//------------------------------// // Luna and I do this from time to time // Story: Aether, Heir of Chaos // by Arcane Anonymity //------------------------------// None of us is infallible, but some alternates of Celestia... bloody hell, I don't know how they managed to hold the throne a single human lifetime, much less a thousand years. A couple of Celestias banned certain types of magic in their Equestrias; one did so because she was sore that Nightmare Moon (who wasn't as strong as Celestia) used said magic and gave her trouble because the difference in powers was lessened, so she made the stuff illegal - ooh! Don't be fooled! She said it was because it was too easy for just anyone to obtain, but since she's leaving her country defenseless against it... I don't buy it... another said something similar, and got her legs broken for her effort (don't worry, that one had a healing factor). One let enchantment fade into obscurity, and got assassinated by a guy with enchanted weapons. Another restricted magic by a heck of a lot... ponies found out, and they weren't happy, that's for sure. 'Mother knows best'-type Celestias have the nasty tendency to smother their countries into helplessness, and can be just as bad as Celestias that try to be an 'anti-Discord' or even an outright tyrant one. Believe me, I saw an Equestria totally overrun by an army equipped with a kind of items that Celestia had banned, instead of making them restricted or requiring licenses or something that would allow the Equestrian army to use them. Basically, handing the country in a silver plate in such a way that is really, really hard to counter. And I've been told of what happens when things 'go wrong' in the wrong way... "Fate and Destiny always win against Time. Make of that what you will." Indeed. And either of them going against Time can be a maddening experience for any poor saps caught in the middle - usually Twilight, thought there are cases when everyone involved is blissfully unaware. The teacher for the pony that made the first Nightmare I defeated is a special case... "I don't know how he manages to cling to his mind." Having a loving wife and the capacity to make said love as changeless and omnipresent as... I dunno, gravity must help. Hmm... I think I'll watch him some more later. Well, though Luna was complimenting my handling of dream logic, I was all too aware of just how powerful she is in the dreaming realms. Heck, I bet she could outmatch me effortlessly in the Collective if I were any less unpredictable - my favored approach to magic can diversify too much to counter completely. She needs to completely overpower me in the approach I take, but I... that's for later, once I managed to work out a flexible system of chaos magic that would have enough variety to avoid driving me insane from overuse of or 'fixation' on specific powers, but easy to control enough that it wouldn't drive me insane from frustration or the like (more importantly, it is an approach that lessened the strain on Topsy). "I guess I made her too much like a pony... I thought she would laugh with me, not turn green at the sight of a pony thinking he's a cat." She got better fast, though. Now hush. We walked into a door that had claw marks on its frame. Worrisome, but the really perturbing issue was that it was clear that the door had been broken into. There was this pony that was running, again, from shades through what looked like Whitetail Woods at night. The mind usually supplies all of the details, particularly when Nightmares are involved, but being an actual human and not knowing just what set them off means that all I see are humanoid shapes (the dream isn't focused on me)... curiously enough, none had the right hand shape or number of fingers, and looked more like goblins or misshapen elves. This particular mare had a flower cutie mark, giving me the perfect idea of how to show off. Dream logic, which is only mildly difficult (for me) to use in the waking world. It's awesome. With super strength, you can lift boulders and bend steel, but anyone that has played 'Don't Rest your Head' knows that you can also lift spirits and bend the truth. I can cause physical damage with a cutting remark, though my wit is not exactly rapier quality (I take too long, usually). I had Luna shout things like 'over here, quick!'. The mare dang near teleported under the princess, failing to notice me, while talking about the humans. Oh! We were standing in the middle of a clearing large enough to hold dragons. "Those aren't humans." I said, in an unamused tone. "Humans are just like ponies or Griffons; we have our bad ones, but we also have good ones." "Indeed." Luna nodded. Distracting the pony made the shades stop for a moment, having been shifted out of focus momentarily, causing the Nightmare to be disoriented by its suddenness. Once they returned, however, they were decidedly more monstrous! Since now she knew she wasn't being chased by humans, but by monsters, her mind decided they should look the part. Twisted noses, warts, festering wounds, scars, claws, cleft lips exposing crooked fangs and nasty teeth, and weird, solid-color eyes - the whole package. Oh, and