//------------------------------// // III: A Real Nightmare // Story: A Nightmare Night You'll Never Forget // by WolfsFury //------------------------------// The moon was high in the sky by the time Spike returned with a bag full of lollies and joined Twilight, who was busy star gazing. The group had parted ways, Celestia and Luna, still disguised as Chrysalis and Sombra respectively, having been lead away by Rarity to praise them on their amazing costumes and soon on to their own things - mostly involving Luna scaring away little foals with fierce (yet playful) displays of power and fear invoking laughter. Luna received two smacks to the head from her beloved sister after she was pulled out of sight of the public by the elder and given a very harsh warning. Which of course, the lunar princess ignored and attempted to show her sister it was all fun and games as the frightened fillies returning, laughing. One would have thought that Celestia had been the mare imprisoned on the moon for a thousand years, with the way she seemed to misunderstand the concept of this night! Applejack had returned to her shift on watching some of the activities, least of all the apple-bobbing game, Pinkie Pie and her friends were still running around with hoof-fulls of lollies and as far as anypony knew, Rainbow Dash was still searching for Fluttershy. Twilight had been tagging along with the princesses for a while, but moved onto her own path and sought a place of peace. She was now on the bridge on the outskirts of Ponyville, the same bridge Luna had crossed exactly one year prior, after the events of the night had not gone as planned. Happily star gazing, hooves over the side of the bridge wall, Twilight simply admired the stars. The peaceful silence (as much as you could call the chomping of candy by a small dragon silence) was interupted however, by a voice that had taken her the good portion of the night to get used to. "May I join you?" Turning she saw 'Chrysalis' waiting at the start of the bridge and then, with a nod from Twilight, moved up to sit next to the dragon-alicorn. "Beautiful, isn't it?" "Yes, you're sister really does do a marvelous job, it's like she's summoned a heavenly brush and painted the skies into a true masterpiece of art," Twilight replied with a smile, never taking her eyes off the moon princess's artwork. Her ears flicked to the side as Celestia sighed and she turned her head to find her looking down at her hooves, eyes and ears low. "She was always better at it than me. All those years and I could never truly do what she does with the stars. I was meant to raise the sun and govern the day, but never the night." Twilight leaned sideways, briefly nuzzling the changeling-princess's side, finding the hardened scale of changelings a rather weird surface to touch in such a way, but hiding it as she unfurled a wing and wrapped it loosely over Celestia's back, careful not to damage the delicate insect-like wings. She tried to think of something comforting to say and settled with something simple, "that's not true. I believe you did a marvelous job in her absence." Celestia smiled, shining fangs reflecting the light of the full moon, lowering her head to give Twilight a gentle nuzzle, "thank you," and both alicorns returned their gaze to the sky with small smiles. It did, indeed, take this long for Rainbow Dash to find the terrified pegasus - but she did find her. Turns out, regardless of the fact Rainbow was wearing perhaps the least scariest costume (not counting Twilight and Spike), Fluttershy was avoiding her. That may or may not have had something to do with the black cloud Rainbow was moving around with her until she caught sight of the blanket-covered pegasus and abandoned it, soaring after her and landing with a great thud in Fluttershy's path. That was several minutes ago, and she was all but dragging the ghostpony back into town at this point. "Calm down" -she groaned through a mouthful of tail as she tugged on the pony's tail- "Fluttershy, it's not that bad!" "B-b-b-but." "No buts!" Rainbow grumbled, releasing Fluttershy's tail and moving around to hover in front of her, forelegs crossed, "it's not like it's going to kill you or anything. Besides, the rest of us will be there as well." Fluttershy turned away, again, and Rainbow was just about ready to give up when the pegasus shakily stood and turned towards Ponyville with an almost inaudible sigh, "okay..." Upon the mountain overlooking the valley Ponyville rested in, the shadow of a god moved about a room in a high up tower. "It's nearly time, my little ponies, time for a little chaos to stir up the night," a lone voice sneered in the dark. The gem, now glowing like a lamp, began to crystallize as the draconequus studied it's magical reconstruction with a curious eye. "Soon the night will be mine and chaos will reign supreme. Try and stop me Celestia!" The red gem solidified completely and a miniature shock wave blasted from it's center, ruffling Discord's feathers and fur as it past him and dissipated into the air. His plan had modified, his intentions twisted. It didn't take an archmage to realise what he planned would be his undoing should the spell break and Celestia and the element bearers discovered it was him. Of course, he had taken extra precautions. Not that he was concerned at all. "The clock