laser. Before Luna could even attempt to question what was going through the alligator's animalistic mind, Gummy pressed a red button, and the ship lurched forward violently. Accelerating at a dangerously fast speed, the ship quickly closed the distance to the artificial sun in front of them, to the point that it filled the entire view outside of the ship's front window. As this happened, Gummy quickly jumped away, grabbed a backpack off of the shelves to his right, and after he grabbed Hufenschmertz, he opened a hatch to the outside. Hufenschmertz looked outside as Gummy held onto him. “I don't suppose that I can get one of those for myself, hmm?” Gummy's answer was apparently no, for he threw the scientist out of the hatch, and watched the earth pony flail around helplessly as he fell to earth. Not wasting any time himself, Gummy took a few steps back, and with a running jump, leaped out of the ship, and began to fall to earth. As for Luna, she blinked for a few seconds, as she found herself alone in the animal's dream. This pause only lasted for a second, for she quickly decided that staying in the ship that was heading straight for a mirror-coated, kilometer wide, artificial sun was not an ideal way to spend a dream. Therefore, she made her way to the hatch, and threw herself out. Instantly, she tilted her flight down, and sped after the two tiny specks falling from the sky. Her flight must have been faster, for both objects were getting larger and larger with each second that she fell. Even from here, she could see that Gummy was quickly making his way towards Hufenschmertz's panicking self. As this happened, Luna looked back at the artificial sun above. The ship that they were once in was now nothing but a speeding blur in the sky with huge flames coming out of the back of it as it sped towards its target. With a loud “bang”, the ship slammed into the sun with such force, that both objects began to move towards where the laser was firing at her moon. In fact, just a few more seconds, and the artificial sun hit the red beam. Several things happened at this point. First, the artificial sun began to glow red from the superheated beam that it was forced into. The laser forced it's way inside the reflective shell, triggering a series of explosions from within the mass of glass, although the overall structure remained intact. Second, as these explosions rocked the artificial sun, it flew into a spiraling climb out of the atmosphere, and far into space—the still burning jets from the ship helping to accomplish this event. Even after it disappeared from sight, Luna continued to look into both the sky and her moon, until after a minute, Luna saw a large crater form inside the partially carved out letters in her once pristine moon. Thankfully, the debris from the crash apparently spread out along the carved grooves, effectively erasing them from sight. Finally, when the laser initially hit the mirrored sun, the mirrors had reflected some small part of the laser that was fired. Of this reflected amount, the vast majority was redirected right back to the source, and almost at the same moment that the mirrored sun impacted her moon, a loud explosion rocked the area that was most likely within Ponyville. All in all, it was a fairly pleasant ending. Turning back towards the ground, she saw that she was now up alongside both Gummy and Hufenschmertz—the former having caught up with the latter, and grabbing hold of him. As the trio approached the ground, Gummy quickly pulled a cord that was dangling from his backpack. The backpack suddenly opened up, and showed that instead of a typical backpack, a massive cloth sheet-thing had appeared, and was slowing their fall. In fact, the arch-shaped sheet not only slowed the pair's fall, but also allowed the two to gain some fairly quick forward momentum. Very soon, the two—with Luna following alongside—were heading back towards where the laser had come from, which was now clearly visible as the village of Ponyville. The trip back didn't take nearly as long as Luna had initially expected it to, and only a minute later, the village formerly beyond the horizon was now right in their sights. As they flew, Luna noticed that they were flying over some kind of swamp or bog. Apparently Gummy realized this too, as he looked down at the stallion he was holding onto. With a pleading look on Hufenschmertz's face—a look that Gummy happily ignored—Gummy dropped him. Luna watched as the pony flailed his hooves all around him, and with a loud splash, fell into one of the larger and deeper mud-holes—a fact that Luna couldn't help but to chuckle a little bit at. A minute later, now in the center of the village, Gummy pulled a second string on his backpack. The pull released the pack from his back, and the alligator fell from the sky. A few flips later, and he skidded on top of a building, stopping just before he fell off the edge of the roof. Flipping himself over the edge, he used a rain gutter to slide himself down the wall of the building—tossing his Fedora into one of the second story windows as he did so—and landed on all fours in a garden of flowers. Before Luna could question any of this, the back door of the gingerbread shaped building opened up, with a black plume of smoke spilling out in the process. A few coughs from the inhabitants later, and two very black ponies walked out of the building, the pegasus still coughing from the terrible smoke spilling out of the building. The pegasus—apparently Rainbow Dash—was able to stifle her coughs for long enough to weakly say, “I just don't know what went wrong!” The other pony—obviously Pinkie Pie—shrugged. “Oh well! It was fun anyway!” Looking towards the garden to her right, the mare smiling her pearly white teeth at the alligator that was standing there dumbly. “Hey Gumster! You still having fun with the flowers?” Slowly, he bumped his head against a tulip. Yanking herself out of the dream, Luna couldn't help but to look at the pair in the bed below her. While Pinkie was an interesting pony in herself, the alligator named Gummy was drawing much more of Luna's attention right now. Who knew that such a simple creature could have not only such vivid dreams, but have them in such detail that they were more complex than a few that she had seen so far tonight. It was something that Luna could only shrug her shoulders at. “Weird.”