Dovahshy May Cry
Sequel Teaser: Nightmare Night
Author: Draconis187
Nightmare Night in Ponyville has come around once more. A little black Alicorn filly was running around Ponyville in DAT battle armour, much to Twilight’s dismay. It was good to her visit for Nightmare Night – apparently there was a time difference between the different worlds – along with her friends.
Pinkie was dressed as a candy goblin. What is a candy goblin? A standard one made quite literally of candy, how she roped Discord into doing it nopony will ever know. The other question was what stopped her from eating herself? Applejack had dressed as a raven as she ran the bobbing for apples stand as she did every year. Clunker was maintaining the Pumpkin Toss, handing ponies, Griffons and even the odd Changeling a pumpkin. Clunker’s reception at Sweet Apple Acres did not go down as well as Applejack had hoped but once the Kyklops proved he was willing to pull his weight, the tension died out.
Twilight was dressed as Victory, a pony hero from the pre-Discordian era who fought countless wars in defiance to the Old Griffon Kingdom. What many ponies didn’t know was that Victory was also a gifted scholar. Twilight got help from Celestia on her coat, Cutie Mark and even leant her student the original banner she flew when going into battle. Rarity insisted on making the cape but luckily Pinkie’s antics distracted the fashionista long enough for Twilight to run off with the design.
The cape was a deep maroon fastened around Twilight’s neck by a golden chain. The flagpole she would be carrying was highly polished bronze with the flag itself consisting of three yellow diamonds on an orange background. Twilight’s mane was longer than usual and a pale green colour while her coat was blonde. On her flank were two white stars on opposite sides of a shortsword that pointed to the sky.
Twilight was looking around feverishly, growing more worried as she looked for Nyx, “Oh, where is that filly?”
Instead of getting an answer from her assistant Spike – who went with a dragon costume again this year – they were interrupted by the arrival of a certain yellow Pegasus. Fluttershy was wearing the red coat that Rarity made for Vergil but he neglected to take it back with him. Rarity also managed to make the navy blue shirt he wore and a mock version of his amulet on the gold chain. She had her pink mane shortened and styled like Vergil’s: white and swept back. She even cropped her tail to hide it under the coattails. She had Beowulf on her hooves since she didn’t have Yamato and Vergil was the original owner of the Devil Arm.
“Hi Fluttershy,” Spike greeted as he tried to change the subject.
Twilight turned around and smiled as she saw her friend, “Hi Fluttershy. Nice outfit.”
“Thanks, how is everything?” Fluttershy asked, her voice trailing off as she saw Spike waving his arms around like a mad mare.
Twilight sighed, “I'm trying to find Nyx. I left her in the care of a certain assistant but he lost track of her”
Spike tried to make himself seem smaller as Twilight’s gaze threatened to pierce his scaly hide, “She threatened to use that Alastor on me if I didn’t let her go!”
Fluttershy sniggered, “Come on Twilight, it is Nightmare Night.”
Twilight realised something that made her look at her friend, “Speaking of which: this is the first Nightmare Night I've seen you out of your cottage.”
Fluttershy rolled her eyes, “I fought armies of Changelings, been battered and bruised, experienced true fear and beat it. A small holiday like this is like any day in Ponyville, just creepier.”
Twilight and Fluttershy laughed, “Well, I'm glad. I heard that Princess Luna is attending again.”
As the pair walked through Ponyville, four sets of eyes were watching their every step from the bushes. One had a pair of glasses on her face but the blade on her back crackled with electricity which threatened to give away their location, the other looked like a mummy but her light purple mane stuck out at some spots, the other was a vampire but her white horn still stuck out of her black, greased mane while the last one had four fake, black coloured wooden limbs on her sides while the rest of her coat was dyed the same colour.
“I don’t know about this,” The vampire said nervously.
“What are you talking about? This is going to be awesome!” The mummy whispered back, “And keep your voice down, we are supposed to be sneaking around. Besides, those two aren't our targets anyway.”
“I don’t want to know what Fluttershy might do if we jumped her,” The armoured, black filly whispered, “I've seen what she can do and it’s not pretty.”