strikes ten and the two stones are one," he said, grinning madly all the while as the gem began emitting red tendrils of energy that drifted into the air and the ground, "a night of Nightmares, no more just fun." Down in Ponyville a sudden tremor ran through the earth, not strong enough to be destructive, but enough to be felt by the citizens of the small town. However, before ponies could scream or fillies or colts run to the safety of their parents, each and every one of them experienced a sharp spark of pain in their heads, before collapsing to the ground in dreamless slumber. On the silent stone bridge outside of town, the magic in the ground drifted into a diamond shaped gem that hung loosely against black chitin, merging with it and creating a dim blood red glow around it. Ponyville was quiet for several long minutes as a shadow descended upon the town. Slowly, but surely, ponies began to wake. Or at least some of them were ponies. Twilight's head throbbed as she woke, bringing a clawed-hoof to her brow and gently rubbing, "what happened..?" As the fog faded from her mind she lowered her hoof and planted it beside her, pushing against the ground and lifting her body up. Her vision slowly returned to her as she opened her weary eyes and stared down at the well-crafted claws that connected to her hooves. Twilight smiled, flexing the claws and letting them scrape across the stone gently, although the sensation felt alien. Then her brain kicked in and that smile vanished. She wriggled them again, just to be sure, and sure enough the claws responded in kind. Twilight also noticed they were longer than she remember, and not just that but there were no gaps between the costume pieces that allowed purple fur to stick through. In fact, the scales were just that - scales, not carved or painted like they should have been. A wave of absolute terror washed over her and she quickly looked behind her, to see a pair of large leathery wings and small green ridges running down her spine, all the way to the end of her very long tail, ending in a blunt point. Grasping for the side of the bridge Twilight glanced down at the water and nearly fainted as she saw the reflection. Her muzzle had lost its fur, extending to a point longer than it had been originally, covered in purple scales. Her lower jaw coloured pale green and as she lifted her lip with a claw, found two rows of razor sharp teeth concealed within them. The sides of her face supported light green frills, roughly the length of her ears - that was, if she had any. Trailing her eyes upwards she saw the rounded fluff of ears missing, although she could have sworn she could still feel them. The last thing she noticed however, were the draconic emerald irises that were her eyes. Twilight spread her wings so they were visible in the water's reflection and caught her breath as she came to terms with what happened. Mere minutes ago she was an alicorn, but the face in the water and the scales on her back told her a very different story. She was a- "DRAGON!" Twilight was nearly thrown over the bridge as something tackled her and as she fumbled to right herself she found herself looking into the deep purple eyes of another pony. It was a stallion, that much was sure, perhaps as old as she was, and he held an expression of utmost terror, and confusion in his eyes and she could have sworn she could hear his heartbeat, beating rapidly. Twilight took in his colouring, a darker shade than she was herself, with a navy blue, almost black mane and tail, straight and with streaks of dark purple and maroon running through them. His horn separated his fringe and would have been dubbed a unicorn, if not for the purple feathered wings with even darker tips to them, raised by his sides in a failed attempt at intimidation. During all that, the stallion seemed to have been looking over her as well, as his eyes softened and confusion was all that remained. A long pause settled into the area until the stallion jumped off the dragon and landed with a light but clumsy thud, clearly not used to his wings. Another moment past, as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing, but at the same time they called the other's name in shock but not without the hint of curiosity. "Spike!?" "Twilight!?" They fell into unison as they continued, "how are you- why did.... how-" both of them studied each other and then themselves. "You're a dragon... and I'm.." "An alicorn." Spike rested his gaze back onto Twilight and both realised they were at eye level with one another. Spike's voice was deeper, as if he had aged, and perhaps through whatever magic had done this to him, he had, as his stallion form was easily as tall as Twilight was, which was roughly the same height as her normal pony form and far taller than Spike's normal dragon form. "You sound older..." "You look older." "I'm a pony!" Spike exclaimed, holding hooves up shakily in front of him and looking himself over. "Calm down, someone must have done this to us," Twilight said as the stallion-once-dragon pranced around taking another look at himself, rather annoyed Spike was not liking the idea of being a pony this much. Her comment however, caught the ever curious attention of her assistant. "But who? And who could be powerful enough to do this?" "Well, I could try changing us back." The moment