there was one that had the size of a hill. Can't forget about that one. I had to find a multi-layered approach to do this, instead of Luna's usual method, since the nature of the powers we use was different. Annoying, I know, but it would be best if we showed that there was at the least one human willing to help them out, so Luna would have to just stand there doing nothing more than showing that she's confident in my abilities. I had to find a way that would show the mare I was confident in my ability, I also felt that I should show appreciation for beauty, and have it linked to her cutie mark for bonus points. Now, what could do all of that while simultaneously being appropriately overkill in such a way that it doesn't leave room for doubt in her mind? I held a sword again, not just any sword, but an elegantly-curving katana. One with a simple cross guard similar to a four pane window. "Have you ever seen the flowers of the cherry trees?" I asked without turning, my focus solely on the approaching horde of things. As such, I did not see her confused look directly. I was too giddy at using overpowered cartoon abilities anyways, but being in the dreamscape made it impossible for me to lose myself. "This sword is called 'Thousand Cherry Blossoms'; for this reason. Scatter." I called with a grin in my face, and the blade of the sword became a thousand tiny petal-shaped blades. I had more or less already imagined the way to make it and control it; I had to if I wanted to be able to do things like that 'outside' or else it could be an over-use of Discord's powers, inching me closer to insanity. I could feel the little constructs, based on a miniature version of Shining Armor's shield variants crossed with conjuration and spells like material projections, all connected to each other and the hilt by a cloud of power. A little pulse made them glow pink, and screw everything, pink can be a manly color. The distraction from the display made the monsters pause a bit again, but being directed by a Nightmare made the wait shorter. Not that it mattered, since I started swinging. The cloud of petals tore into the shadows quickly, while Luna took care that the mare only saw them harmlessly dissipate instead of a more violent show that the Nightmare might call up to make the pony doubt me. They tried jumping at me, but the blades were waiting already, cloud shaped like an umbrella, and I sent them forwards to eliminate the charge. It didn't last long, but the largest one grew even larger with each one, trying to become scarier to get the pony to give in to her fear. It grew until it had the size of an Ursa Minor. "Piece of cake." I said as the blade reformed. I had the attention of the mare, her growing feeling of safety empowering me so that I had to use progressively less energy both mental and magical. "I have something that might just do it." I calmly turned the sword so that it pointed down, held in a reverse grip. I let go of it. "Scatter." My voice was neutral, but my Inner Child was throwing a Pinkie Party. The sword phased through the ground with ease, as if it was nothing but a pool, then, pouring my energy into the construct, I took the rules it already had and took them to their extremes. Two rows of enormous blades rose from the ground at either side of us, both ponies' eyes wide in surprise. "Are... each one of these...?" The mare we rescued tried to speak, but her awe and expectations were such that everything outside of us three was effectively frozen in time. She knew that this had left the 'might just do it' line in the dust and was racing deep into the realm of 'complete, absolute, and total overkill'. The thousand swords slowly scattered into the petal-shaped constructs, filling the entire place in a soft pink glow. Bringing a hand to the opposite shoulder, I then pointed to the creature, ordering them to take a spherical formation with it at the center. "Hundreds of millions of blades, too numerous for even me to count, completely surrounding the enemy in such a way that leaves no blind spots." I conveniently forgot to mention teleportation, because it would not do for the monster to escape. Clenching my fist, the whole thing collapsed in on itself with great violence. ProTip: Air displacement. Mind it. I forgot to; Luna didn't. She had to make a shield to protect us from the explosive shockwave. The dream fell to pieces, and we found ourselves in a black, blank space; a very reduced, Gollum-like Nightmare writhed about. Luna called forth half a dozen nails shaped oddly like arrows. Guessing at what was on her mind, I got the hell away from there just in time to see her call lightning and accelerate those things to something like Mach Ten. She hadn't yet worked out all of the parts of the spell (even so, she works fast!), but she had enough to make it work as Dream or even Chaos magic without much trouble. Even then, even when testing the complete version she didn't like to go higher than Mach Four, its just that mindless Nightmares really, royally piss her off. Also, her dominion over dreams meant that the thunderclap and the sonic boom were greatly reduced, like just seeing the event through a