The three murmured their agreement. Days after the final battle with Mundus, the story was told across Equestria. Whether in the tabloids or though the grapevine, the news spread faster than any plague known to Equestria. Everypony knew of the fall of Canterlot, the liberation of the same place and then the subsequent stand down orders from the Changelings. The Griffon Empire received the reports soon after the battle from Bloodwing himself. The Empire sent their highest commendations to the fighters: the Star of Defiance. It was a pale brown, four-pointed star with a gold outline and a round amethyst in the centre.
Twilight made Spike promise not to eat her medal when he saw the amethyst inset. Well, she threatened to skewer him with her magenta blades if he so much as licked it. Sounds cruel but she would never do such a thing, not that she was going to tell Spike otherwise.
As Fluttershy and Twilight walked through the town, a bolt of lightning fired at them from above. Neither mare thought, only acted. Fluttershy flipped and fired off a Zodiac attack from her right gauntlet while Twilight fired off six blades. Their attacker was a rogue thundercloud that had now been thoroughly obliterated. The pair received a number of scared looks as their faces began to heat up in embarrassment.
One pony wasn’t giving them a funny look. In fact she was laughing her prismatic mane off. The two looked over at Rainbow Dash who was clad in full formal wear that the Wonderbolts were known to wear. The only medal she had on her was the Star of Defiance but according to Spitfire, she had been setting records that she herself had set. Her display of dedication and loyalty to her fellow flyers helped bump her up the Wonderbolts’ ranks quickly.
“That… was… hi-hilarous!” The cyan mare struggled to say as she was still laughing.
“Ugh, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight scolded, “That wasn’t funny.”
Fluttershy defused the situation fairly quickly as she spoke, “have you seen Nyx?”
Rainbow wiped a tear from her eye as she got up off the ground, “Yeah, she’s with the Crusaders. They're up to something tonight and I can’t wait to find out!”
Twilight gave a sigh of relief, “Well, at least she’s with friends, even if it is those three troublemakers.”
Dash nodded, “Yeah. Come on, I hear Princess Luna is going to be arriving now. I wanna see what she’s dressing up as tonight.”
The three walked off to the Town Hall where Princess Luna was scheduled to arrive. They met the rest of their friends: Applejack, Rarity who was wearing a dark blue dress with teal embroidery along the hemline and Pinkie Pie. Twilight scanned the gathered crown for her other dimensional daughter to no avail.
“This is your fault. I'm going to kill you. And all the cake is gone. You don't even care, do you?” Twilight looked around and saw a stallion speaking through a little device that distorted his voice.
His coat was white while his mane was black and bright yellow. His Cutie Mark looked a little like a camera’s iris shutter. His eyes were yellow and he looked at the group with a smirk.
“How is everypony?” He asked.
“Who-?” Twilight asked before she facehoofed herself, “Joystick.”
“The one and only!” The unicorn declared, “What do you think of my Aperture Science costume? I'm GLaDOS!”
“That’s… nice.” Twilight responded while the rest of her friends were laughing.
“Nice to see you made it darling,” Rarity spoke up, addressing the unicorn.
“Wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Joystick replied gleefully.
**** **** **** ****
The reason Nyx and the rest of the CMC weren’t there was due to the fact that they were resetting the thundercloud that Twilight and Fluttershy triggered. They were a little upset and moved the cloud to another part of town as they saw their target walking down the street. A pink filly purple and white hair. She was dressed like the Princesses of old, or at least what Celestia used to wear when meeting foreign dignitaries.
Diamond Tiara was wearing a white and pale blue dress that shone in the moonlight. On her head was her trademark silver tiara and she was wearing silver shoes. Her best – and only real – friend, Silver Spoon was wearing a suit with her silver mane tied up in a bun. She looked like somepony’s personal secretary. How she stayed friends with her, nopony knew… not even Pinkie Pie.
“This dress is absolutely perfect for me, don’t you agree?” Tiara bragged at the top of her lungs.
“Yes, it’s lovely,” Silver Spoon replied. Tiara had been bragging about the dress as soon as she went to her house and it was starting to get annoying.
Luckily for Silver Spoon and the CMC, Diamond Tiara was too wrapped up in her little world that she failed to notice the thundercloud she was walking to. In a single blast of lightning, the pink filly had moved from her spot in the middle of the pathway, to the river a few metres away in a matter of milliseconds.