she stopped speaking she closed her eyes and focused her mind on the new task; reverting them to their earlier selves. Nothing happened. Creaking an eye open she looked at Spike worried. Nothing. And that was when it hit her. Almost immediately she raised her claws and tried to grasp for the horn that was not there. She hadn't noticed it when looking at the reflection, too preoccupied with the other monstrous changes. Spike saw the look of fear on her face and understood what the problem was. "You... you can't use magic, can you?" "M-my magic... i-it's... Dragons can't do magic... not like unicorns... I... Spike I can't change us back!" "Well let me try, seeing as-" he began, lifting his head proud until he was pushed down onto the ground, a claw firmly placed over his mouth, and found piercing green eyes lock onto his. "No! You can't, you've never used magic before. Alicorns are unbelievably powerful, if you were to put too much power into a spell, even a simple one, you could Magic Flare like I did all those years ago! It's too dangerous!" Twilight snapped, genuine worry in her eyes for him. Spike, who had lifted his hooves up defencibly, was now lowering them, as well as his head, accepting he couldn't do anything and muttering about who could possibly help them now. Then it clicked. "Celestia!" A pair of green eyes stared up into the sky. She could hear voices, but they were muffled and she felt as if something had paralyzed her entire body. It was wearing off however but not before two creatures skidded to a halt beside her and the two figures filled her vision. They were calling her something, a name she had heard before. She also recognised the two creatures, but for some reason they looked different than she remembered. Granted, the last time she saw them was quite a while ago, but she was certain one of them was... Twilight Sparkle. Her eyes narrowed and her lips curled into a snarl as she separated the three of them with a burst of green magic as a thunderous animal-like roar escaped from her throat. She leaped to her hooves, the numbness finally shaking off, and stared down the pony who was trying to recover. The pony who appeared to be Twilight rolled itself over and brought it's hooves under itself to lift but was pushed back down by another strike of green lightning. "Stay down, foal!" she snarled, her voice filled to the brim with hatred and malice. Approaching the now-frozen pony she had completely forgotten about the dragon until it bowled into her and sent both of them tumbling across the dirt in a mess of purple scales and black hide. When they finally came to a stop, she found purple claws holding her down into the dirt, hurt in the eyes of the one above her. "Celestia, stop! It's us!" it cried and she could barely contain her anger, fury welling up inside, threatening to overflow - and it did, as she finally snapped. Her jagged horn lit in a brilliant emerald green and the strike hit the dragon before it even had a chance to retaliate, sending it flying across the earth and splashing into the water. "How dare you call me that unholy beast! I am Chrysalis! Queen of the Changelings and you and that pathetic pony, Twilight Sparkle, will pay for what you and your wretched friends did to me and my hive!" the changeling queen howled as she turned to face the pony once more, stalking towards it like a predator ready to strike. The pony in question had gotten to it's hooves and was trying to run towards the dragon she'd flung into the river. "Get back here, you coward!" Chrysalis snapped, turning around to shoot another bolt of lightning at her target. 'Twilight' jumped to the side and rounded the corner, ducking behind the bridge's wall. Chrysalis lifted herself into the air, magical power visibly emanating from her jagged horn as she drifted towards the bridge and shouted further threats, "come out and face me Twilight, I want to hear you scream when I tear the flesh from your bones!" There would be no saving her for the hive to feast upon. There would be no draining her of emotion. She would have her revenge. She would die. "Tw-Twilight! What do we do!?" Twilight shook off the remaining water, glistening on her scales, and joined the stallion on the side of the bridge who was, right now, terrified. "Something is wrong..." she said in a low voice, thinking out loud. To that, Spike responded with an un-amused glare and grumble, "really? You don't think I noticed that!?" Twilight held back an irritated growl and instead looked over the bridge wall cautiously. Her eyes widened and she was forced to duck again, just as a bolt of electric green buzzed over the wall. The dragon turned to back to Spike, fumbling for the right words, "Spike, she thinks.. something must have happened, she thinks she's really Chrysalis! We need to find a way to-" "Twilight, we have bigger issues than trying to reverse the spell! She's trying to kill me!" "Right, right..." "What do we do then?! Neither of us can even use magic!" Twilight was about to respond when a large chunk of the wall was blown away and Chrysalis stood in it's smoldering state, hissing with fangs bared. She lunged forward, horn lowered and ready to gore either of the two who got in her way first. Both dragon and unicorn dodged the attack and climbed up the bank of the creek, one word in mind. "RUUUUUUN!!!"