video. No excessive heat, either. This one didn't have a piece of that Something, but the little core of light was just the basic fear of something unknown. Calling forth a 'cozy cabin in the woods' setting, Luna set down the mare on a couch, while I nursed a headache on another. I was vaguely aware of the mare asking the reason for me to use that much power. "I'm making a statement." I said. "I am not a monster, nor will I allow monsters to harass ponies, or even let ponies cower in fear of me. Quite frankly, the idea of ponies having nightmares because there is a human nearby makes me feel bad." After the obligatory explanation of the dream, assurance that we would guard ponies through the night, and telling her she should do something to face her fears, we left for our next dreamer. The tunnel of portraits we floated-slash-swam through was interesting, and thankfully all of the nightmares I saw were so minor we just had to peel the scary things out of them; Luna stuck her face in them like a window, and calmed the dreamers with ease. Until we arrived to a pictureless frame. A night terror. A Void-caused night terror. I know this because I shifted the dreamscape while holding the golden frame with the tattered remains of a canvas, then inspected the dreamer. We were inside Lyra's bedroom, which I knew we would arrive to because the frame was adorned with lyres; she was tossing around in her bed, whimpering and crying. I took my glasses... See, while explaining leylines is complicated, for now just picture a lot of strings flowing like little individual rivers - large leylines like the ones passing through settlements and energy paths -both natural and not (caused by concentrating life by hand rather than letting it naturally expand)- have counts in the millions of millions of millions, which break off and fill houses and trees before returing to the earth... She was cut off. Her system also had dull colors that are too dim for even a pony in rest. I rolled my sleeves. "Wait!" Luna said, placing a hoof in front of me. "This night terror is too much for you. Her connection to the land has been sent elsewhere, to a pocket of void, causing all sorts of dark phenomenons in her mind; you cannot hope to help her, because you cannot destroy a void..." "Heh, watch me." I said, giving her a thumbs up and vanishing. In a perfect example of dream-time, Lyra bolted awake not two seconds afterwards, and I was sent tumbling to the floor. Lyra blinked (by the way, she couldn't see us), and began chuckling; new tears, of joy now, streamed down her face as the chuckles became a honest laugh. I snapped my fingers from my place in the floor, and made something appear in her nightstand with a little flash; the minty-green unicorn looked at it, and began to let out loud guffaws. Luna helped me up, as she saw, befuddled, how the previously distraught unicorn was now laughing as if she had just had the time of her life. "What did you do?" Luna whispered, amazed at the 'quick' change. "Besides getting lost in a space that appeared empty, feeling oppressive loneliness as the 'nothingness' threatened to consume me, hearing a voice that said that I was insignificant and other such nonsense full of contempt, and assorted sanity-straining things... not much." I chuckled as well, even though my legs felt like jelly and I couldn't stand on my own. "Just metaphorically flipping the bird at the void. Why would I destroy it? You don't destroy voids, you Fill Them." I felt odd saying that. Of course, I had just beaten an eldritch location at its own game, which used to be considered the domain of high-end god-like beings, and I didn't even flex my powers as I had done replicating something you see in comics! Of course that the sudden shift in energy I caused would have side effects like making my voice sound funny when explaining it! It was just a harmless Rebound, anyways. "Although, if you want to get technical, filling a void destroys it." Luna gaped at me. It really was that simple! Not easy, but simple! Her method requires more magic, because she reattached ponies to the world, but that was way too complicated. Even if it was easy when compared to mine. "Wh-what did you fill it with?" She asked, turning to the mare, who was still looking at her nightstand. "I just had to make the dark place she was at happier... a place she could laugh in... a 'laughing place', if you will." I said as Lyra - who hadn't stopped laughing, I might add- picked up the object I conjured for her. "I had the perfect one in mind - Twilight told me that this mare loves all sorts of myths and legends, and I guessed that she knows of the Griffon human stories, so we went to a place on Earth I thought she would enjoy." "What kind of place?" She asked, wondering just what kind of place had those qualities - until they met me, the princesses had seen plenty of 'bad' locations and events through their scrying, in between seeing 'objects', and thus had a little trouble. Lyra, meanwhile, tore open the plastic wrapper and took out... an ice cream sandwich. One with a very distinct shape; a large circle, with two smaller circles attached to it. "The happiest one, of course."