The four CMC couldn’t help but laugh loudly, so loudly that Silver Spoon found them while Tiara flailing about in the river’s cold waters. The CMC stopped as Silver Spoon glared at them for a few seconds. If Nyx hadn’t promised both of her Twilights to not cause trouble, she would have used Alastor fire a blast of lightning that would help mask their escape.
As the five fillies looked at each other, Silver Spoon smiled and gave a small giggle but she was interrupted by a wail, “Silver Spoon! Come help me!”
“I’m coming!” She shouted back with a smile.
After a few seconds of Spoon taking off her costume so she could swim into the river to get Tiara, the pink and soaking wet filly was keeping herself warm with pure rage.
“If I find out who put that cloud there, they will be sorry!” She declared to Silver Spoon as the CMC hid in the bushes again.
“I didn’t see anypony so I guess it will be a mystery,” Her friend replied as she put her costume back on.
“She’s alright if ya ask me,” Applebloom said with a grin.
“Silver Spoon is known to be Tiara’s voice of reason,” Nyx commented, “I guess that’s why she stays with her.”
**** **** **** ****
The skies darkened as the stars began to fade away, causing the ponies gathered at Town Hall to gasp. The Bearers of Harmony and Joystick knew that this was Luna making her presence known. The wind began to howl as it picked up speed, making Fluttershy’s coattails flap about audibly. A purple fog rolled into Ponyville, lowering visibility greatly. Many of the ponies were getting frightened but the hardened fighters had faced scarier.
“La-lala-lala-la,” Came the sound of a filly’s voice. It wasn’t normal, it felt disconnected and eerie.
“Luna’s pulling out all the stops isn’t she?” Dash whispered to Applejack.
“Don’t spoil the surprise, Dashie!” Pinkie scowled, whispering her opinion.
Dash looked sheepish as the fog grew denser, obscuring her vision and leaving her to see only outlines of her friends. The little voice was getting creepier as it giggled, making Pinkie’s hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Even Twilight was admittedly getting a little afraid, the Lunar Princess was giving them a ride for their bits.
A little shadow could be seen walking up to the podium. It was hard to make out but it had the build of a little filly, “Do you want to play with me?”
It was an odd but not unusual request but as the figure’s head turned to them, it had glowing, deep red eyes as its voice became demonically deep, “’Cause I want to play with you!”
In an instant the filly leapt at the crowd with furious speed, making a lot of the ponies scream as they saw it opening its mouth wide enough to swallow more than a few ponies whole. Everypony averted their eyes, prepared for the worst but it never came. Instead the mysterious fog had vanished instantly and standing at the podium was Princess Luna as… herself.
“I declare Nightmare Night open!” The Alicorn shouted into the air.
The citizens cheered as they realized this was an elaborate scare played by their Princess. Princess Luna’s body glowed as she grew a bit in stature. As the light faded, Nightmare Moon was left in her place. They all knew this was their Princess in a magical costume but the holiday was made in honour of her dark side so the Alicorn decided to look the part.
“Greetings Twilight, what did you think?” Luna asked as the crowd dispersed and the little ones went off to do their Nightmare Night candy hunting. Her voice sounded just like the Nightmare Moon the six of them fought a long time ago.
As Twilight was about to answer, Pinkie decided to voice her opinion, “It was amazing Princess! First we were all ‘this isn't so scary’ then came that little voice and then I was li-”
Pinkie stopped as she received a hoof to her mouth from Applejack, “Sorry ‘bout that Princess. Pinkie still needs ta learn how ta not ramble.”
“Not a problem. Enjoy the girls,” The dark, azure armour clad Alicorn said with a smile as she took to the skies.
**** **** **** ****
On the outskirts of Ponyville, an Alicorn was watching them intently from his perch on a cloud. He was slightly illuminated by the two long, black blades on his sides. One crackled with electricity while the other burned with fire. His one wing looked like it should not be attached to his body, let alone allow him to fly. His deep red horn on his head looked out of place on his very pale blue coat and deep blue mane. His green eyes were fixated on a particular subject. It was neither pony nor Griffon. The target of his burning hatred was buzzing around the small town, the Changelings.
“They invade Canterlot, they destroy almost everything we loved and yet they just forgive and forget?” He said softly into the night, “I will not sit by idly and give them a chance to attack us again. Once a monster, always a monster and if must become one to prove my point… so be it.”